Plague Healer And Gay Icon: Saint Sebastian

What does Derek Jarman have to do with Palma's patron saint? The answer is that he doesn't have anything to do with him directly. But indirectly, in his capacity as a film director, he does. Or did. Jarman is of course long dead, though not as long dead as Saint Sebastian, Palma's saint.

To explain the Jarman connection, Sebastian acquired a reputation as a gay icon, largely thanks to Renaissance artists who depicted his all but naked torso with arrows stuck in it. Jarman, a notable activist for gay rights, debuted as a director with a film about Saint Sebastian. What made "Sebastiane" especially odd was the fact that the dialogue was entirely in Latin. Critically acclaimed for its daring, the film was, thanks mainly to the dialogue, all but unwatchable. The film's daring went beyond the Latin; it was ground-breaking in its depiction of homosexuality.

Jarman had taken, therefore, a theme that has long attached itself to Saint Sebastian, a theme that has been entirely the work of the arts world. How easily Sebastian's reputation sits with his current-day status within the Catholic saintly hierarchy, I honestly couldn't say. I would imagine that it would be a reputation that would be disputed, as historically there is nothing to suggest that Sebastian was himself actually gay. Had he been, one suspects he might be looked upon rather differently, but be that as it may.

Sebastian didn't enjoy the best of relations with Rome towards the end of his brief life (he was probably 32 when he died). In the third century AD, Rome had yet to become Christian, and a fanatically anti-Christianity emperor, Diocletian, had it in for Sebastian once he got wind of Sebastian's successful attempts in converting some Romans to Christianity. It didn't help Sebastian's cause that, though he came from what is now France, he was also a Roman soldier. Adopting Christianity was not the best career move that a soldier of that era could have made, and so it proved. His career, his whole being came to an end when he was finally finished off by being clubbed to death, having previously somehow survived having numerous arrows fired into him (hence the Renaissance paintings) on the order of Diocletian. 

The martyrdom of Sebastian does not explain how he came to be Palma's saint. To understand this, one has to move forward in time some thirteen centuries after his death and to a period in the sixteenth century when Palma was enduring a great plague.

The story goes that an archdeacon called Manuel Suriavisqui from Rhodes arrived in Palma at the height of the plague, bringing with him a bone that was alleged to have come from one of Sebastian's arms (some say it was from one of his legs). Whatever part of his body it may or may not have come from, the bone did the trick. Its arrival was interpreted as a sign from God, the bone was handed over to the Cathedral, and within no time the plague came to a miraculous end. A hundred or so years later in 1643, a brotherhood of Saint Sebastian having been formed in the meantime, Sebastian was named as the city's patron.

Whether the bone was authentic is not known, but as the plague suddenly disappeared overnight, this would have been taken as a sure indication as to authenticity; no certificate of origin or some such was deemed necessary. And as Sebastian had previous when it came to a spot of plague miracle-working, e.g. in Rome itself, then there was even less reason to question the bone's provenance.

Sebastian was elevated to high rank in the Church's league of saints. Yet there remains, for the Church at any rate, the rather uneasy issue of the gay iconography. Derek Jarman was merely following a centuries-old tradition, one that can be attributed to several Renaissance artists, and one in particular, Guido Reni, who devoted seven paintings to Sebastian. Reni lived with mother but was otherwise a confirmed misogynist and almost certainly a closet homosexual. It was Reni, as much as any from the art world, who created an image of Sebastian that was far removed from what he would really have been like, but the image caught on and endured. As an example, Oscar Wilde, in his last years in exile, adopted the name Sebastian Melmoth, the Sebastian coming from Saint Sebastian.

All of this will mean very little to revellers during the Sebastian fiestas, but the story of Sebastian serves as a reminder that behind every saint there lies a legend, and in the case of Sebastian, more than one legend.

* The fiestas of Saint Sebastian (Sant Sebastià) take place this coming weekend, most obviously in Palma. Main events for Palma in English: Wotzupnorth Sant Sebastià Palma 2013


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