Barbara was a lovely woman and very intelligent
Since marriage was a typical arrangement, one more family business could be carried out and if the girl was beautiful and intelligent like Barbara, it was much better for her father’s purposes…
A materialistic man who always kept Barbara to marry her off to a young man of an excellent family to achieve some kind of alliance that would help him multiply his fortune.
At that time, fathers exercised absolute control over their daughters’ lives. According to legend, “Dioscorus” was ordered to serve Rome by participating one day in a military campaign. Such a journey required a long absence from home.
Her father kept her captive in a tower
Barbara was only 9 years old, but she was already attracting many suitors, many of whom her father did not approve of.
Considering that marriages were common at the time between the ages of 10 and 11, the father wondered what to do with the girl. In the end, he decided to lock her in a tower that had been built specifically to isolate Barbara and prevent her from marrying while he was away.
First from men, then from supporters and adherents of Christianity, a religion that was despised by the wealthy classes and the upper echelons of imperial power.
Barbara’s father did not regard her confinement in the tower as a condemnation; rather, the girl received all the comforts befitting her family’s social position.
The confinement of daughters by their fathers – who for one reason or another had to be away from home – was a common practice among the wealthy people of that nation, culture and time, it is important to emphasize.
The tower of Barbara
Four levels made up Barbara’s tower and they were distributed as follows:
The first and second floors were reserved exclusively for the girl and the first floor for the soldiers and servants. A lookout platform from which the soldiers in charge of guarding the tower kept a constant watch.
The tower originally had two large windows that allowed ventilation and let in the sun in all its splendor, ensuring a cool temperature throughout the year.
His father was concerned that he should receive a first-class education, so he hired the best-known pedagogues of the time to give him private lessons. Thanks to them, he learned the ideas of the best poets, philosophers, historians and orators of his time.
Two significant events in her life
Amid her academic activities, two important events occurred in the life of the young Barbara.
The first was the realization that the pagan doctrine, in which she had been educated and which was the faith practiced and held in her family, was false and the second was her decision to reject the entire religious system.
This choice carried several risks for her, as the laws of the time provided very severe punishments for Christians, but the young girl’s budding faith was so strong that she decided to go ahead despite the dangers of following her Christian beliefs.
Barbara was eager to learn more about Christianity, so when she had the financial means to do so, she wrote to Alexandria, where the revered scholar known as “Origen,” a great doctor of Christianity, lived.
The young woman asked him to come to Turkey so that he could supervise her covert Christian education and wrote him a letter asking him to do so.
This professor could not answer the call, so he sent his pupil “Valentius”, who was received as her family doctor upon arrival and was welcomed with open arms.
With this character, Barbara began her investigation into the Christian faith. Barbara was legitimately baptized and this event was surrounded by surprising facts.
According to historians, John the Baptist and Jesus himself appeared there as two heavenly beings.
The former baptized her and the latter went to her and gave her a powerful ring as well as the palm.
To honor the holy trinity, Barbara then ordered some workmen to open a third window in her tower…
