Martin enden van den after erasmus ii quellinus - a portrait of saint john of matha. On june 24, 1160, faucon jean de matha was born. His father euphème de matha was a spanish lord who had received the land of faucon from raymond bérenger the younger, count of barcelona and provence. To give him instruction and an education worthy of his rank, the family settled in marseille where jean began his studies. His mother, marthe, teaches him to know the poor, the unfortunate and to love them. She also takes him to hospitals and prisons. He continued his studies in aix en provence, then at the university in paris where he obtained his doctorate in theology. He was encouraged to become a priest by maurice de sully, bishop of paris, who had noticed his value and piety. On january 28, 1193, feast of st. Agnes, during his first mass, jean de matha saw christ, in an apparition, freeing 2 captives, one black and one white, and decided to devote himself to the liberation of the prisoners. A painting representing this vision is found in the church of faucon, above the altar dedicated to him. He retired to the forest of cerfroid (in the department of aisne) with félix de valois and with a few hermits and academics he formed the first trinitarian fraternity. Going to rome with félix de valois, they presented their project to pope innocent iii. Jean knew the pope from having studied with him at the university of paris. On december 17, 1198, the pope approved the rule of the order of the most holy trinity for the redemption of captives. Jean de matha travels across europe to collect large sums of money to buy back muslim slave prisoners. The movement experienced rapid development (in 1789 there were more than 600,000 liberations by the trinitarians). Exhausted by fatigue and deprivation, he died in rome at the age of 53 on december 17, 1213. Numismatic corpus of the alpes de haute-provence. Date: before 1654.
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