From their contemporary acts, received as authentic by St. Austin, Brevic. Coll. die 3, c. 17. The Donatists added a preface to them and a few glosses, in which condition they are published by Baluzius, t. 2. But Bollandus and Ruinart give them genuine.
A.D. 304
THE emperor Dioclesian had commanded all Christians, under pain of death, to deliver up the holy scriptures to be burnt. This persecution had raged a whole year in Africa; some had betrayed the cause of religion, but many more had defended it with their blood, when these saints were apprehended. Abitina, a city of the proconsular province of Africa, was the theatre of their triumph. Saturninus, priest of that city, celebrated the divine mysteries on a Sunday, in the house of Octavius Felix. The magistrates having notice of it, came with a troop of soldiers, and seized forty-nine persons of both sexes. The principal among them were the priest Saturninus, with his four children, viz.: young Saturninus and Felix, both Lectors, Mary, who had consecrated her virginity to God, and Hilarianus, yet a child; also, Dativus, a noble senator, Ampelius, Rogatianus, and Victoria. Dativus, the ornament of the senate of Abitina, whom God destined to be one of the principal senators of heaven, marched at the head of this holy troop. Saturninus walked by his side, surrounded by his illustrious family. The others followed in silence. Being brought before the magistrates, they confessed Jesus Christ so resolutely, that their very judges applauded their courage, which repaired the infamous sacrilege committed there a little before by Fundanus, the bishop of Abitina, who in that same place had given up to the magistrates the sacred books to be burnt: but a violent shower suddenly falling, put out the fire, and a prodigious hail ravaged the whole country.
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The confessors were shackled and sent to Carthage, the residence of the proconsul. They rejoiced to see themselves in chains for Christ, and sung hymns and canticles during their whole journey to Carthage, praising and thanking God. The proconsul, Anulinus, addressing himself first to Dativus, asked him of what condition he was, and if he had assisted at the collect or assembly of the Christians. He answered, that he was a Christian, and had been present at it. The proconsul bid him discover who presided, and in whose house those religious assemblies were held: but without waiting for his answer, commanded him to be put on the rack and torn with iron hooks, to oblige him to a discovery. They underwent severally the tortures of the rack, iron hooks, and cudgels. The weaker sex fought no less gloriously, particularly the illustrious Victoria; who, being converted to Christ in her tender years, had signified a desire of leading a single life, which her pagan parents would not agree to, having promised her in marriage to a rich young nobleman. Victoria, on the day appointed for the wedding, full of confidence in the protection of Him, whom she had chosen for the only spouse of her soul, leaped out of a window, and was miraculously preserved from hurt. Having made her escape, she took shelter in a church; after which she consecrated her virginity to God, with the ceremonies then used on such occasions at Carthage, in Italy, Gaul, and all over the West.[1] To the crown of virginity, she earnestly desired to join that of martyrdom. The proconsul, on account of her quality, and for the sake of her brother, a pagan, tried all means to prevail with her to renounce her faith. He inquired what was her religion. Her answer was: "I am a Christian." Her brother, Fortunatianus, undertook her defence, and endeavored to prove her lunatic. The saint, fearing his plea might be the means of her losing the crown of martyrdom, made it appear by her wise confutations of it, that she was in her perfect senses, and protested that she had not been brought over to Christianity against her will. The proconsul asked her if she would return with her brother? She said: "She could not, being a Christian, and acknowledging none as brethren but those who kept the law of God." The proconsul then laid aside the quality of judge to become her humble suppliant, and entreated her not to throw away her life. But she rejected his entreaties with disdain, and said to him: "I have already told you my mind. I am a Christian, and I assisted at the collect." Anulinus, provoked at this constancy, reassumed his rage, and ordered her to prison with the rest, to wait the sentence of death which he not long after pronounced upon them all.
The proconsul would yet try to gain Hilarianus, Saturninus's youngest son, not doubting to vanquish one of his tender age. But the child showed more contempt than fear of the tyrant's threats, and answered his interrogatories: "I am a Christian: I have been at the collect, and it was of my own voluntary choice, without any compulsion." The proconsul threatened him with those little punishments with which children are accustomed to be chastised, little knowing that God himself fights in his martyrs. The child only laughed at him. The governor then said to him: "I will cut off your nose and ears." Hilarianus replied: "You may do it; but I am a Christian." The proconsul, dissembling his confusion, ordered him to prison. Upon which the child said: "Lord, I give thee thanks." These martyrs ended their lives under the hardships of their confinement, and are honored in the ancient calendar of Carthage, and the Roman Martyrology, on the 11th of February, though only two (of the name of Felix) died on that day of their wounds.
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* * * * *
The example of these martyrs condemns the sloth with which many Christians in this age celebrate the Lord's Day. When the judge asked them, how they durst presume to hold their assembly against the imperial orders, they always repeated, even on the rack: "The obligation of the Sunday is indispensable. It is not lawful for us to omit the duty of that day. We celebrated it as well as we could. We never passed a Sunday without meeting at our assembly. We will keep the commandments of God at the expense of our lives." No dangers nor torments could deter them from this duty. A rare example of fervor in keeping that holy precept, from which too many, upon lame pretences, seek to excuse themselves. As the Jew was known by the religious observance of the Sabbath, so is the true Christian by his manner of celebrating the Sunday. And as our law is more holy and more perfect than the Jewish, so must be our manner of sanctifying the Lord's Day. This is the proof of our religion, and of our piety towards God. The primitive Christians kept this day in the most holy manner, assembling to public prayer in dens and caves, knowing that, "without this religious observance, a man cannot be a Christian," to use the expression of an ancient father.
Footnotes: 1. These were, by laying her head on the altar to offer it to God, and all her life after wearing her hair long as the ancient Nazarenes did: (Act. p. 417. St. Optatas, l. 6. S. Ambr. ad Virg. c. 8.) Whereas the ceremony of this consecration in Egypt and Syria was for the virgin to cut off her hair in the presence of a priest. (Bulteau, Hist. Mon. p. 170.)
ST. SEVERINUS, ABBOT OF AGAUNUM.
From his ancient short life, in Mabillon App. Sæc. l. Ben. The additions in Surius and Bollandus are too modern. See Chatelain, Notes on the Martyrol., p. 618.
A.D. 507.
ST. SEVERINUS, of a noble family in Burgundy, was educated in the Catholic faith, at a time when the Arian heresy reigned in that country. He forsook the world in his youth, and dedicated himself to God in the monastery of Agaunum, which then only consisted of scattered cells, till the Catholic king Sigismund, son and successor to the Arian Gondebald, who then reigned in Burgundy, built there the great abbey of St. Maurice. St. Severinus was the holy abbot of that place, and had governed his community many years in the exercise of penance and charity, when, in 504, Clovis, the first Christian kin; of France, lying ill of a fever, which his physicians had for two years ineffectually endeavored to remove, sent his chamberlain to conduct him to court; for he heard how the sick from all parts recovered their health by his prayers. St. Severinus took leave of his monks, telling them he should never see them more in this world. On his journey he healed Eulalius, bishop of Nevers, who had been for some time deaf and dumb, also a leper at the gates of Paris; and coming to the palace, he immediately restored the king to perfect health, by putting on him his own cloak. The king in gratitude distributed large alms to the poor, and released all his prisoners.[1] St. Severinus returning towards Agaunum, stopped at Chateau-Landon, in Gatinois, where two priests served God in a solitary chapel, among whom he was admitted, at his request, as a stranger, and was soon greatly admired by them for his sanctity. He foresaw his death, which happened shortly after, in 507. The place is now an abbey of reformed canons regular of St. Austin. The Huguenots scattered the greatest part of his relics, when they plundered this church. He is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, and a large parish in Paris takes its name from this saint, not from the hermit who was St. Cloud's master.
Footnotes: 1. {Footnote not in text} See Le Boeuf, Hist. du Diocèse de Paris, t. 1, p. 151, 157, and Le Fevre, Calend. Hist de Paris, p. 40{}.
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THE EMPRESS THEODORA.
WHOM THE GREEKS RANK AMONG THE SAINTS.
BY her mildness and patience she often softened the cruel temper of her brutish husband, Theophilus, and protected the defenders of holy images from the fury of his persecution. Being left by his death regent of the empire during the minority of her son, Michael III., she put an end to the Iconoclast heresy, one hundred and twenty years after the first establishment of it by Leo the Isaurian: and the patriarch Methodius with great solemnity restored holy images in the great church in Constantinople, on the first Sunday of Lent, which we call the second, of which event the Greeks make an annual commemoration, calling it the feast of Orthodoxy. After she had governed the empire with great glory twelve years, she was banished by her unnatural son and his impious uncle, Bardas. She prepared herself for death by spending the last eight years of her life in a monastery, where she gave up her soul to God in 867. She is ranked among the saints in the Menology of the emperor Basil, in the Menæa, and other calendars of the Greeks. See the compilations of Bollandus from the authors of the Byzantine history.
FEBRUARY XII.
ST. BENEDICT, OF ANIAN, ABBOT.
From his life, written with great piety, gravity, and erudition, by St. Ardo Smaragdus, his disciple, to whom he committed the government of his monastery of Anian, when he was called by the emperor near the court. Ardo died March the 7th, in 843, and is honored at Anian among the saints. He is not to be confounded with Smaragdus, abbot in the diocese of Verdun, author of a commentary on the rules of St. Bennet. This excellent life is published by Dom Menard, at the head of St. Bennet's Concordia Regularum; by Henschenius, 12 Feb., and by Dom Mabillon, Acta SS. Ben., vol. 5, pp. 191, 817. See Helyot, Hist. des Ord. Relig. t. 5, p. 139. See also Bulteau, Hist. de l'Ord. de S. Bénoit, l. 5, c. 2, p. 342. Eckart. de Reb. Fran. t. 2, pp. 117, 163.
A.D. 821.
HE was the son of Aigulf, count or governor of Languedoc, and served king Pepin and his son Charlemagne in quality of cupbearer, enjoying under them great honors and possessions. Grace made him sensible of the vanity of all perishable goods, and at twenty years of age he took a resolution of seeking the kingdom of God with his whole heart. From that time he led a most mortified life in the court itself for three years, eating very sparingly and of the coarsest fare, allowing himself very little sleep, and mortifying all his senses. In 774, having narrowly escaped being drowned in the Tesin, near Pavia, in endeavoring to save his brother, he made a vow to quit the world entirely. Returning to Languedoc, he was confirmed in his resolution by the pious advice of a hermit of great merit and virtue, called Widmar; and under a pretext of going to the court at Aix-la-Chapelle, he went to the abbey of St. Seine, five leagues from Dijon, and having sent back all his attendants, became a monk there. He spent two years and a half in wonderful abstinence, treating his body as a furious wild beast, to {399} which he would show no other mercy than barely not to kill it. He took no other sustenance on any account but bread and water; and when overcome with weariness, he allowed himself nothing softer than the bare ground whereon to take a short rest; thus making even his repose a continuation of penance. He frequently passed the whole night in prayer, and stood barefoot on the ground in the sharpest cold. He studied to make himself contemptible by all manner of humiliations, and received all insults with joy, so perfectly was he dead to himself. God bestowed on him an extraordinary spirit of compunction, and the gift of tears, with an infused knowledge of spiritual things to an eminent degree. Not content to fulfil the rule of St. Benedict in its full rigor, he practised all the severest observances prescribed by the rules of St. Pachomius and St. Basil. Being made cellarist, he was very solicitous to provide for others whatever St. Benedict's rule allowed, and had a particular care of the poor and of the guests.
His brethren, upon the abbot's death, were disposed to choose our saint, but he, being unwilling to accept of the charge on account of their known aversion to a reformation, left them, and returned to his own country, Languedoc, in 780, where he built a small hermitage, near a chapel of St. Saturninus, on the brook Anian, near the river Eraud, upon his own estate. Here he lived some years in extreme poverty, praying continually that God would teach him to do his will, and make him faithfully correspond with his eternal designs. Some solitaries, and with them the holy man Widmar, put themselves under his direction, though he long excused himself. They earned their livelihood by their labor, and lived on bread and water, except on Sundays and solemn festivals, on which they added a little wine and milk when it was given them in alms. The holy superior did not exempt himself from working with the rest in the fields, either carrying wood or plugging; and sometimes he copied good books. The number of his disciples increasing, he quitted the valley, and built a monastery in a more spacious place, in that neighborhood. He showed his love of poverty by his rigorous practice of it: for he long used wooden, and afterwards glass or pewter chalices at the altar; and if any presents of silk ornaments were made him, he gave them to other churches. However, he some time after changed his way of thinking with respect to the church; built a cloister, and a stately church adorned with marble pillars, furnished it with silver chalices, and rich ornaments, and bought a great number of books. He had in a short time three hundred religious under his direction, and also exercised a general inspection over all the monasteries of Provence, Languedoc, and Gascony, which respected him as their common parent and master. At last he remitted something in the austerities of the reformation he had introduced among them. Felix, bishop of Urgel, had advanced that Christ was not the natural, but only the adoptive son of the eternal Father. St. Benedict most learnedly opposed this heresy, and assisted, in 794, at the council assembled against it at Frankfort. He employed his pen to confute the same, in four treatises, published in the miscellanies of Clausius.
Benedict was become the oracle of the whole kingdom, and he established his reformation in many great monasteries with little or no opposition. His most illustrious colony was the monastery of Gellone, founded in 804, by William, duke of Aquitaine, who retired into it himself, whence it was called St. Guillem du Desert. By the councils held under Charlemagne, in 813, and by the Capitulars of that prince, published the same year, it was ordained that the canons should live according to the canons and laws of the church, and the monks according to the rule of St. Bennet: by which regulation a uniformity was introduced in the monastic order in the West. The emperor Louis Débonnaire, who succeeded his father on the 28th of {400} January, 814, committed to the saint the inspection of all the abbeys in his kingdom. To have him nearer his own person, the emperor obliged him to live in the abbey of Marmunster, in Alsace; and as this was still too remote, desirous of his constant assistance in his councils, he built the monastery of Inde, two leagues from Aix-la-Chapelle, the residence of the emperor and court. Notwithstanding St. Benedict's constant abode in this monastery, he had still a hand in restoring monastic discipline throughout France and Germany; as he also was the chief instrument in drawing up the canons for the reformation of prebendaries and monks in the council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 817, and presided in the assembly of abbots the same year, to enforce restoration of discipline. His statutes were adopted by the order, and annexed to the rule of St. Benedict, the founder. He wrote, while a private monk at Seine, the Code of Rules, being a collection of all the monastic regulations which he found extant; as also a book of homilies for the use of monks, collected, according to the custom of that age, from the works of the fathers: likewise a Penitential, printed in the additions to the Capitulars. In his Concord of Rules he gives that of St. Benedict, with those of other patriarchs of the monastic order, to show their uniformity in the exercises which they prescribe.[1] This great restorer of the monastic order in the West, worn out at length with mortification and fatigues, suffered much from continual sickness the latter years of his life. He died at Inde, with extraordinary tranquillity and cheerfulness, on the 11th of February, 821, being then about seventy-one years of age, and was buried in the same monastery, since called St. Cornelius's, the church being dedicated to that holy pope and martyr. At Anian his festival is kept on the 11th, but by most other Martyrologies on the 12th of February, the day of his burial. His relics remain in the monastery of St. Cornelius, or of Inde, in the duchy of Cleves, and have been honored with miracles.
* * * * *
St. Bennet, by the earnestness with which he set himself to study the spirit of his holy rule and state, gave a proof of the ardor with which he aspired to Christian perfection. The experienced masters of a spiritual life, and the holy legislators of monastic institutes, have in view the great principles of an interior life, which the gospel lays down: for in the exercises which they prescribe, powerful means are offered by which a soul may learn perfectly to die to herself, and be united in all her powers to God. This dying to, and profound annihilation of ourselves, is of such importance, that so long as a soul remains in this state, though all the devils in hell were leagued together, they can never hurt her. All their efforts will only make her sink more deeply in this feeling knowledge of herself, in which she finds her strength, her repose, and her joy, because by it she is prepared to receive the divine grace: and if self-love be destroyed, the devil can have no power over us; for he never makes any successful attacks upon us but by the secret intelligence which he holds with this domestic enemy. The crucifixion of the old man, and perfect disengagement of the heart, by the practice of universal self-denial, is absolutely necessary before a soul can ascend the mountain of the God of Jacob, on which his infinite majesty is seen, separated from all creatures; as Blosius,[2] and all other directors in the paths of an interior life, strongly inculcate.
Footnotes: 1. See Codex Regularum, collectus a B. Benedicto Anianæ, auctus a Lucâ Holstenio, printed by Holstenias at Rome, in 1661. Also, Concordia Regularum, authore B. Benedicto Anianæ abbate, edita ab. Hug. Menardo Benedictia{} Parisiis, 1638. 2. Instit. Spir. c. 1, n. 6, &c.
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ST. MELETIUS, PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH, C.
HE was of one of the best families of Lesser Armenia, and born a Melitene, which Strabo and Pliny place to Cappadocia; but Ptolemy, and all succeeding writers, in Lesser Armenia, of which province it became the capital. The saint, in his youth, made fasting and mortification his choice, to the midst of every thing that could flatter the senses. His conduct was uniform and irreproachable, and the sweetness and affability of his temper gained him the confidence and esteem both of the Catholics and Arians; for he was a nobleman of charming simplicity and sincerity, and a great lover of peace. Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste, a semi-Arian, being deposed by the Arians, in a council held at Constantinople, in 360, Meletius was promoted to that see; but meeting with too violent opposition, left it, and retired first into the desert, and afterwards to the city of Beræa, in Syria, of which Socrates falsely supposes him to have been bishop. The patriarchal church of Antioch had been oppressed by the Arians, ever since the banishment of Eustathius, in 331. Several succeeding bishops, who were intruded into that chair, were infamous abettors of that heresy. Eudoxus, the last of these, had been removed from the see of Germanicia to that of Antioch, upon the death of Leontius, an Arian like himself, but was soon expelled by a party of Arians, in a sedition, and be shortly after usurped the see of Constantinople. Both the Arians and several Catholics agreed to raise St. Meletius to the patriarchal chair at Antioch, and the emperor ordered him to be put in possession of that dignity in 361; but some among the Catholics refused to acknowledge him, regarding his election as irregular, on account of the share which the Arians had had in it. The Arians hoped that he would declare himself of their party, but were undeceived when, the emperor Constantius arriving at Antioch, he was ordered, with certain other prelates, to explain in his presence that text of the Proverbs,[1] concerning the wisdom of God: The Lord hath created me in the beginning of his ways. George of Laodicea first explained it in an Arian sense, next Acacius of Cæsarea, in a sense bordering on that heresy; but the truth triumphed in the mouth of Meletius, who, speaking the third,[2] showed that this text is to be understood not of a strict creation, but of a new state or being, which the Eternal Wisdom received in his incarnation. This public testimony thunderstruck the Arians, and Eudoxus, then the bishop of Constantinople, prevailed with the emperor to banish him into Lesser Armenia, thirty days after his installation. The Arians intruded the impious Euzoius into that see, who, formerly being deacon at Alexandria, had been deposed and expelled the church, with the priest and arch-heretic Arius, by St. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria. From this time is dated the famous schism of Antioch, in 360, though it drew its origin from the banishment of St. Eustathius about thirty years before. Many zealous Catholics always adhered to St. Eustathius, being convinced that his faith was the only cause of his unjust expulsion. But others, who were orthodox in their principles, made no scruple, at least for some time, to join communion in the great church with the intruded patriarchs; in which their conscience was more easily imposed upon, as, by the artifices of the Arians, the cause of St. Eustathius appeared merely personal and secular, or at least mixed; and his two first short-lived successors Eulalius and Euphronius, do not appear to have declared themselves Arians, otherwise than by their intrusion. Placillus the Third joined in condemning St. Athanasius in the councils of Tyre, in 335, and of Antioch {402} in 341. His successors, Stephen I., (who at Philippopolis opposed the council of Sardica,) Leontius, and Eudoxus, appeared everywhere leagued with the heads of the Arians. But the intrusion of Euzoius, with the expulsion of St. Meletius, rendered the necessity of an entire separation to communion more notorious; and many who were orthodox in their faith, yet, through weakness or ignorance of facts, had till then communicated with the Arians in the great church, would have no communion with Euzoius, or his adherents; but under the protection of Diodorus and Flavian, then eminent and learned laymen, afterwards bishops, held their religious assemblies with their own priests, in the church of the apostles without the city, in a suburb called Palæa, that is, the old suburb or church. They attempted in vain to unite themselves to the Eustathians, who for thirty years past had held their separate assemblies; but these refused to admit them, or to allow the election of Meletius, on account of the share the Arians had had therein: they therefore continued their private assemblies within the city. The emperor Constantius, in his return from the Persian war, with an intention to march against his cousin Julian, Cæsar, in the West, arrived at Antioch, and was baptized by the Arian bishop Euzoius; but died soon after, in his march at Mopsucrêne, in Cilicia, on the 3d of November, 361. Julian having allowed the banished bishops to go to their respective churches, St. Meletius returned to Antioch about the end of the year 362, but had the affliction to see the breach made by the schism grow wider. The Eustathians not only refused still to receive him, but proceeded to choose a bishop for themselves. This was Paulinus, a person of great meekness and piety, who had been ordained priest by St. Eustathius himself, and had constantly attended his zealous flock. Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, passing by Antioch in his return from exile, consecrated Paulinus bishop, and by this precipitate action, riveted the schism which divided this church near fourscore and five years, and in which the discussion of the facts upon which the right of the claimants was founded, was so intricate that the saints innocently took part on both sides. It was an additional affliction to St. Meletius, to see Julian the Apostate make Antioch the seat of the superstitious abominations of idolatry, which he restored; and the generous liberty with which he opposed them, provoked that emperor to banish him a second time. But Jovian soon after succeeding that unhappy prince, in 363, our saint returned to Antioch. Then it appeared that the Arians were men entirely guided by ambition and interest, and that as nothing could be more insolent than they had shown themselves when backed by the temporal power, so nothing was more cringing and submissive, when they were deprived of that protection. For the emperor warmly embracing the Nicene faith, following in all ecclesiastical matters the advice of St. Athanasius, and expressing a particular regard for St. Meletius; the moderate Arians, with Acacius of Cæsarea, in Palestine, at their head, went to Antioch, where our saint held a council of twenty-seven bishops, and there subscribed an orthodox profession of faith. Jovian dying, after a reign of eight months, Valens became emperor of the East, who was at first very orthodox, but afterwards, seduced by the persuasions of his wife, he espoused the Arian heresy, and received baptism from Eudoxus, bishop of Constantinople, who made him promise upon oath to promote the cause of that sect. The cruel persecution which this prince raised against that church, and the favor which he showed not only to the Arians, but also to Pagans, Jews, and all that were not Catholics, deterred not St. Meletius from exerting his zeal in defence of the orthodox faith. This prince coming from Cæsarea, where he had been vanquished by the constancy of St. Basil, arrived at Antioch in April, 372, where he left nothing unattempted {403} to draw Meletius over to the interest of his sect; but meeting with no success, ordered him a third time into banishment. The people rose tumultuously to detain him among them, and threw stones at the governor, who was carrying him off, so that he only escaped with his life by our saint's stepping between him and the mob, and covering him with his cloak. It is only to this manner that the disciples of Jesus Christ revenge injuries, as St. Chrysostom observes.[3] Hermant and Fleury suppose this to have happened at his first banishment. By the order of Valens, he was conducted into Lesser Armenia, where he made his own estate at Getasus, near Nicopolis, the place of his residence. His flock at Antioch, by copying his humility, modesty, and patience, amid the persecution which fell upon them, showed themselves the worthy disciples of so great a master. They were driven out of the city, and from the neighboring mountains, and the banks of the river, where they attempted to hold their assemblies; some expired under torments, others were thrown into the Orontes. In the mean time, Valens allowed the pagans to renew their sacrifices, and to celebrate publicly the feasts of Jupiter, Ceres, and Bacchus.[4] Sapor, king of Persia, having invaded Armenia, took by treachery king Arsaces, bound him in silver chains, (according to the Persian custom of treating royal prisoners,) and caused him to perish in prison. To, check the progress of these ancient enemies of the empire, Valens sent an army towards Armenia, and marched himself to Edessa, in Mesopotamia. Thus the persecution at Antioch was abated, to which the death of Valens put an end, who was burnt by the Goths in a cottage, after his defeat near Adrianople, in 378. His nephew Gratian, who then became master of the East, went in all haste to Constantinople, by his general, Theodosius, vanquished the Goths, and by several edicts recalled the Catholic prelates, and restored the liberty of the church in the Eastern empire. St. Meletius, upon his return, found that the schism had begun to engage distant churches in the division. Most of the Western prelates adhered to the election of Paulinus. St. Athanasius communicated with him, as he had always done with his friends the Eustathian Catholics, though, from the beginning, he disapproved of the precipitation of Lucifer of Cagliari in ordaining him, and he afterwards communicated also with St. Meletius. St. Basil, St. Amphilochius of Iconium, St. Pelagius of Laodicea, St. Eusebius of Samosata, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nyasa, St. Gregory of Nazianzum, St. Chrysostom, and the general council of Constantinople, with almost the unanimous suffrage of all the East, zealously supported the cause of St. Meletius. Theodosius having, after his victory over the Goths, been associated by Gratian, and taken possession of the Eastern empire, sent his general, Sapor, to Antioch, to re-establish there the Catholic pastors. In an assembly which was held in his presence, in 379, St. Meletius, Paulinus, and Vitalis, whom Apollinarius had consecrated bishop of his party there, met, and St. Meletius, addressing himself to Paulinus, made the following proposal:[5] "Since our sheep have but one religion, and the same faith, let it be our business to unite them into one flock; let us drop all disputes for precedency, and agree to feed them together. I am ready to share this see with you, and let the survivor have the care of the whole flock." After some demur the proposal was accepted of, and Sapor put St. Meletius in possession of the churches which he had governed before his last banishment, and of those which were in the hands of the Arians, and Paulinus was continued in his care of the Eustathians. St. Meletius zealously reformed the disorders which heresy and divisions {404} had produced, and provided his church with excellent ministers. In 379 he presided in a council at Antioch, in which the errors of Apollinarius were condemned without any mention of his name. Theodosius, whom Gratian declared Augustus, and his partner in the empire at Sirmich, on the 19th of January, soon after his arrival at Constantinople, concurred zealously in assembling the second general council which was opened at Constantinople, in the year 381. Only the prelates of the Eastern empire assisted, so that we find no mention of legates of pope Damasus, and it was general, not in the celebration, but by the acceptation of the universal church. St. Meletius presided as the first patriarch that was present; in it one hundred and fifty Catholic bishops, and thirty-six of the Macedonian sect, made their appearance; but all these latter chose rather to withdraw than to retract their error, or confess the divinity of the Holy Ghost. The council approved of the election of St. Gregory of Nazianzen to the see of Constantinople, though he resigned it to satisfy the scruples and complaints of some, who, by mistake, thought it made against the Nicene canon, which forbade translations of bishops; which could not be understood of him who had never been allowed to take possession of his former see. The council then proceeded to condemn the Macedonian heresy, and to publish the Nicene creed, with certain additions. In the second, among the seven canons of discipline, the two oriental patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch were acknowledged. In the third, the prerogative of honor, next to the see of Rome, is given to that of Constantinople, which before was subject to the metropolitan of Heraclea, in Thrace. This canon laid the foundation of the patriarchal dignity to which that see was raised by the council of Calcedon, though not allowed for some time after in the West. St. Meletius died at Constantinople while the council was sitting, to the inexpressible grief of the fathers, and of the good emperor. By an evangelical meekness, which was his characteristic, he had converted the various trials that he had gone through into occasions of virtue, and had exceedingly endeared himself to all that had the happiness of his acquaintance. St. Chrysostom assures us, that his name was so venerable to his flock at Antioch, that they gave it their children, and mentioned it with all possible respect. They cut his image upon their seals, and upon their plate, and carved it in their houses. His funeral was performed at Constantinople with the utmost magnificence, and attended by the fathers of the council, and all the Catholics of the city. One of the most eminent among the prelates, probably St. Amphilochius of Iconium, pronounced his panegyric in the council. St. Gregory of Nyssa made his funeral oration in presence of the emperor, in the great church, in the end of which he says, "He now sees God face to face, and prays for us, and for the ignorance of the people." St. Meletius's body was deposited in the church of the apostles, till it was removed before the end of the same year, with the utmost pomp, to Antioch, at the emperor's expense, and interred near the relics of St. Babylas, in the church which he had erected in honor of that holy martyr. Five years after, St. Chrysostom, whom our saint had ordained deacon, spoke his elegant panegyric on the 12th of February, on which his name occurs in the Menæa, and was inserted by Baronius in the Roman Martyrology; though it is uncertain whether this be the day of his death, or of his translation to Antioch. On account of his three banishments and great sufferings, he is styled a martyr by St. John Damascen.[6] His panegyrics, by St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Chrysostom, are extant. See also Socrates, l. 5, c. 5, p. 261. Sozom. l. 4, c. 28, p. 586. Theodoret, l. 3, c. 5, p. 128, l. 2, c. 27, p. 634. Jos. Assem. in Cal. Univer. t. 6, p. 125.
Footnotes: 1. Prov. viii. 22. 2. St. Epiph. hær. 73, n. 29. 3. Hom. in St. Melet. t. 2. 4. Theod. l. 4, c. 23, 24. Sozom. l. 6, c. 17. 5. Socr. l. 5, c. 5. Sozom. l. 7, c. 3. Theodoret. l. 5, c. 22. 6. Or. 2. de Imagin.
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ST. EULALIA, OF BARCELONA, V.M.
THIS holy virgin was brought up in the faith, and in the practice of piety, at Barcelona in Spain. In the persecution of Dioclesian, under the cruel governor Dacian, she suffered the rack, and being at last crucified on it, joined the crown of martyrdom with that of virginity. Her relics are preserved at Barcelona, by which city she is honored as its special patroness. She is titular saint of many churches, and her name is given to several villages of Guienne and Languedoc, and other neighboring provinces, where, in some places, she is called St. Eulalie, in others St. Olaire, St. Olacie, St. Occille, St. Olaille, and St. Aulazie. Sainte-Aulaire and Sainte-Aulaye are names of two ancient French families taken from this saint. Her acts deserve no notice. See Tillemont, t. 5, in his account from Prudentius, of St. Eulalia of Merida, with whom Vincent of Beauvais confounds her; but she is distinguished by the tradition of the Spanish churches, by the Mozarabic missal, and by all the martyrologies which bear the name of St. Jerom, Ado, Usuard, &c.
ST. ANTONY CAULEAS, CONFESSOR,
PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
HE was by extraction of a noble Phrygian family, but born at a country seat near Constantinople, where his parents lived retired for fear of the persecution and infection of the Iconoclasts. From twelve years of age he served God with great fervor, in a monastery of the city, which some moderns pretend to have been that of Studius. In process of time he was chosen abbot, and, upon the death of Stephen, brother to the emperor Leo VI., surnamed the Wise, or the Philosopher, patriarch of Constantinople in 893. His predecessor had succeeded Photius in 886, (whom this emperor expelled,) and labored strenuously to extinguish the schism he had formed, and restore the peace of the church over all the East. St. Antony completed this great work, and in a council in which he presided at Constantinople, condemned or reformed all that had been done by Photius during his last usurpation of that see, after the death of St. Ignatius. The acts of this important council are entirely lost, perhaps through the malice of those Greeks who renewed this unhappy schism. A perfect spirit of mortification, penance, and prayer, sanctified this great pastor, both in his private and public life. He died in the year 896, of his age sixty-seven, on the 12th of February, on which day his name is inserted in the Greek Menæa, and in the Roman Martyrology. See an historical panegyric on his virtues, spoken soon after his death by a certain Greek philosopher named Nicephorus, in the Bollandists. Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, t. 3; also t. 1, p. 250.
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FEBRUARY XIII.
ST. CATHARINE DE RICCI, V, O.S.D.
See her life, written by F. Seraphin Razzi, a Dominican friar, who knew her, and was fifty-eight years old when she died. The nuns of her monastery gave an ample testimony that this account was conformable partly to what they knew of her, and partly to MS. memorials left by her confessor and others concerning her. Whence F. Echard calls this life a work accurately written. It was printed in 4to. at Lucca, in 1594. Her life was again compiled by F. Philip Galdi, confessor to the saint and to the duchess of Urbino, and printed at Florence, in two vols. 4to., in 1622. FF. Michael Pio and John Lopez, of the same order, have given abstracts of her life. See likewise Bened. XIV. de Can. Serv. Dei, t. 5, inter Act. Can. 5. SS. Append.
A.D. 1589.
THE Ricci are an ancient family, which still subsists in a flourishing condition in Tuscany. Peter de Ricci, the father of our saint, was married to Catharine Bonza, a lady of suitable birth. The saint was born at Florence in 1522, and called at her baptism Alexandrina: but she took the name of Catharine at her religious profession. Having lost her mother in her infancy, she was formed to virtue by a very pious godmother, and whenever she was missing, she was always to be found on her knees in some secret part of the house. When she was between six and seven years old, her father placed her in the convent of Monticelli, near the gates of Florence, where her aunt, Louisa de Ricci, was a nun. This place was to her a paradise: at a distance from the noise and tumult of the world, she served God without impediment or distraction. After some years her father took her home. She continued her usual exercises in the world as much as she was able; but the interruptions and dissipation, inseparable from her station, gave her so much uneasiness, that, with the consent of her father, which she obtained, though with great difficulty, in the year 1535, the fourteenth of her age, she received the religious veil in the convent of Dominicanesses at Prat, in Tuscany, to which her uncle, F. Timothy de Ricci, was director. God, in the merciful design to make her the spouse of his crucified Son, and to imprint in her soul dispositions conformable to his, was pleased to exercise her patience by rigorous trials. For two years she suffered inexpressible pains under a complication of violent distempers, which remedies themselves served only to increase. These sufferings she sanctified by the interior dispositions with which she bore them, and which she nourished principally by assiduous meditation on the passion of Christ, in which she found an incredible relish, and a solid comfort and joy. After the recovery of her health, which seemed miraculous, she studied more perfectly to die to her senses, and to advance in a penitential life and spirit, in which God had begun to conduct her, by practising the greatest austerities which were compatible with the obedience she had professed: she fasted two or three days a week on bread and water, and sometimes passed the whole day without taking any nourishment, and chastised her body with disciplines and a sharp iron chain which she wore next her skin. Her obedience, humility, and meekness, were still more admirable than her spirit of penance. The least shadow of distinction or commendation gave her inexpressible uneasiness and confusion, and she would have rejoiced to be able to lie hid in the centre of the earth, in order to be entirely unknown to, and blotted out of the hearts of all mankind, such were the sentiments of annihilation and contempt of herself in which she constantly lived. It was by profound {407} humility and perfect interior self-denial that she learned to vanquish in her heart the sentiments or life of the first Adam, that is, of corruption, sin, and inordinate self-love. But this victory over herself, and purgation of her affections, was completed by a perfect spirit of prayer: for by the union of her soul with God, and the establishment of the absolute reign of his love in her heart, she was dead to, and disengaged from all earthly things. And in one act of sublime prayer, she advanced more than by a hundred exterior practices in the purity and ardor of her desire to do constantly what was most agreeable to God, to lose no occasion of practising every heroic virtue, and of vigorously resisting all that was evil. Prayer, holy meditation, and contemplation were the means by which God imprinted in her soul sublime ideas of his heavenly truths, the strongest and most tender sentiments of all virtues, and the most burning desire to give all to God, with an incredible relish and affection for suffering contempt and poverty for Christ. What she chiefly labored to obtain, by meditating on his life and sufferings, and what she most earnestly asked of him was, that he would be pleased, in his mercy, to purge her affections of all poison of the inordinate love of creatures, and engrave in her his most holy and divine image, both exterior and interior, that is to say, both in her conversation and affections, that so she might be animated, and might think, speak, and act by his most holy Spirit. The saint was chosen, very young, first, mistress of the novices, then sub-prioress, and, in the twenty-fifth year of her age, was appointed perpetual prioress. The reputation of her extraordinary sanctity and prudence drew her many visits from a great number of bishops, princes, and cardinals, among others, of Cervini, Alexander of Medicis, and Aldobrandini, who all three were afterwards raised to St. Peter's chair, under the names of Marcellus II., Clement VIII., and Leo XI. Something like what St. Austin relates of St. John of Egypt, happened to St. Philip Neri and St. Catharine of Ricci. For having some time entertained together a commerce of letters, to satisfy their mutual desire of seeing each other, while he was detained at Rome she appeared to him in a vision, and they conversed together a considerable time, each doubtless being in a rapture. This St. Philip Neri, though most circumspect in giving credit to, or in publishing visions, declared, saying, that Catharine de Ricci, while living, had appeared to him in vision, as his disciple Galloni assures us in his life.[1] And the continuators of Bollandus inform us that this was confirmed by the oaths of five witnesses.[2] Bacci, in his life of St. Philip, mentions the same thing, and pope Gregory XV., in his bull for the canonization of St. Philip Neri, affirms, that while this saint lived at Rome, he conversed a considerable time with Catharine of Ricci, a nun, who was then at Prat, in Tuscany.[3] Most wonderful were the raptures of St. Catharine in meditating on the passion of Christ, which was her daily exercise, but to which she totally devoted herself every week from Thursday noon to three o'clock in the afternoon on Friday. After a long illness, she passed from this mortal life to everlasting bliss and the possession of the object of all her desires, on the feast of the Purification of our Lady, on the 2d of February, in 1589, the sixty-seventh year of her age. The ceremony of her beatification was performed by Clement XII., in 1732, and that of her canonization by Benedict XIV., in 1746. Her festival is deferred to the 13th of February.
* * * * *
In the most perfect state of heavenly contemplation which this life admits of, there must be a time allowed for action, as appears from the most {408} eminent contemplatives among the saints, and those religious institutes which are most devoted to this holy exercise. The mind of man must be frequently unbent, or it will be overset. Many, by a too constant or forced attention, have lost their senses. The body also stands in need of exercise, and in all stations men owe several exterior duties both to others and themselves, and to neglect any of these, upon pretence of giving the preference to prayer, would be a false devotion and dangerous illusion. Though a Christian be a citizen of heaven, while he is a sojourner in this world, he is not to forget the obligations or the necessities to which this state subjects him, or to dream of flights which only angels and their fellow inhabitants of bliss take. As a life altogether taken up in action and business, without frequent prayer and pious meditation, alienates a soul from God and virtue, and weds her totally to the world, so a life spent wholly in contemplation, without any mixture of action, is chimerical, and the attempt dangerous. The art of true devotion consists very much in a familiar and easy habit of accompanying exterior actions and business with a pious attention to the Divine Presence, frequent secret aspirations, and a constant union of the soul with God. This St. Catharine of Ricci practised at her work, in the exterior duties of her house and office, in her attendance on the sick, (which was her favorite employment, and which she usually performed on her knees,) and in the tender care of the poor over the whole country. But this hindered not the exercises of contemplation, which were her most assiduous employment. Hence retirement and silence were her delight, in order to entertain herself with the Creator of all things, and by devout meditation, kindling in her soul the fire of heavenly love, she was never able to satiate the ardor of her desire in adoring and praising the immense greatness and goodness of God.
Footnotes: 1. {Footnote not in text} Gallon. apud Contin. Bolland. Acta Sanctorum, Maii, t. 6, p. 503, col. 2, n. 146. 2. Ibid. p. 504, col. 2. 3. In Bolland. Cherubini, t. 4, p. 8.
ST. LICINIUS, CONFESSOR,
CALLED BY THE FRENCH, LESIN, BISHOP OF ANGERS.
HE was born of a noble family, allied to the kings of France, about the year 540. He was applied to learning as soon as he was capable of instruction, and sent to the court of king Clotaire I., (whose cousin he was,) being about twenty years of age. He signalized himself by his prudence and valor, both in the court and in the army, and acquitted himself of all Christian duties with extraordinary exactitude and fervor. Fasting and prayer were familiar to him, and his heart was always raised to God. King Chilperic made him count or governor of Anjou, and being overcome by the importunities of his friends, the saint consented to take a wife about the year 578. But the lady was struck with a leprosy on the morning before it was to be solemnized. This accident so strongly affected Licinius, that he resolved to carry into immediate execution a design he had long entertained of entirely renouncing the world. This he did in 580, and leaving all things to follow Jesus Christ, he entered himself among the clergy, and hiding himself from the world in a community of ecclesiastics, found no pleasure but in the exercises of piety and the most austere penance, and in meditating on the holy scriptures. Audouin, the fourteenth bishop of Angers, dying towards the year 600, the people, remembering the equity and mildness with which Licinius had governed them, rather as their father than as a judge or master, demanded him for their pastor. The voice of the clergy seconded that of the people, and, the concurrence of the court of Clotaire II. in his minority, under the regency of his mother Fredegonda, overcame {409} all the opposition his humility could make. His time and his substance were divided in feeding the hungry, comforting and releasing prisoners, and curing the bodies and souls of his people. Though he was careful to keep up exact discipline in his diocese, he was more inclined to indulgence than rigor, in imitation of the tenderness which Jesus Christ showed for sinners. Strong and persuasive eloquence, the more forcible argument of his severe and exemplary life, and God himself speaking by miracles, qualified him to gain the hearts of the most hardened, and make daily conquest of souls to Christ. He renewed the spirit of devotion and penance by frequent retreats, and desired earnestly to resign his bishopric, and hide himself in some solitude: but the bishops of the province, whose consent he asked, refusing to listen to such a proposal, he submitted, and continued to spend the remainder of his life in the service of his flock. His patience was perfected by continual infirmities in his last years, and he finished his sacrifice about the year 618, in the sixty-fifth of his age. He was buried in the church of St. John Baptist, which he had founded, with a monastery, which he designed for his retreat. It is now a collegiate church, and enriched with the treasure of his relics. His memory was publicly honored in the seventh age: the 1st of November was the day of his festival, though he is now mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on the 13th of February. At Angers he is commemorated on the 8th of June, which seems to have been the day of his consecration, and on the 21st of June, when his relics were translated or taken up, 1169, in the time of Henry II., king of England, count of Anjou. See his life, written from the relation of his disciples soon after his death; and again by Marbodius, archdeacon of Angers, afterwards bishop of Rennes, both in Bollandus.
ST. POLYEUCTUS, M.
THE city of Melitine, a station of the Roman troops in the Lesser Armenia, is illustrious for a great number of martyrs, whereof the first in rank is Polyeuctus. He was a rich Roman officer, and had a friend called Nearchus, a zealous Christian, who, when the news of the persecution, raised by the emperor against the church, reached Armenia, prepared himself to lay down his life for his faith; and grieving to leave Polyeuctus in the darkness of Paganism, was so successful in his endeavors to induce him to embrace Christianity, as not only to gain him over to the faith, but to inspire him with an eager desire of laying down his life for the same. He openly declared himself a Christian, and was apprehended and condemned to cruel tortures. The executioners being weary with tormenting him, betook themselves to the method of argument and persuasion, in order to prevail with him to renounce Christ. The tears and cries of his wife Pauline, of his children, and of his father-in-law, Felix, were sufficient to have shaken a mind not superior to all the assaults of hell. But Polyeuctus, strengthened by God, grew only the firmer in his faith, and received the sentence of death with such cheerfulness and joy, and exhorted all to renounce their idols with so much energy, on the road to execution, that many were converted. He was beheaded on the 10th of January, in the persecution of Decius, or Valerian, about the year 250, or 257. The Christians buried his body in the city. Nearchus gathered his blood in a cloth, and afterwards wrote his acts. The Greeks keep his festival very solemnly: and all the Latin martyrologies mention him. There was in Melitine a famous church of St. Polyeuctus, in the fourth age, in which St. Euthymius often prayed. There was also a very stately one in Constantinople, under {410} Justinian, the vault of which was covered with plates of gold, in which it was the custom for men to make their most solemn oaths, as is related by St. Gregory of Tours.[1] The same author informs us, in his history of the Franks,[2] that the kings of France, of the first race, used to confirm their treaties by the name of Polyeuctus. The martyrology ascribed to St. Jerom, and the most ancient Armenian calendars, place his feast on the 7th of January, which seems to have been the day of his martyrdom. The Greeks defer his festival to the 9th of January: but it is marked on the 13th of February in the ancient martyrology, which was sent from Rome to Aquileia in the eighth century, and which is copied by Ado, Usuard, and the Roman Martyrology. See his acts taken from those written by Nearchus, the saint's friend, and Tillem. t. 3, p. 424. Jos. Assemani, in Calend. ad 9 Januarii, t. 6.
Footnotes: 1. De Glor. Mart. c. 103. 2. Hist. l. 7, c. 6.
ST. GREGORY II., POPE, C.
HE was born in Rome, to an affluent fortune, and being educated in the palace of the popes, acquired great skill in the holy scriptures and in ecclesiastical affairs, and attained to an eminent degree of sanctity. Pope Sergius I., to whom he was very dear, ordained him subdeacon. Under the succeeding popes, John the sixth and seventh, Sisinnius, and Constantine, he was treasurer of the church, and afterwards library keeper, and was charged with several important commissions. The fifth general council had been held upon the affair of the three chapters, in 553, in the reign of Justinian, and the sixth against the Monothelites, in those of Constantine Pogonatus and pope Agatho, in 660. With a view of adding a supplement of new canons to those of the aforesaid two councils, the bishops of the Greek church, to the number of two hundred and eleven, held the council called Quini-sext, in a hall of the imperial palace at Constantinople, named Trullus, in 692, which laid a foundation of certain differences to discipline between the Eastern and Western churches; for in the thirteenth canon it was enacted, that a man who was before married should be allowed to receive the holy orders of subdeacon, deacon, or priest, without being obliged to leave his wife, though this was forbid to bishops. (can. 12.) It was also forbid, (canon 55,) to fast on Saturdays, even in Lent. Pope Sergius I. refused to confirm this council; and, in 695, the emperor, Justinian II., surnamed Rhinotmetus, who had succeeded his father, Constantine Pogonatus, in 685, was dethroned for his cruelty, and his nose being slit, (from which circumstance he received his surname,) banished into Chersonesus. First Leontius, then Apsimarus Tiberius, ascended the throne; but Justinian recovered it in 705, and invited pope Constantine into the East, hoping to prevail upon him to confirm the council in Trullo. The pope was received with great honor, and had with him our saint, who, in his name, answered the questions put by the Greeks concerning the said council. After their return to Rome, upon the death of Constantine, Gregory was chosen pope, and ordained on the 19th of May, 715. The emperor Justinian being detested both by the army and people, Bardanes, who took the name of Philippicus, an Armenian, one of his generals, revolted, took Constantinople, put him and his son Tiberius, only seven years old, to death, and usurped the sovereignty in December, 711. In Justinian II was extinguished the family of Heraclius. Philippicus abetted warmly the heresy of the Monothelites, and caused the sixth council to be proscribed in a pretended synod at Constantinople. His reign was very short, for Artemius, his secretary, {411} who took the name of Anastasius II., deposed him, and stepped into the throne on the fourth of June, 713. By him the Monothelites were expelled; but, after a reign of two years and seven months, seeing one Theodosius chosen emperor by the army, which had revolted in January, 716, he withdrew, and took the monastic habit at Thessalonica. The eastern army having proclaimed Leo III., surnamed the Isaurian, emperor, on the 25th of March, 717, Theodosius and his son embraced an ecclesiastical state, and lived in peace among the clergy. Pope Gregory signalized the beginning of his popedom by deposing John VI., the Monothelite, false patriarch of Constantinople, who had been nominated by Philippicus, and he promoted the election of St. Germanus, who was translated to that dignity from Cyzicus, in 715. With unwearied watchfulness and zeal he laid himself out in extirpating heresies on all sides, and in settling a reformation of manners. Besides a hospital for old men, he rebuilt the great monastery near the church of St. Paul at Rome, and, after the death of his mother, in 718, changed her house into the monastery of St. Agatha. The same year he re-established the abbey of Mount Cassino, sending thither, from Rome, the holy abbot St. Petronax, to take upon him the government, one hundred and forty years after it had been laid in ruins by the Lombards. This holy abbot lived to see monastic discipline settled here in so flourishing a manner, that in the same century, Carloman, duke or prince of the French, Rachis, king of the Lombards, St. Willebald, St. Sturmius, first abbot of Fulda, and other eminent persons, fled to this sanctuary.[1] Our holy pope commissioned zealous missionaries to preach the faith in Germany, and consecrated St. Corbinian bishop of Frisingen, and St. Boniface bishop of Mentz. Leo, the Isaurian, protected the Catholic church during the first ten years of his reign, and St. Gregory II. laid up among the archives of his church several letters which he had received from him, from the year 717 to 726, which proved afterwards authentic monuments of his perfidy. For, being infatuated by certain Jews, who had gained an ascendant over him by certain pretended astrological predictions, in 726 he commanded holy images to be abolished, and enforced the execution of his edicts of a cruel persecution. St. Germanus, and other orthodox prelates in the East, endeavored to reclaim him, refused to obey his edicts, and addressed themselves to pope Gregory. Our saint employed long the arms of tears and entreaties, yet strenuously maintained the people of Italy in their allegiance to their prince, as Anastasius assures us. A rebellion was raised in Sicily, but soon quelled by the death of Artemius, who had assumed the purple. The pope vigorously opposed the mutineers, both here and in other parts of the West. When he was informed that the army at Ravenna and Venice, making zeal a pretence for rebellion, had created a new emperor, he effectually opposed their attempt, and prevented the effect. Several disturbances which were raised in Rome were pacified by his care. Nevertheless, he by letters encouraged the pastors of the church to resist the heresy which the emperor endeavored to establish by bloodshed and violence. The tyrant sent orders to several of his officers, six or seven times, to murder the pope: but he was so faithfully guarded by the Romans and Lombards, that he escaped all their snares. St. Gregory II. held the pontificate fifteen years, eight months, and twenty-three days, and died in 731, on the 10th of February; but the Roman Martyrology consecrates to his memory the 13th which was probably the day on which his corpse was deposited in the Vatican church.
Footnotes: 1. Bulteau, Hist. Mon. d'Occid. t. 2, l. 4, c. 2, p. 8.
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ST. MARTINIANUS, HERMIT AT ATHENS.
MARTINIANUS was born at Cæsarea in Palestine, during the reign of Constantius. At eighteen years of age he retired to a mountain near that city, called, The place of the Ark, where he lived for twenty-five years among many holy solitaries in the practice of all virtues, and was endowed with the gift of miracles. A wicked strumpet of Cæsarea, called Zoe, hearing his sanctity much extolled, at the instigation of the devil undertook to pervert him. She feigned herself a poor woman, wandering in the desert late at night, and ready to perish. By this pretext she prevailed on Martinianus to let her remain that night in his cell. Towards morning she threw aside her rags, put on her best attire, and going in to Martinianus, told him she was a lady of the city, possessed of a large estate and plentiful fortune, all which she came to offer him with herself. She also instanced, in the examples of the saints of the Old Testament, who were rich and engaged in the conjugal state, to induce him to abandon his purpose. The hermit, who should have imitated the chaste Joseph in his flight, was permitted, in punishment perhaps of some secret presumption, to listen to her enchanting tongue, and to consent in his heart to her proposal. But as it was near the time that he expected certain persons to call on him to receive his blessing and instructions, he told her he would go and meet them on the road and dismiss them. He went out with this intent, but being touched with remorse, he returned speedily to his cell, where, making a great fire, he thrust his feet into it. The pain this occasioned was so great, that he could not forbear crying out aloud. The woman at the noise ran in and found him lying on the ground, bathed in tears, and his feet half burned. On seeing her he said: "Ah! if I cannot bear this weak fire, how can I endure that of hell?" This example excited Zoe to sentiments of grief and repentance; and she conjured him to put her in a way of securing her salvation. He sent her to Bethlehem, to the monastery of St. Paula, to which she lived in continual penance, and lying on the bare floor, with no other sustenance than bread and water. Martinianus, as soon as his legs were healed, which was not till seven months after, not being able all that time to rise from the ground, retired to a rock surrounded with water on every side, to be secure from the approach of danger and all occasions of sin. He lived here exposed always to the open air, and without ever seeing any human creature, except a boatman, who brought him twice a year biscuit and fresh water, and twigs wherewith to make baskets. Six years after this, he saw a vessel split and wrecked at the bottom of his rock. All on board perished, except one girl, who, floating on a plank, cried out for succor. Martinianus could not refuse to go down and save her life: but fearing the danger of living on the same mountain with her till the boatman should come, as was expected in two months, resolved to leave her there to subsist on his provisions till that time, and she chose to end her days on this rock in imitation of his penitential life. He, trusting himself to the waves and Providence, to shun all danger of sin, swam to the main land, and travelled through many deserts to Athens, where he made a happy end towards the year 400, being about fifty years old. His name, though not mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, occurs in the Greek Menæa, and was in great veneration in the East, particularly at Constantinople, in the famous church near Sancta Sophia. See his acts in the Bollandists, and in most compilers of the lives of the saints. Also Jos. Assemani in Cal. Univ. ad 13 Feb. t. 6, p. 145.
{413}
ST. MODOMNOC, OR DOMINICK, OF OSSORY, C.
HE is said to have been of the noble race of the O'Neils, and, passing into Wales, to have studied under St. David in the Vale of Ross. After his return home he served God at Tiprat Fachna, in the western part of Ossory. He is said to have been honored there with the Episcopal dignity, about the middle of the sixth century. The see of Ossory was translated from Seirkeran, the capital of this small county, to Aghavoa, in the eleventh century, and in the twelfth, in the reign of Henry II., to Kilkenny. See Sir James Ware, l. De Antiquitatibus Hiberniæ, and l. De Episcopal. Hibern.
ST. STEPHEN, ABBOT.
HE was abbot of a monastery near the walls of Rieti in Italy, and a man of admirable sanctity. He had despised all things for the love of heaven. He shunned all company to employ himself wholly in prayer. So wonderful was his patience, that he looked upon them as his greatest friends and benefactors, who did him the greatest injuries, and regarded insults as his greatest gain. He lived in extreme poverty, and a privation of all the conveniences of life. His barns, with all the corn in them, the whole subsistence of his family, were burned down by wicked men. He received the news with cheerfulness, grieving only for their sin by which God was offended. In his agony angels were seen surrounding him to conduct his happy soul to bliss. He lived in the sixth age. He is named in the Roman Martyrology. See St. Gregory, hom. 35, in Evang. t. 1, p. 1616, and l. 4, Dial. c. 19.
B. ROGER, ABBOT, C.
HAVING embraced the Cistercian order at Loroy, or Locus Regis, in Berry, he was chosen abbot of Elan near Retel in Champagne, and died about the year 1175. His remains are enshrined in a chapel which bears his name, in the church at Elan, where his festival is kept with a mass in his honor on the 13th of February. His life was written by a monk of Elan. See Chatelain, on the 4th of January, on which day his name occurs in a Cistercian calendar printed at Dijon.
FEBRUARY XIV.
ST. VALENTINE, PRIEST AND MARTYR.
His acts are commended by Henschenius, but objected to by Tillemont, &c. Here is given only an abridgment of the principal circumstances, from Tillem. l. 4, p. 678.
THIRD AGE.
VALENTINE was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was {414} apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome; who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards to be beheaded, which was executed on the 14th of February, about the year 270. Pope Julius I. is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate, now called Ports del Popolo, formerly Porta Valentini. The greatest part of his relics are now in the church of St. Praxedes. His name is celebrated as that of an illustrious martyr, in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, the Roman missal of Thomasius, in the calendar of F. Fronto, and that of Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado, Notker, and all other martyrologies on this day. To abolish the heathen's lewd superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honor of their goddess Februata Juno, on the 15th of this month, several zealous pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day. See January 29, on St. Francis de Sales.
ST. MARO, ABBOT.
From Theodoret Philoth. c. 16, 22, 24, 30, Tillem. t. 12, p. 412. Le Quien, Oriens Christ. t. 3, p. 5, Jos Assemani Bibl. Orient. t. 1, p. 497.
A.D. 433.
ST. MARO made choice of a solitary abode on a mountain in the diocese of Syria and near that city, where, out of a spirit of mortification, he lived for the most part in the open air. He had indeed a little hut, covered with goat skins, to shelter him from the inclemencies of the weather; but he very seldom made use of it for that purpose, even on the most urgent occasions. Finding here a heathen temple, he dedicated it to the true God, and made it his house of prayer. Being renowned for sanctity, he was raised, in 405, to the dignity of priesthood. St. Chrysostom, who had a singular regard for him, wrote to him from Cucusus, the place of his banishment, and recommended himself to his prayers, and begged to hear from him by every opportunity.[1]
St. Zebinus, our saint's master, surpassed all the solitaries of his time, with regard to assiduity in prayer. He devoted to this exercise whole days and nights, without being sensible of any weariness or fatigue: nay, his ardor for it seemed rather to increase than slacken by its continuance. He generally prayed in an erect posture; but in his old age was forced to support his body by leaning on a staff. He gave advice in very few words to those that came to see him, to gain the more time for heavenly contemplation. St. Maro imitated his constancy in prayer: yet he not only received all visitants with great tenderness, but encouraged their stay with him; though few were willing to pass the whole night in prayer standing. God recompensed his labors with most abundant graces, and the gift of curing all distempers, both of body and mind. He prescribed admirable remedies against all vices. This drew great multitudes to him, and he erected many monasteries in Syria, and trained up holy solitaries. Theodoret, bishop of Cyr, says, that the great number of monks who peopled his diocese were the fruit of his instructions. The chief among his disciples was St. James of Cyr, who gloried that he had received from the hands of St. Maro his first hair-cloth.
God called St. Maro to his glory after a short illness, which showed, says Theodoret, the great weakness to which his body was reduced. A {415} pious contest ensued among the neighboring provinces about his burial. The inhabitants of a large and populous place carried off the treasure, and built to his honor a spacious church over his tomb, to which a monastery was adjoined, which seems to have been the monastery of St. Maro in the diocese of Apamea.[2]
Footnotes: 1. St. Chrys. ep. 36. 2. It is not altogether certain whether this monastery near Apamea, or another on the Orontes, between Apamea and Emesa, or a third in Palmyrene, (for each of them bore his name,) possessed his body, or gave name to the people called Maronites. It seems most probable of the second, the abbot of which is styled primate of all the monasteries of the second Syria, in the acts of the second council of Constantinople, under the patriarch Mennas, in 536, and he subscribes first a common letter to pope Hormisdas, in 517. The Maronites were called so from these religious, in the fifth century, and adhered to the council of Chalcedon against the Eutychians. They were joined in communion with the Melchites or Loyalists, who maintained the authority of the council of Chalcedon. The Maronites, with their patriarch, who live in Syria, towards the seacoast, especially about mount Libanus, are steady in the communion of the Catholic church, and profess a strict obedience to the pope, as its supreme pastor; and such has always been the conduct of that nation, except during a very short time, that they were inveigled into the Greek schism; and some fell into Eutychianism, and a greater number into Nestorianism; they returned to the communion of the Catholic church under Gregory XIII. and Clement VIII., as Stephen Assemani proves, (Assemani, Act. Mart. t. 2, p. 410,) against the slander of Eutychius in his Arabic Annals, which had imposed upon Renaudot. The Maronites keep the feast of St. Maro on the 9th, the Greeks on the 14th of February. The seminary of the Maronites at Rome, founded by Gregory XIII. under the direction of the Jesuits, had produced several great men, who have exceedingly promoted true literature especially the Oriental; such as Abraham Eckellensis, the three Assemani, Joseph, Stephen Evodius, and Lewis, known by his Judicious writings on the ceremonies of the church. The patriarch of the Maronites, styled of Antioch, resides in the monastery of Canabine, at the foot of mount Libanus; he is confirmed by the pope, and has under him five metropolitans, namely, of Tyre, Damascus, Tripolis, Aleppo, and Niocsia, in Cyprus. See Le Quien. Oriens Christianus. t. 3, p. 46.
ST. ABRAAMES, BISHOP OF CARRES.
HE was a holy solitary, who, going to preach to an idolatrous village on Mount Libanus, overcame the persecutions of the heathens by meekness and patience. When he had narrowly escaped death from their hands, he borrowed money wherewith to satisfy the demands of the collectors of the public taxes, for their failure in which respect they were to be cast into prison; and by this charity he gained them all to Christ. After instructing them for three years, he left them in the care of a holy priest, and returned to his desert. He was some time after ordained bishop of Canes, in Mesopotamia, which country he cleared of idolatry, dissensions, and other vices. He joined the recollection and penance of a monk with the labors of his functions, and died at Constantinople, in 422, having been sent for to court by Theodosius the Younger, and there treated with the greatest honor on account of his sanctity. The emperor kept one of his mean garments, and wore it himself on certain days, out of respect. See Theodoret Philoth. c. 17, t. 3, p. 847.
ST. AUXENTIUS, H.
HE was a holy hermit in Bithynia, in the fifth age. In his youth he was one of the equestrian guards of Theodosius the Younger, but this state of life, which he discharged with the utmost fidelity to his prince, did not hinder him from making the service of God his main concern. All his spare time was spent in solitude and prayer; and he often visited holy hermits, to spend the nights with them in tears and singing the divine praises, prostrate on the ground. The fear of vain-glory moved him to retire to the desert mountain of Oxen, in Bithynia, eight miles from Constantinople. After the council of Chalcedon, where he appeared upon summons by order of the emperor Marcian, against Eutyches, he chose a cell on the mountain of Siope, near Chalcedon, in which he contributed to the sanctification of many who resorted to him for advice; he finished his martyrdom of penance, together {416} with his life, about 470. Sozomen commended exceedingly his sanctity while he was yet living.[1] St. Stephen the Younger caused the church of his monastery to be dedicated to God, under the invocation of our saint; and mount Siope is called to this day mount St. Auxentius. See his life, written from the relation of his disciple Vendimian, with the remarks of Henschenius.
Footnotes: 1. Sozom. l. 7, c. 21.
ST. CONRAN, BISHOP OF ORKNEY, CONFESSOR.
THE isles of Orkney are twenty-six in number, besides the lesser, called Holmes, which are uninhabited, and serve only for pasture. The faith was planted here by St. Palladius, and St. Sylvester, one of his fellow-laborers, who was appointed by him the first pastor of this church, and was honored in it on the 5th of February. In these islands formerly stood a great number of holy monasteries, the chief of which was Kirkwall. This place was the bishop's residence, and is at this day the only remarkable town in these islands. It is situated in the largest of them, which is thirty miles long, called anciently Pomonia, now Mainland. This church is much indebted to St. Conran, who was bishop here in the seventh century, and whose name, for the austerity of his life, zeal, and eminent sanctity, was no less famous in those parts, so long as the Catholic religion flourished there, than those of St. Palladius and of St. Kentigern. The cathedral of Orkney was dedicated under the invocation of St. Magnus, king of Norway. On St. Conran, see bishop Lesley, Hist. Scot. l. 4. Wion, in addit. c. 3. Ligni Vitæ. King, in Calend.
FEBRUARY XV.
SS. FAUSTINUS AND JOVITA, MM.
A.D. 121.
FAUSTINUS and JOVITA were brothers, nobly born, and zealous professors of the Christian religion, which they preached without fear in their city of Brescia, while the bishop of that place lay concealed during the persecution. The acts of their martyrdom seeming of doubtful authority, all we can affirm with certainty of them is, that their remarkable zeal excited the fury of the heathens against them, and procured them a glorious death for their faith at Brescia, in Lombardy, under the emperor Adrian. Julian, a heathen lord, apprehended them; and the emperor himself passing through Brescia, when neither threats nor torments could shake their constancy, commanded them to be beheaded. They seem to have suffered about the year 121.[1] The city of Brescia honors them as its chief patrons, and possesses their relics. A very ancient church in that city bears their name, and all the martyrologies mention them.
The spirit of Christ is a spirit of martyrdom, at least of mortification and penance. It is always the spirit of the cross. The remains of the old man, of sin and of death, must be extinguished, before one can be made heavenly by putting on affections which are divine. What mortifies the {417} senses and the flesh gives life to the spirit, and what weakens and subdues the body strengthens the soul. Hence the divine love infuses a spirit of mortification, patience, obedience, humility, and meekness, with a love of sufferings and contempt, in which consists the sweetness of the cross. The more we share in the suffering life of Christ, the greater share we inherit in his spirit, and in the fruit of his death. To souls mortified to their senses and disengaged from earthly things, God gives frequent foretastes of the sweetness of eternal life, and the most ardent desire of possessing him in his glory. This is the spirit of martyrdom, which entitles a Christian to a happy resurrection and to the bliss of the life to come.
Footnotes: 1. See Tillemont, t. 2, p. 249. Pagi, &c.
ST. SIGEFRIDE, OR SIGFRID,
BISHOP, APOSTLE OF SWEDES.
From Joan. Magnus, Hist. Goth. l. 17, c. 20, quoted by Bollandus, and chiefly from a life of this saint, compiled at Wexlow about the year 1205, published from an ancient MS. by the care of Ericus Benzelius junior, in his Monuments Historica vetera Ecclesiæ Suevogothicæ, printed at Upsal in 1709, p. 1, ad p. 14, and in Prolegom. Sect. 1. The editor was not able to discover the author's name: upon which he repeats the remark of the learned Maussac, (in Diss. Critica ad Harpocrat.,) that "many monkish writers endeavored to conceal their names out of humility." On which see Mabillon, Diar. Ital. p. 36. Benzelius gives us a considerable fragment of a second life of this holy prelate, ib. p. 21, ad 29, and some verses of bishop Brynoth the third, on St. Sigfrid and the other bishops of this province, ib. p. 72.
Our zealous ancestors having received the light of our faith, propagated the same throughout all the northern provinces of Europe. St. Anscarius had planted the faith in, in 830; but it relapsed soon into idolatry. King Olas Scobcong entreated king Edred, who died in 91{} to send him missionaries to preach the gospel in his country. Sigefride, an eminent priest of York, undertook that mission, and on the 21st of June, in 950, arrived at Wexiow, in Gothland, in the territory of Smaland. He first erected a cross, then built a church of wood, celebrated the divine mysteries, and preached to the people. Twelve principal men of the province were converted by him, and one who died, was buried after the Christian manner, and a cross placed upon his grave. So great numbers were in a short time brought to the faith, that the cross of Christ was triumphantly planted in all the twelve tribes into which the inhabitants of South-Gothland were divided. The fountain near the mountain of Ostrabo, since called Wexiow, in which St. Sigefride baptized the catechumens, long retained the names of the twelve first converts, engraved on a monument. King Olas was much pleased with the accounts he heard of the man of God, and many flocked from remote parts, out of mere curiosity to hear his doctrine, and to see him minister at the altar, admiring the rich ornaments of linen, and over them of silk, which he wore in celebrating the divine mysteries, with a mitre on his head, and a crosier, or pastoral staff, in his hand. Also the gold and silver vessels which he had brought with him for the use of the altar, and the dignity and majesty of the ceremonies of the Christian worship, attracted their attention. But the sublime truths of our religion, and the mortification, disinterestedness, zeal, and sanctity of the apostolic missionaries, engaged them to give them a favorable reception, and to open their eyes to the evidence of the divine revelation. St. Sigefride ordained two bishops, the one of East, the other of West Gothland, or Lingkoping, and Scara. The see of Wexiow he continued himself to govern so long as he lived. His three nephews, Unaman, a priest, and Sunaman and Wiaman, the one a deacon, the other a subdeacon, were his chief assistants in his apostolic labors. Haring intrusted the administration of his see of Wexiow to Unaman, and left his two brothers to assist and comfort him, the saint himself set out to carry {418} the light of the gospel into the midland and northern provinces. King Olas received him with great respect, and was baptized by him, with his whole court and his army. St. Sigefride founded many churches, and consecrated a bishop of Upsal, and another of Strengues. The former of these sees had been founded by St. Anscharius, in 830, and the bishop was declared by pope Alexander III., in 1160, metropolitan and primate of the whole kingdom. During the absence of our saint, a troop of idolatrous rebels, partly out of hatred of the Christian religion, and partly for booty, plundered the church of Wexiow, and barbarously murdered the holy pastor Unaman and his two brothers. Their bodies they buried in the midst of a forest, where they have always remained hid. But the murderers put the heads of the martyrs into a box, which, with a great stone they had fastened to it, they threw into a great pond. But they were afterwards taken out, and kept richly enshrined in the church of Wexiow till their relics were removed by the Lutherans. These three holy martyrs were honored in Sweden. Upon the news of this massacre St. Sigefride hastened to Wexiow to repair the ruins of his church. The king resolved to put the murderers to death; but Sigefride, by his earnest entreaties, prevailed on him to spare their lives. However, he condemned them to pay a heavy fine, which he would have bestowed on the saint, but he refused accepting a single farthing of it, notwithstanding his extreme poverty, and the difficulties which he had to struggle with, in laying the foundation of that new church. He had inherited the spirit of the apostles in an heroic degree. Our saint died about the year 1002, and was buried in his cathedral at Wexiow, where his tomb became famous for miracles. He was canonized about the year 1158, by pope Adrian IV.,[1] an Englishman, who had himself labored zealously, and with great success, in the conversion of Norway, and other northern countries, about a hundred and forty years after St. Sigefride, who was honored by the Swedes as their apostle, till the change of religion among them.[2]
Footnotes: 1. Vastove, Vinea Aquilonis. 2. In the life of St. Sigefride, published by Benzelius, it is mentioned, that St. Sigefride, upon his first arrival in Sweden, preached chiefly by interpreters.
FEBRUARY XVI.
ST. ONESIMUS, DISCIPLE OF ST. PAUL.
HE was a Phrygian by birth, slave to Philemon, a person of note of the city of Colossæ, converted to the faith by St. Paul. Having robbed his master, and being obliged to fly, he providentially met with St. Paul, then a prisoner for the faith at Rome, who there converted and baptized him, and sent him with his canonical letter of recommendation to Philemon, by whom he was pardoned, set at liberty, and sent back to his spiritual father, whom he afterwards faithfully served. That apostle made him, with Tychicus, the bearer of his epistle to the Colossians,[1] and afterwards, as St. Jerom[2] and other fathers witness, a preacher of the gospel, and a bishop. The Greeks say he was crowned with martyrdom under Domitian, in the year 95, and {419} keep his festival on the 15th. Bede, Ado, Usuard, the Roman and other Latin martyrologists mention him on the 16th of February.[3]
Baronius and some others confound him with St. Onesimus, the third bishop of Ephesus, after St. Timothy, who was succeeded first by John, then by Caius. This Onesimus showed great respect and charity to St. Ignatius, when on his journey to Rome, in 107, and is highly commended by him.[4]
* * * * *
When a sinner, by the light and power of an extraordinary grace, is snatched like a firebrand out of the fire, and rescued from the gates of hell, we cannot wonder if he is swallowed up by the deepest and most lively sense of his own guilt, and of the divine mercy; if such a one loves much, because much has been forgiven him; if he endeavors to repair his past crimes by heroic acts of penance and all virtues, and if he makes haste to redeem his lost time by a zeal and vigilance hard to be imitated by others. Hence we read of the first love of the church of Ephesus[5] as more perfect. The ardor of the compunction and love of a true penitent, is compared to the unparalleled love of Judah in the day of her espousal.[6] This ardor is not to be understood as a passing sally of the purest passions, as a shortlived fit of fervor, or desire of perfection, as a transient taste or sudden transport of the soul: it must be sincere and constant. With what excess of goodness does God communicate himself to souls which thus open themselves to him! With what caresses does he often visit them! With what a profusion of graces does he enrich and strengthen them! It often happens that, in the beginning, God, either to allure the frailty of a new convert, or to fortify his resolution against hazardous trials, favors him with more than usual communications of the sweetness of his love, and ravishes him by some glances, as it were, of the beatific vision. His tenderness was not less, when, for their spiritual advancement, their exercise in heroic virtues, and the increase of their victories and glory, he conducted them through severe trials. On the other side, with what fidelity and ardor did these holy penitents improve themselves daily in divine love and all virtues! Alas! our coldness and insensibility, since our pretended conversion from the world and sin, is a far greater subject of amazement than the extraordinary fervor of the saints in the divine service.
Footnotes: 1. Colos. iv. 2. Ep. 62, c. 2. 3. Tillem. t. 1, p. 294, and note 10, on St. Paul. 4. Ep. ad Ephes. 5. Apoc. 11. 4. 6. Jerem. 11. 2.
SS. ELIAS, JEREMY, ISAIAS, SAMUEL, AND DANIEL,
WITH OTHER HOLY MARTYRS AT CÆSAREA, IN PALESTINE.
From Eusebius's relation of the martyrs of Palestine, at the end of the eighth book of his history, c. 11, 12, p. 346. Ed. Vales.
A.D. 309.
In the year 309, the emperors Galerius Maximianus and Maximinus continuing the persecution begun by Dioclesian, these five pious Egyptians went to visit the confessors condemned to the mines in Cilicia, and on their return were stopped by the guards of the gates of Cæsarea, in Palestine, as they were entering the town. They readily declared themselves Christians, together with the motive of their journey; upon which they were apprehended. The day following they were brought before Firmilian, the governor of Palestine, together with St. Pamphilus and others. The judge, before {420} he began his interrogatory, ordered the five Egyptians to be laid on the rack, as was his custom. After they had long suffered all manner of tortures, he addressed himself to him who seemed to be their chief, and asked him his name and his country. They had changed their names, which, perhaps, before their conversion, were those of some heathen gods, as was customary in Egypt. The martyr answered, according to the names they had given themselves, that he was called Elias, and his companions, Jeremy, Isaias, Samuel, and Daniel. Firmilian then asked their country; he answered, Jerusalem, meaning the heavenly Jerusalem, the true country of all Christians. The judge inquired in what part of the world that was, and ordered him to be tormented with fresh cruelty. All this while the executioners continued to tear his body with stripes, while his hands were bound behind him, and his feet squeezed in the woodstocks, called the Nervus. The judge, at last, tired with tormenting them, condemned all five to be beheaded, which was immediately executed.
Porphyrius, a youth who was a servant of St. Pamphilus, hearing the sentence pronounced, cried out, that at least the honor of burial ought not to be refused them. Firmilian, provoked at this boldness, ordered him to be apprehended, and finding that he confessed himself a Christian, and refused to sacrifice, ordered his sides to be torn so cruelly, that his very bones and bowels were exposed to view. He underwent all this without a sigh or tear, or so much as making the least complaint. The tyrant, not to be overcome by so heroic a constancy, gave orders for a great fire to be kindled, with a vacant space to be left in the midst of it, for the martyr to be laid in, when taken off the rack. This was accordingly done, and he lay there a considerable time, surrounded by the flames, singing the praises of God, and invoking the name of Jesus; till at length, quite broiled by the fire, he consummated a slow, but glorious martyrdom.
Seleucus, an eye-witness of this victory, was heard by the soldiers applauding the martyr's resolution; and being brought before the governor, he, without more ado, ordered his head to be struck off.
ST. JULIANA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR.
AFTER many torments, she was beheaded at Nicomedia, under Galerius Maximianus. St. Gregory the great mentions that her bones were translated to Rome. Part of them are now at Brussels, in the church of our Lady of Sablon. This saint is much honored in the Low Countries. Her acts in Bollandus deserve no notice. Bede, and martyrologies ascribed to St. Jerom, call this the day of her martyrdom, which the ancient Corbie manuscript places at Nicomedia. See Chatelain's notes on the martyrology, p. 667.
ST. GREGORY X., POPE, C.
HE was of an illustrious family, born at Placentia, and at his baptism was called Theobald. In his youth he was distinguished for his extraordinary virtue, and his progress in his studies, especially of the canon law, which he began in Italy, and pursued at Paris, and lastly at Liege. He was archdeacon of this last church when he received an order from the pope to preach the crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land. Incredible were the pains which he took in executing this commission, and in reconciling the Christian princes, who were at variance. The death of St. Lewis, in 1270, {421} struck a damp upon the spirits of the Christians in the East, though the prince of Wales, soon after Edward I., king of England, sailed from Sicily, in March, 1271, to their assistance, took Jaffa and Nazareth, and plundered Antioch. A tender compassion for the distressed situation of the servants of Christ in those parts, moved the holy archdeacon of Liege to undertake a dangerous pilgrimage to Palestine, in order to comfort them, and at the same time to satisfy his devotion by visiting the holy places. The see of Rome had been vacant almost three years, from the death of Clement IV. to November, 1268, the cardinals who were assembled at Viterbo not coming to an agreement in the choice of a pope, till, by common consent, they referred his election to six among them, who, on the 1st of September, in 1271, nominated Theobald, the archdeacon of Liege. Upon the news of his election, he prepared himself to return to Italy. Nothing could be more tender and moving than his last farewell to the disconsolate Christians of Palestine, whom he promised, in a most solemn manner, never to forget. He arrived at Rome in March, and was first ordained priest, then consecrated bishop, and crowned on the 27th of the same month, in 1272. He took the name of Gregory X., and, to procure the most effectual succor to the Holy Land, called a general council to meet at Lyons, where pope Innocent IV. had held the last in 1245, partly for the same purpose of the holy war, and partly to endeavor to reclaim the emperor Frederick II. The city of Lyons was most convenient for the meeting of those princes whose succors were principally expected for the holy war; and was most unexceptionable, because at that time it acknowledged no other sovereign than its archbishop. Henry III., king of England, died on the 16th of November, 1272, and Edward I., who had concluded a peace of ten years with the Saracens, in the name of the Christians in Syria and Palestine, returned for England, and on the road at Trapani, in Sicily, met the news of his father's death. In the same place he received most obliging letters from pope Gregory X. The fourteenth general council, the second of Lyons, was opened in that city in May, 1274, in which were assembled five hundred bishops and seventy abbots. In the fourth session, the Greek ambassadors (who were, Germanus, formerly patriarch of Constantinople, Theophanes, archbishop of Nice, and the senator, George Acropolita, great logothete, or chancellor) were admitted. The logothete abjured the schism in the name of the emperor Michael Palæologus; and the pope, while Te Deum was sung, stood with his cheeks all the time bathed in tears. St. Thomas Aquinas died on the 7th of March, before the opening of the council, and St. Bonaventure at Lyons, on the 15th of July. The council was closed by the fifth and last session, on the 17th of July. The more our holy pope was overwhelmed with public affairs, the more watchful he was over his own soul, and the more earnest in the interior duties of self-examination, contemplation, and prayer. He spoke little, conversing assiduously in his heart with God; he was very abstemious in his diet, and most rigorous to himself in all things. By this crucified life, his soul was prepared to taste the hidden manna which is concealed in the divine word, with which he continually nourished it in holy meditation. After the council he was taken up in concerting measures for carrying its decrees into execution, particularly those relating to the crusade in the East. By his unwearied application to business, and the fatigues of his journey, in passing the Alps in his return to Rome, he contracted a distemper, of which he died at Arezzo, on the 10th of January, in 1276, three years and nine months after his consecration, and four years, four months, and ten days after his election. His name is inserted in the Roman Martyrology, published by Benedict XIV., on the 16th of February. See Platina, Ciacconius, St. Antoninus, Hist. part 3, it. 20, c. 2. The account of his life and miracles in {422} the archives of the tribunal of the Rota, and in Benedict XIV. de Canoniz. l. 2, t. 2, Append. 8, p. 673; the proofs of his miracles, ib. p. 709; also, ib. l. 2, c. 24, sec. 37 and 42; and l. 1, c. 20, n. 17. See likewise his life, copied from a MS. history of several popes, by Bernard Guidonis, published by Muratori, Scriptor. Ital. t. 3, p. 597, and another life of this pope, written before the canonization of St. Lewis, in which mention is made of miraculous cures performed by him, ibid. pp. 599, 604.
ST. TANCO, OR TATTA, B.M.
PATTON, abbot of Amabaric, in Scotland, passing into Germany to preach the gospel, and being chosen bishop of Verdun, Tanco, who had served God many years in that abbey in great reputation for his singular learning and piety, was raised to the dignity of abbot. Out of an ardent thirst after martyrdom, he resigned this charge, and followed his countryman and predecessor into Germany, where, after some time, he succeeded him in the see of Verdun, of which he was the third bishop. His success in propagating the faith was exceeding great, but it was to him a subject of inexpressible grief to see many who professed themselves Christians, live enslaved to shameful passions. In order to convert, or at least to confound them, he preached a most zealous sermon against the vices which reigned among them; at which a barbarous mob was so enraged as fiercely to assault him; and one of them, stabbing him with a lance, procured him the glorious crown of martyrdom, about the year 815. This account of him is given us by Krantzius, (l. 1, Metrop. c. 22 & 29.) Lesley, l. 5, Hist. Wion, l. 3, Ligni Vitæ.
FEBRUARY XVII.
ST. FLAVIAN, M.
ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
From the councils, and historians Cedrenus, Evagrius, Theophanes, &c. See Baronius, Henschenius. t. 3, Feb. p. 71. Fleury, l. 27, 28. Quesnel, in his edition of the works of St. Leo, t. 2, diss. 1, and F. Cacciari, t. 3, Exercit. in opera St. Leonis, Romæ, an. 1755. Dissert. 4, de Eutychiana Hær. l. 1, c. 2, p. 322; c. 8, p. 383; c. 9, p. 393, c. 11, p. 432.
A.D. 449
ST. FLAVIAN was a priest of distinguished merit, and treasurer of the church of Constantinople, when he succeeded St. Proclus in the archiepiscopal dignity in 447. The eunuch Chrysaphius, chamberlain to the emperor Theodosius the Younger, and a particular favorite, suggested to his master, a weak prince, to require of him a present, out of gratitude to the emperor for his promotion. The holy bishop sent him some blessed bread, according to the custom of the church at that time, as a benediction and symbol of communion. Chrysaphius let him know that it was a present of a very different kind that was expected from him. St. Flavian, an enemy to simony, answered resolutely, than the revenues and treasure of the church were designed for other uses, namely, the honor of God and the relief of his poor. The eunuch, highly provoked at the bishop's refusal, from that moment {423} resolved to contrive his ruin. Wherefore, with a view to his expulsion, he persuaded the emperor, by the means of his wife Eudoxia, to order the bishop to make Pulcheria, sister to Theodosius, a deaconess of his church. The saint's refusal was a second offence in the eyes of the sycophants of the court. The next year Chrysaphius was still more grievously offended with our saint for his condemning the errors of his kinsman Eutyches, abbot of a monastery of three hundred monks, near the city, who had acquired a reputation for virtue, but in effect was no better than an ignorant, proud, and obstinate man. His intemperate zeal against Nestorius, for asserting two distinct persons in Christ, threw him into the opposite error, that of denying two distinct natures after the incarnation.
In a council, held by St. Flavian in 448, Eutyches was accused of this error by Eusebius of Dorylæum, his former friend, and it was there condemned as heretical, and the author was cited to appear to give an account of his faith. On the day appointed in the last summons he appeared before the council, but attended by two of the principal officers of the court, and a troop of the imperial guards. Being admitted and interrogated on the point in question, that is, his faith concerning the incarnation; he declared that he acknowledged indeed two natures before the union, but after it only one. To all reasonings and authority produced against his tenet, his reply was, that he did not come thither to dispute, but to satisfy the assembly what his faith was. The council, upon this, anathematized and deposed him, and St. Flavian pronounced the sentence, which was subscribed by thirty-two bishops and twenty-three abbots, of which last eighteen were priests. Eutyches said privately to his guards, that he appealed to the bishops of Rome, Egypt, and Jerusalem; and in a letter he wrote to St. Leo to complain of his usage in the council, he endeavored to impose on the pope. But his Holiness being informed of the state of the affair by St. Flavian, wrote to him an ample declaration of the orthodox faith upon the point which was afterwards read, and inserted in the acts of the council of Chalcedon, in which the errors of Eutyches were solemnly condemned. Chrysaphius, however, had interest enough with the weak emperor to obtain an order for a re-examination of the cause between St. Flavian and Eutyches in another council. This met in April, 449, consisting of about thirty bishops, one third whereof had assisted at the late council. St. Flavian being looked on as a party, Thalassius, bishop of Cæsarea, presided in his room. After the strictest scrutiny into every particular, the impiety of Eutyches, and the justice of our saint's proceedings, clearly appeared. St. Flavian presented to the emperor a profession of his faith, wherein he condemned the errors of both Eutyches and Nestorius, his adversaries pretending that he favored the latter.
Chrysaphius, though baffled in his attempts, was still bent on the ruin of the holy bishop, and employed all his craft and power to save Eutyches and destroy Flavian. With this view he wrote to Dioscorus, a man of a violent temper, who had succeeded St. Cyril in the patriarchal see of Alexandria, promising him his friendship and favor in all his designs, if he would undertake the defence of the deposed abbot against Flavian and Eusebius. Dioscorus came into his measures; and, by their joint interest with the empress Eudoxia, glad of an opportunity to mortify Pulcheria, who had a high esteem for our saint, they prevailed with the emperor to order a council to be called at Ephesus, to determine the dispute. Dioscorus was invited by the emperor to come and preside in it, accompanied with ten metropolitans and other bishops, together with the archimandrite, or abbot Barsumas, a man strongly attached to Eutyches and Dioscorus. The like directions were sent to the other patriarchs. St. Leo, who was invited, though late, sent legatee to act {424} in his name, Julius, bishop of Puteoli, Renatus, a priest, who died on the road, Hilarius, a deacon, and Dulcitius, a notary. He sent by them a learned letter to St. Flavian, in which he taxes the ignorance of Eutyches in the holy scriptures, and explains the Catholic doctrine against that heresiarch, which he also did by other letters.
The false council of Ephesus, for the violences therein used commonly called the Latrocinale, was opened on the 8th of August, in 449, and consisted of one hundred and thirty bishops, or their deputies, from Egypt and the East. Eutyches was there, and two officers from the emperor, with a great number of soldiers. Every thing was carried on, by violence and open faction, in favor of Eutyches, by those officers and bishops who had espoused his party and formed a cabal. The pope's legates were never suffered to read his letters to the council. The final result of the proceedings was, to pronounce sentence of deposition against St. Flavian and Eusebius. The pope's legates protested against the sentence. Hilarius, the deacon, cried out aloud, "contradicitur," opposition is made; which Latin word was inserted in the Greek acts of the synod. And Dioscorus no sooner began to read the sentence, but he was interrupted by several of the bishops, who, prostrating themselves before him, besought him, in the most submissive terms, to proceed no further in so unwarrantable an affair. Upon this he starts up, and calls aloud for the imperial commissioners, Elpidius and Eulogius, who, without more ado, ordered the church doors to be set open; upon which Proclus, the proconsul of Asia, entered, surrounded with a band of soldiers, and followed by a confused multitude with chains, clubs, and swords. This struck such a terror into the whole assembly, that, when the bishops were required by Dioscorus and his creatures to subscribe, few or none had the courage to withstand his threats, the pope's legates excepted, who protested aloud against these violent proceedings; one of whom was imprisoned; the other, Hilarius, got off with much difficulty, and came safe to Rome. St. Flavian, on hearing the sentence read by Dioscorus, appealed from him to the holy see, and delivered his acts of appeal in writing to the pope's legates, then present. This so provoked Dioscorus,[1] that, together with Barsumas and others of their party,[2] after throwing the holy bishop on the ground, they so kicked and bruised him, that he died within a few days, in 449, not at Ephesus, as some have said by mistake, but in his exile at Epipus, two days' journey from that city, situated near Sardes in Lydia, as Marcellinus testifies in his chronicle.
The council being over, Dioscorus, with two of his Egyptian bishops, had the insolence to excommunicate St. Leo. But violence and injustice did not triumph long. For the emperor's eyes being opened on his sister Pulcheria's return to court, whom the ambition of Chrysaphius had found means to remove in the beginning of these disturbances, the eunuch was disgraced, and soon after put to death; and the empress Eudoxia obliged to retire to Jerusalem. The next year the emperor died, as Cedrenus says, penitent; and Pulcheria, ascending the throne in 450, ordered Saint Flavian's body to be brought with great honor to Constantinople, and there magnificently interred, among his predecessors in that see. St. Leo had, upon the first news of these proceedings, written to him to comfort him, as also to Theodosius, Pulcheria, and the clergy of Constantinople, in his defence. The general council of Chalcedon declared him a saint and martyr, and paid great honors to his memory, in 451. The same council honorably restored Eusebius of Dorylæum to his see. Pope Hilarius, who had been St. Leo's legate at Ephesus, had so great a veneration for the saint, that he caused his martyrdom {425} to be represented in mosaic work, in the church which he built in honor of the holy Cross. The wicked Dioscorus was condemned by the council of Chalcedon, in 451, and died obstinate and impenitent, in the Eutychian heresy, and his other crimes, in his banishment at Gangres, in 454.
* * * * *
It was the glory of St. Flavian to die a martyr of the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God. This is the fundamental article of the Christian religion, and, above all other mysteries, challenges our most profound homages and constant devotion. In it hath God displayed, in the most incomprehensible manner, the astonishing immensity of his power, mercy, wisdom, and love, the contemplation of which will be the sweet occupation of angels and saints to all eternity. The servants of God on earth find their greatest delight in meditating on this great mystery, and in profound adoration and transports of love, honoring, praising, and glorifying their divine Saviour, and studying to put on his spirit by the constant union in mind and heart, or of their thoughts and affections, with him. Is it possible that we who believe in this God, who annihilated himself, and died for us most miserable and ungrateful sinners, should not die of love for him? At least, how is it possible we should not always have him present to our minds, and prostrate ourselves at his feet a thousand times a day to return him our most humble thanks, and to pay him the homages of our adoration, love, and praise? The more he is insulted in this mystery of goodness itself, by the blasphemies of unbelievers and heretics, the greater ought to be our zeal and fervor in honoring it. But as the incarnation is the mystery of the unfathomed humility of a God to heal the wound of our pride, it is only by humility, and the annihilation of creatures in our hearts, that we can be disposed to contemplate or honor it with fruit. The dreadful fall and impenitence of Eutyches, after he had renounced the world with a view to give himself to God, were owing to the fatal sin of a secret pride.
Footnotes: 1. Evag. l. xi. c. 11. 2. Conc. Calced. act. 4.
SS. THEODULUS AND JULIAN, MM.
THEY suffered at Cæsarea, in Palestine, at the same time with those mentioned yesterday, but are named on this day in the Roman Martyrology. Theodulus was an old man of eminent virtue and wisdom, who enjoyed one of the most honorable posts in the household of Firmilian, the governor of Palestine, and had several sons. His personal merit gained him the love of all that knew him, and the governor had a particular esteem for him. This holy man had seen the invincible courage and patience of the five Egyptian martyrs at Cæsarea, and, going to the prisons, made use of their example to encourage the other confessors, and prepare them for the like battles. Firmilian, vexed at this conduct of an old favorite servant, sent for him, reproached him strongly with ingratitude, and, without hearing his defence, condemned him to be crucified. Theodulus received the sentence with joy, and went with transports to a death which was speedily to unite him to his Saviour, and in which he was thought worthy to bear a near resemblance to him. Julian, who shared the glory of that day with the other martyrs, was a Cappadocian, as was also St. Seleucus; he was only a catechumen, though highly esteemed by the faithful for his many great virtues, and he was just then come to Cæsarea. At his arrival, hearing of the conflicts of the martyrs, he ran to the place, and finding the execution over, expressed his veneration for them, by kissing and embracing the bodies which had been animated by those heroic and happy souls. The guards apprehended {426} him, and carried him to the governor, who, finding him as inflexible as the rest, would not lose his time in useless interrogatories, but immediately ordered him to be burnt. Julian, now master of all he wished for, gave God thanks for the honor done him by this sentence, and begged he would be pleased to accept of his life as a voluntary sacrifice. The courage and cheerfulness which he maintained to his last moment, filled his executioners with surprise and confusion. See Eusebius, an eye-witness, l. de Mart. Palæst. c. 12, p. 337.
ST. SILVIN OF AUCHY, B.C.
HE was born of a considerable family in the territory of Thoulouse, and passed his first years at the court of two successive kings, Childeric II. and Theodoric III. Every thing was ready for his marriage, when, powerfully touched by divine grace, he renounced all worldly prospects, and retired from court. His thoughts were now bent upon Jesus Christ alone, and he longed for nothing so much as to enjoy silence and solitude. After several devout penitential pilgrimages to Jerusalem and other places, he took orders at Rome, and was consecrated bishop, some say of Thoulouse, others of Terouenne. But his name is not found in any ancient register of either of those churches, and it is now agreed, among the most judicious critics, that he was ordained a regionary bishop to preach the gospel to infidels. His zeal carried him into the north of France, and he spent most of his time in the diocese of Terouenne, which was then full of Pagans, and Christians but one remove from them. He was indefatigable in preaching to them the great truths and essential obligations of our holy faith, and taught them to despise and renounce the pleasures of this life, by appearing on all occasions a strong lesson of self-denial and mortification. Instructing them thus, both by words and actions, he gathered a large harvest in a wild and uncultivated field. After many years thus spent, he died at Auchy, in the county of Artois, on the 15th of February, in 718. He is commemorated in Usuard, the Belgic and Roman Martyrologies, on the 17th, which was the day of his burial: but at Auchy on the 15th. The greatest part of his relics is now at St. Bertin's, at St. Omers, whither they were carried in 951, for fear of the Normans. Usuard is the first who styles St. Silvin bishop of Terouenne. Some think he was born, not at Thoulouse, but at Thosa, or Doest, near Bruges; or rather at another Thosa, now Doesbury, in Brabant; for in his life it is said that he travelled westward to preach the gospel. His original life, which was ascribed to Antenor, a disciple of the saint, is lost: that which we have was compiled in the ninth century. See Bolland. t. 3, Feb. p. 29, Mabillon, Act. Bened. Sæc. 3, par. 1, p. 298. Chatelain's Notes, p. 659.
ST. LOMAN, OR LUMAN, B.C.
JOCELIN calls him a nephew of St. Patrick, by a sister. He was at least a disciple of that saint, and first bishop of Trim, in Meath. Port-Loman, a town belonging to the Nugents in West-meath, takes its name from him, and honors his memory with singular veneration. St. Forcher{n}, son of the lord of that territory, was baptized by St. Loman, succeeded him in the bishopric of Trim, and is honored among the saints in Ireland, both on this same day and on the 11th of October. See Colgan on the 17th Febr. Usher's Antiqu. ad ann. 433.
{427}
ST. FINTAN, ABBOT OF CLUAINEDNECH,
WHICH Usher interprets the Ivy-Cave, in the diocese of Lethglean, in Leinster, in the sixth century. He had for disciple St. Comgal, the founder of the abbey of Benchor, and master of St. Columban. Colgan reckons twenty-four Irish saints of the name of Fintan; but probably several of these were the same person honored in several places. Another St. Fintan, surnamed Munnu, who is honored on the 21st of October, was very famous. See Colgan, Usher, and Henschenius.
FEBRUARY XVIII.
ST. SIMEON, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM, M.
From Euseb. l. 3, c. 32. Tillem. t. 1, p. 186, and t. 2. Le Quien, Oriens Christ. t. 3, p. 140.
A.D. 116
ST. SIMEON was the son of Cleophas, otherwise called Alpheus, brother to St. Joseph, and of Mary, sister of the Blessed Virgin. He was therefore nephew both to St. Joseph and to the Blessed Virgin, and cousin-german to Christ. Simeon and Simon are the same name, and this saint is, according to the best interpreters of the holy scripture, the Simon mentioned,[1] who was brother to St. James the Lesser, and St. Jude, apostles, and to Joseph or José. He was eight or nine years older than our Saviour. We cannot doubt but he was an early follower of Christ, as his father and mother and three brothers were, and an exception to that of St. John,[2] that our Lord's relations did not believe in him. Nor does St. Luke[3] leave us any room to doubt but that he received the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, with the blessed Virgin and the apostles; for he mentions present St. James and St. Jude, and the brothers of our Lord. St. Epiphanius relates,[4] that when the Jews massacred St. James the Lesser, his brother Simeon reproached them for their atrocious cruelty. St. James, bishop of Jerusalem, being put to death in the year 62, twenty-nine years after our Saviour's resurrection, the apostles and disciples met at Jerusalem to appoint him a successor. They unanimously chose St. Simeon, who had probably before assisted his brother in the government of that church.
In the year 66, in which SS. Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom at Rome, the civil war began in Judea, by the seditions of the Jews against the Romans. The Christians in Jerusalem were warned by God of the impending destruction of that city, and by a divine revelation[5] commanded to leave it, as Lot was rescued out of Sodom. They therefore departed out of it the same year, before Vespasian, Nero's general, and afterward emperor, entered Judæa, and retired beyond Jordan to a small city called Pella; having St. Simeon at their head. After the taking and burning of Jerusalem they returned thither again, and settled themselves amidst its {428} ruins, till Adrian afterwards entirely razed it. St. Epiphanius[6] and Eusebius[7] assure us, that the church here flourished extremely, and that multitudes of Jews were converted by the great number of prodigies and miracles wrought in it.
St. Simeon, amidst the consolations of the Holy Ghost and the great progress of the church, had the affliction to see two heresies arise within its bosom, namely, those of the Nazareans and the Ebionites; the first seeds of which, according to St. Epiphanius, appeared at Pella. The Nazareans were a sect of men between Jews and Christians, but abhorred by both. They allowed Christ to be the greatest of the prophets, but said he was a mere man, whose natural parents were Joseph and Mary: they joined all the ceremonies of the old law with the new, and observed both the Jewish Sabbath and the Sunday. Ebion added other errors to these, which Cerenthus had also espoused, and taught many superstitions, permitted divorces, and allowed of the most infamous abominations. He began to preach at Cocabe, a village beyond Jordan, where he dwelt; but he afterwards travelled into Asia, and thence to Rome. The authority of St. Simeon kept the heretics in some awe during his life, which was the longest upon earth of any of our Lord's disciples. But, as Eusebius says, he was no sooner dead than a deluge of execrable heresies broke out of hell upon the church, which durst not openly appear during his life.
Vespasian and Domitian had commanded all to be put to death who were of the race of David. St. Simeon had escaped their searches; but Trajan having given the same order, certain heretics and Jews accused him, as being both of the race of David and a Christian, to Atticus, the Roman governor in Palestine. The holy bishop was condemned by him to be crucified: who, after having undergone the usual tortures during several days, which, though one hundred and twenty years old, he suffered with so much patience that he drew on him a universal admiration, and that of Atticus in particular, he died in 107, according to Eusebius in his chronicle, but in 116, according to Dodwell, bishop Loyde, and F. Pagi. He must have governed the church of Jerusalem about forty-three years.
* * * * *
The eminent saints among the primitive disciples of Jesus Christ, were entirely animated by his spirit, and being dead to the world and themselves, they appeared like angels among men. Free from the secret mixture of the sinister views of all passions, to a degree which was a miracle of grace, they had in all things only God, his will and honor, before their eyes, equally aspiring to him through honor and infamy. In the midst of human applause they remained perfectly humbled in the centre of their own nothing: when loaded with reproaches and contempt, and persecuted with all the rage that malice could inspire, they were raised above all these things so as to stand fearless amid racks and executioners, inflexibly constant in their fidelity to God, before tyrants, invincible under torments, and superior to them almost as if they had been impassible. Their resolution never failed them, their fervor seemed never slackened. Such wonderful men wrought continual miracles in converting souls to God. We bear the name of Christians, and wear the habit of Saints; but are full of the spirit of worldlings, and our actions are infected with its poison. We secretly seek ourselves, even when we flatter ourselves that God is our only aim, and while we undertake to convert the world, we suffer it to pervert us. When shall we begin to study to crucify our passions and die to ourselves, that we may lay a solid foundation of true virtue, and establish its reign in our hearts?
Footnotes: 1. Matt. xiii.55. 2. John vii. 5. 3. Acts i. 14. 4. Hær. 78. c. 14. 5. Eus. l. 3, c. 5, Epiph. hær. 29, c. 7, hær. 30, c. 2. 6. L. de Pond. et Mensur. c. 15. 7. Demonst. l. 3, c. 5.
{429}
SS. LEO AND PAREGORIUS, MARTYRS
From their ancient authentic acts in Ruinart, Bollandus, &c.
THIRD AGE.
ST. PAREGORIUS having spilt his blood for the faith at Patara, in Lycia, St. Leo, who had been a witness of his conflict, found his heart divided between joy for his friend's glorious victory, and sorrow to see himself deprived of the happiness of sharing in it. The proconsul of Asia being absent in order to wait on the emperors, probably Valerian and Galien, the governor of Lycia, residing at Patara, to show his zeal for the idols, published an order on the festival of Serapis, to oblige all to offer sacrifice to that false god. Leo seeing the heathens out of superstition, and some Christians out of fear, going in crowds to adore the idol, sighed within himself, and went to offer up his prayers to the true God, on the tomb of St. Paregorius, to which he passed before the temple of Serapis, it lying in his way to the martyr's tomb. The heathens that were sacrificing in it knew him to be a Christian by his modesty. He had exercised himself from his childhood in the austerities and devotions of an ascetic life, and possessed, in an eminent degree, chastity, temperance, and all other virtues. His clothes were of a coarse cloth made of camel's hair. Not long after his return home from the tomb of the martyr, with his mind full of the glorious exit of his friend, he fell asleep, and from a dream he had on that occasion, understood, when he awaked, that God called him to a conflict of the same kind with that of St. Paregorius, which filled him with inexpressible joy and comfort.
Wherefore, the next time he visited the martyr's tomb, instead of going to the place through by-roads, he went boldly through the market-place, and by the Tychæaum, or temple of Fortune, which he saw illuminated with lanterns. He pitied their blindness; and, being moved with zeal for the honor of the true God, he made no scruple to break as many of the lanterns as were within reach, and trampled on the tapers in open view, saying: "Let your gods revenge the injury if they are able to do it." The priest of the idol having raised the populace, cried out: "Unless this impiety be punished, the goddess Fortune will withdraw her protection from the city." An account of this affair soon reached the ears of the governor, who ordered the saint to be brought before him, and on his appearance addressed him in this manner; "Wicked wretch, thy sacrilegious action surely bespeaks thee either ignorant of the immortal gods, or downright mad, in flying in the face of our most divine emperors, whom we justly regard as secondary deities and saviours." The martyr replied with great calmness: "You are under a great mistake, in supposing a plurality of gods; there is but one, who is the God of heaven and earth, and who does not stand in need of being worshipped after that gross manner that men worship idols. The most acceptable sacrifice we can offer him is that of a contrite and humble heart." "Answer to your indictment," said the governor, "and don't preach your Christianity. I thank the gods, however, that they have not suffered you to lie concealed after such a sacrilegious attempt. Choose therefore either to sacrifice to them, with those that are here present, or to suffer the punishment due to your impiety." The martyr said: "The fear of torments shall never draw me from my duty. I am ready to suffer all you shall inflict. All your tortures cannot reach beyond death. Eternal life is not to be attained but by the way of tribulations; the scripture accordingly {430} informs us, that narrow is the way that leads to life." "Since you own the way you walk in is narrow," said the governor, "exchange it for ours, which is broad and commodious." "When I called it narrow," said the martyr, "this was only because it is not entered without difficulty, and that its beginnings are often attended with afflictions and persecutions for justice sake. But being once entered, it is not difficult to keep in it by the practice of virtue, which helps to widen it and render it easy to those that persevere in it, which has been done by many."