The eighth tome is composed of the homilies of St. Chrysostom upon St. John, which are eighty-eight in number, though in former Latin editions, in imitation of Morellus, the first is called preface, and only eighty-seven bear the title of homilies. They were preached at Antioch, about the year 394, at break of day, long before the usual hour of the sermon (Hom. 31.) We find here the same elevation of thought, the same genius and lively imagination, and the same strength of reasoning which we admire in those on St. Matthew; but the method is different. After a short literal exposition of the text, the holy doctor frequently inserts polemical discussions, in which he proves the Consubstantiality of the Son against the Anomæans. Hence his moral reflections in the end are short: in which, nevertheless, he is always admirable, especially when he speaks of the love which God testifies for us in the mystery of the Incarnation. (See Hom. 27, olim 26, p. 156.) He observes that Christ miraculously multiplied five loaves, before he gave his solemn promise of the Eucharist, which he calls "The miracle of mysteries," and this he did, says our saint, "That being taught by that miracle, they might not doubt in giving credit to his words--that not only by love, but in reality, we are mingled with his flesh." (Hom. 46, olim 45, in Joan. t. 8, p. 272.) Christ by this institution thus invites us to his heavenly banquet, says our saint. "I feed you with my flesh, I give you myself for your banquet. I would become your brother: for your sake, I took upon myself flesh and blood: Again, I give you the flesh and blood, by which I have made myself of the same nature and kindred with you, ([Greek: suggenês], congener.) This blood by being poured forth has cleansed the whole world. This blood has purified the sanctuaries and the Holy of Holies. If its figure had so great efficacy in the temple of the Hebrews, and sprinkled on the doors of Egypt, the truth will have much greater." (Ib. p. 273.) He calls the holy Eucharist "the tremendous mysteries, the dreadful altar," [Greek: frikta ontôs ta musêria, frikton ontôs to fusiastêrion], (ib.,) and says, "When you approach the sacred cup, come as if you were going to drink the blood flowing from his side." (Hom. 85, olim 84, in Joan. p. 507.)
The fifty-five homilies On the Acts of the Apostles, he preached at Constantinople in the third year of his episcopal dignity, of our Lord 401, as appears from Hom. 44, p. 335, t. 9. The famous censure of Erasmus, who judged them absolutely unworthy of our saint, (ep. ad Warham. archiepiscopum Cantuarens,) is well known: Billius, on the contrary, thinks them very elegant. Both judgments show how far prepossession is capable of misleading the most learned men. That this work is undoubtedly genuine, is demonstrated by Sir Henry Saville. Photius justly admires an admirable eloquence, rich veins of gold scattered through it, and the moral instructions are so noble and beautiful, that no other genius but that of a Chrysostom could have formed them. The style indeed, in many parts of the comments, is not regular or correct; which might be owing to some indisposition, or to an extraordinary hurry of troublesome affairs, to a confusion of mind, and to alarms, the city being then in imminent danger by the revolt and blockade of Gainas, and in daily fears of being plundered by that barbarian. In the first homily our saint speaks against those who deferred to receive baptism, for fear of forfeiting the grace by relapsing into sin: which delay he shows to imply a wilful and obstinate contempt of God and his grace, with the guilt of a base and inexcusable sloth, like one who should desire to enrol himself in the army when the war was over, yet expect a share in the triumph; or a wrestler who should enter the lists when the games are closed. He adds, that in sickness, under alarms and pains, it is scarce to be hoped that a person will be able to dispose himself for so great a sacrament. Prudent men make their wills while in health, imagining that at best they will retain their senses but by halves at the approaches of death; and can we think dying men capable of duly making so solemn an engagement with God? He assures his flock that he is notable to express the consternation, grief, and agony, with which he is seized whenever he hears of any one being dead without baptism or penance, (p. 13.) In Hom. 3, p. 30, he exaggerates the grievousness of sin in a priest, and has these remarkable words, "I do not believe that many priests are saved; but that far the greater number are lost: for this dignity requires a great soul and much courage." In Hom. 7, he draws a most amiable and beautiful portraiture of the charity which reigned in the primitive church, when all with joy cast away their money; setting no value but on the inestimably greater treasures which they possessed in God; when all lived without envy, jealousy, pride, contempt of any one, and without any cunning or ill-will; and when the cold words mine and thine were banished from among them, pp. 58,59. A passage often quoted by those who write on the small number of the elect occurs Hom. 24, p. 198, "How many," says he, "do you think there are in this city {268} who will be saved? What I am going to say is frightful indeed; yet I will speak it. Out of so many thousands not one hundred belongs to the number of the elect: and even of these I doubt. How much vice among the youth! What sloth in the old! No one takes due care of the education of his children. If we see a man truly devout in his old age, he is imitated by nobody. I see persons behave disrespectfully and without due attention in the church, and even when the priest is giving his blessing. Can any insolence be found equal to this? Amidst such scandals, what hopes can we entertain of the salvation of many? At a ball every one dances in his rank, every thing is regulated, and done without confusion. And here in the company of angels, and singing the praises of God with the blessed spirits, you talk and laugh. Should we be surprised if thunder fell from heaven to punish such impiety?" The monks then lived without the walls, and could not be included by him: nor probably the clergy, deaconesses, or others particularly consecrated to a devout life; as appears from his invective. Nor does he speak this with any certitude, but from his private apprehension by comparing the lives of the generality of the people with the severe maxims of the gospel. This is manifest from the proof he draws from the manners of the people, and from a like invective in Hom. 61, olim 62, on St. Matthew, (t. 7, p. 612,) spoken at Antioch ten years before. See also l. 1, adv. Oppugnatores Vitæ Mon. n. 8, t. 1, p. 55. Speaking on the general impiety of the world, (Hom. 10, in 1 Tim,) he says: "We have great reason to weep: scarce the least part of the world is saved: almost all live in danger of eternal death." But he shows that the multitude will only increase the torments of the wicked, as if a man saw his wife and children to be burnt alive with him. St. Chrysostom counts in Constantinople, at that time, one hundred thousand Christians, (Hom. 11, in Acts,) and says that the poor in that city amounted to fifty thousand, and the riches of the particulars to about one million pounds of gold. Yet he reckons the assembly of the Christians greater at Antioch than at Constantinople. (Hom. 1, adv. Judæos. p. 592, t. 1.) If the estate of one rich and that of one poor man maintained three thousand poor at Antioch, and the like estates of ten rich men would have supported all the poor of that city, it is inferred that there were in Antioch only thirty thousand poor, though it might perhaps have more inhabitants than Constantinople. See Bandurius on the site and extent of Constantinople under the emperors Arcadius and Honorius; and Hasius de magnitudine urbium, p. 47.
St. Chrysostom teaches that grace is conferred by God at the imposition of hands in the ordination of priests, Hom. 14, in Acta. p. 114, also Hom. 3, de Resurrect. t. 2, p. 436, and Hom. 21, in Acta. p. 175, that "Oblations (or masses) are not offered in vain for the dead." It is his pious counsel (Hom. 17, in Acta.) that when we find ourselves provoked to anger, we form on our breast the sign of the cross; and Hom. 26, he exhorts all Christians, even the married, and both men and women, to rise every midnight to pray in their own houses, and to awake little children at that hour that they may say a short prayer in bed. He says that saints and martyrs are commemorated in the holy mysteries, because this is doing them great honor, (Hom. 21, in Acta. p. 276,) and by the communion with them in their virtues, the rest of the faithful departed reap much benefit. (Hom. 51, in 1 Corinth. t. 10, p. 393.)
For a specimen of the zeal and charity with which this great preacher instructed his flock, two or three passages are here inserted. Hom. 3, in Acta. p. 31, t. 9. "I wish," says he, "I could set before your eyes the tender charity and love which I bear you: after this no one could take it amiss or be angry if I ever seem to use too harsh words in correcting disorders. Nothing is dearer to me than you; not even life or light. I desire a thousand times over to lose my sight, if by this means I could convert your souls to God; so much more sweet is your salvation to me. If it happens that any of you fall into sin, you are present even in my sleep: through grief I am like persons struck with a palsy, or deprived of their senses. For what hope or comfort can I have left, if you advance not in virtue? And if you do well, what can afflict me? I seem to feel myself taking wing when I hear any good of you. Make my joy complete. Phil. ii. 2. Your progress is my only desire. You are to me all, father and mother, and brothers and children." Hom. 44, in Act. p. 335, having appealed to his closet and secret retreats to bear witness how many tears he shed without intermission for them, he says, "What shall I do? I am quite spent daily crying out to you: Forsake the stage. Yet many laugh at our words: Refrain from oaths and avarice, and no one listens to us. For your sakes I have almost abandoned the care of my own soul and salvation; and while I weep for you, I bewail also my own spiritual miseries, to which, through solicitude for you, I am not sufficiently attentive: so true it is that you are all things to me. If I see you advance in virtue, through joy I feel not my own ills; and if I perceive you make no progress, here again through grief I forget my own miseries. Though I am sinking under them, on your account, I am filled with joy: and whatever subject of joy I have in myself, I am overwhelmed with grief if all is not well with you. For what comfort, what life, what hope can a pastor have, if his flock be perishing? How will he stand before God? What will he say? Though he should be innocent of the blood of them all, still he will be pierced with bitter sorrow which nothing will be able to assuage. For though parents were no way in fault, they would suffer the most {269} cruel anguish for the ruin or loss of their children. Whether I shall be demanded an account of year souls or no, this will not remove my grief. I am not anxious that you may attain to happiness by my labors, but that you be saved at any rate, or by any means. You know not the impetuous tyranny of spiritual travails, and how he who spiritually brings forth children to God desires a thousand times over to be hewn to pieces rather than to see one of his children fall or perish. Though we could say with assurance, we have done all that lay in us, and are innocent of his blood, this will not be enough to comfort us. Could my heart be laid open and exposed to your view, you would see that you are every one there, and much dilated, women, children, and men. So great is the power of charity that it makes a soul wider than the heavens. St. Paul bore all Corinth within his breast. 2 Cor. vii. 2. I can make you no reproaches for any indifference towards me on your side. I am sensible of the love which you reciprocally bear me. But what will be the advantage either of your love for me or of mine for you, if the duties you owe to God are neglected? It is only an occasion of rendering my grief more heavy. You have never been wanting in any thing towards me. Were it possible, you would have given me your very eyes: and on our side we were desirous to give you with the gospel also our lives. Our love is reciprocal. But this is not the point. We must in the first place love Christ. This obligation both you and I have great need to study: not that we entirely neglect it; but the pains we take are not adequate to this great end."
To abolish the sacrilegious custom of swearing at Constantinople, as he had done at Antioch, he strained every sinew, and in several sermons he exerted his zeal with uncommon energy, mingled with the most tender charity. In Hom. 8, in Act t. 9, pp. 66, 67, he complains that some who had begun to correct their criminal habit, after having fallen through surprise, or by a sudden fit of passion, had lost courage. These he animates to a firmer resolution and vigor, which would crown them with victory. He tells them he suffers more by grief for them than if he languished in a dungeon, or was condemned to the mines; and begs, by the love which they bear him, they would give the only comfort which could remove the weight of his sorrow by an entire conversion. It will not justify him, he says, at the last day, to allege that he had reprimanded those who swore. The judge will answer: "Why didst not thou check, command, and by laws restrain those that disobeyed?" Heli reprimanded his sons; but was condemned for not having done it, because he did not use sufficient severity. 1 Kings xi. 24. "I every day cry aloud," says the saint, "yet am not heard. Fearing to be myself condemned at the last day for too great lenity and remissness, I raise my voice, and denounce aloud to all, that if any swear, I forbid them the church. Only this month is allowed for persons to correct their habit." His voice he calls a trumpet, with which in different words he proclaims thrice this sentence of excommunication against whosoever should persist refractory, thought he were a prince, or he who wears the diadem. Hom. 9, p. 76, he congratulates with his audience for the signs of compunction and amendment which they had given since his last sermon, and tells the greatest part of the difficulty is already mastered by them. To inspire them with a holy dread and awe for the adorable name of God, he puts them in mind that in the Old Law only the high priest was allowed ever to pronounce it, and that the devils trembled at its sound. Hom. 10, he charges them never to name God but in praising him or in imploring his mercy. He takes notice that some among them still sometimes swore, but only for want of attention, by the force of habit, just as they made the sign of the cross by mere custom, without attention, when they entered the baths, or lighted a candle. He tells them (Hom. 11, p. 95) that the term of a month, which he had fixed, was almost elapsed, and most affectionately conjures them to make their conversion entire. A sight of one such conversion, he says, gave him more joy, than if a thousand imperial diadems of the richest jewels had been placed upon his head. Other specimens of the saint's ardent love for his people at Constantinople, see Hom. 9, in Hebr. t. 12, p. 100; Hom. 23, in Hebr. p. 217; Hom. 9, in 1 Thes. t. 11, p. 494; Hom. 7, in 1 Coloss. Hom. 39, in Act. p. 230, &c. For his people at Antioch, t. 3, p. 362, t. 2, p. 279, t. 7, p. 374, &c. On his humility, t. 2, p. 455, t. 4, p. 339. On his desire to suffer for Christ, t. 1, p. 453, t. 7, p. 243, t. 11, pp. 53, 55.
The inspired epistles of St. Paul were the favorite subject of this saint's intense meditation, in which he studied the most sublime maxims, and formed in himself the most perfect spirit of Christian virtue. The epistle to the Romans is expounded by him in thirty-two homilies, (t. 9, p. 429,) which he made at Antioch, as is clear from Hom. 8, p. 508, and Hom. 30, p. 743. Nothing can go beyond the commendations which St Isidore of Pelusium bestows on this excellent work, (l. 5, ep. 32,) to which all succeeding ages have subscribed. The errors of Pelagius, which were broached soon after in the West, are clearly guarded against by the holy preacher, though he is more solicitous to confute the opposite heresy of the Manichees, which then reigned in many parts of the East. He also confounds frequently the Jews. But what we most admire is the pious sagacity with which he unfolds the deep sense of the sacred text, and its author, the true disciple of Christ, and the perspicuity and eloquence with which he enforces his moral instructions. Whoever reads anyone of these homilies, will hear testimony to this eulogium. See Hom. 24. (t. 9, p. 694,) {270} on the shortness of human life: Hom. 8, on fraternal charity and forgiving injuries: Hom. 20, on our obligation of offering to God a living sacrifice of our bodies by the exercise of all virtues, and the sanctity of our affections: Hom. 22 and 27, on patience in bearing all injuries, by which we convert them into our greatest treasure: Hom. 5, on the fear of God's judgments, and on his love, to which he pathetically says, it would be more grievous to offend God than to suffer all the torments of hell, which every one incurs who is not in this disposition, (p. 469,) though it is a well-known maxim that persons ought not to propose to themselves in too lively a manner such comparisons, or to become their own tempters: Hom. 7, against envy, and on alms, he says this is putting out money at interest for one hundred fold from God, who is himself our security, and who herein considers not the sum, but the will, as he did in St. Peter, who left for him only a broken net, a line, and a hook. The promise of a hundred fold made to him, is no less made to us.
The commentary On the First Epistle to the Corinthians, (t. 10,) in forty-four homilies, was likewise the fruit of his zeal at Antioch, and is one of the most elaborate and finished of his works. The interpreter seems animated with the spirit of the great apostle whose sacred oracle he expounds, so admirably does he penetrate the pious energy of the least tittle. If St. Paul uses the words My God, he observes, that out of the vehement ardor and tenderness of his love he makes Him his own, who is the common God of all men; and that he names Him with a sentiment of burning affection and profound adoration, because he had banished all created things from his heart, and all his affections were placed in God. He extols the merit and advantages of holy virginity, (Hom. 19,) and Hom. 26, speaks on the duties of a married state, especially that of mutual love and meekness in bearing each other's faults: this he bids them learn from Socrates, a pagan, who chose a very shrew for his wife, and being asked how he could bear with her, said: "I have a school of virtue at home, in order to learn meekness and patience by the daily practice." The saint adds, it was a great grief to him to see Christians fall short of the virtue of a heathen, whereas they ought to be imitators of the angels, nay, of God himself. Recommending the most profound respect for the holy eucharist, and a dread of profaning it, he says, Hom. 24, pp. 217, 218, "No one dares touch the king's garments with dirty hands. When you see Him (i.e. Christ) exposed before you, say to yourself: This body was pierced with nails; this body which was scourged, death did not destroy; this body was nailed to a cross, at which spectacle the sun withdrew its rays; this body the Magi venerated," &c. The saint inveighs against several superstitious practices of that age, Hom. 12. His discourses are animated and strong on the characters of fraternal charity, and against avarice, envy, &c.
The thirty homilies, On the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, (t. 10, p. 417,) were also preached at Antioch: for he speaks of Constantinople as at a distance, (Hom. 26,) which passage Sir Henry Saville has mistaken, as Montfaucon clearly shows. This commentary is inferior to the last, though not in elegance, yet in fire, the moral instructions being shorter. The saint mentions several of the ceremonies used still at mass, or in the public office of the church. Hom. 18, p. 568. Hom. 30, p. 6{5}0. On visiting the shrines of martyrs, he says, Hom. 26, p. 629, "The tombs of those who served the crucified Christ surpass in splendor the courts of kings. Even he who wears purple visits and devoutly kisses them, and standing suppliant, prays the saint to be a protection to him before God." He adds that emperors sue for their patronage, and count it an honor to be porters to them in their graves. By this he alludes to the burial of Constantine the Great in the porch of the church of the apostles. He proves, Hom. 3, p. 441, and Hom. 14, p. 537, that the essence of repentance consists in a change of the heart: that without an amendment of life, penance is only a mask and a shadow, what fasts or other works soever attend it, and that it must be founded not barely in the fear of hell, but in the love of so good and loving a God. He teaches, Hom. 10, p. 505, that a Christian ought to rejoice at the approaches of death. He speaks in many places on the precept of alms-deeds with great vehemence. He says, Hom. 16, that to be animated with a spirit of charity and compassion is something greater than to raise the dead to life: our alms must be liberal, plentiful, voluntary, and given with joy. He says, Hom. 19, that Christ stripped himself of his immense glory and riches for love of us; yet men refuse him a morsel of bread. They throw away on dogs, and what is superfluous among servants, that which Christ wants in his members, to whom all strictly belongs whatever we enjoy beyond what is necessary for life. He enters into a severe and elegant detail of these superfluities, Hom. 19, p. 570. The apostle, as he observes, (Hom. 20, p. 577,) justly calls alms a seed, because it is not lost, but sown, and produces a most plentiful harvest.
His commentary On the Epistle to the Galatians (t. 10) is an accurate interpretation of the text, with frequent remarks against the Anomoeans, Marcionites, and Manichees, but very sparing in moral exhortations: these the saint probably added in the pulpit, and gave to the work the form of discourses; for it appears to have been delivered in homilies to the people, though it is not now divided into discourses. It was certainly compiled at Antioch.
The twenty-four homilies On the Epistle to the Ephesians (t. 11) were preached at Antioch; and though some passages might have received a higher polish from a second touch of the saint's masterly file, are a most useful and excellent work. From Hom. 3, p. 16, it {271} is clear that his predecessor Nectarius had not abolished canonical public penances, when he removed the public penitentiary; but that this office, as before the institution of such a charge, was exercised altogether by the bishop. For St. Chrysostom having taken notices that many assisted at mass who did not communicate, tells them, that those who were guilty of any grievous sin could not approach the holy table even on the greatest solemnity; but that such persons ought to be in a course of penance, and consequently not at mass with the rest of the faithful: and he terrifies them by exaggerating the danger and crime of delaying to do penance. Those who are not excluded by such an obstacle, he exhorts strongly to frequent communion, seeming desirous that many would communicate at every day's mass. "With a pure conscience," says he, "approach always; without this disposition, never. In vain is the daily sacrifice offered; to no purpose do we assist at the altar: no one communicates. I say not this to induce any one to approach unworthily, but to engage all to render yourselves worthy. The royal table is prepared, the administering angels are present, the King himself is there waiting for you: yet you stand with indifference," &c. (Hom. 3, in Ephes. p. 23.) The virtues of St. Paul furnish the main subject of his sixth and seventh homilies; in the eighth he speaks of that apostle's sufferings for Christ, and declares, in a kind of rapturous exclamation, that he prefers his chains to gold and diadems, and his company in prison to heaven itself. He wishes he could make a pilgrimage to Rome, to see and kiss those chains at which the devils tremble, and which the angels reverence, while they venerate the hands which were bound with them. For it is more desirable and more glorious to suffer with Christ, than to be honored with him in glory: this is an honor above all others. Christ himself left heaven to meet his cross: and St. Paul received more glory from his chains, than by being rapt up to the third heaven, or by curing the sick by the touch of his scarfs, &c. He desires to feast his heart by dwelling still longer on the chains of this apostle, being himself fettered with a chain from which he would not be separated: for he declares himself to be closer and faster linked to St. Paul's chains by desire, than that apostle was in prison. In the like strain he speaks of the chains of St. Peter, and of St. John Baptist. In the next Homily, (9,) he returns in equal raptures to St. Paul in chains for Christ; in which state he calls him a spectacle of glory far beyond all the triumphs of emperors and conquerors. Our saint gives excellent instructions on the duties of married persons, Hom. 20; on the education of children in the practice and spirit of obedience and piety, Hom. 21; and on the duties of servants, Hom. 22.
The eighteen homilies On the First Epistle to Timothy, and ten On the Second, seem also to have been preached at Antioch, (t. 11, p. 146.) They are not equally polished, but contain excellent instructions against covetousness, and the love of the world; on alms, on the duties of bishops, and those of widows, &c.; on the education of children, Hom. 10, p. 596. The six, On the Epistle to Titus, are more elaborate: also three On the Epistle to Philemon, which seem all to have been finished at Antioch.
In the eleventh tome we have also eleven sermons, which St. Chrysostom preached at Constantinople about the end of the year 398. Tile second was spoken upon the following occasion, (ib. p. 332:) The empress Eudoxia procured a solemn procession and translation of the relics of certain martyrs, to be made from the great church in Constantinople to the church of St. Thomas the apostle in Drypia, on the sea-shore, nine miles out of town. The princes without any retinue, priests, monks, nuns, ladies, and the people, attended the procession in such multitudes, that from the light of the burning tapers which they carried in their hands the sea seemed as it were on fire. The empress walked all the way behind, touching the shrine and the veil which covered it. The procession set out in the beginning of the night, passed through the market-place, and arrived at Drypia about break of day. There St. Chrysostom made an extemporary sermon, in which he described the pomp of this ceremony, commended the piety of the empress, and proved that if the clothes, handkerchiefs, and even shadow of saints on earth had wrought many miracles, a blessing is certainly derived from their relics upon those who devoutly touch them. The next day the emperor Arcadius, attended by his court and guards, arrived, and the soldiers having laid aside their arms, and the emperor his diadem, he paid his devotions before the shrine. After his departure St. Chrysostom preached again, (p. 336.)
St. Chrysostom was removed to Constantinople in 397. The fifteen (or, if with some editors we include the prologue, sixteen) homilies On the Epistle to the Philippians, (t. 11, p. 189,) were preached in that capital of the empire. The moral instructions turn mostly on alms and riches. The order which prudence prescribes in the distribution of alms, he explains, (Hom. 1, t. 11, p. 201,) and condemns too anxious an inquiry and suspicion of imposture in the poor, as contrary to Christian simplicity and charity, affirming that none are so frequently imposed upon by cheat as the most severe inquirers. Prudence and caution he allows to be necessary ingredients of alms, in which those whose wants are most pressing, or who are most deserving, ought to be first considered. Hom. 3, p. 215, he lays it down as a principle, that catechumens who die without baptism, and penitents without absolution, "are excluded heaven with the damned;" which we are to understand, unless they were purified by perfect contrition joined with a desire of the sacrament, as St. Ambrose, St. {272} Austin, and all the fathers and councils declare. St. Chrysostom adds, that it is a wholesome ordinance of the apostles in favor of the faithful departed, to commemorate them in the adorable mysteries: for how is it possible God should be deaf to our prayers for them, at a time when all the people stand with stretched forth hands with the priests, in presence of the most adorable sacrifice? But the catechumens are deprived of this comfort, though not of all succor, for alms may be given for them, from which they receive some relief or mitigation of their pains. Though such not dying within the exterior pale of the church cannot be commemorated in its public suffrages and sacrifices; yet if by desire they were interiorly its members, and by charity united to Christ its head, they may be benefited by private suffrages which particulars may offer for them. This is the meaning of this holy doctor. Exhorting the faithful to live in perpetual fear of the dangers with which we are surrounded, (Hom. 8, in Ephes. t. 11,) he says, "A builder on the top of a house always apprehends the danger of falling, and on this account is careful how he stands: so ought we much more to fear, how much soever we may be advanced in virtue. The principal means always to entertain in our souls this saving fear, is to have God always before our eyes, who is everywhere present, hears and sees all things, and penetrates the most secret foldings of our hearts. Whether you eat, go to sleep, sit at dainty tables, are inclined to anger, or any other passion, or whatever else you do, remember always," says he, "that God is present, and you will never fall into dissolute mirth, or be provoked to anger; but will watch over yourselves in continual fear." With great elegance he shows (Hom. 10, p. 279,) that precious stones serve for no use, are not so good even as common stones, and that all their value is imaginary, and consists barely in the mad opinion of men; and he boldly censures the insatiable rapaciousness and unbounded prodigality of the rich, in their sumptuous palaces, marble pillars, and splendid clothes and equipages. Houses are only intended to defend us from the weather, and raiment to cover our nakedness. All vanities he shows to be contrary to the designs of nature, which is ever content with little. In Hom. 12, we have an excellent instruction on that important maxim in a spiritual life, That we must never think how far we have run, but what remains of our course, as in a race a man thinks only on what is before him. It will avail nothing to have begun, unless we finish well our course. In Hom. 13, he excellently explains the mystery of the cross, which we bear if we study continually to crucify ourselves by self-denial. We must in all places arm ourselves with the sign of the cross.
The Exposition of the epistle to the Colossians, in twelve homilies, (t. 11) was made at Constantinople in the year 399. In the second homily (p. 333) he says, that a most powerful means to maintain in ourselves a deep sense of gratitude to God, and to increase the flame of his love in our hearts, is to bear always in mind his numberless benefits to us, and the infinite evils from which he has mercifully delivered us. In Hom. 8, p. 319, he teaches, that no disposition of our souls contributes more effectually to our sanctification, than that of returning thanks to God under the severest trials of adversity, a virtue little inferior to martyrdom. A mother who, without entertaining the least sentiment of complaint at the sickness and death of her dearest child, thanks God with perfect submission to his will, will receive a recompense equal to that of martyrs. After condemning the use of all superstitious practices for the cure of distempers, he strongly exhorts mothers rather to suffer their children to die, than ever to have recourse to such sacrilegious methods; and contenting themselves with making the sign of the cross upon their sick children to answer those who suggested any superstitious remedy: "These are my only arms; I am utterly a stranger to other methods of treating this distemper." The tenth homily (p. 395) contains a strong invective against the excessive luxury and immodesty of ladies in their dress, and their vanity, pride, and extravagance. The empress Eudoxia, who was at the head of these scandalous customs, and the mistress of court fashions and vices, could not but be highly offended at this zealous discourse. The saint says, that many ladies used vessels of silver for the very meanest uses, and that the king of Persia wore a golden beard.
The eleven homilies On the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, were also part of the fruit of his episcopal labors at Constantinople. (T. 11.) In the second he shows the excellency of fraternal love and friendship, by which every thing is, as it were, possessed in common, and those cold words mine and thine, the seed of all discords, are banished as they were from the primitive Christians. In the third, he doubts not but perfect patience, under grievous sicknesses, may equal the merit of martyrdom. In the fifth, he speaks incomparably on the virtue of purity, and against occasions which may kindle in the heart the contrary passion, which, with St. Paul, he will not have so much as earned, especially against the stage, and all assemblies where women make their appearance dressed out to please the eyes and wound the hearts of others. In Hom. 6, he condemns excessive grief for the death of friends. To indulge this sorrow for their sake, he calls want of faith: to grieve for our own sake because we are deprived of a comfort and support in them, he says, must proceed from a want of confidence in God; as if any friend on earth could be our safeguard, but God alone. God took this friend away, because he is jealous of our hearts and will have us love him without a rival, (p. 479.) In Hom. 10, we are instructed, that {273} the best revenge we can take of an enemy is to forgive him, and to bear injuries patiently. In Hom. 11, p. 505, he gives an account, that a certain lady being offended at a slave for a great crime, resolved to sell him and his wife. The latter wept bitterly; and a mediator, whose good offices with her mistress in her behalf she implored, conjured the lady in these words: "May Christ appear to you at the last day in the same manner in which you now receive our petition." Which words so strongly affected her, that she forgave the offence. The night following Christ appeared to her in a comfortable vision, as St. Chrysostom was assured by herself. In Hom. 7, (ib.,) he shows the possibility of the resurrection of the flesh, against infidels.
The five homilies On the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, were also preached at Constantinople, (t. 11, p. 510.) In the second, he exhorts all to make the torments of hell a frequent subject of their meditation, that they may never sin; and to entertain little children often with some discourse on them instead of idle stories, that sentiments of holy fear and virtue may strike deep roots in their tender hearts. On traditions received by the church from the apostles he writes as follows: (Hom. 4, in 2 Thess. p. 532.) "Hence it is clear that they did not deliver all things by their epistles, but communicated also many things without writing: and these likewise deserve our assent or faith. It is a tradition: make no further inquiry." In the same Hom. 4, p. 534, he expresses how much he trembled at the thought of being, by the obligation of his office, the mediator betwixt God and his people; and declares, that he ceased not most earnestly to pour forth his prayers for them both at home and abroad. Hom. 4, ib., he severely reprimands those who reproach the poor in harsh words, adding to the weight of their affliction and misery.
The thirty-four homilies On the Epistle to the Hebrews, (t. 12, p. 1,) were compiled at Constantinople. In the seventh he shows, that the evangelical precepts and counsels belong to all Christians, not only to monks, if we except the vow of perpetual virginity: though also men engaged in a married state are bound to be disentangled in spirit, and to use the world as if they used it not. Hom. 17, ib. p. 169, he explains that the sacrifice of the New Law is one, because the same body of Christ is every day offered; not one day one sheep, another day a second, &c. (On this sacrifice see also Hom. 5, in 1 Tim. t. 11, p. 577, Hom. 3, contra Judæos. t. 1, p. 611. Hom. 7, contra Judæos. t. 1, p. 664. Hom. in St. Eustath. t. 2, p. 606. Hom. 24, in 1 Cor. t. 10, p. 213.) In Hom. 34, ad Hebr. p. 313, he expresses his extreme fears for the rigorous account which a pastor is obliged to give for every soul committed to his charge, and cries out, "I wonder that any superior of others is saved."
A letter to a certain monk called Cæsarius, has passed under the name of St. Chrysostom ever since Leontius and St. John Damascen; and not only many Protestants, but also F. Hardouin, (Dissert. de ep. ad Cæsarium Monachum) Tillemont, (t. 11, art. 130, p. 340,) and Tournely, (Tr. de Euchar. t. 1, p. 282, and Tract. de Incarnat. p. 486,) are not unwilling to look upon it as a genuine work of our holy doctor. But it is demonstrated by F. Le Quien, (Diss. 3, in St. Joan. Damasc.) Dom Montfaucon, (in Op. St. Chrys. t. 3, p. 737,) Ceillier, (t. 9, p. 249,) F. Merlin in his learned dissertations on this epistle, (in Mémoires de Trevoux an. 1737, pp. 252, 516, and 917,) and F. Stilting, the Bollandist, (t. 4, Sept. Comment. in vitam St. Chrys. §82, p. 656,) that it has been falsely ascribed to him, and is a patched work of some later ignorant Greek writer, who has borrowed some things from the first letter of St. Chrysostom to Olympias, as Stilting shows. Merlin thinks the author discovers himself to have been a Nestorian heretic. At least the style is so opposite to that of St. Chrysostom, both in the diction and in the manner of reasoning, that the reader must find himself quite in another world, as Montfaucon observes. The author's long acquaintance with this Cæsarius seems not easily reconcilable with the known history of St. Chrsysostom's life. This piece, moreover, is too direct a confutation of the Eutychian error to have been written before its birth: or if it had made its appearance, how could it have escaped all the antagonists of that heresy? Whoever the author was, he is far from opposing the mystery of the real presence, or that of transubstantiation, in the blessed eucharist, for both which he is an evident voucher in these words, not to mention others: "The nature of bread and that of our Lord's body are not two bodies, but one body of the Son," which he introduces to make a comparison with the unity of Christ's Person in the Incarnation. It is true, indeed, that he says the nature of bread remains in the sacrament: but it is easy to show that by the nature of bread he means its external natural qualities or accidents.
Among former Latin translations of St. Chrysostom's works, only those made by the learned Jesuit Fronto-le-Duc are accurate. These are retained by Montfaucon, who has given us a new version of those writings which Le Duc had not translated. The edition of Montfaucon in twelve volumes, an. 1718, is of all others the most complete. But it is much to be wished that he had favored us with a more elegant Latin translation, which might bear some degree of the beauty of the original. The Greek edition, made by Sir Henry Saville at Eton, in nine volumes, in 1612, is more correct and more beautiful than that of the learned Benedictin, and usually preferred by those who stand in need of no translation.
{274}
As to the French translations, that of the homilies on the epistles to the Romans, Ephesians, &c., by Nicholas Fontaine, the Port-Royalist, in 1693, was condemned by Harlay, archbishop of Paris; and recalled by the author, who undesignedly established in it the Nestorian error. The French translation of the homilies on St. John, was given us by Abbé le Merre: of those on Genesis and the Acts, with eighty-eight chosen discourses, by Abbé de Bellegarde, though for some time attributed to de Marsilly, and by others to Sacy. That of the homilies on St. Matthew, ascribed by many to de Marsilly, was the work of le Maitre and his brother Sacy. That of the homilies to the People of Antioch, was given to by Abbé de Maucroix in 1671. That of the saint's panegyrics on the martyrs, is the work of F. Durauty de Bourecueil, an Oratorian, and made its appearance in 1735.
St Chrysostom wrote comments on the whole scripture, as Cassiodorus and Suidas testify; but of these many, with a great number of sermons, &c., are lost. Theophylactus, Æcumenius, and other Greek commentators, are chiefly abridgers of St. Chrysostom. Even Theodoret is his disciple in the excellent concise notes he composed on the sacred text. Nor can preachers or theologians choose a more useful master or more perfect model in interpreting the scripture; but ought to join with him some judicious, concise, critical commentator. As in reading the classics, grammatical niceties have some advantage in settling the genuine text; yet if multiplied or spun out in notes, are extremely pernicious, by deadening the student's genius and spirit, and burying them in rubbish, while they ought to be attentive to what will help them to acquire true taste, to be employed on the beauties, ease, and gentleness of the style, and on the greatness, delicacy, and truth of the thoughts or sentiments, and to be animated by the life, spirit, and fire of an author; so much more in the study of the sacred writings, a competent skill in resolving grammatical and historical scruples in the text is of great use, and sometimes necessary in the church: in which, among the fathers, Origen and St. Jerom are our models. Yet from the conduct of divine providence over the church, and the example of the most holy and most learned among the primitive fathers, it is clear, as the learned doctor Hare, bishop of Chichester, observes, that assiduous, humble, and devout meditation on the spirit and divine precepts of the sacred oracles, is the true method of studying them, both for our own advantage, and for that of the church. Herein St. Chrysostom's comments are our most faithful assistant and best model: The divine majesty and magnificence of those writings is above the reach, and beyond the power, of all moral wit. None but the Spirit of God could express his glory, and display either the mysteries of his grace, or the oracles of his holy law. And none but they whose hearts are disengaged from objects of sense, and animated with the most pure affections of every sublime virtue, and whose minds are enlightened by the beams of heavenly truth, can penetrate the spirit of these divine writings, and open it to us. Hence was St. Chrysostom qualified to become the interpreter of the word of God, to discover its hidden mysteries of love and mercy, the perfect spirit of all virtues which it contains, and the sacred energy or each word or least circumstance.
The most ingenious Mr. Blackwall, in his excellent Introduction to the Classics, writes as follows on the style of St. Chrysostom, p. 139: "I would fain beg room among the classics for three primitive writers of the church--St. Chrysostom, Minutius Felix, and Lactantius. St. Chrysostom is easy and pleasant to new beginners; and has written with a purity and eloquence which have been the admiration of all ages. This wondrous man in a great measure possesses all the excellences of the most valuable Greek and Roman classics. He has the invention, copiousness, and perspicuity of Cicero; and all the elegance and accuracy of composition which is admired in Isocrates, with much greater variety and freedom. According as his subject requires, he has the easiness and sweetness of Xenophon, and the pathetic force and rapid simplicity of Demosthenes. His judgment is exquisite, his images noble, his morality sensible and beautiful. No man understands human nature to greater perfection, nor has a happier power of persuasion. He is always clear and intelligible upon the loftiest and greatest subjects, and sublime and noble upon the least." All that has been said of St. Chrysostom's works is to be understood only of those which are truly his. The irregular patched compilations from different parts of his writings, made by modern Greeks, may be compared to scraps of rich velvet, brocade, and gold cloth, which are clumsily sewed together with {}thread.
{275}
ST. JULIAN, FIRST BISHOP OF MANS, C.
TOWARDS THE END OF THE THIRD CENTURY.
HE was succeeded by St. Turibius. His head is shown in the cathedral of Mans, but the most of his relics in the neighboring Benedictin abbey of nuns called St. Julian's du Prè, famous for miracles; though the greatest part of these relics was burnt, or scattered in the wind by the Huguenots, who plundered the shrine of St. Julian, in 1562. He was much honored in France, and many churches built during the Norman succession in England, especially about the reign of Henry II., who was baptized in the church of St. Julian, at Mans, bear his name: one in particular at Norwich, which the people by mistake imagine to have been dedicated under the title of the venerable Juliana, a Benedictin nun at Norwich, who died in the odor of sanctity, but never was publicly invoked as a saint. St. Julian of Mans had an office in the Sarum breviary. See Tillem. t. 4, pp. 448, 729. Gal. Christ. Nov. &c.
ST. MARIUS, ABBOT.
DYNAMIUS, patrician of the Gauls who is mentioned by St. Gregory of Tours, (l. 6, c. 11,) and who was for some time steward of the patrimony of the Roman church in Gaul, in the time of St. Gregory the Great, as appears by a letter of that pope to him, (in which he mentions that he sent him in a reliquary some of the filings of the chains of St. Peter, and of the gridiron of St. Laurence,) was the author of the lives of St. Marius and of St. Maximus of Ries. From the fragments of the former in Bollandus, we learn that he was born at Orleans, became a monk, and after some time was chosen abbot at La-Val-Benois, in the diocese of Sisteron, in the reign of Gondebald, king of Burgundy, who died in 509. St. Marius made a pilgrimage to St. Martin's, at Tours, and another to the tomb of St. Dionysius, near Paris, where, falling sick, he dreamed that he was restored to health by an apparition of St. Dionysius, and awaking, found himself perfectly recovered. St. Marius, according to a custom received in many monasteries before the rule of St. Bennet, in imitation of the retreat of our divine Redeemer, made it a rule to live a recluse in a forest during the forty days of Lent. In one of these retreats, he foresaw, in a vision, the desolation which barbarians would soon after spread in Italy, and the destruction of his own monastery, which he foretold before his death, in 555. The abbey of La-Val-Benois[1] being demolished, the body of the saint was translated to Forcalquier, where it is kept with honor in a famous collegiate church which bears his name, and takes the title of Concathedral with Sisteron. St. Marius is called in French St. May, or St. Mary, in Spain, St. Mere, and St. Maire, and in some places, by mistake, St. Marrus. See fragments of his life compiled by Dynamius, extant in Bollandus, with ten preliminary observations.
Footnotes: 1. In Latin Vallis Bodonensis. Baillet and many others call it at present Beuvons, or Beuvoux: but there is no such village. Bevons indeed is the name of a village in Provence, one league from Sisteron; but the ruins of the abbey La-Val-Benois are very remarkable, in a village called St. May, in Dauphiné, sixteen leagues from Sisteron, in which diocese it is. See many mistakes of martyrologists and geographers concerning this saint and abbey rectified by Chatelain, p. 424.
{276}
JANUARY XXVIII.
SAINT AGNES, V.M.
A SECOND commemoration of St. Agnes occurs on this day in the ancient Sacramentaries of pope Gelasius and St. Gregory the Great; as also in the true Martyrology of Bede. It was perhaps the day of her burial, or of a translation of her relics, or of some remarkable favor obtained through her intercession soon after her death.
ST. CYRIL,
PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA.
From Socrates, Marius Mercator, the councils, and his works. See Tillemont, t. 14, p. 272. Ceillier, t. 13, p. 241.
A.D. 444.
ST. CYRIL was raised by God to defend the faith of the Incarnation of his Son, "of which mystery he is styled the doctor, as St. Austin is of that of grace," says Thomassin. He studied under his uncle Theophilus, and testifies[1] that he made it his rule never to advance any doctrine which he had not learned from the ancient Fathers. His books against Julian the Apostate show that he had read the profane writers. He often says himself that he neglected human eloquence: and it is to be wished that he had written in a clearer style, and with greater purity of the Greek tongue. Upon the death of Theophilus, in 412, he was raised by the people to the patriarchal dignity. He began to exert his authority by causing the churches of the Novatians in the city to be shut up, and their sacred vessels and ornaments to be seized; an action censured by Socrates, a favorer of those heretics; but we do not know the reasons and authority upon which he proceeded. He next drove the Jews out of the city, who were very numerous, and enjoyed great privileges there from the time of Alexander the Great. Seditions, and several acts of violence committed by them, excited him to this, which grievously offended Orestes the governor, but was approved by the emperor Theodosius: and the Jews never returned. St. Cyril sent to conjure the governor by the holy gospels that he would consent to a reconciliation, and that he would join in sincere friendship with him: but his offers were rejected. This unhappy disagreement produced pernicious effects. Hypatia, a pagan lady, kept a public school of philosophy in the city. Her reputation for learning was so great, that disciples flocked to her from all parts. Among these was the great Synesius, who afterwards submitted his works to her censure. She was consulted by philosophers of the first rank on the most intricate points of learning, and of the Platonic philosophy in particular, in which she was remarkably well versed.[2] She was much respected and consulted by the governor, and often visited him. The mob, which was nowhere more unruly, or more fond of riots and tumults than in that populous city, the second in the world for extent, upon a {277} suspicion that she incensed the governor against their bishop, seditiously rose, pulled her out of her chariot, cut and mangled her flesh, and tore her body in pieces in the streets, in 415, to the great grief and scandal of all good men, especially of the pious bishop.[3][4] He had imbibed certain prejudices from his uncle against the great St. Chrysostom: but was prevailed on by St. Isidore of Pelusium, and others, to insert his name in the Dyptics of his church, in 419: after which, pope Zozimus sent him letters of communion.[5]
Nestorius, a monk and priest of Antioch, was made bishop of Constantinople in 428. The retiredness and severity of his life, joined with a hypocritical exterior of virtue, a superficial learning, and a fluency of words, gained him some reputation in the world. But being full of self conceit, he neglected the study of the Fathers, was a man of weak judgment, extremely vain, violent, and obstinate. This is the character he bears in the history of those times, and which is given him by Socrates, and also by Theodoret, whom he had formerly imposed upon by his hypocrisy. Marius Mercator informs us, that he was no sooner placed in the episcopal chair, but he began to persecute, with great fury, the Arians, Macedonians, Manichees, and Quartodecimans, whom he banished out of his diocese. But though he taught original sin, he is said to have denied the necessity of grace; on which account he received to his communion Celestius and Julian, who had been condemned by the popes Innocent and Zozimus, and banished out of the West by the emperor Honorius, for Pelagianism. Theodosius obliged them to leave Constantinople, notwithstanding the protection of the bishop. Nestorius and his mercenary priests broached also new errors from the pulpit, teaching two distinct persons in Christ, that of God, and that of man, only joined by a moral union, by which he said the Godhead dwelt in the humanity merely as in its temple. Hence he denied the Incarnation, or that God was made man: and said the Blessed Virgin ought not to be styled the mother of God, but of the man who was Christ, whose humanity was only the temple of the divinity, not a nature hypostatically assumed by the divine Person; though at length convicted by the voice of antiquity, he allowed her the empty title of mother of God, but continued to deny the mystery. The people were shocked at these novelties, and the priests, St. Proclus, Eusebius, afterwards bishop of Dorylæum, and others, separated themselves from his communion, after having attempted in vain to reclaim him by remonstrances. His homilies, wherever they appeared, gave great offence, and excited everywhere clamors against the errors and blasphemies they contained. St. Cyril having read them, sent him a mild expostulation ob the subject, but was answered with haughtiness and contempt. Pope Celestine, being applied to by both parties, examined his doctrine in a council at Rome; condemned it, and pronounced a sentence of excommunication and deposition against the author, unless within ten days after notification of the sentence, he publicly condemned and retracted it, appointing St. Cyril as his vicegerent in this affair, to see that the sentence was put in execution.[6] Our saint, together with his third and last summons, sent Nestorius twelve propositions with anathemas, hence called anathematisms, to be signed by him as a proof of his orthodoxy, but the heresiarch appeared more {278} obstinate than ever. This occasioned the calling of the third general council opened at Ephesus, in 431, by two hundred bishops, with St. Cyril at their head, as pope Celestine's legate and representative.[7] Nestorius, though in the town, and thrice cited, refused to appear. His heretical sermons were read, and depositions received against him, after which his doctrine was condemned, and the sentence of excommunication and deposition was pronounced against him and notified to the emperor.
Six days after, John, patriarch of Antioch, arrived at Ephesus with forty-one oriental bishops; who secretly favoring the person but not the errors of Nestorius, of which they deemed him innocent, had advanced but slowly on their journey to the place. Instead of associating with the council, they assembled by themselves, and presumed to excommunicate St. Cyril and his adherents. Both sides had recourse to the emperor for redress, by whose order, soon after, St. Cyril and Nestorius were both arrested and confined, but our saint the worst treated of the two. Nay, through his antagonist's greater interest at court, he was upon the point of being banished, when three legates from pope Celestine--Arcadius and Projectus, bishops, and Philip, a priest--arrived at Ephesus, which gave a new turn to affairs in our saint's favor. The three new legates having considered what had been done under St. Cyril, the condemnation of Nestorius was confirmed, the saint's conduct approved, and the sentence pronounced against him declared null and invalid. Thus, matters being cleared up, he was enlarged with honor. The Orientals, indeed, continued their schism till 433, when they made their peace with St. Cyril, condemned Nestorius, and gave a clear and orthodox exposition of their faith. That heresiarch, being banished from his see, retired to his monastery in Antioch. John, though formerly his friend, yet finding him very perverse and obstinate in his heresy, and attempting to pervert others, entreated the emperor Theodosius to remove him. He was therefore banished to Oasis, in the deserts of Upper Egypt, on the borders of Libya, in 431, and died miserably and impenitent in his exile. His sect remains to this day very numerous in the East.[8] St. Cyril triumphed over this heresiarch by his meekness, intrepidity, and courage; thanking God for his sufferings, and professing himself ready to spill his blood with joy for the gospel.[9] He arrived at Alexandria on the 30th of October, 431, and spent the remainder of his days in maintaining the faith of the church in its purity, in promoting peace and union among the faithful, and the zealous labors of his pastoral charge, till his glorious death in 444, on the 28th of June, that is, the 3d of the Egyptian month Epiphi, as the Alexandrians, the Copts, and the Ethiopians unanimously affirm, who, by abridging his name, call him Kerlos, and give him the title of Doctor of the world. The Greeks keep the 18th of January in his honor; and have a second commemoration of him again on the 9th of June.[10] The Roman Martyrology mentions him on this day. Pope Celestine styles him, "The generous defender of the church and faith, the Catholic doctor, and an apostolical man."[11]
The extraordinary devotion of this holy doctor towards the holy sacrament appears from the zeal with which he frequently inculcates the glorious effects which it produces in the soul of him who worthily receives it, especially in healing all his spiritual disorders, strengthening him against temptations,{279} subduing the passions, giving life, and making us one with Christ by the most sacred union, not only in spirit, but also with his humanity. Hence this father says that by the holy communion we are made concorporeal with Christ.[12] The eminent dignity and privileges of the ever glorious Virgin Mary were likewise a favorite subject on which he often dwells. In his tenth homily,[13] after having often repeated her title of Mother of God, he thus salutes her: "Hail, O Mary, mother of God, rich treasure of the world,[14] inextinguishable lamp, crown of virginity, sceptre of the true doctrine, temple which cannot fall, the residence of him whom no place can contain, Mother and Virgin, by whom He is who cometh Blessed in the name of the Lord. Hail, Mary, who in your virgin womb contained Him who is immense and incomprehensible: You through whom the whole blessed Trinity is glorified and adored, through whom the precious cross is honored and venerated over the whole world, through whom heaven exults, the angels and archangels rejoice, the devils are banished, the tempter is disarmed, the creature that was fallen is restored to heaven, and comes to the knowledge of the truth, through whom holy baptism is instituted, through whom is given the oil of exultation, through whom churches are founded over the whole earth, through whom nations are brought to penance. And what need of more words? Through whom the only begotten Son of God has shone the light to those who sat in darkness and in the shade of death, &c.--What man can celebrate the most praiseworthy Mary according to her dignity?"
Footnotes: 1. Ep. 56, and 35 apud Lupum. 2. Synesius, ep. 153. 3. Vie d'Hypacie par l'abbé Goujet. Mémoires de Littérature, t. 5. 4. It is very unjust in some moderns to charge him as conscious of so horrible a crime, which shocks human nature. Great persons are never to be condemned without proofs which amount to conviction. The silence of Orestes, and the historian Socrates, both his declared enemies, suffices to acquit him. 5. We have nothing further of the life of this father, until the year 428, when his zeal was first exerted in defence of the faith against Nestorianism: we shall introduce this period of his labors with some account of the author of this heresy. 6. Conc. t. 3, p. 343. Liberat. in Breviar. c. 4. 7. St. Leo, Ep. 72, c. 3. Conc. t. 3, p. 656, 980. 8. They have a liturgy under the name of Nestorius, and two others which they pretend to be still more ancient. See Renaudot, liturg. orient. t. 2, and Le Brun, liturg. t. 3. The former contains a clear profession of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass. 9. Ep. ad Theopomp, t. 3. Conc. p. 771. 10. Smith on the present state of the Greek church, p. 13. Thomassin Tr. des Fêtes, l. 1, ch. 7. 11. Conc. t. 3, p. 1077. 12. {Footnote not found in text.} L. 4, contra Nestor, t. 6, parte 1, p. 110. l. 7, de adoratione in spiritu et verit. t. 1, p. 231, c. 10, in Joan. t. 1, c. 13. 13. T. 5, parte 2, p. 380. Item Conc. t. 3, p. 583. 14. [Greek: Keimêlion tês oikomenês]. The rich furniture of the world.
APPENDIX
ON
THE WRITINGS OF ST. CYRIL
OF ALEXANDRIA.
The old Latin translations of the works of this father were extremely faulty, before the edition of Paris, by John Aubert, in 1638, in six tomes, folio, bound in seven, which yet might be improved. Baluze and Lupus have published some letters of this holy doctor, which had escaped Aubert and Labbe. If elegance, choice of thoughts, and beauty of style be wanting in his writings, these defects are compensated by the justness and precision with which he expresses the great truths of religion, especially in clearing the terms concerning the mystery of the Incarnation. Hence his controversial works are the most valuable part of his writings. His books against Nestorius, those against Julian, and that called The Treasure, are the most finished and important.
His treatise On Adoration in Spirit and Truth, with which he begins his commentary on the Bible, contains, in seventeen books, an exposition of several passages of the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, (though not in order,) in moral and allegorical interpretations.
In the thirteen books entitled Glaphyrs, i.e. profound or elegant, the longer passages of the same books are explained allegorically of Christ and his church.
In his commentaries on Isaiah, and the twelve lesser prophets, he gives both the literal and allegorical sense.
On the Gospel of St. John, we have ten books entire, and fragments of the seventh and eighth. In the old editions, the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth books, which were entirely wanting, were patched up by Clictou from the writings of other fathers: which, for want of reading the preface, have been quoted by some as St. Cyril's. In this great work, the {280} saint gives not only the literal and spiritual senses of the sacred text, but likewise refutes the reigning heresies of that age, especially those against the consubstantiality of the Son, as the Eunomians. He also answers all the objections of the Manichees. He is very clear in establishing in the holy sacrament of the altar the reality of Christ's body contained in it and the holy sacrifice, teaching that "the holy body of Christ gives life to us when received, and preserves us in it, being the very body of life itself, according to nature, and containing all the virtue of the Word united to it, and being endued with all his efficacy by whom all things receive life, and are preserved." (L. 4, in Joan. p. 324.) That we shall, by tasting it, "have life in us, being united together with his body as it is with the Word dwelling in it." (Ibid. p. 361.) That "as death had devoured all human nature, he who is life, being in us by his flesh, might overcome that tyrant." (Ibid. p. 272.) "Christ by his flesh, hides in us life and a seed of immortality, which destroys in us all corruption," (Ibid. p. 363,) and "heals our diseases, assuaging the law of the flesh raging in our members." (ibid. p. 365.) In the tenth look he is most diffusive and clear on this sacrament, extolling its miraculous institution, the most exalted of all God's mysteries, above our comprehension, and the wonderful manner by which we are united and made one with him; not by affection, but by natural participation; which he calls "a mixture, an incorporation, a blending together; for as wax melted and mingled with another piece of melted wax, makes one; so by partaking of his precious body and blood, he is united in us, and we in him," &c. (L. 10, in Joan. pp. 862, 863, item pp. 364, 365.) See the longer and clearer texts of this doctrine in this book itself, and in the controversial writers upon that subject. Also, in his works Against Nestorius, whom he confutes from the blessed eucharist, proving Christ's humanity to be the humanity of the divine Person. "This," says he, "I cannot but add in this place, namely, that when we preach the death of the only begotten Son of God, that is, of Jesus Christ, and his resurrection from the dead, and confess his ascension into heaven, we celebrate the unbloody sacrifice in the church, and do by this means approach the mystical benedictions, and are sanctified, being made partakers of the sacred flesh and precious blood of Christ, the Saviour of us all. And we do not receive it as common flesh, ([Greek: mê genoito],) God forbid; nor as the flesh of man who is sanctified and joined to the Word by a unity of dignity, or as having a divine habitation; but we receive it, as it is truly, the life-giving and proper flesh of the Word." (Ep. ad Nestorium, de Excommun. p. 72, t. 5, par. 2, and in Declaratione undecimi Anathematismi, t. 6, p. 156.) In this latter place he speaks of it also as a true sacrifice: "We perform in the churches the holy and life-giving and unbloody sacrifice, believing the body which is placed, and the precious blood to be made the very body and blood of the Word, which gives life to all things, &c. He proves that it is only to be offered in Catholic churches, in the only one house of Christ" (L. adv. Anthropomorph. t. 6, p. 380.) He heard that some imagined that the mystical benediction is lost if the eucharist is kept to another day; but says, "they are mad; for Christ is not altered, nor his body changed." (T. 6, p. 365, ep. ad Calosyrium.) In his fourth book on St. John, (t. 4, p. 358,) he as expressly confutes the Jewish doubt about the possibility of the holy sacrament, as if he had the modern Sacramentarians in view.
To refute the whole system of Arianism, he wrote the book which he called The Treasure, which he divided into thirty-five titles or sections. He answers in it all the objections of those heretics, and establishes from scripture the divinity of the Son of God; and from title thirty-three, that of the Holy Ghost.
His book On the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, consists of seven dialogues, and was composed at the request of Nemesm and Hermias. This work was also written to prove the consubstantiality of Christ, but is more obscure than the former. The holy doctor added two other Dialogues, the eighth and ninth, On the Incarnation, against the errors of Nestorius, then only known by report at Alexandria. He afterwards subjoined Scholia, to answer certain objections; likewise a short book On the Incarnation, in which he proves the holy Virgin to be, as she is called, the Mother of God; as Jesus Christ is at the same time both the Son of God, and the Son of man. By his skirmishes with the Arians he was prepared to oppose and crush the extravagances of Nestorius, broached at that time against the same adorable mystery of the Incarnation, of which God raised our holy doctor the champion in his church; for by his writings he both stifled the heresy of Nestorius in the cradle, and furnished posterity with arms against that of Eutyches, says Basil of Seleucia. (T. 4, Conc. p. 925.)
St. Cyril composed at Ephesus his three treatises On the Right Faith, against Nestorius. The first is addressed to the Emperor Theodosius. It contains an enumeration of the heresies against the Incarnation, namely, of Cerinthus, Photinus, Apollinaris, and Nestorius, with a refutation of each, especially the last. The second is inscribed to the princesses Pulcheria, Arcadia, and Marina, the emperor's sisters, all virgins, consecrated to God. This contains the proofs of the Catholic faith against Nestorius. The third is a confutation of the heretics' objections against it.
His five books against Nestorius, are the neatest and best penned of his polemic writings. They contain a refutation of the blasphemous homilies of that heresiarch, who yet is never {281} named in them; by which circumstance they seem to have been written before his condemnation. St. Cyril sent to Nestorius twelve Anathematisms against his errors. This work was read in the council of Ephesus, and is entirely orthodox, yet some censured it as favoring Apollinarism, or as denying the distinction of two natures in Christ, the divine and human, after the Incarnation; and the Eutychians afterwards strained them in favor of their heresy. John, patriarch of Antioch, prepossessed against St. Cyril, pretended for some time to discover that error in them; and persuaded Andrew, bishop of Samosata, and the great Theodoret of Cyr, to write against them. St. Cyril gave in his clear Explication of them to the council of Ephesus, at its desire, extant, p. 145.
He also wrote, soon after that synod, two Apologies of the Anathematisms; one against Andrew of Samosata, and other Oriental prelates, who through mistake were offended at them; and the other, against Theodoret of Cyr. And lastly, An Apologetic for them to the emperor Theodosius, to remove some sinister suspicions which his enemies had endeavored to give that prince against his sentiments in that work.
The Anthropomorphite heretics felt likewise the effects of St. Cyril's zeal. These were certain ignorant monks of Egypt, who having been taught by the elders, in order to help their gross minds in the continual practice of the presence of God, to represent him to themselves under a corporeal human figure, by which they at length really believed him to be not a pure spirit, but corporeal, like a man; because man was created to his image. Theophilus immediately condemned, and the whole church exploded, this monstrous absurdity. St. Cyril wrote a letter to confute it to Calosyrius, bishop of Arsinoe, showing that man is framed according to the Divine image, not in his body, for God being the most pure Spirit, can have no sensible figure, but in being endued with reason, and capable of virtue. In the same letter he rejects a second error of other ignorant monks, who imagined that the blessed Eucharist lost its consecration if kept to the following day. He reprehends other anchorets, who, upon a pretence of continual prayer, did not work at certain hours of the day, making it a cloak of gluttony and laziness. The saint has left us another book against the Anthropomorphites, in which he proves that man is made to God's image, by bearing the resemblance of his sanctity, by grace and virtue. So he says the angels are likewise made to his likeness. He answers in this book twenty-seven dogmatical questions put to him by the same monks.
He wrote, in the years 437 and 438, two Dogmatical Letters (pp. 51 and 52) against certain propositions of Theodorus of Mopsuestia, the forerunner of Nestorius, though he had died in the communion of the church.
The book on the Trinity cannot be St. Cyril's; for it refutes the Monothelite heresy, not known before the year 620.
Julian the Apostate, while he was preparing for the Persian war, had, with the assistance of Maximus and his other impious philosophers, published three books against the holy gospels, which were very prejudicial to weak minds; though nothing was advanced in them that had not been said by Celsus, and fully answered by Origen in his books against that philosopher, and by Eusebius in his Evangelical Preparation. St. Cyril, out of zeal, composed ten books against Julian, which he dedicated to the emperor Theodosius; and also sent to John of Antioch to show the sincerity of his reconciliation. In this work he has preserved us Julian's words, omitting only his frequent repetitions and puerilities. Nor have we any thing else of that work of the Apostate, but what is preserved here by St. Cyril. He begins by warning the emperor against bad company, by which Julian fell into such extravagant impieties. In the first book he justifies Moses's history of the world, and proves with great erudition from profane history that its events are posterior, and the heathen sages and historians younger than that divine lawgiver, from whom they all borrowed many things. In the second, he compares the sacred history of the creation, which Julian had pretended to ridicule, with the puerilities and absurdities of Pythagoras, Thales, Plato, &c., of whom Julian was an admirer to a degree of folly. In the third, he vindicates the history of the Serpent, and of Adam's fall; and retorts the ridiculous Theogony of Hesiod, &c. In the fourth, he shows that God governs all things by himself, not by inferior deities, as Julian pretended, the absurdity of which he sets forth: demonstrating, likewise, that things are ruled by a wise free providence; not by destiny or necessity, which even Porphyry and the wiser heathens had justly exploded, though the Apostate adopted that monstrous doctrine. He justifies against his cavils the history of the Tower of Babel: and in his fifth book, the Ten Commandments; showing in the same, that God is not subject to jealousy, anger, or other passions, though he has an infinite horror of sin. Julian objected that we also adore God the Son, consequently have two gods. St. Cyril answers that he is the same God with the Father. In the sixth book he reports the shameful vices of Socrates, Plato, and their other heroes of paganism, in opposition to the true virtues of the prophets and saints. Julian reproached Christ that he did not appear great in the world, and only cured the pool, and delivered demoniacs in villages; he reprehended Christians for refusing to adore the noble ensign, the gift of Jupiter or Mars; yet, says he, you adore the wood of {282} the cross, make its sign on your forehead, and engrave it on the porches of your houses ([Greek: To toutu saurou proskuneite tzolon, eikonas autou skiagrafountes en tô metôpô, kai pro tôn opennatôs eggrafontes.] L. 6, adv. Jul. t. 6, p. 194.) To which St. Cyril answers, (p. 195:) We glory in this sign of the precious cross, since Christ triumphed on it; and it is to us the admonition of all virtue. This father says in another place, (in Isaiam, t. 4, p. 294:) "The faithful arm and intrench themselves with the sign of the cross, overthrowing and breaking by it the power, and every assault of the devils: for the cross is to us an impregnable rampart." In this sixth book he produces the open acknowledgment of Julian that the heathenish oracles had all ceased; but this he ascribed to old age and length of time. St. Cyril shows the extravagance of this supposition, and that the true reason was, because the power of the devil had been restrained by the coming of Christ. He mentions the same in his Commentary on Isaiah, (t. 2, p. 596.) In the seventh book, he proves that the great men in the true religion far surpassed in virtue all the heroes of paganism. In the eighth and ninth, that Christ was foretold by the ancient prophets, and that the Old and New Law are in substance the same. In the tenth he proves, that not only St. John, but all the Evangelists, teach Christ to be truly God. Julian objects, (pp. 333, 335, 339, and 350,) that we also adore the martyrs and their sepulchres: "Why do you prostrate yourselves at the sepulchres?--which it is to be believed your Apostles did after the death of their Master, and taught you this art magic," (p. 339.) The saint answers, We make an infinite difference between God and the martyrs: which he had before told him, (l. 6, pp. 201 and 203,) where he writes, "We neither call the martyrs gods, nor adore them with divine worship; but with affection and honor reverence them: we pay them the highest honors, because they contemned their life for the truth," &c.
We have in the second part of the fifth tome several Homilies and Letters of this saint. It was ordained by the council of Nice that the bishop of Alexandria, in which city chiefly flourished the sciences of mathematics and astronomy, should at the end of every year examine carefully on what day the next Easter was to be kept. They, by custom, acquainted by a circular letter other bishops near them, and in particular the bishop of Rome, that he might notify it to all the prelates of the West. St. Cyril was very exact in this duty. Possevin says he saw his paschal discourses in the Vatican library, for every year of hie episcopacy, namely thirty-one, from the year 414. We have but twenty-nine printed: those for 443 and 444 being wanting. He spoke them to his own flock, as well as sent them to other bishops; and marks in each the beginning of Lent, the Monday and Saturday in Holy Week, and Easter-day, counting Lent exactly of forty days. In these paschal homilies he exceedingly recommends the advantages of fasting; which he shows (Hom. 1.) to be the "source of all virtues, the image of an angelical life, the extinction of lust, and the preparation of a soul to heavenly communications." He says, "If it seems at first bitter and laborious, its fruits and reward infinitely compensate the pains; for more should seem nothing for the purchase of virtue: even in temporal things, nothing valuable can be obtained without labor and cost. If we are afraid of fasting here, we shall fall into eternal flames hereafter; an evil infinitely worse, and quite intolerable." In the following homilies he extols the absolute necessity of this mortification, to crucify in us the old man, and punish past irregularities; but shows it must be accompanied with alms and other good works. In his latter paschal discourses, and others extant, he explains the mystery of the Incarnation against Nestorianism and other heresies. The ninth homily is On the Mystical Supper, or Holy Banquet of the Communion and Sacrifice, in which "the tremendous mystery is performed, and the Lamb of God sacrificed, (p. 271;) in which (p. 272) the Eternal Wisdom distributes his body as bread, and his saving blood as wine: the Maker gives himself to the work of his own hands. Life bestows itself to be eat and drunk by men," &c. At this divine table he cries out, (p. 376,) "I am filled with dread when I behold it. I am transported cut of myself with astonishment when I consider it," &c. He proves, against Nestorianism, (p. 318,) that there is but one Person in Christ, because in this holy sacrament is received his true body and blood: not the Divinity alone, which nobody could receive, nor a pure man's body, which could not give life; but a man made the Word of God--who is Christ, the Son of the living God, one of the adorable Trinity. He remains the priest and the victim: he who offers, and he who is offered. ([Greek: Oti autos menei hiereus kai lusia, autos ho prosferôn kai ho prosferomenos.] p. 378.) In the tenth homily he pronounces an encomium of the blessed Mary, mother of God. This was delivered at Ephesus, in an assembly of bishops, during the council; for he apostrophizes that city, and St. John the Evangelist, its protector. In it he calls the pope "the most holy Celestine, the father and archbishop of the whole world, and the patriarch of the great city Rome." (Ib. Encom. in St. Mariam. part 2, p. 384.) He more clearly extols the supreme prerogative of the church of Rome, founded on the faith of Peter; which church is perpetual, impregnable to hell, and confirmed beyond the danger of falling. (Dial. 4, de Trinit. pp. 507, 508.) His eleventh homily is On the Presentation, or, as the Greeks call it, [Greek: apantêsis]. The meeting of the Lord in the Temple, and The Purification of our Lady, in which he speaks of the lamp or candles used on that festival. He has a pathetic Sermon on the Pains of {283} Hell: he paints the terrors of the last Judgment in a manner which cannot fail to make a strong impression upon all who read it. (Or. de Exitu animi, et de secundo Adventu.)
The epistles which we have from his pen all relate to the public affairs of the church, and principally those of Nestorius. His second letter to that heresiarch, and his letter to the Orientals, were adopted by the general councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, and are a rule of the Catholic faith. His sixteenth letter is placed among the canons of the Greek church. In it be recommends to the bishops of Libya and Pentapolis, the strictest scrutiny of the capacity and manners of those who are admitted to holy Orders; and the greatest solicitude and watchfulness that no one die without baptism, if only a catechumen, and the Holy Eucharist or Viaticum. See Beveridge.
SS. THYRSUS, LEUCIUS, AND CALLINICUS, MM.
THEIR Greek and Latin Acts agree that, after suffering many torments, they were put to death, on three different days, at Apollonia, in Phrygia, in the persecution of Decius. Sozomen tells us that Cæsarius, who had been prefect and consul, built at Constantinople a magnificent church under the invocation of St. Thyrsus, with a portion of whose relics it was enriched. Another church within the city bore his name, as appears from the Menæa, on the 14th of December. In the cathedral of our Lady at Sisteron, in a church at Limoges, &c., St. Thymus is one of the patrons. Many churches in Spain bear his name. Silon, King of Oviedo and Asturia, in a letter to Cyxilas, archbishop of Toledo in 777, says that the queen had sent presents to the church of St. Thyrsus, which the archbishop had built, viz. a silver chalice and paten, a basin to wash the hands in, with a pipe and a diadem on the cover, to be used when the blood of our Lord was distributed to the people.
Footnotes: 1. Cum suo naso. Du Cange, not understanding this word, substitutes vaso. But nasus here signifies a silver pipe or quill to suck up the blood of Christ at the communion, such as the pope sometimes uses. Such a one is kept at St. Denys's, near Paris. The ancient Ordo Romanus calls that pugillar which is here called nasus, because it sucks up as a nose draws up air. In the reign of Philip II., in 1595, in certain ruins near the cathedral of Toledo, this cover of the chalice was discovered with the diadem. Chatelain, p. 440.
ST. JOHN OF REOMAY, A.
NOW CALLED MOUTIER-SAINT-JEAN, IN BURGUNDY
HE was a native of the diocese of Langres, and took the monastic habit at Lerins. He was called into his own country by the bishop of Langres to found the abbey from which he received his surname. He settled it under the rule of St. Macarius, governed it many years with great reputation of sanctity, and was rendered famous by miracles. He went to God about the year 540, being almost one hundred and twenty years old, and was one of the holy institutors of the monastic state in France. St. Gregory of Tours gives an account of him in the eighty-seventh chapter of his book, On the Glory of Confessors. His life was also compiled by Jonas, the disciple of Columban, extant in Bollandus. See P. Rover, Hist. Monast. S. Joan. Reom. Paris, 1637.
{284}
B. MARGARET, PRINCESS OF HUNGARY, V.
SHE was daughter to Bala IV., the pious king of Hungary. Her parents consecrated her to God by a vow before her birth, and when but three years and a half old she was placed in the monastery of Dominican nuns at Vesprin, and at ten removed to a new nunnery of that order, founded by her father in an isle of the Danube, near Buda, called from her the isle of St. Margaret. She was professed at twelve.[1] In her tender age she outstripped the most advanced in devotion, and was favored with extraordinary communications from heaven. It was her delight to serve everybody, and to practise every kind of humiliation: she never spoke of herself, as if she was beneath all notice: never loved to see her royal parents, or to speak of them, saying it was her misfortune that she was not of poor parentage. Her mortifications were excessive. She endeavored to conceal her sicknesses for fear of being dispensed with or shown any indulgence in the rule. From her infancy she conceived the most ardent devotion towards her crucified Redeemer, and kissed very often, both by day and night, a little cross made of the wood of our Saviour's cross, which she always carried about her. She commonly chose to pray before the altar of the cross. Her affection for the name of Jesus made her have it very frequently in her mouth, which she repeated with incredible inward feeling and sweetness. Her devotion to Christ in the blessed sacrament was most remarkable: she often wept abundantly, or appeared in ecstasies during the mass, and much more when she herself received the divine spouse of her soul: on the eve she took nothing but bread and water, and watched the night in prayer. On the day itself she remained in prayer and fasting till evening, and then took a small refection. She showed a sensible joy in her countenance when she heard any festival of our Lady announced, through devotion to the mother of God; she performed on them, and during the octaves, one thousand salutations each day, prostrating herself on the ground at each, besides saying the office of our blessed Lady every day. If any one seemed offended at her, she fell at their feet and begged their pardon. She was always the first in obedience, and was afraid to be excepted if others were enjoined penance for a breach of silence or any other fault. Her bed was a coarse skin, laid on the bare floor, with a stone for her pillow. She was favored with the gift of miracles and prophecy. She gave up her pure soul to God, after a short illness, on the 18th of January, in the year 1271, and of her age the twenty-eighth. Her body is preserved at Presbourg. See her life by Guerinus, a Dominican, by order of his general, in 1340: and an abridgment of the same by Ranzano. She was never canonized, but is honored with an office in all the churches in Hungary, especially those of the Dominicans in that kingdom, by virtue of a decree of Pope Pius II, as Touron assures us.[2]
Footnotes: 1. Touron, Vies des Hommes Illustres de l'Ordre de St. Dominique, in Humbert des Romains, fifth general of the Dominicans, t. 1, p. 325. 2. Touron, ib. in Innocent V. t. 1, p. 384.
ST. PAULINUS, PATRIARCH OF AQUILEIA, C.
ONE of the most illustrious and most holy prelates of the eighth and ninth centuries was Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia, who seems to have been born {285} about the year 728, in a country farm, not far from Friuli. His family could boast of no advantages of fortune, and his parents having no other revenue than what arose from the tillage of their farm, he spent part of his youth in agriculture. Yet he found leisure for his studios, and in process of time became so eminent a grammarian and professor, that Charlemagne honored him with a rescript, in which he styles him Master of Grammar, and Very Venerable. This epithet seems to imply that he was then priest. The same prince, in recompense of his extraordinary merit, bestowed on him an estate in his own country. It seems to have been about the year 776, that Paulinus was promoted, against his will, to the patriarchate of Aquileia, which dignity had not then been long annexed to that see, after the extinction of the schism of Istria. From the zeal, abilities, and piety of St. Paulinus, this church derived its greatest lustre. Such was his reputation, that Charlemagne always expressed a particular desire that he should be present at all the great councils which were assembled in his time, though in the remotest part of his dominions. He assisted at those of Aix-la-Chapelle in 789, of Ratisbon in 792, and of Frankfort in 794; and held himself one at Friuli, in 791, or 796, against the errors which some had begun to spread in that age concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost, and the mystery of the Incarnation.
Felix, bishop of Urgel in Catalonia, in a letter to Elipandus, bishop of Toledo, who had consulted him on that subject, before the year 783, pretended to prove that Christ as man is not the natural, but only the adoptive Son of God: which error he had already advanced in his public discourses.[1] The rising error was vigorously opposed by Beatus, a priest and abbot, and his disciple Etherius, who was afterwards bishop of Osma. Soon after it was condemned by a council at Narbonne, in 788,[2] and by another at Ratisbon, in 792, while Charlemagne kept his court in that city. Felix revoked his error first in this council at Ratisbon, and afterwards before pope Leo III. at Rome.[3] Yet after his return into Spain he continued both by letters and discourses to spread his heresy; which was therefore again condemned in the great council of Frankfort, in 794, in which a work of our saint, entitled Sacro-Syllabus, against the same, was approved, and ordered to be sent into Spain, to serve for all antidote against the spreading poison.[4] From this book of St. Paulinus it is clear that Elipandus also returned to the vomit. Alcuin returning from England, where he had stayed three years, in 793, wrote a tender moving letter to Felix, exhorting him sincerely to renounce his error. But the unhappy man, in a long answer, endeavored to establish his heresy so roundly as to fall into downright Nestorianism, which indeed is a consequence of his erroneous principle. For Christ as man cannot be called the adoptive Son of God, unless his human nature subsist by a distinct person from the divine.[5] By an order of Charlemagne, Alcuin and St. Paulinus solidly confuted the writings of these two heresiarchs, the former in seven, our saint in three books. Alcuin wrote four other books against the pestilential writings of Elipandus, in which he testifies that Felix was then at Rome, and converted to the Catholic faith. Elipandus, who was not a subject of Charlemagne, could not be compelled to appear before the councils held in his dominions, Toledo being at that time subject to the Moors. Felix, after his relapse, returned to the faith with his principal followers in the council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 797.[6] From that time he concealed his heresy, but continued in secret to defend it, and at his {286} death, in 815, left a written profession of his heresy.[7] Elipandus died in 809.[8]
The zeal of St. Paulinus was not less successful in the conversion of infidels than in the extinction of this heresy. Burning with zeal for the salvation of souls, and a vehement desire of laying down his life for Christ, he preached the gospel to the idolaters, who had remained to that time obstinately attached to their superstition among the Carantani in Carinthia and Stiria; in which provinces also St. Severinus the abbot, who died in 481, and afterwards St. Virgilius, bishop of Saltzburg, who died in 785, planted several numerous churches. Whence a contest arising between Arno, St. Virgilius's successor, and Ursus, the successor of Paulinus, to which see Carinthia ought to be annexed, it was settled in 811, that the churches which are situated on the south of the Drave should be subject of the patriarchate of Aquileia, and those on the north to the archbishopric of Saltzburg.[9] The Avares, a barbarous nation of Huns, who were settled in part of Pannonia, and were twice subdued by Charlemagne, received the faith by the preaching of St. Paulinus, and of certain missionaries sent by the archbishops of Saltzburg.[10] Henry, a virtuous nobleman, being appointed by Charlemagne Duke of Friuli, and governor of that country which he had lately conquered, St. Paulinus wrote for his use an excellent book Of Exhortation, in which he strongly invites him to aspire with his whole heart after Christian perfection, and lays down the most important rules on the practice of compunction and penance: on the remedies against different vices, especially pride, without which he shows that no sin ever was, or will be committed, this being the beginning, end, and cause of all sin:[11] on an earnest desire and study to please God with all our strength in all our actions:[12] on assiduous prayer and its essential dispositions: on the holy communion, of the preparation to which after sin he shows confession and penance to be an essential part:[13] on shunning bad company, &c. He closes the book with a most useful prayer; and in the beginning promises his prayers for the salvation of the good duke. By tears and prayers he ceased not to draw down the blessings of the divine mercy on the souls committed to his charge. Alcuin earnestly besought him as often as bathed in tears he offered the spotless victim to the divine Majesty, to implore the divine mercy in his behalf.[14] In 802, St. Paulinus assembled a council at Altino, a city near the Adriatic sea, which had been destroyed by Attila, and was at that time only a shadow of what it had been, though famous for a monastery, in which this synod was probably held.[15] It is long since entirely decayed. St. Paulinus closed a holy life by a happy death on the 11th of January, in 804, as Madrisius proves.[16] His festival occurs on this day in the old missal of Aquileia, and in several German Martyrologies: but it is at present kept at Aquileia, Friuli, and in some other places, on the 28th of January.[17] See the life of St. Paulinus of Aquileia, compiled by Nicoletti, {287} with the notes of Madrisius; and far more accurately by Madrisius himself an Oratorian of U{}na, who in 1737 published at Venice the works of this father in folio, illustrated with long notes and dissertations on every circumstance relating to the history or writings of our saint. See also Ceillier t. 18, p. 262, and Bollandus ad 11 Januarii.
Footnotes: 1. See Madrisius, Dissert. 4, p. 214. 2. On this council see Baluse, additam. ad. e. 25, l. 6, Petri de Marca, de Concord. Sacerd. et. Imp. 3. Leo III. in Conc. Rom. 799. Act. 2, et Eginard in Annal. &c. 4. See Madrisius, dissert. 4, p. 219. 5. See Natal. Alex. Sæc. 8. diss. 5. 6. Alcuin, l. 1, contra Elipand. 7. Agobard, l. 1, adv. Felicem. n. 1 & 5. 8. From certain false chronicles, Iamayo and Ceillier (in St. Beatus. t. 18, p. 364,) relate that Ellpandus revoked his error in a council which he held at Toledo, and died penitent. Madrisius shows this circumstance to be uncertain, (Diss. 4, in op. S. Paulini, p. 225,) and Nicolas Antony of Seville, in his Bibl. Hisp. l. 6, c. 2, n. 42, has proved the monuments upon which it is founded to be of no authority. Claudius, bishop of Turin, a disciple of Felix of Urgel, renewed this heresy in Italy, and denied the veneration due to holy images, and was refuted by Jonas, bishop of Orleans, and others. 9. Sconleben, Annal. Austr. and Madrisius, Vit. S. Paulini, c. 8. 10. Alcuin. ep. 112. F. Inchofer, in Annal. Hungar. Eccl. ad an. 795. Madrisius, in Vit. St. Paulini, c. 8, p. 31. 11. St. Paulin. l, Exhort. ad Henr. ducem. c. 19, p. 29. 12. C. 24, p. 34. 13. C. 33, p. 29. See 1 Corinth. xi. 28, St. Cypr. ep. 9, 10, 11, and Tract. de Lapsis. 14. Alcuin, ep. 113, and Poem. 214. 15. See Madrisius, Dissert. 6. 16. Mardis. in Vitâ St. Paulini, c. 13, p. 37. 17. Besides the polemical and spiritual works of St. Paulinus of Aquileia, mentioned above, we have several poems of his composition: the first contains a rule of faith against the Arians, Nestorians, and Eutychians: the rest are hymns or rhythms on the Chair of St. Peter, and on several other festivals and saints. Among his letters the second is most remarkable, in which he complains severely to Charlemagne that several bishops attending the court neglected to reside in their dioceses. Against this abuse he quotes the council of Sardica, which forbade any bishop to be absent from his see above three weeks. Madrisius, p. 188.
B. CHARLEMAGNE, EMPEROR.
CHARLEMAGNE, or Charles the Great, son of king Pepin, was born in 742, and crowned king of France in 768; but his youngest brother Carloman reigned in Austrasia till his death, in 771. Charlemagne vanquished Hunauld, duke of Aquitaine, and conquered the French Gothia or Languedoc; subdued Lombardy; conferred on pope Adrian the exarchate of Ravenna, the duchy of Spoletto, and many other dominions; took Pavia, (which had been honored with the residence of twenty kings,) and was crowned king of Lombardy in 774. The emir Abderamene in Spain, having shaken off the yoke of the caliph of the Saracens, in 736, and established his kingdom at Cordova, and other emirs in Spain setting up independency, Charlemagne, in 778, marched as far as the Ebro and Saragossa, conquered Barcelona, Gironne, and many other places, and returned triumphant. His cousin Roland, who followed him with the rear of his army, in his return was set upon in the Pyrenean mountains by a troop of Gascon robbers, and slain; and is the famous hero of numberless old French romances and songs. The Saxons having in the king's absence plundered his dominions upon the Rhine, he flew to the Weser, and compelled them to make satisfaction. Thence he went to Rome, and had his infant sons crowned kings, Pepin of Lombardy, and Lewis of Aquitaine. The great revolt of the Saxons, in 782, called him again on that side. When they were vanquished, and sued for pardon, he declared he would no more take their oaths which they had so often broken, unless they became Christians. Witikind embraced the condition, was baptized with his chief followers in 785, and being created duke of part of Saxony, remained ever after faithful in his religion and allegiance. From him are descended, either directly or by intermarriages, many dukes of Bavaria, and the, present houses of Saxony, Brandenburg, &c., as may be seen in the German genealogists. Some other Saxons afterwards revolted, and were vanquished and punished in 794, 798, &c., so that, through their repeated treachery and rebellions, this Saxon war continued at intervals for the space of thirty-three years. Thassillon, duke of Bavaria, for treasonable practices, was attacked by Charlemagne in 788, vanquished, and obliged to put on a monk's cowl to save his life: from which time Bavaria was annexed to Charlemagne's dominions. To punish the Abares for their inroads, he crossed the Inns into their territories, sacked Vienna, and marched to the mouth of the Raab, upon the Danube. In 794, he assisted at the great council of Frankfort, held in his royal palace there. He restored Leo III. at Rome, quelled the seditions there, and was crowned by him on Christmas-day, in 800, emperor of Rome and of the West: in which quality he was afterwards solemnly acknowledged by Nicephorus, emperor of Constantinople. Thus was the western empire restored, which had been extinct in Momylus Agustulus in the fifth century. In 805, Charlemagne quelled and conquered the Sclavonians. The Danube, {288} the Teisse, and the Oder on the East, and the Ebro and the ocean on the West, were the boundaries of his vast dominions. France, Germany, Dacia, Dalmatia, Istria, Italy, and part of Pannonia and Spain, obeyed his laws. It was then customary for kings not to reside in great cities, but to pass the summer often in progresses or campaigns, and the winter at some country palace. King Pepin resided at Herstal, now Jopin, in the territory of Liege, and sometimes at Quiercy on the Oise: Charlemagne often at Frankfort or Aix-la-Chapelle, which were country seats; for those towns were then inconsiderable places: though the latter had been founded by Serenas Granus in 124, under Adrian. It owes its greatness to the church built there by Charlemagne.
This prince was not less worthy of our admiration in the quality of a legislator than in that of a conqueror; and in the midst of his marches and victories, he gave the utmost attention to the wise government of his dominions, and to every thing that could promote the happiness of his people, the exaltation of the church, and the advancement of piety and every branch of sacred and useful learning.[1] What pains he took for the reformation of monasteries, and for the sake of uniformity introducing in them the rule of St. Bennet, appears from his transactions, and several ecclesiastical assemblies in 789. His zeal for the devout observance of the rites of the church is expressed in his book to Alcuin on that subject, and in his encyclical epistle on the rites of baptism,[2] and in various works which he commissioned Alcuin and others to compile. For the reformation of manners, especially of the clergy, he procured many synods to be held, in which decrees were framed, which are called his Capitula.[3] His Capitulars, divided into many chapters, are of the same nature. The best edition of these Capitulars is given by Baluzius, with dissertations, in 1677, two vols. folio. The Carolin Books are a theological work, (adopted by this prince, who speaks in the first person,) compiled in four books, against a falsified copy of the second council of Nice, sent by certain Iconoclasts from Constantinople, on which see F. Daniel[4] and Ceillier.[5]
There never was a truly great man, who was not a lover and encourager of learning, as of the highest improvement of the human mind. Charlemagne, by most munificent largesses, invited learned men over from foreign parts, as Alcuin, Peter of Pisa, Paul the deacon, &c., found no greater pleasure than in conversing with them, instituted an academy in his own palace, and great schools at Paris, Tours, &c., assisted at literary disputations, was an excellent historian, and had St. Austin's book, On the City of God, laid every night under his pillow to read if he awaked. Yet Eginhard assures us that whatever pains he took, he could never learn to write, because he was old when he first applied himself to it. He was skilled in astronomy, arithmetic, music, and every branch of the mathematics; understood the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac, also the Sclavonian, and several other living languages, so as never to want an interpreter to converse with ambassadors of neighboring nations. He meditated assiduously on the scriptures, assisted at the divine office, even that of midnight, if possible; had good books read to him at table, and took but one meal a day, which he was obliged to anticipate before the hour of evening on fasting days, that all his officers and servants might dine before midnight. He was very abstemious, had a paternal care of the poor in all his dominions, and honored good men, especially among the clergy. Charlemagne died January the 28th, in 814, seventy-two years old, and was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle. The incontinence into {289} which he fell in his youth, he expiated by sincere repentance, so that several churches in Germany and France honor him among the saints. In the university of Paris, the most constant nation of the Germans, (which was originally called the English nation, in 1250, when the distinction of nations n the faculty of arts was there established,) take Charlemagne for their patron, but only keep his festival since the year 1480, which is now common to the other three nations of French, Picards, and Normans, since 1661.[6]
Footnotes: 1. See Hardion, Hist. Universelle, t. 10. 2. Apud Mabill. Analect. t. 1, p. 21. 3. Conc. t. 6 & 7, ed. Labbe. 4. Hist. de France in Charlem. French edit. in fol. 5. Ceillier, pp. 376 & 400. 6. Pagi (in Breviario Rom. Pontif. t. 3, in Alex. III. p. 82) proves that suffrages for the soul of Charlemagne were continued at Aix-la-Chapelle, till the antipope Pascal, at the desire of Frederic Barbarossa, enshrined his remains in that city, and published a decree for his canonization. From the time of this enshrining of his remains, he is honored among the saints in many churches in Germany and the Low Countries, as Goujet (De Festis propriis Sanctor. l. 1, c. 5, quæst. 9) and Bollandus (ad 28 Jan. and t. 2, Febr. Schemate 19) show. The tacit approbation of the popes is to be looked upon as equivalent to a beatification, as Benedict XIV. proves (De Canoniz. l. 1, c. 9, n. 5, p. 72.) Molanus, (in Natal. SS. Belg.,) Natalis Alexander. (Hist. Sæc. 9 and 10., cap. 7, a. 1,) and many others, have made the same observation.
ST. GLASTIAN, B.C. IN SCOTLAND.
HE was a native of the county of Fife, and discharged in the same, during many years, the duties of the episcopal character with which he was honored. Amidst the desolation which was spread over the whole country, in the last bloody civil war between the Scots and Picts, in which the latter were entirely subdued, St. Glastian was the comforter, spiritual father, and most charitable protector of many thousands of both nations. He died in 830, at Kinglace in Fifeshire, and was particularly honored in that country, and in Kyntire. According to the ancient custom of that country, his name is frequently written Mac-Glastian, the word Mac signifying son. See the Breviary of Aberdeen; King in his Calendar, &c.
JANUARY XXIX.
SAINT FRANCIS OF SALES,
BISHOP AND CONFESSOR.
From his writings and authentic lives, chiefly that written by his nephew, Charles Augustus de Sales: also that by F. Goulu, general of the Feuillans: that by Henry de Maupas du Tour, bishop of Puy, afterwards of Evreux: and that by Madame de Bussi-Rabutin, nun of the Visitation See his life, collected by M. Marsoillier, and done into English by the late Mr. Crathorne. See also the bull of his canonization, and an excellent collection of his maxims and private actions, compiled by his intimate friend and real admirer, M. Peter Caums, bishop of Bellay, in his book, entitled, L'Espirit de St. François de Sales, and in his scarce and incomparable work under the title. Quel est le meilleur Gouvernement, le rigoureux ou le dour, printed at Paris without the name of the author, 1636. Though I find not this book in any catalogue of bishop Camus's works, the conformity of style, and in several places the repetition of the same expressions which occur in the last-mentioned work, seem to prove this to be also the production of his pen. See also the excellent new edition of the letters of St. Francis of Sales, in six volumes, 12mo. 1758.
A.D. 1622.
THE parents of this saint were Francis, count of Sales, and Frances of Sionas. The countess being with child, offered her fruit to God with the most fervent prayers, begging he would preserve it from the corruption of the world, and rather deprive her of the comfort of seeing herself a mother, than suffer her to give birth to a child who should ever become his enemy by sin. The saint was born at Sales, three leagues from Annecy, the seat of that noble family; and his mother was delivered of him when she was {290} but seven months advanced in her pregnancy.[1] Hence he was reared with difficulty, and was so weak, that his life, during his infancy, was often despaired of by physicians. However, he escaped the danger, and grew robust: he was very beautiful, and the sweetness of his countenance won the affections of all who saw him: but the meekness of his temper, the pregnancy of his wit, his modesty, tractableness, and obedience, were far more valuable qualifications. The countess could scarce suffer the child out of her sight, lest any tincture of vice might infect his soul. Her first care was to inspire him with the most profound respect for the church, and all holy things; and she had the comfort to observe in him a recollection and devotion at his prayers far above his age. She read to him the lives of the saints, adding recollections suited to his capacity; and she took care to have him with her when she visited the poor, making him the distributer of her alms, and to do such little offices for them as he was able. He would set by his own meat for their relief, and when he had nothing left to bestow on them, would beg for them of all his relations. His horror of a lie, even in his infancy, made him prefer any disgrace or chastisement to the telling of the least wilful untruth.
His mother's inclination for a domestic preceptor, to prevent his being corrupted by wicked youth in colleges, was overruled by her husband's persuasion of the usefulness of emulation for advancing children in their studies; hoping his son's virtue and modesty would, under God, be a sufficient guard of his innocency. He was accordingly sent to Rocheville, at six years of age, and some time after to Annecy. An excellent memory, a solid judgment, and a good application, could not fail of great progress. The young count spent as much of his time as possible in private studies and lectures of piety, especially that of the lives of saints; and by his diligence always doubled or trebled his school tasks. He showed an early inclination for the ecclesiastical state, and obtained his father's consent, though not without some reluctance, for his receiving tonsure in the year 1578, and the eleventh of his age. He was sent afterwards, under the care of a virtuous priest, his preceptor, to pursue his studies in Paris; his mother having first instilled into him steady principles of virtue, a love of prayer, and a dread of sin and its occasions. She often repeated to him those words of queen Blanche to her son St. Louis, king of France: "I had rather see you dead, than hear you had committed one mortal sin." On his arrival at Paris, he entered the Jesuits' schools, and went through his rhetoric and philosophy with great applause. In pure obedience to his father's orders, he learned in the academy to ride, dance, and fence, whence he acquired that easy behavior which he retained ever after. But these exercises, as matters of amusement, did not hinder his close application to the study of the Greek and Hebrew languages, and of positive divinity, for six years, under the famous Genebrard and Maldonatus. But his principal concern all this time was a regular course of piety, by which he labored to sanctify himself and all his actions. Pious meditation, and the study of the holy scripture, were his beloved entertainments: and he never failed to carry about him that excellent book, called the Spiritual Combat. He sought the conversation of the virtuous, particularly of F. Angelus Joyeuse, who, from a duke and marshal of France, was become a Capuchin friar. The frequent discourses of this good man on the necessity of mortification, induced the count to add, to his usual austerities, the wearing of a hair shirt three days in the week. His chief resort during his stay at Paris, was to some churches, that especially of Saint Stephen des Grez, as being one of the most retired. Here, he made {291} a vow of perpetual chastity, putting himself under the special patronage of the Blessed Virgin. God, to purify his heart, permitted a thick darkness insensibly to overspread his mind, and a spiritual dryness and melancholy to overwhelm him. He seemed, from a perfect tranquillity and peace of mind, to be almost brought to the brink of despair. Seized with the greatest terrors, he passed nights and days in tears and lamentations, and suffered more than can be conceived by those who have not felt the severity of such interior conflicts. The bitterness of his grief threw him into a deep jaundice; he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep. His preceptor labored, but all in vain, to discover the cause of this disorder, and find out a remedy. At last, Francis, being at prayer in the same church of St. Stephen, cast his eyes on a picture of our Lady: this awaking his confidence in her intercession, he prostrated himself on the ground, and, as unworthy to address the Father of all consolation, begged that she would be his advocate, and procure him the grace to love God with his whole heart. That very moment he found himself eased of his grief as of a heavy weight taken off his heart, and his former peace and tranquillity restored, which he ever after enjoyed. He was now eighteen years old, when his father recalled him from Paris, and sent him to Padua, to study the law, where his master was the celebrated Guy Pancirola; this was in the year 1554. He chose the learned and pious Jesuit, Antony Possevin, for his spiritual director; who at the same time explained to him St. Thomas's Sum, and they read together Bellarmin's controversies. His nephew, Augustus, gives us his written rule of life, which he made at Padua: it chiefly shows his perpetual attention to the presence of God, his care to offer up every action to him, and implore his aid at the beginning of each. Falling sick, he was despaired of by the physicians, and he himself expected with joy his last moment. His preceptor, Deage, who had ever attended him, asked him with tears, what he had to order about his funeral and other matters. "Nothing," answered he, cheerfully, "unless it be, that my body be given to the anatomy theatre to be dissected; for it will be a comfort to me if I can be of any advantage when dead, having been of none while alive. Thus I may also prevent some of the disorders and quarrels which happen between the young physicians and the friends of the dead, whose bodies they often dig up." However, he recovered; and by his father's orders, being twenty years of age, commenced doctor in laws, with great applause and pomp, in presence of forty-eight doctors. After which he travelled through Italy to see the antiquities, and visit the holy places there. He went to Rome by Ferrara, and returned by Loretto and Venice. To any insult offered him on the road he returned only meekness; for which he met with remarkable blessings from heaven. The sight of the pompous remains of ancient Rome gave him a feeling contempt of worldly grandeur: but the tombs of the martyrs drew everywhere tears of devotion from his eyes. Upon his return his father received him with great joy, at his castle of Tuille, where he had prepared for him a good library of books.
All persons were charmed with the young count, but none so much as the great Antony Favre, afterwards first president of the parliament of Chamberry, and Claudius Cranier, the learned and truly apostolic bishop of Geneva, who already consulted him as an oracle. His father had a very good match in view for him, and obtained in his behalf, from the duke of Savoy, patents creating him counsellor of the parliament of Chamberry. Francis modestly, but very firmly, refused both; yet durst not propose to his parents his design of receiving holy orders; for the tonsure was not all absolute renouncing of the world. At last, he discovered it to his pious preceptor, Deage, and begged of him to mention it to his father: but this he {292} declined, and used his utmost endeavors to dissuade the young count from such a resolution, as he was the eldest son, and destined by the order of nature for another state. Francis answered all his reasonings, but could not prevail on him to charge himself with the commission. He had then recourse to a cousin, Lewis of Sales, a priest and canon of Geneva, who obtained the consent of his parents, but not without the greatest difficulty. His cousin also obtained for him from the pope, without his knowledge, the provostship of the church of Geneva, then vacant: but the young clergyman held out a long time before he would accept of it. At last he yielded, and took possession of that dignity, and was in a short time after promoted to holy orders by his diocesan, who, as soon as he was deacon, employed him in preaching. His first sermons gained him an extraordinary reputation, and were accompanied with incredible success. He delivered the word of God with a mixture of majesty and modesty; had a strong, sweet voice, and an animated manner of gesture, far from any affectation or vanity: but what chiefly affected the hearts of his hearers was the humility and unction with which he spoke from the abundance of his own heart. Before he preached, he always renewed the fervor of his heart before God, by secret sighs and prayer. He studied as much at the foot of the crucifix as in books, being persuaded that the essential quality of a preacher is to be a man of prayer. He received the holy order of priesthood with extraordinary preparation and devotion, and seemed filled by it with an apostolic spirit. He every day began his functions by celebrating the holy mysteries early in the morning, in which, by his eyes and countenance of fire, the inward flames of his soul appeared. He then heard the confessions of all sorts of people, and preached. He was observed to decline with the utmost care whatever might gain him the applause of men, seeking only to please God, and to advance his glory. He chiefly resorted to cottages, and country villages, instructing an infinity of poor people. His piety, his charity to the poor, his disinterestedness, his care of the sick and those in prison, endeared him to all: but nothing was so moving as his meekness, which no provocation was ever capable of disturbing. He conversed among all as their father, with a fellow-feeling of all their wants, being all to all. He was indeed naturally of a hasty and passionate temper, as he himself confesses; and we find in his writings a certain fire and impetuosity which renders it unquestionable. On this account from his youth he made meekness his favorite virtue, and by studying in the school of a God who was meek and humble of heart, he learned that important lesson to such perfection, as to convert his predominant passion into his characteristical virtue. The Calvinists ascribed principally to his meekness the wonderful conversions he made among them. They were certainly the most obstinate of people at that time, near Geneva; yet St. Francis converted no less than seventy-two thousand of them.
Before the end of this first year of his ministry, in 1591, he erected at Annecy a confraternity of the Holy Cross, the associates of which were obliged to instruct the ignorant, to comfort and exhort the sick and prisoners, and to beware of all lawsuits, which seldom fail to shipwreck Christian charity. A Calvinistical minister took occasion from this institution to write against the honor paid by Catholics to the cross. Francis answered him by his book entitled, The Standard of the Cross. At this time, fresh matter presented itself for the exercise of the saint's zeal. The bishop of Geneva was formerly lord of that city, paying an acknowledgment to the duke of Savoy. While these two were disputing about the sovereignty, the Genevans expelled them both, and formed themselves into a republic in alliance with the Switzers; and their city became the centre of Calvinism. {293} Soon after, the Protestant canton of Bern seized the country of Vaux, and the republic of Geneva, the dutchy of Chablais, with the bailiwicks of Gex, Terni, and Gaillard; and there by violence established their heresy, which from that time had kept quiet possession for sixty years. The duke Charles Emmanuel had recovered these territories, and resolving to restore the Catholic religion, wrote in 1594 to the bishop of Geneva, to recommend that work to him. The wise ones, according to this world, regarded the undertaking as impracticable; and the most resolute, whether ecclesiastics or religious, were terrified at its difficulties and dangers. Francis was the only one that offered himself for the work, and was joined by none but his cousin-german Lewis de Sales. The tears and remonstrances of his parents and friends to dissuade him from the undertaking, made no impression on his courageous soul. He set out with his cousin on the 9th of September, in 1594. Being arrived on the frontiers of Chablais, they sent back their horses, the more perfectly to imitate the apostles. On his arrival at Thonon, the capital of Chablais, situate on the lake of Geneva, he found in it only seven Catholics. After having commended the souls to God, and earnestly implored his mercy through the intercession of the guardian angels, and tutelar saints of the country, he was obliged to take up his quarters in the castle of Allinges, where the governor and garrison were Catholics, two leagues from Thonon, whither he went every day, visiting also the neighboring country. The Calvinists for a long time shunned him, and some even attempted his life. Two assassins, hired by others, having missed him at Thonon, lay in wait to murder him on his return; but a guard of soldiers had been sent to escort him safe, the conspiracy having taken wind. The saint obtained their pardon, and, overcome by his lenity and formed by his holy instructions, they both became very virtuous converts. All our saint's relations, and many friends, whom he particularly respected for their great virtue and prudence, solicited him by the most pressing letters to abandon such a dangerous and fruitless enterprise. His father, to the most tender entreaties, added his positive commands to him to return home, telling him that all prudent persons called his resolution to continue his mission a foolish obstinacy and madness; that he had already done more than was needful, and that his mother was dying of grief for his long absence, the fear of losing him entirely, and the hardships, atrocious slanders, and continual alarms and dangers in which he lived. To compel him to abandon this undertaking, the father forbade his friends to write any more to him, or to send him necessary supplies. Nevertheless, St. Francis persevered, and at length his patience, zeal, and eminent virtue, wrought upon the most obdurate, and insensibly wore away their prejudices. His first converts were among the soldiers, whom he brought over, not only to the faith, but also to an entire change of manners and strict virtue, from habits of swearing, duelling, and drunkenness. He was near four years, however, without any great fruit among the inhabitants, till the year 1597, when God was pleased to touch several of them with his grace. The harvest daily increased both in the town and country so plentifully, that a supply of new laborers from Annecy was necessary, and the bishop sent some Jesuits and Capuchins to carry on the good work with Francis and under his direction. In 1598 the public exercise of the Catholic religion was restored, and Calvinism banished by the duke's orders over all Chablais, and the two bailiwicks of Terni and Gaillard. Though the plague raged violently at Thonon, this did not hinder Francis either by day or night from assisting the sick in their last moments; and God preserved him from the contagion, which seized and swept off several of his fellow-laborers. It is incredible what fatigues and hardships he underwent in the course of his mission; with what devotion {294} and tears he daily recommended the work of God: with what invincible courage he braved the greatest dangers: with what meekness and patience he bore all manner of affronts and calumnies. Baron D'Avuli, a man of quality, and of great worth and learning, highly esteemed among the Calvinists, and at Geneva, being converted by him, induced him to go thither, to have a conference with the famous minister La Faye. The minister, during the whole conference, was ever shifting the matter in debate, as he found himself embarrassed and pressed by his antagonist. His disadvantage being so evident that be himself could read it in the countenance of every one present, he broke off the conference by throwing out a whole torrent of injurious language on Francis, who bore it with so much meekness as not to return the least sharp answer. During the whole course of his ministry in these parts, the violent measures, base cowardice in declining all dispute, and the shameful conduct of the ministers in other respects, set the saint's behavior and his holy cause still in a more shining light. In 1597 he was commissioned by pope Clement VIII. to confer with Theodore Beza at Geneva, the most famous minister of the Calvinist party, in order to win him back to the Catholic church. He accordingly paid him four visits in that city, gained a high place in that heresiarch's esteem, and made him often hesitate in deep silence and with distracted looks, whether he should return to the Roman Catholic church or not, wherein he owned from the beginning that salvation was attainable. St. Francis had great hopes of bringing him over in a fifth visit, but his private conferences had alarmed the Genevans so much that they guarded Beza too close for him to find admittance to him again, and Beza died soon after. 'Tis said, that a little before death he lamented very much he could not see Francis.[2] It is certain, from his first conference with him, he had ever felt a violent conflict within himself, between truth and duty on one hand, and on the other, the pride of being head of a party, the shame of recanting, inveterate habits, and certain secret engagements in vice, to which he continued enslaved to the last. The invincible firmness and constancy of the saint appeared in the recovery of the revenues of the curacies and other benefices which had been given to the Orders of St. Lazarus and St. Maurice; the restoration of which, after many difficulties, he effected by the joint authority of the pope and the duke of Savoy. In 1596 he celebrated mass on Christmas-day in the church of St. Hippolytus at Thonon, and had then made seven or eight hundred converts. From this time he charged himself with the parish of the town, and established two other Catholic parishes in the country. In the beginning of the year 1599 he had settled zealous clergymen in all the parishes of the whole territory.
The honors the saint received from the pope, the duke of Savoy, the cardinal of Medicis, and all the church, and the high reputation which his virtues had acquired him, never made the least impression on his humble mind, dead to all motions of pride and vanity. His delight was with the poor: the most honorable functions he left to others, and chose for himself the meanest and most laborious. Every one desired to have him for their director, wherever he went: and his extraordinary sweetness, in conjunction with his eminent piety, reclaimed as many vicious Catholics as it converted heretics. In 1599, he went to Annecy to visit his diocesan, Granier, who had procured him to be made his coadjutor. The fear of resisting God, in refusing this charge, when pressed upon him by the pope, in conjunction with his bishop and the duke of Savoy, at last extorted his consent; but the apprehension of the obligations annexed to the episcopacy was so strong that it threw him into an illness which had like to have cost him his life. {295} On his recovery he set out for Rome to receive his bulls, and to confer with his Holiness on matters relating to the missions of Savoy. He was highly honored by all the great men at Rome, and received of the pope the bulls for being consecrated bishop of Nicopolis; and coadjutor of Geneva. On this occasion he made a visit of devotion to Loretto, and returned to Annecy before the end of the year 1599. Here he preached the Lent the year following, and assisted his father during his last sickness, heard his general confession, and administered to him the rites of the church. An illness he was seized with at Annecy made him defer his consecration.
On his recovery he was obliged to go to Paris, on affairs of his diocese, and was received there by all sorts of persons with all the regard due to his extraordinary merit. The king was then at Fontainebleau; but the saint was desired to preach the Lent to the court in the chapel of the Louvre. This he did in a manner that charmed every one, and wrought innumerable wonderful conversions. The duchesses of Morcoeur and Longueville sent him thereupon a purse of gold: he admired the embroidery, but gave it back, with thanks to them for honoring his discourses with their presence and good example. He preached a sermon against the pretended reformation, to prove it destitute of a lawful mission; it being begun at Meaux, by Peter Clark, a wool-carder; at Paris, by Masson Riviere, a young man called to the ministry by a company of laymen; and elsewhere after the like manner. This sermon converted many Calvinists; among others the countess of Perdrieuville, who was one of the most obstinate learned ladies of the sect: she consulted her ministers, and repaired often to Francis's conferences, till she had openly renounced Calvinism with all her numerous family. The whole illustrious house of Raconis followed her example, and so many others, even of the most inveterate of the sect, that it made cardinal Perron, a man famous for controversy, say: "I can confute the Calvinists; but, to persuade and convert them, you must carry them to the coadjutor of Geneva." Henry IV. was charmed with his preaching, and consulted him several times in matters relating to the direction of his conscience. There was no project of piety going forward about which he was not advised with. He promoted the establishment of the Carmelite nuns in France, and the introduction of F. Berulle's congregation of the oratory. The king himself earnestly endeavored to detain him in France, by promises of 20,000 livres pension, and the first vacant bishopric: but Francis said, God had called him against his will to the bishopric of Geneva, and he thought it his obligation to keep it till his death; that the small revenue he had sufficed for his maintenance, and more would only be an incumbrance. The king was astonished at his disinterestedness, when he understood that the bishopric of Geneva, since the revolt of that city, did not yield the incumbent above four or five thousand livres, that is, not two hundred and fifty-nine pounds, a-year.
Some envious courtiers endeavored to give the king a suspicion of his being a spy. The saint heard this accusation just as he was going into the pulpit; yet he preached as usual without the least concern; and that prince was too well convinced of the calumny, by his sanctity and candor. After a nine months' stay in Paris, he set out with the king's letters,[3] and heard on the road, that Granier, bishop of Geneva, was dead. He hastened to Sales-Castle, and as soon as clear of the first visits, made a twenty days' retreat to prepare himself for his consecration. He made a general confession, and {296} laid down a plan of life, which he ever punctually observed. This was, never to wear any silk or camlets, or any clothes but woollen, as before; to have no paintings in his house but of devotions: no magnificence in furniture: never to use coach or litter, but to make his visits on foot: his family to consist of two priests, one for his chaplain, the other to take care of his temporalities and servants: nothing but common meats to be served to his table: to be always present at all feasts of devotion, kept in any church in town: his regulation with respect to alms was incredible, for his revenues: to go to the poor and sick in person: to rise every day at four, make an hour's meditation, say lauds and prime, then morning prayers with his family: to read the scripture till seven, then say mass, which he did every day, afterwards to apply to affairs till dinner, which being over, he allowed an hour for conversation; the rest of the afternoon he allotted to business and prayer. After supper he read a pious book to his family for an hour, then night prayers; after which he said matins. He fasted all Fridays and Saturdays, and our Lady's eves: be privately wore a hair shirt, and used the discipline, but avoided all ostentatious austerities. But his exact regularity and uniformity of life, with a continued practice of internal self-denials, was the best mortification. He redoubled his fasts, austerities, and prayers, as the time of his consecration drew nearer. This was performed on the 3d of December, 1602. He immediately applied himself to preaching and the other functions of his charge. He was exceedingly cautious in conferring holy orders. He ordained but few, neither was it without the strictest scrutiny passed upon all their qualifications for the priesthood. He was very zealous, both by word and example, in promoting the instruction of the ignorant by explanations of the catechism, on Sundays and holidays; and his example had a great influence over the parish-priests in this particular, as also over the laity, both young and old. He inculcated to all the making, every hour when the clock struck, the sign of the cross, with a fervent aspiration on the passion of Christ. He severely forbade the custom of Valentines or giving boys, in writing, the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them; and, to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain saints for them to honor and imitate in a particular manner. He performed the visitation of his diocese as soon as possible, published a new ritual, set on foot ecclesiastical conferences, and regulated all things; choosing St. Charles Borromeo for his model.
Above all things he hated lawsuits, and strictly commanded all ecclesiastics to avoid them, and refer all disputes to arbitration. He said they were such occasions of sins against charity, that, if any one during the course of a lawsuit had escaped them, that alone would suffice for his canonization. Towards the close of the visitation of his diocese, he reformed several monasteries. That of Six appealed to the parliament of Chamberry: but our saint was supported there, and carried his point. While Francis was at Six, he heard that a valley, three leagues off, was in the utmost desolation, by the tops of two mountains that had fallen, and buried several villages, with the inhabitants and cattle. He crawled over impassable ways to comfort and relieve these poor people, who had neither clothes to cover, nor cottages to shelter them, nor bread to stay their hunger; he mingled his tears with theirs, relieved them, and obtained from the duke a remission of their taxes. The city of Dijon having procured leave from the duke of Savoy, the saint preached the Lent there in 1604, with wonderful fruit; but refused the present offered him by the city on that occasion. Being solicited by Henry IV. to accept of a considerable abbey, the saint refused it; alleging, that he dreaded riches as much as others could desire them; and that, the less he had of them the less he would have to answer for. That king {297} offered to name him to the dignity of cardinal at the next promotion; but the saint made answer, that though he did not despise the offered dignity, he was persuaded that great titles would not sit well upon him, and might raise fresh obstacles to his salvation. He was also thought of at Rome as a very fit person to be promoted to that dignity, but was himself the only one who everywhere opposed and crossed the design. Being desired on another occasion by the same king to accept of a pension; the saint begged his majesty to suffer it to remain in the hands of his comptroller till he should call for it; which handsome refusal much astonished that great prince, who could not forbear saying: "That the bishop of Geneva, by the happy independence in which his virtue had placed him, was as far above him, as he by his royal dignity was above his subjects." The saint preached the next Lent at Chamberry, at the request of the parliament, which notwithstanding at that very time seized his temporalities for refusing to publish a monitory at its request; the saint alleging, that it was too trifling an affair, and that the censures of the church were to be used more reservedly. To the notification of the seizure he only answered obligingly, that he thanked God for teaching him by it, that a bishop is to be altogether spiritual. He neither desisted from preaching, nor complained to the duke, but heaped most favors on such as most insulted him, till the parliament, being ashamed, granted him of their own accord a replevy. But the great prelate found more delight in preaching in small villages than amidst such applause, though he everywhere met with the like fruit; and he looked on the poor as the object of his particular care. He took a poor dumb and deaf man into his family, taught him by signs, and by them received his confession. His steward often found it difficult to provide for his family by reason of his great alms, and used to threaten to leave him. The saint would answer: "You say right; I am an incorrigible creature, and what is worse, I look as if I should long continue so." Or at other times, pointing to the crucifix; "How can we deny any thing to a God who reduced himself to this condition for the love of us!"
Pope Paul V. ordered our saint to be consulted about the school dispute between the Dominicans and Jesuits on the grace of God, or de auxiliis. His opinion appears from his book On the Love of God: but he answered his Holiness in favor of neutrality, which he ever observed in school opinions; complaining often in how many they occasioned the breach of charity, and spent too much of their precious time, which, by being otherwise employed, might be rendered more conducive to God's honor. In 1609 he went to Bellay, and consecrated bishop John Peter Camus, one of the most illustrious prelates of the church of France, and linked to our saint by the strictest bands of holy friendship. He wrote the book entitled, The Spirit of St. Francis of Sales, consisting of many of his ordinary sayings and actions, in which his spirit shines with great advantage, discovering a perpetual recollection always absorbed in God, and a constant overflowing of sweetness and divine love. His writings to this day breathe the same; every word distils that love and meekness with which his heart was filled. It is this which makes his epistles, which we have to the number of five hundred and twenty-nine, in seven books, to be an inestimable treasure of moving instructions, suitable to all sorts of persons and circumstances.
His incomparable book, the Introduction to a Devout Life, was originally letters to a lady in the world, which, at the pressing instances of many friends, he formed into a book and finished, to show that devotion suited Christians in a secular life, no less than in cloisters. Villars, the archbishop of Vienna, wrote to him upon it: "Your book charms, inflames, and puts me in raptures, as often as I open any part of it." The author received {298} the like applause and commendations from all parts, and it was immediately translated into all the languages of Europe. Henry IV. of France was extremely pleased with it; his queen, Mary of Medicis, sent it richly bound and adorned with jewels to James I. of England, who was wonderfully taken with it, and asked his bishops why none of them could write with such feeling and unction.[4] There was, however, one religious Order in which this book was much censured, as if it had allowed of gallantry and scurrilous jests, and approved of balls and comedies, which was very far from the saint's doctrine. A preacher of that Order had the rashness and presumption to declaim bitterly against the book in a public sermon, to cut it in pieces, and bum it in the very pulpit. The saint bore this outrage without the least resentment; so perfectly was he dead to self-love. This appears more wonderful to those who know how jealous authors are of their works, as the offspring of their reason and judgment, of which men are of all things the fondest. His book of the Love of God cost him much more reading, study, and meditation. In it he paints his own soul. He describes the feeling sentiments of divine love, its state of fervor, of dryness, of trials, sufferings, and darkness: in explaining which he calls in philosophy to his assistance. He writes on this sublime subject what he had learned by his own experience. Some parts of this book are only to be understood by those souls who have gone through these states: yet the author has been ever justly admired for the performance. The general of the Carthusians had written to him upon his Introduction, advising him to write no more, because nothing else could equal that book. But seeing this, he bade him never cease writing, because his latter works always surpassed the former; and James 1. was so delighted with the book, that he expressed a great desire to see the author. This being told the saint, he cried out: "Ah! who will give me the wings of a dove, and I will fly to the king, into that great island, formerly the country of saints; but now overwhelmed with the darkness of error. If the duke will permit me, I will arise, and go to that great Ninive: I will speak to the king, and will announce to him, with the hazard of my life, the word of the Lord." In effect, he solicited the duke of Savoy's consent, but could never obtain it.[5] That jealous sovereign feared lest he should be drawn in to serve another state, or sell to some other his right to Geneva; on which account he often refused him leave to go to preach in France, when invited by many cities. His other works are sermons which are not finished as they were preached, except, perhaps, that on the Invention of the Cross. We have also his Preparation for Mass: his Instructions for Confessors: a collection of his Maxims, pious Breathings and Sayings, written by the bishop of Bellay; some Fragments, and his Entertainments to his nuns of the Visitation, in which he recommends to them the most perfect interior self-denial, a disengagement of affections from all things temporal, and obedience. The institution of that Order may be read in the life of B. Frances Chantal. Saint Francis designing his new Order to be such, that all, even the sickly and weak, might be admitted into it, he chose for it the rule of St. Austin, as commanding few extraordinary bodily austerities, and would have it possess funds and settlements in common, to prevent being carried off from the interior life by anxious cares about necessaries. But then he requires from each person so strict a practice of poverty, as to allow no one the property or even the long use of any thing; and orders them every year to change chambers, beds, crosses, beads, and books. He will have no manner of account to be made of birth, wit, or talents; but only of humility; {299} he obliges them only to the little office of our Lady, which all might easily learn to understand; meditations, spiritual reading, recollection, and retreats, abundantly compensating the defect. All his regulations tend to instil a spirit of piety, charity, meekness, and simplicity. He subjects his Order to the bishop of each place, without any general. Pope Paul V. approved it, and erected the congregation of the Visitation into a religious Order.
St. Francis, finding his health decline, and his affairs to multiply, after having consulted cardinal Frederic Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, chose for his coadjutor in the bishopric of Geneva, his brother John Francis of Sales, who was consecrated bishop of Chalcedon at Turin, in 1618. But the saint still applied himself to his functions as much as ever. He preached the Lent at Grenoble, in 1617, and again in 1618, with his usual conquests of souls; converting many Calvinists, and among these the duke of Lesdiguieres. In 1619, he accompanied to Paris the cardinal of Savoy, to demand the sister of king Louis XIII., Christina of France, in marriage for the prince of Piedmont. He preached the Lent in St. Andre-des-Arcs, and had always such a numerous audience, that cardinals, bishops, and princes could scarce find room. His sermons and conferences, and still more the example of his holy life, and the engaging sweetness of his conversation, most powerfully moved not only the devout, but also heretics, libertines, and atheists; while his eloquence and learning convinced their understandings. The bishop of Bellay tells us, that he entreated the saint at Paris not to preach twice every day, morning and evening, for the sake of his health. St. Francis answered him with a smile: "That it cost him much less to preach a sermon than to find an excuse for himself when invited to perform that function." He added: "God has appointed me a pastor and a preacher: and is not every one to follow his profession? But I am surprised that the people in this great city flock so eagerly to my sermons: for my tongue is slow and heavy, my conceptions low, and my discourses flat, as you yourself are witness." "Do you imagine," said the other, "that eloquence is what they seek in your discourses? It is enough for them to see you in the pulpit. Your heart speaks to them by your countenance, and by your eyes, were you only to say the Our Father with them. The most common words in your mouth, burning with the fire of charity, pierce and melt all hearts. There is I know not what so extraordinary in what you say, that every word is of weight, every word strikes deep into the heart. You have said every thing even when you seem to have said nothing. You are possessed of a kind of eloquence which is of heaven: the power of this is astonishing." St. Francis, smiling, turned off the discourse.[6] The match being concluded, the princess Christina chose Francis for her chief almoner, desiring to live always under his direction: but all her entreaties could neither prevail on him to leave his diocese, though he had a coadjutor, nor to accept of a pension: and it was only on these two conditions he undertook the charge, always urging that nothing could dispense with him from residence. The princess made him a present of a rich diamond, by way of an investiture, desiring him to keep it for her sake. "I will," said he, "unless the poor stand in need of it." She answered, she would then redeem it. He said, "This will happen so often, that I shall abuse your bounty." Finding it given to the poor afterwards at Turin, she gave him another, richer, charging him to keep that at least. He said. "Madam, I cannot promise you: I am very unfit to keep things of value." Inquiring after it one day, she was told it was always in pawn for the poor, and that {300} the diamond belonged not to the bishop, but to all the beggars of Geneva. He had indeed a heart which was not able to refuse any thing to those in want. He often gave to beggars the waistcoat off his own back, and sometimes the cruets of his chapel. The pious cardinal, Henry de Gondi, bishop of Paris, used all manner of arguments to obtain his consent to be his coadjutor in the see of Paris; but he was resolved never to quit the church which God had first committed to his charge.
Upon his return to Annecy he would not touch a farthing of his revenue for the eighteen months he was absent; but gave it to his cathedral, saying, it could not be his, for he had not earned it. He applied himself to preaching, instructing, and hearing confessions with greater zeal than ever. In a plague which raged there, he daily exposed his own life to assist his flock. The saint often met with injurious treatment, and very reviling words, which he ever repaid with such meekness and beneficence as never failed to gain his very enemies. A lewd wretch, exasperated against him for his zeal against a wicked harlot, forged a letter of intrigue in the holy prelate's name, which made him pass for a profligate and a hypocrite with the duke of Nemours and many others: the calumny reflected also on the nuns of the Visitation. Two years after, the author of it, lying on his death-bed, called in witnesses, publicly justified the saint, and made an open confession of the slander and forgery. The saint had ever an entire confidence in the divine providence, was ever full of joy, and resigned to all the appointments of heaven, to which he committed all events. He had a sovereign contempt of all earthly things, whether riches, honors, dangers, or sufferings. He considered only God and his honor in all things: his soul perpetually breathed nothing but his love and praises; nor could he contain this fire within his breast, for it discovered itself in his countenance; which, especially while he said mass, or distributed the blessed eucharist, appeared shining, as it were, with rays of glory, and breathing holy fervor. Often he could not contain himself in his conversation, and would thus express himself to his intimate friends: "Did you but know how God treats my heart, you would thank his goodness, and beg for me the strength to execute the inspirations which he communicates to me. My heart is filled with an inexpressible desire to be forever sacrificed to the pure and holy love of my Saviour. Oh! it is good to live, to labor, to rejoice only in God. By his grace I will forevermore be nothing to any creature; nor shall any creature be anything to me but in him and for him." At another time, he cried out to a devout friend: "Oh! if I knew but one string of my heart which was not all God's, I would instantly tear it out. Yes; if I knew that there was one thread in my heart which was not marked with the crucifix, I would not keep it one moment."
In the year 1622, he received an order from the duke of Savoy to go to Avignon to wait on Louis XIII., who had just finished the civil wars in Languedoc. Finding himself indisposed, he took his last leave of his friends, saying, he should see them no more; which drew from them floods of tears. At Avignon he was at his prayers during the king's triumphant entry, and never went to the window to see any part of that great pomp. He was obliged to attend the king and the cardinal of Savoy to Lyons, where he refused all the grand apartments offered him by the intendant of he province and others, to lodge to the poor chamber of the gardener to the monastery of the Visitation: as he was never better pleased than when he could most imitate the poverty of his Saviour. He received from the king and queen-mother, and from all the princes, the greatest marks of honor and esteem: and though indisposed, continued to preach and perform all his {301} functions, especially on Christmas-day, and St. John's in the morning. After dinner he began to fall gradually into an apoplexy, was put to bed by his servant, and received extreme unction; but as he had said mass that day and his vomiting continued, it was thought proper not to give him the viaticum. He repeated with great fervor: "My heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God; I will sing the mercies of the Lord to all eternity. When shall I appear before his face? Show me, my beloved, where thou feedest, where thou restest at noonday. O my God, my desire is before thee, and my sighs are not hidden from thee. My God and my all! my desire is that of the hills eternal." While the physicians applied blistering plasters, and hot irons behind his neck, and a caustic to the crown of his head, which burned him to the bone, he shed abundance of tears under excess of pain, repeating: "Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquities, and cleanse me from my sin. Still cleanse me more and more. What do I here, my God, distant from thee, separated from thee?" And to those about him: "Weep not, my children; must not the will of God be done?" One suggesting to him the prayer of St. Martin, "If I am still necessary for thy people, I refuse not to labor:" he seemed troubled at being compared to so great a saint, and said, he was an unprofitable servant, whom neither God nor his people needed. His apoplexy increasing, though slowly, he seemed at last to lose his senses, and happily expired on the feast of Holy Innocents, the 28th of December, at eight o'clock at night, in the year 1622, the fifty-sixth of his age, and the twentieth of his episcopacy. His corpse was embalmed, and carried with the greatest pomp to Annecy, where he had directed by will it should be interred. It was laid in a magnificent tomb near the high altar in the church of the first monastery of the Visitation. After his beatification by Alexander VII., in 1661, it was placed upon the altar in a rich silver shrine. He was canonized in 1665 by the same pope, and his feast fixed to the 29th of January, on which day his body was conveyed to Annecy. His heart was kept in a leaden case, in the church of the Visitation at Lyons: it was afterwards exposed in a silver one, and lastly in one of gold, given by king Louis XIII. Many miracles, as the raising to life two persons who were drowned, the curing of the blind, paralytic, and others, were authentically attested to have been wrought by his relics and intercession; not to mention those he had performed in his lifetime, especially during his missions. Pope Alexander VII., then cardinal Chigi, and plenipotentiary in Germany, Louis XIII., XIV., and others, attributed their cures in sickness to this saint's patronage.
Among his ordinary remarkable sayings, we read that he often repeated to bishop Camus, "That truth must be always charitable; for bitter zeal does harm instead of good. Reprehensions are a food of hard digestion, and ought to be dressed on a fire of burning charity so well, that all harshness be taken off; otherwise, like unripe fruit, they will only produce gripings. Charity seeks not itself nor its own interests, but purely the honor and interest of God: pride, vanity, and passion cause bitterness and harshness: a remedy injudiciously applied may be a poison. A judicious silence is always better than a truth spoken without charity." St. Francis, seeing a scandalous priest thrown into prison, fell at his feet, and with tears conjured him to have compassion on him, his pastor, on his religion, which he scandalized, and on his own soul; which sweetness converted the other, so that he became an example of virtue. By his patience and meekness under all injuries, he overcame the most obstinate, and ever after treated them with singular affection, calling them dearer friends, because regained. A great prelate observes, from his example, that the meek are kings of other hearts, which they powerfully attract, and can turn as they please; and in {302} an express and excellent treatise, proposes him as an accomplished model of all the qualifications requisite in a superior to govern well.
* * * * *
Meekness was the favorite virtue of St. Francis de Sales. He once was heard to say, that he had employed three years in studying it in the school of Jesus Christ, and that his heart was still far from being satisfied with the progress he had made. If he, who was meekness itself, imagined, nevertheless, that he had possessed so little of it; what shall we say of those, who, upon every trifling occasion, betray the bitterness of their hearts in angry words and actions of impatience and outrage? Our saint was often tried in the practice of this virtue, especially when the hurry of business and the crowds that thronged on him for relief in their various necessities, scarce allowed him a moment to breathe. He has left us his thoughts upon this situation, which his extreme affability rendered very frequent to him. "God," says he, "makes use of this occasion to try whether our hearts are sufficiently strengthened to bear every attack. I have myself been sometimes in this situation: but I have made a covenant with my heart and with my tongue, in order to confine them within the bounds of duty. I considered those persons who crowd in one upon the other, as children who run into the embraces of their father: as the hen refuseth not protection to her little ones when they gather around her, but, on the contrary, extendeth her wings so as to cover them all; my heart, I thought, was in like manner expanded, in proportion as the numbers of these poor people increased. The most powerful remedy against sudden starts of impatience is a sweet and amiable silence; however little one speaks, self-love will have a share in it, and some word will escape that may sour the heart, and disturb its peace for a considerable time. When nothing is said, and cheerfulness preserved, the storm subsides, anger and indiscretion are put to flight, and nothing remains but a joy, pure and lasting. The person who possesses Christian meekness, is affectionate and tender towards every one; he is disposed to forgive and excuse the frailties of others; the goodness of his heart appears in a sweet affability that influences his words and actions, and presents every object to his view in the most charitable and pleasing light; he never admits in his discourse any harsh expression, much less any term that is haughty or rude. An amiable serenity is always painted on his countenance, which remarkably distinguishes him from those violent characters, who, with looks full of fury, know only how to refuse; or who, when they grant, do it with so bad a grace, that they lose all the merit of the favor they bestow."
Some persons thinking him too indulgent towards sinners, expressed their thoughts one day with freedom to him on this head. He immediately replied: "If there was any thing more excellent than meekness, God would have certainly taught it us; and yet there is nothing to which he so earnestly exhorts us, as to be meek and humble of heart. Why would you hinder me to obey the command of my Lord, and follow him in the exercise of that virtue which he so eminently practised and so highly esteems? Are we then better informed in these matters than God himself?" But his tenderness was particularly displayed in the reception of apostates and other abandoned sinners; when these prodigals returned to him, he said, with all the sensibility of a father: "Come, my dear children, come, let me embrace you; ah, let me hide you in the bottom of my heart! God and I will assist you: all I require of you is not to despair: I shall take on myself the labor of the rest." Looks full of compassion and love expressed the sincerity of his feelings: his affectionate and charitable care of them extended even to their bodily wants and his purse was open to them as well as his heart; {303} he justified this proceeding to some, who, disedified at his extreme indulgence, told him it served only to encourage the sinner, and harden him still more in his crimes, by observing, "Are they not a part of my flock? Has not our blessed Lord given them his blood, and shall I refuse them my tears? These wolves will be changed into lambs: a day will come when, cleansed from their sins, they will be more precious in the sight of God than we are: if Saul had been cast off, we would never have had a St. Paul."
Footnotes: 1. It is a problem in nature, discussed without success by several great physicians, why children born in their seventh month more frequently live than those that are brought forth in their eighth month. 2. Aug. Sales de Vit. l. {} p. 123. 3. The saint being on his return to Savoy, was informed that a convent of religious women, of the order of Fontevrault, received superfluous pensions. He wrote about it to those religious, and after giving testimony to their virtue, in order to gain their confidence, he conjured them, in the strongest and most pathetic terms, to banish such an abuse from their monastery; persuaded that such pensions were not exempt from sin, were an obstacle to monastic perfection, and opposite to their essential vow of poverty; lamenting that after doing so much they should, for the sake of one small reserve, destroy the merit of their whole sacrifice. This letter is extremely useful and beautiful. L. 1, ep. 41, t. 1, p. 136. 4. Aug. Sales in Vit. 5. Aug. Sales in Vit. 6. Quel est le meilleur Gouvernment, &c. ch. 8, p. 298.
SAINT SULPICIUS SEVERUS[1]
DISCIPLE OF ST. MARTIN.
HE was born in Aquitaine, not at Agen, as Scaliger, Vossius, Baillet, &c., have falsely inferred from a passage of his history,[2] but near Toulouse. That he was of a very rich and illustrious Roman family, we are assured by the two Paulinus's, and Gennadius.[3] His youth he spent in studying the best Roman authors of the Augustan age, upon whom he formed his style, not upon the writers of his own time: he also applied himself to the study of the laws, and surpassed all his contemporaries in eloquence at the bar. His wife was a lady of a consular family, whom he lost soon after their marriage, but he continued to enjoy a very great estate which he had inherited by her. His mother-in-law, Bassula, loved him constantly, as if he had been her own son: they continued to live several years in the same house, and had in all things the same mind.[4] The death of his beloved consort contributed to wean his heart from the world: in which resolution he seems to have been confirmed by the example and exhortations of his pious mother-in-law. His conversion from the world happened in the same year with that of St. Paulinus of Nola,[5] though probably somewhat later: and St. Paulinus mentions that Sulpicius was younger than himself, and at that time (that is, about the year 392) in the flower of his age. De Prato imagines Sulpicius to have been ten years younger than St. Paulinus, consequently that he was converted in the thirty-second year of his age. Whereas St. Paulinus distributed his whole fortune among the poor at once; Sulpicius reserved his estates to himself and his heirs, employing the yearly revenue on the poor, and in other pious uses, so that he was no more than a servant of the church and the poor, to keep accounts for them.[6] But he sold so much of them as was necessary to discharge him of all obligations to others. Gennadius tells us that he was promoted to the priesthood; but from the silence of St. Paulinus, St. Jerom, and others, Tillemont and De Prato doubt of this circumstance. Sulpicius suffered much from the censures of friends, who condemned his retreat, having chosen for his solitude a cottage at Primuliacus, a village now utterly unknown in Aquitaine, probably in Languedoc. In his kitchen nothing was ever dressed but pulse and herbs, boiled without any seasoning, except a little vinegar: he ate also coarse bread. He and his few disciples had no other beds but straw of sackcloth spread on the ground. He set at liberty several of his slaves, and admitted them, and some of his old servants, to familiar intercourse and {304} conversation. About the year 394, not long after his retreat, he made a visit to St. Martin at Tours, and was so much taken with his saintly comportment, and edified by his pious discourses and counsels, that he became from that time his greatest admirer, and regulated his conduct by his direction. Ever after he visited that great saint once or twice almost every summer as long as he lived, and passed some time with him, that he might study more perfectly to imitate his virtues. He built and adorned several churches. For two which he founded at Primuliacus, he begged some relics of St. Paulinus, who sent him a piece of the cross on which our Saviour was crucified, with the history of its miraculous discovery by St. Helena.[7] This account Sulpicius inserted in his ecclesiastical history. These two saints sent frequent presents to each other, of poor garments or the like things, suitable to a penitential life, upon which they make in their letters beautiful pious reflections, that show how much they were accustomed to raise their thoughts to God from every object.[8] Our saint recommending to St. Paulinus a cook, facetiously tells him that he was utterly a stranger to the art of making sauces, and to the use of pepper, or any such incentives of gluttony, his skill consisting only in gathering and boiling herbs in such a manner that monks, who only eat after having fasted long, would find delicious. He prays his friend to treat him as he would his own son, and wishes he could himself have served him and his family in that quality.[9] In the year 399 St. Paulinus wrote to our saint that he hoped to have met him at Rome, whither he went to keep the feast of the prince of the apostles, and where he had stayed ten days, but without seeing any thing but the tombs of the apostles, before which he passed the mornings, and the evenings were taken up by friends who called to see him.[10] Sulpicius answered, that an indisposition had hindered him from undertaking that journey. Of the several letters mentioned by Gennadius, which Sulpicius Severus wrote to the devout virgin Claudia, his sister, two are published by Baluze.[11] Both are strong exhortations to fervor and perseverance. In the first, our saint assures her that he shed tears of joy in reading her letter, by which he was assured of her sincere desire of serving God. In a letter to Aurelius the deacon, he relates that one night in a dream he saw St. Martin ascend to heaven in great glory, and attended by the holy priest Clarus, his disciple, who was lately dead: soon after, two monks arriving from Tours, brought news of the death of St. Martin. He adds, that his greatest comfort in the loss of so good a master, was a confidence that he should obtain the divine blessings by the prayers of St. Martin in heaven. St. Paulinus mentions this vision in an inscription in verse, which he made and sent to be engraved on the marble altar of the church of Primuliacus.[12] St. Sulpicius wrote the life of the incomparable St. Martin, according to Tillemont and most others, before the death of that saint: but De Prato thinks, that though it was begun before, it was neither finished nor published till after his death. The style of this piece is plainer and more simple than that of his other writings. An account of the death of St. Martin, which is placed by De Prato in the year 400, is accurately given by St. Sulpicius in a letter to Bassula, his mother-ill-law, who then lived at Triers. The three dialogues of our saint are the most florid of all his writings. In the first Posthumian, a friend who had spent three years in the deserts of Egypt and the East, and was then returned, relates to him and Gallus, a disciple of St. Martin, (with whom our saint then lived under the same roof,) the wonderful examples of virtue he had seen abroad. In the second dialogue, Gallus recounts {305} many circumstances of the life of St. Martin, which St. Sulpicius had omitted in his history of that saint. In the third, under the name of the same Gallus, several miracles wrought by St. Martin are proved by authentic testimonies.[13] The most important work of our saint is his abridgment of sacred history from the beginning of the world down to his own time, in the year 400. The elegance, conciseness, and perspicuity with which this work is compiled, have procured the author the name of the Christian Sallust; some even prefer it to the histories of the Roman Sallust, and look upon it as the most finished model extant of abridgments.[14] His style is the most pure of any of the Latin fathers, though also Lactantius, Minutius Felix, we may almost add St. Jerom, and Salvian of Marseilles, deserve to be read among the Latin classics. The heroic sanctity of Sulpicius Severus is highly extolled by St. Paulinus of Nola, Paulinus of Perigueux, about the year 460.[15] Venantius Fortunatus, and many others, down to the present {306} age. Gennadius tells us, that he was particularly remarkable for his extraordinary love of poverty and humility. After the death of St. Martin, in 400, St. Sulpicius Severus passed five years in that illustrious saint's cell at Marmoutier. F. Jerom de Prato thinks that he at length retired to a monastery at Marseilles, or in that neighborhood; because in a very ancient manuscript copy of his works, transcribed in the seventh century, kept in the library of the chapter of Verona, he is twice called a monk of Marseilles. From the testimony of this manuscript, the Benedictin authors of the new treatise On the Diplomatique,[16] and the continuators of the Literary History of France,[17] regard it as undoubted that Sulpicius Severus was a monk at Marseilles before his death. While the Alans, Sueves, and Vandals from Germany and other barbarous nations, laid waste most provinces in Gaul in 406, Marseilles enjoyed a secure peace under the government of Constantine, who, having assumed the purple, fixed the seat of his empire at Arles from the year 407 to 410. After the death of St. Chrysostom in 407, Cassian came from Constantinople to Marseilles, and founded there two monasteries, one for men, the other for women. Most place the death of St. Sulpicius Severus about the year 420, Baronius after the year 432; but F. Jerom de Prato about 410, when he supposes him to have been near fifty years old, saying that Gennadius, who tells us that he lived to a very great age, is inconsistent with himself. Neither St. Paulinus nor any other writer mentions him as living later than the year 407, which seems to prove that he did not survive that epoch very many years. Guibert, abbot of Gemblours, who died in 1208, in his Apology for Sulpicius Severus,[18] testifies that his festival was kept at Marmoutier with great solemnity on the 29th of January. Several editors of the Roman Martyrology, who took Sulpicius Severus, who is named in the calendars on this day, to have been this saint, added in his eulogium, Disciple of St. Martin, famous for his learning and merits. Many have proved that this addition was made by the mistake of private editors, and that the saint originally meant here in the Roman Martyrology was Sulpicius Severus, bishop of Bourges;[19] and Benedict XIV. proves and declares[20] that Sulpicius Severus, the disciple of St. Martin, is not commemorated in the Roman Martyrology. Nevertheless, he has been ranked among the saints at Tours from time immemorial, and is honored with a particular office on this day in the new breviary used in all that diocese. See his works correctly printed, with various readings, notes, dissertations, and the life of this saint, at Verona in 1741, in two volumes folio, by F. Jerom de Prato, an Italian Oratorian of Verona: also Gallia Christiana tum Vetus tum Nova: Tillemont, t. 12. Ceillier, t. 10, p. 635. Rivet, Hist. Littér. de la France, t. 2, p. 95.
Footnotes: 1. Severus was his own proper name, Sulpicius that of his family, as is testified by Gennadius and all antiquity. Vossius, Dupin, and some others, on this account, will have him called Severus Sulpicius, with Eugippius and St. Gregory of Tours. But other learned men agree, that after the close of the republic of Rome, under the emperors, the family name was usually placed first, though still called Cognomen, and the other Prænomen, because the proper name went anciently before the other. Thus we say Cæcilius Cyprianus, Eusebius Hieronymus, Aurelius Agustinus, &c. See Sirmond, Ep. præfixe Op. Serva. Lapi, and Hier. De Prato in vita Sulpicii Severi, p. 56, &c. 2. Sulp. Sev. Hist. l. 2, c. 44. 3. {Footnote not in text} Ib. c. 48, and Ep. ad Bassulam. de Prato, p. 57. 4. S. Paulinus, Ep. 5 & 35. 5. Ib. Ep. 11, n. 6. 6. S. Paulinus, Ep. 1 & 24. 7. Ib. Ep. 52. 8. Sulpic. Sev. Ep. ad Paulin. ed à D'Achery in Spicileg. t. 52, p. 532, et inter opera S. Paulini, p. 119. 9. Ibid. 10. S. Paulin. Ep. ad Sulpic. Sev. p. 96. 11. Baluze, t. 1, Miscellan. p. 329. 12. S. Paulinus, Ep. 32, p. 204. 13. Many, upon the authority of St. Jerom, rank Sulpicius Severus among the Millenarians, though all allow that he never defended any error so as to be out of the communion of the church. But that he could not be properly a Millenarian, seems clear from several parts of his writings. For, Ep. 2 and 3, he affirms, that the souls of St. Martin and St. Clarus passed from this world to the immediate beatific vision of God. He establishes the same principles, Ep. 1, ad Claudiam Soror., c. 5. And in his Sacred History, l. 2, c. 3, explaining the dream of Nabachodonosor, he teaches that the destruction of the kingdoms of this world will be immediately succeeded by the eternal reign of Christ with his saints in heaven. In the passage, Dial. 2, c. 14, upon which the charge is founded, Sulpicius relates, in the discourse of Gallus, that St. Martin, on a certain occasion, said, that the reign of Nero in the West, and his persecution, were immediate forerunners of the last day: as is the reign of Antichrist in the East, who will rebuild Jerusalem and its temple, reside in the same, restore circumcision, kill Nero, and subject the whole world to his empire. Where he advances certain false conjectures about the reign of Nero, and the near approach of the last judgment at that time: likewise the restoration of Jerusalem by Antichrist; though this last is maintained probable by cardinal Bellarmin, l. 3, de Rom. Pontif. c. 13. But the Millenarian error is not so much as insinuated. Nor could it have been inserted by the author in that passage and omitted by copiers, as De Prato proves, against that conjecture of Tillemont. St. Jerom, indeed, l. 11, in Ezech. c. 36, represents certain Christian writers who imitated some later Jews in their Deuteroseis in a carnal manner of expounding certain scripture prophecies, expecting a second Jerusalem of gold and precious stones, a restoration of bloody sacrifices, circumcision, and a Sabbath. Among these he names Tertullian, in his book De Spe Fidelium, (now lost,) Lactantius, Victorious Petabionensis, and Severus, (Sulpicius,) in his dialogue entitled, Gallus, then just published: and among the Greeks, Irenæus and Apollinarius. De Prato thinks he only speaks of Sulpicius Severus by hearsay, because he mentions only one dialogue called Gallus, whereas two bear that title. At least St. Jerom never meant to ascribe all these errors to each of those he names; for none of them maintained them all except Apollinarius. His intention was only to ascribe one point or other of such carnal interpretations to each, and to Sulpicius the opinion that Jerusalem, with the temple and sacrifices, will be restored by Antichrist, &c., which cannot be called erroneous; though St. Jerom justly rejects that interpretation, because the desolation foretold by Daniel is to endure to the end. In the decree of Gelasius this dialogue of Gallus is called Apocryphal, but in the same sense in which it was rejected by St. Jerom. Nor is this exposition advanced otherwise than as a quotation from St. Martin's answer on that subject. See the justification of Sulpicius Severus, in a dissertation printed at Venice in 1738, in Racolta di Opuscoli Scientifici, t. 18, and more amply by F. Jerom de Prato, Disser. 5, in Opera Sulpicii Severi, t. 1, p. 259, commended in the Acta Eruditor. Lipsiæ, ad an. 1760. Gennadius, who wrote about the year 494, tells us, (Cat. n. 19.) that Sulpicius was deceived in his old age by the Pelagians, but soon opening his eyes, condemned himself to five years' rigorous silence to expiate this fault. From the silence of other authors, and the great commendations which the warmest enemies of the Pelagians bestow on our saint, especially Paulinus of Milan, in his life of St. Ambrose, (written at latest in 423,) and St. Paulinus of Nola, and Paulinus of Perigueux, (who in 461 wrote in verse the life of St. Martin,) l. 5, v, 193, &c., some look upon this circumstance as a slander, which depends wholly on the testimony of so inaccurate a writer, who is inconsistent with himself in other matters relating to Sulpicius Severus, whose five years' silence might have other motives. If the fact be true, it can only be understood of the semi-Pelagian error, which had then many advocates at Marseilles, and was not distinguished in its name from Pelagianism till some years after our saint's death, nor condemned by the church before the second council of Orange in 529. Pelagius was condemned by the councils of Carthage and Milevis in 416, and by pope Innocent I. in 412. If Sulpicius Severus fell into any error, especially before it had been clearly anathematized by the church, at least he cannot be charged with obstinacy, having so soon renounced it. We must add, that even wilful offences are blotted out by sincere repentance. See F. Jerom de Pram in vita Sulp. Sev., §12, pp. 69 and 74, t. 1, Op. Veronæ, 1741. 14. The sacred history of Sulpicius Severus is a most useful classic for Christian schools; but not to be studied in the chosen fragments mangled by Chompré, and prescribed for the schools in Portugal. True improvement of the mind is impossible without the beauties of method and the advantages of taste, which are nowhere met with but by seeing good compositions entire, and by considering the art with which the whole is wound up. A small edition of Sulpicius's history, made from that correctly published by De Prato, would be of great service. Nevertheless, Sulpicius, though he has so well imitated the style of the purest ages, declares that he neglects elegance; and he takes the liberty to use certain terms and phrases which are not of the Augustan standard, sometimes because they were so familiar in his time that he otherwise would not have seemed to write with ease, and sometimes because they are necessary to express the mysteries of our faith. How shocking is the delicacy of Bembo; who, for fear of not being Ciceronian, conjures the Venetians, per Deos immortales, and uses the words Dea Lauretana! or that of Justus Lipsius, who used Fatum or destiny, for Providence, because this latter word is not in Cicero, who with the Pagans, usually speaks according to the notion of an overruling destiny in events which they by believed ordained by heaven. For this term some of Lipsius's works were censured, and by him recalled. 15. Vit. St. Martin, versu expressa, l. 5, v. 193, &c. 16. Tr. de Diplomatique, t. 3. 17. Hist. Litter. t. 11, Advertissement preliminaire, p. 5. 18. Published by Bollandus ad 29 Jan. p. 968. 19. See Annalus, Theolog. positivæ, l. 4, c. 26, and Dominic Georgi in Notis ad Martyrol. Adonis, ad {} Jan. 20. Benedict. XIV. in litteris apost. præfixis novæ suæ editioni Romani Martyrologii, (Romæ, 1749,), §47, p. 34.
ST. GILDAS THE WISE, OR BADONICUS, ABBOT.
HE was son to a British lord, who, to procure him a virtuous education, placed him in his infancy in the monastery of St. Iltutus in Glamorganshire. The surname of Badonicus was given him, because, as we learn from his writings, he was born in the year in which the Britons under Aurelius Ambrosius, or, according to others, under king Arthur, gained the famous victory over the Saxons at Mount Badon, now Bannesdown, near Bath, in Somersetshire. This Bede places in the forty-fourth year after the first {307} coming of the Saxons into Britain, which was in 451. Our saint, therefore, seems to have been born in 494; he was consequently younger than St. Paul, St. Samson, and his other illustrious school-fellows in Wales: but by his prudence and seriousness in his youth he seemed to have attained to the maturity of judgment and gravity of an advanced age. The author of the life of St. Paul of Leon, calls him the brightest genius of the school of St. Iltut. His application to sacred studies was uninterrupted, and if he arrived not at greater perfection in polite literature, this was owing to the want of masters of that branch in the confusion of those times. As to improve himself in the knowledge of God and himself was the end of all his studies, and all his reading was reduced to the study of the science of the saints, the greater progress he made in learning, the more perfect he became in all virtues. Studies which are to many a source of dissipation, made him more and more recollected, because in all books he found and relished only God, whom alone he sought. Hence sprang that love for holy solitude, which, to his death, was the constant ruling inclination of his heart. Some time after his monastic profession, with the consent, and perhaps by the order of his abbot, St. Iltut, he passed over into Ireland, there to receive the lessons of the admirable masters of a religious life, who had been instructed in the most sublime maxims of an interior life, and formed to the practice of perfect virtue, by the great St. Patrick. The author of his Acts compares this excursion, which he made in the spring of his life, to that of the bees in the season of flowers, to gather the juices which they convert into honey. In like manner St. Gildas learned, from the instructions and examples of the most eminent servants of God, to copy in his own life whatever seemed most perfect. So severe were his continual fasts, that the motto of St. John Baptist might in some degree be applied to him, that he scarce seemed to eat or drink at all. A rough hair-cloth, concealed under a coarse cloak, was his garment, and the bare floor his bed, with a stone for his bolster. By the constant mortification of his natural appetites, and crucifixion of his flesh, his life was a prolongation of his martyrdom, or a perpetual sacrifice which he made of himself to God in union with that which he daily offered to him on his altars. If it be true that he preached in Ireland in the reign of king Ammeric, he must have made a visit to that island from Armorica, that prince only beginning to reign in 560: this cannot be ascribed to St. Gildas the Albanian, who died before that time. It was about the year 527, in the thirty-fourth of his age, that St. Gildas sailed to Armorica, or Brittany, in France:[1] for he wrote his invective ten years {308} after his arrival there, and in the forty-fourth year of his age, as is gathered from his life and writings. Here he chose for the place of his retirement the little isle of Houac, or Houat, between the coast of Rhuis and the island of Bellisle, four leagues from the latter. Houat exceeds not a league in length; the isle of Hoedre is still smaller, not far distant: both are so barren as to yield nothing but a small quantity of corn. Such a solitude, which appeared hideous to others, offered the greatest charms to the saint, who desired to fly, as much as this mortal state would permit, whatever could interrupt his commerce with God. Here he often wanted the common necessaries and conveniences of life; but the greater the privation of earthly comforts was in which he lived, the more abundant were those of the Holy Ghost which he enjoyed, in proportion as the purity of his affections and his love of heavenly things were more perfect. The saint promised himself that he should live here always unknown to men: but it was in vain for him to endeavor to hide the light of divine grace under a bushel, which shone forth to the world, notwithstanding all the precautions which his humility took to conceal it. Certain fishermen who discovered him were charmed with his heavenly deportment and conversation, and made known on the continent the treasure they had found. The inhabitants flocked from the coast to hear the lessons of divine wisdom which the holy anchoret gave with a heavenly unction which penetrated their hearts. To satisfy their importunities, St. Gildas at length consented to live among them on the continent, and built a monastery at Rhuis, in a peninsula of that name, which Guerech, the first lord of the Britons about Vannes, is said to have bestowed upon him. This monastery was soon filled with excellent disciples and holy monks. St. Gildas settled them in good order; then, sighing after closer solitude, he withdrew, and passing beyond the gulf of Vannes, and the promontory of Quiberon, chose for his habitation a grot in a rock, upon the bank of the river Blavet, where he found a cavern formed by nature extended from the east to the west, which on that account he converted into a chapel. However, he often visited this abbey of Rhuis, and by his counsels directed many in the paths of true virtue. Among these was St. Trifina, daughter of Guerech, first British count of Vannes. She was married to count Conomor, lieutenant of king Childebert, a brutish and impious man, who afterwards murdered her, and the young son which he had by her, who at his baptism received the name of Gildas, and was godson to our saint: but he is usually known by the surname of Treuchmeur, or Tremeur, in Latin Trichmorus. SS. Trifina and Treuchmeur are invoked in the English Litany of the seventh century, in Mabillon. The great collegiate church of Carhaix bears the name of St. Treuchmeur: the church of Quimper keeps his feast on the 8th of November, on which day he is commemorated in several churches in Brittany, and at St. Magloire's at Paris. A church situated between Corlai and the abbey of Coetmaloen in Brittany, is dedicated to God tinder the invocation of St. Trifina.[2]
St. Gildas wrote eight canons of discipline, and a severe invective against the crimes of the Britons, called De Excidio Britanniæ, that he might confound {309} those whom he was not able to convert, and whom God in punishment delivered first to the plunders of the Picts and Scots, and afterwards to the perfidious Saxons, the fiercest of all nations. He reproaches their kings, Constantine, (king of the Danmonians, in Devonshire and Cornwall,) Vortipor, (of the Dimetians, in South Wales,) Conon, Cuneglas, and Maglocune, princes in other parts of Britain, with horrible crimes: but Constantine was soon after sincerely converted, as Gale informs us from an ancient Welsh chronicle.[3] According to John Fordun[4] he resigned his crown, became a monk, preached the faith to the Scots and Picts, and died a martyr in Kintyre: but the apostle of the Scots seems to have been a little more ancient than the former.[5] Our saint also wrote an invective against the British clergy, whom he accuses of sloth, of seldom sacrificing at the altar, &c. In his retirement he ceased not with tears to recommend to God his own cause, or that of his honor and glory, and the souls of blind sinners, and died in his beloved solitude in the island of Horac, (in Latin Horata,) according to Usher, in 570, but according to Ralph of Disse, in 581.[6] St. Gildas is patron of the city of Vannes. The abbey which bears his name in the peninsula of Rhuis, between three and four leagues from Vannes, is of the reformed congregation of St. Maur since the year 1649. The relics of St. Gildas were carried thence for fear of the Normans into Berry, about the year 919, and an abbey was erected there on the banks of the river Indre, which was secularized and united to the collegiate church of Chateauroux in 1623. St. Gildas is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 29th of January. A second commemoration of him is made in some places on the 11th of May, on account of the translation of his relics. His life, compiled from the ancient archives of Rhuis by a monk of that house, in the eleventh century, is the best account we have of him, though the author confounds him sometimes with St. Gildas the Albanian. It is published in the library of Fleury, in Bollandus, p. 954, and most correctly in Mabillon, Act. SS. Ord. Saint Belled. t. 1, p. 138. See also Dom Lobineau, Vies des Saints de Bretagne, (fol. an. 1725,) p. 72, and Hist. de la {310} Bretagne, (2 vol. fol. an. 1707,) and the most accurate Dom Morice, Mémoires Sur l'Histoire de Bretagne, 3 vol. fol. in 1745, and Hist. de la Bretagne, 2 vol. fol. an. 1750.
Footnotes: 1. Armorica, which word in the old Celtic language signified a maritime country, comprised that part of Celtic Gaul which is now divided into Brittany, Lower Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. Tours was the capital, and still maintains the metropolitical dignity. By St. Gatian, about the middle of the third century, the faith was first planted in those parts: but the entire extirpation of idolatry was reserved to the zeal of British monks. Dom Morice distinguishes three principal transmigrations of inhabitants from Great Britain into Armorica: the first, when many fled from the arms of Carausius and Allectus, who successively assumed the purple in Great Britain: Constance made these fugitives welcome in Gaul, and allowed them to settle on the coast of Armorica about the year 293. A second and much larger colony of Britons was planted here under Conan, a British prince by Maximus, whom all the British youth followed into Gaul in 383. After the defeat of Maximus, these Armorican Britons chose this Conan, surnamed Meriedec, king, formed themselves into an independent state, and maintained their liberty against several Roman generals in the decline of that empire, and against the Alans, Vandals, Goths, and other barbarians. Des Fontaines, (Diss. p. 118,) and after him Dom Morice. demonstrates that Brittany was an independent state before the year 421. The third transmigration of Britons hither was completed at several intervals while the Saxons invaded and conquered Britain, where Hengist first landed in 470. Brittany was subjected to the Romans during four centuries: an independent state successively under the title of a kingdom, county, and duchy, for the space of about eleven hundred and fifty years, and has been united to the kingdom of France ever since the year 1532, by virtue of the marriage of king Charles VIII. with Anne, sole heiress of Brittany, daughter of duke Francis, celebrated in 1491. This province was subdued by Clovis I., who seems to have treacherously slain Budic, king of Brittany. This prince left six sons, Howel I., Ismael, bishop of Menevia, St. Tifel, honored as a martyr at Pennalun, St. Oudecee, bishop of Landaff, Urbian or Concur, and Dinot, father of St. Kineda. Brittany remained subject to the sons of Clovis, and it was by the authority of Childobert that St. Paul was made bishop of Leon in 512. But Howel, returning from the court of king Arthur in 513, recovered the greater part of these dominions. See Dom Morice, Hist. t. 1, p. 14. Howel I., often called Rioval, that is, king Rowel, was a valiant prince, and liberal to churches and monasteries. Among many sons whom he left behind him, Howel II. succeeded him, and two are honored among the saints, viz. St. Leonor or Lunaire, and St. Tudgual or Pabutual, first Bishop of Treguier. See Morice. t. 1, pp. 14. and 729. Howel III., alias Juthael, recovered all Brittany. King Pepin again conquered this country, and Charlemagne and Louis le Débonnaire quelled it when it thrice rebelled. The latter established the Benedictin rule at Llandevenec. which probably was soon imitated in others: for the monastic rule which first prevailed here was that of the Britons in Wales, borrowed from the Orientals. After the straggles made by this province for its liberty, Charles the Bald yielded it up in 858, and some time after treated Solomon III. as king of Brittany. See Morice, Des Fontaines, &c. 2. In this churchyard stands an ancient pyramid, on which are engraved letters of an unknown alphabet, supposed to be that of the Britons and Gauls before the Roman alphabet was introduced among them. Letters of the same alphabet are found upon some other monuments of Brittany. See Lobineau, Vies des Saints de la Bretagne. in St. Treuchmeur, p. 8. Dom Morice endeavors to prove that the Welsh, the old British, and the Celtic, are the same language. (Hist. t. 1, p. 867.) That they are so in part is unquestionable. 3. Mr. Vaughan, in his British Antiquities revived, printed at Oxford in 1662, shows that there were at this time many princes or chieftains among the Britons in North Wales, but that they all held their lands of one sovereign, though each in his own district was often honored with the title of king. The chief prince at this time was Maelgun Gwynedth, the lineal heir and eldest descendant of Cuneda, who flourished in the end of the fourth, or beginning of the fifth century, and from one or other of whose eight sons all the princes of North Wales, also those of Cardigan, Dimetia, Glamorgan, and others in South Wales, derived their descent. The ancient author, published at the end of Nenbius, says Maelgun began his reign one hundred and forty-six years after Cuaedha, who was his Atavus, or great-grandfather's grandfather. Maelgun was prince only of Venedotia for twenty-five years before he was acknowledged in 564, after the death of Arthur, chief king of the Britons in Wales, while St. David was primate, Arthur king of the Britons in general, Gurthmyll king, and St. Kentigern bishop of the Cumbrian Britons. "He had received a good education under the elegant instructor of almost all Britain," says Gildas, pointing out probably St. Iltutus. Yet he fell into enormous vices. Touched with remorse, he retired into a monastery in 552; but being soon tired of that state, reassumed his crown, and relapsed into his former impieties. He died in 565. Gildas, who wrote his epistle De Excidio Britanniæ, between the years 564 and 570, that of his death, hints that Veralam was then fallen into the hands of the Saxons: which is certain of London, &c. The other princes reprehended by Gildas were lesser toparchs, as Aurelius Canon, Vortipor, Cuneglas, and Constantine. These were chieftains, Vortipor in Pembrokeshire, the rest in some quarter or other of Britain, all living when Gildas wrote. Constantine, whom Gildas represents as a native of Cornwall, and as he is commonly understood, also as prince of that country, did penance. The chief crime imputed to him is the murder of two royal youths in a church, and of two noblemen who had the charge of their education. Those Carte imagines to have been the sons of Caradoc Ureich Uras, who was chief prince of the Cornish Britons in the latter end of king Arthur's reign, as is attested by the author of the Triades. The prelates whom Gildas reproves, were such as Maelgun had promoted: for the sees of South-Wales were at that time filled with excellent prelates, whose virtues Gildas desired to copy. Carte, t. 1, p. 214. 4. Scoti-chron. c. 26. 5. Gildas's epistle, De Excidio Britanniæ, was published extremely incorrect and incomplete, till the learned Thomas Gale gave us a far more accurate and complete edition, t. 3, Scriptor. Britan., which is reprinted with notes by Bertrame in Germany, Hanniæ imp. an. 1757, together with Nennius's history of the Britons, and Richard Corin, of Westminster, De Situ Britanniæ. Gildas's Castigatio Cleri is extant in the library of the fathers, ed. Colon. t. 5, part 3, p. 682. 6. Dom Morice shows that about one hundred and twenty years were an ordinary term of human life among the ancient Britons, and that their usual liquor, called Kwrw, made of barley and water, was a kind of beer, a drink most suitable to the climate and constitutions of the inhabitants. See Dom Morice, Mémoires sur l'Histoire de Bretange, t. 1, preface; and Lamery, Diss. sur les Boissons.
ST. GILDAS THE ALBANIAN, OR THE SCOT, C.[1]
HIS father, who was called Caunus, and was king of certain southern provinces in North Britain, was slain in war by king Arthur. St. Gildas improved temporal afflictions into the greatest spiritual advantages, and, despising a false and treacherous world, aspired with his whole heart to a heavenly kingdom. Having engaged himself in a monastic state, he retired with St. Cado, abbot of Llan-carvan, into certain desert islands, whence they were driven by pirates from the Orcades. Two islands, called Ronech and Ecni, afforded him for some time a happy retreat, which he forsook to preach to sinners the obligation of doing penance, and to invite all men to the happy state of divine love. After discharging this apostolical function for several years, he retired to the southwest part of Britain into the abbey of Glastenbury, where he died and was buried in 512. William of Malmesbury[2] and John Fordun[3] mention his prophecies and miracles. See F. Alford, an. 512. Dom Lobineau, Saints de Bret. p. 72. Dom Morice, Hist. de Bret. t. 1, in the notes.
Footnotes: 1. Mr. Gale has cleared up the dispute about the two Gildases, and demonstrates this to have been a distinct person from the former, which is also proved by Dom Lobineau and Dom Morice. 2. Gul. Malmesb. de Antiq. Glast. 3. Scoti-chron. c. 22.
On this day is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology, ST. SABINIANUS of TROYES in CHAMPAGNE, a martyr of the third century. His festival is kept at Troyes on the 24th. See Bollan. 29th Jan. p. 937. Tillem. Hist. des Emp, t. 3, p. 541.
Also, ST. SULPICIUS, surnamed SEVERUS, Bishop of Bourges in 591. See Greg. Tour. Hist. Franc. l. 6, c. 39. Gall. Christ. and Ben. XIV. Pref. in Mart. Rom.
JANUARY XXX.
ST. BATHILDES, QUEEN OF FRANCE.
From her life written by a contemporary author, and a second life, which is the same with the former, except certain additions of a later date, in Bollandus and Mabillon, sec. 4, Ben. p. 447, and Act. Sanct. Ben. t. 2. See also Dubois, Hist. Eccl. Paris, p. 198, and Chatelain. Notes on the Martyr. 30 Jan. p. 462. See Historia St. Bathildis et Fundationem ejus, among the MS. lives of saints in the abbey of Jumieges, t. 2. Also her MS. life at Bec, &c.
A.D. 680.
ST. BATHILDES, or BALDECHILDE, in French Bauteur, was an English-woman, who was carried over very young into France, and there sold for a slave, at a very low price, to Erkenwald, otherwise called Erchinoald, and, Archimbald, mayor of the palace under King Clovis II. When she grew up he was so much taken with her prudence and virtue, that he committed to her the care of his household. She was no ways puffed up, but seemed {311} the more modest, more submissive to her fellow-slaves, and always ready to serve the meanest of them in the lowest offices. King Clovis II. in 649 took her for his royal consort, with the applause of his princes and whole kingdom: such was the renown of her extraordinary endowments. This unexpected elevation, which would have turned the strongest head of a person addicted to pride, produced no alteration in a heart perfectly grounded to humility and other virtues. She seemed even to become more humble than before, and more tender of the poor. Her present station furnished her with the means of being truly their mother, which she was before in the inclination and disposition of her heart. All other virtues appeared more conspicuous in her, but above the rest an ardent zeal for religion. The king gave her the sanction of his royal authority for the protection of the church, the care of the poor, and the furtherance of all religions undertakings. She bore him three sons, who all successively wore the crown, Clotaire III., Childeric II., and Thierry I. He dying in 655, when the eldest was only five years old, left her regent of the kingdom. She seconded the zeal of St. Owen, St. Eligius, and other holy bishops, and with great pains banished simony out of France, forbade Christians to be made slaves,[1] did all in her power to promote piety, and filled France with hospitals and pious foundations. She restored the monasteries of St. Martin, St. Denys, St. Medard, &c., founded the great abbey of Corbie for a seminary of virtue and sacred learning, and the truly royal nunnery of Chelles,[2] on the Marne, which had been begun by St. Clotildis. As soon as her son Clotaire was of an age to govern, she with great joy shut herself up in this monastery of Chelles, in 665, a happiness which she had long earnestly desired, though it was with great difficulty that she obtained the consent of the princes. She had no sooner taken the veil but she seemed to have forgotten entirely her former dignity, and was only to be distinguished from the rest by her extreme humility, serving them in the lowest offices, and obeying the holy abbess St. Bertilla as the last among the sisters. She prolonged her devotions every day with many tears, and made it her greatest delight {312} to visit and attend the sick, whom she comforted and served with wonderful charity. St. Owen, in his life of St. Eligius, mentions many instances of the great veneration which St. Bathildes bore that holy prelate, and relates that St. Eligius, after his death, in a vision by night, ordered a certain courtier to reprove the queen for wearing jewels and costly apparel in her widowhood, which she did not out of pride, but because she thought it due to her state while she was regent of the kingdom. Upon this admonition, she laid them aside, distributed a great part to the poor, and with the richest of her jewels made a most beautiful and sumptuous cross, which she placed at the head of the tomb of St. Eligius. She was afflicted with long and severe colics and other pains, which she suffered with an admirable resignation and joy. In her agony she recommended to her sisters charity, care of the poor, fervor, and perseverance, and gave up her soul in devout prayer, on the 30th of January, in 680, on which day she is honored in France, but is named on the 26th in the Roman Martyrology.
* * * * *
A Christian, who seriously considers that he is to live here but a moment, and will live eternally in the world to come, must confess that it is a part of wisdom to refer all his actions and views to prepare himself for that everlasting dwelling, which is his true country. Our only and necessary affair is to live for God, to do his will, and to sanctify and save our souls. If we are employed in a multiplicity of exterior business, we must imitate St. Bathildes, when she bore the whole weight of the state. In all we do God and his holy will must be always before our eyes, and to please him must be our only aim and desire. Shunning the anxiety of Martha, and reducing all our desires to this one of doing what God requires of us, we must with her call in Mary to our assistance. In the midst of action, while our hands are at work, our mind and heart ought to be interiorly employed on God, at least virtually, that all our employments may be animated with the spirit of piety: and hours of repose must always be contrived to pass at the feet of Jesus, where in the silence of all creatures we may listen to his sweet voice, refresh in him our wearied souls, and renew our fervor. While we converse with the world, we must tremble at the sight of its snares, and be upon our guard that we never be seduced so far as to be in love with it, or to learn its spirit. To love the world, is to follow its passions; to be proud, covetous, and sensual, as the world is. The height of its miseries and dangers, is that blindness by which none who are infected with its spirit, see their misfortune, or are sensible of their disease. Happy are they who can imitate this holy queen in entirely separating themselves from it!
Footnotes: 1. The Franks, when they established themselves in Gaul, allowed the Roman Gauls to live according to their own laws and customs, and tolerated their use of slaves, but gradually mitigated their servitude. Queen Bathildes alleviated the heaviest conditions, gave great numbers their liberty, and declared all capable of property. The Franks still retained slaves with this condition, attached to certain manors or farms, and bound to certain particular kinds of servitude. The kings of the second race often set great numbers free, and were imitated by other lords. Queen Blanche and Saint Lewis contributed more than any others to ease the condition of vassals, and Louis Hutin abolished slavery in France, declaring all men free who live in that kingdom according to the spirit of Christianity, which teaches us to treat all men as our brethren. See the life of St. Bathildes, and Gratigny, [OE]vres posthumes, an. 1757. Disc. sur la Servitude et son Abolition en France. 2. In the village of Chelles, in Latin Cala, four leagues from Paris, the kings of the first race had a palace. St. Clotildis founded near it a small church under the invocation of St. George, with a small number of cells adjoining for nuns. St. Bathildes so much enlarged this monastery as to be looked upon as the principal foundress. The old church of St. George falling to decay, Saint Bathildes built there the magnificent church of the Holy Cross, in which she was buried. Gisela, sister to the emperor Charlemagne, abbess of this house, rebuilt the great church, which some pretend to be the same that is now standing. At present here are three churches together; the first, which is small, the oldest, and only a choir, is called the church of the Holy Cross, and is used by six monks who assist the nuns; the lowest church is called St. George's, and is a parochial church for the seculars who live within the jurisdiction of the monastery: the great church which serves the nuns is dedicated under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, and is said to be the same that was built by the abbess Gisela, and much enlarged and enriched by Hegilvich, abbess of this monastery, mother to the empress Judith, whose husband, Louis le Débonnaire, caused the remains of our saint to be translated into this new church, in 833, and from this treasure it is more frequently called the church of St. Bathlides, than our Lady's. Two rich silver shrines are placed over the iron rails of the chancel, in one of which rest the sacred remains of St. Bathildes, in the other those of St. Bertilla, first abbess of Chelles: these rails, which are of admirable workmanship, were the present of an illustrious princess of the house of Bourbon, Mary Adelaide of Orleans, abbess of this house in 1725, who not thinking her sacrifice complete by having renounced the world, after some years abdicated her abbacy, and died in the condition of humble obedience, and of a private religious woman, near the shrines of SS. Bathildes and Bertilla, and those of St. Genesius of Lyons, St. Eligius and Radegondes of Chelles, called also little St. Bathildes. The last-mentioned princess was god-daughter to our saint, and died in her childhood, in this monastery, two or three days before her. See Piganiol's Descr. de Paris, t. 1 and S. Chatelain's notes in martyr. p. 464, and especially Le Boeuf, Hist. du Diocese de Paris, t. 6, p. 32. This author gives (p. 43) the full relation of a miracle approved by John Francis Gondy, archbishop of Paris, mentioned in a few words by Mabillon and Baillet. Six nuns were cured of inveterate distempers, attended with frequent fits of convulsions, by touching the relics of Saint Bathildes, when her shrine was opened on the 13th of July, in 1631.
ST. MARTINA, V.M.
SHE was a noble Roman virgin, who glorified God, suffering many torments and a cruel death for his faith, in the capital city of the world, in the third century. There stood a chapel consecrated to her memory in Rome, which was frequented with great devotion in the time of St. Gregory the Great. Her relics were discovered in a vault, in the ruins of her old church, and translated with great pomp in the year 1634, under the pope Urban VIII., who built a new church in her honor, and composed himself the hymns used in her office in the Roman Breviary. The city of Rome ranks her among its particular patrons. She is mentioned in the Martyrologies of Ado, Usuard, &c. The history of the discovery of her relics was published by Honoratus of Viterbo, an Oratorian. See Bollandus.
{313}
ST. ALDEGONDES, V. ABBESS.
SHE was daughter of Walbert, of the royal blood of France, and born in Hainault about the year 630. She consecrated herself to God by a vow of virginity, when very young, and resisted all solicitations to marriage, serving God in the house of her holy parents, till, in 638, she took the religious veil, and founded and governed a great house of holy virgins at Maubeuge.[1] She was favored with an eminent gift of prayer, and many revelations; but was often tried by violent slanders and persecutions, which she looked upon as the highest favors of the divine mercy, begging of God that she might be found worthy to suffer still more for his sake. His divine providence sent her a lingering and most painful cancer in her breast. The saint bore the torture of her distemper, also the caustics and incisions of the surgeons, not only with patience, but even with joy, and expired in raptures of sweet love, on the 30th of January, in 660, according to Bollandus. Her relics are enshrined in the great church of Maubeuge, where her monastery is now a college of noble virgins canonesses. Her name occurs on this day in the ancient breviary of Autun, and in the martyrologies of Rabanus, Usuard, and Notker: also in the Roman. At St. Omer, where a parish church bears her name, she is called Saint Orgonne. See her life written some time after her death: a second a century later, and a third by Hucbald, a learned monk of St. Armand's, in 900, with the remarks of Mabillon, (Act. Bened. t. 2, p. 937,) and the Bollandists. Consult also Miræus's Fasti Belgici, and La Vie de St. Aldegonde, par P. Binet, Jesuite, in 12mo. Paris, 1625.
Footnotes: 1. The act of this foundation, published by Miræus, is spurious, as mention is made therein of persons who were not living at that time: neither could it have been made in the twentieth year of Dagobert, as it contains facts which cannot be reconciled with the history of that prince. See the note of Bollandus, t. 2, p. 1039, and Chatelain, p 461.
ST. BARSIMÆUS, B.M.
CALLED BY THE SYRIANS BARSAUMAS.
HE was the third bishop of Edessa from St. Thaddæus, one of the seventy-two disciples. St. Barsaumas was crowned with martyrdom, being condemned to die for his zeal in converting great multitudes to the faith, by the president Lysias, in the reign of Trajan, when that prince, having passed the Euphrates, made the conquest of Mesopotamia in 114. St. Barsimæus is mentioned on the 30th of January in the Roman Martyrology, and in the Greek Mænology.
{314}
JANUARY XXXI.
SAINT PETER NOLASCO, C.
FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF OUR LADY FOR THE REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES.
From Chronica Sacri et Militaris Ordinis B.M. de Mercede, per Bern. de Vargas, ej. Ord. 2 vol. in fol. Panormi, 1622, and by John de Latomis in 12mo. in 1621, and especially the Spanish history of the same by Alonso Roman, 2 vol. fol. at Madrid, in 1618, and the life of the saint compiled in Italian by F. Francis Olihano, in 4to. 1668. See also Baillet, and Hist. des Ordres Relig. par Helyot, and Hist de l'Ordre de Notre Dame de la Merci, par les RR. Pères de la Merci, de la Congrégation de Paris, fol. printed at Amiens, in 1685.
A.D. 1258.
PETER, of the noble family of Nolasco, in Languedoc, was born in the diocese of St. Papoul, about the year 1189. His parents were very rich, but far more illustrious for their virtue. Peter, while an infant, cried at the sight of a poor man, till something was given him to bestow on the object of his compassion. In his childhood he gave to the poor whatever he received for his own use. He was exceeding comely and beautiful; but innocence and virtue were his greatest ornaments. It was his pious custom to give a very large alms to the first poor man he met every morning, without being asked. He rose at midnight, and assisted at matins in the church, as then the more devout part of the laity used to do, together with all the clergy. At the age of fifteen he lost his father, who left him heir to a great estate: and he remained at home under the government of his pious mother, who brought him up in extraordinary sentiments and practices of virtue. Being solicited to marry, he betook himself to the serious consideration of the vanity of all earthly things; and rising one night full of those thoughts, prostrated himself in fervent prayer, which he continued till morning, most ardently devoting himself to God in the state of celibacy, and dedicating his whole patrimony to the promoting of his divine honor. He followed Simon of Montfort, general of the holy war against the Albigenses, an heretical sect, which had filled Languedoc with great cruelties, and over spread it with universal desolation. That count vanquished them, and in the battle of Muret defeated and killed Peter, king of Aragon, and took his son James prisoner, a child of six years old. The conqueror having the most tender regard and compassion for the prince his prisoner, appointed Peter Nolasco, then twenty-five years old, his tutor, and sent them both together into Spain. Peter, in the midst of the court of the king at Barcelona,[1] where the kings of Aragon resided, led the life of a recluse, practising the austerities of a cloister. He gave no part of his time to amusements, but spent all the moments which the instruction of his pupil left free, in holy prayer, meditation, and pious reading. The Moors at that time were possessed of a considerable part of Spain, and great numbers of Christians groaned under their tyranny in a miserable slavery both there and in Africa. Compassion for the poor had always been the distinguishing virtue of Peter. The sight of so many moving objects in captivity, and the consideration of the spiritual dangers to which their faith and virtue stood exposed under their Mahometan masters, touched his heart to the quick, and he soon spent his whole estate in redeeming as many as he could. Whenever he saw {315} any poor Christian slaves, he used to say: "Behold eternal treasures which never fail." By his discourses he moved others to contribute large alms towards this charity, and at last formed a project for instituting a religious order for a constant supply of men and means whereby to carry on so charitable an undertaking. This design met with great obstacles in the execution, but the Blessed Virgin, the true mother of mercy, appearing to St. Peter, the king, and St. Raymund of Pennafort, in distinct visions the same night, encouraged them to prosecute the holy scheme under the assurance of her patronage and protection. St. Raymund was the spiritual director both of St. Peter and of the king, and a zealous promoter of this charitable work. The king declared himself the protector of the Order, and assigned them a large quarter of his own palace for their abode. All things being settled for laying the foundation of it, on the feast of St. Laurence, in the year 1223, the king and St. Raymund conducted St. Peter to the church and presented him to Berengarius, the bishop of Barcelona, who received his three solemn religious vows, to which the saint added a fourth, to devote his whole substance and his very liberty, if necessary, to the ransoming of slaves; the like vow he required of all his followers. St. Raymund made an edifying discourse on the occasion, and declared from the pulpit, in the presence of this august assembly, that it had pleased Almighty God to reveal to the king, to Peter Nolasco, and to himself, his will for the institution of an Order for the redemption of the faithful, detained in bondage among the infidels. This was received by the people with the greatest acclamations of joy, happy presages of the future success of the holy institute.[2] After this discourse, St. Peter received the new habit (as Mariana and pope Clement VIII. in his bull say) from St. Raymund, who established him first general of this new Order, and drew up for it certain rules and constitutions. Two other gentlemen were professed at the same time with St. Peter. When St. Raymund went to Rome, he obtained from pope Gregory IX., in the year 1225, the confirmation of this Order, and of the rule and constitutions he had drawn up. He wrote an account of this from Rome to St. Peter, informing him how well pleased his Holiness was with the wisdom and piety of the institute. The religious chose a white habit, to put them continually in mind of innocence: they wear a scapular, which is likewise white: but the king would oblige them, for his sake, to bear the royal arms of Aragon, which are interwoven on their habit upon the breast. Their numbers increasing very fast, the saint petitioned the king for another house; who, on this occasion, built for them, in 1232, a magnificent convent at Barcelona.[3]
King James having conquered the kingdom of Valencia, founded in it several rich convents; one was in the city of Valencia, which was taken by the aid of the prayers of St. Peter, when the soldiers had despaired of {316} success, tired out by the obstinacy of the besieged and strength of the place. In thanksgiving for this victory, the king built the rich monastery in the royal palace of Uneza, near the same city, on a spot where an image of our Lady was dug up, which is still preserved in the church of this convent end is famous for pilgrimages. It is called the monastery of our Lady of mercy del Puche.[4] That prince attributed to the prayers of Saint Peter thirty great victories which he obtained over the infidels, and the entire conquest of the two kingdoms of Valencia and Murcia. St. Peter, after his religious profession, renounced all his business at court, and no entreaties of the king could ever after prevail with him to appear there but once, and this was upon a motive of charity to reconcile two powerful noblemen, who by their dissension had divided the whole kingdom, and kindled a civil war. The saint ordained that two members of the Order should be sent together among the infidels, to treat about the ransom of Christian slaves, and they are hence called Ransomers. One of the two first employed in this pious work was our saint; and the kingdom of Valencia was the first place that was blessed with his labors; the second was that of Granada. He not only comforted and ransomed a great number of captives, but by his charity and other rare virtues, was the happy instrument of inducing many of the Mahometans to embrace the faith of Christ. He made several other journeys to the coasts of Spain, besides a voyage to Algiers, where, among other sufferings, he underwent imprisonment for the faith. But the most terrifying dangers could never make him desist from his pious endeavors for the conversion of the infidels, burning with a holy desire of martyrdom. He begged earnestly of his Order to be released from the burden of his generalship: but by his tears could only obtain the grant of a vicar to assist him in the discharge of it. He employed himself in the meanest offices of his convent, and coveted above all things to have the distribution of the daily alms at the gate of the monastery: he at the same time instructed the poor in the knowledge of God and in virtue. St. Louis IX. of France wrote frequently to him, and desired much to see him. The saint waited on him in Languedoc, in the year 1243, and the king, who tenderly embraced him, requested him to accompany him in his expedition to recover the Holy Land. St. Peter earnestly desired it, but was hindered by sickness, with which he was continually afflicted during the last years of his life, the effect of his fatigues and austerities, and he bore it with incomparable patience. In 1249, he resigned the offices of Ransomer and General, which was six or seven years before his death. This happened on Christmas-day, in 1256. In his agony, he tenderly exhorted his religious to perseverance, and concluded with those words of the psalmist: Our Lord hath sent redemption to his people; he hath commanded his covenant forever.[5] He then recommended his soul to God by that charity with which Christ came from heaven to redeem us from the captivity of the devil, and melting into tears of compunction and divine love, he expired, being in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His relics are honored by many miracles. He was canonized by pope Urban VIII. His festival was appointed by Clement VIII. to be kept on the 31st of January.
* * * * *
Charity towards all mankind was a distinguishing feature in the character of the saints. This benevolent virtue so entirely possessed their hearts, that they were constantly disposed to sacrifice even their lives to the relief and assistance of others. Zealously employed in removing their temporal necessities, they labored with redoubled vigor to succor their spiritual wants, {317} by rooting out from their souls the dominion of sin, and substituting in its room the kingdom of God's grace. Ingratitude and ill-treatment, which was the return they frequently met with for their charitable endeavors, were not able to allay their ardent zeal: they considered men on these occasions as patients under the pressure of diseases, more properly the object of compassion than of resentment. They recommended them to God in their private devotions, and earnestly besought his mercy in their favor. This conduct of the saints, extraordinary as it is, ceases to appear surprising when we recollect the powerful arguments our Blessed Saviour made use of to excite us to the love of our neighbor. But how shall we justify our unfeeling hard-heartedness, that seeks every trifling pretence to exempt us from the duty of succoring the unfortunate? Have we forgot that Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who alone hath bestowed on us whatever we possess, hath made charity towards our fellow-creature, but especially towards the needy, an indispensable precept? Do we not know that he bids us consider the suffering poor as members of the same head, heirs of the same promises, as our brethren and his children who represent him on earth? He declares, that whatever we bestow upon them he will esteem it as given to himself; and pledges his sacred word that he will reward our alms with an eternity of bliss. Such motives, says St. Chrysostom, would be sufficient to touch a heart of stone: but there is something still more cogent, continues the same holy father, which is, that the same Jesus Christ, whom we refuse to nourish in the persons of the poor, feeds our souls with his precious body and blood. If such considerations move not our hearts to commiserate and assist the indigent, what share of mercy and relief can we hope for in the hour of need? Oh, incomprehensible blindness! we perhaps prepare for ourselves an eternal abyss, by those very means which, properly applied, would secure as the conquest of a kingdom which will never have an end.[6]
Footnotes: 1. A century before, the counts of Barcelona were become kings of Aragon by a female title, and had joined Catalonia to Aragon, making Barcelona their chief residence and capital. 2. F. Tonron, in the life of St. Raymund, p. 20, quotes an original letter of St. Raymund, which mentions this revelation. The authenticity of this letter cannot be called in question, being proved by F. Bremond, Bullar. Ord. Præd. t. 1, not. in Constit. 36, Greg. X. The same revelation is inserted in the bull of the saint's canonization, in the Histories of Zumel, Vargas, Penia, &c. Benedict XIV. also mentions it, Canoniz. SS. l. 1, c. 41, and proves that it cannot reasonably be contested. 3. This Order consisted at first of some knights, who were dressed like seculars, wearing only a scarf or scapular; and of friars who were in holy orders, and attended the choir. The knights were to guard the coast against the Saracens, but were obliged to choir when not on duty. St. Peter himself was never ordained priest; and the first seven generals or commanders were chosen out of the knights, though the friars were always more numerous. Raymond Albert, in 1317. was the first priest who was raised to that dignity; and the popes Clement V., and John XXII., ordered that the general should be always a priest after which, the knight were incorporated into other military Orders, or were rarely renewed. It is styled, "The royal military religious Order of our Lady of Mercy for the redemption of Captives." It is divided into commanderies, which in Spain are very rich. It has eight provinces in America, three in Spain, and one, the poorest, in the southern part of France, called the province of Guienne. Whereas this Order is not bound to many extraordinary domestic austerities, a reformation, obliging the members to go barefoot, was established among them in the sixteenth century, and approved by pope Clement VIII. It observes the strictest poverty, recollection, solitude, and abstinence, and has two provinces in Spain, and one in Sicily, besides several nunneries. It was erected by F. John Baptist Gonzales, or of the holy sacrament, who died in the year 1{}18, and is said to have been honored with miracles. 4. Podoniensis. 5. Ps. cx. 9. 6. S. Chrys. Hom. in illud: Vidua eligatur, &c. t. 3, p. 397. Ed. Ben.
ST. SERAPION, M.
HE was a zealous Englishman, whom St. Peter Nolasco received into his Order at Barcelona. He made two journeys among the Moors for the ransom of captives, in 1240. The first was to Murcia, in which he purchased the liberty of ninety-eight slaves: the second to Algiers, in which he redeemed eighty-seven, but remained himself a hostage for the full payment of the money. He boldly preached Christ to the Mahometans, and baptized several: for which he was cruelly tortured, scourged, cut and mangled, at length fastened to a cross, and was thereon stabbed and quartered alive in the same year, 1240. Pope Benedict XIII. declared him a martyr, and proved his immemorial veneration in his Order, by a decree in 1728, as Benedict XIV. relates. L. 2, de Canoniz. c. 24, p. 296.
SS. CYRUS AND JOHN, MM.
CYRUS, a physician of Alexandria, who by the opportunities which his profession gave him, had converted many sick persons to the faith; and John, an Arabian, hearing that a lady called Athanasia, and her three daughters, of which the eldest was only fifteen years of age, suffered torments for the name of Christ at Canope in Egypt, went thither to encourage them. They were apprehended themselves, and cruelly beaten: their sides {318} were burnt with torches, and salt and vinegar poured into their wounds in the presence of Athanasia and her daughters, who were also tortured after them. At length the four ladies, and a few days after, Cyrus and John, were beheaded, the two latter on this day. The Syrians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Latins, honor their memory. See their acts[1] by St. Sophronius commended in the seventh general council, and published with remarks by Bollandus.
Footnotes: 1. St. Cyrus is the same as Abba-Cher, mentioned in the Coptic calendar on this day, which is the 8th of their month Mechir. He is called Abbacyrus in the life of St. John the Almoner, written by Leontius, in many ancient Martyrologies, and other monuments of antiquity. Abbacyrus is a Chaldaic word, signifying the Father Cyr. As this saint was an Egyptian, it is probable he was originally called Pa-Cher, or Pa-Cyrus, the Egyptians having been accustomed to prefix the article Pa to the names of men, as we see in Pa-chomis, Pa-phantis, Pa-phantis, &c.
It is said in the acts of our two martyrs, that they were buried at Canopus, twelve furlongs from Alexandria, and that their relics were afterwards translated to Manutha, a village near Canopus, which was celebrated for a great number of miracles wrought there. These relies are now in a church at Rome called Sant' Apassara: this word being corrupted by the Italians from Abbacyrus. Formerly there were many churches in that city dedicated under the invocation of these two holy martyrs. See Chatelain, notes on the Rom. Mart, p. 469, et seq.
ST. MARCELLA, WIDOW.