Front matter (continued 14)

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. Litter. 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 Praenomen, because the proper name went anciently before the other. Thus we say Caecilius Cyprianus, Eusebius Hieronymus, Aurelius Agustinus, &c. See Sirmond, Ep. praefixe 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 a 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, Irenaeus 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. Lipsiae, 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., Sec.12, pp. 69 and 74, t. 1, Op. Veronae, 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 Chompre, 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. positivae, l. 4, c. 26, and Dominic Georgi in Notis ad Martyrol. Adonis, ad {} Jan. 20. Benedict. XIV. in litteris apost. praefixis novae suae editioni Romani Martyrologii, (Romae, 1749,), Sec.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 Britanniae, 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, Memoires 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 Debonnaire 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 Britanniae, 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 Britanniae, 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, Hanniae imp. an. 1757, together with Nennius's history of the Britons, and Richard Corin, of Westminster, De Situ Britanniae. 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, Memoires 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 Debonnaire, 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 Miraeus'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 Miraeus, 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. BARSIMAEUS, B.M.

CALLED BY THE SYRIANS BARSAUMAS.

HE was the third bishop of Edessa from St. Thaddaeus, 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. Barsimaeus is mentioned on the 30th of January in the Roman Martyrology, and in the Greek Maenology.

{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. Peres de la Merci, de la Congregation 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. Praed. 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.

SHE IS styled by St. Jerom the glory of the Roman ladies. Having lost her husband in the seventh month of her marriage, she rejected the suit of Cerealis the consul, uncle of Gallus Caesar, and resolved to imitate the lives of the ascetics of the East. She abstained from wine and flesh, employed all her time in pious reading, prayer, and visiting the churches of the apostles and martyrs, and never spoke with any man alone. Her example was followed by many virgins of the first quality, who put themselves under her direction, and Rome was in a short time filled with monasteries. We have eleven letters of St. Jerom to her in answer to her religious queries. The Goths under Alaric plundered Rome in 410. St. Marcella was scourged by them for the treasures which she had long before distributed among the poor. All that time she trembled only for her dear spiritual pupil, Principia (not her daughter, as some have reputed her by mistake,) and falling at the feet of the cruel soldiers, she begged, with many tears, that they would offer her no insult. God moved them to compassion. They conducted them both to the church of St. Paul, to which Alaric had granted the right of sanctuary with that of St. Peter. St. Marcella, who survived this but a short time, which she spent in tears, prayers, and thanksgiving, closed her eyes by a happy death, in the arms of St. Principia, about the end of August, in 410, but her name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 31st of January. See St. Jerom, Ep. 96, ol. 16, ad Principiam, t. 4, p. 778. Ed. Ben. Baronius ad ann. 410, and Bollandus, t. 2, p. 1105.

ST. MAIDOC, OR MAODHOG,

CALLED ALSO AIDAN AND MOGUE, BISHOP OF FERNS, IN IRELAND.

HE was born in Connaught, a province of Ireland, and seemed from his infancy to be deeply impressed with the fear of God. He passed in his early days into Wales, where he lived for a considerable time under the direction of the holy abbot David. He returned afterwards to his own country, accompanied with several monks of eminent piety, founded a great number of churches and monasteries, and was made bishop of Ferns. He {319} died in 632, according to Usher. His name is celebrated among the Irish saints. It appears from Cambrensis that his festival was observed in Wales in the twelfth century. He was also honored in Scotland.[1] See Colgan, Jan. 31, pp. 208, 223. Chatelain, notes, p. 481.

Footnotes: 1. There is found in the chronicle of Scone, and in the Breviary of Aberdeen, an ancient collect, in which the Divine mercy is implored through his intercession. Chatelain tells us that in Lower Brittany he is called St. De, (contracted from the Latin word Aideus, or Aidanus,) and that the village and church which bear his name, celebrate his festival on the 18th of March, the day perhaps on which they received some portion of his relics.

{320 blank page} {321}

Only Complete and Unabridged Edition with nearly 100 pages of Chronological and General Index, Alphabetical and Centenary Table, etc.

THE LIVES OF THE FATHERS, MARTYRS, AND OTHER PRINCIPAL SAINTS; COMPILED FROM ORIGINAL MONUMENTS, AND OTHER AUTHENTIC RECORDS; ILLUSTRATED WITH THE REMARKS OF JUDICIOUS MODERN CRITICS AND HISTORIANS, BY THE REV. ALBAN BUTLER. With the approbation of MOST REV. M. A. CORRIGAN, D.D., Archbishop of New York.

VOL. II.

NEW YORK: P.J. KENEDY, PUBLISHER TO THE HOLY SEE, EXCELSIOR CATHOLIC PUBLISHING HOUSE, 5 BARCLAY STREET. 1903.

{322 blank page} {323} /* CONTENTS. FEBRUARY.

1. PAGE St. IGNATIUS, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr…….. 325 St. Pionius, Priest and Martyr…………….. 333 St. Bridget, Virgin and Abbess, Patroness of Ireland……………………………….. 334 St Kinnia, Virgin, of Ireland……………… 334 St. Sigebert, King of Austrasia, Confessor….. 337

2. The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary…. 337 St. Laurence, Archbishop of Canterbury……… 342

3. St Blaze, Bishop and Martyr……………….. 343 St. Anscharius, Archbishop of Hamburgh and Bremen, Confessor………………………. 344 St. Wereburge, Virgin and Abbess, in England, Patroness of Chester……………………. 345 St. Margaret, Virgin in England……………. 348

4. St. Andrew Corsini, Bishop and Confessor……. 349 St. Phileas and Philoromus, Bishop of Thmuis, Martyrs……………………………….. 351 St. Gilbert, Abbot, Founder of the Gilbertins.. 353 St. Jean, or Joan, of Valois, Queen of France.. 353 St. Isidore of Pelusium, Priest……………. 354 St Rembert, Archbishop of Bremen, Confessor…. 355 St. Modan, Abbot in Scotland, Confessor…….. 355 St. Joseph of Leonissa, Confessor………….. 356

5. St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr……………… 357 The Martyrs of Japan……………………… 359 Appendix to the Martyrs of China…………… 362 SS. Martyrs of Pontus, under Dioclesian…….. 366 St. Avitus, Archbishop of Vienne, Confessor…. 366 St. Alice, or Adelaide, Virgin and Abbess…… 366 St. Abraamius, Bishop of Arbela, Martyr…….. 367

6. St. Dorothy, Virgin and Martyr…………….. 367 St. Vedast, Bishop of Arras, Confessor……… 368 St. Amandus, Bishop and Confessor………….. 369 St. Barsanuphius, Anchoret………………… 370

7. St. Romuald, Abbot and Confessor, Founder of the Order of Camaldoli………………….. 370 St. Richard, King in England, and Confessor…. 377 St. Theodorus, of Heraclea, Martyr…………. 377 St. Tresain, or Tresanus, Priest and Confessor. 378 St. Augulus, Bishop in England, and Martyr….. 379

8. St. John of Matha, Confessor, Founder of the Order of Trinitarians…………………… 379 St. Stephen of Grandmont, Abbot……………. 382 Appendix to the Life of St. Stephen………… 384 St. Paul, Bishop of Verdun, Confessor………. 384 St. Cuthman, in England, Confessor…………. 385

9. St. Apollonia, Virgin and Martyr…………… 388 St. Nicephorus, Martyr……………………. 388 St. Theliau, Bishop in England, and Confessor.. 489 St. Ansbert, Archbishop of Rouen in 695, Confessor……………………………… 390 St. Attracta, or Tarahata, Virgin, in Ireland.. 390 St. Erhard, Abbot and Confessor, native of Scotland………………………………. 390

10. St. Scholastica, Virgin…………………… 391 St. Soteris, Virgin and Martyr…………….. 393 St. William of Maleval, Hermit, and Institutor of the Order of Gulielmites……………… 393 St. Erlulph, Bishop and Martyr, native of Scotland………………………………. 305

11. SS. Saturninus, Dativus, and others, Martyrs of Africa………………………………… 395 St. Severinus, Abbot of Agaunum……………. 397 St. Theodora, Empress…………………….. 398

12. St. Benedict of Anian, Abbot………………. 398 St. Meletius, Patriarch of Antioch, Confessor.. 401 St. Eulalia, Virgin, of Barcelona, Martyr…… 405 St. Antony Cauleas, Patriarch of Constantinople, Confessor……………….. 405

13. St. Catharine de Ricci, Virgin…………….. 406 St. Licinius, Bishop of Angers, Confessor…… 408 St. Polyeuctus, Martyr……………………. 409 St. Gregory II., Pope and Confessor………… 410 St. Martinianus, Hermit at Athens………….. 412 St. Modomnoc, or Dominick, of Ossory, Bishop and Confessor………………………….. 413 St. Stephen, Abbot……………………….. 413 B. Roger, Abbot and Confessor……………… 413

14. St. Valentine, Priest and Martyr…………… 413 St. Maro, Abbot………………………….. 414 St. Abraames, Bishop of Carres…………….. 415 St. Auxentius, Hermit…………………….. 415 St. Conran, Bishop of Orkney, Confessor…….. 416

15. SS. Faustinus and Jovita, Martyrs………….. 416 St. Sigefride, or Sigfrid, Bishop. Apostle of Sweden………………………………… 417

16. St. Onesimus, Disciple of St. Paul…………. 418 SS. Elias, Jeremy, Isaias, Samuel, Daniel, and other Holy Martyrs at Caesarea, in Palestine. 419 St. Juliana, Virgin and Martyr…………….. 420 St. Gregory X., Pope and Confessor…………. 420 St. Tanco, or Tatta, Bishop and Martyr, native of Scotland……………………………. 422

{324}

17. St. Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, Martyr………………………………… 422 SS. Theodulus and Julian, Martyrs………….. 425 St. Silvin of Auchy, Bishop and Confessor…… 426 St. Loman, or Luman, Bishop in Ireland, Confessor……………………………… 426 St. Fintan, Abbot of Cluian-Ednech, in Ireland. 427

18. St. Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, Martyr…….. 427 SS. Leo and Paregorius, Martyrs……………. 429

19. St. Barbatus, or Barbas, Bishop of Benevento, Confessor……………………………… 431

20. SS. Tyrannio, Bishop of Tyre, Zenobius, and other Martyrs in Phoenicia………………. 433 St. Sadoth, Bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, with 128 Companions, Martyrs…………….. 434 St. Eleutherius, Bishop of Tourney, Martyr….. 436 St. Mildred, Virgin and Abbess…………….. 436 St. Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans, Confessor…. 437 St. Ulrick, Recluse in England…………….. 438

21. St. Severianus, Bishop of Scythopolis, Martyr.. 439 SS. German, Abbot of Granfel, and Randaut, Martyrs……………………………….. 440 SS. Daniel, Priest, and Verde, Virgin, Martyrs. 441 B. Pepin of Landen, Mayor of the Palace…….. 441

22. The Chair of St. Peter, at Antioch…………. 442 St. Margaret of Cortona, Penitent………….. 443 SS. Thalassius and Limneus, Confessors……… 444 St. Baradat, Confessor……………………. 444

23. St. Serenas, a Gardener, Martyr……………. 445 St. Milburge, Virgin in England……………. 447 St. Dositheus, Monk………………………. 447 B. Peter Damian, Cardinal, Bishop of Ostia….. 448 St. Boisil, Prior of Melross, Confessor…….. 431

24. St. Matthias, Apostle…………………….. 453 SS. Montanus, Lucius, Flavian, Julian, Victoricus, Primolus, Rhenus, and Donatian, Martyrs at Carthage…………………….. 453 St. Lethard, Bishop of Senlis, Confessor……. 459 B. Robert, of Arbrissel, Priest……………. 459 St. Pretextatus, or Prix, Archbishop of Rouen, Martyr………………………………… 460 St. Ethelbert, Confessor, First Christian King among the English………………………. 462

25. St. Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, Confessor……………………………… 463 St. Victorinus, and Six Companions, Martyrs…. 468 St. Walburge, Abbess in England……………. 469 St. Caesarius, Physician, Confessor…………. 470 St. Alexander, Patriarch of Alexandria, Confessor……………………………… 470 St. Porphyrius, Bishop of Gaza, Confessor…… 473 St. Victor, or Vittre, of Arcis in Champagne, Anchoret and Confessor………………….. 477

26. St. Leander, Bishop of Seville, Confessor…… 478 SS. Julian, Chronion, and Besas, Martyrs …… 480 St. Thalilaeus, a Cilician, Recluse in Syria…. 481 St. Galmier, of Lyons…………………….. 481 St. Nestor, Bishop and Martyr……………… 481 St. Alnoth, Anchoret and Martyr……………. 482

28. Martyrs who died in the Great Pestilence in Alexandria…………………………….. 482 St. Proterius, Patriarch of Alexandria, Martyr. 482 SS. Romanus and Lupicinus, Abbots………….. 484

29. St. Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York……………………… 484 */ {325}

FEBRUARY I.

ST. IGNATIUS, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH, M.

From his genuine epistles; also from the acts of his martyrdom, St. Chrys. Hom. In St. Ignat. M. t. 3, p. {}{9}2. Ed. Nov. Eusebius. See Tillemont, t. 2, p. 191. Cave, t. 1, p. 100. Dom Ceillier. Dom Marechal Concordance des Peres Grecs et Latins, t. 1, p. 58.

A.D. 107.

ST. IGNATIUS, surnamed Theophorus,[1] a word implying a divine or heavenly person, was a zealous convert and an intimate disciple of St. John the Evangelist, as his acts assure us; also the apostles SS. Peter and Paul, who united their labors in planting the faith at Antioch.[2] It was by their direction that he succeeded Evodius in the government of that important see, as we are told by St. Chrysostom,[3] who represents him as a perfect model of virtue in that station, in which he continued upwards of forty years. During the persecution of Domitian, St. Ignatius defended his flock by prayer, fasting, and daily preaching the word of God. He rejoiced to see peace restored to the church on the death of that emperor, so far as this calm might be beneficial to those committed to his charge: but was apprehensive that he had not attained to the perfect love of Christ, nor the dignity of a true disciple, because he had not as yet been called to seal the truth of his religion with his blood, an honor he somewhat impatiently longed for. The peaceable reign of Nerva lasted only fifteen months. The governors of several provinces renewed the persecution under Trajan his successor: and it appears from Trajan's letter to Pliny the younger, governor of Bithynia, that the Christians were ordered to be put to death, if accused; but it was forbid to make any inquiry after them. That emperor sullied his clemency and bounty, and his other pagan virtues, by incest with his sister, by an excessive vanity, which procured him the surname of Parietmus, (or dauber of every wall with the inscriptions of his name and actions,) and by blind superstition, which rendered him a persecutor of the true followers of virtue, out of a notion of gratitude to his imaginary deities, especially after his victories over the Daci and Scythians in 101 and 105. In the year 106, which was the ninth of his reign, he set out for the East on an expedition {326} against the Parthians, and made his entry into Antioch on the 7th of January, 107, with the pomp of a triumph. His first concern was about the affair of religion and worship of the gods, and for this reason he resolved to compel the Christians either to acknowledge their divinity and sacrifice to them, or suffer death in case of refusal.