Note 3 — On Toleration
Joseph McCabe translation
I know only two instances in history of fathers being charged with killing their children on account of religion. The first is the case of the father of St. Barbara, or Ste. Barbe. He had had two windows made in his bath-room. Barbara, in his absence, had a third made, to honour the Holy Trinity. She made the sign of the cross on the marble columns with the tip of her finger, and it was deeply engraved on the stone. Her son came angrily upon her, sword in hand; but she escaped through a mountain, which opened to receive her. The father went round the mountain and caught her. She was stripped and flogged, but God clothed her in a white cloud. In the end her father cut off her head. So says the Flower of the Saints.
The second case is that of Prince Hermenegild. He rebelled against his father, the king, gave him battle (in 584), and was beaten and killed by an officer. As his father was an Arian, he was regarded as a martyr.