Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints — December

The unabridged December volume of Alban Butler’s Lives, from the P. J. Kenedy 1903 reprint of the twelve-volume edition. Public domain.

DECEMBER 1 — ST. ELIGIUS, BISHOP OF NOYON (CALLED IN FRENCH ELOY.)

From his life compiled in two books by his Intimate friend St. Owen, bishop of Rouen, thirteen years after his death, extant in Surius, D’Acheri, Spieileg. t. 5, p. 147, translated into French with his homilies, by M. Levesqne, at Paris, in octavo, in 1693. See Fieury, pp. 37, 38, 39; Rivet, Hist. Liuer. t. 3, p. 505 Celliler, t. 17, pp. 682; Gatlia Christiana Nov. t. 9, p. 984.

A. D. 659.

THE name of Eligius, and those of his father Eucherius, and his mother Terrigia, show this saint to have been born not of French, but of Roman Gaulish extraction. He was born at Catelat, two leagues north of Limoges, about the year 588. His parents, who were very virtuous, and in good circumstances, brought him up from his infancy in the fear of God, and seeing him industrious, placed him with a goldsmith named Abbo, who was a considerable person, master of the mint at Limoges, and a devout servant of God. Eligius was a youth of uncommon genius and address, and, by his extraordinary application, arrived at an eminent skill in his profession. The qualities of his mind, and his steady virtue and religion, exceedingly enhanced his reputation, and endeared him to all who had the happiness of his acquaintance. His heart was full of sincerity, his whole conduct was under the regulation of an exact prudence, and his temper sweet and obliging: his discourse was agreeable, modest, and easy, and his attendance on religious duties most assiduous and edifying. He never failed assisting at the whole divine office in the church, and never lost an opportunity of attending to sermons or spiritual instructions. The oracles of the Holy Scriptures he carefully laid up in his memory, and made them the subject of his profound meditation, that they might sink deeply into his soul, and that he might apply them to his own use.

Eligius having some business which called him into France, that is, on this side the Loire, became known to Bobo, treasurer to Clotaire II. at Paris. This king, to whom Bobo had recommended him, gave the saint an order to make him a magnificent chair of state, adorned with gold and precious stones. Out of the materials the king furnished him, he made two such chairs or thrones, instead of one. The king admired the skill and honesty of the workman, and finding by his discourse that he was a man of great parts, and endowed with excellent understanding, gave him a great share in his confidence, took him into his household, and made him master of the mint. His name is still to be seen on several gold coins, struck at Paris in the reigns of Dagobert I. and his son Clovis II., as appears from Le Blanc’s History of Coins.1 His great credit at court hindered him not from attending his profession, and he was much delighted in making rich shrines for the relics of saints. The tombs of St. Martin at Tours, and of St. Dionysius near Paris, were sumptuously and curiously adorned by him.2 The shrines also of St. Quintin, SS. Crispin and Crispinian at Soissons, St. Lucian, St. Piat, St. Germanus of Paris, St. Severinus, St. Genevieve, &c were made by our saint. These employments were no impediments to his exercises of piety. Even while he was at work he had some good book open before him, on which he frequently cast an eye to instruct himself at the same time in the law of God, and to kindle a fresh flame of devotion in his affections. On the walls round his chambers were also placed pious books, particularly those of the Holy Scriptures, which he read for a considerable time after his hour of prayer and singing psalms. The corruption of a court never infected his soul, or impaired his virtue; such was his diligence in fencing his heart against it by the most powerful antidotes. He had not been long there, when he formed a resolution of entering upon a more devout and austere way of living, took a strict view of his whole life, made a general confession of all the actions of his youth to a priest,3 and imposed upon himself a severe penance. At first when he went to court, he conformed to the fashion, and was magnificently habited, sometimes wearing nothing but silk, though at that time it was not very common: and he had waistcoats embroidered with gold, and sashes and purses adorned with gold and precious stones. Yet even then, he privately wore a hair shirt: and after he had entered upon a stricter course of virtue, he gave all his ornaments to the poor, and became so negligent in his dress, that he often girded himself with a cord. The king, when he saw him in this habit, would often give him his own clothes and sash; but the saint gave to the poor all that he received from the king’s bounty. The liberality of his sovereign enabled him to bestow great sums in alms. If any stranger asked for his house, he was answered; “Go into such a street, and to that part of it where you see a crowd of poor people.” Wherever he went he was followed by a great number of them, and he himself, or one of his servants, distributed victuals and money to them. He daily fed a great number at his own house, whom he served himself, and he ate what they left. He gave them wine and flesh, though he touched neither himself; and sometimes he fasted two or three days together. Sometimes, when the usual hour was come, and the table laid, he had nothing to give his poor people, having distributed all before; but he always relied upon providence, which never failed to supply him, either by means of the king, or of some pious persons. He took care to bury the bodies of malefactors, and was particularly zealous to ransom captives. When he knew that a slave was to be sold in any place, he made haste thither, and sometimes ransomed fifty or a hundred at a time, especially Saxons, who were sold in great companies. After he had set them at liberty he gave them their choice, either to return to their own country, or to continue with him, or to enter into monasteries: of these last he took particular care. One of the Saxon slaves whom he brought up with him in the practice of piety, became so eminent for sanctity, that he is commemorated among the saints on the 7th of January, under the name of St. Theau. Several of his domestics sung the canonical office with him day and night. Among these are named Bauderic, his freedman; Tituan, who waited on him in his chamber, was of the nation of the Suevi, and arrived at the crown of martyrdom; Buchin, who had been a pagan, and was afterwards abbot of Ferrieres; Andrew, Martin, and John, who, by his means, became clerks. Several relies of saints were fastened to the ceiling of his room, under which he prostrated himself upon a hair cloth to pray; then he began to read, which he often broke off, to lift up his eyes to heaven, sighing and weeping bitterly; for he was remarkable for an extraordinary tenderness of heart, and easily melted into tears. If the king pressed him to come to him, sending one messenger after another, he would not go till he had finished his devotions. He never went out of doors without praying first, and making the sign of the cross; and the first thing he did, after he returned, was to pray. Discretion, mixed with simplicity, appeared in his countenance: he was tall, had a handsome head, and a ruddy complexion: his hair was naturally curled. By the innocence and regularity of his life he made his court to his prince without design, more successfully than others do by flattery and other low arts.

Clotaire dying in 628, his son and successor, Dagobert, entertained so just an idea of the saint’s virtue and wisdom that he frequently consulted him preferably to all his council about public affairs, and listened to his directions for his own private conduct. Eligius took every favorable opportunity to inspire him with sentiments of justice, elemency, and religion. The king was so far from being offended at the liberty which the saint took in his counsels and admonitions, that he treated him with the greater regard; which drew on him the envy and jealousy of the whole court, particularly of the vicious part of the nobility, who did all in their power to blast his character. But their calumnies were too weak to do him any prejudice, and served only to give his virtue a fresh lustre, and enhance Dagobert’s veneration for him, who loaded him with favors, though it never was in his power to make him rich, because all that the saint received was immediately employed in relieving the necessitous, or in raising charitable and religious foundations. The first of these was the abbey of Solignac, which he built two leagues from Limoges, on a piece of ground granted him by the king for that purpose. The saint richly endowed it, peopled it with monks from Luxeu, and made it subject to the inspection of the abbot of that monastery. This new community increased considerably in a little time, and consisted of a hundred and fifty persons, who worked at several trades, and lived in admirable regularity. Dagobert also gave our saint a handsome house at Paris, which he converted into a nunnery, and placed in it three hundred religious women under the direction of St. Aurea, whose name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 4th of October. This monastery has since been given to the Barnabites, and the estates which belonged to it are now annexed to the bishopric of Paris. When the saint had begun this building, he found that it exceeded the measure of the land which he had specified to his majesty by one foot; upon which, being struck with great grief and remorse, he immediately went to the king, and, throwing himself at his feet, begged his pardon with many tears. Dagobert, surprised at his caution, to recompense his piety, doubled his former donation. When the saint was gone out, he said to his courtiers: “See how faithful and careful those who serve Christ are. My officers and governors stick not to rob me of whole estates; whereas Eligius trembles at the apprehension of having one inch of ground which is mine.” It not being then allowed to bury within cities, the saint made a burial-place for these nuns without the walls, and built there a church in honor of St. Paul, which is now a large parish-church. The inhabitants of Brittany having provoked the king by making frequent inroads and plunders, he sent Eligius upon an embassy to them, who prevailed upon Judicael, their prince, to go in person to Paris, and by his submissions appease the king’s anger.* Dagobert being desirous to employ the saint in his most important commissions, pressed him to take an oath of fidelity, as was usual on such occasions. Eligius, having a scruple lest this would be to swear without sufficient necessity, excused himself with an obstinacy which for some time displeased the king. Still the sain persisted in his resolution for fear of incurring the danger of offending God, and repeated his excuses with many tears, as often as the king pressed him on that score. Dagobert at length perceiving that the only motive of his reluctance was an extreme tenderness of conscience, graciously assured him that his conscientious delicacy was a more secure pledge of his fidelity than the strongest oaths of others could have been.

The extraordinary piety, and prudent fear of offending God, which St. Eligius showed in all his actions, made so strong an impression on the mind of St. Owen when he was but twelve years old, and lived in the court, that the fervent young nobleman resolved to walk in his steps; and, as he grew up, contracted so close a friendship with him that they seemed to have but one heart and one soul. While they were laymen, and lived at court, they zealously labored to maintain the purity of the faith, and the unity of the church. St. Eligius procured a council to be held at Orleans against certain heretics, drove a company of impious persons out of Paris, and, with St. Owen, employed his endeavors effectually to root out simony, a vice which had grievously infected France ever since the unhappy reign of Brunehalt. St. Desiderius, who lived then in the court of Dagobert, and was afterwards made bishop of Cahors, was joined in holy friendship with these two saints; also St. Sulpicius, afterwards archbishop of Bourges, and these holy men, by their mutual example, were a spur to each other in the heroic practice of every virtue. The whole kingdom was exceedingly edified by the sanctity of these zealous courtiers, and the bishops took a resolution to procure them to be called into the episcopal order. The sees of Noyon and Tournay, which had been united ever since St. Medard, in 512 and then comprised Upper Picardy, and all the provinces that lie between that country and the month of the Rhine, became vacant by the death of St. Acarius, in 639, and St. Eligius was required to take upon him that arduous charge, and soon after, St. Owen was chosen bishop of Rouen. King Clovis II., who had succeeded his father Dagobert, stood in need of such ministers; but the spiritual good of so many souls took place. St. Eligius trembled at the sight of the burden, and obtained a delay of two years to prepare himself, during which time he was ordained priest, and practised the clerical duties. St. Owen did the like, having retired for that purpose beyond the Loire. They agreed to meet and receive the episcopal consecration together at Rouen, which they did on Sunday before Rogation-week, in 640, or, according to some, in 646. The inhabitants of the district of Ghent and Courtray, which then depended on the diocese of Noyon, were still pagans, and so fierce and savage that they would not so much as hear the gospel preached to them. This was the chief reason of choosing so zealous a pastor for them as St. Eligius. From Rouen he only went back to court to take his last leave of it, and thence he repaired straight to Noyon.*

Our saint in this new dignity increased his fasts and watchings with his labors, and showed the same humility, the same spirit of poverty, penance, and prayer as before: also the same charity towards the poor and the sick, whom he continued frequently to serve with his own hands, regularly entertaining twelve poor persons at his own table on certain days in the week. He always took particular delight to be in the company of the poor, and often left his clergy and others to shut himself up with them, and he often clothed them, washed their faces and hands, and shaved their heads with his own hands. His pastoral solicitude, zeal, and watchfulness were most admirable. The first year he employed entirely in reforming his clergy, and regulating the manners of his Christian flock. After this, he turned his thoughts to the conversion of the infidels among the Flemings about Antwerp, and the Frisons and Suevi, as far as the sea-shore, especially about Ghent and Courtray. St. Amandus, born of a Roman family near Nantes, being the son of Serenus and Amantia, and a monk, had been ordained by the Gallican prelates a bishop of nations, in 626, and had begun to plant the faith in the neighborhood of Ghent,* under the direction of St. Acarius, bishop of Noyon; and in 636 St. Omer was ordained bishop of the Morini. But a great part of Flanders was chiefly indebted to St. Eligius for the happiness of receiving the light of the gospel. He preached in the territories of Antwerp, Ghent, and Courtray. The inhabitants, who at first were as fierce as wild beasts, were ready every day to tear him to pieces; yet he persevered exhorting them, desiring nothing more than martyrdom. He instructed, with more than paternal tenderness, those who long refused to hear him, took care of their sick, comforted them in their afflictions, assisted them in their wants, and employed every means that the most tender and ingenious charity could suggest, to overcome their obstinacy. The barbarians were at length softened, and considering his disinterestedness, his goodness, meekness, and mortified abstemious manner of living, they began to admire, and even to desire to imitate him. Many were converted, and these induced others to hear the holy prelate’s sermons, from which they went in bodies to destroy their temples and idols of their own accord: then returned to the holy prelate, and desired baptism. Eligius usually tried and instructed them for a whole year before he admitted them to the sacred laver of regeneration. By his discourses he raised the minds of the supine and slothful barbarians to an affection for heavenly things, and inspired them with a meek and peaceable temper: he taught them the means of rooting out of their hearts the love of pleasures and riches, and of perfectly subduing the evil habits of lying, enmity, hatred, and revenge, and ceased not to inculcate the precept of fraternal charity. In his exhortations he joined prayers and tears with reprehensions and threats; for his sweetness and mildness had no mixture of weakness, and his apostolic vigor and severity had nothing in it of bitterness or harshness. Every year at Easter he baptized great numbers both of old and young, whom he had brought to the knowledge of the true God in the space of the twelve preceding months; to whom he had long before given the habit of catechumens, and who had long exercised themselves in suitable practices of fervent devotion and penance. The prudence and zeal of our holy pastor were not less remarkable in bringing sinners after baptism to sincere penance. Many, like patients who in a fit of raving fall on the physicians that come to cure them, rose up against their holy bishop, because he refused to suffer them to live according to their passions and fancy. But Eligius considered that a charitable physician or tender father abandons not a sick patient who, in the violence of his fever, forgets the respect and obedience that is due to him, feared no dangers in the discharge of his pastoral duty, and in maintaining the indispensable laws of penance, and the rules of ecclesiastical discipline. Many sinners ran to receive penance by confessing their sins, and the holy bishop was very earnest in the care of their conversion. He exhorted all to frequent the churches, give alms, set their slaves at liberty, and practise all sorts of good works; and he engaged several of both sexes to embrace a monastic life. Once, no far from Noyon, he preached, on the feast of St. Peter, against dancing, which the people made a frequent occasion of many sins. Many murmured hereat, and even threatened the holy prelate; but he preached the next festival on the same subject with greater vehemence than ever. Hereupon, the incorrigible sinners openly threatened his life. The servants of the lord of the place went about stirring up the whole country against him: for such men, where they are not restrained by their master’s authority, easily become lawless, and are the bane of a whole parish. The bishop at length found himself obliged to cut off these sons of Belia, from the communion of the faithful, and to deliver them over to Satan, for the remedy of their souls. Fifty of them were afflicted by God, and made visible spectacles of his judgments: but, upon their repentance, were cured by the saint. St. Owen mentions many blind, lame, and sick persons, who received the benefit of their health, and use of their limbs, by the prayers of St. Eligius.

Among other prophecies, his prediction of the division of the French monarchy among the three sons of Clovis II., and its reunion under Theodoric, the youngest of them, was recorded by St. Owen, before its entire accomplishment.4 This author informs us,5 that our saint assembled the people every day, and instructed them with indefatigable zeal; and he gives us an abstract of several of his discourses united in one; by which it appears that his style was plain, simple, and without many ornaments, but tender and pathetic; and that he often borrowed whole passages from the sermons of St. Csanus, as was customary in France at that time. He often explained the obligation of the solemn vows or promises which Christians make at their baptism, exhorting the faithful to have them always before their eyes, and to be no less careful to practise, than to believe what they profess under the most sacred engagements. He insisted much on the obligation of almsdeeds, recommended the invocation of saints, and instructed the faithful to beware of superstitious practices then in vogue; among which he reckons the observation of unlucky days, the solemnizing of New-year’s day with drinking and diversions, and the like. He strongly recommended prayer, the partaking of the body and blood of Christ, extreme unction in time of sickness, and the sign of the cross to be always worn on our forehead, the efficacy of which sign he set forth. The seventeen homilies, which bear his name in the library of the fathers, cannot be his work; for the author had been a monk before he was bishop.6 The charter of St. Eligius for the foundation of the abbey of Solignac is still extant.7 The saint having governed his flock nineteen years and a half, was favored with a foresight of his death, and a little before he was seized with his last sickness, foretold it to his disciples. Seeing them weep, he said: “Grieve not, my children; but rather congratulate with me. I have longed for this time, and, sighing under the miseries of this world, have wished for a releasement.” Falling ill of a fever, he prayed almost without interruption; and, on the sixth day, convened his disciples, and made them a pathetic exhortation to a virtuous life. They bursting all together into tears, he was not able to refrain from weeping with them; and, on his knees, he commanded them all to God, praying him not to abandon them, and to give them a holy pastor. After this, he continued his private prayers for several hours; then, reciting the canticle Nune dimittis, &c., and fervently commending his soul into the hands of his Redeemer, he happily expired at one o’clock the next morning, on the first of December in 659, or in 665, if he was consecrated bishop in 646, being seventy years and some months old. Upon the news of his sickness, queen Bathildes set out from Paris with her children, the lords of her court, and a numerous train; but arrived only the morning after his death. She bathed the corpse with a flood of tears, and caused all preparations to be made for carrying it to her monastery at Chelles. Others were very desirous that it should be conveyed to Paris; but the people of Noyon so strenuously opposed it, that the precious remains of their holy pastor were left with them, and the greatest part is kept at Noyon to this day. His body was deposited in the church of St. Lupus of Troyes, out of the walls, soon after called St. Eligius’s, as St. Owen testifies. This monastery of St. Eligius is now of the Benedictin order of the reformed congregation of St. Maur. The relics of the saint were afterwards translated into the cathedral. Several other churches lay claim to small portions. St. Owen relates many miracles which followed his death, and informs us, that the holy abbess, St. Aurea, who was swept off by a pestilence, with a hundred and sixty of her nuns, in 666, was advertised of her last hour some time before it, by a comfortable vision of St. Eligius. Queen Bathildes soon after, laying aside all ornaments of state, gave them all to the poor, except her gold bracelets, of which she caused a cross to be made, which she placed at the head of St. Eligius’s monument. She also ordered a sort of canopy called Repa, to be made of gold and silver, and set it over his tomb. The noblemen of her court, imitating her example, offered abundance of gold and precious stones to adorn the same; and, as it shone very bright, it was covered in Lent with a linen cloth bordered with silk. A certain liquor which dropped from this linen cloth, cured various distempers.8 Fleury takes notice from this circumstance, that it was the custom at that time to cover, on penitential days, whatever looked bright or shining in churches.

St. Eligius learned to be a saint, living in the world and in a court. But for this he studied neither to be of the world, nor to be withdrawn by the world from a constant application to religious duties. To attend to them, he sometimes excused himself even from waiting upon his prince, when called upon by him; nor would he remain in his service upon other conditions. In the world, conversation is a devoir of civility, charity, and friendship; but first it must be sincere; not formality and mere compliment, which is frequently the case. Men who are idolaters of themselves, are incapable of true charity towards others; jealousy, envy, and resentment, being on every occasion easily kindled in their hearts. Hence, their protestations of friendship are often a base hypocrisy, and a traffic of mutual decent; a disposition diametrically opposite to that of charity and simplicity. Secondly, conversation with men, must not take up a considerable part of our time, nor be a source of vain amusement, or unprofitable fooleries. Towards those who would over-whelm us with idle visits, we are allowed, and, when necessary, ought to show some coolness, in order to break off a frivolous and fruitless commerce. Worldly discourse usually tends to promote vanity, pride, sensuality, and other passions. Men in general are not capable of being spoken to in the language of solid truth. Therefore, we ought to speak it often to ourselves by holy meditation and reading; and the oftener our circumstances oblige us to listen to the language of the world, so much the more diligent are we bound to be in attending to the voice of truth. It is only the blindness and spirit of varity that reigns in the world, which has brought any other dialect but that of truth into fashion. St. Eligius and many other saints found leisure even in courts, to converse mostly with heaven and themselves. Who then can plead any excuse?

DECEMBER 2 — ST. BIBIANA, V. M

A bridged from her Acts, which are disfigured by interpolations. See Anast. in Simplicio, et Baron. Annot. in Martyr. Rom. Bosius et Aringhi, Roma Subterr. t. 3, c. 37.

A. D. 363.

WE are informed by Ammianus Marcellinus, a pagan historian of that age, and an officer in the court of Julian the Apostate, that this emperor made Apronianus governor of Rome in the year 363, who, while he was on the way to that city, had the misfortune to lose an eye. This accident he superstitiously imputed to the power of magic, through the malice of some who excelled in that art; and, in this foolish persuasion, to gratify his spleen and superstition, he resolved to punish and exterminate the magicians; in which accusation, Christians were involved above all others, on account of many wonderful miracles which were wrought in the primitive ages. Under this magistrate, St. Bibiana received the crown of martyrdom. This holy virgin was a native of Rome, and daughter to Flavian, a Roman knight, and his wife Dafrosa, who were both zealous Christians. Flavian was apprehended, deprived of a considerable post which he held in the city, burned in the face with a ho iron, and banished to Acquapendente, then called Aqu Taurin, where he died of his wounds a few days after. Dafrosa, by an order of Apronianus, who had thus treated her husband for his constancy in his faith, was, on the same account, confined to her house for some time; and, at length, carried out of the gates of the city, and beheaded. Bibiana and her sister Demetria, after the death of their holy parents, were stripped of all they had in the world, and suffered much from poverty for five months, but spent that time in their own house in fasting and prayer. Apronianus had flattered himself that hunger and want would bring them to a compliance; but seeing himself mistaken, summoned them to appear before him. Demetria, having made a generous confession of her faith, fell down and expired at the foot of the tribunal, in the presence of the judge. Apronianus gave orders that Bibiana should be put into the hands of a wicked woman named Rufina, who was extremely artful, and undertook to bring her to another way of thinking. That agent of hell employed all the allurements she could invent; which were afterwards succeeded by blows: but Bibiana, making prayer her shield, remained invincible. Apronianus, enraged at the courage and perseverance of a tender virgin, at length passed sentence of death upon her, and ordered her to be tied to a pillar, and whipped with scourges loaded with leaden plummets till she expired. The saint underwent this punishment cheerfully, and died in the hands of the executioners. Her body was left in the open air, that it might be a prey to beasts; but, having lain exposed two days, was buried in the night, near the palace of Licinius, by a holy priest called John. Peace being soon after restored to the church, a chapel was erected over her tomb; and a hundred years after, in 465, pope Simplicity built there a fair church, as Anastasius mentions in his life. This church was called Olympina, from a pious lady of that name, who defrayed the expenses. It was repaired by Honorius III., but being fallen to decay was afterwards united to St. Mary Major, till it was sumptuously rebuilt by Urban VIII. in 1628, who placed in a the relics of SS. Bibiana, Demetria, and Dafrosa, which were discovered in that place which has been sometimes called St. Bibiana’s cemetery.

The only affair which a Christian has in this world, and in which consists all his happiness and joy, is to seek God, to attain to the perfect possession of his grace and love, and in all things most perfectly to do his will. By this disposition of heart he is raised above all created things, and united to the eternal and unchangeable object of his felicity. He receives the good things of this world with gratitude to the Giver, but always with indifference; leaves them with joy, if God requires that sacrifice at his hands; and, in his abundance, fears not so much the flight of what he possesses as the infection of his own heart, or lest his affections be entangled by them. Such attachments are secretly and imperceptibly contracted, yet are ties by which the soul is held captive, and enslaved to the world. Only assiduous prayer and meditation on heavenly things, habitual self-denial, humble distrust and watchfulness, and abundant almsdeeds proportioned to a person’s circumstances, can preserve a soul from this dangerous snare amidst worldly affluence. To these means is that powerful grace annexed. This disengagement of the heart, how sincere soever, usually acquires a great increase and perfection by the actual sacrifice of earthly goods, made with heroic sentiments of faith and divine love, when God calls for it. Such an offering is richly compensated by the most abundant spiritual graces and comforts at present, and an immense weight of eternal glory in the next life.

DECEMBER 3 — ST. FRANCIS XAVIER, C. APOSTLE OF THE INDIES

His life was written In Latin by F. Turselin, in six books, first printed at Rome In 1594 The same author translated into Latin, and published in 1596 the saint’s letters in four books. The life of this saint was also composed by F. Orlandino, in the history of the Society: in Italian, by F. Bartoli; also, by F. Maffei: in Portuguese by Luzena, and in Spanish by F. Garcia. See likewise F. Nieremberg’s illustrious men: the modern histories of India, especially that of Jarrio: Solia’s history of Japan, Lewis de Gusman’s Spanish history of the Missions to the East Indies. China, and Japan and Ferdinand Mendez Pinto’s Travels in Portuguese. From these and other sources is the life of St. Francis Xavier elegantly compiled in French by the judicious and eloquent F. Bouhours, published in English by Dryden in 1688. See also Maffei, Histor. Indicar.1. 15. F. Ribadeneira, F. Charlevoix. Hist. de Japan. Lafiteau, Dcouvertes et Conquestes des Indes Orientales par les Portuguais.

A. D. 1552.

A CHARGE to go and preach to all nations was given by Christ to his apostles. This commission the pastors of the church have faithfully executed down to this present time; and in every age have men been raised by God, and filled with his Holy Spirit for the discharge of this important function, who, being sent by the authority of Christ and in his name by those who have succeeded the apostles in the government of his church have brought new nations to the fold or Christ for the advancement of the divine honor, and filling up the number of the saints This conversion of nations according to the divine commission is the prerogative of the Catholic church, in which it has never had any rival. Among those who in the sixteenth century labored most successfully in this great work, the most illustrious was St. Francis Xavier, the Thaumaturgus of these later ages, whom Urban VIII. justly styled the apostle of the Indies. This great saint was born in Navarre, at the castle of Xavier, eight leagues from Pampelona, in 1506. His mother was heiress of the two illustrious houses of Azpilcueta and Xavier, and his father, Don John de Jasso, was one of the chief counsellors of state to John III. d’Albret, king of Navarre. Among their numerous family of children, of which Francis was the youngest, those that were elder bore the surname of Azpilcueta, the younger that of Xavier Francis was instructed in the Latin tongue, under domestic masters, and grounded in religious principles in the bosom of his pious parents. From his infancy he was of a complying, winning humor, and discovered a good genius and a great propensity to learning, to which of his own motion he turned himself, while all his brothers embraced the profession of arms. His inclination determined his parents to send him to Paris in the eighteenth year of his age; where he entered the college of St. Barbara, and commencing a course of scholastic philosophy, with incessant pains and incredible ardor, surmounted the first difficulties of the crabbed and subtle questions with which the entrance of logic was paved. His faculties were hereby opened, and his penetration and judgment exceedingly improved; and the applause which he received agreeably flattered his vanity, which passion he was not aware of, persuading himself, that to raise his fortune in the world was a commendable pursuit. Having studied philosophy two years he proceeded master of arts; then taught philosophy at Beauvais college, though he still lived in that of St. Barbara.

St. Ignatius came to Paris in 1528 with a view to finish his studies, and after some time entered himself pensioner in the college of St. Barbara. This holy man had conceived a desire of forming a society wholly devoted to the salvation of souls; and being taken with the qualifications of Peter Faber, called in French Le Fevre, a Savoyard, and Francis Xavier, who had been school-fellows, and still lived in the same college, endeavored to gain their concurrence in this holy project. Faber, who was not enamored of the world, resigned himself without opposition. But Francis, whose head was full of ambitious thoughts, made a long and vigorous resistance, and bantered and rallied Ignatius on all occasions, ridiculing the meanness and poverty in which he lived as a degenerate lowness of soul. Ignatius repaid his contempt with meekness and kindness, and continued to repeat sometimes to him: What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? This made no impression on one who was dazzled with vain glory, and, under pretences, joined false maxims of worldly decency in his idea of Christian virtue. Ignatius assaulting him on the weaker side often congratulated with him for his talents and learning, applauded his lectures, and made it his business o procure him scholars: also on a certain occasion when he was in necessity, he furnished him with money. Francis, having a generous soul, was moved with gratitude, and considered that Ignatius was of great birth, and that only the fear of God had inspired him with the choice of the life which he led. He began therefore to look on Ignatius with other eyes, and to hearken to his discourses. At that time certain emissaries of the Lutherans secretly scattered their errors among the students at Paris, in so dexterous a manner as to make them appear plausible, and Xavier, who was naturally curious, took pleasure in hearing these novelties, till Ignatius put him upon his guard. Some time after this, having one day found Xavier more than ordinarily attentive, he repeated to him these words more forcibly than ever: What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? and remonstrated that so noble a soul ought not to confine itself to the vain honors of this world, that celestial glory was the only object for his ambition, and that it was against reason not to prefer that which is eternally to last before what vanishes. like a dream. Xavier then began to see into the emptiness of earthly greatness, and to find himself powerfully touched with the love of heavenly things. Yet it was not without many serious thoughts and grievous struggles that his soul was overcome by the power of those eternal truths, and he took a resolution of squaring his life entirely by the most perfect maxims of the gospel. For this purpose, he gave himself up to the conduct of Ignatius: and the direction of so enlightened a guide made the paths of perfection easy to him. From his new master he learned that the first step in his conversion was to subdue his predominant passion, and that vain-glory was his most dangerous enemy. His main endeavors, therefore, were bent from that time to humble himself, and confound his pride. And, well knowing that the interior victory over our own heart and its passions, is not to be gained without mortifying the flesh, and bringing the senses into subjection, he undertook this conquest by hair cloth, fasting, and other austerities.

When the time of the vacancy was come, in 1535, he performed St. Ignatius’s spiritual exercises: in which, such was his fervor, that he passed four days without taking any nourishment, and his mind was taken up day and night in the contemplation of heavenly things. By these meditations, which sunk deep into his soul, he was wholly changed into another man, in his desires, affections, and views; so that afterwards he did not know himself, and the humility of the cross appeared to him more amiable than all the glories of this world. In the most profound sentiments of compunction, he made a general confession, and formed a design of glorifying God by all possible means, and of employing his whole life for the salvation of souls. The course of philosophy which he read, and which had lasted three years and a half, according to the custom of those times, being completed, by the counsel of Ignatius, he entered on the study of divinity. In 1534, on the feast of the Assumption of our Lady, St. Ignatius and his six companions, of whom Francis was one, made a vow at Montmartre to visit the Holy Land, and unite their labors for the conversion of the Infidels; or if this should be found not practicable, to cast themselves at the feet of the pope, and offer their services wherever he thought fit to employ them Three others afterwards joined these six, and, having ended their studies the year following, these nine companions departed from Paris upon the 15th of November, in 1536. to go to Venice, where St. Ignatius had agreed to meet them from Spain. They travelled all through Germany on foot, loaded with their writings, in the midst of winter, which that year was very sharp and cold. Xavier, to overcome his passions, and punish himself for the vanity he had formerly taken in leaping, (for he was very active, and had been fond of such corporal exercises,) in the fervency of his soul, had tied his arms and thighs with little cords, which, by his travelling, swelled his thighs, and sunk so deep into the flesh as to be hardly visible. The saint bore the pain with incredible patience, till he fainted on the road; and, not being able to go any further, was obliged to discover the reason. His companions carried him to the next town, where the surgeon declared that no incision could be safely made deep enough, and that the evil was Incurable. In this melancholy situation. Faber, Laynez, and the rest spent that night in prayer; and the next morning Xavier found the cords broken out of the flesh. The holy company joined in actions of thanksgiving to the Almighty, and cheerfully pursued their journey, in which Xavier served the rest on all occasions being always beforehand with them in the duties of charity They arrived at Venice on the 8th of January, 1537, and were much comforted to meet there St. Ignatius, by whose direction they divided themselves to serve the poor in two hospitals in that city, while they waited for an opportunity to embark for Palestine.

Xavier, who was placed in the hospital of the incurables, employed the day in dressing the sores of the sick, in making their beds, and serving them in meaner offices, and passed whole nights in watching by them. It was his delight chiefly to attend those who were sick of contagious distempers, or infected with loathsome ulcers. Amongst these, one had an ulcer which was horrible to the sight, and the noisomeness of the stench was yet more insupportable. Every one shunned him, and Xavier found a great repugnance in himself when he first approached him. But, reflecting that the occasion of making a great sacrifice was too precious to be lost, he embraced the sick person, applied his mouth to the ulcer, and sucked out the purulent matter. At the same moment his repugnance vanished; and, by this signal victory over himself, he obtained the grace that, from that time, no ulcers, how filthy and fetid soever, caused in him any loathing, but rather a sweet devotion: of so great importance it is to us once to have thoroughly overcome ourselves, and overthrown the proud giant of sensuality, or vanity: while remiss acts, performed with sloth, unwillingness, and a false delicacy, rather fortify than vanquish the enemy. And it is more the resolution of the will than the action itself that subdues him. Two months had passed away In these exercises of charity, when St. Ignatius, who stayed behind alone at Venice, sent his companions to Rome, to ask the blessing of his holiness Paul III. for their intended voyage. The pope granted those among them, who were not in holy orders, a license to receive them at the hands of any Catholic bishop. Upon their return to Venice, Xavier was ordained priest upon St. John Baptist’s day, in 1537, and they all made vows of chastity and poverty before the pope’s nuncio. Xavier retired to a village, about four miles from Padua, where, to prepare himself for saying his first mass, he spent forty days in a poor, ruined, abandoned cottage, exposed to all the injuries of the weather, lay on the ground, fasted rigorously, and subsisted on what scraps of bread he begged from door to door. St. Ignatius having caused all his company to resort to Vicenza, Xavier, after this retreat, repaired thither, and said there his first mass with tears flowing in such abundance that his audience could not refrain from mixing their own with his. By order of St. Ignatius, he applied himself to the exercises of charity and devotion at Bologna, to the great edification of that city. The house in which he there dwelt as a poor man, was afterwards given to the society, and converted into an oratory of great devotion.

In Lent, in 1538, our saint was called by St. Ignatius to Rome, where the fathers assembled together to deliberate about the foundation of their order, and their consultations were accompanied with fervent prayers, tears, watchings, and penitential austerities, which they practised with a most ardent desire of pleasing our Lord alone, and of seeking in all things his greater glory and the good of souls. After waiting a whole year to find an opportunity of passing into Palestine, and finding the execution of that design impracticable, on account of the war between the Venetians and the Turks, St. Ignatius and his company offered themselves so his holiness, to be employed as he should judge most expedient in the service of their neighbor. The pope accepted their offer, and ordered them to preach and instruct in Rome till he should otherwise employ them. St. Francis exercised his functions in the church of St. Laurence, in Damaso, in which he appeared so active, that to one distinguished himself by a more ardent charity, or a more edifying zeal. Govea, a Portuguese, formerly president of the college of St. Barbara at Paris, happened to be then at Rome, whither John III., king of Portugal, had sent him on some important business. He had formerly known Ignatius, Xavier, and Faber at Paris, and been a great admirer of their virtue; and he became more so at Rome, insomuch, that he wrote to his master, that men so learned, humble, charitable, inflamed with zeal, indefatigable in labor, lovers of the cross, and who aimed at nothing but the honor of God, were fit to be sent to plant the faith in the East Indies. The king wrote thereupon to Don Pedro Mascaregnas, his ambassador at Rome, and ordered him to obtain six of these aposlic men for this mission. St. Ignatius could grant him only two, and pitched upon Simon Rodriguez, a Portuguese, and Nicholas Bobadilla, a Spaniard. The former went immediately by sea to Lisbon: Bobadilla, who waited to accompany the ambassador, fell sick, and, by an overruling supernatural direction, Francis Xavier was substituted in his room, on the day before the ambassador began his journey. Our saint received this order with joy, and when he went to ask the benediction of Paul III., there shone, through a profound humility, such a magnanimity of soul, that his holiness took from thence a certain presage of the wonderful events which followed. The saint left Rome with the ambassador on the 15th of March. 1540, and, on the road found perpetual occasions for the most heroic actions of humility, mortification, charity, zeal, and piety, and was always ready to serve his fellow-travellers in the meanest offices, as if he had been everybody’s servant. The journey was performed all the way by land, over the Alps and Pyreneans, and took up more than three months. At Pampelona, the ambassador pressed the saint to go to the castle of Xavier, which was but a little distant from the road, to take leave of his mother, who was yet living, and of his other friends, whom he would probably never more see in this world. But the saint would by no means turn out of the road, saying, that he deferred the sight of his relations till he should visit them in heaven; that this transient view would be accompanied with melancholy and sadness, the products of last farewells; whereas, their meeting in heaven would be for eternity, and without the least allay of sorrow. This wonderful disengagement from the world exceedingly affected Mascaregnas, who, by the saintly example and instructions of the holy man, was converted to a new course of life.

They arrived at Lisbon about the end of June, and Francis went immediately to F. Rodriguez, who was lodged in an hospital, in order to attend and instruct the sick. They made this place their ordinary abode, but catechised and instructed in most parts of the town, and were taken up all Sundays and holidays in hearing confessions at court; for the king and a great number of the courtiers were engaged by their discourses to confess and communicate every week; which they chose to do at their hands. F Rodriguez was retained by the king at Lisbon; and St. Francis was obliged to stay there eight months, while the fleet was getting ready to sail in spring. Dr. Martin d’Azpilcueta, commonly called the doctor of Navarre, who was uncle to Xavier by the mother’s side, was then chief professor of divinity at Coimbra, and wrote several letters to our saint, but could not engage him to go to Coimbra. St. Francis, when he left Rome, put a memorial in the hands of F. Laynez, in which he declared that he approved the rules which should be drawn up by Ignatius, and consecrated himself to God, by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in the society of Jesus, when it should be confirmed as a religious order by the apostolic see At Lisbon, before he went on board, the king delivered to him four briefs from the pope; in two of which his holiness constituted Xavier apostolic nuncio, with ample power and authority; in the third, he recommended him to David, emperor of Ethiopia; and, in the fourth, to other princes in the east. No importunities of the king or his officers could prevail on the saint to accept of any provisions or necessaries, except a few books for the use of converts. Nor would he consent to have a servant, saying, that as long as he had the use of his two hands, he never would take one. When he was told that it would be unbecoming to see an apostolic legate dressing his own victuals, and washing his own linen on the deck, he said he could give no scandal so long as he did no ill. The saint had two companions to the Indies, F. Paul de Camarino, an Italian Jesuit, and Francis Mansilla, a Portuguese, who was not yet in priest’s orders. F. Simon Rodriguez bore them company to the fleet: and then it was that St. Francis, embracing him, said, that at Rome, in the hospital, he once beheld, whether sleeping or waking he knew not, all that he was to suffer for the glory of Jesus Christ: and that he thence conceived so great a delight in sufferings, that he cried out aloud, “Yet more, O Lord, yet more.” Which words this F. Rodriguez, who was then in the same chamber, heard; and had often pressed him to explain the meaning of. This the saint did upon his taking leave, adding, “I hope the divine goodness will grant me in India what he has foreshown to me in Italy.”

The saint set sail on the 7th of April, in the year 1541, the thirty-sixth of his age, on board the admiral’s vessel, which carried Don Martin Alfonso de Sousa, general-governor of the Indies, who went with five ships to take possession of his government. The admiral’s vessel contained at least a thousand persons, whom Francis considered as committed to his care. He catechised the sailors, preached every Sunday before the mainmast, took care of the sick, converted his cabin into an infirmary, lay on the deck, and lived on charity during the whole voyage, though the governor was very urgent with him to eat at his table, or accept of a regular supply of food from his kitchen; but he always answered, that he was a poor religious man, and that, having made a vow of poverty, he was resolved to keep it. He, indeed, received the dishes which the governor sent him from his table; but divided the meat among those who had most need. He composed differences, quelled murmuring, checked swearing and gaming, and took the utmost care to remove all disorders. Bad actions he reproved with so much authority that nobody resisted him, and with so much sweetness and tender love that no one was offended at him. The insufferable colds of Cape Verd, the heats of Guinea, the stench of the fresh waters, and the putrefaction of their flesh provisions under the line, produced pestilential fevers and violent scurvies. After five months of perpetual navigation, and doubling the Cape of Good Hope, they arrived at Mozambique, on the eastern coast of Africa, about the end of August, and there they wintered. The inhabitants are mostly Mahometans, and trade with the Arabs and Ethiopians; but the Portuguese have settlements among them. The air is very unwholesome, and Xavier himself fell sick there: but was almost recovered when the admiral again put to sea in a fresh vessel which made better sail, on the 15th of March, in 1542. In three days they arrived at Melinda, a town of the Saracens, in Africa, where one of the principal inhabitants complained to Xavier, that so little sense of religion was left among them, that, of seventeen mosques which they had, fourteen were quite forsaken, and the three that remained were little frequented. Leaving this place, after a few days sail they touched at the isle of Socotora, over against the strait of Mecca. Thence, crossing the sea of Arabia and India, they landed at Goa on the 6th of May, in 1542, in the thirteenth month since their setting out from Lisbon.

After St. Francis was landed, he went immediately to the hospital and there took his lodging: but would not enter upon his missionary functions till he had paid his respects to the bishop of Goa,* whose name was John d’Albuquerque, and who was a most virtuous prelate. The saint presented to him the briefs of Paul. III., declared that he pretended not to use them without his approbation, and, casting himself at his feet, begged his blessing. The bishop was struck with the venerable air of sanctity that appeared in his countenance and deportment, raised him up, kissed the briefs, and promised to support him by his episcopal authority: which he failed not to do. To call down the blessing of heaven on his labors, St. Francis consecrated most of the night to prayer. The situation in which religion then was in those parts, was such as called forth his zeal and his tears. Among the Portuguese, revenge, ambition, avarice, usury, and debauchery, seemed to have extinguished in many the sentiments of their holy religion; the sacraments were neglected: there were not four preachers in all the Indies, nor any priests without the walls of Goa. The bishop’s exhortations and threats were despised, and no dam was sufficient to stem such a deluge. The infidels resembled rather beasts than men, and the few who were come over to the faith, not being supported by competent instructions, nor edified by example, relapsed into their ancient manners and superstitions. Such was the deplorable situation of those countries when St. Francis Xavier appeared among them as a new star to enlighten so many infidel nations. So powerful was the word of God in his mouth, and such the fruit of his zeal, that in the space of ten years he established the empire of Jesus Christ in a new world. Nothing more sensibly afflicted him at his arrival at Goa, than the scandalous deportment of the Christians, who lived in direct opposition to the gospel which they professed, and, by their manners, alienated the infidels from the faith: he therefore thought it would be best to open his mission with them. In order to compass a general reformation, he began by instructing them in the principles of religion, and forming the youth to the practice of sincere piety. Having spent the morning in assisting and comforting the distressed in the hospitals and prisons, he walked through all the streets of Goa, with a bell in his hand, summoning all masters, for the love of God, to send their children and slaves to catechism. The little children gathered together in crowds about him, and he led them to the church, and taught them the creed and practices of devotion, and impressed on their tender minds strong sentiments of piety and religion. By the modesty and devotion of the youth the whole town began to change its face, and the most abandoned sinners began to blush at vice. After some time the saint preached in public, and made his visits to private houses: and the sweetness of his behavior and words, and his charitable concern for the souls of his neighbors were irresistible. Sinners were struck with the horror of their crimes, and throwing themselves at his feet, confessed them with bitter compunction of heart; and the fruits of penitence which accompanied their tears, were the certain proofs of the sincerity of their conversions. Usurious bonds were cancelled, restitution was made of unjust gains, slaves who had been unjustly acquired were set at liberty, concubines dismissed, or lawfully married, and families were well regulated.

The reformation of the whole city of Goa was accomplished in half a year, when the saint was informed, that on the coast of La Pescaria, or the Pearl Fishery, which is extended from Cape Comorin to the isle Manar, on the eastern side of the peninsula, there were certain people called Paravas, that is, Fishers, who some time ago, in order to please the Portuguese who had succored them against the Moors, had caused themselves to be baptized, but, for want of instructions, retained their superstitions and vices. Xavier had by this time got a little acquaintance with the Malabar language, which is spoken on that coast, and, taking with him two young ecclesiastics who understood it competently well, embarked in October, in 1542, and sailed to Cape Comorin, which faces the isle of Ceylon, and is about six hundred miles from Goa. Here, St. Francis went into a village full of idolaters, and preached Jesus Christ to them; but the inhabitants told him they could not change their religion without the leave of their lord. Their obstinacy, however, yielded to the force of miracles by which God was pleased to manifest Ins truth to them. A woman who had been three days in the pains of childbirth, without being eased by any remedies or prayers of the Brahmins, was immediately delivered, and recovered upon being instructed in the faith, and baptized by St. Francis, as he himself relates in a letter to St. Ignatius.1 Upon this miracle, not only tint family, but most of the chief persons of the country, listened to his doctrine, and heartily embraced the faith, having obtained the leave of their prince. The servant of God proceeded to the Pearl Coast, set himself first to instruct and confirm those who had been formerly baptized; and, to succeed in his undertaking, he was at some pains to make himself more perfectly master of the Malabar tongue. Then he preached to those Paravas to whom the name of Christ was till that time unknown; and so great were the multitudes which he baptized, that sometimes, by the bare fatigue of administering that sacrament, he was scarce able to move his arm, according to the account which he gave to his brethren in Europe. To make the children comprehend and retain the catechism, he taught them to recite with him some little prayer upon each question or article. Every lesson or instruction he began with the Our Father, and ended with the Hail Mary. Drs eases seem to have been never so frequent on that coast as at that time. which happened as if it had been to drive the most obstinate, in spite of their reluctance, into the folds of the church: for the people had almost all recourse to St. Francis for their cure, or that of some friend, and great numbers recovered their health, either by being baptized, or by invoking the name of Jesus. The saint frequently sent some young neophyte with his crucifix, beads, or reliquary to touch the sick, after having recited with them the Lord’s prayer, creed, and commandments; and the sick, by declaring unfeignedly that they believed in Christ, and desired to the baptized. recovered their health. This great number of miracles, and the admirable innocence, zeal, and sanctity of the preacher, recommended him to the veneration of the Brahmins themselves, who were the philosophers divines and priests of the idolaters. These, nevertheless, upon motives of interest, opposed his doctrine: and neither his conferences nor his miracles could gain them. The process of the saint’s canonization makes mention of from dead persons, to whom God restored life at this time, by the ministry of her servant. The first was a catechist who had been stung by a serpent of that kind whose stings are always mortal. The second was a child who was drowned in a pit. The third and fourth a young man and maid whom a pestilential fever had carried off. Incredible were the labors of the same His food was the same with that of the poorest people, nice and water. His sleep was but three hours a night at most, and that in a fisher’s cabin on the ground: for he soon made way with a mattress and coverlet winch the governor had sent him from Goa. The remainder of the night he passed with God or with his neighbor. In the midst of the hurry of his external employments, he ceased not to converse interiorly with God, who bestowed on him such an excess of interior spiritual delights, that he was often obliged to desire the divine goodness to moderate them; as he testified in a letter to St. Ignatius, and his brethren at Rome, though written in general terms, and in the third person. “I am accustomed,” says he,2 “often to hear one laboring in this vineyard, cry out to God: O my Lord, give me not so much joy and comfort in this life: or, if by an excess of mercy, thou wilt heap it upon me, take me to thyself, and make me partaker of thy glory For he who has once in his interior feeling tasted thy sweetness, must necessarily find life too bitter so long as he is deprived of the sight of Thee.”

He had labored about fifteen months in the conversion of the Paravas, when, towards the close of the year 1543, he was obliged to return to Goa to procure assistants. The seminary of the faith which had been founded there for the education of young Indians, was committed to his care, and put into the hands of the society. The saint enlarged it, and made prudent regulations for the government and direction of the youth; and, from this time, it was called the seminary of St. Paul. The following year he returned to the Paravas with a supply of evangelical laborers, as well Indians as Europeans, whom he stationed in different towns; and some he carried with him into the kingdom of Travancore, where, as he testifies in one of his letters, he baptized ten thousand Indians with his own hand in one month; and sometimes a whole village received the sacrament of regeneration in one day. When the holy man first penetrated into the inland provinces of the Indians, being wholly ignorant of the language of the people, he could only baptize children, and serve the sick, who, by signs, could signify what they wanted, as he wrote to F. Mansilla. While he exercised his zeal in Travancore, God first communicated to him the gift of tongues, according to the relation of a young Portuguese of Coimbra, named Vaz, who attended him in many of his journeys. He spoke very well the language of those barbarians without having learned it, and had no need of an interpreter when he instructed them. He sometimes preached to five or six thousand persons together, in some spacious plain. The saint narrowly escaped the snares which were sometimes laid by Brahmins and others to take away his life; and, when the Badages, a tribe of savages and public robbers, having plundered many other places, made inroads into Travancore, he marched up to the enemy, with a crucifix in his hand, at the head of a small troop of fervent Christians, and, with a commanding air, bade them, in the name of the living God, not to pass further, but to return the way they came. His words cast such a terror into the minds of the leaders who were at the head of the barbarians, that they stood some time confounded, and without motion; then retired in disorder, and quitted the country. This action procured St. Francis the protection of the king of Travancore, and the surname of the Great Father. As the saint was preaching one day at Coulon, a village in Travancore, near Cape Comorin, perceiving that few were converted by his discourse, he made a short prayer that God would honor the blood and name of his beloved Son, by softening the hearts of the most obdurate. Then he bade some of the people open the grave of a man who, was buried the day before, near the place where he preached; and the body was beginning to putrefy with a noisome scent, which he desired the by-standers to observe. Then falling on his knees, after a short prayer he commanded the dead man in the name of the living God to arise. At these words, the dead man arose, and appeared not only living, but vigorous, and in perfect health. All who were present were so struck with this evidence, that throwing themselves at the saint’s feet, they demanded baptism The holy man also raised to life, on the same coast, a young man who was a Christian, whose corpse he met as it was carried to the grave. To preserve the memory of this wonderful action, the parents of the deceased, who were present, erected a great cross on the place where the miracle was wrought. These miracles made so great impressions on the people, that the whole kingdom of Travancore was subjected to Christ in a few months, except the king and some of his courtiers.

The reputation of the miracles of St. Francis reached the isle of Manar, which sent deputies to St. Francis, entreating him to visit their country. The saint could not at that time leave Travancore, but sent a zealous missionary, by whom many were instructed and baptized. The king of Jafanatapan, in the northern part of the neighboring beautiful and pleasant isle of Ceylon, hearing of this progress of the faith, fell upon Manar with an army, and slew six or seven hundred Christians, who when asked the question, boldly confessed Christ. This tyrant was afterwards slain by the Portuguese, when they invaded Ceylon. The saint, after he had made a journey to Cochin upon business, visited Mancar, and settled there a numerous church; in a journey of devotion, which he took to Meliapor, to implore the intercession of the apostle St. Thomas, he converted many dissolute livers in that place. Afterwards, intending to pass to the island of Macassar, he sailed to Malacca, a famous mart, in the peninsula beyond the Ganges, to which all the Indies, and also the Arabs, Persians, Chinese, and Japonians, resorted for trade. The saint arrived here on the 25th of September, 1545, and, by the irresistible force of his zeal and miracles, reformed the debauched manners of the Christians, and converted many pagans and Mahometans. This town had been lately possessed by a tribe of the latter sect, who had wrested it from the king of Siam: but Albuquerque had conquered it in 1511. St. Francis, finding no opportunity of sailing to Macassar, passed the isles of Bonda, which are some of the spice islands. Landing in the island of Amboina, he baptized great part of the inhabitants. Having preached in other islands, he made a considerable stay in the Moluccas, and, though the inhabitants were an untractable people, he brought great numbers to the truth. Thence he passed to the isle del Moro, the inhabitants of which he gained to Christ. In this mission he suffered much: but from it wrote to St. Ignatius: “The dangers to which I am exposed, and pains I take for the interest of God alone, are the inexhaustible springs of spiritual joys: insomuch, that these islands, bare of all worldly necessaries, are the places in the world for a man to lose his sight with the excess of weeping: but they are tears of joy. I remember not ever to have tasted such interior delights; and these consolations of the soul are so pure, so exquisite, and so constant, that they take from me all sense of my corporal sufferings.” The saint, returning towards Goa, visited the islands on the road where he had preached, and arrived at Malacca in 1547. In the beginning of the year 1548 he landed in Ceylon, where he converted great numbers, with two kings.

At Malacca, a Japonese, named Angeroo, addressed himself to the saint. Kaempfer tells us, that he had killed a man in his own country, and, to save his life, made his escape in a Portuguese ship. All agree that he was rich, and of a noble extraction, and about thirty-five years of age, and, that being disturbed in mind, with remorse and terrors of conscience, he was advised by certain Christians to have recourse to the holy St. Francis for comfort. The saint poured the mildest balm into his wounded heart, and gave him assurances that he should find repose of mind, but must first seek God in his true religion. The Japonese was charmed with his discourses, and, as he had by that time acquired some knowledge of the Portuguese language, was instructed in the faith, and engaged by St. Francis to embark with his attendants and to go to Goa, whither he himself was directing his course, by taking a round. In the straits of Ceylon, the ship which carried the sain was overtaken with a most dreadful tempest, insomuch that the sailors threw all their merchandise overboard, and the pilot, not being able to hold the rudder, abandoned the vessel to the fury of the waves. For three days and three nights, the mariners had nothing but death before their eyes. St. Francis, after hearing the confessions of all on board, fell on his knees before his crucifix, and continued there, wholly taken up and lost to all things but to God. The ship at last struck against the sands of Ceylon, and the mariners gave themselves for lost, when Xavier, coming out of his cabin, took the line and plummet, as if it had been to fathom the sea, and, letting them down to the bottom of the water, pronounced these words: “Great God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.” At the same moment, the vessel stopped, and the wind ceased. After which, they pursued their voyage, and happily arrived at Cochin, on the 21st of January, 1548. Writing from that place to the fathers at Rome, he tells them, that in the height of the tempest, he had taken them, and all devout persons on earth, for his intercessors with God, had invoked all the saints and angels, going through all their orders, and desired particularly for his protectress and patroness, the most holy Mother of God, and Queen of Heaven. He adds: “Having reposed all my hope in the infinite merits of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, being encompassed with this protection, I enjoyed a greater satisfaction in the midst of this raging tempest, than when I was wholly delivered from the danger. In very truth, being as I am, the worst of all men, I am ashamed to have shed so many tears of joy, through an excess of heavenly pleasure, when I was just upon the point of perishing. Insomuch, hat I humbly prayed our Lord, that he would not free me from the danger of my shipwreck, unless it were to reserve me for greater dangers, to his own glory, and for his service. God has often shown me by an inward discovery, from how many perils and sufferings he has delivered me by the prayers and sacrifices of those of the society.”

The saint, leaving Cochin, visited the villages of the coast of the pearl fishery, and was much edified with the fervor of the converts: he made some stay at Manapar, near Cape Comorin, passed over to the isle of Ceylon, (where he converted the king of Cande,) and arrived at Goa on the 20th of March, 1548. There he instructed Angeroo and many others, and took a resolution to go to Japan. In the mean time, he applied himself more than ever to the exercises of an interior life, as it were to recover new strength; for it is the custom of all apostolical men, by the communications which they have with God, to refresh themselves, and repair their interior spirit amidst the pains which they take with their neighbor. During this retirement, in the garden of St. Paul’s college, sometimes walking, at other times in a little hermitage which was there set up, he cried out: “It is enough, my Lord: it is enough.” And he sometimes opened his cassock before his breast, declaring he was not able to support the abundance of heavenly consolations. At the same time, he signified that he rather prayed that God would reserve those pleasures for another time, and here would not spare to inflict on him any pains or sufferings in this present world. These interior employments did not hinder him from the labors of his ministerial vocation, nor from succoring the distressed in the hospitals and in the prisons. On the contrary, the more lively and ardent the love of God was in him, the more desirous he was to bring it forth, and kindle it others. This charity caused him often to relinquish the delights of holy solitude. F. Gaspar Barzia and four other Jesuits arrived at that time at Goa from Europe, whom the saint stationed, and then set out for Malacca, intending to proceed to Japan. After a short stay at Malacca, he went on board a Chinese vessel, and arrived at Cangoxima, in the kingdom of Saxuma, in Japan, on the 15th of August, 1549, having with him Angeroo, who had been baptized with two of his domestics at Goa, and was called Paul of the holy faith.*

The language of the Japanese seems, in the judgment of Kaempfer, to be a primitive or original tongue; for it has no affinity with other oriental languages, though certain Chinese terms are adopted in it. St. Francis learned certain elements of it from his convert during his voyage, and stayed forty days at Cangoxima, lodging at Paul’s house, whose wife, daughter, and other relations he in the mean time converted and baptized. The same language is used all over the empire, but the words are differently accented when addressed to courtiers or persons of rank, and when to merchants and soldiers, and again differently to the vulgar. During these forty days, St. Francis, by unwearied application, made such progress in it as to translate into Japonian the apostles’ creed, and an exposition of it which he had composed and which he got by heart in this language, and then began to preach; but was first introduced by Paul to the king of Saxuma, whose residence was six leagues from Cangoxima. Meeting with a most gracious and honor able reception, he obtained the king’s leave to preach the faith to his subjects; of which he made so good use that he converted a great number. Kaempfer pretends that he never spoke the language perfectly; but Charlevoix, from the original authors of his life, assures us that he spoke it even with elegance and propriety. The gift of tongues was a transient favor. He distributed copies of his exposition of the creed among his converts.* New miracles confirmed his doctrine. By his blessing, a child’s body, which was swelled and deformed, was made straight and beautiful: and, by his prayers, a leper was healed, and a pagan young maid of quality, that had been dead a whole day, was raised to life.

After a year spent at Cangoxima, with his usual success, the saint, in 1550, went to Firando, the capital of another petty kingdom; for the king of Saxuma, incensed at the Portuguese because they had abandoned his port to carry on their trade chiefly at Firando, had withdrawn the license he had granted the saint, and began to persecute the Christians. The converts, however, persevered steady, and declared they were ready to suffer banishment or death, rather than deny Christ; and St. Francis recommended them to Paul, and left in their hands an ample exposition of the creed, and the Life of our Saviour, translated entire from the gospels, which he had caused to be printed in Japonese characters. He took with him his two companions, who were Jesuits, and carried on his back, according to his custom, all the necessary utensils for the sacrifice of the mass. The saint, in his way to Firando, preached in the fortress of Ekandono, the prince of which was a vassal to the king of Saxuma. The prince’s steward embraced the faith with several others, and to his care Xavier recommended the rest at his departure; and he assembled them daily in his apartments to recite with them the litany and prayers, and, on Sundays, read to them the Christian doctrine. And so edifying was the behavior of these Christians, that many others desired to join them, after the departure of their apostle; and the king of Saxuma, moved by their edifying conduct, became again the protector of our holy religion. At Firando, Xavier baptized more infidels in twenty days than he had done at Cangoxima in a whole year. These converts he left under the care of one of the Jesuits that accompanied him, and set out for Meaco with one Jesuit, and two Japonian Christians. They went by sea to Facata, and from thence embarked for Amanguchi, the capital of the kingdom of Naugato, famous for the richest silver mines in Japan. Our saint preached here in public, and before the king and his court; but the gospel, at that time, took no root in this debauched city, the number which the saint gained there being inconsiderable, though a single soul is, indeed, a great acquisition.

Xavier, having made above a month’s abode at Amanguchi, and gathered small fruit of his labors, except affronts, continued his journey towards Meaco, with his three companions. It was towards the end of December, and the four servants of God suffered much on the road from heavy rains, great drifts of snow, pinching cold, torrents, and hideous mountains and forests; and they travelled barefoot. In passing through towns and villages, Xavier was accustomed to read some part of his catechism to the people, and to preach. Not finding a proper word in the Japonian language to express the sovereign deity, and fearing lest the idolaters should confound God with some of their idols, he told them, that having never had any knowledge of the true infinite God, they were not able to express his name, but that the Portuguese called him Deos; and this word he repeated with so much action, and such a tone of voice, that he made even the pagans sensible what veneration is due to that sacred name. In two several towns he narrowly escaped being stoned, for speaking against the gods on the country. He arrived at Meaco with his companions in February, 1551. The Dairi, Cubosama, and Saso, (or high priest,) then kept their court there; but the sain could not procure an audience even of the Saso, without paying for that honor a hundred thousand caixes, which amount to six hundred French crowns, a sum which he had not to give. A civil war, kindled against the Cubosama, filled the city with such tumults and alarms, that Xavier saw it to be impossible to do any good there at that time, and, after a fortnight’s stay, returned to Amanguchi. Perceiving that he was rejected at court, upon the account of his mean appearance, he bought a rich suit, and hired two or three servants; and, in this equipage, waited on the king, to whom he made a present of a little striking-clock, and some other things. Thus he obtained his protection, and preached with such fruit, that he baptized three thousand persons in that city, with whom he left two Jesuits, who were his companions, to give the finishing to their instruction. At Amanguchi, God restored to St. Francis the gift of tongues; for he preached often to the Chinese merchants who traded there, in their mother-tongue, which he had never learned. Sanctity, meekness, and humility, are often more powerful in a preacher than the evidence of miracles. By the heroic example of these virtues, the apostles converted the world; and, by the like, did our saint soften the hearts of many hardened infidels. F. Fernandez, one of his two companions, was a proof of this at Amanguchi. As he was preaching one day to a mob who made a sport of him, one of the rabble, hawking up a great quantity of nasty phlegm, spit it full upon his face. The father, without speaking a word, or making the least sign of emotion or concern, took his handkerchief, wiped his face, and continued his discourse At such an heroic example of meekness, the scorn of the audience was turned into admiration, and the most learned doctor of the city, who happened to be present, said to himself that a law which taught such virtue, inspired men with such unshaken courage, and gave them so perfect a victory over themselves, could not be but from God; and as soon as the sermon was ended, he confessed that the preacher’s virtue had convinced him, and desired baptism, which he received, some days after, with great solemnity. This illustrious conversion was followed by many others.

St. Francis, recommending the new Christians here to two fathers whom he left behind, left Amanguchi towards the middle of September, in 1551, and, with two Japonian Christians, who had suffered with joy the confiscation of their goods for changing their religion, travelled on foot to Fuceo, the residence of the king of Bungo, who was very desirous to see him, and gave him a most gracious reception. Here the saint publicly confuted the Bonzas, who, upon motives of interest, everywhere strenuously opposed his preaching, though, even among them, some were converted. The saint’s public sermons and private conversations had their due effect among the people, and vast multitudes desired to be instructed and baptized. Among others, the king himself was convinced of the truth, and renounced those impurities which are abhorred by nature; but remained still wedded to some sensual pleasures; on which account he could not be admitted to the sacrament of regeneration, till, after some succeeding years, having made more serious reflections on the admonitions of the saint, he reformed his life altogether, and was baptized.* Our saint took leave of this king, and embarked to return to India, on the 20th of November, 1551, having continued in Japan two years and four months. To cultivate this growing mission, he sent thither three Jesuits, who were shortly followed by others. It had been often objected to him that the learned and wise men in China had not embraced the faith of Christ. This circumstance first inspired him with an earnest desire that the name of Christ might be glorified in that flourishing empire; and full of a zealous project of undertaking that great enterprise, he left Japan. In this voyage, the ship in which he sailed was rescued from imminent danger of shipwreck in a storm, by his prayers; and a shallop, in which were fifteen persons belonging to the ship, from which it had been separated by the same tempest, was saved by the same means, according to his confident and repeated prediction, the passengers and mariners in it seeming all the way to have seen Xavier sitting at the helm and steering it. Many other clear predictions of the saint are recorded. At Malacca he was received with the greatest joy that can be imagined, and he immediately set himself to contrive how he might compass his intended journey to China. The greatest difficulty was, that besides the ill understanding which was betwixt China and Portugal, it was forbidden to strangers on pain of death, or of perpetual imprisonment, to set foot in that kingdom. Even some Portuguese merchants who had stolen thither for the benefit of trade, having been discovered, some of them had lost their heads, others had been put in irons, and cast into dungeons, there to rot for the remainder of their lives. To remove this obstacle, St. Francis discoursed with the old governor of Malacca, Don Pedro de Sylva, and with the new one, Don Alvarez d’Atayda, and it was agreed that an embassy might be sent in the name of the king of Portugal to China to settle a commerce, with which the saint might with safety land in that kingdom. In the mean time the saint set out for Goa. Arriving at Cochin on the 24th of January, in 1552, he there met the king of the Maldives fleeing from rebellious subjects, whom F. Heredia had instructed in the faith, and St. Francis baptized him.

The exiled prince married a Portuguese lady, and lived a private life till the day of his death; happy in this, that the loss of his crown procured him the gift of faith and the grace of baptism. Xavier reached Goa in the beginning of February, and having paid a visit to the hospitals, went to the college of St. Paul, where he cured a dying man. The missionaries whom he had dispersed before his departure, had spread the gospel on every side. F. Gaspar Barzia had converted almost the whole city and island of Ormuz. Christianity flourished exceedingly on the coast of the pearl fishery, and had made great progress at Cochin, Coulan, Bazain, Meliapor, in the Moluccas, the isles of Moro, &c*. The king of Tanor, whose dominions lay on the coast of Malabar, had been baptized at Goa. The king of Trichenamalo, one of the sovereigns of Ceylon, also embraced the faith. The progress of the faith in many other places, was such as gave the greatest subject of joy to the holy man. But F. Antonio Gomez, a great preacher and scholar, whom the saint had appointed rector at Goa, had made such changes and innovations even in the domestic discipline of the society, that the saint was obliged to dismiss him from the order. Xavier appointed F. Barzia, a person of eminent piety, rector of Goa and vice-provincial, sent new preachers into all the missions on this side the Ganges, and obtained of the viceroy, Don Alphonso de Norogna, a commission for his good friend, James Pereyra, to go on an embassy to China. Having settled all affairs at Goa, he made the most tender and ardent exhortations to his religious brethren, then leaving F. Barzia vice-provincial, he set sail on the 14th of April, in 1552, and landing at Malacca, found the town afflicted with a most contagious pestilential fever. This he had foretold before he arrived; and no sooner was he come on shore, but running from street to street, he carried the poor that lay languishing, up and down to the hospitals, and attended them with his companions. At that time he restored to life a young man named Francis Ciavos, who afterwards took the habit of the society. When the mortality had almost ceased, the saint treated about the embassy to China* with the governor of Malacca, on whom Don Alphonso de Norogna (the fifth viceroy and seventeenth governor of the Indies) had reposed the trust of that affair. Don Alvarez d’Atayda Gama had lately succeeded his good brother Don Pedro de Sylva Gama in the government of Malacca. This officer, out of a pique to Pereyra, crossed the project of the embassy, and, when St. Francis urged the authority of the king, and the command of the viceroy, Alvarez flew into a rage, and treated him with the most injurious language. The saint ceased not for a whole month to solicit the governor, and at length threatened him with excommunication in case he persisted thus to oppose the propagation of the gospel. Upon this occasion the saint produced the briefs of Paul III. by which he was appointed apostolic nuncio: which, out of humility, he had kept a profound secret during ten years that were expired since his coming to the Indies. The governor continued to laugh at the threats, so that the bishop’s grand vicar at length fulminated an excommunication against him in the name of Xavier, who seeing this design utterly destroyed, determined to go on board of a Portuguese ship that was setting sail for the isle of Sancian, a small barren island near Macao, on the coast of China. This governor was afterwards deposed for extortions and other crimes, by an order of the king, and sent in chains to Goa. St. Francis during this voyage wrought several miracles, and converted certain Mahometan passengers, and on the twenty-third day after the ship’s departure from Malacca, arrived at Sancian, where the Chinese permitted the Portuguese to come and buy their commodities When the project of the embassy had failed, St. Francis had sent the three Jesuits he had taken for his companions into Japan, and retained with him only a brother of the society (who was a Chinese, and had taken, the habit at Goa) and a young Indian. He hoped to find means with only two companions to land secretly in China. The merchants at Sancian endeavored o persuade him that his design was impracticable, all setting before, his eyes the rigorous laws of the government of China, that all the ports were narrowly guarded by vigilant officers who were neither to be circumvented nor bribed; and that the least he could expect was scourging and perpetual imprisonment. The saint was not to be deterred; and answered all these and many other reasons, saying, that to be terrified by such difficulties from undertaking the work of God, would be incomparably worse than all the evils with which they threatened him. He therefore took his measures for the voyage of China, and first of all provided himself with a good interpreter; for the Chinese he had brought with him from Goa was wholly ignorant of the language which is spoken at the court, and had almost forgotten the common idiom of the vulgar. Then the saint hired a Chinese merchant called Capoceca, to land him by night on some part of the coast where no houses were in view: for which service Xavier engaged to pay him two hundred pardos,* and bound himself by oath that no torments should ever bring him to confess either the name or house of him who had set him on shore.

The Portuguese at Sancian fearing this attempt might be revenged by the Chinese on them, endeavored to traverse the design. While the voyage was deferred Xavier fell sick, and when the Portuguese vessels were all gone except one, was reduced to extreme want of all necessaries. Also the Chinese interpreter whom he had hired, recalled his word. Yet the servant of God, who soon recovered of his illness, did not lose courage; and hearing that the king of Siam was preparing a magnificent embassy to the emperor of China, he resolved to use his best endeavors to obtain leave to accompany the ambassador of Siam. But God was pleased to accept his will in this good work, and took him to himself. A fever seized the saint a second time on the 20th of November, and at the same time he had a clear knowledge of the day and hour of his death, which he openly declared, to a friend, who afterwards made an authentic deposition of it by a solemn oath. From that moment he perceived in himself a strange disgust of all earthly things, and thought on nothing but that celestial country whither God was calling him. Being much weakened by his fever, he retired into the vessel which was the common hospital of the sick, that he might die in poverty. But the tossing of the ship giving him an extraordinary headache, and hindering him from applying himself to God as he desired, the day following he requested that he might be set on shore again; which was done. He was exposed on the sands to a piercing north wind; till George Alvarez, out of compassion; caused him to be carried into his cabin, which afforded a very poor shelter, being open on every side. The saint’s distemper, accompanied with an acute pain in his side, and a great oppression, increased daily: he was twice blooded, but the unskilful surgeon both times pricked the tendon, by which accident the patient fell into swooning convulsions. His disease was attended with a horrible nauseousness, insomuch that he could take no nourishment. But his countenance was always series and his soul enjoyed a perpetual calm. Sometimes he litted up his eyes to heaven, and at other times fixed them on his crucifix, entertaining divine conversation with his God, in which he shed abundance of tears. At last, on the 2d of December, which fell on Friday, having his eyes all bathed in tears, and fixed with great tenderness of soul upon his crucifix, he pronounced these words: In thee, O Lord, I have hoped: I shall not be confounded forever; and, at the same instant, transported with celestial joy, which appeared upon his countenance, he sweetly gave up the ghost, in 1552. Though he was only forty-six years old, of which he had passed ten and a half in the Indies, his continual labors had made him gray betimes, and in the last year of his life he was grizzled almost to whiteness. His corpse was interred on Sunday, being laid, after the Chinese fashion, in a large chest, which was filled up with unslaked lime, to the end that the flesh being consumed, the bones might be carried to Goa. On the 17th of February in 1553, the grave was opened to see if the flesh was consumed; but the lime being taken off the face, it was found ruddy and fresh colored like that of a man who is in a sweet repose. The body was in like manner whole, and the natural moisture uncorrupted; and the flesh being a little cut in the thigh, near the knee, the blood was seen to run from the wound. The sacerdotal habits in which the saint was buried, were no way endamaged by the lime; and the holy corpse exhaled an odor so fragrant and delightful, that the most exquisite perfumes came nothing near it. The sacred remains were carried into the ship, and brought to Malacca on the 22d of March, where it was received with great honor. The pestilence which for some weeks had laid waste the town, on a sudden ceased. The body was interred in a damp churchyard; yet in August was found entire, fresh, and still exhaling a sweet odor, and being honorably put into a ship, was translated to Goa, where it was received, and placed in the church of the college of St. Paul, on the 15th of March in 1554, upon which occasion several blind persons recovered their sight, and others, sick of palsies and other diseases, their health, and the use of their limbs. By order of king John III., a verbal process of the life and miracles of the man of God was made with the utmost accuracy at Goa, and in other parts of the Indies. Many miracles were wrought through his intercession, in several parts of the Indies and Europe, confessed by several Protestants;* and Tavernier calls him the St. Paul, and the true apostle of the Indies. St. Francis was beatified by Paul V. in 1554, and canonized by Gregory XV. in 1662. By an order of John V., king of Portugal, the archbishop of Goa, attended by the viceroy, the marquis of Castle Nuovo, in 1744, performed a visitation of the relics of St. Francis Xavier; at which time the body was found without the least bad smell, and seemed environed with a kind of shining brightness; and the face, hands, breast, and feet, had not suffered the least alteration, or symptom of corruption.10 In 1747, the same king obtained a brief of Benedict XIV., by which St. Francis Xavier is honored with the title of patron and protector of all the countries in the East Indies.

Holy zeal may properly be said to have formed the character of St. Francis Xavier. Consumed with an insatiable thirst of the salvation of souls, and of the dilatation of the honor and kingdom of Christ on earth, he ceased not with tears and prayers to conjure the Father of all men not to suffer those to perish whom he had created to his own divine image, made capable of knowing and loving him, and redeemed with the adorable blood of his Son; as is set forth in the excellent prayer of this saint, printed in many books of devotion. For this end the saint, like another St. Paul, made himself all to all and looked upon all fatigues sufferings, and dangers, as his pleasure and gain. In transports of zeal he invited and pressed others to labor in the conversion of infidels and sinners. In one of his letters to Europe, he wrote as follows:11 “I have often thought to run over all the universities of Europe, and principally that of Paris, and to cry aloud to those who abound more in learning than in charity. Ah! how many souls are lost to heaven through your neglect! Many, without doubt, would be moved, would make a spiritual retreat, and give themselves the leisure for meditating of heavenly things. They would renounce their passions, and, trampling under foot all worldly vanities, would put themselves in a condition of following the motions of the divine will. Then they would say: Behold me in readiness, O Lord. How much more happily would these learned men then live! With how much more assurance would they die! Millions of idolaters might be easily converted, if there were more preachers who would sincerely mind the interests of Jesus Christ, and not their own.” But the saint required missionaries that are prudent, charitable, mild, perfectly disinterested, and of so great purity of manners, that no occasions of sin weaken their constancy.12 “In vain,” says he, “would you commit this important employ to any, howsoever learned and otherwise qualified, unless they are laborious, mortified, and patient: unless they are ready to suffer willingly and with joy, hunger, and thirst, and the severest persecutions.”13 This saint was himself a model of such preachers, formed upon the spirit of the apostles. So absolute a master he was of his passions, that he knew not what it was to have the least motion of choler and impatience, and in all events was perfectly resigned to the divine will; from whence proceeded an admirable tranquillity of soul, a perpetual cheerfulness, and equality of countenance. He rejoiced in afflictions and sufferings, and said that one who had once experienced the sweetness of suffering for Christ, will ever after find it worse than death to live without a cross.14 By humility the saint was always ready to follow the advice of others, and attributed all blessings to their prayers, which he most earnestly implored. Of himself he always sincerely spoke as of the basest and most unworthy of men, with the most perfect sentiments of distrust in himself. The union of his soul with God by holy prayer raised him above the world. Ingulfed in deep meditations, he was sometimes found suspended in the air, with beams of glory round his countenance, as many ocular witnesses deposed.15

DECEMBER 3 — ST. BIRINUS, FIRST BISHOP OF DORCHESTER, C

Birinus, a priest of Rome, addressed himself to pope Honorius for leave to preach the gospel to the idolaters in Britain. The pope commended his zeal, and caused him to be ordained bishop. The apostolic missionary landed in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, and, with many others, baptized king Cynegils, who began to reign in 611, and filled the throne thirty-one years, being the sixth from Cerdic, who founded that kingdom in 519. Birinus fixed his see at Dercis, now at Dorchester, on the Thames, in Oxfordshire upon, the edge of Berkshire:* he built and consecrated many churches, gained many souls to God, and departing to him was buried in the same city, about the year 650. His remains were translated to Winchester by bishop Hedda, and there laid in the church of SS. Peter and Paul. Of the painted windows in Dorchester church which have escaped the fury of the plunderers, Mr. Hearne, in his notes on William of Newborough, vol. 3, p 773, makes this remark “I know of no truly religious person but what is affected with what now remains of the historical painting in Dorchester windows, relating to Birinus’s voyage thither, and his converting the heathens.” See on St. Birinus, Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, p. 247; Bede,1. 3, c. 7 and Neve’s Fasti Anglicani, pp. 137, 283.

DECEMBER 3 — ST. SOLA, HERMIT

This saint was an Englishman, who, following St. Boniface into Germany, became his disciple, and the faithful imitator of his virtues, and was or dained priest by him. Called by the sacred impulse of the Holy Ghost in to the desert, the more securely to find the narrow way that leads to life, by the advice of his experienced master, he retired into the wilderness of Solenhoven upon the banks of the river Altmona, near Ayschstat, where, in a little cell, remote from man, he passed his days with God, making penance and holy prayer his only business. After the martyrdom of St. Boniface, the holy brothers, Willibald the bishop, and Wunebald the priest, were his patrons, and often visited him to kindle in their souls the flame of his heavenly desires by his spiritual conversation. King Charles bestowed on him a considerable piece of land; but the saint transferred it on the abbey of Fulde. That prince took every occasion of testifying the highest esteem for his sanctity; but the man of God was dead to all human honors and applause, and showed by his conduct that the whole world is nothing to one who seeks God alone. He departed to our Lord on the 3d of December, in 790. A chapel was built where his oratory had stood, and his body was taken up and enshrined by the authority of pope Gregory IV., about the year 830. See his life written by Ermenoldus, in 840, in Canisius, Lectiones Antiqu. t. 3, and Mabill. Sc. 3, Ben.

DECEMBER 3 — ST. LUCIUS, KING, C

We are informed by Bede,1 that in the reign of Marcus Antoninus Verus, and Aurelius Commodus, a British king, named Lucius, sent a letter to pope Eleutherius, entreating, that by his direction he might be made a Christian. This must have happened about the year 182. Lucius must have reigned in some part of Britain which was subject to the Romans, as his name indicates. Tacitus,2 mentions Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, who at his death made the emperor Nero his heir, hoping by that means his people would be secured from injuries, whereas the contrary fell out; for the country was plundered by centurions and slaves. The same historian mentions,3 that certain cities were given to Codigunus, “according to the ancient and received custom of the Roman people, to make even kings the instruments of the slavery of nations,” as he observes. That Lucius was a Christian king in Britain is proved by two medals mentioned by Usher,4 and one by Bouteru. Bede tells us, that by his embassy to Eleutherius he obtained the effect of his pious request; and that the Britons enjoyed the hight of faith in peace all the reign of Dioclesian. Lucius therefore was the first Christian king in Europe, it nowhere appears in what part of Britain he reigned. The records of Glastenbury abbey, quoted by Malmesbury, and others, and mentioned by Usher,5 tell us that St. Eleutherius sent over to Britain SS. Fugatius and Damianus, (rather Dumianus or Duvianus,) who baptized King Lucius, and many others, and were buried at Glastenbury. In Somersetshire, in the deanery of Dunstor, there is a parish church which bears the name of St. Deruvian, as Stow testifies. This saint is called by the Welch, Duvian or Dwywan, says Usher. The Christian faith had reached Britain in the times of the apostles. St. Clement I., pope, affirms, that St. Paul preached to the utmost bounds of the West. Gildas says,6 the first dawn of the evangelical light appeared in this island about the eighth year of Nero. Theodoret names the Britons as a nation in which St. Paul sowed the seeds of faith and in another place says, that this apostle brought salvation to the islands that lie in the ocean. Three British bishops assisted at the council of Arles, in 314, namely, Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelfius, who is styled De civitate Coloniæ Londinensium; which bishop Usher takes to have been Colchester; but many more probably understand by a Lincoln, anciently called Lindum Colonia. Also certain British bishops subscribed the council of Nice against the Arians. The testimonies of St. Justin.7 St. Irenus,8 Tertullian,9 Eusebius,10 St. Chrysostom,11 and Theodoret,12 demonstrate that Christianity had got footing in Britain very soon after Christ. We cannot, therefore, wonder that a prince should have embraced the faith in this island in the second century: nor do the objections which some have raised, deserve notice. Schelstrate, the learned prefect of the Vatican library, in his dissertation on the patriarchal authority, transcribes the following words from an ancient manuscript history of the kings of England, kept in the Vatican library: “Lucius sent a letter to pope Eleutherius that he might be made a Christian, and he obtained his request.” The same learned author copies the following testimony from an ancient catalogue of the popes, written in the time of the emperor Justinian, as we are assured by the title, found in the library of Christina, queen of Sweden; “Eleutherius received a letter from Lucius, king of Britain, who desired to be made a Christian by his command.”*

We are told by most Bavarian and German historians that king Lucius resigning his kingdom, preached the faith first in Noricum and Vindelicia, a principally at Ausburg, and, being banished thence, in Rhœtia, especially at Coire. But Bruschius confesses. that it is uncertain who that Lucius was, who preached the faith in those parts, and founded the church of Coire, where he has been honored among the first apostles of that church from its infancy. While he preached among the Grisons, storms raised by the infidels obliged him to fly into the desert, and there lie concealed in a place which is called to this day Sanct Lucis Steig, or the Hill of St. Lucius. He afterwards retired into a cavern a mile distant, which retains the name of Sanct Lucis Lochlin. At length he is said to have fallen into the hands of the persecutors, and been condemned to death by the Roman lieutenant of the province, and beheaded in the fortress of Martiola towards the latter end of the second century. There stands an ancient monastery near Coire, which bears the name of St. Lucius, and his feast is kept in that diocese with great solemnity. Portions of his relics are preserved in the church of St. Francis, and in that of the Jesuits at Ausburg. See on the conversion of the British king, Usher, Antiq. Brit. c. 3; Stillingfleet, Orig. c. 11; Selden, Analect. Anglo-Britan. c. 6, t. 2, p. 895; Alford, Annal. Britan. ad an. 182; Baron ad an. 183; Collier, Hist. Eccl. Brit. t. 1; Tillemont, t. 3, pp. 62 and 615; Annotationes in ed. Roman. Anastasij Bibl. t. 1, p. 15, et t. 3, p. 139; Guthrie, Hist. of England, t. 1. On St. Lucius, who is honored as the first apostle of Noricum, Vindelicia, and Rhœtia, that is, of Bavaria, the Grisons, and part of Austria, see F. Sprecher, Palladis Rhœticæ.1. 2; F. Rader, Bavaria Sancta, t. 1, p. 14, and the Breviary of Coire.

DECEMBER 4 — ST. PETER CHRYSOLOGUS, C. ARCHBISHOP OF RAVENNA

From his works, Rubeus in his elegant History of Ravenna,1. 2; Ughelli, Italia Sacra, t. 2, and Descriptio Paten ejus, &c., a Joan. Pastritio, in quarto, Rom, 1706; Agnellus, a schismatic of Ravenna, In the ninth age, in his Pontifical of Ravenna, or Lives of the Bishops, published by Muratori, Ital. Rerum Scriptores, t. 2, p. 53, with notes, by which many mistakes of Rubeus and Agnellus are corrected. See also Muratori, Spicilegium Ravennat. Hist. t. 1, part 2, p. 529, and Ceillier, t. 14, p. 11.

A. D. 450.

ST. PETER was a native of Imola, anciently called Forum Cornelii, a town in the ecclesiastical state, near Ravenna. He was taught the sacred sciences, and ordained deacon by Cornelius, bishop of that city, of whom he always speaks with veneration, and the utmost gratitude.1 He calls him his father, and tells us, that in his whole conduct all virtues shone forth, and that by the bright lustre of his great actions he was known to the whole world. Under his prudent direction our saint was formed to perfect virtue from his youth by the exercises of an interior life, and understood that in command his passions and govern himself was true greatness, and the only means of learning to put on the spirit of Christ. For by the oracle of truth we are assured that to bear well an injury is something far more heroic than to vanquish nations, and when the noonday light shall break in upon us, and dispel the darkness with which we are at present encompassed we shall most clearly see that the least act of perfect meekness humility resignation, or patience, is of greater value than the gaming of millions of worlds. This is the most glorious triumph by which God is honored in us. and a soul enjoys interior peace, and his holy grace; all his affections being regulated by, and subjected to his will in all things. This domestic victory is something too great to be obtained without earnestness, and the difficulties which stand in the way are not to be vanquished or removed but by constant watchfulness and application. The more easily to accomplish this great and arduous work of subduing and regulating his passions, and forming the spirit of Christ in his soul, he embraced a monastic state, and had served God in it with great fervor and simplicity for some time, when he was placed in the archiepiscopal see of Ravenna,* The archbishop John dying about the year 430, the clergy of that church, with the people, chose a successor, and entreated the bishop of Imola to go at the head of their deputies to Rome to obtain the confirmation of pope Sixtus III. Cornelius took with him his deacon Peter, and the pope (who, according to the historian of Ravenna, had been commanded so to do by a vision the foregoing night) refused to ratify the election already made, and proposed Peter as the person designed by heaven for that post; in which, after some opposition the deputies acquiesced.

Our saint, after receiving the episcopal consecration, was conducted to Ravenna, and there received with extraordinary joy, the emperor Valentinian III., and his mother Galla Placidia, then residing in that city The holy bishop extenuated his body by fasting, and offered his tears to God for the sins of his people, whom he never ceased to teach no less by example than by words. When he entered on his charge, he found large remains of pagan superstition in his diocese, and several abuses, had crept in among the faithful in several parts; but the total extirpation of the former and the reformation of the latter, were the fruit of the holy pastor’s zealous labors. The town of Classis, situate on the coast, was then the port of Ravenna. from which it was three miles distant; St. Peter built there a fountain near the great church; also St. Andrew’s monastery. He employed an extensive charity and unwearied vigilance in favor of his flock, which he fed assiduously with the bread of life, the word of God. We have a hundred and seventy-six of his discourses still extant, collected by Felix archbishop of Ravenna, in 708. They are all very short; for he was afraid of fatiguing the attention of his hearers.2 He joins great elegance with extreme brevity. His style has nothing swelling or forced, though it is made up of short sentences or phrases, which have a natural connection together, the waters are very fit, simple, and natural, and the descriptions easy and clear. Yet his discourses are rather instructive than pathetic; and though the doctrine is explained in them at large, we meet with little that quickens or affects much. Neither can these discourses be regarded as models of true eloquence though his reputation as a preacher ran so high as to procure him the surname of Chrysologus, which is as much as to say, that his speeches were of gold, or excellent. He strongly recommends frequent communion that the holy eucharist, which he usually calls the body of Christ, and in which he says we eat Christ himself, may be the daily bread of our souls.3 He everywhere extols the excellency, and inculcates the obligation of almsdeeds, prayer, and fasting; the forty days’ fast of Lent, he says, is not a human invention, but of divine authority.4 Those whose health does not permit them to fast the whole forty days, he exhorts to redeem by abundant alms what they are not able to accomplish by fasting.5 Among the remains of heathenish superstition, which he labored to extirpate, he reckons the riotous manner of celebrating the New-year’s day; of which he says: ‘He who will divert himself with the devil, can never reign with Christ.”6 It appears that he often preached in presence of the emperor and of the Catholic empress Placidia, mother of three children, Valentinian III., Placidia, and Eudocia.7 He says that the episcopal see of Ravenna had been lately raised to the metropolitical dignity by the pope, and by the favor of a Christian prince.8 For though Ravenna had been long the metropolis of the Flaminian province or vicariat, the bishop continued suffragan to the archbishop of Milan, till about the time that St. Peter Chrysologus was exalted to this dignity. Eutyches, the heresiarch, having been condemned by St. Flavian, addressed a circular letter to the most distinguished prelates in the church in his own justification. Our saint, in the answer which he sent him, told him that he had read his letter with sorrow; for, if the peace of the church causes joy in heaven, divisions ought to beget sadness and grief; that the mystery of the incarnation, though inexplicable, is delivered to us by the divine law, and to be believed in the simplicity of faith. He therefore exhorted him to acquiesce, not to dispute, having before his eyes the rocks upon which Origen, Nestorius, and others had split, by taking that method. In 448, our saint received St. Germanus of Auxerre with great honor at Ravenna, and, after his death, esteemed it no small happiness to inherit his cowl and hair shirt. He did not long survive; for, in 452, when Attila approached Ravenna, John, St. Peter’s successor, held his see, and went out to meet him. The saint being forewarned of his approaching death, returned to Imola, his own country, and there gave to the church of St. Cassian a golden crown set with jewels, a gold cup, and a silver paten, preserved to this day with great reverence, and famed for miracles. Peter died at Imola, probably on the 2d of December, 450, and was buried there in St. Cassian’s church. The greatest part of his relics are preserved there; but one arm is kept in a rich case at Ravenna.

Learning is recommended by reason, authority, and the example of the saints, and, next to virtue, is doubtless the greatest improvement of the human mind, and instrument of piety and religion. By it the nobleman is qualified for the superior rank he holds among men, is made capable of directing himself and others, is drawn off from sotting, debauchery, and idleness, possesses the art of filling most usefully and agreeably all his vacant hours, and acquires a relish for the pleasure of true rational knowledge than which man can enjoy no greater or more noble, except those which piety and virtue infuse. By exercise and application the memory and other powers of the soul are perfected, the understanding is furnished with true ideas and a just way of thinking, and the judgment acquires true justice and taste. In a pastor of souls, and minister of religion, how essential the qualification of a consummate skill in sacred learning is, it is need less to show, the infinite obligations of that charge making it manifest to all men. How grievous, then, is the crime of those who are engaged in this state, yet idly throw away the time they owe to the study of the sacred writings, to holy meditation, and application to the science of morality and the pulpit!

DECEMBER 4 — ST. BARBARA, V. M

This holy virgin and martyr is honored with particular devotion in the Latin, Greek, Muscovite, and Syriac calendars, but her history is obscured by a variety of false acts. Baronius prefers those who tell us that she was a scholar of Origen, and suffered martyrdom at Nicomedia, in the reign of Maximinus the First, who raised the sixth general persecution after the murder of Alexander Severus, in 235. But Joseph Assemani shows the acts which we have in Metaphrastes and Mombritius to be the most exact and sincere. By these we are informed that St. Barbara suffered at Heliopolis, in Egypt, in the reign of Galerius, about the year 306. This account agrees with the emperor Basil’s Menology, and the Greek Synaxary. There stood an old monastery near Edessa, which bore her name.1 See Jos. Assemani in Calend. Univ. t. 5, p. 408.

DECEMBER 4 — SAINT ANNO, ARCHBISHOP OF COLOGNE, C

Anno, a young nobleman, served in the army, but was very young when, by the exhortations of an uncle, a pious canon of Bamberg, he renounced all earthly pursuits, and dedicated himself to God in an ecclesiastical state, at Bamberg. His improvement in virtue and learning was much spoken of at court, and the emperor, Henry III., or The Black, called him near his person; and some time after nominated him provost of Goslar in Lower Saxony, and in 1056, archbishop of Cologne. The tears he abundantly shed during the whole ceremony of his consecration were a proof of has sincere humility and devotion. The foot of the altar was his soul’s delight, comfort and refuge. The poor he sought out in their cottages, and carried them sometimes on his own shoulders, blankets, and other necessaries. He fasted much, watched the greatest part of the night, subdued his body with hair shirts, and preached to his flock with the assiduity and zeal of a St. Paul. He reformed all the monasteries of his diocese, and built two of Regular Canons at Cologne, and three of Benedictins in other parts. After the death of Henry III., Anno was chosen by the empress Agnes and the states, regent and prime minister during the minority of Henry IV. Flatterers and debauched companions poisoned the mind of the young prince who, growing impatient at his remonstrances, at length removed him from the helm; but the extortions and injustices of those whom he employed, raised so loud a cry for recalling Anno, that, in 1072, the administration of affairs was again committed to him. He died on the 4th of December, in 1075. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology. See his life written by Lambert, author of the Chronicle of Aschaffenburg; Fleury, b. 60, and Surius.

DECEMBER 4 — ST. OSMUND, BISHOP, C

Osmund (sometimes written Osimund, Edimund, or Edmund) was count of Seez in Normandy, and came over with William the Conqueror, by whom he was created earl of Dorset. His life in the world was that of a saint in all the difficult states of a courtier, soldier, and magistrate. Brompton tells us, that he was for some time lord high-chancellor of England. But the favor of his prince, and the smiles of fortune had no charms to a heart which loved and valued only heavenly goods: and he who had long enjoyed the world as if he enjoyed it not, fled naked out of Egypt, carrying nothing of its desires or spirit with him into the sanctuary, and embracing an ecclesiastical state, he chose to become poor in the house of the Lord. His sanctity and great abilities were too well known for him to be allowed to enjoy long his beloved obscurity, and, in 1078, he was forced from his solitude, and consecrated bishop of Salisbury,* where his predecessor Herman had just before fixed his see. St. Osmund built the cathedral in honor of the Blessed Virgin, in 1087, placed therein thirty-six canons, and dedicated the same in 1092: and this fabric being burnt by lightning, he rebuilt it in 1099. St. Osmund was very rigorous in the sacrament of penance, and extended his charity so far as often to attend criminals in person to the place of execution. In March, 1095, in the assembly of Rockingham,1 he was so far imposed upon as to be drawn into the measures of those who, in complacency to the king, opposed St. Anselm; but soon opened his eyes, repented, begged the archbishop’s absolution, and continued ever after his most steady friend. Being in every thing zealous for the beauty of God’s house, he made many pious foundations, beautified several churches, and erected a noble library for the use of his church. Throughout his whole diocese he placed able and zealous pastors, and had about his person learned clergymen and monks. Many whom the Conqueror invited over from France, and advanced to the first dignities in the English church, both secular and regular, were for introducing the particular ecclesiastical rites and offices of the places from which they came: whence great confusion was occasioned in the abbey of Glastenbury, under Thurston, a Norman, from Caen, whom the king had nominated abbot there, and in other places. To remove this inconvenience, and to regulate so important a part of the divine service with the utmost decency, piety, and devotion, St. Osmund compiled the Use, or Breviary, Missal, and Ritual since called, of Sarum, for his church wherein he ascertained all the rubrics which were before not sufficiently determinate, or where books were inconsistent with each other, as it often happened, while transcribers took the liberty of varying from their copies: he adjusted and settled the ceremonial of divine worship in points that were before left to the discretion of them that officiated, which created confusion and disagreement in the celebration of the divine office, though all churches agreed in the substance and, as Mr. Johnson observes,2 it was established here by our first converters to say the divine office in Latin, which continued till the reign of Edward VI. several other English bishops made Uses or books of rubrics and rituals, which, is certain accidental points, differ from those of Sarum, though this better was so much approved as to be adopted in most dioceses of this kingdom,* till, in the reign of Queen Mary, so many of the clergy obtained particular licenses of Cardinal Pole to say the Roman Breviary,3 that this because universally received.

St. Osmund wrote the life of St. Aldhelm, and disdained not, when he was bishop, to copy and bind books with his own hand. The saint, though zealous for the salvation of others, and for the public worship of God, was always solicitous, in the first place, for the sanctification of his own soul Being perfectly dead to the world, he was totally a stranger to ambition and covetousness, and lived in continual war with the pleasures of the senses His patience having been exercised, and his soul purified by a lingering sickness, he departed to God, whose glory alone he had sought on earth, on the night before the 4th of December, in 1099. He was buried in his cathedral; his venerable remains were afterwards translated into the new cathedral, and, in 1457, were deposited in the chapel of our Lady in that church. His sumptuous shrine was destroyed in the reign of Henry VIII; his bones remain still interred in the same chapel and are covered with a marble slab, on which is the inscription only of the year M, XCIX. He was solemnly canonized by Calixtus III. in 1456. See Malmesbur. de Pontif. Ang1.1. 2, fol. 142; Godwin, de Prsulibus Angli cum Annot. per D. Ricardum, t. 1, p. 337; Brompton, Chron. p. 976; Knyghton,1. 2, p. 1351; Waverleienses Annales (inter Hist. Angl. 5, Oxoni 1687) anno 1092; Wikes, Chronicon Sarisb. monas terij (ib.) an 1092; Petrus Bles. ep. 133, not. p. 747; Florentius, Simeon Dunelm. Obituar. Sarum. S. Anselm.1. 3, ep. 30; Tanner, in Bibl. Brit. p. 515; Chron. S. Crucis Edinburg. ap. Wharton in Angli Sacr, t. 1, p. 159; Alford, Annal. an. 1091, &c.; Hist. Littr. de la Fr. t. 8, p. 573.

DECEMBER 4 — ST. MARUTHAS, B. C

This holy prelate was an illustrious father of the Syriac church about the end of the fourth century; and was bishop of Tagrit, in Mesopotamia, a that time subject to the Oriental empire, though near the borders of Persia. He compiled the Acts of the martyrs who suffered in that kingdom during the forty years of Sapor’s persecution, from 340 to 380, part of which valuable collection has been recovered and published by Stephen Assemani, in 1748. St. Maruthas wrote several hymns in praise of the martyrs, which together with others of St. Ephrem, are inserted in the Chaldaic divine office, and are sung by the Maronites, Jacobites, and Nestorians, who use that tongue in the church office. St. Maruthas gathered the relics of many Persian martyrs, and distributed them over the Roman empire, that the people might everywhere receive the divine blessing by those sacred pledges. Isdegerdes having ascended the Persian throne, in 401, St. Maruthas made a journey to Constantinople in 403, in order to induce Arcadius to use his interest with the new king in favor of the distressed Christians. But he found the court too much embroiled in carrying on an unjust persecution against St. Chrysostom. Maruthas hastened back into Mesopotamia. The year following he made a second journey to Constantinople, and St. Chrysostom recommended him to the widow Olympias, entreating her to assist him, and promote what he himself had begun in favor of the church of Persia, for which he expressed an extraordinary zea1.1 Theodosius the Younger having succeeded his father in the empire, honored St. Maruthas with the commissions of two successive embassies to Isdegerdes, to settle a lasting peace between the two empires. The Persian monarch conceived the highest esteem for the saint, and by his prayers was cured of a violent headache, which his Magians had not been able to believe, as Socrates relates.2 This historian adds, that the king from that time usually called him The friend of God; and the Magians, fearing that the prince should be brought over by him to the Christian faith, had recourse to a wicked and base contrivance. They hid a man under the ground in the temple, who when the king came to adore the perpetual fire, cried out: “Drive out of this holy place the king who impiously believes a priest of the Christians.” Isdegerdes hereupon was going to dismiss the bishop; but Maruthas persuaded the king to go again to the sacred place, assuring him that by causing the floor to be opened, he would discover a wicked imposture. The king did so; and the issue was, that he commanded the Magians who attended the place to be decimated, and publicly gave Maruthas leave to erect churches wherever he pleased. The holy bishop rebuilt a considerable number in several parts of Persia, and in his second embassy thither made a long stay, and held two synods at Ctesiphon: in the latter, in 414, Arianism was condemned, and several regulations of discipline were made. St. Maruthas, in his old age, returned into Mesopotamia, and brought back with him many relics of martyrs, and enriched his own church with such a multitude, that the city of Tagrit was from that time called Martyropolis.

The principal work of this father is a Syro-Chaldaic Liturgy, which the Maronites, who employ that language in celebrating the divine office, still make use of on certain days. A manuscript copy of his Syriac commentary on the gospel of St. Matthew is preserved in the Vatican library: out of which Joseph Assemani has extracted many testimonies to prove the belief of the real presence of Christ’s body in the eucharist.3 A history of the council of Nice, with the canons, translated into Syriac, compiled by St. Maruthas, is mentioned by Ebedjcsus; which, if ever discovered, will be a most valuable treasure. This holy bishop died at his own see before the middle of the fifth century, and was there interred. During the incursions of the Persians and Arabs his body was conveyed into Egypt, where it still remains in an honorable monument in the monastery of our Lady, in the desert of Scet, inhabited by Syrian monks. Stephen Assemani saw there a Syro-Chaldaic manuscript, containing a long history of the life of St. Maruthas, and several of his writings; but was not able to procure a copy. The Cophtists in Egypt honor St. Maruthas on the 19th of February: the Syrians and Melchites on the 6th of that month: the Greeks and Latins on the 4th of December. See Jos. Assemani, in Bibl. Orient, and Steph. Assemani, in Acta Mart. Orient. Also Socrates, Sozomen and Photius. Ceillier, t. 10, p. 466.

DECEMBER 4 — ST. SIRAN, OR SIGIRANNUS, ABBOT IN BERRY, C

He was a native of Berry, and of noble extraction, studied in his youth at Tours, and was afterwards cupbearer to king Clotaire II. While he lived at court he always wore a rough hair shirt under his garments, and devoted the greatest part of his time to holy prayer. To give himself up wholly to this heavenly exercise he took holy orders at Tours in 625, and served that church some time in quality of archdeacon. In 640 he made a penitential pilgrimage to Rome, and after his return founded two monasteries in the diocese of Bourges, the one called Meobec or Millepecus, and the other Lonrey, now St. Siran’s, near Maisiers. This latter he governed with great sanctity till his death, which happened in 655. He is honored in France among the saints. See his life in Mabillon, Act. Ben.

DECEMBER 4 — ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA FATHER OF THE CHURCH

Titus Flavius Clemens was a native of Athens, began his studies in Greece, continued them in Italy, Asia Minor, Assyria, and Palestine, and ended his days in Egypt: for an insatiable desire of knowledge made him compass almost the whole world to improve himself in human literature. He mentions five eminent masters he had, one in Greece of the Ionic sect,* two in Calabria, and two more in the East. He was well skilled in the Platonic philosophy, but leaned more to the principles of the Stoics, and without tying himself to any particular institute, chose freely what appeared most excellent wherever he found it. One of the masters whom he had in Palestine was of Jewish extraction, and probably a Christian: but the last he met with, whom he preferred before all the others, was Pantnus, who taught the catechetical school at Alexandria. In this search of truth he discovered the errors of idolatry, and came to the light of faith: for when he was rich in all the opulence of profane learning, he saw, nevertheless, that there was another kind of knowledge of more importance to the happiness of man, which was to be learned only from religion. From that instant his thirst after knowledge took a different turn, and lived upon theology, “aiming at nothing,” as he says, “but a life perfected with all virtues.” He tells us that some of those who immediately succeeded the apostles, and preserved the true tradition of the blessed doctrine from St. Peter, St. James, St. John, and St. Paul. “have lived down to our time, to shed into our hearts the seed which they had received of the apostles their predecessors.”1 Pantnus being sent by the bishop Demetrius into the Indies, in 189, Clement succeeded him in the great school of the Christian doctrine at Alexandria, in which he taught with great success, and, among other scholars of great eminence, had Origen and St. Alexander, afterwards bishop of Jerusalem and martyr. His method of instructing consisted in teaching his scholars first what was good in the heathenish philosophy, and so leading them by degrees to Christianity; which they embraced more readily when they had relished many of its sublime maxims of morality derived from the light of nature, and scattered in the writings of the philosophers.2 Clement was promoted to the priesthood about the beginning of the reign of Severus; for Eusebius gives him that title in the year 195. The persecution which that emperor raised against the church in 202, obliged him to abandon his employment. He went over to Cappadocia. Soon after we meet with him at Jerusalem, where he preached with great constancy and success, as appears in a letter written by Alexander.3 Thence he passed to Antioch, and wherever he came he confirmed and enlarged the flock of Christ. From Antioch he returned to Alexandria.

The ancients have left great eulogiums of the virtue and learning of St. Clement; but his greatest and standing eulogium are his writings, in which he communicated to others part of the treasure he had amassed. In his Exhortation (or advice) to the Gentiles, he laid open the absurdity of idolatry by giving an historical account of its mythology: through this work he has interspersed many curious discoveries he had made in his travels, by which he gave great force to his reasoning, and a surprising agreeableness to his work. His next composition is called Stromata, a word which signifies variegated hangings, or tapestry made up of great variety or mixture. It is a miscellany in eight books, without much order, which the author compares, not to a curious garden where the trees and plants are set in exact order, but to a thick shady mountain, where trees of all kinds grow promiscuously together. In this work (which he says he made to serve him as a collection in his old age, when his memory should fail him) he is thought to have shown too much of the philosopher, and to have expressed some things unwarily, which yet will generally admit a candid interpretation. The style is harsher than in his other works: yet there runs through it a surprising vein of materials and richness of sentiment, with a profusion of learning which seems prodigious: and many discourses on morality, metaphysics, various heresies, idolatry, and theology are joined together by a thread of reasoning. In the sixth book he draws a character of the true Gnostic, or good Christian. The principal strokes in his picture are, that the true Gnostic has the command over his passions, is exactly temperate, and allows his body no more than what is necessary: he loves God above all things, and creatures for God’s sake, and the relation they bear to him, and nothing is able to separate him from this love. He bears with patience all unfortunate accidents, and makes it his business to learn all things which relate to God. He is never overcome with anger; and prays continually by charity that unites him to God, begging the remission of his sins, and grace not to sin any more, but to do good. In the seventh book he goes on describing the virtues of his Gnostic; and says he employs himself entirely in honoring God, in loving him, in understanding, hearing, and imitating his Word, which was made man for our salvation; that he is gentle, courteous, affable, patient, charitable, sincere, faithful, and temperate; that he despises the good things of this world, and is ready to suffer every thing for Jesus Christ; that he does nothing out of ostentation, fear, or desire of being rewarded, but acts out of pure love to the goodness and justice of God; lastly that he is entirely holy and divine. The Gnostic prayeth in all places, but this he does in secret, in the bottom of his heart; whether he be in public places, or in conversation, or at work. He praiseth God continually, not only in the morning when he riseth, and at noonday; but when he is walking, resting, or dressing, he is always glorifying God like the seraphim mentioned by Isaias. St. Clement distinguishes the true from the false Gnostics, or heretics in his time who disturbed the church by abominable novelties and pretences to an imaginary perfection. The errors and extravagances into which many fall concerning perfection, demonstrate that this subject is to be handled with extreme delicacy. St. Clement, to guard against the dangers of false mystics, lays down the nature and extent of each theological virtue, and particularly the purity of the love of God. He judiciously marks out the bounds between resignation and indifference, and treats on Activity, Transformation, and Union, so as to hold the form of sound words, and to shun obscurity, the language of the deceiver, and the illusions of fanaticism. St. Clement’s short treatise entitled, Who is the rich man that shall be saved? is an exposition of the words of Christ to the young rich man, Mark 10, showing that in order to be saved it is not necessary for a person absolutely to quit his riches, provided he make a good use of them. Here the author discourses of the love of God and our neighbor, and of repentance; to prove the efficacy of which he relates the famous history of the young robber reclaimed by St. John.

The Pedagogue of St. Clement, in three books, is an excellent abridgment of Christian morality, and shows in what manner all good Christians lived in those early ages. In the first book, the author shows that Christ is the pedagogue, conductor, and pastor of men, and all stand in need of instruction; for a Christian’s whole life ought to be a continued series of virtuous actions. In the second book, rules are laid down for the regulation of certain particular duties, especially relating to abstinence, mortification, modesty, humility, silence, prayer, alms, and chastity, both in the state of marriage and in that of virginity. He prescribes plain food, barely as conducing to health and strength; but one meal a day, in the evening; or at the most only two, that is, besides the great meal, a breakfast of dry bread without drinking. He proves the moderate use of wine to be lawful against the encrati, but forbids it young persons, and will have it only drunk at the evening meal, and then very sparingly. Luxury in furniture and apparel, he condemns and inveighs against, better than Juvenal or any ancient satirist had ever done before him. Sleep he orders to be moderate, and never allows it in the day: he requires the night to be begun by repeating the divine praises, and that we rise several times in the night to pray, and get up in the morning before day. Against the licentiousness of the pagans he shows that all impurities are sins against reason. In the third book, he speaks of modesty, &c., and shows that none but Christians are truly rich, their treasure being frugality. He concludes by exhorting men to hearken to the saving precepts of Christ, to whom he addresses a prayer, praising Him with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and returning Him thanks for making him a member of the church. In this work many excellent rules are land down for conducting souls to true perfection; but in a translation in would be necessary that certain expressions should be made agreeable to the manners of our times.*

St. Clement’s style in his Pedagogue, and especially in his exhortation to the Gentiles, is florid, elegant, and sublime, as Photius observes, but the diction is not Attic or perfectly pure. Great erudition is displayed in all his writings, especially in his Exhortation to the Gentiles. St. Jerom calls him, “the most learned of our authors.”4 And Theodoret says:5 “That holy man surpassed all others in the extent of his learning.” St. Alexander of Jerusalem and other ancients exceedingly commend the sanctity of his life. The late pious French author of the Bibliothque portative des Pres de l’Eglise, observes, that Clement is one of the great masters of an interior life among the ancient fathers of the church, and that his principal maxims are, that the Gnostic or spiritual Christian ought to pray at all times, and in all places, both in the secret of his heart, and often by singing psalms and hymns to the Lord: that he must have crucified all inordinate desires, and must hold his passions in perfect subjection, and that though he be united by charity to his beloved, he pray assiduously for the pardon of his sins, and for the grace not to sin. St. Clement died at Alexandria, before the end of the reign of Caracalla, who was slain in 217. His name had a place in the Martyrology of Usuard, which was long used in most churches in Gaul, but never in the Roman. Pope Benedict XIV., in his learned dissertation, addressed in the form of a brief to the king of Portugal, prefixed to the edition of the Roman Martyrology, made in 1749, excellently shows, that there is not sufficient reason for ever inserting his name in the Roman Martyrology. The authority of certain private calendars, and the custom of sacred biographers suffices for giving his life in this place. See Tillemont, t. 3, Ceillier, t. 2, and John Potter, then bishop of Oxford, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, in the accurate edition of the works of St. Clement of Alexandria, which he published with notes, at Oxford, in 1715, t. 1, p. 1, t. 2, pp. 10, 40 et seq.

DECEMBER 5 — ST. SABAS, ABBOT

From his life excellently written by Cyril, monk of Palestine, in 557, author of the life of St. John the silent, of that of St. Euthymius, and of this of St. Sabas, which Is correctly published by Bollandus, 20 January, and in Greek by Cotelerius Monum. Gr. t. 3, pp. 220, 574. These Acts in Metaphrastes are adulterated by certain counterfeit additions. See Assemani, t. 5, p. 410.

A. D. 532.

ST. SABAS, one of the most renowned patriarchs of the monks of Palestine, was born at Mutalasca, in Cappadocia, not far from Csarea, the capital, in 439. The name of his father was John, that of his mother, Sophia: both were pious, and of illustrious families. The father was an officer in the army, and being obliged to go to Alexandria in Egypt, took his wife with him, and recommended his son Sabas, with the care of his estate, to Hermias, the brother of his wife. This uncle’s wife used the child so harshly that, three years after, he went to an uncle called Gregory, brother to his father, hoping there to live in peace. Gregory having the care of the child, demanded also the administration of his estate, whence great lawsuits and animosities arose between the two uncles. Sabas, who was of a mild disposition, took great offence at these discords about so contemptible a thing as earthly riches, and, the grace of God working powerfully in his heart, he resolved to renounce forever what was a source of so great evils among men. He retired to a monastery called Flavinia, three miles from Mutalasca, and the abbot received him with open arms, and took great care to see him instructed in the science of the saints, and in the rules of a monastic profession. His uncles, blinded by avarice and mutual animosity were some years without opening their eyes; but at last, ashamed of their conduct towards a nephew, they agreed together to take him out of his monastery, restore him his estate, and persuade him to marry. In vain hey employed all means to gain their point. Sabas had tasted the bitterness of the world, and the sweetness of the yoke of Christ, and his heart was so united to God, that nothing could draw him from his good purpose. He applied himself with great fervor to the practice of all virtues, especially humility, mortification, and prayer, as the means to attain all others. One day, while he was at work in the garden, he saw a tree loaded with fair and beautiful apples, and gathered one with an intention to eat it. But reflecting that this was a temptation of the devil, he threw the apple on the ground, and trod upon it. Moreover, to punish himself, and more perfectly so overcome the enemy, he made a vow never to eat any apples as long as he lived. By this victory over himself he made great progress in all other virtues, exercising himself by day in labor, accompanied with prayer, and by night in watching in devotions, always flying idleness as the root of all evils, sleeping only as much as was absolutely necessary to support nature, and never interrupting his labors but to lift up his hands to God. Though he was the youngest in the house, he soon surpassed all the rest in fervor and virtue. So tender was his charity and compassion, that once when he was serving the baker, who had put his wet clothes into the oven to dry, and, forgetting them, had put in fire, seeing him much troubled for his clothes, he went into the oven and fetched them out through the flames without hurt. When Sabas had been ten years in this monastery, being eighteen years old, with the leave of his abbot, he went to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and to edify himself by the examples of the eminent solitaries of that country. He passed the winter in the monastery of Passarion, governed at that time by the holy abbot Elpidius. All the brethren were charmed with his virtue, and desired earnestly that he would fix his abode among them: but his great love of silence and retirement made him prefer the manner of life practised by St. Euthymius. He cast himself at the feel of that holy abbot, conjuring him with many tears to receive him among has disciples. St. Euthymius judged him too young to continue in his laura with the anchorets; so extreme a solitude being only proper for the most perfect; for a laura consisted of a cluster of separate cells or hermitages in a desert. Euthymius, therefore, recommended him to the monastery below the hill, which was under the conduct of Theoctistus, and a kind of noviceship to the laura, from which it lay about three miles distant, the laura itself being twelve miles from Jerusalem.

Sabas consecrated himself to God with new fervor, working all day, and watching in prayer a good part of the night. As he was very lusty and strong, he assisted all his brethren in their offices, and prepared himself the wood and water for the house with extraordinary care and cheerfulness. He served the sick with singular diligence and affection: and was always the first and the last at the divine office, and in every regular duty. A temptation put his virtue to the trial. He was sent by his abbot as companion to another monk on certain affairs to Alexandria. There his parents knew him and desired to engage him to accept his father’s post and estate in the world: but he gave them to understand that would be to apostatize from the service of God which he had chosen. They pressed him at least to accept a large sum of money for his necessaries; but he would only take three pieces of gold, and those he gave all to his abbot on his return. When he was thirty years of age he obtained leave of St. Euthymius to spend five days a-week in a remote cave, which time he passed, without eating any thing, in prayer and manual labor. He left his monastery on Sunday evening, carrying with him palm-twigs, and came back on Saturday morning with fifty baskets which he had made, imposing upon himself a task of ten a-day. Thus he had lived five years, till St. Euthymius chose him and one Domitian for his companions in his great yearly retreat in the deserts of Rouban, in which Christ is said to have performed his forty days fast. They entered this solitude together on the 14th of January, and returned to their monastery on Palm-Sunday. In the first retreat Sabas fell down in the wilderness, almost dead with thirst. St. Euthymius, moved with compassion, addressed a prayer to Christ, that he would take pity on his young fervent soldier, and, striking his staff into the earth, a spring gushed forth: of which Sabas drinking a little, recovered his strength so as to be enabled to bear the fatigues of his retreat.

After the death of St. Euthymius a relaxation of discipline crept into that monastery: on which account Sabas, sensible that a religious house in such a condition is like a general shipwreck, in which every one must save himself as he can, retired into a desert towards the East, in which St. Gerasimus lived. The devil here endeavored to affright him by appearing in divers shapes of serpents and beasts: but the servant of God, armed with prayer and faith, surmounted all his assaults. Four years the saint had spent in his wilderness in a total separation from all commerce with men, when, directed by an admonition of heaven, he chose his dwelling in a cave on the top of a high mountain, at the bottom of which ran the brook Cedron. The water of that torrent not being there drinkable, he fetched what he used from a spring five miles off, through a very rough and steep way. He was obliged to hang a cord down the descent to hold himself by in mounting up it. Wild herbs which grew on the rocks were his food, till certain countrymen, who found him by his cord, out of respect brought him on certain days a little bread, cheese, dates, and other little things which he might want.

After he had lived here five years, several resorted to him, desiring to serve God under his direction. He was at first unwilling to consent; but charity overcoming the resistance which his humility raised, he founded a new laura, which at first consisted of seventy persons, all desirous to devote themselves to praise and serve God without interruption. He marked to each the place to build their cell; and, having prayed to God that they might find water, caused a pit to be dug at the foot of the mountain, where a spring was discovered which subsisted in succeeding ages. He built also a little chapel with an altar. The number of his disciples was shortly increased to one hundred and fifty; which obliged him to extend his laura on the other side of the torrent. He watched over all, and provided for heir necessities with an incredible attention. He taught them to overcome their passions, to discover and defeat the artifices of the devil, and to pray with fruit and holy perseverance. To cut off all necessities and pretexts of ever leaving their solitude, by the help of certain charitable persons, he supplied them with all things in a manner suitable to persons dead to the world. He had no priest in his community, and he thought no religious man could aspire to that dignity without presumption. He grieved, how ever, to depend upon the opportunity of some strange priest for the celebration of the divine mysteries. Certain factious spirits in the community formed a schism against their holy abbot, and accused him to Sallust, then lately made bishop of Jerusalem. The prelate found their invectives groundless, except that the want of a priest was a real defect in the community. He therefore compelled Sabas to receive that sacred character at his hands. The abbot was then fifty-three years old. The reputation of his sanctity drew persons from very remote countries to his laura. Our saint assigned a particular chapel for the Armenian monks, where they performed the first part of the divine office, which consists of prayers and instructions in their own tongue: but met in the great church to finish it, and to make the oblation and receive the communion with the rest. Alter the death of the saint’s father, his mother came to him, and served God under his direction. With the money which she brought he built two hospitals one for strangers, and another for the sick; also an hospital at Jericho, and a monastery on a neighboring hill, called Castel, and another small one, a mile distant for the young, where they learned the psalter and religious exercises. When they were perfect in these, and ripe in years, he translated them to the house of Castel; and drew out of this nursery those that were most perfect into his laura. Sallust, patriarch of Jerusalem, established St. Sabas exarch or superior-general over all the monks of Palestine, who lived in several cells, and St. Theodosius over all who lived in community, or the Cenobites. St. Sabas, after the example of St. Euthymius, left his disciples every year after the octave of the Epiphany, and passed the whole Lent without being seen by any one, eating nothing all that time, except that he received the holy Eucharist every Saturday and Sunday, which he always took with him for that purpose. If any of his disciples accompanied him, he caused them to carry with them some dried bread for their subsistence. In one of these retreats, he found a holy hermit who had lived on wild herbs, without seeing any man, thirty-eight years. He had with him very edifying discourses; but the next year found him dead, and buried him. The patriarch Sallust dying in 493, the rebellious monks above-mentioned went to his successor Elias, hoping that he would hear their complaints. Sabas was informed of their cabals, and, not to be an occasion of others’ malice, withdrew himself privately, saying, that we must resist the devils, but yield to men, for the sake of peace.

He went into the desert of Scythopolis, near the river Gadara, where he went into a great cave to pray. It happened to be the den of a huge lion. At midnight the beast came in, and finding this guest, dared not touch him but taking him gently by his garments, plucked him as if had been to draw him out. The saint was no ways affrighted or troubled, but began leisurely and with much devotion to recite aloud the midnight psalms. The lion went out, and when the holy man had finished matins, came in again and pulled him by the skirts of his clothes as he had done before. The saint spoke to the beast and said, the place was big enough to hold them both. The lion at those words departed, and returned thither no more. Certain thieves found St. Sabas in his cave, and were so moved by his example and discourses, that they all embraced a penitential life. Many persons here, again put themselves under his conduct; but, finding himself distracted by their direction, and by a number of visitants who resorted thither, he abandoned his cell to them; and this place grew into a monastery. He enjoyed the sweetness of perfect solitude some time, when moved with tender charity and compassion, he went to visit his former rebellious monks, who continued hardened in their iniquity, and were joined by twenty others. The saint was pierced with grief to see them thus give death to their own souls, and draw others into the same Perdition. It seemed to him that he felt his own limbs torn from his body while he saw his monks separated from him. In order to soften their hatred and malice, he gave them every token of the greatest sweetness, tenderness, and goodness; but they were not yet to be gained. He left them a second time, to ask their conversion with greater fervor of the Father of mercies. He retired near Nicopolis, living some time under the boughs of a shady tree, the fruit of which furnished him with food till the master of the field built him a cell and afforded him his scanty diet. Elias, the patriarch, ordered Sabas to appoint a superior for the disciples whom he had gathered at Nicopolis and to return to his great laura, to which he sent his orders to receive him. The factious monks, in a rage, threw down a building which he had raised, and, after many disorders, left that place, and settled in certain old ruinous cells near the brook Theon. The great laura was freed from their scandals and Sabas soon renewed in it the spirit of fervor and charity. His zeal and compassion for the seditious apostates made him still to weep for them. He even procured and sent them seventy pieces of gold to build them a church and furnish them with necessaries. This excess of goodness made them to enter into themselves, confess their crime, and submit themselves to their abbot. St. Sabas nominated a superior to govern them; and, under his direction, this became a new very regular monastery. The saint founded several others after the same model.

The eastern churches were then in great confusion. The emperor Anastasius supported the Eutychian heresy, and banished many Catholic bishops. The patriarch Elias sent to him as deputies St. Sabas, with other famous abbots, to endeavor to stop the fury of this persecution. Sabas was seventy years old when he undertook this journey to Constantinople. As he was dressed like some poor beggar, the officers at the gate of the imperial palace admitted the rest, but stopped him. Sabas made no reply, but withdrew into a corner to employ his time in prayer. When the emperor had read the letter of the patriarch, in which great commendations were bestowed on Sabas, he asked where he was. The saint was sought, and at length found in a corner reciting the psalms. Anastasius gave the abbots liberty to ask what they wanted or desired for themselves; the rest presented their petitions, but Sabas had no request to make in his own name. Being pressed by the emperor to ask some favor, he only begged that his majesty would restore peace to the church, and not disturb the clergy. The emperor gave him a thousand pieces of gold to employ in charities. Sabas stayed all the winter in Constantinople, and often visited the emperor to gain his point. The prince had caused an heretical council at Sidon to condemn the general council of Chalcedon, and required the bishops to subscribe this decree, banishing many who refused to do it However, he spared Elias, patriarch of Jerusalem, at the repeated entreaties of Sabas, and dismissed the holy abbot with honor, giving him a thousand pieces of gold more to be distributed among the poor in his country. The saint returned to his solitude, and the emperor dying, according to what our holy abbot had foretold, Justin, his successor, favored the true faith. St. Sabas, laying hold of that opportunity, went to Csarea, Scythopolis, and other places, preaching the Catholic faith, and bringing back many monks and seculars into its fold. A drought which had continued five years, produced a famine in Palestine. The prayers of the saint obtained supplies for his seven monasteries in their extreme necessity, and at last rain, to the universal joy of the whole country.

In the ninety-first year of his age, at the request of Peter, patriarch of Jerusalem, he undertook a second journey to Constantinople, in favor of the Christians of Palestine, who had been calumniated at court. Justinian, who then occupied the imperial throne, received him with great honor, granted him all his requests, and offered to settle annual revenues for the maintenance of all his monasteries. The holy abbot thanked his majesty, but said they stood not in need of such revenues, as long as the monks should serve God. However, he begged a remission of all taxes in favor of the people of Palestine for a certain term, in consideration of what they had suffered by the plunders of the Samaritans: that his majesty would build an hospital at Jerusalem for the pilgrims, and a fortress for the protection of the hermits and monks against the inroads of barbarians: that he would bestow some ornaments on the church of our Lady, which was lately built, and would afford his protection to the Catholics. All which things were granted. It happened one day that the emperor being busy in council in dispatching certain affairs of the saint, who was himself present, when it was the hour of tierce, the abbot went out to recite his prayers. His companion, called Jeremy, said it was not well done to leave the emperor on such an occasion “My son,” replied Sabas, “the emperor does his duty, and we must do ours;” so exact was he in all the rules of his state. St. Sabas returned into Palestine with the imperial orders, which he delivered to the magistrates of Jerusalem, Scythopolis, and Csarea, and saw everywhere put in execution. Soon after his return to his laura he fell sick: the patriarch persuaded him to suffer himself to be conveyed to a neighboring church, where he served him with his own hands. The pains of the saint were very sharp, but God supported him under them in perfect sentiments of patience and resignation. Finding his last hour approach, he begged the patriarch that he might be carried back to his laura. He appointed Melitas of Berytus his successor, gave him excellent instructions, and then lay four days in silence, without seeing any one, that he might entertain himself with God alone. On the 5th of December, in the evening, having received the holy communion, he departed to our Lord, in 532, (not 531, as Jos. Assemani demonstrates against Baronius, &c.,) being ninety-four years old He is commemorated on this day both in the Greek and Latin Calendars

St. Sabas met with persecutors among the monks, to whom his virtue seemed too scrupulous a severity; and these men were long insensible to his mild remonstrances, and holy instructions, animated by the example of his admirable sanctity. How easily do men blind themselves in their passions, and excuse to themselves, nay canonize, their more subtle vices And how difficult is it for such sinners to be reclaimed! It is much easier to convert a notorious sinner, than one who is falsely just. The one feels his miseries, the other crowns himself with his own hands, and, like the proud Pharisee, makes his own panegyric or apology. This dreadful blindness is a frequent case: men every day study by a false conscience to palliate crimes, and allow themselves many unjustifiable liberties under false pretences. As St. Austin complains, what our passions strongly incline us to, we often call holy. Not to perish by such illusions, we must banish out of our hearts all self-conceit, learn perfectly to die to ourselves, especially in regard to our darling or ruling passions, and never take our passions for our counsellors or guides, as we shall be sure to do if we rely too much on ourselves. We must often suspect and narrowly examine our own hearts, which are frequently the greatest cheats with which we have to deal. We are often imposed upon by other men: but a thousand times oftener by ourselves.

DECEMBER 5 — ST. CRISPINA, M

St. Austin informs us,1 that this glorious martyr was a lady of high birth, very rich, and engaged in the marriage state; that she had several children: and that though of a delicate and tender constitution, she was endued with a masculine courage preferred heaven to earth, and God to the world, and, despising the tears of her children, rejoiced to see herself taken and called to confess Jesus Christ on a scaffold, and in the sight of the whole world. Her acts we have only imperfect, giving an account of her last examination. By them we learn that she was a native of Thagara, in the Proconsular Africa, and was apprehended for professing the faith of Christ, and conducted to Thebeste, before Anulinus the proconsul of Africa. This magistrate exhorted her to sacrifice to the gods, as the edicts of the emperors commanded. The martyr answered, “I have never sacrificed, nor do sacrifice to any other than to one God, and to our Lord Jesus Christ, his Son, who was born and suffered for us.” Anulinus threatened her with the rigor of the law. She said that she adored and knew only one God, and observed the law of Jesus Christ, her Lord. The proconsul pressed her to give some token of piety towards the gods. “There can be no devotion and piety,” said the martyr, “where every thing is compulsion.” When he again thundered out his threats, she replied: That his torments were nothing; but that if she despised the God of heaven, she should incur the guilt of sacrilege, and be punished by him at the last day. Anulinus commanded that her head should be shaved, and that she should be publicly shown in this condition, and exposed to the derision of the people. Crispina said, “If the gods are offended at my words, let them speak themselves.” Anulinus in great anger said she should be treated as her companions Maxima, Donatilla, and Secunda had been before. She made answer, “My God is with me to preserve me from ever consenting to the sacrilege which is required of me.” The proconsul then ordered the whole process of what had passed at the trial to be read aloud: after which he dictated the sentence of death against her. Crispina, flushed with joy, gave thanks to God and was led to execution. She was beheaded on the 5th of December, 304, and is named in the Roman Martyrology. See her authentic acts in Mabillon, Analecta, t. 3, and Ruinart.

DECEMBER 5 — ST. NICETIUS, BISHOP OF TRIERS, C

St. Gregory of Tours has left us a great eulogium of this holy prelate. His parents placed him young in a monastery, where he made so great a progress in learning and piety, that his reputation reached the court. King Theodoric honored him in a particular manner, and, in 527, obliged him to accept the bishopric of Triers. Theodebert, his son, had the same regard for the servant of God: but his successor, Clotaire 11., offended at his zealous efforts in restoring discipline, unjustly banished him; but the saint’s exile continued but a very short time: for that prince dying, Sigebert, one of his sons, who succeeded him in that part of his dominions, would not take possession of his kingdom till Nicetius was restored. The holy pastor’s great talents and zeal were displayed in the assiduity and extraordinary fruit of his preaching: the sanctity of his life, and the practice of all good works were rendered illustrious in the eyes of men by the gift of miracles, with which he was favored. He assisted at the first and second councils of Clermont, in 535 and 549; at the fifth or great council of Orleans; at the second council of Paris, in 551, and assembled one at Toul in 555. Though he enjoyed the favor and protection of king Sigebert, his zeal failed not to raise new persecutions against him, without which a Christian cannot live in this world. But no human respects or fear could make him abandon the cause of God, and the true interest of souls. The extirpation of incestuous marriages in France was what cost him many difficulties; but God blessed his constancy and labors with success, both against vice, and against the Arian and Eutychian heresies. We have two letters which he wrote against those errors.1 The first was written about the year 561, and addressed to Clodosindis, a Catholic princess, daughter to Clotaire 1., married to Alboin, the Arian king of the Lombards. In this he exhorts her to endeavor to convert her husband to the Catholic faith, which he proves from the form of baptism, and from the miracles which were wrought in the Catholic church by the relics of saints, which the Arians themselves venerated. “Let the king,” (Alboin,) says he, “send messengers to the church of St. Martin; if they dare enter it, they will see the blind enlightened, the deaf recover their hearing, and the dumb their speech; the lepers and sick are cured, and return home sound, which we see.—What shall I say of the relics of the holy bishops Germanus, Hilary, and Lupus? at which daily so great miracles are wrought that we cannot recount them all; and the demoniacs are tortured, and confess their virtue. Do they do so in the churches of the Arians? They do not. One devil never exorcises another. What have you seen at the tombs of the bishops Remigius and Medard? You have heard from your grandmother, the good lady Clotildis, how she brought Clovis to the Catholic faith,” &c. Another letter the saint wrote to the emperor Justinian, who was fallen into the error of the Incorrupticol, who maintained that the body of Christ in his mortal state was not passible, or subject to pain, alteration, &c., which was a spawn of Eutychianism. St. Nicetius tells him with an episcopal authority and zeal, that since he had published an edict commanding all bishops to subscribe his error, all Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul, anathematized his name.2 Dom. d’Acheri has published two other treatises of St. Nicetius; the first, on Watching in Holy Prayer, which he extols from the testimony of Isaiah. the Psalms, the example of Christ, SS. Peter and Paul, &c., also from the advantages and necessity of fervent prayer, &c. The second is entitled, on the Good or Advantage of Psalmody, or singing the divine praises assiduously, and in common.3 St. Nicetius died about the year 566. Many great men of the age wherein he lived bear testimony to the innocence of his manners and his extraordinary sanctity and miracles.4 See St. Gregory of Tours, Vit. Patr. c. 17; Fortunat.1. 3, c. 9; D’Acheri, in Spicileg. t. 12. p. 209; Bulteau, Hist. Occid. t. 1, p. 120; Rivet, Hist. Lettr, t. 3, p 291.

DECEMBER 6 — ST. NICHOLAS, CONFESSOR ARCHBISHOP OF MYRA

The acts of St. Nicholas, published about the year 912 by Metaphrastes, are extant, translated by Lipoman, Surius, &c. Others much shorter, but imperfect, compiled by Methodius, patriarch of Constantinople, about the year 840, are published by Mombritius Falconius, &c. Another life of St. Nicholas was wrote by John, deacon of Naples, anno 860, from Methodius and others. (See Murat. Ital. Scriptor. t. J part 2, p. 287, and Jos. Assemani, t. 5, p. 417.) Mention is made of a vision of St. Nicholas in the second council of Nice: also by Suidas, (on whose testimony see Putignani, Diatr. 1, p. 66,) &c. See several acts of his life, published by Falconius, archbishop of San-Severino, at Naples, In 1751, together with those of St. Nicholas of Pinara, with whom this author confounds him; which hypothesis Is confuted by Nicholas Putignani, a canon of Bari, author of Vindici Vit S. Nicolai, at Naples, an. 1753, and more fully by Jos. Assemani in Cal. Univ. t. 5, ad 6 Dec. p. 415, et t. 6, ad 4 Apr. p. 226, et ad 9 Maij, p. 822. See also Tillemont, t. 6; Vie de S. Nicholas, et Note 1, 2; Fleury, t. 13, p. 446.

A. D. 342.

THE great veneration with which this saint has been honored, both in the Greek and Latin churches for many ages, and the great number of altars and churches which have been everywhere erected in his memory, are proofs of his extraordinary sanctity, and of the glory which he enjoys with God. The emperor Justinian built a church in his honor at Constantinople, in the quarter called Blaquern, about the year 430,1 and he was titular saint of four churches in Constantinople.2 All accounts agree that he was a native of Patara, in Lycia. We are told that in his infancy he observed the fasts of Wednesdays and Fridays, refusing to suck the breasts on those days, which were consecrated to fasting by the law of the church, as St. Clement of Alexandria mentions,3 and as bishop Potter proves, in his note upon that passage from the Apostolic Constitutions,4 and the canonical epistle of St. Peter, bishop of Alexandria, and martyr. Also St. Epiphanius5 and others testify the same. Happy are they who, from their infancy and innocent age, are inured to the exercises of devotion, penance, and perfect obedience. St. Nicholas increased his fervor in these and all other virtues with his years, especially when he had devoted himself to a religious life in the monastery of holy Sion, near Myra, of which house he was made abbot, by the archbishop, its founder. Charity in comforting and relieving the distressed, seemed his characteristical virtue. Among many other instances, it is related, that when three young virgins were exposed through distress to the danger of falling into vicious courses, he, for three successive nights, conveyed to them through the window a competent sum of money for a fortune for one of them, so that they were all portioned, and afterwards happily married. Lycia was a large ancient province of Asia, in which St. Paul had planted the faith. Myra, the capital, three miles from Patara, and from the sea, was an archiepiscopal see, founded by St. Nicander, of so great dignity, that, in later ages, thirty-six suffragan bishoprics were subject to it This metropolitan church falling vacant, the holy abbot Nicholas was chosen archbishop, and in that exalted station became famous by his extraordinary piety and zeal, and an incredible number of stupendous miracles. The Greek histories of his life agree, that he suffered imprisonment for the faith, and made a glorious confession in the latter part of the persecution raised by Dioclesian; and that he was present at the great council of Nice, and there condemned Arianism. The silence of other authors make many justly suspect these circumstances. The history of the translation of his relics places his death in 342. He died at Myra, and was buried in his own cathedral* Several churches were built in his honor, even in the West, long before the translation of his relics to Bari; and the manner in which Usuard mentions him in his Martyrology, almost three ages before, shows in how great veneration his name then was in the West. The history of the translation of his relics to Bari assures us, that no saint was more universally honored in all Christian nations than St. Nicholas. The Muscovites, who received their account of him from the Greeks, seem to pay a greater veneration to his memory than to that of any other saint who lived since the times of the apostles. The relics of St. Nicholas were kept with great honor at Myra till they were translated into Italy. Certain merchants of Bari, a seaport in the kingdom of Naples, situate on the Adriatic Gulf, sailed in three ships to the coast of Lycia; and watching an opportunity when no Mahometans were near the place, went to the church in which the relics of St. Nicholas were kept, which stood in a desert place, three miles from the sea, and was guarded by a small community of monks. They broke open the marble coffin in which the sacred bones lay, and carried them off to their ships; the inhabitants, upon the alarm given, pursued them to the shore with horrible outcries, but the Europeans were got safe on board. They landed at Bari on the 9th of May, 1087, and the sacred treasure was deposited by the archbishop in the church of St. Stephen. On the first day, thirty persons were cured of various distempers, imploring the intercession of St. Nicholas, and from that time the tomb of St. Nicholas of Bari has been famous for pilgrimages. The authentic history of this translation, written by John, at that time archdeacon of Bari, by order of the archbishop, is extant in Surius. The same account is confirmed by another history of this translation, drawn up at the same time by Nicephorus of Bari, also an eye-witness, commissioned by the magistrates of the city, quoted in manuscript by Baronius, and published by Falconius.6 By this history of Nicephorus, it appears that the Venetians having formed a design of carrying off the relics of St. Nicholas, certain merchants from Bari, who happened then to be at Antioch, prevented them.† This enterprise could only be justified by the laws of a just war, joined with the apprehension of the sacrilegious impiety of the Mahometans. Mention is made in a novella of the emperor Emmanuel, recorded by Balsamon, and all modern writers, of a fragrant unctuous matter which issues from the relics of St. Nicholas in his shrine at Bari, a large quantity of which was found in his sepulchre near Myra in Lycia, when his relics were brought thence.

St. Nicholas is esteemed a patron of children, because he was from his infancy a model of innocence and virtue, and to form that tender age to sincere piety was always his first care and delight.* To impress on the minds of children perfect sentiments of devotion, religion, and all virtues, with an earnestness in all duties, is a task often as delicate as it is important. Instructions must be made sensible, and adapted by similes, parables, and examples, to the weakness of their capacities. Above all, they are to be enforced by the conduct of those with whom children converse. They learn their maxims, imbibe their spirit, and are moulded upon their example. A child which sees those who are about him love their own ease, and ever seek what best pleases their senses; still more if he observes them to be choleric, peevish, vain, slothful, or impatient, will naturally cherish these passions, and yield up the government of himself to them, instead of learning by tractableness, humility, meekness, and self-denial, to subdue and govern them. And so in all other points. Precepts and exhortations lose their force when contradicted by example; and while the infant sees every one study to please himself in every thing, in flat opposition to the rules of the gospel which he hears preached from their mouths, he seems tacitly persuaded that such a conduct is reconcileable with those very maxims which condemn it.

DECEMBER 6 — ST. NICHOLAS, CONFESSOR ARCHBISHOP OF MYRA

The acts of St. Nicholas, published about the year 912 by Metaphrastes, are extant, translated by Lipoman, Surius, &c. Others much shorter, but imperfect, compiled by Methodius, patriarch of Constantinople, about the year 840, are published by Mombritius Falconius, &c. Another life of St. Nicholas was wrote by John, deacon of Naples, anno 860, from Methodius and others. (See Murat. Ital. Scriptor. t. J part 2, p. 287, and Jos. Assemani, t. 5, p. 417.) Mention is made of a vision of St. Nicholas in the second council of Nice: also by Suidas, (on whose testimony see Putignani, Diatr. 1, p. 66,) &c. See several acts of his life, published by Falconius, archbishop of San-Severino, at Naples, In 1751, together with those of St. Nicholas of Pinara, with whom this author confounds him; which hypothesis Is confuted by Nicholas Putignani, a canon of Bari, author of Vindici Vit S. Nicolai, at Naples, an. 1753, and more fully by Jos. Assemani in Cal. Univ. t. 5, ad 6 Dec. p. 415, et t. 6, ad 4 Apr. p. 226, et ad 9 Maij, p. 822. See also Tillemont, t. 6; Vie de S. Nicholas, et Note 1, 2; Fleury, t. 13, p. 446.

A. D. 342.

THE great veneration with which this saint has been honored, both in the Greek and Latin churches for many ages, and the great number of altars and churches which have been everywhere erected in his memory, are proofs of his extraordinary sanctity, and of the glory which he enjoys with God. The emperor Justinian built a church in his honor at Constantinople, in the quarter called Blaquern, about the year 430,1 and he was titular saint of four churches in Constantinople.2 All accounts agree that he was a native of Patara, in Lycia. We are told that in his infancy he observed the fasts of Wednesdays and Fridays, refusing to suck the breasts on those days, which were consecrated to fasting by the law of the church, as St. Clement of Alexandria mentions,3 and as bishop Potter proves, in his note upon that passage from the Apostolic Constitutions,4 and the canonical epistle of St. Peter, bishop of Alexandria, and martyr. Also St. Epiphanius5 and others testify the same. Happy are they who, from their infancy and innocent age, are inured to the exercises of devotion, penance, and perfect obedience. St. Nicholas increased his fervor in these and all other virtues with his years, especially when he had devoted himself to a religious life in the monastery of holy Sion, near Myra, of which house he was made abbot, by the archbishop, its founder. Charity in comforting and relieving the distressed, seemed his characteristical virtue. Among many other instances, it is related, that when three young virgins were exposed through distress to the danger of falling into vicious courses, he, for three successive nights, conveyed to them through the window a competent sum of money for a fortune for one of them, so that they were all portioned, and afterwards happily married. Lycia was a large ancient province of Asia, in which St. Paul had planted the faith. Myra, the capital, three miles from Patara, and from the sea, was an archiepiscopal see, founded by St. Nicander, of so great dignity, that, in later ages, thirty-six suffragan bishoprics were subject to it This metropolitan church falling vacant, the holy abbot Nicholas was chosen archbishop, and in that exalted station became famous by his extraordinary piety and zeal, and an incredible number of stupendous miracles. The Greek histories of his life agree, that he suffered imprisonment for the faith, and made a glorious confession in the latter part of the persecution raised by Dioclesian; and that he was present at the great council of Nice, and there condemned Arianism. The silence of other authors make many justly suspect these circumstances. The history of the translation of his relics places his death in 342. He died at Myra, and was buried in his own cathedral* Several churches were built in his honor, even in the West, long before the translation of his relics to Bari; and the manner in which Usuard mentions him in his Martyrology, almost three ages before, shows in how great veneration his name then was in the West. The history of the translation of his relics to Bari assures us, that no saint was more universally honored in all Christian nations than St. Nicholas. The Muscovites, who received their account of him from the Greeks, seem to pay a greater veneration to his memory than to that of any other saint who lived since the times of the apostles. The relics of St. Nicholas were kept with great honor at Myra till they were translated into Italy. Certain merchants of Bari, a seaport in the kingdom of Naples, situate on the Adriatic Gulf, sailed in three ships to the coast of Lycia; and watching an opportunity when no Mahometans were near the place, went to the church in which the relics of St. Nicholas were kept, which stood in a desert place, three miles from the sea, and was guarded by a small community of monks. They broke open the marble coffin in which the sacred bones lay, and carried them off to their ships; the inhabitants, upon the alarm given, pursued them to the shore with horrible outcries, but the Europeans were got safe on board. They landed at Bari on the 9th of May, 1087, and the sacred treasure was deposited by the archbishop in the church of St. Stephen. On the first day, thirty persons were cured of various distempers, imploring the intercession of St. Nicholas, and from that time the tomb of St. Nicholas of Bari has been famous for pilgrimages. The authentic history of this translation, written by John, at that time archdeacon of Bari, by order of the archbishop, is extant in Surius. The same account is confirmed by another history of this translation, drawn up at the same time by Nicephorus of Bari, also an eye-witness, commissioned by the magistrates of the city, quoted in manuscript by Baronius, and published by Falconius.6 By this history of Nicephorus, it appears that the Venetians having formed a design of carrying off the relics of St. Nicholas, certain merchants from Bari, who happened then to be at Antioch, prevented them.† This enterprise could only be justified by the laws of a just war, joined with the apprehension of the sacrilegious impiety of the Mahometans. Mention is made in a novella of the emperor Emmanuel, recorded by Balsamon, and all modern writers, of a fragrant unctuous matter which issues from the relics of St. Nicholas in his shrine at Bari, a large quantity of which was found in his sepulchre near Myra in Lycia, when his relics were brought thence.

St. Nicholas is esteemed a patron of children, because he was from his infancy a model of innocence and virtue, and to form that tender age to sincere piety was always his first care and delight.* To impress on the minds of children perfect sentiments of devotion, religion, and all virtues, with an earnestness in all duties, is a task often as delicate as it is important. Instructions must be made sensible, and adapted by similes, parables, and examples, to the weakness of their capacities. Above all, they are to be enforced by the conduct of those with whom children converse. They learn their maxims, imbibe their spirit, and are moulded upon their example. A child which sees those who are about him love their own ease, and ever seek what best pleases their senses; still more if he observes them to be choleric, peevish, vain, slothful, or impatient, will naturally cherish these passions, and yield up the government of himself to them, instead of learning by tractableness, humility, meekness, and self-denial, to subdue and govern them. And so in all other points. Precepts and exhortations lose their force when contradicted by example; and while the infant sees every one study to please himself in every thing, in flat opposition to the rules of the gospel which he hears preached from their mouths, he seems tacitly persuaded that such a conduct is reconcileable with those very maxims which condemn it.

DECEMBER 6 — SS. DIONYSIA, DATIVA, MILIANUS, BONIFACE, LEONTIA, TERTIUS, AND MAJORICUS, MM., UNDER THE ARIANS IN AFRICA

In the year 484, king Huneric banished the Catholic bishops; and soon after commanded those who refused to comply with certain impious orders which he published, to be tormented and put to death. Dionysia, a lady remarkable for her great beauty, but much more so for her holy zeal and piety, was so long scourged in the most conspicuous place of the forum, till every part of her body was covered with wounds and blood. Seeing Majoricus, her only son, tremble at the sight of her torments, she said to him: “Son, remember that we have been baptized in the name of the holy Trinity, in the Catholic church, our mother. Let us not lose the clothing of our salvation, lest the master of the feast, finding us without the nuptial garment, command his servants to cast us into outer darkness The young man being strengthened by her words, suffered a most cruel martyrdom with constancy. The courageous mother embracing his body, gave hanks to God with a loud voice, and buried him in her own house, that she might frequently pray upon his tomb. Dativa, sister to Dionysia, milianus a physician, who was her cousin, Leontia, Tertius, and Boniface, suffered with great constancy horrible torments for the faith. A nobleman of Suburbia, named Servus, was tortured by the persecutors with the utmost fury. Alter his body was bruised with clubs, he was hoisted in the air by pulley and then let down again that he might fall with all his weight on the payment; and this was repeated several times. After this, he was dragged along the streets, and torn with flint-stones and pebbles, insomuch that his flesh and skin hung down in many places from his sides, back, and belly, and his ribs appeared bare. At Cucusa there was an infinite number of martyrs and confessors. Among these a courageous lady, named Victoria, was suspended in the air while a fire was kindled under her. All this while her husband, who had apostatized from the Catholic faith, talked to her in the most moving and passionate manner, conjuring her at least to have pity on him and her innocent babes, and save herself by obeying the king. The martyr stopped her ears not to hear his seducing words, and turned her eyes from her children, that she might more perfectly raise her heart to heaven The executioners seeing her shoulders dislocated, and several of her bones broken, and not perceiving her to breathe, thought she was dead, and took her down. But she came to herself, and afterwards related that a virgin had appeared to her, who touching every part of her body, immediately healed it. See St. Victor, Vitens. De Persec. Vanda11. 5; Baron ad an. 484, and the Roman Martyrology on this day.

DECEMBER 6 — ST. PETER PASCHAL, B. M

This saint was a native of Valencia, in Spain, and descended of the ancient family of the Paschals, which had edified the church by the triumphs of five glorious martyrs, which it produced under the Moors. Peter’s parents were virtuous and exceeding charitable; and St. Peter Nolasco often lodged with them in his travels. The birth of our saint was ascribed by them to his prayers and blessing, and the child received from him an early tincture of sincere piety. Peter Paschal performed his studies under domestic tutors, and, having received the tonsure, was made canon at Valencia soon after the king of Aragon had won that city from the Moors. His preceptor was a priest of Narbonne, a doctor of divinity, of the faculty of Paris, whom our saint’s parents had ransomed from the Moors, who had made him a captive. St. Peter Paschal went with him to Paris, and having studied, preached, and taught with great reputation, proceeded doctor then returned to Valencia, and, after employing a year in preparing himself, took the habit of the order of our Lady for the redemption of captives, in 1251. St. Peter Nolasco was his spiritual director at Barcelona, and by the instruction of that experienced master, our saint made great progress in the exercises of an interior life. James 1, king of Aragon, chose him preceptor to his son Sanchez, who embraced an ecclesiastical state, afterwards entered himself in this order, and was soon after made archbishop of Toledo, in 1262. The prince being at that time too young to receive the episcopal consecration, St. Peter Paschal was appointed his suffragan to govern his diocese, and was ordained titular bishop of Granada: which city was at that time in the hands of the Mahometans. The prince archbishop died a martyr, of the wounds he received by the Moors, who had invaded the territory of his diocese, making great havoc in his flock, in 1275. St. Peter Paschal was by this accident restored to his convent, but joined the functions of the ministry with those of a contemplative and penitential life. He founded several new convents of his order at Toledo Baza, Xerez, and particularly at Jan, twenty-two miles from Granada endeavoring by this last to procure the means of affording some spiritual succors to the afflicted church of Granada, which he regarded as his own peculiar charge, though he was not suffered to serve it. The martyrdom of B. Peter of Chemin, a religious man of the same order which our saint professed, and who was put to death at Tunis in 1284, kindled in his breast an ardent desire of martyrdom. Being made bishop of Jan in 1696, fearless of all dangers, he went often to Granada, and there not only ransomed the captives, and instructed and comforted the Christians, but also preached to the infidels, and reconciled to the church several apostates, renegadoes, and others. On this account he was at length shut up in a dark dungeon, with a severe prohibition that no one should be allowed to speak to him Yet he found means there to write an excellent treatise against Mahometanism, by which several were converted. Hereat some of the infidels took great offence, and complained to the king, who gave them authority to put him to death in whatever manner they should think fit. While he was at his prayers, after having said mass in his dungeon, he was murdered, receiving two stabs in his body: after which his head was struck off. His martyrdom happened on the 6th of December, in the year of Christ 1300, of his age seventy-two. The Christians procured his chalice, sacred ornaments, and discipline, and secretly buried his body in a grot, in a mountain near Mazzomores. Not long after, it was translated to Baza, where it still remains. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 6th of December, and on the 23d of October. See the memorials drawn up for his canonization, and Hist, des Ord. Relig.

DECEMBER 6 — ST. THEOPHILUS, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH, C

The memory of this illustrious bishop, and learned father of the second century, has always been dear to the church, and his writings were highly valued by Eusebius and St. Jerom for elegance of style, variety of erudition, and a discreet and warm spirit of piety and religion. St. Theophilus was born of Gentile parents, who trained him up in idolatry, and gave him a liberal education. While he was yet young, he was well versed in the works of the greatest masters of ancient philosophy, and by his judgment, and the acuteness of his wit, gained much esteem among the learned men of that age. By his impartial and free search into nature and the state of things, he found the religion in which he was engaged to be not only altogether unsatisfactory, but also absurd and ridiculous, and he had too honest a heart to take up with falsehood and impiety because it was fashionable. In the works of the creation and providence, he discerned plain notices of the divine Being and perfections. In his diligent inquiry after truth, he fell upon the books of the prophets and gospels, and was much delighted with the sublime verities which they contain, and the certain prediction of future events which he discovered in them. The doctrine of the resurrection was for some time a great stumbling-block to him. Indeed, there was scarce any article of faith which met with so much opposition as this from the heathen philosophers. So full were their heads of the axiom, that from a privation of form to the repossession of it there can be no return, that they understood it, not only of the order of things, in the ordinary course of nature, but as if it implied a contradiction. Though certainly in the supernatural order of things, it is equally easy to Omnipotence to restore our scattered parts, and combine them again into the same mass, as it was at first to create them out of nothing. Theophilus at length conquered this difficulty, by reading the sacred oracles of truth, and by frequent reflection upon the many shadows of a resurrection which God hath impresed upon many parts of the creation in the common course of nature. This is the account of the manner of his conversion, which he intimates to his friend Autolychus,1 whom he directs to the same method of conviction Theophilus greatly rejoiced that he had attained: to the name of a Christian, a name which he styles, “Dear to God, however despised by ignorant and vicious men.” But knowing that the bare name would only serve to his greater condemnation, he strenuously endeavored to reap the fruits of this religion by holiness of life. Eros, bishop of Antioch, dying in the year 168, the eighth of Marcus Aurelius. he was chosen the sixth bishop of Autioch as Eusebius and St. Jerom reckon him, from Evodius though the latter sometimes calls him the seventh, including St. Peter.

Theophilus being fixed in his charge, set himself zealously to promote virtue and true religion, and to draw men from the wanderings of heresy and idolatry into the true path of eternal life. Heresies and schisms he compared to dangerous rocks, upon which whoever is cast runs the dread fill hazard of losing his immortal soul. “As pirates,” says he, “by striking on rocks dash in pieces their laden vessels, so whoever are drawn aside from the truth, shall be miserably overwhelmed in their error.”2 The vigilance and vigor with which this holy pastor opposed the first advances of heresy, have raised a lasting monument to his glory, which will endure till time shall be no more. He wrote a confutation of the heresy of Marcion, a treatise against the heresy of Hermogenes, and catechetic discourses, of which, through the injuries of time, nothing has been transmitted down to us except some few quotations and the titles and reputation of those writings. His three books to Autolychus we have entire, which contain an apology for the Christian religion. They are filled with curious remarks on passages of ancient poets and philosophers, concerning their systems of idolatry: the style is lofty, smooth, and elegant; the turn of his thoughts lively and agreeable, and his allegories and similes natural and beautiful. As these books were drawn up for the conviction of a pagan, and to obviate the calumnies and reproaches which were cast upon the Christian religion by its enemies; they must not be expected to contain nice disquisitions upon the truths of Christianity. It was our author’s part rather to make use of such arguments as would confirm the faith and convict an idolater, than to explain its doctrine. Yet it evidently appears, from several passages, that he was well acquainted with the hidden mysteries of the gospel. Petavius and Scultet fancied they discovered some expressions favorable to Arianism; but are clearly confuted by Bu11,3 Dom. Le Nourry,4 Dom. Maran, and others. St. Theophilus manifestly teaches that God the Son, or the Divine Wisdom, is coeval with the Father, and his generation eterna1.5 What he says of his second generation, when he made himself manifest in the creation of the world,6 and of his third when he was born a man, cannot prejudice his divinity or consubstantiality with his Father. St. Theophilus gives the name of Trinity to the three Divine Persons in one nature,7 and he is the first whose writings are extant in winch that word is employed to express this mystery. This father says, that Adam’s disobedience entailed miseries on us; nevertheless, God took occasion from his fall to confer on us the greatest benefit, and the sin being expiated, has restored us to paradise.8 He doubts not of Adam’s salvation9 which Tatian the heresiarch* set himself to deny about that time.10

Autolychus was a man of great learning and eloquence, who spent whole nights in conversing with libraries, but was excessively zealous for idolatry, and equally prejudiced against the Christian religion, which he counted mere madness, and loaded with the most odious calumnies which all the wit and malice of those times could invent, and he quarrelled with his friend Theophilus for defending it. Our saint boldly undertook to show him his errors. Treating him with the ingenuity of a philosopher, and the freedom of a friend, without flattery or disguise; and probing to the bottom of his sore, in order radically to cure him, he tells him that it is in vain for him to make any inquiry after truth, unless he reform his heart, and proceed with views perfectly pure: for the passions raise clouds which blind reason. “All men have eyes,” says he, “yet the sun is veiled from the sight of some. It, however, ceases not to emit a flood of day, though those whose eyes are blinded, see not its radiant light But this defect is to be laid to their charge, nor can the sun be complained of on account of their blindness. Thus, my friend, it is sin that darkens your mind, and blunts the edge of your understanding. As the glass represents not the image if it be soiled, so the mind receives not the impression of God, if it lies immersed in sin. This is a humor which greatly obstructs the sight, and prevents the eye from beholding the sun. Thus, my friend, your impiety diffuses a cloud over the faculties of your soul, and renders you incapable of receiving the glorious light.” In this manner he exhorted him to seek the truth with his whole heart, and purely with a view to discover it, looking upon this only as his happiness. He then proceeds in his first book to prove that God is infinite, and incomprehensible in all his perfections, and elegantly sets forth his sovereign wisdom, power, goodness, and other attributes; which he illustrates from the frame of the universe.

A monstrous portraiture is then drawn by him of the pagan theology in their adoration of impious dead men, inanimate statues, beasts, birds, vermin, leeks, and onions. The Egyptian superstition he describes almost in the words of Juvenal.* He concludes this book by an elegant illustration of the resurrection of the dead from similes found in nature.† Autolychus received favorably this first discourse, and expressed his satisfaction to Theophilus, who thereupon, in his second book, laid down a confutation of the opinions that were maintained by the heathens concerning their gods. He showed the contradictions of their poets and philosophers upon this subject, and explained the creation and history of the world from Moses. It is a just and true remark, that all nations distinguished the seventh day, though only the Jews observed it in a religious manner, and knew the original. In contemplating the universe he expresses his astonishment as follows: “So adorably amazing is the greatness and goodness of God in the creation, that no one could be able to describe the order and disposition of it; though he were enriched with the flowing eloquence of a thousand tongues, and though a man’s life was to be extended to a thousand years.” The world he calls a sea impetuously raging with impiety and enormous wickedness; but says, the law and the prophets springing up, as a fountain of fresh water, have refreshed it with the salutary streams of mercy and justice, and the sacred commands of a gracious God. “And as in the sea there are islands which are fruitful and furnish good harbors for the shelter of mariners who fly to them, and are there secured from the tossings of the tempests; so hath God given to the world holy churches, into whose safe havens the lovers of truth fly, and all those who desire to be saved, and to escape the dreadful wrath of God. And there are other islands which want water, and are filled with barren rocks, and, being uninhabitable, are destructive to sailors, and in which ships are dashed to pieces, or are unfortunately detained: so likewise are there erroneous doctrines and heresies which destroy those who are seduced and drawn aside by them.” Theophilus, in his third book, proves that the writings of the wisest heathens are full of many principles contrary to humanity, right reason, and sound morality; and he sets off the holiness of the doctrine and lives of the Christians, especially their meekness and love of their enemies; for even while they are ready to sink under the weight of oppression, they earnestly wish well to their persecutors, who rage against them in all the variety of cruelty. We have no certain account of the issue of this conference: but Dr. Cave observes, that if strength of reason, eloquence, and the prudent management of the cause of truth could prevail, we must conclude that Autolychus was reclaimed from his error: especially as we find him after the first discourse desirous of further instruction. St. Theophilus wrote many other works for the edification of the church, which have not reached us The short commentary on the gospels, which bears his name in the second tome of the Library of the Fathers, is certainly the production of a Latin writer, and of a later age, as appears by quotations from St. Jerom, St. Ambrose, &c., and the mention of monks. St. Theophilus sat twenty-two years in his bishopric, and died about the year 190, the tenth of Commodus. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 13th of October. The most correct editions of his books to Autolychus are, that published by Bishop Fell at Oxford, in 1684; that given by John Christopher Wolf at Hamburg, in 1724; and lastly, that of the Benedictins, with St. Justin’s works. See the testimonies of Lactantius, Eusebius, St. Jerom &c., on St. Theophilus, collected by Bishop Fell in his preface Grabe Spicil. Patr. Sæc. 2, p. 118; Cave, Tillemont, t. 3, p. 88, Coillier, t. 2, p 103.

DECEMBER 7 — SAINT AMBROSE, B. C. DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

From his works, and his short life written at the request of St. Austin, by Paulinus, who was his deacon and secretary at the time of his death, and was afterwards promoted to the priesthood. See also the Church historians of that age: and the histories of his life compiled by Hermant, Tillemont, Rivet, Hist. Littr. de la France, t. 1, part. 2, p. 325; Vagliano, Sommario de Gliarcivescovi di Milano: and Du Frische and Nic. le Nourri, the two Maurist Benedictin editors of his works, in 1686, at the end of the second and last volume. See also Archiepiscoporum Mediolaneasium Series Critico-Chronologica, Auctore Jos. Saxio Bibl. Ambrosian prfecto. Anno 1756.

A. D. 397.

AN invincible courage and constancy in resisting evil is a necessary ingredient of virtue especially in the episcopal character. Gentleness, meekness, humility, and obedience, make the servant of God ready to yield and conform himself to every one in things indifferent: but in those of duty he is inflexible, not with wilfulness or obstinacy, but with modesty, yet invincible firmness. Of this virtue, St. Ambrose, in the judgment of the learned Hermant, was the most admirable model among all the great pastors of God’s church since the apostles. His father, whose name was also Ambrose, was prefect of the prtorium in Gaul, by which office not only France, but also a considerable part of Italy and Germany, the five Roman provinces in Britain, eight in Spain, and Mauritania Tingitana in Africa, were under his jurisdiction.* He was blessed with three children Marcellina, the eldest, who received the religious veil from the hands of pope Liberius, Satyrus, and our saint, who bore his father’s name. It is clear from Paulinus that he was born in the city where his father resided, and kept his court in Gaul, but whether this was Arles, Lyons, or Triers, modern authors are not agreed in their conjectures. The saint’s birth happened about the year 340. While the child lay asleep in one of the courts of his father’s palace, a swarm of bees flew about his cradle, and some of them crept in and out at his mouth, which was open; at last they mounted up into the air so high, that they quite vanished out of sight. This was esteemed a presage of future greatness and eloquence. The like is said to have happened to Plato. The father of St. Ambrose dying while he was yet an infant, his mother left Gaul and returned to Rome, her own country. She took special care of the education of her children and Ambrose profited much by her instructions, and by the domestic examples which she, his sister, and other holy virgins that were with them, set him.

He learned the Greek language, became a good poet and orator, and went with his brother Satyrus from Rome to Milan which was then the seat of the prtorium, or supreme court of judicature. His writings are to this day a standing proof how vigorously he applied himself to human literature. Having finished his studies, he was taken notice of, and his friendship was courted by the first men of the empire, particularly by Anicius Probus and Symmachus, two persons of great learning and abilities, though the latter was an idolater. The first was made by Valentinian, in 368, prtorian prefect of Italy, and in his court St. Ambrose pleaded causes with so much reputation, that Probus made choice of him to be his assessor. Afterwards he made him governor of Liguria and milia, that is, of all that country which comprehends at this day the archbishoprics, with the suffragan dioceses, of Milan, Turin, Genoa Ravenna, and Bologna. Probus, who was a magistrate of great worth and integrity, said to him at parting: “Go thy way, and govern more like a bishop than a judge.” The young governor, by his watchfulness, probity, and mildness, endeavored to comply with this advice, which was most conformable to his natural goodness and inclinations. Auxentius, an Arian, and a violent and subtle persecutor of the Catholics, who upon the banishment of St. Dionysius had usurped the see of Milan, and held it tyrannically for almost twenty years, died in 374. The city was distracted by furious parties and tumults about the election of a new bishop, some of the clergy and people demanding an Arian, others a Catholic for their pastor. To prevent an open sedition, St. Ambrose thought it the duty of his office to go to the church in which the assembly was held: there he made an oration to the people with much discretion and mildness, exhorting them to proceed in their choice with the spirit of peace, and without tumult. While he was yet speaking, a child cried out, “Ambrose Bishop.” This the whole assembly took up, and both Catholics and Arians unanimously proclaimed him bishop of Milan. This unexpected choice surprised him: he presently withdrew, and made use of all the artifices he could to shun this charge. He ascended the bench of justice, and affecting to seem cruel and unworthy of the priesthood, caused certain criminals to be brought before him, and put to the torture. The people perceiving all the stratagems he made use of, to be affected, continued still in their choice Whereupon he stole out of the city by night, with a design to retire to Pavia: but missing his way, he wandered up and down all night, and found himself next morning at the gates of Milan. His flight being known, a guard was set upon him, and a relation of all that had passed was sent to the emperor, whose consent was necessary that an officer in his service should be chosen bishop. Ambrose wrote also to him on his own behalf, that he might be excused from that office. Valentinian, who was then at Triers, answered the clergy and people, that it gave him the greatest pleasure that he had chosen governors and judges who were fit for the episcopal office; and, at the same time, he sent an order to the vicar or lieutenant of Italy to see that the election took place. In the mean time Ambrose once more made his escape, and hid himself in the house of Leontius, one of those senators who had the title of Clarissimi; but the vicar of Italy having published a severe order against any one who should conceal him, or who, knowing where he was, should not discover him, Leontius, by an innocent kind of treachery, declared where he was Ambrose finding it in vain to resist any longer, yielded himself up: but insisted that the canons forbade any one who was only a catechumen, to be promoted to the priesthood. He was answered, that such ecclesiastical canons may be dispensed with on extraordinary occasions. Ambrose therefore was first baptized and, after due preparation, received the episcopal consecration on the 7th of December in 374, not in 375, as some have written; for Valentinian I. died on the 10th of November in 375. St. Ambrose was about thirty-four years old when he was ordained bishop.

He was no sooner placed in the episcopal chair, but considering that he was no longer a man of this world, and resolving to break all ties which could hold him to it, he gave to the church and the poor all the gold and silver of which he was possessed. His lands and estates he gave also to the church, reserving only an income for the use of his sister Marcellina, during her life. The care of his family and temporalities he committed to his brother Satyrus, that, being disengaged from all temporal concerns, he might give himself up wholly to his ministry and prayer. So perfectly did he renounce the world, and his mind dwelt so much above it, that temptations to riches and honors never had any weight with him. Soon after his ordination, he wrote to the emperor Valentinian severe complaints against some of the imperial judges and magistrates. To which the emperor replied, “I was long since acquainted with your freedom of speech, which did not hinder me from consenting to your ordination. Continue to apply to our sins the remedies prescribed by the divine law.” St. Basil also wrote to him,1 to congratulate with him, or rather with the church, upon his promotion, and to exhort him vigorously to oppose the Arians, and to fight a good fight. St. Ambrose first applied himself to study the scriptures, and to read ecclesiastical writers, particularly Origen and St. Basil. In his studies, he put himself under the conduct and instruction of Simplicianus, a learned and pious Roman priest, whom he loved as a friend, honored as a father, and reverenced as a master. This Simplicianus succeeded him in the archbishopric of Milan, and is honored among the saints on the 16th of August.2 Whilst St. Ambrose studied, he neglected not from the beginning assiduously to instruct his people. He purged the diocese of Milan of the leaven of the Arian heresy with such wonderful success, that, in the year 385, there remained not one citizen of Milan infected with it, except a few Goths, and some persons belonging to the imperial family, as he assures us.3 His instructions were enforced by an admirable innocence and purity of manners, prayer, rigorous abstinence, and a fast which he kept almost every day; for he never dined except on Sundays, the feasts of certain famous martyrs, and all Saturdays, on which it was the custom at Milan never to fast; but when he was at Rome he fasted on Saturdays. To avoid the danger of intemperance, he excused himself from going to banquets, or great tables, and entertained others at his own with great frugality. He spent a considerable part both of the day and of the night in devout prayer, and every day offered the holy sacrifice of the altar for his people.4 He devoted himself entirely to the service of his flock, and of every state and condition in it; one laborious employment serving for relaxation from another, he allowed himself no moments for amusement. He relieved the poor, comforted the afflicted, and hearkened to all men with meekness and charity, so that all his people loved and admired him. It was an inviolable rule with him never to have any hand in making matches, never to persuade any one to serve in the army, and never to recommend persons to places at court. He had a soul exquisitely tender and compassionate, and he often employed his interest to save the lives of condemned persons. He wept with those that wept, and he rejoiced with those that rejoiced. His charity was as extensive as the necessities of human nature, and he styled the poor his stewards and treasurers. in whose hands he deposited his revenues. It was his constant care and practice to do good for evil, and to requite affronts and injuries by offices of kindness. His chamber was for the greatest part of the day filled with persons who came to consult him, and to ask his private advice. St. Austin, when he came to visit him, always found him so overwhelmed with such business, or so intent in the few moments he was able to steal to himself, that he often went into his chamber, and, after some stay, came out again without being perceived by the holy bishop, whom, out of mere pity, he durst not interrupt. St. Austin, whilst he taught rhetoric at Milan, before he was baptized, assisted frequently at St. Ambrose’s sermons, not out of piety, but out of curiosity, and for the pleasure of hearing his eloquence, but took notice that his delivery was not so pleasing as that of Faustus the Manichee, though what he said was always very solid; and he preached every Sunday.5

Our holy bishop, in his discourses, frequently enlarged very much on the praises of the holy state and virtue of virginity. By his exhortations many virgins, who came from Bologna, Placentia, and even Mauritania, served God in this state under his direction. He had been bishop only two years, when, at the request of his sister Marcellina, he committed to writing what he had delivered from the pulpit in commendation of that holy state.6 This he executed in his three books, On Virgins, or On Virginity, written in the year 377, and penned with singular elegance, for which they are justly admired by St. Jerom and St. Austin, though the sincere piety which the language every where breathes, deserves chiefly the reader’s attention. In the first book, the praises of St. Agnes, and in the second, the conduct and virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (which he proposes as a perfect pattern to virgins,) the example of St. Thecla, and the history of a Christian virgin of Antioch, who was carried to the stews,7 are set off with inimitable elegance, and painted with the most beautiful flowers and figures of rhetoric. He enlarges on the excellency of virginity, and shows the spiritual advantages of that state. In the third book, he prescribes the principal duties of those who have embraced it, ordering them to be abstemious, to shun visits, and apply themselves to spiritual exercises and reflection, to pray often in the day, and to repeat the Lord’s prayer and the psalms in bed before they sleep, and when they awake; and to recite every morning the creed as the seal of our faith. He adds that they ought to weep, and to shun excessive mirth, particularly dancing, on which he mentions the fatal consequences of the dancing of Herodias’s daughter. St. Ambrose mentions8 that there were twenty virgins at Bologna, and that they labored with their own hands, not only that they might gain a subsistence, but that they might also have wherewithal to bestow in charity. St. Marcellina, who received the veil from Pope Liberius, in the church of St. Peter at Rome, on Christmas-day,9 did not live in a society of virgins, but with her relations in Rome. Many other consecrated virgins did the same at that nine; but they had a part of the church to themselves, separated from the rest by boards; and on the walls were written sentences of the scripture for their instruction.10 St. Ambrose wrote his treatise, Of Widows, soon after the former work, to exhort them to perpetual chastity. This was soon followed by that. On Virginity, which he compiled to give us, from the holy scriptures, a high idea of that virtue; but he adds a most necessary caution, that the veil is not to be given rashly to young virgins, especially such as are of a light inconstant behavior. “Some complain,” says he, “that mankind will shortly fail if so many are consecrated virgins. I desire to know who ever wanted a wife and could not find one? The killing of an adulterer, the pursuing of waging war against a ravisher, are the consequences of marriage. The number of people is greatest where virginity is most esteemed. Inquire how many virgins are consecrated every year at Alexandria, all over the East, and in Africa, where there are more virgins than there are men in this country.” May not the French and Austrian Netherlands, full of numerous monasteries, yet covered with populous cities, be at present esteemed a proof of this remark? The populousness of China, where great numbers of new-born infants are daily exposed to perish, is a dreadful proof that the voluntary virginity of some, in these remote ages of the world, is no prejudice. Wars and the sea, not the number of virgins, are the destroyers of the human race, as St. Ambrose observes; though the state of virginity is not to be rashly engaged in, and marriage is not only holy, but the general state of mankind in the world. St. Ambrose’s book, entitled, The Institution of a Virgin, contains a confutation of Bonosus, who renewed the error of Helvidius, denying the perpetual virginity of the Holy Mother of God. The saint adds the instructions he had given to Ambrosia, one of the twenty virgins at Bologna who served God under his direction. He shows that retirement, silence, humility, and prayer, are the principal duties of a Christian virgin. Towards the end, the ceremonies of the solemn profession of a virgin are described. She presented herself at the foot of the altar, where she made her profession before the people. The bishop preached to her, and gave her the veil which distinguished her from other virgins; but her hair was not cut, as was done in the initiation of clergymen and monks. In the close, the author invites Jesus Christ to come on the day of these spiritual nuptials to receive his handmaid, who consecrates herself to him by a public profession, after having long before dedicated herself to him in spirit and in her heart.

The emperor Valentinian I. who resided sometimes at Triers, sometimes at Milan, died of an apoplexy in Pannonia, being engaged in a war against the Sarmatians and the Quadi, on the 17th of November, in the year 375, of his age fifty-five. Gratian, his eldest son, by his first wife, Severa, then sixteen years old, was then at Triers, and had been before associated by his father in the empire. Valentinian, his younger son, by Justina, a second wife, was with his mother on the borders of Pannonia, and him the army of his father saluted emperor, though he was then only four years old. Gratian took not this step amiss, but confirmed to his brother that dignity, and promised to be to him a father, and, contenting himself with the provinces which lie on this side of the Alps, yielded up to him Italy, Africa, and Illyricum, though he kept the administration till his brother should be of age, and resided at Triers or Mentz. Fritigern, king of the Goths, having invaded the Roman territories in Thrace and Pannonia, Gratian determined to lead an army into the east to the succor of his uncle Valens. But in order to guard himself against the snares of Arianism, of which Valens was the protector, he desired of St. Ambrose, whom he honored with a singular veneration, some instructions in writing against that heresy. In compliance with this request, the holy prelate wrote, in 377, the work entitled, On the Faith, to Gratian, or, On the Trinity, which, with three books which he added in 379, consists of five books, and is an excellent confutation of the Arian heresy, is written with much wit, vigor, and subtlety, the subject is set off with lively and pleasant descriptions, and the objections are removed with great clearness. St. Ambrose’s books, Of the Holy Ghost, are written in a less concise, less lively, and smart style than the former, because, says St. Austin, the subjects required not ornaments of speech to move the heart, but proofs of the divine truth concerning the consubstantiality of the Third Person addressed to the understanding. Many things in it are copied from St. Athanasius, and from Didymus and St. Basil’s books on that subject St. Ambrose’s book, On the Incarnation, is an answer to certain objections of the Arians, addressed to two officers of Gratian’s court.

Valens was defeated by the Goths, whom he had rashly engaged not very far from Adrianople, and was himself burnt in a cottage into which he had retired in his flight, in order to have his wounds dressed, in 378. His unhappy death was looked upon as a just judgment for his persecution of the Catholics, and his tyranny, especially in having caused the streets of Antioch to swim with streams of innocent blood, and many houses to be consumed by flames; for which it was said he deserved to be himself burned; and, as he was hated while he lived, so he died without being regretted. Gratian, by the death of Valens, became master of the eastern empire: but, seeing it attacked on all sides by triumphant barbarians, sent thither Theodosius, a general of great probity and valor, who, with his father, a virtuous general of the same name, had triumphed over the barbarians in Britain and Africa; but the father, out of mere jealousy, being unjustly put to death by Valens, the son had led from that time a retired life in Spain. Theodosius vanquished the Goths, pacified the whole empire and made excellent regulations in all the provinces under his command, insomuch that, on the 16th of January, in 379, Gratian gave him the purple and crown at Sirmich, in presence of their two armies, and declared him his colleague, and emperor of the East, giving him Thrace and all that Valens had possessed, and also the eastern part of Illyricum, of which Thessalonica was then the capital. The Goths had extended their ravages from Thrace into Illyricum, and as far as the Alps. St. Ambrose, not content to lay out all the money he could raise in redeeming the captives, employed for that use the gold vessels belonging to the church, which he caused to be broken and melted down; but such only as were not yet consecrated, reserving those which were for a more pressing necessity.11 The Arians reproached him upon this account; to whom he answered, that he thought it much more expedient to save the souls of men than gold; for not only the lives of the captives, and the honor of the women were preserved, but the children were rescued from being educated in idolatry. “I find,” said he, “that the blood of Jesus Christ poured out in the gold plate, hath not only shone therein, but hath also impressed upon it the virtue of redemption.” Many Arians who, upon that occasion, fled from Illyricum into Italy, were converted to the faith by the care of St. Ambrose, who was indefatigable in every branch of his pastoral charge. Every Lent he bestowed so much pains and labor in instructing the catechumens, that, when he died, five bishops could hardly go through with that which he used himself to perform.12

In 379 St. Ambrose lost his brother Satyrus, to whom he had committed the care of all his temporal affairs. Satyrus, attempting to go to Africa to recover some money due to his brother, was shipwrecked; and, not being baptized, desired some that were them to give him the holy mysteries, that is, the blessed eucharist, to carry with him; for the faithful carried it in long voyages, that they might not die deprived of it. As none but those who were baptized were allowed even to have a sight of it, Satyrus begged them to wrap it in an orarium, which was a kind of long handkerchief, at that time worn by the Romans about their necks. This he wrapped about him, and threw himself into the sea, without seeking a plank to support him; yet, by swimming, he was the first who came to land. It seems to have been in the isle of Sardinia. Satyrus, being then a catechumen, addressed himself to the bishop of the place in order to be immediately baptized; but first asked him whether he was in communion with the Catholic bishops, that is, with the church of Rome, says St. Ambrose: and, finding that he took part in the schism of Lucifer, he chose rather to venture again upon the sea than to receive baptism from a schismatic. When he arrived in a Catholic country he was baptized, the grace of which sacrament he never forfeited, as his brother affirms. Satyrus died soon after his return to Milan, in the arms of St. Ambrose and St. Marcellina, and left his wealth to be disposed of by them, without making a will. They thought he had only made them stewards of it, and gave it all to the poor The funeral of Satyrus was performed with great solemnity, at which St. Ambrose made an oration, which is extant, from which these particulars are taken.13 The seventh day after, they returned to the grave to repeat the solemn obsequies, as was usual; and St. Ambrose made there another discourse, in which he expatiated on the happiness of death, and the belief of the resurrection; on which account it is often called, A Discourse on the Resurrection. The church commemorates St. Satyrus on the 17th of September.

In 381 St. Ambrose held a council at Milan, against the heresy of Apollinaris; and assisted at another at Aquileia, in which he procured the deposition of two Arian bishops, named Palladius and Secundianus. In a journey which he made to Sirmich, he compassed the election of a Catholic bishop to occupy that see, notwithstanding the intrigues of the empress Justina in favor of an Arian candidate. In 382 our saint assisted at a council which pope Damasus held at Rome in order to apply a remedy to the divisions which reigned in the oriental church about the see of Antioch. Paulinus relates, that while he continued there, a certain woman that kept a public bath, and lay bedridden of a palsy, caused herself to be conveyed in a chair to the place where the holy bishop said mass, and importuned him to intercede with heaven for her; and while he was praying, and laying his hands upon her, she caught hold of his garments, and kissing them, found her strength return, and rose up and walked.

The emperor Gratian was chaste, temperate, mild, beneficent, and a zealous Catholic; and St. Ambrose obtained of him, among other wholesome laws, one by which, to prevent surprises in condemning accused persons, it was enacted, that no one should be executed sooner than thirty days after sentence. He prevailed with the same prince to remove the altar of victory out of the senate-house, which Julian the Apostate had restored. Yet this emperor gave too much of his time to hunting, shooting of beasts in a park, casting the javelin, and other such corporal exercises, making an employment of a recreation, in which idleness his governors and ministers entertained him that they might remain masters of affairs. Hence he did not sufficiently attend to business, and look into the conduct of his officers; and Macedonius, prefect of the prtorium, was a man openly addicted to bribery Complaints which were raised, alienated the affections of many; and Maximus, an accomplished general who commanded the troops in Britain, (where Theodosius had formerly been his colleague, who was then become emperor of the east,) assumed the purple, and passed with his army into Gaul. Gratian left Triers upon his approach, and near Lyons a battle was fought, which continued five days, till Gratian, perceiving part of his army deserting him, fled with three hundred horse. Andragathius, general of Maximus’s horse, contrived the following stratagem: He was carried in a close horse-litter, and it was given out that it was the empress who was coming to her husband. Gratian passed the Rhone to meet her, but when he came near, the general leaped out of the litter, and stabbed him. This happened on the 25th of August in 383. Gratian lamented with his expiring breath that his father Ambrose was not with him. Maximus after this ranged at pleasure, treated those of Gratian’s party with great severity, and threatened to cross the Alps, and attack Valentinian II., Gratian’s half-brother, who resided at Milan with his mother Justina. To prevent this danger the empress dispatched St. Ambrose upon an embassy to Maximus The saint, by the gravity of his person, the authority of his office, his humble address, and eloquent insinuations, stopped the usurper in his march, and at length concluded with him a treaty, by which Maximus was to enjoy Gaul, Britain, and Spain, and Valentinian Italy with the rest of the west. St. Ambrose passed the winter with Maximus at Triers in 384; and had the courage constantly to refuse to communicate with a tyrant who was stained with the blood of his master, and to exhort him to do penance. In these times of confusion the Gentiles at Rome attempted to restore the abolished rites of their superstition. At their head appeared Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, a senator of great eminence, an admirable scholar, statesman, and orator, at that time prefect of Rome. In Autumn, in the year 384, this man presented a request to Valentinian, in the name of the senate, begging that the altar of victory might be re-established in the senate-house, and the salaries restored to the priests and vestal virgins; to which he ascribed the victories and prosperity of ancient Rome. A like petition had been before presented to Gratian in 382, but was disavowed by the Christian senators, (who were the greater number,) and rejected by that prince. St. Ambrose having privately received notice of Symmachus’s petition, wrote against it two beautiful apologies or letters to Valentinian, in which even his eloquence seems superior to that of the pagan, who was esteemed the greatest orator of his age. In the first he desired that a copy of Symmachus’s petition should be communicated to him, remonstrating at the same time to the emperor, that as all the subjects of the Roman empire ought to submit to him, so he was obliged to obey the only true God, and to defend the religion of Christ; that he could never concur to idolatry; and the church or bishops would never receive oblations from him who had given ornaments to the temples of idols: his gifts cannot be presented on the altar of Jesus Christ who hath made an altar for false gods, &c.14 In the second the saint confuted all that was alleged in the petition.15 These apologies being read in the council in presence of the emperor, he answered the Gentiles, that he loved Rome as his mother, but obeyed God as the author of his salvation.

The empress Justina, though an Arian, durst not openly espouse the interest of her sect during the lives of her husband, Valentinian I. and of Gratian. But the peace which St. Ambrose had procured between Maximus and her son, gave her an opportunity to persecute the Catholics, especially the holy bishop; for she ungratefully forgot the obligations which she and her son had to him. When Easter was near at hand, in 385, she sent to him certain ministers of state to demand of him the Portian basilic, now called St. Victor’s, without the city, for the use of the Arians, for herself, her son, and many officers of the court. The saint replied, that he could never give up the temple of God. By other messengers of the first rank she afterwards demanded the new basilic; then again insisted on having at least the former; but the bishop was inflexible. Certain deans or officers of the court were sent to take possession of the Portian basilic by hanging up in it imperial escutcheons. The citizens, enraged at this violence, seized in the street an Arian priest called Castulus. St. Ambrose being informed of this whilst he was at the altar, wept bitterly, prayed that God would suffer no blood to be shed, and sent out certain priests and deacons who delivered the Arian priest. The court, to punish the citizens for this commotion, taxed them two hundred pounds weight in gold. They answered, that they were willing to pay as much more, provided they might be allowed to retain the true faith. Certain counts and tribunes came to summon St. Ambrose to deliver up the basilic, saying, the emperor claimed it as his right. The bishop answered, “Should he require what is my own, as my land or my money, I would not refuse him, though all that I possess belongs to the poor; but the emperor has no right to that which belongs to God. If you require my estate, you may take it; if my body, I readily give it up; have you a mind to load me with irons, or to put me to death, I am content. I shall not fly to the protection of the people, nor cling to the altars: I choose rather to be sacrificed for the sake of the altars.”16 St. Ambrose continued all that day in the old basilic; but at night went home to his house, that if they designed to seize him, they might readily find him. The next morning, which was Wednesday, he went out before day to the old basilic, which was immediately surrounded with soldiers. A troop of soldiers was sent to seize on the new church; but St. Ambrose sent certain priests thither to officiate, and they threatened the soldiers with excommunication if they offered any violence; and they came into the church and prayed peaceably, being Catholics. In the evening St. Ambrose preached on patience. After the sermon a secretary arrived from the court, who, calling the bishop aside, made him severe reproaches, and told him that he set himself up for a tyrant. The bishop replied, “Maximus, who complains that by my embassy I stopped him from marching into Italy, says not that I am the tyrant over Valentinian. Bishops never set themselves up for tyrants, but have often suffered much from tyrants.” The Catholics spent all that day in sorrow and the basilic being surrounded with soldiers, St. Ambrose could not return home to his own house; but passed the night in reading psalms with his brethren in the little basilic of the church, or in some oratory in the outer buildings. The next day, which was Maundy Thursday, St. Ambrose prayed and preached to the people, till news was brought him that the emperor had withdrawn the soldiers from the basilic, and had restored to the merchants and citizens the mulct which he had imposed upon them. Upon which all joined in joy and thanksgiving. St. Ambrose gave an account of these transactions to his sister Marcellina, who was then at Rome, and had earnestly begged it of him. At the conclusion of this relation, he adds that he foresees greater commotions. After this he says, “The eunuch Calligonus, high chamberlain, said to me: ‘Thou despisest Valentinian, while I am yet living; I will cut off thy head.’ To which I replied: ‘May God permit me so to suffer; then I shall suffer as a bishop, and you will act a part becoming a eunuch or courtier. I beseech God that all the enemies of the church may cease persecuting her, and level all their shafts at me, to quench their thirst with my blood’ ”17 Soon after Calligonus was convicted of a heinous crime, and beheaded.

The empress was still more exasperated against St. Ambrose by the resistance of the people; and persuaded her son to make a law for authorizing the religious assemblies of the Arians, which was published on the 23rd of January, 386.18 The true author of this law was Mercurinus, whom the Arians made bishop of Milan for those of their sect, and who took the name of Auxentius II. In consequence of this law, which forbade any one under pain of death to oppose the religious assemblies of Arians, no one could so much as advise or present a petition against a church being yielded up to them, without incurring the danger of being proscribed or put to death.19 The empress, therefore, in the following Lent, in 386, again demanded of St. Ambrose the Portian basilic. The holy prelate answered, “Naboth would not give up the inheritance of his ancestors, and shall I give up that of Jesus Christ? God forbid that I should abandon that of my fathers; of St. Dionysius, who died in exile for the defence of the faith; of St. Eustorgius the confessor; of St. Miroclus, and of all the other holy bishops, my predecessors.” Dalmatius, a tribune and notary, came to St. Ambrose from the emperor, with an order that he should choose his judges at court, as Auxentius had done on his side, that his and Auxentius’s cause might be tried before them and the emperor; which if he refused to do, he was forthwith to retire, and yield up his see to Auxentius. The saint took the advice of his clergy, and of some Catholic bishops who were then at Milan; then wrote his answer to the emperor, wherein, amongst other things, he says, “Who can deny that in causes of faith the bishops judge Christian emperors? so far are they from being judged by them. Would you have me choose lay judges, that if they maintain the true faith, they may be banished, or put to death? Would you have me expose them either to a prevarication, or to torments? Ambrose is not of that consequence, for the priesthood to be debased and dishonored for his sake. The life of one man is not to be compared with the dignity of all the bishops. If a conference is to be held about the faith, it belongs to the bishops to hold it, as was done under Constantine, who left them the liberty of being judges.”

After sending this remonstrance to the emperor, signed by his own hand, St. Ambrose retired into the church, where he was for some time guarded by the people, who stood within doors night and day, lest he should be carried away by violence; and the church was soon surrounded by soldiers sent from court, who suffered people to go in, but no one to come out. St. Ambrose being thus shut up with the people, preached often to them. One of those sermons which he made on Palm Sunday is extant,20 under this title: On not Delivering up the Basilics. In it he says, “Are you afraid that I would forsake you, to secure my own life? But you might have observed by my answer, that I could not possibly forsake the church, because I fear the Lord of the whole world more than the emperor; that if they carry me by force from the church, they may draw away my body, but they can never separate my mind from it; that if he proceeds against me as a prince, I will suffer as a bishop. Why then are you troubled? I shall never quit you voluntarily; but I can never resist or oppose violence. I can sigh and lament: I can weep and groan. But tears are my only arms against swords, soldiers, and Goths. Bishops have no other defence. I cannot, I ought not to resist any other ways. But as to flying away and forsaking my church, that I will never do. The respect which I have for the emperor does not make me yield cowardly: I offer myself willingly to torments, and fear not the mischiefs they threaten me with. It was proposed to me to deliver up the vessels belonging to the church: I answered, that if they asked me for my land, my gold, or my silver, I willingly offered them; but I can take nothing out of the church of God. If they aim at my body and my life, you ought only to be spectators of the combat; if it is appointed by God, all your precautions will be vain. He that loveth me cannot give a better testimony thereof than by suffering me to become the victim of Jesus Christ. I expected something extraordinary, either to be killed by the sword, or to be burned for the name of Jesus Christ. They offer me pleasures instead of sufferings. Let none therefore disturb you by saying, that a chariot is prepared, or that Auxentius hath spoken severe things. It was generally said, that murderers were sent, and that I was condemned to die. I fear it not, and will not leave this place. Whither should I go? Is not every place full of groans and tears, since orders are everywhere given to drive away Catholic bishops, to put those to death who resist, and to proscribe all the officers of cities who put not these orders in execution? What have we said in our answers to the emperor which is not agreeable to duty and humility? If he asketh tribute, we do not refuse it: the church lands pay tribute. If he desireth our estates, he may take them: none of us maketh any opposition; I do not give them; but then I do not refuse them: the people’s contributions are more than sufficient to maintain the poor. We are reproached on account of the gold which we distribute amongst them: so far am I from denying it, that I glory in it: the prayers of the poor are my defence; those blind, those lame, those aged persons are more powerful than the stoutest warriors. We render to Csar the things that are Csar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. The tribute is Csar’s, the church is God’s. Nobody can say that this is to be wanting in respect to the emperor. What is more for his honor than to style him the son of the church? The emperor is in the church, not above it.” The saint spoke with an astonishing intrepidity of the sword, fire, or banishment, detected boldly the impiety of Auxentius, and other Arian persecutors, and called their new law a flying sword sent over the empire to kill some by corporal death, others in their souls by the guilt of sacrilege. What he mentioned of the chariot is explained by Paulinus, who relates, that one Euthymius had placed a chariot at a house near the church, that he might take away St. Ambrose with greater ease, and carry him into banishment. But a year after he was himself put into the same chariot, and carried from that very house into banishment; under which misfortune St. Ambrose furnished him with money and other necessaries for his journey. This historian mentions several other stratagems laid during this time to take or kill the servant of God, and says that one came with a sword to the chamber of St. Ambrose, in order to murder him; but that, lifting up his hand with the naked sword, his arm remained extended in the air motionless, till he confessed that Justina had sent him upon that errand, and, upon his repentance, he recovered the use of the arm. When St. Ambrose had remained several days in the church and adjacent buildings within its enclosure, with the people who kept the doors shut, and guarded the passes, the guards were removed, and he returned to his house.

St. Ambrose mentions21 that the Arians reproached him with leading the people into error by singing hymns; and he allows that by hymns he taught them to testify their faith in the Trinity. To comfort his people under this persecution, he encouraged them to assiduity in singing the hymns and anthems which he composed. Psalms were always sung throughout the whole church; but St. Ambrose seems first to have established at Milan the custom which he learned from the oriental churches, of singing psalms alternately by two choirs,22 which spread from Milan to all the churches of the west.* God gave a visible consolation to this saint and his afflicted flock in the very heat of the persecution by the discovery of the relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, of which he gives an account in a letter to his sister.23 He writes, that being desirous to dedicate a new church (which at present is called from him the Ambrosian basilic) in the same manner that he had before consecrated the Roman basilic, (which was another church at Milan near the Roman gate,) he was at a loss for want of some relics of martyrs, till, causing the ground to be broken up before the rails of the sepulchres of SS. Nabor and Felix, he found the bones of SS. Gervasius and Protasius. These relics were laid in the Faustinian basilic, and the next morning were translated into the Ambrosian basilic; during which translation a blind man, named Severus, a butcher by trade, was cured by touching the bier on which the relics lay, with a handkerchief, and then applying it to his eyes. He had been blind several years, was known to the whole city, and the miracle was performed before a prodigious number of people; and is testified also by St. Austin,24 who was then at Milan, in three several parts of his works, and by Paulinus in the life of St. Ambrose. Our saint made two sermons on the occasion of this translation, in which he speaks of this and other miracles wrought by the holy relics, by which he assures us that many possessed persons were delivered, and many sick healed. St. Austin25 and Paulinus say, that an end was put to the persecution of St. Ambrose by the discovery of these relics in 386. The Arians indeed, at court, pretended that St. Ambrose had suborned men to feign themselves possessed; which calumny he confutes in the second of these sermons by the notoriety and evidence of the facts, which was such as to put the Arians to silence, and to oblige the empress to let St. Ambrose remain in peace. Dr. Middleton revives the slanders of the Arians, pretending these miracles to be juggle and imposture. But Dr. Cave26 mentions the miraculous cure of Severus, and the many other miracles wrought by those relics, and by the towels and handkerchiefs laid upon the bodies, as incontestable, attested by St. Ambrose in sermons preached upon the spot before the relics. This learned Protestant critic adds: “The truth of which miracles is abundantly justified by St. Ambrose, St. Austin, and Paulinus, who were all then upon the place; and indeed they were notoriously evident to the whole city, and twice the subject of St. Ambrose’s sermons. I make no doubt but God suffered these to confront the Arian impieties, and to give the highest attestation to the Catholic cause, so mightily at this time opposed, traduced, and persecuted.”* Maximus, who had been then acknowledged emperor both by Valentinian and Theodosius in solemn treaties, wrote to Valentinian, exhorting him not to persecute the Catholic church, as Sozomen and Theodoret testify “All Italy,” said he, “Africa, Gaul, Aquitaine, and Spain; and, in short, Rome, which holds the first rank in religion, as well as in empire, maintain this faith.”

In the year 387, news daily came to Milan of the preparations Maximus was making to invade Italy. Ambition is restless and insatiable; its burning thirst is only increased by the greatest successes, till it is at length buried in the pit which itself has dug, as Cineas elegantly, but unsuccessfully represented to king Pyrrhus. Maximus thought Britain, Gaul, and Spain, which he possessed in peace, and without danger of being molested, as nothing, so long as he was not master of Italy: and the astonishing success of his usurpation made him only enlarge his views further, and think more due to him. Valentinian and his weak mother were in no condition to oppose him, and in this distress they had again recourse to St. Ambrose, whom they besought to stand in the gap, and venture on a second embassy to stop the march of a prosperous usurper. The good bishop, burying the memory both of public and private injuries, readily undertook the journey, and arriving at Triers, the next day went to court. Maximus refused to admit him to an audience but in public consistory, though the contrary was a customary privilege both of bishops and of all imperial ambassadors. St. Ambrose made a remonstrance upon this account, but chose rather to recede from his dignity, than not execute his commission. He therefore was introduced into the consistory, where Maximus was seated on a throne, who rose up to give him a kiss according to the custom of saluting bishops and great men in those times. But Ambrose stood still among the counsellors, though they persuaded him to go near the throne, and the emperor called him. Maximus reproached him with having deceived him in his former embassy, by preventing him from entering Italy at a time when nothing could have opposed him. St. Ambrose said he was come to justify himself, though it was glorious to have saved the life of an orphan prince: but that he could not have opposed the march of his legions, or shut up the Alps with his body, and that he had not deceived him in any thing; only when Maximus insisted that Valentinian should come to him, he had pleaded that it was not reasonable that a child should cross the Alps in the depth of winter. He added, that Valentinian had sent Maximus’s brother, whom he saw there present, safe to him, when he could have sacrificed him to his passion, when the news of the bloody assassination of his brother Gratian was brought to him; but he conquered his resentment, and scorned to pay like for like. The bishop reproved Maximus for the murder of Gratian, and of many great men whom he had put to death for no other crime than their fidelity to their natural prince; for which he admonished him to do penance. He also entreated him to give up the body of Gratian to Valentinian, a brother dead, for his own brother whom he had received alive and unhurt; the ashes of an emperor only, that he might not be deprived of the honor of a burial. The tyrant answered that he would consider of it; but he was extremely incensed at St. Ambrose, because he constantly refused to communicate either with the tyrant, or with any of his bishops; these were the Ithacians, who desired the death of the Priscillianist heretics. When he was inflexible in this point he was ordered forthwith to depart Seeing Hyginus, an aged bishop, sent at the same time into banishment, he interceded that he might be furnished with necessary provisions, and not sent without a garment to cover him, or a bed to lie on. But St. Ambrose could not be heard, and was himself thrust out of doors. He therefore returned to Milan, and wrote to, Valentinian an account of his unsuccessful embassy, advising him to be cautious how he treated with Maximus, a concealed enemy, who pretended peace, but intended war.27 The event showed the truth of this conjecture. For Valentinian sent Dominus, a favorite courtier, to succeed St. Ambrose in his embassy. Maximus entertained him with all the obliging caresses and demonstrations of honor, amused him with assurances, and, as an instance of his friendship towards Valentinian, sent back with him a considerable part of his army, as he gave out, to assist the emperor against the barbarians who were then falling upon Pannonia. But these soldiers coming to the Alps, seized all the narrow passages; which was no sooner done, but Maximus followed after with his whole army, and marched with out the least opposition into Italy, where he took up his quarters at Aquileia.

The news of this unexpected surprise carried terror into every place Valentinian and his mother, in the utmost consternation, took ship, and fled to Thessalonica, whence they sent to the emperor Theodosius, to beg his speedy assistance before all was lost. That great prince had been employed in quelling the barbarians on different sides, and settling the peace of the church and state in the East, which had hindered him from revenging the death of Gratian. Upon receiving the message of the fugitive young emperor, he left Constantinople, and went to Thessalonica, where, in the most tender and paternal manner, he comforted the distressed remains of the family of the great Valentinian I. He represented to the young prince that, by favoring the Arian impiety, and persecuting the Catholic church, he had provoked heaven; and he effaced out of his mind all the impressions of heresy; for it was a fundamental maxim with Theodosius to undertake no enterprise without first doing every thing by which he might engage God on his side. Theodosius had some time before buried his most virtuous wife, the empress Flaccilla, who was descended of the lian family, (of which was the emperor Adrian,) but was more illustrious by her virtues than by her birth. Prayer and the care of the poor were her chief employments. She went to visit them, served them herself, and was proud of descending to the lowest offices of Christian charity in attending the sick under the most loathsome diseases.28 She made no other use of the entire confidence which her husband reposed in her, and of the influence which her virtue and amiable qualifications gave her over the mind of that great prince, than to inspire him with piety, the most sacred respect for the divine law, and the warmest zeal for religion; finding much more pleasure in seeing him holy, than seeing him master of the world. To preserve him from the snares of the Arians, whose impiety she detested, she engaged him to chase from his palace some who kept a secret correspondence with Eunomius, and appealing to the decisions of the Nicene council from all captious sophisms, avoided the dangers of subtle curiosity.29 Theodosius being then a widower, and meeting at Thessalonica the princess Galla, sister to Valentinian II. to give him a pledge of his friendship, married her, and, in spring 388, declared war against Maximus, and dismissed the ambassador the tyrant had sent to court his favor. It was his chief care to procure the blessing of God upon his army. For this he gave orders for solemn prayers to be everywhere put up to God, and sent to entreat the most eminent solitaries in Egypt to lift up their hands to heaven while he fought.30 He consulted in particular St. John, who foretold his victory, and the principal events of his reign.31 Setting out from Thessalonica. He caused excellent regulations for the discipline and moderation of his troops in their march, to be made and observed, insomuch that no city nor province was aggrieved by their passage. With incredible valor and prudence he entirely defeated Maximus upon the banks of the Save, near Siscia, now Peisseg, in Pannonia, and, soon after, that tyrant’s brother Marcellin, upon the Drave, though their armies were superior in numbers to his own. Thence he dispatched Arbogastes, general of the barbarians in his army, into Gaul, to seize that country, and marched himself to Aquileia, where Maximus had shut himself up His own soldiers, seeing it impossible to escape, stripped him of his imperial robes, and delivered him into the hands of Theodosius, who reproached him for his perfidiousness with more compassion than anger, and was inclined to spare his life; but at last suffered him to be beheaded on the 28th of July, 388, after he had reigned almost five years.

Theodosius proceeded to Milan, where he stayed from the 10th of October to the latter end of May. At Calinicus in Mesopotamia, certain Christians who had been insulted by the Jews in a religious procession, pulled down their synagogue. Theodosius, who had been informed of the affair by the count of the East, ordered the bishop, and other Christians who had demolished the synagogue, to rebuild it, and to be rigorously punished. The Oriental bishops wrote to St. Ambrose, entreating him to obtain a mitigation of this sentence. St. Ambrose solicited him first by a strong letter,32 and afterwards by a discourse which he made him in the church; and did not go up to the altar to say mass, till he had procured his promise of a pardon.33 The deputies of the senate came to compliment the emperor at Milan, and petitioned that the altar of victory, which Maximus had allowed to be restored, might be preserved in the senate-house. Theodosius seemed inclined, upon motives of state, to grant their request; but St. Ambrose easily engaged him to reject it. This emperor, after having passed all the winter and part of the spring at Milan, went to Rome, where in June he received the honor of a triumph. He made his entrance in a chariot drawn by elephants, which the king of Persia had lately sent him. The spoils of enemies, and the representations of provinces which he had conquered or delivered, were carried before him. The lords of his court, in rich apparel encompassed him, and the senate, nobility, and people, followed with extraordinary acclamations. The magnificence of this pomp was incredible,34 yet nothing in it seemed to be regarded but the conqueror, for whom it was made, and the greatest ornament of this triumph was the modesty of him that triumphed. Pacatus, the Gaulish orator, pronounced a panegyric before him, with the applause of the senate and all the orders of the city. Theodosius made the young Valentinian ride in his chariot, and share in he glory of the triumph. During his residence at Rome he walked about without guards, and gained the hearts of the people by his civility and generosity. He abolished the remains of idolatry, prohibited pagan festivals and sacrifices, and caused the temples to be stripped of their ornaments, and the idols to be broke in pieces. But he preserved those statues which had been made by excellent artists, ordering them to be set up in galleries, or other public places, as an ornament to the city. Symmachus, who had entered into a confederacy with Maximus, and pronounced a flattering speech in his honor, was accused of high treason, and fled into a church for sanctuary. But Theodosius would take no notice of what had passed during the reign of the usurper; and Symmachus made a panegyric in the senate in his honor, in the close of which he artfully renewed his petition for the altar of victory. Theodosius was offended at the obstinacy of such a solicitation, and returning him thanks for his panegyric, reproved him for his assurance, and commanded him to present himself no more before him. But he soon restored him to his favor and dignity.35 Theodosius returned to Milan on the 1st of September, and restored the whole western empire to Valentinian, in whose mind, by repeated instructions, he imprinted so deeply the Catholic faith, that the young prince put himself entirely under the discipline of St. Ambrose, and honored him as his father to his death. His mother, Justina, was dead before the end of the war. The heresiarch Jovinian having been condemned by pope Siricius at Rome, retired to Milan but was there rejected by Theodosius, and anathematized by St. Ambrose, in a council which he held in 390.

This council was yet sitting, when the news of a dreadful massacre committed at Thessalonica was brought to Milan.36 Botheric, who was genera of the forces in Illyricum, and resided at Thessalonica, caused a charioteer who belonged to the circus to be put in prison, for having seduced a young servant in his family, and refused to release him on a certain festival on which his appearance in the circus was demanded for the public diversion The people, not being able to obtain his liberty, grew enraged, and proceeded to so violent a sedition, that some officers were stoned to death, and their bodies dragged along the streets, and Botheric himself was slam Upon this news Theodosius, who was naturally hasty, was transported with passion; but was mitigated by St. Ambrose and some other bishops, and promised to pardon the delinquents. Ruffinus, who became afterwards a firebrand in the state, and was master of the offices, and other courtiers and ministers persuaded him, that the insolence of the people was grown to the highest pitch merely by impunity, and must be restrained by an example of severity. It was therefore resolved that a warrant should be sent to the commander in Illyricum, to let loose the soldiers against the city, till about seven thousand persons should be put to death. This inhuman commission was executed with the utmost cruelty, while the people were assembled in the circus, soldiers surrounding and rushing in upon them. The slaughter continued for three hours, and seven thousand men were massacred, without distinguishing the innocent from the guilty. Such was the brutality of the soldiers, that a faithful slave, who offered to die for his master, was murdered by them. It is also related, that a certain father seeing his two sons ready to be butchered, by his tears moved the murderers to compassion so far, that they promised to spare the life of one of them, whom they left to his choice; but while the distracted father ran first to one, then to another, not being able to abandon either of them, they, growing impatient of delays, massacred them both.

The horror with which the news of this tragical scene filled the breast of St. Ambrose and his colleagues is not to be expressed; but our saint thought it best to give the emperor a little time to reflect, and enter into himself. The emperor was not then at Milan; but was to return in two of three days. St. Ambrose, that he might not see him too soon, left the town, and wrote him a very tender strong letter, which is extant, exhorting him to and penance, and declaring that he neither could nor would receive his offering, or celebrate the divine mysteries before him, till that obligation was satisfied; for, how much soever he loved and respected him, he gave the preference to God; and he loved his majesty, not to his prejudice, but to him salvation.37 Soon after, the bishop came to town, and the emperor, according to his custom, went to church. But St. Ambrose went out and met him at the church-porch, and, forbidding him any further entrance said, “It seems, sir, that you do not yet rightly apprehend the enormity of the massacre lately committed. Let not the splendor of your purple robes hinder you from being acquainted with the infirmities of that body which they cover. You are of the same mould with those subjects which you govern; and there is one common Lord and Emperor of the world. With what eyes will you behold his temple? With what feet will you tread his sanctuary? How will you lift up to him in prayer those hands which are still stained with blood unjustly spilled? Depart, therefore, and attempt not by a second offence, to aggravate your former crime; but quietly take the yoke upon you which the Lord has appointed for you. It is sharp, but it is medicinal, and conducive to your health.” The prince offered something by way of extenuation, and said that David had sinned. The holy bishop replied, “Him whom you have followed in sinning, follow also in his repentance.”* Theodosius submitted, accepted the penance which the church prescribed, and retired to his palace, where he passed eight months in mourning, without ever going into the church, and clad with penitential or mourning weeds. After this term, the feast of Christmas being come, he remained still shut up in his palace, shedding many tears. Ruffinus, the master of the offices, and prefect or comptroller of his household or palace, who was not baptized before the year 391, asked him the reason of his grief, and told him he had only punished criminals, and had no cause to fall into depression of mind: for piety required not so cruel an affliction. Thus this courtier, after having induced his master to commit a crime, attempted by his flatteries to weaken his repentance. But the emperor, redoubling his tears and sighs, said to him, “Ruffinus, thou dost but make sport and mock me. Thou little knowest the anguish and trouble I feel. I weep and bewail my miserable condition. The church of God is open to beggars and slaves; but the church doors, and consequently the gates of heaven too, are shut against me. For our Lord has peremptorily declared, Whatever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven.” Ruffinus said, “If you please, I will run to the bishop, and will use so many arguments with him, that I will persuade him to absolve you.” The emperor answered, “It will not be in your power to do it. I know the justice of the sentence he has passed, and he is an inflexible man where the laws of religion are concerned, and will never, out of respect to the imperial dignity, do any thing against the law of God.” He added, that it was better to finish his penance than vainly demand the favor of an over-hasty absolution. Ruffinus insisted upon it that he should prevail. Whereupon the emperor said, “Go quickly then.” And, flattering himself with the hopes that Ruffinus had given him, he followed him soon after. St. Ambrose no sooner saw the comptroller coming towards him, but he abruptly broke out, and said, “Ruffinus, you carry your assurance and boldness beyond all bounds. You were the adviser and author of this massacre. How can you then intercede for another? You have laid aside all shame, and neither blush nor tremble at the remembrance of so great a crime, and an assault made upon the image of God.” Ruffinus fell to entreaties, and besought the bishop with all possible earnestness, adding, that the emperor would be there by-and-by. “If so,” said the bishop, “I tell you plainly, I shall forbid him to enter the church-porch And, if he think good to turn his power into force and tyranny, here I am, most ready to undergo any death, and to present my throat to the sword.” Ruffinus, seeing the resolution of the bishop, dispatched a messenger to the emperor, to inform him of what had passed, and to advise him to stay at home. The prince received the information in the midst of the high street; but said, “I will go, and receive the affront and rebuke which I deserve.” When he came to the enclosure of the holy place he did not go into the church; but went to the bishop, who was sitting in the auditory, and besought him to give him absolution. St. Ambrose stood up, and said, “What! do you come here to trample upon the holy laws of God?” “I respect them,” said the emperor, “I will not enter the sacred porch contrary to the rules: but I beseech you to free me from these bonds; and not shut agains me the door which the Lord hath opened to all penitents.” The bishop said, “What penance have you done, after having been guilty of such a crime?” “It is your part,” said the emperor, “to inform me what I ought to do; to prescribe the remedies, and apply the plaster: and it is mine to submit, and to comply with the prescriptions.”38 St. Ambrose ordered him to place himself among the public penitents in the church. Sozomen assures us, that the emperor made a public confession of his sin: and St. Ambrose, in his funeral oration, describes how he knelt at the church door, and lay long prostrate in the rank of the penitents, repeating, with David: My soul hath cleaved to the pavement: O Lord, restore my life, according to thy word.39 He remained in this posture, beating his breast from time to time, tearing his hair, and, with tears running down his cheeks, begged pardon of God, lamenting his sin in the sight of all the people, who were so touched at it as to weep along with him, and to pray a long while. St. Ambrose enjoined him, before he gave him absolution, to draw up a law to cancel all decrees that are made in haste or passion, and to command a respite of thirty days before execution of all warrants or sentences which regard life or the forfeiture of estates, that it may be discovered if any surprise or passion had any part in it. This law the emperor forthwith commanded to be drawn up, and signed it with his own hand, promising always to observe it. Such a law in part had been made by Gratian, eight years before, with which this of Theodosius is now joined in one.40 Theodosius, after his absolution, passed no day to his death on which he did not bewail afresh this offence, into which he was drawn by surprise, and through the instigation of others, as St. Ambrose remarks.

Theodoret mentions another example of humility and religion which this great emperor showed while he was at Milan; which some moderns placed before, and others after his penance.41 It happened on a great festival, that, having brought his offering to the altar, he remained within the rails of the sanctuary, that is, within the chancel or choir: St. Ambrose asked him if he wanted any thing. The emperor said he stayed to assist at the holy mysteries, and to communicate. The bishop sent his archdeacon to him with this message: “My lord, it is lawful for none but the sacred ministers to remain within the sanctuary. Be pleased therefore to go out, and continue standing with the rest. The purple robe makes princes, but not priests.” Theodosius answered, that he stayed not with a design of doing any thing against the church, or out of any affectation to distinguish himself from all the rest: but that he thought the custom was the same at Milan as at Constantinople, where his place was in the sanctuary; and, after having thanked the archbishop for being so kind as to inform him of his duty, he went out of the rails, and took his place among the laity. At his return to Constantinople, on the first great holiday that he went to the great church, he went out of the sanctuary after he had made his offering. The archbishop Nectarius sent to desire him to come back, and resume the place designed for him. The pious emperor answered, with a sigh, “Alas! how hard is it for me to learn the difference between the priesthood and the empire! I am encompassed with flatterers, and have found but one man that has set me right, and told me the truth. I know but one true bishop in the world, this is Ambrose.” From that time he kept without the rails or chancel, a little above the people, in which he was imitated by succeeding emperors. Theodosius, after staying almost three years in the West, left Valentinian in peaceable possession of that empire, and would carry home no other recompense of his labors and victories than the glory of having restored that prince, and afforded so many nations a disinterested protection. In his return into the East, all the people came out to meet him with extraordinary joy, and his reception in every city on the road was a kind of triumph especially at Constantinople, where he arrived on the 9th of November 391; and he appeared more glorious by the marks of love which he received of his subjects than by the victories he had gained over his enemies.

The young Valentinian followed in every thing the advice and instructions of St. Ambrose, honoring and loving him with as much ardor as his mother had formerly persecuted him with fury. Never was prince more ready to correct his faults. When he was told that he was too fond of the sports of the circus, he renounced those diversions, except on indispensable occasions. When some said that his passion for hunting diverted his mind from business, he presently ordered all the wild beasts he kept in a park to be killed. It was said by some that he advanced the hour of his meal too early, out of intemperance: he made use of this advice, and became so abstemious, that he fasted very often, and ate but little, even in the magnificent entertainments which he provided for his courtiers. He eased his subjects of many burdens and taxes, and never imposed any new ones, saying, the people were already too much oppressed. Yet count Arbogastes, general of his forces, came to an open breach with him. This man was a Frank by birth, but had been brought up from his youth in the Roman army, and was a pagan. By the great power to which he arrived, he assumed so much as to command Valentinian, and dispose of all things at pleasure. The emperor at length resolved no longer to brook his imperious behavior, and bear with his insolence. In 392, when they were both together in Gaul, busy in securing the country against the Germans, their misintelligence was carried to the highest pitch. But at length a seeming peace was concluded. The emperor pressed St. Ambrose to come to him at Vienne in Gaul, to be a witness to their reconciliation, and he was desirous to be baptized by him, being then in the twentieth year of his age. In his impatience to see him, and receive the holy sacrament of regeneration, he used often to say, “Shall I be so happy as to see my father?” He never had that happiness, being strangled by Arbogastes while he was diverting himself in the garden of his palace, on the banks of the Rhone, at Vienne, on the 15th of May, 392. St. Ambrose, who was advanced on his journey as far as the Alps, upon hearing this tragical news, returned to Milan, watering all his steps with his tears. Valentinian’s corpse was buried with Gratian’s at Milan, and St. Ambrose pronounced his funeral oration, in which he largely proves, that his desire of baptism supplied the want of it, and promises always to remember him in his sacrifices and prayers. Arbogastes placed the imperial diadem on the head of Eugenius, a rhetorician by profession, a man of parts and learning, who had long been in his service, and, from an ignoble condition, had been raised to high undeserved honors. This man was a nominal Christian, but unsettled in religious principles; for he flattered the heathens, and placed great confidence in divinations and auguries. They hastened their march into Italy, and courted St. Ambrose by very obliging letters; but before they arrived at Milan, the holy bishop had retired to Bologna, where he assisted at the translation of the relics of SS. Vitalis and Agricola. Thence he went to Florence, where he consecrated a church, called afterwards the Ambrosian basilic, like another at Milan, which was mentioned above. At Florence St. Ambrose lived in the house of the most considerable among the citizens named Decentius, whose infant child happened to die. The mother laid him upon the bed of St. Ambrose while he was abroad. The saint, being returned, laid himself upon the child in imitation of Eliseus, and by his prayers restored him to life, as Paulinus assures us. Theodosius refused all terms proposed to him by Eugenius’s ambassadors, and raised a powerful army to march against the traitors. He prepared himself for war by fasts, prayers, and frequent visiting of churches;44 and he sent to implore the prayers of St. John of Egypt. That holy hermit, who had formerly foretold him the defeat of Maximus sent him an assurance that this enterprise against Eugenius would be more difficult than the former against Maximus had been, yet that he should obtain a complete victory, but should die shortly after.45 Theodosius, before he set out, among many actions of heroic and public charity, justice, devotion, and piety, by a rescript inserted in the Roman law, pardoned all injuries in word or action that had ever been committed against his person. “For,” said he, “if it be by indiscreet levity that any one has spoken against us, we ought not to regard it: if it is by folly, we ought to pity him; if by ill-will, we are very willing to pardon him.”46

His army was assembled under Timasius, who commanded the Roman legions; Stilico, a Vandal prince who had married Serena, the emperor’s niece; Gainas, general of the Goths, &c. Theodosius joined them in Thrace, marched through Pannonia and Illyricum, and forced the passes of the Alps, which Arbogastes had so fenced and guarded as to look upon them as not only impregnable, but even inaccessible. Yet Arbogastes was not dismayed, and drew up his army in battalia in the spacious piains of Aquileia, at the foot of the Alps. In the first engagement Arbogastes gained the day; and, in a second, the army of Theodosius was upon the point of being broken and dispersed, when, by a fervent prayer, he conjured God to defend the cause of his own divine honor.47 Soon after, there arose from the Alps an impetuous wind, which put the squadrons of the enemy into strange disorder, drove back their darts and arrows, and beat clouds of dust upon their faces, which deprived many of the use of their sight, and almost of their respiration,48 which gave Theodosius a complete victory. Theodoret49 tells us, that the prince, before this second battle, shut himself up one night in a church to pray, and falling asleep, saw in a vision two men in white, on white horses, who promised him that they would assist him. The one was St. Philip the apostle, the other St. John the Evangelist. Evagrius and his companions taking leave of St. John in Thebais, that holy man giving them his blessing said: “Go in peace, my dear children, and know that they hear this day in Alexandria that Theodosius has defeated the tyrant Eugenius. But this prince will not long enjoy the advantage of his victory, and God will ere long withdraw him out of this world.”50 Eugenius, who was seated on a hill near the field of battle, was taken and brought to Theodosius, who reproached him with his crimes and credulity in the promises of heathenish diviners, and commanded him to be beheaded on the 6th of September in 394. Arbogastes, after wandering two days in the mountains became his own executioner, thrusting two swords one after another through his body.* Theodosius pardoned all the rest of their party; and never was any prince more moderate in his victory. He knew how to pardon, scarce how to punish; and he seemed to forget that he had enemies as soon as he had overcome. Being informed that the children of Eugenius and Flavian (general of his Roman forces) had taken sanctuary in the churches of Aquileia, he sent a tribune with an order to save their lives. He took care to have them educated in the Christian religion, left possessions for them, and used them as if they had been of his own family. As this victory was rather God’s than his own, his first care was that a solemn thanksgiving should be rendered to him throughout his whole empire. He wrote particularly to St. Ambrose on that subject. This holy archbishop had returned to Milan as soon as Eugenius was departed thence: and upon receiving his letter, with the news of his victory, he offered the holy sacrifice in thanksgiving, and sent one of his deacons to him with letters, in which, after having expressed his joy for the prosperity of his arms, he represented to him, that he ought to give God the whole glory thereof, that piety had contributed more to it than valor, and that his victory was incomplete unless he pardoned those who were involved in the misfortune rather than in the crimes of the tyrant, to which mercy he strongly exhorted him.51 This he besought in particular in favor of those who had taken refuge in the churches, which the saint doubted not of obtaining from a prince in whose behalf God had wrought prodigies, as he had formerly done in favor of Moses, Josue, Samuel, and David.52 A little while after, St. Ambrose went to Aquileia to wait upon the emperor. Their interview was full of joy and tenderness. The archbishop prostrated himself before this prince whom piety and the visible protection of God had rendered more venerable than his victories and crowns, and prayed that God would bestow on him all the blessings of heaven, as he had loaded him with all the prosperity of the earth. The emperor, on his side, cast himself at the feet of the archbishop, imputing to his prayers the favors which he had received from God, and entreating him to pray for his salvation, as he had done for his success. Then they entertained themselves about the means of restoring religion.

Theodosius soon followed St. Ambrose to Milan, who was gone the day before; but the prince refrained some time from the holy communion, because he had been stained with blood, though shed in a just and necessary war.* In the mean time he studied by compunction to purify his soul, and was assaulted by a mortal dropsy, which the fatigues of his expedition and the severity of winter had brought on him. He sent for his children to Milan and would receive them in the church on the day on which he received the communion the first time after his wars. He gave his two sons excellent instructions how to govern well, then turning to St. Ambrose he said, “These are the truths which you have taught me, and which I myself have experienced. It is your part to make them descend in my family, and to instruct, according to your custom, these young emperors whom I leave to you.” The archbishop answered, that he hoped God would give to the children a teachable heart and easy temper, which he had given the father. He granted and confirmed by law, a general amnesty and pardon to all rebels who were returned to their duty, by which they were re-established in their estates and dignities. He discharged the people of the augmentations of tribute, desiring that his subjects might enjoy the advantage of a victory to which they had contributed by their prayers and labors. Nothing could be more pathetic than his last exhortations to those senators who still remained idolaters, that they would embrace the faith of Christ, in which he declared it to have been his greatest desire to make all his subjects faithful servants of Jesus Christ.53 He gave much of his time to his devotions, and to pious conversation with St. Ambrose, in whose arms he expired on the 17th of January in the year 395, of his age the fiftieth. St. Ambrose preached his funeral sermon on the fortieth day after his death, and his body was conveyed to Constantinople, and everywhere received with honors which rather resembled triumphs than funeral solemnities.

In the year 395 St. Ambrose discovered the bodies of the holy martyrs Nazarius and Celsus, in a garden near Milan, and translated them into the basilic of the apostles, near the Roman gate. Their blood was gathered up with plaster and linen; and this was distributed to others as a precious relic.54 A person possessed with a devil was delivered by St. Ambrose at these relics, before which the devil tormented him till the saint bade him hold his peace. One who had counterfeited grants for the office of a tribune, the saint delivered to Satan; and even before the bishop had done speaking, the unclean spirit seized on him, and began to tear him: “At which,” saith the secretary Paulinus, “we were all much terrified” He adds, “We saw in those days many dispossessed at his command, and by the laying on of his hands.” He also mentions sick persons who were cured by his prayers. The reputation of St. Ambrose reached the most distant countries, and drew to Milan two Persians of the greatest authority and wisdom in that nation, who came thither furnished with many questions to make trial of his wisdom. They discoursed with him by the help of an interpreter for a whole day, and departed full of admiration. A little before our saint’s death, Fritigil, queen of the Marcomanni, having heard of the fame of his sanctity from a certain Christian that came from Italy, was moved by it to believe in Jesus Christ, and sent ambassadors to him with presents for the church of Milan, entreating St. Ambrose to instruct her by writing in what she was to believe. He sent her an excellent letter in form of a catechism, which is now lost. The queen having received it, persuaded the king to submit himself and his people to the Romans, and went herself to Milan: but to her great affliction, did not find St. Ambrose alive.

Our holy bishop made the administration of the sacrament of penance a chief part of his pastoral care. Paulinus writes thus of him: “Whenever any person confessed their sins to him, in order to receive penance, he shed such an abundance of tears as to make the penitent also to weep. The sins which were confessed to him he never disclosed to any one, only interceded with God.”55 In his writings he explains in great detail all the parts and duties of penance. Speaking of the obligation of confessing sins, he says: “If thou wilt be justified, confess thy crime. For an humble confession loosens the bonds of sins.”56 And again, “Why are you ashamed to do this in the church, where it ought only to be an object of shame not to confess our faults, seeing we are all sinners; where he is most commendable who is most humble, and he is the most just who is the lowest in his own eyes.”57 Against the Novatian heresy St. Ambrose wrote his two books of Penance. In the first, he shows that absolution is to be given to penitents for all sins, however grievous. But, towards the end, observes that their penitence must be condign and sincere. “If any one,” says he, “be guilty of secret* sins, and does penance for them very heartily, in obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ, how shall he receive the reward, unless he be restored to the communion of the church? I would have the guilty hope for the pardon of his sins; yet he should beg it with tears, sighs, and the lamentations of all the people. I would have him pray for absolution; and when it is twice or thrice delayed, let him believe that this delay proceeds from the want of importunity in his prayers. Let him redouble his weeping, let him render himself more worthy of pity; and then let him return, let him throw himself at the feet of the faithful, let him embrace them, kiss them, bathe them with his tears; and let him not forsake them, that so our Lord may say to him, Many sins are forgiven him because he loved much. I have known some persons who, in their penance, have disfigured their face with much weeping, who have hollowed their cheeks with continual tears, who have prostrated themselves on the ground to be trod under foot, who, by their continual fasting, have rendered their countenances so pale and disfigured, that they carried in a living body the very image of death.” In the second book, after answering some objections of the Novatians, he shows that penance is false and fruitless without a total change of heart and manners, in which its very essence consists. “There are others,” says he, “who may be immediately restored to communion. These do not so much desire to be loosed, as to bind the priest; for they do not unburden their own conscience, but burden that of the priest, who is commanded not to give holy things to dogs; that is, not easily to admit impure souls’ to communion. I have found more persons who have preserved the innocence of their baptism, than who have done penance as they should do after they have lost it. They must renounce the world, and allow less time for sleep than nature requires; they must break their sleep with groaning and sighing, and employ part of that time in prayers; they must live in such a manner as to be dead to the use of this life: let such men deny themselves, and change themselves wholly,” &c. St. Ambrose exhorts the faithful to very frequent communion, because the holy eucharist is our spiritual bread and daily nourishment, not a poison. In his book, On the Mysteries, composed in 387, he instructs the new baptized, expounding the ceremonies of baptism and confirmation, and the sacrament of the holy eucharist, which he does in the clearest terms.* That this book On the Mysteries, is the undoubted work of our holy doctor is manifest not only from the unanimous consent of authors, but also from the first part of this book itself. After having explained the ancient types of the eucharist, as the sacrifice of Melchisedech, the manna, and the water flowing out of the rock, he adds: “You will say perhaps I see something else: how can I be sure that I receive the body of Christ? Prove that it is not what hath been formed by nature, but what the benediction hath consecrated, and that the benediction is more powerful than nature, because it changes even nature itself.” He urges the example of the rod of Moses changed into a serpent, and several other miracles; and, lastly, the incarnation, which mystery he compares to that of the eucharist. “A virgin,” says he, “brought forth. This is contrary to the order of nature. The body which we consecrate came forth of a virgin: Why do you seek for the order of nature in the body of Jesus Christ, since Jesus Christ was born of a virgin against the order of nature. Jesus Christ had real flesh which was fastened to the cross, and laid in the sepulchre. So the eucharist is the true sacrament of this flesh. Christ himself assures us of it. This is, says he, my body. Before the benediction of these heavenly words it is of another nature, after the consecration it is the body. If man’s benediction has been capable of changing the nature of things, what shall we say of the divine consecration, wherein the very words of our Saviour himself operate? The word of Jesus Christ, which could make that out of nothing which was not, can it not change that which is into what it was not?” &c. The saint recommends to the new believers to keep the mysteries secret. St. Austin, who was baptized by St. Ambrose in 387, must have been present at these discourses which St. Ambrose then made to the Neophytes. St. Ambrose was particularly careful in the choice of his clergy. This appears from several instances which the saint himself relates. One of his friends he would never be prevailed upon to admit among the clergy, on account of some levity in his carriage. Another, who was one of the clergy, he forbade ever to walk before him, on a like account; for he was persuaded that such faults proceed from an irregularity of the mind.58 He forbids the clergy to intermeddle with business or traffic, wishing them to be contented with their small patrimony, or, if they have none, with their salaries.59 In order to regulate the manners of the clergy that they might be the light of the world, he composed, in 386, three books On the Offices of the Ministers; in which, however, he often descends to general precepts of morality adapted to Christians of all denominations.*

One of St. Ambrose’s last actions was the ordination of St. Honoratus bishop of Vercelli. A few days before he fell sick, he foretold his death but said he should live till Easter. Before he took his bed, he continued his usual studies, and expounded the forty-third psalm. While he dictated this exposition, Paulinus, who was his amanuensis, looking up, saw a flame in the form of a small shield covering his head, and by degrees creeping into his mouth; upon which his face became white as snow, though soon after it returned to its usual complexion. “I was so affrighted thereat,” says Paulinus, “that I remained without motion, and could not write what he dictated till the vision was over. He was then repeating a passage of scripture which I well remember; and on that day he left off both writing and reading, so that he could not finish the psalm.” We have this exposition of St. Ambrose upon the forty-third psalm, which ends at the twenty-fifth verse, and nothing is said upon the two last. He must have been already sick, for Paulinus assures us, that when he was well, he never spared the pains of writing his books with his own hand. After having ordained a bishop of Pavia, he was taken so ill that he kept his bed a long time. Upon this news, count Stilico, the guardian and prime minister of Honorius, who governed the western empire, was much troubled, and said publicly, “The day that this great man dies, destruction hangs over Italy.” And, therefore, sending for as many of the nobility and magistrates of the city as he knew had the greatest interest and sway with the bishop, he persuaded them to go to him, and by all means prevail with him to beg of God a longer life. They went, and standing about his bed with tears, entreated him to intercede with heaven for his own life, for the sake of others; to whom he answered, “I have not so behaved myself among you that I should be ashamed to live longer; nor am I afraid to die, because we have a good master.” He lay in a gallery, at the end whereof were four deacons, discoursing together who might succeed him. They spoke so low that they could hardly hear each other. Yet when they named Simplician, the bishop, though at a distance, cried out three times, “He is old, but good.” At which they were so surprised that they hastened out of the place. As St. Ambrose was praying in the same place, he beheld Jesus Christ coming towards him with a smiling countenance. This he told Bassianus, bishop of Lodi, who was praying with him, and from him Paulinus learned it. The saint died a few days after. The day on which he expired, he lay with his hands extended in form of a cross for several hours, moving his lips in constant prayer, though it could not be understood what he said. St. Honoratus, bishop of Vercelli, was there, and being gone into an upper chamber to take a little rest, heard a voice crying three times to him: “Arise, and make haste; for he is going to depart.” He went down, and gave him the body of our Lord, which the saint had no sooner swallowed, but he gave up the ghost.60 St. Ambrose died about midnight before Holy Saturday, the 4th of April, in 397. He was about fifty-seven years old, and had been bishop twenty-two years and four months.61 The common suffrage of all antiquity has ranked him among the four great doctors of the Latin church.* His feast is kept on the 7th of December, the day on which he was ordained bishop; and he is honored on the same not only in the western calendars, but also in those of the oriental church. The body of St. Ambrose reposes in a vault under the high altar, in the Ambrosian basilic at Milan. It was first interred near the relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius. God was pleased to honor him, by manifesting that through his intercession he protected the state against the idolaters. Radagaisus, a king of the Goths, a pagan, threatened the destruction of Christianity, and the ruin of the Roman empire, which he invaded with an army, it is said, of two hundred thousand, others say, four hundred thousand men, about the year 405. He had vowed to sacrifice all the Romans to his gods; and he seems to have been the last instrument which the devil raised, to attempt to re-establish idolatry in the empire. The pagans among the Romans seemed disposed to rebel, and openly imputed these calamities to the establishment of Christianity. But the Romans, commanded by Stilico, obtained a complete victory, without any loss of men, and Radagaisus was taken prisoner, with his two sons, and put to death. Tillemont gives the following relation:62 “Radagaisus besieged Florence. This city was reduced to the utmost straits, when St. Ambrose, who had once retired thither, (and who had now been dead nine years,) appeared to a person of the house where he had lodged, and promised him that the city should be delivered from the enemy on the next day. The man told it to the inhabitants, who took courage, and resumed the hopes which they had quite lost; and on the next day came Stilico with his army. Paulinus, who relates this, learned it from a lady who lived at Florence.” And this proves what St. Paulinus, the bishop of Nola, says: “That God granted the preservation of the Romans to the prayers of St. Peter, St. Paul, and the other martyrs and confessors, who were honored by the church throughout the empire.” Though the forces of the emperor Honorius were too weak to oppose this torrent, a their approach Radagaisus was struck with a sudden pame, and fled, and his scattered troops were taken, and sold like droves of cattle.

St. Ambrose joined together, in the conduct of his life, a wonderful generosity and inflexibility where the divine law was concerned, with all possible prudence and moderation; yet in all his actions tempered the boldnes and authority of a bishop with an air of sweetness and charity. By this he gained all hearts; and his inflexible severity in points of duty appeared amiable and mild, while every one saw that it proceeded wholly from the most tender charity. St. Austin tells us, that in his first interview, when he was a stranger to St. Ambrose, and enslaved to the world and his passions, he was won by him, because he saw in him a good eye, and a kind countenance, the index of his benevolent heart. “I saw a man affectionate and kind to me,” says he. When a friend shows, by his words and behavior that he has sincerely and only our interest at heart, this opens all the avenues of our mind, and strengthens and enforces his admonitions, so that they never fail to make deep impressions. They who speak affectionately and from their hearts, speak powerfully to the hearts of others. This is the property of true charity, the most essential qualification of a minister of Christ, who is dead to the world and himself, and seeks no interest but that of Christ and his neighbor in the salvation of souls.

DECEMBER 7 — ST. FARA, V., ABBESS

Agneric, one of the principal officers of the court of Theodebert II., king of Austrasia, had, by his wife Leodegonda, four children; St. Cagnoald, who took the monastic habit under St. Columban, at Luxeu, about the year 594; St. Faro, who became bishop of Meaux; St. Fara,* and Agnetrudis. In 610, St. Columban being banished from Luxeu, in his flight lodged at the house of Agneric, called Pipimisium, two leagues from Meaux, the present Aupigny, according to Mabillon, or Champigny, according to Du Plessis. St. Cagnoald, who accompanied this abbot in his exile into Switzerland, probably introduced him to his father, and St. Columban gave his blessing to all the family; and when he came to Fara, consecrated her to God in a particular manner. Jonas says she was then in her infancy; Baillet supposes her then fifteen; Du Plessis only ten. When she had attained the age of puberty, her father proposed to her an honorable match. The holy virgin did every thing that lay in her power to prevent it, and fell into a lingering sickness, which brought her life in danger. St. Eustasius, St. Columban’s successor, when that holy man went to Bobio in Italy, made a journey thither, by order of Clotaire II., in order to persuade him to return, taking with him St. Cagnoald, who had returned to Luxeu when St. Columban left Switzerland. St. Eustasius, after he came back, repaired to the court of Clotaire II., to give him an account of his embassy, and in his way lodged at Agneric’s. Fara discovered to him her earnest desire of consecrating her virginity to her heavenly spouse. The holy man told her father, that God had visited her with a dangerous illness, which threatened certain death, only because he opposed her pious inclinations, and after praying some time prostrate on the ground, he arose, and made the sign of the cross upon her eyes; whereupon she was forthwith restored to her health. The saint recommended her to her mother, that she might be prepared to receive the veil at the time he should come back from court. No sooner was he gone out of doors, but Agneric began to persecute his daughter, in order to extort her consent to marry the young nobleman to whom he had promised her. Fara fled to the church; and when she was told that, unless she complied with her father’s desire, she would be murdered, she resolutely answered: “Do you think I am afraid of death? To lose my life for the sake of virtue, and fidelity to the promise I have made to God, would be a great happiness.” St. Eustasius speedily returned, and easily reconciled her father to her, and engaged Gondoald, bishop of Meaux, to give her the religious veil. This happened in the year 614. The foundation of the famous monastery of Faremoutier, is dated a year or two after this, Agneric having given his pious daughter a competent portion of land, and raised a building proper for this purpose. The abbey was originally called Brige, from the Celtic word which signifies a bridge. Du Plessis supposes that there was then, as there is at present, a bridge over the river at the confluence of the Aubetin and the Great Morin. Hence the neighboring forest now called the Forest of Faremoutier, took that name.* The Latin name Eboriacas or Evoriacas, which in the seventh age was given to this monastery, seems to have been derived from the Celtic; and from this monastery and forest, a district of the country on the south of the Marne took the same name, and is now called Brie.1 This monastery was founded double, and St. Eustasius sent thither from Luxeu St. Cagnoald, who, in 620, was made bishop of Laon, and St. Walbert, who, being born of an illustrious family in Ponthieu, and having served some time in the army, had retired to Luxeu. He afterwards succeeded St. Eustasius in that abbacy, in 625. Jonas was also a monk at Faremoutier, soon after the foundation of that house, and an eye-witness to the eminent virtues of the holy persons who inhabited it, and of which he has left us an edifying account.

St. Fara, though very young, was appointed abbess of the nunnery, and, assisted with the councils of St. Cagnoald and St. Walbert, settled there the rule of St. Columban, in its greatest severity. We find that the use of wine was there forbid, and also that of milk, at least in Lent and Advent, and the religious made three confessions a-day, as is mentioned in the life of St. Fara; that is, thrice every day they made a strict examination of their consciences, and made a confession or manifestation of what passed in their souls to their superior. This practice of rigorous self-examination and confession or manifestation is most strenuously recommended and ordered in all the ancient rules of a monastic life,2 as a most important and useful means of attaining purity of heart, a perfect government of the affections, an habitual Christian watchfulness, and true perfection. Under the direction of guides perfectly disengaged from all earthly things, and enlightened in the paths of virtue, many heroic souls at the same time filled this monastery and all France with the odor of their sanctity. Among these, several are honored in the calendars of the saints, as St. Sisetrudis, St. Gibitrudis, St. Hercantrudis,3 and others. From the life of St. Gibitrudis, it appears that in this monastery it was customary to say a trental of masses for every one that died in the house during thirty days after their decease St. Fara was the directress of so many saints, and walked at their head in the perfect observance of all the rules which she prescribed to others. Her younger brother, St. Faro, was so moved by her heavenly discourses one day when he came to pay her a visit, that he resigned the great offices which he held at court, persuaded a young lady to whom he had promised marriage to become a nun, and took the clerical tonsure. In 626, he succeeded Gondoald in the episcopal chair of Meaux, died in 672, and was buried in the monastery of the Holy Cross, which he founded, and which bears his name. His protection and holy counsels were a support and comfort to St. Fara, under the assaults which she had to sustain. Agrestes, a tarbulent monk, pretending to correct the rule of St. Columban in several points, drew over St. Romaric, founder of the abbey of Remiremont, and St. Amatus, first abbot of that house: though they afterwards discovered the snare, and repented of their fault. St. Fara was upon her guard, and constantly opposed all attempts to undermine the severity of the holy rule which she had professed. Ega, mayor of the palace of Clovis II., raised a trouble some persecution against her, which she bore with patience and constancy to his death, in 641. On the other side, the reputation of her virtue reached the remotest parts. Several English princesses crossed the seas, to sacrifice at the foot of the altars the pomp and riches which waited for them on thrones. The glittering splendor of the purple and courts appeared in their eyes an empty seducing phantom: they trampled it under their feet, and preferred the humility of a cloister to worldly greatness.

Sedrido, the first of these princesses, was daughter of Hereswith, whose father, Hereric, was brother to St. Edwin, the glorious king of the Northumbers. St. Hereswith had her by a first husband, whose name has not reached us. Her second husband was Annas, king of the East-Angles, with whose consent she renounced the world, and died a nun at Chelles. Her daughter Sedrido passed into France in 644 or 646, about two years after Annas, her father-in-law, had ascended the throne, and embracing the humble state of a crucified life at Faremoutier, served God with joy, in sackcloth and ashes, in the heroic practice of all Christian virtues. Though a stranger, she was chosen to succeed St. Fara, and governed this flourishing colony of saints from 655 till her happy death. Her mother Hereswith, her sister Edelburge, (daughter of Hereswith and king Annas,) and her niece Erkengota, daughter of her sister Sexburga, and of Ercombert, king of Kent, passed at the same time into France, hoping in this exile more perfectly to forget and be forgotten by the world, which they renounced St. Edelburge, called by the French St. Aubierge, is called by Bede4 the natural daughter of Annas; whence many have inferred that she was illegitimate. But the word natural child seems never to have been anciently taken in that sense, but in opposition to an adoptive child.5 It is at least visible that Bede here uses it to distinguish her birth from that of Sedrido, who was only step-daughter to Annas.6 St. Edelburge was chosen third abbess of Faremoutier, upon the death of Sedrido, and is honored among the saints in the diocese of Meaux, on the 7th of July. An ancient chapel in her honor, which stands not far from the abbey, was rebuilt in 1714. A spring which is near it is esteemed a holy well; and many drink at it out of devotion. It was beautified and adorned at the expense of certain English gentlemen, who resided in that country in 1718. St. Erkengota, called by the French Artongate, died a private nun at Faremoutier, and is honored with an office in the diocese of Meaux on the 23d of February.7 Some Benedictin writers add to these St. Hildelide, a nun of Faremoutier, who was also an English princess; and was the assistant of St. Edelburge in the foundation of the great nunnery of Barking. The primitive spirit of the religious state which was established by these glorious saints, was long maintained in this monastery of Faremoutier.* St. Fara, after having been purified by a painful lingering sickness, and made worthy of the crown of eternal glory, was called to receive it on the 3d of April, about the year 655.8 By her last will she gave part of her estates to her brothers and sister, but the principal part to her monastery; and in these latter, mentions her lands at Champeaux.9 It therefore seems a mistake in some critics that she founded there another monastery. A conventual priory seems to have been afterwards erected there by the monastery of Faremoutier I has been since converted into a collegiate church of canons, and is situate in the diocese of Paris. The relics of St. Fara were enshrined in 695, and a great number of miracles has been wrought through her intercession.

Dame Charlotte le Bret, daughter to the first president and treasurer-general of the finances in the gnralit or district of Paris, who was born in 1595, lost her left eye at seven years of age, was received a nun at Faremoutier in 1609, and in 1617 lost her right eye, and became quite blind. She went twice out of her monastery to consult the most famous oculists at Paris, who unanimously agreed that an essential part of the organ of her eyes was destroyed, and her sight irrecoverably lost; and, to remove the pain which she frequently felt, they by remedies extinguished all feeling in the eyeballs and adjacent nerves, insomuch that she could not feel the application of vinegar, salt, or the strongest aromatic; and if ever she wept, she only perceived it by feeling the tears trickle down her cheeks. Four years after this, in 1622, the relics of St. Fara being taken out of the shrine, she kissed one of the bones, and then applied it to both her eyes. She immediately felt a pain in them, though they had been four years and a half without sensation, and the lids had been immoveably closed; and she had scarce removed the relics from her eyes, but a humor distilled from them. She cried out, begging that the relics might be applied a second and a third time; which being done, at the third touch she cried out, that she saw. In that instant her sight was perfectly restored to her, and she distinguished all the objects about her. Then, prostrate on the ground, she gave thanks to the author of her recovery, and the whole assembly joined their voices in glorifying God.10 The certificates and affidavits of the surgeons and physicians who had treated her, and the affidavits of the eye-witnesses of the fact were juridically taken by the bishop of Meaux, (John de Vieupont,) who, by a judicial sentence, given on the 9th of December, 1622, declared that the cure of the said blindness was the miraculous work of God. The abbess, Frances de la Chastre, and the community of nuns signed and published a certificate to the like purport; in which they also mention the miraculous cures of two other nuns, the one of a palsy, the other of a rheumatism.11 Other miracles performed through her intercession are recorded by Carcat12 and Du Plessis, who appeal to memoirs of the abbey, drawn up in an authentic manner, &c. The name of St. Fara is exceedingly honored in France, Sicily, Italy, &c. See the life of St. Burgundofara ascribed to Bede, but really the work of Jonas, of whom some account is given at note under the life of St. Columban, on the 21st of November; he wrote at Faremoutier the lives of St. Columban and his successors, St. Attalus and Bertulfus at Bobio, St. Eustatius at Luxeu, and St. Fara. See also Du Plessis Hist. de l’Eglise de Meaux, t. 1,1. 1, n. 21, &c., t. 2, p. 1.

DECEMBER 8 — THE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

So great are the advantages we reap from the incarnation of the Son of God, and so incomprehensible is the goodness which he hath displayed in this wonderful mystery, that to contemplate it, and to thank and praise him for the same, ought to be the primary object of all our devotions, and the employment of our whole lives. In the feast of the Conception of the immaculate Virgin Mother of God we celebrate the joyful dawning of that bright day of mercy, the first appearance which that most glorious of all pure creatures made in the world, with those first seeds of grace which produced the most admirable fruit in her soul. Her conception was itself a glorious mystery, a great grace, and the first effect of her predestination. Her Divine Son, the eternal God, in the first moment of her being, considered the sublime dignity to which he had decreed to raise her, and remembered that august, dear, sacred, and venerable name of his mother, which she was one day to bear; and he beheld her with a complacency, and distinguished her in a manner, suitable to so near a relation she was to bear. He called her not his servant in whom he gloried, as he did Israe1,1 but his mother, whom for the sake of his own glory he decreed exceedingly to exalt in grace and glory. From that instant the eternal Word of God, which was to take flesh of her, looked upon it as particularly incumbent on him, in the view of his future incarnation, to sanctify this virgin, to enrich her with his choicest gifts, and to heap upon her the most singular favors with a profusion worthy his omnipotence. She could say with much greater reason than Isaiah:2 The Lord hath called me from the womb: from the bowels of my mother he hath been mindful of my name. From that very moment he prepared her to be his most holy tabernacle. When Almighty God commanded a temple to be built to his honor in Jerusalem, what preparations did he not ordain! What purity did he not require in the things that belonged to that work, even in the persons and materials that were employed in it! David, though a great saint, was excepted against by God, because he had been stained with blood spilled in just wars. Again, what purifications, consecrations, rites, and ceremonies did he not order to sanctify all the parts of the building! This for a material temple, in which the ark was to be placed, and men were to offer their homages and sacrifices to his adorable Majesty. What then did he not do for Mary in spiritually decking her, whose chaste womb was to be his living tabernacle, from whose pure flesh he was to derive his own most holy body, and of whom he would himself be born! So tender a mercy was this great work to him, that the church, in her most earnest daily supplications, conjures him, as by a most endearing motive, that he will be pleased to hear her prayers, and enrich her children with his special graces, by his effusion and liberality towards her, when he most wonderfully prepared and fitted both her body and soul, that she might be made a worthy dwelling for himself.

The first condition in the spiritual embellishing of a soul is perfect purity, or cleanness from whatever can be a blot or stain in her. A skilful statuary is careful, in the first place, that there be no irregularity or deformity in the piece which he is going to carve. And if a house is to be put in order and adorned, to receive some guest of great distinction, the first thing is to remove all filth, and whatever is offensive. Almighty God therefore was pleased to preserve this holy Virgin from contracting any stain of sin whether original or actual. Without the privilege of an extraordinary grace the greatest saints daily fall into venial sins of surprise and inadvertence through a neglect of a universal watchfulness over all the secret motions of their hearts in the course of action. But Mary was distinguished by this rare privilege, and by the succor of an extraordinary grace was so strengthened, that her interior beauty was never sullied with the least spot, and charity or the divine love never suffered the least remission or abatement in her soul; but from the moment in which she attained the use of reason, increased, and she continually pressed forward with fresh ardor towards the attainment of higher perfection in virtue and holiness. Her exemption from original sin was yet a more extraordinary privilege of grace. It is an undoubted truth, in which all divines are agreed, that she was sanctified and freed from original sin before she was born, and that she was brought forth into this world in a state of perfect sanctity. Some have thought it more consonant to the sacred oracles that she was thus sanctified only after her conception, and after the union of the rational soul with the body. But it is the most generally received belief, though not defined as an article of faith, that in her very conception she was immaculate. Many prelates, and a great number of Catholic universities,3 have declared themselves in strong terms in favor of this doctrine; and several popes have severely forbidden any one to impugn the same, or to dispute or write against it. Nevertheless, it is forbid to rank it among articles of faith defined by the church, or to censure those who privately hold the contrary. It is needless here to produce the passages of holy scripture usually alleged by theologians, and other proofs by which this assertion is confirmed. It is sufficient for us, who desire, as dutiful sons of the church, to follow, in all such points, her direction, that she manifestly favors this opinion, which is founded in the clear testimonies of the most illustrious among the fathers, in the decrees of several particular councils, and the suffrages of most learned and eminent masters of the theological schools.* The very respect which we owe to the Mother of God, and the honor which is due to her divine Sor, incline us to believe this privilege most suitable to her state of spotless sanctity. To have been one moment infected with sin was not agreeable to the undefiled purity of her who was chosen to be ever holy, that she might be worthy to bring forth the author of sanctity. Had she ever been in sin, notwithstanding the advantages of her other privileges and graces, and her predestination to the sublime dignity of Mother of God, she would have been for that moment before she was cleansed, the object of his indignation and just hatred. St. Austin thought this reason sufficient for exempting her, whenever mention is made of sin. “Out of reverence,” says he, “and for the honor which is due to her Son, I will have no question put about her when we speak of any sin.”4 Christ was no less her Redeemer, Reconciler, and most perfect Saviour and Benefactor, by preserving her from this stain, than he would have been by cleansing her from it; as by descending from Adam she was liable to this debt, and would have contracted the contagion, had she not been preserved from it through the grace and merits of her Son.

To understand how great a grace, and how singular a prerogative this total exemption from all sin was in Mary, we may take a survey of the havoc that monster made among men from the beginning of the world, excepting Mary. The most holy among the saints all received their existence in sin; they were all obliged to say with St. Paul: We were the children of wrath, even as the rest.5 The fall of our first father, Adam, involved all mankind in guilt and misery. From that time, for the space of four thousand years, sin reigned without control on every side By its dire effects the greatest part of the world was plunged into the most frightful state of spiritual darkness and blindness. Even the sons of light were born under its slavery; Abraham, Moses, Elias, Jeremy, Job, and all the other saints confessed with David: Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sin my mother conceived me.6 Sin was become a universal leprosy, a contagion which no one could escape; an evil common to all mankind, and infecting every particular individual that descended from Adam, as his own inherent guilt; something accidental, and foreign to our nature, yet so general an attendant upon it, that it might almost seem a constituent part thereof. It was communicated with the flesh and blood which men received from their parents, and from their first father, Adam. Every child contracted this infection with the first principle of life. Mary, by a singular privilege, was exempted from it, and entered a world of sin, spotless and holy. Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array!7 These words we may understand as spoken by the angels at the first glorious appearance of the Mother of God, astonished to behold her, after the dismal night of darkness and sin, as the morning rising, beautiful as the moon, shining as the sun, decked with the orightest ornaments of grace, and terrible to all the powers of hell, as the face of an army drawn up in battalia, displaying her beams on the horizon of the earth, which had been hitherto covered with the hideous deformity of sin. What a glorious spectacle, what a subject of joy was it to the heavenly spirits to see the empire of sin broken, and a descendant of Adam come forth free from the general contagion of his race, making her appearance pure, holy, and beautiful, richly adorned with the most precious gifts of grace, and outshining the highest angels and cherubim! Shall we refuse to her our admiration and praises? Shall we not offer to God our best homages in thanksgiving for such a mercy, and for so great a present which he has bestowed on the world in Mary?

The grace which exempted Mary from original sin, preserved her also from the sting of concupiscence, or inordinate love of creatures, and tendency to evil. The first sin of Adam brought on us a deluge of evils, and by the two wounds of ignorance and concupiscence which it has left in us, its malignity has spread its influence over all the powers of our souls Through it our understanding is liable to be deceived, and to be led away with errors: our will is abandoned to the assaults of the basest passions: our senses are become inlets of dangerous suggestions: we are subjected to spiritual weakness, inconstancy, and vanity, and are tyrannized over by inordinate appetites. Hence proceeds in us a difficulty in doing good, a repugnance to our duties, a proneness to evil, the poisoned charm of vice, and the intestine war of the flesh against the spirit. All this we experience and groan under; yet, under the weight of such miseries, by a much greater evil, we are blind, proud, and insensible. The excess of our misery is, that though it be extreme, we do not sufficiently deplore it, humble ourselves under it, and labor by watchfulness, mortification, and prayer, to acquire strength against our dangers. Mary employed earnestly these arms during the course of her life, though free from this inward proneness to evil and from the fomes peccati or dangerous sting of concupiscence, which we inherit with original sin, and which remains after baptism, for the exercise of our virtue and fidelity. We court our dangers, indulge and fortify our enemies, and caress and adore those idols which we are bound to destroy To procure for ourselves some part in the blessing which Mary enjoyed, in the empire over our passions, we must check them, restrain our senses, and die to ourselves. We must never cease sighing to God, to implore his aid against this domestic enemy, and never enter into any truce with him. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.8 If our weakness and dangers call for our tears, we have still much greater reason to weep for our guilt and repeated transgressions. Whereas grace in Mary triumphed even over original sin; we, on the contrary, even after baptism and penance, by which we were cleansed from sin, return to it again, increase our hereditary weakness and miseries: and, what is of all things most grievous, infinitely aggravate our guilt by daily offences. Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes?9 O Mother of Mercy, let your happy privilege, your exemption from all sin and concupiscence, inspire you with pity for our miseries: and by your spotless purity and abundant graces, obtain for us strength against all our dangers, the deliverance from all our miseries, and the most powerful remedies of divine grace. Thus, from this mystery, we are to draw lessons of confusion and instruction for ourselves.

Mary, in her conception, was not only free from stain, but moreover was adorned with the most precious graces, so as to appear beautiful and glorious in the eyes of God. And the grace she then received was the seed of the great virtues which she exercised, and the higher graces to which, by the improvement of her first stock, she was afterwards raised, during the whole course of her mortal life By the first graces she was free from all inclination to accursed pride, and from all inordinate self-love, and remained always perfectly empty of herself. This disposition she expressed when honored with the highest graces, and exalted to the most sublime and wonderful spiritual dignity; under which, sinking lower in her own abyss of weakness and nothingness, she sincerely and purely gave all glory to him. She confessed aloud that he chose her not for any merit, or any thing he saw in her, but because he would signalize his omnipotence by choosing the weakest and meanest instrument, and because he saw in her the nothingness in which he most fitly exerted and manifested his infinite power and greatness. By a lurking pride we obstruct the designs of the divine mercy in our favor. The vessel of our heart cannot receive the plentiful effusion of divine grace so long as it is filled with the poison of self-love. The more perfectly it is cleansed and empty, the more is it fitted to receive. As the prophet called for vessels that were empty, that they might be filled with miraculous oil; so must we present to God hearts that are perfectly empty, when we pray that he replenish them with his grace. The exercise of humility, meekness, patience, resignation, obedience, self-denial, rigorous self-examination, compunction, and penance begin the work: but prayer and divine love perfect the cleansing of the fountain from which they spring. Thus are we to attain that purity of heart and affections by which we shall bear some degree of resemblance to the holy Mother of God. This grace we ought earnestly to beg of God, through her intercession, and particularly to commend to him, through her, the preservation of the holy virtue of purity. The venerable and pious John of Avila gives this advice in the following words: “I have particularly seen much profit received through her means, by persons molested with temptations of the flesh, who recited some prayer in memory of her spotless conception, and of that virginal purity with which she conceived the Son of God.”

The Immaculate Conception of the holy Mother of God was not only in itself a great and glorious mystery, but likewise joyful to mankind. Certain glimmerings of the benefit of our Redemption had gone before from the fall of Adam in several revelations, types, and figures; in which the distant prospect of this wonderful mercy filled the patriarchs and other saints of the old law with comfort and holy joy. But the Conception of Mary displayed the first rays of its approaching light, and may be said to have been its rising morning, or the dawning of its day.* In this mystery she appeared pure and glorious, shining among the daughters of Adam as a lily among thorns.10 To her from the moment of her Conception God said: Thou art all beautiful, my love, and there is no spot in thee.11 She was the enclosed garden, which the serpent could never enter; and the sealed fountain which he never defiled.12 She was the Throne and the Tabernacle of the true Solomon, and the Ark of the Testament to contain, not corruptible manna, but the Author of the incorruptible life of our souls. Saluting her with these epithets, in exultation and praise, let us sing with the church: “This is the Conception of the glorious Virgin Mary, of the seed of Abraham, sprung from the tribe of Juda, illustrious of the house of David whose life, by its brightness, illustrates all churches.”

DECEMBER 8 — ST. ROMARIC, ABBOT

Renouncing the court of Clotaire II., in which he enjoyed the highest honors and dignities, he sold great part of his estates for the benefit of the poor; and, with the residue, founded two monasteries, one for men, the other for women, at the foot of mount Vosge, now in Lorraine. He took the monastic habit at Luxeu, and procured St. Amatus, a monk of that house, to be appointed first abbot at Remiremont, which was the name of the monastery which he had built. He spent several years under his direction in the same house, to which he removed. Upon the death of St. Amatus he was compelled to take upon him the government of that abbey. The world from which he fled, he viewed at a distance with a pious dread, and in his sanctuary enjoyed that peace which heaven alone can give. The example of his life, and the severity which he used towards himself, were alone a censure of the slothful. Charity, sweetness, and humility formed the character of his virtue. Having made it his chief study, during the twenty-six years of his abbacy, to learn to die, he joyfully received the last summons, and departed from this life to a better in 653. His name is inserted in the Gallican and Roman Martyrologies. See his life written by a disciple, and Bulteau.

DECEMBER 9 — ST. LEOCADIA, VIRGIN, MARTYR

A. D. 304.

THE name of St. Leocadia is highly reverenced in Spain. This holy virgin was a native of Toledo, and was apprehended by an order of Dacian, the cruel governor under Dioclesian, in 304. Her constancy was tried by torments, and she died in prison. For, hearing of the martyrdom of St. Eulalia, she prayed that God would not prolong her exile, but unite her speedily with her holy friend in his glory; in which prayer she happily expired in prison. Three famous churches in Toledo bear her name, and she is honored as principal patroness of that city. In one of those churches most of the councils of Toledo were held; in the fourth of these she is honorably mentioned. Her relics were kept in that church with great respect, till, in the incursions of the Moors, they were conveyed to Oviedo, and some years afterwards to the abbey of St. Guislain, near Mons in Haynault. By the procurement of king Philip II., they were translated back to Toledo with great pomp, that king, his son prince Philip, his daughter Elizabeth, and the empress Mary his sister, being present at their solemn reception in the great church there on the 26th of April, 1589.

St. Leocadia, being called to the trial, exerted all heroic Christian virtues because she had made her whole life an apprenticeship of them, and their practice had been familiar to here. Some people say it was easy for Christians to be totally disengaged from the world, and to give themselves up to prayer and penance when they are daily and hourly expected to be called upon to lay down their lives for Christ. But were we not blinded by the world, and if the enchantment of its follies, the near prospect of eternity, the uncertainty of the hour of our death, and the repeated precepts of Christ were equally the subjects of our meditation, these motives would produce in us the same fervent dispositions which they did in the primitive Christians. How much soever men nowadays are strangers to these gospel truths, for want of giving themselves leisure to consider them, Christians are bound to be to tally disentangled from worldly affections in order to unite their hearts closely to God, that they may receive the abundant graces and favors which he communicates to souls which open themselves to him. They are bound to renounce sensuality, and the disorders and vanities of the world, and to be animated with a spirit of meekness, peace, patience, charity, and affectionate good-will towards all men, zeal, piety, and devotion. They are bound to be prepared in the disposition of their hearts to leave all things, and to suffer all things for his love.

DECEMBER 9 — THE SEVEN MARTYRS AT SAMOSATA

In the year 297 the emperor Maximian, returning victorious from the defeat of the Persian army, celebrated the quinquennial games at Samosata, the capital of Syria Comagene, upon the banks of the Euphrates. On this occasion he commanded all the inhabitants to repair to the temple of fortune, situate in the middle of the city, to assist at the solemn supplications and sacrifices which were there to be made to the gods. The whole town echoed with the sound of trumpets, and was infected with the smell of victims and incense. Hipparchus and Philotheus, persons for birth and fortune of the first rank in the city, had some time before embraced the Christian faith. In a secret closet in the house of Hipparchus, upon the eastern wall, they had made an image of the cross, before which, with their faces turned to the east, they adored the Lord Jesus Christ seven times a-day. Five intimate friends, much younger in years, named James, Paragrus, Habibus, Romanus, and Lollianus, coming to visit them at the ninth hour, or three in the afternoon, found them in this private chamber praying before the cross, and asked them why they were in mourning, and prayed at home, at a time when, by the emperor’s orders, all the gods of the whole city had been transported into the temple of fortune, and all persons were commanded to assemble there to pray. They answered, that they adored the Maker of the world. James said: “Do you take that cross for the maker of the world? For I see it is adored by you.” Hipparchus answered: “Him we adore who hung upon the cross. Him we confess to be God, and the Son of God begotten, not made, co-essential with the Father, by whose deity we believe this whole world is created, preserved, and governed. It is now the third year since we were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by James, a priest of the true faith, who since has never intermitted from time to time to give us the Body and Blood of Christ. We therefore think it unlawful for us during these three days to stir out of doors: for we abhor the smell of victims with which the whole city is infected.” After much discourse together the five young noblemen declared they desired to be baptized, but feared the severity of the laws, saying these two were protected by their dignities in the magistracy and their favor at court; but that as for themselves they were young and without protection. Hipparchus and Philotheus said, “The earthen vessel or brick is but dirt till it be tempered with clay and has passed the fire.” And they discoursed so well on martyrdom, and on the contempt for the world, which faith inspireth, that the five young men desired to be baptized, and to bear the badge of Christ, confessing that when they first saw their two friends at prayer before the cross, they felt an unusual fire glowing within their breasts. Hipparchus and Philotheus at first advised them to defer their baptism, but at length, pleased with their ardor, they dispatched a messenger to the priest James, with a letter sealed with their own seal, the contents of which were as follows: “Be pleased to come to us as soon as possible, and bring with you a vessel of water, an host, and a horn of oil for anointing. Your presence is earnestly desired by certain tender sheep which are come over to our fold, and are impatient that its mark be set upon them.” James forthwith covered the sacred utensils with his cloak, and coming to the house found the seven blessed men on their knees at prayer. Saluting them he said: “Peace be with you, servants of Jesus Christ who was crucified for his cretures.” They all arose, and James, Paragrus, Habibus, Romanus, and Lollianus fell at his feet and said: “Have pity on us, and give us the mark of Christ, whom you adore.” He asked them if they were ready to suffer tribulation and torments for Christ, who suffered first for them. They answered with one voice, that nothing should ever be able to separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. He then bade them join him in prayer. When they had prayed together on their knees for the space of an hour, the priest rose up, and saluting them said, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” When they had made a confession of their faith, and abjured idolatry, he baptized them, and immediately gave them the Body and Blood of Christ. This being done, he took up the sacred utensils, and covering them with his cloak made haste home, fearing lest the pagans should discover them together; for the priest was an old man in a mean ragged garment; and Hipparchus and Philotheus were men of the first rank, and enjoyed posts of great honor, and the other five were illustrious for their birth.

On the third day of the festival, the emperor inquired whether none among the magistrates contemned the gods, and whether they had all performed the duty of sacrificing on this public occasion. He was answered, that Hipparchus and Philotheus had for three years past constantly absented themselves from the public worship of the gods. Hereupon the emperor gave orders that they should be conducted to the temple of fortune, and compelled to offer sacrifice. The messengers coming to the house of Hipparchus, found the seven above-mentioned assembled together; but at first apprehended only Hipparchus and Philotheus. The emperor asked them why they contemned both him and the immortal gods? Hipparchus said: “I blush to hear wood and stones called gods.” The emperor commanded that he should receive fifty stripes, with whips loaded with leaden plummets, on the back, and then be confined in a dark dungeon. Philotheus being presented before him, the emperor promised to make him prtor, and to bestow on him other preferments if he complied. The confessor replied, that honors upon such terms would be an ignominy, and that he esteemed disgrace suffered for Christ the greatest of all honors. He then began to explain the creation of the world, and spoke with great eloquence. The emperor interrupted him, saying, he saw that he was a man of learning, and that he would not put him to the torture, hoping that his own reason would convince him of his errors. But he gave orders that he should be put in irons, and confined in a separate dungeon from that in which Hipparchus was detained. In the mean time an order was sent to seize the other five that were found with them. The emperor put them in mind that they were in the flower of their age, and exhorted them not to despise the blessings of life. They answered, that faith in Christ is preferable to life, adding, that no treacherous artifices should draw them from their duty to God: “Especially,” said they, “as we carry in our bodies the Body and Blood of Christ. Our bodies are consecrated by the touch of his Body: nor ought bodies which have been made holy, to be prostituted, by offering an outrageous affront to the dignity to which they have been raised.” The emperor entreated them to have pity on heir youth, and not throw away their lives, swearing by the gods, that if they persisted in their obstinacy, they should be unmercifully beaten, and should miserably perish. He repeated, that they should be crucified like their master. Their answer was, that they were not affrighted with torments. The emperor ordered that they should be chained, and kept in separate dungeons, without meat or drink, till the festival should be over.

The solemnity, which was celebrated for several days in honor of the gods, being concluded, the emperor caused a tribunal to be erected without the walls of the city, in a meadow near the banks of the Euphrates, and the fields thereabouts were covered with rich hangings like tents. Maximian having taken his seat, by his order the confessors were brought before him. The two old magistrates were first led by chains thrown about their necks: the other five followed them, all having their hands tied behind their backs. Upon their peremptory refusal to offer sacrifice, they were all stretched upon the rack, and each received twenty stripes upon his back and was then scourged with thongs upon the breast and belly. This being done, they were carried back each to his own dungeon, with strict orders that no one should be allowed to see them, or send them any thing to comfort or support them, and that they should be furnished by their keepers with just so much coarse bread as would keep them alive. In this condition they lay from the 15th of April to the 25th of June. Then they were again brought before the emperor, but looked more like carcasses than living men. He told them, that if they would comply, he would cause their hair to be shorn, and would have them washed in the bath, carried to the palace, and re-established in their dignities. They all prayed that he would not seek to draw them from the way which Jesus Christ had opened to them. The emperor, whose eyes sparkled with fury, upon hearing this answer, said: “Wretches, you seek death. Your desire is granted, that you may at length cease to insult the gods.” He then commanded that cords should be put across their mouths, and bound round them, and that they should be crucified. The cords were immediately put in their mouths, and fastened tight about their bodies, so that they could only mutter broken words, and not speak distinctly. In this condition, however, they returned thanks to God, and encouraged one another, rejoicing that they were leaving this miserable world, to go to God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. They were immediately hurried towards the tetradian, the common place of execution, at some distance from the city, and were followed by a long train of relations, friends, servants, and others, who filled the fields in the way, and rent the air with their lamentations. In the mean time the lords of that territory, Tiberianus, Gallus, Longinianus, Felicianus, Proclus Cosmianus, Mascolianus, and Priscus, to whom, by an imperial writ, the government of the city was committed, waited on the emperor in a body, and represented to him that a great multitude of citizens followed the prisoners all in tears, grieved to see seven princes of their country led chained to a cruel and ignominious death; they alleged that Hipparchus and Philotheus were their colleagues in the magistracy, who ought to settle their accounts, and the public affairs which had been left in their hands; that the other five were senators of their city, who ought to be allowed at least to make their wills; they therefore begged that some respite might be granted them. The emperor readily assented, and gave order that the martyrs should be put into the hands of these magistrates for the aforesaid purposes The magistrates led them into the porch of the circus, and having taken the cords from their mouths, privately said to them: “We obtained this liberty under pretence of settling with you the public accounts, and civil affairs; but in reality to have the favor of speaking to you in private, begging your intercession with God, for whom you die, and desiring your blessing for this city and ourselves” The martyrs gave their blessing, and harangued the people that were assembled. The emperor was informed, and sent a reprimand to the magistrates for suffering the martyrs to speak to the people. Their excuse was, that they durst not forbid it for fear of a tumult.

The emperor ascending his tribunal, would again see the martyrs; but found their resolution unshaken. He therefore ordered seven crosses to be erected over-against the gate of the city, and again conjured Hipparchus to obey. The venerable old man, laying his hand upon his bald head, said: “As this, according to the course of nature, cannot be again covered with hair; so never shall I change or conform to your will in this point.” Maximian commanded a goat’s skin to be fastened with sharp nails upon his head; then jeering, said: “See, your bald pate is now covered with hair: sacrifice, therefore, according to the terms of your own condition.” The martyrs were hoisted on their crosses; and at noon several ladies came out of the city, and having bribed the guards with money, obtained leave to wipe the faces of the martyrs, and to receive their blood with sponges and linen cloths. Hipparchus died on the cross in a short time. James, Romanus, and Lollianus expired the next day, being stabbed by the sol hers while they hung on their crosses. Philotheus, Habibus, and Paragrus were taken down from their crosses while they were living. The emperor being informed that they were yet alive, commanded huge nails to be driven into their heads. This was executed with such cruelty that their brains were thrust out through their noses and mouths. Maximian ordered that their bodies should be dragged by the feet, and thrown into the Euphrates. But Bassus, a rich Christian, redeemed them privately of the guards for seven hundred denarij, and buried them in the night at his farm in the country. The Acts of their martyrdom were compiled by a priest, who says he was present in a mean garb when the holy martyrs gave their blessing to the citizens. See these authentic acts, written by the priest who was eye-witness to their sufferings, published in Chaldaic by Steph. Assemani, Act. Mart. t. 2, p. 123.

DECEMBER 9 — ST. WULFHILDE, V. ABBESS

This noble lady learned from her infancy to despise all earthly things, and to love and esteem only those which are heavenly; and was placed young by her parents in the monastery of Winchester. King Edward became enamored of her; but she rejected his great offers, entreaties, ensnaring presents, and messages, knowing that virtue is not to be secured but by watching against the most distant sight, and the most subtle and disguised approaches of an enemy. An aunt of the virgin suffered herself to be gained by the king, and feigning herself sick, sent for Wulfhilde out of her monastery to come to her. The virgin was scarce arrived at her house but the king came upon her, hoping to overcome her resolution; but alarmed beyond measure at the danger, she violently broke out of the house, leaving part of her sleeve in the hands of the king, who attempted to hold her, and running to the church, held the altar, imploring the divine protection with many tears. It had long been her desire to consecrate herself to her heavenly spouse in a religious state. The horror and dread of the danger to which her soul had been exposed in this temptation, was a spur to her in the pursuit of virtue, and she completed the entire sacrifice of herself to God, with the fervor of a saint. The king was overcome by her constancy, and afterwards nominated her abbess of Barking, on which house he bestowed many fair possessions. Wulfhilde settled upon it twenty villages of her own patrimony; and founded another monastery at Horton, in Dorsetshire. Both these houses she governed with great sanctity and prudence, lived in great austerity, and was a model of charity, devotion, meekness, and humility. Her inflexible virtue excited the jealousy of queen Elflede, by whom she was ejected out of her monasteries. But she was restored with honor, and died about the year 990, in the reign of Etheldred II. Many miracles were wrought at her tomb, as William of Malmesbury and others assure us. St. Edilburge, St. Wulfhilde, and St. Hildelide were much honoured by our English ancestors, and their relics esteemed the greatest treasure of the abbey of Barking; in which St. Erkonwald, the founder, made his sister St. Edilburge, the first abbess, but gave her St. Hildelide for her assistant, whom he called over from France, where she had made her religious profession, though an English lady by birth.* As she was the directress of Edilburge during her life, so she succeeded her in the government of this monastery after her death, and is named in the English Calendars on the 24th of March.1 On St. Wulfhilde, see William of Malmesbury,1. 2, Pontif., and her life in Capgrave, and in John of Tinmouth.†

DECEMBER 10 — ST. MELCHIADES, POPE

From Eus.1. 9, c. 9; St. Optat.1. 1; St. Aug. See Tillemont.

A. D. 314.

MELCHIADES, or MILTIADES, succeeded Eusebius in the see of Rome, being chosen on the 2d of July, 311, in the reign of Maxentius. Constantine vanquished that tyrant on the 28th of October in 312, and soon after issued edicts, by which he allowed Christians the free exercise of their religion, and the liberty of building churches. To pacify the minds of the pagans, who were uneasy at this innovation, when he arrived at Milan in the beginning of the year 313, he, by a second edict, ensured to all religions except heresies, liberty of conscience. Among the first laws which he enacted in favour of Christians, he passed one to exempt the clergy from the burden of civil offices. He obliged all his soldiers to repeat on Sundays a prayer addressed to the one only God; and no idolater could scruple at such a practice. He abolished the pagan festivals and mysteries in which lewdness had a share. Unnatural impurity being almost unrestrained among the heathens, the Romans, when luxury and debauchery were arrived at the highest pitch among them, began to shun marriage, that they might be more at liberty to follow their passions. Whereupon Augustus was obliged by laws to encourage and to command all men to marry, inflicting heavy penalties on the disobedient.1 The abuses being restrained by the Christian religion more effectually than they could have been by human laws, Constantine, in favor of celibacy, repealed the Poppan law. This emperor also made a law to punish adultery with death.2 The good pope rejoiced exceedingly at the prosperity of God’s house, and, by his zealous labors, very much extended its pale; but he had the affliction to see it torn by an intestine division, in the Donatist schism, which blazed with great fury in Africa. Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, being falsely accused of having delivered up the sacred scriptures to be burnt in the time of the persecution, Donatus, bishop of Casa-nigra in Numidia, most unreasonably separated himself from his communion, and continued his schism when Cecilian had succeeded Mensurius in the see of Carthage, and was joined by many jealous enemies of that good prelate, especially by the powerful lady Lucilla, who was personally piqued against Cecilian while he was deacon of that church. The schismatics appealed to Constantine, who was then in Gaul, and entreated him to commission three Gaulish bishops, whom they specified, to judge their cause against Cecilian. The emperor granted them these judges they demanded, but ordered the aforesaid bishops to repair to Rome, by letter entreating pope Melchiades to examine into the controversy, together with these Gaulish bishops, and to decide it according to justice and equity. The emperor left to the bishops the decision of this affair, because it regarded a bishop.3 Pope Melchiades opened a council in the Lateran palace on the second of October, 313, at which both Cecilian and Donatus of Casa-nigra were present; and the former was pronounced by the pope and his council innocent of the whole charge that was brought against him. Donatus of Casa-nigra was the only person who was condemned on that occasion; the other bishops who adhered to him were allowed to keep their sees upon their renouncing the schism. St. Austin, speaking of the moderation which the pope used, calls him an excellent man, a true son of peace, and a true father of Christians. Yet the Donatists, after his death, had recourse to their usual arms of slander to asperse his character, and pretended that this pope had delivered the scriptures into the hands of the persecutors; which St. Austin calls a groundless and malicious calumny. St. Melchiades died on the 10th of January, 314, having sat two years, six months, and eight days, and was buried on the Appian road, in the cemetery of Calixtus; is named in the Roman Martyrology, and in those of Bede, Ado, Usuard, &c. In some calendars he is styled a martyr, doubtless on account of his sufferings in preceding persecutions.

This holy pope saw a door opened by the peace of the church to the conversion of many, and he rejoiced at the triumph of the cross of Christ But with worldly prosperity a worldly spirit too often broke into the sanctuary itself; insomuch that the zealous pastor had sometimes reason to complain, with Isaiah, Thou hast multiplied the nation, and hast not increased my joy.4 Under the pressures of severe persecution, the true spirit of our holy religion was maintained in many among its professors during the first ages; yet, amidst the most holy examples, and under the influence of the strongest motives and helps, avarice and ambition insinuated themselves into the hearts of some, who, by the abuse of the greatest graces, became of all others the most abandoned to wickedness; witness Judas the Apostate in the college of the apostles; also several amongst the disciples of the primitive saints, as Simon Magus, Paul of Samosata, and others. But with temporal honors and affluence, the love of the world, though most severely condemned by Christ, as the capital enemy to his grace and holy love, and the source of all vicious passions, crept into the hearts of many, to the utter extinction of the Christian spirit in their souls. This, indeed, reigns and always will reign, in a great number of chosen souls, whose lives are often hidden from the world, but in whom God will always provide for his honor faithful servants on earth, who will praise him in spirit and truth. But so deplorable are the overflowings of sensuality, avarice, and ambition, and such the lukewarmness and spiritual insensibility which have taken root in the hearts of many Christians, that the torrent of evil example and a worldly spirit ought to fill every one with alarms, and oblige every one to hold fast, and be infinitely upon his guard that he be not carried away by it. It is not the crowd that we are to follow, but the gospel; and though temporal goods and prosperity are a blessing, they ought extremely to rouse our attention, excite our watchfulness, and inspire us with fear, being fraught with snares, and, by the abuse which is frequently made of them, the ruin of virtue.

DECEMBER 10 — ST. EULALIA, V. M

PRUDENTIUS* has celebrated the triumph of this holy virgin who was a native of Merida, then the capital city of Lusitania in Spain now a declining town in Estremadura, the archiepiscopal dignity having been translated to Compostella. Eulalia, descended from one of the best families in Spain, was educated in the Christian religion, and in sentiments of perfect piety, from her infancy distinguished herself by an admirable sweetness of temper, modesty, and devotion, showed a great love of the holy state of virginity, and by her seriousness and her contempt of dress, ornaments, diversions, and worldly company, gave early proofs of her sincere desire to lead on earth a heavenly life. Her heart was raised above the world before she was thought capable of knowing it, so that its amusements, which usually fill the minds of young persons, had no charms for her, and every day of her life made an addition to her virtues.

She was but twelve years old when the bloody edicts of Dioclesian were issued, by which it was ordered that all persons, without exception of age, sex, or profession, should be compelled to offer sacrifice to the gods of the empire. Eulalia, young as she was, took the publication of this order for the signal of battle; but her mother, observing her impatient ardor for martyrdom, carried her into the country. The saint found means to make her escape by night, and after much fatigue arrived at Merida before break of day. As soon as the court sat, the same morning, she presented herself before the cruel judge, whose name was Dacianus, and reproached him with impiety in attempting to destroy souls, by compelling them to renounce the only true God. The governor commanded her to be seized, and first employing caresses, represented to her the advantages which her birth, youth, and fortune gave her in the world, and the grief which her disobedience would bring to her parents. Then he had recourse to threats, and caused the most dreadful instruments of torture to be placed before her eyes, saying to her, “All this you shall escape if you will but touch a little salt and frankincense with the tip of your finger.” Provoked at these seducing flatteries, she threw down the idol, trampled upon the cake which was laid for the sacrifice, and, as Prudentius relates, spat at the judge; an action only to be excused by her youth and inattention under the influence of a warm zeal, and fear of the snares which were laid for her. At the judge’s order, two executioners began to tear her tender sides with iron hooks, so as to leave the very bones bare. In the mean time she called the strokes so many trophies of Christ. Next, lighted torches were applied to her breasts and sides: under which torment, instead of groans, nothing was heard from her mouth but thanksgivings. The fire at length catching her hair, surrounded her head and face, and the saint was stifled by the smoke and flame. Prudentius tells us, that a white dove seemed to come out of her mouth, and to wing its way upward when the holy martyr expired: at which prodigy the executioners were so much terrified that they fled and left the body. A great snow that fell covered it and the whole forum where it lay; which circumstance shows that the holy martyr suffered in winter. The treasure of her relics was carefully entombed by the Christians near the place of her martyrdom: afterwards a stately church was erected on the spot, and the relics were covered by the altar which was raised over them, before Prudentius wrote his hymn on the holy martyr in the fourth century. He assures us that “pilgrims came to venerate her bones; and that she, near the throne of God, beholds them, and, being made propitious by hymns, protects her clients. Her relics are kept with great veneration at Oviedo, where she is honored as patroness. The Roman Martyrology mentions her name on the 10th of December. See Prudentius De Cor. hymno 9, alias 3, de S. Eulalia; and F. Thomas ab Incarnatione Hist Ecclesi Lusitan, sc. 4, c. 6, p. 217.*

Another ST. EULALIA, V. M. at Barcelona, is mentioned by Ado. Usuarl, &c., but we have no authentic acts of her martyrdom.

DECEMBER 11 — ST. DAMASUS, POPE, C

From his works, St. Jerom, Rufin, and Anastasius in the Pontifical. See Tillemont, t. 8, p. 386; Ceillier, t. 6, p. 455; Abbate Anton. Merenda, in the new edition of this pope’s works, which he published at Rome, in folio, anno 1754, in which he gives the life of this pope in annals.

A. D. 384.

POPE DAMASUS is said in the Pontifical to have been a Spaniard; which may be true of his extraction; but Tillemont and Merenda show that he seems to have been born at Rome. His father, whose name was Antony, either after the death of his wife, or by her free consent, engaged himself in an ecclesiastical state, and was successively reader, deacon, and priest of the title or parish church of St. Laurence in Rome. Damasus served in the sacred ministry in the same church, and always lived in a perfect state of continence, as St. Jerom assures us. When Liberius was banished by Constantius to Berœa, in 355, he was archdeacon of the Roman church, and attended him into exile, but immediately returned to Rome. Liberius at length was prevailed upon to sign a confession of faith in which the word consubstantial was omitted. After his return from banishment, he constantly held communion with St. Athanasius, as is clear from that holy man’s letter to the bishops of Egypt, in 360. He condemned and annulled the decrees of the council of Rimini, by a letter which he wrote to those bishops, mentioned by Siricius.1 Liberius, after this, lay hid some time in the vaults of the cemeteries, for fear of the persecutors, as we learn from Sozomen,2 Prosper, in his chronicle,3 Lucifer of Cagliari,4 and Anastasius, in the life of pope Julius. Thus he repaired the fault which he had committed by his subscription. All this time Damasus had a great share in the government of the church, and doubtless animated the zeal of the pope.

Liberius died on the 24th of September, 366, and Damasus, who was then sixty years old, was chosen bishop of Rome, and ordained in the basilic of Lucina, otherwise called St. Laurence’s, which title he bore before his pontificate. Soon after, Ursinus, called by some moderns Ursicinus, who could not bear that St. Damasus should be preferred before him, got together a crowd of disorderly and seditious people in the church of Sicin, commonly called the Liberian basilic, now St. Mary Major, and persuaded Paul bishop of Tibur, now Tivoli, a dull ignorant man, to ordain him bishop of Rome, contrary to the ancient canons, which require three bishops for the ordination of a bishop; and to the ancient custom of the Roman church whose bishop was to be consecrated by the bishop of Ostia, as Baronius and Tillemont observe. Juventius, prefect of Rome, banished Ursinus, and some others of his party. Seven priests who adhered to him were seized to be carried into exile; but were rescued by their partisans, and carried to the Liberian basilic. The people that sided with Damasus came together with swords and clubs, besieged the basilic to deliver these men up to the prefect, and a fight ensued, in which one hundred and thirty-seven persons were killed, as Ammianus Marcellinus5 and St. Austin relate.6 In September the following year, 367, the emperor Valentinian allowed Ursinus to return to Rome; but, on account of new tumults, in November banished him again, with seven accomplices, into Gaul. The schismatics still kept possession of a church, probably that of St. Agnes without the walls, and held assemblies in the cemeteries. But Valentinian sent an order for that church to be put into the hands of Damasus; and Maximin, a magistrate of the city, a man naturally inclined to cruelty, put several schismatics to the torture. Rufin clears Damasus of any way concurring to, or approving of such barbarous proceedings, and the schismatics fell into the snare they had laid for him,7 by which it seems that they demanded an inquiry to be made by the rack, which turned to their own confusion and chastisement. It appears by certain verses of pope Damasus that he had made a vow to God in honor of certain martyrs, to engage their intercession for the conversion of some of the clergy who continued obstinate in the schism; and that these clergymen being converted to the unity of the church, in gratitude, adorned at their own expense the tombs of these martyrs. By the same poem we learn, that the warmest abettors of the cause of Ursinus, after some time, sincerely submitted to Damasus. His election was both anterior in time, and in all its circumstances regular; and was declared such by a great council held at Aquileia in 381, composed of the most holy and eminent bishops of the western church; and by a council at Rome in 378, in both which the acts of violence are imputed to the fury of Ursinus. St. Ambrose,8 St. Jerom,9 St. Austin, Rufin, and others, bear testimony to the demeanor, and to the due election of Damasus.

Ammianus Marcellinus, the famous pagan historian of those times, says, that the chariots, rich clothes, and splendid feasting of the bishops of Rome, whose tables surpassed those of kings, were a tempting object to ambition; and wishes they would imitate the plainness of some prelates in the provinces. Herein, at least with regard to the table, there is doubtless a great deal of exaggeration and spleen; though sometimes extraordinary entertainments were probably given by the church. However, some appearance of pomp and state was certainly then made, since, as St. Jerom reports,10 Prtextatus, an eminent pagan senator who was afterwards prefect of Rome, said to pope Damasus, “Make me bishop of Rome, and I will be a Christian to-morrow.” Power alone is a snare to ambitious and worldly men; and a danger inseparable from exalted stations; yet all such things are rather an object of dread to those clergymen whose hearts are disengaged from the world; and riches in their hands are only the patrimony of Christ, instruments of charity. The reflection, however, of this heathen shows how necessary Christian modesty is to recommend the spirit of the gospel. Damasus certainly deserved not to fall under his censure. For St. Jerom, the great admirer of this holy pope, severely inveighs against the luxury and state which some ecclesiastics at Rome affected,11 which he would never have done if it had been a satire on his patron; at least he was too sincere to have continued his admirer. Moreover, in 370, Valentinian, to repress the scandalous conduct of ecclesiastics, who persuaded persons to bequeath estates or legacies to the church, in prejudice of their heirs, addressed a law to Damasus, forbidding the clergy or monks to frequent the houses of orphans and widows, or to receive from them any gift, legacy, or feoffment in trust. This edict Pope Damasus caused to be read in all the churches of Rome, and he was very severe in putting the same into execution, so as to give great offence to some unworthy persons who, on that account, went over to the schismatics; but some time after returned to their duty. Baronius thinks this law was enacted at the request of the pope, because it was addressed to him. At least it was certainly approved by him, and was not less agreeable to him than just in itself. It appears by St. Damasus’s fifteenth poem, that having escaped all dangers and persecutions,12 in thanksgiving he made a pilgrimage to St. Felix’s shrine at Nola, and there hung up this votive poem, and performed his devotions.*

Arianism reigned in the East under the protection of Valens, though vigorously opposed by many pillars of orthodoxy, as St. Athanasius, St. Basil, &c. In the West it was confined to Milan and Pannonia. Utterly to extirpate it in that part of the world, pope Damasus, in a council at Rome in 368, condemned Ursacius and Valens, famous Arian bishops in Pannonia; and in another in 370, Auxentius of Milan. The schism of Antioch fixed the attention of the whole church. Meletius had beer ordained upon the expulsion of St. Eustathius, whom the Arians had banished; Paulinus was acknowledged by the zealous Catholics, called Eustathians, because, during the life of St. Eustathius, they would admit no other bishop. St. Basil, and other orientals, being well informed of the orthodox faith of St. Meletius, adhered to him; but Damasus, with the western prelates, held communion with Paulinus, suspecting the orthodoxy of Meletius on account of the doubtful principles of some of those by whom he was advanced to the see. Notwithstanding this disagreement, these prelates were careful to preserve the peace of Christ with one another. The heresy of Apollinarius or Apollinaris caused a greater breach. Apollinarius, the father, taught grammar first at Berytus, afterwards at Laodicea in Syria, where he married, and had a son of the same name, who was brought up to learning, had a good genius well improved by studies, and taught rhetoric in the same town; and both embracing an ecclesiastical state, the father was priest, and the son reader in that church at the same time. The younger of these was chosen bishop of Laodicea in 362. When Julian the Apostate forbade Christians to read the classics, the two Apollinariuses composed very beautiful hymns in all sorts of verse on the sacred history and other pious subjects; which are lost, except a paraphrase on the psalms in hexameter verse. In these poems they began to scatter the poison of certain errors, which were condemned by St. Athanasius, in his council at Alexandria in 360, but the author was not then known. St. Athanasius wrote against these errors without naming the author, in 362. In the council which Damasus held at Rome in 374, the same conduct was observed. But the obstinacy of the bishop Apollinarius appearing incurable, from that time his name was no longer spared: it was anathematized first by pope Damasus at Rome The heresiarch lived to a great age, and died in his impiety. His capital errors consisted in this, that he said Christ had not assumed a human understanding, (???? or soul,) but only the flesh, that is, the body and a sensitive soul, such as beasts have; and that the divine person was to him instead of a soul or human understanding; for which he insisted upon those words, the Word was made flesh; and he pretended that the human soul being the fountain of sin, it was not fitting that Christ should assume it. In this erroneous system it followed that Christ was not made man, having only taken upon him a body, the least part of human nature. Apollinarius also taught, that the body of Christ came from heaven, was impassible, and descended into the womb of the Virgin Mary, was not born or formed of her; also, that Christ only suffered and died in appearance.13 He likewise revived the Millenarian heresy, and advanced certain errors about the Trinity. His followers chose Vitalis, one of his disciples, bishop of their sect at Antioch, and called Timothy, another of his disciples, patriarch of Alexandria. The decrees of pope Damasus against this heresiarch were received in a council held at Alexandria, in another at Antioch, and in the general council at Constantinople in 381.

Illyricum in that age comprised all Greece and several other provinces near the Danube. The emperor Gratian, in favor of Theodosius, yielded up Eastern Illyricum, that is, Greece and Dacia, to the Eastern empire: the popes maintained that this country still belonged to the Western patriarchate, and reserved to themselves the confirmation of its bishops and other patriarchal rights. St. Damasus appointed St. Ascholius, bishop of Thessalonica, (who frequently preserved Macedon from the Goths with no other arms but his prayers,) his vicar over those churches: and in a letter to him, which is yet extant, gave him strict charge to be watchful that nothing should be done in the church of Constantinople prejudicial to the faith, or against the canons: and he condemned the illegal intrusion of Maximus the Cynic into that important see. When Nectarius was chosen archbishop of Constantinople, Theodosius sent deputies to Rome, to entreat pope Damasus to confirm his election.14 When St. Jerom accompanied St. Epiphanius and St. Paulinus of Antioch to Rome, Damasus detained him till his death, three years after, near his person, employing him in quality of secretary, to write his letters, and answer consultations. This pope, who was himself a very learned man, and well skilled in the holy scriptures, encouraged St. Jerom in his studies. That severe and holy doctor calls him “an excellent man;”15 and in another place,16 “an incomparable person, learned in the scriptures, a virgin doctor of the virgin church, who loved chastity, and heard its eulogiums with pleasure. Theodoret calls him the celebrated Damasus,17 and places him at the head of the famous doctors of divine grace in the Latin church.18 The oriental bishops in 431, profess that they follow the holy example of Damasus, Basil, Athanasius, Ambrose, and others who have been eminent for their learning. The general council of Chalcedon styles Damasus, for his piety, the honor and glory of Rome.19 Theodoret says, “He was illustrious by his holy life, and ready to preach, and to do all things in defence of the apostolic doctrine.”20

This pope rebuilt, or at least repaired, the church of St. Laurence nea. Pompey’s theatre, where he had officiated after his father, and which to this day is called from St. Laurence, in Damaso. He beautified it with paintings of sacred history, which were remaining four hundred years afterwards.21 He presented it with a paten of silver weighing fifteen pounds, a wrought vessel of ten pounds weight, five silver chalices weighing three pounds each, five silver sconces to hold wax lights, of eight pounds each, and candlesticks of brass, of sixteen pounds weight. He also settled upon it several houses that were near the church, and a piece of land.22 St. Damasus likewise drained all the springs of the Vatican which ran over the bodies that were buried there, and he decorated the sepulchres of a great number of martyrs in the cemeteries, and adorned them with epitaphs in verse, of which a collection of almost forty is extant.* Some of these belong not to him; those which are his work, are distinguished by a peculiar elegance and elevation, and justify the commendation which St. Jerom gives to his poetical genius. In the few letters of this pope which we have in the editions of the councils, out of the great number which he wrote, it appears that he was a man of genius and taste, and wrote with elegance. The ancients particularly commend, is constancy in maintaining the purity of our holy faith, the innocence of his manners, his Christian humility, his compassion for the poor, his piety in adorning holy places, especially the tombs of the martyrs, and his singular learning. Having sat eighteen years and two months, he died on the 10th of December in 384, being near fourscore years of age. A pontifical kept in the Vatican library, quoted by Merenda, says, that the saint burning with an ardent desire to be dissolved, and be with Christ, he was seized with a fever, and having received the body and blood of the Lord, lifting up his eyes and hands to heaven, he expired in devout prayer. His intercession is particularly implored in Italy by persons that are sick of fevers.23 He was buried near his mother and sister, in an oratory which he had built and adorned at the catacombs near the Ardeatin Way, between that road and the cemetery of Calixtus or Prtextatus. Marangonus describes his sepulchre and those of his mother and sister, as they were discovered in the year 1736.24

Learning, the great accomplishment and improvement of the human mind, is often made its bane. This sometimes happens by the choice which a man makes of his studies, and much oftener by the manner in which he pursues them. As to the choice, there is no sloth more trifling or vain than the studies of some learned men; to whom we may apply what Plato said to the charioteer, whose dexterity in the circus struck the spectators with astonishment. But the philosopher declared he deserved to be publicly chastised for the loss of so much time as was necessary for him to have attained that dexterity in so trifling and useless an exercise. A perfect knowledge of our own, and some foreign and learned languages, is a necessary instrument, and a key to much useful knowledge, but of little use if it be not directed to higher purposes. Holy David, St. Ambrose, St. Damasus, Prudentius, St. Paulinus, and many others consecrated poetry to the divine praises. The belles lettres in all their branches, give an elegance to a man’s mind and thoughts, and help us to communicate with dignity our most useful knowledge to others. But if made an employment of life, especially when the proper studies or occupations of a state ought to have banished them, they become a pernicious idleness, and so much entertain the heart as to ruin devotion and the taste of duties, and to occupy our reason in trifles. They are particularly condemned by the fathers and councils, in clergymen, as trespassing upon their obligations and destructive of the spirit of their profession. Logic gives a justness and clearness to our thoughts, teaches accurate reasoning, and exceedingly improves the judgment and other faculties of the mind. Yet, if its rules are made too prolix or spun into refined subtilties, they puzzle and confound the understanding. The same is to be said of metaphysics, which ought properly to be called the generals of science: a just acquaintance with which is, above all other studies and accomplishments, the means of improving the mind to the highest perfection, especially its ruling faculty, the judgment, and fitting it for success and accuracy in all other sciences and arts. The principles of Aristotle in logic and metaphysics are solid, exact, complete, and far preferable to all others; but the exposition must be concise, methodical, profound, infinitely accurate, clear, elegant, or free from a Gothic dress, which disfigures the best attainments, and is the characteristic of barbarism. Skill in useless knotty problems or questions which some start, is compared by an elegant writer to a passion for breaking hard stones with a man’s teeth, merely to show their goodness. All studies, be they ever so methodically conducted and regulated, must, in imitation of the saints, be directed to a holy end and serious purpose, and sanctified by a life of prayer. If fondness for any science degenerates into passion, it becomes a dangerous and vicious branch of curiosity, drains the heart, hinders holy meditation and prayer, captivates the soul, and produces ail the disorders of inordinate passions.

DECEMBER 11 — SS. FUSCIAN, VICTORICUS, AND GENTIAN, MM

Fuscian and VICTORICUS were two apostolical men who came to preach the faith in Gaul about the same time with St. Dionysius of Paris. They penetrated to the remotest parts of that kingdom, and at length made Terouenne the seat of their mission. Going back to Amiens, where Rictius Varus persecuted the Christians with more than savage barbarity, they lodged with one Gentian, who was desirous to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. He informed them that St. Quintin had lately glorified God by martyrdom. They were soon after apprehended, with their charitable host, and all three died for Christ about the year 287. See their Acts quoted by Ado, and the Chronicle of St. Bertin’s, extant in Bosquet,1. 4. On the translation of their relics, see Mabillon, sc. 4, Ben. and Gallia Christiana. Their bodies were found laid in coffins in the village Sama, now called St. Fusieu, i. e St. Fuscian’s, in a garden. St. Honoratus, then bishop of Amiens, translated them into the cathedral, Childebert II., at that time king, gave to the church of Amiens the royal village Magie, about the year 580

DECEMBER 11 — ST. DANIEL, THE STYLITE, C

Though a love of singularity is vicious, and always founded in pride, sometimes extraordinary paths of virtue may be chosen in a spirit of fervor and humble simplicity, which is discovered by the effects. And true virtue is always so far singular that it is raised above, and essentially distinguished from, the manners of the crowd, which ever walks in the broad way, and runs counter to the rules of the gospel, by which a Christian is bound to square his conduct. The manner of living which a Simeon and a Daniel Stylites chose by an extraordinary inspiration and impulse of true piety and fervour, is only to be considered by us as an object of admiration: but the ardor, humility, and devotion with which they pursued the means of their sanctification, are imitable by all Christians. Daniel was a native of the town of Maratha, near Samosata; at twelve years of age he retired into a neighboring monastery, where, with astonishing fervour, he embraced all the means of perfection. A long time after, his abbot going to Antioch about the affairs of the church, carried Daniel with him, and passing by Telanissa, went to see St. Simeon on his pillar. That saint suffered Daniel to come up to him, gave him his blessing, and foretold that he would suffer much for Jesus Christ. The abbot dying soon after, the monks would have put Daniel in his place, but he declined it, and returning to see St. Simeon, continued fourteen days in the mandra,* or monastery, which was near his pillar. He afterwards undertook a journey to the Holy Land; but St. Simeon appeared to him on the way, and ordered him to steer his course towards Constantinople, which he did. He passed seven days in the church of St. Michael without the walls of that city; then nine years at Philempora, in a ruinous abandoned little temple.

After this term he resolved to imitate the manner of life of which St. Simeon had set the example, whose cowl he had obtained of that saint’s disciple Sergius, after his death in 459. St. Daniel chose a spot in the neighboring desert mountains towards the Euxine sea, four miles by sea, and seven by land, from Constantinople towards the north. A friend erected him a pillar, which consisted of two pillars fastened together with iron bars; whereon another lesser pillar was placed, on the top of which was fixed by other friends a kind of vessel somewhat like a half-barrel, on which he abode, encompassed by a balustrade.1 The country of Thrace where he lived, was subject to high winds, and very severe frosts; so that his penance was more surprising than that of St. Simeon. The lord of the ground, about the year 463, built him a second pillar, which was stronger and higher than the first. When the saint took his rest he supported himself against the balustrade of his pillar. But by continually standing, his legs and feet were swollen, and full of ulcers and sores. One winter he was found so Stiff with cold that his disciples, having soaked some sponges in warm water, ascended the column, and rubbed him therewith to bring him to himself. This did not oblige him to leave his pillar, where he lived till he was fourscore years old. Without descending from it, he was ordained priest by Gennadius, bishop of Constantinople, who, having read the preparatory, prayers at the bottom of the pillar, went up to the top of it to finish the rest of the ceremony, and the saint said mass on the top of the pillar; and the first time administered the communion to the patriarch. Afterwards many frequently received the communion at his hands. In 465 a great fire happened at Constantinople, which consumed eight of its regions. St. Daniel had foretold it, and advised the patriarch Gennadius, and the emperor Leo, to prevent it, by ordering public prayers to be said twice a week; but no credit was given to him. The event made them remember it, and the people ran in great haste to his pillar. The saint, moved with their affliction, burst into tears, and advised them to have recourse to prayer and fasting. Stretching out his hands to heaven, he prayed for them. By his prayers he obtained a son for the emperor Leo, who frequently visited, and greatly respected him; but this son died young, God rather choosing that he should reign in heaven than on earth. Leo caused a small monastery to be built near the saint’s pillar for his disciples. Gubas, king of the Lazi, in Colchis, coming to renew his alliance with the Romans, the emperor carried him to see St. Daniel, as the wonder of his empire. The barbarian king prostrated himself with tears before the pillar, and the holy man was umpire of the treaty between the two princes. Gubas being returned to his own dominions, wrote often to St. Daniel, recommending himself to his prayers. This prince built a third pillar for the saint, adjoining to the other two, in such manner that the middle pillar was the lowest, that the saint might retire upon it for shelter in violent stormy weather: the saint also acquiesced that the emperor Leo should cause a roof to be made over the standing place on the top of his pillar. Unsavory herbs and roots were St. Daniel’s ordinary diet, and he often fasted some days without sustenance. God honored him with the spirit of prophecy and the gift of miracles. The sick, whom he often caused to come up his pillar, he frequently cured by laying his hands upon them, or by anointing them with the oil of the saints as it is called in his life; by which we are to understand the oil which burnt before the relics of the saints, in the same manner as St. Sabas cured many with the oil of the cross. The instructions which St. Daniel usually gave to those that resorted to him, wrought the conversion of many sinners; for his words penetrated their hearts, and being enforced by the example of his penitential life, were wonderfully powerful in bringing others into the narrow path of penance and true virtue. Certain persons had his image made of silver, which they placed in St. Michael’s church not far distant from his pillar.

St. Daniel foretold Zeno that God would preserve him in a certain dangerous expedition; also, that he should succeed his father-in-law Leo in the empire, but should lose it for some time, and at last recover it again. The emperor Leo died in January, 474, and Zeno was saluted emperor; but openly abandoned himself to vice as if it had been the privilege of the imperial dignity to account nothing unlawful or dishonorable. While the Huns plundered Thrace, and the Arabs the east, he completed the ruin of his people by tyrannical oppressions. Having quarrelled with his mother-in-law, Verina, the widow of his predecessor, he saw himself abandoned, and fled into Isauria, his own country, in the year 475, the second of his reign. Basiliscus, brother to the empress Verina, usurped the throne, but was a profligate tyrant, and declared himself publicly the protector of the Eutychians. He restored Timothy Elurus, Peter the Fuller, and other ringleaders of that heresy; and by a circular letter addressed to all the bishops, ordered the acts of the council of Chalcedon and the letter of St. Leo to be everywhere anathematized and burned, condemning the bishops and clerks to be deposed, and the monks and laymen banished, who should refuse to subscribe his letter, or should dare to make mention of the council of Chalcedon. The holy pope Simplicius wrote strenuously to the tyran against these proceedings,2 also to Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople charging him as his legate to oppose the re-establishment of Timothy at Alexandria, and forbidding mention to be made against the definitions of the council of Chalcedon. Acacius refused to subscribe the tyrant’s letter, put on mourning, covered the pulpit and altar of his church with black, and sent to St. Daniel Stylites, to acquaint him with what the emperor had done. Basiliscus, on his side, sent to him to complain of Acacius, whom he accused of raising a rebellion in the city against him. St. Daniel replied, that God would overthrow his government, and added such vehement reproaches, that he who was sent durst not report them, but besought he saint to write them, and to seal the letter. The patriarch having assembled several bishops, in his own and their name, sent twice, in the most urgent manner, to entreat Daniel to come to the succor of the church. At length the saint, though with reluctance, came down from his pillar, and was received by the patriarch and bishops with incredible joy. Basiliscus being alarmed at the uproar which was raised in the city, retired to Hebdomum, whither the saint followed him. Not being able to walk for the sores in his legs and feet, he was carried by men, piety paying to his penance on that occasion the honor which the world gave to consuls. The guards would not suffer St. Daniel to enter the palace, who thereupon shook off the dust from his feet, and returned to the city. The tyrant was terrified, went himself to the saint, and threw himself at his feet, begging pardon, and promising to annul his former edicts. The saint threatened him with the thunderbolts of the divine anger, and said to those who stood by: “This feigned humility is only an artifice to conceal designs of cruelty. You shall very soon see the power of God, who pulls down the mighty.” Having thus foretold the fall of Basiliscus, and performed several miracles, he returned to the top of his pillar, where he lived eighteen years longer. Elurus recovered the see of Antioch, and Peter the Fuller that of Alexandria, and Eutychianism was everywhere encouraged. But Zeno after twenty months returned with an army from Isauria, and Basiliscus fled to the church, put his crown upon the altar, and took sanctuary in the baptistery, together with his wife and son. Zeno sent them to a castle in Cappadocia, where they were starved to death. One of the first things which the emperor did after his return was to pay a visit to St. Daniel Stylites, who had foreold both his banishment and his restoration.

The saint, when fourscore years old, foretold his own death, and caused a short exhortation to be written which he left his disciples, whom he commended to God, and admonished to practice humility, obedience, hospitality, and mortification; to love poverty, maintain constant peace and union, study always to advance holy charity, shun the tares of heresy, and obey the church, our holy mother. Three days before his death he offered the holy sacrifice at midnight, and was visited by angels in a vision. The patriarch Euphemius assisted him in his last moments, and he died on his pillar about the year 494, on the 11th of December, the day which is sacred to his memory both in the Latin and Greek calendars. See his life carefully compiled in the sixth century, quoted by St. John Damascen somewhat adulterated as extant in Metaphrastes and Surius. See also Theodorus Lector, Evagrius, and Theophanes. Also Falconius in Ephemerides Grco-Moschas, p. 43.

DECEMBER 12 — SS. EPIMACHUS AND ALEXANDER, ETC., MARTYRS

From St. Dionysius of Alexandria, in Eusebius, Hist.1. 6, c. 41.

A. D. 250.

WHILE the persecution set on foot by Decius raged with the utmost violence at Alexandria in 250, and the magistrates were very industrious and active in searching for Christians, Alexander and Epimacnus fell into their hands, and upon confessing the name of Jesus Christ, were loaded with chains, committed to prison, and suffered all the hardships of a long and rigorous confinement. Remaining the same after this severe trial of their faith and patience, they were beaten with clubs, their sides were torn with iron hooks, and they consummated their martyrdom by fire. St. Dionysius, archbishop of that city, and an eye-witness of some part of their sufferings, gives us this short account of their sufferings, and also makes mention of four martyrs of the other sex, who were crowned on the same day, and at the same place. Ammonarium, the first of them, a virgin of irreproachable life, endured unheard-of torments without opening her mouth, only to declare that no arts or power should ever prevail with her to let drop the least word to the prejudice of her holy profession. She kept her promise inviolably, and was at length led to execution, being, as it seems, beheaded. The second of these holy women was named Mercuria, a person venerable for her age and virtue; the third was Dionysia, who, though a tender mother of many children, cheerfully commended them to God, and preferred his holy love to all human considerations; the fourth was another Ammonarium. The judge blushing to see himself shamefully baffled and vanquished by the first of these female champions, and observing the like fortitude and resolution in the countenances of the rest, commanded the other three to be beheaded without more ado. They are all commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on this day.

To place the virtue of the Christian martyrs in its true light, we have but to consider it as contrasting the pretended heroism of the greatest sages of paganism. The martyr’s constancy is founded in humility, and its motive is the pure love of God, and perfect fidelity to his holy law. He regards himself as a weak reed; therefore God strengthens him, and by his grace makes him an unshaken pillar. The martyr considers himself as a base sinner, who deserves to suffer the death he is going to endure; he looks upon his martyrdom as the beginning of his penance, not as the consummation of his virtue; and he is persuaded that whatever he can suffer falls short of what he deserves: that it is the highest honor, of which he is infinitely unworthy, to be called to make a sacrifice to God of his life and all that he has received of his bounty, to give so pregnant a testimony of his fidelity and love, to be rendered conformable to Christ, and to die for his sake who, out of infinite mercy and love, laid down his most precious life, and suffered the most cruel torments, and the most outrageous insults and affronts for us: he calls it the greatest happiness to redeem eternal torments by momentary sufferings. Again, the martyr suffers with modesty and tender fortitude; he desires not acclamations, seeks no applause thinks only that God is the spectator of his conflict, and thes the eyes of men, at least unless with a pure view that God may be known and glorified through the testimony which he bears to his law and sovereign goodness and greatness. Lastly, he praises and thanks God amidst his torments; he feels no sentiments of revenge, but tenderly loves, and earnestly prays for the prosperity of those by whose hands or unjust calumnies he suffers the most exquisite and intolerable pain, and is only afflicted at the danger of their eternal perdition. On the other side, the vain and proud philosopher is puffed up in his own mind because he suffers; he sets forth his pretended virtue and constancy with a foolish grovelling ostentation, he conceals his inward spite, rage, and despair under the hypocritical exterior of a forced and affected patience; he insults his enemies, or at least studies and wishes revenge. The boasted Cato dreaded and abhorred the sight of Csar, and killed himself that he might not be presented before, or owe his life to, an enemy by whom he was vanquished. A Christian hero would have appeared before him without cither indignation or fear, and would have overcome him by humility, meekness, patience, and charity. Socrates by the haughtiness of his looks despised and insulted his judges, and by the insolence of his behavior, provoked them to condemn him; whereas the Christian martyr affectionately embraces, loves, and prays for his tormentors, like St. Stephen under a shower of stones, and covered with wounds and blood.

DECEMBER 12 — ST. FINIAN, OR FINAN,* C. BISHOP OF CLUAIN-IRARD (CALLED CLONARD) IN IRELAND

Among the primitive teachers of the Irish church the name of St. Finian is one of the most famous next to that of St. Patrick. He was a native of Leinster, was instructed in the elements of Christian virtue by the disciples of St. Patrick, and out of an ardent desire of making greater progress passed over into Wales, where he conversed with St. David, St. Gildas, and St. Cathmael, three eminent British saints. After having remained thirty years in Britain, about the year 520 he returned into Ireland, excellently qualified by sanctity and sacred learning to restore the spirit of religion among his countrymen, which had begun to decay. Like a loud trumpet sounding from heaven, he roused the sloth and insensibility of the lukewarm, and softened the hearts that were most hardened, and had been long immersed in worldly business and pleasure. To propagate the work of God, St. Finian established several monasteries and schools; the chief of which was Clonard, in Meath, which was the saint’s principal residence. Out of his school came several of the principal saints and doctors of Ireland, as Kiaran the Younger, Columkille, Columba the son of Crimthain, the two Brendans, Laserian, Canicus or Kenny, Ruadan, and others.

St. Finian was chosen and consecrated bishop of Clonard.† The great monastery which he erected at Clonard was a famous seminary of sacred learning.‡ St. Finian in the love of his flock, and his zeal for their salvation, equalled the Basils and the Chrysostoms, was infirm with the infirm, and wept with those that wept. He healed the souls, and often also the bodies of those that applied to him. His food was bread and herbs, his drink water, and his bed the ground, with a stone for his pillow. He departed to our Lord on the 12th of December in 552, according to the Inisfallen Annals, quoted by Usher, but according to others in 564. See his life, published by Colgan, on the 23d of February; Usher, Ant. Brit. c. 18, p. 493; and Index Chronol. p. 531; Sir James Ware, Ant. Hib. c. 29; de Eccl. Cathedr. p. 291; and on the Bishops, p. 136. See also the note on St. Ultan, 4th of September, vol. ii. p. 399.

DECEMBER 12 — ST. COLUMBA, SON OF CRIMTHAIN, ABBOT

He was a native of Leinster in Ireland, a disciple of St. Finian, and became a great master of a spiritual life. He founded and governed the monastery of Tyrdaglas in Munster, and died of a pestilence which raged in Ireland in the year 548.

DECEMBER 12 — ST. CORMAC,

an ancient Irish saint, is mentioned in the Calendars on this day, as an abbot of eminent sanctity. Usher supposes him the same who paid a visit to St. Columkille, mentioned by Adamnan1. 3, c. 117.

DECEMBER 12 — ST. COLMAN,

abbot of Glendaloch, is also mentioned this day in the Irish Calendar: he died in 659. See Colgan’s MSS.

DECEMBER 12 — ST. EADBURGE, ABBESS OF MENSTREY IN THE ISLE OF THANET

She built there a new church in honor of SS. Peter and Paul, into which she caused the body of St. Mildrede, her immediate predecessor, to be translated. Her death happened about the year 751, according to Thorne, quoted in the Monasticon.1 St. Eadburge seems to be the abbess of that name to whom St. Boniface sometimes wrote. Capgrave confounds her with St. Ethelburge, (daughter of Ethelbert, king of Kent,) who, after the death of king Edwin her husband, consecrated herself to God, and died abbess of Lyming in Kent, towards the close of the seventh century. The relics of St. Eadburge were translated to Canterbury, in 1055, and there deposited in St. Gregory’s church. St. Mildrede is honored on the 20th of February.

DECEMBER 12 — ST. VALERY, ABBOT

This saint was son to a gentleman of Auvergne, and in his childhood kept his father’s sheep; but out of an ardent desire of improving himself in spiritual knowledge, privately learned to read, and got the psalter by heart. He was yet young when he took the monastic habit in the neighboring monastery of St. Antony. From the first day such was his fervor that in his whole conduct he appeared a living rule of perfection, and, by sincere humility, esteeming himself below all the world, he meekly and cheerfully subjected himself to every one. Seeking the most perfect means of advancing in the paths of all virtues, he passed from this house to the more austere monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre, into which he was received by St. Aunarius, bishop of that church. The reputation of the penitential lives of the monks of Luxeu, and of the spiritual wisdom of St. Columban, drew him afterwards thither, and he spent many years in that community, always esteeming himself an unprofitable servant and a slothful monk, who stood in need of the severest and harshest rules and superiors; and, next to sin, he dreaded nothing so much as the applause of men or a reputation of sanctity. Upon the departure of St. Columban, the care of protecting the monastery from the oppressions of men in power, was committed to St. Valery, till he was sent by St. Eustasius with Vandolen, a fellow-monk, to preach the gospel to idolaters. The two apostolic men travelled into Neustria, where king Clotaire II. gave them the territory of Leucone in Picardy, near the mouth of the river Somme. There, with the leave of Bertard, bishop of Amiens, in 611, they built a chapel and two cells. St. Valery by his preaching and the example of his virtue, converted many infidels, and assembled certain fervent disciples with whom he laid the foundation of a monastery. His fasts he sometimes prolonged for six days, eating only on the Sunday; and he used no other bed than twigs laid on the floor. His time was all employed in preaching, prayer, reading, and manual labor. By this he earned something for the relief of the poor, and he often repeated to others, “The more cheerfully we give to those who are in distress, the more readily will God give us what we ask of him.” The saint went to receive the recompense of his happy perseverance on the 12th of December in 622. He is honored in France on the 1st of April and on the 12th of December. From his cells a famous monastery rose and a town which bears his name. His life was carefully written in 660, by Raimbert, second abbot of Leucone, from him.* See Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 2, p. 76; and Anna1.1. 11, n. 33; Gallia Christ. Vetus, t. 4, p 887; Nova, t. 10, pp. 1231, 1234.

DECEMBER 12 — ST. CORENTIN, C. FIRST BISHOP OF QUIMPER IN BRITTANY

He was son of a British nobleman, and being educated in the fear of God, retired young into a forest in the parish of Ploe-Madiern, where he passed several years in holy solitude, and in the practice of great austerities Marcellus, who subscribed the first council of Tours, and the several other bishops who came over with the Britons into Armorica, had continued to govern their flocks without any correspondence with the French, being strangers to their language and manners. These being all dead, it was necessary to procure a new succession of pastors. St. Corentin was appointed bishop of Quimper or Quimmer, which, in the British language, signified a conflux of rivers, such being the situation of this place near the sea-coast. The cities of Rennes, Nantes, and Vannes were reconquered by Clovis I., and subject to him and his successors, and only became again part of the dominions of the Armorican Britons in the ninth century. French bishops therefore governed those sees, and even the Britons who were settled in those parts. But Lower Brittany was at that time independent, first under its kings; afterwards under counts. The count of Cornouaille, (said in the legends to be Grallo I., who died about 445,) in imitation of Caradoc, count of Vannes, gave his own palace at Quimper to serve the bishop, part for his own house, and part for his cathedral. As low as in the year 1424. under an old equestrian statue in the lower part of the church, was read this inscription: Here was his palace.

St. Corentin was consecrated by St. Martin at Tours, says the legend, but that holy prelate died about the year 397, and the first colony of the Britons was only settled by the tyrant Maximus under their first king Conan in 383, and their last greatest colonies under Riwal, or Hoel I., about the year 520, when they recovered under Childebert part of what Clovis had conquered. It seems therefore most probable that St. Corentin received the episcopal consecration from one of St. Martin’s successors at Tours. He subscribed the council of Angers in 453, under the name of Charaton. Having long governed his church, worn out with his apostolic labors, he gave up his soul to God before the end of the fifth century, probably on the 12th of December, on which his principal festival is celebrated at Quimper, Leon, St. Brieuc, Mans, &c. His name occurs in the English Litany of the seventh century, published by Mabillon. (Annal.) His relics were removed to Marmoutier at Tours in 878, for fear of the Normans, and are still preserved there. See Dom. Morice, Hist. de Bret. t.1, p. 8; and note 13, 14, 19; Lobineau, Vies des Saints de la Bretag. p. 51.

was honored in Devonshire and Cornwall. He came from little Britain, and lived a hermit at the foot of mount Menehent, which Parker, Drake, &c., take for Menehont in Devonshire. He preached to the inhabitants of the country with great fruit, and died in that place in 401. See Borlase, Ant. of Cornwall, &c.

DECEMBER 13 — ST. LUCY, VIRGIN, MARTYR

Abridged from her Acts, older than St. Aldhelm, who quoted them in the seventh century.

A. D. 304.

THE glorious virgin and martyr St. Lucy, one of the brightest ornaments, of the church of Sicily, was born of honorable and wealthy parents in the city of Syracusa, and educated from her cradle in the faith of Christ. She lost her father in her infancy, but Eutychia, her mother, took singular care to furnish her with tender and sublime sentiments of piety and religion. By the early impressions which Lucy received, and the strong influence of divine grace, Lucy discovered no disposition but towards virtue, and she was yet very young when she offered to God the flower of her virginity. This vow, however, she kept a secret, and her mother, who was a stranger to it, pressed her to marry a young gentleman who was a pagan. The saint sought occasions to hinder this design from taking effect, and her mother was visited with a long and troublesome flux of blood, under which she labored four years without finding any remedy by recourse to physicians. A length she was persuaded by her daughter to go to Catana, and offer up her prayers to God for relief at the tomb of St. Agatha. St. Lucy accompanied her thither, and their prayers were successful. Hereupon our saint disclosed to her mother her desire of devoting herself to God in a state of per petual virginity, and bestowing her fortune on the poor; and Eutychia. In gratitude, left her at full liberty to pursue her pious inclinations. The young nobleman with whom the mother had treated about marrying her, came to understand this by the sale of her jewels and goods, and the distribution of the price among the poor, and in his rage accused her before the governor Paschasius as a Christian, the persecution of Dioclesian then raging with the utmost fury. The judge commanded the holy virgin to be exposed to prostitution in a brothel-house; but God rendered her immoveable, so that the guards were not able to carry her thither. He also made her an overmatch for the cruelty of the persecutors, in overcoming fire and other torments. After a long and glorious combat she died in prison of the wounds she had received, about the year 304. She was honored at Rome in the sixth century among the most illustrious virgins and martyrs, whose triumphs the church celebrates, as appears from the Sacramentary of St. Gregory, Bede, and others. Her festival was kept in England, till the change of religion, as a holiday of the second rank, in which no work but tillage or the like was allowed. Her body remained at Syracusa for many years, but was at length translated into Italy, and thence, by the authority of the emperor Otho I., to Metz, as Sigebert of Gemblours relates. It is there exposed to public veneration in a rich chapel of St. Vincent’s church. A portion of her relics was carried to Constantinople, and brought thence to Venice, where it is kept with singular veneration. St. Lucy is often painted with the balls of her eyes laid in a dish: perhaps her eyes were defaced or plucked out, though her present acts make no mention of any such circumstance. In many places her intercession is particularly implored for distempers of the eyes.

It is a matter of the greatest consequence what ideas are stamped upon the ductile minds of children, what sentiments are impressed on their hearts, and to what habits they are first formed. Let them be inured to little denials both in their will and senses, and learn that pleasures which gratify the senses must be guarded against, and used with great fear and moderation: for by them the taste is debauched, and the constitution of the soul broken and spoiled much more fatally than that of the body can be by means contrary to its health. Let them be taught that, as one of the ancient philosophers said, Temperance is the highest luxury; for only its pleasures are easy, solid, and permanent. It is much easier to conquer than to satisfy the passions, which, unless they are curbed by a vigorous restraint, while they are pliable, will be harder to be subdued. Obstinacy, untractableness, sloth. and voluptuousness, are of all dispositions in youth the most dangerous.

Children like tender osiers take the bow.

And as they first are fashioned, always grow.

There are few Lucies nowadays among Christian ladies, because sensuality, pride, and vanity are instilled into their minds by the false maxims and pernicious example of those with whom they first converse. Alas’ unless a constant watchfulness and restraint produce and strengthen good habits, the inclinations of our souls lean of their own accord towards corruption.

DECEMBER 13 — ST. JODOC, OR JOSSE, C

Those Britons who, flying from the swords of the English-Saxons, settled in Armorica in Gaul, upon the ruins of the Roman empire in those parts, formed themselves into a little state on that coast till they were obliged to receive the laws of the French. Judical, commonly called Giguel, eldest son of Juthael, became king of Brittany about the year 630.* This prince soon after renounced this perishable crown to labor more securely for the acquisition of an incorruptible one, and retired into the monastery of St. Meen, in the diocese of St. Malo, where he lived in so great sanctity as to be honored after his death with the title of the Blessed Judical. When he resigned the crown he offered it to his younger brother Jodoc, called by the French Josse. But Jodoc had the same inclinations with his elder brother. However, to consult the divine will, he shut himself up for eight days in the monastery of Lanmamiont, in which he had been brought up, and prayed night and day with many tears that God would direct him to undertake what was most agreeable to him, and most conducive to his divine honor and his own sanctification. He put an end to his deliberation by receiving the clerical tonsure at the hands of the bishop of Avranches, and joined a company of eleven pilgrims who purposed to go to Rome. They went first to Paris, and thence into Picardy in 636, where Jodoc was prevailed upon by Haymo, duke of Ponchieu, to fix upon an estate of his, which was at a sufficient distance from his own country, and secure from the honors which there waited for him Being promoted to priest’s orders, he served the duke’s chapel seven years, then retired with one only disciple named Vurmare, into a woody solitude at Ray, where he found a small spot of ground proper for tillage, watered by the river Authie. The duke built them a chapel and cells, in which the hermits lived, gaining by the tillage of this land their slender subsistence and an overplus for the poor. Their exercises were austere penance, prayer, and contemplation. After eight years thus spent here they removed to Runiac, now called Villers-saint-Josse, near the mouth of the river Canche, where they built a chapel of wood in honor of St. Martin. In this place they continued the same manner of life for thirteen years; when Jodoc having been bit by an adder, they again changed their quarters, the good duke who continued their constant protector, having built them a hermitage, with two chapels of wood, in honor of SS. Peter and Paul. The servants of God kept constant enclosure, except that out of devotion to the princes of the apostles, and to the holy martyrs, they made a penitential pilgrimage to Rome in 665. At their return to Runiac they found their hermitage enlarged and adorned, and a beautiful church of stone, which the good duke had erected in memory of St. Martin, and on which he settled a competent estate. The duke met them in person on the road, and conducted them to their habitation. Jodoc finished here his penitential course in 669, and was honored by miracles both before and after his death. Winoc and Arnoc, two nephews of the saint, inherited his hermitage, which became a famous monastery, and was one of those which Charlemagne first bestowed on Alcuin in 792. It stands near the sea, in the diocese of Amiens, follows the order of St. Bennet, and the abbot enjoys the privileges of count. It is called St. Josse-sur-mer. St. Jodoc is mentioned on this day in the Roman Martyrology. See the life of this saint written in the eighth century; Cave thinks about the year 710. It is published with learned notes by Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 2, p. 566: Gall. Chr. Nov. t. 10, pp. 1289, 1290.

DECEMBER 13 — ST. KENELM, KING, M

Kenulph, a prince of the blood royal of Mercia, was in the fourth degree of descent from Wibba, father of king Penda, and Egfert, the son of Offa, having reigned only half a year, was called to the throne of Mercia, which he filled twenty-two years. Dying in 819, he left his son Kenelm, a child only seven years old, heir to his crown, under the tutelage of his sister Quindride. This ambitious woman committed his person to the care of one Ascobert, whom she had hired to make away with him. The wicked minister decoyed the innocent child into an unfrequented wood, cut off his head, and buried him under a thorn-tree. His corpse is said to have been discovered by a heavenly ray of light which shone over the place, and by the following inscription:

In Clent cow-pasture, under a thorn,

Of head bereft, lies Kenelm king born.*

Higden, in his Polychronicon, says the body was thrown into a well; the place was called Cowdale Pasture, and situate in the south part of Staffordshire, on the borders of Worcestershire, where in following ages he was honored with great devotion, but with greater resort of pilgrims at the abbey of Winchelcombe in Gloucestershire, which his father had founded, and in which his relics were enshrined, having been translated thither immediately after their discovery. The unnatural sister seized the kingdom, but was outed by her uncle Ceolwulph, (pronounced Colwulph) and in penance became a nun, as appears from the council of Cloveshoe in 822. St. Kenelm’s death happened in 820. See Higden, Will, of Malmesbury. Tyrrell, p. 252; Cowper in the life of St. Werburge, p. 21.†

DECEMBER 13 — ST. AUBERT, BISHOP OF CAMBRAY AND ARRAS, C

This great prelate was one of the greatest ornaments of the seventh age and eminent promoters of learning and piety in the Gallican church. His youth, that most precious season of life, he dedicated to God by the mortification and the absolute conquest of sensual appetites; he was careful to employ all his time usefully, and was a great proficient in sacred learning. Having with great zeal served the church for many years, he was consecrated bishop of Arras and Cambray on the 24th of March, in 633.* Though solitude, in which he conversed in heaven, and consulted God on his own necessities, and those of his people, was his delight, yet he knew what he owed to others; his door was always open to persons of all ranks and conditions, and he was ever ready to afford every one all comfort and assistance, spiritual and corporal, especially the poor, the sick, and distressed. With extraordinary watchfulness and sagacity he discovered the roots of the disorders which reigned among the people his prudence and zeal applied the remedies, and all the obstacles he met with, he surmounted by his courage and constancy. His instructions, supported by the wonderful example of his own life, had incredible success in reforming the manners of his numerous flock. It was the first part of his care to train up a virtuous clergy, and to qualify them for their sacred functions by learning and good habits: ignorance, especially in those who are the teachers of others, being a most fatal enemy to virtue, and a rooted and experienced piety being necessary in all youth, that when they attain manhood and are exposed to the dangers of public life in a corrupt world, they may be able to resist the influence of vice and bad example. St. Aubert converted to God innumerable sinners, and induced many persons of quality of both sexes, to renounce the world. The great king Dagobert often resorted to the saint to be instructed by him in the means of securing to himself an eternal kingdom. He listened to him with respect and attention, always rejoiced exceedingly in his heavenly conversation, and received from it the greatest comfort and edification. Out of respect for him he bestowed on his church of our Lady the royal estate and manor of Oneng. St. Landelin was drawn by St. Aubert’s tears and prayers from apostacy from a religious state, and from a most abandoned course of life into which he fell, at the head of a troop of licentious soldiers, or rather robbers; and in expiation of his crimes, he founded four monasteries, Lobes on the Sambre, in Haynault, in 653, which was long very famous; but being secularized, the canons removed their chapter, in 1408, to Binche, three leagues from Mons, towards Charleroi. In 686, leaving St. Ursmar abbot of Lobes, he founded the abbeys of Ane, St. Guislain’s, and Krespin, near Valenciennes, in which last he died. St. Aubert gave his benediction to St. Guislain, and blessed his cell on the river Hannau or Haine, (which gave name to the province,) in the place which since bears his name, but was then called Ursdung or Ursidonc, i.e. Bear’s Kennel.

The blessed count Vincent, called in the world Madelgare, his wife the blessed Waldetrude, and her sister St. Aldegundes, received the religious habit from the hands of St. Aubert, and the latter founded the monastery of Maubeuge, the former that of Mons. Our saint built himself many churches, and some monasteries, as Hautmont, in 652, &c. The translation of the relics of St. Vedast at Arras, was performed by him in 666, to a church at that time without the walls of the city, and St. Aubert laid there the foundation of the great monastery which still flourishes. It was soon after most munificently endowed by king Thierry or Theodoric III., who, dying in 691, after a reign of twenty-one years, was buried in this monastery with his second wife, Doda, where their monuments are seen to this day.

By St. Aubert’s zeal, religion and sacred learning flourished exceedingly, in all Haynault and Flanders. Having worthily sustained the burden of the episcopal charge for the space of thirty-six years, he died in 669,* and was buried in St. Peter’s church, now a famous abbey of regular canons in Cambray, which bears his name, founded in 1060, by St. Lietbert, bishop of Cambray, who also founded the Benedictin abbey of St. Sepulchre in Cambray, and died on the 23d of June, 1076. St. Aubert’s shrine is the richest treasure of this magnificent church and abbey.

His festival was kept from the time of his death on the 13th of December, as appears from the most ancient calendars of that and neighboring churches: from the Libellus Annalis Domini Bed Presbyteri, published by Martenne from a MS. of St. Maximin’s at Triers, upwards of eight hundred years old, (Anec. t. 3, col. 637,) &c. This festival is a holiday at Cambray, where are also kept two other annual feasts in his honor: the elevation of his relics when they were first enshrined on the 24th of January; and that of their translation the 5th of July. When Guy or Guiard of Laon was bishop of Cambray,† William the abbot of St. Aubert’s in 1242, removed them into a new rich shrine which he had caused to be made by Thomas, a goldsmith of Douay, as we are informed by an inscription on the shrine. From which time this feast has been kept. The same inscription mentions that this shrine was enlarged and improved in 1275 by James, a goldsmith at Eskierchin, then a considerable town. Gerard I. the learned and zealous bishop of Cambray and Arras, about the year 1020 employed the most eminent Doctor Fulbert to write the life of St. Aubert. This could be no other than Fulbert the celebrated bishop of Chartres, who died in 1028, and had been fellow-scholar with Gerard, in the great school at Rheims under Gerbert of Orleans, afterwards archbishop of Ravenna, and lastly pope Sylvester II.‡ This life of St. Aubert is given imperfect by Surius: copied in MS. entire with notes and preliminary disquisitions, by M. Henry Dionysius Mutte, dean of the metropolitical church of Cambray and vicar-general of the diocese; who added three authentic relations, of miraculous cures of persons struck with a palsy, blind, lame, &c., with a particular detail of the circumstances of each, wrought by the intercession, and by the touch or presence of the relics of St. Aubert: the first written under the same bishop Gerard I. and by his order; the second was compiled in the eleventh; and the third relation of miracles in the twelfth century, in part by eye-witnesses. We have also an account of miracles wrought by the intercession of this saint in the parish church of Hennin Lietard, in which is preserved the relic of his jaw-bone.

We have another accurate life of St. Aubert in the Chronicon Camaracense et Atrebatense, published by Dr. Colvenerius at Douay, in 1615, under the name of Baldericus, bishop of Noyon and Tournay. But the author declares that he had been brought up and had always lived in the service of the church of Cambray, and that he wrote it by the order of his bishop, Gerard1. Whereas the clergy of Noyon, in their letter concerning the election of Baldericus, to the clergy and church of Arras, (apud Balus, Miscell, t. 5, p. 309,) assure us that he had always lived in the church of Noyon. Baldericus of Noyon was only a boy when Gerard I. died. The author of this Chronicon afterwards compiled the life of St. Gerry, as appears from the preface. See Boschius the Bollandist, Prv. Comment, in vitam S. Gaugerici, 11 Aug.* Also see the life of St. Aubert, written by a nonk in Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 2, p. 873.

DECEMBER 13 — B. JOHN MARINONI, C

He was the third and youngest son of a noble family, originally of Bergamo, but was born at Venice, in 1490. From his infancy it was his chiefest delight to be on his knees at the foot of the altar, and to hear as many masses every day as his employments permitted him. He usually studied before a crucifix, and sanctified his studies by most frequent fervent acts of divine love. To beg of God the grace never to sully his baptismal innocence, he spent forty days in prayer and a rigorous fast in honor of the immaculate conception of the mother of God. Having embraced an ecclesiastical state, he served among the clergy of St. Pantaleon’s church: and when he was ordained priest, became chaplain and afterwards superior of the hospital of incurables, in which charitable employ he was a comforting angel to all who were under his care. He was called hence to be admitted canon in the celebrated church of St. Mark, where his life was the edification of his colleagues and of the whole city. Out of a desire of serving God in a more perfect disengagement from earthly things, he demanded the habit of the regular clerks called Theatins, and made his profession in 1530, on the 29th of May, being then forty years of age, under the eyes of their founders, St. Cajetan, and Caraffa, ancient bishop of Chieti or Theate, who had instituted this order six years before. St. Cajetan being called from Venice to found the convent of St. Paul at Naples, took with him our saint. In that great city, Marinoni never ceased to preach the word of God with admirable simplicity and zeal; and being chosen several times superior, settled and maintained in it the perfect spirit of his order.

Both by his prayers and sacrifices, in which his eyes were often bathed with tears, and by his exhortations in the pulpit and confessional, he was an instrument of salvation to many just and sinners. He died of a violent cold and fever at Naples, on the 13th of December, 1562. He was beatified by a bull of Clement XIII. in 1762, who, in 1764, granted to his order an office in his honor to be celebrated on the 13th of December. See St. Andrew Avellino’s letter on his heroic virtues, written in 1600; his short life written by Castaldi, sixty years after his death, printed at Vicenza in 1627: also the annals of the order, by Tuffo, bishop of Acerra; those by Silos, t. 1; the life of this saint by F. Bonaglia, printed at Rome in 1762; that by F. Blanchi, at Venice, in quarto; and that compiled in French by F. Tracy, Theatin at Paris, yet in MS.

DECEMBER 13 — ST. OTHILIA, V. ABBESS

She was a native of Strasburg, and of an illustrious family, but was baptized at Ratisbon, by St. Erhard, bishop of that see. Her father erected a great nunnery in Alsace, in which Othilia conducted one hundred and thirty holy nuns in the paths of Christian perfection, and died in 772. See Canisius, Raderus, t. 4, p. 7; Ado, Molanus, and the Roman Martyrolog on the 13th of December.

DECEMBER 14 — ST. SPIRIDION, BISHOP, C

From. Rufin.1. 1, c. 5; Socrates1. 1, c. 12, p. 39; Sozomen,1. 1, c. 11. p. 22, St. Athan. Apol. 2. See also his Acts in Metaphrastes, Lipomanus, and Surius, and other Greek Acts of his life, written by Theodorus, bishop of Paphos, quoted by Jos. Assemani in Calend. Univ. ad 12 Dec p. 453.

A. D. 348.

SPIRIDION, or SPIRIDON, was a native of Cyprus, was married, and had a laughter named Irene, who lived always a virgin. His employment was hat of keeping sheep, which, in the patriarchal times, even kings thought not beneath their dignity. In this retired state simplicity and innocence of heart engaged the Almighty to furnish him with extraordinary lights in the paths of virtue, which it was the more easy for him safely to pursue, as he shunned the company of those whose example and false maxims might have induced him to take the same liberties they did, and fall into a worldly course of life. For there is no more dangerous snare to our souls than the conversation of that world which is condemned by the gospel; that is to say, that society and commerce of men who are animated with the spirit of irregular self-love, and that corruption of the heart which all men inherit from their first birth from Adam, and by which they live who have not vanquished it by grace, and put on the spirit of Christ. It is not enough for a Christian to guard himself against this contagious air abroad: he has an enemy at home, a fund of corruption within his own heart, which he must resist and purge himself of; and this not in part only, but entirely. They deceive themselves, who desire to be saved through Christ, without taking pains to put on perfectly the spirit of Christ; they who are willing to give alms, fast, and spend much time in prayer, but with all this are for reserving and sparing this or that favorite passion, this vanity, this pleasure, or this spirit of revenge. Spiridion made such use of the advantages which his state afforded him for virtue, as to seem to rival the Macariuses in their deserts: and he was honored with the gift of miracles.

Sozomen, who wrote in the beginning of the fifth century, tells us that a gang of thieves, attempting one night to carry off some of his sheep, were stopped by an invisible hand, so that they could neither perpetrate the intended theft, nor make their escape. Spiridion finding them the next morning thus secured, set them at liberty by his prayers, and gave them a ram; but exhorted them seriously to consider the danger of their state, and amend their lives; observing to them, that they had taken a great deal of unnecessary pains, and run great hazard for what they might have made their own by asking for it. The same historian says,1 that it was the saint’s custom to fast in Lent with his whole family for some days together, without eating any thing; at which time, when he had no bread in his house, a traveller called upon him to rest and refresh himself on the road, according to the rule of hospitality which he practised. Spiridion, having nothing else in his house, ordered some salt pork to be boiled, for he saw the traveller was extremely fatigued. Then, having prayed some time, he asked the divine pardon, that is, prayed that the dispensation which he judged necessary, might be agreeable to God. After this he invited the stranger to eat, who excused himself, saying that he was a Christian.* Spiridion told him, that no meats being by their own nature unclean, the rule of fasting admitted a dispensation. St. Spiridion was chosen bishop of Tremithus, a city on the sea-coast, near Salamis, and continued the same rural exercise which he had before followed, yet so as to attend his pastoral functions with great assiduity and devotion. His diocese was very small, and the inhabitants were poor, but the Christians very regular in their manners; though there remained among them several idolaters. St. Spiridion divided his revenue into two parts; the one of which he gave to the poor, the other he reserved for his church and household, and for a loan to lend to such as were in necessity, never being solicitous for the morrow. In the persecution of Maximian Galerius he made a glorious confession of the faith. The Roman martyrology tells us, he was one of those who lost their right eye, had the sinews of their left-hand cut, and were sent to work in the mines. He was one of the three hundred and eighteen prelates who composed the first general council of Nice, and was there distinguished among the holy confessors who had suffered much for the faith of Christ. About that time died his daughter Irene. A certain person had deposited in her hands a thing of great value, that it might be the more secure. This he demanded of the bishop after her death; but it was not to be found, nobody knowing where it was hid. The person whose loss it was, appeared extremely afflicted. Socrates and Sozomen say, that the good bishop, moved with compassion, went to the place where his daughter was buried, called her by her name, and asked her where she had laid what such a person had left in her hands. They add, that she answered him, giving directions where she had hid it in the ground, that it might be more safe; and that it was found there. Though our holy prelate had very little acquaintance with human sciences, he had made the scriptures his daily meditation and had learned what veneration is due to the word of God. The bishops of Cyprus being on a certain occasion assembled together, Triphillius, bishop of Ledri, in that island, (whom St. Jerom commends as the most eloquent man of his time,) was engaged to preach a sermon; and mentioning that passage, Take up thy bed, and walk, he made use of a word to express the sick man’s bed, which he thought more elegant and beautiful than that in the original text.* Spiridion, full of a holy resentment at this false meety, and attempt to add graces to what was more adorned with simplicity, arose and asked whether the preacher knew better the right term than the evangelist? Our saint defended the cause of St. Athanasius in the council of Sardica in 347, and shortly after passed to eternal bliss. The Greeks honor his memory on the 12th. the Latins on the 14th of this month.

Sacred learning is necessary in a minister of the church; but sanctity is not less necessary. Nothing is so eloquent, or so powerfully persuasive as example. A learned man may convince, but to convert souls is chiefly the privilege of those that are pious. There have been few ages in which polite literature has been cultivated with greater ardor than the present wherein we live. How many great orators, how many elegant writers have made their appearance in it! If these were all saints, what a reformation of manners should we see among the people! It is sanctity that possesses the art of softening the heart, and subduing all the powers of the soul. An edifying life proves the preacher sincere, and is alone a sermon which obstinacy itself will find it hard to hold out against. It stops the mouth of the enemies of truth and virtue. The life, vigor, and justness of a discourse, are the fruit of wit, genius, and study; but unction in words is produced only by the heart. A man must be animated with the spirit of God to speak powerfully on divine things; the conversion of hearts is the work of God A father and a mother are surprised that their instructions seem thrown away upon their children; but let them remember, that if they spoke the language of men and angels, if they have not themselves charity, or true piety, they are only a sounding trumpet. Children, in their most tender infancy, observe with incredible penetration and sagacity every word and action of others, especially of those whom they revere and love. In these, thoy naturally discern and read the spirit of all the passions with which such persons are actuated, deeply imbibe the same, learn to think and act from them, and are entirely moulded upon this model. The children of worldly parents will probably differ from them only in this, that their passions, by being strengthened so early, will become with age more blind and headstrong.

DECEMBER 14 — SS. NICASIUS, NINTH ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS, AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS

In the fifth century, an army of barbarians from Germany, ravaging part of Gaul, plundered the city of Rheims.† Nicasius, the holy bishop, had foretold this calamity to his flock. When he saw the enemy at the gates and in the streets, forgetting himself, and solicitous only for his dear spiritual children, he went from door to door encouraging all to patience and constancy, and awaking in every one’s breast the most heroic sentiments of piety and religion. In endeavoring to save the lives of some of his flock, he exposed himself to the swords of the infidels, who, after a thousand insults and indignities, (which he endured with the meekness and fortitude of a true disciple of God crucified for us,) cut off his head. Florens his deacon, and Jocond his lector, were massacred by his side. His sister Eutropia, a virtuous virgin, seeing herself spared in order to be reserved for wicked purposes, boldly cried out to the infidels, that it was her unalterable resolution rather to sacrifice her life, than her faith or her integrity and virtue. Upon which they dispatched her with their cutlasses. St. Nicasius and St. Eutropia were buried in the churchyard of St. Agricola. Many miracles rendered their tombs illustrious, and this church was converted into a famous abbey, which bears the name of St. Nicasius, and is now a member of the congregation of St. Maur. The archbishop Fulco, in 893, translated the body of St. Nicasius into the cathedral, which the martyr himself had built, and dedicated to God in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His head is kept in the abbey of St. Vedast at Arras. See St. Gregory of Tours, and Gall. Chr. Nov., t. 9, p. 6. The Acts of St. Nicasius in Surius (14 Dec.) were written before Hincmar, probably in the seventh century, but are of small importance, as Dom. Rivet observes.

DECEMBER 15 — SAINT EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF VERCELLI

From the fathers and ecclesiastical historians of the fourth century. See Tillemont, Ughelli, t. 4, p 1044; Ceillier, t. 5, p. 440; Orsi,1. 14; Fleury,1. 13, n. 14, 16, and 41,1. 15, n. 30.

A. D. 371.

ST. EUSEBIUS was born of a noble family in the isle of Sardinia, where his father is said to have died in chains for the faith. His mother, whose name was Restituta, being left a widow, carried him and a daughter she had, both in their infancy, to Rome.1 Eusebius was brought up in the practice of piety, and in the study of sacred learning, and ordained lector by St. Sylvester. We know not by what accident he was called to Vercelli, a city now in Piedmont. He served that church among the clergy with such applause, that the episcopal chair becoming vacant, he was unanimously chosen by the clergy and people to fill it. He is the first bishop of Vercelli whose name we know. St. Ambrose assures us, that he was the first who in the West united the monastic life with the clerical, living himself and making his clergy in the city live almost in the same manner as the monks in the East did in the deserts. They shut themselves up in one house with their pastor, and exercised themselves night and day in a heavenly warfare, continually occupied in the praises of God, having no other ambition than to appease his anger by fervent and uninterrupted prayers. Their minds was always employed in reading, or at work. “Can any thing be more admirable than this life,” cries out St. Ambrose, “where there is nothing to fear and every thing is worthy of imitation! where the austerity of fasting in compensated by tranquillity and peace of mind, supported by example sweetened by habit, and charmed by the occupations of virtue! This life is neither troubled with temporal cares, nor distracted with me tumults of the world, nor hindered by idle visits, nor relaxed by the commerce of the world.” The holy bishop saw that the best and first means to labor effectually for the edification and sanctification of his people, was to form a clergy under his eyes, on whose innocence, piety, and zeal, in the functions of their ministry, he could depend. In this design he succeeded so well, that other churches earnestly demanded his disciples for their bishops, and a great number of holy prelates came out of his school, who were burning and shining lamps in the church of God. He was at the same time very careful to instruct his flock, and inspire them with the maxims of the gospel. Many, moved by his exhortations, embraced virginity to serve God in purity of heart, without being divided by the cares or pleasures of the world. In a short time, the whole city of Vercelli appeared inflamed with the fire of divine love which Jesus Christ came to bring on earth, and which he ardently desired to see kindled in all hearts. Convicted by the force of the truth which the zealous pastor preached, persuaded by the sweetness and charity of his conduct, and still more powerfully excited by his examples, sinners encouraged themselves to a change of their lives, and all were animated to advance more and more in virtue. But his sanctity would have been imperfect without the trial of persecutions.

The Arians governed all things by violence under the authority of the Arian emperor Constantius. In 354, pope Liberius deputed St. Eusebius, with Lucifer of Cagliari, to beg leave of that emperor, who passed the winter at Arles in Gaul, to assemble a free counci1.2 Constantius agreed to a council, which met at Milan in 355 while the emperor resided in that city. Eusebius, seeing all things would be there carried on by violence through the power of the Arians, though the Catholic prelates were more numerous, refused to go to it till he was pressed by Liberius himself, and by his legates, Lucifer of Cagliari, Pancratius, and Hilary,3 in order to resist the Arians, as St. Peter had done Simon the magician. When he was come to Milan, the Arians excluded him the council for the first ten days. When he was admitted, he laid the Nicene creed on the table, and insisted on all signing that rule of faith before the cause of St. Athanasius should be brought to a hearing; for the chief drift of the heretics was to procure if possible the condemnation of that most formidable champion of the faith. St. Dionysius of Milan offered to subscribe his name to the creed; but Valens, bishop of Mursia, the most furious of the Arians, tore the paper out of his hands, and broke his pen. The Arians, to set aside the motion for the previous signing of the Nicene creed, procured the removal of the synod to the emperor’s palace, where the subscription to the Catholic faith was superseded, and the condemnation of St. Athanasius immediately brought upon the carpet. Many were gained by the artifices of the Arians, or intimidated by the threats of the emperor, and signed the sentence which was pronounced against him. St. Dionysius of Milan had once given his subscription, only exacting a promise that the Arians would receive the Nicene faith. But St. Eusebius of Vercelli discovered the snare to him and in order to withdraw his friend’s subscription, objected that he could not sign the sentence after Dionysius, who was younger, and his son.4 Upon which the Arians consented to blot out the name of Dionysius; and both afterwards peremptorily refused to subscribe a decree which was injurious to an innocent and holy prelate. The emperor sent for St. Eusebius, St. Dionysius, and Lucifer of Cagliari, and pressed them to condemn Athanasius. They insisted upon his innocence, and that he could not be condemned without being heard. “I am his accuser,” said Constantius; “believe upon my word the charge brought against him.” The bishops answered, “This is not a secular affair, that requires your opinion as emperor.” Constantius took them up in anger, saying, “My will ought to pass for a rule. The bishops of Syria are satisfied that it should be so. Obey, or you shall be banished.” The bishops represented to him, that he must one day give an account to God of his administration. The prince, in the transport of his rage, thought once of putting them to death, but was content to banish them. The officers entered the sanctuary, tore the holy prelates from the altar, and conducted them to different places. Dionysius was sent into Cappadocia, where he died. He is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 25th of May. Lucifer was banished to Germanicia in Syria, of which city Eudoxus, a celebrated Arian, was bishop; and our saint to Scythopolis, in Palestine, there to be treated at the discretion of the Arian bishop Patrophilus. Their chains did not hinder them from serving the church, and they confounded the heretics wherever they went. Pope Liberius wrote to them a letter of congratulation, exhorting them to courage and constancy.

St. Eusebius was lodged at first with the good count Joseph, and was comforted by the visits of St. Epiphanius and other holy men, and by the arrival of the deputies of his church of Vercelli, with presents for his subsistence. He wept for joy to hear of the zeal and constancy of his whole flock in the Catholic faith under the priests whom he had appointed to govern his church in his absence. A great share of the presents he gave to his fellow-confessors, and to the poor. But his patience was to be exercised by greater trials. Count Joseph died, and the Arians, with the emperor’s officers, insulted the saint, dragged him on the ground through the streets, sometimes carried him backwards half naked, and at last shut him up in a little chamber, plying him for four days with all manner of violences, to engage him to conform. They forbade his deacons and other fellow-confessors to be admitted to see him. The saint had abandoned his body to suffer all manner of evil treatments from their hands, without opening his mouth all that while; but seeing himself debarred of his only comfort and support, he sent a letter to the Arian bishop Patrophilus, with the following direction: “Eusebius, the servant of God, with the other servants of God who suffer with me for the faith, to Patrophilus, the jailer, and to his officers.” After a short relation of what he had suffered, he desired that his deacons might be allowed to come to him. After he remained in that confinement four days without eating, the Arians sent him back to his lodgings. Twenty-five days afterwards they came again, armed with clubs, broke down a wall in the house, and dragged him again into a little dungeon, with a priest named Tegrinus. They rifled his lodgings, plundered all his provisions, and cast many priests, monks, and even nuns into the public prisons. St. Eusebius found means to write a letter out of his dungeon to his flock, extant in Baronius, in which he mentions these particulars. His sufferings here were aggravated every day, till the place of his exile was changed. From Scythopolis he was sent into Cappadocia, and, some time afterwards, into Upper Thebais in Egypt. We have a letter which he wrote from this third place of his banishment, to Gregory bishop of Elvire, to encourage him vigorously to oppose Osius (who had unhappily fallen) and all who had forsaken the faith of the church, without fearing the power of kings. He expresses a desire to end his life in sufferings, that he might be glorified in the kingdom of God. This short letter discovers the zeal of a holy pastor, joined with the courage of a martyr. Constantius being dead, towards the end of the year 361, Julian gave leave to all the banished prelates to return to their sees. St. Eusebius left Thebais, and came to Alexandria, to concert measures with St. Athanasius for applying proper remedies to the evils of the church. He was present, and subscribed immediately after St. Athanasius, in the council held there in 362, by which it was resolved to allow the penitent prelates, who had been deceived by the Arians, especially at Rimini, to preserve their dignity. From Alexandria our saint went to Antioch, to endeavor to extinguish the great schism there; but found it widened by Lucifer of Cagliari, who had blown up the coals afresh, and ordained Paulinus bishop. He would not communicate with Paulinus, but made haste out of Antioch. Lucifer resented this behavior, and broke off communion with him, and with all who with the late council of Alexandria received the Arian bishops in their dignity upon their return to the true faith. This was the origin of the schism of Lucifer, who, by pride, lost the fruit of his former zeal and sufferings.

St. Eusebius travelled over the East, and through Illyricum, confirming in the faith those that were wavering, and bringing back many that were gone astray. Italy, at his return, changed its mourning garments, according to the expression of St. Jerom. There St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Eusebius met, and were employed in opposing the Arians, particularly Auxentius of Milan: but that crafty heretic had gained the favor of Valentinian, and maintained himself under his protection against the united zealous efforts of St. Hilary and St. Eusebius. St. Jerom, in his chronicle, places the death of the latter in 371. An ancient author says it happened on the 1st of August. He is styled a martyr in two old panegyrics in his praise, printed in the appendix of the works of St. Ambrose. There only remain of his works the three epistles above quoted. In the cathedral of Vercelli is shown an old MS. copy of the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, said to be written by St. Eusebius: it was almost worn out with age near eight hundred years ago, when king Berengarius caused it to be covered with plates of silver. The body of St. Eusebius is laid in a shrine raised above a side altar in the cathedral at Vercelli. The Roman Missal and Breviary give his office on the 15th of December, which is probably the day on which his relics were removed; for his name occurs in ancient calendars on the 1st of August.

The holy fathers, who by their zeal and learning maintained the true faith, shunned the dangerous rocks of error, because in their studies they followed the rules laid down by divine revelation, and made sincere humility the foundation of all their literary pursuits. Conscious that they were liable to mistakes, they entertained a modest diffidence in themselves and their own judgment, and said with St. Austin, “I may err, but a heretic I will never be.” This humility and caution is a sure guard against any fatal errors in religion, or dangerous miscarriages in civil conduct, with regard to literary attempts, into which an overbearing pride chiefly betrays men. How many by it become pedants, falling into an ostentatious show of trifling or pretended learning! How many are perpetually wrangling and disputing, eager not for the point in debate, but for the victory, and desirous to display their imaginary parts! How many to use all company by their impertinence, talking always of mythology, metaphysics, or the jargon of the schools,* or stun others with the loudness of their voice, or an overbearing tone of authority! Many, in studying, pursue their speculations so far as to lose sight of common sense, and by too intense an application to things beyond their sphere, overset and unhinge their understanding. Many mistake the wildest fancies of their brain for reason. Hence Cicero justly remarks, that nothing can be invented ever so absurd or monstrous, which has not been said by some of the philosophers. How many heresies have been set up by scholars among Christians! The root of these abuses is, a secret vanity, self-sufficiency, or complacency in an opinion of their own knowledge or penetration, which scholars easily entertain. So true it is, as the apostle tells us, that science puffs up; not of itself, but through the propensity of the human heart to pride. It is therefore necessary that every student learn, in the first place, never to trust in his own abilities, and make modesty and humility, by which men know themselves, the foundation of his learning. The most ignorant among scholars are usually the most apt to overrate their knowledge and abilities.

The Irish commemorate on this day ST. FLORENCE or FLANN, abbot of Benchor. Colgan MSS.

DECEMBER 16 — ST. ADO, ARCHBISHOP OF VIENNE, C

From his life collected by Mabillon, t. 6, Act. Ben. p. 281. See Ceillier, t. 19, p. 247.

A. D. 875.

ADO was born in the diocese of Sens, towards Gatinois, about the year 800, and was of one of the richest and most noble families of that country. It was the principal care of his religious parents to seek tutors, masters, and companions who should concur together by their maxims, example, interior spirit, and prudent and earnest instructions to form the morals of their son, and inspire into his soul the most tender and perfect sentiments of Christian piety. All this they happily found in the monastery of Ferrieres in Gatinois, at that time famous for learning and discipline. The pregnancy of his wit, the solidity of his judgment, his assiduity at his studies, and, above all, his humble obedience and docility, and his sincere piety, gained him the esteem and affections of the abbot Sigulph, and all his masters; and engaged them to redouble their care and attention in lending him every assistance to adorn his mind with all useful science, and to form the most perfect Christian spirit in his heart. Their pains were abundantly recompensed by the great progress which he made. Many great and powerful friends sought, by soothing flatteries, and by setting before him the lure of worldly honors and pleasures, to engage him in the career which his birth and abilities opened to him. But the pious young nobleman was not to be imposed upon by specious words or glosses. He saw clearly the dangers which attended such a course, and the cheat of that false blaze of shadowy greatness which seemed to surround it, and, dreading lest in such a state any thing could cause a division in his heart, or slacken his ardor in the entire consecration of himself to the divine service, he took the religious habit in that house, resolving never to serve any other master but God alone.

The saint was yet young when Marcvard, abbot of Prom, who had formerly been himself a monk of Ferrieres, begged of the abbot of Ferrieres as the greatest of favors that Ado might teach the sacred sciences in his monastery. The request could not be refused. Ado so taught as to endeavor to make his hearers truly sensible that if studies, even of morality and religion, entirely terminate in a barren knowledge of those truths, without acquiring the interior habits, sentiments, and dispositions which they inculcate, though they may sometimes be serviceable to others, they are not only useless, but pernicious to those who are possessed of them. Science, without advancing at the same time in humility and virtue, serves only to heighten vanity, and to swell and puff up the mind. For men who study only to furnish themselves with materials to shine in conversation, and to fill their heads with a set of notions which never sink deep into or influence the heart, fall into an overweening conceit of themselves, and are as much under the bias of pride as worldly libertines are enslaved to an inordinate love of riches, honor, or pleasures. Our saint, therefore, instructed his scholars how to form rules for the conduct of their lives, to examine into themselves, to subdue their passions, and, by conversing continually in heaven, to put on a heavenly spirit. Thus he labored to make all that were under his care truly servants of God; and it pleased God to suffer him to fall under grievous trials, that by them he might complete the work of his own sanctification, and the entire sacrifice of his heart. After the death of Marcvard, he was, through envy and jealousy, expelled the house, treated with great contempt, and oppressed by outrageous slanders. Ado took this opportunity to visit the tombs of the apostles at Rome, and stayed five years in that city. From thence he removed to Ravenna, where he found an old Martyrology, of which he took a copy, which he improved by many additions and corrections, and published about the year 858.* He also compiled a chronicle, and wrote the lives of St. Desiderius and St. Chef. When he returned out of Italy, he made a halt at Lyons, and St. Remigius, archbishop of that see, detained him there, and, having obtained leave of the abbot of Ferrieres, gave him charge of the parish church of St. Romanus, near Vienne. The celebrated Lupus, who had been chosen abbot of Ferrieres, and who is well known by his hundred and thirty letters, and several little treatises, became his zealous advocate, and, the see of Vienne falling vacant, he was chosen archbishop, and consecrated in September, 860. The year following he received the pall from pope Nicholas, with the decrees of a Roman council, the purport of which was to check certain disorders which had crept into several churches in France.

Ado’s promotion made no change in his behavior; he was still the same humble, modest, mortified man as when in a cloister, and endeavored to inspire his flock with the like sentiments and dispositions. He was indefatigable in pressing the great truths of salvation. He usually began his sermons and exhortations with these or the like words: “Hear the eternal truth which speaks to you in the gospel;” or, “Hear Jesus Christ, who saith to you,” &c. It was a principal part of his care that all candidates for holy orders should be rigorously examined, and he would be present at these examinations. He regulated the public service of the church with much zeal and wisdom, and made strict inquiry into the conduct of all those who were called to serve in the ministry of the altar, not only with regard to their progress in sacred learning and the regularity of their manners, but also with regard to their spirit of devotion and assiduity in constant prayer. The saint labored without intermission for the reformation of manners, and establishing good discipline among the people. He took great care that all that were ignorant of the principles of Christianity should be forbid to be sponsors at baptism, or to be joined in matrimony, or admitted to any of the sacraments till they were better instructed. By his vigilance no quarter was given to all those who indulged themselves in any vicious practice, in pleasures that enervate the soul, or in amusements and diversions which are dangerous to innocence. What enforced his instructions, and gave them weight and efficacy, was his example. His life was most austere; he was in every thing severe to himself, and all the clergymen that were about him were enjoined to apprize him of the least slip in his behavior. Though he was inflexible towards obstinate sinners, and employed every means to bring them to repentance, when he found them sincerely desirous to return to God, he received them with the greatest tenderness and indulgence, imitating the good Shepherd, who came down from heaven to seek the lost sheep, and carried them back to the fold on his shoulders. By his care the poor were everywhere tenderly assisted with every corporal and spiritual comfort and succor they could stand in need of, and many hospitals were raised for their reception and entertainment at his expense. It was his earnest desire to see all Christians seriously engaged in the noble contest, which of them should best fulfil his obligations in their full extent, which are all reduced to those which tie him to his Creator; for on a man’s concern for them depends his regard for all others. Religion alone can make mankind good and happy; and those who act under its influence are steady in the disinterested pursuit of every virtue, and in the discharge of every duty, even towards the world, their families, and themselves. To sum up the whole character of this good prelate in two words, Ado knew all the obligations of his post, and discharged them with the utmost exactness and fidelity. He distinguished himself in many councils abroad, and held himself several councils at Vienne to maintain the purity of faith and manners, though only a fragment of that which he celebrated in 870 is extant. When king Lothaire sought pretexts to divorce his queen Thietburge, our holy prelate obliged him to desist from that unjust project; and he had a great share in many public transactions, in which the interest of religion was concerned. For pope Nicholas I., king Charles the Bald, and Lewis of Germany had the greatest regard for him, on account of his prudence and sanctity, and paid a great deference to his advice. In the hurry of employments his mind was as recollected as if his whole business lay within the compass of his own private concerns. The multiplicity of affairs never made him the less constant in prayer, or less rigorous in his mortifications. To read the lives of the saints, and to consider their edifying actions, in order to imbibe their spirit, and quicken his own soul in the practice of piety, was an exercise in which he always found singular comfort and delight, and a great help to devotion; and, like the industrious bee, which sucks honey from every flower, he endeavored to learn from the life of every saint some new practice of virtue, and to treasure up in his mind some new maxim of an interior life. From thus employing his thoughts on the saints, studying to copy their virtues, and affectionately and devoutly honoring them in God, he happily passed to their glorious society eternally to enjoy God with them, on the 16th of December, 875, having been bishop fifteen years, three months. He is honored in the church of Vienne, and named in the Roman Martyrology on this day.

This mortal life is a pilgrimage, full of labors, hardships, and perils through an inhospitable desert, amidst numberless by-paths, and abounding with howling wild beasts. And the greatest danger frequently is the multitude of those who go astray before us. We follow their steps without giving ourselves leisure to think, and are thus led into some or other of these devious broad roads, which unawares draw all that are engaged in them headlong down the dreadful precipice into eternal flames. Amidst these, one only narrow path, which seems beset with briers and thorns, and is trodden by a small number of courageous souls, leads to happiness; and amongst those who enter upon it, many in every part fall out of it into some or other of the devious tracts and windings which terminate in destruction. Amidst these alarming dangers we have a sure guide; the light of divine revelation safely points out to us the strait way, and Christ bids us follow him, walk by his spirit, carefully tread in his steps, and keep always close to his direction. If ever we forsake his divine guidance, we lose and bewilder ourselves. He is the way, the truth, and the life. Many saints have followed this rule, and escaped all dangers, who seem to cry out to us.

This is the right way: walk you in it.” Can we have a greater comfort, encouragement, or assistance than to have them always before our eyes? The example of a God made man for us is the greatest model which we are bound continually to study in his divine life and precepts. Those who in all stations in the world have copied his holy maxims and conduct, sweetly invite us to this imitation of our divine original: every one of them cries out to us, with St. Pau1,1 Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ. Their example, if always placed before our eyes, will withhold us from being hurried away by the torrent of the world, and its pernicious maxims, and the remembrance of their heroic conflicts, and the sight of the crowns they now enjoy, will be our comfort and support. What can give us greater joy in this valley of tears than to think often on the bliss which these glorious conquerors already possess, and on the means by which they attained to it? We ourselves press close after them, and even now are not far from the same glory; for we live on the borders of it. The longest life is very short; and every moment in it may, by the least unexpected incident, ingulf us suddenly in the abyss of eternity, and remove us into the society of these glorious saints. Can we desire this bliss, and not love honor, and always bear them in mind?

DECEMBER 16 — ST. ALICE, OR ADELAIDE, EMPRESS

The second kingdom of Burgundy, called also of Arles, was erected by Charles the Bald, emperor and king of France, who, in 879, bestowed Burgundy, Provence, Bresse, and Dauphin, with his title on his brother-in-law Bose, descended by the mother from Louis Dbonnaire.* Rudolph, or Ralph II., king of Burgundy, was father to St. Alice, whom he left at his death, in 937, only six years old. At sixteen she was married to Lothaire, king of Italy, by whom she had a daughter named Emma, who was afterwards married to Lothaire, king of France. The death of our saint’s husband, which happened about the year 949, left her a young widow, and the afflictions with which she was visited contributed perfectly to disengage her heart from the world, and make her devote herself to the practice of piety, which had been from her infancy the ruling inclination of her heart. Berengarius III., margrave of Yvrea, possessed himself of all Lombardy, and succeeded in the title of king of Italy. This prince, who had always been the declared enemy of his predecessor’s family, cast Alice into prison at Pavia, where she suffered the greatest hardships and indignities. She at length found means to make her escape, and fled towards Germany; but was met by the emperor Otho I., who, at the solicitation of pope Agapetus II., was marching at the head of an army of fifty thousand men to do her justice. He made himself master of Pavia and other places, and married Alice,* but restored the kingdom to Berengarius, upon condition he should hold it of the empire. Berengarius soon forgot his engagements; whereupon Otho, at the earnest request of pope John XII., sent his son Luitolph against him, and Luitolph, after gaining many victories, dying, the emperor went in person into Italy, made Berengarius prisoner, and banished him into Germany, where he died at Bamberg. After this victory, Otho was crowned emperor at Rome by the pope in 963.

The good empress was not puffed up with prosperity, and made use both of her riches and power only to do good to all men, especially to protect comfort, and relieve all that were in distress. Otho I., surnamed the Great died in 973, having reigned as king of Germany thirty-six years, as emperor almost eleven. Alice educated her son Otho II., with great care, and his reign was happy so long as he governed by her directions.† But not standing upon his guard against flatterers, he suffered his heart to be debauched by evil counsellors. After the death of his first wife, who was daughter to the marquis of Austria, he married Theophania, a Grecian princess, and so far forgot his duty to his good mother as to banish her from court. Her tears for his irregularities were not shed in vain. Misfortune opened his eyes; he recalled her, and, with the most dutiful deference, reformed the abuses of the government by her counsels. The young emperor having been defeated by the Greeks in Calabria, died of a dysentery at Rome in 983, after he had reigned nine years. His imperious widow, Theophania, who became regent for her son Otho III., made it a point of honor to insult her pious mother-in-law; but Alice made no other return for all the ill treatment she received at her hands but that of meekness and patience. The young empress being snatched away by a sudden death, she was obliged to take upon her the regency. On this occasion it appeared how perfectly she was dead to herself. Power she looked upon merely as a burden and most difficult stewardship: but she applied herself to public affairs with indefatigable care. She showed herself so much a stranger to all resentment, as to load with benefactions those courtiers who had formerly given her most to suffer. Her attention to the public concerns never made her neglect the exercises of mortification and devotion. At set hours she retired to her oratory, there to seek by humble prayer the direction and light of heaven in her counsels, and to weep before God for those sins of the people which it was not in her power to remedy. In correcting others she felt in her own breast the confusion and trouble which her correction must give them; hence she forgot nothing which could soften it. Thus, by gaining their confidence and affection, she easily conducted them to virtue. Her own household appeared as regular as the most edifying monastery. She filled all the provinces which had the happiness to share in her protection, but especially the city of Magdeburg, with religious houses, and other monuments of charity and piety, and she zealously promoted the conversion of the Rugi and other infidels. In the last year of her life she took a journey into the kingdom of Burgundy to reconcile the subjects of that realm to king Ralph, her nephew, and died on the road, at Salces, in Alsace, in the year 999. Her name is honored in the calendars of several churches in Germany, though not in the Roman. A portion of her relics is kept in a costly shrine in the Treasury of Relics at Hanover, and is mentioned in the Lipsanographia of the electoral palace of Brunswick-Lunenburg, printed in 1713. See the life of St. Alice, written by St. Odilo with histories of her miracles published by Leibnitz, Collectio Scriptorum Brunswicensium, t. 2, p. 262.

The Irish commemorate on this day St. BEANUS, a bishop in Leinster. Colgan, MSS.

DECEMBER 17 — ST. OLMYPIAS, WIDOW

From St. Chrysostom’s seventeen letters to her; Palladius in his life; another Palladius in Lausiac, c. 43; Sozom.1. 8, c. 2; Leo Imp. in Encomio S. Joan. Chrysostomi. See Tillemont, t. 11, p. 416.

About the Year 410.

ST. OLYMPIAS, the glory of the widows in the Eastern church, was a lady of illustrious descent and a plentiful fortune. She was born about the year 368, and left an orphan under the care of Procopius, who seems to have been her uncle: but it was her greatest happiness that she was brought up under the care of Theodosia, sister to St. Amphilochius, a most virtuous and prudent woman, whom St. Gregory Nazianzen called a perfect pattern of piety, in whose life the tender virgin saw as in a glass the practice of all virtues, and it was her study faithfully to transcribe them into the copy of her own life. From this example which was placed before her eyes, she raised herself more easily to contemplate and to endeavor to imitate Christ, who in all virtues is the divine original which every Christian is bound to act after. Olympias, besides her birth and fortune, was, moreover, possessed of all the qualifications of mind and body which engage affection and respect. She was very young when she married Nebridius, treasurer of the emperor Theodosius the Great, and for some time prefect of Constantinople; but he died within twenty days after his marriage.

Our saint was addressed by several of the most considerable men of the court, and Theodosius was very pressing with her to accept for her husband Elpidius, a Spaniard, and his near relation. She modestly declared her resolution of remaining single the rest of her days: the emperor continued to urge the affair, and after several decisive answers of the holy widow, put her whole fortune in the hands of the prefect of Constantinople, with orders to act as her guardian till she was thirty years old. At the instigation of the disappointed lover, the prefect hindered her from seeing the bishops or going to church, hoping thus to tire her into a compliance. She old the emperor that she was obliged to own his goodness in easing her of the heavy burden of managing and disposing of her own money; and that the favor would be complete if he would order her whole fortune to be divided between the poor and the church. Theodosius, struck with her heroic virtue, made a further inquiry into her manner of living, and conceiving an exalted idea of her piety, restored to her the administration of he estate in 391. The use which she made of it, was to consecrate the revenues to the purposes which religion and virtue prescribe. By her state of widowhood, according to the admonition of the apostle, she looked upon herself as exempted even from what the support of her rank seemed to require in the world, and she rejoiced that the slavery of vanity and luxury was by her condition condemned even in the eyes of the world itself. With great fervor she embraced a life of penance and prayer. Her tender body she macerated with austere fasts, and never ate flesh or any thing that had life: by habit, long watchings became as natural to her as much sleep is to others; and she seldom allowed herself the use of a bath, which is thought a necessary refreshment in hot countries, and was particularly so before the ordinary use of linen. By meekness and humility she seemed perfectly crucified to her own will, and to all sentiments of vanity, which had no place in her heart, nor share in any of her actions. The modesty, simplicity, and sincerity from which she never departed in her conduct, were a clear demonstration what was the sole object of her affections and desires. Her dress was mean, her furniture poor, her prayers assiduous and fervent and her charities without bounds. These St. Chrysostom compares to a river which is open to all, and diffuses its waters to the bounds of the earth, and into the ocean itself. The most distant towns, isles, and deserts received plentiful supplies by her liberality, and she settled whole estates upon remote destitute churches. Her riches indeed were almost immense, and her mortified life afforded her an opportunity of consecrating them all to God. Yet St. Chrysostom found it necessary to exhort her sometimes to moderate her alms, or rather to be more cautious and reserved in bestowing them, that she might be enabled to succor those whose distresses deserved a preference.

The devil assailed her by many trials, which God permitted for the exercise and perfecting of her virtue. The contradictions of the world served only to increase her meekness, humility, and patience, and with her merits to multiply her crowns. Frequent severe sicknesses, most outrageous slanders, and unjust persecutions, succeeded one another. St. Chrysostom, in one of his letters, writes to her as follows.1 “As you are well acquainted with the advantages and merits of sufferings, you have reason to rejoice, inasmuch as by having lived constantly in tribulation you have walked in the road of crowns and laurels. All manner of corporal distempers have been your portion, often more cruel and harder to be endured than ten thousand deaths; nor have you ever been free from sickness. You have been perpetually overwhelmed with slanders, insults, and injuries. Never have you been free from some new tribulation: torrents of tears have always been familiar to you. Among all these one single affliction is enough to fill your soul with spiritual riches.” Her virtue was the admiration of the whole church, as appears by the manner in which almost all the saints and great prelates of that age mention her. St. Amphilochius, St. Epiphanius, St. Peter of Sebaste, and others were fond of her acquaintance, and maintained a correspondence with her, which always tended to promote God’s glory and the good of souls. Nectarius, archbishop of Constantinople, had the greatest esteem for her sanctity, and created her deaconess to serve that church in certain remote functions of the ministry, of which that sex is capable, as in preparing linen for the altars, and the like. A vow of perpetual chastity was always annexed to this state. St. Chrysostom, who was placed in that sec in 398, had not less respect for the sanctity of Olympias than his predecessor, and as his extraordinary piety, experience, and skill in sacred learning, made him an incomparable guide and model of a spiritual life, he was so much the more honored by her. but he refused to charge himself with the distribution of her alms as Nectarius had done. She was one of the last persons whom St. Chrysostom took leave of when he went into banishment on the 20th of June in 404. She was then in the great church, which seemed the place of her usual residence; and it was necessary to tear her from his feet by violence. After his departure she had a great share in the persecution in which all his friends were involved. She was convened before Optatus, the prefect of the city, who was a heathen. She justified herself as to the calumnies which were shamelessly alleged in court against her; but she assured the governor that nothing should engage her to hold communion with Arsacius, a schismatical usurper of another’s see. She was dismissed for that time, and was visited with a grievous fit of sickness, which afflicted her the whole winter. In spring she was obliged by Arsacius and the court to leave the city, and wandered from place to place. About midsummer in 405 she was brought back to Constantinople, and again presented before Optatus, who, without any further trial, sentenced her to pay a heavy fine because she refused to communicate with Arsacius. Her goods were sold by a public auction; she was often dragged before public tribunals; her clothes were torn by the soldiers, her farms rifled by many among the dregs of the people, and she was insulted by her own servants, and those who had received from her hands the greatest favors. Atticus, successor of Arsacius, dispersed and banished the whole community of nuns which she governed; for it seems, by what Palladius writes, that she was abbess, or at least directress, of the monastery which she had founded near the great church, which subsisted till the fall of the Grecian empire. St. Chrysostom frequently encouraged and comforted her by letters: but he sometimes blamed her grief. This indeed seemed in some degree excusable, as she regretted the loss of the spiritual consolation and instruction she had formerly received from him, and deplored the dreadful evils which his unjust banishment brought upon the church. Neither did she sink into despondency, fail, in the perfect resignation of he will, or lose her confidence in God under her affliction, remembering that God is ready to supply every help to those who sincerely seek him, and that he abandoned not St. Paul’s tender converts when he suffered their master to be taken from them. St. Chrysostom bid her particularly to rejoice under her sickness, which she ought to place among her most precious crowns, in imitation of Job and Lazarus. In his distress she furnished him with plentiful supplies, wherewith he ransomed many captives, and relieved the poor in the wild and desert countries into which he was banished. She also sent him drugs for his own use when he labored under a bad state of health. Her lingering martyrdom was prolonged beyond that of St. Chrysostom; for she was living in 408, when Palladius wrote his Dialogue on the Life of St. Chrysostom. The other Palladius, in the Lausiac history which he compiled in 420, tells us, that she died under her sufferings, and, deserving to receive the recompense due to holy confessors, enjoyed the glory of heaven among the saints. The Greeks honor her memory on the 25th of July; but the Roman Martyrology on the 17th of December.

The saints all studied to husband every moment to the best advantage, knowing that life is very short, that night is coming on apace, in which no one will be able to work, and that all our moments here are so many precious seeds of eternity. If we applied ourselves with the saints to the uninterrupted exercise of good works, we should find that short as life is, it affords sufficient time for extirpating our evil inclinations, earning to put on the spirit of Christ, working our souls into a heavenly temper adorning them with all virtues, and laying in a provision for eternity. But through our unthinking indolence, the precious time of life is reduced almost to nothing, because the greatest part of it is absolutely thrown away. So numerous is the tribe of idlers, and the class of occupations which deserve no other denomination than that of idleness, that a bare list would fill a volume. The complaint of Seneca, how much soever it degrades men beneath the dignity of reason, and much more of religion, agrees no less to the greatest part of Christians, than to the idolaters, that “Almost their whole lives are spent in doing nothing, and the whole in doing nothing to the purpose.”2 Let no moments be spent merely to pass time; diversions and corporal exercise ought to be used with moderation, only as much as may seem requisite for bodily health and the vigor of the mind. Every one is bound to apply himself to some serious employment. This and his necessary recreations must be referred to God, and sanctified by a holy intention, and other circumstances which virtue prescribes; and in all our actions, humility, patience, various acts of secret prayer, and other virtues ought, according to the occasions, to be exercised. Thus will our lives be a continued series of good works, and an uninterrupted holocaust of divine praise and love. That any parts of this sacrifice should be defective, ought to be the subject of our daily compunction and tears.

DECEMBER 17 — ST. BEGGA, WIDOW AND ABBESS

This saint was daughter of Pepin of Landen, eldest sister to St. Gertrude of Nivelle, and married Ansegise, son to St. Arnoul, who was some time mayor of the palace, and afterwards bishop of Metz. Her husband being killed in hunting, she dedicated herself to a penitential state of retirement, and, after performing a pilgrimage to Rome, built seven chapels at Anden on the Meuse, in imitation of the seven principal churches at Rome. There she also founded a great nunnery in imitation of that which her sister governed at Nivelle,* from which she was furnished with a little colony who laid the foundation of this monastery, and lived under her direction. Many holy virgins were trained up by them in the perfect practice of piety. The rich monastery of Anden was afterwards converted into a collegiate church of thirty-two canonesses of noble families, with ten canons to officiate at the altar. It is situate in the forest of Ardenne, in the diocese of Namur. St. Begga departed to our Lord in the year 698, and is named in the Roman Martyrology. See Mirus, in Fastis Belgicis, and G. Ryekel, Vita S. Begg Beguinarum et Beguardorum Fundatricis. Lovanii, 1631, in 410.

DECEMBER 18 — SS. RUFUS AND ZOZIMUS, MM

From St. Polycarp’s Epistle, n. 9, p. 94.

A. D. 116.

FROM the eminent spirit of sanctity which the actions and writings of the great St. Ignatius breathe, we are to form a judgment of that with which these holy martyrs were animated. They had the happiness to share in his chains and sufferings for Christ, and likewise glorified God by martyrdom under Trajan, about the year 116. St. Polycarp says of them, “They have not run in vain, but in faith and righteousness; and they are gone to the place that was due to them from the Lord, with whom they also suffered. For they loved not the present world, but Him who died, and was raised again by God for us.” Whether Antioch or Philippi, where they seem to have preached, or what other city of the East was the theatre of their triumph, is uncertain. St. Polycarp, writing to the Philippians, says:—“Wherefore I exhort all of you that ye obey the word of righteousness, and exercise all patience, which ye have seen set forth before your eyes, not only in the blessed Ignatius, and Zozimus, and Rufus, but in others that have been among you; and in Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles.”

The primitive martyrs rejoiced exceedingly in being called to suffer for Christ. If faith was as lively and active in us, and if the divine love exerted its power in our hearts, we should rejoice at all occasions of practising meekness and patience which we should look upon as our greatest happiness and gain. To forgive an injury, to bear well an affront, or to suffer with perfect resignation, patience, and humility, is a glorious victory gained over ourselves, by which we vanquish our passions, and improve in our souls the habits of those divine virtues in which consists the spirit of Christ, and the resemblance we are commanded to bear to him. Occasions occur in almost all our actions; yet we lose them, and even suffer our passions to reign in them to the offence of God, the scandal of our holy religion, and the infinite prejudice of our souls. Do we consider that the least exertion of meekness, humility, or charity, is something much greater and more advantageous than the conquest of empires and the whole world could be? For Alexander to have once curbed his anger on ever so small an occasion, would have been a far more glorious victory than all his conquests, even if his wars had been just. For nothing is so heroic as for a man to vanquish his passions, and learn to govern his own soul. Why then do not we take all necessary precautions to watch and to arm ourselves for these continual occasions? Why are not we prepared, and upon our guard to check all sudden sallies of our passions, and, under provocations, to show by silence, meekness, and patience, that we study truly to prove ourselves disciples of Christ?

DECEMBER 18 — ST. GATIAN, FIRST BISHOP OF TOURS, C

St. Gatian came from Rome with St. Dionysius of Paris about the middle of the third century, and preached the faith principally at Tours in Gaul, where he fixed his episcopal see. The Gauls in that part were extremely addicted to the worship of their idols. But no contradictions or sufferings were able to discourage or daunt this true apostle: and by perseverance he gained several to Christ. He assembled his little flock in grots and caves, and there celebrated the divine mysteries. For he was obliged often to lie hid in lurking holes a long time together in order to escape a cruel death, with which the heathens frequently threatened him, and which he was always ready to receive with joy if he had fallen into their hands. Having continued his labors with unwearied zeal amidst frequent sufferings and dangers for near the space of fifty years, he died in peace and was honored with miracles. See St. Gregory of Tours,1. 1, c. 30; the Roman Martyrology, and Gallia Christiana.

DECEMBER 18 — ST. WINEBALD, ABBOT, C

St. Richard, the English-Saxon king, seems to have been a prince of Westsex; for he was related to St. Boniface, and set out on his pilgrimage from Hamble-Haven in that country. It is thought that he was one of those princes who ruled in part of that kingdom, till they were compelled to give way to king Ceadwa11.1 God blessed him with three children, St. Winebald the eldest, St. Willibald, who died bishop of Eystadt, and St. Walburga. St. Richard leaving his native country, took with him his two sons, and embarking at Hamble-Haven, landed on the coast of Normandy, and visiting all the places of devotion on his way, travelled into Italy, intending to go to Rome: but at Lucca fell sick and died about the year 722. His body was buried in the church of St. Frigidian,* and on account of certain famous miracles wrought at his tomb, was taken up by Gregory, bishop of Lucca, by the pope’s authority, and is kept in a rich shrine in that church. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 7th of February. SS. Winebald and Willibald accomplished their pilgrimage to Rome. After some stay there to perform their devotions, St. Willibald undertook another pilgrimage to the holy places in Palestine; but Winebald, who is by some called Wunibald, who was from his childhood of a weak sickly constitution, remained at Rome, where he pursued his studies seven years, took the tonsure, and devoted himself with his whole heart to the divine service. Then returning to England, he engaged a third brother and several among his kindred and acquaintance to accompany him in his journey back to Rome, and there dedicate themselves to God in a religious state. St. Boniface, who was our saint’s cousin, coming to that city in 738, prevailed with him upon motives of charity to undertake a share of his labors in the conversion of the infidels, and in founding the infant church of Germany. Winebald accompanied him into Thuringia, and being ordained priest by that holy archbishop, took upon him by his commission, the care of seven churches in that country, especially at Erfurt, as the nun informs us in the life of our saint. These churches the chronicle of Andesches and Bruschius call seven monasteries; but without authority or probability, as Serarius observes. St. Willibald was made bishop of Aychstadt in Franconia in 781, and being desirous to erect a double monastery, which might be a pattern and seminary of piety and learning to the numerous churches which he had planted, prevailed with his brother Winebald, and his sister Walburga, whom he invited out of England to undertake that charge.

Winebald therefore translated his monastery from Schwanfield to Heiden heim, where, having purchased a wild spot of ground covered with shrubs and bushes, he cleared it and built first little cells or mean cottages for himself and his monks, and shortly after erected a monastery. A nunnery was founded by him in the neighborhood, which St. Walburga governed. The idolaters often attempted the life of St. Winebald by poison and by open violence: but by the divine protection he escaped their snares, and continued by his zealous labors to dilate on every side the pale of Christ’s fold. He was solicitous in the first place to maintain in his religious community the perfect spirit of their holy state, teaching them above all things to persevere instant in prayer,2 and to keep inviolably in mind the humility of our Lord, and his meekness and holy conversation, as the standard from which they were never to turn their eyes. They who find a reluctance arising from the corruption of their passions, must nevertheless force themselves cheerfully to all that which is good, especially to divine love, fraternal compassion, patience when they are despised, meekness, and assiduous prayer; for God, beholding their conflicts and the earnestness of their desires and endeavors, will in the end grant them the true grace of prayer, meekness, and the bowels of mercy, and will fill them with the fruits of the Spirit, in which state the Lord seems to perform all things in them; so sweet do humility, love, meekness, and prayer become. Thus our holy abbot encouraged his spiritual children, and strengthened in them the spirit of Christ; but he inculcated to them both by word and example, that Christ never plants his spirit nor establishes the kingdom of his grace in souls which are not prepared by self-denial, mortification, obedience, simplicity, a life of prayer, and profound humility; for self-elevation is the greatest abasement, and self-abasement is the highest exaltation, honor, and dignity. For only he can cleave to the Lord who has freed his heart from earthly lusts, and disengaged his affections from the covetousness of the world. St. Winebald was afflicted many years with sickness, and had a private chapel erected in his own cell, in which he said mass when he was not able to go to church. Once, being looked upon as brought by his distemper to extremity, and almost to the point of death, he made a visit of devotion to the shrine of St. Boniface, once his spiritual father and much honored friend in Christ: and in three weeks’ time was restored to his health. Some time after, he relapsed into his former ill state of health, and in his last moments earnestly exhorted his disciples to advance with their whole might towards God with out stopping or looking behind them; for no one can be found worthy to enter the holy city, who strives not by doing his utmost that his name be written in heaven with the first-born. For this, in the earnestness of our de sires, we ought to pour out tears day and night. Our saint had made them as it were, the very food of the soul, and having been tried and purified by a lingering sickness as the pure gold in the furnace, went to God on the 18th of December, 760. After his death St. Willibald committed the superintendency over the monastery of monks to the holy abbess St. Walburga so long as she lived. The monastery of Heidenheim was finally dissolved upon the change of religion in the province of Brandenburg Anspach, in which it was situated. The nun who wrote the life of St. Winebald assures us, that several miraculous cures were performed at his tomb. St. Ludger also writes in the life of St. Gregory of Utrecht, “Winebald was very dear to my master Gregory, and shows by great miracles since his death what he did while living.” Rader testifies, that St. Winebald is honored among the saints in several churches in Germany, though his name is not inserted in the Roman Martyrology, as Mabillon and Basnage remark. See his life, written, not by St. Walburga, as some have said, but by another contemporary nun of her monastery, who had before written the life of St. Willibald. In that of St. Winebald we have an account of the manner of canonizing saints in that age, and of the twofold labor to which monks then applied themselves, in tilling land and making that which was wild arable; and in instructing and preaching. This work was published entire by Cauisius in his Lectiones Antiqu, t. 4, more correctly by Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 4, and most accurately by Basnage in his edition of Canisius in 1725, t. 2, part 2.

DECEMBER 19 — SAINT NEMESION, M., ETC

From St. Dionysius of Alex. quoted by Eusebius, Hist.1. 6. c. 41, p. 307, ed. Cantabr.

A. D. 250.

IN the persecution of Decius, Nemesion, an Egyptian, was apprehended at Alexandria upon an indictment for theft. The servant of Christ easily cleared himself of that charge, but was immediately accused of being a Christian. Hereupon he was sent to the Augustal prefect of Egypt, and confessing his faith at his tribunal, he was ordered to be scourged and tormented doubly more grievously than the thieves: after which he was condemned to be burnt with the most criminal among the robbers and other malefactors; whereby he had the honor and happiness more perfectly to imitate the death of our divine Redeemer. There stood at the same time near the prefect’s tribunal four soldiers, named Ammon, Zeno, Ptolemy, and Ingenuus, and another person, whose name was Theophilus, who, being Christians, boldly encouraged a confessor who was hanging on the rack. They were soon taken notice of, and presented to the judge, who condemned them to be beheaded; but was himself astonished to see the joy with which they walked to the place of execution. Heron, Ater, and Isidore both Egyptians, with Dioscorus, a youth only fifteen years old, were committed at Alexandria in the same persecution. First of all the judge took the youth in hand, and began to entreat him with fair speeches; then he assailed him with various torments; but the generous youth neither would bow at his flatteries, nor could be terrified or broken by his threats or torments. The rest, after enduring the most cruel rending and disjointing of their limbs, were burnt alive. But the judge discharged Dioscorus, on account of the tenderness of his years, saying, he allowed him time to repent, and consult his own advantage, and expressing that he was struck with admiration at the dazzling beauty of his countenance. In the Roman Martyrology St. Nemesion is commemorated on the 19th of December, the rest of these martyrs on other days.

SS. Meuris and Thea, two holy women at Gaza in Palestine, when the persecution raged in that city under the successors of Dioclesian, bore up bravely against all the cruelty of men, and malice of the devil, and triumphed over both to the last moment. Meuris died under the hands of the persecutors; but Thea languished some time after she had passed through a dreadful variety of exquisite torments, as we learn from the author of the life of St. Porphyrius of Gaza, written about the close of the fourth century. Their relics were deposited in a church which bore the name of St. Timothy; on whom see August 19.

Can we call to mind the fervor of the saints in laboring and suffering cheerfully for God, and not feel a holy ardor glow in our own breasts, and our souls strongly affected with their heroic sentiments of virtue? This St. Macarius of Egypt used to illustrate by the following familiar apothegm: “As he that goes into a shop, where are ointments and perfumes, and takes a few turns in it, though he neither buys nor tastes of any thing, yet he enjoys the scent, and is perfumed thereby: even so he that converses with the holy fathers, (or reads their actions,) derives a salutary influence from them. They show him true humility; and both their discourses and example are of service, and as a wall and fence against the incursions of demons.”1

DECEMBER 19 — ST. SAMTHANA, V., ABBESS

She founded the monastery of Cluainbronach, on the borders of Meath in Ireland, and departed to our Lord in 738. See Colgan.

DECEMBER 20 — ST. PHILOGONIUS, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH, C

From the panegyric, spoken by St. Chrysostom on his festival, t. 1, p. 492, ed Montfauc.

A. D. 322.

ST. PHILOGONIUS was brought up to the law, and made a considerable figure at the bar, being admired for his eloquence, and still more for the purity of his manners and the sanctity of his life. This was a sufficient motive for dispensing with the canons, which require some time spent among the clergy before a person be advanced to the highest station in the church Philogonius was placed in the see of Antioch upon the death of Vitalis in 318, and St. Chrysostom mentions the flourishing state of that church in his time, as an authentic proof of his zeal and excellent administration. When Arius broached his blasphemies at Alexandria in 318, St. Alexander condemned him, and sent the sentence in a synodal letter to St. Philogonius, who strenuously defended the Catholic faith before the assembly of the council of Nice. In the storms which were raised against the church, first by Maximin II., and afterwards by Licinius, St. Philogonius deserved the title of Confessor; he died in the year 322, the fifth of his episcopal dignity. His festival was celebrated at Antioch on the 20th of December, in the year 386, in which St. Chrysostom pronounced his panegyric, touching lightly on his virtues, because, as he says, he left the detail of them to his bishop Flavian, who was to speak after him.

St. Chrysostom extols in the most amiable terms the overflowing peace which this saint now enjoys in a state of bliss, where there are no conflicts, no irregular passions, no more of that cold word, “mine and thine” which fills the whole world with wars, every family with broils, and every breast with restless disquiets, gnawing pains, and prickling thorns. St. Philogonius had so perfectly renounced the world, and crucified its inordinate desires in his heart, that he received in this life the earnest of Christ’s spirit, was admitted to the sacred council of the heavenly king, and had free access to the Almighty. A soul must here learn the heavenly spirit, and be well versed in the occupations of the blessed, if she hopes to reign with them hereafter: she must beforehand have some acquaintance with the mysteries of grace, and the functions of divine love and praise. Persons are not called to the palace of an earthly king without having been fashioned, and for a long time exercised in the manners of the court, that they may not come thither utter strangers to the proceedings of the place, says St. Macarius.1

DECEMBER 20 — ST. PAUL OF LATRUS OR LATRA, HERMIT

The father of this saint, who was an officer in the imperial army, being slain on board the Grecian fleet, in an engagement with the Mahometans, his mother Eudocia retired from Pergamus in Asia, which was the place of his nativity, into Bithynia, taking her two sons with her. Basil, who was the eldest, rejecting the proposal of an advantageous match, took the monastic habit upon Mount Olympus in that country; but soon after, for the sake of greater solitude, retired to the laura founded by St. Elias, and afterwards to Brachiana, near Mount Latrus. When their mother was dead, he engaged his younger brother to embrace the same state of life. Though young, he had experienced the world sufficiently to understand the emptiness and dangers of its enjoyments. He saw that even if it bestows on a man all things it can give, he is only like a rich man who is possessed of stately houses, abundance of gold and silver, and enjoys all manner of attendance; yet is afflicted with inward pains and distempers, under which neither the whole tribe of his relations, nor his riches, nor strength, nor diversions can ease his pains; nothing at least of all this can cleanse him from sin. But the more this visible world, and the false rest which it affords, seem to cherish the body, so much the more do they sharpen the disorders of the soul, and increase her illness. This the pious youth seriously considered, and resolved to disengage himself from the cares of this life, and devote himself to the Lord, crying to him night and day. Basil recommended our saint to the care and instruction of the abbot of Carya on the top of Mount Latrus, and returning himself to Mount Olympus, he died abbot of the laura of St. Elias.

Paul was indefatigable in the exercise of holy prayer, and having no other desire than to gain heaven, labored seriously to subdue his body by mortification. He never lay down to sleep, but only leaned his head against a stone or tree. No unprofitable word was ever heard from his mouth; and the sight of the fire, which put him in mind of hell, drew tears from his eyes without intermission whenever he was employed in the kitchen. It was his desire, for the sake of greater solitude and austerity, to lead an eremitical life; but his abbot thinking him too young, refused him leave so long as he lived; but this he obtained after his death. His first cell was a cave on the highest part of Mount Latrus. where, for some weeks he had no other subsistence than green acorns, which caused him at first to vomit even to blood. After eight months he was called back by the abbot to Carya, but soon after allowed to pursue his vocation, and chose a new habitation on the highest and most craggy part of the mountain. The first three years he suffered most grievous temptations; but overcame them by steadiness in his exercises, and especially by assiduous prayer. A countryman sometimes brought him a little coarse food; but he mostly lived on what grew wild on the mountain. At first he wanted water; but God produced a spring with a constant stream near his dwelling. The reputation of his sanctity being spread through the neighboring provinces, several persons chose to live near him, and built there a laura of cells. Paul, who had been careless of himself as to all corporal necessaries, was solicitous that no provisions should be wanting to those that lived under his direction. After twelve years, regretting to see his solitude too much broken into, he secretly withdrew into a wild part of the mountains, where he had no company but that of wild beasts. However, he visited his brethren from time to time, to comfort and encourage them; and he sometimes led them into the forests to sing the divine praises together. Being once asked why he appeared sometimes joyful, at other times sad, he answered, “When nothing diverts my thoughts from God, my heart swims in excess of overflowing joy, insomuch that I often forget my food, and all earthly things; but it is an affliction to live amidst the distraction of worldly conversation.” On certain necessary occasions he disclosed something of the wonderful communications which passed between his soul and God, and of the heavenly favors which he received in contemplation. Desiring to find a closer retirement, he passed to the isle of Samos, and there concealed himself in a cave upon Mount Cerces. But he was soon discovered, and many flocking to him, he re-established three lauras, which had been ruined by the Saracens in that island. The importunate entreaties of the monks of his laura at Latrus prevailed upon him to return to his former cell on the top of that mountain. There he lived in the practice of penance and contemplation, but refused not instructions to those that desired them. The emperor Constantine Porphyrogenetta wrote frequently to him, asked his advice in affairs of importance, and had always reason to repent when he did not follow it. Popes, bishops, and princes often sent messages to him. Such was his tenderness for the poor, that he gave them every part of his own coarse meat and clothes which it was in his power to retrench; and once he would have sold himself for a slave to procure assistance for certain persons in deep distress, had he not been presented. Towards the end of his life he drew up rules for his laura. On the 6th of December, in 956, foreseeing that his death drew near, he came down from his cell to his laura, said mass more early than usual, then took to his bed, being seized with a violent fever. He spent his last moments in prayer, and in repeating tender instructions to his monks till his happy death, which fell out on the 15th of December, on which day he is commemorated in the Greek Synaxarium. Papebroke tells us, he found his name in some Greek calendars on the 21st of December. See his life, which is well written, quoted by Leo Allatius, and Jos. Assemani in Cal. Univ. t. 5, p. 467 abridged by Fleury,1. 55, n. 52, t. 12, p. 101. &c.

DECEMBER 21 — ST. THOMAS, APOSTLE

See Tillemont, t. 1, p. 355; Ant. Pagi, Critica, vol. 1. p. 421. The false Acts of St. Thomas are rejected as pope Gelasius, S. Austin,1. contra Adimant. c. 12; contra Faust.1. 22, c. 9 and1. 1, de Serm. D. in Monte; S. Athan. in Synopsl, S. Epiph. hr. 47; and S. Cyril, cap. 6. This last ascribes these Acts to Thomas, a Manichean. Those in Metaphrastes are taken from them.

First Age

IT was not unusual for the Jews and other Orientals, when they conversed with other nations, to assume names in the language of those countries of the same import with those which they bore in their own, that the sound might be less uncouth or harsh to such foreigners. For where languages, though there is always some general analogy, differ too widely, as these of the Orientals on one side, and on the other the Sclavonian, do from ours, names in the one appear disagreeable in pronunciation, unless they are softened, and brought to some affinity. Thus Tabitha was in Greek called Dorcas, a doe; Cephas, Peter, Thomas and Didymus. Thauma, or Thama, in Chaldaic signifying a twin. St. Thomas was a Jew, and probably a Galilan of low condition, according to Metaphrastes, a fisherman. He had the happiness to follow Christ, and was made by him an apostle in the year 31.1 If he appears to have been slow in understanding, and unacquainted with secular learning, he made up for this by the candor and simplicity of his heart, and the ardor of his piety and desires. Of this he gave a proof when Jesus was going up to the neighborhood of Jerusalem in order to raise Lazarus to life, where the priests and Pharisees were contriving his death. The rest of the disciples endeavored to dissuade him from that journey, saying: Rabbi, the Jews but now sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? But St. Thomas said to his fellow-disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him.2 So ardent was his love of his divine master, even before the descent of the Holy Ghost. When our Lord at his last supper acquainted his disciples that he was about to leave them: but told them for their comfort that he was going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house, our apostle, who vehemently desired to follow him, said: Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?3 Christ presently rectified his misapprehension by returning this short, but satisfactory answer: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh to the Father but by me. By which he gave to understand, that by his doctrine and example he had taught men the path of salvation, and that he is the author of the Way that leadeth to life, which he hath both opened and discovered to us; that he is the teacher of that Truth which directs to it; and the giver of that Life of grace here, and of a glorious eternity hereafter, which is to be obtained by walking in this way, and according to this truth.

After our Lord had suffered, was risen from the dead, and on the same day had appeared to his disciples, to convince them of the truth of his resurrection, Thomas not being with them on that occasion, refused to believe upon their report that he was truly risen, presuming that it was only a phantom, or mere apparition, unless he might see the very prints of the nails, and feel the wounds in his hands and side. On that day sevennight, our merciful Lord, with infinite condescension to this apostle’s weakness presented himself again, when he and his colleagues were assembled together, probably at their devotions; and after the usual salutation of Peace be unto you, he turned to Thomas, and bid him look upon his hands, and put his finger into the hole of his side, and into the prints of the nails. St. Austin and many others doubt not but this apostle did so; though this be not mentioned by the evangelist, and some think, that being convinced, he refrained out of modesty and respect. It is observed by St. Austin and others, that he sinned by obstinacy, presumption, and incredulity: for the resurrection of Christ was no more than Moses and the prophets had long before foretold. Nor was it reasonable in him to reject the testimony of such eye-witnesses: and this stubbornness might have betrayed him into infidelity. However, his refractoriness was not a sin of malice, and the mercy of our Redeemer not only brought him to saving repentance, but raised him to the summit of holy charity and perfect virtue. St. Thomas was no sooner convinced of the reality of the mystery, but, penetrated with compunction, awe, and tender love, he cried out, My Lord and my God.4 Prostrating to him all the powers of his soul, he acknowledged him the only and sovereign Lord of his heart, and the sole object of all his affections. Nothing is more easy than to repeat these words; but to pronounce them with a sincere and perfect disposition, is a privilege reserved to those who are crucified to the world, and in whose affections God only reigns by his pure and perfect love. So long as pride, envy, avarice, sensuality, or other passions challenge to themselves any shares in our affections, Christ has not established in them the empire of his grace; and it is only in lying and hypocrisy that we call him our God and our King. Let us at least labor without ceasing, by compunction and holy prayer, to attain to this happiness, that Christ may establish his reign in us, and that we may be able to say with our whole hearts, My Lord and my God. These words St. Thomas spoke with an entire faith, believing him truly God, whose humanity only he saw, confessing him omnipotent, in overcoming death and hell, and acknowledging his omniscience, who knew the doubts and scruples of his heart. The apostle also expressed by them the ardor of his love, which the particle my God clearly indicates. If we love our God and Redeemer, can we cease sweetly, but with awe and trembling, to call him our Lord and our God, and to beg with torrents of tears that he become more and more perfectly the God and King of our hearts? From this apostle’s incredulity Christ mercifully drew the strongest evidence of his resurrection for the confirmation of our faith beyond all cavil or contradiction. Whence St. Gregory the Great says:5 “By this doubting of Thomas we are more confirmed in our belief, than by the faith of the other apostles” Some other fathers take notice, that our apostle, by this confession, shows himself a perfect theologian, instructed in the very school of truth, declaring in Christ two distinct natures in one and the same person, his humanity by the word Lord, and his divinity by the word God. Faith in the beginning stood in need of miracles, by which God impressed the stamp of his authority upon his holy revelation. But such are the marks and characteristics of his truth herein, that those who can still stand out against all the light and evidence of the Christian revelation, would bar their heart against all conviction from miracles. There were infidels amidst the dispensation of the most evident miracles as well as now. So true it is, that he who be believeth not Moses and the prophets, would not believe the greatest of al miracles, one risen from the dead.

After the descent of the Holy Ghost, St. Thomas commissioned Thaddus to instruct and baptize Abgar, king or toparch of Edessa. This prince, according to the records kept in the church of Edessa, transcribed by Eusebius,6 and mentioned by St. Ephrem,7 had written to Christ to invite him into his kingdom, and begging to cured by him of a distemper with which he was afflicted. Christ, in his answer, told him that he must accomplish the things for which he was sent, and then return to him who sent him; but that immediately after his ascension he would send one of disciples to the king, to heal him, and give life to him and all his family.* This promise of our Lord was made good by St. Thomas, who, by a special direction of the Holy Ghost, sent Thaddus, one of the seventy-two disciples, and according to some, his own brother, to Edessa, who restored the king to his health, baptized him and many others, and planted Christianity in that country. This disciple Thaddus is distinct from St. Judas the apostle, and is honored by the Greeks, who tell us that he died at Berytus in Phenicia, on the 21st of August. As for St. Thomas, Origen8 informs us, that in the distribution made by the twelve, Parthia was particularly assigned to him for his apostolic province, when this nation held the place of the Persian empire, and disputed the sovereignty with the Romans. After preaching with good success in the particular province of Parthia, he did the same in other nations subject to that empire, and over all the East. Sophronius9 mentions, that by his apostolic labors he established the faith among the Medes, Persians, Carmanians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and other nations in those parts. Modern Greeks mention also the Indians and Ethiopians;10 but these appellations were sometimes given by the ancients to all eastern nations. The modern Indians and Portuguese tell us, that St. Thomas preached to the Brahmins, and to the Indians beyond the great island Taprobana, which some take to be Ceylon, others Sumatra. They add, that he suffered martyrdom at Meliapor, or St. Thomas’s, in the peninsula on this side the Ganges, on the coast of Coromandel, where his body was discovered, with certain marks that he was slain with lances; and that such was the manner of his death is the tradition of all the eastern countries. Eusebius affirms11 in general, that the apostles died by martyrdom. Theodoret,12 and St. Asterius of Amasea,13 mention St. Thomas among the principal martyrs of the church. St. Nilus says that he received the crown of martyrdom after SS. Peter and Pau1.14 St. Gaudentius mentions.15 that he was slain by the infidels, and that the miracles which were performed through him, show that he Still lives with God. The same father and Sophronius testify, that he died at Calamina in India. This city the modern Indians suppose to be Meliapor. But Tillemont and many others think it was not far from Edessa, and that it is not clear that he ever preached beyond the isle of Taprobana. Beausobre16 thinks be never preached far beyond Parthia and Persia. For the name of king Gundaphore, mentioned by Leucius, in his false Acts, and his copier Pseudo Abdias, seems corruptly written for the king of Gundschavur, or Gandisapor, which city was rebuilt by Artaxerxes, who founded the second Persian monarchy, and called from his son Schavur, whom the Greeks name Sapor I., who made it his residence. The author of these false Acts gave to the city the name which it bore when he wrote. All the false Acts, and the Greek Men agree, that the infidel king was incensed against the apostle for having baptized some persons of his court, (some say his wife and son,) that he delivered him over to his soldiers, in order to be put to death, and that he was conveyed by them to a neighboring mountain, and there stabbed with a lance. It is certain that his body was carried to the city of Edessa, where it was honored in the great church with singular veneration, when St. Chrysostom, Rufin, Socrates, Sozomen, and St. Gregory of Tours17 wrote. St. Chrysostom says,18 that the sepulchres only of SS. Peter and Paul, John and Thomas, among all the apostles, were then known; arid it is mentioned to have been at Edessa in the oration on this apostle compiled in the year 402, published among the works of St. Chrysostom. The church of Edessa was certainly most numerous and flourishing in the second, third, and fourth ages.19

Many distant churches in the East ascribe their first foundation to St. Thomas,* especially that of Meliapor; but many of them probably received the faith only from his disciples. The use of the Chaldean language in the churches, and the dependence on the patriarch of Mosul, which the church of Meliapor, and all the Christians of St. Thomas in the East profess, seem to show that their first teachers came from the churches of Assyria; in which the patriarchs of Mosul (a city built upon the ruins of Seleucia, erroneously called Babylon) exercise a jurisdiction, and have been for many ages the propagators of the Nestorian heresy, with which they are tinctured. The Portuguese, when they came into the East-Indies, found there the St. Thomas-Christians, it is said, to the number of fifteen thousand families, on the coast of Malabar. For a detail of the Nestorian phrases, and other errors, abuses, and superstitions which prevail among them, see the synod held at Diamper, in the kingdom of Cochin, in 1599, by Alexius de Menezes, archbishop of Goa; in the preface it is shown, that these Christians were drawn into Nestorianism only in the ninth century, by means of certain Nestorian priests who came thither from Armenia and Persia. On two festivals which they keep in honor of St. Thomas, they resort in great crowds to the place of his burial; on Low-Sunday, in honor of his confession of Christ, which gospel is then read, and chiefly on the 1st of July, his principal feast in the churches of the Indies. John III., king of Portugal, ordered the body of St. Thomas to be sought for in an old ruinous chapel which stood over his tomb without the walls of Meliapor. By digging there in 1523, a very deep vault in form of a chapel was discovered in which were found the bones of the saint, with a part of the lance with which he was slain, and a vial tinged with his blood. The body of the apostle was put in a chest of porcelain, varnished and adorned with silver. The bones of the prince whom he had baptized, and some others of his disciples, which were discovered in the same vault, were laid in another less precious chest.20 The Portuguese built a new town about this church, which is called St. Thomas’s, inhabited by Christians of several denominations, and situate hard by Meliapor, which is inhabited by the Indians. Many of the Christians of St. Thomas have been brought over to the catholic faith and communion; but many continue in the Nestorian errors, and in obedience of the Nestorian patriarch of Mosul. Since the Dutch have taken or ruined most of the Portuguese settlements on that coast, the Indian king of Golcond has taken possession of the town of St. Thomas, but the Portuguese missionaries continue to attend the Catholics there. The Latins keep the feast of St. Thomas on the 21st of December, the Greeks on the 6th of October, and the Indians on the 1st of July.

The apostles were mean and contemptible in the eyes of the world, neither recommended by birth, riches, friends, learning, nor abilities. Yet totally destitute as they were of all those advantages on which men here set so high a price, they were chosen by Christ, made his friends, replenished with his graces and holy charity, and exalted to the dignity of spiritual princes of his kingdom, and judges of the world. Blind and foolish are all men who overrate and eagerly pursue the goods of this life; or who so enjoy them as to suffer their hearts to be wedded to them. Worldly pleasures, riches, or honors, if they become the object of our affections, are, as it were, fetters which fasten us to the earth, and clog our souls; and it is so hard to enjoy them with perfect indifference, to consider them barely as a dangerous stewardship, and to employ them only for the advancement of virtue in ourselves and others, that many saints thought it safer utterly to renounce them, and others rejoiced to see themselves removed from what it is difficult to possess, and not be entangled by. Are not the maxims of the gospel, and the example of Christ, our king and leader, and of all his saints, sufficient to inspire those who enjoy the advantages of this world with a saving fear, and to make them study the various obligations of their stewardship, and by watchfulness, voluntary humiliations, mortification, compunction, assiduous prayer, and conversing on heavenly things by holy meditation or reading, to stand infinitely upon their guard, lest the love of the world, or the infection of its pride, vanity, or pleasures, seize their hearts. Faith must be extremely weak and inactive in us, if we look upon the things of this world in any other light than that in which the gospel places them; if we regard any other goods as truly valuable but those of divine grace and charity, or if we set not ourselves with our whole strength to pursue them by the road of humility, patience, meekness, and piety, in imitation of the saints. The apostles are herein the objects of our veneration, and our guides and models. We honor them as the doctors of the law of Christ, after him the foundation-stones of his church, the twelve gates and the twelve precious stones of the heavenly Jerusalem, and as leaders and princes of the saints. They also challenge our gratitude, inasmuch as in is by their ardent charity for our souls, and by their labors and sufferings, that we enjoy the happiness of holy faith, and are ourselves Christians: through them we have received the gospel.

DECEMBER 21 — ST. EDBURGE, V

King Alfred projected the foundation of the New-Minster at Winchester and his queen Alswide began there a monastery of nuns, over which she appointed Etheldreda abbess. Neither living to finish these houses, their son Edward the Elder completed them both. This king’s daughter Edburge (which name signifies happy city) from her cradle despised all things beneath God and eternity as unworthy all regard. She was yet a child when her father king Edward laid before her on one hand precious royal ornaments, on the other a penitential religious habit, bidding her take her choice. The royal virgin with great joy took up the latter; whereupon her parents put her in the nunnery of St. Mary, to be educated under the care of the abbess Etheldreda, where she afterwards became a nun, and, having served God with great fervor, died of a fever. Bishop Ethelwold took up her sacred remains, and put them in a rich shrine, which the abbess Elfleda covered with gold and silver. Algiva, daughter of count Ethelwold, was abbess of this house, when Egilwald or Alward-Wada, earl of Dorsetshire, desired of her a portion of the relics of this holy person for the monastery of Pershore in Worcestershire, which had been destroyed by the Danes, and he had just rebuilt. The abbess gave him part of her scull, some of her ribs, and other bones, which were enclosed in a rich case, and were kept at Pershore as its most precious treasure; though the principal part of her body was venerated at St. Mary’s in Winchester. See Leland, Collect, t. 1, pp. 51, 278, t. 2, p. 264; William of Malmesbury, &c.

DECEMBER 22 — ST. ISCHYRION, M

From St. Dionysius of Alexandria, ap. Eus.1. 6, c. 42. See Baronius, ad an. 253, n. 107, ed. nov. Lucensis per Venturini, and Annot. in Martyr. Rom.

A. D. 253.

ISCHYRION was an inferior officer who attended on a magistrate of a certain city in Egypt, which St. Dionysius has not named. His master commanded him to offer sacrifice to the idols; and because he refused to commit that sacrilege, reproached him with the most contumelious and threatening speeches. By giving way to his passion and superstition, he at length worked himself up to that degree of phrensy, as to run a stake into the bowels of the meek servant of Christ, who, by his patient constancy, attained to the glory of martyrdom.

We justly praise and admire the tender piety and heroic fortitude of this holy servant and martyr. It is not a man’s condition, but virtue, that can make him truly great, or truly happy. How mean soever a person’s station or circumstances may be, the road to both is open to him; and there is not a servant or slave who ought not to be enkindled with a laudable ambition of arriving at this greatness, which will set him on the same level with the rich and the most powerful. Nay, a servant’s condition has generally stronger incitements to holiness, and fewer obstacles and temptations the most others. But for this he must, in the first place, be faithful to God and ardent in all practices of devotion. Some allege want of time to pray. But their meals, their sleep, their diversions demonstrate, that it is not time, but zeal for the divine service that is wanting. What Christian does not blush at his laziness in this duty, when he calls to mind Epictetus’s lamp, and Cleanthes’s labor, who wrought and earned by night what might maintain him in the study of philosophy by day! Prayer in such a station ought not to trespass upon work, but who cannot, even at his work, raise his mind to God in frequent ejaculations! Also industry, faithfulness, with the most scrupulous exactness, obedience, respect, esteem, and sincere love, which a servant owes to a master, with a care of their honor and interest, are duties to God, whose will he does, and whom he honors in proportion to the diligence and ardor with which he acquits himself of them. Justice, charity, concord, and ready mutual assistance are virtues constantly to be exercised towards fellow-servants, upon which depend the peace, happiness, and good order of the whole family. Patience, meekness, humility, and charity, must be called forth on all occasions, especially under reproofs and injuries, which must always be received in silence, and with sweetness, kindness, and a degree of gratitude, when they carry any admonitions with them. Perfect resignation to the will of God, and confidence in his infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, must be joined with constant cheerfulness and contentedness in a person’s station, which brings servants much greater advantages for happiness, and removes them from dangers, hazards, and disappointments, more than is generally considered. Servants who are kept mostly for state, are of all others most exposed to dangers and ruin, and most unhappy; but must by devotion and other serious employments fill up all their moments. By such a conduct, a servant, how low soever his condition may appear in the eyed of men, will arise to the truest greatness, attain to present and future happiness, and approve himself dear to God, valuable to man, a most useful member of the republic of the world, and a blessing of the family wherein he lives.

DECEMBER 22 — SS. CYRIL AND METHODIUS, CC

Constantine, who was afterwards called Cyril, was born at Thessalonica, of an illustrious senatorial Roman family. He had his education at Constantinople, and by his great progress in learning deserved to be surnamed the Philosopher; but piety was the most shining part of his character. He was promoted to the priesthood, and served the church with great zeal. St. Ignatius being advanced to the patriarchal dignity in 846, Photius set himself to decry his virtues, and disputed that every man has two souls. St. Cyril reproved him for this error. Photius answered him, that he meant not to hurt any one, but to try the abilities and find logic of Ignatius. To which wretched excuse Cyril replied: “You have thrown your darts into the midst of the crowd, yet pretend no one will be hurt. How great soever the eyes of your wisdom may be, they are blinded by the smoke of avarice and envy. Your passion against Ignatius deprived you of your sight.” This is related by Anastasius the bibliothecarian, and the aforesaid error was condemned in the eighth general counci1.1 The Chazari at that time desired baptism. These were a tribe of Turci, the most numerous and powerful nation of the Huns in European Scythia. In the sixth century they were divided into seven, sometimes into ten tribes, governed by so many independent chagans, that is, chams or kings.2 They drove the Abares, and other nations of the Huns, from the banks of the Ethel, since called Volga, towards the Danube, in the reigns of the Emperors Mauricius and Tiberius, who both honored them with their alliance, and two pompous embassies, described at large by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenetta,3 and by Theophylactus Simocatta. The chazari, who descended from the Turci,* had possessed themselves of a territory near Germany, upon the banks of the Danube, which Porphyrogenetta describes in his time to have had the Bulgarians on the east, the Patzinacit (who came also from the Volga) on the north, Moravia on the west, and on the south the Scrobati, a tribe of Bulgarians settled in the mountains. This nation, by a solemn embassy, addressed themselves to the emperor Michael III. and his pious mother Theodora, begging that some priests might be sent to instruct them in the faith: the empress sent for St. Ignatius, the patriarch, and by his advice and authority St. Cyril was charged with this important mission. This happened in the year 848, as Henschenius and Jos. Assemani prove; not in 843, as Cohlius writes. The language of the Chazari was not the Sclavonian, as Henschenius thinks, but that of the Huns or Turci, which was entirely different, says Assemani. That Cyril understood the Sclavonian, Greek, and Latin languages, is clear from the two histories of his life. That for this mission he learned also the Turcic, which was spoken by the Huns, Chazari, and Tartars, we cannot doubt. In a short time he instructed and baptized the cham, and his whole nation, and having settled his church under the care of able pastors, returned to Constantinople, absolutely refusing to accept any part of the great presents with which the prince would have honored him.

The saint’s second mission was to the Bulgarians, in which his devout brother Methodius, a monk, was his chief assistant. The Bulgari were a Scythian nation, not of the Huns, but of the Sclavi, whose language was quite different from that of the Turci and all the Huns. They seem to have been originally planted near the Volga, and to have retired at the same time with the Abares upon the coming of the numerous swarm of the Turci from the coasts of the Caspian sea, under their cham Turaathus, as Evagrius, Theophanes, and Simocatta relate. The Bulgari are first mentioned near the Danube, about the year 634, when Cobratus, their king, made an alliance with the emperor Heraclius against the Abares, as Theophanes and the patriarch Nicephorus inform us. The Servii were another nation of the Sclavi, who accompanied the Bulgari, and founded the kingdom of Servia. The Bulgari possessed themselves of the ancient Mysia and Dacia, on both sides of the Danube, now Walachia, Moldavia, and part of Hungary. They came from the banks of the Volga, in the reign of Anastasius, and erected here a mighty kingdom.†

The first seeds of the conversion of this barbarous nation were sown by certain Grecian captives taken at Adrianople, in the reign of the emperor Basil the Macedonian; but this great work was completed many years after by the following means: Boigoris, king of the Bulgarians, was inclined to the faith by the assiduous long persuasions of his sister, who had zealously embraced it at Constantinople, having been taken captive, and detained a long time in the court of the pious empress Theodora. But human motives hardened his heart, till God was pleased to awake him by a more powerful call. This prince, who was passionately fond of hunting, desired the emperor to procure him a picture which should be a curious hunting-piece. Methodius, according to the custom of many devout monks of that age, employed himself in drawing pious pictures, and excelled in that art. He was, therefore, sent to the court of the king, who, having built a new palace, was desirous to adorn it with paintings. He gave the good monk an order to draw him some piece, which by the very sight would strike terror into those that beheld it. Methodius, thinking nothing more awful than the general judgment, represented in the most lively colors, and with exquisite art, that awful scene, with kings, princes, and people, standing promiscuously before the throne of the great Judge, who appeared armed with all the terrors of infinite majesty and justice, attended by angels; some were placed on the right hand, and others on the left. The moving sight, and still much more, the explication of every part of this dreadful scene, strongly affected the mind of the king, who, from that moment, resolved to banish all other suggestions, and to be instructed in the faith; in which Methodius was ready to assist him. He was baptized by Greek priests, not at Constantinople, as some mistake, but in Bulgaria; for all out historians add, that upon the news that the king had been baptized in the night, the people took arms the next morning, and marched in open rebellion towards the palace. But the king, taking a little cross which he carried in his breast, put himself at the head of his guards, and easily defeated the rebels. At his baptism, he took the name of Michael. In a short time, his people imitated his example, and embraced the faith.4 Pagi places the baptism of this king in 861; Baronius an Henschenius in 845; Joseph Assemani in 865. The new-converted king sent ambassadors to pope Nicholas I., with letters and presents, begging instructions what more he ought to d0.5 The pope, with letters, sent legates to congratulate with him, in 867. The legates, being bishops, gave the sacrament of confirmation to those who had been baptized by the Greek priests, though these had before, according to the rite of their church, anointed them with chrism; which the Latins indeed have always done, but on the head in baptism, not on the forehead. The same legates also taught the Bulgarians to fast on Saturdays: which points gave offence to Photius, who, in 866, bad schismatically usurped the patriarchal see, and banished St. Ignatius. Some Bulgarians had been baptized in cases of necessity by laymen, and even by infidels. Pope Nicholas I. declared this baptism to be good and valid, and answered several other difficulties in the beginning, of the year 867.6 SS. Cyril and Methodius had labored in the conversion of the Bulgarians, though jointly with several other priests; not only Greeks, but also Armenians, concerning whose different rites of discipline the Bulgarians consulted pope Nicholas I. as he testifies in his answer. Our two saints passed form this country into Moravia, so called from a river of that name.

The first mention of the Moravians, we find made in 825, by pope Eugenius II., in an epistle to the bishop of Faviana,7 now called Vienna, anciently Vindobona, in which he appoints the archbishop of Lorc (which see was since removed to Saltzburg) vicar of the apostolic see in that nation. The Moravians and Carinthians were Sclavonian nations which had seized on these countries. The latter were governed by dukes, the former by kings, having first chosen Samo, a Frenchman from Senogagus, a country near Brussels, who had valiantly defended them against the Avares or Huns of Pannonia, in 622. The most powerful of these kings was Swetopelech, whose kingdom extended to Pomerania, in the end of the seventh age, according to Assemani. Two contending dukes, Moymar and Priwina, or Prinnina, ruled in Moravia, in 850, though this country had been certainly subject to Charlemagne, no less than Bavaria and Pannonia, as Eginhard relates. Moymar being slain, Rastices, his nephew, received the crown of Moravia from Lewis, king of Germany, in 846. He is by Henschenius called also Suadopluch, but falsely, as Assemani proves from the annals of Fulda. This pious prince invited the two missionaries into Moravia, and was baptized by them, with a considerable part of his subjects, who had been inclined to think favorably of Christianity by the example of the Bavarians, whom St. Robert, bishop of Worms, and founder of the archbishopric of Saltzburg, had begun to convert to the faith. Rastices dying, his nephew and successor Swadopluch persecuted the church. Augustine, in his catalogue of the bishops of Olmutz8 and Dubravius,9 says St. Cyril was ordained first archbishop of the Moravians.* This latter relates that Boriway, or Borivorius, duke of Bohemia, was converted by hearing Cyril and Methodius preach the faith, and, being baptized by the latter, he called him into Bohemia, where his wife Ludmilla, his children, and a great part of his people received the sacrament of regeneration, which, according to Cosmas of Prague, in his chronicle, happened in 894. St. Methodius founded at Prague the church of our Lady, another of SS. Peter and Paul, and many others over the kingdom.† The two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, are styled bishops of the Moravians in Muscovite calendars, and in the Roman Martyrology. But in the Polish Breviary and other monuments, it is said that Cyril died a monk, and that only Methodius was consecrated archbishop after his brother’s death. And their second life, published by Henschenius, says expressly that the two brother, being called by Pope Nicholas to Rome, upon their arrival found him dead, and Adrian II. pope; that Cyril put on the monastic habit, and died soon after in that city, before he received the episcopal consecration. And pope John VIII., in 879, wrote as follows to the Moravians: “Methodius, your archbishop, ordained by our predecessor Adrian, and sent to you,” &c. Whereas he calls Cyril only the philosopher, of whom he writes to count Sfentopulk, “The Sclavonian letters or alphabet invented by Constantine the philosopher, that the praises of God may be sung, we justly commend.”10

From this testimony of John VIII. and the ancient lives of St. Cyril, it is evident that the Sclavonian alphabet was invented, not by St. Jerome but by those two apostles of that nation;11 which is also related by an ancient author, who wrote in 878, published by Freher.12 Cyril and Methodius translated the liturgy into the Sclavonian tongue, and instituted mass to be sold in the same. The archbishop of Saltzburg and the archbishop of Mentz, jointly with their suffragans, wrote two letters, still extant, to pope John VIII., to complain of this novelty introduced by the archbishop Methodius. Hereupon, the pope, in 878, by two letters, one addressed to Tuvantarus, count of Moravia, and the other to Methodius, whom he styles archbishop of Pannonia, cited the latter to come to Rome, forbidding him in the mean time to say mass in a barbarous tongue. Methodius obeyed, and, repairing to Rome, gave ample satisfaction to the pope, who confirmed to him the privileges of the archiepiscopal see of the Moravians, declared him exempt from all dependence on the archbishop of Saltzburg, and approved for the Sclavonians the use of the liturgy and breviary in their own tongue, as he testifies in his letter to count Sfendopulk, still extant.13 It is clear from the letters of pope John, and from the two lives of this saint, that this affair had never been discussed either by pope Nicholas or pope Adrian, as Bona and some others have mistaken. The Sclavonian tongue is to this day used in the liturgy in that church. The Sclavonian missal was revised by an order of Urban VIII., in 1631, and his brief and approbation are prefixed to this missal printed at Rome, in 1745, at the expense of the Congregation De Propagand Fide. By the same Congregation, in 1688, was printed at Rome, by order of Innocent XI., the Sclavonian breviary, with the brief of Innocent X. prefixed, by which it is approved and enjoined.* The Sclavonians celebrate the liturgy in this tongue at Leghorn, Aquileia, and in other parts of Italy.

When St. Methodius was returned from Rome he had much to suffer from the invective and opposition of some neighboring bishop, perhaps of Passau or Saltzburg, in Bavaria. For St. Rodbert or Rupert, bishop of Worms, in 699 had converted the Boij or Baivarij, and having established the archbishopric of Juva, or Saltzburg, returned, to Worms, and there St. Rupert’s successors, especially St. Virgilius, converted the Carinthians, who were also Sclavonians.14 and their successors complained of the erection of the archbishopric of Moravia as a curtailing of their ancient jurisdiction. But pope John VIII. supported the exemption of the archbishopric of Moravia, and justified the conduct of St. Methodius. Hearing of the persecution he met with from the neighboring bishops, he wrote to him in 881, congratulating with him upon the success of his labors and the purity of his faith, tenderly exhorting, him to patience, and to overcome evil with good, and promising to support him in his dignity, and in all his undertakings for the honour of God.15 St. Methodius planted the faith with such success, that the nations which he cultivated with his labors became models of fervor and zeal. Boigoris or Michael, the first Christian king Bulgaria, renounced his crown about the year 880, and putting on the monastic habit, led an angelical life on earth. Stredowski, in his Sacra Moravi Historia, styles SS. Cyril and Methodius the apostles of Moravia, Upper Bohemia, Silesia, Cazaria, Croatia, Circassia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Russia, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Dacia, Carinthia, Carniola, and of almost all the Sclavonian nations. St. Methodius lived to an advanced old age, though the year of his death is not certain. The Greeks and Muscovites honor St. Cyril on the 14th of February; and St. Methodius on the 11th of May The Roman Martyrology joins them both together on the 9th of March. Dubravius and others attribute to them many miracles; which Baronius also mentions in his notes on the Roman Martyrology. He adds, that the relics of these two brothers were lately found under the altar of a very ancient chapel in the church of St. Clement in Rome, and are still honourably preserved in that church. Octavius Panciroli, in Thesauris absconditis Alm Urbis, and Henschenius say the same; but the latter shows that some small portions have been translated into Moravia, and are enshrined in the collegiate church at Brune. See the two lives of SS. Cyril and Methodius, published by Henschenius ad diem 9 Martij. See also Kohlius in Historia Codicis sacri Sclavonici, and in his Introductio in Historiam et Rem literariam Sclavorum. Altonavi, 1729. Also at length Stredowski, in Sacra Moravi Historia, Kulcynzki, Specimen Eccl. Ruthenic, 1733.

DECEMBER 23 — ST. SERVULUS, C

From St. Gregory, Hom. 15, in Evangel, and Dia1.1. 4, c. 14.

A. D. 590.

IN this saint was exemplified what our divine Redeemer has taught us of Lazarus, the poor man full of sores, who lay before the gate of the rich man’s house. Servulus was a beggar, and had been afflicted with the palsy from his infancy; so that he was never able to stand, sit upright, lift his hand to his mouth, or turn himself from one side to another. His mother and brother carried him into the porch of St. Clement’s church at Rome, where he lived on the alms of those that passed by. Whatever he could spare from his own subsistence he distributed among other needy persons. The sufferings and humiliation of his condition were a means of which he made the most excellent use for the sanctification of his own soul, by the constant exercise of humility, patience, meekness, resignation, and penance. He used to entreat devout persons to read the holy scriptures, and he heard them with such attention, as to learn them by heart. His time he consecrated by assiduously singing hymns of praise and thanksgiving to God, and his continual pains were so far from dejecting or distracting him, that they proved a most pressing motive for raising his mind to God with greater ardor. After several years thus spent, his distemper having seized his vitals, he perceived his end to draw near. In his last moments he desired the poor and pilgrims, who had often shared in his charity, to sing sacred hymns and psalms by him. While he joined his voice with theirs, he on a sudden cried out; “Silence; do you not hear the sweet melody and praises which resound in the heavens!” Soon after he had spoken those words he expired, and his soul was carried by angels into everlasting bliss, about the year 590. The body of St. Servulus was buried in St. Clement’s church, and honored with miracles, according to the Roman Martyrology.

St. Gregory the Great concludes the account he gives of him in a sermon to his people, by observing that the whole behavior of this poor sick beggar loudly condemns those who, when blessed with good health and a plentiful fortune, neither do good works, nor suffer the least cross with tolerable patience.

DECEMBER 23 — TEN MARTYRS OF CRETE

Upon the publication of the edict for persecuting the Christians under Decius, by the activity of a barbarous governor in seeing it rigorously executed, the isle of Crete, now called Candia, soon became one large field of blood. Among the martyrs who there triumphed over the world, the devil, and sin, none were more conspicuous than Theodulus, Saturninus, Euporus, Gelasius, Eunicianus, Zoticus, Cleomenes, Agathopus, Basilides, and Evarestus, commonly called the Ten Martyrs of Crete. The first three were citizens of Gortyna, the metropolis, where they had probably been grounded in the faith by St. Cyril, bishop of that city, who was beheaded for the faith in the same persecution, and is honored in the Roman Martyrology on the 9th of July. The rest were brought from other towns of the same island; Zoticus (called by some Zeticus) from Gnossus, Pontius from Epinium, Agathopus from Panormus, Basilides from Cydonia, and Evarestus from Heracleum. Their zeal had united them in their confession of Christ; they were apprehended, insulted, dragged on the ground, beaten, stoned, covered with phlegm and spittle, and at length presented to the governor of the island at Gortyna, and the 23d of December was appointed for their trial. As soon as they appeared in court, they were ordered to sacrifice to Jupiter, who was particularly worshipped in Crete, and on that very day their countrymen celebrated a festival in his honor with all manner of pleasures, diversions, and sacrifices. The martyrs answered, they could never offer sacrifice to idols. The president said: “You shall know the power of the great gods. Neither do you show respect to this illustrious assembly, which adores the great Jupiter, Juno, Rhea, and the rest.” The martyrs replied, “Mention not Jupiter, O president: nor his mother Rhea. We are no strangers to his pedigree, or to the history of his life and actions. We can show you his grave: he was a native of this island, the tyrant of his country, and a man abandoned to every kind of lust, even with his own sex: with these crimes he defiled himself every hour, and made use of spells and enchantments to debauch others. Those who look upon him as a god, must look upon it as a divine thing to imitate his lust and intemperance.”

The proconsul not being able to deny or confute what they alleged, swelled with rage, and the people were ready to tear them to pieces upon the spot, if he had not restrained them, and commanded the martyrs to be inhumanly tormented several ways. Some of them were hoisted on the rack, and torn with iron nails, so that the ground underneath was covered with great morsels of their flesh; others were pierced on their sides, and in almost every other part with sharp stones, reeds and pointed sticks, others were beaten with heavy plummets of lead with such cruelty, that their very bones were in some parts broken, and in others disjointed, and their flesh was bruised and torn. The martyrs endured all with joy, and often repeated to the outcries of the judge and mob, who pressed them to spare themselves by obeying the prince and sacrificing to their gods. “We are Christians: were a thousand deaths prepared for us, we would receive them with joy.” The whole city thronged about them, and many cried out to the judge against them; nor did he cease stirring up the executioners to exert their whole strength in tormenting them. The saints stood like meek lambs in the midst of so many raging tigers, and only raised their voices to praise God, and declare their constant adherence to his law. The proconsul at length seeing himself vanquished, condemned them to die by the sword. The soldiers of Christ went forth triumphant to the place of execution without the city, praying to their last breath that God would have mercy on them, and on all mankind, and would deliver their countrymen from the blindness of spiritual ignorance, and bring them to see him in his true light. They were ambitious who should first receive his crown. When their heads were struck off, and the crowds retired, certain Christians interred their bodies, which were afterwards conveyed to Rome. The fathers who composed the council of Crete in 558, writing to the emperor Leo, say, that through the intercession of these holy martyrs, their island had been till that time preserved from heresy. The Greeks, Latins, and Muscovites commemorate them on this day. See their Acts in Metaphrastes, Surius, and Lipoman, mentioned in Greek by Fabricius. t. 6. p. 520. See also Creta Sacra.

DECEMBER 23 — ST. VICTORIA, V. M

Victoria was a young, noble, Roman lady, who being a Christian, desired to live to her heavenly spouse alone in a state of virginity. Eugenius, who sought her in marriage, was provoked at meeting with a repulse, and accused her to the judge, by whose order, after many fruitless attempts to extort her consent to many, or to sacrifice to idols, she was stabbed in the breast by an executioner: of which wound she speedily died in 250, when the persecution of Decius was hottest at Rome See her Acts abridged by St. Aldhelm, and by Ado.

DECEMBER 24 — ST. THRASILLA AND EMILIANA, VIRGINS

From St. Gregory the Great, Dia1.1. 4, c. 16. and Hom. 38, in Evang.

ST. GREGORY the Great had three aunts, who were sisters to his father Gordian, the senator, and having by vow consecrated their virginity to God, they practised the exercises of an ascetic or religious life in their father’s house. Their names were Thrasilla, who was the eldest, Emiliana, and Gordiana. Thrasilla and Emiliana, renouncing the vanities of the world on the same day, started together in the glorious course to perfection, and were still more united by the fervor of their hearts and the bands of holy charity, than by blood. They lived in their father’s house as retired as in a monastery, far removed from the conversation of men; and, exciting one another to virtue by discourse and example, soon made a considerable progress in a spiritual life. They were so disengaged from the world, so careful in mortifying their senses, and maintaining a strict union of their souls with God, that they seemed to have forgot their bodies, and arose above all considerations of earthly things. Gordiana joined them in their vow and holy exercises, but flagged by the way, and, loving to converse with the world, by degrees admitted it into her heart, so as to exclude the Almighty. Thrasilla and Emiliana could not see her unhappy change without the deepest concern, and, tempering remonstrances with all the sweetness that the most tender affection and charity could inspire, gained so far upon her, that, full of confusion, she promised amendment. This, however, she executed only by halves, appeared often impatient of silence and retirement, and showed too little relish for spiritual exercises and conversation, and too much for the world. By this lukewarmness, the good impressions which the zeal of her sisters made in her mind, were always worn out again, and after their death she fell from the duties of the state which she had voluntarily taken upon herself. A dreadful example! but such as the world is daily full of. Yet others neglect to take warning, and so fall into the same snare. The best hearts are capable of corruption; and those who set out with honest meanings, when they once open their hearts to vanity and the world, are betrayed to tread the steps of vice sooner than they are aware. Nothing blinds the understanding and intoxicates the soul more effectually than vanity. A person who begins to entertain it, perceives no harm in the first steps; but loses reservedness, is led on almost imperceptibly, and is at last surprised to feel the chains which she is held by. The two happy sisters, who persevered in the paths of eternal life, enjoyed the sweetness of divine peace and love, and the comfort and joy of fervor and devotion; and were called to receive the recompense of their fidelity before the fall of Gordiana. St. Gregory tells us that Thrasilla was favored one night with a vision of her uncle St. Felix, pope, who showed her a seat prepared for her in heaven, saying, “Come; I will receive you into this habitation of light.” She fell sick of a fever the next day. When in her agony, with her eyes fixed on heaven, she cried out to those that were present: “Depart! make room! Jesus is coming!” Soon after these words she breathed out her pious soul into the hands of God on the 24th of December. The skin of her knees was found to be hardened, like the hide of a camel, by her continual prayer. A few days after, she appeared to her sister Emiliana, and invited her to celebrate with her the epiphany in eternal bliss. Emiliana fell sick, and died on the 8th of January. Both are named on the respective days of their death in the Roman Martyrology.

Precious in the sight of God is the death of his saints.1 This is the great triumph of a soul over hell; a spectacle most glorious in the eyes of the whole court of heaven, giving joy to the angels. To us, banished pilgrims on earth, nothing certainly can bring sweeter comfort amidst our tears, or be a more powerful motive to withdraw our affections from the toys of this world, or to raise our hearts above its frowns, than to have before our eyes the happiness of dying the death of the saints. No one can read without being strongly affected with these sentiments the account which Janus Erythrus, (that is, the elegant and ingenious John Victor Rossi,) who was then at Rome, gives of the passage of brother John Baptist, a holy capuchin, out of this world.2 This humble friar, who was called in the world Alphonsus III., when duke of Modena, renounced his sovereignty, divested himself of all his worldly goods, and, embracing the most austere life of a Capuchin Franciscan, in 1629, distinguished himself from his brethren only by a greater fervor in his penitential severities and heavenly contemplation. He died at Rome in 1644; closing his eyes to the world with so much interior joy, such strong desires to go to God, such humility, resignation, holy peace, and sweet breathings of divine love, as to make many in the world envy the choice he had made, and grudge that he had purchased so great a happiness at so cheap a rate. We all pray with Balaam that our death may be like that of the saints. But for this we must make the preparation for death the great business of our lives, learn perfectly to die to the world and ourselves, and ground and daily improve ourselves in the spirit of the saints, which is that of sincere humility, patience, resignation, and the most ardent charity.

DECEMBER 24 — ST. GREGORY OF SPOLETO, M

This martyr was a holy priest at Spoleto, who employed his time night and day in fasting and prayer, and in teaching others the holy law of God. It happened that Flaccus, a general of the forces, arrived at that city with a special order from the emperor Maximian to punish all the Christians. An information was laid before him, that Gregory seduced many, and contemned the gods and the emperors Soldiers were immediately dispatched to bring him bound before his tribunal. When he appeared, Flaccus, with a stern countenance, said, “Are you Gregory of Spoleto?” The martyr answered, “I am.” Flaccus again said, “Are you the enemy of the gods and the contemner of the princes?” St. Gregory replied, “From my infancy I have always served the God who framed me out of the earth.” Flaccus asked, “Who is your God?” “He,” replied the martyr, “who made man to his own image and likeness, who is all-powerful and immortal, and who will render to all men according to their works.” Flaccus said, “Do not use many words, but do what I command you.” The martyr replied “I know not what your command implies, but I do what I am bound to do.” Flaccus urged, “If you desire to save yourself, go to the wonderful temple, and sacrifice to the great gods; and you shall be our friend, and shall receive many favors from our most invincible emperors.” St. Gregory said, “I desire not such a friendship, nor do I sacrifice to devils, but to my God, Jesus Christ.” The judge commanded him to be buffeted on the face, beaten with clubs, and tortured on the rack; and at length ordered his head to be cut off. This happened in 304. His relics lie in a church which bears his name at Spoleto. Baronius found in the close of a copy of these Acts an authentic testimony of a glorious miracle wrought by their touch in 1037. See the Acts of his Confession in Baronius, Surius, &c., quoted by Tillemont, t. 5, p. 133.

DECEMBER 25 — THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST, OR CHRISTMAS DAY

The world had subsisted about four thousand years, and all things were accomplished which, according to the ancient prophets, were to precede the coming of the Messias, when Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, having taken human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and being made man was born of her for the redemption of mankind. The all-wise and all-merciful providence of God had, from the fall of our first parents, gradually disposed all things for the fulfilling of his promises, and the accomplishing the greatest of all his mysteries, the incarnation of his divine Son. Had man been restored to grace as soon as he had forfeited it, he would not have been sufficiently sensible of the depth of his horrible wounds, nor have had a just feeling of the spiritual blindness, weakness, and wretchedness in which he lay buried under the weight of his guilt. Neither would the infinite mercy, power, and goodness of God, in saving him, have appeared in so great lustre. Therefore man was left grovelling in his miseries for the space of so many thousand years, only enjoying a glimpse of his future redemption in the promise and expectation of it; which still was sufficient to raise those to it who did not shut their eyes to this light. God always raised several faithful servants, and even when most nations, from following the bent of their passions, fell into the most deplorable spiritual blindness, and abandoned his knowledge and true worship to transfer his honor to the basest of creatures and the most criminal objects, he reserved to himself a peculiar people, among which he was known and served, and many were saved through faith and hope in this promised Redeemer, then to come. All this time the saints never ceased with sighs and tears to beg that this Desired of all Nations1 might speedily make his appearance, and by these inflamed desires they both disposed themselves to receive the fruit of his redemption, and moved God to hasten and most abundantly to pour forth his mercy.

God, who with infinite wisdom brings things to maturity and perfection in their proper season, disclosed this to men partially and by degrees. He gave to Adam a promise and some knowledge of it.2 He renewed the same to Abraham, limiting it to his seed.3 He confirmed it to Isaac and Jacob.4 In the prophecy of this latter it was fixed in the tribe of Judah.5 It was afterwards clearly determined to belong to the posterity of David and Solomon; which was repeated in all the succeeding prophets. In these all the particular circumstances of Christ’s birth, life, death, and spiritual kingdom in his church are expressed; the whole written law which was delivered to Moses, consisted of types expressive of the same, or alluding to him The nearer the time approached the fuller was the revelation of him. The prophecy of turning swords into ploughshares, and lances into pruning hooks,6 &c. expressed that a profound peace in which the world should be, was to be an emblem of the appearance of the Prince of Peace. According to the prophecy of Jacob,7 the sceptre was to be removed from the tribe of Judah, to show the establishment of the new spiritual kingdom of the Messiah, which is to endure to the end of the world. According to Aggus,8 and Malachi,9 the Messiah was to appear while the second temple stood, which was that of Solomon, restored after the captivity. Daniel foretold the four great empires which succeeded one another, the first of which were to be destroyed by the latter, viz., of the Medes, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans, each marked by very distinguishing characters.10 The seventy weeks of years predicted by Danie1,11 determined the time of the coming of the Messiah, and of his death. For from the order of king Artaxerxes Longimanus for the rebuilding of Jerusalem seven weeks were to pass in the execution of that work in difficult times; and sixty-two more, that is, with these seven, sixty-nine to the manifestation of Christ, who was to be slain in the middle of the seventieth week, and his death was to be followed by the destruction of the city and temple; it was to expiate iniquity, to establish the reign of eternal justice, and to accomplish the visions and prophecy. The Gentiles had also received some glimmerings of this great event, as from the prediction of Balaam foretelling a star to arise from Jacob.12 All over the East, at the time of our Saviour’s birth, a great deliverer of mankind was firmly expected, as the pagan historians expressly affirm Saetonius13 writes as follows: “There had prevailed all over the East an ancient and constant notion, that the fates had decreed, that about that time there should come out of Judea those who should obtain the empire of the world.” And Tacitus says,14 “A firm persuasion had prevailed among a great many, that it was contained in the ancient sacerdotal books, that about this time it should come to pass, that the East should prevail, and that those who should come out of Judea should obtain the empire of the world.” Josephus, the Jewish historian, took occasion from hence to flatter Vespasian, as if he had been the Messias foretold by the prophets,15 and the great number of impostors who pretended to this character among the Jews in that and the following century, is a clear proof of this belief among them about the time.16 Hence several among them met with incredible success for some time, particularly Coziba, called Barcokebas, from Barhokeba, “Son of the Star.” who drew on the Jews their utter destruction under Adrian.17

When Jesus Christ was born, the seventy weeks of Daniel were near being accomplished, and the sceptre was departed from the house of Judah, whether we restrain this to that particular tribe, or understand it of the whole Jewish nation, so as to give a main share only to that tribe. For Herod, though a Jew by religion, was by birth an Idumean, as Josephus whose testimony is unexceptionable, informs us relating how his father, Antipas, who chose rather to be called by the Greek name Antipater, was made, by king Alexander Jannus, governor of his own country, Idumea. Herod was raised to the throne by the Romans, excluding the princes of the Asmonean or Jewish royal family, whom Herod entirely cut off; as he did also the principal members of the Sanhedrim or great council by which that nation governed itself by its own laws under its kings. This tyrant, moreover, stripped that people of all their other civil rights. Soon after they were made a Roman province; nor was it long before their temple was destroyed, and their whole nation dispersed; so that the Jews themselves are obliged to confess that the time foretold by the prophets for the coming of the Messias has long since elapsed. Christ was born at the time when the Roman or fourth empire, marked by Daniel, was exalted to its zenith by Augustus, who reigned fifty-seven years from his first command of the army at nineteen years of age; and forty-four from the defeat of Antony, his partner in the empire, in the battle of Actium. God had preordained the greatness of the Roman empire, for the more easy propagation of the gospel over so many nations which formed one monarchy. Augustus had then settled it in peace. It was the custom at Rome to shut the gates of the temple of Janus only in time of a general peace; which had happened but twice before the reign of Augustus, and it happened three times under it. First, this temple was shut in the reign of Numa: a second time, after the first Punic war; but during very short intervals. Under Augustus it was shut after his victory over Antony and Cleopatra: again upon his return from his war with the Cantabrians in Spain, and thirdly, in the very year in which Christ was born, when it remained shut during twelve years, the whole empire enjoying all that time a profound peace. Christ was born when Augustus was in the fortieth year of his reign, the twenty-ninth from the battle of Actium, about four thousand years or a little more from the creation of the world, about two thousand five hundred from the flood, almost two thousand from the vocation of Abraham, and a little above one thousand from the foundation of the temple by Solomon. A decree was issued by Augustus, and published all over the Roman empire, ordaining, that all persons, with their estates and conditions, should be registered at certain places, according to their respective provinces, cities, and families. It was the custom at Rome to make a census or registration of all the citizens every five years, which term was called a lustrum. This general register of all the subjects of the empire, with the value of their estates, was probably ordered that the strength and riches of each province might be known. It was made in Syria and Palestine by Cyrinus. Quintilius Varus was at that time proconsul of Syria, on whom the procurator or governor of Judea in some measure depended, after it was made a Roman province. Cyrinus succeeded Varus in the government of Syria about ten years after Herod’s death, when his son Archelaus was banished, and Judea made a province of the empire. Cyrinus then made a second register, but he made the first in the time of Varus, in which he might act as extraordinary deputy, at least for Palestine, then governed by Herod, or this enregistration is all attributed to him because it was finished by him afterwards. This decree was given by the emperor for political views of state; but proceeded from an overruling order of providence that, by this most authentic public act, it might be manifest to the whole world that Christ was descended of the house of David, and tribe of Juda. For those of this family were ordered to be registered at Bethlehem, a small town in the tribe of Juda seven miles from Jerusalem to the southwest. This called David’s town; and was appointed the place where those that belonged to his family were to be enrolled.18 Joseph and Mary were perhaps natives of this place, though they then lived at Nazareth, ninety miles almost north from Jerusalem. Micheas had foretold19 that Bethlehem (called by the Jebusites, who first built it, Ephrata) should be ennobled by the birth of Christ. Mary, therefore, though with child, by the special direction of providence, undertook this tedious journey with her husband in obedience to the emperor’s order for their enrolment in that city; and it is believed that with St. Joseph also Mary and her infant Jesus were enrolled; of which Origen,20 St. Justin,21 Tertullian,22 and St. Chrysostom,23 make no doubt. All other characters or marks of the Messias,* mentioned by the prophets, agree to Jesus Christ24

To show the divine Jesus’s descent from David and Juda, the evangelists, St. Matthew and St. Luke, give his pedigree; but designedly different, that this noted character of the Messias might be demonstrated by his double genealogy. The reason of this difference was at that time public and known to every one, and so was not mentioned. It seems most probable that St. Luke gives the natural, and St. Matthew the legal line of Joseph. who had been adopted into the latter by the frequent case specified in the law of Moses. St. Chrysostom puts us in mind to take notice of the astonishing mercy and humility of our divine Redeemer in this circumstance, that he did not disdain, in order to save sinners, to choose a pedigree in which several notorious sinners are named; so much did he humble himself to satisfy for, and to cure our vanity and pride. The same father, upon reading the exordium of St. Matthew’s gospel and of this pedigree, breaks out into this vehement pathos,25 “What dost thou say, O evangelist? Thou hast promised to speak of the only-begotten Son of God, and dost thou name David? Imagine not that what you hear is low or trifling; but raise your mind, and be filled with awe and astonishment, hearing that God is come upon the earth. This was so stupendous, so unexpected a prodigy, that the angels assembled in choir, sung praise and glory for the whole world, and the prophets stood astonished at the wonderful mystery. Admire that the natural Son of God, who is without a beginning, would suffer himself to called the Son of David, that he might make you the Son of God.” The circumstances of the great mystery, and the wonderful manner in which it was performed, ought to attract our whole attention, and be the object of our pious meditations and devotions, particularly on this holy festival.

The Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, after a painful journey of at least four days, in a mountainous country, arrived at Bethlehem. There they found the public inns or caravanseras (such as is customary in towns in the East) already full; nor were they able to procure any lodgings in the town every one despising and rejecting their poverty. Do we spiritually invite Jesus into our hearts, and prepare a lodging for his reception in our affections? This is the entertainment he is infinitely desirous of, and which he came from heaven to seek. By spiritual nakedness, coldness, sloth, or sin, a Christian soul refuses him admittance. Of such treatment he will justly complain much more than of the people of Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary, in this distress, retired into a cave made on the side of a rock, which is called a stable; because it served for that purpose, perhaps for the use of those who lodged at the caravanseras.* It is a common tradition that an ox and an ass were in it at that time. This circumstance is not mentioned in holy scripture, but is supported by the authority of St. Jerom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and Prudentius, produced by Baronius; and if the blessed travellers came not on foot, they must have had their own ass with them. In this place, the holy mother when her time was come, brought forth her divine Son without the pain of other mothers; remaining both in and after his conception and birth a pure virgin. With what joy and holy respect did she behold and adore the new-born infant; the Creator of all things made man for us! She wrapped him in swaddling-clothes such as her poverty had allowed her to prepare, and with holy awe laid him in the manger. “With what solicitude did she watch him,” says St. Bona venture.26 “With what reverence did she touch him whom she knew to be her Lord! With what affection, tenderness, and veneration did she embrace and kiss him! With what awe did she look on his face and tender hands! With what gravity did she compose and cover his little limbs! With what pleasure did she present to him her breast to suck!” In like manner are we to admire with St. Bernard, “How the holy man Joseph would often take him upon his knees, smiling at him.” We ought also to contemplate how the choirs of angels descending from above in raptures of astonishment, adore their God in this new wonderful state to which mercy and love have reduced him, and salute him with hymns of praise. We are invited to join them in the persons of the holy shepherds. God was pleased that his Son, though born on earth with so much secrecy, and in a state of the most astonishing humiliation, should be acknowledged by men, and receive the first-fruits of their homages and devotion upon his first appearance among them. Who are they that are favored with the honor of this heavenly call? The great ones of the world, the renowned sages among the Jews and Gentiles, the princes who, by their riches, power, pomp, and state, seemed raised above the level of their fellow-creatures, are passed over on this occasion. They are chosen whose character, by their very station, is simplicity and humility, and whose obscurity, poverty, and solitude, removed them from the principal dangers of worldly pride, and were moot agreeable to that love and spirit of retiredness, penance, and humility which Christ came to recommend. Nor can we doubt but they adorned their state with the true spirit of this simplicity and devotion. These happy persons were certain shepherds, who, being strangers to the sensuality and pride of he world, were at that time keeping the watches of the night over their flock. Whilst the sensual and the proud were asleep in soft beds, or employed in pursuits of voluptuousness, vanity, or ambition, an angel appeared to these humble poor men, and they Saw themselves encompassed with a great brightness. They were suddenly seized with exceeding great fear, but the heavenly messenger said to them: Fear not: for behold I bring you good tidings of exceeding great joy, that shall be to all the people. For this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign to you: you shall find the child wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and laid in a manger. Suddenly then appeared with the angel a multitude of heavenly spirits praising God, and saying: Glory be to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will. After the departure of the angels the wondering shepherds said to one another: Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hath showed to us. They immediately hastened thither, and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. Here they did homage to the Messias as to the spiritual king of men; and then returned to their flocks glorifying and praising God.27 Mary was very reserved amidst these occurrences, and continued silent in her deportment, but observed all these things, with secrecy pondering them in her heart. The message delivered by the angel to these shepherds is addressed also to us. In them we are invited to pay our homages and devotion to our new-born Saviour. Devotion gave them wings in hastening to the manger. In like manner with ardor and diligence we must obey this summons, and acquit ourselves in spirit of this great duty. In contemplating this mystery we must honor our God and Redeemer, exulting with holy joy, and paying to him the just homages of adoration, praise, and love.

The angel calls this wonderful mystery a subject of great joy to all the people. Indeed, our hearts must be insensible to all spiritual things if they do not overflow with holy joy at the consideration of so glorious a mercy in which is displayed such an excess of the divine goodness, and by which such inestimable benefits and so high an honor accrue to us. The very thought and foreknowledge of this mystery comforted Adam in his banishment from Paradise. The promise of it sweetened tin laborious pilgrimage of Abraham. The same encouraged Jacob to dread no adversity, and Moses to brave all dangers and conquer all difficulties in delivering the Israelites from the Egyptian slavery. All the prophets saw it in spirit with Abraham, and they rejoiced. If the expectation of it gave the patriarchs such joy, how much ought the accomplishment to create in us! Joy is defined the delight of a rational creature arising from the possession of a desired object. It must then be proportioned to the nature of the possession; consequently it ought to be as much greater in us as the fruition of a good surpasses the promise, possession the hope, or fruit the blossom. This St. Peter Chrysologus illustrates with regard to this difference of the Old and New Law as follows: “The letter of a friend,” says he, “is comfortable but his presence is much more welcome: a bond is useful; but the paymen more so: blossoms are pleasing, but only till the fruit appears. The ancient fathers received God’s letters; we enjoy his presence: they had the promise, we the accomplishment: they the bond, we the payment.” How would those ancient saints have exulted to have beheld with Simeon the completion of this great mercy! for which they never ceased ardently to sigh, weep, and pray. This reflection made St. Bernard say:28 “Very often do I revolve in mind the ardor of the desire with which the fathers sighed for the coming of Christ in the flesh: and I am filled within myself with confusion, and penetrated with compunction; and even now scarce am I able to contain my tears: so much am I ashamed of the sloth and lukewarmness of these wretched times. For who among us now conceives so much joy from the presence of this grace, as the promise of it inflamed desire in the ancient saints? Behold many indeed will rejoice in this festival; but I wish it were on account of the festival, not of vanity.”* Christians who rejoice with a worldly, vain, or carnal mirth, are strangers to the spirit of God, and his holy joy. This arises from a feeling sense of the blessings which we receive, and the love which God bears to us in this mystery; to which souls which are immersed in the flesh and vanity, are strangers. Did they truly weep under their spiritual miseries, and value these advantages, some degree of this spiritual joy would enter their hearts. Some exterior marks of this joy are allowed, provided they be not sought for themselves, but such as suit a penitential state and Christian gravity both by their nature and extreme moderation that is held in them: and, lastly, provided motives of virtue sanctify them, and they express and spring from an interior spiritual joy, which is altogether holy. If sensuality have any share in our festivals, they are rather heathenish bacchanals than Christian solemnities, and on them we feed and strengthen those passions which Christ was born only to teach us to subdue. To sanctify this feast, we ought to consecrate it to devotion, and principally to the exercises of adoration, praise, and love. This is the tribute we must offer to our new-born Saviour, when we visit him in spirit with the good shepherds. With them we must enter the stable, and contemplate this mystery with a lively faith, by which, under the veils of this infant body, we discover the infinite majesty of our God; and in this mystery we shall discern a prodigy of omnipotence to excite our praise, and a prodigy of love to kindle in our souls the affections of ardent love of God.

To contemplate immensity shut up in a little body, omnipotence clothed with weakness, the eternal God born in time, the joy of angels bathed in tears, is something far more wonderful than to consider God creating a world out of nothing, moving the heavens, and weighing the universe with a finger. This is a mystery altogether unutterable; to be adored in silence, and in raptures of admiration, not to be declared by words. “How can any one speak of the wonder which is here wrought among us?” says St. Fulgentius.29 “A man of God, a creature of his Creator, one who is finite and was born in time of Him who is immense and eternal.” Here, He who is wonderful in all his works, has outdone what creatures could have known to be possible to Omnipotence itself, had they not seen it accomplished Another eminent servant of God cries out upon this mystery,30 “O Lord out God, how admirable is thy name over all the earth! Truly thou art a God working wonders. I am not now astonished at the creation of the world at the heavens, at the earth, at the succession of days and seasons. But I wonder to see God enclosed in the womb of a virgin, the Omnipotent laid in a manger, the eternal Word clothed with flesh. Ought we not to invite the heavenly spirits to exert their might in praising the Lord for this incomprehensible effort of his power, goodness, and wisdom? to glorify their God in this state of humiliation which his infinite love has moved him to put on to save sinful man? Adore him, all you his angels.31 But these devout spirits have received a strict injunction to acquit themselves of this duty. The eternal Father when he brought his Son into the world, laid on them his commands, saying: Let all the angels of God adore him.32 Though they neither wanted invitation nor command, their own devotion being their prompter. O! what must have been their sentiments, when they saw a stable converted into heaven by the wonderful presence of its king, and beheld that divine infant, knowing his weak hands to be those which framed the universe, and bordered the heavens with light; and that by Him both the heavens and the earth subsist? Are they not more astonished to contemplate him in this humble hidden state than seated on the throne of his glory? In the most profound sentiments of adoration and love they sound forth his praises in the loudest strains, and, with their melody, fill not only the heavens, but also the earth. Shall not man, for whom this whole mystery is wrought, and who is so much favored, and so highly privileged and ennobled by the same, burn with a holy ardor to perform his part in this duty, and make the best return he is able of gratitude, adoration, and praise? To these exercises we ought to consecrate a considerable part of our devotions, especially on this festival, repeating with fervor the psalms, which chiefly consist of acts of divine praises, the hymn of thanksgiving used by the church, commonly ascribed to St. Ambrose and St. Austin,* and the angelical hymn, Glory and praise be given by all creatures to God alone in the highest heavens; and peace (or pardon, reconciliation, grace, and all spiritual happiness) to men of good-will.† In our devotions, also, acts of love ought to challenge a principal part, the Incarnation of the Son of God being the mystery of love; or properly a kind of ecstasy of love, in which God strips himself, as it were, of the rays of his glory to visit us, to become our brother, and to make himself in all things like us.

Love is the tribute which God challenges of us in a particular manner, in this mystery: this is the return which he requires of us for all he has done and suffered for us. He says to us: Son, give me thy heart. To love him is our sovereign happiness, and the highest dignity and honor to which a creature can aspire. To be suffered to make him a tender of our love ought alone to have engaged us not to neglect any means of corresponding with such a grace. But we are bound to it upon the title of the strictest justice. God being infinite in all perfections, is infinitely worthy of our love, and we ought to love him with an infinite love, if we were capable of it. We are also bound to love him in gratitude, especially for the benefit of his Incarnation, in which he has given us himself, and this in order to rescue us from extreme miseries, and to bestow on us the most incomprehersible graces and favors Man had sinned, and was become the associate of the devil. God merci fully sought him out, and by his promise of a Redeemer, raised him from the gulf into which he was fallen. Nevertheless, almost all the nations of the earth had, by blindly following their passions, at length fallen into a total forgetfulness of God who made them, and deified first inanimate stars and planets, afterwards dead men, the most impious and profligate of the human race; also the works of their own hands, often beasts, monsters, and their own basest passions: the most infamous crimes they authorized by the sanction of pretended religious rites; the numbers and boldness of the criminals screened them from the danger of disgrace; and from every corner of the earth vice cried to heaven for vengeance. The Jews, who had been favored by God above all other nations, and declared his peculiar people, were nevertheless abandoned to envy, jealousy, pride, and other vices; so that even amongst them the number of privileged souls which remained faithful to God, appeared to be very small. Are we not affrighted to consider this deluge of iniquity, this monstrous scene of horror! Yet such was the face of the earth when face Son of God honored it with his divine presence and conversation. Who would not have imagined, when he heard that God was coming to visit the earth, that it must have been to destroy it by fire from heaven, as he had done Sodom, and to bury its rebellious inhabitants in hell? But no: while the world was reeking with blood and oppressions, and overrun with impiety, he came to save it. How does the ingratitude and baseness of man set off his love! At the sight of our miseries his compassion was stirred up the more tenderly, and his bowels yearned towards us. He came to save us when we deserved nothing at his hands but eternal torments. Also the manner in which he came to visit us, shows yet in a more astonishing manner the excess of his goodness and charity for us. To engage our hearts more strongly, he has made himself like to us, taking upon him our nature. God was seen upon earth, and has conversed with men.33 The word was made flesh.34 God is born an infinite babe, the Eternal is become a young child, the Omnipotent is made weak, he who is essentially infinite and independent, is voluntarily reduced to a state of subjection, and humbled beneath his own creatures. It is love, and the love of us sinful men that hath done all this. “O strong wine of charity!” cries out St. Thomas of Villa Nova,35 “O most powerful triumph of love! thou hast conquered the invincible: the Almighty is become thy captive. O truly excess of charity!” Can we contemplate this divine infant, or call to mind this adorable mystery, without melting in love? So sweetly do all its circumstances breathe the most tender love: which the church expresses by saying, that on this day the heavens flow with honey. Can we ever satiate the affection of our souls by repeating to ourselves those amiable words, and reciting them every time with a fresh effusion of joy and love? A Little One is born to us: a Son is given to us.36 Or, This day is born to you a Saviour.37

St. Francis of Assisium appeared not able to contain himself through excessive tenderness of love, when he spoke of this mystery, and named the Little Babe of Bethlehem. St. Bernard says: “God on the throne of his majesty and greatness commands our fear and our homages: but in his littleness especially our love.”* This father invites all created beings to join him in love and adoration, and to listen in awful silence to the proclamation of the festival in honor of this mystery made in the Roman Martyrology. “Hear, ye heavens,” says he, “and lend your ears, O earth. Stand in raptures of astonishment and praise, O you whole creation, but you chiefly, O man. Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, was born in Bethlehem of Juda. O short word of the Eternal Word abridged for us! but tilled with heavenly sweetness. The affection of this melting sweetness struggles within, earnestly laboring widely to diffuse its teeming abundance, but finds not words. For such is the grace and energy of this speech, that it relishes less, if one iota in it be changed.” In another sermon, having repeated the same words he adds: “At these words my soul melts, and my spirit boils within me, hastening with burning desire to publish to you this exultation and joy.38 If this love were kindled in our breast, nothing were sweeter to us then to abide in spirit at the feet of Jesus, pondering the motive, that is, the excess of divine love, which brought him from heaven, and contemplating the other circumstances of this mystery. How ought we to salute and adore those sacred hands which are weakened, wrapped in clouts, or stretched on the manger, for love of us, but which move the heavens, an I uphold and govern the universe. Also those divine feet, which will undergo so many fatigues, and at length be bored on the cross for us. That blood which purples his little veins, and dyes his blessed cheeks, but which is the price of our redemption, and will be one day poured out upon the cross. How is this sweet countenance, which is the joy of angels, now concealed? But it will one day be buffeted, bruised, and covered with filthy phlegm. How ought we respectfully to honor it! His holy flesh, more pure man angels, even now begins to suffer from the cold and other hardships: do we not desire to defend it from these injuries? But this cannot be allowed. Nor could any one oppose the work of our redemption. Sin is the cause of all that he suffers, and shall not we detest and shun that monster? The loving eyes of the divine Jesus pierce our souls. They are now bathed in tears, though, as St. Bernard says, “Jesus weeps not as other children, or at least not on the same account.” They cry for their wants and weakness, Jesus for compassion and love for us. May these precious tears move the heavenly Father to show us mercy, and may they soften, wash, and cleanse our souls. “These tears excite in me both grief and shame,” says the same father, “when I consider my own insensibility amidst my spiritual miseries.” But nothing in this contemplation will more strongly move us than to penetrate into the interior employment of this divine Saviour’s holy soul, and to consider the ardor of his zeal in the praises of his Father, and in his supplications to Him on our behalf; his compassion for us, and the constant oblation which he made of himself to obtain for us mercy and grace. Such meditations and pious entertainments of our souls will have great force in kindling the fire of holy love in our hearts. But all endeavours would be weak, so long as we do not labor effectually to remove all obstacles to this holy love in our affections. To cure these disorders is the chief end of the birth of Christ; he purchased the grace for us by his sufferings, and he taught us the remedies by his example.

Christ’s actions are no less instructions to us than his discourses. His life is the gospel reduced to practice. It is enough to study it to understand well his doctrine: and to become perfect we must imitate his example. By this he instructs us in his very nativity, beginning first to practise, then to preach.39 Hence the manger was his first pulpit, and in it he teaches us the cure of our spiritual maladies. The Jews, addicted to their senses and passions, blinded themselves, mistook the prophets, and framed an idea a Messiah agreeable to their own fancy, who should be a rich and mighty conqueror, and should make Jerusalem the greatest city, and their nation the most flourishing empire in the world. But this was not such a Messiah as we wanted. Gold and silver, and a magnificent city, would only have made us more in love with our exile, so as to forget more our heavenly country. Such a Saviour could have only served to nourish, not to heal our corruption. He would have raised our desires and passions, and made himself the instrument to feed and gratify them. He would have been a tempter and deceiver; to have been shunned by those who knew their distempers, and sought their true remedies. But the prophets give the Messiah the very opposite characteristics. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah alone, not to mention many other prophecies, evinces this truth, and ought to have opened the eyes of the carnal Jews. The saints, who had all learned a spirit of contempt of such goods, would never have languished for the coming of such a Saviour: as gold, worldly honors, or empire were not the presents they asked or expected from him, but the cure of their infirmities and the abundance of his heavenly graces. He is come such as the holy prophets had desired and foretold, such as our miseries required, our true physician and Saviour. He wanted not on earth honors or sceptres; he came not to taste of our vanities: riches and glory he abounded with. He came among us to seek our miseries, our poverty, our humiliation, to repair the injuries our pride had offered to the Godhead, and to apply a remedy to our souls. Therefore he chose not a palace, or a great city; but a poor mother, a little town, a stable. He who adorns the world, and clothes the lilies of the field beyond the majesty of Solomon in his glory, is wrapped up in rags, and laid in a manger. And this he chose to be the great sign of his appearance. And this shall be a sign to you: said the angel to the shepherds: you shall find the child wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and laid in a manger. Are then rags and a manger the wonderful sign of our God appearing on earth? Are these the works of the great Messiah, of whom the prophets spoke so glorious things? This it was that scandalized the Jews in his birth. “Take from us those clouts, and that manger,” said Marcion, unjustly prepossessed against the humility of such an appearance.* But this is a sign which God himself hath chosen, and set up for his standard; a sign to be the contradiction to our pride, covetousness, and sensuality. And do not we wonder at the stupendous virtue and efficacy of this sign, so shocking to the senses and passions, when we see how it drew to it the little and great, the magians and the shepherds, who knew their Saviour by it, and returned glorifying God? How many have enrolled themselves under the same standard! Yet is it still a scandal and a contradiction to many who call themselves its followers, who blush at it, not in Christ indeed, but by a strange inconsistency in themselves, while they pretend to walk in his spirit. Would not these nominal Christians have rejected Jesus with the Jews, had they been then alive? Do they not now exclude him from their hearts?

Christ set up this his mark for us: it is our powerful instruction. The grace of God the Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing us, says the apostle.40 All men. the rich and the poor, the great and the small, all who desire to have n share in his grace, or in his kingdom. And what breast can be so stony as not to be softened at this example? Our inveterate diseases seemed almos: unconquerable. But Christ is come, the omnipotent Physician, to apply a remedy to them. Our disorders flow from three sources. All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence. of eyes, and the pride of life.41 What is concupiscence of the flesh but the inordinate inclination to gratify the senses? Christ, to encourage us to renounce this love of sensual pleasures, and to satisfy his justice by his own sufferings for our offences in this way, begins to suffer as soon as he begins to live. At his very birth he exposes his delicate body to the inclemency of the severest season of the year, to the hard boards the manager for a cradle, to hunger, and to a privation of the most ordinary conveniences and necessaries of human life. His tender and divine limbs tremble with cold, his eyes stream with tears, and he consecrated the first moments of his life to suffering and pain. He who directs the seasons, governs the universe, and disposes all things, has ordained every thing for this very end. Yet we study in all things to flatter our senses, to pamper our bodies in softness and every gratification, and to remove every thing that is hard or painful. Is this to imitate the model of penance and mortification that is set us? Christ, by these sufferings, and this privation of all things, shows us that he came to satisfy the justice of his Father, and to repair the injury done to his glory by our sins. But by the same he teaches us the remedies of our disorders, and shows us how they are to be applied to our souls; as he came to instruct us in all we want to know and do in order to save our souls, and to reform all our irregular passions and manners. Could he have preached this more powerfully than he has done by the example of his birth.’ How comes it, notwithstanding, that we are not yet sufficiently persuaded that we cannot be saved at a cheaper rate than by a constant practice of self-denial and penance? “Either Christ is deceived, or the world errs.” says St. Bernard.* The former is impossible: the very thought would be blasphemy It is then clear, that notwithstanding the torrent of the example in the word, a life of softness, intemperance, and sensual delights is the incentive of vice, and the sure road to eternal perdition.

By concupiscence of the eyes is understood the love of riches; the second root of the disorders which reign in the world, and the foundation of its false maxims. This our Saviour teaches us to root out of our hearts by embracing the most austere poverty, and consecrating it in his divine body, to use the expression of St. Bernard. He shows us the danger of riches, and the crime and disorder of a love or eager pursuit of them Riches are good in the designs of Providence: and what is more noble than to have the means of relieving the distresses of others? This motive all pretend in amassing riches; but seek in them only the interest of self-love. Riches are a fruit which the sin of our first parent has infected with a mortal poison. They make salvation very difficult by the dangers which attend them, and by the great obligations they lay men under, and which are little thought on. The woe which the gospel pronounces against the rich, falls not upon them because they gather the fruits of the earth, but because they seek them with too great eagerness, or set their hearts too much on them The rich and the poor adore them in their desires. This is the disorder. Men may be poor in spirit in the midst of riches. But this is truly an extraordinary grace. Those that are blessed with riches must fear them, lest they find admittance into their hearts. They must watch over themselves against this danger, always bearing in mind that they are things so frail, so trouble some and such incentives of vice, that reason taught the philosophers amongst the heathens to despise them. They are, moreover, most frequently either the effect or the cause of iniquity; faulty either in their acquisition, or in their use. In their acquisition, in which injustices are so frequent, that Seneca says, “Every rich man is either unjust, or the heir of one who was unjust.” And the organ of the Holy Ghost declares: He that maketh hast to be rich, shall not be innocent.42 At least a desire of riches usually attends the acquisition, which is many ways inordinate; and is always a spiritual fever which destroys the relish of heavenly goods, and consumes the very vitals of the interior life. It is an idolatry, as St. Paul calls it,43 and the same master who commanded idols to be banished out of the world, obliges us to banish the love of riches out of our hearts. The least reserve draws on us the curse of heaven. This desire in the rich is insatiable. The prophet Isaias said to them,44 “Wo to you that join house to house, and lay field to field, even to the end of the place: shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth? And the Roman satirist reproached one that seemed to design to make all Rome a single house for himself.* The rich are anxious for superfluities, and are tormented by extravagant desires. The poor have here often as much to correct; the desire of possessions is as criminal as an attachment to the possession; it often exposes to a thousand injustices, under subtle disguises, and shuts the heart to divine grace. Let all labor in the world, but not for the world; and let all inordinate desires and anxiety be cut off. Let the poor place themselves nearest to Jesus Christ, and, learning from him the happiness of their condition, study their own sanctification in it. Let the rich look upon their possessions as a burder hard to bear well, and labor to sanctify them by a good use, and by imitating Christ our model in a perfect spirit of disengagement and poverty. For it the use of riches there are still greater dangers than in the acquisition. These are, lest a man forget himself and his miseries; feel a complacency in his plenty, and be puffed up with pride; live in pleasures and softness which custom seems to authorize, and in a circle of amusements which flatter the senses; gratify his passions which riches inflame; think himself by riches qualified for every thing, and take upon him employments and obligations, for the discharge of which he has not abilities; refuse the debt which he owes to the poor of all his superfluities; live in luxury, which damned the rich glutton, and practise neither mortification nor penance. Is not sloth a crime which damns souls, and is the mother of all vice? Yet how many among the rich fly study and labor, as if they thought sloth, vanity, and pleasure, the privilege of their rank! Is not the life of a Christian to be penitential? Where is that of the rich such? Vicious inclinations are roused and strengthened by riches; and by incentives and opportunities the passions often reign in the heart of the rich with uncontrollable empire. If they sometimes confess the vanity and illusion of the world, and condemn their own folly, this sentiment is stifled almost in its birth, and in a short time they are again plunged into a forgetfulness of themselves, and by a relapse are more culpable than before. To other dangers we must add the misfortune that the rich are surrounded by flatterers, and that others artfully conspire to blind and betray them amidst their dangers. How often does it happen that ministers of God deceive them, calling evil good, and good evil; soothing their passions or disguising their obligations. But without entering into this detail, do not the curses of Christ suffice to make all Christians tremble at the dangers of this state? This fear alone can render those that are in it secure, by making them always watch over their own hearts, that they be not led into any snares. By this means, though Christ declares riches one of the most dangerous obstacles of grace, many saints have changed them into the means of their salvation, joining with their possession a spirit of poverty and disengagement, and making them the instruments of justice and charity. It is therefore neither to riches nor to poverty that Christ promises the kingdom of heaven; but to the disengagement of the heart from the love of riches in whatever state persons live. But that of poverty he recommends by his own choice, as the easier and happier for the practice of the most perfect virtues. The world indeed abounds with poverty; but not with that of which Christ sets up the standard. Because worldly poor complain and groan under the hardships of their condition, and blush at its humiliations, which they ought to esteem as the means of grace, opportunities of virtue, remedies of their evils, and the livery of their God and Redeemer.

Pride being the third and principal source of our disorders, and our deepest wound, humility is displayed in the most wonderful manner in the birth of the Son of God. What is the whole mystery of the Incarnation but the most astonishing humiliation of the Deity? To expiate our pride, and to repair the injury offered to the adorable Trinity by our usurpation, the eternal Son of God divests himself of his glory, and takes upon him the form of Man Neither is he content with making this infinite descent, but every circumstance in the manner of making it, is carried to the most amazing degree of humiliation. Who would not expect to hear, that when God descended upon earth, the heavens would bend beneath him, the earth be moved at his sight, and all nature arrayed with magnificence? Who would not think that the whole creation would be overwhelmed with the glory of his presence, and tremble with awe before him? But nothing of this was seen. “He came not,” says St. Chrysostom,45 “so as to shake the world at the presence of his majesty: nor did he appear in thunder and lightning, as on Mount Sinai; but he descended sweetly, no man knowing it.” While all things were in deep silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, thy Almighty Word came down from heaven, from thy royal throne.46 No one of the great ones of the world is apprized of this great mystery. Those few chosen persons to whom he is pleased to reveal himself, are called to adore him in the closest secrecy and silence. If this be the manner in which he comes, what is the appearance which he makes among men? At this sight what must be our astonishment! To what a condition do we see the king of glory reduced! He appears the outcast of the world, is rejected by his own people, who refuse to receive him under their roof, is lodged in a stable, wrapped in rags, and laid in a manger. Is this abandoned shelter of cattle, this crib of beasts, the place where God was to repose on earth? Are these rags the ensigns of infinite majesty? How different was the lodging, the clothing, the attendance of many princes who at that very time were born into the world, laid in down, lodged in palaces, and served by many hands. How comes the king of heaven to make his appearance in such a state of abasement, and so destitute of due honor, and of every convenience! His birth is, notwithstanding, the master-piece of minute wisdom, mercy, and omnipotence. These perfections nowhere shine more admirably than in this mystery; for he came thus to be our physician, to correct our mistaken judgment of things, to heal our pride, to bring, and to encourage us to use the remedy to our grievous maladies, and to overcome our reluctancy to its bitterness by taking it first himself. Therefore humility was to be his ensign, and the angel gave his rags and manger to the shepherds for the mark by which he was to be known. This shall be to you a sign. Does not the reproach which his example makes to us, open our eyes and touch our hearts? What do we behold! A God poor, a God humbled, a God suffering! And can we any longer entertain thoughts of sensuality, ambition, or pride?

If this humility of a God be most astonishing, is not the blindness and pride of man, after such an example, something, if possible, still more inconceivable? Christ is born thus only to atone for our pride, to show us the beauty of humility, and to plant it in our hearts. Humility is his standard; and the spirit of sincere humility is the mark by which his disciples must be known to be his. Can we profess ourselves his followers, can we look upon the example which he has set us, and yet continue to entertain thoughts of ambition and pride? To learn the interior perfect spirit of humility and all other virtues, we cannot make use of any more powerful means than serious and frequent meditation on his nativity and divine life. Placing ourselves in spirit at the manger, after the tender of our homages by acts of adoration, praise, thanksgiving, and love, we must study in him the lessons of all virtues, and must present to our new-born king, our earnest supplications to obtain of him all those gifts and graces which he comes to bestow upon us. Let us learn humility from the lowliness in which he appears, and from the humility of his sacred heart. Let us learn meekness by beholding the sweetness and patience with which this God-man receives all injuries from men and from the elements. Let us learn resignation from the indifference with which he bears cold, wants, wrongs, and whatever is sent him. Let us learn obedience from the most perfect submission of our blessed Saviour to the will of his heavenly Father, from his birth offering himself without reserve even to the death of the cross. Let us learn charity from the ardor of his divine love. Let us learn a contempt of the world and its perishable goods from the extreme poverty which Christ made his voluntary choice. Let not the spirit and maxims of the world reign any longer in our hearts, since Christ has shown us such powerful motives, and presented us such sovereign remedies against them.* If we still continue possessed with them, when will our follies be corrected?† Have we not hitherto been idolaters of ourselves by pride, idolaters of the world by vanity and avarice, and idolaters of our flesh by living enslaved to our senses? These idols we renounced at baptism: but have we not lived in a perfidious violation of these vows? Unless we now sincerely renew these engagements, and banish these idols out of our affections, Jesus can never be spiritually born in our souls, and we can never inherit his spirit, which was the end of his carnal nativity. He is meek and the king of peace, the lover of purity and of chaste affections, and the avowed enemy to every spirit of pride, hatred, and revenge. Bees cannot approach filth and stench: infinitely more Christ flies with abhorrence from souls that are defiled with sinful or earthly affections. In such he finds no place, any more than he did in the inns at Bethlehem. We must earnestly invite and entreat him who vehemently desires to be born in our hearts, that he prepare our souls to receive him by his graces, that he cleanse them by his mercy and by inspiring us with sincere compunction, that he banish every inordinate passion, fill us with his holy spirit, and by it reign in all our affections, thoughts and actions; that as by his nativity he is become all ours, so we may be altogether his. Without this condition we frustrate in ourselves the end of his coming; he is not born for us, unless by his spirit he be born in us. Let us conjure him by the infinite love with which he came for this very purpose, that he suffer us not wretchedly to defeat this his mercy. For this happiness we ought ardently to repeat that petition which he himself has put into our mouths: Thy kingdom come. The devout Thaulerus teaches us to ask it by the following prayer:47 “Come, O my Lord Jesus Christ, take away all scandals out of thy kingdom, which is my soul, that you who ought, may reign in it alone. Pride, lust, envy, detraction, anger, and other passions fight in my heart, to usurp portions to themselves. Through your grace I watch and resist with all my strength. I cry out that I belong to you alone, and am all yours; and stretching out my hands to you, I say. I have no king but the Lord Jesus. Come therefore. O Lord; disperse your enemies in your mighty strength, and you will reign in me, because you are my king and my God.”

The custom of one priest celebrating several masses on the same day prevailed in many places on great festivals.48 Prudentius, in his twelfth hymn, On the Crowns of Martyrs, mentions, that on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, the 29th of June, the pope said mass first at the Vatican, and afterwards in the church of St. Paul, without the city. The popes on Christmas-day formerly said three masses; the first in the Liberian basilie, the second in the church of St. Anastasia, the third in the Vatican, as Benedict XIV. proves from ancient Roman orders or missals. St. Gregory the Great speaks of saying three masses on this day.49 This custom of the popes was universally imitated, and is everywhere retained, though not of precept. Pouget50 says, that these three masses are celebrated to honor the triple birth of Christ; the first, by which he proceeds from his Father before all ages; the second, from the Blessed Virgin Mary; and the third, by which he is spiritually born in our souls by faith and charily That Christ was born on the 25th of December, pope Benedict XIV. proves by the authority of St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Austin, &c. and answers the objections of Scaliger and Samuel Basnage.51 He doubts not but the Greek church originally kept this festival on the same day;52 and he takes notice, that among the principal feasts of the year it holds the next place after Easter and Whitsunday.53

DECEMBER 25 — ST. ANASTASIA, M

Her name is mentioned in the canon of the mass, in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, and in other ancient catalogues of martyrs. There stands in Rome an ancient church, which is dedicated to God in her memory. In the acts of St. Chrysogonus we are told, that she was of an illustrious descent at Rome, had St. Chrysogonus for her tutor and director in the faith, and when that holy martyr was apprehended at Aquileia in the persecution of Dioclesian, went thither to comfort him in his chains. It is further related, that after suffering exquisite tortures, she was sentenced by the prefect of Illyricum to be burnt alive in 304. Her body was removed to Rome, and laid in the church which still bears her name. In this church the popes anciently said their second mass on Christmas-night, or rather that of the morning, whence a commemoration of her is made in the second mass. The relics of St. Anastasia were translated to Constantinople in the time of the emperor Leo, and deposited first in the church of Anastasia or the Resurrection, afterwards in the patriarchal church of St. Sophia: but were lost when that city was taken by the Turks. The Greek Menologies and the Muscovite Calendars commemorate our saint on the 22nd of December the Roman Missal on the 25th. See on her also Nicephorus, Suidas, and Jos. Assemani ad 22 Dec. p. 489.

DECEMBER 25 — ANOTHER ST. ANASTASIA,

called the Elder, was crowned with martyrdom in the persecution of Valerian; others think of Nero. See the Acts of St. Chrysogonus, though of small authority; her Acts in Metaphrastes are of no better stamp.

DECEMBER 25 — ST. EUGENIA, V. M

She suffered at Rome under Valerian about the year 257, and is mentioned by St. Avitus,1 though we have no authentic acts of her sufferings, those recited by Metaphrastes and Surius deserving no notice. She is also mentioned in the lives of SS. Protus and Hyacinthus, MM., on the 11th of September, p. 116.

DECEMBER 26 — ST. STEPHEN, THE FIRST MARTYR

See Acts 6, 7, and Tillemont, t. 2, p. 1, Cave, &c.

THAT St. Stephen was a Jew is unquestionable, himself owning that relation in his apology to the people. But whether he was of Hebrew extraction, and descended of the stock of Abraham, or whether he was of foreign parents incorporated and brought into that nation by the gate of proselytism is uncertain. The name Stephen, which signifies a crown, is evidently Greek; but the priest Lucian, in the history of the discovery of his relics, and Basil of Seleucia1 inform us, that the name Cheliel, which in modern Hebrew signifies a crown, was engraved on his tomb at Caphragamala.* It is generally allowed that he was one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord; for immediately after the descent of the Holy Ghost we find him perfectly instructed in the law of the gospel, endowed with extraordinary measures, both of the interior and exterior gifts of that divine spirit which was but lately shed upon the church, and incomparably furnished with miraculous powers. The church of Christ then increased daily, and was illustrious for the spirit and practice of all virtues, but especially for charity. The faithful lived and loved one another as brethren, and were of one heart and one soul. Love and charity were the common soul that animated the whole body of believers.

The rich sold their estates to relieve the necessities of the poor, and deposited the money in one common treasury, the care whereof was committed to the apostles, to see the distribution made as everybody’s necessity required. Heaven alone is free from all occasions of offence, and the number of converts being very great, the Greeks (that is, the Christians of foreign countries, who were born and brought up in countries which spoke chiefly Greek, or at least were Gentiles by descent, though proselytes to the Jewish religion before they came over to the faith of Christ) murmured against the Hebrews, complaining that their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. The apostles, to provide a speedy remedy, assembled the faithful, and observed to them, that they could not relinquish the duties of preaching, and other spiritual functions of the ministry to attend to the care of tables; and recommended to them the choice of seven men of an unblemished character, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, who might superintend that affair, that so themselves might he freed from distractions and incumbrances, the more freely to devote themselves without interruption to prayer and preaching the gospel. This proposal was perfectly agreeable to the whole assembly, who immediately pitched on Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas a proselyte of Antioch. All these names are Greek; whence some think they were chosen among the Greeks, in order to appease the murmurs that had been raised. But it frequently happened that Hebrews changed their names into Greek words of a like import, when they conversed with Greeks and Romans, to whom several names in the oriental languages sounded harsh, and were difficult to pronounce. Stephen is named the first of the deacons, as Peter is of the apostles, says St. Austin.2 Hence he is styled by Lucian,3 archdeacon. These seven were presented to the apostles, who praying, imposed hands upon them; by which rite they received the Holy Ghost, to qualify them to become ministers of God’s holy mysteries.* Their ordination was made by virtue of a commission, either general or particular, given by Christ to his apostles for the establishment of inferior ministers or Levites for the service of the altar Whence St. Paul requires almost the same conditions in deacons as in bishops and priests,4 and speaks of their sacred ministry. St. Ignatius, the disciple of the apostles, orders the faithful “to reverence deacons as the command of God,”5 and calls them, “ministers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ.” And again, “Ministers not of meat and drink, but of the church of God.”6

St. Stephen had the primacy and precedence among the deacons newly elected by the apostles, as St. Chrysostom observes, and being filled with the Holy Ghost, preached and pleaded the cause of Christianity with undaunted courage, confirming his doctrine by many public and unquestionable miracles. The number of believers were multiplied in Jerusalem, and a great multitude even of the priests obeyed the faith. The distinguished zeal and success of our holy deacon stirred up the malice and envy of the enemies of the gospel, who bent their whole force, and all their malice against him. The conspiracy was formed by the Libertines, (or such as had been carried captives to Rome by Pompey, and had since obtained their freedom,) those of Cyrene in Lybia, of Alexandria, Cilicia, and Lesser Asia, who had each a distinct synagogue at Jerusalem. At first they undertook to dispute with St. Stephen; but finding themselves unequal to the task, and unable to resist the wisdom and spirit with which he spoke, they suborned false witnesses to charge him with blasphemy against Moses and against God. The indictment was laid against him in the Sanhedrim, and the saint was hauled thither. After the charge was read, Caiphas the high priest ordered him to make his defence. The main point urged against him was, that he affirmed that the temple would be destroyed, that the Mosaic sacrifices where but shadows and types, and were no longer acceptable to God, Jesus of Nazareth having put an end to them. It pleased God to diffuse a heavenly beauty and a shining brightness on the saint’s face, while he stood before the council, so that to all that were present it seemed as if it had been the countenance of an angel. According to the license given him by the high priest to speak for himself, he made his apology, but in such a manner as boldly to preach Jesus Christ in the Sanhedrim itself. He showed that Abraham, the father and founder of their nation, was justified, and received the greatest favors of God without the temple: that Moses was commanded to erect a tabernacle, but foretold a new law and the Messiah; that Solomon built the temple, but it was not to be imagined that God was confined in houses made by hands, and that the temple and the Mosaic law were temporary ministrations, and were to give place when God introduced more excellent institutions. The martyr added, that this he had done by sending the Messiah himself; but that they were like their ancestors, a stiff-necked generation, circumcised in body, but not in heart, and always resisting the Holy Ghost; and that as their fathers had persecuted and slain many of the prophets who foretold the Christ, so they had betrayed and murdered Him in person, and though they had received the law by the ministry of angels, they had not observed it.

This stinging reproach touched them to the quick, and kindled them into a rage, gnashing with their teeth at the holy martyr, and expressing all the symptoms of unbridled passion. The saint, not heeding what was done below, had his eyes and heart fixed on higher objects, and being full of the Holy Ghost, and looking up steadfastly to the heavens, saw them opened and beheld his divine Saviour standing at the right hand of his Father, appearing by that posture ready to protect, receive, and crown his servant. With this vision the saint was inexpressibly ravished, his soul was inspired with new courage, and a longing to arrive at that bliss, a glimpse of which was shown him. His heart overflowed with joy, and in an ecstasy, not being able to forbear expressing his happiness in the very midst of his enemies, he said: Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. Thus divine consolations are then nearest to us, when human succors are furthest from us; but on such occasions we must cleave to God with confidence, and a perfect disengagement of heart from earthly things. If we still hold to them by the least twig, we have not perfectly attained to the dispositions of the saints. The Jews became more hardened and enraged by hearing the saint’s declaration of this vision, and calling him a blasphemer, resolved upon his death without any further process. In the fury of their blind zeal they stayed not for a judicial sentence, nor for the warrant of the Roman governor, without which no one could at that time be legally put to death amongst them. But stopping their ears against his supposed blasphemies, they with great clamor rushed upon him, furiously hauled him out of the city, and with a tempest of stones satiated their rage against him. The witnesses who, according to the Levitical law, were to begin the execution in all capital cases,7 threw their clothes at the feet of Saul, who thus partook of their crime.8 In the mean time the holy martyr prayed, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit And falling on his knees he cried with a loud voice, and the greatest earnestness, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. When he had said this he fell asleep in the Lord. This word is used by the Holy Ghost elegantly to express the sweetness of the death of the just, which is to them a rest after the toils of this painful life, a secure harbor after the dangers of this mortal pilgrimage, and the gate to eternal life. St. Austin and other fathers doubt; not but the eminent conversion of St. Paul was the fruit of the dying groans and prayer of this martyr, and is a proof of his great interest in heaven.9 The edification and manifold advantages which the church received from the martyrdom of this great and holy man compensated the loss which it sustained in him. Certain devout men took order to inter him in a decent manner, and made great mourning over him, though such a death was his own most glorious triumph, and unparalleled gain. The priest Lucian, who recounts the manner of the miraculous discovery of his relics in the fifth century, informs us, that they were deposited about twenty miles from Jerusalem, by the direction of Gamaliel, and at his expense.10 St. Stephen seems to have suffered towards the end of the same year in which Christ was crucified.*

In the whole life of our divine Redeemer we have the most perfect pattern of meekness. During his ministry he meekly bore with the weakness, ignorance, and prejudices of some; with the perverseness, envy, and malice of others; with the ingratitude of friends, and the pride and insolence of enemies. How affecting is the most patient silence which he held in the courts of unjust judges, and through the whole course of his passion! How did he confirm this example which he had given us, by spending his last breath in fervent prayer for his murderers! With what ardor and assiduity did he press upon us the practice of this virtue of meekness, and inculcate its indispensable obligation and unspeakable advantage! St. Stephen inherited more perfectly this spirit in proportion as he was more abundantly replenished with the Holy Ghost. No one who is passionate, unforgiving, and revengeful, can be a follower of the meek and humble Jesus. In vain do such assume to themselves the honor of bearing his name. In charity, meekness, and humility, consists the very spirit of Christianity; and scarcely any thing dishonors religion more than the prevalence of the opposite spirit in those who make a profession of piety.

DECEMBER 26 — ST. DIONYSIUS, POPE, C

Dionysius was a priest of the church of Rome, under the pontificates of Stephen and Sixtus II. The latter having received the crown of martyrdom under Valerian, on the 6th of August, 258, through the violence of the persecution, the holy see continued vacant almost a year, till our saint was chosen pope on the 2d of July, 259. St. Dionysius of Alexandria styles him an admirable man, and a person eminently learned. St. Basil wonderfully extols his charity, which he extended to the most remote provinces of the empire. When the Goths had plundered Csarea, the capital of Cappadocia, and carried away most of its inhabitants into captivity, the good pope wrote to that city a letter of comfort, and sent messengers with large sums of money to ransom the captives.1 Our saint condemned Sabellius, &c. in a council at Rome, and afterwards confuted the blasphemies of Paul of Samosata.2 St. Athanasius and St. Basil made use of his elegan writings to prove the divinity of the Son, and the latter also that of the Holy Ghost.3 St. Athanasius testifies, that three hundred fathers at Nice, in defending the Catholic faith used no new expressions, but those which they received from the foregoing pastors of God’s church, copying particularly those of Dionysius of Rome, and his namesake of Alexandria.4 This holy pope died on the 26th of December, in 269. See Eus.,1. 7, c. 5, 7; S. Athan. Ceillier, t. 3, p. 327.

DECEMBER 26 — ST. JARLATH, C. FIRST BISHOP OF TUAM IN IRELAND

He flourished about the beginning of the sixth century, and is not to be confounded with Jarlath, archbishop of Armagh, who was a disciple of St. Patrick, an Ulster-man, and the son of Trien. Our St. Jarlath was a Connaught-man, of the family of Cormac, and was educated from his youth under Binen or Benignus, archbishop of Armagh, by whom he was promoted to holy orders. Leaving this great master, he retired to Cluainfois, (so called from cluain, a retreat or a lurking-place, and fos, a dwelling, or fois, leisure,) a solitary place in Conmacne, now in the county of Galway, near Tuam. Here he founded a monastery which retained this name, and is now a chapel within the parish of Tuam. In this monastery St. Jarlath opened a famous school, to which numbers flocked for education in piety and learning, among whom the great St. Brendan, abbot of Clonfert, and St. Colman, first bishop of Cluain-uamha, or Cloyne, laid the foundation of their eminent virtue under the discipline of St. Jarlath. Our saint was called from this employment to be consecrated first bishop of Tuam, anciently called Tuaim-da-Gualan, which church was afterwards dedicated in his memory, and called Tempull-Jarlaith, or Jarlaith’s church. He died full of days on the 26th of December, about the year 540. His bones were afterwards placed in a silver shrine, and deposited in a church at Tuam, called from thence Tempull-na-scrin, that is, church of the shrine. His chief festival was kept at Tuam on the 6th of June, the day of the translation of his relics.

Some bishops of this see were styled metropolitans, and archbishops of Connaught. At length it was regularly erected into an archbishopric, with the concession of a pall in 1152. Two other sees were afterwards united to this of Tuam; 1st, that of Enaghdune, reduced to a parish under Tuam, by a union of the sees in the fourteenth century; and 2d, that of Mayo, founded by St. Gerald, an English-Saxon, who accompanied St. Colman from Lindisfarne into Ireland. St. Colman erected a monastery at Mayo for his English-Saxon followers, called from them Mayo-na-Sasson, i.e. Mayo of the Saxons. St. Gerald, who is honored on the 13th of March enlarged this monastery, and erected it into a bishopric about the year 685 (see Colgan, Act., p. 599.) The see of Mayo was united to Tuam in 1560 On St. Jarlath, see Ware, p. 602; Usher’s Prim., p. 994; Colgan in MSS.

DECEMBER 27 — ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST

See Tillemont, t. 1, p. 330. Calmet. t. 7 et 8. Ceillier, t.1, p.364. Reading, &c.

ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST, who is styled in the gospel, The beloved disciple of Christ, and is called by the Greeks The Divine, was a Galilean, the son of Zebedee and Salome, and younger brother to St. James the Great, with whom he was brought up to the trade of fishing. From his acquaintance with the high-priest Caiphas, St. Jerom infers that he was a gentleman by birth; but the meanness of his father’s trade, and the privacy of his fortune sufficiently prove that his birth could not much distinguish him in the world, neither could his education give him any tincture of secular learning. His acquaintance with the high-priest may be placed to some other account. Nicephorus Calixtius, a modem Greek historian of the fourteenth century, (in whom, amidst much rubbish, several curious anecdotes are found,) says, we know not upon what authority, that St. John had sold a paternal estate to Annas, father-in-law to Caiphas, a little before the death of our Lord. Before his coming to Christ have seems to line been a disciple to John the Baptist, several thinking him to have been that other disciple that was with St. Andrew, when they left the Baptist to follow our Saviour;1 so particularly does our Evangelist relate all the circumstances, through modesty concealing his own name, as in other parts of his gospel. He was properly called to be a disciple of our Lord, with his brother James, as they were mending their nets2 on the same day, and soon after Jesus had called Peter and Andrew. These two brothers continued still to follow their profession, but upon seeing the miraculous draught of fishes, they left all things to attach themselves more closely to him.3 Christ gave them the surname of Boanerges, or sons of thunder,4 to express the strength and activity of their faith in publishing the law of God, without fearing the power of man. This epithet has been particularly applied to St. John, who was truly a voice of thunder in proclaiming aloud the most sublime mysteries of the divinity of Christ. He is said to have been the youngest of all the apostles, probably about twenty-five years of age, when he was called by Christ; for he lived seventy years after the suffering of his divine master. Piety, wisdom, and prudence equalled him in his youth to those who with their gray hairs had been long exercised in the practice and experience of virtue; and by a pure and blameless life he was honorable in the world. Our divine Redeemer had a particular affection for him above the rest of the apostles; insomuch that when St. John speaks of himself, he saith, that he was The disciple whom Jesus loved; and frequently he mentions himself by this only characteristic; which he did not out of pride to distinguish himself, but out of gratitude and tender love for his blessed Master. Humility suffered him not to mention any of his other great privileges; but tenderness and love made him never forget, but on every occasion to repeat this title which was the strongest motive to inflame his own love of his Saviour, who, without any merit on his side, had prevented him by such distinguishing love. If we inquire into the causes of this particular love of Christ towards him, which was not blind or unreasonable, the first was doubtless, as St. Austin observes, the love which this disciple bore him: secondly, his meekness and peaceable disposition, by which he was extremely like Christ himself: thirdly, his virginal purity. For St. Austin tells us5 that, “The singular privilege of his chastity rendered him worthy of the more particular love of Christ, because being chosen by him a virgin, he always remained such.” St. Jerom sticks not to call all his other privileges and graces the recompense of his chastity, especially that which our Lord did him by recommending in his last moments his virgin mother to the care of this virgin disciple.6 St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. Epiphanius, and other fathers frequently make the same reflection. Christ was pleased to choose a virgin for his mother, a virgin for his precursor, and a virgin for his favorite disciple: and his church suffers only those who live perfectly chaste to serve him in his priesthood, where they daily touch and offer his virginal flesh on his holy altar. In heaven virgins follow the spotless Lamb wherever he goes.7 Who then can doubt but purity is the darling virtue of Jesus? who feeds among the lilies8 of untarnished chastity. For he who loves purity of heart, will have the king his friend.9 Another motive of the preference which Jesus gave to this apostle in his intimacy and predilection, was his perfect innocence and simplicity without guile in his youth. Virtue in that age has peculiar charms to Christ, and is always a seed of extraordinary graces and blessings.

The love which Jesus bears is never barren. Of this his sufferings and death are the strongest proof. As St. John had the happiness to be distinguished by Christ in his holy love, so was he also in its glorious effects. Though these principally consisted in the treasure of interior graces and virtues, exterior tokens, helps, and comforts were not wanting. This appears from the familiarity and intimacy with which his divine master favored him above the rest of the apostles. Christ would have him with Peter and James privy to his Transfiguration, and to his agony in the garden; and he showed St. John particular instances of kindness and affection above all the rest. Witness this apostle’s lying in our Saviour’s bosom at the last supper; it being then the custom among the Jews often to lie along upon couches at meals, so that one might lean his head upon the bosom of him that lay before him; which honor Christ allowed St. John.10 No tongue certainly can express the sweetness and ardor of the holy love which our saint on that occasion drew from the divine breast of our Lord, which was the true furnace of pure and holy love. St. John repeats this circumstance several times in his gospel to show its importance, and his grateful remembrance. Every devout person in some sense is admitted to a like favor, when in heavenly contemplation he shuts his corporeal eyes to all visible things, and opens those of his soul to the invisible. When his exterior senses remain, as it were, asleep and dead, his interior powers are awakened and quickened, he contemplates the bottomless abyss of the divine love, and drinks plentifully of that fountain of life. We discover in the holy scriptures a close particular friendship between St. John and St. Peter, which was doubtless founded in the ardor of their love and zeal for their divine Master. When St. Peter durst not, as it seems, says St. Jerom, propound the question to our Lord, who it was that should betray him, he by signs desired St. John to do it, whose familiarity with Christ allowed him more easily such a liberty: and our Lord gave him to understand that Judas was the wretch, though, at least, except St. John, none that were present seemed to have understood his answer, which was only given by the signal of the traitor’s dipping a morsel of bread with him in the dish. St. Chrysostom says, that when our Lord was apprehended, and the other apostles fled, St. John never forsook him. Several other ancients believe that he was that young man who followed Jesus with a linen cloth cast about his naked body; by the looseness of which he disengaged himself from the officers who otherwise would have laid hold of him, had he not made his escape by flying away naked. Some interpreters suppose this linen garment to have been a night vest which it might be customary to wear at supper, and in the night, it being then night. However, if this was St. John, he soon followed Christ again; and many imagine that he was the disciple who bring known to the high-priest, got Peter admitted by the servants into the court of Caiphas.

Our saint seems to have accompanied Christ through all his sufferings; at least he attended him during his crucifixion, standing under his cross, owning him in the midst of arms and guards, and in the thickest crowds of his implacable enemies. Here it was that our Lord declared the assurance he had of this disciple’s affection and fidelity, by recommending with his dying words, his holy mother to his care; giving him the charge to love, honor, comfort, and provide for her with that dutifulness and attention which the character of the best and most indulgent mother challenges from an obedient and loving son. What more honorable testimony could Christ have given him of his confidence, regard, and affection, than this charge? Accordingly St. John took her to his home, and ever made her a principal part of his care. Christ had at the same time given her to St. John for his mother, saying to her: Woman, behold thy son. Our Lord disdained not to call us all brethren, as St. Paul observes. And he recommended us all as such to the maternal care of his own mother: but among these adoptive sons St. John is the first-born. To him alone was given this special privilege of being treated by her as if she had been his natural mother, and of reciprocally treating her as such by respectfully honoring, serving, and assisting her in person. This was the recompense of his constancy and fervor in his divine Master’s service and love. This holy apostle, though full of inexpressible grief for the death of his divine Master, yet left not the cross, and saw his side opened with a spear; was attentive to the whole mystery, and saw the blood and water issue from the wound, of which he bore record. It is believed that he was present at the taking down of our Lord’s body from the cross, and helped to present it to his most blessed mother, and afterwards to lay it in the sepulchre, watering it with abundance of tears, and kissing it with extraordinary devotion and tenderness. He may be said to have left his heart with it: for his soul was more where it loved than where it lived.

When Mary Magdalen and other devout women brought word that they had not found Christ’s body in the sepulchre, Peter and John ran immediately thither, and John, who was younger and more nimble, running faster, arrived first at the place. Some few days after this, St. John went a fishing in the lake of Tiberias, with other disciples; and Jesus appeared on the shore in a disguised form. St. John, directed by the instinct of love, knew him, and gave notice to Peter: they all dined with him on the shore; and when dinner was ended, Christ walked along the shore questioning Peter about the sincerity of his love, gave him the charge of his church, and foretold his martyrdom. St. Peter seeing St. John walk behind, and being solicitous for his friend, asked Jesus what would become of him supposing that as Christ testified a particular love for him, he would show him some extraordinary favour. Christ checked his curiosity, by telling him that it was not his business if he should prolong John’s life till he should come: which most understand of his coming to destroy Jerusalem; an epoch which St. John survived. Some of the disciples, however, misapprehended this answer so far as to infer that St. John would remain in the body till Christ shall come to judge the world: though St. John has taken care in his gospel to tell us that no such thing was meant. After Christ’s ascension, we find these two zealous apostles going up to the temple, and miraculously healing a poor cripple. Our two apostles were imprisoned, but released again with an order no more to preach Christ, but no threats daunted their courage.11 They were sent by the college of the apostles to confirm the converts which Philip the Deacon had made in Samaria.12 St. John was again apprehended by the Jews with the rest of the apostles, and scourged, but they went from the council rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.13 When St. Paul went up to Jerusalem, three years after his conversion, he saw there only St. Peter and St. James the Less, St. John being probably absent. But St. Paul going thither in the fourteenth year after his conversion, addressed himself to those who seemed to be pillars of the church, chiefly Peter and John, who confirmed to him his mission among the infidels.14 About that time St. John assisted at the council which the apostles held at Jerusalem in the year 51. For St. Clement of Alexandria tells us, that all the apostles attended in it. That father says, that Christ at his ascension preferred St. Peter, St. James the Less, and St. John to the rest of the apostles, though there was no strife or preeminence among any in that sacred college, and this St. James was chosen bishop of Jerusalem. St. Clement adds, that our Lord particularly instructed these three apostles in many sacred mysteries, and that the rest of the apostles received much holy science from them.15

St. John seems to have remained chiefly at Jerusalem for a long time, though he sometimes preached abroad. Parthia is said to have been the chief scene of his apostolical labors. St. Austin sometimes quotes his first epistle under the title of his epistle to the Parthians:16 and by a title then prefixed to it in some copies it seems to have been addressed to the Jews that were dispersed through the provinces of the Parthian empire. Certain late missionaries in the East Indies assure us, that the inhabitants of Bassora, a city upon the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates, on the Persian gulf, affirm, by a tradition received from their ancestors, that St. John planted the Christian faith in their country. He came to Jerusalem in the year 62 to meet the rest of the apostles who were then living, when they chose in council St. Simeon, bishop of that church after the martyrdom of St. James the Less.17 It seems to have been after the death of the Blessed Virgin that St. John visited Lesser Asia, making those parts his peculiar care, and residing at Ephesus, the capital of that country. It is certain that he was not come thither in 64, when St. Paul left St. Timothy bishop of that city. St. Irenus tells us,18 that he did not settle there till after the death of SS. Peter and Paul. St. Timothy continued still bishop of Ephesus till his martyrdom in 97. But the apostolical authority of St. John was universal and superior, and the charity and humility of these two holy men prevented all differences upon account of their jurisdiction. St. John preached in other parts, and took care of all the churches of Asia, which, St. Jerom19 says, he founded and governed. Tertullian adds20 that he placed bishops in all that country; by which we are to understand that he confirmed and governed those which SS. Peter and Paul had established, and appointed others in many other churches which he founded. It is even probable that in the course of his long life he put bishops into all the churches of Asia: for while the apostles lived, they supplied the churches with bishops of their own appointing, by the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and by virtue of their commission to plant the church.

St. John, in his extreme old age, continued often to visit the churches of Asia, and sometimes undertook journeys to assume to the sacred ministry a single person whom the Holy Ghost had marked out to him21 Apollonius, not the Roman senator, apologist and martyr, but a Greek father who wrote against the Montanists, and confuted their pretended prophecies step by step, about the year 192, assures us, that St. John raised a dead man to life at Ephesus.22 A certain priest of Asia having been convicted of writing a fabulous account of the voyages of St. Paul and St. Thecla, in defence and honor of that apostle, was deposed by St. John.23 St. Epiphanius affirms, that St. John was carried into Asia by the special direction of the Holy Ghost, to oppose the heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus. The former of these, soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, while the Christians who had fled from that city resided at Pella, taught at Kacerta in that neighborhood, of which he was a native, that Christ was created like one of the angels, but greater than the rest: that he was conceived and born in the natural way, and chosen to be the Son of God by the Holy Ghost descending upon him in the form of a dove. He pretended that the legal ceremonies were necessarily to be observed with the gospel, and he mutilated the gospel of St. Matthew24 Cerinthus raised great disturbances in obstinately defending an obligation of circumcision, and of abstaining from unclean meats, in the New Law, and in extolling the angels, as the authors of nature, before St. Paul wrote his epistles to the Colossians, &c. About the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, he framed his heretical system so as to make it akin to that of Ebion. St. Irenus and Tertullian inform us, that he pretended the world was not created by God, but by a certain virtue, quite distinct, without his knowledge; that the God of the Jews was only an angel; that Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary like other men, but surpassed others in virtue and wisdom; that the Holy Ghost descended upon him after his baptism in the likeness of a dove; and that he had manifested his Father to the world who was before unknown. He was the first author of the dream that Christ fled away at the time of the passion, and that Jesus alone suffered and rose again, Christ continuing always immortal and impassible. St. Irenus25 relates, that St. John, who ordinarily never made use of a bath, went to bathe on some extraordinary occasion, but understanding that Cerinthus was within, started back, and said to some friends that were with him: “Let us, my brethren, make haste and be gone, lest the bath, wherein is Cerinthus the enemy of the Truth, should fall upon our heads.” Dr. Conyers Middleton, in his posthumous works, pretends this anecdote must be false, because inconsistent with this apostle’s extraordinary meekness. But St. Irenus tells us, he received this account from the very mouth of St. Polycarp, St. John’s disciple, whose behavior to Marcion is an instance of the same spirit. This great apostle would teach his flock to beware of the conversation of those who wilfully corrupted the truth of religion, and by their ensnaring speeches endeavoured to seduce others. This maxim he inculcates in his second epistle,26 but this precaution was restrained to the authors of the pestilential seduction. Nevertheless, the very characteristic of St. John was universal meekness and charity towards all the world. But towards himself he was always most severe, and St. Epiphanius tells us that he never wore any clothes but a tunic and a linen garment, and never ate flesh and that his way of living was not unlike that of St. James bishop of Jerusalem, who was remarkable for austerity and mortification.27

In the second general persecution, in the year 95, St. John was apprehended by the proconsul of Asia, and sent to Rome, where he was miraculously preserved from death when thrown into a caldron of boiling oi1.28 On account of this trial the title of martyr is given him by the fathers, who say, that thus was fulfilled what Christ had foretold him, that he should drink of his cup.29 The idolaters, who pretended to account for such miracles by sorcery, blinded themselves to this evidence; and the tyrant Domitian banished St. John into the isle of Patmos, one of the Sporades in the Archipelago. In this retirement the apostle was favored with those heavenly visions which he has recorded in the canonical book of the Revelations, or of the Apocalypse: they were manifested to him on a Sunday in the year 96. The first three chapters are evidently a prophetic instruction given to seven neighbouring churches of Asia Minor; and to the bishops who governed them. The last three chapters celebrate the triumph of Christ, the judgment and reward of his saints. The intermediate chapters are variously expounded, either of the immediate preludes of the last judgment, or with abb Chetardie of the whole intermediate time from Christ to the end of the world; or with Bossuet, Calmet, and many others, of the ten general persecutions and the Roman empire, to the triumph of the church by the victory of Constantine over Licinius, upon which system whatever author is read, the masterly strokes with which Bossuet has illustrated his commentary ought not to be passed over. By these visions God gave St. John a prospect of the future state of the church. His exile was not of long continuance. For Domitian being slain in September in 96, all his edicts and public acts were declared void by a decree of the senate on account of his excessive cruelty; and his successor Nerva recalled all those whom he had banished. St. John therefore returned to Ephesus in 97, where he found hat St. Timothy had been crowned with martyrdom on the preceding 22d of January. The apostle was obliged by the pressing entreaties of the whole flock to take upon him the particular government of that church, which he held till the reign of Trajan. St. John, in imitation of the high priest of the Jews, wore a plate of gold upon his forehead, as an ensign of his Christian priesthood, as Polycrates informs us.30 St. Epiphanius relates the same of St. James, the bishop of Jerusalem,31 and the author of the history of the martyrdom of St. Mark the Evangelist attributes to him the same ornament. St. John celebrated the Christian Pasch on the 14th day of the moon, agreeing as to time with the Jewish passover;32 but was so far from holding the Jewish rites of obligation in the New Law, that he condemned that heresy in the Nazarites, and in Ebion and Cerinthus. As his apostolic labors were chiefly bestowed among the Jews, he judged such a conformity which was then allowable, conducive to their conversion.

The ancient fathers inform us,33 that it was principally to confute the blasphemies of Ebion and Cerinthus who denied the divinity of Christ, and even his pre-existence before his temporal birth, that St. John composed his gospel. Another reason was, to supply certain omissions of the other three gospels, which he read, and confirmed by his approbation.34 He therefore principally insists on the actions of Christ from the commencing of his ministry to the death of the Baptist, wherein the others were sparing; and he largely records his discourses, mentioning fewer miracles It being his principal aim to set forth the divinity of Christ, he begins with his eternal generation, and his creating the world; and both his subject and manner of treating it is so sublime and mysterious, that Theodoret calls his gospel, “a theology which human understanding can never fully penetrate and find out.” Hence he is compared by the ancients to an eagle soaring aloft within the clouds, whither the weak eye of man is unable to follow him; and by the Greeks he is honored with the title of The Divine. St. Jerom relates,35 that, “when he was earnestly pressed by the brethren to write his gospel, he answered he would do it, if by ordering a common fast they would all put up their prayers together to God; which being ended, replenished with the clearest and fullest revelation coming from heaven, he burst forth into that preface: In the beginning was the World, &c.” St. Chrysostom36 and other fathers mention that the evangelist prepared himself for this divine undertaking by retirement, prayer, and contemplation. Some think he wrote his gospel in the isle of Patmos: but it is the more general opinion that he composed it after his return to Ephesus, about the year of our Lord 98, of his age ninety-two, after our Lord’s ascension sixty-four. This apostle also wrote three epistles. The first is Catholic, or addressed to all Christians, especially his converts, whom he presses to purity and holiness of manners, and he cautions them against the crafty insinuations of seducers, especially the Simoniaus and Cerinthians. The other two epistles are short, and directed to particular persons; the one a lady of honorable quality, called, as it seems, Electa, (though some think this rather an epithet of honor than a proper name;) the other Gaius or Caius, a courteous entertainer of all indigent Christians: rather one of that name at Derbe, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles,37 than the Caius of Corinth of whom St. Paul speaks.38 The style and sentiments in St. John’s gospel and in these epistles are the same; and the same inimitable spirit of charity reigns throughout all these writings.

The largest measures of this charity with which our apostle’s breast was inflamed, he expressed in the admirable zeal which he showed for the souls of men; in which service he spent himself without ever being weary in journeys, in preaching, in enduring patiently all fatigues, breaking through all difficulties and discouragements, shunning no dangers, that he might rescue men from error, idolatry, or the snares of vice. A remarkable instance is recorded by Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius.39 When St. John returned from Patmos to Ephesus, he made a visitation of the churches of Lesser Asia to correct abuses, and supply them with worthy pastors. Coming to a neighboring city, after having made a discourse, he observed a young man in the company, of a fair stature and pleasing aspect, and being much taken with him he presented him to the bishop whom he had ordained for that see, saying, “In the presence of Christ, and before this congregation, I earnestly recommend this young man to your care.” The bishop took the trust upon him, and promised to discharge it with fidelity. The apostle repeated his injunction, and went back to Ephesus. The young man was lodged in the bishop’s house, instructed, kept in good discipline, and at length baptized and confirmed by him. When this was done, the bishop, as if the person had been now in a state of security, began to slacken the reins, and be less watchful over him. This was quickly perceived by a company of idle, debauched wretches, who allured the youth into their society. By bad company he soon forgot the precepts of the Christian religion, and passing from one degree of wickedness to another at length stifled all remorse, put himself at the head of a band of robbers, and, taking to the highway, became the most cruel and profligate of the whole band. Some time after, St. John was again called to the same city and when he had settled other affairs, said to the bishop, “Restore to me the trust which Jesus Christ and I committed to you in presence of your church.” The bishop was surprised, imagining he meant some trust of money. But the saint explained himself that he spoke of the young man, and the soul of his brother which he had intrusted to his care. Then the bishop, with sighs and tears, said, “Alas! he is dead.” “What did he die of?” said our saint. The bishop replied, “He is dead to God, is turned robber, and instead of being in the church with us, he hath seized on a mountain, where he lives with a company of wicked men like himself.” The holy apostle having heard this, rent his garments, and fetching a deep sigh, said, with tears, “Oh! what a guardian have I provided to watch over a brother’s soul!” Presently he called for a horse and a guide, and rode away to the mountain where the robber and his gang kept their rendezvous; and being made prisoner by their sentinels he did not offer to fly or beg his life, but cried out, “It is for this that I am come: lead me to your captain.” They conducted the saint to him, who stood at first armed to receive him, but when he saw it was St. John, was seized with a mixture of shame and fear, and began to make off with precipitation and confusion. The apostle, forgetting his feebleness and old age, pursued him full speed, and cried out after him in these words: “Child, why do you thus fly from me your father, unarmed and an old man? My son, have compassion on me. There is room for repentance; your salvation is not irrecoverable. I will answer for you to Jesus Christ. I am ready most willingly to lay down my life for you, as Jesus Christ laid down his for all men. I will pledge my soul for yours. Stay: believe me, I am sent by Christ.” At these words the young man stood still, with his eyes fixed upon the ground; then throwing away his arms he trembled and burst into tears. When the apostle came up, the penitent, bathed in tears, embraced his tender father, imploring forgiveness, but he hid his right hand which had been sullied with many crimes. By his sighs and bitter compunction, he endeavored to satisfy for his sins as much as he was able. and to find a second baptism in his tears, as our author, St. Clement, emphatically expresses it. The apostle, with wonderful condescension and affection, fell on his knees before him, kissed his right hand, which the other endeavored in confusion to conceal, gave him fresh assurances of the divine pardon, and earnestly praying for him, brought him back to the church. He continued some time in that place for his sake, praying and fasting with him and for him, and comforting and encouraging him with the most affecting passages of the holy scriptures. Nor did he leave the place till he had reconciled him to the church, that is, by absolution restored him to the participation of the sacraments.

This charity, which our great saint was penetrated with and practised himself, he constantly and most affectionately pressed upon others. It is the great vein that runs through his sacred writings, especially his epistles, where he urges it as the great and peculiar law of Christianity, without which all pretensions to this divine religion are vain and frivolous, useless and insignificant; and this was his constant practice to his dying day. St. Jerom relates,40 that when age and weakness grew upon him at Ephesus, so that he was no longer able to preach or make long discourses to the people, he used always to be carried to the assembly of the faithful by his disciples with great difficulty; and every time said to his flock only these words “My dear children, love one another.” When his auditors, wearied with hearing constantly the same thing, asked him why he always repeated the same words, he replied, “Because it is the precept of the Lord, and if you comply with it you do enough.” An answer, says St. Jerom, worthy the great St. John, the favorite disciple of Christ, and which ought to be engraved in characters of gold, or rather to be written in the heart of every Christian. St. John died in peace at Ephesus, in the third year of Trajan, (as seems to be gathered from Eusebius’s chronicle,) that is, the hundredth of the Christian ra, or the sixty-sixth from our Lord’s crucifixion, the saint being then about ninety-four years old, according to St. Epiphanius.41 Some among the ancients pretend that St. John never died, but are very well confuted by St. Jerom and St. Austin. The same opinion has been revived by James Le Fevre d’Etaples42 and Florentinius,43 whom Tillemont has accurately refuted.44 St. John was buried on a mountain without the town. The dust of his tomb was carried away out of devotion, and was famous for miracles, as St. Austin,45 St. Ephrem,46 and St. Gregory of Tours47 mention. A stately church stood formerly over this tomb, which is at present a Turkish mosque, though Mr. Wheeler tells us that there are not at present above fifty Turkish families, and no Christian in that town, once so famous. The 26th of September is consecrated to the memory of St. John in the Greek church; and in the Latin the 27th of December.

The great love which this glorious saint bore to his God and Redeemer, and which he kindled from his master’s divine breast, inspired him with the most vehement and generous charity for his neighbor. Without the sovereign love of God no one can please him. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is charity.48 Let us therefore love God, because God first loved us.49 This is the first maxim in a spiritual life, which this apostle most tenderly inculcates. The second is that our fidelity in shunning all sin, and in keeping all God’s commandments is the proof of our love for God,50 but especially a sincere love for our neighbor is its great test. For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not? says St. John.51 Our blessed Redeemer, in the excess of his boundless charity for all men, presses this duty upon all men, and, as an infinitely tender parent, conjures all his children to love one another even for his sake. He who most affectionately loves them all, will have them all to be one in him, and therefore commands us to bear with one another’s infirmities, and to forgive one another all debts or injuries, and, as much as in us lies, to live peaceably with all men.52 This is the very genius and spirit of his law, without which we can have nothing of a Christian disposition, or deserve the name of his children or disciples. Neither can we hope with a peevish, passionate, or unforgiving temper ever to be heirs of heaven. Harmony, goodness, unanimity, mutual complacency, and love, will be the invariable temper of all its blessed inhabitants. No ruffling passion, no unfriendly thought will ever be found among them. Those happy regions are the abode of everlasting peace and love. We must learn and cultivate this temper of heaven here on earth, or can never hope to get thither. We are all professedly travelling together towards that blessed place, where, if we are so happy as to meet, we shall thus cordially embrace each other. Does not this thought alone suffice to make us forget little uneasinesses, and to prevent our falling out by the way? St. John teaches us that to attain to this heavenly and Christian disposition, to this twofold charity towards God and towards our neighbor for his sake, we must subdue our passions, and die to the inordinate love of the world and ourselves. His hatred and contempt of the world was equal to his love of God, and he cries out to us: My little children, love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any one loves the world the charity of the Father is not in him. An excessive love of the world (whether of its pleasure, interest, or vanity and preferment) is a general temptation of mankind, and if predominant or unconquered, strongly tends to extinguish in the heart all love and relish of spiritual things. When men are in a full and precipitant career after the things of this world, they first forget God and then forsake him. A man can never lift up that heart to God which is already chained to the earth. This vice when in power is of all others the most bewitching, and inconceivably withdraws a soul from God. Those who live in the world must, by their assiduity in the private devotional exercises of reading, meditation, and prayer, keep up an acquaintance with God and their own souls; they must frequently, amidst their business, recall their serious thoughts, recover and strengthen the pious frames of their minds; or their charity will soon suffer shipwreck

DECEMBER 27 — ST. THEODORUS GRAPT, C

This saint was of the country of the Moabites; but his parents, who were rich and virtuous, went and settled at Jerusalem, in order to procure him the advantages of a holy education. He was placed by them, when he was very young, in the monastery of Sabas, and by his progress in learning the extraordinary purity of his manners, and the habitual mortification of his senses, attained in a short time to an eminent degree of virtue, and acquired a high reputation in the world. The patriarch of Jerusalem obliged him to receive priestly orders, and when Leo the Armenian waged a cruel war against holy images, sent the saint to that emperor to exhort him not to disturb the peace of the church. The tyrant, instead of relenting, caused St. Theodorus to be scourged, and banished him, with his brother Theophanes, a monk of the same monastery and his companion, into an island in the mouth of the Euxine sea, where they suffered much by hunger and cold But they had not stayed long there before the emperor died, in 822, when they returned to Constantinople, and St. Theodorus published some writings in defence of the truth. Michael the Stutterer, who succeeded in the imperial throne, and is thought either to have had no religion, or to have leaned most to that of the Manichees, or Paulicians, was for steering a middle course between the Catholics and the Iconoclasts. He cast St. Theodorus into prison, and afterwards sent him into exile. His son and successor Theophilus, a violent Iconoclast, and barbarous persecutor, who ascended the throne in 829, caused the two brothers to be whipped; then banished them into the island of Aphusia. Two years after, they were brought back to Constantinople, buffeted in presence of the emperor till they fell down quite stunned at his feet, then stripped and publicly scourged. When they had lain some days in prison, and still persisted in their refusal to communicate with the Iconoclasts, the emperor commanded twelve Iambic verses, composed for that purpose by an Iconoclast courtier, to be inscribed on their foreheads. The sense of the verses was as follows: “These men have appeared at Jerusalem as vessels of iniquity, full of superstitious error, and were driven thence for their crimes. and having fled to Constantinople they forsook not their impiety. Wherefore they have been again banished from thence, and are stigmatized on their faces.” Though the wounds which they had received by their stripes were yet much inflamed, and very painful, they were laid upon benches, while the letters which composed those verses were cut or pricked upon their faces. The operation, was long and tedious, and interrupted by the coming on of the night; and the confessors were sent back to prison, their faces being still bloody. They were soon after banished to Apamea in Syria, where St. Theodorus died of his sufferings. From the inscription cut in his forehead he is surnamed Grapt, which signifies in Greek, marked or engraved. Theophilus died about the same time, and the empress Theodora, a zealous Catholic, becoming regent for her son Michael, St. Methodius was made patriarch, and restored holy images in 842. Theophanes was then honoured for his glorious confession of the faith, and constituted bishop of Nice, that he might more effectually concur in overthrowing a heresy, over which he had already triumphed. St. Theodorus Grapt is named in the Roman Martyrology with his brother Theophanes on this day. The Greeks honor the former on the 27th of December, and St. Theophanes, whom, on account of sacred hymns which he composed, they style the poet, on the 11th of October. See the authentic life of St. Theodorus Grapt in Metaphrastes, Baronius, and Fleury,1. 47, &c. The twelve iambic verses, which were written on their foreheads, with a red-hot steel pencil, are recited in the Greek Synaxary on this day.

DECEMBER 28 — THE HOLY INNOCENTS

Matthew, c. xi. v. 16.

OUR Divine Redeemer was persecuted by the world as soon as he made his appearance in it. For he was no sooner born than it declared war against him. We cannot expect to be better treated than our great Master was before us. He himself bids us remember that if it hated him first, it will likewise hate us, though we have more reason to fear its flatteries and smiles than its rage. The first make a much more dangerous and more violent assault upon our hearts. Herod in persecuting Christ, was an emblem of Satan and of the world. That ambitious and jealous prince had already sacrificed to his fears and suspicions the most illustrious part of his council, his virtuous wife Mariamne, with her mother Alexandra, the two sons he had by her, and the heirs to his crown, and all his best friends. Hearing from the magians who were come from distant countries to find and adore Christ, that the Messias, or spiritual king of the Jews, foretold by the prophets, was born among them, he trembled lest he was come to take his temporal kingdom from him. So far are the thoughts of carnal and worldly men from the ways of God; and so strangely do violent passions blind and alarm them. The tyrant was disturbed beyond measure, and resolved to take away the life of this child, as if he could have defeated the decrees of heaven. He had recourse to his usual arts of policy and dissimulation, and hoped to receive intelligence of the child by feigning a desire himself to adore him. But God laughed at the folly of his short-sighted prudence, and admonished the magians not to return to him. St. Joseph was likewise ordered by an angel to take the child and his mother, and to fly into Egypt. Is our Blessed Redeemer, the Lord of the universe, to be banished as soon as born! What did not he suffer! What did not his pious parents suffer on his account in so tedious and long a journey, and during a long abode in Egypt, where they were entirely strangers, and destitute of all succor under the hardships of extreme poverty! It is an ancient tradition of the Greeks, mentioned by Sozomen,1 St. Athanasius,2 and others, that at his entrance into Egypt all the idols of that kingdom fell to the ground, which literally verified the prediction of the prophet Isaiah.3 Mary and Joseph were not informed by the angel how long their exile would be continued; by which we are taught to leave all to divine providence, acquiescing with confidence and simplicity in the adorable and ever holy will of Him who disposes all things in infinite goodness, sanctity, and wisdom.

Herod, finding that he had been deluded by the magians, was transported with rage and anxious fears. To execute his scheme of killing the Messias, the desired of all nations, and the expectation of Israel, he formed the bloody resolution of murdering all the male children in Bethlehem and the neighboring territory which were not above two years of age. In this example we admire how blind and how furious the passion of ambition is. Soldiers are forthwith sent to execute these cruel orders, who, on a sudden, surrounded the town of Bethlehem, and massacred all the male children in that and the adjacent towns and villages, which had been born in the two last years. This more than brutish barbarity, which would almost have surpassed belief, had not Herod been the contriver, and ambition the incentive, was accompanied with such shrieks of mothers and children, that St. Matthew applies to it a prophecy of Jeremiah, which may be understood in part to relate more immediately to the Babylonish captivity, but which certainly received the most eminent completion at this time. A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning: Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. Rama is a village not far from this town, and the sepulchre of Rachel was in a field belonging to it. The slaughter also was probably extended into the neighboring tribe of Benjamin, which descended from Rachel. The Ethiopians in their liturgy, and the Greeks in their calendar, count fourteen thousand children massacred on this occasion; but that number exceeds all bounds, nor is it confirmed by any authority of weight. Innocent victims became the spotless Lamb of God. And how great a happiness was such a death to these glorious martyrs! They deserved to die for Christ, though they were not yet able to know or invoke his name. They were the flowers and the first fruits of his martyrs, and triumphed over the world, without having ever known it, or experienced its dangers. They just received the benefit of life, to make a sacrifice of it to God, and to purchase by it eternal life. Almost at the same time they began to live and to die; they received the fresh air of this mortal life forthwith to pass to immortality: and it was their peculiar glory not only to die for the sake of Christ, and for justice and virtue, but also in the place of Christ, or in his stead. How few perhaps of these children, if they had lived, would have escaped the dangers of the world, which, by its maxims and example, bear every thing down before it like an impetuous torrent! What snares, what sins, what miseries were they preserved from by this grace! With what songs of praise and love do they not to all eternity thank their Saviour, and this his infinite mercy to them! Their ignorant foolish mothers did not know this, and therefore they wept without comfort. So we often lament as misfortunes many accidents which in the designs of heaven are the greatest mercies.

In Herod we see how blind and how cruel ambition is, which is ready to sacrifice every thing, even Jesus Christ, to its views. The tyrant lived not many days longer to enjoy the kingdom which he feared so much to lose.* About the time of our Lord’s nativity he fell sick, and as his distemper sensibly increased, despair and remorse followed him, and made him insupportable both to himself and others. The innumerable crimes which he had committed were the tortures of his mind, while a slow imposthume, inch by inch, gnawed and consumed his bowels, feeding principally upon one of the great guts, though it extended itself over all the rest, and, corroding the flesh, made a breach in the lower belly, and became a sordid ulcer, out of which worms issued in swarms, and lice were also bred in his flesh. A fever violently burnt him within, though outwardly it was scarce perceptible; and he was tormented with a canine appetite, which no victuals could satisfy. Such an offensive smell exhaled from his body, as shocked his best friends; and uncommon twitchings and vellications upon the fibrous and membraneous parts of his body, like sharp razors, cut and wounded him within; and the pain thence arising overpowered him, at length, with cold sweats, tremblings, and convulsions. Antipater in his dungeon, hearing in what a lamentable condition Herod lay. strongly solicited his jailer to set him at liberty, hoping to obtain the crown; but the officer acquainted Herod with the whole affair. The tyrant groaning under the complication of his own distempers, upon this information, vented his spleen by raving and beating his own head, and calling one of his guards, commanded him to go that instant and cut off Antipater’s head. Not content with causing many to be put to barbarous deaths during the course of his malady, he commanded the Jews that were of the principal rank and quality to be shut up in a circus at Jericho, and gave orders to his sister Salome and her husband Alexas to have them all massacred as soon as he should have expired, saying, that as the Jews heartily hated him, they would rejoice at his departure; but he would make a general mourning of the whole nation at his death. This circumstance is at least related by the Jewish historian Josephus.4 Herod died live days after he had put his son Antipater to death. Macrobius, a heathen writer of the fifth century, relates,5 that Augustus, “when he heard that, among the children whom Herod had commanded to be slain under two years old, his own son had been massacred, said: ‘It is better to be Herod’s hog than his son.’ ” By this he alluded to the Jewish law of not eating, and consequently not killing swine. Probably the historian imagined the son to have been slain among the children, because the news of both massacres reached Rome about the same time.

Parents, pastors, and tutors are bound to make it their principal care, that children, in their innocent age, be by piety and charity consecrated as pure holocausts to God. This is chiefly to be done by imprinting upon their minds the strongest sentiments of devotion, and by instructing them thoroughly in their catechism. We cannot entertain too high an idea of the merit and obligation of teaching God’s little ones to know him, and the great and necessary truths which he has revealed to us. Without knowing him no one can love him, or acquit himself of the most indispensable duties which he owes to his Creator. Children must be instructed in prayer and the principal articles of faith as soon as they attain to the use of reason, that they may be able to give him his first fruits by faith, hope, and love, as by the law of reason and religion they are bound to do. The understanding of little children is very weak, and is able only to discover small glimpses of light. Great art, experience, and earnestness are often required to manage and gradually increase these small rays, and to place therein whatever one would have the children comprehend. The lessons must be very short, and the truths which are taught, made sensible, when possible, by examples, images, and comparisons, adapted to the capacities of those that are to be instructed. The catechist, without demeaning himself, must become a little one with those that are little. This he must do with suitable gravity and seriousness; and it is only by his own earnestness and application that he can make them attentive and earnest. Were he at the same time to joke, or attend to, or be employed in any other thing, he would in vain recommend seriousness and attention to those that hear him. O how great ought to be the zeal of children and others to attend to that saving doctrine, without which man is a riddle to himself, and no one can attain to salvation and the love of God! That sublime science which the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, came from heaven6 to declare to us. The queen of the South came from the bounds of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon: behold more than Solomon is here.7 When the Athenians had forbid any citizen of Megara to set foot in Athens under pain of death, one Euclides, an inhabitant of Megara, went disguised many miles in the night to assist at the lectures of Socrates the next morning, and returned the night following; and this he continued to do a long time with he hazard of his life.8 If such was the earnestness of this heathen to learn a profane philosophy, with what zeal ought a Christian to study the true and sublime science of faith, which leads to eternal life! The most ardent desire of this instruction is the surest mark of true virtue, and of that vehement hunger and thirst of God’s just and holy love, which is the very soul of sincere piety.

The solicitude and diligence of parents and pastors to instruct others in this sacred science, ought not to lessen; neither must any one regard the function as mean or contemptible. It is the very foundation of the Christian religion. By this function the seeds of piety and religion are planted in the hearts of the faithful, which produce their fruit according to the manner in which they are received. A good catechist contributes more towards maintaining public peace, than all the laws and magistrates; as inferior ties of duty are far more binding than coercive force. Hence pope Paul III., in a bull in which he recommends this employment, declares that “nothing is more fruitful or more profitable for the salvation of souls.” No pastoral function is more indispensable, none more beneficial, and generally none more meritorious; we may add, or more sublime. For under a meaner exterior appearance, without pomp, ostentation, or show of learning or abilities, it joins the exercise of humility with the most zealous and most profitable function of the pastoral charge. Being painful and laborious, it is, moreover, an exercise of patience and penance. Neither can any one think it beneath his parts or dignity. The great St. Austin, St. Chrysostom, St. Cyril, and other most learned doctors, popes, and bishops, applied themselves with singular zeal and assiduity to this duty of catechising children and all ignorant personas; this they thought a high branch of their duty, and the most useful and glorious employment of their learning and talents. What did the apostles travel over the world to do else? St. Paul said: Iam a debtor to the wise and to the unwise.9 We became little ones in the midst of you, as if a nurse would cherish her children; so desirous of you, that we would gladly have imparted to you not only the gospel of God, but even our own souls.10 Our Divine Lord himself made this the principal employment of his ministry. The spirit of the Lord is upon me: he hath sent me to preach the gospel to the poor.11 He declared the pleasure he found in assisting that innocent age, when he said: Suffer little children to come unto me, for the kingdom of God is for such. And embracing them, and laying his hands upon them, he blessed them.12 John Gerson, the most pious and celebrated chancellor of Paris, esteemed an oracle fur his learning, testified his zeal for this sacred function by his book entitled, On drawing Little ones to Christ. All his life he employed a considerable part of his time in teaching little children their catechism. Upon his return from the general council of Constance, he retired to the city of Lyons, where he every day assembled the children in St. Paul’s church, and taught them the Christian doctrine, till he was confined to his bed by his last illness. When he drew near his death, he caused all the little children to be called together into the church, and there to repeat with one voice: “My God, my Creator, have mercy on thy poor servant, John Gerson.”13

DECEMBER 28 — ST. THEODORUS, ABBOT OF TABENNA, C

On account of the extraordinary purity of his manners, from his very infancy, surnamed by the Greeks The Sanctified. Such was the edification which the whole church received in the fourth and fifth centuries from many great lights of the monastic order, which then shone in the deserts of Egypt, that Theodoret1 and Procopius2 think the flourishing state of these holy recluses was particularly foretold in those passages of the prophets, in which it is said of the age of the New Law of Grace, that, The wilderness shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise,3 &c. Which interpretation is ingeniously applied to the same purpose by F. Possinus.4 “There,” said an ancient writer who had conversed with several of these holy men,5 “have I seen many fathers leading an angelic life, and walking after the example of Jesus.” And St. Sulpitius Severus says of them: “For my part, so long as I shall keep alive, and in my senses, I shall ever celebrate the monks of Egypt, praise the anchorets, and admire the hermits.” One of the most eminent among the patriarchs of these saints, was abbot Theodorus, the disciple of St. Pachomius. This saint was born in Upper Thebais, about the year 314, of illustrious and wealthy parents, and from his expectations in the world, or from the dangers and distractions of its riches and enjoyments, he drew the strongest motives for despising it. When he was between eleven and twelve years of age, being penetrated more than ordinary with the great truths of the gospel, on the feast of the Epiphany he gave himself to God with uncommon fervor, protesting that he had never preferred any thing in his heart to the divine love and service, and begging the grace always to be faithful in this resolution. Not to deceive himself in so delicate a point, he from that moment made it his whole study to belong in his heart and in all his actions wholly to God, fasted sometimes whole days, and spent much of his time in devout prayer. Thus he lived two years at home with his pious mother, going every day to a neighboring grammar school. At fourteen he obtained her leave to retire from the world, and finish his education in the company of certain holy monks in the diocese of Latopolis. The reputation of St. Pachomius drew him afterwards to Tabenna, where by his ardor to advance in all virtues, he appeared among the foremost of that numerous. company of saints. His mother repaired to Tabenna to see him; but Theodorus, fearing any temptations of looking back again on the world, which he had renounced, with all things in it, in order to follow Christ with his whole heart, entreated St. Pachomius not to allow the interview. The mother was edified at this disposition of her son, and took the veil in a nunnery which St. Pachomius had established, not far from Tabenna, where she strenuously labored in the great work of the sanctification of her soul, and had sometimes the pleasure of seeing her son in the company of some of his fellow-monks. St. Pachomius made our saint, on the twenty-fifth year of his age, his companion, when he made the visitation of his monasteries; in his thirtieth year caused him to be promoted to the priesthood, and committed to him the entire government of his great monastery of Tabenna, shutting himself up in the little monastery of Paban. St. Theodorus went thither every evening to assist at the daily exhortation which St. Pachomius gave to his monks, and afterwards repeated the same to the community at Tabenna, which he also instructed by his own frequent sermons and conferences. When he was going on a certain occasion with St. Pachomius to his monastery near Panopolis, in Lower Egypt, a philosopher of that city desired a conference with the abbot. St. Pachomius declined it, and sent St. Theodorus, who with wonderful quickness answered all his questions, and solved his problems: but exhorted him to bid adieu to idle subtilties and barren speculations, and make the science of salvation his great study. St. Theodorus was troubled with frequent violent headaches, and St. Pachomius told him, that greater spiritual advantages accrue to our souls from diseases and involuntary afflictions when received and suffered with patience, than from voluntary abstinence and long prayers.

St. Pachomius falling sick at Paban two years before his death, the monks of Tabenna, by importunities and tears, extorted Theodorus’s consent to take upon him the care of the whole congregation, when it should please God to deprive them of their holy founder. Though Theodorus had acquiesced with great reluctance, and after long resistance, St. Pachomius afterwards reproved him for it, and removed him from his superiority of Tabenna. St. Theodorus accepted this discharge with joy, and voluntarily accused himself of having fallen into vanity and presumption. Theodorus spent two years in the last rank in the community, below all the novices, and with joy embraced in silence every humiliation, and practised the utmost austerities: in which situation his sincere and perfect virtue shone with brighter lustre than in all the great actions he did during his superiority, and was beyond all comparison more advantageous to his soul, as St. Pachomius used to declare to others. The holy abbot died in 348, and Petronius, whom he had declared his successor, died thirteen days after him. St. Orsisius was then chosen abbot; but finding the burden too heavy for his shoulders, and his congregation threatened with rising factions, he placed St. Theodorus in that charge, but was obliged to, use compulsion; and also alleged, that it was the express order of St. Pachomius before his death. St. Theodorus assembled the monks, pathetically exhorted them to unanimity, inquired into the causes of their divisions, and applied effectual remedies. By his prayers and endeavors a spirit of union and charity was perfectly restored. St. Orsisius was his assistant in the discharge of his duties; the most perfect harmony signed between them because where there was no pride, there no jealousy could arise. They studied who should surpass the other in humility and condescension. St. Theodorus did nothing without the advice of St. Orsisius, and they visited the monasteries one after the other. St. Theodorus instructed, comforted, and encouraged every one in particular: corrected faults with a sweetness which gained the heart, and every one with an entire confidence disclosed to him the secrets of his soul, as to his tender father and skilful physician. If any one transgressed, the saint with mildness endeavored, in the first place, to bring them to a sense of their duty, and for this he had recourse to God by prayer and fasting, means which he found never to fail him. He wrought several miracles, and foretold things to come. Being one day in a boat on the Nile with St. Athanasius, he assured that holy confessor that his persecutor, Julian the Apostate, was that moment dead, and that his successor would restore peace to him and the church: both which were soon confirmed. Our saint also foretold the monks of Nitria, in 353, that the pride of the Arians would soon meet with a downfall. This prediction is contained in an epistle which the saint wrote to the monks of Nitria, extant in the continuation of Bollandus.6 We have also another letter of this saint, which is an epistolary exhortation to the devout celebration of Easter, published by Holstenius in his Code of Ancient Monastic Rules. The three letters of pious instructions which he wrote to his monks, mentioned by Gennadius, are lost.

St. Nilus7 and others relate, that once while St. Theodorus was preaching to his monks, who were working at the same time in making mats, two vipers crawled about his feet. So careful was the saint not to interrupt or disturb the attention of his auditory during that sacred function, that he set his foot upon them till he had finished his discourse. Then taking away his foot, he suffered them to be killed, having received no harm. One of his monks happening to die on Holy Saturday, in 367, St. Theodorus left the divine office to assist him in his last moments, and said to those that were present: “This death will shortly be followed by another, which is little expected.” The brethren watched that night by the corpse, and interred it on Easter-day in the morning, with singing of psalms. At the close of the octave of that solemnity, St. Theodorus made a moving discourse to all his monks; for it was their custom to meet all together in the monastery of Paban for the celebration of Easter. Our saint had no sooner dismissed them to their own monasteries, in the year abovementioned, but he was taken ill, and after a fervent preparation for his last passage, having recommended the care of the community to ST. ORSISIUS,* he happily expired on the 27th of April, in the year 367, the fifty-third of his age. His body was carried to the top of the mountain, and buried in the cemetery of the monks with singing of psalms: but it was soon after removed, and laid with that of St. Pachomius. St. Athanasius wrote to the monks of Tabenna to comfort them for the loss of their holy abbot, and bids them have before their eyes the glory of which he was then possessed. The Greeks commemorate this saint on the 16th of May: the Roman Martyrology on the 28th of December. See the life of St. Pachomius in the Bollandists on the 14th of May, p. 295, especially the Appendix, pp. 334 and 337; also Tillemont, t. 7; Ceillier, t. 5, p. 373.

DECEMBER 29 — ST. THOMAS, M. ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

See his life by John of Salisbury, his chaplain, who attended him during most part of his exile, and was present at his death: he died bishop of Chartres, and his learning and integrity are much extolled by Cave, Hist. Liter. t. 2, p. 243. This work was published entire, with the epistles of John of Salisbury, at Paris, in 1611; but is mangled and curtailed in the Quadrilogus, or life of St. Thomas, compiled by command of pope Gregory XI. out of four original lives of this saint brought into one, viz. by Herbert, the martyr’s clerk, William of Canterbury, Alan abbot of Deoche, and John of Salisbury. This Quadrilogus or Quadripartite, was printed at Brussels by the care of Lupus, with a large collection of St. Thomas’s epistles, an. 1682. Many of his letters had been published by Baronius: but a great number remains unpublished among the MSS. in the Cottonian library, several libraries at Oxford, Bennet College at Cambridge, and other places. M. Sparke, among Histori Anglican Scriptores Varii nunc primum editi, printed at London in 1723, has given us the life of St. Thomas, compiled by William Fitz-Stephens, (in Latin Stephanides,) a clergyman, who belonged first to his court of Chancery, afterwards to his family, lived with him several years, and saw him wounded by the assassins and expire. This saint’s life by Edmund Grime, and another life which begins, “Post summi favoris;” also P. Thom Rubrica seu Consuetudines, are kept in MS. in the Norforcian or Arundelian library, given to the Royal Society by H. duke of Norfolk in 1679.* Another account, called Passio S. Thom, is given by Martenne, Thesaur. Anecdot. t. 3, p. 1137. Several epistles, and other writings relating to his history, are published by Wilkins, Cone. Brit.1. 1, p. 437. The life of St. Thomas was written by Dr. Stapleton, and is extant in his Tres Thom. An English life of this martyr, extracted chiefly from Baronius, dedicated to Dr. Richard Smith, bishop of Chalcedon, was printed in 1639. A history of his canonization is given us by Muratori, Scriptor. Ital. t. 2. in Vita Alexandri III. See also the histories and chronicles of Hoveden Matthew Paris, Gervase, Brompton, &c. His life is well compiled in French by M. Du Fosse, who had a share in the Lives of Saints, compiled by the messieurs of Port Royal. On the virtues of this saint, see the most honorable and edifying account of his saintly deportment given by Peter of Blois, the pious and learned archdeacon of Bath, in a letter which he wrote upon his martyrdom, ep. 27. See Hearne, Not. in Gul. Neubr. t. 3, p. 638; item on Peter Langtoft’s chronicle, t. 2, p 529; also Benedictus abhas Petrob. de Gestis Henr. II. et Rich. I., by Hearne, t. 1, pp. 10, 11,12, 20.

A. D. 1170.

ST. THOMAS BECKET was born in London in 1117, on the 21st of December. His father, Gilbert Becket, was a gentleman of middling fortune, who, in his youth, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem with divers others, and falling into the hands of the Saracens, remained a year and a half a prisoner, or rather a slave, to one of their emirs, or admirals. An only daughter of this emir hearing him one day explain the Christian faith, and declare, upon the question being put to him, that he should with the greatest joy lay down his life for the love of God, if he was made worthy of such a happiness, was so touched, as to conceive on the spot a desire of becoming a Christian. This she made known to Mr. Becket, who contented himself with telling her, that she would be very happy if God gave her that grace though it were attended with the loss of every thing this world could afford. He and his fellow-slaves soon after made their escape in the night time, and returned safe to London. The young Syrian lady privately left her father’s house and followed him thither, and being instructed in the faith, and baptized by the name of Maud, or Mathildes, she was married to him in St. Paul’s church by the bishop of London. Soon after Gilbert went back into the East, to join the crusade or holy war, and remained in those parts three years and a half. Maud was brought to bed of our saint a little time after his departure, about a twelvemonth after their marriage, and being herself very pious, she taught her son from his infancy to fear God, and inspired him with a tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin. His father, after his return to England, was, in his turn, sheriff* of London: Fitz-Stephens assures us, that he never put money out at interest, and never embarked in any commerce, but being contented with his patrimony, lived on the annual income. His death, in 1138, left our saint exposed to the dangers of the world at an age when the greatest mistakes in life are frequently committed. But he had been educated in habits of temperance, obedience, and self-denial, and was so thoroughly grounded in the maxims of the gospel as to stand firmly upon his guard, and to do nothing but by good advice. His father had placed him in his childhood in a monastery of canon regulars, and after his death, Thomas continued his studies in London, where Fitz-Stephens informs us there were then three very great schools belonging to the three principal churches, in which public declamations were made, and frequent literary disputations held with great emulation between both masters and scholars. Here Thomas pursued his studies till the age of twenty-one years, when having lost his mother he discontinued them for a year: but considering the dangers which surrounded him while unemployed, he resolved to reassume them. He therefore went first to Oxford, and shortly after to Paris, where he applied himself diligently to the canon law, and various other branches of literature. When he came back to London, he was first made clerk or secretary to the court of the city, and distinguished himself by his capacity in public affairs. He was afterwards taken into the family of a certain young nobleman in the country, who was extremely fond of hunting and hawking. In this situation, Thomas began to be carried away with a love of these diversions which were become his only business; so that by this company he grew more remiss in the service of God. An awakening accident opened his eyes. One day when he was eager in the pursuit of game, his hawk made a stoop at a duck, and dived after it into a river; Thomas, apprehensive of losing his hawk, leaped into the water, and the stream being rapid, carried him down to a mill, and he was saved only by the sudden stopping of the wheel, which appeared miraculous. Thomas, in gratitude to God his deliverer, resolved to betake himself to a more serious course of life, and returned to London. His virtue and abilities gave him a great reputation; and nothing can sooner gain a man the confidence of others as that inflexible integrity and veracity, which always formed the character of our saint. Even in his childhood he always chose rather to suffer any blame, disgrace, or punishment, than to tell an untruth; and in his whole life he was never found guilty of a lie in the smallest matter.

A strict intimacy had intervened between Theobald, who was advanced to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1138, and our saint’s father, they being both originally from the same part of Normandy, about the village of Tierrie. Some persons, therefore, having recommended Thomas to that prelate, he was invited to accept of some post in his family. Attended only with one squire, named Ralph of London, he joined the archbishop who then was at the village of Harwe, or Harrow. Thomas was tall of stature, his countenance was beautiful and pleasing, his senses quick and lively, and his discourse very agreeable. Having taken orders a little before this, he was presented by the bishop of Worcester to the church of Shoreham,1 afterwards by the abbot of St. Alban’s to that of Bratfield.2 With the leave of the archbishop he went to Italy, and there studied the canon law a year at Bologna; then some time at Auxerre. After his return the archbishop ordained him deacon, and he was successively preferred to the provostship of Beverley, and to canonries at Lincoln’s and at St. Paul’s in London: the archbishop nominated him archdeacon of Canterbury, which was then looked upon as the first ecclesiastical dignity in England after the abbacies and bishoprics which gave a seat in the house of lords.3 The archbishop committed to our saint the management of the most intricate affairs, seldom did any thing without his advice, sent him several times to Rome on important errands, and never had reason to repent of the choice he had made, or of the confidence he reposed in him. The contest between king Stephen and the empress Maud with her son Henry II. had threatened the kingdom with a dreadful flame, which was only prevented by a mutual agreement of the parties, ratified by the whole kingdom, by which Stephen was allowed to hold the crown during life, upon condition that at his death it should devolve upon Henry the right heir. Notwithstanding this solemn settlement, Stephen endeavored to fix the crown on his son Eustachius. Theobald refused to consent to so glaring an injustice; for which he was banished the kingdom, but recalled with honor shortly after. The conduct of the archbishop on this occasion was owing to the advice of Thomas, who thus secured the crown in peace to Henry. Theobald, who had before made him his archdeacon, and by a long experience had found him proof against all the temptations of the world, and endued with a prudence capable of all manner of affairs, recommended him to the high office of lord chancellor of England, to which king Henry, who had ascended the throne on the 20th of December, 1154, readily exalted him in 1157. The saint’s sweetness of temper, joined with his integrity and other amiable qualities, gained him the esteem and affection of every one, especially of his prince, who took great pleasure in his conversation, often went to dine with him and committed to his care the education of his son, prince Henry, to be formed by him in sound maxims of honor and virtue. He sent him also into France to negotiate a treaty with that crown, and conclude a marriage between his son Henry and Margaret, daughter to Lewis the Younger, king of France; in both which commissions he succeeded to his master’s desires.* Amidst the honors and prosperity which he enjoyed, he always lived most humble, modest, mortified, recollected, compassionate, charitable to the poor without bounds, and perfectly chaste; and triumphed over all the snares which wicked courtiers, and sometimes the king himself, laid for his virtue, especially his chastity.4 The persecutions which envy and jealousy raised against him he overcame by meekness and silence.

Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, died in 1160. King Henry was then in Normandy with his chancellor, whom he immediately resolved to raise to that dignity. Some time after, he bade him prepare himself to go to England for an affair of importance, and in taking leave explained his intentions to him. Thomas, after alleging many excuses, flatly told the king: “Should God permit me to be archbishop of Canterbury, I should soon lose your majesty’s favour, and the great affection with which you honour me would be changed into hatred. For your majesty will be pleased to suffer me to tell you, that several things you do in prejudice of the inviolable rights of the church, make me fear you would require of me what I could not agree to: and envious persons would not fail to make this pass for a crime, in order to make me lose your favour.” Such was the generous liberty of this man of God, and his serious desire to deliver himself from the dangers which threatened him. The king paid no regard to his remonstrances; and sent over certain noblemen into England to manage the affairs with the clergy of the kingdom, and the chapter of Canterbury, ordering them to labour with the same ardor to place the chancellor in the see of Canterbury as they would to set the crown on his son’s head. St. Thomas obeyed in going to England, but refused to acquiesce in accepting the dignity till the Cardinal of Pisa, legate from the holy see in England, overruled all his scruples by the weight of his authority. The election was made on the eve of Whitsunday in 1162, a synod of bishops at London ratified the same, and the prince, then in London, gave his consent in his father’s name, and the saint set out immediately from London to Canterbury. On the road he gave a private charge to one of the clergy of his church, to advertise him of all the faults which he should observe in his conduct; for even an enemy by his reproaches is often more useful to us than a flattering friend. The archbishop soon after his consecration received the pallium from Pope Alexander III., which John of Salisbury brought him from Rome. He had hitherto employed all his time in prayer to beg the light of heaven, and from that time began to exert himself in the discharge of his pastoral duties. Next his skin he always wore a hair shirt; over this he put on the habit of a Benedictin monk from the time he was made archbishop; and over this the habit of a canon, of very light stuff. By the rule of life which he laid down for his private conduct, he rose at two o’clock in the morning, and after matins, washed the feet of thirteen poor persons, to each of whom he distributed money. It was most edifying to see him with profound humility melting in tears at their feet, and begging the assistance of their prayers. At the hour of prime his almoner washed the feet of twelve others, and gave them bread and meat. The archbishop returned to take a little rest after matins, and washing the feet of the first company of poor persons; but rose again very early to pray and to read the holy scriptures, which he did assiduously, and with the most profound respect. He found in them such unction that he had them always in his hands even when he walked, and desired holy solitude that he might bury himself in them. He kept always a learned person with him to interpret to him these sacred oracles, whom he consulted on the meaning of difficult passages; so much did he fear to rely on his own lights by presumption, though others admired his wisdom and learning. After his morning meditation he visited those that were sick among his monks and clergy; at nine o’clock he said mass, or heard one if out of respect and humility he did not celebrate himself. He often wept at the divine mysteries. At ten a third daily alms was distributed, in all to one hundred persons: and the saint doubled all the ordinary alms of his predecessor. He dined at three o’clock, and took care that some pious book was read at table. He never had dishes of high price, yet kept a table decently served for the sake of others; but was himself very temperate and mortified. One day a monk saw him in company eat the wing of a pheasant, and was scandalized like the Pharisee, saying he thought him a more mortified man. The archbishop meekly answered him that gluttony might be committed in the grossest food, and that the best might be taken without it, and with indifference. After dinner he conversed a little with some pious and learned clergymen on pious subjects or on their functions. He was most rigorous in the examination of persons who were presented to holy orders, and seldom relied upon any others in it. Such was the order he had established in his house that no one in it durst ever receive any present. He regarded all the poor as his children, and his revenues seemed more properly theirs than his own. He reprehended with freedom the vices of the great ones, and recovered out of the hands of several powerful men lands of his church which had been usurped by them; in which the king was his friend and protector. He assisted at the council of Tours assembled by pope Alexander III. in 1163. He obliged the king to fill the two sees of Worcester and Hereford, which he had long held in his hands, with worthy prelates whom the saint consecrated.

The devil, envying the advantage which accrued to the church from the good harmony which reigned between the king and the archbishop, labored to sow the seeds of discord between them. St. Thomas first offended his majesty by resigning the office of chancellor, which, out of complaisance to him, he had kept some time after he was nominated archbishop. But the source of all this mischief was an abuse by which the king usurped the revenues of the vacant sees and other benefices, and deferred a long time to fill them that he might the longer enjoy the temporalities, as some of his predecessors had sacrilegiously done before him: which injustice St. Thomas would by no means tolerate. A third debate was, that the archbishop would not allow lay judges to summon ecclesiastical persons before their tribunals. By the zeal with which he curbed the officers or noblemen who oppressed the church or its lands, compelling them to restore some which they had unjustly usurped, or which had been given them by former incumbents or bishops who had no right to bestow them, at least beyond the term of their own lives, he exasperated several courtiers, who began first to misrepresent his conduct herein to the king. The king, however, still showed him the greatest marks of favour; and seemed still to love him, as he had done from his first acquaintance, above all men living. The first sign of displeasure happened at Woodstock, when the king was holding his court there with the principal nobility. It was customary to pay two shillings a year upon every hide of land to the king’s officers, who in place of the sheriffs were employed to maintain the public peace in every county. This sum the king ordered to be paid into his exchequer. The archbishop made a modest remonstrance, that without being wanting in respect to his majesty, this might not be exacted as a revenue of the crown; adding, “If the sheriffs, their serjeants or the officers of the provinces defend the people, we shall not be wanting to relieve and succour them,” (viz. either with pecuniary supplies and recompences, and affording them assistance by the constables and other civil peace-officers.) The king replied with warmth, making use of a familiar impious oath, “By God’s eyes, this shall be paid as a revenue, or those who do not pay it, shall be prosecuted by a writ of the royal exchequer.” The archbishop answered that none of his vassals would pay it, nor any of the clergy. The king said no more at that time; but his resentment was the greater: and the complaints at court were only raised against the clergy, without any further mention of the laity, who were equally concerned. Thus is the case stated by Grime. The archbishop seems to have spoken of it as a parliamentary affair; nor are the circumstances sufficiently known for historians to state it fully at this distance of time. We are only informed that the nobility and the whole nation, which under Henry I. and Stephen had enjoyed their ancient privileges and liberties, were then under the greatest apprehensions that the tyranny and cruel vexations of the Conqueror and his son Rufus, would be revived by Henry under the title of Conqueror.

Another affair happened which raised a greater flame. A certain priest, called Philip of Broi, was accused of having murdered a military man. According to the laws of those times he was to be first tried in the ecclesiastical court, and if found guilty, degraded, and delivered over to the lay judges to be tried and punished by them. Philip, after a long trial was acquitted of the murder by a sentence of his ordinary, the bishop of Lincoln; but seems to have been found guilty of manslaughter, or of having involuntarily killed the man. For by large sums of money he satisfied the deceased person’s relations, and received from them a full release and discharge from all obligations and further prosecution, as Grime mentions. A king’s sheriff long after this affair, out of a pique revived this slander of the murder with much harsh language, and threatened to bring him again to a trial. The priest alleged, that having been once acquitted by a fair trial according to law, and having moreover a discharge of the relations and friends of the deceased person, he could not be impeached again upon the indictment: but growing warm treated the sheriff with very injurious language. The king sent an order to certain bishops and other officers to try the offender, both for the former crime of murder and the late misdemeanour; the murder he denied and produced the sentence by which he had been acquitted to set aside a second trial; confessed himself guilty of the misdemeanour by injurious words in his anger, begged pardon, and promised all satisfaction in his power. The commissioners passed sentence, that for the misdemeanour his prebend should be confiscated for two years into the king’s hands, who would order the revenue to be given in alms to the poor at his pleasure; that the offender should quit the clerical gown, and live in subjection to the king’s officer, and present him his armour; all which he readily complied with. For the security of his life the archbishop had taken him under the protection of the Church. The king thought the sentence too mild, and said to the bishops and other commissioners, “By God’s eyes you shall swear that you pronounced sentence according to justice, and did not favour him on account of his clerical character.” They offered to swear it; but the king betook himself to his courtiers. Soon after he told the archbishop and bishops that he would require of them an oath that they would maintain all the customs of the kingdom. St. Thomas understood that certain notorious abuses and injustices were called by the king customs. He therefore in a general meeting of the bishops at Westminster, refused that oath, unless he might add this clause, “As far as was lawful, or consistent with duty.” The Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of Chichester and Lincoln, were drawn from their first resolution against it, and St. Thomas, who had resisted the threats of the king, was overcome by the tears of the clergy, and complied in an assembly at the king’s palace of Clarendon, in 1164. He soon after repented of his condescension, and remained in silence and tears till he had consulted the pope, who was then at Sens, and begged his absolution. His holiness, in his answer, gave him the desired absolution from censures, advised him to abstain no longer from approaching the altar, and exhorted him to repair by an episcopal vigour the fault into which he had only been betrayed through surprise. The king was extremely offended at the repentance of the archbishop, and threatened his life; but the prelate boldly said he never would authorize as custom the notorious oppressions of the Church, which his predecessors, especially St. Anselm, had zealously condemned before him. The king, in an assembly of the bishops and nobility at Northampton, on the 8th of October, 1164, pronounced sentence against him, by which he declared all his goods confiscated. Several bishops and others endeavoured to persuade him to resign his archbishopric. But he answered with great resolution that to do it in such circumstances would be to betray the truth and the cause of the Church, by which he was bound, by the place which he held, rather to lay down his life. His persecutions daily increasing, he gave strict charge to his domestics and friends to remain in silence, peace, and charity towards their enemies, to bear injuries with patience, and never to conceive the least sentiment of rancour against any one. His cause in the mean time was evoked to the holy see, according to his appeal in the council, and he resolved privately to leave the kingdom. He landed in Flanders in 1164, and arriving at the abbey of St. Bertin’s at St. Omer, sent from thence deputies to Lewis VII. king of France, who received them graciously, and invited the archbishop into his dominions. King Henry forbade any to send him any manner of assistance. St. Gilbert, abbot of Sempringham, was called up to London, with all the procurators of his Order, being accused of having sent him relief. Though the abbot had not done it, he refused to swear this, because he said it would have been a virtuous action, and he would do nothing by which he might seem to regard it as a crime. Nevertheless, out of respect to his great sanctity, he was dismissed by an order of the king. The pope was then at Sens in France. The bishops and other deputies from the king of England arrived there, gained several of the cardinals, and in a public audience accused St. Thomas before his holiness; yet taking notice that he acquitted himself of his office with great prudence and virtue, and governed his Church truly like a worthy prelate. St. Thomas left St. Bertin’s after a few days’ stay, and being accompanied by the bishop of Triers and the abbot of St. Bertin’s, went to Soissons. The king of France happened to come thither the next day, and he no sooner heard that the archbishop of Canterbury was there, but he went to his lodgings to testify his veneration for his person, and obliged him to accept from him all the money he should want during his exile. The saint pursued his journey to Sens, where be met with a cold reception from the cardinals. When he had audience of the pope he expressed his grief at the disturbances in England, and his desire to procure a true peace to that church, for which end he professed himself ready to lay down his life with joy: but then he exaggerated the evils of a false peace, and gave in a copy of the articles which the king of England required him to sign, and which he said tended to the entire oppression of the Church. His justification was so moving, so full, and so modest, that the cardinals expressed their approbation of his conduct, and the pope encouraged him to constancy with great tenderness. In a second audience, on the day following, the archbishop confessed with extreme humility that he had entered the see though against his will, yet against the canons, in passing so suddenly from the state of a layman into it, and that he had acquitted himself so ill of his obligations in it, as to have had no more than the name of a pastor; wherefore he resigned his dignity into the hands of his holiness, and, taking the ring off his finger, delivered it to him, and withdrew. After a long deliberation, the pope called him in again, and, commending his zeal, reinstated him in his dignity, with an order not to abandon it, for that would be visibly to abandon the cause of God. Then sending for the abbot of Pontigni, his holiness recommended this exiled prelate to that superior of the poor of Jesus Christ, to be entertained by him like one of them. He exhorted the archbishop to pray for the spirit of courage and constancy.

St. Thomas regarded this austere monastery of the Cistercian Order, not as an exile, but as a delightful religious retreat, and a school of penance for the expiation of his sins. Not content with the hair shirt which he constantly wore, he used frequent disciplines and other austerities, submitted himself to all the rules of the Order, wore the habit, and embraced with joy the most abject functions and humiliations. He was unwilling to suffer any distinction, and would put by the meats prepared for him and seasoned, that he might take only the portion of the community, and that the dryest, and without seasoning or sauce; but this he did with address, that it might not be perceived. King Henry vented his passion against both the pope and the archbishop, confiscated the goods of all the friends, relations, and domestics of the holy prelate, banished them from his dominions, not sparing even infants at the breast, lying-in women, and old men; and obliged by oath all who had attained the age of discretion to go to the archbishop, that the sight of them and their tears might move him. This oath they were obliged to take at Lambeth, before Ralph de Brock, whom Fitz-Stephens calls one of the most daring and profligate of men; yet into his hands the king had delivered the temporalities of the archbishopric to be kept; that is, says this author, to be laid waste and destroyed. These exiles arrived in troops at Pontigny, and the prelate could not contain his tears. Providence, however, provided for them all by the charities of many prelates and princes. The queen of Sicily and the archbishop of Syracuse invited many over thither, and most liberally furnished them with necessaries. The pope and others laboured to bring the king to a reconciliation; but that prince threatened his holiness, and committed daily greater excesses, by threatening letters to the general chapter of Citeaux, that he would abolish their Order in England if they continued to harbour his enemy. Whereupon the saint left Pontigni; but a little before this he was favoured with a revelation of his martyrdom. Whilst he lay prostrate before the altar in prayers and tears, he heard a voice saying distinctly: “Thomas, Thomas, my church shall be glorified in thy blood.” The saint asked: “Who art thou, Lord?” and the same voice answered: “I am Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, thy brother.” He wept in taking leave of the monks at Pontigni. The abbot thought his tears the effect of natural tenderness; but the saint called him aside, and, bidding him not discover it before his death, told him, he wept for those who had followed him, who would be scattered like sheep without a pastor; for God had shown to him the night before, that he should be slain by four men in his church, whom he saw enter it, and take off the top part of his head. The king of France sent him the most affectionate assurances of his protection and respect, and, rejoicing to be able to serve Jesus Christ in the person of his exiled servant, gave orders with a royal magnificence that he should be entertained at his expense at Sens. St. Thomas was received there with all possible joy and respect by the archbishop, and retired to the monastery of St. Columba, situated half a mile from the city. He excommunicated all those who should obey the late orders of the king of England in seizing the estates of the church, and threatened that prince himself, but mildly, and with strong exhortations to repentance. The king, by his deputies, gained again many cardinals at Rome, and surprised the pope himself, who began to speak in his favour, and named two legates latere who were devoted to him; which drew complaints from the archbishop. The saint, according to summons, met the legates at Gisors, on the frontiers of France and Normandy; but finding that one of them, the cardinal of Pavia, was artfully studying to betray him, wrote to the pope. Cardinal Otho, the other legate, represented to the king his obligation of restoring to the church his unjust usurpations and revenues of the see of Canterbury, which he had received; but his majesty answered he had no scruple of that, having employed them on the church or on the poor. But the legate said, he could not answer it at the tribunal of Christ. The king of France, at the request of his holiness, undertook to be a mediator between the king of England and the archbishop: The two kings had a conference together near Gisors. St. Thomas fell at the feet of his sovereign, and was raised by him. King Henry, among many fair speeches, said he desired no more than the rights which former holy archbishops had not contested. The king of France said nothing more could be desired; but the archbishop showed abuses were meant, which former archbishops had opposed, though they had not been able to extirpate them. If they tolerated some out of necessity, they did not approve them, which was demanded of him. The king of France thought him too inflexible, and the nobles of both kingdoms accused him of pride. The saint was insulted and forsaken by all, and set out for Sens, expecting to be also banished France. But the king of France soon after reflecting on what he had done, sent for the servant of God, fell at his feet with many tears, begging his pardon and absolution of his sin, and confessing that he alone had understood the artifices which were made use of. The archbishop gave him absolution and his blessing, and returned to Sens. The pope sent two new legates, Gratian and Vivian, to King Henry, and after them two others; but that prince refused always to promise the restitution of the church revenues, and the like articles. St. Thomas never ceased to pray, fast, and weep for the evils of his church. No prelate had ever stronger temptations to struggle with; and certainly nothing but conscience and the most steady virtue could ever have obliged him to have renounced his own interests, and the favour of so great a king, whom he most affectionately loved, for whose service, in his wars, he furnished more troops at his own expense than could have been thought possible, and to whom he always remained most loyal and most faithful. King Henry, among other injuries done to the good prelate, caused his son to be crowned king by the archbishop of York, in the very diocess of Canterbury, himself waiting upon him at supper, and obliged his subjects, even by torments, to renounce the obedience not only to the archbishop, but also to the pope. But it pleased God on a sudden to change his heart, and inspire him with a desire of reconciliation. The archbishop of Sens conducted St. Thomas to his majesty, who received him with all the marks and expressions of his former esteem and affection, and, with tears, desired that all their differences might be buried in oblivion, and that they might live in perfect friendship; nor did he make the least mention of the pretended customs which had been the occasion of these disturbances.

The archbishop of York, a man whose life rendered him unworthy of that character, and the bishops of London and Salisbury, mortal enemies to the saint, began again to alienate the king from him, by renewing in his breast former jealousies. The archbishop waited on his majesty at Tours; but could obtain no more than a promise of the restitution of his lands when he should have arrived in England. In the meantime he gave leave to the officers of the archbishop of York to plunder all the goods of his church, and the harvest of that year. Nevertheless, the archbishop having been seven years absent, resolved to return to his church, though expecting to meet the crown of martyrdom. Writing to the king, he closed his letter as follows: “With your majesty’s leave I return to my church, perhaps to die there, and to hinder at least by my death its entire destruction. Your majesty is able yet to make me feel the effects of your clemency and religion. But whether I live or die, I will always preserve inviolably that charity which I bear you in our Lord. And whatever may happen to me, I pray God to heap all his graces and good gifts on your majesty and on your children.” The holy archbishop prepared himself for his journey with a heart filled with the love of the Cross of Christ, and breathing nothing but the sacrifice of himself in his cause. Many French noblemen furnished him with money and all necessaries. That he might thank the king of France, he went to Paris, and lodged in the abbey of canon regulars of St. Victor, where one of his hair shirts is still preserved. On the octave of St. Austin, their patron, he was desired to preach, and made an excellent sermon on these words: And his dwelling was made in peace.5 In taking leave of the French king, he said: “I am going to seek my death in England.” His majesty answered: “So I believe:” and pressed him to stay in his dominions, promising that nothing should be wanting to him there. The saint said: “The will of God must be accomplished.” He sent over to England the sentence of suspension and interdict which the pope had pronounced against the archbishop of York and his accomplices, in several unwarrantable proceedings, and excommunication against Renald of Broke, and certain others. The saint embarked at Witsan, near Calais, but landed at Sandwich, where he was received with incredible acclamations of joy. He had escaped several ambuscades of his enemies on the road. The archbishop of York demanded absolution from his censures in a threatening manner: St. Thomas meekly offered it, on condition the other, according to the custom of the church, would swear to submit to the conditions which should be enjoined him. The other refused to do this, and went over to Normandy, with the bishops of London and Salisbury, to accuse the archbishop to the king, in doing which passion made slander pass for truth. The king, in a transport of fury cried out, and repeated several times, that “He cursed all those whom he had honoured with his friendship, and enriched by his bounty, seeing none of them had the courage to rid him of one bishop, who gave him more trouble than all the rest of his subjects.”* Four young gentlemen in his service, who had no other religion than to flatter their prince, viz. Sir William Tracy, Sir Hugh Morville, Sir Richard Briton, and Sir Reginald Fitz-Orson, conspired privately together to murder him.

The archbishop was received in London with exceeding great triumph: but the young king sent him an order to confine himself to the city of Canterbury. The saint alleged, that he was obliged to make the visitation of his diocese. On Christmas-day, after mass, he preached his last sermon to his flock, on the text, “And peace to men of good-will on earth.” In the end he declared, that he should shortly leave them, and that the time of his death was at hand. All wept bitterly at this news, and the saint, seeing their tears, could not entirely contain his own: but he comforted himself with motives of holy faith, and stood some time absorbed in God in the sweet contemplation of his adorable will. The four assassins being landed in England, were joined by Renald of Broke, who brought with him a troop of armed men. They went the next day to Canterbury, and insolently upbraiding the archbishop with treason, threatened him with death unless he absolved all those who were interdicted or excommunicated. The saint answered, it was the pope who had pronounced those censures, that the king had agreed to it, and promised his assistance therein before five hundred witnesses, among whom some of them were present, and that they ought to promise satisfaction for their crimes before an absolution. They, in a threatening manner, gave a charge to his ecclesiastics that were present to watch him, that he might not escape; for the king would make him an example of justice. The saint said: “Do you imagine that I think of flying: No, no, I wait for the stroke of death without fear.” Then showing with his hand that part of his head where God had given him to understand he should be struck, he said: “It is here, it is here that I expect you.” The assassins went back, put on their bucklers and arms, as if they were going to a battle, and taking with them the other armed men, returned to the archbishop, who was then gone to the church, for it was the hour of vespers. He had forbidden, in virtue of obedience, any to barricade the doors, saying, the church was not to be made a citadel. The murderers entered sword in hand, crying out: “Where is the traitor?” No one answered till another cried: “Where is the archbishop?” The saint then advanced towards them, saying; “Here I am, the archbishop, but no traitor.” All the monks and ecclesiastics ran to hide themselves, or to hold the altars, except three who staid by his side. The archbishop appeared without the least commotion or fear. One of the ruffians said to him, “Now you must die.” He answered: “I am ready to die for God, for justice, and for the liberty of his church. But I forbid you in the name of the Almighty God, to hurt in the least any of my religious, clergy, or people. I have defended the church as far as I was able during my life, when I saw it oppressed, and I shall be happy if by my death at least, I can restore its peace and liberty.” He then fell on his knees, and spoke these his last words: “I recommend my soul and the cause of the church to God, to the Blessed Virgin, to the holy patrons of this place, to the martyrs St. Dionysius, and St. Elphege of Canterbury.” He then prayed for his murderers, and bowing a little his head, presented it to them in silence. They first offered to bring him out of the church, but he said: “I will not stir: do here what you please, or are commanded.” The fear lest the people, who crowded into the church, should hinder them, made them hasten the execution of their design. Tracy struck at his head first with his sword: but an ecclesiastic who stood by, named Edward Grim or Grimfer, (who afterwards wrote his life,) held out his arm, which was almost cut off; but this broke the blow on the archbishop, who was only a little stunned with it, and he held up his head with his two hands as immoveable as before, ardently offering himself to God. Two others immediately gave him together two violent strokes, by which he fell on the pavement near the altar of St. Bennet, and was now expiring when the fourth, Richard Briton, ashamed not to have dipped his sword in his blood, cut off the top part of his head, and broke his sword against the pavement; then Hugh of Horsea inhumanly, with the point of his sword, drew out all his brains, and scattered them on the floor.6 After this sacrilege they went and rifled the archiepiscopal palace with a fury which passion had heightened to madness. The city was filled with consternation, tears, and lamentations. A blind man recovered his sight by applying his eyes to the blood of the martyr yet warm. The canons shut the doors of the church, watched by the corps all night, and interred it privately the next morning, because of a report that the murderers designed to drag it through the street. St. Thomas was martyred on the 29th of December, in the year 1170, the fifty-third of his age, and the ninth of his episcopacy.

The grief of all Catholic princes and of all Christendom, at the news of this sacrilege, is not to be expressed. King Henry, above all others, at the first news of it, forgot not only his animosity against the saint, but even the dignity of his crown, to abandon himself to the humiliation and affliction of a penitent who bewailed his sins in sackcloth and ashes. He shut himself up three days in his closet, taking almost no nourishment, and admitting no comfort: and for forty days never went abroad, never had his table or any diversions as usual, having always before his eyes the death of the holy prelate. He not only wept, but howled and cried out in the excess of his grief. He sent deputies to the pope to assure him that he had neither commanded nor intended that execrable murder. His holiness excommunicated the assassins, and sent two legates to the king into Normandy, who found him in the most edifying dispositions of a sincere penitent. His majesty swore to them that he abolished the pretended customs and the abuses which had excited the zeal of the saint, and restored all the church lands and revenues which he had usurped; and was ordered for his penance to maintain two hundred soldiers in the holy war for a year. This miraculous conversion of the king and restitution of the liberties of the church was looked upon as the effect of the saint’s prayers and blood. Seven lepers were cleansed, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, and others sick of all kind of distempers were cured by his intercession, and some dead restored to life.* Pope Alexander III. published the bull of his canonization in 1173. Philip, afterwards surnamed Augustus, son of Lewis VII. of France, being very sick and despaired of by the physicians, the king his father spent the days and nights in tears, refusing all comfort. He was advertised at length three nights in his sleep by St. Thomas, whom he had known, to make a pilgrimage to his shrine at Canterbury. He set out against the advice of his nobility, who were apprehensive of dangers: he was met by King Henry at the entrance of his dominions, and conducted by him to the tomb of the martyr. After his prayer he bestowed on the church a gold cup, and several presents on the monks with great privileges. Upon his return into France he found his son perfectly recovered through the merits of St. Thomas, in 1179.

God was pleased to chastise King Henry as he had done David. His son the young king rebelled, because his father refused the cession of any part of his dominions to him during his own life. He was supported by the greatest part of the English nobility, and by the king of Scotland, who committed the most unheard-of cruelties in the northern provinces, which he laid waste. The old king in his abandoned condition made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas, walked barefoot three miles before the town over the pebbles and stones, so that his feet were all bloody, and at the tomb his tears and sighs were the only voice of his contrite and humble heart before God. He would receive a stroke of a discipline from all the bishops, priests, and canons, and spent there that whole day and the night following without taking any nourishment, and made great presents to the church. The next morning, whilst he was hearing mass near the tomb, the king of Scotland, his most cruel enemy, was taken prisoner by a small number of men. Soon after his son threw himself at his feet and obtained pardon. He indeed revolted again several times: but falling sick, by the merits of St. Thomas, deserved to die a true penitent. He made a public confession of his sins, put on sackcloth, and a cord about his neck, and would be dragged by it out of bed as the most unworthy of sinners, and laid on ashes, on which he received the viaticum, and died in the most perfect sentiments of repentance. As to the four murderers, they retired to Cnaresburg, a house belonging to one of them, namely Hugh of Morville, in the west of England, where, shunned by all men, and distracted with the remorse of their own conscience, they lived alone without so much as a servant that would attend them. Some time after they travelled into Italy to receive absolution from the pope. His holiness enjoined them a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where three of them shut themselves up in a place called Montenigro, as in a prison of penance, as the pope had ordered them, and lived and died true penitents. They were buried before the gate of the church of Jerusalem, with this epitaph: “Here lie the wretches who martyred blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury.” The other who had given the first wound, deferred a little to commence his penance, and stopping at Cosenza in Calabria, there died of a miserable distemper, in which his flesh rotted from his body and fell to pieces. He never ceased to implore with sighs and tears the intercession of St. Thomas, as the bishop of that city, who heard his confession, testified. All the four murderers died within three years after the martyrdom of the saint.

The body of the martyr was first buried in the lower part of the church: but shortly after taken up and laid in a sumptuous shrine in the east end. So great were the offerings thereat, that the church all round about it abounded with more than princely riches, the meanest part of which was pure gold, garnished with many precious stones, as William Lambarte7 and Weever8 assure us. The largest of these was the royal diamond given by Lewis, king of France. The marble stones before the place remain to this day very much worn and hollowed by the knees of the pilgrims who prayed there. The shrine itself is thus described by John Stow.9 “It was built about a man’s height all of stone: then upwards of plain timber, within which was an iron chest containing the bones of Thomas Becket, as also the skull with the wound of his death, and the piece cut out of the skull laid in the same wound. The timber-work of this shrine on the outside was covered with plates of gold, damasked and embossed, garnished with brooches, images, angels, chains, precious stones, and great oriental pearls: the spoils of which shrine in gold and jewels of an inestimable value, filled two great chests, one of which six or eight men could do no more than convey out of the church. All which was taken to the king’s use, and the bones of St. Thomas, by command of lord Cromwell, were there burnt to ashes, in September, 1538, of Henry VIII. the thirtieth.” His hair shirt is shown in a reliquary in the English college at Douay: a small part in the abbey of Liesse: a bone of his arm in the great church of St. Waldetrude at Mons;10 his chalice in the great nunnery at Bourbourg; his mitre, and linen dipped in his blood at St. Bertin’s at St. Omer; vestments in many other monasteries, &c., in the Low Countries, &c.*

Zeal for the glory of God is the first property, or rather the spirit and perfection of his holy love, and ought to be the peculiar virtue of every Christian, especially of every pastor of the church. How is God delighted to shower down his heavenly graces on those who are zealous for his honor! How will he glorify them in heaven, as on this account he glorified Phinehas even on earth.11 What zeal for his Father’s glory did not Christ exert on earth! How did this holy fire burn in the breasts of the apostles and of all the saints! but in the exercise of zeal itself how many snares are to be feared! and how many Christians deceive themselves! Self-love is subtle in seducing those who do not know themselves. Humor, pride, avarice, caprice, and passion, frequently are passed for zeal. But the true conditions of this virtue are, that it be prudent, disinterested, and intrepid. Prudent in never being precipitant, in using address, in employing every art to draw sinners from the dangerous paths of vice, and in practising patience in instructing the most stupid, and in bearing with the obstinacy and malice of the impenitent. It is a mistake to place holy zeal in an impetuous ardor of the soul, which can be no other than the result of passion. Secondly, it must be disinterested or pure in its motive, free from all mixture of avarice, pride, vanity, resentment, or any passion. Thirdly, it must be intrepid. The fear of God makes his servant no longer fear men. John the Baptist feared not the tyrant who persecuted him; but Herod stood in awe of the humble preacher.12 The servant of God is not anxious about his own life; but is solicitous that God be honored. All that he can suffer for this end he looks upon as p recompense. Fatigues, contempt, torments, or death, he embraces with joy. By his constancy and fidelity he conquers and subdues the whole world. In afflictions and disgraces his virtue makes him magnanimous. It accompanies him in all places and in every situation. By this he is great not only in adversity, being through it firm under persecutions and constant in torments, but also in riches, grandeur, and prosperity, amidst which it inspires him with humility, moderation, and holy fear, and animates all his actions and designs with religion and divine charity.

DECEMBER 29 — ST. MARCELLUS, ABBOT OF THE ACŒMETES, C

The order of the Acœmetes differed from other Basilian monks only by this particular rule, that each monastery was divided into several choirs, which, succeeding one another, continued the divine office day and night without interruption: whence was derived their name, which signifies in Greek, without sleep. This institute was set on foot by a Syrian nobleman, named Alexander, who had borne an honorable command in the army several years but renouncing the world in 402, built a monastery upon the banks of the Euphrates, in which he assembled four hundred monks. Coming afterwards to Constantinople, he founded a monastery not far from the city, towards the Euxine sea, in which he governed three hundred monks, whom he divided into six choirs. Alexander died in 430. Bollandus gives his life on the 15th of January, and he is honored with the title of saint when incidentally mentioned in the Mena, but his name seems never to have been commemorated in any calendar either of the eastern or western church. His successor John removed his community to a monastery which he built at Gomon, a mile from Constantinople. St. Marcellus, who was chosen third abbot of this house, raised the reputation of this order to the highest pitch. He was a native of Apamea in Syria, and, by the death of his parents, who were rich and of noble descent, he was left master of a plentiful fortune when he was in the flower of his age. Considering seriously with what vanities the little interval between a man’s birth and his death is usually filled in the world, he conceived a great distaste of its fooleries, and, repairing to Antioch, made sacred studies, and the exercises of devotion, his whole employment. By holy meditation he saw daily more and more clearly the emptiness of all worldly occupations and enjoyments. An infant with all its childish toys about it, thinks itself happy; and what are these, if compared to those fooleries which in manhood are called business or amusements? From this contempt of earthly things, his love of those which are heavenly, daily grew stronger; and it was not long before he bestowed on the poor his whole, personal estate, and settled his real estate upon a younger brother. Thus disencumbered, he repaired to Ephesus, and there put himself under the direction of certain eminent servants of God, The greatest part of the night he spent in prayer, and the day he employed in copying good books, by the sale of which he gained not only his own subsistence, but also wherewith to relieve the poor. The reputation of the austerity and solitude of the Acœmetes drew him thither; and taking the habit, he ran in a religious course with incredible ardour.

Upon the death of Alexander, the founder and first abbot. Marcellus had been chosen to fill his place, had he not concealed himself by a timely flight. When he returned, John, who bad been chosen abbot, compelled him to be his assistant in the discharge of his office; and upon his demise Marcellus was raised to that dignity. The Order flourished exceedingly under his prudent and saintly administration; and when he was at a loss how sufficiently to enlarge his buildings, he was abundantly supplied with means for that purpose by Pharetrius, a very opulent gentleman, who took the habit with all his sons on the same day. About the year 465, Studius, a nobleman, who had been consul in 463, founded for him and his monks a great monastery within the city, near the golden gate, in which there are said to have been one thousand monks at the same time. This house being called by the founder’s name, the Acœmetes were from that time called Studites. St. Marcellus assisted at the council of Constantinople, assembled by St. Flavian against Eutyches, whose heresy our holy abbot condemned, with the prelates who composed that venerable assembly. St. Marcellus spent sixty years in a monastic state, and his long life was all filled with good works. He died in 485 or 486, and is honored both by the Latins and Greeks on this day. See his authentic life in Surius, Bulteau, Bonnani, Herman, Scoonbeck, and Helyot, t. 2.

DECEMBER 29 — ST. EVROUL, ABBOT, C

Evroul, called in Latin Ebrulfus, was born at Bayeux, in 517, and was of the most illustrious family of that country. But he learned from his cradle to esteem nothing great but what is so in the eyes of God. The same sentiments he made the rule of his holy and disinterested conduct in the court of king Childebert I., who, being charmed with his accomplishments both of mind and body, raised him to several posts of honor and authority, which he never sought: for all his ambition aimed at goods infinitely surpassing those of the earth, for which he testified a total indifference, even while they flowed in upon him unasked. He showed by his example how possible it is for a Christian to live in the world without being of it in spirit, and to possess riches without being possessed by them. But then he made continual use of the antidotes which heaven has afforded us to fence our hearts against that contagious air, which are assiduous prayer, pious reading, meditation, and the mortification of the senses. His friends importuned him to marry, and he chose a virtuous wife, whose inclinations were perfectly suitable to his own. By reading the lives of the saints they mutually inflamed each other with a desire of forsaking the world. In this view they agreed to a separation, and she took the veil in a holy nunnery, while he distributed his whole fortune among the poor. It was, however, a considerable time before he was able to obtain the leave of king Clothaire I. (who, after the death of his brother Childebert, was become master of ah France) to retire from court. At length, he procured it by reiterated importunities, and without delay took refuge in a monastery in the diocese of Bayeux. By his profound humility, fervor, and all heroic virtues, he gained the esteem and veneration of his fellow monks. But the respect which he met with was to him a true affliction: he regarded it as a snare, and a temptation to vanity. To shun it, he, with three others, privately withdrew, and hid himself in the most remote part of the forest of Ouche, in the diocese of Lisieux, which was only inhabited by wild beasts and robbers. These new hermits had taken no measures for provisions. They settled near a spring of clear water, made an enclosure with a hedge of boughs, and built themselves little huts of branches and mud. A country peasant discovered them in this place, to his great astonishment, and advertised them that the wood was a retreat of cruel thieves: “We are come hither,” said Evroul, “to bewail our sins; we place our confidence in the mercy of God, who by his providence feeds the birds of the air, and we fear no one.” The countryman brought them the next morning three loaves and some honey, and was so edified by their conversation, that he soon after joined them. One of the thieves happening to light upon them, saw there was no booty to be expected, and, out of humanity and compassion, endeavored to persuade them that their lives would be in danger from others of his profession. Evroul represented to him, that having God for their protector, they stood in fear of no danger from men who could have no inducement to murder those who sought to hurt no man, and had no other occupation than to lead penitential lives, and to please God. He then powerfully exhorted him to change his life. The robber was converted upon the spot, and going to his companions, brought many of them, in the same dispositions with himself, to the saint, by whose advice they betook themselves to till the land, and labor in the country for an honest maintenance. Several of them chose to remain with these anchorets, in the practice of penance. They cultivated the land, but it was too barren to yield them sufficient nourishment even in their most abstemious way of living. But the inhabitants of the country brought them in a little provision. Evroul accepted their alms, but whatever remained he gave immediately to other poor, reserving nothing for the next day.

The advantages and sweets of holy solitude, in uninterrupted contemplation, made him desire to live always an anchoret, without being burdened with the care of others. But fraternal charity overruled this inclination, for he could not remain indifferent to the salvation of his neighbors. He therefore received those who desired to live in penance under his direction, for whom he was obliged to build a monastery at Ouche in Normandy, which to this day bears his name. His community daily increasing, and many offering him lands, he built fifteen other monasteries of men or women, of which his own always remained the chief, and this he always governed himself. His affability charmed every one; he seemed to know no pleasure equal to that of serving his neighbor. He used to exhort all to labor, telling them, that they would gain their bread by their work, and heaven by serving God in it. His example sufficed to encourage others; by his indefatigable constancy in labour, his patience in adversity, his perfect resignation to the will of God in all things with equal joy, and his cheerfulness in the most severe practices of perpetual penance. He arrived at a great old age, though always sighing after the joys of eternity. His patience in his last sickness made him seem never sensible to pain. He lived forty-seven days without being able to take any thing, except a little water, and the sacred body of Jesus Christ. He never ceased to exhort his disciples till he bid them adieu with joy, shutting his eyes to this world on the 29th of December, 596. His body was buried in the church of St. Peter, which he had built. His name occurs in Usuard, and in the Roman Martyrology on this day. See his exact life in Mabillon, sc.1; Ben. p. 354. William of Gemblours, &c., also Bulteau,1. 2, c. 31.

DECEMBER 30 — ST. SABINUS, BISHOP OF ASSISIUM, AND HIS COMPANIONS, MM

Abridged from their acts in Baluze and Baronius.

A. D. 304.

THE cruel edicts of Dioclesian and Maximian, against the Christians, being published in the year 303, Sabinus, bishop of Assisium, and several of his clergy, were apprehended and kept in custody till Venustianus, the governor of Etruria and Umbria, came thither. Upon his arrival in that city, he caused the hands of Sabinus, who had made a glorious confession of his faith before him, to be cut off; and his two deacons, Marcellus and Exuperantius, to be scourged, beaten with clubs, and torn with iron nails or broad tenters, under which torments they both expired. Sabinus is said to have cured a blind boy; and a weakness in the eyes of Venustianus himself, who was thereupon, converted, and afterwards, beheaded for the faith. Lucius, his successor, commanded Sabinus to be beaten to death with clubs at Spoleto. The martyr was buried a mile from that city; but his relics have been since translated to Faënza. St. Gregory the Great1 speaks of a chapel built in his honor near Fermo, in which he placed some of his relics which he had obtained from Chrysanthus, bishop of Spoleto. These martyrs are mentioned on this day in Ado, Usuard, and the Roman Martyrology.

How powerfully do the martyrs cry out to us by their example, exhorting us to despise a false and wicked world! What have all the philosophers and princes found by all their researches and efforts in quest of happiness in it! They only fell from one precipice into another. Departing from its true centre they sought it in every other object, but in their pursuits only wandered further and further from it. A soul can find no rest in creatures. How long then shall we suffer ourselves to be seduced in their favor! be always deceived, yet always ready to deceive ourselves again! How long shall we give false names to objects round about us, and imagine a virtue in them which they have not! Is not the experience of near six thousand years enough to undeceive us! Let the light of heaven, the truths of the gospel, shine upon us, and the illusions of the world and our senses will disappear. But were the goods and evils of the world real, they can have no weight if they are compared with eternity. They are contemptible, because transient and momentary. In this light the martyrs viewed them. Who is not strongly affected with reading the epitaph which the learned Antony Castalio composed for himself, and which is engraved upon his tomb in the cathedral of Florence.*

That peace and rest, now in the silent grave,

At length I taste, which life, oh! never gave.

Pain, labor, sickness, tortures, anxious cares,

Grim death, fasts, watchings, strife, and racking fears

Adieu! my joys at last are ever crown’d;

And what I hoped so long, my soul hath found.

DECEMBER 30 — SAINT ANYSIA, M

While the governor Dulcitius carried on a cruel persecution at Thessalonica to deter the Christians from holding religious assemblies, in 304, in the reign of Maximian Galerius, a Christian young lady called Anysia, of rich and noble parents, by whose death she was left an orphan, resolved to go to the assembly of the faithful. As she passed by the gate of Cassandra, one of the emperor’s guards, who happened to see her, was taken with her beauty, and stepping before her said: “Stay, whither are you going?” Anysia, startled at his insolence, and fearing a temptation, made the sign of the cross upon her forehead. The soldier, offended at her silence, seized her, and asked her roughly, “Who art thou, and whither art thou going?” “I am,” said she, “a servant of Jesus Christ, and am going to the Lord’s assembly.” “I will prevent that,” said he, “and will bring thee to sacrifice to the gods; for to-day we adore the sun:” that day being called by the pagans Sunday. Saying this, he tore off her veil to discover her face. Anysia endeavored to hinder him; but the soldier, enraged, drew his word, and ran it through her body, so that it came out on the other side. She fell down immediately, trembling, and bathed in her blood, and there expired. Her name occurs in the Roman Martyrology, in the Greek Synaxary, and the Menology of the emperor Basil, on the 30th of December. See her genuine Greek Acts, also her panegyric by Philotheus, patriarch of Constantinople, mentioned by Allatuis and by Fabricius, Bibl. Grc. t. 6, p. 513. See also Surius, 30th December; Baron. ad an. 303. n. 48; Fleury,1. 8, n. 304.

DECEMBER 30 — ST. MAXIMUS, C.*

Amidst the scandals, heresies, and schisms by which the devil hath often renewed his assaults against the church, providence hath always raised defenders of the faith, who, by their fortitude and the holiness of their lives, stopped the fury of the flood, and repaired the ravages made on the kingdom of Jesus Christ by base apostate arts. Thus, while Monothelism triumphed on the imperial throne, and in the principal sees of the East, this heresy found a formidable adversary in the person of the holy Pope Martin, powerfully seconded by the whole Latin church, and by a considerable part of the Greek church: and while artifice, joined to persecution, labored in the East to annihilate the truth, faith shone with the highest glory and lustre in the zeal, sufferings, and death of St. Maximus. Maximus, surnamed by the Greeks Homologetes, or confessor, was born at Constantinople in 580. He sprung from one of the most noble and ancient families of that city; and was educated in a manner becoming his high birth, under the most able masters. But God inspired him with knowledge infinitely preferable to that which schools teach, and which the wise according to the world an often unacquainted with; he taught him to know himself, and conceive a due esteem for fervor and humility. In vain, however, his modesty sought to veil his merit, it was soon discovered at court; and the emperor Herachus set so high a value on his abilities, that he appointed him his first secretary of state. This busy scene, far from weakening the fondness he had ever entertained for retirement, filled him with apprehension, and determined him to withdraw from the corruption and poison of vain and worldly honors.

About this time Monothelism gained admission at court.† The sensible progress of that heresy, under the countenance of the prince, contributed not a little to complete his disgust against a post which exposed his faith to such dangerous trials. He was besides convinced that his department in the state would soon burthen his conscience with the execution of orders contrary to its dictates and those of religion. He therefore did not hesitate a moment to resign, and retire to a monastery. But, not to give umbrage at court, and to authorize his retreat, he alleged divers pretexts, and particularly a dread of the Arabs, who, by their incursions, spread alarm through all the East, and dared to carry their insults to the very gates of Constantinople. The Greeks were exhausted by the wars they had supported in the West against the Huns, and in the East against the Persians. Their frequent defeats were a just punishment of the enormities with which they provoked the vengeance of heaven. As they continued incorrigible, divine justice exercised them with a new scourge, and abandoned them to the Saracens, a ferocious race, deriving their origin from Arabia. These barbarians spread themselves like a torrent over the empire, and overturned every thing that opposed their passage.

Heraclius, who in his adversity had sought God with all his heart, and had experienced the effects of his protection, on a prosperous turn in his affairs, forgot his divine benefactor. He blushed not to declare for heresy, and to put his confidence in men studied in nothing but the vile arts of dissimulation and deceit. He scandalized the whole empire by his indolence, and tarnished by shameful disorders the glory he at first had acquired by his bravery and virtue. He suffered the sect of Mahomet* to establish itself among the Saracens, who, in his reign, laid the foundation of their formidable empire. A succession of misfortunes at length awaked him from his lethargy. And while each day acquainted him with some new defeat, he was penetrated with grief to see the Roman empire, which had given laws to the universe, become the prey of barbarians. His former bravery seemed to revive; he raised armies, but they were constantly overthrown. Astonished at the victories of the Arabs, who were greatly inferior to the Greeks in number, strength, and discipline, he demanded one day in council what could be the cause. All holding silence, a grave person of the assembly stood up, and said, “It is because the Greeks have dishonored the sanctity of their profession, and no longer retain the doctrine taught by Jesus Christ and his disciples. They insult and oppress one another, live in enmity and dissensions, and abandoned to the most infamous usuries and lists.” The emperor acknowledged the truth of this censure. In reality the vices of the Greeks at that period excited, according to one of their most celebrated writers, such odium, that the very infidels held them in detestation. Indeed all their historians bear witness to their disorders, and the Arabs represent them in colors still higher charged.1

St. Maximus declared himself on every occasion the defender of the faith and of virtue. But neither his example nor advice was followed. Seeing then that his employment was incompatible with his principles, and that he strove in vain to arrest the impetuosity of the torrent, he extorted from the emperor a permission to retire to Chrysopolis, where he took the monastic habit. In his solitude, he recommended to God the calamities of his people, and armed himself with fortitude against the dangers to which his soul was exposed. Dreading even in his monastery the snares which the heretics laid on every side, he resolved to go to Africa, in search of a more secure retreat. Sergius the Monothelite, patriarch of Constantinople, dying about the end of the year 638, he was succeeded by Pyrrhus, a monk of Chrysopolis. Pyrrhus walked in the steps of his predecessor; like him, a famous stickler for heresy. Heraclius, who died in 641, was succeeded by Constantine, his eldest son. This prince survived his father but one hundred and three days. His stepmother Martina and the patriarch were accused of poisoning him.2 At least it is certain that Pyrrhus, in concert with that princess, placed her son Heracleonas on the imperial throne, in prejudice of Constantius, son of Constantine. But they were not long able to maintain this unjust usurpation. Before the end of October of the same year, Constantius was put in possession of the empire by the people: Martina had her tongue torn out, and Heracleonas his nose slit, and were both sent into banishment by a decree of the senate. Pyrrhus, having just reasons to fear the fury of the populace, secretly withdrew from Constantinople, and fled into Africa, where be endeavored to gain friends and proselytes to Monothelism. St. Maximus finding the Catholic faith thus dangerously exposed, exerted his most strenuous endeavors to preserve its integrity. Pyrrhus, a perfect dissembler, affected notwithstanding, to be lavish in the praise of Maximus, whom he had never even seen, Pyrrhus having quitted the monastery of Chrysopolis before the saint had retired to it.

The patrician Gregory, governor of Africa, engaged St. Maximus to hold a public conference with Pyrrhus, in hopes of his conversion. It was accordingly held at Carthage in July, 645. Along with the governor there was a respectable and numerous assembly of bishops and other persons of distinction. Pyrrhus arguing that as there was but one person in Jesus Christ which wills, concluded thence, that there could be in him no more than one will. St. Maximus proved against him, that the unity of persons in Jesus Christ did not imply a unity of nature; that, being God and man at the same time, the divine and human natures must have their respective powers of volition; that it is an impiety to assert that the will by which he hath created and governs all things is the same as that by which he ate and drank on earth, and prayed his Father to remove from him, if possible, the chalice of his passion; that the will is a property essential and inseparable from the nature, so that in denying Jesus Christ a human will, you strip him of an essential part of his humanity, which is demi-Eutychianism, and that in reasoning consequentially, pure Eutychianism must be admitted, which consists in denying that there are two distinct natures in Jesus Christ. Maximus justified afterwards Saint Menas of Constantinople, Vigilius, and Honorius. This last, doubtless, was wrong in agreeing for some time to be silent on the article in question; but he had only denied that there were two contrary wills in Jesus Christ, as in us, that is to say, a will of concupiscence which revolts against the spirit. The saint proved this point by the express testimony of abbot John, who, in quality of secretary, had written the letter of Honorius, wherein he makes his declaration on this subject to John IV. successor of Honorius himself. “Sergius having written that some admitted two contrary wills in Jesus Christ, we answered that these wills could not be admitted, that is to say, that there could not be in Jesus Christ a will of the flesh and a will of the spirit, as in us sinners.”3 Maximus confirmed this doctrine in showing that, in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, there is but one will, because the three divine persons have but one and the same nature.4

The issue of this conference was, that Pyrrhus declared he had no more difficulties about any article, and showed a great desire to present in writing his retractation to the Pope. He kept his word; and, repairing to Rome, he put into Pope Theodore’s hands, in the presence of the clergy and the people, a paper, wherein he condemned all he had done or taught against the faith.5 After so solemn a retractation, Theodore ordered that a chair should be placed for him at the side of the altar, and charged himself with the expense of his maintenance. But Pyrrhus soon renounced the orthodox sentiments he had published. On his coming to Ravenna, he relapsed into his errors, at the instigation of the exarch, who flattered him with the hope of recovering the see of Constantinople. One Paul, also a Monothelite, then occupied that see. He persuaded the emperor Constantius to substitute for the Ecthesis, published by his grandfather Heraclius, a new edict, which favored neither party, and imposed silence in the point controverted. This edict appeared in 648, under the name of the Typus or the Formulary. Pope Theodore, informed of the apostacy of Pyrrhus, in a council held in the church of St. Peter, pronounced against him a sentence of excommunication and deposition; as also against Paul, whom he had in vain endeavored to reconcile to the church by his letters and by his legates. He also condemned the Typus of Constantius. But, before he saw the conclusion of this business, he was taken off by death the 20th of April, 649. St. Martin succeeded him. St. Maximus paid this pope a visit at Rome, and assisted at the council of Lateran, which was held in the month of October of the same year, 649. Paul dying in 655, Pyrrhus was reinstated in the see of Constantinople; but he did not survive his re-establishment more than four months and twenty-three days; when he was succeeded by Peter, a priest of the same church, also a Monothelite.

The holy pope Martin dying in 655, Saint Maximus was arrested at Rome, by the emperor’s order, and brought to Constantinople, with Anastasius, his disciple, and another Anastasius, who had been chancellor of the Roman church. On the evening of the day of their arrival, two officers and ten life-guards were sent to remove them out of the vessel, and conduct them to different prisons under a strict guard. Some days after, they were led to the palace, and into a hall where the senate was assembled, surrounded by a great multitude of people. St. Maximus being placed in the midst of the assembly, the treasurer loaded him with reproaches, and asked him, in a very angry tone, if he were a Christian. “Yes,” answered Maximus, “by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The treasurer then accused him of treason, alleging he had persuaded Peter, governor of Numidia, not to send troops to Egypt to expel the Saracens, which gave these barbarians the opportunity of making themselves masters, not only of that country, but likewise of Pentapolis, Tripoli, and the proconsular Africa, It was not hard for Maximus to justify himself. But at the same time he owned that, being at Rome, he had said to an officer, that the emperor’s power was not sacerdotal; that the union proposed by the Typus could not be received, that the silence prescribed was a real suppression of the faith, which could never be permitted; that, with such principles, Jews and Christians might be united, these silent on baptism, those on circumcision; that this union would find room with the Arians also, by the suppression of the consubstantiality of the Word. The treasurer, not knowing what to answer to this discourse, only said that a man such as Maximus ought not to he suffered in the empire. Others added reproaches still more injurious. Anastasius, the saint’s disciple, was afterwards examined; but as he could not raise his voice high enough to be heard by all, the guards buffeted him so cruelly, that they left him for half dead. The two confessors were then brought back to prison. The same evening the patrician Troilus, accompanied with two officers of the palace, came to see Maximus, with a design to persuade him to communicate with the church of Constantinople. The saint desired that they would previously condemn the heresy of me Monothelites, who had been excommunicated by the council of Lateran, and reproached them with having changed their own doctrine. As they accused him of condemning them all, he answered, “God forbid I should condemn any one but I would rather die than err against faith in the smallest article.” The officers, pressing him to receive the Typus for the sake of peace, and confessing at the same time that they acknowledged two wills in Jesus Christ, he prostrated himself on the earth, with tears in his eyes, and said: “It is not my intention to displease the emperor, but I cannot, consent to offend God.” As they accused him of turning others by his example from communicating with the church of Constantinople, and of staining the reputation of the emperor, by condemning the Typus, he justified himself, declaring that he was far from taxing the prince with heresy, since the, Typus was not his work; which he, moreover, did not sign until he had been imposed on by the enemies of the church; he added, that he ardently wished to see him disavow it, as Heraclius had disavowed the Ecthesis. Maximus and his disciples underwent a second interrogatory in the council-chamber at the palace before the senate, at which were present Peter, patriarch of Constantinople, and Macarius, patriarch of Antioch, both Monothelites. Here they again declared that they would adhere inviolably to the faith of their fathers, and to the definition of the council of Lateran. After several debates they were remitted to prison. At the feast of Pentecost, a messenger from the patriarch of Constantinople endeavored to prevail on Maximus to submit. As he was threatened with excommunication and a cruel death, he answered, that all he desired was that the will of God be done in his regard. The day after this conference he was banished into Thrace, with the two Anastasiuses. Maximus was sent to the castle of Bizye, Anastasius the chancellor to Selymbria, and the other Anastatius to Perbere, which was at the extremity of the province, and of the empire. They were brought to these places, without provision for their subsistence, and with no other covering than a few rags. A little time after, commissaries arrived to examine the saint anew in the place of his exile. They were sent by the emperor and the patriarch. There were, among others, with them a bishop named Theodosius. Maximus proved before them, that there must necessarily be two wills in Jesus Christ, and that it is never lawful to suppress the doctrine of faith. His arguments were so convincing that Theodosius agreed the Typus to have a dangerous tendency: and the commissaries even went so far as to sign an act of reconciliation with Maximus. Theodosius, moreover, promised to go to Rome, and make his peace with the church. Then all rose up weeping with joy; and, after praying some time on their knees, they kissed the book of the gospels, the cross, the image of Jesus Christ, and that of the Blessed Virgin, and laid their hands on them in confirmation of their agreement. Theodosius, at taking leave, made the saint a present of some money and clothes.

After all, this reconciliation came to nothing. In the year 656, the emperor sent the consul Paul to Bizye, with orders to bring Maximus back to the monastery of S. Theodorus de Rege, near Constantinople. There was no regard paid to the age or rank which the saint once held at court, he was treated on the road with the last barbarity. He arrived at Rege the 13th of September. The patricians Epiphanius and Trolus, as well as the bishop Theodosius, went to visit him there, attended with a numerous train. They insisted much on the promise he had made of submitting to the emperor’s request. Maximus answered, that he was ready to obey the prince in all things that regarded temporal matters. Upon which loud clamors were raised against him, and, after some debate, the patrician Epiphanius addressed him thus: “Hear the envoy of the emperor. All the West, and all those who have been seduced in the East, have their eyes fixed on you. Are you willing to communicate with us, and receive the Typus? We come in person to salute you; we present you our hand, we will wait on you to the cathedral, and, along with you, there receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ, in that solemn manner acknowledging yon our father. We are persuaded that all those who have separated from our communion will no sooner see you communicating with the church of Constantinople than they will follow your example.” “My lord,” said Maximus, directing his discourse to the bishop Theodosius, “we must all appear before the judgment-seat of God. You know the solemn agreement that hath been made between us, ratified on the gospels, on the cross, on the image of Jesus Christ, and that of his holy mother.” “What would you have me do?” answered Theodosius, bowing his head, and in the tone of a flatterer willing to pay his court, “what would you have me Jo, seeing the emperor is of another opinion?” “Why then,” replied Maximus, “did you put your hand on the gospels? For my part, I declare that nothing shall induce me to comply with your demand. What reproaches would I not suffer from my conscience, what answer could I make to God, if I renounced the faith for human respects?’ At these words they all rose up in transports of rage; they fell upon the saint, they buffeted him, they tore his beard, they covered him with spittle and filth from head to foot; so that it was necessary to wash his clothes to remove the infectious stench, which hindered a near approach to him. “It is wrong,” said Theodosius, “to treat him in this unworthy sort, it were enough to report his answer to the emperor.” They then gave over their barbarous treatment, and confined themselves to abusive insolent language. Then Trolus said to the holy abbot, “We only ask you to sign the Typus; believe what you will in your heart.” “It is not to the heart alone,” replied Maximus, “that God hath confined our duty; we are also obliged to confess Jesus Christ before men.” “With my advice,” said Epiphanius, “you would be tied to a stake in the midst of the city, to be bruised and spit upon by the populace.” “If the barbarians left us time to breathe,” said some others, “we would treat you as you deserve, the pope himself, and all your followers.” They all then withdrew, saying, “This man is possessed with the devil; but let us first dine before we make a report of his insolence and obstinacy to the emperor.” The morning after, St. Maximus was sent under a guard of soldiers to Selymbria, and from thence brought to the camp. As it was reported that he denied the Blessed Virgin to be the mother of God, he pronounced anathema against the supporters of such a heresy. He gave instructions in the camp, which were heard with much respect; and all be sought God to grant him the necessary courage to finish happily his course. His guard, seeing how much he was honored, removed him two miles distant; then suffering him to rest a while, they obliged him to mount his horse, and conducted him to Perbere, where they shut him up in a prison. Some time after, Maximus and the two Anastasiuses were brought back again to Constantinople. They were made to appear before a synod of Monothelites, who anathematized them, with the pope Martin, Sophronius, and all those that adhered to them. The sentence pronounced against them ran thus: “Having been canonically condemned, you would justly undergo the severity of the law for your impieties. But although there be no punishments proportioned to your crimes, we choose not to treat you according to the rigor of the law; we touch not your life, abandoning you to the justice of the sovereign Judge. We order the prefect here present, to conduct you to the prtorium, where after having been whipped, your tongue, the instrument of your blasphemies, shall be torn out, and your right hand, with which you have written these blasphemies, cut off. We will that you be afterwards exposed in the twelve wards of the city; then, that you be banished, and imprisoned the remainder of your days, to expiate by tears your sins.” Maximus and the two Anastasiuses having suffered at Constantinople the punishment signified by this sentence, were banished among the Lazi, in the European Sarmatia, towards the Palus Motis.

They arrived at the place of their banishment the 8th of June, 662. They were separated from one another. The monk Anastasius was conducted to Sumas; the torments he had endured, joined to the fatigue of the journey, weakened him so much, that he died the 24th of July of the same year. The other Anastasius did not long survive him. Maximus not being able to ride, or bear the ordinary carriages, was conducted in a litter to a castle called Schemari, near the country of the Alani. He foretold the day of his death, which happened about the end of the same year 662, or at the beginning of the year following. He was fourscore years old. The Greeks celebrate two feasts in his honor; one the 21st of January, and the other the 13th of August. It is this last which Baronius and Baillet assign for the day of his death. But Falconius thinks he died the 21st of January because, according to the Synaxary of the Greeks, the translation of his relics to Constantinople, from the monastery of St. Arsenius, was made on the 13th of August.* See the acts of St. Maximus, the authentic relations of his interrogatories and sufferings, and other ancient pieces concerning his life, ap. Combefis, t. 1; Oper. S. Maximi.

DECEMBER 31 — ST. SYLVESTER, POPE, C

See the Pontifical, published by Anastasius, Rufin, &c.; amongst the moderns, Tillemont, t. 7, p. 267, Orsi, t. 4 and 5.

A. D. 335.

ST. SYLVESTER, whom God appointed to govern his holy church in the first years of her temporal prosperity and triumph over her persecuting enemies, was a native of Rome, and son to Rufinus and Justa. According to the general rule with those who are saints from their cradle, he received early and in his infancy the strongest sentiments of Christian piety from the example, instructions, and care of a virtuous mother, who for his education in the sound maxims and practice of religion, and in sacred literature, put him young into the hands of Charitius or Carinus, a priest of an unexceptionable character and great abilities. Being formed under an excellent master, he entered among the clergy of Rome, and was ordained priest by pope Marcellinus, before the peace of the church was disturbed by Dioclesian, and his associate in the empire. His behavior in those turbulent and dangerous times recommended him to the public esteem, and he saw the triumph of the cross by the victory which Constantine gained over Maxentius within sight of the city of Rome on the 28th of October, 312. Pope Melchiades dying in January, 314, St. Sylvester was exalted to the pontificate, and the same year commissioned four legates, two priests, and two deacons, to represent him at the great council of the Western church, held at Arles in August, in which the schism of the Donatists, which had then subsisted seven years, and the heresy of the Quartodecimans were condemned, and many important points of discipline regulated in twenty-two canons. These decisions were sent by the council before it broke up with an honorable letter to pope Sylvester, and were confirmed by him and published to the whole church.1 The general council of Nice was assembled against Arianism in 325. Socrates,2 Zozomen,3 and Theodoret,4 say that pope Sylvester was not able to come to it in person on account of his great age, but that he sent his legates. Gelasius of Cyzicus5 mentions, that in it “Osius held the place of the bishop of Rome, together with the Roman priests Vito and Vincentius.” These three are named the first in subscriptions of the bishops in the editions or the acts of that counci1,6 and in Socrates, who expressly places them before Alexander, patriarch of Alexandria, and Eustathius, patriarch of Antioch.* St. Sylvester greatly advanced religion by a punctual discharge of all the duties of his exalted station during the space of twenty-one years and eleven months; and died on the 31st of December, 335. He was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla. St. Gregory the Great pronounced his ninth homily on the gospels on his festival, and in a church which was dedicated to God in his memory by Pope Symmachus.7 Pope Sergius II. translated his body into this church, and deposited it under the high altar. Mention is made of an altar consecrated to God in his honor at Verona about the year 500; and his name occurs in the ancient Martyrology called St. Jerom’s, published by Florentinius, and in those of Bede, Ado, Usuard, &c. Pope Gregory IX., in 1227, made his festival general in the Latin church; the Greeks keep it on the 10th of January.

After a prodigious effusion of Christian blood almost all the world over during the space of three hundred years, the persecuting kingdoms at length laid down their arms, and submitted to the faith and worship of a God crucified for us. This ought to be to us a subject of thanksgiving. But do our lives express this faith? Does it triumph in our hearts? It is one of its first precepts that in all our actions we make God our beginning and end, and have only his divine honor and his holy law in view. All our various employments, all our thoughts and designs must be referred to, and terminate in this, as all the lines drawn from the circumference of a circle meet in the centre. We ought therefore so to live that the days, hours, and moments of the year may form a crown made up of good works, which we may offer to God. Our forgetfulness of him who is our last end, in almost all that we do, calls for a sacrifice of compunction in the close of the year: but this cannot be perfect or acceptable to God unless we sincerely devote our whole hearts and lives to his holy love for the time to come. Let us therefore examine into the sources of former omissions, failures, and transgressions, and take effectual measures for our amendment, and for the perfect regulation of all our affections and actions for the future, or that part of our life which may remain.

DECEMBER 31 — S. COLUMBA, V. M

The new Paris Breviary fixes her death either in 258 or in 273. The latter date reduces it to the journey which Aurelian took into Gaul in that year, when he gained a great victory at Chalons. She suffered at Sens. Her relics were kept in the Benedictin abbey till they were dispersed by the Huguenots, together with those of many other saints kept there, as Baillet observes. St. Owen, in his life of St. Eligius, mentions a chapel which bore her name at Paris.

DECEMBER 31 — ST. MELANIA THE YOUNGER

Melania the Elder was of a most noble Spanish family, though descended of a Roman pedigree, and a relation of St. Paulinus of Nola, second to no one in Aquitaine and Spain in riches or nobility. Being married young, she was left a widow at twenty-three years of age. Upon the death of her husband she said to God: “Now, O Lord, I shall be at liberty to devote myself without distraction to thy service.” Having put her son Publicola into the hands of good tutors, she embarked with Rufinus for Egypt in 371: and after spending six months in visiting the monks of those parts, went into Palestine, but so much disguised that the governor of Jerusalem cast her into jail for visiting certain prisoners, till she made herself known to him, and then he treated her with the greatest respect. After some time she built a monastery at Jerusalem, wore a coarse habit, and had no other bed than a rough cloth spread on the floor, without any other cover than a sackcloth. Thus she lived in Palestine twenty-seven years, making prayer and the meditation of the holy scriptures her principal employment. Her son Publicola grew up, and becoming most accomplished in the necessary qualifications of mind and body, was married to Albina, by whom he had two children, a son and a daughter, this latter being our saint. She was married at thirteen years of age to Pinian, the son of Severus, who had been prefect of Rome. Her children both died young, and by her moving discourses and entreaties she gained his consent that they should bind themselves by mutual vows to serve God in perpetual chastity. The elder Melania, at this news, left the East, and returned to Rome, after having been thirty-seven years absent. She was met at Naples by a train of the most illustrious personages of the nobility of Rome, who attended her from thence glittering in rich attire, and sumptuous equipages. The humble Melania travelled at their head, meanly mounted on horseback, and clothed with coarse and threadbare garments. During her stay in Rome it was her first care to caution Pinian and her grand-daughter against the heresies of that age. She stayed in the West four years, during which interval she took a journey into Africa. There she received news of the death of her son Publicola. At her return to Rome she advised Pinian and our saint to give what they possessed to the poor, and to choose some remote retirement. This council they readily embraced, and were imitated by Albina. Avita, a niece of Melania, after converting her husband from the errors of idolatry, induced him to join her in a vow of perpetual continency. Their son Asterius, and their daughter Eunomia, followed the same example. All these fervent and illustrious persons went together to pay a visit to St. Paulinus at Nola. So many wonderful conversions astonished not only Rome, but all Christendom. The elder Melania had no sooner completed this great work, but she hastened back to her dear solitude. The tumult of Rome made that great city seem to her a place of exile, and a true prison; nor was she able to bear the noise of the world, and the distraction of visits. Rufinus accompanied her as far as Sicily, where he died. Melania arrived at Jerusalem, distributed the residue of her money among the poor, and shut herself up in a monastery. But exchanged this mortal life for a better, forty days after, in the year 410, being about sixty eight years old. Melania the Elder seemed some time too warmly engaged with Rufinus in he defence of Origen. The commendations which St. Austin, St. Paulinus, and others bestow on her, bear evidence to her orthodoxy and her edifying virtue, though her name has never been placed among the saints, unless she be meant on the 8th of June in the manuscript calendar mentioned by Chiffletius, as Papebroke and Joseph Assemani1 take notice.

Albina, Melania the Younger, and Pinian first made over their estates in Spain and Gaul, reserving those which they possessed in Italy, Sicily, and Africa. They made free eight thousand of their slaves, and those who would not accept of their freedom, they gave to the brother of Melania. Their most precious furniture they bestowed on churches and altars. Their first retreat was in retired country places in Campania and Sicily, and their time they spent in prayer, reading, and visiting the poor and the sick, in order to comfort and relieve them. For this end they also sold their estates in Italy, and passed into Africa, where they made some stay, first at Carthage, and afterwards at Tagast, under the direction of St. Alypius, who was at that time bishop of this city. In a journey they made to Hippo, to see St. Austin, the people there seized Pinian, demanding that St. Austin would ordain him priest. But he escaped out of their hands, by promising that if he ever took holy orders, it should be to serve their church. The poverty and austerity in which they lived seven years at Tagast, appeared extreme. Melania by degrees arrived at such a habit of long fasting, as often to eat only once a week, and to take nothing but bread and water, except that on solemn occasions to her bread she added a little oil. Their occupation was to read and copy good books; Pinian also tilled his garden. In 417 they left Africa and went to Jerusalem, where they continued the same manner of life. St. Melania buried her mother Albina in 433, and her husband Pinian two years after. She survived him four years, shutting herself up in a monastery of nuns which she built and governed. Her cell was her paradise; yet she left it to go to Constantinople, to convert her uncle Volusian, who was an idolater, and she had the comfort to see him baptized, and die full of hope and holy joy. After she had closed his eyes, she made haste back to Jerusalem. She went to Bethlehem to pass Christmas day at the holy crib, and came back the day following; and found herself seized with her last sickness, which she discovered to those about her. A great number of holy monks and others visited her, whom she exhorted, and when she saw them weep, tenderly comforted. She departed to our Lord in the year 439, the fifty-seventh of her age, on a Sunday, which was the 31st of December, on which day her name stands in the Roman Martyrology. See Palladius in Lausiac, and several letters of St. Paulinus, St. Jerom, St. Austin, &c. Her Greek Acts extant in Metaphrastes are translated in Lipomannus, t. 5. Other Greek acts of the same age are mentioned and commended by Allatius. See Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. t. 6, p. 548, and Fontanini, Hist. Eccl. Aqui1.1. 4.