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

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

JUNE 1 — ST. JUSTIN THE PHILOSOPHER, M

From the life of the saint, compiled from his writings by Dom. Marand, the learned and judicious editor of St. Justin’s works, printed at Paris in 1742; and at Venice in 1747. Also from Tatian Eusebius, and the original short acts of his martyrdom, in Ruinart. On his writings, see Dom. Nourry, Apparatus is Bibl. Patr. Ceillier, and Marechal, Concordance des Pères, t. 1.

A. D. 167.

ST. JUSTIN was born at Neapolis, now Naplosa, the ancient Sichem, and formerly the capital of the province of Samaria. Vespasian, having endowed its inhabitants with the privileges belonging to Roman citizens, gave it the name of Flavia. His son Titus sent thither a colony of Greeks, among whom were the father and grandfather of our saint. His father, a heathen,* brought him up in the errors and superstitions of paganism, but at the same time did not neglect to cultivate his mind by several branches of human literature. St. Justin accordingly informs us,1 that he spent his youth in reading the poets, orators, and historians. Having gone through the usual course of these studies, he gave himself up to that of philosophy in quest of truth, an ardent love of which was his predominant passion. He addressed himself first to a master who was a Stoic; and after having stayed some time with him, seeing he could learn nothing of him concerning God, he left him, and went to a Peripatetic, a very subtle man in his own conceit: but Justin, being desired the second day after admission, to fix his master’s salary, that he might know what he was to be allowed for his pains in teaching him, he left him also, concluding that he was no philosopher. He then tried a Pythagorean, who had a great reputation, and who boasted much of his wisdom; but he required of his scholar, as a necessary preliminary to his admission, that he should have learned music, astronomy, and geometry. Justin could not bear such delays in the search of God, and preferred the school of an Academic, under whom he made great progress in the Platonic philosophy, and vainly flattered himself with the hope of arriving in a short time at the sight of God, which the Platonic philosophy seemed to have had chiefly in view. Walking one day by the sea-side, for the advantage of a greater freedom from noise and tumult, he saw, as he turned about, an old man who followed him pretty close. His appearance was majestic, and had a great mixture in it of mildness and gravity. Justin looking on him very attentively, the man asked him if he knew him. Justin answered in the negative. “Why then,” said he, “do you look so steadfastly upon me?” Justin replied: “It is the effect of my surprise to meet any human creature in this remote and solitary place.” “What brought me hither,” said that old man, “was my concern for some of my friends. They are gone a journey, and I am come hither to look out for them.”† They then fell into a long discourse concerning the excellency of philosophy in general, and of the Platonic in particular, which Justin asserted to be the only true way to happiness, and of knowing and seeing God. This the grave person refuted at large, and at length by the force of his arguments convinced him that those philosophers whom he had the greatest esteem for, Plato and Pythagoras, had been mistaken in their principles, and had not a thorough knowledge of God and of the soul of man, nor could they in consequence communicate it to others. This drew from him the important query, Who were the likeliest persons to set him in the right way? The stranger answered, that long before the existence of these reputed philosophers, there were certain blessed men, lovers of God, and divinely inspired, called prophets, on account of their foretelling things which have since come to pass; whose books, yet extant, contain many solid instructions about the first cause and end of all things, and many other particulars becoming a philosopher to know. That their miracles and their predictions had procured them such credit, that they established truth by authority, and not by disputes and elaborate demonstrations of human reason, of which few men are capable. That they inculcated the belief of one only God, the Father and author of all things, and of his Son Jesus Christ, whom he had sent into the world. He concluded his discourse with this advice: “As for thyself, above all things, pray that the gates of life may be opened unto thee: for these are not things to be discerned, unless God and Christ grant to a man the knowledge of them.” After these words he departed, and Justin saw him no more: but his conversation left a deep impression on the young philosopher’s soul, and kindled there an ardent affection for these true philosophers, the prophets. And upon a further inquiry into the credibility of the Christian religion, he embraced it soon after. What had also no small weight in persuading him of the truth of the Christian faith, was the innocence and true virtue of its professors; seeing with what courage and constancy, rather than to betray their religion, or commit the least sin, they suffered the sharpest tortures, and encountered, nay, even courted death itself, in its most horrible shapes. “When I heard the Christians traduced and reproached,” says he, “yet saw them fearless and rushing on death, and on all things that are accounted most dreadful to human nature, I concluded with myself that it was impossible those men should wallow in vice, and be carried away with the love of lust and pleasure.”2 Justin, by the course of his studies, must have been grown up when he was converted to the faith. Tillemont and Marand understand, by an obscure passage in St. Epiphanius,3 that he was in the thirtieth year of his age.*

St. Justin, after he became a Christian, continued to wear the pallium, or cloak, as Eusebius and St. Jerom inform us, which was the singular badge of a philosopher. Aristides, the Athenian philosopher and a Christian, did the same; so did Heraclas, even when he was bishop of Alexandria. St. Epiphanius calls St. Justin a great ascetic, or one who professed a most austere and holy life. He came to Rome soon after his conversion, probably from Egypt. Tillemont and Dom. Marand think that he was a priest, from his description of baptism, and the account he gave at his trial of people resorting to his house for instruction. This, however, is uncertain; and Ceillier concludes, from the silence of the ancients on this head, that he was always a layman: but he seems to have preached, and therefore to have been at least deacon. His discourse, or oration to the Greeks,4 he wrote soon after his conversion, in order to convince the heathens of the reasonableness of his having deserted paganism. He urges the absurdity of idolatry, and the inconsistency of ascribing lewdness and other crimes to their deities: on the other hand, he declares his admiration of, and reverence for, the purity and sanctity of the Christian doctrine, and the awful majesty of the divine writings which still the passions, and fix in a happy tranquillity the mind of man, which finds itself everywhere else restless. His second work is called his Parænesis, or Exhortation to the Greeks, which he drew up at Rome: in this he employs the flowers of eloquence, which even in his apologies he despises. In it he shows the errors of idolatry, and the vanity of the heathen philosophers; reproaches Plato with making an harangue to the Athenians, in which he pretended to establish a multitude of gods, only to escape the fate of Socrates; while it is clear, from his writings, that he believed one only God. He transcribes the words of Orpheus the Sibyl, Homer, Sophocles, Pythagoras, Plato, Mercury, and Acmon, or rather Ammon, in which they profess the unity of the Deity. He wrote his book on Monarchy,5 expressly to prove the unity of God, from the testimonies and reasons of the heathen philosophers themselves. The epistle to Diognetus is an incomparable work of primitive antiquity, attributed to St. Justin by all the ancient copies, and doubtless genuine, as Dr. Cave, Ceillier, Marand. &c., show; though the style is more elegant and florid than the other works of this father. Indeed it is not mentioned by Eusebius and St. Jerom; but neither do they mention the works of Athenagoras. And what wonder that, the art of printing not being as yet discovered, some writings should have escaped their notice? Tillemont fancies the author of this piece to be more ancient, because he calls himself a disciple of the apostles: but St. Justin might assume that title, who lived contemporary with St. Polycarp, and others, who had seen some of them. This Diognetus was a learned philosopher, a person of great rank, and preceptor to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, who always consulted and exceedingly honored him. Dom. Nourry6 mistakes grossly, when he calls him a Jew: for in this very epistle is he styled an adorer of gods. This great man was desirous to know upon what assurances the Christians despised the world, and even torments and death, and showed to one another a mutual love, which appeared wonderful to the rest of mankind, for it rendered them seemingly insensible to the greatest injuries. St. Justin, to satisfy him, demonstrates the folly of idolatry, and the imperfection of the Jewish worship and sets forth the sanctity practised by the Christians, especially their humility, meekness, love of those who hate them without so much as knowing any reason of their hatred, &c. He adds, that their numbers and virtue are increased by tortures and massacres, and explains clearly the divinity of Christ,7 the maker of all things, and Son of God. He shows that by reason alone we could never attain to the true knowledge of God, who sent his Son to teach us his holy mysteries; and, when we deserved only chastisement, to pay the full price of our redemption;—the holy One to suffer for sinners,—the person offended for the offenders? and when no other means could satisfy for our crimes, we were covered under the wings of justice itself, and rescued from slavery. He extols exceedingly the immense goodness and love of God for man, in creating him, and the world for his use; in subjecting to him other things, and in sending his only-begotten Son with the promise of his kingdom, to those who shall have loved him. “But after you shall have known him,” says he, “with what inexpressible joy do you think you will be filled! How ardently will you love him who first loved you! And when you shall love him, you will be an imitator of his goodness. He who bears the burdens of others, assists all, humbles himself to all, even to his inferiors, and supplies the wants of the poor with what he has received from God, is truly the imitator of God. Then will you see on earth that God governs the world; you will know his mysteries, and will love and admire those who suffer for him: you will condemn the imposture of the world, and despise death, only fearing eternal death, in never-ending fire. When you know that fire, you will call those blessed who here suffer flames for justice. I speak not of things to which I am a stranger, but having been a disciple of the apostles, I am a teacher of nations, &c.”

St. Justin made a long stay in Rome, dwelling near the Timothin baths, on the Viminal hill. The Christians met in his house to perform their devotions, and he applied himself with great zeal to the instruction of all those who resorted to him. Evelpistus, who suffered with him, owned at his examination that he had heard with pleasure Justin’s discourses. The judge was acquainted with his zeal, when he asked him, in what place he assembled his disciples. Not content with laboring in the conversion of Jews and Gentiles, he exerted his endeavors in defending the Catholic faith against all the heresies of that age. His excellent volumes against Marcion, as they are styled by St. Jerom, are now lost, with several other works commended by the ancients. The martyr, after his first Apology, left Rome, and probably performed the functions of an evangelist, in many countries, for several years. In the reign of Antoninus Pius, being at Ephesus, and casually meeting, in the walks of Xistus, Tryphon, whom Eusebius calls the most celebrated Jew of that age, and who was a famous philosopher, he fell into discourse with him, which brought on a disputation, which was held in the presence of several witnesses during two entire days. St. Justin afterwards committed to writing this dialogue with Tryphon, which work is a simple narrative of a familiar unstudied conversation. Tryphon, seeing Justin in the philosopher’s cloak, addressed him on the excellency of philosophy. The saint answered, that he admired he should not rather study Moses and the prophets, in comparison of whom all the writings of the philosophers are empty jargon and foolish dreams. Then, in the first part of his dialogue, he showed, that, according to the prophets, the old law was temporary, and to be abolished by the new: and in the second, that Christ was God before all ages, distinct from the Father,—the same that appeared to Abraham, Moses, &c., the same that created man, and was himself made man, and crucified. He insists much on that passage, Behold, a virgin shall conceive.8 From the beginning of the conversation, Tryphon had allowed that from the prophets it was clear that Christ must be then come; but he said, that he had not yet manifested himself to the world.9 So evident was it that the time of his coming must be then elapsed, that no Jew durst deny it, as Fleury observes From the Apocalypse and Isaiah, by a mistaken interpretation, Justin inferred the futurity of the Millennium, or of Christ’s reign upon earth for a thousand years, before the day of judgment, with his elect, in spiritual, chaste delights: but adds, that this was not admitted by many true orthodox believers.10 This point was afterwards cleared up, and that mistake of some few corrected and exploded, by consulting the tradition of the whole church. In the third part, St. Justin proves the vocation of the Gentiles, and the establishment of the church. Night putting an end to the conversation, Tryphon thanked Justin, and prayed for his happy voyage: for he was going to sea. By some mistakes made by St. Justin in the etymologies, or derivation of certain Hebrew names, it appears that he was a stranger to that language. The Socinians dread the authority of this work, on account of the clear proofs which it furnishes of the divinity of Christ. St. Justin testifies11 that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, of curing the sick, and casting out devils in the name of Christ, were then frequent in the church. He excludes from salvation wilful heretics no less than infidels.

But the Apologies of this martyr have chiefly rendered his name illustrious. The first or greater, (which by the first editors was, through mistake, placed and called the second,) he addressed to the emperor Antoninus Pius, his two adopted sons, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus, and the senate, about the year 150. That mild emperor had published no edicts against the Christians; but, by virtue of former edicts, they were often persecuted by the governors, and were everywhere traduced as a wicked and barbarous set of people, enemies to their very species. They were deemed atheists; they were accused of practising secret lewdness, which slander seems to have been founded on the secrecy of their mysteries, and partly on the filthy abominations of the Gnostic and Carpocratian heretics: they were said in their sacred assemblies to feed on the flesh of a murdered child; to which calumny a false notion of the blessed eucharist might give birth. Celsus and other heathens add,12 that they adored the cross, and the head of an ass. The story of the ass’s head was a groundless calumny, forged by a Jew, who pretended to have seen their mysteries, which was readily believed and propagated by those whose interest it was to decry the Christian religion, as Eusebius,13 St. Justin, Origen, and Tertullian relate. The respect shown to the sign of the cross, mentioned by Tertullian and all the ancient fathers, seems ground enough for the other slander. These calumnies were advanced with such confidence, and, through passion and prejudice, received so eagerly, that they served for a pretence to justify the cruelty of the persecutors, and to render the very name of a Christian odious. These circumstances stirred up the zeal of St. Justin to present his apology for the faith in writing, begging that the same might be made public. In it he boldly declares himself a Christian, and an advocate for his religion: he shows that Christians ought not to be condemned barely for the name of Christian, unless convicted of some crime; that they are not atheists, though they adore not idols; for they adore God the Father, his Son, and the Holy Ghost,14 and the host of good angels.* He exhorts the emperor to hold the balance even, in the execution of justice; and sets forth the sanctity of the doctrine and manners of Christians, who fly all oaths, abhor the least impurity, despise riches, are patient and meek, love even enemies, readily pay all taxes, and scrupulously and respectfully obey and honor princes, &c. Far from eating children, they even condemned those that exposed them.† He proves their regard for purity from the numbers among them of both sexes who had observed strict chastity to an advanced age. He explains the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the flesh, and shows from the ancient prophets that God was to become man, and that they had foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, the vocation of the Gentiles, &c. He mentions a statue erected in Rome to Simon Magus, which is also testified by Tertullian, Saint Austin, Theodoret, &c.15 The necessity of vindicating our faith from slanders, obliged him, contrary to the custom of the primitive church, to describe the sacraments of baptism and the blessed eucharist, mentioning the latter also as a sacrifice. “No one,” says he,16 “is allowed to partake of this food but he that believes our doctrines to be true, and who has been baptized in the laver of regeneration for remission of sins, and lives up to what Christ has taught. For we take not these as common bread and common drink; but like as Jesus Christ our Saviour, being incarnate by the word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation; so are we taught that this food, by which our flesh and blood are nourished, over which thanks have been given by the prayers in his own words, is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus.” He describes the manner of sanctifying the Sunday, by meeting to celebrate the divine mysteries, read the prophets, hear the exhortation of him that presides, and make a collection of alms to be distributed among the orphans, widows, sick, prisoners, and strangers. He adds the obscure edict of the emperor Adrian in favor of the Christians. It appears that this Apology had its desired effect—the quiet of the church. Eusebius informs us,17 that the same emperor sent into Asia a rescript to the following purport: “When many governors of provinces had written to my father, he forbade them (the Christians) to be molested, unless they had offended against the state. The same answer I gave when consulted before on the same subject. If any one accuse a person of being a Christian, it is my pleasure that he be acquitted, and the accuser chastised, according to the rigor of the law.” Orosius and Zonaras tell us, that Antoninus was prevailed upon by the Apology of Justin to send this order.

He composed his second Apology near twenty years after, in 167, on account of the martyrdom of one Ptolemy, and two other Christians, whom Urbicus, the governor of Rome, had put to death. The saint offered it to the emperor Marcus Aurelius (his colleague Lucius Verus being absent in the East) and to the senate. He undertakes in it to prove that the Christians were unjustly punished with death, and shows how much their lives and doctrine surpassed the philosophers, and that they could never embrace death with so much cheerfulness and joy, had they been guilty of the crimes laid to their charge. Even Socrates, notwithstanding the multitude of disciples that followed him, never found one that died in defence of his doctrine. The apologist added boldly, that he expected death would be the recompense of his Apology, and that he should fall a victim to the snares and rage of some or other of the implacable enemies of the religion for which he pleaded; among whom he named Crescens, a philosopher in name, but an ignorant man, and a slave to pride and ostentation. His martyrdom, as he had conjectured, was the recompense of this Apology: it happened soon after he presented this discourse, and probably was procured by the malice of those of whom he spoke. The genuine acts seem to have been taken from the prætor’s public register. The relation is as follows:

Justin and others that were with him were apprehended, and brought before Rusticus, prefect of Rome, who said to Justin, “Obey the gods, and comply with the edicts of the emperors.” Justin answered, “No one can be justly blamed or condemned for obeying the commands of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” RUSTICUS—“What kind of literature and discipline do you profess?” JUSTIN—“I have tried every kind of discipline and learning, but I have finally embraced the Christian discipline, how little soever esteemed by those who were led away by error and false opinions” RUSTICUS—“Wretch, art thou then taken with that discipline?” JUSTIN—“Doubtles I am, because it affords me the comfort of being in the right path.” RUSTICUS—“What are the tenets of the Christian religion?” JUSTIN—“We Christians believe one God, Creator of all things visible and invisible; and we confess our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, foretold by the prophets, the Author and Preacher of salvation, and the Judge of mankind.” The prefect inquired in what place the Christians assembled. Justin replied, “Where they please, and where they can: God is not confined to a place: as he is invisible, and fills both heaven and earth, he is everywhere adored and glorified by the faithful.” RUSTICUS—“Tell me where you assemble your disciples.” JUSTIN—“I have lived till this time near the house of one called Martin, at the Timothin baths. I am come a second time to Rome, and am acquainted with no other place in the city. If any one came to me, I communicated to him the doctrine of truth.” RUSTICUS—“You are then a Christian?” JUSTIN—“Yes, I am.” The judge then put the same question to each of the rest, viz., Chariton, a man; Charitana, a woman; Evelpistus, a servant of Cæsar, by birth a Cappadocian; Hierax, a Phrygian; Peon, and Liberianus, who all answered, “that, by the divine mercy, they were Christians.” Evelpistus said he had learned the faith from his parents, but had with great pleasure heard Justin’s discourses. Then the prefect addressed himself again to Justin in this manner: “Hear you, who are noted for your eloquence, and think you make profession of the right philosophy, if I cause you to be scourged from head to foot, do you think you shall go to heaven?” Justin replied, “If I suffer what you mention, I hope to receive the reward which those have already received who have observed the precepts of Jesus Christ.” Rusticus said, “You imagine then that you shall go to heaven, and be there rewarded.” The martyr answered, “I do not only imagine it, but I know it; and am so well assured of it, that I have no reason to make the least doubt of it.” The prefect seeing it was to no purpose to argue, bade them go together and unanimously sacrifice to the gods, and told them that in case of refusal they should be tormented without mercy. Justin replied, “There is nothing which we more earnestly desire than to endure torments for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; for this is what will promote our happiness, and give us confidence at his bar, where all men must appear to be judged.” To this the rest assented, adding, “Do quickly what you are about. We are Christians, and will never sacrifice to idols.” The prefect thereupon ordered them to be scourged and then beheaded, as the laws directed. The martyrs were forthwith led to the place where criminals were executed, and there, amidst the praises and thanksgivings which they did not cease to pour forth to God, were first scourged, and afterwards beheaded. After their martyrdom, certain Christians carried off their bodies privately, and gave them an honorable burial. St. Justin is one of the most ancient fathers of the church who has left us works of any considerable note.* Tatian, his disciple, writes, that, of all men, he was the most worthy of admiration.18 Eusebius, St. Jerom, St. Epiphanius, Theodoret, &c., bestow on him the highest praises. He suffered about the year 167, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. The Greeks honor him on the 1st of June; in Usuard and the Roman Martyrology his name occurs on the 13th of April.

St. Justin extols the power of divine grace in the virtue of Christians, among whom many who were then sixty years old, had served God from their infancy in a state of spotless virginity, having never offended against that virtue, not only in action, but not even in thought: for our very thoughts are known to God.19 They could not be defiled with any inordinate love of riches, who threw their own private revenues into the common stock, sharing it with the poor.20 So great was their abhorrence of the least wilful untruth, that they were always ready rather to die than to save their lives by a lie.21 Their fidelity to God was inviolable, and their constancy in confessing his holy name, and in observing his law, invincible. “No one,” says the saint,22 “can affright from their duty those who believe in Jesus. In all parts of the earth we cease not to confess him, though we lose our heads, be crucified, or exposed to wild beasts. We suffer dungeons, fire, and all manner of torments: the more we are persecuted, the more faithful and the more pious we become, through the name of Jesus. Some adore the sun: but no one yet saw any one lay down his life for that worship; whereas we see men of all nations suffer all things for Jesus Christ.” He often mentions the devotion and fervor of Christians in glorifying God by their continual homages, and says, that the light of the gospel being then spread everywhere, there was no nation, either of Greeks or barbarians, in which prayers and thanksgivings were not offered to the Creator in the name of the crucified Jesus.23

JUNE 1 — SAINT PAMPHILUS, PRIEST AND MARTYR

From Eusebius, St. Jerom, &c. See Ceillier, t. 3, p. 435.

A. D. 309.

LEARNING is truly valuable when sanctified by piety, and consecrated to the divine honor, to which St. Pamphilus devoted himself and all his labors. He was of a rich and honorable family, and a native of Berytus; in which city, at that time famous for its schools, he in his youth ran through the whole circle of the sciences, and was afterwards honored with the first employments of the magistracy. After he began to know Christ, he could relish no other study but that of salvation, and renounced every thing else that he might apply himself wholly to the exercises of virtue, and the studies of the holy scriptures. This accomplished master in profane sciences, and this renowned magistrate, was not ashamed to become the humble scholar of Pierius, the successor of Origen in the great catechetical school of Alexandria. He afterwards made Cæsarea in Palestine his residence, where, at his private expense, he collected a great library which he bestowed on the church of that city. St. Isidore of Seville reckons that it contained near thirty thousand volumes. Almost all the works of the ancients were found in it. The saint established there also a public school of sacred literature, and to his labors the church was indebted for a most correct edition of the holy Bible, which, with infinite care, he transcribed himself; many copies whereof he distributed gratis; for he was of all men the most communicative and beneficent, especially in encouraging sacred learning.* He set a great value on the works of Origen, many of which he copied with his own hand. During his imprisonment, he, with Eusebius composed an Apology for Origen in five books; of which the first, in Rufinus’s Latin translation, is extant among the works of St. Jerom, and is a finished piece.† But nothing was more remarkable in this saint than his extraordinary humility, as Eusebius often observes; which the saint himself feelingly expresses in his preface to an abridgment of the Acts of the Apostles. His paternal estate he at length distributed among the poor: towards his slaves and domestics his behavior was always that of a brother or tender father. He led a most austere life, sequestered from the world and its company; and was indefatigable in labor. Such a virtue was his apprenticeship to the grace of martyrdom.

In the year 307, Urbanus, the cruel governor of Palestine, caused him to be apprehended, and after hearing an essay of his eloquence and erudition, commanded him to be most inhumanly tormented. But the iron hooks which tore the martyr’s sides, served only to cover the judge with confusion. After this the saint remained almost two years in prison, with several fellow-confessors, of whom two, who were only catechumens, were at the same time purified and crowned by the baptism of fire. Soon after the torturing of St. Pamphilus, Urbanus the governor was himself beheaded by an order of the emperor Maximinus; but was succeeded by Firmilian, a man not less barbarous than bigoted and superstitious. After several butcheries, he caused St. Pamphilus and Valens, deacon of the church of Jerusalem, a venerable old man, who could repeat the whole Bible by heart, and Paul of Jamnia, a man of extraordinary zeal and fervor, to be brought before him; and finding them still firm in their faith, without putting them again to the rack, passed sentence of death upon them; yet several others suffered before them. For one Porphyrius, a virtuous slave of St. Pamphilus, whom the saint had always treated as a son, and who, out of humility, concealed his abilities, and his skill in writing, asked the judge’s leave to bury their bodies when they should have undergone their punishment. Firmilian, more like a tiger than a man, inquired if he was a Christian, and upon his confessing it, ordered the executioners to torment him with their utmost strength. But though his flesh was torn off to the very bones, and his naked bowels exposed to view, and the torments were continued a long time without intermission, he never once opened his mouth so much as to fetch one groan. He finished his martyrdom by a slow fire, and died invoking Jesus the Son of God. Thus, though he entered the lists after the rest, he arrived first at the crown. Seleucus, a Cappadocian, for carrying the news of the triumph of Porphyrius to St. Pamphilus, and for applauding the martyr’s constancy, was condemned to be beheaded with the rest. He had formerly borne several employments in the army, and had been scourged for the faith in 298; after which time he had lived a father and protector of the poor. Firmilian had in his family a servant, named Theodulus, whom he loved above all the rest of his domestics, for his probity and virtue; but being informed that he was a Christian, and had embraced one of the martyrs, he condemned him to be crucified on the same day. Julian, a zealous Cappadocian catechumen, for embracing the dead bodies of the martyrs in the evening, was burned at a slow fire, as Porphyrius had been. St. Pamphilus, with his companions above named, was beheaded on the 16th of February, 309; the others here mentioned all suffered on the same day. The bodies of these martyrs were left exposed to be devoured by wild beasts; but were not touched by them, and after four days, were taken away and decently buried. Eusebius of Cæsarea, the church historian, who had been fellow prisoner with St. Pamphilus, out of respect to his memory took the surname of Pamphili. Besides what he has said of this martyr in his history, he compiled three books of his life, which are much commended by St. Jerom, who calls them elegant, and says, that in them he excellently set forth the virtues, especially the extraordinary humility of St. Pamphilus. But this work is now lost, though Metaphrastes seems to have borrowed from it his account of this saint.

A cloud of witnesses, a noble army of martyrs, by which we are encompassed, teach us by their constancy to suffer wrong with patience, and strenuously to resist evil. Yet so far are we from bearing the crown which is purchased by patience and constancy, and so slothful in watching over ourselves, that we every day suffer the least dust or flies to ruffle our souls, and rob us of our treasure. The daily trials we meet with from others or from ourselves, are always sent us by God, who sometimes, like a tender parent, trains us up by strict discipline to virtue and glory; sometimes throws difficulties into our ways on purpose to reward our conquest; and sometimes, like a wise physician, restores us to our health by bitter potions. If he at any time punishes our contempt of his love and mercy by severity and chastisements, even these he inflicts in mercy to awake us from our dangerous spiritual lethargy, and to procure us many other spiritual advantages.

JUNE 1 — ST. CAPRAIS, ABBOT

He was the spiritual master and guide of St. Honoratus, and died soon after him in the isle of Lerins, in 430. His sanctity is much extolled by St. Hilary of Arles, who assisted at his death, and others, and his name is commemorated in the Roman and Gallicau Martyrologies on the 1st of June. See Berault’s Chronicle of Lerins, the life of St. Honoratus, Surius, and Giry.

JUNE 1 — ST. PETER OF PISA, FOUNDER OF THE HERMITS OF ST. JEROM

He was born at Pisa in 1355, while his father, Peter Gambacorta, enjoyed the sovereign authority in that commonwealth. Being twenty-five years old, he privately left his father’s court, disguised in the habit of a poor penitent, and retired to Monte-bello, an agreeable solitude in Umbria. He begged his subsistence in the neighboring village, and, in 1380, found means to build a church, and twelve cells for so many companions who had joined him. He chose St. Jerom for the patron of his congregation, because that father having visited the hermitages of all Egypt and Syria, selected out of each what seemed to him the most perfect in every exercise. Peter prescribed to his monks four Lents in the year, and to fast on all Monday Wednesdays, and Fridays; to continue in prayer two hours after matins, at night. &c. As to himself, his whole time was devoted to the exercises of prayer, and his life was most austere. F. Sajanello relates many miracles performed by him, and gives an edifying account of his eminent virtues. His congregation was approved by Martin V. in 1421. His father and two brothers being assassinated by their secretary in 1393, he was tempted to leave his desert to do justice to his family and country: but by redoubling his fervor in his holy exercises, he overcame that suggestion of the devil He died in 1435, being eighty years old: was styled Blessed by Pius V. and Clement VIII., and a solemn decree of his beatification was published by Innocent XII. in 1693. His congregation is much spread in Italy. The order of St. Jerom of Fiesoli, instituted by the Ven. Charles of Montegraneli, a noble Florentine, was united to it by Clement IX. in 1668. There are also hermits of St. Jerom in Spain, of a like institute. They follow the rule of the hermits of St. Austin; but adopt certain constitutions gathered from the works of St. Jerom. See Helyot, and Historica Monumenta Ordinis S. Hieronymi Congr.; B. Petri de Pisis, auctore Jo. Baptista Sajanello, ej. Ordinis; Patavini Collegii Doctore Theologo., Venetiis. anno 1758, t. 1; also his life, written about the year 1500, published by the Bollandists on the 14th of June, and many other authors quoted by Benedict XIV.,1. 2, de Canoniz. c. 24, p. 239.

JUNE 1 — ST. WISTAN, PRINCE OF MERCIA, M

Witlas, king of Mercia, in England, from the year 826 to 839, had a son named Wimund, whom he survived. Both were buried in the abbey of Rependon, called Repton, in Derbyshire. Wimund left a son named Wistan; but on account of the Danish wars, this prince, being then a child, was set aside, and Bertulph, brother to Witlas, placed on the throne, by the consent of the Thanes or noblemen, and by the authority of Ethelwolph, king of the West-Saxons, to whom Mercia was then tributary. Wistan turned all his thoughts towards a heavenly kingdom which will have no end; but Bertulph, like another Herod, feared lest Wistan should be called to the crown at least at his death, and contrived to have him treacherously assassinated His son Berfert, or Brithfard, whom he designed to leave his heir, perpetrated the crime. Having invited the pious prince to meet him at a place called from that time to this day, says Capgrave, Wistanostowe, while the saint saluted him with a kiss of peace, he took out a sword which he carried secretly under his cloak, and with a violent blow cut off the upper part of his head. One of the assassin’s attendants dispatched the martyr, by stabbing him through the body. This happened on the 1st of June, 849. Before the end of that year Ethelwolph, alleging that Bertulph was not sufficiently accomplished in the art of war to defend the country against the infidels, deposed him, and bestowed the crown on Burrhed, the last king of Mercia. The body of St. Wistan was buried by the care of his mother Enfleda, daughter of Celwulph, at Repton, and honored with many miracles. It was some years after translated to the monastery of Evesham. See Ingulph, Malmesbury the monk of Westminster, and Brompton, by whose histories several circumstances of the legend of St. Wistan in Capgrave are to be corrected.

JUNE 2 — SS. POTHINUS, BISHOP, SANCTUS, ATTALUS, BLANDINA, AND THE OTHER MARTYRS OF LYONS

From the Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons to their brethren in Asia and Phrygia, extant though imperfect, in Eusebius’s Hist. b. 5, ch. 1, 2, 3, one of the most precious and most moving monuments of the primitive ages, as Jos. Scaliger observes, in his notes on the Chronicle of Eusebius.

A. D. 177.

AFTER the miraculous victory obtained by the prayers of the Christians under Marcus Aurelius, in 174, the church enjoyed a kind of peace, though it was often disturbed in particular places by popular commotions, or by the superstitious fury of certain governors. This appears from the violent persecution which was raised three years after the aforesaid victory, at Vienne and Lyons, in Gaul, in 177; while St. Pothinus was bishop of Lyons, and St. Irenæus, who had been sent thither by St. Polycarp out of Asia,1 was a priest of that city. Many of the principal persons of this church were Greeks, and came from Asia; being doubtless led by a zealous desire to propagate the kingdom of Christ, and invited by the great intercourse of traffic between the ports of Asia and Marseilles. The progress which the gospel had made, and the eminent sanctity of those who professed it in that country, enraged the devil, and stirred up the malice of the idolaters, who, in a transport of sudden fury, resolved to extirpate their very name; not knowing that the church of Christ, planted by his cross, grew more fruitful by the sufferings of its children, as a vine flourishes by being pruned. The conflicts of the glorious martyrs, who on this occasion had the honor to seal their faith with their blood, were recorded by those who were eye-witnesses, and the companions of their sufferings, in a letter written by them on purpose to their old friends and brethren, the Christians of Asia and Phrygia. The piety, eloquence, and animated style of this epistle, seems to leave no doubt but that St. Irenæus was the principal author.2 According to the remark of a modern historian,3 the combats of the martyrs are here painted in so lively colors, that their spirit appears, as it were, living in the dead letter, and their blood spilt for Jesus Christ seems to shine throughout the relation.

It is impossible, say the authors of this letter, for us to give an exact account, nor will it be easy to conceive the extent of our present calamities, the rage of the Pagans against the saints, and the sufferings of the holy martyrs among us. For the adversary directs his whole force against us and lets us see already what we are to expect when he is let loose, and allowed to attack the church in the end of the world. He makes his assaults boldly, and stirs up his agents against the servants of God Their animosity runs so high, that we are not only driven from private houses, from the baths and public places, but even forbid to show ourselves at all. But the grace of God, which is an overmatch for all the powers of hell, hath rescued the weak from the danger, and from the temptation of the fiery trial.* and exposed such only to the combat as are able by an invincible patience to stand their ground, like so many unshaken pillars of the faith, and dare even invite sufferings, and defy all the malice and strength of the enemy. These champions have fought the powers of darkness with success, bore all manner of infamy, and the most inhuman torments, looked on all their sufferings as nothing, but rushed through them with an intrepidity that spoke them thoroughly persuaded that all the miseries of this life are not fit to be allowed any consideration, when weighed against the glory of the world to come. At first, the people attacked them in a tumultuous manner, struck them, dragged them about the streets, threw stones at them, plundered, confined them, fell on them with all the exorbitances of an incensed mob, when allowed to take their own revenge of their enemies; all which the Christians bore with an inexpressible patience. After this first discharge of their rage, they proceeded more regularly. The tribune and the magistrates of the town ordered them to appear in the public place, where they were examined before the populace, made a glorious confession of their faith, and then were sent to prison, where they were to wait the arrival of the governor. When that judge came to town, they were carried before him, and used with so much cruelty, that Vettius Epagathus,* one of our number, fired with a holy resentment at our treatment, desired to be heard on that subject. He was full of the love of God and his neighbor; a man so exactly virtuous, that, though young, the character of old Zacharias might justly be applied to him; for he walked in all the commandments blameless. His heart was inflamed with an ardent zeal for the glory of God; and he was active and indefatigable whenever his neighbor wanted his assistance. This excellent person undertook the defence of the injured brethren; and promised to make it appear, that the Christians were guilty of no impious practices. But the whole crowd, who were too well acquainted with his merit, opposed the motion in a noisy and tumultuous manner; and the governor, determined not to grant him that reasonable request, which impeached him and his associates for injustice, interrupted him, by asking whether he was a Christian. Upon his declaring his faith boldly, he was ranked among the martyrs, with the additional title of The Advocate of the Christians; which, indeed, was justly his due. And now it was easy to distinguish between such as came thither well provided for the trial, and resolved to suffer all extremities; and such as were not prepared for the battle. The former finished their glorious course with the utmost alacrity; while the latter started back at the near view of what was prepared for them upon persevering in the faith, and quitted the field; which was the case of ten persons. Their cowardice and apostacy not only proved an inexpressible affliction to us, but also cooled the zeal of several, who were not yet apprehended, and had employed their liberty in a constant attendance on the martyrs, in spite of all the dangers to which their charity might expose them. We were all now in the utmost consternation, which did not arise from the fear of torments, but the apprehension of losing more of our number in the way. But our late loss was abundantly repaired by fresh supplies of generous martyrs, who were seized every day, till our two churches were deprived of all their eminent men, whom we had been used to look on as the main support of religion among us.

As the governor’s orders for letting none of us escape were very strict, several Pagans in the service of Christians were taken with their masters. These slaves, fearing they should be put to the same torments, which they saw the saints endure, at the instigation of the devil and the soldiers, accused us of feeding on human flesh, like Thyestes, engaging in incestuous marriages, like Œdipus, and several other impious extravagances, which the principles of our religion forbid us to mention, or even think of, and which we can hardly persuade ourselves were ever committed by men. These calumnies being divulged, the people were so outrageously incensed against us, that they who till then had retained some sparks of friendship for us, were transported against us with hatred, and foamed with rage. It is impossible to express the severity of what the ministers of Satan inflicted on the holy martyrs on this occasion, to force some blasphemous expression from their mouths. The fury of the governor, the soldiers, and the people, fell most heavy upon Sanctus, a native of Vienne, and a deacon: also on Maturus, who, though but lately baptized, was yet bold and strong enough for the combat; on Attalus, a native of Pergamus, but who had ever been the pillar and support of our church: and on Blandina, a slave, in whom Christ has shown us that those whom men look on with contempt, and whose condition places them below the regard of the world, are often raised to the highest honors by Almighty God for their ardent love of him, manifested more by works than words or empty show. She was of so weak a constitution, that we were all alarmed for her, and her mistress, one of the martyrs, was full of apprehensions that she would not have the courage and resolution to make a free and open confession of her faith. But Blandina was so powerfully assisted and strengthened, that she bore all the torments her executioners, who relieved each other, could ply her with from break of day till night; they owned themselves conquered, protested they had no more torments in reserve, and wondered how she could live after what she had endured from their hands; declaring that they were of opinion that any one of the torments inflicted on her would have been sufficient to dispatch her, according to the common course of nature, instead of the many violent ones she had undergone. But that blessed person, like a valiant combatant, received fresh strength and vigor from the confession of her faith. The frequent repetition of these words, “I am a Christian, no wickedness is transacted among us,” took of the edge of her pains, and made her appear insensible to all she suffered.

The deacon Sanctus, too, endured most exquisite torments, with more than human patience. The heathens, indeed, hoped these severities would at last force some unbecoming expressions from him; but he bore up against their attacks, with such resolution and strength of mind, that he would not so much as tell them his name, his country, or station in the world; and to every question they put to him, he answered in Latin, “I am a Christian:” nor could they get any other answer from him. The governor, and the persons employed in tormenting the martyr, were highly incensed at this; and, having already tried all other arts of cruelty, they applied hot plates of brass to the tenderest parts of his body; but, supported by the powerful grace of God, he still persisted in the profession of his faith. His body was so covered with wounds and bruises, that the very figure of it was lost. Christ, who suffered in him, made him a glorious instrument for conquering the adversary, and a standing proof to others that there are no grounds for fear where the love of the Father dwells; nor is there any thing that deserves the name of pain, where the glory of Christ is concerned. Some days after, the martyr was brought on the stage again; for the pagans imagined that his whole body being so sore and inflamed that he could not bear to be touched, it would now be an easy matter to overcome him by a repetition of the same cruelties; or, at least, that he must expire under their hands, and thus strike a horror into the other Christians. But they succeeded in neither of these views; for, to the amazement of all, his body under me latter torments recovered its former strength and shape, and the exact use of all his limbs was restored: so that by this miracle of the grace of Jesus Christ, what was designed as an additional pain, proved an absolute and effectual cure. The devil thought himself secure of Biblis, one of the unhappy persons who had renounced the faith; and desirous to enhance her guilt and punishment by a false impeachment, caused her to be arraigned, believing it would be no hard matter to bring one so weak and timorous to accuse us of impieties. But the force of the torments had a very different effect upon her; they awakened her, as it were, out of a profound sleep; and those transitory pains turned her thoughts upon the everlasting torments of hell. So that, contrary to what was expected of her, she broke out into the following expostulation: “How can it be imagined that they should feed upon children, whose religion forbids them even to taste the blood of beasts?”* From that moment she publicly confessed herself a Christian, and was ranked among the martyrs. The most violent torments being thus rendered ineffectual by the patience of the martyrs, and the power of Jesus Christ, the devil had recourse to other devices. They were thrown into a dark and loathsome dungeon, had their feet cramped in wooden stocks, and extended to the fifth, or last hole; and all those severities exercised upon them, which are commonly practised by the enraged ministers of darkness upon their prisoners; so great, that numbers of them died of the hardships they endured there. Others, after having been so inhumanly tortured, that one would have thought all the care imaginable could not have recovered them, lay there destitute of all human succor; but so strongly supported from above, both in mind and body, that they comforted and encouraged the rest: while others but lately apprehended, and who had as yet undergone no torments, soon died, unable to bear the loathsomeness of the prison.

Among the persons that suffered for their faith on this occasion, was the blessed Pothinus, bishop of Lyons. He was then above ninety years old; and so weak and infirm, that he could hardly breathe. But his ardent desire of laying down his life for Jesus Christ, gave him fresh strength and vigor. He was dragged before the tribunal; for, though his body was worn out with age and infirmity, his life was preserved till that time, that Jesus Christ might triumph in him. He was brought thither by the soldiers and magistrates of the city, the whole multitude hallooing after, and reviling him with as much eagerness and rage as if he had been Christ himself. Being asked by the governor, who was the God of the Christians: Pothinus told him, to prevent his blaspheming, he should know when he was worthy of that satisfaction. Upon which he was dragged about unmercifully, and inhumanly abused. Those who were near him, kicked and struck him without any regard to his venerable age; and those who were at some distance, pelted him with what first came to hand; imagining the least tenderness or regard for him would have been an enormous crime, when the honor of their gods was so nearly concerned, which they endeavored to assert by insulting the martyr. He was scarce alive when he was carried off, and thrown into prison, where he expired after two days’ confinement.

Those who had denied their faith when first taken, were imprisoned too, and shared the same sufferings with the martyrs, for their apostacy at that time did them no service. But then there was this difference between their condition, that those who had generously owned their religion, were confined only as Christians, and no other crime alleged against them; but the perfidious wretches were imprisoned like murderers and criminals, and thus suffered much more than the martyrs, who were comforted with the joyful prospect of laying down their lives in that glorious cause, and supported by the divine promises, the love of Jesus Christ, and the spirit of their heavenly Father; while the apostates were tortured with the remorse of conscience. They were distinguished from the others by their very looks: when the martyrs appeared, it was easy to discover a lovely mixture of cheerfulness and majesty in their faces: their very chains appeared graceful, and seemed more like the ornaments of a bride than the marks of malefactors; and their bodies sent forth such an agreeable and pleasant savor, as gave occasion to think that they used perfumes. But those who had basely deserted the cause of Christ, appeared melancholy dejected, and completely disagreeable. The very pagans reproached them with faint-heartedness and effeminacy, for renouncing their principle, (the honorable, glorious, and salutary name of Christian,) their former profession whereof had ranked them with murderers, an imputation they, by their apostacy, had justly incurred. This sight had a happy influence on several, strengthened them in their profession, and defeated all the attempts the devil could make on their constancy and courage. After this, great variety of torments was allotted to the martyrs; and thus they offered to the eternal Father a sort of chaplet, or crown, composed of every kind of flowers, of different colors; for it was fit that these courageous champions, who gained such glorious victories in so great variety of engagements, should receive the crown of immortality. A day was set when the public were to be entertained at the expense of their lives, and Maturus, Sanctus, Blandina, and Attalus, were brought out in order to be thrown to the beasts for the barbarous diversion of the heathens. Maturus and Sanctus being conducted into the amphitheatre, were made to pass through the same torments, as if they had not before felt the force of them and looked like champions, who had worsted the adversary several times, and were just entering on the last trial of their skill and courage. Again they felt the scourges, and were dragged about by the beasts as before; and in a word, they suffered every torment the incensed multitude were pleased to call for; who all joined at last in requiring they should be put into the red-hot iron chair, which was granted; nor did the noisome smell of their roasted flesh, offensive as it was, any way abate, but seemed rather to enhance their rage. They could extort nothing more from Sanctus than his former confession: and he and Maturus, after a long struggle, had their throats cut; and this their victory was the only entertainment that day.

Blandina was fastened to a post to be devoured by beasts: as her arms were stretched out in the ardor of her prayer, that very posture put the faithful in mind of the sufferings of him who was crucified for their salvation, gave them fresh courage, and assured them that whoever suffers for Jesus Christ, shall partake of the glory of the living God. After she had remained thus exposed for some time, and none of the beasts could be provoked to touch her, she was untied, carried back to prison, and reserved for another combat; in which she was to gain a complete victory over her malicious adversary the devil, (whom she had already foiled and discomfited on several occasions,) and to animate the brethren to the battle by her example Accordingly, though she was a poor, weak, inconsiderable slave, yet, by putting on Christ, she became an overmatch for all the art and malice of her enemy, and, by a glorious conflict, attained to the crown of immortality.

Attalus was called for next, as a noted person, and the people were very loud in their demands to see him suffer: who, being one that had always borne a glorious character among us for his excellent life and courage in asserting the truth, boldly entered the field of battle. He was led round the amphitheatre, and this inscription in Latin carried before him: “This is Attalus, the Christian.” The whole company was ready to discharge then rage on the martyr, when the governor, understanding he was a Roman citizen, remanded him to prison, and wrote to the emperor to know his pleasure concerning him and the rest of the prisoners. During their reprieve, they gave extraordinary proofs of charity and humility. Notwithstanding such a variety of sufferings for the faith, they would by no means allow us to call them martyrs; and severely reprimanded any of us, who in writing or speaking, gave them that title; which, according to their humble way of reasoning, was due only to Jesus Christ, the faithful and true martyr, or witness,—the first-born of the dead, and the guide to eternal life; or, at most could only be extended to such as were freed from the prison of the body These, indeed, said they, may be termed martyrs, because Christ has sealed them by a glorious death; but we are yet no more than confessors of a mean rank. They then besought the brethren, with tears, to offer up assiduous prayers for their persevering to the end. But, though they refused the title of martyr, yet every action of theirs was expressive of the power of martyrdom; particularly their meekness, their patience, and the intrepid freedom with which they spoke to the heathens, and which showed them to be void of fear, and in a readiness to suffer any thing it was in the power of their enemies to inflict. They humbled themselves at the same time under the powerful hand of God, who hath since raised them to the highest glory; excusing everybody, accusing none; and, like that great protomartyr, St. Stephen, praying for their persecutors.—But their chief concern, on the motive of sincere charity, was how to rescue those unhappy persons from the jaws of the devil, whom that infernal serpent reckoned he had as good as swallowed up. Far from insulting over the lapsed, or valuing themselves upon the comparison, they freely administered to their spiritual wants, out of their abundance, the rich graces with which God had favored and distinguished them; expressing the tenderness of a mother for them, and shedding floods of tears before their heavenly Father for their salvation. Thus they asked for life, and it was granted them, so that their brethren partook of it. For their endeavors were so successful, and their discourse and behavior so persuasive, that the church had the pleasure of seeing several of her children recover new life, ready to make a generous confession of the sacred name they had renounced, and even offer themselves to the trial.

Among the martyrs, there was one Alcibiades, who had long been used to a very austere life, and to live entirely on bread and water.* He seemed resolved to continue this practice during his confinement; but Attalus, after his first combat in the amphitheatre, understood by a revelation, that Alcibiades gave occasion of offence to others, by seeming to favor the new sect of the Montanists, who endeavored to recommend themselves by their extraordinary austerities. Alcibiades listened to the admonition, and from that time he ate of every thing with thanksgiving to God, who did not fail to visit his servants with his grace, and the Holy Ghost was their guide and counsellor. In the mean time the emperor’s answer arrived, directing the execution of all who persisted in their confession, and discharging those who had recanted. The governor took the opportunity of a public festival among the pagans, which drew vast crowds from all parts; and ordered the martyrs to be brought before him with a design of entertaining the people with the sight of their sufferings. After a re-examination of them, finding them resolute, he sentenced such of them as were Roman citizens to lose their heads, and ordered the rest to be thrown to wild beasts. And now the glory of Jesus Christ was magnified in the unexpected confession of such as had before denied their faith. Those weak persons were examined apart, with a view of giving them their liberty; but, upon their declaring themselves Christians, they were sentenced to suffer with the other martyrs. Some, indeed, still continued in their apostacy; but then they were only such as never had the least trace of true faith, nor any regard for the wedding garment; strangers to the fear of God; who, by their way of living, had cast a scandal on the religion they professed, and who may justly be styled sons of perdition.

Alexander, a Phrygian by birth, and physician by profession, was present, when the apostates were brought this second time before the governor. He had lived many years in Gaul, and was universally remarkable for his love of God, and his freedom in publishing the gospel; for he was full of an apostolical spirit. This man being near the tribunal at that critical moment, he made several signs with his eyes and head, to exhort them to confess Jesus Christ, with as much agitation as a woman in labor; so that it was impossible he should pass unobserved. The heathens, exasperated to see those confess who had recanted, clamored against Alexander as the author of this change. Upon which the governor, turning himself towards him, asked him who and what he was. Alexander answered, he was a Christian; which so enraged the governor, that, without any further inquiry, he condemned him to be thrown to the wild beasts. Accordingly, the next day he was conducted into the arena with Attalus, whom the governor, to oblige the people, had delivered up a second time to the same punishment. Having undergone all the various torments usually inflicted in the amphitheatre, they were dispatched with the sword. Alexander was not heard to sigh or make the least complaint, conversing only with God in his heart. When Attalus was placed in the iron chair, and the broiling of his body exhaled an offensive smell, he turned to the people, and said to them, in Latin: “This may, with some justice, be called devouring men, and thus you are guilty of that inhuman act; but we are neither guilty of this, nor any other abominable practice we are accused of.” Being asked what was the name of his God, he replied: “God has not a name like us mortals.”

On the last day of the combats of the gladiators, Blandina and Ponticus, a lad not above fifteen years old, were brought into the amphitheatre. They had been obliged to attend the execution of the martyrs every day, and were now urged to swear by the idols. Upon their absolutely refusing to comply with the demand, and expressing a thorough contempt of their pretended gods, the people gave a free loose to their rage; and, without any regard either to Ponticus’s youth, or the sex of Blandina, employed all the different sorts of torments upon them, pressing them from time to time, but in vain, to swear by the idols. Ponticus, encouraged by his companion, went through all the stages of his martyrdom with great alacrity, and died gloriously. Blandina was the last that suffered. She had acted like a mother, animated the other martyrs like so many favorite children, sent them victorious to the heavenly King; and then, passing through the same trials, hastened after them with joy. She was scourged, torn by beasts, put into the burning chair; afterwards wrapped in a net, and exposed to a wild bull, that tossed and gored her a long time. But her close conversation with Christ in prayer and the lively hopes she had of the good things of the other life, made her insensible to all these attacks o her body; and she too had her throat cut The heathens themselves could not but wonder at her patience and courage, and own, that among them no woman had ever been known to have gone through such a course of sufferings.

Not content with the death of the martyrs, that savage and barbarous people, spurred on by the infernal beast, raised a new persecution against their dead bodies. Those who died in prison were thrown to the dogs, and a strict guard kept, day and night, to prevent our carrying them off. The remains of the other martyrs, such as the beasts or fire had spared, their scattered half-burnt limbs, the heads and trunks, were carefully laid together, and watched by the soldiers several days. Some foamed and gnashed their teeth at the sight of these relics, expressing an eager desire of inflicting more exquisite torments upon them; while others laughed and scoffed at the martyrs, extolling their own idols, ascribing to them the punishment of their enemies. Even those who had behaved themselves with the most moderation, and felt some compassion for their sufferings, could not forbear reproaching them now, by asking, Where is their God? What hath this religion availed them, which they have preferred to life itself? These were the dispositions of the heathens on this occasion, while we were most sensibly afflicted that we could not bury our brethren. The soldiers were always on the guard, not to be gained by entreaty or money, and took as much care to keep the bodies unburied as if, by so doing, they were to have gained some mighty advantage. The martyrs’ bodies lay thus exposed six-days, and then were burned to ashes and thrown into the Rhone, that no part of them might remain above ground. This they did, as if they had been superior to God, and could thereby have prevented the resurrection, the hopes of which, as they observed, had put them upon introducing a new and strange religion, making a mock of the severest torments, and meeting death with pleasure. Let us now see, said the heathens, if they will ever return again to life, and whether their God can save them, and deliver them out of our hands?

Thus far the incomparable letter of the Christians of Lyons and Vienne, which was inserted entire in Eusebius’s account of the martyrs, as he himself assures us. But that piece is lost, and we have no more of this letter than what that author has given us in his Church History. He adds, that the churches of Vienne and Lyons subjoined, in the close of this epistle, a religious testimony conformable to holy faith, concerning the Montanists. These martyrs suffered in the beginning of the pontificate of Eleutherius, in the seventeenth year of Marcus Aurelius, as Eusebins testifies,5 and of Christ 177, not 167, as Dodwell pretends. They are called the martyrs of Lyons, because that city was the theatre of their sufferings, though some of them were citizens of Vienne. St. Gregory of Tours says they were forty-eight in number, and that part of their ashes was miraculously recovered. These relics were deposited under the altar of the church which anciently bore the name of the Apostles of Lyons.

The fidelity, fervor, and courage, of so many saints, of every age and condition, condemn aloud our tepidity and indifference. We profess the same religion, and fight for the same cause with the primitive martyrs. Whence comes this monstrous disagreement in our conduct and sentiments? If we do not prefer God and his service to every other consideration,—that is, if we are not martyrs in the disposition of our souls,—we cannot hope to be ranked by Christ among his disciples, or to inherit his promises. What should we do under greater trials, who are unfaithful on the most trifling occasions? What so many followers of our Lord attained to, that may we. Their passions and infirmities were the same with ours: our trials and temptations are far less than theirs: we serve the same God, are guided by the same truths, supported by the same power, elevated by the same hopes; we have the same peace bequeathed us, the same spirit; the same heaven promised us, and we march under the conduct of the same Captain.

JUNE 2 — SS. MARCELLINUS AND PETER, MM

Marcellinus was a priest, and Peter an exorcist, both of the clergy of Rome, and eminent for their zeal and piety. In the persecution of Dioclesian, about the year 304, they were condemned to die for their faith: and by a secret order of the judge, the executioner led them into a forest, that the holy men being executed privately, no Christians might be acquainted with the place of their sepulchre.* When he had brought them into a thicket overgrown with thorns and briers, three miles from Rome, he declared to them his sanguinary commission. The saints cheerfully fell to work themselves, grubbed up the brambles, and cleared a spot fit for their sepulchre.† After they were beheaded, their bodies were buried in the same place. Some time after, Lucilla, a pious lady, being informed by revelation,‡ and assisted by another devout lady named Firmina, took up their bodies, and honorably interred them near that of St. Tiburtius on the Lavican road in the Catacombs. Pope Damasus assures us, that, when a child, he learned all these particulars from the mouth of the executioner himself,§ and he has inserted them in a Latin epitaph with which he adorned their tomb. Anastasius the librarian testifies, from ancient registers, that Constantine the Great built here a church in honor of these martyrs, in which he caused his mother St Helena to be buried under a porphyry tomb, on the Lavican road, three miles from Rome, and that he gave to this church a paten, weighing thirty-five pounds,|| of Pure gold, with many other rich presents; which is also mentioned by Bede,1 Ad02, and Sigebert.3 The porphyry mausoleum of St. Helena is still shown among other antiquities near the Lateran basilic. Honorius I. and Adrian I. repaired this church and cemetery of St. Tiburtius, and SS. Marcellinus and Peter, as Anastasius mentions. Not long after, the bodies of SS. Marcellinus and Peter were translated into Germany on the following occasion. Eginhard, a German, the favorite secretary of Charlemagne, and his wife Emma, by mutual consent, made a vow of per petual continency; and becoming a monk, was chosen abbot of Fontenelle, and, in 819, abbot of Ghent. Emma died in 836, to his great affliction, as appears from the letters of Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres, to him. This great man, in 827, sent his secretary to Rome, to procure from pope Gregory IV. some relics of martyrs to enrich the monasteries which he had founded or repaired. The pope sent him the bodies of SS. Marcellinus and Peter, which Eginhard translated to Strasburg. But soon after he deposited them first at Michlenstad; and afterwards at Malinheim, since called Selgenstad, three leagues from Frankfort, and two from Achaflenburg, where, in 829, he built to their honor a church and monastery, of which he died ho first abbot. Besides the life of Charlemagne, and the annals of France, during the reigns of Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis Débonnaire, he wrote four books in prose, and one in verse, on the translation of SS. Marcellinus and Peter. This translation is also mentioned by Sigebert, Aymoinus, Rabanus Maurus, &c. Pope Gregory the Great preached his twenty homilies on the gospels in the church of SS. Marcellinus and Peter at Rome; as appears from some of them, and from the testimony of John the Deacon.4 See their acts and the history of their translation in Papebroke, t. 1, Junij, p. 170, and Laderchius, Diss. de Basilicis, SS. Marcellini and Petri; Romæ, 1705.

JUNE 2 — S. ERASMUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR

He suffered torments and a cruel death, in the persecution of Dioclesian, at Formiæ, in the year 303. St. Gregory the Great testifies that his body remained in mat city in the sixth age.1 Formiæ being destroyed by the Saracens in the ninth century, the sacred treasure was translated with the episcopal see to Cajeta, in 842. This saint is corruptly called St. Elmo,* for Ermo, the abbreviation for Erasmus; and he was usually invocated by sailors in the Mediterranean. St. Erasmus is commemorated in the new Paris Breviary, and a portion of his relics is possessed by a nunnery near Gournay, in that diocese, much frequented by pilgrims. See the Bollandists.

JUNE 3 — ST. CECILIUS, C

From Minutius Felix’s Dialogue, called Octavius; and Pontius, in his Life of Saint Cyprian. See Title mont, t. 3; Celllier, t. 2, p. 222. Reeve’s preliminary dissertations, and Orsi’s elegant abstract of this dialogue, Hist. t. 2,1. 5, p. 453.

A. D. 211.

ST. CECILIUS, Octavius, and Marcus Minutius Felix, were three eminent and learned men, who formed together a triumvirate of perfect friendship Minutius seems by his style, and by other circumstances, to have been originally an African, though he lived at Rome, and there pleaded at the bar with great reputation for eloquence and probity. He was called in an advanced age to the light of divine wisdom, as he testifies:1 and he had humility enough to despise the rank which he held among the learned and the great ones in the world; and, by a happy violence, to enter heaven in the company of the ignorant, and the little ones, says St. Eucherius.2 His two friends were also Africans, and all three were joined in a course of the same studies. They kept company a long time while they were engaged in the vices and superstitions of the age;3 but Octavius and Minutius first broke through the strongholds of education and interest, and every worldly temptation, to embrace the doctrine of the cross. Octavius seems to have had the glory of leading the way; for Minutius says he ran before him as a guide But like a true friend, he could not be content to be happy without his Minutius: and he gave himself no repose, so long as he saw his friend, his other half, remain in darkness, and in the shades of death. Words from the mouth of such a friend, drop like honey from the honeycomb, while from a harsh prophet whom we hate, truth itself becomes unacceptable. Minutius therefore was easily prepared to receive the impressions of virtue, and this blessed pair became one in religion as well as in friendship. Faith, far from abating, served only to refine and perfect their mutual affection, and these two heavenly friends congratulated each other upon their new life, in transports of holy joy, which all their oratory wanted words to express. They looked back on their past sinful lives with shame and sorrow, and could relish nothing for the future but the humiliations of the cross, and the severities of penance. Racks and tortures they overlooked with triumph; both turned advocates for the faith, and without any other retaining fee than the reward of their charity, and the expectation of a happiness beyond the grave, they strenuously pleaded the cause of the crucified Jesus. Arnobius seems to have had in his eye these two illustrious converts, when, answering the reproaches of the heathens, he lets them know, that orators and lawyers of the first rank had embraced the doctrine of the cross.3 Octavius and Minutius seemed now to want nothing themselves, but they were extremely desirous to make Cecilius, their third friend, as happy as themselves. This, however, was a work of difficulty, and called for the last efforts of their piety and friendship. Early prejudices from education leave a tincture upon the mind, which seldom wears out without much pains and ingenuity; and how supine soever such a conduct is in matters of this nature and importance men often are inclined to content themselves with the religion of their parents, almost as naturally as they take up with their language. Cecilius, moreover, was a man of the world, and of latitudinarian principles, and therefore was hardly to be come at with argument. He was a person of wit and abilities, but his own idol, and a great lover of applause and pleasure. Hence his chief religion seems to have been to serve himself. For we find him, in his disputation, one while for neither gods nor providence, and then again for both; and afterwards a bigot for all the gods in vogue all the world over. To complete his character, the philosophy he had imbibed only raised his vanity, and intoxicating his head with conceit, set him at the greatest distance from the reach of argument. But, notwithstanding this seemingly inaccessible temper of mind, we find Cecilius at length, by the power of divine grace made a glorious convert, an eminent saint, and, in all probability, the converter of the great St. Cyprian. Octavius and Minutius were the instruments which God was pleased to make use of to effect this great work. They began by recommending it to God by their earnest prayers. And their victory over him was the issue of a conference, the sum of which Minutius has left us in an elegant dialogue, which he entitled Octavius, in honor of his friend, who had departed this life when he committed this to writing.

In the structure of this dialogue, the design and order are extremely beautiful and taking, and speak a master builder: for in the very entrance he insensibly steals upon our passions with such bewitching blandishments in the character of his beloved Octavius, then leads us on to the occasion of the conference with such awaking descriptions, and sets off the minutest objects with such surprising embellishments, that he has in a manner got our hearts before he comes to open his cause.* He tells us that Octavius. an excellent and holy person, at his departure out of this world had left in him most eager desires and longings for such a friend: for, says Minutius “He always burnt with equal fire, and loved me so passionately in return that, both in our diversions and business, our minds continually played in concert to one another, insomuch that you would imagine there was but one soul between us both.” This author called to mind with gratitude the benefit of his example, and, ruminating on his virtues, rekindled his own devotion; while, by cherishing his memory in his breast, he studied to go after him in his thoughts, and to wean his heart more and more from the world. He then recapitulates their momentous discourse with Cecilius, whereby that friend was also brought over to the true religion. The occasion by which it was introduced is related as follows:

Octavius came to Rome to pay Minutius a visit, forcing his way through the strong endearments of house, wife, and amiable little children, which he left at home. It was in autumn, and in vacation time, which gave our orator a relaxation from his business at the bar; and he took the opportunity which that time of leisure afforded him, to go to Ostia to bathe in the salt waters of the sea, which he looked upon as a proper remedy for drying up the humors with which he was afflicted. Octavius and Cecilius would needs bear him company. It happened, that as they were walking together in the town, towards the sea-shore, early in the morning, Cecilius spied a statue of Serapis; at which he put his hand to his mouth and kissed it. This was an act of adoration among the Greeks and Romans.* Octavius hereupon said to Minutius, that it was a crime and reproach in them that their friend should still remain involved in the darkness of error, and worship stones, which had indeed received a figure, and been anointed with oil, and crowned by way of consecration, but were still dumb and deaf stones. Cecilius was nettled to hear himself accused of ignorance, and challenged Octavius to hold a dispute upon that subject, telling him sarcastically, he would make him know that he never before had to do with a philosopher. The conference was immediately agreed upon, and down they sat upon a pile of stones thrown up for the shelter of the bath. Minutius was placed in the middle, in quality of arbitrator. Cecilius began the dispute by denying a providence, triumphing with an air of assurance and self-sufficiency, and swaggering with flashes of wit, and overbearing eloquence. He objected the poverty and slavery of the Christians, who were everywhere subject to he idolaters, whose empire was prosperous; he recommended the religion that is uppermost, calling the Christians sad, poor fellows, who choose obstinately to starve, and who suffer on with pleasure, make a jest of racks and torture, are careless of life and fortune, and every worldly comfort, and have not so much as churches wherein to worship their one God:† that they are a most contented, pitiful, ragged tribe, skulk about in holes without a word to say for themselves, and only cant in corners about a resurrection, and the joys of another world. He spent a deal of his artillery against the resurrection of the body: which was a great stumbling-block to the ancient philosophers, as appears from the writings of Athenagoras, Tertullian, Origen, and other apologists of our holy faith. But calumnies were the chief strength of this champion of error. The gospel contains so lovely a system of manners, and advances moral virtue to such noble heights, that it could not but excite esteem and veneration in its greatest adversaries. In order to throw a blind over its amazing beauty, which bespoke its original divine, the devil had recourse to slanders, with which he stirred up his instruments to blacken and misrepresent it. Cecilius thought himself secure behind this false intrenchment, and flattered himself he should thence he able to annoy his adversary. He seemed impatient to come to this battery and he loudly objected nocturnal assemblies, solemn fasts, inhuman banquets, and crimes perpetrated under the name of religion. “I hear,” says he, ‘that they adore the head of an ass, the knees of their bishop or priest, and a man who was punished for his crimes, and the cursed wood of the cross.” He makes it a subject of ridicule that the Christians should despise present torments for fear of others that are invisible; that they abstain from lawful pleasures, from public shows, pomp, banquets, perfumes which they reserve for their dead, &c. In answer to these prejudices, Octavius demonstrates a divine providence superintending all human affairs, from the evident marks of order and design in all the works of nature: an argument so obvious and natural, yet so evident and strong, that no subtlety can foil or obscure it. For so admirable is the beauty and contexture which comes out and meets our eye in every part of the universe, that no one can be blind to its author. “Should you chance to come into a house,” says our Octavius, with Tully,4 “and see all the rooms exquisitely furnished, and kept in great order, you, would make no dispute but such a house is under the care and inspection of a master who is preferable to all the furniture. Thus, when you cast your eyes upon heaven and earth, and behold the admirable order and economy of things, can you question whether there is a Lord of the universe, and that he is more glorious than the stars, and more to be admired than all the works of his hands?” From providence he proceeds to prove the unity of God, and that he is the supreme spirit and intelligence, the universal parent, who gave beginning to all things, himself eternal: who, before the world was produced, was a world to himself; who is infinite and immense, and whose immensity is intelligible only by himself. “Our intellect,” says Octavius, “is too narrow to contain him; and we never conceive so worthily of him as when we apprehend him inconceivable.” He thence takes occasion to show the absurdity of polytheism, and the monstrous folly of the idolaters concerning their gods. Proving their idols and oracles to be devils, ho writes thus: “Most of you know very well* that the demons are forced to confess against themselves, as often as we rack them into confession by bare words only, and force them out of the bodies they possess, by such tormenting speeches as they cannot bear. You may well be assured they would never frame lies to their own shame, especially in the presence of you who adore them. Take their word then, and believe them to be devils, when you have it from their own mouths. For when we abjure them by the one living God, the wretches tremble, and either depart forthwith from the bodies they possess, or vanish by degrees, according to the faith of the patient, or the grace of the physician.”

Cecilius pressed by these arguments, flies from his tenets, but thinks he can charge as much upon Christianity. This was at best to abandon the cause of idolatry, and a poor shift which discovered his distress. Neither could he object any thing to the evidence of the gospel revelation, except gross calumnies formed out of our doctrines disguised, or taken by halves and from our discipline either mistaken or traduced. The slanders therefore were easily wiped off by a flat denial of them, and by a plain exposition of the sanctity of our doctrine. As to the old calumny of an ass’s head being worshipped by the Christians, which imputation had formerly been cast upon the Jews, (as appears from Josephus, in his books against Appion,) Octavius contented himself with denying so groundless a charge: as he does likewise that we adore the knees of the bishop, which senseless slander arose from the custom of penitents kneeling before the bishop to receive his absolution or blessing, as Dr. Cave and others observe. To the accusation of incests in our mysteries, Octavius answers, that it was confute by the purity of our morals, and by the great number of those who vow chastity among us. But this argument he turns upon his adversary, loading paganism with that dishonor which she endeavored to blacken us with, and which she openly professed by placing Priapus among her divinities, sacrificing to Venus the prostitute, and celebrating the festivals of Bona Dea and others, with all imaginable abominations and lewdness. He shows that far from feeding on the flesh of children, or allowing any lewdness, Christians would not even see men justly put to death, or assist at public executions, and that they refrained from eating blood: that those who marry, onltake one wife: and that very many live in perpetual continency, yet with out glorying in their state;* and that the least thought of a crime was condemned by them.† Our disputant observes, that Pythagoras. Plato, and other heathen philosophers, learned the immortality of the soul, and many other truths which they taught, (though mingled with much falsehood,) by an imperfect tradition from the divine revelation‡ delivered to the ancient patriarchs. He says that we bury the dead instead of burning the corpses, because this was the ancient and better custom; but that God can equally raise our bodies again from ashes or from dust. He teaches the eternity of hell-fire,§ which infidels and wicked livers justly deserve, “because it is not a less crime to be ignorant of the common Lord and parent of all men and all things, than it is to disobey him.” Octavius closes his discourses by a short, but amiable description of the Christian morality, where, in answer to the reproach of poverty, he says, “Who can be said to be poor who finds himself in no want? He rather is the poor wretch who is necessitous in the midst of plenty. There is no man can be poorer than he came into the world. The Christian art of possessing all things is, by desiring nothing. As a traveller, the lighter he is, the easier he finds himself; so in this journey of life, he is happier who is lightened by poverty, than he who groans under a load of riches. Did we conclude riches necessary, we should ask them of God. Innocence is the top of our desire; and patience the thing we beg for. Calamity is the school of virtue. How beautiful a spectacle in the sight of God is a Christian entering the lists with affliction, and with a noble constancy combating menaces, racks, and tortures! When, like a conqueror, he triumphs over the judge that condemns him! For he is certainly victorious who obtains what he fights for.” He says that our religion consists in practice, not in pompous words. “We do not look big, nor do we talk great things, but we live in them.”* When Octavius had done speaking, Cecilius cried out, “I congratulate both my Octavius and myself exceedingly: we are both conquerors. Octavius triumphs over me, and I triumph over error. But the chief victory and gain are mine, who, by being conquered, find the crown of truth.” This is the summary of this celebrated conference: but the fine train of ideas, and the beauty of the discourse are only to be understood from the original. If this excellent dialogue seems to have any fault, it is that it appears too short: for the reader, to his great disappointment, is sorry to find himself at the end so soon, and always lays down the book with regret, which is the true character of every excellent composition. The company in this conference promised themselves another meeting, which was to initiate Cecilius into Christianity, and instruct him in its discipline. From the excellency of this first part, which is chiefly a confutation of paganism, we have great reason to lament the loss of the second conference on so important a subject.†

Baronius and other historians doubt not but this was Cecilius the priest, who afterwards converted St. Cyprian: for they were both Africans, of the same age and profession; and St. Cyprian, in his writings, borrows many things from this dialogue, which he probably received from Cecilius. Out of veneration for his memory, he took the agnomen of Cecilius, and would be called from him Cecilius Cyprianus. Pontius assures us that the priest Cecilius was a just man, venerable for his age, and worthy of eternal memory and praise; adding, that St. Cyprian ever respected him as his own father, and paid him all possible honor, deference, and gratitude. St. Cecilius is named in the Roman Martyrology.

It is a great proof of sincere virtue, a great, but rare victory over pride, for a learned man to own himself vanquished by truth in a disputation. Pride recoils at opposition, and however the understanding may be convinced, the will usually becomes by it more averse, and more obstinately fixed in error. On this account, he who would bring another over to the truth, ought to be careful not to alarm or awake so dangerous an enemy, but to insinuate virtue by such indirect means, that the person may almost seem his own instructor. Our three disputants all vanquished, because they were all armed with docility, charity, and humility; not like those vain combatants in the schools who love opinions, not for the sake of truth, but because they are their own, as St. Austin complains. In this happy company, though all were conquerors, yet no one prized higher his victory than Cecilius, who overcame both pride and error: according to the maxim of a great man, “Then we vanquish when we are instructed.”

JUNE 3 — ST. CLOTILDIS OR CLOTILDA, QUEEN OF FRANCE

Was daughter of Chilperic, younger brother to Gondebald, the tyrannical king of Burgundy, who put him, his wife, and the rest of his brothers, except one, to death, in order to usurp their dominions. In this massacre he spared Chilperic’s two fair daughters, then in their in ancy. One of them became afterwards a nun; the other, named Clotildis, was brought up in her uncle’s court, and by a singular providence, was instructed in the Catholic religion, though she was educated in the midst of Arians. It was her happiness in the true faith, to be inspired from the cradle with a contempt and disgust of a treacherous world, which sentiments she cherished and improved by the most fervent exercises of religion. Though she saw herself surrounded with all the charms of the world, and was from her infancy its idol, yet her heart was proof against its seductions. She was adorned with the assemblage of all virtues; and the reputation of her wit, beauty, meekness, modesty, and piety, made her the adoration of all the neighboring kingdoms, when Clovis I., surnamed the great, the victorious king of the Franks,* demanded and obtained her of her uncle in marriage, granting her all the conditions she could desire for the free and secure exercise of her religion.1 The marriage was solemnized at Soissons, in 493. Clotildis made herself a little oratory in the royal palace, in which she spent much time in fervent prayer and secret mortifications. Her devotion was tempered with discretion, so that she attended all her business at court, was watchful over her maids, and did every thing with a dignity, order, and piety, which edified and charmed the king and his whole court. Her charity to the poor seemed a sea which could never be drained. She honored her royal husband, studied to sweeten his warlike temper by Christian meekness, conformed herself to his humor in things that were indifferent; and, the better to gain his affections, made those things the subject of her discourse and praises in which she saw him to take the greatest delight. When she saw herself mistress of his heart, she did not defer the great work of endeavoring to win him to God, and often spoke to him on the vanity of his idols, and on the excellency of the true religion. The king always heard her with pleasure; but the moment of his conversion was not yet come. It was first to cost her many tears, severe trials, and earnest perseverance. After the baptism of their second son, Clodomir, and the infant’s recovery from a dangerous indisposition, she pressed the king more boldly to renounce his idols. One day especially, when he had given her great assurances of his affection, and augmented her dowry by a gift of several manors, she said she begged only one favor of his majesty, which was the liberty to discourse with him on the sanctity of her religion, and to put him in mind of his promise of forsaking the worship of idols. But the fear of giving offence to his people made him delay the execution. His miraculous victory over the Alemanni,† and his entire conversion in 496, were at length the fruit of our saint’s prayers.

Clotildis, having gained to God this great monarch, never ceased to excite him to glorious actions for the divine honor: among other religious foundations he built in Paris, at her request, about the year 511, the great church of SS. Peter and Paul, now called St. Genevieve’s.* This great prince had a singular devotion to St. Martin, and went sometimes to Tours, to prostrate himself in prayer at his tomb. He sent his royal diadem, which is called, to this day, The Realm, a present to pope Hormisdas, as a token that he dedicated his kingdom to God. His barbarous education and martial temper made it, in certain sallies of his passions, difficult for Clotildis to bridle his inclination to ambition and cruelty, so that he scarce left any princes of his own relations living, except his sons.† He died on the 27th of November, in the year 511, of his age the forty-fifth, having reigned thirty years. He was buried in the church of the apostles, SS. Peter and Paul, now called St. Genevieve’s, where his tomb still remains. An ancient long epitaph, which was inscribed on it, is preserved by Aimoinus, and copied by Rivet. His eldest son Theodoric, whom he had by a concubine before his marriage, reigned at Rheims over Austrasia, or the eastern parts of France, which comprised the present Champagne, Lorraine, Auvergne, and several provinces of Germany. Metz was afterwards the capital of this country. As to the three sons of Clotildis, Clodomir reigned at Orleans, Childebert at Paris, and Clotaire I., at Soissons. This division produced wars and mutual jealousies, till, in 560, the whole monarchy was reunited under Clotaire, the youngest of these brothers. St. Clotildis lived to see Clodomir defeat and put to death Sigismund, king of Burgundy; but soon after, in 524, himself vanquished and slain by Gondemar, successor to Sigismund; Gondemar overcome and killed by Childebert and Clotaire, and the kingdom of Bur gundy united to France. The most sensible affliction of this pious queen was the murder of the two eldest sons of Clodomir, committed in 526, by their uncles Childebert and Clotaire, who seized on the kingdom of Orleans. This tragical disaster contributed more perfectly to wean her heart from the world. She spent the remaining part of her life at Tours, near the tomb of St. Martin, in exercises of prayer, almsdeeds, watching, fasting, and penance, seeming totally to forget that she had been queen, or that her sons sat on the throne. Eternity filled her heart, and employed all her thoughts. She foretold her death thirty days before it happened, having been admonished of it by God at the tomb of St. Martin, the usual place of her tears. In her last illness, she sent for her sons Childebert, king of Paris, and Clotaire, king of Soissons, and exhorted them, in the most pathetic manner, to honor God and keep his commandments; to protect the poor, reign as fathers to their people, live in union together, and love and study always to maintain tranquillity and peace. She scarce ever ceased repeating the psalms with the most tender devotion, and ordered all she had left to be distributed among the poor; though this was very little; for she had always been careful to send her riches before her by their hands. On the thirtieth day of her illness she received the sacraments, made a public confession of her faith, and departed to the Lord on the 3d of June, in 545. She was buried, by her own order, in the church of St. Genevieve, at the feet of that holy shepherdess, and is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 3d of June See St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc., and Fortunatus, and among the moderns, Abbé Du Bos and Gilb. le Gendre, Antiquités de la Nation et Monarchie Françoise, &c.

JUNE 3 — ST. COEMGEN,* OR KEIVIN, B. C.,

Was born of parents of the first rank in Ireland, in 498. He was baptized by Saint Cronan, a holy priest, and at seven years of age was put under the tuition of St. Petrocus, a Briton, who spent twenty years in Ireland, to improve himself in virtue and sacred learning. After five years spent with him, by his advice he was placed, in 510, under the care of three holy anchorets, Dogain, Lochan, and Enna, or Æneas, in the same cell. Three years he employed with them in the study of the holy scriptures, before he took the monastic habit. Some time after, he founded a great monastery in the lower part of the valley called Glean-da-loch,† situated in the east of Leinster, in the territory of Forthuatha.‡ The reputation of St. Keivin and his monastery, drew hither such a conflux of people, that it soon grew up into a famous and holy city. The founder being raised to the episcopal dignity, erected a cathedral church under the invocation of SS. Peter and Paul, near the church of his abbey.§ In 549, St. Keivin took a journey to Clonmacnois, to pay a visit to St. Kiaran; but found him dead three days before his arrival, and assisted at his funeral obsequies. Saint Keivin lived to a great age, and having some time before resigned the episcopal charge to confine himself to his abbacy, died on the 3d of June, in the year 618, of his age one hundred and twenty. He is patron of Glendaloch, where his festival is celebrated on the 3d of June, on which day numbers of people resort to the Seven Churches. There is also a parish church in the suburbs of Dublin dedicated to this saint.

JUNE 3 — SAINT LIFARD, ABBOT NEAR ORLEANS

His illustrious birth, the progress he had made in the study of the laws, and his extraordinary probity and piety, qualified him for one of the first dignities in the magistrature of Orleans. The constant attendance he gave to all the duties of his charge was no hinderance to his devotions, either public in assisting at all parts of the divine office, or private, in his closet; especially to his assiduity and fervor in frequenting the sacraments. To be more at liberty, and to disengage himself from the distractions of the world, in the fortieth year of his age he resigned his charge, and initiated himself in an ecclesiastical state: nor was it long before the bishop of Orleans ordained him deacon. We may easily imagine with what piety and devotion he acquitted himself of all the sacred duties of his state. So perfectly was he penetrated with respect and awe of the majesty and presence of God, and with love of his goodness, when he assisted at the celebration, that he appeared like an angel about the altar. The spirit of love and penance and holy contemplation daily growing stronger in his heart, he resolved to withdraw himself entirely from the world, and bury himself in close solitude. The place he chose for this purpose was near the river Maulve, not far from the mountain and castle of Mehun, or Meung, situated on the Loire, a little below Orleans.* Urbicius, his disciple, bore him company, and they built themselves a hermitage of twigs and rushes. The life which the saint here led was admirable. A little bread and water was all the subsistence he allowed himself, in sickness as well as in health, and his only garment was made of sackcloth. He often passed whole nights in prayer, and in all his employments his mind was so taken up on God as if he had lived without a body. Mark, bishop of Orleans, then lived at Cleri, two leagues below the city, famous for the collegiate church of the Blessed Virgin, still much resorted to by pilgrims to implore her intercession.† This prelate was an eye-witness to the great virtues of St. Lifard, whose hermitage was very near his residence, ordained him priest, and allowed him to found a monastery on the spot where his hermitage stood. This happened before the fourth council of Orleans, in which bishop Mark subscribed in 541. St. Lifard soon assembled a numerous community, and was to it a bright model of Christian perfection. An extraordinary gift of miracles drew on him the admiration of men. The year in which he died is not known; but it was some time after the middle of the sixth century. His body was buried at Mehun; and over his tomb was built, first a chapel, afterwards a famous collegiate church, which is to this day enriched with his relics, and bears his name. A church in the city of Orleans, and several others in the diocese, are dedicated to God under his invocation. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology. See his life in Surius and Mabillon, sæc. 1, Ben.; also Saussaye, Annal. t. 3.

JUNE 3 — ST. GENESIUS, IN FRENCH GENES, B. C

From his infancy he was a model of innocence and piety, and despising in his youth the honors which great riches and high birth insured to him in the world, he chose to serve God in the lowest rank among the clergy of the diocese of Auvergne, in which province his family was one of the most distinguished. Against his inclinations he was promoted to the dignity of archdeacon, in which his example was to the clergy under his care a spur to the perfect spirit and practice of all Christian virtues. Austere to himself, he treated his own body as an enemy, to prevent its rebelling against the spirit. His charity to the poor seemed to have no bounds. The respect with which he performed the sacred functions, inspired all the assistants with awe and devotion. God usually employs the ministry of saints to form others to perfect sanctity. The holy archdeacon was the instrument which he made use of to sow by his grace the seeds of virtue in the heart of St. Prix of Clermont, whose education was intrusted by his parents to the care of St. Genesius. But the master preceded him in the episcopal chair of Auvergne, or of Clermont, to which St. Genesius was promoted upon the death of Proculus in 656, and he was ordained by compulsion by the bishops of the province. He extirpated the seeds of the Novatian heresy and of that of Jovinian; spared nothing to make chastity, charity, and all virtues flourish in his flock; and to furnish perpetual examples of the perfect evangelical spirit, he founded the great abbey of Manlieu, in Latin Magnus Locus, now of the order of St. Bennet, in a borough of the same name. He founded a great hospital at Clermont, and died about the year 662. He was buried in the church which he had built under the title of St. Symphorian, the martyr of Autun, though it long since bears the name of St. Genesius. In the diocese of Clermont, and in the Gallican Martyrologies, he is honored on the 3d of June. See his life in John Savaron, in Origen. Claromont., et de SS. Ecclesiis Monast. Claromont.; also Branche, in Vies des SS. d’Auvergne, Gallia Christ. Nova, &c.

JUNE 4 — ST. QUIRINUS, B. M

From his original beautiful Acts In Surius and Ruinart: and from Prudentius, hymn. 7. See Tillemont, t. 5, p. 428, and F. Hanciz, Germania Sacra, t. 1, p. 38.

A. D. 304.

ST. QUIRINUS was bishop of Siscia, a city in Pannonia, situate upon the river Save; which being now reduced to a borough, called Sisek or Sisseg in Hungary, the episcopal see is removed to Zagrab, capital of modern Croatia. St. Jerom makes honorable mention of this saint in his Chronicle, upon the year 309. Prudentius calls him an eminent martyr. Fortunatus ranks him among the most illustrious martyrs of the church. He suffered on the 4th of June, 303, or 304. His acts give the following account of his triumph.

The holy prelate having intelligence that Maximus, the chief magistrate of the city, had given an order for his apprehension, left the town, but was pursued, taken, and carried before him. Maximus asked him whither he was flying. The martyr answered: “I did not fly, but went away to obey the order of my Master.* For it is written: When they persecute you in one city, fly to another.” Maximus said: “Who gave you that order?” QUIRINUS—“Jesus Christ, who is the true God.” MAXIMUS—“Know you not that the emperor’s orders would find you out anywhere? Nor can he whom you call the true God help or rescue you when you are fallen into their hands, as you now see to your cost.” QUIRINUS—“The God whom we adore is always with us wherever we are, and can always help us. He was with me when I was taken, and is now with me. It is he that strengthens me, and now answers you by my mouth.” MAXIMUS—“You talk much, and are guilty thereby of delay in executing the commands of our sovereigns: read their divine edicts, and comply with what they enjoin.” QUIRINUS—“I make no account of such injunctions, because they are impious; and, contrary to God’s commandments, would oblige us his servants to offer sacrifice to imaginary divinities. The God whom I serve is everywhere; he is in heaven, on earth, and in the sea. He is above all things, containing every thing within himself; and by him alone every thing subsists.” Maximus said: “Old age has weakened your understanding, and you are deluded by idle tales. See, here is incense; offer it to the gods, or you will have many affronts to bear, and will suffer a cruel death.” QUIRINUS—“That disgrace I account my glory; and that death will purchase me eternal life. I respect only the altar of my God, on which I have often offered to him a sacrifice of sweet odor.” MAXIMUS—“I perceive you are distracted, and that your madness will be the cause of your death. Sacrifice to the gods.” “No, said Quirinus, “I do not sacrifice to devils.” Maximus then ordered him to be beaten with clubs, and the sentence was executed with great cruelty. The judge said to him, under that torment: “Now confess the power of the gods whom the great Roman empire adores. Obey, and I will make you the priest of Jupiter.” Quirinus replied: “I am now performing the true function of a priest, in offering myself a sacrifice to the living God. I feel not the blows which my body has received: they give me no torment. I am ready to suffer much greater tortures, that they who have been committed to my charge may be encouraged to follow me to eternal life.” Maximus commanded that he should be carried back to prison, and loaded with heavy chains till he grew wiser. The martyr in the dungeon made this prayer: “I thank thee, O Lord, that I have borne reproaches for thy sake; and I beseech thee to let those who are in this prison know that I adore the true God, and that there is no other besides thee.” Accordingly, at midnight, a great light was seen in the prison, which being perceived by Marcellus the jailer, he threw himself at the feet of St. Quirinus, and said, with tears: “Pray to the Lord for me; for I believe that there is no other God but him whom you adore.” The holy bishop, after a long exhortation, signed him in the name of Jesus Christ. This expression of the acts seems to imply, that he conferred on him the sacraments of baptism and confirmation.

This magistrate, not having authority to put the martyr to death, after three days’ imprisonment, sent him to Amantius, governor of the province called the First Pannonia. Prudentius calls him Galerius, governor of Illyricum, under which Pannonia was comprised. He had probably both those names, a usual thing at that time among the Romans. The bishop was carried in chains through all the towns that lay on the Danube, till being brought before Amantius, then on his return from Scarabantia, the governor ordered him to be conducted to Sabaria,* whither he himself was going. Certain Christian women in the mean time brought him refreshments, which as he was blessing, his chains dropped off from his hands and feet. On his arrival at Sabaria, Amantius ordered him to be brought before him on the public theatre, and having read the records of what had passed between him and Maximus, asked the saint if he owned the truth of the contents, and whether or no he persisted in his former confession of the Christian faith. The saint answered: “I have confessed the true God at Siscia: I have never adored any other. Him I carry in my heart, and no man on earth shall ever be able to separate me from him.”† Amantius endeavored to overcome his resolution by large promises, and by the consideration of his old age: but finding him inflexible, he sentenced him to be thrown into the river with a millstone at his neck, and his order was obeyed. But to the great astonishment of the spectators, (who were assembled in crowds on the banks of the river to behold the execution,) the saint, instead of sinking to the bottom, continued a long time above water, with the millstone at his neck, exhorting the Christians to continue steadfast in the faith, and to dread neither torments nor death itself. But perceiving that he sunk not at all, he began to fear he should lose the crown of martyrdom. He thereupon addressed himself to Christ in these words: “It is not wonderful for thee, O almighty Jesus, to stop the course of rivers as thou didst that of Jordan, not to make men walk upon the water as Peter did on the sea, by thy divine power. These people have had a sufficient proof in me of the effect of thy power. Grant me what now remains, and is to be preferred to all things, the happiness of dying for thee, Jesus Christ my God.” He soon after sunk to the bottom: upon whose death the acts of the martyr make this reflection, “That he with difficulty obtained by his prayers to be drowned.”‡ His body was found a little below the place, and laid in a chapel built on the bank. Soon after a great church was erected near the gate of Sabaria, leading to Scarabantia, in which his remains were laid. When, by the inroads of barbarians, the Pannonians were afterwards driven out of their country, the relics of this martyr were carried to Rome, and deposited in the catacombs of St. Sebastian, but removed in 1140 into the church of St. Mary, beyond the Tiber. Molanus proves that they are now kept in a monastery in Bavaria. The river in which St. Quirinus was drowned was called Sabarius, now Guntz.

The martyrs are victims of divine love. Their example invites us to shake off all sloth, and to devote our whole lives and all cur strength to the service of Him who created us for himself alone, till we shall have consummated our sacrifice to the eternal glory of his holy name. Thus we shall attain to our last end, and shall find immortal happiness; and shall refer to it all our steps in this mortal life, and all the desires of our hearts. These being all formed, actuated, and influenced by faith and love, as by a vital principle, will be consecrated to God; will be a constant source of patience, meekness, charity, zeal, and all heroic virtues; will root the soul daily more and more strongly in a steady habit of holiness, and continually increase her vigor and fervor in the service of God, to the consummation of our sacrifice of love.

JUNE 4 — S. OPTATUS, BISHOP OF MILEVUM, CONFESSOR

From his own writings. See Tillemont, Hist. des Donatistes, t. 6, p. 142. Ceillier, t. 6, p. 625. D. Collins Dissert. sur l’llérés. des Donat., Bolog. 1758; also Hist. Donat. Ballerini, App. in Op. Card. Noris. Veronæ, 1732.

Fourth Age

THIS father was an African, and an illustrious champion of the church of Christ in the fourth age. He was educated an idolater, and Saint Austin names him with St. Cyprian and St. Hilary, among those who had passed from the dark shades of paganism to the light of faith, and carried into the church the spoils of Egypt, that is, human science and eloquence. In another place he styles him a prelate of venerable memory, who was by his virtue an ornament to the Catholic church. St. Fulgentius honors him with the title of saint, and places him in the same rank with St. Austin and St. Ambrose. He was bishop of Milevum in Numidia, and the first Catholic prelate who undertook by writing to stem the tide of the Donatist schism in Africa. Parmenian, the third bishop of that sect at Carthage, wrote five books in defence of his party, in which he declaimed in general against the Traditors, and proved what recoiled upon himself, that there can be but one church and one baptism. The Donatists boasted of the advantage they pretended this performance gave them over the Catholics: indeed, their champion was a man of learning and abilities, well versed in the art of sophistry, and capable of covering the worst cause with specious glosses. Against this Goliath, Saint Optatus stepped forth, stripped him of the armor in which he trusted and turned all his artillery against himself. This he performed by six books against Parmenian, to which he several years after, in the time of pope Siricius, about the year 385, added a seventh.* In this work we admire the elegance and loftiness of the style, everywhere animated, and beautifully ornamented with bold and noble figures: and remarkable for a sententious energy and conciseness, which distinguishes the best African writers from all others. It is, however, observable that the Augustan polish, and the purity of the Latin tongue, had been long before upon the declension. But the chief usefulness and value of this father’s writings are derived from the strength and perspicuity with which he sets off the privileges and marks of the Catholic church, and from the important maxims which he lays down to distinguish the true spouse of Christ from adultresses, by which sound rules he has overturned all heresies to the end of the world. St. Optatus wrote his six first books about the year 370. To set the state of this controversy in a clear light, it is necessary to take a short view of the Donatist schism, which took its rise from a circumstance that happened in the persecution of Dioclesian.

The Traditors or Christians, who for fear of torments and death, delivered the holy scriptures into the hands of the persecutors, that they might be burned, were guilty of a crime which bordered upon apostacy. Upon their repentance, according to the severity of the ecclesiastical discipline, they were to be enjoined a public austere course of penance, and if in holy orders, to be deposed. But in this the bishops had power to dispense, or to grant a relaxation or indulgence. Mensurius, primate of Carthage, and many other Catholic bishops, admitted penitent priests and bishops to their functions without insisting on this condition, alleging a necessity for such an indulgence, and the danger of a schism if they separated themselves from the communion of all that had fallen into that crime. Certain false Numidian zealots, blinded by jealousy or pique, took offence at this mildness, and by their hypocrisy, and pretended zeal and severity, drew many into schism. Donatus, bishop of Casæ-Nigræ, began this breach, and refused to communicate with Mensurius and his deacon Cecilian, because they held communion with penitent Traditors. By his clamors he engaged many others in his party, and by a notorious slander accused Mensurius himself of having given up the scriptures into the hands of the heathens. This point was discussed in a famous council held at Cirta, the capital of Numidia, in 305. Mensurius dying in 311, Cecilian was chosen bishop of Carthage; upon which, certain factious spirits who attempted to oppose his election, broke out into a greater flame than ever. Among these no one was more active than a certain rich and powerful lady of Carthage, named Lucilla, who bore Cecilian a grudge because she had formerly received from him a rebuke; and wanted humility and discretion, without which, the show of piety is only a shadow, and pharisaical hypocrisy, and easily degenerates into error and superstition. She was accustomed every morning before she received the body and blood of our Lord, to kiss the bone of an unknown dead man, whom she pretended to have been a martyr, but who was not, or at least had not been acknowledged such by the pastors of the church. For, to prevent abuses and superstition, it was always a necessary law in the church, that without the bishop’s approbation, no private persons should be allowed to pay to relics the honor due to those of martyrs. And it is on this circumstance that St. Optatus and St. Austin lay the stress of this affair. Cecilian, in quality of archdeacon, thought it his duty to put her in mind of her fault: but through the midst of her passions, she was not able to discern the charity of this just and necessary correction. Her resentment for this pretended affront seemed to have no bounds when she saw him raised to the archiepiscopal chair of Carthage, and she protected and abetted the faction which was formed against him with the whole weight of her interest and power. This party found no other pretence to set aside his election, but upon the foolish plea that he admitted the penitent Traditors to his communion, and thereby defiled the sanctity of the Catholic church. Upon no better grounds, Donatus, bishop of Casæ-Nigræ, first erected altar against altar; and refusing to hold communion with Cecilian, celebrated the divine mysteries at Carthage in domestic chapels; in which he was imitated by other factious persons. The schismatics, having gained the keepers of the treasury of the church of Carthage, got possession of the gold and silver chalices, and other vessels and rich ornaments that belonged to that church. Thus St. Optatus observes,1 That anger was the mother of the schism, ambition the nurse, and covetousness the champion to defend it. And St. Austin, on this occasion, makes the following remark, that, All who disturb the peace of the church, do this either blinded by pride, distracted with envy, or seduced by worldly covetousness, or by soft passions and lust.2 The faction being by these arts propagated, soon became numerous. Lucilla, by her money and interest, instigated the heads of the party to carry matters to the last extremity, in which she was seconded by two priests of Carthage, who having been competitors with Cecilian, were discontented at his preferment.

Seventy bishops, chiefly Numidians, espoused this party and met at Cirta, having at their head Secundus the primate of Numidia, Donatus of Mascula Victor Marinus, Purpurius, and the first author of the schism, Donatus of Casæ-Nigræ. Among these, Donatus of Mascula, Victor, and several others, were notoriously guilty of having delivered up the holy scriptures to the persecutors. But the crime was passed over in them; and by how much the more guilty of such practices the schismatics were themselves, so much the more vehemently did they accuse others; that their pretended zeal, against those sins falsely imputed to others, might serve as a cloak to cover their own real guilt, as St. Austin and St. Optatus observe. Some of them, however, confessed their crime in this synod, and were absolved. Next, the schismatical council presumed to pronounce sentence of deposition against Cecilian, alleging that he was a Traditor, or at least that he communicated with Traditors. Therefore they chose and ordained the domestic chaplain of Lucilla, by name Majorinus, the schismatical bishop of Carthage. The bishops of Italy and Gaul, and in particular pope Miltiades in a council at Rome, acquitted Cecilian, and condemned the schismatics, who thereupon forged many slanders against the pope. Schism frequently leads men into heresy; and this was the present case.

The Donatists, pretending that Cecilian was no minister of Christ, nor those that adhered to him members of the true church, maintained they had no true sacraments; and, by admitting to their communion lapsed persons, and profane Traditors, were themselves defiled, and ceased to be of the true church. Hence they usually called the Catholics pagans, idolaters, and Traditors, and rebaptized all who came over to them, pretending that baptism and holy orders cannot be validly conferred out of the Catholic church. To condemn this their capital error, the great council of Arles was assembled out of all the western provinces of the empire in 314. But the schismatics were no less deaf to authority than blind to the evidence of the Catholic truth. They were so far from being daunted by all these sentences, that by obstinacy, their spirit and faction seemed to grow greater, and they appealed to the emperor. Matters of fact being part of the charge, Constantine gave the plaintiffs a full hearing, in hopes by this condescension to bring them over to their duty.3 But seeing them invincibly obstinate, he, in 316, enacted severe laws against such Donatists as refused to acquiesce in the decision of the church. In the same year, upon the death of Majorinus, they placed in the schismatical chair at Carthage, one Donatus, a man of an austere life, eloquent and learned, but one of the most ambitious, vain, and proud of mortals, betraying in his carriage an unbecoming levity, and passionate to a degree of phrensy. He became the idol of the party, which, according to several good authors, took its name from him, not from the other Donatus of Casæ-Nigræ, the first author of the schism. St. Optatus and St. Austin4 charge the Donatists with heresy also in another point, inasmuch as they affirmed the Catholic church, which can never fail, and which is the church of all nations, had perished throughout the rest of the world, and was confined to one corner of the earth in Africa. In a great assembly of two hundred and seventy bishops held at Carthage, and in others in several other places, they had the insolence to unchurch the whole Christian world besides themselves, and commanded all who had been baptized by Catholics to be again baptized: to prevent which sacrilege, Constantine bylaw made it capital for any one to rebaptize another.5 They boasted of great purity and sanctity, like the Novatians, but their severity resembled that of the Pharisees; for, blinded by their passions, they did not see the inward uncleanness of their own hearts, defiled by pride, disobedience, and the whole train of other vices which attend those master-springs of spiritual disorders.

About the year 347, a sect of fanatics called Circumcellions sprang up among the Donatists, whose communion they enjoyed, but were their scandal and reproach. These were chieny wild and ignorant peasants, who pretending to devote themselves to martyrdom, wandered about for some months or years, pampering themselves as victims fed for sacrifice, and at length cast themselves from rocks or into rivers, or any other way laid violent hands upon themselves, which death they called martyrdom. Many of them compelled strangers whom they met on the high roads to murder them. Some Catholics who met them in this mad phrensy, to save their own lives, and not imbrue their hands in the blood of these fanatics, insisted first upon binding them before they could proceed to do them the desired good turn in sacrificing them: but when they were tied, beat them till they came to their senses, and were contented to live, as Theodoret relates.6 Such are the extravagancies into which men are led when they have once lost the anchor of truth, and their minds are set afloat on the tide of passions and error. Of this we have the most sensible proof, not only in the follies and impiety of paganism, and in various heresies in past ages, but also in the deism, fanaticism, and numberless wild chimeras and mad dreams in which our own times have been so fruitful among those who wander in the endless mazes of error. The Donatists were very numerous in Africa for above one hundred years, till the zeal of St. Austin, seconded by many others, almost extinguished that sect. St. Optatus had before given this hydra a mortal blow by his books against Parmenian, who had succeeded Donatus in the schismatical see of Carthage.

In this work our saint applauds the principle laid down by Parmenian, that the church is but one: for Christ is only one, and he is the spouse of one church, which is called his only dove, the garden shut up, and the seal ed fountain. He joins issue with his adversary, that heretics are prostitutes, and have no right to the jurisdiction or keys of the church, which Peter received; and which were not given to them. He adds, that heretics and schismatics are branches lopped off from the vine, and reserved for the fire.7 He exaggerates the guilt of schism as a crime more enormous than pairicide, and which deserves a punishment like that of Core, Dathan, and Abiron.8 In these principles both Catholics and Donatists were agreed. St. Optatus then proceeds to show that the latter cannot be the true church, “because,” says he, “in them where is the propriety of the Catholic name;—cooped up as they are in one little part of Africa, in one corner of a single country?—Whereas the church is catholic or universal, and is spread everywhere.”9 He shows by several texts of the prophets this universality to be one of the essential characteristics of the church. He adds as other marks, its unity, sanctity, and the chair of Peter, “which,” says he, “is ours; and by this it is plain that we possess its other prerogatives” He adds: “Peter sat first in this chair, and was succeeded by Linus.” He names the bishops of Rome from him down to Siricius, “at this day,” says he, “united in our fraternity, in which the whole world agrees with us joined in one communion.10—To Peter Christ said, ‘To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ Whence therefore do you claim the keys, who, with a sacrilegious presumption and insolence fight against the chair of Peter?”11 He says again: “You cannot deny that you know the episcopal chair was first given to Peter in the city of Rome, in which first sat the head of the apostles, Peter, which chair was one, that all others might preserve unity by the union they had with it, and lest the other apostles might erect and defend chairs to themselves so that now he is a schismatic and an offender who sets up another against the only chair.” He gives the history of the origin and follies of the Donatist sect. “As to your party,” says he, “which would willingly be thought to be the church, inquire after the original of your chair” He says the Donatists answered, they had also a bishop of Rome, named Macrobius, who succeeded to Eucolpius, Eucolpius to Boniface of Balli, and Boniface to one Victor Garbiensis, whom the Donatists had sent from Africa to Rome to preside in their little schismatical church in that city. To this our holy doctor replies: “Can Macrobius say that he sits in the chair of St. Peter, which perhaps he never saw? for certainly he never went to the sepulchre of the apostles;” (that is, to officiate in the cathedral, or be regarded by the Catholic church as seated in the apostolic chair.) “He is disobedient to the command of the apostle, who would have us communicate in the memory of the saints. We see the relics of the two apostles, SS. Peter and Paul, are in the church of Rome: Tell me, I pray, if he could ever offer in the place where these relics are certainly kept. Macrobius your brother must then confess that he was seated in the chair of Eucolpius, Boniface of Balli, and Victor Garbiensis. This Victor is a son without a father, a disciple without a master, a successor without a predecessor.”

Among the other marks of the church, St. Optatus enlarges and insists particularly upon its extent or universality. “Wherefore,” says he, “would you unchurch an infinite number of Christians that are in the East and the West? You are but a small number of rebels, who have opposed all the churches of the world,” &c.12 He confutes the errors of the Donatists, who pretended that the sacraments are null if given out of the true church, and mentions the exorcisms13 used in baptism to expel the unclean spirit, (in which sacrament they are still used;) as do also St. Cyril of Jerusalem,14 St. Austin,15 Tertullian, &c. St. Optatus speaks often of the holy oil and chrism, and relates that “certain Donatists also caused a bottle full of holy oil to be thrown out of a window on purpose to break it; but though it was cast down from a very high place, yet being supported by angels it fell upon the stones without breaking.”16 He says, “that the furious Donatist mob broke down the altars, which the Catholics had made use of;” on which he writes as follows: “What hath Jesus Christ done to you,” says he to the Donatists, “that you should destroy the altars on which he rests at certain times? Why do ye break the sacred tables where Jesus Christ makes his abode? Ye have imitated the crime of the Jews; for as they put Jesus Christ to death upon the cross, so ye have beaten him upon these altars.” He then humorously objects their ridiculous inconsistency: “All the faithful know,” says he, “that linen cloths are laid upon the altars for the celebration of the holy mysteries. The eucharist does not touch the wood of the altars, but only the linen cloths. Why then do you break, why do you scrape, why do you burn the wood of the altar? If the impurity can pass through the linen, why cannot it penetrate the wood, nay, and the ground also? If therefore ye scrape off something from the altars because they are impure, I advise you to dig into the ground, and there to make a great ditch, that ye may offer in a most pure place. But take care you do not dig down into hell, where you will find your masters Core, Dathan, and Abiron.” From this raillery he passes to other accusations still more grievous, and says: “You have also redoubled your sacrileges in breaking the chalices which carried the blood of Jesus Christ;* you have melted them down to make ingots of gold and silver, which you have sold in the markets indifferently to every one that offered to buy them. O enormous crime! O unheard of impiety!” The holy eucharist itself they threw to beasts, “than which,” says he, “what could be more impious?17 Your bishops commanded the eucharist to be thrown to the dogs; but presently visible tokens of the divine anger appeared; for the same dogs, being enraged, turned upon their masters, and with their avenging teeth, bit and tore those who were guilty of profaning the holy body?”* From these and many other instances, it is clear that the holy eucharist was then kept in churches after the sacrifice, no less than at present. The saint mentions that the altars were then usually of wood, and for greater respect, covered with a linen cloth.18 He reproaches the schismatics with having washed the palls and sacred liner, cloths, and pretended by washing, to purify the walls of the churches which the Catholics had used.19 Also with having compelled their sacred virgins to lay aside the veils which they wore, and the little mitres which they put upon their heads as signs or marks of their profession, and to wear mitres of another color, and another sort of linen.20 Du Pin writes of this father: “He teaches that we are all born in sin, and that baptism is necessary to the remission of it. He mentions exorcism as a necessary ceremony at baptism. He speaks of chrism as a holy thing, and of the unction that was used at baptism. He expresses himself in so plain terms about the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist, and about the adoration that is due to this holy sacrament, that nothing can be desired more express He observes many ceremonies at the celebration of the eucharist, to which he gives the name of sacrifice.” The Donatists used and reverenced the holy oblation or mass, and all the sacraments; but pretended those administered by persons who were not of their own sect to be void and null: and that they were only holy among themselves who were pure. St. Optatus writes, “that the church has judges,” says Du Pin, “that she punishes crimes, that she exacts penances of those that confess their sins or are convicted of them. He observes that a vow of virginity was solemnly made by those who dedicated themselves to God, and that they carried a small covering upon their heads, which was the sign of the vow they had made. He testifies the respect that in his time was paid to the relics of the saints, when he speaks of the sepulchre of SS. Peter and Paul; and speaking of Lucilla, he blames those that honored the relics of false martyrs not owned by the church.” St. Optatus survived the year 384; but the time of his death is not known. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 4th of June. St. Optatus makes schism a more grievous crime than murder.21 Saint Austin asks: What will a sound faith profit a man, when the soundness of his charity is destroyed by the fatal wound of schism? He often repeats with St. Cyprian, that even martyrdom is not available to the salvation of a wilful heretic or schismatic. St. Vincent of Lerins makes no scruple to affirm, that Donatus and his followers, who did not expiate their crime by repentance, have their portion with the apostate angels.22 Hence, the ancient fathers charge us not to make shipwreck of our faith, as we value our everlasting happiness, and they took so much pains to point to the rocks upon which so many have split, and to show the highway which Christ himself has chalked out; which is his true Church.†

JUNE 4 — ST. WALTER, ABBOT

He was a native of Rome, and in his youth withdrew himself from the tumult of the world to make the study of God and himself his only employment. By the exercises of self-denial and holy contemplation, he had already made great progress in an interior life, when, out of a desire of following perfectly the sweet call of divine grace, he retired to San-Serviliano, a town in the diocese of Fermo, in the Marche of Ancona, where he some time after built a monastery, of which he was chosen the first abbot. Though endowed with an eminent spirit of all Christian virtues, and a sublime gift of heavenly contemplation, he was most remarkable for his tender and extraordinary devotion to the cross and sacred passion of Christ. He flourished in the thirteenth century. His body is enshrined on the right side of the high altar in the parish church of St. Mark at San-Serviliano; and several churches in that country keep his festival on the 4th of June. See his life, written in the fifteenth century, with the notes of Papebroke, t. 1, Junii, p. 405.

Another saint of the same name, an Englishman by birth, was the thirty-fourth abbot of Fontenelle, or St. Vandrille’s, and the fortieth saint of that house. Pope Innocent II. commended his humility and piety, and his extraordinary zeal for regular observance. He died in 1150. See the particular lessons for his office, and Chatelain.

JUNE 4 — SAINT PETROC, IN FRENCH PERREUSE, ABBOT, CONFESSOR

Having laid the foundation of a virtuous education in Wales, his native country, he passed into Ireland, and there spent twenty years in sacred studies, and in the most fervent exercises of devotion and penance. For his further improvement he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and returning into Cornwall, shut himself up in a monastery of which he was himself the founder, at a place since called from him Petrocs-Stow, now Padstow, which stands at the mouth of the river Alan, or Camel, on the Bristol channel: it is a good sea-port, much frequented by Irish, who make up a considerable part of the inhabitants.

Bodmin, a flourishing town almost in the centre of Cornwall, about twelve miles from each of the two seas, was also illustrious for having been some time the dwelling-place of St. Petroc, whom some distinguish from St. Petroc of Padstow, because Dugdale calls him a bishop. But it was not uncommon in Ireland at that time, for eminent abbots to be raised to the episcopal dignity in their own monasteries by the neighboring bishops. And Sir James Ware and Mr. Harris find, in some Irish legends, the title of Bishop promiscuously used for that of Abbot. At least, neither in the registers or archives of Exeter, nor in Godwin, Le Neve, or any others is his name found in the list of the bishops of Cornwall.* And all accounts, in Leland and others, suppose the same St. Petroc to have retired from Padstow to Bodmin, and there founded a second monastery and a great church which king Athelstan afterwards favored with great benefactions and singular privileges. In this place, St. Petroc ended his mortal course about the year 564, on the 4th of June. His shrine and tomb in Leland’s time, in the reign of Henry VIII., remained in the eastern part of the church of Bodmin not far from the high altar. At Padstow he had, among others, three eminent holy disciples, Credan, Medan, and Dachan. From his numerous monastery at Bodmin, that place was anciently called Bosmana, or Bodnanachie, that is, The Mansion of Monks. This great church was originally served by monks: after king Athelstan’s munificent benefactions by secular clergy, and in the reign of Henry I., it became a flourishing monastery of regular canons of St. Austin. The relics of St. Petroc were carried privately to St. Meen’s monastery in Brittany in 1178; but upon the complaint of Roger, prior of the regular canons at Bodmin, the king of England procured them to be brought back and restored to the great church of Bodmin the year following, where it was still standing in Leland’s time.

St. Petroc is titular saint of a church in Nivernois, in France, Bodmin, and several other churches and chapels in Cornwall and Devonshire, &c. In the calendars of some churches and monasteries of Brittany the feast of St. Petroc is ordered to be kept of the first class with an octave. See Lobineau, p. 1, &c. On St. Petroc, see Leland in his Itinerary, second edition, vol. 8, p. 52, vol. 3, p. 2, vol. 2, p. 84: in his Collectanea, vol. 1, p. 75, vol. 3, pp. 188 and 209; Capgrave, Chatelain, Colgan in MSS. ad 4 Junii, and Borlase, Antiquities of Cornwall.

JUNE 4 — ST. BREACA, NOW BREAGUE, V

She was a disciple of St. Patrick, and coming from Ireland into Cornwall, landed at Reyver on the eastern bank of the river Hayle, now called Alin, in the hundredth of Penrith, and led there a solitary life in great sanctity. She was honored there with a church famous for pilgrimages and miracles. See Borlase, Antiq. of Cornwall, and Leland.

JUNE 4 — ST. BURIAN, AN IRISH WOMAN;

To honor whose relics, king Athelstan built a college within sight of the Scilly rocks, with a church, which enjoyed the privilege of a sanctuary See Borlase, ib. p. 349, Leland, Camden, &c.

JUNE 4 — ST. NENOOC, OR NENNOCA. V

She served God first in Britain, her native country, and is said to have gone with St. Germanus of Auxerre into France. At least she retired into Armorica, and there became a directress of many holy virgins in the paths of perfect virtue. She is said to have died in 467. Many miracles are ascribed to her in her legend in the monastery of the Cross of Quimperlé in the diocese of Quimper, in Brittany. See Colgan in MSS., and Chatelain ad 4 Junii.

JUNE 5 — SAINT BONIFACE, ARCHBISHOP OF MENTZ, APOSTLE OF GERMANY, AND MARTYR

From his life, carefully written by St. Willibald, his disciple and first bishop of Achstat; and again in two books, by Othlo, a monk of the twelfth age; also from his epistles. See Mabillon, t. 3; Annal. p. 447 Fleury, t. 9; Ceillier, t. 18, p. 74; Schannat, Historia Fuldensis, anno 1729, and Serarius, Rerum Mogonticarum cum Annotat. et Supplemento a Georgio Christiano Joannis, Francofurti ad Mænum, 1722, t. 3, app. 251, ad 370.

A. D. 755.

ST. BONIFACE was born at Crediton, or Kirton, in Devonshire, about the year 680, and at his baptism named Winfrid. When he was but five years old, his chief delight was to hear holy men converse about God and heavenly things. The edifying deportment and holy instructions of certain pious monks, who, being employed in preaching in that country, happened to come to his father’s house, gave him a strong desire to devote himself to God in a religious state; and though he was then only a child, the deep impressions which their words left upon his heart were never after effaced. His father exerted his whole authority to divert him from his inclination to a monastic life; till being visited by a dangerous sickness, he acknowledged in it the hand of God, chastising him for opposing his son’s vocation, which he from that time gave him free leave to pursue. Winfrid was educated from thirteen years of age in the monastery of Escancester, or Exeter, under the holy abbot Wolphard. With the study of grammar he joined assiduous, devout meditation, and the most rigorous observance of monastic discipline, even before he had professed that state; which he embraced before he left the aforesaid monastery. After he had spent there some years, the reputation of the schools and discipline of the monastery of Nutcell,* in the diocese of Winchester, under the learned abbot Winbert, drew him to that house. He made an extraordinary progress in poesy, rhetoric, history, and in the knowledge of the scriptures; and was afterwards appointed by his abbot to teach the same sciences: of which duty he acquitted himself with great fruit to others, at the same time improving himself in the sciences with that redoubled advantage which maturity of years and judgment, and a diligent review of a well-digested course of former studies, give to masters of an elevated genius. At thirty years of age he was promoted to the order of priesthood; and from that time was chiefly employed in preaching the word of God to the people, and in the care of souls. Such was his reputation, that he was intrusted by his superiors with an important commission to Brithwald, archbishop of Canterbury; by which means that prelate and the religious king Ina became acquainted with his extraordinary merit; and the bishops of the province from that time invited him to their synods, that they might be assisted by his learning and advice in their deliberations.

The servant of God, burning with zeal for the divine honor and the salvation of souls, never ceased to bewail, night and day, the misfortune of those nations which lay benighted in the shades of idolatry. In these holy dispositions, after having long implored the light and blessing of heaven, he, with the leave of his abbot, passed over into Friesland to preach the gospel to the infidels in 716. But for the trial of his virtue, a war breaking out between Charles Martel, mayor of the French palace, and Radbod, king of Friesland, threw insuperable difficulties in his way. However, he advanced as far as Utrecht, then the capital city of that country, and addressed himself to king Radbod, but without success; and he was obliged to return to his monastery in England. Winbert dying soon after, Winfrid was unanimously chosen abbot. He did all that in his power lay to decline this promotion, alleging that he was called to the conversion of infidels. Though he was not able then to prevail, he shortly after urged the same motive with such success, as to engage Daniel, the learned and pious bishop of Winchester, to procure that his demission should be accepted, and another nominated abbot in his place.

After having stayed two years in England, he set out for Rome in 719, and presented himself to pope Gregory II., begging his apostolic blessing, and authority that he might preach the faith to infidels. The pope, fixing his eyes upon him, asked him if he brought with him commendatory letters from his diocesan. Hereupon Winfrid delivered into his hands letters from the aforesaid bishop Daniel, by which he was strongly recommended to his holiness. Gregory having read them, and conversed some time with the saint, began to treat him with extraordinary marks of kindness and esteem, and gave him an ample commission to preach the faith to all the infidel nations of Germany. He bestowed on him many holy relics, and dismissed him with his blessing, and letters of recommendation to all Christian princes in his way. The holy missionary lost no time, but taking the road of Germany, crossed the Lower Alps, and travelling through Bavaria into Thuringia, there began his apostolical functions. He not only baptized great numbers of infidels, but also brought the Christians he found already established in Bavaria, and in the provinces adjoining to France, (especially the priests and bishops,) to reform many irregularities, and to live in a manner agreeable to the precepts of the gospel, and to the holy canons of the church; for the commerce of the heathens had almost extinguished in them the sense of the pure maxims of their faith. Winfrid hearing soon after, that, by the death of Radbod, Charles Martel was become master of Friesland, and that a door was there opened for the preaching of the gospel, he hastened thither, and during three years joined his labors with St. Willebrord to the great increase of the faith; till, understanding that St. Willebrord intended to make him his successor in the episcopal charge, he was alarmed, and left that mission. For his excuse he alleged that the pope had enjoined him a commission to preach the gospel to the heathens in Germany. From Friesland he went into Hesse and part of Saxony; and wherever he came, baptized many thousands of idolaters, destroyed temples, and built churches. He acquainted pope Gregory with this wonderful success, by a letter which he sent by one of his fellow-laborers, and, at the same time, consulted his holiness upon several difficulties that occurred in his ministry. The pope gave glory to God, and congratulated him by a letter, in which he commanded him to repair to Rome. Winfrid immediately obeyed the order, and arrived there in 723. Gregory required of him a confession of his faith, as is usual with regard to bishops elect before then consecration. He likewise put him several questions concerning his missions and converted countries, and after a few days ordained him bishop. Willibald says, that on this occasion the pope changed his rugged northern name of Winfrid into that of Boniface: but he could only confirm that change; for we find by the saint’s letters, that he then bore the name of Boniface, joining with it that of Winfrid. The saint took an oath to maintain the purity of faith, and the unity of the church; a copy of which written with his own hand, he laid upon the tomb of St. Peter. Pope Gregory gave him a book of select canons of the church, to serve him for a rule in his conduct, and by letters recommended him to Charles Martel, and to all bishops and princes wherever he should have occasion to travel.

The saint returning to his mission in Hesse, continued his spiritual conquests, and cut down a tall oak consecrated to Jupiter, the timber of which he employed in building a chapel in honor of the prince of the apostles. He founded many churches, and a monastery at Orfordt. The harvest growing daily upon his hands, he procured a new supply of laborers from England, whom he stationed in Hesse and Thuringia. In 732, Gregory III. succeeding in the pontificate, St. Boniface sent messengers to Rome, to consult him upon several difficulties. Gregory showed these deputies great respect, and sent by them a pall for St. Boniface, to be used by him only when he celebrated the divine mysteries, or consecrated bishops. He at that time constituted him archbishop and primate of all Germany, with power to erect new bishoprics where he should see it expedient. The saint went himself to Rome for the third time in 738 to visit the tombs of the apostles, and to confer with his holiness about the churches he had founded. The pope received him as a living saint, and appointed him legate of the apostolic see in Germany. Boniface on his return to that country was called into Bavaria by the duke Odilo, to reform several abuses. Finding only one bishopric in that country, namely, Passaw, he established three others, Saltzburg,* Freisingen, and Ratisbon, which division the pope confirmed in 739. The holy primate soon after established three new bishoprics, at Erford for Thuringia, at Baraburg for Hesse, since translated to Paderborn, and at Wurtzbourg for Franconia: he added a fourth at Achstat in the palatinate of Bavaria.

Gregory III. dying in November, 741, his successor Zachary, upon application made to him by St. Boniface, again confirmed all he had done in settling the church of Germany. At that time happened a memorable revolution in France, in which that crown was transferred into a new family, fruitful in great princes and valiant heroes. Charles Mattel, mayor of the pa. ace, having governed France twenty-six years with great valor and prudence, having conquered Burgundy and Aquitaine, humbled the Saxons, and often defeated the Saracens, who made formidable invasions from their late settlements in Spain, died in 741, being fifty or fifty-five years old. Since the dignity of mayor of the palace was become hereditary, the title of duke and prince of France had been added to it. By the death of Charles, his eldest son Carloman became mayor and prince of Austrasia, or Lorraine, and that part of Germany which was then subject to France. He subdued Odilo and Thierry, the former duke of Bavaria, and the latter of Saxony, and made them tributary; but it was his chief aim to consult by peace the happiness of his people, to protect religion, and to cultivate the useful arts. He bent his whole authority to second the zeal of our saint in all his undertakings. Two impostors were stirred up by the devil to disturb the infant church of Germany. The one, Adalbert, a Frenchman, pretended to know the secrets of hearts, gave his own hair and the parings of his nails as relics, and wrote his own life, filled with absurd pretended miracles, enthusiasm, and pride. The other, called Clement, a Scotsman, rejected the canons or the ecclesiastical laws, taught that Christ in his descent into hell delivered all the souls of the damned: he also held heterodox opinions concerning predestination. Saint Boniface, in a council in Germany, condemned them both in 742; Carloman caused them to be confined in close prison, and the sentence of our saint and his council was afterwards confirmed by the pope in a synod at Rome in 745.1 St. Boniface held another council in 743 at Leptines, now Lessines, a palace of the kings of Austrasia, near Ath, in the diocese of Cambray. Prince Carloman finding him a man full of the science of the saints, and of the Spirit of God, listened to his advice in all things relating to the salvation of his soul. By the saint’s pious discourses, his heart was daily more and more inflamed with divine love, till despising the world in the height of its glory, he recommended his estates and his son Drogo to Pepin the Short, his younger brother, and disengaged himself from all the ties of the world. He then went to Rome with a splendid retinue, and having visited the tombs of the apostles and other holy places of that city, and dismissed his attendants, he received from the hands of pope Zachary the monastic habit, and retiring to mount Soracte, built there a monastery called St. Sylvester’s. The neighborhood of Rome drew thither so many visitants, especially among the French lords who lived in that city, that to avoid this distraction, by the advice of the pope, he withdrew to mount Cassino, where he lived several years with great fervor and humility, as the author of the Chronicle of Mount Cassino, Eginhard in his Annals, and other historians of that age testify. He chose and discharged with great cheerfulness the meanest offices, often served in the kitchen, kept the sheep of the monastery, and worked like a day-laborer in the garden. In this he had before his eyes the example of many English-Saxon kings who had done the same. Ceolwulph, king of the Northumbers, to whom Bede dedicated his History, was the eighth among them who had then exchanged his regal crown for the cowl of a monk, taking the habit at Lindisfarne in 737, as Hoveden, Simeon of Durham, and Matthew of Westminster relate. In the same year Frisisgithe, queen of the West-Saxons, going to Rome, there took the religious veil. Carloman was doubtless encouraged by these heroic examples. Being sent into France for certain affairs of his order, he died holily at Vienne in 755. His brother, Pepin the Short, became mayor of the palace for the whole kingdom, till, in 752, he was chosen king by the unanimous consent of the whole nation, when the removal of Childeric III. put an end to the Merovingian line of kings.* St. Boniface, as appears by his letters and various consultations, was timorous in decisions, nor did he appear as an actor in this delicate affair. Pope Zachary, as Eginhard, Otto, and others relate, upon the application of the states of the realm, answered, that it was better he should be king, in whom the whole supreme power and authority were lodged,* and in this decision all parties peaceably acquiesced; judging that the state could not have two kings at the same time. All writers conspire in giving the highest commendations to the princely virtues of Pepin, whose zeal for religion, and love of the church and of holy men, could only be rivalled by his consummate experience, wisdom, and valor, by which he laid the foundation of that high pitch of power and glory to which his son carried the French empire. The new king, desiring to be crowned by the most holy prelate in his dominions, insisted upon the ceremony being performed by St. Boniface. This was done at Soissons, where our saint presided in a synod of bishops, and all the states of the French kingdom assisted at the coronation. St. Boniface, in his first council in Germany, is styled legate of St. Peter. From the councils of Lessines and Soissons, he appears to have been legate of the apostolic see in France no less than in Germany. In 746, he entreated pope Zachary to send a bishop legate into France, that he might be eased of that burden. The pope refused to grant this request; but allowed him, by a singular privilege, to choose whom he thought best qualified to be his successor in Germany after his death. The saint had been some years archbishop of Germany before he fixed his metropolitan see in any particular city. Cologne was at first judged the most proper, it being then the metropolis; but Gervilio, the bishop of Mentz, having been deposed in a council, that city was pitched upon in 745. Pope Zachary subjected to this new metropolitan church the bishoprics of Tongres, Cologne, Worms, Spire, Utrecht; also all those which St. Boniface had erected, and those which before were subject to the see of Worms, namely, Strasburg Augsburg, Constance, and Coire. Thus wax Mentz made the metropolitan church of all Germany; for Triers was then comprised in France. Shortly after Cologne, and in process of time many other churches were raised to the dignity of archbishoprics, though in honor of St. Boniface, Mentz has always retained the primacy.

To assist him in planting the spirit of meekness and Christian piety in a fierce and uncivilized nation, St. Boniface invited over from England many holy men and religious women. Among these were St. Wigbert. St. Burchard, bishop of Wurtzbourg; St. Willibald, bishop of Eichstad, and St. Lullus: and among the holy virgins, were St. Lioba, our saint’s cousin; St. Thecla, St. Walburge, Bertigita, and Contruda, to whom he committed the direction of several nunneries which he erected in Thuringia, Bavaria, and other places. In 746 he laid the foundation of the great abbey of Fuld, or Fulden, which continued long the most renowned seminary of piety and learning in all that part of the world. The abbot is now a prince of the empire, lord of a very extensive territory, and is styled primate of all the abbots in Germany, and chancellor to the empress. St. Boniface had several years before founded a monastery at Fridislar in honor of Saint Peter; another at Hamenburgh in honor of St. Michael: and one at Ordorfe in honor of the same archangel, in all which the monks gained their livelihood by the labor of their hands. The pastoral care of so many churches did not hinder this holy man from extending his zeal to remote countries, especially to that which gave him birth. Ethelbald, king of Mercia, was a lover of justice, and liberal to the poor; but sullied these virtues by abominable lusts, abstaining from matrimony that he might wallow in filthy incontinency: and his scandalous example was imitated by many of his courtiers. St. Boniface, touched to the quick at the news of such scandals, in 745 wrote to this prince a strong remonstrance and exhortation to penance, putting him in mind how base it was for him to be the slave of lust to the injury of God by whose benefit he ruled so great a nation; and how heinous a crime it was to set such an example to his subjects.* He tells him that chastity is so highly prized among the pagan inhabitants of old Saxony, that if a married woman was convicted of adultery, or a virgin of fornication, she was strangled, and her body burned; and he who had dishonored her was hanged over her grave; or she was scourged on her back by women, and stabbed with knives, first in one village, then in the next, and so round the country, till she expired under her torments. “If Gentiles, who know not God,” says the saint, “have so great a zeal for chastity, what ought to be your sentiments who are a Christian and a king!” He puts him in mind of the unhappy end of his predecessor, Coelred, and of Osred, king of the Northumbrians, both addicted to this shameful vice, and both snatched away by sudden death in the midst of their evil courses. From the gift of Croiland, mentioned by Ingulphus, and from the laws of this king in favor of the church, and of the abbey of Ripendune, Natalis Alexander, and some others, think he became a sincere penitent. He was slain soon after, in 755, by Beornred, a rebel, who usurped his throne.†

St. Boniface wrote a circular letter to all the bishops, priests, deacons canons, monks, nuns, and all the people of England, conjuring them earnestly to join in holy prayer, to beg of God, who desires that all may be saved, that he would vouchsafe, in his infinite mercy, to snower down his blessing upon the labors of all those who are employed in endeavoring to bring souls to his saving knowledge and holy love. He often desired books to be sent him from England, especially the works of Bede, whom he calls a lamp of the church.2 He entreated the abbess Edburge3 to send him the epistles of St. Peter written in letters of gold to inspire carnal men with the greater respect, and to satisfy his devotion to that apostle, whom he calls the patron of his mission. Writing to the abbot Aldherius,4 he begs that he would cause the sacrifice of the mass to be offered for the souls of those missionaries who were lately deceased. In several other epistles he mentions the mutual contract of charity between the missionaries abroad and the priests and monks in England, that they should reciprocally pray for their deceased brethren. In a letter to a nun,5 he mentions how much he had to suffer in his mission from the pagans, from false Christians, and even from ecclesiastics of debauched morals. Yet the ardor of his charity made him continually to thirst after greater sufferings, and especially after the honor of laying down his life for the love of him who died for us. In a letter to Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury,6 treating of the duties of pastors, he says, “Let us fight for the Lord in these days of bitterness and affliction. If this be the will of God, let us die for the holy laws of our fathers, that we may arrive with them at the eternal inheritance. Let us not be dumb dogs, sleeping sentinels, hirelings that fly at the sight of the wolf: but watchful and diligent pastors; preaching to the great and small, to the rich and poor, to every age and condition, being instant in season and out of sea son.” St. Boniface, in his homilies, most frequently inculcates the obligation and sanctity of the baptismal vows.

This apostle of so many nations thought he had yet done nothing, so long as he had not spilled his blood for Christ, and earnestly desired to attain to that happiness. Making use of the privilege which pope Zachary had granted him of choosing his successor, he consecrated St. Lullus, an Englishman, formerly monk of Malmesbury, archbishop of Mentz, in 754, leaving him to finish the churches which he had begun in Thuringia, and that of Fuld, and conjuring him to apply himself strenuously to the conversion of the remaining idolaters. He wrote a letter to Fulrad,* abbot of St. Denys, begging him to make this choice of St. Lullus agreeable to king Pepin, and as his infirmities admonished him that he had not long to remain in this world, he conjured that prince to take into his favor and protection his disciples, who were almost all strangers, either priests dispersed in many places for the service of the church, or monks assembled in his little monastery, where they were employed in instructing children. He says, that the priests lived on the frontiers of the pagans, very poor and destitute, and that they were able to get their bread, but not clothing, unless they were assisted. Pepin granted his request, and pope Stephen III. confirmed his nomination of Lullus and his resignation of the see of Mentz, in order that he might go and preach the gospel to those nations which still remained unconverted.

The saint, looking upon himself as devoted to labor in the conversion of infidels, and being at liberty to follow the call of heaven, would not allow himself any repose, so long as he saw souls perishing in the shades of darkness, and his extreme desire of martyrdom seemed to give him a foresight of his approaching death. Having therefore settled his church and put all things in the best order possible, he set out with certain zealous companions to preach to the savage infidel inhabitants of the northern parts of East-Friesland. Having converted and baptized some thousands among them, he appointed the eve of Whitsunday to administer to the neophytes the sacrament of confirmation in the open fields in the plains of Dockum, near the banks of the little rivulet Bordne. He pitched there a tent, and was waiting in prayer the arrival of the new converts, when, behold, instead of friends, a band of enraged infidels appeared on the plain all in arms, and coming up, rushed into his tent. The servants that were with the holy martyr were for defending his life by fighting; but he would not suffer it, declaring that the day he had long waited for was come, which was to bring him to the eternal joys of the Lord. He encouraged the rest to meet, with cheerfulness and constancy, a death which was to them the gate of everlasting life. While he was thus employed, the pagans attacked them sword in hand, and put them all to death. St. Boniface suffered in the seventy-fifth year of his age, on the fifth of June, in the year of Christ 755. With him were martyred fifty-two companions, of whom the principal persons were Eoban, bishop; Wintrung, Walter, and Adelhere, priests; Hamund, Strichald, and Bosa, deacons; Waccar, Gunderhar, Williker, and Hadulph, monks; the rest were laymen. The barbarians expected to have a great booty of gold and silver in the baggage of the holy martyrs, but found nothing in their trunks but relics and books, which they scattered about the fields, or hid in ditches and marshes. Some of these things were afterwards found, and of them three books are still preserved in the monastery of Fuld, or Fulden: namely, a book of the gospels, written in St. Boniface’s own hand; a copy of a Harmony, or canons of the New Testament; and a third book, which is stained with the martyr’s blood, and contains the letter of St. Leo to Theodorus, bishop of Frejus, and the discourse of St. Ambrose on the Holy Ghost, with his treatise, De bono Mortis—or, On the advantage of Death. The body of St. Boniface was first carried to Utrecht, thence to Mentz, and lastly to Fuld, where it was deposited by St. Lullus, as the saint himself had desired.* It is to this day regarded as the greatest treasure of that monastery. The continuators of Bollandus have given us, under the title of Analecta Bonifaciana, a long history of an incredible number of miracles down to this present time, which have been wrought by God at the relics, and through the intercession of St. Boniface.

He who sincerely loves God, rejoices with this martyr to sacrifice to his honor his life, and whatever he has received of his bounty. With his whole strength he consecrates all his faculties eternally to the glorious and holy functions of divine love. He prays and labors without intermission that God alone may reign in his own soul, and ardently desires that all tongues may never cease to sound forth his praises, and that all creatures may have but one heart, always to be employed with the angels and blessed spirits, in doing his will, in loving him, and in glorifying his adorable name. There is no danger to which such a one would not with joy expose himself; nothing so difficult that he would not undertake, that one soul might be converted to God. He would rejoice to lay down his life a thousand times, were it possible, to hinder one offence against the divine majesty. Baronius7 pathetically exhorts the Germans to consider what men their apostles were, and what were the maxims of the gospel they received from them; for with these their holy pastors and teachers, who will sit with the supreme Judge at the last day, they will be confronted and judged by them.

JUNE 5 — ST. DOROTHEUS OF TYRE, M

He was a priest, some say bishop, of Tyre in Phœnicia, and suffered much for the faith under Dioclesian, as the ancient Martyrologies testify. He is said to have survived his torments, and to have reached the times of Julian the Apostate.

St. Theophanes, Anastasius the librarian, and the modern Greeks tell us, that he completed his martyrdom at Odyssopolis in Thrace.* Another Dorotheus, a martyr, chamberlain of Dioclesian, is mentioned by Eusebius, and honored with St. Gorgonius: see the 9th of September.1 The same historian speaks of a third Dorotheus, a priest of Antioch in the same age a most holy man, and perfectly skilled in the scriptures and in the Hebrew tongue.2

JUNE 5 — ST. DOROTHEUS, ABBOT

He was surnamed the Theban, because a native of Thebes in Egypt. He retired first into a monastery, but after having learned for some time the exercises of an ascetic life under the most experienced masters, he shut himself up in a cavern in a wilderness, nine miles from Alexandria, on the road to Nitria. Here he lived in most austere abstinence and labor. During the greatest part of the day, even in the most scorching heat of the sun, he picked up and carried stones, and built cells for other hermits: at night he made cords and baskets of palm-tree leaves, by which he earned six ounces of bread a day, with a handful of herbs, which was his whole subsistence. His watchings were incredible; nor would he allow himself any indulgence in his old age. When his disciples entreated him to afford a little more rest to his enfeebled body, his answer was, “This enemy would destroy me; therefore I am resolved to be beforehand with it, and keep it in subjection.” It happened that his disciple, Palladius, spying an aspic in the well, durst not drink of the water. But the holy abbot, making the sign of the cross upon the cup, drank and said, “In the presence of the cross of Christ the devil loseth his power.” This Palladius, upon his coming into the wilderness, chose St. Dorotheus, who had then lived an anchoret in the same austere manner sixty years, for his first master. The saint died towards the end of the fourth century, and is honored in the Greek Menæa.

Palladius gives us the foregoing account of his life in the second chapter of the Lausiac history; and Sozomen,1. 6, c. 29. He mentions another Dorotheus, who also lived in the fourth age, and was the spiritual director of a monastery of three hundred nuns. Ibid, c. 36.* And a third, an eminent anchoret at the same time near Antinois, c. 97. Another Dorotheus, surnamed the Archimandrite, whom many have confounded with the Theban, flourished two hundred years later near Gaza, was author of twenty-four Ascetic Doctrines, and in his monastery lived Saint Dositheus.†

JUNE 5 — ST. ILLIDIUS, B. C

Illidius, called in French Allyre, was the fourth bishop of Clermont in Auvergne, from St. Austremonius, and flourished in the fourth century. His great sanctity is extolled by St. Gregory of Tours. He died about the year 385, on the 5th of June, on which his festival is kept in his diocese and titular abbey, though his name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 7th of July. His relics are kept with singular veneration in the ancient Benedictin abbey in the suburb of Clermont,‡ which bears his name, is of the congregation of St. Maur, and enjoys the privilege of having a regular abbot. See St. Gregory of Tours.1. 1, c. 40; Branche, Vies des SS. d’Auvergne,1. 2; Savaron, Origin., Clarom., &c.

JUNE 6 — ST. NORBERT, C. ARCHBISHOP OF MAGDEBOURG, FOUNDER OF THE PREMONSTRATENSIAN ORDER

From his life, faithfully written by Hugh, his first disciple, and successor In the government of his order, abridged by Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Relig. t. 2, p. 164; Fleury, Papebroke, t. 1, Junii, p. 808, and severe, works of F. Charles Lewis Hugo, abbot of Etival, in Lorraine, of this order, and bishop of Ptolemais, is partibus Infidehum, who died at Etival in 1739. See especially his life of St. Norbert, with curious notes, In 4to., printed at Luxembourg, 1704. His letters to the abbé de Lorkot, in defence of this life, at Nancy, 1705, and his Annales Ordinis Præmonstratensis, in fol. t. 2, at Nancy, 1736.

A. D. 1134.

ST. NORBERT was born at Santen, in the duchy of Cleves, in 1080. His father, Heribert, count of Gennep, was related to the emperor, and his mother derived her pedigree from the house of Lorraine. The rank which his birth gave him was rendered more illustrious by the excellent qualifications of his mind and body. His application to his studies was equal to the quickness of his parts, and he went through his academical exercises with extraordinary applause. But being at first blinded by the flattery of the world, he suffered himself to be carried away by its pleasures and pastimes, and had no higher thoughts than how he might live in honor and at his ease. He even received the ecclesiastical tonsure with a worldly spirit; and though he was instituted to a canonry at Santen, and ordained subdeacon, he neither changed his spirit nor his conduct. Being naturally inclined to mirth and gayety, he was the soul of all parties of pleasure, and by living in a circle of diversions, he drowned his soul in a round of vanities and trifling amusements, and was a stranger to serious reflection on himself, which would have opened his eyes. He would not be prevailed on to receive any higher orders for fear of a greater restraint on his conduct; and he led the same manner of life in the court of his cousin, the emperor Henry IV., who appointed him his almoner. God beheld with compassion the heart of this young nobleman enslaved to the world, in which he in vain sought that contentment and quiet of mind which no earthly advantages can afford, and which it is in the power of virtue alone to give. But to break his secret chains an extraordinary grace was necessary; and God awakened him from his spiritual lethargy by an alarming accident. Norbert was riding to a village in Westphalia, called Freten, in pursuit of his pleasures, mounted on a horse richly caparisoned, and attended by only one servant, when, in the midst of a pleasant meadow, he was overtaken by a violent storm, accompanied with dreadful thunder and lightning. Finding himself at a great distance from any shelter, he was overwhelmed with perplexity and tear; and while he was going on briskly, having set spurs to his horse, a ball of fire, or lightning, with a loud clap of thunder, fell just before his horse’s feet, burned the grass, and cleft the earth. The poor beast, thus affrighted, threw his rider, who lay like one dead for near an hour. At last coming to himself, like another Saul, he cried out to God, in the bitter compunction of his heart, “Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?” To which the divine grace interiorly suggested this reply, “Turn away from evil, and do good: seek after peace, and pursue it.” Being thus humbled in the full career of his passions, he became upon the spot a sincere penitent. Returning more to the court, he withdrew to his canonry at Santen, there led a life of silence and retirement, wore a hair shirt next his skin, and spent his time in ears, holy prayer, and meditation. Now taking a serious review of himself and the world, he detested his past ingrstænde to God, and his folly in serving a deceitful world which mingles in all its delights much gall and bitterness, far outweighing the false and momentary pleasure. The remembrance of the divine mercy which had spared him, while many others had been cut off in their sins, and in a moment been buried in hell, pierced his heart to the quick, and drew daily from his eyes streams of tears, by which he endeavored to wash away the stains of his soul. The fire of divine love thus kindled in his heart, gained strength every day by his fidelity, and by fresh supplies of grace. But his conversion was completed by a retreat which he made in St. Sigebert’s monastery near Cologne, and by the pious exhortations of Conon, the holy abbot of that house, who was made soon after bishop of Ratisbon. Norbert was at this time in the thirtieth year of his age.

After his conversion, he employed two years in preparing himself for the priesthood, which he received from the hands of the archbishop of Cologne, together with the order of deacon, his fervor seeming a sufficient cause for such a dispensation. At the time of his ordination, he appeared in a lambskin cassock tied with a cord, and thus published to the world, that from that moment he renounced all its vanities. After his ordination, he returned to Conon, and made, under his direction, a severe retreat of forty days to dispose himself by tears, prayer, and fasting to say his first mass, which he came back to Santen to celebrate with his chapter. After the gospel was sung at high mass, he mounted the pulpit, and made a most pathetic sermon on the vanity of the world, the shortness of human life, and the insufficiency of all created beings to satisfy the heart of man; and he indirectly inveighed against the disorders of his colleagues. In a chapter which was held the next day, he pointed them out more distinctly, and pressed a reformation so vigorously, that several of them became perfect converts, and loudly condemned their past irregularities. But others, who could not bear that their sores should be touched to the quick, burst out into intemperate rage against him, and not content with ill-usage, they accused him to the pope’s legate as an innovator, a hypocrite, and one who covered pernicious designs under the specious pretence of zeal for a reformation of manners. The saint, having before his eyes the sins of his past life, confessed that he deserved all manner of contempt and ill treatment, and rejoiced under injuries and afflictions. Nevertheless, reflecting on what he owed to God’s honor, he purged himself before the legate, in a council held at Fritzlar, in 1118. Soon after, inflamed with an ardent zeal to live to God alone, he resigned all his ecclesiastical preferments into the hands of the archbishop of Cologne, and sold his own estate, giving the money to the poor, reserving only to himself ten marks of silver, a mule, and sacred vestments and ornaments for the altar. Thus divested of all that could engage his stay in his own country, he travelled barefoot to St. Giles’s in Languedoc, where pope Gelasius II. was at that time. He threw himself at his holiness’s feet, and with extraordinary compunction, made to him a general confession of his whole life, begging absolution of all his past disorders, especially of the irregularity committed in his receiving the holy orders of deacon and priest at the same time, with out observing the interstices prescribed by the canons, though it had been done by the dispensation of his diocesan; and cheerfully offered himself to make any satisfaction. He obtained of the pope faculties to preach the gospel where he judged proper. It was then the depth of winter. Yet he walked barefoot through the snow, and, inflamed with an ardent love of God, and desire of promoting his glory, seemed insensible to the rigors of the season. His whole life was a perpetual lent, and he never took his meal till evening, except on Sundays. He preached penance with incredible fruit over the provinces of Languedoc, Guienne, Poitou, and Orleanois. Till he came to Orleans, he had been accompanied only by two laymen; but, passing through that city, was joined by a subdeacon, who desired to assist him in his mission. His three disciples all fell sick, and died at Valenciennes, in Hainault, in 1119. In that city Burchard, bishop of Cambray, who had beer acquainted with the saint in the emperor’s court, meeting him, was extremely edified with his humility, penance, and zeal; and Hugh, his chaplain, quitting his hopes and prospects in the world, resolved to accompany Norbert in his apostolical labors: this great man afterwards succeeded him in the government of his order. With this companion, the saint preached penance through all Hainault, Brabant, and the territory of Liege. The people crowded to hear him wherever he came, and his sermons, enforced and illustrated by an evangelical life, procured the conversion of great numbers, reconciled those that were at variance, and engaged usurers and others to make restitution of their ill-gotten goods.

Pope Calixtus II. having succeeded Gelasius II. in 1119, Norbert went to Rheims, where his Holiness held a council soon after his exaltation. The prelates of that assembly were no less charmed with the eloquence, wisdom, and piety of this great servant of God, than amazed at the austerity of his penance, which some advised him in vain to moderate. He was introduced to the pope, who was one of the greatest men that had filled the apostolic chair, by Bartholomew bishop of Laon, and obtained a fresh grant of the privileges and faculties he had received from his predecessor. That prelate earnestly requested that his Holiness would allow him to fix the holy man in his diocese, that he might employ him in reforming the regular canons of St. Martin’s church at Laon. The pope readily consented, but these canons could not be induced to submit to his severe regulations. Wherefore the zealous bishop gave the holy man the choice of several places to build a house. The saint pitched upon a lonesome valley called Premontré, in the forest of Coucy, where he found the remains of a small chapel, which bore the name of St. John, but stood in so barren a soil that the monks of St. Vincent at Laon, the proprietors of it, had abandoned it. The bishop bought of them this desert piece of land, and there built a monastery for the saint, who assembled out of Brabant thirteen brethren, desirous to serve God under his direction. Their number soon increased to forty, who made their profession on Christmas-day, 1121. The saint gave them the rule of St. Austin, with a white habit, destining them, in imitation of the angels in heaven, to sing the divine praises on earth. Their manner of living was very austere; but their order is no other than a reformation of regular canons. It was soon spread over several parts of Europe. Among the foundations made by our saint, that of St. Michael’s at Antwerp was attended with circumstances which were illustrious proofs of his zeal. That town was then in the diocese of Cambray, and consisted at that time but of one parish, which fell into the hands of an unworthy pastor, by whose sloth and irregular conduct the flock was sunk into great disorders. Tankelin, a bold and eloquent heretic, took his advantage of this unhappy state of the church at Antwerp, and openly asserted that the institution of the priesthood is a fiction, and that the eucharist and other sacraments are of no service to salvation. He drew after him three thousand persons, who believed him a great prophet, and were ready to commit any outrages to support his impious extravagances. After he had spread his errors in the dioceses of Utrecht, Cambray, and the adjacent churches, luring the people with magnificent banquets, and practising the most filthy abominations of the Gnostics, he was slain in 1115, in those tumults which himself had raised, meeting with the usual fate of the authors of seditions and disturbers of the public peace.

The combustion, however, continued still to rage with no less fury than ever, and to fill the whole country with desolation. The reputation of the sanctity and erudition of Norbert attracted the eyes of all Europe; and the canons of Antwerp, in this distress of their church, being joined by Burchard their bishop, who resided at Cambray, implored his charitable assistance. The saint lost no time, and arrived at Antwerp with a select number of his canons who labored under his direction. Such was the success of this mission, that in a short time the people were undeceived, the heretics converted, abuses reformed, and the city restored to its former tranquillity and lustre. The clergy of Antwerp settled St. Michael’s church on the saint and his order; and removed the ancient college of secular canons to our Lady’s, which in 1559 was erected by pope Paul IV. into a cathedral, when Antwerp was made a bishop’s see. The bishop of Cambray confirmed the donation of St. Michael’s to the saint in 1124. St. Norbert revived the devotion of the people to the holy sacrament of the altar, and its frequent use, which heresy had interrupted, and had the comfort to see this church flourish in piety before he returned to his first settlement. His order was then much increased, and contained ten abbeys and eight hundred religious men. Among others who embraced his rule, count Godfrey, a nobleman of high renown in the empire, put on the habit at Floreff near Namur, and led an exemplary life in that convent, serving God in the humble quality of a lay-brother. Several other persons of distinction fled from the corruption of the world to the sanctuaries established by this great director in the paths of salvation. His institute had been approved by the legates of Calixtus II., but a more solemn confirmation being judged necessary, St. Norbert undertook a journey to Rome in 1125. Pope Honorius II., who had succeeded Calixtus II. in the close of the foregoing year, and was a great encourager of learning and of good men, received him with all possible marks of respect and affection, and granted all he desired, as appears by his bull, dated in the February following. The saint at his return to Premontré, put the abbey of St. Martin’s at Laon under his rule, which the canons then demanded, though they had rejected it six or seven years before. The abbey of Viviers in the diocese of Soissons made the same step. Theobald, a prime nobleman of France, desired to embrace his order; but the saint diverted him from that design, showing him that God, by the situation in which he had placed him in the world, pointed out what he required at his hands; he made him sensible that his obligations to his family and bleeding country were ties in conscience, and that by faithfully acquitting himself of them, he would most effectually labor to advance the honor, and accomplish the will of God.

Norbert having completed the great work of the establishment of his order, was obliged to quit his monastery, to be placed in a more exalted station for the benefit of many. The count of Champagne, who did nothing of importance without the advice and direction of our saint, took him into Germany, whither he was going to conclude a treaty of marriage between himself and Maud, a niece to the bishop of Ratisbon. After the death of the unhappy emperor Henry V., Lothaire II., duke of Saxony, was chosen king of the Romans in 1125, though he was only crowned emperor at Rome in 1132, by pope Innocent II. This excellent prince, whose reign was equally glorious and religious, was holding a diet at Spire when the count and St. Norbert arrived at that city. Deputies from the city of Magdeburg were come to the same place to solicit Lothaire for an archbishop in the come of Roger, who died the year before. Two persons were proposed for that dignity; but Lothaire preferred Norbert to them both. At his name the deputies rejoiced exceedingly; and, indeed, the saint was the only person not pleased with the nomination. The pope’s legate, cardinal Gerard, who afterwards sat in St. Peter’s chair under the name of Lucius II., made use of his authority to oblige him to comply. The deputies of Magdeburg took him with them to that city, where he was met at a distance by the principal persons, and by his clergy. He followed the procession barefoot, and was conducted to the church, and thence to his palace. But his dress was so mean and poor, that the porter shut the door against him, saying: “Why will you go in to disturb my lords?” Those that followed cried out: “He is our bishop.” The saint said to the porter: “Brother, you know me better than they do who have raised such a one to this dignity.” In this high station the austerity of his life was the same he had practised in a cloister, only his humility was more conspicuous. By the joint weight of his authority, eloquence, and example, he made a great reformation both in the clergy and laity of his diocese; and by his strenuous and undaunted resolution, he recovered a considerable part of the lands of his church which had fallen into the hands of certain powerful secular princes. But his zeal made those his enemies whom his charity could not gain to their duty. They loaded him with injuries, decried him among themselves, and encouraged one another in their disobedience and contempt of his person, calling him a stranger, whose manners were opposite to theirs. To such an excess did their rage carry them, that some even made attempts upon his life. One who saw himself obliged by the saint to renounce his licentious manner of life, hired a villain to assassinate him under pretence of going to confession on Maundy-Thursday. The saint was apprized of his design, as some authors affirm, by revelation, and he caused him to be searched as he came in, and a dagger was found upon him. Another shot an arrow at the saint, which only missed him to wound another that was near him. Of these villanies Norbert only said, without the least emotion: “Can you be surprised that the devil, after having offered violence to our divine Head, should assault his members?” He always pardoned the assassins, and showed himself ever ready to lay down his life in the defence of truth and justice. By this patience and unshaken courage, he in three years broke through the chief difficulties which obstructed the reformation of manners he labored to introduce, and from that time he carried on the work, and performed the visitation of his diocese with ease and incredible success. He continued still to superintend the observance of discipline in his order, though upon his episcopal consecration he had left the government thereof to his first disciple Hugh. The fourth general chapter consisted of eighteen abbots.

After the death of pope Honorius II. an unhappy schism divided the church. Innocent II. was duly chosen on the 14th of February, 1130: notwithstanding which, Peter, the son of Leo, under the name of Anacletus II., was acknowledged at Rome, and by Roger duke of Sicily. The true pope was obliged to fly into France, where he held councils at Clermont, Rheims, and Puy in Velay. St. Bernard and St. Norbert labored vigorously to prevent or remedy the disorders which the schism brought into many places. St. Norbert assisted for this purpose at the council which the pope assembled at Rheims in 1131. Upon his return home, the emperor Lothaire, who resolved to march with an army to Rome to put Innocent II, in possession of the Lateran church in 1132, carried our holy bishop with him in that expedition, trusting that his piety, prayers, and zealous exhortations, would contribute very much to the success of his undertaking; and the event answered his expectations. The saint returned to Magdeburg, where he fell ill, and after four months’ tedious sickness, died the death of the just on the 6th of June, in the eighth year of his episcopal dignity, the fifty-third of his age, of our redemption 1134. He was canonized by Gregory XIII. in 1582. Pope Urban VIII. appointed his festival to be kept on the 10th of June.1 His body remained at Magdeburg till that city embraced the Lutheran doctrine and revolted. The emperor Charles V. laid siege to it; but was prevailed upon to withdraw his army for a great sum of money. In the reign of Ferdinand II. the Lutheran magistrates, at the request of the Norbertine order, and of many princes, consented that the body of St. Norbert should be removed out of their city. The emperor ordered that it should be translated to Prague; which was done with great pomp in 1627. The sacred treasure was carried into that city by fourteen abbots with their mitres on, and laid in the church called of Mount Sion, all the orders of the city attending the ceremony in the most solemn and magnificent procession.*

St. Norbert is usually painted holding a ciborium in his hand. He is distinguished by this symbol on account of his extraordinary devotion to the blessed sacrament. He inculcated in all his sermons the frequent use of this divine food, being sensible from daily experience, and from the words of truth itself, that a neglect, and much more a distaste or loathing of the holy communion, is a deplorable symptom of a most dangerous state in a spiritual life. A short interval in order to a better preparation is often a wholesome counsel, and sometimes a necessary duty. But “he who seldom approaches, because he is tepid and cold, is like one who should say, I never approach the fire, because I am cold: I have not recourse to the physician, because I am sick,” as the devout Gerson writes.2 This divine sacrament is the most powerful strengthener of our weakness, the sovereign remedy of our spiritual miseries, and the source of heavenly comfort to alleviate the labors and sorrows of our mortal pilgrimage. The deeper sense we have of our spiritual indigence, with so much the greater eagerness ought we continually to cry out: If I shall but touch the hem of his garment, I shall be saved.3 Can we slight the most tender invitations of our divine Redeemer? Can we disobey his repeated commands, and contemn his threats?4 Above all, can we be insensible to that excess of infinite love by which he has wrought so many wonders, that he might here abide in us by the strongest alliance?5 That person cannot love Jesus who is not solicitous to unite himself often with him in this sacrament of love. The devil employs all his artifices to deprive us of this seed of immortality, as the fathers style it. Holofernes, when he besieged Bethulia, seeing the place impregnable, attempted to take it by stopping the pipes which conveyed water to the city, being sure by this stratagem to reduce it. In like manner the devil seeks to draw a soul from this banquet, that when she has lost her strength he may make her an easy prey. St. Ambrose† applies to this spiritual food that passage of the psalmist: They that go far from thee, shall perish.6

JUNE 6 — ST. PHILIP THE DEACON

So much was the number of the faithful increased after the first sermons of St Peter, that the apostles being entirely taken up in the ministry of the word, it was judged proper to choose seven men, full of the Spirit of God and wisdom, to have care of the poor, under the name of deacons or ministers. St. Philip is named the second in this catalogue,1 who, according to St. Isidore of Pelusium, was a native of Cæsarea in Palestine. The deacons were not confined to what seemed to give birth to the institution; for at that time the divine mysteries were sometimes administered to the faithful at a supper, as appears from St. Pau1,2 though afterwards the apostles ordered that the blessed eucharist should only be received by persons fasting, as St. Austin observes, and is clear from Tertullian and others. Only the priests could consecrate the holy mysteries; but deacons often delivered the cup.* That the deacons were appointed to minister in the holy mysteries, (and this probably by an express order of Christ,) is manifest from the holy scriptures, and from the writings of the disciples of the apostles. In their first institution they were ordained by an imposition of hands with prayer.3 St. Paul requires almost the same conditions in the deacons as in bishops or priests, and that they be tried before they be admitted into the ministry.4 St. Ignatius, writing to the Trallians,5 calls the deacons “the ministers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ.” And to the Smyrnæans he says: “Reverence the deacons as the precept of the Lord.”6 In his other epistles, he usually joins the deacons with the priests and bishops as sacred ministers in the church.7 St. Cyprian calls deacons the ministers of the episcopacy, and of the church. The sacred functions in which deacons were employed, were, first, To minister to the priest at the sacrifice of the eucharist, as St. Laurence testifies in his famous words to pope Sixtus, recorded by St. Ambrose.8 Secondly To baptize in the absence of the priest. Thirdly, To preach the divine word. The holy deacon St. Philip excelled so much in preaching the gospel, that he acquired the name of Evangelist, by which he is distinguished in the Acts of the Apostles.9 After the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the disciples being dispersed into several places, St. Philip first carried the light of the gospel into Samaria. The people of that country listened with one accord to his discourses, and by seeing the miracles which he wrought in confirmation of the doctrine he delivered, great numbers were converted to the faith. For many who were possessed by unclean spirits were delivered, and others afflicted with palsies or lamenesses were healed.10

At that time one Simon, surnamed the Magician, made a great figure in Samaria. He was a native of Gitton in that country, and before the arrival of St. Philip, had acquired a great reputation in the city of Samaria, seducing he people, whom he had for a long time bewitched with his magical practices, as St. Luke testifes,11 who adds: That they all gave ear to him from the least to the greatest, saying: This man is the power of God, which is called great. The infernal spirit sought to oppose these illusions and artifices to the true miracles of Christ; as he was suffered to assist the magicians of Pharaoh against Moses. But God, when he permits the devil to exert in such an extraordinary manner his natural strength and powers, always furnishes his servants with means of discerning and confounding the imposture Accordingly the clear miracles wrought by Philip put the magician quite out of countenance. Being himself witness to them, and seeing the people run to Philip to be baptized by him, he also believed or pretended to believe; and being baptized, stuck close to Philip, hoping to attain to the power of effecting miracles like those which he saw him perform. The apostles at Jerusalem, hearing of the conversion of Samaria, sent thither SS. Peter and John to confirm the converts by the imposition of hands, which sacrament only bishops could confer. With the grace of this sacrament, at that time were usually conferred certain external gifts of the miraculous powers. Simon seeing these communicated to the laity by the imposition of the hands of the apostles, offered them money, saying: “Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I shall lay my hands he may receive the Holy Ghost.” But St. Peter said to him: “Keep thy money to thyself to perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Do penance for this thy wickedness; and pray to God, if perhaps this thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee. For I see thou art in the gall of bitterness, and engaged in the bonds of iniquity.” Simon being in that evil disposition, was incapable of receiving the gifts of the Holy Ghost, at least interior sanctifying grace. Nor did he sincerely seek this. However, fearing the threat of temporal evils, he answered: “Pray you for me to the Lord, that none of these things may come upon me.” From this crime of Simon, the sin of selling any spiritual thing for a temporal price, which both the law of nature and the positive divine law most severely condemn, is called simony; and to maintain that practice lawful is usually termed in the canon law the heresy of Simon Magus. We have no further account of this impostor in the holy scriptures, except that he and his disciples seemed marked out by St. Paul and St. Jude;12 and St. James proved against them13 the necessity of good works to salvation. St. Peter also draws their portrait in the most frightful colors.14 The fathers generally look upon the conversion of Simon to the faith as an act of hypocrisy, founded only in ambition and temporal views, and in the hope of purchasing the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which he ascribed to a superior art, magic. We learn from St. Epiphanius,15 St. Irenæus,16 Tertullian,17 Theodoret,18 and other fathers, that he afterwards pretended to be the Messias, and called himself the power of God, who was descended on earth to save men, and to re-establish the order of the universe, which he affirmed had been disturbed by the ambition of the angels striving which should be the first, and enslaving men under their government of the world. He said that, to hold man in their captivity, they had invented the law of good works, whereas he taught that faith alone sufficeth to salvation. He pretended that the world was created by angels, who afterwards revolted from God, and usurped an undue power in it. Yet he ordered them to be honored, and sacrifices to be offered to the Father by the mediation of these powers, not to beg their succor, but to appease them that they might not obstruct our designs on earth, nor hurt us after our death. This superstitious worship of the angels was a downright idolatry, and was condemned by St. Paul.* See on it Tertullian, St. Epiphanius, and Theodoret. Simon rejected the Old Testament, saying it was framed by the angels, and that he was come to abolish it. Having purchased a beautiful prostitute at Tyre, he called her Helena, and said she was the first intelligence, and that the Father through her had created the angels. He often called himself the Holy Ghost; which name he sometimes gave also to Helena. He required divine honors to be paid to himself under the figure of Jupiter, and to Helena under that of Minerva. He denied free-will, and sowed the seeds of the abominations afterwards propagated by the Gnostics. His extravagant system was a medley formed from paganism, and the Christian, Jewish, and Samaritan doctrines. He strove in all things to rival Christ. His journey to Rome will be mentioned in the life of St. Peter, St. Philip had the affliction, amidst the spiritual success of his ministry to see the hypocrisy of this monster, and the havoc of souls made by his impiety and blasphemies. Christ himself was pleased to suffer much contradiction in his doctrine, to teach his disciples patience and meekness under the like trials from the obstinacy of impenitent sinners. If their labors were always successful, where would be the crown of their patience?

St. Philip was probably still at Samaria, when an angel appearing to him, ordered him to go southward to a road that led from Jerusalem to Gaza. There he found an Ethiopian eunuch, one of the principal officers in the court of queen Candace, and her high treasurer, who, being a Jew, had made a religious visit to the temple, and was then on his road homeward.* Such was his affection to the sacred writings, that he was reading the prophecy of Isaiah as he was travelling in his chariot. The passage on which he was meditating happened to be that19 in which the prophet, speaking of the passion of Christ, says he was led like a sheep to the slaughter; that his humiliation was crowned, his ignominious condemnation being taken away by the glory of his resurrection; for who can explain his eternal generation, or the glorious resurrection of his humanity, which is as it were a second miraculous birth? St. Philip expounded to him this text, which the eunuch did not understand, instructed him perfectly in the faith, and baptized him. After which, the eunuch returning home full of joy, became the apostle and catechist of Ethiopia his country, as St. Jerom assures us20 from Eusebius. The Abyssinians to this day regard him as their apostle. As for St. Philip, when he had baptized his illustrious convert, he was conveyed by God to Azotus, where he published the gospel, and in all the other towns in his way to Cæsarea, the place of his ordinary residence. Twenty-four years afterwards. St. Paul, when he came thither in 58, lodged in his house. His four daughters were virgins and prophetesses.21 St. Jerom says they preserved their virginity by vow, or at least out of devotion.22 The same father thinks their gift of prophecy was the recompense of their chastity.23 St. Philip probably died at Cæsarea. It was the apostle St. Philip who died at Hierapolis, whose death and daughters some have confounded with the deacon’s.

JUNE 6 — ST. GUDWALL, B. C

He was born in Wales, and having consecrated himself to God with his whole heart from his cradle, he became abbot of a numerous monastery in the little isle of Plecit, which was a rock on the sea-coast surrounded with water, where one hundred and eighty-eight monks are said to have served God in constant unanimity and with perfect fervor.* He afterwards passed by sea to Cornwall, and travelling into Devonshire built himself a hermitage, which by the number of disciples who flocked to him, grew into a second monastery. Alford thinks this happened in the fourth, but he certainly flourished only in the seventh century, or at least in the close of the sixth as Henschenius shows, who yet mistakes in placing his death in Devon shire, for he is the same person who in the calendars of Brittany in France is honored on this day under the name of St. Gurwall, as is shown by F. Le Large, the canon regular.1 This holy man passing into Brittany in France, continued there to lead a retired life in the heavenly exercises of contemplation and prayer, and never ceasing by watching and fasting to subdue his body, and consummate the sacrifice of his penance. St. Malo pitched upon him for his successor in the episcopal sec which he had founded at Aleth, and which since bears his name. St. Gudwall governed this diocese some time with great sanctity: but resigned it when broken in his old age, and retired to Guern, near St. Malo’s of Baignon in the diocese of St. Malo. Certain monks attended him though he lived in a grotto separated from them, devoting himself entirely to the preparation of his soul for his last passage. His death happened in that place about the end of the sixth, or beginning of the seventh century, on the 6th of June. In the inroads which the Normans made on the coast, certain monks carried away the treasure of his relics, first into Gatinois, where at Yevre-le-Chatel is still shown an old shrine in which they were deposited for some time; and one of the bones which was left is still preserved in another parish church in that country at Petiviers, or Pluviers.2 The monks some time after removed with their treasure towards their own coast, but chose Montreuil in Picardy, then a place of strength, for their second retreat. These relics remained there till in the tenth century Arnold I., or the Great, count of Flanders, who carried on a long war against the Normans, caused them to be translated to the great monastery of St. Peter’s of Blandine at Gant. He is honored on the 6th of June in the British calendars, and called Gudwall; also in several churches in Gatinois, at Montreuil sur mer; and with singular veneration in the great monastery of St. Peter’s at Gant, which glories in possessing the treasure of his relics. By the corruption of a letter he is called St. Gurwall at St. Malo’s, and honored on the same day; but an ancient calendar of that church, quoted by the Bollandists, calls him St. Gudwall, bishop of St. Malo’s. He is titular patron of Guern. In an ancient calendar of that diocese he is called St. Gudual, and St. Guidgal in another of the abbey of St. Meen in that diocese; St. Goual in a parish of the diocese of Vannes, of which he is titular patron, and St. Gudwall in a priory which bears his name, in an island depending on the abbey of Redon in the same bishopric. See Henschenius, F. Le Large, and Lobineau, Vies des SS. de la Bretagne, p. 131.

JUNE 6 — SAINT CLAUDE, ARCHBISHOP OF BESANCON, C. AND PATRON OF THE DIOCESE OF ST. CLAUDE

The province of eastern Burgundy, now called Franche-Comté, received great lustre from this glorious saint. He was born at Salins about the year 603, and was both the model and the oracle of the clergy of Besançon, when upon the death of archbishop Gervaise, about the year 683, he was chosen to be his successor. Fearing the obligations of that charge, he fled and hid himself, but was discovered and compelled to take it upon him. During seven years he acquitted himself of the pastoral functions with the zeal and vigilance of an apostle; but finding then an opportunity of resigning his see, which, out of humility and love of solitude, he had always sought, he retired to the great monastery of St. Oyend, or Ouyan, on mount Jura, and there took the monastic habit in 690. Violence was used to oblige him soon after to accept the abbatial dignity. Such was the sanctity of his life, and his zeal in conducting his monks in the paths of evangelical perfection, that he deserved to be compared to the Antonies and Pacomiuses, and his monastery to those of ancient Egypt. Manual labor, silence, prayer, reading of pious books, especially the Holy Bible, fasting, watching, humility, obedience, poverty, mortification, and the close union of their hearts with God, made up the whole occupation of these fervent servants of God, and were the rich patrimony which St. Claude left to his disciples. He died in 703, according to F. Chifflet; but, according to Mabillon and the authors of the new Gallia Christiana, in 696. His body was buried in the abbatial church of St. Oyend, or Condate, and discovered there in 1243, and put into a silver shrine. It was found and is still preserved without the least blemish of corruption. The bowels are entire in the body, and the joints flexible. The feet are exposed bare three times every day to be kissed by pilgrims, for his shrine has been for many ages one of the most famous pilgrimages in France. The monastery and town changed their former names of Condate and St. Oyend for that of St. Claude. This great abbey of Benedictius not reformed, was secularized and converted into a collegiate of canons, in 1723, and into a cathedral in 1743, a rich bishopric being erected in it. The town of St. Claude is seven leagues from Geneva. The festival of this saint is kept on the 6th of June. His life, written only in the twelfth century, is given by Henschenius with notes. See F. Chifflet, in his Illustrationes Claudianæ Mabillon, Act. Ben. Dunod, Hist. de l’Eglise de Besançon, p. 65, &c.

JUNE 7 — ST. PAUL, M., BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE

From St. Athanasius, Ep. ad Solitar. &c., Socrates, Sozomen, &c. See Titlem. t. 7, p. 251. Baert, the Bollandist, t. 2, Junii, p. 13.

A. D. 350.

ST. PAUL was a native of Thessalonica, but deacon of the church of Constantinople in 340, when the bishop, Alexander, lying on his death-bed, recommended him for his successor. He was accordingly chosen, and being a great master in the art of speaking, and exceeding zealous in the defence of the Catholic faith, he was a terror to the Arians. Macedonius, who was passionately in love with that dignity, and supported by a powerful faction of the heretics, spread abroad many calumnies against the new bishop. But the accusation being destitute of all probability, he was obliged to drop the charge; and he so well acted the part of a hypocrite, that he was soon after ordained priest by St. Pau1.1 However, Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was the ringleader of the Arians, and had been already translated from the see of Berytus to that of Nicomedia, against the canons, began to cast his ambitious eye on that of Constantinople, revived the old slanders, and impeached Paul falsely, alleging that he had led a disorderly life before his consecration: and secondly, that he ought not to have been chosen bishop without the consent of the two neighboring metropolitans of Heraclea and Nicomedia. The election of Paul had happened during the absence of Constantius. This was made a third article of the impeachment; and the two former having been easily confuted, this was so much exaggerated to that prince, as a contempt of his imperial dignity, that St. Paul was unjustly deposed by an assembly of Arian prelates, and the ambitious Eusebius placed in his see in 340. Our saint, seeing himself rendered useless to his flock, whilst Arianism reigned triumphant in the East, under the protection of Constantius, took shelter in the West, in the dominions of Constans. He was graciously received by that prince and by St. Maximinus at Triers, and, after a short stay in that city, went to Rome, where he found St. Athanasius, and assisted at the council held by pope Julius in 341, of about eighty bishops, in the church, in which, as St. Athanasius informs us, the priest Vito was accustomed to hold assemblies of the people; that is, as priest of that parish. This is that Vito who, with Vincent and Osius, was legate of St. Sylvester in the council of Nice.1 By this synod. St. Athanasius, Marcellus of Ancyra, and St. Paul were ordered to be restored to their respective sees. And pope Julius, as Socrates and Sozomen relate,* by virtue of his authority in the church, sent them back with letters to the eastern bishops, requiring them to restore them to their bishoprics. The excellent letter of pope Julius to the oriental bishops, is preserved by St. Athanasius.2 The pope particularly reproves the persecutors for having presumed to judge bishops, even of the principal sees which the apostles had governed without having first written to him, according to custom.†

St. Paul went back to Constantinople, but could not recover his see till the death of his powerful antagonist, who had usurped it, made way for him in 342. Though the Catholics took that opportunity to reinstate him in his dignity, the Arians, who were headed by Theognis of Nice, and Theodorus of Heraclea, constituted Macedonius their bishop. This schismatical ordination was followed by a furious sedition, in which almost the whole city ran to arms, and several persons lost their lives. Constantius, who was then at Antioch, upon the news of these commotions, ordered his general, Hermogenes, who was going into Thrace, to pass by Constantinople and drive Paul out of the city. The general found the mob in too violent a ferment, and while he endeavored to execute his commission by force, lost his own life. This outrage drew Constantius himself to Constantinople in the depth of winter. At the entreaty of the senate he pardoned the people, but banished Paul. Nevertheless he refused to confirm the election of Macedonius, on account of his share in the late sedition. St. Paul seems to have retired back to Triers. We find him again at Constantinople in 344, with letters of recommendation from the emperor of the West. Constantius only allowed his re-establishment for fear of his brother’s arms, and the saint’s situation in the East continued very uneasy; for he had much to suffer from the power and malice of the Arian party. He hoped for a redres from the council of Sardica, in 347. The Eusebians, withdrawing to Philipopolis, thundered out an excommunication against St. Paul, St. Athanasius, pope Julius, and several other pillars of the Catholic faith. The death of Constans in 350 left Constantius at full liberty to treat the Catholics as he pleased. Upon application made to him by those of his party, he sent from Antioch, where he then was, an order to Philip, his Præfectus Prætorii, to drive Paul out of the church and city of Constantinople, and to place Macedonius in his see. Philip, being attached to the Arian party, but fearing a sedition from the great affection which the people bore their pastor, privately sent for him to one of the public baths of the city, and there showed him the emperor’s commission. The saint submitted cheerfully, though his condemnation was in every respect notoriously irregular. The people, suspecting some foul design, flocked about the door; but Philip caused a passage to be made by breaking down a window on the other side of the building, and sent him under a safeguard to the palace, which was not far off. From thence he was shipped away to Thessalonica, and at first allowed to choose the place of his exile. But his enemies soon repented of this mildness; and he was loaded with chains, and sent to Singara in Mesopotamia. From thence he was carried to Emesa in Syria, and afterwards to Cucusus, a small town on the confines of Cappadocia and Armenia, famous for its bad air and unhealthful situation, in the deserts of mount Taurus. Here he was confined in a close dark place, and left to starve to death. After he had passed six days without food, he was, to the great disappointment of his enemies, found alive. Upon which they strangled him, and gave out that he died after a short sickness. Philagius, an Arian officer, who was upon the spot when this was executed, told the whole affair to several persons, from whom St. Athanasius had it.3 His martyrdom happened in 350 or 351. The divine vengeance soon overtook Philip, who the same year was deprived of his honors and estate, and banished. The Arians from this time remained masters of the church of Constantinople, till the year 379, when St. Gregory Nazianzen was chosen bishop. The body of St. Paul was brought to Ancyra in Galatia, and, by the order of Theodosius the Great, was thence translated to Constantinople in 381 about thirty years after his death. It was buried there in the great church built by Macedonius, which from that time was known by no other name than that of St. Pau1.4 His remains were removed to Venice in 1226 where they are kept with great respect in the church of St. Laurence, belonging to a noble monastery of Benedictin nuns.5

The Arian emperor Constantius objected to the Catholics the prosperity of his reign, as a proof of the justice and truth of his cause; but he had not then seen the issue. When Polycrates of Samos boasted that fortune was in his pay, he little thought that he should shortly after end his life at Sardis on a cross. The smiles of the world are usually, to impenitent sinners, the most dreadful of all divine judgments. By prosperity they are blinded in their passions, and “resemble victims fattened for slaughter, crowned for a sacrifice,” according to the elegant expression of Minutius Felix.6 Of this we may understand the divine threat of showing them temporal mercy: Let us have pity on the wicked man, and he will not learn justice.7 Upon which words Saint Bernard cries, “This temporal mercy of God is more cruel than any anger. O Father of mercies, remove far from me this indulgence excluding from the paths of justice.”8 Who does not pray that if he err he may rather be corrected by the tenderness of a father, than disinherited as a castaway? Even the just must suffer with Christ, if they hope to reign with him. He who enjoys here an uninterrupted flow of prosperity, sails among rocks and shelves.

JUNE 7 — SAINT ROBERT, ABBOT OF NEWMINSTER, IN ENGLAND, OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER

He was a native of Yorkshire, and even in his childhood an enemy to the usual amusements of that age, loving only prayer, serious reading, and useful and pious employments. Having finished his studies, he was ordained priest, and instituted to a rectorship of a parish in the diocese of York; but after discharging that office some time with great assiduity and zeal, he resigned that living, and took the religious habit in the Benedictin monastery of our Lady in York. Richard, the prior of this house, and twelve others, desiring to serve God according to the primitive institute of the Benedictin Order, left the monastery, with leave of the abbot, and endeavoring to execute their project, struggled with incredible hardships; till Thurstan, the pious archbishop of York, gave them a desert valley, called Scheldale, with the town of Sutton, where, in the midst of winter, and in extreme poverty, they founded the celebrated abbey which, from certain springs, was called Fountains, in 1132. The Cistercian Order, which had been lately introduced into England, and settled at Rievalle, was perfectly agreeable to the fervent dispositions of this holy colony; and at their request the monastery of Fountains was received into it by St. Bernard, who in his letters extols the perfection and sanctity of this new nursery of saints, which, from the beginning, was a model to the whole order for devotion, austerity in fasts, labor, by which all the monks procured their subsistence, fervor in all religious exercises, and cheerfulness in singing assiduously the divine praises. No murmur or sadness was known among them; nor any strife or contention ever heard of, unless of charity or humility: they never yielded to rest, till fatigued with labor; and always came hungry from their slender table, which was chiefly furnished with pulse and roots from their garden. St. Robert seemed so far to eclipse the rest of this holy company by the lustre of his piety, that they all had their eyes on him in their religious duties, and studied to transcribe his fervor in their actions. Ranulph of Merley, baron of Morpeth,* paying a visit to the monastery of Fountains, five years after its foundation, was so struck with the edifying deportment of the terrestrial angels who inhabited it, that he obtained of the abbot Richard a certain number of these monks, and built for them a monastery called Newminster, near Morpeth, in Northumberland, in 1137, of which St. Robert was appointed abbot.

The saint in his new dignity thought it his duty not only to walk before his brethren, but to go beyond them all in every religious observance; and all his virtues seemed to receive new vigor, and a new degree of perfection in this eminent station. His affection to holy prayer is not to be expressed. He recommended to God continually those committed to his care, and with many tears poured forth his soul for them night and day. He was favored with the gift of prophecy and miracles. He founded another monastery a Pipinelle, or Rivebelle, in Northamptonshire, and lived in the strictest union of holy friendship with St. Bernard; also with St. Godric, a holy hermit in those parts, illiterate as to secular learning, but a most spiritual man. St. Robert finished his course by a happy death on the 7th of June, 1159 Miracles attested his sanctity to the world. He is named in the Roman Martyrology. See Dugdale, Monast. Angl., t. 1, p. 743; Le Nain, t. 2, p. 397; the Annals of his Order, and the Bollandists, t. 2, Junii.

JUNE 7 — ST. COLMAN, BISHOP OF DROMORE, C

Dromore, in the province of Ulster, sixty-three miles from Dublin to the north, derives the succession of its bishops from St. Colman, who was descended from the sept of the Arads, and born in 516, according to bishop Usher. He was the first abbot of Muckmore, in the county of Antrim, and afterwards chosen first bishop of Dromore, a small see under Armagh, and not far distant from it. Jocelin, in his life of St. Patrick, tells us that his eminent virtue was foretold by St. Patrick; and his legend ascribes many miracles to him, and the wonderful conversion of a great number of souls to God. The ancient scholiast on the Ængussian Martyrology observes, that he was also called Mocholmoc. He died about the year 610, on the 7th of June, on which his principal festival was kept, or, according to some, on the 27th of October, on which he was also commemorated. See Usher, Primord., p. 1126; Colgan in MSS., ad 7 Jun.; Ware, p. 257, and Baërt the Bollandist, t. 2 Junij, p. 24.

JUNE 7 — ST. GODESCHALC, PRINCE OF THE WESTERN VANDALS, AND HIS COMPANIONS MM

In the reign of the emperor Henry the Salic, Gneus and Anatrog, who were idolaters, and Uto, the son of Misliwoi, a loose Christian, were princes of the Winuli, Slavi, and Vandals, and tributary to the emperor, the fear of whose arms and those of Knut, king of Denmark, and Bernard, duke of Saxony, kept these barbarians long in peace. Uto being murdered by a certain Saxon for his cruelty, his son Godeschalc, who had been educated a Christian in the monastery of Lumburg, under the care of Godeschalc, a Gothic bishop, apostatized, and joined the two Pagan princes, to revenge his father’s death upon the Saxons. He long harassed their country till he was taken prisoner by duke Bernard, who detained him a long time in close confinemen. When he recovered his liberty, Ratibor, a powerful prince, was possessed of his territories among the Slavi. Godeschalc, therefore, betook himself to the Danes at the head of a numerous troop of Slavi, his partisans. Some time after, he was converted to the Christian faith by a certain Saxon, and king Knut employed him in his wars in Norway, and being much pleased with his valiant behavior, afterwards sent him with Sueno, his nephew by his sister Ethride, afterwards king, on an expedition into England. His great exploits there were so agreeable to the king of Denmark, that he gave him his daughter in marriage. After the death of Knut and his children, Godeschalc returned from England, subdued the whole country of the Slavi, and compelled part of the Saxons to pay him a rearly tribute, and to acknowledge their subjection.

He reigned after this many years in peace, and is called by Adam of Bremen the most powerful of all he princes who ever arrived at the sovereignty among the Slavi. And as he surpassed all the rest in prudence, power, and valor, so did he also after his conversion in piety and holy zeal. All the parts of his dominions he filled with churches and priests, and by his zealous endeavors he brought over to the faith great part of the idolaters among the different nations that were subject to him, as the Wagiri, the Obotridi or Reregi, the Polabingi, the Linoges, the Warnabi, the Chissini, and the Circipani, who inhabited the northern coast of Germany, from the Elbe to Mecklenburg. He likewise founded many monasteries of both sexes at Lubec, Aldinburg, Lenzin, Razizburg, three in the city of Magdeburg, and others in other places. The archbishop of Hamburg he honored as his father, and frequently resorted to that city to perform his devotions in that metropolitical church. Among the missionaries who labored with the greatest success in executing the holy projects of the king, Helmold names in the first place, John, a Scotsman, whom Albert, archbishop of Hamburg, sent to preach at Mecklenburg. He extended his missions into all the dominions of Godeschalc, and baptized himself many thousands. Godeschalc often interpreted to the people in the Sclavonian tongue the sermons and instructions of the priests in the church. During the reign of the good emperor Henry II., the Slavi, Bohemians, and Hungarians lived in peace and in subjection to his empire. But when his son, a child only eight years old, succeeded to his throne, various rebellions were raised among these barbarians. Bernard, the duke, who had governed Saxony forty years, died soon after St. Henry, and his dominions were divided between his two sons Ordulf and Herman. Ordulf, who took the title of duke of Saxony, fell far short of his father in military skill and valor. Five years after this, the Vandals, or Slavi, who remained obstinately attached to their idolatry, about the present country of Wagrie and the duchy of Mecklenburg, revolted, and began their sedition by the murder of Godeschalc, the Machabee of the Christians, whom they slew in the city of Lenzin, on the 7th of June, together with Ebbo, a priest, whom they laid upon the altar and stabbed in 1066. The historians of the northern nations unanimously agree that the only cause of their death was the hatred which these Pagans had conceived of the Christian religion; and the Carthusians of Brussels, in their additions to the Martyrology of Usuard, place them among the martyrs honored in the church on this day. Upon this authority Henschenius, t. 2, Junij, p. 40, doubts not but St. Godeschalc and his companions were honored in several of the northern churches, whose calendars and ecclesiastical monuments and titles were entirely destroyed or lost upon the change of religion, as the Bollandists, in their notes on St. Norbert’s life, and in other places, and Jos. Assemani on Adalbert of Magdeburg, take notice. On St. Godeschalc and his companions, see Adam Bremensis,1. 3, c. 21; Kranzius,1. 2; Wandaliæ, c. 46; Helmold and other northern historians, and from them Henschenius, t. 2, Junij, p. 40.

JUNE 7 — ST MERIADEC, BISHOP OF VANNES, CONFESSOR

While he lived in the world, he employed the revenue of a great estate of which he was master, in charitable works, and at length stripped himself of it principally in favor of the poor. From that time he lived a recluse in a desert place, a mile from the castle of Pontivi in the viscounty of Rohan, in Brittany. The viscount himself visited the saint, and had the greatest veneration for his sanctity.* The canons and people of Vannes, seconded by the bishops of the province, compelled him much against his will to fill the episcopal see of that city. With this dignity his charity to the poor received a great increase; for he looked upon himself by that sacred character as it were anointed the father and comforter of all the distressed. Under his episcopal ornaments he wore a rough hair shirt, and had no better covering to his bed than sackcloth. The legend and ancient lessons of Treguir place his death in 1302. In the old Breviary of Nantes, in that of Vannes, &c., an office is appointed in his honor on the 7th of June. He is titular saint of the chapel of the castle of Pontivi, and of several others in Brittany. See Henschenius, t. 2, Junij, p. 36, and Lobineau, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, p. 242.

JUNE 8 — ST. MEDARD, BISHOP OF NOYON, CONFESSOR

From his life, written by Fortunatus, bishop of Poltiers, one in verse, another in prose, and from St. Gregory of Tours, L. de Glor. Conf., c. 95, and Hist. Franc. See also a life of St. Medard, though of less an thority, compiled by a monk of St. Medard’s, at Soissons, about the year 892, published by D’Achery Splcil., t. 8, and the Bollandists, Henschenius, and Papebroke, t. 2, Junij, p. 78, and another written by Radbod II., bishop of Noyon and Tournay, who died in 1082, ib. p. 87; Cointe, Annal Franc. Gall Christ. Nov. t. 9, p. 979.

Sixth Age

ST. MEDARD, one of the most illustrious prelates of the church of France in the sixth century, was born at Salency, in Picardy, about the year 457. His father Nectard was a noble Frenchman, who made a figure in the king’s court; and his mother Protogia was descended of an ancient Roman family which was settled in Gaul. She brought to her husband several great estates, and among others that of Salency, situated about a league from Noyon. She was a lady of extraordinary piety, and the saintly education and early virtue of her son were the fruit of her attention and example, which was seconded by the authority and influence of her husband, whom she had gained to Christ from idolatry. She instilled into Medard from his infancy, the most tender compassion for the poor. At Salency he one day gave his coat to a blind beggar that was almost naked, and when he was asked what he had done with it, he answered that the sight of the distress and nakedness of a poor blind man, who was a fellow-member in Christ, had so strongly affected him that it was not in his power not to give him part of his own clothes. When he was employed in looking after the cattle in his father’s grounds, according to the custom of that age in France, even in good families, as among the ancient Hebrews, he often deprived himself of his dinner to divide it among the necessitous. Fasting was his delight in an age in which children seldom know what it is to curb their appetites. These virtues were supported by an uncommon spirit of prayer and retirement, and a great purity and innocence of manners. When he was old enough, he was sent abroad to be initiated in the higher studies: he went first to Augusta Verumanduorum,* the capital of the province, and afterwards to Tournay where king Childeric I. is said to have kept his court. Pomp and splendor which so much dazzle the eyes of worldly men, had no charms for the saint, whose soul loathed every thing in which he did not find his God. His parents, delighted with his happy dispositions for virtue, called him back to the city of Vermand, and entreated the bishop to instruct him in the sacred science of the holy scriptures. The scholar astonished the master both by his rapid progress in learning, and still more by the fervor of his piety, his assiduity in prayer, his tears, with which he continually watered his cheeks at his devotions; the readiness of his obedience; his extraordinary humility, and the austerity of his mortifications: in concealing which he was most ingenious Yet all his exercises appeared to him no better than sloth and imperfection; and it was his constant complaint that he was not allowed to do penance. Being promoted to the priesthood in the thirty-third year of his age, he became a bright ornament of that sacred order. He preached the word of God to the people with an unction which touched the hearts of the most hardened; but the influence of his example, by which he enforced the precepts which he delivered from the pulpit, seemed irresistible. He employed in holy contemplation and prayer all the time which his exterior functions did not claim. His fasts were continual and severe; but the perfect mortification of his will and passions by meekness and humility, seemed that virtue by which he was rendered most admirable. No man seems ever to have been more perfectly master of himself, or to have possessed a more constant evenness of temper. He never appeared elated with joy, or dejected and sunk by sadness upon any vicissitude in human affairs; was always patient and silent in adversity; sweet, courteous, and humble in prosperity, affable and beneficent to all, especially to the poor.

In 530, Alomer the thirteenth bishop of that country dying, St. Medard was unanimously chosen to fill the see, and was consecrated by St. Remigius, who had baptized king Clovis in 496, and was then exceeding old. Our saint’s new dignity did not make him abate any thing of his austerities, but added to them the solicitude of his pastoral charge; and though at that time seventy-two years old, he thought himself obliged to redouble his labors. Though his diocese was very wide, it seemed not to suffice for his zeal, which could not be confined wherever he saw an opportunity of advancing the honor of God, and of abolishing the remains of idolatry. He rejoiced in calumnies and persecutions, and always triumphed over them by silence and patience. He had the affliction to see his diocese cruelly ravaged by the Huns and Vandals, but this calamity was to him a great spiritual harvest, by the opportunities it afforded him of exerting his charity and courage. He was, under that deluge of miseries, the refuge, support, and comfort of all the distressed. The ancient city of Augusta Verumanduorum being by the fury of wars and other misfortunes brought to a ruinous condition, and lying open to the incursions of barbarians, St. Medard transferred his see to Noyon, a strong walled town. From that time the old capital, which had been so flourishing in the times of the Gauls, fell entirely to decay; and at present nothing of it remains except a borough with a Premonstratensian abbey which still retains the name of Vermand. The neighboring town of St. Quintin is now become the capital of that part of Picardy.*

Other provinces envied the happiness of the Vermandois in possessing so great a pastor, and earnestly desired to share in the same. The clergy and people of Tournay, being supported by king Clotaire I., the son of Clovis the Great, after the death of St. Eleutherius in 532, would have no other person for their bishop. In compliance with their desire, St. Remigius, their metropolitan, thinking this necessary for the propagation of the gospel, with the approbation of the pope, commanded St. Medard to govern both those great dioceses, which from that time remained united under the same bishop for the space of five hundred years. Till then, some parts of the diocese of Tournay lay benighted under the shades of idolatry. St. Medard visited them all, and though he was often threatened, and sometimes seized by the Pagans with a view of taking away his life, he overcame all obstacles, and by his zealous labors and miracles, the rays of the gospel dispelled the mists of idolatry throughout the whole extent of his dioceses. What rendered this task more difficult and perilous, was the savage and fierce disposition of the ancient inhabitants of Flanders, who were the most barbarous of all the nations of the Gauls and Franks, as the original historians frequently take notice. The Greeks and Romans civilized the western part of the world, by teaching the barbarous nations to cultivate their minds with the useful and polite arts. But the most elegant ages of those empires themselves may, in many respects, be esteemed barbarous if compared with Christianity. The divine spirit of mildness, patience, humility, and charity which it inspires, and the purity and sanctity of its morals, have refined the minds of men, corrected the ignorance, stupidity, and barbarism of the fiercest nations, and diffused a rational, virtuous, and holy temper throughout the countries where the gospel has been planted. St. Medard, with incredible pains, brought over the most rude and wild people from their barbarous manners, inspired them with the meek spirit of the gospel, and rendered them a civilized and Christian nation, abounding with examples of eminent virtue, as Miræus observes. Our saint having completed this great work in Flanders, returned to Noyon, where Radegondes, queen of France in 544, received the religious veil from his hands, with the consent of her husband Clotaire, and was made a deaconess.* Shortly after, the saint fell sick. Upon the first news of his illness, king Clotaire, who always honored him as a living saint, came to Noyon to pay him a visit, and to receive his blessing. Soon after his departure, the saint rested from his labors in a very advanced age, in the sixth century, according to Le Cointe in 545, according to Pagi in 561. The whole kingdom lamented his death as the loss of their common father and protector. His body was buried in his own cathedral; but king Clotaire was so moved by many miracles wrought at his tomb, that he desired to translate his precious remains to Soissons, where he then chiefly resided.

Clotaire was an able, valiant, and generous prince, but had tarnished his glory by actions of cruelty and ambition in his youth. He reigned first king of Soissons. By the death of his brother Clodomir in 524, he obtained a share in the kingdom of Orleans: by the death of Thierry in 544, he added Austrasia, or Metz, to his dominions; and by that of Childebert, in 558, he became also king of Paris, and of all France. He endeavored to expiate the crimes of his youth by works of penance, and listened to the advice of St. Medard. Having begun to build a stately church and abbey at Soissons, after the death of that holy man, he caused his relics to be translated thither from Noyon in a shrine covered with most precious stuffs, seeded with diamonds, and adorned with plates of gold; the king himself, the princes, his children, and all the chief lords of the court attending the processior: the king thought himself honored by sometimes putting his royal shoulders under the burden. The body was laid at Crouy, or Croiac, a village eastward of Soissons, near the gates, and a small church or oratory of wood was raised over it, till the church in Soissons could be finished. Clotaire dying in 561 at Compiegne, the structure of this abbey was completed by king Sigebert, one of his younger sons. It has been sometimes styled by popes the chief of all the Benedictin abbeys in France. Fortunatus and St. Gregory of Tours, who lived before the close of the same century, testify, that in their time the festival of St. Medard was celebrated in France with great soremnity. A small portion of his relics was procured for the parish church which bears his name in Paris.

All holy pastors were eminently men of prayer. Besides the constant homage of public prayer, they retired frequently into their closets, or into wildernesses, to give themselves up entirely to this heavenly exercise. This Jesus teaches them, by so often withdrawing into deserts and mountains to pray, and to spend whole nights in prayer. The most retired places, and the calmest and most silent seasons ought to be chosen, that our souls may most perfectly soar above all earthly things, and sequestering our minds and hearts from them, converse in heaven, and recommend to God both our own and others’ necessities. The sanctification both of the pastor and his flock requires this. To retire sometimes to speak to God for them, is not to abandon them, but to serve them in the best manner, by endeavoring to draw down the most abundant showers of divine grace upon them; and by purifying his own soul, and replenishing himself with God and his truths, learning the art of imparting them with their interior spirit. Without this, the salvation both of the pastor and his people is equally in danger. The apostles joined prayer with their ministry, as equally dividing their care and their time. (Acts 6:4).

JUNE 8 — SAINT GILDARD, OR GODARD, BISHOP OF ROUEN, CONFESSOR

He is commemorated jointly with St. Medard in the Roman Martyrology and in the new Paris and old Sarum Breviaries. He assisted at the first council of Orleans in 511, and governed the see of Rouen with great zeal during the space of fifteen years. He was buried at St. Mary’s in Rouen, which is since called St. Gildard’s, or in French St. Godard’s. In the Norman incursions his body was translated to St. Medard’s at Soissons, and still remains there. That he was brother of St. Medard is unknown to Fortunatus, Gregory of Tours, &c. See Pommeraye, History of the Archbishops of Rouen, Baillet, &c.

JUNE 8 — ST. MAXIMINUS, C. FIRST ARCHBISHOP OF AIX IN PROVENCE

He planted the faith in that country, probably before the close of the first century, about the same time it was first preached at Marseilles. He is said by some moderns to have been one of the disciples of our Lord. St. Sedonius was his successor, and second bishop of Aries, supposed by the people of the country to have been the man born blind whom our Redcemer healed Their relics are shown, with those of many other saints, at St. Maximin’s, a town six leagues from Aix, built at the place where this saint was buried. The monastery, which was formerly of the order of St. Bennet, and dependent on St. Victor’s at Marseilles, was given by St. Louis’s brother, Charles count of Provence, to the Dominicans, who enjoy it with extraordinary privileges, and an exemption of the whole town from the spiritual jurisdiction of the archbishop of Aix. On St. Maximinus, see Gallia Christ. Nova., t. 1, p. 299. Maurolycus seems to have been the first who called St. Maxi minus a disciple of our Lord.

JUNE 8 — ST. WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, C

He was son of earl Herbert, and Emma, sister to king Stephen. He learned from his infancy that true greatness consists only in humility and virtue; and renounced the world in his youth, employing his riches to purchase unfading treasures in heaven by works of mercy to the poor, and giving himself wholly to the study and practice of religion. Being promoted to holy orders, he was elected treasurer in the metropolitical church of York, under the learned and good archbishop Thurstan. When that prelate, after having held his dignity twenty years, retired among the Cluniac monks at Pontefract to prepare himself for his death, which happened the year following, St. William was chosen archbishop by the majority of the chapter and consecrated at Winchester in September, 1144, according to Le Neve’s Fasti.1 But Osbert, the archdeacon, a turbulent man, procured Henry Mur dach, a Cistercian monk of the abbey of Fountains, who was also a man of great learning and a zealous preacher, to be preferred at Rome, whither William went to demand his pall, and to plead the cause of his constituents rather than his own. Being deprived by pope Eugenius III., in 1147, he. who had always looked upon this dignity with trembling, appeared much greater in the manner in which he bore this repulse than he could have done in the highest honors. Being returned into England, he went privately to Winchester, to his uncle Henry, bishop of that see, by whom he was honorably entertained. He led at Winchester a penitential life, in silence, solitude, and prayer, in a retired house belonging to the bishop, bewailing the frailties of his past life with many tears, for seven years. The archbishop Henry then dying in 1153, and Anastasius IV. having succeeded Eugenius III, in the see of Rome, St. William, to satisfy the importunity of others, by whom he was again elected, undertook a second journey to Rome, and received the pallium from his holiness.* The saint on his return was met on the road by Robert de Gaunt, dean, and Osbert, archbishop of the church of York, who insolently forbade him to enter that city or diocese. He received the affront with an engaging meekness, but pursued his journey. He was received with incredible joy by his people. The great numbers who assembled on that occasion to see and welcome him, broke down the wooden bridge over the river Ouse, in the middle of the city of York, and a great many persons fell into the river. The saint, seeing this terrible accident, made the sign of the cross over the river, and addressed himself to God with many tears. All the world ascribed to his sanctity and prayers the miraculous preservation of the whole multitude, especially of the children who all escaped out of the waters without hurt.* St. William showed no enmity and sought no revenge against his most inveterate enemies, who had prepossessed Eugenius III. against him by the blackest calumnies, and by every unwarrantable means had obstructed his good designs. He formed many great projects for the good of his diocese, and the salvation of souls, but within a few weeks after his installation was seized with a fever, of which he died on the third day of his sickness, on the 8th of June, 1154.† He was buried in his cathedral; and canonized by pope Nicholas III. about the year 1280. At the same time his body was taken up by archbishop William Wickwane, and his relics put into a very rich shrine, and deposited in the nave of the same metropolitan church in 1284. The feast of his translation was kept on the 7th of January.2 King Edward I and his whole court assisted at this ceremony, during which many miracles are attested to have been wrought. A table containing a list of thirty-six miracles, with a copy of an indulgence of one hundred and forty days to all who should devoutly visit his tomb, is still to be seen in the vestry, but no longer legible, as Mr. Drake mentions.3 The shrine, with its rich plate and jewels, was plundered at the reformation; but the saint’s bones were deposited in a box within a coffin, and buried in the nave, under a large spotted marble stone. Mr. Drake had the curiosity to see the ground opened, and found them with their box and coffin in 1732. He laid them again in the same place with a mark.4 See Nicholas Trivet in his Annals of Six Kings of England, ad an 1146. Stubbs, Act. Pontif. Ebor. in S. Willelmo; Capgrave’s Legend; Gulielm. Neubrig; De Rebus Anglicis sui temporis; Brompton, Gervasius Monachus inter 10 Scriptor. Angliæ; and Drake, in his curious History and Antiquities of York. Also Papebroke’s remarks, Jun. t. 2, p. 136.

JUNE 8 — ST. CLOU, OR CLODULPHUS, BISHOP OF METZ, C

He was son of St. Arnold, who having been prime minister to king Clotaire II., surnamed the Great, renounced the world, and was afterwards made bishop of Metz. He had two sons, Clou and Ansegisus, whose inclinations to virtue he cultivated by an excellent education. Clou showed from the cradle that he inherited all his father’s virtues in an eminent degree. Under the best masters he made such a progress in the divine and human sciences, as astonished those who taught him, and excited to emulation all who learned with him. He afterwards lived in the court of the kings of Austrasia, and passed through the greatest employments under Dagobert I. and Sigebert II., always with credit to himself, and to the honor and advantage of the state.* After some time he left his brother Ansegisus to push his fortune in the courts of earthly kings, choosing for himself a state which removes a man further from the flattering objects of the passions, and from that hurry of distractions, under which the most virtuous often find it difficult not to lose sight of God in their actions. His father, St. Arnold, had quitted the bishopric of Metz that he might wear out the remainder of his days in tranquillity, and be ready to meet his heavenly bridegroom. Two other pastors had succeeded him in that, see, and it was become a third time vacant, when the clergy and people of Metz unanimously demanded St. Clou for their bishop. The holy man did all that lay in his power to make the election fall on some other person; but the whole country became the more importunate, and the king obliged him at length to acquiesce in a choice made by heaven itself. Having therefore received the episcopal consecration, he cheerfully set himself to fulfil every duty of that important charge. He began by a visitation of his diocese, everywhere correcting abuses, and establishing regularity. Such was his compassion for the poor, that for their sake he lived himself destitute of the most common conveniences of life. By assiduous meditation at the foot of the cross, he was careful to nourish his own soul with the bread of life; and in the same school he acquired that heavenly eloquence with which he delivered, in the most affecting manner, the sentiments and lights which he received by this channel from the God of all science. Full of zeal for the glory of God, and of love and tenderness for his people, he was attentive to all their wants, and indefatigable in laboring for their sanctification, especially in instructing, comforting, and relieving the poor He governed the church of Metz forty years and fifteen days, and died in 696, being fourscore and ten years old. He is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on this day. His body was translated to the Benedictin priory of Lay, not far from Nancy, in 959, on the 11th of December; but a portion remains in the church which bears his name at Metz. He is named in the Roman and other Martyrologies. See his authentic life, with the notes of Henschenius, Jun. t. 2, p. 126.

JUNE 8 — ST. SYRA, V

She was sister to St. Fiacre, fired by whose example she left all to follow Christ. To make this sacrifice more entire she sailed from Ireland, her native country, and going after her brother into France, addressed herself to his patron and protector, St. Faro, bishop of Meaux. That holy prelate recommended her to his sister Fara, abbess in Brie. Syra, under so eminent a directress, became a perfect pattern of humility, meekness, charity, and devotion. From her cell she was translated into paradise in the seventh century, and is honored at Troyes and in some parts of Ireland on the 8th of June, and at Meaux on the 23d of October. See Saussaye, and Colgan in MSS.

JUNE 9 — SS. PRIMUS AND FELICIANUS, MARTYRS

This account is abridged from their acts in Surius, and the continuators of Bollandus, with the Notes of Henschenius. Jun. t. 2, p. 149. See Tillemont,1. 4, p. 571.

A. D. 286.

THESE two martyrs were brothers, and lived in Rome many years, mutually encouraging each other in the practice of all good works. They seemed to possess nothing but for the poor, and often spent both nights and days with the confessors in their dungeons, or at the places of their torments and execution. Some they encouraged to perseverance, others who had fallen they raised again, and they made themselves the servants of all in Christ that all might attain to salvation through him. Though their zeal was most remarkable, they had escaped the dangers of many bloody persecutions, and were grown old in the heroic exercises of virtue when it pleased God to crown their labors with a glorious martyrdom. The pagans raised so great an outcry against them, that by a joint order of Dioclesian and Maximian Herculius they were both apprehended and put in chains. This must have happened in 286, soon after Maximian was associated in the empire, for the two emperors never seem to have met together in Rome after that year. These princes commanded them to be inhumanly scourged, and then sent them to Promotus at Nomentum, a town twelve miles from Rome, to be further chastised, as avowed enemies to the gods. This judge caused them to be cruelly tortured, first both together, afterwards separate from each other; and sought by various arts to cheat them into compliance, as by telling Primus that Felician had offered sacrifice. But the grace of God strengthened them, and they were at length both beheaded on the 9th of June. Their names occur on this day in the ancient western calendars, and in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory the Great. Their bodies were thrown into the fields, but taken up by the Christians, and interred near Nomentum. They were removed to Rome by pope Theodorus, about the year 645, and reposited in the church of St. Stephen on mount Celio.

A soul which truly loves God regards all the things of this world as dung, with St. Paul, that she may gain Christ. The loss of goods, the disgrace of the world, torments, sickness, and other afflictions are bitter to the senses; but appear light to him that loves. If we can bear nothing with patience and silence, it is because we love God only in words. “One who is slothful and lukewarm complains of every thing, and calls the lightest precepts hard,” says Thomas à Kempis;1 “but a fervent soul finds every thing easy which can unite her more closely to God, and embraces his holy will in all things with cheerfulness.”

JUNE 9 — ST. COLUMBA, OR COLUMKILLE, A

From Bede, Hist. 1. 3, c. 4, and his life, written by Cummeneus, surnamed Albus, abbot of Hy. (who, according to the Four Masters, died in 668.) extant in Mabillon, sæc. Ben.1. p. 361, and the same enlarged into three books by Adamnon, abbot of Hy in 700,* published by Canisius, Lect. Antiq. t. 5, and by Surius. Both these lives abound with relations of wonderful miracles. William, bishop of Derry. In his Irish Historical Library, p. 85, mentions a poem of good authority, called the Amrha. or Vision of St. Columkille, which was written soon after his death, and which records his principal actions conformable to these authors. See also bishop Tanner de Scriptor. Brit. p. 192; Sir James Ware,1. 1; Scriptor Hibern., p. 14; Item in Monasteriologiâ Hibernicâ, p. 186; Colgan in MSS. ad 9 Jun. The works ascribed to him in an Irish MS. in the Bodleian library, Oxford; and Leabhar Lecan, i. e., Book of Lecane a very old and precious Irish MS. of Antiquities of that island in the Irish College at Paris. p. 38.

A. D. 597.

ST. COLUMBA, commonly pronounced COLME, was one of the greatest patriarchs of the monastic order in Ireland, and the apostle of the Picts. To distinguish him from other saints of the same name, he was surnamed Columkille, from the great number of monastic cells, called by the Irish Killes, of which he was the founder. He was of most noble extraction from Neil, and was born at Gartan, in the county of Tyrconnel, in 521. He learned from his childhood that there is nothing great, nothing worth our esteem or pursuit, which does not advance the divine love in our souls, to which he totally devoted himself with an entire disengagement of his heart from he world, and in perfect purity of mind and body. He learned the divine scriptures and the lessons of an ascetic life under the holy bishop St. Finian, in his great school of Cluain-iraird. Being advanced to the order of priesthood in 546, he began to give admirable lessons of piety and sacred learning, and in a short time formed many disciples. He founded, about the year 550, the great monastery of Dair-Magh, now called Durrogh,† which original name signifies Field of Oaks, and besides many smaller, those of Doire, or Derry, in Ulster, and of Sord, or Swords, about six miles from Dublin.‡ St. Columba composed a rule which, as Usher, Tanner, and Sir James Ware inform us, is still extant in the old Irish. This rule he settled in the hundred monasteries which he founded in Ireland and Scotland. It was chiefly borrowed from the ancient oriental monastic institutes, as the inquisitive Sir Roger Twisden observes,1 of all the old British and Irish monastic orders.

King Dermot, or Dermitius, being offended at the zeal of St. Columba in reproving public vices, the holy abbot left his native country, and passed into North-Britain, now called Scotland.§ He took along with him twelve disciples, and arrived there, according to Bede, in the year of Christ 565, the ninth of the reign of Bridius, the son of Meilochon, the most powerful king of the Picts; which nation the saint converted from idolatry to the faith of Christ by his preaching, virtues, and miracles. But this we are to understand only of the northern Picts and the Highlanders, separated from the others by mount Grampus, the highest part of which is called Drum-Albin; for Bede tells us in the same place that the southern Picts had received the faith long before by the preaching of St. Ninyas, the first bishop of Whitherue in Galloway; whose life see, September 16th.

The Picts having embraced the faith, gave St. Columba the little island of Hy or Iona, called from him Y-colm-kille, twelve miles from the land, in which he built the great monastery which was for several ages the chief seminary of North-Britain, and continued long the burying-place of the kings of Scotland, with the bodies of innumerable saints, which rested in that place.* Out of this nursery St. Columba founded several other monasteries in Scotland. In the same school were educated the holy bishops Aidan, Finian, and Colman, who converted to the faith the English Northumbers. This great monastery several ages afterwards embraced the rule of St. Bennet.†

St. Columba’s manner of living was always most austere. He lay on the bare floor with a stone for his pillow, and never interrupted his fast. Yet his devotion was neither morose nor severe. His countenance always appeared wonderfully cheerful, and bespoke to all that beheld him the constant interior serenity of his holy soul, and the unspeakable joy with which it overflowed from the presence of the Holy Ghost. Such was his fervor, that in whatever he did, he seemed to exceed the strength of man; and as much as in him lay he strove to suffer no moment of his precious time to pass without employing it for the honor of God, principally either in praying, reading, writing, or preaching. His incomparable mildness and charity towards all men, and on all occasions, won the hearts of all who conversed with him; and his virtues, miracles, and extraordinary gift of prophecy, commanded the veneration of all ranks of men. He was of such authority, that neither king nor people did any thing without his consent. When king Aedhan, or Aidanus, succeeded to his cousin Conall in the throne of British Scotland in 574, he received the royal insignia from St. Columba. Four years before he died, St. Columba was favored with a vision of angels which left him in many tears, because he learned from those heavenly messengers that God, moved by the prayers of the British and Scottish churches, would prolong his exile on earth yet four years. Having continued his labors in Scotland thirty-four years, he clearly and openly foretold his death, and on Saturday, the ninth of June, said to his disciple Diermit: “This day is called the Sabbath, that is, the day of rest, and such will it truly be to me; for it will put an end to my labors.” He was the first in the church at Matins at midnight; but knelt before the altar, received the viaticum, and having given his blessing to his spiritual children, sweetly slept in the Lord in the year 597, the seventy-seventh of his age. His body was buried in this island but some ages after removed to Down, in Ulster, and laid in one vault with the remains of St. Patrick and St. Brigit. The great monastery of Durrogh in King’s county afterwards embraced the rule of the canons regular, as did also the houses founded by St. Brendan, St. Comgal, &c. He was honored both in Ireland and Scotland, among the principal patrons of those countries, and is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 9th of June but in some calendars on the 7th, which seems to have been the day of his death.*

How many saints hid themselves in solitudes that they might devote themselves wholly to the service of God! But many, even after a Christian education, pass their whole lives in dissipation and vanity, without being able to find leisure for a daily serious meditation or the reading of a good book, as if they made it their study to unlearn the only thing which it concerns them to know, and to lose the only thing for which they exist,—religion, or the worship of God.

JUNE 9 — ST. PELAGIA, V. M

She was a tender virgin at Antioch, only fifteen years of age when she was apprehended by the persecutors in 311. Being alone in the house, and understanding that their errand was to carry her before the judge, where her chastity might be in danger, she desired leave of the soldiers to go up stairs and dress herself. But fearing to be an innocent occasion to others’ sin, threw herself from the top of the house, and died on the spot by her fall: in which action, says St. Chrysostom, she had Jesus in her breast inspiring and exhorting her. She probably hoped to escape by that means and might lawfully expose her life to some danger for the preservation of her chastity; but nothing can ever make it lawful for any one directly to procure his own death.

Whoever deliberately lays violent hands upon himself is guilty of a heinous injury against God, the Lord of his life, against the commonwealth, which he robs of a member, and of that comfort and assistance which he owes to it; also against his friends, children, and lastly against himself, both by destroying his corporeal life, and by the spiritual and eternal death of his soul; this crime being usually connected with final impenitence, and eternal enmity with God, and everlasting damnation. Nor can a name be found sufficiently to express the baseness of soul, and utmost excess of pusill inimity, impatience, and cowardice, which suicide implies. Strange, that any nation should, by false prejudices, be able so far to extinguish the most evident principles of reason and the voice of nature, as to deem that an action of courage which springs from a total want of that heroic virtue of the soul. The same is to be said of the detestable practice of duels.* True fortitude incites and enables a man to bear all manner of affronts, and to undergo all humiliations, dangers, hardships, and torments, for the sake of virtue and duty. What is more contrary to this heroic disposition, what can be imagined more dastardly, than not to be able to put up a petty affront, and rather to offend against all laws divine and human, than to brook an injury or bear a misfortune with patience and constancy, than to observe the holy precept of Christ, who declares this to be his favorite commandment the distinguishing mark of his followers, and the very soul of the divine law! Mention is made of a church at Antioch, and another at Constantinople, which bore the name of this saint in the fifth century. On St. Pelagia, see the Roman Martyrology, June 9; St. Chrysostom, Hom. de St. Pelagia. t. 2, p. 592; ed. Ben. St. Ambrose, ep. 37; ed. Ben and1. 3, d Virgin. 1. 7, and Janning the Bollandist, t. 2, Junij. p. 158.

JUNE 9 — ST. VINCENT, MARTYR IN AGENOIS

He was a Levite, that is, probably a deacon, and preached the faith in Gaul in the second or third century. Being seized by the pagans at Agen, he was condemned by the governor to be laid flat on the floor with his body stretched out and fixed on the ground by four pointed stakes; in that posture, he was most cruelly scourged and afterwards beheaded. St. Gregory of Tours and Fortunatus of Poitiers testify, that in the sixth and seventh centuries many flocked from all parts of Europe to Agen in pilgrimages to his tomb. See St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Francor.1. 7, c. 35, and1. de Glor Mart., c. 105, Mart. Rom. June 9.

JUNE 9 — SAINT RICHARD, C. BISHOP OF ANDRIA IN APULIA, IN THE PROVINCE OF BARI

All authors agree that he was an Englishman, and was made by the pope first bishop of Andria, Ughelli says in 492; but he finds no other bishop of that see before the eighth century; nor does it seem probable that Saint Richard could be more early, the English not being converted before the year 600. His name is clearly English, or at least Teutonic, in which language it signifies Rich Heart. He was illustrious for miracles and his eminent sanctity. See Ughelli, Italiæ Sacræ, t. 4, and Papebroke, Junij, t. 2 p. 245.

JUNE 10 — ST. MARGARET, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND

From her life, written by Theodoric, a monk of Durham, her Confessarius, and afterwards by St. Aëlred also from the Scottish and English historians. See Fordun, Scoti-chron.,1. 5, c. 15, vol. 2, p. 413, ed Hearne.

A. D. 1093.

ST. MARGARET was little niece to St. Edward the Confessor, and grand-daughter to Edmund Ironside. Upon the death of the latter, who was treacherously murdered by count Edric in 1017, Cnute, or Canutus the Dane, who had before obtained by agreement Mercia and the northern provinces, caused himself to be acknowledged by the bishops, ealdormen, and other chief men of the nation, king of all England, and guardian to the two infant sons of his late colleague, Edward and Edmund, till they should be of age to succeed to the crown of the West-Saxons. But Cnute, though he punished the traitor Edric, yet seemed to love the treason, and secretly sent the two young princes to the king of Sweden, that they might by him be made way with. The Swede refused to imbrue his hands in their innocent blood, though he feared the power of Cnute, who had added Norway to his native kingdom of Denmark by a treachery no less execrable than that by which he usurped the dominions of these innocent royal children in England. The Swede therefore generously sent the two princes to Solomon, king of Hungary, by whom they were kindly received and educated. Edmund, the elder of them, died; but Edward, the younger, marrying Agatha, sister to the queen, and, according to some authors, niece to the emperor Conrad, a most virtuous and accomplished princess, had by her Edgar, surnamed Etheling, Christina a nun, and St. Margaret. Cnute reigned in such a manner as to appear worthy to wear the crown, had it been acquired without ambition and injustice. He was succeeded after his death in Norway by his eldest son Swane, in Denmark by his favorite second son Hardecnute; and in England in 1036, Harold was chosen king, who is said to have been also a son of Cnute, though he much degenerated from his virtues both in peace and war. After his death in 1039, Hardecnute came into England, and was acknowledged king, but died two years after. Whereupon Edward the Confessor was called to the crown in 1041. He by ambassadors invited Edward surnamed Outremer, or Etheling, over from Hungary with his children, and received them honorably at London in 1054, where Edward Outremer died three years after, and was buried in St. Paul’s church. At the death of St. Edward, Edgar being but young, and a stranger born, had not interest enough to oppose the powerful party by which count Harold was placed on the throne in 1066, pretending the crown to have been bequeathed him by the late king, as Hoveden and others relate But William the Norman affirmed that it had been promised him by St. Edward and invading England, slew Harold in a great battle near Hastings on the 14th of October, 1066. Many English desired to raise Edgar, the lawful Saxon heir, to the throne; but he was unable to make good his claim by arms, and therefore with the rest of the nobility received the victorious Nor man at London. But some time after, he secretly fled from the tyranny of the conqueror, and left the kingdom. The ship in which he put to sea was by a tempest driven upon the coast of Scotland, where Malcolm, or Milcolumb III., entertained him and his sister in the most courteous manner. He had the more tender feeling for the misfortune of the royal exile, having formerly been himself in a like situation. For Macbeth, general of part of the troops, having killed his father king Donald, or Duncan VII., usurped the throne, and Malcolm only saved his life by flight. After wandering over many places, he found a secure retreat in the court of Edward the Confessor who assisting him with ten thousand men, he marched into Scotland, was joined by his friends, and overcame and slew Macbeth, who had then held his usurped crown seventeen years. Malcolm having thus recovered his dominions, was declared king at Scone in 1057. When Edgar arrived it his dominions, the sight of the young prince and princess made him feel al the weight of their affliction. He gave them the best reception his kingdom could afford, and it gave him the highest pleasure, that it was in his power to show them courtesy. William the Norman sent to demand them to be delivered into his hands. Malcolm rejected with horror so base a treachery. Whereupon a war ensued. The Scots defeated Roger, a Norman general, in Northumberland, and afterwards Richard, earl of Gloucester. Upon which William sent his brother Odo, earl of Kent, into Northumberland; but Malcolm gave him a considerable overthrow, and recovered the booty which he had taken. After this, the haughty Norman sent his son Robert at the head of an army who encamped on the Tyne, but without doing any thing, except building the city of Newcastle upon Tyne; and soon after the Norman agreed to a peace on these conditions, that he should restore Sibert, earl of Northumberland, and leave Cumberland as formerly to the Scots; that he should treat prince Edgar as his friend, and that the boundaries of the two kingdoms should be King’s Cross on Stanemoor, between Rich-monshire and Cumberland, which should have the statues and arms of the two kings of England and Scotland on each side.

Malcolm was so much taken with the virtues of the princess Margaret, that he most impatiently desired to make her his royal consort. She had learned from her cradle to contemn the vanities of the world, and to regard its pleasures as a poison to the heart, and the bane of virtue. Her amazing beauty, her rare prudence, her wit, and her extraordinary virtue could not fail to excite the admiration of the whole court. But it was her only desire and ambition to render herself agreeable to the King of kings. She seemed to relish no earthly pleasure, finding all delight in the incomparable charms of divine love, which flowed into her pure soul chiefly by the means of assiduous prayer and meditation, in which holy exercises she often spent whole days. She took great pleasure in relieving and serving the poor, and in comforting all that were in distress, considering Christ in his necessitous members. Her consent being obtained, she was married, and crowned queen of Scotland in 1070, being twenty-four years of age. The marriage was solemnized at the king’s royal castle of Dumfermline, built in the midst of a beautiful plain, surrounded with woods, rocks, and rivers, by its situation almost inaccessible to men or beasts, says Fordun, and strongly fortified by art. The Scottish historian adds, that she brought a great fortune to the king in the immense treasures she had carried off from England, together with many most precious relics. Among these was the Black Cross, held in the highest veneration in Scotland in succeeding ages. Malcolm was rough and unpolished, but neither haughty nor capricious; and had no evil inclinations. Margaret, by the most tender complaisance, and the most condescending and engaging carriage, always full of respect, gained so great an ascendant over him, as to seem entirely mistress of his heart; which influence she only exerted to make religion and justice reign, to render her subjects happy, and her husband one of the most virtuous kings that have adorned the Scottish throne. She softened his temper, cultivated his mind, polished his manners and inspired him with the most perfect maxims and sentiments of all Christian virtues. And so much was the king charmed with her wisdom and piety, that he not only left to her the whole management of his domestic affairs, but followed her prudent advice in the government of the state. In the midst of the most weighty concerns and cares of a kingdom, Margaret always kept her heart disengaged from the love of the world, and recollected in God. The continual attention of her soul to him in all her actions, assiduous prayer, and the constant practice of self-denial, were the means by which chiefly she attained to this perfection. At the same time her prudence and care in all things, her application to public and private affairs, her watchfulness in providing for the good of her subjects, and the wonderful ease and wisdom with which she discharged every duty of the regal authority, showed her most extensive genius to the astonishment of foreign nations.

God blessed this pious royal couple with a numerous and virtuous offspring, which did not degenerate from the piety of their holy parents. The queen was mother of six boys: Edward, Edmund, Edgar, Ethelred, Alexander, and David: and of two daughters; namely, Maud, or Mathiides, married to Henry I. king of England, and Mary, who married Eustache count of Bologne. Of the sons, Edgar, Alexander, and David I, successively came to the crown of Scotland, and all governed with the highest reputation of wisdom, valor, and piety; especially king David, who may be justly styled the brightest ornament of that throne. The happiness of these princes, and that of the whole kingdom in them, was owing, under God, to the pious care of queen Margaret in their education. She did not suffer them to be brought up in vanity, pride, or pleasures, which is too often the misfortune of those who are born in courts. She inspired them with an early indifference to the things of the world, with the greatest ardor for virtue, the purest love of God, fear of his judgments, and dread of sin. She chose for them the ablest preceptors and governors, persons eminently endued with the spirit of piety and religion; and would suffer none but such to approach them, being sensible that tender minds receive the strongest and most lasting impressions from the behavior of those with whom they converse, especially masters. Instructions are dry, but the words and actions of persons breathe the spirit and sentiments of their hearts, and insensibly communicate the same to others, especially where this influence is strengthened by authority. The zealous mother watched over the masters, examined the progress of her children, and often instructed them herself in all Christian duties. No sooner were the young princesses of an age capable of profiting by her example, than she made them her companions in her spiritual exercises and good works. She daily, by most fervent prayers and tears, conjured Almighty God to preserve their innocence, and fill their souls with the sentiments of those virtues which she endeavored to instill into them. She extended her care and attention to her servants and domestics, and the sweetness and tender charity with which she seasoned her lessons, rendered her endeavors the more effectual. By her prudent zeal and example, concord, charity, modesty, religion, piety, and devotion reigned in the whole court, in which virtue was the only recommendation to the royal favor, and to want devotion was the most certain disgrace.

The holy queen remembered that by the rank in which Providence had placed her, and by the authority which the king lodged in her, the whole kingdom was her family. She found it overrun with many abuses, and plunged in shameful ignorance of many essential duties of religion. It was her first care to procure holy and zealous pastors and preachers to be established in all parts of her dominions. She seconded their ministry with the weight of the royal authority, and that of all the magistrates, to abolish the criminal neglect of abstaining from servile work on Sundays and holidays, and of observing the fast of Lent, with many other abuses; and had the comfort to see, by her zealous endeavors, the strict observance of Lent restored, and the devout celebration of Sundays and festivals enforced, the people consecrating those days to God both by assisting at the whole church office, and instructions, and by private devotions. Simony, usury, incestuous marriages, superstition, sacrileges, and other scandalous abuses were also banished. Many neglected to receive the holy communion even at Easter, alleging a fear of approaching it unworthily. She showed this pretence to be only a cloak for sloth and impenitence, engaged sinners to cancel their crimes by worthy fruits of repentance, and contributed very much to revive the spirit of penance, and frequent communion. She labored most successfully to polish and civilize the Scottish nation, to encourage among that people both the useful and polite arts, and to inspire them with a love of the sciences, and with the principles of all the social and moral virtues. All which she incited her husband to promote by many salutary laws and regulations. Charity to the poor was her darling virtue. Her own coffers could not suffice her liberality to them; and often she employed upon them part of what the king had reserved for his own use and necessities; which liberty he freely allowed her. Whenever she stirred out of her palace, she was surrounded by troops of widows, orphans, and other distressed persons who flocked to her as to their common mother; nor did she ever send any one away without relief. Within doors, when she went into the hall of the palace, she found it filled with poor people: she washed their feet, and served them herself. She never sat down to table without having first fed and waited on nine little orphans and twenty-four grown-up poor. Often, especially in Lent and Advent, the royal couple called in three hundred poor, served them at table on their knees, she the women on one side, the king the men on the other; giving them the same dishes that were served up at their own royal table. She frequently visited the hospitals, attending the sick with wonderful humility and tenderness. By her extensive alms insolvent debtors were released, and decayed families restored; and foreign nations, especially the English, recovered their captives. She was inquisitive and solicitous to ransom those especially who fell into the hands of harsh masters. She erected hospitals for poor strangers. The king most readily concurred with her in all manner of good works. “He learned from her,” says Theodoric, “often to watch the night in prayer. I could not sufficiently admire to see the fervor of this prince at prayer, and to discover so much compunction of heart and such tears of devotion in a secular man.” “She excited the king,” says another ancient author, “to the works of justice, mercy, alms-deeds, and other virtues; in all which, by divine grace, she brought him to be most ready to comply with her pious inclinations. For he seeing that Christ dwelt in the heart of his queen, was always willing to follow her counsels.”

The small time which the queen allowed herself for sleep, and the retrenchment of all amusements and pastimes, procured her many hours is the day for her devotions. In Lent and Advent she always rose at midnight, and went to church to Matins. Returning home she found six poor persons ready for her: she washed their feet and gave to each a plentiful alms to begin the day. She then slept again an hour or two; and after that rising returned to her chapel, where she heard four or five low masses, and after these a high mass. She had other hours in the day for prayer in her closet, where she was often found bathed in tears. “As to her own eating, it was so sparing that it barely sufficed to maintain life, and by no means to gratify the appetite,” says Theodoric. “She seemed rather only to taste than to take her meal. In a word, her works were more wonderful than her miracles; though these were not wanting to her.” The same author, who was her confessor, writes: “She was endowed with a wonderful spirit of compunction. When she would be speaking to me of the sweetness of everlasting life, her words were full of all grace. So great was her fervor and compunction on these occasions, that she seemed as if she would quite melt into tears; so that her devotion drew also from me tears of compunction. In the church no one was more still in silence, no one more intent than she at prayer.” She often importuned her confessor to admonish her of whatever he perceived blameworthy in her words or actions; and was displeased that he was, as she thought, remiss in this charitable office. Her humility made her desire reprehensions and correction, which the pride of others cannot brook. Every year she kept two Lents of forty days each; the one at the usual time, the other before Christmas; both with incredible rigor. She recited every day the short offices of the Holy Trinity, of the passion of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, and of the dead.

King Malcolm, after his war against William the Conqueror in Northumberland, was disturbed by a rebellion of the Highlanders both in the north and west of Scotland. He composed the north in person; and Walter his general reduced to obedience the rebels in the west.* Malcolm from that time applied himself to improve his kingdom by the arts of peace. He first reformed his own family; and afterwards enacted sumptuary laws, and remedied abuses which had crept in among the people. He built the cathedral of Durham,1 and made the abbot of that place bishop of Saint Andrew’s, and added the bishoprics of Murray and Caithness to the former four in Scotland. He concurred with his queen in founding the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Dumfermlin. St. Margaret, by her wise counsels, had perfectly convinced her royal consort that the love of peace is the first duty of him who is the common father of his people; war being the greatest of all temporal calamities. Those warlike princes whose heads were crowned with laurels, and whose triumphs dazzle the world, and swell the pages of history with so much pomp, were the scourges of the earth, especially of their own nations, at least in the ages wherein they lived; and their sounding achievements and victories, when placed in the light in which faith commands us to consider them, will appear no better than a long series of boundless ambition, murders, plunder of whole countries, and the most heavy oppression of their own people. Malcolm, however, did not forget that it is an indispensable duty of a king to be expert in war, and always in readiness, that he be not wanting to the protection which he owes his people. William Rufus, who came to the throne of England in 1037, surprised the castie of Alnwick in Northumberland, and put the garrison to the sword. Malcolm lemanded restitution, which being denied, he besieged it. The English garrison being reduced to great extremity, offered to surrender, and desired he king to come and receive the keys with his own hand; but the soldier who presented them to him upon the point of a spear, by a base treachery thrust the spear into his eye, while the king was stretching out his hand to receive the keys, and killed him. His son Edward carried on the siege to revenge the death of his father, but advancing too eagerly was slain in an assault. Whereupon the Scots were so much afflicted that they raised the siege and retired, having buried their king and prince at Tinmonth. Their bodies were soon after removed to Dumfermlin. Malcolm reigned thirty three years, and died in 1093. His name is found in some Scottish calendars enrolled among the saints.

This misfortune was to the good queen an affliction which only her heroic virtue enabled her to bear with resignation. She lay at the same time on her death-bed. Theodoric gives the following account of her last sickness: “She had a foresight of her death long before it happened; and speaking to me in secret, she began to repeat to me in order her whole life, pouring out floods of tears at every word with unspeakable compunction; so that she obliged me also to weep, and sometimes we could neither of us speak for sighs and sobs. At the end she spoke thus to me: Farewell; for I shall not be here long: you will stay some little time behind me. Two things I have to desire of you: the one is, that so long as you live, you remember my poor soul in your masses and prayers: the other is, that you assist my children, and teach them to fear and love God. These things you must promise me here in the presence of God, who alone is witness of our discourse.” She survived this about half a year, during which she was seldom able to rise out of bed, and her pains daily increased upon her, which she bore with incredible patience, in silence and prayer. In the expedition into Northumberland mentioned above, she endeavored to dissuade her husband from marching with his army; but he that only time dissented from her advice, imagining it to proceed only from concern for his safety, and reflecting that the presence of a sovereign raises the courage of the soldiery. His death happened four days before that of the queen. She, on the day he was killed, appeared melancholy and sad, and said to those about her: “Perhaps this day a greater evil hath befallen Scotland than any this long time.” On the fourth day, her pains being somewhat abated, she got up, and went into her oratory, where she received the holy Viaticum. Then feeling the redoublement of her fever with her pains return upon her, she laid herself down again, and desired the chaplains to recite the psalms by her, and to recommend her soul to God. In the mean time she called for the Black Cross. She embraced, and signed herself frequently with it; then held it with both her hands before her, and with her eyes fixed upon it, recited the Miserere psalm and other prayers. Her son Edgar coming in from the army, she asked him how his father and brother did? He, fearing to alarm her, said they were well. She answered him: “I know how it is.” Then lifting up her hands to heaven, she praised God, saying: “I thank thee, Almighty God, that in sending me so great an affliction in the last hour of my life thou wouldst purify me from my sins, as I hope by thy mercy.” Not long after, finding her last moments to approach, she repeated from the prayers of the church for that occasion, the following aspiration: “O Lord Jesus Christ, who by thy death hast given life to the world, deliver me from all evil.” Praying thus, she was loosed from the bonds of her mortal body on the 16th of November, 1093, in the forty-seventh year of her age. She was canonized by pope Innocent IV. in 1251. Her feast was removed by Innocent XII. in 1693, from the day of her death to the 10th of June. Her body was interred, according to her desire in the church which she had built in honor of the Holy Trinity at Dumfermlin, fifteen miles from Edinburgh.2 At the change of religion in Scotland, the remains of Saint Margaret and her husband were privately rescued from the plundering mob, and the principal parts afterwards carried into Spain, when king Philip II. built a chapel in the palace of the Escurial, in honor of St. Margaret, for their reception. They still continue there, with this inscription on the shrine: “St. Malcolm, King, and St. Margaret, Queen.” But the head of St. Margaret having been carried to Edinburgh, to queen Mary Stuart, after her flight into England, it was by a Benedictin monk conveyed to Antwerp in 1597, and afterwards by him given to the Scotch Jesuits at Douay, in whose church it is still kept in a silver case.3

The succession of saints which in the posterity of St. Margaret afterwards filled the throne of Scotland,* the sanctification of a court, and of a kingdom was, under God, the fruit of her zeal and pious example. So great and public a blessing is a virtuous wife, and a virtuous mother of a family. Every neighbor is bound at least by example and prayer, especially every parent, master, and mistress, also by correction and exhortation, to endeavor to impart to others, particularly those under their care, this inestimable happiness of piety. As St. Charles Borromeo inculcates,4 parents can leave no treasure to their children, nor can masters bestow on servants any recompense for their fidelity, in any respect comparable to this of virtue. Let all superiors who neglect this duty tremble, and reflect that an account will be required of them at the dreadful tribunal of Christ for the sins of those under their care, which by a faithful discharge of their duty they might have prevented. In this sense, as St. Austin observes, is every master bound to be bishop or pastor of his family; and every Christian, at least by example, to his neighbor. But alas! how many make themselves apostles of Satan, and become to others an odor not of life but of death. The baneful example of tepidity and sin, especially in those who are placed in authority, lays families, and the whole world desolate. For to the influence of scandal is owing the universal inundation of vice, ignorance, and insensibility with regard to spiritual duties, which no floods of tears can ever sufficiently lament. On this account is the world declared the enemy of Christ, and is loaded with his curses.

JUNE 10 — SS. GETULIUS AND COMPANIONS, MARTYRS

Getulius, the husband of St. Symphorosa, was an officer in the Roman army under Trajan and Adrian; but upon his conversion to the faith, gave up his commission and retired into the country of the Sabines. His brother Amantius was no less zealous in the profession of the faith, but retained his dignity of tribune of a legion. The emperor Adrian sent Cerealis to apprehend Getulius in the country; but that officer was gained to Christ by the two brothers. The emperor, enraged at this news, commanded Licinius to condemn them to death, unless they could be induced to forsake the Christian religion. By the sentence of this inhuman judge, the three above-mentioned martyrs, and a fourth named Primitivus, after suffering twenty-seven days imprisonment at Tivoli, and divers torments, were beheaded together. St. Symphorosa buried their bodies in an Arenarium upon her estate. They suffered in the beginning of the second century, and are mentioned in the ancient Martyrologies on this day. See their acts abridged by Tillemont, t. 3, p. 23.

JUNE 10 — ST. LANDRY, C., IN LATIN, LANDERICUS, BISHOP OF PARIS

He succeeded Audobert in that see, in the reign of Clovis II., about the year 650. In a great famine he distributed among the poor all his own little furniture, and melted down for their use the sacred vessels of the church From the first foundation of ecclesiastical revenues under the Christian emperors, it was a customary law for every bishop to erect and maintain a general hospital, which was usually situated near the cathedral. Thus the ancient Lateran hospital stands near the basilic of that name in Rome, and Saint Landry is said to have first founded in this manner the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris, near his cathedral, the church of our Lady, upon the spot where the palace of Erchinoald, mayor of the palace, before stood. That hospital is served by one hundred nuns, and fifty novices of the order of Hospitallers, following the rule of St. Austin. They watch almost every motion of the poor patients with incredible tenderness and patience, giving them all allowances if not contrary to their health. This hospital seems the largest in the world for the sick, but it is too much crowded for want of space; that at Milan is more numerous, but receives the poor that are well. But the hospitals of the Holy Ghost, and of St. Philip Neri at Rome, seem the best regulated in the universe See Henschenius and Papebroke, t. 2, Junij, p. 293.

St. Landry was buried in the church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, which was then called St. Vincent’s, as was also the church and abbey since called of St. Germain-des Prez. His relics are kept in a silver shrine in the same church of St. Germain-l’Auxerrois, except two bones which were given in 1408 to the parish church of St. Landry, which was originally a chapel near the saint’s house in which he was accustomed to pray. St. Landry subscribed, with twenty-three other bishops, the charter given by Clovis II. in 653 to the monastery of St. Denys, the original of which, written on Egyptian paper, is still preserved.1 He is honored with an office in the new Paris Breviary.*

JUNE 10 — B. HENRY OF TREVISO, C

He was a native of Bolsano, in the mountainous part of Tirol, between Trent and Brescia, and of mean extraction. The poverty of his parents deprived him of the advantage of a school education, but from his infancy he studied earnestly to improve every day in the love of God, the true science of a Christian. In quest of work he left Bolsano in his youth, and settled at Treviso, the capital city of a province in the Venetian territories. He gained his bread by day-labor, to which he applied himself with unwearied cheerfulness, and which he sanctified by a spirit of penance and recollection. He could not read, but he never failed to assist at all sermons and instructions as much as it lay in his power to do; and by his earnestness and attention he always reaped great advantage from whatever he heard relating to piety. He was diligent in attending at the whole divine office, and all public prayer whenever he could: he heard mass every day with an edifying devotion, and when at work joined in desire with those who had the happiness to be always employed in singing the divine praises at the foot of the altars. All the time that was not employed in labor and necessary duties, he spent in his devotions either in the church or in private, having his beads always in his hands. Under his painful and assiduous labor he led a most abstemious life, and secretly gave all that he was able to save of his wages to the poor. He studied always to conceal his devotions and other virtues from the eyes of men; but through the veil of his extreme humility they spread the brighter rays. Such was his meekness that under sickness or other afflictions, nothing that could savor of complaint or murmuring was ever heard from his mouth; he was an utter stranger to all resentment, and was sweet and affable to the whole world. When children or others reviled and insulted him, he made no other return than by good words, and by praying for them. He frequented the sacraments with extraordinary devotion, and went every day to confession; not out of scrupulosity, either magnifying small imperfections into great sins, or apprehending sin by a disordered imagination where a sound judgment discovers no shadow of evil, but out of a great desire of preserving the utmost purity of conscience, that his soul might be worthy to praise Him who is infinite purity and sanctity, and before whom the very angels are not without spot, that, is, they appear all imperfection if compared to him. The saint was so solicitous to give all his actions to God with the most pure and perfect intention, that he feared a fault of immortification or idle curiosity in a glance of the eye to look at the flight of a bird if it any way distracted his mind, or hindered his recollection and attention to God at his work. When by old age he was no longer able to follow his day-labor, a certain pious lawyer gave him a lodging in his own house, and the servant of God lived by daily alms that were sent him, of which he never reserved any thing to the next day; but what he retrenched from his own meal he gave away to those whom he thought in the greatest distress. He died on the 10th of June, 1315. An incredible concourse of people resorted to the little chamber in which his body lay exposed, and three notaries, appointed by the magistrates to take in writing an account of the miracles wrought by God at his relics, compiled a few days before his burial a relation of two hundred and seventy-six. Out of devotion to his memory every one sought to obtain some little part of his small furniture, which consisted only of a hair-shirt, a log of wood which served him for a pillow, and twigs, cords, and straw, which made up his hard bed. The Italians call him St. Rigo, the diminutive of the name Arrigo, or Henry. See his life written by Dominic, bishop of Treviso, an eye-witness of his virtues, in the Bolland., t. 20, ad Junij, 10, p 368 and Contin. of Fleury’s Eccles. History.

JUNE 11 — ST. BARNABAS, APOSTLE

St. Barnabas, though not of the number of the twelve chosen by Christ, is nevertheless styled an apostle by the primitive fathers, and by St. Luke himself.1 His singular vocation by the Holy Ghost, and the great share he had in the apostolic transactions and labors, have obtained him this title. He was of the tribe of Levi,2 but born in Cyprus, where his family was settled, and had purchased an estate, which Levites might do out of their own country. He was first called Joses, which was the softer Grecian termination for Joseph. After the ascension of Christ, the apostles changed his name into Barnabas, which word St. Luke interprets, Son of Consolation, on account of his excellent talent of ministering comfort to the afflicted, says St. Chrysostom. St. Jerom remarks that this word also signifies the son of a prophet, and in that respect was justly given to this apostle, who excelled in prophetic gifts. The Greeks say that his parents sent him in his youth to Jerusalem, to the school of the famous Gamaliel, St. Paul’s master; and that he was one of the first, and chief of the seventy disciples of Christ. Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, and St. Epiphanius,3 testify that he was one of that number, and consequently had the happiness to receive the precepts of eternal life from the mouth of Christ himself. The first mention we find of him in holy scripture is in the Acts of the Apostles,4 where it is related that the primitive converts at Jerusalem lived in common, and that as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the price and laid it at the feet of the apostles, that they might contribute all in their power to relieve the indigent, and might themselves be entirely disengaged from the world, and better fitted to follow Christ in a penitential and mortified life. No one is mentioned in particular on this occasion but St. Barnabas; doubtless because he was possessed of a large estate; and perhaps he was the first who set the example of this heroic contempt of the world, which has been since imitated by so many thousands, according to the advice of Christ to the rich man.5 This contribution was entirely free; but seems to have implied a vow, or at least a solemn promise of renouncing all temporal possessions for the sake of virtue. For Ananias and his wife Sapphira were struck dead at the feet of St. Peter for having secreted some part of the price; and were reproached by that apostle for having lied to the Holy Ghost, by pretending to put a cheat upon the ministers of God. Origen,6 St. Jerom,7 and St. Austin,8 are willing to hope that their sin was forgiven them by repentance at the voice of St. Peter, and that it was expiated by their temporal punishment. Though St. Chrysostom9 and St. Basi110 rather fear that they might perish eternally by impenitence. St. Austin, St. Jerom, St. Chrysostom,11 St. Gregory the Great,12 and the other fathers accuse them of a sacrilegious breach of their vow. St. Chrysostom,13 St. Basi1,14 and St. Isidore of Pelusium,15 observe that God, by executing his justice by visible judgments on the first authors of a crime, does this to deter others from the like; as in the Antediluvians, Sodomites, Pharaoh, Onan, and Giezi; but those who nevertheless despise his warning, and by a more consummate malice imitate such sinners, if they are not consumed by a deluge, fire, or other visible judgment, must expect a more grievous chastisement in the flames of hell, proportioned to their hardened malice.

Barnabas made his oblation perfect by the dispositions of his heart with which he accompanied it, and by his piety and zeal became considerable in the government of the church, being a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost, as he is styled by the sacred penman.16 St. Paul coming to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, and not easily getting admittance into the church, because he had been a violent persecutor, addressed himself to St. Barnabas as a leading man, and one who had personal knowledge of him, who presently introduced him to the apostles Peter and James; and such weight did his recommendation carry, that St. Peter received the new convert into his house, and he abode with him fifteen days.17 About four or five years after this, certain disciples, probably Lucius of Cyrene, Simeon, who was called Niger, and Manahen, having preached the faith with great success at Antioch, some one of a superior, and probably of the episcopal order was wanting to form the church, and to confirm the Neophytes. Whereupon St. Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem to settle this new plantation. Upon his arrival he rejoiced exceedingly at the progress which the gospel had made, exhorted the converts to fervor and perseverance, and by his preaching made great additions to their number, insomuch that he stood in need of an able assistant. St. Paul being then at Tarsus, Barnabas took a journey thither and invited him to share in his labors at Antioch. Such a field could not but give great joy to the heart of St. Paul, who accompanied him back, and spent with him a whole year. Their labors prospered, and the church was so much increased at Antioch, that the name of Christians was first given to the faithful in that city. In the eulogium which the Holy Ghost gives to St. Barnabas, he is called a good man by way of eminence, to express his extraordinary mildness, his simplicity void of all disguise, his beneficence, piety, and charity. He is also styled full of faith; which virtue not only enlightened his understanding with the knowledge of heavenly truths, but also passed to his heart, animated all his actions, inspired him with a lively hope and ardent charity, and filled his breast with courage under his labors, and with joy in the greatest persecutions and crosses. He is said to have been full of the Holy Ghost, his heart being totally possessed by that divine spirit, and all his affections animated by him; banishing from them the spirit of the world with its vanities, that of the devil with his pride and revenge, and that of the flesh with the love of pleasure and the gratification of sense. So perfect a faith was favored with an extraordinary gift of miracles, and prepared him for the merits of the apostleship. By the daily persecutions and dangers to which he exposed himself for the faith, his whole life was a continued martyrdom. Whence the council of the apostles at Jerusalem says of him and St. Paul: They have given their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.18

Agabus, a prophet at Antioch, foretold a great famine, which raged shortly after over the East, especially in Palestine. Whereupon the church at Antioch raised a very considerable collection for the relief of the poor brethren in Judæa, which they sent by SS. Paul and Barnabas to the heads of the church at Jerusalem. Josephus informs us that this famine lay heavy upon Judæa during the four years’ government of Cuspius Fadus, and Tiberius Alexander, under the emperor Claudius. John, surnamed Mark, attended St. Barnabas back to Antioch. He was his kinsman, being son to his sister Mary, whose house was the sanctuary where the apostles concealed themselves from the persecutors, and enjoyed the conveniency of celebrating the divine mysteries. The church of Antioch was by that time settled in good order, and pretty well supplied with teachers, among whom were Simeon, called Niger, Lucius of Syrene, and Manahen, the foster-brother of Herod the Tetrarch,* who were all prophets, besides our two apostles.19 As they were ministering to the Lord, and fasting, the Holy Ghost said to them by some of these prophets: “Separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have taken them.” The word separate here signifies being entirely set apart to divine functions, and taken from all profane or worldly employments, as it is said of the Levites,20 and of St. Paid.21 The work to which these two apostles were assumed, was the conversion of the Gentile nations. The whole church joined in prayer and fasting to draw down the blessing of heaven on this undertaking; a model always to be imitated by those who embrace an ecclesiastical state. After this preparation, SS. Paul and Barnabas received the imposition of hands, by which some understand the episcopal consecration. But Estius, Suarez, and others, more probably think that they were bishops before, and that by this rite is meant no more than the giving of a commission to preach the gospel to the Gentile nations, by which they were consecrated the Apostles of the Gentiles.

Paul and Barnabas having thus received their mission, left Antioch, taking with them John Mark, and went to Seleucia, a city of Syria adjoining to the sea; whence they set sail for Cyprus, and arrived at Salamis, a port formerly of great resort. Having there preached Christ in the synagogues of the Jews, they proceeded to Paphos, a city in the same island, chiefly famous for a temple of Venus, the tutelar goddess of the whole island. The conversion of Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul, happened there. These apostles taking ship again at Paphos, sailed to Perge in Pamphylia. Here John Mark, weary of the hardships and discouraged at the dangers from obstinate Jews and idolaters, which everywhere attended their laborious mission, to the great grief of his uncle Barnabas, left them and returned to Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas from Perge travelled eighty miles northward to Antioch in Pisidia. There they preached first in the synagogues of the Jews; but finding them obstinately deaf to the happy tidings of salvation, they told them that by preference they had announced first to them the words of eternal life; but since they rejected that inestimable grace, they would address the same to the Gentiles, as God had commanded by his prophets. The exasperated Jews had interest enough to get them expelled that city. The apostles went next to Iconium, the metropolis of Lycaonia, and preached there some time; but at length the malice of the Jews prevailed, and the apostles narrowly escaped being stoned. They bent their course hence to Lystra in the same province, in which city the idolaters, surprised to see a cripple miraculously healed by St. Paul, declared the gods were come among them. They gave to Paul the name of Mercury, because he was the chief speaker, and to Barnabas that of Jupiter, probably on account of his gravity and the comeliness of his person.† In this persuasion they were preparing to offer sacrifices to them, and were with difficulty diverted from it by the two saints. But soon after, at the malicious instigation of the Jews, they passed to the opposite extreme and stoned Paul. However, though left for dead, when the disciples came (probably to inter his body) he rose up, went back into the city, and the next day departed with Barnabas to Derbe. Hence, after numerous conversions they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and the other cities already mentioned, confirming the faithful in the doctrine they had lately received, and ordaining priests in every church. They at length arrived at Antioch in Syria, and continued with the disciples of that city a considerable time, full of joy and thanksgiving for the success of their ministry. During their abode in this city arose the dispute relating to the necessity of observing the Mosaic rites. St. Barnabas joined St. Paul in opposing some of the Jewish converts who urged the necessity of observing them under the gospel. This weighty question gave occasion to the council of the apostles at Jerusalem held in the year 51, wherein SS. Paul and Barnabas gave a full account of the success of their labors among the Gentiles, and received a confirmation of their mission, and carried back the synodal letter to the new converts of Syria and Cilicia, containing the decision of the council, which has exempted the new converts from any obligation on the foregoing head.

St. Barnabas gives used great example of humility in his voluntary deference to St. Paul. He had been called first to the faith, had first presented St. Paul to the apostles and passed for first among the doctors of the church of Antioch; yet on every occasion he readily yields to him the quality of speaker, and the first place, which we must ascribe to his humility. Neither did St. Paul seek any other pre-eminence than the first place in all labors. At last a difference in opinion concerning Mark produced a separation, without the least breach of charity in their hearts. John Mark met them again at Antioch. St Paul proposed to our saint to make a circular visit to the churches of Asia which they had founded. Barnabas was for taking his kinsman Mark with him; but Paul was of a different sentiment in regard to one who before had betrayed a want of courage in the same undertaking. The Holy Ghost would by this occasion separate the two apostles, that for the greater benefit of the church the gospel might be carried into more countries. John Mark by this check became so courageous and fervent, that he was from that time one of the most useful and zealous preachers of the gospel. St. Paul afterwards expressed a high esteem of him in his epistle to the Colossians;21 and during his imprisonment at Rome, charged St. Timothy to come to him, and to bring with him John Mark, calling him a person useful for the ministry.22 John Mark finished the course of his apostolic labors at Biblis in Phœnicia, and is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on the 27th of September. After this separation St. Paul with Silas travelled into Syria and Cilicia, and Barnabas, with his kinsman, betook himself to his native island, Cyprus. Here the sacred writings dismiss his history.

St. Barnabas always remembered the conversion of nations was the province allotted to him, nor could he be induced to allow himself any repose, while he saw whole countries deprived of the light of salvation. Theodoret says he returned again to St. Paul, and was sent by him to Corinth with Titus. Dorotheus and the author of the Recognitions suppose him to have been at Rome. The city of Milan honors him as patron from a tradition, supported by monuments which seem to be of the fourth age, affirming that he preached the faith there, and was the founder of that church.* But how wide soever his missions lay, he always regarded his own country as the province especially allotted to his care; and there he finished his life by martyrdom. Alexander, a monk of Cyprus in the sixth age, hath written an account of his death, in which he relates that the faith having made great progress in Cyprus by the assiduous preaching, edifying example, and wonderful miracles of this apostle, it happened that certain inveterate Jews who had persecuted the holy man in Syria, came to Salamis and stirred up many powerful men of that city against him. The saint was taken, roughly handled and insulted by the mob, and after many torments stoned to death. The remains of St. Barnabas were found near the city of Salamis, with a copy of the gospel of St. Matthew, in Hebrew, laid upon his breast, written with St. Barnabas’s own hand. The book was sent to the emperor Zeno in 485, as Theodorus Lector relates.23 St. Paul mentions St. Barnabas as still living in the year 56.24 St. Chrysostom speaks of him as alive in 63.25 He seems to have attained to a great age.† St. Charles Borromeo, in his sixth provincial council, in 1582, appointed his festival a holiday of obligation. Nicholas Sormani, a priest of the Oblates, maintains that he preached at Milan,26 and St. Charles Borromeo in a sermon27 styles him the apostle of Milan.28

St. Barnabas, the more perfectly to disengage his affections from all earthly things, set to the primitive church an heroic example, by divesting himself of all his large possessions in favor of the poor: riches are a gift of God to be received with thankfulness, and to be well employed. But so difficult and dangerous is their stewardship; so rare a grace is it for a man to possess them and not find his affections entangled, and his heart wounded by them, that many heroic souls have chosen, with St. Barnabas, to forsake all things, the more easily to follow Christ in perfect nakedness of heart. Those who are favored with them must employ them in good offices, and in relieving the indigent, not dissipate them in luxury, or make them the fuel of their passions: they must still dare to be poor; must be disengaged in their affections; and must not be uneasy or disturbed if their money takes its flight, being persuaded that the loss of worldly treasures deprives them of nothing they can properly call their own.

JUNE 11 — ST TOCHUMRA, VIRGIN IN IRELAND

Was titular saint of the parish of Tochumracht in the diocese of Gerabore, otherwise called Killfenora; the cathedral of which bears the name of St. Fachnan, who seems to have been the first bishop of this see, which is situated in Munster; but since the year 1660 is annexed to the archbishopric of Tuam.

JUNE 11 — ANOTHER ST. TOCHUMRA, V.,

In the diocese of Kilmore, was also much honored in Ireland on this day and invoked by women in labor. Colgan could discover no Acts, &c.

JUNE 12 — ST. JOHN OF SAHAGUN, C. HERMIT OF THE ORDER OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

From his life, contained in nine letters of blessed John of Seville, written soon after his death, extant in Acta Sanct., with the notes of F. Papebroke, Junij, t. 2, p. 616. Also La Vie de S. Jean Gonzalez on de S. Facond, par P. Nic. Robine, Paris, N, and Nævius, in his Eremus Augustiniana, p. 201.

A. D. 1479.

ST. JOHN, son of John Gonzalez of Castrillo, was a native of Sahagun, or St. Fagondez, in the kingdom of Leon in Spain. He went through the course of his studies in the schools of the Benedictin monks of St. Fagondez, and no sooner had he received the ecclesiastical tonsure than his father procured him a small benefice. The bishop of Burgos took him shortly after into his family and preferred him to a canonry, though the abbot of St. Fagondez had already put him in possession of three small benefices. The pretence for this plurality was the incompetency of the livings for the maintenance of the incumbent. John had lived always blameless in his morals, and his life had an appearance of virtue above the general bulk of Christians. But the divine grace opening his eyes, he at length discovered many errors in his conduct, and set himself seriously to reform them. The first step he took was to extort, by repeated importunity, leave from the bishop of Burgos to resign his church livings, reserving only one chapel, in which he every day said mass, often preached, and catechized the ignorant. He lived in the strictest evangelical poverty and mortification, retired from the world, and began by serious consideration to take a view of himself, and of the state of his soul. He learned by experience that pious reading, meditation, and prayer afford a purer joy than all the train of worldly pleasures can give. Having at length procured his bishop’s consent, he repaired to Salamanca, where he applied himself during four years to the study of theology. After which term he attended the care of souls in the parish church of St. Sebastian, and frequently preached with wonderful zeal and fruit. In the mean time he lived with a virtuous canon, and inured himself to the practice of great austerities during nine years, till he was obliged to be cut for the stone. As soon as he had recovered his health after the operation, he took the religious habit among the hermits of St. Austin in Salamanca, in 1463. In his novitiate he appeared already a perfect master in a spiritual life, and made his solemn vows on the 28th of August, in 1461. He so perfectly attained the spirit of his rule, that no one was more mortified, more obedient, more humble, or more disengaged from creatures than he appeared to be in all his actions. Being commanded to employ his talents in preaching, he delivered from the pulpit the word of God with such energy and force, as discovered how much his understanding was enlightened, and his heart filled with the holy maxims of the gospel. By his pathetic sermons and private exhortations he introduced an entire reformation of manners throughout the whole city, and extinguished the most inveterate feuds and animosities, which, especially among the noblemen, produced daily bad effects; for, by the spirit of meekness with which he was endued, he had a particular talent in reconciling enemies, and in appeasing dissensions. Those whom he found full of bitterness against their neighbor he inspired with the love of peace and charity, and taught them to seek no other revenge than that of forgiving all injuries, and of overcoming enmity by benefits.

Being appointed master of the novices, he discharged that important office with extraordinary prudence and sweetness. In 1471 he was chosen prior of his convent, which was a house famous for the severity of its discipline, and for maintaining the true spirit of the order. The saint was sensible that all advice and precepts are ineffectual when they are not supported by example, and thought it his duty to conduct his religious in the path of perfect virtue more by example than by authority. The high opinion which every one had of his sanctity contributed to give the greatest weight to his words and example. Our saint, by his purity of heart and eminent spirit of prayer, was prepared to receive of God a singular prudence and gift of discerning spirits. He was favored with an extraordinary light in penetrating the recesses of the hearts of penitents. He heard the confessions of all who presented themselves; but was severe in deferring absolution to habitual sinners, and to ecclesiastics who did not live according to the spirit of their most holy profession. He said mass with a devotion that exceedingly edified all that were present. Without respect of persons, he reproved vice in the great ones with a liberty which often drew upon him severe persecutions. A certain duke, whom he had exasperated by his charitable exhortations to forbear provoking heaven by the oppression of his vassals, sent two assassins to murder him; but at the sight of the holy man, the ruffians were struck with remorse, and casting themselves at his feet, begged pardon for their crime. The duke falling sick, humbly testified to the saint his sincere repentance, and by his prayers and blessing recovered his health. St. John being visited with his last sickness, foretold his death, and happily slept in the Lord on the 11th of June, 1479. He was glorified by many miracles both before and after his death, beatified by pope Clement VIII. in 1601, and canonized by Alexander VIII. in 1690. Benedict XIII. commanded an office in his honor to be inserted in the Roman Breviary on the 12th of June.

The example of the saints teaches us that there is nothing to be got for virtue in a life of dissipation. Worldly conversation, which turns on vanity and trifling amusements, insensibly takes off the bend of the mind towards virtue, and the constitution of the soul is hereby impaired no less than that of the body is by means destructive of its health. In retirement and by frequent serious consideration, the mind acquires more strength more extensiveness, and more activity; and is fed with pure truths, and strongly confirmed in good principles. There is nothing more useful or necessary to weaken the impression that sensible objects make upon us. Every good Christian ought from time to time to retire from the world to be alone, and to have regular hours for pious reading and consideration. “Reflection,” says St. Bernard, “is the eye of the soul: it lets light and truth into it.” The divine wisdom says, I will lead her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her heart.1

JUNE 12 — SS. BASILIDES, QUIRINUS, OR CYRINUS, NABOR, AND NAZARIUS, MARTYRS

SS. Gelasius and Gregory the Great, in their sacramentaries, the ancient Roman Calendar published by F. Fronto, and the true Martyrology of Bede, make honorable mention of these four martyrs, who suffered at Rome, and were interred on the Aurelian road. According to the acts of their martyrdom, they were four soldiers in the army of Maxentius, son of Maximian Herculius; and after suffering many torments, were beheaded by the command of Aurelius, prefect of Rome. St. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, in 756, having procured the relics of several martyrs from Rome, he placed those of St. Gorgonius in the abbey of Gorze, four leagues from Metz; those of St. Nazarius in that of Lorch, or Lausheim, in the diocese of Worms; and those of St. Nabor in that of St. Hilary on the Moselle, since corruptly called St. Avol’s, i. e., St. Nabor’s in the diocese of Metz. See Paul the deacon, Rabanus Maurus, Notker, &c.

JUNE 12 — ST. ESKILL, BISHOP AND MARTYR IN SWEDEN

This saint was an Englishman by birth, but so long as the Catholic religion flourished in the northern kingdoms of Europe, was honored in that part of the universe as one of the most illustrious martyrs of the gospel of Christ. St. Anscharius, archbishop of Bremen, having by his zealous labors laid the foundation of a numerous church in Sweden, was obliged to return into Germany. After his departure the Swedes returned to their paganish superstition, and expelled Simon, whom St. Anscharius had left bishop of that church. The news of this apostacy afflicted extremely the servants of God who inhabited the northern provinces of England, and St. Sigefride, archbishop of York, resolved to undertake a mission in person to rescue so many souls that were running upon the very brink of perdition. Eskill, his kinsman, desirous to have a share in this laborious and dangerous enterprise, accompanied him thither, and behaved in that country with so much zeal and prudence that, at the request of the king and people, St. Sigefride, before his return to England, consecrated him bishop at a place called Nordhan’s Kogh. By his zealous labors, which were supported by the example of his apostolic life, the church was exceedingly propagated, till good king Ingon was slain by the infidels, and the wicked Sweno, surnamed the Bloody, placed on the throne. Upon this revolution they revived their most impious and barbarous superstitions, with which they celebrated a most solemn festival at a place called Strengis. St. Eskill’s zeal was enkindled at such abominations, and attended by several of his clergy and of the faithful, he hastened to the place of the sacrilegious assembly. There he strongly exhorted the idolaters to renounce their impious worship. Finding them deal to his remonstrances, he addressed his prayers to the Almighty, beseeching Him by some visible sign to give evidence that He alone was the true God In tantly a violent storm of hail, thunder, and rain fell upon the spot, and destroyed the altar and sacrifices. This prodigy the infidels ascribed to art magic, with which they charged the saint, and by the king’s orders they stoned him to death. His sacred body was buried on the spot upon which he suffered martyrdom, and soon after a church was there built, in which his sacred remains were exposed to the veneration of the faithful, and were honored with miracles. He glorified God by martyrdom in the eleventh century. His festival was formerly kept on this day in Sweden, Poland and other northern countries. See his life published by the Bollandists; Messenius, Seondia Illustrata, p. 31, and Benzelius, Monum. Eccles. Suevogoth ex MSS. Upsal. 1709, p. 29.

JUNE 12 — ST. ONUPHRIUS, HERMIT

He lived some time in an austere monastery of one hundred monks, near Thebes in Egypt. A desire of imitating the solitude of St. John Baptist, moved him to seek a retreat in the most solitary wilderness of that country. He for some years struggled with grievous temptations, but by perseverance overcame them, and by the exercises of holy solitude prepared his soul for the closest communications with God, in which he found the repose of his heart, the comfort of his earthly pilgrimage, and a kind of anticipation of the eternal enjoyment of heaven. He spent in this retirement sixty years, unknown to the world; but by his prayers never ceased to implore the divine mercy in its behalf, and for the protection of the church under the persecutions of the two Arian emperors, Constantius and Valens. A date-tree and a palm-tree which grew near his cell furnished him with food. He died on the 12th of June. See his life by one Paphnutius in Rosweide, p. 99, and Janning’s Collections and Notes, t. 2, Jun. p. 519.

JUNE 12 — ST. TERNAN, BISHOP OF THE PICTS, C

St. Palladius, the apostle of the Scots, ordained St. Servanus, or Serf, bishop of Orkney, and St. Ternan of the Picts, in 440. This latter had sanctified himself many years in the abbey of Culross, in Fifeshire, in which St. Kentigern had established a most holy manner of life. On St. Ternan see Boëtius, Lesley, King, and Papebroke, p. 533.

JUNE 13 — ST ANTONY OF PADUA, C

His genuine life has received several interpolations from popular reports of no authority. But Wadding Annals of his Order furnish us with good memoirs relating to his life and actions. See the judicious notes of the Bollandists, Acta Sanctorum Junii, t. 2. p. 706. Ragnaud, t. 8, Mic. Ant. Bibl. Hisp. and Andreich.

A. D. 1231.

ST. ANTONY, though a native of Lisbon in Portugal, received his surname from his long residence at Padua, which city is possessed of the treasure of his relics. He was born in 1195, and christened by the name of Ferdinand, which he changed for that of Antony when he entered the order of St. Francis, out of devotion to the great patriarch of monks, who was the titular saint of the little chapel of his order in which he took the habit. His father was Martin de Bullones, an officer in the army of Alphonsus I., surnamed el Consultador, who, having defeated five kings of the Moors in the battle of Orique, in 1139, was crowned king of Portugal, and died in 1185. This prince’s father, Henry of Burgundy, grandson of Robert, king of France, had begun the conquest of that country, but never took the title of king. The mother of our saint was Mary of Tevera, one of the most accomplished of women. Both his parents were equally distinguished by their nobility and virtue. They placed their son very young in the community of the canons of the cathedral of Lisbon, where his rising genius was carefully cultivated, and from his tender years he always advanced both in knowledge and devotion. At fifteen years of age he entered among the regular canons of St. Austin, near Lisbon; but not bearing the interruption and distraction which the visits of his friends there gave him, he desired, two years after, to be sent to the convent of the Holy Cross of the same order at Coimbra, a hundred miles from the former city. The close retirement and the austerity in which he there lived astonished his brethren, while he pursued his studies, and read assiduously the holy scriptures and fathers. By his regular method and application, and by his sound and piercing judgment, he made a quick progress, and together with a profound knowledge of theology, acquired a perfect habit of nervous and convincing eloquence. In the mean time he inflamed his devotion by assiduous prayer and holy meditation, and nourished daily in his soul the strongest sentiments and affections of piety, without which means the heart is left spiritually dry, the usual consequence of studies whether sacred or profane unless prayer imparts to them its unction. But the saint was called by God to serve him with greater fervor, and to be the ornament and support of an other illustrious rising order of religious men.

He had lived at Coimbra near eight years, when Don Pedro, infant of Portugal, brought over from Morocco the relics of the five Franciscans, who had been lately there crowned with martyrdom. Ferdinand was strongly affected at the sight, and conceived an ardent desire to lay down his life for Christ. Shortly after, certain Franciscan friars came to his monastery of the Holy Cross to beg an alms for their community. Ferdinand discovered to them his inclination to embrace their institute, and was by them encouraged to put it in execution. No sooner was this known among the canons but they endeavored to dissuade him from such a resolution, and he suffered much from their railleries and bitter reproaches. But he rejoiced in humilia and he began by them to learn to overcome himself, and to root out of his heart all lurking poison of pride. While he examined his vocation, and begged the direction of the Holy Ghost, he found his resolution every day to gain new strength from the esteem he conceived for an order which inspired an eminent spirit of martyrdom, and still enjoyed the direction and living example of its holy founder. Its poverty and austerities had also charms to him. Having, therefore, obtained the consent of his prior, he received this new habit in 1221, in the little Franciscan convent dedicated to the great St. Antony, patriarch of the monks, near Coïmbra. After some time spent in solitude, prayer, and penitential austerities, burning with a desire of martyrdom, he obtained leave to go into Africa to preach the gospel to the Moors. He was scarce arrived there, when God, satisfied with the sacrifice of his heart, visited him with a severe fit of illness, which obliged him to return to Spain for the re-establishment of his health. But by contrary winds, the vessel on which he was embarked was driven to Sicily, and touched at Messina; where he was informed that St. Francis was then holding a general chapter at Assisium. Sick and weak as he was, the desire of seeing the holy founder of his order carried him to Assisium. When he had seen St. Francis he desired to cultivate the happiness which he enjoyed in the company of the saint; and in order to stay nearer his person, offered himself to the provincials and guardians of Italy. St. Francis approved his inclination to renounce his friends and country; but not one of the superiors there assembled would be troubled with him, so unpromising and sickly was his aspect; for he took care to conceal his learning and talents, and presented himself only to serve, in the kitchen. At last a guardian, in the province of Romagna, named Gratiani, took pity of him, and sent him to the hermitage of Mount-Paul, a little solitary convent near Bologna. Antony thought of nothing but of burying himself here in obscurity unknown to the world, joining the sweets of heavenly contemplation with the austerities of a penitential life, and the humiliations of such a state. He never let fall one word which might show his learning, much less any thing of the sublime communications of his soul with God; but listened to everybody, and only spoke when obliged, till an accident made him known to the world. An assembly of the neighboring Dominican and Franciscan friars was held at Forli, in which the Dominicans, as strangers, were desired to make an exhortation to the company. They all excused themselves, every one saying that he was not prepared. Then Antony’s guardian ordered him to speak, and to say whatever the Holy Ghost should put in his mouth. The saint begged to be excused, alleging that he had been only used to wash the dishes in the kitchen, and to sweep the house. But the superior insisting upon his compliance, he spoke with such eloquence, erudition, and unction, as astonished the whole company. He was at that time about twenty-six years old.

St. Francis was informed of the discovery of this hidden treasure in his order and sent him to Vercelli, there to apply himself to the study of theology, and after a short time to teach the sacred sciences; yet recommending to him to make the assiduous exercise of contemplation and prayer his principal employment, lest his studies should otherwise extinguish in him the spirit of devotion and piety. St. Francis’s letter was couched in the following terms: “To my most dear brother Antony, friar Francis wishes health in Jesus Christ. It seemeth good to me, that you should read sacred theology to the friars; yet so, that you do not prejudice yourself by too great earnestness in studies; and be careful that they do not extinguish in yourself or in them the spirit of holy prayer.” St. Antony taught divinity some years with great applause at Bologna, Toulouse, Montpellier, and Padua, and was appointed guardian at Limoges. In all these employments he never made use of the general dispensation allowed to professors, of an exemption from any of the regular duties of his community, and he found time to preach assiduously to the people. He at length forsook the schools to apply himself wholly to the functions of a missionary preacher; for be thought the conversion of souls from vice, and the reformation of manners called for his whole attention and zeal. He seemed formed both by nature and grace for this most important office. He had a polite address, an easy carriage, and a very pleasing countenance. His voice was strong, clear, and agreeable; he was endowed with a happy memory, and was a complete master of all the arts of persuasion. To his other advantages he added that of the most graceful action and accent, by which he knew how to get into the very souls of his hearers by seizing on their senses, having learned that man has as much of a sensible as of a rational creature. He was perfectly versed in the holy scriptures, had an excellent talent of applying them to the purpose on all occasions, and displayed in a clear light, and with inexpressible energy the genuine sense, and the spirit and marrow of the sacred text. But what made his eloquence most prevailing, and rendered it like a torrent of fire which bore down all before it, was the unction with which he spoke: for his heart being filled with the warmest and most feeling sentiments of every virtue, he poured these forth with an energy and zeal that seemed irresistible. His words were so many darts, which pierced the hearts of his hearers: for he had long treasured up by the exercises of humility, silence, mortification, contemplation, and prayer, what he afterwards communicated to his hearers; and his soul was itself all flame before he endeavored to kindle the fire of divine love in others. Full of a sovereign contempt of the world and himself, and burning with a desire to die for Jesus Christ, and to see his pure love reign in all hearts, he was above the reach of all temptations which could warp his integrity, or make him weaken or disguise the maxims of the gospel, which he announced with equal dignity and zeal to the great ones and the small. The learned admired the loftiness of his thoughts, and the strong images with which he painted the most sublime mysteries, and added an unspeakable dignity to the most obvious and common truths of religion and morality; yet a natural simplicity rendered all his discourses no less intelligible and easy to the most vulgar understandings. Charity and prudence took off the edge of harshness from his reprehensions, and his very reproofs were not bitter or austere, but amiable and insinuating. While he beat down presumptuous sinners by the terrors of the divine judgments, he at the same time took care to raise and encourage their sinking souls by confidence in the divine goodness and mercy. He opposed the fashionable vices and growing heresies of those times with equal vigor and success. The most obstinate heretics and the most hardened sinners threw themselves at his feet, declaring themselves conquered. Pope Gregory IX. hearing him preach at Rome in 1227, in his surprise, figuratively called him The Ark of the Covenant, or rich spiritual treasure. The sanctity and severity of his life gave also great weight to his words. Such was the gravity of his countenance and the edifying modesty of his deportment, that he seemed to preach by every action. Having once invited a brother to go out with him to preach, he returned to his convent without making any sermon to the people. His companion asked him why he had not preached. “We have done it,” said the saint, “by our modest looks, and by the gravity of our behavior.” The frequent miracles which were performed by him much enhanced the reputation of his eminent sanctity wherever he came. The crowds were everywhere so great at his sermons that he was often obliged to preach in market-places of fields. He travelled through cities, towns, and villages, with an unwearied zeal, and preached in France, Spain, and Italy. When he was one day going to begin his sermon to a most numerous assembly in the fields in France, the sky was on a sudden covered with thick clouds, and violent claps of thunder presaged a dreadful storm. The people began to disperse, and run to the neighboring city. But the saint encouraged them to stay, and by his prayers obtained that the audience, as if they had been covered with an invisible canopy, felt nothing of the dreadful shower of rain and hail, while the neighboring fields and highways were covered with a deluge.

The saint was no less admirable in the confessional and in the private direction of souls than in the pulpit. Wherever he came, dissensions and animosities were extinguished, usurers restored their unjust gains, sinners melted into tears at his discourses, and by their sobs often interrupted his sermons, and every one sought his particular advice for the direction of his own conscience and conduct. In Lombardy, for the protection of the oppressed people, he put his life in the hands of one of the most furious of tyrants. Ezzelino, a native of the marquisate of Treviso, but of German extraction, having put himself at the head of a party of the Gibellins or Imperialists, made himself master of Verona, Padua, and several other cities in Lombardy, and exercised in them the most horrible tyranny during forty years. He contemned the anathemas of Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Alexander IV. Hearing that the citizens of Padua had revolted from him, he put to death in one day twelve thousand persons of that country. The city of Verona, which was the place of his residence, had lost most of its inhabitants, and was filled with his guards, whose terrible armor added fierceness to their savage countenances. The saint, who feared no danger in the cause of God and his neighbor, went boldly to Verona: he found the streets solitary and mournful, and advancing to the palace, desired an audience of the prince. Being introduced into his chamber, he saw him seated on a throne, surrounded by his troop of murderers, who stood armed, ready to execute his bloody orders the instant they were issued. Antony, no way dismayed, told the tyrant that his murders, sacrileges, and plunders called to heaven for vengeance upon his head, and that those whom he had slain or oppressed were witnesses before God against him. The saint said many things to the same purpose, and the guards waited every moment to hear the tyrant command him to be cut to pieces. But to their great astonishment, he descended from his throne pale and trembling, and putting his girdle round his neck for a halter, cast himself at the feet of the humble servant of God, and with many tears begged him to intercede with God for the pardon of his sins. The saint lifted him up, and gave him suitable advice to do penance. Some time afterwards he sent a great present to St. Antony, which the holy man refused to accept, saying, the only agreeable present the prince could make him would be to restore to the poor what he had unjustly taken from them. Ezzelino seemed for some time to change his conduct, but after the death of the saint, relapsed into his former disorders. At length being taken prisoner by the confederate princes of Lombardy in 1259, he died distracted in close confinement.

St. Antony, when invested with several dignities in his order, was watchful to maintain the primitive spirit and regularity in the houses under his inspection. He saw it almost in its birth exposed to imminent danger, and saved it by his zeal and prudence. St. Francis dying in 1226, brother Elias, a man of a worldly spirit, was chosen general; who abusing his authority began to introduce several relaxations of the rule, which tended to the ruin of its fundamental constitutions and spirit. He built a church too magnificent for the poverty which the rule required and professed, applied money to his own private use, bought himself a horse, kept servants ate in his own chamber, and had better fare than the community prepared for him. Most of the provincials and guardians, out of human respects, were gained to his way of thinking; and the rest, who saw that the tendency of such an innovation was to open a door to relaxations which must necessarily extinguish the spirit and glory of the order, had not courage to speak against it. Only St. Antony and an Englishman named Adam, boldly opposed and condemned these abuses; but were loaded with injuries and ill treatment, and only by flight escaped perpetual imprisonment in their cells, which the general with several provincials decreed against them as turbulent and seditious men. They addressed themselves to pope Gregory IX., by whom they were graciously received and heard. His holiness summoned Elias to appear before him at Rome, and having examined into the abuses by him introduced, deposed him from the generalship. Antony was at that time provincial of Romagna; but took this occasion to extort by importunities, license from the pope to resign that post, and also to leave the court, where his holiness earnestly desired to detain him. He retired first to mount Alverno; thence returned to his convent at Padua, which he had pitched upon for his abode some time before he was provincial of Romagna, and where he had formerly taught divinity and preached. After his return, he again preached the Lent there with such fruit, that the whole city seemed changed by his sermons. Then it was that he put the last hand to the Latin sermons which we have, though not as he preached them; for he diversified them according to circumstances, and spoke as the ardor of his soul directed him.* They are no more than general heads or commonplaces, destitute of the ornaments and flowers which he added in speaking.

When Lent was over, St. Antony being much spent with labor and his penitential life, finding also his health and strength declining very fast under an inward decay, he desired to give himself some interval between business and eternity. He therefore retired out of town, to a solitary place called Campietro, or Field of Peter, there to attend solely to himself and God, and by fervent prayer to dispose his soul for the enjoyment of God; for he knew that his earthly pilgrimage was drawing to an end, and that he was then called to receive the reward of his labors. He took with him into his solitude two companions, men of great virtue. His distemper increasing very much upon him he desired to be carried back to his convent in Padua; but the crowds of people pressing to kiss the hem of his habit were so great and so troublesome, that he stopped in the suburbs, and was laid in the chamber of the director of the nuns of Arcela, where having received the rites of the church with many tears, he recited the seven penitential psalms, and a hymn in honor of the Blessed Virgin,† till he gave up his happy soul to him who had created it for his own great glory, on the 13th of June, 1231, being only thirty-six years old, of which he had lived ten in the order of St. Francis. At the first news of his departure the children ran about the streets crying out: “The saint is dead!” Innumerable miracles testified his sanctity, and he was immediately canonized by pope Gregory IX., in 1232, whose bull was dated at Spoletto. That pope had been personally acquainted with the saint, and was a great admirer of his virtues. Thirty-two years after his death, a stately church was built in Padua for his order, and his remains were translated into it. The flesh was all consumed except the tongue, which was found incorrupt, red, and as fresh as it was while he was living. St. Bonaventure, who was then general of the order, and present at this ceremony, took it into his hands, and bathing it with his tears, and kissing it with great devotion, said: “O blessed tongue, that didst always praise God, and hast been the cause that an infinite number learned to praise him: now it appears how precious thou art before Him who framed thee to be employed in so excellent and high a function.” The tongue is kept in the same church in a most costly case. This is at present a great and famous house of conventual Franciscan friars, which often furnishes the university, which is certainly to be ranked among the best in Europe, with able professors. The sepulchral monument of the saint in the church is exceeding rich and magnificent, and the basso-relievo with which it is adorned, a masterpiece of art. The costly lamps which hang before it are the several presents of many cities. The Portuguese likewise honor him with singular veneration. On his miracles, Papebroke the Bollandist may be consulted.1 Pope Gregory IX., in the bull of his canonization says: “We therefore commanded the said bishop, (of Padua,) brother Jordan, prior of St. Bennet’s, and brother John, prior of St. Austin’s, a monastery of the Dominicans in Padua, to make diligent scrutiny into the miracles wrought at his sepulchre, and into the merits of his life. Having seen the authentic proofs of the miracles of the aforesaid venerable man, besides what we know ourselves of his holy life and conversation, of which we have had experience, we, by the advice of our brethren, together with all the prelates with us, have enrolled him in the number of the saints.” He had said before, in the same bull: “St. Antony, residing now in heaven, is honored on earth by many miracles daily seen at his tomb, of which we are certified by authentic writings.”

While we admire the graces and extraordinary gifts with which God was pleased to glorify his servant, we must not forget that he was raised so high, only because, by divine grace, through the paths of self-denial and humility, he had learned perfectly to die to himself, and to be nothing in his own eyes. Pride makes our hearts an abomination to God, and puts him at the greatest distance from us. This is the deep wound of our souls, the main-spring of all our passions, the deadly poison of virtue, the fortress of the devil, and the source of all disorders. If we perfectly root out this evil, then will divine grace begin to establish its reign, and display its treasures in our souls.

JUNE 13 — ST. DAMHNADE, V

The eminent spirit of sanctity which the glorious St. Patrick bequeathed as it were to a great number of heroic imitators of his virtue, was most conspicuous in the wonderful life of this holy virgin, famed in Ireland for an extraordinary gift of miracles. She is honored with singular devotion as titular saint of the counties of Fermanagh, Cavan, and others. See Colgan in MSS. ad 13 Jun.

JUNE 14 — SAINT BASIL THE GREAT, C., ARCHBISHOP OF CÆSAREA

From his own works, and the panegyrics and funeral discourses compiled by St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Amphilochius, and St. Ephrem, all his intimate acquaintance; and from the church historians. See Hermant, Tillemont, Cave, &c.; also Jos. Assemani in Calend. Univ. ad 1 Jan t. 6, p. 4.

A. D. 379.

ST. BASIL the Great, the illustrious doctor and intrepid champion of the church, was born towards the close of the year 329 at Cæsarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia. His parents were Cappadocians by birth, both equally illustrious for their nobility, and descended from a long line of renowned heroes. But his father was by extraction from Pontus, where his ancestors had long flourished. St. Macrina, his grandmother by the father’s side, and her pious husband, whose name has not reached us, suffered the confiscation of their estates and torments almost to death for the faith, in the reign of Maximinus II. in 311. Another time escaping by flight, they lived seven years concealed in the great forests of Pontus, where they were wonderfully fed by stags, as St. Gregory Nazianzen assures us.1 Our saint’s father, St. Basil the Elder, and his wife St. Emmelia, adorned the conjugal state by their saintly conversation. Their marriage was blessed with ten children, of which they left nine living, all eminent for virtue; those that were married and lived in the world seeming no way inferior in piety to those who served God in holy virginity, as St. Gregory Nazianzen tells us. Four were sons and the other five daughters. St. Macrina was the eldest of all these children, and assisted her mother in training up the rest in perfect virtue. The eldest among the boys was St. Basil: the other three were Naucratius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Peter of Sebaste. Our saint was the fruit of his mother’s prayers, and in his infancy by the same means recovered his health in a dangerous sickness, when he had been given over by the physicians, as St. Gregory of Nyssa relates. He received the first tincture of virtue from his grandmother St. Macrina the Elder, under whose care he passed his infancy in a country-house near Neocæsarea, in Pontus, and he testifies himself that during his whole life he never forgot the strong impressions of piety which her exhortations and holy example made upon his tender mind. His father, who was the common master of eloquence and piety in Pontus, taught, him the first elements of literature, but died about the year 349, soon after the birth of St. Peter of Sebaste. He lived sometimes at Cæsarea, where our saint was born, and where the sciences flourished; and after his decease the young Basil was sent to that great city for the sake of the schools. He was then only ten or twelve years old; but he far outstripped his age in the proficiency which he made in learning, and still more by the fervor with which he daily advanced in piety and devotion. He was judged equal in oratory to the best masters in that country when he removed to Constantinople, where Libanius, a heathen, the most celebrated rhetorician of that age, and one of the first men of the empire, gave public lectures with the greatest applause.* This professor was charmed with the abilities, gravity, and virtue of his scholar. He testifies in his epistles that he was in raptures as often as he heard him speak in public. He ever after kept an epistolary correspondence with him, and gave him constant marks of the highest esteem and veneration.2 When Basil had made himself master of whatever the schools of Cæsarea and Constantinople were able to teach him, the same laudable thirst after useful learning carried him to Athens, which from the days of Pericles, who raised Greece from barbarism, remained still the seat of the Muses, and especially of the purity and Attic elegance of the Greek tongue, which was preserved in the East, though not always with equal splendor, till the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. Whereas in the West, the true taste in polite literature began generally to decline from the reign of Tiberius, till by the incursions of barbarians it seemed almost extinguished.†

St. Basil, who had first met and contracted an intimacy with St. Gregory Nazianzen at Cæsarea, was overjoyed to find so worthy a friend at Athens, in 352. St. Gregory, who was arrived there a little before, had credit enough to procure his friend a welcome reception, and the great reputation and gravity of Basil protected him from the rude treatment with which the scholars were wont to receive new-comers.3 A sympathy of inclinations, an equal ardor for virtue and learning, and a mutual esteem for each other’s piety and great qualities, formed between the two saints a friendship which was not founded in a light and variable affection, but in rooted love and motives of true virtue. Hence no jealousy, envy, impatience, or other passion, was ever able to impair the union of their hearts, which was not like the passions of youth, resembling a spring flower which quickly fades, and founded only in base interest, sense, or pleasure. They had no other interest or desire than to consecrate themselves entirely to God, and to be to each other a mutual comfort, spur, and assistance in attaining to this great end. No passion more easily betrays youth than that of sensual fondness begun under the sacred name of friendship; nor is there any thing in which they are to be more strongly upon their guard against themselves, lest what at first seems virtue terminate in passion. This holy pair of perfect friends, by their reservedness, watchfulness, confirmed habit of mortification of their senses, and assiduous prayer, maintained themselves free from the dangerous snares which the enemy of souls never fails to throw in the way on such occasions. They conversed together with such gravity, that they might have seemed angels destitute of bodies. With this guard over themselves, they enjoyed all the support and succor which holy friendship in God is capable of affording to pious souls. They had the same lodging and the same table; they pursued the same employments, and seemed to have but one will. All things were common betwixt them, and in all they did they had both this only new, which they made the whole endeavor of all their actions, that watching or sleeping, in solitude or in company, at work or in study, fasting or taking necessary refreshment, or whatever else they did, they might live only to glorify God, continually adore and honor with all their faculties the Divine Being, and do his will. All their fervor and watchfulness could not have been able to secure their innocence had they not carefully shunned the rock of bad company; which St. Gregory particularly remarks;4 “Neither did we,” says he, “keep company with scholars that were impious, rude, or impudent, but with those that were the best and the most peaceable, and those whose conversation brought us much profit, being persuaded that it is an illusion to seek the company of sinners on pretence to reform or convert them: it is far more to be feared they will communicate their poison to us.” A most important precept to all men, especially to youth; the neglect of which is the ruin of the strongest virtue, and renders abortive all the care and instructions of the most zealous parents and pastors, and all the fruit of the best education. St. Gregory adds of himself and his friend: “We knew only two streets, and chiefly the first of these which led us to the church and to the holy teachers and doctors who there attended the service of the altar, and nourished the flock of Christ with the food of life. The other street with which we were acquainted, but which we held in much less esteem, was the road to the schools, and to our masters in the sciences. We left to others the streets which led to the theatre, to spectacles, feastings, and diversions. We made it our only and great affair; it was our only aim, and all our glory, to be called and to be Christians.”

St. Basil was an adept in all the liberal arts and sciences. An insight into every different branch of them contributes exceedingly to improve and enlarge the faculties of the mind, and is necessary to every one that would excel in any one science, especially, as Tully observes, in oratory. This art was in the highest request, and of the greatest use among the Greeks and Romans. And our two students in fitting themselves for the ministry of the church, spared no pains to perfect themselves in the art of true and genuine eloquence. If the fathers seem sometimes to despise it, they speak only of the studied and superfluous ornaments of rhetoric which only tickle the ear, and in a Christian preacher debase the grandeur and dignity of our mysteries, and rather pervert than promote the end for which they are revealed to us. Too florid pomp of words takes off from the noble simplicity, which best suits the dignity of sacred truths, and which inimitably shines in the inspired writings, and renders their genuine eloquence superior to the most finished pieces of all profane orators. But with this simplicity are compatible the truest grandeur, and the most agreeable charms and beauty of diction of which any subject matter is susceptible. And St. Gregory Nazianzen and other fathers have shown, that though the divine truths are not preached to us in the persuasive words of human wisdom,5 nevertheless the proper succors of eloquence are not to be slighted by pastors in the ministry of the word. Those who degrade that sublime office by a want of method in their discourses, or by a low grovelling expression, dishonor God whose ambassadors they are, depreciate his divine word, and by their carelessness and sloth give the faithful a contempt and distaste for the most inestimable treasure, with the dispensation of which God hath honored them. And every one who is called to the care of souls is bound to exert his utmost efforts to qualify himself to publish to men the great truths of salvation with a dignity that becomes the great importance of that function which is the first, the principal, and the most indispensable duty of every pastor, and on which depends the salvation of most of the souls that are committed to his care. Basil and Nazianzen in this view applied themselves to the study of oratory, and imitating the industry of a Thucydides or a Demosthenes, they with incredible pains formed their style upon the best models.*

St. Basil excelled likewise in poesy, philosophy, and every other branch of literature. By many observations on natural philosophy scattered in his works, especially in his book, On the creation, or work of six days, called Hexaëmeron, it appears that his skill in the history of nature was more just and more extensive than that of Aristotle, notwithstanding the helps which the treasures of an Alexander were able to procure him. In logic, such were his superior abilities, and dexterity, that it would have been more easy for a man to draw himself out of a labyrinth than to extricate himself from the web in which this great doctor entangled his adversaries by the force of his reasoning, says St. Gregory. He contented himself with learning the general principles of geometry, medicine, and the like sciences, rightly judging such an insight into all the arts of extreme use to a person who would excel in any of them, but despising whatever seemed useless to one who had devoted himself solely to religion and piety. In checking thus his curiosity and natural thirst after knowledge, according to the excellent reflection of St. Gregory Nazianzen, he was not less admirable for what he neglected in the sciences than for what he learned. After his preparatory studies, he applied himself to the assiduous meditation of the holy scriptures, that inexhausted fund of heavenly sentiments and knowledge. He seasoned his other studies with the assiduous reading of the works of the fathers. Thus did our great doctor enrich himself with that precious treasure, with which he stored his mind, and qualified himself in so excellent a manner for the ministry of the divine word,* and the advancement of piety.

Basil was soon regarded at Athens as an oracle both in sacred and profane learning. Both masters and students used their utmost endeavors to fix him among them; but he thought it incumbent upon him rather to serve his own country. Wherefore leaving St. Gregory some time behind him, he went from Athens in 355, and repaired to Cæsarea in Cappadocia, where, being yet young, he opened a public school of oratory. He was also prevailed upon to plead at the bar: these being, in that age, the principal employs in which young orators and noblemen showed their abilities, and improved themselves in the art of speaking. Philosophy had already raised Basil above ambition, and he contemned posts of honor, and all the glittering advantages with which the world flattered him. He had always led a most virtuous and regular life, and sought only the kingdom of God. Yet seeing himself received by his countrymen with the greatest applause, every one testifying the highest esteem for his person and extraordinary endowments, he felt his heart secretly assaulted by a temptation to vain-glory, and a lurking satisfaction in the empty esteem of men. The danger of this enemy made him tremble for his soul; and he shortly after determined entirely to renounce the world, in order to remove himself further from its precipices. The zealous exhortations of his devout sister Macrina, and his friend Nazianzen, contributed not a little to strengthen him in this heroic resolution, and instil into his soul a love of holy poverty, and a contempt of human glory, with a relish for the more sublime philosophy of perfect virtue. By their advice he gave away the greatest part of his estate to the poor; and tousing himself as from a lethargy, he began to behold the true light of heavenly wisdom, and thoroughly to understand the emptiness of worldly science, and all human things. In these dispositions he embraced the penitential and laborious state of a poor monk. Libanius, the famous heathen orator, was much struck at the generous magnanimity with which the saint despised the world while it caressed and flattered him, and this haughty sophist could not forbear exceedingly to admire and extol so heroic a greatness of soul. St. Basil and his friend St. Gregory, among the things which they forsook in renouncing the world, often enumerate eloquence, but mean the gaudy trimmings and empty delicacies of that art, which only please the ear; or they speak of the profane use of eloquence, to renounce which, specially in that age, was certainly a great sacrifice. For both by their example and works they condemn those Christian preachers, who, pretending to imitate the inspired apostles, cover their laziness and ignorance with a contemptuous disdain of the art of eloquence.6 “After having forsaken the world,” says St. Gregory, “I have reserved only eloquence; and I do not repent the pains and fatigue I have suffered by sea and land, in order to attain it: I could wish for my own sake, and that of my friends, that we possessed all its force.”7 And in another place,8 “This alone remains of what I once possessed; and I offer, devote, and consecrate it entire to my God. The voice of his command, and the impulse of his spirit, have made me abandon all things beside, to barter all I was master of for the precious stone of the gospel. Thus I am become, or rather I wish ardently to become, that happy merchant who exchanges contemptible and perishable goods for others that are excellent and eternal. But being a minister of the gospel, I devote myself solely to the duty of preaching: I embrace it as my lot, and will never forsake it.”

St. Basil, reflecting that the name of a monk would be his more heavy condemnation unless he faithfully fulfilled the obligations of that state, in 357 travelled over Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, and visited the most celebrated monasteries and hermits of the deserts in those countries, carefully instructing himself in all the duties and exercises of a monastic life. He was much edified by the example of those holy men, who by all their actions showed that they regarded themselves as travellers on earth, and citizens of heaven; and their conversation very much encouraged him to fervor in his resolution. In all his travels he was careful to choose only those for fathers and guides of his soul in the paths of heaven, whose faith was conformable to that of the Catholic church, as he assures us.9 In 358 he returned into Cappadocia, and was ordained Reader by Dianæus, the old bishop of Cæsarea, by whom he had formerly been baptized. This prelate professed himself a Catholic, but had been unwarily seduced into some false steps in favor of the Arians. He had joined the Eusebians at Antioch in 341, and at Sardica or Philopopolis in 347; and when the council of Rimini in 359 had omitted the word Consubstantial in its decree, which the emperor had compelled the oriental bishops to subscribe. Dianæus had the weakness to comply. This was a sensible affliction to Basil, who respected him as his pastor, and had found him an affable and grave man. But union it faith prevailing more with the saint than any other ties, he, upon this subscription, separated himself from his communion. The saint left Cappadocia in 358, and retired into Pontus, to the house of his grandmother, situated on the banks of the river Iris. His mother Emmelia, and his sister Macrina, had there founded a nunnery, which was at that time governed by the latter. St. Basil established a monastery of men on the opposite side of the river, which he governed five years, till in 362 he resigned the abbacy to his brother St. Peter of Sebaste. About seven or eight furlongs from the monastery of St. Macrina, stood the church of the forty martyrs, enriched with an ample portion of their relics, and famous in the writings of St. Basil and his friends. The place was not far from Neocæsarea. St. Basil founded several other monasteries both of men and women in different parts of Pontus, which he continued to superintend even when he was bishop. For their direction he drew up his ascetic works, which consist chiefly of his Longer and Shorter Rules for cenobites or monks who live in community: in them he prefers the cenobitic life to the eremitical, as generally the more secure; he inculcates frequently that a monk ought to manifest to his superior all that passes most secret in his soul, and submit himself in all things to his direction: he orders that monks exercise hospitality to strangers, but without providing for them any dainty fare, which he said was as absurd as if they should have better clothes than their ordinary habits to receive them in; and adds this remark, that an austere diet would rid them of the trouble of idle visitants of a worldly spirit, which a neglect of this advice would invite. He says the table of a monk ought to teach even strangers sobriety.10 He mentions, and excellently recommends each canonical hour of prayer, and though some have denied it, that of Prime,* by which we consecrate the first fruits of our thoughts to God, and fill our hearts, before all other things, with thoughts of God, and with his holy joy.11 The Monastic Constitutions which are ascribed to St. Basil, differ from these two rules in several articles, and are not ascribed to this father by any ancient author. Ceillier thinks them of somewhat a later date. The rule of St. Basil is universally followed to this day by all the oriental monks, even by those who call themselves of the order of St. Antony.

We have the truest image of this great patriarch in the glass which he holds to us in his writings; and it would be doing an injury to virtue not to give some kind of portraiture of him in his retired life, which has been the model upon which, in every succeeding age, many eminent saints have formed themselves in perfect virtue. He never had more than one tunic and one coat, lay on the ground, sometimes watched whole nights, and never made use of a bath, which before the use of linen, and in hot climates, was a very rare and extraordinary denial. He wore a long hair-cloth in the night, but not by day, that it might be concealed from men. He inured himself to bear the sharpest cold, which in the mountains of Pontus is very severe; and he never allowed himself the refreshment of any other fire than the heat of the sun. His only repast in the day was on bread and clear water, except that on festivals he added a few herbs; and so sparing were his meals, that he seemed almost to live without nourishment. St. Gregory of Nyssa compares his abstinence to the fast of Elias. who ate nothing for forty days; and Saint Gregory Nazianzen facetiously banters him upon his excessive paleness, that his body scarce seemed to have any life;12 and in another place he says,13 that he was without a wife, without estate or goods, without flesh, and seemingly without blood. The saint himself testifies that he treated his body as a slave which was ever ready to revolt, unless continually kept under with a severe hand. From his epistles, it appears that he was subject to frequent, and almost perpetual infirmities. In one he says, that in his best state of health, he was weaker than patients that are given over by the physicians usually are.14 His interior mortification of the will, and his profound humility, were far more wonderful. We have a proof of this latter in his constant desire to bury himself as much as possible in solitude, and to live unknown to men. In his letters he ascribes all the calamities of the world to his own sins. Solitude did not render him austere or morose to others: he always seemed the mildest and most patient of men. Libanius the pagan philosopher admired nothing in him so much as his astonishing meekness and sweetness towards all; which yet he tempered with an amiable gravity. He was a great lover of chastity, and built several monasteries for virgins, to whom he gave a written rule. About the year 359 he sold the remainder of his estate for the benefit of the poor during a great famine. St. Gregory Nazianzen assures us that he lived in the greatest poverty possible, and that this his resolution was as firm as a rock amidst the waters. He cheerfully divested himself of all he possessed in the world, that he might more securely pass through the dangerous sea of this life; for of all his temporal goods he did not reserve the least thing to himself; and even when he was bishop he was content to receive his subsistence from the charity of his friends. It was his riches to have no earthly goods, and to follow naked the cross of his Saviour, which was all his treasure. In every monastic exercise and virtue, he strove to copy, and even outdo, the most perfect examples he had seen in the deserts of Syria and Egypt. In imitation of those monks, he wore a rough coarse habit, with a girdle, and shoes made of untanned leather; but he principally studied to practise the interior virtues of humility, penance, and mortification, of which the dress and manner of life were only the exterior marks or symbols.15 He divided his time in the desert betwixt prayer, meditation of the holy scriptures, and manual labor. He also went frequently into the neighboring country to instruct the peasants in the principles of their holy faith, and to exhort them to the love of virtue.16 One thing seemed at first wanting to him in his dear solitude, which was the company of St. Gregory Nazianzen, without whom he seemed deprived of one half of himself. Being therefore delighted with the charms of his cell, he endeavored to make his friend a partner in his happiness, and to procure to himself the comfort and assistance of his company and example. He therefore invited him by several letters to come to him. In one of these17 he excellently describes the advantages of retirement for holy prayer, and the perfect subduing of the passions. He defines a monk one whose prayer is continual, who seasons his manual labor with that holy exercise, particularly with singing the psalms, whose heart is always lifted up to God, and whose only study it is to adorn his soul with virtues by assiduous meditation on the holy scriptures. He reduces the meals of a monk to one refection a day, and that on bread and water: and curtails his sleep by putting an end to it at midnight, and dedicating the rest of the night to prayer. He lays down rules for silence, modesty in exterior dress and carriage, and the like. The two SS. Gregory assure us that our saint in this letter gives us a true portraiture of himself. Nazianzen complied, and followed Basil into his retirement in Pontus. That saint describes the extreme austerity of the life which they led in a poor open hovel, with a little barren garden which they cultivated.18 And he afterwards regretted the loss of the sweet tranquillity and happiness which they there enjoyed when occupied in singing psalms, watching in prayer which transported their souls to heaven, and exercising their bodies in manual labor, carrying wood, hewing stones, digging canals of water, planting trees, and the like.19 The two saints pursued together their studies of the holy scriptures. But in 362 St. Basil, taking with him some of his monks, returned to Cæsarea in Cappadocia.

Julian the Apostate, ascending the imperial throne in 361, wrote to St. Basil, whom he had known at Athens, and invited him to his court. The saint answered him, that the state of life in which he was engaged rendered it impossible for him to comply with his desire. Julian dissembled his anger for the present; but when the saint was come to Cæsarea, he again wrote to him, saying, artfully, that he had not altered his sentiments in his regard, though he had given him just reason for it; yet he ordered him to pay into his exchequer one thousand pounds of gold, threatening, in case of refusal, that he would level the city of Cæsarea with the ground.20 The saint, no way moved at his threats, calmly replied, that far from being able to raise so large a sum, he had not of his own enough to purchase himself subsistence for one day. He added boldly in his letter, that he was surprised to see him neglect the essential duties of his crown, and provoke the anger of God by openly contemning his worship.21 The emperor, enraged at this rebuke, marked out St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen for victims to his resentment after his return from his Persian expedition, in which he himself perished in June, 363. Dianæus, bishop of Cæsarea, falling sick, sent for St. Basil, and protested to him that if he had signed the confession of Rimini he had done it without knowing the evil which it contained, and that he never had any other faith than that which was agreeable to the Nicene council, to which he steadfastly adhered: upon which St. Basil was reconciled to him. After his death, Eusebius, a layman, was advanced to that see; and some time after St. Basil was by him ordained priest by compulsion, as St. Gregory Nazianzen assures us, who wrote to him a letter of comfort and advice on that occasion.22 Our saint continued the same manner of life in the city which he had led in the desert, except that to his other labors he added that of preaching assiduously to the people. He erected there a monastery for men and another for women. Eusebius, the bishop, who stood in need of such an eloquent and prudent assistant, had for that purpose raised him to the priesthood. Nevertheless, by a frailty incident to men who watch not carefully over their own hearts, (by which expression of St. Gregory Nazianzen we must understand a secret passion of jealousy,) he afterwards fell out with him, and removed him from his church. The people of Cæsarea and many bishops took part in favor of Basil against the bishop; but the saint, rejoicing to see himself again at liberty, privately withdrew, and returned to his former retreat in Pontus, where he recovered again the company of St. Gregory Nazianzen. This happened in 363. It is observed by some that St. Basil for some time corresponded and communicated with Basil of Ancyra, Eustathius of Sebaste, and Silvanus of Tarsus, who became ringleaders among the Semi-Arians: but though they refused to admit the word Consubstantial, they at that time explained their sentiments in such a manner as to appear orthodox, especially with respect to the article of the divinity of the Son of God; and they showed great zeal against the Arians. Some of them denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost, but concealed this error some time under ambiguous terms, pretending that they only disputed about certain expressions Wherefore the conduct of St. Athanasius and St. Hilary, when they wrote their books on Synods, was the same towards them with that of St. Basil.

While our saint during three years breathed the sweet air of retirement the empire was agitated by several revolutions. The Catholic emperor, Jovian, dying in February, 364, Valentinian was chosen to fill the imperial throne, who immediately named his brother Valens emperor of the East. This latter suffered himself to be seduced into heresy by two profligate Arian bishops, Eudoxius of Constantinople and Euzoius of Antioch; and in 366 took a journey to Cæsarea with the intent of putting the churches of that city into the hands of the Arians. St. Basil had then lost St. Gregory, and being invited back by his bishop, Eusebius, and alarmed at the dangers of that church, he hastened to defend it against the persecutions of heresy. Upon his arrival at Cæsarea, he opposed the Arians with so much prudence and courage, that after many attempts they were obliged to desist from their pretensions with shame and confusion. He was no less vigilant by his zealous sermons to instil into the faithful the most perfect maxims of virtue, reconcile all differences, and extinguish lawsuits. When violent hail and storms had destroyed the harvest, and a famine filled the country with desolation, the poor in their extreme necessity found relief in the boundless charity of Basil, who, like another Joseph, opened for their abundant supply the coffers of the rich. He with his own hands distributed among them bread and other provisions, waited upon them at table with an apron before him, and with wonderful humility washed their feet. By his deference, prudence, zeal, and charity, he won the affection of Eusebius, who conceived the highest esteem for him, and made great use of his counsels in all affairs. That prelate dying about the middle of the year 370, in the arms of Basil, the saint was chosen and consecrated archbishop of that metropolitical church. St. Athanasius expressed an extraordinary joy at this promotion, which already announced the greatest victories over a triumphing heresy.

St. Basil being placed in this dignity, seemed as much to surpass himself as he had before surpassed others. He preached to his people even on working days, both morning and evening, and so thronged were his auditories that he calls them a sea;23 and they listened with so great eagerness to his discourses that he compares himself to a mother who is obliged, after her breasts are drained, still to give them to her dear babe, by that fruitless satisfaction to hinder his crying. So was he obliged, as he says, in order to satisfy the ardor of his flock, to make his voice heard by them, when a long sickness had exhausted his strength, and rendered him almost unable to speak.24 He established at Cæsarea many devout practices which he had seen observed in Egypt, Syria, and other places; as that of all meeting in the church to public morning prayer, and singing certain psalms together before sunrise, at which many assisted with the deepest compunction, and with torrents of tears.25 He testifies that the people then communicated at Cæsarea every Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and on all the feasts of the martyrs.26 When the province was afflicted with a great drought, the good pastor prostrated himself in prayer before God till the scourge was removed, as his brother of Nyssa relates. If it be one of the principal duties of a bishop to look upon himself as the guardian and trustee of the poor, as St. Justin styles him,27 this charge St. Basil most faithfully fulfilled. Besides his other excessive charities he founded a vast hospital, which Nazianzen calls a new city, which continued famous long after his time, and was from him called Basiliades. The same author says that “Having well considered it, he thought it might deservedly be reckone among the miracles of the world; so numerous were the poor and sick that came thither, and so admirable was the care and order with which they were served.” St. Basil frequently visited it, comforted the patients, and instructed and preached to them. His compassion for the spiritual miseries of souls which vice, heresy, and schism seduced, was to him a perpetual source of tears and sighs to the Father of mercies in their behalf; and his zeal made him spare no pains, and fear no dangers to apply all possible remedies to their evils. Of this we have a remarkable proof in the glorious triumph which he gained over the emperor Valens.

That prince seeing this saint stand as an impregnable tower, baffling all the efforts of his heresy, resolved to remove him out of the way. By several acts of violence and persecution, he had already struck a terror into the orthodox pastors. Reeking with the blood of many martyrs, Valens passed like lightning through several provinces, blasting them with Arianism, and arrived in Cappadocia, ready to dart his thunder upon the great archbishop of Cæsarea, who alone stood more in his way than all the rest together. He sent before him the prefect Modestus, with orders to prevail upon Basil by threats or promises to communicate with his Arians. Modestus being seated on his tribunal, attended by the lictors with their fasces, summoned St. Basil to appear before him. The saint came with a cheerful and undaunted countenance. The prefect received him courteously, and with many smooth words endeavored to bring him to a compliance with the emperor’s desire. But perceiving this method made no impression, he assumed a haughty air, said to him in an angry tone: “Basil, what dost thou mean by opposing so great an emperor, whom all obey? Art thou under no apprehensions of feeling the effects of the power we are armed with?” BASIL. “To what does this power extend?” MODESTUS. “To confiscation of goods, banishment, tortures, and death.” BASIL. “If you can threaten me with any thing worse than this, do so: for none of all these things give me the least uneasiness.” MODESTUS. “How so?” BASIL. “He that has nothing to lose is secure against confiscation. I am master of nothing but a few books and the rags I wear, neither of which, I presume, you have any great occasion for. As to banishment, I know of no such thing in your power to inhabit upon me, who account not the country I now inhabit my own. Heaven only is my country. I as little fear your torments: my emaciated body cannot hold out long under them. The first stroke will dispatch me, and put an end both to my life and pain. Much less do I dread death, which I regard as a favor; for it will bring me sooner to my Creator, for whom alone I live.” MODESTUS. “Never did any mar yet talk at this rate of freedom and unconcernedness to Modestus.” BASIL. “Perhaps this is the first time you ever had to do with a bishop. In all other occurrences we bishops are of all men living the meekest and most submissive: we do not carry ourselves haughtily towards the meanest pleteian, much less towards persons vested with such power. But where the cause of God and religion is at stake, we overlook all things else, regarding God alone. Your fire, daggers, beasts, and burning pincers, in this cause are our option and delight; you may threaten and torment us, but can never overcome us.” MODESTUS. “I give you till to-morrow to deliberate upon the matter.” BASIL. “I shall be the same man to-morrow that I am today.”28 The prefect could not but admire the saint’s intrepidity, and going out the next day to meet the emperor, who was coming into the city, he informed him of what had passed between himself and Basil, and expressed his astonishment at his heroic courage. Valens, enraged at the miscarriage would assist himself at a second trial of skill upon the holy confessor, together with Modestus, and an officer of his household called Demosthenes the most insolent and brutish of men. Afterwards the prefect ventured upon a third attack; but the stout soldier of Christ acquired each time greater glory by his courage; so that Modestus, in the end, said to the emperor: “We are overcome: this man is above our threats;” and Valens laid aside for that time all further attempts upon him. On the feast of the Epiphany the emperor went to the great church, and was much surprised and edified with the good order and respect with which the divine office was celebrated, and above all with the devotion and piety with which the archbishop performed the divine service at the altar. The emperor did not presume to present himself to the communion, knowing he would have been rejected; but he went up trembling at the offertory, and made the usual offering, which the bishop did not refuse, dispensing with the rigor of the ecclesiastical canons on such an occasion.

Nevertheless, the next day, Valens, to satisfy the importunities of his Arian bishops, ordered that Basil should depart into banishment. But at the time that the emperor gave this order against the saint, God, in the high court of heaven, passed a sentence against his only son, named Valentinian Galatus, a child then about six years old. That very night was the royal infant seized with a violent fever, under which the physicians were not able to give him the least relief; and the empress Dominica told the emperor, that this calamity was a just punishment of heaven for his banishing Basil; on which account she had been disquieted by terrible dreams. Whereupon Valens sent for the saint, who was then just preparing to go into banishment. No sooner had the saint set foot within the palace, but the young prince’s fever began sensibly to abate, and Basil assured his parents of his absolute recovery, provided they would order him to be instructed in the Catholic faith. The emperor accepted the condition, St. Basil prayed, and the young prince was cured. But Valens, unfaithful to his promise, afterwards suffered an Arian bishop to baptize the child, who immediately relapsed and died.29 This stroke did not make Valens enter into himself; but growing more hardened by the contempt of grace, he gave a second order for banishing Basil. Going to sign it, he took for this purpose one of those reeds which the ancients used as we do pens, which many eastern people do at this day. This reed broke in his hands, as did a second, and a third in like manner, as refusing to write; and as he was taking a fourth he found his hand tremble, and the sinews of his arm slackened, which made him in a fright tear the paper, and leave Basil in quiet.30 The prefect Modestus was not so ungrateful to him as the emperor had been; for recovering of a dangerous sickness by his charitable visit and prayers, he acknowledged the benefit done him, and was ever after the saint’s friend.

St. Basil took two journeys into Armenia, to pacify certain disturbances and to redress scandals caused by the heretics in those parts. In 371, Cappadocia was divided by an imperial law into two provinces, and of the second Tyana was made the metropolis. Whereupon Anthimus, bishop of that city, claimed the jurisdiction of a metropolitan, grounding his pretensions on the civil division of the province; because it often happened that the bishop of the metropolis of a province was made an archbishop, though this was no general rule: for all ecclesiastical jurisdiction is derived from the church; and no patriarch or synod had raised the dignity of the church of Tyana to be metropolitical. Wherefore St. Basil justly rejected the pretended claim of Anthimus, and appointed St. Gregory Nazianzen bishop of Sasima in that province. But St. Gregory never got possession of that see; and St. Basil at length allowed that the church of Tyana should, on certain conditions, be honored with the dignity which it claimed. In 373 the saint was visited with a dangerous fit of illness, in which he was once thought dead.31 Yet he recovered, and took the benefit of the hot baths. In 376, Demosthenes, vicar to the præfectus-prætorii, being made governor of Cappadocia, favored Eustathius of Sebaste, and the other Arians, and raised a violent persecution against the Catholics, especially the friends of St. Basil. But the emperor Valens being defeated and burned in a cottage in Thrace by the Goths, whom he himself had infected with the Arian heresy, on the 9th of August, 378, peace was restored to the church by the emperor Gratian. St. Basil fell sick the same year, and prepared himself for his passage to eternity. The whole city in the utmost grief and consternation resorted to his house, ready to use violence to his soul, if it were possible, that it might not quit its habitation. But the time was come in which God had decreed to recompense his faithful servant, and the saint with these words in his mouth: “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit,” departed this life on the 1st of January, 379, being fifty-one years old. His riches he had sent before him to heaven, and he did not leave enough for a tomb-stone; but the people not only erected an everlasting monument for him in their hearts, but also honored him with funeral obsequies magnificent to the last degree. His sacred remains were carried by the hands of saints, and accompanied by an incredible confluence of people. Every one was for touching his shroud, and the bed on which he had slept, thinking to receive some blessing from their devotion. Sighs and lamentations drowned the singing of the psalms: the very pagans and Jews wept with the Christians, lamenting the death of the common father of all, and the great doctor of the world. Those that knew him, took a pleasure in recounting his minutest actions, and every expression they had heard from his mouth; and such was their love for him, that they affected to imitate him in his gestures, his beard, his gravity, and his slow delivery in speaking. They made it a fashion to copy after him in the form of his bed, his clothes, and spare table. Thus writes St. Gregory Nazianzen, who, in his panegyric of St. Basil, displays the virtues of his friend in such a manner as must make his discourse no less immortal on earth than the saint whom he praised.32 St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Amphilochius, and St. Ephrem, also wrote panegyrics in his honor. The two first of these testify that immediately after the death of the saint, the Greeks kept his festival on the 1st of June, as they do at this day: the Latins have always transferred it to the 14th of June, the day on which he was ordained bishop. Theodoret gives him the title of the Great, which epithet has been always appropriated to him. He is styled by the same father, the light of the universe; by St. Sophronius, the honor and ornament of the church; by St. Isidore of Pelusium, a mar inspired by God; and by the general council of Chalcedon, the great Basil, the minister of grace who has explained the truth to the whole earth. Photius Erasmus, in his excellent preface prefixed to the Greek edition of St. Basil’s works, in 1532, and many other judicious critics, call St. Basil the most accomplished orator that ever lived, and his style the best model of genuine eloquence. Rollin and all others place him at least in the first class, as one of the greatest masters of eloquence. Photius writes,33 that “Whoever desires to become a panegyrist or orator, will neither need Platonor Demosthenes if he takes Basil for his original. For there is no writer whose diction is more pure, more beautiful, and more expressive, or whose sense is stronger or more full. He joins all the powers of persuasion with sweetness and perspicuity, and his whole discourse runs like a still river which flows smoothly, and as it were of its own accord from its spring.” Like Thucydides and Demosthenes, he is always pressing upon himself by the multitude of his thoughts, and the close union they bear one with another. The liveliness and justness of his ideas, and the fruitfulness of his imagination, vie with the perspicuity of his expressions; the harmoniousness of his numbers corresponds everywhere with the sense; and his style, by the beauty of its tropes and its easy transitions, rivals the sweetness and smoothness of Xenophon and Plato. Above all, the clearness of his understanding and the truth of his sentiments shine in whatever he writes, and his animated diction and commanding genius brighten whatever comes under his pen, carry light into the darkest recesses, and impress his own most lively images on his readers.* St. Gregory of Nazianzen says of his writings:34 “When I read his treatise Of the Creation, I seem to behold my Creator striking all things out of nothing; when I run over his writings against the heretics, methinks the fire of Sodom sparkles in my view, flashes upon the enemies of the faith, and consumes their criminal tongues to ashes. When I consider his treatise of the Holy Ghost, I find the God working within me, and I am no longer afraid of publishing aloud the truth: when I look into the Explications of the Holy Scripture, I dive into the most profound abyss of mysteries. His panegyrics of the martyrs make me to despise my body, and to seem animated with the same noble ardor of battle His moral discourses assist me to purify both my body and soul, that I may become a worthy temple of God, and an instrument of his praise, to make known his glory and his power.”

St. Basil was justly admired, not so much for his extraordinary learning and eloquence, as for his profound humility and eminent zeal and piety. This is the only true greatness. If this saint, with his extraordinary talents, had made a fortune in the world, gained applause, riches, and the first honors in the empire, what would all this have availed him? What advantage is it now to Demosthenes and Cicero to have been the masters of eloquence? True Christian virtue is the only solid glory and real good. Basil was only great, because he devoted himself and all his talents to the glory of God, and to procure advantages which surpass all things temporal, and which never fade.

JUNE 14 — SS. RUFINUS AND VALERIUS, MM

They were overseers of the imperial taxes near the river Vesle, in the territory of Soissons. They were Christians, and their fasts and plentiful almsdeeds were proofs of their extraordinary piety. The emperor Maximian Herculius, having defeated the Bagandæ near Paris, left the bloody persecutor, Rictius Varus, the præfectus-prætorii, in Gaul, with an order to employ all means in his power to extirpate, if possible, the Christian name. After much blood spilled at Rheims, he came to Soissons, and gave orders for Rufinus and Valerius to be brought before him. They had hid themselves in a wood, but were discovered, put on the rack, torn with scourges armed with leaden balls, and at length beheaded on the high road leading to Soissons. They suffered in the third age. The ancient Martyrologies mention them on the 14th of June. See their acts abridged by Tillemont, t. 4, p. 459.

JUNE 14 — SAINT METHODIUS, CONFESSOR, PATRIARCH OF CONSTATINOPLE

He was a Sicilian of high birth, and very learned. Forsaking the world, he built a monastery in the island of Chio, but was afterwards called to Constantinople by the patriarch St. Nicephorus, whom he accompanied in his two banishments, under the Iconoclast emperor, Leo the Armenian. In 817 he was sent by that patriarch Apocrisiarius or Nuncio to Rome. Upon he news of the death of St. Nicephorus, he returned to Constantinople; but was thrown into prison by the heretical emperor Michael the Stammerer, where he remained till the end of his reign. In 830 he was released by the Catholic empress Theodora, but soon after banished by her impious husband Theophilus. That prince dying in 842, Theodora became regent for her son Michael III., and placed Methodius in the patriarchal chair of Constantinople. He purged that church of heresy, and instituted an annual least of thanksgiving, called the Festival of Orthodoxy. Having filled that see four years, he died of a dropsy on the 14th of June, 846. His immediate successor, St. Ignatius, celebrated his festival yearly, and it is kept both by the Latin and Greek churches. Having had his jaw broke in the persecution, he wore a bandage under his chin to support it. The works of St. Methodius consist of penitential canons, certain sermons, and an encomium of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, in which some think he made use of the works of Hilduin, which he probably saw at Rome. See his life, written by a contemporary author in the Bollandists, and Fleury b. 48, n. 48.

JUNE 14 — ST. DOCMAEL, C

Dom. Lobineau, in his Lives of the Saints of Brittany,1 was at a loss to discover who this saint was. But the English and British Calendars inform us that he flourished in Pembrokeshire in the sixth century. By his fervor in the practice of all virtues, especially prayer and penance, he was a living instance of the maxim laid down by St. Bernard,2 that “the humiliations of the cross are sweet to a soul which is sensible of what she owes to him who was crucified for love of her.” Ah! shall we set any bounds to our endeavors to love him every day and in every action with greater and greater fervor, seeing we shall never be able to love him so much either as he deserves or as he loves us, base and defiled as we are! St. Docmael is titular patron of the church of Pomerit-Jaudy, in the diocese of Trequier, in Brittany, where he is honored under the name of St. Toël. See Chatelain, p. 295.

JUNE 14 — ST. NENNUS OR NEHEMIAS, ABBOT,

Was of the family of the O’Birns. In 654 he succeeded St. Endeus upon his demise in the government of the great monastery of the isles of Aran, which formerly were two, before the name of Bute was given to one of them. The festival of St. Nennus has been always kept with great solemnity in many parts of Ireland. See Colgan in MSS., ad 14 Jun.

JUNE 14 — ST. PSALMODIUS, HERMIT

He was of an illustrious Irish or Scottish family, and renounced the world to form himself in the school of virtue, under the discipline of St. Brendan. By the advice of that holy man, he passed into France, and addressed himself to St. Leontius, bishop of Saintes, about the year 630, under whose spiritual direction he made still higher progress in Christian perfection. The latter part of his life he spent in a little cell in the forest of Grie, in the territory of Limoges. His relics are kept in a silver shrine in the collegiate church of St. Agapetus, in Languedoc, and he is honored on the 6th of August. See Colgan, ad 14 Jun.

JUNE 15 — SS VITUS OR GUY, CRESCENTIA, AND MODESTUS, MM

See the Collections of Papebroke, t. 2, Junii, p. 1013.

In the Beginning of the Fourth Century

THESE saints are mentioned with distinction in the ancient Martyrologies According to their acts they were natives of Sicily. Vitus, or Guy, was a child nobly born, who had the happiness to be instructed in the faith, and inspired with the most perfect sentiments of his religion by his Christian nurse, named Crescentia, and her faithful husband Modestus. His father Hylas was extremely incensed when he discovered the child’s invincible aversion to idolatry; and finding him not to be overcome by stripes and such like chastisements, he delivered him up to Valerian, the governor, who in vain tried all his arts to work him into compliance with his father’s will and the emperor’s edicts. He escaped out of their hinds, and, together with Crescentia and Modestus, fled into Italy. They there met with the crown of martyrdom, in Lucania, in the persecution of Dioclesian. The heroic spirit of martyrdom which we admire in St. Vitus, was owing to the early impressions of piety which he received from the lessons and example of a virtuous nurse: of such infinite importance is the choice of virtuous preceptors, nurses, and servants about children.

This reflection unfolds the reason why certain courts and ages were so fruitful in saints. The pagan Romans were solicitous that no slave should ever have access to their children who did not speak with perfect elegance and purity of language; and shall not a Christian be as careful as to manners and virtue? It is a fatal mistake to imagine that infants are ever too young to be infected with the contagion of vice. No age receives deeper impressions, or observes more narrowly every thing that passes in others; nor is any thing so easily or so insensibly imbibed as a spirit of vanity, pride, revenge, obstinacy, or sloth; or harder to be ever corrected. What a happiness for an infant to be formed from the mother’s breast as it were naturally to all virtue, and for the spirit of simplicity, meekness, goodness, and piety to be moulded in its tender frame. Such a foundation being well laid, further graces are abundantly communicated, and a soul improves daily these seeds, and rises to the height of Christian virtue often without experiencing severe conflicts of the passions.

JUNE 15 — ST. LANDELIN, ABBOT

He was nobly born at Vaux, near Bapaume, in 623, and educated in learning and piety under the care of St. Aubert, bishop of Cambray; for i was then the laudable custom for noblemen to commit the education of their sons to some holy and learned bishop or abbot, insomuch that many houses of bishops as well as monasteries were seminaries of youth. It is a point of the utmost importance that youth coming out of such sanctuaries of innocence and virtue, enter the world well apprized of its dangers, and infinitely upon their guard against bad company and the love of vanities and pleasures which they cannot fortify themselves too much against. They must bring along with them all their religion, nourish it in their hearts by assiduous meditation, and confirm it in their minds by pious reading and consideration and by the daily exercise of all the other duties of that virtue. A neglect of this precaution proved for some time fatal to Landelin. Through the seduction and example of certain relations, whose flatteries unfortunately struck in with his passions, he insensibly began to walk in the broad way of the world, and, from a life of pleasure and diversions, fell at length into great disorders. But the sudden death of one of his companions struck into him such a terror, that he entered seriously into himself, like the prodigal son, and in the deepest compunction went and cast himself at the feet of St. Aubert, who had never ceased to pray for his conversion. The bishop placed him in an austere monastery to do penance for some years; in which, so extraordinary were his fervor and contrition, that St. Aubert ordained him deacon, and, when he was thirty years of age, priest, and appointed him to preach to the people. But the holy penitent having his past sins always before his eyes, begged leave to weep for them in solitude and severe penance: which, when he had obtained, he retired to Laubach, now called Lobes, a desert place on the banks of the Sambre. Several persons resorting to him, and imitating his manner of life, though at first they lived in separate cells, gave rise to the great abbey of Lobes, about the year 654. Landelin, regarding himself as unworthy, could not bear to see himself at the head of a religious community of saints; and when he had laid the foundation of this house, he left his disciple, St. Ursmar, to finish the building, and constituted him the first abbot. Landelin afterwards founded Aune, which is at present a house of Cistercians. The French kings bestowed on him great estates, the chief part of which he settled on his first monastery of Lobes. In quest of closer solitude he, with his two companions, SS. Adelin and Domitian, erected some cells of the branches of trees in a thick forest between Mons and Valenciennes. Here also disciples flocked to him, and he founded the abbey of Crespin, which he was at length obliged to govern himself. By preaching in the village he instructed the people in the science of salvation, but he never interrupted his penitential courses. He died on sackcloth and ashes in 686. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 15th of June. See his life in Mabillon, sæc. 2, Ben. p. 873.

JUNE 15 — B. BERNARD OF MENTHON, C

He was by birth a noble Savoyard, and spent his youth in innocence, penance, and serious studies. When he was grown up his father proposed to him an honorable match; but the young man earnestly desiring to devote himself to the service of the church, and recommending himself to God, privately withdrew, and put himself under the direction of Peter, archdeacon of Aoust, with whom he made great progress in piety and sacred learning. In 966 the bishop of Aoust appointed him archdeacon; which office comprised at that time the jurisdiction both of the grand-vicar and official, consequently the whole government of the diocese under the bishop. Bernard, by pious meditation, prayer, and fasting, and by an indefatigable application to the function of preaching during forty-two years, banished ignorance and superstition, and reformed the dioceses of Aoust, Sion, Geneva, Tarantaise, Milan, and Novara. Having destroyed a famous idol of Jupiter on a high mountain in the Walais, and detected the cheat of the priests who gave oracles concealed in its hollow trunk, he erected near that place a monastery and an hospital, now called Great St. Bernard; for he founded on two in hospitable roads and mountains the two monasteries of Great and Little St. Bernard, which are hospitals for the entertainment of all travellers; without which charitable succors hundreds of travellers would yearly perish. St. Bernard died at Novara, eighty-five years old, on the 28th day of May, 1008. He is honored with a solemn office in many churches in Piedmont, &c., on the 15th of June, which was the day of his burial. His body is enshrined in the monastery at Novara. But his head is exposed in a rich case in the monastery of Monte-joye, which bears his name in the diocese of Aoust. See his two authentic lives, with the notes of Papebroke, t. 2, Junij, p. 1071, especially that written by Richard, his successor in the archdeaconry of Aoust, by which it appears that he never was of the Cistercian order, or that of the regular canons, as some have pretended.

JUNE 15 — ST. VAUGE, HERMIT

He was a holy priest in the church of Armagh, who, to fly the archiepiscopal dignity, retired into Cornwall. He landed at Penmarch in that county, and being honorably received, built himself a hermitage, yet often went out to preach to the people, and kindle in their breasts the most ardent desire of Christian perfection. He was called to receive the recompense of his labors on the 15th of June, 585. Under the name of St. Vorech he seems titular saint of Llanlivery in Cornwall.

JUNE 15 — B. GREGORY LEWIS BARBADIGO, C. CARDINAL BISHOP OF PADUA

He was born in 1625, of an ancient and noble Venetian family. From his tender years he cultivated his mind with all polite and solid studies, and still with much greater ardor adorned his soul with the perfect spirit of all Christian virtues, in which he made every day greater and greater progress. He was sent by the republic of Venice, with its ambassador Aloysius Contarini, one of the mediators at the famous congress of Munster, where the celebrated treaty, commonly called of Westphalia, Osnaburg, or Munster, was signed by the plenipotentiaries of Germany, France, and Sweden, on the 24th of October, 1648. There Fabius Chigi, apostolic nuncio, became acquainted with him, and was exceedingly charmed with his virtue and other great qualities, and being chosen pope under the name of Alexander VII. in 1655, was always his strenuous protector. Gregory was consecrated bishop of Bergamo in 1657, created cardinal by Alexander VII. in 1660, and translated to the bishopric of Padua in 1664. In every state of life Barbadigo was a model of regularity, zeal, watchfulness, and piety. So edifying was his conduct, and so indefatigable was he in the visitation of his diocese, and in all the functions of his charge, that he was looked upon as a second St. Charles Borromeo. His charities were excessive, and it was known that he had given in alms eight hundred thousand crowns. He munificently founded a great and most convenient college in the country for the education of youth in piety and learning. Also a stately and admirable seminary in he city of Padua, which is to this day the glory not only of the Venetian territories, but also of Italy and Christendom. He took care to have it furnished with able professors of sacred sciences, and of the learned and sacred languages. He founded in it a noble library furnished with the best chosen books for studies, especially for critical learning, the holy scriptures and the fathers of the church. For the use of this noble establishment he founded also a printing-office. All virtues he possessed in an heroic degree and every thing in him was excellent. And so perfectly was he master of himself, and dead to himself and the world, that his soul was never elated by prosperity, nor sunk by trials or adversity. His death was no less edifying, happy, and glorious than the whole tenor of his life had been. It happened on the 15th of June, 1697. A sudden and entire cure of a formed gangrene and other distempers which the symptoms had declared mortal, and other miracles performed through his intercession, were duly proved, and this illustrious servant of God was beatified by pope Clement XIII. with the usual solemnities on the 13th of February, 1761. See the Elogia Cardinalium, p. 192; Italia Sacra, t. 5, et 10, and especially his life, very well written by F. Thomas Austin Ricchini, a Dominican friar, published at Rome in 8vo. Anno 1761.

JUNE 16 — SS. QUIRICUS OR CYR, AND JULITTA, MARTYRS

From their authentic acts in Ruinari, p. 517. See also Papebroke, Junij, vol. 3, p. 17.

A. D. 304.

DOMITIAN, the governor of Lycaonia, executing with great cruelty the edicts of Dioclesian against the Christians, Julitta, a lady of Iconium in that country, withdrew to Seleucia with her little son Cyr, or Quiricus, only three years old, and two maids. Alexander, the governor of Seleucia, was not less a persecutor than the prefect of Iconium; wherefore Julitta went on to Tarsus in Cilicia. Alexander happened to enter that city about the same time with her, and she was immediately apprehended holding her infant in her arms, and conducted to the tribunal of this governor. She was of royal blood, the grand-daughter of illustrious kings, and she possessed great estates and riches; out of all which she carried nothing with her but present necessaries. Her two maids, seeing her in the hands of the persecutors, fled and hid themselves. Alexander demanded her name, quality, and country; to all which questions she answered only—“I am a Christian.” The judge, enraged, ordered her child to be taken from her, and that she should be extended and cruelly whipped with thongs; which was accordingly executed. Nothing could be more amiable than the little Cyr, a certain air of dignity spoke his illustrious birth; and this, joined to the sweetness and innocence of his tender age and looks, moved all present exceedingly. It was a difficult thing to tear him from the arms of his mother; and he continued still continually to stretch his little hands towards her. The governor held the infant on his knees, and endeavored to kiss him, and to pacify him. But the innocent babe having his eyes still fixed upon his mother, and striving to get back to her, scratched the face of the inhuman judge. And when the mother, under her torments, cried out that she was a Christian, he repeated as loud as he was able—“I am a Christian.” The governor being enraged, took him by the foot, and throwing him to the ground from off his tribunal, dashed out his brains against the edge of the steps, and all the place round about was sprinkled with blood. Julitta, seeing him thus expire, rejoiced at his happy martyrdom, and gave thanks to God. Her joy increased the rage of the governor, who commanded her sides to be torn with hooks, and scalding pitch to be poured on her feet, while proclamation was made by a crier,—“Julitta, take pity on thyself and sacrifice to the gods, lest thou come to the like unfortunate end with thy son.” She always answered, “I do not sacrifice to devils or to dumb and deaf statues; but I worship Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, by whom the Father hath made all things.” Whereupon the governor commanded her head to be struck off, and the body of the child to be carried out of the city, and thrown where the carcasses of malefactors were usually cast. Remorse and confusion at his own cruelty, and disappointed malice, in the murder of the innocent babe, made him appear more raging than the most furious wild beast. Julitta being led to the place of execution, prayed aloud, thanking God for having given her son a place in his kingdom, and begging the same mercy for herself. She concluded by adding, Amen: at which word her head was severed from her body. She suffered in the year 304 or 305. The two maids came privately and buried the remains of both the martyrs in a field near the city. When Constantine had given peace to the church, one of these maids discovered the place, and “the faithful of the country strove every one to procure some portion of these sacred pledges for a protection and safeguard, glorified God, and devoutly visited their tombs,” says the author of these acts. They are named in the Roman Martyrology on the 16th of June; but they seem to have received their crowns on the 15th of July, on which day their festival is kept by the Greeks, Muscovites,1 Armenians,2 and Nestorians.3 The Abyssinians celebrate it two days before, on the 19th of their month of Hamle, also on the 20th of January.4 St. Cyr is patron of Nevers, and of many churches and monasteries in France, and formerly in England. The relics of St. Cyr having been brought from Antioch by St. Amator, bishop of Auxerre, were distributed in several places, at Nevers, Toulouse, Saint Amand’s in Flanders, &c.

This happy victim completed early his sacrifice. Men ought properly to be said to live only for that time which they devote to the end for which they received their being, the service of their Creator. How many will a long life condemn! How much of their precious time do many throw away in sloth, empty follies, and even in sin! How many go off the stage of this world without having done any thing of all those great duties for which they were born! who have lived so as to have been mere blanks in the creation, if the divine justice would allow us to give that name to what he punishes with everlasting torments! We have a great work upon our hands to form our hearts upon that of our divine original, our blessed Redeemer: to expel the subtle poison of pride, vanity, and all inordinate sef-love out of our affections, and put on the perfect heavenly spirit of meekness, patience, humility, charity, holy zeal, and devotion. Without this we can never belong to Christ, or to the company of the saints.

JUNE 16 — ST. JOHN FRANCIS REGIS, C., OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

True virtue, or Christian perfection, consists not in great or shining actions, but resides in the heart, and appears to great edification, though in the usual train of common and religious duties constantly performed with fidelity and fervor. Such a life has its trials, and often a severer martyrdom than that which stands the test of the flames. This we find in the life of the holy servant of God, John Francis Regis. He was born on the 31st of January, in 1597, at Foncouverte, a village in the diocese of Narbonne in Languedoc. His parents, John Regis, who was descended from a younger branch of the noble house of Deplas, in Rovergue, and Magdalen Darcis, daughter to the lord of Segur, were distinguished amongs he nobility of Lower Languedoc by their virtue. Their eldest son was killed in the siege of Villemur, in a sally made by the Huguenot garrison. Francis was one of the youngest brothers. At five years of age he fainted away hearing his mother speak of the horrible misfortune of being eternally damned; which discourse made a lasting impression on his tender heart. In his childhood he never discovered any inclination to the amusements of that age. The same disposition made him refuse at his school to join his companions in the innocent diversions of an age generally too eager for play. His first master was one of a morose, hasty temper, under whom this modest and bashful child had much to suffer; all which he bore without the least complaint. The Jesuits having opened a public school at Beziers, he was one of the first whom the reputation of its professors drew to the new college. His gravity increased with his years, nor was he to be seen in the beautiful walks which were chiefly crowded by his schoolfellows. Avaricious of his time, he scarcely allowed himself any for necessary relaxation. Sundays and holidays were a most precious time to him, and he divided them entirely between pious reading and devotions at home and in the church. He was often seen on those days retired in a chapel and bathed in tears in the presence of Jesus Christ, the tender object of his affections. His conduct made him for some time the subject of his young companions’ scorn and railleries; which his constancy changed at last into veneration. He performed many exercises in honor of the Blessed Virgin, with a particular confidence in her patronage, especially after he was enrolled in a confraternity under her name erected in the Jesuits’ college. He had a singular devotion to his good angel, and improved every escape from any danger into a motive of redoubling his fervor and gratitude towards God. By the influence of his holy example, and by his religious discourses, which were animated with a peculiar unction and divine fire, he inflamed many of his companions with the love of virtue, and reclaimed several from dangerous courses. Six of the most fervent associated themselves with him in the same lodgings, and formed a kind of regular seminary, looking upon him as their living rule, and honoring him as a saint and their master in a spiritual life.

In the eighteenth year of his age he was visited with a dangerous sickness, under which his patience and piety moved exceedingly all that came to see him. Soon after his recovery he made a spiritual retreat to deliberate on the choice of a state of life; and finding in his heart a strong impulse to devote himself to labor in procuring the salvation of souls in the Society of Jesus, and being confirmed by the advice of his confessor that this desire was a call of God, he earnestly begged to be admitted, and was readily received by F Francis Suarez, provincial of the Jesuits, then at Beziers, upon his visitation of that college. The postulant entered his noviceship with great joy at Toulouse, in the nineteenth year of his age, on the 8th of December, 1616. Here being no longer divided between study and prayer, he gave himself to so close a union with God as to seem to be never without attention to his presence. His punctual exactness and fervor in the minutest actions and duties, raised them all to a great value: and by the excellence and purity of his motives, they became steps to an eminent interior perfection. Here he laid the deep foundation of those virtues which formed his distinguishing character during his whole life, humility, contempt of the world, holy hatred of himself, charity to the poor, and love of God, and zeal for his glory. The meanest employs were his delight, such as the most humbling duties of a religious state, to wait at table, and cleanse the house: also to make the beds, and dress the sores of the poorest and most loathsome patients in the hospital, where he considered Jesus Christ in his most afflicted members. He was as austere to himself as he was tender to others, which made his companions say, that he was his own eternal persecutor. He seemed never to do any thing to indulge his senses, which he studied to curb and mortify. The spirit of prayer accompanied all his actions. The interior fire of his breast appeared in his looks. He was often seen at the foot of the altar without motion as in a kind of rapture; and he spoke of God with such a feeling unction, that he inspired all that heard him with his holy love, and excited the most tepid to fervor.

After two years of probation, he made his religious vows in 1618, and was then sent to Cahors to finish his rhetoric, and the following year to Tournon to perform his course of philosophy; but to preserve the fire of devotion in his heart under the dissipation of those studies, he joined to them frequent visits of the blessed sacrament, pious reading, and set times of holy recollection, though he made even his studies a continuation of his commerce with God, in a continual recourse to him by devout aspirations. Such was his fidelity in every action, that his superiors attested they never observed in him the least breach of any college duty; which procured him the name of the angel of the college. Desiring to form himself principally to the sacred function of teaching the poor the ways of salvation, he undertook, by his superior’s consent, the charge of instructing the menial servants, and the poor of the town of Tournon, to whom he distributed the alms of the college. On Sundays and holidays he preached in the adjacent villages, and summoned the children to catechism with a little bell. The little township of Andance having the happiness to fall under his particular care, it quite changed its face: the saint’s zeal soon banished out of it drunkenness, licentiousness, and swearing, restored the frequent use of the sacraments, and established there first the confraternity of the blessed sacrament, the rules of which this holy man, then only two-and-twenty years old, but full of the spirit of devotion, drew up, and which was afterwards propagated to other places. He regulated families, composed differences, and reformed all manner of irregularities: such was the authority which his sanctity and holy prudence procured him.

Having finished his course of philosophy in 1621, he was sent to teach the schools of humanity at Billom, Auch, and Puy; in which employ he spared no application for the assistance of his scholars, both in their studies and in exciting them to virtue, loving them as a tender mother does her children, and being beloved and reverenced by them as a saint. He was particularly diligent in procuring them all relief in sickness, and by his prayers obtained the sudden recovery of one whose life was despaired of; but he was most sensible to their spiritual infirmities. Being informed of a grievous sin committed by one of them, he burst into a torrent of tears, and after a short recollection, he made, in the transport that had seized him, so pathetic a discourse to his scholars on the severity of God’s judgments, that the terrors with which it struck their minds never forsook them their whole lives after, as several of them used to say. The edifying example, simplicity, humility, modesty, and penitential air of the master, was a most moving and continual sermon to them; and such was the powerful influence it had, that they were visibly distinguished from others by the regularity of their lives. To solicit the blessings of heaven for them he always spent some time at the foot of the altar before he entered the school, and implored the assistance of their angel guardians in their behalf. His union with God was perpetual; and from hence flowed his other virtues, particularly his saintly exterior comportment. To animate himself in spirit, notwithstanding the fatigues of his employment, he added many other devotions to the daily hour’s meditation, and other prayers enjoined by the rules of the society. He often begged leave of the superior to make extraordinary communions, besides those that were regular in the house; and having obtained it, broke out in transports of joy, which testified his insatiable desire of, and the great comfort he received from that divine food. He prepared himself to receive it by private austerities and public humiliations, and by spending a great part of the night before in the church. On Sundays and holidays he continued to instruct the poor people with wonderful unction and fruit, and even in his familiar conversation turned all to some spiritual advantage. After he had taught the lower classes seven years; two at Billom, one at Auch, and four at Puy; he began the study of divinity at Toulouse, in 1628, in which, by his assiduity and the pregnancy of his wit, he made an uncommon progress; yet, out of a fear of applause, he sought to make himself contemptible by an affected simplicity and pretended ignorance. In the vacation, at the time which the students spent in their country-house for the necessary relaxation of their mind, Regis withdrew into private places to converse with God almost the whole day; and in the night, after a short sleep, he arose and stole secretly into the domestic chapel; which a companion having discovered, and informed the superior thereof, he received this answer: “Interrupt not the sweet communications of that angel with God.”

Notice being given him by his superiors, in the beginning of the year 1630, to prepare himself for holy orders, he felt in his breast the struggle of the strongest sentiments of an humble terror and a glowing zeal; but as he saw the will of God intimated in the order of his superiors, his fears were calmed, and he disposed himself for that sacrament, by retirement, austerities, prayer, and fervorous desires. He then longed for the happiness of approaching the altars, so that he promised his superior to say thirty masses for him, because he had hastened the time of his ordination. When ordained, he took time to prepare, by prayer and penance, to offer the divine sacrifice, and celebrated his first mass with the most tender devotion, and in one continued torrent of tears, so that those who were present could not contain theirs, and, by the divine fire which sparkled in his countenance, thought him liker an angel than a man at the altar. The same year, Toulouse being afflicted with a violent plague, Francis made pressing instances to obtain leave to serve the sick. In 1631, after the course of his studies was over, he made the third year of his novitiate, during which he was obliged to go to Foncouverte to settle some family affairs, where he spent his time in visiting the poor and sick, catechising the children every morning, and preaching to the people twice a day. His begging for the poor, going through the streets followed by crowds of them and children, and carrying upon his shoulders a fagot, a straw bed, or such like things for the necessitous, drew on him many insults, once from the very soldiers, and bitter remonstrances from his brothers and other friends; but he rejoiced in the humiliations of the cross, and answered that they became a minister of the gospel which had been established by them. Their contempt of him was at last converted into admiration, and everyone discerned in his actions a divine wisdom and zeal which differs from worldly prudence, and rejoices with David if its simplicity appeals contemptible to men. He lived among his kindred as one truly dead to the world: not like those religious persons, who, wanting the spirit of their vocation, seek earthly comforts among them. Having composed the differences of his relations, and edified them by his humility and heavenly life, he was ordered to go to the college of Pamiers to supply the place of a master who was fallen sick. In the mean time his superiors, from the experience they had of his vocation and talents for an apostolic life, resolved to apply him solely to the missions; in which he accordingly spent the last ten years of his life, beginning them in Languedoc, continuing them through the Vivarez, and ending them with his life in the Velay, of which Le Puy is the capital. The summer he employed in cities and towns, as the husbandmen then were taken up with their tillage; but the winter seasons he consecrated to the villages and the country.

F. Regis entered upon his apostolical course at Montpellier in 1631, arriving there in the beginning of summer; and immediately opening his mission by instructing the children and preaching to the people upon Sundays and holidays in the church of the college. His discourses were plain and familiar; after a clear exposition of the Christian truth, which he had taken for his subject, he closed them with moral and pathetic exhortations; he delivered them with such vehemency that sometimes his voice and strength failed him; and with such unction that both preacher and audience often were dissolved in tears, and the most hardened left the church with hearts full of compunction. He was always resorted to by a numberless audience of all ranks, though principally of the poor. A famous preacher was astonished to see how his catechisms were admired, and the great conversions they effected, while elegant sermons had so few to hear them, and produced so little fruit. The reason was, the word of God became a two-edged sword in the mouth of Regis, who spoke it from a heart full of the spirit of God, whereas it was lost under the pomp of an affected rhetoric. The saint never refused himself to the rich, but he used to say they would never want confessors, and that the poor destitute part of Christ’s flock were his share and his delight. He thought that he ought to live only for them. He spent usually the whole morning in the confessional, at the altar, or in the pulpit; the afternoon he devoted to the hospitals and prisons, sometimes forgetting his meals, having, as he once said, no leisure to think of them. He begged from door to door for the poor; procured them physicians and all necessaries when sick, and dressed himself their most loathsome sores. He was seen loaded with bundles of straw for them; and when laughed a, by the children, and told that this made him ridiculous, he answered: “With all my heart; we receive a double advantage when we purchase a brother’s relief with our own disgrace.” He established an association of thirty gentlewomen to procure assistance for the prisoners. He converted several Huguenots, and many lewd women; and when told the repentance of these latter is seldom sincere, he answered; “If my labors hinder one sin they will be well bestowed.”

Towards winter he went to Sommiers, the capital of Lavonage, twelve miles from Montpellier, and with incredible labor declaring war against vice and extreme ignorance, saw his endeavors crowned with the most surprising success all over that country, penetrating into the most inaccessible places, and deterred by no rigors of weather, living chiefly on bread and water, taking sometimes a little milk; always abstaining from fish, flesh, eggs, and wine; allowing himself very little rest at night on some hard bench or floor, and wearing a hair-shirt. With a crucifix in his hand, he boldly stopped a troop of enraged soldiers from plundering a church, and another time demanded and obtained of a Calvinist officer the restitution of a poor man’s goods which had been plundered, without mentioning the high indignities and ill treatment he had received from the soldiers, to the commander’s great astonishment. The Vivarez had been for fifty years the centre of Calvinism in France, and the seat of horrible wars and desolation. The pious bishop of Viviers, in 1633, by earnest entreaties drew Regis into his diocese, received him with great veneration, and took him with him in his visitation, during which the father made a most successful mission over that whole diocese. The count de la Mothe Brion, who had lived as a wise man of the world, was so moved with the unction of the holy man’s sermons, as entirely to devote himself to fasting, prayer, and alms. This nobleman, by his zeal and charities, very much contributed to assist the saint in his holy enterprises; in which he was seconded by another gentleman, named De la Suchere, who had formerly been the saint’s scholar. At Puy, Regis undertook the reformation of many negligent pastors, brought many lewd women, and some the most obstinate and abandoned, to become patterns of fervor among the penitents, and converted a Calvinist lady of great reputation at Usez. About that time God permitted a storm to be raised against his servant for his trial; for amidst these glorious successes he was accused loudly as a disturber of the peace of families by his indiscreet zeal, and as a violent man, who spared no one in his invectives and satires. The bishop defended him, till wearied out with repeated complaints, he wrote to his superior to recall him, and sending for the saint, gave him a severe reprimand; adding that he found himself under a necessity of dismissing him. Regis, who had all along neglected to take any measures for his own justification, answered him with such humility, and with such an unfeigned love of humiliations and the cross, that the prelate was charmed with his virtue; and being undeceived by others in regard to him, he praised him in public, and continued him with his employ till the beginning of the year 1634, when the missionary was ordered by his superiors to repair to Puy, but went loaded with letters full of the highest commendations of his virtue and prudence from the good bishop.

The saint wrote earnestly to the general of the society, desiring to be employed on a mission to the barbarous Hurons and Iroquois in Canada, and received a favorable answer; but at the request of count de la Mothe, he returned early the next year to the diocese of Viviers, to labor in the conversion of Calvinists, and in the instruction of the ignorant at Cheylard, and on the other estates of that gentleman. It is incredible how much the apostolic man underwent in this rough country, in the highest mountains, in which he was once locked up three weeks by the snows, lying on the bare ground, eating only black bread, and drinking water, with the addition of astonishing voluntary mortifications, fasts, disciplines to blood, and hair shirts. The count was so edified, and so moved with the inexpressible fruits of his labors, that he founded a perpetual mission for two Jesuits at Cheylard, giving to it a principal of sixteen thousand livres, and his fine house there for their residence. Regis made his next mission at Privas with equal fruit, and thence was called by the bishop of Valence to St. Aggreve, a mountainous savage place, the nest of heresy in his diocese. Among his heroic actions and virtues here, it is recorded, that one Sunday going into an inn to stop the excesses committed by lewd company assembled in it, he received from one a box on the ear, without any other reply than this: “I thank you; if you knew me you would judge that I deserve much more.” Which meekness overcame their obstinacy. After three months’ labors in this neighborhood, by the same bishop’s orders he repaired to Saint André des Fangas, and was from thence recalled to Marlhes in the Vivarez, about the end of the year 1635. In the first of these two places, a boy falling from the top of a high pair of stairs to the bottom near the holy man, then at his prayer in a corner, was found without hurt; in the latter, a woman who would take his tattered cloak to mend, keeping two rags as relics by applying them to two of her children, cured one of a fever, the other of a formed dropsy. The curate of Marlhes, in a deposition upon oath, for the process of the canonization of the servant of God, gave this testimony of him: “He was indefatigable, and employed both night and day in his sacred functions. He was under the bitterest affliction whenever he was informed that God had been offended. Then he forgot his natural meekness, and appearing transported with holy anger, he with a voice of thunder deterred the most resolute libertines. He would have sacrificed a thousand lives to prevent one sin. A word from him sufficed to inflame the coldest hearts, and to soften the hardest. After the mission, I knew not my own parishioners, so much I found them reformed. No violence of cold, no snows blocking up all passages, no mountains, or torrents swelled by rains, could be an obstacle to his zeal. His ardor communicated an intrepidity to others; for when he went to any place, innumerable troops followed, and met him through all sorts of difficulties and dangers. I have seen him in the most rigorous season stop in the middle of a forest, to content the crowds, desirous to hear him speak concerning salvation. I have seen him at the top of a mountain, raised on a heap of snow, hardened by the frost, preach and instruct the whole day, and after that spend the whole night in hearing confessions.” Winter being over he returned to Puy about the end of April, in 1636, testifying that he found his strength and courage not abated, but increased by his labors. He met at the college here his general’s refusal of the mission of Canada, which frustrated his hopes of martyrdom. This refusal he imputed to his sins.

The four remaining years of his life were taken up in missions in the Velay, a mountainous country, the winters in the villages, the summers in Puy, the bishop of which city made use of his counsels and ministry to reform his flock. He preached and catechised at Puy, first in the Jesuits’ church; but this being too little, he removed to that of St. Peter le Monstiers, belonging to the Benedictins. His discourses were without art, but clear to the meanest capacities, and delivered with that emotion of heart, and so moving a tone of voice, that he seemed transported by a divine fire above himself; and all who heard him declared, that “Francis preached the word of God as it is in itself; whereas others seemed, in comparison of him, to preach themselves.” His audience usually consisted of four or five thousand. His provincial in his visitation, hearing him, wept during the whole sermon. He formed an association of virtuous ladies to relieve the poor, and another in favor of the prisoners; for both which incredible funds were raised; and in times of need God miraculously multiplied the corn he had stored up, three several times: of which verbal processes were drawn up, and juridical informations taken before ecclesiastical and secular judges: and these miracles were confirmed by fourteen credible witnesses in the acts of his canonization.

His constant readiness and extreme diligence to run to the sick, and his happy success in assisting them in spirituals, were recompensed by several cures effected on the spot by his prayers, the unexceptionable relation of which may be read at length in F. Daubenton’s History of his life.1 Nor were the conversions of many sinners less miraculous. Among these, a certain voluptuous rich merchant had long endeavored to blacken the saint’s reputation by his slanders; who in return bought of him all he wanted for his poor. Having softened him to a more tractable temper by these and other good offices, he laid hold of a favorable opportunity of representing to him what could be the end of his pains, and the fruit of all his riches which death must soon bereave him of; the man was struck, and having revolved in his mind all night the reflections the words of the man of God raised in him, came the next day to lay open the agitation of his soul to him. The saint having for some time continued to excite in him still livelier apprehensions of the divine judgments, and conducted him through sentiments of hope and divine love to the dispositions of a perfect penitent, he heard his general confession, which the other made with such a flood of tears that the confessor judged the greatness of his contrition might require a smaller penance. The penitent asked him why he had so much spared his weak ness. The zealous pastor answered that he took upon himself to discharge the rest of his debt; which mildness added still more to the fervor of this repenting sinner. His meekness and patience made a conquest of those souls which were so hardened as to be able to resist his zeal. A young man, enraged that the saint had converted and drawn from him the object of his impure passion, resolved to kill him. The man of God discovered by a divine light his wicked intention, and said to him: “Dear brother, why do you bear this ill-will to one that would hazard his life to procure you the greatest of blessings, eternal salvation?” The sinner, overcome by his sweetness, fell at his feet, begged his pardon, and became a sincere convert. Three other young noblemen, on a like occasion, resolved revenge Regis met them with courage, saying to them: “You come with a design upon my life. What concerns me is not death, which is the object of my wishes: but the state of damnation that you are in, and regard so little.” The libertines stood as if stunned: Regis embracing them with the tenderness of a parent, induced them to repent; and they made their confessions to him, and led regular lives till their deaths. Addressing drunkards and other sinners, with his eyes all on fire with zeal, he often by one moving sentence reclaimed them from their disorders. When he had received a blow on the cheek, the magistrates could not prevail upon him to denounce the delinquent; but the offender, moved by his charity, became of his own accord his sincere penitent.

The servant of God was extremely solicitous in removing all occasions of sin, and preventing the promiscuous company of young men and women. He converted many prostitutes with the help of charitable contributions, founded a retreat to secure the virtue of such penitents, till his rector fearing that house could not be maintained, forbade him to intermeddle in it; he moreover gave him many severe reprimands even in public, accused his zeal as too forward, and forbade him to hear confessions, instruct the poor, or visit the sick, only on certain days and at appointed times. Regis suffered many humiliations and mortifications under this superior, without even allowing any one to speak in his justification; till the succeeding rector, convinced of his innocence and prudence, restored to him the care of the refuge, and the whole field of his former labors. His zeal exposed him often to occasions of martyrdom, and ‘o open insults; and once he was cruelly beaten. He was also censured bitterly by many, and even by several of his own brethren; but his rector undertook his defence, and God crowned his labors with incredible success; in which he was seconded by the great vicar Peter le Blanc, his constant friend, without whose counsel he undertook nothing. This is the summary of his transactions at Puy during the four last summers of his missions: the winters he employed in laboring in the country, the most abandoned part of which was his first care and chief delight.

The country inhabitants of the Velay in some parts, especially in the mountains, were very rustic, and perfectly savage: Calvinism had insinuated itself, and ignorance and the grossest vices prevailed in many of the wilder places. The boroughs and villages are situated in the diocese of Puy, Vienne, Valence, and Viviers. The saint’s first mission among them was in the beginning of the year 1636, to Fay and the neighboring places. Hugh Sourdon, LL. D. engaged him to lodge in his house. The man of God finding his kind host’s son Claudius Sourdon, aged fourteen years, entirely deprived of all sight for the six months past, from a defluxion upon his eyes, with excessive pain, he exhorted him to confidence in God, and retired into a neighboring room to prayer with some of the family, which he had not ended when the child recovered his sight, and distinguished everybody in the assembly which then met to hear the first catechistical instruction; and from that time never felt any more either of that pain or defluxion, as he attested before the bishops of Puy and Valence, being then fourscore years old. Upon this, another man forty years of age, who had been blind eight years, was brought to the saint, who making the sign of the cross over him, immediately restored his sight. By the fame of these two miracles, this mission was opened with wonderful concourse and fruit. His conduct in it is thus described by Claudius Sourdon, with whom he lodged, in a juridical deposition that grave person gave before two bishops: “His whole behavior breathed sanctity. Men could neither see nor hear him without being inflamed with the love of God. He celebrated the divine mysteries with such devotion that he seemed like an angel at the altar. I have observed him in familiar intercourse become silent and recollected, and all on fire: then speaking of God with a fervor and rapidity that proved his heart to be carried away with an impulse from heaven. He pronounced his popular instructions with an unction which penetrated his hearers. He spent not only the day, but also a considerable part of the night, in hearing confessions, and violence was necessary to oblige him to take some nourishment. He never complained of fatigue, or of the disagreeable behavior of any that thronged to him. After he had labored to sanctify the inhabitants of Fay, he set out early every morning into the country amid the forests and mountains. When storms, rains, snows, or floods made the roads seem impassable to others, nothing ever stopped or daunted him. He went the whole day from cottage to cottage, and fasting, unless my mother could prevail with him to take an apple in his pocket. We never saw him again till night, and then he resumed his ordinary functions, unwearying himself only by fresh labors. The Calvinists were as forward as the Catholics in following him everywhere. In the beginning of summer in 1637, he returned to his labors at Puy; and in November set out to pass his winter at Marlhes, being called on a second mission thither by the pressing instances of James Andre the zealous curate. His road was horrible, sometimes through briers and thorns, sometimes over valleys filled with snow, and rocks covered with ice. In climbing one of the highest, his hold by a bush failed him and he broke his leg by a fall; yet he cheerfully got over six miles further with the help of a stick, and the support of his companion. Arriving at Marlhes, instead of sending for a surgeon, he went directly to the church where multitudes were waiting for him, and heard confessions for several hours; till the curate, informed of his accident by his companion, drew him out to have his leg visited, when it was found perfectly sound. To his immense labors he added such astonishing austerities that, upon remonstrances, his rector at Puy sent him a command to obey the curate of Marlhes in all that belonged to his refreshment and the care of his health. The saint from that time submitted most exactly to the good priest’s rules in that regard, how troublesome soever he found his indulgence. This curate declared in his deposition, that narrowly observing the man of God at all times, he saw him in the night one while on his knees, bowed to the ground lathed in tears; then standing with his eyes lifted up to heaven, and absorbed in contemplation He often heard him fetch deep sighs, and cry out in transports of love:—‘What in the world can engage my heart, besides thee, my God?’ ”

He frequently beheld him in prayer all on fire, like a seraphim, motionless for many hours. The same gentleman adds, that he saw the holy man by his blessing restore a countryman’s arm put out of joint by a fall near his house as he was crowding to the saint, on a steep descent; and that by the sign of the cross he dispossessed an Energumen; who redoubled his contortions and howlings when brought to his presence, but was immediately calmed by the impression of that sign, and continued ever after unmolested. He had been possessed by the evil spirit eight years, and been often exorcised without success. In the village of Saint Bonnet le Froid, the curate found the saint in the night praying at the church door on his knees and bareheaded; and not being able to draw him from his divine conferences, he gave him the key of the church, in which he observed that he afterwards passed whole nights, notwithstanding the intolerable cold. To the remonstrance of the curate of Vourcy, concerning the care of his health, the saint said in confidence, that since God had visibly testified his goodness by healing his leg, broke in his journey to Marlhes, he owed his health to him by a fresh title, and put it in his hands. In the year 1638, from Puy his winter mission was to Montregard; where upon his arrival he prayed at the church door till he was quite covered with snow, and was found by passengers in that condition. He nowhere reaped a greater harvest of souls than in this place; and converted, besides many other Calvinists, the lady Louisa de Romezino, a young widow of great reputation as well as quality. He gained her esteem in his visits; then cleared her difficulties, principally in regard of the blessed eucharist; and lastly removed the obstacles of her heart from the fear of shame for leaving her party. This lady gave the most ample deposition of the admirable sanctity of the servant of God, in a continual stream of tears during four hours, to the bishops of Puy and Valence, published in his life. The summer in 1639 recalled the missionary to Puy, and the end of the next autumn he went out to his country harvest in the places near Montregard, as Issenjaux, Chambon, Monistrol. About the end of January, in 1640, he repaired to Montfaucon, a little town twenty-one miles from Puy. His successes were wonderful in the ample field which his zeal found here, till interrupted by the plague which broke out in that place. Regis devoted himself to the service of the infected, and was so fearless as to carry the abandoned sick on his back to the hospital, and to perform the most laborious offices to assist all corporally and spiritually. His charity excited that of the ecclesiastics of the place. The curate, however, fearing his death in the imminent dangers to which he exposed himself, obliged him to leave the town, which the saint did with great reluctance and many tears. The contagion soon after ceasing, he returned to resume his mission there, but was recalled to Puy by the rector to supply the place of a master there. This interruption was so great a great to him, that he begged and obtained from the general of the society leave to follow his missions, for which the bishop of Puy had conferred on him his full power. He, moreover, formed a design for the establishment of a perpetual mission for those provinces, to be settled in the college of Puy or Tournon, which project was highly approved by his superiors and by the general. But to give some idea of the life of this great servant of God, it is necessary to draw, if a full delineation is impossible, at least a faint sketch of his heroic virtues.

His true love of God appeared in the constant union of his soul with the Divine Spirit: often a pious word or song would throw him into a rapeare: frequently he could not contain the transports of his heart in company or in the streets: his eyes and inflamed countenance often discovered the strong emotions of his soul. His most familiar aspiration was that of the royal prophet,—“What can I desire in heaven, or love on earth, besides thee my God?” which he repeated with seraphic ardors. He vehemently desired to procure God’s greatest honor in all things, saying,—“We are created by God, and for him alone; and must direct all things to his glory.” His love of the cross, and his thirst of sufferings and humiliations were insatiable, and he was accustomed to say, that to suffer for God deserved not the name of suffering, so light is it made by love, and the sweet unction of grace. When persecuted and beaten, he was heard to cry out, “O my God! that I could suffer still more for thy holy name!” He found true pleasure in hunger, cold, and all manner of hardships, saying once to his companions, “I own that life would be intolerable if I had nothing to suffer for Jesus Christ: it is my only comfort in this world.” He never excused or justified himself if reprehended, and never answered any calumny, even though carried to his superiors. He seemed equally insensible to praises and insults, receiving cheerfully all ill-treatment in silence, as his due. Martyrdom was his perpetual desire, though he sincerely esteemed himself unworthy of such an honor. He called injuries and scorn his due, and was ingenious to court humiliations and disgraces, being accustomed to say, that if justice were done him, he ought to be trodden under foot by all men. When one presented a drawn sword threatening to kill him, he said: “I desire nothing more ardently than to die for Jesus Christ.” He spared nothing to prevent sin, and once said with tears to an obstinate sinner: “Ah, I beg of you rather to dispatch me with your sword than to offend the Divine Majesty.” His confidence in the safeguard of Providence made him fear no harm from men, and rendered him intrepid in the midst of dangers, the sight of which often shook his companion with horror. He would walk all night, and often on the edge of precipices, or over mountains covered with snow, and cross impetuous torrents, only not to disappoint some poor people a few hours. His devotion to the blessed eucharist made him spend much of his time in prayer before the blessed sacrament, saying mass whatever it cost him to find an opportunity. He called the holy eucharist his refuge, his comfort, and his delight. Under all censures and crosses he preserved the same evenness of mind, so effectually had the love of God destroyed in his heart all human earthly affections. He allowed himself only three hours a night for sleep, and often not above one. He never touched flesh, fish, eggs, or wine; and the bare ground or boards were his bed. His chamber was the most inconvenient room he could choose, and his habit all over patches; nor would he wear a new cassock. His obedience was so perfect, that with regard to it he looked upon himself as a dead body without any motion or feeling of his own, nor had he any other rule of his will than that of his superiors. He had the greatest respect for, and an entire dependence on the bishops in whose dioceses he was employed, and their vicars-general. His purity was so perfect, that his very presence inspired a love of that virtue; nor durst calumny itself charge him with the least reproach on that head. It is assured, upon the testimonies of those who had the most perfect knowledge of his interior, that he seemed exempt from all sting of the flesh; so perfectly had he subdued his domestic enemy by assiduous mortification, a watchful humility, and dread of all occasions of temptations. The same vouchers assure us, they were persuaded that he never had offended God by any mortal sin in his whole life.

He resumed the mission of Montfaucon in the beginning of autumn in the year 1640. The ardor he found in the people to profit by his labors redoubled his fervor in serving them. After he had sanctified the whole district of Montfaucon, Rocoulles, and Veirines, he gave notice for opening a mission at La Louvese about the end of Advent. But understanding by a divine light that his death was near at hand, he went back to Puy to make a retreat m order to prepare himself for it. After three days spent in the strictest solitude he made a general confession, and expressed in the warmest and tenderest sentiments, an impatient desire to possess God. Eternity was the sole object of his wishes. He confidently told some of his friends in open terms, and others by mysterious expressions which became clear by the event, that he should never return from that mission. The inclemency of the weather could not detain him: he left Puy on the 22d of December to reach La Louvese the day following, to be ready there for Christmas-eve; he suffered much in crossing the mountains and the waters, and missed his way on the second day. Overtaken by night in the woods, and quite spent, he was forced to lie in a ruinous house open on all sides, near the village of Veirines, on the ground, exposed to a piercing wind. Here, after a sudden sweat succeeded by a cold fit, he was seized with a pleurisy, which increasing, his pain grew excessive. This decayed house represented to him the hardships our new-born Saviour suffered in the stable of Bethlehem, on which he made the most tender reflections. Next morning he crawled to La Louvese, went straight to the church, and opened the mission by a discourse in which his zeal recruited his strength and courage. He preached thrice on Christmas-day, and thrice on St. Stephens, spending the rest of these three days in the confessional. After the third sermon on Saint Stephen’s day, when he went to hear confessions, he swooned away twice. The physicians found his case past recovery. The holy man repeated the general confession he had made eight days before, then desired the holy viaticum and extreme unction, which he received like a person all on fire with the love of God. He refused broth, begging to be nourished like the poor with a little milk, and desired to be left alone. Under his violent pains his countenance was always serene, and he kissed incessantly a crucifix which he held in his hand. Nothing was heard from him but tender and warm aspirations, and longing desires of his heavenly country. He asked to be laid in a stable, that he might resemble his new-born Saviour laid on straw; but was answered, that his weakness would not suffer it. He thanked God for the favor of suffering him to die in the midst of the poor. All the 31st day of December he continued in perfect tranquillity with his eyes tenderly fixed on Jesus crucified, who alone took up his thoughts. At evening in a transport he said to his companion: “What a happiness! how contented I die! I see Jesus and Mary, who come to conduct me to the mansions of bliss.” A moment after he joined his hands; then lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said: “Jesus, my Saviour, to thee I recommend, and into thy hands I commit my soul.” With which words he calmly expired towards midnight, on the last day of the year 1640, being forty-three years of age, whereof he had lived twenty-six in the society. Twenty-two curates, with incredible crowds of people, assisted at his funeral. He was interred on the 2d of January, near the altar, at La Louvese.

The universal grief for his loss was succeeded by the highest veneration; and innumerable flocks of pilgrims visited his tomb; and a poor private religious man, who only breathed abjection, who placed all his satisfaction in being despised, and lay dead on the top of a frightful mountain, was on a sudden crowned with glory, and his ashes on earth honored by continual miracles. La Louvese, then only a chapel of ease under the curate of Veirines, is become the parish church, and much enriched. Twenty-two archbishops and bishops of Languedoc wrote to pope Clement XI. in these words: “We are witnesses, that before the tomb of F. John Francis Regis the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dumb speak; and the fame of these surprising wonders is spread over all nations.” Fourteen eye-witnesses attested upon oath the miraculous and sudden recovery of Magdalen Arnauld, a nun at Puy, sick of a dropsy and palsy, and in her agony, the physicians declaring that she could not live half an hour, a relic of the servant of God was put into her hands, and applying it to her stomach, she offered a fervent prayer to him, and that moment she found herself perfectly cured, and her monstrous swelling dispersed. This happened in 1656. A burgher of Puy was healed of a great rupture formed in three places; his cure was sudden and entire, as physicians, surgeons, and many other witnesses attest. No less sudden were the cures of two blind women; of a young man of the king’s evil; of many paralytic, crooked children, and others under all sorts of distempers; several of them being persons of rank, and of different provinces; and the facts being all attested by many witnesses, and by the persons themselves. The holy see requires incontestable proofs of miracles to which it gives a sanction; and so strict is this inquiry, that F. Daubenton informs us, that an English Protestant gentleman being at Rome, and seeing the process of several miracles, said they were incontestable, if the church of Rome approved of none but such; but was much surprised at the scrupulosity of this scrutiny when told that not one of all those had been allowed by the Congregation of Rites to have been sufficiently proved. After the most severe juridical examination of the heroic virtues and evident miracles of St. John Francis Regis, he was beatified by Clement XI. in 1716, and canonized by Clement XII. in 1737,2 at the request of the kings Louis XV. of France, and Philip V. of Spain, and of the French clergy assembled at Paris in 1735. His festival was appointed to be kept on the 16th of this month.

The saints make it their constant and earnest endeavor to make every step they take an advance in the path of virtue; an addition to the number of their good actions, whose sum total will render their happiness the more exalted and complete. How happy is the life of that faithful servant of God, whose years, days, and moments, whether in public or private, are all filled with good works, so many fruitful seeds of a glorious eternity! whose desires, thoughts, and actions are all directed to the honor of God, and his own advancement in goodness! Viewed with such a life, in whatever station, how mean and contemptible do the idle amusements of the great ones of the world appear! How trifling that uninterrupted succession of serious folly or empty pleasures which engages the greatest part of mankind! How many weary themselves in restless toils of vanity, or often put their invention to the rack to find out amusements for passing the day! How many make their whole lives one barren circle, to which they seem enchanted, going round and round in a dull repetition of the same trifles! who forget they have every moment the affair of an eternity upon their hands, and neglect the only real concern of life. After all their turmoils they find their hands empty, and feel their hearts filled only with fears, remorse, and bitterness, instead of holy peace and joy, with the riches of eternity in store. See the life of St. John Francis Regis, written in French by F. Daubenton, done into English by F. Corn, M—Y S—I. Also his life compiled by F. Croisset, t. 1, and an abstract of the same by F. Nieuville, with the relation of two new miracles.

JUNE 16 — SS. FERREOLUS, OR FARGEAU, A PRIEST, AND FERRUTIUS, A DEACON, MM

They were ordained by St. Irenæus, and sent by him to preach the gospel at Besançon, where, after suffering many torments, they were beheaded for the faith in the persecution of Severus in 211 or 212. St. Gregory of Tours says,1 that their relies were glorified by miracles in his time, and that his brother-in-law was cured by them of a dangerous distemper. They are at this day esteemed a great treasure of the cathedral of Besançon. See their ancient acts cited by St. Gregory of Tours, with the notes of Hens chenius, Junij, t. 3, p. 6.

JUNE 16 — ST. AURELIAN, ARCHBISHOP OF ARLES, C

Being promoted to that see in 546, he founded in that city a great monastery for monks, in which he was seconded by the munificence of king Childebert. He enriched the same with relics of the holy cross, St. Stephen, SS. Peter and Paul, St. John, St. James, St. Andrew, St. Gennesius, St. Symphorianus, St. Victor, St. Hilary, St. Martin, St. Cæsarius, &c. He compiled a rule for these monks, and another for the nunnery of St. Mary, which he also built in the same city. Both these rules are extant in the Code of St. Benedict of Anian, and in Le Cointe’s Annals. He mentions the commemoration of the faithful departed at the altar; and also of the living: in that of the saints he adds in particular those martyrs and confessors whose relies that church was possessed of. The saint usually styles himself Aurelian the Sinner. He assisted at the council of Orleans in 549; and according to the inscription upon his tomb in the chapel of St. Nizier in Lyons, died in that city on the 16th of June, 552, or, as the inscription runs, the eleventh year after the consulate of Justin the Younger, in 540.* He is commemorated on this day in the Roman Martyrology. See the Annals of Le Cointe, and Gallia Christ. t. 1, p. 537.

JUNE 17 — SS. NICANDER AND MARCIAN, MARTYRS

From their genuine acts in Mabillon. Mus Italic. t. 1, and Ruinart, p. 551.

About the Year 303

THESE saints, as appears from the circumstances of their acts, suffered under Dioclesian, and probably in Mœsia, a province of Illyricum, under the same governor who condemned St. Julius; though some moderns place their martyrdom at Venafro, at present in the kingdom of Naples. They had served some time in the Roman troops, but when the edicts were every where published against the Christians, foregoing all expectations from the world, they forsook the army. This was made a crime in them, and they were impeached before Maximus, the governor of the province. The judge informed them of the imperial order that all were commanded to sacrifice to the gods. Nicander replied, that order could not regard Christians, who looked upon it as unlawful to abandon the immortal God, to adore wood and stones. Daria, the wife of Nicander, was present, and encouraged her husband. Maximus interrupting her, said: “Wicked woman, why would you have your husband die?” “I wish not for his death,” said she, “but that he live in God, so as never to die.” Maximus reproached her that she desired his death, because she wanted another husband. “If you suspect that,” said she, “put me to death first.” The judge said his orders did not extend to women; for this happened upon the first edict, which regarded only the army. However, he commanded her to be taken into custody; but she was released soon after, and returned to see the issue of the trial. Maximus, turning again to Nicander, said: “Take a little time, and deliberate with yourself whether you choose to die or to live.” Nicander answered: “I have already deliberated upon the matter, and have taken the resolution to save myself.” The judge took it that he meant he would save his life by sacrificing to the idols, and giving thanks to his gods, began to congratulate and rejoice with Suetonius, one of his assessors, for their imaginary victory. But Nicander soon undeceived him, by crying out: “God be thanked,” and by praying aloud that God would deliver him from the dangers and temptations of the world. “How now,” said the governor, “you but just now desired to live, and at present you ask to die.” Nicander replied: “I desire that life which is immortal, not the fleeting life of this world. To you I willingly yield up my body: do with it what you please, I am a Christian.” “And what are your sentiments, Marcian?” said the judge, addressing himself to the other. He declared that they were the same with those of his fellow-prisoner. Maximus then gave orders that they should be both confined in the dungeon, where they lay twenty days. After which they were again brought before the governor, who asked them if they would at length obey the edicts of the emperors. Marcian answered: “All you can say will never make us abandon our religion, or deny God. We behold him present by faith, and know whither he calls us. Do not, we beseech you, detain or retard us; but send us quickly to him, that we may behold him that was crucified, whom you stick not to blaspheme, but whom we honor and worship.” The governor granted their request, and excusing himself by the necessity he lay under of complying with his orders, condemned them both to lose their heads. The martyrs expressed their gratitude, and said,—“May peace be with you, O most clement judge.” They walked to the place of execution joyful, and praising God as they went. Nicander was followed by his wife Daria. with his child, whom Papinian, brother to the martyr St. Pasicrates, carried in his arms. Marcian’s wife, differing much from the former, and his other relations followed him, weeping and howling in excess of grief. She in particular did all that in her lay to overcome his resolution, and for that purpose often showed him his little child, the fruit of their marriage; and continually pulled and held him back, till he having rebuked her, desired Zoticus, a zealous Christian, to keep her behind. At the place of execution he called for her, and embracing his son and looking up to heaven, said,—“Lord, all-powerful God, take this child into thy special protection.” Then with a check to his wife for her base cowardice, he bade her go away in peace, because she could not have the courage to see him die. The wife of Nicander continued by his side, exhorting him to constancy and joy. “Be of good heart, my lord,” said she, “ten years have I lived at home from you, never ceasing to pray that I might see you again. Now am I favored with that comfort, and I behold you going to glory, and myself made the wife of a martyr. Give to God that testimony you owe to his holy truth, that you may also deliver me from eternal death;” meaning that by his sufferings and prayers he might obtain mercy for her. The executioner having bound their eyes with their handkerchiefs, struck off their heads on the 17th of June.

Faith and grace made these martyrs triumph over all considerations of flesh and blood. They did not abandon their orphan babes, to whom they left the example of their heroic virtue, and whom they committed to the special protection of their heavenly Father. We never lose what we leave to obey the voice of God. When we have taken all prudent precautions, and all the care in our power, we ought to commend all things with confidence to the divine mercy. This ought to banish all anxiety out of our breasts. God’s blessing and protection is all we can hope or desire: we are assured he will never fail on his side; and what can we do more than to conjure him never to suffer us by our malice to put any obstacle to his mercy? On it is all our reliance for the salvation of our own souls. How much more ought we to trust to his goodness in all other concerns!

JUNE 17 — ST. BOTULPH, ABBOT

SS. Botulph and ADULPH were two noble English brothers, who opened their eyes to the light of faith in the first dawning of the day of the gospel upon our ancestors. Astonished at the great truths which they had learned, and penetrated with the most profound sentiments which religion inspires, they travelled into the Belgic Gaul, there to find some religious houses and schools of virtue, which were then scarce in England. Such was the progress of these holy men that they soon were judged fit to be themselves masters. Nor was it long before Adulph was advanced to the bishopric of Maestricht, which he administered in so holy a manner, that he is honored in France among the saints on the 17th of June. St. Botulph returned to England to bring to his own country the treasure he had found. Addressing himself to king Ethelmund, he begged some barren spot of ground to found a monastery. The king gave him the wilderness of Ikanho where he built an abbey, and taught the brethren whom he assembled there the rules of Christian perfection, and the institutes of the holy fathers. He was beloved by every one, being humble, mild, and affable. All his discourse was on things which tended to edification, and his example was still far more efficacious to instil the true spirit of every virtue. When he was oppressed with any sickness he never ceased thanking and praising God with holy Job. Thus he persevered to a good old age. He was purified by a long illness before his happy death, which happened in the same year with that of St. Hilda, 655. His monastery having been destroyed by the Danes, his relics were part carried to the monastery of Ely, and part to that of Thorney. St. Edward the Confessor afterwards bestowed some portion of them on his own abbey of Westminster. Few English saints have been more honored by our ancestors. Four parishes in London, and innumerable others throughout the country, bear his name. Botulph’s town, now Boston, in Lincolnshire and Botulph’s bridge, now Bottle-bride, in Huntingdonshire, are so called from him. Leland and Bale will have his monastery of Ikanho to have been in one of those two places; Hickes says at Boston; others think it was towards Sussex; for Ethelmund seems to have been king of the South-Saxons. Thorney abbey was situated in Cambridgeshire, and was one of those whose abbots sat in parliament. It was founded in 972, in honor of St. Mary and St. Botulph. In its church lay interred St. Botulph, St. Athulf, St. Huna, St. Tancred, St. Tothred, St. Hereferth, St. Cissa, St. Bennet, St. Tova, or Towa, to whose memory a fair chapel called Thoueham, half a mile off in the wood, was consecrated. Thorney was anciently called Ancarig, that is, the Isle of Anchorets. Part of the relics of St. Botulph was kept at Medesham, afterwards called Peterburgh. See Dr. Brown Willis, on mitred Abbeys, t. 1, p. 187, and the life of St. Botulph published by Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 3, p. 1, and by Papebroke, t. 3, Junij, p. 398. The anonymous author of this piece declares he had received some things which he relates from the disciples of the saint who had lived under his direction. There is also in the Cottonian library, n. 111, a MS. life of Saint Botulph compiled by Folcard, first a monk of St. Bertin’s at St. Omer, afterwards made by the conqueror abbot of Thorney in 1068. See also Narratio de Sanctis qui in Anglia quiescunt, translated from the English-Saxon into Latin by Francis Junius, and published by Dr. Hickes, Diss. Epist. pp. 118, 119. Thesauri, t. 1.

JUNE 17 — ST. AVITUS, OR AVY, ABBOT, NEAR ORLEANS

He was a native of Orleans, and retiring into Auvergne, took the monastic habit together with St. Calais in the abbey of Menat, at that time very small; though afterwards enriched by queen Brunehault, and by St. Boner, bishop of Clermont. The two saints soon after returned to Miscy, a famous abbey situated on the Loiret near the Loire, a league and a half below Orleans. It was founded towards the end of the reign of Clovis I. by St. Euspicius a holy priest, honored on the 14th of June, and his nephew St. Maximin, or Mesmin, whose name this monastery, which is now of the Cistercian order bears. Many call St. Maximin the first abbot, others St. Euspicius the first, St. Maximin the second, and St. Avitus the third. But our saint and St. Calais made not a long stay at Misci, though St. Maximin gave them a gracious reception. In quest of a closer retirement St. Avitus, who had succeeded St. Maximin, soon after resigned the abbacy, as Lethuld, a learned monk of Misci, assures us, and with St. Calais lived a recluse in the territory now called Dunois, on the frontiers of la Perche. Others joining them, St. Calais retired into a forest in Maine, and king Clotaire built a church and monastery for St. Avitus and his companions. This is at present a Benedictin nunnery called St. Avy of Chateau-dun, and is situated on the Loire at the foot of the hill on which the town of Chateau-dun is built, in the diocese of Chartres. Three famous monks, Leobin, afterwards bishop of Chartres, Euphronius, and Rusticus, attended our saint to his happy death, which happened about the year 530. His body was carried up the Loire to Orleans, and buried with great pomp in that city. A church was built over his tomb which still subsists, and his feast is kept at Orleans, Paris, and in other places. Some distinguish St. Avitus abbot of Miser from the abbot of Chateau-dun; but all circumstances show that it was the same holy man who retired from Misci into the territory of Chateau-dun. See the life of St. Avitus published by Henschenius in 1701; the New Paris Breviary the 17th of June; Le Cointe’s Annals, and chiefly the book entitled, Les Aménités de la Critique, t. 2, p. 8.

JUNE 17 — ST. MOLINGUS, ALIAS DAIRCHILLA, BISHOP, CONFESSOR

He was born in the territory of Kensellagh, now part of the county of Wexford, and in his youth embraced a monastic life at Glendaloch. The abbey of Aghacainid, on the banks of the Barrow, being put under his direction, received the greatest lustre from his prudence and sanctity, and ever since has been called from him Teghmolin. This saint is celebrated in Ireland for his eminent sanctity, manifested by the gifts of prophecy and miracles. St. Edan, commonly called Maidoc, or Moeg,* who was consecrated first bishop of Ferns in Leinster about the year 598, dying on the 31st of January in 632, (or according to the annals of the Four Masters in 624,) St. Moling was placed in that see. At the petition of the clergy and nobility he was acknowledged archbishop of Leinster, as his predecessor had been.† St. Moling was a singular benefactor to his country by persuading king Finacta, in 693, to release to the kingdom of Leinster the heavy tribute of oxen, called the Boarian tribute, which had been imposed by king Tuathal Techmar in 134, and been the cause of many bloody wars. Our saint resigned his see some years before his death, which happened on the 17th of June, 697. He was interred in his own monastery of Teghmoling. Giraldus Cambrensis calls SS. Patrick, Columb, Moling, and Braccan, the four prophets of Ireland, and says their books were extant in his time in the Irish language. See his Hibern. Expugn.1. 2, c. 33; Colgan in MSS. ad 17 Jun.; Ware, p. 437.

JUNE 17 — ST. PRIOR, HERMIT,

Was a native of Egypt, and one of the first disciples of St. Antony. He died towards the end of the fourth century, and was about one hundred years of age. See the Bollandists.

JUNE 18 — SS. MARCUS AND MARCELLIANUS, MARTYRS

From the acts of St. Sebastian. See Tillemont, t. 4; Baronius ad an. 286, n. 23.

A. D. 286.

MARCUS and MARCELLIANUS were twin brothers of an illustrious family in Rome, had been converted to the faith in their youth, and were honorably married. Dioclesian ascended the imperial throne in 284; soon after which the heathens raised tumultuary persecutions, though this emperor had not yet published any new edicts against the church. These martyrs were thrown into prison, and condemned by Chromatius, lieutenant of the prefect of Rome, to be beheaded. Their friends obtained a respite of the execution for thirty days, that they might prevail with them to comply with the judge, and they wore removed into the house of Nicostratus the public register. Tranquillinus and Martia, their afflicted heathen parents, in company with their sons’ own wives and their little babes at their breasts, endeavored to move them by the most tender entreaties and tears. St. Sebastian, an officer of the emperor’s household, coming to Rome soon after their commitment, daily visited and encouraged them. The issue of the conferences was the happy conversion of the father, mother, and wives, also of Nicostratus, and soon after of Chromatius, who set the saints at liberty, and abdicating the magistracy retired into the country. Marcus and Marcellianus were hid by Castulus, a Christian officer of the household, in his apartments in the palace; but they were betrayed by an apostate named Torquatus, and retaken. Fabian, who had succeeded Chromatius, condemned them to be bound to two pillars with their feet nailed to the same. In this posture they remained a day and a night, and on the following day were stabbed with lances, and buried in the Arenarium, since called their cemetery, two miles out of Rome, between the Appian and Ardeatine roads. All the ancient Martyrologies mark their festival on the 18th of June.

Virtue is often false, and in it the true metal is not to be distinguished from dross until persecution has applied the touchstone, and proved the temper. We know not what we are till we have been tried. It costs nothing to say we love God above all things, and to show the courage of martyrs at a distance from the danger; but that love is sincere which has stood the proof. “Persecution shows who is a hireling, and who a true pastor,” says St. Bernard.1

JUNE 18 — ST. MARINA, V

She flourished in Bithynia in the eighth century, and served God under the habit of a monk, with extraordinary fervor. Her wonderful humility, meekness, and patience are celebrated in the lives of the fathers of the desert. She died about the middle of the eighth century. Her relics were translated from Constantinople to Venice in 1230, and are venerated there in a church which bears her name. She is also titular saint of a parish church in Paris, which is mentioned by the celebrated William of Paris, in 1228. In it is preserved a portion of her relics, brought from Venice. St. Marina is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology and in the New Paris Breviary on the 18th of June; and the feast of the translation of her relics is kept at Venice on the 17th of July. On her, see the Bollandists on the 17th of July, t. 4, Julij.

JUNE 18 — ST. ELIZABETH OF SCONAUGE, V., ABBESS

Three monasteries in Germany bear the name of Sconauge: one of Cistercian monks near Heidelberg, founded by Buggo, bishop of Worms in 1135; another of nuns of the same order in Franconia; a third, of monks of the order of St. Bennet in the diocese of Triers, four German miles from Bingen, was founded by Hildelin, a nobleman, who, in 1125, took himself the monastic habit, and was chosen first abbot. Not far distant he built a great nunnery of the same order and name, which is now extinct, though the three former remain to this day. Soon after the foundation of this house, when regular discipline flourished there with great edification to the church, St. Elizabeth, who from her infancy had been a vessel of election, made her religious profession, and was afterwards chosen abbess. At twenty-three years of age she began to be favored with heavenly visions.* She died in the year 1165, of her age thirty-six, on the 18th of June, on which day her name is inserted in the Roman Martyrology, though she was never solemnly beatified, as Chatelain takes notice. See her encomium by an abbot of Sconauge, &c., in the Bollandists, t. 3, Jun. ad diem 18.

JUNE 18 — ST. AMAND, BISHOP OF BOURDEAUX

We read in St. Paulinus of Nola that St. Amand served God from his infancy; that he was educated in the knowledge of the scriptures, and that he preserved his innocence from those stains which are generally contracted in the commerce of the world. Being ordained priest by St. Delphin, bishop of Bourdeaux, who employed him in his church, he manifested great zeal for the glory of God. It was he who instructed St. Paulinus in the mysteries of faith, to prepare him for baptism. From this time there subsisted between them a most intimate friendship. Paulinus wrote him many letters, and we see by those that remain of them that he paid the greatest veneration to Amand’s virtue. After the death of St. Delphin, St. Amand was elected to the see of Bourdeaux, but shortly after resigned the dignity in favor of St. Severinus, upon whose death he was again prevailed upon to reassume it. St. Paulinus tells us that he always conducted himself as a zealous guardian of religion, and of the faith of Christ. He is mentioned this day in the Roman Martyrology. The precise year of his death is not known. It is to him we are indebted for the preservation of the writings of St. Paulinus, who died in the year 431. See St. Paulinus of Nola, Ep. 2, 9, 12, 48; and Gallia Christ. Nov. t. 2, p. 789.

JUNE 19 — SS. GERVASIUS AND PROTASIUS, MARTYRS

From St. Ambrose, Ep. 22, ol. 54, ad Marcellinam Soror., and St. Austin, de Civil. Dei,1. 22, c. 8; et.1. de Curapro mortuis, c. 17; et. Conf.1. 9, c. 7. See Tillemont, t. 2, p. 78; Orsi; and for the history of the great veneration which has been always paid to their relics, see the learned Dissertation of Joseph Antony Sassi, prefect of the Ambrosian library, entitled, Disscrtatio Apologetica ad Vindicandam Mediolano Sanctoruni Corporum Gervasii et Protasii possessionem; Bononiæ, 1709. See also S. Paulinus, Nat. S. Felicis II., published by Muratori, Anecd. Lat., and in the new edition of St. Paulinus’s works at Verona, p. 468. Consult above other moderns the accurate Puricclli, Diss. Nazar. et Monum. Basilicæ Ambros.

ST. AMBROSE calls these saints the protomartyrs of Milan. They seem to have suffered in the first persecution under Nero, or at latest under Domitian, and are said to have been the sons of SS. Vitalis and Valeria,1 both martyrs, the first at Ravenna, the second at Milan. This latter city was the place which SS. Gervasius and Protasius rendered illustrious by their glorious martyrdom and miracles. St. Ambrose assures us, that the divine grace prepared them a long time for their crown by the good example which they gave, and by the constancy with which they withstood the corruption of the world. He adds they were beheaded for the faith.* They are said to have been twin brothers.

The faithful at Milan, in the fourth age, had lost the remembrance of these saints. Yet the martyrs had not ceased to assist that church in its necessities; and the discovery of their relics rescued it from the utmost danger. The empress Justina, widow of Valentinian I., and mother of Valentinian the Younger, who then reigned, and resided at Milan, was a violent abettor of Arianism, and used her utmost endeavors to expel St. Ambrose. The Arians did not stick to have recourse to the most horrible villanies and forgeries to compass that point. In so critical a conjuncture, our martyrs declared themselves the visible protectors of that distressed church. St. Austin, both in his twenty-second book Of the City of God,2 and in his Confessions,3 says, that God revealed to St. Ambrose by a vision in a dream, the place where their relics lay. Paulinus, in his life of St. Ambrose, says, this was done by an apparition of the martyrs themselves. The bishop was going to dedicate a new church, the same which was afterwards called the Ambrosian basilic, and now St. Ambrose the Great. The people desired him to do it with the same solemnity as he had already consecrated another church in the quarter near the gate that led to Rome, in honor of the holy apostles, in which he had laid a portion of their relics. He was at a loss to find relics for this second church. The bodies of Saints Gervasius and Protasius lay then unknown before the rails which enclosed the tomb of SS. Nabor and Felix. St. Ambrose caused this place to be dug up, and there found the bodies of two very big men, with their bones entire, and in their natural position, but the heads separated from their bodies, with a large quantity of blood, and all the marks which could be desired to ascertain the relics.†

A possessed person who was brought to receive the imposition of hands, before he began to be exorcised, was seized, and, in horrible convulsions, thrown down by the evil spirit upon the tomb.4 The sacred relics were taken up whole, and laid on litters in their natural situation, covered with ornaments, and conveyed to the basilic of Faustus, now called SS. Vitalis and Agricola, near that of St. Nabor, which at present bears the name of St. Francis. They were exposed here two days, and an incredible concourse of people watched the two nights in prayer. On the third day, which was the 18th of June, they were translated into the Ambrosian basilic with the honor due to martyrs, and with the public rejoicings of the whole city. In the way happened the famous cure of a blind man named Severus, a citizen of Milan, well known to the whole town. He had been a butcher, but was obliged, by the loss of his sight, to lay aside his profession. Hearing of the discovery of the relics, he desired to be conducted to the place where they were passing by, and upon touching the fringe of the ornaments with which they were covered, he that instant perfectly recovered his sight in the presence of an infinite multitude. This miracle is related by St. Ambrose, St. Austin, and Paulinus, who were all three then at Milan. Severus made a vow to be a servant in the church of the saints; that is, the Ambrosian basilic, where their relics lay. St. Austin, when he went from Milan, in 387, left him in that service,5 and he continued in it when Paulinus wrote the life of St. Ambrose, in 411. Many other lame and sick persons were cured of divers distempers by touching the shrouds which covered the relics, or linen cloths which had been thrown upon them. Devils also, in possessed persons, confessed the glory of the martyrs, and declared they were not able to bear the torments which they suffered in the presence of the bodies of the saints. All this is attested by St. Ambrose in his letter to his sister, in which he has inserted the sermon which he preached in the Ambrosian basilic when the relics arrived there. Two days after, he deposited them in the vault under the altar on the right hand. St. Ambrose adds that the blood found in their tomb was likewise an instrument of many miracles. We find the relics of these saints afterwards dispersed in several churches, chiefly this blood, which was gathered and mixed with a paste, as St. Gaudentius says.6 Also linen cloths dipped in this blood were distributed in many places, as St. Gregory of Tours relates.7 St. Austin mentions a church in their honor in his diocese of Hippo, where many miracles were wrought, and relates one that was very remarkable.8 He preached his two hundred and eighty-sixth sermon on their festival in Africa, where we find it marked in the old African Calendar on the 19th of June, on which day it was observed over all the West; and with great solemnity at Milan, and in many dioceses and parish churches, of which these martyrs are the titular saints. St. Ambrose observes, that the Arians at Milan, by denying the miracles of these martyrs, showed they had a different faith from that of the martyrs; otherwise they would not have been jealous of their miracles; but this faith, as he says, is confirmed by the tradition of our ancestors, which the devils are forced to confess, but which the heretics deny.*

JUNE 19 — ST. BONIFACE, ARCHBISHOP, M. OF THE ORDER OF CAMALDOLI, AND APOSTLE OF RUSSIA

Bruno, called also Boniface, was by extraction a nobleman of the first rank in Saxony, and agreeably to his high birth was his education in the study of the liberal arts, under Guido the philosopher, and other great masters. From the very cradle, piety was the predominant inclination of his heart, and he received very young the clerical tonsure. The emperor Otho III. called him to his court, and appointed him his chaplain, with the superintendency and care of the imperial chapel. So much was this prince taken with the virtue of the young saint, and with the sweetness of his disposition, that he placed in him an entire confidence, could not forbear publicly testifying on every occasion his tender affection and esteem for him, and usually called him his soul. Boniface was not at all puffed up with his favor, and armed himself against the smiles of prosperity by the constant practice of self-denial, and by the most profound humility. Seeing himself surrounded with vanities and delights, he was sensible that he stood in need of the stronger antidotes to preserve himself from their dangerous poison. His tender devotion, and his affection for holy prayer, especially for the public service of the church, are not to be expressed. And by his watchfulness and fervor he found his sanctification in the very place where so many others lose their virtue. One day as the saint was going into a church dedicated to St. Boniface, the bishop of Mentz, and martyr, he felt his heart suddenly inflamed with an ardent desire to lay down his life for Christ, and in a pious transport, he said to himself,—“Am not I also called Boniface? why may not I be a martyr of Jesus Christ as he was, whose intercession is implored in this place? From that time he never ceased sighing after the glory of shedding his blood for Him who redeemed us by his most precious death. St. Romuald coming to the emperor’s court in 998, Boniface, charmed with his saintly deportment, begged to be admitted into his order, and received the habit. It was with the greatest regret that the emperor saw him quit his court, but he thought he could not oppose his holy resolution, lest by so doing he should incur the divine displeasure.

Boniface inherited the spirit, and all the admirable virtues of the great St. Romuald. He who had been accustomed to sleep on soft beds, to wear rich garments of silk, and to eat at the table of an emperor to whom he was most dear; he who had long seen himself environed with the pomp and splendor of the world, and had been the first and the most favored of the courtiers, and of all the princes of the empire; contented himself with one poor coarse habit, walked barefoot, knew no other food than insipid roots and pulse, worked with his hands, earned his bread with the sweat of his brow, led a retired life, lay on straw or boards, and often, after having worked all day, passed the whole or the greatest part of the night in prayer. He often ate only twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays, and sometimes rolled himself among nettles and thorns; so that no part of his body was without wounds and pain, to punish his flesh for what he called a neglect of penance and mortification in his youth. He with David continually begged of God, that by his grace he would confirm him in the good purpose which he had begun in his soul, and he marched a giant’s pace in the road of perfection. Having spent some years, first at Mount Cassino, afterwards under the direction of St. Romuald at Piræum, near Ravenna, and lastly, in an eremitical life, he obtained his superior’s leave to go and preach the gospel to the infidels. He therefore went to Rome barefoot, singing psalms all the way, and allowing himself no other sustenance than half a pound of bread a day, with water, and on Sundays and holidays a small quantity of roots or fruit. When he was arrived at Rome, pope John XVIII. approved his design, gave him all necessary faculties, and obliged him to accept a brief, directing that he should be ordained archbishop as soon as he should open his mission. Boniface offered himself to God as a victim ready to be sacrificed for the salvation of his brethren; and in these fervent sentiments travelled into Germany in the depth of a severe winter. He on that occasion sometimes made use of a horse, but always rode or walked barefoot, and it was often necessary to thaw his feet with warm water before he could draw them out of the stirrups in which they were frozen.

The saint went to Mersbourg to sue for the protection of St. Henry II. emperor of Germany; which having readily obtained, he was consecrated bishop by Taymont, archbishop of Magdeburg, who conferred on him the pall which Boniface himself had brought from Rome. The holy prelate, notwithstanding the fatigues of his missions, continued his severe fasts and watchings, and devoted all his time on his journeys to prayer, especially to the reciting of the psalms, in which he found great sweetness and delight. His desire to rescue souls from the blindness of sin and idolatry seemed insatiable; and the savage inhabitants of Prussia appearing to be the fiercest and most obstinate in their malice, he made them the first objects of his zeal. Boleslas, duke of Poland, and many great lords, made him rich presents; all which he gave to the churches and to the poor, reserving nothing for himself. He would have only heaven for the recompense of his labors: every thing else appeared unworthy of his ministry, and too much beneath what he hoped: he even feared that it might diminish his eternal reward, or infect his heart. It was in the twelfth year after his conversion from the world that he entered Prussia. But the time of the visit of the Lord was not yet come for the idolaters of that country. Boniface desired at least to die a martyr among them: but they remembering that the martyrdom and subsequent miracles of St. Adalbert of Prague had been an inducement to many to embrace the faith, refused him the wished-for happiness of sealing his love for Christ with his blood. Boniface being thus repulsed, left Prussia, and advancing to the borders of Russia on the other side of Poland, began there with great zeal to announce the gospel.* The Bollandists think1 that in his mission in Prussia he converted to the faith the Livonians and Samogitians.

The Russians at that time were all barbarous idolaters, and had abated nothing of their ancient ferocity when St. Boniface undertook to plant the gospel among them. They sent him an order to leave their territories, and forbade him to preach the faith in their dominions. The saint paid no regard to this prohibition, and as he advanced into the country, the king of a small province was desirous to hear him. But when he saw him barefoot, and meanly clad, he treated him with contempt, and would not hear him speak. The holy bishop withdrew, and having put on a plain suit of clothes which he carried with him to say mass in, returned to the court. The king told him he would believe in Christ, if he could see him walk through a great fire without receiving any hurt. The saint, by a divine inspiration, undertook to perform the miracle in presence of the king, who seeing him miraculously preserved amidst the flames, desired to be instructed in the faith, and was baptized with many others. The barbarians were alarmed at this progress of the gospel, and threatened the saint if he proceeded further into their country. But words could not daunt him who thirsted after nothing more earnestly than the glory of martyrdom. The infidels soon after seized and beheaded him, with eighteen companions, in the year 1009. The Roman Martyrology proposes him to our veneration on this day, and again under the name of Bruno, on the 15th of October, probably on account of some translation.* See his life in Mabillon, Act. Ord. S. Bened. sæc. 6, p. 79, and St. Peter Damian in his life of St. Romuald. Also the Bollandists, t. 3. Junij, p. 907.

JUNE 19 — ST. JULIANA FALCONIERI, V

The illustrious family of Falconieri in Italy received great honor from the sanctity of this holy virgin. Her father, Charissimus Falconieri, and his pious lady, Reguardata, were both advanced in years, and seemed to have lost all hopes of issue, when, in 1270, they were wonderfully blessed with the birth of our saint. Devoting themselves afterwards solely to the exercises of religion, they built and founded at their own expense the stately church of the Annunciation of our Lady in Florence, which, for riches and the elegance of the structure, may at this day be ranked among the wonders of the world. B. Alexius Falconieri, the only brother of Charissimus, and uncle of our saint, was, with St. Philip Beniti, one of the seven first propagators and pillars of the order of Servites, or persons devoted to the service of God under the special patronage of the Virgin Mary. Juliana, in her infancy, seemed almost to anticipate the ordinary course of nature in the use of reason, by her early piety; and the first words she learned to pronounce were the sacred names, Jesu, Maria. Fervent prayer and mortification chiefly took up her attention at an age which seems usually scarce capable of any thing serious. Such was her angelical modesty, that she never durst lift up her eyes to look any man in the face; and so great was her horror of sin, that the very name of it made her almost fall into a swoon.

In the sixteenth year of her age, despising whatever seemed not conducive to virtue, she bid adieu to all worldly thoughts and pleasures, renounced her great estate and fortune, and the better to seek the inestimable jewel of the gospel, she consecrated her virginity to God, and received from the hands of St. Philip Beniti the religious veil of the Mantellatæ. The religious men among the Servites are called the first order. St. Philip Beniti constituted his second order, which is that of the nuns, in favor of certain devout ladies. The Mantellatæ are a third order of the Servites, and take their name from a particular kind of short sleeves which they wear, as fittest for their work. They were instituted to serve the sick, and for other offices of charity, and in the beginning were not obliged to strict enclosure. Of this third order St. Juliana was, under the direction of St. Philip, the first plant; and as she grew up, the great reputation of her prudence and sanctity drawing to her many devout ladies, who desired to follow the same in stitute, she was obliged to accept the charge of prioress. Though she was the spiritual mother of the rest, she made it her delight and study to serve all her sisters. She often spent whole days in prayer, and frequently received great heavenly favors. She never let slip any opportunity of performing offices of charity towards her neighbors, especially of reconciling enemies, reclaiming sinners, and serving the sick. She sucked the most nauseous ulcers of scorbutic patients and lepers; by which means the sores are cleansed without the knife, or painful pressure of the surgeon’s hand, and a cure rendered more easy. By an imitation of this mortification and charity, do many pious, religious persons, who attend the hospitals of the poor, gain an heroic victory over themselves. Saint Juliana practised incredible austerities. In her old age she was afflicted with various painful distempers, which she bore with inexpressible cheerfulness and joy. One thing afflicted her in her last sickness, that she was deprived of the comfort and happiness of uniting her soul with her divine Spouse in the sacrament of the altar, which she was not able to receive by reason that her stomach, by continually vomiting, could not retain any food. The sacred host, however, was brought into her cell, and there suddenly disappeared out of the hands of the priest. After her death the figure of the host was found imprinted on the left side of her breast; by which prodigy it was judged that Christ had miraculously satisfied her languishing holy desire. She died in her convent at Florence, in the year 1340, of her age, seventy. Miracles have been frequently effected through her intercession, among which several have been juridically proved. Pope Benedict XIII. enrolled her name among the blessed, in 1729. His successor, Clement XII., put the last hand to her canonization.1 Her order is propagated in Italy and Austria. See Bonanni’s History of the Founders of Religious Orders, t. 2; Giani in her life; and Papebroke, in his Appendix, t. 3, Junij, p. 923.

JUNE 19 — ST. DIE, OR DEODATUS, BISHOP OF NEVERS, AND ABBOT OF JOINTURES

This saint was nobly born in the west of France, and endued with eminent gifts both of nature and grace. In 655, he was placed in the episcopal chair of Nevers. He fulfilled all the duties of the pastoral charge with great fear and trembling, till, in 664, he resigned his dignity, and having recommended to his clergy the choice of a successor, retired into the deserts, and there led an eremitical life. In 661, Hun, lord of the Val de Galilee, near Mount Vosge, bestowed on him that territory, and his donation was confirmed by Childeric II., king of Austrasia. Upon this spot St. Die founded the monastery of Jointures, which he put under the rule of St. Columban, though this was afterwards exchanged for that of St. Bennet. Dreading the charge of others, he continued still to live in a neighboring little cell, dedicated to St. Martin.*

St. Die gave up his soul to God in the arms of St. Hidulphus, on the 19th of June, in 679 or 680. A town called St. Diei rose about his monastery, and this abbey has been since converted into a collegiate church. See Mabillon, sæc. 3, Bened. and Bulteau,1. 3, c. 34.

JUNE 20 — ST. SILVERIUS, POPE, M

From Liberatus in Breviar. c. 22; Conc. t. 5, p. 775; Marcellinus in Chron. ad ann. 536, Anastasius in Pontif. Conc. t. 5; Papebroke, t. 4, Junij, p. 13, and Muratori’s Annals of Italy.

A. D. 538

SILVERIUS was son of pope Hormisdas, who had been engaged in wedlock before he entered the ministry. Upon the death of St. Agapetus, after a vacancy of forty-seven days, Silverius, being then subdeacon, was chosen pope, and ordained on the 8th of June, 536, Theodatus the Goth being king of Italy. Theodoric had bequeathed that kingdom to his grandson Athalaric, under the tuition of his mother Amalasunta, a most wise and learned princess. Athalaric died in 534, after a reign of eight years; when Amalasunta called Theodatus, a nephew of her father Theodoric by a sister, to the throne; but the ungrateful king, jealous of his power, caused her to be confined in an island in the lake of Bolsena, and there strangled in a bath before the end of the same year, 534. The shocking barbarity of this action encouraged the emperor Justinian to attempt the reduction of Italy. Belisarius, his general, had been successful in all his wars against rebels at home, the Persians in the East, and Gelimer the Vandal in Africa, whom he had brought prisoner to Constantinople in 534; by which victory he extinguished the puissant kingdom of the Vandals, and reunited Africa to the empire, after it had been separated above one hundred years. By the emperor’s order in 535, being then consul, he marched with his victorious army against Italy. He that year made himself master of Sicily, and passing thence into Italy in 536, took Naples. Upon which the Goths deposed Theodatus, and raised Vitiges, an experienced officer, to the throne. The senate and people of Rome, at the persuasion of pope Silverius, opened the city to the imperialists, who entered by the Asinarian gate, while the Gothic garrison retired by the Flaminian towards Ravenna, where Vitiges had shut himself up.*

Theodora, the empress, a violent and crafty woman, seeing Justinian now master of Rome, resolved to make use of that opportunity to promote the sect of the Acephali, or most rigid Eutychian, who rejected the council of Chalcedon, and also the Henoticon of Zeno, which Petrus Mongus, the Eutychian patriarch of Alexandria, had received, endeavoring in some degree to qualify that heresy. Anthimus, patriarch of Constantinople, was violently suspected of abetting the Acephali, and by the credit of the empress had been translated, against the canons, from the see of Trapezus, or Trebisond, to that of the imperial city. When pope Agapetus came to Constantinople, in 536, he refused to communicate with Anthimus because he could never be brought to own in plain terms two natures in Christ; whereupon he was banished by Justinian; and St. Mennas, an orthodox holy man, was ordained bishop of Constantinople by pope Agapetus himself, who by a circular letter notified, that “the heretical bishop had been deposed by the apostolic authority, with the concurrence and aid of the most religious emperor.” This affair gave the empress great uneasiness, and she never ceased studying some method of recalling Anthimus, till the taking of Rome offered her a favorable opportunity of attempting to execute her design. Silverius being then in her power, she endeavored to win him over to her interest, and wrote to him, requiring that he would acknowledge Anthimus lawful bishop, or repair in person to Constantinople, and re-examine his cause on the spot. The good pope was sensible how dangerous a thing it was to oppose the favorite project of an empress of her violent temper, and said with a sigh in reading her letter, that this affair would in the end cost him his life. However, he, without the least hesitation or delay, returned her a short answer, by which he peremptorily gave her to understand, that she must not flatter herself he either could or would come into her unjust measures, and betray the cause of the Catholic faith. The empress saw from the firmness of his answer, that she could never expect from him any thing favorable to her impious designs, and from that moment resolved to compass his deposition. Vigilius, archdeacon of the Roman church, a man of address, was then at Constantinople; whither he had attended the late pope Agapetus. To him the empress made her application, and finding him taken by the bait of ambition, promised to make him pope, and to bestow on him seven hundred pieces of gold, provided he would engage himself to condemn the council of Chalcedon, and receive to communion the three deposed Eutychian patriarchs, Anthimus of Constantinople, Severus of Antioch, and Theodosius of Alexandria. The unhappy Vigilius having assented to these conditions, the empress sent him to Rome, charged with a letter to Belisarius, commanding him to drive out Silverius, and to contrive the election of Vigilius to the pontificate. Belisarius was at first unwilling to have any hand in so unjust a proceeding, but after showing some reluctancy, he had the weakness to say, “The empress commands, I must therefore obey. He who seeks the ruin of Silverius shall answer for it at the last day; not I.”1 Vigilius urged the general, on one side, to execute the project, and his wife Antonina on the other, she being the greatest confidant of the empress, and having no less an ascendant over her husband than Theodora had over Justinian.

The more easily to make this project to bear, the enemies of the good pope had recourse to a new stratagem, and impeached him for high treason. Vitiges the Goth returned from Ravenna in 537 with an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, and invested the city of Rome. The siege lasted a year and nine days, during which both Goths and Romans performed prodigies of valor; but the latter defeated all the attempts and stratagems of the barbarians, and in the end obliged them to retire. The pope was accused of corresponding during the siege with the enemy, and a letter was produced, which was pretended to have been written by him to the king of the Goths, inviting him into the city, and promising to open the gates to him. Belisarius saw evidently this to be a barefaced calumny, and discovered the persons who had forged the said letter, namely Marcus, a lawyer, and Julianus, a soldier of the guards, who had been both suborned by the pope’s enemies. The general therefore dropped this charge of treason, but entreated the pope to comply with the will of the empress, assuring him he had no other means of avoiding the loss of his see, and the utmost calamities. Silverius always declared that he could never condemn the council of Chalcedon, nor receive the Acephali to his communion. Upon leaving the general’s house, he flee for sanctuary to the basilic of the martyr St. Sabina; but a few days after by an artful stratagem of Belisarius, was drawn thence, and summoned to repair to the Pincian palace, where the general resided during the siege. He was admitted alone, and his clergy, whom he left at the door, saw him no more. Antonina received him sitting upon her bed, while Belisarius was seated at her feet; she loaded him with reproaches, and immediately a subdeacon tore the pall off his shoulders. He was then carried into another room, stripped of all his pontifical ornaments, and clothed with the habit of a monk. After this it was proclaimed that the pope was deposed, and become a monk. Belisarius the next day caused Vigilius to be chosen pope and he was ordained on the 22d of November, 537. In the mean time Silverius was conducted into banishment to Patara in Lycia. The bishop of that city received the illustrious exile with all possible marks of honor and respect; and thinking himself bound to undertake his defence, soon after the pope’s arrival repaired to Constantinople, and having obtained a private audience, spoke boldly to the emperor, terrifying him with the threats of the divine judgments for the expulsion of a bishop of so great a see, telling him—“There are many kings in the world, but there is only one pope over the church of the whole world.”* It must be observed that these were the words of an oriental bishop, and a clear confession of the supremacy of the Roman see. Justinian, who had not been sufficiently apprized of the matter, appeared startled at the atrocity of the proceedings, and gave orders that Silverius should be sent back to Rome, and in case he was not convicted of the treasonable intelligence with the Goths, that he should be restored to his see but if found guilty, should be removed to some other see. Belisarius and Vigilius were uneasy at this news, and foreseeing that if the order of the emperor was carried into execution, the consequence would necessarily be the restoration of Silverius to his dignity, they contrived to prevent it, and the pope was intercepted in his road towards Rome. His enemies saw themselves again masters of his person, and Antonina resolving at any rate to gratify the empress, prevailed with Belisarius to deliver up the pope to Vigilius, with full power to secure him as he should think fit. The ambitious rival put him into the hands of two of his officers, called the defenders of the church, who conveyed him into the little inhospitable island of Palmaria, now called Palmeruelo, over against Terracina, and near two other abandoned desert islands, the one called Pontia, now Ponza, and the other Pandataria, now Vento Tiene. In this place Silverius died in a short time of hard usage; Liberatus, from hearsay, tells us of hunger but Procopius, a living witness, says he was murdered, at the instigation of Antonina, by one Eugenia, a woman devoted to their service. The death of pope Silverius happened on the 20th of June, 538. Vigilius was an ambitious intruder and a schismatic so long as St. Silverius lived; but after his death became lawful pope by the ratification or consent of the Roman church, and from that time renounced the errors and commerce of the heretics. He afterwards suffered much for his steadfast adherence to the truth; and though he entered as a mercenary and a wolf, he became the support of the orthodox faith.

The providence of God in the protection of his church never appears more visible than when he suffers tyrants or scandals seemingly almost to overwhelm it. Then does he most miraculously interpose in its defence to show that nothing can make void his promises. Neither scandals nor persecutions can make his word fail, or overcome the church which he planted at so dear a rate. He will never suffer the devil to wrest out of his hands the inheritance which his Father gave him, and that kingdom which it cost him his most precious blood to establish, that his Father might always have true adorers on earth, by whom his name shall be forever glorified. In the tenth century, by the power and intrigues of Marozia, wife to Guy, marquis of Tuscany, and her mother and sister, both called Theodora, three women of scandalous lives, several unworthy popes were intruded into the apostolic chair, and ignorance and scandals gained ground in some parts. Yet at that very time many churches were blessed with pastors of eminent sanctity, and many saints preached penance with wonderful success; nor did any considerable heresy arise in all that century. Pride, indeed, and a conceit of learning, are the usual source of that mischief. But this constant conservation of the church can only be ascribed to the singular protection of God, who watches over his church, that it never fail.

JUNE 20 — ST. GOBAIN, PRIEST AND MARTYR

Having served God from his childhood in Ireland, his own country, and being there ordained priest by St. Fursey, he passed into France soon after that holy man, out of a desire more perfectly to consecrate himself to God. He made a short stay at Corbeny, before the abbey was there erected, and afterwards at Laon. Thence he withdrew into the great forest near the river Oise, where at the distance of two leagues from that river, and as far from Le Fere and Premontré, he built himself a cell, and afterwards, with the help of the people, a stately church, which was consecrated under the patronage of St. Peter, but long since bears the name of St. Gobain. King Clotaire III., who reigned in Neustria and Burgundy from the year 656 to 670, had bestowed on him the ground, and continued exceedingly to honor him. Here the saint served God in watching, fasting, and prayer, till certain barbarians from the north of Germany plundering that country, out of hatred to his holy profession, cut off his head. The place was first called Le Mont d’Hermitage, now St. Gobain, and is famous for the manufacture of large crystal glasses, which are not blown, but run, and afterwards sent to Paris by the river to be polished and finished. The body of St. Gobain was lost during the civil wars raised by the Calvinists, but his head is still kept there in the great church. See the ancient lessons of his office, and the remarks of Papebroke, Junij, t. 4, p. 21.

JUNE 20 — ST. IDABERGA, OR EDBURGE, V

The family of Penda, king of Mercia, an obstinate enemy to the name of Christ, gave to the English church several saints. One of these was St. Edburge, daughter to that prince. Her three holy sisters, Kunneberga, wife to Alfred, king of the Northumbers, (though she preferred a cloister to his royal bed,) Kineswithe, and Chinesdre, consecrated their virginity to God, and embraced a religious state at Dormundescastre, called by Leland Kuneburceaster, and often Caister, a monastery in Northamptonshire, founded in the seventh century:* Leland1 calls St. Kunneberga the foundress and first abbess. Capgrave only says, that a monastery being built here, she retired into it, and became abbess. Mention is made of this house as already built in the account of the foundation of Peterburgh, which was begun by Penda, son of Penda, about the year 655, and finished in 660 by his brother Wolphere, assisted by his other brother Ethelred, and his sisters Kunneberga and Kineswithe, under the care of Saxulph, the first abbot. St. Edburge seems to have made her religious profession at Dormundescastre; at least she was buried, and her relics kept there with veneration, till, with those of her three sisters, they were translated to Peterburgh, two miles distant. Balger, a monk, conveyed them, with part of the relics of St. Oswald, into Flanders, about the year 1040, and deposited them in the abbey of Berg St. Winox, probably by the authority of Hardecanute, king of England, who was son of Emma, had lived some time in Flanders in his youth, and perhaps contracted an intimacy with Balger at Bruges. The relics of St. Oswald, St. Idaberge, and St. Lewin were lost in a great fire at the abbey of Berg St. Winox in 1558. Yet an inscription there informs us that some of their dust still remains in the tomb. See Bolland., Henschenius, and Papebroke, t. 4, Junij, p. 29.

JUNE 20 — ST. BAIN, BISHOP OF TEROUANNE, (NOW ST OMER,) AND ABBOT OF ST. VANDRILLE’S

He was fifth bishop of that see, to which he was promoted before the middle of the fifth century. Merville, where St. Mauront had built his monastery of Breüil, being in the diocese of Terouanne, St. Bain translated thence the body of St. Amatus, to the church which St. Mauront had lately built at Douay.1 When SS. Luglius and Luglianus, two Irish hermits, had been murdered by highwaymen in this diocese, St. Bain buried them with great honor in the chapel of his castle at Lilleres, where they are honored as patrons of the town on the 23d of October. Solitude, “which nourishes prayer as a mother does her child,” as St. John Damascen says, being always the ruling inclination of our saint, he resigned his bishopric, and retiring to the abbey of Fontenelle, or St. Vandrille’s in Normandy, put on the monastic habit, as he was already possessed perfectly of the spirit, and some time after was chosen the fifth abbot of that house from St. Wandrille, in 170. Out of his great devotion to the relics of the saints, he translated the bodies of St. Wandrille, Ansbert, and Wolfgran, or Wulfran, out of the chapel of St. Paul, built by St. Vandrille for the burial-place, into the great church of St. Peter, in which the monks celebrated the divine mysteries. Pepin, duke of the French, having founded or considerably augmented the abbey of Fleury, now called St. Bennet’s on the Loire, situated nine leagues above Orleans, he committed the same to the direction of St. Bain, in 706. The saint died about the year 711, and is honored on the 20th of June at St. Vandrille’s, and in the Gallican Martyrologies. See the Chronicle of Fontenelle, the essons for his festival, Papebroke, more exact than Mabillon whom he corrects, t. 4, Junij, p. 27.

JUNE 21 — ST ALOYSIUS, OR LEWIS GONZAGA, CONFESSOR

From his life, written in the most authentic manner by F. Ceparius, his master of novices. See also other memoirs collected by Janning the Bollandist, Junij, t. 4, p. 847, ad p. 1169, and his life in French by F. Orleans.

A. D. 1591

ALOYSIUS GONZAGA was son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, prince of the holy empire, and marquis of Castiglione, removed in the third degree of kindred from the duke of Mantua. His mother was Martha Tana Santena, daughter of Tanus Santena, lord of Cherry, in Piemont. She was lady of honor to Isabel, the wife of Philip II. of Spain, in whose court the marquis Gonzaga also lived in great favor. When she understood this nobleman had asked her in marriage both of the king and queen, and of her friends in Italy, being a lady of remarkable piety, she spent her time in fasting and prayer in order to learn the will of heaven, and to draw down upon herself the divine blessing. The marriage was solemnized in the most devout manner, the parties at the same time performing their devotions for the jubilee. When they left the court and returned into Italy, the marquis was declared chamberlain to his majesty, and general of part of the army in Lombardy, with a grant of several estates. The marchioness made it her earnest petition to God that he would bless her with a son, who should devote himself entirely to his love and service. Our saint was born in the castle of Castiglione, in the diocese of Brescia, on the 9th of March, 1568. William, duke of Mantua, stood godfather, and gave him the name of Aloysius. The holy names of Jesus and Mary, with the sign of the cross and part of the catechism, were the first words which his devout mother taught him as soon as he was able to speak; and from her example and repeated instructions the deepest sentiments of religion, and the fear of God were impressed upon his tender soul. Even in his infancy he showed an extraordinary tenderness for the poor; and such was his devotion that he frequently hid himself in corners, where after long search he was always found at his prayers, in which so amiable was his piety, and so heavenly did his recollection appear, that he seemed to resemble an angel clothed with a human body. His father designing to train him up to the army, in order to give him an inclination to that state, furnished him with little guns, and other weapons, took him to Casal to show him a muster of three thousand Italian foot, and was much delighted to see him carry a little pike, and walk before the ranks. The child stayed there some months, during which time he learned from the officers certain unbecoming words, the meaning of which he did not understand, not being then seven years old. But his tutor hearing him use bad words, chid him for it, and from that time he could never bear the company of any persons who in his hearing ever profaned the holy name of God. This offence, though excusable by his want of age and knowledge, was to him during his whole life a subject of perpetual humiliation, and he never ceased to bewail and accuse himself of it with extreme confusion and compunction. Entering the seventh year of his age he began to conceive greater sentiments of piety, and from that time he used to date his conversion to God. At that age, being come back to Castiglione, he began to recite every day the office of our Lady, the seven penitential psalms, and other prayers, which he always said on his knees, and without a cushion; a custom which he observed all his life. Cardinal Bellarmin, three other confessors, and all who were best acquainted with his interior, declared after his death their firm persuasion, that he had never offended God mortally in his whole life. He was sick of an ague at Castiglione eighteen months; yet never omitted his task of daily prayers, though he sometimes desired some of his servants to recite them with him.

When he was recovered, being now eight years old, his father placed him and his younger brother Ralph, in the polite court of his good friend Francis of Medicis, grand duke of Tuscany, that they might learn the Latin and Tuscan languages, and other exercises suitable to their rank. At Florence the saint made such progress in the science of the saints that he afterwards used to call that city the mother of his piety. His devotion to the Blessed Virgin was much inflamed by reading a little book of Gaspar Loartes on the mysteries of the Rosary. He at the same time conceived a great esteem for the virtue of holy chastity; and he received of God so perfect a gift of the same, that in his whole life he never felt the least temptation either in mind or body against purity, as Jerom Platus and cardinal Bellarmin assure us from his own mouth. He cultivated this extraordinary grace by assiduous prayer, universal mortification, and the most watchful flight of all occasions; being well apprized that this virtue is so infinitely tender, that it fades and dies if blown upon by the least vapor: and that it is a bright and clear mirror which is tarnished with the least breath, and even by the sight. He never looked at any woman, kept his eyes strictly guarded, and generally cast down; would never stay with his mother alone in her chamber, and if she sent any message to him by some lady in her company, he received it, and gave his answer in a few words, with his eyes shut, and his chamber-door only half open; and when bantered on that score, he ascribed such behavior to his bashfulness. It was owing to his virginal modesty, that he did not know by their faces many ladies among his own relations, with whom he had frequently conversed, and that he was afraid and ashamed to let a footman see so much as his foot uncovered. But humility, which is the mother of all virtues, was in our saint the guardian of his purity. He never spoke to his servants by way of command, but with such modesty that they were ashamed not to obey. He would only say to them: “Pray dispatch this or that· You may do this:” or, “If it be no trouble you may do this or that.” No novice could practise a more exact and ready obedience than Aloysius set an example of towards all his superiors, especially Francis Tuccius, whom his father had appointed tutor to his sons, and governor of their family at Florence.

The two young princes had stayed there a little more than two years, when their father removed them to Mantua, and placed them in the court of the duke William Gonzaga, who had made him governor of Montserrat Aloysius left Florence in November, 1579, when he was eleven years and eight months old. He at that time took a resolution to resign to his brother Ralph his title to the marquisate at Castiglione, though he had already received the investiture from the emperor. And the ambitious or covetous man is not more greedy of honors or riches than this young prince from a better principle appeared desirous to see himself totally disengaged from the ties of the world, by entirely renouncing its false pleasures, which begin with uneasiness, and terminate in remorse, and are no better than real pains covered over with a bewitching varnish. He knew the true delights which virtue brings, which are solid without alloy, and capable of filling the capacity of man’s heart, and these he thirsted after. In the mean time he fell sick of an obstinate retention of urine, of which distemper he cured himself only by the rigorous rules of abstinence which he observed. He took the opportunity of this indisposition to rid himself more than ever of company and business, seldom going abroad, and spending most of his time in reading Surius’s Lives of Saints, and other books of piety and devotion. It being the custom in Italy and other hot climates to pass the summer months in the country, the marquis sent for his sons from Mantua to Castiglione in that season. Aloysius pursued the same exercises, and the same manner of life in the town, at court, and in the country. The servants, who watched him in his chamber, saw him employed in prayer many hours together, sometimes prostrate on the ground before a crucifix, or standing up, absorbed in God so as to appear in an ecstasy. When he went down stairs, they took notice that at every standing-place he said a Hail Mary. It was in this retirement that his mind was exceedingly enlightened by God, and without the help of any instructor he received an extraordinary gift of mental prayer, to which his great purity of heart and sincere humility disposed his soul. He sometimes passed whole days in contemplating, with inexpressible sweetness and devotion, the admirable dispensations of divine providence in the great mysteries of our redemption, especially the infinite goodness and love of God, his mercy, and other attributes. In this exercise he was not able to contain the spiritual joy of his soul in considering the greatness and goodness of his God, nor to moderate his tears. Falling at last on a little book of father Canisius, which treated of Meditation, and on certain letters of the Jesuit missionaries in the Indies, he felt a strong inclination to enter the Society of Jesus, and was inflamed with an ardent zeal for the salvation of souls. He began even then to frequent the schools of Christian Doctrine, and to encourage other boys, especially among the poor, in learning their catechism, and often instructed them himself. So excellently did he then discourse of God as astonished grown persons of learning and abilities. It happened that in 1580 St. Charles Borromeo came to Brescia in quality of apostolic visiter, and preached there on the feast of Mary Magdalen. No importunities of the marquis or other princes could prevail upon that great saint to visit them at their country-seats, or to take up his lodgings anywhere but with the clergy of the churches where he came. Wherefore Aloysius, being only twelve years old, went to Brescia to receive his blessing. It is incredible how much the good cardinal was taken with the piety and generous sentiments of the young prince. But finding that he had never yet received the holy communion, he exhorted him to prepare himself for that divine sacrament, and to receive it very frequently; prescribing him rules for his devout preparation, and with regard to many other practices of piety; all which the holy youth constantly observed, remembering ever after with wonderful joy the happiness of having seen so great a saint. He from that time conceived so tender a devotion to the blessed eucharist, that in hearing mass, after the consecration, he often melted into tears, in profound sentiments of love and adoration; and he frequently received wonderful favors in communicating; and this holy sacrament became his greatest comfort and joy. The marquis after this carried his whole family to Casal, the residence of his government of Montferrat. There the saint made the convents of the Capuchins and Barnabites the usual places of his resort. He fasted three days a week, Fridays at least on bread and water, boiled together for his whole dinner; his collation was a little piece of dry bread. On other days his meals were so slender that his life seemed almost a miracle. He secretly thrust a board into his bed to rest on in the night, and rose at midnight to pray even in the coldest season of winter, which is very sharp under the Alps. He spent an hour after rising, and two hours before going to bed in private prayer.

In 1581, his father attended the empress Mary of Austria, wife to Maximilian II. and sister to Philip II. of Spain, in her journey from Bohemia to Spain, and took with him his three children; a daughter named Isabel who died in Spain, and his two sons, who were both made by king Philip pages to his son James, elder brother to Philip III. Aloysius was then thirteen years and a half old. He continued his studies, but never neglected his long meditations and devotions, which he often performed by stealth in secret corners. Though he every day waited on the infant of Spain, James, to pay his duty to the empress, he never once looked on the face of that princess, or took notice of her person; and so great was his guard over all his senses and so universal his spirit of mortification, that it was a proverb at court, that the young marquis of Castiglione seemed not to be made of flesh and blood. While he remained in Spain he found great pleasure and benefit in reading Lewis of Granada’s excellent book on Mental Prayer. He prescribed himself a daily task of an hour’s meditation, which he often prolonged to three, four, or five hours. He at length determined to enter into the Society of Jesus, in order to devote himself to the instructing and conducting souls to God; and he was confirmed in this resolution by his confessor, who was one of that order. When he disclosed it to his parents, his mother rejoiced exceedingly; but his father, in excessive grief and rage, said he would have him scourged naked. “O that it would please God,” replied modestly the holy youth, “to grant me so great a favor as to suffer that for his love.” What heightened the father’s indignation, was a suspicion that this was a contrivance on account of his custom of gaming, by which he had lately lost six hundred crowns in one evening; a vice which his son bitterly deplored, not so much, as he used to say, for the loss of the money, as for the injury done to God. However, the consent of the marquis was at length extorted through the mediation of friends. The infant or prince of Spain dying of a fever. Aloysius was at liberty, and after two years’ stay in Spain, returned to Italy in July, 1584, on board the galleys of the famous John Andrew Doria, whom his Catholic majesty had lately appointed admiral. His brother travelled in rich apparel, but the saint in a suit of black Flanders serge. In his journey he either conversed on holy things, or entertained himself secretly in his heart with God. As soon as he came to an inn he sought some private little chamber, and fell to prayer on his knees. In visiting religious houses he went first to the church, and prayed some time before the blessed sacrament. When he had arrived at Castiglione he had new assaults to bear, from the eloquence and authority of a cardinal, many bishops, and eminent men, employed by the duke of Mantua and his own uncles; yet he remained firm, and brought over some of these ambassadors to his side, so that they pleaded in his favor. But his father flew back from his consent, loaded his son with opprobrious language, and employed him in many distracting secular commissions. The saint had recourse to God by prostrating himself before a crucifix, and redoubling his severities, till the marquis, no longer able to oppose his design, cordially embraced him, and recommended him to Claudius Aquaviva, general of the society, who appointed Rome for the place of his novitiate. The father repented again of his consent, and detained his son nine months at Milan, during which time he used the most tender entreaties, and every other method to bring him from his purpose. He again removed him to Mantua, and thence to Castiglione: but finding his resolution invincible, left him at liberty, saying to him: “Dear son, your choice is a deep wound in my heart. I ever loved you, as you always deserved. In you I had founded the hopes of my family, but you tell me God calls you another way. Go therefore, in his name, whither you please, and may his blessing everywhere attend you.” Aloysius, having thanked him, withdrew, that he might not increase his grief by his presence, and betook himself to his prayers. His cession of the marquisate to his brother Ralph, with the reserve of two thousand crowns in ready money, and four hundred crowns a year for life, was ratified by the emperor, and the writings were delivered at Mantua, in November, 1585. The excessive grief and tears of his subjects and vassals at his departure, only drew from him these words: “That he sought nothing but the salvation of his soul, and exhorted them all to the same.” Arriving at Rome, he visited the churches and chief places of devotion, then kissed the feet of pope Sixtus V., and entered his novitiate at St. Andrew’s, on the 25th of November, 1585, not being completely eighteen years old. Being conducted to his cell, he entered it as a celestial paradise, in which he was to have no other employment than that of praising God without interruption; and exulting in his heart, he repeated with the prophet: This is my rest forever: here will I dwell, for I have chosen it.

The saint in his noviceship condemned himself as guilty of sloth if he did not in every religious duty surpass in fervor all his companions; he respected them all, and he behaved himself towards them as if he had been the last person in the family, and indeed such he always reputed himself. He loved and rejoiced most in the meanest and most contemptible employments. His mortifications, though great, were not so severe as he had practised in the world, because limited by obedience, which gave a merit to all his actions. He used to say that a religious state in this resembles a ship, in which they sail as fast who sit idle, as they who sweat at the oar in rowing. Yet such was the general mortification of his senses, that he seemed totally inattentive to exterior things, only inasmuch as they regarded God. He never took notice of the difference of villas where he had been, the order of the refectory in which he every day ate, or the rich ornaments of the chapels and altars where he prayed. He seemed entirely inattentive to the taste of what he ate, only he endeavored to avoid whatever seemed savory. He never listened to reports or to discourse about worldly matters: spoke very little, and never about himself, thinking himself justly deserving to be forgotten by the whole world, and to be made no account of in every thing. He was a capital enemy to any artifice or dissimulation, which he called the bane and canker of Christian simplicity. Nothing gave him so much mortification as the least marks of honor or distinction. It was his delight to carry a wallet through the streets of Rome begging from door to door, to serve the poor and the hospitals, or to sweep the kitchen, and carry away the filth; in which actions he usually had before his eyes Christ humbled for us. On holidays he used to catechise the children of poor laborers. He changed his new gilt breviary for an old one, and often did so in his habit and other things. His whole life seemed a continued prayer and he called holy meditation the short way to Christian perfection. He found in that exercise the greatest spiritual delights, and remained in it on his knees, as if he were motionless, in a posture of wonderful recollection and respect. It is not possible to describe the sweet raptures and abundant tears which often accompanied his devotion, especially in presence of the blessed eucharist, and after communicating. He spent the three first days after communion in thanksgiving for that inestimable favor; and the three following in languishing aspirations and desires to receive on the Sunday his Saviour, his God, his Physician, his King, and his Spouse: on the eve of his communion his mind was wholly taken up with the dignity and infinite importance and advantages of that great action, nor could he speak of any thing else. Such was the fire of his words whenever he spoke on that mystery of love, that it inflamed all who heard him. He made every day at least four regular visits to pray before the blessed sacrament. The passion of Christ was also a most tender object of his devotion. From his infancy he had chosen the Blessed Virgin for his special patroness and advocate. He had a singular devotion to the holy angels, especially his angel guardian. In the beginning of his noviceship he was tried by an extreme spiritual dryness and interior desolation of soul, which served perfectly to purify his heart, and was succeeded by the greatest heavenly consolations. He bore the pious death of his father with unshaken constancy, because he considered it and all other events purely in the view of the divine will and providence. It happened six weeks after Aloysius had taken the habit. From the day on which his son had left him to enter the society, the marquis had entirely devoted himself to the practice of perfect virtue and penance.

Humility and obedience were the young novice’s favorite virtues, and by them he gained a perfect mastery over himself. To appear poor, little, and contemptible, was his delight, and he rejoiced to see the last and worst portion in any thing fall to his share. He was never known guilty of the least transgression of the rule of silence or any other, and feared to arrive one moment too late at any duty. He would not, without the leave of his master, speak one word even to his kinsman, cardinal Roborei; nor would he ever stay with him so long as to fail one minute in any rule. It happened that the pious and learned Jerom Platus, while he was his master of novices, thinking his perpetual application to prayer and study prejudicial to his health, ordered him to spend, in conversing with others after dinner, no, only the hour allotted for all, but also the half hour longer which is allowed to those who dined at the second table. Father minister not knowing this order punished him for it, and obliged him publicly to confess his fault, which he underwent without offering any excuse. The minister learning afterwards how the matter was, admired very much his silence, but for his greater merit enjoined him another penalty for not telling him the order of his master. The saint bore in silence and joy the imputation and chastisement of the faults of any others, because this afforded him an opportunity of exercising patience, meekness, and humility. By a habit of continual application of his mind to God, attention at prayer seemed so easy and natural to him, that he told his superior, who put to him that question, that if all the involuntary distractions at his devotions during six months were joined together, they would not amount to the space of one Hail Mary. His health decaying, he was forbid to meditate or pray, except at regular times. This he found the hardest task of his whole life; so great a struggle did it cost him to resist the impulse with which his heart was carried towards God. For the recovery of his health he was sent to Naples, where he stayed half a year, and then returned to Rome. In that city, after completing his novitiate of two years, he made his religious vows on the 20th of November, 1587, and soon after received minor orders.

Aloysius had finished his logic while a page in the Spanish court, and his course of natural philosophy during his nine months’ stay at Milan. After this he commenced student in divinity under Gabriel Vasquez, and other celebrated professors. But a family contest obliged him to interrupt his studies. His uncle, Horatio Gonzaga, died without issue, and bequeathed by will his estate of Sulphurino to the duke of Mantua. Ralph, the saint’s brother, pleaded that the donation was invalid, the estate being a fief of the empire, which inalienably devolves on the next heir in blood, and he obtained a rescript of the emperor Maximilian in his favor. But the duke refused to acquiesce in this sentence; and the archduke Ferdinand and several other princes had in vain attempted to reconcile the two cousins. At length St. Aloysius was sent for to be the mediator of peace. He had then just finished his second year of divinity, and was at the Jesuits’ villa at Frescati during the vacation, when father Robert Bellarmin brought him an order from the general to repair to Mantua about this affair. A discreet lay-brother was appointed to be his companion, to whom a charge was given to take care of his health, with an order to Aloysius to obey him as to that particular. Most edifying were the examples of his profound humility mortification, love of poverty, and devotion, and incredible the fruits of his zeal, both on the road, and at Mantua, Castiglione, and other places where he went. Though both parties were exceedingly exasperated, no sooner did this angel of peace appear, than they were perfectly reconciled. The luke, though before much incensed, was entirely disarmed by the sight and moving discourse of the saint; he readily pardoned, and yielded up the estate to the marquis, who as easily consented to bury in oblivion all that had passed, and the two cousins made a sincere and strict alliance and friendship together. Many others who were at variance, or at law, were in the same manner made friends by the means of the saint’s friendly interposing. No enmity seemed able to withstand the spirit of meekness and charity which his words and whole deportment breathed. Great numbers were by him converted from sinful habits, and many brought to a profession of perfect virtue. His brother Ralph had fallen in love with a young gentlewoman, much inferior to him in birth, and had secretly married her before private witnesses, but durst not publish his marriage for fear of offending his uncle, Alphonsus Gonzaga, lord of Castle-Godfrey, whose heir he was to be. The saint represented to him that by such a conduct, notwithstanding his precaution, he offended God by the scandal he gave to his subjects and others, who looked upon his behavior as criminal. He, moreover, undertook to satisfy his uncle, mother, and other friends, and thus engaged him publicly to declare his marriage, and the uncle and others, through the saint’s mediation, took no offence at the alliance. Aloysius having happily restored peace among all his relations, and settled them in the practice of true virtue, by the direction of his superiors went to Milan on the 22d of March, 1590, there to pursue his theological studies. These he accompanied with his usual exercises of devotion, and all virtues, especially humility, to nourish and improve which in his heart, he embraced every kind of humiliation. He often begged to serve in the kitchen and refectory, and it was his delight to draw water for the cook, wash the dishes, cover the table, or sweep the scullery. While he was at Milan, one day in his morning prayer he was favored with a revelation, that he had only a short time to live. And by this heavenly visitation he found his mind wonderfully changed, and more than ever weaned from all transitory things. This favor he afterwards disclosed at Rome, in great simplicity, to F. Vincent Bruno and others. The general would not suffer him to finish his studies at Milan, but recalled him to Rome in November the same year, to perform there the fourth or last year of his theological course. The saint chose a dark and very small chamber over the staircase in the garret, with one window in the roof; nor had he in it any other furniture than a poor bed, a wooden chair, and a little stool to lay his books upon. He appeared even in the schools and cloisters quite absorbed in God, and often at table, or with his companions at recreation time after dinner, he fell into ecstasies, and appeared unable to contain the excessive heavenly joy with which his soul overflowed. He frequently spoke in raptures on the happiness of dying, the more speedily to enjoy God.

In 1591 an epidemical distemper swept off great multitudes in Rome. In this public distress the fathers of the society erected a new hospital, in which the general himself, with other assistants, served the sick. Aloysius obtained by earnest entreaties to be one of this number. He catechised and exhorted the poor patients, washed their feet, made their beds, changed their clothes, and performed, with wonderful assiduity and tenderness, the most painful and loathsome offices of the hospital. The distemper being pestilential and contagious, several of these fathers died martyrs of charity, and Aloysius fell sick. It was on the 3d of March, 1591, that he took to his bed: at which time he was overwhelmed with excessive joy at the thought that he was called to go to his God. This joy gave him afterwards a scruple whether it was not immoderate. But his confessor, who was the famous cardinal Bellarmin, comforted him, saying, that it is not an unusual grace to desire death, not out of impatience, but to be united to God. The pestilential fever in seven days became so violent, that the saint received the viaticum and extreme unction. However, he recovered; but from the relics of this distemper succeeded a hectic fever, which in three months reduced him to an excessive weakness. He studied to add continual mortifications to the pains of his disease, and rose in the night to pray before a crucifix, till being caught by the infirmarian, he was forbid doing so for the future; which direction he punctually obeyed. The physicians having ordered him and another sick brother to take a very bitter draught, the other drank it at once with the ordinary helps to qualify the bitterness of the taste; but Aloysius sipped it slowly, and as it were drop by drop, that he might have the longer and fuller taste of what was mortifying; nor did he give the least sign of perceiving any disagreeable taste. After speaking with father Bellarmin on the happiness of speedily enjoying God, he fell into a rapture through excess of inward delights, and it continued almost the whole night, which seemed to him in the morning to have been but one moment, as he told F. Bellarmin. It seems to have been in this ecstasy that he learned he should die on the Octave day of Corpus-Christi, which he often clearly foretold. In thanksgiving for his death being so near, he desired one to recite with him the Te Deum; with which request the other complied. To another he cried out, his heart exulting with joy,—“My father, we go rejoicing! we go rejoicing!” He said every evening the seven penitential psalms with another person, in great compunction. On the Octave day, he seemed better, and the rector had thoughts of sending him to Frescati. But he repeated still that he should die before next morning, and he received the viaticum and extreme-unction. At night he was thought to be in no immediate danger, and was left with two brothers to watch by him. These, about midnight, perceived on a sudden, by a wanness and violent sweat with which he was seized, that he was falling into his agony. His most usual aspirations during his illness were the ardent languishings of a soul aspiring to God, extracted from the psalms. After saying,—“Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” he frequently repeated the holy name of Jesus; with which sacred word he expired a little after midnight between the 20th and 21st days of June, the Octave of Corpus-Christi that year, 1591, being twenty-three years, three months, and eleven days old, of which he had lived five years and almost seven months in the society. He was buried in the church of the Annunciation, belonging to the Jesuits of the Roman college. A rich chapel being afterwards built in that church under his name, by the marquis Scipio Lancelotti, his relics were translated into it. St. Aloysius was beatified by Gregory XV. in 1621, and canonized by Benedict XIII. in 1726. Ceparius gives a history of many miracles wrought through the intercession and by the relics of this saint, several being cures of noblemen and eminent prelates. A much more ample history of his miracles may be read in Janning the Bollandist, in an appendix to the life of St. Aloysius.

When we see a young prince, the darling of his family and country, sacrifice nobility, sovereignty, riches, and pleasures, the more easily to secure the treasure of divine love, and of eternal happiness, how ought we to condemn our own sloth, who live as if heaven were to cost us nothing!

JUNE 21 — ST. RALPH, ARCHBISHOP OF BOURGES, C

He was of the royal blood of France, being son of the count of Cahors, and lord of Turenne. Making Christ his only inheritance, he took the monastic habit in 822; and was made archbishop of Bourges in 840. He founded seven monasteries, and was indefatigable in reforming the manners of his flock. For the direction of his clergy he compiled a book of canons under the title of Pastoral Instructions, published by Baluze in his miscellanies.1 He died on the 21st of June, 866. See Ado in Martyr. Mabillon, Act. Bened. t. 6, p. 184. Ceillier, t. 19, p. 133.

JUNE 21 — ST. MEEN, IN LATIN MEVENNUS, ALSO MELANUS, ABBOT IN BRITTANY

His eminent virtues, his wonderful miracles, his monastery, and his tomb famous for the devotion of the pilgrims who visit it, have rendered his name most illustrious among the saints in that country. In the legend of his life he is usually called Conard-Meen. He was born of a rich and noble family, in the province of Gwent in South Wales, and is said to have been related by the mother to Saint Magloire and St. Samson: he was at least a disciple of the latter, whom he accompanied into Brittany in France, and was employed by him in preaching to the people, of which commission he acquitted himself with admirable zeal and success. A certain count named Caduon having bestowed on him lands on each side of the river Meu, in order to found there a monastery, and Guerech I., count of Vannes, having also declared himself the protector of this religious undertaking, to which he became a munificent benefactor, St. Samson appointed St. Meen, about the year 550. This was the origin of the abbey of St. John Baptist of Gael, now called St. Meen’s, in the diocese of St. Malo, about nine leagues from Rennes. Such was the reputation of the sanctity of this holy abbot, and of the regularity of this house, that when Judicael, king of Domnone, renounced the world in the twenty-second year of his age, St. Meen had the honor of giving the monastic habit to his sovereign, probably about the year 616. The saint founded another monastery near the Loire, not far from Angers, which he peopled from that of Gaël, and which he often visited. Great numbers were moved by his example and exhortations to shun the troubled ocean of the world, covered with shipwrecks, by flying out of it, that they might steer a more secure course, and convey the goods they got in their voyage safe into port. St. Meen died at Gaël about the year 617. His tomb is frequented by crowds, and many wonderful cures are there wrought, especially of the itch and scab, and other like cutaneous distempers, to which a mineral well, which bears the name of this saint, and in which the patients bathe, seems greatly to contribute. His relics in the wars of the Normans were conveyed to the great abbey of St. Florent, a quarter of a league from Saumur; though a part remains at St. Meen’s. This abbey of St. Meen was converted into a seminary, and given to the Lazarists, or priests of the mission, in 1640. St. Meen is invoked in the English litany of the seventh century, and in the old missal used in England before the Conquest. The calendars of the chief dioceses of Brittany prescribe his festival to be kept with great solemnity on the 21st of June See Lobineau, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, p. 140.

JUNE 21 — ST. AARON, ABBOT IN BRITTANY

In the sixth century, when St. Malo came into France, Aaron was abbot of a monastery in an island separated from the city of Aleth in Armorica by an arm of the sea, which the tide at low water left dry twice a day. This holy man gave St. Malo a welcome reception, such as one of his character could not fail to meet with wherever virtue was esteemed. St. Aaron shared with that holy pastor the glory of his apostleship, and his feast is kept in that diocese with the solemnity of a Lesser Double on the 22d of June. A parish church in the diocese of St. Brieuc bears his name. The island in which his monastery stood was called from him the isle of Aaron, till, in 1150, John, surnamed de la Grille, bishop of Aleth, translated his see from that city into the church of St. Malo, in this island, which before belonged to a monastery there. Aleth was deserted by its inhabitants, and the town of St. Malo, which fills the whole island of Aaron, arose in its place. See Dom. Morice, Hist. de Bretagne, and Lobineau, Hist. de Bret et Vies des Saints, p. 120.

JUNE 21 — ST. EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF SAMOSATA, MARTYR

The city of Samosata, capital of Comagene in Syria, now called Sempsat, was an ancient episcopal see under the metropolitan of Hieropolis. By an appointment of the divine providence, St. Eusebius was placed in this see at a time when most of the neighboring bishoprics were occupied by Arians, in 361. In the same year he was present in a council at Antioch, composed chiefly of Arians, while the emperor Constantius was in that city. St. Eusebius concurred strenuously to the election of St. Meletius, patriarch of Antioch, being well assured of his zeal for the orthodox faith. Such was the opinion which the Arians themselves entertained of Eusebius’s virtue, that though they knew him to be an irreconcilable enemy to their heresy, they placed an entire confidence in his probity. On this account, they intrusted in his hands the synodal act of the election of St. Meletius. A few days after, being provoked at the vigor with which Meletius preached the faith of the Nicene council in his first discourse to his people, they sought to set him aside, and at their instigation Constantius sent an officer to extort out of the hands of St. Eusebius the act of his election. The saint answered he could not surrender it without the consent of all the parties concerned in it. The officer threatened to cause his right hand to be cut off if he refused to comply with the emperor’s orders. The saint stretched out not only his right, but also his left hand, saying he might cut them both off: but that he would never concur to an unjust action. Both the officer and the emperor admired his heroic virtue, and highly commended an action which thwarted their favorite projects. For some time St. Eusebius refused not to assist at the councils and conferences of the Arians, in order to maintain the truth. But finding this conduct gave scandal to some, he broke off all commerce with thom in ecclesiastical deliberations after the council of Antioch in 363, in the reign of Jovian. In 370 he assisted at the election of St. Basil, archbishop of Cæsarea, and contracted a strict friendship with that great pillar of faith and virtue. So remarkable was the zeal of our saint, and so bright the lustre of his sanctity, that St. Gregory Nazianzen, in a letter which he wrote about that time, styles him the pillar of truth, the light of the world, the instrument of the favors of God on his people, and the support and glory of all the orthodox.

When the persecution of Valens began to rage, St. Eusebius not content to secure his own flock against the poison of heresy, he made several progresses through Syria, Phœnicia, and Palestine, disguised in the dress of an officer, to strengthen the Catholics in the faith, ordain priests where they were wanting, and assist the orthodox bishops in filling vacant sees with worthy pastors. His zeal gave every day some new stroke to the Arian party; so that in 374 Valens sent an order for his banishment into Thrace. The imperial messenger arrived at Samosata in the evening, and signified the emperor’s orders to the bishop, who begged he would keep it secret, saying, “If the people should be apprized, such is their zeal for the faith, that they would rise in arms against you, and your death might be laid to my charge.” The holy bishop celebrated the night office as usual, and when all were gone to rest, walked out with one trusty servant to the Euphrates, which runs under the walls of the city, where, going on board a small vessel, he fell down the river seventy miles to Zeugma. In the morning the people were in an uproar at what had happened, and in an instant the river was covered with boats to search him out. He was overtaken by a great number at Zeugma, who conjured him not to abandon them to the wolves. He was strongly affected, but urging the necessity of obeying exhorted them to confidence in God. They offered him money, slaves clothes, and all kinds of provisions; but he would accept very little, and commending his dear flock to God, pursued his journey to Thrace. The Arians intruded into his chair one Eunomius, not the famous heresiarch of that name, but a man of great moderation. Yet the people universally shunned him, the city-council and the magistrates above the rest; not one of the inhabitants, rich or poor, young or old, of the clergy or laity, would see him, and whether in the church, at home, or in public, he saw himself left alone. Disgusted at his situation, he withdrew and left the people to themselves. The heretics substituted in his place one Lucius, a violent man, who banished the deacon Evoltius to the desert of Oasis, beyond Egypt, a priest named Antiochus into a remote corner of Armenia, and others to other places. Yet he could not gain any over to his interest. The behavior of the people was the same to him as it had been to his predecessor. For an instance of which, it is mentioned, that as he passed one day through a public square where several children were at play, their ball hit the hoof of his mule, and as if it had been defiled, they threw it into the fire. The Goths plundered Thrace in 379, and, to escape their swords, St. Eusebius obtained leave to return to his church, but to crown his sufferings with martyrdom. He appeared no way broken or daunted by his banishment, but seemed more indefatigable than ever in his labors for the church. When the death of Valens had put an end to the persecution in 378, he travelled over great part of the country to procure Catholic bishops to be chosen where the sees were destitute. This he effected at Beræa, Hierapolis, and Cyrus. At Dolicha, a small episcopal city in Comagene, forty-one miles from Samosata, Maris was by his endeavors ordained bishop. The whole town being inhabited by obstinate Arians, St. Eusebius would attend him thither when he went to take possession of his church. An Arian woman seeing him pass in the street, threw a tile from the top of her house upon his head; of which wound he died a few days after, in 379 or 380. In his last moments, in imitation of his divine Master, he bound his friends by oath never to prosecute his murderer or her accomplices. He is honored by the Greeks on the 22d, by the Latins on the 21st of June. See Theodoret,1. 4, c. 13,1. 5, c. 4. St. Greg. Nazianz. ep. 28. Godeau. Eloges des Evêques Illustres, p. 178. Ceillier, t. 6, p. 433.

JUNE 21 — SAINT LEUFREDUS, IN FRENCH LEUFROI, ABBOT

He was a native of the territory of Evreux, and performed his studies partly in the monastery of St. Taurinus at Evreux. Hearing the great sanctity of B. Sidonius, abbot near Rouen, much spoken of, he repaired to him, and received the monastic habit at his hands. By the advice of St. Ansbert, archbishop of Rouen, he returned to his own country, and on a spot two leagues from Evreux, upon the river Eure, where St. Owen had formerly erected a cross and a chapel, he built a monastery in honor of the Cross, which he called the Cross of St. Owen, but it is long since called the Cross of St. Leufroi. Fasting, watching, and prayer were the constant exercises of his whole life, especially during forty years that he governed his monastery.* He died happily after receiving the holy viaticum in 738 and was succeeded in the abbacy by his brother St. Agofroi. In the incursion of the Normans in the ninth century, the monks fled for refuge to the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prez at Paris, carrying with them the relics of St. Owen, St. Turiave, St. Leufroi, and St. Agofroi. When they returned, they left in gratitude for their entertainment those of St. Leufroi and St. Turiave, which still remain in that great abbey. St. Leufroi is named in the Roman Martyrology on the 21st of June, and honored with an office in the new Paris Breviary. See his anonymous life written in the ninth age with the remarks of Mabillon, sæc. 3, Ben. part 1, p. 582, also Usuard, the life of St. Owen, &c.

JUNE 22 — SAINT PAULINUS, BISHOP OF NOLA, C

From his own works, St. Austin, St. Jerom, &c., collected by l’Abbé Le Brun Desmarettes, who died in 1731, in the end of his edition of the works of this father, printed at Paris in 1685, in 2 vols. 8vo., and a Verona in 1736. See also Tillemont, t. 14, p. 1, Ceillier. t. 10, p. 543, and Remondi of the congregation of Somasco, in his second Tome delia Noiaoa Ecclesiastica Storia, in which he gives us the life of Saint Paulinus, with an excellent Italian translation of his works, especially his poems, dedicated to Pope Benedict XIV. at Naples, 1759, in folio.

A. D 431.

PONTIUS MEROPIUS PAULINUS was born at Bourdeaux in 353. In his pedigree, both by the father and mother’s side, was displayed a long line of illustrious senators; and his own father, Pontius Paulinus, was præfectus prætorio in Gaul, the first magistrate in the western empire. But the honors and triumphs of his ancestors were eclipsed by his superior virtues, which rendered him the admiration of his own and all succeeding ages and excited St. Martin, St. Sulpicius Severus, St. Ambrose, St. Austin, St. Jerom, St. Eucherius, St. Gregory of Tours, Apollinaris, Cassidorus, and others to vie with each other in celebrating his heroic actions, and to become the publishers of his praises to the corners of the earth. Besides the pre-eminence of his birth and riches, he received from nature a penetrating and elevated understanding, and an elegant genius, with other excellent accomplishments of mind and body, by which he was qualified for the highest attainments, and seemed born for every thing that is great. These talents he cultivated from his infancy, by the closest application to the study of all the liberal arts, and he acquired the most extensive compass of useful learning. He had for master in poesy and eloquence the famous Ausonius, the first man of his age in those sciences, whose delicacy and wit would have ranked him among the greatest poets, if industry, evenness of style, and the purity of the Augustan age had not been wanting in his writings.* That professor, merely for his literary abilities, was honored by Valentinian with the dignity of præfectus prætorio, and by Gratian, whose preceptor he was, with that of consul. Under such a master Paulinus fully answered the hopes which his friends had conceived of him, and, while young, harangued at the bar with great applause. “Every one,” says St. Jerom,1 “admired the purity and eloquence of his diction, the delicacy and loftiness of his thoughts, the strength and sweetness of his style, and the liveliness of his imagination.” Such were the acquirements of Paulinus in his youth, while a desire of pleasing men yet divided his heart. Probity, integrity, and other moral virtues were endowments of his soul still more admirable than his learning. His merit was soon distinguished by those who had the administration of the state, and by the emperors themselves, by whom he was raised, yet young, to the first dignities, and declared consul before his master Ausonius; consequently before the year 379. He took to wife a Spanish lady of sincere piety, and one of the most accomplished of her sex; her name was Therasia, and she brought him a great estate in land. The prudence, generosity, affability, and other social and religious virtues of the young statesman, attracted veneration and esteem wherever he came, and gained him many friends and clients in Italy, Gaul, and Spain; in all which countries he had displayed his talents during fifteen years in the discharge of various employments and affairs both public and domestic. But God was pleased to open his eyes to see the emptiness of all worldly pursuits, and to inspire him with a more noble and innocent ambition of becoming little for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

The conversation of St. Ambrose at Milan of St. Martin, whom he had met at Vienne, and of St. Delphinus, bishop of Bordeaux, gave him a relish for retirement, and strong sentiments of a more perfect virtue. The last-mentioned holy prelate, being bishop of the native city and most ordinary residence of Paulinus while he remained in the world, made good use of the opportunity which his situation gave him, and being charmed with the saint’s happy dispositions, often spoke to him on the necessity and happiness of giving himself to God without reserve. Paulinus had made some advances in virtue, but was not yet perfect. He was always an enemy to vanity or the love of human applause, than which passion nothing can be more unworthy of virtue, or more beneath a generous soul: though all the heathen philosophers shamefully disgraced their attainments by this base weakness. Tully was not ashamed to boast of it, and Demosthenes was delighted to hear a poor old woman whisper, “This is the great Demosthenes.” Paulinus seemed always raised by his own greatness of soul above this abject passion, and showed that geniuses which are truly great, are superior to their own abilities. But still he found how difficult a task it is for a man to preserve a perfect disengagement and purity of heart in the midst of worldly honors and blandishments, and to stand his ground against the incitements of the softer passions. While every thing goads him on, and his senses and his own heart betray him, to shield his soul from the penetrating caresses of pleasures must be little short of a continued miracle. Moreover, by serious meditation on the vanities of the world, Paulinus had possessed his mind with a sincere conviction that its pleasures are empty, treacherous, and fraught with deadly poison. Certain shocks which he felt in his fortune through revolutions that happened in the empire, contributed to give him a more feeling sense of the instability of earthly things, and that bitterness which is inseparable from worldly affairs in high life, helped to increase this disgust and contempt of the world, and to discover to him the falsehood of its gilded bubbles which dazzle the eyes of men at a distance. His wife, though yet young, and in a condition to enjoy the world, was the first to excite him to a contempt of whatever is not God; and they mutually encouraged one another to forsake all, that they might more perfectly follow Christ. In this resolution they retired first into Spain, and passed four years in a little country solitude, from 390 to 394, in exercises of penance and devotion. There they lost their only son, an infant, whom Paulinus calls a holy offspring, because he had been purified by baptism. They buried him at Alcala, near the bodies of the martyrs Justus and Pastor. The holy couple lived from that time, by mutual consent, in perpetual chastity; and Paulinus soon after changed his dress, to signify to the world his resolution of forsaking it, and he determined to renounce the senate, his country, estate, and house, and to bury himself in some monastery or wilderness. He was very rich, and Ausonius2 grieved to see the kingdoms of Paulinus the father, as he calls his vast estates, divided among a hundred possessors.* The saint sold all his estates, and distributed the price among the poor; as he did also the estate of his wife, with her consent, who aspired with no less fervor to Christian perfection. This action was much extolled by all true servants of God,3 but severely condemned by the slaves of the world; who called his piety folly, hating God in the works of his servant, because contrary to theirs. The rich forsook him: his own slaves, his relations, and brothers, refused to pay him the common duties of humanity and charity, and rose up against him, so that he became as one unknown to his brothers, “and as a stranger to the children of his mother” God permitted this persecution to befall him, that by it he might be more perfectly weaned from the world, and might learn to contemn its trowns. If I please men, says the apostle, I should not be a servant of Christ.4 And Christ himself assures us, that no man is worthy to be called his disciple, who hath not courage to despise human respects. Paulinus, instructed in this school, rejoiced to hear men bark at him, and all his own friends conspire to tear him to pieces, and to accuse his retreat of melancholy, hypocrisy, and every other sinister motive. His short, but golden answer to their invectives was comprised in five words:* “O happy affront to displease you with Christ;” as he wrote to St. Aper to comfort and encourage him under a like persecution of the world, because, though a person who by his eloquence, learning, and dignity of judgment, held an eminent rank among the first magistrates of the empire in Gaul, he preferred to these advantages the obscurity of a religious state, which he and his wife embraced by mutual consent, soon after which he was promoted to priest’s orders. Paulinus’s old master, Ausonius, who had always the most tender love and the greatest esteem for him, regretted extremely that he should lose a nobleman whom he knew capable of being an honor to the greatest dignities; and in verses and letters yet extant, which discover how deeply his heart was rooted in a worldly spirit, reproached him in the most bitter terms, arraigning his action of madness and extravagance. He employed the most tender entreaties and the harshest invectives, in hopes to overcome his resolution, and complains that Bilboa or Calahorra should possess and bury the glory and pillar of the Roman senate and empire.† The saint, without the least emotion, wrote him back, in beautiful verse, a mild and elegant answer, in which he testifies, that it was to him the highest pleasure to meet with reproaches for serving Christ; and that he regarded not the opinion or railleries of men, who pursue opposite views, provided his actions might gain the approbation of the Eternal King, whom alone he desired to please.‡ Thus while the world despised him, he justly and courageously despised it again, and gloriously trampled it under his feet. His persecutors and uporaiders, seeing him regardless of the censures of a world to which they were themselves enslaved, became in a short time his admirers, and loudly extolled his modesty and meekness no less than his greatness of soul and the purity of his intention. In his poverty and obscurity he became the admiration of the universe, and persons of the first rank travelled from the remotest boundaries of the empire to see Paulinus in his little cottage, as St. Austin and St. Jerom witness. Therasia confirmed him in these good resolutions, and was not inferior to him in virtue. Having joined with him in selling her estate, she was not ashamed to appear in mean clothes, being persuaded that an humble dress suits penitent minds, and that humility is not easily to be preserved under rich attire.

St. Ambrose, St. Austin, St. Jerom, and St. Martin, gave the due praise to this heroic virtue of St. Paulinus, knowing they might safely do it to one dead to the applause no less than to the censures of others. St. Austin, being then only priest, in 392, commended his generous resolution, calling it, The glory of Jesus Christ.5 And exhorting Licentius, a young nobleman who had formerly been his scholar, to a contempt of the world, he wrote thus to him, “Go into Campania; see Paulinus, that man so great by his birth, by his genius, and by his riches. See with what generosity this servant of Christ has stripped himself of all to possess only God. See how he has renounced the pride of the world to embrace the humility of the cross. See how he now employs in the praises of God those riches of science, which, unless they are consecrated to him who gave them, are lost.”6 Our saint could not bear applause. Greater by his humility than by all his other virtues, he sincerely desired to be forgotten by men, and begged his friends to refrain from their compliments, and not add to the load of his sins by praises which were not his due. “It surprised me,” said he, “that any one should look upon it as a great action for a man to purchase eternal salvation, the only solid good, with perishable pelf, and to sell the earth to buy heaven.” Others called him perfect in virtue; but his answer was, “A man that is going to pass a river by swimming is not got on the other side when he has but just put off his clothes. His whole body must be in action, and his limbs all put in motion; he must exert his utmost strength, and make great efforts to master the current.”7 The saint had indeed, for the sake of virtue, forsaken all that the world could give; he had despised its riches, honors, and seducing pleasures, and had trampled upon its frowns, and all human respects. Courted in the world by all that would be thought men of genius, and caressed by all that valued themselves upon a fine taste, he had courage to renounce those flattering advantages; and with honors and riches he had made a sacrifice also of his learning and great attainments only that he might consecrate himself to the divine service. Yet this was only the preparation to the conflict. Wherefore not to lose by sloth the advantages which he had procured to himself, he labored with all his strength to improve them to his advancement in virtue. He made it his first endeavor to subdue himself, to kill the very seeds of pride, impatience, and other passions in his heart, and to ground himself in the most profound humility, meekness, and patience. If any one seemed to admire the sacrifice he had made in renouncing so great riches and honors, in the number of captives he had ransomed, of debtors whom he had freed from prison by discharging their debts, of hospitals he had founded, and of churches he had built, he replied that the only sacrifice which God accepted was that of the heart, which he had not yet begun to make as he ought: that if others had not given so much to the poor, they excelled in more heroic virtues; for the gifts of grace are various; that his sacrifice was too defective in itself, and only exterior, consequently of no value, but rather hypocrisy. These and the like sentiments he so expresses as to show how perfectly he considered himself as the most unprofitable and unworthy of servants in the house of God, and saw nothing in himself but what was matter of compunction, and a subject of the most profound humiliation. To the practice of interior self-denial, by which he bent his will, he added exterior mortification. And so great was the poverty in which he lived, that he often was not able to procure a little salt to his herbs or bread, which the most austere hermits usually allowed themselves. Yet the holy cheerfulness of his pious soul was remarkable to all who had the happiness to enjoy his acquaintance; and we sensibly discern it in a constant vein of gayety which runs through all his writings.

Paulinus would not choose a retreat at Jerusalem or Rome, because he desired to live unknown to the world. His love of solitude, and his devotion to St. Felix, determined him to prefer a lonely cottage near Nola, a small city in Campania, that he might serve Christ near the tomb of that glorious confessor, which was without the walls of the town. He would be the porter of his church, to sweep the floor every morning, and to watch the night as keeper of the porch; and he desired to end his life in that humble employment.8 But he was promoted to holy orders before he left Spain. The people of Barcelona seized on him in the church on Christmas-day, in 393, and demanded with great earnestness that he should be made priest. He resolutely opposed their desire, and only at length consented on condition that he should be at liberty to go wherever he pleased. This being agreed to, he received holy orders from the hands of the bishop. The citizens of Barcelona were, indeed, in hopes to fix him among them; but the next year, 394, after Easter, he left Spain to go into Italy. He saw St. Ambrose at Milan, or rather at Florence, who received him with great honor, and adopted him into his clergy, but without any obligation of residing in his diocese. The saint went to Rome, and met with great civilities from Domnio, a holy priest of that church, from St. Pammachius, and many others. But pope Siricius did not appear equally gracious, and the saint made no stay in that capital, being in haste to arrive at Nola, the place of his retirement.* There stood a church over the tomb of Felix, half a mile from the walls of the city, and to it was contiguous a long building of two stories, with a gallery divided into cells, in which Paulinus lodged the clergymen who came to see him. On the other side was a lodging for secular persons, who sometimes visited him; and he had a little garden. Several pious persons lived with him, whom he calls a company of monks,9 and he practised with them all the rules and austerities of a monastic state. They celebrated the divine office, were clad with sackcloth, and abstained for the most part from wine; though Paulinus himself, on account of his infirmities, drank sometimes a little, diluted with a great quantity of water: they fasted and watched much, and their ordinary diet was herbs; but they never ate or drank so much as to satisfy hunger or thirst. St. Paulinus says,10 that every day he labored to render to St. Felix all the honor he was able; yet he strove to outdo himself on the day of his festival, to which he added every year a birthday poem in his honor, as a tribute of his voluntary service, as he styles it. We have fourteen, or as others count them, fifteen of these birthday poems of St. Felix, composed by St. Paulinus, still extant.*

The saint testifies that no motive so strongly excited him to the greatest fervor in the divine service as the consideration of the infinite goodness of God, who, though we owe him so much, demands only our love to pay off all debts, and to cancel our offences. Poor and insolvent as we are, if we love, this clears off all the score. And in this no man can allege the difficulty, because no man can say he has not a heart. We are masters of our love; if we give this to the Lord, we are quit. The excess of his goodness carries him still further, for he is pleased that by paying him our poor love, we should be moreover entitled to his greatest favors, and of our creditor should make him our debtor.11 St. Paulinus had spent fifteen years in his retirement, when, upon the death of Paul the bishop of Nola, about the end of the year 409, he was chosen to fill the episcopal chair. Uranius, a priest of that church under our saint, who has given us a short relation of his death, to which he was an eye-witness, testifies that the holy prelate, in the discharge of his duties, sought to be beloved by all rather than feared by any. No provocations were ever able to move him to anger, and in his tribunal he always joined mildness with severity. No one ever had recourse to him who did not receive from him every kind of comfort of which he stood in need. Every one received a share in his liberalities, in his counsels, or in his alms. He looked upon only those as true riches which Christ hath promised to his saints, saying that the chief use of gold and silver consists in affording means to assist the indigent. By his liberality in relieving others he reduced himself to the last degree of penury.* The Goths in their plunder of Italy in 410, besieged Nola, and, among others, Paulinus was taken prisoner. In this extremity, he said to God with confidence: “Suffer me not to be tortured for gold and silver, for you know where I have placed all that you gave me.” And not one of those who had forsaken all for Christ was tormented by the barbarians. This is related by St. Austin.12 A virtuous lady called Flora, having buried her son Cynegius in the church of St. Felix, consulted St. Paulinus what advantage the dead receive by being buried near the tombs of saints. Paulinus put the question to St. Austin, who answered it by his book, On the Care of the Dead, in which he shows that pomp of funerals and the like honors are only comforts of the living friends, not succors of the deceased; but that a burial in a holy place, proceeds from a devotion which recommends the soul of the deceased to the divine mercy, and to the saint’s intercession. St. Paulinus lived to the year 431. Three days before his death he was visited in his last sickness by Symmachus and Acyndinus, two bishops, with whom he entertained himself on spiritual things, as if he had been in perfect health. The joy of seeing them made him forget his distemper. With them he offered the tremendous sacrifice, causing the holy vessels to be brought to his bedside.13 Soon after, the priest Posthumian coming in, told him that forty pieces of silver were owing for clothes for the poor. The saint, smiling, said some one would pay the debt of the poor. A little after arrived a priest of Lucania, who brought him fifty pieces of silver, sent him for a present from a certain bishop and a layman. St. Paulinus gave thanks to God, gave two pieces to the bearer, and paid the merchants for the clothes. He slept a little at night, but awaked his clergy to matins according to his custom, and made them an exhortation to unanimity and fervor.—After this he lay silent till the hour of vespers, when, stretching out his hands, he said in a low voice: I have prepared a lamp for my Christ, Psalm 31. The lamps in the church were then lighting. Between ten and eleven at night, all who were in his chamber felt a sudden trembling as by some shock of an earthquake, and that moment he gave up his soul to God. He was buried in the church he had built in honor of St. Felix. His body was afterwards removed to Rome, and lies in the church of St. Bartholomew beyond the Tiber.

The world by persecuting St. Paulinus served only to enhance the glory of his victory, and to prepare him a double crown. This enemy is much less dangerous if it condemns than if it applauds us. To fear its impotent darts is to start at shadows. Itself will in the end admire those who for the sake of virtue have dared to despise its frowns. To serve men for God as far as it lies in our power is a noble part of charity; but to enslave our conscience to the mad caprice of the world is a baseness, a pusillanimity, and a wickedness, for which we cannot find a name. In other things we serve you, said the Hebrews to king Pharaoh, when his slaves in Egypt; but we must be free to go into the wilderness to sacrifice to the God of Israel. In the indispensable duties of religion, in the service of God, in the affair of eternity, we are essentially free; the dignity of our nature, and our allegiance to God, forbid us in this ever to become slaves. Here we must always exert an heroic courage, and boldly profess, by our conduct, with all the saints, that we know no other glory but what is placed in the service of God, and that we look upon ignominies suffered for the sake of virtue as our greatest gain and honor. We are his disciples who hath told us,—If the world hateth you, know that it hated me first, (John 15:18).

JUNE 22 — ST. ALBAN, PROTOMARTYR OF BRITAIN

From Bede, Usher’s Collections, &c., his Ancient Life, and the English-Saxon abstract of it, in Bibl Coton. Julius, A. X.

A. D. 303.

THE Christian faith had penetrated into England in the times of the apostles, and had received an increase by the conversion of king Lucius, in the year 180. But the first persecutions seem not to have reached this island, where perhaps the Christians, in times of danger, retired to places distant from the Roman colonies; or the mildness of their governors, in a province so remote as to seem another world, might sometimes shelter them. But the rage of Dioclesian penetrated into these recesses, and many of both sexes here received, by unheard-of torments, the crown of martyrdom, as Gildas and Bede testify. The first and most renowned of these Christian heroes was St. Alban, whose death was rendered more illustrious by many miracles and other extraordinary circumstances, and whose blood was an agreeable sacrifice to God, a glorious testimony to the honor of his name, and to his holy faith, and a fruitful seed of divine blessings on this country. So great was the glory of his triumph, that his name was most famous over the whole church, as Fortunatus assures us.1 A copy of the ancient Acts of his Martyrdom was published by bishop Usher, and the principal circumstances are mentioned by St. Gildas, and recorded by venerable Bede.2

Alban* seems to have been a Roman name, and this saint seems to have been a person of note, as some ancient monuments quoted by Leland, Usher, Alford, and Cressy affirm. He was a native of Verulam,† which was for many ages one of the strongest and most populous cities in Britain, till having suffered much by sieges under the Saxon conquest, it fell to decay, and the present town of St. Alban’s rose up close by its ruins, of which no vestiges are now to be seen, except some broken foundations of walls and checkered pavements; and Roman coins have been often dug up there.3 The river Werlame ran on the east, and the great Roman highway, called Watling-street, lay on the west side of the town. Alban travelled to Rome in his youth to improve himself in learning and in all the polite arts, as appears by authorities which the judicious Leland produces. Being returned home he settled at Verulam, and lived there with some dignity; for he seems to have been one of the principal citizens of the place. Though a stranger to the Christian faith he was hospitable and compassionate, and in recompense of his charitable disposition God was pleased to conduct him to the light of the gospel, and to discover to him the inestimable jewel of immortal life. He was yet a pagan when the edicts of the emperors against the Christians began to be put rigorously in execution in Britain. A certain clergyman, called by some writers Amphibalus, sought by flight to escape the fury of the persecutors, and Alban afforded him a shelter, and kindly entertained him in his house. Our saint was much edified by the holy deportment of this stranger, and admired his faith and piety, and in particular his assiduity in prayer, in which the faithful servant of God watched night and day. Alban was soon engaged to listen to his wholesome admonitions and instructions, and in a short time became a Christian. And with such ardor did he open his heart to the divine grace, that he was at once filled with the perfect spirit of this holy religion, and rejoicing that he had found so precious a treasure, he no longer regarded any thing else, despising for it the whole world and life itself. He had harbored this apostolic man some days when an information was given in to the governor, that the preacher of the Christian religion, after whom the strictest inquiry was making, lay hid at Alban’s house. Soldiers were dispatched thither to make diligent search after the man of God; but he was then secretly fled. Christ promises that he who receives a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall meet with the recompense of a prophet. This was fulfilled in Alban, who, by entertaining a confessor of Christ, received the grace of faith, and the crown of martyrdom. He exchanged clothes with his guest, that the preacher might more easily escape in that disguise to carry the news of salvation to others; and himself put on the stranger’s long robe, called Caracalla.* Alban earnestly desiring to shed his blood for Christ, whom he had but just learned to know, presented himself boldly in this habit to the soldiers, and was by them bound and led to the judge, who happened at that very time to be standing at the altar, and offering sacrifice to his idols. When he saw Alban he was highly provoked at the cheat which the saint had put upon him by substituting himself for his guest, and ordering him to be dragged before the images of his gods, he said: “As you have chosen to conceal a sacrilegious person and a blasphemer, the punishment which he should have suffered shall fall upon you, in case you refuse to comply with the worship of our religion.” The saint answered with a noble courage, that he would never obey such an order. The magistrate then asked him of what family he was. Alban replied: “To what purpose do you inquire of my family? If you would know my religion, I am a Christian.” The judge asked his name; to which he answered: “My name is Alban, and I worship the only true and living God who created all things.” The magistrate said: “If you would enjoy the happiness of life, sacrifice instantly to the great gods.” Alban replied: “The sacrifices you offer are made to devils, who neither help their votaries nor grant their petitions. Whoever shall sacrifice to these idols, shall receive for his reward the everlasting pains of hell.” The judge, enraged beyond measure at these words, commanded the holy confessor to be scourged; and seeing him bear with an unshaken constancy, and even with joy, the most cruel tortures, he at last condemned him to be beheaded. An exceeding great multitude of people went out to behold his execution, and the judge remained almost alone in the city without attendance. In the road was a river, and the stream in that part, which was pent up by a wall and sand, was exceeding rapid. So numerous was the crowd that was gone out before, that the martyr could scarce have passed the bridge that evening had he waited for them to go before him. Therefore, being impatient to arrive at his crown, he went to the bank, and lifting up his eyes to heaven made a short prayer. Upon this the stream was miraculously divided, and the river dried up in that part, so as to afford a passage to the martyr and a thousand persons.

This river must have been the Coln, which runs between Old Verulam and new St. Alban’s. The executioner was converted at the sight of this miracle, and of the saintly behavior of the martyr, and throwing away his naked sword, he fell at the feet of the saint, begging to die with him, or rather in his place. The sudden conversion of the headsman occasioned a delay in the execution. In the mean time the holy confessor, with the crowd, went up the hill, which was a most pleasant spot, covered with several sorts of flowers, about five hundred paces from the river. There Alban falling on his knees, at his prayer a fountain sprung up, with the water whereof he refreshed his thirst. A new executioner being found, he struck off the head of the martyr, but miraculously lost his eyes, which fell to the ground at the same time. Together with St. Alban, the soldier who had refused to imbrue his hands in his blood, and had declared himself a Christian, was also beheaded, being baptized in his own blood. This soldier is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology. Capgrave calls him Heraclius; some others, Araclius. Many of the spectators were converted to the faith, and following the holy priest, who had converted St. Alban, into Wales, to the number of one thousand, received the sacrament of baptism at his hands, as Harpsfield’s memoirs relate; but these converts were all cut to pieces by the idolaters for their faith. The priest was brought back and stoned to death at Radburn, three miles from St. Alban’s, as Thomas Radburn, who was born in that place, Matthew Paris, and others affirm, from ancient records kept in St. Alban’s abbey. This priest is called by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and others, St. Amphibalus, though bishop Usher conjectures that Greek name to have been borrowed from his garment, the Caracalla. Bede testifies, that St. Alban suffered martyrdom on the 22d of June; some say in the year 286, but most in 303, when Dioclesian began his great persecution, to which Constantius put a stop in Britain the year following. Some moderns are offended at the above-mentioned miracles; but the ingenious Mr. Collier writes thus concerning them: “As for St. Alban’s miracles, being attested by authors of such credit, I do not see why they should be questioned. That miracles were wrought in the church at that time of day, is clear from the writings of the ancients. To imagine that God should exert his omnipotence, and appear supernaturally for his servants, in no age since the apostles, is an unreasonable fancy. For since the world was not all converted by the apostles, why should we not believe that God should honor his servants with the most undisputed credentials? Why then should St. Alban’s miracles be disbelieved, the occasion being great enough for so extraordinary an interposition?” &c. These miracles of stopping the river, and of the spring rising in the place where St. Alban was beheaded, are expressly mentioned by Gildas, Bede, and others. The place was called in the Anglo-Saxon language, Holm-hurst, Hurst signifying a wood, and this place was once overgrown with trees, as bishop Usher proves. In aftertimes it obtained the name of Derswoldwood, and was the spot on which the present town of St. Alban’s is built. In the time of Constantine the Great, a magnificent church of admirable workmanship was erected on the place where the martyr suffered, and was rendered illustrious by frequent great miracles, as Bede testifies.4 The pagan Saxons destroyed this edifice; but Offa, king of the Mercians, raised another in 793, with a great monastery, on which he bestowed most ample possessions.* Several popes honored it with the most singular privileges and exemptions, and all the lands possessed by it were freed from the payment of the Rome-scot or Peter-pence. The church is still standing, having been redeemed from destruction when the abbey was suppressed under Henry VIII. It was purchased by the townsmen to be their parochial church, for the sum of four hundred pounds, which, according to the present value of money, would be above seven times as much.† Our island for many ages had recourse to St. Alban as its glorious protomartyr and powerful patron with God, and acknowledged many great favors received from God through his intercession. By it St. Germanus procured a triumph without Christian blood, and gained a complete victory both over the spiritual and corporal enemies of this country. Of the rich shrine of St. Alban, most munificently adorned by Offa by his son Egfrig, and many succeeding kings and others, nothing is now remaining, as Weever writes,5 but a marble stone to cover the place where the dust of the sacred remains lies. Over against which, on a wall, some verses are lately painted, says the same author, to tell us there was formerly a shrine in that place.* A village in Forez in France, a league and a half from Rouanne, bears the name of St. Alban, famous for mineral waters abounding with nitrous salt, described by Mr. Spon and Piganiol, t. 2, p. 9, ed. 3, ann. 1754.

JUNE 23 — ST. ETHELDREDA, OR AUDRY, V. A

From her Life, by Bede, b. 4, ch. 19, 20, and more at large by Thomas, a monk of Ely, in his History of Ely; in Wharton, Anglia, Sacra, p. 597, and Papebroke’s Notes, p. 489, t. 4, Junij. See also Bradshaw’s life of St. Wereburga, ch. 18. Bentham, Hist. Ely, ed. 1766.

A. D. 679.

ST. ETHELDREDA, or EDILTRUDIS, commonly called Audry, was third daughter of Annas, or Anna, the holy king of the East Angles, and St. Hereswyda. She was younger sister to St. Sexburga and to St. Ethelburga, who died a virgin and nun in France, and was eldest sister to St. Withburga. She was born at Ermynge, a famous village in Suffolk, and brought up in the fear of God. In compliance with the desire of her friends she married Tonbercht, prince of the southern Girvij;* but they lived together in perpetual continency. Three years after her marriage, and one year after the death of her father, Audry lost her husband, who for her dowry settled upon her the isle of Ely.† The holy virgin and widow retired into that solitude, and there lived five years rather like an inhabitant of heaven than one in a mortal state. Trampling under her feet whatever attracts the hearts of deluded worldlings, she made poverty and humility her delight and her glory, and to sing the divine praises with the angels night and day was her most noble ambition and holy employ. Notwithstanding her endeavors to hide herself from the world, her virtues pierced the veil which she studied to throw over them, and shone with a brightness which was redoubled from the lustre which her humility reflected on them. Egfrid, the powerful king of Northumberland, hearing the fame of her virtues, by the most earnest suit extorted her consent to marry him, and she was obliged to engage a second time in that state. The tradition of the church, which by her approbation and canons has authorized this conduct in many saints, is a faithful voucher that a contract of marriage, not yet consummated, deprives not either party of the liberty of preferring the state of greater perfection. St. Audry, upon this principle, during twelve years that she reigned with her husband, lived with him as if she had been his sister, not as his wife, and devoted her time to the exercises of devotion and charity. At length, having taken the advice of St. Wilfrid, and received from his hands the religious veil, she withdrew to the monastery of Coldingham beyond Berwick, and there lived in holy obedience under the devout abbess St. Ebba. Afterwards, in the year 672, according to Thomas of Ely, she returned to the isle of Ely, and there founded a double monastery upon her own estate. The nunnery she governed herself, and was by her example a living rule of perfection to her sisters. She ate only once a day, except on great festivals, or in time of sickness; never wore any linen, but only woollen clothes; never returned to bed after matins, which were sung at midnight, but continued her prayers in the church till morning. She rejoiced in pains and humiliations, and in her last sickness thanked God for being afflicted with a painful red swelling in her neck, which she regarded as a just chastisement for her vanity, when in her youth at court she wore rich necklaces studded with brilliants. After a lingering illness she breathed out her pure soul in profound sentiments of compunction, on the 23d of June, 679. She was buried according to her direction, in a wooden coffin. Her sister Sexburga, widow of Erconbercht, king of Kent, succeeded her in the government of her monastery, and caused her body to be taken up, put into a stone coffin, and translated into the church. On which occasion it was found uncorrupt, and the same physician who had made a ghastly incision in her neck a little before her death, was surprised to see the wound then perfectly healed. Bede testifies that many miracles were wrought by the devout application of her relics, and the linen cloths that were taken off her coffin; which is also confirmed by an old Latin hymn by him inserted in his history.*

This great queen and saint set so high a value on the virtue of virginity, because she was instructed in the school of Christ how precious a jewel and how bright an ornament that virtue is in his divine eyes, who is the chaste spouse and lover of true virgins, who crown their chastity with a spirit of prayer, sincere humility, and charity. These souls are without spot before the throne of God; they are purchased from among men, the first fruits to God and the Lamb, being the inheritance properly consecrated to God; they sing a new canticle before the throne, which no others can sing, and they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.1 “Whither do you think this Lamb goeth? Where no other presumes or is able to follow him,” cries out St. Austin.2 “Whither do we think that he goeth? into what groves or meadows? Where are found joys, not like those of this world, false, empty, and treacherous; nor even such as are afforded in the kingdom of God itself to those that are not virgins; but joys, distinct from theirs. The joys of the virgins of Christ are formed of Christ, in Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. The peculiar joys of the virgins of Christ are not the same as of those that are not virgins; for, though others have their joys, none have such.” He adds,3 “Be solicitous that you lose not this treasure, which if it be once forfeited, nothing can restore. The rest of the blessed will see you, who are not able themselves so far to follow the Lamb. They will see you, nor will they envy you; but by rejoicing for your happiness, they will possess in you what they do not enjoy in themselves. And that new song which they will not be able to say, they will yet hear, and will be delighted with your so excellent a good. But you, who shall both say it and hear it, will exult more happily, and reign more joyfully.”

JUNE 23 — ST. MARY OF OIGNIES

Her parents, who were wealthy inhabitants of Nivelle, in Brabant, gave her a virtuous education, and married her young to a gentleman remarkable for his piety. He imitated her in her long devotions and watchings, and in the extraordinary austerities which she practised. This fervent couple by mutual agreement devoted themselves to serve the lepers in a quarter of Nivelle called Villembroke. By this abject life, they exposed themselves to the railleries and contempt of their worldly friends; but human respects were no temptation to our sincere lovers of the disgrace of the cross, who learned by humiliations to die more perfectly to themselves: assiduous meditation on the sufferings of Christ was their favorite exercise, and was to Mary a source of continual tears; which, as she said to cardinal Vitry, far from exhausting her, were her refreshment. Black dry bread, with a few herbs, made up the slender refection which she allowed herself only once a day. When she spun or worked, she had the psalter always open before her, the more easily to prevent distractions, by frequently casting her eyes on it· for she seemed in all her employments never to cease praising God in her heart. She made every year two pilgrimages to our Lady’s church at Oignies, two miles from the place of her abode, and her devotion to the mother of God was most tender and remarkable. The pious cardinal who has written her life testifies that in her prayer she was favored with frequent raptures and extraordinary heavenly visits; and that her conversation, which was ordinarily on God, inflamed and comforted exceedingly all who spoke to her. I know, says the same learned and pious author, that many will laugh at what I relate, but those who have received of God the like favors, will believe and understand me. A certain person of eminent piety who came from a great distance to see her, received such comfort, and such a flame was kindled in his breast by her words, that he ever after continued to feel the effects in his soul, and found the bitterness which he suffered from his earthly pilgrimage exceedingly alleviated. Another who rallied his companions for turning out of their way to visit the servant of God, and refused to go with them, being weary of waiting for them out of doors, at last went in to hasten them out; but was suddenly so struck at the sight of the saint’s countenance, and on hearing her words full of unction and ardor, that his heart was that moment entirely changed: he melted into tears, and after staying a long time to hear her heavenly discourses, could scarce be drawn from her company.

The saint on several occasions showed that she had received from God the spirit of prophecy, and was endued with an eminent gift of spiritual knowledge and counsel. These graces she obtained and preserved by her profound humility, by which she sincerely regarded herself as the outcast of the world, and unworthy to enjoy in any respect the rank of other creatures, and with confusion both thought and styled herself entirely ignorant in the paths of virtue. She was most watchful over her heart that nothing might enter it but Jesus Christ and what belonged to his love. I never heard her let fall one word, says our author, that savored of the spirit of this world, and she seasoned almost every sentence she spoke with the adorable name of Jesus. She and her devout and most affectionate husband gave all their worldly possessions for the relief of the poor, when they first devoted themselves to serve the lepers at Villembroke. A few years before her death she left Villembroke, where visitants from Nivelle sometimes broke into her solitude; and settled near the church at Oignies, in a house belonging to a person of eminent virtue. She there sighed continually in a holy impatience to go to God, and repeated almost without intermission rapturous aspirations of divine love, and wonderful praises of God, the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity; passing from the Trinity to the sacred humanity of Christ, and intermixing frequent Alleluias. She approached most frequently the holy eucharist, in receiving which her countenance, through the ardor of love which inflamed her breast, seemed to dart forth rays of light. In her last sickness she was visited by the archbishop of Toulouse, by the widow of the duke of Louvain, who was then a devout Cistercian nun, and many other persons of distinction, who were all much edified by her saint-like deportment; she calmly resigned her soul into the hands of her Creator in 1213, being thirty-three, others say thirty-six years old. Her relics are placed in a silver shrine behind the altar at Oignies, which is a monastery of regular canons in the diocese of Namur. See her Life, written by the devout cardinal, James of Vitry, once a canon regular in that monastery, afterwards bishop of Acon in Palestine, and lastly of Tusculum. He died at Rome in 1244, and has left us a history of the East, from the time of Mahomet, and some other works. Her name is inserted in the calendars of several churches in Flanders, and her relics enshrined in several places; in some she has been honored with an office. See Papebroke, t. 4, Junij, p. 631.

JUNE 24 — THE NATIVITY OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

St. Austin observes1 that the church usually celebrates the festivals of saints on the day of their death, which is in the true estimate of things their great birthday, their birthday to eternal life. The same father adds, that the Nativity of St. John the Baptist is excepted from this rule. The reason of which distinction is, because this saint was sanctified in his mother’s womb,2 so that he was brought forth holy into the world; which St. Bernard3 and many eminent divines understand not only of an external sanctity, or deputation to piety, but of the gift of sanctifying grace by the remission of original sin, which they doubt not to have been imparted to him by the presence of our divine Redeemer in the visit made by the Blessed Virgin to St. Elizabeth. Moreover, the birth of the precursor of our Divine Saviour was a mystery which brought great joy to the world, announcing its redemption to be at hand; it was in itself miraculous, and was ushered in with many prodigies. God, who had often distinguished the birth of great prophets by signs and wonders, was pleased, in an extraordinary manner, to honor that of the Baptist, who, both by the dignity of his office, and by the eminent degree of grace and sanctity to which he was raised, surpassed, according to the oracle of truth itself, all the ancient patriarchs and prophets. His father Zachary was a holy priest of the family of Abia, one of the twenty-four sacerdotal families into which the children of Aaron were divided, in order that they might all serve in the temple by turns. Elizabeth, the wife of this virtuous priest, was also descended of the house of Aaron, though probably her mother was of the tribe of Juda, she being cousin to the Blessed Virgin. The Holy Ghost assures us that Zachary and Elizabeth were both just, by true virtue, not by an imperfect or false piety, which is scrupulous in some points only the better to cover certain favorite passions; which hypocrisy may often obtain the deceitful suffrage of men, but can never be pleasing in the divine eyes. The virtue of these saints was sincere and perfect, “And they walked in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame.” So impenetrable are the foldings of the human heart, that we have reason to fear the disguise of some secret passions even in our best actions. But blessed are they whom God commends.

Zachary lived probably at Hebron, a sacerdotal town in the western part of the tribe of Juda, in the hilly country, about twenty miles from Jerusalem. David, when he appointed the service of the temple that was to be built, divided the priests into twenty-four courses, who were to officiate in the temple by turns, each a week at a time. Among these that of Abia was reckoned the eighth in the time of David.4 It was usual for the priests of each family or course, when it came to their turn, to choose by lot among themselves the men who were to perform the several parts of the service of that week. It fell to the lot of Zachary, in the turn of his ministration, to offer the daily morning and evening sacrifice of incense on the golden altar, in the inner part of the temple, called the Sanctum, or sanctuary; which sacrifice was prescribed as an emblem of the indispensable homage which all men are bound to pay to God of their hearts, by morning and evening prayer. It happened that while Zachary was offering the incense one day for this sacrifice, and the people were praying without the sanctuary, he was favored with a vision, the angel Gabriel appearing to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. Zachary being struck with exceeding terror and amazement, the angel encouraged him, assuring him that his prayer was heard, and that in consequence thereof, his wife, though she was called barren, should conceive and bear him a son; adding, Thou shalt call his name John, and he shall be great before God. He did not call him great in the world, in honors, in riches, or applause; these false titles being mere emptiness and smoke; fraught with snares and secret poison. Nor did he say he would be great in the deceitful judgment and foolish opinion of men, who, not knowing things as they are in themselves, seldom weigh them in a just balance, and often give them names contrary to what they ought to bear, calling darkness light, and that which is bitter, sweet. But he who is great before God is great indeed. The praises of our saint are truly admirable, because bestowed on him by the sovereign Truth; they exceed all other commendations. His matchless excellency was intimated by the name which was given him by heaven; for he was called John, which word signifies one filled with grace. John was chosen by God to be the herald and harbinger of the world’s Redeemer, the voice to proclaim to men the eternal Word; the morning star to usher in the Sun of justice, and the Light of me world. It was therefore becoming that he should be adorned with all virtues in an heroic degree. Other saints are often particularly distinguished by certain characteristical privileges; but John eminently excelled in graces, and was a doctor, a virgin, and martyr. He was a prophet, and more than a prophet, it being his office to point out to the world Him whom the ancient prophets had foretold obscurely, and at a distance. His spotless innocence, his unparalleled penance, his spirit of prayer and retirement, his zeal and charity, were wonderful: but the crown of his greatness was his profound humility.

An early piety, and an innocence which was never defiled by any stain of sin, is a precious grace; and the first-fruits of a heart are particularly due to God, and a sacrifice most agreeable to him. Therefore the angel ordered that the child should be consecrated to God from his very birth, for an exterior mark of his holy destination; and for an emblem of the necessity of leading a mortified life in the practice of virtue, this heavenly messenger enjoined that he should never touch wine or any other intoxicating liquor.* The angel added, that he was holy, and filled with an extraordinary measure of grace by the Holy Ghost, even from the womb of his mother. By this extraordinary sanctity was the Baptist prepared to take upon him the high function of a preacher of penance, in order to convert the degenerate children of Israel from sin to godliness, to unite their hearts by the practice of piety to the holy patriarchs their ancestors, and to make them a perfect people to the Lord, that they might be disposed to receive the salvation which Christ brought them. For John was chosen to walk before Him, in the like spirit and power with which Elias will appear, to prepare men for His second coming to judge the world.

That the miracle of the Baptist’s birth might be more evident, Elizabeth was at that time advanced in years, and, according to the course of nature, past child-bearing. God had so ordained it, that this saint might be the fruit of long and earnest prayer, the ordinary channel of his graces. By this circumstance parents are admonished with what assiduity and fervor they ought to address themselves to God to obtain his blessing upon their offspring. Zachary was amazed at the apparition, and at the wonderful things he heard, and begged a sign might be given him which might ascertain to him the effect of these great promises. The angel, to grant his request, and at the same time to show he might have reasonably acquiesced in the marks given him in the vision itself, answered, that from that moment he should continue dumb till such time as the child was born. On the following Sabbath-day the week of his ministration expired, after which he returned home. Elizabeth conceived, and in the sixth month of her pregnancy was honored with a visit from the mother of God, in which, at the presence of the world’s Redeemer, the Baptist was sanctified yet in his mother’s womb. On this occasion, the blessed child, yet unborn, was, by an extraordinary privilege favored with the use of reason; was the first among men who beheld Christ, and knew him before he saw the light with his corporeal eyes. Inexpressible was the miraculous joy with which his soul was overwhelmed to behold him present, whom the ancient prophets rejoiced so much only to foresee in spirit. Whence it is added, that he leaped for joy in the womb.† Elizabeth, after nine months, brought forth her son, who was circumcised on the eighth day. On that occasion the rest of the family were for having him called by his father’s name, Zachary; but the mother, by divine inspiration, said his name should be John. The father confirmed the same by writing, and immediately recovering the use of his speech, broke out into the divine praises in the most profound sentiments of love and thanksgiving, and joyfully proclaimed the infinite mercy with which God in his most tender bowels was pleased to visit his people of Israel, and the nations which were seated in the shades of death.

In the like fervent dispositions of gratitude and praise, ought we to recite with the church the inspired canticle of this holy prophet. We possess the infinite treasure of divine grace in frail vessels, and walk continually upon the brink of precipices, and amidst rocks and dangers; therefore we are bound always to fear, and to use the utmost caution, lest we fall, and lose this most precious of all excellent gifts. To teach us with what watchfulness and care we are bound to preserve, and earnestly labor continually to improve it by an humble and penitential life, by assiduous prayer, by an application to the practice of all good works, and a scrupulous flight of dangerous occasions, the Baptist was inspired by the Holy Ghost to retire in his tender years into the wilderness. There he devoted himself to the exercises of holy prayer, leading a most austere penitential life. His garment was of a rough camel’s hair, girt about him with a leathern girdle, and he allowed himself no other food than what he found in the desert, wild honey and locusts.* These are a kind of large grasshoppers, and are used in those countries as a coarse food when dressed, but St. John ate them raw. Of this his retirement Origen writes:5 “He went into the desert, where the air was more pure, the heavens more open, and God more familiar, that till the time of his preaching was come, he might employ himself in prayer in the company of angels.” And again,6 “He had neither scrip nor servant, not so much as a poor cottage to shelter himself in from the inclemency of the weather. He remained in the desert even when he began to preach penance.” St. Jerom writes,7 “Neither the tenderness nor the riches of his devout parents could hold him in their plentiful house amidst dangers from the world. He lived in the desert, and disdained to behold other things with eyes which coveted to see Christ. His raiment was coarse, his food locusts and wild honey; all which things are conducive to virtue and continency.” This frightful solitude he chose for his dwelling, lest the purity of his heart should be sullied if he had entertained any commerce with men; and his penance was most austere, because the path of innocence and virtue is that of the cross or of mortification. How loudly does his penitential youth condemn those pretended Christians whose life is altogether earthly, and who, instead of curbing their inclinations, and keeping their senses in due subjection, study by softness and pleasure to gratify them almost in every thing. They renounce forever the happiness which Christ has promised to his followers, who do not take his word and actions for the only rule of their conduct.

St. John by his retirement calls upon us to disengage our hearts from the ties of the world, and frequently to imitate in our closet his exercises in the wilderness. The world is like a perspective which can only be seen in the true point of light at a distance. By holy retirement, and by conversing often with heaven, the fascination of its enchantments will fall from before our eyes, and we shall see that it has nothing which ought not to be to a Christian heart an object of contempt, abhorrence, or dread. It is made up of vanity, danger, and sin. Its goods and enjoyments are short-lived and uncertain, and in themselves false and empty; its pains real and grievous; and its promises treachery and deceit. It is now so worn out, and its cheats are so clearly discovered by long experience, according to the observation of St. Austin,8 that it ought long ago to have lost its false-painted charms. Gerson compares those who seek for happiness in it, to fools who should with great pains seek for roses and tulips on nettles and briers, which, instead of yielding flowers, can only prick and wound their hands. It is covered with a thick darkness, which intercepts the sight of heavenly things; it is filled with snares in every part, and its vanities and pleasures are fraught with deadly poison.9 We must enter it with a holy fear, must converse in it with watchfulness, and continually fortify our souls against the infection of its air by the antidotes of frequent meditation, prayer, and self-denial, according to the excellent advice of St. Francis of Sales.10 Thus shall we learn to live in the world so as not to be of it, to use it as if we used it not, and possess it so as not to be possessed or captivated by it.

JUNE 24 — THE MARTYRS OF ROME UNDER NERO

Tertullian observes, that it was the honor of the Christian religion that Nero, the most avowed enemy to all virtue, was the first Roman emperor who declared against it a most bloody war. The sanctity and purity of the manners of the primitive Christians was a sufficient motive to stir up the rage of that monster; and he took the following occasion to draw his sword againts them. The city of Rome had been set on fire, and had burned nine days, from the 19th to the 28th of July, in the year 64; in which terrible conflagration, out of the fourteen regions or quarters into which it was then divided, three were entirely laid in ashes, seven of them were miserably defaced and filled with the ruins of half-burnt buildings, and only four entirely escaped this disaster. During this horrible tragedy, Nero came from Antium to Rome, and seated himself on the top of a tower upon a neighboring hill, in the theatrical dress of a musician, singing a poem which himself had composed on the burning of Troy. The people accused him of being the author of this calamity, and said he caused fire to be set to the city that he might glut his eyes with an image of the burning of Troy. Tillemont, Crevier, and other judicious critics make no doubt but he was the author of this calamity. Suetonius and Dion Cassius positively charge him with it. Tacitus indeed doubts whether the fire was owing to accident or to the wickedness of the prince; but by a circumstance which he mentions, it appears that the flame was at least kept up and spread for several days by the tyrant’s orders; for several men hindered all that attempted to extinguish the fire, and increased it by throwing lighted torches among the houses, saying they were ordered so to do. In which, had they been private villains, they would not have been supported and backed, but brought to justice. Besides, when the fire had raged seven days, and destroyed every thing from the great circus, at the foot of mount Palatine, to the further end of the Esquiliæ, and had ceased for want of fuel, the buildings being in that place thrown down, it broke out again in Tigellinus’s gardens, which place increased suspicion, and continued burning two days more. Besides envying the fate of Priam, who saw his country laid in ashes, Nero had an extravagant passion to make a new Rome, which should be built in a more sumptuous manner, and extended as far as Ostia to the sea; he wanted room in particular to enlarge his own palace; accordingly, he immediately rebuilt his palace of an immense extent, and adorned all over with gold, mother-of-pearl, precious stones, and whatever the world afforded that was rich and curious, so that he called it the Golden Palace. But this was pulled down after his death. The tyrant seeing himself detested by all mankind as the author of this calamity, to turn off the odium and infamy of such an action from himself, and at the same time to gratify his hatred of virtue and thirst after blood, he charged the Christians with having set the city on fire. Tacitus testifies, that nobody believed them guilty; yet the idolaters, out of extreme aversion to their religion, rejoiced in their punishment.

The Christians therefore were seized, treated as victims of the hatred of all mankind, insulted even in their torments and death, and made to serve for spectacles of diversion and scorn to the people. Some were clothed in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to dogs to be torn to pieces: others were hung on crosses set in rows, and many perished by flames, being burnt in the night-time that their execution might serve for fires and light, says Tacitus.* This is further illustrated by Seneca, Juvena1,2 and his commentator, who say that Nero punished the magicians, (by which impious name they meant the Christians,) causing them to be besmeared over with wax, pitch, and other combustible matter, with a sharp spike put under their chin to make them hold it upright in their torments, and thus to be burnt alive. Tacitus adds, that Nero gave his own gardens to serve for a theatre to this spectacle.1 The Roman Martyrology makes a general mention of all these martyrs on the 24th of June, styling them the disciples of the apostles, and the first fruits of the innumerable martyrs with which Rome, so fruitful in that divine seed, peopled heaven. These suffered in the year 64, before the apostles SS. Peter and Paul, who had pointed out the way to them by their holy instructions. After this commencement of the persecution, laws were made, and edicts published throughout the Roman empire, which forbade the profession of the faith under the most cruel torments and death, as is mentioned by Sulpicius Severus, Orosius,3 and others. No sooner had the imperial laws commanded that there should be no Christians, but the senate, the magistrates, the people of Rome, all the orders of the empire, and every city rose up against them, says Origen.4 Yet the people of God increased the more in number and strength the more they were oppressed, as the Jews in Egypt had done under Pharaoh.

JUNE 24 — SAINT BARTHOLOMEW

A Monk of the abbey of Dunelm, renowned for his virtue and miracles, is honored on this day in the English Calendars. See his life by Galfridus, MS. in Bibl. Reg. Lond. 5, t. viii. 8.

JUNE 25 — SAINT PROSPER OF AQUITAINE, C

From his own and St. Austin’s writings. See Ceillier, t. 14, Tillemont, t. 16, Rives, Hist. Littér. t. 2, p. 368 Also John Antony Salinas In Opera SS. Prosper, Aquitani, et Honorati Massillensis, Notis Illustrata. Romæ, 1732. And Cacciari, Exercit. in Op. S. Leonis M. Dissert, de Pelagian, c. 3, p. 290.

A. D. 463.

ST. PROSPER is surnamed of Aquitaine, to distinguish him from a bishop of Orleans, and others of the same name. His birth is usually placed in the year 403. His works show that in his youth he had happily applied himself to the studies of grammar, and all the branches both of polite and sacred learning. On account of the purity and sanctity of his manners, he is called by those of his age a holy and venerable man.1 Having left Aquitaine, his native country, he was settled in Provence, and probably at Marseilles, when St. Austin’s book on Correction and Grace was brought thither. Certain priests and others of that country had been offended at that father’s writings against the Pelagians, pretending that the necessity of divine grace, which he established with the Catholic Church, destroyed free will. They granted it to be clear from faith and holy scriptures, that no good action conducive to eternal life can be done without a co-operating supernatural succor or grace; but they thought it a necessary condition to free will in man, that the beginning or first desire of faith, or any other supernatural virtues and actions, (which being grounded upon faith lead to eternal life,) should be the work of free will, without the aid of grace; using the comparison of a sick man, who first desires a cure himself, by which desire he is moved to call in a physician. This error was called Semi-pelagianism, and in reality gave the glory of virtue to the creature in its first motion or desire, contrary to the doctrine of the Apostle and of Christ himself. Saint Austin’s book on Correction and Grace served only to make them louder in their complaints. Hilary, a holy, zealous, and learned layman, an acquaintance of St. Austin, undertook the defence of his works, and of the faith of the church, and engaged St. Prosper in the same cause. Our saint does not appear to have been any more than a layman; but his virtue, extraordinary talents, and learning, rendered him a proper person to oppose the progress of heresy. By the advice of Hilary he wrote to St. Austin, informing him of the errors of these priests of Marseilles; and that holy doctor compiled two books to confute and instruct them; the first, On the Predestination of the Saints; the second, On the Gift of Perseverance. Hilary had also written to him on the same subject. This happened in 428 and 429.

These two books were sufficient to convince the Semipelagians, but did not convert their hearts. They therefore had recourse to calumny, and accused Saint Austin and his friends of teaching a necessitating grace which destroys free-will. One Rufinus, a friend of St. Prosper, surprised at these reports, desired to be informed by him of the state of the question. The saint answered him by a letter yet extant, in which he explains the holy faith which they defended, and the errors and slanders of their enemies. The Semipelagians declared that they would stand by the decisions of the pope. Prosper and Hilary, out of a motive of zeal, went as far as Rome; and pope Celestine, upon their information, wrote a dogmatical letter to the bishop of Marseilles and other neighboring prelates against those enemies of grace, in which he highly commends the doctrine of St. Austin. This happened after the death of that holy doctor in 431. The troubles were not yet appeased; and our saint saw himself under a necessity of entering the lists with his pen. His poem on the Ungrateful seems to have appeared about the year 431. By that name he meant the Semipelagians, who were ungrateful to the divine grace, though they were not then cut off from the communion of the church. This work, the masterpiece of our saint, is written in most elegant verse. He says in it, that the see of St. Peter, fixed at Rome, presides over the whole world, possessing by religion what it had never subdued by arms.* He most beautifully demonstrates the necessity of grace, especially for divine love.† He has left us several other lesser works.‡

St. Leo the Great being chosen pope in 440, invited St. Prosper to Rome, made him his secretary, and employed him in the most important affairs of the church. Our saint crushed the Pelagian heresy, which began again to raise its head in that capital. Photius ascribes its final overthrow to the zeal, learning, and unwearied endeavors of St. Prosper.2 Marcellinus in his chronicle speaks of him as still living in 463. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on this day. A complete edition of his works was procured at Paris by M. Maugeant, in folio, in 1711, with his life translated from the Memoirs of Tillemont. F. John Salinas, a canon regular of the Congregation of St. John of Lateran, has published in Rome in 1732, a new correct edition of the works of St. Prosper and of St. Honoratus of Marseilles, in 8vo. Dr. Peter Francis Foggini having published at Rome in 1734, the treatises of St. Austin on Grace, in two small volumes, (reprinted at Paris in 1757,) to complete this collection in a third volume are added the works of St. Prosper under this title: S. Prosperi Aquitani, S. Leonis M. Notarii de Gratiâ Dei, Opera Omnia. Editionem Variis Lectionibus, Præcipuè e Cod. MSS. Vaticanis, Adornatam, Curavit P. F. F. Romæ, 1738, in 8vo. Le Maitre de Sacy has given us St. Prosper’s Poem on the Ungrateful, in French verse.

Without the succor of divine grace we can do nothing;3 we cannot so much as form one good thought conducive to eternal life, nor take the least step towards God by supernatural virtue. “As the eye of the body, though perfectly sound, cannot see unless it be assisted by the light, so neither can a man live well but by the eternal light which is derived from God,” as St. Austin says.4 God, who desires that all men be saved, offers this treasure to every one, enlightening every man that cometh into this world.5 If we neglect to pray assiduously for this divine succor, if we are not solicitous faithfully to preserve and improve this most excellent gift of God, we are Pelagians in conduct, though we condemn their erroneous principles; for we ungratefully despise the divine mercy, destroy in our souls the principle of our spiritual life, and of eternal glory, and trample under our feet the price of Christ’s sacred blood. The graces which we reject, are seeds which would fructify to a hundred-fold; they are talents, which if put out to the banker, would be multiplied: faithfully corresponded with, they would make us saints; but the abuse of them will be our greatest crime, and our heaviest condemnation. Wo to thee, Corosain, &c.

JUNE 25 — ST. MAXIMUS, BISHOP OF TURIN C

He was one of the lights of the fifth century, and was indefatigable in preaching the word of God, as Gennadius takes notice; for which function he eminently qualified himself by making the holy scriptures the subject of his continual study and meditation. He assisted at the council of Milan in 451, and at that of Rome under pope Hilary, in 465, in which latter he subscribed the first after the pope. He died soon after this year. We have a considerable number of his homilies extant on the principal festivals of the year, and on several saints, as St. Stephen, St. Agnes, St. Laurence, St. Cyprian, &c. In his homily on the holy martyrs Octavius, Aventius, and Solutor, whose relics were kept at Turin, where they had received their crowns, he says, “All the martyrs are to be honored by us, but especially those whose relics we possess. They assist us by their prayers; they preserve us as to our bodies in this life, and receive us when we depart hence.” In his two homilies on Thanksgiving,1 he earnestly inculcates the duty of paying daily the homage of praise to our Creator, for which he recommends the Psalms: he strongly insists that no one ought ever to neglect morning and evening prayer, or his thanksgiving before and after every meal; he exhorts all persons to make the sign of the cross before every action, saying, “that by the sign of Jesus Christ (devoutly used) a blessing is ensured to us in all things.” We have several other sermons of St. Maximus in the new edition of St. Ambrose’s works; and Mabillon2 has published twelve others. In the fifth, the saint declaims against the abuses of New Year’s Day, reprehends the custom of making presents to the rich at that time without giving alms to the poor, and condemns hypocritical formalities of friendship in which the heart has no share. The tenth is written is “Against heretics who sell the pardon of sins,” whose pretended priests exacted money for absolving penitents instead of bidding them do penance, and weep for their offences. M. Muratori, in his Anecdota,3 has given us several other homilies of St. Maximus from a manuscript of the Ambrosian library above one thousand years old, written in Longobardic letters. From those on St. Eusebius of Vercelli it appears that the author was himself a native of Vercelli.* The name of St. Maximus occurs in the Roman Martyrology, and several lessons from his homilies are inserted in the Roman Breviary. See Cave, Labbe, de Script. Eccl., Ceillier.

JUNE 25 — ST. WILLIAM OF MONTE-VERGINE, FOUNDER OF THE RELIGIOUS CONGREGATION OF THAT NAME

Having lost his father and mother in his infancy, he was brought up by his friends in great sentiments of piety; and at fifteen years of age, out of an earnest desire of leading a penitential life, he left Piedmont, his native country, made an austere pilgrimage to St. James’s in Galicia, and afterwards retired into the kingdom of Naples, where he chose for his abode a desert mountain, and lived in perpetual contemplation, and the exercises of most rigorous penitential austerities. Finding himself discovered, and his contemplation interrupted, he changed his habitation and settled in a place called Monte Vergine, situate between Nola and Benevento, in the same kingdom; but his reputation followed him, and he was obliged by two neighboring priests to permit certain fervent persons to live with him, and imitate his ascetic practices. Thus, in 1119, was laid the foundation of the religious congregation called de Monte Vergine. The saint died on the 25th of June, 1142, and is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology. His congregation, to which he left no written rule, was put under that of St. Benedict by Alexander III. See his life by Felix Renda: Helyot, Hist. des Ord. Relig., and Papebroke, t. 5, Jun. p. 112.

JUNE 25 — ST. ADELBERT, C

He was a prince of the royal blood of the kings of Northumberland; but having forsaken the world to devote himself to the service of God, he joined St. Willibrord in his apostolic labors in Lower Germany about the year 700. He converted great part of Holland and Friesland, was chosen archdeacon of Utrecht, and having happily finished his course about the year 740, died at Egmond, which town is thought to have been so called from Eggo, lord of the place, and the great patron of our saint. The tomb of St. Adelbert at Egmond became illustrious by many miracles. Thierry, count of that country, which was shortly after called Holland, founded in honor of St. Adelbert, in that place, in the beginning of the tenth century, a Benedictin abbey, which was first built of wood, as were most churches before the tenth century, according to the remark of the author of Batavia Sacra. The name of St. Adelbert stands in the Roman Martyrology. See Mabillon, sæc. 3; Ben. part 1, p. 631; the Bollandists on this day; Miræus in Fastis Belgicis; and above all, Batavia Sacra, printed an. 1754, p. 44.

JUNE 25 — ST. MOLOC, BISHOP, C

He was a Scotsman, and a zealous assistant of St. Boniface of Ross in his apostolic labors, in the seventh century, of which mention is made on the 14th of March. The relics of St. Moloc were kept with great veneration at Murlach. When Sweno the Danish king, sent out of England a barbarous army under the conduct of Olas and Enet, king Malcolm II., after having been at first discomfited by them, overcame them in a second battle near Murlach, which victory he ascribed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and St. Moloc, which with his whole army he had earnestly implored. In thanksgiving he founded at Murlach in 1010 an abbey under their joint invocation, together with a stately cathedral church which he adorned with an episcopal see, though this was afterwards translated to Aberdeen. The Danes in two other engagements were entirely routed by this religious prince, who perpetuated the memory of the former of these victories by building a second monastery, under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the town of Brechin, near which the battle was fought, and by raising an obelisk on the spot, still standing in a village called Cuin, from the name of a Danish general who was there slain. For a memorial of his last victory he erected on the place where it was gained a third abbey called Deir, in the county of Buchan, which soon after adopted the Cistercian rule, and flourished till the change of religion in 1550. The name of St. Moloc was famous over all Scotland, especially in the counties of Argyle and Ross. A considerable portion of his relics was honored in a famous church which still bears his name at Lismore in Argyleshire. On him see Boëtius,1. 9; Hist. Lesley,1. 5, and King.

JUNE 25 — SS. AGOARD AND AGLIBERT, MM., IN THE DIOCESE OF PARIS

They were strangers who came originally from the borders of the Rhine, but were settled in the neighborhood of Paris at Creteil, a village two leagues from that city. They were converted to their faith by the apostolic preachers Altin and Eoald, together with many others. Having by common consent pulled down a heathenish temple, they were put to the sword with a troop of holy companions, by an order of a heathenish governor; or, according to Baillet, by the Vandals, about the year 400. A church was afterwards erected over the place of their burial. Their relics are now enshrined in the same. Their festival is marked in Martyrologies on the 24th, but kept at Creteil and in the whole diocese of Paris on the 25th of June. See the new Paris Breviary, Baillet, Le Bœuf, &c.

JUNE 26 — SS. JOHN AND PAUL, MM

They were both officers in the army under Julian the Apostate, and received the crown of martyrdom, probably in 362, under Apronianus, prefect of Rome, a great enemy of the Christians. These saints glorified God by a double victory: they despised the honors of the world, and triumphed over its threats and torments. They saw many wicked men prosper in their impiety, but were not dazzled by their example. They considered that worldly prosperity which attends impunity in sin is the most dreadful of all judgments; and how false and short-lived was this glittering prosperity of Julian, who in a moment fell into the pit which he himself had dug! But the martyrs, by the momentary labor of their conflict, purchased an immense weight of never-fading glory: their torments were, by their heroic patience and invincible virtue and fidelity, a spectacle worthy of God, who looked down upon them from the throne of his glory, and held his arm stretched out to strengthen them, and to put on their heads immortal crowns in the happy moment of their victory. An old church in Rome, near that of SS. Peter and Paul, bore the name of SS. John and Paul, as appears by the calendar published by F. Fronto. They have a proper office and mass in the sacramentaries of St. Gelasius and St. Gregory the Great; also in the ancient Gallican Liturgy. In England the council of Oxford, in 1222, ordered their festival to be kept of the third class; that is, with an obligation of hearing mass before work. How famous the names of SS. John and Paul have been in the church ever since the fifth century, is set forth at large by Rondiuinus.1

The saints always accounted that they had done nothing for Christ so long as they had not resisted to blood, and by pouring forth the last drop completed their sacrifice. Every action of our lives ought to spring from this fervent motive, and consecration of ourselves to the divine service with our whole strength; we must always bear in mind, that we owe to God by innumerable titles all that we are; and after all we can do, are unprofitable servants, and do only what we are bound to do. But how base is our sloth and ingratitude, who in every action fall so much short of this fervor and duty! How does the blood of the martyrs reproach our lukewarmness!

JUNE 26 — ST. MAXENTIUS, ABBOT IN POITOU

He was born at Agde, and christened by the name of Adjutor. He was placed by his pious parents from his infancy in the monastery of St. Severus, and formed to piety by that holy abbot, who never lost sight of him, and continually inculcated to him, that every thing on earth is full of snares and temptations, and that unless we live in continual watchfulness and circumspection, the devil besieges us so close, that it is impossible for us not to be surprised by him. The youth, by walking always in holy fear, was so happy as to preserve his soul free from whatever could defile it. He fled with great dread the applause of men, as the bane of virtue. To avoid this danger he stole away into a distant country, but after two years was found and brought back by his parents and friends. The fear of the esteem of men again forced him abroad, and going into Poitou, he changed his name into that of Maxentius, and put himself under the direction of a virtuous abbot named Agapetus. The brethren were struck with admiration to see one so perfectly disengaged from the earth, so humble, so mortified, so full of charity, and so enlightened in the paths of salvation; and they unanimously chose him their superior. In his devotions he seemed animated with the spirit of David when he composed his psalms, and in his instructions with the zeal and charity of John the Baptist. Austere towards himself, he showed in all his actions that he sought only that food which never perishes. Following the example of Agapetus, he laid down his office as soon as it was possible for him to do it, and shut himself up in a remote cell; but the monks obliged him still to continue to direct them by his counsels. Clovis, the king of the French, was then at war with Alaric, king of the Visigoths, who reigned in Spain, Languedoc, and Aquitaine. A barbarous army was stopped by the saint’s presence from plundering the monastery; and a soldier who attempted to strike him was seized with a numbness, which continued till he was cured by the saint. Nature on many occasions obeyed his voice, as St. Gregory of Tours relates. St. Maxentius died about the year 515, and is named in the Roman Martyrology.

JUNE 26 — ST. VIGILIUS, BISHOP OF TRENT, M

This saint succeeded Abundantius in the episcopal see of Trent in 385. He begged of St. Ambrose, who was his metropolitan, rules for his conduct in his ministry, which that holy prelate gave him in a long letter, in which he exhorted him vigorously to oppose the practice of usury, and the custom of Christians intermarrying with infidels. There remained still many idolaters in the valleys of the diocese of Trent, who adored Saturn and other false divinities. St. Vigilius sent SS. Sisinnius, Martyrius, and Alexander, to preach the faith to them, and afterwards wrote their acts, or a narrative of their martyrdom, in a short letter to St. Simplician, St. Ambrose’s successor, and in another longer to St. Chrysostom. He looked on their glory with a holy envy, and condemned himself as a mercenary and a coward so long as he saw his own crown deferred. His labors, however, were at length recompensed with the happiness of laying down his life for Christ. The ancient calendars rank him among the martyrs, and Fortunatus tells us, that in seeking death he found life, being slain for the faith by a troop of infidel peasants. Usuardus says they murdered him by a shower of stones, and places his martyrdom in the consulship of Stillico, which happened in 100 or 405. Surius confounds this saint with another of the same name, who lived one hundred years later. See Mabill. Pref. sæc. 5, p. 60. Baillet, &c.

JUNE 26 — ST. BABOLEN

A Monk of the Order of St. Columban, whose country is not known, coming into France, was appointed first abbot of St. Peter’s des-Fosses called St. Maur’s after the relics of that holy abbot were brought thither from Anjou. This monastery was founded by Blidegisil, archdeacon of Paris, in 638, in a peninsula formed by the river Marne, two leagues from Paris. St. Babolen rendered it a house of saints, and by the perfect spirit of charity, piety, and all virtues which reigned in it, a true image of Paradise on earth. In conjunction with St. Fursey at Lagny, he labored much in serving the whole diocese of Paris by the authority of bishop Audebert and his successor St. Landri. He founded many churches and hospitals in that diocese, and in his old age having resigned his abbacy to Ambrose, his successor, died in holy retirement in the seventh century. The new Paris Breviary honors his memory with one lesson on the 26th of June. See Molanus in Auctario Usuardi, and in Indiculo Sanctor. Belgii. Du Chesne, t. 1, Hist. Francor. Mabillon, sæc. 2, Bened.

JUNE 26 — ST. ANTHELM, BISHOP OF BELLAY, C

He was for his eminent virtue raised to the episcopal dignity in 1163, when his zeal and abilities were particularly distinguished by the great services he rendered to the church in the schism of the antipope Victor III. He died on the 26th of June, 1178, and is named in the Roman martyrology. See d’Andilly, Vies des SS. Illustr. t. 2, Baillet, &c.

JUNE 26 — THE VENERABLE RAINGARDA, WIDOW

She was by birth one of the principal ladies of Auvergne and Burgundy but the maxims of our holy faith had, from her infancy, given her a relish and esteem only for other riches and other nobility than those of the earth. She took no delight in the pomp which surrounded her, but sighed after the liberty of the saints, as a captive sighs for his enlargement, or a banished man for his own country. When any lover of the heavenly Jerusalem came to visit her, it was her great comfort to converse with such a one on the happiness of the life to come. She often prostrated herself on the ground before the servants of God, and bathing their feet with her tears, earnestly begged their prayers, and lamented with bitter sighs that she was not able to do all the good she desired. She was married to Maurice, a nobleman of suitable birth and fortune, and a person also of eminent piety. In her choice of this state, she consulted only motives of religion, and by earnest prayer endeavored to draw down the divine blessing upon her undertaking, being sensible that a happy marriage is the great source of happiness in life, and a powerful help to virtue; but that any poison in this fountain communicates itself very far, infects with bitterness all the pleasures of life, and endangers all moral and Christian duties. With the obligations of a married life, she joined the exercises of the most perfect Christian piety. She continued her former practices of devotion, for which she always found time enough, because, though she gave all possible attention to her family affairs and duties, yet she was more covetous of her time than the most avaricious man is of his money, and she took all precautions not to lose her precious moments in idle conversation or superfluous amusements. The education of her children was one of her most weighty concerns. She never ceased most earnestly to recommend them to God. From their early infancy she used every method to prevent the first sallies of dangerous passions, and taught them meekness, humility, and patience; so that virtue seemed in them almost to spring from nature itself. To inure them to a life of temperance, mortification, and penance, she took care to train them up in habits and maxims of severe sobriety and abstemiousness. Good example is like an inheritance entailed by a parent on a son, and almost an infallible means of conveying the virtues of one to the other. If parents are virtuous, children will easily, and, as it were, naturally take the same east, unless dissipation and bad company abroad adulterate or efface the ideas of the good they see at home.

When Raingarda seemed to have fully discharged herself of this her duty towards her family, she began earnestly to desire an opportunity of living to God alone. A conference she had with B. Robert of Arbrissel, gave her a strong inclination to consecrate herself to the divine service in the monastery of Fontevrault. Her husband Maurice joyfully came into her proposal, and determined to enter among the religious men of the same order; but before he could execute this design, he fell sick, and was taken out of the world. After his funeral was over, and she had put her affairs in order, she retired to the Benedictin monastery of Marsigny, which, after the death of B. Robert, she preferred to Fontevrault. A gallant train of gentlemen attended her to the gate of the monastery, endeavoring by entreaties and tears to draw her from her resolution; but she took her leave of them, saying with a stern countenance: “Do you return into the world: for my part I go to God.” During the remainder of her life she extenuated her body by labor, and consecrated her heart to compunction, and her eyes to tears. She served every one with as much affection as if every nun had been her own daughter. No employment, not even that of cellarer, seemed ever to interrupt the constant attention of her soul to God. Thus she lived many years. In her last sickness, after having received the extreme unction and viaticum, she made this prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, I very well know where this my body will be lodged: it will find an abode in the earth; but what retreat wilt thou this night afford my soul? Who will receive or comfort it? No one can do it but thyself, my Saviour! Into thy hand I commend this thy creature. I am a most ungrateful sinner; but I now ask of thee that mercy which I have always implored, and to thee I recommend my soul and body.” After being laid on ashes, she expired with great tranquility, June the 24th, and was interred on the 26th, in 1135. It does not appear that she has been publicly honored among the saints; or that any jutidical process has been commenced for that purpose. Yet she is reputed a saint by the sacred biographers of Auvergne, and of the Order of Cluni, and several others, as Branche De Sanctis Alverniæ,1. 3, p. 794; Arthur de Moutier in Gynecæo Sacro, &c. Her life is elegantly written by her son Peter Maurice, surnamed the Venerable, abbot of Cluni,* and is the master-piece of his excellent works,1. 2, ep. 17. See the notes on the same in the library of Cluni. D’Andilly has given her life among those of the most illustrious saints and solitaries, t.1, &c.

JUNE 27 — ST. LADISLAS I., CONFESSOR, KING OF HUNGARY

See Papebroke’s collections from the Hungarian historians, t. 5, Junij. p. 315.

A. D. 1095.

LADISLAS the First, called by the Hungarians St. Lalo, and in old French Lancelot, was son of Bela king of Hungary, and born in 1041. By the pertinacious importunity of the people he was compelled, much against his own inclination, to ascend the throne in 1080, the kingdom being then elective. He restored the good laws and discipline which St. Stephen had established, and which seem to have been obliterated by the confusion of the times. Chastity, meekness, gravity, charity, and piety, were from his infancy the distinguishing parts of his character; avarice and ambition were his sovereign aversion, so perfectly had the maxims of the gospel extinguished in him all propensity to those base passions. His life in the palace was most austere. He was frugal and abstemious, but most liberal to the church and poor. Vanity, pleasure, or idle amusements, had no share in his actions or time, because all his moments were consecrated to the exercises of religion and the duties of his station, in which he had only the divine will in view, and sought only God’s greater honor. He watched over a strict and impartial administration of justice, was generous and merciful to his enemies, and vigorous in the defence of his country and the church. He added to his kingdom Dalmatia and Croatia, drove the Huns out of his territories, and vanquished the Poles, Russians, and Tartars. He was preparing to command, as general-in-chief, the great expedition of the Christians against the Saracens for the recovery of the Holy Land, when God called him to himself on the 30th of July, 1095. He was buried at Waradin, where his relics continue “still to be illustrated by miracles,” says the Roman Martyrology, on the 27th of June, on which day, on account of their translation, it celebrates his festival. He was canonized by Celestine III. in 1198.

How useless and impertinent are the scenes and amusements of the world, in which so many squander away that time which was given them to prepare for eternity! How insignificant and capricious are the lives of many who make here the greatest figure! The saints filled all their moments with good works and great actions; and, while they labored for an immortal crown, the greatest share of worldly happiness of which this life is capable fell in their way, without being even looked for by them. In their afflictions themselves, virtue afforded them the most solid comfort, pointed out the remedy, and converted their tribulations into the greatest advantages.

JUNE 27 — ST. JOHN, PRIEST AND CONFESSOR, SURNAMED OF MOUTIER, AND OF CHINON

St. Gregory of Tours informs us, that he was a native of Great Britain, and led a retired life at Chinon, or Caion, a village in the diocese of Tours. He confined himself to a little cell and oratory, with an orchard over against the church, and declined all superfluous commerce with men. In his orchard, which he cultivated himself, he planted a few laurel-trees, which, says St. Gregory, are now so grown, that the boughs being brought together they form an agreeable shade. Under these laurel-trees he used to sit reading or writing. After his death he was interred in the same place, and many sick were restored to their health by his intercession with God, as the same author assures us. Saint John flourished in the sixth century. He is commemorated in the Roman, Gallican, and English Martyrologies, on the 27th of June. See St. Gregory of Tours,1. de Gloriâ Confess., c. 23, &c.

JUNE 28 — ST. IRENÆUS, BISHOP OF LYONS, MARTYR

See Tillemont, t. 3; Ceillier, t. 2, p. 135; Orsi, t. 2; F. Colonia, Hist. Litiéraire de la Ville de Lyon, See. 3, p. 103; and Dom. Massnit, in his edition of this father’s works.

A. D. 202.

THIS saint is himself our voucher that he was born near the times of Domitian,1 consequently not in the close, as Dupin conjectures, but in the beginning of Adrian’s reign, about the year 120. He was a Grecian; probably a native of Lesser Asia. His parents, who were Christians, placed him under the care of the great St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. It was in so holy a school, that he learned that sacred science which rendered him afterwards a great ornament of the church in the days of her splendor, and the terror of her enemies. St. Polycarp cultivated his rising genius, and formed his mind to piety by precepts and example; and the zealous scholar was careful to reap all the advantages which were offered him by the happiness of such a master. Such was his veneration for his sanctity, that he observed every action, and whatever he saw in that holy man, the better to copy his example, and learn his spirit. He listened to his instructions with an insatiable ardor; and so deeply did he engrave them in his heart, that the impressions remained most lively even to his old age, as he declares in his letter to Florinus, quoted by Eusebius.2 St. Jerom informs us, that St. Irenæus was also a scholar of Papias, another disciple of the apostles. In order to confute the heresies of that age, which, in the three first centuries, were generally a confused medley drawn from the most extravagant systems of the heathens and their philosophers, joined with Christianity, this father studied diligently the mythology of the pagans, and made himself acquainted with the most absurd conceits of their philosophers, by which means he was qualified to trace up every error to its sources, and set it in its full light. On this account he is styled by Tertullian,3 “The most diligent searcher of all doctrines.” St. Jerom often appeals to his authority. Eusebius commends his exactness. St. Epiphanius calls him “A most learned and eloquent man, endowed with all the gifts of the Holy Ghost.” Theodoret styles him, “The light of the western Gauls.”

The great commerce between Marseilles and the ports of Lesser Asia, especially Smyrna, made the intercourse between those places very open. The faith of Christ was propagated in that part of Gaul in the times of the apostles, and from thence soon reached Vienne and Lyons; this latter town being then, by the advantage of the Rhone, no less famous a mart than it is at this day. While the desire of wealth encouraged many to hazard their persons amidst the dangers of the seas and robbers, in the way of trade, a zeal for the divine honor and the salvation of souls, was a more noble and more powerful motive with others, to face every danger and surmount every difficulty for so glorious an achievement. Among the Greeks and Orientals whom we find crowned with martyrdom with others at Lyons and Vienne, several doubtless had travelled into those parts with a view only to carry thither the light of the gospel. St. Gregory of Tours informs us, that St. Polycarp himself sent St. Irenæus into Gaul, perhaps in company with some priest. He was himself ordained priest of the church of Lyons by St. Pothinus; and, in 177, he was sent deputy in the name of that church to pope Eleutherius, to entreat him not to cut off from the communion of the church the Orientals, on account of their difference about the celebration of Easter, as Eusebius4 and St. Jerom5 take notice. The multitude and zeal of the faithful at Lyons stirred up the rage of the heathens, and gave occasion to a tumultuary and most bloody persecution, of which an account has been given June 2d. St. Irenæus gave great proofs of his zeal in those times of trial; but survived the storm, during the first part of which he had been absent in his journey to Rome. St. Pothinus having glorified God by his happy death in the year 177, our saint upon his return was chosen the second bishop of Lyons, in the heat of the persecution. By his preaching, he in a short time converted almost that whole country to the faith, as St. Gregory of Tours testifies. Eusebius tells us that he governed the churches of Gaul; but the faith was not generally planted in the more remote provinces from Marseilles and Lyons before the arrival of St. Dionysius and his companions in the following century.

Commodus, succeeding his father Marcus Aurelius in the empire in 180, though an effeminate debauched prince, restored peace to the church. But it was disturbed by an execrable spawn of heresies, particularly of the Gnostics and Valentinians. St. Irenæus wrote, chiefly against these last, his five books against heresies. The original Greek text of this work was most elegant, as St. Jerom testifies. But, except some few Greek passages which have been preserved, only a Latin translation is extant in which the style is embarrassed, diffusive, and unpolished. It seems to have been made in the lifetime of St. Irenæus, and to be the same that was made use of by Tertullian, as Dom. Massuet shows.6 This Valentinus was a good scholar, and preached with applause, first in Egypt, and afterwards at Rome. We learn from Tertullian,7 that he fell by pride and jealousy, because another was preferred before him in an election to a bishopric in Egypt. He first broached his heresy in Cyprus, but afterwards propagated it in Italy and Gaul.* When Florinus, who had been his fellow-disciple under St. Polycarp, and was afterwards a priest, of the church of Rome, blasphemously affirmed that God is the author of sin, and was on that account deposed from the priesthood, St. Irenæus wrote him a letter, entitled, “On the Monarchy or Unity of God, and that God is not the author of sin,” which is now lost. Eusebius quotes from it a passage in which the holy father in the most tender manner reminds him with what horror their common master, St. Polycarp, had he been living, would have heard such impieties. Florinus was by this letter reclaimed from his error, but being of a turbulent proud spirit, he soon after fell into the Valentinian heresy. On which occasion St. Irenæus wrote his Ogdoade, or Confutation of Valentinus’s eight principal Æônes, by whom that heresiarch pretended that the world was created and governed. In the end of this book, the saint added the following adjuration, preserved by Eusebius: “I conjure you, who transcribe this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by his glorious coming to judge the living and the dead, that you diligently compare your copy, and correct it by the original.” By this precaution, we may judge of the extreme care of the fathers in this respect, and how great their abhorrence was of the impudent practice of some heretics in adulterating writings. One Blastus, a priest at Rome, formed a schism, by keeping Easter on the fourteenth day of the first moon, and to this schism added heresy, teaching this to be a divine precept.8 He was deposed from the priesthood, and St. Irenæus wrote against him his treatise on schism. The dispute about Easter being renewed, pope Victor threatened to excommunicate the Asiatics; but was prevailed upon to tolerate for some time that practice of discipline by a letter of St. Irenæus, who entreated and advisee that, considering the circumstances, a difference of practice might be allowed, in like manner, as the faithful did not all observe in the same manner the fast of Superposition, or of one or more days without taking any sustenance in holy week; but some kept it of one, others of two, others of more days.9 Thus the pope’s severity prevented these false teachers, who pretended the legal ceremonies to be of precept, from drawing any advantage from this practice of the Orientals; and the moderation of St. Irenæus preserved some from a temptation of sinning by obstinacy and disobedience, till a uniformity in that important point of discipline could be more easily established.

The peace which the church at that time enjoyed, afforded our saint leisure to exert his zeal, and employ his pen to great advantage. Commodus began his reign with extraordinary moderation; and though he afterwards sunk into debauchery and cruelty, yet he never persecuted the Christians. He was poisoned and strangled in 192, being thirty-one years old, of which he had reigned twelve. Pertinax, an old man, was made emperor by compulsion, but reigned only eighty-seven days, always trembling for his own safety. Being esteemed too frugal and rigorous, he was slain; and the prætorian guards, who had often made and unmade emperors at pleasure, whom the never-gainsaying senate confirmed, on that occasion debased to the last degree the dignity of the Roman empire by exposing it to sale by public auction. Didius Julianus and Sulpicianus having several times outbid each other, when the latter had offered five thousand drachms, Julianus at once rose to six thousand two hundred and fifty drachms, which he promised to give every soldier; for which price he carried the empire. The senate confirmed the election, but the purchaser being embarrassed to find money to acquit himself of his engagement, was murdered sixty-six days after; having dearly bought the honor of wearing the purple, and of having his name placed among the emperors. Severus was next advanced to the throne by a part of the troops, and acknowledged emperor by the senate. Niger and Albinus were proclaimed by different armies; but Severus defeated the first by his generals, in 194, and the latter himself near Lyons in Gaul, in 197. The Christians had no share in these public broils. Tertullian at that time much extols the fidelity of the Christians to their princes, and says, none of them were ever found in armies of rebels, and, particularly, that none of them were ever engaged in the party either of Niger or Albinus.* It is evident from the whole series of the history of the Roman emperors, that the people, from the days of Augustus, never looked upon that dignity as strictly hereditary.† The confirmation of the senate, in the name of the whole Roman people, seems to have been regarded as the solemn act of state, by which an emperor was legally invested with that supreme dignity; on this account the Christians everywhere acknowledged and faithfully obeyed Severus. He had also other obligations to them. Tertullian tells us,10 that a Christian, called Proculus, cured him of a certain distemper, for which benefit the emperor was for some time favorable to the Christians, and kept Proculus as long as he lived in his palace. This Proculus was the steward of Euhodus, who was a freed man of the emperor Severus, and by him appointed to educate his son Caracalla. Tertullian mentions this cure as miraculous, and joins it to the history of devils cast out. This cure is confirmed by pagan writers.11 Yet the clamors of the heathens at length moved this ungrateful emperor, who was naturally inclined to severity, to raise the fifth persecution against the church; for he was haughty, cruel, stubborn, and unrelenting.* He published his bloody edicts against the Christians about the tenth year of his reign, of Christ 202. Having formerly been governor of Lyons, and eye-witness to the flourishing state of that church, he seems to have given particular instructions that the Christians there should be proceeded against with extraordinary severity, unless this persecution was owing to the fury of the particular magistrates, and of the mob. For the general massacre of the Christians at Lyons seems to have been attended with a popular commotion of the whole country against them, while the pagans were celebrating the decennial games in honor of Severus. It seems to have been stirred up, because the Christians refused to join the idolaters in their sacrifices. Whence Tertullian says, in his Apology, “Is it thus that your public rejoicings are consecrated by public infamy?”† Ado, in his chronicle, says that St. Irenæus suffered martyrdom with an exceeding great multitude. An ancient epitaph, in leonine verses, inscribed on a curious mosaic pavement in the great church of St. Irenæus at Lyons, says the martyrs who died with him amounted to the number of nineteen thousand.‡ St. Gregory of Tours writes, that St. Irenæus had in a very short time converted to the faith almost the whole city of Lyons; and that with him were butchered almost all the Christians of that populous town; insomuch, that the streets ran with streams of blood.§ Most place the martyrdom of these saints in 202, the beginning of the persecution, though some defer it to the year 208, when Severus passed through Lyons in his expedition into Britain. The precious remains of St. Irenæus were buried by his priest Zachary, between the bodies of the holy martyrs SS. Epipodius and Alexander. They were kept with honor in the subterraneous chapel in the church of St. John, till, in 1562, they were scattered by the Calvinists, and a great part thrown into the river. The head they kicked about in the streets, then cast it into a little brook; but it was found by a Catholic, and restored to St. John’s church.12 The Greeks honor his memory on the 23d of August, the Latins on the 28th of June. The former say he was beheaded.

It was not for want of strength or courage, that the primitive Christians at still and suffered the most grievous torments, insults, and death; but from a principle of religion which taught them the interest of faith does not exempt men from the duty which they owe to the civil authority of government, and they rather chose to be killed than to sin against God, as Tertullian often takes notice. Writing at this very time, he tells the pagans, that the Maurs, Marcomans, and Parthians, were not so numerous as the Christians, who knew no other bounds than the limits of the world. “We are but of yesterday,” says he,13 “and by to-day we are grown up, and overspread your empire; your cities, your islands, your forts, towns, assemblies, and your very camps, wards, companies, palace, senate, forum, all swarm with Christians. Your temples are the only places which you can find without Christians. What war are not we equal to?14 And supposing us unequal in strength, yet considering our usage, what should we not attempt? we whom you see so ready to meet death in all its forms of cruelly. Were the numerous host of Christians but to retire from the empire, the loss of so many men of all ranks would leave a hideous gap, and the very evacuation would be abundant revenge. You would stand aghast at your desolation, and be struck dumb at the general silence and horror of nature, as if the whole world was departed.” He writes that the Christians not only suffered with patience and joy every persecution and insult, but loved and prayed for their enemies, and by their prayers protected the state, and often delivered the persecutors from many dangers of soul and body, and from the incursions of their invisible enemies the devils. He says: “When we come to the public service of God, we come as it were in a formidable body to do violence to him, and to storm heaven by prayer; and this violence is most grateful to God. When this holy army of supplicants is met, we all send up our prayers for the life of the emperors, for their ministers, for magistrates, for the good of the state, and for the peace of the empire.”15 And in another place:* “To this almighty Maker and Disposer of all things it is, that we Christians offer up our prayers, with eyes lifted up to heaven; and without a prompter, we pray with our hearts rather than with our tongues; and in all our prayers are ever mindful of all our emperors and kings wheresoever we live, beseeching God for every one of them, that he would bless them with length of days, and a quiet reign, a well established family, a valiant army, a faithful senate, an honest people, and a peaceful world, with whatever else either prince or people can wish for. Thus, while we are stretching forth our hands to God, let your tormenting irons harrow our flesh, let your gibbets exalt us, or your fires consume our bodies, or your swords cut off our heads, or your beasts tread us to the earth. For a Christian, upon his knees to his God, is in a posture of defence against all the evils you can crowd upon him. Consider this, O you impartial judges, and go on with your justice; rack out the soul of a Christian, which is pouring out herself to God for the life of the emperor.”† He says indeed, that there are some Christians who do not live up to their profession; but then they have not the reputation of Christians among those who are truly such; and no Christian had then ever been guilty of rebellion; though even philosophers among the heathens were often stained with that and other crimes. Hippias was killed while he was engaged in arms against his country; whereas no Christian had ever recourse to arms or violence, even for the deliverance of his brethren, though under the most provoking and barbarous usage.‡

JUNE 28 — ST. LEO II., POPE, C

He was by birth a Silician, eminent for his piety, and perfectly skilled in the Latin and Greek tongues, in the church music, and both in sacred and polite literature. Pope Agatho dying on the 1st of December, 681, he was chosen to fill the pontifical chair. He confirmed, by the authority of St. Peter, as he says, (writing to the zealous emperor Constantine Pogonatus,1) the sixth general council held at Constantinople, in which his predecessor St. Agatho had presided by his legates. In the censure of this council we find the name of Honorius, joined with the Monothelite heretics, Theodorus bishop of Pharan, and Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter of Constantinople. Pope Leo II. in his first letter to the bishops of Spain,2 gives the reason, because Honorius “did not extinguish the flame of the heretical doctrine in its rise, as it became the apostolical authority, but fomented it by negligence.” And in his letter to king Ervigius3 he makes the same distinction between Honorius and the others. It is evident from the very letters of Honorius himself, which are still extant, from the irrefragable testimony of his secretary who wrote those letters, and from others, that he never gave in to the Monothelite error; though had he fallen into heresy, this would have only hurt himself; nor is the question of any other importance than as an historical fact. Favorers are sometimes ranked with principals.4 Honorius had by unwariness, and an indiscreet silence, temporized with a powerful heresy, before his eyes were opened to see the flame, which he ought to have labored strenuously to extinguish when the first sparks appeared. St. Leo reformed the Gregorian chant, composed several sacred hymns for the divine office, and did many things for the advancement of religion, though he was only pope one year and seven months. He pointed out the path to Christian perfection no less by the example of his life, than by his assiduous instructions, and zealous exhortations; and was in a particular manner the father of the poor, whom he diligently relieved, comforted, and instructed with a most edifying tenderness, charity, and patience. He passed to a better life on the 23d of May, 683, and was buried in the Vatican church on the 28th of June; on which day he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology, that of Notker, and the ancient German Calendar published by Beckius. See Anastasius Biblioth, and his Epistles, Conc. t. 6.

JUNE 28 — SS. PLUTARCH, ETC., MM

The school of Origen at Alexandria was a school of virtue and martyrdom; for the master, notwithstanding his extraordinary reputation in the sciences, made it the first part of his care to train up all his scholars in the most heroic maxims of Christian perfection. Hence it is not to be wondered that out of it came many illustrious martyrs in the persecution of Severus, which raged with great fury from 202, the year before Origen was made catechist, to the death of that emperor in 211.

The first of these heroes of virtue was St. Plutarch, brother of St. Heraclas, afterwards bishop of Alexandria. These two eminent brothers were converted to the faith at the same time by hearing certain lectures read by Origen. Plutarch prepared himself for martyrdom by a holy life, and being a person of distinction was soon apprehended. Origen visited and encouraged him in prison, and accompanied him to the place of execution where he narrowly escaped death himself, from the resentment of Plutarch’s pagan friends, who looked upon him as the cause of their losing him. Serenus, another scholar of Origen, was burnt alive for the faith: Heraclides, a third, yet a catechumen, and Hero, who had been lately baptized, were beheaded: another Serenus, after undergoing many torments, had his head also cut off. Herais, a damsel, being but a catechumen, was burnt, and according to the expression of Origen, baptized by fire; for Origen had among his disciples several illustrious ladies. See Eusebius,1. 6 3, 4.

JUNE 28 — SS. POTAMIANA OR POTAMIENA, AND BASILIDES, MARTYRS

These two also owed their instruction in virtue to the same master with the former, as Henry Valesius proves from Eusebius’s history, and as Rufinus assures us. Potamiana was by condition a slave, but had the happiness to be educated in the faith by a pious mother whose name was Marcella, and seeking the ablest master of piety, applied herself to Origen. She was young, and of amazing beauty, and her heathen master conceived a brutish desire to abuse her; but finding her resolution and virtue invincible, and all his artifices, threats, and promises in vain, he delivered her to the prefect Aquila, entreating him not to hurt her if she could be prevailed upon to consent to his passion, and on that condition promising him a considerable sum of money. The prefect not being able to persuade her, made her undergo several torments, and at length caused a caldron of boiling pitch to be prepared, and then said to her, “Go, obey your master, or you shall be thrown into this caldron.” She answered, “I conjure you by the life of the emperor whom you respect, that you do not let me appear uncovered; command me rather to be let down by degrees into the caldron with my clothes on, that you may see the patience with which Jesus Christ, of whom you are ignorant, endues those who trust in him.” The prefect granted this request, and delivered her to Basilides, one of her guards, to carry her to execution. Basilides treated her with mildness and civility, and kept off the people, who pressed on to insult her modesty, with lewd and opprobrious speeches, all the way she went. The martyr, by way of requital, bade him be of good courage; and promised, that “after her death she would obtain of God his salvation,” as Eusebius expresses it. When she had spoken thus, the executioners put her feet into the boiling pitch, and dipped her in by degrees to the very top of her head; and thus she finished her martyrdom. Her mother, Marcella, was burnt at the same time. Tertullian1 and Origen2 testify that many were then called to the faith by visions and apparitions.* By such a favor was the conversion of the soldier Basilides wrought through the prayers of St. Potamiana, who while alive had promised he should feel the effects of her gratitude when she should be gone to Christ. A little after her martyrdom, the soldiers who were his comrades, being about to make him swear by their false gods, he declared that he was a Christian, and could by no means do it. They at first thought he jested; but finding him to persist in his resolution, they carried him to the prefect, who caused him to be put in prison. The Christians who came to visit him there, asked him the cause of his sudden change. He answered them, that Potamiana had appeared to him on the night after the third day from her martyrdom, and had placed a crown on his head, saying, that she had besought the Lord to give him the grace of salvation, and had obtained her request; and that he should shortly be called by Him to glory. After this, having received from the brethren the seal of the Lord, (that is, baptism,) he made the next day, a second time, a glorious confession of the faith before the tribunal of the prefect, and sentence of death being passed upon him, his head was cut off with an axe. St. Potamiana appeared to several others in dreams, and they were converted to the faith. See Eusebius Hist. 1 6, c. 5, and Palladius, Lausiac, c. 3.

JUNE 29 — ST. PETER, PRINCE OF THE APOSTLES

From the Gospels, Acts, and ancient fathers. See Tillemont, Calmet, and Ceillier

ST. PETER, the most glorious prince of the apostles, and the most ardent lover of his divine Master, before his vocation to the apostleship was called Simon. He was son of Jonas, and brother of St. Andrew. St. Epiphanius1 says, that though he was the younger brother, he was made by Christ the chief* of all the apostles. St. Chrysostom, on the contrary, takes him to have been the elder brother, and the oldest man in the apostolic college. If writers of the fifth age were divided upon this point, succeeding ages have not been able to decide it. St. Peter originally resided at Bethsaida,2 a town much enlarged and beautified by Herod the betrarch, situated in the tribe of Nepthali, in Upper Galilee, on the banks of the lake or sea of Gennesareth. This town was honored with the presence of our Lord, who, in the course of his ministry, preached and wrought miracles in it. Its inhabitants, however, were for the most part a stupid and obstinate set of men, and their abuse of the grace that was offered them deserved the dreadful wo which Christ denounced against them. St. Peter and St. Andrew were religious, docile, and humble in the midst of a perverse and worldly-minded people. They were educated in the laborious trade of fishing, which was probably their father’s calling. From Bethsaida St. Peter removed to Capharnaum,3 probably on account of his marriage; for his wife’s mother dwelt there. This place was equally commodious for fishing, being seated on the bank of the same lake, near the mouth of the river Jordan, on the confines of the tribes of Zabulon and Nepthali. Andrew accompanied his brother thither, and they still followed their trade as before. With their worldly employment they retained a due sense of religion, and did not suffer the thoughts of temporal concerns or gain to devour their more necessary attention to spiritual things, and the care of their souls. They lived in the earnest expectation of the Messiah. St. Andrew became a disciple of St. John the Baptist; and most are of opinion that St. Peter was so too. The former having heard St. John call Christ the Lamb of God, repaired to our Lord, and continued with him the remainder of that day, and, according to St. Austin, the following night. By the conversation of Jesus, he was abundantly convinced that he was the Christ, the world’s Redeemer; and, coming from him, he went and sought out his brother Simon, and told him, in a transport of holy joy, that he had found the Messiah.4 Simon believed in Christ before he saw him; and being impatient to behold him with his eyes, and to hear the words of eternal life from his divine mouth, he without delay went with his brother to Jesus, who, looking upon him, in order to give him a proof of his omniscience, told him not only his own, but also his father’s name. He on that occasion gave him the new name of Cephas, which in the Syro-Chaldaic tongue, then used in Judæa, signifies a rock, and is by us changed into Peter, from the Greek word of the same import.* St. Peter and St. Andrew, after having passed some time in the company of our divine Redeemer, returned to their fishing trade; yet often resorted to him to hear his holy instructions. Towards the end of the same year, which was the first of Christ’s preaching, Jesus saw Simon Peter and Andrew washing their nets on the banks of the lake; and going into Simon’s boat to shun the press, he preached to the people who stood on the shore. After his discourse, as an earnest of his blessing to his entertainer, he bade Peter cast his nets into the sea. Our apostle had toiled all the foregoing night to no purpose, and had drawn his boat into the harbor, despairing of any success at present. However, in obedience to Christ, he again launched out into deep water, and let down his net. He had scarce done this, when such a shoal of fishes was caught by the first draught, as filled not only their own boat, but also that of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were fishing near them, and were forced to come and help them to drag in the net, which was ready to break with the load; yet the boats were not sunk. At the sight of this miracle, Peter, struck with amazement, fell on his knees, and cried out, “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.” The apostle, by this humility, while he sincerely professed himself unworthy to appear in the presence of his Lord, or to be in his company, deserved to receive the greatest graces. By this miracle Christ gave the apostles a type of their wonderful success in the new employment to which he called them, when he made them fishers of men. Upon this occasion, he bade Peter and Andrew follow him. This invitation they instantly obeyed, and with such perfect dispositions of heart, that St. Peter could afterwards say to Christ with confidence, Behold, O Lord, we have left all things, and have followed thee.5 They were possessed of little, having only a boat and nets to leave; but they renounced all future hopes and prospects in the world with so perfect a disengagement of heart, that they forsook with joy the whole world, in spirit and affection; and what went far beyond all this, they also renounced themselves and their own will. In requital, Christ promised them, besides never-ending happiness in the world to come, even in this life, a hundred-fold of true joys and spiritual blessings, in an uninterrupted peace of the soul, which surpasseth all understanding, in the overflowing sweetness of divine love, and in the abundant consolations of the Holy Ghost. From this time, St. Peter and St. Andrew became constant attendants upon their divine Master. Jesus soon after this returned and made some stay at Capharnaum, cured Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever, and after that miracle tarried some time in Galilee, healing many sick, casting out devils, and preaching in the synagogues on the sabbath-days with a dignity which bespoke his doctrine divine.

After the feast of the passover in the year 31, Christ chose his twelve apostles, in which sacred college the chief place was from the beginning assigned to St. Peter. Mr. Laurence Clarke6 takes notice, that “in the enumeration of the twelve, all the evangelists constantly place Peter in the front. Our Lord usually directs his discourse to him, and he replies as the mouth of his fellows. Christ appeared to him after his resurrection before the rest of the apostles. He gave him a special command to feed his sheep. He was the first whom God chose to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. From these and other passages of the holy scripture, it is evident that St. Peter acted as chief of the college of the apostles; and so he is constantly described by the primitive writers of the church, who call him the head, the president, the prolocutor, the chief, the foreman of the apostles, with several other titles of distinction.” Christ, who had always distinguished St. Peter above the rest of the apostles, promised to commit his whole church to his care, above a year before his sacred death,7 and confirmed to him that charge after his resurrection,8 having exacted of him a testimony of his strong faith, on the first occasion, and on the second, a proof of his ardent love of God, and zeal for souls. These two virtues are especially requisite in a pastor of souls; and the prince of the apostles was possessed of them in the most heroic and eminent degree. Enlightened by God, and passing over all visible and created things, he made the most glorious confession of his faith in Christ, as truly God and Son of the living God. When certain weak disciples deserted Christ, being offended at his doctrine concerning the wonderful mystery of the blessed eucharist, our Saviour asked the twelve, Will you also go away? St. Peter answered resolutely, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. As upon the testimony of his divine word, he readily assented to the most sublime mysteries; so by the most sweet and tender love, he was desirous to keep continually in his holy company, and thought it was to perish, ever to be separated from him. In a transport of this same love, he cried out when he beheld the transfiguration of our Saviour, Lord, it is good for us always to be here: ever to be with thee and to have our eyes fixed on the adorable object of thy glory. But this happiness was first to be purchased by labors and great sufferings. When he heard Christ foretell his barbarous death, this love moved him to persuade his Master to preserve himself from those sufferings he told them he was to undergo; for he did not then understand the advantages of the cross, nor the mystery of our redemption by it. For this he was called by Christ Satan or adversary; and that reprimand opened his eyes, and was his cure. Out of love, he twice cast himself into the sea to meet Jesus; for his heart melted at his sight, and he had not patience to wait till the boat came up to the shore. This happened once after his resurrection, as we shall see in the sequel, but first long before, when the apostles were crossing the lake, and Jesus came from the shore, walking on the waves to them. St. Peter begged and obtained his leave to come on the waters to his divine Master. When he had stepped upon the waves, a sudden fear something abated his confidence, and he began to sink; but Jesus held him up by the hand.9 By his confidence in God, we learn what we can do by the divine assistance and by his fear, what we are of ourselves; also, that no one receives from God the strength he stands in need of, but he who feels that of himself he is entirely without strength, according to the reflection of St. Austin.10 St. Peter, influenced by this same strong love, offered himself to all sorts of difficulties and dangers, and to undergo death itself for his good Lord. Yet this zealous apostle, in punishment of a secret presumption, was permitted to fall, that we might learn with him more clearly to discover our own weakness, and fear the danger of pride. St. Peter had before given proofs of an exemplary humility. After the miraculous draught of fishes, he cast himself at our Lord’s feet, begging he would depart from him, because he was a sinful man; and when our blessed Saviour offered to wash his feet at the last supper, he cried out in surprise and humility, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Thou shalt not wash my feet forever. But being terrified by his threat, that otherwise he should have no part with him, he with fervor offered also his hands and his head to be washed, if needful. In answer to which Christ signified to him, that he who was clean from grievous sins, stood in need only of wiping away smaller stains and imperfections, an emblem of which was this washing of the feet.

Who is not moved to tremble for himself, and to walk always in holy fear, and in the most profound and sincere humility, when he sees so great an apostle, endowed with such eminent virtues, grace, and spiritual gifts, fall at fast by surprise into secret presumption, and by it into the grievous crime of denying his divine Master? His protestation, that he was ready to die with him, was accompanied with some degree of confidence in his own courage and in the strength of his resolution; whereas an entire and perfect distrust in ourselves is an essential part of true humility. Instead of praying in the humble sentiment of his own weakness and frailty, he relied on his courage as if it was proof against all dangers. To curb this rising presumption, Christ foretold him, that before the crowing of the cock and break of day he would thrice deny him.* Jesus still ranked St. Peter among his favorite apostles; and as he had made him, St. James, and St. John, witnesses of his transfiguration, and of other extraordinary mysteries, so in the garden of Gethsemani he took these three with him when he retired from the rest, and at a distance of a stone’s throw from these three disciples fell into his agony and bloody sweat. Notwithstanding the courage of our fervent apostle, Christ was obliged to reproach him, with his two companions, that he was not able to watch with him one hour; when he ought to have been arming and strengthening himself by humble prayer against the assaults of the enemy. When Judas led the Jews to apprehend Christ, St. Peter’s zeal for his master made him draw his sword against his unjust persecutors, and smite Malchus, one of the busiest among them. But Christ taught him that the arms of his disciples are patience and humility. St. Peter, by his presumption, and by having neglected to watch and pray, deserved to fall from his fervor into a state of lukewarmness. He followed Jesus still when he was in the hands of his enemies, but at a distance, as St. Luke takes notice. He who just before thought of dying for his Master, and drew his sword to defend him, was become afraid of sharing in his disgrace. “Oh!” cries out St. Chrysostom,11 “by what means was the vehement fervor of Peter so much cooled?” Nor did he stop here. He who does not always advance, loses ground; and a soul which falls from fervor into a state of tepidity, is guilty of an abuse of divine grace, and is in danger of perishing in the first snare. Accordingly, bad company soon completed the misfortune of this apostle. He mingled with the servants of the high-priest, and other enemies of Christ, in the lower hall of Caiphas’s palace. Here at the reproach of the portress that had let him in, and soon after a second time, at that of another maid, he renounced all knowledge of him. The cock then crowed; yet Peter took no notice. About an hour after, another of the assistants said, he was one of the disciples of Jesus; which others confirmed, because his accent betrayed him to be a Galilean; and a cousin of Malchus, whose ear had been cut off, assured that he had seen him in the garden. Hereupon Peter protested a third time, with oaths and curses, that he knew not the man. Thus one sin, if it be not blotted out by speedy repentance, draws a soul, as it were by its own weight, into greater precipices.

How grievous soever this sin of St. Peter was, he never lost his faith in Christ, as appears from Christ’s words to him,12 and as the fathers observe.13 For “though he had a lie in his mouth, his heart was faithful,” as St. Austin says:14 his sin, nevertheless, was most heinous; but his repentance was speedy, perfect, and constant; and it bore a proportion to the heinousness of his crime. At the time of his third denial, the cock crowed the second time; yet this exterior sign did not suffice alone to make the sinner enter into himself; but Jesus turning, looked on him, not so much with his corporal eyes, as visiting his soul with his interior grace, says St. Austin;15 and this it was that wrought in him the wonderful change, by which in a moment he became a perfect penitent. “Look on us, O Lord Jesus, that we may bewail our sins, and wash away our guilt,” cries out St. Ambrose.16 Our Blessed Redeemer has cast this gracious eye of his mercy on all the sinners whom he ever drew to repentance: his goodness disdains none. We therefore ought to cast ourselves at his feet, and though most undeserving of such a favor, most earnestly to beg that he afford us this gracious look, upon which our eternal salvation depends. St. Peter by it was pierced with grief, and the most sincere repentance; and instantly quitted the fatal company and occasions, and going forth gave full vent to a flood of tears, which flowed from a heart broken with contrition. “For Peter, when he had denied Christ, did not weep for fear of punishment; but this was the most bitter to him, and worse than any punishment, that he had denied him whom he loved,” as St. Chrysostom observes.17 He thought not of any excuses from the circumstances of surprise, frailty, or compulsion: nor did he say any thing to extenuate his guilt. A true penitent sees the enormity of his sins with all their exaggerating circumstances, and is his own most severe accuser. This apostle set no bounds to his sorrow; and his cheeks are said to have been always furrowed with the streams of tears which he often shed to the end of his life. And as he fell by presumption, he ever after made the most profound humility the favorite and distinguishing part of his virtue, as St. Chrysostom remarks.18 From his example we must be apprized, that if we confide in our own strength, we are vanquished without fighting. This great model of pastors learned by his fall to treat sinners with tenderness and compassion; and Christ, by the graces and dignity to which he exalted him after his fall, shows his boundless mercy, and how perfectly true repentance blots out sin.

After the resurrection of our Divine Saviour, Mary Magdalen and the other devout women that went early on the Sunday morning to the sepulchre, were ordered by an angel to go and inform Peter and the rest that Christ was risen. Our apostle no sooner heard this, but he ran in haste with St. John to the sepulchre. Love gave wings to both these disciples; but St. John running faster, arrived first at the place, though he waited there, doubtless out of respect; and St. Peter first entered the sepulchre, and saw the place where the sacred body had been laid. After their departure, Christ appeared to Mary Magdalen; and afterwards on the same day to St. Peter, the first among the apostles.19 This favor was an effect of his tender mercy, in which he would not defer to satisfy this apostle’s extreme desire of seeing him, and to afford him comfort in the grief of his bitter compunction, by this pledge of his grace, and this assurance of his pardon.20 The angel that appeared to Saint Mary Magdalen, had ordered that the apostles should go from Jerusalem into Galilee, where they should see their divine Master, as he had foretold them before his sacred death. Accordingly, some days after, St. Peter, while he was fishing in the lake of Tiberias, saw Christ on the shore: and not being able to contain himself, in the transport of his love and joy, he threw himself into the water and swam to land, the sooner to meet his Lord. St. John and the rest followed him in the boat, dragging the net loaded with one hundred and fifty-three great fishes, which they had taken by casting on the right side of the boat, by Christ’s direction. When they were landed, they saw upon shore some live coals, and a fish broiling upon them, with bread lying near it. This repast Jesus had prepared for them. After it was over, he thrice asked St. Peter, whether he loved him more than the rest of his disciples: St. Peter told him, that He knew his love to be most sincere; and he was troubled in mind at the repetition of his question, fearing lest Christ discerned in his heart some secret imperfection or defect in his love. How different are now his modesty, fear, and humility from his former presumption? He dares not answer that he loved his master more than the others did, because he presumes not to judge of their hearts, and is mistrustful of the sincerity of his own, having now learned the whole extent of true humility. The vehemence of his love goes much beyond what any words could ever express. Yet he says only with trembling, that he loved; this he speaks as one most earnestly imploring the divine aid, that he might be enabled to love his Master with his whole strength. “Do not you see,” says St. Chrysostom,21 “that the better he is grown, the more modest and timorous he is become? He does not speak arrogantly, or contradict; he is not self-confident; therefore is he disturbed.” By this triple public testimony of his love, he was to repair the scandal of his former denial. “Let him confess by love who had thrice denied through fear,” says St. Austin.22 By the ardor of his zeal and love was he to be qualified for the commission which he received hereupon to feed Christ’s sheep and lambs, that is, his whole flock; for he who enters the sanctuary under the least partial influence of any other motive than that of love, is a base hireling, and a slave of avarice and vain-glory; not a pastor of souls, or minister of Christ. St. Peter’s greater love for Christ, and zeal for the interest of his glory, raised him to the high charge with which he was intrusted by his Divine Master. Upon this passage, St. Chrysostom writes as followeth: “Why does Christ, passing by the rest, now speak to Peter alone? He was eminent above the rest, the mouth of the disciples, and the head of that college. Therefore Paul came to see him above the rest. Christ says to him: If thou lovest me, take upon thee the government or charge of thy brethren.* And now give the proof of that fervent love which thou hast always professed, and in which thou didst exult. Give for my sheep that life which thou professedst thyself ready to lay down for me.” Jesus after this foretold St. Peter his martyrdom by the cross; and this apostle was well pleased to drink the bitter cup, and to make his confession as public as his denial had been, that he might make some reparation for his former sin. His singular affection for St. John, prompted him to ask what would become of him, and whether he should not bear him company; but his master checked his inquisitive curiosity.

Christ appeared to the apostles, assembled together on a certain mountain in Galilee,23 where he had appointed to meet them, and gave them a commission to preach the gospel throughout all nations, promising to remain with his church all days to the end of the world. He manifested himself also to five hundred disciples at once.24 When the apostles had spent some time in Galilee, they returned to Jerusalem, where, ten days before the feast of Pentecost, Christ favored them with his last appearance, and commanded them to preach baptism and penance, and to confirm their doctrine by miracles.25 Faith being essentially dark, mysterious, and supernatural; and the dispensations of Providence, and of the divine grace and mercy, being above the reach of human reason, the great and necessary knowledge of these most important saving truths can only be conveyed to men by the divine revelation. This, in the new law of the gospel, was immediately communicated to the apostles, with a charge that they should promulge and propagate it in all nations of the earth. Poor, illiterate men, destitute of every human succor, were made the instruments of this great work; and at their head was placed an ignorant fisherman, whose knowledge, when he was called to the apostleship, did not reach beyond his nets and boat. Yet this little troop triumphed over the wisdom of philosophers, the eloquence of orators, the authority of the greatest princes, the force of customs, policy, interest, superstition, and all the passions of men; over the artifices and persecutions of the whole world confederated against them. So powerful was the Spirit of God which enlightened their understandings, and spoke by their months; such was the evidence of their testimony, confirmed by innumerable incontestable miracles, and by the heavenly temper and sanctity which their words and actions breathed; and lastly, sealed by their blood. So bright and illustrious in this holy religion were the indications of its divine original, that he who takes an impartial review of them, will be obliged to cry out with Hugh of St. Victor, and Picus of Mirandula: “If I could be deceived in thy faith, thou alone, O Lord, must have been the author of my error, so evident are the marks of thy authority which it bears” To all who sincerely seek after truth, this revelation is a pillar of light though to the perverse, God often turns it into a cloud of darkness. Their pride and passions are haunts to which the beams of this sun, though most bright and piercing, are impervious.

The extraordinary gifts and graces by which the apostles were qualified for this great function, were the fruit of the descent of the Holy Ghost, who shed his beams upon them on Whitsunday. After the ascension of Christ, they waited the coming of that Divine Spirit in retirement and prayer. In the mean time, St. Peter proposed to the assembly the election of a new apostle, whereupon St. Matthias was chosen. The prince of the apostles, having received the Holy Ghost, made a sermon to the Jews, who were assembled about the disciples upon the fame of this prodigy, and he converted three thousand by the mildness and powerful unction of his words. “We should have a share of this courage; and the ardor of the Holy Ghost would make everything easy to us, if we were worthy to receive it, and if we drew this grace down upon us as the apostles did by assiduity in prayer, and by our charity towards our brethren,” says St. Chrysostom.26 We have great reason to admire the change which the grace of the Holy Ghost wrought in St. Peter, both in the intrepidity and courage which he showed, and still more in his humility, patience, and meekness. He appeared always so ready to yield to every one, and to humble himself before all the world, that he seemed to forget the rank which he held in the church, only when God’s honor called upon him to exert his authority; and the natural warmth and vehemence of his temper was no more to be discerned in his actions, only in the fervor and constancy with which he underwent all manner of labors and dangers for the cause of God and his church. The new converts received with the faith a share of the same Spirit. They persevered in the participation of the holy mysteries and in prayer, and selling all their possessions, gave the price to the apostles to be distributed among the poor brethren. Their humility, simplicity of heart, meekness, patience, and joy in suffering were such, that they seemed on a sudden to be transformed into angels, to use the expression of St. Chrysostom,27 so perfectly were they disengaged from the earth. The abundant effusion of the Holy Ghost, the advantage of persecutions, and the inflamed words and example of the apostles effected this change in their hearts, by the power of the right hand of the Most High.

The preaching of the apostles received a sanction from a wonderful miracle, by which St. Peter and St. John raised the admiration of the people. These two apostles going to the temple at three o’clock in the afternoon, which was one of the hours for public prayer among the Jews, they saw a man who was lame from his birth, and was begging alms at the gate of the temple, which was called The Beautiful; and being moved with compassion, St. Peter commanded him in the name of Jesus Christ, to arise and walk. These words were no sooner spoken, but the cripple found himself perfectly whole, and St. Peter lifting him up, he entered into the temple walking, leaping, and praising God. After this miracle, St. Peter made a second sermon to the people, the effect of which was the conversion of five thousand persons. Upon this, the priests and Sadducees, moved with envy and jealousy, prevailed upon the captain of the guard of the temple to come up with a troop of soldiers under his command, and seize the two apostles, and put them into prison, upon pretence of a sedition. Next morning they were summoned before the great court of the Sanhedrim, in which Annas, Caiphas, John, and Alexander, appeared busiest in carrying on the prosecution against them. The point of the sedition was waived, because groundless; and St. Peter boldly declared, that it was in the name of Jesus, in which all men must be saved, that the cripple had been made sound. The judges, not being able to contest or stifle the evidence of the miracle, contented themselves with giving the apostles a severe charge not to preach any more the name of Jesus. But to their threats St. Peter resolutely replied: “Whether it be just to obey you rather than God, be you yourselves judges.” The two apostles being discharged, returned to the other disciples, and after they had prayed together, the house was shaken, for a miraculous sign of the divine protection; and the whole company found themselves replenished with a new spirit of courage. The converts learned, from the example of their teachers, so perfect a spirit of disinterestedness, contempt of the world, and thirst after eternal goods, that they lived in common; and the rich, selling their estates, laid the price at the feet of the apostles, that it might be equally distributed to such as had need. But neither miracles, nor the company and example of the saints, could extinguish the passion of avarice in the hearts of Ananias and his wife Sapphira. Being rich, they pretended to vie with the most charitable, and sold their estate; but while they hypocritically pretended to resign the whole price to the public use, they secretly retained a part to themselves. St. Peter, to whom God had revealed their hypocrisy, reproached them singly, that they had put a cheat upon their own souls, by telling a lie to the Holy Ghost in the person of his ministers. At his severe reprimand, first the husband, and afterwards the wife, fell down dead at his feet.

The apostles confirmed their doctrine by many miracles, curing the sick, and casting out devils. The people laid their sick on beds and couches in the streets, “That when Peter came, his shadow at the least might over shadow any of them, and they might be delivered from their infirmities.” The high priest Caiphas, and the other heads of the Sanhedrim were much incensed to see their prohibition slighted, and the gospel daily gain ground; and having apprehended the apostles, they put them into the common prison; but God sent his angel in the night, who, opening the doors of the prison, set them at liberty; and early the next morning they appeared again preaching publicly in the temple. The judges of the Sanhedrim again took them up, and examined them. The apostles made no other defence but that they ought rather to obey God than men. The high priest and his faction deliberated by what means they might put them to death; but their sanguinary intentions were overruled by the mild counsel of Gamaliel, a famous doctor of the law, who advised them to wait the issue, and to consider whether this doctrine, confirmed by miracles, came not from God, against whom their power would be vain. However, they condemned the servants of God to be scourged. The apostles after this torment went away full of joy, that they had been judged worthy to bear a part in the ignominy and sufferings of the cross, the true glory and advantages of which they had now learned. This their spirit, says St. Chrysostom,28 was the greatest of their miracles. Many Jewish priests embraced the faith of Christ; but the daily triumphs of the word of God raised a persecution in Jerusalem, which crowned St. Stephen with martyrdom, and dispersed the faithful, who fled some to Damascus, others to Antioch, and many into Phœnicia, Cyprus, and other places. The apostles themselves remained still at Jerusalem to encourage the converts. The disciples preached the faith in all places whither they came; so that this dispersion, instead of extinguishing the holy fire, spread it the more on all sides. On this occasion St. Philip the deacon converted many Samaritans, who were esteemed, though schismatics, to belong rather to the Jewish nation than to the Gentiles, and Christ himself had preached among them. St. Peter and St. John went from Jerusalem to Samaria to confirm the Samaritan converts, and St. Peter had there his first conflict with Simon Magus. In the mean time, the persecution had ceased at Jerusalem after the conversion of St. Paul. The favorable dispositions of the emperor Tiberius might contribute to restore this calm. That prince was one of the worst of men, and so cruel a tyrant, that Theodorus Gadareus, his preceptor, sometimes called him a lump of flesh, steeped in blood. Yet from the account sent him by Pilate concerning the miracles and sanctity of Christ, he had entertained a high opinion of him, had some thoughts of enrolling him among the gods, and testified his inclinations in favor of the Christians, threatening even with death those who should accuse or molest them, as we are assured by Tertullian,29 St. Justin,30 and others.

St. Peter, who had stayed at Jerusalem during the heat of the persecution, after the storm was blown over, made a progress through the adjacent country, to visit the faithful, as a general makes his round, says St. Chrysostom,31 to see if all things are everywhere in good order. At Lydda, in the tribe of Ephraim, he cured a man named Æneas, who had kept his bed eight years, being sick of a palsy; and at Joppe, being moved by the tears of the poor, he raised to life the virtuous and charitable widow Tabitha. The apostle lodged some time in that town, at the house of Simon the Tanner; which he left by the order of an angel to go to baptize Cornelius the centurion, a Gentile. Upon that occasion God manifested to the prince of the apostles, both by this order, and by a distinct vision, the great mystery of the vocation of the Gentiles to the faith. It seems to have been after this, that the apostles dispersed themselves into other countries to preach the gospel, beginning in the adjoining provinces. In the partition of nations which they made among themselves. St. Peter was destined to carry the gospel to the capital city of the Roman empire and of the world, says St. Leo. But the apostles stopped some time to preach in Syria and other countries near Judæa before they proceeded further; and St. Peter founded the church of Antioch, which was the metropolis not only of Syria, but of all the East St. Jerom,32 Eusebius,33 and other ancient, writers assure us, that Antioch was his first see. It was fitting, says St. Chrysostom, that the city which first gave to the faithful the name of Christians, should have for its first pastor the prince of the apostles. Origen34 and Eusebius35 call St. Ignatius the second bishop of Antioch from St. Peter. St. Chrysostom says St. Peter resided there a long time; the common opinion is, seven years, from the year thirty-three to forty.* During this interval he made frequent excursions to carry the faith into other countries. For though several of the apostles chose particular sees for themselves among the churches which they founded, they did not so confine themselves as to forget their universal commission of preaching to all nations. St. Peter was at Jerusalem in 37, when St. Paul paid him a visit, and stayed with him fifteen days.36 Our great apostle preached to the Jews dispersed throughout all the East, in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and the Lesser Asia, before he went to Rome, as Eusebius testifies. The same is confirmed by the inscription of his first epistle. He announced the faith also to the Gentiles, as occasions were offered, throughout these and other countries, as appears by many instances. St. Peter is the only apostle whom the gospel mentions to have been married before his vocation to the apostleship; though we are assured by ancient fathers and historians that St. Philip and some others were also married men when they were called by Christ. St. Clemens of Alexandria,37 St. Jerom, and St. Epiphanius expressly affirm, that from the time of their call to the ministry, or the commencement of their apostleship, they all embraced a state of perpetual continency; and St. Chrysostom proposes St. Peter as an illustrious model of chastity.38 So mortified and abstemious was the life of this great apostle, that St. Gregory Nazianzen relates,39 that his diet was only one penny-worth† a day of an unsavory and bitter kind of pulse called lupines, and sometimes of herbs; though on certain occasions he ate of what was set before him.

Peter planted the faith in many countries near Judæa before the dispersion of the apostles, which happened twelve years after the death of Christ, in the fortieth year of the vulgar Christian era. In the partition of nations among the apostles, St. Peter chose Rome for the chief seat of his labors and having preached through several provinces of the East, by a particular order of divine providence, he at length arrived there, that he might encounter the devil in that city, which was then the chief seat of superstition, and the mistress of error. Divine providence, which had raised the Roman empire for the more easy propagation of the gospel in many countries, was pleased to fix the fortress of faith in that great metropolis, that it might be more easily diffused from the head into all parts of the universe. St. Peter foresaw, that by triumphing over he devil in the very seat of his tyranny he opened a way to the conquest of the rest of the world to Christ. It was in appearance a rash enterprise for an ignorant fisherman to undertake the conversion of the capital of the empire, and the seat of all the sciences; to preach the contempt of honors, riches, and pleasures in that city, in which ambition, avarice, and voluptuousness had fixed their throne. The humility of Calvary suited not the pride of the capitol. The ignominy of the cross was very contrary to the splendor of that pomp which dazzled the eyes of the masters of the world. Peter neither knows the humor, nor the genius, nor the policy, nor even the language of the people. Yet he enters alone this enemy’s country, this fortress of impiety and superstition; and he preaches Jesus crucified to this great city. First, he announced this wonderful mystery to the Jews who lived there, whose apostle he was in the first place: then he addressed himself to the Gentiles, and he formed a church, composed of both. Eusebius,40 St. Jerom, and the old Roman Calendar, published by Bucherius, say that St. Peter held the see of Rome twenty-five years; though he was often absent upon his apostolic functions in other countries. According to this chronology, many place his first arrival at Rome in the second year of the reign of Claudius, of Christ, 42; but all circumstances prove it to have been in the year 40, the twelfth after the death of Christ, in 39.41 Lactantius mentions only his last coming to Rome under Nero,* a few years before his martyrdom.42 If he stayed at Rome from the year 40 to 42, he returned speedily into the East; for in 44 he was thrown into prison at Jerusalem by king Agrippa;43 and being miraculously delivered by an angel, he again left that city, and travelling through many countries in the East he established in them bishops, as St. Agapetus assures us. He was at Rome soon after, but was banished from that city when, on account of the tumults which the Jews there raised against the Christians, as Suctonius relates, the emperor Claudius expelled them both, in the year 49. But they were soon allowed to return. St. Peter went again into the East, and in 51 was present in the general council held by the apostles at Jerusalem, in which he made a discourse to show that the obligation of the Jewish ceremonies was not to be laid on the Gentile converts. His determination was seconded by St. James, bishop of Jerusalem, and formed by the council into a decree. The same synod confirmed to St. Paul, in a special manner, the apostleship of the Gentiles,44 though he announced the faith also to the Jews when occasion served. St. Peter, while he preached in Judæa, chiefly labored in converting the Jews. They being tenacious of the legal ceremonies, the use of them was for some time tolerated in the converts, provided hey did not regard them as of precept; which being always condemned as an error in faith, was called the Nazarean heresy.* After the council at Jerusalem, St. Peter went to Antioch, where he are promiscuously with the Gentile converts, without observing the Jewish distinction of unclean meats. But certain Jewish converts from Jerusalem coming in, he, fearing their scandal, withdrew from table, at which action the Gentile Christians took offence. To obviate the scandal of these latter, St. Paul publicly rebuked his superior,45 lest his behavior might seem to condemn those who did not observe the Jewish ceremonial precepts, and lest they might apprehend some disagreement in the doctrine of the two apostles. St. Peter, while he studied to avoid what might give offence to the weak Jewish converts, had not sufficiently attended to the scandal which the Gentile proselytes might take at his action. Nevertheless St. Austin justly observes, that both these apostles give us on this occasion great lessons of virtue;46 for we cannot sufficiently admire the just liberty which St. Paul showed in his rebuke, nor the humble modesty of St. Peter;† “But,” says that father,47 “St. Peter sets us an example of a more wonderful and difficult virtue. For it is a much easier task for one to see what to reprehend in another, and to put him in mind of a fault, than for us publicly to acknowledge our own faults, and to correct them. How heroic a virtue is it to be willing to be rebuked by another, by an inferior,‡ and in the sight of all the world!” “This example of Peter,” says he in another place,48 “is the most perfect pattern of virtue he could have set us, because by it he teaches us to preserve charity by humility.” Every one can correct others; but only a saint can receive well public rebuke. This is the true test of perfect humility, and heroic virtue: this is something far more edifying and more glorious than the most convincing apologies. St. Gregory the Great says of this conduct of St. Peter:49 “He forgot his own dignity for fear of losing any degree of humility. He afterwards commended the epistles of St. Paul as full of wisdom, though we read in them something which seems derogatory from his honor. But this lover of truth rejoiced that all should know that he had been reproved, and should believe the reproof was just.”

St. Peter wrote two canonical epistles. The first he dates from Babylon, by which, St. Jerom and Eusebius tell us, he meant Rome, at that time the centre of idolatry and vice. The Jews usually called such cities by that figurative name; as they gave to a city infamous for debaucheries the name of Sodom, to an idolatrous country that of Egypt, to a race accursed by God that of Canaan. Rome is also called Babylon in the Apocalypse. This name might be frequently given it among the Christians of that age.* This epistle seems to have been written between the years 45 and 55. It is chiefly addressed to the converted Jews, though the apostle also speaks to the Gentile converts, as St. Austin observes. His principal view in it was to confirm them in faith under their sufferings and persecutions, and to confute the errors of Simon and of the Nicolaits. Erasmus, Estius, and another judicious critics, admire in the style a majesty and vigor worthy the prince of the apostles, and a wonderful depth of sense couched in a few words. His second epistle was written from Rome a little before his death, and may be regarded as his spiritual testament. In it he strongly exhorts the faithful to labor earnestly in the great work of their sanctification, and cautions them to stand upon their guard against the snares of heresy. It is a tradition at Rome, that St. Peter converted the house of Pudens, a Roman senator, into a church, which now bears the name of St. Peter’s, ad vincula. Many ancient Martyrologies mention a feast of “The dedication of the first church in Rome consecrated by St. Peter.” The Christians only seem to have built churches at Rome after the persecution of Severus; but had before oratories and chapels, in such manner as the persecutions would allow; and the most sacred of these were afterwards converted into churches. St. Paul mentions a Christian in Rome called Pudens,50 whom some think to have been this senator. We cannot doubt but St. Peter preached the gospel over all Italy, as Eusebius, Rufinus, and others assure us; and likewise in other provinces of the West, according to the commission which the apostles received to carry the gospel over the whole earth. Whence they did not confine themselves to single cities, except that St. James fixed his residence at Jerusalem for the sake of the Jews. Our island, among other places, lays claim to the happiness of having been visited by St. Peter, though this is only supported by modern vouchers, as may be seen in Alford, Usher, and Cressy. Lactantius writes,51 that the two great apostles, SS. Peter and Paul, foretold at Rome that God should in a little time send a prince against the Jews, who should overcome them, and level their metropolis with the ground; that during the siege of it, they should pine with hunger and thirst, even to the eating of one another; that after it should be taken, they should see their women grievously tormented before their eyes, their virgins deflowered, their young men torn asunder, their babes dashed to pieces, their country wasted with fire and sword, and the whole nation banished out of their own land, because they had exalted themselves above the most gracious and approved Son of God. St. Athanasius52 mentions that SS. Peter and Paul had often fled from persecutors in times of danger, till, being assured of their martyrdom by a revelation, they courageously went to meet it. Our Saviour, immediately after his resurrection, had foretold St. Peter in what manner he should glorify him in his old age, and that he should follow him even to the death of the cross.53 He afterwards revealed to him the time of his death.54 Several triumphs over the devil prepared him for that crown. To give a clear view of his last glorious conflict, it is necessary to introduce the history of that remarkable event, by a short account of the last adventure of his celebrated antagonist. Simon Magus, after passing through divers provinces, came to Rome, and there gained a high reputation. St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenæus, Tertullian, Eusebius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and Theodoret, assure us, that divine honors were paid him there, and that a statue was erected to him in the isle of Tiber, by the emperor Claudius and the senate, with this inscription, “Simoni Deo Sancto.”* If Simon inclined the humor of Messalina that way, she was capable of being carried to all sorts of extravagances, and of persuading Claudius to the same; for that emperor is justly called a child with gray hairs, a greater idiot having never worn the purple. Messalina being slain for her public adulteries and other crimes, in the year 48, Claudius took to wife his niece Agrippina, by an incest till then condemned in the Roman state. Being a greater firebrand than Messalina had ever been, she pushed Claudius on many acts of cruelty; for out of mere stupidity, and without malice, he could sport himself in blood. She prevailed on him to adopt Nero, who was her son by Domitius, her first husband. Claudius left a son of his own by Messalina, called Britannicus. Agrippina afterwards poisoned Claudius, in the year 51; and by a complication of crimes, opened the way to the imperial throne for her son Nero. The young prince soon set aside his mother, but governed five years with great clemency, leaving the direction of all things to his master Seneca, and to Burrhus, the prefect of the prætorian cohorts; except that he poisoned his brother Britannicus, while they were supping together, in the year 55. But after he had killed his own mother Agrippina, in 58, he became the greatest monster of cruelty and vice that perhaps ever disgraced the human species. Simon Magus found means to ingratiate himself with this tyrant; for Nero was above all mortals infatuated with the superstitions of the black art to the last degree of folly and extravagance. To excel in this was one of his greatest passions; and for this purpose he spared no expense, and stuck at no crimes. But all his endeavors were fruitless. When Tiridates, a Parthian prince, who was a magician, came to Rome, and was crowned by Nero, king of Armenia, in the forum, the tyrant hoped to learn of him some important secrets of that detestable superstition. The most skilful of the Parthian magicians exhausted all their science to satisfy him; but only gave the world a new proof of the emptiness of that art. Pliny concludes from this want of success in Nero, and Tillemont repeats the same of Julian the Apostate, that seeing the utmost skill of those who have most addicted themselves to this deceitful art, joined with the greatest power and impiety, was never able to effect any thing by it, every one must rest convinced, that magic is not less vain and idle, than it is impious and execrable. Simon Magus, by his vain boastings, and illusions, could not fail to please this tyrant. The fathers assure us that this famous magician had promised the emperor and people to fly in the air, carried by his angels, thus pretending to imitate the ascension of Christ. Accordingly, he raised himself in the air by his magical power, in presence of the emperor. St. Peter and St. Paul, seeing the delusion, betook themselves to their prayers; upon which the impostor fell to the ground, was bruised, broke a leg, and died a few days after in rage and confusion. This wonderful event is related by St. Justin, St. Ambrose, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Austin, St. Philastrius, St. Isidore of Pelusium, Theodoret, and others. Dion Chrysostomus, a heathen, writes that Nero kept a long time in his court a certain magician, who promised to fly.55 And Suetonius says,56 that at the public games a man undertook to fly in the presence of Nero, but fell in his first essay, and his blood even stained the balcony in which the emperor stood. This history Baronius, Tillemont, Ceillier, and Orsi understand of Simon Magus.

The great progress which the faith made in Rome, by the miracles and preaching of the apostles, was the cause of the persecution which Nero raised against the church, as Lactantius mentions. Other fathers say, the resentment of the tyrant against the apostles was much inflamed by the misfortune of Simon Magus; and he was unreasonable enough to make this credible. But he had already begun to persecute the Christians from the time of the conflagration of the city, in 64. St. Ambrose tells us,57 that the Christians entreated St. Peter to withdraw for a while. The apostle, though unwillingly, yielded to their importunity, and made his escape by night; but, going out of the gate of the city, he met Jesus Christ, or what in a vision appeared in his form, and asked him, “Lord, whither art thou going?” Christ answered, “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” St. Peter readily understood this vision to be meant of himself, and taking it for a reproof of his cowardice, and a token that it was the will of God he should suffer, returned into the city, and, being taken, was put into the Mamertine prison with St. Paul. The two apostles are said to have remained there eight months, during which time they converted SS. Processus and Martinian, the captains of their guards, with forty-seven others. It is generally asserted that when they were condemned, they were both scourged before they were put to death. If St. Paul might have been exempted on account of his dignity of a Roman citizen, it is certain St. Peter must have undergone that punishment, which, according to the Roman laws, was always inflicted before crucifixion. It is an ancient tradition in Rome that they were both led together out of the city by the Ostian gate. St. Prudentius says, that they suffered both together in the same field, near a swampy ground, on the banks of the Tiber. Some say St. Peter suffered on the same day of the month, but a year before St. Paul. But Eusebius, St. Epiphanius, and most others affirm, that they suffered the same year, and on the 29th of June. St. Peter, when he was come to the place of execution, requested of the officers that he might be crucified with his head downwards, alleging that he was not worthy to suffer in the same manner his divine Master had died before him.* He had preached the cross of Christ, had borne it in his heart, and its marks in his body, by sufferings and mortification, and he had the happiness to end his life on the cross. His Lord was pleased not only that he should die for his love, but in the same manner himself had died for us, by expiring on the cross, which was the throne of his love. Only the apostle’s humility made a difference, in desiring to be crucified with his head downward. His master looked toward heaven, which by his death he opened to men; but he judged that a sinner formed from dust, and going to return to dust, ought rather in confusion to look on the earth, as unworthy to raise his eyes to heaven. St. Ambrose,58 St. Austin,59 and St. Prudentius ascribe this his petition partly to his humility, and partly to his desire of suffering more for Christ. Seneca mentions, that the Romans sometimes crucified men with their heads downward; and Eusebius60 testifies that several martyrs were put to that cruel death. Accordingly the executioners easily granted the apostle his extraordinary request. St. Chrysostom, St. Austin, and St. Austerius say he was nailed to the cross; Tertullian mentions that he was tied with cords. He was probably both nailed and bound with ropes.† F. Pagi places the martyrdom of these two apostles in the year 65, on the 29th of June.‡

St. Gregory writes, that the bodies of the two apostles were buried in the catacombs, two miles out of Rome.61 The most ancient Roman Calendar, published by Bucherius, marks their festival at the catacombs on the 29th of June. An ancient history read in the Gallican church in the eighth century says, their bodies only remained there eighteen months. From those catacombs where now stands the church of St. Sebastian, the body of St. Paul was carried a little further from Rome, on the Ostian road; and that of St. Peter to the Vatican hill, probably by the Jewish converts who lived in that quarter. At present the heads of the two apostles are kept in silver bustoes in the church of St. John Lateran. But one half of the body of each apostle is deposited together in a rich vault in the great church of St. Paul on the Ostian road; and the other half of both bodies in a more stately vault in the Vatican church, which sacred place is called from primitive antiquity, “The Confession of St. Peter, and Limina Apostolorum,” and is resorted to by pilgrims from all parts of Christendom. The great Saint Chrysostom never was able to name either of these holy apostles without raptures of admiration and devotion, especially when he mentions the ardent love of St. Peter for his divine Master. He calls him “the mouth of all the apostles, the leader of that choir, the head of that family, the president of the whole world, the foundation of the church, the burning lover of Christ.”*

St. Peter left all things to follow Christ; and in return received from him the promise of life everlasting, and in the bargain a hundred-fold in this present life. O thrice happy exchange! O magnificent promise! cries on St. Bernard. O powerful words, which have robbed Egypt, and plundered its richest vessels! which have peopled deserts and monasteries with holy men, who sanctify the earth, and are its purest angels, being continually occupied in the contemplation and praises of God, the ever glorious, uninterrupted employment of the blessed, which these spotless souls begin on earth to continue for all eternity in heaven! They have chosen with Mary the better part, which will never be taken from them. In this how great is their everlasting reward! How pure their present comfort and joy! and yet how cheap the purchase! For, what have they left? what have they bartered? Only empty vanities; mere nothings; nay, anxieties, dangers, fears, and toils. Goods which, by their very possession, are a burden, which, by their loss or continual disappointments, perplex, fret, disturb, and torment; and which, if loved with attachment, defile the soul. Goods which Crates, the heathen philosopher, threw into the sea, to be rid of their troubles, saying, “Go into the deep, ye cursed incentives of the passions I will drown you, lest I be drowned by you.”* I am too weak to bear your burden. To possess you without defiling my heart, to enjoy you without covetousness, pride, or ambition, is a difficult task, and the work of an extraordinary grace, as truth itself hath assured us. Happy are they who follow the Lord without encumbrance or burden! who make their journey to him without the load of superfluous baggage or hinderance! All are entitled to this present and future happiness, who repeat these words of St. Peter in their hearts and affections, though they are seated on thrones, of engaged by the order of Providence in secular affairs. They use the world as if they used it not, living in it so as not to be of it, and possess its goods so as to admit them into their houses, not into their hearts. They are solicitous and careful in their temporal stewardship, that they may be able to give an account to their Master, who has intrusted them with it; yet live in their affections as strangers on earth, and citizens of heaven. Those on the other side are of all others most unhappy, who in some measure imitate the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira, while they repeat the sacred words of the apostle with lying mouths: who renounce the world in body only, and carry in affection its inordinate desires and lusts, its spirit and contagion, into the very sanctuaries which are instituted to shelter souls from incorruption.

JUNE 29 — ST. HEMMA, WIDOW

She was nearly allied to the holy emperor St. Henry, and having sanctified the world and her family by her holy example in a married state, after the death of her husband, she founded the great double Benedictin monastery of Gurk, in Carinthia, for twenty monks and seventy-two nuns, in which she took the religious veil, and died the death of the saints in 1045.† See Papebroke, Jun. t. 5, p. 499.

JUNE 30 — ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE

From his epistles and the Acts of the Apostles. See Tillemont, t. 1.

THOUGH St. Paul was not one of the twelve, yet so miraculous was his vocation by the immediate voice of Christ from heaven; so wonderful the manner in which he was sent by the express command of the Holy Ghost to instruct all nations; so extraordinary was his rapt to the third heaven, by which (to use the words of St. Maximus) he was authorized and consecrated to the apostleship, in heaven itself, and learned among angels what he was to teach among men; so eminent was his gift of inspiration, and his spirit of prophecy; and lastly, so many and so great were the things which he suffered and did for the honor of God, and for the conversion of nations, that he has been justly entitled to hold a place among the apostles. His miraculous conversion the church commemorates on the 25th of January. After he was baptized, he stayed some days at Damascus, and there preached Christ openly in the synagogue.1 But he soon retired into Arabia, probably into the country near Damascus, which city was in the power of Aretas king of Arabia, and father-in-law to Herod Antipas. It is not mentioned how long he lived in this retirement; but coming back to Damascus, he began again to preach the faith, and confuted the Jews with wonderful force. That obstinate race, seeing themselves unable to enter the lists against him laid a plot to take away his life, and prevailed with the governor of Damascus, under Aretas, to promise them his concurrence.2 They therefore kept continual watch, searched many houses, and obtained a guard of this governor to be placed at the gates to apprehend him; but the holy convert was let down by the brethren in a basket over the wall by night. He had then continued three years partly at Damascus, and partly in his retirement in Arabia, and took this occasion to go to Jerusalem to see St. Peter. St. Barnabas, who knew him, introduced him to SS. Peter and James, and satisfied them and the church of the sincerity of his conversion: for many of the Christians at first shunned his company, fearing some design in one who had been their most furious enemy.

In this and in every other circumstance of the establishment of our holy religion, it is observable how impossible it is for the most obstinate infidel to harbor the least suspicion of human contrivance. If the revelations, miracles, and mysteries, which the apostles preached, had not been true, they never would have led St. Paul into the secret; one who was before their greatest persecutor. The authors of an imposture are extremely cautious, and infinitely suspicious and jealous. How opposite to this are the candor and sincerity of the apostles! So great a number maintained their testimony, though it cost them the sacrifice of their lives, and every temporal advantage, while any one of them who could have discovered a cheat, had every advantage to expect both from Jews and Gentiles. The evidence of their miracles, the humility of their hearts, the heroic sanctity of their lives, their constancy under torments even to death, in so great a cloud of witnesses, and innumerable other circumstances, put their doctrine and testimony beyond the reach of the least suspicion or possibility of error or imposture. But had we no other motive, the manifest sincerity of the apostles in the whole tenor of their conduct, and in particular with regard to St. Paul, as well as that of this illustrious convert towards them, and in the testimony which he gave through all persecutions to the same truth, gives the utmost degree of evidence to the history of his miraculous call, and to the whole Christian religion, in which the demonstration of one miraculous and supernatural fact evinces the divine original, and truth of the whole gospel dispensation.

St. Paul stayed fifteen days at Jerusalem, during which time he enjoyed the conversation of St. Peter, and was very active in disputing against the Jews in their synagogue; but such was their obstinacy that they shut their ears to the truths of salvation; and not being able to withstand the force of his discourses, and the evidence in which he placed the divine revelation, they had recourse to rage and violence, the impotent weapon of disappointed malice; and they sought to take away his life. The disciples, therefore, that he might escape their snares, conducted him to Cæsarea, and thence sent him by sea to Tarsus, his native city. He remained there upwards of three years, and preached in the neighboring countries of Cilicia and Syria with great success. The disciples who had fled from Jerusalem to Antioch after the martyrdom of St. Stephen, disposed the hearts of many to receive the gospel. St. Barnabas coming thither in 43, made a motion to the other disciples that St. Paul might be sent for, not doubting but by the help of so able an assistant, the work of God would be advanced in that great city. The proposal being readily embraced, by an order of the apostles, he went to Tarsus, and brought St. Paul down to Antioch, where they diligently joined their labors for the space of a whole year. About that time the disciples at Antioch were first called Christians. Agabus, a prophet, coming with others from Jerusalem to Antioch, foretold a great famine; which accordingly happened the next year, which was the fourth of the emperor Claudius, of the Christian era, 44. This calamity afflicted the whole empire, but particularly Judæa. When the Christians of Antioch heard of the miseries which their brethren there suffered, they made a charitable collection to the utmost of their abilities, which they sent by St. Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem, for the relief of the distressed in that church. The bearers of this seasonable alms, having executed their commission, came back to Antioch, which church then flourished exceedingly, and in it were many eminent doctors and holy prophets. Among these, the chief were Barnabas, Simon, surnamed Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manahen, and Saul, or Paul.

It seems to have been about this time that St. Paul was favored with his most extraordinary ecstasy, in which he was taken up into the third heaven, or paradise, and heard and saw most sublime mysteries, which man could not utter, of which he speaks fourteen years after.3 For his humiliation under these favors, he was molested with a sting of the flesh, and the buffets of Satan,4 by which St. Chrysostom and Theodoret understand persecutions, St. Basi15 some corporal infirmity, as a violent headache; but Saint Austin,6 St. Jerom,7 Bede, and St. Thomas, a temptation of the flesh; which opinion Godeau has attempted to prove by an elegant dissertation. This apostle, not satisfied with his incredible labors, chastised his body also with severe fasting, watchings, and other great mortifications, fearing lest while he preached to others, he might himself fall into dangers, and forfeit his crown.8 Notwithstanding his immense fatigues and wonderful actions he did not think he had attained any thing, but forgetting all that was behind, he had his eyes open only to the duties and obligations that were before him, and upon what remained yet for him to do that he might finish his career.9 As a man who is running a race, by looking behind could only be tempted to loiter, by imagining that he has already rid a good deal of ground; whereas, by looking forward, he sees how far he has yet to go to carry the prize, and spurs himself forward lest he lose the advantages he may seem to have already gained: so did this apostle in the path of virtue, stretching himself forward always with fresh vigor, and daily redoubling his fervor, to do what still remained for him to accomplish. He despised himself as an unprofitable servant, and condemned himself as falling short of what he owed to God, whom he always served in holy fear; for, though his conscience did not reproach him, he knew that he was not by this justified before God.10 He glorified and pleased himself in persecutions and humiliations; in his own nothingness, weakness, and insufficiency, that God, his only strength and great All, might alone be considered and glorified in all things. In the fullest conviction and most sincere and feeling sentiment that he was the very abstract of miseries, poverty, and nakedness, and in a total forgetfulness and contempt of himself, he never ceased, with his whole heart, to give all honor and glory to God, and to excite his tongue, his soul, all his powers, and all created beings to praise his holy name, and thank his goodness and mercy without intermission. He feared no dangers, was deterred by no difficulties, nor daunted by any torments, or death in any form, in so noble a cause; but rejoiced in the greatest sufferings, fatigues, and labors, that he might make God everywhere known, and might endeavor with his whole strength to bring all men to his most sweet and holy love. He esteemed himself for this a debtor to the whole world, Greeks and barbarians, the wise and the unwise, learned and unlearned, Jews and Gentiles. This pure love of God and ardent zeal for his glory, could not have kindled this holy flame and consumed in him all earthly affections, had he not been crucified to the world and dead to himself. In this disposition he so studied Christ crucified as to put on his sentiments, and to animate himself with the perfect spirit of his divine meekness, patience, charity, and humility. He could say, with confidence, that he carried the marks of the precious wounds of Christ in his own body, that with him he was nailed to the cross, that he would glory in no other thing save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that he no longer lived himself, but that Christ lived in him. Can we wonder that a man so spiritual and divine, armed with the power of grace, commanding nature by the gifts of miracles, often seeing into futurity by an eminent spirit of prophecy, and raised above all things human, should trample under his feet the united legions of hell and the world banded against him? Can we be surprised that he should become the instrument of God to beat down, by the humility of the cross, the pride of the world, and subject so many nations to the humble law of the gospel? God was pleased to call his servant to this great work, at a time when the doctors at Antioch were employed in preaching, and were joined by the faithful in fasting and prayer, which pious public exercises have always attended the election of new ministers in the church. The Holy Ghost commanded, by some of the prophets, that Saul and Barnabas should be set apart for a special office of preaching. By this we are to understand the function of the apostleship, that they may propagate the faith over all nations with full authority.11 Thus was St. Paul assumed to the apostleship.12 Though the other apostles lived by the gospel, he chose not to make use of that liberty, but to gain his subsistence by making tents,13 such as were used by soldiers and mariners. Nevertheless, this apostle received sometimes the voluntary alms of the Christians, rejoicing in their charity, not for himself, but for their sake.14 For, as to himself, having tried all things, he was prepared for all, ever content with his condition wherever he was.15 He knew how to live in want and in hunger, as well as in plenty. To defend the dignity of his apostleship, upon which the success of his preaching depended, he mentioned once his revelations and privileges, but compelled by necessity for the salvation of many souls and conversion of nations; and he speaks of them in such a manner as to show that he gave all the glory to God alone, and made no account of them himself, but trembled and humbled himself more under such favors. In things which seemed to his advantage it is visibly his tongue only that mentions them, without the heart, when solicitude for the souls of his brethren betrayed the secret of his humility. But he glories in his infirmities, his heart speaks by the instrument of his tongue when he recounts whatever was a subject of confusion to him, and he styles himself, from the sincere sentiment of his heart, a blasphemer, a persecutor, an abortive, the last of the apostles, and unworthy to bear that name.

We have, in the Acts of the Apostles, a summary account of the missions of St. Paul, after he had received the imposition of hands. Taking with him St. Barnabas in 44, he travelled from Antioch to Seleucia, and embarking there sailed to Cyprus. He preached first in the Jewish synagogue at Salamis, and afterwards up and down the island till he arrived at Paphos, a large city on the other side of the isle, in which resided Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul. This governor was a wise and prudent man, but was seduced by the magical arts of a Jewish impostor, one Barjesus, otherwise called Elymas, surnamed the Sorcerer. The proconsul was moved by the reputation of the miracles of St. Paul, and desired to hear him speak. Elymas opposed the preaching of the apostle; but the saint by his malediction smote him with blindness for a time, so that he could not see the sun. Sergius Paulus, at the sight of this miracle, and by hearing St. Paul, was converted, and received the sacrament of baptism. Origen and St. Chrysostom tell us that Elymas recovered his sight by embracing the faith. Some think our apostle took the name of Paul from this illustrious proconsul, and St. Luke from this time usually calls him so. Others look upon it as more probable that he changed his name upon his conversion. St. Paul, leaving Cyprus, went by sea to Perge in Pamphilia, where John Mark, who had followed the two apostles, doing little offices about the poor, forsook them, and returned to Jerusalem, not having courage to undergo the fatigues of the missions. Our apostle hastened from Perge to Antioch, the capital of Pisidia, and there preached in the synagogue on two Sabbath-days. Many were induced by his discourses to believe in Christ; but the more obstinate Jews drove him and Barnabas out of their country. The apostles shook the dust off their shoes in testimony of their incredulity, and preached next at Iconium in Lycaonia. There God so blessed their labors, that many, both Jews and Gentiles, believed, and the two apostles continued a considerable time in that city to instruct the converts, till they were obliged to depart privately to escape being stoned by the enemies of truth who were enraged at their success. After this they visited Lystra, Derbe, and other towns and villages in that country. At Lystra, happened the cure of a man who had been lame from his birth, and had never walked, to whom St. Paul restored his strength and the use of his limbs, by bidding him to stand upright on his feet, in the midst of a public assembly. This made the heathens take St. Barnabas for Jupiter, on account of his gravity and comeliness, and St. Paul for Mercury, because he was the chief speaker. In this persuasion, the populace prepared to offer them sacrifice, and for that purpose the priests of Jupiter brought oxen dressed up with garlands, after the Gentile manner, to the place where they were. Paul and Barnabas rent their garments to testify their abhorrence of such an attempt, and prevented their abominable sacrifices. Soon after, St. Paul was stoned by the same giddy mob, and was dragged out of the city for dead; but, by the care of the disciples, he recovered, and returned into the city with them. However, not to provoke his persecutors, he departed the next day with St. Barnabas to Derbe, where our preacher converted a great number. They returned by Lystra, Iconium, and other places, (ordaining priests in every church,) to Antioch in Syria, after an absence of about three years. During the four following years, St. Paul preached over Syria and Judæa; and that interval seems to be the time in which he carried the gospel from Jerusalem into the West, so far as Illyricum.16

The apostle, speaking of his missions, passes over the innumerable conversions, miracles, and wonders which he wrought, and only mentions his sufferings, for the cross was his glory. He tells us that he had undergone more labors, and suffered more frequent imprisonments, and more stripes, than any other. He was often near death by rivers, thieves, and dangers from Jews, and from false brethren, in towns, and in deserts; he endured all manner of fatigues, frequent watchings, fasting, hunger, thirst, and nakedness. He had been five times publicly whipped by the Jews, receiving each time thirty-nine stripes; and had been thrice beaten with rods by the Romans or Gentiles; had thrice suffered shipwreck; and been a day and a night in the depth of the sea,17 that is, in a vessel which was so long shattered and tossed amidst the waves. After this progress we find him again at Antioch in 51, whence he went to Jerusalem, and assisted at the first general council held by the apostles at Jerusalem. St. Clement of Alexandria assures us that all the apostles were present at it. St. Luke mentions in it, only St. Peter and St. James, and also assures us that St. Paul and St. Barnabas recounted in it the progress which they had made by their preaching among the Gentiles. St. Paul informs us,18 that he was acknowledged by the church the apostle of the Gentiles. Judas and Silas being deputed by the council to carry its decrees to Antioch, Paul and Barnabas bore them company so far. St. Peter came after them, and meekly suffered the generous reproof of St. Paul. Our apostle stayed some time in that city to confirm in the faith the new converted flock; and then set out to visit the churches he had founded in the East, but would not admit John Mark again into his company. Upon which St. Barnabas took him, and went into Cyprus. St. Chrysostom19 says, that both St. Paul and St. Barnabas had good reasons for what they did; both sought only the greater glory of God, and they parted in perfect charity, as appears by the affectionate mention St. Paul makes of Barnabas in his other epistles. “Would to God,” says this holy doctor, “that all our disputes had never any other motive but that of duty, nor any other end than the good of souls.” Upon this occasion St. Paul made Silas, or Sylvanus, his companion, and visited the churches in Syria, Cilicia, and Pisidia. At Lystra, in Lycaonia, he took St. Timothy for his disciple, and circumcised him, to show his condescension to the Jews, though he refused to circumcise Titus, to assert the liberty of the gospel, which freed men from the servitude of the old law, and the obligation of its ceremonial precepts. These being all types of Christ, were to cease when they were fulfilled by the new law of the gospel, to which they gave place as figures to the reality.20

From Lycaonia, St. Paul passed into Phrygia and Galatia. He tells us that the Galatians received him as an angel from God, and would willingly, had it been possible, have pulled out their very eyes to have given them to him.21 The apostle desired then to go into Lesser Asia, but was hindered by the Spirit of God, or by a special revelation for that time; as he was also from passing into Bithynia. St. Chrysostom admires, how joyfully and readily he acquiesced in the divine will, inquiring no reasons, alleging no motives, because in all things he sought only the divine will. While he remained at Troas, preaching the gospel, in a vision in the night, a Macedonian seemed to stand before him, entreating him to come into his country, and help that people. The evangelist, St. Luke, begins in this place first to use the term we, and to speak in the first person,22 whence most interpreters date from this time his attending upon St. Paul in the ministry of the word. He had been converted at Antioch, and bishop Pearson will have him to have been a disciple of St. Paul at Antioch, eight years before; but from this time he became his inseparable companion, and seems never after to have left him. St. Paul being thus invited into Macedon, took ship with Silas, Luke, and Timothy, and went to Samothracia, an isle in the Ægean Sea, not far from Thrace; and the next day arrived at Neapolis, a port of Macedon. From thence they proceeded to Philippi, a famous city, and a Roman colony. There St. Paul preached in a Jewish Proseuche, or oratory, which stood by the side of a river at a little distance from the town, and converted, among others, Lydia, a Jewish proselyte, a seller of purple in that city, though a native of Thyatira. This devout woman and her family so earnestly pressed St. Paul to lodge with her, that he was obliged to accept of her entertainment: so long as the holy men continued in this city, they resorted every day to the same place of devotion. After several days, being on their road thither, they were met by a young woman possessed by a devil,* who was in great reputation in that country for soothsaying, and of which her masters made a great profit. This girl cried out after the saints: “These men are servants of the most high God, who preach unto us the way of salvation.” Thus she continued to follow them some days. As Christ would not suffer the devil to confess him, lest his lying tongue should prejudice the truth among men, and because he would not admit the spirit of darkness to any commerce with the works of light; so St. Paul at length commanded this evil spirit, in the name of Jesus, to come out of the damsel; and the devil, though unwilling, obeyed, and left her that instant. The covetous masters of the girl saw this miraculous cure would prove a great loss to them, and stirred up the populace against the preachers, hurried them before the magistrates, by whose order they were scourged as seditious persons, and afterwards thrust into the inner dungeon, and there laid on their backs with their feet fastened in great wooden stocks. In the night they were praising God aloud, when an earthquake shook the prison, the doors flew open, and the fetters fell off all the prisoners, but no one went out of the dungeon. The jailer was awaked by the earthquake and noise; and seeing the prisons open, imagined the prisoners had all made their escape; wherefore, in the apprehension that his life must pay for that accident, he was going to dispatch himself with his sword, had not St. Paul prevented him, hastily crying out, “Do thyself no harm; we are all here.” The man, equally surprised at the miracle, and at the apostle’s goodness, threw himself at the feet of the holy men, and desired to be baptized, with his whole house. The magistrate, the next morning, sent an order for the enlargement of the servants of God. St. Paul, who had alleged nothing to prevent his scourging, then complained that a Roman citizen had been whipped against the laws, and refused to depart without more ample satisfaction. This he did to intimidate the judges, and procure their favor for the protection of the converts. The magistrates, trembling at the name of a Roman citizen, came in person, craved pardon of the prisoners, and submissively entreated them to depart.

The apostles having laid in this city the foundation of a very eminent church, as appears from St. Paul’s epistle to the Philippians, took leave of the devout Lydia, and the rest, and travelling through Amphipolis and Apollonia, arrived at Thessalonica, the capital of Macedon. St. Paul there preached three Sabbath-days in the synagogue, and converted some Jews, and a great number of Gentiles, who by their patience became the model of the whole church, and were particularly dear to their spiritual father.23 The unbelieving Jews envied that city the prosperity of the gospel, and gathering together a number of wicked ruffians, beset the house of Jason, a considerable man, who entertained the apostles; but St. Paul and Silas having been removed by the Christians, and concealed in a more secret place, the mob seized upon Jason, and carried him before the magistrates, who obliged him to give bail and security for his good behavior. When the tumult was over, Paul and Silas left the town in the night, and went to Berœa. The Jews of this place listened to the gospel with joy, and many Gentiles were also converted. A tumult at length obliged St. Paul to quit that town; but Silas and Timothy stayed behind some time to instruct the converts, while St. Paul made for Athens, whither he afterwards sent for Timothy and Silas. The city of Athens had not so far degenerated in the sciences, but it was still stored with many learned and wise men. The inhabitants were very superstitious; and so careful were they that no deity should want due honor from them, that they had an altar inscribed, “To the unknown God.” Whether by this title they meant all unknown pretended gods of other nations, or the true God of the Jews, is uncertain; for the pagans often styled this latter, the unknown God, because he had no particular name like their false deities.* St. Paul preached to the Jews in their synagogue, and to the Gentiles in all public places, even in the Areopagus itself, the supreme court of magistrates, most venerable over all Greece for their great wisdom and learning. Dionysius, one of these judges, embraced the faith; also Damaris, an illustrious woman in the city, and some others. But though the philosophers were not able to enter the lists against a man full of the Spirit of God, and instructed by his light, yet many of them derided his doctrine concerning the resurrection of the dead, and others who were struck with the thunder of his discourses, said only they would hear him some other time. At Athens St. Timothy came to St. Paul out of Macedon, but Silas was detained longer behind, probably by business or sickness. The apostle hearing that his dear converts at Thessalonica were under persecution from their fellow-citizens ever since his departure, was much concerned lest some of them should lose courage, and sent Timothy to comfort and strengthen them. Paul himself was conducted by a call of the Holy Ghost from Athens to Corinth, where he lodged in the house of Aquila and his wife Priscilla who were of the same trade with himself. Aquila was a native of Pontus but had resided at Rome till Claudius banished all the Jews out of that city; upon which occasion he came to Corinth. St. Paul worked with him at his trade of tent-making, and on the Sabbaths taught in the Jewish synagogue, and brought many, both Jews and Greeks, over to the faith. It was from Corinth that he wrote his two epistles to the Thessalonians, both in the same year, 52. These are the first of his writings. He suffered much in this city from persecutions, and from the obstinacy of wicked men. Nevertheless, he persevered for the sake of the good; and Christ assured him that he had a numerous people in that place.24 Novatus, elder brother to the philosopher Seneca, who having been adopted by L. Junius Gallio, a noble Roman, and from him called Gallio, was at that time proconsul of Achaia. The Jews carried St. Paul before him; but being a man of integrity and moderation, he answered the accusers that he was judge of wrong and injustice, not of controversies of religion; and so dismissed the cause, and acquitted the apostle. St. Paul, having stayed at Corinth eighteen months, went to Cenchrea, in order to go to Jerusalem for the following passover. In this port he shaved his head, and made the religious vow of the Nazarites, who bound themselves to drink no wine, and to let their hair grow till a limited time, when they again cut it, and offered certain sacrifices. By his conforming to this Jewish rite, St. Paul made himself a Jew with the Jews to gain them to Christ.

Embarking at Cenchrea, he sailed first to Ephesus, and thence to Cæsarea in Palestine, and from that place by land travelled to Jerusalem, where he kept the festival. He then went to Antioch, and travelled again through Galatia, Phrygia, and other parts of Asia, everywhere encouraging the faithful, and watering his young plants. Coming back again from Cappadocia to Ephesus, he stayed there almost three years, preaching both in public places and private houses, and performing great miracles,* even by handkerchiefs, and aprons that had touched his body.25 During three months he addressed himself to the Jews, but seeing their invincible obstinacy, he turned to the Gentiles. Seven sons of Sceva, a prince of the Jewish priesthood, (that is, probably, chief of one of the twenty-four sacerdotal families,) attempted to cast out devils, in the name of Jesus, though they were not Christians, but Jews. The devil answered that he knew them not, and assailed them with great fury. Thus was their vanity punished, and all were moved by this example to treat that holy name with respect. Many seeing the folly of their superstitions, burned their books of magic and judiciary astrology. These persons had before been converted to the faith and baptized,† but out of ignorance and fondness for the foolish superstitions of divination, had still retained such practices and books: their eyes being opened by the instructions of the apostle, they burned the books of that detestabt art, and came confessing their sinful deeds; that is, not only acknowledging themselves sinners in general terms, but declaring their actions or sins in detail to the priests. We must take notice that one Apollos, an eloquent Jew of Alexandria, being instructed at first only in the rudiments of Christianity, and John’s baptism, coming to Ephesus after the first preaching of SS. Peter and Paul in that place, preached Christ with great zeal. Being afterwards more fully instructed in the faith by Aquila and Priscilla, he taught at Corinth with great success, watering what St. Paul had planted.

By the labors and miracles of our apostle, the word of God spread every day exceedingly at Ephesus; and he found there a great door opened to him, but had many adversaries. He suffered much from the persecutions of the Jews, was every hour exposed to divers dangers; and protests, upon oath, that he died daily; that is, he was continually exposed to the danger of death. He fought with beasts according to man;26 that is, according to Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and other fathers, also A. Lapide, Calmet, Tillemont, &c., he was exposed to be devoured by them in the amphitheatre, though he was delivered by God. He was again in imminent danger of that death in the same place. In the year 57, Demetrius, a covetous silversmith, who made a great gain by selling silver images of Diana, finding this trade much diminished by the preaching of St. Paul, stirred up the city against him. The stately rich temple of Diana at Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the world, and the image of that goddess kept there, was pretended to have been formed by Jupiter, and dropped down from heaven: it was held in great veneration through all the Grecian and Roman provinces; and the heathens got little silver images made in imitation of it. Upon the alarm that the honor of this tutelar goddess was attacked, the whole city was in the greatest combustion imaginable; and every one cried out, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” It was in vain to argue or reason with a mob, especially heated with rage, and stirred up by interest and superstition. St. Paul was sought for to be exposed to wild beasts on the theatre, but could not be found. However, his two companions, Gaius and Aristarchus, zealous Macedonians, were seized on, hurried to the theatre, and the wild beasts were called for to be let loose upon them. St. Paul desired to show himself, and to speak in behalf of his companions; but the overseers of the theatrical games, who were his friends, sent to him to assure him, that he would only endanger himself without rescuing them. One Alexander, a Jewish convert, offered to speak; but the mob suspecting him to be a friend of the apostle, would not hear him; though he would doubtless have thrown the blame on St. Paul, if he was, as is generally thought, that Alexander the coppersmith, of whom the apostle complains that he had done him much evil, and greatly withstood his words, and whom he delivered over to Satan for his apostacy, for blaspheming Christ, and reproaching Christianity.27 But the mob raised an outcry against this apologist for near two hours together, wherein nothing was heard, but “Great is Diana of the Ephesiaus.” And Alexander himself was secured. At length the town-clerk, who kept the register of the games, discreetly addressed the populace, and put them in mind, that if any man had offended them, the courts of justice were open, and ready to do them right; but that by their riot they had rendered themselves obnoxious to the laws, if any one should call them to an account for that day’s tumult. By this discourse the multitude was appeased, and immediately dispersed; and Gaius, Aristarchus, and Alexander were released without hurt. St. Paul had made an excursion in the year 55 to Corinth and wrote his epistle to the Galatians full of zeal and apostolic vigor, because they were a rough uncultivated nation, and had received false doctors who pretended to establish an obligation of practising the Jewish ceremonies, and of joining circumcision with the gospel. In 56 he wrote to the Corinthians, being informed that an unhappy division threatened that church, some being for Cephas, others for Paul, others for Apollos, as if these teachers did not all preach the same Christ.

Soon after the tumult mentioned above, St. Paul left Ephesus, and went by Troas a second time into Macedon, whence he sent his second epistle to the Corinthians, whom he visited shortly after a third time. St. Austin was persuaded28 that he then regulated, as he had promised in his letter, the rite and manner of assisting at the divine mysteries, in particular that the body of our Lord should not be received at supper, but only by persons fasting; which is certainly a precept of the apostles, as the same father observes. From Corinth, in 58, the apostle wrote to the Romans, expressing a great desire to see the faithful of that illustrious city, and a purpose to pay them a visit. After three months’ stay in Greece, having gathered large alms of the Christians in Macedon and Achaia for the poor of Jerusalem, he set out for Syria, but stopped some time at Philippi, and a whole month at Troas.29 In this city the day before his departure the faithful assembled to receive the holy communion and to hear him preach, and such was their ardor that they passed the hour of dinner, and also that of supper, though it was on a Sunday, and in Easter time; but neither he nor his auditors knew any hunger but that of holy zeal on such an occasion. Thus they remained till midnight, when the devil sought to disturb their devout assembly; but his malice only turned to his own confusion. While the apostle was preaching in a room in the third story, a young man, called Eutychus, being overcome by sleep, fell down to the ground, and was taken up dead. But St. Paul immediately restored him to life, and continued his instructions till break of day. The apostle left Troas on Monday the 17th of April, and went on foot to Assos, where taking ship he sailed to Mitylene, a city in the isle of Lesbos; thence to Samos, another island in the Ægean sea, and at length landed at Trogyllium, a promontory of Ionia. The day following, he proceeded to Miletus, a famous city in Caria, where he was met by the priests and elders of Ephesus, thirty miles from this latter city. He made them a most moving farewell discourse, and their parting was most tender.

From Miletus St. Paul went to the isle of Coos, and the next day to Rhodes; in a third to Patara, a city of Lycia, where he went on board another vessel bound for Tyre in Phœnicia, at which port he arrived after five days’ sail. Certain prophets among the Christians at Tyre conjured him not to go up to Jerusalem, foretelling him what evils he had there to suffer. When they were not able to prevail they embraced and prayed with him on the shore. From Tyre he went by sea to Ptolomais, and thence to Cæsarea. There Agabus, the prophet, foretold him that he should be put in chains at Jerusalem, and the Christians endeavored to dissuade him from that journey; but he answered them, that he was ready not only to be bound, but also to die for the name of Jesus Christ.

Thence he proceeded to Jerusalem, where he lodged in the house of Mnason, a Cyprian. This was the fifth visit which he paid to the church of Jerusalem, where he arrived in the year 58, about the twenty-third after his conversion. At Jerusalem he distributed the alms he brought, and was advised by St. James and the priests to defray the expenses of the sacrifices of four Nazarites, whose term was expired. He complied with this devotion, that he might prove to the Jews that he did not condemn their law and this his intention he declared to the priests, performing himself the legal purifications.

When he had been seven days in Jerusalem, certain Jews who had opposed him in Asia, being come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Pentecost, stirred up the Jews of that city against him. For seeing him with Trophimus, an Ephesian and a Gentile, in the city, they falsely imagined that he had carried him into the temple, and so had profaned it. Upon an outcry that he contemned the temple and the law of Moses, the people ran together, and laying violent hands upon the apostle, drew him out of the temple that they might beat and kill him. Claudius Lysias, a Roman tribune, had the command of the garrison that was kept in the castle Antonia, to prevent riots and seditions, to which the Jews were very prone, especially at the time of the three great festivals. This officer was immediately informed of the tumult, and taking a body of soldiers, he marched down upon the rioters, who, being awed by his presence, left off beating St. Paul, and the tribune took him out of their hands; but commanded him to be bound with two chains. Lysias suspected him to be a certain Egyptian who had been the author of a late sedition; but finding himself mistaken, he gave the prisoner leave to speak to the people. St. Paul with great tranquillity gave them an account of his miraculous conversion, and of his commission to preach to the Gentiles. At the mention of this last article the populace began to cry out with great rage, demanding his death. Lysias, to learn from him the state of the affair, commanded that he should be tied to a pillar in order to be scourged. While the executioner was binding his hands, the apostle asked the centurion that stood by, if a Roman could be whipped, and even unheard, without either crime or trial. The centurion intimated this to Lysias, who, hearing that he was a Roman citizen, began to be afraid, and ordered him to be loosed, saying himself had purchased that privilege for a large sum of money. Lysias had led him into the castle Antonia; and the next day he sent to the high priest and all the council to come and give him a meeting out of the camp or district of the castle where the garrison was, that from them he might inform himself what the matter was. When St. Paul began to speak, Ananias the high priest bade some of the standers-by to strike him on the face. The apostle was ready in his heart to turn the other cheek, but to encourage his followers, exerted himself boldly in the cause of truth, and checked so unjust a violence offered to one who was in the hands of a Roman magistrate, and had committed no offence. He therefore reproached him, and threatened that God would smite him, calling him a whited wall, that is, a hypocrite. St. Austin says, these words were a prophecy. This Ananias was soon after deposed from the high priesthood by Agrippa the younger; and having hastened the ruin of his country by forming a dangerous faction in it, was slain one of the first, together with his brother, by another faction which was headed by his own son. Yet the apostle, when he was put in mind who the person was, made his excuses that he did not know him to be the high priest, or he would have spoken to him with more respect: so much did he honor the very shadow of a priesthood which was then extinct. The resurrection of Christ being a capital point of our faith, St. Paul then cried out, that he was impeached for maintaining the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees, being zealous advocates for that article against the Sadducees, at these words declared themselves for the apostle, and a warm contention arose among the Jews themselves. Lysias, fearing lest St. Paul should be torn to pieces in the tumult, sent a party of soldiers to fetch him out of the council into the castle. Jesus Christ, to show that he is nearest his servants when they are in the most grievous afflictions, appeared to St. Paul the second night after this danger, and encouraged him, with an assurance that he should give testimony to him at Rome.

Forty Jews having conspired to murder him, Lysias sent him under a strong guard to Felix, the governor of the province, who resided at Cæsarea. The high priest Ananias followed him thither to accuse him, taking with him Tertullus, an eloquent orator or lawyer, who after an insinuating address, opened the charge against the apostle, whom he impeached for stirring up seditions, and preaching the new religion of the Nazaræans or Christians. St. Paul having obtained leave from Felix, entered upon his defence, with telling the governor, it was a great comfort to him that he was to plead his cause before one who had long sat judge of that nation. He then easily cleared himself from the calumny of sedition and of having profaned the temple; and confessed that he worshipped God in the way which his accusers called heresy, but added, that it was agreeable to the sense of the prophets, and the faith of his forefathers; and that in the expectation of the resurrection of all men, good and bad, he was careful to live with an unblameable conscience towards God and man. The accusation as to religion was of no weight with Felix: yet he detained the apostle in prison two years, partly to please the Jews, and partly hoping to receive money from the Christians for his releasement. This Felix was a wicked man, raised to that dignity from a slave, and in governing his province he carried extortions and tyranny to the greatest height.*

He was absolute and uncontrollable so long as he was shielded under the protection of Pallas; but after the fall of that minister it was more easy for the Jews to send complaints against him to Nero; and this induced him to keep St. Paul prisoner in order to court their favor, unless he could have got some money by setting him at liberty. In the mean time, he frequently called the apostle before him, taking much delight to hear him discourse; but curiosity and covetousness were his motives, and his passions got the better of all the impressions of grace. He had three wives, among whom, she that held the first rank, was Drusilla, daughter to the elder Agrippa, an impious apostate from Judaism, and an adulteress who had abandoned her own husband Aziz, king of Emesa, preferring the bed of this profligate idolater. Some days after the first hearing of St. Paul at Cæsarea, Felix being with Drusilla, sent for the apostle before him, and hearing him discourse on justice, chastity, and the judgment to come, trembled. But stifling his remorses, he said: “Go away for the present, I will call thee at a convenient time.” O criminal delay! O words, enemies to all grace! cries out St. Austin. Hurry of worldly affairs, dissipation, sloth, pleasures, and what not, will never afford this convenient time, till the unhappy soul on a sudden shall see herself buried in hell; and shall feel herself awaked from her lethargy by the smart of the unquenchable flames. The other conferences of this judge with St. Paul, were equally fruitless. Neither could he extort from him any money, the apostle having other uses for his alms. Two years after, this governor was recalled to Rome, in the year 60 and, being accused by the Jews before Nero, he only escaped the punishment which his crimes deserved, by immense sums of money.

Porcius Festus succeeded him in the government of Judæa, a man of somewhat better character. St. Paul was again impeached by the Jew before him, but appealed to the emperor, that he might not be abandoned to the rage of malicious prosecutors; and his appeal was admitted by the governor, being a right and privilege granted by the laws to Roman citizens, to secure their lives and fortunes from the arbitrary dealings of corrupt magistrates. Agrippa, the younger, (after the death of his father, the elder Agrippa, in 44,) saw Judæa a second time reduced into a Roman province; but in 48, upon the death of his uncle Herod, king of Chalcis, was declared by the emperor Claudius king of that small territory, being between the Libanus and Antilibanus, with the power of appointing the high priest of the Jews. The tetrarchate of Galilee, and some other small principalities, were afterwards added to his dominions. This prince came to Cæsarea to compliment the new governor, bringing with him his sister Berenice, a lewd and vicious woman, as may be seen in Josephus. Festus asked the advice of Agrippa what he could write to the emperor concerning his prisoner; and that prince, who had heard much of St. Paul, was very desirous to see him. Therefore, the governor caused him the next day to be brought before him. The apostle, in a solemn audience, addressed himself to the young king, and explained to him the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and related his own miraculous conversion. Festus, a worldly man, addicted to his passions, and unacquainted with such spiritual truths, admired the saint’s eloquence and sublime doctrine, but said that he was beside himself, and that much learning had made him mad. St. Paul calmly replied, that his words were not the effects of madness, but were serious and sober truths; and, for a proof, appealed to the king, who was not a stranger to the writings of the prophets that were accomplished in Christ. Agrippa could not but confess that he had almost persuaded him to become a Christian. It was only almost, because he shut his heart against the motion of grace, the Christian faith not being the fashionable religion in the world. They who neglect to listen to the call of heaven, and to improve the favorable visit of the Holy Ghost, in punishment of their abuse of grace, usually perish in their sin. St. Paul returned his hearty wishes, that both the king and the whole honorable assembly were, not in part only, but entirely as much Christians as himself, unlike him only in the chains which he bore on that account. Agrippa told Festus that he might have been discharged forthwith, had not his appeal to Cæsar bound him to appear at Rome. For the appeal being once received in a court, the inferior judge had no power either to acquit or condemn.

Pursuant to this appeal, Festus delivered St. Paul to Julius, a centurion of a company belonging to the legion of Augustus. The apostle had with him Luke, Aristarchus, and some others. In September, they went on board a ship of Adramyttium, a port of Mysia, and sailed northward. They cast anchor at Sidon, where Julius, who was a courteous man, permitted St. Paul to go on shore to see his friends, and to refresh himself. Putting out from thence, they had a tedious voyage with contrary winds, sailed near Cyprus, and coasted along Cilicia and Pamphylia, till they arrived at Myra, in Lycia, where this ship finished its voyage. They then went on board a ship of Alexandria, bound for Italy, carrying two hundred and seventy-six persons. The winds were so contrary that it was several days before they were brought opposite to Cnidus, a promontory and city of Caria: hence they were carried over against Salmone, a promontory of Crote, which they doubled, and came to a place called the Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea, or Thalassa, in that island. It being then October, and the seas dangerous, St. Paul advised the centurion and mariners to winter in that place, they would not listen to the proposals, and were for wintering at Phœnice, a much better haven, on another side of the island. They therefore sailed forward; but soon after there arose a violent northeast wind, which bore upon them so furiously, that the seamen could not govern the ship, and were forced to give it up to the mercy of the winds and waves, which carried it to a small island called Clauda, on the southwest of Crete. Here they were obliged to undergird the ship, to save it from splitting. The next day, being more violently tossed by the storm, they threw overboard the merchant goods, and two days after, also the tackle and furniture of the vessel. So violent was the storm, that they were fourteen days without once seeing the sun, moon, or stars, and almost without eating. Nothing but horror surrounding them, they were all grown hopeless and comfortless, when St. Paul assured them that the vessel indeed would be lost, but that they should all escape with their lives, and be saved on an island. God had sent an angel to him the night before with the message: “Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Cæsar; and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.” For his sake God granted the lives of all the company, consisting of two hundred and seventy-six souls. The mariners happening by the sounding in the night to find but twenty, and soon after but fifteen fathoms of water, perceived some land was near, and not daring to venture any further for fear of sands or rocks, they let down four anchors, and earnestly wished for day. The sailors laid a plot to save themselves in the boat, which they privately let down; but St. Paul informed the centurion of their design, and advised him to prevent such an accident, for the rest must have been left to perish if no one remained capable of steering the vessel. The soldiers, therefore, cut the ropes which held up the boat on the side of the ship, and let it fall into the sea, that the sailors might not be able to leave the vessel. The apostle comforted the company by repeating the strongest assurances that not one of them should be lost, nor so much as a hair of any man’s head perish. For fourteen days they had eaten next to nothing; he therefore persuaded them to take some nourishment cheerfully; and when they had all plentifully refreshed themselves, they threw the rest of the provisions into the sea to lighten the vessel. When it was day they descried land, and weighing anchor made for a shore up a creek, but unexpectedly fell into a place where two currents of the sea meet. There the vessel ran aground, and the head of the ship being fixed in a sand-bank, the stern was broken to pieces by the violence of the waves, and the vessel bulged. In this extremity, the soldiers were for killing the prisoners lest they should escape upon coming to land; but the centurion being desirous to save Paul, would not suffer it, and the whole company arrived safe on shore, some by swimming, others on planks of the vessel. “Behold,” says St. Chrysostom,30 “what it is to live in the company of a saint, though a prisoner, and to have him for a protector in all dangers.”

The land they had made to was the island of Malta, which was then subject to the Romans. The inhabitants treated the distressed strangers with great humanity, making for them large fires to dry their clothes, and cherish their limbs, which were benumbed with cold. While St. Paul was busied in throwing a bundle of sticks on the fire, a viper, dislodged by the heat, came out of the wood, and fastened on his hand; but he shook it off into the flames, without receiving any hurt. The people expected he would swell soon, drop down, and die, and cried out he must be some murderer pursued by divine vengeance. But seeing the miraculous event, they said, he must sure be some god. Publius, the principal person in the island, probably the Roman governor, entertained the whole crew at his house for three days with great kindness. His hospitality was recompensed, for his father being at that time sick of a fever and dysentery, St. Paul went in, prayed, laid his hands on him, and restored him to his health. When this was reported abroad, others brought their sick to the apostle, and they were cured by him. This made the islanders honor their guests exceedingly, and furnish them with plenty of all necessary provisions. After three months’ stay in this island, St. Paul and his company set sail for Rome, in an Alexandrian vessel, named the Castor and Pollux, which had lain there all the winter. They touched at Syracuse, in Sicily, and at Reggio, in Calabria, and landed at Puzzuolo, near Naples. Finding some Christians there, the apostle was prevailed on to stay seven days with them. Hence he proceeded near one hundred miles by land to Rome. The Christians of that capital hearing of his coming, several of them went out to meet him, some as far as to Forum Appii, forty-eight miles, others to Tres Tabernæ, now called Cisterna, twenty-two miles from Rome. He arrived at that city in the beginning of spring, in the year 61. Julius, the captain, delivered his prisoners to the Præfectus Prætorio, Afranius Burrhus, an officer of great wisdom and moderation, and of chief authority during the first years of Nero, whose brutish temper was much restrained by the counsels of Seneca and Burrhus, till the death of the latter in 62. St. Paul was treated with great indulgence, and permitted to live in a house which he hired, only with a constant guard upon him, and always fettered with a chain; one end of which was probably, according to the Roman custom, fastened about the guard, who was obliged to accompany him everywhere, but was often changed. During his custody he preached freely to those who resorted to him, first to the Jews, afterwards with much greater fruit to the Gentiles. No accusers appearing against him, after two years he was set at liberty. Here St. Luke ends his history of the Acts of the Apostles, which, from the thirteenth chapter, is a narrative of the travels of St. Paul. The Philippians sent Epaphroditus, their bishop, with money to St. Paul for his relief during his imprisonment, and the apostle wrote to them his most tender epistle in 62, in which he exhorts them to be upon their guard against false teachers, who pretended that the law of circumcision obliges Christians. Onesimus, the slave of Philemon, an eminent citizen of Colossæ, in Phrygia, served St. Paul in his confinement, and the apostle obtained of his master his pardon and liberty by his most tender and eloquent epistle to Philemon. He sent by Onesimus, the same year, 62, his epistle to the Colossians, who had been converted to the faith, not by St. Paul, but by Epaphras, who was their bishop. The apostle warns them against a superstitious worship of angels, which certain disciples of Simon Magus endeavored to introduce. It was also in Italy that he wrote his epistle to the Hebrews, probably about the year 63.

Some time after his enlargement, he returned again from Rome into the East, as he had promised in all the above-mentioned epistles. There he undertook new voyages, preached again over many countries, and suffered over again chains, prisons, torments, conflicts, and continual dangers of death. He had a design, when he wrote to the Romans, of visiting Spain; but this, pope Gelasius thinks,31 he never executed. He in this journey established the faith in Crete, and left St. Titus bishop there; as he did St. Timothy at Ephesus. He wrote his first epistle to this latter out of Macedon according to St. Jerom from Nicopolis, in Epirus, which was then reckoned part of Macedon. He wrote to St. Titus from Greece, or Achaia, under which name the Romans then comprehended also Peloponnesus, and whatever provinces of old Greece they did not attribute to Macedon. The apostle went back into Asia, and at Troas lodged with one Carpus. He made several other voyages, in which he had much to suffer.32 He had excommunicated Hymenæus and Philetus at Ephesus, for denying the resurrection of the body.

No distance of nations could confine the ardor of this apostle’s zeal. From the East he returned again to Rome. St. Athanasius assures us.33 that God had made known to him by a revelation, that he should suffer martyrdom in that city; whereupon, instead of flying, he with joy hastened thither. St. Austin and other fathers testify the same; and this foresight of his death may be also gathered from the assurance with which he speaks of it in his second epistle to Timothy. He came this second time to Rome about the year 64. St. Dionysius of Corinth insinuates, that it was in company with St. Peter.34 We learn from the epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians,35 that several persons of the emperor’s household had before this embraced the faith.* St. Luke informs us that St. Paul found many Christians in Rome upon his first coming thither; St. Peter had begun to preach there probably sixteen years or more before the arrival of St. Paul. Suetonius testifies, that Claudius banished the Jews out of Rome for the tumults raised by them concerning Christ. Tacitus tells us, that Pomponia Græcina, an illustrious lady under Claudius, married to A. Plautius, (who, in four years’ successful war, had first reduced the south-east part of Britain, near the Thames, into a Roman province,) was accused of practising foreign superstitions; by which historians generally understand the Christian religion, which had then been preached in Rome by St. Peter and his disciples. She was referred to her husband’s judgment, who, in presence of a meeting of relations, according to ancient custom, examined into the matter, and, with their approbation, pronounced her innocent. This happened about the year 57, before the faith was deemed a crime at Rome, though an attachment to old superstitions always disposed many to oppose it. Great numbers, and among these many illustrious persons, had embraced it when Nero began the first general persecution of the church. St. Chrysostom tells us36 that St. Paul converted among others a beloved concubine of Nero, and that she thereupon changed her course of life, forsook the court, and served God in great sobriety and virtue, which provoked the tyrant, and was the first occasion of St. Paul’s imprisonment. The same father adds, that this apostle, while in prison, converted one that was cup-bearer to the emperor, which incensed the tyrant more than ever. St. Paul informs us that when he was put in prison he was abandoned by all that had any credit at court; but says, that he received the greater comfort and strength from God in his first appearing before Ner0.37 One Alexander, a coppersmith, was a great stickler against him,38 perhaps the same Alexander whom he had excommunicated a little before. He was probably some Jew or apostate Christian, whose fall was owing to pride and envy. St. Clement I., pope, who was then in Rome, and a disciple of St. Peter, says, that jealousy was one of the principal causes of this apostle’s martyrdom.39

His confinement must have continued at least a year; for, in his second epistle to Timothy, he desires him to come from Ephesus to Rome before winter.40 Yet he did not suffer before the following year. During his second imprisonment, besides this second epistle to Timothy, he wrote one to the Ephesians, in which he takes the title of prisoner of Jesus Christ, as that which is of all others the most honorable. Upon which words, St. Chrysostom writes: “To be a prisoner for Christ is a title more illustrious and more glorious than to be an apostle, a doctor, or an evangelist. This is truly a great dignity, far beyond that of any kingdom or consulate. One that loveth Christ, would rather be in chains for his sake than be in heaven. No glittering diadem so adorns the head as a chain borne for Christ. Were the choice offered me either of heaven or of this chain, I would take the chain. If I might have stood with the angels above, near the throne of God, or bound with Paul, I should have preferred the dungeon. Nothing is more happy or more glorious than to wear this chain. I do not call Paul so happy for having been taken up in a rapture into Paradise as that he bore this chain. Had you rather have been the angel loosing Peter, or Peter in chains? I would rather have been Peter. This gift of chains is something greater than to stop the sun, to move the world, or to command the devils.” This apostle had always looked upon death as his gain, and had sighed continually with a longing desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.41 St. Hilary, writing on Psalm 109. v. 5, says this is the disposition of him who ardently loves God. “He cannot bear a retardment; he grieves at all delays. Thus, we see the saints weep to see the dissolution of their bodies so slow. The ardor of those who love is impatient. Our Lord even commands us to pray that his kingdom may be hastened; and St. Paul laments, that by staying in the flesh he is absent from the Lord.”42 This apostle represents all inanimate creatures as groaning in pain, and desiring, according to their manner, their deliverance from the slavery of corruption, and their renovation at the last day to serve for the greater glory of the elect; and adds, that we who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body.43 The will of God, and zeal for promoting his honor on earth, tempered the sorrow of this delay; and he always rejoiced in an entire resignation of himself to the sweet appointments of heaven.44 But at length the happy term of his labors and dangers approached, and he beheld with joy.