Sunday, January 31, 2010

St. Marcella, Widow

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

Saturday, January 30, 2010

St. Martina, V.M.

She was a noble Roman virgin, who glorified God, suffering many torments and a cruel death for his faith in the capital city of the world, in the third century. There stood a chapel consecrated to her memory in Rome, which was frequented with great devotion in the time of St. Gregory the Great. Her relics were discovered in a vault, in the ruins of her old church, and translated with great pomp in the year 1634, under Pope Urban VIII. who built a new church in her honour, and composed himself the hymns used in her office in the Roman Breviary. The city of Rome ranks her among its particular patrons. She is mentioned in the Martyrologies of Ado, Usuard, &c. The history of the discovery of her relics was published by Honoratus of Viterbo, an Oratorian. See Bollandus.

Friday, January 29, 2010

St. Sulpicius Severus

DISCIPLE OF ST. MARTIN.

He was born in Aquitain, not at Agen, as Scaliger, Vossius, Baillet, &c. have falsely inferred from a passage of his history,2 but near Toulouse.3 That he was of a very rich and illustrious Roman family, we are assured hy the two Paulinus's, and Gennadius. His youth he spent in studying the best Roman authors of the Augustan age, upon whom he formed his style, not upon the writers of his own time: he also applied himself to the study of the laws, and surpassed all his contemporaries in eloquence at the bar. His wife was a lady of a consular family, whom he lost soon after their marriage, but he continued to enjoy a very great estate which he had inherited by her. His mother-in-law Bassula loved him constantly as if he had been her own son: they continued to live several years in the same house, and had in all things the same mind.4 The death of his beloved consort contributed to wean his heart from the world: in which resolution he seems to have been confirmed by the example and exhortations of his pious mother-in-law. His conversion from the world happened in the same year with that of St. Paulinus of Nola,5 though probably somewhat later: and St. Paulinus mentions that Sulpicius was younger than himself, and at that time (that is, about the year 392) in the flower of his age De Prato imagines Sulpicius to have been ten years younger than St. Paulinus, consequently that he was converted in the thirty-second year of his age. Whereas St. Paulinus distributed his whole fortune amongst the poor at once; Sulpicius reserved his estates to himself and his heirs, employing the yearly revenue on the poor, and in other pious uses, so that he was no more than a servant of the church and the poor to keep accounts for them.6 But he sold so much of them as was necessary to discharge him of all obligations to others. Gennadius tells us that he was promoted to the priesthood; but from the silence of St. Paulinus, St. Jerom, and others, Tillemont and De Prato doubt of the circumstance. Sulpicius suffered much from the censures of friends who condemned his retreat, having chosen for his solitude a cottage at Primuliacus, a village now utterly unknown in Aquitain, probably in Languedoc. In his kitchen nothing was ever dressed but pulse and herbs, boiled without any seasoning, except a little vinegar. He ate also coarse bread. He and his few disciples had no other beds but straw or sackcloth spread on the ground. He set at liberty several of his slaves, and admitted them and some of his old servants to familiar intercourse and conversation. About the year 394, not long after his retreat, he made a visit to Saint Martin at Tours, and was so much taken with his saintly comportment, and edified by his pious discourses and counsels, that he became from that time his greatest admirer, and regulated his conduct by his direction. Ever after he visited that great saint once or twice almost every summer as long as he lived, and passed some time with him, that he might study more perfectly to imitate his virtues. He built and adorned several churches. For two which he founded at Primuliacus, he begged some relics of St. Paulinus, who sent him a piece of the cross on which our Saviour was crucified, with the history of its miraculous discovery by St. Helena.7 This account Sulpicius inserted in his ecclesiastical history. These two saints sent frequent presents to each other of poor garments or the like things, suitable to a penitential life, upon which they make in their letters beautiful pious reflections, that show how much they were accustomed to raise their thoughts to God from every object.8 Our saint recommending to St. Paulinus a cook, facetiously tells him that he was utterly a stranger to the art of making sauces, and to the use of pepper, or any such incentives of gluttony, his skill consisting only in gathering and boiling herbs in such a manner that monks, who only eat after having fasted long, would find delicious. He prays his friend to treat him as he would his own son, and wishes he could himself have served him and his family in that quality.9 In the year 399 St. Paulinus wrote to our saint that he hoped to have met him at Rome, whither he went to keep the feast of the prince of the apostles, and where he had staid ten days, but without seeing anything but the tombs of the apostles, before which he passed the mornings, and the evenings were taken up by friends who called to see him.10 Sulpicius answered, that an indisposition had hindered him from undertaking that journey. Of the several letters mentioned by Gennadius, which Sulpicius Severus wrote to the devout virgin Claudia, his sister, two are published by Baluze.11 Both are strong exhortations to fervour and perseverance. In the first our saint assures her that he shed tears of joy in reading her letter, by which he was assured of her sincere desire of serving God.

In a letter to Aurelius the deacon, he relates that one night in a dream he saw St. Martin ascend to heaven in great glory, and attended by the holy priest Clarus, his disciple, who was lately dead: soon after, two monks arriving from Tours, brought news of the death of St. Martin. He adds, that his greatest comfort in the loss of so good a master, was a confidence that he should obtain the divine blessings by the prayers of St. Martin in heaven. St. Paulinus mentions this vision in an inscription in verse, which he made and sent to be engraved on the marble altar of the church of Primuliacus.12 St. Sulpicius wrote the life of the incomparable St. Martin, according to Tillemont and most others, before the death of that saint: but De Prato thinks that though it was begun before, it was neither finished nor published till after, his death. The style of this piece is plainer and more simple than that of his other writings. An account of the death of St. Martin, which is placed by De Prato in the year 400, is accurately given by St. Sulpicius, in a letter to Bassula, his mother-in-law, who then lived at Triers. The three dialogues of our saint are the most florid of all his writings. In the first Posthumain, a friend who had spent three years in the deserts of Egypt and the East, and was then returned, relates to him and Gallus, a disciple of St. Martin, (with whom our saint then lived under the same roof,) the wonderful examples of virtue he had seen abroad. In the second dialogue Gallus recounts many circumstances of the life of St. Martin, which St. Sulpicius had omitted in his history of that saint. In the third, under the name of the same Gallus, several miracles wrought by St. Martin are proved by authentic testimonies.13 The most important work of our saint is his abridgment of sacred history from the beginning of the world down to his own time in the year 400. The elegance, conciseness, and perspicuity with which this work is compiled, have procured the author the name of the Christian Sallust, some even prefer it to the histories of the Roman Sallust, and look upon it as the most finished model extant of abridgments.14 His style is the most pure of any of the Latin fathers, though also Lactantius, Minutius Felix, we may almost add St. Jerom, and Salvian of Marseilles, deserve to be read among the Latin classics. The heroic sanctity of Sulpicius Severus is highly extolled by St. Paulinas of Nola, Paulinus of Perigueux, about the year 460,15 Venantius Fortunantus, and many others down to the present age. Gennadius tells us, that he was particularly remarkable for his extraordinary love of poverty and humility. After the death of St. Martin, in 400, St. Sulpicius Severus passed five years in that illustrious saint's cell at Marmoutier. F. Jerom De Prato thinks that he at length retired to a monastery at Marseilles, or in that neighbourhood; because in a very ancient manuscript copy of his works, transcribed in the seventh century kept in the library of the chapter of Verona, he is twice called a monk of Marseilles. From the testimony of this manuscript, the Benedictin authors of the new treatise On the Diplomatique,16 and the continuators of the Literary History of France,17 regard it as undoubted that Sulpicius Severus was a monk at Marseilles before his death. Whilst the Alans, Sueves, and Vandals from Germany and other barbarous nations, laid waste most provinces in Gaul in 406, Marseilles enjoyed a secure peace under the government of Constantine, who, having assumed the purple, fixed the seat of his empire at Arles from the year 407 to 410. After the death of St. Chrysostom in 407, Cassian came from Constantinople to Marseilles, and founded there two monasteries, one for men, the other for women. Most place the death of St. Sulpicius Severus about the year 420, Baronius after the year 432; but F. Jerom De Prato about 410, when he supposes him to have been near fifty years old, saying that Gennadius, who tells us that he lived to a very great age, is inconsistent with himself. Neither St. Paulinus nor any other writer mentions him as living later than the year 407, which seems to prove that he did not survive that epoch very many years. Guibert, abbot of Gemblours, who died in 1208, in his Apology for Sulpicius Severus,18 testifies that his festival was kept at Marmoutier with great solemnity on the 29th of January. Several editors of the Roman Martyrology, who took Sulpicius Severus, who is named in the calendars on this day, to have been this saint, added in his eulogium, Disciple of St. Martin, famous for his learning and merits. Many have proved that this addition was made by the mistake of private editors, and that the saint originally meant here in the Roman Martyrology was Sulpicius Severus, bishop of Bourges;19 and Benedict XIV. proves and declares20 that Sulpicius Severus, the disciple of St. Martin, is not commemorated in the Roman Martyrology. Nevertheless, he has been ranked among the saints at Tours from time immemorial, and is honoured with a particular office on this day in the new Breviary used in all that diocess. See his works correctly printed, with various readings, notes, dissertations, and the life of this saint at Verona in 1741, in two volumes folio, by F. Jerom De Prato, an Italian Oratorian of Verona: also Gallia Christiana tum Vetus tum Nova: Tillemont, t. 12. Ceillier, t. 10. p. 635. Rivet, Hist. Litér de la France, t. 2. p. 95.

1 Severus was his own proper name, Sulpicius that of his family, as is testified by Gennadius and all antiquity. Vossius, Dupin, and some others, on this account, will have him called Severus Sulpicius, with Eugippius and St. Gregory of Tours. But other learned men agree, that after the close of the republic of Rome, under the emperors, the family name was usually placed first, though still called Cognomen, and the other Prænomen, because the proper name went anciently before the other. Thus we say Cæcilius Cyprianus, Eusebius Hieronymus, Aurelius Augustinus, &c. See Sirmond, Ep. præfixa Op. Servati Lupi, and Hier. De Prato in vita Sulpicii Severi, p. 56, &c.

2 Sulp. Sev. Hist. l. 2, c. 44.

3 Ib. c. 48. and Ep. ad Bassulam. de Prato, p. 57.

4 S. Paulinus, Ep. 5 & 35.

5 Ib. Ep. 11. n. 6.

6 S. Paulinus, Ep. 1 & 24.

7 Ib. Ep. 52.

8 Sulpic. Sev. Ep. ad Paulin. ed a D'Achery in Spicileg. T. 5, p. 532. et inter opera S. Paulini, p. 119.

9 Sulp. Sever. Ibid.

10 S. Paulin. Ep. ad Sulpic. Sev. p. 96.

11 Baluze, T. 1. Miscellan. p. 329.

12 S. Paulinus, Ep. 32. p. 204.

13 Many, upon the authority of St. Jerom, rank Sulpicius Severus among the Millenarians, though all allow that he never defended any error so as to be out of the communion of the church. But that he could not be properly a Millenarian seems clear from several parts of his writings. For, in Ep. 2 and 3. he affirms, that the souls of St. Martin and St. Clarus passed from this world to the immediate beatific vision of God. He establishes the same principles, Ep. 1. ad Claudiam Soror. c. 5. And in his Sacred History, l. 2, c. 3. explaining the dream of Nabuchodonosor he teaches, that the destruction of the kingdoms of this world will be immediately succeeded by the eternal reign of Christ with his saints in heaven. In the passage, Dial. 2. c. 14. upon which the charge is founded, Sulpicius relates in the discourse of Gallus, that St. Martin on a certain occasion said, that the reign of Nero in the West and his persecution were immediate forerunners of the last day: as is the reign of Antichrist in the East, who will rebuild Jerusalem and its temple, reside in the same, restore circumcision, kill Nero, and subject the whole world to his empire. Where he advances certain false conjectures about the reign of Nero, and the near approach of the last judgment at that time: likewise the restoration of Jerusalem by Antichrist; though this last is maintained probable by cardinal Bellarmin, l. 3. de. Rom. Pontif. c. 13. But the Millenarian error is not so much as insinuated. Nor could it have been inserted by the author in that passage and omitted by copiers, as De Prato proves against that conjecture of Tillemont. St. Jerom indeed, l. 11. in Ezech. c. 36. represents certain Christian writers who imitated some later Jews in their Deuteroseis in a carnal manner of expounding certain scripture prophecies, expecting a second Jerusalem of gold and precious stones, a restoration of bloody sacrifices, circumcision, and a Sabbath. Amongst these he names Tertullian in his book De Spe Fidelium, (now lost,) Lactantius, Victorinus Petabionensis, and Severus (Sulpicius) in his dialogue entitled, Gallus, then just published: and among the Greeks Irenæus and Apollinarius. De Prato thinks he only speaks of Sulpicius Severus by hearsay, because he mentions only one dialogue called Gallus, whereas two bear that title. At least St Jerom never meant to ascribe all these errors to each of those he names; for none of them maintained them all except Apollinarius. His intention was only to ascribe one point or other of such carnal interpretations to each, and to Sulpicius the opinion that Jerusalem, with the temple and sacrifices, will he restored by Antichrist, &c. which cannot be called erroneous; though St, Jerom justly rejects that interpretation, because the desolation foretold by Daniel is to endure to the end. In the decree of Gelasius this dialogue of Gallus is called Apocryphal, but in the same sense in which it was rejected by St. Jerom. Nor is this exposition advanced otherwise than as a quotation from St. Martin's answer on that subject. See the justification of Sulpicius Severus, in a dissertation printed at Venice in 1738, in Racolta di Opusculi Scientifici, t. 18. and more amply by F. Jerom de Prato, Disser. 5. in Opera Sulpicii Severi, t. 1, p. 259. commended in the Acta Eruditor. Lapsiæ, ad an. 1760. Gennadius, who wrote about the year 494, tells us, (Cat. n. 19.) that Sulpicius was deceived in his old age by the Pelagians, but soon opening his eyes condemned himself to five years rigorous silence to expiate this fault. From the silence of other authors, and the great commendations which the warmest enemies of the Pelagians bestow on our saint, especially Paulinus of Milan, in his life of St. Ambrose, (written at latest in 423,) and St. Paulinus of Nola, and Paulinus of Perigueux, (who in 461 wrote in verse the life of St. Martin,) l. 5, v. 193, &c. some look upon this circumstance as a slander, which depends wholly on the testimony of so inaccurate a writer, who is inconsistent with himself in other matters relating to Sulpicius Severus, whose five years silence might have other motives. If the fact be true, it can only be understood of the Semi-Pelagian error, which had then many advocates at Marseilles, and was not distinguished in its name from Pelagianism till some years after our saint's death, nor condemned by the church before the second council of Orange in 529. Pelagius was condemned by the councils of Carthage and Milevis in 416, and by Pope Innocent I. in 417. If Sulpicius Severus fell into any error, especially before it had been clearly anathematized by the church, at least he cannot be charged with obstinacy, having so soon renounced it. We must add, that even wilful offences are blotted out by sincere repentance. See F. Jerom De Prato in vita Sulp. Sev. s. 12. p. 69, & 74. t. 1. Op. Veronæ, 1741.

14 The sacred history of Sulpicius Severus is a most useful classic for Christian schools; but not to be studied in the chosen fragments mangled by Chompré, and prescribed for the schools in Portugal. True improvement of the mind is impossible without the beauties of method and the advantages of taste, which are no where met with but by seeing good compositions entire, and by considering the art with which the whole is wound up. A small edition of Sulpicius's history, made from that correctly published by De Prato, would be of great service. Nevertheless, Sulpicius, though he has so well imitated the style of the purest ages, declares that he neglects elegance; and he takes the liberty to use certain terms and phrases which are not of the Augustan standard, sometimes because they were so familiar in his time, that he otherwise would not have seemed to write with ease, and sometimes because they are necessary to express the mysteries of our faith. How shocking is the delicacy of Bembo; who, for fear of not being Ciceronian, conjures the Venetians per Deos immortales, and uses the words Dea Lauretana! or that of Justus Lipsius, who used Fatum, or destiny, for Providence, because this latter word is not in Cicero, who, with the Pagans, usually speaks according to the notion of an overruling destiny in events which they believed ordained by heaven. For this term some of Lipsius's works were censured, and by him recalled.

15 Vit. St. Martin, versu expressa, l. 5. v. 193. &c.

16 Tr. de Diplomatique, T. 3.

17 Hist. Litér. T. 11. Avertissement préliminaire, p. 5.

18 Published by Bollandus, ad 29 Jan. p. 968.

19 See Annatus, Theolog. positivæ, l. 4., c. 26. and Dominic Georgi in Notis ad Martyrol. Adonis, ad 17 Jan.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

St. John of Reomay, A.

NOW CALLED MOUTIER-SAINT-JEAN, IN BURGUNDY.

He was a native of the diocess of Langres, and took the monastic habit at Lerins. He was called into his own country by the bishop of Langres to found the abbey from which he received his surname. He settled it under the rule of Saint Macarius, governed it many years with great reputation of sanctity, and was rendered famous by miracles. He went to God about the year 540, being almost one hundred and twenty years old, and was one of the holy institutors of the monastic state in France. St. Gregory of Tours gives an account of him in the eighty-seventh chapter of his book, on the glory of Confessors. His life was also compiled by Jonas, the disciple of Columban, extant in Bollandus. See P. Rover, Hist. Monast. S. Joan. Reom Paris, 1637.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

St. Julian, First Bishop of Mans, C.

TOWARDS THE END OF THE THIRD CENTURY

He was succeeded by St. Turibius. His head is shown in the cathedral of Mans, but the most of his relics in the neighbouring Benedictin abbey of nuns called St. Julian's du Pre, famous for miracles; though the greater part of these relics was burnt, or scattered in the wind by the Huguenots, who plundered the shrine of St. Julian, in 1562. He was much honoured in France, and many churches built during the Norman succession in England, especially about the reign of Henry II. who was baptised in the church of St. Julian, at Mans, bear his name: one in particular at Norwich, which the people by mistake imagine to have been dedicated under the title of the venerable Juliana, a Benedictin nun at Norwich, who died in the odour of sanctity, but never was publicly invoked as a saint. Saint Julian of Mans had an office in the Sarum Breviary. See Tillem. t. 4, p. 448. 729. Gal. Christ. Nov. &c.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

St. Timothy, B. and M.

See Tillemont, T. 2. p. 142.

St. Timothy, the beloved disciple of St. Paul, was of Lycaonia, and probably of the city of Lystra. His father was a Gentile, but his mother Eunice was a Jewess. She with Lois his grandmother embraced the Christian religion, and St. Paul commends theii faith. Timothy had made the holy scriptures his study from his infancy.1 When St. Paul preached in Lycaonia, in the year 51, the brethren of Iconium and Lystra gave him so advantageous a character of the young man, that the apostle, being deprived of St. Barnaby, took him for the companion of his labours, but first circumcised him at Lystra. For though the Jewish ceremonies ceased to be obligatory from the death of Christ, it was still lawful to use them (but not as precept or obligation) till about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem with the temple, that the synagogue might be buried with honour. Therefore St. Paul refused to circumcise Titus, born of Gentile parents, to assert the liberty of the gospel, and to condemn those who erroneously affirmed circumcision to be still of precept in the New Law. On the other side, he circumcised Timothy, born of a Jewess, by that condescension to render him the more acceptable to the Jews, and to make it appear that himself was no enemy to their law. St. Chrysostom2 here admires the prudence, steadiness, and charity, of St. Paul; and we may add, the voluntary obedience of the disciple. St. Austin3 extols his zeal and disinterestedness in immediately forsaking his country, his house, and his parents, to follow this apostle, to share in his poverty and sufferings. After he was circumcised, St. Paul, by the imposition of hands, committed to him the ministry of preaching, his rare virtue making ample amends for his want of age. From that time the apostle regarded him not only as his disciple and most dear son, but as his brother and the companion of his labours.4 He calls him a man of God,5 and tells the Philippians, that he found no one so truly united to him in heart and sentiments, as Timothy.6 This esteem of the apostle is a sufficient testimony of the extraordinary merit of the disciple, whose vocation and entrance into the ministry was accompanied with prophecies in his behalf.7

St. Paul travelled from Lystra over the rest of Asia, sailed into Macedon, and preached at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Bercea, in the year 52. Being compelled to quit this last city by the fury of the Jews, he left Timothy behind him, to confirm the new converts there.8 On St. Paul's arrival at Athens he sent for him, but being informed that the Christians of Thessalonica lay under a very heavy persecution for the faith, he soon after deputed him to go thither, to comfort and encourage them under it; and he returned to St. Paul, then at Corinth, to give him an account of his success in that commission. Upon this the apostle wrote his first epistle to the Thessalonians. From Corinth St. Paul went to Jerusalem, and thence to Ephesus, where he spent two years. Here he formed a resolution of returning into Greece, and sent Timothy and Erastus before him through Macedon, to apprize the faithful in those parts of his intention, and to prepare the alms intended to be sent the Christians of Jerusalem.

Timothy had a particular order to go afterwards to Corinth, to correct certain abuses, and to revive in the minds of the faithful there the doctrine which the apostle had taught them; who, writing soon after to the Corinthians, earnestly recommended this disciple to them.9 St. Paul waited in Asia for his return, and then went with him into Macedon and Achaia. St. Timothy left him at Philippi, but rejoined him at Troas. The apostle on his return to Palestine was imprisoned, and after two years custody at Caesarea, was sent to Rome. Timothy seems to have been with him all or most of this time, and is named by him in the titles of his epistles to Philemon, and to the Philippians and Thessalonians, in the years 61 and 62. St. Timothy himself suffered imprisonment for Christ, and gloriously confessed his name, in the presence of many witnesses; but was set at liberty.10 He was ordained bishop by a prophecy, and a particular order of the Holy Ghost.11 He received by this imposition of hands, not only the grace of the sacrament, and the authority to govern the church, but also the power of miracles, and the other exterior gifts of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul being returned from Rome into the East, in the year 64, left St. Timothy at Ephesus, to govern that church, to oppose false teachers, and to ordain priests, deacons, and even bishops.12 For St. Chrysostom13 and other fathers observe, that he committed to him the care of all the churches of Asia: and St. Timothy is always named the first bishop of Ephesus.14

St. Paul wrote his first epistle to Timothy from Macedon, in 64; and his second, in 65, from Rome, while there in chains, to press him to come to Rome, that he might see him again before he died. It is an effusion of his heart, full of tenderness towards this his dearest son. In it he encourages him, endeavours to renew and stir up in his soul that spirit of intrepidity, and that fire of the Holy Ghost, with which he was filled at his ordination; gives him instructions concerning the heretics of that time, and adds a lively description of such as would afterward arise.15

We learn16 that St. Timothy drank only water: but his austerities having prejudiced his health, on account of his weak stomach and frequent infirmities, St. Paul ordered him to use a little wine. The fathers observe that he only says a little even in that necessity, because the flesh is to be kept weak, that the spirit may be vigorous and strong. St. Timothy was then young: perhaps about forty. It is not improbable that he went to Rome to confer with his master. In the year 64 he was made by St. Paul bishop of Ephesus, before St. John arrived there, who resided also in that city as an apostle, and exercising a general inspection over all the churches of Asia.17 St. Timothy is styled a martyr in the ancient martyrologies.

His acts, in some copies ascribed to the famous Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, but which seem to have been written at Ephesus, in the fifth or sixth age, and abridged by Photius, relate, that under the emperor Nerva, in the year 97, St. John being still in the isle of Patmos, St. Timothy was slain with stones and clubs, by the heathens, whilst he was endeavouring to oppose their idolatrous ceremonies on one of their festivals called Catagogia, kept on the 22nd of January, on which the idolaters walked in troops, every one carrying in one hand an idol, and in the other a club. St. Paulinus,18 Theodoras Lector, and Philostorgius,19 informs us, that his relics were with great pomp translated to Constantinople in the year 356, in the reign of Constantius. St. Paulinus witnesses, that the least portion of them wrought many miracles wherever they were distributed. These precious remains, with those of St. Andrew and St. Luke, were deposited under the altar, in the church of the apostles in that city, where the devils, by their howlings, testified how much they felt their presence, says St. Jerom;20 which St. Chrysostom also confirms.21

Pious reading was the means by which St. Timothy, encouraged by the example and exhortations of his virtuous grandmother and mother, imbibed in his tender years, and nourished during the whole course of his life, the most fervent spirit of religion and all virtues; and his ardour for holy reading and meditation is commended by St. Paul, as the proof of his devotion and earnest desire of advancing in divine charity. When this saint was wholly taken up in the most laborious and holy functions of the apostolic ministry, that great apostle strongly recommends to him always to be assiduous in the same practice,22 and in all exercises of devotion. A minister of the gospel who neglects regular exercises of retirement, especially self-examination, reading, meditation, and private devotion, forgets his first and most essential duty, the care he owes to his own soul. Neither can he hope to kindle the fire of charity in others, if he suffer it to be extinguished in his own breast. These exercises are also indispensably necessary in a certain degree, in all states and circumstances of life; nor is it possible for a Christian otherwise to maintain a spirit of true piety, which ought to animate the whole body of all his actions, and without which even spiritual functions want as it were their soul.

1 2 Tim. iii. 15.

2 Præf. in 1 Tim.

3 Serm. 177. n. 7.

4 1 Thess. iii. 2. 1 Cor. iv. 17.

5 1 Tim. vi. 11.

6 Phil ii. 20.

7 1 Tim. i. 18.

8 Acts xviii.

9 1 Cor. xvi. 10.

10 Heb. xiii. 23.

11 1 Tim. iv. 14.

12 1 Tim. 1.

13 Hom. 15. in 1 Tim.

14 Eus. l. 3, c. 4. Conc. T. 4, p. 699.

15 2 Tim. iii. 1, 2.

16 1 Tim. v. 23.

17 In the Apocalypse, which was written in the year 95, Christ threatens the bishop of Ephesus, because he was fallen from his first charity, and exhorts him to do penance and return to his first works. (Apoc. xi. 4.) Calmet says, this bishop could be no other than St. Timothy; Pererius, Cornelius a Lapide, Grotius, Alcazar, Bossuet, and other learned men agree in this point; also Tillemont, T. 2. p. 147. and Bollandus ad 24 Jan. p. 503 and 564. Nicholas a Lyra and Ribera cannot be persuaded that St. Timothy ever deserved so severe a censure, unless we understand it only of his flock. The others say, he might have fallen into some venial remissness in not reprehending the vices of others with sufficient vigour; which fault he repaired, upon this admonition, with such earnestness, as to have given occasion to his martyrdom, in 97. He was succeeded in the see of Ephesus by John I. who was consecrated by St. John Evangelist. (See Constitut. Apostol. l. 8, c. 46.) Onesimus was third bishop of Ephesus. See Le Quien, Oriens Chris. T. 1. p. 672.

18 Carm. 26.

19 L. 3, c. 2.

20 In Vigilant. c. 2.

21 Hom. 1. ad Pop. Antioch.

22 1 Tim. iv. 7 and 13.

Monday, January 25, 2010

The Conversion of St. Paul

See Tillemont, T. 1, p. 192.

This great apostle was a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin. At his circumcision, on the eighth day after his birth, he received the name of Saul. His father was by sect a Pharisee, and a denizen of Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia: which city had shown a particular regard for the cause of the Cæsars; on which account Cassius deprived it of its privileges and lands; but Augustus, when conqueror, made it ample amends by honouring it with many new privileges, and with the freedom of Rome, as we read in the two Dions and Appian. Hence St. Paul, being born at Tarsus, was by privilege a Roman citizen, to which quality a great distinction and several exemptions were granted by the laws of the empire.1 His parents sent him young to Jerusalem, where he was educated and instructed in the strictest observance of the law of Moses, by Gamaliel,2 a learned and noble Jew, and probably a member of the Sanhedrim; and was a most scrupulous observer of it in every point. He appeals even to his enemies to bear evidence how confort mable [sic] to it his life had been in every respect.3 He embraced the sect of the Pharisees, which was of all others the most severe, though by its pride the most opposite to the humility of the gospel.4 It was a rule among the Jews that all their children were to learn some trade with their studies, were it but to avoid idleness, and to exercise the body, as well as the mind, in something serious.5 It is therefore probable that Saul learned in his youth the trade which he exercised even after his apostleship, of making tents.6

Saul, surpassing all his equals in zeal for the Jewish law and their traditions, which he thought the cause of God, became thereby a blasphemer, a persecutor, and the most outrageous enemy of Christ.7 He was one of those who combined to murder St. Stephen, and by keeping the garments of all who stoned that holy martyr, he is said by St. Austin to have stoned him by the hands of all the rest;8 to whose prayers for his enemies he ascribes the conversion of St. Paul:9 "If Stephen," said he, "had not prayed, the church would never have had St. Paul."

After the martyrdom of the holy deacon, the priests and magistrates of the Jews raised a violent persecution against the church at Jerusalem, in which Saul signalized himself above others. By virtue of the power he had received from the high priest, he dragged the Christians out of their houses, loaded them with chains, and thrust them into prison.10 He procured them to he scourged in the synagogues, and endeavoured by torments to compel them to blaspheme the name of Christ. And as our Saviour had always been represented by the leading men of the Jews as an enemy to their law, it was no wonder that this rigorous Pharisee fully persuaded himself that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.11 By the violences he committed, his name became every where a terror to the faithful. The persecutors not only raged against their persons, but also seized their estates and what they possessed in common,12 and left them in such extreme necessity, that the remotest churches afterwards thought it incumbent on them to join in charitable contributions to their relief. All this could not satisfy the fury of Saul, he breathed nothing but threats and the slaughter of the other disciples.13 Wherefore, in the fury of his zeal, he applied to the high priest and Sanhedrim for a commission to take up all Jews at Damascus who confessed Jesus Christ, and bring them bound to Jerusalem, that they might serve as public examples for the terror of others. But God was pleased to show forth in him his patience and mercy; and, moved by the prayers of St. Stephen and his other persecuted servants, for their enemies, changed him, in the very heat of his fury, into a vessel of election, and made him a greater man in his church by the grace of the apostleship, than St. Stephen had ever been, and a more illustrious instrument of his glory. He was almost at the end of his journey to Damascus, when, about noon, he and his company were on a sudden surrounded by a great light from heaven, brighter than the sun.14 They all saw the light, and being struck with amazement fell to the ground. Then Saul heard a voice, which to him was articulate and distinct; but not understood,15 though heard by the rest: Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me? Christ said not: Why dost thou persecute my disciples, but me: for it is he, their head, who is chiefly persecuted in his servants. Saul answered: Who art thou, Lord? Christ said: Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad: "to contend with one so much mightier than thyself. By persecuting my church you make it flourish, and only prick and hurt yourself." This mild expostulation of our Redeemer, accompanied with a powerful interior grace, strongly affecting his soul, cured his pride, assuaged his rage, and wrought at once a total change in him. Wherefore, trembling and astonished, he cried out: Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? What to repair the past? What to promote your glory? I make a joyful oblation of myself to execute your will in every thing, and to suffer for your sake afflictions, disgraces, persecutions, torments, and every sort of death. The true convert expressed this, not in a bare form of words, nor with faint languid desires, nor with any exception lurking in the secret recesses of his heart; but with an entire sacrifice of himself, and an heroic victory over the world with its frowns and charms, over the devils with their snares and threats, and over himself and all inclinations of self-love; devoting himself totally to God. A perfect model of a true conversion, the greatest work of almighty grace! Christ ordered him to arise and proceed on his journey to the city, where he should be informed of what he expected from him. Christ would not instruct him immediately by himself, but, St. Austin observes,16 sent him to the ministry17 which he had established in his church, to be directed in the way of salvation by those whom he had appointed for that purpose. He would not finish the conversion and instruction of this great apostle, whom he was pleased to call in so wonderful a manner, but by remitting him to the guidance of his ministers; showing us thereby that his holy providence has so ordered it, that all who desire to serve him, should seek his will by listening to those whom he has commanded us to hear, and whom he has sent in his own name and appointed to be our guides. So perfectly would he abolish in his servants all self-confidence and presumption, the source of error and illusion. The convert, rising from the ground, found that, though his eyes were open, he saw nothing. Providence sent this corporal blindness to be an emblem of the spiritual blindness in which he had lived, and to signify to him that he was henceforward to die to the world, and learn to apply his mind totally to the contemplation of heavenly things.

He was led by the hand into Damascus, whither Christ seemed to conduct him in triumph. He was lodged in the house of a Jew named Judas, where he remained three days blind, and without eating or drinking. He, doubtless, spent his time in great bitterness of soul, not yet knowing what God required of him. With what anguish he bewailed his past blindness and false zeal against the church, we may conjecture both from his taking no nourishment during those three days, and from the manner in which he ever after remembered and spoke of his having been a blasphemer and a persecutor. Though the entire reformation of his heart was not gradual, as in ordinary conversions; but miraculous in the order of grace, and perfect in a moment; yet a time of probation and a severe interior trial (for such we cannot doubt that he went through on this occasion) was necessary to crucify the old man and all other earthly sentiments in his heart, and to prepare it to receive the extraordinary graces which God designed him. There was a Christian of distinction in Damascus, much respected by the Jews for his irreproachable life and great virtue; his name was Ananias. Christ appeared to this holy disciple, and commanded him to go to Saul who was then in the house of Judas at prayer: Ananias trembled at the name of Saul, being no stranger to the mischief he had done in Jerusalem, or to the errand on which he was set out to Damascus. But our Redeemer over-ruled his fears, and charged him a second time to go to him, saying: Go, for he is a vessel of election to carry my name before Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel; and I will show him how much he has to suffer for my name. Tribulation is the test and portion of all the true servants of Christ. Saul in the mean time saw in a vision a man entering, and laying his hands upon him, to restore his sight. Ananias, obeying the divine order, arose, went to Saul, and laying his hands upon him, said: Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to thee on thy journey, hath sent me that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he recovered his eye-sight. Ananias added: The God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know his will and see the just one, and shouldst hear the voice from his mouth: and thou shall be his witness unto all men to publish what thou hast seen and heard. Arise therefore, be baptized and washed from thy sins, invoking the name of the Lord. Saul then arose, was baptized, and took some refreshment. He staid some few days with the disciples at Damascus, and began immediately to preach in the synagogues, that Jesus was the Son of God, to the great astonishment of all who heard him, who said: Is not this he who persecuted at Jerusalem, those who invoked the name of Jesus, and who it come hither to carry them away prisoners? Thus a blasphemer and a persecutor was made an apostle, and chosen to he one of the principal instruments of God in the conversion of the world.

St. Paul never recalled to mind this his wonderful conversion, without raptures of gratitude and praise to the divine mercy. The church in thanksgiving to God for such a miracle of his grace, from which it has derived such great blessings, and to commemorate so miraculous an instance of his Almighty power, and to propose to penitents a perfect model of a true conversion, has instituted this festival which we find mentioned in several calendars and missals of the eighth and ninth centuries, and which Pope Innocent III. commanded to be observed with great solemnity. It was for some time kept a holyday of obligation in most churches in the West; and we read it mentioned as such in England in the council of Oxford in 1222, in the reign of king Henry III.18

1 Acts xxi. 29. xxii. 3.

2 Ibid. xxii. 3.

3 Ibid. xxvi. 4.

4 Ibid. xxvi. 5.

5 Rabbi Juda says, "That a parent, who neglects his duty, is as criminal as if he taught his son to steal." See Grotius and Sanctius on Acts xviii. 3.

6 Those tents were for the use of soldiers and mariners, and were made of skins sewn together. Some think that his business was that of making tapestry and hangings for theatres.

7 Gal. i. 14.

8 Serm. 301.

9 Ibid. 116. c. 4. Acts vi.

10 Acts viii. 3. xxii. 4. xxvi. 10.

11 Acts xxvi. 9.

12 Heb. x. 32.

13 Acts x. 1.

14 Acts ix. xxii. xxvi.

15 So the Greek word akoueinis often used in scripture, as 1 Cor. xiv. 2. And thus the text is very reconcilable with Acts xxii. 9.

16 Qu. Evang. l. 2, c. 40, et præf. l. de doctr. Christ. p. 32.

17 St. Austin doubts not but Ananias was a bishop, or at least a priest. The Greeks give him a place in their calendar on the 1st of October, and style him bishop of Damascus and martyr.

18 Conc. Labbe, T. xi. p. 274.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

St. Cadocus, or Cadoc

ABBOT IN WALES.

Cadoc was son to Gundleus, a prince of South Wales, by his wife Gladusa, daughter of Braghan, whose name was given to the province now called Brecknockshire. His parents were not less ennobled by their virtues than by their blood, and his father, who some years before his death renouncing the world, led an eremitical life near a country church, which he had built, was honoured in Wales amongst the saints. Cadoc, who was his eldest son, succeeded in the government, but not long after followed his father's example; and embracing a religious life, put himself under the direction of St. Tathai, an Irish monk, who had opened a famous school at Gwent, the ancient Venta Silurum of the Romans, afterwards a bishop's see, now in ruins in Monmouthshire. Our saint made such progress both in learning and virtue, that when he returned into Glanmorganshire, his own country, he spread on every side the rays of his wisdom and sanctity. Here, three miles from Cowbridge, he built a church and a monastery which was called Llan-carvan, or the Church of Stags, and sometimes Nancarvan, that is, the Vale of Stags. The school which he established in this place became most illustrious, and fruitful in great and holy men. By our saint's persuasion St. Iltut renounced the court and the world, and learned at Llan-carvan that science which he preferred to all worldly treasures. He afterwards founded the great monastery of Llan-Iltut. These two monasteries and that of St. Docuinus, all situated in the diocess of Landaff, were very famous for many ages, and were often governed by abbots of great eminence. St. Gildas, after his return from Ireland, entered the monastery of St. Cadoc, where he taught for one year, and copied a book of the gospels which was long preserved with great care in the church of St. Cadoc, and highly reverenced by the Welch, who used it in their most solemn oaths and covenants. After spending there one year, St. Gildas and St. Cadoc left Llan-carvan, being desirous to live in closer retirement. They hid themselves first in the islands of Ronech and Echni. An ancient life of St. Cadoc tells us, that he died at Benevenna, which is the Roman name of a place now called Wedon, in Northamptonshire. Some moderns take it for Benevento, in Italy, where they suppose him to have died. Chatelain imagines this St. Cadoc to be the same who is honoured at Rennes, under the name of Cado, or Caduad, and from whom a small island on the coast of Vennes is called Enes-Caduad. St. Cadoc flourished in the beginning of the sixth century, and was succeeded in the abbacy of Llan-carvan, by Ellenius, "an excellent disciple of an excellent master," says Leland. See the acts of St. Cadoc, in Capgrave; Usher's Antiquities, c. 13, p. 252. Chatelain's Notes on the Martyr, p. 399.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

St. Emerentia, V.M.

She suffered about the year 304, and is named in the Martyrologies under the name of St. Jerom, Bede, and others. She is said in her acts to have been stoned to death, whilst only a catechumen, praying at the tomb of St. Agnes.

Friday, January 22, 2010

St. Vincent, Martyr

From Prudentius, hymn. 5. and St. Austin, serm. 274, 275, 276. 277, all four preached on his festivals. His ancient acts in Bollandus are also authentic, but not those in Metaphrastes and Surius. See Tillemont, T. 5, p. 217.

A.D. 304.

The most glorious martyr, St. Vincent, was born, some say at Saragossa, others at Valentia, but most authors say, and more probable, at Osca, now Huesca, in Granada. He was instructed in the sacred sciences and in Christian piety by Valerius, the bishop of that city, who ordained him his deacon, and appointed him, though very young, to preach and instruct the people. Dacian, a most bloody persecutor, was then governor of spain [sic]. The Emperors Dioclesian and Maximian published their second and third bloody edicts against the Christian clergy in the year 303, which in the following year were put in force against the laity. It seems to have been before this last that Dacian put to death eighteen martyrs at Saragossa, who are mentioned by Prudentius, and in the Roman Martyrology, January the 16th, and that he apprehended Valerius and Vincent. They spilt some of their blood at Saragossa, but were thence conducted to Valentia, where the governor let them lie long in prison, suffering extreme famine and other miseries. The proconsul hoped that this lingering torture would shake their constancy; but when they were brought out before him, he was surprised to see them still intrepid in mind, and vigorous in body, and he reprimanded his officers as if they had not treated the prisoners according to his orders. Then, turning to the champions of Christ, he employed alternately threats and promises to induce them to sacrifice. Valerius, who had an impediment in his speech, making no answer, Vincent said to him: "Father, if you order me, I will speak." "Son," said Valerius, "as I committed to you the dispensation of the word of God, so I now charge you to answer in vindication of the faith which we defend." The holy deacon then acquainted the judge that they were ready to suffer every thing for the true God, and little regarded either his threats or promises in such a cause, Dacian contented himself with banishing Valerius.1 As for St. Vincent, he was determined to assail his resolution by every torture his cruel temper could suggest. St. Austin assures us, that he suffered torments far beyond what any man could possibly have endured, unless supported by a supernatural strength; and that he preserved such a peace and tranquillity in his words, countenance, and gestures, in the midst of them, as astonished his very persecutors, and visibly appeared as something divine; whilst the rage and distraction of Dacian's soul was as visible in the violent agitations of his body, by his eyes sparkling with fury, and his faltering voice.

The martyr was first stretched on the rack by his hands and feet, drawn by cords and pullies, till his joints were almost torn asunder: whilst he hung in this posture, his flesh was unmercifully torn off with iron hooks. Vincent, smiling, called the executioners weak and faint-hearted. Dacian thought they spared him, and caused them to be beaten, which afforded the champion an interval of rest: but they soon returned to him, resolved fully to satisfy the cruelty of their master, who excited them all the while to exert their utmost strength. They twice stayed their hands to take breath, and let his wounds grow cold; then began with fresh vigour to rend and tear his body, which they did in all its limbs and parts with such cruelty, that his bones and bowels were in most places exposed bare to sight. The more his body was mangled, the more did the divine presence cherish and comfort his soul, and spread a greater joy on his countenance. The judge seeing the streams of blood which flowed from all the parts of his body, and the frightful condition to which it was reduced, was obliged to confess with astonishment, that the courage of the young nobleman had vanquished him, and his rage seemed somewhat abated. Hereupon he ordered a cessation of his torments, begging of the saint for his own sake, that if he could not be prevailed upon to offer sacrifice to the gods, he would at least give up the sacred books to be burnt, according to the order of the late edicts. The martyr answered, that he feared his torments less than that false compassion which he testified. Dacian, more incensed than ever, condemned him to the most cruel of tortures, that of fire upon a kind of gridiron, called by the acts the legal torture.2 The saint walked with joy to the frightful engine, so as almost to get the start of his executioners, such was his desire to suffer. He mounted cheerfully the iron bed, in which the bars were framed like scythes, full of sharp spikes made red-hot by the fire underneath. On this dreadful gridiron the martyr was stretched out at length, and bound fast down. He was not only scourged thereon; but, while one part of his body was broiling next the fire, the other was tortured by the application of red-hot plates of iron. His wounds were rubbed with salt, which the activity of the fire forced the deeper into his flesh and bowels. All the parts of his body were tormented in this manner, one after the other, and each several times over. The melted fat dropping from the flesh nourished and increased the flames; which, instead of tormenting, seemed, as St. Austin says, to give the martyr new vigour and courage; for the more he suffered, the greater seemed to be the inward joy and consolation of his soul. The rage and confusion of the tyrant exceeded all bounds: he appeared not able to contain himself, and was continually inquiring what Vincent did and what he said; but was always answered, that he suffered with joy in his countenance, and seemed every moment to acquire new strength and resolution. He lay unmoved, his eyes turned towards heaven, his mind calm, and his heart fixed on God in continual prayer.

At last, by the command of the proconsul, he was thrown into a dungeon, and his wounded body laid on the floor strewed with broken potsherds, which opened afresh his ghastly wounds, and cut his bare flesh. His legs were set in wooden stocks, stretched very wide, and strict orders were given that he should be left without provisions, and that no one should be admitted to see or speak to him. But God sent his angels to comfort him, with whom he sung the praises of his protector. The gaoler observing through the chinks the prison filled with light, and the saint walking and praising God, was converted upon the spot to the Christian faith, and afterwards baptised. At this news Dacian chafed, and even wept through rage, but ordered that some repose should be allowed the prisoner. The faithful were then permitted to see him, and coming in troops wiped and kissed his wounds, and dipped cloths in his blood, which they kept as an assured protection for themselves and their posterity. After this a soft bed was prepared for him on which he was no sooner laid but he expired, the happy moment he had not ceased to pray for, ever since his torments, and his first call to martyrdom. Dacian commanded his body to be thrown on a marshy field among rushes; but a crow defended it from wild beasts and birds of prey. The acts in Ruinart and Bollandus, and the sermon attributed to St. Leo, add, that it was then tied to a great stone and cast into the sea, in a sack, but miraculously carried to shore, and revealed to two Christians. They laid it in a little chapel out of the walls of Valentia, where God honoured these relics with many miracles, as the acts and St. Austin witness. Prudentius informs us, that the iron on which he lay, and other instruments of his passion, were likewise preserved with veneration. Childebert, king of France, or rather of Paris, besieging Saragossa, wondered to see the inhabitants busied continually in making processions. Being informed they carried the stole of St. Vincent about the walls in devout prayer, and had been miraculously protected by that martyr's intercession, he raised the siege upon condition that the relic should be given him. This he with great solemnity brought to Paris, and enriched with it the magnificent church and abbey of St. Vincent, now called St. Germain-des-Prez, which he built in 559, and which his successor Clotaire caused to be dedicated.3 In the year 855, his sacred bones were discovered at Valentia, and conveyed into France, and deposited in the abbey of Castres, now an episcopal see in Languedoc, where they remain; but several portions have been given to the abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres at Paris, and other churches; and part was burnt at Castres by the Hugenots about the end of the sixteenth century.4 Aimoinus, a contemporary monk, wrote the history of this translation, with an account of many miracles which attended it.5 St. Gregory of Tours, mentions a portion of his relics to have been famous for miracles in a village church near Poictiers.6 In the life of St. Domnolus mention is made of a portion placed by him in a great monastery in the suburbs of the city of Mans. But it is certain that the chief part of this martyr's body was conveyed to Lisbon. To escape the cruel persecution of the Saracen King Abderamene, at Valentia, many Christians privately withdrew themselves, and carrying with them the body of St. Vincent, took shelter on the south-west cape, called the Sacred Promontory, and from these relics St. Vincent's in the kingdom of Algarb then under the Saracens. Alphonsus Henry, the most pious first king of Portugal, son of count Henry, having defeated five Moorish kings, at Ourique, in the year 1139, received from those faithful keepers the body of St. Vincent, sent it by sea to Lisbon, and built the royal monastery of the Cross of regular canons of St. Austin, in which he most religiously deposited this treasure, rendered more famous by miracles, in the year 1148. This account is recorded by contemporary unexceptionable vouchers in Bollandus, p. 406. Mariana, and especially Thomas ab Incarnatione, a regular canon, in his Historia Ecclesiae Lusitanæ, printed at Lisbon, A. D. 1759, Sæc. 4. c. 6, t. 1, p. 215. The Portuguese, ever since the year 1173, keep an annual commemoration of this translation on the fifteenth of September, which feast was confirmed by Sixtus V.

Prudentius finishes his hymn on this holy martyr by a prayer to him, that he would present the marks of his sufferings to Christ, to move him to compassion in his behalf.

God never more visibly manifested his power, nor gave stronger or more wonderful proofs of his tenderness and love for his church, than when he suffered it to groan under the most violent oppression and persecution; nor does his grace any where appear more triumphant than in the victories of his martyrs under the severest trials, and in the heroic virtues which they displayed amidst torments and insults. Under the slightest disappointments and afflictions we are apt to fall into discouragement, and to imagine, by our sloth and impatience, that our situation is of all others the most unhappy and intolerable. If nature feel, and we implore the divine mercy, and a deliverance, if this may be conducive to God's honour, we must be careful never to sink under the trials, or consent to the least secret murmuring; we must bear them, if not with joy, at least with perfect submission; and remain assured that God only seems to withdraw himself from us, that we may follow him more earnestly, and unite ourselves more closely to him.

1 He is named in the Roman Martyrology, January the 28th, and his relics are kept with veneration at Saragossa, famous for miracles wrought by them even in the last age. See Bollandus, January the 28th, p. 838.

2 Quæstio legitima.

3 S. Greg. Tur. Hist. Franc. l. 3, c. 29. Aimoin. de Gestis Franc. l. 2, c. 19 & 20. Ado, in Chron. &c.

4 See Chatelain, Notes on the Martyrol. p. 378.

5 This Aimoinus is something more ancient than another monk of the same name, who has left us a history of France. His relation depends upon the authority of Audald, a monk of Conques in the diocess of Rhodes, who brought them from Valentia into Languedoc. See his account in Bollandus, which yet the Spaniards deny, and say it could only be a small part of these bones; or the body of another martyr of the same name.

6 De Gl. Mart. l. 1, c. 90.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

St. Fructuosus, Bishop of Tarragon

AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS.

From his most valuable acts in Ruinart, quoted by St. Austin, Serm. 273. and transcribed by Prudentius, hymn 6.

A.D. 259.

St. Fructuosus was the zealous and truly apostolical bishop of Tarragon, then the capital city of Spain. The persecution of Valerian and Gallien raging in the year 259, he was apprehended by an order of Emilian the governor, who sent the soldiers, called Beneficiarii,1 for that purpose. They seized the good bishop in his lodgings with two deacons, Augurius and Eulogius, on Sunday the 16th of January. He was then laid down on his bed, and only asked leave to put on his shoes; after which he cheerfully followed the guards, who committed him and his two companions to close prison, where he spent his time with them in fervent prayer, full of joy at the prospect of the crown prepared for them. He gave his benediction to the faithful who visited him, and recommended themselves to his prayers. On Monday he baptized in gaol a catechumen named Rogatianus. On Wednesday he kept the usual fast of the stations2 till none, or three o'clock in the afternoon. On Friday, the sixth day after their commitment, the 21st of January, the governor ordered them to be brought before him, and asked Fructuosus if he knew the contents of the late edict of the emperors? The saint answered that he did not, but that whatever they were, he was a Christian. "The emperors," said Emilian, "commanded all to sacrifice to the gods." Fructuosus answered: "I adore one God, who made heaven and earth and all things therein." Emilian said: "Do you not know that there are gods ?" "No," replied the saint. The proconsul said: "I will make you know it shortly." St. Fructuosus then lifted up his eyes to heaven, and began to pray in private. The proconsul broke out into this exclamation: "What will any man fear or adore on earth, if he contemn the worship of the immortal gods, and of the emperors?" Then turning to the deacon Augurius, he bade him not regard what Fructuosus had said: but he satisfied him in few words that he adored the same Almighty God. Emilian lastly addressed himself to the other deacon, Eulogius, asking him if he did not adore Fructuosus? The holy man answered, "I adore not Fructuosus; but the same God whom he adores." Emilian asked Fructuosus if he was a bishop; and added, upon his confessing it, "say you have been one;" meaning that he was going to lose his dignity with his life: and immediately condemned them to be burned alive.

The pagans themselves could not refrain from tears, on seeing them led to the amphitheatre; for they loved Fructuosus on account of his rare virtues. The Christians accompanied them with a sorrow mixed with joy. The martyrs exulted to behold themselves on the verge of a glorious eternity. The faithful offered St. Fructuosus a cup of wine, but he would not taste it; saying, it was not yet the hour of breaking the fast, which was observed on Fridays till three o'clock, and it was then only ten in the morning. The holy man hoped to end the station, or fast of that day, with the patriarchs and prophets in heaven. When they were come into the amphitheatre, Augustalis, the bishop's lector, came to him weeping, and begged he would permit him to pull off his shoes. The martyr said he could easily put them off himself, which he did. Felix, a Christian soldier, stept in, and desired he would remember him in his prayers. Fructuosus said aloud: "I am bound to pray for the whole Catholic church spread over the world from the east to the west;" as if he had said, as St. Austin observes, who much applauds this sentence:3 "Remain always in the bosom of the Catholic church, and you will have a share in my prayers." Martial, one of his flock, desired him to speak some words of comfort to his desolate church. The bishop, turning to the Christians, said: "My brethren, the Lord will not leave you a flock without a pastor. He is faithful to his promises. Do not grieve for me. The hour of my suffering is short." The martyrs were fastened to wooden stakes to be burnt; but the flame seemed at first to respect their bodies, having consumed only the bands with which their hands were tied, giving them liberty to stretch out their arms in the form of a cross in prayer, in which posture they gave up their souls to God before the fire had touched them. Babylas and Mygdone, two Christian servants of the governor, saw the heavens open, and the saints carried up with crowns on their heads. The faithful came in the night, extinguished the fire, and took out the half-burnt bodies. Every one carried some part of their remains home with them; but being admonished from heaven, brought them back and laid them in the same monument. Saint Austin has left us a panegyric on St. Fructuosus, pronounced on the anniversary day of his martyrdom, on which his name has been always famous in the western church, especially in Spain and Africa.

1 Beneficiarii were soldiers distinguished by certain privileges, and who stood for promotion, as Vegetius informs us, l. 2, c. 7.

2 Wednesdays and Fridays were fast-days at that time; but only till none, that is, three in the afternoon, and called the fast of the stations.

3 Serm. 273.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

St. Euthymius, Abbot

From his life, faithfully written forty years after his death, by Cyril of Scythopolis, a monk of his monastery, one of the best writers of antiquity, and author of the life of St. Sabas. See it accurately published by Dom Lottin, Annal. Græc. T. 1. and Cotelier, Mon. Græc. T. 2. p. 200.

A.D. 473.

The birth of this saint was the fruit of the prayers of his pious parents, through the intercession of the martyr Polyeuctus. His father was a noble and wealthy citizen of Melitene in Armenia. Euthymius was educated in sacred learning, and in the fervent practice of prayer, silence, humility and mortification, under the care of the holy bishop of that city, who ordained him priest, and constituted him his vicar and general overseer of the monasteries. The saint often visited that of St. Polyeuctus, and spent whole nights in prayer on a neighbouring mountain; as he also did all the time from the octave of the Epiphany till towards the end of Lent. The love of solitude daily growing stronger in his breast, he secretly left his own country, at twenty-nine years of age; and, after offering up his prayers at the holy places in Jerusalem, chose a cell six miles from that city, near the Laura1 of Pharan. Ho made baskets, and procured, by selling them, both his own subsistence and alms for the poor. Constant prayer was the employment of his soul. After five years, he retired with one Theoctistus, an holy hermit, ten miles further towards Jericho, where they lived together on raw herbs in a cave. In this place he began to receive disciples about the year 411. He committed the care of his monastery to Theoctistus, and continued himself in a remote hermitage, only giving audience on Saturdays and Sundays to those who desired spiritual advice. He taught all his monks never to eat so much as to satisfy their hunger, but strictly forbade among them all singularity in fasts or any other common observances, as savouring of vanity and self-will. According to his example, they all retired into the deserts, from the octave of the feast of the Epiphany till the week before Easter, when they met again in their monastery, to celebrate the office peculiar to Holy Week. He enjoined them constant silence and manual labours: they gained their own subsistence, and a surplus, which they devoted as first-fruits to God in the relief of the poor.

St. Euthymius cured, by the sign of the cross and a short prayer, Terebon, one half of whose body had been struck dead with a palsy. His father, who was an Arabian prince, named Aspebetes, an idolator, had exhausted on his cure, but to no purpose, the much boasted arts of physic and magic among the Persians, to procure some relief for his son. At the sight of this miracle Aspebetes desired baptism, and took the name of Peter. Such multitudes of Arabians followed his example, that Juvenal, patriarch of Jerusalem, ordained him their bishop, and he assisted at the council of Ephesus, against Nestorius in 431. He built St. Euthymius a Laura on the right hand of the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, in the year 420. Euthymius could never be prevailed upon to depart from his rules of strict solitude; but governed his monks by proper superiors, to whom he gave his directions on Sundays. His humility and charity won the hearts of all who spoke to him. He seemed to surpass the great Arsenius in the gift of perpetual tears. Cyril relates many miracles which he wrought, usually by the sign of the cross. In the time of a great drought, he exhorted the people to penance, to avert this scourge of heaven. Great numbers came in procession to his cell, carrying crosses, singing Kyrie eleison, and begging him to offer up his prayers to God for them. He said to them: "I am a sinner, how can I presume to appear before God, who is angry at our sins? Let us prostrate ourselves all together before him, and he will hear us." They obeyed; and the saint going into his chapel with some of his monks, prayed prostrate on the ground. The sky grew dark on a sudden, rain fell in abundance, and the year proved remarkably fruitful.

St. Euthymius showed great zeal against the Nestorian and Eutychian heretics. The turbulent empress Eudocia, after the death of her husband Theodosius, retired into Palestine, and there continued to favour the latter with her protection. Awaked by the afflictions of her family, particularly in the plunder of Rome, and the captivity of her daughter Eudocia, and her two grand-daughters, carried by the Vandals into Africa, she sent to beg the advice of St. Simeon Stylites. He answered, that her misfortunes were the punishment of her sin, in forsaking and persecuting the orthodox faith; and ordered her to follow the direction of Euthymius. She knew that our saint admitted no woman within the precinct of his Laura, no more than St. Simeon suffered them to step within the enclosure of the mandra or lodge about his pillar. She therefore built a tower on the east side of the desert, thirty furlongs from the Laura, and prayed St. Euthymius to meet her there. His advice to her was to forsake the Eutychians and their impious patriarch Theodosius, and to receive the council of Chalcedon. She followed his advice as the command of God, and returning to Jerusalem, embraced the Catholic communion with the orthodox patriarch Juvenal; and an incredible number followed her example. She spent the rest of her life in works of penance and piety. In 459, she desired St. Euthymius to meet her at her tower, designing to settle on his Laura sufficient revenues for its subsistence. He sent her word to spare herself the trouble, and to prepare herself for death; for God summoned her before his tribunal. She admired his disinterestedness, returned to Jerusalem, and died shortly after. One of the latest disciples of our saint was the young St. Sabas, whom he tenderly loved. In the year 473, on the 13th of January, Martyrius and Elias, to both whom St. Euthymius had foretold the patriarchate of Jerusalem, came with several others to visit him, and to conduct him into his Lent retreat. But he said he would stay with them all that week, and leave them on the Saturday following, meaning, by death. Three days after he gave orders that a general watching should be observed on the eve of St. Antony's festival, on which he made a discourse to his spiritual children, exhorting them to humility and charity. He appointed Elias his successor, aud foretold Domitian, a beloved disciple, that he would follow him out of this world, on the seventh day, which happened accordingly. Euthymius died on Saturday the 20th day of January, being ninety-five years old, of which he had spent sixty-eight in the deserts. Cyril relates his having appeared several times after his death, and the many miracles that were wrought by his intercession; to several of which he declares himself an eyewitness. St. Sabas kept his festival immediately after his death; which is observed both by the Latins and Greeks. The latter always style him the Great. It appears from his life that he was ordained priest before he embraced an eremitical state, and that he founded two monasteries, besides a Laura, which was also converted into a monastery after his death.

1 A Laura consisted of cells at a little distance from one another, and not under the same roof as a monastery.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

St. Canutus, King of Denmark, M.

From his life faithfully written by Ælnoth, a monk of Canterbury, who had lived twenty-four years in Denmark, and wrote in 1105. It was printed at Copenhagan, in 1602. See also Saxo Grammaticus, the most elegant and judicious of the Danish historian. [sic]

A.D. 1086.

St. Canutus, or Knut, the fourth of that name, king of Denmark, was natural son of Swein III, whose great uncle Canutus had reigned in England. Swein having no lawful issue, took care of the education of Canutus,, who being endowed with excellent qualities both of mind and body, answered perfectly well the care of his preceptors and governors. It is hard to say, whether he excelled more in ccrurage, or in conduct and skill in war; but his singular piety perfectly eclipsed all his other endowments. He scoured the seas of pirates, and subdued several neighbouring provinces which infested Denmark with their incursions. The kingdom of Denmark was elective till the year 1660; wherefore, when Swein died, many pitched upon our saint, whose eminent virtues best qualified him for the throne; but the majority, fearing his martial spirit, preferred his eldest natural brother Harold, the seventh king of that name, who for his stupidity and vices, was commonly called the Slothful. Canutus retired into Sweden to King Halstan, who received him with the greatest marks of kindness and esteem; but the king could never induce him to undertake any expedition against Denmark; on the contrary, the Christian hero employed all his power and interest in the service of his country. Harold dying after two year's reign, Canutus was called to succeed him.

Denmark had received the Christian faith long before; some say in 826, but wanted a zealous hand at the helm, to put the finishing stroke to that good work. St. Canutus seems to have been pitched upon by providence for this purpose. He began his reign by a successful war against the troublesome barbarous enemies of the state, and by planting the faith in the conquered provinces of Courland, Samogitia, and Livonia. Amidst the glorv of his victories, he humbly prostrated himself at the foot of the crucifix, laying there his diadem, and offering himself and his kingdom to the King of kings. After having provided for its peace and safety, and enlarged its territories, he married Eltha, or Alice, daughter of Robert, earl of Flanders, by whom he had a pious son, St. Charles, surnamed the Good, afterwards also earl of Flanders. His next concern was to reform abuses at home. For this purpose, he enacted severe, but necessary laws, for the strict administration of justice, and repressed the violence and tyranny of the great, without respect of persons. He countenanced and honoured holy men, granted many privileges and immunities to the clergy, to enhance the people's esteem of them; and omitted nothing to convince them of their obligation to provide for their subsistence by the payment of tithes. His charity and tenderness towards his subjects made him study by all possible ways to ease them of their burdens, and make them a happy people. He showed a royal munificence in building and adorning churches, and gave the crown which he wore, of exceeding great value, to the church of Roschild, in Zealand, his capital city, and the place of his residence where the kings of Denmark are yet buried. He chastised his body with fasting, discipline, and hair-cloths. Prayer was his assiduous exercise. When William the Conqueror had made himself master of England, Canutus sent forces to assist the vanquished; but these troops finding no one willing to join them, were easily defeated in the year 1069. Sometime after, being invited by the conquered English, he raised an army to invade this island, and expel the Normans: but through the treacherous practices of his brother Olas, or Olaus, was obliged to wait so long on the coast, that his troops deserted him. The pious king, having always in view the service of God, and judging this a proper occasion to induce his people to pay tithes to their pastors, he proposed to them either to pay a heavy fine, by way of punishment for their desertion, or submit to the law of tithes for the pastors of the church. Their aversion to the latter made them chose the tax, to the great mortification of the king, who, hoping they would change their resolution, ordered it to be levied with rigour. But they, being incensed at the severity of the collectors, rebelled. St. Canutus retired for safety into the isle of Fionia, and was hindered from joining his loyal troops, by the treachery of one Blanco, an officer, who, to deceive him, assured his majesty, that the rebels were returned to their duty. The king went to the church of St. Alban, the martyr, to perform his devotions, and return God thanks for that happy event. This the rebels being informed of by Blanco, they surrounded the church with him at their head. In the meantime the holy king, perceiving the danger that threatened his life, confessed his sins at the foot of the altar, with great tranquillity and resignation, and received the holy communion. His guards defended the church doors, and Blanco was slain by them. The rebels threw in bricks and stones, through the windows, by which they beat down the shrines of certain relics of St. Alban and St. Oswald, which St. Canutus had brought over from England. The saint, stretching out his arms before the altar, fervently recommended his soul into the hands of his Creator: in which posture he was wounded with a javelin, darted through the window, and fell a victim to Christ. His brother Benedict, and seventeen others, were slain with him, on the 10th of July, 1086, as Ælnoth, a contemporary author testifies, who has specified the date of all the events with the utmost exactness. His wicked brother Olas succeeded him in the kingdom. God punished the people during eight years and three months of his reign with a dreadful famine, and other calamities; and attested the sanctity of the martyr, by many miraculous cures of the sick at his tomb. For which reason his relics were taken up out of their obscure sepulchre, and honourably entombed towards the end of the reign of Olas. His successor, Eric III. a most religious prince, restored piety and religion, with equal courage and success, and sent ambassadors to Rome, with proofs of the miracles performed, and obtained from the pope a declaration, authorizing the veneration of St. Canutus, the proto-martyr of Denmark. Upon this occasion a most solemn translation of his relics, which were put in a most costly shrine, was performed at which Ælnoth, our historian, was present. He adds, that the first preachers of the faith in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were English priests; that the Danes then zealously embraced the Christian religion, but that the Swedes still continued more obstinate, among whom Eschil, an Englishman, received the crown of martyrdom, whilst he was preaching Christ to certain savage tribes.

Monday, January 18, 2010

SS. Paul, and Thirty-Six Companions, MM. in Egypt

From their authentic acts in Ruinart, p. 624.

In Egypt, thirty-seven Christian noblemen, all persons of high birth and plentiful fortunes; but richer in the gifts of grace, entered into a zealous confederacy to propagate the gospel throughout the country. Their leader and head was one Paul, a true imitator of the great apostle whose name he bore. They divided themselves into four several bands: Paul and nine others went eastwards: Recombus, with eight more, towards the north: Theonas, with the like number, to the south: and Papias, with the remaining eight, to the west. They laboured zealously in extending the kingdom of Christ on every side, planting the faith, instructing the docile, and purifying the souls of penitents who confessed their sins. But the greater part of the inhabitants of that great kingdom loved darkness rather than light. The servants of God were treated with all manner of injuries, apprehended, and laid in irons. The governor alarmed at the news of their enterprise, sent orders for their being brought before him from different parts of the kingdom. He employed both promises and threats to compel them to sacrifice. Paul answered in the name of them all that it was better for them to die, saying: "Do not spare us." The judge condemned them all to death, those who went to the east and south, to be burned : those from the north, to be beheaded, and those from the west to be crucified. But he was affrighted and surprised beyond expression to see with what joy and courage this brave army marched out, and bowed their heads to death. They suffered on the 18th of January, but in what year it is not mentioned in their acts.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

St. Antony, Abbot

PATRIARCH OF MONKS.

From his life, compiled by the great St. Athanasius, vol. 2. p. 743, a work much commended by St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Jerom, St. Austin, Rufinus, Palladius, &c. St. Chrysostom recommends to all persons the reading of this pious history, as full of instruction and edification. Hom. 8. in Matt. T. 7. p. 128. It contributed to the conversion of St. Austin. Confess. l. 8. c. 6 and 28. See Tillemont. T. 7. Helyot, T. 1. Stevens. Addit. Mon. Anglic. T. 1. Ceillier, &c.

A. D. 356

St. Antony was born at Coma, a village near Heraclea, or Great Heracleopolis, in Upper Egypt, on the borders of Arcadia, or Middle Egypt, in 251. His parents, who were Christians, and rich, to prevent his being tainted by bad example and vicious conversation, kept him always at home; so that he grew up unacquainted with any branch of human literature, and could read no language but his own.1 He was remarkable from his childhood for his temperance, a close attendance on church duties, and a punctual obedience to his parents. By their death he found himself possessed of a very considerable estate, and charged with the care of a younger sister, before he was twenty years of age. Near six months after, he heard read in the church those words of Christ to the rich young man: Go sell what thou hast, and give it to the poor and thou shalt have treasures in heaven.2 He considered these words as addressed to himself; going home, he made over to his neighbours three hundred aruras,3 that is, about one hundred and twenty acres of good land, that he and his sister might be free for ever from all public taxes and burdens. The rest of his estate he sold, and gave the price to the poor, except what he thought necessary for himself and his sister. Soon after, hearing in the church those other words of Christ: Be not solicitous for tomorrow:4 he also distributed in alms the moveables which he had reserved; and placed his sister in a house of virgins,5 which most moderns take to be the first instance mentioned in history of a nunnery. She was afterwards intrusted with the care and direction of others in that way of life. Antony himself retired into a solitude, near his village, in imitation of a certain old man, who led the life of a hermit in the neighbourhood of Coma. Manual labour, prayer, and pious reading were his whole occupation; and such was his fervour, that if he heard of any virtuous recluse, he sought him out, and endeavoured to make the best advantage of his example and instructions. He saw nothing practised by any other in the service of God, which he did not imitate; thus he soon became a perfect model of humility, christian condescension, charity, prayer, and all virtues.

The devil assailed him by various temptations; first, he represented to him divers good works he might have been able to do with his estate in the world, and the difficulties of his present condition: a common artifice of the enemy, whereby he strives to make a soul slothful or dissatisfied in her vocation, in which God expects to be glorified by her. Being discovered and repulsed by the young novice, he varied his method of attack, and annoyed him night and day with filthy thoughts and obscene imaginations. Antony opposed to his assaults the strictest watchfulness over his senses, austere fasts, humility, and prayer, till Satan, appearing in a visible form, first of a woman coming to seduce him, then of a black boy to terrify him, at length confessed himself vanquished. The saint's food was only bread, with a little salt, and he drank nothing but water; he never eat [sic] before sunset, and sometimes only once in two, or four days: he lay on a rush mat, or on the bare floor. In quest of a more remote solitude he withdrew further from Coma, and hid himself in an old sepulchre; whither a friend brought him from time to time a little bread. Satan was here again permitted to assault him in a visible manner, to terrify him with dismal noises; and once he so grievously beat him that he lay almost dead, covered with bruises and wounds; and in this condition he was one day found by his friend, who visited him from time to time to supply him with bread, during all the time he lived in the ruinous sepulchre. When he began to come to himself, though not yet able to stand, he cried out to the devils, whilst he yet lay on the floor: "Behold: here I am; do all you are able against me: nothing shall ever separate me from Christ my Lord." Hereupon the fiends appearing again, renewed the attack, and alarmed him with terrible clamours, and a variety of spectres, in hideous shapes of the most frightful wild beasts, which they assumed to dismay and terrify him; till a ray of heavenly light breaking in upon him chased them away, and caused him to cry out: "Where wast thou my Lord and my Master? Why wast thou not here, from the beginning of my conflict, to assuage my pains !" A voice answered: "Antony, I was here the whole time; I stood by thee, and beheld thy combat: and because thou hast manfully withstood thy enemies, I will always protect thee, and will render thy name famous throughout the earth." At these words the saint arose, much cheered, and strengthened, to pray and return thanks to his deliverer. Hitherto the saint, ever since his retreat, in 272, had lived in solitary places not very far from his village; and St. Athanasius observes, that before him many fervent persons led retired lives in penance and comtemplation, near the towns: others remaining in the towns imitated the same manner of life. Both were called ascetics from their being entirely devoted to the most perfect exercises of mortification and prayer, according to the import of the Greek word. Before St. Athanasius, we find frequent mention made of such ascetics; and Origen, about the year 249,6 says, they always abstained from flesh, no less than the disciples of Pythagoras. Eusebius tells us, that St. Peter of Alexandria practised austerities equal to those of the ascetics; he says the same of Pamphilus; and St. Jerom uses the same expression of Pierius. St. Antony had led this manner of life near Coma, till resolving to withdraw into the deserts about the year 285, the thirty-fifth of his age, he crossed the eastern branch of the Nile, and took up his abode in the ruins of an old castle on the top of the mountains; in which close solitude he lived almost twenty years, very rarely seeing any man, except one who brought him bread every six months.

To satisfy the importunities of others, about the year 305, the fifty-fifth of his age, he came down from his mountain, and founded his first monastery at Phaium.7 The dissipation occasioned by this undertaking led him into a temptation of despair, which he overcame by prayer and hard manual labour. In this new manner of life his daily refection was six ounces of bread soaked in water, with a little salt; to which he sometimes added a few dates. He took it generally after sunset, but on some days at three o'clock; and in his old age he added a little oil. Sometimes he eat [sic] only once in three or four days, yet appeared vigorous, and always cheerful: strangers knew him from among his disciples by the joy which was always painted on his countenance, resulting from the inward peace and composure of his soul. Retirement in his cell was his delight, and divine contemplation and prayer his perpetual occupation. Coming to take his refection, he often burst into tears, and was obliged to leave his brethren and the table without touching any nourishment, reflecting on the employment of the blessed spirits in heaven, who praise God without ceasing.8 He exhorted his brethren to allot the least time they possibly could to the care of the body. Notwithstanding which, he was very careful never to place perfection in mortification, as Cassian observes, but in charity, in which it was his whole study continually to improve his soul. His under garment was sackcloth, over which he wore a white coat of sheepskin, with a girdle. He instructed his monks to have eternity always present to their minds, and to reflect every morning that perhaps they might not live till night, and every evening that perhaps they might never see the morning; and to perform every action, as if it were the last of their lives, with all the fervour of their souls to please God. He often exhorted them to watch against temptations, and to resist the devil with vigour: and spoke admirably of his weakness, saying: "He dreads fasting, prayer, humility, and good works: he is not able even to stop my mouth who speak against him. The illusions of the devil soon vanish, especially if a man arms himself with the sign of the cross.9 The devils tremble at the sign of the cross of our Lord, by which he triumphed over and disarmed them.10 He told them in what manner the fiend in his rage had assaulted him by visible phantoms, but that these disappeared whilst he persevered in prayer. He told them, that once when the devil appeared to him in glory, and said, "Ask what you please; I am the power of God:" he invoked the holy name of Jesus, and he vanished. Maximinus renewed the persecution in 311; St. Antony, hoping to receive the crown of martyrdom, went to Alexandria, served and encouraged the martyrs in the mines and dungeons, before the tribunals, and at the places of execution. He publicly wore his white monastic habit, and appeared in the sight of the governor; yet took care never presumptuously to provoke the judges, or impeach himself as some rashly did. In 312 the persecution being abated, he returned to his monastery, and immured himself in his cell. Some time after he built another monastery, called Pispir, near the Nile; but he chose, for the most part, to shut himself up in a remote cell upon a mountain of difficult access, with Macarius, a disciple, who entertained strangers. If he found them to be Hierosolymites, or spiritual men, St. Antony himself sat with them in discourse; if Egyptians, (by which they meant worldly persons,) then Macarius entertained them, and St. Antony only appeared to give them a short exhortation. Once the saint saw in a vision the whole earth covered so thick with snares, that it seemed scarcely possible to set down a foot without falling into them. At this sight he cried out, trembling: "Who, O Lord, can escape them all ?" A voice answered him: "Humility, O Antony!"11 St. Antony always looked upon himself as the least and the very outcast of mankind; he listened to the advice of every one, and professed that he received benefit from that of the meanest person. He cultivated and pruned a little garden on his desert mountain, that he might have herbs always at hand, to present a refreshment to those who, on coming to see him, were always weary by travelling over a vast wilderness and inhospitable mountain, as St. Athanasius mentions. This tillage was not the only manual labour in which St. Antony employed himself. The same venerable author speaks of his making mats as an ordinary occupation. We are told that he once fell into dejection, finding uninterrupted contemplation above his strength; but was taught to apply himself at intervals to manual labour, by a vision of an angel who appeared platting mats of palm-tree leaves, then rising to pray, and after some time sitting down again to work; and who at length said to him, "Do thus, and thou shalt be savod."12 But St. Athanasius informs us, that our saint continued in some degree to pray whilst he was at work. He watched great part of the nights in heavenly contemplation; and sometimes, when the rising sun called him to his daily tasks, he complained that its visible light robbed him of the greater interior light which he enjoyed, and interrupted his close application and solitude.13 He always rose after a short sleep at midnight, and continued in prayer on his knees with his hands lifted up to heaven till sunrise, and sometimes till three in the afternoon, as Palladius relates in his Lausiac history.

St. Antony, in the year 339, saw in a vision, under the figure of mules kicking down the altar, the havoc which the Arian persecution made two years after in Alexandria, and clearly foretold it as St. Athanasius, St. Jerom, and St. Chrysostom assure us.14 He would not speak to a heretic, unless to exhort him to the true faith; and he drove all such from his mountain, calling them venemous serpents.15 At the request of the bishops, about the year 335, he took a journey to Alexandria, to confound the Arians, preaching aloud in that city, that God the Son is not a creature, but of the same substance with the Father; and that the impious Arians, who called him a creature, did not differ from the heathens themselves, who worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator. All the people ran to see him, and rejoiced to hear him; even the pagans, struck with the dignity of his character, flocked to him; saying: "We desire to see the man of God." He converted many, and wrought several miracles: St Athanasius conducted him back as far as the gates of the city, where he cured a girl possessed by the devil. Being desired by the duke or general of Egypt, to make a longer stay in the city than he had proposed, he answered: "As fish die if they leave the water, so does a monk if he forsake his solitude."16

St. Jerom and Rufin relate, that at Alexandria, he met with the famous Didymus, and told him that he ought not to regret much the loss of eyes, which were common to ants and flies, but to rejoice in the treasure of that interior light, which the apostles enjoyed, and by which we see God, and kindle the fire of his love in our souls. Heathen philosophers, and others, often went to dispute with him, and always returned much astonished at his humility, meekness, sanctity, and extraordinary wisdom. He admirably proved to them the truth and security of the Christian religion, and confirmed it by miracles. "We," said he, "only by naming Jesus Christ crucified, put to flight those devils which you adore as gods; and where the sign of the cross is formed, magic and charms lose their power." At the end of this discourse he invoked Christ, and signed with the cross twice or thrice several persons possessed with devils, in the same moment they stood up sound, and in their senses, giving thanks to God for his mercy in their regard.17 When certain philosophers asked him how he could spend his time in solitude, without the pleasure of reading books, he replied, that nature was his great book, and amply supplied the want of others. When others, despising him as an illiterate man, came with the design to ridicule his ignorance, he asked them with great simplicity, which was first, reason or learning, and which had produced the other? The philosophers answered, "Reason, or good sense." "This, then," said Antony, "suffices." The philosophers went away astonished at the wisdom and dignity with which he prevented their objection. Some others demanding a reason of his faith in Christ, on purpose to insult it, he put them to silence, by showing that they degraded the notion of the divinity, by ascribing to it infamous human passions, but that the humiliation of the cross is the greatest demonstration of infinite goodness, and its ignominy appears the highest glory, by the triumphant resurrection, the miraculous rising of the dead, and curing of the blind and the sick. He then admirably proved that faith in God and his works is more clear and satisfactory than the sophistry of the Greeks. St. Athanasius mentions, that he disputed with these Greeks, by an interpreter.18 Our holy author assures us, that no one visited St. Anthony under any affliction and sadness, who did not return home full of comfort and joy; and he relates many miraculous cures wrought by him, also several heavenly visions and revelations with which he was favoured. Belacius, the duke or general of Egypt, persecuting the Catholics with extreme fury; St. Antony, by a letter, exhorted him to leave the servants of Christ in peace. Belacius tore the letter, then spit and trampled upon it, and threatened to make the abbot the next victim of his fury; but five days afterwards as he was riding with Nestorius, governor of Egypt, their horses began to play and prance, and the governor's horse, though otherwise remarkably tame, by justling, threw Belacius from his horse, and by biting his thigh, tore it in such a manner, that the general died miserably on the third day.19 About the year 337, Constantine the Great, and his two sons, Constantius and Constans, wrote a joint letter to the saint; recommending themselves to his prayers, and desiring an answer. St. Antony seeing his monks surprised, said without being moved : "Do not wonder that the emperor writes to us, one man to another; rather admire that God should have wrote to us, and that he has spoken to us by his Son." He said he knew not how to answer it: at last, through the importunity of his disciples, he penned a letter to the emperor and his sons, which St. Athanasius has preserved; and in which he exhorts them to the contempt of the world, and the constant remembrance of the judgment to come. St. Jerom mentions seven other letters of St. Antony to divers monasteries, written in the style of the apostles, and filled with their maxims; several monasteries of Egypt possess them in the original Egyptian language. We have them in an obscure, imperfect, Latin translation from the Greek.20 He inculcates perpetual watchfulness against temptations, prayer, mortification, and humility.21 He observes, that as the devil fell by pride, so he assaults virtue in us principally by that temptation.22 A maxim which he frequently repeats is, that the knowledge of ourselves is the necessary and only step by which we can ascend to the knowledge and love of God. The Bollandists23 give us a short letter of St. Antony to St. Theodorus, abbot of Tebenna, in which he says that God had assured him in a revelation, that he showed mercy to all true adorers of Jesus Christ, though they should have fallen, if they sincerely repented of their sin. No ancients mention any monastic rule written by St. Antony.24 His example and instructions have been the most perfect rule for the monastic life to all succeeding ages. It is related,25 that St. Antony hearing his disciples express their surprise at the great multitudes who embraced a monastic life, and applied themselves with incredible ardour to the most austere practices of virtue, told them with tears, that the time would come when monks would be fond of living in cities and stately buildings, and of eating at dainty tables, and be only distinguished from persons of the world by their habit; but that still, some amongst them would arise to the spirit of true perfection, whose crown would be so much the greater, as their virtue would be more difficult, amidst the contagion of bad example. In the discourses which this saint made to his monks a rigorous self-examination upon all their actions every evening, was a practice which he strongly inculcated.26 In an excellent sermon which he made to his disciples, recorded by St. Athanasius,27 he pathetically exhorts them to contemn the whole world for heaven, to spend every day as if they knew it to be the last of their lives, having death always before their eyes, continually to advance in fervour, and to be always armed against the assaults of Satan, whose weakness he shows at length. He extols the efficacy of the sign of the cross in chasing him, and dissipating his illusions, and lays down rules for the discernment of spirits, the first of which is, that the devil leaves in the soul impressions of fear, sadness, confusion and disturbance. St. Antony performed the visitation of his monks a little before his death, which he foretold them in his last instructions; but no tears could move him to die among them. It appears from St. Athanasius, that the Christians had learned from the Pagans their customs of embalming the bodies of the dead, which abuse, as proceeding from vanity and sometimes superstition, St. Antony had often condemned: this he would prevent, and ordered that his body should be buried in the earth as the patriarchs were, and privately, on his mountain, by his two disciples Macarius and Amathas, who had remained with him the last fifteen years, to serve him in his remote cell in his old age. He hastened back to that solitude, and sometime after fell sick: he repeated to these two disciples his orders for their burying his body secretly in that place, adding : "In the day of the resurrection, I shall receive it incorruptible from the hand of Christ." He ordered them to give one of his sheep-skins, with a cloak28 in which he lay, to the bishop Athanasius, as a public testimony of his being united in faith and communion with that holy prelate; to give his other sheep-skin to the bishop Serapion; and to keep for themselves his sackcloth. He added: "Farewell, my children, Antony is departing, and will be no longer with you." At these words they embraced him, and he stretching out his feet, without any other sign, calmly ceased to breathe. His death happened in the year 356, probably on the 17th of January, on which the most ancient Martyrologies name him, and which the Greek empire kept as a holiday soon after his death. He was one hundred and five years old. From his youth to that extreme old age, he always maintained the same fervour in his holy exercises; age to the last never made him change his diet (except in the use of a little oil) nor his manner of clothing; yet he lived without sickness, his sight was not impaired, his teeth were only worn, and not one was lost or loosened. The two disciples interred him according to his directions. About the year 561, his body29 was discovered, in the reign of Justinian, and with great solemnity translated to Alexandria, thence it was removed to Constantinople, and is now at Vienne in France. Bollandus gives us an account of many miracles wrought by his intercession; particularly in what manner the distemper called the Sacred Fire, since that time St. Antony's Fire, miraculously ceased through his patronage, when it raged violently in many parts of Europe, in the eleventh century.

A most sublime gift of heavenly contemplation and prayer, was the fruit of this great saint's holy retirement. Whole nights seemed to him short in those exercises, and when the rising sun in the morning seemed to him too soon to call him from his knees, to his manual labour or other employments, he would lament that the incomparable sweetness which he enjoyed, in the more perfect freedom with which his heart was taken up in heavenly contemplation in the silent watching of the night, should be interrupted or abated. But the foundation of his most ardent charity, and that sublime contemplation by which his soul soared in noble and lofty flights above all earthly things, was laid in the purity and disengagement of his affections, the contempt of the world, a most profound humility, and the universal mortification of his senses and of the powers of his soul. Hence flowed that constant tranquillity and serenity of his mind, which was the best proof of a perfect mastery of his passions. St. Athanasius observes of him, that after thirty years spent in the closest solitude, "he appeared not to others with a sullen or savage, but with a most obliging, sociable air."30 A heart that is filled with inward peace, simplicity, goodness, and charity, is a stranger to a lowering or contracted look. The main point in Christian mortification is the humiliation of the heart, one of its principal ends being the subduing of the passions. Hence, true virtue always increases the sweetness and gentleness of the mind, though this is attended with an invincible constancy, and an inflexible firmness in every point of duty. That devotion or self-denial is false or defective, which betrays us into pride or uncharitableness; and whatever makes us sour, morose, or peevish, makes us certainly worse, and instead of begetting in us a nearer resemblance of the divine nature, gives us a strong tincture of the temper of devils.

1 St. Athanasius commends St. Antony's love of reading, both when he lived with his father, (p. 795. B.) and afterwards when he lived alone, (p. 797. C.) which we cannot naturally understand of his hearing others read, especially when he was alone; therefore, when St. Athanasius says, (p. 795. A.) that in his childhood he never applied himself to the study of letters grammata mathein, fearing the danger of falling into bad company at school, he seems to mean only Greek letters, then the language of all the learned; for he must have learned at home the Egyptian alphabet. In the same manner we are to understand Evagrius and others, who relate, that a certain philosopher expressing his surprise how St. Antony could employ his time, being deprived of the pleasures of reading, the saint told him that the universe was his book. (Socr. l. 4. c. 23. Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 6. c. 4. St. Nilus, l. 4. p. 60.) Nevertheless St. Austin imagined that St. Antony could read no alphabet, and learned by heart and meditated on the scriptures only by hearing them read by others. (S. Aug. de Doctr. Chr. pr. p. 3. T. 3.) See Rosweide, Not. in Vit. S. Antonii. Bolland. 17 Jan. p. 119. s. 61. Tillem. note 1. p. 666.

2 An arura was one hundred cubits of land. See Lexicon Constantini, Fleury, l. 8, p. 418.

3 Matt. xix. 21.

4 Ibid. vi. 34.

5 Parthinwn as St. Athanasius calls it, T. 2. p. 796. ed. Ben. He mentions that St. Antony, long after, paid her a visit, when she was very old, and superior or mistress of many virgins, Kathhgouminhn allwn parthenwn, n. 54, p. 837.

6 Orig. lib. 5, p. 264.

7 His first monastery was situated near the confines of Upper and Middle Egypt: it at first consisted of scattered cells. To visit some of these brethren, he is mentioned by St. Athanasius (Vit. p. 461.) to have crossed the Arsinotic canal, extremely infested with crocodiles. This is sometimes called his monastery near the river, and was situated not far from Aphroditopolis, the lower and more ancient city of that name, in Heptanomis, or Middle Egypt. St. Athanasius seems to place it in Thebais, or Upper Egypt, because it was near the borders, and the boundaries of Upper Egypt were extended much lower by those who divided Egypt only into two parts, the Upper and the Lower; as Sozomen, l. 2. c. 23. and others frequently did. St. Antony, finding this solitude grow too public, and not bearing the distraction of continual visits, he travelled up the river to seek a more remote wilderness; but after mounting a little way, whilst he sat on the bank waiting to see a boat pass by, he changed his design, and instead of advancing southward, he went with certain Saracen merchants to the east, and in three days, doubtless on a camel, arrived at the great mountain toward the Red Sea, where he spent the latter years of his life; yet he frequently visited his first monastery near Aphroditopolis. St. Hilarion going from this latter to St. Antony's great monastery on the mountain, performed that journey in three days, on camels, which a deacon, named Baisan, let to those who desired to visit St. Antony. This latter, near which the saint died, always continued a famous pilgrimage.
Pispir was the monastery of St. Macarius; but is sometimes called St. Antony's, who often visited it. This was situated on the Nile, in Thebais, thirty measures or shmeia from St. Antony's mountain, according to Palladius, (Laus. c. 63.) This some understand of Roman miles, others of Egyptian schæni of thirty furlongs each; thirty schæni are nine hundred stadia, or one hundred and thirteen miles. Pispir therefore seems not to have been very far from Aphroditopolis. See Kocher, (comment, in fastos Abyssinorum) in the journal of Bern, ad an. 1761. T. 1. p. 160 and 169.
A monastery, of which St. Antony is titular saint, still subsists a little above the ancient city of Aphroditon on the Nile. It is now called Dermar-Antinious-el-Bahr, that is, The monastery of Antony at the river. See Pocock, p. 70, and the map prefixed to that part of his travels. Travelling from hence one day's journey up the river, then turning from the south toward the east, over sandy deserts, and a chain of high mountains, in which springs of water, in other parts very rare, are here and there found, and camels travel for one hundred miles, we arrive at St. Antony's great monastery, about six or seven hours' journey from the Red Sea. See Pocock, ib. p. 128. Granger, Relation du Voyage, &c. p. 107. Nouv. Mèmoires de Missions, T. 5. p. 136. Vanslebius, Nouv. Relat. p. 299 and 309. and Maillet, Descr. de l'Egypte, p. 320. The grotto of St. Paul is shown not very far from this great monastery; yet the road lying round the mountain, and a great way about it, seems to travellers at a great distance from it.

8 St. Athan. Vit. Anton. n. 45. p. 830.

9 P. 814.

10 P. 823. ed. Ben.

11 Rosweide, l. 3, c. 129. Coterier, &c.

12 S. Nilus, ep. 24. Cotelier, Apoth. Patr. p. 340. Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 3, c. 105. l. 5, c. 7

13 Cassian, Collat. c. 31.

14 St. Athan. n. 82, p. 857. S. Chrys. Hom. 8. in Mat. S. Hier. ep. 16. Sozom, l. 6, c. 5.

15 S. Athan. n. 68, 69, p. 847.

16 Ibid. n. 85. p. 859.

17 St. Athan. n. 80, p. 855.

18 N. 77. p. 852.

19 N. 86, p. 860.

20 Bibl. Patr. Colon. T. 4. p. 26. See S. Antonii. M. Epistolæ 20. cura Abr. Eckellens. Paris, 1641. But only the above-mentioned seven letters can be regarded as genuine, except the discourses preserved by St. Athanasius in his life.

21 Ep. 2. ad Arsinoitas.

22 Ib.

23 Maij. T. 3, p. 355.

24 That under his name in Abraham Eckellensis is not of so high a pedigree. A large body of the monks of St. Basil in the East, since the seventh century, take the name of the Order of St. Antony, but retain the rule of St. Basil, comprised in his ascetic writings; and observe the same fasts, and other exercises, with all the other monks of the East, who are called of the order of St. Basil; which even the Maronites follow; though Tillemont denies it by mistake.

25 Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 5, c. 8. Abraham Eckellens. in Vit. S. Ant. p. 106. Cotel. p. 344. Mart. Coptor.

26 S. Athan. n. 55, p. 858.

27 N. 16 & 43.

28 The Ependytes of St. Antony, mentioned by St. Athanasius, n. 46. p. 831. has much embarrassed the critics; it seems to have been a cloak of white wool. It is clear, from St. Athanasius, that St. Antony's inner garment was a haircloth, over which he wore a cloak made of a sheep-skin.

29 This translation of his relics to Alexandria, though doubted of by some protestants, is incontestably confirmed by Victor of Tunone, (Chron. p. 11. in Scalig. Thesauro) who lived then in banishment at Canope, only twelve miles from Alexandria; also, by St. Isidore of Seville, in the same age, Bede, Usuard, &c. They were removed to Constantinople when the Saracens made themselves masters of Egypt about the year 635. (See Bollandus, p. 162. 1134.) They were brought to Vienne in Dauphine by Jocelin, a nobleman of that country, whom the emperor of Constantinople had gratified with that rich present, about the year 1070. These relics were deposited in the church of La Motte S. Didier. not far from Vienne then a Benedictin priory belonging to the abbey of Mont-Majour near Arles, but now an independent abbey of regular canons of St. Antony. In 1089, a pestilential erysipelas distemper called the Sacred Fire, swept off great through [sic] the intercession of St. Antony, especially before his relics; the church in which they were deposited was resorted to by great numbers of pilgrims, and his patronage was implored over the whole kingdom against this disease. A nobleman near Vienne, named Gaston, and his son Girond, devoted themselves and their estate to found and serve an hospital near this priory, for the benefit of the poor that were afflicted with this distemper; seven others joined them in their charitable attendance on the sick, whence a confraternity of laymen who served this hospital took its rise, and continued till Boniface VIII. converted the Benedictin priory into an abbey, which he bestowed on these hospitaller brothers, and giving them the religious rule of regular canons of St. Austin, declared the abbot general of this new order, called Regular Canons of St. Antony. An abbey in Paris, which belongs to this order, is called Little St. Antony's, by which name it is distinguished from the great Cistercian nunnery of St. Antony. The general or abbot of St. Antony's, in Vienne, enjoys a yearly revenue of about forty thousand livres, according to Piganiol, Descr. de la Fr. T. 4. p. 249. and Dom Beaunier, Rec. Abbayes de Fr. p. 982. The superiors of other houses of this order retain the name of commanders, and the houses are called commanderies, as when they were hospitallers: so that the general is the only abbot. See Bollandus, Beaunier, F. Longueval, Hist. de l'Eglise de France, l. 22, t. 8, p. 16. and Drouet, in the late edition of Moreri's Hist. Diction. V. Antoine, from memoirs communicated by M. Bordet, superior of the convent of this order at Paris.