St. Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem

MARTYR.

From Euseb. l. 3, c. 32. Tillem, t. 1, p. 186. and t. 2. Le Quien, Oriens Christ, t. 3, p. 140.

A.D. 116.

St. Simeon was the son of Cleophas, otherwise called Alpheus, brother to St. Joseph, and of Mary, sister of the Blessed Virgin. He was therefore nephew both to St. Joseph and to the Blessed Virgin, and cousin-german to Christ. Simeon and Simon are the same name, and this saint is, according to the best interpreters of the holy scripture, the Simon mentioned,1 who was brother to St. James the Lesser, and St. Jude, apostles, and to Joseph or José. He was eight or nine years older than our Saviour. We cannot doubt but he was an early follower of Christ, as his father and mother and three brothers were, and an exception to that of St. John,2 that our Lord's relations did not believe in him. Nor does St. Luke3 leave us any room to doubt but that he received the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost with the Blessed Virgin and the apostles; for he mentions present St. James and St. Jude, and the brothers of our Lord. Saint Epiphanius relates,4 that when the Jews massacred St. James the Lesser, his brother Simeon reproached them for their atrocious cruelty. St. James, bishop of Jerusalem, being put to death in the year 62, twenty-nine years after our Saviour's resurrection, the apostles and disciples met at Jerusalem to appoint him a successor. They unanimously chose St. Simeon, who had probably before assisted his brother in the government of that church.

In the year 66, in which SS. Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom at Rome, the civil war began in Judea, by the seditions of the Jews against the Romans. The Christians in Jerusalem were warned by God of the impending destruction of that city, and by a divine revelation5 commanded to leave it, as Lot was rescued out of Sodom. They therefore departed out of it the same year, before Vespasian, Nero's general, and afterwards emperor, entered Judæa, and retired beyond the Jordan to a small city called Pella; having St. Simeon at their head. After the taking and burning of Jerusalem, they returned thither again, and settled themselves amidst its ruins, till Adrian afterwards entirely razed it. St. Epiphanius6 and Eusebius7 assure us, that the church here flourished extremely, and that multitudes of Jews were converted by the great number of prodigies and miracles wrought in it.

St. Simeon, amidst the consolations of the Holy Ghost and the great progress of the church, had the affliction to see two heresies arise within its bosom, namely, those of the Nazareans and the Ebionites; the first seeds of which, according to St. Epiphanius, appeared at Pella. The Nazareans were a sect of men between Jews and Christians, but abhorred by both. They allowed Christ to be the greatest of the prophets, but said he was a mere man, whose natural parents were Joseph and Mary: they joined all the ceremonies of the old law with the new, and observed both the Jewish Sabbath and the Sunday. Ebion added other errors to these, which Cerenthus had also espoused, and taught many superstitions, permitted divorces, and allowed of the most infamous abominations. He began to preach at Cocabe, a village beyond the Jordan, where he dwelt; but he afterwards travelled into Asia, and thence to Rome. The authority of St. Simeon kept the heretics in some awe during his life, which was the longest upon earth of any of our Lord's disciples. But as Eusebius says, he was no sooner dead than a deluge of execrable heresies broke out of hell upon the church, which durst not openly appear during his life.

Vespasian and Domitian had commanded all to be put to death who were of the race of David. St. Simeon had escaped their searches; but Trajan having given the same order, certain heretics and Jews accused him, as being both of the race of David and a Christian, to Atticus, the Roman governor in Palestine. The holy bishop was condemned by him to be crucified: who, after having undergone the usual tortures during several days, which, though one hundred and twenty years old, he suffered with so much patience that he drew on him a universal admiration, and that of Atticus in particular, he died in 107, according to Eusebius in his chronicle, but in 116, according to Dodwell, bishop Loyde, and F. Pagi. He must have governed the church of Jerusalem about forty-three years.

The eminent saints among the primitive disciples of Jesus Christ, were entirely animated by his spirit, and being dead to the world and themselves, they appeared like angels among men. Free from the secret mixture of the sinister views of all passions, to a degree which was a miracle of grace, they had in all things only God, his will and honour before their eyes, equally aspiring to him through honour and infamy. In the midst of human applause they remained perfectly humbled in the centre of their own nothingness: when loaded with reproaches and contempt, and persecuted with all the rage that malice could inspire, they were raised above all these things so as to stand fearless amidst racks and executioners, inflexibly constant in their fidelity to God, before tyrants, invincible under torments, and superior to them almost as if they had been impassible. Their resolution never failed them, their fervour seemed never slackened. Such wonderful men wrought continual miracles in converting souls to God. We bear the name of Christians, and wear the habit of saints; but are full of the spirit of worldlings, and our actions are infected with its poison. We secretly seek ourselves, even when we flatter ourselves that God is our only aim, and whilst we undertake to convert the world, we suffer it to pervert us. When shall we begin to study to crucify our passions and die to ourselves, that we may lay a solid foundation of true virtue and establish its reign in our hearts?

1 Matt. xiii. 55.

2 John vii. 5.

3 Acts i. 14.

4 Hær. 78. c. 14.

5 Eus. l. 3, c. 5. Epiph. hær. 29. c. 7. hær. 30. c. 2.

6 L. de Pond. et Mensur. c. 15.

7 Demonst. l. 3, c. 5.

St. Loman, or Luman, B.C.

Jocelin calls him a nephew of St. Patrick, by a sister. He was at least a disciple of that saint, and first bishop of Trim, in Meath. Port-Loman, a town belonging to the Nugents in Westmeath, takes its name from him, and honours his memory with singular veneration. St. Forcherne, son of the lord of that territory, was baptized by St. Loman, succeeded him in the bishopric of Trim, and is honoured among the saints in Ireland, both on this same day and on the llth of October. See Colgan on the 17th Febr. Usher's Antiqu. ad ann. 433.

SS. Elias, Jeremy, Isaias, Samuel, and Daniel

WITH OTHER HOLY MARTYRS AT CÆSAREA, IN PALESTINE.

From Eusebius's relation of the martyrs of Palestine, at the end of the eighth book of his history, c. 11, 12. p. 346. Ed. Vales.

A.D. 309.

IN the year 309, the emperors Galerius Maximianus and Maximinus continuing the persecution begun by Dioclesian, these five pious Egyptians went to visit the confessors condemned to the mines in Cilicia, and on their return were stopped by the guards of the gates of Cæsarea, in Palestine, as they were entering the town. They readily declared themselves Christians, together with the motive of their journey; upon which they were apprehended. The day following they were brought before Firmilian, the governor of Palestine, together with St. Pamphilus and others. The judge, before he began his interrogatory, ordered the five Egyptians to be laid on the rack, as was his custom. After they had long suffered all manner of tortures, he addressed himself to him who seemed to be their chief, and asked him his name and his country. They had changed their names, which, perhaps, before their conversion, where [sic] those of some heathen gods, as was customary in Egypt. The martyr answered, according to the names they had given themselves, that he was called Elias, and his companions, Jeremy, Isaias, Samuel, and Daniel. Firmilian then asked their country; he answered Jerusalem, meaning the heavenly Jerusalem, the true country of all Christians. The judge inquired in what part of the world that was, and ordered him to be tormented with fresh cruelty. All this while the executioners continued to tear his body with stripes, whilst his hands were bound behind him, and his feet squeezed in the woodstocks, called the Nervus. The judge, at last, tired with tormenting them, condemned all five to be beheaded, which was immediately executed.

Porphyrius, a youth who was a servant of St. Pamphilus, hearing the sentence pronounced, cried out, that at least the honour of burial ought not to be refused them. Firmilian, provoked at this boldness, ordered him to be apprehended; and finding that he confessed himself a Christian, and refused to sacrifice, ordered his sides to be torn so cruelly, that his very bones and bowels were exposed to view. He underwent all this without a sigh or tear, or so much as making the least complaint. The tyrant, not to be overcome by so heroic a constancy, gave orders for a great fire to be kindled, with a vacant space to be left in the midst of it, for the martyr to be laid in, when taken off the rack. This was accordingly done, and he lay there a considerable time surrounded by the flames, singing the praises of God, and invoking the name of Jesus; till at length, quite broiled by the fire, he consummated a slow, but glorious martyrdom.

Seleucus, an eye-witness of this victory, was heard by the soldiers applauding the martyr's resolution; and being brought before the governor, he, without more ado, ordered his head to be struck off.

SS. Faustinus and Jovita, MM.

A.D. 121.

Faustinus and Jovita were brothers, nobly born, and zealous professors of the Christian religion, which they preached without fear in their city of Brescia, whilst the bishop of that place lay concealed during the persecution. The acts of their martyrdom seeming of doubtful authority, all we can affirm with certainty of them is, that their remarkable zeal excited the fury of the heathens against them, and procured them a glorious death for their faith at Brescia in Lombardy, under the emperor Adrian. Julian, a heathen lord, apprehended them; and the emperor himself passing through Brescia, when neither threats nor torments could shake their constancy, commanded them to be beheaded. They seem to have suffered about the year 121.1 The city of Brescia honours them as its chief patrons, and possesses their relics. A very ancient church in that city bears their name, and all martyrologies mention them.

The spirit of Christ is a spirit of martyrdom, at least of mortification and penance. It is always the spirit of the cross. The remains of the old man, of sin and of death, must be extinguished, before one can be made heavenly by putting on affections which are divine. What mortifies the senses and the flesh gives life to the spirit, and what weakens and subdues the body strenthens the soul. Hence the divine love infuses a spirit of mortification, patience, obedience, humility, and meekness, with a love of sufferings and contempt, in which consists the sweetness of the cross. The more we share in the suffering life of Christ, the greater share we inherit in his spirit, and in the fruit of his death. To souls mortified to their senses and disengaged from earthly things, God gives frequent foretastes of the sweetness of eternal life, and the most ardent desires of possessing him in his glory. This is the spirit of martyrdom, which entitles a Christian to a happy resurrection and to the bliss of the life to come.

1 See Tillemont, t. 2, p. 249. Pagi, &c.

St. Valentine

Priest and Martyr.

His acts are commended by Henschenius, but objected to by Tillemont, &c. Here is given only an abridgement of the principal circumstances, from Tillem. t. 4, p. 678.

Third Age.

Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marina and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent hy the emperor to the prefect of Rome; who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards to be beheaded, which was executed on the 14th of February, about the year 270. Pope Julias [sic] I. is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate, now called Porta del Popolo, formerly Porta Valentini. The greater part of his relics are now in the church of St. Praxedes. His name ia celebrated as that of an illustrious martyr in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, the Roman missal of Thomasius, in the calendar of F. Fronto, and that of Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado, Notker and all other martyrologies on this day. To abolish the heathen's lewd superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of Girls in honour of their goddess Februta Juno, on the 15th of thia month, several zealous pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day. See January 29, on St. Francis de Sales.

B. Roger, Abbot

Having embraced the Cistercian order at Loroy, or Locus Regis, in Berry, he was chosen abbot of Elan near Retel in Champagne, and died about the year 1175. His remains are enshrined in a chapel which bears his name, in the church at Elan, where his festival is kept with a mass in his honour on the 13th of February. His life was written by a monk of Elan. See Chatelain, on the 4th of January, on which day his name occurs in a Cistercian calendar printed at Dijon.

St. Benedict, of Anian, Abbot

From his life, written with great piety, gravity, and erudition, by St. Ardo Smaragdus, his disciple, to whom he committed the government of his monastery of Anian, when he was called by the emperor near the court. Ardo died March the 7th, in 843, and is honoured at Anian among the saints. He is not to be confounded with Smaragdus, abbot in the diocess of Verdun, author of a commentary on the rule of St. Bennet. This excellent life is published by Dom Menard, at the head of St. Bennet's Concordia Regularum; by Henschenius, 12 Feb. and by Dom Mabillon, Acta SS. Ben. vol. 5, p. 191, 217. See Helyot, Hist. des Ord. Relig. t. 5, p. 139. See also Bulteau, Hist, de l'Ord. de S. Benoit. l. 5, c. 2, p. 342. Eckart. de Reb. Fran. t. 2, p. 117, 163.

A.D. 821.

He was son of Aigulf, count or governor of Languedoc, and served King Pepin and his son Charlemagne in quality of cupbearer, enjoying under them great honours aud possessions. Grace made him sensible of the vanity of all perishable goods, and at twenty years of age he took a resolution of seeking the kingdom of God with his whole heart. From that time he led a most mortified life in the court itself for three years, eating very sparingly and of the coarsest fare, allowing himself very little sleep, and mortifying all his senses. In 774, having narrowly escaped being drowned in the Tesin, near Pavia, in endeavouring to save his brother, he made a vow to quit the world entirely. Returning to Languedoc, he was confirmed in his resolution by the pious advice of a hermit of great merit and virtue, called Widmar; and under a pretext of going to the court at Aix-la-Chapelle, he went to the abbey of St. Seine, five leagues from Dijon, and having sent back all his attendants, became a monk there. He spent two years and a half in wonderful abstinence, treating his body as a furious wild beast, to which he would show no other mercy than barely not to kill it. He took no other sustenance on any account but bread and water; and when overcome with weariness, he allowed himself nothing softer than the bare ground whereon to take a short rest; thus making even his repose a continuation of penance. He frequently passed the whole night in prayer, and stood barefoot on the ground in the sharpest cold. He studied to make himself contemptible by all manner of humiliations, and received all insults with joy, so perfectly was he dead to himself. God bestowed on him an extraordinary spirit of compunction, and the gift of tears, with an infused knowledge of spiritual things to an eminent degree. Not content to fulfil the rule of St. Benedict in its full rigour, he practised all the severest observances, prescribed by the rules of St. Pachomius and St. Basil. Being made cellerist, he was very solicitous to provide for others whatever St. Benedict's rule allowed and had a particular care of the poor and of the guests.

His brethren, upon the abbot's death, were disposed to choose our saint, but he, being unwilling to accept of the charge on account of their known aversion to a reformation, left them, and returned to his own country, Languedoc, in 780, where he built a small hermitage near a chapel of St. Saturninus, on the brook Anian, near the river Eraud, upon his own estate. Here he lived some years in extreme poverty, praying continually that God would teach him to do his will, and make him faithfully correspond with his eternal designs. Some solitaries, and with them the holy man Widmar, put themselves under his direction, though he long excused himself. They earned their livelihood by their labour, and lived on bread and water, except on Sundays and solemn festivals, on which they added a little wine and milk when it was given them in alms. The holy superior did not exempt himself from working with the rest in the fields, either carrying wood or ploughing; and sometimes he copied good books. The number of his disciples increasing, he quitted the valley, and built a monastery in a more spacious place, in that neighbourhood. He showed his love of poverty by his rigorous practice of it: for he long used wooden, and afterwards glass or pewter chalices at the altar; and if any presents of silk ornaments were made him, he gave them to other churches. However, he some time after changed his way of thinking with respect to the church; built a cloister, and a stately church adorned with marble pillars, furnished it with silver chalices, and rich ornaments, and bought a great number of books. He had in a short time three hundred religious under his direction, and also exercised a general inspection over all the monasteries of Provence, Languedoc, and Gascony, which respected him as their common parent and master. At last he remitted something in the austerities of the reformation he had introduced among them. Felix, bishop of Urgel, had advanced that Christ was not the natural, but only the adoptive son of the eternal Father. St. Benedict most learnedly opposed this heresy, and assisted in 794 at the council assembled against it at Francfort. He employed his pen to confute the same, in four treatises, published in the miscellanies of Balusius.

Benedict was become the oracle of the whole kingdom, and he established his reformation in many great monasteries with little or no opposition. His most illustrious colony was the monastery of Gellone, founded in 804, by William, duke of Aquitain, who retired into it himself, whence it was called St. Guillem du Desert. By the councils held under Charlemagne, in 813, and by the capitulars of that prince, published the same year, it was ordained that the canons should live according to the canons and laws of the church, and the monks according to the rule of St. Bennet: by which regulation an uniformity was introduced in the monastic order in the West. The emperor Lewis Debonnair, who succeeded his father on the 28th of January, 814, committed to the saint the inspection of all the abbeys in his kingdom. To have him nearer his own person, the emperor obliged him to live in the abbey of Marmunster, in Alsace; and as this was still too remote, desirous of his constant assistance in his councils, he built the monastery of Inde, two leagues from Aix-la-Chapelle, the residence of the emperor and court. Notwithstanding St. Benedict's constant abode in this monastery, he had still a hand in restoring monastic discipline throughout France and Germany; as he also was the chief instrument in drawing up the canons for the reformation of prebendaries and monks in the council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 817, and presided in the assembly of abbots the same year, to enforce restoration of discipline. His statutes were adopted by the order, and annexed to the rule of St. Benedict, the founder. He wrote, whilst a private monk at Seine, the code of Rules, being a collection of all the monastic regulations, which he found extant; as also a book of homilies for the use of monks, collected, according to the custom of that age, from the works of the fathers: likewise a Penitential, printed in the additions to the Capitulars. In his Concord of Rules he gives that of St. Bennet, with those of other patriarchs of the monastic order, to show their uniformity in the exercises which they prescribe.1 This great restorer of the monastic order in the West, worn out at length with mortification and fatigues, suffered much from continual sickness the latter years of his life. He died at Inde with extraordinary tranquillity and cheerfulness on the llth of February, 821, being then about seventy-one years of age, and was buried in the same monastery, since called St. Cornelius's, the church being dedicated to that holy pope and martyr. At Anian his festival is kept on the llth, but by most other Martyrologies on the 12th of February, the day of his burial. His relics remain in the monastery of St. Cornelius, or of Inde, in the duchy of Cleves, and have been honoured with miracles.

St. Bennet, by the earnestness with which he set himself to study the spirit of his holy rule and state, gave a proof of the ardour with which he aspired to Christian perfection. The experienced masters of a spiritual life, and the holy legislators of monastic institutes, have in view the great principles of an interior life, which the gospel lays down: for in the exercises which they prescribe, powerful means are offered by which a soul may learn perfectly to die to herself, and be united in all her powers to God. This dying to, and profound annihilation of ourselves, is of such importance, that so long as a soul remains in this state, though all the devils in hell were leagued together, they can never hurt her. All their efforts will only make her sink more deepty in this feeling knowledge of herself, in which she finds her strength, her repose, and her joy, because by it she is prepared to receive the divine grace: and if self-love be destroyed, the devil can have no power over us; for he never makes any successful attacks upon us but by the secret intelligence which he holds with this domestic enemy. The crucifixion of the old man, and perfect disengagement of the heart, by the practice of universal self-denial, is absolutely necessary before a soul can ascend the mountain of the God of Jacob, on which his infinite majesty is seen, separated from all creatures; as Blosius,2 and all other directors in the paths of an interior life, strongly inculcate.

1 See Codex Regularum, collectus a S. Benedicto Anianæ, auctus a Luca Holstenio, printed by Holstenius at Rome, in 1661. Also, Concordia Regularum, authore S. Benedicto Anianæ abbate, edita ab. Hug. Menardo Benedictino. Parisiis, 1638.

2 Instit. Spir. c. 1, n. 6, &c.