The Empress Theodora

Whom the Greeks Rank among the Saints.

By her mildness and patience she often softened the cruel temper of her brutish husband, Theophilus, and protected the defenders of holy images from the fury of his persecution. Being left by his death regent of the empire during the minority of her son, Michael III., she put an end to the Iconoclast heresy, one hundred and twenty years after the first establishment of it by Leo the Isaurian: and the patriarch Methodius with great solemnity restored holy images in the great church in Constantinople, on the first Sunday of Lent, which we call the second, of which event the Greeks make an annual commemoration, calling it the feast of Orthodoxy. After she had governed the empire with great glory twelve years, she was banished by her unnatural son and his impious uncle Bardas. She prepared herself for death by spending the last eight years of her life in a monastery, where she gave up her soul to God in 867. She is ranked among the saints in the Menology of the emperor Basil, in the Menæa, and other calendars of the Greeks. See the compilations of Bollandus from the authors of the Byzantine history.

St. Scholastica, Virgin

From St. Gregory the Great, Dial. l. 2, c. 33. and 34.

About the year 543.

This saint was sister to the great St. Benedict. She consecrated herself to God from her earliest youth, as St. Gregory testifies. Where her first monastery was situated is not mentioned; but after her brother removed to Mount Cassino, she choose her retreat at Plombariola, in that neighbourhood, where she founded and governed a nunnery about five miles distant to the south from St. Benedict's monastery.1 St. Bertharius, who was abbot of Cassino three hundred years after, says, that she instructed in virtue several of her own sex. And whereas St. Gregory informs us, that St. Benedict governed nuns as well as monks, his sister must have been their abbess under his rule and direction. She visited her holy brother once a year, and as she was not allowed to enter his monastery, he went out with some of his monks to meet her at a house at some small distance. They spent these visits in the praises of God, and in conferring together on spiritual matters. St. Gregory relates a remarkable circumstance of the last of these visits. Scholastica having passed the day as usual in singing psalms, and pious discourses, they sat down in the evening to take their refection. After it was over, Scholastica, perhaps foreknowing it would be their last interview in this world, or at least desirous of some further spiritual improvement, was very urgent with her brother to delay his return till the next day, that they might entertain themselves till morning upon the happiness of the other life. St. Benedict, unwilling to transgress his rule, told her he could not pass a night out of his monastery: so desired her not to insist upon such a breach of monastic discipline. Scholastica finding him resolved on going home, laying her hands joined upon the table and her head upon them, with many tears begged of Almighty God to interpose in her behalf. Her prayer was scarcely ended, when there happened such a storm of rain, thunder, and lightning, that neither St. Benedict nor any of his companions could set a foot out of doors. He complained to his sister, saying: "God forgive you, sister; what have you done ?" She answered: "I asked you a favour, and you refused it me: I asked it of Almighty God, and he has granted it me." St. Benedict was therefore obliged to comply with her request, and they spent the night in conferences on pious subjects, chiefly on the felicity of the blessed, to which both most ardently aspired, and which she was shortly to enjoy. The next morning they parted, and three days after St. Scholastica died in her solitude. St. Benedict was then alone in contemplation on Mount Cassino, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he saw the soul of his sister ascending thither in the shape of a dove. Filled with joy at her happy passage, he gave thanks for it to God, and declared her death to his brethren; some of whom he sent to bring her corpse to his monastery, where he caused it to be laid in the tomb which he had prepared for himself. She must have died about the year 543. Her relics are said to have been translated into France, together with those of St. Benedict, in the seventh century, according to the relation given by the monk Adrevald.2 They are said to have been deposited at Mans, and kept in the collegiate church of St. Peter in that city, in a rich silver shrine.3 In 1562 this shrine was preserved from being plundered by the Hugonots, as is related by Chatelain. Her principal festival at Mans is kept a holyday on the llth of July, the day of the translation of her relics. She was honoured in some places with an office of three lessons, in the time of St. Lewis, as appears from a calendar of Longchamp, wrote in his reign.

Lewis of Granada, treating on the perfection of the love of God, mentions the miraculous storm obtained by St. Scholastica, to show with what excess of goodness God is always ready to hear the petitions and desires of his servants. This pious soul must have received strong pledges and most sensible tokens of his love, seeing she depended on receiving so readily what she asked of him. No child could address himself with so great confidence to his most tender parent. The love which God bears us, and his readiness to succour and comfort us, if we humbly confess and lay before him our wants, infinitely surpasses all that can be found in creatures. Nor can we be surprised that he so easily heard the prayer of this holy virgin, since at the command of Joshua he stopped the heavens, God obeying the voice of man! He hears the most secret desires of those who fear and love him, and does their will: if he sometimes seems deaf to their cries, it is to grant their main desire by doing what is most expedient for them, as St. Austin frequently observes. The short prayer by which St. Scholastica gained this remarkable victory over her brother, who was one of the greatest saints on earth, was doubtless no more than a single act of her pure desires, which she continually turned toward, and fixed on her beloved. It was enough for her to cast her eyes interiorly upon him with whom she was closely and inseparably united in mind and affections, to move him so suddenly to change the course of the elements in order to satisfy her pious desire. By placing herself, as a docile scholar, continually at the feet of the Divine Majesty, who filled all the powers of her soul with the sweetness of his heavenly communications, she learned that sublime science of perfection in which she became a mistress to so many other chaste souls by this divine exercise. Her life in her retirement, to that happy moment which closed her mortal pilgrimage, was a continued uniform contemplation, by which all her powers were united to, and transformed into, God.

1 This nunnery underwent the same fate with the abbey of Mount Cassino, both being burned to the ground by the Lombards. When Rachim, king of that nation, having been converted to the Catholic faith by the exhortations of Pope Zachary, re-established that abbey, and taking the monastic habit, ended his life there, his queen Tasia and his daughter Ratiuda rebuilt and richly endowed the nunnery of Plombariola, in which they lived with great regularity to their deaths, as is related by Leo of Ostia in his Chronicle of Mount Cassino, ad an. 750. It has been since destroyed, so that at present the land is only a farm belonging to the monastery of Mount Cassino. See Dom Mege, Vie de St. Benoit, p. 412. Chatelain, Notes, p. 605. Muratori Antichita, £c. t. 3, p. 400. Diss. 66. dei Monasteri delle Monache.

2 See Paul the deacon, Hist. Longob. and Dom Mege, Vie de St. Benoit, p. 48.

3 That the relics of St. Benedict were privately carried off from Mount Cassino, in 660, soon after the monastery was destroyed, and brought to Fleury on the Loire by Aigiulph the monk, and those of St. Scholastica by certain persons of Mans to that city, is maintained by Mabillon, Menard, and Bosche. But that the relics of both these saints still remain at Mount Cassino, is strenuously affirmed by Loretus Angelus de Nuce, and Marchiarelli, the late learned monk of the Order of Camaldoli; and this assertion Benedict XIV. looks upon as certain, (de Canoniz. l. 4, part. 2, c. 24, t. 4, p. 245.) For Pope Zachary in his bull assures us, that he devoutly honoured the relics of SS. Benedict and Scholastica at Mount Cassino, in 746. Lee Ostiensis and Peter the deacon visited them and found them untouched in 1071, as Alexander II. affirms in the bull he published when he consecrated the new church there. By careful visitations made by authority, in 1486 and 1545, the same is proved. Yet Angelus de Nuce allows some portions of both saints to be at Mans and Fleury, on the Loire. Against the supposed translation of the whole shrines of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica into France, see Muratori, Antichita, &c. dissert. 58, t. 3, p. 244.

St. Nicephorus, M.

From his genuine acts in Ruinart, p. 244. Tillemont, t. 4, p. 17.

A.D. 260.

There dwelt in Antioch a priest called Sapricius, and a layman, named Nicephorus, who had been linked together for many years by the strictest friendship. But the enemy of mankind sowing between them the seeds of discord, this their friendship was succeeded by the most implacable hatred, and they declined meeting each other in the streets. Thus it continued a considerable time. At length, Nicephorus, entering into himself, and reflecting on the grievousness of the sin of hatred, resolved on seeking a reconciliation. He accordingly deputed some friends to go to Sapricius to beg his pardon, promising him all reasonable satisfaction for the injury done him. But the priest refused to forgive him. Nicephorus sent other friends to him on the same errand, but though they pressed and entreated him to be reconciled, Sapricius was inflexible. Nicephorus sent a third time, but to no purpose; Sapricius having shut his ears not to men only but to Christ himself, who commands us to forgive as we ourselves hope to be forgiven. Nicephorus, finding him deaf to the remonstrances of their common friends, went in person to his house, and casting himself at his feet owned his fault, and begged pardon for Christ's sake; but all in vain.

The persecution suddenly began to rage under Valerian and Gallien in the year 260. Sapricius was appehended and brought before the governor, who asked him his name. "It is Sapricius," answered he. Governor.—"Of what profession are you?" Sapricius.—"I am a Christian." Governor.—"Are you of the clergy?" Sapricius.—"I have the honour to be a priest." He added: "We Christians acknowledge one Lord and Master Jesus Christ, who is God; the only and true God, who created heaven and earth. The gods of nations are devils." The president, exasperated at his answer, gave orders for him to be put into an engine, like a screw-press, which the tyrants had invented to torment the faithful. The excessive pain of this torture did not shake Sapricius's constancy, and he said to the judges: "My body is in your power; but my soul you cannot touch. Only my Saviour Jesus Christ is master of this." The president seeing him so resolute, pronounced this sentence: "Sapricius, priest of the Christians, who is ridiculously persuaded that he shall rise again, shall be delivered over to the executioner of public justice to have his head severed from his body, because he has contemned the edict of the emperors."

Sapricius seemed to receive the sentence with great cheerfulness, and was in haste to arrive at the place of execution in hopes of his crown. Nicephorus ran out to meet him, and casting himself at his feet, said: "Martyr of Jesus Christ, forgive me my offence." But Sapricius made him no answer. Nicephorus waited for him in another street which he was to pass through, and as soon as he saw him coming up, broke through the crowd, and falling again at his feet, conjured him to pardon the fault he had committed against him, through frailty rather than design. This he begged by the glorious confession he had made of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Sapricius's heart was more and more hardened, and now he would not so much as look on him. The soldiers laughed at Nicephorus, saying: "A greater fool than thee was never seen, in being so solicitous for a man's pardon who is upon the point of being executed." Being arrived at the place of execution, Nicephorus redoubled his humble entreaties and supplications: but all in vain; for Sapricius continued as obstinate as ever, in refusing to forgive. The executioners said to Sapricius: "Kneel down that we may cut off your head." Sapricius said: "Upon what account?" They answered: "Because you will not sacrifice to the gods, nor obey the emperor's orders, for the love of that man that is called Christ." The unfortunate Sapricius cried out: "Stop, my friends; do not put me to death; I will do what you desire; I am ready to sacrifice." Nicephorus, sensibly afflicted at his apostasy, cried aloud to him: "Brother, what are you doing? renounce not Jesus Christ our good master. Forfeit not a crown you have already gained by tortures and sufferings." But Sapricius would give no manner of attention to what he said. Whereupon, Nicephorus, with tears of bitter anguish for the fall of Sapricius, said to the executioners: "I am a Christian, and believe in Jesus Christ, whom this wretch has renounced; behold me here ready to die in his stead." All present were astonished at such an unexpected declaration. The officers of justice being under an uncertainty how to proceed, despatched a lictor or beadle, to the governor with this message: "Sapricius promiseth to sacrifice, but here is another desirous to die for the same Christ, saying: "I am a Christian, and refuse to sacrifice to your gods, and comply with the edicts of the emperors." The governor on hearing this, dictated the following sentence: "If this man persist in refusing to sacrifice to the immortal gods, let him die by the sword." which was accordingly put in execution. Thus Nicephorus received three immortal crowns, namely, of faith, humility, and charity, triumphs which Sapricius had made himself unworthy of. The Greek and the Roman Martyrologies mention him on this day.

St. Paul, Bishop of Verdun, C.

Having lived in the world a perfect pattern of perfection by alms, fasts, assiduous prayer, meekness, and charity, he retired among the hermits of Mount Voge, near Triers, on a hill called from him Paulberg. King Dagobert placed him in the episcopal chair of Verdun and was his protector in his zealous labours, and ample foundations of that church. The saint died in 631. See his authentic anonymous life in Henschenius. Also Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, t. 1, 1. 9, n. 41, p. 402. Bollandus, Feb. t. 2, p. 169.

St. Richard, King & C.

This saint was an English prince, in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, and was perhaps deprived of his inheritance by some revolution in the state: or he renounced it to be more at liberty to dedicate himself to the pursuit of Christian perfection. His three children, Winebald, Willibald, and Warburga, are all honoured as saints. Taking with him his two sons, he undertook a pilgrimage of penance and devotion, and sailing for Hamblehaven, landed in Neustria on the Western coasts of France. He made a considerable stay at Rouen, and made his devotions in the most holy places that lay in his way through France. Being arrived at Lucca in Italy, in his road to Rome, he there died suddenly, about the year 722, and was buried in St. Fridian's church there. His relics are venerated to this day in the same place, and his festival kept at Lucca with singular devotion. St. Richard, when living, obtained by his prayers the recovery of his younger son Willibald, whom he laid at the foot of a great crucifix erected in a public place in England, when the child's life was despaired of in a grievous sickness: and since his death, many have experienced the miraculous power of his intercession with God, especially where his relics invite the devotion of the faithful. His festival is kept at Lucca, and his name honoured in the Roman Martyrology on the 7th of February. See the life of St. Willibald by his cousin, a nun of Heidenheim, in Canisius's Lectiones Antiquæ, with the notes of Basnage. Henschenius, Feb. t. 2. p. 70.

St. Dorothy, Virgin & Martyr

See St. Aldhelm, Ado, Usuard, &c. in Bollandus, p. 771.

St. Aldhelm relates from her acts,1 that Fabricius, the governor of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, inflicted on her most cruel torments, because she refused to marry, or to adore idols: that she converted two apostate women sent to seduce her: and that being condemned to be beheaded, she converted one Theophilus, by sending him certain fruits and flowers miraculously obtained of her heavenly spouse. She seems to have suffered under Dioclesian. Her body is kept in the celebrated church which bears her name, beyond the Tiber, in Rome. She is mentioned on this day in the ancient Martyrology under the name of St. Jerom. There was another holy virgin, whom Rufin calls Dorothy, a rich and noble lady of the city of Alexandria, who suffered torments and a voluntary banishment, to preserve her faith and chastity against the brutish lust and tyranny of the emperor Maximinus, in the year 308, as is recorded by Eusebius2 and Rufinus:3 but many take this latter, whose name is not mentioned by Eusebius, to be the famous St. Catharine of Alexandria.

The blood of the martyrs flourished in its hundred-fold increase, as St. Justin has well observed: "We are slain with the sword, but we increase and multiply: the more we are persecuted and destroyed, the more are added to our numbers. As a vine, by being pruned and cut close, shoots forth new suckers, and bears a greater abundance of fruit; so is it with us."4 Among other false reflections, the baron of Montesquieu, an author too much admired by many, writes:5 "It is hardly possible that Christianity should ever be established in China. Vows of virginity, the assembling of women in the churches, their necessary intercourse with the ministers of religion, their participation of the sacraments, auricular confession, the marrying but one wife; all this oversets the manners and customs, and strikes at the religion and laws of the country." Could he forget that the gospel overcame all these impediments where it was first established, in spite of the most inveterate prejudices, and of all worldly opposition from the great and the learned; whereas philosophy, though patronized by princes, could never in any age introduce its rules even into one city. In vain did the philosopher Plotinus solicit the emperor Gallienus to rebuild a ruined city in Campania, that he and his disciples might establish in it the republic of Plato: a system, in some points, flattering the passions of men, almost as Mahometism fell in with the prejudices and passions of the nations where it prevails. So visibly is the church the work of God.

1 L. de Laud. Virgin. c. 25.

2 L. 8, c. 14.

3 L. 1, c. 17.

4 Apol. 2, ol. 1.

5 L'Esprit des Lois, b. xix, 18.

St. Agatha, Virgin & Martyr

We have her panegyrics by St. Aldhelm, in the seventh, and St. Methodius, patriarch of Constantinople, in the ninth, centuries: also a hymn in her honour among the poems of Pope Damasus, and another by St. Isidore of Seville, in Bollandus, p. 596. The Greeks have interpolated her acts: but those in Latin are very ancient. They are abridged by Tillemont, t. 3. p. 409. See also Rocci Pyrrho, in Sicilia Sacra, on Palermo, Catana, and Malta.

A.D. 251.

The cities of Palermo and Catana, in Sicily, dispute the honour of her birth: but they do much better who, by copying her virtues, and claiming her patronage, strive to become her fellow-citizens in heaven. It is agreed that she received the crown of martyrdom at Catana, in the persecution of Decius, in the third consulship of that prince, in the year of our Lord 251. She was of a rich and illustrious family, and having been consecrated to God from her tender years, triumphed over many assaults upon her chastity. Quintianus, a man of consular dignity, bent on gratifying both his lust and avarice, imagined he should easily compass his wicked designs on Agatha's person and estate, by means of the emperor's edict against the Christians. He therefore caused her to be apprehended and brought before him at Catana. Seeing herself in the hands of the persecutors, she made this prayer: "Jesus Christ, Lord of all things, you see my heart, you know my desire: possess alone all that I am. I am your sheep, make me worthy to overcome the devil." She wept, and prayed for courage and strength all the way she went. On her appearance, Quintianus gave orders for her being put into the hands of Aphrodisia, a most wicked woman who with six daughters, all prostitutes, kept a common stew. The saint suffered in this infamous place, assaults and stratagems against her virtue, infinitely more terrible to her than any tortures or death itself. But placing her confidence in God, she never ceased with sighs and most earnest tears to implore his protection, and by it was an overmatch for all their hellish attempts, the whole month she was there. Quintianus being informed of her constancy after thirty days, ordered her to be brought before him. The virgin, in her first interrogatory, told him, that to be a servant of Jesus Christ was the most illustrious nobility, and true liberty. The judge, offended at her resolute answers, commanded her to be buffeted, and led to prison. She entered it with great joy, recommending her future conflict to God. The next day she was arraigned a second time at the tribunal, and answered with equal constancy that Jesus Christ was her life and her salvation. Quintianus then ordered her to be stretched on the rack, which torment was usually accompanied with stripes, the tearing of the sides with iron hooks, and burning them with torches or matches. The governor, enraged to see her suffer all this with cheerfulness, commanded her breast to be tortured, and afterwards to be cut off. At which she made him this reproach: "Cruel tyrant, do you not blush to torture this part of my body, you that sucked the breasts of a woman yourself?" He remanded her to prison with a severe order, that neither salves nor food should be allowed her. But God would be himself her physician, and the apostle St. Peter in a vision comforted her, healed all her wounds, and filled her dungeon with a heavenly light. Quintianus, four days after, not the least moved at the miraculous cure of her wounds, caused her to be rolled naked over live coals mixed with broken potsherds. Being carried back to prison, she made this prayer; "Lord, my Creator, you have ever protected me from the cradle. You have taken from me the love of the world, and given me patience to suffer: receive now my soul." After which words she sweetly gave up the ghost. Her name is inserted in the canon of the mass, in the calendar of Carthage, as ancient as the year 530, and in all martyrologies of the Latins and Greeks. Pope Symmachus built a church in Rome on the Aurelian way, under her name, about the year 500, which is fallen to decay.1 St. Gregory the Great enriched a church which he purged from the Arian impiety, with her relics2 which it still possesses. This church had been rebuilt in her honour by Ricimer, general of the western empire, in 460. Gregory II. built another famous church at Rome, under her invocation, in 726, which Clement VIII. gave to the congregation of the Christian doctrine. St. Gregory the Great,3 ordered some of her relics to be placed in the church of the monastery of St. Stephen, in the Isle of Capreæ, now Capri. The chief part which remained at Catana, was carried to Constantinople by the Greek general, who drove the Saracens out of Sicily about the year 1040: these were brought back to Catana in 1127, a relation of which translation, written by Mauritius, who was then bishop, is recorded by Rocci Pyrrho, and Bollandus.4 The same authors relate in what manner the torrent of burning sulphur and stones which issue from Mount Ætna, in great eruptions, was several times averted from the walls of Catana by the veil of St. Agatha (taken out of her tomb) which was carried in procession. Also that through her intercession Malta (where she is honoured as patroness of the island) was preserved from the Turks who invaded it in 1551. Small portions of relics of St. Agatha are said to be distributed in many places.

The perfect purity of intention by which St. Agatha was entirely dead to the world and herself, and sought only to please God, is the circumstance which sanctified her sufferings, and rendered her sacrifice complete. The least cross which we bear, the least action which we perform in this disposition, will be a great holocaust, and a most acceptable offering. We have frequently something to suffer, sometimes an aching pain in the body, at other times some trouble of mind, often some disappointment, some humbling rebuke, or reproach, or the like. If we only bear these trials with patience, when others are witnesses, or if we often speak of them, or are fretful under them, or if we bear patiently public affronts or great trials, yet sink under those which are trifling, and are sensible to small, or secret injuries, a is evident [sic] that we have not attained to true purity of intention in our patience; that we are not dead to ourselves, and love not to disappear to the eyes of creatures, but court them, and take a secret complacency in things which appear great. We profess ourselves ready to die for Christ; yet cannot bear the least cross or humiliation. How agreeable to our divine spouse is the sacrifice of a soul which suffers in silence, desiring to have no other witness of her patience than God alone, who sends her trials; which shuns superiority and honours, but takes all care possible that no one knows the humility or modesty of such a refusal; which suffers humiliations, and seeks no comfort or reward but from God. This simplicity and purity of heart; this love of being hidden in God, through Jesus Christ, is the perfection of all our sacrifices, and the complete victory over self love, which it attacks and forces out of its strongest intrenchments; this says to Christ, with St. Agatha, "Possess alone all that I am."

1 Fronteau Cal. p. 25.

2 Dial. l. 3. c. 30.

3 L. 1. ep. 52.

4 Feb. t. 1. p. 647.