book seven

times brighter than silver, inscribed with golden letters, and round about it stood four elders, having vials in their hands of pure gold, from which ascended diverse odours. And one, answering, said, "In these four vials your perfection is contained. For out of these daily ascends an odour of sweet fragrance before the Lord. Therefore, blessed are ye, because ye have rejected the unsatisfying pleasures of this world to strive after those which are eternal, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive."

Then Julian looked, and beheld his name, and the name of his wife, Basilissa, written in the book. And the elder said, "In that book are written the chaste and the sober, the truthful and the merciful, the humble and gentle, those whose love is unfeigned, bearing adversities, patient in tribulation, and those who, for the love of Jesus Christ, have given up father and mother, and wife and children, and lands, for his sake, lest they should impede the progress of their souls to perfection, and they who have not hesitated to shed their blood for his name, in the number of whom you also have merited to be written."

Then the vision passed. But Julian and Basilissa spent the night in prayer, and singing joyful praises to the Lord.

And when his parents were dead, Julian divided his house and made it into a hospital, and all his substance he spent in relieving the necessities of the sick and suffering. He ruled over the portion devoted to the men, and Basilissa, his wife, at the head of a number of devout virgins, governed the women's department.

Many men placed themselves under the guidance of S. Julian, and assisted him in his works of charity, and laboured for the advancement of God's glory, and the salvation of their own souls. It is from the circumstance of S. Julian having been the first to establish a hospital for the sick, that he has been called by distinction Julian the Hospitaller.

After many years, Basilissa died in peace; her husband Julian survived her. In the persecution of Diocletian he was seized and subjected to cruel tortures. The governor, Marcian, ordered him to be dragged, laden with chains, and covered with wounds, about the city. As the martyr passed the school where Celsus, the son of the governor, was being instructed, the boys turned out into the street to see the soldier of Christ go by. Then suddenly the lad exclaimed, "I see angels accompanying, and extending a glorious crown to him. I believe, I believe in the God of the Christians!" And throwing away his books, he fell at the feet of Julian, and kissed his wounds. When the father heard this, he was filled with ungovernable fury, and believed that the Saint had bewitched the boy; he ordered them both to be cast into the lowest dungeon, a loathsome place, where the corrupting carcases of malefactors lay, devoured by maggots. But God filled this hideous pit with light, and transformed the stench into fragrant odours, so that the soldiers who kept the prison were filled with wonder, and believed. That same night, a priest, Antony, who lived with seven little boys, orphans committed to his care by their parents, summoned by God, came with these seven children to the prison. An angel went before them, and at his touch the gates flew open. Then Antony, the priest, baptized Celsus and the believing soldiers.

On the morrow the governor, supposing that the night in the pit had cured his son, sent him to his mother, and the boy, having related to her in order all he had seen and heard, she believed with her whole heart, and was baptized by the priest.

The governor, Marcian, ordered all these converts to death. The soldiers were executed with the sword, the seven boys were cast into the fire, the rest were tortured to death.

Relics, at Morigny, near Etampes, and in the church of S. Basilissa, at Paris.

Patron of hospitals.

In art, S. Julian and S. Basilissa are represented holding the same lily stalk, or looking on the Book of Life wherein their names are written.

S. PETER, B. OF SEBASTE.

(ABOUT 387.)

[Roman Martyrology and Greek Menaea. The life of S. Peter occurs in that of his sister, S. Macrina, written by his brother, S. Gregory of Nyssa. He is also spoken of by Socrates, Theodoret, and Philostorgius.]

The family of which S. Peter was descended was very ancient and illustrious, as we are informed by S. Gregory Nazianzen. It has become famous for its saints, for three brothers were at the same time eminently holy bishops, S. Basil, S. Gregory of Nyssa, and S. Peter of Sebaste; and their elder sister, S. Macrina, was the spiritual mother of many saints. Their father and mother, S. Basil the elder, and S. Emilia, were banished for their faith in the reign of Galerius Maximian, and fled into the deserts of Pontus; they are commemorated in the Roman martyrology on May 30th. The grandmother of S. Peter was S. Macrina the elder, who had been instructed in the way of salvation by S. Gregory the Wonder-worker. S. Peter of Sebaste, was the youngest of ten children; he lost his father whilst still an infant, and was therefore brought up by his mother and sister. When the aged Emilia was dying, she drew her two children--the only two who were present--to her, and taking their hands, she looked up to heaven, and having prayed God to protect, govern, and sanctify her absent children, she said, "To Thee, O Lord, I dedicate the first-fruits; and the tenth of my womb. This, my first-born, Macrina, I give thee as my first-fruits; and this, my tenth child, Peter, I give thee as my tithe. They are thine by law, and thine they are by my free gift. Hallow, I pray thee, this my first-born daughter, and this my tenth child, and son." And thus blessing them, she expired, says S. Gregory Nyssen. S. Emilia had founded two monasteries, one for men, the other for women; the former she put under the direction of her son Basil, the latter under that of her daughter Macrina. Peter, whose thoughts where wholly bent on cultivating the seeds of piety sown in his heart, retired into the house governed by his brother, situated on the bank of the river Iris; and when S. Basil was obliged to quit that post in 362, he left the abbacy in the hands of S. Peter, who discharged this office for several years with great prudence and virtue. Soon after S. Basil was made Bishop of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, in 370, he promoted his brother Peter to the priesthood. His brother, S. Basil, died on Jan. 1st, A.D. 379, and Eustathius, Bishop of Sebaste, an Arian and a furious persecutor of S. Basil, died soon after. S. Peter was consecrated in his room, in 380, to root out the Arian heresy in that diocese, where it had taken deep hold. In 381, he attended the general council held at Constantinople, and joined in the condemnation of the Macedonian heresy. His death happened in summer, about the year 387, and his brother, S. Gregory of Nyssa, mentions that his memory was honoured at Sebaste by an anniversary solemnity. "Peter," says Nicephorus (lib. ii. c. 44), "who sprang from the same parents as Basil, was not so well-read in profane literature as his brother, but he was not his inferior in the splendour of his virtue."

S. FILLAN, AB.

(8TH CENT.)

[Scottish and Irish Martyrologies. Life in the Aberdeen Breviary.]

S. Fillan, whose name is famous in ancient Scottish and Irish Calendars, was the son of Feriach, a noble, and his saintly wife Kentigerna, daughter of Cualann, king of Leinster. His father ordered him to be thrown into the lake, near his castle, and drowned, when he was shown to him, for he was somewhat unshapely. But, by the ministry of the angels, at the prayer of his mother, he floated ashore. S. Fillan was given by Bishop Ibar to the abbot Munna, to be educated. As he wrote at night in his cell, he held up his left hand, and it shone so brilliantly that he was able to write with the right hand by the light shed by the left hand.

When the abbot Munna died (A.D. 635), S. Fillan was elected to succeed him as head of the monastery of Kilmund in Argyleshire. After some years, he resigned his charge, and retired to his uncle Congan, brother to his mother, in a place called Siracht, a mountainous part of Glendarshy, in Fifeshire, where, with the assistance of seven others, he built a church. He was buried at Straphilline, and his relics were long preserved there with honour. The Scottish historians attribute to his intercession a memorable victory obtained by King Robert Bruce, in 1314, over the English at Bannockburn. His pastoral staff and bell still exist.

S. ADRIAN, AB. OF CANTERBURY.

(A.D. 709.)

[Anglican and some of the German Martyrologies. Life in Bede, Eccles. Hist., lib. iv., c. 1, 2; lib. v. c. 20.]

"Deusdedit," says the Venerable Bede, "the sixth Bishop of the church of Canterbury, died on the 14th July, 665. The see then became vacant for some considerable time, until the priest Wighard, a man skilled in ecclesiastical discipline, of the English race, was sent to Rome by King Egbert (of Kent), and Oswy, King of the Northumbrians, with a request that he might be ordained Bishop of the Church of England; sending at the same time presents to the Apostolic Pope, and many vessels of gold and silver. Arriving at Rome, where Vitalian presided at that time over the Apostolic see, and having made known to the aforesaid Pope the occasion of his journey, he was not long after snatched away, with almost all his companions that went with him, by a pestilence which happened at that time.

"But the Apostolic Pope, having consulted about that affair, made diligent inquiry for some one to send to the Archbishop of the English Churches. There was then in the Niridian monastery, which is not far from the city of Naples, an abbot called Adrian, by nation an African, well versed in holy writ, experienced in monastic and ecclesiastical discipline, and excellently skilled in both Greek and Latin. The Pope, sending for him, commanded him to accept the bishopric, and repair to Britain; he answered that he was unworthy of so great a dignity, but said he would name another, whose learning and age were fitter for the ecclesiastical office. And having proposed to the Pope a certain monk, belonging to a neighbouring monastery of virgins, whose name was Andrew, he was by all that knew him, judged worthy of a bishopric; but bodily infirmity prevented his being advanced to the episcopal office. Then again Adrian was pressed to accept the bishopric, but he desired a respite for a time, to see whether he could find another fit to be ordained bishop.

"There was at that time, in Rome, a monk called Theodore, well-known to Adrian, born at Tarsus, in Cilicia, a man well instructed in worldly and divine literature, as also in Greek and Latin; of known probity of life, and venerable for age, being sixty-six years old. Adrian offered him to the Pope to be ordained bishop, and prevailed; but upon these conditions, that he should conduct him into Britain, because he had already travelled through France twice upon several occasions, and was, therefore, better acquainted with the way, and was, moreover, sufficiently provided with men of his own; as also that, being his fellow labourer in doctrine, he might take special care that Theodore should not, according to the custom of the Greeks, introduce anything contrary to the true faith into the Church where he presided. Theodore, being ordained sub-deacon, waited four months for his hair to grow, that it might be shorn into the shape of a crown; for he had before the tonsure of S. Paul[37] the Apostle, after the manner of the Easterns. He was ordained by Pope Vitalian, in the year of the Lord 668, on Sunday, the 26th of March, and on the 27th of May was sent with Adrian into Britain.

"They proceeded by sea to Marseilles, and thence by land to Arles, and having delivered to John, Archbishop of that city, Pope Vitalian's letters of recommendation, were by him detained, till Ebroin, the king's mayor of the palace, sent them a pass to go where they pleased. Having received the same, Theodore repaired to Agilbert, Bishop of Paris, and was by him kindly received, and long entertained. But Adrian went first to Emme, and then to Faro, Bishops of Sens and Meaux, and lived with them a considerable time; for the hard winter had obliged them to rest wherever they could. King Egbert, being informed by messengers, that the bishop they had asked of the Roman prelate was in the kingdom of France, sent thither his praefect, Redford, to conduct him; who, being arrived there, with Ebroin's leave, conveyed him to the port of Quentavic (S. Quentin); where, being indisposed, he made some stay, and as soon as he began to recover, sailed over into Britain. But Ebroin detained Adrian, suspecting that he went on some message from the Emperor to the kings of Britain, to the prejudice of the kingdom, of which he at that time took especial care; however, when he found that he really had no such commission, he discharged him, and permitted him to follow Theodore.

"As soon as he came, he received from him the monastery of S. Peter the Apostle, where the Archbishops of Canterbury are usually buried; for at his departure, the Apostolic Lord had ordered that Theodore should provide for him in his diocese, and give him a suitable place to live in with his followers.

"Theodore arrived in his church the second year after his consecration, on Sunday, May 27th. Soon after, he visited all the island, wherever the tribes of the Angles inhabited; and everywhere attended and assisted by Adrian, he taught the right rule of life, and the canonical custom of celebrating Easter. This was the first Archbishop whom all the English Church obeyed. And forasmuch as both of them were well read in both sacred and secular literature, they gathered a crowd of disciples, and there flowed from them daily rivers of knowledge to water the hearts of their hearers; and, together with the books of Holy Writ, they also taught them the arts of ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy, and arithmetic. A testimony of which is, that there are still living at this day some of their scholars, who are as well versed in the Greek and Latin tongues as in their own, in which they were born. Nor were there ever happier times since the English came into Britain; for their kings, being brave men and good Christians, were a terror to all barbarous nations, and the minds of all men were bent upon the joys of the heavenly kingdom of which they had just heard; and all who desired to be instructed in sacred reading had masters at hand to teach them."

S. Adrian died A.D. 709, after having spent thirty-nine years in Britain. His tomb was famous for miracles wrought at it.

S. BRITHWALD, ABP. OF CANTERBURY.

(A.D. 731.)

[Bede, lib. v., c. 8, 23. William of Malmesbury: De Gest. Pontificum Anglorum; Roger of Hoveden; Matthew of Westminster, &c. He is called also Bretwald and Berthwald.]

Bede says that after the death of S. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 690, "Berthwald succeeded, being abbot of the monastery of Reculver, which lies on the north side of the mouth of the river Inlade. He was a man learned in the Scriptures, and well instructed in ecclesiastical and monastic discipline, yet not to be compared with his predecessor. He was chosen Bishop in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 692, on the first day of July, Withred and Suebhard being kings of Kent; he was consecrated the next year, on Sunday, the 29th June, by Godwin, Metropolitan Bishop of France, and was enthroned on Sunday, April 31st."

"In the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 731, Archbishop Berthwald died of old age, on the 9th of January, having held his see thirty-seven years six months and fourteen days."

[Illustration: S. Genoveva, Jan. 3, p. 46.]

FOOTNOTES:

[37] This tonsure consisted in shaving the whole head.

January 10.

S. NICANOR, _M._, A.D. 76. SS. THECLA, _V., and_ JUSTINA, _Confessors in Sicily, 3rd cent._ S. MARCIAN, _P. C., at Constantinople, circ._ A.D. 476. S. DOMITIAN, _B. C., in Armenia, circ._ A.D. 600. S. AGATHO, _Pope of Rome_, A.D. 682. S. SETHRIDA, _V., Abbess of Brie, in France, 7th cent._ S. WILLIAM, _Ab. and Abp. of Bourges_, A.D. 1209. S. GONSALVO, _P. C., Portugal_, A.D. 1259. B. CHRISTIANA, or ORINGA, _V., in Etruria_, A.D. 1310.

S. NICANOR, M.

(A.D. 76.)

[Roman Martyrology. Commemorated by the Greeks on July 28th and December 28th.]

Saint Nicanor, one of the first seven deacons appointed by the Apostles, was a native of Cyprus, to which he returned, that he might preach the Gospel on the dispersion of the Apostles. He was variously tortured and then executed, in the reign of Vespasian, but where is not known.

SS. THECLA, V., AND JUSTINA.

(3RD CENT.)

[Authority for the lives of these Saints: the lections in the proper offices for this day in the church of Lentini, in Sicily.]

S. Thecla was a noble virgin of Lentini, and daughter of S. Isidore. She buried the bodies of the martyrs with loving reverence. For three years she suffered from paralysis, and could not leave her bed, but was healed by the prayers of SS. Alphius, Philadelphus, and Cyrinus. When they were in prison for the faith, she visited them and ministered to their necessities, and when they had been slain and cast into a well, she extracted the bodies and buried them. Tertullus, the governor, hearing of this, sent for her, but his sudden death saved her from injury. During the persecution, she concealed Agatho, Bishop of Lipari, in one of her farms; and when the persecution was over, she and her friend Justina spent their fortunes in works of mercy.

S. MARCIAN, P.

(ABOUT 476.)

[Honoured in the Greek Menaea and Roman Martyrology on the same day. His life, by an anonymous writer, is given by Simeon Metaphrastes.]

S. Marcian was born at Constantinople; he belonged to a noble Roman family, related to that of the Emperor Theodosius. From his childhood he served God in watching, fasting, and prayer. His great compassion for the necessities of the poor made it impossible for him to refuse relief, when he had anything to give away.

In the reign of the Emperor Marcian, Anatolius, the Archbishop, ordained him priest. His love for the poor manifested itself, not merely in abundant almsgiving, but also in his making their instruction in the truth his favourite pursuit. The severity of his morals was made a handle by those who feared the example of his virtue, as a tacit rebuke of their sloth and avarice, to fasten on him a suspicion of Novatianism; but his meekness and silence triumphed over this, and other slanders.

The patriarch Gennadius conferred on him the dignity of treasurer of the church of Constantinople. S. Marcian built, or repaired, in a stately manner a great number of churches. The following incident is related of the dedication of the church of S. Anastasia, for which he had obtained a site, and which he had built in spite of numerous impediments. On the day that the church was to be consecrated, he was on his way to attend the ceremony, when he was accosted in the street by a very poor man, whose rags scarce held together, and who implored him, for the love of God, to give him an alms. S. Marcian felt in his bosom, but found he had no money there. The pauper would take no refusal, and the compassionate heart of the treasurer was melted at the aspect of his tatters and emaciation. Quickly he slipped off the tunic he wore under his sacerdotal vestments, handed it to the beggar, and then hurried on to the new church, drawing his alb and chasuble about him, to conceal the deficiency of a nether garment. The church was crowded, the Emperor Leo and the Empress, the senate, and almost the whole city were present. Marcian was bidden celebrate the Holy Sacrifice before all, in the new church he had built. So, full of shame, he began, hoping that the folds of his chasuble would conceal the absence of a tunic. But all saw him as though clothed beneath his sacerdotal vestments with a garment as of pure gold, which flashed as he moved. The patriarch Gennadius was offended, and rebuked him when the liturgy was over, for having worn a private garment, more splendid than his ecclesiastical vesture, and worthy only of an emperor. Marcian fell at his feet, and denied that he had worn any such raiment. Then Gennadius, wroth at his having spoken falsely, as he thought, for he supposed his eyes could not have been deceived, caught him by the vesture, and drew it aside, and behold! Marcian was bare of all other garments save his sacerdotal apparel.

S. Marcian built also the church of S. Irene, another of S. Isidore, and a baptistery of magnificent appearance, surrounded with five porches, like that at Jerusalem. "But this one," says the chronicler, "was greater than that by the sheep market, for here greater miracles were wrought than there. To that, an angel descended on one day in the year, and healed but one at a time; at this, whenever a servant of the Lord ministers, Christ himself is present. The healing, moreover, is not but once a year, but daily, and not of bodies only, but of souls as well."

S. Marcian's great compassion extended to women of bad character, and despising the slander and gossip which he might occasion, by visiting them in their houses, setting only before his eyes the blessedness of plucking these brands from the burning, he often sought them out in haunts of crime; and if they had taken up evil courses through poverty only, he found for them honest occupations, and by his exhortations and tears, and his overflowing charity, he convinced and persuaded many of these unhappy women, so that they came openly and did penance, and some he sent on pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and some went into solitude, and recompensed for the past by self-mortification in the desert.

S. DOMITIAN, B. C.

(ABOUT 600.)

[Greek Menaea and Roman Martyrology. His life in the Menaea, and fuller by Theophylact Simocatta. He is mentioned also by Evagrius, his contemporary. A letter to him from S. Gregory the Pope, is extant, praising his learning, prudence and zeal.]

S. Domitian was the son of pious parents, Theodore and Eudoxia by name. He was an intimate friend, if not, as Evagrius says, "a kinsman of the Emperor Maurice." He was married for a few years, but his wife dying, he devoted himself to the services of the Church, and was consecrated Bishop of Melitene, in Armenia, at the age of thirty.

On the murder of Hormisdas, the Persian King, his son Chosroës II., succeeded him (592), but the General Varam having revolted against him, and being deserted by many of his soldiers, Chosroës fled with his wife, and two newly-born children, to Circesium. Thence he sent an embassy to the Emperor Maurice, desiring peace; for at that time war was being waged between the Persians and the Roman emperors. At the persuasion of S. Domitian, Maurice admitted his suit, and treated Chosroës as his guest, instead of as an exile, welcomed him with royal gifts, and placed the whole of his body-guards, and the entire Roman army, at his disposal. Moreover, by way of still greater distinction, he sent Domitian, Bishop of Melitene, to attend him. The Roman army defeated Varam, and Chosroës was reinstated on the throne of Persia.

Domitian was liberally recompensed for his share in this transaction, but he kept nothing for himself. Every gift made him, he offered to the Church, or to the poor; restoring churches, and supporting hospitals. He died at Constantinople, whither he had been summoned by the Emperor.

S. AGATHO, POPE.

(ABOUT 682.)

[His life by Anastasius, the librarian. Commemorated by the Greeks on Feb. 21st.]

Agatho, a Sicilian by birth, was remarkable for his charity and gentleness. Having been several years treasurer of the Church of Rome, he succeeded Domnus in the Pontificate, in 679. He was represented by three legates in the sixth general council, the third of Constantinople, in 680, against the Monothelite heresy, which he confuted in a learned letter to the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, appealing to the constant tradition of the Apostolic Church of Rome, "acknowledged," says he, "by the whole Catholic Church to be the mother and mistress of all the churches, and to derive her superior authority from S. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, to whom Christ committed his whole flock, with a promise that his faith should never fail."

On the 25th day of February, the Council decided against Macarius, author of the Monothelite heresy, and solemnly was the episcopal stole (orarium) removed from his shoulders, and from those of Basil, Bishop of Crete, who followed his opinion, and their thrones were cast out of the council hall, in token that they were removed from their office, and ejected from the communion of the Church. This Pope restored S. Wilfrid to the see of York, from which he had been ejected by the Bishops and King of Northumbria, with the consent of S. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury.

S. SETHRIDA, V., ABSS.

(7TH CENT.)

[Anglican Martyrologies, Saussaye. Authority:--Bede, Eccles. Hist., lib. iii. c. 8.]

Bede says that Sethrida was a daughter of the wife of Anna, King of the East Angles, and that she served God in the monastery of Brie, "for at that time, but few monasteries being built in the country of the Angles, many were wont, for the sake of the monastic conversation, to repair to the monasteries of the Franks or Gauls; and they also sent their daughters there to be instructed, and delivered to their heavenly bridegroom, especially in the monasteries of Brie, Chelles, and Andelys."

S. WILLIAM, AB. AND ABP. OF BOURGES.

(A.D. 1209.)

[Gallican Martyrologies. His life, written by a contemporary, was published, with the style altered and shortened, by Surius; the same is re-published by the Bollandists, together with a second life, written by another contemporary, from a MS. at Antwerp. Another life by a Canon of Bourges, date uncertain, was published by Labbe, Bibl. nova II., p. 379, 386.]

On the death of Henry de Sully, Archbishop of Bourges, the clergy of that church, unable to agree upon a successor, requested Eudo, Bishop of Paris, to nominate. For this purpose, the bishop came to Beauvais, but found it no easy matter to decide, without causing an eruption of party feeling. In his desire to choose a good man, and one who would commend himself to all, in consultation with two friends, he resolved on committing the matter to God. Accordingly, all the most advisable names were written on slips of parchment, and were sealed, and then deposited beneath the corporal on the altar. The Bishop celebrated very early, with great devotion, and earnestly besought God to indicate him whom he had chosen. When mass was over, he put his hand beneath the corporal, and drew forth one of the billets. He broke the seal in the presence of his two friends, and saw that the name of William, abbot of Challis, was written on the parchment.

No one else was privy to this appeal. As he left the church, the clergy whom he had convened to elect cried out "that they desired William of Challis as their bishop," and on him the majority of votes fell. Then the bishopric was offered to William, but he recoiled from accepting it, with the greatest dismay, for he was a man of retiring habits and of singular humility. However, on an order coming to him from the superior of the society, the abbot of Citeaux, and also from the papal legate, he was unable to refuse; and he was consecrated in the year 1200. After the ceremony was over, he laid aside the vestments in which he had received his ordination, and which were of little value, in a press, till his dying day.

In his new dignity he omitted nothing of the severity of his cloister life, disciplining himself more strictly than before, because his business was calculated to distract his thoughts, and his high position was dangerous to humility.

He was gentle and loving to penitent sinners; and towards the incorrigible he was stern, but he refused to have recourse to the civil power against them; he had a horror of shedding blood, so that he looked with the utmost repugnance upon the violence and warlike customs of his time. When the crusade against the Albigenses was resolved upon, William of Beauvais resolved on accompanying the expedition. Perhaps his earnestness would move the heretics to repentance, and his horror of bloodshed might serve as a check upon the crusaders. The Albigensian heresy, which was a revival of Paulicianism, ate as a canker into the Church of France. It was not even a form of Christianity, but was a heathen philosophical sect which had adopted a few Christian tenets.

The history of the sect was as follows:--Manes, a Persian heathen, flourished in the middle of the third century, dying about 277, the founder of a new religion, after having been, like Simon Magus, a temporary and nominal convert to the Gospel. He was not an inventor of his religion, but merely a blender of the earlier Gnostic heresies with the Persian doctrines of Zoroaster, added to a somewhat larger element of Christianity than the Gnostics had chosen to accept. The Paulicians were a sect which took shape about 660, out of Manichaeism, or the religion of Manes. They were cruelly persecuted by the Byzantine Emperors, during two whole centuries, and spread to the West by degrees; one stream emigrated to Bohemia, where it became the parent of Hussitism; the other to the south of France, where it was called Albigensianism.

The fundamental dogma of this new Manichaeism was a dualism of good and evil principles or gods, equally matched. The evil was the origin of the visible creation, the world and men's bodies; the good God was the creator of the invisible world and men's souls. The opposition of matter and spirit constituted the basis of their moral systems. These systems were diverse; some, regarding everything natural as evil, abstained from meat, from marriage, and from all employments; whilst others, regarding the soul as so distinct from the body as to be incapable of being soiled by any of its actions, gave themselves up to the grossest licentiousness.

The moral condition of Provence, where Albigensianism held sway, was like Sodom and Gomorrah, as may be seen by the poetry of the troubadours; so that God's wrath could not but fall on a land so polluted. The licentiousness which this creed encouraged, helped to make it spread, and the Christianity of the whole of the south of France was imperilled. At the head of these heretics, the Count of Toulouse invaded the lands of the King of Aragon, devastated them, robbed the churches, burnt the monasteries, and ill-treated the clergy, "and slaughtered the Christians of either sex, and every age, without mercy," says Matthew Paris. "But this being at length made known, their heretical aggression was put down by the faithful Christians, who, at the command of Pope Gregory, had come as crusaders from various parts of the West, for the defence of the Christian faith."

William of Beauvais was not, however, destined to play a part in that sanguinary war. He was called to his rest in January, 1209. Drawing near his end, he received first extreme unction, and then, as the Blessed Sacrament was brought to him, he struggled up in his bed, and falling on his knees, with many tears, and hands outspread in the shape of a cross, he adored the presence of his Saviour. The night following, he began as usual to recite the Office of Nocturns, but was unable to pronounce more than the first two words, and sign himself with the cross. Then he was laid, at his desire, on ashes, and the vestments in which he had been consecrated bishop were produced, that he might be laid dressed in them in his grave. His body was buried in the Cathedral of Bourges, but was burnt, and the ashes scattered to the winds, by the Calvinists, on the occasion of their plundering the Cathedral in 1562.

Patron of Bourges, and of the ancient University of Paris.

In art, he is represented holding a monstrance, or in adoration before one, to represent his great devotion towards the Blessed Sacrament. He is also represented with tears on his cheeks, for he is said to have wept whenever he was told of some scandal of his diocese, or wrong done to the poor. It may be noted, as a coincidence, that his festival was the day of Archbishop William Laud's martyrdom in 1644.

S. GONSALVO, P. C.

(ABOUT 1259.)

[His life was compiled in Portuguese, by Didacus de Rosario, of the order of Friar Preachers, from scattered notices and confused accounts.]

S. Gonsalvus or Gonsalvo, was born of noble parents, at the little village of Vizzella, in the diocese of Braga, in Portugal. Many little incidents are related of his childhood, as how, when an infant at the font, he stretched out his little hands to the crucifix; how his nurse was wont to take him with her to church, and watch his little eyes fixed intently upon the figure of Christ crucified, on the rood screen; how, when nothing else would still his cries, the child was taken to church, and there was content looking at the statues and pictures of the Saints.

When he grew to man's estate, he was ordained priest, and was appointed rector of the church of S. Payo, near his father's estates. Here he lived as a father to the poor, and was regular in the fulfilment of his duties as parish priest. After a while the desire came upon him to visit the Holy Land, and he left his nephew, a priest, who had been trained in his house, and in whose principles he had confidence, to take charge of the parish during his absence. He then started on his pilgrimage, and was absent for fourteen years. In the meantime, his nephew, relieved of the constraint of his uncle's presence, abandoned himself to the indulgence of his ruling passion, a love of field sports. He filled the parsonage house with dogs and hawks, and spent his time in hunting and revelry. The poor were forgotten, and the church was neglected. At length, Gonsalvo not returning, the nephew asked the Bishop to institute him to the living, pretending that he had received authentic information of the death of his uncle.

One day Gonsalvo, ragged, sunburnt, with grizzled locks and foot-sore, returned to his parsonage; but the dogs, at the sight of a mendicant, began to bark furiously, and when he attempted to pass them, bit him and tore his rags, so that he was compelled to retire. The parish priest hearing the noise, looked from his window, and seeing a poor man in tatters defending himself against the dogs, sent a servant to call them off, and tell the poor man that the owner of the house objected to beggars.

Gonsalvo, filled with indignation against his nephew for the manner in which he had betrayed his trust, rushed into the house, passed the dogs which the servant restrained, and appeared in the door of the dining apartment, as the nephew was seating himself to an abundant and sumptuous meal.

Then the old pilgrim's wrath flamed forth, and he cried, "Was it for this that thy uncle left his parish and committed the care of souls into thy hands? A wolf now guards the sheep and devours them!"

The nephew, exasperated at the words of reproach, and angry at the intrusion, caught up a stick, and running upon the old man, drove him with many blows from the house, refusing to listen to him, and believe him, when he declared his name.

Then Gonsalvo, full of grief, retired to a wild spot near Amarante, where was an old shed, beside the river Tamego. Amarante was once a small town; at this time it had fallen into complete ruin, and was deserted. Here Gonsalvo erected a little oratory in honour of the Blessed Virgin, and laboured to instruct the peasantry of the neighbourhood in Christian doctrine, and to stir up in their hearts the love of God. But he was not satisfied that he was serving his Master in the way which He willed. He therefore prayed most earnestly to be guided aright, and to have the will of God made clear to him. After long fasting, one day, as he lay prostrate in supplication before the altar, Our Lady appeared to him and said, "Rise, Gonsalvo, and enter that religious order in which thou shalt hear the Angelic Salutation open and close the offices of prayer."

Then Gonsalvo took his staff and wandered from city to city, and from monastery to monastery, listening to the choir offices, but ever being disappointed, for they closed with _Benedicamus Domino_, and not with the _Ave Maria_. And when he came to Vinerana, where were four religious houses, whereof one was Dominican, and another Franciscan, by chance he sought shelter in the former. Then when the bells began to chime for vespers, he went to the church, and heard the friars begin their office with _Ave Maria_. With beating heart he waited for the conclusion of vespers, and heard them close with the Angelic Salutation. Then he knew that he had found the place of his rest; and he asked to be admitted into the order, and was gladly received. But after awhile he desired to go back to his poor peasants at Amarante; therefore he asked leave of the superior, and it was accorded him. So he returned to his cell and oratory, and there preached to the people the word of God.

Now it happened that at Amarante there was a ford of the Tamego, which was much used, as it lay in the direct route from Braga to Lamego and the south. It was, however, dangerous, and a great number of lives were lost whilst Gonsalvo lived at Amarante. He considered much the necessity there was that a bridge should be built, how many lives it would be the means of saving, and what a great convenience it would prove to travellers. He accordingly resolved on building one, and he went round the country begging for his bridge. By many his project was regarded as visionary, and he would himself have despaired of accomplishing his undertaking, had he not been upheld by his strong confidence in the goodness of God. This confidence was, moreover, sustained by signs and wonders, showing him that God approved his undertaking. If we may believe the life of him, written by De Rosario, on one occasion he begged of a nobleman, who, as a rude joke, and to get rid of the beggar, scribbled a couple of lines on a scrap of paper, and bade him take it to his wife, who would give him something. The Saint walked to the nobleman's castle, and was exhausted with fatigue when he reached it and presented the note. The lady looked at it, and saw written therein, "The bearer is a poor fool who wishes to build a bridge. Let him have the weight of this paper in cash." She laughed, and showed the message to Gonsalvo, telling him that her husband had been making sport of him. "Be it so," said the priest, "yet give me the weight of that note in money." She cast the paper into one scale, and into the other she put silver; then, to her amazement, the note weighed a large sum of money. Thus God compensated his servant for his labour, and punished the nobleman for his bitter jest.

Little by little the money was begged, and at length the poor priest was able to set masons to work, and to erect the desired bridge over the Tamego.

S. Gonsalvo died, and was buried at Amarante, of which place he is patron.

(Gonsalvus, in Portuguese, Gonçalo, Gonsallo, or Gonsalvo.)

In art, he is represented with a bridge in his hand.

B. ORINGA, OR CHRISTIANA, V.

(A.D. 1310.)

[Her life, from an ancient MS., in the Convent of S. Clara, at Florence, was published by Silvanus Razzi, and reprinted in the Acta Sanctorum.]

The Blessed Oringa was born at Sancta Croce, on the Arno, in the year 1237, of poor parents, who died whilst she was young. She kept the cattle on the farm occupied by her two brothers. The cows were taken by her into the woods to pasture, and they became so docile that they obeyed her voice in all things. When she grew to a marriageable age, her brothers determined that she should become the wife of a small farmer in the parish; but she ran away, and escaping across the river, made her way to Lucca. The way was long, and night falling, the young girl lost the road, and wandered in a forest. At the same time her fancy conjured up horrible forms to frighten her. She would had died of terror, but for the companionship of a little hare which played about her skirts, as tamely as if it had been a favourite kitten, and rested on her lap all night, when she cast herself down in weariness. Next morning, the hare gambolled before her, and led her into the road, after which it ran away. At Lucca she entered the service of a pious family. As she was annoyed on account of her beauty, she stained her skin with walnut juice. Having gone on a pilgrimage to Mount Gargano, on which the archangel Michael had once appeared, for she held the angels in great reverence; on her return, some men with whom she fell in on the road, towards dusk, misled her with evil purpose; but S. Michael himself flashing out of the darkness at her side, protected her, and led her in the right road. Later in life she visited Rome, and took service in the house of a pious widow, named Margaret, who treated her as a daughter rather than as a domestic. At Rome she was called Christiana, instead of her baptismal name of Oringa. She occasionally fell into ecstasies as she prayed, and saw into futurity. When aged seventy she was struck with paralysis, in which she lay three years. As she died, her face is said to have shone with a celestial light.

[Illustration: Decoration]

January 11.

S. BALTHAZAR, _K., one of the Magi, circ._ A.D. 54. S. HYGINUS, _Pope_, A.D. 156. S. LEUCIUS, _B. of Brindisi, in Italy_. S. PALAEMON, _H., 4th cent._ S. THEODOSIUS, _of Antioch, circ._ A.D. 412. S. THEODOSIUS THE COENOBIARCH, A.D. 529. S. VITALIS, _Monk of Gaza, 7th cent._ S. SALVIUS, _B. of Amiens, circ._ A.D. 615. S. EGWIN, _B. of Worcester, circ._ A.D. 720. S. PAULINUS, _Patr. of Aquileia_, A.D. 803. (See Jan. 28.)

S. BALTHAZAR, K.

(ABOUT 54.)

[Cologne Breviary. In some Martyrologies S. Gaspar is commemorated on this day, and S. Balthazar on the 6th Jan.; but the Cologne use is to commemorate S. Melchior on the 1st, S. Gaspar on the 6th, and S. Balthazar on the 11th January, as the 1st Jan. is the Circumcision, and the 6th is the Epiphany; at Cologne this day is kept, with special services, as the Feast of the Three Kings; Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar being hereon commemorated together.]

On this day S. Balthazar, one of the Magi, King and Bishop, having received consecration from the hands of the Apostle S. Thomas, after celebrating the Holy Sacrifice, fell asleep. According to some authorities, the Three Kings met in the royal church of the city Sewe, in the East; when the eldest, Melchior, being one hundred and sixteen years old, consecrated the venerable mysteries on Jan. 1st, the Octave of the Nativity, and then died. On the feast of the Epiphany, Gaspar, aged one hundred and twelve, did the same; and on the 11th January, Balthazar, aged one hundred and nine, offered the adorable sacrifice, gave up the ghost, and was laid in the same sepulchre with the two others. See what has been said on the subject of the Three Kings in the account of the Epiphany.

S. HYGINUS, POPE.

(156.)

Of this Pope, who succeeded S. Telesphorus, little is known. Eusebius informs us that he sat four years in the chair of S. Peter. He brought the church in Rome into more complete organization than heretofore, taking advantage of the repose after persecution, enjoyed under the mild Emperor Antoninus Pius. He is said to have been a Greek, and to have been educated in philosophy. In his reign the heretics Cerdo and Valentine came to Rome.

S. PALAEMON, H.

(4TH CENT.)

[From the authentic life of S. Pachomius, of whom S. Palaemon was the master.]

S. Palaemon was an aged hermit in the deserts of Upper Egypt, when Pachomius, released from military service, and desiring to flee the world, came to him and desired to become his pupil. The old anchorite refused to receive him, because his manner of life was too severe for a youth. "I eat nothing but bread and salt," said he; "I never taste wine, and I watch half the night." Then, answered Pachomius, "I believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, who will give me strength and patience to assist thee in thy prayers to follow thy holy conversation."

Then Palaemon, beholding him with his spiritual eye, saw that he was a chosen vessel, and admitted him to be his disciple. So they lived together, serving the Lord in fasting and tears and prayer.

When the feast of Easter came, Pachomius, to honour the day of the Resurrection, prepared a dinner of herbs and oil, and set it before the master. But Palaemon, pressing his brow with his hands, exclaimed, "My Lord suffered on the Cross, and shall I taste oil?" So he refused it, and contented himself with bread and salt.

One evening, a solitary came into their cell, and asked to join them in prayer; then, filled with a spirit of presumption, he said, "If we are the true servants of God, let us say our prayers standing on live coals."

But Palaemon was wroth, and rebuked him for his pride.

However, the monk persisted, and by Satan's craft, he stood unhurt on the red-hot cinders. Then he retired to his own cell, puffed up with self-confidence. But pride goes before a fall, and shortly after he fell into fleshly lust; then, filled with shame, he crept back to the cave of Palaemon, and falling at his feet, with bitter tears, confessed his sin.

When S. Pachomius was inspired to found a monastery at Tabenna, he announced his intention to S. Palaemon. The old man accompanied his pupil, and took up his abode at Tabenna, for he loved Pachomius as his own son, and he could not bear to be separated from him. Therefore he said, "Let us make a compact together, that we part not the one from the other, till God break our union." And to this Pachomius gladly agreed. So they lived much together, till the old man died, and then his disciple buried him at Tabenna.

S. THEODOSIUS, THE COENOBIARCH, H.

(A.D. 529.)

[Greek Menaea and Roman Martyrology. The life of S. Theodosius, written by a contemporary anonymous author, supposed by Baronius, but without sufficient grounds, to be Cyril, the author of the lives of SS. Euthemius, Saba, and John the Silent. But Cave says that the life of S. Theodosius was written by Theodore, Bishop of Pera.]

Theodosius was born in the little town of Marissa, in Cappadocia, in 423. He was ordained reader, but some time after, being moved by Abraham's example, to quit his country and friends, he resolved to visit the holy places. He accordingly set out for Jerusalem, and visited the famous S. Simeon Stylites, near Antioch, on his way. S. Simeon accosted him by name, and bade him ascend his pillar, when he embraced him, and foretold several circumstances of his life, giving him advice how to act under them. Having satisfied his devotion in visiting the holy places in Jerusalem, he betook himself to the cell of Longinus, a holy man, who dwelt near the tower of David, and to him he became dear, on account of his singular virtue. A lady, named Icelia, having built a church to the honour of the Virgin Mother of God, on the high road to Bethlehem, Longinus appointed his disciple, Theodosius, to the charge of this church. But he did not retain this charge long; loving solitude, he retired to the mountains, and took up his abode in the cave, where the Wise Men were traditionally held to have reposed on their way to Bethlehem. Here he passed his time in labouring with his hands, in fasting, and in prayer. His food was coarse pulse and herbs; for thirty years he did not taste bread. Many desired to serve God under his direction: he at first determined to admit six or seven, but was soon obliged to receive a greater number, and at length came to a resolution never to reject any that presented themselves with dispositions that seemed sincere. The first lesson he taught his monks was, that the continual remembrance of death is the foundation of religious perfection. To impress the thought of death more deeply on their minds, he caused a great sepulchre to be constructed as the common burying place of his monks. When it was complete, half seriously and half in jest, he said: "The tomb is finished, which of you will be its first inmate?" Then one, Basil, a priest, knelt at his feet, and asked to be the first to celebrate the dedication of the sepulchre. Therefore S. Theodosius ordered all the offices of the dead to be recited for Basil, first for three days, then for nine, and then for forty; and at the close of the forty days he died without sickness or pain, as though going to sleep. And for forty days after his death he was seen by the abbot Theodosius in his place among the brethren, chanting the praises of God. None others saw him, but one Aetius heard his voice. Then the abbot, hearing Aetius confess this, prayed to God to open his eyes, and seeing the dead monk again in choir, he pointed him out; and then Aetius saw him, and ran, and would have embraced him, but he vanished out of his sight.

Once, as Easter approached, there was a deficiency of food in the monastery, and they had not even bread for the Holy Sacrifice. This troubled them sore, for they feared that the holy feast would come, and pass, without their being able to celebrate the divine liturgy. Therefore they prayed with one accord to God, and behold! mules laden with provisions arrived at the monastery, and amongst the provisions was bread for the sacrifice.

The lustre of the sanctity of S. Theodosius drawing great numbers to him, who desired to serve God under his direction, he resolved on building a large monastery to receive them all; but where to build it he knew not. After some consideration, he took a censer, and put charcoal and incense thereon, but no fire, and he prayed: "O God who didst of old, by many and great miracles, confirm Israel; who didst to thy servant Moses persuade by many and various marvels, to take on him the burden of ruling that people; who didst turn the water of Egypt into blood, and then re-convert it again; who didst give to Gideon an earnest of his victory in the fleece and the dew; who didst assure Hezekiah of an addition to his days, by the return of the shadow on the dial; who didst at the cry of Elias send fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice. Thou art the same Lord, unto whom this day I plead! Hear thou the prayers of the servant, and show me where I shall build a temple to Thy honour, and a habitation for thy servants and my disciples. Show, O Lord! by the kindling of these coals, where the place shall be, to Thy glory, and to the acknowledgment of many, and the confirmation of the truth." Having uttered this prayer, he walked through the land with the censer in his hand. And when he came, after much wandering, to a desert spot called Gutilla, on the shores of the Dead Sea, he turned and came home, and as he neared his cave the coals kindled, and the smoke of the incense rose towards heaven, as a sign that thence should ascend the prayers of the faithful from age to age, in the daily sacrifice. There accordingly he erected his monastery, and it was soon filled with holy monks. To this monastery were annexed several infirmaries; one for the sick monks, two for sick lay folk; one for the aged and feeble monks, and one for persons deranged. All succours, spiritual and temporal, were afforded in these hospitals, which were kept in admirable order, and were attended by the monks with alacrity and care. S. Theodosius erected also several buildings for the reception of strangers, in which he exercised an unbounded hospitality, entertaining all that came, for whose use there were, on one occasion, above a hundred tables served with provisions. The monastery itself was like a city of saints in the midst of a desert; and in it reigned regularity, silence, charity, and peace. There were four churches belonging to it, one for each of the three nations of which his community was composed, each speaking a different language, and the fourth church was for the use of the recovering lunatics. The nations into which his community was divided were the Greeks, and all those using the liturgy in the Greek tongue; the second church was used by those having divine worship in the Armenian language; and in the third church the holy praises of God were sung, and the sacrifice was offered in the language of the Bessi, that is, of the wandering nations of Arab race. "Thus by them," says the contemporary writer; "the rule of hymnody was carried out, and seven times a day was it offered to the God of all. But when it behoved them to participate in the venerable Sacrament, the law was very beautifully constituted among them, that till after the Gospel, divinely inspired, each should hear in his own church and language the divine voice; but after that they were assembled into one--the possessed alone excepted--namely, into the large church of the Greeks, as is done to this day, and there they participate together of the sanctifying gifts."

At times not set apart for public prayer and necessary rest, every monk was obliged to apply himself to some trade or manual labour. Sallust, patriarch of Jerusalem, appointed S. Sabas superior of all the hermits in Palestine, and S. Theodosius head of all the monks living in community, for which reason he obtained the title of Coenobiarch.

These two great servants of God lived in close friendship, and together strove against the heresy of Eutyches, which then devastated the Church. For the Emperor Anastasius favoured the Eutychians; he banished the patriarch of Antioch and the patriarch of Jerusalem, and introduced an heretical bishop, Severus, into the latter see, commanding the Syrians to obey and hold communion with him. Then these great ascetic saints, with those bodies of religious men whom they ruled, proved bulwarks of the faith, uncompromising defenders of the truth. Like rocks in the desert, they remained unchanged and immovable. In vain did the emperor employ persuasion, attempt bribery, and finally exile the Cenobiarch; he could not be moved, but journeyed through the land from which the bishops had been expelled, confirming the faithful, and denouncing the established heresy. At Jerusalem, having assembled the people together, he from the pulpit cried with a loud voice, "If any man receives not the four General Councils as the four Gospels, let him be anathema!" Such boldness in an old man, venerated for his sanctity, inspired with courage those whom the edicts had frightened. His discourses produced a wonderful effect on the people, and God gave a sanction to his zeal by miracles. The Emperor sent an order for his banishment, which was executed; but dying soon after, Theodosius was recalled by his successor Justin, who was a Catholic.

Our Saint survived his return eleven years. So great was his humility, that, seeing two monks at variance with each other, he threw himself at their feet, and would not rise till they were reconciled. Once, having excommunicated one of his monks for some offence, the man defiantly excommunicated Theodosius, and he meekly accepted the sentence, and acted as one cut off from the society of the faithful and participation in the Sacraments, till the guilty monk, confounded and repentant, removed the ban. During the last year of his life he was afflicted with a painful disease, which reduced him to a shadow. It was noticed by those who nursed him, that, even in his sleep, his lips murmured the familiar words of prayer. Perceiving the hour of his dissolution draw nigh, he gave his last exhortations to his disciples, and foretold many things which came to pass after his death; and then fell asleep in Christ, on the 11th Jan., 529. Peter, patriarch of Jerusalem, and the whole country, assisted at his interment. He was buried in the first cell the cave of the Magi.

S. VITALIS, MONK.

(BEGINNING OF 7TH CENT.)

[Greek Menaea. His history occurs as an episode in the life of S. John the Almsgiver, patriarch of Alexandria, by Leontius, Bishop of Naplous in Cyprus, from the relation of the Acts of S. John, by his clergy. This life was commended in the seventh General Council, and is perfectly authentic.]

The story of Vitalis, or Vitali, monk of Gaza, is brought in by the Bishop of Naplous, in his life of S. John the Almsgiver, almost accidentally, to illustrate the long suffering and charity of S. John, that thinketh not evil. But I know not, in all the glorious histories of the blessed ones, one story so deeply touching as that of the little known, and soon forgotten, monk of Gaza.

Where he was born we know not; of what parents he was born we are ignorant; but we do know that his was a heart full, to overflowing, with the divine charity of Him who came to seek and to save those that were lost.

Whilst John the Almsgiver was patriarch of Alexandria, there arrived in that city, an old man of sixty, or thereabouts, in monk's garb. In his cell he had thought over the crimes of that pleasure-loving city, and having read in the Gospel the story of the woman taken in adultery, in the old monk's heart kindled a sudden fire of zeal, which drove him to Alexandria, that he might save some of those poor women who sold themselves. Arrived in the city, he obtained the names of all the harlots, and then hired himself as a day labourer. Every evening he took his wage, and with it went to one of the unfortunate women, and supped with her, and gave her the rest, and said, "I pay thee this, that thou mayest spend one night without sin." Then he retired into a corner of the room, where she slept, and passed the night in reciting psalms, and praying with many tears for the woman present; and he rejoiced that, by his toil of the day, he had saved her from evil on that one night.

And thus he visited all the harlots in Alexandria, and from each, as he went forth in the morning, he took a solemn promise that she would reveal to none what had taken place, so long as he was alive.

Now, considerable scandal arose, and Vitalis was loudly condemned. One said to him, "Monk, take to thyself a wife, and lay aside thy religious garb, that the name of God be not blasphemed through thee." But Vitalis answered, "I will not take to myself a wife, nor will I change my habit. He that will be scandalized, let him be scandalized. What hast thou to do with me? Hath God constituted you to be my judges? Go to, look to yourselves, ye have not to answer for me. There is one Judge and one holy day of judgment, wherein every man shall give an account of his own works."

One of the Defenders of the Church (this was the name of an officer who saw to the order and morals of the clergy and monks,) came to the patriarch John, and told him what he had heard of the abbot Vitalis. But the patriarch closed his ears, and rebuked the accuser, saying, "Remember what were the words of Constantine of pious memory; he said that the crimes of priests ought not to be divulged, and that if he detected a priest or a monk in wrong-doing, he would draw his purple imperial robe over him, so that none might be scandalized. And when quarrelsome individuals wrote accusations against certain prelates, he formed them into a packet, and cast them into the fire."[38]

But Vitalis, though he bore without a murmur the shame, the hard speeches, and false accusations that fell to his share, was deeply sensitive for the souls of others, lest through him they should be wounded. Yet he could not relinquish his mission;--the love of God constrained him thereto, and many a poor woman, moved by the tears and prayers of the holy man, deserted her evil courses, and married and settled into ways of steadiness; and many, filled with bitter compunction, fled from that city of temptation, to expiate their offences in the desert. Seeing how great a blessing attended his work, Vitalis persevered in spite of obloquy; but he prayed to God to reveal the truth after his death, that the reproach might be wiped off the monastic garb he wore; but he would not suffer the truth to be known whilst he lived, or the houses of ill-fame would be closed against him, and the prosecution of his mission would be hindered.

One morning, very early, as he left a harlot's door, a man came in, and seeing a monk issue forth, he struck him over the head, exclaiming, "How long, rascal, do you outrage Christ by not mending your wicked ways?"

Then said Vitalis, "Believe me, friend, thou shalt receive from me, a humble monk, such a stroke that all Alexandria shall ring with it." So saying, he went his way to the little chamber where he lodged, by the church of S. Metras, near the Gate of the Sun.

What followed is not very clear. But if we put aside some absurd fable which has attached itself to the story, we shall find that it was something like this:--Probably from the unfortunate woman, from whom Vitalis had gone forth, and to whom the man who had smitten him entered, that man heard the truth; then, full of contrition, he rushed forth and proclaimed abroad how he had wronged Vitalis, and how mistaken was the popular opinion concerning him. So a crowd collected, and rolled in the direction of the cell of Vitalis, by the Gate of the Sun. The man foremost of all cried, "Pardon me my violence, Vitalis, thou man of God!" And so the mob broke into the little hovel where he dwelt. Then they saw the despised monk kneeling upright, with his hands clasped, dead and rigid; and before him lay a sheet of paper, whereon were written the words of the Apostle, 1 Cor. iv. 5, "Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart."

Then, when this was noised abroad, almost the whole city came together, and the patriarch John arrived, and all the clergy, and they took up the body of Vitalis. Thereupon, all those women who had been converted by him, and were married, came forth, bearing lamps and candles, and went before him, beating their breasts and crying, "We have lost our deliverer and instructor!" And they told how, by his urgent prayers and burning zeal for their souls, he had rescued them from a life of misery. But he who had smitten the old monk his death-blow, struck with compunction, renounced his vicious ways, and entered the monastery at Gaza, and lived and died in the cell once occupied by Vitalis. Thus did Vitalis deal him such a blow that all Alexandria rang with it.

S. SALVIUS, OF AMIENS, B. C.

(ABOUT 615.)

[Roman Martyrology. There are three bishops, Saints, of this name, one Bishop of Albi, one Bishop of Angoulême, and this one, Bishop of Amiens; they are often confounded by writers.]

S. Salvius lived as a monk for many years, in what monastery is not known. He was afterwards elected abbot. Being chosen Bishop of Amiens, he ruled the diocese with prudence, but little or nothing is known of his acts. As he died in an ecstasy, a brilliant light is said to have illuminated his cell, and praying with extended arms, he surrendered his soul.

S. EGWIN, OF WORCESTER, B. C.

(ABOUT 720.)

[The life of S. Egwin was written by his contemporary, S. Brithwald, Archbishop of Canterbury. This original has not descended to us, but a fragment of a somewhat later recension of this life exists; and a still later life, probably an amplification of that by Brithwald. Moreover, S. Egwin is mentioned by Matthew of Westminster, Florence of Worcester; William of Malmesbury also speaks of him in his Acts of the English Bishops.]

S. Egwin was of the royal blood of the Mercian kings, and was born at Worcester, in the reign of Ethelred and Kenred. He was elected Bishop in 692. By his zeal in rebuking the illicit connexions formed by some of the great men in his diocese, and vehemence in reforming the corrupt morals of all, he stirred up a party against him, and with the connivance of the King, he was expelled his diocese. Egwin, meekly bending to his fate, determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome. According to a popular mediaeval legend, he also resolved to expiate at the same time certain sins of his youth, by putting iron fetters on his feet, which were fastened with a lock, and he cast the key into the Avon. As he neared Italy, on a ship from Marseilles, a huge fish floundered upon deck, and was killed and cut open; when, to the surprise of the Saint, in its belly was found the key to his fetters. He accepted this as an expression of the will of heaven, and released his limbs. According to another version of the story, the fish was caught in the Tiber, after S. Egwin had appeared before the Pope in Rome; but William of Malmesbury doubts the whole story as an idle legend.

[Illustration: S. EGWIN, BISHOP OF WORCESTER, After Cahier. [Jan. 11.]]

After his return, with the assistance of Kenred, King of Mercia, S. Egwin founded the famous abbey of Evesham, under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin. After this he undertook a second journey to Rome, in company with Kenred, and Offa, King of the East Saxons. S. Egwin died on the 30th December, 717, and was buried in the monastery of Evesham. The translation of his relics probably took place on Jan. 11th, on which day many English Martyrologies mark his festival.

[Illustration: Decoration]

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Theodoret, lib. i. c. 11.

January 12.

S. ARCADIUS, _M., in Africa, circ._ A.D. 260. SS. SATYRUS, CYRIACUS, MOSENTIUS, _MM._ SS. TIGRIS, _P., and_ EUTROPIUS, _MM._, A.D. 404. S. JOHN, _B. C. of Ravenna, circ._ A.D. 495. S. CAESARIA, _V., at Arles, circ._ A.D. 530. S. VICTORINUS, _Ab., in Spain_, A.D. 560. S. BENEDICT BISCOP, _in England_, A.D. 703. SS. XXXVIII, MONKS, _MM., in Ionia, circ._ A.D. 750. S. AELRED, _Ab. of Rievaulx, in Yorkshire_, A.D. 1166.

S. ARCADIUS, M.

(ABOUT A.D. 260.)

[Roman Martyrology, those of Bede, Ado, Usuardus, Notker, &c. Authority, a panegyric by S. Zeno, Bishop of Verona, his contemporary.]

During a severe outbreak of persecution, in the reign of Gallienus, in the north of Africa, Arcadius, doubting his own constancy, sought refuge in flight, and escaping from Caesarea, hid himself. As he did not appear at the sacrifices, the Governor ordered his house to be searched. It was found to be deserted, save by a relative of his, whom the soldiers seized, and, at the command of the Governor, detained till Arcadius should surrender himself.

Hearing of this capture, and unwilling that his kinsman should suffer, Arcadius deserted his hiding place, and gave himself up. The Governor, exasperated at his constancy in refusing to adore the gods of the state religion, ordered him to be dismembered, piecemeal and leisurely. First his fingers were taken off, joint by joint; then his toes, then his hands at the wrists, and his feet at the ankles. As he extended his hands to amputation, he prayed, "Thy hands have made me and fashioned me; O give me understanding that I may keep thy law." Thereupon the judge ordered his tongue to be cut out. He was cast on his back, and his feet were taken off. Then his legs and arms were amputated at the knees and elbows, finally at the thighs and shoulders, so that he was nothing save a human trunk in a pool of blood, with his limbs in little fragments scattered about him. Thus he expired; but the Christians collected the portions of his body, and buried them with the trunk reverently, glorifying God for having given such constancy to his martyr.

In art, represented as a torso; sometimes, for some reason unknown, with a candle in his hand.

SS. SATYRUS, CYRIACUS, MOSENTIUS, MM.

(DATE UNCERTAIN.)

[All Martyrologies. Nothing is known for certain of the date of their martyrdoms, or whether they all suffered together.]

S. Satyrus is said to have signed the cross, and breathed on an idol in the street of Achaia (on the Euxine?), and it fell. Wherefore he was executed by decapitation. This is stated in all the Martyrologies, but some say the act was done at Antioch. Of the others, his companions, nothing is known.

SS. TIGRIS, P., AND EUTROPIUS, LECTOR, MM.

(A.D. 404.)

[Roman Martyrology and German Martyrologies. Not commemorated by the Greeks. Authorities: Sozomen, lib. viii. c. 22, 23; Nicephorus Callistus, lib. xiii.; S. John Chrysostom also, in his 12th letter to S. Olympias, speaks of Tigris the priest.]

When S. John Chrysostom had incurred the anger of the Empress Eudoxia, by declaiming against her silver statue set up close to the church of the Eternal Wisdom at Constantinople, by her machinations he was deposed and exiled from the city, and Arsacius was ordained patriarch of Constantinople in his room. But a large company of bishops and priests, and others of the clerical order, refused to recognize the right of Arsacius, and being driven from the churches, held their divine worship in places apart. For the space of two months after his deposition, Chrysostom remained at his post, though he refrained from appearing in public; after that he was obliged to leave, being banished by the Emperor Arcadius. On the very day of his departure the church caught fire, and a strong easterly wind carried the flames to the senate house.[39] The party opposed to S. John Chrysostom immediately spread the report that this fire was the result of a wilful act of incendiarism by the Johannites, or party of the exiled bishop. Socrates, the historian, strongly prejudiced against Chrysostom, distinctly charged them with the act. He says, "On the very day of his departure, some of John's friends set fire to the church," and then he adds, "The severities inflicted on John's friends, even to the extent of capital punishment, on account of this act of incendiarism, by Optatus, the prefect of Constantinople, who being a pagan was, as such, an enemy to the Christians, I ought, I believe, to pass by in silence." There can be no doubt that the fire was purely accidental, and that it was used as a means of endeavouring to excite the people of Constantinople against their favourite Chrysostom, that bold champion of the truth against spiritual wickedness in high places, and the Erastianism of a large party of bishops and clergy, just as before Nero had charged the burning of old Rome on the Christians.

On this false charge some of the most faithful and zealous adherents of Chrysostom suffered, amongst them were the priest Tigris, and the reader Eutropius. The rest shall be quoted from Sozomen, who, belonging to the party of Chrysostom, gives those details which Socrates found it convenient to omit:--"Both parties mutually accused each other of incendiarism; the enemies of John asserted that his partizans had been guilty of the deed from revenge; the other side, that the crime had been perpetrated by their enemies, with intention of burning them in the church. Those citizens who were suspected of attachment to John, were sought out and cast into prison, and compelled to anathematize him. Arsacius was not long after ordained over the Church of Constantinople. Nothing operated so much against him as the persecution carried on against the followers of John. As these latter refused to hold communion, or even to join in prayer with him, and met together in the further parts of the city, he complained to the Emperor of their conduct. The tribune was commanded to attack them with a body of soldiers, and by means of clubs and stones he soon dispersed their assembly. The most distinguished among them in point of rank, and those who were most zealous in their adherence to John, were cast into prison. The soldiers, as is usual on such occasions, went beyond their orders, and stripped the women of their ornaments. Although the whole city was thus filled with trouble and lamentation, the affection of the people for John remained the same. After the popular insurrection had been quelled, the prefect of the city appeared in public, as if to inquire into the cause of the conflagration, and to bring the perpetrators of the deed to punishment; but, being a pagan, he exulted in the destruction of the Church, and ridiculed the calamity.

"Eutropius, a reader, was required to name the persons who had set fire to the church; but, although he was scourged severely, although his sides and cheeks were torn with iron nails, and although lighted torches were applied to the most sensitive parts of his body, no confession could be extorted from him, notwithstanding his youth and delicacy of constitution. After having been subjected to these tortures, he was cast into a dungeon, where he soon afterwards expired.

"A dream of Sisinius concerning Eutropius seems worthy of insertion in this history. Sisinius, the Bishop of the Novatians, saw in his sleep a man, tall in stature, and handsome in person, standing near the altar in the Novatian Church of S. Stephen. This man complained of the rarity of goodness among men, and said that he had been searching throughout the city, and found but one who was good, and that one was Eutropius. Astonished at what he had seen, Sisinius made known the dream to the most faithful of his priests, and commanded him to make search for Eutropius, wherever he might be. The priest, rightly conjecturing that this Eutropius could be no other than he who had been so barbarously tortured by the prefect, went from prison to prison in quest of him. At length he found him, and made known to him the dream of the Bishop, and besought him with tears to pray for him. Such are the details we possess concerning Eutropius.

"Tigris, a priest, was about the same time stripped of his clothes, scourged on the back, bound hand and foot, and stretched on the rack. He was a foreigner, and an eunuch, but not by birth. He was originally a slave in the house of a man of rank, and on account of his faithful services had obtained his freedom. He was afterwards ordained priest, and was distinguished by his moderation and meekness of disposition, and by his charity towards strangers and the poor. Such were the events which took place in Constantinople. Those who were in power at court procured a law in favour of Arsacius, by which it was enacted that the orthodox were to assemble together in churches only, and that if they seceded from communion with the above-mentioned Bishop, they were to be exiled."

S. CAESARIA, V.

(ABOUT A.D. 530.)

[Gallican Martyrologies. Her history from the life of S. Caesarius of Arles, her brother, by his disciple, Cyprian.]

S. Caesaria was the superior of a convent of religious women, erected by her brother, S. Caesarius, at Arles. When, in 507, the Franks and Burgundians, under Alaric, had been defeated by Clovis, Theodoric invaded the south of Gaul from Italy, and besieged the city, and battered down the convent which had been erected for S. Caesaria. When tranquillity was re-established, Caesarius rebuilt the monastery, and called his sister from Marseilles to inhabit it. The rule of S. Caesaria, drawn up by her brother, exists, and is published by the Bollandists.

S. BENEDICT BISCOP.

(A.D. 703.)

[Roman, Benedictine, and Anglican Martyrologies. Life from William of Malmesbury, Bede's Homilies and Ecclesiastical History, Florence of Worcester, Matthew of Westminster. The following account is condensed from the life of S. Benedict Biscop, in Montalembert's Monks of the West, Bk. xiii., c. 2.]

Benedict was born of the highest Anglo-Saxon nobility, in the year 628. While he was still very young, he held an office in the household of King Oswy. At twenty-five he gave up secular life, marriage, and his family, restored his lands to the king, and dedicated himself to the service of God. Before he settled in any community he went to Rome, whither he had been long attracted by that desire of praying at the tomb of the Apostles, which became so general among the Anglo-Saxons. He started in company with S. Wilfrid, but the two young Northumbrian nobles separated at Lyons. After his first visit to Rome, Benedict returned thither a second and a third time, having in the meantime assumed the monastic habit in the island of Lerins. Pope Vitalianus, struck with the piety and knowledge of so constant and zealous a pilgrim, assigned to him, as guide and interpreter, that Greek, Theodore, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, and who, when he went to England, transferred the monk of Lerins to be abbot of the principal monastery in Canterbury.

After thus spending two years with the new Archbishop, the abbot Benedict, instead of re-visiting his native district, went for the fourth time to Rome, 671. He was then in the prime of life; but when it is considered what were the difficulties and dangers of such a journey--at such a time--when we remember that a journey from London to Rome then took twice as long, and was a hundred times more dangerous than a journey from London to Australia is now, we are amazed at the energy which induced so many Anglo-Saxon monks, not once only, but many times in their life, to cross the sea and the Alps on their way to Rome. His fourth expedition was undertaken in the interests of literature. He brought back a cargo of books, partly sold, partly given to him; and, in passing by Vienne, the ancient capital of the Gauls, on his return, he brought with him many more which he had deposited there in the charge of his friends. When he returned at length to his native Northumbria, he sought King Egfrid, the son of his former master, Oswy, then the reigning monarch, and told him all he had done during the twenty years that had passed since he left his country and the royal service. Then, endeavouring to communicate to him the religious ardour with which his own heart was filled, he explained to the King all he had learned at Rome and elsewhere, of ecclesiastical and monastic discipline, showing him the books and relics which he had brought back. Egfrid, who had not yet begun his struggle with Wilfrid, allowed himself to be won by the stories of the pilgrim, for whom he conceived a great affection; and in order that he might apply his experience to the government of a new community, he detached from his own possessions, and presented to Benedict, an estate situated at the mouth of the Wear, a little stream which flows through Durham, and throws itself into the Northern sea, a little south of the Tyne.[40] This gave the name of Wearmouth to the new monastery, which was dedicated to S. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, according to the express wish of Egfrid, in agreement with that of Benedict, as an evidence of his leanings towards Rome.

This foundation was no sooner assured, than the unwearied Benedict took ship again, to seek in France masons to build him a stone church, in the Roman style, for everything that came from Rome was dear to him. The church was carried on with so much energy, that, a year after the first stone was laid, the church was roofed in, and mass was celebrated under one of those stone arches which excited the surprise of the English in the seventh century. He brought glass-makers also from France, for there were none in England; and these foreign workmen, after having put glass into the windows of the church and new monastery, taught their art to the Anglo-Saxons. Animated by a zeal which nothing could discourage, and inspired by intelligent patriotism, and a sort of passion for beauty in art, which shrank neither from fatigue nor care, he sent to seek beyond the seas all that he could not find in England--all that seemed necessary to him for the ornamentation of his church; and not finding even in France all he wanted, he went for the fifth time to Rome. Even this was not his last visit, for some years later he made a sixth pilgrimage. On both occasions he brought treasures back with him, chiefly books in countless quantities, and of every kind. He was a passionate collector, as has been seen, from his youth. He desired each of his monasteries to possess a great library, which he considered indispensable to the instruction, discipline, and good organization of the community; and reckoned upon the books as the best means of retaining his monks in their cloisters; for much as he loved travelling himself, he did not approve of other monks passing their time on the highways and byways, even under pretext of pilgrimages.

Along with the books he brought a great number of pictures and coloured images. By introducing these images from Rome to Northumberland, Benedict Biscop has written one of the most curious, and, at the same time, forgotten pages in the history of art. The Venerable Bede, who speaks with enthusiasm of the expeditions of his master and friend, leads us to suppose that he brought back with him only portable pictures, but it may be supposed that the abbot of Wearmouth brought back with him both painters and mosaic-workers, to work on the spot at the decoration of his churches. How can it be otherwise explained, how pictures on wood, brought even by water from Rome to England, should have been large enough to cover the walls and arches of the two or three churches of which Bede speaks. However this may be, the result was that the most ignorant of the Christians of Northumbria found, on entering these new monastic churches, under a material form, the attractive image of the instructions which the monastic missionaries lavished on them. Learned and unlearned could contemplate and study with delight, we are told, here the sweet and attractive form of the new-born Saviour, there the Twelve Apostles surrounding the Blessed Virgin; upon the northern wall all the parables of the Gospels; upon the southern, the visions of the Apocalypse; elsewhere, a series of pictures which marked the harmony between the Old and New Testaments; Isaac carrying the wood for his sacrifice opposite to Jesus bearing His Cross; the brazen serpent opposite Jesus crucified, and so on.[41] All these Bede, who had seen them, describes with great delight.

After Latin and Greek books, after art, it was the turn of music. On his return from his fifth voyage, Benedict brought back with him from Rome an eminent monk, called John, precentor of S. Peter's, to establish at Wearmouth the music and Roman ceremonies with entire exactitude. As soon as he had arrived at Wearmouth, this learned abbot set out in writing the order of the celebration of all feasts for all the year, of which he soon circulated numerous copies. Then he opened classes, at which he taught, _viva voce_, the liturgy and ecclesiastical chants. The best singers of the Northumbrian monasteries came to listen to him, and invited him to visit their communities.

The passionate zeal of Benedict for the building and decoration of his monastic houses, did not make him forget the more essential interests of his foundations. Before leaving Rome he took care to constitute his community upon the immovable basis of the rule of S. Benedict. He obtained from Pope Agatho a charter which guaranteed the liberty and security of the new monastery of Wearmouth. In order to give Benedict a new mark of sympathy, King Egfrid assigned to him another estate, near to the first. This was the cradle of the monastery of Jarrow, the name of which is inseparably linked with that of Bede. This monastery he dedicated to S. Paul, and appointed one of his most intimate friends and fellow pilgrims, Ceolfrid, abbot of the new foundation.

In order to be more at liberty to devote his time to travel, Benedict took a coadjutor in the government of Wearmouth. This new abbot was his nephew, Easterwin, his junior by twenty-two years, and like Biscop, of high birth. The noble youth took pride in following minutely the rule of the house, like any other monk. Thanks to his illustrious biographer, we know what the occupations of a Saxon thane turned monk were in the seventh century. His duties were to thrash and winnow the corn, to milk the goats and cows, to take his turn in the kitchen, the bakehouse, and the garden, always humble and joyous in his obedience. When he became coadjutor, and was invested, in Biscop's absence, with all his authority, the young abbot continued the course of communal life; and when his duties as superior led him out of doors to where the monks laboured in the fields, he set to work along with them, taking the plough or the fan in his own hands, or forging iron upon the anvil. He was robust as well as young and handsome; but his look was infinitely gentle, and his conversation full of amiability. When he was compelled to reprove a fault, it was done with such tender sadness that the culprit felt himself incapable of any new offence which should bring a cloud over the benign brightness of that beloved face. His table was served with the same provisions as that of the monks; and he slept in the general dormitory, which he left only five days before his death, being then hopelessly ill, to prepare himself in a more solitary place, for the last struggle. When he felt his end approaching, he had still strength enough left to go down into the garden; and, seating himself there, he called to him all his brethren, who wept the anticipated loss of such a father. Then, with the tenderness which was natural to him, he gave to each of them a last kiss. The following night (March 7th, 686) he died, aged thirty-six, whilst the monks were singing matins. When Benedict returned from his last expedition to Rome he found his benefactor, King Egfrid, and his nephew, Easterwin, both dead, along with a great number of his monks, carried off by one of the epidemics then so frequent. The only survivors at Jarrow were the abbot and one little scholar, whose fame was destined to eclipse that of all the Saxon Saints and kings, who are scarcely known to posterity except by his pen.[42]

Benedict Biscop did not lose courage, but promptly collected new subjects under his sway, recommenced and pursued, with his habitual energy, the decoration of his two churches of S. Peter and S. Paul. The monks had already chosen as successor to Easterwin a deacon named Sigfried, a learned and virtuous man, but affected with lung disease, and the first of the English in whom history indicates a malady so general and so fatal to their race.

Benedict's own turn was, however, soon to come. God preserved his life to purify him, and put his patience to a long and cruel trial, before calling him to his eternal recompense. After having devoted the first thirteen years of his abbacy to the laborious and wandering life so dear to him, and to those distant expeditions that produced so many fruits for his order and his country, he was stricken with a cruel disease, which lasted for three years, and paralysed all his members one after the other. Though kept to his bed by his infirmity, and unable to follow his brethren to the choir, he, notwithstanding, continued to celebrate each service, both day and night, with certain of the monks, mingling his feeble voice with theirs. At night his sleepless hours were consoled by the reading of the Gospels, which was kept up without interruption by a succession of priests. Often, too, he collected the monks and novices round his couch, addressing to them urgent and solemn counsels, and among other things begging them to preserve the great library which he had brought from Rome, and not to allow it to be spoiled or dispersed; but above all, to keep faithfully the rules which, after a careful study of the seventeen principal monasteries which he had visited during his journeys, he had collected for them. He also dwelt much upon the injunction he had already often repeated, that they should pay no regard to high birth in their choice of an abbot, but look simply to his life and doctrine. "If I had to choose between two evils," said he, "I should prefer to see the spot on which I have established our dear monastery fall back into eternal solitude, rather than to be succeeded here by my own brother, who, we all know, is not in the good way."

The strength of the abbot, and at the same time that of his poor coadjutor, was by this time so exhausted by their respective diseases, that they both perceived that they must die, and desired to see each other for the last time before departing from this world. In order that the wish of these two tender friends should be accomplished, it was necessary to bring the dying coadjutor to the bed of the abbot. His head was placed on the same pillow; but they were both so feeble that they could not even embrace each other, and the help of brotherly hands was necessary to join their lips. All the monks assembled in chapter round this bed of suffering and love; and the two aged Saints, having pointed out among them a successor, approved by all, breathed together, with a short interval between, their last breath. Thus died, at the age of sixty-two, S. Benedict of England, a worthy rival of the great patriarch of the monks of the West, whose robe and name he bore.

SS. XXXVIII MONKS, IN IONIA.

(ABOUT 750.)

[The account of their martyrdom was written by Theosterictus, a confessor in the same Iconoclastic persecution.]

In the horrible persecution of the orthodox by Constantine Copronymus, on the subject of the images, concerning which more shall be said elsewhere, the blessed martyr Stephen the younger, Archimandrite of Auxentia, was in prison, when a monk, Theosterictus by name,[43] was admitted to him, with his nose cut off, and his cheeks burnt with pitch; he came from the monastery of Peleceta, and related to the abbot how, on the Wednesday in Holy Week, as the unbloody Sacrifice was being offered in the monastery church, a band of soldiers, by command of the heretical Emperor, broke into the sacred building and interrupted the mysteries. Thirty-eight monks were chained, the rest were mutilated, their noses cut off, and their beards steeped in tar, and then fired. Then the soldiers set the whole convent in flames. The thirty-eight were carried off to the borders of Ephesus, and thrust into the furnace of an old bath; the openings were then closed, and they were suffocated therein.

[Illustration: S. AELRED, ABBOT OF RIEVAULX. From a Design by A. Welby Pugin. Jan. 12.]

S. AELRED, AB. OF RIEVAULX.

(A.D. 1166.)

[Authorities: His life in Capgrave, and his own writings, still extant.]

He was of noble descent, and was born in the north of England, in 1109. Being educated in learning and piety, he was invited by David, the pious King of Scotland, to his court, made master of his household, and highly esteemed both by him and the courtiers. His virtue shone with bright lustre in the world, particularly his meekness, which Christ declared to be his favourite virtue, and the distinguishing mark of his true disciples. The following is a memorable instance to what a degree S. Aelred possessed this virtue:--A certain person of quality having insulted and reproached him in the presence of the King, Aelred heard him out with patience, and thanked him for his charity and sincerity, in telling him his faults. This behaviour had such an influence on his adversary that it made him ask his pardon on the spot. Another time, whilst he was speaking on a certain matter, one interrupted him with very harsh reviling expressions: the servant of God heard him with tranquility, and afterward resumed his discourse with the same calmness and presence of mind as before. He desired ardently to devote himself entirely to God, by forsaking the world; but the charms of friendship detained him some time longer in it, and were fetters to his soul; reflecting notwithstanding that he must sooner or later be separated by death from those he loved most, he condemned his own cowardice, and broke at once those bands of friendship, which were more agreeable to him than all other sweets of life. To relinquish entirely all his worldly engagements, he left Scotland, and embraced the austere Cistercian order, at Rievaulx, in Yorkshire, where Walter de l'Especke had founded a monastery in 1122. At the age of twenty-four, in 1133, he became a monk under the first abbot, William, a disciple of S. Bernard. In spite of the delicacy of his body he set himself cheerfully to practise the greatest austerities, and employed much of his time in prayer and reading. His heart turned with great ardour to the love of God, and this made him feel all his mortifications sweet and light. "Thy yoke doth not oppress, but raiseth the soul; thy burden hath wings, not weight," said he. He speaks of divine charity with love, and by his frequent ejaculations on the subject, it seems to have been the sweet consolation of his soul. "May thy voice (says he) sound in my ears, O Good Jesus, that my heart may learn how to love thee, that my mind may love thee, that the interior powers, the bowels of my soul, and very marrow of my heart may love thee, and that my affections may embrace thee, my only true good, my sweet and delightful joy! O my God! He who loves thee possesses thee; and he possesses thee in proportion as he loves, because thou art love itself. This is that abundance with which thy beloved are inebriated, dissolved to themselves, that they may live into thee, by loving thee." He had been much delighted in his youth with reading Cicero; but after his conversion found that author, and all other reading, tedious and bitter, which was not sweetened with the honey of the holy name of Jesus, and seasoned with the word of God, as he says in the preface to his book _On Spiritual Friendship_. He was much edified with the very looks of a holy monk, called Simon, who had despised high birth, an ample fortune, and all the advantages of mind and body, to serve God in that penitential state. This monk went and came as one deaf and dumb, always recollected in God; and was such a lover of silence, that he would scarce speak a few words to the prior on necessary occasions. His silence however was sweet, agreeable, and full of edification. Our Saint says of him, "The very sight of his humility stifled my pride, and made me blush at the want of mortification in my looks." This holy monk, having served God eight years in perfect fidelity, died in 1142, in wonderful peace, repeating with his last breath, "I will sing eternally, O Lord, thy mercy, thy mercy, thy mercy!"

S. Aelred, much against his inclination, was made abbot of a new monastery of his order, founded by William, Earl of Lincoln, at Revesby, in Lincolnshire, in 1142, and after, in 1143, of Rievaulx, where he governed three hundred monks. Describing their life, he says that they drank nothing but water, ate little, laboured hard, slept little, and on hard boards; never spoke, except to their superiors on necessary occasions; and loved prayer.

[Illustration: S. Odilo, Jan. 1, p. 20.]

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Socrates, Eccl. Hist., lib. vi. c. 18.

[40] Monk-Wearmouth on the north bank of the river.

[41] Bede: Vitae Abbt. in Wiramuth, c. 6.

[42] This is Bede, who describes, further on, how the abbot and that little boy celebrated alone, and in great sadness, the whole psalms of the monastic service, with no little labour, until new monks arrived.

[43] Not to be confused with Theosterictus, disciple of the abbot S. Nicetas, who writes this account.

January 13.

The Octave of the Epiphany.

S. POTITUS, _M._, A.D. 166. SS. HERMYLUS AND STRATONICUS, _MM., at Belgrade_, A.D. 315. S. GLAPHYRA, _V., at Amasia, circ._ A.D. 324. S. AGRICIUS, _B. of Trèves, circ._ A.D. 335. S. HILARY, _B. of Poictiers_, A.D. 368. S. VIRENTIUS, _P._, _in Burgundy_, A.D. 400. S. KENTIGERN, _B. of Glasgow_, A.D. 601. B. BERNO, _Ab. of Cluny_, A.D. 920. S. HELDEMAR, _H., in Artois_, A.D. 1097. B. GOTFRIED, _of Kappenberg_, A.D. 1127. B. JUTTA, _W. and Recluse, at Huy, in Belgium_, A.D. 1228. B. VERONICA, _V. at Milan_, A.D. 1497.

SS. HERMYLUS AND STRATONICUS, MM., AT BELGRADE.

(A.D. 315.)

[Greek Menaea and Menologium. The Acts in Metaphrastes are compiled from the original genuine Acts, and may be trusted.]

When Licinius was in Mysia he sought out the Christians, to punish them with death, being moved thereto by his great hatred to the religion of Christ, which Constantine protected. Socrates says, in his "Ecclesiastical History," that Licinius hated the Christians; and that, although for a while, from dread of Constantine, he avoided open persecution, yet he managed to plot against them covertly, and at length proceeded to acts of undisguised malevolence. The persecution, however, was local, not extending beyond those districts where Licinius himself was, but these and other public outrages could not long remain concealed from Constantine. By this perfidy he drew upon himself the Emperor Constantine's heaviest displeasure; and the pretended treaty of friendship having been so flagrantly violated, it was not long before they took up arms against each other.[44]

When Licinius was at Sigidunum (Belgrade), on the Danube, a deacon, named Hermylus, was denounced to him as a despiser of the gods of Rome. The Emperor ordered him to be brought before him. The order was obeyed.

Then the Emperor said, "Answer me, and tell me openly, dost thou confess thyself to be a Christian?"

"Not only do I acknowledge myself to be a Christian, but to be consecrated a deacon to the service of God."

"Well then, be deacon in the service of the gods," said Licinius.

"Thou must be deaf, Emperor! I said that I served God the all-seeing, not these blind stocks."

Licinius ordered the deacon to be smitten on the cheeks, and said, "Not so glib with thy tongue, Hermylus. Honour the Emperor, sacrifice to the gods, and save thy life."

Then Hermylus cried out with a loud voice, "Thou shalt endure torments without end, from the hand of God, because thou dost adore vain idols, and seekest to destroy those who serve the living God, as though envious of their superiority."

Then the martyr was taken back to prison. And after three days he was again brought forth, and when Licinius had mounted the tribunal, he said, "Well now, Hermylus, art thou prepared to abandon this folly and escape what is in store for thee?"

But the deacon answered, "I am ready to endure. There is one God in heaven to whom I live, and to whom I am ready to die. He will succour me."

"We shall soon see what His succour is worth," said the Emperor; and ordered him to be beaten. Then six men cast him on the ground and stripped him, and scourged him. But Hermylus cried, "O Lord my God, who before Pilate enduredst the scourge, strengthen me suffering for Thee, that I may finish my course, and that, being made partaker in Thy sufferings, I maybe made also to partake in Thy glory."

Then there was heard a voice from heaven, saying, "Verily, verily, Hermylus, in three days shalt thou receive a glorious reward!" Hearing this, the martyr was filled with boldness, and a great fear fell on all around. Then Licinius hastily remitted the deacon to prison. Now the jailor's name was Stratonicus, and he was a disciple, but secretly, like Nicodemus, not having great boldness, and he comforted Hermylus in the dungeon as well as he could, for he was also his personal friend.

On the morrow, the Emperor ordered the brave soldier of Christ to be led forth again, and beaten on the stomach, as his back was one great wound, and the instrument wherewith he was to be beaten was a willow rod, twisted and knotted into a triangle, and this, say the Acts, was a most excruciating torture, for the angles and knots cut like knives into the flesh. But as he bore this with unflinching constancy, the tyrant commanded that his belly should be torn with little iron hooks. Then Stratonicus, the jailor, unable to bear the sight of his friend's sufferings, covered his face with his hands and burst into tears. Seeing this, the soldiers who stood by jeered him, and called the attention of the Emperor to the agitation of the jailor. Then Stratonicus, mustering up all his courage, cast himself before Licinius, and cried, "Sire! I am a Christian, I believe in God, the maker of heaven and earth." Then Licinius ordered him to be scourged. And Stratonicus, looking piteously at his friend, said, "Hermylus, pray for me to Christ, that I may be able to endure!"

And when Licinius saw that Stratonicus was covered with wounds, he bade the executioners desist, and he remitted the jailor and the prisoner to the same dungeon. But on the morrow, finding Stratonicus resolute, he ordered him and Hermylus to be drowned in the Danube. Then they were tied up in nets and cast into the river. Three days after their bodies were washed up, and were buried by the Christians.

S. HILARY, B. D. OF POICTIERS.

(A.D. 368.)

[In the Roman Missal, before 1435, there was no mention of S. Hilary; in the reformed Breviary of Cardinal Quignon, published by authority of Pope Paul III., S. Hilary was commemorated on Jan. 31st, the same day as that on which he was noted in the York Calendar, because Jan. 13th is the Octave of the Epiphany. Afterwards, however, the commemoration of S. Hilary was fixed for Jan. 14th, his name being inserted in the Martyrology on the 13th; but with this clause, "His festival is, however, to be celebrated on the morrow," so as not to interfere with the Octave of the Epiphany. The Sarum, Dominican, Belgian, and some of the German Calendars mark the 13th as the feast of S. Hilary. The Anglican Calendar also notes his name on this day. The Bollandists give his life on this day, though in the Roman offices the commemoration is on the morrow. His own writings, and the histories of his age, contain all the materials for his life.]

S. Hilary was born at Poictiers in Gaul. There is some reason to believe that his family was illustrious in that country. His parents were pagans, and he was brought up in idolatry. He gives an account of his conversion to the faith of Christ in his book "On the Trinity." He was married before his conversion; and his wife, by whom he had a daughter, named Apra, was yet living when he was chosen Bishop of Poictiers, about the year 353; but from the time of his ordination he lived in perpetual continence. It is probable that S. Hilary was elected Bishop from the rank of a layman, as was often the case in the early ages, and received all orders by accumulation. He soon became renowned in Gaul as a preacher; and S. Martin, then a young man, was attracted by his name, and lived for a time at Poictiers as his disciple.

Immediately after the Arian Council at Milan, in A.D. 355, which had condemned S. Athanasius, and had prevailed on the Emperor Constantius to banish all the Bishops who adhered to him, S. Hilary wrote to the Emperor, entreating him to stop the persecution, to recall the Catholic Bishops, and forbid secular judges to interfere in the affairs of the Church. This remonstrance had no effect; but he had the satisfaction of seeing the Gallican Bishops remain firm during those days of trial. Saturninus, Bishop of Arles, alone united with Ursacius and Valens, two Illyrian Bishops, to vex the Catholics. They held an Arian synod at Béziers in Languedoc, at which Saturninus himself presided. S. Hilary there made a noble confession of the Nicene Faith, and refuted the heresy of Arius; but the party of Saturninus, reinforced by Bishops from the neighbouring countries, was too strong for him, and he was condemned and deposed; and immediately afterwards the Emperor Constantius banished him into Phrygia. He left Gaul early in A.D. 356, in company with Rhodanus, Bishop of Toulouse, whom God called from those evils to His kingdom, soon after their arrival in Phrygia.

His departure was followed by a cruel persecution of the Gallican clergy; but nothing could daunt their constancy, or prevail on them to communicate with the enemies of S. Hilary and the Nicene Faith, or to fill up his see, which in the eye of the Church was not vacant. The priests and deacons of Toulouse were severely beaten, and their church profaned. In A.D. 357 the Bishops wrote a letter to S. Hilary assuring him of their fidelity and firmness. About the same time S. Hilary received a letter from Apra, his only daughter, informing him that she had been asked in marriage by a young man. She was then about thirteen or fourteen years of age. He immediately wrote to her, entreating her to set her thoughts on the more precious rewards which the Lord Jesus has promised to those virgins who devote themselves wholly to their Heavenly Spouse, and are not entangled in the snares of earthly love. He reminded her of that blissful company whom the Church commemorates on the feast of the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28), who sing a new song which no man can learn but they who are virgins and follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. She yielded to his pious counsel; and on his return home God took her to Himself at his request, without pain or any visible sickness. Bishop Jeremy Taylor relates this little story in his own beautiful language in the "Holy Dying."

In return for the comforting letter which the Gallican Bishops had sent him, and at their request to be informed regarding the faith of the Eastern Churches, S. Hilary wrote his "History of Synods" in the end of A.D. 358. It contains an account of the various councils that had been assembled in the East on the subject of the Arian heresy, together with a defence of the Nicene Faith. It is addressed to the British Bishops among others, whom he congratulates on their steadfastness. The Saint also wrote his book "On the Trinity" during his exile, and a smaller treatise "Against the Arians." He was also the undoubted author of several hymns, and others have been attributed to him.

[Illustration: S. HILARY BAPTIZING S. MARTIN, OF TOURS. From a Window, dated 1528, in the Church of S. Florentin, Yonne.]

[Illustration: THE THREE CHILDREN IN THE FIERY FURNACE. From the Catacombs. Jan. 13.]

In A.D. 359 the Western Bishops held a synod at Rimini, at which nearly four hundred were present. The Arian party among them beguiled the rest by its address, to sanction its errors by their signatures. The Bishops of Agen and Tongres took a prominent lead in the proceedings of the synod. In September of the same year S. Hilary was invited with other Catholic Bishops by the semi-Arians to their council at Seleucia, in Isauria. Their object was to defeat the Arians, and they hoped that the Catholics would assist them. In this council S. Hilary bore witness to the faith of the Western Church being the same as that declared to be the Catholic Faith at the Council of Nice in A.D. 325, and he protested against both the Arian and semi-Arian opinions as novelties. He accompanied the deputies of the council to Constantinople, in hopes of obtaining from the Emperor Constantius the recall of his sentence of banishment.

While the Arian synod was sitting at Constantinople, in January, A.D. 360, he entreated the Emperor to grant him a conference with Saturninus, Bishop of Arles, the author of his exile, and that he might be allowed to appear in the synod, and bear witness to the Catholic Faith. He also complained of the perplexity which the multiplication of creeds and confessions of faith had occasioned; for in the preceding year alone four had been published to the Church. The Emperor refused to grant S. Hilary what he asked; but the Arians so much dreaded his presence in the East, that they persuaded Constantius to send him back to Gaul, yet without formally recalling the sentence of exile.

The joy of his return to his Church and his native land was much lessened by the miserable confusion which he left behind him in the East. Still it must have been very great; and his approach was hailed with delight by the Church in Gaul. S. Martin, who had been living in retirement in the island of Gallenari, off the city of Genoa, went to Rome to meet him; but finding that he had already left it, he followed him to Poictiers, and soon after built a monastery near the town (see November 11.) S. Hilary immediately applied himself to repair the mischief which the Council of Rimini had done: and a synod was assembled at Paris, which condemned its proceedings, and declared the true Faith of the _consubstantiality_ of the Son of God. The Bishops also corresponded with their banished brethren in the East.

In A.D. 363 S. Hilary made a journey into Italy in company with Eusebius of Vercelli. They were at Milan in the autumn of the following year, at the time when the Emperor Valentinian arrived there. The people were Catholic, and even abstained from entering the churches, to avoid communicating with Auxentius their Arian Bishop. In a public disputation which the Emperor invited him to hold, S. Hilary extorted from the Arian a confession of the Nicene Faith, which was taken down in writing and preserved. Auxentius was enraged at being thus vanquished, and prevailed on the Emperor to send S. Hilary away from Milan. Before his departure he addressed a letter to the Catholic Bishops and laity in the neighbourhood, exhorting them to remain firm. This was the last public act of his life which is recorded. He returned home to Poictiers, and finished his labours by a blessed death in January, A.D. 368, according to the testimony of the greater number of historians. A brilliant light is said to have filled the chamber where the body of the holy man was lying. S. Gregory of Tours attests the truth of a miracle performed at his tomb; and others also are authenticated by various writers. But neither the fame of these, nor respect for the memory of the saintly Confessor, prevented his tomb from being violated by the Calvinists in 1567.

S. KENTIGERN, OR MUNGO, B. OF GLASGOW.

(A.D. 601.)

[His life was written by S. Asaph, his disciple in the monastery of Llan-Elwyn, in Wales, founded by Kentigern when exiled. This life has not come down to us in its original form. We have, however, his life compiled in 1125 by Jocelyn, monk of Furness, from ancient authorities, by order of Bishop Jocelyn of Glasgow. Undoubtedly the life of S. Asaph formed the basis of this compilation. S. Kentigern is also spoken of by many ancient Scottish historians, John Major de Gest. Scotorum, lib. ii. c. 7; Hector Boece, lib. ix; Leslie, lib. iv., &c.]

S. Kentigern is said[45] to have been the illegitimate son of Themin, daughter of Loth, King of the Picts, by Eugenius III., King of the Scots; but there is great uncertainty about his origin. When the Pictish King found that his daughter was likely to become a mother, he was filled with grief and anger, and ordered her to be thrown down a rock, on Mount Dunpeld. By God's mercy she was not injured, and was then, by her father's orders, sent to Culross, where she brought forth a son. At the same time S. Servan, being engaged in saying matins, heard angels singing. When he had finished his office he left his cell, and descending to the sea shore in the grey dusk, found there a mother rocking her new-born babe, wherefore the old hermit exclaimed, being moved with compassion, "Mochoche, mochoche!" which being interpreted is, My dear, my dear! Then he took the unfortunate girl and her babe to his cell, instructed her in the faith of Christ, and baptized her and her little one, and he called her Tanca, and him he named Kentiern.[46] So the child grew up in the old man's cell, and became so dear to him, that he called him familiarly Mungho, or Dearest, and by this name he is generally known in Scotland. His mother learned to love God, and to serve him with all her heart, and bitterly to bewail her fault.

Many pretty legends of the childhood of Kentigern have been wafted down to us. S. Servan had a pet redbreast which was wont to eat out of his hand, and to perch on his shoulder, and when he chanted the psalms of David, the little bird flapped its wings and twittered shrilly.

Now Servan had several lads whom he educated at Culross, and these envied Kentigern, because he was the favourite of the old master, so in spite they wrung the neck of the redbreast, and charged the favourite boy with having done the deed. But Kentigern took the little dead bird, and crying bitterly, and praying to God, signed the cross over it. Then when the old man returned from church, the bird hopped to meet him as usual, chirping joyously. In those days it was no easy matter to kindle a fire, indeed, without a flame from which to light one, it was impossible, for in the north, sticks are not dry enough to be rubbed into a blaze as they can be in hot climates. Therefore it was necessary that fires should never be allowed to become extinct. It was the duty of the boys of S. Servan, in turn by weeks, to rise during the night and mend the fire, so that there should not be a deficiency of light for illumining the Church at the matin offices. When it was Kentigern's week, the boys, to bring him into trouble, extinguished the fire. Mungo, rising as usual, went to the hearth but found the fire out. Then he took a stick and placed it over the cold ashes, and invoking the name of the Holy Trinity, he blew upon the dead cinders, and a flame leaped up which kindled the branch; and thereat he lighted the Church candles.

At last, unable to endure longer the envy of his fellow pupils, Kentigern ran away. And when S. Servan discovered it, he pursued him, and reached the bank of a river, but Kentigern had escaped to the other side. Then the old man cried to him, "Alas! my dearest son, the light of my eyes, and the staff of my age, wherefore hast thou deserted me? Remember that I took thee from thy mother's womb, nursed thee, and taught thee to this day. Do not desert my white hairs."

Then Kentigern, bursting into tears, answered, "My father, it is the will of the Most High that I should go."

Servan cried out, "Return, return, dear son, and I, from being a father, will be to thee as a son, from being a master I will become a disciple."

But Kentigern, suffused with tears, replied, "It cannot be, my father; return and admonish thy disciples, and instruct them by thine example. I must go where the Lord God calls me."

Then Servan blessed him across the river, lifting up his holy hands, and sorrowfully they parted the one from the other, to see each other's face no more in this life.

Kentigern settled near Glasgow, where he inhabited a cave in the face of a rock, where the people looked at him with respectful curiosity, while he studied the direction of the storms at sea, and drank in with pleasure the first breezes of the spring. Having converted many of the people, together with the King of Strathclyde, he was consecrated Bishop by an Irish prelate, the Keltic Church being ignorant of the Nicene canon requiring three to consecrate, "with unction of holy oil, invocation of the Holy Spirit, and imposition of hands."

The district of Strathclyde, or Cumbria, on the west coast of Britain, from the mouth of the Clyde to that of the Mersey, that is to say, from Glasgow to Liverpool, was occupied by a mingled race of Britons and Scots, whose capital was Al-Cluid, now Dumbarton. It was in this region that S. Kentigern was called to labour.

As bishop, he still dwelt in his rocky cell, where he used a stone for a pillow, and to inure his body to hardships, he stood in the Clyde to recite his psalter. He wore a dress of goat-skin bound about his loins, and a hood, and over all, his white linen alb, which he never left off; and carried in his hand his pastoral staff of wood without ornament, and in his other hand his office book. Thus he was ever prepared to execute his ministry; and thus attired, he went through the kingdom from the Clyde to the Firth of Forth. In his cell he lived on bread and cheese and milk, but when he was with the King, he relaxed the severity of his fasting, so as not to appear ungracious when offered more abundant and better food; however, on his return to his cell, he curtailed his allowance, so as to make up for his relaxation of rule at court.

When S. Kentigern was made Bishop of Glasgow, Gurthmel Wledio was King of the North Britons. He was succeeded by Roderick the Liberal (Rydderach Hael), a religious and deserving prince, who was driven by his rebellious subjects under Morken Mawr to Ireland. Morken having usurped the throne of Strathclyde, drove S. Kentigern out of the country, and the Saint took refuge in Wales with S. David, Bishop of Menevia, and remained with him till the Prince of Denbigh bestowed on him lands, where he built the famous monastery of Llan-Elwyn, afterwards called S. Asaph. Here he gathered about him a great number of disciples and scholars, and he was there at the date of the death of S. David, in 544.

On the death of Morken, Roderick returned to Scotland, and recovered his crown. He immediately recalled Kentigern to his see, and he, leaving his monastery to the care of S. Asaph, went back to Glasgow in 560.

Roderick's mother was Irish, and he had been baptized by an Irish monk, and greatly respected Kentigern. The Saint returned bringing with him a hive of Welsh monks, and established the seat of his renewed apostleship once more at Glasgow, where Ninian had preceded him nearly a century before, without leaving any lasting traces of his passage. Kentigern, more fortunate, established upon the site of a burying-ground, consecrated by Ninian, the first foundation of that magnificent cathedral which still bears his name, though diverted to a religion different from that he professed.

Kentigern collected round him numerous disciples, all learned in holy literature, all working with their hands, and possessing nothing as individuals. "They dwelt," says Jocelyn, "in separate cells, as did Kentigern, thence were they called Calledei." He distinguished himself during his episcopate by his efforts to bring back to the faith the Picts of Galloway, which formed part of the kingdom of Strathclyde; and afterwards, by numerous mission and monastic foundations throughout all Albyn--a name which was then given to midland Scotland. His disciples penetrated even to the Orkney Isles, where they probably met with the missionaries of S. Columba, despatched from Iona.

The salutary and laborious activity of Kentigern must often have encroached upon the regions which were specially within the sphere of Columba. But the generous heart of Columba was inaccessible to jealousy. He was, besides, the personal friend of Kentigern and of King Roderick.[47] The fame of the Bishop of Strathclyde's apostolic labours drew him from his isle to do homage to his rival in love and good works. He arrived from Iona with a great train of monks, whom he arrayed in three companies at the moment of their entrance into Glasgow. Kentigern distributed in the same way the numerous monks who surrounded him in his episcopal monastery, and whom he led out to meet the abbot of Iona. He divided them, according to their age, into three bands, the youngest of whom walked first; then those who had reached the age of manhood; and last of all, the old and grey-haired, among whom he himself took his place. They all chanted the anthem, "They shall sing in the ways of the Lord: that great is the glory of the Lord. The path of the just is made: and the way of the saints is prepared." The monks of Iona, on their side, chanted the versicle, "The saints shall go from strength to strength: and unto the God of gods appeareth every one of them in Sion."[48] From every side echoed the Alleluia; and it was to the sound of these words of Holy Scripture that the Apostles of the Picts and Scots met at what had been the extreme boundary of the Roman empire, and limit of the power of the Caesars, and upon a soil henceforth for ever freed from paganism and idolatry. They embraced each other tenderly, and passed several days in intimate and friendly intercourse.

The historian, who has preserved for us the account of this interview, does not conceal a less edifying incident. He confesses that some robbers had joined themselves to the following of the abbot of Iona, and that they took advantage of the general enthusiasm to steal a ram from the Bishop's flock. They were soon taken; but Kentigern pardoned them. Columba and his fellow Apostle exchanged their pastoral staves before they parted, in token of mutual affection. The staff of S. Columba, afterwards used by S. Kentigern, was in later times given to S. Wilfred, who placed it in the monastic church he founded at Ripon.

I know not how far we may put faith in another narrative of Jocelyn, which has remained Kentigern's most popular title to fame. The wife of King Roderick, led astray by a guilty passion for a knight of her husband's court, had the weakness to bestow on him a ring which had been given to her by the King. When Roderick was out hunting with this knight, the two took refuge on the banks of the Clyde, during the heat of the day, and the knight, falling asleep, unwittingly stretched out his hand, upon which the King saw the ring which he had given to the Queen as a token of his love. It was with difficulty that he restrained himself from killing the knight on the spot; but he subdued his rage, and contented himself by taking the ring from his finger, and throwing it into the river, without awakening the guilty sleeper. When he had returned to the town, he demanded his ring from the Queen, and, as she could not produce it, threw her into prison, and gave orders for her execution. She obtained, however, a delay of three days, and having in vain sought the ring from the knight to whom she had given it, she had recourse to S. Kentigern. He, moved by the remembrance of his mother, through whose sin he had entered the world, and anxious that the unhappy woman should be given time for repentance, prayed to God, and the ring was found in the belly of a salmon caught in the Clyde, and sent by him to the Queen, who showed it to her husband, and thus escaped the punishment which awaited her. On her liberation she hastened to Kentigern, confessed her fault to him, and was exhorted by him to amend her life and do penance for the past. It is for this reason that the ancient effigies of the Apostle of Strathclyde represent him holding the episcopal cross in one hand, and in the other a salmon with a ring in its mouth.

S. Kentigern lived to a very advanced age, and his jaws being too weak to masticate his food, his lower jaw was supported by a band of linen tied round his head. He died gently as he was being lifted out of a warm bath, in the year 601.

Patron of Glasgow.

In art, represented with a fish and a ring. (See above.)

B. GOTFRIED OF KAPPENBERG.

(A.D. 1127.)

[His life by a writer of the same time, a monk of Kappenberg, who, though he did not know Gotfried himself, derived his information from those who knew him well. He is also mentioned, and the principal incidents of his life noticed, in the life of S. Norbert.]

Godfrey or Gotfried, Count of Kappenberg,[49] in Westphalia, lived at a period when the nobles of Germany were engaged in constant feuds with one another, falling on each others lands, burning the villages, and carrying off the cattle. It was a period when the poor suffered untold woes. "It is good to live under the crook," they said, meaning that their only place, where they could live in security, was on the lands of the abbeys. One little incident mentioned in the life of Count Gotfried, shews the lawlessness of the times. The Count and the city of Münster not being on good terms, a party of the Kappenbergers made a foray, and swept up all the cattle from the farms in the neighbourhood of Münster, and brought them in triumph to the Count; but he rebuked them saying, "Take all these back again; my quarrel is with the men of the city; it is not seemly that the innocent and helpless farmers should lose their all on account of a contest of the rights of which they know nothing."

Gotfried happening to attend, along with his brother Otto, the preaching of S. Norbert, who traversed Westphalia at this time, was converted, and resolved on turning his fortress into a monastery. His wife at first opposed his intention, and his relations used all their influence to dissuade him. But his earnestness moved his wife at last to withdraw her objections, and to consent to his entering the religious life; she, at the same time, also resolved to take the veil. Accordingly, Gotfried and his brother Otto, who was his junior, received the tonsure, and became canons of S. Augustine, under the rule of S. Norbert of Prémontré. Frederick, Count of Arnsberg, the father of Gotfried's wife, was furious. He was a man of great cruelty, in whose dungeons languished many wretches, and who delighted in war. His protests were in vain, the Count of Kappenberg transformed his castle into a monastery, and built two more, at Varlar and Elstadt. So great was the humility of Gotfried, that finding he was continually given his title of Count, even by the brethren, he took upon himself the most disagreeable office in the house, that of scourer of the privies.

Frederick, Count of Arnsberg, finding remonstrances in vain, threatened to fall on the county of Kappenberg, and drive the monks out "As for that Norbert!" he exclaimed, "who has come riding on an ass through Westphalia, turning men's heads, let me catch him, and I'll hang him and his ass at the two ends of one rope over a bough, and see which is the heaviest fool of the twain."

Gotfried and his brethren sent to Prémontré, to tell their father in religion, that it was impossible for them to remain in Germany, that Count Arnsberg would attack them shortly; and they added the threat uttered against Norbert himself and his ass.

"Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world, said Christ," he wrote back to them, "and as for me and my ass, we are coming into Westphalia to be weighed one against the other." Nor was S. Norbert long in coming; he rode upon his ass to the door of Kappenberg; but there was no further danger, Count Frederick of Arnsberg was dead.

Before he died, Gotfried visited the cradle of his order, Prémontré, the home of S. Norbert. On his way back, next year, he sickened, and died at Elstadt.

B. VERONICA, V. OF MILAN.

(A.D. 1497.)

[Beatified by Pope Leo X. Her life and revelations were written by Brother Isidore of Isolani, O.S.D., from the account given him by those who had known her well; among others from the notes of Benedetta, and the recital of Thaddaea, two sisters, who had been intimately acquainted with Veronica. This account was printed in 1518, at Milan.]

Veronica was the daughter of a pious peasant at Binasco, a small village between Milan and Pavia. Her father was noted for his integrity, and when he sold a horse he always mentioned its defects to the purchaser. Veronica was employed in the fields weeding, as the parents were too poor to send her to the school. Veronica desired earnestly to become a sister in the convent of S. Martha, at Milan, but her mother assured her that it was impossible to join a religious community without a knowledge of letters. Accordingly, every night Veronica laboured, by the light of her little oil lamp, at her alphabet and spelling book; but she made little progress. One night, as she lay with her hands spread out on the table, and her head bowed, disheartened at the difficulty of her task, the Blessed Virgin appeared to her in a robe of dazzling blue, like the summer sky. "My child," said the gentle Mother, "trouble thyself not with this scholarship, the only learning thou needst is comprised in three letters, white, black, and red. This white letter is purity of soul and body; this black letter is simplicity, contentedness with what God sends you, and freedom from taking offence; this red letter is meditation on the passion of my dear Son. Let these three branches of learning be mastered, and all the other letters come of themselves."

Veronica, some years later, entered the convent of S. Martha, as a lay sister, and her duties were to beg for the society, as her ignorance of reading and Latin disqualified her from chanting the choir offices with the full sisters.

She persevered in the study of those three letters shown her by the Queen of Heaven, and in studying them she advanced far on the way of perfection. She was honoured with wondrous revelations, but her modesty was so great that she sought to conceal them. On the Octave of Corpus Christi, 1487, during mass, she saw in the adorable Sacrament exposed in the Tabernacle, the form of Jesus Christ as a little child surrounded by adoring angels. In her simplicity she asked one of the other sisters if she had seen the Holy Child, and when she answered in the negative, Veronica flushed red, and said no more.

It was a great disappointment to her that she was unable to sing the choir offices, and she made it a special object of prayer that her understanding might be enlightened, so that she might join the others in their psalmody. Then an angel descended to her cell, and he held in his hand the psalter, and opening it before her, bade her read, and all her difficulty passed away, and she chanted the psalms of David, with the antiphons and responses, alternately with the Angel of God. One night, when she had been very ill, and deprived of the privilege of communion, she rose from her sick bed, drawn by an irresistible impulse to the church. It was full of light; she cast herself at the altar steps, before the adorable Sacrament, and Jesus in a cloud of glory communicated her Himself.

She lay three years in a lingering illness, all which time she would never be exempted from any of the duty of the house, or make use of the least indulgence, though she was given leave; her answer always was, "I must work whilst I can, whilst I have time."

Sister Thaddaea informed the writer of her life, that on Whitsun-Monday, 1496, she went to the cell of Veronica, who was ill, at the hour of nones, and was astonished to see a bright light streaming from the chinks in the door. Looking in through a hole, she saw Veronica, in dazzling light, chanting nones. Veronica died in the year 1497.

[Illustration: Seal of Robert Wishart, Bp. of Glasgow, 1272-1316. See life of S. Kentigern, p. 193.]

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Lib. I., c. 3, 4.

[45] By David Camerarius, Hector Boece, and Condeus.

[46] From Ken-tiern, chief lord.

[47] Adamnan i. 15.

[48] In viis Domini magna est gloria Domini, et via justorum facta est: et iter sanctorum praeparatum est. Ibunt sancti de virtute in virtutem: videbitur Deus corum in Sion.

[49] Near Lunen, on the river Lippe.

January 14.

S. PONTIAN, _M., at Spoleto, 2nd cent._ S. FELIX, _P. C., at Nola, 3rd cent._ S. MACRINA, _at Neocaesarea, 4th cent._ SS. THEODULUS, PAUL, PROCLUS, HYPATIUS, ISAAC, AND OTHERS, _Monks, MM., at Sinai, 5th cent._ S. DATIUS, _Abp. of Milan_, A.D. 552. S. FULGENTIUS, _B. of Carthagina_, A.D. 619. B. ENGELMAR, _H. M. in Bavaria, beginning of 12th cent._ B. SABBAS, _Abp. of Servia, 13th cent._ B. ORDORICO, _Friar at Udine, in Italy_, A.D. 1331. For S. HILARY, see JAN. 13.

S. FELIX, P. C., AT NOLA.

(3RD CENT.)

[On this day are commemorated two priests, Confessors, of Nola, of the same name, Felix. This has led to almost inextricable confusion among Martyrologists. There is another, a martyr, of this name. The life of S. Felix is given by S. Gregory of Tours, De Glor. Martyr, lib. i. c. 104, and by the Venerable Bede. The miracles wrought by him have also been recorded by S. Paulinus of Nola.]

Saint Felix was a native of Nola, in Campania, where his father, Hermias, who was by birth a Syrian, and had served in the army, had purchased an estate and settled. He had two sons, Felix and Hermias, to whom, at his death, he left his property. The younger, loving the things of Caesar rather than the things of God, says Bede, served in the army, but Felix, more _happy_--as his name implies--enrolled himself as a soldier of Jesus Christ. Having passed the grades of lector and exorcist, he was finally ordained priest by Maximus, Bishop of Nola.

Persecution having broken out, the aged Bishop, mindful of the injunction, "When they persecute you in one city flee to another" (Matt. x. 23), escaped to the hills, and left his flock to the charge of Felix, whom he designated as his successor. The persecutors, not finding the Bishop, seized on Felix, and cast him, heavily ironed, into a dungeon strewn with broken crockery, into which no ray of light entered. In the meantime, Maximus was perishing with cold and hunger in the mountains, hardships which his great age made him unable to endure.

One night an angel appeared to Felix, and bade him go forth out of prison and succour the aged Bishop. Then his chains fell off his neck, and hands, and feet, and the doors opened to him of their own accord, and guided by the angel, he was brought to the hiding place of Maximus, whom he found prostrate and speechless, and apparently dying. He moistened the old man's lips with wine, and forced some food into his mouth, and chafed his frozen limbs. By slow degrees the Bishop was restored, and then laying him upon his shoulders, Felix carried him home before daybreak, where a pious old woman took care of him.

Felix, with the blessing of his pastor, repaired secretly to his own lodgings, and there kept himself concealed, praying for the Church without ceasing, till peace was restored to it by the death of the Emperor Decius in 251. Persecution breaking forth again, the sergeants were sent in quest of Felix. Meeting him in the street, and not recognizing him, they stopped him and asked if he had met Felix on the way. "No," he answered; "I have not met him." They went on, but something arousing their suspicion, they had not gone far before they turned and hastened back. Felix had, in the meantime, crept through a small hole in some old broken walls. The officers came to the place, but seeing a spider's web covering the hole, they did not search the place, thinking that Felix could not have passed that way. But this was the Lord's doing. He had sent the little spider to drop his lines and lace them together, with the utmost rapidity, over the place through which His servant had escaped. Felix, finding among the ruins, between two houses, an old well half dug, hid himself in it for six months; and received during that time wherewithal to subsist from a devout Christian woman.

Peace having been restored to the Church, the Saint quitted his retreat, and was received in the city as an angel from heaven. Soon after, S. Maximus dying, Felix was unanimously elected Bishop; but he persuaded the people to make choice of Quintus, because he was the senior priest, having been ordained seven days before him.

His property having been confiscated in the persecution, S. Felix rented a little spot of barren land, not exceeding three acres, which he tilled with his own hands, and was able by his industry to support himself, and give something in alms to the poor. He died at a good old age, on Jan. 14th, on which day the Martyrology, under the name of S. Jerome, and all others of later date mention him.

Patron of Nola, in conjunction with other Saints.

Relics, in the Cathedral at Nola.

In art, he is represented (1), with an angel striking off his chains; (2), with a bunch of grapes, wherewith he fed S. Maximus; (3), bearing S. Maximus on his shoulders, or in his arms; (4), with a spider.

S. MACRINA THE ELDER, C., AT NEOCAESAREA.

(4TH CENT.)

[Spoken of by S. Gregory Nyssen, her grandson, in his life of his sister Macrina. S. Gregory Nazianzen gives a fuller account in his life of her grandson, S. Basil the Great.]

In the persecution of Galerius, A.D. 304, S. Macrina and her husband were obliged to hide till the tyranny was overpast, in a wooded mountain in Pontus, for seven years, suffering severely from cold and from insufficiency of food. They were, however, able to catch and kill wild deer.

SS. THEODULUS, P. PAUL, PROCLUS, HYPATIUS, ISAAC, AND OTHERS, MONKS AND MM. AT SINAI.

(5TH CENT.)

[Roman Martyrology. German Martyrology on the 13th Jan. The account of the martyrdom of these monks was written by S. Nilus himself, an eye-witness of their passion, and father of Theodulus, one of the sufferers, though not the martyr of the same name.]

"O my friends," says S. Nilus, in his account of the tragedy commemorated this day;[50] "I, wretched man that I am, had two sons, one of whom I had to lament, the other remained with his mother. After I had become the father of these two, my wife and I separated. A vehement craving after solitude and rest drew me into the desert; I could think and look to nothing else. When the desire of anything has engrossed the mind, it draws it violently from all things else, even from good works, and strains towards that which it desires, heeding no impediments and toils. When, then, I was thus impelled to go forth, I took my two sons--they were quite little fellows then--and I led them to their mother, and I gave one to her, and kept the other with me, and I told her my design, and begged her not to oppose it. She did not resist me, seeing my earnestness, yielding rather to necessity than consenting spontaneously. But know, all of you, that the separation of those who have been united in legitimate marriage, and have become one body, by Him who in His secret council has joined them, is no light matter. It is like hacking through a living body with a sword."

Nilus, having escaped with his little son Theodulus into the deserts of Sinai, took up his abode with the monks, and served God in the solitude and rest he had so much desired, "Among these," continues Nilus, "Caesar's money does not circulate, for they neither buy nor sell. Each is ready to give freely to the other whatever he wants. Olives and dates, and rarely bread, is all they have to give, but they become tokens of charity, and sufficiently evidence liberality of intention. There is no envy among them, and he who abounds less in good works does not feel jealous of him who abounds more. Their cells are not close together, but at some little distance from one another, not because of want of love, but that they may mould themselves to the pattern God has set before them in all quiet and silence. On the Lord's Day they all assemble in one church, and meet accordingly once a week; lest, on the other hand, total isolation should break the bonds of concord and make them forgetful of the offices due to one another, and their manners become savage and uncouth. After having all participated of the Divine Mysteries, they accordingly meet to converse. But why should I relate more of their ways? All at once a storm came on, a cloud of barbarians burst upon the settlement, early one morning, when the hymns had just ceased. I was there then with my son. I was descending the holy mountain to visit the Saints who inhabited the bush, as I was wont to do often, when I heard the noise of shouts and cries, and like yelping of dogs, the barbarians carried off all the Saints had prepared for their winter provision. They dragged them out of the church and stripped them, and made a circle round them with drawn swords, and eyes filled with fury, ready to kill them. Then, first they bade the priest stretch out his neck, and he, without a cry, though they cut him on the back with their blades, signed himself and whispered, 'Blessed be the Lord!' One blow cut him from the back-bone to the jaw, and cut through his ear; the next blow was from his shoulder to his cheek. So the holy man sank down modestly. The previous evening that admirable man at supper had said, 'How do we know whether we shall all live to meet again at table?' After that they killed him who lived with the old priest, and then the boy who served them." Then the Arabs, brandishing their bloody weapons, rushed after the monks, who scattered in all directions, some escaping down the valley, and some, Nilus included, flying up the all but inaccessible rocks of Sinai, whither the Arabs did not trouble themselves to pursue them. Nilus escaped reluctantly, for his boy was in the hands of the barbarians. "I stood bewildered," he says "not knowing what to do, and bound to the child by my bowels of love, and unable to fly till the boy made signs to me with his eyes to escape; but I could hardly persuade myself to do so. My feet went forward and dragged my body along, I hardly knew how, for my heart would not leave him, and I turned my face ever and anon to look at the boy. Thus I reached the mountain, following the others, and saw my poor boy carried away, unable to look about him as he would, but furtively casting glances towards where I was. Such is the tie of nature, that separation of bodies does not break it, but it is cruelly wrenched. The cow which is led away lows piteously and often, always turning its head towards the dear calf, and by its eyes proving the intensity of its grief. And I, when I had reached, I know not how, the mountain top, with my mind one way and my body elsewhere, I tried still to see my son, but I could not, the distance was too great. Then I burst into prayer to God, weeping for my captive son and the murdered saints."

"After the barbarians had killed many others, they went their way; and as day declined we were able, without fear, to descend and bury the bodies. We found some quite dead, but Theodulus, the priest, was still breathing and able to speak. Therefore we, sitting down there, passed the night there, weeping, at the old man's request." The dying priest bade them be of good cheer, reminding them that Job was robbed of his substance and his children, and was grievously plagued in his body, yet, trusting in God, he was given in the end more than he had lost. Then, kissing the survivors, he breathed forth his holy soul. S. Theodulus and these martyrs fell on Jan. 14th; but other sufferers who were put to death by this horde of barbarians are commemorated with them. S. Nilus gives an account of the sufferings of several of these, whom the Arabs hunted from the rocks, wherever there was a spring of water and a patch of herbage.

Nilus, having obtained money, went into the desert in quest of the Arabs, in company with an armed embassy, to their chief or king, that he might ransom his son. "Having gone eight days, we were hard pressed for want of water; but those who knew the locality said that there was a spring somewhere near. So the party ran here and there in their eagerness to find and enjoy it; and I went along too, but on account of my age was not able to travel as fast as they, and could not run without loss of dignity. Now the well was really behind them, hidden behind a little hill, so that they kept rushing further from it, and I, ascending the mound, lighted suddenly upon it, for it lay on the other side, and there I saw a number of Arabs gathered round it. When I thus fell into the hands of the enemy, I cannot say whether I was glad or sorry, for I was between the two conditions of mind, being fearful for my personal safety, but very anxious to see my son, whom I hoped to deliver out of captivity, or at least to share captivity with him. Those who had accompanied me escaped, throwing themselves down, and creeping away behind the hill; but the barbarians, shouting, surrounded me, and dragged me violently about, but I looked about with great desire, hoping among them to catch a sight of my boy.

"Suddenly, some of our party, armed, appeared on the horizon, and the barbarians, in great alarm, fled away, and in a moment the spot where they had swarmed was bare and lifeless.

"Next day we continued our course, and so for four days did we persevere, till we reached the camp; and when it was announced that there were ambassadors come to the King, we were brought before Haman, the chief of the barbarians. Who, when we had presented gifts, gave us a gracious reception, and lodged us near him, till he could make perquisition for the offenders. My heart beat violently, and I waited the result in an agony of suspense. Every sound seemed to me to speak of him whom I sought so anxiously; my ears were ever on the alert, and my mind on the stretch for the tidings, that I might be certified whether my son lived or was dead. Ever before my eyes I saw his image, sometimes I saw him killed in one way, sometimes in another, and I fancied I heard his weeping voice calling me. O wretched boy! art thou alive or art thou dead? If thou hast escaped death, what miserable bondage is thine? If thou hast died, where is thine unburied corpse?

"At last the messengers returned, and by their faces I read the sad news. 'You need not speak,' I said, 'I see in your countenances that I have no hope.' But they assured me that Theodulus, my little fellow, was not dead, but was sold to some one or other in the city Eleusa. Then I resolved to go there in quest of him. But I had no rest in mind, for I thought, Well, if he lives, he is lost to me, for he serves as a slave; he cannot follow his free will, but is for ever subject to the caprice of a master.

"As we were on our way to Eleusa, a young man, driving some laden animals, met us. He had already seen me in the camp, and he knew all about my affair. He, being in Eleusa, made inquiries, and learned that my son had been brought there by the barbarians, and had been sold. Seeing me coming, he advanced last and smiling towards me, and when we were within speaking distance, he shouted cheerily to me, and stretching forth his right hand, he turned it behind him over his shoulder, and pulled out a letter from his quiver, which he gave to me, telling me that my boy was alive, and bade me be of good cheer, and not to be out of heart because he was a slave, for he had been bought by a Christian priest.

"Then I, being without money or home, and unable thus to reward the fellow, blessed him with many tears, and prayed that he might be abundantly rewarded by God for the joy he gave me, I being unable to offer him anything.

"But I, as soon as I reached the city, went first of all to the church, as to the source of all good, and I gave honour there to God, watering the pavement with my tears, and filling the sacred building with the sound of my sobs. Thence I was guided to the house where my son was, sending first of all before me messengers to break the news of my coming. All knew me, by the report which had preceded me, to be the father of the boy who had been sold there, and there was not a person all along the street who did not express joy, in countenance, and running out of their houses with glad faces, seemed as though each rejoiced with me over a lost son re-found.

"Now when we came to the door of the house, he was called out and told that I was there, and they brought him to salute me. And when we saw one another, we did not rejoice, nor exclaim at first, but both cried till our tears dribbled over our breasts. He ran to me, but scarcely knew me, I was so ragged in dress, and my hair uncombed. Believing what others said rather than knowing me, he came with arms outspread and clasped me round with bursting heart. But _I_ knew _him_ when he was a long way off, though there were numbers of others there, for it was just the same face, stamped by constant remembrance on my mind; and unable to contain my joy, my strength suddenly failed me, and I fell down. Then the people, seeing me with open mouth on the ground, thought me dead. There was great outcry, but when my son had clasped me in his arms, my spirit came back, and I knew where I was, and who I was, whom I saw before me with mine eyes. Then I hugged him and he hugged me, never satisfying our great desire. However, at last, when more composed, I blamed myself to him as the cause of all these misfortunes, because I had taken him away from his home to a wild place which was full of danger, and it was so, as I said."

Then Theodulus told his father all his adventures with the Arabs. "Father," said he, "on the night after we were taken, the barbarians had prepared everything for a sacrifice, altar, sword, incense, and the like, and we thought we were sure to be killed and offered up on the morrow. Then my fellow captive, in the night, ran away and escaped, but I was afraid to do so, not knowing whither to go in the desert, but I prayed to God till I fell asleep. And, waking early in the morning when dawn broke on the horizon, I knelt with my hands on my knees, and my face bowed upon them, wetting my bosom with my tears, and again with my whole heart I cried out to Him who alone could deliver me, 'Thou, Lord, alone hast power over life and death, Thou hast shown wonders of old and hast delivered Thy servants out of peril. Thou didst save Isaac, lying on the altar, and Joseph from the hands of his brethren. Save me, too, for Thy great Name's sake.'

"Then, presently, the Arabs awoke, and making a great noise because my companion was gone, asked me where he was; but when I said that I did not know, because I had not run away, they were not angry. Then my mind became calm, and I blessed God. After that they consulted, and brought me to the city to sell me. They stripped me naked, and put a sword round my neck, to show that if I was not bought they would kill me. Then I was exposed for sale, and I stretched out my hands suppliantly to the purchasers to save me from death, promising my glad service if they would redeem my blood. Then after a while he came by and bought me, even the Bishop of this place."

Now the Bishop had bought the boy out of charity, and he at once surrendered him to his father, regarding nothing the price he had paid for him, and he, moreover, furnished them with food for their long journey home; and before he dismissed them, feeling confident of their vocation, he ordained together to the priesthood both father and son.

S. DATIUS, ABP. C., OF MILAN.

(A.D. 552.)

[Roman and other Latin Martyrologies. Datius, Dacius, or Dasius, is spoken of by Procopius Cassidorus, whose letter to S. Datius is extant, and by S. Gregory the Great, who relates the incident of his reduction of the evil spirits to silence, narrated in the text, in his Dialogues, lib. iii., c. 4.]

S. Datius ruled the see of Milan in a stormy time, when Italy was over-run with the Goths. When Milan was threatened, S. Datius implored Belisarius to come to its protection, or send troops to defend the city. Belisarius was then at Rome, and S. Datius made the journey to Rome, on purpose to urge upon him, in person, the protection of the city. Belisarius, though hard pressed through the deficiency of supplies afforded him by the Emperor Justinian, detached a body of men to the defence of the Milanese, and for a time Milan was thought to be safe. Soon, however, a large army of Goths and Burgundians swooped down upon it and besieged it. Belisarius, seeing the danger to which the city was exposed, sent troops under his generals, Martin and Uliaris, to the succour. But they, through timidity, did not venture to attack the Goths. In the city famine prevailed to such an extent, that as S. Datius relates in his Annals, an unfortunate mother roasted and ate her infant, that being the first morsel she had eaten since her confinement. The city was surrendered, but the terms of surrender were not kept. It was given up to plunder, and the streets ran with the blood of the butchered citizens. What became of the Archbishop is not known; some assert that he was taken captive to Ravenna, but was liberated at the intercession of his friend Cassiodorus.

The Arian King, Totila, drove S. Datius from his see, and he escaped to Constantinople. On his way occurred that incident recorded by S. Gregory the Great, by which he is chiefly known. Arriving at Corinth, and looking about for a large house, which would lodge him and his companions, he saw a mansion, which seemed exactly suited to his purpose, and was apparently unoccupied. Having instituted inquiries, he was told that the house was haunted, and that it was impossible for any man to spend the night in it. "Ghost and devil will not scare a servant of God!" said S. Datius, and he ordered beds to be made in the haunted house. He said his prayers as usual, and then retired to rest. About midnight he was aroused by a hideous rout, like the braying of asses, the grunting of swine, the squeaking of rats, and the hissing of serpents. Then Datius, raising himself in bed, shouted, "Oh, Satan! thou who saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will be like the most High! (Isa. xiv. 13, 14.) Well done, I say, Satan. Thou, who wouldst be like God, art reduced to bray like a jackass, and grunt like a hog." Instantly there was dead silence, and S. Datius was no more troubled with unearthly noises.

B. ORDORICO, O.S.F.

(A.D. 1331.)

[His life, by several writers on the Franciscan Saints. His travels were dictated by him to Friar Guglielmo, who wrote them down, and added an account of his death. No copy of his original Latin MS. exists, and the Italian and Latin copies we have vary so much from one another that it is difficult to know which is the most correct. Copyists, not considering the things related in his travels as sufficiently marvellous, have supplied by their fancy what Ordorico never dictated. Although no copy of the original MS. exists, we can trace the progress of amplification and error by comparing the oldest and best account of the travels extant, with some of the later narratives of Friar Ordorico's life and adventure.]

Among the early travellers in the East a conspicuous place is due to Friar Ordorico de Pordenone, commonly called Il Beato, the Blessed. He was born in the district of Pordenone, in the Friuli, about the year 1286. Early in life he entered the Order of Friars Minors, or Franciscans, and took the vows in their house at Udine. After many years of exemplary life and industry he girded up his loins for the perilous pilgrimage and great mission--that is, he proceeded to the remote countries of the East to convert the infidel and idolater. He is believed to have been absent from Italy for the long space of sixteen years. He took with him his monastic habit, his cord, and his pilgrim's staff, and apparently no other thing. Where there were Christians, he claimed their charity; and where there were none, he threw himself upon the hospitality of the unbelievers. Friar Ordorico went from the Adriatic Sea to Constantinople, and proceeding from that great city to the Black Sea, he landed at Trebizond. From Trebizond he travelled through Armenia and Persia, and came to Ormuz on the Persian Gulf. At Ur of the Chaldees, he was shocked to find that the men did the knitting and spinning; and he was surprised that they liked a head of venison more than four fat partridges. At Bagdad, says he, the men are handsome and the women ugly; the women carry loads and the men saunter about in idleness. But this, alas! is not confined to Bagdad. At the port of Balsora he embarked, and crossing the Indian Ocean, he reached the coasts of Malabar. There, says he, he much surprised, the people prefer dates to venison. Thence he turned round upon Ceylon. He landed in that magnificent island, and travelled through the greater part of it. He describes the quantities of elephants which are found in the interior of that country; the blood-sucking land-leeches, so well-known to the Indians, which render the passage through the jungle so painful to Europeans; he correctly describes the general qualities of that remarkable tree, the talipot, which flourishes in the island of Ceylon, and in the contiguous Malabar country. He mentions Adam's Peak, and the lake at its side, which the natives told him was formed of the tears of Adam and Eve after their fall. "But," adds the friar, "I perceived this to be false, for I saw the water flowing from the mountain into the lake, and filling it." He adds that on the sides of the lake rubies are discovered. His account of the pearl fishery is without exaggeration. In the neighbouring continent some of the Brahminical superstitions are correctly set down. The excessive cruelty and indisputable cannibalism of the Andaman Islanders, who are called natives of Bodan, are accurately noted. So shocked was the friar with what he saw there, that he remained there some while preaching, but he admits with no success. Then he voyaged to Meliapore. After this he ran down the Indian Ocean to Sumatra and Java, whence he appears to have reached some of the islands of Japan, which he calls Zapan. He next entered the empire of China, and there he remained several years. He travelled through various of the vast provinces of China, and then turned West, and after long and dangerous wayfaring, he entered the country of Thibet.

In company with three other friars, he was one day resting with them under a tree, when the Khan passed by. Then one of the friars, who was a bishop, put on his pontifical vestments, and took his pastoral cross, and all four advanced to meet the Khan chanting the _Veni Creator_. Then the Khan stopped his car, and asked who these were, and when told that they were four Frank missionaries, he called them to him, and kissed the cross of the bishop. Then, because it is the custom of the country not to approach the king empty-handed, the friars offered him a plate with some apples on it. The Khan took two, ate one, and drove away tossing the other about in his hands. From his kissing the cross the friars were satisfied that he knew something of the Catholic faith.

The account left of these travels breaks off abruptly in Thibet, leaving us entirely in the dark as to the route and the manner by which the friar reached Europe. It is known, however, from a postscript to his book, that he returned in 1330, when he was forty-four years old. His health appears to have been much broken by the fatigues and privations he had undergone during his peregrinations; and he died within a few months after his return to his native country.[51]

[Illustration: Hermit Saints. S. Anthony.]

FOOTNOTES:

[50] The narrative of S. Nilus is necessarily much condensed. I regret having to do this, as it is most touching in its entirety.

[51] A much fuller account of the travels of B. Ordorico than I am able to give here may be read in MacFarlane's "Romance of Travel," II. c. 1. The most correct version of these travels is that given by Bollandus, Jan. T. 1, pp. 920-986, which MacFarlane does not seem to have seen.

January 15.

S. EPHYSIUS, _M., at Cagliari_. S. PAUL, _the First Hermit in Egypt_, A.D. 341. S. MACARIUS OF EGYPT, _P. and Ab., in Scété_, A.D. 391. S. ISIDORE, _P. and Monk, at Alexandria_, A.D. 404. S. ALEXANDER ACOEMETUS, _at Constantinople, circ._ A.D. 430. S. JOHN THE CALYBITE, _5th cent_. S. MAURUS, _Ab. of Glanfeuil, in France_, A.D. 584. S. YTHA, _V., in Ireland, 6th cent._ S. BONITUS, OR BON, _B. of Claremont, beginning of 8th cent._ S. EMBERT, _B. of Cambrai, beginning of 8th cent._ S. CEOLWULF, _K. and Monk, in England, 8th cent._

S. PAUL, THE FIRST HERMIT IN EGYPT.

(A.D. 341.)

[S. Paul died on Jan. 10th, on which day he is commemorated in most ancient Martyrologies, as the Roman, that of Cologne, Bede, &c. But both Greeks and Latins have transferred his feast to Jan. 15th, so as not to interfere with the celebration of the Octave of the Epiphany. The York Breviary and those of Paul III., and of the Dominican Order, commemorate him on the 29th Jan. His life, written by S. Jerome, is perfectly authentic. The following is a translation, much abridged, from the original.]

Under the persecuting Emperors Decius and Valerius, at the time that Cornelius was Bishop at Rome, and Cyprian, Bishop at Carthage, were condemned to shed their blessed blood, a cruel tempest swept over the Churches in Egypt and the Thebaid.

"In those days, in the Lower Thebaid, was Paul, to whom had been left a rich inheritance, at the death of both his parents, with a sister already married. He was then about fifteen years old, well taught in Greek and Egyptian literature, gentle tempered, and loving God much. When the storm of persecution burst, he withdrew into a distant city. But his sister's husband purposed to betray him, notwithstanding the tears of his wife; however, the boy discovered it, and fled into the desert hills. Once there, necessity became a pleasure, and going on, and then stopping awhile, he reached at last a stony cliff, at the foot of which was a great cave; its mouth closed with a stone. Having rolled this away, and exploring more greedily, he saw within a great vault open to the sky above, but shaded by the spreading boughs of an ancient date-palm; and in it a clear spring, the rill of which, flowing a short space forth, was sucked up again by the soil.

"There were, besides, not a few dwellings in that cavernous mountain, in which he saw rusty anvils and hammers, with which coin that had been stamped of old. For this place was an old workshop for base coin.

"Therefore, in this beloved dwelling, offered him as it were by God, he spent all his life in prayer and solitude, while the palm-tree gave him food and clothes.

"When the blessed Paul had been leading the heavenly life on earth for 113 years, and Antony, ninety years old, was dwelling in another solitude, this thought (so Antony was wont to assert) entered his mind--that no monk more perfect than himself had settled in the desert. But as he lay still by night, it was revealed to him that there was another monk far better than he, to visit whom he must set out. So when the light broke, the venerable old man, supporting his weak limbs on a staff, began to go he knew not whither. And now the mid-day, with the sun roasting above, grew fierce; and yet he was not turned from the journey he had begun, for he said 'I trust in my God, that he will show His servant that which He has promised.' Antony went on through that region, seeing only the tracks of wild beasts, and the wide waste of the desert. What he should do, or whither turn, he knew not. A second day had now run by.

[Illustration: HERMIT SAINT. From a Drawing by A. Welby Pugin. Jan. 15.]

One thing remained, to be confident that he could not be deserted by Christ. All night through he spent a second darkness in prayer, and while the light was still dim, he saw afar a she-wolf, panting with heat and thirst, creeping in at the foot of the mountain. Following her with his eyes, and drawing nigh to the cave when the beast was gone, he began to look in: but in vain; for the darkness stopped his view. However, as the Scripture saith, perfect love casteth out fear; with gentle step and bated breath the cunning explorer entered, and going forward slowly, and stopping often, watched for a sound. At length he saw afar off a light through the horror of the darkness; then he hastened on more greedily, struck his foot against a stone, and made a noise, at which the blessed Paul shut and barred his door, which had stood open.

"Then Antony, casting himself down before the entrance, prayed there till the sixth hour, and more, to be let in, saying, 'Who I am, and whence, and why I am come, thou knowest I know that I deserve not to see thy face; yet, unless I see thee, I will not return. Thou who receivest beasts, why repellest thou a man? I have sought, and I have found. I knock that it may be opened to me: which if I win not, here will I die before thy gate. Surely thou shalt at least bury my corpse.'

"'No one begs thus to threaten. No one does injury with tears. And dost thou wonder why I do not let thee in, seeing thou art a mortal guest?' Thus spake Paul, and then smiling, he opened the door. They mutually embraced and saluted each other by name, and committed themselves in common to the grace of God. And after the holy kiss, Paul, sitting down with Antony, thus began--

"'Behold him whom thou hast sought with such labour; with limbs decayed by age, and covered with unkempt white hair. Behold, thou seest but a mortal, soon to become dust. But, because charity bears all things, tell me, I pray thee, how fares the human race? whether new houses are rising in the ancient cities? by what emperor is the world governed? whether there are any left who are led captive by the deceits of the devil?' As they spoke thus, they saw a raven settle on a bough; who, flying gently down, laid, to their wonder, a whole loaf before them. When he was gone, 'Ah,' said Paul, 'the Lord truly loving, truly merciful, hath sent us a meal. For sixty years past I have received daily half a loaf, but, at thy coming, Christ hath doubled his soldiers' allowance.' Then, having thanked God, they sat down on the brink of the glassy spring.

"But here a contention arising as to which of them should break the loaf, occupied the day till well-nigh evening. Paul insisted, as the host; Antony declined, as the younger man. At last it was agreed that they should take hold of the loaf at opposite ends, and each pull towards himself, and keep what was left in his hand. Next they stooped down, and drank a little water from the spring; then, offering to God the sacrifice of praise, they passed the night watching.

"And when day dawned again, the blessed Paul said to Antony, 'I knew long since, brother, that thou wert dwelling in these lands; long since God had promised thee to me as a fellow-servant: but because the time of my falling asleep is now come, and (because I always longed to depart, and to be with Christ) there is laid up for me, when I have finished my course, a crown of righteousness; therefore thou art sent from the Lord to cover my corpse with mould, and give back dust to dust.'

"Antony, hearing this, prayed him with tears and groans not to desert him, but take him as his companion on such a journey. But he said, 'Thou must not seek the things which are thine own, but the things of others. It is expedient for thee, indeed, to cast off the burden of the flesh, and to follow the Lamb: but it is expedient for the rest of the brethren that they should be still trained by thine example. Wherefore go, unless it displeases thee, and bring the cloak which Athanasius the bishop gave thee, to wrap up my corpse.' But this the blessed Paul asked, not because he cared greatly whether his body decayed covered or bare (for he had long been used to clothe himself with woven palm leaves), but that Antony's grief at his death might be lightened when he left him. Antony astounded that he had heard of Athanasius and his own cloak, dared answer nothing: but keeping in silence, and kissing his eyes and hands, returned to the monastery. Tired and breathless, he arrived at home. There two disciples met him, who had been long sent to minister to him, and asked him, 'Where hast thou tarried so long, father?' He answered, 'Woe to me a sinner, who falsely bear the name of a monk. I have seen Elias; I have seen John in the desert; I have truly seen Paul in Paradise;' and so, closing his lips, and beating his breast, he took the cloak from his cell, and when his disciples asked him to explain more fully what had befallen, he said, 'There is a time to be silent, and a time to speak.' Then going out, and not taking even a morsel of food, he returned by the way he had come. For he feared--what actually happened--lest Paul in his absence should render up his soul to Christ.

"And when the second day had shone, and he had retraced his steps for three hours, he saw amid hosts of angels, amid the choirs of prophets and apostles, Paul shining white as snow, ascending up on high. The blessed Antony used to tell afterwards, how he ran the rest of the way so swiftly, that he seemed to fly like a bird. Nor without cause. For entering the cave he saw Paul on bended knees, erect with hands spread out on high,--a lifeless corpse. And at first, thinking that it still lived, he prayed in like wise. But when he heard no sighs come from the worshipper's breast, he gave him a tearful kiss, understanding how the very corpse of the Saint was praying to that God to whom all live.

"So, having wrapped up and carried forth the corpse, and chanting hymns, Antony grew sad, because he had no spade, wherewith to dig the ground; and thinking over many plans in his mind, said, 'If I go back to the monastery, it is a three days' journey. If I stay here, I shall be of no more use. I will die, then, as it is fit; and, falling beside thy warrior, O Christ! breathe my last breath.'

"As he was thinking thus to himself, two lions came running from the inner part of the desert, their manes tossing on their necks. Seeing these, he shuddered at first: but then, turning his mind to God, he remained without fear. They came straight to the corpse of the blessed old man, and crouched at his feet, wagging their tails, and roaring with mighty growls, so that Antony understood them to lament, as best they could. Then they began to claw the ground with their paws, and, carrying out the sand eagerly, dug a place large enough to hold a man: then at once, as if begging a reward for their work, they came to Antony, drooping their necks, and licking his hands and feet. But he perceived that they prayed a blessing from him; and at once, bursting into praise of Christ, because even dumb animals felt that He was God, he said, 'Lord, without whose word not a leaf of the tree drops, nor one sparrow falls to the ground, give to them as thou knowest how to give.' And, signing to them with his hand, he bade them go.

"And when they had departed, he bent his aged shoulders to the weight of the holy corpse; and laying it in the grave, heaped earth on it, and raised a mound as is the wont. And when another dawn shone, lest the pious heir should not possess aught of the goods of the intestate dead, he kept for himself the tunic which Paul had woven out of the leaves of the palm; and returning to the monastery, told his disciples all throughout; and, on the solemn days of Easter and Pentecost, he always clothed himself in Paul's tunic."

S. MACARIUS OF EGYPT, AB.

(A.D. 391.)

[Not to be confounded with S. Macarius of Alexandria (Jan. 2nd). This Macarius is commemorated by the Greeks on Jan. 19th; by the Roman later Martyrology on Jan. 15th, but in earlier ones on the same day as the other Macarius, Jan. 2nd. Authorities for his life are Palladius, in his History Lausiaca, a thoroughly trustworthy contemporary, Ruffinus, Sozomen, Socrates, Cassian, &c.]

S. Macarius the Elder was born in Upper Egypt, about the year 300, and was brought up in the country to attend cattle. In his childhood, in company with some others, he stole some figs and ate one of them; but from his conversion to his death, he never ceased bewailing this offence. By a powerful call of divine grace, he was led to desert the world in his youth, and to take up his abode in a little cell made of mats. A wicked woman falsely accused him of having deflowered her; for which supposed crime he was dragged through the streets, beaten and insulted, as a base hypocrite under the garb of a monk. He suffered all with patience, and sent the woman what he earned by his work, saying to himself, "Well, Macarius, having now another to provide for, you must work all the harder." But the woman, in the anguish of her travail, confessed that she had maligned him, and told the real name of her seducer. Then the people regarded him as a Saint, whom lately they would have slain. To shun the esteem of men he fled into the desert of Scété, being then about thirty years of age. In this solitude he lived sixty years, and became the spiritual father of innumerable holy persons, who put themselves under his direction, and were governed by the rules he prescribed them; but all dwelt in separate hermitages. S. Macarius admitted only one disciple with him to entertain strangers.

He was compelled by an Egyptian bishop to receive the order of priesthood, about the year 340, the fortieth of his age, that he might celebrate the Divine Mysteries for the convenience of his holy colony. When the desert became better peopled, there were four churches built in it, served by as many priests. The austerities of S. Macarius were very severe. He usually ate but once a week. Evagrius, his disciple, once asked him leave to drink a little water, under a parching thirst: but Macarius bade him be satisfied with reposing a little in the shade, saying, "For these twenty years I have never eaten, drunk, nor slept as much as nature demanded." To deny his own will, he did not refuse to drink a little wine, when others desired him; but he would punish himself for this indulgence by abstaining two or three days from all manner of drink; and it was for this reason that his disciples desired strangers never to tender him a drop of wine. He delivered his instructions in few words, and principally inculcated silence, humility, mortification and continual prayer, to all sorts of people. He used to say, "In prayer you need not use many or grand words. You can always repeat, Lord, show me mercy as Thou knowest best; or, Assist me, O Lord!"

His mildness and patience were invincible, and occasioned the conversion of a heathen priest. A young man applying to S. Macarius for spiritual advice, he directed him to go to a burying place and upbraid the dead; and after that to go and flatter them. "Well," said Macarius, when the young man returned, "How did the dead receive thy abuse of them." "They answered not a word," he replied. "And how did they behave when flattered?" "They took no notice of that either." "Go," said Macarius, "and do thou likewise."

A monk complained to Macarius that he could fast in the monastery, but not in solitude. "Ah!" said the abbot, "thou likest to have people see that thou art fasting. Beware of vainglory."

God revealed to Macarius that two women in the nearest city excelled him in virtue, in spite of all his fasting, and tears, and prayer. He took his staff, and left the desert, and went in quest of them, and lo! they were two homely married women, of whom no one talked, but who were extremely careful not to say spiteful things of their neighbours, who had not the smallest idea that they were saints, and who laboured night and day to make home pleasant to their husbands and children.

Lucius, the Arian usurper of the see of Alexandria, who had expelled Peter, the successor of S. Athanasius, in 376, sent troops into the deserts, to disperse the zealous monks, several of whom sealed their faith with their blood. The chiefs, the two Macarii, Isidore, Pambo, and others, were banished, by the authority of the Emperor Valens, to a little isle of Egypt, in the midst of stagnant marshes. The inhabitants, who were pagans, were all converted to the faith by these confessors. The public indignation obliged Lucius to suffer them to return to their cells.

The Church of God flashes forth some peculiar type of sanctity at one time, and then another. It is like a rain-drop in the sun, blazing now crimson, now green, now yellow, now blue. As there is need, God calls up an army of Saints, exactly adapted to meet the difficulties of the times, to uphold the truth, and form, as it were, a prop to stay up his tottering Church. Now it is the martyrs, who by their constancy conquer the infidels, now it is these hermits of the Syrian and Egyptian deserts, against whose orthodoxy Arianism breaks and crumbles to powder. Humanly speaking, these hermits saved the doctrine of the Godhead of Christ from being denied, and disappearing from the creed of the Church. An age like the present, so like the condition of the Roman world in its highest civilization, when pleasure and self-will are the sole things sought, and when Arianism is in power in high places, and the learned and polished, admitting the excellency of Christianity in general, allow to Christ only the place of a founder of a school of religious thought--such an age as this seems one meet for the revival of the hermit life as a witness for the truth, and a protest against luxury. This, and this only, as far as we can judge, will meet the great want of the day; it is not preaching that will recover the multitude lapsed into religious indifference; it must be the example of men, believing with such a fiery faith, that they sacrifice everything the world holds precious, for the sake of the truth that Jesus Christ, the everlasting God, came in the Flesh.

Nothing in the wonderful history of the hermits of Egypt is so incredible as their number. But the most weighty authorities agree in establishing it. It was a kind of emigration of towns to the desert, of civilization to simplicity, of noise to silence, of corruption to innocence. The current once begun, floods of men, of women, and of children threw themselves into it, and flowed thither during a century, with resistless force. Let us quote some figures. Pachomius, who died at fifty-six, reckoned three thousand monks under his rule; his monasteries of Tabenna soon included seven thousand, and S. Jerome affirms that as many as fifty thousand were present at the annual gathering of the general congregation of monasteries which followed his rule.

There were five thousand on the mountain of Nitria alone. Nothing was more frequent than to see two hundred, three hundred, or five hundred monks under the same abbot. Near Arsinoë (now Suez), the abbot Serapion governed ten thousand, who, in the harvest time, spread themselves over the country to cut the corn, and thus gained the means of living and giving alms. It has even been asserted that there were as many monks in the deserts of Egypt as inhabitants in the towns. The towns themselves were, so to speak, inundated by them, since in 356, a traveller found in the single town of Oxyrynchus (Abou Girge) upon the Nile, ten thousand monks and twenty thousand virgins consecrated to God.[52] The immense majority of these religious were cenobites, that is to say, they lived in the same enclosure, and were united by common rule and practice under an elected head, whom they everywhere called abbot, from the Syriac word _abba_, which means _father_. The cenobitical life superseded rapidly, and almost completely, the life of solitaries. Scarcely any man became a solitary until after having been a cenobite, and in order to meditate upon God during the last years of his life. Custom has, therefore, given the title of monks to cenobites alone.

Ambitious at once of reducing to subjection their rebellious flesh, and of penetrating the secrets of the celestial light, these cenobites united the active with the contemplative life. The various and incessant labours which filled up their days are known. In the great frescoes of the cemetery of Pisa, they appear in their coarse black or brown dresses, a cowl upon their shoulders, occupied in digging up the soil, in cutting down trees, in fishing in the Nile, in milking the goats, in gathering the dates which served them for food, in plaiting the mats on which they were to die. Others are absorbed in reading or meditating on the Holy Scriptures. Thus a Saint has said that the cells united in the desert were like a hive of bees. There each had in his hands the wax of labour, and in his mouth the honey of psalms and prayers. The days were divided between prayer and work. The work was divided between field labour and the exercise of various trades. There were among these monks entire colonies of weavers, of carpenters, of curriers, of tailors, and of fullers.[53] All the rules of the patriarchs of the desert made labour obligatory, and the example of their holy lives gave authority to the rule. When Macarius of Egypt came to visit the great Antony, they immediately set to work on their mats together, conferring thus upon things important to souls; and Antony was so edified by the zeal of the priest, that he kissed his hands, saying, "What virtues proceed from these hands!"

Each monastery was then a great school of labour; it was also, at the same time, a great school of charity. The monks practised charity not only among themselves, and with regard to the poor inhabitants of the neighbouring countries, but especially in the case of travellers whom the necessities of commerce called to the banks of the Nile, and of the numerous pilgrims, whom their increasing fame drew to the desert. A more generous hospitality had never been exercised, nor had the universal mercy, introduced by Christianity into the world, blossomed anywhere to such an extent. A thousand incidents in their history reveal the most tender solicitude for the miseries of the poor. The _Xenodochium_--that is, the asylum for the poor and strangers--formed from that time a necessary appendix to every monastery. The most ingenious combinations, and the most gracious inspirations of charity are to be found in this history. A certain monastery served as an hospital for sick children; another was transformed by its founder into an hospital for lepers and cripples. "Behold," said he, in shewing to the ladies of Alexandria the upper floor which was reserved for women, "behold my jacinths." Then conducting them to the floor below, were the men were placed, "See my emeralds."

They were hard only upon themselves. Under a burning sky, in a climate which has always seemed the cause, or the excuse of vice, in a country given up at all times to every kind of luxury and depravity, there were thousands of men who, during two centuries, interdicted themselves from the very shadow of a sensual gratification, and made of the most rigorous mortification a rule as universal as a second nature.

It was their rule also to cultivate the mind by the study of sacred literature. The rule of S. Pachomius made the reading of divers portions of the Bible a strict obligation. All the monks, besides, were required to be able to read and write. To qualify themselves for reading the Scriptures was the first duty imposed upon the novices.

When, towards evening, at the hour of vespers, after a day of stifling heat, all work ceased, and from the midst of the sands, from the depths of caverns, from pagan temples cleared of their idols, and from all the vast tombs of a people dead, now occupied by these men dead to the world, the cry of a living people rose to heaven; when everywhere, and all at once, the air vibrated with hymns, prayers, and the pious and solemn, tender and joyous songs of these champions of the soul and conquerors of the desert, who celebrated, in the language of David, the praises of the living God, the thanksgivings of the freed soul, and the homage of vanquished passions,--then the traveller, the pilgrim, and especially the new convert stood still, lost in emotion, and transported with the sounds of that sublime concert, cried aloud, "Behold, this is Paradise."[54]

"Go," said the most eloquent doctor of the Church at that period; "go to the Thebaid; you will find there a solitude still more beautiful than Paradise, a thousand choirs of angels under human form, nations of martyrs, armies of virgins, the diabolical tyrant chained, and Christ triumphant and glorified."[55]

S. ISIDORE, P. AND MONK IN ALEXANDRIA.

(A.D. 404.)

[Almost all the ancient Martyrologies commemorate S. Isidore on the same day as S. Macarius the Elder. Authorities for his life, same as for S. Macarius.]

S. Isidore, priest and monk, lived in Alexandria as hospitaller, that is, in charge of a hospital for the reception of strangers and the poor. He suffered many persecutions, first from Lucius, the Arian Bishop, who ill-treated the two Macarii, and afterwards from the orthodox bishop, Theophilus, who, moved by some jealousy, unjustly charged him with favouring the views of Origen. He took refuge at Constantinople with S. John Chrysostom, where he repudiated the heresy of Origen, declaring that he was falsely accused of holding it, and died in 404.

S. ALEXANDER, OF THE SLEEPLESS ONES, MONK AT ALEXANDRIA.

(ABOUT A.D. 430.)

[Roman Martyrology and Greek Menaea. The life of S. Alexander, written by a disciple of his, exists in Greek. From this the following epitome is taken.]

S. Alexander was of Asiatic origin, and was educated at Constantinople, where he entered the army, and was advanced to the office of eparchus, or proctor. Being a studious reader of the Old and New Testament, he often mused on the words of Christ, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." (Matt. xix. 21).

Then, moved by these words, he resolved to obey the command, and he sold his possessions and made distribution unto those that had need; and hastening away, into the solitudes of Syria, he became a monk for seven years.

After that, inflamed with zeal against idolatry, he went into the nearest city, which was Edessa, on a solemn festival of the heathen gods, and set fire to the temple. He was at once seized and brought before the governor, Rabbulus, who remanded him till the rage of the populace should be abated, and he could be judged with calmness and equity.

Rabbulus often sent for Alexander out of prison, and heard him gladly. And Alexander unfolded to him the doctrine of Christ and the great power of God. And as he expounded to him the Scriptures, he related the wondrous works of Elijah, how that he had prayed, and God had withheld the rain three years, and at his prayer had again brought a cloud and abundance of rain upon the earth, and also how he had cried, and God had sent fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice. Then, hearing this, Rabbulus said, "Nay! thou speakest of marvels. If the God of whom thou tellest wrought those wonders then, He can work them now. Cry unto Him to send fire on earth, that I may see and believe."

Instantly, filled with confidence, the holy man, Alexander, turned to the East and spread forth his hands, and prayed; then there fell fire from heaven, and consumed the mats that were laid upon the ground, but hurt nothing else. And the Governor bowed his head, and said, "The Lord He is God, the Lord He is God!" Then he was baptized,[56] he and all his house, and he suffered Alexander to go forth to the people, and in their audience plead for the cause of Christ against their false gods. So they hastened and destroyed their images, and multitudes were added to the Church. And after that Alexander went away into the desert, where he heard there was a band of robbers, desiring to save their souls, as Jesus on the Cross had saved the thief. So the robbers took him, and he exhorted them, and spake the Word to them, and they believed, they and their chief, so that he tarried some while with them--they were thirty in number--and he baptized them. But the robber-chief, as he was being baptized, prayed in secret. Then said Alexander, "I saw thy lips move. What was thy petition?" And he answered, "I have been a great sinner, and I fear my old habits of evil resuming the mastery. I prayed God, if it were His will, to let His servant depart in peace, now that mine eyes have seen salvation." The prayer was heard, and the captain died within eight days, whilst still in the white dress he wore for his baptism. But Alexander remained with the robbers, and turned their den into a monastery, and converted the robbers into monks, and they served God in fasting and prayer. Now when he saw that they were established firmly in the course of penitence, he appointed one of them to be their abbot, and he went his way into Mesopotamia, and founded a monastery on the Euphrates, where he dwelt twenty years, and had very many monks under him. And after that he visited Antioch, Palmyra, and other cities, taking with him one hundred and fifty of his monks, that they might preach the Gospel to those who were yet in heathen darkness. The people of Palmyra shut their gates against him, saying that such a host of monks would devour all the produce in the market. Then Alexander and his brethren halted outside the city for three days, and the heathen people around brought them food, which they accepted with thanks. After that Alexander took the Book of the Gospels, and stood in the way, and cried: "Glory be to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men." This was the signal of departure, so the whole moving monastery deserted their camp and went towards Antioch, where the brother of Alexander, Peter by name, was superior of a large monastery. Alexander and one companion went to the gate and knocked. Then the porter looked forth, and said, "Wait without, till I go to the abbot, and ask permission for you to enter and refresh yourselves." But Alexander thrust in on the heels of the porter, and went after him to the abbot's chamber, and there Peter knew him, and cast himself on his neck. But Alexander said, "Our father Abraham went forth himself to receive strangers, and invited them in, and our Lord Jesus Christ exhorted his followers to show glad hospitality, but thou lettest a wayfaring man stand without, and makest a favour of admitting him!" Then he turned, and went away in a rage, and would not eat in the monastery of his brother. And when they would enter into Antioch, the bishop, Theodotus, being prejudiced against Alexander, ordered that he and his monks should be refused admission. So they sat down all day in the heat outside, but rising up to sing their psalms at midnight, they all went forward chanting, and no man stayed them, through the streets of Antioch, and they found an old bath-house, and lodged there. Then the Bishop feared to disturb them, for all the people magnified them. There they stayed some time and erected a large hospital, where they cherished the sick and the poor.

But one Malchus, a sub-deacon, who was greatly offended with the monks, went to the Bishop, and urged that they should be expelled. And when he had been given license, he went with all the church sextons and drove the monks from their lodgings, and he boxed Alexander on the ear, saying, "Go forth, thou rascal!" But Alexander said nothing, save that he quoted the words of S. John, "The servant's name was Malchus." (xviii. 10.) Then the Governor of the city, finding that the people would take part with the monks, and that a tumult would be made, came with force, and drave the brethren without the walls. So Alexander and his monks swarmed off to the Crithenian monastery, which he had founded, and there he saw that the discipline was admirable.

Thence he went to Constantinople, taking with him from Crithene twenty-four monks, and in all he was now followed by three hundred, and they were Greeks, and Romans, and Syrians, and he settled them at Gomon, on the Bosphorus, near Constantinople, and divided them into six choirs, who should alternately sing the divine office, so that ceaselessly, night and day, the praises of Christ might ascend. Thence his order was called the Acoemeti, or the Sleepless Ones, for, in it, some were ever watching for the coming of the Bridegroom. However, even in Constantinople, he was not left in peace, but the civil powers interfered and broke up the monastery, and the monks were imprisoned and beaten, and ill-treated in divers ways, so that, for a while, the incessant song was interrupted. But when the persecution was over, the monks flowed together again, and the sleepless vigil recommenced.

S. Alexander died and was buried at Gomon.

S. JOHN THE CALYBITE, H.

(ABOUT 450.)

[Commemorated on the same day by Greeks and Latins. Some old Western Martyrologies honoured him on Feb. 27th. Authority, his life by Simeon Logotheta.[57]]

S. John the Calybite is the Eastern counterpart of the Western S. Alexis. At an early age he met a monk of the Sleepless Ones, founded by S. Alexander, as mentioned in the immediately preceding life; and he was so struck with what he heard of the religious life, that he desired to enter it. Returning home, he asked his parents, who were wealthy, to make him a present of the Holy Gospels. They, surprised that the boy desired a book, instead of some article of dress or of play, purchased him a handsomely illuminated and illustrated book of the Gospels. The boy read, "He that loveth father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me." Then he ran away from home, and made his way to Gomon, where he entered the Sleepless order. The archimandrite, or abbot, thinking him too young, objected to receive him, but when the boy persisted, he made him undergo the discipline of the monks. He remained there, however, six years, and then a longing came over him to see his father and mother again; so he told the superior, who said, "Did I not say to thee, thou art too young. Go in peace to thy home." So John left the monastery. But returning home, he did not make himself known to his parents, but, changing clothes with a beggar, he crouched at the gate of his father's house and begged. Then his father gave him daily food from his kitchen; but after a while his mother, disliking the presence of a squalid beggar at the door, bade the servants remove him to a little cot, and thence he took his name of Calybite, or Cotter. Three years after, as he was dying, he sent for his mother, and revealed himself to her.

He was buried beneath the hut, and his parents built a church over his tomb.

Relics, in the church dedicated to him at Rome; his head at Besançon, in the church of S. Stephen.

S. MAURUS, AB. OF GLANFEUIL.

(A.D. 584.)

[The life of S. Maurus, professing to be by S. Faustus, is not of the date it pretends to. It was written by Odo of Glanfeuil (D. 868); it is, however, probable that he used a previous composition of S. Faustus, monk of Cassino (D. 620), amplifying and altering in style. Other authorities are S. Gregory the Great, Dialog. II., and a metrical life, falsely attributed to Paulus Diaconus.]

A nobleman, named Eguitius, gave his little son Maurus, aged twelve, to the holy patriarch Benedict, to be by him educated. The youth surpassed all his fellow monks in the discharge of his monastic duties, and when he was grown up, S. Benedict made him his coadjutor in the government of Subiaco. Placidus, a fellow-monk, going one day to fetch water, fell into the lake, and was carried about a bow-shot from the bank. S. Benedict seeing this from his cell, sent Maurus to run and draw him out. Maurus obeyed, walked upon the water, without perceiving it, and pulled out Placidus by the hair, without himself sinking.

The fame of Benedict and his work had not been slow to cross the frontiers of Italy; it resounded especially in Gaul. A year before the death of the patriarch, two envoys arrived at Monte Cassino, from Innocent, Bishop of Mans, who, not content with forty monasteries which had arisen during his episcopate in the country over which he ruled, still desired to see his diocese enriched by a colony formed by the disciples of the new head and law-giver of the cenobites in Italy. Benedict confided this mission to the dearest and most fervent of his disciples, the young deacon Maurus. He gave him four companions, one of whom, Faustus, is the supposed author of the history of the mission; and bestowed on him a copy of the rule, written with his own hand, together with the weights for the bread, and the measure for the wine, which should be allotted to each monk every day, to serve as unchanging types of that abstinence which was to be one of the strongest points of the new institution.

At the head of this handful of missionaries, who went to sow afar the seed destined to produce so great a harvest, Maurus came down from Monte Cassino, crossed Italy and the Alps, paused beneath the precipices which overhang the monastery of Agaunum now S. Maurice in the Valais, beside the foaming Rhone, which the Burgundian king, Sigismund, had just raised over the relics of the Theban Legion; then went into the Jura to visit the colonies of Condate. Arrived upon the banks of the Loire, and repulsed by the successor of the Bishop who had called him, he stopped in Anjou, which was then governed by a viscount called Florus, in the name of Theodebert, King of Austrasia. This viscount offered one of his estates to the disciple of Benedict, that he might establish his colony there, besides giving one of his sons to become a monk, and announcing his own intention of consecrating himself to God. On this estate, bathed by the waters of the Loire, Maurus founded the monastery of Glanfeuil, which afterwards took his own name. The site of this monastery, now lost among the vineyards of Anjou, merits the grateful glance of every traveller who is not insensible to the advantages which flowed from that first Benedictine colony over the whole of France.

The beloved son of S. Benedict spent forty years at the head of his French colony; he saw as many as a hundred and forty monks officiate there; and when he died, after having lived apart for two years in an isolated cell, to prepare himself in silence for appearing before God, he had dropped into the soil of Gaul, a germ which could neither perish nor be exhausted.

In art, S. Maurus is represented holding the weights and measures given him by S. Benedict.

S. CEOLWULF, K., MONK.

(A.D. 767.)

[Old English Martyrologies on March 14th; later ones on this day, on which he is commemorated in the Roman Calendar. Authorities: Bede, Florence of Worcester, William of Malmesbury, Henry Huntingdon, Simeon of Durham, &c.]

Bede dedicated his "History of the English" to Ceolwulf, King of Northumbria, whose tender solicitude for monastic interests made the monk of Jarrow look to him as a patron. Ceolwulf was of the race of Ida the Burner; after two obscure reigns, Ceolwulf was called to the throne, and vainly attempted to struggle against the disorder and decay of his country. He was vanquished and made captive by enemies whose names are not recorded, and was shut up in a convent. He escaped, however, regained the crown, and reigned for some time in a manner which gained the applause of Bede. But after a reign of eight years, a regret, or an unconquerable desire for that monastic life which had been formerly forced upon him against his will, seized him. He made the best provisions possible for the security of his country, and for a good understanding between the spiritual and temporal authorities, nominating as his successor a worthy prince of his race. Then, giving up the cares of power, and showing himself truly the master of the wealth he resigned, he cut his long beard, had his head shaved in the form of a crown, and retired to bury himself anew in the holy island of Lindisfarne, in the monastery beaten by the winds and waves of the northern sea. There he passed the last thirty years of his life in study and happiness. He had, while king, enriched this monastery with many great gifts, and obtained permission for the use of wine and beer for the monks, who, up to that time, according to the rigid rule of ancient Keltic discipline, had been allowed no beverage but water and milk.

[Illustration: Decoration]

FOOTNOTES:

[52] For authorities for these statements, see Montalembert's Monks of the West, I. p. 315.

[53] S. Jerome, Proef. in Reg. S. Pachomii, § 6.

[54] Pallad. Hist. Lausiaca, c. 7.

[55] S. John Chrysostom, in Matt., hom. VIII. The above account of the life of the monks in Egypt is by the eloquent pen of the Count de Montalembert.

[56] Rabbulus was afterwards consecrated Bishop of Edessa.

[57] Bollandus gives two lives; one is authentic, the other is not. The first states that he lived at Constantinople, from which he escaped to Gomon, threescore furlongs from the city, by water. The second, mistaking new Rome for old Rome, makes him voyage from Italy to Bithynia.

January 16.

S. PRISCILLA, _Matron, at Rome, 1st cent._ S. MARCELLUS, _Pope, M., at Rome, circ._ A.D. 309. S. MELAS, _B. C., at Rhinoclusa, 4th cent._ S. HONORATUS, _B. C., of Arles, circ._ A.D. 430 S. JAMES, _B. C., of the Tarantaise, 5th cent._ S. VALERIUS, _B. C., of Sorrente, circ._ A.D. 600. S. TATIAN, _B. C., at Underzo, in Italy, 7th cent._ S. FURSEY, _Ab., in France, circ._ A.D. 653. S. TOSSA, _B. C., of Augsburg_, A.D. 661. S. HENRY, _H., in Northumberland_, A.D. 1127. SS. FRANCISCAN MARTYRS, _in Mauritania_, A.D. 1220.

S. PRISCILLA, MATRON, AT ROME.

(1ST CENT.)

[Roman Martyrology. This Priscilla is not to be confounded with the wife of Aquila (Acts xviii. 26.) She was the mother of S. Pudens (2 Tim. iv. 21), who was the father of SS. Praxedes and Pudentiana, the guests and disciples of S. Peter. Nothing more is known of her.]

S. MARCELLUS, POPE, M.

(ABOUT A.D. 309.)

[The Greeks have confounded Marcellus with his predecessor, Marcellinus, who is commemorated on April 26th. Roman Martyrology, that of Bede, Ado, Notker, &c. The Acts are not to be trusted.]

Saint Marcellus succeeded Pope Marcellinus, in 308, after the see had been vacant for three years and a half. An epitaph written on him by Pope Damasus, says that by enforcing the penitential canons, he drew on himself the hostility of lukewarm Christians. For his severity to an apostate he was exiled by the tyrant Maxentius.

Relics, in the church of S. Marcellus at Rome; also at Mons and Namur, in Belgium.

S. MELAS, B. C. OF RHINOCLUSA.

(4TH CENT.)

[Roman and German Martyrologies. Authority for his life, Sozomen.]

Rhinoclusa, or Rinocorurus, was near the river of Egypt, dividing Egypt from Palestine; of this city and monastic settlement S. Melas was Bishop. Sozomen, in his Ecclesiastical History, gives the following account of him (lib. vi. c. 31):--

"Rinocorurus was celebrated at this period, on account of the holy men who were born and flourished there. I have heard that the most eminent among them were Melas, the Bishop of the country; Denis and Solon, the brothers and successors of Melas. When the decree went forth for the ejection of all bishops opposed to Arianism, the officers appointed to execute the mandate found Melas engaged in trimming the lights of the church, and clad in an old cloak soiled with oil, fastened by a girdle. When they asked him for the Bishop, he replied that he was within, and that he would conduct them to him. As they were fatigued with their journey, he led them to the episcopal dwelling, made them sit down at his table, and placed before them such things as he had. After the repast, he supplied them with water to wash their hands, and then told them who he was. Amazed at his conduct, they confessed the mission on which they had arrived; but, from respect to him, gave him full liberty to go wherever he would. He, however, replied that he would not shrink from the sufferings to which the other bishops, who maintained the same sentiments as himself, were exposed, and that he was ready to go into exile. He had been accustomed, from his youth up, to practise all the virtues of asceticism. The Church of Rinocorurus, having been thus, from the beginning, under the guidance of such exemplary bishops, never afterwards swerved from their doctrine. The clergy of this Church dwell in one house, sit at the same table, and have all things in common."

S. HONORATUS, B. OF ARLES.

(ABOUT A.D. 430.)

[Honoratus, in French Honoré, is commemorated in almost all the Western Kalendars. His life by his kinsman and successor, S. Hilary. Another life of him is apocryphal. "A tissue," says Bollandus, "of fables and crazes;" "which," says Baronius, "cannot be read without nausea, except by those with iron stomachs, and wits covered with the rust of ignorance." This life, therefore, must be completely put aside, as worthless, and we must draw all our information from that by S. Hilary, Bishop of Arles.]

The sailor who proceeds from the roadstead of Toulon towards Italy or the East, passes among two or three islands, rocky and dry, surmounted here and there by a slender cluster of pines. He looks at them with indifference, and avoids them. However, one of these islands has been, for the soul and for the mind, a centre purer and more fertile than any famous isle of the Greek sea. It is Lerins, formerly occupied by a city, which was already ruined in the time of Pliny, and where, at the commencement of the fifth century, nothing more was to be seen than a desert coast, rendered unapproachable by the number of serpents which swarmed there.

[Illustration: S. HONORÉ. After Cahier. Jan. 16. ]

In 410 a man landed and remained there; he was called Honoratus. Descended from a consular race, educated and eloquent, but devoted from his youth to great piety; he desired to be made a monk. His father charged his eldest brother, a gay and impetuous young man, to turn him from the ascetic life; but, on the contrary, it was he who gained his brother. After many difficulties, he at last found repose at Lerins; the serpents yielded the place to him; a multitude of disciples gathered round him. A community of austere monks and indefatigable labourers was formed there. The face of the isle was changed, the desert became a paradise; a country bordered with deep woods, watered by streams, rich with verdure, enamelled with flowers, revealed the fertilizing presence of a new race. Honoratus, whose fine face was radiant with a sweet and attractive majesty,[58] opened the arms of his love to the sons of all countries who desired to love Christ. A multitude of disciples of all nations joined him.

There is, perhaps, nothing more touching in monastic annals than the picture traced by S. Hilary, one of the most illustrious sons of Lerins, of the paternal tenderness of Honoratus for the numerous family of monks whom he had collected round him. He could reach the depths of their souls to discover all their griefs. He neglected no effort to banish every sadness, every painful recollection of the world. He watched their sleep, their health, their food, their labours, that each might serve God according to the measure of his strength. Thus he inspired them with a love more than filial. "In him," they said, "we find not only a father, but an entire family, a country, the whole world." When he wrote to any of those who were absent, they said, on receiving his letter, written according to the usage of the time, upon tablets of wax, "It is honey which he has poured back into that wax, honey drawn from the inexhaustible sweetness of his heart."

In that island paradise, and under the care of such a shepherd, the perfume of life breathed everywhere. These monks, who had sought happiness by renouncing secular life, felt and proclaimed that they had found it; to see their serene and modest joy, their union, their gentleness, and their firm hope, one would have believed one's self, says S. Eucher, in the presence of a battalion of angels at rest.[59] How S. Honoratus converted S. Hilary by his prayers, as told by S. Hilary himself, shall be related when we speak of that Saint. Honoratus was, by compulsion, made to assume the direction of the see of Arles, and was consecrated Bishop in 426. He died in the arms of S. Hilary, who succeeded him in 429.

Relics, at S. Honoré, formerly Lerins.

In art, he appears expelling serpents from the isle with his staff.

S. JAMES, B. OF THE TARANTAISE.

(5TH CENT.)

[Authority for his life, a fragmentary life of uncertain date, published by Bollandus.]

James, of Asiatic origin, and a soldier, was one of the first disciples of S. Honoratus in his monastic settlement at Lerins. When S. Honoratus was appointed Archbishop of Arles, he called James to be the first Bishop of the Tarantaise, the valleys of the Isère and Arc, of which Moutiers is the modern capital, between the Graian and Pennine Alps. S. James made Centronum, or Moutiers, the seat of the bishopric, and there he laboured to convert the people still buried in heathenism. Of him is related a story very similar to that told of other Saints, viz., that as his monks were cutting down trees in the forest, for the construction of his cathedral church, a bear killed one of the oxen which drew the timber. Then the monks fled in consternation to S. James, who went boldly to the bear and said, "I, James, the servant of Christ, command thee, cruel beast, to bow thy stubborn neck to the yoke, in place of the ox thou hast slain." Then the bear was obedient, and drew the timber to the church.

S. James is also said to have taken an ass's load of pure snow of the mountain in mid-summer, as a tribute to Gondecar, King of the Burgundians, having nothing else to offer, when the king had ordered a tax to be levied on all the produce of the land.

S. FURSEY, AB.

(ABOUT A.D. 653.)

[Roman, Donegal, and Scottish Martyrologies, but English on March 4th; Feb. 25th is noted in several Kalendars as the festival of the translation of his relics, also Sept. 28. A very ancient life of S. Fursey, of the date of Bede, exists; later and more prolix lives exist, but are of less authority. Bede himself relates the principal events of the life of this Saint in his history, and quotes the above-mentioned life, lib. iii. c. 19.]

Fursey, son of Fintan, an Irish prince, was abbot of a monastery in the diocese of Tuam. Afterwards, travelling with two of his brothers, Fullan and Ultan, through England, he entered the province of Essex, and was honourably received by the king, Sigebert, "and performing his usual employment of preaching the Gospel," says Bede, "by the example of his virtue, and the efficacy of his discourse, he converted many unbelievers to Christ, and confirmed in faith and love those that already believed. Here he fell into some infirmity of body, and was thought worthy to see a vision from God; in which he was admonished diligently to proceed in the ministry of the Word, and indefatigably to continue his usual vigils and prayers. Being confirmed by this vision, he applied himself with all speed to build a monastery on the ground which had been given him by King Sigebert, and to establish regular discipline therein. The monastery was pleasantly situated in the woods, and with the sea not far off; it was built within the area of a castle called Cnobheresburg (Burghcastle, in Suffolk.) There, falling sick, he fell into a trance, and quitting his body from evening till cock-crow, he was found worthy to behold the choirs of angels, and to hear the praises which are sung in heaven."

The abbot Fursey, becoming desirous of ridding himself of all business of this world, quitted his monastery, having first confided the care of it to his brother Fullan; and resolved to end his life as a hermit. He repaired to his brother Ultan, who had already adopted the life of a solitary, and lived a whole year with him in prayer and hard labour.

Afterwards, the province being desolated by war, he crossed the sea to France, and was there honourably entertained by Clovis, King of the Franks, and then by the noble Erconwald. He built a monastery at Lagny, about six miles north of Paris, on the Marne, and falling sick not long after, departed this life.

Erconwald took his body, and deposited it in the porch of a church he was building in his town of Peronne, till the church itself should be dedicated. This happened twenty-seven days after, and the body being taken from the porch to be re-buried, near the altar, was found as entire as if he had but just died.

Fursey in _French_ is Fourcy, and in _Flemish_ Fro.

Patron of Lagny and Peronne.

Relics, at Peronne.

In art, (1), with oxen at his feet, because his body was placed on a wagon, and the oxen allowed to conduct it without guide, and they went to Peronne; or (2), making a fountain spring up at Lagny, by thrusting his staff into the soil; or beholding a vision, (3), of angels, or (4), of the flames of purgatory and hell, in reference to his remarkable vision.[60]

S. HENRY, H. IN NORTHUMBERLAND.

(A.D. 1127.)

[English Martyrologies. His life in Capgrave.]

S. Henry was of Danish origin. Leaving his parents and wife, he resolved to serve God in solitude, and escaped to Coquet Island, off the coast of Northumberland. His relatives came after him, urging him to return to his home; then, in an agony of doubt, he cast himself before his crucifix, and implored God to reveal to him what was His will. Then it seemed to him that the Saviour said to him, "Abide here, play the man, and strengthen thine heart to resist. I have called thee in mine eternal purpose."

So he remained, and laboured in the islet, and a few brethren joined him, but lived in separate cells. And when he died, they heard the bell of his little hovel ring violently, so they ran, and found him dead, with the bell rope in his hand, and the candle by his side was alight.

His body was taken to Tynemouth, and was buried in the church of the Blessed Virgin, near that of S. Oswin.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] S. Eucher, De laude Eremi, p. 342.

[59] So far Montalembert's Monks of the West, Vol. I.,