Chapter XL: Appendix: ON (3)

Footnotes:
1. It is a problem in nature, discussed without success by several
great physicians, why children born in their seventh month more
frequently live than those that are brought forth in their eighth
month.
2. Aug. Sales de Vit. l. {} p. 123.
3. The saint being on his return to Savoy, was informed that a convent
of religious women, of the order of Fontevrault, received
superfluous pensions. He wrote about it to those religious, and
after giving testimony to their virtue, in order to gain their
confidence, he conjured them, in the strongest and most pathetic
terms, to banish such an abuse from their monastery; persuaded that
such pensions were not exempt from sin, were an obstacle to monastic
perfection, and opposite to their essential vow of poverty;
lamenting that after doing so much they should, for the sake of one
small reserve, destroy the merit of their whole sacrifice. This
letter is extremely useful and beautiful. L. 1, ep. 41, t. 1, p.
136.
4. Aug. Sales in Vit.
5. Aug. Sales in Vit.
6. Quel est le meilleur Gouvernment, &c. ch. 8, p. 298.

SAINT SULPICIUS SEVERUS[1]

DISCIPLE OF ST. MARTIN.

HE was born in Aquitaine, not at Agen, as Scaliger, Vossius, Baillet, &c., have falsely inferred from a passage of his history,[2] but near Toulouse. That he was of a very rich and illustrious Roman family, we are assured by the two Paulinus's, and Gennadius.[3] His youth he spent in studying the best Roman authors of the Augustan age, upon whom he formed his style, not upon the writers of his own time: he also applied himself to the study of the laws, and surpassed all his contemporaries in eloquence at the bar. His wife was a lady of a consular family, whom he lost soon after their marriage, but he continued to enjoy a very great estate which he had inherited by her. His mother-in-law, Bassula, loved him constantly, as if he had been her own son: they continued to live several years in the same house, and had in all things the same mind.[4] The death of his beloved consort contributed to wean his heart from the world: in which resolution he seems to have been confirmed by the example and exhortations of his pious mother-in-law. His conversion from the world happened in the same year with that of St. Paulinus of Nola,[5] though probably somewhat later: and St. Paulinus mentions that Sulpicius was younger than himself, and at that time (that is, about the year 392) in the flower of his age. De Prato imagines Sulpicius to have been ten years younger than St. Paulinus, consequently that he was converted in the thirty-second year of his age. Whereas St. Paulinus distributed his whole fortune among the poor at once; Sulpicius reserved his estates to himself and his heirs, employing the yearly revenue on the poor, and in other pious uses, so that he was no more than a servant of the church and the poor, to keep accounts for them.[6] But he sold so much of them as was necessary to discharge him of all obligations to others. Gennadius tells us that he was promoted to the priesthood; but from the silence of St. Paulinus, St. Jerom, and others, Tillemont and De Prato doubt of this circumstance. Sulpicius suffered much from the censures of friends, who condemned his retreat, having chosen for his solitude a cottage at Primuliacus, a village now utterly unknown in Aquitaine, probably in Languedoc. In his kitchen nothing was ever dressed but pulse and herbs, boiled without any seasoning, except a little vinegar: he ate also coarse bread. He and his few disciples had no other beds but straw of sackcloth spread on the ground. He set at liberty several of his slaves, and admitted them, and some of his old servants, to familiar intercourse and {304} conversation. About the year 394, not long after his retreat, he made a visit to St. Martin at Tours, and was so much taken with his saintly comportment, and edified by his pious discourses and counsels, that he became from that time his greatest admirer, and regulated his conduct by his direction. Ever after he visited that great saint once or twice almost every summer as long as he lived, and passed some time with him, that he might study more perfectly to imitate his virtues. He built and adorned several churches. For two which he founded at Primuliacus, he begged some relics of St. Paulinus, who sent him a piece of the cross on which our Saviour was crucified, with the history of its miraculous discovery by St. Helena.[7] This account Sulpicius inserted in his ecclesiastical history. These two saints sent frequent presents to each other, of poor garments or the like things, suitable to a penitential life, upon which they make in their letters beautiful pious reflections, that show how much they were accustomed to raise their thoughts to God from every object.[8] Our saint recommending to St. Paulinus a cook, facetiously tells him that he was utterly a stranger to the art of making sauces, and to the use of pepper, or any such incentives of gluttony, his skill consisting only in gathering and boiling herbs in such a manner that monks, who only eat after having fasted long, would find delicious. He prays his friend to treat him as he would his own son, and wishes he could himself have served him and his family in that quality.[9] In the year 399 St. Paulinus wrote to our saint that he hoped to have met him at Rome, whither he went to keep the feast of the prince of the apostles, and where he had stayed ten days, but without seeing any thing but the tombs of the apostles, before which he passed the mornings, and the evenings were taken up by friends who called to see him.[10] Sulpicius answered, that an indisposition had hindered him from undertaking that journey. Of the several letters mentioned by Gennadius, which Sulpicius Severus wrote to the devout virgin Claudia, his sister, two are published by Baluze.[11] Both are strong exhortations to fervor and perseverance. In the first, our saint assures her that he shed tears of joy in reading her letter, by which he was assured of her sincere desire of serving God. In a letter to Aurelius the deacon, he relates that one night in a dream he saw St. Martin ascend to heaven in great glory, and attended by the holy priest Clarus, his disciple, who was lately dead: soon after, two monks arriving from Tours, brought news of the death of St. Martin. He adds, that his greatest comfort in the loss of so good a master, was a confidence that he should obtain the divine blessings by the prayers of St. Martin in heaven. St. Paulinus mentions this vision in an inscription in verse, which he made and sent to be engraved on the marble altar of the church of Primuliacus.[12] St. Sulpicius wrote the life of the incomparable St. Martin, according to Tillemont and most others, before the death of that saint: but De Prato thinks, that though it was begun before, it was neither finished nor published till after his death. The style of this piece is plainer and more simple than that of his other writings. An account of the death of St. Martin, which is placed by De Prato in the year 400, is accurately given by St. Sulpicius in a letter to Bassula, his mother-ill-law, who then lived at Triers. The three dialogues of our saint are the most florid of all his writings. In the first Posthumian, a friend who had spent three years in the deserts of Egypt and the East, and was then returned, relates to him and Gallus, a disciple of St. Martin, (with whom our saint then lived under the same roof,) the wonderful examples of virtue he had seen abroad. In the second dialogue, Gallus recounts {305} many circumstances of the life of St. Martin, which St. Sulpicius had omitted in his history of that saint. In the third, under the name of the same Gallus, several miracles wrought by St. Martin are proved by authentic testimonies.[13] The most important work of our saint is his abridgment of sacred history from the beginning of the world down to his own time, in the year 400. The elegance, conciseness, and perspicuity with which this work is compiled, have procured the author the name of the Christian Sallust; some even prefer it to the histories of the Roman Sallust, and look upon it as the most finished model extant of abridgments.[14] His style is the most pure of any of the Latin fathers, though also Lactantius, Minutius Felix, we may almost add St. Jerom, and Salvian of Marseilles, deserve to be read among the Latin classics. The heroic sanctity of Sulpicius Severus is highly extolled by St. Paulinus of Nola, Paulinus of Perigueux, about the year 460.[15] Venantius Fortunatus, and many others, down to the present {306} age. Gennadius tells us, that he was particularly remarkable for his extraordinary love of poverty and humility. After the death of St. Martin, in 400, St. Sulpicius Severus passed five years in that illustrious saint's cell at Marmoutier. F. Jerom de Prato thinks that he at length retired to a monastery at Marseilles, or in that neighborhood; because in a very ancient manuscript copy of his works, transcribed in the seventh century, kept in the library of the chapter of Verona, he is twice called a monk of Marseilles. From the testimony of this manuscript, the Benedictin authors of the new treatise On the Diplomatique,[16] and the continuators of the Literary History of France,[17] regard it as undoubted that Sulpicius Severus was a monk at Marseilles before his death. While the Alans, Sueves, and Vandals from Germany and other barbarous nations, laid waste most provinces in Gaul in 406, Marseilles enjoyed a secure peace under the government of Constantine, who, having assumed the purple, fixed the seat of his empire at Arles from the year 407 to 410. After the death of St. Chrysostom in 407, Cassian came from Constantinople to Marseilles, and founded there two monasteries, one for men, the other for women. Most place the death of St. Sulpicius Severus about the year 420, Baronius after the year 432; but F. Jerom de Prato about 410, when he supposes him to have been near fifty years old, saying that Gennadius, who tells us that he lived to a very great age, is inconsistent with himself. Neither St. Paulinus nor any other writer mentions him as living later than the year 407, which seems to prove that he did not survive that epoch very many years. Guibert, abbot of Gemblours, who died in 1208, in his Apology for Sulpicius Severus,[18] testifies that his festival was kept at Marmoutier with great solemnity on the 29th of January. Several editors of the Roman Martyrology, who took Sulpicius Severus, who is named in the calendars on this day, to have been this saint, added in his eulogium, Disciple of St. Martin, famous for his learning and merits. Many have proved that this addition was made by the mistake of private editors, and that the saint originally meant here in the Roman Martyrology was Sulpicius Severus, bishop of Bourges;[19] and Benedict XIV. proves and declares[20] that Sulpicius Severus, the disciple of St. Martin, is not commemorated in the Roman Martyrology. Nevertheless, he has been ranked among the saints at Tours from time immemorial, and is honored with a particular office on this day in the new breviary used in all that diocese. See his works correctly printed, with various readings, notes, dissertations, and the life of this saint, at Verona in 1741, in two volumes folio, by F. Jerom de Prato, an Italian Oratorian of Verona: also Gallia Christiana tum Vetus tum Nova: Tillemont, t. 12. Ceillier, t. 10, p. 635. Rivet, Hist. Litter. de la France, t. 2, p. 95.

Footnotes:
1. Severus was his own proper name, Sulpicius that of his family, as is
testified by Gennadius and all antiquity. Vossius, Dupin, and some
others, on this account, will have him called Severus Sulpicius,
with Eugippius and St. Gregory of Tours. But other learned men
agree, that after the close of the republic of Rome, under the
emperors, the family name was usually placed first, though still
called Cognomen, and the other Praenomen, because the proper name
went anciently before the other. Thus we say Caecilius Cyprianus,
Eusebius Hieronymus, Aurelius Agustinus, &c. See Sirmond, Ep.
praefixe Op. Serva. Lapi, and Hier. De Prato in vita Sulpicii Severi,
p. 56, &c.
2. Sulp. Sev. Hist. l. 2, c. 44.
3. {Footnote not in text} Ib. c. 48, and Ep. ad Bassulam. de Prato, p.
57.
4. S. Paulinus, Ep. 5 & 35.
5. Ib. Ep. 11, n. 6.
6. S. Paulinus, Ep. 1 & 24.
7. Ib. Ep. 52.
8. Sulpic. Sev. Ep. ad Paulin. ed a D'Achery in Spicileg. t. 52, p.
532, et inter opera S. Paulini, p. 119.
9. Ibid.
10. S. Paulin. Ep. ad Sulpic. Sev. p. 96.
11. Baluze, t. 1, Miscellan. p. 329.
12. S. Paulinus, Ep. 32, p. 204.
13. Many, upon the authority of St. Jerom, rank Sulpicius Severus among
the Millenarians, though all allow that he never defended any error
so as to be out of the communion of the church. But that he could
not be properly a Millenarian, seems clear from several parts of his
writings. For, Ep. 2 and 3, he affirms, that the souls of St. Martin
and St. Clarus passed from this world to the immediate beatific
vision of God. He establishes the same principles, Ep. 1, ad
Claudiam Soror., c. 5. And in his Sacred History, l. 2, c. 3,
explaining the dream of Nabachodonosor, he teaches that the
destruction of the kingdoms of this world will be immediately
succeeded by the eternal reign of Christ with his saints in heaven.
In the passage, Dial. 2, c. 14, upon which the charge is founded,
Sulpicius relates, in the discourse of Gallus, that St. Martin, on a
certain occasion, said, that the reign of Nero in the West, and his
persecution, were immediate forerunners of the last day: as is the
reign of Antichrist in the East, who will rebuild Jerusalem and its
temple, reside in the same, restore circumcision, kill Nero, and
subject the whole world to his empire. Where he advances certain
false conjectures about the reign of Nero, and the near approach of
the last judgment at that time: likewise the restoration of
Jerusalem by Antichrist; though this last is maintained probable by
cardinal Bellarmin, l. 3, de Rom. Pontif. c. 13. But the Millenarian
error is not so much as insinuated. Nor could it have been inserted
by the author in that passage and omitted by copiers, as De Prato
proves, against that conjecture of Tillemont. St. Jerom, indeed, l.
11, in Ezech. c. 36, represents certain Christian writers who
imitated some later Jews in their Deuteroseis in a carnal manner of
expounding certain scripture prophecies, expecting a second
Jerusalem of gold and precious stones, a restoration of bloody
sacrifices, circumcision, and a Sabbath. Among these he names
Tertullian, in his book De Spe Fidelium, (now lost,) Lactantius,
Victorious Petabionensis, and Severus, (Sulpicius,) in his dialogue
entitled, Gallus, then just published: and among the Greeks, Irenaeus
and Apollinarius. De Prato thinks he only speaks of Sulpicius
Severus by hearsay, because he mentions only one dialogue called
Gallus, whereas two bear that title. At least St. Jerom never meant
to ascribe all these errors to each of those he names; for none of
them maintained them all except Apollinarius. His intention was only
to ascribe one point or other of such carnal interpretations to
each, and to Sulpicius the opinion that Jerusalem, with the temple
and sacrifices, will be restored by Antichrist, &c., which cannot be
called erroneous; though St. Jerom justly rejects that
interpretation, because the desolation foretold by Daniel is to
endure to the end. In the decree of Gelasius this dialogue of Gallus
is called Apocryphal, but in the same sense in which it was rejected
by St. Jerom. Nor is this exposition advanced otherwise than as a
quotation from St. Martin's answer on that subject. See the
justification of Sulpicius Severus, in a dissertation printed at
Venice in 1738, in Racolta di Opuscoli Scientifici, t. 18, and more
amply by F. Jerom de Prato, Disser. 5, in Opera Sulpicii Severi, t.
1, p. 259, commended in the Acta Eruditor. Lipsiae, ad an. 1760.
Gennadius, who wrote about the year 494, tells us, (Cat. n. 19.)
that Sulpicius was deceived in his old age by the Pelagians, but
soon opening his eyes, condemned himself to five years' rigorous
silence to expiate this fault. From the silence of other authors,
and the great commendations which the warmest enemies of the
Pelagians bestow on our saint, especially Paulinus of Milan, in his
life of St. Ambrose, (written at latest in 423,) and St. Paulinus of
Nola, and Paulinus of Perigueux, (who in 461 wrote in verse the life
of St. Martin,) l. 5, v, 193, &c., some look upon this circumstance
as a slander, which depends wholly on the testimony of so inaccurate
a writer, who is inconsistent with himself in other matters relating
to Sulpicius Severus, whose five years' silence might have other
motives. If the fact be true, it can only be understood of the
semi-Pelagian error, which had then many advocates at Marseilles,
and was not distinguished in its name from Pelagianism till some
years after our saint's death, nor condemned by the church before
the second council of Orange in 529. Pelagius was condemned by the
councils of Carthage and Milevis in 416, and by pope Innocent I. in
412. If Sulpicius Severus fell into any error, especially before it
had been clearly anathematized by the church, at least he cannot be
charged with obstinacy, having so soon renounced it. We must add,
that even wilful offences are blotted out by sincere repentance. See
F. Jerom de Pram in vita Sulp. Sev., Sec.12, pp. 69 and 74, t. 1, Op.
Veronae, 1741.
14. The sacred history of Sulpicius Severus is a most useful classic for
Christian schools; but not to be studied in the chosen fragments
mangled by Chompre, and prescribed for the schools in Portugal. True
improvement of the mind is impossible without the beauties of method
and the advantages of taste, which are nowhere met with but by
seeing good compositions entire, and by considering the art with
which the whole is wound up. A small edition of Sulpicius's history,
made from that correctly published by De Prato, would be of great
service. Nevertheless, Sulpicius, though he has so well imitated the
style of the purest ages, declares that he neglects elegance; and he
takes the liberty to use certain terms and phrases which are not of
the Augustan standard, sometimes because they were so familiar in
his time that he otherwise would not have seemed to write with ease,
and sometimes because they are necessary to express the mysteries of
our faith. How shocking is the delicacy of Bembo; who, for fear of
not being Ciceronian, conjures the Venetians, _per Deos immortales_,
and uses the words _Dea Lauretana!_ or that of Justus Lipsius, who
used _Fatum_ or destiny, for Providence, because this latter word is
not in Cicero, who with the Pagans, usually speaks according to the
notion of an overruling destiny in events which they by believed
ordained by heaven. For this term some of Lipsius's works were
censured, and by him recalled.
15. Vit. St. Martin, versu expressa, l. 5, v. 193, &c.
16. Tr. de Diplomatique, t. 3.
17. Hist. Litter. t. 11, Advertissement preliminaire, p. 5.
18. Published by Bollandus ad 29 Jan. p. 968.
19. See Annalus, Theolog. positivae, l. 4, c. 26, and Dominic Georgi in
Notis ad Martyrol. Adonis, ad {} Jan.
20. Benedict. XIV. in litteris apost. praefixis novae suae editioni Romani
Martyrologii, (Romae, 1749,), Sec.47, p. 34.

ST. GILDAS THE WISE, OR BADONICUS, ABBOT.

HE was son to a British lord, who, to procure him a virtuous education, placed him in his infancy in the monastery of St. Iltutus in Glamorganshire. The surname of Badonicus was given him, because, as we learn from his writings, he was born in the year in which the Britons under Aurelius Ambrosius, or, according to others, under king Arthur, gained the famous victory over the Saxons at Mount Badon, now Bannesdown, near Bath, in Somersetshire. This Bede places in the forty-fourth year after the first {307} coming of the Saxons into Britain, which was in 451. Our saint, therefore, seems to have been born in 494; he was consequently younger than St. Paul, St. Samson, and his other illustrious school-fellows in Wales: but by his prudence and seriousness in his youth he seemed to have attained to the maturity of judgment and gravity of an advanced age. The author of the life of St. Paul of Leon, calls him the brightest genius of the school of St. Iltut. His application to sacred studies was uninterrupted, and if he arrived not at greater perfection in polite literature, this was owing to the want of masters of that branch in the confusion of those times. As to improve himself in the knowledge of God and himself was the end of all his studies, and all his reading was reduced to the study of the science of the saints, the greater progress he made in learning, the more perfect he became in all virtues. Studies which are to many a source of dissipation, made him more and more recollected, because in all books he found and relished only God, whom alone he sought. Hence sprang that love for holy solitude, which, to his death, was the constant ruling inclination of his heart. Some time after his monastic profession, with the consent, and perhaps by the order of his abbot, St. Iltut, he passed over into Ireland, there to receive the lessons of the admirable masters of a religious life, who had been instructed in the most sublime maxims of an interior life, and formed to the practice of perfect virtue, by the great St. Patrick. The author of his Acts compares this excursion, which he made in the spring of his life, to that of the bees in the season of flowers, to gather the juices which they convert into honey. In like manner St. Gildas learned, from the instructions and examples of the most eminent servants of God, to copy in his own life whatever seemed most perfect. So severe were his continual fasts, that the motto of St. John Baptist might in some degree be applied to him, that he scarce seemed to eat or drink at all. A rough hair-cloth, concealed under a coarse cloak, was his garment, and the bare floor his bed, with a stone for his bolster. By the constant mortification of his natural appetites, and crucifixion of his flesh, his life was a prolongation of his martyrdom, or a perpetual sacrifice which he made of himself to God in union with that which he daily offered to him on his altars. If it be true that he preached in Ireland in the reign of king Ammeric, he must have made a visit to that island from Armorica, that prince only beginning to reign in 560: this cannot be ascribed to St. Gildas the Albanian, who died before that time. It was about the year 527, in the thirty-fourth of his age, that St. Gildas sailed to Armorica, or Brittany, in France:[1] for he wrote his invective ten years {308} after his arrival there, and in the forty-fourth year of his age, as is gathered from his life and writings. Here he chose for the place of his retirement the little isle of Houac, or Houat, between the coast of Rhuis and the island of Bellisle, four leagues from the latter. Houat exceeds not a league in length; the isle of Hoedre is still smaller, not far distant: both are so barren as to yield nothing but a small quantity of corn. Such a solitude, which appeared hideous to others, offered the greatest charms to the saint, who desired to fly, as much as this mortal state would permit, whatever could interrupt his commerce with God. Here he often wanted the common necessaries and conveniences of life; but the greater the privation of earthly comforts was in which he lived, the more abundant were those of the Holy Ghost which he enjoyed, in proportion as the purity of his affections and his love of heavenly things were more perfect. The saint promised himself that he should live here always unknown to men: but it was in vain for him to endeavor to hide the light of divine grace under a bushel, which shone forth to the world, notwithstanding all the precautions which his humility took to conceal it. Certain fishermen who discovered him were charmed with his heavenly deportment and conversation, and made known on the continent the treasure they had found. The inhabitants flocked from the coast to hear the lessons of divine wisdom which the holy anchoret gave with a heavenly unction which penetrated their hearts. To satisfy their importunities, St. Gildas at length consented to live among them on the continent, and built a monastery at Rhuis, in a peninsula of that name, which Guerech, the first lord of the Britons about Vannes, is said to have bestowed upon him. This monastery was soon filled with excellent disciples and holy monks. St. Gildas settled them in good order; then, sighing after closer solitude, he withdrew, and passing beyond the gulf of Vannes, and the promontory of Quiberon, chose for his habitation a grot in a rock, upon the bank of the river Blavet, where he found a cavern formed by nature extended from the east to the west, which on that account he converted into a chapel. However, he often visited this abbey of Rhuis, and by his counsels directed many in the paths of true virtue. Among these was St. Trifina, daughter of Guerech, first British count of Vannes. She was married to count Conomor, lieutenant of king Childebert, a brutish and impious man, who afterwards murdered her, and the young son which he had by her, who at his baptism received the name of Gildas, and was godson to our saint: but he is usually known by the surname of Treuchmeur, or Tremeur, in Latin Trichmorus. SS. Trifina and Treuchmeur are invoked in the English Litany of the seventh century, in Mabillon. The great collegiate church of Carhaix bears the name of St. Treuchmeur: the church of Quimper keeps his feast on the 8th of November, on which day he is commemorated in several churches in Brittany, and at St. Magloire's at Paris. A church situated between Corlai and the abbey of Coetmaloen in Brittany, is dedicated to God tinder the invocation of St. Trifina.[2]

St. Gildas wrote eight canons of discipline, and a severe invective against the crimes of the Britons, called De Excidio Britanniae, that he might confound {309} those whom he was not able to convert, and whom God in punishment delivered first to the plunders of the Picts and Scots, and afterwards to the perfidious Saxons, the fiercest of all nations. He reproaches their kings, Constantine, (king of the Danmonians, in Devonshire and Cornwall,) Vortipor, (of the Dimetians, in South Wales,) Conon, Cuneglas, and Maglocune, princes in other parts of Britain, with horrible crimes: but Constantine was soon after sincerely converted, as Gale informs us from an ancient Welsh chronicle.[3] According to John Fordun[4] he resigned his crown, became a monk, preached the faith to the Scots and Picts, and died a martyr in Kintyre: but the apostle of the Scots seems to have been a little more ancient than the former.[5] Our saint also wrote an invective against the British clergy, whom he accuses of sloth, of seldom sacrificing at the altar, &c. In his retirement he ceased not with tears to recommend to God his own cause, or that of his honor and glory, and the souls of blind sinners, and died in his beloved solitude in the island of Horac, (in Latin Horata,) according to Usher, in 570, but according to Ralph of Disse, in 581.[6] St. Gildas is patron of the city of Vannes. The abbey which bears his name in the peninsula of Rhuis, between three and four leagues from Vannes, is of the reformed congregation of St. Maur since the year 1649. The relics of St. Gildas were carried thence for fear of the Normans into Berry, about the year 919, and an abbey was erected there on the banks of the river Indre, which was secularized and united to the collegiate church of Chateauroux in 1623. St. Gildas is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 29th of January. A second commemoration of him is made in some places on the 11th of May, on account of the translation of his relics. His life, compiled from the ancient archives of Rhuis by a monk of that house, in the eleventh century, is the best account we have of him, though the author confounds him sometimes with St. Gildas the Albanian. It is published in the library of Fleury, in Bollandus, p. 954, and most correctly in Mabillon, Act. SS. Ord. Saint Belled. t. 1, p. 138. See also Dom Lobineau, Vies des Saints de Bretagne, (fol. an. 1725,) p. 72, and Hist. de la {310} Bretagne, (2 vol. fol. an. 1707,) and the most accurate Dom Morice, Memoires Sur l'Histoire de Bretagne, 3 vol. fol. in 1745, and Hist. de la Bretagne, 2 vol. fol. an. 1750.

Footnotes:
1. Armorica, which word in the old Celtic language signified a maritime
country, comprised that part of Celtic Gaul which is now divided
into Brittany, Lower Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. Tours was
the capital, and still maintains the metropolitical dignity. By St.
Gatian, about the middle of the third century, the faith was first
planted in those parts: but the entire extirpation of idolatry was
reserved to the zeal of British monks. Dom Morice distinguishes
three principal transmigrations of inhabitants from Great Britain
into Armorica: the first, when many fled from the arms of Carausius
and Allectus, who successively assumed the purple in Great Britain:
Constance made these fugitives welcome in Gaul, and allowed them to
settle on the coast of Armorica about the year 293. A second and
much larger colony of Britons was planted here under Conan, a
British prince by Maximus, whom all the British youth followed into
Gaul in 383. After the defeat of Maximus, these Armorican Britons
chose this Conan, surnamed Meriedec, king, formed themselves into an
independent state, and maintained their liberty against several
Roman generals in the decline of that empire, and against the Alans,
Vandals, Goths, and other barbarians. Des Fontaines, (Diss. p. 118,)
and after him Dom Morice. demonstrates that Brittany was an
independent state before the year 421. The third transmigration of
Britons hither was completed at several intervals while the Saxons
invaded and conquered Britain, where Hengist first landed in 470.
Brittany was subjected to the Romans during four centuries: an
independent state successively under the title of a kingdom, county,
and duchy, for the space of about eleven hundred and fifty years,
and has been united to the kingdom of France ever since the year
1532, by virtue of the marriage of king Charles VIII. with Anne,
sole heiress of Brittany, daughter of duke Francis, celebrated in
1491. This province was subdued by Clovis I., who seems to have
treacherously slain Budic, king of Brittany. This prince left six
sons, Howel I., Ismael, bishop of Menevia, St. Tifel, honored as a
martyr at Pennalun, St. Oudecee, bishop of Landaff, Urbian or
Concur, and Dinot, father of St. Kineda. Brittany remained subject
to the sons of Clovis, and it was by the authority of Childobert
that St. Paul was made bishop of Leon in 512. But Howel, returning
from the court of king Arthur in 513, recovered the greater part of
these dominions. See Dom Morice, Hist. t. 1, p. 14. Howel I., often
called Rioval, that is, king Rowel, was a valiant prince, and
liberal to churches and monasteries. Among many sons whom he left
behind him, Howel II. succeeded him, and two are honored among the
saints, viz. St. Leonor or Lunaire, and St. Tudgual or Pabutual,
first Bishop of Treguier. See Morice. t. 1, pp. 14. and 729. Howel
III., alias Juthael, recovered all Brittany. King Pepin again
conquered this country, and Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnaire
quelled it when it thrice rebelled. The latter established the
Benedictin rule at Llandevenec. which probably was soon imitated in
others: for the monastic rule which first prevailed here was that of
the Britons in Wales, borrowed from the Orientals. After the
straggles made by this province for its liberty, Charles the Bald
yielded it up in 858, and some time after treated Solomon III. as
king of Brittany. See Morice, Des Fontaines, &c.
2. In this churchyard stands an ancient pyramid, on which are engraved
letters of an unknown alphabet, supposed to be that of the Britons
and Gauls before the Roman alphabet was introduced among them.
Letters of the same alphabet are found upon some other monuments of
Brittany. See Lobineau, Vies des Saints de la Bretagne. in St.
Treuchmeur, p. 8. Dom Morice endeavors to prove that the Welsh, the
old British, and the Celtic, are the same language. (Hist. t. 1, p.
867.) That they are so in part is unquestionable.
3. Mr. Vaughan, in his British Antiquities revived, printed at Oxford
in 1662, shows that there were at this time many princes or
chieftains among the Britons in North Wales, but that they all held
their lands of one sovereign, though each in his own district was
often honored with the title of king. The chief prince at this time
was Maelgun Gwynedth, the lineal heir and eldest descendant of
Cuneda, who flourished in the end of the fourth, or beginning of the
fifth century, and from one or other of whose eight sons all the
princes of North Wales, also those of Cardigan, Dimetia, Glamorgan,
and others in South Wales, derived their descent. The ancient
author, published at the end of Nenbius, says Maelgun began his
reign one hundred and forty-six years after Cuaedha, who was his
Atavus, or great-grandfather's grandfather. Maelgun was prince only
of Venedotia for twenty-five years before he was acknowledged in
564, after the death of Arthur, chief king of the Britons in Wales,
while St. David was primate, Arthur king of the Britons in general,
Gurthmyll king, and St. Kentigern bishop of the Cumbrian Britons.
"He had received a good education under the elegant instructor of
almost all Britain," says Gildas, pointing out probably St. Iltutus.
Yet he fell into enormous vices. Touched with remorse, he retired
into a monastery in 552; but being soon tired of that state,
reassumed his crown, and relapsed into his former impieties. He died
in 565. Gildas, who wrote his epistle De Excidio Britanniae, between
the years 564 and 570, that of his death, hints that Veralam was
then fallen into the hands of the Saxons: which is certain of
London, &c. The other princes reprehended by Gildas were lesser
toparchs, as Aurelius Canon, Vortipor, Cuneglas, and Constantine.
These were chieftains, Vortipor in Pembrokeshire, the rest in some
quarter or other of Britain, all living when Gildas wrote.
Constantine, whom Gildas represents as a native of Cornwall, and as
he is commonly understood, also as prince of that country, did
penance. The chief crime imputed to him is the murder of two royal
youths in a church, and of two noblemen who had the charge of their
education. Those Carte imagines to have been the sons of Caradoc
Ureich Uras, who was chief prince of the Cornish Britons in the
latter end of king Arthur's reign, as is attested by the author of
the Triades. The prelates whom Gildas reproves, were such as Maelgun
had promoted: for the sees of South-Wales were at that time filled
with excellent prelates, whose virtues Gildas desired to copy.
Carte, t. 1, p. 214.
4. Scoti-chron. c. 26.
5. Gildas's epistle, De Excidio Britanniae, was published extremely
incorrect and incomplete, till the learned Thomas Gale gave us a far
more accurate and complete edition, t. 3, Scriptor. Britan., which
is reprinted with notes by Bertrame in Germany, Hanniae imp. an.
1757, together with Nennius's history of the Britons, and Richard
Corin, of Westminster, De Situ Britanniae. Gildas's Castigatio Cleri
is extant in the library of the fathers, ed. Colon. t. 5, part 3, p.
682.
6. Dom Morice shows that about one hundred and twenty years were an
ordinary term of human life among the ancient Britons, and that
their usual liquor, called Kwrw, made of barley and water, was a
kind of beer, a drink most suitable to the climate and constitutions
of the inhabitants. See Dom Morice, Memoires sur l'Histoire de
Bretange, t. 1, preface; and Lamery, Diss. sur les Boissons.

ST. GILDAS THE ALBANIAN, OR THE SCOT, C.[1]

HIS father, who was called Caunus, and was king of certain southern provinces in North Britain, was slain in war by king Arthur. St. Gildas improved temporal afflictions into the greatest spiritual advantages, and, despising a false and treacherous world, aspired with his whole heart to a heavenly kingdom. Having engaged himself in a monastic state, he retired with St. Cado, abbot of Llan-carvan, into certain desert islands, whence they were driven by pirates from the Orcades. Two islands, called Ronech and Ecni, afforded him for some time a happy retreat, which he forsook to preach to sinners the obligation of doing penance, and to invite all men to the happy state of divine love. After discharging this apostolical function for several years, he retired to the southwest part of Britain into the abbey of Glastenbury, where he died and was buried in 512. William of Malmesbury[2] and John Fordun[3] mention his prophecies and miracles. See F. Alford, an. 512. Dom Lobineau, Saints de Bret. p. 72. Dom Morice, Hist. de Bret. t. 1, in the notes.

Footnotes: 1. Mr. Gale has cleared up the dispute about the two Gildases, and demonstrates this to have been a distinct person from the former, which is also proved by Dom Lobineau and Dom Morice. 2. Gul. Malmesb. de Antiq. Glast. 3. Scoti-chron. c. 22.

On this day is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology, ST. SABINIANUS of TROYES in CHAMPAGNE, a martyr of the third century. His festival is kept at Troyes on the 24th. See Bollan. 29th Jan. p. 937. Tillem. Hist. des Emp, t. 3, p. 541.

Also, ST. SULPICIUS, surnamed SEVERUS, Bishop of Bourges in 591. See Greg. Tour. Hist. Franc. l. 6, c. 39. Gall. Christ. and Ben. XIV. Pref. in Mart. Rom.

JANUARY XXX.

ST. BATHILDES, QUEEN OF FRANCE.

From her life written by a contemporary author, and a second life, which is the same with the former, except certain additions of a later date, in Bollandus and Mabillon, sec. 4, Ben. p. 447, and Act. Sanct. Ben. t. 2. See also Dubois, Hist. Eccl. Paris, p. 198, and Chatelain. Notes on the Martyr. 30 Jan. p. 462. See Historia St. Bathildis et Fundationem ejus, among the MS. lives of saints in the abbey of Jumieges, t. 2. Also her MS. life at Bec, &c.

A.D. 680.

ST. BATHILDES, or BALDECHILDE, in French Bauteur, was an English-woman, who was carried over very young into France, and there sold for a slave, at a very low price, to Erkenwald, otherwise called Erchinoald, and, Archimbald, mayor of the palace under King Clovis II. When she grew up he was so much taken with her prudence and virtue, that he committed to her the care of his household. She was no ways puffed up, but seemed {311} the more modest, more submissive to her fellow-slaves, and always ready to serve the meanest of them in the lowest offices. King Clovis II. in 649 took her for his royal consort, with the applause of his princes and whole kingdom: such was the renown of her extraordinary endowments. This unexpected elevation, which would have turned the strongest head of a person addicted to pride, produced no alteration in a heart perfectly grounded to humility and other virtues. She seemed even to become more humble than before, and more tender of the poor. Her present station furnished her with the means of being truly their mother, which she was before in the inclination and disposition of her heart. All other virtues appeared more conspicuous in her, but above the rest an ardent zeal for religion. The king gave her the sanction of his royal authority for the protection of the church, the care of the poor, and the furtherance of all religions undertakings. She bore him three sons, who all successively wore the crown, Clotaire III., Childeric II., and Thierry I. He dying in 655, when the eldest was only five years old, left her regent of the kingdom. She seconded the zeal of St. Owen, St. Eligius, and other holy bishops, and with great pains banished simony out of France, forbade Christians to be made slaves,[1] did all in her power to promote piety, and filled France with hospitals and pious foundations. She restored the monasteries of St. Martin, St. Denys, St. Medard, &c., founded the great abbey of Corbie for a seminary of virtue and sacred learning, and the truly royal nunnery of Chelles,[2] on the Marne, which had been begun by St. Clotildis. As soon as her son Clotaire was of an age to govern, she with great joy shut herself up in this monastery of Chelles, in 665, a happiness which she had long earnestly desired, though it was with great difficulty that she obtained the consent of the princes. She had no sooner taken the veil but she seemed to have forgotten entirely her former dignity, and was only to be distinguished from the rest by her extreme humility, serving them in the lowest offices, and obeying the holy abbess St. Bertilla as the last among the sisters. She prolonged her devotions every day with many tears, and made it her greatest delight {312} to visit and attend the sick, whom she comforted and served with wonderful charity. St. Owen, in his life of St. Eligius, mentions many instances of the great veneration which St. Bathildes bore that holy prelate, and relates that St. Eligius, after his death, in a vision by night, ordered a certain courtier to reprove the queen for wearing jewels and costly apparel in her widowhood, which she did not out of pride, but because she thought it due to her state while she was regent of the kingdom. Upon this admonition, she laid them aside, distributed a great part to the poor, and with the richest of her jewels made a most beautiful and sumptuous cross, which she placed at the head of the tomb of St. Eligius. She was afflicted with long and severe colics and other pains, which she suffered with an admirable resignation and joy. In her agony she recommended to her sisters charity, care of the poor, fervor, and perseverance, and gave up her soul in devout prayer, on the 30th of January, in 680, on which day she is honored in France, but is named on the 26th in the Roman Martyrology.

* * * * *

A Christian, who seriously considers that he is to live here but a moment, and will live eternally in the world to come, must confess that it is a part of wisdom to refer all his actions and views to prepare himself for that everlasting dwelling, which is his true country. Our only and necessary affair is to live for God, to do his will, and to sanctify and save our souls. If we are employed in a multiplicity of exterior business, we must imitate St. Bathildes, when she bore the whole weight of the state. In all we do God and his holy will must be always before our eyes, and to please him must be our only aim and desire. Shunning the anxiety of Martha, and reducing all our desires to this one of doing what God requires of us, we must with her call in Mary to our assistance. In the midst of action, while our hands are at work, our mind and heart ought to be interiorly employed on God, at least virtually, that all our employments may be animated with the spirit of piety: and hours of repose must always be contrived to pass at the feet of Jesus, where in the silence of all creatures we may listen to his sweet voice, refresh in him our wearied souls, and renew our fervor. While we converse with the world, we must tremble at the sight of its snares, and be upon our guard that we never be seduced so far as to be in love with it, or to learn its spirit. To love the world, is to follow its passions; to be proud, covetous, and sensual, as the world is. The height of its miseries and dangers, is that blindness by which none who are infected with its spirit, see their misfortune, or are sensible of their disease. Happy are they who can imitate this holy queen in entirely separating themselves from it!

Footnotes:
1. The Franks, when they established themselves in Gaul, allowed the
Roman Gauls to live according to their own laws and customs, and
tolerated their use of slaves, but gradually mitigated their
servitude. Queen Bathildes alleviated the heaviest conditions, gave
great numbers their liberty, and declared all capable of property.
The Franks still retained slaves with this condition, attached to
certain manors or farms, and bound to certain particular kinds of
servitude. The kings of the second race often set great numbers
free, and were imitated by other lords. Queen Blanche and Saint
Lewis contributed more than any others to ease the condition of
vassals, and Louis Hutin abolished slavery in France, declaring all
men free who live in that kingdom according to the spirit of
Christianity, which teaches us to treat all men as our brethren. See
the life of St. Bathildes, and Gratigny, [OE]vres posthumes, an. 1757.
Disc. sur la Servitude et son Abolition en France.
2. In the village of Chelles, in Latin Cala, four leagues from Paris,
the kings of the first race had a palace. St. Clotildis founded near
it a small church under the invocation of St. George, with a small
number of cells adjoining for nuns. St. Bathildes so much enlarged
this monastery as to be looked upon as the principal foundress. The
old church of St. George falling to decay, Saint Bathildes built
there the magnificent church of the Holy Cross, in which she was
buried. Gisela, sister to the emperor Charlemagne, abbess of this
house, rebuilt the great church, which some pretend to be the same
that is now standing. At present here are three churches together;
the first, which is small, the oldest, and only a choir, is called
the church of the Holy Cross, and is used by six monks who assist
the nuns; the lowest church is called St. George's, and is a
parochial church for the seculars who live within the jurisdiction
of the monastery: the great church which serves the nuns is
dedicated under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, and is said to
be the same that was built by the abbess Gisela, and much enlarged
and enriched by Hegilvich, abbess of this monastery, mother to the
empress Judith, whose husband, Louis le Debonnaire, caused the
remains of our saint to be translated into this new church, in 833,
and from this treasure it is more frequently called the church of
St. Bathlides, than our Lady's. Two rich silver shrines are placed
over the iron rails of the chancel, in one of which rest the sacred
remains of St. Bathildes, in the other those of St. Bertilla, first
abbess of Chelles: these rails, which are of admirable workmanship,
were the present of an illustrious princess of the house of Bourbon,
Mary Adelaide of Orleans, abbess of this house in 1725, who not
thinking her sacrifice complete by having renounced the world, after
some years abdicated her abbacy, and died in the condition of humble
obedience, and of a private religious woman, near the shrines of SS.
Bathildes and Bertilla, and those of St. Genesius of Lyons, St.
Eligius and Radegondes of Chelles, called also little St. Bathildes.
The last-mentioned princess was god-daughter to our saint, and died
in her childhood, in this monastery, two or three days before her.
See Piganiol's Descr. de Paris, t. 1 and S. Chatelain's notes in
martyr. p. 464, and especially Le Boeuf, Hist. du Diocese de Paris,
t. 6, p. 32. This author gives (p. 43) the full relation of a
miracle approved by John Francis Gondy, archbishop of Paris,
mentioned in a few words by Mabillon and Baillet. Six nuns were
cured of inveterate distempers, attended with frequent fits of
convulsions, by touching the relics of Saint Bathildes, when her
shrine was opened on the 13th of July, in 1631.

ST. MARTINA, V.M.

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

{313}

ST. ALDEGONDES, V. ABBESS.

SHE was daughter of Walbert, of the royal blood of France, and born in Hainault about the year 630. She consecrated herself to God by a vow of virginity, when very young, and resisted all solicitations to marriage, serving God in the house of her holy parents, till, in 638, she took the religious veil, and founded and governed a great house of holy virgins at Maubeuge.[1] She was favored with an eminent gift of prayer, and many revelations; but was often tried by violent slanders and persecutions, which she looked upon as the highest favors of the divine mercy, begging of God that she might be found worthy to suffer still more for his sake. His divine providence sent her a lingering and most painful cancer in her breast. The saint bore the torture of her distemper, also the caustics and incisions of the surgeons, not only with patience, but even with joy, and expired in raptures of sweet love, on the 30th of January, in 660, according to Bollandus. Her relics are enshrined in the great church of Maubeuge, where her monastery is now a college of noble virgins canonesses. Her name occurs on this day in the ancient breviary of Autun, and in the martyrologies of Rabanus, Usuard, and Notker: also in the Roman. At St. Omer, where a parish church bears her name, she is called Saint Orgonne. See her life written some time after her death: a second a century later, and a third by Hucbald, a learned monk of St. Armand's, in 900, with the remarks of Mabillon, (Act. Bened. t. 2, p. 937,) and the Bollandists. Consult also Miraeus's Fasti Belgici, and La Vie de St. Aldegonde, par P. Binet, Jesuite, in 12mo. Paris, 1625.

Footnotes:
1. The act of this foundation, published by Miraeus, is spurious, as
mention is made therein of persons who were not living at that time:
neither could it have been made in the twentieth year of Dagobert,
as it contains facts which cannot be reconciled with the history of
that prince. See the note of Bollandus, t. 2, p. 1039, and
Chatelain, p 461.

ST. BARSIMAEUS, B.M.

CALLED BY THE SYRIANS BARSAUMAS.

HE was the third bishop of Edessa from St. Thaddaeus, one of the seventy-two disciples. St. Barsaumas was crowned with martyrdom, being condemned to die for his zeal in converting great multitudes to the faith, by the president Lysias, in the reign of Trajan, when that prince, having passed the Euphrates, made the conquest of Mesopotamia in 114. St. Barsimaeus is mentioned on the 30th of January in the Roman Martyrology, and in the Greek Maenology.

{314}

JANUARY XXXI.

SAINT PETER NOLASCO, C.

FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF OUR LADY FOR THE REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES.