Chapter XLIX: Appendix: TO (3)

HE was born in Rome, to an affluent fortune, and being educated in the palace of the popes, acquired great skill in the holy scriptures and in ecclesiastical affairs, and attained to an eminent degree of sanctity. Pope Sergius I., to whom he was very dear, ordained him subdeacon. Under the succeeding popes, John the sixth and seventh, Sisinnius, and Constantine, he was treasurer of the church, and afterwards library keeper, and was charged with several important commissions. The fifth general council had been held upon the affair of the three chapters, in 553, in the reign of Justinian, and the sixth against the Monothelites, in those of Constantine Pogonatus and pope Agatho, in 660. With a view of adding a supplement of new canons to those of the aforesaid two councils, the bishops of the Greek church, to the number of two hundred and eleven, held the council called Quini-sext, in a hall of the imperial palace at Constantinople, named Trullus, in 692, which laid a foundation of certain differences to discipline between the Eastern and Western churches; for in the thirteenth canon it was enacted, that a man who was before married should be allowed to receive the holy orders of subdeacon, deacon, or priest, without being obliged to leave his wife, though this was forbid to bishops. (can. 12.) It was also forbid, (canon 55,) to fast on Saturdays, even in Lent. Pope Sergius I. refused to confirm this council; and, in 695, the emperor, Justinian II., surnamed Rhinotmetus, who had succeeded his father, Constantine Pogonatus, in 685, was dethroned for his cruelty, and his nose being slit, (from which circumstance he received his surname,) banished into Chersonesus. First Leontius, then Apsimarus Tiberius, ascended the throne; but Justinian recovered it in 705, and invited pope Constantine into the East, hoping to prevail upon him to confirm the council in Trullo. The pope was received with great honor, and had with him our saint, who, in his name, answered the questions put by the Greeks concerning the said council. After their return to Rome, upon the death of Constantine, Gregory was chosen pope, and ordained on the 19th of May, 715. The emperor Justinian being detested both by the army and people, Bardanes, who took the name of Philippicus, an Armenian, one of his generals, revolted, took Constantinople, put him and his son Tiberius, only seven years old, to death, and usurped the sovereignty in December, 711. In Justinian II was extinguished the family of Heraclius. Philippicus abetted warmly the heresy of the Monothelites, and caused the sixth council to be proscribed in a pretended synod at Constantinople. His reign was very short, for Artemius, his secretary, {411} who took the name of Anastasius II., deposed him, and stepped into the throne on the fourth of June, 713. By him the Monothelites were expelled; but, after a reign of two years and seven months, seeing one Theodosius chosen emperor by the army, which had revolted in January, 716, he withdrew, and took the monastic habit at Thessalonica. The eastern army having proclaimed Leo III., surnamed the Isaurian, emperor, on the 25th of March, 717, Theodosius and his son embraced an ecclesiastical state, and lived in peace among the clergy. Pope Gregory signalized the beginning of his popedom by deposing John VI., the Monothelite, false patriarch of Constantinople, who had been nominated by Philippicus, and he promoted the election of St. Germanus, who was translated to that dignity from Cyzicus, in 715. With unwearied watchfulness and zeal he laid himself out in extirpating heresies on all sides, and in settling a reformation of manners. Besides a hospital for old men, he rebuilt the great monastery near the church of St. Paul at Rome, and, after the death of his mother, in 718, changed her house into the monastery of St. Agatha. The same year he re-established the abbey of Mount Cassino, sending thither, from Rome, the holy abbot St. Petronax, to take upon him the government, one hundred and forty years after it had been laid in ruins by the Lombards. This holy abbot lived to see monastic discipline settled here in so flourishing a manner, that in the same century, Carloman, duke or prince of the French, Rachis, king of the Lombards, St. Willebald, St. Sturmius, first abbot of Fulda, and other eminent persons, fled to this sanctuary.[1] Our holy pope commissioned zealous missionaries to preach the faith in Germany, and consecrated St. Corbinian bishop of Frisingen, and St. Boniface bishop of Mentz. Leo, the Isaurian, protected the Catholic church during the first ten years of his reign, and St. Gregory II. laid up among the archives of his church several letters which he had received from him, from the year 717 to 726, which proved afterwards authentic monuments of his perfidy. For, being infatuated by certain Jews, who had gained an ascendant over him by certain pretended astrological predictions, in 726 he commanded holy images to be abolished, and enforced the execution of his edicts of a cruel persecution. St. Germanus, and other orthodox prelates in the East, endeavored to reclaim him, refused to obey his edicts, and addressed themselves to pope Gregory. Our saint employed long the arms of tears and entreaties, yet strenuously maintained the people of Italy in their allegiance to their prince, as Anastasius assures us. A rebellion was raised in Sicily, but soon quelled by the death of Artemius, who had assumed the purple. The pope vigorously opposed the mutineers, both here and in other parts of the West. When he was informed that the army at Ravenna and Venice, making zeal a pretence for rebellion, had created a new emperor, he effectually opposed their attempt, and prevented the effect. Several disturbances which were raised in Rome were pacified by his care. Nevertheless, he by letters encouraged the pastors of the church to resist the heresy which the emperor endeavored to establish by bloodshed and violence. The tyrant sent orders to several of his officers, six or seven times, to murder the pope: but he was so faithfully guarded by the Romans and Lombards, that he escaped all their snares. St. Gregory II. held the pontificate fifteen years, eight months, and twenty-three days, and died in 731, on the 10th of February; but the Roman Martyrology consecrates to his memory the 13th which was probably the day on which his corpse was deposited in the Vatican church.

Footnotes: 1. Bulteau, Hist. Mon. d'Occid. t. 2, l. 4, c. 2, p. 8.

{412}

ST. MARTINIANUS, HERMIT AT ATHENS.

MARTINIANUS was born at Caesarea in Palestine, during the reign of Constantius. At eighteen years of age he retired to a mountain near that city, called, The place of the Ark, where he lived for twenty-five years among many holy solitaries in the practice of all virtues, and was endowed with the gift of miracles. A wicked strumpet of Caesarea, called Zoe, hearing his sanctity much extolled, at the instigation of the devil undertook to pervert him. She feigned herself a poor woman, wandering in the desert late at night, and ready to perish. By this pretext she prevailed on Martinianus to let her remain that night in his cell. Towards morning she threw aside her rags, put on her best attire, and going in to Martinianus, told him she was a lady of the city, possessed of a large estate and plentiful fortune, all which she came to offer him with herself. She also instanced, in the examples of the saints of the Old Testament, who were rich and engaged in the conjugal state, to induce him to abandon his purpose. The hermit, who should have imitated the chaste Joseph in his flight, was permitted, in punishment perhaps of some secret presumption, to listen to her enchanting tongue, and to consent in his heart to her proposal. But as it was near the time that he expected certain persons to call on him to receive his blessing and instructions, he told her he would go and meet them on the road and dismiss them. He went out with this intent, but being touched with remorse, he returned speedily to his cell, where, making a great fire, he thrust his feet into it. The pain this occasioned was so great, that he could not forbear crying out aloud. The woman at the noise ran in and found him lying on the ground, bathed in tears, and his feet half burned. On seeing her he said: "Ah! if I cannot bear this weak fire, how can I endure that of hell?" This example excited Zoe to sentiments of grief and repentance; and she conjured him to put her in a way of securing her salvation. He sent her to Bethlehem, to the monastery of St. Paula, to which she lived in continual penance, and lying on the bare floor, with no other sustenance than bread and water. Martinianus, as soon as his legs were healed, which was not till seven months after, not being able all that time to rise from the ground, retired to a rock surrounded with water on every side, to be secure from the approach of danger and all occasions of sin. He lived here exposed always to the open air, and without ever seeing any human creature, except a boatman, who brought him twice a year biscuit and fresh water, and twigs wherewith to make baskets. Six years after this, he saw a vessel split and wrecked at the bottom of his rock. All on board perished, except one girl, who, floating on a plank, cried out for succor. Martinianus could not refuse to go down and save her life: but fearing the danger of living on the same mountain with her till the boatman should come, as was expected in two months, resolved to leave her there to subsist on his provisions till that time, and she chose to end her days on this rock in imitation of his penitential life. He, trusting himself to the waves and Providence, to shun all danger of sin, swam to the main land, and travelled through many deserts to Athens, where he made a happy end towards the year 400, being about fifty years old. His name, though not mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, occurs in the Greek Menaea, and was in great veneration in the East, particularly at Constantinople, in the famous church near Sancta Sophia. See his acts in the Bollandists, and in most compilers of the lives of the saints. Also Jos. Assemani in Cal. Univ. ad 13 Feb. t. 6, p. 145.

{413}

ST. MODOMNOC, OR DOMINICK, OF OSSORY, C.

HE is said to have been of the noble race of the O'Neils, and, passing into Wales, to have studied under St. David in the Vale of Ross. After his return home he served God at Tiprat Fachna, in the western part of Ossory. He is said to have been honored there with the Episcopal dignity, about the middle of the sixth century. The see of Ossory was translated from Seirkeran, the capital of this small county, to Aghavoa, in the eleventh century, and in the twelfth, in the reign of Henry II., to Kilkenny. See Sir James Ware, l. De Antiquitatibus Hiberniae, and l. De Episcopal. Hibern.

ST. STEPHEN, ABBOT.

HE was abbot of a monastery near the walls of Rieti in Italy, and a man of admirable sanctity. He had despised all things for the love of heaven. He shunned all company to employ himself wholly in prayer. So wonderful was his patience, that he looked upon them as his greatest friends and benefactors, who did him the greatest injuries, and regarded insults as his greatest gain. He lived in extreme poverty, and a privation of all the conveniences of life. His barns, with all the corn in them, the whole subsistence of his family, were burned down by wicked men. He received the news with cheerfulness, grieving only for their sin by which God was offended. In his agony angels were seen surrounding him to conduct his happy soul to bliss. He lived in the sixth age. He is named in the Roman Martyrology. See St. Gregory, hom. 35, in Evang. t. 1, p. 1616, and l. 4, Dial. c. 19.

B. ROGER, ABBOT, C.

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

FEBRUARY XIV.

ST. VALENTINE, PRIEST AND MARTYR.

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

THIRD AGE.

VALENTINE was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was {414} apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome; who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards to be beheaded, which was executed on the 14th of February, about the year 270. Pope Julius I. is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate, now called Ports del Popolo, formerly Porta Valentini. The greatest part of his relics are now in the church of St. Praxedes. His name is celebrated as that of an illustrious martyr, in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, the Roman missal of Thomasius, in the calendar of F. Fronto, and that of Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado, Notker, and all other martyrologies on this day. To abolish the heathen's lewd superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honor of their goddess Februata Juno, on the 15th of this month, several zealous pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day. See January 29, on St. Francis de Sales.

ST. MARO, ABBOT.

From Theodoret Philoth. c. 16, 22, 24, 30, Tillem. t. 12, p. 412. Le Quien, Oriens Christ. t. 3, p. 5, Jos Assemani Bibl. Orient. t. 1, p. 497.

A.D. 433.

ST. MARO made choice of a solitary abode on a mountain in the diocese of Syria and near that city, where, out of a spirit of mortification, he lived for the most part in the open air. He had indeed a little hut, covered with goat skins, to shelter him from the inclemencies of the weather; but he very seldom made use of it for that purpose, even on the most urgent occasions. Finding here a heathen temple, he dedicated it to the true God, and made it his house of prayer. Being renowned for sanctity, he was raised, in 405, to the dignity of priesthood. St. Chrysostom, who had a singular regard for him, wrote to him from Cucusus, the place of his banishment, and recommended himself to his prayers, and begged to hear from him by every opportunity.[1]

St. Zebinus, our saint's master, surpassed all the solitaries of his time, with regard to assiduity in prayer. He devoted to this exercise whole days and nights, without being sensible of any weariness or fatigue: nay, his ardor for it seemed rather to increase than slacken by its continuance. He generally prayed in an erect posture; but in his old age was forced to support his body by leaning on a staff. He gave advice in very few words to those that came to see him, to gain the more time for heavenly contemplation. St. Maro imitated his constancy in prayer: yet he not only received all visitants with great tenderness, but encouraged their stay with him; though few were willing to pass the whole night in prayer standing. God recompensed his labors with most abundant graces, and the gift of curing all distempers, both of body and mind. He prescribed admirable remedies against all vices. This drew great multitudes to him, and he erected many monasteries in Syria, and trained up holy solitaries. Theodoret, bishop of Cyr, says, that the great number of monks who peopled his diocese were the fruit of his instructions. The chief among his disciples was St. James of Cyr, who gloried that he had received from the hands of St. Maro his first hair-cloth.

God called St. Maro to his glory after a short illness, which showed, says Theodoret, the great weakness to which his body was reduced. A {415} pious contest ensued among the neighboring provinces about his burial. The inhabitants of a large and populous place carried off the treasure, and built to his honor a spacious church over his tomb, to which a monastery was adjoined, which seems to have been the monastery of St. Maro in the diocese of Apamea.[2]

Footnotes:
1. St. Chrys. ep. 36.
2. It is not altogether certain whether this monastery near Apamea, or
another on the Orontes, between Apamea and Emesa, or a third in
Palmyrene, (for each of them bore his name,) possessed his body, or
gave name to the people called Maronites. It seems most probable of
the second, the abbot of which is styled primate of all the
monasteries of the second Syria, in the acts of the second council
of Constantinople, under the patriarch Mennas, in 536, and he
subscribes first a common letter to pope Hormisdas, in 517. The
Maronites were called so from these religious, in the fifth century,
and adhered to the council of Chalcedon against the Eutychians. They
were joined in communion with the Melchites or Loyalists, who
maintained the authority of the council of Chalcedon. The Maronites,
with their patriarch, who live in Syria, towards the seacoast,
especially about mount Libanus, are steady in the communion of the
Catholic church, and profess a strict obedience to the pope, as its
supreme pastor; and such has always been the conduct of that nation,
except during a very short time, that they were inveigled into the
Greek schism; and some fell into Eutychianism, and a greater number
into Nestorianism; they returned to the communion of the Catholic
church under Gregory XIII. and Clement VIII., as Stephen Assemani
proves, (Assemani, Act. Mart. t. 2, p. 410,) against the slander of
Eutychius in his Arabic Annals, which had imposed upon Renaudot. The
Maronites keep the feast of St. Maro on the 9th, the Greeks on the
14th of February. The seminary of the Maronites at Rome, founded by
Gregory XIII. under the direction of the Jesuits, had produced
several great men, who have exceedingly promoted true literature
especially the Oriental; such as Abraham Eckellensis, the three
Assemani, Joseph, Stephen Evodius, and Lewis, known by his Judicious
writings on the ceremonies of the church. The patriarch of the
Maronites, styled of Antioch, resides in the monastery of Canabine,
at the foot of mount Libanus; he is confirmed by the pope, and has
under him five metropolitans, namely, of Tyre, Damascus, Tripolis,
Aleppo, and Niocsia, in Cyprus. See Le Quien. Oriens Christianus. t.
3, p. 46.

ST. ABRAAMES, BISHOP OF CARRES.

HE was a holy solitary, who, going to preach to an idolatrous village on Mount Libanus, overcame the persecutions of the heathens by meekness and patience. When he had narrowly escaped death from their hands, he borrowed money wherewith to satisfy the demands of the collectors of the public taxes, for their failure in which respect they were to be cast into prison; and by this charity he gained them all to Christ. After instructing them for three years, he left them in the care of a holy priest, and returned to his desert. He was some time after ordained bishop of Canes, in Mesopotamia, which country he cleared of idolatry, dissensions, and other vices. He joined the recollection and penance of a monk with the labors of his functions, and died at Constantinople, in 422, having been sent for to court by Theodosius the Younger, and there treated with the greatest honor on account of his sanctity. The emperor kept one of his mean garments, and wore it himself on certain days, out of respect. See Theodoret Philoth. c. 17, t. 3, p. 847.

ST. AUXENTIUS, H.

HE was a holy hermit in Bithynia, in the fifth age. In his youth he was one of the equestrian guards of Theodosius the Younger, but this state of life, which he discharged with the utmost fidelity to his prince, did not hinder him from making the service of God his main concern. All his spare time was spent in solitude and prayer; and he often visited holy hermits, to spend the nights with them in tears and singing the divine praises, prostrate on the ground. The fear of vain-glory moved him to retire to the desert mountain of Oxen, in Bithynia, eight miles from Constantinople. After the council of Chalcedon, where he appeared upon summons by order of the emperor Marcian, against Eutyches, he chose a cell on the mountain of Siope, near Chalcedon, in which he contributed to the sanctification of many who resorted to him for advice; he finished his martyrdom of penance, together {416} with his life, about 470. Sozomen commended exceedingly his sanctity while he was yet living.[1] St. Stephen the Younger caused the church of his monastery to be dedicated to God, under the invocation of our saint; and mount Siope is called to this day mount St. Auxentius. See his life, written from the relation of his disciple Vendimian, with the remarks of Henschenius.

Footnotes: 1. Sozom. l. 7, c. 21.

ST. CONRAN, BISHOP OF ORKNEY, CONFESSOR.

THE isles of Orkney are twenty-six in number, besides the lesser, called Holmes, which are uninhabited, and serve only for pasture. The faith was planted here by St. Palladius, and St. Sylvester, one of his fellow-laborers, who was appointed by him the first pastor of this church, and was honored in it on the 5th of February. In these islands formerly stood a great number of holy monasteries, the chief of which was Kirkwall. This place was the bishop's residence, and is at this day the only remarkable town in these islands. It is situated in the largest of them, which is thirty miles long, called anciently Pomonia, now Mainland. This church is much indebted to St. Conran, who was bishop here in the seventh century, and whose name, for the austerity of his life, zeal, and eminent sanctity, was no less famous in those parts, so long as the Catholic religion flourished there, than those of St. Palladius and of St. Kentigern. The cathedral of Orkney was dedicated under the invocation of St. Magnus, king of Norway. On St. Conran, see bishop Lesley, Hist. Scot. l. 4. Wion, in addit. c. 3. Ligni Vitae. King, in Calend.

FEBRUARY XV.

SS. FAUSTINUS AND JOVITA, MM.

A.D. 121.

FAUSTINUS and JOVITA were brothers, nobly born, and zealous professors of the Christian religion, which they preached without fear in their city of Brescia, while the bishop of that place lay concealed during the persecution. The acts of their martyrdom seeming of doubtful authority, all we can affirm with certainty of them is, that their remarkable zeal excited the fury of the heathens against them, and procured them a glorious death for their faith at Brescia, in Lombardy, under the emperor Adrian. Julian, a heathen lord, apprehended them; and the emperor himself passing through Brescia, when neither threats nor torments could shake their constancy, commanded them to be beheaded. They seem to have suffered about the year 121.[1] The city of Brescia honors them as its chief patrons, and possesses their relics. A very ancient church in that city bears their name, and all the martyrologies mention them.

The spirit of Christ is a spirit of martyrdom, at least of mortification and penance. It is always the spirit of the cross. The remains of the old man, of sin and of death, must be extinguished, before one can be made heavenly by putting on affections which are divine. What mortifies the {417} senses and the flesh gives life to the spirit, and what weakens and subdues the body strengthens the soul. Hence the divine love infuses a spirit of mortification, patience, obedience, humility, and meekness, with a love of sufferings and contempt, in which consists the sweetness of the cross. The more we share in the suffering life of Christ, the greater share we inherit in his spirit, and in the fruit of his death. To souls mortified to their senses and disengaged from earthly things, God gives frequent foretastes of the sweetness of eternal life, and the most ardent desire of possessing him in his glory. This is the spirit of martyrdom, which entitles a Christian to a happy resurrection and to the bliss of the life to come.

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

ST. SIGEFRIDE, OR SIGFRID,

BISHOP, APOSTLE OF SWEDES.

From Joan. Magnus, Hist. Goth. l. 17, c. 20, quoted by Bollandus, and chiefly from a life of this saint, compiled at Wexlow about the year 1205, published from an ancient MS. by the care of Ericus Benzelius junior, in his Monuments Historica vetera Ecclesiae Suevogothicae, printed at Upsal in 1709, p. 1, ad p. 14, and in Prolegom. Sect. 1. The editor was not able to discover the author's name: upon which he repeats the remark of the learned Maussac, (in Diss. Critica ad Harpocrat.,) that "many monkish writers endeavored to conceal their names out of humility." On which see Mabillon, Diar. Ital. p. 36. Benzelius gives us a considerable fragment of a second life of this holy prelate, ib. p. 21, ad 29, and some verses of bishop Brynoth the third, on St. Sigfrid and the other bishops of this province, ib. p. 72.

Our zealous ancestors having received the light of our faith, propagated the same throughout all the northern provinces of Europe. St. Anscarius had planted the faith in, in 830; but it relapsed soon into idolatry. King Olas Scobcong entreated king Edred, who died in 91{} to send him missionaries to preach the gospel in his country. Sigefride, an eminent priest of York, undertook that mission, and on the 21st of June, in 950, arrived at Wexiow, in Gothland, in the territory of Smaland. He first erected a cross, then built a church of wood, celebrated the divine mysteries, and preached to the people. Twelve principal men of the province were converted by him, and one who died, was buried after the Christian manner, and a cross placed upon his grave. So great numbers were in a short time brought to the faith, that the cross of Christ was triumphantly planted in all the twelve tribes into which the inhabitants of South-Gothland were divided. The fountain near the mountain of Ostrabo, since called Wexiow, in which St. Sigefride baptized the catechumens, long retained the names of the twelve first converts, engraved on a monument. King Olas was much pleased with the accounts he heard of the man of God, and many flocked from remote parts, out of mere curiosity to hear his doctrine, and to see him minister at the altar, admiring the rich ornaments of linen, and over them of silk, which he wore in celebrating the divine mysteries, with a mitre on his head, and a crosier, or pastoral staff, in his hand. Also the gold and silver vessels which he had brought with him for the use of the altar, and the dignity and majesty of the ceremonies of the Christian worship, attracted their attention. But the sublime truths of our religion, and the mortification, disinterestedness, zeal, and sanctity of the apostolic missionaries, engaged them to give them a favorable reception, and to open their eyes to the evidence of the divine revelation. St. Sigefride ordained two bishops, the one of East, the other of West Gothland, or Lingkoping, and Scara. The see of Wexiow he continued himself to govern so long as he lived. His three nephews, Unaman, a priest, and Sunaman and Wiaman, the one a deacon, the other a subdeacon, were his chief assistants in his apostolic labors. Haring intrusted the administration of his see of Wexiow to Unaman, and left his two brothers to assist and comfort him, the saint himself set out to carry {418} the light of the gospel into the midland and northern provinces. King Olas received him with great respect, and was baptized by him, with his whole court and his army. St. Sigefride founded many churches, and consecrated a bishop of Upsal, and another of Strengues. The former of these sees had been founded by St. Anscharius, in 830, and the bishop was declared by pope Alexander III., in 1160, metropolitan and primate of the whole kingdom. During the absence of our saint, a troop of idolatrous rebels, partly out of hatred of the Christian religion, and partly for booty, plundered the church of Wexiow, and barbarously murdered the holy pastor Unaman and his two brothers. Their bodies they buried in the midst of a forest, where they have always remained hid. But the murderers put the heads of the martyrs into a box, which, with a great stone they had fastened to it, they threw into a great pond. But they were afterwards taken out, and kept richly enshrined in the church of Wexiow till their relics were removed by the Lutherans. These three holy martyrs were honored in Sweden. Upon the news of this massacre St. Sigefride hastened to Wexiow to repair the ruins of his church. The king resolved to put the murderers to death; but Sigefride, by his earnest entreaties, prevailed on him to spare their lives. However, he condemned them to pay a heavy fine, which he would have bestowed on the saint, but he refused accepting a single farthing of it, notwithstanding his extreme poverty, and the difficulties which he had to struggle with, in laying the foundation of that new church. He had inherited the spirit of the apostles in an heroic degree. Our saint died about the year 1002, and was buried in his cathedral at Wexiow, where his tomb became famous for miracles. He was canonized about the year 1158, by pope Adrian IV.,[1] an Englishman, who had himself labored zealously, and with great success, in the conversion of Norway, and other northern countries, about a hundred and forty years after St. Sigefride, who was honored by the Swedes as their apostle, till the change of religion among them.[2]

Footnotes: 1. Vastove, Vinea Aquilonis. 2. In the life of St. Sigefride, published by Benzelius, it is mentioned, that St. Sigefride, upon his first arrival in Sweden, preached chiefly by interpreters.

FEBRUARY XVI.

ST. ONESIMUS, DISCIPLE OF ST. PAUL.

HE was a Phrygian by birth, slave to Philemon, a person of note of the city of Colossae, converted to the faith by St. Paul. Having robbed his master, and being obliged to fly, he providentially met with St. Paul, then a prisoner for the faith at Rome, who there converted and baptized him, and sent him with his canonical letter of recommendation to Philemon, by whom he was pardoned, set at liberty, and sent back to his spiritual father, whom he afterwards faithfully served. That apostle made him, with Tychicus, the bearer of his epistle to the Colossians,[1] and afterwards, as St. Jerom[2] and other fathers witness, a preacher of the gospel, and a bishop. The Greeks say he was crowned with martyrdom under Domitian, in the year 95, and {419} keep his festival on the 15th. Bede, Ado, Usuard, the Roman and other Latin martyrologists mention him on the 16th of February.[3]

Baronius and some others confound him with St. Onesimus, the third bishop of Ephesus, after St. Timothy, who was succeeded first by John, then by Caius. This Onesimus showed great respect and charity to St. Ignatius, when on his journey to Rome, in 107, and is highly commended by him.[4]

* * * * *

When a sinner, by the light and power of an extraordinary grace, is snatched like a firebrand out of the fire, and rescued from the gates of hell, we cannot wonder if he is swallowed up by the deepest and most lively sense of his own guilt, and of the divine mercy; if such a one loves much, because much has been forgiven him; if he endeavors to repair his past crimes by heroic acts of penance and all virtues, and if he makes haste to redeem his lost time by a zeal and vigilance hard to be imitated by others. Hence we read of the _first love of the church of Ephesus_[5] as more perfect. The ardor of the compunction and love of a true penitent, is compared to the unparalleled _love of Judah in the day of her espousal_.[6] This ardor is not to be understood as a passing sally of the purest passions, as a shortlived fit of fervor, or desire of perfection, as a transient taste or sudden transport of the soul: it must be sincere and constant. With what excess of goodness does God communicate himself to souls which thus open themselves to him! With what caresses does he often visit them! With what a profusion of graces does he enrich and strengthen them! It often happens that, in the beginning, God, either to allure the frailty of a new convert, or to fortify his resolution against hazardous trials, favors him with more than usual communications of the sweetness of his love, and ravishes him by some glances, as it were, of the beatific vision. His tenderness was not less, when, for their spiritual advancement, their exercise in heroic virtues, and the increase of their victories and glory, he conducted them through severe trials. On the other side, with what fidelity and ardor did these holy penitents improve themselves daily in divine love and all virtues! Alas! our coldness and insensibility, since our pretended conversion from the world and sin, is a far greater subject of amazement than the extraordinary fervor of the saints in the divine service.

Footnotes: 1. Colos. iv. 2. Ep. 62, c. 2. 3. Tillem. t. 1, p. 294, and note 10, on St. Paul. 4. Ep. ad Ephes. 5. Apoc. 11. 4. 6. Jerem. 11. 2.

SS. ELIAS, JEREMY, ISAIAS, SAMUEL, AND DANIEL,

WITH OTHER HOLY MARTYRS AT CAESAREA, IN PALESTINE.

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

A.D. 309.

In the year 309, the emperors Galerius Maximianus and Maximinus continuing the persecution begun by Dioclesian, these five pious Egyptians went to visit the confessors condemned to the mines in Cilicia, and on their return were stopped by the guards of the gates of Caesarea, in Palestine, as they were entering the town. They readily declared themselves Christians, together with the motive of their journey; upon which they were apprehended. The day following they were brought before Firmilian, the governor of Palestine, together with St. Pamphilus and others. The judge, before {420} he began his interrogatory, ordered the five Egyptians to be laid on the rack, as was his custom. After they had long suffered all manner of tortures, he addressed himself to him who seemed to be their chief, and asked him his name and his country. They had changed their names, which, perhaps, before their conversion, were those of some heathen gods, as was customary in Egypt. The martyr answered, according to the names they had given themselves, that he was called Elias, and his companions, Jeremy, Isaias, Samuel, and Daniel. Firmilian then asked their country; he answered, Jerusalem, meaning the heavenly Jerusalem, the true country of all Christians. The judge inquired in what part of the world that was, and ordered him to be tormented with fresh cruelty. All this while the executioners continued to tear his body with stripes, while his hands were bound behind him, and his feet squeezed in the woodstocks, called the Nervus. The judge, at last, tired with tormenting them, condemned all five to be beheaded, which was immediately executed.

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

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

ST. JULIANA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR.

AFTER many torments, she was beheaded at Nicomedia, under Galerius Maximianus. St. Gregory the great mentions that her bones were translated to Rome. Part of them are now at Brussels, in the church of our Lady of Sablon. This saint is much honored in the Low Countries. Her acts in Bollandus deserve no notice. Bede, and martyrologies ascribed to St. Jerom, call this the day of her martyrdom, which the ancient Corbie manuscript places at Nicomedia. See Chatelain's notes on the martyrology, p. 667.

ST. GREGORY X., POPE, C.

HE was of an illustrious family, born at Placentia, and at his baptism was called Theobald. In his youth he was distinguished for his extraordinary virtue, and his progress in his studies, especially of the canon law, which he began in Italy, and pursued at Paris, and lastly at Liege. He was archdeacon of this last church when he received an order from the pope to preach the crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land. Incredible were the pains which he took in executing this commission, and in reconciling the Christian princes, who were at variance. The death of St. Lewis, in 1270, {421} struck a damp upon the spirits of the Christians in the East, though the prince of Wales, soon after Edward I., king of England, sailed from Sicily, in March, 1271, to their assistance, took Jaffa and Nazareth, and plundered Antioch. A tender compassion for the distressed situation of the servants of Christ in those parts, moved the holy archdeacon of Liege to undertake a dangerous pilgrimage to Palestine, in order to comfort them, and at the same time to satisfy his devotion by visiting the holy places. The see of Rome had been vacant almost three years, from the death of Clement IV. to November, 1268, the cardinals who were assembled at Viterbo not coming to an agreement in the choice of a pope, till, by common consent, they referred his election to six among them, who, on the 1st of September, in 1271, nominated Theobald, the archdeacon of Liege. Upon the news of his election, he prepared himself to return to Italy. Nothing could be more tender and moving than his last farewell to the disconsolate Christians of Palestine, whom he promised, in a most solemn manner, never to forget. He arrived at Rome in March, and was first ordained priest, then consecrated bishop, and crowned on the 27th of the same month, in 1272. He took the name of Gregory X., and, to procure the most effectual succor to the Holy Land, called a general council to meet at Lyons, where pope Innocent IV. had held the last in 1245, partly for the same purpose of the holy war, and partly to endeavor to reclaim the emperor Frederick II. The city of Lyons was most convenient for the meeting of those princes whose succors were principally expected for the holy war; and was most unexceptionable, because at that time it acknowledged no other sovereign than its archbishop. Henry III., king of England, died on the 16th of November, 1272, and Edward I., who had concluded a peace of ten years with the Saracens, in the name of the Christians in Syria and Palestine, returned for England, and on the road at Trapani, in Sicily, met the news of his father's death. In the same place he received most obliging letters from pope Gregory X. The fourteenth general council, the second of Lyons, was opened in that city in May, 1274, in which were assembled five hundred bishops and seventy abbots. In the fourth session, the Greek ambassadors (who were, Germanus, formerly patriarch of Constantinople, Theophanes, archbishop of Nice, and the senator, George Acropolita, great logothete, or chancellor) were admitted. The logothete abjured the schism in the name of the emperor Michael Palaeologus; and the pope, while Te Deum was sung, stood with his cheeks all the time bathed in tears. St. Thomas Aquinas died on the 7th of March, before the opening of the council, and St. Bonaventure at Lyons, on the 15th of July. The council was closed by the fifth and last session, on the 17th of July. The more our holy pope was overwhelmed with public affairs, the more watchful he was over his own soul, and the more earnest in the interior duties of self-examination, contemplation, and prayer. He spoke little, conversing assiduously in his heart with God; he was very abstemious in his diet, and most rigorous to himself in all things. By this crucified life, his soul was prepared to taste the hidden manna which is concealed in the divine word, with which he continually nourished it in holy meditation. After the council he was taken up in concerting measures for carrying its decrees into execution, particularly those relating to the crusade in the East. By his unwearied application to business, and the fatigues of his journey, in passing the Alps in his return to Rome, he contracted a distemper, of which he died at Arezzo, on the 10th of January, in 1276, three years and nine months after his consecration, and four years, four months, and ten days after his election. His name is inserted in the Roman Martyrology, published by Benedict XIV., on the 16th of February. See Platina, Ciacconius, St. Antoninus, Hist. part 3, it. 20, c. 2. The account of his life and miracles in {422} the archives of the tribunal of the Rota, and in Benedict XIV. de Canoniz. l. 2, t. 2, Append. 8, p. 673; the proofs of his miracles, ib. p. 709; also, ib. l. 2, c. 24, sec. 37 and 42; and l. 1, c. 20, n. 17. See likewise his life, copied from a MS. history of several popes, by Bernard Guidonis, published by Muratori, Scriptor. Ital. t. 3, p. 597, and another life of this pope, written before the canonization of St. Lewis, in which mention is made of miraculous cures performed by him, ibid. pp. 599, 604.

ST. TANCO, OR TATTA, B.M.

PATTON, abbot of Amabaric, in Scotland, passing into Germany to preach the gospel, and being chosen bishop of Verdun, Tanco, who had served God many years in that abbey in great reputation for his singular learning and piety, was raised to the dignity of abbot. Out of an ardent thirst after martyrdom, he resigned this charge, and followed his countryman and predecessor into Germany, where, after some time, he succeeded him in the see of Verdun, of which he was the third bishop. His success in propagating the faith was exceeding great, but it was to him a subject of inexpressible grief to see many who professed themselves Christians, live enslaved to shameful passions. In order to convert, or at least to confound them, he preached a most zealous sermon against the vices which reigned among them; at which a barbarous mob was so enraged as fiercely to assault him; and one of them, stabbing him with a lance, procured him the glorious crown of martyrdom, about the year 815. This account of him is given us by Krantzius, (l. 1, Metrop. c. 22 & 29.) Lesley, l. 5, Hist. Wion, l. 3, Ligni Vitae.

FEBRUARY XVII.

ST. FLAVIAN, M.

ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

From the councils, and historians Cedrenus, Evagrius, Theophanes, &c. See Baronius, Henschenius. t. 3, Feb. p. 71. Fleury, l. 27, 28. Quesnel, in his edition of the works of St. Leo, t. 2, diss. 1, and F. Cacciari, t. 3, Exercit. in opera St. Leonis, Romae, an. 1755. Dissert. 4, de Eutychiana Haer. l. 1, c. 2, p. 322; c. 8, p. 383; c. 9, p. 393, c. 11, p. 432.

A.D. 449

ST. FLAVIAN was a priest of distinguished merit, and treasurer of the church of Constantinople, when he succeeded St. Proclus in the archiepiscopal dignity in 447. The eunuch Chrysaphius, chamberlain to the emperor Theodosius the Younger, and a particular favorite, suggested to his master, a weak prince, to require of him a present, out of gratitude to the emperor for his promotion. The holy bishop sent him some blessed bread, according to the custom of the church at that time, as a benediction and symbol of communion. Chrysaphius let him know that it was a present of a very different kind that was expected from him. St. Flavian, an enemy to simony, answered resolutely, than the revenues and treasure of the church were designed for other uses, namely, the honor of God and the relief of his poor. The eunuch, highly provoked at the bishop's refusal, from that moment {423} resolved to contrive his ruin. Wherefore, with a view to his expulsion, he persuaded the emperor, by the means of his wife Eudoxia, to order the bishop to make Pulcheria, sister to Theodosius, a deaconess of his church. The saint's refusal was a second offence in the eyes of the sycophants of the court. The next year Chrysaphius was still more grievously offended with our saint for his condemning the errors of his kinsman Eutyches, abbot of a monastery of three hundred monks, near the city, who had acquired a reputation for virtue, but in effect was no better than an ignorant, proud, and obstinate man. His intemperate zeal against Nestorius, for asserting two distinct persons in Christ, threw him into the opposite error, that of denying two distinct natures after the incarnation.

In a council, held by St. Flavian in 448, Eutyches was accused of this error by Eusebius of Dorylaeum, his former friend, and it was there condemned as heretical, and the author was cited to appear to give an account of his faith. On the day appointed in the last summons he appeared before the council, but attended by two of the principal officers of the court, and a troop of the imperial guards. Being admitted and interrogated on the point in question, that is, his faith concerning the incarnation; he declared that he acknowledged indeed two natures before the union, but after it only one. To all reasonings and authority produced against his tenet, his reply was, that he did not come thither to dispute, but to satisfy the assembly what his faith was. The council, upon this, anathematized and deposed him, and St. Flavian pronounced the sentence, which was subscribed by thirty-two bishops and twenty-three abbots, of which last eighteen were priests. Eutyches said privately to his guards, that he appealed to the bishops of Rome, Egypt, and Jerusalem; and in a letter he wrote to St. Leo to complain of his usage in the council, he endeavored to impose on the pope. But his Holiness being informed of the state of the affair by St. Flavian, wrote to him an ample declaration of the orthodox faith upon the point which was afterwards read, and inserted in the acts of the council of Chalcedon, in which the errors of Eutyches were solemnly condemned. Chrysaphius, however, had interest enough with the weak emperor to obtain an order for a re-examination of the cause between St. Flavian and Eutyches in another council. This met in April, 449, consisting of about thirty bishops, one third whereof had assisted at the late council. St. Flavian being looked on as a party, Thalassius, bishop of Caesarea, presided in his room. After the strictest scrutiny into every particular, the impiety of Eutyches, and the justice of our saint's proceedings, clearly appeared. St. Flavian presented to the emperor a profession of his faith, wherein he condemned the errors of both Eutyches and Nestorius, his adversaries pretending that he favored the latter.

Chrysaphius, though baffled in his attempts, was still bent on the ruin of the holy bishop, and employed all his craft and power to save Eutyches and destroy Flavian. With this view he wrote to Dioscorus, a man of a violent temper, who had succeeded St. Cyril in the patriarchal see of Alexandria, promising him his friendship and favor in all his designs, if he would undertake the defence of the deposed abbot against Flavian and Eusebius. Dioscorus came into his measures; and, by their joint interest with the empress Eudoxia, glad of an opportunity to mortify Pulcheria, who had a high esteem for our saint, they prevailed with the emperor to order a council to be called at Ephesus, to determine the dispute. Dioscorus was invited by the emperor to come and preside in it, accompanied with ten metropolitans and other bishops, together with the archimandrite, or abbot Barsumas, a man strongly attached to Eutyches and Dioscorus. The like directions were sent to the other patriarchs. St. Leo, who was invited, though late, sent legatee to act {424} in his name, Julius, bishop of Puteoli, Renatus, a priest, who died on the road, Hilarius, a deacon, and Dulcitius, a notary. He sent by them a learned letter to St. Flavian, in which he taxes the ignorance of Eutyches in the holy scriptures, and explains the Catholic doctrine against that heresiarch, which he also did by other letters.

The false council of Ephesus, for the violences therein used commonly called the Latrocinale, was opened on the 8th of August, in 449, and consisted of one hundred and thirty bishops, or their deputies, from Egypt and the East. Eutyches was there, and two officers from the emperor, with a great number of soldiers. Every thing was carried on, by violence and open faction, in favor of Eutyches, by those officers and bishops who had espoused his party and formed a cabal. The pope's legates were never suffered to read his letters to the council. The final result of the proceedings was, to pronounce sentence of deposition against St. Flavian and Eusebius. The pope's legates protested against the sentence. Hilarius, the deacon, cried out aloud, "contradicitur," opposition is made; which Latin word was inserted in the Greek acts of the synod. And Dioscorus no sooner began to read the sentence, but he was interrupted by several of the bishops, who, prostrating themselves before him, besought him, in the most submissive terms, to proceed no further in so unwarrantable an affair. Upon this he starts up, and calls aloud for the imperial commissioners, Elpidius and Eulogius, who, without more ado, ordered the church doors to be set open; upon which Proclus, the proconsul of Asia, entered, surrounded with a band of soldiers, and followed by a confused multitude with chains, clubs, and swords. This struck such a terror into the whole assembly, that, when the bishops were required by Dioscorus and his creatures to subscribe, few or none had the courage to withstand his threats, the pope's legates excepted, who protested aloud against these violent proceedings; one of whom was imprisoned; the other, Hilarius, got off with much difficulty, and came safe to Rome. St. Flavian, on hearing the sentence read by Dioscorus, appealed from him to the holy see, and delivered his acts of appeal in writing to the pope's legates, then present. This so provoked Dioscorus,[1] that, together with Barsumas and others of their party,[2] after throwing the holy bishop on the ground, they so kicked and bruised him, that he died within a few days, in 449, not at Ephesus, as some have said by mistake, but in his exile at Epipus, two days' journey from that city, situated near Sardes in Lydia, as Marcellinus testifies in his chronicle.