Chapter LXVIII: Appendix: ON (3)

The monastic order settled by St. Athanasius at Milan and Triers,
during his banishment into the West; by St. Eusebius of Vercelli, in
his diocese, and by St. Hilary and St. Martin in Gaul, was founded
upon the plan of the Oriental monasteries: being brought by those
holy prelates from Egypt and Syria. The same is to be said of the
first monasteries founded in Great Britain and Ireland. After the
coming of St. Columban from Ireland into France, his Rule continued
long most in vogue, and was adopted by the greater part of the
monasteries that flourished in that kingdom. But it was customary in
those ages, for founders of great monasteries frequently to choose
out of different rules such religious practices and regulations, and
to add such others as they judged most expedient: and the Benedictin
Rule was sometimes blended with that of St. Columban, or others. In
the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Debonnaire. for the sake of
uniformity, it was enacted by the council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 802,
and several other decrees, that the Rule of St. Benedict should
alone be followed in all the monasteries in the dominions of those
princes. F. Reyner, a most learned English Benedictin, in his
Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia, has, with profound erudition,
produced all the monuments and authorities by which it can be made
to appear that St. Gregory the Great established the Rule of St.
Benedict in his monastery of St. Andrew at Rome, and was settled by
St. Austin and the other monks who were sent by St. Gregory to
convert the English in all the monasteries which they founded in
this island. These proofs were abridged by Mabillon, Natalia
Alexander, and others, who have judged that they amount to
demonstration. Some, however, still maintain that the monastic rule
brought hither by St. Austin, was a compilation from several
different rules: that St. Bennet Biscop, and soon after St. Wilfrid,
introduced several new regulations borrowed from the Rule of St.
Benedict; that St. Dunstan established it in England more perfectly,
still retaining several of the ancient constitutions of the English
monasteries, and that it was not entirely adopted in England before
Lanfranc's time. This opinion is warmly abetted by Dr. Lay, in his
additions to Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, and Tanner's
Pref. to Notitia Monastica, in folio.

The Order of St. Benedict has branched out, since the year 900, into
several independent congregations, and the Orders of Camaldoly,
Vallis Umrosa, Fontevrault, the Gilbertins, Silvestrins,
Cistercians, and some others, are no more than reformations of the
same, with certain particular additional constitutions.

Among the Reformations or distinct Congregations of Benedictins, the
first is that of Cluni, so called from the great monastery of that
name, in the diocese of Macon, founded by William the Pious, duke of
Aquitaine, about the year 910. St. Berno, the first abbot, his
successor St. Odo, afterwards St. Hugh, St. Odilo, St. Mayeul, Peter
the Venerable, and other excellent abbots, exceedingly raised the
reputation of this reform, and propagated the same. A second
Reformation was established in this Congregation in 1621, by the
Grand Prior de Veni, resembling those of St. Vanne and St. Maur.
Those monks who would not adopt it in their houses, are called
Ancient monks of Cluni. The Congregation of Cava was called from the
great monastery of that name in the province of Salerno, founded in
980, under the observance of Cluni: it was the head of a
Congregation of twenty-nine other abbeys, and ninety-one conventual
priories; but a bishopric being erected in the town of Cava, by
Boniface IX. in 1394, and the abbot's revenue and temporal
jurisdiction being united to it by Leo X. in 1514, the monastery of
the Blessed Trinity of Cava was much diminished, but is still
governed by a regular abbot. In 1485, it was united, with all its
dependencies, to the Congregation of St. Justina and Mount Cassino.
The church of St. Justina at Padua, was founded by the Consul
Opilius, in the fifth century, and the great monastery of Benedictin
monks was built there in the ninth. The Reformation which was
established in this house by Lewis Barbus, a patrician of Venice, in
1409, was soon adopted by a great number of monasteries in Italy:
but when in 1504 the abbey of Mount Cassino joined this
Congregation, it took the name of this mother-house. The
Congregation of Savigni, founded by St. Vitalis, a disciple of B.
Robert of Arbrissel, in the forest of Savigni, in Normandy in 1112,
was united to the Cistercians in 1153. The Congregation of Tiron,
founded by B. Bernard of Abbeville, another disciple of B. Robert of
Arbrissel, in 1109, in the forest of Tiron, in Le Perche. It parsed
into the Congregation of St. Maur, in 1629. These of Savigni and
Tiron had formerly several houses in England. The Congregation of
Bursfield in Germany, was established by a Reformation in 1461: that
of Molck, vulgarly Mock, in Austria, in the diocese of Passaw, in
1418: that of Hirsauge, in the diocese of Spire, was instituted by
St. William, abbot of S. Aurel, in 1080. The history of this abbey
was written by Trithemius. After the change of religion it was
secularized, and, by the treaty of Westphalia, ceded to the duke of
Wirtemberg. The independent great Benedictin abbeys in Flanders,
form a Congregation subject only to the Pope, but the abbots hold
assemblies to judge appeals, in which the abbot of St. Vaast of Arms
is president. The Congregation of Monte-Virgine, in Italy, was
instituted by St. William, in 1119. That of St. Benedict's of
Valladolid, in Spain, dates its establishment in 1390. In England,
archbishop Lanfranc united the Benedictin monasteries in one
Congregation, which began from that time to hold regular general
chapters, and for some time bore his name. This union was made
stricter by many new regulations in 1335, under the name of the
Black Monks. It is one of the most illustrious of all the orders, or
bodies of religious men, that have ever adorned the Church, and, in
spite of the most grievous persecutions, still subsists. The
congregation of Benedictin nuns of Mount Calvary owes it original to
a Reformation, according to the primitive austerity of this order,
introduced first in the nunnery at Poitiers, in 1614, by the abbess
Antoinette of Orleans, with the assistance of the famous F. Joseph,
the Capuchin. It has two houses at Paris, and eighteen others in
several parts of France. See Helyot, t. {} and 6. Calmet, Comment.
sur la Regle de St. Benoit, t. 2, p. 525. Hermant Schoonbeck, &c.
10. St. Greg. Dial. l. 2, c. 12; Dom. Mege, p. 180.
11. Procop. l. 3, de Bello Gothico. Baronius, &c.
12. Exitum suum Dominici corporis et sanguinis perceptione communivit.
St. Greg. Dial. b. 2, c.37.
13. Some have related that Aigulph, a monk of Fleury, and certain
citizens from Mans, going to Mount Cassino in 653, when that
monastery lay in ruins, brought thence the remains of St. Benedict
and St. Scholastics, and placed those of the former at Fleury, and
those of the latter at Mans. The author of this relation is either
Adrevald or rather Adalbert, a monk of Fleury, whom some imagined
contemporary with Aigulph, but he certainly lived at least two
hundred years later, as he himself declares, and his account is in
many capital circumstances inconsistent with those of the life of
Aigulph, and with the authentic and certain history of that age, as
is demonstrated by F. Stilting, the Bollandist, in the life of St.
Aigulph, (t. 1, Sept. p. 744,) and by others. It is printed in the
Bibliotheca Floriacensis, (or of Fleury,) t. 1, p. 1, and more
correctly in Mabillon's Acta Ben. t. 2, p. 337, and the Bollandists,
21 Martij, p. 300. Soon after this relation was compiled by
Adalbert, we find it quoted by Adrevald, a monk of the same house,
in his history of several miracles wrought by the relics of this
holy patriarch. (See Dom. Clemencez, Hist. Liter. t. 5, p. 516.)
This Adrevald wrote also the life of St. Aigulph, who, passing from
Fleury to Lerins, and being made abbot of that house, established
there an austere reformation of the order: but by the contrivance of
certain rebellious monks, joined in a conspiracy with the count of
Usez, and some other powerful men, was seized by violence, and
carried to the isle Caprasia, (now called Capraia,) situated between
Corsica and the coast of Tuscany, where he was murdered, with three
companions, about the year 679, on the 3rd day of September, on
which he is honored as a martyr at Lerins. The relics of these
martyrs were honorably conveyed thither soon after their death. F.
Vincent Barrali, in his History of Lerins, affirms that they still
remain there; but this can be only true of part, for the body of St.
Aigulph was translated to the Benedictin priory at Provins, in the
diocese of Sens, and is to this day honored there, as Mabillon (Saec.
2 Ben. pp. 666 and 742) and Stilting (t. 1. Sept.) demonstrate, from
the constant tradition of that monastery, and the authority of Peter
Cellensis and several other irrefragable vouchers.

That the greatest part at least of the relics of St. Benedict and
St. Scholastica still remain at Mount Casino, is demonstrated by
Angelus de Nuce, in his dissertation on this subject, by F.
Stilting, in his comments on the life of St. Aigulph, t. 1. Sept.,
by pope Benedict XIV., De Servor. Dei Beatif. and Canoniz. l. 4,
part 2, c. 24, n. 53, t. 5, p. 245, and Macchiarelli, the monk of
Camaldoli. Soon after Mount Cassino was restored, pope Zachary
visited that monastery and devoutly venerated the relics of St.
Benedict and St. Scholastica in 746, as he testifies in his Bull.
When pope Alexander II. consecrated the new church of that abbey in
1071, these sacred bones were inspected and found all to remain
there, as we learn from his Bull, and by Leo of Ostia, and Peter the
deacon. The same is affirmed in the acts of two visitations made of
them in 1545 and 1650. Nevertheless, Angelus de Nuce (who relates in
his Chronicle of Mount Cassino, that, in 1650, he saw these relics,
with all the monks of that house, in the visitation then made) and
Stilting allow that some of the bones of this saint were conveyed
into France, not by St. Aigulph, but soon after his time, and this
is expressly affirmed by Paul the Deacon, in his History of the
Lombards, l. 6, c. 2.
14. Habitavit secum.
15. S. Bened. Reg. c. 7.
16. S. Thos. 2. 2. qu. 161. a. 6.
17. No one can, without presumption, pride, and sin, prefer himself
before the worst of sinners; first, because the judgments of God are
always secret and unknown to us. (See St. Aug. de Virginit. St. Thos
2.2. qu. 161. ad 1. Cassian, St. Bern., &c.) Secondly, the greatest
sinners, had they received the graces with which we have been
favored, would not have been so ungrateful; and if we had been in
their circumstances, into what precipices should not we have fallen?
Thirdly, instead of looking upon notorious sinners, we ought to turn
our eyes towards those who serve God with fervor, full of confusion
to see how far so many thousands are superior to us in every virtue.
Thus we must practise the lesson laid down by St. Paul, never to
measure ourselves with any one so as to prefer ourselves to another;
but to look upon all others as superior to us, and less ungrateful
and base than ourselves. Our own wretchedness and sinfulness we are
acquainted with; but charity inclines us to judge the best of
others.
18. Luke xviii. 18.
19. Orat. ejus inter Apocryph.
20. St. Bened. Reg. p. 210.

ST. SERAPION,

CALLED the Sindonite, from a single garment of coarse linen which he always wore. He was a native of Egypt. Exceeding great was the austerity of his penitential life. Though he travelled into several countries, he always lived in the same poverty, mortification, and recollection. In a certain town, commiserating the spiritual blindness of an idolater, who was also a comedian, he sold himself to him for twenty pieces of money. His only sustenance in this servitude was bread and water. He acquitted himself at the same time of every duty belonging to his condition with the utmost diligence and fidelity, joining with his labor assiduous prayer and meditation. Having converted his master and the whole family to the faith, and induced him to quit the stage, he was made free by him, but could not be {639} prevailed upon to keep for his own use, or even to distribute to the poor, the twenty pieces of coin he had received as the price of his liberty. Soon after this he sold himself a second time, to relieve a distressed widow. Having spent some time with his new master, in recompense of signal spiritual services, besides his liberty, he also received a cloak, a tunic, or undergarment, and a book of the gospels. He was scarce gone out of doors, when, meeting a poor man, he bestowed on him his cloak; and shortly after, to another starving with cold, he gave his tunic; and was thus reduced again to his single linen garment. Being asked by a stranger who it was that had stripped him and left him in that naked condition, showing his book of the gospels, he said: "This it is that hath stripped me." Not long after, he sold the book itself for the relief of a person in extreme distress. Being met by an old acquaintance, and asked what was become of it, he said "Could you believe it? this gospel seemed continually to cry to me: Go, sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor. Wherefore I have also sold it, and given the price to the indigent members of Christ." Having nothing now left but his own person, he disposed of that again on several other occasions, where the corporal or spiritual necessities of his neighbor called for relief: once to a certain Manichee at Lacedaemon, whom he served for two years, and before they were expired, brought both him and his whole family over to the true faith. St. John the Almoner having read the particulars of this history, called for his steward, and said to him, weeping: "Can we flatter ourselves that we do any great matters because we give our estates to the poor? Here is a man who could find means to give himself to them, and so many times over." St. Serapion went from Lacedaemon to Rome, there to study the most perfect, models of virtue, and, returning afterwards into Egypt, died in the desert, being sixty years old, some time before Palladius visited Egypt in 388. Henschenius, in his Notes on the Life of St. Auxentius,[1] and Bollandus[2] take notice that in certain Menaea he is honored on the 21st of March; yet they have not given his acts on that day. Baronius confounds him with St. Serapion, the Sidonian martyr. See Pallad. Lausiac. ch. 83, and Leontius in the Life of St. John the Almoner.

Footnotes: 1. Henschen. Not. in Vit. S. Auxentii, ad 24 Feb {} 3 Febr. 2. Bolland ad 23 Jan. p. 508, t. 2, Jan.

ST. SERAPION,

ABBOT of Arsinoe, in Upper Egypt. He governed ten thousand monks, dispersed in the deserts and monasteries near that town. These religious men hired themselves to the farmers of the country to till their lands and reap their corn; joining assiduous prayer and other exercises of their state with their labor. Each man received for his wages twelve artabes, or about forty Roman bushels or modii, says Palladius: all which they put into the hands of their holy abbot. He gave to every one a sufficient allowance for his subsistence during the ensuing year, according to their abstemious manner of living. The remainder was all distributed among the poor. By this economy, all the necessities of the indigent in that country were supplied, and several barges loaded with corn were sent yearly by the river to Alexandria, for the relief of the poor of that great city. St. Serapion was honored with the priesthood, and with admirable sanctity applied himself to the sacred functions of the ministry: yet found time to join his brethren in their penitential labor, not to lose his share in their charity. His name is inserted by Canisius in his Germanic Martyrology on this day, from certain copies of the Greek Menaea. See Palladius, c. 76, p. 760; Rufin. Vit. Patr. l. 2, c. 18; Sozomen, l. 6, c. 28.

{640}

ST. SERAPION, BISHOP OF THMUIS IN EGYPT, C.

THE surname of the Scholastic, which was given him, is a proof of the reputation which he acquired, by his penetrating genius, and by his extensive learning, both sacred and profane. He presided for some time in the catechetical school of Alexandria, but, to apply himself more perfectly to the science of the saints, to which he had always consecrated himself, his studies, and his other actions, he retired into the desert, and became a bright light in the monastic state. St. Athanasius assures us, in his life of St. Antony, that in the visits which Serapion paid to that illustrious patriarch, St. Antony often told on his mountain things which passed in Egypt at a distance; and that at his death, he left him one of his tunics of hair. St. Serapion was drawn out of his retreat, to be placed in the episcopal see of Thmuis, a famous city of Lower Egypt, near Diospolis, to which Stephanus and Ptolemy give the title of a metropolis. The name in the Egyptian tongue signified a goat, which animal was anciently worshipped there, as St. Jerom informs us. St. Serapion was closely linked with St. Athanasius in the defence of the Catholic faith, for which he was banished by the emperor Constantius; whence St. Jerom styles him a confessor. Certain persons, who confessed God the Son consubstantial to the Father, denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost. This error was no sooner broached, but our saint strenuously opposed it, and informed St. Athanasius of this new inconsistent blasphemy; and that zealous defender of the adorable mystery of the Trinity, the fundamental article of the Christian faith, wrote against this rising monster. The four letters which St. Athanasius wrote to Serapion, in 359, out of the desert, in which at that time he lay concealed, were the first express confutation of the Macedonian heresy that was published. St. Serapion ceased not to employ his labors to great advantage, against both the Arians and Macedonians. He also compiled an excellent book against the Manichees, in which he shows that our bodies may be made the instruments of good, and that our souls may be perverted by sin; that there is no creature of which a good use may not be made; and that both just and wicked men are often changed, the former by falling into sin, the latter by becoming virtuous. It is, therefore, a self-contradiction to pretend with the Manichees that our souls are the work of God, but our bodies of the devil, or the evil principle.[1] St..Serapion wrote several learned letters, and a treatise on the Titles of the Psalms, quoted by St. Jerom, which are now lost. At his request, St. Athanasius composed several of his works against the Arians; and so great was his opinion of our saint, that he desired him to correct, or add to them what he thought wanting. Socrates relates[2] that St. Serapion gave an abstract of his own life, and an abridged rule of Christian perfection, in very few words, which he would often repeat, saying: "The mind is purified by spiritual knowledge, (or by holy meditation and prayer,) the spiritual passions of the soul by charity, and the irregular appetites by abstinence and penance." This saint died in his banishment in the fourth age, and is commemorated on this day in the Roman Martyrology. See his works, those of St. Athanasius in several places, St. Jerom, Catall. c. 99; Socrates {641}, l. 4, c. 23; Sozom. l. 4, c. 9; Photius, Col. 85; Tillem. t. 8; Ceillier, t. 6, p. 36.

Footnotes:
1. A Latin translation of St. Serapion's book against the Manichees,
given F. Turrianus the Jesuit, is published in the Bibliotheca
Patrum, printed at Lyons. and in F. Canisius's Lectiones Antiquae, t.
5, part 1, p. 35. The learned James Basnage, who republished this
work of Canisius with curios additions and {notes}, has added the
Greek text, t. 1, p. 37.
2. Socrat. Hist. l. 4, c. 23.

ST. ENNA, OR ENDEUS, ABBOT

HIS father, Conall Deyre, was lord of Ergall, a large territory in Ulster, in which principality Enna succeeded him; but by the pious exhortations of his sister, St. Fanchea, abbess of Kill-Aine, at the foot of mount Bregh, in the confines of Meath, he left the world, and became a monk. Going abroad, by her advice, he lived some time in the abbey of Rosnal, or the vale of Ross, under the abbot Mansenus. At length returning home, he obtained of AEngus, king of Munster, a grant of the isle of Arra, or Arn, wherein he founded a great monastery, in which he trained up many disciples, illustrious for sanctity, insomuch that the island was called Arran of the Saints. His death must have happened in the beginning of the sixth century. The chief church of the island is dedicated to God in his name, and called Kill-Enda. His tomb is shown in the churchyard of another church, in the same island, named Teglach-Enda. See F. Colgan, March 21.

MARCH XXII.

ST. BASIL OF ANCYRA, PRIEST, M.

From the authentic acts of his martyrdom in Ruinart, Henschenius, and Tillemont, t. 7, p. 375.

A.D. 362.

MARCELLUS, bishop of Ancyra, distinguished himself by his zeal against the Arians, on which account he was banished by Constantius in 336.[1] Basil, a ringleader of the Semi-Arians, was intruded into that see, but was himself deposed by the stanch Arians, in 360; and is mentioned by Socrates to have survived our saint, though he continued still in banishment under Jovian. The holy martyr of whom we speak was also called Basil. He was priest of Ancyra under the bishop Marcellus, and a man of a most holy life, and unblemished conversation, and had been trained up by saints in the practices of perfect piety. He preached the word of God with great assiduity, and when the Arian wolf, who bore his name, attempted to plant his heresy in that city, he never ceased to cry out to the people, with the zeal and intrepidity of a prophet, exhorting their to beware of the snares which {642} were laid for them, and to remain steadfast in the Catholic faith. He was forbidden by the Arian bishops, in 360, to hold ecclesiastical assemblies: but he despised the unjust order; and as boldly defended the Catholic faith before Constantius himself. When Julian the Apostate re-established idolatry, and left no means untried to pervert the faithful, Basil ran through the whole city, exhorting the Christians to continue steadfast, and not pollute themselves with the sacrifices and libations of the heathens, but fight manfully in the cause of God. The heathens laid violent hands on him; and dragged him before Saturninus the proconsul, accusing him of sedition, of having overturned altars, that he stirred up the people against the gods, and had spoken irreverently of the emperor and his religion. The proconsul asked him if the religion which the emperor had established was not the truth? The martyr answered: "Can you yourself believe it? Can any man endued with reason persuade himself that dumb statues are gods?" The proconsul commanded him to be tortured on the rack, and scoffing, said to him, under his torments: "Do not you believe the power of the emperor to be great, who can punish those who disobey him? Experience is an excellent master, and will inform you better. Obey the emperor, worship the gods, and offer sacrifice." The martyr, who prayed during his torments with great earnestness, replied: "It is what I never will do." The proconsul remanded him to prison, and informed his master Julian of what he had done. The emperor approved of his proceedings, and dispatched Elpidius and Pegasus, two apostate courtiers, in quality of commissaries, to assist the proconsul in the trial of the prisoner. They took with them from Nicomedia one Aslepius, a wicked priest of Esculapius, and arrived at Ancyra. Basil did not cease to praise and glorify God in his dungeon, and Pegasus repaired thither to him in hopes, by promises and entreaties, to work him into compliance: but came back to the proconsul highly offended at the liberty with which the martyr had reproached him with his apostacy. At the request of the commissaries, the proconsul ordered him to be again brought before them, and tormented on the rack with greater cruelty than before; and afterwards to be loaded with the heaviest irons, and lodged in the deepest dungeon.

In the mean time Julian set out from Constantinople for Antioch, in order to prepare for his Persian expedition. From Chalcedon he turned out of his road to Pessinunte, a town in Galatia, there to offer sacrifice in a famous temple of Cibele. In that town he condemned a certain Christian to be beheaded for the faith, and the martyr went to execution with as much joy as if he had been called to a banquet. When Julian arrived at Ancyra, St. Basil was presented before him, and the crafty emperor, putting on an air of compassion, said to him: "I myself am well skilled in your mysteries; and I can inform you, that Christ, in whom you place your trust, died under Pilate, and remains among the dead." The martyr answered: "You are deceived; you have renounced Christ at a time when he conferred on you the empire. But he will deprive you of it, together with your life. As you have thrown down his altars, so will he overturn your throne: and as you have violated his holy law, which you had so often announced to the people, (when a reader in the church,) and have trodden it under your feet, your body shall be cast forth without the honor of a burial, and shall be trampled upon by men." Julian replied: "I designed to dismiss thee: but thy impudent manner of rejecting my advice, and uttering reproaches against me, force me to use thee ill. It is therefore my command, that every day thy skin be torn off thee in seven different places, till thou hast no more left." He then gave it in charge to count Frumentinus, the captain of his guards, to see this barbarous sentence executed. The saint, after having suffered with wonderful patience the first incisions, desired to speak to the emperor. {643} Frumentinus would be himself the bearer of this message to Julian, not doubting but Basil intended to comply and offer sacrifice. Julian instantly ordered that the confessor should meet him in the temple of Esculapius. He there pressed him to join him in making sacrifices. But the martyr replied, that he could never adore blind and deaf idols. And taking a piece of his flesh which had been cut out of his body that day, and still hung to it by a bit of skin, he threw it upon Julian. The emperor went out in great indignation: and count Frumentinus, fearing his displeasure, studied how to revenge an insult, for which he seemed responsible to his master. He therefore mounted his tribunal, and ordered the torments of the martyr to be redoubled; and so deep were the incisions made in his flesh, that his bowels were exposed to view, and the spectators wept for compassion. The martyr prayed aloud all the time, and at evening was carried back to prison. Next morning Julian set out for Antioch, and would not see Frumentinus. The count resolved to repair his disgrace, or at least to discharge his resentment by exerting his rage upon the servant of Christ. But to his thundering threats Basil answered: "You know how many pieces of flesh have been torn from my body: yet look on my shoulders and sides; see if any wounds appear? Know that Jesus Christ this night hath healed me. Send this news to your master Julian, that he may know the power of God whom he hath forsaken. He hath overturned his altars, who was himself concealed under them when he was sought by Constantius to be put to death. But God hath discovered to me that his tyranny shall be shortly extinguished with his life." Frumentinus seemed no longer able to contain his rage, and commanded the saint to be laid upon his belly, and his back to be pierced with red-hot iron spikes. The martyr expired under these torments on the 29th of June, in 362. But his name is honored both by the Latins and Greeks on the 22d of March.

The love of God, which triumphed in the breasts of the martyrs, made them regard as nothing whatever labors, losses, or torments they suffered for its sake, according to that of the Canticles: _If a man shall have given all that he possesses, he will despise it as nothing._ If the sacrifice of worldly honors, goods, friends, and life be required of such a one, he makes it with joy, saying with the royal prophet, _What have I desired in heaven, or on earth, besides thee, O God! Thou art my portion forever._ If he lives deprived of consolation and joy, in interior desolation and spiritual dryness, he is content to bear his cross, provided he be united to his God by love, and says, My God and my all, if I possess you, I have all things in you alone: whatever happens to me, with the treasure of your love I am rich and sovereignly happy. This he repeats in poverty, disgraces, afflictions, and persecutions. He rejoices in them, as by them he is more closely united to his God, gives the strongest proof of his fidelity to him, and perfect submission to his divine appointments, and adores the accomplishment of his will. If it be the property of true love to receive crosses with content and joy, to sustain great labors, and think them small, or rather not to think of them at all, as they bear no proportion to the prize, to what we owe to God, or to what his love deserves: to suffer much, and think all nothing, and the longest and severest trials short: is it not a mark of a want of this love, to complain of prayer, fasts, and every Christian duty? How far is this disposition from the fervor and resolution of all the saints, and from the heroin courage of the martyrs!

Footnotes: 1. Marcellus wrote a famous book against the Arians, which Eusebius of Caesarea and all the Arians condemned, as reviving the exploded heresy of Sabellius. But Sabellianism was a general slander with which they aspersed all orthodox pastors. It is indeed true, that St. Hilary, St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, and Sulpicius Severus charge Marcellus with that error; but were deceived by the clamors of the Arians. For Marcellus appealing to pope Julius, and repairing to Rome, was acquitted, and his book declared orthodox by that pope in 341, and also by the council of Sardica in 347; as St. Hilary (fragm. 3, pp. 1308, 1311) and St. Athanasins (Apol. contra Arianos, p. 165) testify. It was a calumny of the Arians, though believed by St. Hilary, that St. Athanasius at length abandoned and condemned him. It is demonstrated by Dom Montfaucon from the works of St. Athanasius, that he ever defended the innocence of Marcellus, (t. 2 Collect Patr.) Moreover, Marcellus being informed that St. Basil had suggested to St. Athanasius certain suspicions of his faith, in 372, towards the end of his life, sent St. Athanasius his most orthodox confession of faith, in which he explicitly condemns Sabellianism; which authentic monument was published by Montfaucon, (t. 2, Collect Patr. p. 55.) If Patavius, Bull, and others, who censure Marcellus, had seen this confession, they would have cleared him of the imputation of Sabellianism, and expounded favorably certain ambiguous expressions which occurred in his book against the Arises, which is now lost, and was compiled against a work of Asterius the Sophist, surnamed the advocate of the Arians.

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ST. PAUL, BISHOP OF NARBONNE, C.

ST. GREGORY of Tours informs us,[1] that he was sent with other preachers from Rome to plant the faith in Gaul. St. Saturninus of Thoulouse, and St. Dionysius of Paris, were crowned with martyrdom: but St. Paul of Narbonne, St. Trophimus of Arles, St. Martial of Limoges, and St. Gatian of Tours, after having founded those churches, amidst many dangers, departed in peace. Prudentius says,[2] that the name of Paul had rendered the city of Narbonne illustrious.

Footnotes: 1. Hist. Franc. l. 1, c. 30. 2. Hymn. 4.

ST. LEA. WIDOW.

SHE was a rich Roman lady; after the death of her husband she mortified her flesh by wearing rough sackcloth, passed whole nights in prayer, and by humility seemed every one's menial servant. She died in 384, and is honored on this day in the Roman Martyrology. St. Jerom makes an elegant comparison between her death and that of Praetextatus, a heathen, who was that year appointed consul, but snatched away by death at the same time. See St. Jerom, Ep. 20, (olim 24,) to Marcella, t. 4, p. 51, Ed. Ben.

ST. DEOGRATIAS, BISHOP OF CARTHAGE, C.

GENSERIC, the Arian king of the Vandals, took Carthage in 439, filled the city with cruelties, and caused Quodvultdeus, the bishop, and many others, to be put on board an old leaky vessel, who, notwithstanding, arrived safe at Naples. After a vacancy of fourteen years, in 454, St. Deogratias was consecrated archbishop. Two years after, Genseric plundered Rome, and brought innumerable captives from Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, into Africa, whom the Moors and Vandals shared among them on the shore, separating without any regard or compassion weeping wives from their husbands, and children from their parents. Deogratias sold every thing, even the gold and silver vessels of the church, to redeem as many as possible; he provided them with lodgings and beds, and furnished them with all succors, and though in a decrepit old age, visited those that were sick every day, and often in the night. Worn out by these fatigues, he died in 457, to the inexpressible grief of the prisoners, and of his own flock. The ancient calendar of Carthage, written in the fifth age, commemorates him on the 5th of January; but the Roman on the 22d of March. See St. Victor Vitensis, l. 1, c. 3.

ST. CATHARINE OF SWEDEN, VIRGIN.

SHE was daughter of Ulpho, prince of Nericia, in Sweden, and of St. Bridget. The love of God seemed almost to prevent in her the use of her reason. At seven years of age she was placed in the nunnery of Risburgh, and educated in piety under the care of the holy abbess of that house. Being very beautiful, she was, by her father, contracted in marriage to Egard {645} a young nobleman of great virtue: but the virgin persuaded him to join with her in making a mutual vow of perpetual chastity. By her discourses he became desirous only of heavenly graces, and, to draw them down upon his soul more abundantly, he readily acquiesced in the proposal. The happy couple, having but one heart and one desire, by a holy emulation excited each other to prayer, mortification, and works of charity. After the death of her father, St. Catharine, out of devotion to the passion of Christ, and to the relies of the martyrs, accompanied her mother in her pilgrimages and practices of devotion and penance. After her death at Rome, in 1373, Catherine returned to Sweden, and died abbess of Vadzstena, or Vatzen,[1] on the 24th of March, in 1381.[2] For the last twenty-five years of her life she every day purified her soul by a sacramental confession of her sins. Her name stands in the Roman Martyrology on the 22d of March. See her life written by Ulpho, a Brigittine friar, thirty years after her death, with the remarks of Henschenius.

Footnotes:
1. The great monastery of our Saviour at Wasten, or Vatzen, in the
diocese of Lincopen, was first founded by St. Bridget, in 1344; but
rebuilt in a more convenient situation in 1384, when the nuns and
friars were introduced with great solemnity by the bishop of
Lincopen. This is called its foundation in the exact chronicle of
Sweden, published by Benzelius, Monum. Suec. p. 94.
2. St. Catharine of Sweden compiled a pious book, entitled, Sielinna
Troest, that is, Consolation to the Soul, which fills one hundred
and sixty-five leaves in folio, in a MS., on vellum, mentioned by
Starnman, Sur l'Etat des Sciences en Suede, dans les temps recules.
The saint modestly says in her preface, that as a bee gathers honey
out of various flowers, and a physician makes choice of medicinal
roots for the composition of his remedies, and a virgin makes up a
garland out of a variety of flowers, so she has collected from the
holy scriptures and other good books, chosen rules and maxims of
virtue.

MARCH XXIII.

ST. ALPHONSUS TURIBIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF LIMA,

CONFESSOR.

From his life by F. Cyprian de Herrera, dedicated to pope Clement X., and the acts of his canonization.

A.D. 1606.

ST. TORIBIO, or TIIRIBIUS ALPHONSUS MOGROBEJO, was second son to the lord of Mogrobejo, and born in the kingdom of Leon, on the 16th of November, in 1538. From his infancy he discovered a strong inclination to piety; and, in his childhood, it was his delight, at times of recreation, to erect and adorn altars, and to serve the poor. He trembled at the very shadow of sin. One day, seeing a poor pedler-woman angry because she had lost something out of her pack, he most movingly entreated and exhorted her, that she would not offend God by passion; and, in order to appease her, gave her the value of her loss, which he had begged of his mother for that purpose. He was very devout to the Blessed Virgin, said every day her Office and Rosary, and fasted every Saturday in her honor. While at school, he usually gave part of his slender dinner to the poor, and was so much addicted to fasting, that his superiors were obliged, by strict commands, to compel him to moderate his austerities. He began his higher studies at Valladolid, but completed them at Salamanca. He was introduced early to the notice of king Philip II., honored by him with several dignities, and made president or chief judge at Granada. This office he discharged during five years with so much integrity, prudence, and virtue, that the eyes of the whole kingdom were fixed on him, and his life in the world {646} was a holy noviceship to the pastoral charge. The pressing necessities of the infant church of Peru required a prelate who inherited, in a distinguished manner, the spirit of the apostles; and the archbishopric of Lima falling vacant, Turibius was unanimously judged the person of all others the best qualified to be an apostle of so large a country, and to remedy the scandals which obstructed the conversion of the infidels. The king readily nominated him to that dignity, and all parties concerned applauded the choice. Turibius was thunderstruck at this unexpected news, and had no sooner received the message, but he cast himself on the ground at the foot of his crucifix, praying with many tears that God would deliver him from so heavy a burden, which he thought absolutely above his strength. He wrote the most urgent letters to the king's council, in which he pleaded his incapacity, and other impediments, and laid great stress on the canons, which forbid laymen to be promoted to such dignities in the church. This humility it was that obtained the succor of heaven by which he performed wonders in the service of souls. Being compelled by obedience to acquiesce, he at length testified his submission by falling on his knees and kissing the ground.

After a suitable preparation, he received the four minor orders on four successive Sundays, the better to dispose himself for the functions of each; and after passing through the other orders, he was consecrated bishop. Immediately after which he set out for Peru, and landed at Lima, in the year 1581, of his age the forty-third. That diocese is extended one hundred and thirty leagues along the coast, comprising three cities, and many towns and villages, with innumerable cottages scattered over two ridges of the mountains of the Andes, esteemed the highest and the most rugged in the whole world. Some of the European generals, who first invaded that country, were men who seemed to measure every thing by their insatiable avarice and ambition, and had so far lost all sentiments of humanity towards the poor savages, that they deserved the name rather of tyrants and plunderers than of conquerors. Civil wars and dissensions completed the misfortune of that country; and covetousness, cruelty, treachery, fraud, and debauchery, seemed triumphant. Nor were the repeated orders of the Spanish court able to redress these evils. The sight of these disorders moved the good pastor often to tears, but his prudence and zeal overcame all difficulties, extirpated public scandals, and made that kingdom a flourishing portion of the Christian church. Upon his arrival he immediately began a visitation of his vast diocese: an undertaking of incredible fatigue, and attended with many dangers. He often crept over the steepest and most rugged mountains, covered with ice or snow, to visit some poor hut of Indians, and give them suitable comfort and instruction. He travelled often on foot, and sometimes barefoot, and by fasting and prayer never ceased to implore the divine mercy for the salvation of the souls committed to his charge. He placed everywhere able and zealous pastors, and took care that no one in the most remote corners of the rocks should be left destitute of the means of instruction and of the benefit of the sacraments. To settle and maintain discipline, he appointed diocesan synods to be held every two years, and provincial synods every seven; and was vigilant and severe in chastising the least scandal, especially of avarice, in the clergy. Without respect of persons, he reproved injustice and vice, and made use of all the means which his authority put into his hands, to check the insolence of public sinners, and to protect the poor from oppression. Many of the first conquerors and governors of Peru, before the arrival of the most virtuous viceroy Francis of Toledo, were men who often sacrificed every thing to their passions, and for their private ends. From some of these saint suffered many persecutions, and was {647} often thwarted by them in the discharge of his duty. But by the arms of meekness and patience he overcame all affronts and injuries, and with an invincible constancy he maintained the rights of justice and truth. He showed that many sinners misconstrued the law of God to make it favor their passions; but that, as Tertullian observes, "Christ calls himself the truth, not custom," and will weigh our actions not in the false balance of the world, but in the true scales of the sanctuary. Thus he extirpated the most inveterate abuses,[1] and established with so great fervor the pure maxims of the gospel, as to revive in many the primitive spirit of Christianity. To extend and perpetuate the advantages of religion, which by his zeal he had procured, he filled this country with seminaries, churches, and many hospitals; but would never suffer his own name to be recorded in any of his munificent charities or foundations. When he was at Lima, he every day visited several hospitals, comforted and exhorted the sick, and administered the sacraments. When a pestilence, though that calamity is seldom known in Peru, raged in some parts of his diocese, Turibius distributed his own necessaries in relieving the afflicted: he preached penance, because sins are the cause of chastisements, and infinitely the worst of evils. He walked in the processions, bathed in tears, with his eyes always fixed on a crucifix, and offering himself to God for his flock; fasted, watched, and prayed for them, without intermission, till God was pleased to remove his scourge.

Nothing gave the saint so much pleasure as the greatest labors and dangers, to procure the least spiritual advantage to one soul. Burning with the most vehement desire of laying down his life for his flock, and of suffering all things for him who died for us, he feared no dangers. When he heard that poor Indians wandered in the mountains and deserts, he sought them out; and to comfort, instruct, or gain one of them, he often suffered incredible fatigues, and dangers in the wildernesses, and boldly travelled through the haunts of lions and tigers. He spent seven years in performing his first visitation: his second employed him four years, but the third was shorter. He converted innumerable infidels, and left everywhere monuments of his charity. In travelling, he either prayed or discoursed on heavenly things. On his arrival at a place, it was his custom to repair first to the church to pray before the altar. To catechise the poor, he would sometimes stay two or three days in places where he had neither bed nor any kind of food. He visited every part of his vast diocese: and when others suggested to him the dangers that threatened him from rocks, precipices, marshes, rivers, robbers, {648} and savages, his answer was that Christ came from heaven to save man, we ought not therefore to fear dangers for the sake of immortal glory. He preached and catechised without intermission, having for this purpose learned, in his old age, all the various languages of the barbarous nations of that country. Even on his journeys he said mass every day with wonderful fervor and devotion. He always made a long meditation before and after it, and usually went to confession every morning; though they who best knew his interior, testified, that they were persuaded he had never in his whole life forfeited his baptismal innocence by any mortal sin. He seemed to have God and the divine honor alone before his eyes in all his words and actions, so as to give little or no attention to any thing else; by which means his prayer was perpetual. He retired in private to that exercise often in the day, and for a long time together. In it his countenance seemed often to shine with a divine light. The care with which he studied to disguise and conceal his great mortifications and works of piety, was the proof of his sincere humility. His munificence in relieving the poor of every class, especially those who were too bashful to make their necessities publicly known, always exhausted his revenues. The decrees of his provincial councils are monuments of his zeal, piety, learning, and discretion: they have been ever since esteemed, not only in the new world, but also in Europe, and at Rome itself, as oracles. The flourishing state of the church of Peru, the great number of saints and eminent pastors with which it abounded, and the establishment of innumerable seminaries of piety and learning, and hospitals for the poor, were the fruit of his zeal. If he did not originally plant the faith, he was at least the great propagator of it, and the chief instrument of God in removing scandals and advancing true piety in that vast country, which till then had been a land of abominations; while Francis of Toledo, the great viceroy, first settled the civil government in peace and tranquillity by salutary laws, which have procured him the title of the Legislator of Peru. St. Turibius, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, in 1606, during the visitation of his diocese, fell sick at Santa, a town one hundred and ten leagues distant from Lima. He foretold his death, and ordered him to be rewarded who should bring him the first account from his physician, that his recovery was despaired of. The ardor of his faith, his hope, his love of his Creator and Redeemer, his resignation and perfect sacrifice of himself, gathered strength in the fervent exercises and aspirations which he repeated almost without ceasing in his illness. By his last will he ordered what he had about him to be distributed among his servants, and whatever else he otherwise possessed to be given to the poor. He would be carried to the church, there to receive the holy viaticum: but received extreme unction in his sick bed. He often repeated those words of St. Paul: _I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ._ And in his last moments he ordered to be sung, by his bedside, those of the Psalmist: _I rejoiced in the ibwgs that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord._ He died on the 23d of March, repeating those other words of the same prophet: _Into thy hands I commend my spirit._ His body being translated the year after to Lima, was found incorrupt, the joints flexible, and the skin soft. His historian, and the acts of the canonization, mention many sick restored to their health, and a girl raised to life by him while he was living: also many miracles wrought through his intercession after his death. He was beatified by Innocent XI. in 1679,[2] and solemnly canonized by pope Benedict XIII. in 1726. On the miracles wrought by his intercession, see Benedict XIV.,[3] and especially the acts of his canonization.

{649}

A pastor of souls must be careful to animate all his exterior actions and labors in the service of his neighbor, with the interior spirit of compunction, humility, zeal, charity, and tender devotion. Without this he loses the fruit of all the pains he takes, and by them will often deserve only chastisements in the world to come; so much will his intention and the affections of his heart be infected with self-love, and depraved by various imperfections, and secret sinister desires even in the most holy functions. Therefore, a fervent novitiate, employed in the exercises of an interior life, ought to be a part of the preparation for this state; and in the discharge of his duties, a person ought always to unite contemplation with action, and reserve to himself sufficient time for conversing with God and his own soul, and taking a frequent review of his own interior. From his labors he must return frequently to prayer, and constantly nourish in his soul a spirit of fervent devotion, which will thus accompany all his exterior actions, and keep his thoughts and affections always united to God. Those who are not faithful in thus maintaining and improving in themselves an interior spirit of piety, and in watching with fear and compunction over the motions of their own hearts, will generally advance very little the kingdom of Christ in the souls of others, and are in great danger of losing their own. This is what St. Bernard feared in his disciple pope Eugeuius III., whom he conjured with tears never to give himself up entirely to the care of others, so as not to live also for himself; so to communicate a spirit of piety to others, as not to suffer it to be drained in his own heart; to be a basin to hold it, not a pipe for it to run through.[4] This lesson is applicable, with due proportion, to other states, especially that of teaching the sciences, in which the exercises of an interior life are so much the more necessary, as the employment is more distracting, more tumultuous, and more exposed to the waves of vanity, jealousy, and other secret petty passions.