Chapter XV: Part 15

St. Germanus and St. Lupus embarking in the winter season, were overtaken with a furious tempest, which St. Germanus appeased by casting some drops of blessed oil, according to Constantius, but according to Bede, of holy-water, into the sea, having first invoked the adorable Trinity. Being arrived in Britain they were met by a great multitude of people and the fame of their sanctity, doctrine, and miracles soon filled the whole country. They confirmed the Catholics in all parts, and converted the heretics, preaching often in the highways and fields where the churches were not able to contain the crowd that flocked to them. The Pelagians everywhere shunned them; but being at length ashamed thus to condemn themselves by their flight and silence, accepted a conference. The disputation was held at Verulam before an incredible number of people. The heretics, who made their appearance with a great train and in rich apparel, spoke first. When they had talked a long time, the bishops answered them with great eloquence, and so invincibly supported their arguments with quotations from scripture, that their adversaries were fairly reduced to silence. The people applauded their victory with joyful acclamations. Before the assembly broke up, a certain tribune and his wife presented their little daughter of ten years of age, who was blind, to the two holy bishops; and they bid them take her to the Pelagians. But the latter joined the parents in begging the saints to pray for her. The two bishops made a short prayer; then Germanus called upon the Blessed Trinity; and taking from his neck the little box of relics which he wore, laid it upon the eyes of the girl before the whole assembly, who immediately recovered her sight, to the great joy of her parents and of all the people. From that day no one opposed the doctrine of the holy bishops. The saints went from this conference to return thanks to God at the tomb of St. Alban, the most illustrious martyr in Britain. St. Germanus caused his sepulchre to be opened, and deposited in it his box of relics of apostles and martyrs, taking from the same place a little of the dust which still retained some marks of the blood of St. Alban. This he carried away with him, and, at his return, built at Auxerre a church in his honor, where he placed these relics.[300]

The Saxons from Germany on one side, and on the other the Picts, at that time harassed the Britons. Paul the deacon tells us, that an army of Picts and Scots invaded their territories whilst the two bishops were in the island; and bishop Usher takes notice, that the Saxons and English who inhabited Sleswic, and all the German coast from Denmark to the Rhine, made descents upon Britain from time to time before the arrival of Hengist and Horsa in 449. The Britons having assembled an army against these plunderers, invited the two holy bishops into their camp, hoping to be protected by their prayers and presence. The saints complied with their request, but employed their time in bringing the idolaters to the faith, and the Christians to a reformation of their manners. Many of the former demanded baptism, and the saints prepared them to receive it at Easter, for it was then Lent. They erected a church in the camp of green boughs twisted together, in which the catechumens received the sacrament of regeneration; and the whole army celebrated the festival with great devotion. After Easter, St. Germanus had recourse to a stratagem, by which, without bloodshed, he rescued his dear converts and the country out of the danger with which they were threatened. The enemy approaching, he put himself at the head of the Christians with so much skill and address as showed he had not forgotten his old profession of a general. He led his little army into a vale between two high mountains, and ordered his troops to send forth the same shout for which he would give them a sign. When the Saxon pirates came near them, he cried out thrice, _Alleluiah_, which was followed by the whole British army; and the sound was often repeated by the echo from the hills with as dreadful a noise as if the rocks had been rent asunder. The barbarians, in a sudden fright, judging from the shout that they were falling upon the swords of a mighty army, flung down their arms and ran away, leaving behind them all their baggage and a great booty. Many of them were drowned in crossing a river, by missing the fords.[301] Bishop Usher[302] says, this battle seems to have been fought near a town in Flintshire, called in the British tongue, Guid-cruc, but in English, Mould. The place retains to this day the name of Maes Garmon, or German’s field. The two holy bishops, after so many victories, returned home to their respective dioceses.[303]

St. Germanus found his people loaded with extraordinary imposts, and undertook a journey to Arles, to solicit Auxiliaris, prefect of Gaul, in their behalf. On the road, the people everywhere met him in crowds, with the women and children, to receive his blessing. When he drew near to Arles, the prefect Auxiliaris himself, contrary to custom, was come a good way to meet him, and conducted him to the capital. He admired his gracefulness, and the charity and authority which his countenance and conversation displayed, and found him to exceed his reputation. He made him great presents, and entreated him to cure his wife who had been long ill of a quartan ague. He obtained his request, and granted to St. Germanus the discharge from the taxes which he had asked for his people. The saint being returned home, applied himself earnestly to reform their manners; but used to retire from time to time to his monastery of SS. Cosmas and Damian. In 446 he was called again into Britain, to assist that church against the Pelagian heresy, which began a second time to raise its head there. He took for his companion St. Severus, who had been lately promoted to the archbishopric of Triers, and had formerly been a disciple of St. Lupus of Troyes. In Britain he sought out those who had been seduced by the heretics, and converted many of them; so that the obstinate sowers of those errors found no longer any retreat here, and quitted the island. A principal man of the country, called Elaphius, brought to him his son who was in the flower of his age, and had one ham contracted, and his leg withered. St. Germanus made him sit down, and touching his ham and leg, healed him in the presence of Many. St. Germanus considering that ignorance could not be banished, nor the reformation which he had established maintain its ground, without regular schools for the instruction of the clergy, instituted schools of learning, by which means, “These churches continued afterward pure in the faith, and free from heresy,” as Bede observes.[304] In South-Wales, having ordained St. Iltutus priest, and St. Dubricius archbishop of Landaff, he charged them with the care of several schools, which soon grew very famous for the numbers, learning, and eminent sanctity of those that were there educated. Two of these, under the immediate direction of the latter, were seated at Hentlan and Moch-ros, places lying on the river Wye, where he had one thousand scholars, for years together. The names of the most eminent among them are mentioned in the life of St. Dubricius, written (as some maintain) by St. Thelian’s own hand in the ancient Landaff register.[305] The schools of St. Iltutus at Llan-Iltut (now Lantwit) near Boverton, and at Llan-elty near Neath in Glamorganshire, were in like repute, and equally filled with the sons of the nobility from all parts of the island. Among his disciples we find St. Gildas, St. Leonorius bishop and confessor, St. Samson, St. Magloire, St. Malo, St. Paul afterward bishop of Leon, and Daniel, whom St. Dubricius made bishop of Bangor, where he likewise instituted a seminary for the Britons. Paulinus, another disciple of St. Germanus, did the like at Whiteland in Caermarthenshire, where St. David and St. Theliau studied. The seminaries of Llancarvan near Cowbridge, and the famous school of Bencor in Flintshire, were also noble monuments of St. Germanus’s zeal. This saint was on his road back when he met a deputation from the inhabitants of Armorica or Brittany who besought him to be their protector; for to punish them for a revolt, Aëtius, the Roman general in Gaul, had sent Eocarich, a Pagan and barbarous king of the Alemanni, to subdue them. St. Germanus boldly accosted the barbarian, stopping his horse by the bridle, at the head of his army. The German at first refused to hear him, but at length listened to his discourse, and by it was so much softened as to call off his troops, and agree not to ravage the province, on condition that he should obtain the pardon of the people from the emperor, or from his general Aëtius. In order to procure this the saint undertook a journey to Ravenna, where the emperor Valentinian III. then resided.

He wrought several miracles on the way, and at Milan delivered a man who was possessed by the devil. He entered the city of Ravenna by night to avoid honors and pomp; but the people being aware of his precaution, a great crowd waited for him, and saluted him with acclamations. He was received with great joy by the bishop St. Peter Chrysologus; by the young emperor Valentinian, and his mother Placidia. She sent to his house a great silver vessel filled with dainties, without any flesh, which she knew he would never touch. The saint sent her in return a barley loaf upon a wooden dish. The empress received it graciously, ordered the dish to be enchased with gold, and kept the loaf by which several miraculous cures were performed. The emperor confirmed his request; but the restless people by raising new disturbances destroyed the effect of the imperial clemency. The saint was continually attended at Ravenna by six bishops, and wrought there many miracles. The son of Volusian, chancellor or secretary to the patrician Sigisvultus, being dead and cold, the saint was called, and having put all the company out of the chamber, he prostrated himself near the corpse and prayed with tears. After some time the dead man began to stir, opened his eyes, and moved his fingers. St. Germanus raised him, he sat up, and, by degrees, was restored to perfect health. One day after matins, as the saint was talking with the bishops of religious matters, he said to them, “My brethren, I recommend my passage to your prayers. Methought I saw this night our Saviour, who gave me provision for a journey, and told me it was to go into my native country, and to receive eternal rest.” A few days after, he fell sick. All the city was alarmed. The empress went to see him, and he desired the favor of her to send back his corpse into his own country; to which she assented, though very unwillingly. He died at Ravenna on the seventh day of his illness, which was the last of July in 448, having held his see thirty years and twenty-five days. The empress Placidia took his reliquary, St. Peter Chrysologus his cowl and hair shirt, and the six other bishops divided his clothes among them. The eunuch Acholius, prefect of the emperor’s chamber, one of whose servants, when sick, the saint had cured, had his corpse embalmed; the empress clothed it with a rich habit and gave a coffin of cypress wood; the emperor furnished the carriages, the expense of the journey, and the officers to attend it. The funeral pomp was most magnificent; the number of lights was so great, that they shone as broad day. Everywhere as it passed, the people came to meet it, showing all manner of honors. Some levelled the ways and repaired the bridges, others bore the corpse, or at least sung psalms. The clergy of Auxerre went as far as the Alps to meet it. The sacred treasure was brought to that city fifty days after the saint’s death, and after having been exposed six days, was interred on the 1st of October in the oratory of St. Maurice, which he had founded, where stands at present the famous abbey which bears his name. His principal festival is kept on the 31st of this month. St. Germanus was the titular saint of many churches in England, and of the great abbey of Selby in Yorkshire, the abbot whereof was a parliamentary baron. A chapel near Verulam, in which St. Germanus had preached, was a place of great devotion to him among our ancestors, and was afterward dedicated under his name. From him the parliamentary borough of St. German’s in Cornwall is called. See his life written by the priest Constantius, who was nearly his contemporary, and is commended by St. Sidonius Apollinaris in the same age: also Bede, and Nennius the British historian, who wrote in 620. All these relate the miracles mentioned above. See also Leland’s Itinerary, Brown-Willis, Usher, Fleury, Tillemont, t. 15, Rivet, Hist. Littér., t. 2, p. 256, and Recueil des Lettres sur la Vérification des Reliques de St. Germain d’Auxerre, 1753, in 8vo.

JULY XXVII.

ST. PANTALEON, MARTYR.

See the Collections of F. Bosch the Bollandist, t. 6,
Julij, p. 397.

A. D. 303.

He was physician to the emperor Galerius Maximianus, and a Christian, but fell by a temptation which is sometimes more dangerous than the severest trials of the fiercest torments; for bad example, if not shunned, insensibly weakens, and at length destroys the strongest virtue. Pantaleon being perpetually obsessed by it in an impious idolatrous court, and deceived by often hearing the false maxims of the world applauded, was unhappily seduced into an apostasy. But a zealous Christian called Hermolaus, by his prudent admonitions awakened his conscience to a sense of his guilt, and brought him again into the fold of the Church. The penitent ardently wished to expiate his crime by martyrdom; and to prepare himself for the conflict, when Dioclesian’s bloody persecution broke out at Nicomedia in 303, he distributed all his possessions among the poor. Not long after this action he was taken up, and in his house were also apprehended Hermolaus, Hermippus, and Hermocrates. After suffering many torments they were all condemned to lose their heads. St. Pantaleon suffered the day after the rest. He is ranked by the Greeks amongst the great martyrs. Procopius mentions a church in his honor at Constantinople, which being decayed was repaired by Justinian. His relics were translated to Constantinople, and there kept with great honor as St. John Damascen informs us.[306] The greatest part of them are now shown in the abbey of St. Denys near Paris, but his head at Lyons.

* * * * *

Physicians honor St. Pantaleon as their chief patron after St. Luke. Happy are they in that profession, who improve their study chiefly to glorify the supreme Creator, whose infinite power and wisdom are displayed in all his works; and who by the opportunities of charity which their art continually offers them, rejoice to afford comfort, and corporal, if not often also spiritual succor, to the most suffering and distressed part of their species, especially among the poor. All the healing powers of medicine are a gift of God;[307] and he himself who could have restored Ezechias to health by the least act of his omnipotent will, directed Isaiah to apply dry figs to the abscess into which his fever was terminating; than which poultice, no better remedy could have been used to promote suppuration.[308] St. Ambrose,[309] St. Basil,[310] and St. Bernard,[311] inveigh severely against too nice and anxious a care of health, as a mark of inordinate self-love and immortification; nor is anything generally more hurtful to it. But as man is not master of his own life or health, he is bound to take a moderate reasonable care not to throw them away.[312] To neglect the more simple and ordinary succors of medicine when absolutely necessary, is to transgress that law of charity which every one owes to himself.[313] The saints who condemned as contrary to their penitential state, far-sought or exquisite means, with St. Charles Borromæo, were scrupulously attentive to essential prescriptions of physicians in simple and ordinary remedies. But let the Christian in sickness seek in the first place the health of his soul by penance, and the exercise of all virtues. Let him also consider God as his chief physician, begging him, if it may be conducive to his divine honor, to restore the frame he created, and entreating our Redeemer to stretch out that hand upon him, with which in his mortal state he restored so many sick to their health. He who trusts more in the art of physicians than in the Lord, will deserve the reproach of Asa, king of Juda.[314] So hidden are often the causes of distempers, so precarious the power of remedies, and so uncertain the skill of the ablest physicians, that their endeavors frequently check nature instead of seconding its efforts, and thus hasten death. The divine blessing alone is the Christian’s sheet-anchor, perfect resignation to the divine will is the secure repose of his soul; and the fervent exercise of penance, patience, and devotion, is his gain in the time of sickness.

SS. MAXIMIAN, MALCHUS, MARTINIAN, DIONYSIUS, JOHN, SERAPION,
AND CONSTANTINE, MM.

COMMONLY CALLED THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.

Having confessed the faith before the proconsul at Ephesus under Decius in 250, they were walled up together in a cave in which they had hid themselves, and there slept in the Lord. Some moderns, mistaking this expression, have imagined that they only lay asleep, till they were found in 479, under Theodosius the younger. The truth seems to be, that their relics were then discovered. They are much honored by the Greeks, Syrians, and all the Oriental nations. Their relics were conveyed to Marseilles in a large stone coffin, which is still shown there in St. Victor’s church. In the Musæum Victorium at Rome is a factitious plaster or stone (made of sulphur melted with fire and mortar), formed in imitation of a large precious stone, in which is cut a group of figures representing the Seven Sleepers with their names, and near Constantine and John are exhibited two clubs; near Maximian a knotty club; near Malchus and Martinian two axes; near Serapion a burning torch, and near Danesius (whom others call Dionysius) a great nail. That large nails (_clavi trabales_, or such as were used in joining great rafters or beams in buildings) were made use of as instruments of torture is evident from St. Paulinus[315] and Horace.[316] From this ancient monument some infer that these martyrs were put to death by various torments, and that their bodies were only buried in the aforesaid cave. In this group of figures, these martyrs are represented all as very young, and without beards. In ancient Martyrologies and other writings, they are frequently called boys.[317] The cave in which their bodies were found became a place famous for devout pilgrimages, and is still shown to travellers, as James Spon testifies.[318] See St. Gregory of Tours, l. 1, de Glor. Mart. c. 95, and Cuper the Bollandist, Julij, t. 6, p. 375. Also, Dissertatio de Sanctis Septem Dormientibus, Romæ, 1741 in 4to. in which the above said group of figures is explained, c. 5, &c.

SAINT CONGALL, ABBOT OF IABHNALLIVIN.

On the upper part of the lake Erne, of which parish he is titular patron. Before his death he committed the government of his monastery to his beloved disciple St. Fegnarnach. In that territory his festival is a holiday of precept, as Colgan assures us, on this 27th of July.

ST. LUICAN, C.

Is titular saint of the parish called Kill-luicain in Ireland.

JULY XXVIII.

SS. NAZARIUS AND CELSUS, MM.

From two sermons delivered on their festival, the one
by St. Ennodius, the other passes under the name of St.
Ambrose, and was written soon after his time, perhaps by
St. Gaudentius of Brescia; also from Paulinus the deacon,
in his life of St. Ambrose. See Tillemont, t. 2, and Pinius
the Bollandist, t. 6, Julij, p. 503.

ABOUT THE YEAR 68.

St. Nazarius’s father was a heathen, and enjoyed a considerable post in the Roman army. His mother Perpetua was a zealous Christian, and was instructed by St. Peter, or his disciples, in the most perfect maxims of our holy faith. Nazarius embraced it with so much ardor, that he copied in his life all the great virtues he saw in his teachers; and out of zeal for the salvation of others left Rome, his native city, and preached the faith in many places with a fervor and disinterestedness becoming a disciple of the apostles. Arriving at Milan he was there beheaded for the faith, together with Celsus, a youth whom he carried with him to assist him in his travels. These martyrs suffered soon after Nero had raised the first persecution. Their bodies were buried separately in a garden without the city, where they were discovered and taken up by St. Ambrose in 395. In the tomb of St. Nazarius a vial of the saint’s blood was found as fresh and red as if it had been spilt that day. The faithful stained handkerchiefs with some drops, and also formed a certain paste with it; a portion of which St. Ambrose sent to St. Gaudentius bishop of Brescia. St. Ambrose conveyed the bodies of the two martyrs into the new church of the apostles, which he had just built. A woman was delivered of an evil spirit in their presence. St. Ambrose sent some of these relics to St. Paulinus of Nola, who received them with great respect, as a most valuable present, as he testifies.[319]

The martyrs died as the outcasts of the world, but are crowned by God with immortal honor. The glory of the world is false and transitory, and an empty bubble or shadow; but that of virtue is true, solid, and permanent, even in the eyes of men; for, to use the comparison of St. Basil,[320] as the more we look upon the sun the more we admire it, and by reviewing it never find it less bright or less beautiful; so the memory of the martyrs which we celebrate, after so many years, is only more fresh in our minds, and will be more flourishing in all ages to come.

ST. VICTOR, POPE, M.

He was a native of Africa, and succeeded St. Eleutherius in the pontificate, in the year 192, the nineteenth of Commodus. The practice of those virtues which had prepared him for that dignity, rendered him a true successor of the apostles. He vigorously opposed the rising heresies of that age. Theodotus of Byzantium, a tanner, having apostatized from the faith to save his life in a late persecution, afterward, to extenuate his guilt, pretended that he had denied only a man, not God; teaching that Christ was nothing more than a mere man, as the Socinians teach at this day; whereas the Arians allowed him to have been before the world, though himself a creature. Theodotus going to Rome, there drew many into his blasphemous error; for he was well versed in polite literature; but Victor checked his progress by excommunicating him with Ebion, Artemon, and another Theodotus who had taught the same blasphemy.[321] This other Theodotus, called Trapezita, or the banker, was author of the Melchisedecian heresy, pretending that Melchisedec was greater than Christ.

Montanus, a new convert in Mysia, near Phrygia, out of an unbounded desire of invading the first dignities of the Church, and filled with rage to see himself disappointed, began to preach against the Church; and having by pride and ambition given entrance to the devil, commenced false prophet, and sometimes losing his senses, began in an enthusiastic strain to utter extraordinary expressions. Prisca, or Priscilla, and Maximilla, two women of quality, but of debauched lives, left their husbands, and being filled with the same spirit, spoke like Montanus, void of sense, and after an extravagant and unusual manner, pretending they succeeded the prophets among the disciples of the apostles. Montanus placed himself above the apostles, saying, that he had received the Paraclete, or the Holy Ghost promised by Christ, to perfect his law. He denied that the Church had power to forgive the sins of idolatry, murder, and impurity, and hardly received any sinners on repentance. St. Paul had allowed second marriages, but Montanus forbade them as inconsistent with the perfect law of chastity; and he forbade Christians to flee in time of persecution. The Montanists were also called from their country Cataphryges, and Pepuzeni from Pepuzium, a little town in Phrygia, which was their capital, and which they called Jerusalem.[322] They boasted of their martyrs, as the Marcionites also did; which other heretics seldom pretend to, as St. Irenæus and Origen take notice; nor could these have any great number. Apollonius, a Catholic writer quoted by Eusebius, confounding the hypocrisy of the Montanists, reproached their pretended prophetesses with infamous debaucheries, and with receiving presents, saying, “Does a prophet color his hair, paint his eye-brows, play at dice, or lend out money on usury? I will demonstrate that they are guilty of these things.” The Catholics met to examine their pretended new prophecies, and convicted them of falsehood, because the true prophets were not beside themselves when they spoke; also the Montanists had lied in their predictions, and opposed the doctrine of the Church. Asterius Urbanus, a learned priest (for he calls St. Zoticus fellow-priest), confounded them by these arguments, in a great conference held at Ancyra about the year 188. Their prophecies and errors being condemned as impious, the followers of Montanus were driven out of the Church, and excommunicated. It was reported for certain, that Montanus and Maximilla, led away by the spirit that possessed them, afterward hanged themselves. These particulars are related by Eusebius.

Tertullian, who fell into this heresy about the time of the death of Pope Victor, says,[323] that this pope at first admitted to the communion of the Church these pretended prophets. And it was easy to be deceived in a matter of fact concerning persons at such a distance, and who appeared under the garb of hypocrisy. But he had no sooner answered their letters, in which he acknowledged them brethren, but Praxeas coming from the East, brought him an ample account of their tenets and practice: and Victor immediately recalled his letters of communion, and condemned these innovators. This Praxeas was a Phrygian, and being puffed up because he had suffered imprisonment for the faith, began to sow a new heresy at Rome, maintaining but one person in God, and attributing crucifixion to the Father as well as to the Son; whence his followers were called Patripassians. His errors being brought to light, he was also cut off from the communion of the Church.

About the same time Tatian fell from the Church. He was a Syrian, a Platonic philosopher, and a disciple of St. Justin, martyr, after whose death he taught some time at Rome. Afterward, returning into Syria in 171, he there broached his errors, which he durst not advance at Rome. He borrowed several of them from Marcion, Valentinus, and Saturninus, teaching two principles, and that the Creator is the evil principle or God. He added several new errors, as that Adam was damned. He condemned marriage as no less criminal than adultery, whence his followers were called Encratitæ, or the continent. They were likewise called Hydroparastatæ, or Aquarii, because, in consecrating the eucharist, they used only water, for they condemned all use of wine, and likewise the use of flesh-meat.[324] The ancients observe that Tatian’s fall was owing to pride, which often attends an opinion of knowledge;[325] and of this there cannot be a more dangerous symptom in a scholar than a fondness for novelty and singularity, especially if joined with obstinacy and opiniativeness.

St. Victor was watchful to cut off these scandals in their root, and every where to maintain the purity of the faith with unity. Up an this motive, he exerted his zeal in the dispute about the time of celebrating Easter. The churches of Lesser Asia kept it with the Jews on the fourteenth day of the first moon after the vernal equinox, on whatever day of the week it fell. The Roman church, and all the rest of the world, kept Easter always on a Sunday immediately following that fourteenth day. Pope Anicetus permitted these Asiatics to keep their own custom, even at Rome; but Pope Soter, his successor, obliged them to conform to the custom of places where they should be. Several councils held at Rome, in Palestine, in Pontus, in Gaul, at Corinth, and other places, unanimously determined the point according to the Roman custom. Yet Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, wrote strenuously in defence of the Asiatic custom, which he said was derived from St. Philip who died at Hierapolis, from St. John Evangelist, St. Polycarp, bishop and martyr, Sagaris, bishop and martyr, who died at Laodicea, and others. Victor seeing the Asiatics fixed in their resolution, threatened to cut them off from the communion of the Church; from the words of Eusebius[326] some moderns infer with Baronius, Constant, and De Marca, that he excommunicated them in a letter, but immediately suspended or recalled the sentence: others with Thomassin, Natalis Alexander, and Graveson, think that he only threatened it; which opinion best agrees with the sequel. To reconcile the different passages of authors, F. John Philip Monti[327] thinks pope Victor, upon receiving the refractory answer of Polycrates, drew up a sentence of excommunication, but never sent or published the same, being overcome by the advice of St. Irenæus. The schism which Blastus, a priest, had lately formed at Rome, upon the difference of this rite, for which he had been degraded by pope Eleutherius, probably made St. Victor more severe in extirpating a practice which became daily more dangerous to the unity of the Church; but prudence and charity recommended a toleration some time longer, which he was prevailed upon to grant, by a letter of St. Irenæus, who wrote to him on that subject in his own name, and in that of his brethren in Gaul. St. Victor died soon after this, in the year 201, the ninth of Severus, after he had sat ten years. He is styled a martyr by some writers of the fifth age, and in an ancient pontifical written in 530. Though Severus only published the edicts for his persecution in 202, several Christians had suffered in his reign before that time, as Tillemont remarks.[328] F. Pagi thinks St. Victor did not die by the sword, because in some Martyrologies he is called only confessor, though his dignity and zeal exposed him to continual persecutions, for which alone he might deserve the title of martyr. See Eusebius Hist. l. 5, c. 23. Orsi, Berti Diss. Hist. t. 2, p. 88.

SAINT INNOCENT I., POPE AND CONFESSOR.

He was a native of Albano, near Rome; and, upon the death of pope Anastasius in 402, was unanimously chosen to fill the pontifical chair. He ascended it by compulsion, and considering himself in it with trembling, he never ceased to beg of God the spirit of his holy wisdom and prudence, which he stood the more in need of, as the times in which he lived were more difficult. Alaric the Goth, with an army of barbarians, threatened to carry desolation over all Italy. The pope exhorted the faithful to receive the scourges of heaven with submission and humility, and undertook several journeys to negotiate a reconciliation between the emperor Honorius and Alaric, but in vain. The Goths received a great overthrow from the Roman army commanded by Stilico, in 403. But Alaric led them a second time to attempt the plunder of Rome; and because Honorius refused to make him general of the imperial army, he took that city on the 24th of August, 410, and abandoned it to the fury of his soldiers, excepting the church of SS. Peter and Paul, to which he granted the privilege of a sanctuary. Pope Innocent was at that time absent with the emperor at Ravenna. The year following, Alaric being dead, his brother-in-law and successor Atulphus again plundered Rome.

After the departure of the barbarians, the good pope hastened thither, and by his presence brought comfort and joy to that afflicted people. He taught them to draw an advantage from their sufferings by making a good use of them, and so much were the Heathens edified at the patience, resignation, and virtue with which the Christians suffered the loss of their goods and whatever was dear, without any murmuring or complaint, that they came in crowds desiring to be instructed in the faith and baptized. The pope labored incessantly to form them a holy people, always occupied in good works. His letters, especially those to Exuperius, the most holy bishop of Toulouse, and Decentius, bishop of Gubbio, in answer to their several queries, contain many useful rules, and judicious decisions. In the former, he says, that communion or absolution is never to be denied to dying penitents, that we may not imitate the hardness of the Novatians. In that to Decentius he says, that only bishops, who have the sovereignty of the priesthood, can confer the Holy Ghost in confirmation, by anointing the foreheads of persons baptized; and that he cannot recite the words of the form for fear of discovering the mysteries or sacraments to the infidels. He uses the same precaution in speaking of the sacrifice; so inviolable was the secret with which, out of respect, the primitive Christians treated the sacraments. In the same epistle, this pope mentioning the extreme unction which is given to the sick, he says, it cannot be administered to penitents before their reconciliation, because it is a sacrament; and all sacraments are refused them in that state. This evinces that it was held to be no less properly a sacrament than the eucharist. He indeed allows the custom that then prevailed for the laity to use the holy oils out of devotion, but without the sacramental words, and not as a sacrament; for being consulted whether bishops could give that sacrament, which was usually administered by priests, he proves that bishops can do it, because priests can; consequently, he supposes as undoubted, that only priests, not laymen, can minister this holy sacrament.

When, in 416, the councils of Carthage and Milevum had condemned the Pelagian errors, and wrote to the pope against them, the synodal letters of both these councils having been drawn up by St. Austin, St. Innocent, in his answer to the bishops of the council of Milevum, says, that “all ecclesiastical matters throughout the world are, by divine right, to be referred to the apostolic see, that is, to St. Peter, the author of its name and honor.” He commends the bishops of this council for so doing: “Following,” says he, “the ancient rule which you know with me, has been always observed by the whole world.”[329] The confirmation given by pope Innocent to these two African councils being brought to Africa, St. Austin said,[330] “The decisions of the two councils have been already sent to the apostolic see; the rescripts are also come from thence. The cause is now finished; would to God that the error may at last be at end.” St. Innocent closed his life with exerting his zeal in defence of divine grace, dying in 417, having been pope fifteen years. See his letters, and the councils, Ceillier, t. 10, p. 104, and Cuper the Bollandist, t. 6, Jul. p. 548.

ST. SAMPSON, B. C.

He was a child of prayer, and was born about the year 496, of noble parentage, in that part of South Wales which is now called Glamorganshire, then in the country of the Demetes, upon the borders of the Wenetes, who inhabited the province called by the Britons Guent, now Monmouthshire. At seven years of age he was put under the care of St. Iltutus, a very learned abbot in Glamorganshire, and having made great progress in learning and virtue, was ordained priest by Saint Dubritius, bishop of Caërleon. In 512 he passed into a neighboring island; where he led an eremitical life, as did several others, under the direction of St. Piro, a holy priest. By an order of SS. Dubritius and Iltutus he paid a visit to his aged father who lay dangerously ill. The saint restored him by his prayers to his health, and converted him, and his whole numerous family, including his uncles, cousins, and brothers, whom he placed in several monasteries, but his father and an uncle in his own community of hermits. In 516 he made a voyage into Ireland, to animate himself to fervor by the example and instructions of many illustrious saints who flourished there, and after his return shut himself up in a cave in a wilderness. In 520 St. Dubritius called him to a synod at Caërleon, and in it ordained him bishop without being fixed in any particular see. St. Sampson continued his former austere manner of life, abstaining wholly from flesh, sometimes eating only once in two or three days, and often passing the whole night in prayer standing, though sometimes when he watched the night, he took a little rest, leaning his head against a wall. To gain souls to God by the exercise of the ministry with which he saw himself intrusted, he passed over into Brittany in France, with his father and his cousin St. Magloire, and was followed by St. Maclou or Malo, another cousin. St. Sampson there converted many idolaters, raised a dead man to life, and wrought many other miracles. He founded a great abbey, which he called Dole,[331] and fixed there the episcopal see which was before subject to Quidalet, now St. Malo’s. This see of Dole long enjoyed a metropolitical jurisdiction over all the bishops of Brittany.[332] He subscribed to the second council of Paris, held in 557, in the manner following, “I Sampson, a sinner, bishop, have consented and subscribed.” He used to have a cross carried before him, as is the custom of archbishops at present. He died about the year 564. A considerable part of his relics was translated to Paris, with those of St. Magliore and St. Maclou, in the tenth century, for fear of the inroads of the Normans. See his life in Mabillon, Act. Bened. t. 1, p. 176, and Solier the Bollandist, t. 6, Jul. p. 568.

JULY XXIX.

ST. MARTHA, V.

She was sister to Mary and Lazarus, and lived with them at Bethania, a small town two miles distant from Jerusalem, a little beyond mount Olivet. Our Blessed Redeemer had made his residence usually in Galilee, till in the third year of his public ministry he preached chiefly in Judæa, during which interval he frequented the house of these three holy disciples. Martha seems to have been the eldest, and to have had the chief care and direction of the household. It appears from the history of the resurrection of Lazarus that their family was of principal note in the country. In the first visit, as it seems, with which Jesus honored them,[333] St. Luke tells us[334] that St. Martha showed great solicitude to entertain and serve him. She forgot the privilege of her rank and riches, and would not leave so great an honor to servants only, but was herself very busy in preparing everything for so great a guest and his holy company. Mary sat all the while at our Saviour’s feet, feeding her soul with his heavenly doctrine. In this she found such inexpressible sweetness, and so great spiritual advantage, that she forgot and contemned the whole world, and would suffer nothing to draw her from her entertainment with her God, or make her lose any one of those precious moments. At his sacred discourses her heart was inflamed, her pure soul seemed to melt in holy love, and in a total forgetfulness of all other things she said to herself, with the spouse in the Canticles, _My beloved to me, and I to him, who feedeth among the lilies_;[335] that is with chaste souls, or among the flowers of virtues. St. Austin observes that this house represents to us the whole family of God on earth. In it no one is idle, but his servants have their different employments, some in the contemplative life, as recluses; others in the active; as, first, those who labor for the salvation of souls in the exterior functions of the pastoral charge; secondly, those who, upon pure motives of charity, serve the poor or the sick; and, lastly, all who look upon their lawful profession in the world as the place for which God has destined them, and the employment which he has given them; and who faithfully pursue its occupations with a view purely to accomplish the divine will, and acquit themselves of every duty in the order in which God has placed them in this world. He is the greater saint, whatever his state of life may be, whose love of God and his neighbor is more pure, more ardent, and more perfect; for charity is the soul and form of Christian perfection.

But it has been disputed whether the contemplative or the active life be in itself the more perfect. St. Thomas answers this question,[336] proving from the example of Christ and his apostles, that the mixed life, which is made up of both, is the most excellent. This is the apostolic life, with the care of souls, if in it the external functions of instructing, assisting, and comforting others, which is the most noble object of charity, be supported by a constant perfect spirit of prayer and contemplation. In order to this, a long and fervent religious retirement ought to be the preparation which alone can form the perfect spirit of this state; and the same must be constantly nourished and improved by a vehement love and frequent practice of holy retirement, and a continued recollection, as Christ during his ministry often retired to the mountains to pray; for that pastor who suffers the spirit of prayer to languish in his soul, carries about a dead soul in a living body, to use the expression of St. Bonaventure.[337] The like interior must animate; and some degree of assiduity in the like exercises, as circumstances will allow, must support those who are engaged in worldly employs, and those who devote themselves to serve Christ’s most tender and afflicted members, the poor and the sick, as Martha served Christ himself.

With so great love and fervor did Martha wait on our Redeemer, that, as we cannot doubt, she thought that if the whole world were occupied in attending so great a guest, all would be too little. She wished that all men would employ their hands, feet, and hearts, all their faculties and senses, with their whole strength, in serving with her their gracious Creator, made for us our brother. Therefore, sweetly complaining to him, she desired him to bid her sister Mary to rise up and help her. Our meek and loving Lord was well pleased with the solicitude and earnestness, full of affection and devotion, wherewith Martha waited on him; yet he commended more the quiet repose with which Mary attended only to that which is of the greatest importance, the spiritual improvement of her soul. _Martha, Martha,_ said he, _thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is necessary._ If precipitation or too great eagerness had any share in her service, this would have been an imperfection; which, nevertheless, does not appear. Christ only puts Martha in mind that though corporal duties ought not to be neglected, and if sanctified by a perfect intention of charity are most excellent virtues, yet spiritual functions, when they come in competition, are to be preferred. The former, indeed, become spiritual, when animated by a perfect spirit and recollection; but this is often much impaired by the distraction of the mind, and in the course of action. In our external employments, which we direct with a pure intention to fulfil the divine will, we imitate the angels when they are employed by God in being our guardians, or in other external functions with which God hath charged them; but as these blessed spirits in such employs never lose sight of God, so ought we in all our actions to continue, at least virtually, to adore and praise his holy name; but herein the eye of the soul is often carried off, or its attention much weakened, whereas, in heavenly contemplation, the heart is wholly taken up in God, and more perfectly united to him by adoration and love. This is the novitiate of heaven, where it is the uninterrupted occupation of the blessed. In this sense Christ so highly commends the choice of Mary, affirming that her happy employment would never be taken from her. He added, “_One thing is necessary_;” which words some explain as if he had said, “A little is enough, one dish suffices;” but the word _necessary_ determines the sense rather to be, as St. Austin, St. Bernard, Maldonatus, Grotius, and others, expound it, eternal salvation is our only affair.

Another instance which shows how dear this devout family was to our divine Saviour, is the raising of Lazarus to life. When he fell sick, the pious sisters sent to inform Christ, who was then absent in Galilee. They said no more in their message than this: _He whom thou lovest is sick._ They knew very well that this was enough; and that his tender bowels would be moved to compassion by the bare representation of their calamity. It was not to remove our corporal miseries that Christ came from heaven, and died and suffered so much; this was not the object which drew down this Almighty Physician among us. If, in his mortal life on earth, he healed the sick and raised the dead, by these miracles he would manifest, as by sensible tokens, the spiritual cures which he desired to work in our souls. We groan under the weight of innumerable and the most dreadful spiritual miseries. Our tender Redeemer knows their horrible depth and endless extent; but he would have us to conceive a just sense of them, to acknowledge them, and earnestly to implore his aid; for this he sheds the rays of his light upon our blind souls, and rouses us by his repeated graces. The first step towards a deliverance is, that we confess, with a feeling sense, our extreme baseness and ingratitude, and our weakness and total incapacity of doing anything of ourselves towards our recovery; but we have a physician infinitely tender and powerful. To him then we must continually lay open our distress, and with deep compunction display our miseries before his holy eyes, earnestly striving by this dumb eloquence to move him to pity; exposing to him that we whom he loveth still as the work of his hands, as the price of his blood, lie ingulfed in unspeakable miseries. Thus we must entreat him, with tears and loud cries of our hearts, to look down on his image in our souls, now disfigured and sullied with sin; on his kingdom left desolate by the tyranny of the devil and our passions: on the vineyard which himself had planted, adorned, and fenced, but which is laid waste by merciless robbers and enemies; and that he would stretch out his almighty hand to repair these breaches, and save us. So long as life lasts we can never be sure that we shall find mercy, or rest secure of the issue of our great trial upon which our eternity depends; so long, therefore, we ought never to cease, with most earnest cries, to implore the clemency of our Judge, laying open our spiritual miseries to him in these words of the two sisters,--“Behold he, whom thou lovest, is sinking under the weight of his evils,” and beg him to remember his ancient love and mercies towards us. We ought also in corporal distempers to address ourselves to God with the like words, begging with Martha our own or our brother’s corporal health, if this may be expedient to our souls, and conducive to the divine honor.

In all these petitions we ought to implore the joint supplications of the saints, as at the entreaties of the sisters Christ raised Lazarus. Having received their message, he wanted no other prompter than that of his own compassion and affection; an emblem of the paternal mercy with which he draws to himself, and receives penitent sinners. Had the prodigal son offered any plea of merits or deserts, he had never deserved to find favor; but he knew the goodness and tenderness of his father, who had with restless nights waited with impatience to see him return. The tender parent wanted no motives drawn from other objects or things without himself. The paternal affection within his own breast pleaded in favor of his disobedient child. By this his very bowels yearned to embrace him again, and raise him from spiritual death to life. This same tenderness and compassion in Christ was the grounds of the sisters’ confidence. Jesus, however, deferred setting out two or three days, that his glory might be more manifested by the greater evidence of the miracle, and by the trial of the virtue and confidence of the two holy sisters. When he arrived at Bethania, Martha went first out to meet and welcome him; and then called her sister Mary. The presence of Jesus brings every blessing and comfort; and, by it, the sisters had the joy to see their brother again restored to life when he had been four days in the grave.

Christ was again at Bethania, at the house of Simon the Leper, six days before his passion. Lazarus was one of the guests. Martha waited at table; and Mary poured a box of costly ointments on our Lord’s feet, which she wiped with the hair of her head.[338] Judas Iscariot complained of this waste, saying that the ointment might have been sold, and the price given to the poor. Not that he had any regard for the poor, but, bearing the common purse, he converted things sometimes to his own use, being a thief. How imperceptible a vice is covetousness, and how subtle in excuses to deceive itself! Charity interprets the actions of others in the best part; but passion hurries men into rash judgments. Judas condemned the most heroic virtue and devotion of a saint; but Jesus undertook her defence. He was pleased not with the ointment, but with the love and devotion of his fervent servant, which he suffered her to satisfy by that action, which he received as performed for the embalming of his body, his death being then at hand. He, moreover, declared that this good work which Judas condemned, should be commended to the edification of his servants over the whole world wherever his gospel should be preached.

St. Martha seems to have been one of those holy women who attended Christ during his passion, and stood under his cross. After his ascension, she came to Marseilles, and ended her life in Provence, where her body was found at Tarascon, soon after the discovery of that of St. Mary Magdalen. It lies in a magnificent subterraneous chapel of the stately collegiate church at Tarascon, which is dedicated to God in her honor. King Louis XI. gave a rich bust of gold, in which the head of the saint is kept.

* * * * *

We have all, like St. Martha, one only necessary affair; that for which alone God created and redeemed us; for which he has wrought so many wonderful mysteries in our favor, and upon which the dreadful alternative of sovereign and everlasting happiness or misery depends. This is, that we refer even all our worldly employments and all that we do, to glorify God, to fulfil his will, and to save our souls. In this, all our thoughts, desires, and enterprises, ought to centre: this is the circle in which we must shut ourselves up, and never think of moving out of. Every one ought sincerely to say with an ancient writer, “I have but one only affair; and I care for nothing else only lest any other thing should take off any part of my attention from this my only business.”[339] What account will they be able to give to themselves or to their Judge at the last day, who make vanity, pastimes, and idle employments, the sole business of their life? or they who toil and slave much in bustling through the world, seeming to neglect nothing but their only affair.

SS. SIMPLICIUS AND FAUSTINUS, BROTHERS,
AND BEATRICE, THEIR SISTER, MM.