Chapter IV: Part 4

Charity to the poor was a distinguishing part of her character. She gave constant orders to have all pilgrims and poor strangers provided for with lodging and necessaries. She made it her business to seek out and secretly relieve persons of good condition who were reduced to necessity, yet out of shame durst not make known their wants. She was very liberal in furnishing fortunes to poor young women, that they might marry according to their condition, and not be exposed to the danger of losing their virtue. She visited the sick, served them, and dressed and kissed their most loathsome sores. She founded in different parts of the kingdom many pious establishments, particularly an hospital near her own palace at Coïmbra, a house for penitent women who had been seduced into evil courses, at Torres-Novas, and an hospital for foundlings, or those children who, for want of due provision, are exposed to the danger of perishing by poverty, or the neglect and cruelty of unnatural parents. She was utterly regardless of her own conveniences, and so attentive to the poor and afflicted persons of the whole kingdom, that she seemed almost wholly to belong to them; not that she neglected any other duties which she owed to her neighbor, for she made it her principal study to pay to her husband the most dutiful respect, love, and obedience, and bore his injuries with invincible meekness and patience. Though king Dionysius was a friend of justice, and a valiant, bountiful, and compassionate prince, yet he was, in his youth, a worldly man, and defiled the sanctity of the nuptial state with abominable lusts. The good queen used all her endeavors to reclaim him, grieving most sensibly for the offence of God, and the scandal given to the people; and she never ceased to weep herself, and to procure the prayers of others for his conversion. She strove to gain him only by courtesy, and with constant sweetness and cheerfulness cherished his natural children, and took great care of their education. By these means she softened the heart of the king, who, by the succor of a powerful grace, rose out of the filthy puddle in which he had wallowed for a long time, and kept ever after the fidelity that was due to his virtuous consort. He instituted the order of Christ in 1318; founded, with a truly royal magnificence, the university of Coïmbra, and adorned his kingdom with public buildings. His extraordinary virtues, particularly his liberality, justice, and constancy, are highly extolled by the Portuguese, and after his entire conversion, he was the idol and glory of his people. A little time before his perfect conversion there happened an extraordinary accident. The queen had a very pious, faithful page, whom she employed in the distribution of her secret alms. A wicked fellow-page envying him on account of this favor, to which his virtue and services entitled him, treacherously suggested to his majesty that the queen showed a fondness for that page. The prince, who by his own sensual heart was easily inclined to judge ill of others, gave credit to the slander, and resolved to take away the life of the innocent youth. For this purpose he gave order to a lime-burner, that if on such a day he sent to him a page with this errand to inquire, “Whether he had fulfilled the king’s commands?” he should take him and cast him into the lime-kiln, there to be burnt; for that death he had justly incurred, and the execution was expedient for the king’s service. On the day appointed he despatched the page with this message to the lime-kiln; but the devout youth on the road passing by a church, heard the bell ring at the elevation at mass, went in and prayed there devoutly; for it was his pious custom, if he ever heard the sign given by the bell for the elevation, always to go thither, and not depart till mass was ended. It happened, on that occasion, that as the first was not a whole mass, and it was with him a constant rule to hear mass every day, he stayed in the church, and heard successively two other masses. In the meantime, the king, who was impatient to know if his orders had been executed, sent the informer to the lime-kiln, to inquire whether his commands had been obeyed; but as soon as he was come to the kiln, and had asked the question, the man, supposing him to be the messenger meant by the king’s order, seized him, and threw him into the burning lime, where he was soon consumed. Thus was the innocent protected by his devotion, and the slanderer was overtaken by divine justice. The page who had heard the masses went afterward to the lime-kiln, and having asked whether his majesty’s commands had been yet executed, brought him back word that they were. The king was almost out of himself with surprise when he saw him come back with this message, and being soon informed of the particulars, he easily discovered the innocence of the pious youth, adored the divine judgments, and ever after respected the great virtue and sanctity of his queen.

St. Elizabeth had by the king two children, Alphonsus, who afterward succeeded his father, and Constantia, who was married to Ferdinand IV., king of Castille. This son, when grown up, married the infanta of Castille, and soon after revolting against his own father, put himself at the head of an army of malecontents. St. Elizabeth had recourse to weeping, prayer, fasting, and almsdeeds, and exhorted her son in the strongest terms to return to his duty, conjuring her husband at the same time to forgive him. Pope John XXII. wrote to her, commending her religious and prudent conduct; but certain court flatterers whispering to the king that she was suspected of favoring her son, he, whom jealousy made credulous, banished her to the city of Alanquer. The queen received this disgrace with admirable patience and peace of mind, and made use of the opportunity which her retirement afforded, to redouble her austerities and devotions. She never would entertain any correspondence with the malecontents, nor listen to any suggestions from them. The king himself admired her goodness, meekness, and humility under her disgrace; and shortly after called her back to court, and showed her greater love and respect than ever. In all her troubles she committed herself to the sweet disposal of divine providence, considering that she was always under the protection of God, her merciful father.

Being herself of the most sweet and peaceable disposition, she was always most active and industrious in composing all differences between neighbors, especially in averting war, with the train of all the most terrible evils which attend it. She reconciled her husband and son, when their armies were marching one against the other; and she reduced all the subjects to duty and obedience. She made peace between Ferdinand IV., king of Castille, and Alphonsus de la Cerda, his cousin-german, who disputed the crown: likewise between James II., king of Arragon, her own brother, and Ferdinand IV., the king of Castille, her son-in-law. In order to effect this last she took a journey with her husband into both those kingdoms, and to the great satisfaction of the Christian world, put a happy period to all dissensions and debates between those states. After this charitable work, king Dionysius, having reigned forty-five years, fell sick. St. Elizabeth gave him most signal testimonies of her love and affection, scarce ever leaving his chamber during his illness, unless to go to the church, and taking infinite pains to serve and attend him. But her main care and solicitude was to secure his eternal happiness, and to procure that he might depart this life in sentiments of perfect repentance and piety. For this purpose she gave bountiful alms, and caused many prayers and masses to be said. During his long and tedious illness he gave great marks of sincere compunction, and died at Santaren, on the 6th of January, 1325. As soon as he had expired, the queen retired into her oratory, commended his soul to God, and consecrating herself to the divine service, put on the habit of the third Order of Saint Francis. She attended the funeral procession, with her husband’s corpse, to Odiveras, where he had chosen his burying-place in a famous church of Cistercian monks. After a considerable stay there, she made a pilgrimage to Compostella, and returning to Odiveras, celebrated there her husband’s anniversary with great solemnity; after which she retired to a convent of Clares, which she had begun to rebuild before the death of her husband. She was desirous to make her religious profession, but was diverted from that design for some time upon a motive of charity, that she might continue to support an infinity of poor people by her alms and protection. She therefore contented herself at first with wearing the habit of the third Order, living in a house which she built contiguous to her great nunnery, in which she assembled ninety devout nuns. She often visited them, and sometimes served them at table, having for her companion in this practice of charity and humility her daughter-in-law, Beatrix, the queen then reigning. However, by authentic historical proofs it is evinced that before her death she made her religious profession in the aforesaid third Order, as pope Urban VIII., after mature discussion of those monuments, has declared.[67]

A war being lighted up between her son Alphonsus IV., surnamed the brave, king of Portugal, and her grandson, Alphonsus XI., king of Castille, and armies being set on foot, she was startled at the news, and resolved to set out to reconcile them, and extinguish the fire that was kindling. Her servants endeavored to persuade her to defer her journey, on account of the excessive heats, but she made answer that she could not better expend her health and her life than by seeking to prevent the miseries and calamities of a war. The very news of her journey disposed both parties to peace. She went to Estremoz, upon the frontiers of Portugal and Castille, where her son was; but she arrived ill of a violent fever, which she looked upon as a messenger sent by God to warn her that the time was at hand wherein he called her to himself. She strongly exhorted her son to the love of peace and to a holy life; she confessed several times, received the holy viaticum on her knees at the foot of the altar, and shortly after extreme unction; from which time she continued in fervent prayer, often invoking the Blessed Virgin, and repeating these words: “Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy, defend us from the wicked enemy, and receive us at the hour of our death.” She appeared overflowing with heavenly joy, and with those consolations of the Holy Ghost which make death so sweet to the saints; and in the presence of her son, the king, and of her daughter-in-law, she gave up her happy soul to God on the 4th of July, in the year 1336, of her age sixty-five. She was buried with royal pomp in the church of her monastery of poor Clares, at Coïmbra, and honored by miracles. Leo X. and Paul IV. granted an office on her festival; and in 1612 her body was taken up and found entire. It is now richly enshrined in a magnificent chapel, built on purpose. She was canonized by Urban VIII. in 1625, and the 8th of July appointed for her festival.

* * * * *

The characteristical virtue of St. Elizabeth was a love of peace. Christ, the prince of peace, declares his spirit to be the spirit of humility and meekness; consequently the spirit of peace. Variance, wrath, and strife, are the works of the flesh, of envy, and pride, which he condemns, and which exclude from the kingdom of heaven. Bitterness and contention shut out reason, make the soul deaf to the motives of religion, and open the understanding to nothing but what is sinful. To find the way of peace we must be meek and patient, even under the most violent provocations; we must never resent any wrong, nor return railing for railing, but good for evil; we must regard passion as the worst of monsters, and must judge it as unreasonable to hearken to its suggestions as to choose a madman for our counsellor in matters of concern and difficulty; above all, we must abhor it not only as a sin, but as leading to a numberless variety of other grievous sins and spiritual evils. _Blessed are the peacemakers_, and all who love and cultivate this virtue among men, _they shall be called the children of God_, whose badge and image they bear.

ST. PROCOPIUS, M.

He was a native of Jerusalem, but lived at Bethsan, otherwise called Scythopolis, where he was reader in the church, and also performed the function of exorcist, and dispossessing demoniacs, and that of interpreter of the Greek tongue into the Syro-Chaldaic.[68] He was a divine man, say his acts, and had always lived in the practice of great austerity and patience, and in perpetual chastity. He took no other sustenance than bread and water, and usually abstained from all food for two or three days together. He was well skilled in the science of the Greeks, but much more in that of the holy scriptures; the assiduous meditation on which nourished his soul, and seemed also to give vigor and strength to his emaciated body. He was admirable in all virtues, particularly in a heavenly meekness and humility. Dioclesian’s bloody edicts against the Christians reached Palestine in April, 303, and Procopius was the first person who received the crown of martyrdom in that country, in the aforesaid persecution. He was apprehended at Bethsan and led, with several others, bound to Cæsarea, our city, say the acts, and was hurried straight before Paulinus, prefect of the province.[69] The judge commanded the martyr to sacrifice to the gods. The servant of Christ answered he never could do it; and this he declared with a firmness and resolution that seemed to wound the heart of the prefect as if it had been pierced with a dagger. The martyr added, there is no God but one, who is the author and preserver of the world. The prefect then bade him sacrifice to the four emperors, namely Dioclesian, Herculius, Galerius, and Constantius. This the saint again refused to do, and had scarce returned his answer but the judge passed sentence upon him, and he was immediately led to execution and beheaded. He is honored by the Greeks with the title of The Great Martyr. See his original Chaldaic Acts, published by Steph. Assemani, t. 2, p. 166, and a less accurate old Latin translation; given by Ruinart, and by Henry Valois, Not. in Euseb. l. 8. The author of these acts was Eusebius of Cæsarea, an eye-witness.

SS. KILIAN BISHOP, COLMAN PRIEST, AND TOTNAN DEACON, MM.

Kilian or Kuln was a holy Irish monk, of noble Scottish extraction. With two zealous companions he travelled to Rome in 686, and obtained of pope Conon a commission to preach the gospel to the German idolaters in Franconia; upon which occasion Kilian was invested with episcopal authority. The missionaries converted and baptized great numbers at Wurtzburg, and among others Gosbert, the duke of that name. This prince had taken to wife Geilana, the relict of his deceased brother; and though he loved her tenderly, being put in mind by St. Kilian that such a marriage was condemned and void by the law of the gospel, he promised to dismiss her, saying that we are bound to love God above father, mother, or wife. Geilana was tormented in mind beyond measure at this resolution; jealousy and ambition equally inflamed her breast; and, as the vengeance of a wicked woman has no bounds, during the absence of the duke in a military expedition, she sent assassins, who privately murdered the three holy missionaries in 688. The ruffians were themselves pursued by divine vengeance, and all perished miserably. St. Burchard, who, in the following century, was placed by St. Boniface in the episcopal see of Wurtzburg, translated their relics into his cathedral. A portion of those of St. Kilian, in a rich shrine, was preserved in the treasury of the elector of Brunswic-Lunenburg in 1713, as appears from the printed description of that cabinet. See the acts of these martyrs compiled by Egilward, monk of St. Burchard’s at Wurtzburg, extant imperfect in the eleventh century, in Surius, t. 4, entire in Canisius, t. 4, par. 2, p. 628, and t. 3, ed. Basn., p. 174. Also among the Opuscula of Serrarius, printed at Mentz in 1611, in the collection of the writers of Wurtzburg published by Ludewig, p. 966, and in Mabillon and the Bollandists. See also Thesaurus reliquiarum Electoralis Brunsvico-Luneburgicus. Hanoveræ, 1713, and Solier, t. 2, Julij, p. 600.

ST. WITHBURGE, V.

She was the youngest of the four sisters, all saints, daughters of Annas the holy king of the East-Angles. In her tender years she devoted herself to the divine service, and led an austere life in close solitude for several years at Holkham, an estate of the king her father, near the sea-coast in Norfolk, where a church, afterward called Withburgstow, was built. After the death of her father she changed her dwelling to another estate of the crown called Dereham. This is at present a considerable market-town in Norfolk, but was then an obscure retired place. Withburge assembled there many devout virgins, and laid the foundation of a great church and nunnery, but did not live to finish the buildings. Her holy death happened on the 17th of March, 743. Her body was interred in the church-yard of Dereham, and fifty-five years after, found uncorrupt, and translated into the church. One hundred and seventy-six years after this, in 974, Brithnoth (the first abbot of Ely, after that house, which had been destroyed by the Danes, was rebuilt), with the consent of king Edgar, removed it to Ely, and deposited it near the bodies of her two sisters. In 1106 the remains of the four saints were translated into the new church and laid near the high altar. The bodies of SS. Sexburga and Ermenilda were reduced to dust, except the bones. That of St. Audry was entire, and that of St. Withburge was not only sound but also fresh, and the limbs perfectly flexible. Warner, a monk of Westminster, showed this to all the people, by lifting up and moving several ways the hands, arms, and feet. Herbert bishop of Thetford, who in 1094 translated his see to Norwich, and many other persons of distinction, were eye-witnesses hereof. This is related by Thomas, monk of Ely, in his history of Ely,[70] which he wrote the year following, 1107. This author tells us, that in the place where St. Withburge was first buried, in the church-yard of Dereham, a large fine spring of most clear water gushes forth.[71] It is to this day called St. Withburge’s well, was formerly very famous, and is paved, covered, and inclosed; a stream from it forms another small well without the church-yard. See her life, and Leland, Collect. vol. iii. p. 167.

B. THEOBALD, ABBOT.

He was by his virtue the great ornament of the illustrious family of Montmorency in France. He was born in the castle of Marli. His father, Bouchard of Montmorency, gave him an education suitable to his birth, and trained him up to the profession of arms, in which so many heroes of that family have signalized themselves. But Theobald manifested from his infancy a strong inclination to a state of holy retirement, dreading the least shadow of danger which could threaten his innocence. He spent great part of his time in prayer, and resorted often to the church of the nunnery called Port-Royal, which had been founded in 1204 by Matthew of Montmorency, and on which his father Bouchard had bestowed so many estates that he was regarded as a second founder. Theobald took the Cistercian habit at Vaux de Cernay in 1220, and was chosen abbot of that house in 1234. He lived in the midst of his brethren as the servant of every one, and surpassed all others in his love of poverty, silence, and holy prayer. He was highly esteemed by St. Lewis. His happy death happened in 1247. His shrine in his abbey is visited by a great concourse of people on the Whitsun-holidays. His solemn festival is there kept on the 8th, and in some places on the 9th of July, probably the day on which the first translation of his relics was made. The Bollandists defer his life to the 8th of December, the day of his death. See Le Nain, Histoire de Citeaux, t. 9.

SAINT GRIMBALD, NATIVE OF ST. OMER, ABBOT.

He was a monk at St. Bertin’s, and with his abbot entertained king Alfred in that abbey when that prince was going to Rome. This king, afterward by the advice of Eldred archbishop of Canterbury, sent messengers to St. Bertin’s to invite Grimbald over into England, where he arrived, Hugh being twelfth abbot of that monastery, in the year 885. Asserius, a monk of Menevia or St. David’s, whom king Alfred honored with his particular esteem, and who was afterward bishop of Shireburn, was one of these messengers.

The Oxonian writers tell us that Grimbald was appointed first professor of divinity at Oxford, when he is said to have founded that university; and that Asserius, John Erigena, and St. Neot taught there at the same time. The learned Mr. Hearne says not only that Grimbald built St. Peter’s church in the East, but also that the eastern vault of his ancient structure is standing to this day, of which he gives a plan. Upon the death of Eldred archbishop of Canterbury, king Alfred pressed Grimbald to accept that dignity; but was not able to extort his consent, and was obliged to allow him to retire to the church of Winchester. King Alfred’s son and successor Edward, in compliance with his father’s will, built the New Minstre close to the old, in which he placed secular canons, says Tanner, and appointed St. Grimbald abbot over them; this title being then given to a superior of secular or regular priests. About sixty years after, bishop Ethelwolph brought in monks in place of those secular canons. King Henry I. removed this monastery of New Minstre out of the walls of the city to the place called Hide, which still continued sometimes to be called St. Grimbald’s monastery. The body of the great king Alfred was removed by his son from the Old Minstre, and that of his queen Alswithe from the nunnery of Nunnaminstre, and deposited together in the New Minstre, afterward in Hide-Monastery. Nunnaminstre was founded by king Alfred, or rather by his queen Alswithe. St. Edburge, a daughter of king Edward, was a nun, and, according to Leland, abbess there. St. Grimbald in his last sickness, though extremely feeble, gathered strength when the sacred viaticum was brought, rose out of bed, and received it prostrate on the ground. After this he desired to be left alone for three days, which he spent in close union of his heart with God. On the fourth day the community was called into his chamber, and amidst their prayers the saint calmly breathed forth his happy soul on the 8th of July in the year 903, of his age eighty-three. His body was reposed in this church, and honored amongst its most precious relics. It was taken up by St. Elphegus, and exposed in a silver shrine. See his life written by Goscelin, monk of St. Bertin’s; Capgrave; Leland, Collect. t. 1, p. 18. John Yperius in Chron. S. Bertini; Molan. in Natal. Sanct. Belgii; Hearne, Præf. in Lelandi Collect. t. 1, p. 28, t. 2, p. 217, and Præf. in Thomæ Caii Vindicias Oxon. contra Joan. Caium Cantabrig. p. 27. Woode Ant. Oxon. t. 1, p. 9.

JULY IX.

ST. EPHREM OF EDESSA, C.

DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH.

From his works in the late Vatican edition; also from St.
Gregory of Nyssa, in his panegyric of St. Ephrem; and
from Palladius, Theodoret, Sozomen, &c. See t. 1, Op. St.
Ephrem, Romæ, An. 1743, or St. Ephrem Syri Opera Omnia
Latine. Venetiis, 1755, 2 tomis.

A. D. 378.

This humble deacon was the most illustrious of all the doctors, who, by their doctrine and writings, have adorned the Syriac church. He was born in the territory of Nisibis, a strong city on the banks of the Tigris, in Mesopotamia. His parents lived in the country, and earned their bread with the sweat of their brows, but were ennobled by the blood of martyrs in their family, and had themselves both confessed Christ before the persecutors under Dioclesian, or his successors. They consecrated Ephrem to God from his cradle, like another Samuel, but he was eighteen years old when he was baptized. Before that time he had committed certain faults which his enlightened conscience extremely exaggerated to him after his perfect conversion to God, and he never ceased to bewail, with floods of tears, his ingratitude towards God, in having ever offended him. Sozomen[72] says these sins were little sallies of anger, into which he had sometimes fallen with his playfellows in his childhood. The saint himself mentions in his confession[73] two crimes (as he styles them) of this age, which called for his tears during his whole life. The first was, that in play he had driven a neighbor’s cow among the mountains, where it happened to be killed by a wild beast; the second was a doubt which once came into his mind in his childhood, whether God’s particular providence reached to an immediate superintendency over all our individual actions. This sin he exceedingly magnifies in his contrition, though it happened before his baptism, and never proceeded further than a fluctuating thought from ignorance in his childhood; and in his Testament he thanks God for having been always preserved by his mercy since his baptism from any error in faith. Himself assures us that the divine goodness was pleased in a wonderful manner to discover to him, after this temptation, the folly of his error, and the wretched blindness of his soul in having pretended to fathom the secrets of providence.

Within a month after he had been assaulted by the temptation of the aforesaid doubt, he happened in travelling through the country to be benighted, and was forced to take up his quarters with a shepherd who had lost in the wilderness the flock committed to his charge. The master of the shepherd suspected him guilty of theft, and pursuing him, found him and Ephrem together, and cast them both into prison, upon suspicion that they had stolen his sheep. Ephrem was extremely afflicted at his misfortune, and in the dungeon found seven other prisoners, who were all falsely accused or suspected of different crimes, though really guilty of others. When he had lain seven days in prison in great anguish of mind, an angel appearing to him in his sleep told him he was sent to show him the justice and wisdom of divine providence in governing and directing all human events; and that this should be manifested to him in the case of those prisoners who seemed to suffer in his company unjustly. The next day the judge called the prisoners before him, and put two of them to the torture, in order to compel them to confess their crimes. While others were tormented, Ephrem stood by the rack trembling and weeping for himself, under the apprehension of being every moment put to the question. The bystanders rallied him for his fears, and said--“Ay, it is thy turn next; it is to no purpose now to weep: why didst thou not fear to commit the crime?” However, he was not put on the rack, but sent back to prison. The other prisoners, though innocent of the crimes of which they were first arraigned, were all convicted of other misdemeanors, and each of them received the chastisement due to his offence. As to Ephrem, the true thief having been discovered, he was honorably acquitted, after seventy days’ confinement. This event the saint relates at length in his confession.[74] God was pleased to give him this sensible proof of the sweetness, justice, and tender goodness of his holy providence, which we are bound to adore in resignation and silence; waiting until the curtain shall be drawn aside, and the whole economy of his loving dispensations to his elect displayed in its true amiable light, and placed in its full view before our eyes in the next life. Though, to take a view of the infinite wisdom, justice, and sanctity which God displayeth in all the dispensations of his providence, we must take into the prospect the rewards and punishments of the next world, and all the hidden springs of this adorable mystery of faith; yet his divine goodness to excite our confidence in him, was pleased, by this revelation to his servant, to manifest in this instance his attributes justified in part, even in this life, of which he hath given us a most illustrious example with regard to holy Job.

St. Ephrem, from the time of his baptism, which he received soon after this accident, began to be more deeply penetrated with the fear of the divine judgment, and he had always present to his mind the rigorous account he was to give to God of all his actions, the remembrance of which was to him a source of almost uninterrupted tears. Hoping more easily to secure his salvation in a state in which his thoughts would never be diverted from it, soon after he was baptized he took the monastic habit, and put himself under the direction of a holy abbot, with whose leave he chose for his abode a little hermitage in the neighborhood of the monastery. He seemed to set no bounds to his fervor. He lay on the bare ground, often fasted whole days without eating, and watched a great part of the night in prayer. It was a rule observed in all the monasteries of Mesopotamia and Egypt, that every religious man should perform his task of manual labor, of which he gave an account to his superior at the end of every week. The work of these monks was always painful, that it might be a part of their penance; and it was such as was compatible with private prayer, and a constant attention of the mind to God; for they always prayed or meditated at their work; and for this purpose, the first task which was enjoined a young monk was to get the psalter by heart. The profits of their labor, above the little pittance which was necessary for their mean subsistence in their penitential state, were always given to the poor. St. Ephrem made sails for ships. Of his poverty he writes thus in his Testament: “Ephrem hath never possessed purse, staff, or scrip, or any other temporal estate; my heart hath known no affection for gold or silver, or any earthly goods.” He was naturally choleric, but so perfectly did he subdue this passion, that meekness was one of the most conspicuous virtues in his character, and he was usually styled _The meek_, or _the peaceable man of God_. He was never known to dispute or contend with any one; with the most obstinate sinners he used only tears and entreaties. Once, when he had fasted several days, the brother who was bringing him a mess of pottage made with a few herbs for his meal, let fall the pot, and broke it. The saint seeing him in confusion, said cheerfully,--“As our supper will not come to us, let us go to it.” And sitting down on the ground by the broken pot, he picked up his meal as well as he could. Humility made the saint rejoice in the contempt of himself, and sincerely desire that all men had such a knowledge and opinion of his baseness and nothingness as to despise him from their hearts, and to look upon him most unworthy to hold any rank among creatures. This sincere spirit of profound humility all his words, actions, and writings breathed in a most affecting manner.

Honors and commendations served to increase the saint’s humility. Hearing himself one day praised, he was not able to speak, and his whole body was covered with a violent sweat, caused by the inward agony and confusion of his soul at the consideration of the last day; for he was seized with extreme fear and dread, thinking that he should be then overwhelmed with shame, when his baseness and hypocrisy should be proclaimed and made manifest before all creatures, especially those very persons who here commended him, and whom he had deceived by his hypocrisy. We may hence easily judge how much the thought of any elevation or honor affrighted him. When a certain city sought to choose him bishop, he counterfeited himself mad.

Compunction of heart is the sister of sincere humility and penance, and nothing seemed more admirable in our saint than this virtue. Tears seemed always ready to be called forth in torrents as often as he raised his heart to God, or remembered the sweetness of his divine love, the rigor of his judgments, or the spiritual miseries of our souls. “We cannot call to mind his perpetual tears,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, “without melting into tears. To weep seemed almost as natural to him as it is for other men to breathe. Night and day his eyes seemed always swimming in tears. No one could meet him at any time, who did not see them trickling down his cheeks.” He appeared always drowned in an abyss of compunction. This was always painted in most striking features on his countenance, the sight of which was, even in his silence, a moving instruction to all that beheld him. This spirit of compunction gave a singular energy to all his words and writings; it never forsakes him, even in panegyrics or in treating of subjects of spiritual joy. Where he speaks of the felicity of paradise or the sweetness of divine love in transports of overflowing hope and joy, he never lost sight of the motives of compunction, and always returns to his tears. By the continual remembrance of the last judgment he nourished in his soul this constant profound spirit of compunction.

St. Gregory of Nyssa writes, that no one can read his discourses on the last judgment without dissolving into tears, so awful is the representation, and so strong and lively the image which he paints of that dreadful day. Almost every object he saw called it afresh to his mind. The spotless purity of our saint was the fruit of his sincere humility, and constant watchfulness over himself. He says that the great St. Antony, out of modesty, would never wash his feet, or suffer any part of his body, except his face and hands, to be seen naked by any one.

St. Ephrem spent many years in the desert, collected within himself, having his mind raised above all earthly things, and living as it were out of the flesh, and out of the world, to use the expression of St. Gregory Nazianzen. His zeal drew several severe persecutions upon him from certain tepid monks, but he found a great support in the example and advice of St. Julian, whose life he has written. He lost this comfort by the death of that great servant of God; and about the same time died in 338 (not 350, as Tillemont mistakes), St. James, bishop of Nisibis, his spiritual director and patron. Not long after this, God inspired St. Ephrem to leave his own country, and go to Edessa, there to venerate the relics of the saints, by which are probably meant chiefly those of the apostle St. Thomas. He likewise desired to enjoy the conversation of certain holy anchorets who inhabited the mountains near that city, which was sometimes reckoned in Mesopotamia and sometimes in Syria. Under the weak reigns of the last of the Seleucidæ, kings of Asia, it was erected into a small kingdom by the princes called Abgars. As the saint was going into Edessa, a certain courtezan fixed her eyes upon him, which when he perceived he turned away his face, and said with indignation: “Why dost thou gaze upon me?” To which she made this smart reply. “Woman was formed from man; but you ought always to keep your eyes cast down on the earth, out of which man was framed.” St. Ephrem, whose heart was always filled with the most profound sentiments of humility, was much struck and pleased with this reflection, and admired the providence of God, which sends us admonitions by all sorts of means. He wrote a book on those words of the courtezan, which the Syrians anciently esteemed the most useful and the best of all the writings of this incomparable doctor, but it is now lost. It seems to have contained maxims of humility.

St. Ephrem lived at Edessa, highly honored by all ranks and orders of men. Being ordained deacon of that church, he became an apostle of penance, which he preached with incredible zeal and fruit. He from time to time returned into his desert, there to renew in his heart the spirit of compunction and prayer; but always came out of his wilderness, inflamed with the ardor of a Baptist, to announce the divine truths to a world buried in spiritual darkness and insensibility. The saint was educated with great natural talents, which he had improved by study and contemplation. He was a poet, and had read something of logic; but had no tincture of the rest of the Grecian philosophy. This want of the heathenish learning and profane science was supplied by his good sense and uncommon penetration, and the diligence with which he cultivated his faculties by more sublime sacred studies. He learned very accurately the doctrine of the Catholic faith, was well versed in the holy scriptures, and was a perfect master of the Syriac tongue, in which he wrote with great elegance and propriety. He was possessed of an extraordinary faculty of natural eloquence. Words flowed from him like a torrent, which yet were too slow for the impetuosity and multitude of thoughts with which he was overwhelmed in speaking on spiritual subjects. His conceptions were always clear, his diction pure and agreeable. He spoke with admirable perspicuity, copiousness, and sententiousness, in an easy unaffected style; and with so much sweetness, so pathetic a vehemence, so natural an accent, and so strong emotions of his own heart, that his words seemed to carry with them an irresistible power. His writings derive great strength from the genius and natural bold tropes of the Oriental languages applied by so great a master, and have a graceful beauty and force which no translation can attain; though his works are only impetuous effusions of an overflowing heart, not studied compositions. What recommends them beyond all other advantages of eloquence, is, they are all the language of the heart, and a heart penetrated with the most perfect sentiments of divine love, confidence, compunction, humility, and all other virtues. They present his ardent, humble, and meek soul such as it was, and show how ardently he was occupied only on the great truths of salvation; how much he humbled himself without intermission, under the almighty hand of God, infinite in sanctity and terrible in his justice; with what profound awe he trembled in the constant attention to his adorable presence, and at the remembrance of his dreadful judgment, and with what fervor he both preached and practised the most austere penance, laboring continually with all his strength “to prepare himself a treasure for the last hour,” as he expresses himself. His words strongly imprint upon the souls of others those sentiments with which he was penetrated: they carry light and conviction; they never fail to strike, and pierce to the very bottom of the soul. Nor is the fire which they kindle in the breast a passing warmth, but a flame which devours and destroys all earthly affections, transforms the soul into itself, and continues without abating, the lasting force of its activity.[75] “Who that is proud,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, “would not become the humblest of men by reading his discourse on humility? Who would not be inflamed with a divine fire by reading his treatise on charity? Who would not wish to be chaste in heart and spirit, by reading the praises he has given to virginity?”

The saint, though most austere to himself, was discreet in the direction of others, and often repeated this advice, that it is a dangerous stratagem of the enemy to induce fervent converts to embrace in the beginning excessive mortifications.[76] Wherefore it behooves them not to undertake without prudent counsel any extraordinary practices of penance; but always such in which they will be able to persevere with constancy and cheerfulness. Who ever laid on a child a burden of a hundred pounds weight, under which he is sure to fall?

St. Ephrem brought many idolaters to the faith, and converted great numbers of Arians, Sabellians, and other heretics. Saint Jerom commends a book which he wrote against the Macedonians, to prove the divinity of the Holy Ghost. He established the perfect efficacy of penance against the Novatians, who, though the boldest and most insolent of men, seemed like children without strength before this experienced champion, as St. Gregory of Nyssa assures us. Not less glorious were his triumphs over the Millenarians, Marcionites, Manichees, and the disciples of the impious Bardesanes, who denied the resurrection of the flesh, and had in the foregoing century spread his errors at Edessa, by songs which the people learned to sing. St. Ephrem, to minister a proper antidote against this poison, composed elegant Catholic songs and poems which he taught the inhabitants both of the city and country with great spiritual advantage. Apollinaris began openly to broach his heresy a little before the year 376, denying in Christ a human soul, which he pretended that the divine person supplied in the humanity: whence it would have followed that he was not truly man, but only assumed a human body, not the complete human nature. St. Ephrem was then very old, but he opposed this new monster with great vigor. Several heresies he crushed in their birth, and he suffered much from the fury of the Arians under Constantius, and of the Heathens under Julian, but in both these persecutions reaped glorious laurels and trophies.

It was by a divine admonition, as himself assures us,[77] that about the year 372, he undertook a long journey to pay a visit to Basil. Being arrived at Cæsarea he went to the great church, where he found the holy bishop preaching. After the sermon, St. Basil sent for him, and asked him by an interpreter, if he was not Ephrem the servant of Christ.[78] “I am that Ephrem,” said he, “who have wandered astray from the path of heaven.” Then melting into tears, and raising his voice, he cried out,--“O my father, have pity on a sinful wretch, and lead me into the narrow path.” St. Basil gave him many rules of holy life, and after long spiritual conferences dismissed him with great esteem, having first ordained his companion priest. St. Ephrem himself never would consent to be promoted to the sacerdotal dignity, of which he expresses the greatest dread and apprehension, in his sermon on the priesthood.[79] Being returned to Edessa he retired to a little solitary cell, where he prepared himself for his last passage, and composed the latter part of his works. For, not content to labor for the advantage of one age, or one people, he studied to promote that of all mankind, and all times to come. The public distress under a great famine called him again out of his retirement in order to serve, and procure relief for the poor. He engaged the rich freely to open their coffers, placed beds for the sick in all the public porticos, visited them every day, and served them with his own hands. The public calamity being over, he hastened back to his solitude, where he shortly after sickened of a fever. He wrote about that time his seventy-six Paræneses or moving exhortations to penance, consisting in a great measure of most effective prayers; several of which are used by the Syrians in their Church office. His confidence in the precious fruits of the holy sacrament of the altar raised his hope, and inflamed his love, especially in his passage to eternity. Thus he expresses himself:[80] “Entering upon so long and dangerous a journey I have my viaticum, even Thee, O Son of God. In my extreme spiritual hunger, I will feed on thee, the repairer of mankind. So it shall be that no fire will dare to approach me; for it will not be able to bear the sweet saving odor of thy body and blood.” The circumstances of our saint’s death are edifying and deserve our notice. For nothing more strongly affects our heart, or makes on it a more sensible impression, than the behavior and words of great men in their last moments.

St. Ephrem was always filled with grief, indignation, and confusion when he perceived others to treat him as a saint, or to express any regard or esteem for him. In his last sickness he laid this strict injunction on his disciples and friends:[81] “Sing no funeral hymns at Ephrem’s burial: suffer no encomiastic oration. Wrap not my carcase in any costly shroud: erect no monument to my memory. Allow me only the portion and place of a pilgrim; for I am a pilgrim and a stranger as all my fathers were on earth.” Seeing that several persons had prepared rich shrouds for his interment, he was much afflicted, and he charged all those who had such a design to drop it, and give the money to the poor, which he in particular obliged a rich nobleman, who had bought a most sumptuous shroud for that purpose, to do. St. Ephrem, as long as he was able to speak, continued to exhort all men to the fervent pursuit of virtue, as his last words sufficiently show, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, meaning the saint’s Testament, which is still extant genuine, and the same that was quoted by St. Gregory, Sozomen, &c. In it he says: “I Ephrem die. Be it known to you all that I write this Testament to conjure you always to remember me in your prayers after my decease.”[82] This he often repeats. He protests that he had always lived in the true faith, to which he exhorts all most firmly to adhere. Deploring and confessing aloud the vanity and sinfulness of his life, he adjures all present that no one would suffer his sinful dust to be laid under the altar, and that no one would take any of his rags for relics, nor show him any honor, for he was a sinner and the last of creatures. “But,” says he, “throw my body hastily on your shoulders, and cast me into my grave, as the abomination of the universe. Let no one praise me; for I am full of confusion, and the very abstract of baseness. To show what I am, rather spit upon me, and cover my body with phlegm. Did you smell the stench of my actions, you would fly from me, and leave me unburied, not being able to bear the horrible corruption of my sins.” He forbids any torches or perfumes, ordering his corpse to be thrown into the common burying-place among poor strangers. He expresses most feeling sentiments of compunction, and gives his blessing to his disciples, with a prediction of divine mercy in their favor; but excepts two among them, Aruad and Paulonas, both persons famed for eloquence; yet he foresaw that they would afterward apostatize from the Catholic faith. The whole city was assembled before the saint’s door, every one being bathed in tears; and all strove to get as near to him as possible, and to listen to his last instructions. A lady of great quality named Lamprotata, falling at his feet, begged his leave to buy a coffin for his interment; to which he assented, on condition that it should be a very mean one, and that the lady would promise to renounce all vanities in a spirit of penance, and never again to be carried on the shoulders of men, or in a chair; all which she cheerfully engaged herself to perform. The saint, having ceased to speak, continued in silent prayer till he calmly gave up his soul to God. He died in a very advanced age about the year 378. His festival was kept at Edessa immediately after his death. On it St. Gregory of Nyssa soon after spoke his panegyric at the request of one Ephrem, who having been taken captive by the Ismaelites had recommended himself to this saint his patron, and had been wonderfully delivered from his chains and from many dangers. St. Gregory closes his discourse with this address to the saint. “You are now assisting at the divine altar, and before the prince of life with the angels, praising the most holy Trinity: remember us all, and obtain for us the pardon of our sins.” The true Martyrology of Bede calls the 9th of July the day of his deposition; which agrees with Palladius, who places his death in harvest-time, though the Latins have long kept his festival on the 1st of February, and the Greeks on the 28th of January. His perpetual tears, far from disfiguring his face, made it appear more serene and beautiful, and his very aspect raised the veneration of all who beheld him. The Greeks paint him very tall, bent with old age, of a sweet and beautiful countenance, with his eyes swimming in tears, and the venerable marks of sanctity in his looks and habit.

Saint Austin says, that Adam in paradise praised God and did not sigh; but in our present state, a principal function of our prayer consists in sighs and compunction. Divine love, as St. Gregory observes,[83] our banishment from God, our dangers, our past sins, our daily offences, and the weight of our own spiritual miseries, and those of the whole world, call upon us continually to weep, at least spiritually and in the desire of our heart, if we cannot always with our eyes. Every object round about us suggests many motives to excite our tears. We ought to mingle them even with our hymns of praise and love. Can we make an act of divine love without being pierced with bitter grief and contrition, reflecting that we have been so base and ungrateful as to have offended our infinitely good God? Can we presume without trembling to sing his praises with our impure affections, or to pronounce his adorable name with our defiled lips? And do we not first endeavor by tears of compunction to wash away the stains of our souls, begging to be sprinkled and cleansed by hyssop dipped, not in the blood of sheep or goats, but in the blood of the spotless lamb who died to take away the sins of the world? If the most innocent among the saints weeps continually from motives of holy love, how much more ought the sinner to mourn! “The voice of the turtle hath been heard in our land.”[84] If the turtle, the emblem of innocence and fidelity, makes its delight to mourn solitary in this desert, what ought not the unfaithful soul to do? The penitent sinner, instead of the sighs of the turtle, ought to pour forth his grief in loud groans, imitating the doleful cries of the ostrich, and in torrents of tears, by which the deepest sorrow for having offended so good a God, forces his broken heart to give it vent.

ON THE WRITINGS OF SAINT EPHREM.

The first volume of the Vatican edition of this father’s
works begins with his sermon On Virtues and Vices. He
expresses in it a surprise to see the full seek food from
him who was empty, and says he is confounded to speak,
seeing every word would accuse and condemn himself.
However, trembling, he recommends to his hearers the fear
of God; charity, by which we are meek, patient, tender to
all, desirous to serve, give to all; hope, and longanimity,
by which we bear all; patience, meekness, sweetness to all;
inviolable love of truth in the smallest things, obedience,
temperance, &c., and speaks against all the contrary vices,
envy, detraction, &c.