II
LIBRARY
Brigham Young University
FROM
Call No.
itir- ^®M«o
IcEa?
* (Jc
THE
JLtDes of tl)e faints
REV. S. BARING-GOULD
SIXTEEN VOLUMES
VOLUME THE FIFTH
-^
New naition
f6Dl
mm
VOLUME THl
u
j:
K > -'^
*71
I
^~~
-*
THE
litiefi of tf)e faints;
BY THE
REV. S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.
New Edition in i6 Volumes
Revised with Introduction and Additional Lives of
English Martyrs, Cornish and Welsh Saints,
and a full Index to the Entire Work.
ILLUSTRATED BY OVER 400 ENGRAVINGS
VOLUME THE FIFTH
JHa2
131180
LONDON JOHN C. NIMMO
14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND MDCCCXCVII
*-
-*
Printed hy Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. At the Ballantyne Press
*-
-*
CONTENTS
A
PAGE
SS. Achilles and comp. . 158
B. Alcuin 263
S. Aldhelm .... 346
„ Alexander I., Pope. 54
SS. Alexander and comp. 418
S. Amator 11
SS. Andrew and comp.. 205
S. Angela of Merici . 430
Apparition of S. Michael 1 1 5
S. Asaph 16
,, Athanasius the Great 29
„ Augustine .... 3S4
„ Avia 94
B
S. Basilla 306
,, Beatus 136
,, Bede the Venerable 398 „ Benedict II., Pope . 108
PACE
S. Bernardine . . . 309 ,, Boniface of Tarsus . 191 „ Boniface IV., Pope. 345 ,, Brendan of Clonfert 217
„ Brioch 20
„ Britwin of Beverley 213
|
s. |
Caesarea . . . . |
211 |
|
SS. |
Calepodius and |
|
|
comp |
139 |
|
|
,J |
Cantius, Cantianus, |
|
|
and Cantianilla . |
428 |
|
|
s. |
Carantog . . . . |
21S |
|
5> |
Caraunus . . . . |
408 |
|
,, |
Carnech - . . . |
214 |
|
J) |
Carthagh of Lis- |
|
|
more |
196 |
|
|
,, |
Comgall . . . . |
141 |
|
SS. |
Conon and Son . . |
417 |
1^-
-*
*-
-^
VI
Contents
S. Constantine, Em- peror .... 314 SS. Ctesiphon and
comp 204
D
S. Desiderius of Lan-
gres 334
„ Desiderius of Vienne 335
SS. Dionysia and comp. 205
S. Domitian .... 108
,, Dunstan, Abp. . . 276
SS. Dymphnaand Gere-
bern 207
S. Eadbert .... 96
„ Elfgyva 254
B. Elizabeth of Hun- gary 100
SS. Epimachus and
Gordian . . . 141 S. Epiphanius . . . 164
„ Erick 256
„ Ethelbert .... 308 „ Evermar .... 24 ,, Evodius .... 93
S. Felix of Cantalice . 258 „ Felix of Spalato . . 253 „ Ferdinand III., K. . 421
„ Fidolus 216
,, Flavia Domitilla . 106 SS. Flavia Domitilla
and comp. . . .158 S. Francis of Girolamo 156 „ Frederick of Liege . 405 „ Fremund . . . .154
PAGE
SS. Gerebern and Dym-
phna 207
S. Germain of Paris . 412 „ Germanus of Con- stantinople . .174
„ Gibrian 114
B. Gizur of Skalholt . 413 S. Glyceria . . . .181 „ Godrick .... 322 SS. Gordian and Epi- machus .... 141 S. Gothard of Hilde-
sheim .... 73 „ Gregory Nazianzen 125 ,, Gregory VII., Pope 350
H S. Hallvard . . . „ Heliconis . . . ,, Hermas ,, Hermias . SS. Hesperius and Zoe S. Hilary of Aries .
202 407 124 428 28 75
I
S. Iduberga . . . .116 SS. Injuriosus and Scho-
lastica .... 344 Invention of the Cross . 56
S. Isberga 320
„ Isidora 10
,, Isidore 146
„ Itta 116
S. Gengulf . . . .151 B. Gerard 187
J
S. James the Less . ,, John I., Pope „ John of Beverley „ John Damascene ,, John of Nepomuk „ John the Silentiary ,, Judas or Quiriacus
„ Julia
„ Julius ....
5
395
109
96
185 64
394
*-
-^
^-
-*
Contents
vu
S. Kellach
B. SS.
M
Madern .... 239 Majolus . . . .154 Mamertius . . -150 Marculf .... 15 Marianna of Jesus . 392 Martyriusandcomp. 418 Martyrs of Alex- andria . . . .181 Martyrs of Nismes . 312 Mary Magdalen of
Pazzi 38 1
Maurontius ... 78 Maximus of Jeru- salem .... 74 Maximus and Vener- andus .... 343 S. Michael, Apparition
of 115
„ Mochudaof Lismore 196 „ Monica 67
N SS. Nereus and comp. 158
O
SS,
|
P |
^^ |
|
|
S. |
Pachomius . . . |
192 |
|
)) |
Pancras . . , . |
IS9 |
|
11 |
Paschal Baylon . . |
242 |
|
11 |
Paschal I., Pope |
199 |
|
SS. |
Pasicrates and Va- |
|
|
lentio . . . . |
342 |
|
|
Paul and comp. . , |
20s |
|
|
s. |
Pelagia |
66 |
|
Peter Celestine . . |
288 |
|
|
Peter of Tarentaise |
117 |
|
|
SS. |
Peter and comp. |
205 |
|
VOL. V. |
PAGE
S. Petronilla .... 427 Philip of Agyra . .161 Philip, Ap. . . . I Philip Neri . . . 391 Pius v., Pope . . 80
Pontius 188
SS. Pudens and Puden-
tiana 262
Q
S. Quadratus . „ Quiriacus . „ Quiteria
R
S. Restituta ,, Rictrudis „ Rolenda
383
64
333
238 170 187
SS. Scholastica and In-
juriosus .... 344
,, Secundus and comp. 319
S. Servatus of Tongres 183
,, Sigismund. ... 17
„ Simon Stock . . . 226
SS. Sisinnius and comp. 418
S. Solangia .... 145
,, Stanislaus of Cracow no
,, Sylvanus of Gaza . 66
T
SS. Thallelceus and
comp 307
S. Theodard .... 25 SS. Theodotus and
comp 245
S. Theodulus the Sty- lite 409
SS. Timothy and Maura 55
S. Torpes 237
SS. Torquatus and comp. 204
S. Theodosia .... 420 b
>i<-
-^
*^-
-*
Vlll
Contents
u
PAGE
S. Ubald . . . , . 223 „ Urban I., Pope . . 341
S. Venantius .... 244 SS. Venerandus and
Maximus . . . 343 S. Vincent of Lerins . ^^7
W
PAGE
S. William of Roches- ter 336
„ Wiro 116
S. Yvo
301
SS. Zoe and Hesperus . 28
*-
-*
»J< >J<
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Canterbury Cathedral .... Fro7itispiece
S. Marculf = tofacep. 14
After Cahier.
S. Bertha .,,.... ,,24
After Cahier.
S. Athanasius ), 32
From a Picture by DOMINICHINO in the Church of Grot ta Ferrata, near Rome.
S. Helena (Invention of the Cross) . „ 56
Cross from S. Mauritius at Munster . . on p. 93
Group of Angels » 113
S. Solangia tofacep. 144
After Cahier.
S. Isidore ...... „ 148
After Cahier.
Font in the Cathedral at Hildesheim. . on p. 157
S. Hugo and the B. Gerard . . . to face p. 186
In Festo Beate Maria Virginis Titulo
AuxiLiUM Christianorum ... „ 192
From the Vienna Missal. ix
*-
*
List of Illustrations
S. Paschal, Pope {see p. 199)
From a Mosaic.
S. John of Nepomuk
S. Felix of Cantalice
After Cahier. S. PUDENTIANA AND S. PRAXEDIS RENDERING
their last services to the martyred Saints . . ....
From the Church of Sta. Pudetitienna at Rome.
S. Yvo
After Cahiek.
S. DUNSTAN {see p. 288) ....
S. Bernardine of Siena After Cahier.
The Conversion of Constantine
After ]\3-LY.'~, ROMAIN.
The Baptism of Constantine
S Aldhelm {see p. 346) ...
S. Augustine, Abp. Canterbury.
From a Drawing by A. Welby Pugin.
S. Bede the Venerable The Ascension ...
From the Vienna Missal.
The Ascension
After Giotto's Fresco in the Arena at Padua.
. 071 p. 203
to face p. 232 258
262
304
. on p. 305 to face p. 310
314
|
)) |
316 |
|
. on |
A 331 |
|
to face |
^•384 |
|
>) |
402 |
|
» |
426 |
428
*-
-*
^ >jl
Lives of the Saints.
May 1.
Jeremiah, Prophet, slain in Egypt.
S. Philip, Ap. M. at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, ist cent.
S. James the Less, ^/., B.Iil. ofyentsaletn, ist cent.
S Andeolus, M. in the Vivarais, in France, a.d. 207.
SS. AcHius AND AcHEOLUS, MM. at Amiens.
S. IsiDORA, V. at Tabenna, in Egypt.
S. Amator, B. of Awxerre, a.d. 418.
S. Oriens, B. of Anch, in France, a.d. 439.
S. Africanus, B. ofCo}>uni?iges, 6tk cent.
S. Marculf, Ai. at Coutances, in Normandy, circ. A.D. 558.
S. SiGisMUND, K.H. at S. Maurice, in the Valais, a.d. 524.
S. Asaph, B. in Wales, end of 6th cent.
S. Brioch, B. in Brittany, about 6th cent.
S. Theodulus, Ab. ofS. Thierzy, at Rheiins, end of 6th cent.
S. Kellach, B. in It-eland, -jth cent.
S. Aregius, B. of Gap, circ. a.d. 610.
S. Bertha, Abss. V.M. at Avenay, in the diocese of Chalons-sur-Marne,
■jth cent. S. Ultan, Ab. of Fosses, near Pero>ine, circ. a.d. 680. S. Evermar, M. at Tongri:s, in Belgium, circ. a.d. 700. S. Theodard, Archb. of Narbonne, circ. P^.Vi. 893. S. ViVALD, H. at Montajone, in Tuscatiy, circ. A.D. 1310.
S. PHILIP, AP. M. (ist cent.)
[Roman Martyrology. That attributed to S. Jerome, Bede, Hrabanus, Usuardus, Ado, Notker. Ancient and Reformed Anglican Kalendars. By the Greeks on Nov. 14th, also by Copts. The Acts are apocryphal, but may, and probably do contain some foundation of truth. The testi- mony of Papias and Polycrates, quoted by Eusebius, may, however, be relied on ; Papias had spoken with the daughters of S. Philip.]
AINT PHILIP was born at Bethsaida, a town
near the Sea of Tiberias, the city of SS. Andrew
and Peter. Of his parents and way of Hfe
the Gospel history takes no notice, though
probably he was a fisherman — the ordinary trade of that
VOL. V. I
* ^
2 Lives of the Saints. [May i.
place. He had the honour of being first called to the discipleship, which thus came to pass : — Our Lord soon after His return from the wilderness, having met with S. Andrew and his brother S. Peter, after some short dis- course parted from them ; and the very next day, as He was passing through Galilee, He found S. Philip, whom He presently commanded to follow Him ; so that He had the prerogative of being the first of our Lord's disciples. For though SS. Andrew and Peter were the first that came to and conversed with Christ, yet they immediately returned to their trade again, and were not called to the discipleship till above a whole year after, when S. John the Baptist was cast into prison.
S. Clement of Alexandria reports, as a well-known fact, that S. Philip was the one who asked Christ to be allowed to first go and bury his father, before he followed Him, and received from Christ the answer, " Let the dead bury their dead." (Matt. viii. 22.)
It is related that, in the distribution of the several regions of the world made by the Apostles, Upper Asia was allotted to S. Philip as his province, where he applied him- self with indefatigable diligence and industry to recover men out of the snare of the devil, to the embracing and acknowledgment of the truth. By the constancy of his preaching and the efficacy of his miracles, he gained numerous converts, whom he baptized into the Christian faith, at once curing both souls and bodies, dispossessing demons, settling churches and appointing pastors to them. Having for many years successfully exercised his apostolical office in all those parts, he came at length to Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a rich and prosperous city, but a stronghold of idolatry. Amongst the many false gods to which adoration was there paid was a huge serpent. S. Philip was troubled to see the people so wretchedly enslaved to error, and,
^- _ 4
May I.] iS. Philip. 3
therefore, continually besought God, till by prayer and calling upon the name of Jesus Christ, he had procured the death of the monster. Upon this S. Philip took occasion to convince the people of the vainness of their superstitions with such success that many renounced their errors. Enraged at this, the magistrates of the city seized the apostle, and having cast him into prison caused him to be severely scourged. After this preparatory cruelty he was led to execution, and having been bound, he was hung up by the neck against a pillar ; though others relate that he was crucified. It is further recorded that at his exe- cution the earth began suddenly to quake, and the ground whereon the people stood to sink under them ; but when they perceived this and bewailed it as an evident act of Divine vengeance pursuing them for their sins, it as suddenly stopped and went no further. The apostle being dead; his body was taken down by S. Bartholomew — his fellow-sufiferer, afterwards executed — and Mariamne, S. Philip's sister (who is said to have been the constant companion of his travels), and decently buried; after which, having confirmed the people in the faith of Christ, they departed from them. S. Philip was married, and had several daughters. Some of them, says Clement of Alex- andria, were married.^ Two lived single, and died at a great age, and were buried at Hierapolis, as we learn from Polycrates, quoted by Eusebius;^ another was buried at Ephesus.'' Sozomen says that the daughters of Philip raised a dead man to life;^ but Papias, whom Eusebius quotes, speaks also of this resurrection, which he says he heard from their lips, but does not say that they raised the man to Ufe.»
The fact of S. Philip having had daughters has led some
» Stromata III. * Hist. Eccl. iii. c. 31. » Ibid. « Hist. Eccl.vii. 27. 5 Hist. Eccl. iii. 39.
^ — *
4 Z wes of the Saints. [May i.
writers to confound him with PhiUp the Deacon, who lived at Csesarea, and of whose four virgin daughters mention is made in the Acts of the Holy Apostles. He was one of the apostles who left no sacred writings behind him, the greater part of the aposdes, as Eusebius observes, having little leisure to write books, through being employed in ministries more immediately useful and subservient to the happiness of mankind. But S. Epiphanius relates that the Gnostics were wont to produce a Gospel forged under S. Philip's name, which they abused to the furthering of their strange heresies.
S. Philip appears "young and beardless" in the Greek paintings ; in Western art he is generally in the prime of life, but with little beard. He usually carries in his hand a long staff, surmounted by a cross ; sometimes it is in the Tail form, and more rarely a double cross ; he often bears a basket with loaves and fishes, in allusion to S. John
vi. 5-7-
The arm of S. PhiHp was translated in 1204 from Con- stantinople to Florence, where it is still shewn. The crown of his head is at Troyes, obtained at the same time, other relics are at Toulouse. The body of the saint is preserved in the church of the Apostles Philip and James, at Rome, which was dedicated by Pope John IH. In Cyprus, however, the head is preserved together with several bones; one of the bones was removed in 1616, and taken to Naples. But another head was given by John ni., duke of Berr}', son of King John II. of France, to the cathedral church of Notre Dame at Paris. Another head is shewn in Portugal, at Montemayor, in the church of S. Francis. This was given to Don Fernando Mascarenhas, envoy of king Sebastian to the council of Trent, by the Pope.
The Emperor Charles IV. obtained many relics of S. Philip, which he gave to the churches of Prague, amongst
* ij,
»J< ,J<
May I.] S. James the Less, 5
others an arm of the apostle. This arm and another head of S. Philip were brought from Rome in 1355. But the head, and one whole arm, and a portion of another, are shewn in the monastery church of Andechs or Heiligen-Berg, near the Ammer-See, in Bavaria. In 1148, Pope Eugenius III. consecrated the church of S. Matthias, at Treves, and relics of S. Philip were then given to it. Gelenius says that relics of the same apostle are preserved in ten or more of the churches in Cologne.
The Spanish historians and martyrologists affirm, without a shadow of evidence, that the Greeks whom S. Philip brought to S. Andrew, and S. Andrew to our Lord (John xii. 20), consisted of a party of Spaniards.
S. JAMES THE LESS, AP.
(iST CENT.)
[Roman Martyrology, Anglican Reformed Kalendar. By Copts on Feb. 4th, by Maronites on Oct. 9th. In the Egyptian Kalendars, pub- lished by Selden, on the loth and 12th Feb. By the Russian Church on Oct. 9th, and on the same day by the Greeks. By the ancient Roman and almost all the old Latin Martyrologies on June 22nd. He is sometimes called "James the Lord's Brother," and sometimes "James the son of Alphseus." Some think that these were two distinct persons, and that the festivals are for each. S. James the Great was the son of Zebedee, and was a third person. Authorities : — Besides mention in the Gospels, Hegesippus quoted by Eusebius.]
The parentage of S. James is so confused that it is impossible to decide with anything approaching to certainty who was his father, and what was his relationship to our Blessed Lord. The term brother, applied to him by the Evangelists, is of wide significance, and it may mean that he was a son of Joseph by a former wife, or that he was a cousin, the son of Alphaeus, who married the sister of the
^ _ ^
Blessed Virgin Mary. The reader is referred to what has already been said on this topic in the article on Mary the wife of Cleopas (April 9th). Of the birth-place of S. James the sacred story makes no mention. In the Talmud he is more than once styled " a man of the town of Sechania." No distinct account is given of him during our Saviour's ministry until after His Resurrection, when S. James was honoured with a special appearance of our Lord to him, which, though silently passed over by the Evangelists, is recorded by S. Paul- — next to the manifesting Himself to the five hundred brethren at once, "He was seen of James," Of this S. Jerome (September 30th) gives a fuller relation out of the Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarenes (see Life of S. Matthew, September 21st), viz. : That S. James had solemnly sworn that from the time that he had drunk of the Cup at the Last Supper, he would eat bread no more till he saw the Lord risen from the dead. Our Lord, there- fore, being returned from the grave, came and appeared to him, commanded bread to be set before him, which He took, blessed, and brake, and gave to S. James, saying, " Eat thy bread, my brother, for the Son of Man is truly risen from among them that sleep." After Christ's Ascen- sion he was chosen bishop of Jerusalem, preferred before all the rest for his near relationship unto Christ ; and this was afterwards the reason why Simeon was chosen to be his immediate successor in that see, because he was, after S. James, our Lord's next kinsman. This consideration made S. Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, though they had been peculiarly honoured by our Saviour, not contend for this high and honouraljle place, but freely choose James the Just to be its bishop. It was to S. James that S. Paul made his address after his conversion, and was by him honoured with the right hand of fellowship ; to him S.
Peter sent the news of his miraculous deliverance out of I *—— -^)^
u.
Mayi.] 6". James the Less. 7
prison, "Go show these things unto James and to the brethren." S. James presided at the Synod at Jerusalem in the great controversy about the Mosaic rites ; and thereat passed the final and decretory sentence that the Gentile converts were not to be troubled with the bondage of the Jewish yoke. He exercised his office with all possible care and industry, omitting no part of a diligent and faithful guide of souls, strengthening the weak, informing the ignorant, reducing the erroneous, reproving the obstinate, and by the constancy of his preaching, conquering the stubbornness of that perverse and refractory generation with which he had to deal, many of the nobler and the better sort being brought over from Judaism to the Christian Faith, He was so careful, so successful in his charge, that it stirred up the malice of enemies to con. spire his ruin. Not being able to affect this under the government of Festus, they more eff"ectually attempted it before the assumption of the procuratorship by his successor, Aibinus. Ananias the Younger, then high priest, and of the sect of the Sadducees, resolved to despatch him before the new governor could arrive. To this end a council was hastily summoned, and the apostle, with some others, arraigned and condemned as violators of the law. But that the thing might be carried on in a more plausible way, they set the Scribes and Pharisees at work to ensnare him ; and they, coming to him, began by flattering insinuations to entrap him. They told him that they all had great confidence in him, and that the whole nation as well as themselves regarded him as a most just man, and one who was no respecter of persons ; that, therefore, they desired he would correct the errors into which the people had fallen, who regarded Jesus as the Messiah, and they desired to take the oppor- tunity of the congress to the Paschal solemnity, to have them set right in their notions about these things. For
^ ^
8 Lives of tJie Saints. [Mayi.
this purpose they undertook to place him on the top of the Temple, where he might be seen and heard by all. On the day appointed, being advantageously placed upon a pinnacle or wing of the Temple, the Scribes thus addressed him : "Tell us, O Justus ! whom we have all the reason in the world to believe, that seeing the people are thus generally led away with the doctrine of Jesus that was crucified, tell us what is this institution of the crucified Jesus." To which the apostle answered in an audible voice, "Why do ye inquire of Jesus, the Son of Man? He sits in heaven, on the right hand of the Majesty on High, and will come again in the clouds of heaven." The people below hearing this, glorified the blessed Jesus, and shouted, " Hosanna to the Son of David!"
The Scribes and Pharisees perceiving now that they had overshot their mark, and that instead of reclaiming, they had confirmed the people in their reverence for Christ, saw that there was no way left but to despatch James at once, in order that by his sad fate others might be warned not to believe him. Whereupon, suddenly crying out that Justus himself was seduced and become an impostor, they threw him down from the place where he stood. Though bruised, he was not killed by the fall, but recovered sufficient strength to get upon his knees and pray for them. A Rechabite who stood by, who Epiphanius says was Simeon, the apostle's kinsman and successor, then stepped in and entreated the Jews to spare him, a just and righteous man, and who was then praying for them. But they cast a shower of stones upon S. James, till one, more mercifully cruel than the rest, beat out his brains with a fuller's club. Thus died the holy aposde in the year of grace 62, in the ninety-sixth year of his age, and about twenty-four years after our Lord's Ascension, taken away, as we are told by Josephus, to the great grief and regret of all good men, yea
*-
-*
* -— ^
May I.] 6'. y antes the Less. 9
of all sober and just persons, even among the Jews themselves. S. Gregory, of Tours, relates that S. James was buried upon Mount Olivet in a tomb which he had built for himself, and wherein he had buried Zacharias and S. Simeon.
The Catholic Epistle of S. James, his only authentic work, was probably written not long before his martyrdom, as appears by some passages in it relating to the near ap- proaching ruin of the Jewish nation. Besides this Epistle there is a Gospel ascribed to him, called the Pro^^^evangelium, containing the early life of our Lord and of His Mother. This book is, however, certainly apocryphal. It can in no case have been written before the 2nd century, and in its actual form it belongs to a later century. It is full of blunders and inconsistencies.
S. James the Less is generally represented with a club of peculiar shape, called the fuller's bat, which was the instru- ment of his martyrdom. According to an early tradition he so nearly resembled our Lord in person, in features, and in deportment, that it was difficult to distinguish them, and a touching legend says that this exact resemblance rendered necessary the kiss of the traitor Judas in order to point out his Victim to the soldiers.
The body of S. James the Less was taken from Jerusalem, where it was buried, and carried to Constantinople. The head is now shown at Compostella, in Spain, brought from Jerusalem by the Bishop Didacus Gelmirez in the 13th century.
But the head is claimed as possessed also by the church of S. Marrie de Mare, at Camargo, in Provence. A jaw is preserved at Forli, in Italy ; another portion of the head at Ancona ; an arm at Gembloux, in Belgium. But the relics of S. James are said to have been found in 1395 on Monti Grigiano, near Verona. The body is preserved in the
ij»— )j,
ij« _(jr
lO Lives of the Saints. [Ma> i.
church of SS. Philip and James at Rome, together with that of S. Philip, in the high altar, but the arm is separately enshrined, and is exhibited there on this day. The head and other relics, according to Saussaye, were at Toulouse, and at Langres was an arm of S. James. Three portions of the skull are in the church of S. Charles, at Antwerp.
S. ISIDORA, V. (date uncertain.)
[Greek Mensea. Authority : — Mention in the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, as related by S. Basil. J
In a convent of religious women at Tabenna, in Upper Egypt, was a sister named Isidora, whom the rest of the nuns regarded as half-witted, and they despised her, played her tricks, and put all the work upon her. She had only an old tattered dish-clout over her head, and no clean veil as the rest. And they swept past in solemn order to the devotions in the church, and Isidora was left to look to the kitchen and sweep the floors. And sometimes the sisters slapped her face, and if they found her asleep for weariness, they put mustard into her nostrils, or they threw the scrapings of their plates over her. But all she bore without a murmur, and went on as the kitchen drudge as con- tentedly as if she had found her true vocation.
Now one day the aged hermit Pyoterius, who dwelt among the rocks on the bank of the Nile, saw an angel of God, who said to him, " Go to a certain convent at Tabenna and there shalt thou find an elect vessel full of the grace of God, and thou shalt know her by the crown that shines above her head." So Pyoterius went forth and tarried not till he came to the convent, and related his vision and bade the abbess bring all the sisters before him. And they
* — i^
»J< — — — — 1^
May I.] 6'. Afnator. ii
passed in order, and as each went by he said, " The Lord hath not chosen thee." Then he said, " Are there yet any more?" The superior answered, " All are here save only a half-witted creature who is kitchen-slut." " Bring her to me," said the hermit. And when Isidora came in, her gar- ments stained and dirty, with the old clout on her head, he saw the clout encircled with a thread of light, and he fell at her feet and prayed her to bless him. Then she bowed to him humbly and besought him to bless her. " And is this she whom the Lord hath chosen !" exclaimed the sisters. Then one said, " I slapped her on the face only yesterday." And another said, "I put mustard up her nose." And another said, " And I threw the scraps of my dinner at her head." And now all honoured her as a saint. But the poor cinder-slut, ashamed of the veneration she had ac- quired, fled away. And here the story ends. All we know further is, that the Mensea adds that she flew to heaven at length as a bee to its hive, laden with the honey of good works.
S. AMATOR, B. OF AUXERRE. (ad. 418.)
[All Latin Martyrologies, Roman included. The life of S. Amator was written by Stephen, an African priest, at the request of S. Aunarius, Bishop of Auxerre, A.D. 580.]
Amator was the only son of wealthy and noble parents at Auxerre, brought up in all the accomplishments suited to his birth and future prospects. When he reached manhood he was espoused to a beautiful girl of good family, named Martha. On the wedding day the old bishop of Auxerre, S. Valerian, was invited to give the nuptial benediction^ in
1 Invitatur de more religiosonim, aJ introitiim thalami, illico Valerianus Episcopus.
*-
12 Lives of the Saints. [Mayi.
the house. The historian describes at length the splendour of the adornments of the chamber and of the bride. The aged bishop, now nearly in his second childhood, took his book of prayers, and mumbled the office for the ordination of a clerk, by mistake, and the assistants were none the wiser, except Amator, who was paying close attention to the words of the childish and toothless old man. Then when all had withdrawn, he said to his girlish bride, as he took her hands in his, " Knowest thou what the bishop read from his book?" "Yes," she answered, "he blessed our union." "No, my dear one," said the young man, " he consecrated us to the Lord. And now, though he did it unwittingly, he did it not without God's will, and it may be His purpose that we should serve Him in the highest and holiest estate." So she cast herself into his arms and said, *'What thou wiliest, I will too." Then they knelt together and offered themselves of their own free-will to serve God. And there came a sweet perfume into the room, as fi-om roses. Then said Martha, "Whence comes this fragrance, my brother?" And he answered, "It is the odour of Paradise, where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God." So they went to rest, and the lamp died out in the socket, and as it became dark, Amator saw the luminous form of an angel growing out of the darkness, holding two lily crowns, which he laid on the heads of the virgin i)air.
Now during the marriage festivities, which were pro- tracted several days, the old bishop Valerian died, and in his place was chosen S. Helladius. And when the feasting was at an end, tlie young couple went to the new bishop, and disclosed to him what was their design, and when he heard them, he was filled with wonder, and he blessed them both, and Amator he consecrated deacon, and then priest, and to Martha he gave the veil, and she became a nun.
* i^
* ~ ^
May I.] 6". Amator. 13
After a few years S. Helladius was gathered to his prede- cessors in the see, and Amator was chosen by the unani- mous voice of the clergy and people to fill his vacant chair.
The chief man of Auxerre was a certain Germanus, a man of noble qualities, but not attending much to his religious duties. He was passionately fond of hunting, and he was wont to hang up the heads of the wild boars and stags he killed to the branches of a large pear tree that grew in the middle of the town. This was an old heathen custom, and was, in fact, an oblation to Woden; and as such, it gave the bishop great offence. He complained to Germanus, but the sportsman paid no attention to his remonstrances. Then Amator one day, whilst Germanus was abroad hunting, cut down the tree, and threw all the antlers and boar's heads away outside the town. Germanus was greatly incensed, and vowed vengeance against the bishop, who to escape his wrath, fled the town, and made the best of his way to Autun, to count Julius, governor of the province. He now adopted one of those extraordinary expedients to escape from the difficulty in which he had involved himself, which can only be palliated by the customs of the time in which Amator lived. He had, no doubt, formed an high opinion of Germanus, and had conceived an affection for the frank, rough noble. His wealth and position would signally aid the Church at Auxerre if he could be enlisted among the clergy; and the zeal wherewith he had pursued game, might be diverted to enthusiasm in the pursuit of souls. So thought Amator, we may presume, when he abruptly demanded of the governor his sanction to the nomination and consecration of Germanus to the episcopal throne of Auxerre in the room of himself. " For," said S. Amator, " God has re- vealed to me that my life draweth to a close." The astonished governor gave his consent, and Amator at once
4< ^
qi *
14 Lwes of the Saints.
returned to Auxerre, where Germanus was still storming at the destruction of his trophy, and vowing vengeance. Amator at once went to the church, and a crowd of people rushed after him, amongst them Germanus. " Let everyone divest himself of his weapons, and lay spear and sword outside the doors," said the bishop ; and he was obeyed. Then at a signal, the gates were closed. Instantly Amator rushed upon Germanus, caught him by the arm, and assisted by some of his clergy, dragged him to the altar steps, and then and there ordained him. Then, when silence was made, Amator called on the people to elect Germanus to be their bishop, as he who spake to them was about to die. And so it was, Amator died a few days after, and Germanus, chosen by the clergy and the people, was consecrated bishop, and ruled the see well.
S. ORIENS, B. OF AUCH. (a.d. 439.)
[Roman and Galilean Martyrologies. Authorities : — Two lives of un- certain date.]
S. Oriens, Orientius, or Orens, was born at Huescar, in the marches of Aragon. He sold his property, gave the price to the poor, and retired as a hermit to the valley of Lavedan. He became Bishop of Auch, about a.d. 419, and was sent as ambassador from Theodoric the Ostrogoth to sue for peace to the Roman general Aetius, in which he was successful. He is author of a religious poem called "Commonitorium" still extant, and died in a.d. 439, after having laboured diligently to root out the relics of paganism in his diocese.
^ ^
S. MARCULF. After Cahier.
May I.
S. MARCULF, AB.
(about A.D. 558.)
("Gallican Martyrology, Usuardus. Authorities : — Two ancient lives. Three festivals are observed in his honour in the diocese of Coutances, May ist, July 7th, Oct. nth.]
S. Marculf was born at Bayeux, and was of Frank parentage, as his name shows (Forest- wolf.) He preached in the diocese of Coutances, and obtained from king Childebert a grant of land at Nanteuil, on the coast, for a monastery. He spent every Lent in an islet off the coast. Taking with him a companion, Romardus, he visited Jersey, where he found a hermit named Helier, occupying a cave in the rock, now crowned by Elizabeth Castle. Whilst he was in Jersey a pirate fleet of Saxons appeared off the island. The natives implored the prayers of S. Marculf. A storm rose, when a large body of the pirates was advancing over the sand flats, swept some of their ships upon the Violets, a reef of sunken rocks, carried others out to sea, and the rising tide rushing over the sands, assisted the islanders in disposing of their invaders.
S. Marculf returned to Nanteuil, and made a second visit to the king. On this occasion he lay down to rest near Compiegne. A hare that was being pursued by hunters took refuge in his hood. Marculf awoke to find himself surrounded by yelping hounds. He protected the hare from them in spite of the threats of the hunters.
The relics of the saint are preserved at Corbeny, in the diocese of Laon; and it was the custom of the French kings after their coronation at Rheims, to make a pilgrim- age to Corbeny, and there after touching the relics of S. Marculf, heal those sick with king's evil. The relics were saved at the Revolution, and are now restored to their place in the church of Corbeny. When Charles X.
-*
^ — — *
]
J 6 Lives of the Saints. [May..
was crowned, in 1825, the relics were brought to the hospital of S. Marcoul, at Rheims, and the king there touched several scrofulous persons.
S. Marculf is represented touching the chin of a sick person, to represent him as the patron invoked against king's evil.
S. ASAPH, B. (6th cent.)
[Roman Martyrology, Aberdeen Breviary. Authority : — Mention in the life of S. Keiitigern.]
S. Kentigern having been expelled his see in Scotland, founded a monastery at Llan-Elwy, in North Wales. " There were assembled in this monastery," says John of Tynemouth, "no fewer than 995 brethren, who all lived under monastic discipline, serving God in great continence. Of which number, 300, who were illiterate, he appointed to till the ground, to take care of the cattle, and do other works outside the sanctuary. Other 300 he appointed to prepare the food, and perform other necessary works within the monastery, and 365 who were learned, he deputed to say the daily offices. Of these he would not suffer any, without great necessity, to leave the monas- tery ; but appointed them to attend there continually, as in God's sanctuary. Now this part of the community he divided in such manner into companies, that when one company had finished the divine service in the church, another presently entered, and began it anew; and these having ended, a third immediately succeeded them. So that by this means prayer was offered up in the church without intermission, and the praises of God were ever in their mouths.
*-
-*
May I.] 6". Sigismund. 1 7
" Among these was one named Asaph, more particularly illustrious for his descent and his beauty, who from his child- hood shone forth brightly, both with virtues and miracles. He daily endeavoured to imitate his master, S. Kentigern, in all sanctity and abstinence ; and to him the man of God bore ever a special affection, insomuch that to his prudence he committed the care of the monastery."
The story is told that one frosty bitter night, Kentigern had performed his usual discipline by standing in the cold river whilst he recited certain psalms, and when he crawled to his cell, he was so numb with cold that he thought to die. Then Asaph ran to fetch fire, that the saintly bishop might warm himself But finding no pan in which to bring the burning charcoal, and fearing to delay, he raked the fire into the lap of his woollen habit and ran and cast them down in the hearth before the frozen saint.
S. Asaph became abbot, when S. Kentigern returned to Glasgow, and was also consecrated bishop, and converted Llan-Elwy into the seat of his diocese in North Wales.
S. SIGISMUND, K. H.
(a.d. 524.)
r Roman and GallicanMartyrologies. Usuardus, Ado, Notker, Hrabanus. Authorities : — S. Gregory of Tours in his Hist. Francorum, cc. 5 and 6.]
S. Sigismund was the son of Gundebald, king of Bur- gundy. He was converted from Arianism by S. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, in 515. His father died in 516, and thereupon he ascended the throne. Sigismund was a muni- ficent benefactor to the monastery of Agaunum or S. Maurice in the Valais, which he may be said to have founded, though religious men dwelt there before, yet it is probable that they inhabited the cave in the precipice
VOL. V. 2
-*
above the town, which is still a hermitage. The stately tower of the abbey church in part dates from the foundation of S. Sigismund. S. Avitus preached at the dedication of the monastery.^
But Sigismund, if imbued with strong religious feelings, was not without frantic outbursts of barbarian rage, in one of which he was guilty of a horrible crime, which embittered the rest of his life. His first wife was Astrogotha or Amal- berga, the daughter of Theodoric the Goth, king of Italy, by whom he had a son named Sigeric. On her death, he married another wife, probably of inferior rank. The lad Sigeric bore his step-mother no warm love, and seeing her one day wearing the clothes of his own mother, burst forth into an angry exclamation of " Your mistress's clothes do not become the back of her servant !" His step-mother never forgave this remark, and schemed his death. She gradually worked upon the feelings of her husband, awaken- ing his fears of the power and ambition of Theodoric, and then pretending to discover a plot of the king of Italy to dethrone Sigismund and set up Sigeric in his place. The Burgundian king gave way to his ferocious passion, and in the blindness of his jealousy ordered the death of his son. A thong was slipped by two young men round the neck of Sigeric, as he slept, and the prince was strangled. No sooner was the crime committed, than the most agonizing remorse took possession of the king. He cast himself on the body of his son, and bathed the dead face with his tears. "Weep not for him, for he is at rest," said an old courtier standing by; "but weep, sire, for thyself, that by ill advice thou hast become a murderer of thy son." The king
' One cannot sufficiently deplore the barbarous way in which this venerable church has of late years been renovated, so that by the mean gim-crack tracery of the windows and wali-paper embellishments of the interior every token of dignity and religious gravity has lieen swept away.
*-
-*
-*
May I.] ,5'. Sigismund. 19
hastened to Agaunum, and remained in the monastery for some time fasting and weeping. He prayed in his sorrow that God would punish him in this world rather than in the next. The storm that was to overwhelm him was already gathering. Clothildis, wife of Clovis I., king of the Franks, was the daughter of Chilperic, king of Burgundy, who had been put to death, together with his wife and two sons, by Gundebald, the father of Sigismund. Consequently Clothildis not only desired to revenge the death of her father and brothers, but also laid claim to the kingdom of Burgundy. She, therefore, instigated her sons, Chlodomer, king of Orleans, Childebert, king of Paris, and Clothaire, king of Soissons, against Sigismund, and gathering an army, they advanced against him, and his brother Gondomar fled. The Burgundian army was routed, and Sigismund endeavoured to find refuge at Agaunum ; but was overtaken in a forest with his wife and her sons, and Chlodomer carried them back with him captives to Orleans. Gondomar collected the dispersed army of his brother and recovered Burgundy. Chlodomer in the following year, 524, marched into Bur- gundy against Gondomar ; but, before starting, flung Sigis- mund, his wife and her sons, into a well at Columelle, near Orleans, saying, "I am not going to leave my enemy behind my back." As he advanced he called his half- brother, Theodoric, King of Belgic Gaul, to his aid.
Theodoric had married Suavigotha, the daughter of Sigismund, and though he pretended to be ready to assist Chlodomer, he resolved to revenge the death of his father- in-law, and at the same time advance his own ambition. In a battle engaged with Gondomar, he went over to the enemy, and Chlodomer fell.
The body of S. Sigismund was taken to S. Maurice, and there buried. It was removed to the Cathedral of Prague by the Emperor Charles IV. Of this there is abundant
-*
^-
20 Lives of the Samts. [Mayi.
historical evidence. But the head is preserved at Plock on the Vistula, in Poland, and the Poles assert that it was given by Wenceslas I., king of Bohemia, to Sigismund I., king of Poland, his brother. However, an entire body of S. Sigismund, the head alone excepted, is shown at Imola to this day ; and the absence of the skull is accounted for by Charles IV., having taken it to Prague. This body is said to have been brought there, in 1146, by Rudolf the abbot, afterwards Bishop of Imola, But this statement is cer- tainly inaccurate, for Rudolf was translated to Ravenna in 1 1 40. But another body, entire with the exception of the skull, exists and excites veneration at Monseve, near Bar- celona ; and Tamayus Salazar says that it was from this body that Charles IV. took the head to Prague. Other bodies are shown at Aquileia, in the Cathedral of Milan, and anciently at Cahors. There can be no question about the spuriousness of all these relics with the exception of those at Prague, whose genuineness is well established.
S. BRIOCH, B,
(about 6th cent.)
[Venerated as patron at S. Brieux, in Brittany. Feast of the translation of liis relics, Oct. i8th. His life in the proper lections for his festival in the Church of S. Brieux is of little historical value.]
The life of S, Brioch, as it has come to us, is singularly deficient in interest. Like so many similar compositions drawn up long subsequent to the event, it contains scarcely a feature of interest, and few of the statements can be relied on as historically correct. All we are justified in concluding from the "life" is that he was a Briton, born probably in Cardigan. He is said to have become a disciple of S. Germain, but whether of S. Germain of Auxerre, or S,
*-
-*
May I.] S. Kellach. 21
Germain of Paris, or of some other saint of the same name, is unknown, He preached in Brittany, where his know- ledge of the Keltic tongue made him useful as an apostle. At Treguier he converted a chief named Conan, who gave him lands at Landebaeron whereon to found a monastery. He afterwards went Eastward, and was well received by the chief Rignal, who lived near the mouth of the river Gonet, and who gave him a site, whereon he built a monastery, called S. Brieuc-des-Vaux, because it is at the junction of several valleys. For himself he established a hermitage near a spring, now called Notre-Dame-de-la- Fontaine. The church of his monastery was afterwards converted into a cathedral. A portion of his relics are preserved at S. Brieux, a small portion also in the church of Benoit-sur-Loire. The festival of S. Brioch is celebrated in the diocese of S. Brieux on the second Sunday after Easter.
His name has undergone various transformations, as Briocus, Briomaclus, Vriomoclus. He is represented treading on a dragon, or with a column of fire, which, according to tradition, designated him for ordination.
S. KELLACH, B. OF KILLALA.
(7TH CENT.)
[Irish Martyrologies. Authority : — A life in Irish, less extravagant in marvels than most other lives of Irish saints, but yet late ; and mention in the Annals of the Four Masters.]
S. Ceallach or Kellach, was the son of Eoghan Beul, son of Ceallach, son of Oilioll Molt. His brother's name was Muireadhach or Cuchongilt. The family was that of Hy-Fiach. Fiach had two sons, Daud, king of Ireland*
-*
*-
2 2 Lives of the Samts. [Mayi.
and Amalgad, king of Connaught. The father of Daud (Dathias) was the famous Niall of the Nine Hostages (d. 404.) Fergus and Donald, descendants of Niall by another son, attacked Eoghan the Fair, and in a battle on the banks of the Moy, he was grievously wounded, and died three days after. Eoghan left two sons, Ceallach, a monk at Clonmacnois, his eldest, and Cuchongilt, then a child. The chiefs of Connaught went to Clonmacnois, and invited Kellach to ascend the throne. He accepted the invitation, greatly to the disapproval of S. Kieran his abbot. But wearied speedily with the dissensions among his nobles, and their intrigues with the enemy, he deserted his throne, and took refuge in a forest, where he remained concealed for a whole year. He then returned to Clonmacnois, and was received by S. Kieran as a returning prodigal. After a few years he was ordained priest, and then bishop of Killala. Being on a visit to his diocese, he was invited by Guaire, king of Connaught (d. 662) to visit him. Guaire was the son of Colman, of the Neill family, and he had assumed the throne on its being vacated by Kellach. The messenger sent to invite Kellach received as answer that the bishop would visit the king after he had said mass on Sunday, but he could not come before. The messenger instead of giving the exact answer, said that Kellach had refused to accompany him. Thereupon Guaire was angry, and sent orders that Kellach should be expelled his diocese. The saintly bishop retired to the islet of Edghair, in Lough Conn, and there remained with four of his disciples.
Guaire, who was jealous and fearful of the bishop, wlicse throne he had usurped, determined to rid himself of Kellach. He therefore bribed his four disciples, who were also his foster-brothers, and they brought the bishop to the mainland, and murdered him in a wood. Guaire granted the territory of Tirawley to the four murderers as a reward
^
May I.] 6*. Kellach.
-^3
for their services, and they thereupon erected a fort at Dun- Fine. Soon after the perpetration of the deed, Muireadhach or Cuchongilt, the brother of Kellach, came to visit his brother in his hermitage, but not finding him there, and hearing of what Guaire had done for the four foster- brothers, he at once suspected that his brother had been murdered. After some enquiries and searches, he found the body in the hollow trunk of an oak, torn by ravens, scald-crows, and wolves. Cuchongilt carried the mangled body to the church of Turloch for interment, but the clergy dreading the vengeance of king Guaire, would not permit it to be buried there ; upon which it was taken to the church of Eiscreacha, where it was interred with due honour.
Cuchongilt, after having chanted a short dirge over the grave of his brother, in which he vowed vengeance against the murderers, assembled an armed band of three hundred of his relatives and adherents, with whom, after having lived one year in Hy-Many, and some time in Meath, where he married Aifi, the daughter of Blathmac, king of Ireland, he at length returned to Tirawley, his own Fleasc lamha, or patrimonial inheritance, where, by the assistance of a swine- herd, he procured admittance to the fort of Dun-Fine, in which the murderers of his brother were banqueting. He remained at the banquet in the disguise of a swine-herd, until he observed that the four murderers and all their guests and attendants were stupid with intoxication, upon which he sent his friend, the swine-herd, for his armed band, who were concealed in the neighbourhood, and they rushing into the fort, slew all the guards and attendants, and seized upon the four murderers of Bishop Ceallach.
The guests, by no means recovered from their intoxi- cation, on learning that it was Cuchongilt, the second son of king Eoghan Bel, and the brother of the murdered bisliop, had thus disturbed their festivities, instead of
-*
*-
24 Lives of the Saints. [May i.
grieving at the occurrence, thought it suitable to tinisn their potations in honour of the rightful heir.
On the next day Cuchongilt carried the four murderers in chains, southwards, through the territory from Dun- Fine to a place called Durlus Muaidhe, and across Lee Durluis, until he arrived at a place near the river Moy, since called Ard-na-riadh (now Ardnarea), /.(?., the hill of executions, where he executed the four, cutting ofif all their limbs while they were living.
After this Cuchongilt obtained the hostages of Tir Fia- chract and Tir Amhalgaidh, and compelled Guaire to live in Tir Fiachrach Aidhne, in the south of the province.
S. EVERMAR, M. (about a.d. 700.)
[Belgian Martyrologies. Originally on July 25th, now on May ist. Authority :— An ancient life.]
EvERMAR, a native of Friesland, born of noble parents, came in the days of Pepin of Herstal on pilgrimage through Belgium to visit the tomb of S. Servais at Maes- tricht, and those of other saints in that part. He and his fellow pilgrims were overtaken by darkness at the entrance of the great forest of Ruth, in the Hesbaye, and seeing a light, they made their way towards it, and found a cottage. They tapped at the door, and asked for shelter. A woman admitted them, and told them that her husband, Hako, was the chief of a gang of robbers, and that they were in danger there, but as he would be likely to be out that night, she gave them food and lodging, and sent them away early next morning, cautioning them to avoid the direction in which the robbers had gone. The chief on his return found that some persons had been given shelter in his house,
^ ^
S. BERTH A. After Cahier.
[JIa.v 1.
*
Mav 1.1
S. Theodard. 25
pursued them with several of his men, and overtook them about mid-day beside a fountain where they were reposing. He slew them all, and robbed them of their purses. The bodies were found by Pepin of Herstal, who was hunting in the wood, and he gave them decent burial. A village rose about the tomb of S. Evermar, which was called Rothem, and is now called Russon. The relics of S. Evermar were placed in a chapel on the scene of the murder, in 1073. It has been lately restored. The chapel stands in a meadow surrounded by beech trees. The high altar is furnished with a painting representing the martyr- dom, and the two side altars are adorned with images, one of S. Mary, the other of S. Evermar. A very singular procession and spectacle is enacted here on the ist of May every year. The procession is headed by two "green- men," to represent savages, clothed in leaves, and armed with clubs. They are followed by seven men dressed as pilgrims, and behind them ride Hako and his robbers in suitable costume. On reaching the chapel high mass is sung, after which the martyrdom is enacted in the meadow near the fountain. One of the pilgrims runs away, and Hako brings him down with a shot from his pistol. Finally all the pilgrims are killed, but they soon revive, and wind up the evening in the village tavern.
S. THEODARD, ABP. OF NARBONNE.
(CIRC. A.D. 893.)
[Gallican Martyrologies. Authority : — A life founded partly on written accounts, partly on oral tradition, and when it was compiled is uncertain.]
The writer of the "Lives of the Saints" is presumed to be their panegyrist, but if he relates their lives as they really were, taking Holy Scripture as his model, it is his
-*
duty not to gloss over their failings, and omit all mention of their faults. Holy Scripture mentions the fall of David, the apostasy of Solomon, the denial of S. Peter, and the hagiographer is dealing falsely with his materials if he does not relate what is blameworthy as well as what is to the praise of the saint whose life he is recording.
S. Theodard is chiefly known through an event in his life which first brought him into notice, and which we cannot fail to regard with the strongest reprobation. At his time at Toulouse it was the custom on Christmas Day, on Good Friday, and on the Feast of the Assumption, for a Jew to have his cheeks rudely boxed publicly before the cathedral doors, as part of the religious ceremonial. The Jews complained to the king, Carloman, son of Louis the Stammerer (d. 879), who reigned with his brother Louis III. The king bade the count of Toulouse call a council at Toulouse and investigate the case. Sigebod was then bishop, and the Jews made their complaint against him and the clergy of the cathedral. One would have supposed that the bishop would have been only too glad to have abandoned a custom as insulting as it was unchristian, but instead of doing so he resisted strenuously, and ap- pointed the youthful Theodard, who offered to argue the case, to be his advocate. Theodard then produced a document, which was unquestionably a forgery, and which purported to be a charter of Charlemagne requiring the perpetuation of the offensive ceremony, because the Jews of Toulouse had invited into the country the forces of Abdelraman, which he had just succeeded in defeating. As it happened, it was not Charlemagne but Charles Martel who defeated the Saracens and drove them out of the South of France ; but this may be an error of the writer of the life, and not of Theodard the advocate. Suffice it to say that the Jews were utterly confounded by the produc-
*-
-^
May I.] S. Theodard. 27
tion of this charter, as well as they might be ; and Theodard, pursuing the advantage thus unscrupulously- gained, obtained that on each of the three festivals, the Jew exposed to the stroke at the cathedral gate should be required to exclaim, " This I receive because my people crucified Jesus Christ, God of Gods, and Lord of Lords." And should he refuse, he was to receive seven blows in- stead of one. Theodard condescended to argue with the unfortunate Jews; but, as Henschenius justly observes, "his arguments are more deserving of the name of quibbles."
The archbishop of Narbonne was so satisfied with the conduct of Theodard in this scandalous aftair, that he ordained him and made him his archdeacon. On the death of the archbishop, Theodard was elected to fill his room, and he was consecrated amidst general rejoicings, even those of the Jews, we are told, which the Jew Apella may believe if he lists.
As archbishop he behaved with justice and was a model of piety. His seat was contested by a rival prelate, but Theodard obtained papal sanction and excommunicated his adversary.
-*
28 Lives of the Sainls. tiwaya.
May 2.
S. Secundus, B. of Avila, in Spain, ist cent.
SS. Hesperus and Zoe and their Sons, MM. at Attaiia, 2nd cent.
S. Flamina, V.M. in Auvcrgnc, ^ih cent.
S. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, a.d. 373.
S. Germain, B.M. at Amiens, $th cent.
S. ViNDEMALis, B.C. in Africa, sth cent.
S. Waldebert, Ab. ofLi(xeuil, a.d. 665.
S. WiBORADA, M. at S. Gall, in Switzerland, a.d. 905
S. Antony, Abp. of Florence, a.d. 1459.
SS. HESPERUS AND ZOE, MM.
(2ND CENT.)
[Greek Menasa, whence Baronius inserted the names in the Modem Roman Martyrology, but by a mistake he called Hesperus, Exuperius. Authority : — Mention in the Menology and the Greek Acts, neither very trustworthy.
jjESPERUS AND ZOE were two slaves, the ser- vants of a wealthy man named Catalus, at Attaiia, in Pamphylia. Their sons were called Cyriac and Theodulus, and the boys as well as their parents were Christians. One day the boys said to their mother, " Why should we who serve Christ be slaves to this heathen man? Did not S. Paul say, Be not un- equally yoked together with unbelievers?" The mother was not much more instructed in S. Paul than her sons, and she urged them to resist their master, rather than to obey him. She was wrong, and they were wrong ; but they acted ignorantly, and their ignorance must excuse them. Anyhow they suffered for their disobedience, for their master, after having racked them, cast them all into a furnace, and by their blood they expiated their offence.
^ ^
May 2.]
S\ Athmtasius.
is^iso
29
S. ATHANASIUS THE GREAT, B.D.
(a.d. 375.)
[Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks on the 18th Jan. Authorities : — The works of S. Athanasius, especially the historicil tracts ; Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Rufinus, the 21st oration of S. Gregory Nazianzen, and the letters of S. Basil.]
Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, was entertaining his clergy in a house overlooking the sea. He observed a group of children playing on the sands, and was struck by the grave appearance of their game. His attendant clergy went, at his orders, to catch the boys and bring them before the bishop, who taxed them with having played at religious ceremonies. At first, like boys caught at a mischievous game, they denied ; but at last confessed that they had been imitating the sacrament of baptism ; that one of them had been selected to perform the part of bishop, and that he had duly dipped them in the sea, with all the proper questions, and with the proper invocation. When Alex- ander found that all the essential forms which render baptism valid had been complied with, he added the con- secrating oil of confirmation, to seal the sacrament that had been administered ; and was so much struck with the knowledge and gravity of the boy-bishop, that he took him under his charge. This little boy was Athanasius, already showing the seriousness which was to stamp his future life.
From this incident arose the connection of Athanasius with the aged Alexander. He became his archdeacon, the head of that body of deacons whose duty it was to attend upon the bishop.
And now a period of trial was coming on the Church, more severe than persecution from without, from which she had just escaped. She was to be proved with heresy. All the power of the greatest empire of the old world had been
-*
30 Lives of the Sai?its. [May 2.
directed by Satan against the Church to crush her by violence, and it had failed ; now he sought her overthrow by stirring up heresy within. The heresy which was to disturb the peace of the Church and imperil her existence was an assault upon the foundation of her faith, the nature of Jesus Christ.
At Alexandria was a church called the Baucalis, which was presided over by a priest of the name of Arius, a man of talents and eloquence, who had aspired to the throne of Alexandria, and bitterly resented the election of S. Alexander in preference to himself. First in private, then openly in his church, Arius began to dispute the truth of the Eternal Godhead of Jesus Christ. The bishop hesi- tated long before he took action, lest he should seem to be acting out of personal feeling against a rival aspirant to the see ; but when one of the priests of Alexandria, condemn- ing his inaction, formed a sect among the orthodox, and presumed to ordain priests, he felt that he could remain inactive no longer, and he cited Arius to a synod, and then summoned a council of the African Church to hear his doctrines and to decide upon them.
These doctrines spread rapidly. It was so much easier to believe that Jesus was a divinely inspired man, than that He is God of the substance of the Father, begotten eter- nally, before all time ; and Man, of the substance of His Mother, born in the world, perfect God and perfect man.
We can form, by means of the descriptions which have come down to us, a vivid image of the great heresiarch. He was a tall elderly man, with a worn, pallid face, and downcast eyes. The quiet gravity of his bearing, the sweet persuasive voice, with its ready greetings and its fluent logic, exerted a wonderful fascination on many with whom he came in contact.
A hundred bishops met in council at Alexandria, in 320.
^ ^
-^
May2.j 6'. Athanasius.
31
It was ascertained by this assembly that, according to the doctrine of Arius, Christ was the first of creatures, and in that sense the Only-begotten. The Arians were asked whether Christ Jesus could become bad. They answered, " Yes, He can." The council replied to this fearful utter- ance by a solemn condemnation of Arius, with two bishops who adhered to him, five priests and six deacons.'
Arius, expelled from Alexandria, not indeed before his opinions had spread through the whole of Egypt and Libya, retired to the more congenial atmosphere of Syria. There his vague theory caught the less severely reasoning, and more imaginative minds of the Syrian bishops. The most learned, the most influential, even some of the most pious, united themselves to his party. The chief of these were the two prelates named Eusebius — one the ecclesiastical historian, the other the bishop of the important city of Nicomedia. Throughout the East, the controversy was propagated with earnest rapidity. It was not repressed by the attempts of the emperor Licinius to interrupt the free intercourse between the Christian communities, and his prohibition of the ecclesiastical synods. The ill-smothered flame burst into ten-fold fury on the re-union of the East to the empire of Constantine. The interference of the em- peror was loudly demanded to allay the strife which dis- tracted the Christendom of the East.
1 " We can never understand the history of error vintil we to some extent appre- ciate its attractions. What was the charm that Arianism possessed, during so many years, for adherents so diverse both in race and character? First, it was a form of rationalism, and therefore a relief to minds that shrunk from so awful a mystery as the Incarnation of the Eternal. Secondly, it was a vague, elastic creed, congenial to those who disliked all definite doctrine. Thirdly, it appealed to many by its affinity to older heresies. Fourthly, its assertion of a created and inferior godhead would come home to persons in transition from polytheism to Christianity. Fifthly, the scope which it practically allowed to a profane and worldly temper was agreeable to the multitudes for whom the Church was too austere, who desired a relaxed and adapted Gospel." Canon Bright's Church Hist., p. 13.
-*
^ — >J<
32 Lives of the Saints. [May 2.
A general council of tlie bishops of the whole Catholic Church was summoned by the imperial mandate to establish the true doctrine of the Church,
"In the close of the month of May, 1853," writes Dean Stanley/ " it was my good fortune to be descending, in the moonlight of an early morning, from the wooded steeps of one of the mountain ranges of Bithynia. As the dawn rose, and as we approached the foot of these hills, through the thick mists which lay over the plain, there gradually broke upon our view the two features which mark the city of Nicsea. Beneath us lay the long inland lake — the As- canian Lake — which, communicating at its western ex- tremity by a small inlet with the Sea of Marmora, fills up almost the whole valley. At the head of the lake appeared the oblong space enclosed by the ancient walls, of which the rectangular form indicates with unmistakable precision the original founders of the city. It was the outline given to all the Oriental towns built by the successors of Alex- ander. Alexandria, Antioch, Damascus, Palmyra, were all constructed on the same model of a complete square, intersected by four straight streets adorned with a colonnade on each side. This we know to have been the appearance of Nicsea, as founded by Lysimachus and re-built by Antigonus ; and this is still the form of the present walls, which although they enclose a larger space than the first Greek city, yet are evidently as early as the time of the Roman Empire. Within this circuit all is now a wilderness, over broken columns, and through tangled thickets, the traveller with difficulty makes his way to the wretched Turkish village of Isnik, which occupies the centre of the vacant space. In the midst of this village, surrounded by a few ruined mosques on whose summits stand the never- failing storks of the deserted cities of the East, remains a
' Lectures on the Eastern Church, lec. iiL
"0% AeANAnc^^^
S. ATHANASIU3. From a Picture by Dominicmno, m the Church of Grotta Ferrata, near Rome.
May 2.
-^
May 2.] i^. Aihanasius. 33
solitary Christian Cliurch, dedicated to ' the Repose of the Virgin.' Witliin the church is a rude picture commemo- rating the one event which, amidst all the vicissitudes of Nicsea, has secured for it an immortal name."
Such was the place, the chestnut woods green with the first burst of summer, the same sloping hills, the same tranquil lake, the same snow-capped Olympus from afar brooding over the whole scene ; but, in every other respect, how entirely different, when met in the spring of 325 the memorable first General Council of the Church.
The actual number of bishops present, variously stated in the earlier authorities as 218, 250, 270, or 300, was finally believed to have been 320 or 318, and this in the Eastern Church has so completely been identified with the event, that the council is often known as that of ' the 318.' But it was the diversity of the persons, and the strongly marked characters dividing each from each, which, more than any mere display of numbers, constituted this peculiar interest. Eusebius, himself an eye-witness, as he enumerates the various bishops firom various countries, of various ages and positions, thus collected, compares the scene to a garland of flowers gathered in season, of all manner of colours, or to the assembly of diverse nations at Pentecost. Many there had lost friend or brother in persecution. Many still bore the marks of their sufferings. Some uncovered their sides and backs to show the wounds they had received for Christ, the God-Man, to whose Divinity they had come to testify, having felt, in the hour of need. His divine power. On others were the traces of that peculiar cruelty which distinguished the last persecution, the loss of a right eye, or the searing of the sinews of the leg.
Alexander, the " Pope " of Alexandria, was there, who
had bravely in his old age contended for the faith once
delivered to the saints. The shadow of death was already VOL. v. 3
-^
^-
34 Lives of the Saints. iMavz.
upon himj in a few months he would have gained the crown he had merited as confessing Christ before men. Close beside the old bishop is a small, insignificant young man,^ of hardly twenty-five years of age, of lively manners and speech, and of a bright, serene countenance of angelic beauty. His nose is aquiline, his mouth small, and his hair of that rich auburn which is still found on the heads of Egyptian mummies, and is therefore compatible with a pure Egyptian descent. This is Athanasius the archdeacon, Athanasius the Great in soul, if puny in body. On the steadfastness of that little man, humanly speaking, the faith and fate of the Catholic Church depended. Next after the pope and deacon of Alexandria, we must turn to one of its most important priests, he on account of whom this great council is gathered, Arius the Heresiarch. We have al- ready sketched his appearance, let us fill in the outline here. He is at this period sixty years of age, very tall and thin, and bowed, as if unable to support his long back. He has an odd way of contorting and twisting himself, which his enemies compared to the wrigglings of a snake. The old sweet expression of his face is changed into one of bitterness, and he blinks in the glare of the sun, being near- sighted. At times his veins throb and swell, and his limbs tremble, as if suffering from some violent internal com- plaint,— the same, perhaps, that will terminate one day in his sudden and dreadful death. There is a wild look about him, which at first sight is startling. His grizzled hair hangs in a tangled mass over his head. He is usually silent, with his ashy grey lips tightly compressed, but at times his wild eye flashes, and he bursts into fierce excite- ment, such as give the impression of madness. We need not describe the great saints present, they will march before
1 Julian the Apostate calls him "a puny little fellow." S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of the angelic beauty of his countenance.
^-
-*
May 2.] S. Athmiasius. 35
us in solemn order, singly, as we follow the course of our history of the Holy Ones of God's Church.
Before the emperor's arrival, the council met in the cathedral of Nictca. Arius was summoned and examined. He boldly declared that he held the Son to be a creature who once did not exist, who was made by God out of nothing, and who might have fallen into sin. A thrill of horror ran through the assembly; many bishops stopped their ears ; Nicolas of Myra, if we may believe the per- sistent tradition of the Eastern Church, smote Arius on the mouth, and for having so far forgot himself, was condemned by the bishops assembled to lay aside his mitre during the session of the council. Some of the bishops said they had heard enough ; others insisted on a thorough discussion. On the 3rd of July the council was transferred to the palace. Constantine appeared in purple and gold, but without guards. Modest and graceful in address, he listened to all with attentive patience, dis- claiming all thought of dictation to the prelates, and before him Arius was heard again. The bishop of Nicomedia attempted to defend him. When it appeared that the very Godhead of the Redeemer must be proclaimed in un- mistakeable terms, in order that the Church might be preserved from encouraging error, the Nicene Creed was drawn up declaring the very and essential Godhead of the Son. Seventeen Arianizing bishops objected to sign the Creed ; Eusebius of Cjesarea among the number ; but after some consideration he gave way, on grounds which cannot be called satisfactory as regards his personal faith. Others yielded under menace of civil penalties, for the emperor was resolved to enforce unity ; until at last only five were left.
Throughout the proceedings of the council, Athanasius the deacon was conspicuous by his zeal, tlie clearness of
-*
^ — -_^
36 Lives of the Saints. [May 2.
his perception of the gravity of the points at issue, and his argumentative power in disconcerting the Arians.
A synodal letter was addressed by the council to the Egyptian and Libyan churches, recounting what had been done, praising the venerable Alexander, and concluding thus : — " Pray for us all, that what we have thought good to determine may remain inviolate, through God Almighty, and through our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, to Whom be glory for evermore. Amen."
Ultimately this prayer was granted to the full ; and it was the counciFs loyalty to inherited faith which secured for it a position of such unrivalled majesty. When its sessions were closed on the 25th of August, individual Catholics might still have much to suffer, but the cause of the Catholic faith was won.
A few weeks after the close of the council, Alexander died, and Athanasius succeeded to the vacant see. It was a marked epoch, in every sense, for the Egyptian Primacy. Down to this time the election to this great post had been conducted in a manner unlike that of the other sees of Christendom. Twelve priests endowed with full episcopal character — that is having received full episcopal conse- cration— but without any jurisdiction, were the electors and nominators, and according to Eutychius, the conse- crators. It formed an apostolic college, modelled on that of the first twelve, and endowed with all apostolic power, but not having territorial jurisdiction. It was on the death of Alexander that this ancient custom was exchanged for one more nearly resembling that which prevailed elsewhere. Fifty bishops of the neighbouring dioceses were convened, and proceeded with the election. Athanasius had been named both by the dying primate and by the people as the new bishop. He fled, but was brought back and solemnly consecrated, amid the rejoicings of the people
*— i^
-*
May 2.] 6^. Athanasius.
37
who had besought the bishops to give them " the good, the pious, the Christian, the ascetic Athanasius."
The consecration of S. Athanasius took place in the end of 326 ; and shortly afterwards we see him seated in council with his brethren, to hear tidings of great interest from the South. It was indeed a wonderful story of unexpected providences. The narrator was Frumentius, who had been regent of Abyssinia. His story was simple and touching. A philosopher of Tyre, Moripius by name, had embarked on a voyage of investigation down the Red Sea. He had taken with him two children, relations of his own. At a seaport of Ethiopia the savage inhabitants attacked them, and massacred all the crew. The two boys, Frumentius and Edesius, were taken prisoners before the king, who received them, and they gradually rose into his confidence, and that of his widow, as the instructors of his son. When the prince came of age, Edesius departed to Tyre, but Frumentius came to the archbishop of Alexandria to announce that a door was opened in Abyssinia, and that labourers were needed to gather in there an abundant harvest of souls. Then S. Athanasius ordained Frumentius as bishop of Axum ; and the newly formed community grew into a national Church, which honoured Frumentius as its father and apostle.
Towards the close of 328, the Arian troubles began anew. Eusebius of Nicomedia had gained the ear of Constantine, and everywhere the disbelievers in the Eternal Godhead of Jesus rose into imperial favour. Their first victim was Eustathius of Antioch, who was deposed and banished by a synod of Arians, in 331. Other faithful bishops were persecuted by the faction. Constantine wrote to Athanasius in the tone of a despot to a rebellious subject, ordering him immediately to receive Arius into communion.
But Constantine found, to his astonishment, that an
-*
*-
38 Lives of the Saints. [May ,.
imperial edict, which would have been obeyed in trembling submission from one end of the Roman empire to the other, even if it had enacted a complete political revolution, or endangered the property and privileges of thousands, was received with deliberate and steady disregard by a single Christian bishop.
Then Eusebius of Nicomedia devised a series of charges against Athanasius, in the hopes of ruining him. He was accused of having murdered a certain bishop named Arsenius, and cut oif his hand and kept it for magical purposes. A prince of the imperial family was sent to enquire into this matter, and sent the Archbishop notice to prepare for a trial at Antioch. At first Athanasius treated the charge with scorn. But as Constantine was disturbed by it, a deacon was sent to enquire throughout Egypt whether Arsenius were dead or alive. The messenger fell in with four persons, who confessed that he was concealed in a monastery in Thebaid. The superior, who was in league with the enemies of Athanasius, lost no time in sending Arsenius away. The deacon, however, arrested the superior, and had him examined by the military officer in command at Alexandria. Then the truth came out. Shortly after- wards the man Arsenius himself was recognized in the streets of Tyre by some friends of Athanasius, who at once denounced him.
After an ineffectual attempt by the Arians to ruin Athanasius by a council at Csesarea, which he refused to attend, he was warned in the next year, 335, to attend a council at Tyre, with the threat that if he refused he should be carried thither by force. Forty-nine Egyptian bishops attended Athanasius, and protested against several of the judges as avowedly hostile to him.
One of the Egyptians, Potamon, who had lost an eye in the persecution, exclaimed aloud to the Arian Eusebius of
*-
-*
May 2.1 S. Athanasius. 39
Csesarea, " Do you sit there as a judge of the innocent Athanasius? When I was maimed for the Lord's cause, how came you to escape without betraying it?"
Supported by the Count Dionysius, who presided over the assembly, the Arians were masters of the position ; and one reckless charge followed fast upon another. A woman was suborned to denounce Athanasius, and put to shame her employers by mistaking one of his priests for the man whom she was bribed to accuse. When she had made her charge, Athanasius was silent; while one of his friends, with ready wit assuming great indignation, demanded, "Do you accuse me of the crime ?" " Yes," replied the woman, turning upon him, and supposing him to be Athanasius, " You are the man I accused." Then they produced the hand of Arsenius in a wooden box, and excited by the display of it a cry of horror. Athanasius calmly asked, " Did any of you know Arsenius ?" " We knew him well." A muffled figure was introduced. He showed the face first, and asked all round : "Is this Arsenius whom I murdered?'' He drew out from behind the cloak, first one hand and then the other. " Let no one now ask for a third ; for God has only given a man two hands." Incredible as it may appear, the Arians met this exposure of the worthlessness of their charges by raising a clamour of witchcraft. " Away with the sorcerer ! " and the authorities had to rescue Athanasius by hurrying him on board ship.
Another charge against him was that he had violently interrupted the holy Sacrifice whilst it was being performed by a certain man who had been uncanonically ordained priest, and had broken the chalice. The Council of Tyre appointed six of the bitterest enemies of Athanasius to gather information on this charge. Athanasius had already disproved it as completely as the other charges. His enemies obtained the support of Philagrius, the praefect of
I
Egypt, an apostate to heathenism, who attended to intimi- date the witnesses. Unfortunately for their accusation, it came out that the man who was said to have been acting as celebrant was at the very time when the alleged outrage took place, lying sick in his bed elsewhere.
The emperor Constantine was entering Constantinople in state. A small figure darted across his path in the middle of the square, and stopped his horse. The emperor, thunderstruck, tried to pass on ; he could not guess who the petitioner could be. It was Athanasius, come to insist on justice, which was denied him. Meanwhile the council at Tyre had condemned him on the ground of the accusa- tions ; and Arsenius signed the sentence against his alleged murderer with the hand Athanasius was charged with having cut off.
The bishops then proceeded to Jerusalem, where the dedication of the Church of the Resurrection Constantine had built over the Holy Sepulchre was celebrated with great splendour, Sept. 13th, 335.
Constantine now wrote a peremptory letter, blaming the bishops of the Council of Tyre for their disregard of justice. They received the letter at Jerusalem, and Eusebian craft was equal to the emergency. They dropped the recent charges against Athanasius, and resolved to take the emperor on his weak side.
The six most active foes of Athanasius went up to court, and put forward a new charge — that he had tried to prevent the sailing of the corn ships from Alexandria, which sup- plied the market at Constantinople. Athanasius protested that the thing was impossible for one like himself, a poor man in a private station. Eusebius of Nicomedia affirmed with an oath, that Athanasius was a rich man who could do anything; and Constantine, who in the hands of Eusebius was a child, turned a deaf ear to Athanasius and
*-
-*
May 2.] S. Afkanasitts 41
banished him to Treves, where the bishop, S. Maximus, received him with all honour, in February, 336.
The last act of Constantine, as he lay dying (337) was to recall tlie banished Athanasius. Constantius, the second son of the great emperor, secur^^d for himself the dominion of the East. Constantius was only twenty at his accession. His character was singularly repulsive. In the weakness which made him a tool of household favourites, in the despotic arrogance which took the place of moral dignity, in the suspiciousness which hardened his heart and defiled his palace with kindred blood, the worst features of his father's character appear exaggerated. He fell under the influence of the wily Eusebius of Nicomedia, and was readily converted to the lax creed of Arianism.
The exiled bishops were however recalled in 338. Con- stantine II., writing on June 17th from Treves, informed the Alexandrians that he was but fulfiUing his father's intentions in sending back their bishops.
The Arians again set to work against Athanasius. Three priests were sent to accuse him on old and new charges, before Julius, Pope of Rome. But a great council of the Catholic prelates of Egypt put forth a solemn encyclic, testifying to the innocence of their chief, and denouncing the murderous animosity of his accusers. Pistus, an excommunicated Arian, was consecrated by an Arian prelate, and set up as a rival at Alexandria. In 341 the Arian bishops relying on the support of the emperor, held a council at Antioch, in which they confirmed the condemnation of Athanasius pronounced at Tyre, and appointed a Cappadocian, named Gregory, to be bishop of Alexandria, in the room of Athanasius. In the Lent of the same year, he was installed by the renegade prefect, Philagrius. Hideous outrages by pagan soldiers attended his intrusion. The altar candles were lighted before pagan
■^
*-
42 Lives of the Saints. [Maya.
idols ; Catholics, male and female, were insulted and beaten on Good Friday and Easter Day, to the delight of the unbelievers ; the old confessor, Potamon, was so cruelly scourged, that careful nursing could only for a time restore him, and Athanasius' aunt was denied a grave. The last extremity of sacrilege was reached by casting the Holy Eucharist on the ground. This league between Pagans and Arians is significant ; the former saw that in the hands of the latter Christianity lost the main part of what they abhorred.
Athanasius, acting on the command to flee from perse- cution, withdrew to Rome, and laid his case before the Roman Church. Pope Julius summoned the Eastern bishops to a council to try the case, but as they did not come, Julius and fifty bishops met, and recognized Atha- nasius as innocent.
Constans, emperor of the West, determined on a council which might restore peace to the distracted Church. He told Athanasius that he had written to his brother Con- stantius, who agreed to the proposal. The place selected was Sardica. About 170 bishops assembled in the year 347. The Arian prelates, about seventy-six in number, at first expected that the assembly would be like those with which they were familiar, in which counts and soldiers were ready to overawe their opponents. Finding that, on the contrary, those opponents would confront them, they resolved, while on their journey, to take no real part in the proceedings, but simply to announce their arrival. Accordingly, on coming to Sardica, they shut themselves up in the palace where they lodged, and sent word that they would not attend, until their opponents were deprived of seats in the council. "This is a General CouncU," was the reply; "the whole case is to be laid before its judgment. Come and present your own statements ; Athanasius and
*-
-^
-*
May 2.] vS. Atkanasms. 43
his friends are ready to meet you, and the council is ready to hear both sides." But this the Arians were not disposed to abide, and they decamped, on the pretext that Con- stantius had sent them news of a victory over the Persians. On receiving this message, the council rebuked their "indecent and suspicious flight," in a letter which announced that unless they returned they would be held as guilty. Instead of returning, they established them- selves at Philippopolis, formed themselves into a petty council, and re-afiirmed their former sentences against Athanasius. The true council, meanwhile, proceeded to examine the case before them, and Athanasius and his brethren were acknowledged as innocent men, and ortho- dox bishops. A Western council at Milan accepted the decree of the council of Sardica, absolving Athanasius of all criminality, and proclaiming his doctrine as orthodox.
And now, on a sudden, affairs took a new turn.
Athanasius had spent eight years in exile, when the emperor Constantius found it politically expedient to restore him. He was about to engage in a Persian war ; and at this dangerous crisis, the admonitions of his brother Constans, Emperor of the West, a zealous supporter of Athanasius, not unmingled with warlike menace, enforced the expediency of a temporary reconciliation with Atha- nasius. In 349 Constantius recalled the great bishop, met him at Antioch with expressions of respect and cordiality, ordered all the accusations against him to be erased from the registers of the city, and commended the prelate to the people of Alexandria in terms of courtly flattery. The Arian bishop Gregory was dead, and Athanasius, amid universal joy, returned to Alexandria. There was awe, almost amounting to consternation at the greatness of the event. The scene is described by S. Gregory Nazianzen. It lingered in the recollections of all who had seen it, as
-^
^-
44 Lives of the Saints. [Maya.
the most splendid spectacle of the age. The population of Alexandria poured forth, as was their habit on such occasions, not in the indiscriminate confusion of a modern populace, but in a certain stateliness of arrangement. Each trade and profession kept its own place. The men and women were apart. The children formed a mass by themselves. As the mighty stream rolled out of the gates, it was as if the Nile, at the height of its flood, had turned in its course, and flowed backwards from Alexandria to- wards the first outpost of the city. Branches of trees were waved aloft, carpets of the gayest colours and richest textures were spread under the feet of the ass on which Athanasius rode. There was a long unbroken shout of applause ; thousands of hands clapped with delight ; the air was scented with the ointments poured out ; the city at night flashed with illuminations. Long afterwards, when a popular prefect of Alexandria was received with vast en- thusiasm, and two bystanders were comparing it with all possible demonstrations that they could imagine, and the younger had said, "Even if the Emperor Constantine him- self were to come, he could not be so received;" the other replied with a smile and an Egyptian oath, "Do you call that a wonderful sight? The only thing to which you ought to compare it is the reception of the great Athanasius."
The political troubles of three years left Athanasius in quiet possession of his see. The war of Persia brought some fame to the arms of Constantius ; and m the more honourable character, not of the antagonist, but the avenger of his murdered brother Constans, the surviving son of Constantine again united the East and West under his sole dominion. Magnentius, who had usurped the Western Empire and mounted the throne over the bloody corpse of the murdered Constans, fell before the avenging arm of Constantius.
*-
-*
May J.] 6^. Athanasius.
45
But with the death of Constans, Athanasius had lost his protector, and he was left at the mercy of his enemies. But either the fears of the emperor, or the caution of the Arian party, delayed yet for three or four years to execute their revenge on Athanasius. Paul, the Catholic bishop of Constantinople, was deposed, and the Arian Macedonius was installed in his place. But before the decisive blow was struck against Athanasius, Constantius endeavoured to subdue the West to Arian views. He summoned a council at Milan {355), and that the proceedings might take place more immediately under his own supervision, adjourned the assembly to the palace. The controversy became a per- sonal question between the emperor and his refractory subject, Athanasius. New charges were raked up against the great bulwark of the faith. He was accused of treasonable correspondence with the usurper Magnentius. Athanasius repelled the charge with natural indignation. He defied his enemies to produce the smallest evidence of such conduct. Tne emperor descended into the arena, and mingled in the contest ; he was resolved to force the Western Church into the adoption of an Arian Creed, and the condemnation of Athanasius. The obsequious and almost adoring court of the emperor stood aghast at the audacity of the ecclesiastical synod in refusing acquies- cence. Constantius, concealed behind a curtain, listened to the debate, he heard his own name coupled with that of heretic, of Antichrist. His indignation knew no bounds. He proclaimed himself the champion of Arian doctrines, and the accuser of Athanasius. The bishops demanded a free council, in which the emperor should neither preside in person, nor by his commissary. They lifted up their hands and entreated the angry Constantius not to mingle up the affairs of the state and of the Church. Three prelates, Lucifer of Cagliari, Eusebius of Vercellge, Dionysius of
-^
*-
46 Lives of the Saints. [May 2.
Milan, were banished, and shortly after Liberius, Pope of Rome.
And now the scene darkened to its deepest about Athanasius, and one light after another was eclipsed in the firmament of the Church. First the aged Hosius, the champion of orthodoxy at Nicsea, now an old man of over a hundred years, tottering on the brink of the grave, was beguiled into signing an Arian creed, but he stead- fastly refused to denounce Athanasius. But a worse blow was the fall of Liberius, the Roman Pontiff, He wrote to the Orientals : " I do not defend Athanasius — I have been convinced that he was justly condemned ;" and added that he renounced communion with him, and accepted the Arian creed drawn up at Sirmium. " This I have received ; this I follow; this I hold." S. Hilary, who transcribes this letter, in his agony of shame and wrath, adds some com- ments of his own: "This is the perfidious Arian faith. (This is my remark, not the apostate's.) I say anathema to thee, Liberius, and thy fellows ; again, and a third time, anathema to thee, thou prevaricator Liberius !"^
On Jan. 17th, 356, Antony, the great hermit, died, aged 105, calmly bequeathing "a garment and a sheep skin to the bishop Athanasius." On Thursday night, the 8th of February, Athanasius was presiding over a vigil service at S. Theonas' Church, in preparation for a communion on the morrow. Syrianus, the governor of Egypt, suddenly beset the church at the head of more than five thousand armed men. The presence of mind for which he was famous did not desert the bishop. Behind the altar was the episcopal throne. On this he took his seat, and ordered his attendant deacon to chant the 135th (a. v. 136) Psalm ; the response to every verse was thundered by the congregation, "For his mercy endureth for ever." The
1 Hil. Fragm. 6. 6.
*-
-*
May 2.] 6". Athanasms. 47
psalm was not finished when the doors were burst open ; with a loud shout, a deadly discharge of arrows, and swords brandished, the soldiers rushed in, killing some of the people, and trampling down others, as they pressed on to secure their main object by seizing Athanasius. The bishop refused to go till most of the congregation had retired. But now he was swept away in the crowd. In his own version of the story, he is at a loss to account for his escape. But his diminutive figure may well have passed unseen ; and we learn, besides, that he was actually carried out in a swoon, which sufficiently explains his own ignorance of the means of his deliverance. The church was piled with dead, and the floor was strewn with the swords and arrows of the soldiers. Athanasius had vanished, no one knew whither, into the darkness of the winter night.
The Arians were prepared to replace the deposed prelate ; their choice fell on another Cappadocian, more savage and unprincipled than the former one. Constantius commended George of Cappadocia^ to the people of Alexandria, as a prelate above praise, the wisest of teachers, the fittest guide to the kingdom of heaven. He entered Alexandria environed by the troops of Syrianus. His presence let loose the rabid violence of his party. Houses were plundered ; monasteries burned ; tombs broken open, search made for concealed Catholics, or for Athanasius himself, who still eluded their pursuit; bishops were in- sulted ; virgins scourged ; the soldiery encouraged to break up every meeting of the Catholics by violence, and even by inhuman tortures. Everywhere the Athanasiau bishops were expelled from their sees; they were driven into banishment.
Athanasius, after many strange adventures, having been concealed in a dry cistern, and in the chamber of a pious woman, found refuge at length among the monks of the
1 See an account of this Arian prelate in the life of S. George, April 23rd.
-*
^-
48 Lives of the Saints. [Maya,
desert. Egypt is bordered on all sides by wastes of sand, or by barren rocks, broken into caves and intricate passes, and all these solitudes were now peopled by hermits. They were all devoted to the Catholic faith, and attached to the person of Athanasius. As he had been the great example of a dignified, active, and zealous bishop, so now was he of an ascetic and mortified solitary. Among these devoted adherents his security was complete ; their pas- sionate reverence admitted not the fear of treachery. The more active and inquisitive the search of his enemies, he had only to plunge deeper into the inaccessible and in- scrutable desert. From this solitude Athanasius himself is supposed sometimes to have issued forth, and, passing the seas, to have traversed even parts of the West, animating his followers, and confirming the faith of the Catholics. Perhaps — indeed the expressions used in his own writings lead us to believe it — Athanasius was present in disguise at the council of Rimini. It was then that any one but Athanasius would have sunk into despair. That council consisted of at least four hundred bishops, of whom above eighty were Arians. The resolutions of the majority were firm and peremptory. They repudiated the Arian doctrines ; they expressed their rigid adherence to the formulary of Nicasa, but by degrees the council, from which its firmest and most resolute members had gradually departed, and in which many poor and aged bishops still retained their seats^ wearied, perplexed, worn out by the expense and discomfort of a long residence in a foreign city, yielding to the flatteries or to the threats of the emperor, consented to sign a creed in which the contested word consubstantial Avas care- fully suppressed. Arianism was thus adopted by a council, of which the authority seemed paramount. The world, says S. Jerome, groaned to find itself Arian. But, on their return to their dioceses, the indignant prelates everywhere
*-
-^
Maya.i vS". Athauasius. 4q
protested against the fraud and violence which had been practised against them.
On the 4th November, 361, Constantius expired at the foot of Mount Taurus, and the reins of government fell into the hands of Julian the Apostate. About the same time, George, the Arian bishop of Alexandria, had been torn to pieces by a furious pagan mob, for having desecrated their temples. Athanasius did not return to Alexandria before the death of George. After hearing of it he emerged from his retirement, in August, 362, and his people enjoyed another such "glorious festivity" as had welcomed him back in 349. All Egypt seemed to assemble in the city which blazed with lights and rang with acclamations ; the air was fragrant with incense burnt in token of joy; men formed a choir to precede the archbishop; to hear his voice, to catch a glimpse of his face, even to see his shadow was deemed happiness. Lucius, the new Arian bishop, was obliged to give way ; the churches were again occupied by the faithful, and Athanasius signalized his triumph, not by violence of any sort, but by impartial kindness to all, by the noble labours of a peacemaker, and by the loving earnestness which could conquer hearts.
A council was gathered at Alexandria to settle various matters, as a difference of doctrinal phraseology had sprung up between two parties of the orthodox, and to allow the bishops an opportunity of erasing the scandal of their subscription to the creed of Rimini.
But the stay of Athanasius was brief. In November in the same year, 362, three months after his return, the new emperor, Julian, ordered him to leave Alexandria without delay. He had never, he wrote, permitted the exiles to return to their chu;-ches. The "mean little fellow," the meddling knave, the wretch who had dared to baptize Greek ladies while he, Julian, was emperor, should find no
VOL. v. 4
-*
*-
50 Lives of the Saints. [Maya.
place in all Egypt. He even proposed, we are told, to put Athanasius to death. Again we find i)aganism leagued with Arianism against the true faith.
The faithful, all in tears, surrounded the archbishop, who calmly said, "Let us retire for a little while; the cloud will soon pass." He was pursued by his enemies up the Nile. They met a boat descending the stream. They hailed it with the shout so familiar to Egyptian travellers on the great river, and asked, "Where is Athanasius?" "Not very far off," was the answer. The wind carried on the pursuers, the current carried down the pursued. It was Athanasius, who, hearing of their approach, took advantage of a bend in the stream, to turn, and meet, and mislead, and escape them. But the cloud, as Athanasius had foreseen, passed rapidly. In June, 363, Julian the Apostate was dead, and Jovian, the commander of the body guards, who had confessed Christianity before Julian, was hastily chosen emperor. Imperial edicts went forth, undoing the anti- Christian work of the apostate ; and Jovian, a frank straight- forward soldier, adopted a religious policy not only Christian, but unequivocally Catholic. He wrote at once to Athana- sius, praising his loyalty to Christ, and recalling him. But Athanasius had returned before he had received the emperor's letter, and had assembled a council which put forth an important doctrinal epistle on the true doctrine of the nature of Jesus Christ. Athanasius brought the letter to Jovian at Antioch, and was treated with distinguished honour, whilst Lucius and other Arians were repulsed. They met him at first as he was riding out of the city. "We pray your majesty to hear us." "Who and whence are ye?" " Christians, sire, from Alexandria." "What do you want?" "We pray you, give us a bishop." "I have bidden your former bishop, Athanasius, to be enthroned." "So please you, he has been many years under accusation
*-
-*
May 2.] 6^. A thanasius. 5 1
and in exile." A Catholic soldier interrupted them, " May it please your majesty, inquire about these men ; they are the leavings of the vile Cappadocian George, who have laid waste the city and the world." Jovian spurred his horse, and rode into the country. Again they presented them- selves before him, and talked of the accusations which had sent Athanasius into exile. Jovian threw aside these accusations as of too remote a date, and said, " Do not talk to me about Athanasius ; I know of what he is accused, and how he was exiled." "So please you," they persisted, "give us any one but Athanasius." Jovian's patience gave way, " I have made up my mind about Athanasius." " He speaks well enough," said the Arians incautiously; "but his meaning is insincere." "Enough !" said Jovian; "you attest the orthodoxy of his words ; his meaning is beyond man's scrutiny."
Jovian died in February, 364, and Valentinian succeeded him in the empire of the West, but Valens, an Arian, in that of the East. The consequence of the change was soon felt. In 367 an edict of banishment came to Alexandria, and the prefect of Egypt prepared to expel Athanasius. Athanasius secretly left his house before it was invested by the soldiers. A few hours later, his house was entered and searched in vain, from the uppermost rooms to the base- ment. Athanasius had found a refuge in the tomb of his father, where he remained concealed for four months. At last the emperor found it best to quiet the agitation of Alexandria, and prevent any difficulties which might arise from his elder brother Valentinian's stedfast orthodoxy, by terminating this fifth and last dispossession of Athanasius ; so he was left untroubled till his death, which occurred on May 2nd, 373. He had sat on the throne of S. Mark for forty-six years, and was past seventy when he ended his life and labours.
-*
*-
52 Lives of the Saints. [May 2
In conclusion, we cannot do better than quote the follow- ing beautiful estimate of his work and character from the pen of one of the most accomplished ecclesiastical historians of the day.i " His glorious career illustrates ' the incredible power of an orthodox faith, held with inflexible earnestness, especially when its champion is an able and energetic man.' 2 One is struck with the variety of gifts and the unity of aim which it exhibits. The infidel historian deemed him fit to rule an empire, and obviously he had to the fullest extent the power of dealing with men, yet he was publicly called for as ' the Ascetic ' at his election, and in exile he was a model of monastic piety. If he is great as a theologian, and intensely given to Scripture and sacred studies, he is 'pre-eminently quick in seeing the right course, and full of practical energy in pursuing it.'^ He is as kindly in his judgments of Liberius, and Hosius, and the council of Ariminum, as if he were not the bravest of confessors. He can make allowance for the difficulties of semi-Arians, and recognize their real brotherhood with himself ' Out of the strong comes forth sweetness.' It is this union of inflexibility and discretion, of firmness and charity, this many-sidedness as a pattern for imitation,' which makes him emphatically Athanasius the Great ; and wherever we find him, — confronting opponents, baffling conspirators, biding his time in Gaul or Italy, turning his hour of triumph to good account for his flock, calling on them in the hour of deadliest peril to praise the everlasting mercies, burying himself in cells and dens of the earth, bearing honour and dishonour with the same kingliness of soul, uniting the freshness of early enthusiasm with the settled strength of heroic manhood, writing, praying, preach- ing, suftering, — he is kindled and sustained throughout by
' Canon Bright. Church Hist., pp. 148-150. 'Ranke, Fopes ii., 222.
»S. Basil, Ep. 1S2. * S.Greg. Orat. xxi. 9.
^
-^
Maya.] S. Atkanashis. 53
one clear purpose. What lay closest to his heart was no formula, however authoritative — no council, however cecu- menic. His zeal for the consubstantiality had its root in his loyalty to the consubstantial.^ He felt that in the Nicene dogma were involved the worship of Christ, and the life of Christianity. The inestimable creed which he was said to have composed in a cave at Treves, is his only in this sense, that, on the whole, it sums up his teach- ing ; but its hymn-like form may remind us that his main- tenance of dogma was a life-long act of devotion. The union of these two elements is the lesson of his life, as it was the secret of his power ; and by virtue of it, although again and again it is Athanasius contra mundum^ yet Athanasius is in truth the immortal, and ever in the end prevails. ' This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.'"
'"Athanasius was inflamed, from his childhood, with the passion that makes saints, the love of Jesus Christ, The day that he thought he saw in the words of Arius a blow struck at the honour of that dear Lord, he started with indignation, and consecrated thencelorlh, without weariness to the defence of the Incarnate Word, all the resources of a vast learning, and an invincible eloquence, directed by a great common seuse, and by a will of iron." Dc Broglie, I'Eglise et 1' Empire, i-372.
^"Athanasius against the world" was, indeed, also "Athanasius for the Church,"
*
*
54
Lives of the Saints. ["^ys.
May 3.
S. Alexander I., Pcpe M. at Rome, a.d. 117.
SS. Timothy and Maura, MM. in the Thebaid, circ. k.-d. 286.
S. Genius, C, and XXX. Soldiers, MM. at Lecture, in France.
The Invention of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem, a.d. 326.
S. Juvenal, B. of N ami, in Italy, a.d. 376.
S. FuMACK, H. at Botriphnie, Scotland.
S. Philip, P. at Cellc, in the Nahegau, Germany, &ih cent.
S. Aufried, B. of Utrecht, a. d. 1008.
S. ALEXANDER I., POPE. (a.d. 117.)
[Roman Martyrology. Bede, Hrabanus, Ado, Notker, Usuardus. Authority : — Mention in the Catalogue ol Roman Pontiffs. The Acts of S. Alexander are fabulous.]
JICCORDING to the Acts of S. Alexander, which are not deserving of much credence, the pope converted Hermes, prefect of Rome (Aug. 28th), and all his household, consisting of twelve hundred souls, by healing his infirm son. Aurelian, the governor, hearing of this, ordered S. Alexander to be cast into prison, where he was visited by the tribune, Quirinus (March 30th), who professed his readiness to believe, if Alexander, laden with three chains, could transfer himself to the cell where Hermes was confined. In the night an angel in the form of a little child bearing a torch brought Alexander forth laden with his chains, and con- veyed him to the cell of Hermes. The conversion of S. Quirinus led to that of his daughters, S. Balbina (March 31st), and all the other prisoners. They received baptism from the hands of Evantius and Theodulus, priests im- prisoned with S. Alexander. Finally the pope and the two priests were thrown into a fiery furnace ; but as they
*—
-+
Maya.] ■S6'. Timothy and Mtuira. 55
were unhurt, the priests were executed with the sword, and Alexander was stabbed to death in all his limbs. Relics in the church of S. Sabina, in Rome.
SS. TIMOTHY AND MAURA, MM. (about a.d. 286.)
[Greek Menasa and Menology of the Emperor Basil, modern Roman Martyrology. Authority : — Mention in the Menaea and Menology ; also the Greek Acts. ]
S. Timothy was a lector or reader of the Church in the Thebaid, at the time when Arianus, the governor of Upper Egypt, carried on a grievous persecution of the Church, in which, as has been already related, S. Asclas (Jan. 23rd), SS. Philemon and ApoUonius (March 8th), suffered.
Timothy had been married only twenty days to Maura. Arianus ordered Timothy to produce the sacred books of the Christians, and when he refused, he ordered red-hot irons to be applied to his ears, and the lids to be cut off his eyes, and then that he should be bound to a wheel and exposed to the full glare of the sun. As he remained inflexible, Arianus ordered his young wife Maura to use her persuasions with her husband, but she preferred to suffer with him. Then Arianus ordered her hair to be torn out in handfuls, and finally that both she and her husband should be nailed to a wall. And as they were stretched in this their mortal agony, before their dim eyes rose a glorious vision of angels beckoning to them, and pointing to thrones in heaven at the side of Jesus Christ, for whom they died.
*
*-
56 Lives of the Saints. [Mays.
THE INVENTION OF THE CROSS. (a.d. 326?)
[Roman Martyrology, some copies of that of Jerome (so called), and all other Western Martyrologies. J
The date and details of the history of the Invention of the Holy Cross is involved in great uncertainty, owing to the silence of two authorities, whose testimony is most important.
The first testimony is that of S. Cyril of Jerusalem, born in 316, ordained deacon by the patriarch Macarius, about 335, and priest in 345. It was his duty as priest to give lectures to the catechumens at Jerusalem. In several of these addresses he speaks of the wood of the true cross, " which is to be seen among us at the present day," and of which he says particles were already dispersed throughout the whole world. Later, in 351, when patriarch of Jeru- salem, S. Cyril wrote to the emperor Constantius, and stated distinctly that " the salvation-bringing wood of the cross was found in Jerusalem," in the days of his father Con Stan tine the Great.
The next authority is S. Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, who, in a funeral sermon on the emperor Theodosius, relates that S. Helena, the mother of Constantine, went to the Holy Land to visit the grave of Christ, and other holy places, and that, inspired by the Holy Ghost to seek the cross, she dug the soil of Golgotha, and found in the earth tliree crosses, and knew the cross of Christ from the others by its title. She also found the nails, one of which she converted into a bit for a horse, the other into a crown, and gave both to her son, the emperor.^
Next S. Chrysostom (d. 407) gives his testimony. He
• Ambros. in obit, Theod., ej Venet. 175 1. iv. 2^1.
^-
S. HELENA. (Invention of the Cress.)
May 3.
-^
May 3.] The hivention of the Cross. 5 7
says that the cross had been found lately, and that it was identified by being between the other two crosses, and by its title.^ He does not mention S. Helena.
Rufinus, who went to Jerusalem about a.d. 374, and remained there till 397, wrote his continuation and enlarge- ment of " Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History " in 400. He says that Helena found with great difficulty the place of the crucifixion, as a temple of Venus had been erected at Golgotha, to obliterate the Christian reverence for the spot ; but that she removed the ruins and dug, and found three crosses, together with the title, but this title being apart from the crosses, she could not tell which was that of the Saviour. Then, on the advice of Macarius, patriarch of Jerusalem, a sick person was laid on the three crosses, and was miraculously healed on one, and this one was decided to be the cross of Christ. The nails she also found, and gave them to Constantine, who made out of them a horse's bit and a helmet. She also sent a portion of the cross to her son, the rest was preserved in a silver chest in Jerusalem.^
Socrates, about 488, tells the story much as does Rufinus, adding only what is not in the earlier historian, that Constantine placed the fragment of the cross given him on a porphyry pillar in the forum at Constantinople.^
Sozomen, about the same date, adds a few more details. The place of the sepulchre was discovered ; either, as some say, by means of a Jew, whose father had told him where it was, or, as Sozomen thought was more probable, by a heavenly revelation. Not only was the true cross distin- guished from the other two by its healing a sick woman, but also by its raising a dead man to life."^
Theodoret (about 450) tells the story exactly as does
1 Chrysost. Hom. in Joh. 8$. 2 Rjiffm., Hist. Eccl. i. c. 7-8.
' Socrates, Hist, liccl. i. c. 13. * Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. ii. c. i.
-*
1
58 Lives of the Saints. [May 3.
Socrates, both he and Sozomen evidently deriving their information from him.
As we get later the story is amplified, and all the details are given with wonderful minuteness. Indeed the story was worked up into the apocryphal acts of Cyriacus, a Jew, who was converted by the marvels attending the discovery, and was baptized. Pope Gelasius, in his decree, " De libris recipiendis," (a.d. 496), and later, in his " Corpus juris Canonici," (c. 3, dist. 15), rejected these Acts as apocryphal, under the title, "De inventione Crucis," and he says they were modern, and read by Catholics. Never theless these Acts forced their way into the Liturgy of the Church, and were publicly read.^ A monk of Auxerre, in the 13th cent., uttered his protest. "We cannot sufficiently marvel," said he, "that this writing, in which the fictitious history of the Invention of the Cross is described at full, should have been introduced into the lessons of the Church ; for it cannot hold its ground if the dates be considered,
and its truth be investigated And if any one
assert that it ought to be retained because it has long been recited in the Church, let him know that where reason opposes usage, it behoves usage to give way to reason. "^
It is hardly worth while following the story further, and giving what is unnnstakably late and apocryphal. But if we omit these amplifications of the story, we must not leave out one curious fact, namely, the existence of an apocry- phal letter from Pope Eusebius (309-311) to the bishops of
' The Antiphons for Lauds on the Feast of the Invention of the Cross, in the Treves Breviary, are taken from the apocryphal works condemned by Tope Gelasius, but this is the only liturgical relic of it that remains.
• " A golden sentence, to be inculcated a hundred times to those to vfhom It seem* impious and intolerable, if anything of those which have been, or still are in use in the Church, be proved to be fabulous, and introduced through ignorjince of true history." Zaccarias : Diss, de Invent. Crucis, quoted by Papebroeck, Acta SS. Mai, T. vii.
*-
Campania and Tuscany, in which he says : " The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ having been lately discovered, whilst we hold the rudder of the Holy Roman Church, on May 4th, we command you all solemnly to celebrate on the aforesaid day the festival of the Invention of that Cross."^ The same is related by Anastasius the Librarian, in his "Lives of the Popes." In relating the life of Eusebius, he says, " In his time was discovered the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ on May 4th, and Judas was baptized, who is also Cyriacus."2 And so it was accepted by many of the mediaeval chronologists, as for instance, by Regino of Priim (d. 966), who says, under the year 243, "The cross of our Lord was found by Judas, but, as we read in the Acts of the Roman Pontiffs, under Constantius, the father of Constantiue ; and it was discovered whilst Eusebius was Pope of Rome." This Judas, who figures in the apocry- phal " Acts of Cyriacus," was the son of Simon, brother of S. Stephen, the first martyr, and grandson of Zacharias. Judas had heard from his father Simon where the cross and tomb were, and he revealed it to S. Helena, and was baptized under the name of Cyriacus, by Pope Eusebius, or as some say, by Pope Sylvester. One has hardly patience to notice such fables. How could Judas have been the nephew of S. Stephen, when the cross was found nearly three hundred years after Christ, unless this said Simon was the wandering, never-dying Jew !
In the East we find the fable of the Jew Cyriacus.
S. Andrew of Crete (circ. 732) uses expressions which seem to refer to it; but more distinct are the words of two anonymous writers, quoted by Gretser in his Book on the Cross. In these we find the whole story of how Judas was brought by S. Helena to confession, by throwing him into
'Mansius: — Coll. Concil. ii. 424. This letter is one of the forgeries ot th« Pseudo-Isidore, or at least was inserted in his collection of decretals. » Vitt. Pontiff. Ed. Blanchini, Rom, 1718. i. 33.
*
*-
6o Lives of the Saints. [Maya.
a well, and keeping him there fasting till he confessed where the cross was. And we are told that Judas afterwards became bishop of Jerusalem. This took place, we are in- formed, in the year 303.
If we turn to quite another quarter, we find Moses of Khorene, the Armenian historian (between 450-477), say that "Constantine sent his mother, Helena, to Jerusalem, in order that she might search for the cross ; Helena found the saving wood together with five nails.'"^
It has been seen that the earliest to mention S. Helena in connexion with the discovery of the cross is S. Ambrose, in the year 395. The first to mention the discovery, with- out naming S. Helena, is S. Cyril of Jerusalem, about the year 350. But this difficulty meets us, which is one sufticiently hard to overcome. Eusebius, the Father of Ecclesiastical History, lived at the time when the cross is said to have been found, and he mentions in his " Life of Constantine," the expedition of Helena to the East, but not one word does he say about the finding of the cross. He tells how S. Helena went to Palestine, to thank God for her son, and that she venerated the foot-prints of the Saviour (on the Mount of the Ascension) which were then shown, and that she erected two churches, one at Beth- lehem, the other on the mount of the Ascension. That is all. What makes it more extraordinary is that Eusebius was at Jerusalem in 335, at the dedication of the church of the Resurrection, which Constantine built, and has de- scribed the Church and the ceremonies used ; but again, not one word about the cross.
' Moses of Khorene, Hist. Arm. Ed. Florival, ii. c. 87. It is not necessary to do more than note here tlie medals of Constantine, engraved by Freker, in 1600, and by Gretser, "De Cruce," with a representation of the Invention of tlie Cross. They are not original, as the fact of the date on them being in Arabic numerals, *34. 23?. sudiciently proves. Du Cange reproduced the medal, but omitted the numerals, T. viii. PI. 4.
^-
-^
Maya.] The Invention of the Cross. 6i
But this is not the only negative evidence against the cross having been found by S. Helena. There exists a very interesting Itinerary of the Holy Land, by a pilgrim of Burdigala, or Bordeaux, who visited Jerusalem and the great places of pilgrimage, in the year 2)ZZ- ^^ gives an accurate description of all the relics shown in Jerusalem, the well or vault in which Solomon tormented the demons, the blood of Zacharias between the porch and the altar, as fresh as if it had only been shed yesterday ; the impression of the nails in the shoes of his murderers, on the marble floor, as distinct as if they had been made in wax; the pillar at which Christ was scourged ; the stone which the builders refused ; the palm from which the branches were torn off in the entry of Christ into Jerusalem ; the sycamore tree into which Zacchseus climbed, — but not a word about the cross, so that it is evident it could not have been shown at Jerusalem in 333. Constantine died in 337, and the discovery of the cross must have occurred between these two years. But S. Helena was in Jerusalem in 326. The cross certainly was exhibited in Jerusalem when S. Cyril was a priest, 345.-^ Thus stands the case, and it is not possible to come to any certain conclusion as to who found the cross, and at what date it was discovered.
With respect to the nails found with it, much variety of tradition exists. According to a late authority, Caspar Bugatus, 1587, the iron crown of Lombardy is formed of the nail sent to Constantine, and placed by him in his helmet. But there is absolutely no earlier authority than Bugatus for this story, and all the mediaeval writers who mention the crown are silent on this particular. The other nails that are shown as having belonged to the cross
^ Samuel of Ani, an Armenian chronicler of the 12th century, on the authority of Armenian writers who preceded him, gives 344 as the date of the Invention of the Cross.
-*
>^-
62 Lives of the Saints. [Mays.
of Christ, and been found by S. Helena are : — (i) at Rome in the church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme ; (2) at Milan, in the cathedral ; (3) at Clermont, in the Carmelite church, was one which came to be regarded as an original nail ; but it was only a model of that at Milan made by S. Charles Borromeo ; (4) at Torno, on the Lake of Como ; at Venice in (5) the patriarchal church of S. Mark, in (6) the doge's chapel, and (7) in the church of the Clares ; (8) another in the church of S. Antony at Toricelli ; (9) at Spoleto, in the church of the Redeemer; (10) at Siena ; (11) at Colle, in Tuscany; (12) at Naples, in the church of S. Patricius; (13) at Catanea, in Sicily; (14) in the church of S. Laurence, in the Escurial. This, now re- garded as an original nail, is probably that given by S. Charles Borromeo to Philip II., modelled after the original preserved at Milan. {15) At Carpentras, in the south of France. This nail is miraculous, and is said to have been that used by Constantine as a bit for his horse. (16) At Cologne were four, or at least four portions, one indul- genced in the church of S. Mary " ad Gradus," another in the church of S. Mary "in Capitolo," another, an imi- tation, in the Carthusian monastery, a fourth in the Domini- can church of S. Gertrude. What has become of some of these at the present date is unknown. (17) In the church at Andechs, in Bavaria; (18) another in the cathedral at Treves; (19) another in the cathedral church of Toul, in Lorraine; (20) another at Cracow, given by the pope to King Ladislas IV. ; (21) another at Vienna. Many others are mentioned by historians in the Middle Ages, but all trace of them have been lost. S. Helena is said to have cast another into the Adriatic to quell the storms which rendered navigation in that sea dangerous. (22) Another nail is still shown at Aix, given to the cathedral by Charlemagne, who is said to have obtained it from Con-
*-
stantinople. (23-25) Three holy nails are preserved in the cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris. The reliquary to contain them was exhibited in the Great Exhibition of London in 1862. Some ten others existed in churches in Europe during the Middle Ages, but disappeared either at the Reformation, or in the troubles in France. There can be little doubt as to the origin of these holy nails. They were probably made in imitation of some held to be original, and came themselves in course of time to be regarded as original. S. Charles Borromeo we know had eight made after the nail in Milan, which he sent to different persons and churches, and one of these, the nail given to Phihp II., is now regarded as an original nail, and as such is shown in the Escurial.
It is impossible to enumerate all the places where relics of the True Cross are preserved. Much ridicule has been heaped on these relics, and it has been asserted repeatedly that there are enough such relics to build a man-of-war. It is sufficient to say, to refute this ignorant calumny, that the particles of the Holy Cross are often as minute as the head of a pin, or as fine as a hair.
S. FUMACK, B. (date uncertain.)
(A MS. nccoiint of the Scottish Bishops in the Library at Slains, 1726.]
The well of the patron saint of Botriphnie, which is a very copious spring, is situated in the manse garden, and there S. Fumack bathed every morning, summer and winter, then dressed himself in green tartans, and crawled round the parish bounds on his hands and knees. The image of the saint in wood was long preserved in the parish. It seems to have escaped therage of the Reformation, and to have been de- graded into a local idol. A note, dated about 1726, states that "it was washed yearly with much formaUty by an old woman, who keeps it, at his Fair (May 3rd) in his own well here."
-*
*
64 Lives of tJie Saints. t^^,-.
May 4.
S. Judas Quiriacus, B.M. oJ "Jemsaton, a.d. 133.
S. Pelagia, M. at Tarsus, ^rd cent.
S. Florian, M. at Lorch, in Siunbia, ^rd cent.
S. Sylvanus, B.M. of Gaza, A.v. 311.
S. Monica, IV., mother of S. Augustine, p^.-d. 388.
S. Valerian, M. at Forli, sth cent.
S. GoTHARD, B. of Hildesheim, in Gertnany, a.d. IC38.
S. Helena, V. at Troyes, in France.
S. JUDAS OR QUIRIACUS, E. (a.d. 133)
[The Ancient Roman Martyrology attributed to S. Jerome in May i. Also other Martyrologies which have on this day " the Elevation cf S. Quirinus (Quiriacus) on the Appian way." Hrabanus and Notker say, "The Dassion of S. Jude or Quiriacus the bishop, to whom was revealed the v.'ood of the Lord's cross," on April 30th.]
IJUDAS was, according to Eusebius, the fifteenth bishop of Jerusalem. This Jude is venerated on the loth April, but is supposed to be the same Jude also called Quiriacus by the Martyrologists, commemorated on this day. That he was the true discoverer of the wood of the true cross is hardly possible ; there is no evidence to support the assertion of Usuardus ; and that he was a martyr in the reign of Julian, another statement in some martyrologies, is also wholly un- supported. "All the history of his passion we may set down as pure and unmixed fiction," says Le Quien,^ '* nevertheless it is not impossible that he who is set down May ist, in the Martyrology of Jerome (or that which passes under his name) was the last bishop of the circumcision, and that he died a martyr." The history of his passion is that apocry-
' Oriens Christiana, 111., p. 146.
*-
-)55r
May 4.] S. Jiidas or Qiiiriacus. 65
phal "Acts of Judas or Quiriacus" already alluded to in the article on the Invention of the Cross. He is said to have been a Jew who was the nephew of S. Stephen the first martyr, and grandson of Zacharias. He revealed to S. Helena the place where the cross of Christ was hidden, and was converted by the miracles wrought on its dis- covery, and was baptized under the name of Quiriacus or Cyriacus, and became bishop of Jerusalem. The story is too absurd to need refutation. There was no Patriarch of the name of Cyriacus, and Judas died in 133 ; S. Helena did not visit Jerusalem till 326. However, his relics are to be found at Ancona, of which city he is patron, and on the old coins of the city he is represented in Greek pontifical habits, with his full title of Patriarch. The feast of the translation of these relics is celebrated at Ancona on August 8th. There can be little doubt that the Cyriacus or Quiriacus there venerated is some utterly different martyr of the same name, and that mediseval ignor- ance and local pride have combined to regard him as the famous Jew of the romance condemned as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius. According to Baronius, on what authority we do not know, he was a bishop of Ancona, who was martyred by Julian when visiting Jerusalem. A portion of his relics were translated by Henry I., count of Champagne, from the East to the town of Provins, where he built a church under his invocation. This translation is commemo- rated in the diocese of Meaux, on July 29th. A portion of his skull is still shown at Provins. It is hopeless to attempt to unravel the confusion that has arisen from there being so many saints and martyrs of the same name, and fiom the popularity of the apocryphal Acts having affected the traditions of churches preserving such relics.
VOL. V.
-*
*-
66 Lives of the Saints. m^^.
S. PELAGIA, V.M.
(3RD CENT.)
[Greek Menaea and Menologium, and Modern Roman Martyrology. Authority : — Her Greek Acts, which are utterly untrustworthy, being a religious romance, only possibly founded on facts.]
Pelagia was a young girl living at Tarsus in the reign of Diocletian ; seeing Christians martyred, she desired to hear somewhat of their faith, and having seen in a dream a bishop baptizing, she asked permission of her mother to visit her nurse, who she believed was a Christian. The mother gave her consent, and the old nurse instructed her in the faith and brought her to the bishop, Clino, who baptized her, and communicated her. She thenceforward refused to marry the son of Diocletian, who was desperately in love with her.^ The poor young man committed suicide when he found his suit was vain, and Diocletian, highly incensed, ordered Pelagia to be enclosed in a brazen bull over a fire.
S. SYLVANUS, B.M. OF GAZA. (a.d. 311.)
[Greek Menology of the Emperor Basil, Usuardiis and Roman Martyr- ology. Authority : — Eusebius in his account of the Martyrs of Palestine ; a perfectly trustworthy account by a contemporary.]
Sylvanus, the venerable bishop of Gaza, was one of the multitude of confessors in Palestine sent to labour in the copper mines. But being too old to work, he with others similarly incapacitated by age, or blindness, or other bodily infirmities, to the number of thirty-nine, was be- headed in one day.
1 As it happened, Diocletian had no son. It is, however, possible that Pelagia suffered for having refused to marry the son of some prefect or pro-consul, and that the ignorance of the writer may have transformed him into the son of the Emperor.
*-
-*
May 4.] vS. MoitlCa. 67
S. MONICA, W.
(A.D. 388.)
[All Monastic Kalendars, and modern Roman Martyrology, Authority^ — The Confessions of her son, S. Augustine.]
S. Monica was born in the year 332, in Africa, of a Christian family, and was educated by a relative, perhaps an aunt, with a strictness in a degree advantageous, in a degree dangerous to a young girl. This lady forbade the young Monica to take a drop of water except at meal times, and the reason given by this prim old maid was, " If you get into the habit of drinking water now, when you are married and have the keys of the cellar, you will tipple wine."
What her governess dreaded actually took place before Monica was married, for she was sent by her father with the pitcher to the cellar, every day, to draw the wine for table, and she got into the habit of sipping from the pitcher before she brought it up to the dining hall, and as the habit grew upon her, so did she enlarge the amount she drank. She was fortunately brought to see the danger of the course she was entering upon before the habit had become inveterate, by the retort of a slave whom she was reprimanding, and who cast her tippling in her teeth. Monica was so ashamed of her failing being known, and commented on by the servants, that she corrected it from that day. Soon after she was baptized, and from her baptism lived an edifying life.
She was married young to Patricius, a gentleman of Tagaste, a pagan, but honourable and upright. His great failing was a hot and hasty temper, from which Monica endured much suffering, though he never struck her. By him she had two sons, Augustine and Navigius, and though she laboured to instil Christian truth into their hearts, yet she was unable to obtain their baptism, and Augustine
-*
*-
68 Lives of the Saints. [May 4.
leaned rather to his father's example than to that of his mother. As Patricius grew older liis conduct softened towards the patient wife, who never answered his sharp words nor resented his unkind actions ; and won by her sweetness, he allowed himself to be instructed in the truths of the faith, and to be baptized. A year after he died. It is said that when Monica heard other wives complaining of their husbands' ill-humour or neglect, she said, "Who are to blame? Is it not we and our sharp tongues ?" Some matrons, moved by her success in securing the afifection and taming the irritability of her husband, adopted her method, and, we need hardly add, found that it led to the happiest results.
Monica was wont daily to assist at mass, and her reverence was so great, that she never turned her back on the holy altar.
Patricius died in 371, when Augustine was aged seven- teen. This, her best loved son, was then at Carthage studying. Monica learned to her grief that he had been seduced by the doctrine of the Manichees, a sect heathen rather than Christian, which acknowledged two principles in mutual war, the good the source of spirit, the bad the origin of matter. This heresy subsisted through the Middle Ages, and its adherents received the names of Albigenses, and Paulicians, and Lollards. It still survives in some of the coarser sects of Protestantism.
This was great grief to Monica. There was nothing she could do for her dear son but pray for him, and this she did incessantly. Her tears and entreaties did not move him, and for a while he lived in a separate house. It was too painful for her to hear his arguments, and see the gradual deterioration of his noble character under the in- fluence of this pernicious heresy, and he, on his side, showed impatience of his mother's advice.
*-
*
May 4.] iS, MofllCa. 69
And so years passed, Augustine involved in false doc- trine, and sinking into a life of dissolute morals. Monica prayed on. She urged some bishops to discuss his errors with Augustine, but the son, with the hot-headed im- petuosity of youth, refused to listen to them. "Wait," said one old bishop to Monica; "your son's heart is not now disposed to receive the truth. Wait the Lord's good time." And when the poor woman seemed sinking with despair, he spoke to her those blessed words which have been repeated again and again as ages have passed, and mothers have wept, and sons have been prodigal, "Go on praying ; the child of so viany tears cannot perish." She was com- forted, and prayed on.
Arrived at the age of twenty-nine, Augustine resolved to go to Rome and teach rhetoric there. His mother, dread- ing to lose sight of him, endeavoured to dissuade him from his journey. He pretended to yield to her entreaties, only that he might escape her importunities, and whilst she was spending the night in prayer in a chapel dedicated to S. Cyprian, he embarked and set sail for Italy.
"I deceived my mother," says Augustine in his Con- fessions, "by a lie, whilst she was weeping and praying for me. O, my God ! what did she ask of Thee, but that Thou wouldst stay me from sailing? But Thy purposes were not as were hers. Thou didst refuse her that which she then demanded so earnestly, to give her in the end that which she had all along prayed for."
On the morrow, Monica found her son gone ; she rushed to the shore, and the white sail on the dark blue horizon of sea was the only trace left of him. She returned to prayer weeping.
Shortly after his arrival at Rome, Augustine fell danger- ously ill, and he attributed his recovery to the prayers of his mother.
*
►J<-
70 Lives of the Saints. [May 4.
In 384 he left Rome to teach rhetoric at Milan. There he fell in with S. Ambrose, who quickly dispersed the errors of Manicheism into which he had fallen ; but Augustine, though dissatisfied with the dualism which had captivated his opening understanding, and had seemed to him to solve the mystery of the world's creation and man's existence, was not convinced of the truth of Christianity. He had formed an union with a woman of bad character, who bore him a son, and this union restrained him from giving his heart to the truth.
Monica's aching heart could bear absence no more. She took ship and came to Italy, and to Milan, seeking hei dear ernng son; and now, in S. Ambrose, she found a teacher who refreshed her weary soul, and encouraged her to perseverance.
She was growing old, the silver was in her hair, lines were traced by sorrow on her brow. Years of tears and prayer and hope deferred had sweetened that face, once fair as an opening rose, into a spiritual beauty, not of this earth.
Daily was she now seen in the basilica at Milan kneeling at mass, or bringing her offerings to the poor. At first, following the African custom, she brought an oblation of bread and wine to the tombs of the saints, thence to be distributed among the poor, but finding that this had been forbidden by S. Ambrose, she relinquished the custom. At Tagaste and at Rome it was usual to fast on the Sabbath (Saturday), but not at Milan. She consulted S. Ambrose, who gave her the wise advice, "When I am here in Milan I fast not on the Sabbath, but when I am in Rome I fast on that day. Do the same. Always follow the custom of the Church where you are."
At length what the holy mother had so long wished for was accompHshed, and God was about to answer all her
*-
*
May 4.] kS*. Mouica.
71
prayers in good measure, pressed down, and running over. All their fulfilment she was not to see, but she was suffered to behold the baptism of her son Augustine and his boy Alypius, on the same day, at Easter, 387. Then she felt that her work was accomplished, and she yearned for home, — first for the home where she had been as a little girl, playing under the date palm, under the eye of the good yet severe governess, who would not let her taste a drop of water, though she was thirsty, because it was not meal time ; the home where she had spent happy years with her hus- band Patricius, who, if he had been rough and passionate, yet had held her heart fast for many years ; the little church where she had wept and prayed day after day and year after year; she must return and give thanks there. Who can describe the many memories bound up with a longing to re-visit these scenes, which drew Monica back towards Africa, now that the object of her life was won? But next there was a longing for another and better home, one eternal in the heavens, where she would meet again her father and her mother, her husband, and perhaps the little daughter who we hear was born to her, and of whom we hear no more, and whom we may therefore conclude died early. But all these longings sprang from one source, a desire for rest after her long besieging of heaven's doors. The gate had been unclosed, and mercy had shot down, and she yearned to enter in and rest in the presence of the Lord of all grace.
So she persuaded Augustine and Navigius his brother to return with her to Ostia. They bade farewell to stately Milan with the fire-fly haunted marshes surrounding it, and made for Ostia, the seaport at the mouth of the Tiber. It was at Ostia that occurred the memorable even- ing conversation which Augustine has described for us, and which a modern painter has sought to portray on
I
^-
72 Lives of the Saints. [May 4.
canvas ; but which only the heart of a mother and a son
can fully realise.
"She and I were standing at a window," says Augustine, "and it overlooked the garden of the house in which we were lodging. We were at Ostia Tiberina, far away from the crowd, after a long and tedious journey, preparing for our voyage. And there we began sweetly to talk together alone, and forgetting the past, to search into present truth. What Thou art, O God ! and what is in store in eternal life for the saints, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man to conceive. Thus we drank with our hearts from Thy fountain above, the fount of life which is with Thee."
Augustine in his Confessions tells us at full all they talked about, at the window, that last memorable evening. He did not know then that it was the last he was thus to spend with her. But in after years the whole scene rose up before him, the evening light playing on the inspired face and silvery hair of his mother, the vine leaves flutter- ing around the window in the cool sea breeze, the green glow on the horizon, where the sun had gone down, looking like the plains of Paradise, and the mother speaking of heaven and God, and her desire to be at rest.
She fell ill and died at Ostia, lovingly nursed by Augus- tine, Navigius, and the boy Alypius. She was asked if she wished to be buried in her own country ; but no, she said, she was content to lie at Ostia. " Only," she added, " do not, I pray you, forget to remember me at the altar of God !" She died in the fifty-sixth year of her age, in the year 387. "If anyone thinks it wrong that I wept so bitterly for my mother part of one hour, for a mother wlio wept through many years for me that I might live to Thee, O Lord, let him not despise me for it; but rather let him wee]) for my sins committed against Thee !"
There is uncertainty about her reUcs, which are claimed by two places, Rome and Arouaise. Martin V. translated the body from Ostia to Rome in 1430, and it was placed in the church of S. Augustine ; but Walter, a canon of Arouaise, relates that he translated the relics of S. Monica, "whom the Latins call Prima," to Arouaise in 1162. Prima is a very bad translation of the name Monica, and in all probability Walter of Arouaise was mistaken, though the BoUandists give credence to his account.
S. GOTHARD, B. OF HILDESHEIM.
(a.d. 1038.)
[German Kalendars. May 5th, at Hildesheim, the day of his deposition. May 4th, of his death and translation. Also Prague, and Liege, and Bene- dictine Martyrologies. Authority : — A life by his disciple Wulfhere.]
S. GoTHARD was born in Bavaria, and was first prior and then abbot of Altaich, where he kept such good dis- cipline that he was chosen to restore the discipline in other abbeys which had become relaxed. He was sent for this purpose to Tegernsee, in the diocese of Freising, to Kremsmiinster, and elsewhere. In 102 1 he was appointed by S. Henry, the emperor, to the see of Hildesheim. He died on the 4th May, 1038, and was canonized by Inno- cent II. in the year 1 131. His life is singularly deficient in incidents awakening interest.
■*
*-
74 Lives of the Saints. [May^
May 5.
S. Maximus, B. nf Jerusalem, circ. a.d. 3j8.
S. NiCETius, B.of Fienne, in Gaul,^lheent,
S. Gerontius, B. of Milan, ^thcent,
S. Hilary, B. of Jrles, a.d. 449.
S. Sacerdos, B. of Limoges, circ, a.d. 530.
S. Maurontius, y^b. of Breuil, a.d. 701.
S. AvERTiNE, D.C- at Fin%ay, near fours, a.d. 1189.
S. Angelu?, P.'^, at Micate, in Sicily, a.d. 1220.
S. PiDS v., Pope of Rome, a.d. 1572.
S. MAXIMUS, B. OF JERUSALEM. (CIRC. A.D. 358.)
[Roman Martyrology. Authorities : — Sozomen, Theodoret, and men- tion by S. Jerome.]
jAXIMUS, bishop of Jerusalem, suffered in the persecution of Maximian. One of his eyes was plucked out, and a leg was lamed by the appli- cation of red hot irons to the sinews. In the troubles that broke out in the East, consequent to the broaching of heresy by Arius, Maximus was unfortu- nately inveigled by the partisans of Eusebius of Csesarea and Eusebius ofNicomedia into signing the condemnation of S. Athanasius; but directly he discovered the rights of the case, he repented and refused to attend the Arian synods, and in the council held at Jerusalem in 349 was the first to sign the recognition of S. Athanasius.
*-
-*
Mayi.] 6". Hilary. y^
S. HILARY, B. OF ARLES. (a.d. 449.)
[Roman Martyrology. The ancient one attributed to S. Jerome, Hra- banus and Usuardus, Ado and Notker. Authority : — A hfe written by a contemporary, either S. Honoratus, Bishop of Marseilles, or by Ravennus, his successor in the see, and mention in the letters of S. Leo the Great and his own writings.]
S. Hilary was born of noble parents in the year 401, and was a relative of S. Honoratus of Aries, who was then in the island of Lerins, abbot of the community he had there founded. Honoratus left his retirement to seek his kinsman Hilary, and draw him to embrace the same life, but all his persuasion was at first in vain. " What floods of tears," says S. Hilary, " did this true friend shed to soften my hard heart ? How often did he embrace me with the most tender and compassionate affection, to obtain of me a resolve that I would consider the salvation of my soul. Yet, by an unhappy victory, I resisted his persuasion." "Well, then," said Honoratus, "I will obtain of God what you will not now grant to me." And he left him, that in his island sanctuary he might pray for his relation. Three days after, S. Hilary had changed his mind, and went to Lerins to place himself under the discipline of Honoratus. " On one side," he says, " I thought I saw God calling me, on the other the world seducing me with its charms and pleasures. How often did I embrace and reject, will and not will the same thing. But in the end Jesus Christ triumphed in me."
Aspiring to perfection, he sold all his estates to his brother, and distributed the money among the poor.
In 426 S. Honoratus was chosen to the archbishopric of Aries, and S. Hilary followed him to the city ; but soon the longing came upon him to return to the islet of Lerins, and
-*
*-
"j^ Lives of the Saints. [Mayj.
he left Aries and rejoined the monastic community there. But God, who had other designs for him, did not suffer him to enjoy long his beloved retirement. S. Honoratus recalled Hilary to Aries, and he remained with the arch- bishop till his death, which took place in 428 or 429. Then he set out on his return to the peaceful isle of Lerins. But the citizens of Aries, apprized of his departure, sent messengers after him, who overtook him, brought him back, and he was forthwith elected, confirmed, and conse- crated archbishop, though only twenty-nine years of age.^
He presided in the council of Riez in 439, in the first council of Orange in 441, in the council of Vaison in 442, and in the second council of Aries in 443.
His impetuous character precipitated him into actions of more than questionable canonicity, on account of which he fell into disfavour with S. Leo the Great, pope of Rome (April nth). He was accustomed to make visitations, accompanied by his friend, S. Germain of Auxerre, not improbably beyond the doubtful or undefined limits of his metropolitan power. During one of these visitations, charges of disqualification for the episcopal office were exhibited against Celidonius, bishop, according to some accounts, of Besangon. Hilary hastily summoned a council of bishops, and pronounced sentence of deposition against him. On the intelligence that Celidonius had gone to Rome to appeal against this decree, Hilary set forth, it is said, on foot, crossed the Alps, and travelled without horse or sumpter-mule to the Great City. He presented himself before Leo, and with respectful earnestness en- treated him not to infringe the ancient usages of the Gallic Churches. Leo proceeded to annul the sentence of Hilary
'He was designated as bishop by his predecessor. The messengers, accom- panied by soldiers, sent to tiring him back did not know him. A dove settled on his head, nnd they recognized him by that sign.
*-
and to restore Celidonius to his bishopric. He summoned Hilary to rebut the evidence adduced by Cehdonius, to disprove the justice of his condemnation. So haughty was the language of Hilary, " that," says the writer of his life, "no layman would dare to utter, no ecclesiastic would endure to hear such words." He inflexibly resisted the authority of the pope, confronting him with the bold asser- tion of his own unbounded metropolitan power. Hilary thought his life in danger, or he feared he should be seized and compelled to communicate with the deposed Celi- donius. He stole out of Rome, and though it was the depth of winter, found his way back to Aries. The accounts of S. Hilary, hitherto reconcilable, now diverge into strange contradiction. The author of his life repre- sents him as having made overtures of reconciliation to Leo, as wasting himself out with toils, austerities, and devotions, and dying before he had completed his forty-first year. He died, visited by visions of glory, in ecstatic peace ; his splendid funeral was honoured by the tears of the whole city; the very Jews were clamorous in their sorrow for the beneficent prelate.
The counter-statement fills up the interval before the death of Hilary with other important events. Leo addresses a letter to the bishops of the province of Vienne, denounc- ing the impious resistance of Hilary to the authority of S. Peter, and releasing them from all allegiance to the see of Aries. For hardly had the aftair of Celidonius been de- cided by the see of Rome than a new charge of breach of canonical discipline was brought against Hilary. The bishop Projectus complained that, while he was afflicted with illness, Hilary, to whose province he did not belong, had consecrated another bishop in his place, and this in such haste that he had respected none of the canonical forms of election ; he had awaited neither the suffrage of
*
the citizens, the testimonials of the more distinguished, noi the election of the clergy. In this, and in other instances of irregular ordinations, Hilary had called in the military power, and tumultuously interfered in the affairs of many churches. It is significantly suggested that on every occa- sion Hilary had been prodigal of the last and most awful power possessed by the Church, that of excommunication. But we have only the statement of his enemies, and we do not know how highly-coloured the charges were, and how some of his acts may have been falsified. Hilary was commanded by S. Leo to confine himself to his own diocese, was deprived of the authority he claimed over the province of Vienne, and forbidden to be present at any future ordination. At the avowed instance of Leo, also, the Emperor Valentinian promulgated an imperial edict, denouncing the contumacy of Hilary against the primacy of the apostolic throne. He and all the bishops were warned to observe this perpetual edict, which solemnly enacted that nothing should be done in Gaul, contrary to ancient usage, without the authority of the bishop of the Eternal City.
S. MAURONTIUS, AB.
(a.d. 701.)
[Greven and Molanus in their additions to Usuardus, the Belgian and GaUican and Benedictine Martyrologies. Authority : — An account of him in the hfe of S. Rictrudis, his mother, by Hucbald, abbot of Elnone. See May 12th.]
Adalbald, and his saintly wife Rictrudis, were the parents of Maurontius. His father was murdered in Perigord, and is numbered among the blessed.^ His
iVol. ii., p. 41.
^-
-^
May S.J 6. Maurontius. 79
sisters Clotsendis (June 30th), Eusebia (March i6th), and Adalsendis (Dec. 24th), are numbered among the saints. Maurontius was baptized by S. Richarius (Riquier) when on a visit to Adalbald and Rictrudis. When the saintly- priest was mounted on his horse at the door, and about to leave, Rictrudis brought the babe out, and Richarius, stooping in his saddle, took the little one in his arms to kiss it. But something frightened the horse, which reared and plunged, and the babe fell into the grass. Provi- dentially it was unhurt, and when the mother rushed to pick it up, the child crowed and extended its arms to her. Maurontius spent his youth at court, but at last resolved to quit the world like his mother and his sisters, and live to God alone in the peaceful cloister. He visited Mar- chiennes and informed his mother of his intention. She was uneasy, fearing lest his young mind should change, and then sigh for the life in the world he had so rashly deserted. She consulted S. Amandus, and he bade her and the young man hear mass, and pray God to guide them aright in choosing a course of Hfe for Maurontius. Then he vested himself, and the tapers were lit by the youth, who served him as he said mass. Now all three lifted up their prayer to God that He would show if He had chosen the boy, and during the sacrifice through the little window came a summer bee, flying down the ray of light that penetrated into the chapel, and the bee flew thruming thrice round the head of Maurontius. Then Amandus took it for a sign, and he set apart the youth for the religious life. But, though ordained, he must needs return to the palace, and there, as high honour, to him was given to hold the regal orb of gold, and afterwards King Thierri gave him his signet and constituted him his secre- tary.
Maurontius built the abbey of Breuil on his own pro-
-*
* >^
So Lives of tlie Saints. [Mays.
perty at the confines of Artois and Flanders, on the river Lys. There he received S. Amatus when driven from his see of Sens by the king. He died when on a visit to Marchiennes, where his sister Clotsendis was abbess after her mother's death, and over which Maurontius exercised supervision, according to dying request of Rictrudis.
His relics at Douai, of which city he is patron ; at Margival, near Soissons, is a fountain dedicated to him ; an object of pilgrimage, at Levergies, is a small relic, and a hill once crowned by a statue of him destroyed at the revolution, but still the object of pilgrimage.
S. PIUS v., POPE. (a.d. 1572.)
[Roman Martyrology, beatified by Clement X., in 1672; canonized by Clement XI., in 1712. Authorities : — A life by Jerome Catena, in Italian ; another in Latin by Antonio Gabutio.]
MiCHELE Ghisliere, afterwards Pius V., was of humble extraction; he was bom at Bosco, near Alexandria, in 1504, and entered a convent of Dominicans at the age of fourteen. Here he resigned himself, body and spirit, to the devotion and monastic poverty enjoined by his order. Of the alms he gathered, he did not retain so much for himself as would have bought him a cloak for the winter. Though confessor to the governor of Milan, he always travelled on foot with his wallet on his back. When he taught, his instructions were given with zeal and jjrecision ; when, as prior, it was his office to administer the affairs of a monastery, he did this with the utmost rigour and frugality. More than one house was freed from debt by his careful management. The formation of his character was effected during those years when the strife between Protes-
i|.
-►!•
May 5.] kS. PlUS V. Si
tant innovation and the ancient doctrine of the Church had extended into Italy He was early invested with the office of Inquisitor, and was called on to perform his duties in places of peculiar danger, as Como and Bergamo. In these cities an intercourse with the Swiss and Germans was not to be avoided ; he was also appointed to the Valteline, which, as belonging to the Grisons, was in like manner infested by heretics. In this employment he displayed resolution and enthusiasm. On entering the city of Como, he was sometimes received with volleys of stones ; to save his life he was frequently compelled to steal away like an outlaw, and conceal himself by night in the huts of the peasantry ; but he suffered no personal danger to deter him from his purposes. On one occasion the Count della Trinita threatened to have him thrown into a well. " As to that, it shall be as God pleases," was the Dominican's reply. Moreover, he took eager part in the contest of intellectual and political powers then existing in Italy ; and as the side to which he attached himself was victorious, he advanced in importance.
Having been appointed commissary of the Inquisition in Rome, he was soon marked by Paul IV., who declared Fra Michele an eminent servant of God, and worthy of higher honours. He promoted him to the bishopric of Nepi, and, by way of placing "a chain round his foot," as Michele himself tells us, " that he might not creep back again to the repose of his cloister," in 1577 he nominated him cardinal. In this new dignity Ghisliere continued, as ever, poor, austere, and unpretending. He told his household that they must fancy themselves living in a monastery ; for him- self, his sole interest was still centred in devotional exer- cises and the business of the Inquisition. Pope Paul IV. died in 1559, and was succeeded by Pius IV., who trans- lated Cardinal Ghisliere to the bishopric of Mondovi, in Pied-
VOL. V. 6
-*
mont, a church reduced by the wars to a deplorable condition. The saint hastened to his new flock ; and by his zeal and energy re-established peace, reformed abuses, and repaired the material devastations of war, so far as lay in his power.
His strict sense of what was right made him oppose the appointment of Ferdinand of Medicis, a boy of only thirteen years, to the dignity of cardinal, by Pius IV.
On the death of that pope, December 9th, 1565, at the instigation of S. Charles Borromeo, Michele Ghisliere was elected to fill the vacant chair of S. Peter. He maintained all the monastic severity of his life even when pope ; his fasts were kept with the same rigour and punctuality ; he permitted himself no garment of finer texture than his wont. Yet he was careful that his private devotions should offer no impediment to his public duties, and, though rising with the first light of day, he would not indulge him- self with the customary afternoon nap. But the cares and business of the papacy were a grievance to him. He complained that they impeded the progress of his soul towards salvation and the joys of paradise. " But for the support of prayer, the weight of this burden would be more than I could endure."
The warmth of his devotion often brought tears to his eyes, and he constantly arose from his knees with the assurance that his prayers had received fulfilment. When the people beheld him in processions, barefoot, and with uncovered head, his face beaming with piety, and his long white beard sweeping his breast, they were excited to enthusiastic reverence ; they believed that so pious a pope had never before existed, and stories were current among them of his having converted Protestants by the mere aspect of his countenance. Pius was, moreover, kind and affable ; his manner towards his old servants was extremely cordial. Humble, resigned, and child-like as he
*-
*
Mays.] 6". Pius V. 83
was, yet his character had its narrow, harsh, and almost forbidding side. He was a complete contrast to that other great pope venerated in the same month of May, Gregory VII. Their minds were cast in wholly different moulds. Gregory was a man of great intellectual power, and a commanding authority. Pius was narrow in mind, and his virtues, not his intellectual superiority, gave him influence. Yet both were actuated by the same principle, each was as rigid in following with unswerving pertinacity the track marked out by conscience. Pius V. could not endure contra- diction, and was impatient of views not coincident with his own. He did not indeed permit himself to act on his first impressions, as regarded individuals, and those with whom he came in contact; but having once made up his mind about any man, for good or evil, nothing could afterwards shake his opinion.^ Never would he mitigate a penal sentence ; this was constantly remarked of him ; rather would he express his disapproval of the lenity of a punish- ment decreed. But he never resented a wrong done to himself personally. A young man had caricatured him ; was caught and brought before him. " Go," said the pontiff, " and consider yourself fortunate. Had you turned the pope into ridicule, and not Michele Ghislieri, you would have fared otherwise." His predecessor, Pius IV., had not cordially maintained the Inquisition. Soranzo said of thai pontiff, " It is well known that he dislikes the great severity with which the Inquisitors handle those accused. He makes it known that it would better please him were they to proceed with gentleness rather than harshness '" it was the reverse with Pius V. If there were any town wherein few punishments were inflicted, he ascribed the fact solely
' Informatione di Pio V. — "It is more difficult to free him from a bad im- pression than a good one ; especially with regard to people of whom he knows but little."
-*
*-
84 Lives of the Saints. [Mays.
to the negligence of the officials. He was not satisfied to see the Inquisition visiting offences of recent date, but caused it to enquire into such as were of ten or twenty years standing.^ The severity with which he insisted on the maintenance of Church discipline is characteristic. "We forbid," says he, in one of his bulls, "that any physician, attending a patient confined to his bed, should visit him longer than three days, without receiving a certificate that the sick man has confessed his sins anew."^ A second bull sets forth the punishments for violation of the Sunday, and for blasphemy. There were fines for the rich ; but " for the common man, who cannot pay, he shall stand before the church door, for one whole day, with his hands tied behind his back, for the first offence ; for the second, he shall be whipped through the city; but his tongue, for the third, shall be bored through, and he shall be sent to the galleys." But if this severity was calculated to defeat its object, there can be no question as to the earnestness and religious zeal of the man who exercised it. That men cannot be made Christians and virtuous by compulsion he failed to see, but it was his love of Christianity and virtue that made him attempt it. He drove all the courtesans out of Rome, and when he was remonstrated with, " If they return, I leave the city," was his reply.
The bull " In Coena Domini " had been often com- plained of by the princes of Europe, and Pius IV. had openly stated that the policy of his predecessors had lost several nations to the Church. But Pius V. proclaimed the obnoxious bull anew, and even rendered it more
1 When he sent forces to the aid of the French Catholics, he enjoined their leader. Count Santafiore, to "take no Huguenot prisoners, but instantly to kill everyone that should fall into his hands." And Catena says, " He complained of the Count for not having obeyed his command."
2 Supra gregem Dominicum : Bull iv. ii., p. 218.
►i<-
-*
Mays.] 6'. Pius V. 85
onerous, by adding special clauses of his own. Even Philip of Spain, though usually so devout, was once moved to warn the pontiff to beware of driving princes to desperation. Pius V. felt this rebuke deeply. He was sometimes most unhappy in his high station, and declared himself " weary of living." He complained that from having acted without respect of persons he had made him enemies, and that he had never been free from vex- ations and persecutions since he had ascended the papal throne.
But though Pius V. could no more give satisfaction to the whole world than other men, it is certain that his upright character and sincerity of purpose did exercise incalculable influence over his contemporaries, to the general advantage of the Church. The reformation of the papal court, so often promised, was at length com- menced in fact and reality. The expenditure of the household was greatly reduced. Pius V. required little for his own wants, and was accustomed to say, that "he who would govern others must begin by ruling himself." For such of his servants as had served him truly, he provided well ; but his dependents generally were held within closer limits than had ever been known under any other pope. He made his nephew, Bonelli, cardinal, only because he was told this was expedient to his main- taining a more confidential intercourse with the temporal princes. He would, however, confer on him only a very moderate endowment ; and when the new cardinal once invited his father to Rome, Pius commanded that he should instantly quit the city. The rest of his relations he would never raise above the middle station ; and woe to that one among them whom he detected in any offence, for he was driven without mercy from the pontiffs presence. He proceeded zealously to the removal of abuses. His
-*
*-
86 Lives of the Saints. [Mays.
auditor-general was commanded to proceed against all bishops and archbishops who should neglect to reside in their diocese, and to report the refractory to himself, in order to their instant deposition. He commanded both monks and nuns to remain in the strictest seclusion. The Orders complained that he enforced on them rules of more stringent severity than those to which they had bound themselves. Not content with earnestly enjoining on all magistrates a strict attention to their duties, he held him- self a public session with the cardinals, on the last Wednesday in every month, when any person, who might consider himself aggrieved by the ordinary tribunals, was at liberty to appeal to him.
He visited the hospitals in Rome, and gave muni- ficently towards their support. One of his kindest and most beneficial tharities was a dowry he gave yearly to a certain number of poor girls. At a time of great famine he imported com at his own expense from Sicily and France, part of which he sold at a low rate, and the rest he distributed freely to the most poor.
Finding that the poor suffered much from being driven to borrow of the Jews at an exorbitant interest, and that they fell into debt, from which they were unable to extricate themselves, he encouraged the savings-banks instituted by Paul III. in 1559. His troops scoured the country and put down the brigandage which had become almost as great and recognized an institution as in the Abruzzi at the present day. The chief of the bandits, Mariana d'Ascoli, however, escaped all pursuit. A peasant offered to deliver him up to the pope. " He is intimate with me, and I can take advantage of the trust he reposes in me to betray him." "Never, never, so help me God!" exclaimed the pontiff. *' Trust and friendship must for ever be held sacred." When Mariana heard that the pope had refused
*—
to take this advantage, he withdrew from the pontifical states, and never appeared in them again.
The pope obtained great power in all the Catholic kingdoms and states ; and he used it incessantly for the purpose of combining their rulers against the advance of Protestantism. The miserable jealousy of France and Spain had principally facilitated the spread of heresy in Germany, France, and the Low Countries ; the rivalry of Charles V. and Francis I. had occupied the attention and arms of these great sovereigns, and had diverted their energies from the suppression of the religious revolt,
Pius V. laboured indefatigably to remedy, as far as was possible, the disastrous consequences of this policy. France involved in civil wars, had either renounced her former hostility to Spain, or was unable to give it effect. Philip II. of Spain was devoted to the pope, and enforced his bulls. The Inquisition was allowed in Spain to execute its judgment with extreme rigour, and to strike even the archbishop of Toledo, and bring him to the stake. One auto-da-fe followed another, till every germ of heresy was extirpated. Duke Cosmo of Florence gave up to the pope, without hesitation, whomsoever the Inquisition had con- demned, and Casnesecchi, though connected with the reigning house, perished in the flames. Cosmo was entirely devoted to the pope; he assisted him in all his enterprises, and did not hesitate to admit all his spiritual claims. Pius was moved by this subservience to gratity the ambition of Cosmo, by crowning him grand duke of Tuscany.
Not altogether so friendly were the terms on which the pope stood with the Venetians. He nevertheless took great pains to avoid a rupture with them. " The republic " he declared to be " firmly seated in the faith, ever had she maintained herself most Catholic, she alone had been
■*
exempt from the incursions of barbarians, the honours of Italy repose on her head." The Venetians, also, con- ceded more to him than they had ever done to any other pontiff. The unhappy Guido Zanetti of Fario, whose religious opinions had become suspected, they resigned into his hands, a thing never before recorded in their annals. The clergy of their city was brought into strict discipline. The churches of Verona became models of order. Milan, under the care of S. Charles Borromeo, was universally renowned for its piety and regularity.
In England a great rising of the Catholics had taken place in the north, which had been put down and punished with sanguinary cruelty. Mary, Queen of Scots, had placed herself in the hands of Elizabeth, who, instigated by her jealousy, treated her as a prisoner.
Pius V. thought himself called upon to interfere. He hoped, by an open exercise of his authority, to unite France and Spain in a crusade against England. On the 28th February, 1570, he suddenly, that there might be no re- monstrance, drew up a bull, by which he declared Eliza- beth to be cut off, as a minister of iniquity, firom the communion of the faithful. He released her subjects from their allegiance, and he forbade them, under pain of incurring the same sentence as herself, to recognize her any longer as their sovereign. At the same time, ignorant of the completeness of the collapse of the insurrection in England, he wrote a letter of encouragement to the Earls of Westmoreland and Norlhumberland, who were at the head of it.
But now Pius V. foresaw and prevented a danger that menaced all Eastern and Southern Europe. The Ottoman power was making rapid progress. Its ascendency was secured in the Mediterranean, and its various attempts, first upon Malta, and next on Cyprus, rendered obvious
*-
the fact, that it was earnestly bent on the subjugation of the yet unconquered islands. Italy herself was menaced from Hungary and Greece. After long efforts, Pius suc- ceeded in awakening the Catholic sovereigns to the per- ception that there was indeed imminent danger. The idea of a league between these princes was suggested to the pope by the attack on Cyprus ; this he proposed to Venice on the one hand, and to Spain on the other. "When I received permission to negotiate with him on that subject," says the Venetian ambassador, "and communicated my instructions to that effect, he raised his hands to heaven, offering thanks to God, and promising that his every thought, and all the force he could command, should be devoted to that purpose."
Infinite were the troubles and labours the pontiff had to undergo before he could remove the difficulties impeding the union of the two maritime powers ; he contrived to associate with them the other States of Italy, and although, in the beginning, he had neither money, ships, nor arms, he yet found means to reinforce the fleet with some few papal galleys. He also contributed to the selection of Don John of Austria as general ; and made Antony Colonna admiral. To avoid the jealousies and dis- sensions likely to spring up among the princes uniting in the undertaking, the pope was declared chief of the league and expedition. The pope, together with his apostolic blessing, sent the general an assurance of victory, and an order to disband all soldiers who seemed to have joined the expedition merely for the sake of plunder, and all scandalous livers, whose crimes might draw down the wrath of God upon them, and blight their prospects of success.
The Christians sailed from Corfu, and found the Turkish fleet at anchor in the harbour of Lepanto. Six hundred
*-
90 Lives of the Saints. [Mayj.
vessels of war met face to face on October 7th, 157 1. Rarely in history had so gorgeous a scene of martial array been witnessed. An October sun gilded the thousand beauties of an Ionian landscape. Athens and Corinth were behind the combatants; the mountains of Alexander's Macedon rose in the distance, and the heights of Actium were before their eyes. Since the day when the world had been lost and won beneath that famous promontary, no such combat as the one now approaching had been fought upon the waves. Don John of Austria despatched energetic messages to his fellow-captains. Colonna answered his chief in the language of S. Peter, " Though I die, yet will I not deny thee." Crucifix in hand, the High Admiral rowed from ship to ship exhorting generals and soldiers to show themselves worthy of so holy a cause. Don John knelt upon his deck and offered a prayer. He then ordered the trumpets to sound the assault, com- manded his sailing-master to lay him alongside the Turkish Admiral, and the battle began. The Venetians, who were first attacked, destroyed ship after ship of their assailants, after a close and obstinate contest. But the action speedily became general. From noon till evening it raged, with a carnage rarely recorded in history. By sunset the battle had been won. Of nearly three hundred Turkish galleys, but fifty made their escape. From twenty-five to thirty thousand Turks were slain, and perhaps ten thousand Christians. The meagre result of the contest is as no- torious as the victory. While Constantinople, almost undefended, was quivering with apprehension, the rival generals were already wrangling with animosity. Had the Christian fleet advanced, the capital would have yielded without a blow, and the power of the Crescent in Europe have been at an end for ever. But the mutual jealousies of the commanders prevented them taking this final step.
*-
-*
Mays.) 6". Pius V. 9 1
and Don John sailed westward with his ships. Neverthe- less a great blow had been struck which crippled the Turkish power, and from that hour its advances in Europe and its supremacy in the Mediterranean were at an end.
The pope, from the beginning of the expedition, had ordered public prayers and fasts, and had not ceased to solicit heaven, like Moses on the mount, with outspread hands, for victory on the Christian arms. At the hour of the engagement, the procession of the Rosary was pouring forth prayers for the army in the church of the Minerva. The pope was then conversing with some cardinals on business, when on a sudden, he left them abruptly, threw open a window, stood for some time with his eyes fixed on heaven, and then turning to the astonished cardinals, said, " No more business, let us give thanks to God for the great victory He has accorded to the arms of the Christians." This fact was carefully attested, and recorded both at the time, and again in the process of canonization of the saint. In memory of this glorious victory, the pope instituted the Festival of the Rosary, to be observed on the first Sunday in October, and ordered the words "Succour of Christians" to be inserted in the Litany of Our Lady.
His next design was the formation of a league against England. He promised that he would expend the whole treasure of the Church, the very chalices and crosses included, on an expedition against that country ; he even declared that he would, himself, head the undertaking. The principal subject of his last words was the league, and the last coins sent from his hand were destined for this purpose. But death approached, and it was reserved for a successor to see the attempt made and fail.
When he felt that death was approaching, he once more visited the seven Basilican churches, " in order," as he said, "to take leave of the holy places." Thrice did he kiss the
*
*
92
Lives of the Saints.
[May 5.
lowest Steps of the Scala Santa. Then he returned to die in the Vatican, on May the ist, 1572, at the age of sixty-eight, having governed the Church six years and almost four months.
His reUcs lie in the church of S. Maria Maggiore, at Rome.
Cross from S. Mauiitins at Munater.
*-
->^
May6.j ^. EvodiuS, 93
May 6.
S. EvoDlus, B.Af. of Anlxoch, cue. a.d. 66.
S. JiiHN BEFORE THE Latin Gate, at Rome, A.D. 95 (see Dec. 2'jth).
S. Lucius of Cyrene, B., ist cent.^
S. Justus, B.Af. of Fienne in Gaul, a.d. 178.
S. Avii, y.M. near Cologne, a.d. 451 (?)
S. Eadbert, B. of Lindisfarne, a.d. 698.
S.John Damascene, Mk.,C, in Palestine, circ. a.d. ^70.
B. Elizabeth of Hungary, y. at Toss, in S-wit%erland, a.o. 1138.
S. EVODIUS, B. OF ANTIOCH. (about a.d. 66.)
[All Western Martyrologies. Authorities : — Mention in the Epistle of o. Paul to the Philippians iv. 2 ; also in the Epistle of S. Ignatius to the Antiocene Church. The Greeks commemorate SS. Evodius and Onesi- phorus together on the same day, April 29th ; the Latins venerate S. Onesiphorus on Sept. 6th.]
f,AINT EVODIUS or EUODIAS, to whom S. Paul the Apostle sends greeting in his Epistle to the Philippians, was the first bishop of Antioch after S. Peter, as S. Ignatius tells us, consecrated to it by the apostles themselves. He is supposed to have suffered martyrdom, but it is very uncertain as to when, and by what manner of death he was called to glorify God ; and indeed it is very questionable whether there is any authority for regarding him as a martyr.
•Roman Martyrology. Mentioned Acts xiii. i. Nothing more is known of him; by some he is called bishop of Cyrene, by others bishop of Olympias, by others bishop of Laodicea ; but none have any authority for so styling him.
-*
^-
94 Lives of the Saints. [May 6.
S. AVI A, V.M. (uncertain.^)
[Gallican Martyrology. Venerated at Auray, near Vannes, in Brittany, at Meulan-sur-Seine, and at Paris. Her festival is generally celebrated on the ist Sunday in May. The Bollandists mention her on May 2nd, and say that no life of this virgin martyr exists, not even in the Ursuline convent of S. Avoye, at Paris, where her relics reposed till the Revolution. Some writers identify her with S. Aurea (Oct. 4th). The only authority for her legend is a metrical life in French, probably of the 13th or r4th cent., on which the Pere Giry has founded a life. It is almost needless to say that the whole story is fabulous. i
S. AviA, or Aveze, as she is called in France, according to the legend, was born in Sicily, at the beginning of the 3rd cent. Her father, Quintianus, was a king of that country, and he persecuted the Christians with great fury. But Gerasina, his queen, who was a British lady, believed in Christ, and after a while converted her husband. By him she had nine children, three sons and six daughters. The youngest of the latter was named Avia or Aurea. After the death of King Quintianus, in the year 234, Dioned, king of Cornwall,^ who had married Dara, sister of Gerasina, began to make preparations for the marriage of his only daughter, the famous S. Ursula, with Holo- phernes (!) son of the king of Britain (!!). He invited his sister from Sicily to the wedding festivities, and she started for "Cornwall in Ireland," with her daughter Avia, and three other daughters, whose names were dis- covered by revelation, in the middle of the 12th cent., to Elizabeth ofSchonau (d. 1165), and the Blessed Hermann, Joseph of Steinfeld (d. circ. 1230);^ they were Babila, Juliana, and Victoria, and her youngest son Adrian.
' Guerin and (Viry say 3rd cent. The Legendaire de la Morinc says 5th cent.
^ " In Ireland," says P. Giry. The geography and the history in this wonderful story are quite in keeping with each other. It is unnecessary to point out the glaring absurdities and anachronisms in the tale. ' See April 7th.
*-
*
^'ay().] ^. Avia. 95
On the arrival of Gerasina and her children at the court of Dioned, Ursula informed her aunt of her intention to evade the projected marriage. Gerasina highly approved of her purpose, and with her four daughters, accompanied S. Ursula on that famous expedition with eleven thousand virgins, which ended in their martyrdom at Cologne (Oct. 2ist) at the hands of the Huns.^
Only three of the eleven thousand were spared. One of these three was Avia, but her martyrdom was only deferred.
** It must have been very touching," says the Pere Giry, "to see this tender virgin, after witnessing the massacre of her mother, her sisters, and all her companions, alone in an unknown land, in the power of barbarians, who had nothing in them human except their faces, and who, to their idolatry and impiety, added a ferocious humour, and a brutality equal to that of the most savage animals, so that like S. Ignatius the Martyr, she might have called them a troop of tigers." She was shut into a prison, but the Blessed Virgin brought three loaves or cakes every day, and passed them to her through the bars of the window. No menaces, no torments could shake the constancy of the captive. The Huns, either having caught some lions which haunted the forest neighbourhood of Cologne, or having brought the beasts with them from the cold banks of the Volga, turned them into the prison of Avia, but the royal beasts would not touch her. Then the Huns tor- mented her with savage cruelty, cut off her breasts, plucked out her eyes, and beat her to death.
She is pretended to have appeared in the parish of Ploermel, near Auray, in the diocese of Vannes in Brittany, and that she touched a stone and a fountain. To this day infants are placed on this stone, which is hollowed out in the middle, and are dipped in the fountain, to enable them to walk.
iWhose invasion of the Rhine did not occur till a.d. 4^1.
-*
96 Lives of the Saints. [Ma>6.
a EADBERT, B. OF LINDISFARNE.
(A.D. 698.)
[Roman and Anglican Martyrologies. Some late Martyrologists, as Maurolycus, Canisius, Menardus, Bucelinus, &c., have confounded him with S. Egbert, who died at lona, and who is commemorated on April 24th. Authority: — Bede's Eccl. Hist. iv. 29, 30, and his life of S. Cuthbert, c. 12-]
S. Eadbert is said to have been born amongst the South Saxons. He succeeded S. Cuthbert in the see of Lindis- fame, and Bede describes him as a man excelHng in know- ledge of the Holy Scriptures, and in observance of the angelic precepts. He administered the Church of Lindis- farne for about ten years; during which time it was his custom twice in the year — Advent and Lent — to make a retreat into the islet, where S. Cuthbert had resided, before he went to Fame. There he could be alone with God and his own soul, surrounded by the tumbling grey waves of the Northern ocean. He was present when the body of S. Cuthbert was translated, eleven years after the death of this great prelate, and the body was found perfectly fresh and incorrupt. Shortly after this event, Eadbert fell sick and died. He was placed in the sepulchre of S. Cuthbert.
S. JOHN DAMASCENE, MK. C. (about a.d, 770.)
[By the Greeks and Russians on Nov. 29th and Dec. 4th. By the modern Roman Martyrology on May 6th. Authority : — His life written by John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, before the year 969.]
S. John Damascene has the double honour of being the last but one of the Fathers of the Eastern Churcli, and the greatest of her poets. It is surprising, however, how
*
little that is authentic is known of his life. The account of him by John of Jerusalem, written some two hundred years after his death, contains an admixture of legendary matter, and it is not easy to say where truth ends and fiction begins.
The ancestors of John, according to his biographer, when Damascus fell into the hands of the Arabs, had alone remained faithful to Christianity. They commanded the respect of the conqueror, and were employed in judicial offices of trust and dignity, to administer, no doubt, the Christian law to the Christian subjects of the Sultan. His father, besides this honourable rank, had amassed great wealth ; all this he devoted to the redemption of Christian slaves, on whom he bestowed their freedom. John was the reward of these pious actions. John was baptized immediately on his birth, probably by Peter II., bishop of Damascus, afterwards a sufiferer for the Faith. The father was anxious to keep his son aloof from the savage habits of war and piracy, to which the youths of Damascus were addicted, and to devote him to the pursuit of knowledge. The Saracen pirates of the sea-shore neighbouring to Damascus, swept the Mediterranean, and brought in Christian captives from all quarters. A monk named Cosmas had the misfortune to fall into the hands of these freebooters. He was set apart for death, when his exe- cutioners, Christian slaves no doubt, fell at his feet and entreated his intercession with the Redeemer. The Saracens enquired of Cosmas who he was. He replied that he had not the dignity of a priest; he was a simple monk, and burst into tears. The father of John was stand- ing by, and expressed his surprise at this exhibition of timidity. Cosmas answered, " It is not for the loss of my life, but of my learning, that I weep." Then he recounted his attainments, and the father of John, thinking he would
VOL. V 7
-*
^<-
98 Lives of the Saints . [May 6.
make a valuable tutor for his son, begged or bought his life of the Saracen governor ; gave him his freedom, and placed his son under his tuition. The pupil in time exhausted all the acquirements of his teacher. The monk then obtained his dismissal, and retired to the monastery of S. Sabas, where he would have closed his days in peace, had he not been compelled to take on himself the bishopric of Majuma, the port of Gaza.
The attainments of the young John of Damascus^ com- manded the veneration of the Saracens j he was compelled reluctantly to accept an office of higher trust and dignity than that held by his father. As the Iconoclastic contro- versy became more violent, John of Damascus entered the field against the Emperor of the East, and wrote the first of his three treaties on the Veneration due to Images. This was probably composed immediately after the decree of Leo the Isaurian against images, in 730.
Before he wrote the second, he was apparently ordained priest, for he speaks as one having authority and commis- sion. The third treatise is a recapitulation of the arguments used in the other two. These three treatises were dis- seminated with the utmost activity throughout Christianity.
The biographer of John relates a story which is disproved not only by its exceeding improbability, but also by being opposed to the chronology of his history. It is one of those legends of which the East is so fertile, and cannot be traced, even in allusion, to any document earlier than the biography written two hundred years later. Leo the Isaurian, having obtained, through his emissaries, one of John's circular epistles in his own handwriting — so runs the tale — caused a letter to be forged, containing a pro- posal from John of Damascus to betray his native city to the Christians, The emperor, with specious magnanimity,
tlMansur (j.«., "The Victorious"^ was the name he went b>- among the Saracens.
*-
-*
May 6.] S. J oku Damasceue. 99
sent this letter to the Sultan. The indignant Mahommedan ordered the guilty hand of John to be cut off. John entreated that the hand might be restored to him, knelt before the image of the Virgin, prayed, fell asleep, and woke with his hand as before. John, convinced by this miracle, that he was under the special protection of our Lady, resolved to devote himself wholly to a life of prayer and praise, and retired to the monastery of S. Sabas.
That the Sultan should have contented himself with cutting off the hand of one of his magistrates for an act of high treason is in itself improbable, but it is rendered more improbable by the fact that it has been proved by Father Lequien, the learned editor of his works, that S. John Damascene was already a monk at S. Sabas before the breaking out of the Iconoclastic dispute.
In 743, the Khalif Ahlid II. persecuted the Christians. He cut off the tongue of Peter, metropolitan of Damascus, and banished him to Arabia Felix. Peter, bishop of Majuma, suffered decapitation at the same time, and S. John of Damascus wrote an eulogium on his memory.
Another legend is as follows ; it is probably not as apocryphal as that of the severed hand : — The abbot sent S. John in the meanest and most beggarly attire to sell baskets in the market-place of Damascus, where he had been accustomed to appear in the dignity of office, and to vend his poor ware at exorbitant prices. Nor did the harsh- ness of the abbot end there. A man had lost his brother, and broken-hearted at his bereaval, besought S. John to compose him a sweet hymn that might be sung at his brother's funeral, and which at the same time would soothe his own sorrow. John asked leave of the abbot, and was curtly refused permission. But when he saw the distress of the mourner he yielded, and sang him a beautiful lament
-*
*-
lOO Lives of the Saints. fMaye.
The abbot was passing at the time, and heard the voice of his disciple raised in song. Highly incensed, he expelled him from the monastery, and only re-admitted him on condition of his daily cleaning the filth from all the cells of his brethren. An opportune vision rebuked the abbot for thus wasting the splendid talents of his inmate. John was allowed to devote himself to religious poetry, which became the heritage of the Eastern Church, and to theological arguments in defence of the doctrines of the Church, and refutation of all heresies. His three great hymns or " canons," are those on Easter, the Ascension, and S. Thomas's Sunday. Probably also many of the Idiomela and Stichera which are scattered about the office-books under the title of yohn and yohn the Hermit are his.^ His eloquent defence of images has deservedly procured him the title of The Doctor of Christian Art. The date of his death cannot be fixed with any certainty ; but it lies between 754 and before 787.
B. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY, V. (a.d. 1338.)
[Anciently venerated at Toss, near Winterthur, in Tliurgau. Authority : — A life by Heinrich Murer (1670), derived from the chronicle of the con- vent of Toss.]
S. Elizabeth of Hungary,^ who married the landgrave of Hesse and Thuringia, was the daughter of Andrew, king of Hungary, by his wife Gertrude, daughter of Berchthold, duke of Meran. The same king Andrew in second marriage took Beatrice, daughter of Aldobrandini, marquis of Este, and died in 1228. His wife bore him a posthumous
'Translations of some of his exquisite sacred poetry will be found in Dr. Neale's Hymns of theEastern Church. London : Hayes, 1862. ^Commemorated on Nov. 19th.
*
-*
May 6.] B. EUzabetk. loi
son, named Stephen, who married a Venetian lady, by whom he had a son, Andrew of Venice, who succeeded to the throne of Hungary in 1290. Andrew had a daughter by a Sicihan wife, whom he named Ehzabeth, after her great and saintly ancestor ; she was born and baptized at Buda in 1257, and in honour of her birth all the fountains of the city were made to spout wine, and the bells pealed all day long.
On the death of his wife, Fenna of Sicily, Andrew married Agnes, daughter of Albert of Austria, king of the Romans. On the death of Andrew, in 1301, Agnes resolved on betrothing the young Elizabeth, then aged four, to her brother Henry, duke of Austria, and her dowry was fixed at three hundred thousand crowns. But in 1308 an event took place which affected and altered the fate of the princess. The Emperor Albert of Austria, the father of Agnes, was in that year invading Switzerland with his army, and had crossed the ferry of the Reuss in a small boat, leaving his suite on the opposite bank. In the boat with him were four men, John of Suabia, his nephew, whom he had wrongfully kept out of his inheritance, and who had leagued with others to slay him. The other three in the boat were Balm, Walter of Essenbach, and Wart. On reaching the bank. Balm ran the emperor through with his sword, and Walter cleft his skull with a felling-axe. Wart the fourth took no share in the murder. The imperial retainers, terrified, took to flight, leaving their dying master to breathe his last in the arms of a poor peasant who happened to pass.
' ' A peasant girl that royal head upon her bosom laid, And, shrinking not for woman's dread, the face of death surveyed, Alone she sate. From hill and wood low sunk the mournful sun ; Fast gushed the fount of noble blood. Treason his worst had done. With her long hair she vainly pressed the wounds, to staunch their tide, Unknown, on that meek, humble breast, imperial Albert died."
Mrs. Hemans.
-*
^-
I02 Lives of the Saints. [Mays.
A direful vengeance was wreaked by the children of the murdered monarch ; not, however, upon the murderers — for, with the exception of Wart, the only one who did not raise his hand against him, they all escaped^ — but upon their families, relations, and friends ; and one thousand victims are believed to have expiated, with their lives, a crime of which they were totally innocent. Queen Agnes gratified her spirit ot revenge with the sight of these horrid executions, exclaiming, while sixty-three unfortunate men were butchered before her, "Now I bathe in May-dew!" But ere long the dead men came back to haunt the ferocious queen, and in the agony of her remorse she founded the convent of Konigsfelden, near Brugg, in 1310, and endowed it with the confiscated property of those she had slaughtered. She retired into it, and endeavoured by penance, prayer, and almsgiving, to stifle the qualms of a guilty conscience for the bloody deeds which she had committed. It is recorded that a holy hermit, to whom she applied for absolution, replied to her, "Woman ! God is not to be served with bloody hands, nor by the slaughter of innocent persons, nor by convents built with the plunder of orphans and widows, but by mercy and forgiveness of injuries."
The horror of this great crime must have weighed on the princess Elizabeth, then a child, and the tears and frenzied remorse of her stepmother and guardian were some of first storms of life which swept before her young eyes.^ They had their effect. She shrank from a position in the world, and at the head of a state, which might involve her in crime either as the instigator or as the victim ; and she quitted the world to seek peace and safety and innocence
' John of Suabia died a monk at Pisa in 1313. *Thus we are expressly told by the chronicler, " Super quibus malis tantoquc effuso sanguine graviter compuncta Elizabeth est."
*-
>^ .
Miy 6.] B. Elizabeth.
-*
103
in the cloister. Her stepmother desired her to remain with her in the convent of Konigsfelden, but Elizabeth recoiled from that home founded in blood, and the con- stant presence of the wolfish queen. She declared she must reside elsewhere, and she entered her noviciate in the Dominican convent of Toss, when aged thirteen, under a harsh superior placed over her through the influence of her stepmother Agnes, who treated Elizabeth with such severity that all the sisters pitied her. The object of the queen of Hungary was to disgust Elizabeth witli cloister life, that she might return to the world, and fulfil lier engagement to Henry of Austria. Before she took the veil, Henry visited the convent to claim his bride. Henry was so angry to see her in the religious habit, that he rudely plucked the veil off her head, and tore and stamped on it. He then urged his suit in a manner more likely to address itself to her heart, and Elizabeth promised to give liim an answer after a brief delay. When he had left, she cast herself before the Blessed Sacrament in the Church, and besought guidance. On the return of the duke, she refused him, and was thenceforth left unmolested in her tranquil home. At one time she had for director a friar of the same order, whose rough treatment distressed her greatly. The man was bluff and uncultivated, and could not sympathise with the conscientious scruples and sensitive pains of her deli- cate soul, and showed great impatience at the recital of her troubles, which he regarded as the results of a morbid sentimentality. She then had recourse to the Divine Guide, and kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, poured out her griefs in His ear. Nor was it much better when the friar, informed that his penitent was a princess, changed his tone to one of obsequious apology.
She \vtis thoroughly unpresuming, and the sister who served as cook, declared that in all the twenty-four years
I
^
[04 Lives of the Saints. [waye.
that she had known her, she never found fault with her food. Her garments were threadbare, so as to call forth the angry remonstrance of her stepmother, when she went to visit her in her convent at Konigsfelden, " What ! you, a king's daughter, wear an old gown like this !" Her cell was perfectly plain, with a crucifix, a pallet bed with straw mattress, a coverlet and blankets. The washing utensils were of wood, and were kept scrupulously clean. She was very devout at all the choir offices, and one of the sisters in a dream saw Elizabeth singing matins, and every word came sparkling out of her mouth as a diamond or a pearl, and fell into a bowl she held. These were the only jewels she possessed. Her stepmother kept from her all her fortune, and only allowed her just enough for her sub- sistence, and on one occasion added insult to injury by showing her all the jewels that had belonged to her father, King Andrew, which Agnes kept for herself in a great oak chest in her cell at Konigsfelden.^ She did not give Elizabeth a single gem. This was when Elizabeth, after an illness, was sent to the baths at Baden, in Thurgau, and she took the opportunity to visit the old queen. Be- fore she returned to Toss she made a pilgrimage to Einsiedeln. She was ill again four years after, and her hfe was despaired of; when on S. Elizabeth's feast in the night, after the bell had called all the sisters to matins, S. Elizabeth, her patron, appeared to her, leaning over her bed, and taking her head in her hands, laid it on her bosom. Next morning Elizabeth was better, and in a few days was well. For the four last years of her life she suffered from tertian fever.
In her last sickness, which was long and painful, we are told that two sisters were deputed to sit up with her at night. One night both fell asleep ; a sudden flash of light
'The chest still exists, and is shown at the secularised abbey.
-*
Mays.] B. Elizabeth.
105
aroused one, but Elizabeth told her to go to sleep again, and she remained wearily longing for the dawn. Then suddenly the extinguished pendant lamp above her bed kindled of itself, and shed its soft radiance over her, illumining also the form of the Crucified at the foot of her bed, to which she could look, and meditating on His passion, bear her own pains with resignation. And when the last night came, she rose from her bed, and went to the choir and knelt before the adorable Sacrament, and then crawled back to her cell without the sisters who were deputed to watch her, but who had fallen asleep, being aware till too late to prevent it. As the day returned, she bade them throw open the window, and she looked out at the May buds and the blue sky, whilst the fresh spring air wafted into her sick room. Then, with her eyes fixed on the sky, she prayed, " My Lord and my God, Creator and Redeemer of my soul, and He who rewards all our labours in the end, look on me this day with the eyes of Thy mercy, and receive me from this world of woe into Thy celestial country, for the sake of Thy bitter passion and death." Then turning to the prioress and all the sisters, she thanked them for their kindness to her, and after that, relapsed into silent prayer, and fell asleep in Christ, on the 6th May, 1338, in the forty-first year of her age.
She was buried at Toss in the convent church. The convent has been suppressed, and its buildings converted into a factor)'. The monument of the Blessed Elizabeth, with the arms of Hungary on it, is still visible in the exist- ing church, and her remains have been left therein undis- turbed.
*
*-
]o6 Lives oj the Saints. [May
May 7.
S. Flavia DOMITILLA, V.M. at Terracina, a.d. 99.
S. Onadratus, M. at Nicomedia, yd cent.
S. Domitian, />'. of Maestricht, circ. a.d. 560.
S. Generic, D. at Seez, in France, end o/^th cent.
S. Benedict II., Po/ie of Rovte, a.d. 6S5.
S. John of Beverley, Archb. of York, a.d. 721.
S. Stanislaus, B.M. at Cracow, in Poland, a.d. 1079.
S. FLAVIA DOMITILLA, V. M.
(A.D. 99.)
[Ado, Roman Martyrology, also with SS. Nereus and Achilles on May 12th. Authorities : — Dio Cassius, liv. Ixvii, and Eusebius Plist. Eccl., lib. iii., c. 18.]
10 CASSIUS, the heathen historian (b. 155) says: — "In the same year (a.d. 95) Domitian executed, amongst many others, the consul Flavins Clemens, although he was his kins- man, and was married to Flavia Domitilla, also his relative. Both were accused of atheism (/.<?., Christianity) on which charge also many others who had strayed to Jewish customs were condemned, some to death, others to confiscation of goods. Domitilla was, however, only exiled to Pandaleria (the isle of Ischia)." The account given by Eusebius differs so materially, that it has been supposed there were two of the name of Flavia Domitilla. He says, " To such an extent did the doctrine which we profess flourish, that even historians that are far from befriending our religion, have not hesitated to record this persecution and its martyr- doms in their histories. These, also, have accurately noted the time, for it happened, according to them, in the fifteenth year of Domitian (a.d. 95). At the same time, for
►j _. _^
-*
May?.] 61 Flavia Domitilla. 107
professing Christ, Flavia Domitilla, the niece of Flavius Clemens, one of the consuls of Rome at that time, was transported, with many others, by way of punishment, to the island of Pontia."
Flavius Clemens was cousin germain of the emperor, and was certainly consul in 95. He had two sons, whom the emperor had resolved should succeed him on the throne, and he had changed their names to Vespasian and Domitian. But Flavius Clemens was executed, and his wife, Domitilla, was banished to Pontia, whilst — so the two accounts are reconciled — his niece FlaviaDomitilla was sent to Pandateria. Domitian was succeeded by Nerva, who died in 98, after a reign of little more than a year, and Trajan mounted the throne. Nerva had recalled the exiles, and — if we may believe the apocryphal Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilles — S. Flavia Domitilla the younger, the niece of Flavius Clemens, was then at Terracina. Trajan persecuted the Church, and Domitilla was burnt in her house, together with her two servants, Euphrosyne and Theodora. Her eunuchs, Nereus and Achilles, had already suffered. All this, however, is very questionable as history. For further information we refer to the account of SS. Nereus and Achilles (May 12th.) It is difficult to say whether the S. Flavia Domitilla, com- memorated on May 7th, be not the elder saint, who was not a inartyr, though, as S. Jerome says, her life was one long martyrdom in exile ; and the S. Flavia Domitilla, on May 1 2 th, be the younger, if there really were two of this name. It is by no means improbable that Eusebius made a mistake, and that this mistake has led to the making of two saints of the same name. The Acts are of no authority.
-*
1 08 Lives of the Saints. [Mav?.
S. DOMITIAN, B. OF MAESTRICHT.
(A.D. 560.)
[Belgian Martyrologies. Authority : — Two lives, one of uncertain date. The other written after 1183.]
S. DoMiTiAN, the patron of Huy, on the Meuse, was born in France ; he was made Bishop of Tongres, but on the see of Maestricht becoming vacant, he was elevated thereto by the people and clergy of that diocese. Accord- ing to a popular tradition at Huy, he delivered the neigh- bourhood from an enormous serpent which infected with its venom the water of a fountain. He spent a long time at Huy, but died at Maestricht. His body is preserved at Huy, in a magnificent mediaeval reliquary in the church of Notre-Dame. He is invoked against fever. Anciently, on May 7th, a procession carrying his shrine made the circuit of Huy, followed by all fever-struck patients in their shirts, candle in hand. To this day the shrine is borne proces- sionally to the fountain where S. Domitian is said to have slain the serpent.
S. BENEDICT H., POPE.
(A.D. 685.)
[Roman Martyrology. Not in Bede, Notker, or Usuardus. Au- thority : — His life in the collection of Anastasius the Librarian.]
Pope Leo II. was buried on July 3rd, 683, and the Chair of S. Peter remained vacant for more than a twelve- month, till Benedict II. was crowned on June 26th, 684. This was owing to the necessity of obtaining imperial confirmation of the election. But the inconvenience was so great, that Constantine Pogonatus, the emperor, issued an edict, which enacted that, on the unanimous suffrage of the clergy, the people, and the soldiery (who now asserted
* ^
*
May 7.] S. yohfi of Beverley. 1 09
a right in the election of the pontiff, similar to the privilege of the Praetorian Guard in the election of the emperor), the pope might at once proceed to his coronation. Benedict was a Roman by birth, and from his earliest infancy had exhibited every mark of piety. He reigned only nine months ; but in his brief reign he found time to adorn and enrich several of the churches of Rome. Constantine, as a mark of especial favour, cut locks off the hair of his two sons, Justinian and Heraclius, and sent them to the pope, who went forth in solemn procession with his clergy and all the troops in Rome to receive, with becoming gravity and respect, the august donation.
S. JOHN OF BEVERLEY, ABR
(a.d. 721.)
[Roman and Anglican Martyrologies. York and Sarum Kalendars, October 28th, as the day of his Translation. Authority : — A life by Folcard, monk of Canterbury (fl. 1066), at the request of Aldred, Arch bishop of York ; too late to contain much that is life-like and of great interest. Bede also mentions S. John in several places. Bede is an excellent authority, for he was a pupil of S. John, and was ordained by him. J
S. John was educated at the famous school of S. Theo- dore, Archbishop of Canterbury, under the holy abbot Adrian (January 9th.) On his return to the North of England, his native country, he entered the monastery of Whitby, governed by the abbess Hilda. On the death oi Eata, he was appointed and consecrated to the bishopric of Hagulstad, or Hexham, by Archbishop Theodore. When S. Wilfred was recalled from banishment in 686, by Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, all the bishops appointed by Arch- bishop Theodore in the province of York, viz., three, Hex- ham, Ripon, and York, were displaced. S. Cuthbert volun-
-*
*-
no Lives of the Saints. [i\ia> 7.
tarily resigned his see of Lindisfarne, and for a brief space S. Wilfred recovered what he considered to be his rights. But the restoration lasted only a year, and Wilfred was again driven into banishment. Probably S. John then resumed the government of the see of Hexham. But this is un- certain. On the death of Wilfred, Bosa was appointed to the see of York, and when Bosa died, John was chosen to fill the see.
He founded the monastery of Beverley, in the midst of the wood then called Deirwald, or the Forest of Deira, among the ruins of the deserted Roman settlement of Petuaria. This monastery, like so many others of the Anglo-Saxons, was a double community of monks and nuns. In 717, broken with age and fatigue, S. John ordained his chaplain, Wilfred the Younger, and having appointed him to govern the see of York, retired for the remaining years of his life to Beverley, where he died in 721.
S. STANISLAUS, B. M. (a.d. 1079.)
[Roman Martyrology. But the Prague Martyrology, those of Cologne, and Lubek, Greven, Molanus and Canisius, &c., on May 8th. The reason that the feast of S. Stanislaus was transferred back to the 7th, was so as not to obscure the feast of the Apparition of S. Michael. But May 8th, the day of his martyrdom, is that on which anciently the feast was celebrated. Authorities : — A Ufa in the Polish History of John Longinus Dlugoss, canon of Cracow (d. 1480) ; ^ also a Ufe written in 1252, and another life, ancient, but of uncertain date.]
S. Stanislaus was born on the 26th of July, 1030, at Sezepanow, near Bochnia, a town in Austrian Galicia, formerly part of the kingdom of Poland.
' Longinus Dlugoss is not very trustworthy about dates; his account contains some strange mistakes in chronology.
^'
-^
May 7. J 6'. Stanislaus. iii
He was educated at Gnesen, and in Paris, and on the death of his parents, he resolved to devote his great wealth to the service of the Church. He was ordained by Lambert Zula, bishop of Cracow, who gave him a canonry in his cathedral. On the death of Lambert, in 1072, he was chosen to the bishopric of Cracow. At this time Boleslaus 11. was King of Poland. This prince made himself abhorred by his subjects on account of his atrocious cruelty and unbridled lust. No one had courage to remon- strate against him, and at last, when he had carried off the beautiful wife of one of his nobles, Stanislaus boldly inter- fered, remonstrating, and threatening him with excommuni- cation. A story is told of this period of his life, which must be received with caution, as we have nothing like contemporary evidence to substantiate it. The bishop had bought some land of a man named Peter, who was now dead, and had built on it a churc:h. The king persuaded the heirs of Peter to reclaim the land. Stanislaus had not a receipt for the money, as the transaction had been conducted in good faith between him and the deceased, but he produced witnesses to prove that he had paid the money. The king, however, determined to judge the case, and he so browbeat the witnesses that they were afraid to speak the truth. The king was about to give judgment against the bishop, when Stanislaus suddenly exclaimed, "Sire ! delay thy judgment three days, and the dead man shall himself speak." Then he went forth and spent three days and nights fasting and in prayer. And on the appointed day he went to the tomb of Peter, and bade it to be opened, and when they had discovered the dead man, " Peter, arise !" exclaimed the bishop, touching him with his pastoral staff. Then the dead man, ghastly, with his mouldering grave clothes flapping about him, rose and followed the bishop between awestruck crowds to the court
-i^
*-
112 Lives of the Saints. [May 7.
of justice, where he stood in the place of witnesses, and gave his testimony, and then went back to his grave, and was stark as before.
At length the cruelty and profligacy of Boleslaus sur- passed all bounds, and he rivalled the fiendish wickedness ot some of the old Roman emperors. Then the bishop again confronted him, and this time with the threat of excommunication. The king in a paroxysm of rage sent servants after him to murder him; but overawed by the sanctity of the prelate, they returned without having accom- plished the deed. Boleslaus, blind with fury, himself rushed to chastise the daring prelate, and found him in the chapel of S. Michael at some distance from the walls ot Cracow ; he fell upon him with his sword, cut open his head, and in his brutal rage mutilated the face of the dying man. Then his attendants hacked the body and cast it into the field, where three eagles are said to have defended it from the wild dogs till some of the faithful found means to remove it secretly and bury it.^ Pope
1 The story of S. Stanislaus cannot be trusted in all its details, Longinus Dlugoss not only makes chronological errors, but when he tells such stories as the following, the reader loses all confidence in his judgment, if not in his common sense. In 1254 the body of S. Stanislaus was solemnly elevated in the cathedral to a new shrine. From Hungary came a pious family in a coach drawn by a horse, to be present at the ceremony. On the way, the horse fell down exhausted, and died. Thereupon the coachman descended and flayed the horse, hung the skin over his stick, and shouldering it, marched ahead. But the master sat down stubbornly on the bank and refused to proceed. His wife implored him to trust in the merits of S. Stanislaus, and go forward. But he declared his intention to return. Then she had recourse to tears, and finally he gave way, she carrying the children, and he with the food of the party on his back. After they had gone some way, they heard the neighing of a horse behind them, and the wife looking back, exclaimed, "Here is our old horse coming after us at a trot, or I am very much mistaken." " You fool," said the husband, "has not the horse been riayed ? Look ! there is the driver carrying the skin on his stick." But lo ! when he looked, the skin was gone, and the coachman could not account for the loss. So it was. By the merits of S. Stanislaus the horse had recovered its skin and its life, and the worthy family wjre able to harness it again in their waggon, and continue their journey, singing loud praises to the saint; and on their arrival at Cracow they offered a wax horse at his shrine.
*-
*-
-^
May 7.]
kS". Stanislaus.
"3
Gregory VII. excommunicated the tyrant and all his accomplices in this sacrilegious act, placed a ban upon the kingdom, and released all his subjects from their allegiance to him. Boleslaus fled into Hungary where he died, according to some, by his own hand. S. Stanislaus was canonized by Innocent IV., in 1253.
The body of the saint is contained in a silver sarco- phagus, borne by silver cherubim, in the cathedral of Cracow. Some portions also at Prague and Pilsen.
VOL. V.
*
*-
114 Lives of the Saints. [Mays.
May 8.
S. AuRELiAN, B. nf Limoges,
S. Victor the Moor, M. at Milan, a.d. 303.
S. GiBRiAN, P.C., near Rheims, a.d. 400.
SS. Agatho AN'D CoMP,, //.Af. af Byza«/i«m, a.d. 409.
Thf. Apparition of S. MiCHAELon Monte Gargano, a. 0.499.
S. Desideratus, B. of Bourges, a.d. J^o.
S. Iduberga or Itta, Matr. at Ni-velles, a.d. 6^2.
S. VViRO, JS. at Roermund, in Holland, *jth cent,
S. Peter, B. of the Tarentaise, a.d. ii^S-
S. GIBRIAN, P.C.
(A.D. 409.)
[G.illican Martyrology, venerated especially at Rheims. The feast of his Translation, April i6th. Authority : — Mention by Flodoard (d. 966), his Historia Ecclesiae Remensis. Also in the Acts of S. Tressan.]
AINT TRESSAN, an illustrious Irishman, is said to have gone to France with his six brothers, Gibrian, Helan, German, Veran, Abran, Petran, and three sisters Fracla, Promptia and Posemna, all very devout persons. He stopped in the territory of Rheims, near the Marne, in the days of S. Remigius, who baptized Clovis I. The brethren and sisters dispersed among the forests around the Marne, and lived solitary live s S. Gibrian settled near the little stream Cole, where it flows into the Marne. His body, after his death, was taken to Rheims, and buried in the Abbey Church of S. Remi, but it was torn from its grave and the dust scattered at the French Revolution.
*-
APPARITION OF S. MICHAEL. (a.d. 492.)
[Roman Martyrology, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, &c, A double according to the Roman Rite.]
On this day is commemorated the apparition of S. Michael the Archangel on Monte Gargano, near Manfredonia. Baronius remarks on the story that many of the particulars are certainly apocryphal.
In the year 492, a rich man, named Gargan, had large herds of oxen which were pastured on the mountains. One of the bulls, on a certain day, separated from the herd and disappeared among the rocks. It was sought for a day or two in vain, and was found in a cavern wounded by an arrow in its side. As the herdsman attempted to draw the arrow, it flew out of the wound spontaneously and struck the man in the breast and wounded him. His companions, very much astonished at the marvel, told the story to the Bishop of Siponto, now Manfredonia. The bishop enjoined a fast of three days, and exhorted the faithful to pray incessantly for enlightenment as to the signification of the wonderful arrow. At the end of three days, S. Michael appeared to the prelate, and informed him that the cavern into which the bull had audaciously penetrated was his favourite resort, and that it was his will that a church should be erected there to his honour.
The bishop and all his clergy went in reverent procession to the awful cave, and celebrated the divine mysteries therein till a noble church was reared above it, and dedi- cated to the Archangel. The consecration of the churci^. took place on Sept. 29th.
-*
*
ii6 Lives of the Saints. [Mays.
S. IDUBERGA OR ITTA, MAT.
(a.d. 652.)
[Gallican, Belgian and Benedictine Martyrologies. Authorities: — Mention in the hfe of S. Gertrade, her daughter, and in the Chronicle of Sigebert ot Gemblours.]
This blessed woman, the wife of the saintly Pepin of Landen (Feb. 21st), mayor of the Palace, was the mother of S. Gertrude (March 21st) and S. Begga (Dec. 17th), who married Duke Ansegis, and became the mother of Pepin of Herstal, the father of Charles Martel. She became a widow about 646, and retired to the convent of Nivelles, governed by her daughter Gertrude, where she peacefully ended her days.
S. WIRO, B.
(7TH CENT.)
[Roman, Belgian Martyrologies, Also in the dioceses of Utrecht, Deventer and Groningen on this day. But at Roermund on May loth to- gether with his companions Plechelm and Otger. Authority : — A life written before the middle of the 14th cent. ; but how much earlier is uncertain.]
S. WiRO was an Irishman by birth, who, with two com- panions, Plechelm and Otger, by their names apparently of Saxon race, like so many of his countrymen, was filled with a desire to wander. He visited Rome, where he and Plechelm were ordained bishops, and then returned to Ireland. But again he left his native land, and this time came into Guelders, and having sought the court of Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the Palace, the father of Charles Martel, was given by him the Hill of S. Peter, afterwards called the Odilie- berg, near Roermund, where he built a cell, and there died. His body was translated to Roermund in 1341. S. Wiro belonged to an ancient Irish family, settled at Corcobaskin,
^-
-*
May 8.] kS!. PetcT of Tareutaise. i j 7
in the county of Clare, from which sprung S. Senan of Inniscathy. The Bollandists, Dempster, and other writers are wrong in numbering him among the Scottish saints. The writer of his life says he came from Scotia, but Scotia means the north part of Ireland, and in another place he speaks of the island from which Wiro came. Moreover, we find him mentioned in various old Irish documents and Kalendars.
S. PETER, B. OF TARENTAISE.
(A.D. 1 175.)
[Roman, Gallican and Cistercian Martyrologies. Authority: — A life written by a contemporary, Gaufred, Abbot of Hautecombe, by order ol Pope Alexander III. (d. 1181).]
This Saint was born about the year 1102, near Vienne in Dauphine, and was educated in the monastery of Bon- neraux, which had just been founded under the strict rule of S. Bernard. After ten years he was sent to found the monastery of Tamie, in the Tarentaise, among the mountains in a bleak and elevated spot, where a monastery might serve as a refuge to the travellers who crossed the pass into Savoy. This was in 1132. He met with such success, and governed his monastery so well, that he was elected to the arch- bishopric of the Tarentaise, in 1142. He found the diocese in sad disorder, and he rested not till he had restored discipline throughout it. His charity was very great. On one winter day, as he was crossing the Alps, he came up with a poor woman thinly clad, crying with cold. He in- stantly plucked off his white woollen habit, gave it to her, and proceeded to the hospice of little S. Bernard with his cloak wrapped round him. But the chill caused by exposure pros- trated him, and he lay long in the hospital ill with feverish cold. His goodness and his charity endeared him to the
-*
poor, who crowded to the place where they heard he was, and often caused him great inconvenience. At S. Claude he went up into a tower, furnished with a pair of stairs, and those who desired to see him ascended by one flight of steps, and when they had received his benediction and advice descended by the other.
But this notoriety displeased the weary bishop, who longed for the tranquillity of the cloister, and one day he disappeared. The people were in dismay. No traces of their archbishop could be found ; they knew not whether he were alive or dead. Then one of his disciples, a young man, undertook to find him, and he went about for a whole year, visiting different monasteries ; and at last, one day, as he stood watching the monks go forth to their work from the gates of a monastery in Switzerland, either Lucella, near Basle, or Salmanswyler, near Ueberlingen, he recog- nized the archbishop. He at once ran to him and claimed him. The astonished monks fell at the feet of the prelate whom they had treated as a humble lay-brother. The young man returned to Moutier S. Jean with his bishop, and the road was lined with rejoicing people (1157).
S. Peter had come back to be cast headlong into the troubles which then distracted Europe. Some account of these must now be given, that the labours of the saint may be appreciated.
'J'he popes had for long been troubled with dissensions in Rome itself Two parties existed in that city, one which supported the pope in his attempt to reduce the city to complete subjection to his rule as its temporal sovereign, the other party insisting on the independence of Rome, and the retention of authority in the hands of the senate. Arnold of Brescia had headed the republican party of late, but had been crushed. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had combined with Pope Adrian IV. to suppress him.
*-
May 8.] S. Petev of Tarentaise. 119
and Adrian had executed and burnt and cast into the Tiber the favourite of the Roman mob, before they were aware that he was in danger. But though Frederick made common cause with Adrian against the republican leader, he had no sympathy with the papal pretensions. Adrian made five demands — I. Absolute dominion over the city of Rome. The emperor was to send no officer to act in his name within the city without permission of the pope ; the whole magistracy of the city was to be appointed by the pope. 11. The imperial armies were not to cross the papal frontier. III. The bishops of Italy were to swear allegiance, but not do homage to the emperor. IV. The ambassadors of the emperor were not to be lodged of right in the episcopal palaces. V. The domains of the Countess Matilda, the Duchy of Spoleto, and the islands of Corsica and Sardinia were to be restored to the Church of Rome.
Frederick refused some of these demands till he had consulted his counsellors, but on some points he answered at once. Those bishops who did not hold fiefs should not be required to do homage, but those who did must either surrender their fiefs or submit to the customary homage. If they enjoyed the privileges of princes they must fulfil the obligations entailed by feudal tenure. He would not require that his ambassadors should be lodged in the episcopal palaces when those palaces stood on lands belonging to the bishops, but only if they stood on the lands of the empire. " For the city of Rome, by the grace of God, I am emperor of Rome ; if Rome be entirely with- drawn from my authority, the empire is an idle name, the mockery of a title."
The senate of Rome thought now to take advantage of the rupture between the pope and the emperor, to enforce their claims, and a deputation attended on Frederick, who received them with favour.
*
1 20 Lives of the Saints. [May s.
Adrian at once opened negotiations with the cities of Lombardy, which were impatient of the iron rule of the emperor, and stirred them up to revolt. The situation was strange, each antagonist was encouraging the republican party in the heart of his enemy's position. Adrian was preparing for the last act of defiance, the excommunication of the emperor, when his death put an end to the conflict. But the death of Adrian opened the door to a schism.
The conclave met to elect a successor, and the electors were broken into two factions. On one side were the zealous churchmen, who were determined to make the city of Rome the absolute principality of the pope, supported by a faction of the nobles, headed by the Frangipani. There w^as much to be said for their scheme. It was im- possible for the successor of S. Peter to freely execute his authority, so long as he was not master of the city, so long as that city was in constant ebullition with party strife, and the person of the pope was incessantly exposed to violence, often to imprisonment, more often to exile. On the other side were those who were attached to the emperor; the republican party, and a ievf, perhaps, who loved peace, and thought it the best wisdom of the Church to conciliate the emperor. The conflicting accounts of the proceedings in the conclave were made public on both sides. On the third day of the debate fourteen of the cardinals agreed in the choice of Roland the Chancellor of the Apostolic See, a man of unimpeachable morals and a firm assertor of papal supremacy and independence. The cope was brought forth in which he was to be invested. Then three cardinals of the adverse faction plucked the cope from his shoulders, and proclaimed Octavian cardinal of S. Cecilia. A Roman senator who was present (the conclave was then an open court), indignant at this violence, seized the cope, and snatched it from the hand of Octavian. But Octavian's
*-
-»i«
*
May 8.] 6". Peter of Tarentaise. 1 2 1
party were prepared for such an accident. His chaplain produced another cope, in which he was invested with such indecent haste that, as it was declared, the front part appeared behind, the hinder part before. Upon this the assembly burst into derisive laughter. At that instant the gates were burst open, a hired soldiery rushed in, and sur- rounding Octavian, carried him forth in state. Roland (Alexander III.) and the cardinals of his faction were glad to escape with their lives, but the Frangipani rallied about them. Octavian assumed the name of Victor IV., and was acknowledged as lawful pope by a great part of the senators and people.
According to the opposite statement, the division was not of three to fourteen, but of nine to fourteen, and this majority was made by means of bribery, freely employed by William, king of Sicily. There can be, however, no question but that Alexander III. was the lawful pope.
The emperor, on receiving the intimation of election from each of the rival popes, summoned a council of all Christendom to meet at Pavia, and cited both popes to submit their claims to its decision. The summons to Alexander was addressed to the Cardinal Roland. Alex- ander refused to receive a mandate so addressed, and pro- tested against the right of the emperor to summon a council without the permission of the pope. When the council assembled, Alexander was not present, nor did he send attestations of his lawful election. After a grave debate, and hearing many witnesses, which were all on the side of Victor, the council with one accord (Feb. 12th, 1160) declared Victor pope, condemned and excommunicated the contumacious Cardinal Roland. To Victor the em- peror paid the customary honours, held his stirrup, and kissed his feet. There was a secret cause behind, which no doubt strongly worked on the emperor, and on the
■*
*-
122 Lives of the Saints. [Mays.
council through the emperor ; letters of Alexander to the insurgent Lombard cities had been seized, and were in the hands of Frederick.
The Archbishop of Cologne set out for France, the Bishop of Mantua for England, the Bishop of Prague for Hungary, to announce the decision of the council to Christendom, and to demand allegiance to Pope Victor.
Alexander did not shrink from the contest. From Anagni he issued his excommunication against the Em- peror Frederick, the anti-pope, and all his adherents.
Throughout the German empire, Victor was regarded as the legitimate head of Christendom. The Archbishop of Tarentaise was almost the only subject of the empire who ventured to declare openly in favour of Alexander III. He took his part in several councils ; he travelled from place to place, stirring up the faithful to reject Victor and acknowledge Alexander. The whole Cistercian Order followed his lead, and before long he could reckon on several bishops and seven hundred abbots devoted to the cause of Alexander, and ready with tongue and pen to proclaim him as the lawful pope, and Victor as an usurper.
Peter even braved the displeasure of the emperor by addressing him personally, "Sire! cease persecuting the Church and its head ; the priests and monks, the peoples and cities, that have sided with their legitimate pastor. There is a King above kings to whom thou must give account." The emperor did not resent this bold rebuke, so great was his respect for the virtues of the archbishop.
Alexander III. desired to see this bold champion of his cause, and summoned him to Rome. For Alexander, knowing that Frederick would be engaged in the north of Italy with the rebellious cities, made a sudden descent upon Rome, in order to add to the dignity of his cause by his possession of the capital city. But Rome, which would
*-
^
Mays.] S. Peter of Tarentaise. 123
hardly endure the power of a pope with undisputed autho- rity, was no safe residence for one with a contested title. Leaving a representative of his authority, he took refuge in France, where he was received with demonstrations of the utmost respect. The rival kings of France and England forgot their differences in paying honour to Alexander. He was met by both at Courcy, on the Loire, on Feb. 9th, 1162 ; the two kings walked one on each side of his horse, holding his bridle, and so conducted him into the town.
During the eventful years that ensued, S. Peter remained in his diocese labouring among his Alpine shepherds ; but in II 74 he was called forth from obscurity by a mandate from the pope, which sent him to attempt a reconciliation between Louis VII., of France, and Henry II., of England. Louis VII. and Henry, the son of the English king, whom he had instigated to rebellion, met the aged prelate at Chaumont in the Vexin, and Prince Henry alighted from his horse, kissed the old bishop's tattered mantle, and begged it of him. The king of England met him near Gisors, and also shewed him great honour, but his meditation proved of little effect, and he returned to the Tarentaise to die. On his way, as he was approaching the abbey of Bellevaux, his strength deserted him, and he lay down beside a stream that rushed down the mountain-side. There it became evident to his attendants that he was dying. He was carried to the monastery and breathed his last as he entered within its walls. He was canonized in 1191 by Celestine VII. In 1827 Pope Leo XII. accorded, in two briefs, an indulgence for seven years to those who kept his festival, and Pius IX., by a new brief, made the indulgence perpetual.
The relics of the saint are preserved at Cirey, and in the Trappist convent of Grace-Dieu, and at Vesoul.
^ — »J«
»i«-
1 24 Lives of the Saifits. [May 9.
May 9.
S. Hermas, B. of Philippi, ist cent.
S. Beatus. C. at Fendome and Laon, yd cent.
S. Greoory Nazianzen, Archb. of Constantinople, a.d. 3yi.
S. Gerontius, B.M. of Cer-via, a.d. ^oi.
S. Beatus, H. on the Lake of 7hun in S'witzerland, "jth cent,
Tr. S. Andrew, Ap, to Amalfi, a.d. 1298.
S. HERMAS, B.
(ist cent.)
[Roman Martyrology, Usuardus, &c. By the Greeks on March 8th. J
[AINT HERMAS is mentioned by S. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 14). In the Menology of the Emperor Basil he is said to have been consecrated bishop of Philippi. The ancient writers of the Church attribute to him the book called " The Shepherd," which is one of the earliest Christian, not canonical works, of the apostolic age that we possess. Origen says, " I believe that it was this Hermas who wrote the Pastor." ^ With this agrees the testimony of Eusebius,2 and of S. Jerome.^ Nevertheless the justice of this conclusion has been much shaken by the discovery of an ancient fragment containing a list of canonical books in use by the Roman Church, composed towards the end of the 2nd century, and published by Muratori, in which it is stated that Hermas was the brother of Pope Pius I., who reigned between 140 and 152. "This book of Hermas, brother of Pope Pius, has been published recently in our days." 4
iCom. in Ep. ad Rom. xvi. 14. » Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iii. 5. ^ Hieron. Catal. Cap. 10
*Murat. Antiq. Ital. iii. p. 8^3.
*-
Mayg.j S. Grcgory Nazianzen. 125
S. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, B.D. (a.d. 391.)
[By the Greeks on Jan. 25th. Some Latia Martyrologies on Jan. nth. Maurolycus on Jan. 13th ; a Treves Martyrology on March 29th. But Usuardus, Ado, Notker, and Modern Roman Martyrology on May 9th. Authority : — His Hfe written by himself nine years before his death ; the Orations and Epistles, also Sozomen, Socrates, Theodoret, &c.]
This great saint and doctor of the Church was born in 329, at Arianza, a small village of Nazianzus in Cappadocia, not far from Csesarea. His father, Gregory, was at one time a heathen, but was converted by his Christian wife, Nonna, and was baptized, and then, the same year that Gregory was bom (329), was elected and consecrated bishop of Nazianzus. They had three children, a daughter Gorgonia, Gregory, and the youngest, C»sarius (Feb. 25th), born after he was made bishop. Gregory was intended for the bar, and was sent to study at Caesarea in Palestine, and then to Alexandria. He afterwards sailed for Athens to complete his education, and was nearly wrecked. In his alarm, he vowed to defer his baptism no longer.
At Athens he made the acquaintance of S. Basil (June 14th), and was also, in 355, a fellow pupil with Julian, afterwards emperor. In 356, Gregory left Athens and took Constantinople on his way home. There he found his brother Csesarius practising as a physician. On arriving at Nazianzus, Gregory was baptized by his father, and in 358 joined S. Basil, in a soHtude to which he had re- treated near the river Iris in Pontus, in answer to the call of his friend. " I beHeve," wrote S. Basil to Gregory, " I have found at last the end of my wanderings ; my hopes of uniting myself with thee — my pleasing dream, I should rather say, for the hopes of men have been justly called waking dreams — have remained unfulfilled. God has caused me to find a place, such as has often hovered before
* -4s
*-
126 Lives of the Saints. [May 9.
fancy of us both ; and that which imagination showed us afar off, I now see present before me. A high mountain, clothed with thick forest, is watered towards the north by fresh and everflowing streams; and at the foot of the mountain extends a wide plain, which is rendered fruitful by these streams. The surrounding forest, in which grow many kinds of trees, shuts me in as in a strong fortress. This wilderness is bounded by two deep ravines ; on one side the river, dashing in foam from the mountains, forms a barrier hard to overcome ; and the other side is enclosed by a broad ridge of hills. My hut is so placed on the summit of the mountain, that I overlook the extensive plain, and the whole course of the Iris, which is far more beautiful and abundant in water than the Strymon near Araphipolis. The river of my wilderness, which is the most rapid that I have ever seen, breaks over a jutting precipice, and throws itself foaming into the deep pool below — to the mountain traveller an object on which he gazes with delight and admiration, and valuable to the native for the numerous fish it affords. Shall I describe to thee the fertilizing vapours that rise from the moist earth, and the cool breezes from the broken water? Shall I speak of the lovely singing of the birds, and the profusion of flowers ? What charms me most of all is the undisturbed tranquillity of the spot ; it is only visited occasionally by hunters ; for my wilderness feeds deer and herds of wild goats, not your bears and wolves. How should I exchange this nook for any other ? Alcmseon, when he had found the Echinades, would not wander further." ' " In this simple description of the landscape, and of the life of the forest," says Humboldt, in that beautiful chapter of his Cosmos in which he shows that Christianity opened the eyes of men to see the loveliness of creation, "there speak feelings
1 Basil. M. Ep. 14 and 223.
*-
-*
May 9.J S. GregoTy Nazianzen. i 2 7
more intimately allied to those of modern times than anything that Greek or Roman antiquity has bequeathed to us."
In after years, when the friends had been called to the painful toils of the episcopate, Gregory loved to recall to Basil the pleasant times when they had cultivated together the garden of their hermitage. "Who shall bring back to us," he wrote to his friend, "those days when we laboured together from morning till evening? When sometimes we cut wood, sometimes we hewed stone? when we planted and watered our trees, when we drew together that heavy wagon, the galls of which so long remained on our hands ? " ^
But Gregory was not long to enjoy this peaceful life. He was recalled by his father, then above eighty, to assist him in the government of his flock. He ordained him priest by force, on a great festival, probably the Epiphany, in 361. Gregory, full of grief, flew back to his solitude, and sought relief in the friendship of S. Basil; but there he began to reflect on his conduct, and remembering the punishment of Jonah for disobeying the command of God, after a ten weeks' absence returned to Nazianzus, where he preached his first sermon on Easter Day. This was followed by another, which was an apology for his flight, and which is extant and is placed first among his orations.
He was soon called upon to interfere in a matter of peculiar delicacy. The bishop, his father, hoping to effect an union of the Semi- Arians with the Catholics, had signed a compromise. This had alarmed the strictest of the Catholic party, who thereupon refused to communicate with the elder Gregory. The son, with great care, moderation, and at the same time firmness, healed this incipient schism ;
^ Greg. Nazian. Ep. 9 and 13.
-*
and on the occasion of the re-union pronounced an oration which has been preserved to us.
His brother Csesarius died in 369 and was buried at Nazianzus. S. Gregory preached his funeral oration, as he did also that of his sister Gorgonia, who died soon after.
In 372 Cappadocia was divided by the emperor into two provinces, and Tyana was made the capital of Cappadocia the second. Anthimus, bishop of that city, thereupon laid claim to jurisdiction over this province. S. Basil, who was bishop of Csesarea and metropolitan of Cappadocia, maintained that the civil division of the province in no way affected his spiritual jurisdiction, and Basil thought it advisable to plant his friend in a new see which he determined to found at Sasima, in order to strengthen the see of Csesarea against the aggression of Anthimus. Sasima was a comfortless, unhealthy town, full of dust, at the meeting of three roads, noisy from the constant passage of travellers, the disputes with extortionate custom-house officers, and all the tumult and drunkenness belonging to a town inhabited by loose and passing strangers ; of all places the least fitted to be a home for the shrinking and sensitive Gregory. Regardless of Gregory's objections, Basil compelled him to receive consecration; he attempted to settle at Sasima, but was driven away by the violent Anthimus, who had on one occasion stopped Basil's way home by a band of free- booters.
Gregory took up his abode at Nazianzus as his father's coadjutor ; and the unhappy result of the matter was that he never again felt thoroughly at home with Basil, and one of the most beautiful of Christian friendships was per- manently marred by a strong will on one side, and a lack of sympathy on the other.
S. Gregory the elder, bishop of Nazianzus, died the
*-
->h
May 9.] S. Gregory Nazianzen. 129
following year, in 373, after an episcopate of forty-five years, and S. Gregory the younger continued for awhile to administer the diocese without assuming the episcopal title. But in 375, his health giving way, he withdrew to Seleucia, the capital of Isauria, where he continued five years. S. Basil died on the ist of January, 369, and Gregory composed in his memory twelve short poems. Eighteen days after S. Basil's death, the Emperor Gratian made Theodosius, the son of a general who had reconquered Britain, emperor of the East. Constantinople had been for nearly thirty-two years a domain of Arianism, It was resolved to reclaim it by the ministry of Gregory of Nazian- zus, who was now living as a recluse at Seleucia; and he consented, although with reluctance, to devote himself to this great work, " Since in God's providence he was abso- lutely compelled to be a sufferer."^ He went accordingly to Constantinople, and lodged in a kinsman's house. He was welcomed by the suffering remnant of Catholics with exceeding joy. The congregation was formed early in 379, and the house dedicated as "the Anastasia," the place where the true faith was to rise again. There Gregory exhibited before a population corrupted by heresy and irreverence, the living energy of the Church as a spiritual body. Daily services were accompanied by eloquent preaching. "The worship of the Trinity" was the missionary's watchword. After earnestly warning his hearers against the miserable levity which, in conformity with the spirit of Arianism, was filling every place from the forum to the supper-room, - with fearless disputation on the most awful topics, he delivered the four great discourses on the Nicene faith ^ which secured to him the title of Theologits, the maintainer, that is, of the Divinity of the Word. * But while proclaiming the Trinity,
' Ep. 14. ' Or. xxxiii. 7. ' Or. xxxiv. — xxxvii.
* In Or. xxxv. 15, he speaks of the Blessed Virgin as Theotocos, " Mother of God."
VOL. V. g
-^
*-
130 Lives of the Saints. [May 9.
he was careful to guard the Unity ; he set forth the CathoHc doctrine as the middle way between SabeUian confusion and Tritheistic severance. Yet the Arians de- nounced him as a Tritheist, stirred up mobs to pelt him in the street, and a base crowd of women, monks, and beggars to profane the Anastasia by their wanton insolence. He was content to be a mark for public scorn. " They had the churches and the people, he had God and the angels ! They had wealth, he had the Faith j they menaced, he prayed ; his was but a little flock, but it was screened from the wolves, and some of the wolves might become sheep." Many such conversions took place ; the charm of Gregory's eloquence, the spiritual beauty of his character, the winning sweetness which was combined with his zeal for the truth, the conspicuous unworldliness which contrasted with Arian self-seeking, the profound reverence so different from Arian flippancy, could not be unimpressive even in Constantinople. His eloquence wrought wonders in the busy and versatile capital. The Arians themselves crowded to hear him. S. Jerome came to Constantinople, listened with delight to Gregory's sermons, and conversed with him on passages of Scripture. Peter of Alexandria approved of his work, and united with others in the desire to see him regularly established in the see of Constantinople; but ere long, unhappily, he lent himself to the nefarious schemes of an unprincipled and plausible adventurer named Maximus, who retained the long hair, the staff", and the white dress of a Cynic philosopher, while professing to be a zealous Chris- tian. This man, who came to Constantinople with an in- tention of securing the bishopric, found it easy to win the confidence of one so childlike as Gregory. By assiduous attendance at his sermons, and profession of zeal and orthodoxy he had so completely imposed on him, that Gre- gory actually panegyrized him in open church, as having
^-
-*
May 9.] S. Gregovy Nazianzen. 131
suffered for the true religion. This was precisely what Maximus desired. Attention was attracted to him. Certain Egyptian bishops, deputed by Peter, the orthodox bishop of Alexandria, and seven Alexandrians of low birth, sud- denly enthroned Maximus in the night, whilst Gregory was ill, as Catholic bishop of Constantinople.
A number of Egyptian mariners, probably belonging to the corn-fleet, had assisted at the ceremony, and raised the customary acclamations. They were driven out of the church next morning by the indignant multitude, and completed the ceremonial in a flute-player's house, cutting off at the same time the Cynic's long hair. He and they were obliged to leave Constantinople, for the Catholics adhered with unshaken fidelity to Gregory ; and he fled to the court of Theodosius, but the earliest measure adopted by the emperor to restore strength to the orthodox party, was the rejection of the intrusive prelate.
Early in 380, Theodosius, having fallen ill at Thessalo- nica, received baptism from its bishop, whose orthodoxy he had ascertained ; and he then addressed, on February 28th, an edict to the people of Constantinople, commanding all his subjects to observe the faith which S. Peter had delivered to the Romans, and which the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Alexandria then professed ; that faith which alone deserved the name of Catholic, and which recognized the one Godhead of Father, Son, and Spirit, of co-equal majesty in the Holy Trinity.
It was clear now that the power which had so long been in the hands of Arians was now passed into those of Catholics. " Let us never be insolent when the times are favourable," Gregory had already said to the faithful, delivered from the persecution of Julian ; " Let us never show ourselves hard to those who have done us wrong ; let us not imitate the acts which we have blamed. Let us rejoice that we have escaped from the peril, and abhor
-*
*-
*-
132 Lives of the Saints. [May 9.
everything that tends to reprisals. Let us not think of exiles and prescription ; drag no one before the judge ; let not the whip remain in our hand; in a word, do nothing like that Avhich you have suffered." ^
Still he was subjected to " the scornful reproof of the wealthy." They jeered at his community. It was small and poor. Gregory admitted the fact, and inquired in righteous indignation, whether the sands are more precious than the stars of heaven, or the pebbles than pearls, because they are more numerous. ^
The worldly and wealthy people of Constantinople objected to Gregory. There was nothing in him, they said, save the preaching faculty ; he was quite a poor man, low- born, country-bred, with no dignity of manner and no power of conversation. He was out of his element in high society, seldom appeared in public, could not make himself agreeable, nor take his proper place among the citizens.^ His gentleness, after all, was nothing but feebleness. To this bitter taunt Gregory replied, ^ that at any rate he had not been guilty of such outrages as had made up the vigorous administration of Arian bishops. Yet he felt that his temperament and habits were to some extent a dis- qualification for so trying a post ; and was only dissuaded from resigning it by the passionate entreaties of his flock, including mothers and children, that he would not forsake them. After a day had been spent in contending against their loving urgency, Gregory yielded to the solemn remonstrance, "If you depart, the Faith departs with you."' He consented to remain until a fitter man could be appointed.
On the 24th of November Theodosius came to Con- stantinople, and proposed to Demophilus, the Arian bishop, that he should subscribe to the Nicene creed, and thereby
' Oral. V. 36, 37. '■* Oral. xxv. ' Oral. xxv. 28 ; xxxii. 74. ' Orat. xxv. ^ Carm. de vita; sua, 76.
*
Mayg] 6". Gvegovy Nazianzen. 133
re-unite the people. He declined to do so, and profess faith in the Godhead of Christ, and was at once ordered to surrender the churches. He summoned his people, reminded them of the text which prescribed flight from persecution, and transferred their worship to ground outside the city.
Till now Gregory had been only a Catholic bishop in the city. Theodosius resolved to exalt him to be the bishop of the city. Environed by the armed legionaries, in mili- tary pomp, accompanied by the emperor himself, Gregory, amazed and bewildered, was led to be enthroned in S. Sophia. All around he saw the sullen and menacing faces of the Arian multitude, and his ear caught their suppressed murmurs ; even the heavens, for the morning was bleak and cloudy, seemed to look down with cold indifference on the scene. No sooner, however, had Gregory, with the emperor, passed the rails which divided the sanctuary from the nave of the church, than the sun burst forth in all his splendour, the clouds dispersed, and the glorious light came streaming in on the gray bald-headed bishop, bowed, trembling with nervousness, and the applauding congre- gation. At once a shout of acclamation demanded the enthronization of Gregory. But his nerves were so shaken by the excitement, and by having seen one man draw a sword against him, that he was obliged to depute a priest to address the people, " For the present our duty is to thank God; other matters may be reserved for another time." The words were received with the clapping of hands so common in that state of society, when the lively Greek temperament was too strong for Christian reverence.
Gregory seldom visited the palace, and never exerted himself, after the manner of Arian prelates, by flattery and bribes, to secure the favour of chamberlains and courtiers. He was even blamed by his own people for remissness in using his influence on their behalf. He went on his own way, as a meek, unworldly pastor, preaching,
-*
<^-
134 Lives of the Saints. [May 9.
praying, visiting the sick, never enriching himself, winning all hearts by single-hearted charity. One day his sick- chamber was thronged by affectionate adherents, who after thanking God that they had lived to see his episcopate, withdrew. A young man, pale and haggard, remained at the foot of the bed, in mournful silence, and in a suppliant attitude. "Who are you, and what do you want?" asked Gregory, The youth groaned bitterly, and wrung his hands. Gregory was moved to tears, and on learning from another person that this was the man who had sought his life, said to the weeping penitent, " God be gracious to you ; all I ask is, that henceforth you give up yourself to Him ! "
On Jan. loth, 381, Theodosius, by a second edict, forbade heretics, the Arians included by name, to hold assemblies within towns ; gave back all churches to Catholic bishops ; and assigned the Catholic name to all believers in the un- divided essence of the Trinity. Gregory perhaps wanted the firmness and vigour necessary for a prelate of the great metropolis, perhaps he disliked the high-handed dealing of the emperor, so much at variance with what he himself had advised in former years. Theodosius summoned the council of Constantinople ; and Gregory, embarrassed by the multiphcity of affairs; harassed by objections to the validity of his own election ; entangled in the feuds which arose out of the contested election to the see of Antioch,^ entreated, and obtained the reluctant assent of the bishops and the emperor to abdicate his dignity and to retire to his beloved privacy. He delivered in the Council his cele- brated Farewell.2 He gave an account of his mission, and glorified God for the success which had attended it. Had not the little wrath been followed by the great mercy ? Had not stumbling-blocks been removed from his path ? Constantinople was now an " emporium " of the faith. It had a living and working CathoHc Church, a venerable pres-
' See S. Meletius, Feb. 12. ^ Oral, xxxii.
*-
-*
May 9.] S. Gvegovy Nazianzen. 135
bytery, deacons and readers well ordered ; a docile, zealous, and true-hearted people, who were ready to die for the worship of the Trinity. Something, at least, he had done " towards the weaving of this crown of glory : " and he could appeal, like Samuel, to their knowledge of his un- selfishness. But he was growing old and weak; he could not wrestle with adversaries who ought to have been friends ; he knew not that he had been expected to assume the state- liness of consuls and prefects, and he begged, as a worn-out soldier, to receive the warrant of his discharge. Then, in a tone more loving and more pathetic, he bade farewell to the Anastasia, to the cathedral, to the other churches, to the sacred relics, to the episcopal throne, to the bishops and clergy who " ministered at the holy Table, approaching the approaching God ; " to the " Nazarites," the widows, orphans, and poor ; the hospitals, the crowds who had attended his preaching, the Emperor and his Court, the city, the East and the West, "They lose not God who abandon their thrones ; rather, they win a throne above. Little children, keep the deposit ; remember how I was stoned. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all."
The vacant throne was speedily filled by the election of Nectarius. The people of Constantinople by choosing this man, and Theodosius by ratifying the appointment, showed why they had been to a great extent dissatisfied with Gregory.^ They did not want a bishop of genius or saintliness, but a well-born, dignified, and courteous gentle- man. Nectarius appears to have been this, and little more.
Gregory retired into privacy. His retreat, in some degree disturbed by the interest which he took in the see of Nazianzus, gradually became more complete, till at length he withdrew into solitude, and ended his days in that peace, which was not less sincerely enjoyed from his
' Sozomen, vii. 8, says that Theodosius preferred Nectarius to the saintly Gregory. *
-Pj(
136 Lives of the Saints. [May 9.
experience of the cares and vexations of worldly dignity. Arianza, his native village, was the place of his seclusion ; the gardens, the trees, the fountains, familiar to his youth, welcomed his old age. There he ended his Hfe, after two years divided between the hardest austerities of monastic life and the cultivation of poetry, which he continued to pursue, that the pagans might not be left in sole possession of the palm of literature, and also to give a free course to the noble and delicate sadness of his soul. His graceful, melancholy, and sometimes sublime verses, have gained him a place almost as high as his profound knowledge of divine things ; and the monastic order may boast of having produced in him the father of Christian poetry, as well as the doctor who has merited the name of Theologian of the East. His body was translated from Cappadocia to Constanti- nople in 950, and thence, before the fall of Constantinople, to Rome, where it now reposes under an altar in the church of the Vatican.
S. BEATUS, H.
(7TH CENT.)
[Many German and other Martyrologies. But there is great confusion, Beatus of Vendome being confounded with Beatus of Thun. Beatus of Vendome is said to have come into Gaul at a very early age, having been sent by S. Peter. But this is certainly a mistake of an early writer who found in some record that he had been sent by the Apostolic See, and so made his mission to be from the apostle himself. S. Beatus, the Swiss hermit, is certainly a different person, but the incidents of the life of the two Beati are attributed first to one, and then to the other. There seems every probability that S. Beatus of Thun was one of the companions of S. Gall.]
It was on Whitsun evening, in the year 1868, that I visited the cave of S. Beatus, in the face of a precipice above the Lake of Thun, in Switzerland.
^_ _ 4<
-*
May 9-] iS. Beatus. 137
A more lovely walk cannot be conceived. The path scrambled along the edge of precipices overhanging the still, green lake, which reflected the glow of the evening in the sky overhead. Tufts of pinks clung to the rock, and bunches of campanula dangled their blue bells at dizzy heights over the still water. Yellow cistus, golden poten- tilla, and spires of blue salvia made glorious harmonies of colour in the little dells that sank in green grassy slopes to tiny coves where nestled cottages, and a gaily painted boat was moored. The cave of the saint is screened by a fir wood, clinging to the rock ledges. Its wide entrance was once walled up, so as to leave only a door and win- dow, but the stones have fallen. The altar within is over- thrown. Shortly after the Reformation, crowds of pilgrims came, as in earlier times, to visit the cave of the apostle of this part of Switzerland, and the authorities of Berne were obliged in the interests of Zwinglianism, after having violently forced heresy on the reluctant peasants of Haslithal and Interlachen, to drive them away from the cave of their Apostle at the point of the spear. Now the cave is only visited by a few sight-seers. But at Lungern, on the nearest point of the Canton of Ob-walden, where the ancient faith still maintains its ground, loving hearts have built a little chapel dedicated to Beatus, and this is now visited by great crowds, who love to honour the memory of their apostle, on May 9th, in every year, when a sermon is preached by one of the Capuchin friars of Sarnen.
Of the history of S. Beatus Httle is known, save that he came from Britain or Ireland, probably in company with S. Columbanus and S. Gall, and settled in this cave, whence, according to the popular legend, he expelled a monstrous serpent, and precipitated it into the lake. About 30 feet below the mouth of the cave a large stream spouts out of the rock, and forming a fine cascade of 800 feet.
-^
^
-*
138
Lives of the Saints.
[May 9.
plunges into the still mirror of the lake, which it strews with bubbles. The sun set as I sat in the door of the hermit's cave; and as I walked back to Unterseen, its orange fires fell and touched with flame every white and heaven aspiring peak; and the spotless Jungfrau seated amidst a glorious company of mountain forms, each with its flaming brow, called up a thought of the events of that first VVhitsun day, when —
"The fires that rushed on Sinai down In sudden torrents dread, Now gently Hght, a glorious crown, On every saintly head."
*-
-^
-*
Mayxo.] S. Calcpodiits & Others. 139
May 10.
S. Job, Prophet, in the land of Uz.
SS. Calepodius, P.m., Palmatius, Simplicius, Felix, Blanda, and
Others, 71/71/. at Rome, a.d. 222. SS. Alphius, Adelphus, (z;/(/ Cyrinus, mm. at Lentiniin Sicily. SS. Gordian and Epimachus, MM. at Rome, a.d. 362. SS. Qltartus fl!«rfQuiNTUS, MM. at Rome. S. Cataldus, B. 0/ Tarentmn. S. CoMGALL, Ab. 0/ Banchor in Ireland, a.d. 601. S. SOLANGIA, V.M. at Bourses, about A.D. 844. S. Isidore the Husbandman, C. at Madrid, circ. a.d. 1130.
SS. CALEPODIUS, P.M., AND OTHERS MM (a.d. 222.)
[Roman and other Latin Marty rologies. Authorities : — The Acts, which are, however, fabulous, form a part of those of S. Cahxtus, and pretend to have been written by the Notaries of the Roman Church ; but they are forgeries. The account of S. Calepodius begins, "In the days of Macrinus and Alexander, a great fire occurred which consumed the south of the Capitol." Now Macrinus was killed in 218 and was succeeded by Helio- gabalus, who was murdered in 224, and then only was the boy Alexander invested with the purple. Moreover, the description given of Alexander, his d esiring the consul to persecute the C hristians, is quite opposed to history. It is true that some Christians suffered at the beginning of his reign, but that was through the severity of Ulpian the regent. In the Acts, however, it is Alexander himself who directs the persecution. Then again the consul at the time is Palmatius. There was no such consul at the time, and none of the name occur in the Fasti Consulares, so that the forgery is as clumsy as it is dishonest. ]
ACCORDING to the very untrustworthy Acts, about the year 222 a fire broke out in Rome, and the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was so injured, that the golden hand of the idol was melted off.^ Alexander the Emperor consulted the augurs, who declared
' History knows nothing of this fire.
*
*-
140 Lives of the Saints. [May 10
that the cause of this disaster was the presence of Christians in the city. Thereupon Alexander ordered the city to be purified of them, and that they should be punished with the utmost rigour. The consul Palmatius, at the head of a band of soldiers, penetrated into the catacombs, and captured a priest, Calepodius. Soon after, a virgin in one of the heathen temples, possessed by a demon, and regarded by the people of Rome as an oracle, cried out that the God of the Christians was the only true God. Thereupon the Consul Palmatius believed and went to pope Calixtus, and asked to be baptized. Calixtus made him lay aside his garments and descend into the font, and then he put to him the following liturgical questions : — " Dost thou believe with all thy heart in God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible." He answered, " I beheve." "And in Jesus Christ His Son." " I beHeve." " And in the Holy Ghost, the Catholic Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh ? " And he answered, " Lord, I believe."^ Then the pope poured water over him and baptized him in the name of the Trinity. After this Palmatius converted a friend, Simplicius, a senator, and healed Blanda, the sick wife of a certain Felix, both of whom, professing their faith in Jesus Christ, were baptized by Ca- lixtus. All these were apprehended, and having withstood all promises, flattery, and the pangs of cruel torture, were finally taken out of the city and beheaded, and the body of Calepodius was cast into the Tiber, but having been caught in the nets of some fishermen, was brought to the pope, who buried it in a catacomli.
' This form of the Baptismal Creed stamps the composition as later than the days of S. Gregory the Great (d. 604), for previously it was briefer, and then were introduced " Maker of Heaven and Karth," and the word "Catholic" as qualifying the Church. The form in the Sacramenlarj' of Gelasius (d. 495) is without these. See Muratori " Liturgia Koniana."
*-
->J<
Mayio.] ^'^S'. Gordian & Epimachus. 141
SS. GORDIAN AND EPIMACHUS, MM.
(a.d. 362.)
[Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks the Translation of the body of S. Ephnachus to Constantinople on March nth. Authority : — The Acts, which, however, are not trustworthy, as they make the martyrs suffer at Rome after interrogation before Julian the Emperor. Now it is certain that Julian never was at Rome during his brief reign. ]
Gordian was a magistrate (vicarious) of Julian the Apos- tate, and was sent by the emperor to visit a Christian priest, named Janisarius, who was imprisoned for his faith, and endeavour to make him abjure Christ. But the result of the interview was the conversion of Gordian. Gordian was degraded from his office, and was cruelly martyred. His body was buried by a servant in the same tomb as S. Epimachus, a martyr of Alexandria, which had been brought to Rome in the previous reign. The Greeks claimed to have had the bones of S. Epimachus translated from Rome to Constantinople. But the relics of both saints are now in the abbey of Kempten in Bavaria.
S. COMGALL, AB.
(a.d. 601.)
[Irish Martyrologies and Aberdeen Breviary. Authority: — Twolives, the fast of little importance ; the second, in Irish, a valuable one.]
S. CoMGALL, or, as he is more properly called, Coemgall (the goodly-pledge), was of a distinguished family of Dalriadha. His father's name was Sedna, and his mother's Briga. According to the annals of Ulster he was born in the year 516. He early embraced the monastic life under a master of very relaxed morals. Comgall one night took his master's tunic, threw it into the sheep-fold and
■^
trampled it in the dung. Next morning the master asked him the reason, with some justifiable indignation. "Why care you for your gown, when your soul is more sullied even than that?" asked the boy, and the master hid his face in shame. Then he ran away from him, and placed himself under the direction of S. Fintan at Clonenagh in Leinster. Another story told of his youth is as follows : — Much against his wish he was forced to appear in arms under his liege prince in a war. It was winter-time, and the army encamped on a bleak moor for the night. Great flakes of snow fell, and covered the shivering warriors, the wind drifting it over the temporary huts thrown up to screen them from the cold. But it was noticed that no snow fell over the unsheltered Comgall, but that in the morning a wall of snow stood round him protecting him from the northern ice-laden blast.
After having completed his instruction under S. Fintan,' Comgall set out for his own country to found cells there. Comgall had been hitherto unwilling to enter into holy orders; but it is said that, before proceeding straight to Dalriadha, he turned aside to Clonmacnois, and was or- dained priest by a Bishop Lugid. On his arrival in Ulster he retreated with several disciples to an island in Lough Erne, where they lived with such severity that seven of his companions died of hunger and cold. Bishop Lugid remonstrated with him on the plea of Christian charity, and Comgall relaxed his rule for the benefit of the monks, though he observed it in all its rigour himself We are told that he intended to leave Ireland, and spend the remainder of his days in Britain, but was dissuaded by the pressing solicitations of Bishop Lugid. Comgall then founded the monastery of Banchor, now Bangor, on the
' Fintan, if we are to believe what his Acts say, that he was younger than S. Columba, must also have been younger than his pupil Comgall.
*-
shores of the Irish sea facing Britain/ in the year 559. For the direction of this monastery he drew up a rule, which was long reverenced in Ireland. The number of disciples who flocked to Banchor was so great that, as one place could not contain them, it became necessary to establish several monasteries and cells, in which, taken together, it was computed that there were three thousand monks, all observing his rule, and superintended by him. Amongst them is mentioned Cormac, king of South Leinster or Hy-Kinselagh, who in his old age retired to Banchor.
In a certain time of scarceness, says the legend, the monks were sorely in want of food. Now in the neigh- bourhood lived a nobleman named Croadh, who had his granaries full. And the mother of Croadh was hight Luch, which being interpreted, means " the Mouse." So Comgall took a silver goblet that had been given to him, and went before Croadh and said, " Give me and my monks of your corn, and I will give thee this cup." But the chief answered scofiing, " Not so ; keep your silver, and I will keep my com. Your beggarly followers shall not devour it ; I want it all for my old Mouse," thereby meaning his venerable mother. Then said Comgall, " As thou hast said, so shall it be," and he went away. Then came a legion of mice into the granary of the hard-hearted chief, and devoured all his corn.2
' It is now only a village on the shore of the Bay of Belfast, without the slightest vestige of the famous monastery.
^ An Irish version of the Bishop Hatto myth. Here is another story : — " Quadam die cum ibi esset S. Comgallus in quodam loco solus, expandebat manus suas ad caelum, post jejunium trium dienim lassus et sitiens, et salivas in pavimentum projiciebat : vir enim mirse abstinentias erat S. Comgallus. Et ecce elevans sanctus vultum suum sursum in coelum, quidam leprosus mendicus petens auxi- lium venit ad eum tacite, vidensque salivas sancti super terram, perrexit paulatim, et de pavimento eas collegit, et commiscuit eas in aqua, lavansque se inde, plenus fide, statim e lepra sua sanatus est."
-*
*-
144 Lives of the Saints. [Mayio.
The reputation of the monastery of Banchor was much enhanced by the celebrity of some eminent men who issued from it, especially S. Columbanus, one of the greatest men of his age, so that the fame of Banchor spread far and wide throughout all Europe. It is said that in the seventh year after the foundation of Banchor, z>., in 566, Comgall went to Britain and established a monastery at a place called Heth/ It is not unlikely that it was on this occasion that he paid a visit, together with S. Brendan, to S. Columba, in the Western Isles. He is said to have contributed to the conversion of Brideus, king of the Northern Picts. Having returned to Ireland, he continued to govern his monastery and its dependencies till his death, which occurred on the loth of May, a.d. 601, after he had received the holy viaticum from S. Fiachra, abbot of Congbail and afterwards of Clonard.
A few of the strange and grotesque stories which have attached themselves to this saint may be read with amuse- ment. One day S. Columba was dining with S. Comgall, when the former, pointing to a seat at the board, asked whose it was. " That is our cook's place," said Comgall. " But a devil is now occupying it," said Columba. " Wait till the cook returns and finds some one in his chair, and see what he does." Presently in came the cook, and find- ing his seat occupied, rushed up to the intruder, and knowing him at once to be a demon, with flaming eyes exclaimed, "You wretch of a devil, what are you doing here? Be off on the spot (alioquin tu profer modo) !" Then he banished him to the bottom of the sea. "And all were highly edified."
Comgall sent a bell to his nephews at a distance by the hand of an angel. We have already heard of one marvel
' Probably Hythe, but not any place so called now. Hythe means in Keltic a bank or shore ; and many places may have borne that name in the Cth cent.
*-
S. SOLANGIA, After Cahier
[May 10.
-^
Mayio.] kS*. Solangia. 145
wrought by his saUva. Here are others. A beggar once importuned the saint, then Comgall spat into his pocket, and the saUva was instantly converted into a gold ring. h. king was very hard of heart, and no exhortations of the saint could melt him. Then Comgall spat at a great stone, and split it into quarters; thereupon the king burst into tears of penitence.
One story alone is pretty. He and some of his monks were walking by the side of a lake, when they saw swans floating on the mere, singing. " O, father ! may we coax the swans?" asked the monks. He gave them leave. Then they felt for some crusts of bread; but not finding them, knew not how to entice the birds. But Comgall called, and the swans sailed up to the bank, and one fluttered into the old man's lap, and let him stroke its white feathers.
S. SOLANGIA, V.M. (about a.d. 844.)
[Gallican Martyrologies. Patroness of Bourges. Authority: — The lessons for the festival based on tradition in the Bourges Breviary.]
SoLANGiA was a poor shepherdess of Villemont, near Bourges, young and very beautiful, and as simple and modest as she was fair. According to the popular legend she was so pious that a star was given her to twinkle above her head, brightening at the hour of prayer. Her beauty attracted the attention of Bernard, son of the Count of Poitiers,^ and he sought opportunity to deceive her. One
' The legend in no way contradicts history. Bernard and Herve were the sons of Reginald, Count of Poitiers, killed in battle against the King of Brittany and the Count of Nantes, in 843. Herve became Count of Auvergne, and Bernard Count of Poitiers. Both were killed in battle against the same Count of Nantes, in 845. Herve left as successor Raymond I., and a son Stephen, who was killed by the VOL. V. 10
-*
1^-
146 Lives of the Saints. [May 10.
day he found her on a moor pasturing her sheep quite alone. He dismounted from his horse, and attempted to dazzle her by flattery and specious promises. But when Solangia found what his designs were, she started from the stone on which she had been sitting, and ran away. He pursued her, and mounting his horse, threw her over the saddle in front of him, and attempted to carry her off to his castle. The girl struggled desperately, and managed to fall from the horse, and was injured. Bernard leaped down, and his love having given way to violent anger, or fearing that his attempt at abduction would arouse the country, he being then in the territories of his uncle, he despatched her with his hunting knife.
Solangia is represented either carrying her head in her hands, or with a hunting knife thrust into her throat, and with sheep at her side and a star above her head.
Some of her relics at S. Solange, Bourges, M^ry-es-Bois and Nevers.
S. ISIDORE, C. (about a.d. 1 130.)
[Canonized by Pope Gregory XV. in 1622. Roman and Spanish Mar- tyrologies. The Bollandists on May 15. Authority : — His life written in the year 1261, an amplification and continuation of an earlier life. This life was again added to in 1275. The additions are miracles wrought at the tomb or by the intercession of the saint.]
The traveller, visiting Madrid on May 15th, would find the city keeping high festival. Church bells ringing, the streets lined with tapestries and coloured curtains, banners streaming, and a procession winding through the streets
Normans in 886, and left no s\iccessor. Bernard left a son Bernard, the murderer of Solangia, who was Count of Poitiers, and also of Auvergne, after the death of his brother Stephen. He was killed in 886 in a battle against Boso, King of Aries.
*-
-^
Mayio.] 5". Isidore. 14/
with military band, and cross and lights and song of clergy. Why this joyous festival ? the traveller would ask ; and he would be told that the capital was observing the feast of its patron. And who is the patron of this royal city, the capital of great Spain ? A king, a prelate, a doctor ? No ! only a poor ploughman. God " taketh up the simple out of the dust : and lifteth the poor out of the mire ; that he may set him with the princes : even with the princes of his people." (Ps. cxii. 7, 8 ; A.V. cxiii. 6, 7.)
The story of this good man is short and very simple. It is merely that of a devout peasant serving God faithfully in that condition of life to which God had called him. The Church, to show models to all in every condition of life, has enrolled in her sacred calendar the servant girl Veronica of Milan, the shepherd Wendelin, the beggar Cuthman, and the ploughman Isidore, as well as saintly kings, wise prelates, learned doctors and valiant martyrs.
Isidore was a day-labourer in the employment of a gentleman of Madrid, engaged on his farm outside the town. He was a hard-working faithful servant, yet he did not escape the voice of slander, and he was accused to his master of coming late to his work in the mornings on account of his going early into Madrid to attend Mass in one of the churches. His master sent for him and charged him with it. " Sir," said the simple ploughman, " it may be true that I am later at my work than some of the other labourers, but I do my utmost to make up for the few minutes snatched for prayer ; I pray you compare my work with theirs, and if you find I have defrauded you in the least, gladly will I make amends by paying you out of my private store." The gentleman was ashamed and said nothing ; nevertheless he was not satisfied, and one morn- ing he rose before daybreak to watch for himself and see if Isidore was really late at his work. He hid himself
-*
*-
14S Lives of the Saints. [May 10.
beside the farm, and saw the steady peasant go to church as the first pale streaks of light appeared in the east, and he returned to his work certainly after the other workmen had gone to theirs. The master saw him enter the field and take the plough, and he left his retreat that he might rate him soundly. But suddenly he stood still. In the field was a second plough, drawn by white oxen, urged on by an angel. He saw it in the slant rays of the rising sun through the thin vapours rising from the dewy soil. Up the field and then down again went the strange team, cutting a clean furrow and cutting it rapidly. Then the gentleman ran towards the field ; but as he opened the gate the vision disappeared, and he saw Isidore bowed upon his plough, and his little son running by the head of the red oxen. Then he went to him and asked him who were his assistants. *' Sir ! " said Isidore in surprise, " I work alone and know of none save God to whom I look for strength."
Now this Isidore was a man of a very kind heart, and he never omitted doing an act of kindness when the oppor- tunity offered ; and though he was poor, and could not give much to the needy, what he did give was given without grudging and with so much sympathy and readi- ness, that to the recipient it was worth more than the gift of many a rich man. One pretty instance of this charity is told, to show that it extended to the dumb creation as well as to men. One morning when the snow was spark- ling on the ground and the trees and hedges were covered with hoar frost, he set out to the mill with a sack of corn, his wife's gleanings, that he wished to have ground. Presently he passed a tree on which a number of wood- pigeons were sitting, whilst others fluttered over the glisten- ing surface of the snow vainly searching for food. " Stop," called Isidore to his boy, who was leading the ass that
*-
S. ISIDORE. Alter Cahier.
May 10.
^ *
Mayio.] 5. Isidore. 149
bore the sack. He cast the sack down, opened it, took out a good double handful of wheat, strewed it before the delighted birds, and lifting the sack on the back of the ass, went on to the mill.
His wife Mary was a virtuous and pious woman, and loved to accompany her husband to the churches and on pilgrimages.
At length he died, reverenced and beloved by all the neighbourhood, at the age of forty, and was buried in the cemetery of S. Andre, a church he was v.-ont to frequent, but was speedily afterwards taken up and brought into the church, and then, we are told, all the bells of the church rang untouched by human hands.
^-
-*
Ij, ■ — >J(
150 Lives of the Saints. [Mayn.
May II.
S. EvELI-lus, M. at Rome, circ. a.d. 65.'
S. Anthimius, P.m. at Rome, i,th cent.
S. Mamertius, B. ofVienjie, circ. a.d. 480.
SS. Walbert, and Bertilla, at Courisobre in Hainaiilt, arc. A.D. 619.
S. Gengulf, M. at Varennes, circ. A.D. 760.
S. Fremund, K.M. at Harlmry in Warwickshire, circ. A.D. 796.
S. Majolus, Ab. at Clnny, a.d. 994.
S. Walter, Ab. of Lesterpes, near Limoges, a.d. 1070.
S. Francis of Girolamo, S.y. at Grotaglia, a.d. 1716.
S. MAMERTIUS, B. (about a.d, 480.)
[Some copies of the Martyrology attributed to S. Jerome, Notker, Gallican and Roman Martyrologies. The translation of his body on Oct. 13th, and of his head on Nov. 14th, in the diocese of Orleans. Authority : — A homily of S. Avitus, his spiritual son.]
AINT MAMERTIUS, bishop of Vienne in
Gaul, is chiefly famous for having instituted the
Rogation processions. Gaul was groaning and
bleeding from the incursion of the barbarians,
the Goths and Huns. Vienne had been shaken repeatedly
by earthquakes, flames had burst from the hill-tops and
consumed large tracts of forest, and driven the wolves and
bears into the city. Added to these disasters came a
conflagration of Vienne, which broke out on Easter night.
S. Mamertius, prostrate before the altar, conceived the
idea of instituting annually a procession with litanies and
psalms and prayers, before Ascension, to supplicate God
to have mercy on His people, and to turn from them their
afflictions, and to bless their crops during the year. " We
shall pray God," says he in a sermon,^ "that he will
' Converted by the sight of the passion of S. Torpes (May 17th). ' The sermon is found among those of Eusebius of Emesa, but it is generally attributed to S. Mamertius.
* ■
-*
May II.] kS. Gengulf. 151
turn away the plagues from us, and preserve us from all ill, from the pestilence, the hailstorm, the drought, the fury of our enemies ; to give us favourable seasons, that our bodies may enjoy health, and our lands fertility, and that we may have peace and tranquillity, and obtain pardon for our sins." Processions with litanies and psalms had been in use before, but never before fixed for the Rogation season. S. Mamertius built a church at Vienne in honour of S. Ferreolus the martyr. He was at the council of Aries in 475, and died probably in 477. His brother Claudianus Mamertius, who died between 470 and 474, was a monk, and was distinguished for his sacred poetry. He composed the world-famous hymn
*• Pange lingua, gloriosi Lauream certaminis,"^
commonly but erroneously attributed to Venantius Fortu- natus.
The body of S. Mamertius was translated to Orleans, but was burnt by the Huguenots in the i6th century.
S. GENGULF, M. (about a.d. 760.)
[Roman, Liege, and Prague Martyrologies. Cologne Mart3Tology on May 13th, that of Utrecht on May 9th. Brussels, Tournai, and Bruges Breviaries on October I2th. Authorities : — A metrical life by Roswytha (d. oca. 984), but this is based on the " Vita S. Genulphi," written about 915. This life was written after the Norman incursions, in which the early monuments were destroyed, consequently the writer was obliged to rely on popular tradition. Gengulf or Gengulphus is in French Gengoiil, or GinguS, in English Gingo, and in German Golf.'\
The story of S. Gengulf is sadly obscured by fable, but it is not difficult to distinguish the facts of his history from the romantic as well as the coarse additions which have
' " Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle," Hymn for Passion Sunday.
-*
*- *
1^2 Lives of the Saints [Mayn.
been made to it by popular fancy, in its transmission from mouth to mouth, through one hundred and fifty years.
He is said to have been a nobleman of Burgundy, high in favour with Pepin the Short, whom he accompanied in his wars. The king highly valued him for his integrity and for his valour, and when engaged in war made him sleep in his tent, as his trustiest friend and guard. One night, says the legend, the lamp that hung in the tent above the head of Gengulf kindled of itself. The king rose from his bed, and blew it out, but almost instantly it kindled again. He blew it out again, and again it rekindled, and when this was repeated the third time, Pepin felt satisfied that the circumstance was not without its significance, and that it portended the sanctity of the sleeper beneath.
A stranger story is that he bought a beautiful spring of water at Bassigny, and on reaching his castle at Varennes, he struck his staff into the ground, and forthwith the foun- tain boiled up there, leaving its source at Bassigny dry. This is no doubt a popular tradition made to account for the drying up of one spring and the bursting out of another. It is, however, by no means improbable that Gengulf may have sunk a well and tapped a copious spring at Varennes.^
Gengulf s wife was false to him ; when he was absent at court, or with the army, she associated with a man whom she passionately loved. Rumours of his wife's infidelity reached Gengulf, and instead of dealing rigorously with her, he drew her one day into the garden, and very tenderly mentioned to her what he had heard, expressed his pain at receiving such evil reports, and his readiness to disbelieve if she would satisfy him with frankness, that they were
' A chapel was built over this fountain, which welled up in the crypt. The chapel is now a private house, the crypt a cellar, and the spring of water has been drained off.
*
*
May II.] vS. Gengulf. 153
without foundation. She indignantly denied the charge of infideUty. "Well, my wife," said Gengulf, according to the popular story, " here is this clear cold fountain, thrust in thine arm. If thou art innocent it will not hurt thee. If thou art guilty God shall judge." She plunged in her arm, and was scalded.
Then Gengulf separated from her, but still he would not put in force the severe laws against adulteresses, but rather hoped to reclaim her, at least to penitence, by his gentle- ness. He gave her one of his estates, and allotted to her a comfortable annual revenue. He had loved and trusted her, and now his heart broke, and he lived a grave, sad, retired life, praying with many tears for himself, and for her who had been his wife, and distributing large alms to the poor.
The wicked woman could not endure the restraint of being still nominally the wife of Gengulf, and she and her paramour determined to make away with him, that they might marry, and take his large possessions. Accordingly one night the adulterer contrived to enter the castle^ of the man he had injured, to penetrate into his bed-chamber, where he found him sleeping, with his sword hung above his bed. The murderer took down the sword, and pre- pared to strike. At the same moment Gengulf opened his eyes, and threw up his arm, so that the sword glanced aside and wounded him on the thigh. The murderer threw down the weapon, and escaped before Gengulf could give the alarm. The wound, however, was mortal, and he died shortly after, on May iith.^
The body was brought by his aunts Wiltrudis and
' Gengulf was then in his castle of Avallon on the Cussin, between Auxeire and Autun.
^ It is impossible, even in Latin, to give the account of the miracul punishments inflicted on the murderer and the wife.
■*
»i«-
154 Lives of the Saijits. [Mayn.
Wilgisa to Varennes ; but was afterwards translated to Langres, where some few fragments saved from the Revolutionary fury remain. Others at Florennes, near Namur.
S. FREMUND, K.M.
(ciRC. A.D. 796.)
[Additions to Usuardus and Anglican Martyrologies. Authority : — A legend given by Capgrave.]
S. Fremund is said to have been a prince, the son of Offa, king of the Mercians (d. 794), and to have fought against the Danes. He was murdered by Oswy, an officer of his father, perhaps at the instigation of Cenwulf. But there is no certainty about this. Fremund is not men- tioned by any chroniclers ; Offa was succeeded by his son Egfrid, who only reigned a year and a hundred and forty days, and was succeeded by Kenulf, or Cenwulf,
S. MAJOLUS, AB. (a.d. 994.)
[Roman and Benedictine Martyrologies, but some on May 4th, or April 14th. Authority : — A life written by Nalgod, his disciple. Majolus in French is Mayeul. ]
S. Majolus was born about the year 906, of a wealthy family at Valenzola, in the diocese of Riez. But having lost all his family possessions through the incursions of the Saracens and Huns, he retired to Macon to his uncle Berno, bishop of that cit)^, who constituted him his arch- deacon. He afterwards became monk at Cluny, under the abbot Aymard.
The aged Aymard, oppressed with years, was at length
*-
-^
Mayu.] S. Majolus. 155
obliged to surrender the government of the abbey into the hands of S. Majolus (948). But the old man in the infirmary, having one day fancied a bit of cheese, and ordered ineffectually that it should be brought to him, took it into his head that he was neglected, and he suddenly resumed his authority, and put Majolus to penance. In fact the old man had asked for his piece of cheese when the monks were at dinner, and the serving brothers had their hands full of work, so that it was impossible to attend to his caprice at that moment. However, Aymard, finding that he was really unable to do the work required of an abbot, and satisfied that Majolus was not really neglectful of him, and desirous of usurping his dignity, returned to inaction, and on his death Majolus was elected abbot.
On his way to Rome, a monk who was accompanying him, disobeyed him in an important matter, and afterwards apologized and asked pardon. "And set me a penance for my fault," he asked. " Are you in earnest, my son ? " asked the abbot. " I am," answered the monk. " Then," said Majolus, "Go and kiss yon poor leper." The monk went at once to the leper and embraced him. The obedient kiss healed the leper.
On his way back from Rome, as he crossed the S. Bernard, Majolus was taken by the Saracens and imprisoned at Pont-Oursier, on the Dranse above Martigny. Seeing a Saracen about to cleave the head of one of his companions with his scimitar, Majolus sprang forward, and caught the blow on his arm. He saved the life of his comrade, but long suffered from the wound, and bore the scar to his dying day. He was shut up in a cave, and the only book he had to while away the tedious hours of captivity was a treatise on the Assumption of the Virgin, falsely attributed to S. Jerome. This interested S. Majolus so much that he prayed he might be released before the feast of the
-*
*-
156 Lives of the Saints. tMayn.
Assumption. His prayer was heard, he was ransomed by the monks of Cluny for a thousand pounds of silver.
When the Holy See was vacant in 974, the emperor Otho II. endeavoured to persuade S. Majolus to accept the papacy, but he steadfastly refused the proffered honour. In 991, feeling that his powers were exhausted, he chose S. Odilo (Jan i) to be his successor, and he was unanimously elected by the brethren.
Majolus died on the nth May, 994, on Friday the morrow of the Ascension, and was buried in the church of S. Peter at Cluny. His body was translated in 1096, by Pope Urban II. to Souvigny, and again under Honorius IV. in 1286. The relics of S. Majolus were burnt at the French Revolution, and all that remains of him at Souvigny is a comb.
S. FRANCIS OF GIROLAMO, S.J. (a.d. 1716.)
[Roman Martyrology. Beatified by Pope Pius VII., in 1806, and canonized by Gregory XVI., in 1837.]
S. Francis of Hieronimo, or of Girolamo, was born the 1 6th of December, 1643, at Grottaglia, in the province of Otranto, in the kingdom of Naples. He was the eldest of twelve children, who distinguished themselves in after- life by their virtues. Francis especially made himself re- markable from his earliest childhood by his fervour. He received the tonsure at the age of sixteen, and was ordained priest at Naples in 1666, and he joined the Society of Jesus in 1682. His life was spent in fervent mission work among the people of Naples, and was the means of converting innumerable sinners. His heart glowed with a consuming fire of zeal for the salvation of souls. One night he felt a
*-
-►p
May 11]
kS. Fra7icis.
157
call to go to the corner of a street and preach. He went forth in the dark night, and standing at the windy corner, in the deserted street, preached. Next day a poor woman came weeping to his confessional, a woman living in sin, who had heard through her window the words of life. There is little of stirring incident in his career; but he was one of the most loving missionaries to sinful souls the Church has reared.
Fouc in Uio CaUiediiii at iiUdeaticua.
-^
*-
158 Lives of the Saints. [May 12.
May 12.
SS. Nereus, Achilles, and Flavia Domitilla, MM. at Terracixa.
\st cent. S. Pancras, M. at Rome, a.d. 304. S. Philip of Agyra, P. in Sicily, sth cent. S. EpiPHANius, B. o/Salamis, a.d. 403. S. MoDOALD, Abj>. 0/ Treves, circ. a.d. 640. S. RiCTRUDlS, Abss. of Marchiennes, circ. a.d. 688. S. Germain, Patr. of Constantinople, circ. a.d. 732. S. Dominic of Calzada, C. in Castille, a.d. 1109.
SS. NEREUS, ACHILLES, AND FLAVIA DOMITILLA, MM.
(iST CENT.)
[Roman Martyrology. S. Flavia Domitilla also on May 7th. SS. Nereus and Achilles in most ancient Latin Martyrologies. Authority : — Eusebius, Lib. iii. c. 18. The Acts are manifestly full of fable and are a late fabrication.]
USEBIUS the historian says: — "In the fifteenth year of Domitian, for professing Christ, Flavia Domitilla, the niece of Flavius Clemens, one of the consuls of Rome at that time, was transported with many others, by way of punishment, to the island of Pontia." Nereus and Achilles are in the Acts said to have been two eunuchs.^ They were beheaded at Terracina,if we may so far trust these Acts. Flavia Domitilla is also said to have been burnt alive. But no reliance can be placed on the Acts. As a specimen of the absurdities it contains, is a story of a contest between Simon Magus and S. Peter, in which the former was defeated, and to escape the jeers of the people, transformed himself into a dog and ran away. Then he brought a very fierce hound to a friend of
' An anachronism ; eunuchs were not introduced into Roman families till the reign of Domitian.
*-
-^
May 12.] ^. Pancras. 159
S. Peter, and chained it up at his door, hoping that the beast would rend the Apostle, but on the appearance of S. Peter the hound became docile. Then the Apostle loosed him ; but forbade him to bite the flesh of Simon Magus. There- fore the dog contented itself mth rending off all the clothes of the sorcerer, to the infinite amusement of the people in the street and the confusion of Simon.
The festival of SS. Nereus and Achilles was kept at Rome with great solemnity in the 6th century, for S. Gregory the Great has a homily on this festival.
The relics of SS. Nereus and Achilles are preserved in the church of their title at Rome. Before the Revolution, at Limoges, were some of S. Domitilla. Also, now in the parish church of Satilien, in the diocese of Viviers. But the college of S. Vitus at Elwangen claims to possess the body of S. Flavia Domitilla, and asserts it to have been given by Pope Hadrian I.
Garraye, anciently Numantia, in Spain, also claims to possess the bodies of SS. Nereus and Achilles. The heads of SS. Nereus and Achilles are pretended to be shown at Ariano near Benevento. Large portions of the bones also at Douai, in the church of S. Peter, and at Bertin near S. Omer ; also at Bologna, and at the church of S. Zacharias at Venice.
S. PANCRAS, M. (a.d. 304.)
[Roman Martyrology. In the most ancient copies of the Roman Martyr- ology, called that of S. Jerome, with SS. Nereus and Achilles. Also all Western Mart3Tologies. Authority: — TheActs, not altogether trustworthy, and certainly not very ancient, for they contain a grievous anachronism, they make S. Pancras to be baptized by S. Cornelius, A.D. 251. The Bollan- dists conjecture that this may be an error of a scribe who wrote Cornelius
-*
1 60 Lives of the Saints, [May 12.
instead of Caius (d. 296), but this is hardly probable. Had the name oc- curred once, such a mistake might have been made, but not when it recurs six times. There is nothing improbable in the narrative, but the style and the anachronism point out unmistakably the lateness of the composition of the Acts, which perhaps date from the 6th centuiy.]
S. Pancras was the son of Cleon and Cyriada, a wealthy and noble couple in Synrada in Phrygia. Cyriada died whilst her son was quite young, and Cleon followed her soon after. Before his death he entrusted Pancras to the care of his brother Dionysius, adjuring him by all the gods to take care of the child. ^ Dionysius moved with his nephew to Rome, and took a house on the Cselian hill. There they became acquainted with the bishop of Rome, who baptized them. A few days after his baptism, Dionysius died.
The persecution of Diocletian was then raging. Pancras, then aged fourteen, was denounced, and was executed with the sword, and buried on the Aurelian way by a pious woman named Octavilla.
The first church consecrated in England by S. Augustine was dedicated to S. Pancras. It was at Canterbury. Its ruins still stand. A curious legend is to the effect that when S. Augustine said mass on the altar, the devil flew away, leaving the impression of his claws on the stone. The fragment of wall containing the impression still remains.
The relics of S. Pancras abound. His body is in the church of his name at Rome, his head in the Lateran. Portions at Alba, in Venice, at Bologna, where is shewn another head as that of S. Pancras. But the body is also
' It is curious that Cardinal Wiseman should not have consulted the Acts of S. Pancras before writing his charming story of Fabiola; had he done so, he would not have made Pancras the son of a martyred father, and with his mother in Rome. Both father and mother were heathens, and the mother died before the father. The error has no doubt arisen from his taking only the Breviary account, and supposing it contained all that was in the Acts.
*-
-'^
Mayi».j S.Philip of Agyra, i6i
enshrined at Treves. Also relics anciently at Marseilles, Saintes, and many others in France. Also at Giesen in Hesse, of which university town he was regarded the patron. Other relics at Ghent, Douai, Mechlin, Utrecht, Leyden, Cologne, Prague, at Guarda in Portugal, and anciently in several churches in England.
In Art, S. Pancras appears as a boy with a sword in one hand and a palm in the other.
S. PHILIP OF AGYRA, P.C.
(5TH century).
Roman Martyrology, Molanus in his addition to Usuardus, Ferrarius, &c. Authority : — A hfe in Greek attributed incorrectly to Eusebius the monk, his companion. The style of the earlier part of this life is certainly ancient, the latter part consists of miracles, and has less appearance of antiquity. There is another life wholly apocryphal, falsely attributed to S. Athanasius. This was forged at Agyra by some one who was not satisfied with the late date given in the more genuine life to the Saint, and wished to make him a companion and disciple ofS. Peter, being zealous rather for the honour of his city than for historic truth. The following account is from the first life which, in its main outlines, is no doubt trustworthy.]
In the reign of Arcadius the emperor there lived in Thrace a Syrian named Theodosius, whose wife was a Roman woman named Augia. They had three sons, who were employed in buying and selling horses. Now it fell out that before the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,^ the young men were driving a number of young colts to- wards Constantinople, where was a large horse-fair, and as they were traversing the river Sangaris, which was full of water, owing to recent storms, some of the colts were swept down, and the young men were drowned in endeavouring to rescue them. And when the news reached Theodosius,
1 Sept. 14th according to the Greeks. VOL. V. J J *
«<-
1 62 Lives of the Saints. [Mayw.
he was grieved sore, but being full of trust in God, he said, " The Lord's Name be praised, now and for evermore," and he prayed for the souls of his boys, and gave large alms.
But Augia could not be comforted, but wept sore night and day. Then the prayers and alms-deeds of Theodosius came up as a memorial before God, and He looked upon His handmaid in compassion, and she conceived and bare a son, and they called his name Philip. Now Augia was com- forted, and being full of gratitude to God, she dedicated her child to Him, as of old did the holy Hannah devote the infant Samuel. When Philip was aged twenty-one he was ordained deacon, and he spoke fluently the Syrian tongue, and was well instructed in ecclesiastical discipline. But he had often heard his mother commend the piety of the Romans, how that in the churches at Rome all were serious and recol- lected, and none turned their heads over their shoulders to see who were coming in at the door, " and there it was thought a great crime to whisper and giggle on entering the church." Hearing this, Philip ardently desired to visit Rome, and he confided his desire to his father. Now Theodosius was a good man who always bent his will to what he considered to be the will of God, and seeing the fixity of his son's purpose, he took his hand and turning to the east, prayed in the Syrian tongue, saying, " God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, into thy hands I commend, this thy servant. Do with him as seemeth best in thine eyes ! " Then they embraced, and he sent him away without having told Augia that she was to lose her son. And when the young deacon's form disap- peared on the horizon, the old man came slowly back to his home to break the news to his wife.
But Philip set sail for Rome, and a storm fell on the ship, and it was in sore distress. Then he prayed, standing in the bows facing the wind and rain, "O my God! To Thee did ray father confide me. Let me not be lost in the sea as my
*-
-*
May 12.] ^. Philip of Agyra. 163
brothers were lost in the river." And by God's help the vessel came to land. With Philip travelled a certain Eusebius, a Greek monk, and they came to Rome, and stood Leside the door of the basilica of S. Peter. Then the pope was told in the spirit to go to the door, and on the left side he would find a young deacon in a cloak (phelonion) and he was to make him minister that day at the altar. But when the Holy Father spoke to Philip, the young deacon reddened with shame, for he could not speak a word of Latin, and the pope knew not a word of Syriac. Then the pope signed his lips and bade him serve, and the young man went and ministered to him at the altar, and he responded all in the Latin tongue.^
And the pope was pleased with the young man, and he gave him a book" written with his own hand, "by the virtue of the Holy Ghost," and ordained him priest, and sent him to Sicily, saying, "Take this apostolic book to-day, and when thou hast reached the eastern parts of Sicily, thou wilt find a place called Agyra, in the region of Mount Etna, from which mountain fire breaks forth, and it vomits perpetual flame, and there Satan dwells with his spirits and all his armies, possessing it by a sort of right of inheritance." So Philip went to Sicily, and he reached the foot of Etna, and saw smoke and flame burst from the summit. Then, taking the book in his hand, he ascended to the crater, and having prayed, he cried, "Show, O Lord, Thy face, and drive away all this host of devils ! " and he signed the cross over the crater with the book. And as he
1 As Eusebius, or whoever wrote the life, gives the responses, and they are from Ihe Greek liturgy and not from the Roman, it is probable that tlnere really was no great marvel wrought, but that Philip responded as he was wont in the East, and served as well as he could, considering the difference in the rites.
^ What book it was — " Apostolic volume " it is called — is not clear. It may have been the Gospels, or the Canonical Epistles, or it«iay have been, as Henschenius thinks, a book of exorcisms.
-*
*-
1 54 Lives of the Saints. [Mav la.
came down, the cinders started under his feet and skipped down the cone in great multitudes, and occasionally he dislodged pieces of lava, which went down with bounds, and in his excited imagination he fancied they were demons racing down the mountain before him.
Philip settled at Agyra, the modern S. Filippo d'Aazira, where he wrought many miracles, and died at the age of sixty-three.
S. EPIPHANIUS, B. OF SALAMIS.
(a.d. 403.)
[Greek Mensea, Russian Kalendar, Roman Martyrology, Ado, Bede, Usuardus, &c Authorities : — Sozomen, Socrates, and his own writings !']
S. Epiphanius was born at Besanduc, in the territory of Eleutheropohs, in Palestine. From early childhood he embraced the religious life, and became a disciple of S. Hilarion. He visited Egypt, where he was thrown among Gnostics, and became acquainted with their peculiar tenets and rites. He was ordained bishop of Salamis, the metro- polis of Cyprus. In 374 he composed his Anchor, a treatise on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and in 376 he began liis great work on heresies. He was at Rome at the council in 382, with Paulinas of Antioch and S. Jerome. He lodged in the house of S. Paula, the illustrious widow, who afterwards went to Bethlehem to be near her spiritual father, S. Jerome. Having spent the winter in Rome, he returned the following spring to his diocese, in company with Paulinus. S. Jerome remained in Rome till after the death of Pope Damasus, in 385, when he left for the East, and was warmly received on his way by S. Epiphanius. S. Paula, on her way to Bethlehem, also landed in Cyprus,
1 There Is a life pretending to be written by three disciples of S. Epiphanius, but h is a forgery and unworthy of the smallest reliance
-*
May".] »$*. Epiphanius, 165
and the Bishop of Salamis was able to return her hos- pitality. He insisted on her spending ten days with him, to repose after her voyage ; but she spent the time in visit- ing the monasteries in his diocese.
ApoUinarianism was a heresy which at this time troubled the Church. It was about 369 that this error assumed its most definite form. It started from the idea of the true Divinity of Christ ; and professing exceeding reverence for Him, argued that if He had had a true human nature, He must have had sinful instincts, but as this was not to be believed, then the nature of Christ was not truly human. The Incarnation was only a converse of God with man. Christ's body was not really born of Mary, but was a fresh and pure creation of the Godhead. And as Apollinaris had denied the Blessed Virgin to be the real Mother of the Word Incarnate, some were led on to a denial of her per- petual virginity, and others, by reaction, made her the object of an idolatrous homage. First in Thrace, and then among the women in Arabia, there grew up a custom of placing cakes (collyrides) on a stool covered with linen, offering them up to S. Mary, and then eating them as sacrificial food. S. Epiphanius severely condemned these two extremes. He denounced those who denied Christ's Mother to be ever-virgin as " Antidicomarians," adversaries of Mary, who deprived her of the honour due to her ; but he insisted that worship, in the true acceptation of the word, was due to the Trinity alone.
He undertook a journey to Antioch in 376 to endeavour to convert the ApoUinarian bishop, Vitalis ; but in that he was not successful.
The contest about Origenism now broke out. The writings of Origen certainly contained daring conjectures, and in the midst of much that was admirable, the critical eye could detect heretical speculations. The notion that
-*
*-
*-
1 66 Lives of the Saints. [May 12.
the reign of Christ was finite was rather an inference from his writings than a tenet of Origen. He thought that all bodies would be finally annihilated, and if so, the humanity of Christ, and consequently His personal reign, would cease also. The possibility that the devil might, after long purification, be saved, and that the risen body might, after a period again, fall into corruption, were doctrines un- questionably repugnant to Catholic orthodox belief, if seriously maintained.
The most intimate friend of S. Jerome was Ruffinus of Aquileia, now living as a priest under John, Bishop of Jerusalem, who had succeeded S. Cyril in 386. Ruffinus was a great admirer of the writings of Origen ; and Jerome, nine years before, had told Paula that the charge of heresy brought against them was got up by the jealousy of inferior minds,^ But when, in 393, a pilgrim from the West, named Aterbius, denounced Ruflinus and Jerome as Origenists, S. Jerome at once disclaimed all sympathy with Origen, while Ruffinus kept within doors, in order to avoid the sight of his denouncer. John of Jerusalem was in- clined to Origenism, or at least was an admirer of his writings, and in the inflamed and irritable temper of the religious world at that moment, to admire the excellencies of Origen's writings, even though his errors were rejected, was regarded with mistrust.
S. Epiphanius, who looked on Origenism with horror, visited Jerusalem in the Lent of 394. John received the old prelate into his house, and invited him to preach in the church of the Resurrection. S. Epiphanius took the oppor- tunity of denouncing Origenism, in such a way as to shew what he thought of his host,^ the archbishop then present,
' In his peculiar style, he says that the impugners of Origen's orthodoxy were "mad dogs." Ep. 33.
^ S. Jerome admits this, Cont. Joan n. "You and your company," he adds, ''sneered, rubbed your heads, and nodded to each other, as much as to say, 'the
old man is in his dotage.'"
Mayi2.j 6'. Epiphanius. 167
who exhibited his impatience and contempt by signs equally unmistakeable, and sent his archdeacon to bid him be silent. John preached in his turn, and reprobated the " Anthropo- morphists/' who took literally the texts which ascribed to God " a body, parts, and passions." While he spoke, he looked hard at S. Epiphanius, who afterwards quietly rose and said, " I too condemn the Anthropomor- phists, but we must also condemn Origenism." A shout of laughter from the congregation exhibited their enjoyment ot this retort.
On another occasion, when on his way to celebrate ser- vice with John at Bethel, Epiphanius found on a village church-door a curtain, on which was painted a figure of Christ, or of a saint. The sight offended his rigid scruples; and being wont to take his own course, with small regard for circumstances, he forthwith tore the curtain, and advised that it should be used as a shroud for the poor. The keepers of the church naturally observed, " If he tears our curtain, he is bound to provide us with another." " So I will," said Epiphanius ; and he did in fact send them the best he could procure.
Finding John estranged from him, he withdrew to Beth- lehem, where he received a cordial welcome. One of the monks at Bethlehem was Paulinianus, the brother of S. Jerome. The monastery needed a priest, for Jerome's morbid humility would not allow him to officiate, and Epiphanius contrived to seize Paulinianus at Eleutheropolis, which was not within the diocese of Jerusalem, and ordained him there. But the act was unjustifiable, for he sent him to minister in the diocese of another bishop, and John indig- nantly complained. S. Epiphanius wrote a letter in which he endeavoured to defend the ordination, and charged the bishop of Jerusalem with Origenist heretical tenets. Of these the chief were, that souls haa existed and sinned
*
*-
1 68 Lives of the Saints. [May 12.
before they came into bodies ; and that the salvation of Satan was a possibility. However, he seems to have felt that he had acted inconsiderately, and had laid himself open to blame, for he took Paulinianus back with him to Cyprus to minister there. In the strife between John and Epi- phanius, Ruffinus and Jerome naturally took opposite sides.
Theophilus of Alexandria had put down Paganism by force of arms. He suppressed Arianism by the same violent and coercive means. I'he tone of this prelate's epistles is invariably harsh and criminatory. He opposed the vulgar Anthropomorphism into which certain of the monks in the neighbourhood of Alexandria were falling, and insisted on the pure scriptural nature of the Deity. Yet he condescended to appease these turbulent adversaries by an unmanly artifice. He consented to condemn Origen, who having reposed quietly in his tomb for many years, in general respect, was exhumed, so to speak, by the zeal of late times, as a dangerous heresiarch. Theophilus quarrelled with Isidore, an old priest, who fled from his persecution to t leNitrian monks. Theophilus attacked the monastery, and drove the monks from their cells into exile, charging them With Origenism. Four of these monks, known as the Tall Brothers, fled to Constantinople and appealed for protection to S. John Chrysostom, who wrote gently to Theophilus to remonstrate with him for his high-handed and cruel pro- ceedings. But Theophilus, who denied his right to interfere, called in S. Epiphanius as his ally, and held a synod against Origenism.
S. Jerome supported Theophilus unreservedly. He was now in the full tide of controversy with Ruffinus. One angr/ tract called forth another, until Jerome himself became sensible of the wretchedness of such a quarrel, and S. Augustine entreated him to close a scene that chilled and saddened every true friendship.
*-
-*
May 12.] S. Epiphanius. 169
The Tall Brothers appealed to the Emperor and Empress, who summoned Theophilus to Constantinople to shew cause for his ill-treatment of the monks. Theophilus sent Epiphanius^ to Constantinople to carry on the war against Origenism. The old man on this occasion exhibited more plainly than ever the faults of character which had marred his usefulness. One of his first acts after landing was to ordain a deacon. He spurned S. Chrysostom's offers oi hospitality, refused to eat or to pray with him, and en- deavoured to procure from the bishops then at Constanti- nople an assent to the decree of his own synod against Origenism, Theotimus, bishop of Scythia, answered him curtly, "Epiphanius ! I choose not to insult the memory of one who ended his life piously long ago ; nor dare I con- demn one whom my predecessors did not reject." At the desire of the Empress the Tall Brothers paid him a visit : "Who are ye?" "Father, we are the Tall Brothers. What do you know of our doctrine or of our writings ? " "Nothing." "Why then," asked one of them, "have you condemned us as heretics unheard ? " All that the hasty old man could say was, "You were reported to be heretics." They shamed him by replying, "We treated you far other- wise when we defended your books against a like imputa- tion."
Soon afterwards, in May, 403, he quitted Constantinople. He was humbled by his conference with the Tall Brothers, and felt that he had been acting with a zeal not sufficiently tempered with discretion, and that charity that hopeth all things, and thinketh not evil; and he could hardly have failed to contrast his own conduct with that of S. Chrysos-
* This exhibits the meanness of Theophilus. He had formerly blamed S. Epiphanius as holding Anthropomorphistic views ; but now, thinking it would be advantageous to him to have the support of so holy a man, he wrote to him to inform him that he had come round to his views. Sozamen viii. 14, Socrates vi.
-^
170 Lives of the Saints. [Mayn.
torn, whose admonitions cut him to the quick. "'You have done many things contrary to the canons, Epiphanius; you have ordained in churches under my jurisdiction; you have ministered in them unauthorized by me; I invited you, and you rejected my invitation ; and now you would in an assembly denounce me. Beware, lest you stir up a tumult and endanger yourself." As he was mounting his boat he half acknowledged his error. " I leave you the city and the palace," said he to S. Chrysostom; and then with a flash of temper which spoilt the apology, "and their plea- sures."
He died on his homeward voyage.^
S. RICTRUDIS, W. ABSS. (about a.d. 688.)
[Galilean, Belgian, and Benedictine Martyrologies. Authority : — A life compiled from earlier notices by Hucbald, monk of Elnone, in 907.]
S. RiCTRUDis was born in Gascony, of Christian parents named Ernold and Lichia. "Gentle and modest in her conduct, with the innocence of her soul as a seal on her brow, full of charity and thought for others, the young Rictrudis grew up in favour with the Lord, and in the first dawn of life shone like a pure star of righteousness and discretion."
S. Amandus preached in the neighbourhood of Toulouse, when driven into exile for reproaching King Dagobert for his incontinency, and he lodged in the house of Ernold.
Gascony was then governed by Aribert, who died shortly afterwards and left his territories to his brother Dagobert, and intercourse between the Franks and the Gascons became more commoD. Adalbald, a noble Frank, visiting
1 Parts of this life are from Canon Bright's "Church History."
-*
May 12.] 6". Ridriidis. 171
Gascony on some mission from the sovereign, saw and loved Rictrudis, and married her with the consent of her parents. She then followed him to the north, into Flanders to Ostrevaen,^ where he had large possessions. She bore him four children, S. Maurontus (May 5th), B. Clotsendis (June 30th), S. Eusebia (March i6th), and B. Adalsendis (Dec. 24th). It may be well imagined that this house- hold of saints was an united and happy one. The ancient writer thus describes it : — " They assisted the poor, and softened their labours and fatigue; they were ever ready to relieve the hungry and the thirsty, to find clothes for the naked, and to give shelter to the traveller. Sometimes Rictrudis and her husband might be seen going out sur- rounded by their little children, who played their innocent games about them, and it was with their children that Adalbald and Rictrudis entered the houses of the sick and needy to bring consolation and assistance. Their hands were ready to shroud the dead, and often did their words bring repentance and peace to hearts that had been hardened by crime, or ulcerated by hatred."
But this blessed life of mutual love and good works was too bright to remain long without the cross making it with pain. Adalbald was obliged to make a journey into Gascony, and was murdered in Perigord, as has been already related (Vol. II., p. 41). On receiving news of his death, Rictrudis turned to the sole source of consolation, and resolved to dedicate the rest of her days to the undivided service of God. But with the true prudence of unselfish piety, she deferred taking the veil till her son Maurontus was of a sufficient age to be admitted into the court of the king. When she had sent him forth, and had ascertained that he was living uprightly, purely, and modestly, beloved by all,
' Or Austrebant, the portion of Flanders inclosed by the Schelde, the Scharpe and the Somme.
-*
172 Lives of the Saints, [Mayn.
the ties that attached her to the world parted of their own accord, and she prepared to retire to Marchiennes, when she was surprised and pained by a message from the king requesting her to marry one of his nobles. The requests of a monarch were at that time equivalent to commands, and Rictrudis in alarm sought S. Amandus, and persuaded him to plead her cause with the king. Not many days after, the king, Clovis IL, was in the neighbourhood. Rictrudis invited him to her castle, and prepared for him and his attendants a magnificent repast. During the banquet Rictrudis rose from her place, and bending her knee before the king, asked his permission to fulfil her duty and desire. Clovis, supposing she meant that she was wishing to bring round and offer the grace cup, replied in the aflirmative.
"Sire !" said Rictrudis, suddenly producing a black veil, and throwing it over her head, " to this, duty and incli- nation call me."
The king burst into an explosion of anger, started from the table, and went forth followed by his attendants. S. Amandus then hastened after the king, and pleaded the cause of the saint so effectually that Clovis gave his consent and withdrew all opposition to her retirement into the cloister.
She then assumed the veil at Marchiennes, taking with her her daughters Clotsendis and Adalsendis, who were still young. Her eldest daughter, Eusebia, was with S. Gertrude, her grandmother, at Hamage. She was speedily called to sacrifice her child Adalsendis to God, for she fell sick and- died on Christmas Day. For three days the mother restrained her tears. But on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, when she heard the Gospel read, in which that prophecy is rehearsed which tells of Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, her >i. ->J<
-*
Mayij^-i) 6". Rictrudis. 173
tears burst forth, and her sobs convulsed her frame. When the service was concluded, and the nuns were going to the refectory, Rictrudis turned to them weeping and said, "Go, dear sisters, without me, I must be like Rachel this day at least."
Not many years after, she heard that her son Maurontus, who had lived innocent and God-fearing in the court of the Frank king, proposed retiring from the world. She was full of alarm, knowing the offence this would give to the king and to his relatives, and fearing for himself lest his vocation should not be sincere. She asked the opinion of S. Amandus, and he calmed her apprehensions by telling her how her son had conducted himself at court. Maur- ontus came to Marchiennes and told his mother how sincere was his purpose, and then, in the abbey church before his mother's eyes, the young noble stripped off his armour, and received the tonsure from the hands of S. Amandus. He then retired to Breuil (Merville) where he built a monastery on his own estate.
S. Rictrudis died at the age of seventy-six, and left the government of the abbey of Marchiennes to her daughter Clotsendis.
The relics of S. Rictrudis were preserved at Marchiennes in a magnificent shrine which was sent to Paris during the Revolution, in 1793, to be coined. A workman saved the bones and hid them, and gave them on the restoration of tranquillity to the Archbishop of Paris, and they were preserved in the palace. But in the sack of July 24th, 1830, they were dispersed.
-*
S. GERMANUS, PATR. OF CONSTANTINOPLE, C
(about A.D. 732.)
[The Menology of Emperor Basil and the ancient Constantinopol'tan Synaxarium, and the Greek Menaea. Gallican Martyrology of Saussaye and Modern Roman Martyrology. Authority : — Notices in Theophanes and the life of S. Stephen the Younger, one of the sufferers in the perse- cution of Constantine Copronymus.]
Justinian II., Emperor of the East, had been driven into exile to the Chersonese. He obtained help from the Bulgarians, and returned to wreak his vengeance on his enemies. His vessel was assaulted by a violent tempest ; and one of his pious companions advised him to deserve the mercy of God by a vow of general forgiveness, if he should be restored to the throne. "Of forgiveness?" re- plied the intrepid tyrant. "May I perish this instant if I consent to spare the head of one of my enemies," He returned to Constantinople at the head of his Bulgarian allies, and rewarded their chief, who retired after sweeping away a heap of gold coin which he measured with his Scythian whip. But never was vow more religiously observed than the sacred oath of vengeance he had taken amidst the storms of the Euxine. The two usurpers, Leontius and Apsimar, were cast prostrate in chains before the throne of the emperor; and Justinian, planting a foot on each of their necks, contemplated above an hour a chariot race, whilst the inconstant people shouted, in the words of the psalmist, "Thou shalt go upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet." During the six years of his new reign, he considered the axe, the cord, and the rack as the only instruments of royalty. In 7 1 1 the troops revolted, weary of serving such a tyrant, and Bardanes, under the name of Philippicus, was invested with the purple. Justinian fell under the hand of
^-
-*
Mayia.] 6". Gevmanus. 175
an assassin, and Philippicus was hailed at Constantinople as a hero who had delivered his country from a tyrant
Philippicus was a Monothelite, and his first act on entering the vestibule of the palace was to order the removal of the painting of the Sixth Council (Constanti- nople, A.D. 680-1), which had condemned Monothelitism. The emperor also deposed Cyrus the Patriarch, whom he confined in the monastery of Chora, and enthroned John, a Monothelite, in his place. Germanus, metropolitan of Cyzicus, and Andrew, bishop of Crete, supported him. He at once set about persecuting those who adhered to the Catholic Faith, and he placed on the diptych s the name of Pope Honorius, whom the Sixth General Council had anathe- matized as a Monothelite heretic. Shortly after, having found in the palace the acts of this council written by the hand of Agatho the deacon and librarian, he burnt them publicly. On the festival of his birthday, in 714, Philippicus entertained the multitude with the games of the circus ; from thence he paraded through the streets with a thousand banners and a thousand trumpets, and returning to the palace, entertained his nobles with a sumptuous banquet. At the meridian hour he withdrew to his chamber, intoxi- cated with wine and flattery. Some bold conspirators introduced themselves into his room, bound, blinded, and deposed the slumbering monarch, before he was awake to his danger. Yet the traitors were deprived of their reward, and the free voice of the senate and people raised Artemus, the secretary, under the title of Anastasius II., to the imperial throne, and he was crowned in the sanctuary by the patriarch John. Then, finding that the new emperor was a Catholic, the patriarch, the bishops, and all the clergy present, hasted to proclaim the authority of the Sixth General Council. John then wrote to Pope Conbtan- tine a quibbling letter, in which he endeavoured to excuse
-*
*-
^-
1 y6 Lives of the Saints. [May la
his conduct in anathematizing the Council of Constanti- nople against the Monothelites, during the brief reign of Philippicus. But Constantine was dead, and the famous Gregory II. sat in the throne of S. Peter.
Anastasius deposed John from his patriarchial seat, and elevated to it S. Germanus, bishop of Cyzicus, with whose orthodoxy he was satisfied, though Germanus had played an unmistakeable Monothelite part under the late emperor. But at this age men were too ready to shift their opinions to accord with the views of the reigning sovereign, and if Germanus proved compliant in one instance, he held firmly in another. Germanus was the son of the patrician Justinian, who had been compromised in the murder of Constans II., the father of Constantine Pogonatus. For this cause the emperor had executed Justinian and made an eunuch of Germanus.
In a mutiny of the fleet, an obscure and reluctant officer of the revenue was forcibly invested with the purple, and after a reign of a year and two months, Anastasius re- signed the sceptre, to be followed speedily into the retirement of the cloister by Theodosius II., who had supplanted him, and who in turn yielded his throne to I.eo III. It is agreed that Leo was a native of Isauria, and that Conon was his primitive name. The writers, whose vindictive satire is praise, describe him as an itinerant pedlar who drove an ass with some paltry merchandise to the country fairs. A more probable account relates the migration of his father from Asia Minor to Thrace, where he exercised the lucrative trade of a grazier. Leo's first service was in the guard of Justinian, where he attracted the notice and awakened the jealousy of the t)n:ant. From Anastasius he received the command of the Anatohan Legions, and by the suffrage of the soldiers he was raised to the empire in 717, and occupied the throne twenty-four years.
-^
May 12.] 6'. Germanus. 177
Leo had reigned for ten years before he declared his hostiHty to images. But his persecuting spirit had betrayed itself in the compulsory baptism of the Jews and the Montanists in Constantinople.
At the close of these ten years in the reign of Leo, in the summer of 726, a volcanic explosion at sea, in the Archipelago, between the islands Thera and Therasia, accompanied by volumes of smoke and fire, and the elevation of a new island, was regarded by Leo as a signal of Divine wrath against those who venerated images. An edict was fulminated interdicting the veneration of images. His adviser was said to be a certain Besor, a Syrian renegade from Christianity, deeply imbued with Mahom- medan antipathies.
The first edict prohibited paying any sort of religious reverence to statues and pictures which represented the Saviour, the Virgin, and the Saints. The statues and those pictures which hung upon the walls were to be raised to a greater height, so as not to receive pious kisses, or other marks of veneration. This edict was followed, at what interval it is difticult to determine, by a second, of far greater severity. It commanded the total destruction of all images, the whitewashing the walls of the churches. But if the first edict was everywhere received with the most determined aversion, the second maddened the vast mass of the people, the clergy and the monks. In the capital the presence of the emperor did not in the least overawe the populace. An imperial officer had orders to destroy a statue of the Saviour in a part of Constantinople called Chaleopratia. The thronging multitude saw with horror the officer mount the ladder. Thrice he struck with impious axe the holy countenance, which had so benignly looked down upon them. Then the endurance of the people broke down, horror and indignation over- voL. V. 12
-*
^-
1/8 Lives of the Saints. [Mayia.
mastered them. Some women shook the ladder, and the officer fell and was beaten to death with clubs. The emperor sent an armed guard to suppress the tumult; and a frightful massacre took place.
This was the beginning of a savage persecution. The pious were punished with mutilations, scourgings, exile and confiscation.
The aged Germain now spoke out. He wrote three letters which are extant. In the first, addressed to John, bishop of Synnada, he said, " We do not adore the works of men, but we believe the holy martyrs are worthy of all honour, and we ask their intercession. To God alone does Christian faith, worship and adoration belong, as it is written : — Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. To Him alone is our doxology and our worship addressed. God forbid that we should worship the creature with the worship due to the Creator. When we prostrate ourselves before emperors and princes, it is not giving them the adoration due to God. The prophet Nathan fell on his face before David, who was only a man, and was not blamed therefor. And when we allow images, it is not to diminish the perfection of Divine worship, for we make no representations of the invisible and incomprehensible Divinity. But as the Son of God condescended to become Man for our salvation, we make representations of His human form to fortify our faith, to assure us that He assumed our real, veritable nature, and not a phantom form, as heretics declare. We salute images and render them suitable lionour and reverence, :is recalling to us the Incarnation. We also make representa- tions of Christ's Holy Mother, to show that she being a woman of like nature with us, conceived and brought forth Almighty God. We admire the manors, prophets, and all other holy servants of God, and we paint their
*-
-*
May 12.]
6^. Germanus.
179
likenesses as memorials of their courage and of the service they rendered to God. Not that we pretend they par- ticipate in the Divine Nature, nor do we give them the honour and adoration due to God, but we show our affection for them, and by painting them fortify the faith of men in the verities they have heard through their ears. As we are men of flesh and blood, we need such assistance." He entrusted this letter to Constantine, bishop of Nacolia, to take to his metropolitan, John; but Constantine was resolved to trim his sails to the breeze that blew from court, and suppressed the letter.
S. Germanus then wrote him a letter of remonstrance. He also wrote to Thomas, bishop of Claudiopolis, who had declared himself against images. From this letter may be extracted the following striking passage : —
" Pictures are an abridged history, and all tend to the sole glory of the Celestial Father. When we show rever- ence to the representation of Jesus Christ, we do not adore the colours applied to the wood ; we are adoring the invisible God who is in the bosom of the Father ; and Him we worship in spirit and in truth."
He also wrote to Pope Gregory II., who replied to him in a long letter, in which he congratulated him on the vigour with which he had defended Catholic tradition.
The enterprise of Leo the Isaurian against sacred art occasioned a revolt of the people of Greece and the Cyclades, who armed a fleet under the command of Agallian and Stephen, which sailed for Constantinople, but was completely defeated on the i8th of April, 727. Agallian was cast into the sea, and Stephen was decapi- tated.
This success encouraged Leo, and he made fresh efforts to gain the patriarch Germanus, who had declared against the rebels, although they had sailed under the plea of a
-*
holy war. The emperor sent for him, spoke flatteringly to him, and urged him to yield.
"Sire," said the aged patriarch, "we have received orders to remove our images; but let the persecutor be Conon, not Leo." " True," said the emperor, ** I received the name of Conon at my baptism." " God forbid, sire," said Germanus, " that thy reign should see this accursed work carried out. It is a war not against images, but against the reality of the Incarnation."
At the opening of the year 730 Leo held a council of those who favoured his views, and endeavoured to force the patriarch to subscribe its decree against the use of images and pictures, but he preferred to resign his dignity, and removing his pall, he turned to the emperor, and said, " Sire, I may not innovate, nor make an alteration without the authority of au CEcumenical Council." And he retired to the patriarchal palace. The emperor sent officers to expel him, and the old man, then aged eighty, was driven forth with blows and insults. He retired to his paternal mansion after having occupied the see fourteen years, five months, and three days. In his home he lived as a monk, and died peacefully about the yt;ar 732.
*-
*
May '3.] ^. Glyceria. i8t
May 13.
S. Glyceria, y.M, at Heraclea, in Thrace, circ. a.d. 177.
S. Onesimus, B, of Soissons, circ. A.n. 360.
SS. Martyrs at Alexandria, in the Church of S. Thennat, a.p 372.
S. Servatus, B. of Tongres and Maestricht, a.d. 384.
S. John the Silentiary, Monk at S. Sabas, in Palestine, a.d. 5$8.
S. RoLENDA, f. at Gerpines, near Namur, "jth or Hth cent-
S. MoELDAD, Jb. nf Mnnaghan, about ph cent.
B. Gerard, H. near Florence, a.d. 1267.
S- Peter Regalate, C at Jquileria, in Spain, a.d. 14^6.
S. GLYCERIA, V. M.
(about A.D. 177.)
[Commemorated on this day by the Greeks, especially at Teni?alem, also in the Arabic Egyptian Martyrology, the Menology of the Emperor Basil, the Menaea, and the Modern Roman Martyrology. Authority : — The Greek Acts, not trustworthy.]
jYCERIA was a maiden of Trajanopolis, in Thrace, who refused to obey the edict of the emperor, and sacrifice to the idols. She was cruelly tortured by order of the governor Sabinus, being suspended by her hair and beaten. She was taken to Heraclea, where she was executed.
SS. MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA. (a.d. 372.)
[Modern Roman Martyrology. Authority :— A Letter of Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a contemporary, quoted by Theodoret, lib. iv., c. 22.]
After the death of S. Athanasius, one Peter was elected to fill his place as Patriarch of Alexandria. He had shared in the labours and afliictions of S. Athanasius, and had
^*
* >i«
182 Lives of the Saints. [May 13.
endeared himself to the people of Alexandria. But the Emperor Valens was an Arian, and a persecutor, and Peter was driven from his see, and an Arian named Lucius was installed in his place, who dispersed and exiled the hermits of the desert, on account of their inflexible ad- herence to the faith of Nicsea. He was supported by Palladius, the governor of the province, a heathen ; but this was not the first time that heresy and heathenism combined against the true faith. Palladius, at the insti- gation of Lucius, attacked the Catholics in their churches, and the most atrocious crimes were committed. " But," says the Bishop Peter, " when I try to speak of them, the remembrance overcomes me, and draws tears from my eyes. The people entered the Church of Theonas, singing the praises of their idols, clapping their hands, and uttering insults against the Christian virgins which my tongue refuses to repeat. Would that they had confined them- selves to words ! But they tore the garments of the virgins of Christ, whose purity rendered them like angels. They dragged them in a state of complete nudity about the city, and treated them in the most wanton and insulting manner, and with unheard-of cruelty. If any one, touched with compassion, interfered, he was attacked and wounded. Many of these virgins were beaten about their heads with clubs, and expired beneath the blows. Many of the corpses have not yet been found, to the grief of their parents. A young man, dressed as a woman, danced upon the holy altar where we invoke the Holy Ghost, making grimaces to the diversion of the mob, who laughed immoderately. Another stripped himself naked and seated himself as naked as he was born in the episcopal chair. When these acts of impiety had been perpetrated I left the church."
^ _ ^
-*
May 13.] .S. Scvvatus.
S. SERVATUS, B. OF TONGRES. (a.d. 384.)
[Ado, Usuardus, the Belgian Martyrologies, the Modem Roman Mar- tyrology, Authorities : — The life of S. Servais by Heriger, abbot of Lobbes, at the end of the loth or beginning of the nth century, and mention by S. Gregory of Tours. J
It is not known whence S. Servais (Servatus) came. He was bishop of Tongres, near Maestricht, and was present at the council of Cologne, held in 346, in which the bishop of Cologne was deposed for his Arianism. The words used by S. Servais on that occasion were : " I know for certain what this false bishop teaches. I know it not from hearsay, but from having heard him with my own ears. As our dioceses adjoin, I have often remonstrated with him when he denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. I have done so in private and in public, before Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. My advice is, that he should no longer be a Christian bishop, and that they who communicate with him should not be regarded as Christians." He must have been in the presence of S. Athanasius when that saint was exiled to Treves, between the years 336 and 338.
He was present at the council of Sardica in 347, and at the council of Rimini in 359, in which he long stood out against the Arians. The bishops of the West there assembled were told that the Eastern bishops assembled at Seleucia had accepted the Arian creed as the emperor insisted. This was most false, but the bishops yielded one after another. Never- theless, above twenty held out, headed by S. Servais and S. Phoebadius, of Agen. They were menaced, but Phoebadius replied, "Any suffering rather than an Arian creed." The Emperor Valens, after some days had thus been spent, equivocated, pretended he was not an Arian, and die minority, hoodwinked and wearied out, yielded. But no
-^
5»- ^
184 Lives of the Saints. [May 13.
sooner had they returned to their sees, and discovered the treachery to which they had been victims, than they vehemently repudiated all sympathy with Arianism.
Whilst S. Servais was engaged, after the council of Rimini, in confirming the faith of his flock, the Huns broke into Gaul, ravaging and slaying. He made a pilgrimage to Rome, and on his way back was taken by the Huns, and thrown into a dungeon. But a bright light filling his prison at night, the Huns were frightened and released him, and he hastened home over the Alps of Savoy and the Vosges.
On his return to Tongres, he informed his people that they must not expect to escape the ravages of the Huns, and that he must leave them to seek elsewhere a peaceful grave. He retired to Maestricht, where he died on May the 13th, 384.
His relics are preserved in an ancient shrine at Maes- tricht.
In Art he appears sometimes with an eagle over his head ; for, according to tradition, one day an eagle sheltered him from the sun with his expanded wings. But his special symbol is a silver key, which he is said by popular legend to have received from S. Peter himself in a vision, and this key was wrought in heaven by angelic hands.
In truth the key was one of the daves confessionis S. Petri, which the popes were wont to bestow on special favourites, and in which particles or filings of the chains 0/ S. Peter were inserted. Pope Pelagius H. gave such a key of pure gold to the Lombard king, and S. Gregory the Great sent others to Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch,^ the ex-consul John,^ to the Bishop Columbus," to Childebert, king of the Franks,* and to Reccared, king of the
'"Amatores autem vestri B.Petri Apostoli vobis claves transmisi quae super aegros positae tnultis Solent miraculis coruscare." S. Greg. Magn. Opera, lib, i,, Ep. 6.
*Lib. i., Ep. 31. ^Lib. iii., Ep. 48. ♦Lib. iv., Ep. 6,
*
-*
May 13.] S. yohn the Silentiary. 185
Visigoths.^ These keys were called claves confessiofiis S. Petri, because they were copies of the key which unlocked the crypt in which the body of the Prince of the Apostles lay, in the old basilica of S. Peter.^
Pope Vitalian in 657, to take one more instance, sent such a key containing a filing of the chains of S. Peter, to the queen of Oswy, king of Northumberland.^ Such a key is preserved to this day at Liege, and others in the Middle Ages in Corsica and Laon. The workmanship of the key at Maastricht may belong to the 4th cent., but it certainly has all the appearance of belonging to the i ith. It appears to have been gilt*
At Maestricht are preserved also the drinking cup and the staff of the saint, as also are his bones in one of the most splendid reliquaries of the Middle Ages that have been preserved to the present day.
S. JOHN THE SILENTIARY, MK. (a.d. 558.)
[Roman Martyrology. In the Menology of the Emperor Basil on Dec. 8th ; but in the Synaxarium of the Church of Constantinople on Dec. 7th. Authority : — His life by Cyril the Monk, who wrote the lives of S. Sabas and S. Euthymius ; he was a contemporary and an eye-witness of most that he describes.]
S. John the Silentiary was born at Nicopolis of Armenia, on Jan. 8th, 454, of an honourable and wealthy family. Upon the death of his parents he divided the
' Lib. ix. Ep. 122. ^ S. Greg. Turon. "De Gloria Martyrum," lib. i. c. 28.
* Bede, lib. iii., c. 29, *The remark of the Pere Giry is too sublime in its superiority to common sense and critical acumen to be passed over. "There are authors who think this key was given to S. Servais by the pope, and that it was one of those keys in which were inserted a tiling of the chains of S. Peter. This is a conjecture which has some plausibility, but as it is supported by no proof, it is not to be compared to the tradition of the churches ot Maestricht and Liege, which declares that this key was given by S. Peter himself."
-*
1 86 Lives of the Saints, [May 13.
inheritance among his brothers, and shortly after retired into a cell with ten companions. He was then aged eighteen, and he spent ten years in solitude till he was drawn from it by the Bishop of Sebaste, who ordained him Bishop of Colonia. His sister was married to Pasinicus, governor of the province, a man who exercised tyrannical rule, and interfered with the bishops and other ecclesiastics in the discharge of their duties, so that after having been subjected to intolerable vexations, S. John was forced to appeal to the emperor against his brother-in-law. As soon as he had obtained redress, he suddenly disappeared from his see, having wearied of its cares and responsibilities, and secreted himself in the laura of S. Sabas, in Pales- tine, where he was employed first in carrying stones for the labourers engaged in building, and afterwards as cook. Many years after, S. Sabas, admiring his virtue, brought him to Jerusalem to be ordained priest by the Patriarch Elias, but John asked to speak privately to the patriarch, and he told him that he was already a bishop. Elias then spoke to S. Sabas, saying, " John has revealed to me something which makes it impossible for me to ordain him."
The venerable abbot burst into tears, thinking that the monk had fallen into some sin, and he spent many nights in prayer for him, till it was revealed to him that his con- jecture was erroneous, and then going to John he was told all. John afterwards retired into a hovel built against the face of a rock in the desert, and there he planted a fig, and it grew in the face of the crag and overshadowed his hut, and this caused much astonishment, for no figs grew in the garden of the laura. Now when an incursion of the Saracens filled all the land with fear, the monks sent to him to take refuge in their fortified monastery; but he refused, saying, " If God will not protect me, why should I care?" And all the while the Saracens were devastating
*- ^
-*
^.TIVG O
B GERA.RJJV?
May 13.
-4
H?i»l
aairuij
lie
-•yCiCfij
*-
May 13.]
S. Roleiida, V.
187
-*
the land a lion paced in the glen, or couched on the rock before his cell, and none dared approach. He died at the age of one hundred and foxir.
S. ROLENDA, V.
(7TH OR 8th cent.)
[Belgian Martyrologies and the Scottish Menology of Dempster. Authority : — A life written in the 12th century, based on tradition, wholly fabulous.]
S, RoLEXDA is said to have been the daughter of a Frank prince named Desiderius; and her hand to have been sought by a Scottish prince then serving in the court of the Frank monarch. In alarm the maiden fled to Cologne, where she purposed joining S. Ursula and her party of eleven thousand virgins, who she heard were on their way to Rome. But she fell sick and died at Gerpines, a village on a stream flowing into the Sambre above Namur.
The relics are preserved at Gerpines and attract numerous pilgrims, and she is invoked against gravel and lumbago. A procession with her relics takes place annually on Whitsun Monday.
B. GERARD, H. (a.d. 1267.) B. GERARD of Villamagna, brother of the order of S. John of Jerusalem, became a hermit at Florence during the latter years of his life. The cut is from the Bollandists (AA. SS. May, vol. vii.), and exhibits also another Saint of the same order by which the similar habit of the hermit is shown. The beard and bare feet of B. Gerard indicate the hermit life which he embraced. He is represented holding a bunch of cherries, in allusion to a story related of him by his chroniclers.
*-
^
-*
May 130 61 Rolenda, V. 187
the land a lion paced in the glen, or couched on the rock before his cell, and none dared approach. He died at the age of one hundred and four.
S. ROLENDA, V. (7TH OR 8th cent.)
[Belgian Martyrologies and the Scottish Menology of Dempster. Authority : — A life written in the 12th century, based on tradition, wholly fabulous.]
S. RoLENDA is said to have been the daughter of a Frank prince named Desiderius; and her hand to have been sought by a Scottish prince then serving in the court of the Frank monarch. In alarm the maiden fled to Cologne, where she purposed joining S. Ursula and her party of eleven thousand virgins, who she heard were on their way to Rome. But she fell sick and died at Gerpines, a village on a stream flowing into the Sambre above Namur.
The relics are preserved at Gerpines and attract numerous pilgrims, and she is invoked against gravel and lumbago. A procession with her relics takes place annuallf on Whitsun Monday.
B. GERARD, H. (a.d. 1267.)
B. GERARD of Villamagna, brother of the order of S. John of Jerusalem, became a hermit at Florence during the latter years of his life. The cut is from the Bollandists (AA. SS. May, vol. vii.), and exhibits also another Saint of the same order by which the similar habit of the hermit is shown. The beard and bare feet of B. Gerard indicate the hermit life which he embraced. He is represented holding a bunch of cherries, in allusion to a story related of him by his chroniclers.
■f^
*-
Lives of the Saints. raiay^.
May 14.
SS. Victor and Corona, MM. in Egypt, circ. a.d. 177.
S. Pontius, M. at Cimella, near Nice, in F7-ance, circ. a.d. 257.
S. Boniface, M. at Tarsus, in Cilicia, a.d. 290.
S. Pachomius, Ab. at Tabcnna, in Egypt, a.d. 349.
S. Theodore, H. at Tabenna, a.d. 368.
S. Ampelius, H. at Genoa, ^th cetit.
S. Boniface, B, of Ferento, in Italy, dth cent.
S. PoMPONlus, B. of Naples, circ. a.d. 536.
S. Carthagh, B. of Lismore, a.d. 637.
S. Erembert, B. of Toulouse, afterguards Mk. of Fontcnelle, after k.t). 680
S. Paschal I., Pope of Rome, a.d. 824.
S. Hallvard, M. in Norway, nth cent.
S. PONTIUS, M. (about a.d. 257.)
[Usuardns and the Roman Martyrology. Authority : — His life by Valerius, his companion, an eye-witness of his passion. This has probably gone through amplifications, but in the main it is authentic. One mark of its authenticity is that there are no anachronisms in the names of popes and emperors, as is invariably the casein forgeries. At the same time it is un- questionable that late hands have done much to trick it out with exaggera- tion, long speeches, and marvels.]
J^^^^HT Rome lived a senator named Marcus and his W^^ el ^^^^ Julia. One day when she was approaching 1 ^^J f|: her confinement, she visited the temple of Jupiter P™™*^ to ask an augury concerning the child that was to be bom; then the priest, veiling himself and puttingthe sacred fillet about his head, pretended to become filled with the spirit of prophecy, and he predicted that ruin should befall the temple through the unborn child. Julia ran home in horror, and struck herself with stones in hopes of destroying the child, and when, notwithstanding, it was born shortly after, she would have exposed it, had not her husband interfered, with the sensible remark that Jupiter was the one concerned in the child's
*-
— ^
May 14.] .S". Pontms. 189
living, and if the child was likely to be obnoxious to him he would have slain it. As the boy grew up he was sent to a tutor. One morning very early he left his bed to seek his master, when, passing a house, he heard sweet strains of music issuing from it, subdued, but swelling and falling in cadence, like the voices of many people softly chanting. He crept to a place where he could hear the words, and they were these, "Wherefore shall the heathen say; Where is now their God ? As for our God, He is in heaven ; He hath done whatsoever pleased Him. Their idols are silver and gold ; even the work of men's hands. They have mouths and speak not ; eyes have they, and see not. They have ears, and hear not; noses have they, and smell not. They have hands, and handle not ; feet have they, and walk not; neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; and so are all such as put their trust in them. But thou house of Israel, trust thou in the Lord ; He is their succour and defence."^ As the boy stood listening to these solemn words before the house over which the morning star was paling, in the fresh air of day-break, the light of conviction illumined his soul. This that he now heard was so different from the miserable popular idolatry of the masses, so different also from the abstract philosophy of his master, that he struck with hand and foot at the door, eager to hear more. The doorkeeper looked out at a window, and then turning to S. Pontianus, the bishop of Rome, who was within, said, " It is only a little fellow kicking at the door." " Well, open and let him in," said the pope, " for of such is the kingdom of heaven." So he was admitted and led up into the chamber where the sacred mysteries were celebrated, and when the sacred rite was over, he went to Pope Pon- tianus and said, with boyish confidence, " Teach me that
* Vs. cxiii. (A.V. cxv. 3-9,;
-^
*-
IQO Lives of the Saints. [May 14.
wonderful song about 'our God who is in heaven, who hath done whatsoever pleaseth Him/ that I heard you singing, not long ago. And," added he, "it is all so true. You sang that they had feet and walked not. I know that they not only cannot move, but that people are afraid of their being blown over by the wind, or stolen, or knocked down by accident, and I have myself seen how they are fastened into their pedestals with melted solder or lead."
Then the blessed Pontianus was astonished at the quickness of the boy, and he asked him, "Are your mother and father alive?" The boy Pontius answered, "My mother died two years ago, but father and grandfather are alive." "Are they heathens or Christians?" "Christians they certainly are not." "Well, my child," said the bishop, " God in his own good time may enlighten thy father as He is illumining thee." And for three hours he instructed him in the rudiments of the faith.
On his return home, Pontius was far too full of what he had heard to keep it to himself, so he went to his father and told him all. The father, Marcus, a sensible man, listened with interest, and eventually became a catechumen with his son, and was baptized. After his death, which took place when Pontius was aged twenty, the young man had liberty to do what he would with his goods, and he gave much to the bishop to be distributed among the poor. He saw Pontianus suffer a martyr's death, and he lived in close familiarity with the humane Emperor Philip, with whom and his son Philip he had many opportunites of con- versing on the subject of Christianity. On the accession of Valerian and Gallienus to the throne, Pontius fled to Cimella, a city near the present Nice in the south of France, under the shelter of the Maritime Alps. There he was arrested by the governor, Claudius, who exposed him to bears in the amphitheatre, but the bears hugged to death
*-
-»i«
May 14.] 6". Bofiiface. 191
two " venatores/' men armed with whips and goads who tried to urge them against the martyr, and then lay down on the sand in the sunshine, without attempting to injure him. Seeing this, the governor ordered him to be decapi- tated, and his order was promptly executed.
His relics are said to be preserved in the monastery of S. Pont^, near Nice; but his head was anciently shown at Marseilles.
S. BONIFACE, M.
(a.d. 290.)
[Roman Martyrology ; in the Greek Menosa on December 19th. Au- thority : — The Acts, which may in the main be true, but which are certainly not ancient and trustworthy as a whole.]
Boniface was a debauched, drunken fellow, a servant of Aglae, daughter of the pro-consul Acacius, who lived on terms of undue familiarity with his mistress, in the reigns of Diocletian and Maximus. But one day, at Tarsus, he saw some Christian martyrs hung up over a slow fire by their hands tied behind their backs ; others with their flesh torn off by scrapers ; others with their hands cut off. The sight of their constancy and faith so overpowered him, that he ran up to them and besought them to pray for him, for he was a miserable sinner. Then feehng the pricking of his conscience, and an earnest resolve to submit to any torment to redeem the past, he delivered himself up to the governor, and declared himself to be a Christian. He was tortured in the most excruciating manner, and was then decapitated when more dead than alive, and so received the baptism of blood.
Relics in the church of S. Alexis at Rome.
-*
*-
192 Lives of the Saints. [Mayx*.
S. PACHOMIUS, AB.
(A.D. 349.)
[Th*; Menology of the Emperor Basil on May 6th ; the Menaea on May iSth, Bade, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, and the Roman Martyrology on May 14th. Authority : — His life written by a monk of Tabenna, his disciple, who had seen him, as he says himself. Sozomen also praises S. Pachomius in his Eccl. History, lib. iii., c. 14.]
S. Pachomius was the child of heathen parents in Upper Egypt. He was first attracted to Christianity by the charity of the Christians towards himself and some young companions when they had been taken by conscrip- tion to serve in a war that was being carried on. When the war was at an end, and he was released from military service, he placed himself under instruction, and was baptized. Shortly after he made the acquaintance of the hermit Palaemon (January nth), and became his disciple. After some years S. Pachomius felt himself called to found a monastery at Tabenna; he communicated his purpose to S. Palaemon, who at once followed his disciple and took up his abode with him.
The rule of S. Pachomius was very simple. Each brother was allowed to eat and drink as much as he thought fit. All were required to work, but the work was to be adapted to their ages and constitutions.
The monks were to live three together in separate cells, but all were to assemble in a refectory for their meals, and in the church for divine service.
They were to wear linen nightshirts when they went to bed, and white girded goatskins night and day; when they approached the altar to communicate they were to come in their hoods, and with ungirded loins, without their goatskins. They were not to lie flat on their backs in sleeping, but in chairs with sloping backs. They were to be classified according to their proficiency, each class to
-*
IN FESTO B3ATE MARIA VIRGINIS TITULO AUXILIUM
CHRISTIANORUM.
from the Vienna i*Cissal.
May 14.
-*
May 14. vS*. Packomius.
19:
be designated by a letter of the alphabet. Thus I repre- sented the very docile, Z the very troublesome.
The number of his disciples grew so rapidly that the monastery of Tabenna would not contain them all, and he was obliged to found others, one in a desert called Pabau, another at Thebeu, another at Panes, another at Men, another at Pachnum or Chnum, on the Nile, near Latopolis. All these foundations were in Upper Egypt, and not far from one another. LatopoHs is the modern Esneh. The situation of Tabenna is not so certain. It was probably near Dendera.
Many stories of the patience of Pachomius are related. One or two must suffice. An abbot of another monastery had been pestered by one of his monks, who solicited the office of steward to the monastery. The abbot refused, and thinking that the name of Pachomius would carry weight, said what was untrue, that he was acting on the advice of that father. The monk, very angry, rushed to Tabenna, and caught Pachomius engaged with some of his brethren in building a wall. He stormed at him for his interference, to the great surprise and no small perplexity of the abbot. S. Pachomius, however, did not lose his temper, but said meekly, as he proceeded with his build- ing, " I grieve, my brother, that I have done wrong ; I apologize to thee and ask pardon of God." A moment after the superior of the monk came up, much ashamed of himself, and told S. Pachomnis what was the meaning of this scene. The old abbot mused a moment, and then said, " The fellow has set his heart on the office, and if it be refused him any longer, he will fall into spite and passion, therefore let him have his desire." And it was so, that when the monk was offered the stewardship, he saw how wrong he had been, and refused to accept it.
S. Pachomius was gifted with great discretion in ruling his
VOL. v. 13
*
*-
194. Lives of the Saints. [May 14.
monks. A monk had platted two mats one day instead of one, and that others might admire his industry, he hung up his pahn-mats before his door in the sight of the community. " Take the mats to the refectory and into the church," said Pacnomius, "and then none can possibly fail to see how industrious you have been." Then the monk was ashamed, and saw that he had given way to vanity. Another monk fasted excessively, and said very long prayers. Pachomius feared that he did it out of self-esteem rather than out of genuine piety, so he bade him eat the vegetables and soup that were served in the refectory, and not pray except in church with the rest of the brethren. The monk was highly indignant and refused to obey. " I thought there was no true humility in his asceticism," said the abbot ; " now run, Theodore, to his cell and see what he is about." His disciple Theodore went, and found the monk praying, so he returned and told his master. " Go and interrupt him several times." So Theodore went, and presently disturbed him again. At last the monk's temper got the better of him, and swearing at Theodore, he caught up a stick and plunged after him to chastise him. "Ah!" said Pachomius, "now it is quite evident that he needs true conversion."
A monk repeatedly besought Pachomius to pray for him, that he might become a martyr. The abbot reproved him. " This is mere pride," said he. But the man continued to entreat him. " Go thy way, my son," said Pachomius, one day ; " behold now is the accepted day, behold now is the day of salvation ; nevertheless, be not high-minded, but fear !" and he sent him out to the banks of the Nile to cut rushes. Whilst he was thus engaged some Blemmians, a negro people apparently, took him, and carrying him off, with his hands tied behind his back, to the mountains, placed him before a fetish, and insisted on his adoring it.
*-
*
May 14.] 6". Pachomius. 195
He refused, but the negroes howled and danced round him, brandishing their spears and swords, and then all his cour- age gave way, and he prostrated himself before the image. After this he was let go, and he returned to the monastery overwhelmed with shame.
One day Pachomius visited one of his monasteries. Then a young brother complained to him that no salads and cooked vegetables had been served on table for a long time, but only bread and salt. The venerable abbot went into the kitchen, where he found the cook platting mats. "How is this?" exclaimed the saint. " What is there for dinner to-day?" " Bread and salt." "But the rule com- mands vegetables and soup." " My father, so many of the monks deny themselves anything except bread, and it is such trouble preparing the vegetables and the salads, and besides it is so disappointing to see them come from table almost untouched, when I have spent so much time in getting them ready, that I thought I could employ my time more profitably in making mats."
"And, prithee, how long has the table been without vegetables on it." " Some two or three months." "Bring all the mats thou hast made here and show me them." So the cook with no small pride produced them, and piled them up before the abbot. Then Pachomius plucked a brand from the fire and set them all in a blaze. "What !" said he, "withdraw from some of the monks the oppor- tunity of denying themselves, and from those who are sickly the necessary delicacies, and from the young their needful support, because it gives thee a little trouble, and because thou thoughtest thou couldest do better platting. To obey is better than sacrifice."
He was wont every day to preach to his monks ; but one day he told his disciple Theodore, who was only twenty years old, and looked much younger, to take his
-*
*-
196 Lives of the Saints. [Mavi4.
place. Some of the older monks were surprised and in- dignant at seeing a beardless stripling rise up to instruct them, and they stalked out of the church with a con- temptuous shrug of the shoulders. The abbot sent for them. "My sons," said he, "you turned your backs — I beg you to bear it well in mind — upon the Word of God. Despise no man's youth. I listened, and my soul was comforted."
Having built a handsome church and adorned it with pillars, he entered it, when complete, with some of his monks, and was suddenly aware of a spirit of pride rising in his heart at the beauty of the building that had risen from his designs, and under his supervision. "Quick," called he to his companions, "get ropes and pull these pillars a little out of the perpendicular, to tease my eye whenever I enter this house of God."
A plague broke out in the monastery of Tabenna, and carried off a hundred of the monks. S. Pachomius was himself attacked, and died in the fifty-seventh year of his age and the thirty-fifth of his monastic life.
S. CARTHAGH, OR MOCHUDA, B. OF LISMORE. (a.d. 637.)
[Tallaght and other Irish Martyrologies ; also the Anglican Martyr- ology of Wytford. Graven in his additions to Molanus, on May 13th ; so also Canisius in his German Martyrology, and Ferrarius in his General Catalogue of the Saints, but the Irish Martyrologies and the Bollandists on the 14th. Authority :— Two lives, ancient, but long subse- quent to S. Carthagh, and based on tradition.]
S. Carthagh of Lismore is sometimes called S. Carthagh the Younger, to distinguish him from his master, S. Car- thagh the Elder. In all probability it is a mistake to call him Carthagh, for his baptismal name seems to have been
*-
-*
May 14.] 6^. Cavthagk, or MocJmda. 197
Chudd (Cuddy), and S. Carthagh, his master, called him Mochuda, or My Cuddy, and as he was often termed S. Carthagh's Mochuda, to describe him as a disciple of that saint, this led to his being supposed to have borne the same name as his master.
He was a native of Kerry, and is said to have been of noble family. Yet we find him, when a boy, employed in tending his father's swine near the banks of the river Maug, when Providence put him in the way of being intro- duced to the holy Bishop Carthagh the Elder. It is related that, as the bishop and some of his clergy were passing through the neighbourhood chanting psalms, which they probably accompanied on harps, they were overheard by the young Cuddy, who was so delighted with their psal- mody, that forsaking his swine, he followed them as far as the monastery of Thuaim, in the barony of Barrets (county Cork), and there he remained the night. He did not enter the monastery, but unknown to the bishop and the monks, remained outside near the chamber allotted to the bishop's party, listening to them, as they sang till the hour of sleep. In the meantime Moeltuili, the chief, uneasy at Mochuda not returning in the evening with his herd of swine, sent his servants in all directions to seek him, and far on in the night he was found crouched under the walls of the monastery. He was brought to the castle of Moel- tuili, who next day asked him what had induced him to run away and desert his charge.
" My lord," answered Mochuda, " I was so bewitched with the song of the bishop and his clergy, that I followed them, longing to hear more of, and to learn those sweet strains." The chief at once sent for the bishop, and bade him take the young swineherd under his care, and instruct him in religion. The bishop gladly obeyed, and in due course promoted Mochuda to the priesthood. This was
-*
*-
198 Lives of the Saints. [Mayi4.
probably about the )^ear 580. Mochuda then constructed a cell, called Killtulach, somewhere not far from Maug ; but he did not remain there long ; for, we are told, he went thence to Bangor, to place himselt under the direction of S. Comgall, and, after having made some stay there, he returned to Kerry, where he laboured as a missionary priest. Next we find him visiting S. Molua of Clonfert- molua, and afterwards Colman-elo, with whom he wished to remain, but the saint advised him to form an establish- ment for himself at a place not far distant, called Trathyne, in Westmeath. S. Mochuda acted as he was directed, and there built a monastery, which soon became celebrated. He drew up a rule for the direction of his monks, who flocked to him from all quarters, and at length he had as many as eight hundred and sixty-seven under his charge.
Whilst abbot of Rathyne he was consecrated bishop. In 630 he was expelled with all his monks by Blathmac, the prince of that district, and he went to Drumcuillin (in the barony of English, adjoining Munster), the monastery of S. Barrindeus, and having stopped there a while, he proceeded to Saighir, and then to Roscrea, and thence to Cashel, where he was kindly received by the king, Failbhe Fland, who offered him a place for erecting a monastery, and whom he cured of an inflamed eye. Declining this offer, the saint went to Ardfinan, and there erected a cell, but shortly after Moelochtride, prince of Nandesi, made him a grant of the district in which Lismore is situated. Thither he moved, and there he founded a monastery and a see, and the i)lace becoming populous, acquired the name of Lismore (Liosmor, the great village.) Shortly after he had completed his establishment, he died, having spent the last eighteen months of his life in retirement, in a lone portion of the valley to the east of the town. He was buried at Lismore, of which he was the first bishop.
*-
(ft
May 14.] 6'. Pasckal I. 199
S. PASCHAL I., POPE. (a.d. 824.)
[Roman Martyrology. Authorities : — His life by Anastasius the Librarian, almost a contemporary, and mention in Eginhard's Annals, Thegan's life of Louis the Pious, and the anonymous author, commonly called the Astronomer, in his life of the Emperor Louis the Pious, all contemporary writers.]
Pope Leo III. and the Romans had been in constant feud ; and he was obliged to appeal to Charlemagne to support him against his rebellious vassals. A conspiracy was formed in 815 to depose Pope Leo and to put him to death, Leo attempted to suppress the tumult with un- wonted vigour ; he seized, and publicly executed the conspirators. The city burst into rebellion. Rome became a scene of plunder, carnage and conflagration. Intelli- gence was rapidly conveyed to the court of Louis the Pious, who had succeeded Charlemagne. He sent his kinsman Bernard to interpose, and whilst he was in Rom.e all was quiet. But no sooner had he withdrawn than, on the illness of Leo, a new insurrection broke out. The Romans sallied forth, plundered and burned the farms on the pope's estates in the neighbourhood. They were only compelled to peace by the armed interference of the Duke of Spoleto.
The death of Leo, and the impopular election of his successor, Stephen IV., exasperated rather than allayed the tumult; and in the third month of his pontificate, Stephen was compelled to take refuge, or seek protection, at the feet of the emperor, against his intractable subjects. In Rome the awe of Louis commanded at least some temporary cessation of the conflict, and a general amnesty. Stephen returned to Rome, and died almostly immediately after, in 817.
On his death. Paschal I. was chosen by the impatient * ifi
•^-
200 Lives of the Saiiits. [May 14.
clergy and people, and compelled to assume the pontifi- cate without the Imperial sanction. But Paschal was too prudent to defy the emperor and entail thereby on his people a sharp castigation, he therefore sent a deprecatory embassy across the Alps, throwing the blame of his ele- vation on the disloyal precipitancy of the people.
Louis sent his son Lothair to be king of Italy and the Rhine country, invested with imperial dignity. Lothair visited Rome to be crowned by Pope Paschal, and to reduce the turbulent Romans to obedience. Hardly, however, had he recrossed the Alps when he was overtaken with intelligence of new tumults.
Two men of the highest rank, Theoderic, Primicerius of the church, and Leo the Nomenclator, had been seized, dragged to the Lateran palace, blinded, and afterwards beheaded. The faction opposed to the pope accused him of being privy to, if not the instigator of this inhuman act.^ Two imperial commissioners, Adelung, abbot of S. Vedast, and Hunfired, count of Coire, were despatched with full power from the emperor to investigate the affair. The imperial commissioners were bafifled in their inquiry. Paschal refused to produce the murderers; he asserted that they were guilty of no crime in putting to death men them- selves guilty of treason ; he secured them by throwing around them a half-sacred character as servants of the church of S. Peter. ^ Himself he exculpated by a solemn expurgatorial oath, before thirty bishops, from all participa- tion in the deed. The emperor received with respect the exculpation of the pope, sent him by legates, John, bishop of Silva Candida, the librarian Sergius, and two others. On
' " Erant ct qui dixerunt, vel jussu vel consilio Paschalis Pontificis rem luisst: Ferpetratam." — Eginhard, Annal. sub ann. 823. 'Qua in re fama Pontiticis quoque ludebatur, dum ejus consensui totum ascriberetur." — Vita S- Hludovici imp. auct. anonym.
* Thegan., Vit, Hludovic> apud Pertz, c> 30, Eginhard sub ann.
*-
-^
May 14.] S. Paschal I. 201
their return to Rome they found the pope dying, and he expired on May the nth, 824, after having occupied the see seven years, three months, and seventeen days.
Paschal has made himself to be remembered by his care for the churches in Rome, many of which he restored or rebuilt with great splendour. He discovered the body of S. Cecilia. From the year 500 there had been a church in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Martyr, but it had fallen into decay. Pope Paschal began to rebuild it, but he hardly hoped to find the body of the saint, thinking it might have been lost or carried away by the Lombards when they besieged Rome, under their King Astolf, in 755. But one morning, as the pope was assisting at matins, he fell asleep, and saw S. Cecilia in a dream, who told him where her body lay, in the catacomb of Prsetextatus on the Appian way.
In the persecution of the Iconoclasts at Constantinople, the patriarch Theodotus, who had been intruded into the see, wrote to him, but the pope refused to receive his letters. He received letters from the great champion of the images, S. Theodore of the Studium, and wrote to Constantinople in hopes of allaying the violence of the persecutors, but in vain.
It is not very clear what claims S. Paschal has to his place among the Saints, as little is known of him that gives token of his having been at all eminent in sanctity, and in the case of the murder of the two men in his palace, he acted with unquestionable indiscretion, to use the mildest term by which his conduct can be designated. Though he may not have been in any way guilty of the crime that Avas committed, he was certainly wrong in screening the mur- derers from justice.
-*
>^-
20 2 Lives of the Saints. May :4.
S. HALLVARD, M.
(a.d. 1043.)
[Scandinavian and Utrecht Martyrologies. Authority : — The Utrecht Breviary; the Saga of Ingi Haraldsonar, that of Sigurd Slembidiakn,' the Knythnga Saga, the Elder Olafs Saga him Helga, the Fragm. His- tor. S. Hallvardi in Langebek, T. III., p. 603, the Histor. Vitae at Passionis S. Hallvardi, in the same, p. 604, and the Nidaros Breviary, p. 606. The Icelandic Annals give the date of his death as 1043. J
S. Hallvard, a son of Tomey, sister of Olaf the Fat, king of Norway, 2 was a youth of bhthe' countenance, pure morals, and honourable conduct. He went trading in the Baltic, and came to the island of Gothland, where he was well received by a rich man named Botvid, who foretold that he would be glorious in his future career. Next spring Hallvard sailed trading, and as he was one day thrusting his boat from the land, a pregnant woman came running and implored to be taken into his boat. Seeing her sorely distressed, he complied. Immediately three men rushed to the shore, and shouted to him to give her up, as she had stolen something. "How so?" asked Hallvard. " She broke into the house of our brother last night." " How did she break in ? " asked the young man. " She smashed the iron handle and wrenched out the staple." " No woman could have done that," said Hallvard ; " it must have been the work of a strong man." Then the poor woman, sobbing, flung herself at his feet, and implored him not to give her up, swearing that she was innocent. Then Hallvard, standing in the stern of the boat said, " I believe that she is guiltless, but guilty or not guilty, she is in no condition to be hunted and ill-treated. I will pay you
' These mention only circumstances connected with the fortunes of the shrine of S. Halvard.
2 The mother of Thorney was the daughter of Gudbrand, the father of Aska I mother of S. Olat.
*- _,J,
il^-
-*
May i4.]
6". Hallvard.
203
the value of what you allege she stole." But one of ihe men suddenly drew a bow, and shot, and the arrow entered Hallvard's heart and he sank down in the boat dead. Then the men rushed into the water, dragged the poor woman out, hung a stone round her neck, and flung her into the sea. In 1130a stone church stood at Oslo, where the body of the saint was enshrined, and his festival began to be observed about the same period.
His symbol in Art is a halbert, a play on his name.
/i
*-
8. Paschal, Pope, from a IJosaic- See p.
-*
yji- — _ ^
204 Lives of the Saints. [Mayi,-,
May 15.
The Coming of SS- Torquatus, Ctesiphon, Secundus, Indalesiiis,
CiECiLius, Hesychius, Euphrasius, HB- to Spain, 1st cent. S. Isidore, M. in Chios, a.d. 2J0. SS. Peter, Andrew, Paul, MM., Dionysia, A'.M. at Lampsacus,
A.D. 250-
SS. Castus, Victorinus, Maximus, and CoMr., MM. at Clermont in
France, circ. a.d. 264. S. SiMPLicius, M. in Sardinia. S. PivIMAel, P.H. m Brittany, 6th cent. S. Mantius, M. at E'vora in Portugal, 6th cent.^ SS. Dymphna, f^.M., AND Gerebern-, P.m. at Gheel in Belgium,
>]th cent. S. C«sarka, C. near Castro in Otranto. S. Britwin, Ab. of Beverley, a.d. 733. S- Rupert, Count Palatini: of the Rhine, and B. Bertha, his
Mother, at Bingen on the Rhine, gth cent. S. Nicolas the Mystic, Pat. nf Constantinople, a.d. 925.
SS. TORQUATUS, CTESIPHON, AND OTHERS, BB.
(iST CENT.)
[Usuardus on this day. From him Baronius adopted this festival into the Modem Roman Breviary. But in Spain on May ist, except in the Compostella Missal, where it is observed on May 7th. This is the festival of the coming of these seven bishops of Spain, but each is separately commemorated. S. Euphrasius on Jan. 14th, S. Caecilius on Feb. ist, S, Hesychius on March ist, S. Ctesiphon on April ist, S. Indalesiiis on April 30th, S. Secundus on May nth, and S. Torquatus on this day alone. There is no evidence, except tradition, to authorize the statement in some of the Martyrologies, that they were ordained by the Apostles Peter and Paul and sent into Spain, but there is nothing improbable in it. Gregory VII., in a letter to King Alphonso, mentions the tradition.]
CCORDING to the legend, which, however, is of Httle historical value, these seven bishops were sent by SS. Peter and Paul to preach the Word of God in Spain. They arrived at Guadix*
I Another victim to the Jews. The Aets are fabulous. The Jews try to per« suade Mantius to worship their "false gods! " At Kvora on the 21st May. * Said to be ihe most ancient bishopric in Spain. It ii in Granada.
»J< — ■ ^
May IS.] ^6^. Peter, Andrew, Paul, &c. 205
and pitched their tent in a flowery meadow near the city, and sent servants into Cadiz to buy them food. There was at that time a great feast of the idols celebrating in Guadix. The pagans set upon the Christians, and drove them out of the town and pursued them to the river, when suddenly there appeared a stone bridge over which they escaped ; but when the heathens pursued them, the bridge gave way, and they perished in the waters of the Guadia. This was the occasion of the conversion of many who saw the marvel
SS. PETER, ANDREW, PAUL, MM., AND DIONYSIA, V. M.
(about A.D. 250.)
fAncient Martyrology, attributed to S. Jerome, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, and Modern Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks on separate days, on May 15th, i6th, and i8th. Authority : —The ancient and apparently trustworthy Acts.]
At Lampsacus, the modern Chardah in Turkey in Asia, a young Christian named Peter, comely in body and fair in soul, was brought before the pro-consul Optimus, who said to him, "You see the commands of the unconquered emperors. Sacrifice to the great goddess Venus." " What !" exclaimed Peter, " to one whose life was a scandal, and who if she now lived in this town you would summon before your tribunal and order to the lock-up for her dissolute conduct ! I have no mind to worship a harlot." It was too true, and the pro-consul felt it was so, and therefore had recourse to the only argument left to the powerful when defeated in a contest of words — violence. He ordered Peter to be attached to a wheel, his legs and arms t^visted among the spokes, and held in place with iron chains. After he had borne this torture with great patience some
206 Lives of tlie Saints. [May ij.
little while, the pro-consul ordered his head to be struck off. And so he gained his palm.
After this the pro-consul went to Troas, and there three Christians were brought before him, named Andrew, Paul, and Nicomachus. The governor began with Nicomachus, who, on professing himself to be a Christian, was hung up by the wrists and tortured. In his agony under the flames, red hot pincers, and iron rakes, he shrieked out, *' Let me down ; I will sacrifice !" So he was cast down. And instantly he was seized with madness, and cried, and bit the dust, and expired foaming.
Then a young girl in the crowd, looking on, named Dionysia, aged sixteen, cried out, "Oh wretched man ! for one hour's respite to have to endure endless torment." The pro-consul angrily asked who cried this, and ordered her to be brought before him. Dionysia, a fair young maiden, modestly blushing, stood before his tribunal. Optimus bade her sacrifice, and threatened to have her burnt alive if she refused. But Dionysia firmly protested that she was a Christian, and that Christ would give her constancy to bear every torture he might devise against her. Then with that horrible, fiendish malice that characterised many of the heathen governors when dealing with Christian maidens, he gave her to two young men to take with them and insult. But Christ was with His martyr, and he sent an angel, and all night long a white silvery figure, as of moonshine, stood with a drawn sword of light extended over the maiden guarding her from harm.
Now when morning dawned the mob assembled, headed by two priests of Diana, roaring for their prey, and the pro-consul opened the prison and brought forth Andrew and Paul, and delivered them to the crowd. With a shout the mob rushed away, dragging the two Christians with them to a place outside the walls, where they stoned them.
^ ^
But Dionysia heard the roar of fierce voices, like the roar of wild beasts, as the crowd rolled down the street, and she burst forth and ran after the martyrs, and forced her way through the crowd and flung herself on the bodies. Then, when Optimus heard what had taken place, he said, " Strike off her head," and he was obeyed.
SS. DYMPHNA, V. M., AND GEREBERN, P. M.
(yXH CENT.)
[Roman and Belgian Martyrologies. The translation of S. Dymphna on Oct. 27th, that of S. Gerebern on July 20th. There is no ancient account of the martyrdom of these saints, which rests on tradition, and there can be little doubt that there is much fable in the story — indeed, it is difficult to conjecture how much of truth is enshrined in the popular romance of S. Dymphna.']
Gheel is one of the villages of North Brabant, situated in the sandy Kempenland, near the ancient town of Herrenthals. It has that quaint Dutch toy-like character which marks, more or less, all Flemish villages. It con- sists principally of one long straggling street, which appears wider than it really is, because of the unpretending archi- tecture and low stature of the houses. But it contains two ancient churches, one of which contains the shrine of S. Dymphna, and around this shrine the interest and im- portance of Gheel centres.
In the 7th century, the legend relates, a heathen Irish prince — according to another version a British king — had a very beautiful wife, whom he passionately loved. But she died, leaving behind her a daughter aged sixteen, as
1 There is every appearance of all the earlier part of the story being localization of the wide-spread household tale "Catskin," the German "AUerleirauch," Grimm '3 Kinder Mahrchen 63. The story is found among the Highlanders, Neapolitans, Greeks, Germans, Lithuanians, Hungarians, &c.
*
'^-
2o8 Lives of the Saints. [May 15.
beautiful, and the living image of herself. The maiden had been baptized, and was called Dymphna.
Now the king had resolved to marry no one who was not as beautiful as his wife, and one who resembled her, so that her image might never fade from his heart; and when no one else could be found combining these qualities, he resolved to marry his o\vn daughter. Dymphna, in alarm, took counsel of her mother's aged chaplain, a priest named Gerebern, and he advised her to fly the country with him. She accordingly escaped with the old man in a ship bound for Antwerp, and landing there, took their course over the heathy Kempenland to a little chapel dedicated to S. Martin, where they purposed to serve God in prayer and in peace, among the simple villagers, and in the face of calm nature.
Meanwhile the king, having discovered the flight of his daughter and the aged Gerebern, tracked them in hot haste, discovered the route they had followed, pursued them with an armed force, and arriving at Antwerp, sent emissaries in every direction, to scour the country, and report their whereabouts. Halting at a village not far from Herenthals, called Oolen, a party of these scouts tendered in payment at the inn where they were lodged, some pieces of money which the hostess refused to accept, alleging that she had already been troubled enough with some similar coins, which she had had the greatest difficulty to pass. Further enquiries led to the discovery of the place of refuge of the princess.
No sooner was the king apprised of the fact than he started for the spot indicated, and entering the house where his daughter was, commanded her at once to make prepar- ations for her marriage with him. Dymphna, mildly but firmly declared that nothmg would induce her to consent to so odious a proposal. The king's rage knew no bounds.
-*
May 15.] 6'5'. Dympluia and Gerebern. 209
Dymphna neither lost her composure, nor wavered in her reply; she fell on her knees and besought the protection of God. The tyrant, now more exasperated than before, called to his attendants to seize the maiden and despatch her. But not one of them moved ; they seemed awed by the youth, beauty, and innocence of the defenceless victim. On this the king, no longer able to contain himself, fell upon her himself, seizing her by her long waving hair, and mortally wounding Gerebern, who tried to throw himself between them. With a cry of horror Dymphna sank at his feet, bathed in the blood of her old and trusted friend, and as she lay there swooning and helpless, the barbarous father severed her beautiful head from her body. Having perpetrated this crime, he hastened from the spot, and returned to his northern home.
The blood of these saintly martyrs had, however, irri- gated the ground for some purpose; for, says the legend, so numerous were the miracles which occurred on the conse- crated spot, that the circumstance led the inhabitants to search for their bones among the heather which covered the place. Excavations were accordingly made, and, to the surprise of those who directed the operations, they came upon two magnificent white marble tombs, adorned with elaborate sculpture and enriched with gilding, the handiwork of angels, who in the night time had come down from heaven to enshrine their remains, but which were in all probability two Roman sarcophagi used for the purpose, for Roman remains found in the neighbourhood of Gheel show that the place was occupied by the con- querors of the world.
Maniacs recovered at the tomb of S. Dymphna, and thenceforth S. Dymphna became the patroness of the insane. All the people in the neighbourhood sent their lunatics to the village which formed itself round S. Martin's
VOL. V. 14
-*
*-
2IO Lives of the Saints. [May 15.
chapel, believing that proximity to the shrine of the saintly virgin would be the means of their recovering their reason. The sufferers were allowed to board with the peasants, and as many went away healed, the fame of Gheel spread.
About the year 1200, a church was dedicated to the saint, on the spot where the murder had been com- mitted. This church retains its curious interest. Above the altar is a figure of S. Dymphna, in a cloud, im- ploring the divine mercy for several lunatics grouped around her, their hands and feet bound by golden chains, similar to those still used to fetter the most violent maniacs.
Gheel is administered by four doctors and one superin- tendent. The peasants in the place are all nurses, and take in one or two patients to board with them. They have to submit to the inspection of the doctors, and to the rules imposed by the administration. The lunatic, once fixed in his abode, becomes one of the family, and many have been the touching scenes of affection, when for some reason they have been obliged to part. The nurse takes pride in his charge ; his own children are brought up with the stranger, and it is affirmed that a Gheelois would be the last man on earth to lose his senses. The lunatic gradually takes an interest in those around him ; he sees them at work in the fields, and gradually follows their example, being prompted thereto by offers of pocket money. An energetic lunatic is of great value to his keeper, and this is the reason why those inclined to be violent are always preferred. Thus the poor lunatic, im- prisoned elsewhere, is free at Gheel, though cared for by the most experienced men. The country air is invigorating, daily labour checks melancholy, and above all the kindness of the nurses helps the lunatic to live a peaceful life. His
*-
*
May 15.] .5. CcBsarea. 2 1 1
mind, no longer irritated by captivity and asylum rules, gives fair hope of recovery.'
The relics of S. Dymphna are exhibited at Gheel, in a handsome shrine, and are carried in procession round the village, followed by the inhabitants and lunatics, on May 15th, every year ; on each day of the octave, the lunatics crawl on all fours round and under the shrine nine times, and the same is done by those who are seeking the inter- cession of the saint for relatives or friends mentally afflicted.
The relics of S. Gerebern were translated to the Sons- beck, near Xanten, on the Rhine, but the head is still preserved at Gheel.
S. C^SAREA, V. (date uncertain.)
[Her festival is observed on the Feast of the Ascension, which is move- able, but which generally falls in May. The story is legendary, and much resembles that of S. Dymphna, except in its termination.]
The romantic story of S. Csesarea is an Italian version of the Flemish legend of S. Dymphna, but with elements of beauty absent from the history of the northern saint. There was a rich man named Aloysius, of Franca-villa, near Castro by Otranto, in South Italy, who was married to a beautiful wife, named Lucretia. On the death of Lucretia, Aloysius was inconsolable, and resolved on marrying his daughter Csesarea, who resembled her mother exactly. The maiden took counsel of a hermit who had directed her mother, and whose name was Joseph Benigni, and he advised her to fly. So one night she told her father
'For further information about this very original and interesting colony see Mrs. Byrne's "Gheel, or the City of the Simple." Chapman and Hall, 1869.
-*
*-
2 1 2 Lives of the Saints. [May ij.
she was going to have a bath, and she tied two pigeons together by the legs, and threw them into a tub full of water. Then he, hearing the splashing in her room, made by the birds fluttering their wings in the water, had not his suspicions aroused. Next morning he found that she had escaped, and he set off in pursuit. During the night she had wandered near the sea, and her father saw her in the distance on the shore. With a shout he pursued her, but just as he approached, a sea-mist rose and enveloped him, so that he lost his way, and falling over some rocks, was drowned, but to her the rock gaped, and she saw a cavern full of hght, and she went in, and the rock closed behind her.
And there sits the virgin Caesarea in a brilliantly lighted hall in the sea-cliff, only seen by lucky mortals. On Ascension Eve, and through the Octave, sometimes those who are on the shore, or boatmen at sea, perceive the cave open, and rays of light shoot out from it ; and once a little boy, straying on the sands, was lost. A year after he returned to his parents, and told a wondrous tale of a beautiful maiden in a lighted hall in the rock who had sheltered him from the rising tide, and in one half hour, as he thought, passed in her presence, a whole twelvemonth had rolled away.
Throughout the Octave of the Ascension the people of the neighbouring country visit the cave of S. Caesarea on the shore, and carry away water from a fountain strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen which rises in the floor. Near the cave is a church dedicated to the saint, and in it on the Ascension is sung a mass in her honour, attended by the chapter of the collegiate church of Castro ; after which a fair is held there.
It is in this case very evident that popular tradition has attached legendary matter of a mythological character to
*
May ISO 6". Britwin. 213
the memory of a virtuous and persecuted maiden, who probably perished among the rocks at Castro.
S. BRITWIN, AB. OF BEVERLEY. (a.d. 733.)
[Wytford, in his Anglican Martyrology, printed in 1526 ; Wilson and Mayhew in theirs ; and the Benedictine Martyrology of Menardus. Authorities : — Bede in his Eccl. Hist., lib. v., c. 2 ; and John of Tyne- mouth.l
S. John of Beverley, having resigned the bishopric of York, retired in his old age to the monastery of Deirwood, afterwards called Beverley, where his faithful friend Brit- win was abbot. On the death of S. John he was buried by the abbot in the porch, and Britwin, or Bertwin, as he is sometimes called, after having served God faithfully, and ruled his abbey prudently, was buried in the same church.
*
*
214 Lives of the Saints. [May i6.
May 16.
S- Peregrine, Af.B. 0/ y^uxfrre, 3rd cfn/.
S. Carnech, Ah. B. in Ireland circ. A D. S30.
S. Carantog, Ab. in fVales, 6th cent.
S. FiDOLUS, Ab- at Troyes in France, circ. a.d. 549.
S. Germerius, B. of Toulouse, circ, f.D. 560.
S. Brendan, Ab. of Clonfert, a.d. 577.
S. UoMNOLius, B. of Le Mans, a.d. j8i.
S. HoNORATUs, B. of Amiens, circ. a.d. 600.
SS. RaGnobert £. C, and Zeno, D. C. at Bayeux, -jlh cent.
S. Ubaldus, B. of Gubbio in Italy a.d. 1160.
S. Simon Stock, Prior in England and at Bordeaux, a.h. i255'
S. John Nepomucen, M. at Prague, a.d. 1393.
B. Andrew Bobola, S. J , M. in Poland, a.d. 1657.
S. CARNECH, AB. B. (about a.d. 530.)
[Irish Martyrologies on March 28th. He is by some supposed to be the same as S. Carantog, who is said in his life to have gone to Ireland, and to have been there called Cambch or Carnech ; and the Irish historianii are referred to as authorities for his deeds. It Is, however, probable that Carantog and Carnech are distinct personages, and that the English hagiographers have confounded the two. Little, however, is known of b. Carnech, and no detailed account of his acts remains.]
fAINT CARNECH was of the princely house of Orgiel, and maternal grandson of Loarn, the first chief of the Irish or Scottish settlers in North Britain. As his mother was sister to Erka, he was therefore first cousin to the then king of Ireland, Murchertach. He was abbot and bishop, some- where to the west of Lough-foyle, and not far from Liffbrd. Little more is known of him, yet his memory has been held in high veneration ; and two brothers of his, Ronan and Brecan, are likewise reckoned among the Irish Saints.
*-
May 16.] 6". Cavantog. 2 1 5
S. CARANTOG, AB.
(6th cent.)
[Wytford in his Anglican Martyrology ; and the Bollandists. Anciently venerated in Cardiganshire, where, at Llangrannog, a fair is annually held on May 27th, which according to the Old Style is the feast of the saint. Authorities : — ^John of Tynemouth, and a life in the British Museum, Cottonian MSS., Vesp. A. xiv.j
Carantog, in Latin Carantocus, son of Corun ab Ceredig, prince of Cardigan and brother of S. Tyssul, was the founder of the church of Llangrannog in Cardiganshire. He is said early to have embraced the religious life, and to have passed into Ireland, where he preached the Gospel with great success, being constantly attended by a white dove, which the people supposed to be a guardian angel. He returned to Wales and retired into a cave, accompanied by many disciples. Now the dove fluttered before him and darted away, and came back, as though desiring him to follow. So he said, "I will go and see whither the white bird leads." And it led him through the forest to a smooth grassy spot, and rested there. Then he said, " Here will I build a church." And this is the origin of the church of Llangrannog.
Next follows a wondrous story of how a great serpent scared and devastated the Carr, a marshy district in Wales. Now it fell out that Christ cast an altar of a marvellous colour out of heaven, and Carantog took it; and as he was conveying it in a boat over the Severn, it fell over- board into the sea ; and the hermit said, " God will wash it with His waves to the place where it shall be set up." And he went to King Arthur, and asked him if he knew whether his altar had come ashore anywhere. Then Arthur said, " Bind me the serpent in the Carr and I will tell thee."
Then the hermit went to the morass and called the
-*
^__ — »J<
2i6 Lives of the Saints. [May lo.
venomous beast, and it came, and he cast his stole about it, and brought it into the hall where the king and his knights sat, and there Carantog fed it. And after that he let the serpent go, having first commanded it to do no injury to man or beast. So Arthur gave him up the altar, which had been washed ashore, and which he had purposed to make into a table for himself and his knights. And Carantog set it up and built a church, and it is at the place called Carrow (Cardigan). Afterwards he went back to Ireland, and there he died.
S. FIDOLUS, AB.
(a.d. 549.)
[Roman and Gallican Martyrologies. In French lie is called S. Phal, or S. Fale. Authorities : — The Acts of S. Aventine of Troyes, Feb. 4th ; and his life written some time after his death.]
S. FiDOLus was a youth of noble birth, reduced to slavery by Thierry, son of Clovis, king of the Franks. As he was being led chained witli other slaves past the abbey gates of Celle, S. Aventine saw and pitied him, and bought him. He placed the young man in the cloister, and educated him as his son. Fidolus became a model of monastic virtues, and was elected abbot on the deatli of S. Aventine. He died in 549. Since 1791, the relics of S. Phal have rested in the church of S. Ande-les-Troyes. The parish church of S. Phal also possesses some portions.
*-
-*
May i6.j ^. Breudau. 2 1 7
S. BRENDAN, AB. OF CLONFERT. (a.d. 577.)
[Irish Martyrologies. Authorities : — A life written by Augustine Mac Gradin, in 1405. Also an account of his voyage in the lile of S. Malo, written by Sigebert of Gembloux, about the year iioo, from Breton traditions. The legend of the Voyage of S. Brendan was very popular in the Middle Ages. A Latin account in prose of the nth cent., and a French prose, one of the 12th, have been published by M. Jubinal, " La Legende Latine de i;. Brandaines." Two old English versions have been edited by Mr. Thomas Wright for the Percy Society, vol. xiv. One is in verse, and of the earlier part of the 14th cent., the other is in prose, and was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in his edition of the ' ' Golden Legend," 1527, Also *' Vita S. Brendani, ex MSS. Cott. Vesp. A. xix." Eccl. Bees., Llandovery, 1853.]
The accounts we have of this great man are extremely confused. In the first place, opinions differ as to the place of his birth. Some writers make him a native of Con- naught ; but this is a mistake founded on his having erected a monastery at Clonfert, in which he spent the latter part of his life, and whence he got his name, Brendan of Clonfert, in contradistinction to another Brendan, less famous, who is called Brendan of Birr.
According to the most ancient and trustworthy authori- ties he was born in Kerry. His father was Finlog, of the distinguished family of Hua Alta. Brendan came into the world in the year 484, and is said to have received the first rudiments of his educution under a bishop Ercus, who was, perhaps, the celebrated bishop of Slane, and who, being of a Munster family, might have been connected with that of Brendan. How long Brendan remained under his care, it is impossible to discover. Next we are told that, when a young man, he studied theology under S. Jarlath of Tuam, who was then old and infirm. This statement cannot be reconciled with what is known concerning the times in which Jarlath flourished, and nothing more can be allowed ^ -^ ■>{.
than that these two saints, being contemporaries, used to confer with each other on rehgious subjects, or that Brendan, although about the same age as Jarlath, had perhaps attended his lectures for some time.
In somewhat like manner must be understood what is said of Brendan's having been at the school of Clonard ; whereas it is very probable that he was not younger than S. Finnian, who taught there. To atone for the death of a person who had been drowned at sea, and to which Brendan feared that he had involuntarily contributed, he is said to have gone to Brittany, by the advice of S. Itta. Having visited Gildas, who was then living there, and was advanced in years, he went to another part of Brittany, and formed a monastery or school at Aleth, on the main- land, near the modern S. Malo.^
If there be any foundation of truth, as there probably is, in the marvellous story of the voyage of S. Brendan, it must have taken place after his arrival in Brittany, though, according to Irish accounts it was undertaken from a port in Kerry, and had terminated before he set out for Brittany. Although the narrative of his voyages abounds in fables, yet it may be admitted that Brendan sailed, in company with some other monks, towards the West, in search of some island or country that lay beyond where the sun went down into the sea. We have independent testimony to the fact that the Irish monks were great voyagers and explorers. The ancient chroniclers of Iceland relate that when that island was first colonized by the Norse, in 870, on it were found Irish hermits.^ We have also extant the work of the Irish monk Dicuil, written
I See Life of S. John of the Grate. (Vol. II., F^bruan-, p. 26.)
* Islendinga Bok, c. I. "Anciently there lived here Christian folk whom the
Norsemen called Papar ; they afterwards went away, as they could not endure the
society of heathens, and they left behind them Irish books, bells and pastoral
staves j so that one could ascertain therefrom that they were Irish." Landnama-
,j ^
^ . ^
Mayi6.] S. Brendan. 219
in 825,^ in which he gives an account of a voyage of some Irish monks in 795 to the Faroe isles. It is also certain that the Icelanders first heard of the existence of America in Ireland, and Icelandic historians relate that in a portion of America, which they describe as far West over the ocean from Ireland, and which they called Greater Ireland, was a district colonized by Irish, where Christianity had been introduced and established.^ And we have accounts of visits of Icelanders to this district, where, they say an Irish dialect was then spoken.^
Adamnan, in his life of S. Columba, tells of more than one such voyage, and of the wondrous things that occurred in them. Even as late as the year 891, says the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle : " Three Scots (Irish) came to king Alfred, in a boat without oars, from Ireland, whence they had stolen away, because for the love of God they desired to be on pilgrimage, they recked not whither. The boat in which they came was made of two hides and a half; and they took with them provisions for seven days ; and about the seventh day they came on shore in Cornwall, and soon after went to king Alfred."
" Out of such wild feats as these," says Mr. Kingsley ;^ "out of dim reports of fairy islands in the West; of the Canaries and Azores ; of icebergs and floes sailing in the far northern sea, upon the edge of the six-months' night;
bole. " But before Iceland was peopled by the Norsemen, there were folk here who were called by the Norsemen Papar ; they were Christians, and it is thought that they came from the NVest over the sea, for they left behind them Irish books, bells and staves, and many other articles from which one might conjecture they were West-men (Irisli)." Thordicus the monk, "De regibus vet. Norwegicis c. 3 (in Langebek, V.) says much the same.
' Dicuili Liber de mensura orbis terrae, ed. Walckenaer, Paris, 1S07. 2 Landnama, II. c. 22. Eyrbyggja Saga, c. 64 ; Thorfinns S. Karlsefnis, c. 15 ; alsoa passage from ar ancient MS. quoted in the Antiquitates Americans, p. 21 ., j. * " Ihe Hermits," MacmiUan, p. 257,
— .J,
2 20 Lives 0/ the Samts. [Wayib.
out of Edda stories of the Midgard snake, which is coiled round the world ; out of scraps of Greek and Arab myth, from the Odyssey or the Arabian Nights, brought home by vikings who had been for pilgrimage and plunder up the Straits of Gibraltar into the far East; — out of all these materials were made up, as years rolled on, the famous legend of S. Brendan and his seven years' voyage in search of the ' land promised to the saints.'
"This tale was so popular in the Middle Ages, that it appears, in different shapes, in almost every early I'Airopean language. It was not only the delight of monks, but it stirred up to wild voyages many a secular man in search of S. Brendan's Isle, ' which is not found when it is sought,' but was said to be visible at times, from Palma in the Canaries. The myth must have been well-known to Columbus, and may have helped to send him forth in search of Cathay.
" The tale, from whatever dim reports of fact it may have sprung, is truly (as M. Jubinal calls it) a monkish Odyssey, and nothing more. It is a dream of the hermit's cell. No woman, no city, nor nation, is ever seen during the seven years' voyage. Ideal monasteries and ideal hermits people the ' deserts of the ocean.' All beings therein (save daemons and Cyclops) are Christians, even to the very birds, and keep the festivals of the Church as eternal laws of nature. The voyage succeeds, not by seamanship, or geographic knowledge, nor even by chance : but by the miraculous prescience of the saint, or of those whom he meets ; and the wanderings of Ulysses, or of Sinbad, are rational and human in comparison with those of S. Brendan.
"Yet there are in them, as was to be expected, elements in which the Greek and the Arab legends are altogether deficient ; perfect innocence, patience, and justice ; utter
^ ^
I
Mayi6.J 6^. Bi'Clzdafl. 221
faith in a God who prospers the innocent and punishes the guiUy ; ennobhng obedience to the saint, who stands out a truly heroic figure above his trembling crew; and even more valuable still, the belief in, the craving for, an ideal, even though the ideal be that of a mere earthly Paradise ; the * divine discontent,' as it has been well called, which is the root of all true progress; which leaves (thank God) no man at peace save him who has said, ' Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' "
The story of the sailing of S. Brendan is as follows : — We shall not follow the adventures of the expedition, which are fabulous, but narrate only the starting, which may be true.
There came to Brendan one evening a hermit named Barintus, of the royal race of Neill; and when he was questioned, he did nought but cast himself on the ground, and weep and pray. And when S. Brendan asked him to make better cheer for him and his monks, he told him a strange tale, — how a nephew of his had fled away to be a solitary, and had found a delicious island, and established a monastery therein ; and how he himself had gone to see his nephew, and sailed with him to the eastward to an island, which was called " the Land of promise of the Saints," wide and grassy, and bearing all manner of fruits ; wherein was no night, tor the Lord Jesus Christ was the light thereof; and how they abode there for a long while without eating and drinking ; and when they returned to his nephew's monastery, the brethren knew well where they had been, for the fragrance of Paradise lingered on their garments for nearly forty days.
So Barintus told his story, and went back to his cell. But S. Brendan called together his most loving fellow- warriors, as he called them, and told them how he had set his heart on seeking that Promised Land. And he went up to the top of the hill in Kerry, which is still called
i — — *
^— >^
2 22 Lives of the Saints. [Mayi6.
Mount Brendan, with fourteen chosen monks ; and there, at the utmost corner of the world, he built him a coracle of wattle, and covered it with hides tanned in oak-bark and softened with butter, and set up in it a mast and a sail, and took forty days' provision, and commanded his monks to enter the boat, in the name of the Holy Trinity. And as he stood alone, praying on the shore, three more monks from his monastery came up, and fell at his feet, and begged to go too, or they would die in that place of hunger and thirst ; for they were determined to wander with him all the days of their life. So he gave them leave. Then he sailed, and was away for seven years, and saw great marvels, icebergs floating on the sea, a burning mountain, and things that are not and never were. And at the end of seven years he returned and founded in Galway the great monastery of Clonfert.
For this monastery and several others connected \vith it, he drew up a rule, which was so highly esteemed that it was supposed to have been dictated by an angel. He is said to have presided over three thousand monks, partly at Clonfert, and partly in other houses of his founding in various parts of Ireland, all of whom maintained them- selves by the labour of their hands. He established a nunnery at Enach-duin, over which he placed his sister Briga. He is said also to have erected a cell in an island in Lough Corrib, called Inisquin. According to some writers S. Brendan was a bishop, and was the first bishop of Clonfert ; but it is more probable that he was only abbot
At a late period of his life he paid a visit to the isle of lona, the monastic metropolis of Western Scotland. There is reason to think that, prior to his death, the saint retired from Clonfert, to the lonely retreat of Inisquin. He died in his sister's convent, which was near Lough
ij, — ij.
-*
Mavi6.] 6'. Ubald. 223
Corrib, on May i6th, 577, in the ninety -fourth year of his age. From that place his remains were conveyed to Clonfert, and were there buried.
S. UBALD, B. OF GUBBIO. (a.d. 1 160.)
[Canonised by Pope Celestine III. in 1192. Roman Martyrolocjy. Ferrarius and other Italian hagiograpliers, Atithority : — A life written by his successor in the see of Gubbio, Isbald, in 1162, for it was sent to the Emperor Frederick Barbarossn, whilst besieging Milan.]
S. Ubald was born of noble parents at Gubbio, in the Papal States. He was appointed prior of the cathedral chapter by the bishop, who was his uncle, as soon as he had reached the age of manhood. The condition of the chapter was scandalous above measure. The bells were regularly rung for service, but not a canon appeared. The canons lived in their private apartments in the utmost luxury, and not one of them was unmarried. The cloister gates were open day and night, for any one who liked to come in or go out of the canons' residences.
Ubald was resolved on effecting a reform. His attempt to enforce decency and order aroused violent opposition. However, he found three of the canons weary of the disorders in which they lived, and ready to support him in his plan of reformation. He at once began to live with them in strict discipline, but finding it necessary to gain some practical experience of the manner of conducting a religious house, he resolved to visit the Canons Regular instituted by Peter de Honestis in the territory of Ravenna. A terrible fire, which consumed a large portion of Gubbio, and reduced the canons' house and cloister to ruins, gave him an opportunity of leaving the cathedral. After three
* — *
2 24 Lives of the Saints. [May i6.
months spent with the Regular Canons, he returned to Gubbio, and succeeded in tune, by gentleness and firm- ness, in reducing his canons to order.
The bishop of Gulibio dying in 1128, Ubald was unanimously elected to fill his place, and he was conse- crated the following year by Pope Honorius II.
A pretty story is told of him whilst bishop, which speaks more for his character than pages of panegyric. The walls of Gubbio were being repaired, and the masons had invaded the bishop's vineyard for the purpose; he found that in their carelessness they were seriously damaging his vines. He therefore went to the master mason and remonstrated with him. The fellow, a passionate and in- considerate man, perhaps not knowing who was the com- plainer, swore at him and thrust him out with so much violence, that the bishop who had broken his thigh formerly, and now limped, fell into the liquid mortar that the masons had prepared. Ubaldus rose, and conceaHng the mortar that adhered to his clothes as well as he was able under his reversed cloak, hastened back to the palace without a word. But the people of Gubbio heard of the outrage, and broke forth into indignation. The master mason was seized and dragged before the magistrates by an incensed crowd, clamouring for punishment, by banish- ment and confiscation of goods. But suddenly the bishop appeared in the hall of justice. "This is an ecclesiastical offence, an injury done to a clerk, and it therefore must not be tried in a secular, but in an ecclesiastical court." And going up to the mason he said, " I am thine accuser, and thy judge. I denounce thee, I try thee, and I condemn thee — kiss me." Then he embraced him and said, "My son, go in peace."
A party feud having broken out in the city one day, and the combatants having come to blows, the bishop limped
*
-^
May 16.] S. Ubald. 225
into the market-place to separate them; stones were flying and swords were drawn. Being unable to make himself heard and regarded, Ubald suddenly staggered as though struck by a paving stone, and fell on his face. The combat ceased at once ; the citizens of both parties loved their bishop, and those who had been foes a minute before united to raise the prostrate saint. Then Ubald rose and said, *' My friends, I am not struck with a stone, but my heart is pierced with grief at your animosities. Separate and keep peace." And now that he had obtained a hearing, he made good use of the opportunity to appease the tumult.
S. Ubald was an infirm man; he had twice broken his thigh and once his right arm, and the fractures not having been perfectly set, he suffered from abscesses and the coming away of pieces of bone. In his last illness, the people of Gubbio were heart-broken because Easter approached, and he would not appear to communicate them with his beloved hand. Hearing of their sorrow, the bishop made an effort, and on Easter Day celebrated the holy mass, preached to the people, gave them his pastoral benediction, and went back to bed, never to rise from it again. On the vigil and feast of Pentecost, the bishop allowed the people to visit him for the last time. All Gubbio was there, women and men and children poured into his sick-room in a long train, to kiss his hand and receive his blessing; then all entered the church bearing tapers to pray for him during his passage into eternity. He died the same night murmuring psalms.
His body is preserved in the church of the regular canons on Monte Ubaldo, near Gubbio.
VOL. v. 15
-*
^-
2 26 Lives of the Saints. [Mayi6
S. SIMON STOCK, C. (a.d. 1265.)
[Martyrology of the Carmelites. Pope Nicolas III. granted an office to be cel-^brated in his honour at Bordeaux on the loth May, and this Paul V. extended to the whole Order of Mount Carmel. Authorities: — A life written not long after his death, Stevens, Monast. Anglican, II. p.s 159, &c.]
This saint was born of a good family in Kent. His desire for a solitary and religious life was early formed. At twelve years of age he withdrew from the world into a forest, and took up his abode in the hollow trunk of a venerable oak, from which he was popularly nicknamed Simon of the Stock, or Simon Stock. Thus he spent sixty years, till Ralph Freburn and Ivo, two hermits of Mount Carmel, came to England in 1240; and were given houses by John, Lord Vesey and Richard, Lord Grey, in the forest of Holme, near Alnwick, in Northumberland, and in the wood of Aylesford in Kent. Many joined the new com- munity, amongst others, Simon Stock, and at the next chapter held at Aylesford, in 1245, he was elected General of the Order. He is said, in a vision, to have seen the Blessed Virgin, who gave him the scapular, promising that whoever wore it should not burn eternally. This proved a great attraction to the new Order, and many people apphed for scapulars. In 1266, Simon went to Bordeaux to visit a house of the order, and there died. He was buried in the cathedral of Bordeaux, where his relics are still preserved.
*-
-►i*
May 16.] 6". J okfi of Ncpomuk. 227
S. JOHN OF NEPOMUK, P.M. (A.D. 1393.)
[Canonized in 1729. Roman Martyrology. Authorities quoted in the article. ]
This saint is especially venerated as the martyr of the confessional.
He was the son of Wayland Wolflein of Pomuk, or Nepomuk,^ a village in Bohemia, was born in the year 1330, and was a sickly child, whose life was despaired of, but the prayers of his mother prevailed, and he grew to maturity. The piety of the child drew attention to him, and he was sent to study Latin at Staab, that he might follow the bent of his vocation, and enter holy orders. In the year 1378 he was appointed first notary to the arch- bishop, as is proved by a deed executed under his hand, now extant. The last time his signature occurs in this capacity is in 1380. In 1381 he was made incumbent of the church of S. Gall at Prague, and in the same year took his degree as licentiate of canon law.^ His sermons are said to have produced a great eifect. Everyone crowded to hear him, with the rest came the students of the uni- versity, and many whose lives had been irregular were melted by his appeals, and renounced their dissolute lives, to tread in future in the ways of sobriety and righteousness. His influence determined the archbishop to advance him to higher honours. In 1387, he was made canon of S. yEgidius in Old Prague, and the same year he took the degree of doctor of canon law. Itseems probable, how- ever, that before receiving this canonry, he was advanced temporally to the deanery of Prague, in 1382, for we find
• In the Libri Erectionum, or Registers of Foundations, &c., belonging to the see of Prague, S. John signs himself in 1372, as "John, son of Wayland Wolflein of Pomuk," as also in two other documents bearing the dates 1374 and 1378.
* Tliis is proved by the lists of candidates preserved in the university archives,
-*
*-
228 Lives of the Saints. [M.ly.^.
"John the Licentiate" appointed in 1382, the year after he had passed as Ucentiate; but this office he held only provisionally, for in 1383 he vacated it, and was recom- pensed with the canonry, and the offer of the bishopric of Leitomischl, which became vacant in 1387, by the ele- vation of John III. to the bishopric of Olmutz, and the patriarchate of Aquileia.
In 1389 he was made canon of Wischehrad, in Prague, and in the same year was appointed vicar-general of the arch-diocese. As such his signature recurs over and over again in the diocesan registers. His colleague in the administration of the affairs of the see was Nicolas Puch- nik, afterwards archbishop.
In 1390, he resigned the cure of S. Gallus to be invested with the archdeaconry of Saatz, which was vacated for him by one Leonhardt, who received in exchange the incum- bency of S. Gallus, and thus John of Nepomuk became a member of the cathedral chapter.
Wenceslas IV., king of Bohemia and emperor,^ suc- ceeded his father, the Emperor Charles IV., in 1378, at the age of sixteen. Wenceslas had been brought up in pomp and luxury, at an early age initiated into the affairs of the empire, and, during his father's life-time, declared his successor to the imperial throne by the bribed electors. Wenceslas, called at too early an age to participate in the government of the empire, treated affairs of state with ridicule, or entirely neglected them, to devote himself to idleness and drunkenness. At one moment he jested, at another burst into the most brutal fits of rage. The Germans, with whom he never interfered, beyond occasion- ally holding a useless diet at Niirnberg, deemed him a fool, whilst the Bohemians, who, on account of his resi- dence at Prague, were continually exposed to his savage
' He was crowned emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle.
*-
-*
Mayi6.i 6". J olin of Nepo77mk. 229
caprices, regarded him as a ferocious tyrant. The posses- sions with which the Bohemian nobility had formerly been invested by the crown exciting his cupidity, he invited the whole of the aristocracy to meet him at Williamow, where he received them under a black tent that opened into two other tents, or wings, one white, the other red. The nobles were summoned into the imperial presence one by one, and were forced to declare that they received their land as fiefs of the crown. Those who voluntarily sub- mitted were feasted in the white tent, those who refused were executed in the red tent. The massacre of three thousand Jews in Prague, on account of one of that nation having ridiculed the Holy Sacrament, gave Wenceslas the idea of declaring all debts owed by Christians to Jews to be null and void. He married Joanna, daughter of Albert of Bavaria. She died a shocking death in 1387. King Wenceslas had many large hunting-dogs, purchased for him in all countries ; of these the two largest and greatest favourites shared his bed room; and it is related that Queen Joanna was throttled by one of them, as she chanced to raise herself in bed, on the night of December 31st, 1386.
Wenceslas married again in 1389, his second wife being So] hia of Bavaria. He behaved to her with great brutahty, publicly exhibiting his preference for his mistress, Susanna, the Bathwoman.
'Jhe unfortunate Joanna chose John of Nepomuk as her confessor, and after her death he became the confessor of Sophia. This queen was very beautiful,^ and the king became suspicious of her fidelity to him. He is said to have endeavoured to induce John of Nepomuk to break the seal of confession, and tell him what she had confided
'"Mulier forma insigni ac corpore vaUle eleganti." Cuspiniamis, p. 3qo. " C'ommeniJant ejus formam et venustatem oris plurimi scriptores." Balbimis, ib, iv., c. I.
-*
^-
2 JO Lives of the Saints. [May i6.
to his ear. The saint steadfastly refused. He incurred tho king's anger in another way. It happened one day that a fowl was sent to his table insufficiently roasted. In a fury, he ordered the cook to be spitted and roasted alive at the same fire at which the fowl had been dressed. The poor servant was already placed before the fire, and the officers were preparing to execute the barbarous sentence, when S. John heard of it, and rushed into the dining-hall, flung himself before the king, and implored him to spare the unfortunate wretch. Wenceslas spurned him away, and ordered him to be cast into a dungeon. Whilst he lay in chains, the king again attempted to extort from him the secret of his wife's confession, but S. John remained inflexible. Wencenlas then ordered his release, and at- tempted to gain his object by favour and flattery. About the same time, a quarrel broke out between the archbishop and the king. Wenceslas was contemplating the erection of a new episcopal see in the south-west of his kingdom for the benefit of a creature of his own, and he was waiting for the death of the old abbot of Kladrau, to confiscate the revenues of the abbey for the establishment of the bishopric. But the abbot was scarcely dead, when the monks pro- ceeded to the election of a successor, and the archbishop confirmed their choice by his two vicars-general, so rapidly, and contrary to the express orders of the king, that the latter received intelligence of both events at one and the same time. Another cause of offence was the excom- munication of the royal chamberlain for having executed two priests convicted of a dreadful crime. This the arch- bishop regarded as an encroachment on the prerogative of the Church, and resented it accordingly. An attempt at reconciliation was made by the king's councillors, and on March 20th, 1393, a meeting between the king and the archbishop was arranged at Prague. But Wenceslas sent the
^-
-^
Mayi6.] kS". J okii of Nepo^uuk. 231
prelate, John of Genzen stein, an insulting letter, written in German : — " You archbishop, give me up my castle of Rudnicz, and my other castles, and be off out of my lands of Bohemia ; and if you do anything against me or my men, I will drown you, and so make an end of the strife."
But the king himself burst into the chapter-house where the archbishop and the chapter were assembled, maltreated the old dean, by striking him over the head with his sword- handle, and having bound the two vicars-general, the provost of Meissen, and the marshal Niepro, carried them off to the castle. During the evening he tortured them on the rack, or at least one of them, John of Nepomuk, stretching him out on the rack, and applying lighted torches to his sides with his own hands. The others were allowed to depart with a reprimand, but John of Nepomuk was taken down half dead, a piece of wood was placed in his mouth to prevent him from speaking, and he was, by the king's orders, taken to the bridge over the Moldau and cast into the river, with his hands tied behind his back.^ This took place at nine o'clock in the evening of March 30th, 1393.
That night lights appeared on the water, above where the saint had been cast in, and towards morning the body floated ashore, the lights twinkling on the water above it, till it was cast up on the bank. It was then taken to the church of the Holy Cross, and a few days afterwards was buried in the cathedral.
The last deed bearing the signature of John of Nepomuk in the Registers of Foundations, bears date March 3rd,
'Alban Butler, following Balbinus, tells the story differently. His account is certainly erroneous, as it cannot be reconciled with ihe facts as stated above, which are derived from the statement drawn up by the archbishop and sent to the pope in his appeal against Wenceslas next year. Balbinus says that alter racking and torture, S. John went a pilgrimage to the miraculous image of S. Mary at Buntzcl, and that Wenceslas saw him on his return, as he was looking out of a window in his palace, and ordered him to immediate execution. S John may have made the pilgrimage after the first imprisonment, or shortly before this second one.
'^
li^
232 Lives of the Saints. tMayie,
1393 ; the last in the Register of Confirmations of the See is March 14th, 1393, six days before his death.
In the Hst of memorial masses, belonging to the cathedral, is the following entry: — "In the year 1396, Janeczko gives a charge of seven groschen per annum to be levied on his house at Aujezd, to be paid to Nicolas Puchnik (the coadjutor of S. John) for a yearly memorial of the dean and archdeacon of Saatz, John of Pomuk, who was drowned in 1393. '
The contemporary chronicler Hagen, in his addition to the " Chronica des Landes Oesterreich," says : — " King Wenceslas, in the year 1393, in May, shockingly drowned a venerable priest and professor of canon law, named Master John."
Andrew of Ratisbon, who was also a contemporary (he wrote in 1422), gives the same account under the same date. The chronicler who continued Pulkawa to 1450, says under the date 1393, "In this year John, the honour- able doctor and vicar-general of the archbishop was drowned." An anonymous Chronicle of Prague, ending 1419, and therefore by a contemporary, places the drowning of John of Nepomuk between 1389 and 1394, without giving the exact date ; but the Chronicon Palatinum, written in 1438, says, "In the year 1393, Doctor John was drowned." The Chronicon Bo hemic or Lipsense, also by a contemporary, written in 141 1, says, "In the year 1393, on the day of S. Benedict, John of Nepomuk was drowned." ^
' It is curious that one of the charges brought against Hussat the Council of Constance had reference to the murder of John of Nepomuk. " Item. Ponitur quod in domo Wenceslai Piscaritoris post prandium immediate, coram magistro quodam et presbytero et aliquibus laicis, dicere non erubuit atque dixit quando facta fait mentio de sabmersione D. Joannis piffi memoria; et Piichniack et decani Pragensis detentione, quod interdictum poni debuisset, prjedictus M. Joann Huss scandalose dixit: — Magnum quid quod illi propones detinetur ! Dicatisratlonem. quare a laude Dei cessare deberet." I'it. et Documenta, p. ifij.
*-
S. JOHN OF NEPOMUK.
May i6.
^. — *
Mayi6.]! S. J oku of Ncpomuk. 233
Immediately after this outrage, the bishop, John of Genzenstein, escaped from Bohemia, where he deemed his hfe was endangered, and in the same year appealed formally to the pope against the king, and in that appeal he complained of the tortures and murder of Iiis vicar- general, John of Nepomuk.^ He afterwards resigned his see, and was not long after succeeded by Nicholas von Puchnik,^ the coadjutor of the saint, a man who speedily made himself odious in Bohemia for his avarice.
There can be no manner of doubt therefore, that John of Nepomuk was drowned by order of the king in 1393. But the bull of canonization of S. John places his death in 1383, mislead by Balbinus, who wrote his "Bohemia Sancta" in 1670. Balbinus gave 1383 instead of 1393, as the date of the martyrdom of the saint, and made him the confessor of Joanna only, and not of Sophia. Balbinus was misled by Hajec a Liboczan, who wrote the Annals of Bohemia in 1540. Hajec died in 1553. He was not an accurate historian, and he was probably misled by John having resigned the deanery of Prague in 1383, if the supposition be admitted that " John the Licentiate," who occupied the deanery for a twelvemonth, was the same as John of Nepomuk, who was licentiate in that year, and who may have been put in as a stop-gap. Or Hajec may not have liked to represent the saintly John as the prede- cessor of John Huss the heretic in the direction of the conscience of Queen Sophia, and therefore may have antedated his martyrdom to free him from all suspicion of having sowed the seeds of error in the queen's mind. Or what is more probable still, the mistake of ten years was a mere piece of carelessness.
' Acta in curia Romana Jihan. a Genzenstein ; in Pelzel's Gtschichte Wenzels, p. 14S, 164.
2 He resigned in 1396, and was immediately succeeded liy Wolfram von Skworek, but Wolfram died in 1402 ; and was succeeded by Nicolas Puchnik.
1^ — — »i<
^
234 Lives of the Saints. [May 16.
The error was pointed out by the Jesuit Andreas Freiberger, in 1680. l)ut his correction was overlooked at the canonization of S. John.
Another objection has been raised against the received story of the martyrdom of S. John. In all the contem- porary notices of the murder, there is no mention of the execution having taken place because he refused to divulge the queen's confession, but only because he had acted against the king's wishes in the matter of the abbey of Kladrau. It is, therefore, asserted that the story of his being a martyr because he refused to break the seal of confession is fabulous. But it may be remarked that the king could not have proceeded against the priest for his refusal to divulge the secrets of the confessional, without raising such a storm against him as would have driven him from his throne, and the matter of the abbey was just such an one as he could allege as an excuse for his barbarous treatment of the vicar-general. That the matter of Kladrau was only an ostensible reason for the murder appears from the fact of the king letting the real offender, the archbishop, depart unmolested, and also from his having dismissed Nicolas Puchnik, the other vicar-general, and the provost of Meissen. On John alone did he vent his fiendish rage, and repay what must have been a personal grudge, by torturing him with his own hands, till the priest was almost dead.
That there was some covert reason for this murder hidden under the reason openly alleged, is rendered also very probable from the following testimonies. The Prague Chronicle says that Wenceslas killed the canon " because John had remonstrated with the king for his crimes," and Andrew of Ratisbon, in 1422, and therefore a contem- porary, says that one reason of the drowning of John was that he had rebuked the king for his misgovernment, as rendering him unworthy of his crown.
-*
[Vayi6.3 S. John of Nepomuk. 235
But there is other evidence. Thomas Ebendorfer of Haselbach (d. 1460), who wrote the "Chronicon Austri- acum," and the Acts of the Council of Basle, the first session of which was in 1431, says in his " Liber Augustal is " tha* John of Nepomuk — " Confessor to the wife of Wenceslas — was drowned in the Moldau, as it is reported, because he re- fused to break the seal of confession." Paul Zidek, dean of All Saints, at Prague (in 1470), says that " the king having a bad opinion of his wife . . . came to John of Nepomuk, and asked him to tell him with whom she had held forbidden re- lations . . . and as John would not tell him, the king drowned him."
A passage was extracted by Berghauer, " Protomartyr Poenitentise," 1736, from the Zittau Chronicle, tells the same tale, lut gives the wrong date. But this passage is suspicious. The Zittau Chronicle does not now. exist. The style in which the event is related precludes the possibility of its having been written by a contemporary.^
At any rate Ebendorfer shows that some thirty or forty years after the death of John of Nepomuk the belief existed that he had died because he would not break the seal of confession, and this opinion could hardly have arisen without some good cause. And this, moreover, has been the constant tradition in Bohemia. It has been objected that the bishop in his appeal to the pope referred only to the reason for the murder alleged by the king, and that, therefore, there was no ulterior reason. But this is not self-evident. The object of the archbishop was to show that the plea put forward by the king to justify his act did not do so ; and the archbishop could not in a formal appeal make the accusation that the king suspected his wife's fidelity, and had endeavoured to force her confessor to
' "In the year 1383 there was a king in Bohemia, who had a wife, who went tn her confessor," &c.
^ ^
*-
236 Lives of the Saints. rMay 16.
betray her secret confession, without causing pubUc
scandal.
The tomb of the saint was opened in 17 19, on April 14th, and though the rest of the body was reduced to bone and dust, the tongue was found to be incorrupt.
Pope Innocent XIII. confirmed the veneration in which the saint was regarded in Bohemia, by a decree equivalent to a beatification, and the bull of his solemn canonization was published by Benedict XIII. in 1729. The saint now reposes in a silver shrine in the cathedral of Prague. March 20th, the day on which S. John suffered, being the double feast of S. Benedict, the feast of S. John Nepomucen has been transferred to May i6th.
In art S. John is represented with surplice and purple stole, his finger to his lip, a canon's fur liripipit over his shoulders, and a doctor's four-horned biretta on his head. Seven stars, to represent the flames that were seen above his body, surround his head. On the bridge over the Moldau is a metal plate marked with the seven stars, to indicate the place where the body of the saint was thrown into the river.
*-
-*
May 17.1 6". ToVpCS, '^c,^
May 17.
SS. Andronicus and Junia, mentioned by S. Paul, ist cent.
S. ToRPES, M. at Pisa, circ. a.d. 65.
S. Restituta, V.M. in Africa, -^.rd cent.
S. PosiDONius, B. of Calama, in Nwnidia, circ. a.d. 432.
S. Madern, H. in Cornwall.^
S. Framechild, Abss. of Montr cull , jtk cent.
S. Bruno, B. of Wurtzburg, a.d. 1155.
S. Paschal Bavlon, C, O.M. at Villa Rcale, near Valencia, a.d. 15(12.
S. TORPES, M. (about a.d. 65.)
[Roman Martyrology, and all the ancient Latin ones. Authority : — The Apocryphal Acts, which existed before Usuardus, Hrabanus Maurus (9th cent), Ado, &c. Papebroeck has completely disposed of their claim to be written by an eye-witness. That they may preserve a tradition of what were the sufferings of S. Torpes is possible, but as they stand they are a forgery.]
ORPES was the name of a Christian at Pisa, in
the reign of Nero, who was cast to wild beasts,
but a lion would not be goaded on to slay him,
and a leopard that was let loose upon him licked
his feet. He was then conducted to the side of the river,
decapitated, and his body cast adrift in an old boat with a
cock and a dog. It came ashore at " Sinus." This was no
doubt somewhere on the curved shore between the mouth
of the Arno and the Gulf of Spezia. Tacitus calls this the
"Sinus Pisanus."" However the term was broad enough
to cover other places. So the Provengales claimed the
body of S. Torpes, as having drifted into the Gulf of
Grimaud, now called the Golfe de S. Trojiez, and to have
' Alban Butler gives on this day the Cornish hermit S. Mawe, but on what authority I cannot discove' .
2 Lih. iii., c. ^2.
.i, -»jr
^-
238 Lives of the Saints. [May 17.
come ashore at the place now called S. Tropez, But the Portugese have a village called Sines, and so they claim to have the body there, and the Evora Breviary published in 1548, made the feast of S. Torpes a double on that account. This claim is, however, too absurd to receive credence. It seems to rest on no grounds except the similarity of the name Sines to Sinus, and on the forged chronicle of Dexter, by Higuera, in the i6th century. On the strength of this the clergy of Sines dug for the body and found it. The mistake of the Provengales has probably arisen from the church on the Gulf of Grimaud being dedicated to a saint Eutropius, who has been forgotten, and the popular corruption of the name into S. Tropez has led to the supposition that the dedication is to S. Torpes.
In art S. Torpes is represented with a boat
RESTITUTA, V. M.
(3RD CENT.)
[Roman Martyrology. Venerated especially at Naples. Authority : — The Acts, which are not, however, in their primitive and genuine form, but have suffered amphfications and re-writings. Papebroeck the Bollandist, says, "The acts are sufficiently gravely and not inelegantly written ; but seem to have been filled m with rhetorical and lengthy discussions between the martyr and the judge, and with the prayers she addressed to God, all out of the imagmation of the author, as supposed to be appro- priate to the time and the occasion. Would that writers had not made use of a similar liberty in amplifying the various tortures of the saint, and adding other circumstances." The same may be said of very many other Acts.]
S. Restituta was an African, and lived in the reign of the Emperor Valerian. A judge, named Proculus, who persecuted the Christians at Carthage, tried her for being a I Christian, and ordered her to be placed in an old boat
^ ^^
filled with pitch and other combustibles, and sent adrift. She was accordingly bound in the boat, the pitch was lighted, the wind blew otf shore, and the fiery boat con- taining the martyr, was carried rapidly out to sea, till it faded hke a dying spark on the horizon. The burnt boat and the body of the virgin martyr were thrown up on the island of Ischia, near Naples, where the Emperor Constan- tine afterwards erected a magnificent church over her remains.
S. MADERN, H. (date uncertain.)
[Honoured on this day in Brittany. Two churches in the diocese of S. Malo are dedicated to him. J
Nothing is known of S. Madern except that he occupied a hermitage in Cornwall at the place called after him Madron. About a mile north-west of Madron church, in a desolate moor, is S. Madern's well. About two hundred yards from it is S. Madern's Oratory, a ruined chapel about twenty-five feet long by sixteen feet broad. It contains an excavation which was probably used as a font, the water being supplied from the well, for which purpose a channel was made through the wall, and a drain ran along the west-end of the chapel to carry off the water. In the preface to a poem, "The petition of an old uninhabited house in Penzance," pubhshed in 1823, is the following note: — "Perhaps it may not be known, but I find it related in an old MS., that what appears a seat on the side of Maddern well was called S. Maddern's Bed, on which the patient who came to be cured reclined. Those who were benefited, left a donation at Maddern church for the poor. This may account for the preservation of the
-^
240 Lives of the Saints. [May 17.
well. Donations were left so late as the middle of the 17th century."
The chapel was partially destroyed, in the time of Cromwell, by Mayor Ceely of S. Ives.
Bishop Hall of Exeter, in his last visitation of the diocese of Exeter, previous to his translation, in 1641, to the see of Norwich, attests several miraculous cures per- formed by the water of the holy well of S. Madern.
"The commerce that we have with the good spirits is not now discerned by the eye, but is, like themselves, spiritual. Yet not so, but that even in bodily occasions we have many times insensible helps from them ; in such a manner as that by the effects we can boldly say, Here hath been an angel, though we see him not. Of this kind was that (no less than miraculous) cure which at S. Madern's in Cornwall was wrought upon a poor cripple, John Trelille, whereof (besides the attestation of many hundreds of neighbours) I took a strict and personal examination in that last visitation which I either did or ever shall hold. This man, that for sixteen years together was fain to walk upon his hands, by reason of the close contraction of the sinews of his legs (upon three admo- nitions in a dream to wash in that well), was suddenly so restored to his limbs, that I saw him able to walk and get his own maintenance. I found here was neither art nor collusion : the thing done, the author invisible."^ Another writer of the same period gives a fuller account of the same miraculous cure.^ " I will relate one miracle more done in our own country, to the great wonder of the neighbour- ing inhabitants, but a few years ago, viz., about the year 1640. The process of the business was told the king when at Oxford, which he caused to be farther ex-
' Bishop Hall "On the Invisible World." * Franciscus Coventriensis : I'aralipom. I'hilosophise c. 4.
-^
May 17.] S. Madern. 241
amined. It was this : — A certain boy of twelve years old, called John Trelille, in the county of Cornwall, not far from the Land's End, as they were playing at foot-ball, snatching up the ball ran away with it ; whereupon, a girl in anger struck him with a thick stick on the backbone, and so bruised or broke it, that for sixteen years after he was forced to go creeping on the ground. In this con- dition he arrived to the twenty-eighth year of his age, when he dreamed that if he did but bathe in St. Madern's well, or in the stream running from it, he should recover his former strength and health. This is a place in Cornwall, from the remains of ancient devotion, still frequented by Protestants on the Thursdays in May, and especially on the feast of Corpus Christi ; near to which well is a chapel dedicated to St. Madern, where is yet an altar, and right against it a grassy hillock (made every year anew by the country people) which they call St. Madern's bed. The chapel roof is quite decayed ; but a kind of thorn of itself shooting forth of the old walls, so extends its boughs that it covers the whole chapel, and supplies as it were a roof. On a Thursday in May, assisted by one Periman, his neighbour, entertaining great hopes from his dream, thither he crept, and lying before the altar, and praying very fervently that he might regain his health and the strength of his limbs, he washed his whole body in the stream that flowed from the well and ran through the chapel : after which, having slept about an hour and a half on S. Madern's bed, through the extremity of pain he felt in his nerves and arteries, he began to cry out, and his com- panion helping and lifting him up, he perceived his hams and joints somewhat extended, and himself becoming stronger, insomuch that partly with his feet, partly with his hands, he went much more erect than before. Before the following Thursday he got two crutches, resting on
VOL. V. 16 ^ — ____ — . .^
*-
242 Lives of the Saints . [May 17.
which he could make a shift to walk, which before he could not do. And coming to the chapel as before, after having bathed himself, he slept on the same bed, and awaking found himself much stronger and more upright) and so, leaving one crutch in the chapel, he went home with the others. The third Thursday he returned to the chapel, and bathed as before, slept, and when he awoke, rose up quite cured ; yea, grew so strong, that he wrought day labour among other hired servants ; and four years after listed himself a soldier in the king's army, where he behaved himself with great stoutness, both of mind and body: at length, in 1644, he was slain at Lyme, in Dorset- shire."
S. PASCHAL BAYLON, C.
(a.d. T592.)
[Beatified by Pope Paul V., in 1618, and canonized by Alexander VIII., in 1690. Authority : — The life of the saint written by John Ximenes, his disciple, in 1598. It was printed at Valentia in 1601.]
S. Paschal Baylon was born of very poor parents at Torre-Hermosa, in Aragon, in the year 1540, on Easter Day. As a boy he served a master named Martin Garcia, as shepherd, and was so good, obedient, and trustworthy, that his master offered to adopt him as his own son. But Paschal had set his heart on embracing the religious life, and he went to Montfort, in Valentia, where was a convent of discalced Franciscans, and entered their society as a lay-brother. In 1565 he took full vows, being then aged twenty-five. The general of the order being in Paris, Paschal was sent to see him on some affairs of the com- munity. At that time France was ravaged by the Hugue- nots. The life of Paschal was frequently endangered by the heretics. At Orleans he was surrounded by a mob
*-
-*
May 17.] 5". Paschal Bay Ion. 243
of furious Calvinists, who asked him if he believed in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. When he boldly confessed his faith, they set on him with stones, and he had great difficulty in escaping. As it was, his shoulder was so injured that he never completely recovered the use of that arm. He then asked for alms at the gate of a chateau, but the owner, a Calvinist, threw him into a dungeon, from which, however, he was liberated by the gentleman's wife. He would have perished by falling again into the hands of the mob, had not a peasant concealed him all night in his stable, and sent him off on the Paris road before dawn.
He died on May 15th, in the year 1592, in the convent of the Friars Minors at Villa Reale, in Valentia, at the age of fifty-two. His body is preserved in the convent church.
*
>^-
244 Lives of the Saints. [May 18.
May 18.
S. Vemantius. M. at Camerino in Italy.
SS. Theodotus and Companions, MM. at Ancyra, a.d. 304.
S. Felix, B. o/Sfialato in Dalmatia, circ. a.d. 304.
SS. Urban. Theodore and Lxxviii. Comp., MM. at Constantinople,
A.D. 370. S. Elfgiva, O. fit Shaftesbury, a.d. 971. S. Erick, K. M. of Sweden, a.d. 1160. S. Felix op Cantalice, O.M. at Rome, a.d. 1587.
S. VENANTIUS, M.
(date uncertain.)
[Roman Martyrology. Venerated as Patron of Camerino. No trust- worthy Acts exist. Those which profess to be the Acts of S. Venantius are simply those of S. Agapitus, with the name of the saint and of the place changed. They begin "In thedaysof Antiochus the king, there was in the city of Camerino a youth named Venantius." What Antiochus the king had to do with Italy is not very evident. But when we turn to the Acts of S. Agapitus (Aug. i8th) we find they begin, "In the days of Antiochus the king, there was in the city of Praeneste a youth named Aga- pitus." The whole is manifestly apocryphal from beginning to end.]
jHE body of this saint is preserved at Camerino. Pope Clement X. had a singular devotion to him, and decreed the observance of his festival on this day. The false Acts assert that he was arrested at the age of fifteen, and was thrown to wild beasts, but they did not touch him. He was then dragged over thorns, thrown down a precipice, and his head struck off. There is not a particle of trustworthy history in the story of this saint
^-
-^
Mayi8.] ^'►S. Tkcodotus & Coifip. 245
SS. THEODOTUS AND COMP., MM. (a.d. 304.)
[Venerated on this day, especially in the Laura of S. Sabas between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. The Menology of the Emperor Basil, and the Modern Roman Martyrology. Authority : — ^The Greek Acts by Nilus, an eye-witness of a great part of what he describes. These Acts are of special interest, both on account of the freshness of the style, and because of the introduction of many words of the Galatian dialect. The authen- ticity of these Acts is beyond a doubt.]
Theodotus was an innkeeper near Ancyra in Galatia, a worthy man, and a good Christian, who, in time of persecution, sheltered many of the faithful in his house. At that time the governor Theotecnus was using his best endeavours to destroy Christianity in Ancyra. A man named Victor was brought before him, accused of having spoken mockingly of the gods, and Theotecnus ordered him to be scourged. Under the excess of his anguish Victor asked to be taken down and allowed a respite to reconsider his determination. He was led back to prison, but died there, "leaving us in doubt," says the author, "as to what was the end of his confession, and to this day his memory is obscured by uncertainty."
One day Theodotus the innkeeper was returning to Ancyra from the river Halys, whence he had recovered the body of a martyr named Valens, who had been flung into it, when at the fortieth milestone from Ancyra, he and a party of fellow-Christians who were with him, rested in a pleasant shady place on the grass, opened their baskets, and produced their food. Near at hand was the village of Malos, and Theodotus sent one of his companions into it to find the Christian priest, named Fronto, who lived there, to share their meal. Fronto came, and found the party lying on the grass enjoying the shade, and he was warmly greeted by Theodotus. The priest urged them all
-*
*-
246 Lives of the Saints. [Mayis.
to come to his farm and shelter there, but they were so pleased with the beauty of the spot that they declined, preferring to eat in the open air. Then Theodotus said, suddenly, " Oh ] what a spot for a confession." By this name the oratories and afterwards the churches were called which were built over the tombs of martyrs. And he added, " Fronto, build one here." " My friend," said the priest, "you are too precipitate; we must have the martyr before we can have the church." "Ancyra is the scene of many a conflict now," said Theodotus, "build the church, and I will provide you with the martyr. Here, take this as token, and return it me when I have redeemed the pledge." Then he plucked a gold ring off his finger, and placed it on that of the priest.
After this they parted, and Theodotus returned to the city. Now about this time seven virgins were accused and brought before the magistrate. Their names were Tecusa, Alexandra, Phaina, Claudia, Euphrasia, Matrona, and Julitta. Of these the three first were consecrated virgins (Apotactitae), and Tecusa was the aunt of Theodotus the innkeeper. As the magistrate, Theotecnus, was unable to move the con- stancy of these virgins, he gave them up to be insulted by some young men, who began to address them in the most ofi'ensive terms. Tecusa suddenly turned upon the most insolent of these reprobates, and plucking off the veil which had covered her head and concealed the features said, " Boy, cease your impertinence ; look on my wrinkles and white hair; perchance you have an old mother with grey head, reverence that grey head in me." She shamed him, and the others put to the blush as well, by the dignified modesty of the virgins, left them without further annoyance.
But Theotecnus, the magistrate, was determined to break their constancy, and to effect this he had recourse to an expedient of almost unparalleled cruelty. The next
*-
day was a celebrated festival at Ancyra, which consisted in the solemn and public washing of the image of the goddess Diana in a shallow pool or marsh near the city. But one of the most oftensive rites of heathen worship was associated with this ceremony. It was customary for those women who consecrated themselves to become priestesses of Diana to bathe publicly with the idol.
Taking advantage of this festival, Theotecnus gave orders that the seven virgins should be stripped, their hands bound behind them, and that they should be carried on carts in the procession with the idol to the pond, and that they should be bathed with it, and be thus consecrated priestesses whether they willed it or not.
The writer then describes the hideous procession, each poor woman upright in one cart, and seven carts preceding that in which was the idol, a band going before with trumpets, cymbals and shawns, and a roaring, laughing, mad multitude on either side eager for the sport, pouring towards the marshy pool.
In the meantime Theodotus and several Christians were assembled in a cottage near at hand, belonging to a poor man, named Theocharis, where they remained instant in prayer, ashamed to go forth to such a spectacle, and bleed- ing at heart for the poor sufferers. But the wife of Theo- charis was sent out to watch the proceedings and to bring them news of what took place. The blare of trumpets, the rush of feet, and the roar of voices passed, and all was still. Presently the woman came to the door, and an- nounced that the seven virgins had all been drowned. In vain had they been offered the white robes and crowns of flowers belonging to a priestess of Diana, they had thrust them away with indignation, and the governor had ordered stones to be attached to the necks of the seven virgins and
■*
^-
248 Lives of the Saints. [Mayis.
that they should be flung into the water, and so they all had been dro^vned.
Then the Christians rose from the floor on which they had cast themselves, weeping and praying, and standing they stretched their hands to heaven and cried, " Thanks, thanks, be to Thee, O God." And after a pause Theodotus asked eagerly, " Where were they cast, in the shallow part or near the middle ? "
" About two acres of water lie between the place where they have been sunk and the shore."
In the evening Theodotus consulted with his younger brother Polychronius and with Theocharis as to the possi- bility of recovering the bodies. The water was nowhere very deep. But having sent a boy to examine the spot, they were told by him that a guard of soldiers was stationed by the lake to prevent the Christians from approaching it to recover the corpses.
This disheartened Theodotus ; but that night he dreamt that his aunt appeared to him, and bade him not fear, but rescue the bodies. " Only," she added, "beware of traitors."
Next morning early the boy — his name was Glycerius — was sent again to observe the lake. He returned with the news that the soldiers were still there. However, as the day was a great festival to Diana, they suspected that the guard would be withdrawn, and later in the morning Theocharis and Glycerius were sent again to see. They returned with the news that the watch was still on guard.
Theodotus accordingly remained within all day. As soon as night fell, Theodotus and the others went out armed with sickles wherewith to cut the cords that attached the stones to the necks of the dead women. The night was pitch dark. Not a star was visible. Their way led through the place of public execution, " a place carefully avoided by every one after sunset," where grinning heads were erect on
^-
poles, and charred bodies stood attached to the posts by iron hoops, leaning forward, with drooping arms ; and here and there a headless corpse lay on the ground. Imagine all this, lit by sudden flashes of lightning, and with thunder rumbling in the distance, and you may well believe Nilus when he says that they were dreadfully frightened. How- ever, they signed themselves with the cross, and pushed on. The night became so dark that one could not see the other, and now rain began to fall in torrents, and the lightning blazed with dazzling effulgence, leaving next moment everything darker by contrast. The advancing party were uncertain of their way, the road became muddy, and they slipped about. Then, in their uncertainty, they stood still and prayed. Instantly they saw two lanterns going along the road before them in the direction of the lake, they followed till they found themselves at the spot where the guards had been posted, but the guards were not there, they had taken shelter from the storm. The Christians then went into the water and waded on till they came to the bodies, when they severed the cords, and brought them all to the shore, and having carried them to where some packhorses had been brought for the purpose, they conveyed them away and buried them.
Next morning it was discovered that the bodies had been stolen, and the governor was furious.
Polychronius went into the town, disguised as a country- man, but was taken and brought before the governor, who threatened him with torture unless he would renounce Christ. The wretched man, in his abject fear to escape the rack, betrayed what he knew, and told Theotecnus that the bodies of the seven martyred virgins had been stolen by Theodotus, and showed the governor where they were concealed.
Theotecnus ordered the bodies to be cast into a huge
-*
fire and consumed, and that Theodotus should be sought out and brought before him.
In the meantime Theodotus was in the cottage of Theocharis, wondering at the delay of his brother. At last he resolved to go forth and see what had become of him. He bade farewell to his friends and left the house. He had not gone far before he met two Christians, running, to warn him to fly, as Polychronius had turned traitor, Theodotus knew that flight was now in vain, and he walked boldly forward into the town, strode into the court before the gover- nor, and said with unmoved countenance, " Here am I."
It would answer his purpose better to obtain the apostasy than the execution of Theodotus, therefore the governor tried hard to persuade the innkeeper into compliance with his will. But Theodotus remained inflexible. And then the governor lost all control over himself, and ordered him to immediate torture. The martyr looked round with a bright unclouded face on the braziers containing pincers red-hot, the molten lead, the rack, and the hideous flesh- rakes clotted with skin and gore.
He was tied to the rack, and his sides were lacerated with the hooks. These were little iron rakes which tore the flesh to the bones. The people shouted, the idol-priests ran about exciting them against the martyr, and clamouring for keener torments. When his body was a mass of wounds, Theotecnus ordered vinegar to be poured over it, and torches to be applied to his sides. Then, stung by the acid, and shrink- ing from the fire, the martyr turned his head with a sharp movement. " Ah ! " shouted the governor, leaping down into the place of execution, " where is your boasting ? See what your contempt of the gods has brought you to."
" I scorn thy gods, I despise thy emperors, and thee I regard but as their freed-man," said the martyr.
"Smash that publican's jaw," said Theotecnus furiously,
*-
-*
Mayi8.] 55. Tkeoclotiis & CoTHp. 251
and the martyr's cheeks and teeth were beaten with a stone. After that the governor ordered him to be removed from the rack and cast into prison.
There the sufferer languished for five days, at the end of which he was again brought out, and Theotecnus ordered him to be placed on red-hot coals, and afterwards to be re-hung on the rack and all the old wounds which had begun to skin over, to be ripped open again. Then, weary with torturing him, he bade him to be taken on a tumbril out of the town and executed.
So he was carried forth, and all Ancyra rushed to the spot of execution, men, women, and children, shouting, running, and jeering the martyr. And when Theodotus was at the place, he raised his eyes to heaven and prayed, " Lord Jesus Christ, I thank Thee that Thou hast given me strength to crush the head of the old dragon. Give rest to Thy servants, and restrain the violence of the enemy ; give peace to Thy Church, and save it from the tyranny of the evil one." So saying, he received the mortal stroke.
Then by the commands of the governor a quantity of wood was collected and the body was thrown on the heap, and the soldiers attempted to light the pile to consume the corpse, but the rains had so moistened the sticks that they would not kindle, and as the day was far advanced, the burning of the body of the martyr was postponed till the following day. But lest the Christians should steal it away, a guard was detailed to watch it.
No sooner had dusk set in than the soldiers, expecting a rainy night, set to work with hatchets and cut and drove four posts into the ground, for the construction of a lodge, wattled the sides with branches, and thatched the top with broom and rushes, leaving the hut open towards the pile on which lay the body, covered with grass and branches.
Now it chanced that late the same night the priest Fronto came towards Ancyra driving an ass laden with some
*
252 Lives of the Saints. [Mayis.
old wine which he purposed seUing in the city. The way was long, forty miles, the ass slow, and he did not approach his destination till near midnight. Passing the bivouac of the soldiers, they called to him and asked him where he was going. He answered that he was going into the city. " Friend, all the taverns are closed long ago," said one of the guard ; " come and keep us company till the day breaks." Fronto, seeing that this was his best course, tethered the ass, unladed it, and sat himself by the bivouac fire among the soldiers. Then follows an amusing account of the talk of the guards, how they puzzled Fronto with their allusions to the martyrdoms that had taken place, how their slang expressions were incomprehensible to him, and he was obliged to tell them that as he had not brought an interpreter with him, they must talk more in- telhgibly. At last he grasped the whole position. A martyr's body lay on the faggots outside, and the martyr was his friend Theodotus. Perhaps at the same moment the story of the master-thief and King Rhampsinitas, as related by Herodotus, flashed into his memory ; perhaps he only caught at the readiest expedient that presented itself. At any rate an incident in that old legend was repeated on this occasion. The priest produced some of his old wine.
" This is rare wine," said one of the soldiers ; " how old is it ? " " Five years." " I shan't forget it in a hurry ; no, not till I take my sip of better," said another. " Ah ! " quoth a third, " I need a good draught of strong wine to forget the hiding I got for letting the bodies of those old women be whisked off, the other night." So talking, they drank, and Fronto spared not the liquor, till the whole party had fallen into a drunken slumber.
Then he softly stole out, uncovered the body, recog- nized it, and saying, " Ah ! Theodotus, dost thou thus redeem thy pledge ? " placed the gold ring on the dead
-^
MayiS.] S. Felix. 253
man's finger, tied his body on the ass, loosed the tether, and let the ass go, trusting that it would at once make the best of its way back to the stable. Then he arranged the grass and bushes on the pyre, as though nothing had been touched, and then began to cry and beat his hands, as if in despair. Some of the soldiers woke and ran to him and asked what was the matter. " My ass has broken his tether and has run away ! "
Had Fronto gone off with his ass, the soldiers would have suspected mischief, but by this expedient he com- pletely threw them off their guard, and after they had quaffed some more of his wine, they allowed him to depart. Fronto at once hurried home, and found the ass with its load at his stable door. He removed the body to the grove where Theodotus had desired to see a " confession " erected, and there buried him.
S. FELIX, B. OF SPALATO.
(about a.d. 304.)
[Usuardus, Ado, Notker, and Roman Martyrology. Bellinus in his Martyrology published in 1498, put S. Felix down as Bishop of Spoleto in Umbria, instead of Spalato in Dalmatia. He was followed by Maurolycus, Felicius, and Galesinius. The Roman Martyrology perpetu- ates the mistake. Ferrarius made the matter worse by caUing him Bishop of Hispalis, in Umbria. Spoleto forthwith adopted him as patron of the city. But that was not all. The door was opened to the Spaniards by this error, and Tamajus Salazar at once entered him in his Spanish Martyrology as Bishop of Guadix, martyred at Spali, in Vascongades, in the North of Spain. He would no doubt have made him Bishop of Seville (Hispalis) had the list of bishops of that see admitted of his insertion. But finding a Felix in the catalogue of bishops of Guadix, he conveyed him to the next nearest place with a name sounding something like Hispalis, for the purpose of becoming a martyr there. Authority: — The Acts, how far genuine it is impossible to decide.]
Spalato contains the ruins of the palace of Diocletian, that cruel persecutor of the Church. To Spalato he
-^
^_ ^ ^
254 Lives of the Saints. [May 18.
retired, leaving the reins of the government in the hands of Maximian. At this time Felix was bishop of the city where he fixed his residence ; and it was not possible for him to escape condemnation, being under the eye of the aged lion. Accordingly he was soon taken, brought before the tribunal of the emperor, and sentenced to death, first being tortured with fire, and afterwards executed with the sword.
S. ELFGYVA, Q.
(a.d. 971.)
[Anglican Martyrologies, but by some on May 5th. By Mayhew on June 30th. Authorities : — William of Malmesbury, Florence of Wor- cester, and Roger of Hoveden.]
S. Elfgyva was queen of Edmund the Magnificent, who came to the throne of England in 940, succeeding his brother Athelstan. Edmund did not reign long. In the year 945 he was keeping the feast of S. Augustine of Canterbury at Pucklechurch, in Gloucestershire, and there came into the hall one Liofa, a robber, whom he had banished six years before. This man went and sat down by one of the chiefs, near the king himself. Edmund bade his cup-bearer remove him ; but instead of going, Liofa tried to kill the cup-bearer. Then the king got up and went to help his servant, and seized Liofa by the hair and threw him on the ground, but the robber had a dagger, and stabbed the king from below. Liofa was cut to pieces at once by the king's men, but Edmund died of the wound. Elfgyva and Edmund had two sons, Edwy and Edgar, but as they were very young, Edred, the brother of Edmund, was chosen to succeed him. He must have been a young man himself, for his elder brother Edmund
^-
-*
Mayis.) 6*. Elfgyva. 255
was only twenty-four when he was killed. Edgar was born in 943.
The poor young queen had lost her husband early, but this was the least of her sorrows. In her widowhood she laboured to heal the wounds of the sufferers. "She was the adviser and ennobler of the whole kingdom, the con- soler of the Church, the support of the needy and the oppressed." ^
But her heart was wrung by the vicious conduct of Edwy, her eldest son, whose wantonness became a general scandal. Edwy became king in 955, and was succeeded by his brother Edgar, whose morals were in no way superior. William of Malmesbury says of the queen- mother, " She was a woman intent on good works, and gifted with such affection and kindness, that she would even secretly discharge the penalties of those culprits whom the sad sentences of the judges had publicly condemned. That costly clothing, which, to many women, is the occasion of evil, was to her a means of liberality ; as she would give a garment of the most beautiful workman- ship to the first poor person she saw. Even malice itself, as there was nothing to carp at, might praise the beauty of her person, and the work of her hands." ^
She retired at length into the convent of Shaftesbury, which had been founded by King Alfred, and there died.
' Osbem in Vit. S. Dunstani. '■' William of Malmesbury. English Chron., lib. ii., c. 8.
*
*-
256 Lives of the Saints. [Mayis.
S. ERICK, K. M. (a.d. 1 160.)
[Roman and Scandinavian Martyrologies. Authority : — The Acts written by Israel, Canon of Upsal, after 1409, nnd the Swedish rhymed Chronicle, Adam of Bremen, &c.]
S. Erick's father was called Edward, "a good and wealthy yeoman," says the old Swedish chronicle ; his mother, Cecilia, was the sister of Erick, king of Swedeland. He was himself married to Christina, daughter of Ingi the Younger, or as others state, of Ingi the Elder. " Three things did holy King Erick endeavour," says the legend, "to build churches, and reform religion, to govern the people as law and justice pointed out, and to overcome the enemies of his faith and realm." The establishment of Christianity in Upper Sweden was undoubtedly his work. Before his reign, even at Upsala, there were neither priests nor a convenient church, wherefore he first applied himself to the completion of the church, "now called Old Upsala, and appointed clerks for the ministry of the altar." An old table of kings denominates him the Lawgiver, and the rights of Swedish matrons to the place of honour and housewifedom, to lock and key, to the half of the marriage- bed, and the legal third of the property, as the law of Upland expresses it, are said to have been conferred by the law of S. Eric. Against the heathens of Finland, whose piracies harassed the Swedish coast, he undertook a crusade, and by introducing Christianity, as also probably by transplanting Swedish colonists thither, he laid the foundation of the connection which so long subsisted between Sweden and that country. S. Henry, the first bishop of Upsala, of whose active exertions in propagating Christianity, history has preserved some record, accom- panied the king on this expedition ; he was the first
*-
-*
Mayi8.] S* Erlck. 2^"]
apostle of the Finns, and suffered at their hands the death of a martyr. At last, Erick was unexpectedly beleaguered in Upsala by the Danish prince, Magnus, during the celebration of divine service. The king heard the mass out, and marched against the enemy. After a short but valiant resistance he fell dead, covered with wounds,^ May, 1160. His virtues, and the austerity of his life, procured him after death the reputation of a saint. He was reverenced as the protector of Sweden; his banner waved in the field to encourage the Swedes in battle with enemies of the realm ; the anniversary of his death was kept sacred throughout all the provinces ; the town of Stockholm bears his effigy on its arms, and the cathedral of Upsala still preserves his rehcs, once the objects of veneration. By the Church he was never canonized, although a hundred years after his death, the popes, informed of the homage which the people con- tinued to pay to his memory, exhorted the devout to make pilgrimages to his tomb. The Roman Court, however, was far from being well-inclined to him at one time, for in a papal rescript of 1208, his family is represented as having violently usurped the crown, to the injury of the house of Swerker, its legitimate owners. The old accounts unani- mously assign him a reign of ten years ; he was therefore raised to the crown in 11 50, five years before the death of Swerker. His sovereignty at first extended only over Sweden Proper; indeed he was acknowledged but for a time in Gothland, whose inhabitants had nominated Charles Swerkerson. The latter is said to have held real possession of the government for two years before the death of Erick, and is even accused of being a party to the plot against him.
'■ At East Aros, the present Upsala, on the iSth of May, n6o. VOL. V. 17
-*
*-
258 Lives of the Saints. [Mayis
S. FELIX OF CANTALICE, O.M.
(A.D. 1587.)
[Beatified by Pope Urban VIII. in 1625 ; canonized by Clement XI. in 1712 ; but the bull of canonization was not published till 1724, by Benedict XIII. Authorities : — A life by Fr. Sancti, Guardian of the Capuchin Convent at Rome, in which he lived and died ; and another contemporary life by Matthias Salodiensis.]
This good Capuchin was born at Cantalice, at the foot of the Apennines, on the confines of the Duchy of Spoleto, in the year 1513. His parents were very poor, and worked for their daily bread. His father's name was Sante, or Saint, and he was a good man, and had even a sort of prophetic power, for it is told of him that as he watched the death of a little grandson, he said, " Go forth in peace, my little saint, with God's blessing and thy grandfather's, on Saturday next we shall meet again." And though he was hale when he spoke, on the day he had named the old man died. Felix was the third of four children. Even from his childhood he showed a marked leaning towards religion, so that the children used to point him out as " Felix the little saint." His childhood was passed keep- ing sheep. He was wont to take his rest in the heat of noon, and say his prayers under a great oak, in the bark of which he cut a cross. When sufficiently old, he was placed at the plough. His conduct was always unimpeachable, always quiet, self-contained, seeking peace and ensuing it. When any of his companions ill-treated or abused him, his usual soft answer to turn away wrath was, " May God make a saint of thee, my friend ! "
One day he heard read the lives of some of the Egyptian hermits, and he felt a great longing to embrace the life of a recluse ; but, on further consideration, he thought himself not equal to such a life, and he preferred entering a religious house. Yet he postponed the day from year to
*-
S. FELIX OF CANTALlCa. Afcer Caiuer.
May i8.
-*
Mayi8.] S. FcHx of CafitaUce. 259
year, till an accident made him resolve to delay his renun- ciation of the world no longer. He was driving two bullocks in a plough, when his master suddenly opened the gate into the field and entered in a black dress. This scared the oxen, and they dashed over Felix, trampling him under foot, and drew the plough over him. Provi- dentially he was unhurt, though his clothes were cut and torn. He delayed no longer, but went to the nearest convent of Capuchins, and asked to be admitted as a lay novice. The superior took him by the hand, led him before a crucifix, and said, " Look up, Jesus Christ suffered for thee. Hast thou courage to follow His traces ? " The tears rolled down the ploughman's cheeks, and he ex- pressed .his desire to take up his cross in such fervent words, that the superior gave him a letter of introduction, and sent him to the provincial at Rome. He was then thirty years old. He passed his noviciate in the convent of Anticola, Four years after he was sent to Rome, and there spent the rest of his life. As his deficiency in edu- cation prevented him from aspiring to be a choir brother, he was employed in going about begging for food and money for the convent. When given anything he at once responded Deo gratias, "Thanks be to God." And this expression became so familiar to his lips that he uttered it on every occasion. Once he came upon two gentlemen fighting a duel, he rushed between them, beat down their swords, crying, " Deo gratias ; my brethren, say Deo gratias, each of you." And there he stood grasping their swords in his firm hands, and looking from one to the other. At last the gentlemen said the required words. "Now your battle is done," said the Capuchin; "let me hear the occasion of your quarrel and reconcile you." And he succeeded in sending them away friends.
" Oh, how fair is creation ! " he would exclaim on issuing
-*
*-
26o Lives of the Saints. [Mayis.
from the convent gates, "Deo gratias ! All the creatures of God serve only to raise our hearts to the giver of all good things, and make us cry out in love and thankfulness, Deo gratias ! "
And when he came on little children playing with flowers, or plucking fruit, or full of merriment over some innocent toy, he would stop, point up to the blue sky, as recalling to them the source of all beauty, pleasure, and happiness, and say " Deo gratias ! " He became so well known by this expression that the little ones used to call him Brother Deo gratias ; and from a distance, when they saw the old white-bearded Capuchin coming along in his snuff-coloured habit, they would cry out, " Deo gratias ! brother Felix, Deo gratias ! " Then the old man's eyes would fill with tears, and a smile would light up his rugged features, and he would exclaim, "My dear children, yes, Deo gratias ! God bless you all ! "
When he returned from his begging expeditions, he loved to retire to the church and kneel before the Blessed Sacrament in a rapture of love and thankfulness, and pour forth his prayer. He was watched once, and was seen standing before the altar, with outspread arms, supplicating, " Lord, I recommend to Thee my poor people ; I recom- mend to Thee the kind persons who have been our bene- factors. Great God, have mercy on them all." It was a short, simple prayer, but it expressed all the charity of his heart.
He was asked once why he walked barefoot instead of wearing sandals like the other friars. " Only because it is easier for my feet," said he, though in reality he had rejected sandals out of humility. In his old age the guardian once said something about his being too aged to carry the sack of food he had begged. " Nay, nay," said S. Felix, "let the old ass carry its load till it falls under it."
*-
^-
May 18.]
S. Felix of Cantalice.
261
-^
When he was very ill and confined to his bed, if not closely watched, he would crawl to the church and faint away before the altar. In his last agony he was as though engaged in conflict with the enemy of souls, for he rose partly in bed, on one elbow, and waving the other arm in the air, as his dim eyes looked into vacancy, he said, " No, I cannot despair; it is my own Saviour Who will judge me, and I will not doubt His mercy." Then he laid him- self down again and sighed forth his innocent and happy soul.
His body is in the church of his Order in Rome. He is represented with a sack over his shoulder, on which is written Deo gratias, or leading an ass laden with the sack ; sometimes giving S. Philip Neri to drink out of a bottle in the midst of a street, this incident being related of him.
*-
^*
^-
262 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
May 19.
SS. PuDENTiANA, V.M., AND PoDENs, HER FATHER, at Rome, 2nd Cent.
SS. Calocerus and Parthenius, mm. at Rome, a.d. 250.
SS. PHILETyERUS AND EUBIOTUS, HIM. at CyzicUS, A.D. 311 a«<f 318.
S. Theodore, B. of Lucca, \th cent.
B. Alcuin, Mk. at Tours, a.d. 804.
S. Dunstan, Archb. 0/ Canterbury, A.D. 968.
S. Peter CfELESTiNE, Pope 0/ Rome, a.d. I2g6.
S. Yvo, P.C. at Treguier, in Biittany, a.d. 1303.
SS. PUDENS AND PUDENTIANA.
(2ND CENT.)
[Roman Martyrology. Mentioned in the Sacramentary of Pope Gela- sius. S. Pudens her father also in the Roman Martyrology, and in that of Usuardus, Ado, Bellinus and Maurolycus. S. Praxedis, the sister of S. Pudentiana, is commemorated on July 21st. Authority : — The Acts, which purport to be written by S. Pastor (July 27th), a contemporary. But their authenticity is very questionable.]
Wft^^lAINT PUDENS was a Roman senator, who had the honour of receiving S. Peter into his house, when the prince of the Apostles came to Rome. He was probably converted by S. Paul, for that Apostle mentions him as his disciple in his second Epistle to S. Timothy. He died in the inno- cence of his baptismal condition, and left behind him two daughters, Praxedis and Pudentiana. These saintly virgins gave great alms to the poor, and their palace was used for the celebration of the Divine Mysteries. S. Pudentiana is said to have died a martyr's death in the year i6o,' but this is hardly possible, and it is more probable that there were two saints of the same name, and that a similar confusion has been made in her case to that which exists
' The Acts by S. Pastor say nothing about her dying by martyrdom, but simply state that she died at the age of sixteen. Consequently the Pudentiana who died in 160 must have been another.
^-
^
-*
May 19] B. A ICUtfl. 263
in the case of S. Prisca. She was buried in the catacomb of S. Priscilla, the wife of Punicus, and mother of S. Pudens.
The relics of S. Pudentiana have been conveyed to France, and repose in the church of Chatillon-sur-long, in the diocese of Orleans.
B. ALCUIN, P. MK.
(a.d. 804.)
[Gallican Martyrologies. Hrabanus, Greven and Molanus in their additions to Usuardus. Authority : — A life by a writer almost his con- temporary, and his own writings. The life was written before 829, accord- ing to Sigulf the disciple of Alcuin, who furnished the writer with much of his information. But this life is colourless and poor. Far richer details may be gathered from the epistles of Alcuin. A good modern life of Alcuin is that of Dr. F. Lorenz, professor of history to the University of Halle.]
The last of the distinguished Anglo-Saxons whose name shed lustre on the empire of the Prankish monarchs in the eighth century, was Alcuin. Born at York, about the year 735, of a noble family, Alcuin ^ was scarcely weaned from his mother's breast when he was dedicated to the Church, and entrusted to the care of the inmates of a monastery, and on reaching the proper age, he was placed in the school of Archbishop Egbert, then celebrated for the number of noble youths who crowded thither to imbibe instruction from the lips of that saintly prelate. Alcuin was distinguished above his fellows by his application to the study of the sciences, which were taught by Egbert's kinsman Aelbert, who succeeded him in 766 in the see of York, and in the management of the school. Alcuin was Aelbert's favourite pupil ; when about twenty years of age, he was chosen to accompany him on a visit to the conti-
' His name was originally Albeis, why and when he changed it does not appear.
-*
264 Lives of the Saints. (May 19.
nent in search of books, and of new discoveries in science, and on that occasion he resided for a short time in Rome. Immediately after Aelbert's accession to the archiepiscopal see, he ordained Alcuin deacon, appointed him to fill the place which he had himself occupied in the school, and gave him the care of the extensive library attached to it. Under Alcuin's superintendence the school increased in reputation, and many foreigners came to partake of the ad- vantages derived from his teaching. Archbishop Aelbert died on the 8th November, 780, and was succeeded by Eanbald, one of Alcuin's pupils, who, in the following year, sent his instructor to Rome to obtain for him the pall at the hands of Pope Adrian I. On his return, Alcuin visited Parma, and there met Charlemagne, who had also been at Rome. That monarch was then meditating the foundation of scholastic institutions throughout his dominions, and he seized the opportunity to persuade Alcuin to settle in France, and become his adviser and assistant in his projects of reform.
There must have been something peculiarly engaging in Charlemagne. Alcuin met a great mind, full of noble aspira- tions, in advance of his age, and he saw that the emperor was a man whom he might direct aright, and who was one to render him every facility for raising the religious, moral and intellectual tone of the mighty empire over which Charle- magne had been placed. But before he joined the king, Alcuin continued his journey home, to fulfil his original commission, and to obtain the consent of the archbishop of York, and of Alfwold, king of Northumbria, to the proposed arrangement. He felt, and so did his spiritual and temporal superiors, that a door had been opened before him, and that it was not for them to attempt to close it. In 782, followed by some of his chosen disciples, Alcuin left England for France. In the court of Charlemagne, Alcuin
^-
Ij, _ ^
Mayig.] B. Alcuiu. 265
became, as one great writer' calls him, the intellectual prime minister of the emperor.
A slight sketch of the condition of the Church in the empire is necessary, that the reader may judge of the abuses Charlemagne and Alcuin had united to rectify.
The higher classes of the clergy under the Franks at the time of the Merovingian princes were, according to the testimony of their contemporary and fellow-clerk, Gregory of Tours, to the last extent barbarous, dissolute, and corrupt. Adultery, murder, simony, false swearing, avarice, abounded among the bishops and dignitaries, and the example of the higher clergy corrupted those below them, and demoralized the laity.
The episcopal thrones in Germany were occupied by Franks, and when S. Boniface came in the eighth century into Germany to convert the heathen, he found occasion to vehemently inveigh against the morals and conduct of the German bishops. His account of the Frankish clergy gives a terrible picture of disorder. He wrote to Pope Zacharias : " For long religion has been prostrate. In the course of eighty years the Franks have not held a single council, nor published a new decree, nor renewed a single old one. The possessors of the bishoprics are avaricious laymen, or adulterous priests, who only aim at temporal profit. Their deacons live from youth up in adultery and all uncleanness, and whilst still deacons have as many as four or five concubines. Nevertheless they are so bold that they read the Gospel publicly, and are not ashamed to style themselves deacons. If they attain the priestly office, laden with all their crimes, they lead the same criminal life, heap one sin upon another, and yet pretend to intercede for the people, and offer the Holy Sacrifice. The worst is that these men advance from one dignity to
' Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons. ^ — — *
*-
266 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
another, and finally become bishops. If there are any among them who remain chaste, yet they give themselves up to drinking, hunting, and injustice, or go armed to battle, and shed with their own hands human blood, sometimes that of heathen, but sometimes also that of Christians."
Bishop Gewilieb, of Mayence, was charged by S. Boni- face with murder, before a council at Worms, because he had killed in duel a Saxon who had assassinated his father, Bishop Ceroid of Worms. S. Boniface also charged Bishop Gewilieb with being addicted to hawking and hunting, and endeavoured to obtain his deposition.
The cause of the decay of discipline and general disorder in morals was probably this. The Frank kings saw how much their power would be supported and strengthened if the widely ramifying authority of the Church were made a base for their throne. They therefore richly endowed bishoprics and abbeys, and made the bishops and abbots to be vassals {ministrales) of the king. Thus Fredegar, in 740 speaks of the Burgundian barons, whether bishops or other feudatories.^ They were often employed in affairs of the State, and were thus invested with a very important political influence. The possessions of the Church were regarded by the kings as feudal tenures {betieficid), and the bishops and abbots holding them were bound to arm and fight as vassals for their king. It was stipulated by law that the choice of a bishop should be confirmed by the king ; ^ but for the most part, the kings themselves appointed to the vacant sees, in spite of the often reiterated protests of the councils. Synods could not assemble without the royal permission ; their decrees had to be confirmed by the king, being previously invalid. In the meantime the affairs of the Church were discussed and ordered, even
' Fredigar, Chron., caps. 4, 76. ' Cone. Aurelian, ann. 849.
*-
-*
May 19.] B. Alcuin. 267
in the meetings of the king's council of Vassals, the placitum regis, synodus regia ; and the government of ecclesiastical affairs having thus passed into the hands of the State, synods of bishops and clergy became more rare, and at length ceased altogether. This arrange- ment completed the downfall of the metropolitan system. The king became the sole and sovereign judge of the bishops. " If one of us, O King," wrote Gregory of Tours to King Chilperic, " shall have wished to transgress the path of justice, he is judged by thee, but if thou trans- gressest, who is to call thee to order ? We may speak to thee, and if it pleases thee, thou mayest attend ; but if thou wiliest not to listen, who is to condemn thee, except He Who is very Justice ? " ^
In proportion as the bishops rose higher in political in- fluence, the other clergy sank deeper. No free man was allowed to receive orders without royal permission. Hence the clergy were chosen for the most part from among the serfs, and on this very account the bishops acquired an unlimited power over them, which frequently manifested itself in the most tyrannical conduct.
S. Boniface found the German Church in this deplorable condition ; bishops and abbots mere creatures of the State, wealthy, and sometimes not even in holy orders, but enjoy- ing the temporalities without a thought of qualifying to administer the spiritualities of their charge. He strove to bring the bishops from this servitude to the crown into responsibility to the pope, hoping thereby to check the evil. But this could not be done without an alteration in the law. The abbots and bishops who held many feudal tenures were bound by a law of Charles Martel to march to war at the head of their retainers ; they were often engaged for a long period in fighting, and their abode in the camp
' Hist. Franc, v. 19.
-*
*-
268 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
speedily assimilated them in morals and sentiments to the other feudal lords. For the extension of Christianity, the first missionaries had established numerous monastic colo- nies throughout Germany, and these were supported by the agricultural labours ofthe m onks. But by degrees the farming interest prevailed over the spiritual in these houses. The monks proved themselves admirable agriculturists, and for the sake of the cultivation of their fields neglected the harvest of souls. When Charlemagne ascended the throne, he found the Frank and German episcopal thrones and abbots' chairs occupied by men without learning and without morals, fighting, drinking, hunting, and utterly neglectful of their spiritual calling. Charlemagne was resolved to raise the people committed to his charge from the chains of ignorance and barbarism which held them fast. To efifect this he must begin by correcting the evil in head-quarters. He cut off the chief occasion of evil by exempting the bishops and abbots from military service, and he forbade them to hunt with hawks and hounds in the forests. This latter regulation, though repeatedly formulated, he found it impossible to enforce. The prelates were ready enough to be exempt from war, which broke in on their ease, but the chase was to them a darling pleasure of which they would not be deprived. At length Charle- magne, finding it impracticable to enforce his rule, and unwilling to acknowledge the impracticability, by law permitted the higher clergy to hunt, on condition that the skins of the beasts killed were used for binding books.
This reminds us of a story told of Charlemagne which we should be sorry to suppose is fabulous. He was one day hunting in a forest, and lost his way. As night fell he came to a little church and priest's house, and asked for a lodging. It was readily accorded him, but his fare was scanty, though the best the poor priest could offer. On
*-
-*
Mayig.] B. Alcuifl. 269
the morrow the priest made the emperor hear mass, which he celebrated very devoutly, and then gave his guest, of whose rank he was ignorant, a plain breakfast, and dis- missed him with his blessing. The emperor, pleased with his piety, and compassionating the poverty of his host, offered him a piece of gold, which the priest refused, saying, " Sir, I need not thy money, but if thou killest a hind to-day, I pray thee give me the skin, for my old Breviary sadly needs a cover." Charlemagne, ever ready to advance good men, did not forget the poor priest in the forest, but on the see of Treves falling vacant, appointed to it his host of that night. If this story rests on a true foundation, the priest was Amalarius, who afterwards as archbishop became a confidential adviser of the emperor.
Charlemagne, under the direction of Alcuin, founded schools in which young clerics could be educated and disciplined, to shine as lights in the world, and not become a scandal to Christendom like the clergy under his prede- cessors. By the determination and zeal of the emperor and Alcuin, the sees were one after another filled with worthy bishops, men of learning and piety, and Charle- magne was able to entrust to them the execution of justice in matters temporal within their dioceses as well as spiritual government. He also chose from among them extra- ordinary judges {Missi dotninici) whom he sent round every year into every province to exercise the highest oversight and power in things ecclesiastical as well as civil. With every bishop thus appointed was also a count. Bishops and counts were everywhere instructed to work together, and mutually to support one another ; ecclesiastical usurpations were not endured,' and the oppressions of the counts and dukes weighing on the people were removed.
In addition to these duties, the bishops were required to
' See Capitulars for a.d. 779 (Baluz.,i., 197, 387.)
-^
*-
-*
270
Lives of the Saints.
[May 19
make a visitation of their dioceses every year, to maintain ecclesiastical discipline and correct religious abuses. Where there was encroachment on ecclesiastical rights, the bishop might not judge alone, as an interested party, but was obliged to have seven assistants to try the case.
Ecclesiastical legislation, the highest judicial power in Church affairs, the management and confirmation of eccle- siastical decrees, still remained with the king, who sum- moned the spiritual as well as the civil feudatories to diets, conducted spiritual causes by the Apocrisiarius or Archica- pellanus, afterwards Archica?ueliarms, as he did civil causes by the Counts Palatine {Comites Palatii).
At the time of Charlemagne, and afterwards, the bishops lived in some splendour, and in travelling were followed by a large company of servants, as may be judged from the amount of daily provision allowed to them when on a journey. According to a capitulary of Louis the Pious, in 819, every bishop received daily for his provision, when on a journey, 40 loaves, i pig, 3 sucking-pigs, 3 hens, 15 eggs, 3 tons of beer, and 4 sacks of grain for the horses.
In spite of all Charlemagne's efforts to rectify the morals of the clergy, the religious condition of the priests was not raised to the level he desired. It was not possible to remedy abuses in a generation, but much, very much, is certainly due to that great king. In the capitularies for 811 those clergy are censured who endeavour to obtain the goods of a dying man by promising him Heaven if he makes the priest his heir, and threaten him with hell if he leaves it to the rightful heirs ; they are also censured for caring rather to adorn their churches than advance Chris- tian virtue, to improve the singing rather than stimulate their clerks to a holy life, and also for using compulsion to force men into the service of God. However, the moral tone of the clergy must have been much higher at this time.
^-
■*
for we find certain decrees of earlier capitularies, such as those forbidding priests to have more wives than one, and to attend buffooneries and coarse spectacles, no longer re- peated. Later we know that Hinkmar, archbishop of Rheims, commanded his clergy "not to indulge in vulgar sports with bears and tumblers," and that monks were forbidden spending their time in sporting with baiting bears and other wild beasts.'
Charlemagne was not content with leaving the bishops to their own devices. At times he sent orders that they were to preach and cause to be preached in their dioceses on some doctrine or moral theme he designated, and at other times he sent a question in theology to his bishops, requiring them to write answers to it, so that he might be satisfied of their theological knowledge and orthodoxy. By this means no ignorant prelate remained undetected, no unworthy bishop unmasked ; for if a bishop did not reach his standard in intellectual or moral requirements, he was forthwith deposed. By this means also Charlemagne raised the character, and thereby the influence of the whole body of clergy, and from being the disgrace they became the honour of his empire. But this dignity to which he elevated them, and the authority it acquired for them, tended to their corruption under his unworthy and feeble successors.
With what justice Charlemagne ruled the Church may be gathered fro'm an incident which exhibits his conduct in the brightest colours. Bishop Theodulf of Orleans and Alcuin had quarrelled. Alcuin had been for many years the teacher, friend, and confidant of the emperor, who reverenced and loved this virtuous man, and made him his adviser in matters of the deepest import to the church and the empire. Now it fell out that a priest who had received
' Raumer, " Hohenstaufen," vL, pp. 410, 43a. ^ *
*-
272 L wes of the Saints. [May 19.
sentence for his crimes from Bishop Theodulf escaped from prison, and fled to Tours, where he took refuge in the sanctuary of S. Martin's abbey. Theodulf reclaimed the runaway ; the monks of S. Martin's vehemently main- tained their privilege of sanctuary, and armed their re- tainers against the officers of the bishop. All this took place without the knowledge of Alcuin, who was abbot of S. Martin's, but when he did hear of it he took the side of his monks, and refused to deliver up the culprit to the imperial officer sent by orders of Charlemagne to claim him. Alcuin wrote to the emperor a vehement letter maintaining the rights of the sanctuary ; but Charlemagne earnestly deprecated the warmth and opposition of his bosom friend and preceptor, and insisted on the surrender of the culprit. This firmness no doubt cost him a pang, and it hastened Alcuin's death, but it shows that Charle- magne preferred justice to every other consideration.
A great improvement was also wrought by Charlemagne and Alcuin in the condition of the monks. To wean them from absorption in agricultural pursuits, they laboured to impress on them the importance of learning, and by appointing to the monasteries abbots who had been trained in the schools founded and watched over by Alcuin, an impulse was given to learning which made the monasteries of S. Gall, Fulda, and in later times Corbey and others, famous nurseries of science and book knowledge.
But to return to the main outline of the life of this great instigator of all the reforms wrought by Charlemagne, whose influence on the condition of the Church in that and the succeeding reigns can hardly be over estimated.
It is probable that Alcuin attended Charlemagne in many of his expeditions ; he lost no opportunity in making his influence with the king subservient to the interests of
*-
*
Mayig.] B. Alcuill. 273
his native country ; and after remaining about eight years in France, he resolved to return to York. Charlemagne exacted from him a promise that he would return speedily, and make the court of France his lasting home ; a promise Alcuin was not unwilling to give, for he saw that God had given him a mighty work to accomplish, and that he dare not withdraw from it.
"Although," said he, " I possess no small inheritance in my own country, I will willingly resign it, and in poverty serve thee, and remain with thee ; let it be thy care to obtain the permission of my king and my bishop."
Alcuin came to England in the year 790, as ambassador from Charlemagne to King Offa, to arrange some mis- understanding which had arisen between the two great monarchs, and it appears to have been his intention to return the same year. But he found the kingdom of Northumbria involved in troubles ; and in a letter written at this period, he laments that he should not be able to return to France at the time he expected. It was not till 792 that, pressed by the letters of Charlemagne, who desired his assistance in repressing a heresy which threat- ened to cause a division in the Frank Church, Alcuin left England for the last time, with the permission of Bishop Eanbald and King Ethelred. He took with him a number of English ecclesiastics, who were afterwards present at the council held in 794, at Frankfort-on-the Maine, where the doctrinal innovations of Felix of Urgel and Elipandus of Toledo, who taught that Christ was the Son of God by adoption, were condemned. From 792 to 796 Alcuin continued to reside at the court of Charle- magne, in the same relation to his patron as before his visit to England. His position was rendered agreeable not only by the favour of the royal family, but by being in the society of the most learned and enlightened men of
VOL. v. 18
-®
*-
274 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
his time. Yet his happiness was frequently clouded by grief at the troubles with which his native country was visited, and of which he heard from his Northumbrian friends. In 793, the Norsemen devastated the island of Lindisfarne, profaned its church, and murdered several of the monks. This calamity, which Alcuin made the subject of one of the best of his poems, is alluded to in several of his letters, and appears to have afforded him keen distress, as well it might, for Lindisfarne was the ancient Christian metropolis of the North of England, endeared by the memory of S. Cuthbert, S. Aidan, and many another illustrious saint.
During the years which preceded a.d. 796, Charlemagne had been occupied in wars against the Saxons and Hains, and in that year, having reduced both these nations to his obedience, his mind was occupied with measures for the propagation of Christianity among the latter people. He consulted Alcuin, who, in an interesting letter, congratu- lated him on his conquests, and advised him to proceed with mildness rather than harshness in the work of con- version. Alcuin's liberality of sentiment is remarkably conspicuous in this letter ; he recommends the king in the first place to select with care the missionaries whom he is about to send amongst them, and to avoid burdening the converts by the imposition of heavy rates for the support of the Church. He warns him against the immediate ex- action of tithes, and entreats him to consider that a tax which established Christians reluctantly consented to pay, would prove intolerable to new converts, and might em- bitter the people against the religion of Christ.
The correspondence of Alcuin during the year 796 is unusually interesting, and exhibits his intelligent mind in a new hght. Among the scholars at the court of Charle- magne it was a custom, not unknown in other times, of taking literary names and surnames. In this learned
*-
-*
May 19-] B. Alcuiu. 2*]^
nomenclature Alcuin himself took the name of Flaccus Albinus, which in after ages was frequently appended to his writings ; the common name whereby Charlemagne was designated was David ; among x\lcuin's more immediate friends, Riculf, archbishop of Mainz, was addressed as Damoetas ; the name of Arno was changed into Aquila, and to Angilbert was given the name of Homer.
At last, at the age of sixty, Alcuin resolved to leave the court, and spend the rest of his days in seclusion. He determined to return to his native country, and repose for the remainder of his life in the cloister of the monastery of York. He had already made preparations for his departure, and was entrusted with rich presents for King OfFa, when the intelligence of new troubles in the kingdom of Northumbria, and of the murder of King Ethelred, diverted him from his project. " I was prepared with gifts of King Charles to visit you, and to return to my country," he wrote to Offa; " but I have thought it better on account of the peace of my people to remain in pilgrimage, not knowing what I should do amongst those with whom no one can be secure, and who cannot profit by healthful counsel."
From this moment Alcuin resolved to spend the re- mainder of his life in the Frankish empire ; but persisting in his intention of living in solitude, he demanded the permission of his royal patron to retire to Fulda. Charles was unwilling to lose the society of his favourite instructor and adviser, and refused his consent; but shortly after- wards he gave him the abbey of S. Martin, at Tours, which had become vacant by the opportune death of the abbot Itherius, with permission to spend as much of his time as he liked within the walls of that monastic house. Alcuin's mode of life at Tours was one rather of splendid retire- ment than of pure renunciation of the world. His theo- logical opponent, Elipandus, blamed him for his enormous
-*
*-
2 76 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
wealth. Though he seldom quitted his monastery, he continued still to be the favourite counsellor of the king, who in cases of emergency went to consult him at Tours. The monastic school which Alcuin established there, produced some of the most remarkable scholars of the following age. He sent a mission to England to procure books for its library, and it was there that he composed most of his writings.
In 803 the quarrel between himself and Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, already mentioned, led to a temporary estrange- ment between himself and Charlemagne.
Alcuin died at Tours, on Whit-Sunday, the 19th of May, 804, and was buried with great pomp in the church of S. Martin. In the Lyceum at Bamberg is preserved a Bible written by the hand of Alcuin for Charlemagne.
S. DUNSTAN, ARCHB. OF CANTERBURY. (a.d. 968.)
[Sarum and York Kalendars. Roman Martyrology and modem Anglican Kalendar. Also in some Martyrologies on Sept. 7. Autho- rities : — A life by Bridferth the priest, a contemporary and eye-witness of much that he describes. He died about 980. Secondly, a life by Eadmer (d. 1 124) ; thirdly, one by Osbern, monk of Canterbury, written shortly after 1070 ; and fourthly, a life by Osbert, a monk, in the 1 2th cent., of which only fragments exist. In addition to these are notices in the early Chroniclers of England, as the Saxon Chronicle, the Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, &c.]
S. DuNSTAN was born in the first year of King Athelstan, in 925, if we may trust the Saxon chronicle, near Glaston- bury, where his father, Heorstan, was a great Thane. His mother's name was Cynethrith. He was sent as a boy to the famous abbey of Glastonbury to be instructed. There he was attacked with brain fever, which made him so noisy in the dormitory that he was given into the charge of a
*-
*
Mayig.] ^S. DuftStaM. 277
woman to nurse him. One night he started out of his bed and ran out, beating the air as if he were driving off savage dogs, rushed up a spiral staircase that led to the roof of the church, ran out on the lead, and was seen balancing himself on the sharp ridge. After a while he came down and entered the church, where he dropped into a refreshing sleep, and next morning when he awoke had no remem- brance of his nocturnal exploit.
After a while he was introduced to the court of King Athelstan, where he did not stay long, as he made some enemies there. Indeed, his fellow pages, probably jealous of the favour with which he was regarded by the king, ducked him in a horse-pond, and set the dogs on him, when he crawled out covered with mud. At court he fell desperately in love with a beautiful and amiable girl, and wished to marry her, but his kinsman, Alphege the Bald, Bishop of Winchester, urged him to elect the life of self- renunciation, and to become a monk. Dunstan sharply answered that he preferred a pretty young wife, and her loving society to the woollen {bidentenus) smock of a monk. Not long after Dunstan was afflicted with a violent eruption over his body, which was intolerably irritating, and made him fear for his life. Then he resolved to renounce the idea of marriage, and to become a monk. And he went to his kinsman Alphege. Now one day Bishop Alphege was dedicating the church of S. Gregory that had been newly built in the city of Winchester, and towards evening, ere he went away, the bishop said to Dunstan, " The hour of com- pline is come, say the office with me in the church." So they went in both together, and after the first versicles they put their heads together for their mutual confession,^ and then separated them for the absolution. And just at that
1 "Jungentes capita sua in unum : quo confessiones suas solita consuetudine vicessim proderent."
*
*-
278 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
moment down came a great stone between their heads, brushing the hair of each, but doing no harm to either. We should say that the masons had not done their work in the new church as thoroughly as might be. Birdferth the biographer says that evidently the devil had thrown it at Dunstan, but missed his aim.
At Glastonbury he made the acquaintance of S. Ethel- fleda (April 13) who lived near the church and was old and infirm. Another lady of his acquaintance was a noble matron named Ethelbyra, who used to do needlework for the church and its ministers. Dunstan, who was skilful with his brush, painted a stole, and then took it to her to fill in with silk and precious stones ; and as she was fond of music, and he was a skilful musician, he took with him his harp to sing and play to her whilst she embroidered his stole. But after dinner he hung up his harp against the wall, near the open window, as the lady was obliged to attend to her servants ; and, to every one's astonishment, the harp played faint chiming chords of seolian music.^ This astonished all, who looked upon the circumstance as a prestige of the future greatness and sanctity of the harper. The sound was, in fact, drawn out by the current of air setting the strings in vibration, as in the beautiful toy, the aolian harp.
Dunstan occupied his monastic life at Glastonbury in acquiring all the learning of the time, and he devoted him- self as well to various arts useful for the service of the Church as music and painting, and he became especially skilful as a metal-worker. A MS. illuminated by his hand still exists in the British Museum. On the death of King Athelstan, Edmund the Magnificent, his brother, was elected king ; and he recalled Dunstan to court. The saint went,
1 The imagination of the hearerb led them to detect in the harp music the melody of a well-known antiphon.
*-
May 19.] 6". Dufistau. 279
but again got into trouble with the courtiers and the king through the severity of his virtue, and was obliged to leave. One day, almost immediately after, the king was hunting a stag on the Cheddar (Ceoddir) hills, when the hart rushed to the edge oi the rock and plunged over the precipice. The king was galloping with relaxed rein, and saw instantly his peril. '* God help me, and I will bring Dunstan back ! " and he drew in his rein. The horse rose in the air on its hind legs, and reeled back, and the king was saved. He instantly recalled Dunstan and said to him, " Quick, saddle your nag, and accompany me." Dunstan obeyed, wonder- ing much at this change in the king's mood, and Edmund led the way in the direction of Glastonbury. After they had reached the abbey, Edmund entered the church and prayed ; then rising, he took Dunstan's hand, and leading him into the abbatial chair, seated him, and said, " Be thou the possessor and staunch defender of this throne, and whatever thou findest deficient for the conduct of Divine worship, I will supply out of my treasury."
This was in 943, and if we are to believe the date of his birth given by the Saxon Chronicle, and confirmed by Bird- ferth, he can only have been eighteen at the time Edmund died by the hand of Liofa at Pucklechurch in 946. The body of the murdered king was brought to Glastonbury, and was there buried by Abbot Dunstan.
King Edmund left two sons, Edwy and Edgar, but as they were very young, his brother Edred was chosen to succeed him. Edred was crowned at Kingston by Arch- bishop Oda, and was acknowledged by the Northumbrians, who, however, revolted in 948 or thereabouts, and chose Eric, son of Harold Blue-tooth, king of Denmark, to be their king. Edred marched against them and defeated them. During the war Dunstan persuaded him to send his treasures to Glastonbury to be under the care of the monks.
*
28o Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
On the death of Ethelgar, bishop of Crediton in Devon, the king urged Dunstan to accept the vacant see, but he steadily refused. Edred died at Frome in 955, and was buried at Winchester. He was succeeded by Eadwig, or Edwy, the eldest son of King Edmund. He was still very young, only sixteen. His reign, like those of his father and uncle, was very short, and, unlike theirs, it was also very unlucky.
It is difficult to arrive at the truth of the events that occurred in the reign of King Edwy, both because the Saxon Chronicle is very short, and because all other accounts contradict one another so that one hardly knows what to believe. For S. Dunstan had by this time taken a very decided line, and this made two great parties in the Church and in the country generally ; one favoured his scheme of reform, and the other as vehemently opposed it. And as historians favoured one or other side, so is their history coloured. Edwy was the enemy of Dunstan ; therefore the admirers of Dunstan have tried to make out Edwy as bad as possible. On the other hand, most modem writers have a prejudice against S. Dunstan, and try to make the best of Edwy, and the worst of S. Dunstan. If the Saxon Chronicle gave us a full account we should know better what to believe. But as it is we must put the story together as well as we can by comparing the different accounts. The Chronicle does not tell us any harm of Edwy, and Ethelwerd and Henry of Huntingdon give him a good character, and lament his early death. On the other hand it is certain that he drove S- Dunstan out of the kingdom. Now when we see how well things went on both under Edred, and afterwards under Edgar, when S. Dunstan was again in power, and how badly they went on under Edwy, we shall think that Edwy did a very injudicious as well as blameworthy act in driving S. Dunstan away. Dunstan was unquestionably a great and
*-
May 19.] '5'. Dwistan. 281
wise minister, but it was very natural for several reasons that Edwy should dislike him.
S. Dunstan's great object was the reformation of the Church. Among the Anglo-Saxon clergy, before S. Dunstan, marriage was rather the rule, celibacy the exception. The clergy attached to the cathedrals lived under a kind of canonical rule, but were almost universally married. In the richer conventual foundations, ruled mostly by noble and warlike abbots, and noble abbesses, they took no vow of chastity; they married or remained unmarried at their will.^ The only true monks were the Benedictines, who had been introduced by S. Wilfred. They were chiefly in the northern kingdoms, but throughout England their monasteries had been mercilessly wasted by the Danes ; a white cowl was as rare as a ghost. When Dunstan began his career there were true monks only at Abingdon and Glastonbury. These things S. Dunstan and Bishop Ethelwald, of Winchester, and others who acted with them, set themselves heartily to reform. And besides, Dunstan was very anxious to get all the cathedrals and other great churches into the hands of monks instead of secular priests of any kind, whether married or not. This he succeeded in doing afterwards, under King Edgar, to a very great extent.
Now it could not but happen that different men should think very differently about changes like these. King Edred had been S. Dunstan's friend throughout, and had supported him in effecting his reform ; but King Edwy took the other side. He does not appear to have been at all an enemy of the Church or a robber of monasteries, as some have made him out, for he was a benefactor of the churches both of
1 " Monasteria nempe Angliae ante Reformationem a Dunstano et Edgaro regc instituta, totidem erant conventus clericorum saecularium ; qui amplissimis posses- sionibus dotati et certis sibi invicem regulis astricti, officia sua in ecclesiis quotidie frequentarunt ; omnibus interim aliorum clericorum privilegiis, atque ipsa uxores ducendi licentia gaudebant." — Wharton, Anglia Sacra, 1. p. 218.
-*
►J«-
*-
282 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
Abingdon and Glastonbury. But he did not like S. Dun- stan, and did not approve of his schemes. So far from turning out secular priests to put in monks, he seems to have sometimes intruded secular priests into churches where there had always been monks. William of Malmesbury bitterly complains that secular priests were put into his own church at Malmesbury, making it what he calls "a stable of clerks," as if secular priests were no better than beasts- It is no wonder then that we find the whole history both of Edwy and Edgar perverted by party spirit. S. Dunstan's friends make out all the ill they can against Edwy, and S. Dunstan's enemies all the ill they can against Edgar. Hence both Edwy and Edgar are charged with crimes which most likely neither of them ever committed. As far as can be made out, it is most likely that Edwy, before he was chosen king, or directly after, married, or took to live with him — it is impossible to decide which — a beautiful young girl named Elgiva. She was so near of kin to him that according to the laws of the Church he could not lawfully marry her. Anyhow, this union caused great scandal and offence. Now on the very day of the coronation of Edwy, during the banquet, the king left the hall where were his nobles, bishops, and aldermen, and went into another room to visit his wife and her mother. This was resented by the guests as an insult, and they were very angry. S. Dunstan rose from his seat, and with the Bishop of London, pursued the king into the apartment of his wife, and insisted on his return. We may well believe that much strong language was used on both sides, and that neither Edwy nor Elgiva ever forgave S. Dunstan. It so happened that a party of the monks at Glastonbury were displeased at the changes effected by their abbot, and complained to the king. Edwy caught at the opportunity, and either in 956 or 957, S. Dunstan was driven out of the kingdom and took refuge in Flanders.
1^ »J,
May 19.] ^. Dunstan. 28
'O
Now, either by the banishment of Dunstan, or his way of governing in general, Edwy gave great offence to his subjects. In 957 Mercia and all England north of the Thames revolted, and chose Edgar, the brother of Edwy, to be king. Edgar, king of the Mercians, as he is now called, at once sent for S. Dunstan to come to him, and pre- sently gave him the bishopric of Worcester, and afterwards that of London. S. Dunstan held both these bishoprics at once, a thing clearly against the laws of the Church, and only perhaps justified by the necessities of the time. The next year, 958, Archbishop Oda, acting in concert with S. Dunstan, forced Edwy to separate from Elgiva. This we know from the Saxon Chronicle, and it looks very much as if the intercourse between the king and Elgiva was such as very generally to outrage the public sense of decency, so that Wessex was getting discontented as well as Mercia, and the only resource for Edwy, if he hoped to retain his crown, was to surrender Elgiva. It is difficult to decide what happened next. All we know for certain is that Archbishop Oda died the same year that he divorced Elgiva, and that Edwy died the year after, 959. But there are all sorts of stories, told by later writers, too readily accepted as true by prejudiced modern historians, which are so utterly contradictory and so confused as to their dates, that we may hope they are false. Some woman or other, by whom they mean Elgiva, was killed by the Mercians in their revolt; according to another account, Archbishop Oda had her branded in the face with a red- hot iron to destroy her seductive beauty, and then banished her to Ireland ; and when she ventured to come back, Oda's men caught her at Gloucester, and cut the sinews of her legs, so that she died in this horrible way. Now it is clear that Elgiva could not have been killed in the revolt of Mercia, because she was divorced afterwards, and the other
284 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
dreadful tale rests on no contemporary authority.* Some say that Edwy was killed, but this is uncertain. Anyhow he died in 959, and was buried at Winchester.
On the death of Edwy, his brother Edgar, king of the Mercians, was chosen king by the whole nation, and he reigned over the West Saxons, Mercians, and Northum- brians. He was only sixteen years old when he was elected king.
It is almost as hard to write about Edgar as about his brother, because the accounts which we have of him are very contradictory. The earliest and best writers glorify him as the best and greatest of kings ; the Saxon Chro- nicle can hardly speak of him without bursting forth into poetry. On the other hand there is no king about whom there are more stories to his discredit. Here we can see party spirit. There is no doubt that under Edgar England was wonderfully prosperous and wonderfully peaceful. His chief adviser was S. Dunstan, and he was the great friend of the monks. This was enough to make one side call him everything that was good, and the other side call him everything that was bad. Most likely he was neither so good nor so bad as he is pictured. But the prosperity of his reign is certain, while the crimes attributed to him are very doubtful. They come mostly from stories in William of Malmesbury, who allows that he got them from popular ballads, the most untrustworthy of all sources of history ; but some are on better authority.'^ Archbishop Oda died a little time before King Edwy, and in his place Elfsine, bishop of Winchester, was appointed. But Elfsine set out to Rome to get his pall from the pope, and died of cold in crossing the Alps. In 959, the first
' It is first told by Osbem, who wrote about 1070.
* As Osbem, who relates the story of the outraged nun, for which S. Dunstan put the king to penance.
*
May 19.] 5". Dunstan. 285
year of King Edgar, Dunstan was chosen to the arch- bishopric of Canterbury,' and the next year he went to Rome and got his pall from Pope John XII. For the time Dunstan had all his own way, and he and Ethelwald, bishop of Winchester, Oswald, bishop of Wor- cester, and others of their party, turned the secular priests out of many of the chief churches of England, and put in monks. Dunstan was the king's chief adviser, and the laws of Edgar, his strict government, the peace and pros- perity of England under him, and his authority over all the other princes of Britain, speak for themselves, and we cannot doubt the wisdom and prudence of the great counsellor.
That the cares of ofifice in Church and State did not prevent S. Dunstan from cultivating his darling art of music appears from a pretty story told by his biographer. One night the archbishop dreamt that he was at a royal wedding feast, and was listening to the song of the minstrels, when one of the harpers, a youth in white raiment, came to him, and asked why he did not join in the nuptial hymn. " Because I know not the words and the strain," said the sleeper. Then the young harper played and sang to him, " O Rex gentium dominator omnium, propter sedem Majestatis tuse da nobis indul- gentiam, Rex Christe, peccatorum. Alleluia." On awaking he repeated to himself the words and music, and caUing together the singers of Canterbury, taught them the anti- phon, and committed it to writing, lest it should be for- gotten. Nor did he forget his monks at Glastonbury, but visited them and knew each personally, and not they only, but all the little scholars in the monastery school.
One day Dunstan was at Bath, which he visited yearly
' On the day that he said mass for the first time in Canterbury Cathedral, a white dove appeared fluttering over his head. The bird afterwards perched on Bishop Odo's tomb.
286 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
for the sake of the hot springs. After dinner, falling into an abstracted mood, he saw one of the little boys of Glastonbury borne heavenward by angels. A day or two after a monk from Glastonbury came to Bath to see Dunstan. " How are all the brethren ? " asked the abbot. "All are well," answered the monk. "What all?" again asked Dunstan." " All but one little fellow, a boy who is dead." " God rest his happy spirit," said S. Dunstan ; " I have seen him borne by angels to everlasting peace."
Now Dunstan was the friend and counsellor of the king, whom he probably loved. But Edgar, if an excellent administrator of the laws, was not a man of peculiarly virtuous life. Some of the stories told of him are most probably false, but others must be true. Osbern, the biographer of S. Dunstan, says that the king had been guilty of a great crime. He had dishonoured a nun. Shortly after, Dunstan came into his presence. The king, as usual, extended his hand to him, but the archbishop, with flashing eye, folded his arms, and turned abruptly away, exclaiming, " I am no friend to the enemy of Christ. "
The king, awed, threw himself at his feet. Then S. Dunstan bitterly reproached him, and he saw that Edgar was moved to true contrition ; he laid on him a penance, that for seven years he was not to wear his crown, and was to fast twice in the week.
He was determined to enforce the celibacy of the clergy, and his efforts drew on him bitter hatred. " Let them live canonically or go out of the Church," said he. A gathering of both parties was held at Calne, in a large hall. The opposition was headed by a Scottish bishop called Heornel, or Bernal.^ After a long altercation, Dunstan, now very aged, exclaimed, " We have wasted
' Hector Boece calls him Fothadh, and pretends that he obtained the victory over S. Dunstan.
-*
May 19-] 6". Duustan. 287
much time in endless dispute ; I confess I cannot force you to obedience. But I appeal to Christ, to His judg- ment I commit the cause of His Church." Scarcely had he said the words than, with a crash, a portion of the roof fell on his opponents, and they escaped from the ruins bruised and with broken bones.
On the death of King Edgar, before another king could be chosen, there was a great movement against the monks. Elthere, alderman of the Mercians, and others, began to turn the monks out of several churches, and to bring back the secular canons with their wives. But Ethelwin, alder- man of the East- Angles, whom men called " the Friend of God," gathered a meeting of the wise-men of his own earl- dom, and they determined to keep the monks, and they joined with Brithnorth, alderman of the East-Saxons, and assembled an army to defend the monasteries. Mean- while there was a dispute who should be king. Both the sons of Edgar were very young ; Ethelred was about seven, Edward about thirteen. Of the two it was most natural to choose Edward, and King Edgar, before he died, had said that he wished it to be so. But some were in favour of Ethelred. An assembly was called for the election of a king. Then Dunstan took his cross, and leading Edward into the midst of the assembly, stood and demanded the throne for him. All bowed to the authority, and Edward was consecrated by the archbishop, in 975. The story of his death has been already told (March i8th). When Dunstan was called to crown Ethelred, in 979, as he placed the golden circle on the boy's brow, he said, if we may trust Osbern, " Since thou hast attained the kingdom through the death of thy brother, whom thy mother hath shamefully slain, the sword shall never depart from thy house, till it hath cut it off, and the crown shall pass to one of another race and language."
-*
288 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
On the feast of the Ascension, in the year 968, S. Dun- stan sang mass and preached to the people with singular unction. After he had returned to the altar to complete the sacrifice, he turned to give the benediction, and then again he addressed the people, and announced to them that he was about to die. After the conclusion of mass, he went to the refectory and dined, then returned to the church and pointed out the place where he desired to be laid. Three days after, he was no more.
In Art S. Dunstan is chiefly honoured by a foolish repre- sentation of the devil caught by the nose by a pair of blacksmith's pincers. The legend relates that Satan tempted him as he was at work at his forge, by assuming the form of a beautiful girl. Dunstan at once attacked him with his pincers and put him to flight.
S. PETER CELESTINE, POPE.
(a.d. 1296.)
[Canonized by Clement V., in 1313. Authorities : — His enrlylife was written by himself. A metrical life by his contemporary, James Cardinal of S. George, another metrical account of the election and coronation of Boniface VIII., a metrical account of the canonization of Peter Celestine, both by the same Cardinal of S. George. A prose life compiled from the above and other contemporaiy accounts by Peter de Alliaco (d. 1495). AlsoPtolemyde Lucca or de Fiadonibus(l327)in hisAnnals,and Historia Ecclesiastica. Ptolemy was a witness of several of the events in the brief reign of this pope.]
" The names of my parents were Angelerius and Maria," says S. Peter, " they were just before God, as I trust, and were praised among men ; simple and upright, and fearing God ; humble and peaceable, not rendering evil for evil ; but giving alms and showing hospitality to the poor. After the similitude of the patriarch Jacob, they begat twelve
*
->^
May 19.] ^S'. Peter Celestine. 289
sons, and ever they asked of God, that one of them might be his true servant." The childhood of Peter, one of these sons, was full of visions and marvels, which all tended to foster his desire of leading a solitary and religious life. Yet he was retarded by fear. He thought that a hermit's life in a lone place must be fearful at night, and he shuddered at the prospect of dreams, and weird sights and sounds, far from the dwellings of men. He was twenty before he mastered this fear, and then he set out with a companion, somewhat older than himself. They had not gone far along a mountainous road, before his comrade changed his mind, and deserted him. Peter pursued his way till he came to a bridge ; the night was falling, the wind moaned and filled the young man with alarm. But pluck- ing up his courage, he ran across the bridge, and entering a chapel at the end of it, dedicated to S. Nicolas, implored courage to overcome his natural timidity. Near this chapel, in a solitary place among the rocks, he heard there was an ancient abandoned hermitage. It was then winter, and great snow-flakes fell and drifted and rushed in eddies about the mountain side. Two peasant women, com- passionating the young man, endeavoured to dissuade him from seeking the hermitage, but he resisted their kindly intentions and persevered. He found the hermitage empty, save for the snow which had been swept in. He entered, and cast himself on the ground, hugging two loaves he had bought and brought with him. In the night he was solaced with visions of angels showering red roses about him. But after a few days he found a large rock, and he burrowed beneath it, and made himself a cell, in which he could not stand upright, and in this he spent three years, among toads, lizards, and scorpions. Sometimes when he slept toads would creep into his bosom, and when he awoke, he shook them out, by loosing his belt. " And,"
VOL. V. 19
-*
^-
290 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
says the historian, *' when he saw them spitting at his feet, he knew they were toads."
After three years spent in this miserable hole, he went to Monte Moroni, and found a cave there in which he took lip his abode, and at this time he was ordained priest, that he might minister to those who gathered around him as his disciples, or came on pilgrimages to consult him. But he soon wearied of this new retreat, and not liking his com- panions, he fled away and found a spacious cavern among the rocks of Monte Magella, in whose curved sides echoed the merry bells of a distant church, to his no small wonder. He was soon discovered and followed by his disciples, and they planted green bushes before the yawning mouth of the cave, and found it right pleasant there on a burning sum- mer's day to see the light come in green and cool through the leaves, and listen to the echo of the distant bells. And near to the cave they erected a little chapel, on a ledge where they noticed a dove loved to rest, and in the chapel they placed an altar, where the hermit priest said his mass daily. The chapel was of logs and rudely built, but it was the gate of heaven to many who worshipped there. And when Peter Moroni turned at the altar to give benediction, through the rude door he saw a pleasant sunny picture, a grassy foreground sprinkled with hare- bells quivering in the mountain air, bold precipices, their mossy ledges blue with gentian, and ancient pines clinging to the rock and balancing themselves above a gorge. But in winter the scene was changed. The rocks were glazed with frozen streams, the rents in the mountain sides choked with snow, and the wind heaped the white drifts about the cavern, and penetrated to the interior, freezing the brothers, so that some lost their fingers, and one lost both hands through frost-bite and subsequent mortification.
But a change was to take place in the life of Peret
*-
-*
May 19] S. Petev Celestine. 291
Moroni for which he was quite unprepared, so unexpected was it.
Rome was torn by factions. The Orsini and the Colonnas were at the head of two powerful opposed parties. Pope Nicolas IV. had closed his short pontificate in disaster, shame and unpopularity. The total loss of the last Christian possessions in the East, the fatal and igno- minious close of the Crusades, the disgrace thereby which was supposed to have fallen on all Christendom, but with especial weight on its head, bowed Nicolas down in shame and sorrow. Italy was a prey to civil war, and the pope had become enslaved to the Colonnas and favoured their schemes of aggrandizement. There were acts in these terrible wars that raged in almost every part of Italy, which might have grieved the heart of a wise and humane pontiff more than the loss of the Holy Land. The mercy of Christendom might seem at a lower ebb than its valour. Nicolas is said to have died in sorrow and humiliation ; he died accused by the Guelphs of unpapal Ghibellinism, still more on account of his favour to the Colonnas, Ghibelline by descent and by tradition, and hereafter to become more obstinately, furiously, and fatally Ghibelline in their im- placable feud with Boniface VIII.^
Nicolas IV. died on the 4th of April, 1292. Only twelve cardinals met to form the conclave for the election of his successor. Six of these cardinals were Romans, of these two were Orsini, and two were Colonnas ; four Italians ; two French. Each of the twelve might aspire to the supreme dignity. The Romans prevailed in numbers, but were separated by implacable hostility; on one side stood the Orsini, on the other the Colonnas. Three
1 Guelph and Ghibelline were names given to the papal and the imperial factions whose conflicts destroyed the peace of Italy from the lath to the end of the 15th century.
-*
*-
292 Lives of the Saints. [May 19
times they met without being able to come to an election. The heats of June, and a dangerous fever, drove them out of Rome ; and Rome became such a scene of disorder, feud, and murder, that they dared not re-assemble within the walls. Two rival senators, an Orsini and a Colonna, were at the head of the two factions. Above a year had elapsed, when the conclave agreed to meet again at Perugia. The contest lasted eight months longer. Charles, king of Naples, came to Perugia to overawe the conclave by his personal presence. No one of the cardinals would yield his post to his adversar}'- ; yet all seemed resolute to confine the nomination to their own body.
Matters had come to a dead lock, when a sudden and unexpected mode of solving the difficulty was proposed and readily accepted by all as a means of disappointing the opposite faction, if not of satisfying their own. Latino Malebranca, cardinal of Ostia, designedly, or accidentally, spoke of the wonderful virtues of the hermit Peter Moroni ; the weary conclave listened with interest. It was in that perplexed and exhausted state, when men seize desperately on any strange counsel to extricate themselves from their difficulty. Peter Moroni was unanimously elected to fill the chair of S. Peter. The fatal sentence was hardly uttered when the brief unanimity ceased. Some of the cardinals began to repent or be ashamed of their precipi- tate decree. No one of them would undertake the office of bearing the tidings of his elevation to the pope. The deputation consisted of the archbishop of Lyons, two bishops, and two notaries of the court.
The place of Moroni's retreat was a cave in a wild mountain, above the pleasant valley of Sulmona. The ambassadors of the conclave with difficulty found guides to conduct them to the solitude. As they toiled up the rocks, they were overtaken by Cardinal Colonna, who had
*-
* *
May 19.] 6". Petev Celestine. 293
come to take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself of influencing the simple-minded pope to favour his interests and those of his family and faction. The ambassadors found an old man with long shaggy beard, sunken eyes, overhung with heavy brows, and lids swollen with perpetual weeping, pale, hollow cheeks, and limbs meagre with fasting. They fell on their knees before him, and Peter Moroni, the hermit, saw an archbishop, a cardinal, and two bishops, prostrate before him, hailing him as head of the Church. He stared through the bars that closed his den, blank and bewildered, and thought it was a dream. But when he knew that all this was sober earnest, his terror and reluctance knew no bounds, and he protested with tears his utter inability to cope with the affairs, and to administer the sacred trust, that had thus unexpectedly devolved upon him.
The hermit in vain tried to escape ; he was brought back with respectful force, and guarded with reverential vigilance
The king of Naples, accompanied by his son, hastened to do honour to his holy subject, and secure him as an useful ally. The hermit-pope was conducted from his lowly cave to the monastery of Santo Spirito, at the foot of the mountain. Over his shaggy sackcloth the hermit put on the gorgeous attire of the pontiff, and followed by a train of his brother hermits, he entered the city of Aquila riding on an ass, with a king on each side of him to hold his bridle.
If there had been more splendid, never was there so popular an election. Two hundred thousand spectators, (of whom the historian, Ptolemy of Lucca, was one), crowded the streets. In the evening the pope was com- pelled again and again to come to the window to bestow his benediction on the enthusiastic crowd.
But already the cardinals might gravely reflect on their
^ lit
^ _ >J<
294 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
strange election. Peter refused to go to Perugia, and even to Rome, and they declined to accompany him to Naples, whither King Charles for state policy was bent on drawing him. Two only, Hugh of Auvergne, and Napoleon Orsini, accompanied him to Aquila. But the way in which the pope began to use his vast powers still more appalled and offended them. He bestowed the offices in his court and about his person on rude Abruzzese hermits, whose virtues he knew, but who were unknown to political intrigue and party faction. High at once in his favour rose the French prelate, Hugh de Billiome, cardinal of S. Sabina, who had been the first to follow Malebranca in the acclamation of Pope Moroni. On the death of Malebranca, Hugh was raised to the bishopric of Ostia and Velletri, and became dean of the College of Cardinals. Large pensions, charged on great abbeys in France, gilded his elevation, and the Frenchman seemed destined to rule with undivided sway over the feeble and simple old man. The Italians looked with undisguised jealousy and aversion on the foreign prelate, whose influence they dreaded.
Cardinal Napoleon Orsini assisted at the inauguration, gave to the pope the scarlet mantle, the mitre set with gold and jewels ; and it was he who announced to the people that Peter had taken the name of Coelestine V. The foot of the lowly hermit was kissed by kings, cardinals, bishops, nobles. The number of the clergy present caused singular astonishment. The cardinals, though reluctant, would not allow the coronation to proceed without them. They came slowly and in unwilling haste.
A few months showed that meekness, humility, holiness, unworldliness might make a saint, but they were not the virtues best calculated to adorn a pope at that period, when intrigue, party-strife, and political entanglements, needed a clear head, a firm will, and a resolute hand, to
^ Ij,
May 19.] S. Peter Celestine. 295
guide the vessel of S. Peter. Coelestine V. was one swayed by his advisers rather than one capable of directing events. To Naples he had been led, as it were, in submissive triumph, by King Charles ; he took up his abode in the royal palace, an unsuspecting prisoner, treated with the most ostentatious veneration. So totally did the harmless Coelestine surrender himself to his royal protector, that he stubbornly refused to leave Naples. His utter incapacity for business soon appeared ; he lavished offices, dignities, bishoprics, with profuse hand ; he granted and revoked grants, bestowed benefices vacant, or about to be vacant. He was duped by the officers of his court, and gave the same benefices over and over again : but still the greater share fell to his brethren from the Abruzzi, and in this he acted wisely and well, for he knew these men to be faithful and pious. His officers issued orders of all kinds in his name. He shrank from publicity, loving retirement, and when he was required for the ceremonial duties of his office, the old man was found weary and weeping before the altar of his oratory. His weakness made him as prodigal of his power as of his gifts. At the dictation of King Charles he created at once thirteen new cardinals, thus outnumbering the actual conclave, all in the French and Neapolitan interest, thus disturbing or overthrowing the balance of parties in that assembly. Unsuspicious of the designs of the king, he re-enacted the conclave law of Gregory X., which required the papal election to take place immediately on the death of a pope, and the complete seclusion of the cardinals till a successor was chosen. This King Charles was eager to see carried into effect, that on the death of Coelestine V., whom he was resolved to retain in Naples, the nomination of his successor might be under Neapolitan influence. I The weary man became anxious to lay down the heavy
^ 4
IJK
296 Lives of the Samts. [May 19.
burden his shoulders had never been fitted to bear. Two of his new cardinals were old Abruzzi companions, members of his congregation, and he appointed them that they might be his constant associates in the cell he had constructed in the palace, where they might fast and pray together.
He issued a bull organizing the congregation of solitaries who had gathered around him in the mountains, into a religious Order, called after him Celestines, and he made them independent of episcopal authority, depending solely on the Apostolic see. He even attempted to reduce the whole Order of S. Benedict to his rule, and passing through Monte Cassino, he persuaded the abbot to abandon the black habit for that of his Order, which was grey. He sent fifty of his monks to Monte Cassino, appointed a superior from among them, and exiled those Benedictines who refused to submit to the change. The majority waited with submission till the end of his pontificate, when they reverted to their ancient rule. But a more serious mistake was his giving the Arch- bishopric of Leon, with the right to administer both the spiritualities and the temporalities, to Louis, second son of Charles, king of Naples, a youth aged twenty-one, who was not even in minor orders.
On all sides rose murmurs, and none were more sensible of his incapacity to govern the Church than the humble old man who had been so suddenly elevated to this place of responsibility. Advent approached, and he could not endure the thought of that holy season being interrupted by the din of politics and the excitement of business. He drew out a bull empowering three cardinals to administer the affairs of the Church during Advent, intending to retire into his cell, shut the door, and be alone with God and his own heart. But Cardinal Rossi Orsini, hearing of this, fortunately arrested the Pope's hand before the bull was signed and sealed, and warned him on no account to run
*-
May 19.] S. Peter Celestine. 297
such a risk as to constitute three popes at a time. The old man submitted with a sad sigh. But now all his mind was bent on resignation of his office. To this he was urged by several of the cardinals, who assured him that his unfitness was ruining the Church and imperilling his own soul. " Oh wretched man that I am ! " cried the aged man, weeping. " They tell me that I have all power on earth over souls, and yet I cannot be sure of the salvation of my own. Why may I not cast off this burden, too heavy for me to bear? God asks of no man to perform impossibilities, and for this I am unfit. I see the cardinals divided ; I hear complaints made against me on all sides. O that I might go back and rest in my solitude."
So he made up his mind to abdicate. But such a pro- ceeding little accorded with the schemes of King Charles ; and he resolved to frustrate it by appealing to the conscience of the Pope. A solemn procession was appointed from the great church of Naples to the royal palace where the Pope resided ; in it were many bishops and a great multi- tude of people. On their arrival before the windows of the Pope, the whole procession cried out for his benediction. Coelestine came to the window, then one of the bishops in the procession besought an audience on behalf of this great multitude. It was granted ; then falling on his knees he sup- plicated the Pope in the name of the king, the clergy, and all the people of Naples not to abandon them, but to remain their pastor, exercising the office wherewith he was entrusted by God. The Pope faltered, and gave his reluctant consent. Then all broke into a joyful Te Deimi, and the procession returned to the cathedral.
This was at the beginning of December, 1294. The king thought that the danger was overpassed. But on a sudden, on S. Lucy's day, the conclave was summoned. The Pope sat in his scarlet mantle, and with the tiara on
^
)J« ^
298 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
his head. Suddenly he drew forth a written abdication, and presented it to the cardinals. He alleged his age, his rude manners and ruder speech, his incapacity, his inex- perience, as causes of his abdication. He confessed humbly his manifold errors, and entreated the conclave to bestow upon Christendom a pastor not liable to so many infirmities. The conclave urged the Pope first, while his authority was yet full and above appeal, to issue a con- stitution declaring that a pope might at any time lay down his dignity, and that the cardinals were at liberty to receive that voluntary demission of the popedom. No sooner was this done than Coelestine retired ; he stripped off at once the cumbrous magnificence of his papal robes, and with it seemed to lay aside the care that had weighed him down. Joyously the old man returned to the conclave in his coarse and ragged habit of brown serge ; and the cardinals were melted to tears at the sight.
As soon as he could, the discrowned pope withdrew to his old mountain hermitage. He had occupied the Holy See five months and a few days since his election, and since his consecration three months and a half. His abdication, in his own time, was viewed in a different light by different minds. None could question his sanctity, his holy simplicity and angelic purity of aim, but men differed in their opinions as to the propriety of his resignation. The monastic writers held it up as the most perfect example of Christian perfection ; but the scorn of men has been expressed in the undying verse of Dante, who condemned him who was guilty of the baseness of the " great refusal " to that circle of hell where are those disdained alike by mercy and justice, on whom the poet would not condescend to look. But Petrarch, in his declamation on the duty of a solitary life, has counter- acted this adverse sentence by his poetic praise. Assuredly the act of Coelestine was no contemptuous rejection of a great
^- . -^
-^
May 19. S. Peter Celestine. 299
place offered him by God, but was the natural result of the weariness, the regret of an old man suddenly wrenched from all his habits and pursuits and plunged in the turmoil of a life for which he was unfitted by nature and by training.
The old man had returned to his mountain cave, and hoped there to lay his bones in peace. But it was not so to be. He was succeeded on the papal throne by Bene- detto Gaetani, who assumed the name of Boniface VIII. At once a hostile party manifested itself, and the new pope feared lest the name of Ccelestine should be used as an excuse for revolt against his supremacy. Boniface was not the man to allow any advantage to his adversaries, and ad- versaries he knew well that he had, and would have more, and these more formidable, if they could gain possession of the person of Ccelestine. Ccelestine had abandoned the pomp and authority, he could not shake off the dangers and troubles, which belonged to his former state. The solitude, in which he hoped to live and die in peace, was closely watched. Once he escaped, and hid himself among some other hermits in a wood. But he could not elude the emissaries of Boniface. He received an alarming warning of danger, and fled to the sea coast, in order to take refuge in the untrodden mountain fastnesses of Dal- matia. His little vessel was cast back by contrary winds ; he was taken and sent, by order of Boniface, to Anagni. All alone the road, for above one hundred and fifty miles, the people, deeply impressed with the sanctity of Ccelestine, crowded around him with perilous homage. Some of the more zealous implored him to resume the pontificate. The humility of Ccelestine did not forsake him for an instant ; everywhere he professed that his resignation was volun- tary, rendered necessary by his incapacity. He was brought into the presence of Boniface. Like the meanest son of the Church, he fell down at the feet of the pope ;
-^
*-
300 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
his only prayer, a prayer urged with tears, was that he might be permitted to return and rest unmolested in his mountain hermitage. Boniface addressed him in harsh terms. He was committed to safe custody in the castle of Fumone, watched day and night by soldiers, like a prisoner of state. His treatment is described as more or less severe, according as the writer is more or less favourable to Boni- face. By one account his cell was so narrow that he had not room to move ; where his feet stood when he cele- brated mass by day, there his head reposed at night. He obtained with difficulty permission for two of his brethren to be with him ; but so unwholesome and noisome was the place, that they were obliged to resign their charitable office. According to another statement the narrowness of his cell was his own choice ; his brethren were allowed free access to him ; he suffered no insult, but was treated with the utmost humanity and respect. Death released him before long from his spontaneous or enforced wretchedness. He was seized with a fever, generated perhaps by the un- healthy confinement, accustomed as he had been to the pure mountain air. He died May 19th, 1296, and was buried with ostentatious pomp in the church of Ferentino, that the world might know that Boniface now reigned without a rival. Immediately on the death of Boniface, the canonization of Coelestine was urgently demanded. It was granted by Clement V. in 13 13.
«-
*
Mayig.] S. YvO. 30I
S. YVO, P.C. (a.d. 1303.)
[Canonized by Clement VI. in 1347. His elevation is celebrated in the diocese of Treguier on Oct. 29th. Authority : — The Acts of his canoni- zation, begun in 1330, from which several condensations have been made ; amongst others a life by Maurice Gaufred. The Acts contain the testi- mony of many who saw and knew S. Yvo.]
In looking through the names and Hves of saints, we see the deadening effect of prosperity and wealth on the religious susceptibilities of man. Rich and flourishing countries have produced few saints, whereas sad and poor ones have developed them in crowds. Brittany and Ire- land have brought forth thousands ; Normandy not one, at least of Norman race. Few have come of the shopkeeper class, and few from the ranks exercising legal professions. All are kings or beggars, prelates or monks, warriors or hermits. There are one or two physicians, but their legends are apocryphal. Brittany has had the privilege of adopting a saintly lawyer, S. Yvo ; but the popular con- science protests to this day against the intrusion, by sing- ing on his festival, " Advocatus et non latro, Res miranda populo " (a lawyer and not a thief, a marvel to people).
S. Yvo or Yves, called " the advocate of the poor," was born in the year 1253, at Kermartin, near Treguier. His father Heler was Lord of Kermartin. His mother's name was Azon du Quenquis. To this day Kermartin is in the possession of a descendant.' The house in which S. Yvo was bom was pulled down only in 1834, but the bed has been preserved, and is still shown.
' It remained in the direct line till the 15th century, when Olivier de Kermartin married Plesson de Quelin ; their great grand-daughter married Maurice de Quelen. From this family it passed to that of La Riviere, which possessed it in 1790. The heiress of La Riviere was the wife of the famous Lafayette, who sold Kermartin to the Count of Quelen, and it belongs to the family of this name at the present day.
*-
-*
*-
^-
302 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
At the age of fourteen, Yvo was sent by his parents to the Paris schools, where he studied canon law. At the age of twenty-four he studied civil law at Orleans. On his return to Brittany he was appointed by the bishop of Rennes to be ecclesiastical judge in the diocese. At that time a great number of cases, which now come under the jurisdiction of the civil courts, were heard in the ecclesi- astical courts. At Rennes he received minor orders, as it was considered necessary for the bishop's judge to be a clerk, but it was not till 1579 that the judge was required to be in priest's orders.
But Alain de Bruc, bishop of Tr^guier, having claimed Yvo for his diocese, he obeyed the appeal of his bishop and changed his tribunal, though not his office. In 1285 he was ordained priest and made incumbent of Tredrez, He held this cure eight years, and then received that of Lohanec, which he retained till his death.
As judge and lawyer he proved himself to be strictly just, and what was a marvel in those days — inaccessible to bribes. When people were at variance, he sought by all means to reconcile them, and adjust their quarrels amic- ably, without bringing them into court. When a poor person was summoned before him by a richer for some wrong done, he endeavoured to dissuade the prosecutor from bringing the law to bear on the offender, and to per- suade him to accept instead an apology and a promise of amendment. In countless instances, he saved the expenditure of large sums in lawsuits, and prevented quarrels from developing into estrangement and hostility. He was an umpire rather than a judge ; or rather, he only assumed his judicial authority as a last resource, when all means of reconciliation proved ineffectual. He also pleaded the cause of the poor when oppressed, before the civil tribunal, taking no payment, but acting solely from his love of justice and desire to see wrongs redressed.
May 19.] 6". VZJO. 303
His living brought him in a good revenue, which he spent in charity. He turned his parsonage into an orphan- age, and those orphans whom he could not receive he provided for in other houses, and when they were arrived at a proper age, he apprenticed them to different trades. His sympathy with the poor was unbounded. One morning he found a poor half-naked man lying on his door-step. He had spent the night there, shivering with cold. Yvo, shocked, made the beggar sleep in his bed the following night, and lay himself outside the house on his door-step, that he might learn by experience what the sufferings of the poor are, and knowing them, might be always ready to feel for them.
On another occasion, he was being fitted by a tailor with a new coat. As the tailor was walking round him, putting the coat about his person and admiring the fit, Yvo's eyes were gazing through his window into the yard, and there he saw a miserable man with only a tattered coat on his back, through the rents of which his flesh was exposed. He plucked off his new coat, ran down stairs, and gave it to the beggar, saying to the astonished tailor, " There is plenty of wear still in my old coats. I will content myself with them."'
Again, one day he visited a hospital, and when he saw how ill-clothed some of the sick persons were, he pulled off his own garments and gave them away, then wrapping a coverlet round him, sat on the side of a bed, till his servant had brought him another suit from home. As a priest he was full of zeal, and preached with unction. Wherever he went, he sought to instil the love of God, and a knowledge of their duties into the hearts of those with whom he was cast. In the fields he walked by the ploughman, and taught him prayers. He sat under a furze bush on the moor beside shepherd boys and instructed them in the use
* — —.J,
*-
304 Lives of the Saints. [May 19.
of the rosary, and he caught little children in the street, and told them Bible stories of God and Jesus Christ. His Bible was his constant companion, and when he slept, he laid his head on the Sacred Book as his pillow.
One story of his advocacy of the poor must not be omitted. Two rogues brought a heavy chest to a widow lady, which they said contained twelve hundred pieces of gold, and requested her to take charge of it for them, till they reclaimed it. Some weeks after, one of the rogues returned, claimed the box and carried it off. A few days later the other rogue came and asked for the chest, and because the widow could not produce it, brought her before the court and sued her for twelve hundred pieces of gold. Yvo heard that the case was going against her, when he entered the court, offered to take her defence, and then said, " My cHent is ready to restore the money to both of the men who committed it to her trust ; therefore both must appear to claim it."
At this the accuser turned uneasy, and attempted to escape, but he was restrained, and then confessed that this was a plot between him and his companion to extort money from the widow, and that the chest really contained nothing but bits of old iron.
On the Good Friday before his death, S. Yvo preached on the Passion in seven different parishes, one after another, for he was so earnest, eloquent, and his Breton sermons were listened to with such emotion by the peasants, that the clergy in his neighbourhood sought his aid in the pulpit, and he never denied it, when it was possible for him to give it. He said his last mass on the Vigil of the Ascension, and died on the 19th May, 1303, at the age of fifty.
At the French revolution his reliquary was destroyed, but the bones were preserved, and have been re-enshrined
*-
:i:. : 1
ui:!.ii.i:.y.iiiiiitii[Ui,i„i,>i
S. YVO. After Cahier.
-^
May 19.
-^
May ig-l
6". Vvo.
305
at Treguier. S. Yvo is generally represented with the cat as his symbol ; the cat being regarded as in some sort sym- bolizing a lawyer, who watches for his prey, darts on it at the proper moment with alacrity, and when he has got his victim, delights to play with him, but never lets him escape from his clutches.
3. Dunstan. See p. 288.
VOL. V,
b — ^
20
-*
»J«-
306 Lives of the Saints. [May 20.
May 20.
S. Plantilla, Matr. at Rome, circ. a.d. 66.'
S. Basilla, V.M. at Rome, ^rd cent.
SS. Thallel^eus and Comp., MM. at jSgte, in Cilicia, a.d. 284.
S. Baudelius, via at Nismes.
S. Anastasius, Archb. of Bourges, a.d. 624.
S. Eth ELBERT, K. of Eost AiigUa, A.D. 792,
S. Ivo, B ofChartres, a.d. 1115.
S. Bernardineof Siena, O.M., a.T). 1444.
B. COLUMBA OF ReaTI, V., A.D. 15OI.
SS. Martyrs, at Nismes, a.d, 1567.
S. BASILLA, V.M.
(3RD CENT.)
[Roman Martyrology, and those of Usuardus, Ado, Notker, &c. ; also three copies of the ancient Roman Martyrology called that of S. Jerome. Authority : — The ancient Acts of S. Eugenia (Dec. 25th), which were known and quoted in the 5th cent., at the Council of Epaone ; but these acts are nevertheless to be rejected as fabulous, as Papebroeck shows, by pointing out such egregious blunders in history as divest them of all claim on our attention as trustworthy. Nevertheless, Giry and Guerin give them without a hint that they are not trustworthy authority.]
HE ancient martyrologies say that on this day Basilla, a virgin, suffered death on the Salarian way at Rome. In 1654 the catacomb of S. Cyriacus was being investigated, when on the third story was found a white marble slab covering a sepulchre, on which was engraved Basilla, with the symbols of a palm-branch and a dove, emblems of martyrdom and virginity. Within were found the bones, together with a phial such as that frequently found in the catacombs, and supposed to contain some of the blood of the martyr.
' The mother of S. Flavia Domitilla (May 12th) ; she is said to have been baptized by S. Peter, and to have been present at the martyrdom of S. Paul.
*-
-*
May 20.] S. Thallelceus. 307
The bones were enshrined and given the Hospital Sisters of the Hotel-Dieu at Bayeux, in Normandy. In 1833 two portions of the bones were removed and given by the bishop to the hospital at Rennes, and to the nuns of Notre Dame de la Charitd at Bayeux.
SS. THALLEL^US AND COMP., MM. (a.d. 284.)
[By the Greeks on this day. Also the Modern Roman Martyrology, which, however, wrongly calls him martyr at Edessa ; Baronius, who in- serted the name, being misled by the Mensea ; but it is clear from the Acts tliat he suffered at .^gas. Authority : — The ancient Greek Acts, written in a simple style, are not altogether trustworthy, for they have received inser- tions of fabulous matter. Later Greek Acts exist, composed evidently by some one who had never seen the older Acts, and the discrepancy between the two accounts is very wide. In one, the executioners, Alexander and Asterius, are converted and suffer. In the other Alexander and Asterius are not executioners at all, but bystanders. In one Thallelceus is thrown into the sea at ^gse, in the other he is cast overboard at Edessa. The torments are different in both. The ancient Acts tell the story of the governor adhering to his throne, the later Acts are silent on this point.]
THALLELiEUS was a physician of Anazarbus, a city of Cilicia. On the promulgation of the decree of the Em- peror Numerian against Christianity, he took refuge in an olive plantation, but was caught and dragged to .^gae on the sea coast, where he was brought before the governor, Theodorus, who ordered a rope to be passed between the bone and tendon of his feet behind the ankle, and that Thallelseus should be thus suspended, head downwards. The executioners, Alexander and Asterius, attempted to evade the performance of this cruel sentence, and were punished for their compassion with death. ^ Then the
' The story her- has a strong touch of the grotesque. The Ancient Acts say " Et iratus Praeses dixit ; Ponite mihi sellam ; ego ipse consurgam et terebrabo
-^
»J<-
308 Lives of the Saints. [May 20.
governor ordered the martyr to be cast into the sea, and when he scrambled on shore, bade his head be struck off.
S. ETHELBERT, K.
(a.d. 792.)
[Cologne and Lubeck Martyrology of 1490. Greven in his additions to Usuardus. Anglican Martyrologies, and the Bollandists. Authorities : — Mention in the Saxon Chronicle, the Chronicle of John of Brompton, Matthew of Westminster, Florence of Worcester, William of Malmes- bury, &c.]
Ethelbert was the son and successor of Ethelred, king of the East Angles. He came to the throne veiy young, at the time that the powerful Offa was king of the Mercians. Offa was in many things a good and just ruler, but he was guilty of a signal act of treachery to Ethelbert, prompted thereto by his wife Quendritha.
The young prince, disregarding the forebodings of his mother, came to the court of Offa at Sutton Wallis, in Herefordshire, to seek the hand of his beautiful and pious daughter Alfreda. Offa received him with great respect and hospitality. But the queen, Quendritha, was full of ambitious schemes, and she said to the king, " Behold, God has this day given your enemy into your hands, whose kingdom you have so long and daily coveted ; now destroy him secretly, and his kingdom will be yours and for your heirs for ever." The king hesitated. It was the old story of Jezebel and Ahab coveting Naboth's vineyard over
ejus talos. S. Thallelseus dixit ; Surge Praeses et veniens perfora talos meos. Ut autem surrexit Prseses thronus in quo sederat adhsesit posterioribus ejus, et omnes qui sedebant in templo elata voce exclamaverunt. Magnus est Deus Christianorum, qui ejusmodi mirabilia facit. Praeses autem non ferens vere- cundiam, vocavit B. Thallelseum dicens, Ora Deum tuum, Thallelaee, et excidat a me thronus ; vere enim Deus tuus magnus est. Orante autem B. Thallelaeo, decidit ab illo thronus."
4.-
-^
May 20.] S. Bernardine, 309
again. How it ended is not clear. The Saxon Chronicle says that Ethelbert's head was struck off, but Matthew of AVestrninster tells another tale, on what authority is doubt- ful. He says that the queen placed a richly adorned chair in the bedroom of the young king over a trap door in the floor, and on the chair placed silk cushions. The young man, on reaching his room after a banquet, flung himself into the chair, when the trap gave way, and he was pre- cipitated into a vault where some of the servants of the queen were stationed, and they suffocated him with the silk cushions.
It can hardly be doubted that Offa was privy to the commission of the murder. He certainly lost no time in taking advantage of it, for he sent troops into East Anglia and annexed it at once to his own possessions. Then, as usual, he built churches and monasteries to atone for his wickedness, especially Hereford Cathedral, which was dedicated to S. Ethelbert, and where he was buried. Some say that he went a pilgrimage to Rome \ at any rate he gave much to churches at Rome, and especially to the English school there. Alfreda, abhorring the crime that had been committed by her parents, retired to Croyland, where she spent forty years in seclusion, and died in the odour of sanctity.
S. BERNARDINE OF SIENA, O.M. (a. d. 1444.)
[Canonized by Nicholas V. in 1450. Authority : — His life, written a few months after his death by his disciple, Bishop John Capistran. Another by Maphjeus Vegius, an eye-witness of much that he relates.]
On the 8th September, 1380, S. Bernardine was born at Dassa, a little town near Siena. He lost his mother when he was aged three, and his father when he was six years
-*
310 Lives of the Saints. [May 20.
old, and was then taken by one of his aunts to live with her. This good woman educated him in virtue, and the boy grew up gentle, pious, bashful. At school he retained the same simplicity and purity, inspiring reverence even in the school-boys who were his associates, to such an extent that they were careful not to use improper words before him. If some of them were conversing on unbecoming topics, and the saintly child drew nigh, "Hush," one of them would say, " here comes little Bernardine."
He is said once at table to have rebuked a gentleman who began to make coarse jokes and tell unseemly stories. The boy's cheek grew scarlet, his eye flashed, and he started up exclaiming, " Remember, you are a Christian." The gentleman looked at his noble, excited young face, and was silent.
In the year 1400 a terrible plague broke out in Italy, and Siena was not spared. Bernardine devoted himself to the care of the sick at a time when fear of infection dried up the ordinary springs of compassion. He collected twelve young men like himself, and together they served the sick, removed corpses from the houses, carried those infected to the hospital, and were unremitting in their attendance to the plague stricken during the four months that the pestilence raged. When the plague abated, and his energies were less taxed, he fell ill, and for some time hovered between life and death. On his recovery he devoted himself to an aged aunt of ninety years named Bartholomea, who was blind and palsied ; he bore with her infirmities and tended her with the most loving gentleness till her death. After he had closed her eyes he went to live with a friend outside Siena ; in his house one day as he prayed before his crucifix, it seemed to him as if the nakedness of his Saviour on the cross, bereft of friends, possessions, clothes, without even a grave, reproached him, and he resolved to give up all that was his own, and
i *
S. BERNARDINE OF SIENA. After Cahier.
May 20.
May 20.] 6*. Bernardine. 3 1 1
enter the Order of S. Francis. He took the habit in the convent of Colembierro, at some little distance from Siena, in his twenty-ninth year. He soon became remarkable as a preacher, and his sermons produced an astonishing effect on sinners, melting them to tears and bringing them to re- pentance. He was accursed to the Pope of heresy, but when called to Rome by Martin V. he completely satisfied the Holy Father of his orthodoxy. The accusation was founded on his carrying about with him the name of Jesus written on a piece of paper, surrounded with rays of light. This he was wont to show to the people, when in a trans- port of love for that sacred Name, he called them to the Lord who bought them.
This had been exaggerated, and the story altered, and an accusation built on it, but when the Pope found out how baseless was the charge, he dismissed Bernardine with honour. His labours to advance true religion tended at the same time to the extension of the Order of the Friars Minors. When he joined it, the Order had only twenty convents in Italy, ere his death there were about two hun- dred. He was appointed by Pope Eugenius IV. to be Vicar-General of the Order in Italy. He was offered several bishoprics, but he refused them all. He died at Aquila in the Abruzzi on the vigil of the Ascension in 1444, at the hour of vespers, as the friars were chanting in choir the proper antiphon, " I have manifested Thy Name unto the men which Thou gavest me out of the world : Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me ; and they have kept Thy Word."
He is represented in art in the habit of a Minorite, with an I.H.S. or the name of Jesus surrounded by rays, on his breast, and with the three mitres he refused to accept at his side. Or with a trumpet, as from his preaching power he obtained the appellation of " the Gospel trumpet."
-*
T — ijf
312 Lives of the Saints. [Mayao.
SS. MARTYRS OF NISMES. (a.d. 1567.)
[Venerated only at Nismes. They have never been canonized. Au- thorities : — Baragnon : Hist, de Nismes, &c.]
It is hard to say on which side most atrocities were committed in the reHgious wars in France, in the i6th century. If the CathoUc cause was sulHed by the cruelty of Monluc, the Calvinist side was disgraced by the bar- barity of Des Adrets. The horrible crime of the massacre of S. Bartholomew produced so vivid an effect on men of the time, and has attracted such attention since, that men have forgotten that the Huguenots had provoked the king and his party to a frenzy of alarm for the safety of his crown and of the Catholic religion. France was at the height of her prosperity, and at peace, when the spread of Calvin's doctrines disturbed the faith and consciences of men, and led to revolts, desecration of churches, and horrible outrages committed upon priests and monks, and faithful Catholic laymen. In taking revenge for these crimes, the leaders of the Catholic party conducted them- selves with such barbarity as did not beseem Christians \ but we must not forget the intense provocation they had received.
At Nismes the Huguenots attacked the churches, de- stroyed the altars, broke the sculptured ornaments, trampled and spat on the Blessed Sacrament, and taking the large crucifix from the principal church, publicly whipped it, and then hacked the figure of the Redeemer to pieces. All the Catholic clergy were driven out of the city, and the exercise of the Catholic religion was rigidly suppressed. On September 30th, 1567, the Huguenots rose against the Catholics, and drove a number of Catho- lics, including the consul, Gui Rochette, into the episcopal
* —
^ ^
May 20.] kSkS". Martyrs of Nismes. 313
palace, shouting, " Kill all the Papists ! " The Catholics were shut up in the cellars of the palace. About an hour before midnight they were dragged out and led into that grey old courtyard, where the imagination can still detect the traces of that cruel massacre. One by one the victims came forth ; a few steps, and they fell pierced by sword or pike. Some struggled with their murderers, and tried to escape, but only prolonged their agony. By the dim light of a few torches, between seventy and eighty unhappy wretches were butchered in cold blood, and their bodies, some only half-dead, were thrown into the well in one corner of the yard, not far from an orange-tree, the leaves of which (says local tradition) were ever afterwards marked with the blood-stains of this massacre.
In the September of the following year, the brutal scenes of violence were renewed ; the city was plundered, and its streets were dyed with Catholic blood. The governor, S. Andre, was shot and thrown out of the window, and his corpse was torn in pieces by the Calvinist mob. In the country round Nismes, forty-eight unresisting Catholics were murdered; and at Alais the Huguenots massacred seven canons, two grey-friars, and several other church- men.
*
314 -^ i'^^s of the Saints. [May ai.
May 21.
S. EusTALlA, V.M. at Saintes, ^rd cent}
S. CoNSTANTiNE, First Christian Emperor, a.d. 337.
SS. Secundus, P.m., and Comi'., MM. at Alexandria, A.D. 356.
SS. Bishops and Confessors under Constantius, in Egypt, a.d. 356.
S. HospiTus, H. at Villa/ranca, near Nice, a.d. 581.'
S. Iberga, V. at Yberghe, in Artois, circ. a.d. 800.
SS. Ehrenfried, Count Palatine, Mathilda, his Wife, and their
Daughter, B. Richeza, Q. of Poland, a.d. 1025, 1035, 1063. S. Silas, B. at Lucca, a.d. 1094. S. GoDRiCK, H, at Finchale, in Durhajn, a.d. 1170.
S. CONSTANTINE, EMP. (a.d. 337.)
[Greek Menology and Mentca, and Arabic - Egyptian Kalendar. Venerated in the Greek Church as Isapostolos, " Equal to an Apostle." Also by the Russian Church. His veneration in the Western Church has never been very general. He receives local veneration at Prague, in Sicily and Calabria. In England also several churches and altars were dedicated to him. Authorities :— Eusebius' Life of Constantine, and Panegyric on Constantine (264-340), Lactantius De Mort. Persec. (250-330); theLettersandTreatisesof S. Athanasius (296-373), Eumenius, Panegyric at Treves (310); Nazarius, Panegyric at Rome (321) ; and Zosimus (circ. 430.)
T is impossible into the compass of a brief
article, such as is admissible into this volume,
to compress a life of this great emperor, so as
to do it justice. And I am not disposed to
accord to Constantine a more lengthy notice than was
given to Charlemagne, for two reasons. First, his life,
like that of Charlemagne, is readily accessible to any
' See Life of S. Eutropius (April 30th). S. Eustalia, or Eustella, is said to have been cruelly put to death by her own brother. Her body was laid in the same tomb with S. Eutropius.
' Called at Nice, S. Sospes.
1^ — .*
-*
May 21] S. Constantine. 315
reader of history, and the lives of these two emperors being of so great importance in their times, and in the evolution of subsequent history, have been dwelt upon at considerable length by writers of profane and ecclesiastical history. Secondly, the claim of Constantine to a place in the ranks of the saints is very questionable. His life was sullied by crimes of the blackest dye, he postponed his baptism to the last moment of his life, and was then admitted to the Church by an Arian.
Yet to him the Church has ever felt grateful, as having delivered her from persecution.
If Constantine was not an Englishman by birth, yet un- questionably he was proclaimed emperor at York. He probably never visited our shores again. Yet the remem- brance of that early connexion long continued. It shaped itself into the legend of his British birth, of which, within the walls of York, the scene is still shown. His mother's name lives still in the numerous British churches dedicated to her. London wall was ascribed to him. Handsome, tall, stout, broad-shouldered, he was a high specimen of the military chief of the declining empire. His eye was remarkable for a brightness, almost a glare, which reminded his courtiers of that of a lion. He had a contemptuous trick of throwing back his head, which, by bringing out the full proportions of his thick neck, procured for him the nickname of Trachala. His voice was remarkable for its gentleness and softness. In dress and outward demeanour the military commander was almost lost in the vanity and affectation of Oriental splendour. He was not an ordinary man. He had a presence of mind which was never thrown off its guard. He had the capacity of casting him- self, with almost fanatical energy, into whatsoever cause came before him for the moment.
Every student of ecclesiastical history must pause for a
-*
^-
*-
3 1 6 Lives of the Saints. [May 21.
moment before the story of the conversion of Constantine. No conversion of such magnitude had occurred since the apostolic age. His rival, Maxentius, was a fierce fanatical pagan. Constantine was approaching Rome ; his fate hung on the result of a battle, he would be the emperor of the world, or be trampled under the feet of the tyrant. Eusebius, on the testimony of Constantine himself, says that as he was in prayer on his march and that about noon, a flaming cross appeared in the sky with the words "In this conquer;" and the following night he saw in a dream Christ bearing the standard of the cross. On consultation with some Christian priests in his camp, Constantine adopted this sacred banner instead of the Roman eagles, and professed himself a convert to the Christian faith. The victory of Constantine over Maxentius was complete. Everywhere the Roman eagles gave way before the standard of the cross, and Christianity became established as the recog- nized religion of the empire, when Constantine assumed the purple.
This was in 312, and it was not till 337 that he was baptized, and that not till he lay a-dying. He was pre- paring for his Persian expedition when an illness super- vened; he went to Helenopolis, to try the mineral waters in the neighbourhood. The illness increased ; a sinister suspicion of poison stole through the palace. He felt that his sickness was mortal, and now at last he determined on taking the step, long delayed, of admission to the Christian Church.
Incredible as it may seem to our notions, he who had five-and-twenty years ago been convinced of the Christian faith ; he who had opened the first general council of the Church ; he who had joined in the deepest discussions of theology ; he who had preached to rapt audiences ; he who had established Christianity as the religion of the empire, was himself not yet received into the Christian Church.
t^
^
-^
May 21.] S. Constantine, 3 1 7
The whole event of his baptism is related in the utmost detail. In the church of Helenopolis, in a kneeling posture of devotion, he was admitted to be a catechumen by the imposition of hands. He then moved to a palace in the suburb of Nicomedia, and then calling the bishops around him, amongst whom the celebrated Arian, Eusebius of Nicomedia was chief, announced that once he had hoped to have received baptism in the waters of Jordan ; but that as God willed otherwise, he desired to receive the rite without delay. The imperial purple was removed \ he was clothed, instead, in robes of dazzling whiteness ; his couch was covered with white also ; in the white robes of baptism, on a white death-bed, he lay in expectation of his end. Then he did an act of justice to the greatest saint of his day, one whom he had harshly treated and persecuted. In spite of the opposition of Eusebius, he ordered the recall of the exiled Athanasius. The Arian influence, though it was enough to make him content with Arian consolations, and Arian sacraments, was not enough to make him refuse justice at that supreme moment to the oppressed chief of the Catholic pariy.
At noon, on the feast of Pentecost, the 22nd May, in the sixty-fourth year of his reign, he expired. A wild wail of grief arose from the army and the people, on hearing that Constantine was dead.
The body was laid out in a coffin of gold, and carried by a procession of the whole army, headed by his son Constans to Constantinople. For three months it lay there in state in the palace, lights burning round, and guards watching. During all this time the empire was without a head. Constans, the youngest son, was there alone. The two elder sons had not arrived. One dark shadow it is pretended rests on this scene. It is said that the bishop of Nicomedia, to whom the emperor's will had been con-
■^
318 Lives of the Saints. [May 21.
fided, alarmed at its contents, immediately placed it for security in the dead man's hand, wrapped in the vestments of death. There it lay, till Constantius arrived, and read his father's dying bequest. It was believed to express the emperor's conviction that he had been poisoned by his brothers and their children, and to call on Constantius to avenge his death. That bequest was obeyed by the massacre of six out of the surviving princes of the im- perial family. With such a mingling of light and darkness did Constantine close his career.^ This story rests on the authority of Philostorgius (d. 430). Although it has been given some prominence by certain writers who delight in casting the suspicion of crime on any great man who has served the Church, it is impossible to admit it as probable. The great crime of Constantine's life was the precipitate execution of his son Crispus and his wife Fausta. How far they were guilty, how far Constantine had been deceived by false accusation, it is impossible to say ; we have no information on which to ground an opinion. But what is certain is, that these executions preyed on the mind of Constantine, and troubled his conscience to the last. Is it likely that he would stain his baptismal inno- cence by inciting his son Constantine to a butchery of the survivors in his family? And that on an obscure sus- picion ? Again, if the will of Constantine was open to be read by Eusebius of Nicomedia, and remained thus for three months, during all which time Constans was in possession of it, is it probable that Constans would have allowed the document denouncing him to death, to remain till the executioner came to receive it from the dead man's hand?
' See Stanley's Eastern Church, Lect. vi.
.J,— ^
May 21.]
6'. Secundus and Comp.
319
-^
SS. SECUNDUS, P.M., AND COMPANIONS, MM. (a.d. 356.)
[Roman Martyrology. Authority : — The Apologia De Fuga and Ep. Ad, Solit. of S. Athanasius.]
In the persecution of the Catholics of Alexandria by George, the Arian bishop, whom the Emperor Constantius had set in the place of S. Athanasius, Secundus, a priest, and several others were killed whilst keeping the feast of Pentecost. George has been already described (see life of S. George, April 24). He is said to have been ordained by Arian bishops in 354. He made his entry into Alexandria during the Lent of 356, and began his high-handed acts of violence immediately on the celebration of Easter. The Catholics assembled for that festival in a desert place near the cemetery, as they would not communicate in the churches from the hands of Arian clergy who denied the Eternal Godhead of the Son. They assembled again in the same place to keep the Whitsun festival. George having heard of it, persuadad the governor, Sebastian, who was a Manichsean, to send troops to punish them. The soldiers rushed sword in hand among the worshippers, and killed the priest Secundus and several of those present. Sebas- tian lit a great fire, and brought several virgins before it to make them confess themselves ready to submit to the false doctrine of Arius. But when he found that they could not be terrified, he stripped them, and beat them on the face till their features were unrecognizable. He took forty men, tied them back to back, and beat them so severely with sharp palm branches that many died of their wounds. Their bodies were cast to the dogs, and their relatives were for- bidden to bury them. Those who survived were banished to the great Oasis By the authority of Sebastian the Catholic clergy were all expelled the city. Virgins were
-*
^-
320 Lives of the Saints. [May 21.
tied to stakes and their sides torn ; the faithful laity had their houses pillaged, and were driven from the town.
The persecution extended throughout Egypt and Libya. Constantius, the emperor, had ordered that all the churches should be given up to Arians, and Sebastian was required to carry this order into execution. He wrote to the governors and military officers of the different districts. The bishops were everywhere imprisoned, the priests and monks thrown into chains and banished. Venerable pre- lates of great age, some who had been bishops under S. Alexander, others under S. Achilles, and some even who had been ordained by S. Peter of Alexandria, the great bishop, who had suffered forty-five years before, were hurried across burning deserts. Several died in exile, several died on their way. Sixteen bishops were sent into banishment, thirty were driven from their sees.
S. ISBERGA, V.
(about a.d. 800.)
[Gallican and Belgian Martyrologies. Regarded as patroness of Artois. Great difficulties stand in the way of giving her history accurately. It is uncertain whether she is to be identified with Gisela, the sister of Charle- magne, or not.]
According to the Artesian tradition, enshrined in the lections of the Breviary of Artois, Isberga was a daughter of Pepin the Short, and sister of Charlemagne. But Egin- hard says that Pepin had only one daughter, Gisela. Gisela is said, in the life of S. Drausinus, to have become abbess of Soissons. Eginhard simply says that Gisela was dedi- cated to a religous life from her childhood, and that she died shortly before he wrote, in her monastery. It is supposed that Gisela came to the hill on which she founded her monastery, and that it was called after her, Gisliberg,
*-
-^
May 21.] kS'. Isberga. 321
the hill of Gisela, and this was in time contracted into Isberg, and the name of the monastery was given to the virgin abbess who founded it. The legend of S. Gisela, or Isberga, is as follows, as given in the "Legendaire de La Morine."
Gisela was the daughter of Pepin the Short and Queen Bertha, and had for her sponsor, by proxy, at the font. Pope Stephen IV., and from him received her name of Ghirla, the Teutonic for a wreath, a word surviving in our English garland. She was so called in honour of her sponsor Stephen, whose name in Greek signifies also a wreath. But the Franks altered the r into s in their vulgar dialect, and called her Ghisla or Gisela. Pepin had built a castle at Ybergh, or Aire, in Artois, and there Gisela made the acquaintance of S. Venantius, a hermit in the neighbourhood, who gave her wise advice, and directed her conscience.
Gisela was sought in marriage by the Emperor of Con- stantinople, and afterwards by a son of one of the English kings, we are not told which. She refused all offers, and beseeching God to remove the occasion of these impor- tunities, was afflicted with an eruption over her face which disfigured her. According to one story, the Anglo-Saxon ambassadors attributed this malady to the witchcraft of S. Venantius, and they attacked and murdered him in his hermitage, and flung his body into the Lys.^
The princess speedily recovered her beauty and health, and was again importuned to give her hand in marriage, this time to a Lombard prince. To escape further annoy- ance, she took the veil, and erected a nunnery on the hill of S. Peter at Aire, near her father's palace, and there spent the rest of her days.
Near the church of S. Iberga, which contains her relics,
' See his life, October loth. VOL. V. 21
*
*-
322 Lives of the Saints. [May 21.
is a fountain called after her name, about five minutes walk on the " Voyette de S. Ibergue," or path of the saint, leading to Wastelau, where was the hermitage of S. Venantius. This path is now cut by the canal of Aire to La Basee. A little chapel overshadowed by elms stands above the well, which is walled round, and has in its side a niche containing an image of the saint. Before the chapel is a broad, turfy terrace, which is crowded with pilgrims on May 2ist, and during the octave, when mass is said in the little chapel.
S. GODRICK, H.
(a.d. 1 170.)
[Anglican and Monastic Martyrologies, Molanus and the Bollandists. Authorities :— A life by Reginald of Durham, written at the request of S. Ailred of Rievaulx, whilst S. Godrick was still alive, and presented to S. Ailred. It must have been written before 1166, the year in which S. Ailred died. This life, from an early copy in the British Museum, has been published by the Surtees Society, Durham, 1 845. Another life, also by a contemporary, Galfred monk of Finchale, derived mostly from Reginald. The following life is condensed from the charming sketch of S. Godrick by Mr. C. Kingsley in " The Hermits."]
In a loop of the river Wear, near Durham, there settled in the days of Bishop Flambard, between 1099 and 11 28, a man whose parentage and history was for many years unknown to the good folks of the neighbourhood. He had come, it seems, from a hermitage in Eskdale, in the parish of Whitby, whence he had been driven by the Percys, lords of the soil. He had gone to Durham, be- come the doorkeeper of S. Giles's Church, and gradually learnt by heart (he was no scholar) the whole Psalter. Then he had gone to S. Mary's Church, where, as was the fashion of the times, there was a children's school ; and, listening to the little ones at their lessons, picked up such
^
-^
May 21.] S. Godrick. 323
hymns and prayers as he thought would suffice his spiritual wants. And then, by leave of the bishop, he had gone away into the woods, and devoted himself to the solitary life in Finchale.
Buried in the woods and crags of the " Royal Park," as it was then called, which swarmed with every kind of game, there was a little flat meadow, rough with sweet-gale and bramble and willow, beside a teeming salmon-pool. Great wolves haunted the woods, but Godrick cared nought for them ; and the shingles swarmed with snakes, — probably only the harmless collared snakes of wet meadows, but reputed, as all snakes are by the vulgar, venomous ; but he did not object to become " the companion of serpents and poisonous asps." He handled them, caressed them, let them lie by the fire in swarms on winter nights, in the Httle cave which he had hollowed in the ground and thatched with turf. Men told soon how the snakes obeyed him; how two especially huge ones used to lie twined about his legs ; till after many years, annoyed by their importunity, he turned them all gently out of doors, with solemn adjurations never to return, and they, of course, obeyed.
His austerities knew no bounds. He lived on roots and berries, flowers and leaves; and when the good folk found him out, and put gifts of food near his cell, he carried them up to the crags above, and, offering them solemnly up to the God who feeds the ravens when they call on him, left them there for the wild birds. He watched, fasted, and scourged himself, and wore always a hair shirt and an iron cuirass. He sat, night after night, even in mid-winter, in the cold Wear, the waters of which had hollowed out a rock near by into a natural bath, and afterwards in a barrel sunk in the floor of a little chapel of wattle, which he built and dedicated to the blessed Virgin
-*
*-
324 Lives of the Saints. [May 21.
Mary. He tilled a scrap of ground, and ate the grain from it, mingled with ashes. He kept his food till it was decayed before he tasted it ; and led a life, the records of which fill the reader with astonishment, not only at the man's iron strength of will, but at the iron strength of the constitution which could support such hardships, in such a climate, for a single year.
A strong and healthy man must Godrick have been, to judge from the accounts (there are two, both written by eye-witnesses) of his personal appearance — a man of great breadth of chest and strength of arm ; black-haired, hook- nosed, deep-browed, with flashing grey eyes; altogether a personable and able man, who might have done much work and made his way in many lands. But what his former life had been he would not tell.
The prologue to the Harleian manuscript (which the learned editor, Mr. Stevenson, believes to be an early edition of Reginald's own composition) confesses that Reginald, compelled by Ailred of Rievaulx, tried in vain for a long while to get the hermit's story from him.
" You wish to write my life ? " he said. " Know then that Godrick's life is such as this : — Godrick, at first a gross rustic, an unclean liver, an usurer, a cheat, a perjurer, a flatterer, a wanderer, pilfering and greedy; now a dead flea, a decayed dog, a vile worm ; not a hermit, but a hypocrite ; not a solitary, but a gad-about in mind ; a devourer of alms, dainty over good things, greedy and negligent, lazy and snoring, ambitious and prodigal, one who is not worthy to serve others, and yet every day beats and scolds those who serve him ; this, and worse than this, you may write of Godrick." "Then he was silent as one indignant," says Reginald, " and I went off in some con- fusion," and the grand old man was left to himself and to his God.
*-
-*
May 21.] 5'. Godrick. 325
The ecclesiastical Boswell dared not mention the subject again to his hero for several years, though he came often from Durham to visit him, and celebrate mass for him in his little chapel. After some years, however, he approached the matter again, and the old man began to answer questions, and Reginald delighted to listen and note down till he had finished, he says, that book of his life and miracles ; ' and after a while brought it to the saint, and falling on his knees, begged him to bless, in the name of God, and for the benefit of the faithful, the deeds of a certain religious man, who had suffered much for God in this life, which he (Reginald) had composed accurately. The old man per- ceived that he himself was the subject, blessed the book with solemn words, and bade Reginald conceal it till his death, warning him that a time would come when he should suffer rough and bitter things on account of that book, from those who envied him. That prophecy, says Reginald, came to pass ; but how, or why, he does not tell.
The story which Godrick told was wild and beautiful; and though we must not depend too much on the accuracy of the old man's recollections, or on the honesty of Reginald's report, who would naturally omit all incidents which were made against his hero's perfection, it is worth listening to, as a vivid sketch of the doings of a real human being, in that misty distance of the Early Middle Age.
He was born, he said, at Walpole, in Norfolk, on the old Roman sea-bank, between the Wash and the deep Fens. His father's name was ^dlward ; his mother's, ^dwen — " the Keeper of Blessedness," and " the Friend of Blessedness," as Reginald translates them — poor and
' The earlier one ; that of the Harleian MSS., which (Mr. Stevenson thinks) was twice afterwards expanded and decorated by him.
-*
*-
326 Lives of the Saints, [May 21.
pious folk; and, being a sharp boy, he did not take to field-work, but preferred wandering the Fens as a pedlar, first round the villages, then, as he grew older, to castles and to towns, buying and selling — what, Reginald does not tell us : but we should be glad to know.
One day he had a great deliverance. Wandering along the great tide-flats near Spalding and the old Well-stream, in search of waifs and strays, of wreck or eatables, he saw three porpoises stranded far out upon the banks. Two were alive, and the boy took pity on them (so he said) and let them be : but one was dead, and off it (in those days poor folk ate anything) he cut as much flesh and blubber as he could carry, and toiled back towards the high-tide mark. But whether he lost his way among the banks, or whether he delayed too long, the tide came in on him up to his knees, his waist, his chin, and at last, at times, over his head. The boy made the sign of the cross, and struggled on valiantly a full mile through the sea, Hke a brave lad, never loosening his hold of the precious porpoise-meat till he reached the shore at the very spot from which he had set out.
As he grew, his pedlar journeys became longer. Repeat- ing to himself, as he walked, the Creed and the Lord's Prayer — his only lore — he walked for four years through Lindsey ; then went to S. Andrew's, in Scotland ; after that, for the first time, to Rome. Then the love of a wandering sea life came on him, and he sailed with his wares round the east coasts ; not merely as a pedlar, but as a sailor himself, he went to Denmark and to Flanders, buying and selling, till he owned (in what port we are not told, but probably in Lynn or Wisbeach) half one merchant ship, and the quarter of another. A crafty steersman he was, a wise weather-prophet, a shipman stout in body and in heart.
^-
* ^
May 21.] S, Godrick. ^ly
But gradually there grew on the sturdy merchantman the thought that there was something more to be done in the world than making money. He became a pious man. He worshipped at S. Cuthbert's hermitage at Fame, and there, he said afterwards, he longed for the first time for the rest and solitude of the hermitage. He had been sixteen years a seaman now, with a seaman's temptations — it may be (as he told Reginald plainly) with some of a seaman's vices. He may have done things which lay heavy on his conscience. But it was getting time to think about his soul. He took the cross, and went off to Jerusalem, as many a man did then, under difficulties incredible, dying, too of ten, on the way. But Godrick not only got safe thither, but went out of his way home by Spain to visit the sanctuary of S. James of Compostella.
Then he appears as steward to a rich man in the Fens, whose sons and young retainers, after the lawless fashion of those Anglo-Norman times, rode out into the country round to steal the peasants' sheep and cattle, skin them on the spot, and pass them off to the master of the house as venison taken in hunting. They ate and drank, roystered and rioted, like most other young Normans; and vexed the staid soul of Godrick, whose nose told him plainly enough, whenever he entered the kitchen, that what was roasting had never come off a deer. In vain he protested and warned them, getting only insults for his pains. At last he told his lord. The lord, as was to be expected, cared nought about the matter. Let the lads rob the EngHsh villains: for what other end had their grandfathers conquered the land? Godrick punished himself, as he could not punish them, for the unwilling share which he had had in the wrong. It may be that he, too, had eaten of that stolen food. So away he went into France, and down the Rhone, on pilgrimage to the hermitage of
^ ^
S. Giles, the patron saint of the wild deer; and then on to Rome a second time, and back to his poor parents in the Fens.
And now follows a strange and beautiful story. All love of seafaring and merchandise had left the deep- hearted sailor. The heavenly and the eternal, the sal- vation of his sinful soul, had become all in all to him ; and yet he could not rest in the little dreary village on the Roman bank. He would go on pilgrimage again. Then his mother would go likewise, and see S. Peter's church, and the pope, and all the wonders of Rome. So off they set on foot ; and when they came to ford or ditch, Godrick carried his mother on his back, until they came to London town. • And there ^dwen took off her shoes, and vowed out of devotion to the holy apostles Peter and Paul to walk barefoot to Rome and barefoot back again.
Now just as they w^ent out of London, on the Dover road, there met them in the way the loveliest maiden they had ever seen, who asked to bear them company in their pilgrimage. And when they agreed, she walked with them, sat with them, and talked with them with super- human courtesy and grace; and when they turned into an inn, she ministered to them herself, and washed and kissed their feet, and then lay down with them to sleep, after the simple fashion of those days. But a holy awe of her, as of some Saint or Angel, fell on the wild sea- farer; and he never, so he used to aver, thought of her for a moment save as a sister. Never did either ask the other who they were, and whence they came; and Godrick reported (but this was long after the event) that no one of the company of pilgrims could see that fair maid, save he and his mother alone. So they came safe from Rome, and back to London town ; and when they were at the place outside Southwark, where the fair maid had met them first,
*-
^ _ >J<
May 21.] S. Godrick. 329
she asked permission to leave them, for she "must go to her own land, where she had a tabernacle of rest, and dwelt in the house of her God." And then, bidding them bless God, who had brought them safe over the Alps and across the sea, and all along that weary road, she went on her way, and they saw her no more
Then with this fair mysterious face clinging to his memory, and it may be never leaving it, Godrick took his mother safe home, and delivered her to his father, and bade them both after awhile farewell, and wandered across England to Penrith, and hung about the churches there, till some kinsmen of his recognised him, and gave him a psalter (he must have taught himself to read upon his travels), which he learnt by heart. Then, wandering ever in search of solitude, he went into the woods and found a cave, and passed his time therein in prayer, living on green herbs and wild honey, acorns and crabs; and when he went about to gather food, he fell down on his knees every few yards and said a prayer, and rose and went on.
After awhile he wandered on again, until at Wolsingham, in Durham, he met with another holy hermit, who had been a monk at Durham, living in a cave in forests in which no man dare dwell, so did they swam with packs of wolves ; and there the two good men dwelt together till the old hermit fell sick, and was like to die. Godrick nursed him, and sat by him, to watch for his last breath. For the same longing had come over him which came over Marguerite d'Angouleme when she sat by the dying bed of her favourite maid of honour — to see if the spirit, when it left the body, were visible, and what kind of thing it was : whether, for instance, it was really like the little naked babe which is seen in mediaeval illuminations flying out of the mouths of dying men. But, worn out with watching, Godrick could not keep from sleep. All but desparing of
^ — *
^-
330 Lives of the Saints. [May 21.
his desire, he turned to the dying man, and spoke, says Reginald, some such words as these: — "O spirit! who art diffused in that body in the Ukeness of God, and art still inside that breast, I adjure thee by the Highest, that thou leave not the prison of this thine habitation while I am overcome by sleep, and know not of it." And so he fell asleep : but when he woke, the old hermit lay motionless and breathless. Poor Godrick wept, called on the dead man, called on God; his simple heart was set on seeing this one thing. And behold, he was consoled in a won- drous fashion. For about the third hour of the day the breath returned. Godrick hung over him, watching his lips. Three heavy sighs he drew, then a shudder, another sigh : and then (so Godrick was believed to have said in after years) he saw the spirit flit.
What it was like, he did not like to say, for the most obvious reason — that he saw nothing, and was an honest man. A monk teased him much to impart to him this great discovery. Godrick answered wisely enough, that "no man could perceive the substance of the spiritual soul."
Another pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre did Godrick make before he went to the hermitage in Eskdale, and settled finally at Finchale. And there about the hills of Judaea he found hermits dwelling in rock-caves as they had dwelt since the time of S. Jerome. He washed himself, and his hair shirt and little cross, in the sacred waters of the Jordan, and returned, after incredible suffering, to become the saint of Finchale.
At Finchale S. Godrick died on the octave of the Ascen- sion, May 2 1 St. This fixes the date of his death as 1179, for in that year Easter Day fell on April 5 th.
His hermitage became, in due time, a stately priory, with its community of monks, who loved the memory of
^-
*-
-*
May 21.]
6^. Godrick,
331
their holy father Godrick. The place is all ruinate now ; the memory of S. Godrick gone ; and not one in ten thousand, perhaps, who visit those crumbling walls beside the rushing Wear, has heard of the sailor-saint, and his mother, and that fair maid who tended them on their pilgrimage.
S. Aldhelm (May 25). See p. 346.
*-
-^
^-
33^ Lives of the Saints. [May 22.
May 22.
S. Marcian, B. cf Ravenna, circ. a.d. 127.
SS. Castus and Emilius, MM. in Africa, a.d. 210.
S. Helena, V. at Auxerre, ^th cent.
S. RoMANUS, Mk. at Auttin, 6th cent.
S. Julia, V.M. in Corsica, 6th or -jth cent.
S. QuiTERiA, V.M. at Aire in Gascony.
S. Agulf, Archb. 0/ Boicrges, a.d. 835.
S. JULIA, V.M.
(6th or 7TH CENT.)
[Roman Martyrology ; also the ancient Roman Marlyrology called by the name of S. Jerome, Ado, Notker, Usuardus, &a The Acts, as the writer say.s in his prologue, are derived from tradition.]
ft^^giAINT JULIA was a Christian maiden, a slave to a Syrian merchant at Carthage, named Eusebius, Her master treated her kindly, having learned to respect her strict integrity and diligence in exactly discharging her duties in his house. His business having called him from home, he took Julia with him ; and the vessel anchored off the modern Cape Corso of Corsica. Julia and her master went on shore, and found that a pagan sacrifice was being offered. Julia was invited to share in the festival, but indignantly refused, denouncing the sacrifice as idolatrous. Upon this she was dragged before the ruler Felix, who had her beaten on the mouth and then crucified. Her body was carried to the island of Gorgone, whence it was transported to Brescia by Ariza, wife of Didier, king of the Lombards, who built a magnificent church to contain it.
*
-*
May22.j kS'. Quiteria. 333
S. QUITERIA, V.M. (date unknown.)
[Unknown to all the ancient Martyrologists. But claimed by the later Spanish, Portuguese, and Galilean Martyrologists. Her acts are alto- gether fabulous, being taken from the fabulous story of Queen Calsia, the wife of King Catillias, who bore nine daughters at a birth, and, being afraid of what her husband would say, gave the babes to the nurse to drown. The nurse, being a Christian, brought them up as her own, and instructed them in the true faith. In time of persecution by King Catillias, the nine virgins separated, and, after meeting with various adventures, suffered martyrdom in different places. The old wives' tale has been adopted by Tamayus Salazar, and all these nine virgin martyrs have been given a place by him in the Spanish Martyrology, on Jan. i8th. The Acts of S. Quiteria are an excerpt from this religious romance. The names of places, as of people in it, are all of romantic origin, no such places ever existed. The names of some of the sisters are like Quiteria, of Gothic origin, Doda, Genivera, Wilgefortis. Her body is claimed by the Spaniards, Portuguese, and was also by the cathedral of Aire in Gascony, before the French Revolution.]
The following is the story of S. Quiteria from the Breviary of the diocese of Bordeaux ; it is founded on the fable above referred to, the name of the king and his capital being judiciously omitted. Quiteria was the daughter of a prince of Galicia in Spain. Baptized with- out her father's knowledge, she early dedicated her virginity to God. Her father sought to make her marry, but she fled from home and took refuge in the solitary valley of " Aufragia." Here she was found by some soldiers sent after her by the king, and her head was struck off, by his orders, as she refused to return and accept the hand of the prince he had chosen for her.
ij, — If.
334 Lives of the Saints. [May 23.
May 23,
S. EuPHEBius, B. 0/ Naples, -ird cent.
S. Desiderius, B.M., at Langyes, in France, circ. a.d. 407.
S. EuTYCHius, Ab., a«i^ Florentius, Mk., at Nttrsia, circ. a.d. 540
and 547. S. Desiderius, B.M., at Vientie in France, a.d. 608. S. William of Rochester, M., in England. B. John Baptist de Rossi, C. at Rome, a.d. 1764.
S. DESIDERIUS OF LANGRES, B.M.
(about a.d. 407.)
[Poman and Gallican Maityiologies. Usuardus and Ado. Autho- rity : — An account by Warnaharius, priest of Langres in the 7th cent.]
AINT DESIDERIUS, whose name is corrupted in French into Didier ; in Champagne into Dizier; in Languedoc and Italy into Deseri and Drezeri, and in Flanders into Desir, was a native of Genoa. He is supposed to have assisted at the Council of Cologne in 346, as Bishop of Langres ; but this must have been another Desiderius, or he must have been extremely aged when he died. The Vandal incursion into the Champagne in 406 filled him with distress, and he went to the Vandal king, Croco, to implore his clemency towards the poor people of his diocese. The king, instead of lis- tening to him, gave him to some of his soldiers to despatch, and he was executed with the sword. The blood spirted over his book of the Gospels which he held before his eyes when he received the fatal stroke.
^ -^
Mayas.] 6". Dcsidcrius of Vienne. 335
S. DESIDERIUS OF VIENNE, B.M. (a.d. 608.)
[Roman and Gallican Martyrologies. Authority : — A life by a con- temporary. ]
The famous Brunehaut had fled from the kingdom of the elder of her royal grandchildren, Theodebert of Austrasia, and had taken refuge with the younger, Thierri, king of Burgundy. She ruled the realm by the ascendancy of that strong and unscrupulous mind which for more than forty years raised her into a rival of the yet more famous Fre- degunda, her rival in the number of murders which she committed. She ruled the king through his vices. Thierri had degenerated, like the rest of the race of Clovis, from the old Teutonic virtues, and plunged headlong into Roman licence. In vain his subjects had attempted to wean him from his countless mistresses by a marriage with the daughter of the Visigothic king. Neglected, mortified, persecuted by the arts of Brunehaut, the unhappy princess returned home. Desiderius, or Didier, Bishop of Vienne, came boldly forward and rebuked the incontinence of Thierri and his ill-usage of his wife. Brunehaut had no mind to see the king wakened from his lethargy and take the reins of government from her hands, and resenting the conduct of S. Desiderius, she sent three assassins to waylay him on his return and murder him. They attacked him with stones and killed him at Prissignac, in the principality of Dombes, afterwards called Saint-Didier de Chalarone.
^ ^
* _____ q,
336 Lives of the Saints. [May 24-
S. WILLIAM OF ROCHESTER, M.
(date uncertain.)
[Anglican Martyrologies. Authority : — A life by Thomas of Mon- mouth, a monk who flourished about 1160, inserted in Capgrave. Pro- bably the date of S. William is the early part of the same century.]
S. William was a baker at Perth, who in his early life
lived a careless and godless life, but afterwards changed and
became a model of virtue, as a good father of a household.
Of every ten loaves he baked he gave one to the poor.
One morning early as he went to mass he found a little
babe crying on the door-step of the church. He took the
poor child up, had it baptized by the name of David, and
brought it up as his own. The foundling grew up to man's
estate, and obtained the nickname of Cockerman, which,
says the mediaeval author, is the Scottish for foundling.
But the kindness of the good baker was ill-repaid by David
Cockerman, whose heart was full of envy and spite,
and he looked with jealousy on the children of the
baker. When William was well advanced in years, he
resolved to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and he chose
only David to be his companion. All went smoothly for
some time. But wicked thoughts were working in the
foundling's mind. He wearied of the journey, and
determined to rob his adopted father and live independently
away from Scotland, and the remembrance of his condition.
In the meantime every day saw William's purse grow
lighter. At last, when they had reached Rochester, David
Cockerman resolved to murder and rob the baker without
further delay. As they left the city, he led William into a
narrow lane, and dropping behind him, felled him with a
hatchet, took his purse and ran away. As miracles were
wrought when the body was brought into Rochester, the
people concluded he was a saint, and he received general
veneration in the diocese. ,^_ >ii
-*
May 24.] ^. Vinceut of LertHs. 337
May 24.
S. Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's steward at Jerusalem,
ist cent. ' S. Manakn, Prophet at Anttoch, ist cettt? S. Afra, M. at Brescia in Italy, circ. a.d. 133. SS. DoNATiAN and Rogatian, BROTHERS, MM. at Nantes, cire.
a.d. 186. S.Vincent of Lerins, P. Mk. in Provence, circ. a.t>. 445. S. Simeon Stylites, the Younger, //. near Antioch, a.d. 596, S. Meletius and Comp., MM.^ B. John de Prado, M. in Morocco, a.d. 1636.
S. VINCENT OF LERINS, P. MK. (about a.d. 445.)
[Roman Martyrology ; inserted by Baronius from the first edition of Molanus, but on what authority Molanus attributed this day to S. Vincent of Lerins is unknown, and Molanus omitted him in his subsequent edi- tions of his additions to Usuardus. Peter de Natalibus places S. Vincent on June 1st. Authority : — Gennadius of Marseilles (d. 492), " De viris illustribus."]
HAT God has given man a free-will ; that God has made man for perfect happiness ; that perfect happiness is only to be attained by the will of man freely according with the will of God ; that the will of man is weakened by the Fall; that to
' S. Luke viii. 3 ; xxiii. 49, 56. Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks on the 2nd Sunday after Easter is the Commemoration of Joseph the Just and the holy woman who anointed Christ's body.
' Acts xiii., Roman Martyrology.
3 The Acts are so utterly fabulous that it is impossible to make out where and when these martyrs suffered, if they ever existed. There were some 252 of them, and when slain they suddenly vanished, and no trace of their bodies could be detected. The Acts inform us that they suffered under the Roman emperor Antoninus, who was struck dead by lightning, and his successor, the Emperor Leo. When the place of these emperors in history has been fixed, we may determine the date of these martyrs.
VOL. V. 22
*
'^-
338 Lives of the Saints. [May 24.
remedy this weakness, God provides man with grace to strengthen him to follow the will of God ; that to obtain happiness man must zvill to serve God ; and that his will without grace is unable to attain this end; — such is the Catholic doctrine of Predestination and Grace. It will be seen that the slightest disturbance of the equilibrium destroys the doctrine, and makes man's will all-sufficient, or makes God's grace overmaster man's will. But if Grace be so powerful, then God is destroying His own work, He is obliterating man's free-will and reducing him to the level of a beast or a plant. Either exaggeration is heresy. To make man's will all-sufficient without the co-operation of Grace is Pelagianism, to make God's grace absolute is Calvinism. The vehemence wherewith the sole sufficiency of man's free-will was asserted by the Pelagians led S. Augustine to dwell with force on the power of Grace. In some passages he possibly employed language capable of a dangerous interpretation. In his time there was no fear of its being misunderstood. But it has since been claimed in support of one of the heresies most fatally numbing to the conscience which the world has produced. The Calvinist and Jansenist doctrine of predestinarianism, makes man powerless in the hands of God to will or to refuse. If God wills, Grace sweeps man away to heaven, however indifferent or restive his will may be. Man's free-will is annihilated.
The truth may thus be fairly stated : Grace without the co-operation of man's free-will is inoperative to effect his salvation; and man's free-will without the assistance of Grace is powerless to obtain salvation. To exaggerate the power of free-will, or the function of Grace, is to lapse into heresy.
While the West in general bowed before the command- ing authority of S. Augustine ; trembled and shrank from
^-
*
May 24] 6". Vificeut of LeHns. 339
any opinion which might even seem to Hmit the sovereignity of God, semi-Pelagianism arose in another quarter, and under different auspices. This school grew up among the monasteries in the south of France. Among its partisans were some of the most eminent bishops of that province. The most distinguished, if not the first founder, of this GalHc semi-Pelagianism was the monk St. John Cassian. He probably saw that the predestinarianism of Augustine was being exaggerated by his disciples into a fatalism destruc tive of all human independence. It is the habit of inferior minds to exaggerate the teaching of their master, and the exaggeration of any one doctrine of Christianity to the obscuration or denial of the correlative truth is heresy. Against this Cassian arose. He may have somewhat exaggerated the independence of the human will, but his teaching was not much beyond Molinism, the accredited doctrine on free-will and Grace in the Western Church at the present day.
Semi-Pelagianism aspired to hold the balance between Pelagius and Augustine ; to steer a safe and middle course between the abysses into which each, on either side, had plunged. It emphatically repudiated the heresy of Pelagius in the denial of original sin ; it asserted Divine Grace, but refused to accept the system of Augustine, which seemed to harden the grace of God into an iron necessity. P)Ut on one point it took up untenable ground.
The semi-Pelagians taught that Grace, as a general rule, was dependent on a pre-existing will in man to obtain salva- tion, whereas the Catholic doctrine is that the will must receive its first incentive from God. It is God who stimu- lates the will, and then leaves man by an act of free-will to resist or to concur with Grace, to reject Grace, to enable it to advance, or to seek it for that purpose.
Prosper, a layman of Riez, a vehement Augustinian,
*
*-
340 Lives of the Saints. [May 24.
wrote against the semi-Pelagians, in answer to a series of objections raised against Augustinianism by a certain Vincent of Lerins, who, he said, had misrepresented Pre- destinarianism. In the same year, 434, Vincent brought out his famous " Commonitory," which was designed to be a preservative " against the profane novelties of all heretics." The general principle of this famous book, to whose author one opinion would ascribe the Quicunqiie vult, is well known ; the formula in which he states the Catholic rule of Scriptural interpretation has taken its place among ecclesiastical proverbs/
It has been doubted whether the Vincent of Lerins who wrote the " Commonitorium " is the Vincent of Lerins venerated this day, but on no adequate grounds. He was a Gaul by birth, born probably at Toul. S. Eucherius of Lyons says that he was the brother of Lupus of Troyes, but Gennadius does not say this. He first followed a military career, but abandoned arms to retire to the island of Lerins, the monastic metropolis of Provence, as Lindis- farne was the religious capital of Northumbvia. He was ordained priest, and charged with the education of Salonus and Veran, sons of S. Eucherius. He died about the year 445.
' " Curandum est ut id teneamus, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est ; " c. 3.
*
-*
May 25.] S. UrbaTt I . 341
May 25.
SS. Mary the Mother of James, and Mary the Wife of Salome,
at Aries, isi ceni.' S. Urban I., Pope M. at Rotne, a.d. 230.
S. Pasicrates and Valentio, mm. at Dorostoriiim in Bulgaria. S. Cantio, B.C. in Africa. SS. Maximus and Venerandus, Brothers, MM. at Acquigtiy, in the
diocese of Evreux. S. DiONYSius, B. of Milan, before a.d. 360. SS. Injuriosus, C. and his wife Scholastica, in Auvergne, circ,
A.D. 500.
S. Zenobius, B. of Florence, sth cent.
S. Leo, Ab. at Troyes, in France, 6th cent,
S. Boniface IV., Pope of Route, a.d. 615.
S. Aldhelm, B. of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, A.D. yog.
S. Gregory VII., Pope of Rome, a.d. 1085.
S. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi. O.M.C. at Florence, a.d. 1607.
S. URBAN I., POPE,M.
(a.d. 230.)
[Roman Martyrology ; the sacramentary of S. Gregory the Great, Bede, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, &c. Authority : — The Acts in the catalogue of Roman Pontiffs, written by the Roman Church Notaries. This catalogue appears to have been drawn up by order of S. Anterius, pope (d. 235), and to have been continued by S. Damasus. Other Acts exist, but they are amplified with marvels which do not exist in the more authentic Acts written apparently at the time, or shortly after the time, of the martyrdom.]
-AINT URBAN I. was a Roman by birth ; he was chosen to fill the vacant see of S. Peter on the death of S. Calixtus I. in 223. Under the Emperor Alexander and his mother Mamm^a, the Church had rest from general persecution; but the governors and magistrates were able to carry on the war against Christianity by means of indirect accusations. Under such an accusation S. Urban was drawn from the
■ See April gth, Mary the wife of Cleopas.
-*
*-
*-
342 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas.
catacomb in which he was hiding with two priests and three deacons, and was brought before the prefect of the city, named Turcius Almachius. He was accused of having stirred up sedition, and being the cause of the martyrdoms in the previous reign. " Five thousand fell in that persecution, and thou, wretch, wast the cause of their destruction ! " said Almachius. The charge showed in- genuity certainly. Another accusation brought against him was that he had received all the vast possessions of S. Cecilia, which had been confiscated to the State ; and he was ordered at once to deliver them up. " All has been distributed among the poor," said Urban.
He was beaten and then cast into prison, where he converted his jailor Anulinus (May i8th), and on May 25 th, after Almachius had vainly endeavoured to extort the wealth of S. Cecilia from him, he was executed with the sword. His body was buried by a devout lady named Marmenia, according to the Acts. This was probably Armenia, a lady of the Armenian gens, from Comana in Cappadocia, settled in Rome. They were hereditary priests of Ma, or Bellona, whose licentious worship they introduced to Rome. Yet, wondrous efificacy of grace ! of this family names have been recovered from the Catacombs.
SS. PASICRATES AND VALENTIO, MM.
(uncertain date.)
[By the Greeks on April 24th. Roman Martyrology, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, on May 25th. Authority : — The account in the Mensea.]
SS. Pasicrates and Valentio were soldiers, natives of Rhodostolus, or Dorostolus, the modern Silistria in Bul- garia. They were discovered to be Christians, and were brought before the prsetor Pappian. The brother of Pasi- crates came weeping to him, imploring him to yield to the
May 25.] ^V.9. Maximus and Venerandus. 343
wishes of the magistrate, and worship the idols. Then Pasicrates walked to the altar of Jove, where a fire was burning, thrust his hand in among the red-hot coals, and said, " Thou seest my mortal flesh is consumed in this fire, but my soul is free, and cannot be hurt by any torment man can devise ; my soul is constant, destined to immortal life." Then he and Valentio were ordered to have their heads stricken off with an axe. Pasicrates was aged twenty-two, and Valentio thirty years, when they suffered.
SS. MAXIMUS AND VENERANDUS, MM.
(about a.d. 512.)
[Gallican Martyrologies. Greatly venerated in the diocese of Evreux. Authority :— The legend of these saints contained in the Evreux Breviary is altogether untrustworthy. It makes the saints leave Italy because per- secution was raging, in the reign of the Emperor Valentian the Younger, and his mother Placida. They are sent to preach the faith by S. Damasus. At this time Vitalius and Sabinus were consuls, we are told. They come to Evreux, where S. Eternus is bishop. Now let us see how these points of the story agree with history. Valentinian the Younger began to reign with his mother Placida in 425. S. Damasus was created pope in 366. Here is an interval of fifty-nine years. The consuls, Vitalius and Sabinus, never were consuls together. There was a consul of the name of Vitellius, in the year following our Lord's death, and consuls of the name of Sabinus in the reigns of Domitian and Caracalla. By these consuls they are tried and tortured for being Christians, in the reign of a Christian emperor ! and then, flying from persecution, are martyred in Gaul, after having visited S. Germanus of Auxerre (d. 448), and S. Lupus of Troyes (d. 479). The consul Sabinus, however, marches out of Italy after the runaways at the head of an army. The Seine opens to let the saints pass, but rolls back and drowns those of the pursuers who went in after them into the l)ed of the river. However, three days after, Sabinus overtakes them and kills them in the island formed by the confluence of the river Eure and Iton, near Acquigny. S. Eternus, who buries their bodies, occurs in the lists of the bishops of Evreux as dying in 5 1 2. The geographical blunders are as gross as the anachronisms.]
*
^ f
344 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas.
SS. INJURIOSUS AND SCHOLASTICA.
(ciRC. A.D. 500.)
[Gallican Martyrologies. Venerated in Auvergne, where they are called " Les deux Aniants" the two lovers. Authority : — S. Gregory of Tours, in his book De Gloria Confessorum, c. 32, and in his Historia Francorum, lib. i., c. 41.
In Auvergne lived a youth named Injuriosus, who was married to a fair young girl called Scholastica. Now when the bridal feast was over, and the bridal torches were extinguished, he went to the marriage chamber, and he found her lying on her bed with her face to the wall, softly crying. He asked her the cause of her tears, and hesitatingly she told him that she had been happy as a simple girl, and she shrank from the cares and obligations of her new condition. "Be to me but a dearly loved brother rather than a husband," she said, and he kissed her, and took her hand in his, and promised that so it should be. So they lived many years together, in the tenderest respect and love to one another. At length Scholastica died, and was taken to the church to be buried ; then, as she lay in the vault, ere the stone slab was laid down over her, Injuriosus stood contemplating the dear face, and he hfted his hands and said, "I thank Thee, O Eternal Father, that Thou didst give me this treasure. And now I give her back to Thee, pure as she came to me." And all who looked down into the grave thought that the dead maiden smiled. So they closed the vault, and Injuriosus went to his home, now desolate and silent, and there his heart broke, and a few days after he was carried forth.
" They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided." The husband was laid on the opposite side of the church to his wife, and the church was closed for the night before the slab was mortared
*
->^
May 25.] S. Boniface /l^. 345
down. Next morning the body was gone, and when search was made for it, the dead Injuriosus was found with his arms crossed on his breast, lying beside his dear wife Scholastica in her grave.
S. BONIFACE IV., POPE.
(a.d. 615.)
[Roman Martyrology. Authority : — Anastasius Bibliochecarius.]
Boniface IV., a Marsian, of the city of Valeria, the son of a physician, is celebrated for the conversion of the Pantheon into a Christian Church. With the sanction of the Emperor Phocas, this famous temple, in which were assembled all the gods of the Roman world, was purified and dedicated on Sept. 15th, 608, to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the martyrs. He also turned his own house into a monastery. Having convoked a council of all the bishops of Italy, measures were taken for the restoration of ancient discipline, which had fallen into abeyance.
Mellitus, Bishop of London, who was then in Rome, about the affairs of the English Church, is said to have been present at this council, and to have carried back its decrees, together with the letters of Boniface, to England. Nothing further is known of the pontiff.
-*
346 Lives of the Saints. [May 25,
S. ALDHELM, B. OF SHERBORNE.
(a.d. 709.)
[Roman and Anglican Martyrologies. His translation on March 31st. Authorities: — A life by William of Malmesbury, written towards the middle of the 12th century; another life written in the latter years of the nth century, by Faricius, a foreign monk of Malmesbury, who became abbot of Abingdon in 1 100, and died in 1 1 17. A copy of the first is pre- served in MS., Cotton., Claudius A. v., written in the 12th cent.; fuller copies have been printed by Wharton and Gale from very modern MSS. Bede, though he speaks of the works of Aldhelm in terms of admiration, gives a very brief account of him. Malmesbury had before him a kind of common-place book written by King Alfred, which he quotes more than once for circumstances relating to Aldhelm, who seems to have been a favourite writer with that great monarch. Faricius says that there were, among the materials he used, some English documents, which he, as an Italian, calls "barbarice scripta."]
Aldhelm was born in Wessex, about the year 656. His father's name was Kenter, a near kinsman of King Ina; but a comparison of the dates is enough to show that Aldhelm was not, as Faricius states, King Ina's nephew. When but a boy {pusio)^ Aldhelm was sent to Adrian, abbot of Canterbury (Jan. 9), and soon excited the wonder even of his teachers by his progress in the study of Latin and Greek. When somewhat more advanced in years [majiiscuhis), he returned to his native land of Wessex.
Near the beginning of the same century, an Irish monk named Maeldhu, which the Anglo-Saxons transformed into Meildulf, a voluntary exile from the land of his nativity, had taken up his abode among the solitudes of the vast forests which then covered the north-eastern districts of Wiltshire. He seems to have formed himself a cell amongst the ruins of an ancient British town. Maeldhu, after living for a short time as a hermit, found it necessary to secure for himself a less precarious subsistence by instruct- ing the youths of the neighbouring districts ; and thus the hermitage became gradually a seat of learning, and continued
*
* ^
May 25] 6*. Aldhelm. 347
to be inhabited by Maeldhu's scholars after his death. People gave to the place the name of Meildulfes-byrig, which, softened down into Malmesbury, it still retains.
After his return to Wessex, Aldhelm joined this com- munity of scholars, in imitation of whom he embraced the monastic life. His stay was not, however, of long duration ; he made a second visit to Kent, and continued to attend the school of S. Adrian, until sickness compelled him to re- visit the country of the West Saxons. He again sought the greenwood shades of Malmesbury; and after a lapse of three years he wrote a letter to his old master Adrian, describing the studies in which he was occupied, and pointing out the difficulties which he still encountered. This was in 680. From being the companion of the monks in their studies, Aldhelm soon became their teacher ; and his reputation for learning spread so rapidly that the small society he had formed at Malmesbury was increased by scholars from France and Scotland. He is said to have been able to write and speak Greek, to have been fluent in Latin, and able to read the Old Testament in Hebrew. At this period the monks and scholars appear to have formed only a voluntary association, held together by similarity of pursuits and the fame of their teacher ; and they do not appear to have been subjected to rules. How long they continued to live in this manner is uncertain ; at a subsequent period, either at their own solicitation, or by the will of the West Saxon monarch and the bishop, they were formed into a regular monastery, and Aldhelm was api)ointed their abbot (circ. A.D. 683).'
Under Aldhelm the abbey of Malmesbury continued long to be the seat of piety as well as learning, and was
' A charter by Leutherius exists authorizing the foundation and appointing Aldhelm as its abbot, dated according to William of Malmesbury 675, according to the Malmes- bury Chronicle 680 ; but it is almost certainly a forgery. See Wright : Biographia Brit. Literaria, I. p. 212.
*- *
>J<— 1^1
348 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas-
enriched with many gifts by the West-Saxon kings and nobles. Its abbot founded smaller houses at Frome and Bradford, in the neighbourhood. At Malmesbury he found a small but ancient church, then in ruins; this he rebuilt or repaired, and dedicated it to SS. Peter and Paul, in that age the favourite saints of the Anglo-Saxons. His biogra- phers have preserved the verses which Aldhelm composed to celebrate its consecration.
Aldhelm may be considered the father of Anglo-Latin poetry. But he also composed in Anglo-Saxon. King Alfred placed him in the first rank of the vernacular poets of his country ; and we learn from William of Malmesbury, that, even so late as the 12th century, some ballads he had composed continued to be popular. To be a poet, it was then necessary to be a musician also; and Aldhelm's biographers assure us that he excelled on all the different instruments then in use, the fiddle and the pipes, &c. Long after he became abbot of Malmesbury, he appears to have devoted much of his leisure to music and poetry. King Alfred entered into his note-book an anecdote which is peculiarly characteristic of the age, and which probably belongs to the period that preceded the foundation of the abbey. Aldhelm observed with pain that the peasantry, instead of assisting as the monks sung mass, ran about from house to house gossiping, and could hardly be persuaded to attend to the exhortations of the preacher. He watched the occasion, and stationed liimself in the character of a minstrel on the bridge over which the people had to pass, and soon collected a crowd of hearers, by the beauty of his verse. When he found that he had gained possession of their attention, he gradually introduced, among the popular ballads he was reciting to them, words of a more serious nature, till at length he succeeded in impressing upon their minds a truer feeling of religious devotion ; '* Whereas if,"
If! ^
May2s.] S. Aldhelm. 349
as William of Malmesbury observes, "he had proceeded with severity and excommunication, he would have made no impression whatever upon them." ^
Few details of the latter part of Aldhelm's life have been preserved. We know that his reputation continued to be extensive. After he had been made abbot of Malmesbury, he received an invitation from Pope Sergius I. to visit Rome, and he is supposed to have accompanied Coedwalla, king of the West Saxons, who was baptized by that pope, and died at Rome in 689. Whether this be true, or not, Aldhelm's visit to Rome cannot be placed earlier than 688, because Sergius had been raised to the papal chair only in the December of the preceding year.
Aldhelm did not long remain at Rome. In 692, he appears, from his letter on the subject quoted by his biographers, to have taken part to a certain degree, though not very decidedly, with S. Wilfrid, in his great controversy against the Keltic usages of the Northumbrian Church. Soon after this, we find him employed in the dispute about the celebration of Easter with the Britons of Cornwall. A synod was called by King Ina, about 693, to attempt a reconciliation between the remains of the ancient British Church in the extreme west with the Anglo-Saxon Church, and Aldhelm was appointed to write a letter on the subject
' In after times Stephen Langton did something of the same sort. He sang a dancing-song and then moralized on it as his text. The sermon is preserved in the British Museum. This was the song, somewhat modernized in spelling : —
" Belle Alez matin leva Son corps vesti et para Enz un verger s'en entra Cinq fleurettes y trouva, Un chapelet fit en a
de rose fleurie Par Dieu trahex vous en la
vous hinc aimez mie."
The mediaeval preacher Maillard did much the same thing when preaching at Tovilouse, singing at the top of his voice as a text the ballad " Bergeronette Savoisienne."
to Geraint, king of Cornwall, which is still preserved. We hear nothing further of the abbot of Malmesbury till the year 705, when, on the death of Hedda, the bishopric of Wessex was divided into two dioceses, of which one, that of Sherborne, was given to S. Aldhelm, who appears to have been allowed to retain at the same time the abbacy, and the other, Winchester, to one named Daniel.
Four years afterwards he died at Dilton, near Westbury, in Wiltshire, on the 25th May, 709. His body was carried to Malmesbury, where it was buried in the presence of Egwin, bishop of Worcester.
S. Aldhehn was not a voluminous writer. The works which alone have given celebrity to his name, are his two treatises on Virginity and his ^nigmata. It is impossible to admire their style. Even so far back as the 12th century, William of Malmesbury felt himself obliged to offer an apology for him, grounded on the taste of that age in which he lived. "The Greek language is involved, the Roman splendid, and the Enghsh pompous," is Malmesbury's account of the characteristics of these three languages. Certainly Aldhelm made Enghsh pomposity transpire through the splendour of Latin, which he involved like Greek.
S. GREGORY VII., POPE.
(a.d. 1085.)
[Roman Martyrology, into which his name was introduced in 1584 by Gregory XIII. His translation, May 4th. Authorities: — -His life by Paul Bernried, canon of Ratisbon (d. 1 120) ; also the annals of Lambert of Hersfeld or of Aschaffenburg (1077). A life by Nicolas, cardinal of Aragon (d. 1362); another by Pandolf of Pisa (circ. 1130). Benzo, bishop of Alba, Panegyricus rhythm in Henricum IV., a violent opponent, the Epistles of Gregory, himself. Bonizo, bishop of Sutri, Sigeber of Glembours and other historians of the time.]
It is impossible in the brief compass of such an article ij, 4f
qi — ^
May 25.] 61 Gregovy VII. 351
as can here be devoted to Gregory VII., to give in any- thing hke fulness the life of a man, whose history is that of contemporary Europe.
Gregory was a man whom many modern historians have misunderstood. He has been exhibited to the detestation of mankind as a monster of ambition and priestly arrogance. That his acts savoured of harshness, and that, on more occasions than one, he fell into fatal mistakes, can scarcely be disputed, but we read his character wrong if we attribute his actions to such mean motives as ambition or arrogance. From first to last, Hildebrand was governed by zeal for the glory of God, and the purification of the Church, and to him the only means that lay open for effecting his purpose, was the complete emancipation of the Church from the fatal subserviency into which it had been brought by the well-intentioned but dangerous precedents adopted by the Emperor Henry III., at a time when the papacy had fallen into the lowest depths of degradation, and when only the interference of the secular arm could lift its glory out of the mire.
Upon the death of John XVIII. in 1033, so little regard did his brother, the Count of Tusculum, then all potent in Rome, deem it necessary to pay to appearances, that he directed the election and consecration of his son, Theophy- lact, a boy of ten or twelve years old, to the chair of S. Peter. ^ The unhappy youth was consecrated under the title of Benedict IX., and soon exemplified the unfitness of the selection by the giddy and precipitous manner in which, as soon as his years admitted it, he plunged into every species of debauchery and crime.^ At length, as if deter-
' " Puer ferme decennis." — Radolf Glaher. "Ordinatus quidam puer aiinorum circiter duodecim contra jus, fasque, quem sciliet sola pecunia auri et argenti plus commendavit, quam a;tas aut sanctitas." — Ibid.
' "Cujus vita quam turpis, quam foeda, quamqu execraada extitsrit, hon-esco referre." — Victor HI. Dialog. "Post multa turpia adalteria et homicidia manibus suis perpetrata, postremo," &c. — Bonino.
^-
352 Lives of the Saints, [May 25.
mined to outrage public feeling to the utmost, he had the madness to think of marrying his first cousin. The father of the damsel refused to permit the marriage unless Bene- dict should resign the throne of S. Peter. The young pope sold the papacy to the arch-priest John Gratian, and con- secrated him with his own hands as his successor, by the name of Gregory VI. Another party in Rome at once elected and consecrated a rival pontiff, Sylvester III., and then Benedict, finding his intended spouse withheld from him, and not feeling himself bound in honour by his bar- gain with Gratian, after an absence of three months, re-ap- peared in Rome, and asserted his former pretensions. But though he succeeded in occupying the Lateran palace, he was not able to drive either of his competitors entirely out of the city. The world, therefore, beheld for some time the shameful spectacle of three popes opposed to each other, living at the same time in different palaces, and officiating at different altars of the papal city.
Averse as the Romans usually and naturally were to German control, the name of the young and energetic Henry III., who now filled the imperial throne, became familiar in their mouths as that of a desired and expected deliverer; and in a rhythmical saying which passed from mouth to mouth, he was implored to come, and, as the vice-gerent of the Almighty, rescue the Church of Rome from the climax of degradation it had reached.^
Henry III. entered Italy in 1046, and summoned a Council to meet at Sutri to settle the affairs of the Church. The Council deposed all three popes ; and with the view of preventing, for the future, the scandals which had marked the election of the pontiffs for a long period, Henry exacted of the Romans that the elections should be placed for the
' "Una Sunamitis nupsit tribus maritis.
Rex Henrice, Omnipotentis vice,
Solve connubium triforrae dubium." — Anitalista Saxo.
*-
-*
Mayas-] ^S. GvegoTy VII. 353
future under his entire control, and that no one should pre- sume to nominate a pastor to the Apostolic see without the previous sanction of the imperial authority.' Thereupon Henry having assumed the green mantle, the golden circlet, and the ring, which designated the dignity of Patrician of Rome, took the hand of Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, led him to the papal chair, and required the Church to acknow- ledge him as the new pope, under the title of Clement II. This estimable pontiff died, almost certainly by poison, in 1047, and he had scarcely breathed his last, when the Tus- culan faction arose once more in arms, and summoning their wretched creature, Benedict IX., from his retirement, seated the unhappy man once more upon the throne of S. Peter ; a position in which he was enabled, by the swords of his partizans, to maintain himself during several months, whilst the evils and disorders to which Henry flattered him- self he had put an effectual stop, began to reign anew.
Many, therefore, of those who had most indignantly murmured at the complete subjection of the Church to an imperial master, were driven, by their sad circumstances, once more to entreat that master to become the arbiter of her fate. Henry, truly anxious to make a good selection, fixed his choice on Poppo, bishop of Brixen, who was installed under the name of Damasus II. But Damasus closed his earthly career within the brief space of three or four weeks from his formal assumption of the duties of his office ; and the rapidity with which the one event succeeded the other, could not but tend to corroborate the suspicions already current respecting the decease of Clement, as well as to give rise to similar ones on the present occasion.^ Henry
1 " Ut ad ejus mutum sancta Romana Ecclesia nunc ordinetur, ac prster ejus auctoritatem apostolicae sedi nemo prorsus eligat sacerdotem." — Damiaii. Opttsc. vi. c. 36.
2 "Hunc pontificem (Damasum II.) veiieno a Benedicto IX. propinato e.\tinc- lum assent Benno." — Pagi, Breviar.
VOL. V. 23
*
found among his German prelates, whom he first sounded on the subject, a general reluctance to accept a dignity which, if splendid, was fraught with peril. He therefore appointed Bruno, bishop of Toul, a kinsman, who ascended the Apostolic throne under the title of Leo IX.
It will be seen by this sketch that the emperor had created a dangerous precedent, driven to it by the exigencies of the times ; but it was one, the full danger of which was not slow in manifesting itself He had converted the Church into a department of the state. The Pope was the creature of the emperor, as before he had been the creature of the faction which had set him up.
There was a growing party in Rome which trembled for the Church, as they saw that the imperial power was thus overshadowing her, and this party desired to emancipate the Church from imperial control. It was not only the Papacy which, by the zeal of Henry III. had been made subservient to the State, but throughout the empire the whole Church was more or less under State control, and was employed as a political rather than as a religious engine. In Germany and Italy the bishoprics and abbacies were donatives of the crown, and the emperor gave these eccle- siastical offices to his friends, or if needy, sold them to the highest bidder, and the bishops, to indemnify themselves for the purchase of their sees, sold the benefices in their patronage, so that simony had infected the whole of the German and Italian Church. It is obvious that in such a condition of affairs the moral authority of the Church languished, and that for a restoration of discipline and a reformation of abuses, the right of investiture by the monarch must be done away with. The princes claimed to confer bishoprics by the outward symbols of ring and staff, and the people would speedily be led to suppose that spiritual jurisdiction sprang from the crown.
*- — -^
Mayas.] iS. Gr€go7y VII.. 355
The history of Gregory VII. is the history of his warfare against the encroachment of imperial power upon spirituaU- ties. It was not ambition to exalt himself which forced the great pope into contest with the emperor, it was zeal for the Church of God, over which he had been appointed overseer. We may regret the manner in which the contest was carried on, but we are bound to respect the motive which forced the pope to wage it.
Another of the purposes that animated Hildebrand was the abolition of clerical marriage, and the elevation of the moral tone of the clergy. Several of his predecessors had pronounced against it, but their words had fallen on ears unwilling to receive them, and neither the bishops nor the princes had cared to enforce their mandates. The battle that had to be fought was that of purity against impurity, of holiness against corruption. The clergy in the West who were married, were conscious that they had trans- gressed the decrees of popes and synods ; and the priests who had habituated themselves to trample upon one pre- cept bearing the impress of the Church's authority, had passed the great moral barrier which separates the syste- matically, though imperfectly, dutiful from the habitually godless and profane; the consistency of their character was marred ; and their progress to the worst excesses of vice, perhaps accomplished, by an easier transition than had been their first bold step from obedience to its opposite. One of two courses was open to the reforming pope, either to remove the married priest from his position of fellowship with every class of the licentious and profane, by adopting the less stringent code of the Greek Church, or to combat clerical incontinence by force. Seizing the means in his power, Gregory VII. adopted the latter cause, and set himself to achieve^ and did achieve, a most important reformation.
^ — ^
*-
356 Lives of the Saints. [May 25.
To estimate aright the character of this great pope we must appreciate the magnitude of the opposition he en- countered. It is a mistake to pass over Hghtly this oppo- sition, rather let us note its vehemence, its universality, and then we shall be able to see how great was the reso- lution of that one man to master and crush it.
Hildebrand, if not a Roman by birth, was an adopted Roman by education. He was of humble origin. His father was a carpenter in Saona, a small town on the southern border of Tuscany. His name implies a Teutonic descent. His youth was passed in a monastic house in Rome, S. Mary on the Aventine, of which his uncle was abbot. The disposition of Hildebrand was congenial to his education. He was a monk from his boyhood. Morti- fication in the smallest things taught him that self-command and rigour which he was afterwards to enforce on mankind. If he was stern to others, he was not gentle to himself. Rome was no favourable school for monastic perfection; yet perhaps the gross and revolting licentiousness of the city, and the abuses in the monastic system, may have hardened his austerity. Arrived at manhood, he deter- mined to seek some better school for his ardent devotion, and to suppress in some cloister affording more shelter from temptation the yet mutinous passions of his adolescence. There were still, in the general degeneracy of the monastic institutes, some renowned for their sanctity. At no period were there wanting men who preserved in all their rigour the rules of Benedict or Columban. Among these was Odilo, abbot of Clugny, in Burgundy. With him Hilde- brand found a congenial retreat, and he was strongly tempted to spend his days in the peaceful shades of Clugny. But holy retirement was not the vocation of his energetic spirit. Hildebrand is again in Rome ; he is attached to that one of the three conflicting popes, whose
*-
May 25.] 5*. Gregory VII, 357
cause was most sure to command the sympathy of a man of devout feeling rigidly attached to canonical order. When Gregory VI., compelled to abdicate the papacy, retired into Germany, Hildebrand re-appears as the counsellor of Leo IX., then of Nicholas II., and of Alexander II. For a long period in the papal annals, Hildebrand alone seems permanent. Pope after pope dies, disappears ; Hildebrand still stands unmoved. One by one they fall off, Clement, Damasus, Leo, Victor, Nicolas. The only one who rules for ten years is Alexander II.
While Hildebrand was thus rising to the height of power, and becoming more and more immersed in the affairs of the world, which he was soon to rule, S. Peter Damiani, his aged colleague under the reforming pope, S. Leo IX. (see April 19th), beheld his progress with amazement and regret. The similitude and contrast between these two men is characteristic. Damiani was still a monk at heart, and he had struggled with restless impatience against the burden of the episcopate laid on his shoulders by Pope Stephen. Damiani saw the monk in Hildebrand dis- appearing in the statesman, and trembled for his salvation. Hildebrand could not comprehend the shrinking of Damiani from the fore-front of the battle, when the Church was in peril. They separated to tread different paths ; Damiani to subdue the world within himself; Hildebrand to subdue the world without.
Pope Alexander IT. died April 21st, 1073. The clergy were assembled in the Lateran Church to celebrate his obsequies ; Hildebrand, as archdeacon, was performing the mournful service. At once from the whole multitude of clergy and people burst a simultaneous cry, " Hildebrand is pope !" "S. Peter chooses the Archdeacon Hildebrand !" The archdeacon rushed towards the pulpit to allay the tumult, and repel the proffered honour; but Cardinal
ij, ^
^— »J«
358 Lives of the Saints. [May 25.
Hugh the White came forward and made himself heard above the acclamations of the multitude.
"Well know ye," he said, "that since the days of the blessed Leo this prudent archdeacon has exalted the Roman see, and delivered this city from many perils. Wherefore we, the bishops and cardinals, with one voice, elect him as the pastor and bishop of your souls."
The voice of Hugh was drowned in universal cries, " It is the will of S. Peter ; Hildebrand is pope." Hildebrand was immediately led to the papal throne, arrayed with the scarlet robe, crowned with the papal tiara, and reluctant and in tears, enthroned in the chair of S. Peter. Hilde- brand might well weep. The future before him was black with storm. Never did the Church need a firmer hand on the helm, never could a pope show firmness with less safety to himself. It was a momentary weakness. Then, like S. Peter, who first girt his fisher's coat about him, and plunged into the waves, Hildebrand prepared himself for conflict, shook off his fears, and boldly struck out for him- self the course which conscience indicated. He com- menced his reign with cautiously securing an uncontested title. The decree of Nicolas 11. had acknowledged that, after the nomination by the cardinals, the ratification by the clergy and people of Rome, the assent of the emperor was necessary to complete the full legal title, Hildebrand despatched messengers to Germany to inform Henry IV. of his elevation, and to solicit his assent. Gregory, bishop of Vercelli, chancellor of Italy, was sent to Rome with the imperial ratification, and Hildebrand ascended the throne of S. Peter, under the title of Gregory VII., which he assumed in compliment to his unfortunate teacher and friend Gratian, who had been elevated to the chair of S. Peter by that name, but who had been deposed for simony.
*
^ -^
May 25] iS*. Gregory VII. 359
The first official act of Gregory was to send Hugh the White as his legate into Spain, to insist on the abolition of the Mozarabic liturgy, and the reception in its place of the Roman ritual. But this mission had a further object, a more startling assertion of right, new to the king of Spain. Gregory in a letter addressed on April 30th, 1073, to the grandees of Spain, and committed to his newly-appointed legate, wrote : " Ye are not ignorant that the kingdom of Spain was of old time the property of S. Peter, nor that, notwithstanding its long occupation by Pagans, it still belongs of right to no mortal, but to the apostolic see." And therefore he granted to a certain Count Eboli of Roceio as much land as he could conquer from the Moors, to be held by him as a fief of the see of Rome. " Of this we warn you all that, unless ye are prepared to recognize S. Peter's claim upon those territories, we will oppose you, by exerting our apostolic authority to forbid your attacking them." The claim thus advanced by Gregory was new to those to whom it was addressed, and was unsupported by documentary or even traditionary proof. But the Spanish princes, feeling, no doubt, that some advantages would accrue to themselves from the admission of such a claim, do not appear to have opposed it. Engaged, as they were, in a perpetual holy war, the more complete identification of their cause with that of the Church would enable them, when occasion required it, to appeal, the more confidently, to the zeal and courage of their subjects.
Almost the first public act of Gregory VII. was a de- claration of implacable war against simony and the mar- riage of the clergy. The decree of the synod held in Rome in the eleventh month of his pontificate is not extant, but in its memorable provisions it went beyond the sternest of his predecessors. It almost invalidated all sacraments performed by simoniacal or married priests.
^ _ _^
If it did not declare that baptism, absolution, and the consecration of the Host were no baptisms, no absolutions, and no consecrations, when performed by their hands, by forbidding the laity to acknowledge them, it necessarily encouraged the idea that they were so ; and thus directly led to the horrible impieties which v/e shall have shortly to describe. The laity were thrown into the position of judges of the priesthood and punishers of its irregularities. The same course had been adopted by Pope Victor at Milan, who had encouraged Ariald to stir up the people to plunder, mutilate, and expel the married clergy, with some success, and this policy was now to be applied over the whole empire.
Throughout Western Christendom these decrees met with furious or with sullen and obstinate opposition. Siegfried, archbishop of Mainz, would not promulgate the decree till he was formally threatened with the papal cen- sure. Even then he attempted to temporize. He did not summon the clergy at once to show their obedience; he allowed them six months of delay for consideration. A synod met at Erfurt. The partisans of the marriage of the clergy assembled in prevailing numbers. Their language was unmeasured. They appealed to custom, to Scrii^ture, to reason. Some of the more violent, with confused but intelligible menace, called for vengeance on him who dared to promulgate this execrable decree. The affrighted primate expressed his readiness to appeal to Rome, and to endeavour to obtain some mitigation at least of the ob- noxious law. But the zeal of Hildebrand would brook no modification or delay. And in the matter of his opposition to simony, he carried most consciences with him. Either the conflict about appointment to benefices must be fought at once, or the Church would sink into utter subserviency
*-
*
May 25.] kS". G^^egovy VII. 361
and degradation/ Gregory justly saw that it was impos- sible to suppress the wretched trafific in holy things so long as the power to confer and sell spiritual benefices lay in the hands of the temporal sovereign. In a council held at Rome, at the beginning of the year 1075, Gregory abro- gated by one decree the whole right of investiture by the temporal princes. The prohibition was couched in the most comprehensive terms. It absolutely deposed every bishop, abbot, or inferior ecclesiastic, who should receive investiture of his spiritual benefice from any lay person. And if any emperor or nobleman should presume to grant such investiture of bishopric or inferior dignity, he was to be excommunicated. From this moment Henry IV. and Gregory VII. became resolute, declared, and remorseless enemies. Henry considered that the pope was robbing him of a cherished prerogative, and an important element of political power, one indispensable to his authority. Gregory regarded the emperor as his opponent in the reformation of the Church. Each was determined to put forth his full powers, each to enlist in his party the subjects of the other. Henry was not in a condition tamely to endure what he considered to be an aggression of the pope. He was supported by powerful allies, pledged by their interests to his cause, and incensed by the uncom- promising manner in which the pope asserted his supre-
' We may take, almost at haphazard, a passage from the history of the past in Italy, to instance the flagrant abuses that arose out of lay investiture. In 938 Hugh of Provence made one of his bastards bishop of Piacenza ; another, arch- deacon, with hopes of succession to the archbishopric of Milan. A relative, Hilduin, who had been expelled from his see in France, he made archbishop of Milan. He gave the bishoprics of Trent, Verona, and Mantua, to the ambitious Manasseh of Aries. Berengar, Marquis of Ivrea, bribed Adelard, the officer of Manasseh, into treason by promising him the bishopric of Como ; but instead of fulfilling his engagement, gave the bishopric to Waldo, a lawless robber, who plundered the highways, and blinded his captives, and to Adelard he gave the see of Reggio.
*
*-
362 Lives of the Saints. [May 25-
macy. The German Church, as shown at Erfurt, had a strong indination to independence. Of the more powerful prelates some were old, some irresolute ; but some, sharing in the condemnation of the emperor, were committed to his side. Siegfried of Mainz was timid and wavering. By the same Roman synod Lietmar, archbishop of Bremen, Werner of Strasburg, Herman of Bamberg, Henry of Spires, William of Pava, Cunibert of Turin, Dionysius of Piacenza, besides the three bishops of Constance, Zeitz, and Lausanne, were interdicted, as simoniacs, from the performance of their functions. Few of the bishops were disposed, by denying the legality of lay investiture, to imperil their own right to the estates of their churches. But the most determined and reckless resistance was among the partisans of the married clergy. Siegfried, yielding to the urgent commands of the pope, called a second synod at Mainz, and displayed the mandate of the apostolic see, that the bishops in their several dioceses should compel the priests to renounce their wives. The whole assembly rose ; so resolute was their language, so fierce their gestures, that the archbishop again trembled for his life. He declared that from thenceforth he would not concern himself in such perilous matters. At Passau Bishop Altmann, on S. Stephen's Day, 1074, mounted the pulpit, and read the papal brief. He would have been torn in pieces but for the intervention of some of the powerful citizens. Bishop Henry of Coire hardly escaped with his life when he promulgated the decree.
But the execution of the decree was left to the people. They were constituted by the dangerous fourth clause the judges and executioners of their clergy. And such an invitation, thus made, was, of course, readily and generally attended to. The occasion seemed to the selfish, the irreverent, and the profane, to sanction the gratification
*-
-*
May 25.] S. GvegOTy VII. 363
of all the bad feelings, with which persons of those dispositions must ever regard the ministers of the Church ; and priests, whose disobedience to the papal authority furnished any excuse for such conduct, were openly beaten, abused, and insulted by their rebellious flocks.' Some were forced to fly with the loss of all that they possessed, some were deprived of limbs, and some were put to death in lingering torments. And to lengths, even more horrible than these, did the popular violence thus unhappily sanctioned proceed. Too many were delighted to find what they could consider as a religious excuse for neglect- ing religion itself, for depriving their children of baptism, and for making the holy sacrament of the altar the subject of the most degrading mockery, or of the most atrocious profanation.^
Many other distressing scenes occurred. The wives of the priests who had been married to them with ring and religious rite, and notarial deed, were torn from them and driven forth with the indignity of harlots, their children were degraded as bastards. In some cases these
' " Plebeius errot, quam semper quaesivit, opportunitate adepta, usque ad furoris sui satietatem injuncta sibi, ut ait, in clericorum contumelias obedientia, crudeliter abutitur. Hi . . . quocumque prodeunt, clamores insultantium, digitos ostendentium, colaphos pulsantium proferunt. Alii . . . egeni et pauperes profugiunt. Alii membris mutilati . . . Alii per longos cruciatus superbe necati. " Epist. cujusdam in Marlen. et Durand. Thesaurus Nov. Anecdotor. T. i., p. 231.
2 " Quot parvuli salutari lavacro violenter fraudati. Quot omnis conditionis homines a secundse purificationis, quae in pcenitentia et reconciliatione consistit, remedio repulsi." Epist. citat., M. et D. T. I., p. 240. " Laici sacra mysteria temerant, et de his disputant, infantes baptizant, sordido humore aurium pro sacro oleo et christraate utentes, in extreme vitae viaticum Dominicum, et usitatum ecclesiae obsequium sepulturae a presbyteris conjugatis accipere parvipendunt, decimas presbyteris deputatas igni cremant ; et ut in uno caetera perpendas laici corpus Domini a presbyteris conjugatis consecratum, saepe pedibus conculcave- runt, et sanguinem Domini voluntarie effuderunt." — Sigebert Gemblac, an. 1074. At Milan the people were taught that if they received the Communion from married priests they ate and drank to their own damnation." — Vit. Arialdi.
*
*-
364 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas.
wretched women committed suicide, they flung themselves into the fires that consumed their homes, or were found dead in their beds firom grief, or by their own hands.
It was not only in Germany that the Hildebrandine decrees encountered fierce opposition. At the Council of Paris, when the decree was read, there was a loud outcry of appeal to S. Paul's Epistle to Timothy. The abbot of Pont Isere dared to say that the pope's mandate must be obeyed. He was dragged out of the assembly, spat upon, struck in the face, and hardly rescued alive. The arch- bishop of Rouen, when endeavouring to read the decrees in his cathedral, was assailed by a shower of stones, and compelled to secure his safety by flight.' Nor was this extra- ordinary ; for it seems that the system of clerical marriage was so completely established and recognized in Normandy, that churches had become property heritable by the sons, and even by the daughters, of the clergy who enjoyed them.^ And this fact may be taken as as indication of the general condition of the Galilean Church, in which the process of secularization had made further strides than in her German sister. At the same time the French king continued to practise a simoniacal traffic in bishoprics and abbeys without remorse or shame. And in Germany Henry IV. sold or gave away bishoprics and abbeys in insolent defiance of the mandate of the pope, and to the grief of all right-thinking men.^
' "Fugiensque de ecclesia, Den=;, venerunt gentes in hrereditatem tuam ! for- titer clamavit."— Ordericus Vitalis, lib. iv.
2 Gaufredus Grossus, in Vita Bernardi Ab. Tironiensis Mon, c. vi.
3 When Pope Gregory had deposed Hermann, bishop of Bamberg, for simony, Henry nominated in his room, and invested with the see, one Rupert, a man of infamous report among the people, being regarded as a mere creature of the king, and an instigator and abettor of all the disgraceful actions ascribed to Henry by the general voice. On the day immediately following Rupert's nomi- nation, while the king sat in council with his nobles on the disposal of the vacant abbey of Fulda, a crowd of abbots and monks bid publicly and unblusli-
*-
-*
Mayas.] S. Gvegovy VII. 365
In April, 1074, Gregory wrote to William the Conqueror, in the tone of a friend, adjuring him to seek the glory of God above all things in the government of the country which he had acquired. But neither in this, nor in an epistle Avritten on the same day, with the view of support- ing the above, to William's queen, Mathilda, did Gregory make any allusion to his recent decrees ; he did not, it would seem, conceive that his footing in England was sufficiently firm to warrant their promulgation. At any rate those relating to simony would hardly have been needed there. Nor did his friend Lanfranc, though he held in the following year a council in S. Paul's for the reformation of the Church, venture, on this occasion, openly to promulgate them. And even the council of Winchester in 1076 — while enacting that no married priests should be admitted to orders — decreed that priests in burghs or villages who had wives already should be permitted to retain them. The ultimate adhesion of the Anglican Church to the principle of clerical celibacy was slow ; for even in 1237, the council held in S. Paul's cathedral, was obliged to pass a canon to prevent benefices becoming hereditary.^ The same may be said of the Churches of Spain and Hungary. In the former of these countries, the papal legate, Richard, abbot of Marseilles, was assailed by the clergy with menaces and outrages when attempting to enforce the observance of celibacy among them in 1089, at
ingly before him, as at an auction, for that much coveted dignity. Some, says Lambert of Aschafi'enburg, proffered mountains of gold ; some offered to make over to the crown large portions of the territory they sought to possess ; some undertook to perform greater services than the fief had been accustomed to pay ; promises were lavished without moderation or modesty. Even Henry was dis- gusted with the scene, and on this occasion acted with good feeling. Perceiving, amid the greedy crowd, a monk of Hersfeld, who had come to court upon some business of his abbey, and took no part in the nefarious traffic, the king beckoned him to approach, suddenly invested him with the pastoral staff, and hailed him abbot.
1 Matthew Paris, Chron. sub ann. 1237.
*
^-
366 Lives of the Saints. [May 25.
the council of Burgos. And in the latter, even as late as 1092, the synod assembled at Szabulcha, under Ladislaus, prohibited to priests and deacons second marriages, as well as marriages with widows, or with those who had been divorced ; but decreed that to priests who had contracted a first and legitimate marriage indulgence must be given.
Thus, everywhere, in Italy, in Rome itself, in Spain, in France, throughout Germany, the decrees of Gregory were received with the most vigorous and stubborn oppugnance, and where carried out, occasioned scenes full of scandal and sacrilege.
Gregory acknowledges in his letters the reluctance with which his decree was submitted to by the clergy, the tardiness of the bishops in enforcing its penalties. Yet, not for one moment did he hesitate in his purpose. In obeying what he considered to be his duty, he was rigid as a rock. His course aroused the most implacable ani- mosity. There is no epithet of scorn, no imaginable charge of venality, incapacity, cruelty, or even licentious- ness, which was not heaped upon him, and that even by bishops.
In the meantime the pope's position in Rome was im- perilled. Cencius, a descendant of the turbulent barons of the Romagna, had availed himself of the various towers, or strongholds, which he possessed in Rome, to subject his fellow-citizens to a regular system of oppression and plunder. For this he had been imprisoned by the prefect of the city, and censured by the pontiff; and considering both these measures in the light of deadly insults, he awaited an opportunity of revenge. Taking advantage of the estrange- ment which existed between the emperor and the pope, now grown into bitter hostility, possibly with the sanction of Henry, almost certainly with the connivance of Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna, Cencius planned a daring attempt
►i<-
-*
May 25.] 6^. Grcgovy VII. 367
to gain possession of the person of the pope, and make himself master of Rome.
On the eve of Christmas-day whilst the pope was saying midnight mass in the Church of S. Maria Maggiore, the soldiers of Cencius burst in, rushed to the altar, and seized the pontiff. One fatal blow might have ended the life of Hildebrand, and changed the course of events ; it glanced aside, and only wounded his forehead. Bleeding, stripped of his holy vestments, but patient and gentle, the pope was led away, and imprisoned in a strong tower. The rumour ran rapidly through the city ; all the night trumpets pealed, bells tolled. The clergy broke off their services, and ran about the streets summoning the populace to rescue. At dawn of day the prison of the pope was surrounded by a multitude, roaring, angry, threatening vengeance. Cencius shuddered at his own deed. One faithful friend and one noble matron had followed the pope into the dungeon. The man had covered his shivering body with furs, and was cherishing his chilled feet in his bosom ; the woman had bound up the wound in his head, and sat weeping beside him. Cencius, cowardly as he was cruel, threw himself on the mercy of the outraged pontiff, and was promptly pardoned.
Gregory was brought out, and was carried in triumph to the Lateran. Cencius and his kindred fled; their houses were razed by the indignant populace. Two weeks after, Jan. 8th, 1076, Gregory wrote to the Emperor Henry IV., complaining of his resistance to the decrees, and requiring him peremptorily to appear on the 22nd of February following, at Rome, to answer for his offences, in support- ing and encouraging prelates excommunicated by the pope. Thus the king of the Germans was solemnly cited as a criminal to the bar of the papal tribunal. The legates who brought the message to the emperor were dismissed
-*
^-
368 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas.
with ignominy. Henry resolved on wiping out the insult by dethroning the pope. Messengers were despatched with breathless haste to summon the prelates to Germany to meet at Worms on Septuagesima Sunday, Jan. 24th, 1076.
The day appointed beheld a numerous assemblage of bishops and abbots in the appointed city. Siegfried, the primate of Germany, was attended by the bishops of Treves, Utrecht, Metz, Spires, Toul, Strasbourg, and many others. And when the assembly was seated, and the session opened in form, the unprincipled Hugh the White, who had acted so conspicuous a part in Gregory's election, stood forward as his accuser. This unhappy man, by his repeated misconduct, had drawn down on himself, for the third time, the censures of the apostolic see, and feeling the breach irreconcileable, now regarded him, whom he had assisted in raising to the papal chair, with the most determined hostility. Hugh laid before the council a variety of letters, purporting to come from different arch- bishops and bishops, and from the cardinals, senate, and people of Rome ; but which were, in truth, forgeries of his own, or of his employers. They were filled with com- plaints of the pontiff's conduct, and with entreaties for his immediate expulsion from the apostolic throne. And then, as though in explanation of these epistles, the apostate cardinal read, before the assembly, a document which, professing to contain an account of Gregory's life and manner, was filled with calamities the most unfounded and incredible. Henry, if not himself accessory to the guilt of the forgery, must have been, at any rate, too well informed to believe in the truth of the greater part of the cardinal's assertions. Such misrepresentations, however, suited his purpose, and he therefore raised no question respecting the accuser's veracity.
►f<-
-•^
May 25-] 6". Gregory VII. 369
With loud, unanimous acclamation, the synod declared that Gregory VII. had forfeited the power of binding and loosing, he was no more Pope. The form of renunciation of allegiance was drawn up in the most explicit form. But two of them, Adalbert of Wurzburg, and Hermann of Metz, spoke out against the impropriety of condemning any prelate, much more the Pope, without his having been cited to appear, or heard in his own defence. But the urgency of William, bishop of Utrecht, one of Henry's most ardent partizans, prevailed upon them at length to add their signatures to those of their brethren; and the king himself placed his name at the head of the list. In Lombardy, Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, and a large number of the clergy, joined in the revolt against Gregory. A synod held at Piacenza ratified the decree of Worms. A priest of the church of Parma, Roland by name, under- took to bear a copy of the acts of the two councils together with Henry's letters, to those whom they concerned in Rome ; and setting forth and without delay to execute his mission, he arrived in the papal city at the moment in which the synod, to which Henry had been summoned, was meeting, in the second week in Lent. The council being assembled, the echoes of the solemn strain, "Veni Creator Spiritus," and having scarcely died away amid the holy aisles of the Lateran, Roland suddenly stepped forward before the pontiff and his prelates. " The king," said he, addressing Gregoiy, " and the united bishops, as well of Germany as of Italy, transmit to thee this com- mand— Come down without delay from the throne of S. Peter ! " And then, turning to the bishops and clergy present, "To you, brethren, it is commanded, at the feast of Pentecost, to present yourselves before the king, to receive a pope and father from his hands."
The synod in vehement indignation burst forth into an VOL. v. 24
-*
^-
370 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas-
unanimous cry for judgment on the sovereign who had dared to trample on the Holy See. What follows exhibits in strange contrast pueriHty combined with power. Gravely, before the excited throng of bishops, Hildebrand produced an egg from his bosom, which had been found outside the church of S. Peter, and on which was visible in strange relief something like a serpent armed with sword and shield, attempting to rise, but falling back, twisting as in mortal agony. On this sight sat gazing the mute ecclesiastical senate, whilst the Pope, with the gravity of an ancient augur, proceeded to expound the sign. The serpent was the dragon of the Apocalypse raging against the Church ; and in the same old Roman spirit, he drew the omen of victory from its discomfiture. The synod broke forth in a cry, " Most holy Father, utter such a sentence against this blasphemer, this tyrant, as may crush him to the earth, and make him a warning to future ages ! "
The formal sentence of excommunication was delayed till the next day. On the morning arrived letters from prelates of Germany and Italy, disclaiming the acts of the synod at Worms and Piacenza. The pontiff again took his seat in the Lateran, encircled by no bishops and abbots. The first sentence fell on the prelates who had concurred in the proceedings at Worms. They were suspended from their episcopal functions, interdicted from the holy Euchar- ist, unless in the hour of death, and after due penance. The prelates who met at Piacenza were condemned to the same punishment. Then Hildebrand pronounced sentence against the Emperor, interdicting him from the government of the whole realm of Germany and of Italy ; absolving all Christians from the oaths which they had sworn to him, and forbidding all obedience to him as king. Henry heard in Utrecht, March 27, the sentence of the Pope. His first impression was that of dismay; but he soon recovered
^-
__ «
Mayas-] S. Gregovy VII. 371
himself, and affected to treat it with contempt. The first measure, which, when he had time to collect his thoughts, suggested itself, was that Gregory should be pubhcly excommunicated by some of the prelates of his court. And as Pibo, bishop of Toul, was suspected by him to waver in his adhesion to his cause, he resolved to put that prelate to the proof, by directing him to perform the ceremony on the following morning. Pibo durst not openly refuse ; but he, together with Dietrich, bishop of Verdun, fled in the night from Utrecht, where the king then was. Ignorant of his flight, the king in the morning took his seat in the Cathedral, and, for some time, impatiently awaited his appearance. At length, the truth becoming known, and it being felt that every appearance of failure should, at this critical moment, be avoided, William of Utrecht himself pronounced the sentence, and poured forth from the altar a torrent of virulent abuse ; calling Gregory perjured, an adulterer, a false apostle.
One circumstance could not fail to strike those who were disposed to act aright without sufficient information to investigate for themselves the intricacies of the question at issue. All the habitually irreligious, all the notoriously profane, seemed to have attached themselves, as it were naturally, to the party of the king. The excommunicated nobles, the most worldly prelates, and the most dissolute of the clergy, the patrons and practisers of simony through- out the empire, were all ranged on Henry's side : nor could thoughtful people well believe that a cause was that of zeal for the Church which gathered, as though by a natural process, to its support, all those by whom her laws were openly broken, or her authority was openly defied.
Most strenuous amongst the opponents of Gregory was William, bishop of Utrecht, whose indecent violence had rudely shocked the religious feehngs of the people in his
^ ^
,J,_— — — ->J«
372 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas-
excommunication of Gregory VII., in his cathedral. But a month had not intervened since that event when the ir- reverent prelate was seized with a rapid disease, and ended his life in a state of delirious despair, forbidding his friends to pray for one who was irretrievably lost.
The sentence which had been pronounced at Utrecht was conveyed to Italy. A council met at Pavia, summoned by Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna, and it concurred in anathematizing Gregory.
But while these vain thunders had no effect on the rigid churchmen and the laity who adhered to the pope, the ex- communication was working in the depths of the German mind, and mingling itself up with, and seeming to hallow all the other motives of jealousy, hatred and revenge, which prevailed in so many parts of the empire. A vast and formidable conspiracy began to organise itself. Henry saw on all sides of him hostiHty, disaffection, and desertion ; the princes meditating revolt ; the prelates either openly renouncing or shaken in their allegiance. Everything seemed blasted with a curse and turned against him. His strength ebbed daily away. An expedition into Saxony to quell the insurrection then ended in total and disgraceful failure. A diet met at Tribur (October i6th, 1076), near Darmstadt Thither came Rudolf of Swabia, Otto of Saxony, Guelf of Bavaria, the two first of whom were rivals for the throne, if it should be vacant by the deposition of Henry. All his old enemies, all his revolted friends, the bishops who had opposed, the bishops who had consented, some even who had advised his lofty demeanour towards the Pope, appeared drawn together by their ambition, by their conscientious churchmanship, or by their base resolution to be on the stronger side. The two legates of the pope were present to lend their weight and sanction to the proceed- ings. On the other side of the Rhine, at Oppenheim, the
-*
Ij< — «
May 25.] 6^. Gregory VII. 373
deserted Henry, with a few faithful nobles, and still fewer bishops, kept his diminished and still dwindling Court. The vigour of Henry's character seemed crushed by the universal defection. He sank into abject submission and accepted the hard terms the diet imposed upon him. The terms were that his conduct as Emperor should be investigated and judged by the supreme Pontiff, who was to hold a council at Augsburg for the purpose on the feast of the Purification in the ensuing year, and in the meantime to resign the in- signia of royalty and disband his army. Henry bowed to his fate. He dismissed his councillors, disbanded his army, and sank into a private station.
But in this intolerable condition he could not remain ; he could not endure the prospect of a trial before the Pontift' with his rebellious subjects as his accusers, in the heart of his own empire. He resolved to undergo, if it must be undergone, the deep humiliation of submission in Italy rather than the Diet of the empire, in the face, amid the scorn and triumph, of his revolted subjects. He resolved to anticipate the journey of the Pope to Germany. Before the feast of the Purification he must meet Gregory in Italy. But his design became known. The dukes of Bavaria and Carinthia, enemies of Henry, jealously watched the passes of the Alps. With difficulty Henry collected from his still diminishing partisans sufficient money to defray the expenses of his journey. With his wife and infant son, and one faithful attendant, the emperor began his journey. Nature seemed to conspire with the Pope against the fallen king. So hard a winter had not been known for years. The passage of Mont Cenis was blocked with snow. But the fatal day was hastening on ; the king must reach Italy or forfeit the crown for ever. With incredible suffering and danger the icy pass was surmounted. The queen and her infant son were lowered from the summit in the skins of
^ -ij,
374 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas.
oxen, as in sledges. No sooner was the king's unexpected arrival made known in Italy than the princes and the bishops assembled in great numbers, and received him with the highest honours ; in a few days he found himself at the head of a formidable army. The great cause of his popu- larity with them was the notion that he had crossed the Alps to depose the Pope. He did not undeceive them. He could not risk the total loss of Germany for the sake of their precarious favours. He hurried forward to Canossa, a fortress on a craggy hill, where was Gregory at the moment. On a dreary winter morning (Jan. 25, 1077), with the ground deep in snow, the king, the heir of a long line of emperors, was permitted to enter within the two outer of the three walls which girded the castle of Canossa. He had laid aside every mark of royalty ; clad in the thin white linen dress of the penitent, he stood fasting, and blue with cold, at the door, in humble patience waiting on the pleasure of the Pope. But the gates did not unclose. A second day he stood cold, hungry, and mocked by vain hope. And yet a third day dragged on from morning to evening over the unsheltered head of the discrowned king. Every heart was moved except that of the stern Gregory. Even in the presence of the Pope there was low deep murmurs against his severity. The patience of Henry could endure no more ; he took refuge in an adjacent chapel of S. Nicolas, where he found the Countess Mathilda, the great patroness and benefactress of Gregory, and with tears he implored her to use her merciful interference. Gregory at length yielded an ungracious permission for the king to approach his presence. With bare feet, still in the garb of penitence, stood the king, a man of singularly tall and noble person, with a countenance accustomed to flash command and terror upon his adversaries, before the Pope, the poor carpenter's son, a grey- haired man, bowed with years, of small unimposing stature. ^__ -ij,
* Ijl
May 25. S. Gregory VII. 375
The terms exacted from Henry, who was far too deeply humihated to dispute anything, had no redeeming touch of gentleness and compassion. He was to appear in the place and at the time which the Pope should name to answer the charges of his subjects before the Pope himself If he should repel these charges, he was to receive his kingdom back from the hands of the Pope. If found guilty, he was peaceably to resign his kingdom. On these conditions the Pope consented to grant absolution. But even yet Henry had not tasted the dregs of humiliation. He had been degraded before men, he was to be degraded in the presence of God.
After the absolution had been granted in due form, the Pope proceeded to celebrate the awful mystery of the Eucharist. He called the king towards the altar, he lifted in his hands the Body of the Lord, and said, "I have been accused by thee of having usurped the Apostolic See by simoniacal practices. Behold the Lord's Body. If I be guilty, may God strike me dead at once." He took and ate the Sacrament. A pause ensued. " Do thou, my son, as I have done ! The Princes of the German Empire have accused thee of crimes heinous and capital. If thou art guiltless, take and eat." The king shrank away, self- convicted.
When Henry left Canossa, he met with sullen and averted faces. The Lombards had come not to see the king, but the Pope humbled. Angry discontent spread through the camp. There was a general cry that the king should abdicate, and that his son Conrad should be proclaimed. With him at their head they would march to Rome, elect another Pope, who should crown him emperor, and annul all the acts of Gregory VII. The tumult was with difficulty quelled, and Henry retired in shame and sorrow to Reggio.
fj^ ^
376 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas.
But Hildebrand had overshot his mark. The severity with which he had treated the emperor was felt in Germany as an insult to the nation ; and on all sides men returned to their allegiance. The revolted German princes had gone too far to retreat. They assembled a diet at Forscheim, on March 13, 1077, and elected Rudolf of Swabia to be king in the room of Henry. He was consecrated at Mainz by Archbishop Siegfried, and the papal legates gave the sanction of their presence to the ceremony. Thus was civil war proclaimed throughout Germany. For seventeen years wars and seditions raged throughout the Roman Empire. Bishops rose against bishops, the clergy against the clergy, the people against the people, father against son, son against father, brother against brother. The assumption of the throne by a rival monarch called into action all the slumbering forces of Henry's cause. The people of Mainz broke out in a sudden access of fidelity to the king. Worms shut her gates against Rudolf. The three bishops of Wurtzburg, Metz and Passau, alone adhered to Rudolf; some at once declared for Henry. The emperor had in the mean time invested Canossa, to prevent the pope from making his way to Augsburg, where the German princes awaited him. The emperor's army rapidly grew. Sieghardt, patriarch of Aquileia, opened Carniola to him, and Henry marched into Germany. On reaching Ulm, he held a diet, and placed Rudolf and his adherents under the ban of the empire.
The whole of Germany was divided into two parties, that of the emperor, and that of S. Peter, and this gave rise to the great division in the German nation, which, at a later period, attained such melancholy celebrity as the strife between the Welfs and the Waiblinger, or Guelphs and GhibelUnes. The nobility and the bishops were
4,. ^
*
Mayas.] 6". Gregory VII. 2)77
divided in their allegiance; the cities and free states all pronounced in favour of the emperor. In Augsburg, Matthias Corsany preached against, and Geroch in favour of the Pope ; the latter was driven by the citizens out of the town.
Gregory, greatly disconcerted by this turn in affairs, temporized. The Saxons, irritated by this conduct, incited by Gebhardt, archbishop of Salzburg, who had been deposed by Henry, addressed three letters to him, which received the nickname of "the cockcrowing," being in- tended, like the voice of S. Peter's cock, to move his successor to remorse. The low state of Rudolfs affairs compelled Gregory to a decision. If he allowed Rudolf to be crushed, the conqueror of Germany would remorse- lessly close his iron hand upon himself At Rome, on March 7th, 1080, he fulminated once more the terrific sentence of excommunication and deposition against King Henry ; and he prophesied that, unless Henry made his submission before the 29th of June, he would be deposed or dead ; and if his vaticination failed, he bade men cease to believe in the authority of Gregory. And then, as the genuine crown of Charlemagne was in Henry's possession, the pope sent to Rudolf a new diadem, for which he was to hold the empire as a papal fief; the inscription it bore ran thus, " Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolpho." It was a maxim of Gregory that all sovereigns derived their rights, and held their thrones from the see of S. Peter. " The Pope," said he, " is the sun, the emperor is the moon that shines with borrowed light."
But the anathema had lost its terrors even in the popular mind. No defections took place ; no desertions from the court, the council, or the army. All disclaimed at once further allegiance to Gregory. At Mainz ninteen bishops met, and with one voice renounced Hildebrand as pope.
*
^-
TfjS Lives of the Saints. [Mayas.
The archbishops of Milan and Ravenna assembled with thirty other bishops in a council at Brixen, confirmed the deposition of Gregory VII., and the archbishop of Ravenna was nominated in his stead, as Pope Clement III. Only fifteen bishops in Germany and Italy permanently sided with the pope.
On Oct. 25, 1080, the armies of Henry and Rudolf met for a decisive battle near the Elster, in the great plain lying between Merseburg and Leipzig, famous for the victory gained by Henry the Fowler over the Hungarians.^ It might seem a religious no less than a civil war. Henry was accompanied to the battle by the Archbishop of Cologne and Treves, and fourteen other prelates. The Saxons advanced to the charge with the bishops of their party chanting the eighty-first (a. v. 82nd) psalm, " God standeth in the con- gregation of the princes." Henry was defeated, but his reverse was more than counterbalanced by the fall of his rival. Some misgivings as to the justice of his cause em- bittered the last moments of Rudolf. His hand had been struck off by a sabre : as he gazed at it he said, "With this hand I ratified my oath of fidelity to my sovereign. I have now lost life and kingdom. Bethink ye, ye who have led me, whether ye have guided me right." The death of Rudolf paralysed the adversaries of Henry for a time, and gave him leisure to turn his forces to chastise his more irre- concilable enemy. In the spring of the year 1081 Henry crossed the Alps in far different condition from that in which four years before he had stolen, a deserted and broken- spirited penitent, to the feet of the Pope. Heaven had not ratified the predictions of Gregory. Instead of defeat and death Henry had met with success, and now he came in the pride of conquest against the Pope.
He laid siege to Rome, but for three successive years
' See March Vol. p. 261-2.
*-
May 25.] 5". G)'ego7y VII. 379
without success. Year after year, summer, by its intoler- able heats, and by sickness, thinned the ranks of the Ger- mans, and compelled them to withdraw. At length, at Christmas, in 1083, Henry made himself master of Rome, but not of the person of the pope, who had hastily shut himself up within the impregnable walls of the castle of S. Angelo. But succour was at hand. The Norman invaders of Southern Italy had been under excommunication on account of their devastations. They had defeated Leo IX. in his ill-advised expedition against them. Now Gregory VII. removed the ban, and called them to his assistance. Robert Guiscard advanced rapidly to his aid at the head of a mixed body of adventures, Norman free-booters, and Saracens, seeking only pillage. Henry was not strong enough to cope with this formidable host. He evacuated the city three days before the Norman army appeared under its walls. But now that the deliverers of the Pope had arrived, the Romans refused to open their gates to them. They dreaded the Normans and Saracens, and adventurers of all lands who formed the army, far more than the disci- plined troops of the emperor. But the Normans surprised the gate of S. Lorenzo and made themselves masters of Rome. Their first act was to release the Pope from his inprisonment in the castle of S. Angelo. They conducted him to the Lateran palace, and then spread over the city pillaging, violating, murdering, wherever they met with opposition. The Romans rushed upon the invaders when revelling in careless security, and began to cut them down. But with the discipline of practised soldiers they flew to arms; the whole city was in conflict. The remorseless Guiscard gave the word to fire the houses. From every quarter the flames rushed up — houses, palaces, convents, churches, as the night darkened, were seen in awful conflagration. The distracted inhabitants dashed wildly
^ . ,j,
*-
380 Lives of the Saints. [May 25.
into the streets, no longer endeavouring to defend them- selves, but to save their families. They were hewn down by hundreds. The Saracen allies of the Pope had been foremost in the pillage, they were now the foremost in the conflagration and the massacre. No house, no monastery, was secure from plunder, murder, and rape. Nuns were outraged, matrons forced, the rings cut from their living fingers. Gregory exerted himself, not without success, in saving the principal churches. It is probable, however, that neither Goth nor Vandal, neither Greek nor German, brought such desolation on the city as the capture by the Normans. From this period dates the desertion of the older part of the city, and the gradual extension of Rome over the site of the modern city.
Guiscard was at length master of the ruins of Rome, but his vengeance was yet unappeased. Many thousand Romans were sold publicly as slaves.
Unprotected by his Norman guard, the Pope could not now trust himself in the city. The miserable people re- garded him as the author of their woes, they would have torn him to pieces in their rage. In the company of his ally and deliverer, Robert Guiscard, but oppressed with shame and affliction, he retired from the smoking ruins and desolated streets of the city of S. Peter, to the Norman's strong tower of Salerno. In the meantime Henry was troubled with the news of another claimant to the throne, Hermann of Luxemburg, whom the Saxons had proclaimed their king, at Eisleben. He was nicknamed "the garlic king " on account of the quantity of garlic that grew around Eisleben.
Gregory, unshaken by the horrors he had witnessed, and the perils he had escaped, thundered out again his excom- munication of Henry, from the castle of Salerno. From thence he watched the angry storm raging over the empire.
*
-*
May 25.] S. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi. 381
but there was no break on the horizon, and three years after, he died at Salerno bitterly murmuring, " I have loved justice and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile." Before his death he pronounced a general absolu- tion over all mankind, yet stern to the last, excepting from it Henry and the bishops who adhered to him.
S. MARY MAGDALEN OF PAZZI, V.
(a.d. 1607.)
[Roman and Carmelite Martyrology. Beatified by Pope Urban VIII. in 1626, canonized by Alexander VII. in 1669. Authorities : — A life from notes by Vincent Puccini, who was confessor to the convent after 1605 ; this was dedicated to Q. Mary de Medici, in 1609. Also another life written in 1625, by Virgilius Cepari, S. J., her confessor.]
This saint belonged to the ancient family of Pazzi, at Florence; she was born in 1566, and received at the font the name of Catherine. From her earliest childhood her desire was to devote herself to the re- ligious life. Her father having been appointed governor of Cortina, placed his child in the convent of S. John at Florence. At the end of fifteen months he returned to Florence, and wished to provide for his daughter a suitable marriage, but she so earnestly besought him to allow her to enter religion, that he consented, and she took the habit in 1583, when she was eighteen years old, in the order of Mount Carmel. She professed the following year, and took the name of Mary Magdalen in religion. In 1585, on the vigil of Pentecost she saw herself transported in vision to a horrible swamp filled with the most revolting forms. This vision made a deep impression on her, and feared it was sent to forewarn her of an impending temptation. She resolved to meet all trials
•)J^
* ^
382 Lives of the Saints. [Mayas.
with submission to the sweet Will of God, in which she experienced the liveliest confidence. On the following Trinity Sunday the signification of her vision was made manifest, for she entered that " Den of Lions," as she called the dismal swamp of her vision, by becoming a prey to the most distressing thoughts. Ideas of indescribable pro- fanity and sensuality forced themselves into her mind. The face of God seemed to be withdrawn from her, all was desolation and a horror of foul imaginations. She combated them by crying perpetually, " Thy will. Thy will be done, O my God, but suffer me not to fall from Thee." This harrowing condition lasted five years. Her colour went, and she became thin, and worn in face ; but suddenly, in 1590, as the sisters were chanting Te Deum in choir, she felt that she was released from her den of lions; and when Matins were over, she rushed to the prioress, radiant with joy, exclaiming, " Rejoice with me, my mother, the storm is passed." In her last sickness, her confessor urged her to pray for some alleviations of her sufferings. " Let the will of God be done," was her answer.
She died on May 15, in the year 1607, aged 41 years. She was buried in the Church of her Order in Florence. She generally appears in art represented with a ring on her finger, because she is said once in vision to have seen the Saviour, who placed the ring on her finger, betrothing her to His service.
^ ..i<
May 26.] 6". Quadratus. 383
May 26.
S. Alph^;us, Father 0/ SS. Mattheiv and James, at Capernaum, isi
ccnt.^ S. Carpus, B. of Bernea, xstcent. S. QuADRATUS, B. ofAihetts, circ. A.D. 130. SS. Symmetrius and Comp., MM. at Rome, circ. a.d. 159. S. Eleutherius, Pope of Rome, a.d. 185. SS. Priscus and Cottus, MM. at Toussi-sur-Yonne, near Auxerre,
■^rd cent. S. Augustine, Abp. of Canterbury, Ap. of the English, a.d. 605. S. Philip Neri. Fouruier of the Oratorians, at Rome, a.d. 1595. B. Marianna of Jesus, ^., commonly called the Lily of Quito, at
Quito, in Peru, a.d. 1645.
S. QUADRATUS, B. OF ATHENS.
(about a.d. 130.)
[Roman Martyrology. In the Greek Mensea, on Sept. 22nd, he is venerated as a martyr ; but probably this is a mistake, Quadratus, bishop of Magnesia, and the menology of the Emperor Basil so styles him. There is no evidence that he was a martyr. Authority : — Eusebius, Hist. EccL, lib. iii., c. 36, and iv., c. 3, 25.]
AINT QUADRATUS, disciple of the apostles, succeeded Publius in the bishopric of Athens, ,^^^^t about the year 125. He composed a defence ^^ "^ of the Christian religion, or an " Apology," which he presented to the Emperor Hadrian, and this work induced the emperor to abate the persecution of the Church. S. Jerome speaks highly of this apology.
' Greek I\Iena;a. Nothing known of him except his name as mentioned in the Gospels.
^
)J, — ^*
»J< -^
384 Lives of the Saints. [May 26.
S. AUGUSTINE, ABP. OF CANTERBURY, APOSTLE OF THE ENGLISH.
(a.d. 605.)
[Roman and Anglican Martyrologies ; also Reformed Anglican Kalen- dar ; Bede, Hrabanus, Ado, Notker, &c. Authority : — Bede's Eccl. Hist., the life of S. Augustine by Gotselin, d. 109S, contains no original matter.]
The account of the mission of S. Augustine to England, and of his landing in Kent, and the establishment of the see of Canterbury has been already given in the Lives of S. Gregory the Great (March 1 2th), and S. Ethelbert (Feb. 24th), and it need not be repeated in full here.
The monastery of S. Andrew, on the Coelian hill, had been founded by S. Gregory the Great, while still a simple monk, at the time when he transformed his patrimonial mansion into a cloister. In the church of the monastery is still shown the pulpit from which Gregory preached, the altar before which he must often have prayed for the conversion of his beloved English. On the facade of the church an inscription records that thence set out the first apostles of the Anglo-Saxons, and preserves their names. Absolutely nothing is known of Augustine's history previous to the solemn days on which, in obedience to the com- mands of the pontiff, who had been his abbot, he and his forty companions (in 396), went forth on their sacred mission. He must, as prior of the monastery, have ex- hibited distinguished qualifications ere he could have been chosen by Gregory for such a mission. They arrived in Provence, and stopped for some time at Lerins, in that Mediterranean isle of the saints, where, a century and a half before, Patrick, the monastic apostle of Ireland, had sojourned before he was sent on his evangelical mission by Pope Celestine. But there, the Roman monks received
i 1^
^
;>^.^ hij_a iiJ"Hr<^L^ K^ K< ^n rrj
S. AUGUSTINE, AB?. CANTERBURY. From a drawing by A. Welby Fugm.
-►^
May 26.
-'^
May 26.] S. Augustine of Cajtter bury 385
frightful accounts of the country which they were going to convert. They took fright, and persuaded Augustine to return to Rome and obtain from the pope permission to abandon their dangerous enterprise. Instead of Hstening to their request, Gregory sent Augustine back to them with a letter which ordered them to obey Augustine im- plicitly as their abbot, and to continue their journey forth- with. Thus stimulated, Augustine and his monks took courage, and again set out upon their way. They traversed France, and brought their journey to a close on the southern shore of Great Britain, at Ebbsfleet, near Sand- wich. It was there that Julius Csesar had landed with his legions. The new conquerors, like Julius Caesar, arrived under the ensigns of Rome — but of Rome the eternal, not the imperial. The rock which received the first print of the footsteps of Augustine was long preserved and vene- rated, and was the object of many pilgrimages.
Immediately on his arrival, Augustine sent interpreters whom he had brought with him from France, to Ethelbert king of Kent. The king appointed them to meet him in the Isle of Thanet. " The history of the Church," says Bossuet, " contains nothing finer than the entrance of the holy monk Augustine into the kingdom of Kent with forty of his companions, who preceded by the cross and the image of the great king, our Lord Jesus Christ, offered their solemn prayers for the conversion of England." At their head marched Augustine, whose lofty stature and patrician presence attracted every eye, for, like Saul, " he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upwards." The king received the missionaries graciously, and per- mitted them freely to preach Christianity among his subjects. He allowed them to follow him to Canterbury, where he assigned them a dwelling, which still exists under the name of the Stable Gate.
VOL. v. 25
-®
*-
386 Lives of the Saints. [May 26.
There was outside the town, to the east, a small church dedicated to S. Martin, dating from the time of the Romans, whither Bertha, the Christian queen of Ethelbert, was in the habit of going to pray. Thither also went Augustine and his companions to chant their monastic office, to celebrate mass, to preach and to baptize. Here then we behold them, provided, thanks to the royal munificence, with the necessaries of life, endowed with the supreme blessing of liberty, and using that liberty in labour- ing to propagate the truth. The innocent simplicity of their lives, the heavenly sweetness of their doctrine, appeared to the Saxons arguments of invincible eloquence, and every day the number of candidates for baptism increased.
The good king Ethelbert did not lose sight of them, he sought and obtained baptism at the hand of Augustine. A crowd of Saxons followed his example. Augustine now perceived that he would be henceforward at the head of an important Christian community, and in conformity to his instructions, returned to France to be consecrated archbishop of the English by Virgilius, the celebrated metropolitan of Aries. On his return to Canterbury he found that the example of the king and the labours of his companions had borne fruit beyond all expectation ; so much so, that at Christmas in the same year, 597, more than ten thousand Anglo-Saxons presented themselves for baptism ; and that sacrament was administered to them in the Thames at the mouth of the Med way, opposite the Isle of Sheppey.
The first of the converts was also the first of the benefactors of the infant church. Ethelbert gave his palace in the town of Canterbury to Augustine to be converted into a monastery \ and by its side Augustine laid the foundations of Christ Church, the metropolitan Church of England. To the west of the royal city, and
*-
-*
May 26.] S. Augusthie of Canterbury. 387
halfway to the church of S. Martin, Augustine discovered the site of an ancient British church which had been trans- formed into a pagan temple. Ethelbert gave up to him the temple, with the ground surrounding it. The arch- bishop forthwith restored it to its original use as a church, and dedicated it to S. Pancras. Round the new sanctuary he raised another monastery, of which Peter, one of his companions, was the first abbot. He consecrated this new foundation to SS. Peter and Paul; but it is under his own name that the famous abbey became one of the most opulent and revered sanctuaries of Christendom. Seven years were needed to complete the monastery, but some months before his death, Augustine had the satisfaction of seeing his foundation sanctioned by the solemn charter of the king and the chief of the nation whom he had con verted, 9th Jan., 605.
Some time before the solemn consecration of his work, Augustine had sent to Rome two of his companions, Laurence, who was to succeed him as archbishop, and Peter, who was to be the first abbot of the new monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, to announce to the Pope the great and good news of the conversion of the king, with his kingdom of Kent, and to demand from him new assistants in the work. His appeal was promptly responded to, and Mellitus and Justus at the head of a new swarm of monks descended on Kent. The Pope sent to Augustine the pall, as a reward for having established the new English Church, and constituted him metropolitan of twelve bishoprics, which he enjoined him to erect in southern England. He gave him authority to appoint whom he would metropolitan bishop at York, subordinating to the see of York twelve new bishoprics yet to be created, but securing to Augustine during his lifetime the primacy over the northern metropolitan.
-*
1^-
388 Lives of the Saints. [May 26.
The British Churcli, though secluded in the fastnesses of Wales to Cornwall, could not but hear of the arrival of the Roman missionaries, and of their success in the conversion of the Saxons. Augustine and his followers could not but inquire with deep interest concerning the relics of that ancient Christianity which had formerly embraced all Britain, but which had been thrust back at the point of the Saxon spears into the mountain fastnesses of the West. The British Church followed a different usage from Rome in the time of the celebration of Easter. It claimed, but erroneously. Eastern authority ; the real cause of the divergence lay in erroneous computation. The Church of Alexandria had discovered an astronomical error, originat- ing in the employment of the ancient Jewish computation by the Christians, and had introduced a more exact calcula- tion, which was adopted by all the Eastern Churches ; and the result was, that from the pontificate of S. Leo the Great (440-61) a difference of an entire month had arisen between Easter Day at Rome and Easter Day at Alex- andria. Towards the middle of the sixth century, the difference ceased. But Ireland and Britain had been converted before the correction of the calendar, and there- fore adhered to the old compulation, which was at variance not only with Rome and the whole West, but also with the East, which celebrated that festival, like the Jews, on the precise day of the week on which it fell.
The zealous missionaries of Gregory did not know the origin of the error ; all they saw was that error existed, and that the British Church adhered tenaciously to it. The Roman and British clergy met, it is said, in solemn synod, on the confines of Wessex, near the banks of the Severn, which separated the Saxons from the Britons. The inter- view, like that of Augustine with Ethelbert, after his landing in Kent, took place in the open air, and under
•i<-
*
May 26.] S. Aiigustine of Canterbury. 389
an oak, which for a long time afterwards was known as Augustine's oak. The Romans demanded submission to their disciphne, and the impUcit adoption of the Western ceremonial on the contested points. The British bishops demurred ; Augustine proposed to place the issue of the dispute on the decision of a miracle. The miracle was duly performed, — a blind man brought forward and re- stored to sight. But the miracle made no impression on the obdurate Britons. They demanded a second meeting, and at the advice of a hermit, resolved to put the Christi- anity of the strangers to a moral test. " True Christianity," they said, " is meek and lowly of heart. Such will be this man (Augustine), if he be a servant of God. If he be haughty and ungentle, he is not of God, and we may disregard his words. Let the Romans arrive first at the synod. If on our approach he rises from his seat to receive us with meekness and humihty, he is the servant of Christ, and we will obey him. If he despises us, and remains seated, let us despise him." Augustine sat, more Romano, says the historian,^ as they drew near, in un- bending dignity. The Britons at once refused obedience to his commands, and disclaimed him as their metro- politan. The indignant Augustine burst forth into stern denunciations of their guilt, in not having carried the light of the Gospel to their enemies. It was a charge that could then be made with justice, but it was one speedily and gloriously to be refuted by the conversion of Northum- bria and Mercia through missionaries of the Keltic Church. Augustine prophesied the divine vengeance by the hands of the Saxons. So complete was the alienation, so entirely did the Anglo-Saxon clergy espouse the fierce animosities of the Anglo-Saxons, and even embitter them by their theologic hatred, that the gentle Bede relates with triumph,
' Henry of Huntingdon. *
390 Lives of the Saints. [May 26.
as a manifest proof of the divine wrath against the refrac- tory Britons, a great victory over that wicked race, pre- ceded by a massacre of 1 200 of their clergy, chiefly monks of Bangor, who stood aloof on an eminence, praying for the success of their countrymen.
Condemned by the obstinacy of the British to deprive himself of their assistance, Augustine none the less continued his ''hunt of men," as his biographer calls it, by evangelizing the Saxons. In so doing he sometimes encountered an opposition which expressed itself in insult and derision, especially when he passed the bounds of Ethelbert's kingdom. On one occasion, whilst traversing Dorsetshire, he and his companions found themselves in the midst of a sea-faring population, who heaped on them affronts and outrages, hunted them from their territory, and with a rude derision fastened fish-tails to the black robes of the Italian monks.^ Augustine was not a man to be discouraged by such trifles. Besides, he found in other places crowds more attentive and more impressible. And thus he persevered for seven years, until his death, in his apostolic journeys.
S. Gregory died in the early months of the year 605, and two months after, Augustine followed his father and fiiend to the tomb. The great apostle of the English was buried in the unfinished church of the famous monastery which was about to assume and to preserve his name.
' John Bale, the coarse reformer in Edward VI. 's time, says, " John Capgrave and Alexander of Esseby sayth, that for castynge of fyshe tayles at thys Augus- t>Tie, Dorsettshyre men had tayles ever after. But Polydorus applieth it unto Kentish men at Stroud, by Rochester, for cuttinge off Thomas Becket's horse's tail. Thus hath England in all other land a perpetual infamy of tayles . . that an Englyshman now cannot travayle in another land by way of merchandyse, or any other honest occupyinge, but it is most contumeliously thrown in his tethe that all Englyshmen have tayls."
Ij, — ^
^
May 26.] S. Philip Neri. 391
S. PHILIP NERI, C.
(a.d. 1595.)
[Roman Martyrology. Canonized by Gregory XV. in 1622. Authori- ties : — His life written by F. Antonio Galloni, one of his favourite disciples, in 1601 ; another by Hieronymus Barnabaeus, a contemporary ; another by Jacobus Bacci, pub. in 1645.]
S. Philip of Neri, founder of the congregation of the oratory of Italy, was born at Florence, in 15 15, and from his childhood was so blameless in life, that he went familiarly by the name of " Good Philip." His father, who was a lawyer, gave him an excellent education, and sent him into the counting-house of his uncle at S. Germano, at the foot of Monte Cassino, but Philip felt that he had no vocation for a commercial life, and he left for Rome, where he studied philosophy and canon law. In time he became so remarkable for his learning that he was con- sulted by those who had been his masters. But, resolving to devote himself only to the service of God, and the salvation of souls, he sold his books, distributed the money to the poor, and spent his time in the hospitals, or in going among the worldly and irreligious, endeavouring to reclaim them. He saw that a society with this end in view was much needed, and in 1548 he formed fourteen companions into a congregation, attached to the church of S. Salvatore- del-Campo. Two years after he transferred it to the church of the Trinita, and erected a hospital in connection with it, which still exists. At the age of thirty-six he was ordained priest, and after his ordination retired into the community of the Hieronymites. His sermons attracted crowds, and his discernment of hearts in the confessional made his ministrations to be in great request. He found it advan- tageous to hold conferences in his chamber on theological questions of the day, and these were attended by men, with
392 Lives of the Saints. [May 26.
great fruit. The advantage became so conspicuous that he united to him some of the priests and young ecclesiastics of great promise to continue his conferences, and these he extended to the people generally in the church of the Trinita. In 1564 some of his disciples, amongst them Baronius, afterwards the great ecclesiastical historian, were presented by him for ordination. He collected them into a congregation without vows, gave them rules, and ap- pointed them to carry on the special work he had under- taken, and which the exigencies of the day had called forth. This congregation was approved by Gregory XIII., in 1675, who gave up to it the church of S. Maria de Vallicella.
He died on May 26th, 1595, having received the Viaticum from the hands of Cardinal Frederick Borromeo, the same whose character has been so exquisitely drawn in the noble romance of the Promessi Sposi.
B. MARIANNA OF JESUS, V.
(a.d. 1645.)
[Roman Martyrology. Beatified in 1850 by Pius IX.]
The blessed Marianna was born on Oct. 31st, 1618, at Quito, in Peru, and was left an orphan at an early age. She devoted her life from an early age to mortification, and lived the life of a religious in a chamber of her own house. She was wont to sleep in a coffin, or on a cross, and on Fridays she hung for two hours on a cross, attached to it by her hair and by ropes. Her fasting was excessive, and she loved on hot days to deny herself a drop of water to quench an almost intolerable thirst. In her last sick- ness she was bled, and the blood was thrown into the
ij, — 'ft
^-
*
May 26.]
B. Marianna of Jesus.
393
garden. After her death a tall white lily grew up where her blood had been thrown. She died on May 26th, 1645, ^'^^ her burial was attended by immense crowds. Many miracles were believed to have been performed at her tomb and by her intercession.
She is usually called the " Lily of Quito."
^-
-^
394 Lives of the Saints. [May 27-
May 27.
S. Restituta, V.M. atSoraiit Campania, circ. a.d. 272.
S. Julius, M. at Dorostolutn in Mysia, circ. a.d. 302.
S. EuTROPius, B. of Orange, circ. A.D. 488.
S. John I., Pope, M. at Rome, a.d. 526.
S. BiLDEVERT, B. at Meaux,circ. a.d. 680.
S. Bede the Veneradle, Mk. of J arrow in Northumberland, a.d. 734
S. Frederick, B. of Liege, a.d. 1121.
S. JULIUS, M.
(circ. A.D. 302.)
[Florus in his addition to Bede, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, &c. Roman Martyrology. Authority : — The authentic Acts.]
E have already given the account of the martyr- dom of Pasicrates and Valentio, soldiers in the Roman army, at Dorostolum, in the persecution of Diocletian. Julius was a veteran in the same regiment, and was called to suffer in the same cause two days after his companions. As he went to execution, Hesychius, a Christian soldier, who was also a prisoner, and suffered martyrdom a few days later, said, " Go with courage and run to win the crown the Lord hath promised ; and remember me, who am shortly to follow thee. Commend me to the servants of God, Pasicrates and Valentio, who are gone before us." Julius embracing him said, " Dear brother, make haste to join us ; they whom you have saluted have already heard thy commission." Julius bound his eyes with a handkerchief, and presenting his neck to the executioner, said, " Lord Jesus, for whose name I suffer death, receive me into the number of Thy saints."
.3& 'i*
1^. _ — (J,
May 27.] 5". John I. 395
S. JOHN I., POPE M. (a.d. 526.)
[Roman Martyiology. Ado, Notker, Hrabaiius, &c. Authorities : — The anonymous historian of the Csesars from Constantius Chlorus to Theodoric, pubhshed by Valesius, Anastatius Bibhothecarius, &c.]
Theodoric the Goth, in all the earlier part of his reign, showed a spirit of remarkable toleration. Though inherit- ing the Arian tenets of his Ostrogoth forefathers, he behaved to the Catholics with rigid impartiality. Towards the close of the Gothic monarchy the royal ambassadors to Belisarius defied their enemies to prove a case in which the Goths had persecuted the Catholics.^ Theodoric treated the pope, the bishops, and clergy, with grave respect, in the more distinguished he ever placed the highest confi- dence. He showed as much reverence, and even bounty, to the church of S. Peter, as though he had been a Catholic. Theodoric himself adhered firmly but calmly to his native Arianism; but, all the conversions seem to have been from the religion of the king ; even his mother became a Catholic, and some other distinguished persons of the Court embraced a different creed from their sovereign without forfeiting his favour. Theodoric was the protector of Church property, which he himself increased by large grants.
But towards the close of his reign a change of policy was forced on by the imprudence of the Eastern Emperor Justin. In 523 Justin in a terrible edict commanded all Manichjeans to leave the empire on pain of death ; other heretics were incapacitated for holding all civil and military office. The Arians, deprived of their churches and their rights as citizens, appealed to the Gothic king of Italy. It was precisely at this juncture that rumours of conspiracy
' Procop. de Bell, Gothic ii., c. 6.
396 Lives of the Saints. [May 27.
reached his ear. Vague intelligence of a correspondence carried on by the heads of the Roman senate with the emperor of the East, arrived at Ravenna. Indignation, not without apprehension, at this sudden, and as it seemed simultaneous, movement of hostihty, seized the soul of Theodoric. The whole circumstances of his position demanded careful consideration. Nothing could be more unprovoked than the religious measures of Constantinople, as far as they menaced the West, and assailed those in the East who held the same faith as Theodoric. His equity to his Catholic and Arian subjects was unimpeachable ; to the pope he had always shown respectful deference, he had taken no advantage of the contention for the pontificate by Symmachus and Laurentius to promote his own tenets. Even as late as this very year, he had bestowed on the church of S. Peter two magnificent chandeliers of solid silver.
He at once arrested Albinus, the chief of the Roman senate, on the charge of holding treasonable correspondence with Constantinople. Severianus Boethius, the senator, was involved in the charge. This consummate master of all the arts and sciences known at that period had been raised to the consulate, and had received high marks of his sovereign's esteem. His signature, forged as he declared, was shown at the foot of an address, inviting the emperor of the East to re-conquer Italy. He was condemned to imprisonment, and was incarcerated at Calvenzano, a castle between Milan and Pavia.
In the meantime the religious affairs of the East became more threatening to those who held the same religious creed with Theodoric. The correspondence between the monarchs had produced no eftect, and Theodoric adopted the strange expedient of sending the pope to Constanti- nople to remonstrate with the Eastern emperor, and obtain toleration for the Arians. To the pope's remon-
* *
*h ^
May 27.] 6^. yo/m I. 397
strances and attempts to limit his mediatorial ofifice to points less unsuited to his character, Theodoric angrily replied, by commanding the envoys instantly to embark in the vessels which were ready for the voyage.
John I., a Tuscan by birth, was then pope, he had suc- ceeded Hormisdas in 523. Of his acts Uttle is known before he was sent on this expedition, except that he repaired the catacombs of SS. Nereus and Achilles, of SS. Felix and Adauctus, and of S. Priscilla.
S. Gregory the Great, in his dialogues, relates of his journey, how on the way he healed a blind man, and how he rode a horse which after it had borne the pope would never suffer a woman to mount his back. John was received in Constantinople with the most flattering honours. The whole city, with the emperor at its head, came forth to meet him with tapers, as far as the tenth milestone from the gates. The emperor knelt at his feet to receive his apostolic benediction. On Easter Day he said mass in the great church, Epiphanius the bishop ceding the first place to the more holy stranger. But of the course and success of his negotiations all is utterly confused and contradictory. By one account, now abandoned as a later forgery, he boldly confirmed the emperor in the rejection of all con- cessions. By another, he was so far faithful to his mission, as to obtain liberty of worship, and the restitution of their churches to the Arians. All that is certainly known is, that John the pope, on his return, was received as a traitor by Theodoric, thrown into prison, and there the highest eccle- siastic of the West languished for nearly a year and died.
Even before his return, Boethius had been sacrificed to the suspicions and fears of Theodoric.
In prison Boethius wrote his great book, ** The Consola- tion of Philosophy," which appears as the last work of Roman letters, rather than as eminent among Christian
ij, ^
^ _ »J<
398 Lives of the Saints. May 27.
writings. It is equally surprising that in such an age and by such a man, in his imprisonment and under the terrors of approaching death, consolation should have been sought in philosophy rather than in religion; and that he should have sought his example of Patience in Socrates rather than in Christ. From the beginning of the book to the end, there is nothing distinctively Christian; its religion is no higher than Theism, almost the whole might have been wiitten by Cicero in exile. This accomplished man was put to death with peculiar barbarity, and his name has found its way into some martyrologies, which commemo- rate S. Severianus Boethius on October 23rd. On that day he is venerated in the church of S. Peter at Pavia, but, as a modern hagiographer remarks, " Before giving the biography of Boethius among those of the saints, I wait till history has determined that he was a Christian." ^
S. BEDE THE VENERABLE, MK., D. (a.d. 734.)
[Bede died on Maj- 26th, but his festival has been transferred to May 27th, because of the former day being the festival of S. Augustine, the apostle of England. Salisbury Kalendar, Reformed Anglican Kalendar. Some copies of Usuardus, Wyon, Menardus, the Anglican Kalendar of Wilson, Roman Martyrology. The loth of May is noted in some Kalendars as the day of his deposition at Durham. Authorities : — His life by Turgot, prior of Durham, d. 11 15, in his History of Durham. But the only accurate information relating to the life of Bede is given by Bede himself, at the end of his Ecclesiastical History. To this must be added Cuthbert's account of his last moments. Notices more or less detailed are found in William of Malmesbury, and other historians.]
Bede was born in 672 or 673,'^ near the place where Benedict Biscop (January 12th), soon afterwards founded
' Dom. Guerin, Vies des Saints, T. V., p. 514.
' The Ecclesiastical History was finished in 731, and at the etid of it Bede states himself to be at that time 59 years of age.
•^ — lit
May 27.] S. Bedc the Venerable. 399
the religious house of Wearmouth, perhaps in the parish of Monkton, which appears to have been one of the earliest endowments of the monastery. As soon as he had reached his seventh year, Bede was sent to Wearmouth, and then to Jarrow, to profit by the teaching of Biscop, from which period to his death he continued to be an inmate of the later monastery. After the death of Benedict Biscop, Bede pursued his studies under his successor Ceol- frid, and at the age of nineteen, about a.d. 692, was admitted to deacon's orders by S. John of Beverley, then newly restored to his see of Hexham ; and in his thirtieth year he was ordained to the priesthood by the same prelate. The early age at which Bede received holy orders, shows that he was then already distinguishing himself by his learning and piety; and there can be little doubt that his fame was widely spread before the com- mencement of the eighth century. At that period, accord- ing to that account which has been generally received, Bede was invited to Rome by Pope Sergius I., to advise with that pontiff on some difficult points of church disci- pline. The authority for this circumstance is a letter of the pope to Ceolfrid, expressing his wish to see Bede at Rome, which has been inserted by William of Malmesbury in his History of England. It seems, however, nearly certain that Bede did not go to Rome on this occasion ; and reasons have been stated for supposing the whole story, as far as Bede was concerned in it, to be a mis representation. If Bede was invited, we may suppose that the death of the pope the same year in which the letter was sent, released him from the labours of the journey.
The remainder of Bede's life appears to have passed in the tranquillity of study. He clung through life to the dear retreat that was his home, and within its peaceful
^ *
400 Lives of the Saints. (May a;.
walls composed his numerous books. But occasionally he went forth to other religious houses for brief visits. In 733 he spent some days in the monastery of York in company with his friend, Archbishop Egbert ; but he declined another invitation from the same prelate, towards the close of 734, on the plea of ill health, in a letter still preserved. Bede was at this time labouring under an asthmatic complaint, which shortly afterwards carried him from the scene of his mortal labours.
It is evident from various passages of his works that his days and nights were divided between the studies and researches which he pursued to his last hour, and the instructions he gave to the six hundred monks of Wear- mouth and Jarrow. An existence more completely occupied it would be difficult to imagine. Except during the course of his last illness, he had no assistant in his work. " I am my own secretary," he said, " I dictate, I compose, I copy all myself."
His greatest work, that most precious to Englishmen, is unquestionably his Ecclesiastical History of England, our chief, almost our only authority for the early history of Christianity in our island. He was urged to undertake this by Albinus, abbot of S. Augustine's, Canterbury. Albinus furnished him with memoranda of all that had happened in Kent and the neighbouring counties in the time of the missionaries sent by S. Gregory ; he even sent a priest to Rome, to search the archives of the Roman Church, with the permission of Gregory II., for the letters of his predecessors and other documents relative to the mission to England. All the bishops of England also assisted in the work by transmitting to the author what information they could collect concerning the origin of the faith in their dioceses. The abbots of the most important monasteries also furnished their contingent.
,j,_. _ _^
This pleasant and glorious life was not, however, without a cloud. He excited the criticism of narrow spirits ; they even went so far as to treat him as a heretic, because he had in his Chronology combated the general opinion that the world would last only six thousand years. He grew pale with surprise and horror, as he says to one of his friends, in an apologetic letter, which he charges his correspondent to read to Wilfrid, bishop of York, who seems to have given a certain encouragement to the slander by suffering it to pass in his hearing unrebuked.
If, however, he had some enemies, he had more friends. Among these, in the first rank, it is pleasant to find the Keltic monks of Lindisfarne, Bede asks that his name should be inscribed on the roll of monks in the monastery founded by S. Aidan. He especially desired this favour in order that his soul after death might have a share in the masses and prayers of that numerous community, as if he had been one of themselves.
The details of his last sickness and death have been revealed to us in minute detail by an eye-witness, the monk Cuthbert. "Nearly a fortnight before Easter (17th April, 734) he was seized by an extreme weakness, in con- sequence of his difficulty of breathing, but without great pain. He continued thus till the Ascension (26th May), always joyous and happy, giving thanks to God day and night, and even every hour of the night and day. He gave us our lessons daily, and employed the rest of his time in chanting psalms, and passed every night, after a short sleep, in joy and thanksgiving, but without closing his eyes. From the moment of awaking he resumed his prayers and praises to God, with his arms outstretched as a cross. O happy man ! He sang sometimes texts from S. Paul and other scriptures, sometimes lines in our own language, for he was very able in English poetry, to this effect : — None
VOL. V. 26
^ : 9,
is wiser than him needeth, ere his departure, than to ponder ere the soul flits, what good, what evil it hath wrought, and how after death it will be judged.
" He also sang antiphons according to our ritual and his own, one of which is, ' O glorious King, Lord of all power, who, triumphing this day, didst ascend up above the heavens, leave us not orphans ; but send down on us from the Father the Spirit of Truth which Thou hast promised. Hallelujah.' And when he came to the words, 'leave us not orphans,' he burst into tears, and continued weeping. But an hour after he rallied himself and began to repeat the antiphon he had begun. By turns we read, and by turns we wept — nay, we wept whilst we read. In such joy we passed the days of Lent, till the aforesaid day. He often repeated, * The Lord scourgeth every son whom He receiveth,' and much more out of Scripture ; as also this sentence from S. Ambrose, ' T have not lived so as to be ashamed to live among you, nor do I fear to die, for our God is gracious.' During these days he laboured to com- pose two works, besides his giving us our lessons, and singing psalms. He was engaged on translating the Gospel of S. John into the vulgar tongue, for the benefit of the Church, and had got as far as the words, ' But what are these among so many ' (S. John vi. 9) ; and he was also making some notes out of the book of Bishop Isidore ; for he said, ' I will not have my pupils read what is untrue, nor labour on what is profitless after my death.' On the Tuesday before the Ascension, his breath became much affected, and his feet swelled ; but he passed all that day cheerfully, and continued his dictation, saying, ' Be quick with your writing, for I shall not hold out much longer.' So he spent the night, awake, giving thanks, and when morning broke, that is Wednesday, he ordered us to write with all speed what he had begun ; and there was one of
^ -iji
V'
S. BEDS THE VENERABLE.
May 27.
*
Maya;.] ^S. Bcde the Venerable. 403
us who said to him, ' Most dear master, there is still one chapter wanting ; will it trouble you if I ask a few ques- tions ? ' for the rest of us had gone to make the Rogation procession. He answered, ' It is no trouble. Take your pen, and write fast' And when it came to the ninth hour he said to me, 'There are some articles of value in my chest, as peppercorns, napkins, and incense ; run quickly, and bring the priests of the monastery to me, that I may distribute among them the gifts which God has bestowed on me.' And when they were come he spoke to each of them in turn, and entreated them to pray and offer the Holy Sacrifice for his soul, which they all readily promised, but they were all weeping, for he said ' Ye shall see my face again no more in this life. It is time for me to return to Him who formed me out of nothing. The time of my dissolution is at hand ; I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.'
" Now when even came on, the boy above mentioned said, * Dear master, there is yet one sentence not written.' He answered, ' Then write it quickly now.' Soon after the boy said, ' It is finished. The sentence is now written.' He replied, ' It was well said, it is finished. Raise my old head in your arms, that I may look once more at the happy, holy place, where I was wont to pray, that sitting up in my bed, I may call on my Father.' And thus on the pavement of his little cell, singing 'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,' he breathed his last, as he uttered the name of the Holy Ghost, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom. All who were present thought they had never seen any one die with so much devotion, and in so peaceful a state of mind."
The monastic sanctuary towards which the dying look of Bede was turned still remains in part, if we may believe the best archaeologists, in the recently -restored parish
-*
,J,_ Ijl
404 Lives of the Saints. [May«7.
church of Jarrow, which has been carefully renovated in honour of England's first great historian, every relic of the ancient building as old as Bede being carefully preserved. An old oak chair is still shown, which the saint is pretended to have used. Like all the other saints of the period, without exception, he was canonized by popular veneration, tacitly approved by the Church. Many pilgrims came to Jarrow to visit his tomb. His relics were stolen in the nth century, and carried to Durham, where they were placed with those of S. Cuthbert. They were an object of veneration to the faithful up to the general profanation under Henry VHI., who pulled down the shrine and buried them with those of all the other holy apostles and martyrs of Northumbria.
Towards the 9th century Bede received the appellation of the Venerable, which has ever since been attached to his name. As a specimen of the fables by which his biography was gradually obscured, we may cite the legends invented to account for the origin of this latter title. According to one, the Anglo-Saxon scholars were on a visit to Rome, and there saw a gate of iron, on which was inscribed the letters P.P.P., S.S.S., R.R.R., F.F.F., which no one was able to interpret. Whilst Bede was attentively considering the inscription, a Roman who was passing by said to him rudely, "What seest thou there, English ox?" to which Bede replied, " I see your confusion," and he immediately explained the character thus : — Pater Patriae Perditus, Sapientia Secum Sublata, Ruet Regnum Romae, Ferro Flamma Fame.' The Romans were astonished at the acuteness of their English visitor, and decreed that the title of Venerable should be thenceforth given to him.
1 "The father of his country lost, wisdom carried away with him, the realm of Rome will fall by sword, by flame, by famine." The story is evidently altered and adapted from that of Virgil, and the famous lines, " Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes, &c."
»5bH-
*
May 27.] ^. Frederick, 405
According to another story, Bede, having become blind in his old age, was walking abroad with one of his disciples for a guide, when they arrived at an open place, where there was a large heap of stones, and Bede's companion persuaded his master to preach to the people who, as he pretended, were assembled to hear him. Bede delivered a moving discourse, and when he uttered the concluding words, " per saecula saeculorum," to the great admiration of his disciple, the stones immediately cried out " Amen, Venerable Bede!" There is also a third legend on this subject, which informs us that, soon after Bede's death, one of his disciples was appointed to compose an epitaph in Latin leonines, and carve it on his monument, and he began thus —
Hac sunt in fossa Bed^ ossa,
intending to introduce the word sancti or presbyteri ; but as neither of these words would suit the metre, he left it blank and fell asleep. On awaking he found that an angel had completed the line, and that it stood thus —
Hac sunt in fossa Bedus Venerabilis ossa.
S. FREDERICK, B. OF LIEGE.
(a.d. 1 121.)
[Venerated as a saint in the diocese of Liege. Greven in his additions to Usuardus. Roman Martyrology with additions o( Belgian saints, published at Liege in 1624. Authority : — Renier, monk of S. Laurence, at Liege, a contemporary, the Codex Alnenis quoted by Chapeauville.]
The contest on the subject of investitures that had broken out between Pope Gregory VII. and the Emperor Henry IV., was continued after the decease of both with unflagging energy. On the death of Obert, the fifty-iifih bishop of Liege, Alexander, canon and treasurer of S.
* ij.
406 Lives of the Saints. [Maya?.
Lambert's, the cathedral church, at the instigation of Godfrey, count of Louvain, bought his presentation to the vacant see from the Emperor Henry V. Henry invested Alexander with the cross and ring, and sent him to Liege. But the dean, Frederick, assembled the chapter and clergy, and refused to receive him. The archbishop of Cologne at the same time sent them word on no account to recognize the authority of Alexander, and to proceed canonically to elect a new bishop. An assembly was held at Liege, but opinions were divided, some were for accept- ing Alexander, backed up with the powerful support of the count of Louvain, others were for electing Frederick, the dean. As the election could not be proceeded with at Liege, the chapter retired to Cologne, where they elected Frederick.
In 1 1 19, Calixtus. H excommunicated the Emperor Henry V. As soon as Frederick was consecrated, he returned to Liege, walking thither barefoot. In the mean time the rival bishop, Alexander, occupied the castle of Huy, higher up the Meuse. Frederick, supported by his brother, the Count of Namur, marched against his rival, and began the siege of the castle. But the count of Louvain speedily arrived to its relief, and a battle ensued. Night put an end to the bloodshed, and in the disorder that reigned, Alexander fled the castle, and coming to Frederick, submitted to his discretion.
The count of Louvain, enraged at the failure of his schemes, is said to have resolved on the destruction of the bishop by poison, and to have suborned a servant to administer the dose. But the contemporary historian, Renier, says nothing of this, and it is probably a later invention. Certainly the symptoms of death described by the Codex Alnensis are not those of poison.
^ *
i9Ff-
^^^y^s.] ^. Heliconis, 407
May 28.
S. Heuconis, M. at Corinth, a.d. 244.
SS. Emilius, Felix, Lucian, and Others, MM. in Sardinia.
S. Caraunus, M. at Chartres, sth cent.
SS. Monks, MM. at Thecua, in Palestine, circ. a.d. 410.
S. Theodulus the Stylite, H. at Edessa, about A.D.410.
S. Manv.«us, B. of Bayeux, circ. a.d. 480.
S. Justus, B. 0/ Urgel, in Spain, circ. a.d. 550.
S. Germain, B. of Paris, a.d. 576.
S. William, burnt at Toulouse, Mk. of Val Gelon.
B. Lanfranc, Archb. of Canterbury a.d. 1089.'
B. GiZUR, B. of Skalholt, in Icelatid, a.d. iiiS.
S. HELICONIS, M.
(a.d. 244.)
[Menology of the Emperor Basil, and Greek Menasa. Inserted in the modern Roman Martyrology by Baronius. Also Maronite Kalendar. Authority : — The Greek Acts, pretending to be written by an eye- witness, but they are a forgery.]
HIS woman is said to have been martyred under the emperors Gordian and Philip, who issued an edict against the Christians, when they were consuls together. And during the persecution consequent on the promulgation of this edict, Heliconis suffered at Corinth. But as Gordian and Philip never were consuls together, and as neither issued any such edict, so is the persecution more than questionable. Heliconis may have suffered in some local uprising of the people, or under some feigned charge by a hostile governor, but the fact of the acts being manifestly a forgery, throws the greatest doubt over everything connected with her martyrdom, and indeed over her e.xistence.
' Given by the Bollandists, but as there is no evidence of his having received public veneration, and he appears in no other Martyrologies, his life is not included in this collection.
*-
408 Lives of the Saints. [May 28.
S. CARAUNUS, M.
(5TH CENT.)
[Modem Roman and Galilean MartjTologies. Usuardus and Mau- rolycus. The Acts or Life is a Mediaeval composition, of very uncertain authority ; as it is unknown on what evidence it was composed.]
S. Caraunus, or, as he is commonly called, S. Cheron, was a Roman by birth. He owed his conversion to the Epistles of S. Paul, which fell by chance into his hands. And when he had read them he said, " This wisdom is not of this world," and he sought further instruction, and was baptized. On the death of his parents, he entered holy orders ; but it is not stated that he ever proceeded beyond the diaconate. Under the reign of Domitian he left Rome and came into Gaul. He visited Marseilles and Lyons, and finally arrived at Chartres, where he confirmed in the faith those who had been converted by SS. Potentianus and Altinus. He was on his way to Paris with some companions when his party was attacked by robbers. At his advice his companions took to flight and secreted themselves. The robbers finding no money on the person of Caraunus, smote oft" his head. Towards evening his companions quitted their hiding-places, and taking up his body, buried it on a hill hard by, called at this day Montagne-Sainte. He is generally represented with his head in his hands. His relics are still shown at S. Cheron, near Chartres.
*- *
f — 1$,
May 28.] 5". Theodulus the Sty lite. 409
S. THEODULUS THE STYLITE, H. (about a.d. 410.)
[Greek Mensea. Authority : — His life in Greek, not by a contemporary, but sufficiently correct in dates and details. The same story slightly varied occurs also in the life of S. Paphnutius. A mediaeval Jewish legend of the Rabbi Raschi (Scholmo ben Isaac), who lived in the twelfth century, is to the same effect.
In the reign of Theodosius the Great there was at Constantinople a prefect of the city, named Theodulus, a good man who feared God with all his house. Now he read how Solomon tried all manner of things to satisfy the longing of his heart, and found all to be vanity and vexa- tion of spirit; and he felt that his own heart spoke the same language. Then he yearned with an unspeakable longing to live to God alone. So he told his desire to Procula, his wife, to whom he had been married only two years. But when she heard him, she uttered a cry of grief. " What, man ! have I not been to thee faithful in every way? Have I not been to thee modest and un- selfish? And now wilt thou divorce me? Never did the apostle utter such a command, as that thou shouldst desert thy true wife for ever ! " But he burst from her and went forth, and resigned his office into the hands of the emperor; and returned to her. Then she fell at his feet weeping, and held him fast and implored him not to leave her, and she said, " Beware ! should evil befall me, thou wilt have to answer for my soul at the judgment bar of God." Then rising, " Come ! " said she, " let us be as monk and nun in this house, dressing in mean apparel, and sleeping in different chambers, and faring on poor thin diet. I was not born and bred to this, but I will endure this all rather than lose thee ! " Then the brave true woman tore off" her costly robes, and threw away her necklaces, and went weeping to her room and shut the door. And her heart broke, and next morning she was found dead, with tears on her cheek.
4, — *
Then Theodulus left Constantinople, and arrived at Edessa, where he found a pillar, and he ascended that pillar, and fasted and prayed, and watched thereon, winter and summer, night and day, for forty and eight years.
" In hungers and thirsts, fevers and cold,
In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps,
A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud.
Patient on this tall pillar I have borne
Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow."
And at last, when the forty and eight years were over, Theodulus thought that he must be nigh perfection. Had he not given up house and land, and wife for the sake of Christ? surely his would be the palm and crown. Then he prayed that God would reveal to him, who would be his equal in heavenly glory. So the Lord appeared to him in a dream, and answered, and said, " Cornelius the clown." Then the old hermit was aghast, and his soul melted away, and he was as one dead with shame and dismay. And when he was come to himself, he called for a ladder, and he came stumbling down the steps, and caught up a stick, and went, grey, ragged, and dazed into Edessa, asking at every step, " Where is Cornelius the clown ? " And so, after awhile he came on the merry fellow, capering with double pipes in his mouth, and a hideous mask, before a laughing crowd. Then the old hermit plucked him by the sleeve, and drew him away, and said, wild with dismay, " What good thing hast thou done to inherit eternal life ? I have given up houses and land and a dear wife, I have spent forty-eight years on a pillar, exposed to the glaring sun by day, and to the numbing frost at night. I have worn out my body with fasting. I have eaten but a crust and a raw olive in the day. What hast thou done ? I have become stiff in my joints, my feet are sore and swollen with long standing, I have prayed night and day,
1^ — iji
May 28.] 6". llieodulus the Sty lite. 411
some hundred prayers by day, and I have watched by night as the stars wheeled above me. What hast thou done ? "
" I have done nothing," answered the clown, humbly. " I cannot compare with thee."
*' But thou hast done something," said Theodulus, roughly shaking him ; " I know that thou wilt be accounted great in heaven, tell me what hast thou done ? "
" I am vile as dirt. I have not even served God purely and honestly," said the clown.
"Bethink thee," again urged the hermit; "what good thing hast thou done ? "
Then the clown reddening said, "There is one little thing I did, but it is not worth mentioning. Some time ago there was a virtuous young wife in this town who had been married only two years, when her husband fell into difficulties, and was cast into the debtor's prison. And she, poor thing, was constrained to beg for food and money to keep him and herself alive. And she was very fair, and she feared lest she should attract rude eyes, and was withal as modest as a young maiden, and when she begged, she held out both her hands, and hung her face, and only murmured inarticulate words. And so I saw her one day. And I was grieved, for I had piped and danced in the court of her house for a few coppers not many months before. Then I went to her and asked her how much her husband owed, and she said ' Four hundred pieces of silver.' Then I ran home, and turned out my money box, and found therein two hundred and thirty pieces. So then I took a pair of gold bracelets and some brooches which had belonged to my dear dead wife, and they were worth seventy pieces of silver. But that was not enough. So then I got together some of my silk theatrical dresses, and I rolled them all up in a piece of
ij(— iji
^ ■ *
412 Lives of the Saints. [May 28.
linen, and took it all to the woman, and I said to her, 'There, take all, and release your husband from jail' Then I ran away. And this, I beUeve, is the only good thing I have ever done."
Then Theodulus saw how this man had sacrificed him- self for a strange woman, bound to him by no tie, whereas he had cast away his own wife, and had broken her heart, seeking only his own self.
Then the old hermit smote his breast, and lifted his hands to heaven and blessed the poor clown, and thanked God, and went back to his pillar, and re-ascended it, and there, not many years after, he died.
S. GERMAIN, B. OF PARIS.
(a.d. 576.)
[Roman and Gallican Martyrologies. Authority: — Life by Venantius Fortunatus, a contemporary.]
S. Germain was the child of Burgundian parents, named Eleutherius and Eusebia. His mother endeavoured to destroy her unborn child, but ineffectually, injuring her own constitution without hurling him. His grandmother also bore the poor boy, after he was born, the same malice, and wishing his brother Stratidius to enjoy the whole of the parental inheritance, gave a servant a poisoned cup for Germain, and a cup of wine for Stratidius, telling her which cup was intended for each child, but the servant, not knowing that mischief was intended, carelessly changed the cups, and Stratidius, though he did not die of the effects, was severely injured by the poison. It was not safe for Germain to remain in his father's house, therefore his uncle Scopilio, at Lazy near Autun, took charge of him. He
* *
* *
May 23.] B. GlzUV. 4I3
was a very pious man, and from him Germain derived his first religious impressions.
Germain was educated in the abbey of S. Symphorian at Autun, and was created abbot of the monastery, by S. Nectarius, the bishop. He was ordained priest by S. Agrippinus of Autun. The fame of his virtue reaching the ears of King Childebert, he was ordered to come to Paris, where he became abbot of the monastery of S. Vincent, afterwards called after himself, S. Germain-des-Prds. Four years after, he was appointed to the episcopal throne of Paris, on the death of Eusebius. Childebert, at his request, built the church of S. Germain I'Auxerrois on the further side of the Seine. The saint showed great courage in opposing the king and nobles for their violence and dissolute manners; he even excommunicated king Charibert, who had repudiated his legitimate wife Ingoberga, that he might marry a woman named Marcoveva, at the same time that he was living in concubinage with her sister.
S. Germain died on May 28th, in the year 576. His body was laid in the abbey of S. Vincent, but his relics were dispersed at the Revolution.
B. GIZUR, B. OF SKALHOLT. (a.d. 1118.)
[Necrologium Islandicum. Authorities : — The Kristni Saga, the Sagas of S. John of Holum. The Hungurvaka and Thattr of Isleif.]
On the maps of Iceland, one is pretty sure to see Skalholt marked as a town, and in some geography books it is set down as the capital of the island. Yet it consists of a farm and a church. The situation is beautiful : from a vast green swamp rises a verdant mound, swept on the south by a mighty river. Picturesque hills rise out of the
*
-*
414 Lives of the Saints. [May 28.
plain, and far away, blue and silver in the distance, rise the vast masses of Eyafialla and Hechla. Skalholt was the first episcopal seat in Iceland, it was given to the church by Gizur, the second bishop, and remained the seat of a bishop, the metropolitan of the island till the change of religion.
The first resident bishop in Iceland was Islief, son of Gizur the White, who had persuaded his countrymen to adopt Christianity. For the maintenance of the bishop the old temple-tax was awarded; this was a rate levied in heathen times on the landowners, for the support of the ancient religion and its rites, and it became now the revenue of the bishop. But the sum was too small for the purpose, and it was of necessity that the head of the Icelandic Church should be a man of large private means.
Of Isleif we are told : — " He was pinched in his house- keeping, in such demand was his money; the incomings were small, and the outgoings great, consequently his housekeeping was a matter of difficulty ; " ^ and again : — "When he returned to his bishop's seat he was at Skalholt, but because half of his land was the personal property of his wife, Dalla, it was difficult for him to manage, for at that time there was no tithe." ^
Isleif died on July 5th, 1080; and his son Gizur was elected to the vacant bishopric. He accordingly sailed for Germany and went to Rome, where he was well received by Pope Gregory VII., the famous Hildebrand, in 1012, and was sent by him to be ordained by Archbishop Hartwig of Magdeburg, one of the Saxon prelates who adhered to his cause, against the emperor. Gizur crossed the Alps, reached Magdeburg, and was consecrated bishop on September 4th, in the same year. He then returned to
' iiungurvaka, c. a. "^ Isleif s Thattr.
Iceland, which he reached in the spring of 1084, having spent the winter in Denmark.
In Iceland he became extremely popular. It was some time before he could take possession of Skalholt, as it was the property of his mother, Dalla, but on her death he gave the farm to the Church, and thenceforward it became the seat of the bishop. He then built a cathedral church of wood, and dedicated it to S. Peter. We are also told that Bishop Gizur gave the church at Skalholt "the white vestment with purple ornaments, which since has been used as the best."^
The condition of the Church was greatly improved by the introduction of the tithe, which was imposed on all the land in 1097, during the episcopate of Gizur. The ** Hungurvaka " says : —
*' These men were coeval with Bishop Gizur, the priest Saemund of Oddi, who was so able a man, and better educated than most, and Marcus Skeggjason, the law- giver, who was the wisest man and greatest poet of his time. These men took counsel together, and brought other chiefs into conference with them, and decided to introduce a law that the people should value and tithe their property half-yearly, as is the custom in other Chris- tian lands. They, by their recommendation and urgency, persuaded the people to submit to the tithe, and the money so obtained was thus portioned : — One share went to the bishop, one to the church fabrics, one to the main- tenance of the clergy, and the fourth to the poor, and no such support to the well-being of the see was after obtained as this introduction of tithe, which was brought about through Bishop Gizur's care, and which was granted because he was so much beloved." — Hungurvaka, c. 6.
After Gizur had been bishop more than twenty years, he
' Hungurvaka, c. 5. ^ *
416 Lives of the Saints. [May 28.
resolved to divide his immense diocese, and he appointed I John Ogmundson to be bishop of the northern half of the island. The southern half he reserved for the diocese of Skalholt. In the year 11 17 he fell ill, being then aged seventy-five years. He was afflicted with ulcers over his whole body, which gave him great pain, and prevented him from sleeping. His wife ' asked him what he would like his friends to ask of God for him. " Not that my pains may be loosened," he answered ; " for I am ready to bear the chastisements of the Lord." When asked if he would like to be buried beside his father, Bishop Isleif, he answered, "No, I am not worthy." All his sons died before their father except one ; and he left a daughter behind him. He was buried beside Isleif. He was forty years old when he was made bishop, and he ruled the see thirty-two years. His death was lamented throughout Iceland.
1 The bishops and clergy of Iceland were married till the 13th century.
* 1^
May 29.] S. Conon and his Son. 417
May 29.
S. Conon and hts Son, MM. at Iconium, a.d. 275.
S. Restitutus, At. at Rome.
S. Maximinus, B. of Treves, a.d. 349.
S. Maximus, B. of Verona, i,th cent.
S. BuRiAN, V. in Cornwall.
SS. SisiNNius, Martyrius AND ALEXANDER, MM. at Trent, A.D. 397.
S. Mary of Antioch, V. in Syria.
S. Theodosia, V.M. at Constantinople, a.d. 726.
S. Bona, V., O.M.C. at Pisa, a.d. 1207.
S. Andrew of Chios, M. at Constantinople, a.d. 1465.
S. CONON AND HIS SON, MM.
(a.d. 275.)
[Roman Martyrology, Ado, and Usuardus. Authority : — The ancient Greek Acts. The main portion almost certainly genuine, but the first part interpolated. The examination before the governor has all the character of authentic acts. ]
ONON was an old Christian deacon at Iconium in Isauria, when Aurelian was emperor. He was brought before the Count Domitian. The following was the interrogation : — Domitian the count said : — " Why do you not adore the gods ? What is the impediment .? Are you a priest or a deacon ? " Conon answered : — " I adore the living God. I am a layman." Domitian : — " Have you a wife ? " Conon : — " She died some while ago, and now she is with Christ." Domitian said : — " I will search out your life. Have you had children ? " Conon answered : — " I have a son." Domi- tian : — " Is he impious to the gods also ? " Conon : — " As is the root, so are the branches." Domitian : — " Let the son be brought hither." An officer : — " He is here." Domitian asked : — '* How old is the boy ? " Conon re- VOL. V. 27
plied: — "He is twelve years old, and can read fluently." Domitian said : — " Now decide. Will you believe in the Gods and offer sacrifice ? " " No," said Conon, " do your pleasure with us." Domitian exclaimed : — " Set red-hot irons on their flesh." "As you will," said Conon, "you shall see the virtue of Christ made manifest." So hot irons were placed on both father and son. Then Domitian said, " Throw oil on them ! " and they did so. Then Conon cried, " Did I not say, do with us as you will ? " " Turn them over on their bellies," said Domitian ; " burn their backs." "Think not to make us yield with fire.'' said Conon. Then Domitian, very angry, ordered them to be placed on iron grates over a charcoal fire. And whilst the grates were heating, Domitian bade their hands be crushed with iron hammers. Then Conon said, "Art thou not ashamed to be conquered by two servants of God ? " And so Conon and his son died, and the brethren came and buried their holy bodies.
SS. SISINNIUS, MARTYRIUS, AND ALEX- ANDER, MM.
(a.d. 397.)
[Modem Roman Martyrology. Usuardus, Ado, Notker. Authority : — Two letters from S. Vigilius, Bishop of Trent at the time ; one to John, patriarch of Constantinople, the other to S. Simplicianus, Bishop of Milan, giving an account of their martyrdom. They are also mentioned by S. Augustine, S, Gaudentius, and by Paulinus the priest, in his life of S. Ambrose. There is not the smallest doubt as to the perfect authen- ticity of the account.]
From the village of Tajo, in the Ronsthal, in Tyrol, a steep and tedious path along the left bank of the Roce leads to the village church of Sanzeno, where lie the bones of Sisinnius, Martyrius, and Alexander, who here suffered
ij, ^
^ ^
May 29] 6'6'. Sisinnius <2f Comp. 419
martyrdom when they came, sent by S. Vigilius of Trent, to bear the torch of truth into the mountain fastnesses of T)'Tol, then buried in the darkness of paganism.
These three men were natives of Cappadocia, who came to Milan, where they placed themselves at the disposal of S. Ambrose. After awhile S. Ambrose sent them to his friend, S. Vigilius of Trent, who ordained Sisinnius deacon, Martyrius lector, and his brother Alex- ander he ordained ostiarius; and then bade them bear the Gospel to the pagan mountaineers. Sisinnius em- ployed an alpine lure, or long wooden horn, wherewith to call the shepherds together to hear the word of truth. But the pagans, angry at his interference with their celebration of a heathen festival, beat him about the head with his lure, and then killed him with the axes wherewith they felled the pines. Martyrius was hiding in a rosebush, when a girl saw him and betrayed him. The rude moun- taineers at once dragged him from his place of conceal- ment, drove their Alpen-stocks, hardened in the fire, into his flesh, and beat him till he died. Alexander's feet were tied with a rope, and then, fastening a bell round the neck of Sisinnius, they drew all three to where they were performing their idolatrous rites. Alexander was so torn by the brambles, and bruised by the stones over which he was dragged, that he died on the way. The mountaineers then made a large pile of fir boughs, laid the three bodies on it, and set fire to the heap.
^ *
420 Lives of the Saints. [May 29.
S. THEODOSIA, M. (a.d. 726.)
[Greek Mensea. Authority : — An encomium by Constantius Acropolita, Magnus Logotheta (fl. 1294), and the account in the Men8ea, which is far more trustworthy, and differs materially in details from the bombastic story of Constantius.]
S. Theodosia was a nun among the crowd of women who witnessed the destruction of the great image of the Redeemer, by the soldiers of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, as already described elsewhere. The women shook the ladders placed against the gate, over which was the figure, and precipitated from them the men engaged on the sacrilegious work. Soldiers were sent to drive off the crowd, and a considerable number of women were butchered. Theodosia, with others, was driven at the point of their spears into the shambles, where one of the soldiers, flourishing a ram's horn, struck her with the point on her throat, and tore her windpipe. She died of the wound.
ij, ij(
* 1^
May3o.] S. Ferdinand. 421
May 30.
SS. Gabinus and Crispulus, MM. at Torre, in Sardinia, indcent.
S. Felix I., M., Pope of Rome, a.d. 274.
SS. Basil and Emmelia, tJu parents ofS. BasU thcGreat attd S. Gregory
Nyssen, at Neocasarea, in Cappadocia, ^th cent. S. Exuperantius, B. 0/ Ravenna, a.d. 418. S. Anastasius, B. o/Pavia, a.d. 680. S. Ferdinand III., K. oj Castille and Leon, at Seulls, a.d. 1252.
S. FERDINAND III., K.
(a.d. 1252.)
[Roman and Spanish Martyrologies. Authorities : — A life by Roderick Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, a contemporary (d. 1247) in his Spanish Chronicle. Another life by Lucas of Tuy, a contemporary. ]
OWARDS the end of May, 1217, whilst the minor Enrique I., King of Castille, was playing in the court-yard of the episcopal palace at Palencia, he was killed by a falling tile. His sister Berengaria, who had been married to Alfonso IX. of Leon, from whom she had been reluctantly divorced through the influence of Pope Innocent III., on the score of consanguinity, was now, by the laws of Castille, heiress to the crown. She was proclaimed queen by the nobles, who swore allegiance to her at Valladolid. Immediately afterwards, a stage was erected at the entrance of the city, and there, on August 31st, 12 17, nearly three months after the death of Enrique, the queen, in presence of her barons, prelates and people, solemnly resigned the sovereignty into the hands of her son, Ferdinand, son of Alfonso IX. of Leon, who was immediately proclaimed king of Castille.
But Ferdinand III. was not yet in peaceable possession of the crown. He had to reduce the towns which he held for Don Alvaro, who had acted as regent during the minority
^— ■ .J<
422 Lives of the Saijits. [May 30.
of Enrique, and what was worse, to withstand his father, the king of Leon, who now invaded the kingdom. Aided by the party of that restless traitor, Alvaro, Alfonso aspired to the sovereignty. He marched to Burgos, which had just acknowledged his son, and in opposition to the entreaties of the clergy, laid waste the domains of that son's adherents. The Castilian nobles were not slow in com- bining for the defence of their king ; they hastened to Burgos in such numbers, and were animated by such a spirit that Alfonso, despairing of success, desisted from his enterprise, and returned home.
Don Alvaro had already been made prisoner by a party of the royal forces ; but released on surrendering the forti- fied places which he held. Of this ill-judged clemency, Ferdinand had soon reason to repent, if the statements of a contemporary authority are to be relied on ; that Alvaro again appeared in arms, and prevailed on the king of Leon again to disturb the tranquillity of Castille. It is, however, certain that no actual hostilities broke out a second time between the father and the son, and Alvaro died in dis- grace and poverty in 12 19. A complete reconciliation having been effected, the kings of Leon and Castille com- bined to drive the Moslem, a common foe, out of fair Spain. The crusade was published by the Archbishop, Rodrigo Ximenes, and the same indulgences granted to those who assumed the cross in Spain as to those who visited the Holy Land. A multitude from all parts of the peninsula assembled at Toledo, burning to redress the wrongs of Christendom upon the Mohammedan, and drive the infidel into Africa, before the Cross of Christ. The result, however, by no means corresponded with the an- ticipations of the kings, and ended in desultory warfare, irruptions into the territories of the Moors, from Aragon, Castille, Leon, and Portugal. Ferdinand headed none of
4,___
ifi- -*
Way 30.] 5*. Ferdinand. 423
them ; he was detained at home, exterminating more for- midable bands of free-booters, who ravaged his own kingdom.
It was not until 1225 that the career of conquest com- menced, which ended in the annihilation of the African power, and of all the petty kingdoms which had risen on its ruins. In that and the two following years, Murcia was invaded, the Alhambra was taken, and Jaen besieged by Ferdinand. Valencia was invaded by King Jayme of Aragon, Badajos was taken by Alfonso, and Elvas by the King of Portugal. S. Ferdinand set his soldiers the example of a chivalrous honour and Christian piety. Be- fore each battle he spent the night in prayer. An image of the Blessed Virgin was borne before his army, and he wore a representation of her slung round his neck, or erect on the pommel of his saddle. He was before Jaen, which his armies had invested two whole years, when intelligence reached him of his father's death (in 1230) after a success- ful irruption into Estremadura. The inestimable advantage which this event was calculated to produce for Christian Spain — the consolidation of two kingdoms often hostile to each other — was near being lost. In his last will Alfonso named his two daughters — for the kingdom had long ceased to be elective — ^joint heiresses of his state. Fortunately for Spain the Leonese took a sounder view of the interests than Alfonso ; Leon, Astorga, Oviedo, Lugo, Mondonedo, Salamanca, Ciudad-Rodrigo, and Coria declared for Ferdi- nand. Nobles, clergy, and people were too numerous in favour of the King of Castille to leave the princesses the remotest chance. No sooner did Ferdinand hear how powerful a party supported his just pretensions, than he hastened from Andalusia into Leon. As he advanced, accompanied by his mother Berengaria, to whose wisdom he was indebted for most of his successes, every city threw
*-
-*
Iji — *
424 Lives of the Saints. rMayso.
open its gates to welcome him. He entered the capital in triumph, and received the homage of the clergy and people in the cathedral.
He at once set out for Galicia, where the infantas with their mother Theresa had formed a party. Berengaria, Ferdinand's mother, begged an interview with Theresa. The latter yielded to the justice or power of her rival ; in consideration of an annual pension secured to her two daughters, she renounced, in their name, all right to the crown of Leon, and the fortified places which held for the infantas were consequently surrendered into the hands of the king.
Ferdinand IH., now lord of Spain from the Bay of Biscay to the vicinity of the Guadalquivir, and from the confines of Portugal to those of Aragon and Valencia, put into execution his long meditated schemes of conquest. In 1234 he laid siege to Ubeda, and captured it. In the meantime his son Alfonso, with fifteen hundred men, had defeated at Xeres the formidable army of the Moorish king of Seville, divided into seven bodies, each more numerous than the Christian army. It was then that — if we may give credence to the legend — S. James was seen on a white horse, gleaming before the Christian host, flashing a light- ning blade, and bearing the banner of victory. This won- drous victory cost the Christian army but one knight and ten soldiers.
The joy of these victories was allayed by the death of Beatrice, the virtuous wife of Ferdinand. She was the daughter of Philip of Swabia, emperor of Germany, and Ferdinand had married her in 12 19, when he was twenty years old. The union had been a very happy one, and had been blessed with seven sons and three daughters. The same year, 1236, James, king of Aragon, wrested from the Moors the kingdom of Majorca and that of
^ _ — ^
f _ ^
May 30.] S. Ferdinand. 425
Valencia, and Ferdinand completed the conquest of the Moorish kingdoms of Baezo and Cordova. He entered Cordova on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, in 1236. The great Mosque was purified and converted into a cathedral, and the great bells of Compostella, which Alniansor had caused to be brought thither on the backs of Christians, S. Ferdinand commanded to be carried back on the backs of Moors.
One after another, the minor kingdoms of the Moors in Spain yielded to his victorious sword, or submitted volun- tarily to pay tribute.
The siege of Seville lasted sixteen months, for it was the largest and strongest city in Spain. Its double walls were very strong, and were defended at intervals by sixty-six towers. The city surrendered on the 23rd of November, 1249, and all the Moors were banished from it. Three hundred thousand removed to Xeres, one hundred thou- sand passed over into Africa.
Ferdinand was seized with dropsy at the beginning of 1252, at Seville, and prepared for his approaching end by extraordinary acts of austere devotion. His last advice to his son and successor Alfonso, was an inculcation of the eternal obligations of justice and mercy. Having caused the ensigns of majesty to be removed from his presence, he bade a tender farewell to his family and friends, and, fortified by the sacraments of the Church for his last great journey, breathed his last. May 30th, 1252, amidst the lamentations of all Seville.
The following account of a visit to his relics at Seville by the late unfortunate Emperor Maximilian will not be read without interest : — "The wall behind the altar in the cathedral is ornamented with pictures, and here hung a large red curtain covering the tomb of my patron, the holy Ferdinand. I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that this bold
i — — — *
}^ »i<
426 Lives of the Saints. [May 30.
king was buried here, in Seville ; therefore it made a great impression on me, when the servant told me on a sudden that here rest the remains of him after whom I was christened, from whom I have the good luck to descend, and who, by the Church, has been appointed my chief advocate at the throne of God. The coffin with the red cloth stands in the middle ; to the right and left are high niches, in each of which stands, under a velvet canopy, a coffin ornamented with golden cover, crown and sceptre. Here repose two children of Ferdinand the Saint — Al- phonso the Wise, and his sister. It was strange to see these coffins standing out, as if they had been exhibited to the eyes of the people only yesterday, and yet showing traces of great age. The saint and his children are united in that house of God which they wrested from the Moors, and selected for themselves as a place of rest. The tombs are full of dignity and sanctity, not like those monuments of a sensual mythological kind, without sign of faith or devotion, such as the proud Medici have erected for them- selves. Here one stands by the graves of a holy family, in which simplicity and grandeur humble themselves be- neath the sign of the cross. On the railing that separates the chapel from the church is represented the holy king on horseback, and before him the Moorish prince kneeling, and presenting the keys of the city to the conqueror."^
* " Recollections of My Life," Vol. i. p. 172.
* ~ ■ ^^^^-^ ^-^^^- ^,|,
*-
''$^^.'^^-7'^j^^^^h^l^'^ "^'^^t^^'^^--
THS ASCENSION. From the Vienna Missal.
*-
May.
-^
* —>Jn
May 31.] S. Petronilla. 427
May 31.
S. Petronilla, V. at Rome, ist cent.
S. Crescentian, M, at Torre, in Sardinia, 2nd cent.
S. Hermias, M. at Coinano, hi Cafpadocia, circ. a.d. 166.
SS. Cantius, Cantian, and Cantianilla, and Protus, mm. at
Aquileia, a.d. 290. S. LupiciNUS, B. of Verona, dthcetit. S. Angela of Merici, V., Foundress of the Ursulines, at Brescia,
A.D. 1540.
S. PETRONILLA, V.
(iST CENT.)
[Roman Marty rology. Usuardus, Ado, Notker. Authority: — Mention in the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilles (May 12th). But these, as has been already pointed out, are quite untrustworthy.]
AINT PETRONILLA is said to have been a daughter of S. Peter the apostle. He took her with him to Rome, where she became para- lysed, but Simon Magus having asked him why, if he could perform miracles, he allowed his daughter to remain infirm, S. Peter answered that " It was expedient for her." Then he added, " Nevertheless, to show the power of God, she shall rise from her bed and walk." Then he called her, and she rose, and was restored to her full health.
A certain officer or "Count" Flaccus having greatly admired her beauty, sent soldiers to her, to ask her to be his wife. She replied sharply, " If he wants me to marry him, let him not send rough soldiers to woo me, but respectable matrons, and give me time to make up my mind." Whereupon the soldiers withdrew abashed. But before Flaccus had obtained matrons to convey his offer, Petronilla was dead.
*- -*
At Rome is a catacomb named after her, a church, and an altar in the Vatican, which enshrines her body. Accord- ing to some, S. Petronilla was only the spiritual child of S. Peter.
S. HERMIAS, M.
(ciRC. A.D. 1 66.)
[Roman Martyrology, inserted byBaronius from the Greek Menology. But he has fallen into several mistakes. Hermias was martyr at Comana, in Cappadocia, not at the place of the same name in Pontus, as the Roman Martyrology asserts ; Baronius was also mistaken in the facts. Authority : — The Greek Acts, a late, and not very trustworthy composition.]
S. Hermias was a soldier who suffered in the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, at Comana, in Cappadocia. His jaws were broken with a stone, and his sides, after having been torn, were irritated by the application of vinegar. His head was finally struck off.
SS. CANTIUS, CANTIAN, AND CANTIANILLA, M.
(about A.D. 290.)
[Roman and Galilean Martyrologies. Martyrology of S. Jerome, Ado, Notker, Usuardus, Hrabanus. Authority : — The Acts attributed, but erroneously, to S. Ambrose. They are probably by S. Maximus of Turin.]
The Emperor Carus died when on his march against the Persians. His death was attended with ambiguous circumstances. He was said to have been struck with lightning in his tent. He was succeeded (284) by his sons, Carinus and Numerian ; Carinus, a sensual despot, soft but cruel, devoted to pleasure, but destitute of taste ; and though exquisitely susceptible of vanity, indifferent to public esteem. Numerian was cast in a different mould.
^ *
THE ASCENSION.
After Giotto's Fresco m the Arena at Fadua.
"And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up ; and a cloud received Him (lom their sight. And while they looked steadfastly towards Heaven, as He went up, behold two men stood by ihem in white apparel; which said, Ve men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? this same Jesus which is taken up trom you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go inio Heaven." — Acts i., 9, 10, 11.
May.
Ij, ^
May 31.] S. Cantlus & Comps. 429
He was virtuous and accomplished, but his constitution was delicate, and he sank into an early grave. Carinus lost his life by the hand of a tribune, whose wife he had dishonoured, and the upstart Diocletian assumed the imperial purple. But there lived two youths, Cantius and Cantianus, and their sister, Cantiana, or Cantianilla, of the blue Anician blood, grandsons, or grand-nephews of the Emperor Carus. Their tutor, a Christian named Protus, saw that they could not with safety remain in Rome, and he fled with them to Aquileia. Into their young hearts he had succeeded in instilling the divine lessons of the Gospel, and the young princes had in all probability been baptized. At Aquileia, Dulcitius and Sisinnius were governors. They sent word to the usurper Diocletian of the presence of the youths and their sister in Aquileia, and they insinuated that, being Christians, this charge would cover their condemnation. Order for their arrest speedily followed; they were to be arrested and tried on the charge of being Christians. But in the mean- time, the guardian, Protus, had heard of the message to Diocletian, and he hurried the children from the city. Diocletian ordered them to be pursued, and put to death, wherever they were taken. An accident to the litter in which the children were being conveyed away, delayed them on the road, and the soldiers overtaking them, the three children and their guardian were promptly executed. The place of the martyrdom was at Aquae Gradatse, since called San-Cantiano. The bodies of the martyrs were buried by a priest, and they remained for seven hundred years at Aquileia, till they were obtained by King Robert the Good of France for the church of Etampes, which he had just erected. In 1793, the revolutionary mob broke the reliquary, and scattered the bones, but some portions were preserved by the faithful, and are to this day objects
ij, ^ »ji
430 Lives of the Saints. [May 31.
of veneration. Every year at Etampes, on May 31st, a procession of the "Corps saints" takes place, to which great numbers of children are brought by their mothers.
S. ANGELA OF MERICI, V. (a.d. 1540.)
[Roman Martyrology. Beatified by Pius IV., and canonized by Pius VII. Authority : — Life by Ottavio Florentino.]
Angela was the youngest daughter of a worthy couple who lived at Desenzano, near Brescia, in Lombardy. She was born in 1474, and was left an orphan with an elder sister, when she was ten years old. The two sisters were taken home by an uncle. In his house her sister died suddenly, without receiving the last sacraments. This distressed the little Angela, and she prayed that she might be told the condition of her sister. A i&v^ days after, her uncle finding the child greatly depressed, sent her into the country. On her way she saw a luminous haze, and on nearing it, saw the form of her sister. She was satisfied by this vision that her sister was in bliss. On the death of her uncle she returned to her paternal house, and seeing that the great need of her day was instruction for the young girls, she collected children to her, and taught them. Others joined her, and she became the founder of the Ursulines, whose special mission is the education of girls. Under Angela, the society was without vows or peculiar dress, all which it assumed after her death, which took place on the night of the 27-281!! of January, 1540. Her body was buried in the church of S. Afra, at Brescia.
END OF VOL. v.
Printtd by BallantYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh and London
* -*
^
Date Due
All library items are subject to recall at any time.
|
DEC 0 9 2009 |
||
|
Brigham Young University |
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
3 1197 22389 8476
T>6 Not
Circulate