Butlers Lives of the Saints 6 (Nov8-Dec31)

[November 8

ST <;::YBI, OR CUBY

century setting out the articles of one of these stone-mason gilds is preserved in MS. Royal XVII. A. I at the British Museum. It has a section headed Ars quatuor coronatorum, beginning: Pray we now to God almyght And to hys moder Mary bryght ;

and it then goes on to tell briefly the story " of these martyres fowre, that in thys craft were of gret honoure ". It is stated that those who want to know more about them may findIn the legent of sanctorum [i.e. the book Legenda Sanctorum] The names of quatuor coronatorum.

Their fest wol be, withoute nay, After Alle Halwen the eyght day.

The English Freemasons of modern times have in a sense clung to the tradition, and the most scholarly organ of the craft in this country has for many years past been published under the name Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. Bede refers to a church at Canterbury dedicated in honour of the Four Crowned Martyrs so early as c. 620.

Any detailed discussion of the problems outlined above would be out of place here. In the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iii, Delehaye in 1910 devoted thirty-six folio pages to the question, editing the text of the passio of the Pannonian group, written, it is believed, by a certain Porphyry, and also the tenth-century recension of the same, due to one Peter of Naples. The Depositio martyrum of the fourth century, confirmed by the Leonine and other sacramentaries, leaves no doubt that this group of martyrs was honoured in Rome at an early date, and Delehaye, in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxii (1913), pp. 63-71, as well as in his Les passions des martyrs . . . (1921), pp. 328-344, his Etude sur If legendier romain (1936), pp. 65-73, and the CMH., pp. 590-591, adheres firmly to the view that there was only one group of martyrs, the stone-masons of Pannonia, whose relics were brought to Rome and interred in the catacomb on the Via Labicana.

Other theories, however, have been propounded, notably by Mgr Duchesne in Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire, vol. xxxi (1911), pp. 231-246; by P. Franchi de' Cavalieri in Studi e Testi, vol. xxiv (1912), pp. 57-66; and J. P. Kirsch in the Historisches Jahrbuch, vol. xxxviii (1917), pp路72-97路

ST CYBI,

OR

CUBY,

ABBOT

(SIXTH CENTURY)

OF the numerous Celtic saints whose feasts occur this month Cybi was probably one of the most important, but information about him is dependent chiefly on a very unreliable Latin vita of the thirteenth century and whatever can be gleaned from the evidence of place-names and local traditions. He was born in Cornwall, we are told, the son of Selyf (" St Levan "), and two old churches in his native county are dedicated in his honour, at Duloe, near Liskeard, and at Cuby, in Tregony. The life says he learned to read at seven, and twenty years later, after the common imaginary pilgrimage to Jerusalem, became a disciple of St Hilary, by whom he was made bishop at Poitiers. This is chronologically impossible.

Cybi is supposed to have left Cornwall because he would not consent to be king there, and gone into what is now Monmouthshire; there is a place there called Llangibby, on the Usk. Then, by way of St David's Menevia, he visited Ireland and spent four years on Aranmore with St Enda. He had to leave there because of a dispute with another monk, called Fintan the Priest, about a straying cow, and he went to the south of Meath where he founded a church. But Fintan followed

295

November 8]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

him and turned him out and drove him eastward across Ireland and over the sea.

The crossing was made in a coracle which had the usual framework, but no hides to cover it.

There is no necessity to suppose that St Cybi was ever in Ireland, for probably the writer of his life knew the traditions about St Enda, and by a confusion of names took Cybi to Aran and associated him with various incidents in the life of Enda. But when St Cybi lands in Anglesey we are on more solid ground, for this island was the chief centre of his cultus. Here he founded a monastery, and around that monastery rose the town called in English Holyhead but in Welsh Caer Gybi (" Cybi's Fort "), as the smaller island on which it stands, Holy Island, is called Ynys Gybi. From it Cybi evangelized the neighbourhood, where his name appears in places and local legends, as elsewhere in Wales; and there he died and was buried, and his shrine was a place of pilgrimage. Throughout the middle ages his monastic community was represented by a college of secular canons, and on a gable of the fifteenth-century church of Holyhead may still be read the invocation, Sancte Kebie, ora pro nobis.

It is probable that St Cybi, like so many other Celtic saints, journeyed by water whenever he could; all the chief places bearing his name are on or near the sea.

An old Welsh proverb is attributed to him, in conversation with "the son of Gwrgi "-" There is no misfortune like wickedness." November 8 for his feast is taken from the Latin life; Welsh calendars and other sources give several other dates.

The Latin life spoken of above has been printed in the Acta Sanelorum, November, vol. iii, and the tangled story which it tells has been discussed very completely by Canon Doble in his booklet St Cuby (1929), no. 22, in his Cornish Saints Series. See also A. W. Wade-Evans, The Ltfe of St David (1923), pp. 98-100; and LBS., vol. ii, pp. 202-215. In his Vitae Sanetorum Brittaniae (1944) Wade-Evans gives the text and translation of the two versions of the Vita Kebii. Cf. E. G. Bowen, Settlements of the Celtic Saints in TVales (1954), pp. 118-120.

ST DEUSDEDIT,

POPE

(A.D. 618)

little is known of the life and three-year pontificate of Pope Deusdedit (Adeodatus I), who was a Roman by birth and son of a subdeacon named Stephen.

The times were troubled by civil disorder, war, and by an epidemic of skin disease following an earthquake; St Deusdedit was foremost in caring for the suffering (the Roman Martyrology mentions the tradition of his having healed a " leper" by a kiss), and encouraged his impoverished clergy to do the same. He is said to have been the first pope to have used the leaden seals called bullae, from which papal " bulls " get their name: one such seal dating from his time still exists.

Pope St Deusdedit is called a Benedictine in ancient Benedictine calendars, but there is no certain evidence for the statement.

VERY

See Duchesne, Liber Pontifiealis, vol. i, pp. 319-320; H. K. Mann, Lives of the Popes, vol. i, pp. 280-293.

ST TYSILIO,

OR

SULIAU,

ABBOT

(SEVENTH CENTURY?)

ACCORDING to the Breton account and the few surviving Welsh references, Tysilio was son of Brochwel Ysgythrog, prince of Powys in North Wales. When a young man he ran away to be a monk under the abbot Gwyddfarch at Meifod in

29 6

[November 8

ST \VILLEI-IAD

Montgomeryshire. His father sent to fetch him back, but Tysilio refused to go and fled for greater security to an islet in the Menai Straits, Ynys Suliau. At the end of seven years he came back to Meifod, where he found Gwyddfarch in spite of his great age contemplating a pilgrimage to Rome. "I know what that means", was Tysilio's comment. "You want to see the churches and palaces there. Dream about them, instead of going all that way." He took the old man a long walk over the mountains and tired him out, and Tysilio did not fail to point out that Rome was a much longer journey than they had been. Then they sat down and Gwydd­ farch went to sleep, and dreamed he sawall the glory of Rome, and he was satisfied.

When he died, Tysilio became abbot in his place.

When his elder brother, the prince of Powys, died, his widow Haiarnwedd wished to marry Tysilio and make him prince. To this he would not agree, for he had no taste for war and secular pursuits or for marriage, least of all within the prohibited degrees. His sister-in-law took this refusal as a personal insult, drove him from Meifod, and he took refuge at Builth in Breconshire. As her anger still pursued him, he left Wales altogether and sailed for Armorica with some of his monks. They landed at the mouth of the Rance, established contact with St Malo, and settled at the place still called Saint-Suliac. When Haiarnwedd died, a deputa­ tion came to fetch Tysilio back to Meifod; he did not go, but sent a book of the gospels and his staff as an indication of goodwill and blessing. He died and was buried in Brittany. As well as Ynys Suliau, Tysilio's name is associated with other places in Wales; it is an element of the Anglesey (faked) place-name which has the distinction of having twenty-four syllables in it. A twelfth-century bard, Cynddelw, wrote of Tysilio, " the royal saint of Powys " : A lord magnificent . . .

A prince with princes holding intercourse.

Whoso loves cruelty he sorely hates,

Whilst all whose ends are loveable he loves;

To chastisement he charity prefers.

See LBS., vol. iv, pp. 296-3°5; the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, vol. iii (1807) ; A .. W. Wade-Evans, Welsh Christian Origins (1934), pp. 200-201; and especially G. H. Doble, St Sulian and St T)'silio (1936); they seem to have been two (or three) different people, one Breton and one Welsh. See E. G. Bowen, Settlements of the Celtic Saints in Wales (1954).

ST WILLEHAD,

BISHOP OF BREMEN

was an Englishman, a native of Northumbria, and was educated probably at York, for he became a friend of Alcuin. After his ordination the spiritual conquests which many of his countrymen had made for Christ, with St Willibrord in Friesland and St Boniface in Germany, seemed a reproach to him, and he also desired to carry the saving knowledge of the true God to some of those barbarous nations. He landed in Friesland about the year 766 and began his mission at Dokkum, the place near which St Boniface and his companions had received the crown of martyrdom in 754. (The Roman Martyrology mistakenly calls St Wille­ had a disciple of St Boniface.) After baptizing some, he made his way through the country now called Overyssel, preaching as he went. In Humsterland the mission­ aries were all put in peril of their lives, for the inhabitants cast lots whether he and his companions should be put to death; Providence determined the lots for their preservation. Having escaped out of their hands, St Willehad thought it prudent

WILLEHAD

297

Nov~mber

8]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

to go back to Drenthe, in the more favourable neighbourhood of Utrecht. Here, in spite of the labours of St Willibrord and his successors, there was still plenty of heathens to convert, but the promising field was spoiled by imprudent zeal. Some of Willehad's fellow missionaries venturing to demolish the places dedicated to idolatry, the pagans were so angered that they resolved to massacre them. One struck at St Willehad with such force that the sword would have severed his head but that the force of the blow, as his biographer assures us, was entirely broken by cutting a string about the saint's neck by which hung a little box of relics which he always carried with him. The whole incident bears a suspicious resemblance to that recorded of St Willibrord on the island of Walcheren.

Having made so little progress among the Frisians St Willehad went to the court of Charlemagne, who in 780 sent him to evangelize the Saxons, whom he had recently subdued. The saint thence proceeded into the country where Bremen now stands, and was the first missionary who passed the Weser; some of his com­ panions got beyond the Elbe. For a short time all went well, but in 782 the Saxons rose in revolt against the Franks. They put to death all missionaries that fell into their hands, and St Willehad escaped by sea into Friesland, whence he took an opportunity of going to Rome and laying before Pope Adrian I the state of his mission. He then passed two years in the monastery of Echternach, founded by St Willibrord, and assembled his fellow labourers whom the war had dispersed; here, too, he made a copy of the letters of St Paul.

Charlemagne put down the Saxon rebellion in ruthless fashion, and Willehad was able to return to the country between the Weser and the Elbe. lit: When the saint had founded many churches, Charlemagne in 787 had him ordained bishop of the Saxons, and he fixed his see at Bremen, which city seems to have been founded about that time. St Willehad redoubled his zeal and his solicitude in preaching. His cathedral church he built of wood and consecrated it on November I, 789, in honour of St Peter.

A few days later he was taken ill, and it was seen that he was very bad. One of his disciples said to him, weeping, " Do not so soon forsake your flock exposed to the fury of wolves" . He answered, " Withhold me not from going to God. My sheep I recommend to Him who intrusted them to me and whose mercy is able to protect them." And so he died, and his successor buried his body in the new stone church at Bremen. St Willehad was the last of the great English missionaries of the eighth century.

Our knowledge of St Willehad is almost entirely derived from a Latin life written about the year 856 by some ecclesiastic of Bremen. I t was formerly attributed to the authorship of St Anskar, but: this view has now been abandoned, though Anskar seems to be responsible for the book of Jniracles attached to the life. The best text of both is that edited by A. Poncelet in the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iii; but they have been printed several times before, e.g. by Mabillon, and in Pertz, MGH., Scriptores, vol. ii. See also H. Timerding, Die christliche Friihzeit Deutschlands, vol. ii (1929); Louis Halphen, Etudes critiques sur l'histoire de Charlemagne (1921); and Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, vol. ii. Ct. W. Levison, England and the Continent . .. (1946).

ST GODFREY,

BISHOP OF AMIENS

(A.D. IllS)

AT the age of five Godfrey was entrusted to the care of the abbot of Mont-Saint­ Quentin and, having in due course decided to become a monk, he was ordained priest. He was chosen abbot of N ogent, in Champagne, a house whose community • Charlemagne's dealings with the barbarous Saxons were not such as to make solid missiona~y work any easier.

THE'DEDICATION OF ST JOHN LATERAN

[November 9

was reduced to half a dozen monks, whose discipline was, like their buildings, neglected and dilapidated. Under his direction this house began again to flourish; but when in consequence of this the archbishop of Rheims and his council pressed the saint to take upon him the government of the great abbey of Saint-Remi, he started up in the assembly and alleged contrary canons with vehemence, adding, " God forbid I should ever desert a poor bride by preferring a rich one!" Never­ theless, in I 1°4 he was appointed bishop of Amiens. His residence was truly the house of a discipIe of Christ, for he never allowed himself to forget that he was a monk. He lived in the simplest fashion, and when he thought the cook was treating him too well he took the best food from the kitchen and gave it away to the poor and sick.

But in his episcopal capacity St Godfrey was unbending, severe, and inflexibly just. One Christmas when singing Mass before the count of Artois at Saint-Orner he refused to accept the offerings of the court until the nobles had modified the ostentation of their dress and deportment; the abbess of St Michael's at Doullens had to go on foot to Amiens and back to receive a rebuke and warning for her ill-treatment of a nun (she is said to have been kept there all day looking for the missing nun, whom the bishop had concealed in his house); and the claim of his see to jurisdiction over the abbey of Saint-Valery was vigorously pursued. The refusal of the monks to allow him to bless altar-linen for their church was the occasion of a long dispute. St Godfrey had a bitter struggle in his own diocese against simony and for the celibacy of the clergy, in the course of which it is said an attempt was made on his life by a disgruntled woman. His rigid discipline made him very unpopular among the less worthy, and he became so discouraged that he wanted to resign and join the Carthusians. St Godfrey's severity seems in some things to have been excessive, e.g. he forbade the eating of meat on Sundays in Lent. He set out in November I I 15 to discuss affairs with his metropolitan and died on the way at Soissons, where he was buried.

What Guibert of Nogent in his autobiography tells us concerning Godfrey is our most reliable source of information. The Latin life by Nicholas, a monk of Soissons, is much more detailed and in many respects valuable, but it is written in a tone of undiscriminating panegyric, and certain statements made in it are demonstrably incorrect. It ,vas compiled about 1138, and it is printed, with the relevant passages of Guibert and an illuminating introduction, by A. Poncelet in the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iii. See also A. de Calonne, Histoire de La ville d'Amiens (1899), vol. i, pp. 123-142; C. Brune] in Le moyen age, vol. xxii (1909), pp. 176-196; and J. Corblet, Hagiographie d'Amiens (1870), vol. ii, pp. 373-445·

9 : THE DEDICATION

OF THE ARCHBASILICA OF THE MOST HOLY SAVIOUR, COMMONLY CALLED ST JOHN LATERAN

T

HE whole Western church celebrates to-day the anniversary of the con­ secration to divine worship of the basilica of St John Lateran, on whose ia<;ade is carved the proud title OMNIUM URBIS ET ORBIS ECCLESIARUM MATER ET CAPUT: The Mother and Head of all churches of the City and of the World; for this church is the cathedral of Rome and the pope's permanent cathedra stands in its apse. It is senior in dignity to St Peter's itself, and is in some sort the cathedral of the world.

In the earliest days of Christianity worship was carried out in private houses

299

Nov~mber

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

9]

and the Holy Sacrifice was offered at an ordinary table (doubtless a special one \vas often kept for the purpose); but so early as the first quarter of the third century we hear of a building in Rome specially set apart as a Christian church, at the beginning of the fourth century there are said to have been many there, and Con­ stantine's decree of freedom was naturally followed by great activity in the building of new churches. Following the example of the Jews with their Temple (and indeed of the pagans with theirs), these places of worship were set apart for their purpose by a dedication of them to the service of Almighty God. Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History speaks of the solemn dedication of the church at Tyre in the year 314, and several historians make reference to the magnificence with which Constantine's basilica at Jerusalem was dedicated in 335, on the anniversary of the finding of the true cross. For long the dedicatory rite consisted simply in the consecration of the altar by the solemn celebration of Mass thereat, to which the deposition of relics was added when there were any, and later certain prayers, sprinklings and anointings, modifications which arose in respect of buildings that had formerly been used for pagan worship and had to be purified. But the develop­ ments which went to form the long, complex and imposing ceremony that is now found in the Pontificale Romanum hardly began before the eighth century.

The annual celebration of the anniversary of a church's dedication is a practice probably as old as that of the dedication itself, and certainly far older than our present rite of consecration. I t was undeniably a custom of the Jews, for such a feast was instituted by Judas Machabeus in 164 B.C., when the Temple had been purified after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes; St John in .his gospel (x 22) speaks of our Lord walking in Solomon's porch at the time of this feast. This Jewish festival was, and is, kept with an octave and was celebrated not only in the Temple at Jerusalem but in every synagogue as well, somewhat as every Western Catholic church observes the dedication of St John I-Jateran. These things are referred to in the sixth lesson at Matins in the common office of the octave-day of a dedication anniversary, which is said in the Roman Breviary to be taken from a letter to Pope St Felix IV (III), who died in the year 530. Actually the piece belongs only to the ninth century, but its \vords represent a much older discipline.

In Sozomen's time, the early part of the fifth century, the anniversary of the dedication of the Martyrion at Jerusalem, referred to above, \vas observed with an octave and other solemnities. This custom of commemorating the dedication of a church is responsible for the existence of several feasts in the Church's calendar, and determines the date of others, e.g. St John before the Latin Gate (May 6), St Peter in Chains (August 1), and St Michael the Archangel (September 29).

The mansion of the Laterani at Rome came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine through his second wife, Fausta, and by him it was given to the Church. It was the principal residence of the popes from that time until the exile to Avignon at the beginning of the fourteenth century, a period of a thousand years.

The church made there was in all likelihood an adaptation of the great hall of the house, but the famous baptistery was founded and newly built, in its main lines as we see it today. The basilica was dedicated to our Most Holy Saviour and the baptistery in honour of St John the Baptist.:it: The now universal practice of • It may be here noted that all churches and ecclesiastical buildings are dedicated to God and to God only. Other names by which they may be known are those of saints or mysteries of religion in whose honour or under whose patronage they are dedicated. Never­ theless, custom allows d:e loose expression " dedicated to such-and-such a saint".

300

ST THEODORE TIRO

[November 9

calling the church itself St John Lateran arose at a time when it was served by monks from an adjoining monastery of 5t John the Baptist and St John the Divine.· In its fifteen hundred years of Christian history the basilica has undergone numerous vicissitudes, from pillage by the barbarians, from earthquakes, from fire; but it retained its ancient basilican form till the seventeenth century, when Francesco Borromini made of it the church that we see today. The apse was enlarged into a choir, in more happy fashion, in 1878. The high altar of St John Lateran, encased in marble, is the only altar in the Western church made not of stone but of wood. I t is a relic of the days of persecution, and is believed by some to have been used by St Peter himself. In the ciborium over the altar are enshrined the reputed heads of SSe Peter and Paul. " As often as we celebrate the dedication festival of an altar or church," says St Augustine, " if \ve assist with faith and attention, living holily and righteously, that which is done in temples made with hands is done also in us by a spiritual building. For he lied not who said, ' The temple of God, which you are, is holy' ; and again, ' Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you?' Therefore, since we are made worthy to become the temple of God--not by any foregoing worth of our own but by His grace-let us work, as hard as we are able with His help, that our Lord find not in His temple, that is, in us, anything whereby the eyes of His majesty may be offended. . . . If no one in dirty garments would dare to approach the table of an earthly ruler, how much the more ought one who is infected with the poison of envy or hate, or full of unrighteous anger, reverently and humbly to draw back from the table of the eternal King, that is, from the altar of God? For it is written, ' Go first and be reconciled with thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift '; and again, ' Friend, how earnest thou in hither not having on a wedding-garment? ' " Much has been written about the Lateran basilica and its history, as well as upon the rite of the consecration of churches. Concerning this last topic the reader may be conveni­ ently referred to Duchesne, Christian Worship (1919), pp. 399-418; c/. also The Month, June 1910, pp. 621-631. Among the many works dealing with the Lateran that of P. Lauer, Le palais du Latran, Etude historique et archeologique (1911) is perhaps the most comprehensive; and in special relation with the subject of this notice consult also Lauer on the" Date de la dedicace de la basilique du Latran " in the Bulletin de la Soc. nat. des antiquaires de France for 1924, pp. 261-265. A very long article on the Lateran with a vast bibliography has been contributed by H. Leclercq to DAC., vol. viii, cc. 1529-1887, in 'which see especially cc. 1551-1553.

ST THEODORE TIRO,

MARTYR

(c.

A.D.

306?)

AN early panegyric, attributed to St Gregory of Nyssa, pronounced upon this martyr on his festival, begins by ascribing to his intercession the preservation of Pontus from the inroads of the Scythians, who had laid waste all the neighbouring provinces. Imploring his patronage, it says, " As a soldier defend us; as a martyr speak for us-ask peace. If we need stronger intercession, gather together your brother martyrs, and with them all pray for us. Stir up Peter, Paul and John, that they be solicitous for the churches which they founded. May no heresies • The Canons Regular of the Lateran are so called because they represent a reformed congregation of Augustinian canons which originated at the Lateran in the eleventh century, when the basilica was served by canons regular.

3°1

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 9]

sprout up, but may the Christian commonwealth become, by your and your companions' prayers, a fruitful field." The panegyric says that by 8t Theodore's intercession devils \vere expelled and distempers cured; that many resorted to his church and admired the actions of the saint painted on the wall; then ap­ proached the tomb, whose touch, they believed, imparted a blessing, and carried away the dust of the sepulchre as a treasure; if any were allowed to touch the sacred relics, they reverently applied them to their eyes, mouth and ears. "Then they address themselves to the martyr as if he were present, and pray and invoke him, who is before God and obtains gifts as he pleases." The panegyrist then refers to St Theodore's life and passion. 'fhe martyr whose shrine at Euchaita was so great a centre of devotion was a young rnan, ne\vly enlisted in the Roman army, whence he was surnamed Tiro, "the Recruit" (or more probably because he belonged to the Cohors tironum).

According to his earliest legend his legion was sent into winter quarters in Pontus, and he was at Amasea when he refused to join his comrades in idolatrous observ­ ances. He was presented to the governor of the province and the tribune of his legion and asked how he dare to profess a religion which the emperors punished with death. He boldly replied, " I know not your gods. Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, is my God. If my words offend you, cut out my tongue; every part of my body is ready when God calls for it as a sacrifice." 1'hey dismissed him for the present, but Theodore, being resolved to convince his judges that his resolution was inflexible, set fire to a pagan temple which stood in the city. When he was carried a second time before the governor and his assistant he was ready to anticipate their questions by his confession. They endeavoured to terrify him with threats, and allure him by promises, but he refused to be seduced. He was therefore unmercifully torn with whips, but under all manner of torments maintained his tranquillity. The martyr was remanded to prison, where in the night he was wonderfully comforted by angels. After a third examination, Theodore was condemned to be burnt alive in a furnace and was so executed. His ashes were begged by a lady named Eusebia, \\Tho gave them burial at Euchalta.

This account of St Theodore Tiro cannot be relied on, but it has reference to a real martyr who mayor may not have been a soldier. In the course of time his " acts" were embellished by further fictitious and fantastic additions, until he became one of the best known of the " warrior-saints" and included in the East among the Great Martyrs. So complicated and contradictory did his story become that, in order to make it less inconsistent, a second soldier St Theodore had to be posited and so we have the St Theodore Stratelates of February 7. St Theodore Tiro's former popularity in the West is illustrated by thirty-eight of the famous thirteenth-century windows of Chartres cathedral, those in the choir, which depict scenes from his legend. The church of San Teodoro (" Toto ") at the foot of the Palatine hill in Rome is named after him. When in 971, on February 17 (Theo­ dore's feast-day in the East), the Emperor John Zimiskes gained a great victory over the Russians at Dorystolon, it was attributed to the personal leadership of the martyr; the emperor rebuilt his church at Euchalta and renamed the city Theo­ doropolis. St Theodore Tiro is still greatly venerated in the East and is mentioned in the" preparation" of the Byzantine Liturgy, together with his fellow dragon­ slayer, St George, and a third " warrior", St Demetrius.

Father Delehaye devoted great attention to this martyr. In I909J in his book Les legendes grecques des saints lnilitaires, he edited five different texts of the passio and miracles of St

302

ST BENIGNUS, OR BENEN

[November 9

Theodore with a long preliminary discussion. The most ancient evidence of the cultus of the saint is to be found in the sermon attributed to St Gregory of Nyssa. We cannot be quite sure that Gregory was really the author, but it is unquestionably of early date. It is printed in Migne, PG., vol. xlvi, pp. 736-748, as well as in the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iv, where Delehaye has again dealt at length with the story of both Theodore the recruit and Theodore the general, editing also as much of these varied" acts ", partly in Greek, partly in ancient Latin versions, as would serve best to illustrate how the fictitious develop足 ments have diverged as they multiplied. Theodore the general has already been noticed separately herein under February 7, which see. Doubt has been cast upon l\tlgr Wilpert's identification of the two figures in the mosaic of the church of St Theodore in Rome, which he holds to represent separately the recruit and the general. Consult on this the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xlii (1925), p. 389, and see in the same volume, pp. 41-45, an account of further miracles of St Theodore.

In Anatolian Studies presented to Sir W. M. Ramsay (1923) is another paper by Delehaye, on "Euchalta et St Theodore JJ (pp. 129-134).

Ktinstle, Ikonographie (vol. ii, pp. 551-552), discusses St Theodore in art, but much might be added from the fuller study of oriental mosaics, etc., by Diehl, Brehier, Fr de Jerphanion, and other experts.

ST BENIGNUS, OR BENEN, BISHOP WHILST St Patrick was on his way to Tara from Saul it is said he passed some days at the house of a chieftain named Sechnan, in Meath. This man and his family \vere converted by the teaching of Patrick, and the gospel made a particular im足 pression on his son Benen (latinized as Benignus). The boy, we are told, would scatter flowers over Patrick as he slept, and when the apostle would continue his journey clung to his feet and implored to be allowed to go too. So he was taken, and became Patrick's dearest disciple and eventually his successor. St Benen was noted for gentleness and charm of disposition and for his good singing, where足 fore he was known as " Patrick's psalmodist". The first evangelization of Clare and Kerry is attributed to him, and from thence he went north into Connaught.

It is also claimed that St Patrick founded a church at Drumlease, in Kilmore diocese, of which Benen was given charge, and that he ruled it for twenty years.

It seems certain that Benen was St Patrick's right-hand man, their names are coupled in the composition of the code of law called Senchus MOT, and after Patrick's death he became the chief bishop of the Irish church.

William of Malmesbury relates that St Benen resigned his office in the year 460, and came to Glastonbury, where he found St Patrick, who had preceded him thither. His old master sent him out to live as a hermit, telling him to build his cell at the spot where his staff should burst into leaf and bud. 1'his happened at a swampy place called Feringmere, and there St Benen died and \vas buried, till in 1属91 his relics were removed to Glastonbury Abbey. No doubt somebody's relics were translated on that occasion, but there is no truth in the legend of the association of St Patrick and St Benen with Glastonbury.

It may be said that in the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iv, pp. 145-188, a serious attempt has for the first time been made (by Fr Paul Grosjean) to piece together a consistent account of the history of St Benignus. He has printed the previously inedited life in Irish, the only manuscript copy of which, made by Michael O'Clery, is preserved in Brussels.

This, which is rather a panegyric than a biography, is interspersed with fragments of verse and consists mainly of extravagant miracles. It is consequently not very informative. The facts of St Benignus's career have mainly to be learnt from the Patrician documents published in such collections as Whitley St~kes, The Tripartite Life (Rolls Series). The contributions made to the subject by William of Malmesbury and John of Tynemouth are plainly of little value; they are based largely on the Glastonbury fictions, now completely discredited, as Dean Armitage Robinson has shown in his book, T'lcO Glastonbury Legends. On The Book

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 9] of Rights, attributed to Senchus Mor, Haddan Patrick, pp. 355-357. the Felire of Oengus. the Life of St Bencn ",

St Benignus, see Eoin MacNeill, Celtic Ireland, pp. 73-95; on the and Stubbs, Councils, vol. ii, pp. 339 seq.; and Bury, Life of St It is curious that there seems to be no mention of St Benignus in See Fr P. Grosjean, "An Early Fragment on St Patrick . . . in in Seanchas Ardmhacha, vol. i, no. 1 (Armagh, 1954), pp. 31-44.

ST VITONUS,

OR

VANNE,

BISHOP OF VERDUN

(c.

A.D.

525)

ST FIRMINUS having died while his episcopal city was being besieged by Clovis, it is said that the king, on taking Verdun, nominated an old priest, St Euspicius, to the vacant see. Euspicius refused the office because he wanted to be a monk, and suggested his nephew Vitonus, who was found acceptable. His episcopate lasted over twenty-five years, during which he is said to have converted the re足 maining pagans of his diocese, but all the information that we have about his life is legendary: as, for example, that he destroyed a dragon by drowning it in the Meuse. St Vitonus is now chiefly remembered by the great congregation of Benedictines which bore his name. The foundation of a college of clergy outside the walls of Verdun is attributed to St Vitonus, whose buildings in the year 952 were handed over to Benedictine monks and re-dedicated in honour of the founder as the abbaye de Saint-Vanne. In 1600 the prior, Dom Didier de la Cour, began a thorough-going reformation of the monastery, which with Moyenmoutier became the centre of a group of reformed houses in Lorraine, Champagne and Burgundy.

They were united officially as a new congregation, "de Saint-Vanne et Saint足 Hydulphe ", in 1604, the French monasteries withdrawing to form the congregation of St Maur fourteen years later. They were both suppressed at the Revolution, but \vere nominally revived (with Cluny) in 1837 to form the new congregation of Solesmes. The feast of St Vitonus is therefore observed by that congregation as well as at Verdun.

There is a Latin life, still in manuscript, of which Mabillon speaks in the Acta Sallctorum D.S.B. (vol. vi, pt I, pp. 496-500); but, written as it was five hundred years after the death of Vitonus, he apparently deemed it not worth printing, though he has published a short collection of miracles worked at the shrine. A compendium of this life was, however, printed by Surius. See also Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. iii, p. 70. On Moyenmoutier and its reform, consult Gallia Christiana, vol. xiii, pp. 1165 seq., and L. Jerome, L'Abbaye de M oyenmoutier (19属2).

BD GEORGE NAPPER, MARTYR

(A.D.

1610)

history of the passion of this martyr has been preserved in a letter written by a fellow prisoner in Oxford jail. George Napper (Napier) was born in 1550 at Holywell manor, Oxford, his mother being a niece of Cardinal William Peto. He was entered at Corpus Christi College when he was fifteen and three years later was ejected as a recusant. At the end of 1580 he was imprisoned and remained so for nearly nine years, when he obtained his release by recognizing the royal supremacy. He repented of this weakness and entered the English College at Douay, where he was ordained in 1596. He was not sent on the mission till 1603, and then worked for seven years in Oxfordshire. Early in the morning of July 19, 16 I 0, he was arrested in the fields at Kirtlington. lIe had on him at the time a pyx containing two consecrated Hosts and a small reliquary; these in an extra足 ordinary way escaped the notice of his searchers, but a breviary and oil-stocks were found,. and these were sufficient evidence to secure his condemnation as a priest at the next assizes.

THE

[November

ST ANDREW AVELLINO

10

His friends obtained a stay of execution and it is likely that he would have been reprieved altogether, but for the fact that in jail he ministered to a condemned felon, who died declaring himself a Catholic. " rrhe people stormed; the ministers threw all the blame upon the condemned priest, made a heavy rout, called for justice, and went straight away to Abingdon to make complaint to the judges."

When he was examined on the matter by the high sheriff and the vice-chancellor of the university, Mr Napper agreed he had reconciled the man and offered ~, to do as much for their lordships". There was a further reprieve, but the prisoner strenuously refused to take the oath of allegiance in the form stigmatizing the pope's deposing power as " impious, heretical and damnable" (the treatise of the Arch­ priest Blackwell approving it was given him to read), and his execution took place on November 9 at Oxford. Before he died he prayed publicly for the king, James I. "His charity was great, for if any poor prisoner wanted either meat to fill him or clothes to cover him he would rather be cold himself than they should" ; w'hile on the mission " he was remarkably laborious in gaining souls to God".

A rather full account of this martyr is preserved by Challoner in MMP" pp. 307-317.

See also Stapleton, Oxfordshire Missions.. J. Morris, Troubles . .. , p. 302; and especially Bede Camm, Forgotten Shrines, pp. 149-182.

It is based upon the letter of a fellow prisoner, who goes into much detail.

10 : ST

ANDREW AVELLINO

(A.D. 1608)

T ANDREW AVELLINO was a native of Castronuovo, a small town in the kingdom of Naples, and born in 1521. IIis parents gave him the name of Lancelot at baptism. He determined to enter the clerical state, and was sent to Naples to study civil and canon law. Being there promotâ&#x201A;Źd to the degree of doctor and to the priesthood, he began to practise in the ecclesiastical courts.

This employment, however, too much engrossed his thoughts and dissipated his mind; and, having while pleading a cause caught himself in a lie, and reading that same evening the words of Holy Scripture, "The mouth that belieth killeth the soul," he resolved to give himself up entirely to the spiritual care of souls. This he did, and with such prudence and ability that in 1556 Cardinal Scipio Ribiba entrusted to him the task of trying to reform the nuns of Sant' Arcangelo at Baiano.

1'his convent had an evil reputation, and the efforts of the young priest were ill received both by some of the nuns and certain men who used to visit them. These did not stop short of physical violence, but Don Lancelot's strivings and willingness to give his life for the good of souls met with little success, for eventually the convent had to be suppressed.

Don Lancelot in the meantime determined to put himself under a rule, and joined the congregation of clerks regular called Theatines, which had been founded at Naples by St Cajetan thirty years before; his novice-master was Bd John l'Jiarinoni. Lancelot himself was now thirty-five, and on changing his way of life he also changed his name, to Andrew. He remained in the rrheatine house at Naples for fourteen years, his goodness, spiritual fervour and exactness in discipline causing him to be employed as master of novices, and then elected superior. Among those whom he trained was Father Lorenzo Scupoli, author of the Spiritual Combat, who became a clerk regular when he was forty. The fine qualities of St Andrew Avellino and his zeal for a better priesthood were recognized by many reforming

S

3°5

November

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

10]

prelates in Italy, particularly Cardinal Paul Aresio and 8t Charles Borromeo. The last-named in 1570 asked the provost general of the Theatines to send 8t Andrew into Lombardy, where he founded a house of his congregation at Milan and became a close friend and counsellor of 8t Charles. He then founded another house, at Piacenza, where his preaching converted several noble ladies, induced others to enter the religious life, and generally "turned the city upside down", so that complaints were made to the Duke of Parma, who sent for him. 8t Andrew was able to satisfy the duke, and so impressed his wife that she asked him to be her spiritual director. In 1582 8t Andrew returned to Naples, and preached with great fruit in the conversion of sinners and the disabusing of the minds of the people of the beginnings of Protestant error which had penetrated even into southern Italy. A number of miraculous happenings are recorded in his life, including the case of a man who denied the real presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. This man is said to have gone to holy communion out of human respect and fear, but removed the Host from his mouth and wrapped It up in a handkerchief, which he subsequently found stained with blood. In remorse and terror he went to St Andrew, who published the story but refused to divulge the penitent man's name lest he should be proceeded against for sacrilege.

On November 10, 1608, being in his eighty-eighth year, St Andrew Avellino had an attack of apoplexy just as he was beginning to celebrate Mass, and died that same afternoon. His body was laid out in the crypt of the church of 8t Paul, where it was visited by large crowds of the faithful, many of whom snipped off locks of his hair to be carried away as relics. In so doing they seem to have made cuts in the skin of his face. The next morning, thirty-six hours after death, these cuts were seen to have exuded blood, and as the body of the saint was still warm it is natural to suppose that he was not really dead. Further incisions were made by physicians, and for another thirty-six hours blood continued to trickle from them.

This blood was, of course, carefully kept, and four days later it was seen to be bubbling; in subsequent years it is recorded that, on the anniversary of 8t Andrew's death, the solidified blood liquefied, after the manner of that of 8t Januarius in the same city of Naples. 8t Andrew was canonized in 1712. During the process the phenomena connected with his blood were proposed as a miracle, but the evidence was regarded as inadequate. Mgr Pamphili (afterwards Pope Innocent X) deposed that a phial of the solid blood in his care failed to liquefy on any occasion.

The Bollandists, in the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iv, virtually apologize for the limited space allotted to this saint, but, as they point out, the large numbers of lives published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have made him very \vell known, and have left no particular problems to elucidate. Besides a clear but concise summary of the principal incidents of his career and a very full bibliography of the printed literature, they have edited a valuable manuscript memoir in Italian by Father Valerio Pagani, the intimate friend of St Andrew, dealing more particularly with the saint's connection with the Theatines. In the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xli (1923), pp. 139-148, there had previously been printed some interesting details regarding the" conversion" of St Andrew. Most of the information that comes to us is contributed by contemporaries. In 1609 Bishop del Tufo published a Historia della Religione de' Padri Cherici Regolari in which he included a narrative of the saint's early days; while a formal biography by Father Castaldo appeared in 1613. Other I talian lives, e.g. by Baggatta, Bolvito, de Maria, are easily met with. On the blood pheno足 mena mentioned above see The Month for May 1926, pp. 437-443.

In the Dictionnaire de Spiritualite, vol. i (1937), cc. 551-554, G. de Luca has contributed an article dealing mainly with St Andrew's devotional writings.

Five volumes of these were published at Naples in 1733-1734, but there are others still unprinted.

306

[November

SSe TRYPHO, RESPICIUS AND NYMPIIA

ST THEOCTISTA,

VIRGIN

10

(No DATE)

THE Roman Martyrology today mentions the death on the island of Paros of St Theoctista, but it is the conclusion of the Bollandists that her story is an empty fable, imitated from the last days of St Mary of Egypt: "a pious tale fabricated by a man of leisure for the gratification of simple religious people". It tells that in the year 902 a certain Nicetas accompanied the expedition under the admiral Himerius sent against the Arabs of Crete. While there he visited the ruined church of our Lady at Paros, and met an old priest who had been a hermit on the island for thirty years. He told Nicetas all about the Arab devastations and finally of what he had heard from a man called Simon some years before about a certain Theoctista. This Simon came with some friends to Paros to hunt, and as they approached the middle of the island they heard a voice calling to them, " Don't come any nearer. I am a woman and I should be ashamed to be seen by you, for rrhey were astounded, but threw a cloak among the bushes in the I am naked." direction of the voice, and soon a woman emerged. She told them that her name was Theoctista and that she and her family had lived on Lesbos, until she was carried off by Arabs. They took her to Paros, where she escaped into the woods and remained in hiding until the marauders withdrew. That was thirty years before, and she had lived there ever since as an ankress, feeding herself on veget­ ables and fruit; her- clothes had become so worn out that the rags fell from her body. Never in all that time had she been able to assist at the Eucharist or receive the body of the Lord, and she implored Simon the next time he came that way to bring her holy communion. This they did in the following year, bringing the Blessed Sacrament in a pyx, which Theoctista received with the Nunc dimittis.

Afterwards they called on her again to say good-bye, and found her at the point of death. Before she was buried Simon severed one of her hands to take away as a relic, but his ship \vas miraculously prevented from putting to sea until he had restored it, when it grew again on to the wrist. When the others went to look into this marvel, the body had entirely disappeared.

It was formerly supposed that the man who went to Paros and heard this story from the mouth of the hermit was Simeon Metaphrastes himself, the great Byzan­ tine compiler of saints' legends, in whose collection the tale of Theoctista is found.

But in fact he transcribed the legend just as it was written down by Nicetas, only adding thereto a preface, expressed in general terms of edification which did not make it clear that the events narrated in the first person did not happen to himself. l\letaphrastes, who figures in the Greek Menaia on the 28th of this month, lived some fifty years after the expedition of Himerius.

In the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iv (under November 9), Delehaye has dealt with the question exhaustively, editing the original Greek narrative of Nicetas from a variety of manuscripts, and recording the variations of the Metaphrast. See also his Legends of the Saints, p. 88.

SSe TRYPHO, RESPICIUS

AND

NYMPHA,

MARTYRS

(DATES

UNKNOWN)

THESE saints are named together today in the Roman Martyrology because what purported to be the relics of all three were preserved in the church of the hospital of the Holy Ghost in Sassia at Rome. Trypho is said to have been a native of

3°7

November

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

10]

Phrygia who was a goose-herd whep a boy; of Respicius too nothing whatever is known: he is first joined with Trypho in an early eleventh-century pass-io, compiled from older ones by a monk of Fleury. The legend is an historical romance woven around a martyrdom said to have taken place at Nicaea during the persecution of Decius. St Nympha, according to one account, was a Panor­ mitan maiden who fled to Italy and was put to death at Porto in the fourth century.

Another says that when the Goths regained Sicily in the sixth century she went from Palermo to Tuscany, where she served God in holiness and died in peace at Savona.

Although Ruinart included Trypho and Respicius in his Acta Sincera, Delehaye, in the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iv, speaks of this passio, together with the life and miracles, in all their variants, as belonging to the most unsatisfactory class of martyr acts, a view which Harnack, Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur, vol. ii, p. 470, fully ehdorses. All the principal texts in Greek and Latin have been edited by Delehaye in the article referred to. Tryphon was a very popular martyr in the Greek church, where his feast is kept on February I. Consult further Franchi de' Cavalieri in Studi e Testi, vol. xix, pp. 45-74, and Arnauld in Echos d'Orient, 1900, pp. 201-205.

ST AEDH MAC BRICC,

BISHOP

THE birth of this St Aedh, a son of Brecc of the Hy Neill, was marked by marvels and the prediction of a stranger that he would be great in the eyes of God and man.

He received no schooling in his youth, being intended for the lay state, but worked on his father's land, where one day St Brendan of Birr and St Canice helped him to find the pigs that had strayed. After the death of Brecc, Aedh's brothers withheld his patrimony from him, and he tried to coerce them into yielding his share by carrying off a girl from their household. Coming to Rathlihen In Offaly he was persuaded by St Illathan, bishop in that place, to renounce his claim and to send the girl back again. This Aedh accordingly did, and rernained with the bishop till, in consequence of a sign of God's favour given while his disciple was ploughing, Illathan sent him to establish a monastery in his own district. His chief settlement is said to have been at Ci1I-air in Westmeath, but he \vas active over a wide area.

Many miracles are recorded of St Aedh, some of them extravagant enough: healing, transportation through the air (,\lith or without his car), turning water into wine, and resuscitating three people who had had their throats cut by robbers are among them. It is said that St Brigid herself (alternatively, " a certain man ") came to him to be cured of a chronic headache, which he took upon himself. There is a story told of St ado of Cluny which is paralleled by the following told of St Aedh: that he one day saw a girl washing her head after Saturday Vespers (-i.e. when, ecclesiastically, Sunday had begun), and that at his word all her hair fell out until she had repented of doing servile work on the Lord's day. When he came to die, St Aedh said to one of his monks, " Prepare to take the road to Heaven with me ". The man was not willing to die, but a country fellow standing by exclaimed, " Would to God you would ask me to come with you". "Very well," said St Aedh, " go and wash yourself and get ready." So the peasant did, and lay down on the saint's bed, and together they died. At the same moment, St Columba in far lona knew of Aedh's departure to Heaven, and told the news to his brethren.

There are three Latin lives of this saint, but no text is known to have been preserved in Irish. The Latin recensions have all been printed in full by Fr P. Grosjean in the Acta

3°8

ST J1JSTlJS CF (,AK1'ERBl~R\"

[NO'l'ember

10

Sanc/orum, November, \"01. i\', the second being here edited for the first time, though C. Plummer had quoted fragrnents of it when he published the third life in his YSI-L, yol. i, pp. 34\45.

In any case the second differs little from the first, which is preserved to us in the Codex Salmanticensis and had been preYiously printed in 1 ~88.

Fr C;rosjean has greatly added to the value of hi", article by copious annotations. See also Plummer's preface to VSI-I., vol. i, pp. xxvi-xxviii, and (;. Stokes in Journal of R. Soc. of Antiq., Ireland, vol. xxvi (1896), pp. 325-335.

St Aedh seems to have been popularly inyoked to cure headaches; cf. J. F. Kenney, Sources, vol. i, p. 393·

ST JUSTUS,

ARCHBISHOP OF CA:-\TERBURY

WHEN in the year 601 Pope 8t Gregory the Great sent more missionaries to help St Augustine in England, ] ustus \\'as of their number. l'hree years later 8t Augustine consecrated him to be bishop of Rochester, the first of that see, \vhere King Ethelbert built a church dedicated in honour of 8t Andrew, from whose church on the Coelian the Roman missionaries had set out. When Augustine was succeeded at Canterbury by St I.Jaurence, ] ustus joined \vith him and 8t Mellitus of London in addressing a letter to the Irish bishops and abbots in­ viting them to conform certain of their ecclesiastical usages to those of Rome.

A similar letter was sent to the clergy of the C'hristian Britons; " \vhat was gained by so doing", St Bede caustically observes, "the present times still declare ".

After the death of King Ethelbert in 6 1 6 a pagan reaction set in in Kent and the same happened among the East Saxons.

In face of it the three bishops, Laurence, ] ustus and l\1ellitus, decided to retire for a \vhile as they could do no good \vhere they were in opposition to the pagan princes. Accordingly] ustus and Mellitus crossed over into Gaul. \Vithin a year ] ustus \\'as recalled, for St Laurence, spurred on by a vision of St Peter, had succeeded in converting King Edbald of Kent. 8t ] ustus himself became archbishop of Canterbury in 624, and Pope Boniface V sent him the pallium, together with a letter delegating the patriarchal right to consecrate bishops in England.

In the course of his letter the pope sho\vs \vhat he thinks of Justus: he refers to " the perfection \\'hich your \vork has obtained", to God's promise to be \vith His servants, " which promise His mercy has particularly manifested in your ministry", and to ] ustus's " hope of patience and virtue of endurance". "You must there­ fore endeavour, my brother", he concludes, "to preserve with unblemished sincerity of mind that which you have received through the favour of the Apostolic See, as an emblem whereof you have obtained so principal an ornament [i.e. the pallium] to be borne on your shoulders. . . . God keep you in safety, most dear brother." St Justus did not long surviyc his promotion but before his death he consecrated St Paulinus, to accompany Ethelburga of Kent when she went north to marry the heathen Ed\vin, King of Northumbria, an alliance \vhich \vas " the occasion of that nation's embracing the faith", as 8t Bede remarks. 'The feast of 5t Justus is kept In the diocese of Southwark.

Our kno\\dedge of the doings of St Justus depends mainly upon the Ecclesiastical History of Bede (see C. Plummer's edition and notes).

In the Acta Sanctorum, :\"ovember, vol. iv, Delehaye has also printed the eleventh-century life by Goscelin. With regard to the relics of the early archbishops of Canterbury see W. St John Hope, Recent Disco'ceries in the Abbey Church of Sf Austin at Canterbury (19 16). It is noteworthy that Justus with Mellitus and Laurence, but not Augustine, is inscribed in the diptychs of the Irish sacramentary known as the Stowe Missal.

N o'l'embcr

THE LIVES OF 1'HE SAINTS

I I]

11 : ST

J\;IARTIN,

BISHOP OF 1'OURS

(A.D. 397)

I-IE great St ~Iartin, the glory of C;aul and a light to the Western church in the fourth centur"y, \vas a native of Sabaria, a town of Pannonia. From thence his parents, \\:ho \vcre pagans, had to remove to Pavia in Italy, for his father \vas an officer in the arn1Y, \\'ho had risen from the ranks. Martin himself has, rather curiously, come to be looked on as a " soldier saint". At the age of fifteen he \vas, as the son of a veteran, forced into the army against his \vill and for some years, though not yet formally a Christian, he lived more like a n10nk than a soldier. It \vas \vhilc stationed at Amiens that is said to have occurred the incident \vhich tradition and image have made famous. One day in a very hard \vinter, during a severe frost, he met at the gate of the city a poor man, almost naked, trembling and shaking \\'ith cold, and begging alms of those that passed by.

Martin, seeing those that \vent before take no notice of this miserable creature, thought he \\'as reserved for himself, but he had nothing \\'ith him but his arms and clothes. So, drawing his s\vord, he cut his cloak into t\\'O pieces, gave one to the beggar and \\Tapped himself in the other half. Some of the bystanders laughed at the figure he cut, but others \vere ashamed not to have relieved the poor man. r1'hat night l\1artin in his sleep sa,v Jesus Christ, dressed in that half of the garment \vhich he had given away, and heard Jesus say, " Martin, yet a catechutnen, has covered me with this garment". * I-lis disciple and biographer Sulpicius Severus states that he had become a catechurnen on his o\vn initiative at the age of ten, and that as a consequence of this vision he " flew to be baptized". lVlartin did not at once leave the anny, and when he was about twenty tllere was a barbarian invasion of Gaul. With his comrades he appeared before Julian Caesar to receive a war-bounty, and Martin refused to accept it. "Hitherto", he said to Julian, " I have served you as a soldier; let me now serve Christ. Give the bounty to these others who are going to fight, but I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight." Julian stormed and accused Martin of cowardice, who retorted that he was prepared to stand in the battle-line unarmed the next day and to advance alone against the enemy in the name of Christ. He \vas thrust into prison, but the conclusion of an armistice stopped further developments and Martin was soon after discharged. He went to Poitiers, where 5t Hilary was bishop, and this doctor of the Church gladly received the young " conscientious objector" among his disciples. lVlartin had in a dream a call to visit his home and, crossing the .L~lps where he had a remarkable escape froln robbers, he went into Pannonia, and converted his mother and others; but his father remained in his infidelity. In Illyricum he opposed the triulnphant Arians with so much zeal that he was publicly scourged and had to leave the country. In Italy he heard that the church of Gaul also was oppressed by those heretics and 5t Hilary banished, so he remained quietly at lVlilan. But Auxentius, the Arian bishop, soon drove him a\vay. He then retired with a priest to the island of Gallinaria in the gulf of Genoa, and remained there till 8t Hilary was allowed to return to Poitiers in 360. I t being Martin's earnest

T

t

.. Our familiar word" chapel" is said to be derived from this incident. The oratory in which the alleged cloak of St Martin was preserved was called in Latin the cappella (diminutive of cappa, a cloak), in Old French chapele. t The narrative of Sulpicius Severus here presents considerable chronological difficulties.

310

ST MARTIN OF TOURS

[November

I I

desire to pursue his vocation in solitude, St Hilary gave him a piece of land, now called Liguge, where he \vas soon joined by a number of other hermits. rfhis community-traditionally the first monastic community founded in Gaul-grew into a great Inonastery which continued till the year 16°7, and was revived by the Solesmes Benedictines in 1852. St l\lartin lived here for ten years, directing his disciples and preaching throughout the countryside, \vhere many rniracles were attributed to him. About 371 the people of rrours demanded l\1artin for their bishop. He \vas un\villing to accept the office, so a stratagem \vas made use of to call him to the city to visit a sick person, ""here he \vas conveyed to the church.

Some of the neighbouring bishops, called to assist at the election, urged that the meanness of his appearance and his unkelnpt air sho\ved him to be unfit for such a dignity. But such objections \vere overcome by the acclamations of the local clergy and people.

St lVlartin continued the same manner of life. I-Ie lived at first in a cell near the church, but not being able to endure the interruptions of the many visitors he retired from the city to \vhere \vas soon the famous abbey of lVlarmoutier. 'The place \\'as then a desert, enclosed by a steep cliff on one side and by a tributary of the river Loire on the other; but he had here in a short tilDe eighty monks, \vith many persons of rank amongst them. .A very great decrease of paganism in the district of Tours and all that part of Gaul \vas the fruit of the piety, miracles and zealous instruction of 8t IVlartin. He destroyed many ternples of idols and felled trees and other objects that were held sacred by the pagans. I-laving demolished a certain temple, he \\'ould also have cut do\vn a pine that stood near it. 'The chief priest and others agreed that they thetTIselves \vould fell it, upon condition that he who trusted so strongly in the God \VhOln he preached \vould stand under it \vhere they should place him. Martin consented, and let himself be tied on that side of the tree to which it leaned. \\~hen it seemed about to fall on him he made a sign of the cross and it fell to one side. Another time, as he \vas pulling do\\'n a temple in the territory of Autun, a Inan attacked him s\vord in hand. "fhe saint bared his breast to him; but the pagan lost his balance, fell back\vards, and \vas so terrified that he begged for forgiveness. T'hese and many other mar\'els are narrated by Sulpicius Severus; some are so extraordinary that, he tells us himself, there \vere not wanting" \vretched, degenerate and slothful men" in his o",'n day \\,ho denied their truth. I-Ie also recounts several instances of revelations, visions and the spirit of prophecy \\,ith ",'hich the saint \vas favoured by God. Every year St :\Iartin visited each of his outlying" parishes", travelling on foot, on a donkey, or by boat.

According to his biographer he extended his apostolate from "rouraine to Chartres, Paris, Autun, Sens and Vienne, ",here he cured 8t Paulinus of :\"ola of an eye trouble. \Vhen a tyrannical imperial officer, Avitian, had come to 'fours \vith a batch of prisoners and \vas going to put them to death \\,ith torture on the follo\ving day, St l\Iartin hurried from lVlarrnoutier to intercede for them. He did not arrive till nearly midnight, but ""ent straight to ~r\ vitian and \vould not go a\vay until mercy \vas extended to the captives. \Yhilst 8t :Ylartin \vas employed in making spiritual conquests, and in peaceably spreading the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the churches in Spain and Gaul \vere disturbed by the Priscillianists, a gnostic-manichean sect named after their leader.

Priscillian appealed to the Emperor l\Iaximus from a synod held at BordealLx in 384, but Ithacius, Bishop of Ossanova, attacked him furiously and urged the em­ peror to put him to death. ~ either 8t i\mbrose at ~lilan nor St lVlartin ":ould

3 11

November 1 I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

countenance Ithacius or those who supported him, because they sought to put heretics to death and allowed the emperor's jurisdiction in an ecclesiastical matter.

Martin besought Maximus not to spill the blood of the guilty, saying it was sufficient that they be declared heretics and excommunicated by the bishops. Ithacius, far from listenipg to his advice, presumed to accuse him of the heresy involved, as he generally did those whose lives were too ascetic for his taste, says Sulpicius Severns.

Maximus, out of regard to St Martin's rernonstrances, promised that the blood of the accused should not be spilt. But after the saint had left Trier, the emperor was prevailed upon, and committed the case of the Priscillianists to the prefect Evodius. He found Priscillian and others guilty of certain charges, and they were beheaded. St Martin carne back to Trier to intercede both for the Spanish Priscillianists, who were threatened with a bloody persecution, and for two adher­ ents of the late emperor, Gratian; he found himself in a very difficult position, in which he seemed to be justified in maintaining communion with the party of Ithacius, which he did: but he was afterwards greatly troubled in conscience as to whether he had been too complaisant in this matter.¡ St Martin had a knowledge of his approaching death, which he foretold to his disciples, and with tears they besought him not to leave them. " Lord", he prayed, " if thy people still need me I will not draw back from the work. Thy will be done." He was at a remote part of his diocese when his last sickness carne on him. He died on November 8, 397, today being the day of his burial at Tours, where his successor St Britius built a chapel over his grave, which was later replaced by a magnificent basilica. Its successor was swept away at the Revolution, but a modern church now stands over the site of the shrine, which was rifled by the Huguenots in 1562. Till that date the pilgrimage to Tours was one of the most popular in Europe, and a very large number of :French churches are dedicated in St Martin's honour. And not only in France. The oldest existing church in England bears his name, that one outside the eastern walls of Canterbury which St Bede says was first built during the Roman occupation. If this be so, it doubtless at first had another dedication, but was called St Martin's by the tilne St Augustine and his monks carne to use it. By the end of the eighth century there were at least five other Martin dedications in Great Britain, including of course St Ninian's church at Whithorn. St Martin was named in the canon of the Mass in the Bobbio Missal.

In the BHL. no less than fifty-six medieval Latin texts are indicated as in some sense sources for the life of St Martin, and the literature arising out of these is of course immense.

But the fundamental narrative comes to us from Sulpicius Severus, who had visited the saint at Tours and whose successive contributions to the subject are immensely more important than any later materials. At the time of St Martin's death Sulpicius had already compiled his biography. A little later he revised it, supplementing the text with three long letters he had written in the interval, the last of these describing the saint's death and funeral.

Sulpicius meanwhile had been busy in writing a general chronicle, and in this Book II, ch. 50 is devoted to St Martin's share in the Priscillianist controversy.

Finally in 404 Sulpicius threw into dialogue form some further materials, comparing Martin with earlier ascetics, and gathering up a number of new anecdotes. The text edited by C. Halm in the Vienna Corpus (vol. i, pp. 107-216) has not yet been superseded. Ct. however, the Sulpicius section of the Book of Armagh, edited by Professor John Gwynn (1913). More than a â&#x20AC;˘ For their parts in the affair of Priscillian both the emperor and Ithacius were censured

by Pope St Siricius. It was the first judicial death-sentence for heresy, and it was followed by a spread of Priscillianism in Spain.

Sulpicius Severus says that two of Priscillian's followers were exiled " to the Scilly island that lies beyond Britain )).

312

ST MENNAS

[Jv'ovember

1I

century and a half elapsed before St Gregory at Tours itself made another notable contribu足 tion to the history of his venerated predecessor. Unfortunately the chronology of Sulpicius and Gregory is often at variance, and these inconsistencies formed the basis of an essay in destructive criticism by E. Babut (St . W . artin de Tours, 1912) which created a considerable censation when it appeared. A detailed reply by Fr Delehaye in the Analecta Bollandiana (vol. xxxviii, 1920, pp. 1-136) may count as perhaps the most up-to-date contribution to the subject, and another high authority, C. J ullian, in the Retvue des Etudes anciennes (vols. xxiv and xxv) and in his Histoire de la Gaule (vol. viii) has written in general agreement with Delehaye.

Biographies and studies of the different aspects of St Martin's history are numerous. See especially the books of A. Lecoy de la Marche, C. H. van Rhijn, P. Ladoue and, most useful of all, the little volume of Paul Monceaux (Eng. trans., 1928). On St l\1artin in ~lrt consult Kiinstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 438-444; and the volume by H. Martin, in the series I/art et les saints. St Martin has also played a great part in the traditions of the people; many popular phrases in French recall his name. Much of this folk-lore has been gathered up by Lecoy de la Marche, and for Germany see Bachtold-Staubli, Handworterbuch des deutschen A berglaubens , vol. v, cc. 1708-1725. For Martin's influence in Ireland, see J. Ryan, Irish Monasticisnl (193 I); and Fr Grosjean in Allalecta Bollandiana, vol. Iv (1942), pp. 300-348; for the early English dedications, W. Levison, England and the Continent . .. (1946), p. 259. The great veneration for St Martin in medieval England is witnessed by the fact that the calendar of the Book of Common Prayer not only retains his dies nata/is but also the fesat of the translation of his relics on July 4. The life by Sulpicius Severus is translated in the Fathers of the Church series, vol. vii (1949), and again in F. R. I-Ioare, The Western F,athers (1954). together with his three letters on St Martin and the dialogues with Postumianus and Gallus.

ST MENNAS,

MARTYR

(DATE UNKNOWN)

outline of the legend of St Mennas (Menas) is that he was an Egyptian by birth and a soldier in the Roman army. He was at Cotyaeum in Phrygia when the persecution of Diocletian began, whereupon he deserted and hid himself in the mountains, where he led a life of prayer and austerity. On the occasion of some games at Cotyaeum he left his hiding-place and displayed himself in the amphitheatre, announcing that he also was a Christian. He was arrested and brought before the president who, after having hirn beaten and tortured, ordered him to be beheaded. His remains were recovered and brought back to Egypt, where the miracles reported at his tomb soon made it a great centre of devotion.

The cultus of St Mennas spread far and wide in the East, his true history was overlaid and distorted by fictions and enlbellishments which brought him into the ranks of the " warrior saints", and he was credited with absurd wonders, one of them (which, however, he shares with SSe Cosmas and Damian) being, in the words of Tillemont, " in the highest degree scandalous". Father Delehaye is of the opinion that all that can be fairly certainly known about St Mennas is that he was an Egyptian who was martyred and buried in his native place. Churches were built in his honour at, among other places, C~otyaeum, and these gave rise to mythical duplicates of the martyr connect~d with those cities.

The great shrine of St Mennas. built over his tomb, was at Bumma (Karm Abu-Mina), south-west frorn Alexandria, which was a principal pilgrimage sanc足 tuary until the Arab invasion in the seventh century. Its ruins, basilica, monastery, baths, secular buildings, were excavated by Mgr K. M. Kaufmann in 1905-08, who found innumerable traces of the former popular cultus of the martyr. Among them were numerous phials bearing such inscriptions as " Souvenir of St Mennas ", which were shown to have been made to contain water from a well near the shrine.

Such phials had been long previously found elsewhere in Africa and in Europe, THE

31 3

November

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

II]

and had hitherto been supposed to have contained" oil of St Mennas " taken from the lamps in the church. In 1943 the Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria, Christo足 pher II, issued an encyclical letter in which he attributed the saving of Egypt from invasion at the battle of Alamein to " the prayers to God of the holy and glorious great martyr Mennas, the wonder-worker of Egypt "; and he put for\vard a project for restoring the saint's ruined sanctuary near Alamein as a memorial to the fallen.

The Roman Martyrology mentions to-day another ST MENNAS, who was a solitary in the Abruzzi. He was a Greek from Asia Minor whose holiness and zeal are spoken of by Pope St Gregory in his Dialogues.

As in the case of the great St George, we have here to do with a martyr of whose historical existence, owing to his localized, wide-spread and early cult, we can hardly entertain a doubt, but \-"hose story has been lost and supplied at a later date by deliberate fabrication. Starting from this primitive fiction it has been transmitted to subsequent generations with endless varieties of detail, and translated into many languages, oriental and western. The Greek passio is known to us in three distinct families, but the kernel recognizable in all 'of them has been obtained by the simple process of borrowing the story of another martyr and giving him a new name. The martyr in this case was St Gordius, whose conflict is described to us in a panegyric preached by St Basil. .A.n immense amount of research has been lavished upon St Mennas by such scholars as Krumbacher, Delehaye, P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, K. M. Kaufmann and others. What is of main interest is that the cradle of the cultus of this Egyptian martyr was brought to light in the present century through the excavations of l\1gr Kaufmann.

It has been described in his folio volume, Die Alenas-stadt und das Nationalheiligtum der altchristlichen Aegypter (1910).

Father Delehaye in particular has written very fully on the subject.

See the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxix (1910), pp.

117-150; and vol. xliii, pp. 46-49; Origines du culte des martyrs (1933), pp. 222-223 and passim,. Les passions des martyrs et les genres littlfaires, pp. 388-389 ; and CMI-I., pp. 595-596.

See also Budge, Texts relating to St Mena of Egypt (1909); P. Franchi de' Cavalieri in Studi e Testi, vol. xix (1908), pp. 42-108; and H. Leclercq in DAC., vol. xi, cc. 324--397, where also is a full bibliography.

ST THEODORE THE STUDITE,ABBOT

(A.D. 826)

ST PLATO, abbot of Symboleon upon Mount Olympus in Bithynia, had a brother足 in-law who with his three sons went to their estate at Sakkoudion, also near Olympus, and there began to lead a monastic life. Among these novices no one was more fervent than Theodore, the eldest son, then in his twenty-second year.

St Plato \vas prevailed upon to resign his abbacy and to undertake the government of this new monastery, and in due course he sent Theodore to Constantinople to be ordained priest. He made so great progress in virtue and learning that in 794 his uncle abdicated the government of the house and, by the consent of the com足 munity, confided it to Theodore.

The young emperor C-:onstantine VI having put a\vay his wife and taken Theo足 dota, a relation of SSe Plato and Theodore, they protested against his conduct.

Constantine desired to gain Theodore to his side and used his utmost endeavours, by promises and by the consideration of their kindred. When these failed, the elnperor went to take the waters at Brusa, near Sakkoudion, expecting St Theodore to pay him a cereIllonial visit; but neither the abbot nor any of his rnonks were there to receive him. The prince returned to his palace in a rage, and sent officers \vith an order to deport Theodore and those monks who were his most resolute adherents. They were banished to Thessalonika, and a strict order was published forbidding anyone to receive or entertain them, so that even the monks of that 31 4

ST Tf-IEODORE THE

STlJI)I1~E

country durst not help them. r1'he aged Plato \vas confined in a solitary cell in Constantinople. St rTheodore \vrote to him from rfhessalonika an account of the journey and hardships of himself and his companions, a letter full of courage and of admiration for his old master. But the exile lasted only a fe\v months, being brought to an end by a characteristic example of the brutal ambitions of the time and place. In 797 the emperor's mother, Irene, dethroned her son, and ordered his eyes to be put out. She reigned five years and recalled the exiles. St 1'heodore returned to Sakkoudion, and reassernbled his scattered flock; but finding this monastery exposed to the raids of the Arabs they in 799 took shelter \vithin the \valls of the city. 'fheodore \vas given charge of the famous monastery of Studius, so called frorn its founder, the consul Studius \vho, coming from Rome to Con­ stantinople, had built it in the year 463. Constantine Copronymus had expelled the monks and 'rheodore found the place a desert, \\"ith a bare dozen inmates; under his rule the cornnlunity and its dependants came to nUlnber a thousand.

As a legislator St l'heodore takes the first place in the developlnent of monasticism deriving from St Basil. St .Athanasius the l~auriote brought his regulations to 1\lount Athos, and they spread to Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia, \\"here and elsewhere they still form the basis of cenobitical monastic life. * He especially fostered learned studies and the practice of the fine arts, and the school of calligraphy that he established \vas long farnous. 8t 'rheodore's o\vn \vritten \,¡orks "vere chiefly instructions and sermons, liturgical hyn1ns, and treatises on monastic asceticism, in which, cOlnpared \vith rnany orientals, he \\'as notably moderate. He told a hermit, " Don't cultivate a self-satisfied austerity.

Eat bread, drink \vine occasionally, \vear shoes, especially in \vinter, and take nleat \vhen you need it." For eight years St 'fheodore governed his monastery in peace amid the turmoil of imperial politics, and then the affair of C:onstantine s adultery \vas brought up again.

'To fill the vacant patriarchal throne of Constantinople the Emperor Nicephorus I chose his namesake, after\vards St Nicephorus, \\'ho was a layman at the time.

For this reason 8t 'rheodore, 8t Plato, and other monks opposed the appointment, and were imprisoned for t\venty-four days in consequence. rrhcn, at the request of the emperor, Nicephorus and a small synod of bishops reinstated the priest Joseph, who had been degraded for blessing the marriage bet\veen Constantine VI and 1~heodota. 8t 'rheodore and others refused to hold communion with Joseph or to accept the decision of a second synod that the marriage had been valid, and he, his brother Joseph, .Archbishop of Thessalonika, and St Plato \vere relegated to Princes' Island and shut up in separate prisons. 'rheodore \\;'fote explaining matters to the pope and 8t I.Jeo III replied, commending his prudence and con­ stancy, but the other side had spread rumours in Rome that 'rheodore ,,'as heretical and was annoyed at not having been made patriarch, and I~eo made no formal judgement. 'fhe Studite monks were dispersed among other monasteries and grievously ill-treated, and the imprisonment of the leaders lasted nearly t\VO years, until the death of the Emperor Nicephorus in 8 I I. A reconciliation \vas brought about bet"'een 'rheodore and Patriarch N icephorus, which \vas cemented by their unity on the vexed question of the veneration of images. Particulars of the outbreak of the second Iconoclast persecution, under 1

'*' 'rhere was a re\'ival of Studite monastiCIsm among Catholic Byzantines in our own day. In 1901 Andre\v Szepticky, Archbishop of L\'o\', founded a I110nastery in then Austrian Galicia, which prospered and ga\'e off affiliations; but the monks \vere suppressed by the SO\'iet government after 1945. A group of refugee monks have made a fresh start in Canada.

November

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

I I]

Leo V the Armenian, have been given in the account of St Nicephorus (March 13).

St Theodore openly denied any right of the emperor to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs, and on the Palm Sunday after the banishment of St Nicephorus he ordered all his monks to take images in their hands and to carry them solemnly in public procession, singing a hymn which begins, " We reverence thy holy image, 0 blessed one". From this moment St Theodore was recognized as the leader of the orthodox, and he continued to encourage all to honour holy images, for "rhich the emperor banished him into M ysia, where he continued to animate the faithful by letters, of which a number are extant. His correspondence being discovered, the emperor ordered him to Bonita, at a greater distance in Anatolia, with instruction to his gaoler to have the confessor scourged. This man, N icetas, seeing the cheer足 fulness with which St Theodore put off his tunic and offered his naked body, wasted \vith fasting, to the blows, was moved with compassion. He therefore contrived to send all others out of the dungeon; then, throwing a sheep-skin over Theodore's bed, he discharged upon it a number of blows, which \vere heard by those without; then, pricking his arm to stain the whip with blood, he showed it when he came out and seemed out of breath with the pains he had taken. St Theodore was still able to write letters, and among them those which he sent to all the patriarchs and to Pope St Paschal I. To him he writes, " Give ear, apostolic bishop, shepherd appointed by God over the flock of Jesus Christ. You have received the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; you are the rock on which the Church is built; you are Peter, since you fill his see. Come to our assistance." The pope having sent legates to Constantinople (who, however, achieved nothing), St 1'he6dore wrote a letter of thanks, in which he said, " You are from the beginning the pure source of the orthodox faith. You are the secure harbour of the universal Church, her shelter against the storms of heretics, and the city of refuge chosen by God." For three more years St Theodore and his faithful attendant Nicholas were imprisoned at Bonita with extreme rigour; enduring great cold in winter and almost stifled in summer and tormented with hunger and thirst, for their guards threw them in at a windo\v only a little bread every other day. St rrheodore says that he expected they would soon perish with hunger, adding, " God is yet but too merciful to us ", and they probably would have, had not a court official who passed that way been shocked by their condition and ordered them to be properly fed.

The Emperor Leo, having intercepted another letter in which the saint encouraged the faithful to defy" the infamous sect of image-burners", gave order to the prefect of the East to punish its author. This officer was not won over as Nicetas had been, and caused Nicholas, the monk "rho had written the letter, to be cruelly scourged and then a hundred stripes to be given to Theodore, who was left lying on the ground exposed to the cold of February. He was a long time unable to take any rest or food, and was only saved by the care of Nicholas who, forgetting his own sufferings, fed him drop by drop with a little broth, and after he had thus strength足 ened him, endeavoured to dress his wounds, from which he had to cut away the mortified flesh. Theodore was for three months in excessive pain, and before he was recovered an officer arrived to conduct him and Nicholas to Smyrna. They had to walk in the day-time and at night were put in irons.

At Smyrna the archbishop, who was a bitter Iconoclast, kept Theodore confined closely, and said he would ask the emperor to send an officer to cut off his head, or at least to cut out his tongue. But the persecution ended in 820, with the murder of him who had raised it. Leo was succeeded by Michael the Stammerer, who at 316

ST THEODORE THE STUDITE

[November

I I

first affected great moderation: the exiles were restored, and St Theodore the Studite came out after seven years of imprisonment. He wrote a letter of thanks to Michael, exhorting him to be united with Rome, the first of the churches, and freely to permit the veneration of images. But the new emperor refused to allow any images in the imperial city, or to restore the patriarch, the abbot of the " Studium " or any other orthodox prelates to their offices unless they agreed. St Theodore, after making fruitless remonstrances, left Constantinople-in effect an exile-and visited the monasteries of Bithynia to encourage and strengthen his followers. " The winter is over", he said, " but spring is not yet come. The sky is clearer and there is hope of a good passage. The fire is out-but there is still smoke." The influence of Theodore was so great that monks in general and Studites in particular were regarded as synonymous with orthodoxy; and some of his monks gathered round him in a monastery on the peninsula of Akrita. He was here taken ill in the beginning of November 826, yet walked to church on the fourth day and celebrated the Holy Sacrifice. His sickness increasing, he dictated to a secretary his last instructions; and died on the following Sunday, November I I. His body was translated to the monastery of Studius eighteen years after his death.

St Theodore the Studite is greatly venerated in the East and is named in the Roman IVIartyrology as "famous throughout the Church", as indeed he well deserves to be, as a monastic legislator, an upholder of the supreme authority of the see of Rome, and a spirited defender of and sufferer for the veneration of holy images. He opposed the Iconoclasts essentially on theological grounds. He did not regard sacred pictures as a necessary artistic adornment of a church; he definitely discouraged the pictorial representation of the Virtues and Vices and any other "unauthorized flights of the religious fancy". N or did he deem their veneration a necessary devotional exercise; he seems to have used it but little him­ self, regarding it simply as an aid to devotion for the "weaker brethren"" In his own instructions on prayer he sees the heart and mind in direct communion with God without reference to any exterior helps or intermediaries. But he saw clearly that to deny the lawfulness of the display and veneration of holy images was to deny the validity of certain theological principles which are essential to the Christian faith. Many of his writings have come down to us, including numerous letters, treatises on monastic life and the veneration of images, sermons, and a number of hymns. Like the life of the saint they are marked with that rigorism and uncompromising detachment from the world, ahnost amounting to " puritan­ ism ", which was characteristic of many of his follovlers and in some of their successors was so exaggerated as gravely to disturb the peace of the Church.

In volume xcix of Migne's Greek Patrology are printed two biographies with some other documents referring to St Theodore as well as his own writings. His life was so completely identified with the controversies of the period that for a fuller understanding we must turn to the exponents of general ecclesiastical history. Pargoire, L'Eglise Byantine de 527 847 (1923), is very valuable; as is also Hefele-Leclercq, Histo£re des Conc£les (especially bk 18 in vol. iii, pt 2); Mgr Mann's L£ves of the Popes, vol. ii, pp. 795-858; and Brehier, La Querelle des Images (1904). Among works more directly relating to St Theodore may be mentioned: J. Hausherr, St Theodore . .. d'apres ses catecheses (1926) in the series" Orien­ talia Christiana ", no. 22; Alice Gardner, Theodore of Studium (19°5); H. Martin, St Theodore (1906); Dobschtitz," Methodius und die Studiten" in the Byzantin£sche Ze£t­ schrift, vol. xviii (1909), pp. 41-1°5; and G. A. Schneider, Der hi. Theodor von Stud£on (1900).

Several articles bearing on St Theodore have been published in the Anaiecta Bollandiana. In vol. xxxi (1912) Fr C. Van de Vorst published for the first time Theodore's

a

November

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

1 1]

eulogy of St Theophanes, and in vol. xxxii another Greek text describing the translation of Theodore's relics, as well as a paper on his relations with Rome, and in vol xxxiii a discussion of his" smaller catechism n. See also in DAC. the account of St Theodore's activities in the Iconoclasm controversy (vol. vii, 1926, cc. 272-284).

There is an excellent popular sketch by Prince l\lax of Saxony, Der hi. Theodor (1929) ; and cf. N. H. Baynes and C. L. B. Moss, Byzantium (1948).

ST BARTHOLOMEW OF GROTTAFERRATA, A.D.

ABBOT

(c.

1050)

THE found~r of the Greek abbey of Grottaferrata in the Tuscan plain, St Nilus, died in the year 1004, and \vas succeeded as abbot in quick succession by Paul, Cyril and Bartholomew. rrhey were all personal disciples of Nilus, the last named being venerated as the lesser founder of the monastery; for St Nilus and his first two successors were able only to clear the land and begin building, while St Bar足 tholomew carried the work to its conclusion and firmly established his monks, who had been driven from southern Italy and Sicily by Saracen invasions. He made his monastery a centre for learned studies and the copying of manuscripts, himself being skilled in the art of calligraphy, and he composed a number of liturgical hyrnns.

A kanon in the liturgical office of St Bartholomew contains these words: "When, o father, thou didst see the Roman Pontiff rejected, thou didst persuade him by wise words to give up his throne and to end his days in the happy life of a monk."

This refers to the Grottaferrata tradition-perhaps a true one-concerning the last years of Pope Benedict IX, whose grandfather, Count Gregory of Tusculum, had given the land on which the abbey is built. \Vhen Benedict, after a stormy and scandalous r~ign of twelve years, having first resigned the papacy for a Inoney payment and then tried to regain it, \vas finally driven from Rome in 1属48, he came to Grottaferrata in a state of remorse. Abbot Bartholomew was quite definite as to what was Benedict's duty: by his disorders he had nlade himself unfit to be a priest, much less a pope; he must definitely resign all claim to that dignity and fulfil the rest of his life in penance (he was still only about thirty-six years old). rrhe influence of the abbot gradually changed Benedict's remorse into true peni足 tence; he relnained at Grottaferrata as a simple monk and died there. This account of the saint's part in the career of Benedict IX is first found in the Life of St Bartholomew, perhaps written by his third successor, Abbot Luke I, and is supported by monuments at the abbey; but it appears that in 1055, the year of his death, Benedict \vas still calling himself pope. l"'he vigorous government of St Bartholomew was responsible for raising his monastery to that position of im足 portance from which it played a part in the history of the medieval papal states, a position which ultimately led to its decline as a religious house until its restoration in the nineteenth century.

Two Greek texts giving some account of St Bartholomew \vill be found printed in Migne, PG., vol. cxxvii, CC. 476--516. Scnne of the manuscripts copied by his hand are believed still to survive in the library of Grottaferrata; and an ancient mosaic representing SS. Nilus and Bartholome\\' is still visible in the sanctuary of the abbey church. The resignation of Pope Benedict IX is discussed in l\lgr l\1ann's Lh'es of the Popes, vol. v, p. 292. See also S. G. l\1ercati in Eneiclopedia italiana, vol. \'i, p. 254; L. Brehier in DHG., vol. vi, cc. 1006-1007; and F. IIalkin in A nalfrta 13ollandiana, vol. lxi (1943), pp. 202-210, who points out that, of the two Greek texts just referred to, one, the Encomium, refers to another St Bartholomev;.

3 18

ST l\tlAR1"'IN I

12 : ST

MARTIN I,

[November

POPE AND MARTYR

12

(A.D. 656 ?)

S

TMARTIN was a native of Todi in Umbria, renowned among the clergy of Rome for his learning and holiness. Whilst he was deacon he ,vas sent

by Pope Theodore I as apocrisiarius or nuncio to Constantinople, and upon the death of Theodore Martin himself was elected pope in July 649. In the October following he held a council at the Lateran against Monothelism (the denial that Christ had a human will), in which the orthodox doctrine of the two wills was affirmed and the leaders of the heresy anathematized.

Two imperial edicts, the " Ekthesis " of Heraclius and the " Typos" of Constans, were likewise censured: the first because it contained an exposition of faith entirely favourable to the monothelites, the second because it was a formulary by which silence was imposed on both parties and it was forbidden to mention either one or two wills and energies in Christ. "The Lord", said the Lateran fathers, " has commanded us to shun evil and do good, but not to reject the good with the evil. We are not to deny at the same time both error and truth" ~,vhich sounds like a reference to Pope Honorius I, though he is not mentioned. These decrees were published throughout the West, Martin invoking the energy of the bishops of Africa, Spain and England for the putting down of Monothelism, and in the East he appointed a vicar to enforce the synodal decisions in the patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem.

The emperor, Constans II, was infuriated. He had already sent an exarch to Rome who had failed in his mission of sowing dissension among the bishops at the synod, and he now sent another, Theodore Kalliopes, with orders to bring the pope to Constantinople. Martin, who was sick, took refuge in the Lateran basilica, where he was lying on a couch in front of the altar when Kalliopes and his soldiers broke in; he refused to make any resistance, and was taken secretly out of Rome to be put on board ship at Porto. The voyage was long and Martin suffered greatly from dysentery. He arrived in Constantinople in the autumn of 653 and was there left in jail for three months; he wrote in a letter: "I have not been allowed to ,vash, even in cold water, for forty-seven days. I am wasted away and frozen through, and have had no r~spite from dysentery. . . . The food that is given me makes me feel sick. I hope that God, who knows all things, will bring my persecutors to repentance after He will have taken me out of this world".

1"'he pope was eventually arraigned before the senate on a charge of treason and condemned unheard (His real offence, as St Martin pointed out to his accusers, was his refusal to sign the theological " Typos "); then, after shameful' public indignities and ill-treatment, which aroused the indignation of the people, he was returned to prison for another three months. His life, however, was spared (at the intercession of the dying patriarch Paul) and in April 654 he was taken into exile at Kherson in the Crimea.

From there St Martin wrote an account of the famine, his own difficulty in getting food, the barbarism of the inhabitants, and the neglect with which he was treated.

I am surprised at the indifference of all those who, though they once knew me, have now so entirely forgotten me that they do not even seem to know whether I am in the world. I wonder still more at those who belong to the

31 9

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 12]

church of St Peter for the little concern they show for one of their body. If that church has no money, it wants not corn, oil or other provisions out ,of which they might send us a small supply. What fear has seized all these men that it hinders them from fulfilling the commands of God in relieving the distressed? Have I appeared such an enemy to the whole Church, or to them in particular? However, I pray God, by the intercession of St Peter, to preserve them steadfast and immovable in the orthodox faith.

As to this wretched body, God will have care of it. He is at hand; why should I trouble myself? I hope in His mercy that He will not prolong my course.

St Martin was not disappointed in his hope, for he died perhaps about two years later, the last of the popes so far to be venerated as a martyr. His feast is celebrated in the West on November 12 and in the East on various dates, the Byzantine liturgy acclaiming him as a " glorious defender of the true faith" and an " ornament of the divine see of Peter". A contemporary \vrote of Pope St Martin I as being a man of great intelligence, learning and charity.

For sources we have in this case the letters of the pope, though these have not always come to us in a very satisfactory form. There is also a contemporary account in the Liber Pontificalis-see Duchesne's edition, vol. i, pp. 336 seq. \vith his admirable notes-and the Commemoratio, a narrative written by an ecclesiastic who had accompanied St :\1artin in his exile. 1'his, with the letters, may be found in Migne, PL., vols. lxxxvii and cxxix. T'he Life of St Eligius by St Ouen, and the Greek biography of St ]\laximus the Confessor, supply some further details. From these materials :\lgr Mann compiled a tolerably complete history of the pontificate: Li'l'es of the Popes, vol. i, pt pp. 385-4°5. But since he \\Tote in 19°2 other valuable contributions have been made to the subject, notahly the publication

by Fr P. Peeters in the Ana/ecta Bollandiana, vol. Ii (1933), pp. 225-262, of a previously unknown Greek life of St Martin. See also R. l)evreesse, " La Vie de 5t Maxime Ie Con­ fesseur ", in Ana/ecta Bollandiana, vol. xlvi (1928), pp. 5-49, and in vol. Iiii (1935), pp.

49 seq. ; W. Peitz in the Historisches Jahrbuch, vol. xxxviii (1917), pp. 213--236 and 428-458 ; Duchesne, L'Eglisc au Vleme siecle (1925), pp. 445-453; E. Amann in DTC., vol. x, cc.

182-194, etc.

=,

ST NILUS THE ELDER

(c.

A.D.

430)

AMONG the disciples of St John Chrysostom \vas a certain Nilus, who was an official at Constantinople and is said even to have been prefect of the city. He was married and had two children, some years after the birth of whom Nilus was seized by a great craving after solitude. rIe eventually agreed with his wife that they should withdraw from the world, he taking his son T'heodulus with him. l'hey went to reside with the monks of Mount Sinai, from whence Nilus wrote two letters of protest and rebuke to the Emperor Arcadius after the banishment of Chrysostom from Constantinople. After a few years the monastery suffered a raid from Arabs, when many monks \vere slaughtered and the young Theodulus was carried off. I-lis father follov;ed up the raiders with the intention of ransoming the boy, and at last traced him to Eleusa, south of Beersheba, where Theodulus had been bought by the local bishop out of charity and given employment in the church.

Before sending them back to Sinai this bishop ordained both Nilus and his son priests.

By the letters and other writings attributed to him Nilus was well known as a writer, theological, Biblical and especially ascetic. In his treatise on prayer he recommends that we beg of God in the first place the gift of prayer, and entreat

320

ST EMILIAN CUCULLATUS

[November

12

the Holy Ghost to form in our hearts those desires which He has promised ahvays to hear, and continually to ask of God that His will may be done in the most perfect manner. To persons in the world he inculcates temperance, meditation on death and the obligation of giving alms, and he was always ready to communicate to others his spiritual science. What proficiency he had attained in an interior life and in the study of the floly Scriptures, and how much he was consulted by persons of all ranks, appear from the number of his letters which are still in existence. One of these was in reply to the prefect Olympiodorus, who had built a church and wanted to know if he might adorn its walls with mosaics not only of sacred subjects but also of hunting scenes, birds, beasts and the like. St Nilus makes short work of this suggestion, and then says that the walls should be painted with scenes from the Old and New Testaments for the instruction of those who couid not read, but only one cross should be displayed, and that in the sanctuary. St Nilus wrote a special treatise to show the life of hermits to be preferable to that of religious who live in communities in cities, but that hermits have their particular diffi足 culties and trials. These he himself had experienced by violent temptations, troubles of mind and assaults of evil spirits. To a certain monk living on a pillar he writes that his lofty position is due to pride: "Every one that exalteth himself shall be hurnbled."

It would seem, however, that the story of St Nilus, accepted by Tillemont and Alban Butler on the authority of the Narrationes (printed in Migne, PG., vol. lxxix, pp. 583-694), is open to the gravest doubt. We have no reason to believe that Nilus was a high court official, that he was married, betook himself to Sinai and underwent alarming experiences in tije search for his captive son. 'This is, no doubt, the tale perpetuated in the synaxaries, but it cannot be made to aglee with the data furnished in Nilus's authentic letters. Nilus the writer would appear to have been another person, a monk of Ancyra in Galatia (modern Ankara), and the two contemporaries seem to have been confused into one.

See the reference in l\ligne, PG., given above; K. Heussi, Untersuchungen zu NiZus dem Asketen in Texte und Untersuchungen (1917); F. Degenhart, Der hZ. NiZus Sinaita (1915) and Neue Beitriige zur Nilusforschung (1918); and also DTC., vol. xi (1931), cc. 661-674, which includes a full bihliography.

ST EMILIAN CUCULLATUS,

ABBOT

(A.D. 574)

THIS St Emilian, under the name of San Millan de la Cogolla, i.e. "with the Hood ", was a famous early saint of Spain and is regarded as a patron of that country. The Roman Martyrology refers to the fact that his life was written by St Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa, about fifty years after his death. Emilian's birthplace has for centuries been a matter in dispute between Aragon and Castile.

As a youth he was a shepherd. At the age of twenty he heard a call from God to His direct service, and for a time he attached himself to a hermit. Then he returned to his home, but so many people importuned him that he wandered off into the mountains above Burgos.

He lived there for forty years-according to tradition on the mountain where the abbey of San Millan was afterwards built-till the bishop of Tarazona insisted on his receiving holy orders and becoming a parish priest.

But the heroic virtues that the hermit had learned in the wilderness were not understood by his fellow clergy, and he was accused to the bishop of wasting the goods of the church, which he had given away in charity. He was therefore

321

November 12]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

deprived of his cure, and with some disciples returned to solitude and contempla颅 tion, and so spent the rest of his life. St Emilian is sometimes called the first Spanish Benedictine, but the monastery of La Cogolla of course did not have the Benedictine Rule till long after his time.

The Latin biography by Braulio is printed by Mabillon, vol. i, pp. 198-207.

In Florez,

Espana Sagrada, vol. I, will also be found an account of the saint's translation and of the miracles wrought at his shrine. See further T. Minguella, S. Millan de la Cogolla, estudios historicos (1883), and V. de Ia Fuente, San 1\1illan, presbitero secular (1883). A new critical edition of the vita, ed. L. Vazquez de Parga, 'was published at l\1adrid in 1943.

ST MACHAR.

BISHOP

(SIXTH CENTCRY)

diocese of Aberdeen today keeps the feast of St Machar (Mochumma), but nothing certain is known about him except that he \vas an Irish missionary who came to Scotland with St Columba. He is said to have evangelized the isle of Mull, and to have been consecrated bishop before being sent to preach to the Picts in what is now Aberdeenshire. It is likely that he \vas a missionary in that neighbourhood, and the establishment of \vhat became the see of .Ab~rdeen is attributed to him. \Vater from St IVlachar's \vell at Old Aberdeen used always to be used for baptisms in the cathedral.

THE

Little is known of St l\Iachar beyond \\路hat we find in the Aberdeen Brenary.

Forbes in KSS., treats of him (pp. 393-394) under the heading" :\Iauritius, :\Iachar or \Iocumma ".

In the Aberdeen lVlartyrology he is described as " Archbishop of Tours '". \Ve are further told that" l\1r Bradsha\v has discovered in the University Library at Cambridge a nletrical Life of this saint, \vhich he supposeS' to have been composed by Barbour in his extreme old age ". This metrical life, written about 1 390, has since been printed by I--Iorstmann in his .illtenglische Legenden (18g I). And cf. an article by Professor A. S. Ferguson in Scottish Gaelic Studies, vol. vi, pp. 58 seq.

ST CUNIBERT,

BISHOP OF COLOGNE

(c.

A.D.

663)

fine church of St Cunibert at Cologne \vas founded by this bishop, \vho dedicated it in honour of St Clement; when his o\vn relics \\'ere enshrined therein it \vas renamed after its founder. He \vas undoubtedly a great and holy prelate, but the authorities for details of his life are not very reliable or full. He is said to have been brought up at the court of Clotaire I I, recei\"ed holy orders, and \\"as nlade archdeacon of the church of Trier. About 625 he \vas advanced to the bishopric of Cologne, and \\"ielded such influence that he is commonly referred to as archbishop, though there \\'as no actual metropolitan of that city till the end of the eighth century. He \vas a royal counsellor and assisted at several important synods, and \vhen Dagobert I made his four-year-old son Sigebert king of Austrasia, Cunibert \vas appointed one of his t\\'o guardians. St Cunibert \\"as concerned for the evangelization of the Frisians, as \\'e learn from a letter of 8t Boniface; and in his later years he left the court to devote himself entirely to his diocese. He died in an uncertain year, leaving a great reputation for holiness.

THE

l\ledieval lives of St Cunibert are numerous, belonging to two different types.

Fr 1\1.

Coens in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xlvii (1929), pp. 338-367, has discussed the whole question very thoroughly, and published one particular text, adding abundant references to the more recent literature of the subject. On the church of St Cunibert see the Festschrzft Anton Ditges gewidmet (191 I), and also P. Clemen in Kunstdenkmiiler der Rheinpro'l'inz, vol. vi, pt 4 (1916), pp. 231-313 ; the relics of T'he rr\\,O E\\'alds (October 3) are preser\'ed there.

"22 J

ST LIVINUS

ST CUMIAN,

[November i\BBOT

(c.

A.D.

12

665)

CUIMINE FOTA) that is to say " the Tall", was born about the year 590, a son of Fiachna, King of West Munster. While he was young he became a monk, and later presided over the school and district of Clonfert, where he is said to have been bishop. He is often identified with the Cumian who founded a house at Kil­ cummin in Offaly, where he introduced the Roman computation of Easter. This gave offence in many quarters and the abbot of Iona rebuked Cumian for abandoning the Celtic computation, which had been hallowed by the observance of St Colum­ cille. Cumian replied in a letter known as the Paschal Epistle, in which he learnedly defends the Roman reckoning, citing synods, Western fathers and the paschal cycles of antiquity. This epistle, as Alban Butler remarks, alone suffices to give us a high idea of the learning, eloquence and virtue of the writer. But the eloquence and learning of St Cumian had no effect on the intransigent monks of Iona. He also wrote a hymn, the last three stanzas of which are found as part of a liturgical office in the Book of Mulling in Trinity College, Dublin.

There seems to be no proper life of St Cumian in either Latin or Irish. The Felire of Oengus, however, under November 12 has the entry: "There has been given with wisdom, science and n1uch prudence, to my Cumian of beautiful warfare, the fair tall (Fota) son of Fiachna".

See especially Kenney, Sources Jor the Early History oj Ireland, vol. i, pp.

220-221, and 324-325. \Vhether this Cumian was the author of a penitential sometimes attributed to him seems very doubtful. On this con'sult J. T. McNeill in the Revue Celtique for 1922 and 1923, and other authorities referred to by L. Gougaud, Christianity in Celtic Lands, p. 285 and passim. Forbes in his KSS. states (p. 317) that" Fort Augustus is in the vulgar language called Killchuimin ", i.e. the church of Cumian; but Cumians were numerous and their identities are very tangled.

ST LIVINUS, BISHOP

AND MARTYR

(No

DATE)

THE Church in Ireland today keeps the feast of Sot Livinus, who is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology as having been martyred in Belgium and who, like several other Irish missionaries on the continent, is credited with having been bishop in Dublin. His medieval life states that he was the son of a noble Scottish father and a royal Irish mother, and that he was baptized by St Augustine of Canterbury, who also ordained him. He later became a bishop and with three companions left Ireland for Flanders, where they were received by the abbot St Floribert at Ghent.

Then he \vent preaching among the heathen in Brabant, was hospitably received by a lady, and eventually killed by pagans, who cut off his head at Eschen, near Alost. His relics finally found a resting-place at the abbey of St Peter in Ghent.

The Life of St Livinus professes to have been written from information received from his personal disciples, but it is not heard of before the eleventh century, and the resemblance of the above story to that of St Lebuin (see below) is obvious. It is now generally received among scholars that this bishop had no independent existence, that the St Jjvinus commemorated in the Roman Martyrology, in Ireland and at Ghent is the sarne as the St Lebuin who was certainly a missionary in Holland and is venerated in that country.

A medieval life, purpcrting to have been written by a certain" Bonifacius peccator ", and at one time ascribed to the great St Boniface, is printed in Mabillon, vol. ii, pp. 449-461.

Its \vorthlessness has been demonstrated by O. Holder-Egger in Historische AuJsatze an G. fVaitz ge.widmet (1886), pp. 622-665. J. Kenney, Sources Jor the Early History oj Ireland, says, p. 5°9: "It is probable that Livinus is a doublet of the English St Liafwin or Lebuin of Deyenter in Holland"; on \vhich cJ. Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxx (1952), pp. 285-308.

November 12]

ST LEBUIN,

TIlE LIVES OF 'f11E SAIKTS OR

LIAFWINE

(c.

A.D.

773)

saint was by birth an Englishman, called in his own tongue I~iafwine, and became a monk in the monastery of Ripon \\There he was promoted to priest's orders. rfhat he might employ his talent for the salvation of souls, he went over into lower Germany sometime after 754, where several English missionaries \vere planting the gospel, and he addressed himself to St Gregory, vicar at IT trecht for that diocese. rfhis holy man received him with joy, and sent him with 8t Mar足 chelm (~1arculf) to carry the gospel into the country now called Oyeryssel. St Lebuin \\'as joyfully received by a lady named Abachilda and, many being converted, they built a chapel on the west bank of the river near Deventer; later a church and residence were built on the other bank, at Deventer itself. But many shut their ears to the truth, from whom the saint had much to suffer; he seemed to gather greater courage from persecutions and continued his \\'ork until his enemies allied themselves with the Westphalian Saxons, burned down his church, and scattered his Frisian converts.

1'hese Saxons used to hold a yearly assembly at Marklo, upon the river \Veser, to deliberate on the affairs of their nation, and 5t l.lebuin determined to brave them thereat. Clothed in his priestly vestments, he entered the assembly, holding a cross and a gospel-book. .A.nd he cried out to them \vith a loud voice, saying, " Hear me, all of you! Listen to God \vho speaks to you by my mouth. Know that the I~ord, the Maker of the heavens, the earth and all things, is the only true God." They stopped to listen, and he \\Tent on, affirming that their gods were po\\'erless dead things and that he had been sent by the l~ord of Heaven to promise them His peace and His salvation if they would ackno\\'ledge I-lim and receive baptism. But if they refused he threatened (perhaps a little tactlessly) that they should he speediiy destroyed by a prince \\'hom God in His wrath \\'ould raise up against them. \Vhereupon many of the Saxons ran to the hedges and plucked up sharp stakes to murder him. But one in authority cried out that they had often received with respect ambassadors from men; much more ought they to honour an ambassador from a god \\'ho \\'as so powerful that his messenger had escaped from their hands, as Lebuin had done. This impressed the barbarians and it was agreed that he should be permitted to travel and preach \vhere he pleased. 8t Lebuin after this heroic venture returned to Deventer and continued his work till he died.

THIS

l'he paper contributed in 1916 by Hofmeister to the volume Geschicht/iche Studien Albert Hauck dargebracht, pp. 85-107, is of special importance. Besides the life by Hucbald of E:none (in Migne, PL., vol. cxxxii, cc. 877-894) see that edited by Hofmeister in :Y1GH., Srriptores, vol. xxx, pt 2, pp. 789-795. This had been previously printed by Fr M. Coens in the ~4nalecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxix (1921), pp. 306-330. 'fhere is an account by F. l-Iesterman, Der hi. Lebuin (1935). The second life rnentioned abo\'e is translated by C. fl.

Talbot in Anglo-Saxon J.'\;/issionaries in Germany (1954).

SSe BENEDICT

AND HIS COMPANIONS, l\1ARTYRS

(A.D.

1003)

ST BENEDICT of Benevento was a friend of St Bruno of Querfurt, they having shared a cell at a monastery near Ravenna, under the direction of St Romuald. \Vhen the Emperor Otto III wished to evangelize the Slavs of Pomerania, Benedict and other monks were sent to engage in the work. They first went into western Poland, where they were well received at the court of Duke Boleslaus I and teachers

32 4

[November

ST ASTRIK, OR ANASTASIUS

12

were appointed to instruct them in the Slavonic speech. The monks established themselves at Kazimierz, near Gniezno, where on November 11,1003, St Benedict and four others were murdered by pagan robbers. They were venerated as martyrs, their relics solemnly translated to Olomuc, and their names added to the Roman Martyrology: "the holy martyred hermits Benedict, John, Matthew, Isaac and Christian who, intent upon the service of God, were grievously troubled by robbers and by them slain with the sword", as their notice now runs. These martyrs, who are venerated in Poland as the Five Polish Brothers, although they were neither Poles nor (apart from Matthew and Isaac), other than spiritually, brothers, are accounted to the glory of the Camaldolese Order, though in fact they were dead some years before St Romuald founded Camaldoli. When St Bruno of Querfurt learned of the fate of his friend Benedict and his four fellows, he collected evidence from Poland and wrote down an account of what had happened.

There are two main sources for the history of these martyrs. The first is the narrative

of St Bruno of Querfurt, of which the text may be read in MGH., Scriptofes, vol. xv, pp.

716-738, and in the German annotated translation of H. G. Voigt, Bruno von Querfurt

(1907). The second account, of later date, is that of Cosmas of Prague. It is printed in

Migne, PL., vol. clxvi, cc. 109-113. See also the Neues Archiv, vol. viii, pp. 365 seq.

ST ASTRIK, (c.

OR

ANASTASIUS,

ARCHBISHOP

OF

THE

HUNGARIANS

A.D. 1040)

IT is agreed that the first archbishop in Hungary was called Astrik, but there is a great deal of uncertainty about his identity. There are three "candidates", all associated with St Adalbert of Pragu~ : viz. Anastasius, the first abbot of Brevnov in Bohemia, Astericus, one of Adalbert's clergy, and Radla, Adalbert's fellow student at Magdeburg and his close friend. The first two of these may be really one person.

On the whole it seems likely to have been Radla, a Czech or Croat from Bohemia who is known to have been a monk in Hungary. He probably received the habit at Brevnov, taking the name of Anastasius, of. which Astrik seems to be an equiv足 alent. Then, when St Adalbert failed to consolidate his position in Bohemia, and left Prague, Astrik Radla went to help the missionaries among the Magyars.

He is known to have been in the service of the wife of Duke Geza in 997; and he was almost certainly the first abbot of St Martin's (Pannonhalma), the first ecclesias足 tical institution of Hungary, founded by Geza. On the duke's death and the accession of his son St Stephen I the evangelization of the Magyars was taken seriously in hand, and St Astrik was active in the work of preaching the gospel and establishing an ecclesiastical organization. In connection with this Stephen sent him to Rome to confer with Pope Silvester II, and soon after his return the sovereign \\Tas crowned with a royal crown, granted no doubt at the instance of the Emperor Otto III, in 1001. There is a good case for Radla being the Astrik who was now promoted to be archbishop of the new Hungarian church.

When Astrik attended a synod at Frankfurt in 1006 he was styled simply Ungarorum episcopus, and it seems that his seat was not at Esztergom, which before long became the primatial see; Vesprem is the first Hungarian diocese for which there is documentary evidence, but Astrik's see may have been at Kalocsa.

Throughout the remainder of his long life he worked hand in hand with King St Stephen for the proper settlement of the Church in his dominions and for the

32 5

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 12]

conversion of the fierce Magyars to the faith of Christ. He died soon after his royal master, about the year 1040.

Of the personality and personal life of St Astrik nothing is known; but it is significant that St Adalbert of Prague had so much affection for and trust in him: Adalbert wrote to Geza's wife asking her to send" his master " back to him in Poland; and to Astrik Radla himsel( he wrote saying that if the duchess would not release him, he should slip away secretly and rejoin " your Adalbert". But to Astrik his duty was clear that he must stay among the Magyars.

The best examination of the problem is doubtless that of F. Dvornik in his Making of Central and Eastern Europe (1949), pp. 159-166, which shows clearly how confused and uncertain is the history of the conversion of Hungary, even for scholars who are natives of eastern Europe. Cf. C. Kadlec in the Cambridge Medieval History, vol. iv, p. 214. See also St Bruno's Life of St Adalbert in Fontes rerum Bohenlicarum (1871), vol. i; the Life of St Stephen in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xi, and cf. vol. iv, pp. 547, 563; and Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche, vol. i (1930), c. 394.

BD RAINERIUS OF AREZZO INFORMATION is lacking about the details of the life of this early Franciscan beatus.

He was born at Arezzo, of the Mariani family, and gave up a secular career to join the Friars Minor. He was a companion of Bd Benedict of Arezzo, who had been received into the order by St Francis himself. Miracles were attributed to Bd Rainerius during his life, and immediately after his death, at Borgo San Sepolcro on November I, 1304, the municipality of the town had an altar set up in his honour and record kept of his miracles. His cultus was confirmed in 1802.

Bd Rainerius is dealt with by the Bollandists on November I. They found n0 record of his life beyond such brief notices as were supplied by Wadding and other annalists, but they print from manuscript sources a record of miracles worked at his tomb. See further Mazzara, Leggendario Francescano (1680), vol. iii, pp. 295-296 ; and Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 34-35.

BD JOHN DELLA PACE

(c. A.D. 1332)

A confirmatio cultus may, or at any rate used, in former days, to be accorded with very little knowledge of the life of the servant of God to whom honour was paid.

When Pope Pius IX in 1856 approved the celebration of this feast for the Fran足 ciscan Order, it was supposed that Bd John died in the first half of the fifteenth century. Since then it has come to light, through the indefatigable researches of the archivist S. Barsotti, that there were two Johns at Pisa who have become confused. He who died in 1433 was a furrier who lived in matrimony all his days; but the founder of the Fraticelli della Penitenza at Pisa was at one time a hermit, and his death took place about 1332.

See the two books of S. Barsotti, Pro nlemoria sui B. Giovanni della Pace (1901) and Un nuovo fiore serafico (1906); and the notice of the confirmation of cult in the Analecta Juris Pontificii, vol. iii (1858), cc. 378-380. The confusion has been perpetuated in other works, e.g. Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, p. 60.

BD GABRIEL OF ANCONA

(A.D. 1456)

ST JAMES DELLA MARcA, whose feast is kept on the 28th of this month, was instructed

by Pope Callistus III to draw up an account of the life of this holy Franciscan.

326

ST DIDACUS, OR DIEGO

[November 13

Unfortunately the document could not be found when his cultus came up for confirmation in 1753, and particulars of his career are few. He belonged to the Ferretti of Ancona and became a friar minor of the Observance when he was eighteen. He was a missioner for fifteen years in the March of Ancona, where he was conspicuous by his holiness and miracles, and was then appointed guardian of the Observants in his native town. It is said that he greatly encouraged among his young friars the use of the devotion called the Franciscan or Seraphic Crown, a rosary in honour of the joys of our Lady, and that her approval of this was marvel足 lously demonstrated. On one occasion Bd Gabriel was reported to St James for some small dereliction of duty. St James, looking rather to the quality of the doer than the smallness of the fault, ordered him to accuse and discipline himself before his community. This Gabriel did cheerfully, and sent a sugar-loaf and a carpet for his church to St James as a token of good\vill. He died at Ancona on November 12, 1456. Pope Pius IX (Mastai-Ferretti) belonged to another branch of Bd Gabriel's family.

Most of the older collections of Franciscan lives provide some account of Bd Gabriel; for example, we find a tolerably full notice in Mazzara, Leggendario Francescano (1680), vol. ii, pt 2, pp. 425-427.

In particular a certain authority attaches to the information furnished by Wadding, Annales Ordinis Alinorum, vol. xii, nn. 206-214. Short sketches were published separately by V. M. Ferretti in 1754, and by S. Melchiori in 1846. See also Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 61-66.

13 : ST

DIDACUS, OR DIEGO (A.D. 1463) In the United States of America the feast of St Frances Xavier Cabrini is celebrated on this date. See Vol. IV, p. 593ff.

D

IDACUS was a native of the little town of San Nicolas del Puerto in the diocese of Seville, and his parents were poor folk. N ear that town a holy priest led an eremitical life. Didacus obtained his consent to live with him and, though very young, he imitated the austerities and devotions of his master. They cultivated together a little garden, and also employed themselves in making wooden spoons, trenchers and such-like utensils. After having lived thus a recluse for some years he was obliged to return to his home, but he soon after went to a convent of the Observant Friar Minors at Arrizafa, and there took the habit among the lay-brothers. After his profession he was sent to the mission of his order in the Canary Islands, where he did a great work in instructing and converting the people.

Eventually, in 1445, he, though a lay-brother, was appointed guardian of the chief convent in those islands, called Fuerteventura.

After four years he was recalled to Spain, and lived in several friaries about Seville with great fervour and recollection. In the year 1450 a jubilee was celebrated at Rome and, St Bernardino of Siena being canonized at the same time, very many religious of the Order of St Francis were assembled there. Didacus went thither with Father Alonzo de Castro, and at Rome he had to attend his companion during a dangerous illness. His devotion in this duty attracted the notice of his superiors and he was put in charge of the many sick friars who were accommodated in the infirmary of the convent of Ara Caeli. St Didacus was thus engaged for three months, and is said to have miraculously restored some of his patients. He lived for another thirteen years after his return to Spain, chiefly at the friaries of Salcedo and Alcala in Castile.

32 7

November 13]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

In 1463 he was taken ill at Alcala, and in his last moments asked for a cord (such as tb.e friars wear); he put it about his neck and, holding a cross in his hands, begged the pardon of all his brethren assembled about his bed. Then, fixing his eyes on the crucifix, he repeated with great tenderness the words of the hymn on the cross, " Dulce lignum, dulces clavos, dulce pondus sustinet ", and peacefully died on November 12. Several miracles were attributed to him in his lifetime, and many more through his intercession after his death. King Philip II, out of gratitude for one in favour of his son, solicited the saint's canonization, which was decreed in 1588.

There is apparently no medieval life of St Didacus, but the various Franciscan chronicles of later date supply copious information. For example, Father Mark of Lisbon (d. 1591~ devotes a long section to San Diego: see the Italian translation (1591), vol. iii, fol. 155 seq.

Among separate biographies may be mentioned Moreno de la Rea, Vida del S. Fray Diego (1602) and two slight sketches in more modern times, by Berguin and Chappuis in French (1901) and by A. Gioia in Italian (1907). The canonization of St Didacus (1588) was an occasion for rejoicing in Spain: one or two of the booklets with panegyrics delivered at the time are in the British Museum.

SSe ARCADIUS AND HIS COMPANIONS) MARTYRS

(A.D. 437)

" IN Africa ", says the Roman Martyrology, "the passion of the holy Spanish martyrs Arcadius, Paschasius, Probus and Eutychian who, in the Vandal perse­ cution, when they absolutely refused to enter into the Arian perfidy, were first proscribed by the Arian king, Genseric, then exiled and treated with atrocious cruelty, and finally slain in various ways. At that time, too, was seen the constancy of Paulillus, the little brother of SSe Paschasius and Eutychian, who, since he could in no way be turned from the Catholic faith, was long beaten with sticks and con­ demned to the lowest slavery." The boy afterwards died of exposure. In a letter to St Arcadius in captivity, Antoninus Honoratus, Bishop of Constantine, calls him " the standard-bearer of the faith", and we learn from it-if indeed it was addressed to this Arcadius-that the martyr was married and had a family.

There seems to be no independent passio of this group of martyrs, but there is a summary account in the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine. The letter of Bishop Antoninus Honoratus is printed in Migne, PL., vol. 1, cc. 567-57°.

ST BRICE, BISHOP OF TOURS

(A.D. 444)

BRICE (Britius, Brictio) was brought up by St Martin of Tours at IVIarmoutier but for long was no credit to his master. He was badly-behaved, and contemptuous towards St Martin, who refrained from degrading and dismissing Brice only lest he should thereby be avoiding a trial sent from God. Moreover, if the story be true, he had already foreseen that the troublesome cleric would be his successor.

For while Brice was yet a deacon he had characterized his master as crazy; and when St Martin asked why he thought he was mad, denied his words. But St Martin replied that he had heard them. "Nevertheless ", he said, " I have prayed for you and you shall be bishop of Tours. But you will suffer many adversities in your office."

And Brice went away grumbling that he had always said the bishop was a fool. In one of the dialogues of Sulpicius Severus, Brice is represented as holding himself up as a model because he had been brought up at Marmoutier, while St Martin had been bred in camps and was falling into superstition and folly in his old age. Then suddenly he threw himself at St Martin's feet and begged

328

ST EUGENIUS OF TOI.lEDO

{November 13

his pardon and Martin, whose pardon it was never difficult to get, forgave him, saying, " If Christ could tolerate Judas, surely I can put up with Brice".

St Martin died in 397 and Brice was in fact elected to his place. He did not give satisfaction as a bishop and several unsuccessful attempts were made to get him condemned, until in the thirty-third year of his episcopate a happening was alleged with a woman. St Gregory of Tours asserts that Brice cleared himself by a very astonishing miracle, but he was driven from his see and went to Rome to protest his innocence. He remained in exile for seven years, during which he became a reformed character, and when Armentius, who had administered Tours in his place, died, he returned to his see. Brice lived to govern it for some years and by his exemplary life made such amends for his past that when he died he was venerated as a saint, considerable evangelical activity being attributed to him.

Within twenty-five years of his death the feast of St Brice was kept at Tours with a vigil, and his cultus soon spread. He was very popular in England (the Anglican calendar still retains his name), but nowadays he is only associated with the Massacre of St Brice's Day in 1002, when Ethelred the Redeless ordered the wholesale murder of Danes which provoked Sweyn's invasion of this country.

What we know of St Brice is almost entirely derived from Sulpicius Severus's writings on St Martin and from the popular traditions retailed by St Gregory of Tours. There is, no doubt, much that is perplexing in the story of St Brice, but the matter should be considered in the light of what two specialists have written on the subject: see Poncelet in the Analecta Bollandz"ana, vol. xxx (191 I), pp. 88-89, and Delehaye in the same) vol. xxxviii (1920), pp. 5-136, especially pp. 105 and 135. The letters of Pope Zosimus will be found summarized in Jaffe-Kaltenbrunner, Regesta Pontz"jicum, nne 330-331, and the full text in Migne, PL., vol. xx, cc. 650 and 663.

In the second of these he expressly declares that Lazarus, the accuser of Brice, was" pro calumniatore damnatus, cum Bricii innocentis episcopi vitam falsis objectionibus appetisset". It was probably his close connection with St Martin which made St Brice a popular saint both in England and in Italy; in nearly everyone of the early English calendars printed by F. Wormald for the Henry Bradshaw Society his name is entered under November 13.

ST EUGENIUS,

ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO

IT is said there was an Eugenius who occupied the see of Toledo and was an astronomer and mathematician; his successor, St Eugenius, was a musician and poet. He was a Spanish Goth, a monk at Saragossa, and to avoid ecclesiastical promotion he hid himself in a cemetery. But he was forced to return and receive episcopal consecration~ Some of the writings of St Eugenius, in prose and in verse, are extant; and we are told that he was a good musician, who tried to improve the poor singing of which he heard so much. He governed his see with great edification, and was followed therein by his nephew, St Ildephonsus. Alban Butler refers to another ST EUGENIUS, called" of Toledo ", who is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on November 15. He is said to have been a martyred associate of St Dionysius of Paris, but he had 'nothing to do with Spain. The martyrology also names, on the 17th, a third ST EUGENIUS, deacon to St Zenobius of Florence and a disciple of St Ambrose.

There has been confusion in the early episcopal lists of Toledo, and the existence of Eugenius I is questionable.

The story printed in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. ii, is

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS probably a myth. But there can be no question about the real existence and the literary activities of the Eugenius who died in 657. St Ildephonsus gives a short account of him in his De viris illustribus, cap. xiv (Migne, PL., vol. xcvi, c. 204). His poetical writings, with notes, etc., have been edited in MGH., Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. xiv. See on this the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxiv (1905), pp. 297-298. See also J. Madoz in Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique, vol. xxxv (1939), pp. 530-533.

ST MAXELLENDIS,

VIRGIN AND MARTYR

(c.

A.D.

670)

diocese of Cambrai observes today the feast of 8t Maxellendis, the maiden daughter of the noble Humolin and Ameltrudis of the town of Caudry. Her hand in marriage was sought by many young men, among whom her parents favoured a certain Harduin of 80lesmes, but Maxellendis said she did not wish to be married.

When her father pointed out that God could be served well in the married state and that many saints had been wives as well, she asked for time to think it over.

During the night she dreamed that her resolution was confirmed by an angel, and the next day she told Humolin that she was quite determined to take no other bridegroom but Christ. But her parents were equally determined that she should be the bride of Harduin, and when preparations for the wedding were going forward Maxellendis fled from the house. She took refuge with her nurse near Cateau­ Cambresis, but her hiding-place was discovered and Harduin and his friends broke into the house. Maxellendis could not be seen anywhere, but in ransacking the place a large clothes-chest was thrown open, and the girl found therein. Disre­ garding her cries and struggles they carried her off, but she broke loose and tried to run away, so that Harduin in his anger drew his sword and struck her with such force that she was killed on the spot. The men ran away in horror, all except Harduin himself, who was seized with blindness. 8t Maxellendis was buried in a neighbouring church, where she was the occasion of many marvels, so that 8t Vindician, Bishop of Cambrai, about the year 673 translated her body solemnly to Caudry. On this occasion the repentant Harduin asked to be led out to meet the procession. When he was brought near the coffin he fell on his knees, loudly accusing himself of his crime and asking God for pardon: and at once his sight was restored.

THE

The passio of the saint has been printed in Ghesquiere, Acta Sanctorum Belgii, vol. iii, pp. 580-589. The details are quite untrustworthy, but there were translations of her relics and an active cultus, especially at Cambrai where the greater part were eventually enshrined.

See C. J. Destombes, Vies des Saints de Cambrai et Arras (1887), vol. iv, pp. 177-187.

ST KILIAN

(SEVENTH CENTURY)

THIS Kilian (Chilianus), a native of Ireland, was said to be related to 8t Fiacre whom, returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, he visited at his hermitage in Brie, staying some time with him there. 8t Aubert having asked for some missionaries for Artois, 8t Faro of Meaux induced St Kilian to leave his solitude and undertake the work. It is related that, coming to the house of a nobleman near the banks of the Aisne, the weary traveller asked for something to drink, and was told by the mistress of the house that the river was just behind him, whereat he could quench his thirst at his leisure: she had nothing for him to drink. "May it be to you as you have said ", replied Kilian, and walked off. When the nobleman came home from hunting, he also called for a drink, and was annoyed to find that all his barrels,

33°

[November 13

ST NICHOLAS I

full in the morning, were now empty. There was a hue and cry for Kilian, and when he was found profuse apologies were made to him, and the barrels were found again to be full. This nobleman had another house at Aubigny, and here St Kilian eventually made his headquarters, building a church on a piece of land given him near the Scarpe and preaching the gospel zealously throughout Artois until the day of his death.

There is a Latin life of late date which was printed for the first time in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xx (1901), pp. 431-444. It has since been edited by B. Krusch in MGH., Scriptores Merov., vol. v. On this Kenney (Sources, vol. i, pp. 494-495) remarks « the extant life contains much that is absurd "; but Hildegaire (c. 889) speaks of a Life of Kilian in his possession, so that it is possible that there may have been some foundation in authentic materials. See also A. Perret, Histoire de S. Kilien d'Aubigny (1920), and L. Gougaud, Les Saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (1936).

ST NICHOLAS I,

POPE

Nicholas I died on this day in the year 867 after a pontificate of nine years all men of goodwill bewailed his loss, and heavy rains at that time were looked on by the Romans as testimony to the grief of the very heavens, for the dead pope had well deserved the titles" Saint" and" the Great" which succeeding ages bestowed on him. "Since the time of Blessed Gregory [the Great] ", writes a contemporary, " no one comparable with him has been raised to the papal dignity. He gave orders to kings and rulers as though he were lord of the world. To good bishops and priests, to religious lay-people, he was kind and gentle and modest; to evil­ doers he was terrible and stern. It is rightly said that in him God raised up a second Elias", and the greatest pope between Gregory I and Hildebrand.

He was a scion of a good Roman house, and Sergius II attached him to the papal household. His talents were used by St Leo IV and Benedict III, and on the death of the last-named in 858 Nicholas, then a deacon, was elected to the supreme pontificate. The new pope was at once confronted with the troubled state of affairs in the second see of Christendom, Constantinople. It has been related in the notice of St Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople (October 23), how that hierarch was removed from his see by Bardas Caesar and the Emperor Michael III, and Photius put in his place. Other important matters were soon involved, and St Nicholas was engaged in very difficult and delicate relations with Constan­ tinople throughout his pontificate. During the course of them he received a letter from the newly-baptized ruler of the Bulgars, Boris, asking a number of questions: Nicholas's reply was" a masterpiece of pastoral wisdom and one of the finest documents of the history of the papacy". It also reproved Boris for his cruelty to pagans, forbidding their" conversion" by force, and told the Bulgars to be less superstitious, less ferocious in war, and not to use torture. Naturally St Nicholas wished these new Christians to belong to his patriarchate, but Boris eventually submitted his people to Constantinople.

St Nicholas I stands out as a firm defender of the integrity of marriage, of the weak and oppressed, and of the equality of all before the divine law. He had to uphold the matrimonial sacrament not only against King Lothair of Lorraine but also against the complaisant bishops who had approved his· divorce and remarriage; and when Charles the Bald of Burgundy obtained from the Frankish bishops the excommunication of his daughter Judith for having married Baldwin of Flanders without her father's consent, Nicholas intervened in favour of freedom of marriage, WHEN

33 1

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 13]

recommending less severity and urging Hincmar of Rheims to try and reconcile Charles with his daughter. * This Hincmar was a prominent figure among early medieval bishops, but he was proud and ambitious, and Nicholas, like other popes, had to force him to acknowledge the right of the Holy See to take cognizance of all important causes, one of Hincmar's suffragans having appealed to Rome against the sentence of his metropolitan.

St Nicholas also twice excommunicated Archbishop John of Ravenna, for his intolerance towards his suffragans and other clergy and open defiance .of the pope. People turned to this strong and just judge from all over Europe and beyond.

The Church in the West was in a bad way at the time when St Nicholas was called to govern it after the collapse of Charlemagne's empire. Young, inexperi­ enced and even vicious bishops received and lost sees at the will of secular nobles; excommunication was used (and for long after) as a daily weapon in the most unsuitable circumstances; contempt for the persons of the clergy led to disrespect for their office; evil-living had followed on the degeneration and disuse of canonical penance. The great pope did his utmost against thronging ills during a short reign: injustice and wickedness he denounced unsparingly, whether in high or low, clergy or laity. Certainly he did not lack ambition, but it was the ambition to consolidate for the Apostolic See a position in which the maximum amount of good could be done for souls. t "If", wrote the Anglican Dean Milman, " he treated the royal dignity of France with contempt, it had already become contempt­ ible in the eyes of mankind; if he annulled by his own authority the decree of a national council, composed of the most distinguished prelates of Gaul, that council had already been condemned by all who had natural sympathies with justice and with innocence." When any scandal or disorder arose, " he gave no rest to his frame or repose to his limbs" till he had tried to remedy it.

Though his responsibilities were conterminous with Christendom, Nicholas had a deep personal solicitude for his own episcopal flock. F or example, he had drawn up a list of all the disabled poor in Rome, who were fed daily in their homes, while the able-bodied were given food at the papal residence. Each person on the register had a particular day of the week on which to fetch it, and was provided with a sort of tally to remind him which was his day. St Nicholas was worn down by ill-health, as well as by his own ceaseless energy. "Our heavenly Father", he wrote, " has seen good to send me such pain that not only am I unable to write proper replies to your questions, but I cannot even dictate them, so intensely do I suffer." He died at Rome on November 13, 867. Pope St Nicholas the Great, whose feast is kept each year by the Romans, " was patient and temperate, humble and chaste, beautiful in face and graceful in body. His speech was both learned and modest, illustrious though he was by great deeds. He was devoted to penance and the Holy Mysteries, the friend of widows and orphans, and the champion of all the people" (Liber P01ltificalis). Yet whilst he lay dying he was robbed by one of his officials of money that he had set aside for the poor. â&#x20AC;˘ The lady was a widow, having been the wife of Ethelwulf of Wessex and also united to her stepson Ethelbald. From her marriage with Baldwin was descended Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror. t He has been accused of deliberately making use of those documents known as the False Decretals, knowing them to be false. Whatever limited use he may have made of them he certainly did not know they were forged: nobody did before the fifteenth century.

They were brought into Italy from France.

33 2

ST ABBa OF FLEURY

[November 13

St Nicholas I belongs to general church history and there is nothing which can be regarded as an early hagiographicallife of this great pope. The account in the Liber POlltifi颅 calis (see Duchesne's edition, vol. ii, pp. 15 I-I 72) is somewhat less of an inventory than other preceding notices and is probably due to Anastasius the Librarian himself. .A. very good biography is provided in Mann, Lives of the Popes, vol. iii (1906), pp. 1-148, and in the little volume of Jules Roy, St Nicholas I (Eng. trans., 1901); both these furnish a full list of sources and works to be consulted. But since they wrote additions have been made. 1'he important correspondence of Pope Nicholas is accessible not only in Migne, PL., vol. cxix, but in MGH., Epistolae, vol. vi, on which see E. Perels in the Neues Archiv, vol. xxxvii (1912) and vol. xxxix (1914), as well as the book of the same scholar, Papst Nicolaus lund Anastasius Bibliothecarius (1920). See also Duchesne, Les Premiers Temps de l'Etat pontifical (191 I); F. Dvornik, Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IXeme siecle (1926), and The Photian Schism (1948); F. X. Seppelt, Das Papsttum im Fruh-Mittelalter (1934), pp.

241-284. On the question of the Forged Decretals, see especially P. Fournier and G. Le Bras, Histoire des Collections caroniques en Occident, vol. i (1931), pp. 127-233, and J. Haller, Nikolaus lund Pseudo-Isidor (1936).

ST ABBO OF FLEURY, ABBOT

(A.D. 1004)

ABBO OF FLEURY was a monk among the most conspicuous for learning in his time and one, moreover, associated for a short period with our own country. About the year 971 St Oswald of York, then bishop of Worcester, founded a monastery at Ramsey in Huntingdonshire. Oswald had received the Benedictine habit at Fleury-sur-Loire, and about 986 he received from that monastery the services of Abbo as director of the school at Ramsey. He filled this office for two years, having himself studied in the schools of Paris, Rheims and Orleans, and then returned to Fleury to resume his own studies in philosophy, mathematics and astronomy. He was not allowed to pursue these in quietness, for on the death of the governing abbot he was elected to take his place. But the election was disputed, and路 a contest ensued which spread far beyond the walls of the monastery. It was eventually decided in favour of Abbo, with the help of Gerbert, who a few years later was to become pope as Silvester II. Abbo's career as a prelate was very lively, for he threw himself into the affairs of his time with great energy: he strove for the exemption of monasteries from episcopal control; he made himself conspicuous at synods, and failed to get King Robert II's very irregular second marriage recognized at Rome. He is perhaps better remembered for his writings, notably a collection of canons and, in England, his Life of St Edmund, king and martyr.

We learn from Abbo's letters that he was much in request for restoring peace in disturbed monastic communities, and it was his zeal for discipline that brought about his violent death, for which he was venerated as a martyr. In 1004 he set out to restore order in the monastery at La Reole in Gascony. A brawl broke out between some monks and their servants, and Abbo in trying to pacify them was stabbed. He staggered to his cell, and there died in the arms of one of his monks.

A feast of St Abbo is kept in one or two French dioceses, but it has been questioned whether this recognition is altogether appropriate on the evidence available.

There is a reliable life of Abbo by his contemporary Aimoin. This and the circular letter, sent round to announce the tragedy of his death and to ask prayers for his soul, are printed in Mabillon, vol. vi, pt I, pp. 32-52. Some of Abbo's writings and a collection of his letters will be found in Migne, PL., vol. cxxxix, but no complete editi0n of his works exists. His interest in mathematics and science has attracted attention, see, e.g. M. Cantor, Vorlesungen iiber d. Geschichte der Mathematik (1907), vol. i, pp. 845-847. Abbo, despite statements to the contrary, had no connection with the forged decretals; see Sackur, Die

333

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 13]

Cluniacenser, vol. i, pp. 270-299, and c/. the work of Fournier and Le Bras mentioned in the preceding note. Dom P. Cousin published S. Abbon de Fleury, un savant, un pasteur, un martyr, in 1954.

ST HOMOBONUS COl\lMERCE, as Alban Butler justly remarks, is often looked upon as an occasion of too great attachment to the things of this world and of too eager a desire of gain, as well as of lying, fraud and injustice. That these are the vices of men, not the faults of the profession, is clear from the example of this and other saints. Homo颅 bonus was son of a merchant at Cremona in Lombardy, who gave him this name (which signifies "good man ") at baptism. Whilst he trained his son up to his o\vn mercantile business without any school education, he inspired in him both by example and instruction a love of probity, integrity and virtue. The saint from his childhood abhorred the very shadow of untruth or injustice. To honesty Homobonus added economy, care and industry. His business he looked upon as an employment given him by God, and he pursued it with diligence and a proper regard to himself, his family and the commonwealth of which he was a member. 路 If a tradesman's books are not well kept, if there is not order and regularity in the conduct of his business, if he does not give his mind seriously to it, he neglects an essential and Christian duty. Homobonus was a saint by acquitting himself diligently and uprightly, for supernatural motives, of all the obligations of his profession.

In due course St Homobonus married, and his wife was a prudent and faithful assistant in the government of his household. Ambition, vanity and ostentation are no less preposterous than destructive vices in the middle classes of society, whose characteristics should be modesty, moderation and simplicity. Whatever exceeds this in dress, housekeeping or other expenses is unnatural and affected, offensive to others, and uneasy and painful to the persons themselves. A man of low stature only becomes frightful by strutting upon stilts. The merchant may be an honour and support of society, but an ostentatious parade least of all suits his character or conduces to the happiness of his state. St Homobonus avoided such common rocks on 'Nhich so many traders dash. And, moreover, not content with giving his tenths to the distressed n1embers of Christ, he seemed to set no bounds to his alms; he sought out the poor in their homes and, whilst he relieved their corporal necessities, he exhorted them to a good life. The author of his life assures us that God often recognized his charity by miracles in favour of those whom he relieved. It was his custom every night to go to the church of St Giles, for prayer accompanied all his actions and it was in its exercise that he gave up his soul to God. For, on November 13,1197, during Mass, at the Gloria in excelsis he stretched out his arms in the figure of a cross and fell on his face to the ground, which those who saw him thought he had done out of devotion. When he did not stand up at the gospel they took more notice and, coming to him, found he was dead. Sicard, Bishop of Cremona, went himself to Rome to solicit his canonization, which Pope Innocent III decreed in 1199.

A short medieval Latin life was printed in 1857 by A. Maini under the title S. Homoboni civis Cremonensis Vita antiquior, but besides this we have little more information than is provided by a few breviary lessons. St Homobonus is, however, mentioned by Sicard of Cremona, his contemporary, and he was canonized (Potthast, Regesta, vol. i, p. 55) less than two years after his death. As patron of tailors and clothworkers his fame spread not only over Italy, but into Germany (under the name " Gutman ") and into France. A

334

ST STANISLAUS KOSTKA

[November

13

volume of quite imposing dimensions was published about him in 1674 by G. Belladori under the title of II trofficante celeste, oceano di santita e tresoriero del delo, Hunmobuono il santo, cittadino Cremonese.

More modern popular booklets have been written by F. Camozzi (1898), D. Bergamaschi (18"99), R. Saccani (1938) and others. lVlarco Vida, the sixteenth足 century nco-classical poet (who disapproved the .. lo\\' style" of Homer), was a native of Cremona and honoured St Homobonus with a hymn, of \vhich Alhan Butler quotes four stanzas. He greatly admired 'Vida and here calls him" the Christian Virgil ".

tA . D . 15 68 )

ST STANISLAUS KOSTKA

THE Roman Martyrology, in referring to him on August IS, the day of his death, truly says of St Stanislaus Kostka that he " was made perfect in a short while and fulfilled many times by the angelic innocence of his life ". He \vas the second son of John Kostka, senator of Poland, and Margaret Kryska, and \vas born in the castle of Rostkovo in 1550. The first elements of letters he learned at home under a private tutor, Dr John Bilinsky, who attended him and his elder brother, Paul, to the college of the Jesuits at Vienna when the saint was fourteen years old. From the first Stanislaus gave as much of his time as possible to prayer and study, and he was notably sensitive to any coarseness of talk. "Don't tell that story before Stanislaus", his father would say to his free-spoken guests, " he would faint."

When he arrived at Vienna and was lodged among the pupils of the Jesuits, everyone was struck by the recollection and devotion with which he lived and prayed.

Eight months after their arrival the Emperor Maximilian II took from the Jesuits the house which Ferdinand I had lent them for their students. Paul Kos~ka, two years older than his brother, was a high-spirited youth, fond of amusement, and he prevailed on Bilinsky to take lodgings in a Lutheran's house in the city.

This did not at all please Stanislaus, but Paul treated his brother's devotion and reserve with contemptuous amusement. One day when Paul had been ill足 treating him Stanislaus rounded on him with the boyish taunt, " This will end in my running away and not coming back. And then you'll have to explain to father and mother." Meanwhile he communicated every Sunday and holy day, always fasted the day before his communion, and when he was not at church or college he was always to be found at his devotions or studies in his own room. He dressed quietly, practised bodily mortifications, and particularly disliked having to attend dancing classes. Paul's lack of sympathy became downright bullying and Dr Bilinsky himself, though not unreasonable, was far from being sufficiently sym足 pathetic.

After nearly two years of this Stanislaus was taken ill and wished to receive viaticum; but the Lutheran landlord would not allow the Blessed Sacrament to be brought to his house. The boy in extreme affliction recommended himself to the intercession of St Barbara (to whose confraternity he belonged), and he seemed in a vision to be communicated by two angels. The Blessed Virgin is said to have appeared to him in another vision, told him that the hour of his death was not yet come, and bade him devote himself to God in the Society of Jesus. He had already entertained such a thought, and after his recovery petitioned to be admitted. At Vienna the provincial, Father Maggi, dared not receive him, for fear of incurring the anger of his father. Stanislaus therefore determined to \valk if necessary to Rome itself to ask the father general of the Society in person. He stole a\vay on foot to Augsburg and thence to Dillingen, to make the same request first to St Peter Canisius, provincial of Upper Germany. He set out on his 35o-mile walk, 335

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Novernber 13]

dressed in coarse clothes, and immediately his flight was discovered Paul Kostka and Bilinsky rode off in pursuit. Various reasons are given to account for their failure to overtake or recognize him. St Peter Canisius received him encouragingly and set him to wait on the students of the college at table and clean out their rooms, which he did \~;ith such respect and humility that the students were astonished, though he ,vas utterly unknown to them. Canisius, after having kept him three weeks, sent him \vith two companions to Rome, ,vhere he \\'ent to St Francis Borgia, then general of the Society, and earnestly renewed his petition. St Francis granted it, and Stanislaus was admitted in 1567, when he was seventeen years old. He had received from his father a most angry letter, threatening that he would procure the banishment of the Jesuits out of Poland and abusing Stanislaus for putting on " contemptible dress and following a profession unworthy of his birth". Stanis足 laus ans\vered it in the most dutiful manner, but expressed a firm purpose of serving God according to his vocation. Without disturbance or trouble of mind he applied himself to his duties, recommending all things to God. It ,vas the saint's utmost endeavour, declared his novice-master, Father Fazio, to sanctify in the most perfect manner all his ordinary actions, and he set no bounds to his mortifications except what obedience to his director prescribed. His faults he exaggerated with unfeigned simplicity, and the \vhole life of this novice seemed a continual prayer. The love which he had for Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament ,vas so ardent that his face appeared on fire as soon as he entered the church, and he was often seen in a kind of ecstasy at Mass and after receiving communion. But his model novitiate was not destined to last more than nine months. The summer heat of Rome was too much for St Stanislaus, he had frequent fainting-fits, and he kne,v that he had not long to live. On the fe~st of the dedication of St Mary Major, talking with Father Emmanuel de Sa about the Assumption of our Lady, he said: "How happy a day for all the saints was that on which the Blessed Virgin was received into Heaven! Perhaps the blessed celebrate it with special joy, as we do on earth. I hope myself to be there for the next feast they will keep of it."

No particular significance was attached to this remark at the time, but ten days later it was remelnbered. On St Laurence's day he found himself ill and two days later, when taken to a better bedroom, he made the sign of the cross upon his bed, saying he should never more rise from it. Father :Fazio jokingly rallied him on his physical weakness. "0 man of little heart! " he said. "Do you give up for so slight a thing?" "I am a man of little heart", replied Stanislaus, " but it is not so slight a matter, for I shall die of it." Early in the morning of the Assumption he whispered to Father Ruiz that he saw the Blessed Virgin accompanied with many angels, and quietly died a little after three o'clock in the morning. A month later Paul Kostka arrived in Rome with instructions from his father to bring back Stanislaus to Poland at all costs. The shock of finding him dead made Paul carefully consider his own behaviour with regard to his brother, and during the process of beatification he \vas one of the principal witnesses. Dr Bilinsky was another.

He said among other things that, " The blessed boy never had a good word from Paul. And we both knew all the time the holiness and devotion of all that he did."

Paul was bittelly remorseful all his life, and at the age of sixty himself asked for admission to the Society of Jesus. St Stanislaus was canonized in 1726, and is venerated as a lesser patron of his native country.

The' depositions of witnesses and other doculncnts presented in the cau~e of the beatifica足 tion have been in great measure utilized by the saint's biographers, but some of these materials

33 6

ST' JOSAPHAT OF POLOrrSK

[November 14

have only been printed entire in recent times. An account by S. Varsevicki, who lived in the same Jesuit house with the saint, only saw the light in 1895; and perhaps the fullest early narrative, that of Father Ubaldini, after remaining In manuscript for nlore than two centuries, was published in instahnents in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. ix (1890), and following volumes. But St Stanislaus had long before found many biographers to recount from their different points of view the story of his short life, beginning with the Latin booklet of Father Sacchini in 1609. Father Bartoli and Father d'Orleans in the seventeenth century wrote lives which went through many editions; Fathers Michel, Gruber and Goldie have presented the same facts in a more modern setting. From a literary point of view the booklet of Fr C. C. Martindale, Christ's Cadets (1913), and that of Mother Maud Monahan, On the King's Highway (1927), make a great appeal. Cf. also the Llfe of St Peter Canisius, by Fr James Brodrick (1935), pp. 674-676.

14 : ST

JOSAPHAT,

ARCHBISHOP OF POLOTSK, MARTYR

I

(A.D. 1623)

N the month of October 1595, at Brest-Litovsk in Lithuania (a town which three hundred and twenty-two years later again became talked of throughout Europe but in a quite different connection), the dissident Orthodox metro足 politan of Kiev and five bishops, representing millions of Ruthenians (to-day called Byelorussians and Ukrainians), decided to seek communion with the Holy See of Rome. 1"'he controversies which followed this event were disfigured by deplorable excesses and violence, and the great upholder of Christian unity whose feast is kept today was called on to shed his blood for the cause, whence he is venerated as the protomartyr of the reunion of Christendom. At the time of the Union of Brest he was still a boy, having been born at Vladimir in Volhynia in 1580 or 1584, and baptized John. His father, a Catholic, \vas a burgess of a good family called Kunsevich, who sent John to school in his native town and then apprenticed him to a merchant of Vilna. John was not particularly interested in trade, and employed his spare time in mastering Church Slavonic in order that he might assist more intelligently at divine worship and recite some of the long Byzantine office every day; and he got to know Peter Arcudius, who was then rector of the oriental college at ViIna, and the two Jesuits, Valentine Fabricius and Gregory Gruzevsky, who took an interest in him and gave him every encouragement. At first his master was not favourably disposed to\vards John's religious preoccupations, but he did his work so well that eventually the merchant offered him a partnership and one of his daughters in marriage. Both offers \vere refused, for John had decided to be a monk and in 1604 he entered the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Vilna. He induced to join him there Joseph Benjamin Rutsky, a learned convert from Calvinism who had been ordered by Pope Clement VIII to join the Byzantine rite against his personal wishes, and together the two young monks concerted schemes for promoting union and reforming Ruthenian monastic observance.

John Kunsevich, who had now taken the name of Josaphat, was ordained deacon and priest and speedily had a great reputation as a preacher, especially on behalf of reunion with Rome. He led a most austere personal life and added to a careful observance of the austerities of eastern monastic life such extreme voluntary mortifications that he was often remonstrated with by the most ascetic. At his beatification the burgomaster of Vilna testified that" there was not a better religious in the town than Father J05aphat ". Meanwhile, the abbot of Holy Trinity having developed separatist views, Rutsky was promoted in his place and the monastery 337

November 14]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

was soon full, so Father Josaphat was taken away from his study of the Eastern fathers to help in the foundation of new houses in Poland. In 1614 Rutsky was made metropolitan of Kiev and Josaphat succeeded him as abbot at Vilna. When the new metropolitan went to take possession of his cathedral Josaphat accompanied him and took the opportunity of visiting the great monastery of The Caves at Kiev.

The community of two hundred monks was relaxed, and they threatened to throw the Catholic reformer into the river Dnieper. He was not successful in his efforts to bring them to unity, but his personality and exhortations brought about a somewhat changed attitude and a notable increase of good-will.

The archbishop of Polotsk at this time was a very old man and a favourer of the dissidents, and in 1617 Abbot Josaphat was ordained bishop of Vitebsk with right of succession to Polotsk. A few months later the old archbishop died and Josaphat was confronted with an eparchy which was as large in extent as it was degraded in life. The more religious people were inclined to schism through fear of arbitrary Roman interference with their worship and customs; churches were in ruins and benefices in the hands of laymen; many of the secular clergy had been married two and three times :tit and the monks were decadent. Josaphat sent for some of his brethren from Vilna to help him and got to work. He held synods in the central towns, published a catechism and imposed its use, issued rules of conduct for the clergy, and fought the interference of the " squires" in the affairs of the local churches, at the same time setting a personal example of assiduous instructing and preaching, administration of the sacraments and visiting of the poor, the sick, prisoners and the most remote hamlets. By 1620 the eparchy was practically solidly Catholic, order had been restored, and the example of a few good men had brought about a real concern for Christian life. But in that year a dissident hierarchy of bishops was set up in the territory affected by the Union of Brest, side by side with the Catholic one; and one Meletius Smotritsky was sent as archbishop to Polotsk, who began with great vigour to undo the work of the Catholic archbishop. He zealously spread a report that St Josaphat had " turned Latin", that all his flock would have to do the same, and that Catholicism was not the traditional Christianity of the Ruthenian people. St Josaphat was at Warsaw when this began and on his return he found that, though his episcopal city was firm for him, some other parts of the eparchy had begun to waver; a monk called Silvester had managed to draw nearly all the people of Vitebsk, Mogilev and Orcha to the side of Smotritsky. The nobility and many of the people adhered strongly to the union, but St Josaphat could do little with these three to\vns; and not only at Vitebsk but even at Vilna, when the proclamation of the King of Poland that Josaphat was the only legitimate archbishop of Polotsk was publicly read in his presence, there were riots and the life of St Josaphat was threatened.

Leo Sapieha, the chancellor of Lithuania and a Catholic, was fearful of the possible political results of the general unrest, and lent too willing an ear to the heated charges of dissidents outside of Poland that Josaphat had caused it by his policy. Accordingly in 1622 Sapieha wrote accusing him of violence in the maintenance of the union, of putting the kingdom in peril from the Zaporozhsky Cossacks by making discord among the people, of forcibly shutting-up non­ Catholic churches, and so on. These and similar accusations were made in general • Though according to Eastern canon law a married man may be ordained to the priest­ hood, if his wife dies he cannot marry another; and if ordained a bachelor he must remain single.

ST JOSAPHAT OF POLOTSK

[November 14

terms, and their unjustifiability was amply demonstrated by contemporary ad hoc testimony from both sides: the only actual fact of the sort is the admitted one that Josaphat invoked the aid of the civil po\ver to recover the church at Mogilev from the dissidents. Thus the archbishop had to face misunderstanding, misrepre­ sentation and opposition from Catholics as well. There is no doubt that some of the easy reversion to schism was due to the firm discipline and reform of morals that had been inaugurated under Catholic auspices, and St Josaphat did not receive the support he was entitled to from the Latin bishops of Poland because of the uncompromising way in which he maintained the right of the Byzantine clergy and customs to equal treatment \\lith those of Rome. He continued doggedly and fearlessly on his way and, Vitebsk continuing to be a hot-bed of trouble, he deter­ mined in October 1623 to go there in person again. He could neither be dissuaded nor would he take a military escort. "If I am accounted so worthy as to deserve martyrdom, then I am not afraid to die", he said. He went accordingly, and for a fortnight preached in the churches and visited the houses of all without distinction.

He was continually threatened in the streets, and his opponents tried to pick quarrels with his attendants .in order that he might be killed in the ensuing fracas. On the feast of St Demetrius the Martyr he was surrounded by an angry mob, and exclaimed: " You people of Vitebsk want to put me to death. You make ambushes for me everywhere, in the streets, on the bridges, on the high­ ways, in the market-place. I am here among you as your shepherd and you ought to know that I should be happy to give my life for you. I am ready to die for the holy union, for the supremacy of St Peter and of his successor the Supreme Pontiff."

Smotritsky was fomenting this agitation, his object doubtless being no worse than to drive his rival from the diocese. But his followers got out of hand, and a plot was laid to murder St Josaphat on N ovembet 12, if he could not be induced to give excuse for violence before then. A priest named Elias was put up to go into the courtyard of the archbishop's house and to use insulting words to his servants about their master and their religion, and after several complaints St Josaphat gave permission for him to be seized if it happened again. On the morning of the 12th, as the archbishop came to the church for the office of Daybreak, he was met by Elias, who began to abuse him to his face; he therefore allowed his deacon to have the man taken and shut up in a room of the house.

This was just what his enemies were waiting for: the bells of the town-hall were rung and a mob assembled, demanding the release of Elias and the punishment of the arch­ bishop. After office St Josaphat returned to his house unharmed, and let Elias go with a warning, but the people broke in, calling for their victim and striking his attendants. St Josaphat went out to them. "My children ", he asked, " what are you doing with my servants? If you have anything against me, here I am : but leave them alone"-words remarkably reminiscent of those of another arch­ bishop, St Thomas Becket, on a similar occasion. Amid cries of" Kill the papist! " he was brained with a halberd and pierced by a bullet. The mangled body was dragged out and contemptuously cast into the river Dvina.

St Josaphat Kunsevich was canonized in 1867, the first saint of the Eastern churches to be formally canonized after process in the Congregation of Sacred Rites. Fifteen years later Pope Leo XIII gave his feast to the whole Western church for this date; the lJkrainians and others keep it on November 12, or the Sunday following, according to the Julian calendar. An immediate result of the 339

Novey-ber 14]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

martyrdom was a revulsion in favour of Catholicity and unity; but the contro足 versy continued to be carried on with an unholy bitterness, and the dissidents too had their martyr, Abbot Athanasius of Brest, \vho was put to death in 1648. On the other hand, Archbishop Meletius Smotritsky himself eventually \vas reconciled with the Holy See, and the great Ruthenian reunion persisted, with varying fortunes, until after the partition of Poland the Russian sovereigns forcibly aggregated a majority of the Ruthenian Catholics to the Orthodox Church of Russia. T'o the afflictions with which a repetition of history has visited the remainder in our own time Pope Pius XII bore sufficient witness, in his encyclical letter " Orientales omnes " issued at the 350th anniversary of the Union of Brest in 1946.

In 1874 Dom Alphonse Guepin published two stout octavo volumes, amounting altogather to more than a thousand pages, under the title Saint Josaphat, archeveque martyr, et l'Eglise grecque unie en Pologne. In the preface he speaks of the sources upon which his work is based. He thanks Father J. Martynov in particular for placing at his disposition a copy of the beatification process and a number of other papers transcribed from the Roman archives. He also makes appeal to a vast collection of documents formed by the Basilian hieromonk Paul Szymansky, and to another great manuscript library of similar character which Bishop Naruszewicz had accumulated with a view to his own work as a historian. All these had been entrusted to Dom Guepin, and they were put to such good use that most of the \Vestern writers who have since then touched upon the subject have been largely depend足 ent upon his researches. Attention should, however, be called to the very useful little books of Father G. Hofmann, nos. 6 and 12 of the series" Orientalia Christiana". When 5t J osaphat was put to death the news spread quickly throughout Europe, and the British l\!Iuseum possesses a copy of a tract, Relacion verdadera de la Muerte y Martirio de . . .

Josafat; it was printed at Seville in 1625. See also O. Kozanewyc, Leben des hi. Josaphat (1931); and the periodical Roma e l'Oriente, vol. x (1920), pp. 27-34. The background of the events narrated above may be read in the Cambridge History of Poland, vol. i (1950), pp. 507 seq. St Josaphat and the Metropolitan Rutsky were the initiators of that movement in Ruthenian monasticisrP which eventually became the organized Order of 8t Basil, and accordingly these monks have been officially known since 1932 as the Basilians of St Josaphat.

In 1952 they published at Rome the first volume of the Latin text of the beatification documents of St Josaphat.

ST DUBRICIUS,

OR

DYFRIG,

BISHOP

(SIXTH CENTURY)

MANY legends have gro\vn up around the figure of St Dubricius, who was un足 doubtedly an important person in the Welsh church of the fifth-sixth century.

Among them, it is said that he was a pupil of St Germanus of Auxerre, which is chronologically unlikely, and that he was the first bishop of IJandaff, an error or invention of the twelfth century. Geoffrey of Monmouth makes him archbishop of Caerleon-on-U sk and the prelate who confers the traditional crown of Britain on King Arthur at Colchester (Dubricius is "the high saint" of Tennyson's " Idylls "). The original and chief centre of his influence was undoubtedly in what is now called western Herefordshire, and he may have been born at Madley, some six miles from Hereford. He became a monk and made the first foundation of his own at Henllan, near Ross, where he had many disciples. Then he moved up the Wye to Moccas, and from these two centres he and his disciples are said to have founded numerous churches and monastic settlements of which many have been identified. Some of them, such as Abbey Dore, carried their monastic tradition on into the middle ages. St Illtyd came to St Dubricius to be shorn a monk, and SSe Samson and Deiniol to be consecrated bishops; and with the last named he induced St David to attend the synod of Llandewi Frefi and resigned to him the" metropolitanship " of Wales. But this last is another medieval invention.

34属

[No'l'ember 14

ST LAURENCE O'TOOLE

It is stated in the Life of 5t 5amson-a less unreliable source-that 8t Dubriciu& used to go and spend Lent on Caldey. He made Samson abbot of that ancient monastic island, in one of whose two old churches (no\v restored to Catholic worship) is an inscribed stone whose inscription seems to contain a reference to him, or to another Dubricius. Near the end of his life, we are told, he rctired to Ynys Enlli (Bardsey), and there he died and was buried. His rcputed relics were translated to the cathedral of Llandaff in 1120, and he was made one of the four titulars of that church. The feast of St Dubricius is now observed only in the archdiocese of Cardiff and on Caldey.

The so-called life of St Dubricius in the Book of Llandaff may be best consulted in the edition of Evans (1893). Kenney describes it as " a liturgical composition posterior to 1120 which deserves no trust". The life by Benedict of Gloucester is printed in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, vol. ii, pp. 654-661. The fact that it has incorporated various details from the developed legend of Geoffr~y of Monmouth sho,vs that it was written late in the twelfth century. See Hardy, Descriptive Cataloguf (Rolls Series), vol. i, pp. 40-44; Lloyd, History of ~Vales, vol. i, pp. 147-148; LBS., vol. ii, pp. 359-382; but principally Canon Doble's St Dubricius (1943), where all the evidence is expertly examined. The latest eX31nination of the Dubrician church dedications is by E. G. Bowen in his Settlements of the Celtic Saints in Wales (1954).

ST LAURENCE O'TOOLE,

ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN

(A.D.

1180)

LORCAN VA 1~UATHAIL ,vas born in 1128, probably near Castledennot in co.

Kildare, son of Murtagh, chieftain of the IVlurrays. When Laurence O'1~oole (as his name is commonly anglicizea) was tcn years old, the king of Leinster, Dermot McMurrogh, made a raid on his neighbour'S territory, and Murtagh \vas forced to deliver up his son as a hostage. For two years Laurence \vas badly treated, in a stony and barren region near Ferns, till his f:lther heard of it and by threats of reprisals forced Dermot to give the boy up to the bishop of Glendalough. Murtagh hurried thither and asked the bishop to cast lots \vhich of his four sons he should destine to the service of the Church. l.1aurence cned out with laughter, " There is no need to cast lots. It is my desire to have for n1Y inheritance the service of God in the Church." Hereupon his father, taking him by the hand, offered him to God by delivering him to the bishop, in whose hands he left him.

Laurence ,vhen but twenty-five years old ,vas chosen abbot of Glendalough and soon after avoided episcopal dignity only by alleging the canons that require in a bishop thirty years of age. He governed his community ,vith virtue and prudence, and in J. great famine ""hich raged during the first four months of his adn1inistration ,,-as the saviour of the countryside by his boundless charities.

Outside the ecclesiastical enclosure he had to cope \vith the outlaws and robbers who infested the \\7icklo\v hills, and within it there were false brethren, who could not bear the regularity of his conduct and the zeal with which he conden1ned their disorders, and attacked his reputation by slander, to which he opposed no other arms than silence and patience. In 1161 died Gregory, the first archbishop of Dublin. I.laurence ,,'as elected in his place, and consecrated in Holy 1~rinity (later Christ Church) cathedral by Gelasius, archbishop of Armagh. 1'his was significant of the new unity of the Irish church since the Synod of Kells in 1 15 2 , before which the bishops of Dublin had depended on Canterbury. But the new state of affairs was not fully to outlast 8t I-.laurence's own lifetime.

His -first care was to reform his clergy and to furnish his church ,\lith worthy ministers. rle bound the canons of his cathedral to receive the rule of the regular

34 1

NoomWer 14]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

canons of Arrouaise, an abbey which was founded in the diocese of Arras in 1090 and had such reputation for sanctity and discipline that it became the pattern of numerous other houses.

Laurence himself took the religious habit, ate with the religious in the refectory, observed their hours of silence and assisted with them at the midnight office. Every day he entertained at table thirty poor persons, and often many more, besides those which he maintained in private houses. All found him a father both in their temporal and spiritual necessities, and he was indefatig­ able in preaching and the due ordering of public worship. King Dermot had preferred to the church of G lendalough one so un\vorthy that he was in a short time expelled, and Thomas, a nephew of the saint, was canonically elected. By the care of this young abbot-bishop discipline and piety again flourished and from that time St Laurence frequently made choice of G lendalough for his retreats from the noise and turmoil of Dublin, staying in a rock-hewn cell in the cliff above the Upper Lake.

The enormities of Dermot McMurrogh caused him at length to be driven from Ireland, and in order to regain his position he asked the help of Henry II of England, who was only too glad to permit any of his nobles to join an expedition that jumped with his own ambitions. The chief of these volunteers was Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke (" Strongbow "), who in 1 170 landed at Waterford, overran part of Leinster, and marched on Dublin. St Laurence was sent to negotiate with the invaders, but during the discussions Dermot's Anglo-Norman allies seized the city and gave themselves over to massacre and rapine. Laurence returned to succour the sufferers and defend the survivors, and to be a centre of strength in the ne\v danger. Dermot died in his moment of success, and Strongbow claimed Leinster, as Dermot's heir and husband of his daughter Eva (who was St Laur­ ence's niece). Thereupon King Henry recalled his vassal to England, the Irish united under the high king, Rory O'Conor, and Strongbow shut himself up in Dublin. Again Laurence conducted negotiations: they failed, but Strongbow made a sudden rally of desperation and unexpectedly routed the Irish forces. St Laurence saw the end of his patriotic hopes, and the" Irish problem" had begun.

Some fifteen years earlier King Henry II had obtained from Pope Adrian IV a bull (" LaudabiZz"ter ") authorizing him to proceed to Ireland in order" to subject its people to the rule of law and to root out therefrom the weeds of vice".• Henry now went to Ireland for this beneficent purpose, and in 1171 received at Dublin the submission of all the Irish chiefs, except those of Connaught, Tyrconnel and Tyrone. In the following year he convened a synod at CasheI. Here for the first time the Irish bishops were confronted by the bull of Adrian IV, provision was made for clerical discipline, the English form of the Roman liturgy (z".e. the use of Sarum) was adopted, and Pope Alexander III was asked to confirm their decisions, which in due course he did. At this meeting St Laurence accepted the papal bull, concurred in the synodal proceedings, and from that time on was in frequent request as a go-between and peacemaker between King Henry and thc~ Irish princes.

In 1175 he travelled to Windsor and successfully negotiated a treaty between the English sovereign and the high king, Rory O'Conor. While in England he • And also to provide for the collection of " Peter's pence". The authenticity of this bull has been contested, but not very convincingly. Among those who favour its authenticity is Dom Gougaud, who "'rites in his Christianity in Celtic Lands, p. 408: "Although the bull is not drawn up in strict conformity with the rules followed at the time by the papal chancery; it can nevertheless be proved that in substance it is in accord with o~her con­ temporary and uncontested witnesses."

ST :LAURENCE O'TOOLE

[November 14

visited Canterbury and was received by the monks at Christ Church with the honour due to his repute and rank, and that whole night he spent in prayer before the shrine of St Thomas Becket. On the day following, as he was going up to the altar to officiate, a madman who had heard much of his sanctity and had a wild idea of making so holy a man a martyr and another St Thomas, gave him a violent blow on the head with a staff. He fell senseless, but quickly recovered, asked for the wound to be bathed, and proceeded to sing the Mass. * The king ordered the would-be assassin to be hanged, but Laurence interceded in his favour and obtained his pardon.

The third general council of the Lateran was held at Rome in I 179, and St Laurence went to Rome, with five other Irish bishops. Before they were allowed to leave England, King Henry extracted an oath that they would make no repre­ sentations to the Holy See likely to prejudice his position in Ireland. Laurence explained to Alexander the state of the Irish church, and begged that effectual remedies might be applied to many disorders in the country and care taken for preserving the liberties of its church. The pope was pleased with his proposals, confirmed all the rights of his see, adding to them jurisdiction over five suffragan dioceses, and appointed him his legate in Ireland. As soon as the saint was returhed home he began vigorously to execute his legatine powers. But King Henry remembered Becket, and he was nervous at the authority which had been given Laurence in Rome; and accordingly when in 1180 the archbishop had met him in England to negotiate further on behalf of Rory O'Conor, the king afterwards forbade him to return home. After waiting for three weeks at Abingdon Laurence deter­ mined again to seek Henry, who was in Normandy. He got a passage across the Channel and landed near Le Treport, at a spot still called Saint-Laurent. The king gave him permission to go back to Ireland, but on the way he was taken very ill.

As he approached the abbey of the canons regular of St Victor at Eu, he murmured, " Haec requies mea in saeculum saeculi ": St Laurence was ready for death. To the abbot who put him in mind to make a will, he answered with a smile, " God knows I have not a penny in the world ". Then, his last thoughts on his flock, he exclaimed in Irish, " Alas! you stupid, foolish people, what will you do now ?

Who will look after you in your misfortunes? Who will help you ? " St Laurence O'Toole died on Friday, November 14, 1180, and he was canonized in 1225. His relics still rest principally in the crypt of the church of our Lady at Eu. The feast of St Laurence is observed throughout Ireland, by the Canons Regular of the Lateran, and in the diocese of Rouen, in which Eu is situated.

By far the most important of the ancient lives of St Laurence is that edited from the Codex Kilkenniensis in Dublin, forming part of the Marsh library, by C. Plummer. The text, with a valuable introduction, appeared in the Analecta Bolland£ana, vol. xxxiii (1914), pp. 121-186. There are other Latin lives, notably one printed by the Bollandists in their Catalogus Cod. Hag£ogr. Lat£n. Par£s., vol. iii, pp. 236-248, but this, while probably based upon the same materials as the former, has recounted the incidents in a different order and expanded them with rather tedious moral reflections. It does not make so good an impression of trustworthy history.

Some useful comments on the manuscript sources which have contributed to our knowledge of the saint will also be found in the preface of Plummer's VSH., pp. xv-xxiii. The life printed in Surius, so far as regards its first portion, is in close agreement with that which Plummer has edited, but Surius, according to his wont, has amended the Latin phraseology. A certain amount of information regarding St Laurence • When Cardinal de Bonnechose, archbishop of Rouen, examined the saint's relics at Eu in 1876 he found that the effects of this blow were observable on the skull.

343

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 14]

is also obtainable from the chroniclers of the period. There is a good short life in French

by A. Legris (1914) ; that by O'Hanlon (1857) is perhaps now hardly adequate. See further, J. F. O'Doherty, Laurentius von Dublin und das irische Normannentum (1933), and Dom Gougaud, Les Saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (1936), pp. 130-131. A Life in Irish was published by Fr Benedict, O.D.C., in 1929. C/. also M. V. Ronan in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 1926 and 1936; and Fr A. Gwynn on the saint as legate in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxviii (1950), pp. 223-24°. P. Carpentier's S. Laurent O'Toole (1953) is a shortened rewriting of Legris, above; unfortunately it has not been brought up to date.

BD SERAPION,

MARTYR

(A.D. 1240)

IN 1728 Pope Benedict XIII approved the cuitus of this little-known martyr, who is said to have been born in England. The story goes that he became a soldier in the service of Alfonso IX of Castile, and then joined the newly founded Mercedarian Order for the redemption of captives. He is supposed to have visited the British Isles to gain recruits for it, but without much success. He went among the Moors of Murcia and obtained the release of some Christian slaves, and then went to Algiers to negotiate for more. Here he was kept as hostage for the payment of the balance of the ransom, and employed his time in preaching to the Mohammedans, among whom he made several conversions. This angered the Moors, and after cruel ill-treatment Bd Serapion was nailed to a cross and cut to pieces. Pope Benedict XIV added his name to the Roman Martyrology, wherein is also mentioned on this day, "The passion at Alexandria of ST SERAPION, martyr, whom the persecutors under the Emperor Decius . . . threw off the roof of his own house and so he became a glorious witness for Christ".

It has been pointed out more than once in these pages that both for the Mercedarian and the Trinitarian 'Orders the historical records of their early years are very scanty and of most unsatisfactory quality: c/. for example, St Peter Nolasco on January 28. The story of Bd Serapion's connection with England, etc., cannot be depended on, but there seems to have been a cultus of long-standing date. 1'he case and documents are cited by Prosper Lambertini (Pope Benedict XIV) in his De beatificatione et canonizatione, bk 2, ch. 24, § 42.

BD JOHN LICCIO JOHN'S mother died in giving him birth, and his father, whether through poverty or malice against the innocent child, provided no proper care, so that he would have died had not a kind woman made herself responsible for him. John was eventually brought up by an aunt and the boy soon showed signs of unusual devotion. When he was about fifteen he met Bd Peter Geremia at Palermo, and was fired by him to take the habit of St Dominic; in due course he became a good preacher. Bd John was sent to establish a house of his order at CaccamQ, his native town, which he did under great difficulties. It was built on the foundations of an unfinished and forgotten building, \vhich, as nobody remembered them, were attributed to supernatural provision. John becarne prior there in 1494, his ad­ ministration being marked by great virtue and many marvels. The lessons of his office state that he was one hundred and eleven years old when he died, but even if he were a personal disciple of Bd Peter Geremia he was probably not much more than seventy-five. The cuitus of Bd John Liccio was approved in 1753.

See the jV10numenta Ord. Praedic. llistorica, vol. xiv, pp. 229-23°; Procter, Domin£can Saints, PP. 318-321 ; and lives by M. Ponte (1853) and G. Barreca (1926). For a fuller bibliography consult Taurisano, Catalogus Hagiographicus O.P.

344

ST ALBERT THE GREAT

15 : ST

[lVovember 15

ALBERT THE GREAT,

THE CHURCH

BISHOP OF REGENSBURG, DOCTOR OF

(A.D. 1280)

T was his contemporaries who dubbed St Albert " the Great"; they also, referring to the depth and scope of his learning, called him " the Universal Doctor", and said that he was" a man no less than godlike in all knowledge, so that he may fitly be called the wonder and miracle of our age ". Even Friar Roger Bacon regarded him, more modestly, as " an authority", and his works as " original sources". That he was the master of St Thomas Aquinas has added to his fame, but his contemporaries recognized that he was great in his own right as certainly as posterity has done. He \vas a Swabian by descent, born of the family of Bollstadt at the castle of Lauingen on the Danube in 1206. Little is known of his youth or the age at which he went to the University of Padua, but in 1222 Bd Jordan of Saxony, second master general of the Friars Preachers, wrote from that city to Bd Diana de Andelo at Bologna that he had received ten postulants for the order, " and two of them are the sons of great lords, counts in Germany". One of them was Albert, whose uncle in Padua had tried to keep him a\vay from the Dominican church, but had failed before the influence of Bd Jordan. When he heard that his son was clothed as a mendicant the Count of Bollstadt was most indignant, and there was talk of retrieving him by force, but nothing came of it for Albert was discreetly removed to another friary. This was probably Cologne, where he was teaching in 1228; afterwards he supervised the studies and taught at Hildesheim, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Regensburg, Strasburg and back again at Cologne, making for himself a great reputation throughout the German province. lIe was instructed to go to Paris, then as ahvays the intellectual centre of wester.i1 Europe, and he was there some years, lecturing under a master until he himself took his master's degree. At the end of this time the Dominicans decided to open fouf new studia generalia, and in 1248 St Albert was sent to be regent of that at Cologne, where until 1252 he had among his students a young friar called Thomas Aquinas.

In those days philosophy \vas understood as the totality of the main branches of knowledge which could be known by the natural powers of the mind: logic, metaphysics, mathematics, ethics and what we now call physical science; and the writings of St Albert, which fill thirty-eight quarto volumes in print, include works on all these subjects as well as biblical and theological treatises and sermons. He stands beside Roger Bacon as a great natural scientist, \vhose aim, he says, " is to investigate the causes that are at work in nature", and some scholars have claimed that he did even more than Bacon himself for the advancement of scientific study.

He was an authority on physics, geography, astronomy, mineralogy, alchemy (i.e. chemistry) and biology, so that it is not surprising that legends grew up that he had and used magical powers. He wrote a treatise on botany and another on human and animal physiology, in the course of "'hich he disposed, from personal observa足 tion, of various fables current at that time, as that of Pliny that eagles wrap their eggs in a fox-skin and leave them to hatch in the sun. As a geographer he has received especial praise in later times; he traced the chief mountain ranges of Europe, explained the influence of latitude on climate, and gave an excellent physical description of the earth, which he demonstrated by an elaborate argument to be spherical in shape. But the principal farne of St Albert as a doctor resides not in

I

345

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Nooember 15]

these achievements, but in the fact that, realizing the autonomy of philosophy and seeing the use that could be made of the philosophy of Aristotle in ordering the science of theology, he re-wrote the works of the Philosopher so as to m:lke them acceptable to Christian critics, and by the application of Aristotelean methods and principles to the study of theology inaugurated (with the Englishman Alexander of Hales) the scholastic system which was to be brought to perfection by his pupil St Thomas Aquinas. He was the principal pioneer and forerunner of the " preferred system of the Church ": he collected and selected the materials, even laid the foundations; St Thomas built the edifice.

Throughout his long years of teaching Albert was writing as well, and he continued the work throughout his otherwise busy life. While directing the Cologne studium his practical abilities became widely recognized, he was in request to adjust administrative and other disputes, and in 1254 he was made prior pro足 vincial of his order in Germany. Two years later he attended in that capacity the chapter general in Paris which forbade Friars Preachers at the universities to be called " master" or " doctor", or anything but their right name. He himself had already been dubbed" the Universal Doctor" and his prestige had helped to provoke the jealousy against the friars of the secular professors. On account of this, which had led to delay in granting degrees to St Thomas and St Bonaventure, Albert went to Italy to defend the mendicant orders against the attacks being made on them at Paris and elsewhere, especially as voiced by William of Saint-Amour in a tract " on the Dangers of these Present Times ". While he was in Rome, St Albert filled the office of master of the sacred palace (i.e. the pope's personal theologian and canonist, always a Dominican friar) and preached in the churches of the City. In 1260 he received an order from the Holy See to undertake the government of the diocese of Regensburg, a church, he was informed, that was " turned upside-down in spiritual as well tJ.8 temporal matters". He was bishop for under two years, Pope Urban IV then accepting his resignation; he did much to remedy the distresses of the diocese, but the scheming of powerful interests and the stubbornness of entrenched abuses made the task too much for him. To the great joy of his master general, Bd Humbert of Romans, who had in vain tried to induce Alexander IV not to make him a bishop, St Albert returned to the studium at Cologne. But the next year he \vas called away again, this time to help the Franciscan Berthold of Ratisbon to preach the crusade in Germany. This over, he went back again to Cologne and taught and wrote there in peace till 1274, when he was bidden to attend the fourteenth general council at Lyons. Just before he set out he heard of the death of his beloved disciple, Thomas Aquinas (it is said to have been revealed directly to him by God), but in spite of this shock and his advancing age St Albert took an active part in the assembly; he worked with Bd Peter of Tarentaise (Innocent X) and William of Moerbeke for the reunion of the Greeks, throwing all his influence to the side of peace and reconciliation.

St Albert probably made his last public appearance three years later, when some of the writings of St Thomas were seriously attacked by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, and other theologians. He hurried to Paris to defend the teaching of his dead disciple, teaching that was in great measure his own as well; he challenged the university to examine himself personally upon it, but he could not avert the local condemnation of certain points. In 1278, during a lecture, his memory suddenly failed; there is a story, insufficiently attested, that he related to his 346

[Noo~u

ST ALBERT THE GREAT

IS

auditors how when he was a young friar he had been very discouraged and strongly inclined to return to secular life, how our Lady had appeared to him in a prophetic dream and promised to ask for him illuminating grace in his studies if he would persevere, but that his powers would fail again in old age, and that this lapse was a warning of the end. The loss of memory became acute, the strength of his mind failed, and after two years St Albert died, peacefully and without illness, sitting in his chair among his brethren at Cologne, on Nov­ ember 15, 1280.

It has been said that, " Throughout Albert's writings there are frequent signs that his whole life was one of remarkable holiness, but there are also signs that as long as he wielded a pen he fell short of the saintly suppression of self that dis­ tinguished St Thomas. It is not until Albert has laid aside his pen and taken to expressing his profoundest thought in tears that we feel ourselves in the presence of a candidate for canonization." This gradual attainment of the heights of sanctity is paralleled by the slow journey of Albert to the altars of the Church. He ,vas not beatified till the year 1622 and, though there was considerable increase in devotion to him, especially in Germany, canonization did not follow. In 1872 and again in 1927 the German bishops petitioned the Holy See to canonize him, without apparent effect. Then, on December 16,1931, Pope Pius XI by a decretal letter proclaimed Albert the Great a doctor of the Church, thereby equivalently declaring him to be a saint and, moreover, one whose feast should be observed throughout the Western church. St Albert had, said the pope, " that rare and divine gift, scientific instinct, in the highest degree . . . he is exactly the saint whose example should inspire the present age, which so ardently seeks peace and is so full of hope in its scientific discoveries". He is the patron saint of students of the natural sciences.

Especially since the canonization, a number of excellent lives of St Albert have been published, and in nearly all of them a careful account is given of the sources. Of medieval biographies the most important is that of Peter of Prussia, though it was not written until towards the close of the fifteenth century. An earlier sketch was produced in the middle of the fourteenth century by Henry of Herford (Herford in Westphalia; by some perversity many translators from the German present the name as Hereford, which is quite a different place), and before this we have sundry short appreciations in the Vitae jratrum of Gerard de Fracheto, the Bonum univusale of Thomas of Cantimpre, and the De viris illustribus by John of Cologne. Modern investigators, who have set about their task in a more scientific spirit, point out that a considerable amount of biographical material is latent in St Albert's own writings. His commentaries on the gospels and his sermons contain not infrequent references to incidents of his childhood or to his experiences as bishop. Further, we may obtain light from documents of a more or less official character, for example, the Acta· capitu­ lorum gentralium O.P. (ed. Reichert, vol. i, 1898), or such a collection as H. Finke's Unge­ druckte Dominicanu Brieje des XIII Jahrhunduts (1891). Using these or similar materials, Quetif and Echard in their Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. i (1719), had already com­ piled a reliable literary portrait of the saint; to which a valuable supplement was provided in the series of articles by P. von Loe in the Analecta Bollandiana, vols. xix to xxi (1900-2), and in his Kritische Streijziige auf dem Gebiete du Albutus-Magnus-Forschung (1904).

Another notable contribution to the understanding of St Albert's influence on medieval culture was that of Emil Michael. Geschithte des deutschen Volkes, vol. iii (1903), pp. 69-128, and also M. Grabmann's articles in the Zeitschriftjur Kath. Theologie, vol. Iii (1928). Among recent lives may be mentioned H. Wilms, Albut the Great (1933); T. M. Schwertner, Saint Albut the Great (1933); A. Garreau, Saint Albut Ie Grand (1932); H. C. Scheeben, Albut du Grosse (1931); and a good general sketch by Sister M. Albert (1948). Other aspects of St Albert's work have been dealt with by A. R. Bachiller, Albuto Magno y las Ciencias empiricas (1933); Bonne, Die Erkenntnislehre Alberts du Grossen (1935); H. Fleckenstein,

347

November 15]

THE LIVES OF TI-IE SAINTS

Die t'heologische Lehre VOIl der materiel/en Welt (1933); 1\1. 1\1. Gorce, L'Essor de la pensee au moyen dge, ALbert Ie Grand (1933); R. Liertz, Die Naturkunde 'von der menschlichen Seele nach Albert dem Grossen (1933), etc. There is a good bibliography in the life by Wilms, to supplement which consult the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. Ii (1933), pp. 183-19°.

SSe

GURIAS,

SAMONAS

AND

ABIBUS,

~IARTYRS

(FOURTH

CENTURY) ONE of the two principal sanctuaries at Edessa in Syria enshrined the bod,~es of these martyrs. Their legends relate that, during the persecution of Dioclettan, Gurias and Samonas were arrested and imprisoned, and on their refusal to sacritice were hung up by one hand with weights tied to their feet. Then they were thrown into a foul dungeon and left without food or light for three days. When they were taken out Gurias was already nearly dead, but Samonas was submitted to a horrible torture, which failed to shake his resolution. They were therefore both beheaded.

Later, Abibus, a deacon of Edessa, hid himself from the persecution of Licinius, but 'eventually gave himsel f up that he might earn the nlartyr's crown. The officer to whom he surrendered gave him the opportunity to change his mind and escape, but Abibus would not avail himself of it. He was sentenced to be burnt, and was accompanied to the place of execution by his mother and other relatives, to whom he was allowed to give the kiss of peace before he was thrown to the flames. After­ wards they took his body, which had not been destroyed in the fire, and buried it near those of his friends Gurias and Samonas.

All three martyrs are mentioned in the Roman Martyrology today, but in two separate entries. They had the curious distinction of being venerated as the " avengers of unfulfilled contracts ".

There are several Greek variants of the passio of 8t Gurias and companions; they will be found enumerated in BI-IG.) nn. 731-736.

But besides these there are oriental texts in Syriac (of 'which another fragment of earlier date \vas afterwards discovered by Mar Ephrem "Rahm.ani), and a version in Arnlenian. It seems that the language of the original account was unquestionably 8yriac. The matter has been very fully treated by E. von Dobschtitz in vol. xxxvii, pt. 2, of Texte und [Jntersuchungen; on which also see the review in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxi (1912), pp. 332-334. The later Syriac text in its sophis­ ticated form, purporting to be \vritten by an eye-witness, has been translated into English

by Professor Burkitt in his Euphernia and the Goth (1913). The Armenian version was translated by F. C. Conybeare and printed in The Guardian for 1897. The fact of the martyrdolTI is not open to doubt, for in the Syriac breviarium we have the entry on November IS, " in the city ()f Edessa, Sharnona and Guria the confessors". There is also a homily preached in their honour by James of Sarug.

ST DESIDERIUS,

OR

DIDIER.

BISHOP OF CAHORS

(A.D.

655)

Desiderius is one of several saints honoured in France under the name of Didier (he is also called Gery). His father was a noble with large estates around Albi, and the religious dispositions of his Inother are mentioned in the saint's life with reference to letters \vritten by her to hirn. Desiderius became a high official at the court of King Clotaire I I of N eustria, where he met 5t Arnulf of Metz, 5t Eligius and other holy men, as well as less desirable acquaintances. His brother Rusticus became a priest and then bishop of Cahors; but he soon after was murdered (he is venerated as a martyr at Cahors) and Desiderius was elected to fill his see in 630, though still a layman. He proved a zealous and effective bishop» and his extant correspondence gives some idea of the scope of his activities, which

1--'HIS

348

[November 15

ST MALO

were directed towards the temporal as well as the spiritual welfare of his diocese.

He encouraged the nobles to endow religious foundations, and was a strong pro足 moter of monasticism both for men and women. He directed a convent of his own foundation, built the monastery of St Amantius and endowed it, and built three large churches. Cahors also benefited by the provision of an aqueduct and the repair of its fortifications. But the first concern of St Desiderius was always the Christian life of his flock, which he knew to be best forwarded by a virtuous and well-instructed clergy, among whom he maintained a strict discipline. He died in 655 near Alb~, and was buried at Cabors, where miracles took place at his tomb.

There is a Latin life of the better class, written towards the close of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century, which incorpoates the text of certain letters and documents of some historical value. The best edition is that of B. Krusch, with an important intro足 duction, in MGH., Scriptores Merov., vol. iv, pp. 547-602; the text is also in Migne, PL., vol. lxxxvii, cc. 219-239.

ST MALO, BISHOP

(SEVENTH CENTURY)

MACHUTUS, Maclovius, Maclou (and other forms) is best kno\vn to English足 speaking people, by association with the Breton port, as 1\lalo. Medieval hagio足 graphers say that he was born in South Wales, near Llancarfan, and was educated in the monastery there. When he grew up his parents wanted him to leave the monks, but he refused and, after hiding for a time in one of the islands of the Severn Sea, he was ordained priest and determined to leave Britain, perhaps on account of the great pestilence in the middle of the sixth century. He landed in Brittany, and began to evangelize the neighbourhood of Aleth (Saint-Servan), having his headquarters on an island where now stands the town of Saint-Malo.

He built churches and made monastic settlements, tried to protect the weak from the violence of the local chiefs, and made many converts; as he rode from place to place on his missionary journeys he recited psalms in a loud voice. But St Malo made enemies as well as converts, and after the death of the chief who had first persecuted and then protected him, and whonl Malo is said to have converted, they began to get the upper hand. St Malo decided to leave; and, going on board ship with thirty-three monks, he solemnly anathematized the malcontents and sailed off down the coast. He settled near Saintes and stayed there for some years until a deputation from Aleth came and asked him to return: his flock was suffering from a bad drought, \vhich was attributed to their treatment of their bishop. He visited them as requested, and immediately on his arrival there was a heavy fall of rain. Malo, however, did not stay at Aleth long; he set out again for Saintes, but died just before .he arrived there.

In the Lives of St Malo there is narrated a number of stories and miracles of a highly unconvincing kind. In particular it is stated that he emulated St Brendan in his fabulous voyages of quest for the Isle of the Blessed, and celebrated Easter on the back of a whale.

There are four or five medieval lives of St Malo duly enumerated in BHL., nn. 5116-5124.

The best known is that attributed to the deacon Bili, who wrote in the latter part of the ninth century. There probably was a primitive life which has perished, from which the' Bili version and the anonymous text (BHL. 5117) have both been elaborated. The texts may be 'conveniently consulted in Plaine and La Borderie, Deux vies inedites de S. Malo (1884). The matter is too complicated to discuss here, but see especially F. Lot, Melanges

349

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 15]

d'histoire bretonne (1907), pp. 97-206; Duine, Memento, pp. 53-57; Duchesne in the Revue Celtique, vol. xi (1890), pp. 1-22; Poncelet in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxiv (1905), pp. 4 8 3-4 86 .

ST FINTAN OF RHEINAU THIS Fintan (Findan) is said to have been a native of Leinster, born there at the beginning of the ninth century. In a Norse raid he was carried off as a slave to the Orkneys, from whence he managed to make his escape and spent two years under the protection of a bishop in Scotland. He then went on pilgrimage to Rome; on his way back he stopped with some hermits at Rheinau in the Black Forest, and spent the rest of his life there. His holiness was a great edification to the community, and for the last twenty-two years of his life he was allowed to live as a solitary, always refusing to have any fire in his lonely cell. The relics of St Fintan were enshrined at Rheinau in 1446, and his feast is still observed in the town.

The text of the only Latin life of the saint may be read in Mabillon, vol. iv, pt I, pp.

356-360; or better in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xv, pp. 503-506. See also Gougaud, Les Saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (193 6), pp. 95-96.

ST LEOPOLD OF AUSTRIA

(A.D. 1136)

THIS prince, known as " the Good", was canonized three hundred and fifty years after his death by Pope Innocent VIII, but only a few reliable particulars of his life have survived. He was born at Melk in 1073, brought up under the influence of the reforming bishop St Altman of Passau, and succeeded his father when he was twenty-three years old. In 1106 he married Agnes, daughter of the Emperor Henry IV and a widow. She had had two sons by her first husband, and she now gave eighteen children to Leopold. Of the eleven who survived childhood, one was the historian, Otto of Freising, and it was at the request of this Otto, then Cistercian abbot of Morimond in Burgundy, that St Leopold founded the still existing abbey of Heiligenkreuz in the Wienerwald. Another great foundation of his was Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, for Augustinian canons. This abbey is also still in being, and is a most influential centre of the" liturgical movement" among German-speaking peoples. The Benedictine monastery of Mariazell, in Styria, whose church is now a popular place of pilgrimage, was also founded by St Leopold.

By these benefactions he forwarded the cause of true religion in his country, setting before the people examples of charity, self-abnegation and devotion to the worship of God. In the tortuous and difficult politics, ecclesiastical and secular, of his time Leopold IV played an inconspicuous part, but no doubt an important one, for when his brother-in-law Henry V died in 1125 the Bavarians wished the imperial crown to be offered to him. But in any case Leopold refused to be nominated.

After a reign of forty years St Leopold died in 1136, and was buried at Kloster­ neuburg amid the lamentations of his people.

Surius and Pez (Scriptores rerum .Aust1iacarum, vol. i, pp. 577-592) print the only known medieval life of St Leopold. A short German biography by B. A. Egger (1885), was translated into French in 1891. See also V. O. Ludwig, Die Legende von milden Markgraf Leopold (1925); and the volume of essays on the saint (ed. S. Wintermayr) published at Klosterneuburg in 1936.

35°

SS. GERTRUDE THE GREAT AND MECHTILDIS

16*: ss.

GERTRUDE THE GREAT

(A.D.

1302

AND

AND

[November 16

MECHTILDIS,

VIRGINS

1298)

T

HE date of the death and of the feast of St Mechtildis is November 19, but it is convenient and suitable to speak of her here with her pupil St Gertrude.

Mechtildis when she was seven years old was confided to the care of the nuns of Rossdorf, who shortly after elected her elder sister, Gertrude von Hacke­ born, to be their abbess. It is by confusion with this Abbess Gertrude that St Gertrude the Great is herself often erroneously referred to as an abbess. Mech­ tildis herself became a nun of Rossdorf; she was chief chantress of the house and mistress of the children who were sent there to be trained. In 1258 the nuns moved to a monastery at Helfta in Saxony, the home of the noble Hackeborn family, and three years later they were joined by St Gertrude, then a child of five.

Nothing is known either of her parentage or the place of her birth. She came under the charge of St Mechtildis, and mistress and pupil took to one another; Gertrude was personally very attractive and of great intellectual ability; she became a good Latin scholar and in due course was professed a nun, probably never having left the cloister which she entered as a little girl.

When Gertrude was nearly twenty-six years old she received the first of the revelations which have made her famous. In the dormitory, as she was about to go to bed, she seemed to see our Lord, in the form of a young man. When He had spoken to her, " although I was certain of my bodily presence in that place, nevertheless it seemed to me that I was in choir, in that corner where I was accus­ tomed to make my lukewarm prayers, and that there I heard these words, ' I will save and deliver you. Fear not.' When He had said this I saw His fine and delicate hand take mine as though solemnly to ratify this promise, and He went on, ' You have licked the dust with my enemies and sucked honey from thorns.

Now come back to me, and my divine delights shall be as wine to you.'" Then a thorn-covered hedge seemed to stretch between them, but Gertrude found herself as it were lifted and placed by our Lord's side, and" I then recognized, in the hand that had just been given me as a pledge, the radiant jewels of those sacred wounds which have made of no effect the handwriting that was against us ". Thus she received that experience which even in the purest and most faultless souls is called conversion; she applied herself consciously and deliberately to the attainment of perfection and ever closer union with God. Hitherto her delight had been in profane studies, but now she turned to the Bible and the works of the fathers, especially St Augustine, St Gregory and the not-long-dead St Bernard: "from being a grammarian she became a theologian", and her own writings show clearly the influence both of the Church's liturgy and her private reading.

Exteriorly the life of St Gertrude was like that of any other contemplative nun and therefore deficient in incident. We hear of the copies of scriptural passages and the little biblical treatises she made for her sisters in religion, her charity towards the dead, and the liberty of spirit which informed her. The last is well • The feast of St Margaret is kept throughout Scotland on this day, the anniversary of her death. But an account is given of her herein under June 10, the day on which her feast is observed by the rest of the Western church. It was finally fixed for this date in 1693 at the request of King James II and VII, being the birthday (in 1688) of his son James (de iure III and VIII); but November 16 was restored for Scotland by Pope Leo XIII in 1898.

November 16]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

illustrated by her attitude towards sudden or unattended death. "I wish with my whole heart to be strengthened by those health-giving last sacraments; neverthe足 less, the will and appointment of God seem to be the best and surest preparation.

I am certain that, whatever the manner of my death, sudden or foreseen, I shall never lack His mercy, without which I cannot possibly be saved in either case."

After her first vision of our Lord she continued to see Him " indistinctly" at the time of communion, until the vigil of the Annunciation, when He visited her at the morning chapter-meeting and " henceforth He gave me a more clear knowledge of Himself, so that I was led to correct my faults by the sweetness of His love far rather than by fear of His just anger ". The five books of the Herald of God's Loving-kindness (commonly called the Revelations of St Gertrude), of which only the second book was actually written by the saint, contain a succession of visions, communications and mystical experiences which have received the approval of a number of holy mystics and distinguished theologians. She speaks of a ray of light like an arrow coming from the wound in the right side of a crucifix; of beholding her soul, in the likeness of wax softened at a fire, presented to the bosom of our Lord as though to receive the impress of a seal; and of a spiritual marriage in which she was as it were drawn into the heart of Jesus: but" adversity is the spiritual ring with which the soul is betrothed to God". St Gertrude anticipated the later revival of frequent communion, as well as devotion to St Joseph and, particularly, to the Sacred Heart. With both St Mechtildis and St Gertrude the love of the Sacred I-Ieart was a frequently recurring theme, and it is stated that Gertrude in vision twice reposed her head upon the breast of our Lord and heard the beating of His heart.

In the meantime, St Mechtildis, fifteen years older than Gertrude and still by her singing a " nightingale of Christ," had been following the same mystical way ; but it was not till she was fifty that she learned that her pupil had been assiduously writing down all she had been told of her mistress's experiences and teaching.

Mechtildis was at first alarmed at this, but our Lord assured her that all had been committed to writing by His will and inspiration, and so she was reassured and herself corrected the manuscript. This is the work called the Book of Special Grace, or the Revelations of St Mechtildis. Seven years later, on November 19, 1298, Christ called her to Himself; "she offered Him her heart, plunging it into His; and our Lord touched it with His own, giving to her eternal glory, wherein we hope she will obtain grace for us by her intercession." St Mechtildis has never been canonized, but her feast is permitted to numerous houses of Benedictine nuns.

By some she is identified with the" Donna Matelda " in cantos 27 and 28 of the Purgatorio of Dante.

These two saints are probably best kno\vn to the Catholic public today by a series of prayers attributed to them. They were first published at Cologne at the end of the seventeenth century and, whatever their merits as prayers, they were certainly not written by Gertrude and Mechtildis. Prayers extracted from their genuine works were first published by Dom Castel in French, and in English by Canon John Gray in 1927. St Gertrude's book is called by Alban Butler" perhaps the most useful production, next to the writings of St Teresa, \vith which any female saint has enriched the Church for the nourishing of piety in a contem足 plative state". St Gertrude died on November 17 in the year 1301 or 1302, at the age. of about forty-five, after suffering much ill-health for a decade. She was never formally canonized, but in 1677 Pope Innocent XI added her name

35 2

ST EUCHERIUS OF LYONS

[November 16

to the Roman Martyrology, and Clement XII directed that her feast be ob足 served throughout the Western church. She is greatly venerated by the Bene足 dictines and the Cistercians, by both of which orders the monastery of Helfta has been claimed.

There are no materials for the life of either of these saints beyond what is found in their own writings. These were first collected and adequately edited in the two Latin volumes published lr} 1875 by the Benedictines of Solesmes under the general title Revelationes Gertrudianae et Mechtildianae, but the contents were made up of several separate treatises.

In that called Legatus divinae pietatis, which is divided into five books, the second book was certainly written by Gertrude herself, books 3, 4 and 5 were composed under her guidance, and book I was compiled by her intimates shortly after her death. This work is the principal source of the little we know concerning her history and literary activities, but we also obtain sonle further information from the Liber specialis gratiae which has mainly to do with St Mechtildis and is printed in the second volume of the Revelationes. There is an excellent English life by Dom G. Dolan, St Gertrude the Great (1912), and one in French by G. Ledos (1901).

St Gertrude's influence upon the devotional feeling of her age has been well treated by E. Michael, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes vom dreizehnten Jahrhundert, vol. iii, pp. 174-211. Many articles and books have been written on this.mystic's anticipation of the special cultus of the Sacred Heart. See amongst the rest A. Hamon, Histoire de devotion au Sacre Creur. vol. ii; U. Berliere, La devotion au Sacre Creur dans l'Ordre de St Benoit (1920); K. RichsHitter, Herz-Jesu-Verehrung des deutsch. Mittelalters (1924). The question whether St Ciertrude was a Benedictine or a Cistercian has been much debated. See Dom U. Berliere in the Re'vue Benedictine, vol. xvi (1899), pp. 457-461; E. Michael in the Zeit足 schriftf. Kath. Theol., vol. xxiii (1899), pp. 548-552 ; and the Cistercienser Chronik for 1913, pp. 257-268. That she was much influenced by contact with the Franciscans has been shown in the Archi1.JUnl Franciscanum Historicum, vol. xix (1926), pp. 733-752. On Donna Matelda consult E. Gardner, Dante and the Mystics, p. 269.

ST EUCHERIUS,

BISHOP OF LYONS

(A.D. 449)

NEXT to Irenaeus, no name has done so great honour to the church of Lyons as that of Eucherius. By birth he was a Gallo-Roman of good position, and he married one called Galla, by whom he had two sons, Salonius and Veranus, ,vhom he placed in the monastery of Lerins; they both became bishops and both were venerated as saints. After a time Eucherius himself retired to Lerins. St John Cassian called Eucherius and Honoratus, Abbot of Lerins, the two models of that house of saints. Out of a desire of closer solitude St Eucherius left Lerins to settle in the neighbouring island now called Sainte-Marguerite. There he wrote his book in praise of the solitary life, which he addressed to St Hilary of ArIes, and to his cousin Valerian his incomparable exhortation 'which no one can read without being inspired with a contempt of the world and quickened to a strong resolution of making the service of God our only concern. Of the illusion of the world and the transitoriness of all its enjoyments he paints so striking a picture that it seems to pass like a flash of lightning before the eyes of the reader, making its appearance " I have seen ", he says, " men raised to the only to sink away in a moment. highest point of worldly honour and riches. Fortune seemed to be in their pay, throwing everything to them without their having the trouble of asking or seeking.

Their prosperity in all things outdid their very desires.

But in a moment they disappeared. Their vast possessions were fled, and the masters themselves were no more."

Eucherius who, as Cassian says, shone as a bright star in the world by the perfection of his virtue, was a model to the Illonastic order by the example of his life therein. At length he was forced from his retirement, and placed in the see

353

Nove~ber 16]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

of Lyons, probably in the year 434, in which he proved himself a faithful pastor, humble in mind, rich in good works, powerful in eloquence and accomplished in The foundation of several churches and religious establishments at knowledge.

Lyons is ascribed to him. He ended an excellent life by a holy death about 449.

St Paulinus of Nola, St Honoratus, St Hilary of Arles, St Sidonius and other great men of that age sought his friendship and commend his virtue. He was a copious writer, and Salvian wrote to him, " I have read the letters you sent me. They are sparing in words but full of doctrine, easy to read but perfect in their instruction.

In short, they are worthy of your abilities and of your piety." But not all the works attributed to St Eucherius were from his pen, and some others are doubtful. A letter of his is an important document in the history of the legend of St Maurice and the Theban Legion (September 22).

There is no formal biography, but Gennadius in his De viris illustribus devotes a brief notice to St Eucherius. His activities are discussed in some detail by Tillemont, Memoires, vol. xv, pp. 126-136 and 848-857, who convincingly disposes of the legend of a second Bishop Eucherius at Lyons. I-lis works are printed in Migne, PL., vol. I, and some of them have been re-edited in the Vienna Corpus scrip. eccles. lat.

On his literary activities see DTC., vol. v, cc. 1452-1454; and Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, vol. iv, pp. 561-57°. 1~he Laterculus of Polemius Silvius or Salvius, the best text of which is that of Mommsen in the Corpus inscrip. lat., vol. i (2nd edn.), pp. 254 seq., is dedicated to Eucherius.

ST AFAN,

BISHOP

(SIXTH CENTURY?)

IN the churchyard of Llanafan Fawr (i.e. Great Avanchurch), in the hills a few miles north-west of Builth Wells in the county of Brecknock, is an ancient tomb­ stone bearing the inscription Hie Iacet Sanctus Avanus Episcopus: "Here lies Saint Avan the Bishop." The existence of this stone, which naturally arouses the interest of the visitor or reader, is the sole reason for mentioning St Afan here, since nothing whatever is known about his life. The lettering is said to be not older than the end of the thirteenth century, but St Afan certainly lived long before that: by some he has been identified with a holy Afan, of the house of Cunedda and a kinsman of St David, who lived during the early part of the sixth century and was the leading holy man of his district, being known as Afan Buellt, i.e. of Builth. According to the local legend he was put to death by I rish raiders.

The following is related by Gerald the Welshman in the first chapter of the first book of his Itinerary through Wales: "In the reign of King Henry I, the lord of the castle of Radnor, the territory adjoining Builth, went into the church of St Afan (called Llanafan in the British tongue) and rashly and irreverently spent the night there with his hounds. When he got up early the next morning (as hunting men do), he found his hounds mad and himself blind. After living for years in darkness and misery he was taken on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for he took care that his inward sight should not similarly be put out. And there, being armed and led to the field on horseback, he spurred upon the enemies of the faith, was mortally wounded, and so ended his life with honour." An anecdote which tells us some­ thing about the religious ideas of the twelfth century, but unfortunately not.hing about St Afan.

See LBS., vol. i, s.v., and T. Jones's History of Brecknock, vol. ii, pp. edn.).

354

2~r;-226

(1008

ST EDMUND OF ABINGDON

ST

EDMUND (A.D.

OF

[November 16

ABINGDON,

ARCHBISHOP

OF

CANTERBURY

1240)

EDMUND was the eldest son of Reynold (or Edward) Rich of Abingdon in Berkshire and his wife Mabel, who were but slenderly provided with the goods of this world but were abundant in virtue and grace. Reynold in his middle years, having provided for his family, with his wife's free consent made his religious profession in the monastery of Eynsham, where he soon died. Mabel lived in a very austere way, and brought up her children both religiously and strictly. When Edmund was about twelve he went to school at Oxford, * and some three years later, accom­ panied by his brother Robert, to Paris to continue their studies there. The two boys were not unnaturally shy and nervous at leaving home and going so far on their own. The austere Mabel urged them to trust in God, and to encourage them gave each a hair-shirt, which they promised to wear. Edmund was recalled to England by the mortal sickness of his mother, and before she died she gave him her last blessing. Edmund begged the same for his brother and sisters, but she answered, " I have given them my blessing in you, for through you they \vill share abundantly in the blessings of Heaven", and she confided them to his care. The two girls wished to be nuns, and he placed them in the Benedictine nunnery of Catesby in Northamptonshire, where both were eminent for the sanctity of their lives, and died successively prioresses. Then Edmund went back to Paris to pursue his studies. Whilst he lived at Oxford he had consecrated himself to God by a VOVI of chastity, and this vow he observed with the utmost fidelity, sometimes in trying circumstances, as his biographer .narrates. His life as a student was exemplary and he was assiduous in his attendance at the Church's offices. He became regent in arts at Oxford, and was deeply immersed in the study and teaching of mathematics, until he seemed one night to see his mother in a dream, who, pointing to certain geometrical figures before him, asked him what all that signified?

When he explained they represented the subject of his lectures, she told him rather to make the worshipful Trinity the object of his studies.

From that time he gave himself up to theology, took his doctorate, and was ordained, either in Oxford or Paris. For eight years he was a lecturer in theology at Oxford and is said to have been the first to teach the logic of Aristotle in that university. He was a successful professor and preacher, and a number of his pupils attained distinction. He took a personal interest in them, especially were they poor or sick, but for himself carried on his mother's severe asceticism; an abbot of Reading noticed that he did not relax even in vacation time. About 1222 Edmund accepted a canonry, as treasurer, in the cathedral of Salisbury, with the prebend of CaIne, in Wiltshire, where he had to reside three months out of the twelve. One quarter of his income he gave to the building fund of the cathedral, and most of the rest to the poor, leaving himself destitute the greater part of the year, so that he had to seek the hospitality of Stanley Abbey, near CaIne. The abbot more than once rebuked him for his extravagance and lack of foresight. In 1227 Pope Gregory IX sent him an order to preach the crusade against the Saracens, with the right to receive a stipend from each church in which he should do so. â&#x20AC;˘ It was at this time he was said to have had a vision of the boy Jesus in the fields, who told him that whoever should before sleeping trace the words Jesus of Nazareth on his forehead 'should be preserved that night from sudden and unprepared death. Whence the custom of tracing the initials I.N.R.I., with a prayer to the same end.

355

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 16]

Edmund executed the commission with great zeal, but would accept no stipend.

When he preached his words were words of fire, which powerfully moved souls, and miracles were reported to attend his preaching at Worcester, Leominster and elsewhere. William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, who had lived a long time neglectful of the duties of a Christian, was converted by hearing a sermon which the saint preached and by conversing with him. St Edmund was one of the most experienced doctors of the interior life in the Church at that time, and he was solicitous to teach Christians to pray in affection and spirit. "A hundred thousand persons", he writes, " are deceived in multiplying prayers. I would rather say five \vords devoutly with my heart, than five thousand which my soul does not relish with affection and intelligence. Sing to the Lord with understanding: what a man repeats by his mouth, that let him feel in his soul." He so well united in himself the science of the soul with that of the schools, mystical theology with speculative, that he became a perfect contemplative.

The see of Canterbury had been long vacant, when, after three annulled elections, St Edmund was chosen to fill it. A deputation was sent to CaIne to give notice of his election, and to conduct him to his see. Edmund, who was till then, it is said, ignorant of these proceedings, protested against the office that was offered him. The deputies then applied to Bishop Robert of Salisbury, who exerted his authority to compel him to acquiesce. Edmund submitted, after much resistance, and was consecrated on April 2, 1234. A few days later he took part in a parliament at Westminster which solemnly warned the king, Henry III, of the state of his realm and called on him to dismiss his unworthy ministers. This Henry did, and sent St Edmund with other bishops to the west to negotiate a truce with Llewelyn of Wales and the disaffected nobles. He further acted as mediator in the kin'g's dealings with the disgraced ministers, Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, and others. About this time St Edmund appointed as his diocesan chancellor St Richard of Wych, afterwards bishop of Chichester, and he, together with Robert Rich the archbishop's brother, seem to have been by his side for the rest of his life. In 1237 St Edmund presided at King Henry's solemn ratification of the Great Charter in Westminster Abbey; but his marriage with Eleanor of Provence had opened the way to more ministers and favourites from abroad and, to strengthen his hand against his own barons, Henry obtained the appointment of a papal legate, Cardinal Otto. St Edmund went to the king and protested at what he had done, foretelling that the appointment of a legate would be the cause of more trouble in the kingdom. Cardinal Otto duly arrived, creating a good impression by refusing the presents \vhich were offered him on all sides, and presided at a council in St Paul's at which were promulgated a number of canons concerning the discipline of the clergy and the holding of benefices; but some of them favoured foreign incumbents at the expense of Englishmen and were received with protests. Soon Henry was playing the legate off against St Edmund and the English bishops and barons.

Love of peace and work for that end stand out prominently in the life and character of Edmund Rich, yet he chose to see his friends break with him and turn his persecutors, rather than approve or tolerate deviation from justice and right.

Their bitterness against him never altered the peace of his mind or his charity and tenderness towards them; and he seemed indifferent to any injuries or injustices that were done him. He used to say that tribulations were a food which God prepared for the nourishment of his soul, and that their bitterness was mixed with 35 6

ST EDMUND OF ABINGDON

[November 16

much sweetness, as it were a wild honey, with which his soul had need to be fed in the desert of this world, like John the Baptist in the wilderness. Nicholas Trivet, the English Dominican annalist, records that 8t Edmund had always some learned Dominican with him wherever he went, and that one of them, who lived to be very old, assured him that one day, when the saint had invited several persons to dine with him, he kept them waiting a long while before he came out. When dinner had been ready some time, Richard, his chancellor, went to call him, and found him in the chapel, raised a considerable height above the ground in prayer. 8t Edmund was of a friendly and affectionate disposition, and like other innocent people suffered from the censoriousness of others. When a lady whom he had befriended came from Catesby to pass Holy Week at Canterbury he said to her, " You are indeed welcome. And, if the world's judgements were not too harsh for the purity of our intentions, nothing should be allowed ever to part us from each other."

8t Edmund's troubles were far from being confined to resisting the encroach足 ments and injustices of the king in matters of church and state. The monks of Christ Church at Canterbury, who served the metropolitan cathedral, in defence of certain alleged rights and liberties, raised what was in effect a revolt against their archbishop. Though he offered a compromise, and the papal legate counselled them to submit, they carried on the controversy till it was a scandal throughout the land, and 8t Edmund took the matter to Rome in person in 1237. One evening while he was there he was summoned to the pope after Compline, and said the pope's message had come while he was at prayer. " You would make a good monk ", said Gregory laughing. " Would that I could be a good monk and free from all these troubles", replied 8t Edmund. "How happy and peaceful is the state of a monk!" But the Canterbury monks were not at all peaceful, and after he got back the archbishop had to excommunicate seventeen of them by name.

Then King Henry openly opposed himself to 8t Edmund and his suffragans, and Cardinal Otto did likewise, absolving those whom he had excommunicated, reversing decisions he had given in various high matters, and even usurping personal rights of the English primate. Then at a council at Reading the legate asked for a levy of one-fifth on the goods of the bishops and clergy to help the pope in his struggle \vith the Emperor Frederick II. Already there was bitter resentment against the holding of so many wealthy English benefices by non-resident papal nominees, generally Italians, and the consequent material and spiritual harm (the great opponent of this abuse was the holy Robert Grosseteste, whom 8t Edmund consecrated bishop of Lincoln), and the bishops turned to their primate for counsel. "M Y brethren ", said Edmund, " you know that we are in such difficult times that we would all rather be dead. We must make a virtue of necessity. For, while the pope drags us one way and the king the other, I do not see how we can resist. " Henry, in order to have the benefit of the revenues during vacancy, was in the habit of leaving offices and benefices in his gift unoceupied and of hindering the elections to others, with obvious hurt to the faithful. With great trouble and expense 8t Edmund had obtained a brief from Gregory IX that after six months' vacancy the metropolitan could present to any cathedral or monastic church.

Henry induced the pope to withdraw this brief, and it is not surprising that at this grave reverse 8t Edmund began to see himself as possibly another Thomas Becket.

I t had become almost impossible for him to administer his office, for whatever

357

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 16]

steps he took Cardinal Otto was liable to reverse them, and he decided to leave the country. After taking leave of the king and blessing the land, " standing on a hill [Shooters Hill ?] near the city of London ", he sailed from Thanet; and" looking back on England he wept bitterly, knowing in spirit that he would never see it again."

St Edmund went to the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, "where a refuge had been found by all prelates who had been exiled from England for justice's sake. . . .

Blessed Thomas the Martyr before the time of his martyrdom had awaited there for [two] years the reward of his life." During the few months he was there Edmund lived as one of the community, writing in the scriptorium and preaching in the neighbouring villages. In the summer of 1240 he went for his health to a priory of canons regular at Soissy. Here he died at dawn on Friday, November 16, after raising the excommunication on the Canterbury monks, and sending his hair-shirt to his brother Robert and his camlet cloak and a holy image to his sisters at Catesby. He was buried in the great church at Pontigny, where his body is still enshrined and venerated. St Edmund was canonized six years later, and his feast is kept in nearly every diocese of England and by the Cistercians, as well as at Meaux and Sens.

We are on the whole very well informed regarding the history of St Edmund. Besides the abundant ~otices in Matthew Paris and several other contemporary chroniclers, there are at least four independent biographies of serious value.

Unfortunately we have no certain knowledge as to their respective authors, and though there is good reason to suppose that Robert Rich, St Edmund's brother, Bertrand, a Cistercian who was prior of Pontigny, Matthew Paris, Eustace, a monk of Canterbury, and Robert Bacon the Dominican, an uncle or brother of the more celebrated Roger Bacon the Franciscan, all wrote lives of the arch足 bishop, there is no agreement as to which writer is responsible for which life. The longest and perhaps the most satisfactory of these texts is that printed in the Thesaurus novus anecdotorum of Martene and Durand, vol. iii, pp. 1775-1826. The second has been edited

by W. Wallace in his Life of St Edmund of Canterbury (1893), pp. 543-583, and with this two others, pp. 589-624. Besides this excellent work we have lives by the Baroness de Paravicini (1898), by Bishop Bernard Ward (1903), and by M. R. Newbolt (1928). See also an article by H. W. C. Davis in the English Historical Review, vol. xxii (1907), pp. 84-92 ; the Dublin Review for October, 1904, pp. 229-237, and a criticism of this last in the preface to the Eynsham Cartulary edited by H. E. Salter (1907-1908) ; and A. B. Emden, An Oxford Hall in Medieval Times (1927). Some theological treatises written by St Edmund seem to have remained in manuscript unrecognized, as has been shown by Mgr Lacombe in Melanges Mandonnet (1930), vol. ii, pp. 163-191, under the title of " Quaestion'es Aber足 donenses."

Edmund's sisters, Alice and Margaret, are mentioned by the Bollandists among the praetermissi; and cf. B. Camm in Revue benedictine, vol. x ( 1893), p. 314.

ST AGNES OF ASSISI,

VIRGIN

(A.D. 1253)

IN the account of St Clare (August 12) it has been told how she left her parents' house at Assisi in order to become a nun under the direction of St Francis; and it was mentioned that when she was placed temporarily at the Benedictine convent of Sant' Angelo di Panzo she was there joined by her sister Agnes, who was then about fifteen years old. In the Chronicle of the Twenty-four Generals there is a circumstantial account of the brutal violence with which her relatives tried to get St Agnes away again and the miracles by which they were thwarted and her deter足 mination upheld; but no mention of any such occurrences is made in Pope Alexander IV's bull of canonization of St Clare. St Francis gave Agnes the habit as she desired, and sent her with her sister to San Damiano. Eight years later, 35 8

[November 16

BD ,LOUIS MORBIOLI

when St Francis established the convent of Monticelli at Florence, Agnes was made its abbess, and from there she is said to have supervised the foundations at Mantua, Venice, Padua and other places. Under her wise direction Monticelli became hardly less famous than San Damiano itself, and St Agnes firmly upheld her sister in her long struggle for the privilege of complete poverty. In August 1253 she was summoned to Assisi to be \vith St Clare during her last hours, when it is said that the dying saint declared her sister would soon follow her. In fact, St Agnes died on November 16 following, and was buried at San Damiano till 1260, when her body joined that of her sister in the new church of Santa Chiara at Assisi. The tomb of St Agnes was made glorious by miracle~, and her feast was granted to the Franciscans by Pope Benedict XIV. A touching letter written by 8t Agnes to 5t Clare, after having to leave San Damiano for Monticelli in 1219, is still extant.

For the account devoted to her in the Chronica XXIV Generalium, see the Analecta Franciscana, vol. iii (1897), pp. 173-182. She is also several times spoken of in the early volumes of Wadding's Annales Ordinis Minorum. Naturally St Agnes figures in all lives of her sister, e.g. that by Locatelli. Consult also the bibliography under August 12, St Clare, and Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 66-70.

BD LOUIS MORBIOLI A METRICAL life of this beatus, adorned with classical allusions and figures after the manner then fashionable, was written a few years after his death by the Car足 melite friar Baptist of Mantua. Louis belonged to a bourgeois family of Bologna where he was born in 1433. He was a handsome young man, who soon married, but led a careless and at times sinful life. But in 1462, while he was staying in the monastery of the canons regular of St Saviour at Venice, Louis was ta~en very ill, and the threat to his life, aided by the exhortations of his hosts, brought about a complete change in him. From being a scandal, he became an example to Bologna and his inward conversion was manifested by his outward appearance: the man of fashion now wore the same thin, plain garments summer and winter, and no longer curled and dressed his hair. After he had made provision for her, the wife of Louis agreed to a separation, and he then began to go from place to place preaching repentance. He begged alms for the poor, taught Christian doctrine to the young and ignorant, and did not care how ridiculous he seemed to make himself to the eyes of his former associates. In his moments of leisure he amused himself by carving images in bone and wood. During the last years of his life his lodging was below the staircase of a Bolognese mansion, and \vhen his last illness began he resolutely refused to see a doctor. Instead, he asked for the sacraments, and when he had received them with great devotion he died, on November 9, 1485.

He was buried in the cemetery of the cathedral, but so many miracles were attri足 buted to his intercession that the body was soon translated to within the building.

During alterations and rebuilding in the cathedral a hundred years later the site of his grave was lost and has never been recovered; but this did not interrupt the cuitus of Bd Louis Morbioli, which was confirmed in 1843. The Carmelites claim that Bd Louis became a secular tertiary of their order after his conversion, and they keep his feast today.

The metrical life by Baptista Mantuanus is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iv, pp. 288-297, where it is remarked that the author does not indulge in poetic licence and depends on his own or eye-witnesses' knowledge. The Bollandists refer also to other

359

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works. There seems to be some little doubt about the chronology. 'rhere is an account in the Analecta Juris Pontificii, vol. xix (1880), pp. 1043 seq.; and in R. McCaffrey, The White Friars (1926), pp. 62-63.

BD GRATIA OF CATTARO

(A.D.

1508)

ACCORDING to tradition Gratia was a native of Cattaro (Kotor) in Dalmatia who followed the trade of the sea till he was thirty years old. Coming one day into a church at Venice he was deeply impressed by a sermon from an Augustinian friar, Father Simon of Camerino. Gratia determined to enter that order and was accepted as a lay-brother at Monte Ortono, near Padua. Here Brother Gratia was employed in the gardens, and soon earned the respect and veneration of the whole convent. When he was transferred to the friary of St Christopher at Venice a mysterious light was seen above his cell, and miracles took place at his intercession.

When the church was being repaired and he was working on the building, a cistern was marvellously supplied with water all through a dry summer, and the water remained fresh even when the sea got into it. In his seventy-first year Gratia was taken seriously ill, and insisted on getting out of bed to receive the last sacraments on his knees; he died on November 9, 1508. The cuitus of Bd Gratia was confirrned in 1889, and his feast is kept by the Augustinians on this day.

See the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. iv, pp. 297-304. The earliest accounts (S. Lazarini, in Italian, 1643; Eliseus Polonus, in Latin, 1677) were not compiled till over a century after Gratia's death; all writings on him seem to go back to a common source.

A more recent Italian life is by N. Mattioli (1890); and there is one in Serbo-Croat by I. Matovic (1910).

BD LUCY OF NARNI, VIRGIN THE treasurer of the commune of Narni in Umbria during the second half of the fifteenth century was a certain Nicholas Brocadelli, who married Gentilina Cassio and became by her the father of eleven children. The eldest of these was Lucy, who was born at Narni in 1476. At an early age she determined to consecrate herself to God, but, her father being dead, her guardians had other views for her, and when she was fourteen tried to betroth her by force. Lucy threw the ring to the floor, slapped the suitor's face, and ran out of the room. In the following year another young man was brought forward, a certain Count Peter, and Lucy, after resisting at first, agreed to marry him, having been recommended to do so by a vision of our Lady and by the advice of her confessor. The Congregation of Sacred Rites in granting to Bd Lucy in 1729 the l\lass and Office of a virgin has accepted the evidence for the union of her and Peter being only nominally marital, and after about three years her husband told her she was free to do whatever she liked. Whereupon she withdrew to her mother's house, received the habit of the Dominican third order, and joined a community of regular tertiaries in Rome. A little later she went to a similar convent at Viterbo. Here Bd Lucy received the stigmata, and when to these were added a sensible participation in the sufferings of the Passion, which happened, accompanied by loss of blood, every Wednesday and Friday for the three years that she remained at Viterbo, her state could not be concealed. She was examined, sceptically enough, by the local inquisitor, by the Master of the Sacred Palace, by a Franciscan bishop, and by the physician of the

360

BD LUCY OF NARNI

[November 16

pope himself, Alexander VI. 'fhey were all convinced of the genuineness of the phenomena. Finally Count Peter came to see; he was convinced too, and is said in consequence to have joined the Friars Minor.

The fame of Bd Lucy came to Ercole I, Duke of Ferrara, who had a deep admiration for the memory of St Catherine of Siena and was a sincere friend of such contemporary holy women as Bd Stephana Quinzani, Bd Columba of Rieti and Bd Osanna of Mantua. He obtained the pope's permission and her agreement to found a convent for Lucy at Ferrara. Great difficulties were put in the way of her leaving Viterbo, and in the end she had to be smuggled out of the town in a clothes-basket strapped to the back of a mule. But Bd Lucy was only twenty-three years old and she had not the natural qualities necessary to a superior; moreover, Ercole d'Este was a man of large ideas and wanted his new convent (on whose building and decoration he spent large sums of money) to house not less than a hundred sisters, so he invited none other than Lucretia Borgia (who had just become his daughter-in-law) to help him in his quest for subjects. These came from several quarters, some of them were not at all suitable, and Lucy's task became more and more difficult. She was deposed from office and her place taken

by Sister Mary of Parma, who was not a tertiary at all but a Dominican nun of the so-called second order, to which she wanted to affiliate the whole community. In 15째5 Bd Lucy's ducal protector died, and from being a " fashionable mystic" and the protegee of d'Este she sank into complete obscurity and so remained for thirty-nine years. Moreover, the new prioress treated her with a severity that was not short of persecution: the parlour was closed to her, she might speak to nobody except the confessor who was appointed for her, a sister was told off to be always in charge of her. It was during these weary years, unjustly condemned by the sisters of the house she had been brought with so much trouble from Viterbo to found, that Bd Lucy became a saint. Not a word of impatience or complaint is heard, even when she is ill and left unattended. So completely did she allow herself to be effaced that when she died on November IS, 1544, the people of Ferrara were astonished to hear that she had been still alive: they thought she was dead years ago. Immediately popular veneration was aroused, soon her body had to be translated to a more public resting-place, and many miracles were claimed. This cultus of Bd I..iucy of Narni was confirmed in 1710.

There is plenty of evidence available concerning the early mystical life of this beata.

Edmund Gardner in his book Dukes and Poets in Ferrara (1904), has left us a graphic account of the more memorable incidents connected with her; see pp. 366-381, 401-404 and 465-467. His description is largely based upon the work of L. A. Gandini, Sulla venuta in Ferrara della beata Lucia da Narni (1901), and upon the Vita della beata Lucia di Narni of Domenico Ponsi (171 I). In connection with this last there is a curious supplement printed in 1740, Aggiunta allibro della Vita deLLa B. Lucia. In this we have a bibliography of earlier publications concerning Lucy, but the substance of the book is taken up \vith the attempt made by the Franciscans of l\;lajorca to suppress a printed picture of her in which she was represented with the stigmata. 'The Franciscans contended that by a decree of Sixtus IV (a Franciscan) it had been forbidden under pain of excommunication to represent anyone except St Francis himself as marked with the stigmata. The case was referred to Rome and by a decree of 1740 the matter was decided in favour of the Dominicans. The question of the reality of Lucy's stigmata had been very thoroughly investigated by Duke Hercules of Ferrara himself, and his letter on the subject printed in the booklet Spiritualium personarum facta admiratione digna (1501)-there is a copy in the British Museum-is a document of great interest.

See also another letter of his in G. Marcianese, Narratione della nascita, etc., della b. Lucia di Narni (1616).

NOf)~er

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

17]

17 : ST GREGORY THE WONDERWORKER,

BISHOP OF NEOCAESAREA

(A.D. 268)

T

HEODORE, afterwards called Gregory, and from his miracles surnamed Thaumaturgus or Worker of Wonders, was of N eocaesarea in Pontus, born of parents eminent in rank and pagan in religion. At fourteen years of age he lost his father, but continued his education, which was directed towards a career in the law. His sister going to join her husband, an official at Caesarea in Palestine, Gregory accompanied her with his brother Athenodorus, who was afterwards a bishop and suffered much for the faith of Jesus Christ. Origen had arrived at Caesarea a little before and opened a school there, and at the first meeting with Gregory and his brother discerned in them capacity for learning and disposi足 tions to virtue which encouraged him to inspire them with a love of truth and an eager desire of attaining the sovereign good of man. Fascinated with his discourse, they entered his school and laid aside all thoughts of going to the law-school of Bairut, as they had originally intended. Gregory does justice to Origen by assuring us that he excited them to virtue no less by his example than by his words; and tells us that he inculcated that in all things the most valuable knowledge is that of the first cause, and thus he led them on to theology. He opened to their view all that the philosophers and poets had written concerning God, showing what was true and what ,vas erroneous in the doctrines of each and demon足 strating the incompetence of human reason alone for attaining to certain know足 ledge in the nlost important of all points, that of religion. The conversion of the brothers to Christianity was complete and they continued their studies under their master for some years, going back home about the year 238. Before he took leave of Origen, Gregory thanked him publicly in an oration before a large audience, in which he extols the method and wisdom by which his great master conducted him through his studies, and gives interesting particulars of the way in \vhich Origen taught. A letter also is extant from the master to the disciple: he calls Gregory his respected son and exhorts him to employ for the service of religion all the talents which he had received from God and to borrow from the heathen philosophy what might serve that purpose, as the Jews converted the spoils of the Egyptians to the building of the tabernacle of the true God. On his return to N eocaesarea St Gregory intended to practice law, but within a short time, although there were only seventeen Christians in the town, he was appointed to be its bishop; but of his long episcopate few certain particulars have come down to us. St Gregory of Nyssa gives a good deal of information in his panegyric of the saint with regard to the deeds which earned him the title of Wonderworker, but there is little doubt that a good deal of it is legendary. How足 ever, it is known that Neocaesarea was rich and populous, deeply buried in vice and idolatry, that St Gregory, animated with zeal and charity, applied himself vigorously to the charge committed to him, and that God was pleased to confer upon him an extraordinary power of working miracles. St Basil tells us that U through the co-operation of the Spirit, Gregory had a formidable power over evil spirits; he altered the course of rivers in the name of Christ; he dried up a lake that was a cause of dissension between two brothers; and his foretelling of the future made him equal with the other prophets. . . . Such were his signs and 362

ST GREGORY THE WONDERWORKER

[November 17

wonders that both friends and enemies of the truth looked on him as another Moses." lit: When he first took possession of his see Gregory accepted the invitation of Musonius, a person of importance in the city, and lodged with him. That very day he began to preach and before night had converted a number sufficient to form a little church. Early next morning the doors were crowded with sick persons, whom he cured at the same time that he wrought the conversion of their souls.

Christians soon became so numerous that the saint was enabled to build a church for their use, to which all contributed either money or labour. The circumstances in which St Gregory caused Alexander the Charcoal-burner to be chosen bishop of Comana have been narrated in the notice of that saint on August I I ; and his wisdom and tact caused him to be referred to in civil as well as religious causes, and then his interrupted legal studies came in useful. Gregory of Nyssa and his brother Basil learned much of what was currently said about the Wonderworker from their grandmother, St Macrina, who was born in Neocaesarea about the time of his death. St Basil says that the whole tenor of his life expressed the height of evangelical fervour. In his devotion he sho\,ted the greatest reverence and re­ collection and never covered his head at prayer, and he loved simplicity and modesty of speech: "yea" and " nay" were the measure of his ordinary conversation.

He abhorred lies and falsehood; no anger or bitterness ever appeared in his words or behaviour.

The persecution of Decius breaking out in 250, St Gregory advised his flock rather to hide than to expose themselves to the danger of losing their faith; he himself withdrew into the desert, accompanied only by a pagan priest whom he had converted and who was then his deacon.

The persecutors were informed that he was concealed upon a certain mountain and sent soldiers to apprehend him.

They returned, saying they had seen nothing but two trees; upon which the informer went to the place and, finding the bishop and his deacon at their prayers, whom the soldiers had mistaken for two trees, judged their escape to have been miraculous and became a Christian. The persecution was followed by a plague, and the plague by an irruption of Goths into Asia Minor, so that it is not surprising to find that, with these added to the ordinary cares and duties of the episcopate, St Gregory was not a voluminous writer. What these cares and duties were he sets out in his " Canonical Letter", occasioned by problems arising from the barbarian raids. It is stated that St Gregory organized secular amusements in connection with the annual commemorations of the martyrs, which attracted pagans as well as popularizing the religious gatherings among Christians: doubtless, too, he had it in mind that the martyrs were honoured by happy recreation in addition to formally religious observances. But he " is the sole missionary we know of, during these first three centuries, who employed such methods; and he was a highly-educated Greek".

A little before his death St Gregory Thaumaturgus inquired how many infidels yet remained in the city, and being told there were seventeen he t~ankfully acknow­ ledged as a great mercy that, having found but seventeen Christians at his coming I

â&#x20AC;˘ Alban Butler narrates the famous miraculous removal of a great stone, which in the Dialogues of St Gregcry the Great becomes a mountain. When the feast of St Gertrude was to be added to the Western calendar in 1738 it was found that her dies natalis coincided with that of St Gregory. Clement XII thought that a saint who moved mountains should not himself be moved, even by a pope, and St Gertrude's feast was assigned to the 15th.

36 3

November 17]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

thither, he left but seventeen idolaters. Having then prayed for their conversion, and the confirmation and sanctification of those that believed in the true God, he enjoined his friends not to procure him any special place of burial but that, as he lived as a pilgrim in the world claiming nothing for himself, so after death he might enjoy the common lot. His body is said to have been ultimately transferred to a Byzantine monastery in Calabria, and there is considerable local cultus of St Gregory in southern Italy and Sicily, where he is invoked in times of earthquake and, on account of his miracle of stopping the flooding of the River Lycus, against inunda足 tions.

Apart from what Gregory himself tells us about his relations with Origen, and sundry casual allusions which we find in the writings of St Basil, St Jerome and Eusebius, the information which we possess concerning this saint is of a very unsatisfactory character.

The panegyric by St Gregory of Nyssa recounts many marvels, but says little of his history, and even less confidence can be placed in the Syriac life (the best text is in '3edjan, Acta Martyrum , vol. vi, 1896, pp. 83-106). Besides this there is an Armenian life and one in Latin, both of little value. See also Ryssel, Gregorius Thaumaturgus, sein Leben und srine Schriften (188o); Funk in the Theologische Quartalschrift for 1898, pp. 81 seq. ,. Journal of Theological Studies for 1930, pp. 142-155. A valuable article by M. Jugie on the sermons attributed to St Gregory is in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xliii (1925), pp. 86-<)5. Here it is clearly shown that most of these attributions are unreliable, but Fr J ugie inclines to accept the authenticity of one of those preserved in Armenian, though he rejects that which F. C. Conybeare translated into English in the Expositor for 1896, pt I, pp. 161-173. Critics, however, seem generally agreed in admitting the genuineness of the panegyric of Origen, the treatise on the Creed, the canonical epistle, and the dissertation addressed to Theopompus ; this last only exists in Syriac. The greater part of the writings printed under the n~me of St Gregory Thaumaturgus in Migne, PG., vol. x, are either gravely suspect or certainly spurious.

See Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, vol. ii, pp. 315-332.

ST DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA

(A.D. 265)

ST BASIL and other Greek writers honour this prelate with the epithet of " the Great", and he is called by St Athanasius the" Teacher of the Catholic Church".

Alexandria, which was the place of his education, was then the centre of the sciences, and Dionysius whilst yet a heathen gave himself to learning. He assures us that he was converted to the Christian faith by a vision and a voice which spake to him, as well as by diligent re;:tding and an impartial examination. He became a scholar in the catechetical school of Origen, and made such progress that when Heraclas was made bishop the care of that school was committed to Dionysius, who conducted it for fifteen years. In 247 he was himself chosen bishop. Soon after the populace, stirred up by a certain heathen prophet at Alexandria, raised a fierce persecution, of which St Dionysius wrote an account to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch; then the edict of Decius put arms into the hands of the enenlies of the Christians, and directly the decree reached Alexandria the governor sent a troop to arrest the bishop. They looked everywhere for him except in his house, where he was all the time, but at the end of four days he left it with his household to try and get a\vay. They were seen and arrested, except one servant, who told a peasant whom he met going to a wedding what had happened. The peasant was not a Christian but seemed glad of an excuse to fight the police, for he rushed off and told the wedding party, who " with a single impulse " as if by agreement, ran to the rescue and drove off the guards. St Dionysius thought the wedding-guests \vere robbers and offered them his clothes. Then when it was explained that he was free he was grieved at losing a martyr's crown and refused to budge. The Egyptians did not

364

ST DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA

[Nc'vember 17

understand this idea at all, so they seized him, put him on a donkey, and drove him to a place of refuge in the Libyan desert. Here Dionysius remained \\lith two companions, governing the church of Alexandria from thence, until the per足 secution ceased.

Then the Church was rent by the schism formed by Novatian against Pope St Cornelius. 1"'he antipope sent him a request for his support, ahd 5t Dionysius answered, " You ought to have suffered all things rather than have caused a schism in the Church. To die in defence of its unity would be as glorious as laying dO\\ln one's life for its faith; in my opinion, more glorious: because here the safety of the ","hole Church is concerned. If you bring your brethren back to union your fault will be forgotten. If you cannot gain others, at least save your O\\'n souL" In opposition to the heresy of N ovatian, who denied to the Church the power of remitting certain sins, he ordered that communion should be refused to no one that asked it in the right dispositions at the hour of death. \Vhen Fabius of Antioch seen1ed inclined to favour the rigorism of N ovatian towards the lapsed, Dionysius wrote him several letters against that principle. In one he relates that an old man called Serapion, of hitherto blameless life, had offered pagan sacrifice and had therefore been refused communion. In his last sickness he could get absolution from no one, till he cried out, " Why am I detained here? I beg to be delivered." Then he sent his little grandson to a priest who, being sick and not able to come, sent the Holy Eucharist by the child (for during persecutions the Blessed Sacrament is allowed to be so carried and received in domestic communion).

So the aged rnan died in peace. St Dionysius contends that his life was miracul足 ously preserved that he might receive communion. At this time a pestilence began to rage and rnade great havoc for several years. St Dionysius left an account of its terrors, in which he contrasts the behaviour of the Christians, many of whom died martyrs of charity, with the selfishness-and greater mortality-of the pagans.

In opposing the false opinion that Christ \vill reign on earth with his elect a thousand years before the day of judgement Dionysius showed himself a keen scriptural critic, and in his enthusiasm against dogmatic error used arguments against S1 John's authorship of the .A.pocalypse which seventeen hundred years later were revived by " higher critics". St Dionysius took part also in the controversy about baptisms by heretics, in which he seems to have inclined to the view that such baptisms \vere invalid but followed the practice directed by Pope St Stephen I. This indefatigable bishop also had to proceed against some of his brethren in the Pentapolis who professed Sabellianism.

In "'Titing against them he vented opinions which caused him to be delated to his namesake. Pope St Dionysius. rrhe pope wrote expounding the bishop's errors, whereupon he iJublished an explanation of his teaching.

Persecution being renewed by Valerian in 257, Emilian, prefect of Egypt, had St Dionysius with some of his clergy brought before him and pressed them to sacrifice to the gods, the protectors of the empire. St Dionysius replied, " All rnen do not \\'orship the same deities. \Ve worship one only God, the creator of all things, who has besto\ved the empire on Valerian and Gallienus. \Ve offer up prayers to Him for the peace and prosperity of their reign." The prefect tried to persuade them to worship the Roman deities with their own God, and then sent them into banishment to Kephro in Libya.

The .exile of St Dionysius this time lasted for two years, but when he \vas allowed to return to his see in 260 it was to a distracted city. A political upheaval 365

'fIlE LIVES OF l"'IIE SAINTS

N07.'cmbl'r 17]

brought on Alexandria all the evils of civil war, and it was a prey to violence of all sorts. Trifling incidents caused riots. '-fhe town ran to arms, the streets were filled \vith dead bodies, and the gutters ran with blood. The peaceable demeanour of the Christians could not protect them from violence, as 8t Dionysius complains, and a man could neither keep at home nor stir out of doors without danger. He even had to communicate with his people by letter, for it was easier, he wrote, to go from East to West than from Alexandria to Alexandria. Plague again added its havoc, and, whilst the Christians attended the sick with care and charity, the heathen threw putrid carcases into the high\vays, and often put their dying friends out of doors and left them to perish in the streets. 1'owards the end of the year 265 8t Dionysius died at Alexandria, after he had governed that church \vith great wisdom and sanctity about seventeen years. His memory, says 8t Epiphanius, was preserved there by a church dedicated in his honour, but much more by his virtues and writings, of which only a few fragments have survived.

St Dionysius of Alexandria is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on this day, and also on October 3, where he is erroneously named as a martyr together with his companions in his first exile and others. He is commemorated in the canon of the Syrian and Maronite Mass.

Almost all we know of St Dionysius is derived from Eusebius and frorn the extracts from the saint's letters which Eusebius has preserved for us. There are a few references to him in the writings of St Athanasius and other early fathers, but they do not amount to much.

The best edition of Dionysius's literary remains is that of C. L. Feltoe (1904), "vho has also produced (1918) another book of translations and comments. There is an exhaustive article devoted to this Dionysius by Abbot Chapman in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

See also Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, vol. ii, pp. 206-237; DTC., vol. iv (1911), ce. 425-427; the Journal of Theologic'tll Studies, vol. xxv (T924), pp. 364-377 ; the Zeitschnjt f. N.-T. Wissenschaft, 1924, pp. 235-247; the monographs of F. Dittrich (1867) and J. Burel (1910); and I-L Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs . .. (1921), pp.

4 2 9-435.

SSe ALPHAEUS

AND

ZACHAEUS,

MARTYRS

(A.D.

303)

IN the first year of Diocletian's general persecution, upon the approach of the games for celebrating the twentieth year of his reign, the governor of Palestine obtained the emperor's pardon for all criminals, Christians only excepted. At that very time, Zachaeus, deacon at Gadara beyond the Jordan, was apprehended. He was inhumanly scourged, then torn with iron combs, and afterwards thrown into prison, where his feet were stretched to the fourth hole of the stocks, by which his body was almost rent asunder: yet he lay in this condition very cheerfully, praising God night and day. Here he was soon joined by Alphaeus, a native of Eleutheropolis, of a good family, and lector in the church of Caesarea. In the persecution he boldly encouraged the faithful to constancy and, being seized, baffled the prefect at his first examination and was committed to prison. At a second appearance in court, his flesh was torn first with whips, then with hooks; after which he was cast into the dungeon with Zachaeus and put in like manner in the stocks. In a third examination they were both condemned to die, and were beheaded together on November 17, 303.

We know nothing of these martyrs beyond what Eusebius has recorded in his Martyrs of Palestine, bk 1, ch. 5. See CMH., pp. 604-605.

366

ST GREGORY OF TOURS

SSe ACISCLUS

AND

[November 17

VICTORIA, l\IARTYRS

(FOURTH CENTURY?)

THESE martyrs \\~ere considered of sufficient importance to \yarrant their being accorded a proper office in the l\lozarabic liturgy, and it is often said that they suffered under Diocletian; but there is no agreement \\·ithin a hundred years or more as to \vhen they lived and died. In his 111emorial of the Saints St Eulogius says they belonged to Cordova and \\·ere brother and sister. Having been de­ nounced as Christians they were committed to prison, and beaten and tortured to induce them to apostatize. They were eventually put to death in the amphi­ theatre, Acisclus by beheading and Victoria by piercing \\,ith arro\ys.

1'heir bodies \vere buried by the matron l\linciana at her country-house, \\·here later a church \\·as built, at \vhich many martyrs under the Arab persecution \\·ere buried.

Although the medieyal passio (printed in Florez, Espalza sagrada, vol. x, pp. 485-49 I) is no better than a pious fiction, and there seems to he no \varran t for the existence of any such person as \"ictoria, Acisclus \\"as an unquestionably genuine martyr. He is mentioned

by Prudentius, and entered in the Hieronymianum (see C:\lH., pp. 606-607) under ~oven1ber 18, \\·ith the curious addition that on this day roses are gathered". His name also occurs in a Spanish inscription of the early sixth century referring to relics, as noted in J. Yiyes, lnsrripriones cristianas de fa Espana romana y 'L'isigoda (1942), no. 3 I 6.

I.

ST ANIANUS, OR AIGNAN, BISHOP OF ORLEA:\S

(c.

A.D.

453)

ANIA:\US \\·as born in \'"ienne and, after living a hermit's life there for some time, \\"ent to Orleans, attracted by the reputation of its holy bishop, Evurtius. By him Anianus \\·as ordained priest. Towards the end of his life 8t Evurtius determined to resign his bishopric, and summoned an assernbly to appoint a successor. Ac­ cording to a legend the names of the candidates \vere put in a vessel and, the lot having been dra\\·n by a child, it fell upon St Anianus; lest this should be but chance, the choice \\·as confirmed by the sortes biblicae. \ Yhen he came to take possession of his cathedral, Anianus asked the governor of the city according to custom to release all the prisoners \\·ho \\·ere in gaol. T'he governor refused until, having had a near escape from death, he took this to be a \\"arning from Heaven and did as the ne\\' bishop had requested.

In the year 45 I Orleans \\"as threatened by ~~ttila and his Huns and, as in many other examples at this time, the credit of saving the city \\'as given to its bishop.

St .:\nianus helped to organize the defences and encourage the people, and appealed urgently to the Roman general A.etius to come to their help. .A.etius \\"as slo\\" in moving, the to\\·n \\·as taken, and the 1-1 uns had already begun to carry off their booty and captives, \\'hen they had to turn and defend themselves against the troops of Aetius, \\"ho drove thenl from Orleans and across the Seine. St Anianus died t\yO years later at a great age.

The t\VO LatIn li\"es of this saInt are late in date and unrellable. 1'he better of the t\VO has heen edited by B. Krusch in .\IGH .. Srriptores ]lero7'., yol. iii. pp. 104--1 17. ~t Gregory of l'ours also describes in son1e detail the relief of Orleans when attacked by Attila, and attributes it to 8t Aignan. See further C. Duhan, l"ie de Sf ~~ignan (1877), and L. Duchesne, Fastes Episropazo:, yol. ii, p. 460.

ST GREGORY, BISHOP OF TOCRS

(A.D.

594)

THE best-kno\vn bishop of the early church of 1'ours after St :\Iartin \\·as Georgius Florentius, \",ho after\yards took the name of Gregory. lIe \vas born in 538 at

367

November 17]

'rHE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Clermont-Ferrand of a distinguished family of Auvergne: he was a great-grandson of St Gregory of I..tangres and a nephew of St Gallus of Clermont, to whom he was entrusted as a boy on the death of his father. Gallus died when Gregory was sixteen and, a serious illness having turned his mind to God's service, he began the study of the Scriptures under St Avitus I, then a priest at Clermont. In 573, in accordance with the wishes of King Sigebert I and the people of Tours, Gregory was appointed to succeed St Euphronius as bishop there.

It was a much-troubled age in Gaul, and Tours was a particularly troubled diocese. After three years of war at the beginning of St Gregory's episcopate it came into the hands of King Chilperic, who was very averse from the new hishop, and Gregory consequently had to deal with powerful enemies. He gave sanctuary to Chilperic's son Meroveus, in defiance of the step-mother Fredegund, and firmly supported St Praetextatus of Rouen whom Chilperic summoned on a charge of having blessed the marriage of Meroveus with his step-aunt Brunhilda. Then one Leudastis, whom Gregory had caused to be removed from the countship of Tours as unworthy, accused him to the king of political disloyalty and of having slandered Queen Fredegund. lIe was accordingly arraigned before a council, wherein he purged himself of the charge on oath and behaved with such propriety that the bishops acquitted him and ordered Leudastis to be punished as a false witness.

Chilperic, like many another monarch of those times, fancied himself as a theologian, and here again St Gregory came into conflict with him, for he could not dissimulate that the royal theology was bad and the manner in which it was set out even worse.

Chilperic, however, died in 584 and Tours was held first by Guntram of Burgundy and then by Childebert II; these sovereigns were friendly to Gregory and he was able to go on unhampered with the varied work of his diocese and with his writings.

Faith and good works were much increased in Tours under Gregory's adminis­ tration. He rebuilt his cathedral and several other churches, and a number of heretics were brought over to unity of faith by him, though he was no great theologian. St Odo of Cluny extols his humility, zeal for religion and charity towards all, especially his enemies. Several miracles are ascribed to St Gregory of Tours, which he attributed to the intercession of St Martin and other saints whose relics he always carried about him.

Though Gregory was one of the most effect!ve of the Merovingian bishops, he is best remembered today as a historian and hagiographer. His History of the Franks is an original source for the early history of the French monarchy and gives a great deal of information about himself. His books" of the Glory of the Mar­ tyrs " and of other saints, " of the Glory of the Confessors", and " of the Lives of the Fathers" are less valuable as history. He was writing according to the taste of his day, and an excessive preponderance is given to legends and marvels, marvels of which he was only occasionally critical. As Alban Butler moderately puts it, " In his ample collections of miracles he seems often to have given credit to popular reports ".

What we know of the life of St Gregory of Tours is mainly derived from his oV/n works, with some little supplementary information which comes to us from Venantius Fortunatus or contemporary records. There is a life (it is printed in Migne, PL., vol. lxxi, cc. 115-128), but it was compiled only in the tenth century, and is of little independent value. A great deal has been written about Gregory of Tours, but less from a hagiographical point of view than as a study of his writings. One of the most notable contributions to this aspect of the subject ·is that of G. Kurth, Histoire poetique des Mirovingiens (1893); but see also the Etudes Franques (1919), pp. 1-29 of the same author; L. Halphen in Melanges Lot (1925),

368

ST HILDA.

[No1-'ember 17

pp. 235-244; B. Krusch in lvlittheilunJ:en Inst. Oester. Gesrhirhfe (1931). pp. 486-490 ; DAC" vol. vi, cc. 171 1-1753; and Delehaye, " Les Recueils des ~liracles des Saints" in Analerta Bollandiana, vol. xliii (1925), pp. 305-325.

T'he lnost satisfactory edition of the historical \vorks of Gregory is that of Krusch and I ... evison in ~l(af., Srripfores l\1!ero7.'., vol. i, pt I (1937-5 I). 'l'here is an interesting article on the saint by Harman Grisewood in Saints and ()urseh'es (1953), pp. 25-40.

ST HILDA,

I\BBESS OF \YHITllY, VIRGIN

(A.D. 680)

THE cultus of this great abbess must have been recognized almost at once after her death, for her name appears in the calendar of St \Yillibrord, \\Titten at the beginning of the eighth century.

Hilda (liild) was the daughter of Hereric, nephe\v of St Ed\vin, King of ~orthumbria, and she \\'as baptized by St Paulinus together \\'ith that prince, \vhen she \\'as thirteen years old. 'I'he first thirty-three years of her life, says St Bede, " she spent living most nobly in the secular state; and n10re nobly dedicated the remaining half to the L,ord as a nun". She went into the kingdom of the East Angles, \\'here her cousin, King A.nna, reigned; her idea \vas to retire to the monastery of Chelles in France, \\'here her sister I-Iereswitha served God. But St Aidan prevailed upon Hilda to return to ~ orthumberland, \\'here he settled her in a small nunnery upon the River \Year. 'Then she was made abbess of Heiu's double monastery at Hartlepool. I-Iere her first business \vas to bring better order to the house, in accordance \vith " her innate wisdom and love for the service of God".

Some years later St Hilda \\'as transferred to Streaneshalch (after\\'ards called \Vhitby), either to found a new abbey or to reform an old one. This again was a double monastery of monks and nuns, \\Tho lived entirely apart but sang the office together in church; as was usual in such houses, the abbess \vas in suprerne charge, except \\'here strictly spiritual matters \vere concerned. St Hilda filled this office so \vell, \\Tites Bede, " that not only ordinary people, but even kings and princes sometimes asked and accepted her advice. And she obliged those \vho were under her direction to attend much to reading the Holy Scriptures and to exercise them足 selves freely in \\'orks of righteousness in order that many there might be found fit for ecclesiastical duties and to minister at the altar." Several of her monks became bishops, including St John of Beverley. The poet Caedmon \\'as a servant of the monastery, and took the habit there at Hilda's suggestion; he also was locally commemorated as a saint, and she \\'as follo\ved in her office by St EIAeda, her pupil. 'T'he success of St Hilda's rule and the love \\'hich she inspired in her subjects may be clearly seen in the pages of Bede's Ecclesiasticalliistory. Probably, too, it \\'as the reputation of the house as \\'ell as the convenience of its situation that caused \Vhitby Abbey to be selected as the place for the great synod of 664, summoned to decide on what day Easter should be observed and other vexed questions. St Hilda and her religious sided with the Scots in favour of the Celtic customs, but St \rilfrid and the other party triumphed and IZing OS\vy ordered the Roman custorns to be observed in i\orthumbria. Doubtless St Hilda obeyed this decision of the synod, but perhaps \\'as vexed by St \Vilfrid's part in it, for later she strongly supported St T'heodore of Canterbury against him in the matter of the northern dioceses.

Seven years before her death St Hilda contracted a sickness which never again left her;. but all the time" she never failed either to return thanks to her Maker or publicly and privately to instruct those under her care. By her o\vn example 3 69

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

N ov{?mber 17]

she admonished all to serve God dutifully \vhen in health and to remain grateful to Him in adversity or bodily infirmity." She died at da\vn, presumably on November 17, in the year 680. A nun \vho, says St Bede, "loved her most passionately," but being in charge of the postulants \vas not present at her death, nevertheless sa\v it in vision and told her charges thereof. And at the daughter­ house at Hackness, thirteen miles a\\lay, a nun called Begu heard in her sleep the passing-bell and saw as it were the soul of her abbess departing to Heaven. She called her sisters and they remained praying in the church until daylight, " \vhen the brothers came \vith ne\vs of her death from the place where she had died ".

The monastery of \Vhitby * was destroyed by the Danes, when the relics of St Hilda were either lost or translated to a place unknown. Her feast is now kept in the diocese of Middlesbrough.

We know little more of St Hilda than what is told us in Bede's Ecclesiastical History; but see the notes in C. Plummer's edition, and also Howorth, The Golden Days of the Early English Church, vol. iii, pp. 186-195 and passim. Cf. Stanton, Menology, pp. 551-552.

ST HUGH,

BISHOP OF LINCOLN

(A.D. 1200)

THE foundations of an interior life are most surely laid in solitude, \vhich is the best preparation for the \vorks of the active life and the support of a spirit of religion amidst its distractions. It \vas in the desert of Chartreuse that St Hugh learned first to govern himself and stored up in his heart habits of virtue, the most essential qualification of a minister of Christ. He \\;'as born of a good family in Burgundy in 1140, his father being William, Lord of Avalon, a good soldier and an even better Christian. Hugh's mother, Anne, died when he was eight years old, and he \vas educated from that age in a convent of regular canons at Villard­ Benoit. William of Avalon at the same time retired himself to the same place and there ended his days in the exercises of a devout and penitential religious life.

Hugh when he \\;'as fifteen \vas allo\ved to make his religious profession and at nineteen \vas ordained deacon, at once beginning to distinguish himself as a preacher. He was put in charge of a small dependency of his monastery at Saint­ Maxin1in, and from thence accompanied his prior on a visit to the Grande Char­ treuse. The retirement and silence of the place, and the contemplation and saintly deportment of the monks \\'ho inhabited it, kindled in Hugh's breast a strong desire of embracing that life. The Carthusian prior painted an alarming picture of its hardships, and Hugh's o\vn superior extorted from him a vow that he would not leave Villard-Benoit. After more mature reflection Hugh decided that this vow had been made too hastily and under stress of emotion, and, now being per­ suaded that God called him to this state, he \vent back to the Chartreuse and was admitted to the habit. j\ Carthusian cottage provides little outward matter for the biographer but \ve kno\v that St Hugh in his little garden was a special attraction to squirrels and birds, of \vhom he \vas very fond and over whom he had consider­ able po\\'er.

t

* Alban Butler says in a footnote: "The common people forn1erly imagined that St Hilda changed serpents into stones in this place, because on the face of the cliff were found abundance of stones, \vhich have the appearance of serpents or snakes rolled up, or in their coil, but \vithout heads; which are natural stones called Ammonites, and are still plentiful there." Cf. St Keyne at Keynsham (October 8). t In, pictorial representations of St Hugh his emblem is generally a swan. I-lis chaplain and biographer assures us that ",;hen a bishop he had a pet \vild s\van at StO\V, one of his 37°

ST HUGH OF

LI~COLN

[November 17

He had passed ten years in his solitary cell \vhen the office of procurator of the monastery ,,"as committed to him, which charge he had held for about seven years \vhen, at the age of forty, his life took an abrupt turn.

King Henry I I of England founded, as part of his penance for the murder of 8t Thomas Becket, the first house of Carthusian monks in England, at \Vitham in 80mersetshire; but so great difficulties occurred in the undertaking under the two first priors that the monastery could not be settled. l'he king, therefore, sent Reginald, Bishop of Bath, to the Grande Chartreuse, to desire that the holy monk Hugh, who had been recommended by a French nobleman, might be sent over to take upon him the government of this monastery. .A.fter much debating in the house it \vas determined that it became not Christian charity so to confine their solicitude to one family as to refuse ,,"hat \vas required for the benefit of others, and, though the saint protested that he was most unfit for the charge, he ,,"as ordered by the chapter to accompany the deputies to England. .At \Yitham he found that the monastic buildings had not even been begun, and that no provision had been made for the compensation of those \vho had been, or \'"ould have to be, evicted from their lands and tenernents to make room for the monks. 8t H ugh refused to undertake his office until the king had compensated these people, " do\vn to the last penny". r-rhe \\'ork ,,-as then carried on successfully till it \\-as nearing completion, and then ,,'as held up again because Henry had not paid the bills, except in promises. 8t Hugh's tact overcame this difficulty and the first English charterhouse ,,'as at last in being. Hugh by his humility and meekness of manner and the sanctity of his life gained the hearts of the enemies of the foundation; and men began to relish their close solitude and to consecrate themselves to God under the discipline of the saint. As with many another exemplary monk, the reputation of I--Iugh's goodness and abilities spread far beyond the cloister \'"alls, and in particular King I {cnry never went hunting in his forest of Frome-8ehvood without visiting the prior of \\-ritham. l'he extent to \vhich he trusted in Hugh is thus illustrated. As the king returned \vith his army from Xormandy to England he was in great danger at sea in a furious storm. Their safety seemed despaired of, when the king cried aloud, " a God \vhom the prior of \Vitham so truly serves, through his merits and intercession look with pity on our distress, in spite of our sins which deserve thy judgements". Almost at once the \vind abated and the voyage was completed without mishap, the king's confidence in 8t Hugh being naturally confirmed and increased.

8t Hugh did not hesitate to remonstrate \vith his royal patron upon matters which required amendment, among \vhich was his habit of keeping sees vacant in order to draw their revenues. A scandalous example was Lincoln \\'hich, ,,-ith an interval of eighteen months, had no bishop for nearly eighteen years. At a council held at Eynsham Abbey in 1186 order \vas given to the dean and chapter to elect a pastor, and the election fell upon 8t Hugh-under pressure from king and primate. His objections \vere not admitted, and he \vas obliged by the authority of the prior of the Grande Chartreuse to drop the strong opposition which he had made and to receive episcopal consecration. After so long a vacancy the diocese of Lincoln was naturally in dire need of reform, and 8t Hugh at once engaged several priests of learning and piety to be his assistants; and he employed all the manors, 'which 'would feed from his hand, follov; him about, and keep guard over his bed, so that" it was impossible for anyone to approach the bishop without being attacked by it ".

C;iraldus Camhrensis conflrn1s these statements"

TI-IE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

N o'Vember 17]

authority which his office gave him in restoring ecclesiastical discipline amongst his clergy. By sermons and private exhortations he laboured to quicken in all men the spirit of faith, and in ordinary conversation equally incited others to divine love; but he was full of talk and fun (which often took the form of puns), cheerful, enthusiastic and easily roused, as Giraldus Cambrensis tells us. In administering the sacraments or consecrating churches he sometimes spent whole days, beginning before daybreak and persevering into the night, ,,,ithout allowing himself rest or food. He \vas particularly strict against the exaction of improper fees by the clergy, follo\ving his own example at his enthronization when he refused an honor足 arium to the archdeacon of Canterbury who had performed the office. He was deeply devoted to his poor and sick children, and would visit the leper-houses and \vait upon the inmates. \Vhen his chancellor pointed out to him that St Martin had cured leprosy by his touch, St Hugh answered, " St Martin's kiss healed the leper's flesh; but their kiss heals my soul". He took great pleasure in children and babies, and his biographer (who \vas the bishop's chaplain) tells several charming stories illustrative of this trait, as well as miracles done in favour of little ones.

In the epidemic of Jew-baiting which broke out in England at the time of the Third Crusade St Hugh was conspicuous in defence of those persecuted. In his own cathedral at Lincoln, at Stamford, and again at Northampton, he single足 handed faced armed and angry mobs, and cowed and cajoled them into sparing their hated victims. His concern for justice on behalf of his own people is illus足 trated by his actions in regard to the royal forest-laws. The foresters and their agents" hunt the poor as if they were \vild animals and devour them as their prey", wrote Peter of Blois, a contemporary. Hugh had had trouble with them at Witham, and so soon as a company of these rangers had, upon a slight occasion, laid hands on a subject of the church of Lincoln, he, after due summons, excommunicated the head of them. This action King Henry took very ill. However, he dissembled his resentment, and soon after by letter requested of the bishop a prebend, then vacant in the church of Lincoln, in favour of one of his courtiers. St Hugh, having read the petition, returned answer by the messenger, " These places are to be conferred upon clerics, not upon courtiers. 'The king does not lack means to reward his servants." The king of course was more furious than ever, and sent for St Hugh, who found him sitting \\lith his court in the grounds of Woodstock castle. By Henry's order nobody took any notice of the bishop, and he went on sewing a bandage round a cut finger. St Hugh watched him for a time and then said sweetly, " No\v, you know, you look exactly like your kinsfolk at Falaise ! ":It: This bold sally broke down the king's ill-humour~ and he listened quietly while Hugh demonstrated how in the whole affair he had regard purely to the service of God and to his episcopal duty. The king was, or pretended to be, perfectly satisfied. The ranger showed himself penitent and was absolved by the bishop, and from that time became his steady friend. St Hugh had found his cathedral in ruins, and soon began its rebuilding, on which he sometimes worked \vith his own hands. Some of the actual magnificent building there is due to Hugh, and on his deathbed he gave final instructions to the master-builder, Geoffrey de Noiers. All St Hugh's great achievements in activity were grounded in contem足 plation, and it was his custom to retire once a year to his beloved cloister at Witham, :It: Henry's great-grandfather, William the Conqueror, was the natural son of Robert of Normandy and the daughter of a furrier and glove-maker of Falaise.

37 2

ST HUGH OF LINCOLN

[No'Z'ember 17

and there pass some time observing the common rule, \vithout any difference but that of wearing the episcopal ring on his finger.

St Hugh had such a reputation for justice in his judicial capacity that two poor orphans in a cause appealed to Rome and asked that the Bishop of Lincoln might judge the case, and he exercised this quality in great things and in small. \Vhen in I 197 King Richard I wanted the bishops as well as the barons to subsidize his war with Philip Augustus for twelve months, 8t Hugh maintained that his see \vas only liable to assist in home-defence. Only Bishop Herbert of Salisbury supported him, and he at once had all his goods confiscated. Hugh stood out, rebuked the king to his face for his unjust oppression and other ill deeds, and triumphed. But whereas he calmed Henry's rage \vith a joke, he overcame Richard by a kiss.

Stubbs, the constitutional historian, says that this " is the first clear case of the refusal of a money-grant demanded directly by the Crown, and a most valuable precedent for future times". J lIst before his contest with the king, St I-I ugh had been strengthened in his faith and duty by a vision granted to a young cleric of our Lord, in the likeness of a tiny child, held in the saint's hands at the consecration at lVlass. This youth had previously been supernaturally warned to go to the Bishop of Lincoln and tell him to draw the attention of the Archbishop of Canter足 bury to the lamentable laxity of n1any of the English clergy; a vision at l\lass \vas promised in confirmation. This was by no means the only time that St Hugh \\'as encouraged and consoled in his difficult labours by clear marks of the help of Heaven, whether by the healing of the sick, the driving out of evil spirits or the conversion of hardened sinners.

After the death of Richard I, who had said of 11ugh that" if all the prelates of the Church ,,'ere like him, there is not a king in Christendom who would dare to raise his head in the presence of a bishop," and the coronation of his successor, King John sent St Hugh into France on affairs of state. He visited, among other places, his old home at the Grande Chartreuse and the great abbeys of Cluny and Citeaux, and was everywhere received \\'ith joy and veneration, for he \vas kno\vn by reputation all over France as well as England. But his last sickness was no\v upon hin1, and on his return he went to pray at 8t 'l'homas's shrine in Canterbury.

However, he got worse, and when he \vas summoned to a national council in l.Jondon he had to take to his bed at his house in the Old 'T'emple, Holborn (whence "ljncoln's Inn "), receiving the last anointing on the vigil of the nineteenth anniversary of his episcopal consecration. He lingered on in pain and patience for nearly two months, dying in the evening of November 16, 1200. 'The body \vas taken in a sort of triurrlphal progress to Lincoln, ",here it \vas buried in the cathedral amidst universal grief on November 24. l'here \vere present beside the primate of all England, fourteen bishops and a hundred abbots, an archbishop frorn Ireland and another from Dalmatia, a prince, Gruffydd ap Rhys, from South V\T ales, King William the L,ion of Scotland and King ] ohn of England-and the Lincoln ghetto was there, bewailing the loss of its protector and a " true servant of the great God". rrwenty years later 8t Hugh \vas canonized by Pope I-Ionorius III. His feast is now observed by the Carthusian Order and in several English dioceses; the great charterhouse at Parkminster in Sussex is dedicated in his honour.

The biography known as the lUagna Vita, which was 'written by Adam, a nlonk of Eyn足 shaIn who was St Hugh's chaplain, is a life which for fullness of detail and reliability of state足 ment has hardly a parallel in medieval literature. It was edited by Mr Dimock for the Rolls

373

N ovetllber

I

7]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Series in 1864. But besides this we have an important memoir by Giraldus Cambrensis, printed in vol. vii of his ,,,orks (also in the Rolls Series), as well as a metrical life of unknown authorship which was the first to be published by Mr Dimock at Lincoln in 1860. There are, moreover, a number of references to St Hugh in such contemporary chroniclers as Hoveden, Benedict, etc., and not a few charters and papal documents in which his name figures. The fullest modern life is that published under Carthusian auspices at Montreuil­ sur-Mer in 1890; this was translated into English and edited with copious additional notes

by Fr H. Thurston in 1898. Two excellent popular lives of less compass are those of F. A. Forbes (1917) and Joseph Clayton (1931). A concise Anglican biography of merit is that

by Canon R. 1\1. Woolley (1927). l\1iss Margaret Thompson has published two admirable books, the fruit of years of research, in which St 1-1 ugh plays a prominent part- The Somerset Carthusians (1895) and The Carthusian Order in England (1930). St Hugh's tomb and his translation, etc., have been much discussed: see particularly the Archaeological Journal, vol. I and vol. Ii, but these matters are noted in almost every book on Lincoln Cathedral; c/. also Bramley, St Hugh's Day at Lincoln (1900).

BD SALOME, WIDOW

~A.D.

1268)

SOME time about the year 1205 Bd Vincent Kadlubek, Bishop of Craco\v, was commissioned to take a child of three years old to the court of King Andrew II of Hungary. She was Salome, daughter of Leszek the Fair of Poland, \\'ho had arranged a marriage for her with Andrew's son, Koloman. Ten years later the marriage was solemnized. But Salome lived more like a nun than a princess; she became a tertiary of the Franciscan Order, and did her best to make her court a model of Christian life. About 1225 Koloman \vas killed in battle. Salome continued to live in the world for some years, being a liberal benefactress of the Friars Minor and founding a convent of Poor Clares, to which she herself retired eventually. She \vas a nun for twenty-eight years, and was elected abbess of the community. Bd Salome died on November 17, 1268, and her cultus was approved

by Pope Clement X. There is a medieval Latin life printed in the Monumenta Poloniae Historica, vol. iv, pp.

776-796; and some account in Wadding, Annales Ord. Min., vol. iii, pp. 353-355 and vol. iv, pp. 284-285. See also Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 71-74.

BD JOAN OF SIGNA, VIRGIN A NUMBER of miracles are related of this Franciscan tertiary, but very few particulars of her life are available. Signa is a village on the Arno, near Florence, and Joan was born there about the year 1245. Her parents were very poor peasants, and at an early age she was sent out to look after sheep and goats. She would collect other herdsfolk round her and talk to them of the truths of faith, and urge them to live a Christian life, to which her own example was an even better inducement than her simple heart-felt words. Her ability to keep dry in wet weather was much talked of, but this seems to have been due to the simple expedient of sheltering under a large and thick tree when it rained. At the age of t\venty-three Bd Joan, possibly inspired by the tales she had heard of St Verdiana of Castelfiorentino, who died about the time Joan was born, became a solitary in a cell on the banks of the Arno, not far from her native place. Here she lived for forty years. Her reputa­ tion for miracles was great, and people came from all the surrounding country to consult her and bring their sick and afHicted. Immediately after her death on November 9, 13°7, a cultus sprang up, which was greatly enhanced in 1348 by the

374

[November 17

BD ELIZABETH THE GOOD

attribution of a sudden cessation of an epidemic to her intercession. was confirmed in 1798.

This cultus

An anonymous Latin life is in existence which must have been written about the year 1390.

It has been printed by Fr Mencherini in the Arehivum Franciseanum Historieum, vol. x (1917), pp. 367-386, and also in the Aeta Sanetorum, November, vol. iv. Two other accounts of later date in Italian verse add nothing to our knowledge. Not only the Fran足 ciscans, but the 'Vallombrosan n10nks, the Carmelites and the Augustinians have claimed that the recluse was attached to their respective orders. On the Vallombrosan case see F. Soldani, Ragguaglio is torieo della B. Giovanna da Signa (1741). The Franciscan claim can be gathered from Mencherini as above, \vho supplies a bibliography. In the opinion of the Bollandists evidence is lacking that the recluse had a definite connection with any order. An account of Bd Joan is given by Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 160-164.

BD ELIZABETH THE GOOD,

VIRGIN

(A.D. 1+20)

THERE was born in 1386 at Waldsee in Wiirtemberg, to a couple in humble circum足 stances called John and .A.nne .L~chler, a child who because of her sweetness and innocence was known from very early years as die gute Betha, "the good Bessie". \\Then she was fourteen her confessor, Father Conrad Kiigelin, a canon regular, who directed her all her life and wrote an account of her soon after her death, recommended her to become a Franciscan tertiary; this she did, and went to lodge with a woman weaver to learn her trade. Elizabeth remained there three years and was then put by }1'ather Conrad with four other tertiaries, for whom she did the cooking. She seems to have been more expert at this than at the loom.

This little community was at Reute, near Waldsee, and there Elizabeth lived for the rest of her life. She was one of the last of the medieval women mystics, mostly connected with one or other of the mendicant orders, who were remarkable for their extreme austerities, visions and visitations, and abnorn1al physical pheno足 mena: Bd Christina of Stommeln, mentioned on the 6th of this month, is a better known example.

Elizabeth the Good is notable for the frequent supposedly diabolical manifesta足 tions of which she was the object and for the reputed length of time during which she would abstain completely from food. Once she is said to have done this for three years on end, and to have then broken her fast only at the command of the Devil disguised as her confessor. Later, many things were missing from the house, which were at last found under Elizabeth's bed. She had not put them there and believed that the Devil had; but she patiently accepted the severe rebuke and penance imposed on her and the natural distrust of her sisters. .L~t other times she sustained supernatural physical attacks and other bodily ills, but she \vas also said to be granted visions of Heaven and Purgatory, frequent ecstasies, and on one occasion a miraculous communion. She received the stigmata of the Passion from time to time, including marks resembling those of the cro\vn of thorns and of the scourging; these bled copiously on Fridays and in Lent, and the pain was almost unceasing. For years and years Bd Elizabeth lived on an amount of food far short of the minimum normally required to keep a human being alive, and eventually died attended by the faithful priest, Father Conrad Kligelin, who had been the witness of her extraordinary life. Her cultus was approved in 1766, and her shrine at Reute is still a place of resort.

We are well informed regarding Bd Elizabeth, for Conrad I(ugelin, her confessor, wrote a life of her in German, the original of which is still preserved.

The text was reprinted

375

'-rHE LIYES OF THE SAI:"l'S in the periodical Alemannia for 188 I and 1882, fron1 a scarce early edition which had appeared in 1624, Another life is that of :\iderrnayer, Die selzie gute Eetha 'l'on Reute (1766), See also Lechner, Leben der se!. Elisabt>tha Bona 7.'on Reuthe (I ~ S4); and A, Baier, Die sel. [{ute Betha 'l'on Reute (1920),

BB. ROQUE GONZALEZ PARAGCAY (A.D. 1628)

A~D

HIS

CO:\IPA:\IO:\S,

THE

~IAHTYHS OF

earliest martyrs of the ..t \n1cricas \vho have been raised to the altars of the Church suffered in 1628. 1'hey \vcre not of course the fi rst martYl s of the:\" P\\' \\~orld. three Franciscans \\'ere killed by Caribs in the _Antilles in 1516; massacres on the mainland of South :\merica soon follo\vcd; and in 1544 Friar Juan de Padilla \\'as slain, the first martyr of :\"orth America. \Yhere he suffered is not certain--eastern Colorado, \\'estern Kansas, '-rexas have all been suggested. But these and others have not been beatified, for lack of sufficient certain e\,idcnce about the circumstances of their death: such evidence may turn up one day. ~lean\vhile the earliest beatified martyrs of America are three Jesuits of Paraguay, and one of them \vas A.. merican-born.

Roque Gonzalez y de Santa-Cruz \\'as the son of noble Spanish parents, and he came into this \vorld at.-\sunci6n, the capital of Paraguay, in 1576. He \\'as an unusually good and religious boy, and everybody took it for granted that young Roque \\'oldd become a priest. I-Ie \\'as in fact ordained, \\'hen he \\'as t\\'enty足 th ree: but ull\villingly, for he felt very strongly that he \vas un\\'orthy of priesthood . . \t once he hegan to take an interest in the Indians of Paraguay, seeking them out in relnote places to preach to and instruct them in Christianity; and after ten years, to avoid ecclesiastical promotion and to get more opportunity for rnissionary \york, he joined the Society of Jesus.

T'hese \yere the days of the beginnings of the famous" reductions" of Paraguay, in the formation of \\,hich Father Roque C;onzalez played an important part. 'rhese remarkable institutions \\"ere settlements of Christian Indians run bv the Jesuit missionaries, \yho looked on themselves, not like so many other Spaniards did as the conquerors and " bosse~' " of the Indians, but as the guardians and trustees of their \\;elfare. T'o the Jesuits the Indians \\'ere not a subject or " lo\\"er " people, but simple untutored children of God; they had no contempt for their civilization and life, in so far as these were not at variance \\-ith the gospe 1of Christ; the missionaries sought to make theln Christian Indians and not imitation Spaniards. l'he Jesuits' opposition to Spanish imperialism, to slavery by the colonists, and to the methods of the Inquisition eventually brought about their o\\"n do\\'nfall in Spanish .~merica ann the dissolution of the reductions, over a century after Father Roque's death.

Eyen the scoffing \Toltaire had been impressed, and he \\Tote that, " \\~hen the Paraguayan missions left the hands of the Jesuits in 176R they had arrived at \\,hat is perhaps the highest degree of civilization to \\'hich it is possible to lead a young people. . . . In those D1issions la\\' \\"as respected, morals \vere pure, a happy brotherliness bound men together, the useful arts and even some of the more graceful sciences flourished, and there \vas abundance every足 \\"here."

It \\'as to bring about such a happy state of things that Father Roque laboured for nearly t\venty years, grappling patiently and \vithout discouragement \\"ith hardships, dangers and reverses of all kinds, \vith intractable and fierce tribes and \\"ith the open opposition of the European colonists. I-Ie threw himself heart and 'THE

37 6

TI-IE'MARTYRS OF PARi\GU_t\Y

[lvovember 17

into the work. For three years he was in charg~ of the Reduction of 8t Ignatius, the first of them, and then spent the rest of his life establishing other reductions, half-a-dozen in all, east of the Parana and Uruguay rivers; he was the first European known to have penetrated into some districts of ~outh America.

A contemporary Spaniard, the governor of Corrientes, testified from his knowledge of the country that " he was able to appreciate how much the life which Father Roque led must have cost him-hunger, cold, exhaustion from travelling on foot, swimn1ing across rivers, wading through bogs, not to mention plaguing insects and the discomforts which no man but a true apostle, who was holy as this priest was, could have borne with such fortitude". Father Roque attained an extra足 ordinary influence among the Indians, but his work was hampered in his last years by the attempt of the civil authorities to use this influence for their own ends. rrhey insisted on having their representatives at the new reductions; and the brutality of these Europeans aroused in the Indians bitter resentment and suspicion of all Europeans. It is a situation that in one form or another is only too common in missionary history-the \vork of devoted missionaries being undone by the behaviour of less worthy Christians.

In 1628 Father Roque was joined by two young Spanish Jesuits, Alonso (Alphonsus) Rodriguez and Juan (John) de Castillo, and together they founded a new reduction near the Ijuhi river, dedIcated in honour of our Lady's Assumption. :Father Castillo was left in charge there, while the other two pushed on to Caaro (in the southern tip of what is now Brazil), where they established the All Saints' reduction.

Here they were faced with the hostility of a powerful " medicine-man", and at his instigation the mission was soon attacked. Father Roque was getting ready to hang a small church-bell, when the raiding party arrived: one man stole up from behind and killed him with blows on the head from a tomahawk. f""ather Rodriguez heard the noise and, coming to the door of his hut to see what it "vas about, met the blood-stained savages, who knocked him down. " What are you doing, rny sons?" he exclairIled. But he was silenced by further blows. The wooden chapel was set on fire, and the two bodies thrown into the HarrIes. It was November 15, 1628. '-fwo days later the mission at Ijuhi was attacked: Father Castillo was seized and bound, barbarously beaten, and stoned to death. rfhe first steps towards the beatification of these missionaries were taken within six months of their martyrdom, by the writing do\vn of evidence about what had happened. But these precious documents were lost, apparently on their way to Rome, and fdr two hundred years no progress could be made: it seemed that their cause must fail. Then copies of the originals turned up in the Argentine, and in J 934, Roque Gonzalez, Alonso Rodriguez and Juan de Castillo were solemnly declared blessed. .A.mong these ancient documents was the evidence of an Indian chief, Guarecupi, that" all the Christians among my countrymen loved the Father [Roque] and grieved for his death, because he was the father of us all, and so he was called by all the Indians of the Parana".

SOUL

Nearly all the available evidence has been brought together in the book of Fr J. M. Blanco, l/istoria documentada de la Vida y gloriosa Muerte de los PP. Roque Gonzalez . ..

(1929). See also Fr H. Thurston's article in The Catholic Historical Review, vol. xx (Balti足 nlore, 1935), pp. 371-383. R. B. Cunningharne Graham wrote a very readable account of the Reductions of Paraguay, A Vanished Arcadia (1924).

377

November 17]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

BD PHILIPPINE DUCHESNE,

\'"IRGIN

(A.D. 1852)

UNDER May 25 herein there is printed an account of St l\ladeleine Sophie Barat and the foundation of the Society of the Sacred Heart. In the course of it there are references to a certain Mother Duchesne, \\'ho introduced the ne\vly-established congregation to ~ orth America; and this l\Iother Duchesne \\'as beatified in 1940. She \vas born in 1769, at Grenoble in Dauphiny, her father being the head of a prosperous mercantile family. At her christening she \vas given the names Rose Philippine, of \vhich the first \vas a veritable augury, for St Rose of Lima, on the eve of \vhose feast she \\'as born, \vas the first canonized saint of the :\ew \Vorld. There \\'as nothing specially remarkable about her childhood: she had a strong and rather imperious nature (characteristic of her father's family), she \\'as of a serious disposition, and she early sho\ved interest in history. .At the age of eight her first enthusiasm for missionary life and the American land \vas kindled by a Jesuit who had \\'orked in Louisiana and told the Duchesnes stories about the Indians. Philippine \vent to school \vith the \'"isitation nuns of Sainte­ l\larie-d'En-haut and also \vas taught by a tutor \vith her cousins the Periers, and she became uncommonly \vell-educated. 'I'hen \vhen she \\'as seyenteen, and her parents \\'ere looking around for a husband for her, she announced her intention of being a nun; and after some opposition she \\'as allo\\'ed to join the community \vith \vhich she had been at school. Eighteen months later, ho\veyer, her father forbade her profession-and for a sound reason: he did not like the outlook for the future in France. .And sure enough, in 1791, the \'"isitandines of Grenoble \\'ere expelled, and Philippine returned to her family, \\·ho \\'ere no\v living in the country.

'Throughout the years of reyolution Philippine did her best to liye in a \vay in all respects befitting a religious. She looked after her family, she tended the sick and confessors of the faith and others in prison, and above all \vas concerned for the education of children. .A.nd then, \\-hen the Holy See concluded its concordat \\'ith X apoleon in 1801, she \\'as enabled to acquire the buildings of her old convent of Sainte-~larie-d'En-haut. Philtppine' had ahvays hoped to be instrumental in re-establishing the \Tisitandine community of \vhich she had been a member, but no\v she found the unde'rtaking even more difficult than she had expected: indeed, it proyed to be impossible. (In a day in A.ugust, 1802-it \vas in fact the 21st, the feast day of the foundress of the \~isitation nuns, St Jane Frances de Chantal-­ it \\'as decided to abandon the venture; and a fe\\' days later Philippine and another sister \vere left alone in the convent. l ~ nkind outsiders \\'ere not slo\v to say that it \\'as another example of the" stiffness" of the Duchesne character, that Sister Philippine made things difficult in community life. Philippine decided to offer Sainte-:darie-d'En-haut to ~Iother Barat, \vho not long before had begun the first house of the Society of the Sacred Heart, at i\miens. 'The proposal \\'as agreed, and on December 3 I, 18°4, Philippine and four others \\'ere admitted as postulants at Sainte-~Iarie. 1'hus \\'ere brought together, as novice-mistress and as novice, these t\\'o souls, "one of marble, the other of bronze", St ~Iadeleine Sophie Barat and Bd Philippine Duchesne. Less than a year later the nOVIce \vas pro­ fessed. The months of preparation had seen a gro\\'ing-together of foundress and aspirant, a better understanding of discipline on the part of the young nun \vho had been so D1uch " on her o\vn "-perhaps her hardest struggle \vas to give up personal mortifications and penances at the \\'ord of her mother in religion.

37 8

[November 17

BD PHILIPPINE DUCHESNE

Early in 1806 Sainte-Marie-d'En-haut was visited by the abbot of La Trappe, Dom Augustine de Lestrange, who three years before had sent the first Cistercian monks to North America; and this visit served to inflame Bd Philippine's desire to be a missionary in that land. Nowadays we do not think of the United States as mission territory; but a hundred and forty years ago far the greater part of that huge country was still unsettled by Europeans, or indeed by anybody; the frontier was only gradually moving west, and the Indians were still a notable proportion of the population. But though Mother Barat approved in principle, it was still to be another twelve years before Mother Duchesne achieved her arnbition, years during which the instrument was to be prepared and tempered, both spiritually and in the handling of affairs. At last the appointed time came. Mgr Dubourg, Bishop of Louisiana, called on Mother Barat and asked her to let him have some of her religious as soon as they could be spared from France. She promised to do so, but would perhaps have put the enterprise off indefinitely had it not been for the direct and impetuous intervention of Mother Duchesne. .A.nd so, in March 1818, five religious of the Sacred Heart left Bordeaux for the New \Vorld. Mother Duchesne, to her great regret, had been appointed their superioress.

After a trying voyage (" Seasickness is really evil", wrote Bd Philippine, " It affects the head as well as the stomach, and rnakes one useless for anything ") the little party landed at New Orleans on May 29, the feast of the Sacred Heart. They went up the Mississippi to Saint Louis, then a town of about 6,000 inhabitants, in what is now l\1issouri. Here they were welcomed by Mgr Dubourg, who found them a house for their first establishment at Saint Charles: it was a small log cabin. And here, among the children of the poor, was started the first free school west of the l\lississippi. The \vhite population was in majority Catholic, and composed of French, Creole, English and others, many of them bi-lingual; the nuns had been studying English ever since they \vere assigned to America, but Bd Philippine never really mastered the language. Two passing remarks of hers throw light on the sort of people they had to work among: "Some of our pupils have more gowns than chemises or, above all, pocket-handkerchiefs", and " At Portage-des-Sioux the walls [of the church] \vere adorned with representations of Bacchus and Venus. . . . put up out of sheer ignorance". As for the Indians, " \\Te used to entertain the pleasing thought of teaching docile and innocent savages, but the women are idle and given to drink as much as the men ". After a hard winter the bishop decided to move the community to Florissant, nearer Saint Louis. A three-storied brick building was provided, and into this the nuns moved on the t\VO days before Christmas, 18 I 9; Mother Duchesne wrote a vivid account of the bitterly cold rigours of the move, complicated by a cow that ran away. rfhe more commodious residence raised the possibility of starting a novitiate, about which lVlgr Dubourg was not too sanguine in view of the inde足 pendent American character.

But the ground was broken \vhen a postulant presented herself to be a lay-sister, and the first American to receive the habit of the Society of the Sacred Heart was clothed on November 22, 1820: her name was Mary Layton.

The opening of the novitiate and the progress of the school were more en足 couraging signs for the future, and Bd Philippine herself was getting to understand better the strange people of a strange land. I t must be remembered that she was in her fiftieth year when she crossed the Atlantic-and she was very much of a Frenchwoman. The Americans baffled her both in their faults and their virtues,

379

'1'1 IE LIYES OF 1'1 IE

SAI~T'S

and it has been \\·ell said that" she probably never attained, in its perfection, ' tact in dealing \\'ith those \\·hose customs are not European' ".

In any case she under\\'ent some of that " mello\\'ing" that increasing age so often brings, but \\'ithout losing the old enthusiasm: she could \\'rite to :\10ther Barat in 182 I, " I thought I had reached the height of my amhition~but I am burning \\'ith desire to go to Peru. 1fo\\'ever, I am more reasonable than I \\'as in France \vhen I used to pester you \\'ith my vain aspirations." In the sarrle year the second house \\'as opened, at Grand Coteau, about one hundred and fifty miles from ~e\v Orleans.

1\lother Duchesne's visit to this ne\\· foundation involved probably the \\'orst journey she ever undertook: it took four \veeks out and nine \\'eeks in, and the return trip \\'as partly made on a boat on \vhich yello\v fever broke out-- a horrible experience of the neglected sick and of the callous fear of the rest. She devoted herself to the care of one stricken man, \\,hom she baptized before he died; and it nearly cost her o\\'n life, for she too sickened and had to be put ashore at ~ atchez, \vhere she could find no shelter but the bed of a \\'oman \\,ho had herself just died of the fever.

Back at Florissant, Bd Philippine found it \vas a case of one grim trial after another. 1'emporal difficulties and the jealousy and slanders of outsiders \\'ere ruining the school-" T'hey say everything about us, except that \\'e poison the children", she \vrote to lVlother Barat. At length there \\'ere only five pupils left; but \vhen things \\·ere looking their \\'orst improvement came through help from a ne\\' quarter. T'he difficulties had heen partly caused by the \vithdra\\'al of l\lgr I)uhourg to I-Jo\\'er Louisiana; but in 1823 he \vas able to arrange for the estab­ lishrl1ent at Florissant of the novitiate of the] esuits in l\laryland. I t is difficult to tell \\'hether in the ensuing period the Society of the Sacred l-Ieart o\\'ed more to the Society of Jesus or the fathers to the nuns. In 1826 and the follo\\'ing year t\\'O more houses \\'ere opened, St :\ Iic hae l' s near ~ e\\· ()rleans and in Saint IA)uis Itself; and the house at Saint ("harles \\'as refounded in 1828. \\'ith Bayou-la­ Fourche there \\'ere no\v six houses of the society in the valley of the \Iississippi. 'rhe next ten years continued to he full of trials and hardships, disappointment and ill-health, borne by Bd Philippine \\'ith trust In God but \\'ith ever-ITIounting fatigue. Ho\\'ever, it \\'as not till 1840 that her \\,ish to resign her responsible office \:\,as granted, and then not by St ~Iadeleine Sophie. 'l'he assistant general of the SOCIety of the Sacred Heart caIne O~j a visitation of the A.merican houses. She \vas l\10ther ElIzabeth Galitsin, a \\·oman of strong and imperious character, not unlike lVlother l)uchesne in her earlier years, and she caused a certaIn amount of upheaval among the nuns in l\merica. Bd Philippine did not resist the autocratic methods of the visitor (\\'ho \vas t\\'enty-eight years younger than herself); but she \\'as made to fear that perhaps she had failed in the trust aSSIgned to her, and she asked to be allo\\'ed to resign. l\Iother (;alitsin agreed \vithout demur, and :\lother Duchesne returned to the Saint I.-ouis house as a simple religious. !\.nd no\\', \\,hen she \\'as seventy-one years old, she \vas able to turn her attention to those people for \vhose sake she had originally \~;anted to come to America--the IndIans. T'he famous Jesuit Father De Smet had asked ~lother Galitsin to send nuns to set up a school in the rnission among the Pota\\'atomi at Sugar (~reek in Kansas. Four religious \vere nominated to go, including :\lother I)uchesne " if able to travel". She \\'as £:ble to travel. But she \vas \\'ith her beloved Indians for only ,about t\velve months: she could not master their language, the hardships of the life were too much for her failing strength. Her heart spoke of Indians 180

DEDICATION OF BASILICAS OF ST PETER AND ST PAUL

[November 18

among the Rocky mountains to be converted to Christ; but her superiors spoke of the need for her to come away. "God knows the reason for this recall," she said, " and that is enough."

Bd Philippine's last years were spent at Saint Charles, but the tide of her life went out on no gentle ebb. The fortunes of the Society of the Sacred Heart in America did not rise in one unwavering curve of progress; houses that Mother Duchesne had founded and nursed were threatened with dissolution; and for nearly two years correspondence between herself and her deeply loved Mother Barat was not delivered-a mystery never properly cleared up. So, during a prolonged old age of suffering and prayer, Mother Duchesne completed her life of apostleship and self-sacrifice. She died on November 18, 1852. She was eighty-three years old. It was said of her by a contemporary: "She was the St Francis of Assisi of the Society. Everything in and about her was stamped with the seal of a crucified life. She would have liked to disappear from the sight of men, and it may indeed be said that no one occupied less space in the world than Madame Duchesne. Her room was a miserable hole with a single window, in which paper supplied the place of some of the panes; her bed was a mattress two inches thick, laid on the ground by night and put away in the day in a cupboard; her only covering at night was an old piece of black stuff with a cross like a pall."

While she lay dead a daguerreotype was taken of Philippine Duchesne, " in case", as was said, " she may one day be canonized". Less than a century later that day is within sight. This missionary of the American frontier was beatified in 1940, and her feast is kept on November 17.

On the death of Mother Duchesne, Father De Smet wrote, "You should publish a beautiful biography. . . . No greater saint ever died in Missouri, or perhaps in the whole Union." This was first most adequately done by Mgr Baunard, whose Life of Mother Duchesne was translated into English in 1879. Then in 1926 appeared Mother Philippine Duchesne by Marjory Erskine. This is a full-length work that depends of necessity largely on Baunard, but corrected in certain points and with fresh matter added.

See also The Society of the Sacred Heart in North America, by Louise Callan (1937), and Redskin Trail,

by M. K. Richardson (1952).

18 : THE

DEDICATION OF THE BASILICAS OF ST PETER AND OF ST PAUL

the commemorative feast of the dedication of the archbasilica of the Lateran is kept by the whole Western church, so also is that of the other greater patriarchal basilicas at Rome, St Mary Major on August 5, and St Peter's and St Paul's together on this day. Amongst all the places which the blood of martyrs has rendered illustrious, that part of the Vatican Hill which was consecrated with the blood and enriched with the relics of the Prince of the Apostles has always been the most venerable. "The sepulchres of those who have served Christ crucified", says St John Chrysostom, " surpass the palaces of kings; not so much in the greatness and beauty of the buildings (though in this also they go beyond them) as in other things of more importance, such as the multitude of those who with devotion and joy repair to them. For the emperor himself, clothed in purple, goes to the tOlnbs of the saints and kisses them; humbly prostrate on the ground he beseeches the same saints to pray to God for him; and he who wears a royal crown looks on it as a great privilege from God that a tentmaker and a fisherman,

X

381

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 18]

and these dead, should be his protectors and defenders, and for this he begs with great earnestness." The martyrdom of St Peter took place according to tradition at the circus of Caligula in Nero's gardens on the Vatican Hill, and he was buried nearby. It is held by some that in the year 258, to avoid desecration during the persecution of Valerian, the relics of St Peter, together with those of St Paul, were translated for a time to the obscure catacomb now called St Sebastian's; but they came back to their original resting-place, and in 323 the Emperor Constantine began the building of the basilica of St Peter over the tomb of the Apostle. For nearly twelve hundred years this magnificent church remained substantially the same, a great papal establishment gradually growing up between it and the Vatican Hill. This was made the permanent residence of the popes on their return from the exile at Avignon, and by the middle of the fifteenth century the old church was found to be inadequate. In 1506 Pope Julius II inaugurated a new building, designed by Bramante, whose erection was carried on over a period of a hundred and twenty years, undergoing many alterations, additions and modifications at the hands of various popes and architects, especially Paul V and Michelangelo. The new basilica of St Peter, as we see it today, was consecrated by Pope Urban VIII on November 18, 1626, the day of its original dedication. The high altar was set up over the Apostle's resting-place, which until 1942 had been inaccessible for many centuries. Though St Peter's must always yield in dignity to the cathedral of St John Lateran, it has nevertheless for long been the most important church of the world, both in fact and in the hearts of Catholic Christians.

The martyrdom of St Paul took place some seven miles from that of St Peter at Aquae Salviae (now called Tre Fontane) on the astian Way. He was buried about two miles therefrom~ on the property of a lady named Lucina, in a small vault. Early in the third century, according to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., ii, 25, 7), a Roman priest, Caius, refers to the tombs of SSe Peter and Paul: "I can show you the trophies [tombs] of the apostles. If you go to the Vatican or on the road to Ostia you will see the trophies of those who founded this church." Constantine is said to have begun a basilica here too, but the great church of St Paul­ outside-the-Walls was principally the work of the Emperor Theodosius· I and Pope St Leo the Great. It remained in its primitive beauty and simplicity till the year 1823, when it was consumed by fire. The whole world contributed to its restora­ tion, non-Christians as well as non-Catholics sending gifts and contributions.

During the course of the work the fourth-century tomb was found, with the inscription PAULO APOST MART: To Paul, apostle and martyr; it was not opened.

The new basilica, on the lines of the old one, was consecrated by Pope Pius IX on December 10, 1854, but the annual commemoration was appointed for this day, as the Roman Martyrology records. " We do not", says St Augustine, "build churches or appoint priesthoods, sacred rites and sacrifices to the martyrs, because, not the martyrs, but the God of the martyrs, is our God. Who among the faithful ever heard a priest, standing at the altar set up over the body of a martyr to the honour and worship of God, say in praying: We offer up sacrifices to thee, Peter, or Paul, or Cyprian? . . .

We do not build churches to martyrs as to gods, but as memorials to men departed this life, whose souls live with God. Nor do we make altars to sacrifice on them to the martyrs, but to their God and our God." The reader may be referred to Cardinal Schuster, The Sacramentary (Eng. trans.), vol. v, pp. 280- 287; to O. Marucchi, Basiliques et eglises de Rome (1902), and Ch. Htilsen,

382

ST MAWES, OR MAUDEZ

[November 18

Le chiese di Roma (1927).

The martyrdom and burial-places of SSe Peter and Paul have already been touched upon, with further references, herein under June 29; and c/. the first entry under November 9.

ST ROMANUS OF ANTIOCH,

MARTYR

THE passion of Romanus, a deacon of the church of Caesarea, is related by Eusebius in his account of the martyrs of Palestine because, though he suffered at Antioch, he was a native of Palestine. We have also a panegyric of St John Chrysostom on this saint, and a poem in his honour by Prudentius. When the persecution of Diocletian broke out he went about exhorting the faithful to stand firm; and at Antioch, in the very court of the judge, observing certain Christian prisoners about to sacrifice through fear, he cried out in rebuke and warning. At once hands were laid on him and, after he had been scourged, the judge condemned him to be burnt alive. The fire was put out by a heavy rainstorm, and the emperor, who was in the city, ordered the martyr's tongue to be plucked out by the roots. This was done, yet Romanus still spoke, urging his hearers to love and worship the true and only God. The emperor had him sent back to prison, his legs to be stretched in the stocks to the fifth hole and his body raised off the ground. He suffered this torture a long time, and finished his martyrdom by being strangled in prison.

Prudentius (who begs that, as he stood amongst the goats, he might by the prayers of Romanus pass to the right hand and be placed amongst the sheep) mentions an unnamed boy of seven who, encouraged by St Romanus, confessed one God, and was scourged and beheaded. Under the name of Barula he is mentioned with St Romanus in the Roman Martyrology, but Eusebius says nothing about him.

In CMH. (pp. 605-606) Delehaye points out that besides the account in Eusebius, the panegyric of St John Chrysostom and the poem of Prudentius, we have a very reliable testimony to the cult of St Romanus in the mention made of him in the Syriac breviarium of the early fifth century. Furthermore, Severus, Patriarch of Antioch, at the beginning of the sixth century was consecrated in a church dedicated to him and preached several sermons in his honour. Prudentius seems to have been the first to mention the boy com足 panion. The tangle is too complicated to discuss here, but Delehaye shows that Barula almost c~rtainly represents an authentic Syrian martyr, Baralaha or Barlaam, whose name by some juxtapasition in the ancient lists became attached to that of Romanus. See also the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxii (1903), pp. 129-145; vol. xxxviii (1920), pp. 241-284 ; and especially vol. I (1932), pp. 241-283. In this last article Delehaye lays stress upon the important part played in this development by the " Homilia de Resurrectione ", which A. Wilmart proved to be the work of Eusebius of Emesa (d. 359).

ST MAWES,

OR

MAUDEZ,

ABBOT

(SIXTH CENTURY?)

IF we may judge from the number of churches dedicated in his honour 8t Maudez (Maudetus) was the most popular of the saints of Brittany after 8t Ivo, but very little is known about him. Although his name is British, he is said to have been an Irishman who went to Brittany in the days of Childebert I. With a few dis足 ciples he settled off the coast of Leon, on an island, lIe Modez, which he cleared of snakes and vermin by firing the grass: earth from this island is still supposed to be useful for the same and similar purposes. Both in Cornwall and Brittany 8t Maudez was traditionally regarded as a monk who spent much time teaching his pupils in the open air. Except for this, recorded by Leland, there are no other traditions whatever of 8t Maudez in Cornwall, or any indication of how the village chapel and well of 8t Mawes in Roseland came to bear his name. No doubt he 383

November 18]

THE LIVES OF '"rHE SAINTS

was a zealous missionary throughout Armorica as the number of his dedications suggests; and there is topographical evidence that he and St Budoc Vlere monks and missionaries from \Vales, or elsewhere in Britain, who founded churches and monasteries in Cornwall and Brittany and were in some way connected with Dol. There are two medieval lives of this saint, both of which have been printed by A. de la Borderie in his volume Saint Maudez (1891). From a historical point of view they are of little value. Canon Doble has included St Mawes in his series of monographs on Cornish saints (1938), and this is probably the most thorough investigation \vhich has been attempted.

See, however, F. Duine, Me1nento (1918), pp. 97-99; L. Gougaud, Les saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (1936), pp. 135-139; and LBS., vol. iii, pp. 441-449. Dom Gougaud, in the book just mentioned, tells us something of the popular devotion to St Maudez in Brittany and the folklore practices associated with it.

ST ODO OF CLUNY,

ABBOT

(A.D. 942)

FROM the middle of the tenth century until the beginning of the twelfth the abbey of Cluny in Burgundy was the most powerful influence in the monasticism of western Europe and played a part in religious affairs second only to that of the papacy itself; as the centre and directing authority of a vast monastic " reform" it affected the life and spirit of the monks of St Benedict for a far longer period, and its influence can be traced even till today. Cluny owed its driving-power and achievements principally to seven of its eight first abbots, of whom St Odo was the second. He was brought up in the family of Fulk II, Count of Anjou, and afterwards in that of William, Duke of Aquitaine, who founded the abbey of Cluny.

At nineteen Odo received the tonsure, and was instituted to a canonry in St Martin's church at 1'ours, and he spent some years studying in Paris. Here he gav~ much time to music, an enthusiasm which was shared by his master, Remigius of Auxerre.

One day, in reading the Rule of St Benedict, Odo was shocked to see how much his life fell short of the rules of perfection there laid down, and he determined to embrace the monastic state. He some time after went to the monastery of Baume足 les-Messieurs in the diocese of Besan<;on, where the abbot, Berno, admitted him to the habit in 909.

The abbey of Cluny was founded in the following year by Duke \Villiam, and was committed to the care of St Berno, who put St Odo in charge of the monastery school at Baume. It is recorded that on one occasion while Odo was on a journey the daughter of his host for the night appealed to him secretly to help her: she was going shortly to be married, against her will. He could not resist her tears and entreaties, and enabled the girl to escape from her home, taking her with him to Baume. Not unnaturally, the abbot was indignant at his subject's rashness, and ordered Odo to look carefully after the girl and make proper provision for her safety. Accordingly, after taking her meals to her daily and instructing her in the religious life, he found a place for her in a convent of nuns. With age came more prudence and, when he was about forty-eight, St Odo was appointed to succeed St Berno as abbot of Cluny.

Berno had already undertaken the reformation of a number of monasteries from Cluny, and under Odo the number grew apace, among them being the famous house of Fleury on the Loire, which was destined to have a considerable influence in England. Of Odo's school at Cluny it was said that, " A boy is brought up as well there as a prince in his father's castle". But it was no life of ease. A monk had once complained to St Odo that St Berno ruled Baume with a rod of iron, but 38 4

ST O'DO OF CLUNY

[November 18

a hard and rigid discipline was required to keep order among the vigorous spirits of the tenth century, and Cluny was no exception. Odo also ruled with a rod of iron, and would intimidate refractory monks with stories yet more terrific than his own discipline. But not always. In exhorting them to deeds of charity he told one day of a young student who, while entering the church for Matins early one cold winter's morning, saw a half-naked beggar, freezing under the porch. The student took off his cloak and wrapped it round him, and went into the cold church for the long office. After Lauds he lay down on his bed to get warm, and as he rolled the blankets round himself found a gold piece, more than sufficient to buy a new cloak. "I did not then know the name of the hero of this incident", says the biographer, " but I have found it out since." It was, of course, Odo himself who at Tours had learned the spirit of St Martin.

In 936 St Odo made his first visit to Rome, called thither by Pope Leo VII. The city was being besieged by Hugh of Provence, who called himself king of Italy and who had considerable respect for St Odo, and it was to try to conclude a peace between him and Alberic, " Patrician of the Romans", that Odo had been summoned.

I-lis first, temporary success was the negotiation of a marriage between Alberic and Hugh's daughter. At the abbey of St Paul-outside-the-Walls he " regulated the spiritual life of the monastery in an apostolical way and by his words kindled faith, piety and love of truth in all hearts." The spirit of Cluny had been carried beyond the borders of France, and the influence of St Odo \vas felt in the monasteries of Monte Cassino, Pavia, Naples, Salerno and elsewhere in Italy. Once an attempt was made on his life, a peasant, who said the monks of St Paul's owed him some money, attempting to brain him with a stone. Odo paid the man and thought no more about it, till he heard that Alberic had sentenced him to lose his right hand for his intended crime. Thereupon the saint went to the prince and got the sentence annulled, and the man set free. Twice more within six years Odo had to go to Rome to try and keep the peace between Hugh and Alberic for the distracted pope, and on each occasion he extended the sphere of his reforming zeal. Meanwhile in France the work went on, secular nobles handing over to him monasteries over which they had exercised an uncanopical control and superiors inviting him to visit their abbeys and prescribe for their communities. As usual there were plenty of monks who resented being jolted out of their easy-going ways, and put every obstacle in the way of the reformer. At one house it was made a grievance against the Cluny monks that they washed their underclothes after Vespers on Saturday. When they made no reply but went on with their washing, the critic exclaimed, " I was not made a snake to hiss or an ox to low, but a man with a human voice. Is this how you come to teach us the Rule of St Benedict ?" and departed in indignation to complain to the abbot. At Fleury St Odo was received at first with swords and stones, some monks even threatening his life if he entered the monastery. He talked gently to them, gave them three days to cool down, and then rode up to the entrance on his donkey as if nothing had happened. "They received him like a father and his escort had nothing to do but to go away."

In the year 942 St Odo went to Rome for the last time, and on his return called at the monastery of St Julian at Tours. After assisting at the solemnities of the feast of his patron, St Martin, he took to his bed, and died on November 18. One of his last actions was to compose a hymn, still extant, in honour of St Martin.

In spite of his full and very active life St Odo found time to write, as well as another

385

Nove~ber 19]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

hymn and twelve metrical antiphons for St Martin, three books of moral essays, a Life of St Gerald of Aurillac, and a long epic poem on the Redemption. There is also a tradition, mentioned by all his biographers, that he wrote several works on ecclesiastical music; but they have not come down to us, though some falsely bear his name.

John, a monk of Cluny, and another monk named Nalgodus both wrote lives of Abbot Odo. These are printed in Mabillon, vol. v, and in Migne, PL., vol. cxxxiii. E. Sackur in Neues Archiv, vol. xv, pp. 105-112, has called attention to another recension of the life

by John, but it is later in date. There is a good modern biography by O. Ringholz (1885), and an attractive, but rather inaccurate, account, Saint Odon, by Dam du Bourg in the series" Les Saints". See also Sackur, Die Cluniacenser, vol. i, pp. 36-120; A. Hessel in the EIistorische Zeitschrift, vol. 128 (1923), pp. 1-25; and for the relations of Cluny with England, L. M. Smith, The Early History of the Movement of Cluny (1925) and D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England (1949), cap. viii; Watkin Williams, Monastic Studies (193 8), pp. 24-36.

19 : ST

ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY,

WIDOW

(A.D. 123 I)

T is related by Dietrich of Apolda in his life of this saint* that on an evening in the summer of the year 1207 the minnesinger Klingsohr from Transylvania announced to the Landgrave Herman of Thuringia that that night a daughter had been born to the king of Hungary, who should be exalted in holiness and become the wife of Herman's son; and that in fact at that time the child Elizabeth was born, in Pressburg (Bratislava) or Saros-Patak, to Andrew II of Hungary and his wife, Gertrude of Andechs-Meran. Such an alliance as that " foretold" by Klingsohr had substantial political advantages to recommend it, and the baby Elizabeth was promised to Herman's eldest son. At about four years of age she was brought to the Thuringian court at the castle of the Wartburg, near Eisenach, there to be brought up with her future husband. As she grew up she underwent much unkindness from some members of the court, who did not appreciate her goodness, but on the other hand the young man Louis (Ludwig) became more and more enamoured of her. We are told that when he had visited a city he would always bring back a present for her, a knife or a bag or gloves or a coral rosary. " When it was time for him to be back she would run out to meet him and he would take her lovingly on his arm and give her what he had brought." In 1221, Louis being now twenty-one and landgrave in his father's place, and Elizabeth fourteen, their marriage was solemnized, in spite of attempts to persuade him to send her back to Hungary as an unsuitable bride; he declared he would rather cast away a mountain of gold than give her up. She, we are told, was "perfect in body, handsome, of a dark complexion; serious in her ways, and modest, of kindly speech, fervent in prayer and most generous to the poor, always full of goodness and divine love"; he also was handsome and " modest as a young maid", wise, patient and truthful, trusted by his men and loved by his people. Their wedded life lasted only six years and has been called by an English writer " an idyll of

I

â&#x20AC;˘ Alban Butler's own comment, under the 16th of this month, on the De contemptu mundi of St Eucherius of Lyons, " in this piece certain superfluities might have been spared and the full ~ense more closely expressed with equal strength and perspicuity in fewer words", is true also of his account of St Elizabeth of Hungary in an even greater degree than usual in his lives. Hi~ long notice of her has therefore been almost entirely discarded.

386

ST ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY

[November 19

enthralling fondness, of mystic ardour, of almost childish happiness, the like of which I do not remember in all I have read of romance or of human ex.perience ".

They had three children, Herman, who was born in 1222 and died when he was nineteen, Sophia, who became duchess of Brabant, and Bd Gertrude of Aldenburg.

Louis, unlike some husbands of saints, put no obstacles in the way of his wife's charity, her simple and mortified life, and her long prayers. "My lady", says one of her ladies-in-waiting, " would get up at night to pray, and my lord would implore her to spare herself and come back to rest, all the while holding her hand in his for fear she should come to some harm. She would tell her maids to wake her gently when he was asleep-and sometimes when they thought him sleeping he was only pretending." * Elizabeth's material benefactions were so great that they sometimes provoked adverse criticism. In 1225 that part of Germany was severely visited by a famine and she exhausted her own treasury and distributed her whole store of corn amongst those who felt the calamity heaviest. The landgrave was then away, and at his return the officers of his household complained to him of her profusion to the poor.

But Louis, without examining into the matter, asked if she had alienated any of his dominions. They answered, " No". "As for her charities", said he, " they will bring upon us the divine blessings. We shall not want so long as we let her relieve the poor as she does." The castle of the Wartburg was built on a steep rock, which the infirm and weak were not able to climb (the path was called "the knee­ smasher "). St Elizabeth therefore built a hospital at the foot of the rock for their reception, where she often fed them with her own hands, made their beds, and attended them even in the heat of summer when the place seemed insupportable.

Helpless children, especially orphans, were provided for at her expense. She was the foundress of another hospital in which twenty-eight persons were constantly relieved, and she fed nine hundred daily at her gate, besides numbers in different parts of the dominions, so that the revenue in her hands was truly the patrimony of the distressed. But Elizabeth's charity was tempered with discretion; and instead of encouraging in idleness such as were able to work, she employed them in ways suitable to their strength and ability. There is a story about St Elizabeth so well known that it would hardly need repeating here but that Father Delehaye picks it out as an example of the way in which hagiographers so often embellish a tale to make a greater impression on their readers.

Everyone is familiar with the beautiful incident in the life of St Elizabeth of Hungary when, in the very bed she shared with her husband, she laid a miserable leper. . . . The indignant landgrave rushed into the room and dragged off the bedclothes. "But", in the noble words of the historian, " at that instant Almighty God opened the eyes of his soul, and instead of a leper he saw the figure of Christ crucified stretched upon the bed." This admirable account by Dietrich of Apolda was considered too simple by later biographers, who consequently transformed the sublime vision of faith into a material apparition. Tunc aperuit Deus interiores principis oculos, wrote the historian. â&#x20AC;˘ " She had ordained that one of her women, which was more familiar with her than another, that if peradventure she were overtaken with sleep, that she should take her by the foot for to awake her; and on a time she supposed to have taken her lady by the foot and took her husband's foot, which suddenly awoke and would know wherefore she did so ; and then" she told him all the case, and when he knew it he let it pass and suffered it peace­ ably" (Golden Legend).

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Noveinber 19]

On the spot where the leper had slept, say the modern hagiographers, " there lay a bleeding crucifix with out-stretched arms" (The Legends of the Saints,

P·9°)· At this time strenuous efforts were being made to launch another crusade, and Louis of Thuringia took the cross. On St John the Baptist's day he parted from St Elizabeth and went to join the Emperor Frederick II in Apulia; on September I I following he was dead of the plague at Otranto. The news did not reach Germany until October, just after the birth of Elizabeth's second daughter. Her mother-in­ law broke the news to her, speaking of " what had befallen" her husband, and the " dispensation of God". Elizabeth misunderstood. "Since he is a prisoner", she said, " with the help of God and our friends he shall be set free." When she was told he was not a prisoner but dead, she cried, " The world is dead to me, and all that was joyous in the world", and ran to and fro about the castle shrieking like one crazed.

What happened next is a matter of some uncertainty. According to the testimony of one of her ladies-in-waiting, Isentrude, St Elizabeth's brother~in-Iaw, Henry, who was regent for her infant son, drove her and her children and two attendants from the Wartburg during that same winter that he might seize power himself; and there are shocking particulars of the hardship and contempt which she suffered until she was fetched away from Eisenach by her aunt, Matilda, Abbess of Kitzingen. It is alternatively claimed that she was dispossessed of her dower­ house at Marburg, in Hesse, or even that she left the Wartburg of her own free will.

From Kitzingen she visited her uncle, Eckembert, Bishop of Bamberg, who put his castle of Pottenstein at her disposal, whither she went with her son Herman and the baby, leaving the little Sophia with the nuns of Kitzingen. Eckembert had ambitious plans for another marriage for Eli~abeth, but she refused to listen to them: before his departure on the crusade she and her husband had exchanged promises never to marry again. Early in 1228 the body of Louis was brought home and solemnly buried in the abbey church at Reinhardsbrunn;* provision was made for Elizabeth by her relatives; and on Good Friday in the church of the Franciscan friars at Eisenach she formally renounced the world, later taking the unbleached gown and cord which was the habit of the-third order of St Francis.

An influential part was played in all these developments by Master Conrad of Marburg, who henceforward was the determining human influence in St Elizabeth's life. This priest had played a considerable part therein for some time, having succeeded the Franciscan Father Rodinger as her confessor in 1225. The Land­ grave Louis, in common with Pope Gregory IX and many others, had a high opinion of Conrad, and had allowed his wife to make a promise of obedience to him, saving of course his own husbandly authority. But the conclusion can hardly be avoided that Conrad's experience as a successful inquisitor of heretics and his domineering and severe, if not brutal, personality made him an unsuitable person to be the director of St Elizabeth. Some of his later critics have been moved in their adverse criticism by emotion rather than thought and knowledge; on the other hand, his defenders and apologists have not always been free from special pleading. Subjectively, it is true that Conrad, by giving to Elizabeth obstacles which she overcame, helped her on her road to sanctity (though we cannot know that a director of more sensibility would not have led her to yet greater heights) ; • He is popularly ve.llerated in Germany as " St Ludwig".

388

See September

I I.

ST ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY

[November 19

objectively, his methods were offensive. From the Friars Minor St Elizabeth had acquired a love of poverty which she could put into action only to a limited extent all the time she was landgravine of Thuringia. Now, her children having been provided for, she went to Marburg, but was forced to leave there and lived for a time in a cottage at Wehrda, by the side of the River Lahn. Then she built a small house just outside Marburg and attached to it a hospice for the relief of the sick, the aged and the poor, to whose service she entirely devoted herself.

In some respects Conrad acted as a prudent and necessary brake on her en足 thusiasm at this time: he would not allow her to beg from door to door or to divest herself definitely of all her goods or to give more than a certain amount at a time in alms or to risk infection from leprosy and other diseases. In such matters he acted with care and wisdom. But" Master Conrad tried her constancy in many ways, striving to break her own \vill in all things. 1"'hat he might afflict her still more he deprived her of those of her household who were particularly dear to her, including me, Isentrude, whom she loved; she sent me away in great dis足 tress and with many tears. Last of all he turned off Jutta, my companion, who had been with her from her childhood, and whom she loved with a special love.

With tears and sighs the blessed Elizabeth saw her go. Master Conrad, of pious memory, did this in his zeal with good intentions, lest we should talk to her of past greatness and she be tempted to regret. Moreover, he thus took away from her any comfort she might have in us because he wished her to cling to God alone."

For her devoted waiting-women he substituted two" harsh females", who reported to him on her words and actions when these infringed his detailed commands in the smallest degree. He punished her with slaps in the face and blows with a ,~ long, thick rod" whose marks remained for three weeks. No plea of " other times, other manners" can take the sting from Elizabeth's bitter cry to Isentrude, " If I am so afraid of a mortal man, how awe-inspiring must be the Lord and Judge of the world! " =*= Conrad's policy of breaking rather than directing the will was not completely successful.

With reference to him and his disciplinary methods St Elizabeth compares herself to sedge in a stream during flood-time: the water bears it down flat, but when the rains have gone it springs up again, straight, strong and unhurt.

Once when she \vent off to pay a visit of which Conrad did not approve, he sent to fetch her back. " We are like the snail", she observed, "which withdraws into its shell when it is going to rain. So we obey and withdraw from the way we were going." She had that good self-confidence so often seen when a sense of humour serves submission to God. One day a Magyar noble arrived at Marburg and asked to be directed to the residence of his sovereign's daughter, of whose troubles he had been informed.

* Alban Butler's treatment of Conrad of Marburg is an excellent example of a defect of his method in writing of the saints. He says: "Conrad, a most holy and learned priest and an eloquent pathetic preacher, whose disinterestedness and love of holy poverty, mortified life, and extraordinary devotion and spirit of prayer rendered him a model to the clergy of that age, was the person whom she chose for her spiritual director, and to his advice she submitted herself in all things relating to her spiritual concerns. This holy and experienced guide, observing how deep root the seeds of virtue had taken in her soul, applied himself by cultivating them to conduct her to the summit of Christian perfection, and encouraged her in the path of mortification and penance, but was obliged often to moderate her corporal austerities by the precept of obedience." True in substance, if exaggerated in expression: but . . .

November 19]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Arrived- at the hospital, he saw Elizabeth in her plain grey gown, sitting at her spinning-wheel. The magnificent fellow started back, crossing himself in alarm: " Whoever has seen a king's daughter spinning before?" He would have taken her back to the court of Hungary, but Elizabeth would not go. Her children, her poor, the grave of her husband were all in Thuringia, and she would stay there for the rest of her life. It was not for long. She lived with great austerity and worked continually, in her hospice, in the homes of the poor, fishing in the streams to earn a little more money to help sufferers; even when she was sick herself she would try to spin or card wool. She had not been at Marburg two years when her health finally gave way. As she lay abed her attendant heard her singing softly. " You sing sweetly, madam," she said. "I will tell you why," replied Elizabeth. " Between me and the wall there was a little bird singing so gaily to me, and it was so sweet that I had to sing too." At midnight before the day of her death she stirred from her quietness and said, " It is near the hour when the Lord was born and lay in the manger and by His all-mighty power made a new star. He came to redeem the world, and He will redeem me." And at cock-crow, " It is now the time when He rose from the grave and broke the doors of hell, and he will release me." St Elizabeth died in the evening of November 17, 1231, being then not yet twenty-four years old.

For three days her body lay in state in the chapel of the hospice, where she was buried and where many miracles were seen at her intercession. Master Conrad began collecting depositions touching her sanctity, but he did not live to see her canonization, which was proclaimed in 1235. In the following year her relics were translated to the church of St Elizabeth at Marburg, built by her brother-in­ law Conrad, in the presence of the Emperor Frederick II, and" so great a concourse of divers nations, peoples and tongues as in these German lands scarcely ever was gathered before or will ever be again". There the relics of St Elizabeth of Hun­ gary rested, an object of pilgrimage to all Germany and beyond, till in 1539 a Protestant landgrave of Hesse, Philip, removed them to a place unknown.

A glance at the BHL., nne 2488-2514, suffices to reveal how much was written about St Elizabeth within a relatively short time of her death. For a somewhat more detailed biblio­ graphy of sources, consult A. Huyskens, Quellenstudien zur Gesehiehte der hI. Elizabeth (19 08 ), and also the introduction and notes to the text printed by D. Henniges in the Arehivum Franeiseanum Historicum, vol. ii (1909), pp. 240-268. It must suffice to say here that the most important materials are supplied by the Libellus de dietis IV aneillarum (a summary of the depositions of the saint's four handmaidens); by the letters of Conrad to the pope; the accounts of miracles and other documents sent to Rome in view of her canonization; the life written by Caesarius of Heisterbach with a discourse of his concerning the translation (both before 1240); and the life by Dietrich of Apolda, composed as late as 1297, but im­ portant on account of its wide diffusion. Some of the most notable of these texts were edited by Karl Wenck, and others by Huyskens, in view of the seventh centenary of the saint's birth. A detailed criticism is provided in the Analeeta Bollandiana, vols. xxvii, pp. 493-497 and xxviii, pp. 333-335. Of modern biographies the work of Count de Monta­ lembert (1836; best English translation by F. D. Hoyt, 1904) for more than half a century held the field, but unfortunately the author's charm of style and deep religious feeling are handicapped by a lack of historical criticism. The attitude of Conrad of Marburg towards his penitent has been in some measure vindicated by P. Braun in his articles in the Beitriige zur Hessisehe Kirehengesehiehte, vol. iv (1910), pp. 248-300 and 331-364. There are French lives of the saint of moderate compass by E. Horn (1902), Leopold de Cherance (1927), and J. Ancelet-Hustache (1947), and German ones by A. Stolz (1898) and E. Busse-Wilson (193 1). There is a sensitive simple sketch in English by William Canton; but the book called Saint EHzabeth of Hungary, by F. J. von Weinrich (Eng. trans., 1933), is a mere work of fiction based upon the story of St Elizabeth. She has sometimes been credited with the

39°

ST NERSES I

[November 19

writings called the Revelationes B. Elisabeth, but these contain nothing of hers, as F. Oliger has proved: neither did they spring from the fertile imagination of St Elizabeth of Schonau; ci. Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxxi (1953), pp. 494-496.

ST PONTIAN, POPE AND MARTYR

(c. A.D. 236)

PONTIAN, who is said to have been a Roman, followed St Urban I as bishop of Rome about the year 230. The only known event of his pontificate is the synod held at Rome which confirmed the condemnation already pronounced at Alex­ andria of certain doctrines attributed to Origen. At the beginning of the per­ secution by the Emperor Maximinus the pope was exiled to Sardinia, an island described as nociva, " unhealthy", whereby perhaps the mines were meant; here he resigned his office. How much longer he lived and the manner of his death are not known: traditionally life was beaten out of him with sticks. Some years later Pope St Fabian translated his body to the cemetery of St Callistus in Rome, where in 1909 his original epitaph was found: IIONTIANOG EIIIGK MPT, the last word having been added later.

In the fourth-century Depositio Martyrum the name of St Pontian is coupled with that of Hippolytus, and August 13 is the day assigned for the commemoration: "Idus Aug. Ypoliti in 1"iburtina et Pontiani in Callisti." Fr Delehaye has discussed the whole n1atter very fully in his CMH., pp. 439-440.

See also Marucchi in Nuovo Bullettino for 1909, pp. 35-5°; Wilpert, Die Papstgriiber und die Ciiciliengruit (1909), pp. 17-18 ; and E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, vol. i (1930), pp. 44 seq.

ST NERSES I, KATHOLIKOS OF THE ARMENIANS, MARTYR

(c. A.D.

373) THIS bishop, the first of several Armenian saints of his name, was a strong reformer and began the work which was carried on by his son St Isaac. He was brought up at Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he married. After the death of his wife he became an official at the court of the Armenian king, Arshak, received holy orders, and in 363 was made chief bishop of Armenia, much against his will. At Caesarea he had come under the influence of St Basil, and accordingly about the year 365 he convened the first national synod at Astishat, in order to bring better discipline and efficiency to his church. He encouraged monasticism, established hospitals, and promulgated canonical legislation imitated from the Greeks. This embroiled him with the king, and worse followed when Arshak murdered his wife, Olympia.

St Nerses condemned him and refused to attend the court, whereupon he was banished and another bishop intruded in his office. Arshak was killed in battle with the Persians shortly after and St N erses returned, only to find that the new king, Pap, was even worse than his predecessor: a contemporary Armenian chronicler says he was possessed by the Devil. His life was so atrocious that St N erses refused him entrance to the church until he mended his ways.

Pap meditated revenge. Pretending penitence he invited N erses to dine at his table, and there poisoned him. 8t N erses has ever since been venerated as a martyr, his name occurs in the canon of the Armenian Mass, and he is referred to as " the Great ".

A very full account of St Nerses will be found in Tournebize, Histoire politique et religieuse de l'Arminie (1901), especially pp. 469-489. See also S. Weber, Die Katholische Kirche in Armenien (1903), pp. 287-316; the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxix (1921), pp. 65-69; and Messina and Markwart in Orientalia christiana, vol. xxvii (1932), pp. 141-236.

39 1

November

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

20]

ST BARLAAM, MARTYR

(FOURTH CENTURY?)

THERE is a panegyric of this martyr by 8t John Chrysostom, but his acta as we have them are spurious. This legend says that Barlaam was a labourer in a village near Antioch, where his confession of Christ provoked the persecutors, who detained him a long time in jail before he was brought to trial. When he was arraigned the judge laughed at his uncouth language and appearance, but was forced to admire his virtue and constancy. He was nevertheless cruelly scourged, but no word of complaint was extorted from him. He was then put on the rack and his bones dislocated. When this failed to move him, the prefect threatened him with death and had swords and axes fresh stained with the blood of martyrs displayed before him. Barlaam beheld them without a word. He was therefore re足 manded to prison, and the judge, who was ashamed to see himself beaten by an illiterate peasant, tried to invent some new torment. At length he flattered himself that he had found a method by which Barlaam should be compelled, in spite of his resolution, to offer sacrifice. He was brought out of prison, and an altar with burning coals upon it was made ready. The martyr's hand was then forcibly held over the flames and incense with red-hot embers was laid upon it, so that, if he shook them off his hand, he might be said to offer sacrifice by throwing the incense into the fire upon the altar. Barlaam, fearing scandal and the very shadow of idolatry (though by throwing off the fire to save his hand he could not be esteemed to have meant to sacrifice), kept his hand steady whilst the fire burnt into it and so dropped his flesh, with the incense, upon the altar. The martyrdom of 8t Barlaam, whenever and in whatever circumstances it took place, hap足 pened at Antioch, and not at Caesarea in Cappadocia as stated in the Roman Martyrology.

This Barlaam, it may be said with confidence, is none other than the" Barula " whom we find on Novernber 18 associated with St Romanus. See the article of Delehaye in the Analecta Bolland贈ana, vol. xxii, pp. 129-145, and other references given above under Romanus.

20 : ST

F'ELIX OF VALOIS, CO-FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF THE MOST

HOLY TRINITY

(A.D.

1212)

T

HE surname of Valois was given to this saint according to later writers of his order because he was of the royal family of Valois in France, but it was originally because he lived in the province of Valois. He lived, we are told, as a hermit in the wood of Gandelu in the diocese of 80issons, at a spot called Cerfroid; and he had no thoughts but of dying in the obscurity of this retreat when God called him thence. This was by means of his disciple, St John of Matha, who made the suggestion of establishing a religious order for the redemp足 tion of captives. Felix, though said to be then seventy years of age, readily offered himself to do and suffer whatever it should please God in the carrying-out of so charitable a work, and together they set out in the winter of 1197 to obtain the approval of the Holy See. From henceforward, indeed from the beginning, the life of St Felix of Valois shares the legends and uncertainties of that of 8t John of Matha and of the early history of the Trinitarian Order. These have already been set out herein in the

39 2

SS. NERSES AND OTHER MARTYRS

[November

20

account of St John of Matha under the date of his feast, February 8. According to the traditional account, while St John was working for the Christian slaves in Spain and Barbary, St Felix propagated the new order in Italy and France, founding the convent of St Maturinus (Mathurin) in Paris. When John finally returned to Rome, St Felix, in spite of his great age, administered the French province and the mother-house of the order at Cerfroid, where he died in his eighty-sixth year on November 4, 1212. Alban Butler notes that it is the tradition of the Trinitarians that the two founders were canonized by Pope Urban IV in 1262, but that " the bull is nowhere extant". Alexander VII recognized their cultus in 1666, and twenty-eight years later the feast of St Felix of Valois was extended to the whole \Vestern church.

Materials for the life of St Felix are practically non-existent, though Fr Calixte-de-la足 Providence compiled a Vie de St Felix de Valois of which a third edition appeared in 1878.

The reader must be referred to the note on St John of Matha herein under February 8.

See also lVlann, History of the Popes, vol. xii, pp. 84 and 272; and cf. the observations in Baudot and Chaussin, Vies des saints, vol. xi (1954), pp. 669-67 0 .

ST DASIUS, MARTYR

(A.D. 303 ?)

THIRTY days before the winter festival called Saturnalia it was the custom in the Roman army to elect a " lord of misrule" whose office it was to be a leader in the revels, which did not stop short of excess and debauchery, and ended with the sacrifice of the leader to Kronos. At Durostorum (Silistria in Bulgaria) in the year 303 the garrison chose one of their number called Dasius. He knew well enough what was expected of him and, being a Christian, refused to play the part, arguing that he had to die in either case, and had better die in a good cause than a bad one. He was brought before the legate Bassus, who pressed him to renounce his faith or at least to go through the form of sacrificing before images of the emperors, reminding him of his obligation as a soldier to obey. But Dasius remained firm in his refusal, and was put to death by beheading. His alleged relics are preserved at Ancona, to which place they are supposed to have been taken, perhaps to save them from the Avars, in the second half of the sixth century.

The Greek Acts of St Dasius, first published from a unique text by Franz Cumont in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xvi (1897), pp. 5-1 I, have excited great interest but have met with very divergent judgements. By some the story has been received as an absolutely authentic narrative, in the eyes of others it is a tale with a moral purpose which has been elaborated upon the simple theme of a martyr's decapitation. Delehaye, both in his CMH. (pp. 609-610) and his Les passions des 'martyrs . .. (1921), pp. 321-328, has dealt with the matter very fully, and has paid due regard to opinions differing from his own. In his view we cannot be certain that the martyr was a soldier, or that he suffered at Durostorum rather than at Heraclea. On the Ancona inscription see G. Mercati in the Rendiconti dell' accademia pontificia di archeologia, vol. iv, pp. 59-71.

SSe NERSES, BISHOP OF SAHGERD, AND OTHER MARTYRS 3-1-3)

(A.D.

IN the fourth year of the great persecution raised by Sapor II in Persia were apprehended N erses, Bishop of Sahgerd, and his disciple Joseph, whilst the king happened to be in that city. When they were brought before him he said to Nerses, " Your grey hairs and your pupil's youth incline me in your favour. Consider your own safety. Worship the sun and I will confer honours upon you." Nerses 393

Nov~mber 20]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

answered, " Your flattery does not deceive us. I am now over eighty years old and have served God from my infancy. I pray Him that I may be preserved from so grievous an evil and may never betray Him by worshipping the work of His hands." He was threatened with death, and Nerses replied, " If you had power to put us to death seven times over we should never yield ". The martyrs were led out of the tents, followed by a multitude of people. At the place of execution Joseph said to the bishop, " See how the people gaze at you. They are waiting for you to dismiss them and go to your own home." Nerses embracing him replied, " You are happy, my blessed Joseph, to have broken the snares of the world and entered the narrow path of the kingdom of Heaven ". Their heads were then struck off.

In the same acts, the martyrdom of several others about the same time is recorded. Among them a eunuch in the royal palace refused to sacrifice, whereupon Vardan, an apostate priest who had shrunk at his trial and renounced his faith, was ordered to kill him with his own hand. He advanced, but at first sight of the martyr trembled and stopped, not daring. The martyr said to him, " Can you, who are a priest, come to kill me? I certainly am wrong when I call you a priest.

Do your work, but remember the apostasy and end of Judas." The impious Vardan made a trembling thrust and stabbed.

A very full account of this martyr, with the Syriac text, a Latin translation, and an immense array of bibliographical references, has been printed by P. Peeters in the Acta Sanctorum for November, vol. iv, under November 10. The text had previously been edited by E. Assemani in his Acta martyrum orientalium, voL i, pp. 99 seq., and also by Bedjan and Hoffmann.

ST MAXENTIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR

(No DATE)

ACCORDING to the legend of the church of Beauvais this maiden was of Irish birth daughter of a prince. She dedicated herself to God at an early age, and when her father wished to give her in marriage to a pagan chief she fled from home. Taking with her two servants, a man and a woman, she crossed the sea to Gaul and settled at the place on the Oise that is now called Pont-Sainte-Maxence, near Senlis. One day she was surprised by the arrival of a number of horsemen outside her cottage: it was the disappointed suitor, who had tracked her down. He asked her to return with him, but Maxentia refused indignantly. Then, when threats were of no avail, the man, carried away with fury, seized her by the hair and cut off her head.

Her faithful servants suffered a like fate.

Two variant texts of this worthless passio have been printed in Renet, S. Lucien et les autres saints du Beauvaisis, vol. iii, pt 2 (1895), pp. 543-548. Capgrave has summarized the 'legend, but it is ignored, very rightly, by Dom Gougaud in his Saints irlandais hors d'Irlande.

ST EDMUND THE MARTYR

(A.D. 870)

DURING the ninth century the N orthmen or Danes with increasing frequency raided the coasts of England, till in the middle of the century " the heathen first began to winter in our land". At this time, on Christmas Day, 855, the nobles and clergy of Norfolk, assembled at Attleborough, acknowledged as their king Edmund, a youth of fourteen, who in the following year was accepted by Suffolk as well. He is said to have been as talented and successful as a ruler as he was

394

ST EDMUND THE MARTYR

[November

20

virtuous as a man, learning the Psalter by heart in order that he might join in the Church's worship and emulate the good deeds of King David. He was, wrote the Benedictine Lydgate in the fifteenth century, " In his estate most godly and benign, heavenly of cheer, of counsel provident, showing of grace full many a blessed sign. . . ." Then came the biggest Danish invasion that had yet been. " In the year 866," says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, " a great army [of Danes] came to the land of the Angle kin and took up winter quarters among the East Angles, and there they were provided with horses. And the East Angles made peace with them." Then the invaders crossed the Humber and took York, and marched south into Mercia as far as Nottingham, plundering, burning and enslaving as they went. In 870 the host rode across l\1ercia into East Anglia, and took up winter quarters at Thetford. "And that winter Edmund fought against them, and the Danish men got the victory and slew the king, and subdued all that land and destroyed all the monasteries that they came to."

That brief and unadorned statement tells us all that is historically certain about the death of St Edmund. 1"'he traditions related by Abbo of Fleury, in his passio of the martyr, and other chroniclers are summed up by Alban Butler as follows.

The barbarians poured down upon St Edmund's dominions, burning Thetford, which they took by surprise, and laying waste all before them. The king raised what forces he could, met a part of the Danes' army near Thetford, and discomfited them. But seeing them soon after reinforced with fresh numbers, against which his small body was not able to make any stand, he retired towards his castle of Framlingham in Suffolk. The barbarian leader, Ingvar, had sent him proposals which were inconsistent both with religion and with the justice which he o\ved to his people. These the saint rejected. In his flight he was overtaken and surrounded at Hoxne, upon the Waveney (alternatively, he allowed himself to be taken in the church). rrerms were again offered him prejudicial to religion and to his people, which he refused, declaring that religion was dearer to him than his life, which he would never purchase by offending God. Ingvar had him tied to a tree and torn with whips, which he bore with patience, calling upon the name of Jesus. Then his tormentors shot at him with arrows, cunningly, so as not to kill him, till his body was "like a hedgehog whose skin is closely set with quills, or a thistle covered with thorns". At last Ingvar cut his bonds, dragged him from the tree to which he was nailed by the arrows, and his head was hacked off.

The body of the king was buried at Hoxne, and about the year 903 translated to Beodricsworth, the town now known as Bury St Edmund's (i.e. St Edmund's Borough). In 1010, during the Danish ravages it was taken to the church of St Gregory by St Paul's, in London, and ~hree years later brought back to Bury.* During the reign of Canute the great Benedictine abbey of St Edmundsbury was founded, and the body of St Edmund was the principal relic in the abbey church. â&#x20AC;˘ The " station" for the second night on this return journey was at Greensted in the parish of Chipping Ongar, and an existing church is said to have been hastily put up to shelter the relics. The nave walls (the only original parts of the building) are exactly as Alban Butler describes the first church built for St Edmund at Bury: "Trunks of large trees were sawn lengthways in the middle, and reared up with one end fixed in the ground, with the bark or rough side outermost. These trunks being made of an equal height, and set up close to one another and the interstices filled up with mud or mortar, formed the four walls, upon which was raised a thatched roof." Almost so remains the church of Greensted today.

395

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 20]

Thomas Carlyle's comments (in Past and Present) on the chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, wherein is described the translation of the body to a new shrine in 1198, by Abbot Samson, have made the name of St Edmund and his abbey more familiar to many than they otherwise would be. The subsequent history of the relics is a matter of dispute. Devotion to St Edmund the Martyr was formerly very wide-spread and popular in England, numerous churches were dedicated in his honour, and in the thirteenth century and later his feast was a holiday of obliga­ tion. It is now observed in the dioceses of vVestminster and N"orthampton, and by the English Benedictines.

One passio by Abbo of Fleury, and a second by Gaufridus de Fontibus, together with Archdeacon Herman's collection of miracles and another similar collection made by Abbot Samson, have all been edited by Thomas Arnold for the Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, vol. i, in the Rolls Series. The editor in his introduction points out that William of Malmes­ bury and the chroniclers purport to supply further information, though this is probably of little value. The same must be said of La Vie Seint Edmund Ie Rey, a French poem of the thirteenth century printed by Mr Arnold in his second volume, and also of the English poem of Dan Lydgate, himself a monk of Bury. There is a modern life by J. B. Mackinlay (1893) which is unfortunately quite uncritical (see The Month, October, 1893, pp. 275-280).

On the other hand, Lord Francis Hervey in his Corolla Sti Eadmundi (1907) and his History of King Eadmund (1929) has given proof of a very careful and scholarly study of the subject.

The supposed transference of the remains of St Edmund to the church of St Sernin at Toulouse and the return of part of them to England in 19°1 have been the occasion of much animated discussion.

See also Stanton's Menology, pp. 559~561. La Vie Seint Edmund was published again in 1935, by H. Kjellman at Goteborg, and Jocelin's Chronicle in 1949, by H. E. Butler. Cf. also R. M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England (1952).

ST BERNWARD,

BISHOP OF HILDESHEIM

(A.D. 1022)

HE came of a Saxon family and, being left an orphan at an early age, was taken charge of by his uncle, Bishop Volkmar of Utrecht, who sent him to the cathedral­ school of Heidelberg. To complete his studies he was sent to Mainz, where he was ordained priest by St Willigis, but he refused any preferment until after the death of his grandfather, to whose care he devoted himself. The old man died in 987 and Bernward was made an imperial chaplain and tutor to the child­ emperor, Otto III, over whose subsequent career the influence of Bernward had a strong though insufficient effect. Six years later he was elected bishop of Hildes­ heim, where he built the great church and monastery of St Michael and ruled his see with prudence and ability. St Bernward had always been a great amateur of ecclesiastical art and his name is particularly remembered in connection with all kinds of metal-work; as bishop of a wealthy see he had ample opportunity and means of promoting good work and encouraging good workmen. Moreover his biographer, Thangmar, who had formerly been his preceptor, states that St Bernward himself was a painter and metal-worker and spent much time in the exercise of these arts. Several very beautiful pieces of metal-work at Hildesheim are attributed to his hands.

St Bernward's episcopate of thirty years was unhappily disturbed by a dispute with St Willigis, Archbishop of Mainz, who made claim to episcopal rights in (he great nunnery of Gandersheim. This dispute had begun during the episcopate of Bernward's predecessor, and was revived by the bad conduct of a nun called Sophi~, who" egged on " the Archbishop of Mainz, when the Bishop of Hildesheim called her to order. The conflict went on for over seven years, even after the

39 6

[November

BD A'MBROSE OF CAMALDOLI

20

Holy See had pronounced in favour of St Bernward, whose behaviour throughout was irreproachable.

At length St Willigis submitted publicly and made full amends for his lack of prudence and his headstrong conduct. St Bernward died on November 20, 1022, af~er having assumed the habit of St Benedict. He was canonized in 1193.

The best text of th~ life by Thangmar is that in MGH., Scriptores, vol. iv, pp. 754-782 ; it is also printed in Migne, PL., vol. cxl, cc. 393:,.-436. See further the Neues Archiv, vol. xxv, pp. 427 seq.; V. C. Habicht, Der hi. Berwards von Hildesheirn Kunstwerke (1922) ; the Archivfiir Kulturgeschichte, vol. xvii (1921), pp. 273-285; and F. J. Tschan, St Bernward of lIildesheim : his Lzfe and Times (2 vols. and plates, 1942-52; University of Notre Dame Press, U.S.A.).

BD AMBROSE OF CAMALDOLI, ABBOT AMBROSE TRAVERSARI was a conspicuous and engaging figure in the religious and literary life of the early fifteenth century in Italy: he was a characteristic " all足 round " man of the Renaissance, humanist, monk and man of affairs. He came of a noble Tuscan family, and was born at Portico in 1386. At the age of fourteen he became a Camaldolese monk in the monastery of our Lady of the Angels at Florence, and lived there for thirty years. During this time he became a thorough master of Greek and Latin, learned Hebrew, read deeply, especially in Greek, and collected a fine library; he made many valuable translations from the writings of the Greek fathers, including the Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus and the Ladder of Perfection of St John Climacus, some of which still appear in Migne's Greek Patrology. His great scholarship earned him a profound respect in Florence.

He was patronized by Cosimo de' Medici, and was asked to give lectures on theology and history to the sons of the nobility. There gathered in his cell such diverse characters as St Laurence Giustiniani, Niccolo Niccoli and Poggio Bracciolini, Manuel Chrysoloras (of whom it could be said, as it has been said of Bd Ambrose himself, that " the careful niceness of his conscience as a humanist has not been maintained by all his follov/ers "), and his pupil Leonard Bruni. Ambrose went out of his way to protect and help the last-named, who rewarded his benefactor by slandering him.

In 1431 this long and undisturbed period of worship, study and intellectual activity was brought to a sudden end, when Pope Eugenius IV appointed Bd Ambrose abbot general of the Camaldolese Order, with instructions to carry out certain reforms of urgent necessity. This he did with considerable vigour, and his own diary survives as evidence of the need for reform and the extraordinary difficulties with which the abbot visitor had to contend, not always successfully.

Later the Holy See entrusted to him similar duties in respect of the Vallumbrosan monks. The researches which Bd Ambrose carried out in the libraries of the monasteries he had to visit still further commended him to the pope, and when in 1434 Eugenius fled from Rome and took refuge at Florence he attached Ambrose to his person. In the following year he was one of the papal envoys to the trouble足 some council at Basle, where he strongly defended the rights of the Holy See and warned the extremists against the sin of schism. Bd Ambrose showed himself an admirable minister, particularly efficient in keeping the pope supplied with accurate information about persons and events.

In 1438 he was the papal representative at Venice to meet the emperor of the East, John VII, and his brother Joseph, Patriarch of Constantinople, coming to 397

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November. 21]

the Council of Ferrara. Because of his expert knowledge of the Greek tongue and of Eastern theology, Ambrose was called on to play a very active part in the negotiations which led to the short-lived reunion of the Western and Eastern churches; the emperor said that Ambrose knew Greek better than anyone else among the Latins. With Bessarion he was commissioned to draw up the decree of union, beginning, " Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad", which was solemnly proclaimed at Florence in July 1439. Less than five months later, on October 20, Ambrose Traversari was dead, at the age of fifty-three. He has never been officially beatified, but a popular cultus is extended to him at Florence and among the Camaldolese monks, and he is commemorated on this day.

Much of his history can be gathered from his letters, which have been printed in Martene, Veterum scriptorum amplissima collectio, vol. iii, supplemented by L. Bertalot, in the Romische Quartalschrift, vol. xxix (1915), pp. 91 seq. There is also the account which Ambrose wrote of his visitations of the Camaldolese houses in 143 I. It was edited by Bertholini, Beati Ambrosii Hodoeporicon (1680), but a better text is that of A. Dini-Traversari in the book Ambrogio Traversari e i suoi tempi (1912). See also Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. i, pp. 140-142, .306, 318; and G. G. Coulton, Five Centuries of Religion, vol. iv (1950), caps. xxvi-xxxi.

21 : THE

PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

HIS feast is popularly associated with a story that the parents of our Lady brought her to the Temple at Jeruselem when she was three years old and left her there to be brought up, related in several of the apocryphal gospels, e.g. in the Protevangelium of James.

T

And the child was two years old, and Joachim said, " Let us take her up to the Temple of the Lord, that we may pay the vow that we have vowed, lest perchance the Lord send to us and our offering be not received ". And Anne said, " Let us wait for the third year, in order that the child may not seek for father or mother". And Joachim said, " Let us so wait". And the child was three years old . . . and they went up into the Temple of the Lord, and the priest received her and kissed her and blessed her, saying, "The Lord has magnified thy name in all generations. In thee, on the last of the days, the Lord will manifest His redemption to the sons of Israel." And he set her down upon the third step of the altar, and the Lord God sent grace upon her; and she danced with her feet and all the house of Israel loved her.

And her parents went down marvelling, and praising the Lord God because the child had not turned back. And Mary was in the Temple of the Lord as if she were a dove that dwelt there. . . .

It is not stated anywhere in the liturgy of the Roman church that this is the occasion of the presentation eelebrated in today's feast. The festival is not a very ancient one, even in the East "There it originated: the Entrance of the All-holy Mother of God into the Temple. It seems probable that its origin was in the commemoration of the dedication of New St Mary's church at Jerusalem in 543.

In the West the first, and sporadic, observance of it was in the eleventh century, in England. Here it was, to quote Edmund Bishop, a .real liturgical feast and was actually observed in practice. Assurance of the fact is supplied by the Canterbury Cathedral Benedictional. In its proper 398

[November

ST GELASIUS I

2I

place in this Benedictional (i.e. between the feasts of 5t Martin, November I I, and 5t Cecily, November 22) is a "Benedictio de pnesentatione sancte Marie". This is that feast of the Presentation which after appearing in our English books of Winchester and Canterbury only to disappear again, was started in Latin Christendom in the later decades of the fourteenth century ; our English essay of 350 years earlier being forgotten by all the world usque in hodiernum diem (Liturgica Historica, p. 257).

The feast won general acceptance only gradually and was not finally admitted to the Western calendar till the pontificate of 5ixtus V (1585).

See Kellner, Heortolog)' , pp. 265-266; Schuster, The Sacramentary, vol. v, pp. 290-291 ; Hohveck, Calendarium Liturgicum (1925), p. 386; S. Beissel, Verehrung Marias in Deutsch­ land, vol. i, p. 306; vol: ii, p. 281. It is curious that in none of these sources is any mention made of the fact that as early as the eleventh century the feast of the Presentation of our Lady was liturgically celebrated in England, and that at Canterbury itself: see the Henry Bradshaw Society's edition of the Canterbury Benedictional, p. 116. This celebration seems to have had some diffusion in England. It is found in the calendar of an East Anglian Horae (Christ's ColI. Camb., MS. 6, early thirteenth century) in the fonn « Oblacio B.M.V.". In this form also it occurs in two Worcester books of the same date: see The Leofric Collectar, vol. ii, p. 599. That the feast was somehow introduced from the East may be inferred from the fact that we find it attached to this same day (November 21) in the Greek synaxaries (the text is printed in Delehaye's edition, cc. 243-244) and these synaxaries certainly date from the tenth century.

In the Henry Bradshaw Society's reprint of the Missale Romanum of 1474 (yo1. ii, pp. 251-253) is an interesting note which, while pointing out that the Presenta­ tion feast does not occur in the calendar or text of the 1474 edition, prints a Mass for the feast from a Roman missal of 1505. This includes a long sequence so barbarously worded that one can readily believe that St Pius V thought it better to suppress the feast altogether­ as he did-rather than tolerate the continued recitation of such doggerel. For later references to the feast's origins, see M. J. Kishpaugh, The Feast of the Presentation (1941) ; E. Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico, vol. i (1943), pp. 2°7-214; and N. Chirat, Melanges (1945), pp.

127- 143.

ST GELASIUS I,

POPE

(A.D. 496)

THE successor of Pope 5t Felix II in 492 was a capable and vigorous pontiff, " famous all over the world" , says a contemporary, " for his learning and holiness" .

Gelasius maintained the firm attitude of his predecessor to the" Acacian schism" arising out of the monophysite troubles; at Constantinople the Patriarch Euph­ emius, Acacius being dead, was anxious to heal the breach, but the emperor, Anastasius I, upheld the condemned Henotikon, aad, till this document was re­ pudiated and the condemnation of Acacius recognized, communion could not be restored. " We shall certainly come to the great judgement-seat of Christ, brother Euphemius ", wrote the pope, " surrounded by those by whom the faith has been defended. It will there be proved whether the glorious confession of 5t Peter has been lacking in anything for the salvation of those given him to rule, or whether there has been rebellion and obstinacy in those who were unwilling to obey him."

On several other occasions, especially in his letters, 5t Gelasius emphasized the supremacy of the see of Peter, notably in a passage of a letter to the Emperor Anastasius wherein he expounds the right relation between religious and secular authority. But when he referred to the bishop of Constantinople as " an unim­ portant suffragan of Heraclea " the pope displayed a better sense of past history than of actuality. He was emphatic on the duty of bishops to devote a quarter of their revenue to charity, and strongly opposed an attempt to revive the pagan

399

November 21]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Lupercalia festival.

An interesting declaration of St Gelasius was when he insisted on communion in both kinds: this was aimed at the Manicheans, who regarded wine as an unlawful drink and therefore abstained from the eucharistic cup.

Gelasius is believed to have been a prolific writer, but little has survived. A contemporary priest, Gennadius, informs us that he compiled a sacramentary; but the Gelasian Sacramentary so called today belongs later. A decree upon which writings are canonical books of Holy Scripture has often been attributed to St Gelasius, but is now recognized not to be his.

Our chief sources of information are the Lz"ber PontificaUs (Duchesne's edition), vol. i, pp. 254-257, and the pope's letters, which may be found in Thiel, Epz"stolae Romanorum Pontz"jicum, supplemented by Lowenfeld, Epz"stolae Pontijicum Romanorum z"nedz"tae (1885).

See also A. Roux, Le Pape St. Gelase (1880); Grisar, Geschz"chte Roms und der Piipste, vol. i, pp. 452-457 ; and Hefele-Leclercq, Concz"les, vol. ii, pp. 940 seq. As for the famous Decretum de Ubrz"s redpz"endz"s et non redpz"endz"s it is now generally admitted that this cannot be attributed to Pope St Gelasius: the form in which it is preserved to us dates from the sixth century, and is a compilation of pieces of varied origin, some perhaps emanating from Pope Damasus, others from Hormisdas, etc. See the monograph of E. von Dobschiitz, in Texte und Unter足 suchungen, vol. xxxviii, pt 3; Abbot Chapman in the Revue Benedz"ctine, vol. xxx (1913), pp. 187-207 and 315-333; and DAC., 'yol. vi, cc. 722-747. The standard edition of the " Gelasian " Sacramentary is that edited by H. A. Wilson (1894), but see also Mohlberg and Baumstark, Dz"e iilteste erreichbare Gestalt des Lz"ber Sacramentorum (1927), and E. Bishop in Lz"turgica Hz"storz"ca, pp. 39-61.

ST ALBERT OF LOUVAIN,

BISHOP

OF

LrEGE,

MARTYR

(A.D.

119 2 ) DURING the twelfth century there was strong competition between the noble houses of Brabant and Hainault for possession of the extensive and powerful see of Liege, whose occupant was necessarily of great weight in the politics of the time, and it was this improper-but in those days very common-use of a bishopric as a political "strong-point" which led to the violent death of Albert of Louvain.

He was born about the year 1166, son of Godfrey III, Duke of Brabant, and his wife Margaret of Limburg, and was brought up in his father's castie on that hill of Louvain which is now called Mont-Cesar and whereon is now a well-known Benedictine abbey. Albert was early destined for the clerical state and while still a school-boy of twelve was made a canon of Liege, but when he was twenty-one he renounced his benefice and asked Baldwin V, Count of Hainault (his own bitter enemy), to receive him as ~ knight. Baldwin agreed, and attached him to his own entourage. In view of what happened afterwards it seems a reasonable speculation that Albert wished tu go crusading. For when a few months later the papal legate, Cardinal Henry of Albano, preached the crusade in Liege (and incidentally received the resignation of seventy simoniacal prelates), among those who c, took the cross " was Albert-but he at the same time rejoined the ranks of the clergy and received back his canonry. The inner history of this curious episode is not known, but certainly Albert never went to the East, either as soldier or churchman, and in the following year he was archdeacon of Brabant. Other dignities followed, but, though he was archdeacon and provost by office, Albert was still only subdeacon by orders.

In I 191 the bishop of Liege died and two candidates were put forward to fill the vacancy: both were named Albert, both were archdeacons, and neither of them was a priest. Albert of Rethel was a deacon, cousin of Baldwin of Hainault, and uncle of the Empress Constance, wife of Henry VI. A contemporary chronicler

400

[November

ST ALBERT OF LOUVAIN

21

says that at the election Liege was full of dukes, counts and men-at-arms. But there was no doubt that Albert of Louvain was the more suitable candidate and the chapter appointed him by an overwhelming majority. Thereupon Albert of Rethel appealed to his relative the emperor, Who was an enemy of Albert of Lou­ vain's brother, Henry of Brabant, and the cause was appointed to be heard at Worms. 8t Albert was supported by practically all the clergy of Liege, Albert of Rethel by his minority of canons, but the emperor would pronounce in favour of neither of them. He announced that he had disposed of the see of Liege to Lothaire, provost of Bonn, whom he had just made imperial chancellor in return for three thousand marks. 8t Albert quietly told Henry that his own election was canonically valid, rebuked the interference with the Church's liberties, and gave notice of his appeal to the Holy 8ee. He set out for Rome in person and, as the emperor was trying to intercept him, travelled by a devious route and disguised as a servant. He groomed his own horse at night, helped in the kitchen, and was once told to dry and clean an inn-keeper's shoes for him. Pope Celestine III after due deliberation pronounced the election of 8t Albert to be valid and confirmed it.

On his return, however, Albert was unable to take possession of his see, held by the intruded Lothaire, and Archbishop Bruno of Cologne would not ordain and consecrate him for fear of the emperor (he was, moreover, old and ill). Pope Celestine had foreseen this and had anthorized Archbishop William of Rheims to carry out these duties and 8t Albert was made priest and bishop at Rheims. At the same time news was brought that the Emperor Henry was in Liege, vowing to exterminate Albert and his followers. Albert's uncle would have set off at once with a following of nobles to assert his nephew's rights, but 8t Albert had a better idea of the duties of a Christian and preferred to remain in exile rather than to precipitate war. The emperor meanwhile took strong measures with the faithful clergy of Liege, forced the submission of Albert's supporters, and left the city for Maestricht, where a further plot was hatched. On November 24, 1192, when 8t Albert had been nearly ten weeks at Rheims, he went on a visit to the abbey of 8aint-Remi, outside the walls. In a narrow part of the way German knights set upon and murdered him. The whole city was horrified, and 8t Albert was buried with honour in the cathedral. The Emperor Henry had to do penance, and his creature, Lothaire, excommunicated, took refuge in flight.

The history of the relics of 8t Albert is a matter of some interest. What purported to be these relics were in 1612 translated from Rheims to the church of the Carmelite convent in Brussels, and on that occasion Pope Paul V granted a Mass and Office of 8t Albert, bishop and martyr, to all the churches of that city and the cathedral of Rheims. When during 1919 the choir of the cathedral at Rheims was being cleared of the debris from the German bombardment, a tomb was opened which was supposed to be that of Odalric, a tenth-century archbishop.

An examination of its contents aroused the suspicions of the authorities, and a commission of clergy, archaeologists and medical men was appointed to go into the matter. In 1921 this commission reported its unanimous agreement that the skeleton found in " Odalric's " tomb was that of 8t Albert of Louvain, and that the relics taken to Brussels in 1612 were those of Odalric.· In reply to the hope • There was no suggestion of fraud on the part of the seventeenth-century canons of Rheims. The proceedings of the commission make it quite clear how such a mistake could easily have been made at that time, the inscriptions on the tombs being obliterated.

4°1

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Nooember 22]

expressed by a Belgian member of the commission that the metropolitan chapter of Rheims would honour its promise of three hundred years before and send the relics of St Albert to Belgium, Mgr N eveux, auxiliary bishop in Rheims, said that he could not then give a definite answer, but that in his opinion " solemn engage­ ments were not scraps of paper". In the event, the bones of Odalric, detached portions having been called in by Cardinal Mercier, archbishop of Malines, were sent back from Brussels; and on November 18, 1921, the true relics of St Albert were solemnly handed over by Cardinal Lu~on, archbishop of Rheims, to Mgr Van Cauwenbergh and Dom Sebastian Braun, O.S.B., deputed by the Primate of Belgium to receive them. A considerable relic was subsequently detached and returned to Rheims.

A reliable life by a contemporary has been printed by Heller in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xxv, pp. 137-168. For an account of the identification of the true relics at Rheims, see the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xl (1922), pp. 155-170; and c/. L. Demaison, Reims d la fin du xii' siecle (1925). Consult further David, Histoire de St Albert de Louvain (1848); B. del Marmol, St Albert de Louvain (1922) in the series" Les Saints"; and E. de Moreau, St Albert de Louvain (1946):

22 : ST CECILIA,

OR

CECILY,

VIRGIN AND MARTYR

(DATE

UNKNOWN)

OR over a t~ousan~ years St Cecilia (the more traditional English form of her name IS- Ceclly) has been one of the most greatly venerated of the maiden martyrs of the early Church and is one of those named in the canon of the Mass. Her" acts" state that she was a patrician girl of Rome and that she was brought up a Christian. She wore a coarse garment beneath the clothes of her rank, fasted from food several days a week, and determined to remain a maiden for the love of God. But her father had other views, and gave her in marriage to a young patrician named Valerian. On the day of the marriage, amid the music and rejoicing of the guests, Cecilia sat apart, singing to God in her heart and praying for help in her predicament. When they retired to their room, she took her courage in both hands and said to her husband gently, " I have a secret to tell you. You must know that I have an angel of God watching over me. If you touch me ifl the way of marriage he will be angry and you will suffer; but if you respect my maidenhood he will love you as he loves me." "Show me this angel," Valerian replied. "If he be of God, I will refrain as you wish." And Cecilia said, " If you believe in the living and one true God and receive the water of baptism, then you shall see the angel ". Valerian agreed and was sent to find Bishop Urban among the poor near the third milestone of the Appian Way. He was received with joy and there appeared a venerable old man bearing a writing: " One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, above all, and in us all." " Do you believe this? " Valerian was asked, and he assented and was baptized by Urban. Then he returned to Cecilia, and found standing by her side an angel, who put upon the head of each a chaplet of roses and lilies. Then appeared his brother, Tiburtius, and he, too, was offered a deathless crown if he would renounce his false gods. At first he was incredulous. " Who", he asked, " has returned from beyond the grave to tell us of this other life ?" Cecilia talked long to him, until he was convinced by what she told him of Jesus, and he, too, was baptized and at once experienced many marvels.

F

4°2

ST CECILIA, OR CECILY

[November

22

From that time forth the two young men gave themselves up to good works.

Because of their zeal in burying the bodies of martyrs they were both arrested.

Almachius, the prefect before whom they were brought, began to cross-examine them.

The answers he received from Tiburtius he set down as the ravings of a madman, and, turning to Valerian, he remarked that he hoped to hear more sense from him than from his crazy brother. Valerian replied that he and his brother were under the charge of one and the same physician, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who could impart to them His own wisdom. He then proceeded at some length to compare the joys of Heaven with those of earth, but Almachius told him to cease prating and to tell the court if he would sacrifice to the gods and go forth free.

Tiburtius and Valerian both replied: "No, not to the gods, but to the one God to whom we offer sacrifice daily." The prefect asked whether Jupiter were the name of their god. "No, indeed", said Valerian. " Jupiter was a corrupt libertine and, according to the testimony of your own writers, a murderer as well as a criminal."

Valerian rejoiced when they were delivered over to be scourged, and cried out to the Christians present: "Roman citizens, do not let my sufferings frighten you away from the truth, but cling to the one holy God, and trample under your feet the idols of wood and stone which Almachius worships." Even then the prefect was disposed to allow them a respite in which to reconsider their refusal, but his assessor assured him that they would only use the time to distribute their possessions, thus preventing the state from confiscating their property. They were accordingly condemned to death and were beheaded in a place called Pagus Triopius, four miles from Rome. With them perished one of the officials, a man called Maximus, who had declared himself a Christian after witnessing their fortitude.

Cecilia gave burial to the three bodies, and then she in turn was called on to repudiate her faith. Instead she converted those who came to induce her to sacrifice; and when Pope Urban visited her at home he baptized over 400 persons there: one of them, Gordian, a man of rank, established a church in her house, which Urban later dedicated in her name. When she was eventually brought into court, Almachius argued with Cecilia at some length, and was not a little provoked by her attitude: she laughed in his face and tripped him up in his words. At length she was sentenced to be suffocated to death in the bathroom of her own house. But though the furnace was fed with seven times its normal amount of fuel, Cecilia remained for a day and a night without receiving any harm, and a soldier was sent to behead her. He struck at her neck three times, and then left her lying. She was not dead and lingered three days, during which the Christians flocked to her side and she formally made over her house to Urban and committed her household to his care. She was buried next to the papal crypt in the catacomb of St Callistus.

This well-known story, familiar to and loved by Christians for many ages, dates back to about the end of the fifth century, but unfortunately can by no means be regarded as trustworthy or even founded upon authentic materials. It must be regretfully admitted that of St Valerian and St Tiburtius nothing beyond the fact of their martyrdom, place of burial (the cemetery of Praetextatus) and date of commemoration (April 14) is certainly known; St Cecilia perhaps owed her original eultus to her specially honourable place of burial as foundress of a church, the titulus Caeciliae. Nor are we any better informed about when she lived. The

4째3

November 22]

~rllE

LIVES OF 'fHE SAINT'S

dates suggested for her martyrdom vary from 177 (de Rossi) to the middle of the fourth century (Kellner).

Pope St Paschal I (817-824) translated the supposed relics of St Cecilia (found, in consequence of a vision or dream, not in the cemetery of Callistus but in that of Praetextatus), together with those of SSe Valerian, Tiburtius and Maximus, to the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. In 1599 Cardinal Sfondrati in repairing this church reinterred the relics of the four martyrs, the body of Cecilia being alleged to be then still incorrupt and complete, although Pope Paschal had en­ shrined the head separately, and between 847 and 855 it was mentioned among the relics at the church of the Four Crowned Ones. The story goes that in 1599 the sculptor Maderna was allowed to see the body and made a life-size statue Qf what he is said to have seen, naturalistic and very moving: "not lying upon her back like a body in a tomb, but upon the right side, as a maiden in her bed, her knees drawn together, and seeming to be asleep." This statue is in the church of St Cecilia, under the altar contiguous to the place where the relics were reburied in a silver coffin; it bears the sculptor's inscription: "Behold the most holy virgin Cecilia, whom I myself saw lying incorrupt in her tomb. I have made for you in this marble an image of that saint in the very posture of her body." De Rossi located the original burying-place of Cecilia in the cemetery of Callistus, and a replica of Maderna's statue now occupies the recess.

However, Father Delehaye and others are not satisfied that there is any justi­ fication for the common belief that the body of the saint was found entire in 1599 just as Maderna has sculptured it. Both he and Dom Quentin call attention to the inconsistencies in the accounts which such contemporaries as Baronius and Bosio have left us of the discovery. Another difficulty is caused by the fact that no mention is made of a Roman virgin martyr named Cecilia in the period im­ mediately following the persecutions. There is no reference to her in the poems of Damasus or Prudentius, in the writings of Jerome or Ambrose, and her name does not occur in the Depositio martyrum (fourth century). Moreover, what was later called the titulus Sanctae Caeciliae was originally known simply as the titulus Caeciliae, i.e. the church founded by a lady narn.ed Cecilia.

Today perhaps St Cecilia is most generally known as the patron-saint of music and musicians. At her wedding, the acta tell us, while the musicians played, Cecilia sang to the Lord in her heart. In the later middle ages she was represented as actually playing the organ and singing aloud; and in the first antiphon of Lauds on her feast, referring to this incident, the words " in her heart" are omitted.

The legendary passio is printed at full length in Mombritius and summarized by Delehaye in his book cited below, while those portions of the text which are of more practical interest may be found in Dom Quentin's article in DAC., vol. ii, cc. 2712-2738. There is a C()(l­ siderable literature, anp in particular the whole matter has been very fully discussed by H. Delehaye in his book Etude sur Ie legendier romain (1936), pp. 73-96. He mentions, besides Quentin's article just referred to, the following authorities as particularly worth consulting: De Rossi, Roma sotterranea,. vol. ii, pp. xxxii-xliii; Erbes, Die heilige Caecilia in Zusammen­ hang mit der Papstcrypta, in the Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, J888, pp. 1-66; J. P. Kirsch, Die heilige Caecilia in der romischen Kirche (1910), and Die romischen Titelkirchen im Altertum (1918), pp. 113-116 and 155-156; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Recenti studiintorno a S. Cecilia in Note agiografiche, vol. iv (1912), pp. 3-38; F. Lanzoni in Rivista di archeologia cristiana, vol. ii, pp. 220-224; Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, vol. i, p. 297, and vol. ii, pp.

52-68; P. Styger, Romische Miirtyrergrufte (1935), pp. 83-84 and 88; and L. de Lacger in Bulletin de litterature ecclesiastique (1923), pp. 21-29. There is a full summary of Mgr J. P. Kirsch's views, written by himself, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. iii, pp. 471-473.

ST

CLEMEN1~

I

[November 23

Upon the representations of St Cecilia in art, see Kiinstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 146-15°.

The case and cult of St Cecilia is examined at some length in Baudot and Chaussin, Vies des saints, vol. xi (1954), pp. 73 1-759.

SSe PHILEMON

AND

APPlIIA,

MARTYRS

(FIRST CENTURY)

PHILEMON, a citizen of Colossae in Phrygia, a man of rank and wealth, was probably converted by St Paul, whose personal friend he was, when he preached at Ephesus.

His house was notable for the devotion and piety of those who composed it, and the assemblies of the faithful seem to have been kept there. But Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, so far from profiting by the good example before his eyes, robbed his master, and fled to Rome, where he met St Paul, who was then prisoner there; and the spirit of charity and religion with which the apostle treated him wrought an entire change in his heart, so that he became his spiritual son. St Paul would have liked to have kept the converted Onesimus as an assistant, but Philemon had the prior claim on his services and so he sent him back to Colossae, with a letter that appears in the Bible as the Epistle to Philemon. Therein St Paul writes with much tenderness and power of persuasion. He calls Philemon his beloved fellow labourer, commending his charity and faith. He also names Apphia, " our dearest sister", presumably Philemon's wife, and Archippus, " our fellow soldier". He then prefers a request, modestly putting Philemon in mind that, as an apostle, he could command him in Christ: but he is content to ask that the obligation \vhich Philemon had to him, the writer, might acquit Onesimus of the wrong he had done: that he might be received" not now as a servant, but instead of a servant a most dear brother, especially to me: but how much more to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord?" The result of 8t Paul's appeal is not known, but Christian tradi­ tion says that Philemon granted Onesimus his liberty, forgave him his crime, and made him a worthy fellow labourer in the gospel.

So much about St Philemon can be gleaned from St Paul's letter to him, and nothing else is known. But there are several legends, as that he became bishop of Colossae, or of Gaza, that he was martyred at Ephesus, or again at Colossae.

The story accepted in the East is thus summarized in the Roman Martyrology: " When, under the Emperor Nero, the gentiles broke into the church on the feast of Diana at Colossae in Phrygia and the rest fled, the holy Philemon and Apphia were taken. By command of the governor Artoclis they \vere scourged and then buried in a pit up to the waist, where they were overwhelmed with stones."

A commemoration of these saints occurs in the Greek synaxaries and menaia, though November 23 is the date to which it is commonly assigned, and a third martyr, Archippus, is associated with them. See Delehaye's edition of the Synaxarium Constantinopolitanum, cc. 247-248.

23 * : ST

CLEMENT I, POPE

AND MARTYR

(c.

A.D

99)

T

HE third successor of 8t Peter-as he seems to have been-is believed also to have been a contemporary of SSe Peter and Paul; he " saw the blessed apostles and talked with them; their preaching \vas still in his ears and their tradition before his eyes", wrote St Irenaeus during the second part of the • A commemoration is made of St Felicity in the Mass and Office of St Clement today, but she is referred to herein under July 10, the feast of the Seven Brothers, her reputed sons.

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 23]

second century. Origen and others identified him with the Clement whom St Paul refers to as a fellow labourer (Phil. iv 3), an identity accepted in the proper of his Mass and Office, but it is doubtful. He was certainly not the same as the consul Clement, of the Flavii, put to death in the year 95, but may have been a freed-man of the imperial household, perhaps of Jewish descent. Particulars of his life we have none. The entirely apocryphal acta of the fourth century state that, having converted a patrician named Theodora and her husband Sisinnius and four hundred and twenty-three others, and an outcry being raised against him among the people, he was banished by Trajan to the Crimea, where he had to work in the quarries. As the nearest drinking-water was six miles away Clement miraculously found a nearer spring for the use of the numerous Christian captives, and preached among the people with such success that soon seventy-five churches were required. He was therefore thrown into the sea with an anchor tied round his neck, and angels came and built him a tomb beneath the waves, which once a year was revealed by a miraculous ebbing of the tide. " Under this Clement", says St Irenaeus, " no small sedition took place among the brethren at Corinth, and the church of Rome sent a most sufficient letter to the Corinthians, establishing them in peace and renewing their faith, and announc足 ing the tradition it had recently received from the apostles." It is this letter that has made the name of Pope Clement I famous. It was so highly esteemed in the early Church that it took rank next to the canonical books of the Holy Scriptures (or even among them), and was with them read in the churches. A copy of it was found in the fifth-century manuscript copy of the Bible (Codex Alexandrinus) which Cyril Lukaris, Patriarch of Constantinople, sent to King James I, from which Patrick Young, the keeper of the king's library, published it at Oxford in 1633.

8t Clement begins his letter by explaining that his delay in writing was due to the trials the Church was undergoing at Rome (Domitian's persecution). He then reminds the Corinthians how edifying their behaviour was \\--hen they were all humble-minded, desiring rather to be subject than to govern, to give than to receive, content with the portion God had dispensed to them, listening diligently to His word. At that time they were sincere, without offence, not mindful of injuries, and all sedition and schism was an abomination to them. He laments that they had then forsaken the fear of the Lord and were fallen into' pride, jealousy, and strife, and exhorts them to lay aside pride and anger, for Christ is theirs who are humble and not theirs who exalt themselves. The sceptre of the majesty of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came not in the show of power, but with humility.

He bids them look up to the order of the world, and think how it all obeys God's will and the heavens, earth, ocean, and worlds beyond are governed by His com足 mands. Considering how near God is to us and that none of our thoughts are hid from Him, we ought never to do anything contrary to His will, and should honour them who are set over us ; bishops and deacons had been instituted from a necessity of discipline and to them obedience is due. Disputes must arise and the just must suffer persecution, but a few Corinthians were disgracing their church. " Let every one", he says, " be subject to another according to the order in which he is placed by the gift of God. Let not the strong man neglect the care of the weak; let the weak see that he respect the strong. Let the rich man distribute to the necessity of the poor, and let the poor bless God who gives him one to supply his want. Lt:t the wise man show forth his wisdom not in words but in works. . . .

They who are great cannot yet subsist without those that are little, nor the little

406

ST CLEMENT I

~NOtJember

23

without the g~eat. In our body, the head without the feet is nothing, neither the feet without the head. And the smallest members of our body are useful and necessary to the whole." Thus the saint teaches that the lowest in the Church may be the greatest before God, if they are more faithful in the discharge of their respective duties. He urges the Corinthians to send his two messengers " back to us again with all speed in peace and joy, that they may the sooner acquaint us with your peace and concord, so much prayed for and desired by us, that we may rejoice in your good order."

In the course of this letter occurs a well-known passage, which the great Anglican scholar Dr Lightfoot referred to as a " noble remonstrance", but " the first step towards papal domination ". "If certain persons ", wrote Pope Clement, " should be disobedient to the words spoken by Him through us, let them under足 stand that they will involve themselves in no trifling transgression and danger; but we shall be guiltless of this sin." The letter is not only important for its beautiful passages, its evidence of Roman prestige and authority at the end of the first century, and its incidental historical allusions: it is " a model of a pastoral letter . . . a homily on Christian life ". There are other writings, now known as the "Pseudo-Clementines", which were formerly wrongly attributed to this pope. One of them is another letter to the Corinthians and it also is included in the Alexandrine codex of the Bible.

St Clement is venerated as a martyr, but the earliest references to him make no mention of this. Nor is the place of his death known. It may well have been in exile, even in the Crimea, but the relics which St Cyril brought from thence to Rome towards the end of the ninth century are most unlikely to have been really those of Pope St Clement. They were deposited below the altar of San Clemente on the Coelian. Below this church and the fourth-century basilica on which it was built are the remains of rooms, of the imperial age, which de Rossi believed were those of the actual house of Pope Clement himself; but it is not known who was the Clement who gave his name to this church originally, the titulus Clementis.

The pope is named in the canon of the Mass and is accounted the first of those early writers who are called the Apostolic Fathers because they came under the direct or very close influence of the apostles of the Lord. He is the titular and patron saint of the Gild, Fraternity and Brotherhood of the Most Glorious and Undivided Trinity, of London, i.e. "Trinity House".

The various references made to Pope St Clement in early Christian literature have nowhere perhaps been more painstakingly brought together than by J. B. Lightfoot, Anglican Bishop of Durham, in his Apostolic Fathers, pt I, vol. i, pp. 148-200. The more important, notably the De viris illustribus of St Jerome, the Liber Pontificalis, and the entries in sacra足 mentaries and calendars are also cited in CMH., pp. 615-616. There is a passio, whi.h exists both in Latin and Greek (the Latin, according to Franchi de' Cavalieri and Delehaye, being the original), and it is fro'm this that the legend (perpetuated in the lessons of the Roman Breviary) of the tomb beneath the sea with the anchor used to sink the body has been derived. See for the texts F. Diekamp, Patres apostolici, vol. ii (1913), pp. 50-81.

The apocryphal literature known as the "Clementines", existing in two forms, the " Homilies" and the" Recognitions ", did much to give prominence to the name of St Clement, but these of course add absolutely nothing to our knowledge from the point of view of either history or hagiography. The subject of St Clement has been much discussed of late years, most recently and very thoroughly by H. Delehaye in his Etude sur Ie legendier romain (1936), pp. 96-116. As in the case of St Cecilia, he draws attention to the develop足 ment of the t'itulus Clementis into that of sancti Clementis.

Consult also P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Note ag'iografiche, vol. v, pp. 3-40; I. Franko, St Klemens in Chersonesus (1906);

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 23]

J. P. Kirsch, Die romischen Titelkirchen (1918).

The Greek text of Clement's letter to the Corinthians, with a translation by Kirsopp Lake, is in the Loeb Classical Library, The Apostolic Fathers (1930); and a new translation by J. A. Kleist in vol. i of the American Ancient Christian Writers series, The Epistles of St Clement . .. and St Ignatius . ... ( 1946).

ST AMPHILOCHIUS,

BISHOP OF ICONIUM

(c. A.D. 400)

THIS saint was an intimate friend of St Gregory N azianzen (his cousin) and of St Basil, though rather younger than they were, and their letters to him are the principal source of information about his life. He was a native of Cappadocia and in his earlier years was a rhetor at Constantinople, where he seems to have got into money difficulties. He was still young when he withdrew to a life of retirement at a place not far from N azianzus, where also he took care of his aged father. St Gregory supplied his friend with corn in return for vegetables from his garden, and in a letter complains playfully that he gets the worst of the bargain.

In the year 374, when he was only some thirty-five years old, Amphilochius was appointed bishop of Iconium. He accepted the office very reluctantly, and his old father complained to St Gregory at being deprived of his son's care; in his reply Gregory disclaims responsibility and says that he too will suffer by the loss of the company of Amphilochius. St Basil, who probably was ultimately respons足 ible for the episcopal appointment, wrote to compliment the new bishop, exhorting him never to be drawn into connivance at what is evil because it is become fashion足 able or precedented by the example of others: he must guide others, not be led by them. Immediately after his consecration St . J. \mphilochius paid a visit to St Basil at Caesarea, and preached before tne people, who relished his sermons more than those of any stranger they had heard. Amphilochius often consulted St Basil upon difficult points of doctrine and discipline, and it was in response to his friend's request that Basil wrote his treatise on the Holy Ghost. Amphilochius delivered the panegyric at the funeral of St Basil.

St Amphilochius held a council at Iconium against the Macedonian heretics, who denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost, and assisted at the general council of Constantinople against the same heretics in 38 I, when he met St Jerome, to whom he read his own work on the Holy Ghost. Amphilochius petitioned the Emperor Theodosius I that he would forbid the Arians to hold their assemblies, which the emperor judged too rigorous and refused to do. Amphilochius came some time after to the palace and, seeing Arcadius, the emperor's son (who had been already proclaimed emperor), close by his father, saluted the father but took no notice of the son; and when Theodosius pointed out this omission, he simply greeted the boy and patted his cheek. Theodosius lost his temper, whereupon the bishop said to him, " You cannot bear a slight to your son. How, then, can you suffer those who dishonour the Son of God?" The emperor, struck by his reply, soon made a law whereby he forbade Arian heretics to hold their meetings, whether publicly or in private. St Amphilochius also zealously opposed the rising heresy of the Messalians, an illuminist and Manichean sect which put the, essence of religion in prayer alone; against these he presided over a synod held at Sida in Pamphylia.

St Gregory Nazianzen calls St Amphilochius a bishop without reproach, an angel and herald of truth, and his father averred that he healed the sick by his prayers.

St Amphilochius is fairly well known to us from the references in contemporary Christian literature, and there are two short Greek biographies, printed in Migne, PG., vol. xxxix,

408

[November 23

ST COLUMBAN

pp. 13-26, and vol. cxvi, pp. 956-970. The collection of the surviving fragments of his writings in Migne is not complete.

Other supplementary matter has been printed by K. Holl, Amphilochius von Ikonium (1904), and by G. Ficker, Amphilochiana (1906). See also Bardenhewer, AltkirchNche Literatur, vol. iii, pp. 220-228; DHG., vol. ii, pp. 1346­ 1348; and DCB., vol. i, pp. 103-107.

ST GREGORY, BISHOP OF GIRGENTI

(c. A.D. 603)

ACCORDING to an unreliable life purporting to be written soon after his death by Leontius, a monk of St Sabas at Rome, this Gregory was born near Girgenti (Agrigentum) in Sicily, and brought up under the eye of St Potamion, bishop of that place. He went on a pilgrimage to Palestine, where he spent four years studying in different monasteries and was ordained deacon at Jerusalem.. He then went to Antioch and Constantinople, where, says Nicephorus Callistus, he was looked upon as one of the most holy and wisest men of the age. Ultimately he came to Rome, and was appointed to the see of Girgenti; but almost immediately his zeal for discipline gave offence and he was the victim of a scurvy plot. A woman of bad character was secretly introduced into his house, duly" discovered", and the bishop denounced. He was summoned to Rome, where he soon cleared himself and was sent back to his see. St Gregory is usually identified with the Gregorius Agrigentinus to whom allusions are made in letters written by Pope St Gregory the Great, but the chronolvgy of the life of St Gregory of Girgenti has been the subject of considerable discussion. He is now best remembered as the author of a commentary in Greek on the book of Ecclesiastes. He is named in the Roman Martyrology and his feast is kept in Greek churches of the Byzantine rite, to which he belonged.

A long Greek life by one Leontius is printed in Migne, PG., vol. xcviii, cc. 54<r716, and there is another in PG., vol. cxvi, cc. 190-269. See further DCB., vol. ii, pp. 776-777 ; Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchNchen Literatur, vol. v, pp. 105-107; and L. T. White in the American Historical Review, vol. xlii (1936), pp. 1-21.

Sl"l COLUMBAN, ABBOT OF LUXEUIL AND BOBBIO THE date of the birth of the greatest of the Irish missionary-monks on the continent of Europe must have been very near the year which saw the death of St Benedict, that patriarch of Western monks whose rule all monasteries of St Columban eventually adopted. Columban was born in west Leinster and had a good educa­ tion, which was interrupted when he was a young man by a sharp struggle with the insurgent flesh. Certain lascivae puellae, as his biographer Jonas calls them, made advances to him, and Columban was grievously tempted to yield. In his distress he asked the advice of a religious woman who had lived solitary from the world for years, and she told him to flee the temptation even to the extent of leaving the land of his birth: " You think you can freely avoid women. Do you remember Eve coaxing and Adam yielding? Samson made weak by Dalila? David lured from his former righteousness by the beauty of Bathsheba? The wise Solomon deceived by love of women? Go away, turn from the river into which so many have fallen."

Columban heard her words as more than just sensible counsel to a youth distracted by an ordinary trial of adolescence; it was to him a call to renounce the world, definitely to choose the cloistered rather than secular life. He left his mother, grievously against her will, and fled to Sinell, a monk who lived on Cluain Inis, an

4°9

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 23]

island in Lough Erne, and from thence in time he went on to the great monastic seat of learning at Bangor, opposite Carrickfergus on Belfast Lough. How long he lived here is not known; Jonas speaks of " many years", and he was probably about forty-five when he obtained St Comgall's permission to leave the monastery and adventure in foreign lands. With twelve companions Columban passed over into Gaul, where barbarian invasions, civil strife and clerical slackness had reduced religion to a low ebb.

The Irish monks at once set about preaching to the people by showing an example of charity, penance and devotion, and their reputation reached the king of Burgundy, Guntramnus, who c. 590 offered St Columban ground for building at Annegray in the mountains of the Vosges, which became his first monastery.

His biographer relates several incidents reminiscent of others in the life of St Francis of Assisi, which took place here. This house soon became too small to contain the numbers that desired to live under the discipline of the saint. He therefore built a second monastery called Luxeuil, not far from the former, and a thin;l, which on account of its springs was called Fontes, now Fontaine. These, with Bobbio later, were the foundations of Columban himself; his followers established numerous monasteries in France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, centres of religion and industry in Europe throughout the dark ages. St Columban lays down for the foundation of his rule the love of God and of our neighbour, as a general precept upon which the superstructure of all the rest is raised. He appointed that monks shall eat only the simplest food, which is to be proportioned in amount to their labour. He will have them eat every day that they may' be able to perform all duties; and he prescribes the time to be spent in prayer, reading and manual labour. St Columban says that he received these nIles from his fathers, that is, the monks of Ireland. He mentions the obligation of every one's praying privately in his own cell, and adds that the essential parts are prayer of the heart and the continual application of the mind to God. After the rule follows a penitential, containing prescriptions of penances to be imposed upon monks for every fault, however light. It is in the harshness of its discipline, characteristic of much Celtic Christianity, the imposition of fasts on bread and water, and beatings, for the smallest transgressions, and the great length of the Divine Office (there was a maximum of seventy-five psalms a day in winter), that the Rule of St Columban most obviously differs from that of St Benedict. In austerity the Celtic monks rivalled those of the East.

After the Columban monks had pursued their strenuous life in peace for twelve years a certain hostility manifested itself among the Frankish bishops, and St Columban was summoned before a synod to give an account of his Celtic usages (computation of Easter, etc.). He refused to go, " lest he might contend in words" , but addressed a letter to the assembly in which he, " a poor stranger in these parts for the cause of Christ", asks humbly to be left in peace, but also more than hints that there are more important matters than the date of Easter which they ought to attend to. As the bishops pressed him he appealed to the Holy See, and addressed letters to two popes in which he protests the orthodoxy of himself and his monks, explains the Irish customs, and asks that they be confirmed.¡ He writes freely and respectfully apologises for seeming to argue with the Supreme Pontiff, and â&#x20AC;˘ In the first letter, to Pope St Gregory the Great, Columban, referring to the directions of Pope- St Leo I quoted by his opponents, makes a famous pun: "Is not a live dog [i.e.

Gregory] better than a dead lion [leo] ? "

410

ST COLUMBAN

[November 23

says, " Forgive, I beseech you, 0 blessed Pope, my boldness in wntlng so pre足 sumptuously. I beg that you will, once at least in your holy prayers to our common Lord, pray for me, a most unworthy sinner." But soon Columban was involved in worse trouble. King Theodoric II of Burgundy had respect for St Columban and the abbot reproved him for keeping concubines instead of marrying a queen.

His grandmother, Queen Brunhilda, who had been regent, fearing lest a queen should ruin her power, was much provoked against Columban. Her resentment was increased by his refusing to bless at her request the king's four natural children, saying, "They shall not inherit the kingdom; they are a bad breed!" St Columban also denied her entrance into his monastery, as he did to all women and even to lay men, and this, being contrary to Frankish custom, Brunhilda made a pretext for stirring up Theodoric against Columban. The upshot was that he was in 6 I 0 ordered to be deported to Ireland, with all his Irish brethren but none others: there may probably be seen the hidden influence of Frankish court bishops behind all this. At Nantes he wrote a famous letter to the monks left at I~uxeuil, of which Montalembert says it contains " some of the finest and grandest words which the Christian genius has ever produced" t and then em足 barked.

But the ship dt once met bad weather and ran aground, and the next we hear of Columban is that he made his way through Paris and Meaux to the court of Theodebert II of Austrasia at Metz, by whom he ~Tas well received. Under his protection he went with some of his disciples to preach to the infidels near the lake of Zurich, but the zeal of the missionaries was not well received and they went on to the neighbourhood of Lake Constance, to a fruitful pleasant valley amidst the mountains (now Bregenz), where they found an abandoned oratory dedicated in honour of St Aurelia, near which they built themselves cells. But here too the vigorous methods of some of the missionaries (especially of St Gall) provoked the people against them, and danger arose as well from another quarter. Austrasia and Burgundy were at war, and Theodebert, being defeated, was delivered up by his own men and sent by his brother Theoderic to their grandmother Brunhilda.

St Columban, seeing his enemy was master of the country where he lived and that he could no longer remain there with safety, went across the Alps (he was about seventy years old by now) and came to Milan, where he met with a kind reception from the Arian Agilulf, King of the Lombards, and his wife Theodclinda.

He at once began to oppose the Arians, against whom he wrote a treatise, and became involved in the affair of the Three Chapters (writings which were con足 demned by the fifth general council at Constantinople as favouring Nestorianism).

The bishops of Istria and some of Lombardy defended these writings with such warmth as to break off communion with the pope, and the king and queen induced St Columban to write very outspokenly to Pope St Boniface IV in defence of them, urging him to take steps that orthodoxy might prevail. The subject at issue was one upon which St Columban was badly informed indeed; on the other hand, he makes clear his burning desire for unity in the faith and his own intense devotion to the Holy See and belief that " the pillar of the Church is always at Rome". " All we Irish", he says, " living in the furthest parts of the earth are followers of St Peter and St Paul and of the disciples who wrote the sacred canon under the Holy Ghost. We accept nothing outside this evangelical and apostolic teaching.

I confess that I am grieved by the bad repute of the chair of St Peter in this

4 11

Nov.,ember 23]

~flIE

LIVES OF 'fIlE SAIN1'S

country. . . . We are, as I have said, bound to the chair of 8t Peter. For, thongh Rome is great and known afar, she is great and honoured with us only because of this chair." Realizing that he has spoken very boldly, not hesitating to refer to P9pe Vigilius as a " cause of scandal", he writes in the same letter: "If in this or any other letter . . . you find any expressions as of excessive zeal, put them down to my indiscretion, not to self-sufficiency. . . . Look after the peace of the Church . . . use the calls and the familiar voice of the true shepherd, and stand between your sheep and the \volves "; and he refers to the pope as " pastor of pastors", "leader of the leaders", and "the only hope, mighty through the honour of Peter the Apostle".

Agilulf gave to Columban a ruined church and some land at Ebovium (Bobbio), in a valley of the Apennines between Genoa and Piacenza, and here he began the establishment of the abbey of 8t Peter. In spite of his age he himself was active in the vvork of building, but for the rest Columban now wanted only retirement to prepare for death. \Vhen he had visited King Clotaire II of N eustria on his way back from Nantes he had prophesied the fall of 1'heoderic within three years.

This had been verified: r-rheoderic was dead, old Brunhilda brutally murdered, and Clotaire was master of Austrasia and Burgundy as well. He remembered the prophecy of St Columban, and invited him to come back to France. He would not go, but asked the king to look kindly on the monks of Luxeuil. Soon after, on November 23 in 615, St Columban died.

Alban Butler, writing in the middle of the eighteenth century, could say that " Luxeuil is still in a flourishing condition", as a monastery of the Benedictine congregation of Saint-Vanne.

But within fifty years the French Revolution brought to an end its long, chequered and glorious history. Bobbio, whose library was one of the greatest of the middle ages, declined from the fifteenth century, and was finally suppressed by the French in 18°3; the library had begun to be dispersed nearly three hundred years before. But the feast of 8t Columban is still observed in the sITlall diocese of Bobbio, he is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on November 21, on which day the Benedictines comrnemorate him, and his feast is kept throughout Ireland on the 23rd, while numerous traces of his former wide cultus exist in northern Italy.

A life, written very soon af!er the saint's death by Jonas, 'who was a monk of Bobbio, supplies the greater part of the information we possess concerning Columban. It has been critically edited by B. Krusch in MGI-I., Scriptores ]v[erov., vol. iv, PP' 1-156. A good deal has been written about St Colurnban of late years, much of 'which will be found Indicated in the excellent notice devoted to the saint by Dom CJuugaud in Les Saints irlandais hors d'Irlallde (1936), pp. 51 -62, or in his Christianity in Celtic Lands (1932). See also E. Martin, St C%mban (1905); G. ·;·vletlake, 'The LIfe and UTritings of St Columban (1914); H. Con­ cannon, LIfe of St Columban (1915); J. J. Laux, Der hI. Kolumban (1919); ]. F. Kenney, The Sources for the Early History of Ireland, vol. i (1929), pp. 186-191; M. Stokes, Six .1\'lonths in the Appenines . . . (1892) ; j.IVI. Clauss, Die Heiligen des Elsasses (1935) ; A. M. Tomm~sini, Irish Saints in Italy (1937), L. Gougaud, Le culte de St Colomban" in the Re<.'ue ltdabillon, vol. xxv (1935), pp. 169-I78; and 1\1. M. Dubois, St Colomban (1950).

The pertinent section of l\1ontalem hert's 7'.1onks of the West was reprinted separately in America in 1928. The letters of Columban sh(Juld be read in the text provided by the l\lGI-I., Epistolae, vol. iii, pp. 154-190. rrhe Penitential ascribed to him is 'of doubtful authenticity, but his Rule for monks seems authentic arId has been ·v;idely discussed. The text is in l\ljgne, PL., vol. lxxx, cc. 209 seq., or better in the Zeitschnftf. Kirchengeschichte for 1895 and 1897; and a tr~nslation of the Penitential in l\1cNeill and C;aymer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance (1938). He has also been credited with a commentary on the psalms, but this is cert<linly not his; see I)um IVlorin in the Re7'ue Benedictine, vol. xxxviii (1926), d

ST JOHN OF THE CROSS

[November 24

pp. 164-177. It is curious that no notice of St Columban appears in the Felire of Oengus, despite a mention in the Hieronymianum. The very difficult chronology of this saint's life has been investigated anew by Fr P. Grosjean in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxiv (1946), pp.200-21 5路

ST TRUDO,

OR

TROND

(c.

A.D.

690)

THE province of Brabant was by no means free of paganism by the seventh century, and on account of his missionary zeal this saint is venerated as the apostle of that part of it called Hasbaye. His parents were Franks, and he gave himself to the service of the Church. 8t Remaclus sent Trudo to the cathedral school of Metz, where he was eventually ordained by 8t Clodulf. He then returned to his native district, ",-here he preached among the heathen and built a church on his own estate, with a monastery attached which gave its name to the present 8aint-Trond, between Louvain and Tongres. He also founded a nunnery near Bruges.

A life, compiled by the deacon Donatus less than a century after the death of the saint, may be accepted as fairly reliable.

It was printed by Mabillon, and more critically by Levison in MGH., Scriptores Merov., vol. vi. Another life, by Theoderic, is of little value.

See also Van der Essen, Etude critique sur les saints merovingiens (1907), pp. 91-96. The early Wissenburg text of the Hieronymianum mentions St 'rrudo. See Fr M. Coens in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxxii (1954), pp. 90-94, 98-100.

24 : ST

JOHN OF THE CROSS,

DOCTOR

OF

THE

CHURCH

(A.D.

159 1)

ONZALO DE YEPE8 belonged to a good Toledan family, but having married " beneath him" he was disinherited and had to earn his living as a silk-weaver. On his death his wife, Catherine Alvarez, was left destitute with three children, of whom John, born at Fontiveros in Old Castile in 1542, was the youngest. He \vent to a poor-school at Medina del Campo and was then apprenticed to a weaver, but he showed no aptitude for the trade and was taken on as a servant by the governor of the hospital at Medina. He stopped there for seven years, already practising bodily austerities, and continuing his studies in the college of the Jesuits. At twenty-one years of age he took the religious habit among the Carmelite friars at Medina, receiving the name of John-of-8t-Matthias.

After his profession he asked for and was granted permission to follow the original Carmelite rule, without the mitigations approved by various popes and then accepted in all the friaries. It was John's desire to be a lay-brother, but this \vas refused him. He had given satisfaction in his course of theological studies, and in 1567 he was promoted to the priesthood. The graces which he received from the holy Mysteries gave him a desire of greater retirement, for which purpose he deliberated with himself about entering the order of the Carthusians.

8t Teresa was then establishing her reformation of the Carmelites and, coming to Medina del Campo, heard of Brother John. Whereupon she desired to see him, admired his spirit, and told him that God had called him to sanctify himself in the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; that she had received authority from the prior general to found two refornled houses of men; and that he himself

G

413

November 24]

THE LIVES OF TI-IE SAIN1'S

should be the first instrument of so great.a work. Soon after the first monastery of discalced (i.e. barefooted) Carmelite friars was established in a small and dilapidated house at Duruelo. St John entered this new Bethlehem in a perfect spirit of sacrifice, and about two months after was joined by two others, who renewed their profession on Advent Sunday, 1568, St John taking the new religious name of John-of-the-Cross. It was a prophetic choice. l'he fame. of the sanctity of this obscure house spread, and St Teresa soon established a second at Pastrana, a third at Mancera, whither she translated that from Duruelo, and in 1570 a fourth, at Alcala, a college of the university, of which John was made rector. His example inspired the religious with a perfect spirit of solitude, humility and mortification, but Almighty God, to purify his heart from all natural weaknesses and attachments, made him pass through the most severe interior and exterior trials. 8t John, after tasting the first joys of contemplation, found himself deprived of all sensible devotion.

This spiritual dryness was followed by interior trouble of mind, scruples and a disrelish of spiritual exercises, and, while the Devil assaulted him with violent temptations, men persecuted him by calumnies. The most terrible of all these pains was that of scrupulosity and interior desolation, which he describes in his book called The Dark Night of the Soul. rrhis again was succeeded by another more grievous trial of spiritual darkness, accompanied with interior pain and temptations in which God seemed to have forsaken him. But in the calm which followed this terrible tempest he was wonderfully repaid with divine love and new light. On one occasion St John \vas subjected to a bare-faced attempt by an unrestrained young woman of considerable attraction. Instead of the burning brand that 8t Thomas Aquinas used on a like occasion, John used gentle words to persuade her of the error of her ways. By like means but in other circumstances he got the better of another lady, whose temper was so fierce that she was kno\vn as Robert the Devil.

In 1571 8t Teresa undertook, under obedience, the office of prioress of the unreformed convent of the Incarnation at Avila, and she sent for 8t John to be its spiritual director and confessor. " He is doing great things here", she wrote to her sister, and to Philip II, " l'he people take him for a saint; in my opinion he is one, and has been all his life". He was sought out by seculars as well as religi足 ous, and God confirmed his ministry by evident miracles. But grave troubles were arising between the Discalced and the Mitigated Carmelites. The old friars looked on this reformation, though undertaken with the licence and approbation of the prior general given to St Teresa, as a rebellion against their order; on the other hand, some of the Discalced were tactless and exceeded their powers and rights. Moreover, confusing and contradictory policies were pursued by the prior general, the general chapter and the papal nuncios respectively. At length, in 1577, the provincial of Castile ordered 8t John to return to his original friary at Medina. He refused, on the ground that he held his office from the papal nuncio and not from the order. Whereupon armed men were sent, who broke open his door and carried him off. Kno\ving the veneration which the people at Avila had for him, they removed him to Toledo, where he was pressed to abandon the reform. When he refused he was locked up in a small cell that had practically no light, and treated in a way that shows only too clearly how little, nearly sixteen hundred years after the Incarnation, the spirit of Jesus Christ had penetrated into the hearts of many who claimed His name.

ST JOHN OF THE CROSS

[November 24

St John's cell measured some ten feet by six, and the one window was so small and high up that he had to stand on a stool by it to see to read his office. He was bloodily beaten-he bore the marks to his dying day-publicly in chapter, by order of Jerome Tostado, vicar general of the Carmelites in Spain and a consultor of the Inquisition. St John's were all those sufferings described in St Teresa's" Sixth l\lansion "-insults, slanders, physical pain, agony of soul and temptation to give in. But," Do not be surprised ", he said in after years, " if I show a great love of suffering; God gave me a high idea of its value when I was in prison at Toledo". And his immediate answer was his earliest poems, a voic~ crying in th e wilderness: Ah! Where art thou gone hiding

My Love, and leavest me alone with moaning?

Fleet as the deer thou Reddest

When thou hadst me sore stricken,

And thou art gone. I follow thee \vith outcry.

In the intolerable atmosphere of the cell, stinking in the summer heat, the prior Maldonato visited Brother John on the eve of the Assumption, stirring him up with his foot as he lay prostrate. John apologized for the weakness that did not allow him to get up more promptly when his superior entered. " You were very absorbed," said Maldonato, " What were you thinking about? " " I was thinking," replied John, "that it is our Lady's feast tomorrow, and what a happiness it would be to say Mass." " Not in my time," retorted the prior.

On the night of the feast-day the Mother of God appeared to her suffering servant. "Be patient, my son," she seemed to say, "Your trials will soon be over." A few days later she appeared again, and showed him in vision a window overlooking the river Tagus. " You will go out that way", she said, " and I will help you." And so it happened, nine months after his imprisonment began, that John had his opportunity when he was allowed a few minutes exercise. He walked through the building, looking for that window; he recognized it, and went back to his cell. He had already begun to loosen the screws of the door lock; that night he broke if off and, though two visiting friars were sleeping close by the window, he let himself down from it on a rope of twisted coverlets and clothes.

The rope was too short, he fell down the ramparts to the river bank, picked himself up unhurt, and followed a dog which jumped into an adjoining courtyard. And so he got away, with attendant circumstances that on the face of it appear miraculous. :Me John made his way to the reformed friary of Beas de Segura and then to the near-by hermitage of Monte Calvario; in 1579 he became head of the college at Baeza, and in 1581 he was chosen prior of Los Martires, near Granada. Though the male founder and spiritual leader of the Discalced friars he took little part during these years, when their continued existence hung in the balance, in the negotiations and events which led up to the establishment of a separate province for the Discalced in 1580. Instead he began those writings which have made him â&#x20AC;˘ Prescinding from the methods used, it should be borne in mind that juridically the opponents of St John had a case. There was a conflict of jurisdiction, but from their point of view Friar John came within the provision in Bd John Soreth's constitutions concerning rebels, fugitives and the like.

N oV8mber 24]

THE LIVES OF TI--IE SAINTS

a doctor of the Church in mystical theology. In his teaching he was a faithful follower of ancient tradition: human life on earth is ordered to an end which is the perfection of charity and transformation in God by love; contemplation is not an end.in itself, it does not stop at understanding, but it is for love and for union with God by love, and ultimately involves the experience itself of that union towards which everything is ordered. "There is no better or more necessary \vork than love", he says. " We have been created for love." "God uses nothing but love." "As love is the union of the Father with the Son, so it is of the human soul \vith God." It is by love that contemplation is attained, and since this love is produced by faith-which alone can bridge the gulf bet\veen our understanding and the infinity of God-it is a living and lived faith that is the principle of mystical experience. Such traditional doctrine St John was never wearied of inculcating in his own lofty way and burning words; but that he was at the same time a characteristic son of his age and country a glance at his own design for a " cruci­ fixion " (now preserved in the Carmelite convent at Avila) at once shows. Some­ times the austerities which he practised seemed to exceed bounds; he only slept two or three hours in a night, employing the rest in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Three things he frequently asked of God: that he might not pass one day of his life without suffering something, that he might not die in office, and that he might end his life in humiliation and contempt. His confidence in God earned miraculous supplies for his monasteries, ",rhich firm confidence in divine providence he called the patrimony of the poor. He was frequently so absorbed in God that he was obliged to do violence to himself to treat of tern.poral affairs. This love appeared in a certain brightness which was seen in his coun­ tenance on many occasions, especially when he came from the altar. His heart seemed a fire of love which could not be contained within his breast, but showed itself by these exterior marks. By experience in spiritual things and an extra­ ordinary light of the Holy Ghost he had the gift of discerning spirits, and could not be easily imposed upon in what came from God. After the death of St Teresa in 1582 a disagreement \vithin the ranks of the Discalced friars themselves became more pronounced, St John favouring the moderate policy of the prior provincial, Father Jerome Gracian, against the ex­ tremist Father Nicholas Doria, who aimed at separating the Discalced completely from the old stock. After Father Nicholas himself became provincial, the chapter made St John vicar for Andalusia and he applied himself to the correction of certain abuses, especially those arising from the necessity of religious going out of their monasteries for the purpose of preaching. I t was his opinion that their vocation and life was primarily conternplative.

Thus opposition was raised against him. He founded more friaries, and on the expiry of his term of office went as prior to Granada. The policy of Father Nicholas had so prospered that a chapter held at Madrid in 1588 received a brief from the Holy See authorizing a further separation of the Discalced Carmelites from the Mitigated. In spite of protests the venerable Father Jerome Gracian was deprived of all authority; Father Nicholas Doria was made vicar general; and the one province was divided into six, with a consultor for each (St John himself was one) to help him in the government of the new congregation. This innovation caused grave discontent, especially among the nuns, and the \Tenerable Anne-of-Jesus, then prioress at Madrid, obtained from the Holy See a brief confirming their constitutions, without reference to the vicar general. The consequent troubles were eventually composed,

416

ST JOHN OF THE CROSS

[November 24

but at a chapter held at Whitsun 1591, St John spoke in defence both of Father Jerome Gracian and of the nuns. Father Nicholas Doria had suspected him all along of being in league with them, and he now took the opportunity of reducing St John from all offices to the status of a simple friar and sending him to the remote friary of La Penuela. Here he spent some months, passing his days in meditation and prayer among the mountains, " for I have less to confess when I am among these rocks than when I am among men ".

But there were those who would not leave St John alone even here. When visiting Seville as vicar provincial he had had occasion to restrict the preaching activities of two friars and to recall them to the observance of their rule. They submitted at the time, but the rebuke had rankled, and now one of them, Father Diego, who had become a consultor of the congregation, went about over the whole province making inquiries about St John's life and conduct, trumping up accusations, and boasting that he had sufficient proofs to have him expelled from the order. Many at that time forsook him, afraid of seeming to have any dealings with him, and burnt his letters lest they might be involved in his disgrace. St John in the midst of all this was taken ill, and the provincial ordered him to leave out-of-the-way Penuela and gave him the choice to go either to Baeza or Ubeda.

The first was a convenient convent and had for prior a friend of the saint. At the other Father Francis was prior, the other person whom he had corrected with Father Diego. St John chose this house of Ubeda. The fatigue of his journey made him worse, he suffered great pain, and submitted cheerfully to several operations. But the unworthy prior treated him with inhumanity, forbade any one to see him, changed the infirmarian because he served him with tenderness, and would not allow him any but the ordinary food, refusing him even what s~culars sent in for him. This state of affairs was brought to the notice of the provincial who came to Ubeda, did all he could for the saint, and reprimanded Father Francis so sharply that he was brought to repentance for his malice. After suffering acutely for nearly three months, St John died on December 14, 1591, still under the cloud which the ambition of Father Nicholas and the revengefulness of Father Diego had raised against him in the congregation of which he was co-founder and whose life he h:ld been the first to take up.

Immediately after his death there was an outburst of recognition on all hands, and clergy and laity flocked to his funeral. His body was removed to Segovia, the last house of which he had been prior. He was canonized in 1726. St John-of足 the-Cross was not learned when compared with some learned doctors, but St Teresa saw in him a most pure soul to whom God had communicated great treasures of light and whose understanding was filled from on high. Her judgement is amply borne out by his writings, principally the poems and their accompanying commentaries, the Ascent of Mount Carmel, the Dark Night of the Soul, the Living Flame of Love and a Spiritual Canticle,. and its rightness was superlatively recog足 nized by the Church when, in 1926, he was proclaimed a doctor of the Church for his mystical works. St John's doctrine was one of ever more suffering and com足 plete abandonment of the soul to God, and that made him harsh and hard to himself; but to others he could be kind, gentle, and forbearing, nor did he pass by or fear material things: "Natural things", he said, " are always lovely; they are the crumbs that fall from God's table". He lived the complete renunciation which he preached so powerfully, but, unlike so many lesser ones, he was" free as the spirit of God is free": not tending to reiterated negation and emptiness

41 7

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 24]

but positive and full with the fullness of divine love, God and the soul in substantial communion. He" united in himself the ecstatic light of the Divine \Visdom with the shattering folly of the despised Christ ".

Whoever wishes to arrive at an understanding of the facts which so long impeded an adequate setting out of the history of St J ohn-of-the-Cross may be recommended to read the Postscript with which Father Benedict Zimmerman has enriched the translation of Father Bruno's St Jean de la Croix (1932). The depositions taken in view of the beatification of the saint still exist at Rome in manuscript. The lives published in the first half of the seventeenth century, notably those by Joseph Quiroga and Jerome-of-St-Joseph, together with the Reforma de los Descalzos, vols. i and ii, written by Francis-of-St-Mary, tell us a great deal, but leave many points obscure. Besides these we have St Teresa's correspondence and spiritual works, as well as the records of the Carmelites, and even state-papers and diplomatic despatches, for the administration of Philip I I was greatly interested in all that affected the reform of the religious orders. The most authoritative edition of the writings of St John himself in the original Spanish is that edited by Father Silverio (5 vols., 1929-31) ; Eng. trans. from this text by E. A. Peers (3 vols., new edn., 1953). Most of the works have also been translated into English by David Lewis, revised by Fr B. Zimmerman. Besides the excellent life by Father Bruno which has been based upon a very wide study of the sources, we have also an earlier life in English by D. Lewis (1897), that in Spanish by M. M. Garnica, San Juan de la Cruz (1875), and the shorter work of Mgr Demimuid, St Jean de fa Croix (1916) in the collection" Les Saints". See also J. Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix et Ie probleme de [,experience mystique (1931); and Father Wenceslaus, Fisonomia de un Doctor (1913); as well as a number of articles which since 1932 have appeared in Etudes Carmelitaines. See also FF. Crisogono and Lucinio, Vida y Obras de San Juan de la Cruz (1946); Father Gabriel, St John of the Cross (1946), an introduction to his ,vorks and doctrine; E. A. Peers, St John of the Cross (essays; 1946); and the translations of the poems by Roy Campbell (1951) and by Peers (1948). The best popular introduction is perhaps Spirit of Flame (1943), also by Professor Peers. See also his Studies of the Spanish Mystics (2 vols. 1927-30), an important essay in his St Teresa of Jesus and Other Essays and Addresses (1953), examining the second edition (1950) Qf the Spanish life of St John

by Fr Crisogono Garrachon, and A Handbook to the Life and Times of St Teresa and St John of the Cross (1954).

ST CHRYSOGONUS,

MARTYR

(c.

A.D.

304?)

this martyr is one of those who has the distinction of being named in the canon of the Roman Mass nothing is known of him, except that he appears to have suffered at Aquileia, and he was venerated in northern Italy. His cultus was introduced at Rome; the titular church of Chrysogonus in the Trastevere is mentioned in 499, and it is called titulus Sancti Crisogoni in an inscription of 521. According to the passio of St Anastasia (December 25) St Chrysogonus was a Roman official, who became her spiritual father. When he was imprisoned under Diocletian he continued to direct her by letter until he was sent for by the emperor at Aquileia, condemned and beheaded. His body was cast into the sea, whence it was recovered and buried by the priest St Zoilus, \vho lived close by in the house of SSe Agape, Chionia and Irene.

ALTHOUGH

The story of St Chrysogonus forms the first part of the Passio S. Anastasiae. The Latin text has been re-edited in Delehaye's Etude sur Ie legendier romain (1936), pp. 221-249, but it seems to belong to the class of hagiographical fictions (op. cit., pp. 151 seq.). It may be that the owner of the house in Rome, which was converted into a church (the titulus Chrysogoni) in the fourth century, was named Chrysogonus, and that when this was mistaken for a dedication to a Saint Chrysogonus, a legend was invented which identified him with a real martyr who suffered at Aquileia. But all the sacramentaries and calendars give the date November 24, and this does not seem to have been the day assigned to the

418

SSe FLORA AND MARY

[November 24

Aquileian martyr.

See CMH., pp. 618-619; and also J. P. Kirsch, Die riimischen Titelkirchen im Altertum, pp. 108-113; M. Mesnard, La basilique de Saint-Chrysogone a Rome (1935).

ST COLMAN OF CLOYNE, BISHOP

(SIXTH CENTURY)

COLMAN OF CLOYNE, the" sun-bright bard ", was son of Lenin, born in Munster near the beginning of the sixth century. He was a poet of great skill and became royal bard (that is, chronicler and genealogist as well as poet laureate) at Cashel.

He was nearly fifty years old before he became a Christian, and the circumstances of his conversion are said to have been as follows. St Brendan came to Cashel to help in the settlement of a dispute about the succession, and while he was there the grave and relics of St Ailbhe were found. Colman took part in this discovery, and St Brendan observed that hands which had been hallowed by the touch of such holy remains should not remain the hands of a pagan. So the bard was baptized

by Brendan, and received from him the name of Colman, which was extraordinarily common in the early Irish church. In the Life of St Columba of Terryglass we hear that the boy Columba was given to the care of this Colman, who taught him to read. Having been ordained priest and afterwards consecrated bishop, St Colman preached in Limerick and the eastern parts of Cork, where he was granted' land for a church at Cloyne, of which he is venerated as the first bishop. The feast of this St Colman is kept throughout Ireland.

There seems to be an absolute dearth of biographical material. An article by " J. C." in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeol. Soc., vol. xvi (1910), pp. 132-140, serves only to reveal the penury of data. But St Colman is mentioned in the Felire of Oengus under November 24, and there is a good paper on him by R. Thurneysen, " Colman mac Lenene und Senchan Torpeist ", in ZeitschnJt fur celtische Philologie, vol. xix (1933), pp.

193-209.

SSe FLORA AND MARY, VIRGINS AND MARTYRS IN the reign of Abdur Rahman II, king of the Moors at Cordova in Spain, Flora, being of Mohammedan birth by her father but secretly brought up in the Christian faith by her mother, was impeached by her own brother before the judge of the city. This magistrate had her scourged brutally, and then put her into the hands of her brother that he might overcome her resolution. After some time she made her escape and took shelter with a sister. Having lain concealed some time, she ventured back to Cordova and prayed publicly in the church of St Acisclus the martyr. There she met with Mary, sister to a deacon who had lately received the crown of martyrdom, and they agreed to give themselves up as Christians to the magistrate, by whose order they were confined where no one had access to them but some loose women. St Eulogius, who was at that time detained in another prison, wrote them an exhortation to martyrdom, in which he told them that no involuntary infamy could harm their souls and that to yield temporarily in hope of better things must not be considered. The two girls were eventually beheaded together, declaring they would intercede in Heaven for the release of St Eulogius and the other brethren; and they were in fact set free a week later.

These Spanish martyrs belong to the group of whom we know practically nothing but what has' been recorded in the narrative of St Eulogius, which may be most conveniently consulted in Migne, PL., vol. cxv, cC. 835-845.

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 25]

25 : ST

CATHERINE

OF

ALEXANDRIA,

VIRGIN

AND

MARTYR

(DATE UNKNOWN)

INCE about the tenth century or earlier veneration for St Catherine of Alexandria has been marked in the East, but from the time of the Crusades until the eighteenth century her popularity ,vas even greater in the West.

Numerous churches were dedicated in her honour and her feast was kept with great solemnity; she was included among the Fourteen Holy Helpers and venerated as the patroness of maidens and women students, of philosophers, preachers and apologists, of wheehvrights, millers and others. Adam of Saint-Victor wrote a poem in her honour; hers was one of the heavenly voices claimed to have been heard by St Joan of Arc; and to her Bossuet devoted one of his most celebrated panegyrics. But not a single fact about the life or death of Catherine of Alexandria has been established.

It is said in her completely worthless acta that she belonged to a patrICIan family of Alexandria and devoted herself to learned studies, in the course of which she learnt about Christianity. She was converted by a vision of our Lady and the Holy Child. When Maxentius began persecuting, Catherine, still only eighteen years old and of great beauty, went to him and rebuked him for his tyranny. He could not answer her arguments against his gods, so summoned fifty philosophers to oppose her. These confessed themselves convinced by the learning of the Christian girl, and were therefore burned to death by the infuriated emperor. Then he tried to seduce Catherine with an offer of a consort's crown, and on her indignant refusal she was beaten and imprisoned, and Maxentius went off to inspect 1. camp.

On his return he discovered that his wife and an officer had gone to see Catherine out of curiosity and had both been converted, together with two hundred soldiers of the guard. They accordingly were all slain and Catherine was sentenced to be killed on a spiked wheel (whence our "catherine-wheel "). When she was placed on it, her bonds were miraculously loosed and the wheel broke, its spikes flying off and killing many of the onlookers. Then she was beheaded, and there flowed from her severed veins a white milk-like liquid. 'rhere are variations of the story, including Catherine's conversion in Armenia, and the details introduced by the Cypriots when they claimed the saint for their island in the middle ages.

All the texts of the " acts" of St Catherine state that her body was carried by angels to Mount Sinai, where a church and monastery ,vere after,vards built, but the legend was not known to the earliest pilgrims to the mountain. In 527 the Emperor Justinian built a fortified monastery for the hermits of this place, and the supposed body of 5t Catherine was said to have been taken there in the eighth or ninth century, since when it has borne her name. The great monastery of l\10unt Sinai, once a famous pilgrim-shrine, is now only a shadow of what it was. But the alleged relics of St Catherine still repose there, in the care of monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Alban Butler quotes Archbishop Falconio of Santa Severina as saying, " As to what is said, that the body of this saint was conveyed by angels to Mount Sinai, the meaning is that it was carried by the monks of Sinai to their monastery, that they might devoutly enrich their dwelling with such a treasure. It is well known that the name of angelical habit was often used for a monastic habit, and that monks on account of their heavenly purity and functions

S

420

[November 25

ST l\tIERCURIUS

were anciently called angels." "Angelical life" and " angelical habit" are still current and usual expressions in Eastern monasticism. " 1'he female sex is not less capablc of the sublime sciences nor less remarkable for liveliness of genius" than the male, comments Alban Butler elsewhere; and St Catherine because of her traditional erudition is still regarded as the patroness of Christian philosophers and students of philosophy.

The story of St Catherine is perpetuated in many texts, oriental as well as Greek and Latin, and so far as regards the outstanding features of the narrative there is not much variation. The Greek of Simeon the Metaphrast dating from the latter part of the tenth century may be read in Migne; PG., vol. cxvi, pp. 276-301 ; there is also a somewhat earlier Greek text; see BHG., n. 3 I. That the long-standing opinion among scholars as to the unreliability of the legend summarized above is general may be illustrated by the tone of the notice in Cardinal Schuster's book, The Sacramentary (1930), vol. v, p. 302. rIe tells us that the story of St Catherine " is unfortunately unsupported by any authority. The ancient Eastern and Egyptian calendars do not ITlention her name. In the West the cultus of the saint began only about the eleventh century." Cf. 1-I. Delehaye, Les martyrs d'Egypte (1923), pp. 35-36, 123-124, and his Legends of the Saints, p. 57; and W. °L. Schreiber, Die Legende des hi. Catherine von Alexandria (1931). St Catherine in art is dealt with in Kilnstle, Ikollographie, vol. ii, pp. 369-374, and in Drake, Saints and their Emblems (1916), p. 24.

For the folklore aspects consult Bachtold-Staubli, I-Jandwiirterbuch des deutschen .Aberglaubens, vol. iv, pp. 1°74-1084. There is a good account of the whole matter in Battdot and Chaussin, Vies des saints, \'01. xi (1954), pp. 854-872. I{atharine, rather than the French Catherine~ seems the preferable spelling in English.

ST MERCURIUS,

lVIARTYR

(DATE UNKNOWN)

martyr is one of the so-called warrior-saints so popular in the East, and he doubtless \\"as a real person who died for the faith, but his various actu are all versions of a pious romance. 'rhese relate that he was the son of a Scythian officer at Romc, and himself a successful soldier, who attained the rank of primi­ cerius. \Vhen the City was threatened by barbarians and the Emperor Decius in great fear, Mercurius encouraged him and himself led the imperial troops, armed \vith a s\vord which had been given him by an angel. After a great victory Decius noticed that l\1ercurius \vas absent from the sacrifices to the gods, and sent for him to kno\v the reason. \Vhereupon Mercurius threw his military cloak and belt in the ernperor's face, saying, " I \vill not deny my I..Jord Jesus". Fearing the anger of the people of Rome, Decius sent him to Caesarea in Cappadocia to be grievously tortured and then beheaded. According to the Eastern legend, one hundred and thirteen years later St Basil invoked the aid of St Mercurius against Julian the Apostate, and he was made the inst-rument of divine wrath.

For Mercurius appeared from the heavens, girded with a sword and brandishing a spear, with \v hich he transfixed and killed the infidel emperor. St Mercurius is called in F:gypt .L~bu Saifain, "the Father of Swords", on account of the weapons with which he is always represented and his alleged military prowess, and many churches are dedicated in his honour in that country. St Mercurius was said to have appeared 'with 8t George and St Demetrius to the soldiers of the First Crusade at Antioch.

THIS

Fr Delehaye has dealt very fully with the legend of 8t Mercurius.

In his book, Les legelldes grecques des saints militaires (1909) he has not only discussed (pp. 91-101) the incidents of this quite unreliable narrative, but in an appendix (pp. 234-258) he has edited the hvo Greek texts which are of more notable interest. The statement of the pilgrim Theodosius (r. 525) that the martvr 1'vlercurius reposes at Caesarea seems to be the earliest SlIre attestation

421

November 26]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

we possess of the saint's real existence. As might be expected from the popularity of his <;ult in Egypt, we find his name constantly recurring in the Ethiopic synaxaries.

Sir E. Wallis Budge's translation of-these last (4 vols., 1928) has a full index in which the references to St Mercurius are numerous. Budge has also published a Coptic version of the passio in his .IViscellaneous Coptic Texts (1915). See also S. Binon, Essai sur Ie cycle de St Mercure (1937), and Documents grecs inedits relat~fs . . . (1937).

ST MOSES, MARTYR

(A.D. 251)

MOSES, perhaps of Jewish origin, was a priest at Rome and leader of a group of clergy who, according to 5t Cyprian, were the first confessors in the Decian persecution. They exchanged letters of encouragement with 5t Cyprian and the clergy of Carthage, and withdrew themselves from communion with Novatian, the danger of whose rigorism 5t Moses perceived. After he had been in prison with his companions for eleven months and eleven days, that is to say, about January 1, 251, Moses died and was accounted a martyr: made illustrious, says the Roman Martyrology, by an excellent and wonderful martyrdom after he had stood with undaunted spirit as well against schismatics and N ovatianist heretics as against the heathen.

I t is from the letters of St Cyprian that our information is principally derived, but we also find Moses spoken of in Eusebius, bk VI, ch. 43, n. 20, and in the Liber Pontijicalis (ed. Duchesne), vol. i, pp. 148 and 150. The question is discussed by Tillemont, Memoires vols. iii and iv; and there is a good article in DCB., vol. iii, pp. 948-949.

26 : ST

SILVESTER GOZZOLINI, ABBOT, FOUNDER OF THE 5ILVESTRINE BENEDICTINES (A.D. 1267)

T

HE Gozzolini were a noble family of Osimo, where St Silvester was born in 1177. He was sent to read law at Bologna and Padua, but soon abandoned his legal studies for theology and the Holy Scriptures, greatly to the anger of his father, who is said to have refused to speak to him for ten years on that account. Silvester was presented to a canonry at Osimo, where he laboured until his zeal involved him in difficulties with his bishop. This prelate was a man of disedifying life, and Silvester took it upon himself to rebuke him, respectfully but firlnly. The bishop was moved only to anger, and threatened to relieve the saint of his benefice, which would not have troubled him much for he had long been strongly drawn to the contemplative life. This inclination is said to have strengthened into resolve when Silvester saw the decaying corpse of a man who had been famous for his physical beauty, a story told also of St Francis Borgia (untruly) and several other saints. In 1227, being fifty years old, St Silvester resigned his rich benefice and retired to a lonely spot some thirty miles from Osimo, where he lived in great poverty and discomfort till the lord of the place gave him a better hermitage. But this proved to be too damp, and he moved to Grotta Fucile where he stayed, living an extremely penitential life, till 1231, when he decided to establish a monastery for the disciples who now surrounded him. This he did at Monte Fano, near Fabriano, building it partly from the ruins of a pagan temple.

St Silvester chose for his monks the Rule of St Benedict in its most austere interpretation, but owing to his extreme stress on certain points, particularly poverty,. and to the nature of the organization of his institute, it has remained separate from the other congregations of Benedictines and does not form part of 4 22

[l\lovember 26

ST PETER OF ALEXANDRIA

their confederation. Silvester governed his congregation with great wisdom and holiness for thirty-six years, and when he died at the age of ninety eleven monas足 teries, either new or reformed, recognized his leadership. His tomb was the scene of many miracles, and in 1275 his relics \vere enshrined in the abbey church at Monte Fano (where they still are). Clement VIII in 1598 ordered the name of Silvester Gozzolini to be added to the Roman Martyrology and Leo XIII gave his feast to the whole Western church. The Silvestrines are now a very small order, whose monks are distinguished by a dark blue habit.

The Life of St Silvester was written by a contemporary, Andrew de Giacomo of Fabriano, who must have penned his narrative between 1275 and 1280, some ten years after the founder's death.

His account is full and seemingly reliable.

The Latin text was first printed by C. S. Franceschini, in his Vita di S. Silvestro Abate (1772).

Full use was made of this valuable source in the work of Amadeo Bolzonetti, II Monte Fano e un grande anacoreta; Ricordi storici (1906), which discusses in detail the history of the cultus of the saint.

ST PETER,

BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, MARTYR

(A.D. 311)

EUSEBIUS calls this prelate an excellent teacher of the Christian religion and a great bishop, being admirable for his virtue and for his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.

In the year 300 he succeeded St rrheonas in the see of Alexandria and he governed that church for twelve years, for the nine last of which he sustained the persecution carried on by Diocletian and his successors. He never ceased begging of God for himself and his flock necessary grace and courage, exhorting them to die daily to their own wills that they might be prepared to die for Christ. 1'1he confessors he comforted and encouraged by word and example, and was the father of many martyrs who sealed their faith with their blood. His watchfulness and care were extended to all the churches of Egypt, the Thebaid and Libya, and in tIus large district there were numbers of Christians who apostatized in one way or another.

St Peter published fourteen canons of instruction as to how such lapsi who wished to be reconciled were to be treated, and these canons were later adopted by the w hole Eastern church.

Eventually St Peter himself had to seek concealment away from Alexandria, and during his absence the Meletian Schism was formed (not to be confused with the more important Meletian Schism at Antioch, fifty years later). The exact circumstances are uncertain, but it would appear that Meletius, Bishop of Lyco足 polis, began uncanonically to exercise St Peter's metropolitan functions, and held ordinations in sees whose occupants were living but in hiding. To justify his actions and to impose upon men by a zeal for discipline he published calumnies against St Peter and had the assurance to say that Peter \vas indulgent to the lapsed in receiving them too easily to communion. Thus he formed a schism and succeeded in disturbing the whole church of Egypt when all the energy and strength of Christians was required to stand up against the persecution. Meletius being contumacious, there was nothing for St Peter to do but to excommunicate him.

From his place of hiding St Peter was able to continue to administer his church and care for the suffering faithful, and eventually he could return to his see; but almost at once Maximinus Daia, caesar in the East, renewed persecution, and Peter was seized, when no one expected it, and hurried to execution without charge or trial. The Roman Martyrology also names the four other bishops who with over 600 others " were raised to Heaven by the sword of persecution " in Egypt at this time.

November 26]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

In Egypt St Peter is called " the Seal and Complement of the Persecution ", because he was the last martyr put to death by public authority at Alexandria, and also sometimes, " He who passed out through the wall".

The reason for this curious designation is explained in his Greek passio, which, however, lacks all authority. It is said therein that when St Peter was arrested his prison was com­ pletely surrounded by Christians who interceded for him with Heaven and would not go away, and when the order came for his execution the crowd was so great that the officers could not approach the building. It was therefore decided to massacre them all. St Peter foresaw this and, not wishing to be the occasion of such slaughter, secretly sent a message to the commandant that if a breach was made in the wall of the prison at night, he could be taken without anybody knowing.

This was accordingly done, and there was such heavy rain and wind that nobody heard the noise made by the masons. St Peter urged the guards to make haste lest someone should awake, and he was executed before any of his faithful friends knew what had happened.

Various texts exist both in Greek and Latin of a supposed passio of St Peter, but they contain nothing which deserves credit; see CMH., pp. 620-621.

On the other hand Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (bks VII, VIII and IX) several times makes mention of this nlartyr, and in the early Syriac breviarium we have an entry under November 24: "At Alexandria the Great, the bishop Peter, an ancient confessor." Although the saint displayed great literary activity, only fragments of his works remain. There is evidence of a wide­ spread cult of St Peter: for example, he early found a place in the Typikon of Jerusalem.

Consult also Tillemont, Memoires, vol. v, pp. 755-757; Bardenhewer, Geschichte der alt­ kirchlichen Literatur, vol. ii, pp. 203-211; DTC., vol. xii, cc. 1802-1804; Analecta Bol­ landiana, vol. lxvii (1949), pp. 117-130; and for a summary of the canons for the lapsi, DCB., vol. iv, pp. 331-332.

ST SIRICIUS,

POPE

(A.D. 399)

THE name of St Siricius was added to the Roman Martyrology by Pope Benedict XIV, with the statement that he was" distinguished for his learning, piety and zeal for religion, condemning various heretics and strengthening ecclesiastical discipline by very salutary decrees". The heretics referred to were principally the monk Jovinian, who denied the perpetual virginity of our Lady and the merit of virginity, and Bonosus, Bishop of Sardica, who shared these errors. Discipline was strength­ ened by a letter in which he replies to certain questions asked by Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona. This general instruction, which he ordered Himerius to publish to other bishops, is the earliest papal decretal extant in its entirety. Among its provisions it required that priests and deacons who were married should cease to cohabit with their wives, and this is the earliest known enforcement of clerical celibacy by the Roman see. Siricius sent this letter also to the church of Africa.

It was this pope who supported St Martin of Tours, and excommunicated Felix of Trier for taking part with Ithacius to bring about the execution by the emperor's order of the heretic Priscillian.

In 390 Pope Siricius consecrated the basilica of St Paul (" outside the walls "), which had been enlarged by the Emperor Theodosius I, and his name is still to be seen on a pillar salvaged from the fire of 1823. St Siricius governed for fifteen years and was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla.

We know very little of St Siricius as an individual, though the Liber Pontificalis (ed.

Duchesne), vol. i, pp. 217-218, tells us something of his action as a pontiff and administrator.

See also Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, vol. ii, pp. 68-80; Tillemont, Memoires,

S'T G::ONRAD OF COKSTANCE

[November 26

vol. x; and E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, vol. i (1930), pp. 257 seq. a long notice in DeB., vol. iv, pp. 696-702 .

ST BASOLUS,

OR

BASLE

There is also

(c. A.D. 620)

BASOLUS was born at Limoges in the middle of the sixth century, and after living some time as a soldier, heard the call of God to become a monk. He went on pilgrimage to the shrine of 8t Remigius at Rheims, and was sent by the archbishop to the nlonastery of Verzy. He was an exemplary monk, but he needed a life of more solitude, so his abbot allo\ved him to inhabit a cell alone, near the ~top of a neighbouring hill. He remained there for the rest of his life. Numerous miracles were attributed to 8t Basolus. Among them, it is said that the count of Cham足 pagne, hunting nearby, ran a boar in the direction of the saint's cell. The animal took refuge under the skirt of his habit, and the hounds stopped dead some yards away, refusing to come any nearer.* The count was so impressed by this mani足 festation of the sacredness of the hermit's home that he made him a present of a large tract of land. 8t Basolus had several disciples in the solitary life, one of them being 8t 8indulf. Both these holy hermits are named in the Roman Martyrology. " rrhree short Latin lives of this religious have been printed; the first was edited by Mabillon, vol. ii, pp. 60-62; the second may most conveniently be found in MGH., Scrip足 tores, yol. xiii, pp. 449--45 I ; the third is in l\11gne, PL., vol. cxxxvii, cc. 643-658. See also E. Quentelot, St Basle et Ie monastere de f,l"erzy (1892).

ST CONRAD, BISHOP OF CONSTANCE

(A.D. 975)

THIS saint belonged to the great Guelf family, being the second son of Henry, Count of Altdorf, founder of the existing abbey of Weingarten in Wtirtemberg.

The boy was sent to the cathedral-school of Constance to make his clerical studies; and soon after he was ordained priest the provostship of the cathedral was conferred upon him. The bishop himself dying in 934, Conrad was chosen to fill the episcopal chair. 8t Ulric, Bishop of Augsburg, who had pr0moted his election, frequently visited him and the friendship in which these two great prelates were linked together was very close. 8t Conrad, having dedicated himself with all that he possessed to God, made an exchange of his estates with his brother for other lands situated nearer Constance, and settled them all upon that church and the poor, having first built and endowed three stately churches at Constance in honour of 8t Maurice, 8t John the Evangelist and 8t Paul, and renovated many old ones.

Pilgrimages to Jerusalem were already frequent in those days, and 8t Conrad thrice visited those holy places, making his journeys truly pilgrimages of penance and devotion. Practically nothing else reliable is recorded in the lives of the saint, all of which were written a long time after his death. In pictures and statues he is usually represented with a chalice and spider, for this reason: It happened that a large spider dropped into the chalice whilst he was celebrating Mass one Easter-day; it was the common belief of his time that all or most spiders were poisonous, but Conrad, out of devotion and respect for the holy mysteries, deliberately swallowed the spider, without receiving any harm. After an episcopate of over forty years 8t Conrad died in 975, and was canonized in I 123. Considering the time in which =lie 'fhis story with variations is, of course, a commonplace of hagiology.

It is told in Wales of St Melangell, the animal in her case being a hare. She, like Basolus, received a grant of land from the astonished hunter (May 27).

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 26]

he lived, he seems to have kept somewhat aloof from secular politics, but it is recorded that he accompanied the Emperor Otto I to Italy in the year 962.

A biography of Conrad written more than a century after his death by U dalschalk of Maissach is an unsatisfactory composition, full of legendary matter. It is printed by Pertz in MGH., Scriptores, vol. iv, pp. 430-460, and is followed by another setting of what is practically the same story. Some further material is contained in the Historia Welforum Weingartensis, also printed in Pertz, Scriptores, vol. xxi, pp. 454-477, and there are a few official documents belonging to Conrad's episcopate in Ladewig, Regesta episcoporum Con足 stantiensium, vol. i (1886), pp. 44-48. There was a considerable later cultus, and this was probably responsible for the violence of the Reformers who in 1526 threw his relics into the lake, though the head was hidden and preserved. See also the Freiburg Di6cesan足 Archiv, vol. xi, pp. 255-272, and vol. xxiii (1893), pp. 49-60; J. Mayer, Der hi. Konrad (1898); Grober und Merk, Das St Konrads Jubilaum (1923); and Kiinstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 385-388.

ST NIKON "METANOEITE"

(A.D. 998)

N IKO~, a native of Pontus, in his youth fled from his friends to a monastery called Khrysopetro, where he lived twelve years in the practice of the most austere penance and prayer. The spiritual fruit which his conferences and exhortations produced induced his superiors to employ him in preaching the word of God to the people. He therefore went as a missionary to Crete, which island had recently been recovered from the hands of the Saracens. Here Nikon reconverted many who had apostatized to Islam. He began all his sermons with the word Metanoeite, that is, " Repent! " whence this surname was given him. By teaching penitents to lay the axe to the very root of sin, St N ikon had the comfort of seeing many wonderful conversions wrought. After having preached in Crete almost twenty years, he passed to the continent of Europe, and announced the divine word in Sparta and other parts of Greece, confirming his doctrine with miracles. He died in a monastery in Peloponnesus in 998, and is honoured both in the Greek and Roman martyrologies.

The long Greek Life of St Nikon has been known since Martene and Durand published Sirmond's Latin translation of it in their Amplissima collectio, vol. vi, pp. 837-887.

In 1906 S. Lambros edited the Greek text from another manuscript at Mount Athos. The document is of considerable historic int~rest and we also possess what purports to be the spiritual 'will and testament of the saint. See also Prince Max of Saxony, Das christliche Hellas (1919), pp. 129-133, and DTC., vol. xi, cc. 655-657.

BD PONTIUS OF FAUCIGNY,

ABBOT

(A.D. 1178)

IN the year 1896 Pope Leo XIII confirmed the cultus of this holy abbot; he had been greatly venerated by St Francis de Sales, who opened his tomb in 1620 to examine the relics and took away several small pieces of bone, which are said to have been the occasion of miracles. Pontius belonged to a noble Savoyard family, and at twenty became a canon regular at the abbey of Abondance in Chablais. He was entrusted with the revision of the constitutions of his house and the foundation in 1144 of a new monastery at Sixt, of which he was made abbot. After ruling it with great distinction for twenty-eight years he went to fulfil the same office at Abondance, but relinquished it soon after and died a holy death in retirement at Sixt.

Not much reliable information seems to be available regarding this abbot.

Jean de Passier published in 1666 La vie du bx Ponce de Faucigny, but ancient records were then

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[November 26

ST JOHN BERCHMANS

little studied. See, however, Mercier, " L'abbaye et la vallee d'Abondance " in the 1'vlemoires et documents de I'Academie salesienne, vol. viii (1885), pp. 1-308, and DHG., vol. i, cc. 147 and 15 I. The best attempt to trace the career of Bd Pontius is that of Canon L. Albert, Le bx Ponce de Faueign}' (1903).

BD JAMES, BISHOP OF MANTUA

(A.D. 1338)

NICHOLAS BOCCASINI, while he was master general of the Dominicans, saw and appreciated the goodness and talents of Friar James Benefatti, and called him to his side to be his companion and adviser. He retained his services when he was created cardinal in 1298, and when five years later Nicholas became pope (Bd Benedict XI) one of the first acts of his brief pontificate was to appoint James Benefatti to the see of Mantua. This was James's native to\\rn, and he discharged the duties of its pastor for many years with heroic energy and prudence. After his death on November 19, 1338, he was at once venerated as a saint, but devotion cooled until, in 1483, his tomb was accidentally broken up, when the body was found to be incorrupt. This fact, and the report of miracles, caused it to be solemnly enshrined, but again Bd James was almost forgotten. Then in 1604 his tomb \vas again opened and the body found still entire; whereupon Bishop Annibale of Mantua bore public testimony to the veneration in which Bd James had been and should be held. This cuitus was confirmed in 1859.

Not much seems to be known of this beatus, but when the confirmation of his cultus was being proceeded with at Rome a summary account was published in the Analecta Juris Pontificii, vol. iv (1860), cc. 1896-1897. See also A. Touron, Hommes illustres G.P., vol. ii, pp. 134-136; Ughelli, Italia Sacra, vol. i, c. 938 ; and Procter, Dominican Saints, pp. 337-339.

ST JOHN BERCHMANS

(A.D. 1621)

" IF I do not become a saint when I am young", said John Berchmans, " I shall never become one." He died when he was twenty-two and he was a saint, one of the three notable young saints of the Society of Jesus. He differed from the other two, St Aloysius and St Stanislaus Kostka, in his origins, for while they belonged to aristocratic families John was the eldest son of a master-shoemaker, a burgess of the town of Diest in Brabant. John was born in 1599, at his father's shop at the sign of the Big and Little Moon in Diest, and seems to have been a good and attractive child. He was most devoted to his mother, who suffered very bad health. His early education was in the hands first of a lay schoolmaster and then of Father Peter Emmerich, a Premonstratensian canon from the abbey of Tongerloo, who taught him Latin versification and took the boy with him when he visited the shrines or clergy of the neighbourhood. This rather encouraged John's tendency to prefer his own and his elders' company to that of other boys, but he entered whole-heartedly with them in their festival mystery-plays, and particularly distinguished himself in the part of Daniel defending Susanna. By the time he was thirteen his father's affairs had become straitened and there were growing brothers and sisters to be considered, so John was told that he must leave school and learn a trade. He protested that he wished to be a priest, and at length his father compromised by sending him as a servant in the household of one of the cathedral canons, John Froymont, at Malines, where he could also attend the classes at the archiepiscopal seminary.

The secular canon Froymont was a different sort of man from the regular canon Emmerich, and with him young John went duck-shooting rather than visiting 42 7

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

NOfvember 26]

shrines; he is said to have learned the difficult art of teaching a dog to retrieve, and his particular duty in the house was waiting at table. In 1615 the Jesuits opened a college at Malines and John Berchmans was one of the first to enter himself thereat, "not without a good deal of feeling on the part of his former master and rector, on account of which' there was a great gulf fixed' between them and us ", wrote his confessor and tutor in Greek, Father De Greeff. He studied with earnest application, continued to be an enthusiastic player of sacred dramas, and was sometimes found kneeling at the foot of his bed after midnight when sleep had overtaken him at his prayers. A year later, after some objection from his father, he joined the novitiate. l-Ie wrote home a week before, " I humbly pray you, honoured father and dearest mother, by your parental affection for me and by my filial love for you, to be so good as to come here on Wednesday evening at the latest, either by the Malines coach from Montaigu or by Stephen's wagon, so that I may say' Welcome and good-bye' to you, and you to me \vhen you give me, your son, back to the Lord God who gave me to you".

As was expected by those who knew him best, John Berchmans was an admir颅 able novice, and throughout his ascetical notes and other writings of that time it appears that, like another holy young religious three hundred and fifty years later, he kept before himself a way of perfection which he expressed in the phrase " Set great store on little things". His industry in writing do\vn his reflections was remarkable, and it extended to making an analysis of F'ather Alphonsus Rodriguez's book on Christian perfection, which had been published less than ten years. Soon after his novitiate began his mother died (there is extant a touching letter from him to her during her last illness), and within eighteen months his father had been ordained priest and presented to a canonry in his native tow-no On September 2, 1618, Brother John wrote to Canon Berchmans announcing that he was about to take his first vows, and asking in a postscript, " Please send me by his reverence the precentor, eleven ells of cloth, six ells of flannel, three ells of linen, and two calf-skins to make my clothes". Canon Berchrnans died the day before his son's profession, but John did not hear of this until he wrote to make an appointment to meet him at Malines before he set out for Rome where he was to begin his philosopliy. Before leaving he \vrote to his relatives expressing his astonishment and displeasure at their not having told him of his father's death, and another to his old master Canon Froymont asking him to keep an eye on his younger brothers, Charles and Bartholomew, " whom perhaps I shall never see again".

8t John arrived in Rome on new year's eve 1618, after having w路alked with one companion from Antwerp in ten weeks, and began his studies at the Roman College under Father Cepari, who afterwards wrote his biography. A professor there, Father Piccolomini, testified that, " Berchmans had good talent, capable of taking in several different subjects at the same time, and in my opinion his enthusiasm and application to work have been rarely equalled and never surpassed. . . . He spared himself no labour or weariness thoroughly to master the various languages and branches of knowledge that go to make a learned and scholarly man."

Father Massucci, the spiritual director of the senior students, declared that, "After Blessed Aloysius Gonzaga, with whom I lived in the Roman College during the last year of his life, I have never known a young man of Inore exemplary life, of purer conscience, or of greater perfection than John". And withal" his brethren loved and reve路red him as an angel from Heaven". Among these brethren was a number of students from England, of whom the martyr Bd Henry Morse was one. For

428

[November 26

ST LEONARD OF PORT l\1AlTRICE

t\VO and a half years 8t John continued his " little way", without singularity or excess; "my penance", he would say, " is to live the common life", and he jotted down, " I like letting myself be ruled like a baby a day old".

8t John's success at his examination in May 1621, caused him to be selected to defend a thesis against all comers in a public debate. But the strain of prolonged study during the heat of a Roman summer had been too much for him, and he began rapidly to fail. On August 6, though feeling unwell, he took a prominent part in a public disputation at the Greek College, but the next afternoon he had to be sent off to the infirmary. He was cheerful as usual--Father Cepari records there was ahvays a smile playing about his mouth. \Vhen he had drunk a peculiarly nasty dose of medicine he asked the attendant father to say the grace after meals, and he told the rector that he hoped the death of another Flemish Jesuit in Rome would not cause friction between the t\VO provinces of the Society; when the doctor ordered his temples to be bathed with old wine he observed that it was lucky such an expensive illness would not last long. After four days Father Cornelius a IJapide, the great Biblical exegete, asked if aught were on his conscience. "Nihil ornnino. Nothing at all ", replied 8t John, and he received the last sacraments with great devotion. lIe lingered t\\'o more days (the doctors were at a loss to diagnose what it was that had brought him so low), and died peacefully on the morning of August 13, 1621.

There \vere extraordinary scenes at the funeral, numerous miracles were attributed to John's intercession, and the recognition of his holiness was spread so rapidly that within a few years Father Bauters, S.}., wrote from Flanders, " 1-'hough he died in Rome, and but few of his countrymen knew him by sight, ten of our best engravers have already published his portrait and at least 24,000 copies have been struck off. This is not including the works of lesser artists and numbers of paintings." Nevertheless, though his cause was begun in the very year of his death, the beatification of 8t John Berchmans did not take place till 1865, and his canonization till 1888.

By far the most valuable contribution to our kno\vledge of St John Berchmans is that of A. Poncelet, printed in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxiv (1921), pp. 1-227. The whole question of sources is there discussed, and attention is dra\vn to the work of his more accredited biographers. Among these are specially mentioned V. Cepari (1627), L. J. M. Cros (1894), H. P. Vanderspecten (1886), and N. Angelini (1888).

Fr Poncelet's article also includes copies of unpublished documents and letters-many of them submitted to St John's first biographer, Father Cepari.

See further, in the series " Les Saints", the life by Fr H. Delehaye (Eng. trans., 1921). T'here is also an English life by Father Goldie (1873), another by J. Daly (1921), and a sketch by Fr C. C. Martindale in his Christ's Cadets (19 13).

ST LEONARD OF PORT MAURICE

(A.D. 1751)

DOUBTLESS while Alban Butler was writing these Li~'es of the Saints the fame often reached his ears of a F-'ranciscan Father Leonard Casanova, whose missionary labours in Italy were at their height in the second quarter of the eighteenth century and who died five years before the publication of Butler's work. The name by ",'hich that friar is now known is taken from his native town, Porto Maurizio on the Italian Riviera, where he was born in 1676, and baptized Paul Jerome. His father, Dominic Casanova, was a master-mariner and a good Christian man, and when his eldest son was thirteen he entrusted him to the care of his wealthy uncle Augustine at Rome, who sent the boy to the Roman College of the Jesuits. Paul

429

1:'1--IE LIVES OF TI-fE SAINTS

Novernber 26]

soon realized that he had a religious vocation and his own inclination was towards the Friars Minor.

But his uncle, who \\ranted him to be a physician, objected and eventually turned him out of his house; but Paul found shelter with another relative, Leonard Ponzetti, with whom he stayed until he received his father's ready permission to become a friar. He was clothed, when he was twenty-one, at the Franciscan novitiate at Ponticelli, taking the name of Leonard in gratitude for the kindness of Ponzetti, and completed his studies at St Bonaventure's on the Palatine, \vhere he was ordained in 1703. This friary \vas the principal house of an off-shoot of the strict Riformati branch of the Franciscans, called Riformella, and throughout his life St Leonard, both for himself and for others, combined active missionary work with a severely ascetic monastic observance and much solitude: the first that he might live for God and the last that he might live in God, as he himself expressed it.

In 1709 St Leonard was sent with other friars, under Father Pius, to take over the monastery of San Francesco del Monte at Florence, which the Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici had presented to the Riformella. These friars lived accord­ ing to the austerest principles of St Francis, refusing to accept endowments from Cosimo, or Mass and preaching stipends from the clergy and people, depending solely for material support on what they could beg as required. The community flourished and increased in numbers, and became a great religious centre whence Leonard and his companions preached with great fruit throughout Tustany. A parish-priest at Pistoia wrote to the guardian, " Blessed be the hour in which I first thought of asking for Father Leonard. God alone knows all the good he has done here. His preaching has touched everybody's heart. . . . All the confessors in the town have had to work hard." The saint himself was appointed guardian of del Monte, and he established the hermitage of St Mary at Incontro in the neigh­ bouring mountains, where individual religious might retire for a space twice in every year. "We will make a novitiate for Paradise", he said, " I have given many missions to others, and now I am going to give one to Brother Leonard." The regulations which he drew up for this retreat-house provided for strict enclosure, almost perpetual silence, fasting on bread, vegetables and fruit, and a daily dis­ cipline, with nine hours of the day devoted to the Divine Office and other spiritual exercises, and the rest to manual work.

For many years 8t Leonard laboured in Tuscany, but after a time he was frequently called to preach further afield, and at his first preaching visit to Rome his services were so long in request that Duke Cosimo sent a ship to the Tiber to fetch him back. For six years he was conducting missions around Rome, and in 1736, when he was sixty years old, he had to take up the office of guardian at 8t Bonaventure's there. From thence he preached for three weeks at Civita Vecchia, particularly to the soldiers and sailors, convicts and galley-slaves, and including a " visit to an English skipper, who wanted to see me on his ship. We found three or four of them who had been present at the sermons [he had preached from the bridge of a vessel] and seemed inclined to abandon their errors. The poor fellows had been more touched by what they saw than what they heard, for they hardly understood the language at all-which only shows that grace is the prime mover in stirring the heart." After a year he was released from office, and preached in Umbria, Genoa and the Marches, where such crowds assembled that he had often to leave the churches, and speak in the open air. To command the attention of those who were too hard-hearted and stiff-necked to take any notice of him other­

43°

ST LEONARD OF PORT MAURICE

[November 26

wise, St Leonard would sometinles discipline himself in public, but the" devotion" \vhich he principally used was the Way of the Cross, and it is to him that its popularity today is largely due. He often gave it as a penance and preached it continually, and the setting up of the stations became a part in every mission he undertook. It is said that he set them up in 571 places in Italy. He also encour­ aged the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and devotion to the Sacred Heart and to our Lady as conceived free from original sin, all of which were very far less wide-spread than they are to-day. In particular did he make zealous efforts to get the Immaculate Conception defined as a dogma of faith and he was the first to suggest, what was done a century later, that the mind of the Church should be sounded on the matter without summoning a general council.

St Leonard was for a time the spiritual director of Clementina Sobieska of Poland, the wife of him who was recognized in Italy as King James III of England.

All his letters to her were destroyed,:If: but there are extant one written by James to St Leonard a month after the queen's death in 1735, thanking him for his prayers and asking to see him, and several of direction written by the saint to one of the queen's ladies. Pope Benedict XIV had a great regard for Leonard and his capabilities and in 1744, in concert with the Genoese Republic, the sovereign of the island, he sent him to Corsica to try and bring the people there to peace and order. He was not well received, being regarded as an agent of the doge disguised as a missioner. Admittedly there was a political aspect to his mission, for the troubles in Corsica were mainly due to discontent with the domination of Genoa.

What with the political situation, the turbulent temperament of the Corsicans (they came to his sermons with weapons in their hands), and the mountainousness of the country, this was the most arduous of all 8t Leonard's missionary tasks. He wrote numerous letters from the island, in one of which he says, " In every parish we meet with the most formidable feuds, but peace and quietness generally come to the top at last. But unless the administration of justice gets strong enough to stamp out these vendettas, the good we are doing can be only transitory. . . .

During these years of war the people have had no instruction whatever. The young men are dissolute, wild, and don't come near the sacraments. Many of them don't trouble even to make their Easter duties, and, what is worse, nobody thinks of reminding or rebuking them. When I have an opportunity to meet the bishops I shall tell them what I think. . . . However, though the work is so exacting, the harvest is abundant. . . ."

But the fatigue, the intrigues, the strain of constant vigilance were too much for St Leonard, who was now sixty-eight, and at the end of six months he was so ill that a ship was sent from Genoa to bring him back. He had gauged the state of Corsican affairs correctly, for the pope \vrote to him soon after, " 1'he Corsicans have got \vorse than ever since the lnission, and so it is not thought advisable that you should go back there". Side by side \vith his public missions 8t l.Jeonard gave retreats to nuns and lay-people, especially at Rome in preparation for the year of Jubilee 1750. rThat year sa\\' one of his ambitions realized, \\·hen Benedict XIV permitted him to set up the stations of the cross in the Colosseum, l.Jeonard preach­ ing to a large and fervent cro\vd a sermon \vhich is still preserved. "I am getting old", he \vrote, " 1\;1 y voice carried as it did two years ago, but I felt worn out. '*' One 'was found under her pillo'\v 'when she was dead. ~t Leonard used to \\Tite to the rnost distInguished correspondents on any old piece of paper. " rrhey know Leonard is a poor n1an ") he 'would say, " so they 'won't bother to stand on ceretnony."

43 1

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

N o'l.'ember 27]

However, it is a consolation to see this Colosseum no longer a common resort but a real sanctuary. . . ."

In the spring of the following year, when St Leonard went off to give missions at Lucca and elsewhere, the pope told him to give up travelling on foot and to go by carriage. He had been a missioner of the most powerful energy for forty-three years, and was beginning to fail. Owing to this and to the hostility and indifference of certain places, some of these last missions were relatively unsuccessful. At length, at the beginning of November, he turned south, and he knew his work was done. His carriage broke down and he had to walk part of the way through rain to Spoleto, where the friars tried in vain to detain him. On the evening of November 26 he arrived in Rome and was carried to bed at St Bonaventure's, and while they prepared to give him the last sacraments he sent a message to Pope Benedict that he had kept his promise-to come to Rome to die. At nine o'clock Mgr Belmonte arrived from the Vatican with an affectionate message from the pope. Before midnight St Leonard was dead.

In spite of his amazing activity St Leonard found time during the intervals of solitude and contemplation which he prized so much to write many letters, sermons and devotional treatises. His Resolutions, for the better attainment of Christian perfection, is a work valuable both in itself and for what it tells us ahout its author.

The cause of his beatification in 1796 was furthered by Cardinal Henry of York, son of that Queen Clementina whose director St Leonard had been sixty years before. He was canonized in 1867.

As might be expected from St Leonard's comparatively recent date, his great reputation and his active life as a preacher, abundant materials are available for his biography. That

by Fr Giuseppe da l\tlasserano, the postulator of the cause of his beatification, was published in 1796, and has since been translated into most European languages. An English version was included in the Oratorian series in 1852.

Another well-known life, by Salvatore di Ormea, appeared in 1851, and perhaps the most popular of all, that written by Fr Leopold de Cherance in French, in 1903. As materials for an understanding of the activities and spirit of the great missioner, St Leonard's writings and letters have considerable importance.

The collection published in Rome in 1853-1854 was far from complete. Eighty-six letters addressed to his penitent Elena Colonna were first printed in 1872, under the title Suavita di spirito di S. Leonardo,. and since then Fr B. Innocenti in 1925 and 1929, and Fr Ciro Ortolani da P~saro in 1927 have found fresh material to publish. Many articles and notices in the Archivum Franciscanum Historicum have added to our knowledge of St Leonard.

There is a good article by Fr M. Bihl in the Catholic Encyclopedia; and a short life by Fr Dominic Devas, as well as a notice in Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp.

9 8- 11 2.

27 : SSe

,; I

BARLAAM

AND

JOSAPHAT

(No DATE)

N the Indies bordering upon Persia, the birthday of the holy Barlaam and Josaphat, of whose wonderful deeds St John Damascene has written."

This entry was added to the Roman Martyrology by Cardinal Baronius, but the document upon which he relied is now known not to have been written by St John. The story it tells is that an Indian king persecuted those of his subjects who were Christians, and when it was foretold that his son Josaphat (Joasaph) would become a Christian he had him brought up in the closest confinement. But the young man was nevertheless converted by an ascetic, disguised as a merchant carrying a " pearl of great price ", called Barlaam. The king, Abenner, tried to

43 2

[November 27

ST JAl\1ES INTERCISUS

undo the work but, \vhen he failed, himself became a Christian and eventually a hermit. Josaphat, too, resigned his throne, joined his old master Barlaam in the desert, and there passed the rest of his days.

Not only is this a purely imaginative romance about t\VO saints \vho never existed, but its source is no\v recognized as being the legend of Siddartha Buddha, who was kept in confinement by the raja his father to prevent his becoming a professional ascetic. 'The Christian version of this legend spread in both East and "'~est, and was translated into numerous languages.

By this means was preserved a valuable piece of Christian apologetic, \vritten by an .Athenian philo足 sopher called Aristides in the second century, \vhich the compiler of the Barlaam legend incorporated in his text. 1'his \vas not recognized as \vhat it is till towards the end of the nineteenth century, when a Syriac version of the" i\pology" of i\ristides \\'as found in the lihrary of the monastery of l\'lount Sinai (an Armenian translation had been found by the Mekhitarist monks at Venice a fe\v years before).

1'hus a story of the Buddha was spread over Christendom in a Christian disguise, and carrying on its back a vindication of the Church's teaching on the One God. A very considerable literature has grown up around this story in modern times.

It will be sufficient here to call attention to the article" ]oasaph " by H. Leclercq in DA.C., vol. vii, cc. 2359-2554, in which abundant references are given.

The text and English translation of the C;'reek novel, edT G. R. Woodvvard and fl. l\1attingly, is in the Loeb Classical Library (1914).

It is now argued that the adapter, or rather translator, " John the lVlonk " of 1\lar Saba, \vas 8t Euthymius the Hagiorite (.:vI ay 13); it was translated into Latin at Constantinople about 1048: see P. Peeters in Analetta Bollandiana, vol. xlix (1931), pp.

276--312 ; and Byzantion, vol. vii, p. 692. See also]. Sonet, Le roman de Barlaam et Josaphat (1949). There was of course a genuine 8t Rarl~am, a martyr at Antioch (November 19).

ST JAMES INTERCISUS,

l\'1ARTYR

(c.

A.D.

421)

THE second great persecution of Christians in Persia began about the year 420, provoked by the intemperate zeal of the bishop Abdias, and the best kno\vn of its victims \vas this James. rIe \vas in high favour with King Yezdigerd I, and when that prince declared "oar against the Christian religion he had not the courage to renounce his master's friendship; so he abandoned, or at least dissimulated, the \V-orship of the true God which he before professed. His mother and wife were extremely grieved, and upon the death of King Yezdigerd they \vrote to James, rebuking and ",oarning him. He was strongly affected by this letter, and began to repent of what he had done. He appeared no more at court, renounced the honours which had occasioned his fall, and openly condemned himself for it. The ne\v king sent for him. James confessed himself a Christian. Bahram reproached him for ingratitude, enumerating the honours he had received from his father.

J ames calmly said, " \Vhere is he now? What is become of him?" These \vords annoyed King Bahram, \vho threatened that his punishment should be a lingering death. "Any kind of death is no more than a sleep," replied St James. "l\1ay my soul die the death of the just." "Death", retorted Bahram, " is not a sleep; it is the terror of kings." James answered, " It indeed terrifies kings, and all others who ignore God, because the hope of the wicked shall perish". The king took him up at these words: "Do you then call us wicked, you \vho worship neither sun nor moon nor fire nor \vater, the offspring of the god?" "I accuse you not", replied James, "but I say that you give the incomrnunicable name of God to creatures.' ,

433

NO'lJember 27]

'rHE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

The council came to a resolution that, unless the criminal renounced Christ, he should be hung up and his limbs cut off one after another, joint by joint: the whole city flocked to see this new form of execution, and the Christians poured forth their prayers to God for the martyr's perseverance. James was brought out, the executioners violently stretched out his arms, and in that posture explained to him the death he was to suffer, and pressed him to avert so terrible a punishment by obeying the king. They urged him to dissemble his religion just for the present, saying he could immediately return to it again. St James answered that, " This death which appears so dreadful is very little for the purchase of eternal life. " Then turning to the executioners, he said, " Why do you stand looking on? Begin your work." They therefore cut off his right thumb, at which he prayed aloud, " Saviour of Christians, receive a branch of the tree. It will putrefy, but will bud again and be clothed with glory. The vine dies in winter, yet revives in spring.

Shall not the body when cut down sprout up again?" When his first finger was cut off, he cried out, " My heart hath rejoiced in the Lord, and my soul hath exulted in His salvation! Receive another branch, 0 Lord." And at the lopping of every finger he exulted and thanked God afresh. When his fingers and toes had all been cut off, he said cheerfully to the executioner, " Now the boughs are gone, cut down the trunk". Then his other limbs were hacked away and his thighs were torn from the hips. Lying a naked trunk, having lost half his body, St James still continued to pray and praise God till a soldier by severing his head from his body completed his martyrdom. The author of these" acts", who says he was an eye-witness, adds, "We all implored the intercession of the blessed James", who on account of the manner of his passion was named Intercisus, that is, " the Chopped-to-pieces ".

The Syriac text of this passio has been edited by P. Bedjan, Acta martyrum et sanctorum (1890-1897), vol. ii, pp. 539-558; and there is a German translation in the Bibliothek der Kirchenviiter, vol. xxii, pp. 150-162. The story became very popular, though much of it is clearly fabulous. There are adaptations in Greek, Latin, Coptic, etc. See also S. E. Assemani, Acta sanctorum martyrum orientalium et occidentalium, vol. i, pp. 242-258. This martyr was much honoured in Cyprus, and some of his relics were believed to have been conveyed to Braga in Portugal. Fr. P. Devos gives the martyr's dossier in Analecta Bol足 landiana, vol. lxxi (1953), pp. 157-210, and lxxii, 213-256.

ST SECUNDINUS,

OR

SECHNALL, BISHOP

(A.D. 447)

SECUNDINUS, the Irish translation of whose name is Sechnall, was one of the three seniores sent from Gaul to help St Patrick. The Annals state that he came to Ireland in 439, together with Auxilius and Iserninus, Secundinus being named first; according to the same source he died there in 447. The Annals of Ulster add that he was then aged seventy-two, a particular that does not go back to the original Irish annals of the fifth century.

Secundinus is remembered as a hymn-writer. He is the author of Audite, omnes amantes Deum, the earliest known Latin hymn written in Ireland. It has twenty-three stanzas, the initial letters being alphabetical, and was composed in honour of St Patrick. It was regarded as a "preserver", to be recited in emergency, and the last three stanzas, which were particularly valued, appear liturgically in the Book of Mulling. rrhe beautiful communion hymn of the Irish church, Sancti, venite, Christi corpus sumite, is also attributed to St Sechnall, but in the Bangor Antiphonary, in which it is found, it is referred to only as 434

[November 27

ST CUNGAR

" The hymn when the priests communicate "; the Tripartite Life of St Patrick speaks of Patrick and Sechnall hearing it sung by angelic voices.

The text of a Latin vita of medieval origin in the Royal Library of Belgium is printed in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. Ix (1942), pp. 26-34. A good many allusions to him may be collected from such sources as the Tripartite Life of St Patrick, the Lebar Brecc, the additions to Tirechan's Collections, etc.

See in particular Bernard and Atkinson, The Irish Liber Hymnorum, vol. ii, p. 96, etc.; F. E. Warren, The Antiphonary of Bangor, pt II, p. 44, etc. ; Plummer, Miscellanea Hagiographica Hibernica, p. 223; Kenney, Sources for the Early History of Ireland, vol. i, pp. 25째-260; and E. MacNeill, St Patrick (1934). The name of St Secundinus came next after St Patrick's in the diptychs at Armagh; he is mentioned in the Felire of Oengus and reference is made there to his hymn on St Patrick. See also G. F. Hamilton, In St Patrick's Praise (1920).

ST MAXIMUS,

BISHOP OF RIEZ

(c.

A.D.

460)

ST MAXIMUS was born in Provence, near Digne. His Christian parents brought him up in the love of virtue, and no one was surprised when as a young man he retired to the monastery of Lerins, where he was received by St Iionoratus, its founder. When the last named was made bishop of ArIes in 426, Maximus was chosen the second abbot of Lerins. St Sidonius assures us that tre monastery seemed to acquire a new lustre by his prudent example; and the gift of miracles and the reputation of his sanctity drew crowds to his monastery from the mainland.

At one time he felt obliged to quit the house and conceal himself in a forest and we are assured that the reason why he thus lay hid, in a very rainy season, was that the clergy and people of Frejus had demanded him for bishop. However, not long after, the see of Riez in Provence became vacant and he was compelled to fill it, although he tried to get away in a boat. His parents were originally of t~lat city so the saint was looked upon as already a citizen and on account of his holiness received with great joy. As a bishop he continued to observe the monastic rule so far as was compatible with his duties; he retained the same love of poverty, the same spirit of penance and prayer, the same indifference to the world, and the same humility for which he had been so conspicuous in the cloister.

A laudatory oration printed among the works of Eusebius of Emesa was probably written

by Faustus, the successor of Maximus. Besides this we have a life by one Dynamius, who was a patrician of the period. It is printed in Migne, PL., vol. lxxx, cc. 31-40. See also Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. i, pp. 283-284.

ST CUNGAR,

ABBOT

(SIXTH CENTURY)

THERE is very little satisfactory information to be found about St Cungar (Congar, Cyngar), but it is desirable to mention him here as his feast is observed today in the diocese of Clifton (November 7 is the traditional date in Wales). He is said to have established a monastery at a marshy place near Yatton in Somerset, now called after him Congresbury, and later, perhaps flying before the Saxons, went into South Wales and founded a church near Cardiff. According to Welsh legend he accompanied his " cousin" St Cybi to Ireland. St Cungar " was now an old man, and St Cybi bought for him a cow with her calf, because his age prevented him from taking any food but milk ". It was this calf which aggravated the feeling between Cybi and Fintan, as a consequence of which he and St Cungar left Aran and eventually came to Anglesey, where Cungar is said to have founded the church of Llangefni. According to a Breton tradition he died at Saint-Congard in 435

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

N CYlYember 27]

Morbihan. The medieval vita identifies St Cungar wIth St Dacca (Doccuin), who founded a monastery at St Kew in Cornwall and other churches in \Vales.

The whole question of the life and identity of St Cungar is a hopeless tangle: there rnay have been two or three 8t Cungars. We can only give an indication of some of the attempts to throw light on the subject.

See, for example, P. Grosjean in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xlii (1924), pp. 100-120; Armitage Robinson in the Journal of Theological Studies, vol. xx (1918), pp. 97-108; vol. xxiii (1921), pp. 15-22; and vol. xxix (1928), pp. 137-14°; and G. H. Doble in Antiquity, vol. xix (I945), pp. 32-43, 85-95. Cf. also A11alecta Bollandiana, vol. xlvii (1929), pp. 43°-431; LBS., vol. ii, pp. 248-253; and Schofield on the Muchelney Calendar in the Proceedings of the Somerset Record Society, vol. xlii.

ST FERGUS, BISHOP

(EIGHTH CENTUR Y

?)

rrHIS Fergus ,vas an Irishman and distinguished in his o\vn country as " the Pict ".

According to the tradition of the church of Aberdeen he was already a bishop when he left Ireland for Scotland, and settled in Strathearn in Perthshire, where he founded three churches and dedicated them all in honour of St Patrick. He \vas a missionary also in Caithness, Buchan and finally, Forfarshire, where at Glamis he founded the church and died. St Fergus tnay be identical with the" Fergustus, Bishop of the Scots", who assisted at a synod held by Pope St Gregory II in Rome in 72 I. His feast was restored to the diocese of Aberdeen in 1898, and is also observed by Dunkeld.

We know little of this saint beyond ,,,hat is contained in the lessons of the Aberdeen Breviary. It would seem, however, that the statements made therein are borne out in large measure by local dedications which can be traced. See A. P. Forbes in KSS., pp. 336-338, who has dealt with the matter very fully; and cf. DeB., vol. ii, pp. 505-506.

ST VIRGIL, BISHOP

OF

SALZBURG

ST VIRGIL was an Irishman, Feargal or Ferghil by name, and in the Annals of the Four Masters and the Annals of Ulster he is identified with an abbot of Aghaboe.

About the year 743 he started out on a pilgrimage to the I-Ioly Land, but after spending two years in France got no further than Bavaria. Here Duke Odilo appointed him abbot of St Peter's at Salzburg and administrator of the diocese.

St Virgil had a bishop, an Irishman like hitTIself, to perform episcopal acts, reserving to himself the office of preaching and ruling, till he was compelled by his colleagues to receive episcopal consecration. In the course of his duties he came across a priest who was so ignorant of Latin that he did not pronounce the words of baptism properly (Ego te baptizo in nomine patria et filia et spiritu sancta, is what he is said to have made of them). St \rirgil decided that as the error \vas an accidental one of language, with no religious significance, baptisms that this priest had adminis­ tered were valid and need not be repeated. St Boniface, then archbishop of IVlainz, strongly disapproved of the verdict of Virgil, and appeal was made to Pope St Zachary. He confirmed the ruling of Virgil, and expressed surprise that Boniface had questioned it.

Some time after this incident, Virgil was denounced to the I-Ioly See, again by St Boniface, for teaching that-if his doctrine be accurately represented-there is beneath the earth another world and other men and also a sun and moon. St Zachary answered that this was a " perverse and wicked doctrine, offensive alike to God and to his own soul": and that if it were proved that Virgil did in fact 43 6

BD BERNARDINO OF FOSSA

[No'vember 27

hold it he should be excommunicated by a synod. l'his has been taken hold and made use of for controversial purposes, but without reason. ~"'or it is not kno\vn exactly what Virgil did hold about the earth and other races of men; and it is clear that what brought him under suspicion was the idea that he taught something which involved a denial of the unity of the human race and the universality both of original sin and the Redemption. If he in fact taught that the earth is a sphere and that the antipodes \vcre inhabited by humans, such prima-facie suspicion \vas not entirely unreasonable in the middle of the eighth century. There is not a tittle of evidence for supposing that Virgil was tried, condernned and made to retract; but he must have satisfied his critics that he believed nothing" against God and his own soul", for about 767 (or earlier) he was consecrated bishop.

8t \rirgil rebuilt the cathedral of Salzburg on a grand scale, and translated thereto the body of 5t Rupert, founder of the see. He baptized at Salzburg two successive Slav dukes of Carinthis, and at their request sent thither four preachers under the bishop St l\10destus; other missionaries followed.

Virgil himself preached in Carinthis as far as the borders of Hungary, where the Drava falls into the Danube, Soon after his return horne he was taken ill, and cheerfully departed to the Lord on November 27, 784. St Virgil \vas canonized in 1233, and his feast is kept throughout Ireland as well as in several parts of central Europe, where he is venerated as the apostle of the Slovenes.

T'he Life of St Virgil printed in lVIGH., Scriptores, vol. xi, pp. 86-95, is a late production and not \vholly reliable; 'what speaks more convincingly is the laudatory epitaph written

by Alcuin (in 1VIGH., Poetae Latini, vol. i, p. 340).

See more particularly the valuable notice of L. Gougaud, Les saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (1936), pp. 17°-172; dnd cf. J. Ryan, Early Irish Alissionaries . . . and St 'Vergil (1924); H. Frank, Die Klosterbischoje des Frankenreiches (1932) ; and B. Krusch, in l\1GH., Scriptores Merov., vol. vi, pp. 517 seq.

For the cosmological dispute see H. Krahbo in .lvlitteilungen des Instituts fur Osterrez'chische Ceschichtsjorschullg, yol. xxiv (1903), pp. 1-28; and I-I. Van cler Linden in Bulletins de I' Acad. ro)'ale de Belg., Classe dES lettres, 1914, pp. 163-187. Cj. also Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xlvi (1928), p. 203.

BD BERNARDINO OF FOSSA

(A.D.

J 503)

great Franciscan apostle St Bernardino of Siena ,vas buried at Aquila in the Abruzzi, where Bernardino Amici had his early education and took his narnesake as his model and heavenly patron, and after,vards \\Tote his life. He had been born near by, at Fossa in 1420, and \vas sent from Aquila to Perugia to study law.

Like another Bd Bernardino, " of Feltre ", a fe\v years later, he \vas attracted to the Friars l\Jlinor of the Observance at a Lenten mission preached by 8t James of the lVlarch, and received the habit from him at Perugia in 1445. After his ordina­ tion he became a \vell-kno\vn and successful preacher in Italy. In 1464 he \vas sent as peace-maker into Dalmatia and Bosnia, \\There differences of nationality had caused difficulties arIlong the friars, and he successfully united the diverse elements into one province. On his return he would have heen prolnoted to the see of Aquila had not the Holy See accepted his plea to be allo\ved to continue his work as a simple friar. Among his \\Tritings is a historical Chronicle of the Friars Nlinor of the Observance. Bd Bernardino of Fossa dIed at the friary of 8t Julian near Aquila in 1503, and his cuitus \vas approved in 1828.

rrHE

A full account of Bd Bernardino is provided by Fr Van Ortroy in the Acta Sanctorum, l'\oYcmber, vol. Iii, though he has to fall back for the details of the life upon the printed

437

N o'l'ember 28]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

narrative of Mark of Lisbon. This is supplemented by a memoir which Antony Amici, a grand-nephew of the beatus, contributed to a volume of Bernardino's sermons. See also a short biography by Ugo de Pescocostanza (1872), and Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 42-44.

BD HUMILIS OF BISIGNANO THIS beatus was a native of Bisignano in Calabria, where he received the name of Luke at baptism. He earned his living as a farm-labourer, and when he was eighteen determined to become a Franciscan. But it was not till nine years later, in 16°9, that he was accepted as a lay-brother by the Observant friars at his birth­ place. At his clothing he was given the name of Humilis, a most appropriate choice as it turned out, for he maintained real humility in circumstances wherein that virtue must be greatly tried. He in fact became so celebrated for miracles and the prudence of his opinions that not only did learned men come to consult him, but he was sent for to Rome by Pope Gregory XV. While Bd Humilis was there, Gregory died, and his successor (J rban VIII continued to keep the lay­ brother at his side. But the climate of Rome did not suit him; he was taken ill, and it was deemed advisable to send him back to Bisignano. Here he continued to lead a most holy and mortified life till his death, on November 26, 1637, at the age of fifty-five. Bd Humilis was beatified in 1882.

1'here is useful material in the Acta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum ad ordinem quoquo modo pertinentia, vol. xxix (1910). A very full account of Bd Humilis may be found in Mazzara, Leggendario Francescano (1680), vol. ii, pt 2, pp. 554--572, and there is a life in I talian by Fr Antony da Vicenza (1872).

See also Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 154-156.

28 : ST STEPHEN THE YOUNGER,

MARTYR

T STEPHEN, surnamed the Younger, one of the most reno\vned martyrs in the persecution by the Iconoclasts, was born at Constantinople, and his parents placed him when he was fifteen years old in the monastery of St Auxentius, not far from Chalcedon. Stephen's employment was to fetch the provisions daily for the monastery. The death of his father obliged him to make a journey to Constantinople, where he sold his share of the estate and distributed the price among the poor. He had two sisters, one of whom \vas already a nun; the other he took with his mother into Bithynia, where he found them a home in a monastery. When John the abbot died, Stephen, though but thirty years of age, was placed at the head of the monastery. 1~his was a number of small cells scattered up and down a mountain, and the new abbot succeeded his predecessor in a cave on the summit, where he joined labour with prayer, copying books and making nets. After some years Stephen resigned his abbacy, and built himself a remoter cell, so narrow that it was impossible for him to lie or stand up in it at ease. He shut himself up in this sepulchre in his forty-second year.

The Emperor Constantine Copronymus carried on the war which his father Leo }lad begun against holy images, his efforts being chiefly levelled against the monks, from whom he expected and received the most resolute opposition. Know­ ing the ·influence of Stephen, he was particularly anxious to get his subscription to the decree passed by the Iconoclast bishops at the council of 754. Callistus, a

S

43 8

ST SIMEON METAPHRASTES

[November 28

patrician, tried to persuade the saint to consent, but he had to report failure.

Constantine, incensed at St Stephen's resolute answer, sent Callistus back with soldiers and an order to drag him out of his cell. They found him so weak in body that they were obliged to carry him to the bottom of the mountain. Witnesses were suborned to accuse the saint, and he was charged with having criminally conversed with his spiritual daughter, the holy widow Anne. She protested he was innocent, and because she would not say as the emperor wished she was whipped and then confined to a monastery, where she died soon after of the hard usage she suffered.

The emperor, seeking a new excuse to put Stephen to death, trapped him into clothing a novice, which had been forbidden; whereupon armed men dispersed his monks and burnt down the monastery and church. They took St Stephen, put him roughly on board a vessel, and carried him to a monastery at Chrysopolis, where Callistus and several court bishops came to examine him. They treated him first with civility, and afterwards with extreme harshness. He asked them how they could call a general council one which was not approved by the other patriarchs, and stoutly defended the honour due to holy images, insomuch that Stephen was condemned to banishment to the island of Proconnesus, in the Pro足 pontis. Two years after Copronymus ordered him to be removed to a prison in Constantinople, where some days later he was carried before the emperor, who asked him whether he believed that men trampled on Christ by trampling on His image. " God forbid", said Stephen; but then, taking a piece of money, he asked what treatment was deserved by one who should stamp upon that image of the emperor.

The suggestion was received with indignation. "Is it then", asked St Stephen, " so great a crime to insult the image of the king of the earth, and none to cast into the fire that of the King of Heaven?" The emperor commanded that he should be scourged. This was done with brutal violence, and Copronymus when he heard that Stephen was nevertheless yet alive cried out, " Will no one rid me of this monk?"

Whereupon some of his hearers ran to the jail, seized the martyr and dragged him through the streets by his feet. Many of the mob struck him with stones and staves, till one dashed out his brains with a club. The Roman Martyrology ~entions with St Stephen other monks who suffered in the same cause about the same time.

A Greek life, written by another Stephen, " deacon of Constantinople)), is printed in Migne, PG., vol. c, pp. 1069-1086. It has been pointed out that the text contains passages borrowed from the Life of St. Euthymius by Cyril of Scythopolis.

A short account of the martyrdom will be found in B. Hennann's Ferborgene lJeilig{' des griechischen Os tens (1931).

ST SIMEON METAPHRASTES

(c. A.D. 1000)

SIMEON METAPHRASTES, that is, " the Reteller ", requires a brief notice in a book of this kind for the same reason as do Bd Ado of Vienne and Bd James of Voragine, for he was the principal compiler of the legends of the saints found in the meno足 logies of the Byzantine church. Though his life was written by Michael Psellos (d. 1078), little is known of him for certain. Unlike the other two hagiographers mentioned he was not a prelate; Psellos says he was a logothete, a sort of secretary of state, and that he undertook his work on the saints at the command of an em足 peror, probably Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. He is now generally identified with the tenth-century Simeon the Logothete who wrote a chronicle.

439

THE LI,TES OF T'HE SAINTS

No'Oember 28]

Simeon's collection of legends has made him one of the best-known of medieval Greek writers; but there is still some uncertainty about his sources and where he got some of his material. He has been accused of wholesale fabrication and childish credulity, but his reputation has been vindicated by Ehrhard, Delehaye and others: the numerous ridiculous stories \vhich he retails were not invented by him but \vere current, in writing or oral tradition, in his time, and he simply \vrote them do\vn. To what extent he believed therll himself is another matter. He was the principal compiler of Greek legends of the saints, and has not inaptly been likened to Ed James of Voragine: his collection was translated into I,atin and printed at Venice in the mid-sixteenth century.

The feast day of 8t Sinleon IVletaphrastes is on November 28 in the Byzantine church, but there has been no eultus of him in the \V est, as the Latins remarked in the seventh session of the Council of Florence.

See A. Ehrhard, Die Legendensamnzlung des S.~'mpon l'vletaphrastes . . . (1897); H. Delehaye in Analpcta Bollandiana, vol. XYI (1897), pp. 312--329 and vol. xvii (1898), pp.

448-452, in the American Eccle!Jiastical Retl'iew, vol. xxiii (1900), pp. 113-120, and in the ~'llc)'cl()paedia Britannica, 11th edition, yo1. xxvi, p. 285; A. Fortescue in the Cathulic Enc)'rlopaedia, vol. x, pp. 225-226; and H. Leclercq in !)",-\C., t. xi, cc. 420-426. The collection of legends is in I\ligne, PC;., vals. cxiv-cxyi: vol. cxiv contains the life by Pscllos and the office for St Sin1eon's feast; and in .Ana/ceta Bollandiana, yo1. lxviii (1950), pp.

126-134 is printed the text of verses on Simeon's death by Nikephoros ()uranos (fl, 996).

For a criticism of the atterrlpt to date the :Yletaphrast in the middle of the eleventh century see A. Ehrhard, (}berliejerung und Bestand der hagiographischen und homiletisc/zen Literatur t.hr griprhisrhen Kirche, in Te,'xle und Untersuchungen zur G'esch. der altr/zrist/irhen Literalur, vol. Ii, pp. 307 seq.

ST JAMES OF THE l\rIARCH

(A,D.

1476)

THE native town of this saint \vas l\10ntebrandone in the l\1arch of Ancona, \vhence his appellation della Marea,. his family name \vas Gangala and his parents were humble folk. He was born in 1394, and in 1416 asked to be received among the Friars lVlinor at Assisi. He \vas sent for his novitiate to the small convent near Assisl called the Carceri, and afterwards studied under St Bernardino of Siena at Fiesole. He was ord3ined priest when he \vas t\venty-nine, and at once began to preach in Tuscany, Umbria and the March. St James regularly inflicted severe penances on himself, and is said to have allovved only three hours for sleep. I-Ie copied for himself most of the books he required to have with him, and he ahvays \vore a most threadbare habit. I-lis zeal for souls was boundless and throughout his long active life he was continually engaged in preaching, \vhich he did vvith great vehemence and effect whether he addressed himself to heretics or to sinful Catholics: his missions took him to Germany, Bohemia, Poland and Hungary.

James worked in concert with St John Capistrano, who had been his fellow student under St Bernardino, and in 1426 they \vere named together by Pope Martin V as inquisiturs against the Fraticelli, the name given to a number of rigorist and heretical sects then rampant in Italy. The two friars proceeded with such severity that some bishops and others \\iere moved to protest: not only were thirty-six houses of the Fraticelli dispersed and destroyed, but some of the members themselves were burned at the stake. But James took part in less violent measures as well, both as regards them and other schisnlatics: at the Council of Basle he helped in the conciliation of the moderate Hussites by the concession of communion in both kinds, and when the council moved to Florence he took part in the reunion

44째

BD JAMES THOMPSON

[November 28

of the dissident orientals. In 1445 8t James preached the Lent at Perugia, and there clothed with the Franciscan habit Bd Bernardino of Fossa. Four years later he was again commissioned to deal with the Fraticelli, and wrote a " Dialogue" which was published against them. 8t James belonged to the Observants among the Friars Minor, ,vhose marked success at that time had excited a deal of envy and jealousy; in a letter to 8t John Capistrano he sets out his own difficulties and sufferings because of this. He took part in the efforts to settle the matters at issue between Observants and Conventuals, but the compromise which James recom足 mended to the Holy 8ee satisfied neither party. In 1456 there was an interesting coincidence in his career. He was again preaching a series of Lenten sermons, this time at Padua, and again he attracted a young saint named Bernardino to the Friars l\1inor, Bd Bernardino of Feltre. 8t James himself was a favourer of those montes pietatis which it was to be this Bernardino's work to reorganize and popular足 ize. Later in the same year 8t John Capistrano died and 8t James was sent to take his place in Austria and Hungary, where he carried on his work against the extreme Hussites.

On his return to Italy 8t James was offered the see of Milan, which he refused, preferring to serve souls by continuing to preach up and down the country; but two years later, in 1462, he got himself into trouble. Preaching at Brescia on Easter Monday he gave voice to a theological opinion which caused him to be cited before the local Inquisition. He refused to appear, and when the matter was pursued appealed to Rome. The subject was one upon which Friars Minor and Friars Preachers had already taken sides (the inquisitor was a Dominican), and this incident precipitated a full-length disputation before Pope Pius II. No decision was given and eventually silence was ilnposed on both parties.

8t James of the March passed the last three years of his olife at Naples and died there on November 28, 1476. He was canonized in 1726.

I t is only of recent years that the most authentic testimony concerning St James has seen the light. l'his is the life or memoir written in Italian by Fr Vincent da Fabriano, "Tho was his companion and intimate friend.

It was edited in the Archivum Franciscanum IIistoricum, vol. xvii (1924), pp. 378-414, by Fr Teodosio Somigli. In the same article is contained a full bibliography, which dispenses us from any but a brief notice of other lives of the saint. 'Nadding, lVlark of Lisbon, l'ossignano and Mazzara in their chronicles all give full accounts. l'he principal separate biographies are those of G. B. Barberio (1702), Giuseppe-Arcangelo di Fratta Maggiore (1830), and G. Rocco (1909). See also Leon, _4ureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 125-154; and G. Caselli, Studi su S. Giacomo della Alarca (2 vols., 1926).

BD JAMES TIIOMPSON,

MARTYR

(A.D.

1582)

THIS martyr ,vas a native of York and spent most of his life in that city. He went to Rheims to study for the priesthood in 158o, where his health broke down, and within a year he had returned to England. But not before he had been ordained priest by virtue of a special dispensation. He worked on the mission, under the name of Hudson, for just a year before he ,vas arrested and brought before the Council of the North. He at once admitted that he was a priest, which caused considerable surprise, for his short absence from the city had not been noticed.

Some details of his examination, trial and passion are extant. Among the questions asked was whether he would take arms against the pope should he invade the realm.

To which he replied, "When that time shall come I will show myself a true patriot".

But when asked if he would fight against the pope now, he answered " No".

44 1

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 28]

After three months' confinement, for a time in irons and among common criminals, Bd James was hanged, but not drawn or quartered, in the Knavesmire at York on November 28, 1582. He addressed the people, protested his loyalty to the queen, and as he was mounting the scaffold turned and said, " I have forgotten one thing.

I pray you all to bear witness that I die in the Catholic faith." As he hung, swinging and choking, he was seen, " to the great astonishment of the spectators", to make the sign of the cross.

The fullest account obtainable is that given in Camm and Pollen, LEM., vol. ii, pp.

589-599. See also Ml\1P., pp. 7°--72; and J. Morris, Troubles . .. , pp. 39-40.

ST JOSEPH PIGNATELLI

(A.D. ISII)

Pignatelli to whom this saint belonged was the Spanish branch of a noble family of Naples, and he was born at Saragossa in 1737. fIe became a Jesuit at 1~arragona \vhen he was sixteen, and after his ordination returned to work in his native city. Four years later, in 1767, the persecution \vhich had already driven the Society of Jesus from Portugal and France spread to Spain, and Charles III banished it from his dominions, " for reasons which \vere kept locked up in the royal bosom". As grandees of Spain, Father Joseph and his brother, Father Nicholas, were offered permission to stay if they would abandon their order; they refused. For a time the Aragonese Jesuits found a home in Corsica, but when the French occupied that island they were expelled from there, and eventually Father Pignatelli helped to arrange a centre for them, as well as their brothers from Peru and lVlexico, at Ferrara. Pope Clement XIII, a great defender of the Jesuits, died in 1769, and four years later his successor, Clement XIV, yielded to the ever­ growing pressure of the Bourbon princes and suppressed the Society altogether.

It was a purely administrative measure and the papal brief was careful not to state that the charges brought \vere proved. \Vhen this brjef was read to the assembled fathers at Ferrara and the vicar general asked if they submitted themselves to it, they were true to their special fidelity as Jesuits to the Holy See and replied at once, " Yes, willingly". The effect of the decree \vas to secularize 23,000 religious: " It is a sad page of history, as everybody agrees", said Pope Pius XI at the beati­ fication of Father Joseph, " sad to read even after so many years. \Vhat then must it have been for Father Pignatelli and his numerous brethren! " In the t\venty years \vhich followed he lived principally at Bologna, devoting himself to study, collecting books and manuscripts bearing on the history of the Society, and aiding his brethren spiritually and rnaterially: many of them were in grave \vant and the Spaniards anlong them were not even allowed to fulfil their priestly office. It is recorded that once, \vhen on a visit to rrurin, a stranger pointed out to Father Pignatelli a new church and cemetery as having been built with funds taken from the Jesuits. "It ought to be called Haceldama ! ,,* he observed grimly. .A.s the Empress Catherine had refused to allow the bishops to promulgate the brief of su ppression, the continued existence of the Society \vas tolerated in \Yhite Russia by the Holy See, and in 1792 the Duke of Parma invited three I talian fathers from there to establish themselves in his state.

Father PignatellI \vished to associate himself with this venture, but was not willing to act without authority.

When, ,however, Duke Ferdinand obtained a guarded approval frorn Pope Pius VI, THE

• " The field of blood."

44 2

(See l\,1att. xxvii 8.)

ST CATHERINE LABOURE

[No'vember 28

Pignatelli renewed his vows privately and was put in charge, and two years later (1799), having received verbal permission from the pope, he organized a quasi­ novitiate at Colorno. The students had to go to Russia to make their profession, and this proceeding was recognized as canonical when, in 18o I, Pope Pius VII gave formal approbation to the Jesuit province in Russia.

Father Pignatelli worked unceasingly by prayer and secular activity for the further revival of the Society, and his efforts were rewarded in 1804 when it was re-established in the kingdom of Naples, he himself being named provincial. In the following year the French invasion again brought dispersion. 1\10st of the fathers, however, were able to retire to Palermo (the resulting Sicilian province became the mother of the modern Jesuit province in Ireland), but Joseph Pignatelli went to Rome and was there made provincial for Italy. With the help of the generous alms of his sister, he was able to restore the Society in Sardinia and re-lay its foundations in Rome, "Tivoli and Orvieto; while during the critical period of the French occupation and the exile of Pius VII his prudence conserved safely all that he had gained towards his ultimate object-the complete restoration of the Society of Jesus. This took place in 1814, three years after his death; nevertheless, St Joseph Pignatelli fully deserves to be regarded as what Pope Pius XI called him, " the chief link between the Society that had been and the Society that was to be . . . the restorer of the Jesuits".

This" example of manly and vigolous holiness "-we again quote Pius XI­ died at Rome on November 11,1811, and was canonized in 1954.

A sketch of the life of this servant of God seems first to have been published in Italian

by Fr A. Mon<;on in 1833, but a fuller and better-informed biography is that of Fr G. Boero, Istoria della Vita del V Padre Giuseppe M. Pignatelli (1856), and on this was based the French life which Fr G. Bouffier brought out in 1868. The most complete work seems to be that of Fr Nonell in Spanish, EI V. P. Jose M. Pignatelli . .. (3 vols., 1893-94); this includes many of his letters. Since then several other lives have been produced, e.g.

by P. Zurbitu (Spanish. 1933), by C. Beccari (Italian, 1933), by J. March (Spanish, 1935), and by D. A. Hanly (English, 1938).

ST CATHERINE LABOURE,

VIRGIN

{A.D. 1876)

ZOE LABOURE was the daughter of a yeoman-farmer at Fain-Ies-Moutiers in the Cote d'Or, where she ,vas born in 1806. She was the only one of a large family not to go to school and did not learn to read and "vrite. Her mother died when Zoe was eight, and when her elder sister, Louisa, left home to become a Sister of Charity the duties of housekeeper and helper to her father devolved upon her.

From the age of fourteen or so she also heard a call to the religious life, and after some opposition M. Laboure allowed her to join the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul at Chatillon-sur-Seine in 1830. She took the name of Catherine, and after her postulancy was sent to the convent in the rue du Bac at Paris, where she arrived four days before the translation of the relics of St Vincent from Notre-Dame to the Lazarist church in the rue de Sevres. On the evening of the day of those festivities began the series of visions which were to make the name of Catherine Laboure famous. The first of the three principal ones took place three months later, on the night of July 18, when at about 11.3° p.m. she was woken up suddenly by the appearance of a " shining child", who led her down to the sisters' chapel. There our Lady appeared and talked with her for over two hours, telling her that she would have to undertake a difficult task and also, it is said, speaking of the future

443

1'1-1£ LIVES OF THE SAINTS

.ZVov.fmber 28]

and the violent death of an archbishop of Paris forty years later (l\lgr Darboy, in the Commune of 1871). On November 27 following, our Lady appeared to Sister Catherine in the same chapel, in the form of a picture and as it were standing on a globe with shafts of light streaming fronl her hands towards it, surrounded by the words: "0 IVlary, conceived free from sin, pray for us "vho turn to thee!" 'Then the picture turned about, and Sister Catherine sa\\T on the reverse side a capital M, \\,ith a cross above it and two hearts, one thorn-cro\vned and the other pierced 'with a sword, belo\v. And she seemed to herself to hear a voice telling her to have a medal struck representing these things, and promising that all who Vlore it with devotion should receive great graces by the intercession of the Mother of God. 1'his or a similar vision was repeated in the follo\ving month and on several other occasions up to September 1831.

Sister Catherine confided in her confessor, 1\1. Aladel, and he, after making very careful investigations, \vas given permission by the archbishop of Paris, Mgr de Quelen, to have the medal struck. J n June 1832 the first 15°0 were issued­ the medal now kno\vn to Catholics throughout the \vorld as " miraculous". 'This epithet seems to be due to the circumstances of its origin rather than, as is cornmonly supposed, to miracles connected \vith its pious use. In 1834 M. Aladel published a lVotice historique sur l' origine et l' effets de La 'Afidaille 1V1iracuLeuse, of which 13°,000 copies were sold in six years. It was translated into seven languages, including Chinese. The archbishop of Paris instituted a canonical inquiry into the alleged visions in 1836, before which, ho\\'ever, Sister Catherine could not be induced to appear. The precautions she had taken to keep herself unkno\vn, the promise she had wrung from M. Aladel not to tell anybody who she was, the secrecy she had kept towards everyone except her confessor, her constant unwillingness to appear before an ecclesiastical authority, account for this inquiry not being extended to the young sister herself. The tribunal decided in favour of the authenticity of the visions, taking into consideration the circumstances, the character of the sister concerned, and the prudence and level-headedness of IV1. Aladel. 1'he popularity of the rnedal increased daily, especially after the conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne in 1842. lIe \vas an Alsatian Jew \vho, having reluctantly agreed to wear the medal, received a vision of our I.Jady in that form in the church of Sant' Andrea delle Frate at Rome, whereupon he became a Christian and was later a priest and founder of a religious congregation, the Fathers and Sisters of Zion.

This vision of Ratisbonne also \vas the subject of a canonical inquiry, and the reports of this and of the archbishop of Paris's \vere extensively used in the process of beatification of Catherine I.Jaboure, of whose personal life very little is recorded.

Her superiors speak of her as " rather insignificant", "matter-of-fact and un­ excitable", " cold, almost apathetic". From 183 I until her death on December 3 I, 18 76, she lived unobtrusively arnong the community at Enghien-Reuilly, as portress, in charge of the poultry, and looking after the aged who were supported in the hospice. Not until eight months before her death did she speak to anyone except her confessor of the extraordinary graces she had received, and then she revealed them only to her superior, Sister Dufes. Her funeral \\Tas the occasion of an outburst of popular veneration, and a child of twelve, crippled from birth, was instantaneously cured at her grave soon after. St Catherine Laboure was canonized in 1947, and this day appointed for her feast.

A good deal has been \vritten about St Catherine and" the miraculous medal". 'rhe best-known biography is probahly that of Fr E. Crapez, of which an English abbreyiation

444

ST SATURNINUS, OR SERNIN, OF TOULOUSE

[November 29

was published in 1920. Another life is that by Fr E. Cassinari, and this also has been issued in English, in 1934. An earlier account is that of Lady Georgiana Fullerton, Ltfe and Visions of a Sister of Charity (1880). Among other books are a popular life in English by Mrs P Boyne (1948), and La vie secrete de Catherine Laboure (1948), by C. Yves.

29 : ST

SATURNINUS, MARTYR

T

HE Western church makes a commemoration of this martyr in today's liturgy, but particulars of him are known only from the unauthentic passio of Pope St Marcellus I. The Roman Martyrology says: "At Rome on the Salarian Way the birthday of the holy martyrs, the aged Saturninus and Sisin足 nius, the deacon, under the Emperor Maximian. After they had been weakened by a long imprisonment the prefect of the city ordered them to be put on the rack and stretched, beaten with rods and scourges, scorched with fire, and then taken down from the rack and beheaded." St Saturninus is said in an epitaph by Pope St Damasus to have been a priest who came to Rome from Carthage; he was certainly buried in the cemetery of Thraso on the Via Salaria Nova.

The passio of Pope Marcellus, from which the legend of Saturninus and Sisinnius is derived, has been printed in the Acta Sanctorum, January, vol. ii, as well as in Surius, etc.

The whole question has been fully d!scussed in CMH., pp. 626-627. A basilica on the Salarian Way which was seemingly dedicated to this St Saturninus was burnt down in the time of Pope Felix III (IV) c. 528, but was rebuilt and again restored by Popes Hadrian and Gregory IV in the eighth and ninth centuries, which facts are duly recorded in the Liber Pontificalis.

ST SATURNINUS, OR SERNIN, BISHOP OF TOULOUSE, MARTYR (THIRD CENTURY?) ST SATURNINUS is venerated as a missionary who was the first bishop of Toulouse, and Fortunatus tells us that he converted a great number of idolaters by his preach足 ing and miracles. He is supposed to have preached on both sides of the Pyrenees.

The- author of his passio, who wrote before the seventh century, relates that he assembled his flock in a small church in Toulouse, and that the chief temple in the city stood between that church and the saint's house. In this temple oracles were given, but they had been long silent, which was attributed to the presence of the Christian bishop. Accordingly the priests seized him one day going by and dragged him into the temple, declaring that he should either appease the offended deities by offering sacrifice to them or propitiate them with his blood. Saturninus replied, " I worship one only God and to Him I am ready to offer a sacrifice of praise.

Your gods are evil and are more pleased with the sacrifice of your souls than with those of your bullocks. How can I fear them who, as you acknowledge, tremble before a Christian?" The infidels, enraged at this reply, tied his feet to a bull, which was brought thither to be sacrificed, and the beast was goaded to run violently down the hill, so that the martyr's skull was broken and his brains dashed out.

The bull continued to drag the body until, the cord breaking, what remained of it was left outside the gates of the city till it was taken up by two women and hidden in a ditch. Later the relics were enshrined in what is now the great church of St Sernin. A church built at the place where the bull stopped is still called the Taur.

445

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

NOfJember 29]

Later other legends, that he was sent to Gaul by Pope St Clement or even by the apostles, were woven round St Saturninus.

The passio of St Saturninus of Toulouse figures, strangely enough, among the Acta sincera of Ruinart.

Here again Delehaye's eMf-I. supplies references to all details of im­ portance. St Gregory of Tours refers more than once to St Saturninus and his basilica at Toulouse, and he clearly had before him the text of the passio. Both Sidonius Apollinaris and Venantius Fortunatus pay honour to the holy bishop, and echo the same legendary account of his martyrdom. Saturninus of Toulouse is also commemorated on this day in all the Mozarabic calendars. See further, Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. i, p. 26 and pp. 306 -3 0 7.

ST RADBOD, BISHOP OF UTRECHT

(A.D. 918)

RAnBOD, the last pagan king of the Frisians (who said he preferred to be in Hell with his ancestors rather than in Heaven without them), was great-grandfather of this saint, whose father was a Frank. The young Radbod received his first school­ ing under the tuition of Gunther, Bishop of Cologne, his maternal uncle. Little is known of St Radbod's life, but he wrote hymns and an office of St Martin, an eclogue and sermon on St Lebwin, a hymn on St Swithbert and other poems which are extant. In a short chronicle which he compiled he says, under the year 900, " I, Radbod, a sinner, have been taken, though unworthy, into the company of the ministers of the church of Utrecht; with whom I pray that I may attain to eternal life" . Before the end of that year he was chosen bishop of that church, when he put on the monastic habit, his predecessors having been monks because the church of Utrecht had been founded by priests of the monastic order. After he had received the episcopal consecration he never tasted flesh meat, often fasted two or three days together, and was renowned for his kindness to the poor. During a Danish invasion St Radbod removed his see to Deventer, and there died in peace.

There is a medieval Life of St Radbod, written not long after his death, but it is a poor piece of biography. It is edited in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xv, pp. 569-571 ; and has also been printed with Radbod's literary works in Migne, PL., vol. cxxxii. A better edition of his verse compositions is in MGH., Poetae latini, vol. iv, pp. 160-173. Text and trans­ lation of two lyrics in Helen Waddell, Mediaeval Latin Lyrics (1935), pp. 130-135, and c/.

PP·3 2 3-3 2 4·

BD FREDERICK OF REGENSBURG PRACTICALLY nothing is known of the life of this servant of God, whose uninter­ rupted cultus from the time of his death was confirmed in 1909. He was born of poor parents at Regensburg (Ratisbon) and was received as a lay-brother in the friary of Augustinian hermits in that city. He was employed by the community principally as a carpenter and to chop wood for fuel, and he used to thank God that there was any job that he was found capable of doing. Among the marvels related of him is that he received holy communion at the hands of an angel. The inscription of his name in calendars, the title Blessed given to him, and the special place of his tomb show the veneration with which he was regarded by his con­ temporaries. Bd Frederick died on November 30, 1329, but his feast is observed by the Augustinian friars and at Regensburg on the previous day.

A short biography, largely made up of miracles of a very conventional type, together with an imposing folio page engraving of the holy brother, stands in M. Rader's Bavaria Sancta (1702), vol. i, p. 298. As the book was first published in 1615, it at least serves as

446

BD CUTHBERT MAYNE

[November 29

evidence of a cultus which in some sense goes back to time immemorial. The decree of confirmatio cultus will be found in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. i (1909), pp. 496-498.

BD CUTHBERT MAYNE,

MARTYR

THE English College at Douay was' founded in 1568 and in the early days of the penal laws a legal distinction was made between those priests trained in this and other seminaries abroad and those " Marian priests" who had been ordained in England. The first " seminary priest" to pay for his mission with his life was Bd Cuthbert Mayne. He was a Devon man, born at Youlston, near Barnstaple, in 1544, and brought up a Protestant by his uncle, a schismatic priest. He went to Barnstaple Grammar School and at eighteen or nineteen was ordained a minister, with neither inclination nor preparation. His uncle then sent him to Oxford, where at St John's College he got to know Dr Gregory Martin and Bd Edmund Campion, who was still a Protestant, and he ,vas soon inwardly persuaded of the truth of Catholicism; but he held back for fear of losing his appointments and falling into poverty. When Martin and Campion had gone over to Douay they wrote several times to Mayne urging him to join them, and in 1570, soon after he had taken his M.A., one of these letters fell into the hands of the bishop of London, who sent a pursuivant to Oxford to arrest all those named therein. Mayne was away at the time, and this narrow escape decided him: he abjured Protestantism and in 1573 was accepted at Douay. During the next three years he was ordained priest and took his bachelor's degree in theology, and in April 1576 was sent back to England with Bd John Payne. Mayne was the fifteenth missionary priest sent out from Douay.

He took up his residence at the mansion of Francis Tregian at Golden in the parish of Probus in Cornwall, where he passed as the estate-steward. Few par­ ticulars are known of his ministry from this centre, but suspicions were excited and a year later the high sheriff, Richard Grenville,· searched Tregian's house. Mayne was found to have an agnus Dei round his neck, and was accordingly arrested, together with Mr Tregian. Cuthbert was carried by the sheriff from one gentle­ man's house to another till they came to Launceston, where he was confined in a filthy cell of the prison, chained to the bedpost. At the Michaelmas assizes he was indicted for having obtained from Rome and published at Golden a " faculty containing matter of absolution" of the Queen's subjects (actually they had found a printed announcement, from Douay, of the jubilee indulgence of 1575, two years out of date); for having taught, in Launceston jail, the ecclesiastical power of the Bishop of Rome (on the uncertain evidence of three illiterate witnesses); that he had brought into the kingdom and delivered to·Mr Tregian " a vain and super­ stitious thing, commonly called an agnus Dei" (no evidence was offered of importa­ tion or delivery); and for having celebrated Mass (on the strength of finding a missal, chalice and vestments at Golden). All these things contrary to statutes of I and 1 3 Elizabeth.

On the direction of Mr Justice Manwood (and after prolonged consultation with Mr Sheriff Grenville) the jury found a verdict of guilty; Bd Cuthbert was sentenced to death, and three of the four gentlemen and their three yeomen, charged with him as abettors, to perpetual imprisonment and forfeiture. But the second judge, Mr Justice Jeffrey, had qualms about these proceedings and procured a • Of Re#venge fame.

He got his knighthood for his part in Mayne's condemnation.

447

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 29]

reconsideration of the case by the whole judicial bench, at Serjeants' Inn. These judges could not agree and, though the weight of opinion favoured Jeffrey's opinion, the Privy Council directed that the conviction should stand as a \varning to priests coming from beyond the seas. The day before his execution Bd Cuthbert was offered his liberty if he would swear to the queen's ecclesiastical supremacy. He asked for a Bible, kissed it, and said, " The queen neither ever was nor is nor ever shall be the head of the Church of England". He was drawn to Launceston market-place on a sledge, but was not allowed to address the crowd from the scaffold. When invited to implicate Mr Tregian and his brother-in-law, Sir John Arundell, Mayne replied, " I know nothing of them except that they are good and pious men; and of the things laid to my charge no one but myself has any know足 ledge" . He was cut down alive but was probably unconscious before the butchery of disembowelling began.

Cuthbert Mayne was among those who~e beatification was declared by Pope Leo XIII, and his feast is observed in Plymouth and several other English dioceses.

The Carmelite nuns of Lanherne possess a considerable relic of the martyr's skull, recovered from Launceston, where it was displayed. The noble confessor Francis Tregian was deprived of his lands and was in various prisons for nearly thirty years, for harbouring Bd Cuthbert. After his death, at Lisbon in 1608, it was claimed that miracles \vere wrought by his relics. "It is particularly remarked that not one of those whom Mr Maine reconciled to the Church could ever be induced to renounce the Catholic truth, which they had learned from so good a master."

The most reliable account of this martyr is that written by E. S. Knox for Camm, LEM., vol. ii, pp. 204-221 and 656. See also MMP., pp. 1-6 and 601; R. A. McElroy, Bd Cuthbert Mayne (1929); A. L. Rowse, Tudor Cornwall (1941), cap. xiv; and P. A. Boyan and G. R. Lamb, Francis Tregian (1955).

BB. DIONYSIUS

AND

REDEMPTUS,

MARTYRS

(A.D.

1638)

THERE was born at Honfleur in Normandy in the year 1600 to the family of Ber足 thelot the first of ten children, and he was baptized Peter. When he was nineteen he sailed to the East Indies in the French ship Esperance, which was captured and burnt 'by Dutch privateers. Young Berthelot made his escape from Java and for some years traded on his own. Then he entered the Portuguese service at Malacca, became first a pilot and then cartographer, and took part in several expeditions.

In 1635 he met at Goa the prior of the Discalced Carmelites, and was induced by him to join that order, taking the name of Dionysius. Soon after his profession the Portuguese viceroy asked for his services as pilot to the embassy which he was sending to Sumatra.

The Carmelite authorities agreed, and ordained Friar Dionysius priest so that he could act as chaplain as well; he was accompanied by a lay-brother, Redemptus. His name in the world was Thomas Rodriguez da Cunha, and he had been a soldier in India before he joined the Carmelites. No sooner had they arrived at Achin (Koetaraja) than the ambassador and his suite were seized by the Sumatrans and put in prison. A number of them were mas足 sacred, including the two friars. Dionysius, refusing to apostatize, was to be trampled by elephants, but the impatient pagans cut him down; Redemptus was killed a few days later. Directly the news reached Goa the prior, Friar Philip, collected evidence and prepared to introduce the cause of beatification of his two subjects; but Dionysius and Redemptus were not in fact beatified until 1 goo.

448

BD FRANCIS ANTONY OF LUCERA

[November 29

An account of these martyrs is given in considerable detail by Frey Joao do Sacramento in his Chronica de Carmelitas Descalfos, vol. ii (1721), pp. 798-813. lie informs us that Father Philip induced Archbishop Francis of Goa to institute a formal process with a view to the beatification of the martyrs and that the same Father Philip published a relation of the events which attended their death. This seems to be contained in his books, Itinerarium Orientale (1649) and Decor Carmeli (1665). We have in modern times Thomas de Jesus, Les hx Denis de la Nativite et Redempt de fa Croix (1900); P. Gonthier, Vie admirable de Pierre Berthelot (1917); and a series of articles in Etudes Carmelitaines, 1912, pp. 426-442, and 1913, pp. 215-227 and pp. 387-397. Some maps drawn by Bd Dionysius are said to be in the British Museum.

BD FRANCIS ANTONY OF LUCERA IN the later part of the seventeenth century there was living at Lucera in Apulia a poor family-the man was a farm-labourer-called Fasani, into which was born in 1681 a boy who was christened Donato Antony John Nicholas, commonly called Johnnie. It was a good and respectable household, but before little John was ten his father died, and his mother married again. However, her second choice was good too, and it was due to the step-father, Francis Farinacci, that John Fasani was sent to be educated by the Conventual Friars Minor at Lucera. He also heard a call to that order, and in his fifteenth year was clothed at the provincial novitiate on Monte Gargano. Brother Francis Antony made his studies in various colleges, and in 17°5 was ordained priest at Assisi. He gained his doctorate in theology soon after, and in 17°7 was sent as lector in philosophy to the Conventual college at Lucera.

Father Francis's headquarters was in his home-town for the rest of his life..

From the time that he received his mastership in theology he was known as " Padre Maestro", Father Master, in Lucera (as he still is familiarly called there), although he fulfilled a succession of offices, including that of minister provincial of the province of Sant' Angelo. He had made his mark as a teacher and as a preacher throughout Apulia and the Molise: as a superior it was said of him, " He measures our spirit by his own-he wants us all to be as holy as he is ". Like St Joseph Cafasso at the other end of Italy a century later, Father Francis was particularly concerned for the inmates of prisons, of whom those condemned to death were perhaps the more fortunate: as an indication of their condition one of his Italian biographers quotes Gladstone's denouncement of Neapolitan prisons one hundred years after. But the Franciscan's love embraced all: it was he who started in Italy a Christmas custom of collecting gifts for the poor, and people continually came to him \vith their wants, whether possible or impossible. And sometimes the seemingly impossible ones were fulfilled too, notably where shortages of water were concerned.

It was currently said in Lucera, " If you want to see St Francis, watch Father Master"; and his first superior said of him that he had reached such a degree of mystical union with God that he was filled with Him. One of his characteristics was an intense devotion to the Mother of God as conceived free from original sin, and every year he celebrated a solemn public novena before the feast of the Con­ ception (Lucera still observes it). It was on the first day of this novena, November 29, in 1742, that Father Francis died. Some time before, when he seemed to be in good health, he had foretold that his earthly end was at hand to one of his penitents, and to Father Ludovic Gioca who, he suggested, would accompany him.

Father Ludovic was rather upset. Ie Listen, Father Master", he said, ,. If you

449

November 30]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

want to die, that is your affair. But I am in no hurry." "We must both make the journey: I first, you later", was the reply. Father Ludovic survived Father Master by only two months. Bd Francis Antony Fasani was beatified in 1951.

There are Italian biographies by Canon T. M. Vigilanti (1848), Fr L. Berardini (1951) and Fr G. Stano (1951). The last, a short life, has been translated into English by Fr R. Huber in America (195 I); it includes two interesting portraits of the beatus.

30 : ST ANDREW,

ApOSTLE, PATRON OF SCOTLAND

(FIRST CENTURY)

T ANDREW was a native of Bethsaida, a town in Galilee upon the banks of the lake of Genesareth. He was the son of Jona, a fisherman of that town, and brother to Simon Peter, but whether older or younger the Holy Scriptures do not say. They had a house at Capharnaum, where Jesus lodged when he preached in that city. When St John Baptist began to preach penance, Andrew became his disciple, and he was with his master when St John, seeing Jesus pass by the way after He had been baptized by him, said, " Behold the Lamb of God! " Andrew was so far enlightened as to comprehend this mysterious saying, and without delay he and another disciple of the Baptist went after Jesus, who saw them with the eyes of His spirit before He beheld them with His corporal eyes. Turning back as he walked, he said, " What seek ye ?" They said they wanted to know where He dwelt, and He bade them come and see. There remained but two hours of that day, which they spent with him, and Andrew clearly learned that Jesus was the Messias and resolved from that moment to follow Him; he was thus the first of His disciples, and therefore is styled by the Greeks the" Protoclete " or First­ called. He then fetched his brother, that he might also know Him, and Simon was no sooner come to Jesus than the Saviour admitted him also as a disciple, and gave him the name of Peter. From this time they were his followers, not constantly attending Him as they afterwards did, but hearing Him as frequently as their business would permit and returning to their trade and family affairs again. When Jesus, going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, stayed some days in Judaea and baptized in the Jordan, Peter and Andrew also baptized by His authority and in His name. Our Saviour, being come back into Galilee and meeting Peter and Andrew fishing in the lake, He called them permanently to the ministry of the gospel, saying that He would make them fishers of men. Whereupon they im­ mediately left their nets to follow Him, and never went from Him again. The year following our Lord chose twelve to be His apostles, and St Andrew is named among the first four in all the biblical lists. He is also mentioned in connection with the feeding of the five thousand (John vi 8, 9) and the Gentiles who would see Jesus (John xii 20-22).

Apart from a few words in Eusebius, who informs us that St Andrew preached in Scythia and that certain spurious " acts" bearing his name were made use of by heretics, we have practically nothing but apocryphal writings which profess to tell us anything of the later history of St Andrew. There is, however, one curious mention in the ancient document known as the Muratorian Fragment. This dates from the very beginning of the third century and therein it is stated: "The fourth gospel [was written by] John one of the disciples [i.e. apostles]. When his fellow disciples and bishops urgently pressed him, he said, ' Fast with me from today, for three days, and let us tell one another what revelation may be made to us,

S

45°

ST ANDREW THE APOSTLE

[NOfJember 30

either for or against [the plan of writing].' On the same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the apostles, that John should relate all in his own name, and that all should review his writing." Theodoret tells us that Andrew passed into Greece; St Gregory N azianzen mentions particularly Epirus, and St Jerome Achaia. St Philastrius says that he came out of Pontus into Greece, and that in his time (fourth century) people at Sinope believed that they had his true picture and the ambo from which he preached in that city. Though there is agreement among these as to the direction of St Andrew's apostolate there is no certainty about it. The favourite view of the middle ages was that he eventually came to Byzantium and there left his disciple Stachys (Romans xvi 9) as bishop. This tradition is due to a document forged at a time when it was a great help to the ecclesiastical position of Constan­ tinople apparently to have an apostolic origin for their church, like Rome, Alex­ andria and Antioch. (The first historically certain bishop of Byzantium was St Metrophanes, early in the fourth century.) The place and manner of the death of St Andrew are equally in doubt. His apocryphal passio says that he was crucified at Patras in Achaia, being not nailed but bound to a cross, on which he suffered and preached to the people for two days before he died. The idea that his cross was of the kind called saltire or decussate (X-shaped) was apparently not known before the fourteenth century. Under the Emperor Constantius II (d. 361) what purported to be the relics of St Andrew were translated from Patras to the church of the Apostles at Constantinople; after the seizure of that city by the Crusaders in 12°4 they were stolen and given to the cathedral of Amalfi in Italy.

St Andrew is the patron saint of Russia, on account of a valueless tradition that he preached in that country so far as Kiev, and of Scotland. It is not claimed that he preached in Scotland, but the legend preserved by John of Fordun and in the Aberdeen Breviary is no less undeserving of credence. According to this a certain St Rule (Regulus), who was a native of Patras and had charge of the relics of St Andrew in the fourth century, was warned by an angel in a dream to take a part of those relics and convey them to a place that would be indicated. He did as he was told, going forth in a north-westerly direction " towards the ends of the earth", until by a sign the angel stopped him at the place we call Saint Andrews, where he built a church to shelter them, was made its first bishop, and evangelized the people for thirty years. This story may have originated in the eighth century. A feast of the translation is observed in the archdiocese of Saint Andrews on May 9.

The name of St Andrew appears in the canon of the Mass with those of the other apostles, and he is also named with our Lady and SSt Peter and Paul in the embolism after the Lord's Prayer. This is generally attributed to the personal devotion of Pope St Gregory the Great for the saint, but the usage may antedate his time.

AlthougJ'l Duchesne, Delehaye and others regard St Andrew's connection with Patras as unreliable, some are inclined to affirm it very positively. "More certain ", says Kellner (Heortology, p. 289), " is his martyrdom at Patras, of which ,ve have a trustworthy account."

[He means the passio printed by Max Bonnet, Analeeta Bollandiana, vol. xiii, pp. 373-378.] " Besides this, there is a well-known encyclical letter from the priests and deacons of Achaia, which in all essential points agrees with the account of the martyrdom, although in some other respects it is open to criticism." This is putting the matter rather strongly, but it is certainly worthy of remark that there is almost perfect uniformity in Latin and Greek calendars at all periods in assigning St Andrew's feast to November 30, and also that the " Hieronymianum " under February 5 has the entry Patras in Aehaia ordinatio episeopatus saneti Andraeae apostoli. The letter of the Achaia clergy is printed in Migne, PG., vol. ii,

45 1

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

November 30]

pp. 1217-1248, but the best of the apocryphal material regarding St Andrew can be most conveniently studied in the contributions of 1\1. Bonnet to the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xiii (1894')' afterwards separately reprinted. There are also Ethiopic, Coptic and other oriental tt:xts. 'See further the Dictionnaire de la Bible: Supplement, vol. i, cc. 5°4-5°9; Flamion, Les actes apocryphes de l'apotre Andre (191 I); Hennecke, Neutestamentliche Apocryphen (1904), pp. 459-473, and Handbuch (1904), pp. 544-562. The legend of St Andrew must have excited interest in England at an early date; the Anglo-Saxon poem, Andreas, based upon it is probably the work of Cynewulf, who wrote about the year 800. On St Andrew's connection with Scotland see W. Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. i, pp. 296-299; for Eusebius's reference, his Eccl. Hist., bk iii; and for the Muratorian reference, DAC., vol. xii, c. 552, a facsimile of the original manuscript.

SSe SAPOR

AND

ISAAC,

BISHOPS AND 1\'1ARTYRS

(A.D.

339)

long and shocking persecution of the Christians of Persia under Sapor II Vlas due to a suspicion that they were intriguing with the Roman emperors against their own country, and profession of the national religion, Mazdeism, ,vas made the test of loyalty. Mahanes, Abraham and Simeon ,vere the first who fell into the hands of the officers, and soon after Sapor and Isaac, both bishops, were taken up for building churches and making converts. All five were presented to the king, who said to them, " Have you not heard that I am descended from the god ? Yet I sacrifice to the sun and pay divine honours to the moon. Who are you to resist my laws?" The martyrs answered, " We acknowledge one God, and Him alone we worship", and Sapor the bishop said, " We confess one only God, who made all things, and Jesus Christ, born of Him ". The king commanded that he should be struck on the mouth, which was done with such cruelty that his teeth were knocked out, and he was beaten with clubs till his whole body was bruised and bones broken. Isaac appeared next, and Sapor the king reproached him for having presumed to build churches. He maintained Christ with inflexible constancy, so several apostates were sent for and by threats made to carry off Isaac and stone hitTI to death. At the news of his martyrdom, St Sapor exulted and himself died of his wounds two days after, in prison. The barbarous king, to be sure of his death, caused his head to be cut off, and brought to him. The other three were then called up and the king, finding them no less invincible, ordered the skin of Mahanes to be flayed from the top of his head to the navel; under \\'hich torture he died. Abraham's eyes were bored out with a hot iron, and Simeon was buried in the earth up to his breast and shot to death with arrows.

THE

The story of the martyrdom of these bishops, written in Syriac, was published in the eighteenth century by S. E. Assemani in his Acta sanctorum martyrum orientalium et occi­ dentalium, vol. i, pp. 225-230. A better text has since been edited from a collation of other manuscripts by P. Bedjan in his Acta martyrum et sanctorum, vol. ii (1891). It would seem that this Sapor must be the same who is mentioned in the early Syriac bre'Viarium amongst " the bishops of Persia". The notice, to which no day of the month is attached, simply names" John and Shabur (Sapor), bishops of the city of Beth-Seleucia ".

BD ANDREW OF ANTIOCH

(c.

A.D.

1348)

Andrew, Norman by blood, was born at Antioch about 1268, the year in which the Sultan Bibars finally broke the Crusaders' power in Syria; he was descended from Bohemund III, Prince of Antioch in the Latin kingdom, and so from Robert Guiscard. Andrew joined the community of Augustinian canons regular which had been formed to serve the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre at

THIS

45 2

BD ANDREW OF ANTIOCH

[November 30

Jerusalem, and was appointed by the Latin patriarch to be the key-bearer; that is, he had charge of the key of the Holy Sepulchre, a purely honorary office, since the Saracens had retaken possession of Jerusalem twenty-five years before Andrew \vas born. * Few particulars of his life are known, but towards its end he was sent on a mission to visit the houses of his order in Europe and to collect fUllds for the maintenance of the canons who had shared the ruin of the Crusaders' kingdom.

He visited Sicily, Italy, Poland and France, and in 1347 he was at Annecy in Savoy, where he received a contribution for the funds of the local priory of the Holy Sepulchre. lie died in that place, with a great reputation for holiness, and in 1360 his cultus was recognized and spread by the elevation of his relics to a shrine.

St Francis of Sales had a devotion to Bd Andrew, and testified to the miracles that took place at his tomb. His feast was celebrated annually at Annecy on this date until the Revolution.

Information is very defective.

See, however, DHG., vol. ii, c. 1632.

*' The Latin canons were not driven out, but the keys of the church were handed over to the 1\1ohammedan families of Judah and 1'ussaibah, to whom they had probably been entrusted by Saladin in 1187.

It is said that descendants of those families are still the official door-keepers and hold the keys, though they are also still Mohammedans.

453

DECEMBER

1 : ST ANSANUS,

MARTYR

(A.D. 304?)

S

T ANSANUS, a Roman by birth, is venerated as the first apostle of Siena, where he made so many converts that he was named "the Baptizer".

During the persecution under Diocletian he was imprisoned, and after torture his head was cut off at a place outside the walls still marked by a church.

In the year 1170 his relics were translated to the cathedral; mir~cles marked the occasion, and these were written down, together with a fanciful life of the martyr.

This states that Ansanus was a youth who was denounced as a Christian by his own father. He confessed the faith, but managed to escape from Rome and fled towards Tuscany. On the way he preached at Bagnorea and was imprisoned where the church of our Lady delle Carceri now stands. In Siena the memory of the boy saint is still devoutly cherished: "In the vaults under the Spedale are the meeting-places of several devout confraternities, which are said to trace back their origin from the first Sienese Christians, the converts of St Ansanus, who met in secret on this spot in the days of the Roman persecutions."

Evidence seems to be entirely lacking for any early cultus of St Ansanus. His so-called passio, two different texts of which have been printed in Baluze-Mansi, Miscellanea (vol. iv, pp. 60-63), amounts to no more than a double set of breviary lessons which betray their date by their very form. Cf. also the Bollandist Cataiogus cod. hagiog. Bruxel., vol. i, pp.

129-132. See E. G. Gardner, Story of Siena,. p. 187 and passim; and V. Lusini, Ii San Giovanni di Siena, who states that a little church, the remains of which still exist, can be shown by documents to have been dedicated to St Ansanus as early as 881. It is supposed to have served as the first baptistery of Siena.

ST AGERICUS,

OR

AIRY,

BISHOP OF

VERDUN

(A.D. 588)

ST AGERICUS was born at or near Verdun, perhaps at Harville, about the year 521.

He became one of the clergy of the church of SSe Peter and Paul at Verdun, and when he was thirty-three was appointed hishop of that city in succession to St Desiderius. He was visited there by St Gregory of Tours and St Venantius Fortunatus, both of whom write in his praise: "The poor receive relief, the despairing hope, the naked clothing; whatever you have, all have", says Fortuna足 tus. St Agericus enjoyed the favour also of King Sigebert I, w~ose son, Childebert, he baptized, and counselled after he came to the throne. But he was not able to obtain mercy for Bertefroi and other revolting nobles who came to him for sanctuary and protection. Bertefroi was murdered in the bishop's own chapel by the royal officers. A more pleasing association between Agericus and Childebert was when the whole of the court was billeted on the bishop; there were so many of them and they were so thirsty that the supply of drink. was stretched to its limit. St Agericus had the last ca~k of wine set in the hall, blessed it, and it proved to have

454

[December

ST ELIGIUS, OR ELOI

I

a miraculous and never-ending flow. Another miracle attributed to him was the delivery of a condemned malefactor at Laon, for whom he obtained pardon. St Agericus died in 588, it is said of a broken heart because he had failed to save Bertefroi. He was buried in the church of SSe Andrew and Martin which he had built at Verdun. Here an abbey was established early in the eleventh century and dedicated in his honour.

Besides the information furnished by St Gregory of Tours and St Venantius Fortunatus, Hugh of Flavigny in his chronicle has gathered up the data scattered in these same sources and produced some sort of biography (see Migne, PL., vol. cliv, cc. 126-13 I). Two Latin lives of late date are printed in the Bollandist Catalogus cod. hagiog. Lat. Bib. Nat. Paris, vol. i, pp. 479-482; and vol. iii, pp. 78-92; neither, however, contains any material of value. See also DHG., vol. i, CC. 1223-1224.

ST TUDWAL, BISHOP

(SIXTH CENTURY)

ACCORDING to Breton tradition St Tudwal (Tutwal, Tugdual) was a Briton froIll Wales who crossed over to Brittany with his mother, his sister, some monks, and others, where the king of Dumnonia, Deroc, was his cousin. He settled at Lan Pabu in Leon (Tudwal was called Pabu, i.e. Father, in Brittany) and made several other monastic foundations. He went to Paris to have his grants of land confirmed

by King Childebert I and was consecrated bishop, and ended his days in the monastery of Treher, now Treguier, of which city he is accounted the first bishop.

His appellation, Pabu, led to the legend that he became pope under the name of Leo, a fable that has been richly embroidered by Breton hagiographers. St Tudwal does not figure in any Welsh calendars, but the name occurs in three places in the Lleyn peninsula, the northern arm of Cardigan Bay. The chief of these, a small uninhabited island off Abersoch, is called Ynys Tudwal, and has ruins of an ancient chapel. It was here that, from May to December 1887, the holy Henry Hughes, a Welsh priest of the diocese of Shrewsbury and tertiary of the Order of Preachers, began to lead a heroic missionary life cut short by an untimely death. The feast of St Tudwal is kept in Brittany, and the Catholic church at Barmouth is dedicated in his honour.

The three separate accounts of St Tudwal which have been preserved to us are late (one may be of the ninth century), conflicting and unreliable. The Latin texts may best be consulted in A. de la Borderie, Les trois anciennes Vies de S. Tudwal ( 1887), pp. 12-45 ; and c/. the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. viii (1889), pp. 158-163. St Tudwal is invoked in the tenth-century Breton litany originally printed by Mabillon and reproduced by Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, vol. ii, p. 82. See a130 LBS., vol. iv, pp. 271-274; Duine, Memento, p. 61; A. Oheix, Etudes hagiographiques (1919), no. 8; Mgr Duchesne in the Bulletin Critique, vol. x (1889), pp. 228-229; and, regarding the reputed relics of the saint, A. de Barthelemy in the Revue de Bretagne, vol. xxv (1901), pp. 401-413. Dom Gougaud was of the opinion that Tudwal was a native of insular Dumnonia, i.e. Devon or Cornwall.

ST ELIGIUS, OR ELOI, BISHOP OF NOYON

(A.D. 660)

THE name of Eligius, and those of his father, Eucherius, and his mother, Terrigia, show him to have been of Roman Gaulish extraction. He was born at Chaptelat, near Limoges, about the year 588, the son of an artisan. His father, seeing in due course that the boy had a remarkable talent for engraving and smithing, placed him with a goldsmith named Abbo, who was master of the mint at Limoges.

When the time of his apprenticeship was finished Eligius went into France, that 455

Dec~mber

I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

is, across the Loire, and became kno\vn to Bobbo, treasurer to Clotaire II at Paris.

This king gave Eligius an order to make him a chair of state, adorned with gold and precious stones. Out of the materials furnished he made two such thrones instead of one. Clotaire admired the skill and honesty of the workman, and finding that he was a man of parts and intelligence took him into his household and made him master of the mint. His name is still to be seen on several gold coins struck at Paris and Marseilles in the reigns of Dagobert I and his son, Clovis II. His vita states that among other works the reliquaries of St Martin at Tours, of St Dionysius at Saint-Denis, of St Quintinus, SSe Crispin and Crispinian at Soissons, St Lucian, St Germanus of Paris, St Genevieve, and others, were made

by Eligius. His skill as a workman, his official position and the friendship of the king soon made him a person of consideration. He did not let the corruption of a court infect his soul or impair his virtue, but he conformed to his state and was magnificently dressed, sometimes wearing nothing but silk (a rare material in France in those days), his clothes embroidered with gold and adorned with precious stones. But he also gave large sums in alms. When a stranger asked for his house he was told, " Go to such a street, and it's where you see a crowd of poor people ".

A curious incident occurred when Clotaire tendered him the oath of allegiance.

Eligius having a scruple lest this would be to swear without sufficient necessity, or fearing what he might be called upon to do or approve, excused himself with an obstinacy which for some time displeased the king. Still he persisted in his resolution and repeated his excuses as often as the king pressed him. Clotaire, at length perceiving that the motive of his reluctance was really a tenderness of conscience, assured him that his conscientious spirit was a more secure pledge of fidelity than the oaths of others. St Eligius ransomed a number of slaves, some of whom remained in his service and were his faithful assistants throughout his life. One of them, a Saxon named Tillo, is numbered among the saints and commemorated on January 7; he was first among the seven disciples of St Eligius who followed him from the workshop to the eveche. At the court he sought the company of such men as Sulpicius, Bertharius, Desiderius and his brother, Rusticus, and in particular Audoenus, all of whom became not only bishops but saints as well. Of these Audoenus (St Ouen) must have been a boy when St Eligius first knew him; to him was long attributed the authorship of the Vita Eligii, which is now commonly regarded as the work of a later monk of Noyon. By it 8t Eligius is described as having been at this time, " tall, with a fresh complexion, his hair and beard curling without artifice; his hands were shapely and long-fingered, his face full of angelic kindness and its expression grave and unaffected".

King Clotaire's regard for and trust in Eligius was shared by his son, Dagobert I, though, like many monarchs, he valued and took the advice of a holy man more vlillingly in public than in private affairs. He gave to the saint the estate of Solignac in his native Limousin for the foundation of a monastery, which in 632 was peopled with monks who followed the Rules of St Columban and St Benedict combined. These, under the eye of their founder, became noted for their good work in various arts. * Dagobert also gave to St Eligius a house at Paris, which he converted into a nunnery and placed under the direction of St Aurea. Eligius

* The original charter of Solignac is preserved in the archives of Limoges. It is signed by, among others, Eligius, Adeodatus of Macon, Lupus of Limoges, Audoenus and Vincent " the least of all the deacons of Christ ".

ST E,LIGIUS, OR ELOI

[December

I

asked for an additional piece of land to complete the buildings, and it was granted hinl. But he found that he had somewhat exceeded the measure of the land which had been specified. Upon which he immediately went to the king and asked his pardon. Dagobert, surprised at his careful honesty, said to his courtiers, " Some of my officers do not scruple to rob me of whole estates; whereas Eligius is afraid of having one inch of ground which is not his". So trustworthy a man was valuable as an ambassador, and Dagobert is said to have sent him to treat with Judicael, the prince of the turbulent Bretons.

St Eligius was chosen to be bishop of N oyon and Tournai, at the same time as his friend St Audoenus was made bishop of Rouen. They were consecrated together in the year 641. Eligius proved as good a bishop as he had been layman, and his pastoral solicitude, zeal and watchfulness were most admirahle. Soon he turned his thoughts to the conversion of the infidels, who were a large majority in the Tournai part of his diocese, and a great part of Flanders was chiefly indebted to 8t Eligius for receiving the gospel. He preached in the territories of Antwerp, Ghent and Courtrai, and the inhabitants, who were as untamed as wild beasts, reviled him as a foreigner, " a Roman"; yet he persevered. He took care of their sick, protected them from oppression, and employed every means that charity could suggest to overcome their obstinacy. The barbarians were gradually softened, and some were converted; every year at Easter he baptized those whom he had brought to the knowledge of God during the t\velve preceding months.

The author of the Life tells us that St Eligius preached to the people every Sunday and feast-day and instructed them with indefatigable zeal; an abstract is given of several of his discourses united in one, by which it appears that he often borrowed whole passages from the sermons of St Caesarius of ArIes. It would perhaps be more correct to say that the writer of the Life has borrowed from St Caesarius, though there are similar borrowings in the sixteen homilies attributed to St Eligius.

One of these may possibly be authentic, a very interesting discourse in which the preacher warns his hearers against superstitions and pagan practices: observances of January 1 and also of June 24 are mentioned, work must not be abstained from out of respect for l'hursday (dies Jovis) or May month, charms, biblical and other, fortune-telling, watching the omens, and many other superstitions (some of them still used in Great Britain today) are forbidden. In their place he urges prayer, the partaking of the body and blood of Christ, anointing in time of sickness, and the sign of the cross, with the recitation of the creed and the Lord's Prayer.

At N oyon St Eligius established a house of nuns, to govern which he fetched his protegee, St Godeberta, from Paris, and one of monks, outside the city on the road to Soissons. He was very active in promoting the cuitus of local saints, and it was during his episcopate that several of the reliquaries mentioned above were made, either by himself or under his direction. He took a leading part in the ecclesiastical life of his day, and for a short time immediately before his death was a valued counsellor of the queen-regent, St Bathildis. His biographer gives several illustrations of the regard which she had for him, and they had in common not only political views but also a deep solicitude for slaves (she had been carried off frorn England and sold \\-hen a child). The effect of this is seen at the Council of Chalon (c. 647), which forbade their sale out of the kingdom and decreed that they must be free to rest on Sundays and holidays. The only certainly authentic writing .of St Eligius is a charming letter to his friend St Desiderius of Cahors. " Remember your Eligius ", he says in the course of it, " 0 my Desiderius, who

457

Dece.,mber I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

art dear to me as mine own self, when your soul pours itself out in prayer to the Lord. . . . I greet you with all my heart and the most sincere affection. Our faithful companion, Dado, greets you also." Dado is St Audoenus. When he had governed his flock nineteen years Eligius was visited with a foresight of his death, and foretold it to his clergy. Falling ill of a fever, he on the sixth day called together his household and took leave of them. They all burst into tears and he was not able to refrain from weeping with them; he commended them to God, and died a few hours later, on December I, 660. At the news of his sickness St Bathildis set out from Paris, but arrived only the morning after his death. She had preparations made for carrying the body to her monastery at Chelles. Others were anxious that it should be taken to Paris, but the people of Noyon so strenuously opposed it that the remains of their pastor were left with them. They were afterwards translated into the cathedral, where a great part of them remain. St Eligius was for long one of the most popular saints of France, and his feast was universal in north-western Europe during the later middle ages. In addition to being the patron saint of all kinds of smiths and metalworkers, he is invoked by farriers and on behalf of horses: this on account of legendary tales about horses that have become attached to his name. He practised his art all his life, and a number of existing " pieces" are attributed to him.

Of all the Merovingian saints, the history of St Eloi possibly brings us most nearly into touch with Christian practice at that period. It is therefore not surprising that his life has given rise to a relatively abundant literature. Everything centres round the Vita S. Eligii, an unusually lengthy document, of which, as stated above, St Ouen is the reputed author.

The best text is that edited by B. Krusch in MGH., Scriptores Merov., vol. iv, pp. 635-742 ; it is also to be found in Migne, PL., vol. lxxxvii, cc. 477-658. It seems certain that St Ouen did write some account of his friend, but the life now preserved to us was compiled at Noyon a half-century or more later; and though it probably incorporates a good deal of what St Ouen wrote, it has been recast and supplemented in many places. An excellent account of St Eligius is given by E. Vacandard in DTC., vol. iv, cc. 2340-2350, and there are several articles of the same author bearing on the subject, notably in the Revue des questions historiques for 1898 and 1899, where the question of the authenticity of the homilies attributed to the saint is very fully discussed. See also Van der Essen, Etude critique sur les saints mbov£ngiens (1904), pp.' 324-336; H. Timerding, Die chr£st. Fruhzeit Deutschlands, vol. i (1929), pp. 125-149; S. R. Maitland, The Dark Ages (1889), pp. 101-14°; and P. Parsy, Sa£nt Elo£ (1904) in the series" Les Saints". In the long article by H. Leclercq in DAC., vol. iv, cc. 2674-2687, a detailed account is given of the different works of art attributed to the saint's craftsmanship. On" missionary sermons" and the homiletic influence of St Caesarius, see W. Levison, England and the Continent . .. (1946), appendix x, pp. 302-314, " Venus, a Man ".

BD BENTIVOGLIA

(A.D. 1232)

BENTIVOGLIA, a native of San Severino in the Marches, joined the Franciscan Order in the lifetime of the founder, and though his fenuily was well-to-do a number of his near relatives subsequently followed his example. The imperfect records preserved to us do not seem to supply anything very characteristic or personal regarding this beatus. He, no doubt, shared in full measure the love of poverty and simplicity which was so conspicuous in the first generation of the Friars Minor.

We are told of his great charity, his zeal for souls and of the inspiring earnestness of his sermons. The parish priest of San Severino is said in the Fioretti to have been brought to the order by witnessing a rapture of Bd Bentivoglia when praying in a wood, in the course of which he saw this holy brother raised for a long time

45 8

[December

BD JOHN OF VERCELLI

I

high above the ground. In the same source we read how, " while sojourning once alone at Trave Bonanti in order to take charge of and serve a certain leper, he (Bentivoglia) received commandment from his superior to depart thence and go unto another place, which was about fifteen miles distant, and, not willing to abandon the leper, he took him with him with great fervour of charity, and placed him on his shoulders, and carried him from the dawn till the rising of the sun all the fifteen miles of the way, even to th.e place where he was sent, which was called Monte San Vicino, which journey, if he had been an eagle, he could not have flown in so short a time, and this divine miracle put the whole country round in amazement and admiration". He died, where he was born, at San Severino on Christmas daYj 1232.

See Mazzara, Leggendario Francescano (1680), vol. i, pp. 239-240; Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. ii, pp. 31-33; and Actus B. Francisci et sociorum ejus, edited

by Paul Sabatier, p. 160. In deference to the reading of Sabatier's manuscripts I have spelt the name Bentivoglia rather than Bentivoglio.

BD JOHN OF VERCELLI THIS John was born near Vercelli about the year 1205, but he is not first certainly heard of till forty years later, when he was prior of the Dominicans at Vercelli and a marked man for his abilities and character. After filling various offices and missions he was elected sixth master general of the Order of Preachers in 1264, an office which he held with great distinction for nineteen years. John was rather short of stature-in his first letter to his brethren he refers to himself as a " poor little man"-and so amiable of expression that he is said to have required of his socius that he should be of a severe and awe-inspiring countenance. But he made up for lack of size by sufficiency of energy and was tireless in his visitation and correction of the Dominican houses up and down Europe; nor would he on these journeys dispense himself from the fasts either of the Church or of his order.

Immediately on his election to the see of Rome, Bd Gregory X imposed on John of Vercelli and his friars the task of again pacifying the quarrelling states of Italy, and three years later he was ordered to draw up a schema for the second oecumenical Council of Lyons. At the council he met Jerome of Ascoli (afterwards Pope Nicholas IV), who had succeeded St Bonaventure as minister general of the Franciscans, and the two addressed a joint letter to the whole body of friars. Later on they were sent together by the Holy See to mediate between Philip III of France and Alfonso X of Castile, continuing the work of peace-maker, in which John excelled.

Bd John of Vercelli was one of the early propagators of devotion to the name of Jesus, which the Council of Lyons prescribed in reparation for Albigensian blasphemies. Bd Gregory X selected John particularly, as head of a great body of preachers, to spread this devotion, and the master general at once addressed all his provincial priors accordingly. It was decided that there should be an altar of the Holy Name in every Dominican church and that confraternities against blasphemy and profanity should be formed. In 1278 Bd John sent a visitor into England, where some friars had been attacking the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas, then lately dead, whom John had reappointed to the chair of theology at Paris after the refusal of St Albert the Great. Two years later John came himself to Oxford,. where a general chapter was held. Like Humbert of Romans, his pre足 decessor, he refused episcopacy and a curial office at Rome; but he was induced

459

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December I]

to withdraw his resignation of the generalate, which he retained until his death at Montpellier on November 30, 1283. The cultus of Bd John of Vercelli was approved in 1903.

A very full life was composed in French by P. Mothon and it has been translated into Italian, Vita del B. Giovanni da Vercelli (19°3); naturally also Fr Mortier in his Histoire des Maitres genbaux a.p., vol. ii, pp. I-170, gives much space to this important generalate.

A careful account in briefer compass is that of M. de Waresquiel, Le bx Jean de Verceil (1903). See also Taurisano, Catalogus .Hagiographicus a.p.

BD GERARD CAGNOLI

(A.D. 1345)

THE cult which from time immemorial has been paid at Palermo and elsewhere to this follower of St Francis was confirmed in 1908. Gerard, born about 1270, was the only son of noble parents in the north of Italy. He lost his father at the age of ten, and his mother not many years afterwards. Resisting the persuasions of his relatives to marry, he distributed his goods to the poor and led, until he was forty, the life of a pilgrim and hermit, spending most of his time in the wilder parts of Sicily. In the early years of the fourteenth century, the holiness and miracles of St Louis of Anjou, who though heir to a throne had become a Fran­ ciscan, were much talked about. Gerard took him for his patron, and about the year 1310 ended by joining the same order. Whilst he discharged the duties of a lay-brother, his simplicity and devotion were the admiration of all. On one great feast-day, when he was acting as cook, being absorbed in prayer, he seemed to have forgotten all about the dinner; when, late in the morning, the father guardian, apprised that even the fire had not yet been lighted, remonstrated with the brother on his neglect, Gerard, quite unperturbed, betook himself to the kitchert, where, assisted, it is said, by an unknown youth of radiant beauty, he produced, punctually to the moment, a more delicious meal than the community had ever before eaten.

Many miracles were attributed to the intercession of the holy brother. For example, it was said that, finding a child crying because it had dropped and broken the glass beaker it was carrying home to its mother, he collected the fragments, blessed them and restored the vessel to the child as sound as it had been before.

His miracles of healing were commonly performed by anointing the sick with the oil which burned in a lamp before a little shrine of his patron St Louis. His diet was bread and water, he slept upon a plank, he scourged himself to blood, and there were many stories told of ecstasies in which he was seen surrounded with light and raised from the ground. He died on December 30, 1345.

See the decree of the Congregation of Rites in Analecta Ecclesiastica (1908), vol. xvi, pp. 293-295; B. Mazzara, Leggendario Francescano (1680), vol. iii, pp. 767-773; and Analecta Franciscana (1897), vol. iii, pp. 489-497.

BD ANTONY BONFADINI THE Bonfadini were a good family of Ferrara, where Antony was born in the year 1400. When he was thirty-nine. he became a friar minor of the Observance at the friary of the Holy Ghost in his native town, and soon distinguished himself as a teacher and preacher. He was sent on the Franciscan mission in the Holy Land, and on a journey from there, in his old age, he died and was buried at the village of Cotignola in the Romagna. A year later his body was found to be still incorrupt, and miracles were reported at his tomb. Accordingly, when some years later the

460

BB. RIel-lARD

WIII1~I:N"G

AND tIIS COl\1PANIONS

[December

I

Friars l\linor made a foundation at Cotignola, they \vere given permISSIon to translate the body to their church. The cultus of Bd Antony \\raS approved in 19°1.

Although the continued cultus is well attested, \,ve kno\v little detail of the life of this holy friar. Some account is furnished by such chroniclers as Mazzara in Leggendario Francescano, vol. iii (1680), pp. 601-602. See also the .4cta Ord. ~Fratrum MinoTum, vol. xx (1901), pp. 105 seq.; and I)HG., vol. iii, c. 763.

BB. RICHARD WHITING, PANIONS, MARTYRS

ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY, AND

(A.D.

HIS

COM­

1539)

THE prestige conferred both by legend and history gives Glastonbury a literally unique place among the numerous great monasteries of ancient England, and, if it be impossible to ac.cept the story of its foundation by St Joseph of Arimathaea (and several other stories about it), the very existence of such a legend testifies to the veneration in which our ancestors held the place. It is therefore fitting that, at a time when many ecclesiastics, secular and regular, and distinguished lay-people fell a""ay lamentably frorn their calling as Catholic Christians, the last abbot of Glastonbury should have died for his faith at the hands of the civil power. Richard Whiting was born at Wrington in SOlnerset, probably soon after 1460, and was educated at Cambridge (Magdalene ?), \vhere he took his M.A., in 1483, and returned for his S.T.D., in 1505. In 311 likelihood he \\"as a monk before the first date. He was ordained priest at Wells in 150 I, and for some years held the office of charnber­ lain in the monastery. Upon the death of .A.bbot Bere, in 1525, the community requested Cardinal Wolsey to nalne a successor. lie chose Dom Richard Whiting: " an upright and religious monk, a provident and discreet man, and a priest com­ nlendable for his life, virtues~ and learning". Among those who signed the commission was St ']'homas lVlore.

For ten years his rule \vas quiet and uneventful, till in 1534 came the summons to take the oath of supremacy, that the king ,vas head of the Church in England. \\Tith the exception of More, Fisher, the Carthusian monks and the Franciscan Observants, there \vere few who stood out from the first against this; Abbot Whiting and his monks took the oath \vhen it was tendered to them. In the following year the royal commissioners visited Glastonbury, and reported (with regret) that the brethren \\~ere kept in such good order that they could not offend; and assured the rnonks that nothing \vas intended against them. A year later the lesser monasteries \vere suppressed, and by the time the greater ones were con­ demned, in 1539, Glastonbury ",'as the only religious house left in Somerset. r-fhree commissioners arrived there in September. They impounded various incriminating docun1ents (a book against the king's divorce, copies of papal bulls, and a Life of St Thomas Becket) and questioned Abbot \Vhiting. But no",' he refused to surrender his charge and showed " his cankerous and traitorous mind against the King's l\lajesty and his succession". So they carried him off to London, to the 'Tower. Mr Commissioner I-",ayton sent after him to Cromwell a " book of evidences" of " divers and sundry treasons" committed by the abbot, which is not extant and the contents are unkno\vn. But in consequence of it Crom\vell noted in his Remembrances: "Item, the .A.bbot of Glaston to be tried at Glaston, and also executed there" --3 pretty anticipation of the course of in­ justice. There is a good deal of uncertainty as to \V'hat actually took place: whether Abbot vVhiting \vas tried in London or in vVells or at both places; but he

461

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December I]

was condemned to death. The indictment was not allowed to survive, or even, apparently, to be made public, but there is general agreement that it was for high treason (in \vhich case the abbot was entitled to be tried by his peers in the House of Lords), and the available evidence points to denial of the royal supremacy as having been the specific offence.

Bd Richard arrived at Wells with his escort on Friday, November 14, 1539.

The next day he was hurried to Glastonbury, was refused leave to make a farewell visit to his abbey (he apparently did not know it was deserted, the community scattered), and was dragged on a hurdle to the top of the Tor, a hill some 500 feet high overlooking the town. There, beneath the tower of St Michael's chapel, the aged man, "very weak and sickly", sustained the barbarities of hanging and disembowelling. Before the evening his head was displayed above the gate of his monastery, and his quarters had been sent off to Wells, Bridgewater, Ilchester and Bath. =II: After the abbot had been despatched, two of his monks suffered in a like manner. These were BD JOHN THORNE, treasurer of the abbey church, and BD ROGER JAMES, its sacristan. Their offence was called sacrilege, in that they had hidden various treasures of their church to save them from the king's hands. It is likely that this was also one of the charges against Whiting. The memory of the martyred abbot was long held in benediction by the people of Somerset, and he is not forgotten in Glastonbury and its neighbourhood today. It was probably on the evidence of Father William Good, S.J., a contemporary and a native of Glastonbury, that Pope Gregory XVI permitted his representation among the martyrs on the walls of the chapel of the Venerabile, and so led to his equipollent beatification with the others in 1895.

The feast of these three martyrs is observed in the diocese of Clifton on the day of their death, and in the archdiocese of Westminster and by the English Bene足 dictine Congregation on December I, together with the other t\VO martyred abbots, Hugh Faringdon and John Beche.

The principal materials for this and the two following Ilotices are to be found in the calendar of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of t~ reign of Henry VIII, edited for the Record Office by J. S. Brewer, James Gairdner and R. H. Brodie. The story of Richard Whiting is told in some detail by F. A. Gasquet in The Last Abbot of Glastonbury (1895), on which also consult Canon Dixon's notice in the English Historical Review, vol. xii (1897), pp. 781-785. The most accurate account of the martyr is that furnished by Bede Camm in LEM., vol. i (1904), pp. 327-412.

BB. HUGH FARINGDON, ABBOT OF READING, AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS

(A.D. 1539)

Bn HUGH was commonly called Faringdon probably after his birthplace in Berk足 shire, but his true surname was Cook and he bore (or assumed) the arms of Cook of Kent. He became a monk of Reading, and while discharging the office of sub-chamberlain was elected abbot in 1520. It was an important abbacy, carrying a seat in the House of Lords and in Convocation, and the holder was a county magistrate. Dom Hugh took an active part in the duties involved, though hostile chroniclers have called him "utterly without learning". This was not the opinion of Leonard Cox, master of Reading Grammar School, who dedicated to

* The Catholic church of St John is said to be built on the place where his limbs were exposed at Bath.

BD JOHN BECHE

[December

I

him a book on rhetoric. He maintained an excellent discipline in his monastery, and "could not abide" the preachers of the new doctrines, whom he called " heretics and knaves". But at first he was on good terms with Henry VIII-too good terms. The king visited him and called him" my own abbot"; the abbot sent presents of hunting-knives and of trout netted in the Kennet. He \vent further, for he signed the petition to Pope Clement VII for the nullity of Henry's marriage and supplied him with a list of books likely to help his case. And in 1536 he signed Convocation's articles of faith which virtually acknowledged the royal supremacy over the English church. At the end of 1537 he still enjoyed the royal favour, and took a prominent part in the funeral of Queen Jane Seymour at Windsor. A few \veeks later he offended the king by reporting to Cromwell and to the neighbouring abbot of Abingdon the rumour that Henry was dead. He was examined by a commission, but released.

In 1539 the greater abbeys were suppressed. It was known that the abbot of Reading \vould not surrender his, and in the late summer he was consigned to the Tower of I~ondon, charged with treason. With him were tried BD JOHN EYNON and BD JOHN RUGG. Eynon was a priest of St Giles's church at Reading, who had already been in trouble for writing and distributing a copy of Robert Aske's proclamation of the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. Rugg was a prebendary of Chichester living in retirement at Reading Abbey. Among the charges against him was that he had preserved a relic of the hand of St Anastasius, " knowing that his Majesty had sent visitors to the said abbey to put down such idolatry". * These t\VO priests are generally accounted to have been monks, but it is not certain that they were. As in the case of Bd Richard Whiting, the terms of the indictment are not known, but it was not doubted at the time that it was primarily for denying the royal supremacy, and Bd Hugh spoke clearly on the scaffold. The supremacy of the Holy See in spiritual matters was, he said, " the common faith of those who had the best right to declare the true teaching of the English church". The execution of all three took place outside Reading Abbey gateway, on the same day as that of the Glastonbury monks.

These martyrs were beatified by equipollence in 1895. Their feast is kept in the dioâ&#x201A;Źese of Portsmouth on November 14, and by Westminster and the English Benedictines with BB. Richard \Vhiting and John Beche on December 1.

The books mentioned in the notice of Bd Richard Whiting also contain whatever in­ formation is available concerning the Abbot of Reading; see in particular pp. 121-158 of Cardinal Gasquet's book, and pp. 358-387 in that of Bede Camm.

BD JOHN BECHE, ABBOT OF COLCHESTER, MARTYR rfHE martyr who was equivalently beatified in 1895 as John Beche was also known as Thomas Marshall; the last seems to have been his proper surname, and Thomas was perhaps his name "in religion". His birthplace and parentage are not known; he took his D.D. at Oxford in 15 I 5 and for some years was abbot of St Werburgh's at Chester. In 1533 he was elected abbot of St John's, Colchester.

He \vas a friend of lVTore and Fisher and his new community was opposed to the ecclesiastical policy of Henry VIII, but in the following year the abbot and sixteen

* It has been suggested by Dom Bede Camm that the hand preserved at the Catholic church of St Peter at Marlow, known to have been found in Reading, is this very relic.

See LEM., vol. i, p. 376, note.

THE LI\TES OF THE SAINTS

December I]

monks, like their fellows throughout the land, took the oath of royal supremacy.

The writer of an early Ijfe of St John Fisher, who refers to Dom John Beche as " excelling many of the abbots of his day in devotion, piety and learning)), states that he first came under suspicion owing to a " traitorous guest)), who encouraged him to speak against the execution of More and Fisher and then reported his words to the king's advisers. In November 1538 commissioners were sent to dissolve Colchester Abbey, to whom Bd John said: "The king shall never have my house but against my will and my heart, for I know by my learning that he cannot take it by right and law. Wherefore in my conscience I cannot be content, nor shall he have it with my heart and will." Within a year the abbot was in the Tower, charged with treason, in the same way and for the same reason as his fellovi-abbots, Richard Whiting and Hugh Faringdon.

During the first four days of November 1539 two commissioners were at Brent足 wood, in Essex, examining witnesses against Beche, and evidence was given that he had spoken against the suppression of the monasteries, against the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, against the royal supremacy, and in favour of the full prerogatives of the Holy See. When interrogated on these accusations the abbot, under duress of captivity and fear, tried to explain them away and affirmed the king's supremacy as against the pope's " usurped authority", and asked Henry "to be good to me for the love of God". * He was nevertheless sent back to Colchester to be tried. There is no record of the proceedings, but one of the judges reported to Cromwell that the prisoner" acknowledged himself in substance to be guilty according to the effect of the indictment". He was duly sentenced, and was hanged, drawn and quartered at Colchester on December I, 1539.

The feast of Bd John Beche is kept in the diocese of Brentwood and, with the other two martyred abbots, by Westminster and the English Benedictines. An anonymous pamphleteer, of the king's party, gave valuable testimony to the cause for which these martyrs died when he \vrote scornfully: "It is not to be doubted but his Holiness \villlook upon their pains as upon Thomas Becket's, seeing it is for like matter."

I-~ere again the authorities are the same as in the two previous notices. pp. 159-176, and Camm, pp. 388-407.

See Gasquet,

BD RALPH SHERWIN, MARTYR SIR WILLIAM PETRE, secretary of state to Henry VIII and the three following sovereigns and founder of the fortunes of his house, founded eight fellowships in Exeter College, Oxford, to one of which he nominated, in 1568, Ralph Sherwin, a young gentleman of Rodsley in Derbyshire. He took his M.A. in 1574, " being then accounted", says Anthony a Wood, "an acute philosopher and an excellent Grecian and Hebrician ". The next year he was reconciled to the Church, went to Douay, and was there ordained priest in 1577. A few months later he went to the English College at Rome, where he took a leading part in the deplorable dis足 sensions between the English and Welsh students, and was one of the four who petitioned Pope Gregory XIII to entrust the direction of the college to the Society

* The document to this effect, in Abbot Beche's own handwriting, came to light only after his case had been examined at Rome. When his cause of canonization is brought forward it will be taken into consideration. A decree of equipollent beatification is only permissive. But he seems to have retracted all schismatical admissions at his trial.

4 64

BD RALPH SHERWIN

[December

I

of Jesus. This was eventually done, and Sherwin's name stands first in the register under the new regiole of those who declared their willingness to go on the English mission at any time. He \vas one of the party which, under the leadership of Bishop Goldwell, set out in 1580. .At Milan they were the guests of St Charles Borromeo for a week, and l\1r Sherwin preached before him. From Paris he wrote to a friend in Rome, Ralph Bickley, telling particularly of their adventures at Geneva, and broke off the letter because Mr Paschal had come in " with the frip to frenchify me ", I.e. the secular clothes for his disguise, which he much disliked \vearing. He ends: " My loving Ralph, I request thee once in thy greatest fervour to say over thy beads for me, and procure as many of my friends as you can to do the same there, and let your petition be this: that in humility and constancy with perseverance to the end, I may honour God in this vocation, whereunto though unworthy I am called."

At Rheims the missionaries separated, and on August I Ralph Sherwin set out for England. In November he was arrested while preaching in the house of Nicholas Roscarrock in London, and was chained in the Marshalsea. Of his brief apostolate Father Persons wrote that he spent it preaching in various parts of the kingdom, in which work "he enjoyed a very special grace and ascendancy".

From the prison he managed to write a cheerful note to Persons, referring to the bells, i.e. fetters, on his ankles, and after a month was removed to the Tower.

Here he was severely racked on December 15, with the object of getting information about his fellow-missionaries, about a feared invasion of Ireland, etc. Afterwards he was left to lie out in the sno\v, and next day was tortured again. He told his brother that after he had been twice racked he lay five days and nights without any food or speaking to anybody,''' as he thought in a sleep, before our Saviour on the cross. After which time he came to himself, not finding any distemper in his joints by the extremity of the torture." He ,vas offered a bishopric if he would apostatize. After more than a year's imprisonment he was brought to trial with Edmund Campion and others, and convicted on the charge of entering the realnl in order to raise a rebellion. "'The plain reason of our standing here", he observed, " is religion, not treason."

While awaiting death Ralph wrote several letters to friends, including one to his uncle in Rouen, who had formerly been rector of Ingatestone. In it he says: ,~ Innocency is my only comfort against all the forged villainy which is fathered on my fellow priests and me. . . . (;od forgive all injustice, and if it be His blessed will to convert our persecutors, that they may become professors of His truth. . . .

And so, my good old John, farewell." On December I, 1581, he was dragged to Tyburn on the same hurdle as Alexander Briant, and suffered immediately after Campion. On the scaffold he again protested his innocence of treason, professed the whole Catholic faith, and prayed for the Queen, and died amid the open prayers of the crowd. He was thirty-one years old.

Bd Ralph Sherwin was among the martyrs beatified in 1886, and his feast is observed in the diocese of Nottingham; he was the protomartyr of the English College at Rome.

A full account of this martyr has of Camm's LEM., pp. 358-396. information are indicated by Father be added Cardinal Allen's account Pollen in 1908, pp. 34-46.

been contributed by E. S. Keogh to the second volume See also 1VIMP., pp. 30-35. The earlier sources of Keogh on p. 396 of the first book, but to these should of Fr Campion and his companions edited by J. H.

December I]

BD EDMUND CAMPION,

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS MARTYR

EDMUND CAMPION, senior, was a bookseller in the city of London, and he and his wife were Catholics until the time of Queen Elizabeth. Edmund junior was born about 1540, and when he was ten was admitted to the " Bluecoat School" by the interest of the Grocers' Company. He was an extraordinarily promising boy, and when fifteen was given a scholarship in St John's College, Oxford, then newly founded by Sir Thomas White. Two years later Campion was appointed a junior fellow, and he made a great reputation as an orator; he was chosen to speak at the re-burial of Lady Amy Dudley (Robsart), at the funeral of Sir Thomas White, and before Elizabeth when she visited Oxford in 1566: as a bluecoat boy he had been selected to make a speech of welcome to her predecessor at St Paul's thirteen years before. His talents and personality earned him the goodwill and patronage of the queen, of Cecil and of Leicester; to the last-named he dedicated his History of Ireland, and Cecil later referred to him as " one of the diamonds of England".

He had taken the oath of royal supremacy and, although his allegiance to Protes­ tantism was much shaken by his reading in the fathers, he was persuaded by Dr Cheney, Bishop of Gloucester, to receive the diaconate of the Anglican Church.

At Oxford he was very popular (Dr Gregory Martin, with whom he was friendly, wrote from Rome warning him against ambition) and was the centre of a group of personal disciples, rather like Newman two hundred and fifty years later. But the taking of orders in a church about which he was doubtful began to trouble him and, at the end of his term as junior proctor of the university in 1569, the Grocers' Company (whose exhibitioner he was) being restive about his papistical tendencies, he went to Dublin, where an attempt was being made to revive its university.

While there he wrote a short history of the country.· Campion had left Oxford " full of remorse of conscience and detestation of mind" for himself as an Anglican minister, and he took no pains to conceal his sentiments. Accordingly, after the publication of Pope St Pius's bull against Elizabeth, he was in danger as a suspected person. In 1571 he returned to England in disguise, was present at the trial of Bd John Storey in Westminster Hall, and then made for Douay. He was stopped on the way for having no passport, but was allowed to escape on giving up his luggage and money. One of his first actions at Douay was to send a long and striking letter, a "vehement epistle", to Dr Cheney, who had strong Catholic leanings.t Campion took his B.D. and was ordained subdeacon at Douay, and then, in 1573, went to Rome and was admitted to the Society of Jesus. As there was yet no English province he was sent to that of Bohemia, and after his novitiate at Brno went to the college of Prague to teach.

In view of the great success of the Society among the Protestants of Germany, Bohemia and Poland, Dr Allen persuaded Pope Gregory XIII to send some • He said of the Irish: "The people are thus inclined: religious, franke, amorous, irefull, sufferable of paines infinite, very glorious, many sorcerers, excellent horsemen, delighted with warres, great almes-givers, passing in hospitalitie: the lewder sort both clarkes and laymen are sensuall and loose to leachery above measure. The same being vertuously bred up or reformed are such mirrours of holinesse and austeritie, that other nations retaine but a shewe or shadow of devotion in comparison of them." The work was not well received in Ireland. t Cheney may have been reconciled secretly before his death, though Campion knew nothing of it. The only other Protestant bishop in England who may have died a Catholic was also of Gloucester ~ Dr Godfrey Goodman (1582-1655).

466

BD BDlVIUND CAl\1PION

[December

I

Jesuits to England, and at the end of 1579 Father Edmund Campion and Father Robert Persons were chosen as the first to be sent. The night before he left Prague one of the fathers, by an irresistible impulse, \vrote over the door of his cell the words: P. Edmundus Campianu~, Martyr. He left Rome in the spring of 158o, one of the party whose adventures are so well described in Bd Ralph Sher­ win's letter to Ralph Bickley. When they got to the Protestant stronghold of Geneva Campion pretended to be an Irish serving-man called Patrick, and they all seem to have behaved with that reckless cheerfulness that makes more serious­ minded people think the English mad. At the gate on leaving, after having had a discussion with Beza, Campion disputed with a Ininister, and then left the "poor shackerel" to be ragged by the rest. =*= From Saint-Orner Persons set out for England disguised as a returning soldier from the Lowlands, followed

by Campion as a jewel merchant, with his servant, a coadjutor-brother, Ralph Emerson.

The Jesuits were not welcomed by all the Catholics, many of whom feared what new troubles the arrival of representatives of the redoubtable Society might bring on their heads; and it was necessary for the two to declare on oath that " their coming was only apostolical, to treat of matters of religion in truth and simplicity, and to attend to the gaining of souls without any pretence or knowledge of matters of state". Their coming was known to the government, and they soon had to leave London, Campion going to work in Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Northamp­ tonshire, where he made some notable converts. He wrote to the father general in Rome: "I ride about some piece of the country every day. The harvest is wonderful great. . . . I cannot long escape the hands of the heretics. . . . I am in apparel to myself very ridiculous; I often change it and my name also. I read letters sometimes myself that, in the first front, tell news that Campion is taken, \vhich roused in every place where I come so filleth my ears with the sound thereof that fear itself hath taken away all fear." After meeting Persons in London, where persecution ,vas very hot, he went to Lancashire, where he preached almost daily and with conspicuous success, pursued always by spies and several times nearly taken: fifty years later his sermons were still remembered by those who had heard them. All this time he was writing a Latin treatise, which was called Decem Rationes because in it he expounded ten reasons why he had challenged the most le~rned Protestants openly to discuss religion with him. The greatest difficulty was found in getting this work printed, but eventually it was achieved on a secret press at the house of Dame Cecilia Stonor, in Stonor Park, Berkshire, and on " Commemoration" , June 27, 1581, four hundred copies of it were found dis­ tributed on the benches of the university church at Oxford. It made a tremendous sensation,t and efforts to capture the writer were redoubled. Three weeks later he was taken. * When someone asked" Mr P~trick ": "Cujas es ? " he replied, " Signor, no."

The questioner tried again: "Potesne loqui latine ?" Whereupon the Latin orator and pro­ fessor of rhetoric shrugged his shoulders with a puzzled expression and walked away. t This book, Libellus aureus, vere digito Dei scriptus, has gone through forty-eight editions, printed in all parts of Europe, of which five have been English translations. Of the original edition only four copies are known. Owing to shortage of type it had to be set and printed one sheet at a time, and it took half a dozen men nine weeks. "Campion's Challenge ", or " Brag", addressed to the Privy Council, had been written for publication in case he were captured, to try and ensure him a fair hearing; but the document got spread abroad prematurely and directed the attention of the whole country to him.

4 67

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December I]

After the publication of Decem Rationes it was judged prudent that Bd Edmund should retire to Norfolk, and on the way he stayed at the house of Mrs Yate at Lyford, near Wantage. On Sunday, July 16, some forty people assembled there to assist at Mass and hear him preach, but among them \vas a traitor. Within the next twelve hours the house was searched three times, and at the last Bd Edmund was found with two other priests concealed above the gateway. They were taken to the Tower, from Colnbrook on\vard being pinioned and Edmund labelled: "Cam­ pion, the seditious Jesuit." After three days in the " little-ease" he was inter­ viewed by the Earls of Bedford and Leicester and, it is said, the queen herself, who tried to bribe him into apostasy. Other attempts of the same sort having failed he was racked; and arrests were then made of some who had sheltered him, whose names had already been known to the government but which, it was lyingly said, Campion had betrayed. While still broken by torture he \\Tas four times confronted

by Protestant dignitaries, whose questions, objections and insults he answered with spirit and effectiveness. * He was then racked again, so fiercely that when asked the next day how he felt he could reply, " Not ill, because not at all " . No handle could be found against him, so on November 14 he was indicted in Westminster Hall, with Ralph Sherwin, Thomas Cottam, I..Iuke Kirby and others, on the fabricated charge of having plotted at Rome and Rheims to raise a rebellion in England and coming into the realm for that purpose. \Vhen told to plead to the charge he was too weak to move his arms, and one of his companions, kissing his hand, held it up for him. Campion conducted the defence both of himself and the others with much ability, protesting their loyalty to the queen, demolishing the evidence, discrediting the witnesses) and showing that their only offence was their religion. The packed jury brought them in " guilty", but it took them an hour to make up their minds to do it. Before sentence of death Bd Edmund addressed the court: ". . . In condemning us you condemn all your own an­ cestors. . . . To be condemned with these old lights-not of England only, but of the world-by their degenerate descendants is both gladness and glory to us.

God lives. Posterity will live. Their judgement is not so liable to corruption as that of those who now sentence us to death."

Campion's sister came to him with a message from Hopton, offering him a good benefice as the price of apostasy, and he also had a visit from Eliot, who had both betrayed and given evidence against him, and novv \\Tent in fear of his life. Bd Edmund freely forgave him and gave him a letter of recornmendation to a nobleman in Germany, where he would be safe. On December I, a wet, muddy day, Cam­ pion, Sherwin, and Briant were drawn to Tyburn together, and there executed with the usual barbarities. On the scaffold Bd Edmund again refused to give an opinion of the pope's bull against Elizabeth, and publicly prayed for her: "your queen and my queen, unto whom I wish a long reign with all prosperity". Some of the blood of this man, "admirable, subtle, exact and of sweet disposition", splashed on to a young gentleman, one H~nry \Valpole, who was present: he too became a Jesuit and a beatified martyr.t • Among those present \vho were permanently affected by his words and bearing was Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, afterv\Tards himself a martyr and now beatified. t Among the poems of Walpole on the life and death of Bd Edmund one lyric, " Why do I use my paper, ink and pen ", ,vas beautifully set to music by William Byrd, who was himself frequently" presented" for recusancy. It was first published jn his Psalms, Sonnets and Songs in Five Parts in 1588, among the ,. Songs of Sadness and Piety ".

4 68

[December

BD ALEXANDER BRIANT

1

The feast of Bd Edmund Campion is kept not only by the Society of Jesus but as well by the dioceses of Northampton, Portsmouth, Brno and Prague.

We are very fully informed concerning the mjssion of Bd Edmund Campion and Father Persons to England, though the sources from which we learn the details are too numerous and scattered to be enumerated here. In the articles which Richard Simpson contributed to The Rambler from 1856 to 1858, and in the full biography which he published in 1867~ there is very adequate documentation and this is further supplemented in the account of Campion which fills pp. 266-357 in Camm, LEM., vol. ii. Special mention, however, should be made of the Vita et martyrium Edmundi Campiani, by P. Bombino, printed at Antwerp in 1618; of Father Persons' account of the journey to England in vol. ii of the Catholic Record Society's Publications (1906), pp. 186-201 ; of Cardinal Allen's Martyrdom of Father Campion . . . (ed. Pollen, 1908); and of Fr J. H. Pollen's numerous articles in The Month (notably September 1897, January and December 1905, and January 1910). A very attractive life of Bd Edmund, free from the ' Cisalpine pleading" which prejudices Richard Simpson's work, was published by Evelyn Waugh in 1935. It contains on pp.

224-225 a useful bibliography of relevant literature, to which may now be added A. C. Southern, Elizabethan Recusant Prose (1950), cap. iii. On Campion's relics see especially Bede Camm, Forgotten Shrines (19 11 ), pp. 377-378.

BD ALEXANDER BRIANT,

MARTYR

WHEN after the appearance of the publications of Fathers Campion and Persons the authorities were making frenzied efforts to lay the two Jesuits by the heels, several other active Catholics were arrested en passant, and among them Alexander Briant. He was a young secular priest, born in Somerset and distinguished for his good looks as well as his zeal, who, while at Hart I-Iall, Oxford, had been recon足 ciled to the Church and gone abroad to the Douay seminary. He was ordained and came back to England in 1579, where he at first ministered in the west and brought the father of Father Persons back to the Church. Mr Briant was taken in London on April 28, 1581, being in an adjoining house when Persons' house was fruitless!y searched by order of the Privy Council. I t was determined to extract from him information as to the whereabouts of Persons, whatever methods should have to be used, and after six days of almost complete starvation in the Counter prison he was removed to the Tower. Needles were thrust under his finger-nails (he is the only martyr of the time of whom this torture is recorded) to make him betray Persons or compromise himself. When this was not successful he was left in an unlit underground cell for a week, and then racked to the limit on two successive days. The rack-master, Norton, himself admits that Briant was" racked more than any of the rest", and a public outcry caused Norton to be imprisoned for a few days for his cruelty on this occasion, to save the face of the authorities. From the Tower Bd Alexander contrived to write a long letter to the Jesuits in England, in the course of which he says that the first time he was racked, towards the end: "I was without sense and feeling wellnigh of all grief and pain; and not so only, but as it were comforted, eased, and refreshed of the griefs of the torture bypast." "Whether this that I say be miraculous or no, God he knoweth; but true it is, and thereof my conscience is a witness before God." On the testi足 mony of Norton (for what that is worth), after the torture Bd Alexander experienced pain of a more than usual sharpness. In the same letter he asked that he might be admitted into the Society of Jesus, even in his absence, having made a vow to offer himself if he should be released from jail, and he is in consequence numbered among the martyrs of the Society.

December 2]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Bd Alexander was tried in Westminster Hall with Bd Thomas Ford and others, the day after Campion, Sherwin and Cottam, and on the same indictment. He came into court carrying a small crucifix dra\vn in charcoal on a piece of wooden trencher and with his head tonsured to show he \vas a priest; and in spite of his sufferings his appearance was still of " a serenity, innocency and amiability almost angelic". He suffered at Tyburn on December I, 1581, after BB. Edmund Campion and Ralph Sherwin. On this day also is commemorated the martyrdom of Bn RICHARD LANGLEY, a gentleman of Ousethorpe and Grimthorpe, who was hanged at York on December I, 1586, for harbouring priests at his mansions.

The archdiocese of Birmingham observes today the feast of all those members of the University of Oxford, over forty in number, who have been beatified for giving their lives as martyrs for the faith during the persecutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Many of the publications noticed in connection \vith Edmuno Campion have also some bearing on the story of his companion martyr. But see especially Camm, LEM., vol. ii, pp. 397-423 ; and REPS}., vol. iv, pp. 34-3-367. Briant seems to have been of good yeoman birth and the will of his father, which mentions hinl, is preserved. For Mr Langley, cf.

Gillow, Biog. Dict. Eng. Caths., Pollen, Acts of Eng. Alarts., and REPS}., vols. iii and vi.

2 : ST BIBIANA,

OR

VIVIANA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR

T

(DATE UNKNOWN)

HE church of St Bibiana in the city of Rome existed in the fifth century and is said by the Liber Pontificalis to have been dedicated by Pope St Simplicius and to have contained her body. But of the time at which she suffered and the circumstances of her passion nothing certain is known. The notices of her and her family in the Roman Martyrology, and the lessons of her feast in the Roman Breviary, are taken from a late legend which is a quite untrust­ worthy compilation. According to it 8t Bibiana suffered under the Emperor Julian the Apostate. She was a native of Rome, and daughter to Flavian, ex­ prefect of the city, and his wife, Dafrosa, who were both zealous Christians.

Flavian was apprehended, burned in the face with a hot iron, and banished to Acquapendente, as the Roman Martyrology asserts on the twenty-second of this month. After his death his wife, Dafrosa, being equally faithful to Christ, was on the same account confined to her house for some time, and at length beheaded.

Bibiana and her sister, Demetria, were stripped of all they had in the world and suffered much from poverty for five months, but spent that time in their own house in fasting and prayer. At length, brought into court, Demetria fell down dead in the presence of the judge, who gave orders that Bibiana should be put into the hands of a woman named Rufina, who was extrenlely artful and undertook to bring her to another way of thinking. But Rufina's blandishments were tried in vain on St Bibiana, and when they failed to tempt her from the way of faith and chastity blows were found to be just as fruitless. She was tied to a pillar and whipped with scourges loaded with lead: and so she died. Her body was left in the open air that it might be eaten by scavenging dogs. But they would not touch it, and, having lain exposed two days, it was buried in the night near the palace of Licinius by a priest called John, in the same house where lay her mother and sister. l'his John is associated with St Pimenius who was the tutor of the Emperor Julian before he apostatized. When Julian began persecuting, Pimenius escaped

47°

ST CHROMATIDS

[December

2

to Persia and thus survived all the other personages in the story. Returning at length to Rome he met Julian in the street, whereupon the emperor said, " Glory be to my gods and goddesses because I see you". To which the saint replied, " Glory be to my Lord Jesus Christ, the Nazarene who was crucified, because I see you not ". Whereupon Julian ordered him to be thrown off the bridge into the Tiber. But the whole legend, as Delehaye shows, has been evolved from slightly older hagiographical fictions of the same character, particularly those connected with the story of SSe John and Paul. It is possible that the name Pimenius is simply an adaptation of the Greek word 7TOLJL~V, which means" shep­ herd ", and that thus we get into touch with " St Pastor".

The story of St Bibiana has been very fully discussed by Delehaye in his Etude sur Ie 25~268) he has edited the two texts which are of particular importance. These respectively bear the headings Passio Sancti Pygmenii and Vita Sancti Pastoris. Pimenius or Pygmenius is in fact the central figure of this setting of the legend, and it is his name, not that of Bibian2, which is com­ memorated in the Hieronymianum. See further M. E. Donckel's article (( Studien tiber den Kultus der hI. Bibiana " in the R6mische Quartalschrift, vol. xliii (1935), pp. 23-33, and Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques, pp. 494-495. Because St Bibiana is represented in her story as having been locked up with mad people she was widely honoured as a patron of the insane and epileptics.

Iegendier romain (1936), pp. 124-143; and in an appendix (pp.

ST CHROMATIUS, BISHOP OF AQUILEIA

(c. A.D.

407)

CHROMATIUS was brought up in the city of Aquileia, of which he was probably a native, and lived there with his widowed mother (of whom St Jerome's good opinion is seen in a letter written to her in the year 374), his brother, who also became a bishop, and unmarried sisters. After his ordination to the priesthood St Chro­ matius took part in the synod of Aquileia against Arianism in 381, baptized Rufinus in his early manhood, and soon acquired a great reputation. On the death of St Valerian in 388 he was elected bishop of Aquileia, and in that office became one of the most distinguished prelates of his time. He was a friend and correspondent of St Jerome (who dedicated several of his works to him), at the same time pre­ serving his association with Rufinus, and trying to act as peace-maker and moderator in the Origenistic dispute. It was owing to the encouragement of St Chromatius that Rufinus undertook the translation of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius and other works, and at his suggestion St Ambrose commented on the prophecy of Balaam; he helped 8t Heliodorus of Altino to finance St Jerome's translation of the Bible. Chromatius was an energetic and valued supporter of St John Chrysos­ tom, who had a high opinion of him; he wrote to the Emperor Honorius protesting against the persecution of Chrysostom, and Honorius forwarded the protest to his brother, Arcadius, at Constantinople. But the efforts of Chromatius were without effect. He was himself a capable commentator of the Holy Scriptures; seventeen of his treatises on parts of St Matthew's gospel are extant and a homily on the Beatitudes. St Chromatius died about the year 407, and is named in the Roman Martyrology; his feast is observed in the churches of Gorizia and Istria, formerly parts of the Aquileian province.

There seems to be no formal biography; but some attention has been directed to St Chromatius of late years on account of the writings attributed to him. See Bardenhewer, Geschich!e der aItkirchIichen Literatur, vol. iii, pp. 548-551; P. de Puniet in the Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique, vol. vi (1905), pp. 15-32,3°4-318; P. Paschini in the Revue Bene­ dictine. vol. xxvi (1909), pp. 469-475. The works attributed to Chromatius are printed in

47 1

December 2]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

l\Iigne, PL., vol. xx, ce. 247-436, but the state of the text is very unsatIsfactory. To hIm must probably be attributed the" Expositio de oratione dominica " printed by M. Andrieu in res Ordines romani du haul moyen age, vol. ii (194 8), pp. 417-447.

BD JOHN RUYSBROECK

(A.D. 1381)

J AN VAN RUYSBROECK, Joannes Rusbrochius, or as he is generally called in English, John Ruysbroeck, was horn at the place of that name near Brussels in 1293. In those days it was a small village, and John was certainly of humble birth, though of his father nothing is known, and of his mother only her goodness and love for her son. At the age of eleven he went to live with his uncle, John I-linck足 aert, who was a minor canon of the collegiate church of St Gudula at Brussels, and attended the schools of the city. Some years later his ITlother joined him there, living in a beguinage, and soon after her death John was ordained priest at the age of tv:enty-four. Subsequently, in consequence of a sermon preached in St Gudula's, Canon Hinckaeres way of life underwent considerable modification. lie gave a\vay his superfluous goods and income and, in company with another ca~on, Franco van Coudenberg, a younger man, undertook to join a life of con足 ternplation to his canonical activities. Bd John associated himself with these two.

Between 1330 and 1335 he wrote some polemical pamphlets which have perished, but soon after he wrote the Book of the Kingdom of God's Lovers. T'his work like all his others was \vritten in Flemish that it might reach people at large, and is a refutation of false mysticism and an exposition of the true way to God. Itwas follo\\t"ed by the Spiritual Espousals, and several other mystical \\tTorks of a practical kind. Some commentators have claimed that John was illiterate and ignorant, thus adding an adventitious interest and merit to his writings. But in fact there is every evidence that he was a capable philosopher and theologian, well read both in the vvorks of the contemporary scholastics and of the masters of the past. r-rhe claim was made in his own time and answered by Gerson at Paris, who accused him of pantheistic ideas in the third book of the Spiritual E'spousals: "It has been said that the man who wrote this book was illiterate and uneducated, and conse足 quently an attempt has been made to regard it as inspired by the Holy Ghost.

But it gives evidence rather of human scholarship than of divine inspiration . . . and the style is somewhat laboured. Besides, in order to deal with such a subject, piety is not enough: one must be a scholar as well."

Bet\\t'een 1340 and 1343 John was \vriting the first part of the Book of the Spiritual Tabernacle, an allegory of the mystical life, and in the spring of the latter year the three priests left Brussels. They were called to a complete dedication" of them足 selves to God in a life of uninterrupted contemplation; in the city they were hampered by a clergy many of whom were debased and worldly, and, moreover, \vhile John had raised hostility by his vigour against heresy, Canon van Coudenberg had got into trouble with his prince. With the permission of this John III, Duke of Brabant, they received an assignment frOITI the hermit Lambert of the hermitage of Groenendael in the forest of Soignes, where they built a larger chapel and established themselves. But their first six years were not peaceful, troubled in particular on the one hand by the criticism of the chapter of Sainte-Gudule and of neighbouring nlonks, and on the other by the ducal hunt and its followers: not being associated with any religious order they had no protection against these nuisances. .A.ccordingly, in 1349, being then increased by five disciples, they formed themselves into a community of canons regular of St Augustine and made

47 2

BD JOHN RUYSBROECK

[December

2

their vows before the bishop of Cambrai. The aged Hinckaert dying the following year, Franco van Coudenberg was nominated to govern the new monastery as provost, aided by John Ruysbroeck as prior. It was Franco who "n1ade" Groenendael in a material and administrative sense, and John's presence there was a great attraction to the numerous aspirants who offered themselves to the com­ munity. He was an exemplary religious, docile, patient, obedient, fond of manual labour (at which he was rather clumsy), and a better subject than superior.

Gerard N aghel, a Carthusian of Herinnes, speaks of Ruysbroeck making a visit to that monastery: "How much might be said of his strong manly face, alight with joy, of his humble and affectionate speech, of the spirituality radiating from him, of a religious bearing that showed itself even in his way of wearing his clothes. . . .

Though we wanted to hear him talk about himself he never would, but just dre\v lessons from the sacred epistles. . . . He showed himself as free from conceit as if he had never written his own books." Bd John would spend hours in the forest which surrounded the monastery, listening, as it were, where no human distractions came between his ear and the voice of God. He made notes on \vaxed tablets, and elaborated and arranged them at his leisure in his cell. Once when he was missing at supper a canon went out to look, and found him sitting in ecstasy under a lime tree, surrounded by unearthly light. Thus he completed the Spiritual Tabernacle and undertook the other books which have given him an assured place among the greater contemplatives of the middle ages. * It is often urged that Ruysbroeck said nothing that had not been said by other mystics before him, that his originality lay in the way the matter was presented. But to say something in a new way is emphatically to say something new, and, standing between the thirteenth century and the Renaissance, he effected a combination between philo­ sophical elements drawn from Scholasticism on the one hand and Neoplatonism on the other. It has been well said that if Ruysbroeck's voice had not possessed an altogether new accent, if his doctrine had contained nothing original, his extra­ ordinary influence would be unexplainable. rfhe attraction of personal sanctity is sufficient to account for the heterogeneous cro\\rds that made pilgrimages to see him at Groenendael. But there were others, doctores ac clerici non mediocres, on whom he is known to have had a strong direct influence. Chief among them was Gerard Groote, founder of the Brothers of the Common Life, through whom Bd John's teaching had its effect on the school of Windesheim and on Thomas a Kempis; while the pattern of nlonastic life at Groenendael was responsible for Windesheim becoming not Carthusian or Cistercian but Augustinian.

The last few years of his life Bd John was unable to leave the cell which he shared with Provost Franco, who was even older than himself. One night he dreamed that his mother came to him and said that God would call him before Advent. The next day he asked to be taken to the common infirmary, where, wasted by a fever, he prepared for death with devotion and a ready mind. It came on December 2, 1381, in his eighty-eighth year. Once a year, on the second Sunday after Pentecost, the chapter of Sainte-Gudule came in procession to • It is curious that in Ruysbroeck, as in other mystics of that age, notably the Englishman Richard Rolle of Hampole, there was a marked tendency to pass from ordinary prose into a rhythmical cadence, and even into whatever was then the prevailing form of poetic diction whether it was rhyme or alliteration. The tendency is noticeable even in the Latin of Thomas' a Kempis's " Imitation of Christ ", which was sometimes known for this reason as the Musica ecclesiastica.

473

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 3]

Groenendael in honour of John Ruysbroeck; and when the monastery was sup­ pressed in 1783 his relics were translated to Brussels, only to be lost at the Revolu­ tion. The often interrupted efforts to secure his beatification were successful only in 19°8, when St Pius X confirmed his cultus and allowed his feast to the Canons Regular of the Lateran and the diocese of Malines. In Abbot Cuthbert Butler's opinion there has probably been no greater contemplative than Ruysbroeck, " and certainly there has been no greater mystical writer".

What we know of the history of John Ruysbroeck is almost entirely derived from a Latin biography written by a certain Henry Pomerius (the name is a latinization of Bogaerts, Van den Bogaerde). This biography seems certainly to have been composed between 1429 and 1431 and consequently some fifty years after the death of Bd John. But the biographer had before him an earlier life by John van Schoonhoven which has perished. The text of Pomerius may be found printed with a valuable introduction in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. iv (1885), pp. 257-334. See also A. Auger, Etude sur les mystiques des Pays-Bas au lrlOyen age (1892) ; W. De Vreese in the Biographie nationale de Belgique, vol. xx, cc. 507-591 ; J. Van Mierlo in Dietsche Warande en Belfort (1910), vols. i and ii; C. S. Durrant, Flemish Mystics and English Martyrs (1925), pp. 3-14; F. Van Ortroy in the Ana/ecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxi (1912), pp. 384-387; J. Kuckhoff, Johannes von Ruysbroeck (1938); and S. Axters, Spiritualite des Pays-Bas (1948). Although Ruysbroeck undoubtedly knew Latin, all his works were written in the Flemish of the period. This, we are told, readily lends itself to misinterpretation by those who are not experts, and translations are often unreliable. The Latin version of his works made by Surius is in many cases no better than a loose paraphrase.

On the other hand a very scholarly and careful rendering of all the authentic writings into French, under the general title of (Euvres de Ruysbroeck I'Adnlirable, has been brought out by the Benedictines of Saint-Paul de Wisques (6 vols., 1912-38). A life of the beatus was written in English by D. Vincent Scully (1910); Evelyn lJnderhill wrote a study, Ruysbroeck (1915); R. F. Sher\vood Taylor translated the Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love (1944), and E. Colledge The Spiritual Espousals (1952), previously known in Ef'glish as "'I'he Adornment of the Spiritual l\1arriage". 'The hook by Fr Axters, above, was puhlished in English in 1954.

3 : ST

FRANCIS XAVIER

A

CHARGE to go and preach to all nations was given by Christ to His apostles, and in every age men have been raised up by God and filled with I-lis holy Spirit for the discharge of this arduous duty, men \vho, being sent by the autho~ity of Christ and in His name by those \vho have succeeded the apostles in the government of His Church, have brought ne\v nations to the fold of Christ for the filling up the number of the saints. Among those who have laboured most successfully in this great work is the illustrious St Francis Xavier, \vho was named

by Pope Pius X the official patron of foreign missions and of all works for the spreading of the faith. He was one of the greatest of all missionaries, and among numerous eulogies that of Sir Walter Scott is striking: "The most rigid Protestant, and the most indifferent philosopher, cannot deny to him the courage and patience of a martyr, with the good sense, resolution, ready wit and address of the best negotiator that ever went upon a temporal en1bassy." He was born in Spanish Navarre, at the castle of Xavier, near Pamplona, in 1506 (his mother-tongue was Basque), the youngest of a large family, and he went to the University of Paris in his eighteenth year. He entered the college of St Barbara and in 1528 gained the degree of licentiate. Here it was that he met Ignatius Loyola and, though he did not at once submit himself to his influence, he was one of the band of seven,

474

ST FRANCIS XAVIER

[December 3

the first Jesuits, who vowed themselves to the service of God at Montmartre in 1534. With them he received the priesthood at Venice three years later and shared the vicissitudes of the nascent society until, in 1540, St Ignatius appcinted him to join Father Simon Rodriguez on the first missionary expedition it sent out, to the East Indies.

They arrived at Lisbon about the end of June, and Francis went immediately to Father Rodriguez, who was lodged in a hospital in order to attend and instruct the sick. They made this place their ordinary dwelling, but catechized and instructed in the town, and were taken up all Sundays and holidays in hearing confessions at court, for the king, John III, had a high regard for these religious; so much so that eventually Rodriguez was retained by him at Lisbon. St Francis was obliged to stay there eight months: "the king has not yet made up his mind whether he will send us to India, because he thinks we should serve our Lord as well in Portugal as there", he wrote .to St Ignatius at Rome. Before he at last sailed, on his thirty-fifth birthday, April 7, 1541, the king delivered to him briefs from the pope in which Francis Xavier was constituted apostolic nuncio in the East. The king could not prevail on hiln to accept any gifts except some clothes and a few books. N or would he consent to have a servant, saying that " the best means to acquire true dignity is to wash one's own clothes and boil one's own pot, unbeholden to anyone". He had two companions to the Indies, Father Paul of Camerino, an Italian, and Francis Mansilhas, a Portuguese who was not yet in orders, of whom St Francis wrote that he had " a larger store of zeal, virtue and simplicity than of any extraordinary learning", in his lively farewell letter to St Ignatius.

St Francis was accommodated on the ship which carried Don Martin Alfonso de Sousa, a governor of the Indies who went with five ships to take up his post.

The admiral's vessel contained crew, passengers, soldiers, slaves and convicts, whom Francis considered as committed to his care. He catechized, preached every Sunday before the mast, took care of the sick, converted his cabin into an infirmary, and all this though suffering at first seriously from sea-sickness. There were all sorts among the ship's company and passengers; Xavier had to compose quarrels, quell complaints, check swearing and gaming, and remedy other disorders. Scurvy broke out, and there was no one but the three Jesuits to nurse the sick. It took them five months to get round the Cape of Good Hope and arrive at Mozambique, where they wintered. They continued to hug the east coast of Africa and called at Malindi and Socotra, from whence it took them two months to reach Goa, where they arrived on May 6, 1542, after a voyage of thirteen months (twice the then usual time). St Francis took up his quarters at the hospital to await the arrival of his companions, who were following in another ship.

The Portuguese had been established in Goa since 1510 and there was a con­ siderable Christian population, with churches, clergy, secular and regular, and a bishop. But among very many of these Portuguese, ambition, avarice, U&ury and debauchery had extinguished their religion: the sacraments were neglected, there were not four preachers and no priests outside the walls of Goa; when slaves were atrociously beaten, their masters counted the blows on the beads of their rosaries. * â&#x20AC;˘ Fr H. J. Coleridge, s.J., in his biography of Xavier, remarks justly that: "There has probably never yet been a zealous European missionary in any part of the heathen world in which' Christians from his own country have been settled, or which they have occasionally visited for purposes of commerce, who has not found among them the worst enemies to his

475

December 3]

THE LIVES OF Tl--IE SAINTS

'The scandalous behaviour of the Christians, who lived in direct opposition to the gospel which they professed and by their lives alienated the infidels from the faith, ¡Nas like a challenge to Francis Xavier and he opened his mission with them, instructing them in the principles of religion and forming the young to the practice of virtue. Having spent the morning in assisting and comforting the distressed in the hospitals and prisons--both alike filthy and foul-he walked through the streets ringing a bell to summon the children and slaves to catechism. They gathered in crowds about him, and he taught them the creed and prayers and Christian conduct. He offered Mass with the lepers every Sunday, preached in public and to the Indians, and visited private houses: the sweetness of his character and his charitable concern for his neighbours were irresistible to many. One of the nlost troublesome disorders was the open concubinage of Portuguese of all ranks with Indian women, which was aggravated by the fewness of women of their own religion and race in Goa. 1'ursellini, who wrote the first published Life of St Francis in 1594, gives a vivid account of his combating this by n1ethods which commend themselves alike to Christian morality, comnlon sense, human instincts and tactful dealing. For the instruction of the very ignorant or simple he versified the truths of religion to fit popular tunes, and this was so successful that the practice spread till these songs were being sung everywhere, in the streets and houses and fields and workshops.

After five months of this St Francis was told that on the Pearl Fishery coast, \vhich extends from Cape Comorin to the isle of Manar, opposite Ceylon, there \vere people called Paravas, who to get the protection of the Portuguese against the Arabs and others had been" baptized, but for \vant of instruction still retained their superstitions and vices. Xavier went to the help of these people, who" just knew that they were Christians and nothing more"-the first of thirteen repetitions of this torrid and dangerous journey. Under every difficulty he set himself to learn the native language and to instruct and confirm those who had been already baptized, especially concentrating on teaching the rudiments of religion to the children. Then he preached to those Paravas to whom the name of Christ was till that time unknown. So great were the multitudes he baptized that sometimes by the bare fatigue of administering the sacrament he was scarcely able to move his arms, according to the account which he gave to his brethren in Europe. * The Paravas \vere a low-caste people, and St Francis had a different reception and very little success among the Brahmans; at the end of twelve months he had converted only one. I t seems certain that at this time God \\-1rought a number of miracles of healing through him.

St Francis, as always, came before the people as one of themselves. His food \vas that of the poorest, rice and water; he slept on the ground in a hut. And God work. No exception can be made as to this lamentable truth in favour of Catholic nations: Spaniards, Frenchmen, Portuguese have as much to answer for in this respect as Dutchmen and Englishmen."

In a note on this subject, quoting an illustrative complaint by a Protestant writer about converts to his religion in North America, Alban Butler says with his usual courteous charity: "It is hoped that there is more exaggeration than truth irt [this com­ plaint] ", and adds of the quotation, " This remark is Ineant not as a reproach to any, but as a caution to all." â&#x20AC;˘ From a very long letter of January 15, 1544. of great importance in waking Europeans up to foreign missions and their needs, It was indeed outspoken, written from the depths of Xavier's great heart.

ST FRANCIS XAVIER

[December 3

visited him with interior delights: "I am accustomed", he says, " often to hear one labouring in this vineyard cry out to God, ' Lord, give me not so much joy in this life; or, if in thy mercy thou must heap it upon me, take me all together to thyself'." Soon he was obliged to return to Goa to get help, and returned to the Paravas with two Indian priests and a lay-catechist, and Francis Mansilhas, whom he stationed in different centres. To Mansilhas he wrote a series of letters that are some of the most revealing of all he ever wrote for the understanding of his spirit amid the difficulties with which he had to contend. The sufferings of native people at the hands both of heathen and Portuguese became " a permanent bruise on my soul". When an Indian servant was abducted he wrote, " Would the Portuguese be pleased if one of the Hindus were to take a Portuguese by force and carry him up country? The Indians must have the same feelings." 8t Francis was able to extend his activities to Travancore; here his achievements have been rather exaggerated by some writers, but village after village received him with joy, and after baptizing the inhabitants he wrote to Father Mansilhas telling him to come and organize the' converts.· As elsewhere, he enlisted the help in this of the children (who doubtless thought it great fun), and used them as auxili­ aries to the catechists to teach to others what they had just learned themselves.

His difficulties were increased by the misfortunes of the Christians of Comorin and Tuticorin, who were set upon by the Badagas from the north, who robbed, massacred and carried them into slavery. Xavier is said on one occasion to have held off the raiders by facing them alone, crucifix in hand. He was again handi­ capped by the Portuguese, their local commandant having his own secret dealings with the Badagas. But when this man had himself to take refuge from them, 8t Francis wrote in haste to Mansilhas, " Go at once to his help, I beseech you, for the love of God". But for the tireless efforts of 8t Francis it looks as if the Paravas would have been exterminated. They for their part received the Catholic faith so firmly that no oppression or persuasion has ever been able to remove it.

The ruler of Jaffna, in northern Ceylon, hearing of the progress of the faith in his island of Manar, slew six hundred Christians there.t The governor, Martin de 80usa, ordered an expedition to punish this massacre and it was to fit out at N egapatam, whither 8t Francis went to join it; but the officers were diverted from their purpose and so Francis instead made a journey on foot to the shrine of 8t Thomas at Mylapore, where there was a small Portuguese settlement to be visited.

Many incidents are related of him during these travels, especially of his conversion of notorious sinners among the Europeans by the gentle and courteous way in which he dealt with them; other miracles too were ascribed to him. From Cochin in 1545 he sent a long and very outspoken letter to the King of Portugal giving an account of his mission. He speaks of the danger of those who had already been gathered into the Church falling back into their former state, " scan­ dalized and scared away by the many grievous inluries and vexations which they suffer-especially from your Highness's own servants. . . . For there is danger that when our Lord God calls your Highness to His judgement that your Highness may hear angry words from Him: 'Why did you not punish those who were your subjects and owned your authority, and who were enemies to me in India? ' " • There had, of course, been some Christians on the Malabar coast of India for perhaps a thousand years. Cf. December 2 I, St Thomas. t It is said that some of the converts had destroyed the shrines of idols and so incurred the wrath of the raja.

477

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 3]

He speaks in the highest terms of Don Miguel Vaz, vicar general of Goa, and im足 plores the king to send him back to India with plenary powers when he shall have made his report in Lisbon. "As I expect to die in these Indian regions and never to see your Highness again in this life, I beg you, my lord, to help me with your prayers, that we may meet again in the next world, where we shall certainly have more rest than here." He repeats his praise of Miguel in a letter to Father Simon Rodriguez, and is more explicit about the Europeans: "People scarcely hesitate to think that it cannot be wrong to do that which can be done easily. . . . I am terrified at the number of new inflexions which have been added to the conjugation of that miserable verb ' to rob'."

In the spring of 1545 St Francis set out for Malacca, on the Malay peninsula, where he spent four months. It was then a large and prosperous city, which Albuquerque had captured for the Portuguese in 1511, and its life was peculiarly licentious. Anticipating the manners of a later age adult girls went about the place in men's clothes, without the excuse of being engaged on men's work. Francis was received with great reverence and cordiality, and his efforts at reform met \yith some success. For the next eighteen months his movements are difficult to follow, but they were a time of great activity and interest, for he was in a largely unknown world, visiting islands, which he refers to in general as the Moluccas, not all of which are now identifiable. He preached and ministered at Amboina, Ternate, Gilolo, and other places, in some of which there were Portuguese merchants and settlements. In this mission he suffered much, but from it wrote to St Ignatius: " The dangers to which I am exposed and the tasks I undertake for God are springs of spiritual joy, so much so that these islands are the places in all the world for a man to lose his sight by excess of weeping: but. they are tears of joy. I do not remember ever to have tasted such interior delight and these consolations take from me all sense of bodily hardships and of troubles from open enemies and not too trustworthy friends." When he got back to Malacca he passed another four months there, ministering to a very unsatisfactory flock, and then departed for India again. But before he left he heard about Japan for the first time, from Portuguese merchants and from a fugitive Japanese named Anjiro. Xavier arrived back in India in January 1548.

The next fifteen months were spent in endless travelling between Goa, Ceylon and Cape Comorin, consolidating his work (notably the " international college" of St Paul at Goa) and preparing for an attempt on that Japan into which no European had yet penetrated. He wrote a final letter to King John III, on behalf of an Armenian bishop and a Franciscan friar; but also saying, " Experience has taught me that your Highness has no power in India to spread the faith of Christ, while you have power to take away and enjoy all the country's temporal riches", and more to the like effect. In April 1549, St Francis set out, accompanied by a Jesuit priest and a lay-brother, by Anjiro-now Paul-and by two other Japanese converts. On the feast of the Assumption following they landed in Japan, at Kagoshima on Kyushu.

At Kagoshima they were not molested, and St Francis set himself to learn Japanese (so far from having the gift of tongues with which he is so often credited, he seems to have had difficulty in learning new languages). A translation was made of a simple account of Christian teaching, and recited to all who would listen. The fruit of twelve months' labour was a hundred converts, and then the authorities began to get suspicious and forbade further preaching. So, leaving Paul in charge

47 8

[December 3

ST FRANCIS XAVIER

of the neophytes, Francis decided to push on further with his other companions and went by sea to Hirado, north of Nagasaki. Before leaving Kagoshima he visited the fortress of Ichiku, where the" baron's" wife, her steward and others accepted Christianity. To the steward's care Xavier recommended the rest at departure; and twelve years later the Jesuit lay-brother and physician, Luis de Almeida, found these isolated converts still retaining their first fervour and faith­ fulness. At Hirado the missionaries were well received by the ruler (daimyo) , and they had more success in a few weeks than they had had at Kagoshima in a year. These converts St Francis left to Father de Torres and went on with Brother Fernandez and a Japanese to Yamaguchi in Honshu. Francis preached here, in public and before the daimy but the missionaries made no impression and were treated with scorn.

Xavier's objective was Miyako (Kyoto), then the chief city of Japan, and having made a month's stay at Yamaguchi and gathered small fruit of his labours except affronts, he continued his journey with his two companions. It was towards the end of December, and they suffered much on the road from heavy rains, snow and the difficult country, and did not reach their destination till February. Here Francis found that he could not procure an audience of the mikado (who in any case was but a puppet) without paying a sum of money far beyond his resources; more­ over, civil strife filled the city with such tumult that he saw it to be impossible to do any good there at that time and, after a fortnight's stay, they returned to Yama­ guchi. Seeing that evangelical poverty had not the appeal in Japan that it had in India, St Francis changed his methods. Decently dressed and with his com­ panions as attendants he presented himself before the daimyo as the representative of Portugal, giving him the letters and presents (a musical-box, a clock and a pair of spectacles among them) which the authorities in India had provided for the mikado. The daimyo received the gifts with delight, gave Francis leave to teach, and provided an empty Buddhist monastery for a residence. When thus he obtained protection, Francis preached with such fruit that he baptized many in that city.

Hearing that a Portuguese ship had arrived at Funai (Oita) in Kyushu St Francis set out thither. Among those on board was the traveller Fernao l\lendez Pinto, who left a full and amusing account of the ceremony and display with which the Portuguese surrounded the visit of their admired Xavier to the local daimyo; unfortunately Mendez Pinto was a highly fanciful writer, and no reliance can be put on what he tells us of Xavier's activities and adventures at Funai. Francis had decided to make use of this Portuguese ship to revisit his charge in India, from whence he now hoped to extend his mission to China. r-rhe Japanese Christians were left in charge of Father Cosmas de Torres and Brother Fernandez: they nUlubered perhaps 2000 in all, the seed of many martyrs in time to come. In spite of some unhappy experiences in their country, it was the opinion of St Francis Xavier that "among all unbelievers, no finer people will be found than the Japanese" · Francis found that good progress had been made in India, but there were also many difficulties and abuses, both among the missionaries and the Portuguese authorities, that urgently needed his attention. These matters he dealt with, lovingly and very firmly and thoroughly. At the end of four months, on April 25, 1552, with a Jesuit priest and a scholastic, an Indian servant and a young Chinese to interpret (but he had forgotten his own language), he sailed eastward again; he

°,

479

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 3]

was awaited at Malacca by Diogo Pereira, whom the viceroy in India had appointed ambassador to the court of China.

At Malacca St Francis had to treat about this embassy \vith Don Alvaro da Ataide da Gama (a son of Vasco da Gama), the maritime authority there. This Alvaro had a personal grudge against Diogo Pereira, whom he flatly refused to let sail either as envoy or as private trader. Nothing could move him, even \vhen St Francis informed him of the brief of Pope Paul III by which he was appointed apostolic nuncio. By impeding a papal legate Alvaro incurred excommunication, but Francis had unfortunately left the original document behind at Goa. At length Don Alvaro conceded that Xavier should go to China in Pereira's ship, but without its owner; and to this Pereira most nobly agreed. When the project of the embassy thus failed Francis sent his priest companion to Japan, and eventually was left with only the Chinese youth, Antony. With him he hoped to find means to land secretly in China, the country closed to foreigners. In the last week of August 1552 the convoy reached the desolate island of Sancian (Shang-chwan), half-a-dozen miles off the coast and a hundred miles south-west of Hong Kong.

From here by one of the ships St Francis sent off letters, including one to Pereira, to whom he says: "If there is one man in the whole of this undertaking who deserves reward from divine Providence it is undoubtedly you; and you will have the whole credit of it." Then he goes on to tell the arrangements he has made: he had with great difficulty hired a Chinese merchant to land him by night in some part of Canton, for which Xavier had engaged to pay him, and bound himself by oath that nothing should ever bring him to confess the name of him who had set him on shore. Whilst waiting for his plans to mature, Xavier fell sick and, when the Portuguese vessels were all gone except one, was reduced to extreme want: in his last letter he wrote, " It is a long time since I felt so little inclined to go on living as I do now". The Chinese merchant did not turn up.

A. fever seized the saint on Novenlber 2 I, and he took shelter on the ship; but the motion of the sea was too much for him, so the day following he requested that he might be set on shore again, which was done. The vessel was manned chiefly

by Don Alvaro's men who, fearing to offend their master by common kindness to Xavier, left hi!l1 exposed on the sands to a piercing north wind, till a friendly Portuguese merchant led him into his hut, which afforded only a very poor shelter.

He lay thus in a high fever, being bled with distressing results, praying ceaselessly between spasms of delirium. He got weaker and weaker till at last, in the early morning of December 3, which fell on a Saturday, " I [Antony] could see that he was dying and put a lighted candle in his hand. Then, with the name of Jesus on his lips, he rendered his soul to his Creator and Lord with great repose and quietude". St Francis was only forty-six years old, of which he had passed eleven in the East. His body was laid in the earth on the Sunday evening: four people were present, the Chinese Antony, a Portuguese and two slaves. * At the suggestion of somebody from the ship the coffin had been packed with lime around the body in case it should later be desired to move the remains. Ten weeks and more later the grave and the coffin were opened. The lime being removed from the face, it was found quite incorrupt and fresh-coloured, the rest of the body in like manner whole and smelling only of lime. The body was accordingly carried into the ship and brought to Malacca, where it was received

* Details of the saint's last days were given by the faithful Antony in a letter to Manuel Teixeira, who printed it in his biography of Xavier.

480

[December 3

ST LUCIUS

with great honour by all, except Don Alvaro. At the end of the year it was taken away to Goa, where its continued incorruption was verified by physicians; there it still lies enshrined in the church of the Good Jesus. St Francis Xavier was canonized in 1622, at the same time as Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Philip Neri and Isidore the Husbandman-indeed a noble company.

I t was long believed that the letters and other biogr~phical materials, collected in two bulky volumes under the title Monumenta Xaveriana (1899-1912), left nothing more to be discovered about St Francis Xavier. Certainly these documents, critically edited at Madrid in the Monumenta historica Societatis Jesu, are of supreme importance. They supply a much more reliable text than any previously available of the letters written by the saint, as well as a faithful transcript of the depositions of the witnesses in the process of beatification, with other early materials of value. But Father George Schurhammer, working in the archives at Lisbon, and making use at Tokyo of native Japanese sources previously unexplored, has been able to collect a good deal more information, which supplements and sometimes corrects the data hitherto accepted as reliable. His definitive edition, with Fr J. Wicki, of the invaluable letters appeared in two volumes in 1943-44. Fr Schurhammer issued a short life of the saint, Der heilifJe Franz Xaver (1925), of which a free translation was published in America, and he supplemented this with a number of important articles and monographs, dealing with various special aspects of the great missionary's career. Most of these contribu­ tions will be found noticed in the Analecta Bollandiana,o see especially vol. xl (1922), pp. 17 1- 178, vol. xliv (1926), pp. 445-446, vol. xlvi (1928), pp. 455-456, vol. xlviii (1930), pp. 44 1-445, vol. I (1932), pp. 453-454, vol. liv (1936), pp. 247-249, and vol. lxix (1951), pp. 438-441. Under the first of these references will be found a valuable article of Fr Schurhammer himself dealing with the relics of St Francis Xavier, and in the fourth a notice of his brochure Das kirchliche Sprachproblem in der japanischen Jesuitenmission (1928). In this it is shown that the belief that St Francis was able to converse and hold disputations in the Japanese tongue is quite unfounded. The legend grew up out of the imagination and ignorance of two unreliable witnesses in the beatification process. Unfortunately, as Fr Astrain in his official Historia de la Compania de Jesus was among the first to point out, many of the miraculous incidents recorded in early biographies of the saint must now be rejected as mythical. For this reason no great reliance can be placed on the life by O. Tursellini, or on that by Bouhours, which last was translated into English by the poet John Dryden. In modern times much critical material concerning the family of Xavier, etc., was collected by Fr L. J. M. Cros before the publication of the Monumenta Xaveriana.

This appeared as Documents nouveaux (1894) and also in his S. Franfois Xavier, sa vie et ses lettres, 2 vols. (19°°); but the most trustworthy French life is that by Father A. Brou, 2 vols. (1912). In English, Fr H. J. Coleridge published a very sympathetic biography in 2 vols. (1886), though unfortunately he had not access to a critical text of the saint's letters. For this reason the more compendious life by Mrs Yeo (1933) is preferable from the point of view of accuracy. In the opinion of Fr James Brodrick, Edith A. Stewart's Life of St Francis Xavier (1917), "except tor occasional small ebullitions of Protestant sentiment, is more scholarly and satisfying than any English Catholic biography of the saint"; that may have been so in 1940 when he wrote, but the definitive life in English is now Fr Brodrick's own splendid work, St Francis Xa1.-'ier (1952). The work of St Francis in Japan and India is discussed by Fr Thurston in The Month for February and March 1905 and December 1912. For the key-note and spirit of Xavier's apostolate see the sketch

by Fr C. C. Martindale, In God's Army, vol. i (1915); and on his reputed miracles the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xvi (1897), pp. 52-63.

ST LUCIUS

(No DATE)

IN the earliest part of the Liber Pontificalis, compiled about the year 530, it is stated under the name of Pope St Eleutherius (c. 1 74-c. 189) that: "He received a letter from Lucius, a British king, to the effect that he might be made a Christian by his order", i.e. asking that the pope would send missionaries. This statement was copied by St Bede the Venerable into his Chronicon in almost the same words. In

481

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

his Ecclesiastical History he writes: "In the year of our Lord's incarnation 156, Marcus Antoninus Verus [i.e. Marcus Aurelius], the fourteenth from Augustus, was made emperor, together with his brother, Aurelius Comrnodus [i.e. Lucius Verus]. In their time, while the holy man Eleuther presided over the Roman church, Lucius, King of Britain, sent a letter to him asking that by his mandate he might be made a Christian. He soon obtained his religious request, and the Britons kept the faith as they had received it, pure and in its fullness, in peace and quietness until the time of the Emperor Diocletian." Bede makes a third reference to the conversion of Lucius in the recapitulation at the end of the Ecclesiastical History, the three references being inconsistent only in the chronology, which he tries to adjust.

The original simple statement underwent amplification and embroidery in the course of time. N ennius retells the story with improvements in the ninth century, celticizing Lucius into Lleufer Mawr (" Great Splendour ") and calling the pope " Eucharistus "; the Liber Landavensis gives the names of Lucius's envoys to Rome as Elvinus and Meduinus, an editor of William of Malmesbury adding those of the missionaries sent, Faganus and Deruvianus. Geoffrey of Monmouth adds more: the whole country having been converted to the faith, Lucius divided it into provinces and bishoprics; he says he died and was buried at Gloucester.

John Stow, in his survey of sixteenth-century London, writes of St Peter's on Cornhill: "There remaineth in this church a table whereon it is written, I kno\v not by what authority, but of a late hand, that King Lucius founded the same church to be an archbishop's see metropolitan and chief church of his kingdom, and that it so endured the space of four hundred years unto the coming of Augustine the monk." In another place he quotes from Jocelin of Furness the names of the apocryphal archbishops, fourteen in number, up to 587. "Thus much out of Jocelin of the archbishops, the credit whereof I leave to the judgement of the learned", he observes.

The Welsh version of the Lucius legend is that Lleufer Mawr (Lleirwg, etc.) sent Elfan and Medwy (Elvinus and lVleduinus) to Pope St Eleutherius, who baptized them, made Elfan a bishop, and sent them back with two missionaries, Dyfan and Ffagan (Deruvianus and Faganus). Lleufer Mawr thereupon founded the church of Llandaff, " which was the first in the isle of Britain ", and gave legal privileges to all "rho should become Christians. He put a bishop at Llandaff and also there founded schools. * The legend of the church of Chur in the Grisons claims that Lucius of Britain was an apostle of the Rhaetian Alps, and a bishop and martyr to boot. A further Swiss extravagance about him is that he was baptized

by St Timothy, the disciple of St Paul, who is represented as coming into Britain from Gaul. The Roman l\lartyrology records his death at Chur on this day and says he was the first king of the Britons to accept the Christian faith, in the time of the holy Pope Eleutherius, but calls him neither bishop nor martyr.

The only point of importance about St Lucius is the fundamental one, whether the statement of the Liber Pontificalis copied by St Bede is a record of historical fact or not. For long it was unquestioned; by the time Alban Butler wrote there were already some objections raised, but in his opinion they did not deserve notice.

* Lleirwg, Dyfan, Ffagan and Medwy are all found in church dedications and place足 names around Llandaff. To travellers on the W.R. South Wales line Saint Fagans is a familiar station just beyond Cardiff. They presumably were church-founders who flourished some time during the first six centuries, but nothing whatever is known about them.

482

[December 3

SSe CLAUDIUS AND HILARIA

It is not antecedently impossible that a local British chief (Lucius was certainly not a king) of the late second century should want to be a Christian and should send all the way to Rome for the purpose; but it is extremely improbable, and considerably better evidence than a single unsupported statement of three hundred and fifty years later is required to substantiate it. Moreover, we have not the slightest indication that the mission of Pope Eleutherius to Lucius was known to Gildas, Gregory the Great, Augustine of Canterbury, Colman of Lindisfarne, Aldhelm or others, to all of whom in one way or another such a fact of history would have had a practical use and importance. "The judgement of the learned)) , to which Stow deferred, as represented by such scholars as Mgr Duchesne, Dr Plummer, Mgr Kirsch and Dom Leclercq, strongly supports the view that the story is a fable; if it be such, the very existence of our St Lucius remains to be proved.

The genesis of the legend is another matter. It has been asserted that It was deliberately invented to demonstrate the Roman origin of British Christianity and the submission of the Britons to the discipline of the Holy See, in view of the controversies between the old British church and the new English church. But in Rome the story first appears before these dissensions began, and in England we first hear of it, in the pages of Bede, after they were for all practical purposes finished; there is no evidence that the Lucius legend was used in controversy by a pro-Roman side until after the Reformation. Its continued use by controver足 sialists on either side is to be deplored. A solution of the problem, by no means certain but plausible and interesting, has been advanced by Harnack. He points out that King Abgar IX of Edessa was named Lucius Aelius Septimius Megas Abgarus, and that he is known to have become a Christian about the time St Eleutherius was pope. Moreover, Birtha (i.e. the fortress) of Edessa is found latinized in ancient documents as Britium Edessenorum. In transcribing a record of the conversion of Lucius Abgar, "Hic accepit epistulam a Lucio, in Britio rege . . .)) might easily be misread as, or wrongly emended to, " a Lucio, Brittanio rege ".

The story of Lucius and Pope Eleutherius has been discussed in some detail by Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, pp. ccxxii seq.; by Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, vol. i, pp. 25-26; by C. Plummer in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii, p. 14; J. P. Kirsch in Catholic Encyclo足 pedia, vol. v, p. 379; A. Harnack in the Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin Academy for 1904, pp. 906-916, and cf. Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. xxii, pp. 767-77属; and by H. Leclercq in DAC., vol. ix, cc. 2661-2663. No one of these shows any disposition to regard the episode as historically trustworthy. On the supposed Deruvianus and Faganus see J. Armitage Robinson, Two Glastonbury Legends (1926). Cf. also V. Berther in ZeitschrtJt fur Schwei足 zerische Kirchengeschichte, vol. xxxii (1938), pp. 20-38, 103-124.

SSe

CLAUDIUS,

HILARIA

AND

THEIR

COMPANIONS,

MARTYRS

(DATE UNKNOWN)

" AT Rome ", says the Roman Martyrology, "the passion of the holy martyrs, Claudius the tribune, Hilaria his wife, their sons Jason and Maurus, and seventy soldiers. Of these, the Emperor N umerian ordered Claudius to be tied to a huge stone and flung headlong into the river, and his sons with the soldiers to be punished by the capital sentence. The blessed Hilaria, however, a little while after burying the bodies of her sons, was taken by the heathen while praying at their tomb, cast into prison, and passed to the Lord." This Claudius was the tribune of

48 3

THE LIVES OF TI-IE SAINTS

December 3]

that name who, according to the legend of SSe Chrysanthus and Daria, was con­ verted by the sight of their constancy under torture, as has been related herein under October 25. Other figures in the same legend, namely, SSe Diodorus the priest, Marian the deacon and their companions, who were slain while com­ memorating the martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria, are named in the martyrology on December I. Nothing whatever is known of these martyrs beyond the casual and quite untrust­ worthy reference in the passio of Chrysanthus and Daria. 'rhere was indeed an Hilaria whose resting-place on the Via Salaria is nlentioned by pilgrims of the seventh century, but she seems to belong more properly to December 31, and she is not there associated with any Claudius. See Delehaye, Etude sur Ie iegendier romain, pp. 53-54, and also his CMH., p. 17.

ST CASSIAN,

MARTYR

(A.D. 298 ?)

WE are told that when St Marcellus the Centurion (October 30) was tried before Aurelius Agricolan at Tangier, the proceedings were being taken down by a shorthand-writer named Cassian. But when he heard Agricolan reply to the devotion of Marcellus by a sentence of death, he vowed with an imprecation he would go no further, and threw his stilus and tablets to the ground. l-\mid the astonishment of the staff and the laughter of Marcellus, Aurelius Agricolan trembling leapt from the bench and demanded why he had throvv'l1 do\vn his tablets with an oath. St Cassian answered that ,l\gricolan had given an unjust sentence. To avoid further contradiction, Agricolan ordered him to be at once removed and cast into prison. " Now the blessed martyr Marcellus had laughed because, having kno",oledge of the future through the Holy Spirit, he rejoiced that Cassian would be his com­ panion in martyrdom. On that very day amid the eager expectation of the city blessed Marcellus obtained his desire. After no long interval, namely, on I)ecem­ ber 3, the worshipful Cassian was brought to the same place in which l\1arcellus had been tried and, by almost the same replies and statements as holy Marcellus had made, merited to obtain the victory of martyrdom, through the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong honour and glory, excellency and power for ever and ever. Amen."

On the writer's explanation of the laughter of St Marcellus it may be pern1itted to comment that the fate of the bold Cassian could be anticipated by the natural powers, without any charisma of prophecy; it is more likely that the prisoner laughed at the spectacle, amusing enough, of the deputy-prefect leaping from his bench in rage at being openly defied by his own clerk in his o\vn court.

Although the story of the martyrdom of 5S. Marcellus and Cassian is included by Ruinart among his Acta sincera, Father Delehaye, in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xli (1"923), pp, 257­ 287, gives no countenance to the idea that what we now read is a shorthand report of what happened. The substance of the account, however, may be accepted. But as regards Cassian, while the fact that a martyr of that name was honoured at 1'angier in lVlauretania is confirmed by Prudentius, who in his Peristephanon (iv, 45) writes, " Ingeret Tingis sua Cassianum ", nevertheless Delehaye gives (loc. cit. pp. 276-278) strong reasons for thinking that ignorance 2bout him was made up for by associating him with l\Iarcellus, wh05e acta were known. See further Monceaux, Hist. it'll. de I'Afrique chritienne, vol iii, pp. I I9-121 ; Leclercq in DAC., vol. xi, c. 1140; and the note under St Marcellus on October 30 herein, to which a further reference to Anaiecta Bollandiana must be added, vol. lxiv (1946), pp.

281-282.

[December 4

ST PETER CHRYSOLOGUS

ST SOLA

(A.D. 794)

THIS saint was an Englishman who, following St Boniface into Germany, became his disciple and was ordained priest by him. Called by the Holy Ghost to a solitary life, by the advice of his master he retired to a lonely place first at Fulda and then on the banks of the River Altmuhl, near Eichstatt, where in a little cell he passed his days in penance and prayer. After the martyrdom of St Boniface, the holy brothers \Villibald the bishop and Winebald the priest encouraged him to make his cell the religious centre of the surrounding country. For this purpose there was bestowed on him a piece of land, and here later grew up the abbey of Solnhofen, which was a dependency of Fulda. St Sola departed to the Lord on December 3, 794, and a chapel was built where his oratory had stood. The name Sola (Sualo) is still preserved in that of the village of Solnhofen, west of Eichstatt.

There is a Latin life of St Sola which was written in 835, forty years after his death,

by Ermanrich, a monk of Ellwangen, who obtained his information from a servant of the saint and other surviving contemporaries. The Latin of this biography was revised in the following year by a certain Master Roland. The best text is that printed in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xv, pt 1, pp. "151-163, but it is also to be found in Mabillon, vol. iii, pt 2, pp. 429-438. The saint's curious name has led to his cult being popularly identified with certain carvings and inscriptions which are really monuments of an ancient sun-worship.

See E. lung, German. Gritter (1922), pp. 218-231 ; and Kunstdenkmiiler d. Bez. Weissenburg (1932), pp. 4 26-437.

4 : ST

PETER CHRYSOLOGUS, ARCHBISHOP OF RAVENNA, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

(c. A.D. 450)

TPETER was a native of Imola, a town in eastern Emilia. He was taught the sacred sciences and ordained deacon by Cornelius, bishop of that city, of whom he speaks ,vith veneration and gratitude. Under his prudent direction Peter was formed to virtue from his youth and understood that to com足 mand his passions and govern himself was true greatness and the only means of ~earning to put on the spirit of Christ. The raising of this holy man to the epis足 copate was, according to his legend, in the following circumstances. Archbishop John of Ravenna dying about the year 433, the clergy of that church, with the people, chose a successor, and entreated Bishop Cornelius of Imola to go at the head of their deputies to ROlne to obtain the confirmation of Pope St Sixtus III. Cornelius took with him his deacon, Peter, but the pope (who, it is said, had been commanded so to do by a vision the foregoing night of St Peter and 8t Apollinaris, the martyred first bishop of Ravenna) refused to ratify the election already made, and proposed Peter, as the person designed by Heaven in his vision, for that post; after some opposition the deputies acquiesced. The new bishop, after receiving episcopal consecration, was conducted to Ravenna and there received with some unwillingness. It is very unlikely that St Peter became archbishop of Ravenna in any such fashion. The Emperor Valentinian III and his mother, Galla Placidia, then resided in that city, and St Peter enjoyed their regard and confidence, as well as the trust of the successor of Sixtus, St Leo the Great. When he entered on his charge he found large remains of paganism in his diocese, and abuses had crept in among the faithful; the total extirpation of the one and the reformation of the other were the fruit of his labours. At the town of Classis, then the port of

S

485

December 4}

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Ravenna, St Peter built a baptistery, and a church dedicated in honour of St Andrew. He employed an extensive charity and unwearied vigilance on behalf of his flock, which he fed assiduously with the bread of life, the word of God. We have many of his discourses still extant: they are all very short, for he was afraid of fatiguing the attention of his hearers.

A life of .St Peter was written in the ninth century, but it tells little about him, and Alban Butler made up for lack of information by quoting from the saint's sermons. These are, he says, " rather instructive than pathetic; and though the doctrine is explained in them at large we meet with little that quickens or affects much. Neither can these discourses be regarded as models of true eloquence, though his reputation as a preacher ran so high as to procure him the surname of Chrysologus, which is as much as to say, that his speeches' were of gold, or excellent."

Nevertheless, if the manner is not all that it might be (though elsewhere Butler says his words are " fit, simple and natural "), the matter of the discourses of St Peter Chrysologus caused him to be declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIII in 1729: a fact which Butler does not mention. St Peter is said to have preached with such vehemence that he sometimes became speechless from excitement. In his sermons he strongly recommends frequent communion, that the Eucharist, the body of Christ, may be the daily bread of our souls. Eutyches, the heresiarch, having been condemned by St Flavian in 448, addressed a circular letter to the most distinguished prelates in the Church in his own justification.

St Peter, in the answer which he sent, told him that he had read his letter with sorrow, for if the peace of the Church causes joy in Heaven, divisions beget grief; that the mystery of the Incarnation, though inexplicable, is delivered to us by divine revelation and is to be believed in the simplicity of faith. He therefore exhorted him to acquiesce and not dispute. In the same year St Peter received St Germanus of Auxerre with great honour at Ravenna, and after his death there on July 3 I officiated at his funeral and kept his hood and sackcloth shirt as relics.

St Peter Chrysologus did not long survive him. Being forewarned of approaching death, he returned to Imola, his own country, and there gave to the church of St Cassian some precious altar vessels. After counselling great care in the choice of his successor, he died at Imola on December 2, probably in 450, an~ was buried in St Cassian's church.

The unsatisfactory Latin life, which is the only source of information we possess regarding the personal activities of this doctor of the ChuI:ch, was written as late as the year 836 by Abbot Agnellus: it forms a section of his history of the archbishops of Ravenna. The text has been twice over printed by Migne, PL., vol. Iii, cc. 13-20 and vol. cvi, cc. 553-559, but by far the most satisfactory edition is that of Testi Rasponi, Codex pont'ljicalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, vol. i (1924). A short biographical sketch of value is that of D. L. Baldisserri, San Pier Crisologo (1920); and there are German monographs by H. Dapper (1867) and G. Bohmer (1919). The question of the sermons attributed to Chrysologus has been much discussed. See in particular Mgr Lanzoni, I sermoni di S. Pier Crisologo (1909); F. J. Peters, Petrus Chrysologus als Homilet (1918); Baxter in Journal of Theol. Studies, vol. xxii (1921), pp. 250-258; and D. De Bruyne in the same, vol. xxix (1928), pp. 362-368; as aho C. Jenkins in Church Quarterly Review, vol. ciii (1927), pp. 233-259. In the Revue Benedictine, vol. xxiii (1906), pp. 489-500, Abbot Cabrol gives reasons for attributing the Rotulus of Ravenna to St Peter Chrysologus, but this is doubtful. The sermons which have been edited under路 the name of Chrysologus may most conveniently be consulted in Migne, PL., vol. Iii, but in the volume Spicilegium Liberianum published by F. Liverani in 1863, pp. '125-203, will be found some further sermons and collations of new manuscripts.

Consult also Bardenhewer, Geschichte dn- altkirchlichen Literatur, vol. iv, pp. 604-610.

486

ST BARBARA

ST BARBARA,

[December 4 VIRGIN AND MARTYR

(DATE

UNKNOWN)

" IN the time that Maximian reigned there was a rich man, a paynim, which adored and worshipped idols, which man was named Dioscorus. This Dioscorus had a young daughter which was named Barbara, for whom he did make a high and strong tower in which he did keep and close this Barbara to the end that no man should see her because of her great beauty. Then came many princes unto the same Dioscorus for to treat with him for the marriage of his daughter, which went anon unto her and said: 'My daughter, certain princes be come to me which require me for to have thee in marriage, wherefore tell to me thine intent and what will ye have to do.' Then St Barbara returned all angry towards her father and said: , My father, I pray you that ye will not constrain me to marry, for thereto I have no will nor thought.' . . . After this he departed thence and went into a far country where he long sojourned. " Then St Barbara, the handmaid of our Lord Jesu Christ, descended from the tower for to come to see [a bath-house which her father was having built] and anon she perceived that there were but two windows only, that one against the south, and that other against the north, whereof she was much abashed and amarvelled, and demanded of the workmen why they had not made no more windows, and they answered that her father had so commanded and ordained.

Then St Barbara said to them: 'Make me here another window.' . . . In this same bath-house was this holy maid baptized of a holy man, and lived there a certain space of time, taking only for her refection honeysuckles and locusts, following the holy precursor of our Lord, St John Baptist. This bath-house is like to the fountain of Siloe, in which he that was born blind recovered there his sight. . . . On a time this blessed maid went upon the tower and there she beheld the idols to which her father sacrificed and worshipped, and suddenly she received the Holy Ghost and became marvellously subtle and clear in the love of Jesu Christ, for she was environed with the grace of God Almighty, of sovereign glory and pure chastity. This holy maid Barbara, adorned with faith, surmounted the Devil, for when she beheld the idols she scratched them in their visages, despising them all and saying: 'All they be made like unto you which have made you to err, and all them that have faith in you'; and then she went into the tower and worshipped our Lord. " And when the work was full performed her father returned from his voyage, and when he saw there three windows he demanded of the workmen: 'Wherefore have ye made three windows?' And they answered: 'Your daughter hath commanded so.' Then he made his daughter to come afore him and demanded her why she had do make three windows, and she answered to him and said : , I have done them to be made because three windows lighten all the world and all creatures, but two make darkness.' Then her father took her and went down into the bath-house, demanding her how three windows give more light than two.

And St Barbara answered: 'These three windows betoken clearly the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the which be three persons and one very God, on whom we ought to believe and worship.' Then he, being replenished with fury, incontinent drew his sword to have slain her, but the holy virgin made her prayer and then marvellously she was taken in a stone and borne into a mountain on which two sh~pherds kept their sheep, the which saw her fly. . . . And then her father took her by the hair and drew her down from the mountain and shut her fast in 4 87

Dece11;lber 4]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

prison. . . . Then sat the judge in judgement, and when he saw the great beauty of Barbara he said to-her: 'Now choose whether ye will spare yourself and offer to the gods, or else die by cruel torments.' St Barbara answered to him: 'I offer myself to my God, Jesu Christ, the which hath created Heaven and earth and all other things. . . ..' " When she had been beaten, and comforted by a vision of our Lord in her prison, and again scourged and tortured, " the judge commanded to slay her with the sword. And then her father, all enraged, took her out of the hands of the judge and led her up on a mountain, and St Barbara rejoiced in hastening to receive the salary of her victory. And then when she was drawn thither she made her orison, saying: 'Lord Jesu Christ, which hast formed Heaven and earth, I beseech thee to grant me thy grace and hear my prayer for all they that have memory of thy name and my passion; I pray thee, that thou wilt not remember their sins, for thou knowest our fragility.' Then came there a voice down from Heaven saying unto her: 'Come, my spouse Barbara, and rest in the chamber of God my Father which is in Heaven, and I grant to thee that thou hast required of me.' And when this was said, she came to her father and received the end of her martyrdom, with St Juliana. But when her father descended from the mountain, a fire from Heaven descended on him, and consumed him in such wise that there could not be found only ashes of all his body. This blessed virgin, St Barbara, received martyrdom with St Juliana the second nones of December. A noble man called Valentine buried the bodies of these two martyrs, and laid them in a little town in which many miracles were showed in praise and glory of God Almighty."

So is told in Caxton's version of the Golden Legend the story of one of the most popular saints of the middle ages. There is, however, considerable doubt of the existence of a virgin martyr called Barbara and it is quite certain that her legend is spurious. There is no mention of her in the earlier martyrologies, her legend is not older than the seventh century, and her cultus did not spread till the ninth.

Various versions differ both as to the time and place of her martyrdom: it is located in Tuscany, Rome, Antioch, Heliopolis and Nicomedia. St Barbara is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and that she is invoked against lightning and fire and, by association, as patroness of gunners,路 military architects, and miners is attributed to the nature of the fate that overtook her father. The tower repre颅 sented in her pictures and her directions to the builders of the bath-house have caused her to be regarded as a patroness of architects, builders and stonemasons; and her prayer before her execution accounts for the belief that she is an especial protectress of those in danger of dying without the sacraments.

There seems to be general agreement that the story of St Barbara was first written in Greek, but there is no evidence of any early local cultus which would rescue it from being classed in the category of pure romance. We have numerous versions in Latin, Syriac and other languages. See, for the Syriac, Mrs Agnes Smith-Lewis, Studia Sinaitica, vols. ix and x (1900), where an English translation is available. C/. also W. Weyh, Die syrische Barbara Legende (1912). The Latin texts are pretty fully represented in N. MUller, Acta S. Barbarae (1703), and in P. Paschini, Santa Barbara, note agiografiche (1927). The oldest Greek recension is perhaps that printed by A. Wirth, Danae in christlichen Legenden (1892), pp. 105-111, though the editor is disposed to exaggerate the dependence of such legends

* During the war of 1914-18 there was a tendency among gunners to put themselves under the patronage of St Joan of Arc. Somebody noticed that during the process of her rehabilita~ion the Duke of Alen~on stated that Ahe excelled in the tactical disposition of artillery.

ST MARUTHAS

[December 4

as that of St Barbara on pagan Inythology. A good deal has been written concerning her inclusion among the fourteen Nothelfer and the very wide range of interests for which her patronage is invoked. See, for example, T. Marchesi, Santa Barbara protectrice dei can足 nonieri (1895); Peine, St Barbara, die Schutzheilige der Bergleute und der Artillerie (1896) ; J. Moret, Ste Barbe, patronne des mineurs (1876); but no very satisfactory explanation has ever been suggested. In an English calendar (Bodleian MS., Digby 63) of the late ninth century St Barbara's name is already found und~r December 4. In art her most distin~tive emblem is a tower; see Kilnstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 112-115. The folk-lore connected with St Barbara has been dealt with by Bachtold-SHiubli, Handwiirterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. i, ce. 905-910.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

(c.

A.D.

215)

AFTER devoting several pages to the life and writings of this eminent father of the Church, Alban Butler says: "Pope Benedict XIV in his learned dissertation, addressed in the form of a brief to the King of Portugal, prefixed to the edition of the Roman Martyrology made in 1 748, excellently shows that there is not sufficient reason for ever inserting his name in the Roman Martyrology. The authority of certain private calendars and the custom of sacred biographers suffices for giving his life in this place." The title Saint is still sometimes accorded to Clement in popular usage, but the deliberate and formal exclusion of his name from the Roman Martyrology is a decisive reason for omitting him from any ordinary collection of saints' lives.

ST MARUTHAS, BISHOP OF MAIFERKAT

(c. A.D. 415)

THIS holy prelate was an illustrious father of the Syrian church at the end of the fourth century, and was bishop of Maiferkat, between the Tigris and Lake Van near the border of Persia. He compiled the " acts" of the martyrs who suffered in that kingdom during Sapor's persecution, and brought the relics of so many to his episcopal city that it came to be called Martyropolis. Under that name it is still a titular see. St Maruthas wrote several hymns in praise of the martyrs, which are sung by those who use Syriac in the church offices. Yezdigerd having ascended the Persian throne in 399, St Maruthas made a journey to Constantinople in order to induce the Emperor Arc.adius to use his interest with the new king in favour of the distressed Christians. He found the court much occupied with the affairs of St John Chrysostom, and we learn incidentally that Maruthas was very fat: so much so that when at a meeting of bishops he accidentally trod on the foot of Cyrinus of Chalcedon the skin was broken; the wound gangrened and eventually Cyrinus died of it. In a letter to St Olympias, Chrysostom in exile speaks of writing twice to Maruthas and asks her to see the bishop for him. "I need him badly for Persian affairs. Try and find out from him what success he has had in his mission. If he is afraid to write himself, let him tell me the result through you. Do not delay a day in trying to see him about this."

While at the Persian court on behalf of Theodosius the Younger, St Maruthas endeavoured to get the king's good will towards his Christian subjects. The historian Socrates says that his knoviledge of medicine enabled him to cure Yezdi足 gerd of violent headaches, and that the king from that time called him " the friend of God". The Mazdeans, fearing that the prince would be brought over to the Christian faith, had recourse to a trick. They hid a man underground in the temple, who, when the king came to worship, cried out, " Drive from this holy 4 89

December 4]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

place him who impiously believes a priest of the Christians". Yezdigerd hereupon was going to dismiss the bishop, but Maruthas persuaded him to go again to the temple, assuring him that by opening the floor he would discover the imposture.

The king did so, and the result was that he gave Maruthas leave to build churches wherever he pleased. Whatever the circumstances may have been, Yezdigerd certainly favoured St Maruthas, and the bishop set himself to restore order among the Persian Christians.

The organization then established lasted until the Mohammedan invasion in the seventh century, but the Christian hope-and Mazdean fear-that Yezdigerd I would be the " Constantine of Persia" was not fulfilled. St Maruthas's work of pacification was undone by the violence of Abdas, Bishop of Susa, who towards the end of his reign provoked the king to a renewal of persecution. By this time Maruthas was probably dead, for he predeceased Yezdigerd, who died in 420.

The Roman Martyrology says of St Maruthas that he was " renowned for miracles and earned honour even from his adversaries". He is accounted one of the chief Syrian doctors after St Ephraem because of the writings with which he is credited.

A certain amount of information regarding this saint is furnished by the historian Socrates, as also by Bar Hebraeus, and in the Liber Turris of Mari ibn Sulaiman. There is a later biography preserved in Armenian, which was printed with a Latin translation by the Mekhi­ tarists at Venice in 1874, and has been translated into English, with valuable comments, in the Harvard Theological Review for 1932, pp. 47-71. See also Bardenhewer, Geschichte d. altkirchl. Literatur, vol. iv, pp. 381-382; Labourt, Le Christianisme dans l'Empire perse (1904), pp. 87-9°; W. Wright, Syriac Literature (1894), pp. 44-46; Oriens Christianus for 1903, pp. 384 seq. ; Harnack in Texte und Untersuchungen, vol. xix (1899), and the long footnote in Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, vol. ii, pp. 159-166. A doubt exists whether Maruthas was really the author of several of the works attributed to him.

ST ANNO, ARCHBISHOP OF COLOGNE

(A.D. 1075)

ANNO'S father was a Swabian nobleman whose family had seen 'better days, and he hoped that in a secular career his very capable son would be able to restore the fortunes of the house. But a relative who was a canon of Bamberg induced Count Walter to entrust Anno to him, and the young man was set to learn in the episcopal school of Bamberg, of which he ultimately became master. Anno had good looks and manner as well as learning and eloquence, and came to the notice of the Emperor Henry III, who made him one of his chaplains and in 1056, when he was forty-six years old, promoted him to be the archbishop of Cologne and chancellor of the empire. The appointment did not give general satisfaction, especially to the citizens of Cologne, who did not think that Anno's family was good enough: but the magnificence of his consecration ceremonies was beyond criticism. In the same year Henry III died and the government passed nominally into the hands of his widow, Agnes of Poitou, as regent for the minor Henry IV. She was a gentle woman without political acumen and incapable of vigorous action, her policy alienated the greater nobles, and at Whitsuntide in 1062, Henry was kidnapped and taken up the Rhine to Cologne. Anno now became guardian and regent, but had to join with himself Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, and when the young king came of age he got rid of Anno altogether and gave Adalbert a free hand. In the schism raised against Pope Alexander II by the antipope Cadalus ofParma, Anno was the leader of the German bishops who supported Alexander; but this did not save him from being summoned to Rome for the alleged holding of relations with

49°

ST ANNO

[December 4

Cadalus, and again, two years later, to answer a charge of simony. Of this he cleared himself; but he was not free from that favouring of his relatives which was a fault of bishops of his time, and benefices were freely given to his nephews and partisans, on one occasion with disastrous results for the beneficiary.

This was when Anno nominated his nephew Conrad, or Cuno, to the see of Trier. The appointment caused great dissatisfaction among the clergy and people of Trier; they had a canonical r.ight to elect their own bishop, and valued the privilege. To their remonstrances Anno turned a deaf ear, although he must have realized that his power was waning. He sent Conrad with the Bishop of Speyer and an armed escort to take possession of his see. The malcontents had found a strong and unscrupulous leader in Count Theodoric, who though a layman claimed "'a prescriptive title to bestow investiture upon the archbishop of Trier.

As Conrad and his party were passing through Biedburg, they were set upon by the count's men-at-arms. The Bishop of Speyer, after being plundered, was allowed to escape with his life, but Conrad was hurried off amid many indignities to a castle where he was imprisoned, and then thrown over the battlements. As he was found to be still breathing, he was stabbed to death. His body was found by a peasant hidden under leaves in a wood, and it was subsequently translated to the abbey of Tholey, where Conrad received cultus as a martyr.

Nearly the whole of the life of Anno is a record of events belonging to the troubled political history of the age, much of it rather disedifying now that great prelates no longer have ex officio to take an active part in civil government and all sorts of public affairs. Nevertheless he did not allow secular duties and activities to make him neglect the welfare of the diocese that was his first charge; and, particularly when the emperor's dislike of him was in the ascendant and he was driven from public life, he prosecuted its reform with something of the energy and thoroughness of his contemporaries St Peter Damian and Cardinal Hildebrand, and by the same means. The monasteries were rigorously reformed and new ones were established by St Anno himself; he rebuilt or enlarged a number of churches; he purged public morals; and he distributed large sums in alms. But, though he built up the position of his see and was a generous benefactor of its flock, St Anno never succeeded in overcoming the opposition of Cologne itself, which grievously disturbed his closing years. At length he retired to the abbey of Siegburg which he had founded, and spent the last twelve months of his life there in rigorous penance, dying on December 4, 1075. It is known that, moving among many of most corrupt morals, St Anno was notable for his purity and austere standards, and it is for the virtue of his private life that he is numbered among the saints.

There is a long but unsatisfactory Life of St Anno compiled by a monk of Siegburg in the twelfth century. It has been edited with useful annotations by R. Kopke in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xi, pp. 463-514. The text in Migne, PL., vol. cx1iii, is in many ways in­ adequate. The early German metrical life, known as the Annol£ed, is interesting as a monument of vernacular speech in the early twelfth century, but it is of no value as an historical source. See also Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, vol. iii, pp. 712 seq. ; A. Stonner, Heilige der deutschen Friihzeit (1935), vol. ii; and DHG., vol. iii, cc. 395-396.

On the canonization of St Anno consult Brackman in the Neues Archiv, vol. xxxii (1906), pp. 151-165. An account of his nephew St Conrad was written by Theodoric of Verdun before 1089; it is edited by G. Waitz in MGH., Scrz'ptores, vol. viii, pp. 212-219. The life printed in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. i, has been interpolated with sundry mythical incidents.

49 1

December 4]

ST OSMUND,

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS BISHOP OF SALISBURY

(A.D. 1099)

A DOCUMENT of the late fifteenth century states that Osmund was the son of Henry, Count of Seez, and Isabella, a half-sister of William the Conqueror. He certainly came to England with the Normans, and succeeded Herfast as chancellor of the realm. In 1°78 King William nominated him bishop of Salisbury, and he was consecrated by Lanfranc of Canterbury. Salisbury at this time was no more than a fortress built over the hill which we now call Old Sarum.· Osmund's prede­ cessor, Herman, had begun the building of a cathedral, which was finished by Osmund and consecrated in 1°92. Five days later it was struck by lightning and very badly damaged. The foundations of Osmund's church are clearly marked on the hill, which is now a playground for the children of the suburbs of New Sarum. He constituted a cathedral chapter on the Norman model, with a clergy school presided over by the chancellor, and the canons were bound to residence and the choral celebration of the Divine Office. This example had considerable importance, for some of the most important cathedrals of England were at that time served by monks and not by the secular clergy. St Osmund was one of the royal commissioners for the Domesday survey, and he was one of the principal ecclesiastical lords present at Old Sarum in 1086 when the Domesday Book was received and the nobles swore that they would be faithful to the king against all other men. In the struggle between William Rufus and St Anselm concerning investitures St Osmund considered Anselm unnecessarily intransigent. At the Council of Rockingham, when Anselm made so moving an appeal to his fellow bishops, he openly sided with the king. But just before his death he submitted his judgement, and asked pardon of St Anselm for his opposition.

St Osmund's name is commonly associated with work in the field of divine worship. In his time, and for long after, very many dioceses of western Christen­ dom had their own liturgical "uses", variations from that of Rome, and the liturgical books of the church of Salisbury were in a state of considerable confusion.

Osmund reduced them to order, and drew up regulations for the celebration of Mass and the Divine Office and the administration of the sacraments uniformly throughout his diocese. Within a hundred years these revised offices-" according to the use of the Distinguished and Noble Church of Sarum "-had been adopted in most of the English and Welsh dioceses; they were introduced into Ireland in 1172, and into Scotland about 1250. They remained the ordinary use in England till after the reign of Queen Mary, when they were gradually superseded by the reformed Roman rite of Pope St Pius V; this change was made at the Douay college in 1577.t For this work of liturgical revision a considerable collation of manuscripts was necessary, and St Osmund collected together an extensive library at his cathedral. He is said to have written a Life of St Aldhelm, his predecessor in the ecclesiastical government of west Wessex, for whose memory he had a great reverence; he assisted at the enshrining of his relics at Malmesbury.

• Peter of Blois called the church and castle the" ark of God shut up in the temple of Baal". Centuries later William Cobbett, for other reasons, refers to the deserted site as the "Accursed Hill ". t There was even some talk of reviving the Sarum use after the re-establishment of an ordinary hierarchy in England in 1850. At the present day the Mass and offices proper to the Dominicans most resemble those used in this country up to the end of the sixteenth century. The distinctive customs in the English Catholic marriage service are a survival from the Sarum rituale.

49 2

ST BERNARD OF PARMA

[December 4

For all his public activities St Osmund seemed to have spent a good deal of time quietly in his cathedral city, where he liked both to copy and to bind books in the library. vVilliam of Malmesbury praises the purity of his life, and remarks that he was neither ambitious nor avaricious, the besetting temptations of great prelates in those days. He was known for his rigour and severity to\vards penitents, but was no harder to others than he was to himself. He died in the night of December 3-4, 1099, and was buried in his cathedral. Though Richard Poore, Bishop of Salisbury, petitioned for his canonization in 1228 it was not until 1457 that it took place-the last canonization of a saint from England before l\1ore and Fisher in 1935. In the same year his relics were translated from Old Sarurn to the Lady-chapel of the new cathedral in the new city of Salisbury. 'The shrine \vas destroyed by Henry VIII (Alban Butler says the relics were re-interred in the same chapel); a slab from the tomb, inscribed \vith the date MXCIX, now lies in one of the bays of the nave.* St Osmund is named in the Roman l\1artyrology, and his feast is observed in the dioceses of Westminster, Clifton and Plymouth.

There is no early life of St 03mund, though a fragment of some such biography seems to be preserved in I\1S. Cotton, T'itus, F. III at the British l\!Iuseum. For what \ve know of the saint \ve are dependent mainly on William of lVlalmesbury and Simeon of Durham.

A number of documents connected \vith the canonization are still in existence; they consist mostly of accounts of miracles and they were published from the originals in the muniment­ room of Salisbury Cathedral by the \,\;Tiltshire Record Society in 19°1, under the editorship of I-I. R.l\laJden. See also W. H. Frere, The Sarum Use, 2 vols. (1898 and 1901) ~ \V. H. R. Jones, The Register oj St Osmund, 2 vols. (1883-84), in the Rolls Series; Bradsha\v and Wordsworth, Lincoln Cathedral Statutes, vol. iii, pp. 869 seq.; the DNB., vol. xlii, pp 313-315; and the Diet. of Eng. Church History, pp. 427-428. A short life, \vritten from the Anglican standpoint, \vas published by W. J. 'rorrance in 1920.

ST BERNARD,

BISHOP OF PARMA AND CARDINAL

(A.D. IT33)

BERNARD \\Tas a member of the great Uberti family at Florence and gave up brilliant secular prospects to become a monk with the Vallumbrosans, an austere congrega­ tion founded not long before by St John Gualbert. Bernard became in time abbot of the monastery of San Salvia, then abbot general of the \\Thole order, and Bd Urban II created him cardinal and entrusted him with legatine duties. Parma at this time \vas shockingly disturbed by schisms, caused first by Bishop Cadalus, who set himself up as antipope, and then by other bishops \\Tho supported another antipope, Guibert of Ravenna, himself a Parmesan. In the midst of these disorders St Bernard was appointed bishop of Parma and consecrated by Pope Paschal II. He was a zealous supporter of the true pope and upholder of the reforms of St Gregory VII, especially in the matter of simony, which \vas rampant in his diocese.

He was consequently driven from his see in 11°4 by the followers of the antipope Maginulf, who laid hands upon him at the very altar, and was in exile for t\\'o years.

At a time when many bishops not only accepted but sought temporal po\ver, St Bernard was distinguished by resigning that which had been received hy his predecessors in the see of Parma, and he never forgot, or allowed others to forget, that he had been trained as a monk in the school of perfection; and so far as was compatible with his duties he retained all his monastic observances. \Vhen in

* Here on a SUITlmer'S day in 1924 the present \vriter heard a verger inform a group of visitors that: "1'his is all that remains of the tomb of Bishop OSIllund, \vho compiled the first English Prayer Book." \Vhile appreciating that people must be addressed in terms that they can understand, it is pardonable to think that this statement was somewhat misleading.

493

December 5]

TIlE LIVES OF TI-IE SAINTS

1127 the leaders of the Hohenstaufens proclaimed Conrad as German king against Lothair II, St Bernard protested and was again obliged to flee from Parma.

Lothair came to Rome to be crowned emperor in 1133 and St Bernard died at Parma in the same year on December 4.

In the supplement to MGH., vol. xxx, pt II, fasc. 2 (1929), the two more important Latin Lives of St Bernard of Parma, formerly printed is the Chronica Parniensia, have been re-edited by P. E. Schramm from better texts; see on this the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xlviii (1930), p. 4 14. A biography on popular lines is that of 1\1. Ercolani, S. Bernardo degli Uberti (1933). Of the older biographies the best is that of I. Affo (1788); but see also D. Munerati in Rivista di scienze storiche, vol. iii (1906), pp. 79-86 and 257-264; the Dictionnaire de Spiritualite, vol. i, C. 1512; and DHG., vol. ix, c. 718. The general political situation is well set out by R. Davidsohn in vol. i, pp. 289 seq. of his Geschichte von Florenz and in pp. 66 seq. of his Forschungen zur alt. Gesch. Florenz.

5 : ST SABAS,

ABBOT

(A.D. 532)

T SABAS, one of the most renowned patriarchs of the monks of Palestine, was born at lVlutalaska in Cappadocia, not far from Caesarea, in 439. His father was an officer in the army and, being obliged to go to Alexandria, took his wife with him and recommended his son Sabas, with the care of his estate, to his brother-in-law. This uncle's wife used the child so harshly that, when he was eight, he ran away, went to another. uncle, called Gregory, brother to his father, hoping there to live more happily. Gregory, having the care of the child, de足 manded also the administration of the property, whence lawsuits and animosity arose between the two uncles. Sabas, who was of a quiet disposition, was upset at these discords and ran away again, this time to a monastery near Mutalaska.

His uncles, after some years, ashamed of their conduct, agreed together to take him out of his monastery, restore him his property, and persuade him to marry.

But young Sabas had tasted the bitterness of the world and the sweetness of the yoke of Christ, and his heart was so united to God that nothing could draw him from his new home. Though he was the youngest in the house he surpassed the rest in fervour and virtue. Once, when he was serving the baker, this monk put his wet clothes into the oven to dry, and then, forgetting them, put in fire. Seeing him much troubled for his clothes Sabas crawled into the oven and fetched them out through the flames, without hurt. When Sabas had been ten years in this monas足 tery, being eighteen years old, he went to Jerusalem to learn from the example of the solitaries of that country. He passed the winter in a monastery governed by the holy abbot Elpidius, whose monks desired earnestly that he would fix his abode among them. But his love of silence and retirement made him prefer the manner of life practised by St Euthymius, who even when a monastery was built for him refused to abandon his complete solitude. When Sabas asked to be accepted as his disciple St Euthymius judged him too young for an absolutely solitary life, and therefore recommended him to his monastery below the hill, about three miles distant, which was under the conduct of St T'heoctistus.

Sabas consecrated himself to God with new fervour, working all day and watching in prayer a good part of the night. As he was very energetic and strong he assisted his brethern in their heavier work, and himself prepared the wood and water for the house. Once he was sent by his abbot as companion to another monk on business to Alexandria. There his parents met him and desired him to accept

S

494

ST SABAS

[December 5

his father's profession and influence in the world. When he refused they pressed him at least to accept money for his necessaries; but he would only take three pieces of gold, and those he gave to his abbot on his return. When he was thirty years of age he obtained leave of St Euthymius to spend five days a week in a remote cave, which time he passed in prayer and manual labour. He left his monastery on Sunday evening carrying wtih him bundles of palm-twigs, and came back on Saturday morning with fifty baskets which he had made, imposing upon himself a task of ten a day. St Euthymius chose him and one Domitian for his companions in his yearly retreat in the desert of Jebel Quarantal, where Christ is said to have made His forty-days' fast. 1"1hey entered this solitude together on the octave-day of the Epiphany and returned to their monastery on Palm Sunday. In the first retreat Sabas collapsed in the wilderness, almost dead with thirst. St Euthymius, moved with compassion, prayed to Christ that He would take pity on His fervent soldier, and it is said that, striking his staff into the earth, a spring gushed forth; of which Sabas. drinking a little, he recovered his strength. After the death of Euthymius, St Sabas retired further into the desert towards Jericho.

Four years he spent in this wilderness in total separation from intercourse with men, when he chose a new dwelling in a cave on the face of a cliff, at the bottom of which ran the brook Cedrone He was obliged to hang a rope down the descent to hold on by when going up and down. Wild herbs which grew on the rocks were his food, till certain countrymen brought him sometimes a little bread, cheese, dates and other things which he might want. Water he had to fetch from a considerable distance.

After Sabas had lived here some time many came to him, desiring to serve God under his direction. He was at first unwiIling to consent, but eventually founded a new laura.:Me One of the first difficulties was shortage of water. But having noticed a wild ass pawing and nosing at the ground, Sabas caused a pit to be dug at the spot, where a spring was discovered which subsisted to succeeding ages. The number of his disciples was increased to one hundred and fifty, but he had no priest in his community, for he thought no religious man could aspire to that dignity without presumption. This provoked some of the monks to com足 plain of him to Sallust, Patriarch of Jerusalem. The bishop found their grievances groundless, except that the want of a priest was a trouble in the community. He therefore compelled Sabas to receive ordination at his hands in 491. The abbot was then fifty-three years old. rfhe reputation of his sanctity drew persons from remote countries to his laura, and among the monks were Egyptians and Armenians, for whom special arrangements were made so that they could celebrate the offices in their own tongues. After the death of the saint's father, his mother came to Palestine and served God under his direction. With the money which she brought he built two hospitals, one for strangers and another for the sick; and also a hospital at Jericho and another monastery on a neighbouring hill. In 493 the patriarch of Jerusalem established St Sabas as archimandrite over all the monks of Palestine who lived in separate cells (hermits), and St Theodosius of Bethlehem over all who lived in community (cenobites).

St Sabas, after the example of St Euthymius, left his disciples every year, or oftener, and at least passed Lent without being seen by anyone, and this was

* A laura was a monastery in which the monks lived in separate huts or cells, grouped around the church without any definite plan. The maximum of solitude possible in such circumstances was aimed at.

495

TIlE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 5]

one of the things complained of by some of his monks. i\.s they got no sympathy from the patriarch some sixty of them left the laura, and settled themselves in a ruined monastery at Thecua, where the prophet Amos \vas born. When he heard that these malcontents were in sore straits, St Sabas gave them supplies and repaired their church. He himself had been driven for a time from his own monastery by the factions therein, but returned at the command of St Elias, the successor of Sallust at Jerusalem. Among the stories told of St Sabas is that he once lay down to sleep in a cave that happened to be the den of a lion. When the beast came in it clawed hold of the monk's clothes and dragged him outside.

Nothing perturbed, Sabas returned to the cave and eventually reduced the lion to a considerable degree of friendliness. But it was still a rather troublesome companion, and at length Sabas told it that if it could not live with him in peace it had better go away. So the lion went away.

At this time the Emperor Anastasius was supporting the Eutychian heresy, and banished many orthodox bishops. In 5 I I the Patriarch Elias sent to him as deputies St Sabas, with other abbots, to endeavour to stop this persecution. Sabas was seventy years old when he undertook this journey to Constantinople. As he looked like some beggar the officers at the gate of the palace admitted the rest but stopped him. Sabas said nothing, but withdrew. vVhen the emperor had read the letter of the patriarch, in which great commendations were bestowed on Sabas, he asked where he was. The saint was sought, and at length found in a corner saying his prayers. Anastasius gave the abbots liberty to ask what they wanted for themselves; they presented their petitions, but Sabas had no request to make in his own name. Being pressed, he only begged that Anastasius would restore peace to the Church and not disturb the clergy. Sabas stayed the winter in Constan足 tinople, and often visited the emperor to argue against heresy. But Anastasius for all that procured the banishment of Elias of Jerusalem and put one John into his place. Whereupon St Sabas and other monks hastened to Jerusalem and persuaded the intruder at least not to repudiate the Council of Chalcedon. Sabas is said to have been with the exiled Elias at his death at AlIa on the Red Sea; in the following years he went to Caesarea, Scythopolis and other places, preaching the true faith, and bringing back many to orthodoxy and right living.

In his ninety-first year, at the request of Patriarch Peter of Jerusalem, St Sabas undertook a second journey to Constantinople, in connection \vith troubles arising out of the Samaritan revolt and its violent repression by the emperor. Justinian received him with honour and offered to endow his monasteries. Sabas gratefully replied that they stood not in need of such revenues so long as the monks should faithfully serve God. But he begged a remission of taxes in favour of the people of Palestine in consideration of what they had suffered on account of the Samaritans; that he would build a hospital at Jerusalem for pilgrims and a fortress for the protection of the hermits and monks against raiders; and that he would authorize further strong measures for the putting down of the Samaritans. All which things were granted. It happened one day, the emperor being busy despatching certain affairs of St Sabas, \vho was himself present, that \vhen it was the third hour the abbot went out to his prayers. His companion, Jeremy, said it was not well done to leave the emperor in this way. "My son", replied Sabas, " the emperor does his duty, and we must do ours.' , Very shortly after his return to his laura he fell sick, C;lnd the patriarch persuaded him to let himself be taken to a neighbouring church, where he served him with his own hands. The sufferings of Sabas were

49 6

ST CRISPINA

[December 5

very sharp, but God supported him under them in perfect patience and resigna足 tion. Finding his last hour approach, he begged the patriarch that he might be carried back to his laura. He appointed his successor, gave him instructions, and then lay four days in silence without seeing anyone, that he might concern himself with God alone. On December 5, 532, in the evening, he departed to the Lord, being ninety-four years old. His relics were venerated at his chief monastery until they were carried off by the Venetians.

St Sabas is one of the outstanding figures of eady monasticism, and his feast today is kept throughout the Church both in the East and the yVest; he is named at the preparation in the Byzantine Mass. The rrypikon of Jerusalern, setting out the rules for the recitation of the Divine ()ffice and carrying out of ceremonies, which is the norm in nearly all churches of the Byzantine rite, bears his name, as does a monastic rule; but his part in their composition is a matter of doubt. His chief monastery, called after him Mar Saba and sometimes distinguished as the Great Laura, still exists in a gorge of the Cedron, ten miles south-east of Jerusalem in the desert country towards the Dead Sea. Among its monks were St John Damascene, St John the Silent, St Aphrodisius, St Theophanes of Nicaea, St Cosmas of Majuma and St 1"'heodore of Edessa. After a period of ruin it was restored by the Russian government in 1840 and is now inhabited by monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church, whose life is not unworthy of the example of the holy founder. After St Catherine's on Mount Sinai (and perhaps Dair Antonios and Dair Boulos in Egypt) Mar Saba is the oldest inhabited monastery in the world, and the most remarkable; the wildness of its situation and grandeur of its fortress足 like buildings at least equal those of St Catherine's. St Sabas's spring still flows there, his palm-tree still bears stoneless dates, and the dark blue grackles that abound are called " his blackbirds", and are daily fed by the monks.

The Life of St Sabas, written in Greek by Cyril of Scythopolis, is one of the most famous and trustworthy of early hagiographical documents. The full text has to be sought either in Cotelerius, Ecclesiae Graecae Monumenta, vol. iii, pp. 220--376; or in Kyrillos 'Von Sky tho足 polis, ed. E. Schwartz (1939). Another biography, an adaptation attributed to the Meta足 phrast, has been printed by Kleopas Koikylides as an appendix to the two first volumes of the Greek review, .ZVea Sion (1906). The Life of St Sabas at a relatively early date was also translated into Arabic. On the chronolo.2Y of the life ~ee Loofs in Texte und Untersuchungen, vol. iii (dealing with Leontius of Byzantium), pp. 274-297; and on the literary and liturgical work ascribed to Sabas consult A. Ehrhard in the Kirchenlexikon, vol. x ( 1897), cc. 1434-1437, or his fuller article in the RiJ"mische QuartalschnJt, vol. vii ( 1893), pp. 31-79. An exhaustive and satisfactory account of Sabas himself and of his monastery was published in Greek by J. Phokylides at Alexandria in 1927. Cyril of Scythopolis had been impressed even as a boy by a casual meeting with St Sabas; he seems to have entered the monastery of St Euthymios in 544 and to have passed on to Mar Saba not long before his death in 558.

ST CRISPINA,

MARTYR

ST AUGUSTINE frequently mentions St Crispina as one well known in Africa in his time, and we learn from him that she ,vas a woman of rank, native of Thagara in Numidia, married, with several children, and worthy of estimation with such famous martyrs as St Agnes and St rThecla. During the persecution of Diocletian she was brought before the proconsul Anulinus at Theveste, charged with ignoring the imperial commands. When she came into court Anulinus asked: "Have you understood the meaning of the decree ? " Crispina replied: "I do not know what that decree is."

497

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

De6ember 5]

ANULINUS : It is that you should sacrifice to all our gods for the welfare of the emperors, according to the law given by our lords Diocletian and Maximian, the pious, Augusti, and Constantius, the most illustrious Caesar.

CRISPINA: I will never sacrifice to any but the one God and to our Lord Jesus Christ His Son, who was born and suffered for us.

ANULINUS: Give up this superstition and bow your head before our sacred gods.

CRISPINA: I worship my God every day, and I know no other.

ANULINUS : You are obstinate and disrespectful and you will bring upon yourself the severity of the law.

CRISPINA: If necessary I will suffer for the faith that I hold.

ANULINUS: Are you so vain a creature that you will not put away your folly and worship the sacred deities?

CRISPINA: I worship my God every day, and I know no other.

ANULINUS: I put the sacred edict before you for your observance.

CRISPINA: I observe an edict, but it is that of my Lord Jesus Christ.

ANULINUS : You will lose your head if you do not obey the emperors' commands.

All Africa has submitted to them and you will be made to do the same.

CRISPINA: I will sacrifice to the Lord who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all things that are in them. But I will never be forced to sacrifice to evil spirits.

ANULINUS: Then you will 1)ot accept those gods to whom you must give honour if you would save your life ?

CRISPINA: That is no true religion that forces the unwilling.

ANULINUS: But will you not comply, anq with bent head offer a little incense in the sacred temples ?

CRISPINA: I have never done such a thing since I was born, and I will not do it so long as I live.

ANULINUS: Do it, however, just to escape the penalty of the law.

CRISPINA: I do not fear what you threaten, but I fear the God who is in Heaven.

If I defy Him then shall I be sacrilegious and He will cast me off, and I shall not be found in the day that He comes.

ANULINUS : You cannot be sacrilegious if you abey the law.

CRISPINA : Would you have me sacrilegious before God that I may not be so before the emperors? No indeed! God is great and almighty: He made the sea and the green plants and the dry land. How can I consider men, the work of His hands, before Himself?

ANULINUS: Profess the Roman religion of our lords the unconquerable em足 perors, as we ourselves observe it.

CRISPINA: I know one only God. Those gods of yours are stones, things carved by the hands of men.

ANULINUS: You utter blasphemy. That is not the way to look after your own safety.

Then Anulinus ordered her hair to be cut off and her head shaved, exposing her to the derision of the mob, and when she still remained firm asked her: "Do you want to live? Or to die in agony like your fellows Maxima, Donatilla and Secunda? " CRISPINA: If I wanted to die and abandon my soul to loss and endless fire I should treat your demons in the way you wish.

498

ST NICETIUS OF TRIER

[December 5

ANULINUS: I will have you beheaded if you persist in mocking at our venerable gods.

CRISPINA: Thank God for that. I should certainly lose nlY head if I took to worshipping them.

ANULINUS: Do you then persist in your folly ?

CRISPINA: My God, who was and \vho is, willed that I be born. He brought me to salvation through the waters of baptism. And He is with me to stay my soul from committing the sacrilege that you require.

ANULINUS: Can we endure this impious Crispina any longer?

The proconsul ordered the proceedings that had taken place to be read over aloud, and he then sentenced Crispina to death by the sword. At which she exclaimed: "Praise to God who has looked down and delivered me out of your hands!" She suffered at Theveste on December 5, in the year 304.

The passio of this martyr is printed in Ruinart's Acta sincera, but a more critical text has been edited by P. Franchi de' Cavalieri in Studi e Testi, vol. ix (1902), pp. 23-31. Among similar records which are so often overlaid with ,vordy declamations and extravaganl: miracles, the document ranks high. Still, as Delehaye has pointed out, it cannot in its entirety be accepted as a faithful transcript of an official proces verbal preserved as a legal record Qf the trial. See the valuable comments in his Les passions des martyrs . .. (192r), pp. 110-114.

Consult also P. Monceaux in JWelanges Boissier (r903), pp. 383-389. From the Calendar of Carthage and the Hieron:ymianum, it seems probable that Crispina ,vas one of a group of other martyrs. There was a great basilica at Theveste (Tabessa) which probably contained her shrine; see Gsell, Les monuments antiques de I'Algerie, vol. ii, pp. 265-291.

ST NICETIUS, BISHOP OF TRIER

(c. A.D. 566)

SEVERAL distinguished men of his age, among them St Gregory of Tours and St Venantius Fortunatus, bear witness to the merits and deeds of Nicetius of Trier, \yho was the last Gallo-Roman bishop of Trier in the early days of Frankish domination in Gaul. He was born in Auvergne, with a corona of hair around his head, which was taken to be an omen of his future ecclesiastical state. He did in fact become a monk, and abbot of his monastery, apparently at Limoges, and attracted the notice of King Theoderic I. When the bishop of Trier, St Aprun足 culus, died, the clergy and people sent a deputation to the king asking him to appoint St Gallus of Clermont. Theoderic refused, and named Nicetius. Already while the royal officers \vere escorting the bishop elect to Trier, he showed what sort of a prelate he was going to be. When they halted for the night the escort turned their horses out in the fields of the neighbouring peasants. Nicetius ordered them to be removed, and the officers laughed at him. So Nicetius, threatening excommunication for those who oppressed the poor, drove the horses out himself. He had often preached to his monks from the text that" a man may fall in three ways-by thought, word and deed", and he did not fear to rebuke the irregularities of Theoderic and his son Theodebert. These princes perhaps profited by his reproofs, but Clotaire I was less tractable and, when St Nicetius excommunicated him for his crimes, unjustly banished him. The exile continued but a very short time, for Clotaire soon died and Sigebert, one of his sons who succeeded him in that part of his dominions, saw that Nicetius was restored.

The bishop assisted at several important synods at Clermont and elsewhere, and was indefatigable in restoring discipline to a diocese that had suffered much from civil disorders. He called in Italian workmen to rebuild his cathedral and fortified the city on the side of the Moselle. He founded a clergy-school, but

499

Deoember 5]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

himself was the best lesson to clerics and laity alike. Though he enjoyed the favour and protection of King Sigebert his zeal did not fail to raise more persecu足 tion, but no human respect or fear could make him abandon the cause of God. The extirpation of incestuous marriages cost him many difficulties, and he freely excommunicated the offenders. Several letters of St Nicetius have been preserved.

One, written about the year 561, was to Clodesindis, daughter to Clotaire I and married to Alboin, the Arian king of the Lombards. He tells her to endeavour to convert her husband to the orthodox faith, pointing out the miracles which were wrought in the Catholic Church through the relics of saints which the Arians themselves venerated. "Let the king", he says, " send messengers to the church of St Martin. If they dare enter it they will see the blind enlightened, the deaf recover their hearing, and the dumb their speech: the lepers and sick are cured and return home sound, as we see. . . . What shall I say of the relics of the holy bishops Germanus, Hilary and Lupus at which so many mi.racles are wrought that we cannot recount them all? The very demoniacs are forced to confess their virtue.

Do they do so in the churches of the Arians? They do not. One devil never exorcises another." Another letter is addressed to the Emperor Justinian, who had been led by his wife into a semi-Monophysism. In it Nicetius tells him that his lapse was bewailed throughout Italy, Africa, Spain and Gaul, and that did he not repudiate his errors he would be lost. St Nicetius died about the year 566, perhaps on October I, the day on which his feast is kept at Trier (today in the Roman Martyrology). lVlost of what we know of St Nicetius comes to us from the Vitae Patrum of Gregory of Tours. The saint's correspondence, or what survives of it, may best be studied in lVIGH., Epistolae, vol. iii, pp. 116, etc. See also Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. iii, pp. 37-38.

ST BIRINUS, BISHOP

OF

DORCHESTER

(c.

A.D.

650)

BIRINUS was a priest at Rome, probably of Germanic stock, who heard God's call to offer himself for the foreign missions arid was recommended by Pope Honorius I to go to the island of Britain. In preparation for his mission he was consecrated to the episcopate by Asterius, Bishop of Genoa. There is a story told that after he had gone aboard ship he found he had left behind a sort of pyx, given to him

by Honorius, containing the Corpus Domini. Though they were well out to sea he jumped overboard, waded ashore, recovered the pyx, and returned to the vessel足 without getting wet and to the great admiration of the sailors. St Birinus had announced to the pope that he intended to preach the gospel " in the inner parts, beyond the dominions of the English, where no other teacher had been before" ; perhaps he meant by this the Inidlands, or even the Britons of Wales and the marches, for he may ,veIl have been ignorant of the fact that they were Christians already. But on his arrival in England in 634 he found the West Saxons so sunk in idolatry that" he thought it better to preach the word of God there, rather than to go further looking for others to evangelize". One of the first fruits of his labours was the king himself of the West Saxons, Cynegils, at whose baptism St Oswald, King of Northumbria, was sponsor. The presence of Oswald in Wessex must have been a great help to St Birinus, and the two kings gave him the town of Dorchester* for his see. From thence he is said to have converted large numbers

* 1'he Dorchester in Oxfordshire, on the borders of lVlercia and Wessex, which had been an important Roman centre. It remained a bishopric till 1085, when it was merged in Lincoln.

500

[December 5

BD NICI--IOLAS OF SIBENIK

of people, so earning for himself the title of Apostle of Wessex. St Birinus died on December 3, about the year 650, and was buried at Dorchester; but thirty years later St Hedda translated his relics to Winchester. rrhe Roman Martyrology mentions St Birinus on the day of his death; his feast is kept in the dioceses of Birmingham and Portsmouth today.

Although there are several manuscript lives of St Birinus, telling substantially the same story with slight variations, we know little for certain of his history beyond what we learn from Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. On these manuscript lives, of which the earliest is not older than the eleventh century, consult Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue (Rolls Series) vol. i, pp. 235-239. See also the notes in Plummer's edition of Bede; Howorth, The Golden Days of Eng. Church Hist., vol. i, pp. 35-46; DCB., vol. i, p. 318; and Bright, Chapters of Eng. Church Hist. There is also a short Anglican life by J. E. Field, and another by T. Varley, St Birinus and Wessex (1934).

ST SIGIRAMNUS, OR CYRAN, ABBOT

(c.

A.D.

655)

SIGIRAMNUS belonged to a noble Frankish family of Berry, and went to the court of Clotaire II, whose cupbearer he became. He was drawn to the religious rather than secular life, but his father insisted on his being betrothed to the daughter of an influential nobleman and paid no attention to his son's wishes. At length Sigiramnus broke his engagement, withdrew from the court, and went to the church of St Martin at Tours where he received the tonsure and vowed himself to God. But his father was now bishop of Tours, and so Sigiramnus could not escape preferment even in his new state. He was a great friend of the poor, and distributed alms with such recklessness when he inherited his father's estate (and his father was no longer there to protect him) that he was for a time put under restraint as a lunatic. Sigiramnus then joined a bishop, an Irishman called Falvius (Failbe), who was on a pilgrimage to Rome. rrhey travelled during the vintage, and Sigiramnus would stop and do a day's ¥lork with the peasants and serfs in the vineyards, and in the evening gather them round him to hear the word of God. On his return to France he received a piece of land at Meobecq, amid the forests of Brenne, whereon he first built himself a "vooden cell and then founded a monas­ tery. rrhis prospered, and 8t Sigiramnus was able to found another, on the royal estate of Longoretum, whither he removed himself. Several striking stories are told of his sympathy with the hard-working peasants and with poor criminals; and his later years were darkened by the misfortunes of his former guardian and close friend. This man lived a more and more careless life, till at last he killed an inno­ cent man. Eleven days later he was dead himself, to the great grief of St Sigiramnus who had so often tried to bring him to his own ,yay of life.

There is a Latin life, written seemingly in the ninth or tenth century, but compiled, so the author insists, from an earlier text which had become almost illegible through age. It was printed by Mabillon from an incomplete copy, but the whole has since been recoveree, and it has been edited by the Bollandists in their Analecta, vol. iii (1884), pp. 378-407. The abbey at Longoretum, which later took the name of Saint-Cyran (du-J ambot) after its founder, was dissolved in 1712. John Duvergier de Hauranne, famous as one of the authors of the Jansenist faction, took his name" Abbe de Saint-Cyran" from this monastery, which he held in commendam.

BD NICHOI.JAS OF SIBENIK, MARTYR

(A.D.

1391)

NICHOLAS T AVILIC was born at Sibenik in Dalmatia during the first half of the fourteenth century and became a friar minor at Rivotorto, near Assisi. At this

5°1

Dec~mber

TIlE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

5]

time, and for long before, Bosnia and the Dalmatian coast was the prey of the mischievous sect of Bogomili or Paterines. Even bishops became infected, and the task of restoring Christian faith and life was entrusted to the Dominican and Franciscan friars. The last-named were particularly successful, and among their foremost missioners \vas Bd Nicholas, who laboured for twenty years in Bosnia.

At the end of that time he \vas sent to the Franciscan mission in Palestine, where he was thrown into prison and afterwards hacked to pieces, with three other friars, for publicly preaching to the lVlohammedans. He has ever since been venerated as a martyr and this cultus ,vas confirmed in 1888.

The surname of this martyr appears in several forms, e.g. Tavigli; Mazzara (Leggendario Francescano, 1680, vol. iii, p. 413) and others give it as Taulici. The Franciscan annalists with Wadding speak of this group of I11artyrs under the year 1391.

See also an article by

P. Durrien in the Archiv. Sor. Orient-latin for 1881, vol. i, pp. 539-546; but especially G. Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografJra della Terra Santa, vol. v (1927), pp. 282-295. There seems to be a reference to these martyrs in the almost contemporary Kirkstall Chronicle; cf. the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. xv (193 I), pp. 118-119.

BD BARTHOLOMEW OF MANTUA NOT much is kno\vn of the life of Bartholorne\v Fanti, \vho \\-Tas one of several notably holy Carmelites \vho adorned the city of lVlantua during the fifteenth century. He was born there in 1443, and joined the order when he was seventeen years old. After his ordination he sho\ved himself a preacher of great power, with a burning devotion to our I.Jord in the Blessed Sacrament: it ,vas by anointing v;ith oil taken from the lamp burning before the IVIost Holy that Bd Bartholome\v brought about several among his miracles of healing. At lVlantua he instituted for lay-people the confraternity of our Lady of lVlount Carmel, whose statutes and devotional exercises he drew up himself. Bartholomew is generally said to have been novice-master of the Carmelite poet, Bd Baptist Spagnuolo; Baptist speaks of him as a " most holy guide and spiritual master". Bd Bartholomew died on December 5, 1495, and his cultus was confirmed in 1909.

See C. de Villiers, Bibliotheca Carmelitana, vol. i, p. 243 ; II Monte Carmela, vol. i (1915), pp. 362-365; and II Mose iVo'vello ossia il B. Bartolomeo Fanti (1909).

BD JOHN ALMOND,

MARTYR

(A.D. 1612)

JOHN ALMOND was a Lancashire man, born at Allerton, near Liverpool, and he went to school at Much "'Toolton. While still a boy he went to Ireland and remained there till he entered the English College at Rheims and from thence was sent to Rome, where he completed his training by a brilliant disputation which called forth the praise of Cardinal Baronius, \vho presided. Mr Almond was ordained in 1598 and four years later was sent on the English mission. During his ten years' apostolate he " exercised a holy life with all sincerity, and a singular good content to those that knew him, and worthily deserved both a good opinion of his learning and sanctity of life; a reprover of sin, a good example to follow; of an ingenious and acute understanding, sharp and apprehensive in his conceits and answers, yet complete with modesty, full of courage, and ready to suffer for Christ that suffered for hin1 ".

Mr路 Almond was arrested in March 1 6 1 2, and examined by Dr John King, Bishop of London, upon which occasion he demonstrated very forcibly in several

502

ST NICHOLAS OF MYRA

[December 6

passages with his inquisitor the "acute understanding, sharp and apprehensive answers" of which the just-quoted panegyrist speaks. He was tendered the oath of allegiance in an impossible form and refused it, offering to swear, " I do bear in my heart and soul so much allegiance to King James (whom I pray God to bless now and evermore) as he, or any Christian king, could expect by the law of nature, the law of God, or the positive law of the true Church, be it which it will, ours or yours". This was not accepted, and he was committed to N ewgate. Nine months later he was tried for high treason as a seminary priest, and sentenced to death. He was drawn to Tyburn on December 5, 1612, and, after addressing the people, publicly answered the objections of a minister who stood by. Then he emptied his pockets, throwing their contents to the crowd, including three or four pounds in silver, complaining the while that the keeper of Newgate had not left him much. "One hour overtaketh another", he said, "and though never so long at last cometh death. And yet not death; for death is the gate of life unto us whereby \ve enter into everlasting blessedness. And life is death to those who do not provide for death, for they are ever tossed and troubled with vexations, miseries, and wickedness. To use this life well is the pathway through death to everlasting life." He asked for a handkerchief from among the crowd, wherewith to cover his eyes, and he died with the name of Jesus on his lips.

A good account is furnished in MMP., pp. 329-338. See also Pollen, Acts of English J.Yartyrs (1891), pp. 170--194; and Bede Camm, Forgotten Shrines (19 10), pp. 164,357,378.

6 : ST

NICHOLAS,

CALLED

"OF BARI",

BISHOP OF MYRA

(FOURTH

CENTURY)

T

HE great veneration with which this saint has been honoured for many ages and the number of altars and churches which have been everywhere dedicated in his memory are testimonials to his holiness and of the glory which he enjoys with God. He is said to have been born at Patara in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor. Myra, the capital, not far from the sea, was an episcopal see, and this church falling vacant, the holy Nicholas was chosen bishop, and in that station became famous by his extraordinary piety and zeal and many astonishing miracles. The Greek histories of his life agree that he suffered imprisonment for the faith and made a glorious confession in the latter part of the persecution raised

by Diocletian, and that he was present at the Council of Nicaea and there con­ demned Arianism. The silence of other authors makes many justly suspect these circumstances. He died at Myra, and was buried in his cathedral.

This summary account by Alban Butler tells us all that is known about the life of the famous St Nicholas, and even a little more: for his episcopate at Myra during the fourth century is really all that seems indubitably authentic. This is not for lack of material, beginning with the life attributed to the monk who died in 847 as St Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople. But he warns us that" Up to the present the life of this distinguished shepherd has been unknown to the majority of the faithful", and sets about enlightening their ignorance nearly five hundred years after the saint's death. rrhis is the least unreliable of the" bio­ graphical" sources available, and a vast amount of literature, critical and expository, has grown up around them. Nevertheless, the universal popularity of 'the saint

5°3

December 6]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

for so many centuries requires that some account of these legends should be given here.

We are assured that from his earliest days Nicholas would take nourishment only once on Wednesdays and Fridays, and that in the evening according to the canons. "He was exceedingly well brought up by his parents and trod piously in their footsteps. The child, watched over by the Church with the care of the turtle-dove for her chicks, kept untarnished the innocence of his heart." At five years old he began to study the sacred sciences, and " day by day the teaching of the Church enlightened his mind and encouraged his thirst for sincere and true religion" . His parents died when he was a young man, leaving him well off, and he determined to devote his inheritance to works of charity. An opportunity soon arose. A citizen of Patara had lost all his money, and had moreover to support three daughters who could not find husbands because of their poverty; so the wretched man was going to give them over to prostitution. This came to the ears of Nicholas, who thereupon took a bag of gold and, under cover of darkness, threw it in at the open window of the man's house. Here was a dowry for the eldest girl, and she was soon duly married. At intervals Nicholas did the same for the second and third; at the last time the father was on the watch, recognized his benefactor, and over\vhelmed him \vith his gratitude. It would appear that the three purses, represented in pictures, came to be mistaken for the heads of three children, and so they gave rise to the absurd story of the children, resuscitated by the saint, who had been killed by an innkeeper and pickled in a brine-tub. * Coming to the city of Myra when the clergy and people of the province were in session to elect a new bishop, St Nicholas was indicated by God as the man they should choose. This was at the time of the persecutions at the beginning of the fourth century, and, " As he was the chief priest of the Christians of this town and preached the truths of faith with a holy liberty, the divine Nicholas was seized by the magistrates, tortured, then chained and thrown into prison with many other Christians. But \vhen the great and religious Constantine, chosen by God, assumed the imperial diadem of the Romans, the prisoners were released from their bonds and with them the illustrious Nicholas, who when he was set at liberty returned to Myra." St Methodius asserts that "thanks to the teaching of St Nicholas the metropolis of Myra alone was untouched by the filth of the Arian heresy, which it firmly rejected as death-dealing poison", but says nothing of his presence at the Council of Nicaea in 325. According to other traditions he was not only there but so far forgot himself as to give the heresiarch Arius a slap in the face. Whereupon the conciliar fathers deprived him of his episcopal insignia and committed him to prison: but our Lord and His lVlother appeared there and restored to him both his liberty and his office. As against Arianism so against paganism, St Nicholas was tireless and took strong measures: among other temples he destroyed was that of Artemis, the principal in the district, and the evil spirits fled howling before him. He was the guardian of his people as well in temporal affairs. The governor Eustathius had taken a bribe to condemn to death three

* The alleged visit of St Nicholas to Jerusalem and other incidents are importations from the life of another Nicholas, bishop of Pinara during the sixth century. 1'he confusion between the two was perpetuated by the l\1etaphrast, when he collected the legends in the tenth century. In 1751 a learned archbishop of Santa Severina, Falconi, volubly main足 tained that Nicholas of l\1yra and Nicholas of Pinara (or" the Zionite ") were identical, as Butler notes and refutes.

ST NICHOLAS OF MYRA

[December 6

innocent men. At the time fixed for their execution Nicholas came to the place, stayed the hand of the executioner, and released the prisoners. Then he turned to Eustathius and did not cease to reproach him until he admitted his crime and expressed his penitence. There were present on this occasion three imperial officers who were on thei~ way to duty in Phrygia. Later, when they were back again in Constantinople, the jealousy of the prefect Ablavius caused them to be imprisoned on false charges and an order for their death was procured from the Emperor Constantine. When the officers heard this they remembered the example they had witnessed of the powerful love of justice of the Bishop of Myra and they prayed to God that through his merits and by his instrumentality they might yet be saved. That night St Nicholas appeared in a dream to Constantine, and told him with threats to release the three innocent men, and Ablavius experienced the same thing. In the morning the emperor and the prefect compared notes, and the condemned men were sent for and questioned. When he heard that they had called on the name of the Nicholas of Myra who had appeared to him, Constantine set them free and sent them to the bishop with a letter asking him not to threaten him any more but to pray for the peace of the world. For long this was the most famous miracle of St Nicholas, and at the time of St Methodius was the only thing generally kno\vn about him.

The accounts are unanimous that St Nicholas died and was buried in his episcopal city of Myra, and by the time of Justinian there was a basilica built in his honour at Constantinople. An anonymous Greek wrote in the tenth century that, " the West as well as the East acclaims and glorifies him. Wherever there are people, in the country and the town, in the villages, in the isles, in the furthest parts of the earth, his name is revered and churches are built in his honour. lInages of him are set up, panegyrics preached and festivals celebrated. All Christians, young and old, men and women, boys and girls, reverence his memory and call upon his protection. And his favours, which know no limit of time and continue from age to age, are poured out over all the earth: the Scythians know them, as do the Indians and the barbarians, the Africans as well as the Italians." When Myra and its great shrine finally passed into the hands of the Saracens, several Italian cities saw this as an opportunity to acquire the relics of St Nicholas for themselves. 'rhere was great competition for them between Venice and Bari.

The last-named won, the relics were carried off under the noses of the lawful Greek custodians and their Mohammedan masters, and on May 9, 1087 were safely landed at Bari, a not inappropriate home seeing that Apulia in those days still had large Greek colonies. A new church was built to shelter them and the pope, Bd Urban II, was present at their enshrining. Devotion to St Nicholas was known in the West long before his relics were brought to Italy, but this happening naturally greatly increased his veneration among the people, and miracles were as freely attributed to his intercession in Europe as they had been in Asia. At Myra" the venerable body of the bishop, embalmed as it was in the good ointments of virtue, exuded a sweet-smelling , myrrh', which kept it from corruption and proved a health-giving remedy against sickness, to the glory of him who had glorified Jesus Christ, our true God." The translation of the relics did not interrupt this pheno­ menon, and the " manna of St Nicholas" is said to flow to this day. I t was one of the great attractions which drew pilgrims to his tomb from all parts of Europe It is- the image of St Nicholas more often than that of any other that is found on Byzantine seals; in the later middle ages nearly four hundred churches were

5°5

Dece.mber 6]

THE LIVES OF TIlE SAINTS

dedicated in his honour in England alone; and he is said to have been represented

by Christian artists more frequently than any saint except our Lady. St Nicholas is venerated as the patron-saint of several classes of people, especially, in the East, of sailors and, in the West, of children. The first of these patronages is probably due to the legend that, during his life-time, he appeared to storm-tossed mariners who invoked his aid off the coast of Lycia, and brought them safely to port. Sailors in the Aegean and Ionian seas, following a common Eastern custom, had their " star of St Nicholas" and wished one another a good voyage in the phrase" May St Nicholas hold the tiller". The legend of the " three children" gave rise to his patronage of children and various observances, ecclesiastical and secular, con­ nected there\vith; such were the boy-bishop and, especially in Germany, Switzer­ land and the Netherlands, the giving of presents in his name at Christmas time.

This custom in England is not a survival from Catholic times. It was popularized in America by the Dutch Protestants of New Amsterdam, who had converted the popish saint into a nordic magician (Santa Claus = Sint Klaes = Saint Nicholas) and was apparently introduced into this country by Bret Harte. It is not the only " good old English custom " which, however good, is not " old English ", at any rate in its present form. The deliverance of the three imperial officers naturally caused St Nicholas to be invoked by and on behalf of prisoners and captives, and many miracles of his intervention are recorded in the middle ages.

Curiously enough, the greatest popularity of 8t Nicholas is found neither in the eastern Mediterranean nor north-western Europe, great as that was, but in Russia. With St Andrew the Apostle he is patron of the nation, and the Russian Orthodox Church even observes the feast of his translation; so many Russian pilgrims came to Bari before the revolution that their government supported a church, hospital and hospice there. He is a patron-saint also of Greece, Apulia, Sicily and Lorraine, and of many cities and dioceses (including Galway) and churches innumerable. At Rome the basilica of St Nicholas in the Jail of Tully (in Carcere) \vas founded between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh centuries. He is named in the preparation of the Byzantine Mass. · Two very able studies of St Nicholas and his cult have been published since 1900.

The earlier is that of G. Anrich, Hagios Nikolaos . . . in der griechischen Kirche (2 vols., 1917). In this will be found all the Greek texts of any interest, much better edited than those in Falconius or lVligne, as well as a full introduction and notes. The second work is that of K. Meisen, Nikolauskult und .l'Viholausbrauch im Abendlande (1931), with nlany pictorial illustrations. See on this the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. 1 (1932), pp. 178-181, where attention is dra\\'ll. to the fact that one Latin text printed by Meisen is taken from a manuscript written in the ninth century, thus proving that the story of St Nicholas was already known in the West two hundred years before the translation of his relics to Bari.

An imposing Vie de S. Nicolas by Jules Laroche should be read in the light of the criticisms in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xii, p. 459. On the folk-lore of St Nicholas among the I-Iellenes see further the book of N. G. Politis (in n10dern Greek) Laographika symmikta (1931), and on other aspects of the legend J. Dorn in Archiv f. Kulturgeschichte, vol. xiii (1917), especially p. 243; R. B. Yewdale, Bohemond I, Prince of Antioch, p. 31; Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church (1933), passinz. On the emblems of St Nicholas and his treatment in art, consult, besides Klinstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, and Drake, Saints and their Emblems, the monograph of D. van Adrichem, published both in Italian and in Dutch in 1928. The miraculous " manna" of St Nicholas still finds ardent champions e.g. in P. Scognamilio, La Manna di San Nicola (1925).

506

ST ABRAHAM OF KRATIA

[December 6

SSe DIONYSIA, MAJORICUS,

AND OTHER MARTYRS

IN the year 484 the Arian king, Huneric, banished the Catholic bishops from their African sees, and began a violent persecution of orthodox Christians, many of whom were put to death. Dionysia, a woman remarkable for beauty, zeal and piety, was scourged in the forum till her body was covered \vith blood. Seeing Majoricus, her young son, tremble at the sight, she said to him, " My son, do not forget that we have been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity. We must not lose the garment of our salvation, lest the Master of the feast find us \vithout wedding-raiment and cast us into outer darkness." The boy, strengthened by her \\-ords, suffered a most cruel martyrdom with constancy. St Dionysia's sister Dativa, her cousin Emilian, a physician, Leontia, Tertius and Boniface also suffered horrible torments for the faith, so that the Roman Martyrology says that they deserved to be joined to the number of Christ's holy confessors. SSe Dionysia, l\1ajoricus and Dativa died at the stake and SSe Emilian and Tertius were flayed alive.

St Servus, who is commemorated on the following day, a man of Thuburbo, was tortured by the persecutors wit hthe utmost fury: he was hoisted in the air by pulleys and then pulled up and down so that he fell with all his weight on the pavement. Then he was dragged along the streets till his flesh and skin hung in strips from his body. At Cucusa there was among the martyrs and confessors a woman named Victoria, who \\Tas hung in the air whilst a fire was kindled under her. Her husband, who had apostatized from the Catholic faith, appealed to her in the most moving manner, urging her at least to have pity on her innocent babes and save herself by obeying the king. She would not listen, and turned her eyes away from her children. The executioners thought she was dead, and took her down; but she came to herself, and afterwards related that a maiden had appeared to her, who touched every part of her broken body and healed it.

Of these martyrs we know practically nothing beyond what is narrated in the Historia persecutionis provinciae africanae, written by Victor, Bishop of Vita, who was a contemporary.

No very marked cultus seems to be traceable. The names as a group do not occur in the Calendar of Carthage or in the Hieronymianum.

ST ABRAHAM,

BISHOP OF KRATIA

(c.

A.D.

558)

1~HE Lives of the Saints are full of examples of men who had offices of responsibility thrust upon them against their wishes, and in some cases, especially in the East, it is recorded that they subsequently ran away from them in an attempt, usually vain, to find peace and quietness for contemplation. Of these was this St Abraham.

He was born at Emesa in Syria in the year 474 and became a monk there. "'Then he \\Tas eighteen the community was broken up by raiding nomads, and he fled with his spiritual father to Constantinople. Here they found a home in a nlonas­ tery of which the older monk became abbot and Abraham procurator. \Vhen he was only twenty-six his virtue and ability caused him to be made abbot of Kratia (Flaviopolis, now Geredeh) in Bithynia. At the end of ten years he fled away secretly into Palestine; but his whereabouts became known and his bishop forced him to return to his duties. Soon after he was himself made bishop of Kratia and he fulfilled that office for thirteen years. Then he again ran away to Palestine and found a refuge in a monastery at the Tower of Eudokia. Here St Abraham

5°7

December 6]

TIlE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

led a most mortified life of prayer for over t\venty years, and died about 558 \vithout having been recalled to his diocese. He was the most noted of the bishops \\Tho occupied the see of Kratia from its beginnings in the third century until its extinction in the t\velfth.

The original Greek text of the Life of Abraham by Cyril of Skythopolis, a contemporary, has been edited by H. Gregoire in the Rf'l'ue de I'Instruction publique en Beh-!ique, vol. xlix (1906), pp. 281-296; by K. Koikylides in the Greek periodical Nea Sion, vol. iv (1906), July, supplement, pp. 1-7; and by E. Scl1\\"artz in Kyrillos 7'011 Skytlzopolis (H)39). 'These editions are founded on a single n1anuscript in the monastery of lVlount Sinai \vhich is unfortunately defective at the end, although an ancient Arabic version has preserved it conlp]f'te; on the first two see P. Peeters in the Analerta Bol1nJ1diann, vol. xX"i (1907), pp. 122-125, who in the same periodical, vol. xxiv (1905), pp. 349-356, had printed a Latin translation from the Arabic. T'he Arabic journal .AI A1ashriq in \vhich it appeared supplies a curious illustration of the vexatious censorship then exercised in Syria by :\Ioslern authority, for phrases in the ancient text \vere blacked out because they introduced titles consecrated to the dignity of the Sultan. On the topography, etc., of the Life of St Abraharrl see especially S. Vailhe in Echos d'Orient, vol. viii (1905), pp. 290-294.

BD PETER PASCUAL,

BISHOP OF JAE~, ~IARTYR

(A.D. 1300)

Valencian family of Pascual or Pascualez (latinized as Paschasius) is said to ha\'e given the Church six martyrs under the 1\1001's, of \VhOrll Bd Peter ,,'as the last. T'he child received his schooling from a tutor at home, \\'hich tutor \yas a priest of r\arbonne, a doctor of divinity of Paris, whom Peter's parents had ran足 sonled from the Moors. Peter went \vith him to Paris, and having finished his studies there, took the degree of doctor. He then returned to Valencia, and received holy orders at the age of t\\'enty-four. fIe \vas a professor of theology at Barcelona until James I of Aragon chose him as tutor to his SOIl, Sancho, \vho was soon after made archbishop of 'Toledo. The prince being too young to receive holy orders Bd Peter was appointed administrator of the diocese; later he \yas named titular bishop of Granada, \vhich was at that time in the hands of thc Moors, but hc did not rcceiyc episcopal consecration until he \\~as appointed bishop of Jaen in 1296, when it \vas still under Moorish domination. In spite of all dangers he not only ransomed captives and instructed and comforted the Christians, but alga preached to the infidels and reconciled to the Church several apostates, renegades and others. On this account he \vas seized \vhile on a visitation, carried to Granada, and shut up in a dungeon, \vith orders that no one should be allo\\red to speak to him. He received n10ney for his ransom, but \yith it bought the freedom of some who, he feared, were in danger of apostasy. In spite of solitary confine足 ment he found means to \vrite a treatise against Islam and its prophet, which \vas circulated among the people and stirred up the authorities to order his death. The night before he suffered he was afflicted \\rith great fear, and \vas comforted by a vision of our Lord. The next lllorning whilst he was at prayer he was murdered, receiving stabs in his body, after which his head \vas struck off. He \vas seventy足 three years old. This is the common tradition, but it appears that he died from the hardships of his captivity.

In 1673 Pope Clement X confirmed the cultus of Bd Peter Pascual, and his name was also inserted in the Roman Martyrology, where he is referred to as Beatus, though commonly called Saint.

THE

The. older lives, such as that of B. An1ento y Peligero in folio (1676), are by no means reliable. The best materials are those published by Fr Fidel Fita in the Boletin of the

5属8

[December 7

ST AMBROSE

ct.

Historical Academy of Madrid, vol. xx (1892), pp. 32-61 ; vol. xli (1902), pp. 345-347.

For the general reader of Spanish the most thorough discussion of the problems involved is that of R. Rodriguez de Galvez, San Pedro Pascual obispo de Jain y martir (19°°), and see also the Estudios Criticos (1903) of the same author. In these it is satisfactorily proved that Bd Peter was not a member of the Mercedarian Order, and it is shown that he most probably died of the hardships of his captivity, not stabbed or decapitated. A bulky work has been published on the Mercedarian side by P. Armengol Valenzuela, Vida de San Pedro Pascual (1901), but the Bollandist reviewers consider it unconvincing.

7 : ST AMBROSE,

BISHOP OF MILAN, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

(A.D. 397)

OURAGE and constancy in resisting evil is a necessary part of virtue, especially in a bishop, and in this quality St Ambrose was one of the most admirable among all the great pastors of God's Church since the Apostles, whIle his learning made him one of the four great doctors of the Western church.

At the time of his birth at Trier, probably in 340, his father, whose name also was Ambrose, was prefect of Gaul. Ambrose, senior, died while his youngest child was still young, and his widow returned with her family to Rome. She took great care in the upbringing of her children, and Ambrose owed much both to her and to llis sister, St Marcellina. He learned Greek, became a good poet and orator, went to the bar, and was soon taken notice of, particularly by Anicius Probus and Symrnachus, the last-named being prefect of Rome and still a pagan. The other was praetorian prefect of Italy; and in his court St Ambrose pleaded causes with so much success that Probus made choice of him to be his assessor. Then the emperor Valentinian made him governor of Liguria and Aemilia, with his residence at Milan. His patron, Probus, with un·conscious suitability, said to him at parting: "Go; and govern more like a bishop than a judge." The office to which he had been promoted, with full consular rank, was one of the most respon­ sible and important in the Western empire, and Ambrose was not yet forty. With what success he administered his charge for some two years the sequel shows.

Auxentius, an Arian, who had held the see of Milan for almost twenty years, died in 374. The city was distracted by party strjfe about the election of a new bishop, some demanding an Arian, others a Catholic. To prevent, if possible, too outrageous a disorder St Ambrose went to the church in which the assembly was held. There he made a speech to the people, exhorting them to proceed in their choice in the spirit of peace and without tumult. While he was speaking a voice cried out: "Ambrose, bishop!" The whole assembly took up the cry with enthusiasm, and Catholics and Arians unanimously proclaimed him bishop of Milan. This unexpected choice astounded Arnbrose, the more that, though professedly a Christian, he was still unbaptized. But in face of the popular clamour the bishops of the province ratified the election, whereupon the bishop elect remarked caustically that " Emotion had overruled canon law", and tried to escape from Milan. A relation of all that had passed was sent to the emperor, and Ambrose wrote also on his own behalf, asking that he might be excused. Valen­ tinian answered that it gave him the greatest pleasure that he had chosed governors who were fit for the episcopal office; and at the same time sent an order to the vicarius of the province to see that the election took place. In the meantime Ambros.e once more tried to escape, and hid himself in the house of the senator Leontius, who, when he heard the imperial decision, gave him up, and Ambrose

C

5°9

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 7]

at last yielded. He therefore was baptized, and received episcopal consecration a week later, on December 7, 374. He was about thirty-five years old.

Considering that he was no longer a man of this world and resolving to break all ties which could hold him to it, he gave his movables to the poor and his lands and estates to the Church, reserving only an income for the use of his sister, St Marcellina. The care of his temporalities he committed to his brother, St Satyrus, that he might be free to give himself up wholly to his ministry. Soon after his ordination he wrote to Valentinian a severe complaint against some of the imperial magistrates. To which the emperor replied: "I was long since acquainted with your freedom of speech, which did not hinder me from consenting to your election.

Continue to apply to our sins the remedies prescribed by the divine law." St Basil also wrote to congratulate him, or rather the Church, upon his promotion and to exhort him vigorously to oppose the Arians. St Ambrose was acutely conscious of his ignorance of theological science, and at once applied himself to study the Holy Scriptures and the works of religious writers, particularly Origen and St Basil.

For these studies he put himself under the instruction of St Simplician, a learned Roman priest, whom he loved as a friend, honoured as a father and reverenced as a master. He purged the diocese of the Arian heresy with such success that in ten years there was not one citizen of Milan infected with it, except a few Goths and some of those belonging to the imperial household. * His personal life was one of simplicity and hard work; he dined only on Sundays, the feasts of certain famous martyrs, and all Saturdays, on which it was the custom at Milan never to fast (but when he was at Rome he fasted on Saturdays); he excused himself from going to banquets, and entertained others with decent frugality. Every day he offered the Holy Sacrifice for his people, and devoted himself entirely to the service of his flock, any member of which could see and speak with him at any time, so that his people loved and admired him. It was his rule never to have any hand in making matches, never to persuade anyone to serve in the army, and never recom­ mend to places at court. St Augustine, when he came to visit him, sometimes found him so overwhelmed with callers, or so busy in the few moments he was able to get to himself, that he went into his room and after some stay came out again, without being noticed by the bishop. Ambrose in his discourses frequently spoke in praise of the state and virtue of virginity undertaken for God's sake, and he had many consecrated virgins under his direction. At the request of his sister, St Marcellina, he collected his sermons on this subject, making thereby a famous treatise. Mothers tried to keep their daughters away from his sermons, and he was charged with trying to depopulate the empire. "What man, I want to know, ever wanted to marry and could not find a wife ? " he retorted, and maintained that the population is highest where maidenhood is most esteemed. Wars, he said, and not maidens, are the destroyers of the human race.

The Goths having invaded Roman territories in the East, the Emperor Gratian determined to lead an army to the succour of his uncle, Valens. But in order to guard himself against Arianism, of which Valens was the protector, he asked St Ambrose for instruction against that heresy. He accordingly wrote in 377 the work entitled To Gratian, concerning the Faith, which he afterwards expanded.

The Goths had extended their ravages from Thrace to Illyricum, and St Ambrose, not content to layout all the money he could raise in redeeming captives, employed â&#x20AC;˘ Milan was in fact the administrative capital of the West at this time. court had been moved thither in 303, under Maximian.

510

The imperial

ST AMBROSE

[December 7

gold vessels belonging to the Church, which he had melted down. The Arians reproached him for this, alleging sacrilege. He answered that he thought it more expedient to save the souls of men than gold; ransom is the significance of the pouring of the blood of Jesus into golden vessels; and" If the Church possesses gold it is in order to use it for the needy, not to keep it ". After the murder of Gratian in 383 the Empress Justina implored St Ambrose to treat with the usurper Maximus lest he attack her son, Valenti-nian II. He went and induced Maximus at Trier to confine himself to Gaul, Spain and Britain. This is said to have been the first occasion on which a minister of the gospel was called on to interfere in matters of high politics: and it was to vindicate right and order against a usurper In arms.

At this time certain senators at Rome attempted to restore the cult of the goddess of Victory. At their head appeared Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, son and successor of that prefect of the city who had patronized the young Ambrose, and an admirable scholar, statesman and orator. This man presented a request to Valentinian begging that the altar of Victory might be re-established in the senate足 house; to it he ascribed the victories and prosperity of ancient Rome. It was a skilfully drawn and in some respects moving document, and made use of several arguments that are still familiar in the mouths of non-Catholics. "What does it matter", for example, " the way in which each seeks for truth? There must be more than one road to the great mystery." The petition was particularly a covert attack on St Ambrose, and he, having privately received notice of it, wrote to Valentinian demanding that a copy of Symmachus's petition should be communi足 cated to him. He remonstrated at the same time with the emperor for not having at once consulted him, since it was a matter of religion. He then drew up a reply whose eloquence surpassed that of Symmachus, traversing him at every point.

From ridiculing the suggestion that what was achieved by military valour was due to the entrails of sacrificed cattle he rose to heights of rhetoric, speaking as by the mouth of Rome herself, who bewails the errors of her past but is not ashamed in her old age to change with a changing world. He appeals to Symmachus and his friends to learn the mysteries of nature from God who created it, and, instead of asking the emperors to give their gods peace, to ask God to give the emperors peace; and ends with a parable of progress and development in the world. "Through justice truth has prevailed on the ruins of opinions that once ruled the earth."

Both documents, that of Symmachus and that of Ambrose, were read before Valentinian in council. There was no discussion. 1,"hen the emperor spoke: " My father did not take away the altar. Nor was he asked to put it back. I therefore follow him in changing nothing that was done before my time."

The Empress Justina dared not openly espouse the interests of the Arians during the lives of her husband and of Gratian, but when the peace which St Ambrose arranged between Maximus and her son gave her an oppprtunity to oppose the Catholic bishop, she forgot the obligations which she had to him.

When Easter was near, in 385, she induced Valentinian to demand the Portian basilica, now called St Victor's, outside Milan, for the use of the Arians, herself and many officers of the court. The saint replied that he could never give up the temple of God. By messengers Valentinian then demanded the new basilica of the Apostles; but the bishop was inflexible. Officers of the court were sent to take possession of the basilica, and the citizens, enraged at these proceedings, seized an Arian priest in the street. St Ambrose, informed of this, prayed that God

511

December 7]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

would suffer no blood to be shed, and sent out priests and deacons who delivered the Arian from the mob. Throughout these troubles, when St Ambrose had the bulk of the excited people and even of the army on his side, he was studiously careful to say or do nothing that would precipitate violence or endanger the position of the emperor and his mother. He was resolute in his refusal to give up the churches, but would not himself officiate in either for fear of creating disturbance.

Every effort was made by his adversaries to provoke him, and they commonly referred to him as " the Tyrant".· "How am I a tyrant? " he. asked. "When I was told the church was surrounded with soldiers, I said: 'I cannot give it up, but I must not fight.' Maximus, whom I stopped from marching into Italy, does not say that I am the tyrant over Valentinian." While he was expounding a passage of Job to the people in a chapel, a party of soldiers, who had been sent to take charge of the larger basilica, came in. They had refused to obey orders and wished to pray with the Catholics. At once the people surged into the adjoining basilica, and tore down the decorations put up for the emperor's visit, giving them to the children to play with. But Ambrose refused a triumph, and did not enter the church himself until Easter day, when Valentinian had ordered the guards to be removed, upon which all joined in joy and thanksgiving. St Ambrose gave an account of these events to Marcellina, who was then at Rome, and adds that he foresees greater commotions. "The eunuch, Calligone," he writes, " an imperial chamberlain, said to me: 'You despise Valentinian. I will cut off your head.' To which I replied: 'May God permit it. Then I shall suffer as a bishop should, and you will act according to your kind ! ' " In January of the following year Justina persuaded her son to make a law authorizing the religious assemblies of the Arians and, in effect, proscribing those of the Catholics. It forbade anyone, under pain of death, to oppose Arian assem­ blies, and no one could so much as present a petition against a church being yielded up to them without danger of being proscribed. St Ambrose disregarded the law, would not give up a single church, and no one dare touch him. "I have said what a bishop ought to say; let the emperor do what an emperor ough~ to do.

Naboth would not give up the inheritance of his ancestors, and shall I give up that of Jesus Christ?" On Palm Sunday he preached on not giving up their churches, and then, fears being entertained for his life, the people barricaded themselves in the basilica with their pastor. The imperial troops surrounded the place to starve them out, but on Easter Sunday they were still there. To occupy their time Ambrose taught the people psalms and hymns composed by himself, which they sang at his direction divided into two choirs singing alternate stanzas. Then Dalmatius, a tribune, came to St Ambrose from the emperor, \vith an order that he should choose judges, as the Arian bishop, Auxentius, had done on his side, that his and Auxentius's cause might be tried before them; if he refused, he was forthwith to retire and yield his see to Auxentius. Ambrose wrote asking to be excused and forcibly reminding Valentinian that laymen (lay-judges had been stipulated) could not judge bishops or make ecclesiastical laws. Then he occupied his episcopal cathedra and related to the people all that had passed between him and Valentinian during the previous year. And in a memorable sentence he summed up the principle at stake: "The emperor is in the Church, not over it."

In the meanwhile it became known that Maximus, using Valentinian's perse­ cution of Catholics and alleged frontier irregularities as pretexts, was preparing • Not in the modern sense, but meaning one who had seized power by force.

512

ST AMBROSE

[December 7

to invade Italy. Valentinian and Justina were panic-stricken, and asked St Ambrose to venture on a second embassy to stop the march of a usurper. Burying the memory both of public and private injuries he undertook the journey. At Trier Maximus refused to admit him to audience except in public consistory, though he was both bishop and imperial ambassador. When, therefore, he was introduced into the consistory and Maximus rose to give him a kiss, Ambrose stood still and refused to approach to receive it. And there, publicly, he demon足 strated to Maximus that his projected offensive was unjustifiable and a breach of faith, and ended up by asking him to send the remains of Gratian to his brother as pledge of peace. Already on his arrival St Ambrose had refused to hold com足 munion with the court prelates who had connived at the execution of the heretic Priscillian, which meant with Maximus himself, and the next day he was ordered to leave Trier. He therefore returned to Milan, writing in advance to Valentinian an account of events and advising him to be cautious how he treated with Maximus, a concealed enemy who pretended peace but intended war. Then Maximus suddenly and without opposition marched into Italy. Leaving St Ambrose alone to meet the storm at Milan, Justina and Valentinian fled to Greece and threw themselves on the mercy of the Eastern emperor, Theodosius. He declared war on Maximus, defeated and executed him in Pannonia, and restored Valentinian to his own territories and to those of the dead usurper. But from henceforward Theodosius ,vas the real ruler of the whole empire.

He stayed for a time at Milan, inducing Valentinian to abandon Arianism and to have respect for St Ambrose as a true Catholic bishop. But, as was almost inevitable, conflicts arose between Theodosius himself and Ambrose, in the first of which right does not seem to have been \\Tholly on the side of the bish()p. At Kallinikum, in Mesopotamia, certain Christians pulled down the Jewish synagogue.

Theodosius when informed of the affair ordered the bishop (who was alleged to be directly implicated) to rebuild the synagogue. St Ambrose was appealed to, and he wrote a letter to Theodosius in which he based his protest, not on the uncertainty of the actual circumstances, but on the excessive statement that no Christian bishop could in any conditions pay for the erection of a building to be used for false worship.

Theodosius disregarded the protest, and Ambrose preached against him to his face; whereupon a discussion took place between them in the church, and he would not go up to the altar to sing Mass till he had procured a promise of the revocation of the order.

In the year 390 news of a dreadful massacre committed at Thessalonica was brought to Milan. Butheric, the governor, had a charioteer put in prison for having seduced a servant in his family, and refused to release him when his appear足 ance in the circus was demanded by the public. The people were so enraged that some officers were stoned to death and Butheric himself was slain. Theodosius ordered reprisals of unbelievable savagery. While the people were assembled in the circus, soldiers surrounded it and rushed in on them. The'slaughter continued for hours and seven thousand were massacred, without distinguishing age or sex or the innocent from the guilty. The world was aghast and all eyes were turned on Ambrose, who took counsel with his fellow bishops. Then he wrote Theodosius a noble letter, exhorting him to penance,揃 and declaring that he neither could nor would receive his offering at the altar or celebrate the Divine Mysteries before him

* I.e. not only interior penitence, but also the public canonical penance which the Church then imposed on open and notorious evil-doers.

December 7]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

till that obligation was satisfied. "What has been done at Thessalonica is un­ paralleled in the memory of man. • . • You are human, and temptation has over­ taken you. Overcome it. I counsel, I beseech, I implore you to penance. You, who ,have so often been merciful and pardoned the guilty, have now caused many innocent to perish. The devil wished to wrest from you the crown of piety which was your chiefest glory. Drive him from you while you can. . . . I write this to you with my own hand that you also may read it alone."

The upshot of this appeal to a man who can hardly have been other than conscience-stricken has unfortunately been obscured by a picturesque and melo­ dramatic story that Theodosius refused to do penance, and that 8t Ambrose met him in the narthex of the church when he came to Mass with his court, publicly rebuked him, and refused him admittance; and that the emperor remained excommunicate for eight months until he made a complete submission. This legend has been demolished by Father Van Ortroy, S.]., and the simple words in which St Augustine (who had received baptism from 8t Ambrose three years before) refers to the emperor's" religious humility" tell us all we really need to know. " Being laid hold of by the discipline of the Church, he did penance in such a way that the sight of the abasement of his imperial dignity made those who were inter­ ceding for him weep more than consciousness of offence had ever made them fear his anger." In the funeral oration over Theodosius, 8t Ambrose himself says simply that: "He stripped himself of every sign of royalty and bewailed his sin openly in church. He, an emperor, was not ashamed to do the public penance which lesser individuals shrink from, and to the end of his life he never ceased to grieve for his error." By this triumph of grace in Theodosius and of pastoral duty in Ambrose Christianity was vindicated to the world as being no respecter of persons, its moral law was shown to bind all equally. And the emperor himself testified to the personal influence of 8t Ambrose in it; he was, he said, the only bishop he knew who was worthy of the name.

Theodoret mentions another example of humility and religion on the part of Theodosius whilst he was at Milan. During Mass on a festival, having brought his offering to the altar, he remained within the rails of the sanctuary. 8t Ambrose asked if he wanted anything. The emperor said that he stayed to assist at the Holy Mysteries and to communicate. Thereupon Ambrose sent his deacon to tell him, " My lord, it is lawful for none but the sacred ministers to remain within the sanctuary. Be pleased therefore to go out and stand with the rest. The purple robe makes princes, but not priests." Theodosius apologized and answered that he thought the custom was the same at Milan as at Constantinople, where his place was in the sanct.uary; and after having thanked the bishop for his instruction he went and took his place among the laity.· In 393 occurred the pathetic death of the young Valentinian, murdered by Arbogastes while alone among his enemies in Gaul. St Ambrose had set out to succour him, but met his funeral procession before he had crossed the Alps.

Arbogastes manoeuvred for the support of Ambrose for his ambitions (he had been told that the bishop was a " man who says to the sun eStop! ' and it stops "). But Ambrose had made it clear, without any personal denunciation, in his funeral

* Later it became part of the plan of every Byzantine church to have the representation of a two-headed eagle on the floor outside the sanctuary. This was the place of the imperial throne. Such eagles may still be seen in the East. The Latin direction ad aquilam chori has nothing to do with this, but refers to the lectern with its eagle-shaped desk.

ST AMBROSE

[December 7

sermon what he thought of the death of Valentinian, and he left Milan before the arrival of Eugenius, the imperial nominee of Arbogastes, who now openly boasted the approaching overthrow of Christianity. St Ambrose meanwhile went from city to city, strengthening the people against the invaders. Then he returned to his see and there received the letter of Theodosius announcing his victory over Arbogastes at Aquileia, the final blow to the old paganism within the empire. A few months later Theodosius himself died, in the arms of St Ambrose, who in a funeral oration spoke eloquently of his love for the dead emperor and of the high obligations of his two sons in the control of an empire which was now held together

by Christianity itself. Those two sons were the feeble creatures Arcadius and Honorius. And there was perhaps present in the church a certain young Goth, a cavalry officer in the imperial army. His name was Alaric.

St Ambrose survived Theodosius the Great by only two years, and one of his last treatises was on the "Goodness of Death". His written works, mostly homiletical in origin, exegetical, theological, ascetical and poetical, =It were numerous; as the Roman empire declined in the West he inaugurated a new lease of life for its language, and in the service of Christianity. When he fell sick he foretold his death, but said he should live till Easter. He continued his usual studies, and expounded the forty-third psalm. Whilst he dictated, Paulinus, who was his secretary and afterwards his biographer, saw as it were a flame in the form of a small shield covering his head and by degrees passing into his mouth, and his face became white as snow. "I was so frightened", says Paulinus, " that I remained motionless and could not write. And on that day he left off both writing and dictating, so that he did not finish the psalm". We have this exposition of St Ambrose upon the forty-third psalm, and it ends with the twenty-fourth verse. After having ordained a bishop for Pavia, he was so ill that he took to his bed. At this news Count Stilicho, the guardian of Honorius, was much troubled, and said publicly, " The day that this man dies, destruction hangs over Italy". And he sent messengers to persuade Ambrose to pray for greater length of days. He replied to them, " I have not so behaved myself among you that I should be ashamed to live longer; nor am I afraid to die, for we have a good Master". On the day of his death he lay with his hand~ extended in the form of a cross for several hours, moving his lips in constant prayer. St Honoratus of Vercelli was there, resting in another room, when he seemed to hear a voice crying three times to him, " Arise! Make haste I He is going". He went down and gave him the Body of the Lord, and soon after St Ambrose was dead. It was Good Friday, April 4, 397, and he was about fifty­ seven years old. He was buried on Easter day, and his relics rest under the high altar of his basilica, where they were buried in 835. The day of his feast is the anniversary of his episcopal consecration, on which date it is also kept in the Eastern church; and he is named daily in the canon of the Mass of the Milanese province.

Two highly important works dealing with the life and writings of St Ambrose are the book of J. R. Palanque, Saint Ambroise et l'Empire romain (1933), regarding which consult the review by Fr Halkin in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. Iii (1934), pp. 395-401 ; and an Anglican biography by Canon F. Homes Dudden, The Life and Times of St Ambrose (1935) in two volumes. Both these works discuss the career of the saint from many points of view and with a competent knowledge both of the sources and of modern contributions to the subject. The main sources are the holy doctor's own writings and the life by Paulinus ; â&#x20AC;˘ The Breviary hymn Aeterne rerum conditor is certainly St Ambrose's, and other~ are ascribed to him with greater or less degrees of probability.

December 7]

TI-IE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

but there is, of course, much material to be gleaned from St Augustine and other contem足 poraries, as well as from what Fr Van Ortroy has called" les vies grecques de S. Ambroise" : his important essay forms part of a valuable collection of studies published in 1897 to do honour 'to the fifteenth centenary of the death of the saint. Here, under the name Ambros足 iana, we have contributions from many scholars, including one fron1 Dr Achille Ratti (later Pope Pius XI) and others from Marucchi, Savio, Schenkl, Mocquereau, etc. See further R. Wirtz, Ambrosius und seine Zeit (1924); M. R. McGuire in Catholic Historical Review, vol. xxii (1936), pp. 304-318; W. Wilbrand in Historisches Jahrbuch, vol. xli (1921), pp.

1-19; I-J. T. Lefort in Le . 7. V!useon, vol. xlviii (1935), pp. 55-73; Fliche et l\1artin, IIistoire de l'Eglise, vol. iii (1936), etc. A short Llfe of St Ambrose (Eng. trans.) by the Duc de Broglie, in the series " Les Saints ", though not in all respects up to date, gives a good impression of the saint and his times. A fuller bibliography may be found in Palanque and Dudden as well as in the last edition of Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literalur, vol. iii. The conteJnporary life of St Ambrose by the deacon Paulinus is trans足 lated by I,"'. R. Hoare in The 'Western Fathers (1954).

ST EUTYCHIAN, POPE

(A.D. 283)

OF this pope practically nothing is known. Though called a martyr in the Roman Martyrology, this is unlikely, as is the statement that he buried 342 martyrs with his own hands, for there was no persecution of Christians in his time; moreover, he is listed among the bishops, not among the martyrs, in the fourth -century Liberian cataloguew The attribution to him of blessing fruits of the earth in church is an anachronism-this did not come till later; and the decretals which bear his name are spurious.

St Eutychian died on December 7, 283, and was buried in the catacomb of Callistus. Fragments of his epitaph were found by De Rossi: they contained in Greek letters the words EUTUKHIANOS EPIS[KOPOS].

See Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, vol. i, p. 159.

ST JOSEPHA ROSSELLO, VIRGIN, FOUNDRESS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF OUR LADY

OF

MERCY

(A.D. 1880)

IT has often been said of wonder-working saints that no miracles of which they were the agents were more remarkable than their own lives. A writer about Sister Mary Josepha Rossello, Dr P. D. Sessa, points out that her life (so far as is known) was not marked by visions, heavenly voices, or other marvels; but there was the no less striking fact that the three sisters with which her congregation began increased in a few years to over a hundred, and that the first little house became the mother of sixty-eight affiliations during her lifetime.

St Josepha was born in 181 I at Albisola Marina, a pleasant little town on the Ligurian coast of ltaly. She was the fourth of the nine children of Bartholomew Rossello and his wife Mary Dedone, Bartholomew being a potter by trade, and they named her Benedetta, a choice of good augury. Benedetta was a lively and intelligent child, and Dr Sessa refers to her in her early years as piccola condottiera, " little leader". But the word condottiere has in history another meaning, " free足 booter ", and indeed there seems to have been an element of dashing enterprise, such as one associates with, e.g. Sir John Hawkwood, in Benedetta's make-up.

It was illustrated in her childhood by the incident of the pilgrimage. A visit of the people of Albisola was organized to the shrine of our Lady of Mercy at Savona, and because of the distance all children were left at home. In their parents' absence. Benedetta Rossello got up a pilgrimage of her own among her playmates, both girls and boys; headed by a banner-an apron on a broomstick-they went

516

ST JOSEPHA ROSSELLO

[December 7

in procession to pray at the little local sanctuary of our Lady of Mercy. ()n the way back they sang hymns and, hearing them, the sacristan thought it was the Savona pilgrims returning and gave the signal for the church bells to be rung. So the children's crusade had a triumphal return, as \vas only right and proper. Benedetta seems to have been about nine at the time of this performance.

She was always sensitive to the beauty of created things, especially of the sea and at certain times of the day, when it would arouse in her sudden unexpected bursts of gaiety. Naturally then she had a fellow-feeling for St Francis of Assisi, and when she ,vas sixteen she was received into his third order and carne under the spiritual guidance of a Capuchin friar, Father Angelo of Savona. For a time she wished to become a solitary, but her director dissuaded her, and ",hen she ,vas nineteen she took service with the Monleone family in Savona. "The hands are made for work, and the heart for God", she said, and her work for the next seven years was to look after Mr Monleone, who was an invalid. The n10ney she earned she sent home, for her family had got rather badly off. She could have stayed in the comfortable home of the Monleones for the rest of her life, but when her patient died her desire to " leave the \vorld " revived more strongly than ever.

At this time the bishop of Savona was Mgr Augustine de Mari; he was very perturbed by the dangers and dissolute life that beset many girls and young women in the city, and wanted to initiate ,vork on their behalf. This came to the ears of Benedetta Rossello. She had already been refused by one convent for lack of a dowry, so she called on the bishop and offered her services. He was impressed by her appearance and manner, and accepted her offer. On August 10, 1837, Benedetta, her cousins Angela and Dominica Pescio, and a fourth, named Pauline Barla, took up their residence in a shabby house called the Commenda in Windy Street at Savona. They called themselves the Daughters of our Lady of Mercy, and Benedetta took the names Mary Josepha. Their endowment was a very little furniture, a straw mattress each on the floor, a sack of potatoes and four shillings and twopence; there was also a crucifix and a statue of our Lady. Their work was to instruct poor girls, especially in the things that pertain to God, and later on to open hostels, schools and hospitals-in fact, to do works of mercy under the inspiration of divine compassion.

The congregation was formally inaugurated in October of the same year. 1'he first canonical superioress was Sister Angela, Sister Josepha being mistress of novices and almoner; in 1840 she was elected to the first place, and remained there for the rest of her life. 1'he community outgrew its first 'quarters, and moved into a rented mansion that became the mother house, the core of the huge group of buildings that forms the casa generalizia in Savona today. One of Mother Josepha's early trials was the death of the good and generous Mgr de Mari, especially as the vicar capitular was hostile to her community; but the new bishop, when he \vas appointed after considerable delay, proved to be of Mgr de Mari's mind.

It was he who approved the rule of the congregation in 1846, when it numbered thirty-five members; it had already, under difficulties, sent out its first colony, to work in the municipal schools and hospital at Varazze. From then on it spread to many other places in northern Italy. Not, of course, without its troubles.

Sometimes there was opposition; Mother Josepha's health broke down, and the bishop h3 d to insist that she should go away for a rest; and there were money difficulties. These last were partly met by t,vo unexpected legacies, one being from Mother Josepha's old friend and employer, Mrs Monleone.

51 7

December 8]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

It had always been a project of Mgr de Mari that there should be rescue-homes for young women who had gone astray, and Mother Josepha had not forgotten it.

In spite of a discouraging first experiment at Genoa, she eventually succeeded in establishing three such homes, which she called Houses of Divine Providence; one of them was in her own birthplace, Albisola, where it was housed in the building that had been the home of Ferdinand Isola, a Franciscan slain out of hatred of the faith by the Turks at Skutari in 1648. It was said of Mother Josepha that whenever she had five pounds to spare she always wanted to found something new. One of these new enterprises was a House of Clerics to foster and help on vocations to the priesthood. Mother Josepha's energy and foresight were too much for many of the clergy, who strongly opposed this innovation; but she succeeded in winning over the bishop, Mgr Cerruti. Not only did he allow the House of Clerics to remain open, but his successor, Mgr Boraggini, actively encouraged it. Then, in 1875, came the first foundation in America, when a company of the Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy, with the blessing and recommendation of St. John Bosco, left for Buenos Aires; soon their schools, hospitals, rescue-homes and other works were flourishing in the New \Vorld.

The portrait of St Josepha in her later years shows a firmly moulded face, full of energy, but calm, with just a touch of obstinacy-a characteristic type of " Victorian" old lady. In fact, those of the present writer's generation might well say on seeing it, " She looks like myoid grandmother". She was one of those saints whose grandeur of soul was joined to a complete simplicity of outlook.

The foundress of numerous convents and their charitable establishments was never more herself than when she was sweeping the floors, polishing the tables or doing the washing-up. When she was sixty-four the effects of her unremitting toil began seriously to tell; she developed a weakness of the heart and lost the use of her legs, so that she could only oversee the work of others and no longer take an active part in it herself. This depressed her sadly. "I'm a useless burden", she said, " always getting in people's way". And together with this trial she was visited with a " dark night of the spirit", beset by numberless scruples and con足 vinced that she was fit only for eternal reprobation. But her faith was equal to her apparent forsakenness. "Cling to Jesus", she repeated over and over again to her community. "There are God, the soul, eternity; the rest is nothing". Josepha Rossella went to her reward, peacefully and with humble confidence, on December 7, 1880. She was sixty-nine years old. Her canonization took place in 1949.

A life of St Josepha by Katherine Burton was published privately.

Her collaborator Francis Martinengo wrote her life in Italian, and a llseful sketch by Dr Pier a Delfino Sessa was published at Turin in 1938.

As a tertiary of their order, Josepha is included among the Franciscan saints.

8 : THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY y the bull Ineffabilis Deus of December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX, by an exercise of his supreme pontifical power of infallible teaching, pronounced and defined it to be " a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful that the Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instant of her conception was, by an unique grace and privilege of Almighty God in view

B

518

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

[December 8

of the merits of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the human race, preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." That is to say that her soul at the first moment of its creation and infusion into her body was clothed in sanctifying grace, which to every other child of Adam is only given in the first instance after birth and, since Christ, at baptism (though it is generally held that Jeremias and St John Baptist received it before birth, but not at conception); the. stain of original sin was not removed but excluded from her soul. For two hundred and fifty years before this solemn definition the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had been uni.. versally believed in the Church (it was, of course, implicit in the deposit of faith from the beginning) and public teaching to the contrary was forbidden; but it was not "of faith" (it had somewhat the same position as the doctrine of the Assumption of our Lady held until 1950). It is therefore found that Alban Butler writes on this day under the heading simply of the " Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary", and says that " it is the most generally received belief, though not defined as an article of faith, that in her very conception she was immaculate.

Many prelates and a great number of Catholic universities have declared themselves in strong terms in favour of this doctrine; and several popes have severely for­ bidden anyone to impugn or to dispute or write against it. Nevertheless, it is forbidden to rank it among articles of faith defined by the Church, or to censure those who' privately hold the contrary'." But, he goes on, it is sufficient for us, who desire as dutiful sons of the Church to follow her direction in all such points, that she manifestly favours this opinion. . . . "The very respect which we owe to the Mother of God and the honour due to her divine Son incline us to believe this privilege most suitable to her state of spotless holiness." Since Pius IX spoke in 1 854 the reservations mentioned by Butler have ceased to exist and every Catholic is bound to believe by divine faith that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is true.

A liturgical feast commemorating the conception of our Lady by the power of her father in the womb of her mother (without any reference to Mary's sinless­ ness) seems to have been originally celebrated in Palestine; and there is much reason to believe that the idea of this conception feast for our Lady was suggested by the earlier existence of a conception feast for St John Baptist, which is found at the beginning of the seventh century. For a long time the expression Conception of Mary was taken to mean the conception of our incarnate Lord within her womb by the power of the Holy Ghost (which we celebrate on the feast of the Annun­ ciation), and consequently the new feast referred to was called the Conception of (or by) St Anne.· In the ninth century it was imported to southern Italy and Sicily from Constantinople, still called the Conception of St Annet and with no idea of the immaculate conception. The first clear evidences of a feast of the • It is a quite understandable error among non-Catholics not informed on the matter that the expression Immaculate Conception refers to the virginal conception of our Lord. t The feast has maintained this name in the East and even the Catholic Byzantines call it officially the" Child-begetting of the holy Anne, mother of the Mother of God ", and keep it on December 9, the original Eastern date. But, of course, it is for them now the same feast as our Immaculate Conception. The dissident Eastern churches have no official teaching about the doctrine: some theologians have repudiated it, others have taught it. The people probably believe it, at least implicitly. The original Russian sect of Old Believers is said to have professed it fonnally. The calendar of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer still has the" Conception of the Virgin Mary" on December 8.

Decetnber 8]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Conception of our Lady, and under that name, in the West come from England, at Winchester, Canterbury and Exeter just before the Norman Conquest. This was identified with December 8 ;=t and when we remember that in Jerusalem and Constantinople, and also in Naples, December 9 was the day assigned for this observance it seems probable that the determining influence came from the East.

In England, again as in the East, the observance began in the monasteries, and its first two mentions are found in calendars of the abbey called the New Minster, at Winchester. It met with opposition as an innovation. But a disciple of St Anselm, the monk Eadmer, wrote an important treatise on our Lady's con­ ception, and the archbishop's nephew, another Anselm, introduced the feast of the Conception into his own abbey at Bury St Edmunds. It was soon taken up by Saint Albans, Reading, Gloucester and others. Some monks of Westminster, where the prior, Osbert of Clare, favoured the feast, challenged its lawfulness, but it was approved by a synod in London in 1129. At the same time the feast began to spread in Normandy, though whether it was first brought there from England or from southern Italy, then in Norman occupation, is not clear.

The adoption of the feast in the cathedral church of Lyons, about the year 1140, was the occasion of a protest by St Bernard which precipitated a theological con­ troversy that was to last for three hundred years, the point at issue being the moment at which the sanctification of Mary took place. But however the contro­ versy fluctuated from one to aRother of its several sides, the observance of the feast of the Conception of our Lady steadily progressed. In 1263 it was adopted by the whole Order of Friars Minor, who became the great defenders of the Immaculate Conception, whereas the Dominican theologians generally opposed it. But in spite of its popularity in England, Canterbury did not adopt the feast until 1328, and it was not till 1476 that the Franciscan pope, Sixtus IV, officially adopted it for the Roman church. The feast was still of the Conception of the Immaculate One rather than of the Immaculate Conception as we understand it, though, as Butler pertinently note~, the sanctification of our Lady rather than her bare con­ ception is the object of the Church's devotion. But in 1661 Pope Alexander VII declared that the feast celebrated the immunity of our Lady from original sin in the first moment of the creation of her soul and its infusion into her body, i.e. the moment of " passive conception" in the sense of the Catholic doctrine. In 1 708 Pope Clement XI imposed the festival on the whole Western church as a feast of precept.

After the solemn definition of the dogma in 1854 the name of the feast was altered to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and nine years later a new Mass and Office in accordance therewith was prescribed. Since then, and indeed for some time before, the veneration of our Lady as immaculately conceived has become one of the most popular aspects of Marian devotion. Of the eighteen dioceses of England and Wales, ten have our Lady as conceived sinless for their principal patron, and she was declared patroness of the United States under this title by the first Council of Baltimore eight years before the definition.

Hundreds of churches throughout the world are dedicated to God in honour of our Lady so regarded.

There is, of course, an immense literature connected with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and with its liturgical celebration. Perhaps' the fullest account is furnished in • The. date was fixed by the feast of the Birthday of our Lady, nine months before September 8. Why this date was selected for the birthday is not known.

520

ST ROMARIC

[December 8

the article by Fathers Le Bachelet and Jugie in DTC., vol. vii, which runs to over three hundred and fifty columns. See also on the feast Fr Thurston in The Month, 1904, May, June, July and December, with E. Bishop's criticisms in the Bosworth Psalter, pp. 43-51, and Liturgica historica, pp. 238-259; and on the entry in early Irish calendars, Fr Grosjean's very important" note" in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxi '(1943), pp. 91-95, where he shows that these entries got into certain manuscripts "par une bevue de copiste ". There are two valuable articles on the feast in the Byzantine church in Bessarione, Se'ptember and December 1904. The first well-considered theological treatise arguing soberly that our Lady's conception was immaculate is that of Eadmer, the devoted adherent and biographer of St Anselm, though in this he departs from the view held by the saint himself. The text with other matter was critically edited in Slater and Thurston, Eadmeri Tractatus de Conceptione Sanctae Mariae (1904). It has been translated into French by H. del Marmol (1923). For many centuries after Eadmer's day the discussion went on, but for this see the bibliography of Fr Le Bachelet and the article of A. W. Burridge in the Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique. vol. xxxii (1936), pp. 570-597, entitled (( L'Immaculee Conception dans la theologie de l'Angleterre medievale". There is a recent work by M. Jugie, L'Immaculie Conception dans l'Ecriture sainte (1952). For the origin of the Western feast, see Fr. S. J. P. van Dijk in the Dublin Review, 3rd and 4th qrs., 1954; and for the devotion, Mgr H. F. Davis in the latter issue of the same.

ST ROMARIC,

ABBOT

IN the account of St Amatus of Remiremont given herein under September 13 it is related how he brought about the conversion to God of a Merovingian nobleman named Romaric, who became a monk at Luxeuil; and how they afterwards went together to the estate of Romaric at Habendum in the Vosges, and established the monastery which was later known as Remiremont (Romarici Mons). The father of Romaric had lost his life and his lands at the hands of Queen Brunehilda, and his young son became a homeless wanderer; but at the time of his meeting St Amatus, Romaric was a person of distinction at the court of Clotaire II, with considerable property and a number of serfs. These he enfranchised, and it is said that when he was tonsured at Luxeuil several of these newly freed men pre足 sented themselves to the abbot for the same purpose. Remiremont was founded in 620 and St Amatus was its first abbot, but his duties soon devolved upon St Romaric, who at the time of his death had governed for thirty years. The size of the communities enabled the laus perennis to be established, the Divine Office being sung without intermission by seven alternating choirs, a practice which St Amatu~ had learned when he was at Agaunum. Among the early recruits was the friend of Romaric, St Arnulfus of Metz, who about 629 came to end his days in a near-by hermitage. Shortly before his death St Romaric was disturbed by the news that Grimoald, the son of another old friend, Bd Pepin of Landen, was plotting to exclude the young prince Dagobert from the Austrasian throne. The aged abbot made his way to Metz, where he remonstrated with Grimoald and warned the nobles who supported him. They heard him quietly, treated him with courtesy, and sent him back to his monastery. Three days later St Romaric died. In 105 I a solemn enshrining of his relics was authorized by Pope St Leo IX, who was a benefactor of Remiremont. The present town of that name marks the site to which the nuns' monastery was removed at the beginning of the tenth century; the monks' monastery continued on the hill above till the Revolution.

There are two biographical texts, the first of which has been printed by Mabillon, and edited more critically in modern times by B. Krusch in MGH., Scriptores Merov., vol. iv, pp. 221-225; see also G. Kurth, Dissertations academiques, vol. i (1888).

521

TI-IE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Dece,mber 9]

9 : SSe

HIPPARCHUS SAMOSATA

AND

(A.D.

HIS

297

COMPANIONS,

OR

THE SEVEN MARTYRS OF

c. 308 ?)

HEN the caesar Galerius returned from his campaign against the Persians (or when Maximinus was ruling in Syria), he celebrated a festival at Samosata upon the banks of the Euphrates, and commanded all to assist at the sacrifices which were to be made to the gods. Hipparchus and Philotheus, magistrates of the city, had some time before received the Christian faith, and in the house of Hipparchus they made an image of the cross, before which they worshipped the Lord Christ. Five friends, young men, named James, Paregrus, Abibus, Romanus and Lollian, coming to visit them, found them in this room praying before the cross; and they asked them why they prayed at home at a time when by the emperor's orders all were assembled in the temple of Fortune. They answered that they worshipped the Maker of the world. "Do you take that cross for the maker of the world? " they asked, and Hipparchus answered, " We worship Him who hung upon the cross. We confess Him to be God, and the Son of God. It is now the third year since we were baptized by James, a priest of the true faith, who now gives us the body and blood of Christ. We therefore find it unlawful to stir out of doors during these three days, for we abhor the smell of the offerings with which the whole city reeks." After much discussion the five young men declared that they also desired to be baptized, and Hipparchus sent a messenger to the priest James with a letter. James forthwith covered the sacred vessels with his cloak, and coming to the house found the seven men. Saluting them he said, " Peace be with you, servants of Jesus Christ, who was crucified for His creatures".

James and his fellows fell at his feet and said, " Have pity on us and give us the mark of Christ, whom we worship". When they had prayed together the priest, saluting them, said, " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all ". When they had made a confession of their faith and abjured idolatry he baptized them, and immediately gave them the sacred Body and Blood. This being done, he took up the holy vessels and, again covering them with his cloak, made haste home, fearing lest the pagans should discover them together; for the priest was an old man in ragged garments, while Hipparchus and Philotheus were men of rank and the other five also of good birth.

On the third day of the festival the emperor inquired whether the magistrates had all performed the duty of sacrificing on this public occasion. He was told that Hipparchus and Philotheus had for three years past constantly absented themselves from public worship. Thereupo~ the emperor gave orders that they should be led to the temple and compelled to sacrifice. The messengers, coming to the house of Hipparchus, found the seven above-mentioned together, but at first took only Hipparchus and Philotheus. The emperor asked them why they scorned both him and the gods, to which Hipparchus replied that he blushed to hear wood and stone called gods. The emperor commanded that he should receive fifty stripes, and promised to make Philotheus praetor if he complied. The confessor replied that honours upon such terms would be ignominy. He then began to explain the creation of the world with great eloquence, but the emperor interrupted him, saying he saw that he was a man of learning and that he would not put him to the torture, hoping that his own reason would convince him of his errors. He gave orders that he should be put in irons, and confined in a separate

W

522

THE, MARTYRS OF SAMOSATA

[December 9

dungeon from Hipparchus. In the meantime an officer was sent to seize the five that were found with them. When they also refused to sacrifice the emperor urged on them that they were young, and threatened that if they persisted in their obstinacy they should be beaten and then crucified like their Master. Their answer was that they were not frightened of torture, so they were chained and kept in separate cells, without meat or drink, till the festival should be over.

The solemnity in honour of the gods being concluded, a tribune was erected in a meadow near the banks of the Euphrates, and the emperor having taken his seat the confessors were brought before him. The two old magistrates were led first by chains about their necks, and the others followed with their hands tied. Upon their refusal to sacrifice they were all stretched upon the rack and each received twenty stripes. Then they were carried back to their prison, with orders that no one should be allowed to see or help them and that they should be given just enough bread to keep them alive. They were left thus for over two months, when they were again brought before the emperor, looking more like corpses than living men. When again invited to sacrifice, they asked him not to seek to draw them from the way which Jesus Christ had opened to them. The emperor replied with fury, " You seek death ! Your desire is granted, that you may cease to insult the gods. " He then commanded that gags should be put in their mouths, and that they should be crucified. They were being hurried towards the place of execution when several magistrates represented that Hipparchus and Philotheus were their col足 leagues in the magistracy, who ought to settle their accounts and the public affairs which had been left in their hands, and that the others were patricians who ought to be allowed at least to make their wills: they therefore begged that some re~pite might be granted them. The emperor assented and gave the condemned into the hands of the magistrates for the stated purposes. They led them into the porch of the circus and, having taken the gags from their mouths, said to them privately, " We obtained this liberty under pretence of settling public business with you, but in reality to have the chance of speaking to you in private to beg your inter足 cession with God and to ask your blessing for this city and ourselves." The martyrs gave their blessing and addressed the people that were assembled. The emperor was informed and sent a reprimand to the magistrates for letting criminals speak to the people. Their excuse was that they dare not forbid it for fear of a tumult.

The emperor ordered seven crosses to be set up near the gate of the city, and again ordered Hipparchus to obey. The old man, laying his hand upon his bald head, replied, " As this in the course of nature cannot be again covered with hair, so shall I never change and conform to your will ". Whereon the emperor had a goat's skin fastened on his head and then jeeringly said, " Your bald pate is now covered with hair. Sacrifice, therefore, according to your own condition." They were fastened to their crosses; and at noon several women came out and bribed the guards to let them wipe the faces of the martyrs and sponge away the blood.

Hipparchus died on the cross in a short time. James, Romanus and Lollian died the next day, being stabbed by the soldiers as they hung. Philotheus, Abibus and Paregrus were taken down while they were yet alive and their heads pierced with spikes. It was ordered that their bodies should be thrown into the river, but Bassus, a Christian, redeemed them from the guards for money and buried them in the night at his farm in the country.

This Syriac passio was first printed, with a Latin translation, by S. E. Assemani in his Acta sanctorum martyrum orientalium, vol. ii, pp. 124-147. Another edition of the Syriac

Decfmber 9]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

text is that of Bedjan in vol. iv of his Acta martyrum et sanctorum. A translation of the document in French will be found in H. Leclercq, Les Martyrs, vol. ii (1903), pp. 391-403.

The name here presented as Hipparchus is also transliterated Hyperechius, or Hypericus.

In the Byzantine church these martyrs were commemorated on January 29, and among the Armenians in October. In DeB., vol. iii, p. 85, Dr G. T. Stokes points out that the de足 scription of the baptism of the younger disciples contains points of great liturgical interest, and he raises the question of the date and emperor concerned.

ST LEOCADIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR

(A.D. 304?)

THE Spanish poet Prudentius does not mention St Leocadia in his hymns on the martyrs written at the end of the fourth century, but there was a church dedicated in her honour at Toledo at the beginning of the seventh, so her eultus has a respect足 able antiquity. But her acta are late, and not reliable. They state that Leocadia was a noble maiden of Toledo, who during the persecution of Diocletian was tortured and remanded to prison by the fierce governor Dacian. \\Thile there she heard of the passion of St Eulalia at Merida and, moved by her exam.ple, prayed that she also might be accounted worthy to die for Christ. God granted her prayer, and she succumbed in prison to the sufferings she had undergone. If the reference to St Eulalia be authentic and if that martyr suffered on December 10, then this traditional date of Leocadia's feast cannot be the day of her death, unless we are to suppose that she lingered for twelve months (but e/. reference below).

A well-known legend about St Leocadia is narrated herein in the account of St Ildephonsus (January 23). She is the principal patroness of Toledo, and three old churches there are dedicated under her name, on the alleged sites respectively of her tomb, her prison and her house.

The quite untrustworthy passio of St Leocadia is printed in H. Florez, Espana Sagrada, vol. vi, pp. 315-317 and in La Fuente, Hist. eccl. de Espana, vol. i (1873), pp. 335-337; on \\'hich c/. Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xvii (1898), p. I 19. We have no reason to doubt the fact of the martyrdom. Her name occurs in the Hieronymianum on December 13; see Delehaye's commentary p. 646, and also his Origines du Culte des Martyrs, p. 369, with the references there indicated.

ST GORGONIA, MATRON

(c. A.D. 372)

ST GREGORY NAZIANZEN the Elder and his wife St Nonna had three children, St Gorgonia, St Gregory Nazianzen and St Caesarius, of whom Gorgonia was the eldest. She married and herself had three children, ",-hom she brought up with the same care that she had received herself. Twice she recovered from illness through sheer trust in the will of Almighty God: once after a bad fall, when she would not let a physician see her, and another time when she received holy com足 munion. Her brother also tells us that once during sickness she visited the church at night and searched the altar for any crumbs of the Blessed Sacrament that might have been overlooked there in hope of a cure-in those days the bread used at the Holy Mysteries was like ordinary household bread, as it still is in most of the Eastern churches. Gorgonia always loved the services of the church and to look after its material building, lived in a sober and God-fearing style, and was most generous to the poor; and yet, in accordance with a common custom of earlier days, she did not receive baptism till she was past middle age. Her husband received it at the same time, together with their children and grandchildren. At her funeral her brother Gregory made a long oration which was a panegyric of her goodness and the source of what little is known of her.

52 4

ST BUDOC, OR BEUZEC

[December 9

We know little or nothing of St Gorgonia except what we learn from her brother's panegyric. It is printed in Migne, PG., vol. xxxv, pp. 789-817. On the incident of the visit to the altar at night, see H. Thurston in Journal of Theol. Studies, vol. xi (1910), pp.

275-279·

ST BUDOC,

OR

BEUZEC,

ABBOT

(SIXTH CENTURY?)

THE legend of 8t Budoc is a characteristic example of romantic and extravagant medieval Celtic hagiography. It is first found complete only in the late middle ages, in the Chronicle of Saint-Brieuc, compiled some time before 1420. Once upon some unspecified time there was a king in Goello (Treguier in Brittany) who married the beautiful daughter of the king of Brest; her name was Azenor. One day her father while hunting was bitten by a snake, which seized hold of his arm and would not let go. Whereupon Azenor, who was present, smeared her breast with milk and aromatic oil and so enticed the snake off her father on to herself; but to get rid of it she had to cut away her own breast together with the snake, and throw them into a fire. God recognized her daughterly piety, healed the wound, and gave her a breast of gold. This aggravated the ill-will of her already jealous step­ mother, who accused her of being unfaithful to her husband, the king of Goello, whereupon Azenor was put into a cask and thrown into the sea. 8he prayed to God and 8t Brigid, and an angel came with food for her and when she gave birth to a boy 8t Brigid herself was the midwife. This child was Budoc, and ""hen his mother had made the sign of the cross over him, he opened his mouth and said, " Do not be afraid, for God is with us ".

After Azenor had thus lived for five months in the cask, it was washed up on the shore of Waterford harbour and found by a peasant. He hoped it wa~ full of wine, and was about to tap it when a child's voice from within warned him to be careful for there was a baby inside who wanted baptism. The frightened fellow ran off to a neighbouring monastery and fetched the abbot, who opened the cask and released Azenor and her child. The next day he was baptized and named, in B'rezoneg, Beuzec, because he was saved from drowning. He was educated by the monks and his royal mother took in washing. Meanwhile, the wicked step­ mother died, confessing in her last moments that she had falsely accused Azenor, and the distracted king of Goello did not rest till he had found his wife and son.

But he died in Ireland and Azenor soon followed him to the grave. Budoc, however, grew up to be abbot of the monastery, and the people called him to be both bishop and prince over them. But after two years he tired of his hard task and, not being able to get a boat, he set out for Brittany in a stone trough or coffin. In this he landed safely near Brest, and eventually came to Dol, where he was welcomed by 8t l\1aglorius who wanted a bishop to take his own place. Budoc filled that office for twenty years, and died and was buried at Dol: "an angelic minister, very learned, conspicuous for virtue, whom all the people of that time looked on as a support of the faith and a most firm pillar of the Church."

There was a cultus of a saint, or saints, named Beuzec (Budoc) in the north and west of Brittany, and there was a 8t Budoc who was a bishop at Dol; but he can hardly have been the same who was the master of 8t Winwaloe on the Isle L-avret near Brehat. In Britain his cultus was found in Devon and Cornwall, and the tradition at Budock, near Falmouth, was that he ,vas a hermit who had come to that parish from Ireland. But his name is not Irish. It is possible that he came

52 5

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 9]

from Pembrokeshire, where he was formerly honoured at and around Steynton.

There was a church of St Budoc at Oxford at the time of the Conquest. It may be noted that the proximity of the island monasteries of Beuzec and Maudez near Paimpol in Brittany is repeated in the closeness of Budock to Saint Mawes in Cornwall.

It seems to be altogether a matter of speculation whether there were one or several St Budocs. The best attempt to deal with the problem is no doubt that of Canon Doble in his" Cornish Saints" series (no. 3, 2nd ed., 1937). But see also F. Duine, Memento, pp. 65-66, and LBS., vol. i, pp. 328-330.

ST PETER FOURIER, CO-FOUNDER OF THE AUGUSTINIAN CANONESSES REGULAR OF OUR LADY

(A.D. 1640)

PETER FOURIER was born at Mirecourt, in Lorraine, in 1565, and at the age of fifteen was sent by his father to the university directed by the Jesuits at Pont-a足 Mousson, where he must have met Bd William Lacey, the future martyr, then studying there. He completed a very creditable course of studies and opened a school at his home, but he had already decided against a secular career and at the age of twenty joined the Canons Regular of St Augustine at Chaumousey. In 1589 he was ordained priest; it was not till some months later that his humility and sense of unworthiness would let him celebrate his first Mass, and then his abbot sent him back to the university for further theological study. He remained there for some years, took his doctorate, and displayed an astonishing memory.

When he \vas recalled to his monastery he was appointed procurator and vicar of the abbey parish; he carried out his duties under most disheartening conditions, for the observance of the abbey was bad and his attempts to improve it were met with ridicule.

In 1597 he was offered the cure of souls in one of the three other parishes served by the canons, and he chose Mattaincourt, as that presented the greatest difficulties.

Mattaincourt is a village of the Vosges which at that time was contaminated by Calvinism and rotten with evil living; St Peter Fourier worked there for thirty years and is to this day remembered in the neighbourhood as " Ie bon pere de Mattaincourt ". He served his flock first by his prayers and by his example; he never forgot that he was a canon regular, subject to the vows of religion, and always lived with an austerity, poverty and simplicity befitting the monastic life; he dispensed with a fire, except for the comfort of visitors, and never refused the needy alms or advice whether spiritual or temporal: his pupil and biographer, Father John Bedel, says that he was particularly compassionate towards those who, through bad business or theft, or other causes outside their control, were less well off than they had been. "For the benefit of such he started a fund, called St Evre's Purse, after the patron-saint of the parish, into which he paid all charitable bequests, fines, et cetera. When any parishioner was in real difficulty, a few hundred francs were given him fronl this fund so that he could carry on his business, the only condition being that if he prospered it should be repaid. This scheme worked so well that it could be carried on with the interest on the fund." St Peter also established three confraternities in his church: of St Sebastian for men, of the Rosary for matrons, and of the Immaculate Conception for maidens; this last was among the earliest sodalities of "Children of Mary". The good parish priest was badly faced with what is today called the problem of " leakage", and after much

526

ST RETER FOURIER

[December 9

prayer an_d consideration he decided that the free education of children was a first necessity.

He first of all tackled the boys. But the time was not yet; God's chosen tool for this work was John-Baptist de la Salle, not to be born for another half-century.

St Peter Fourier saw at once that he had failed, wasted no more time on it, and turned his attention to four women volunteers, Alix Le Clercq, Ganthe Andre, Joan and Isabel de Louvroir. These he tested, put for training in the house of canon足 esses of Poussey in 1598, and in due course they opened a free school at Mattain足 court. The saint was a man of ideas in education and himself gave the mistresses a daily lesson in pedagogy. He was one of the first to use what educationists call the" simultaneous method"; and he required that the older girls should be taught how to draw up invoices and receipts, should be given practice in composition and in writing letters, and should be able to speak correctly " the language of their province" (he knew nothing of an equivalent to " standard English "). He was urgent that for their own good and the welfare of the state poor children as well as others should be educated in the love of God and so much as possible in everything that would help them to live with decency and dignity, and that their schooling was to cost nothing. Knowing the value of the " dramatic method" he wrote some dialogues on the virtues and vices (with a particular eye to the shortcomings of his parishioners), which the children would recite before their elders in the church on Sunday afternoons. St Peter gave particular instructions to his nuns on how Protestant children were to be treated: ". . . kindly and lovingly. Do not let the other children interfere with or tease them. . . . Do not speak harshly of their religion, but when occasion serves show them, when speaking in general terms to all your pupils, how good and reasonable are the precepts and practices of ours." He used similar methods himself when, in 1625, he was commissioned to combat Protestantism in the principality of Salm. He spent as much time in urging Catholics to change their lives as in urging Protestants to change their faith, and would not provoke them by calling them heretics but referred to them as " strangers". With Father Bedel and another Jesuit he had more success in six months than his predecessors in thirty years. The new institute of nuns in I 6 I 6 received papal approval under the title of Canonesses Regular of St Augustine of the Congregation of Our Lady, and soon spread throughout France; it is now established as well in England and other countries. In 1628 Pope Urban VIII allowed the nuns to take a fourth vow binding themselves to the free education of children. Father Fourier's chief partner, Alix Le Clercq, was beatified as co足 foundress in 1947.

St Peter Fourier having been so successful in the reformation of a country parish, he was directed to undertake a less localized and no less difficult task.

Monastic life was at a low ebb in Lorraine at that time, and in 1622, having had him appointed visitor to the canons regular by the Holy See, M gr John de Porcelets de Maillane, Bishop of Toul, called on him to re-establish discipline in the houses of his order and to unite them all into one reformed congregation. His mission was not enthusiastically received, but in the following year the abbot of Luneville handed over his monastery to St Peter Fourier and a handful of reformed canons.

By 1629 the work was done, observance was re-established, and the canons regular of Lorraine formed into the Congregation of Our Saviour. St Peter, much against his wish, was elected their superior general in 1632, saying when he entered into office, " As Jesus Christ gives Himself to men in the Blessed Sacrament, looking

52 7

December

10]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

for no return but the good they shall receive in communion, so do I give myself to you this day: not for the sake of any honour or advantage I may receive thereby, but only for the salvation of your souls". I t had been his hope all along that the reformed canons would undertake that work of educating boys which he had failed to establish in Mattaincourt, and they were quite willing to take it on. When therefore he sent representatives to Rome in 1627 to see about the recognition of the Con­ gregation of Our Saviour, he told them to bring this matter up: "With regard to the schools that we "'-ant, it will be well to show that as boys "Tho do not wish to learn Latin, and others before they enter college, have no religious order to take charge of them, at least in these parts, it looks as if there were a vacant benefice in the Church of God. Let us, then, humbly ask for it." Ask they did, and were refused-in Rome in the seventeenth century it had been forgotten that there was nothing inconsistent with the dignity of the priesthood in teaching in " elementary schools". But they did in fact do some educational work and had several colleges; and when the Jesuits were suppressed in the eighteenth century, those of Lorraine handed their colleges over to the canons regular.

St Peter Fourier was greatly attached to the house of Lorraine and Duke Charles IV, so that when in 1636 he was tendered the oath of allegiance to King Louis XIII he refused it and fled to Gray in Franche-Comte. Here in exile he spent the last four years of his life, as chaplain of a convent and teaching in the free school which he caused to be opened. He died on December 9, 1640, and was canonized in 1897. His shrine at Mattaincourt i~ the resort of numerous pilgrims.

The saint's first biographer was Father Bedel, who had been his disciple and companion.

Of the many lives which have since been written it will be sufficient to note those of Father Rogie, Dom Vuillemin, and the Abbe Pingaud. This last has been translated into English.

A volume by Father Cherot makes excellent use of the saint's letters, and a new life by B. Bontoux, St Pierre Fourier, was published in 1949. See also under Bd Alix Le Clercq Oanuary 9).

10 : ST MILTIADES,

POPE AND MARTYR

S

O little is known about St Miltiades (sometilnes written IVlelchiades) that he is now chiefly remembered on account of its having been during his pontificate that the era of the general persecutions came to an end and the Emperor Constantine gave peace to the Church. He was said to be a native of Africa and was elected to the papacy on July 2, probably in 311. After the battle at the Milvian Bridge, where Constantine defeated Maxentius on October 28, 312, the victorious emperor marched into Rome, and early in 313 toleration was granted to Christians (and to other religions) throughout the empire; this was followed by the bestowal of privileges on the Church and the removal of legal disabilities.· Christian captives were released from the prisons and mines, and all celebrated the victory of Christ with hymns of praise, honouring God day and night with prayer that the peace which had been granted after ten years of violent persecution might not be taken away.

But amidst these rejoicings the Church was disturbed by the beginnings of the Donatist schism in Africa. It arose out of the appointment of Caecilian as bishop • There has been no little debate among the learned about the circumstances of this victory and what followed it.

SSe MENNAS, HERMOGENES, AND EUGRAPHLTS

[December 10

of Carthage, whom the party of Donatus alleged to be invalidly consecrated because (as was said) he had delivered up the sacred books under persecution.· At the request of Constantine the pope called a synod of Italian and Gaulish bishops at Rome, which decided that Caecilian's election and consecration were good and valid. 8t Augustine, speaking of the moderation which the pope used in this connection, calls Miltiades an excellent man, a true son of peace and father of Christians. A commemoration is made of him in the liturgy of December 10 as a martyr, because, says the Roman Martyrology, he suffered many things during the persecution of Maximian (before he was bishop of Rome).

This holy pope saw a door opened by the peace of the Church to the conversion of many, and he rejoiced at the triumph of the cross of Christ. But with worldly prosperity a worldly spirit too often broke into the sanctuary itself; insomuch that there was sometimes reason to complain with Isaias, " Thou hast multiplied the nation, and hast not increased the joy". Under the pressure of persecution the true spirit of religion was maintained in many during the first ages; yet, amidst the most holy examples and under the influence of strong motives and helps, sin corrupted the hearts of some, who by abuse of grace became abandoned to wicked­ ness. With temporal honours and security love of the world gained the hearts of many more, and they were by ignorance persuaded that they could serve both God and mammon. Though material goods and prosperity are a blessing, they are also a danger.

There is a short account of Pope Miltiades in the Liber Pontificalis, but it tells us little that is trustworthy. A letter oof the Emperor Constantine to the pope as 'well as two other letters connected with the trouble of Bishop Caecilian are preserved by Eusebius, Eccles.

Hist. bk x, ch. 5. But the beginnings of the Donatist schism belong rather to general church history. It may suffice here to recommend the treatment of the subject by J. R. Palanque in vol. iii of the Histoire de l'Eglise, ed. Fliche et Martin. St Miltiades' true date is January 10 : cf. CMH., pp. 34 and 428. On the pope's alleged burial place in the cemetery of Callistus, see Leclercq in DAC., vol. xi, cc. 1199-12°3; and on the Roman synod, E. Caspar in the Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, vol. xlvi (1927), pp. 333-346. For the Constantinian problems see N. H. Baynes, Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (1929)·

SSe MENNAS, HERMOGENES, AND EUGRAPHUS, MARTYRS (DATE UNKNOWN) ~IENNAS (Menas), an Athenian, called " of the beautiful voice", was sent by the Emperor Galerius to Alexandria to use his learning and eloquence for the pacifica­ tion of troubles among the citizens. Having carried out his commission he publicly declared himself a Christian, and together with his subordinate, Eugraphus, began to make many converts. The judge, Hermogenes, who on his \vay to Alexandria had been assured in a vision that the voyage would turn out for his own benefit, summoned the offenders before his tribunal; whereupon, as the worthless passio of these martyrs, falsely ascribed to 8t Athanasius, informs us, Mennas used his beautiful voice to make an address to the court which lasted for four hours. Al­ though this oration made a great impression, it was ordered that his eyes and tongue should be plucked out and his feet flayed. But the next day he was found fully recovered from these outrages, at which miracle Hermogenes himself and many others were converted. Galerius ordered that further tortures should be inflicted

• The Donatists held the erroneous doctrines that sacraments given by an unworthy minister are invalid and that sinners cannot be members of the Church.

December 10]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

on them, from all of which they immediately recovered, and all three were eventually beheaded.

This hagiographical fiction is printed in Migne, PG., vol. cxv, pp. 368-416, and there is at least one other redaction of the same story still unpublished. Delehaye inclines to the belief that the whole is a pure invention founded on the popularity of the authentic St Mennas (November 11). The names of the two companions, Hermogenes and Eugraphus, oddly enough, recur at Salona in Dahnatia, a place which was especially connected with the veneration of the Egyptian St Mennas. See the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xviii ( 18 99), pp. 4° 6-4°7; vol. xxiii (1904), pp. 14-15; vol. xxix (1910), pp. 144- 145.

There is a summary of the same legend in the Constantinople Synaxary, December 10, cc. 293-294.

ST EULALIA OF MERIDA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR

(A.D. 304?)

FOR particulars of the passion of St Eulalia, the most celebrated virgin martyr of Spain, we have a hymn written in her honour by Prudentius· at the end of the fourth century and her passio of a much later date. She was only twelve years old when the edicts of Diocletian were issued by which it was ordered that all should offer sacrifice to the gods of the empire. Eulalia's mother, observing her ardour for martyrdom, took her into the country. But she found means to make her escape by night, and arrived at Merida before daybreak. As soon as the court sat the same morning she presented herself before the judge, Dacian, and reproached him with attempting to destroy souls by compelling them to renounce the only true God. Dacian at first tried to flatter and bribe her into withdrawing her words and observing the edicts. Then he threatened and showed the instruments of torture, saying, "These you shall escape if you will but touch a little salt and incense with the tip of your finger". But she trampled on the cake which was laid for the sacrifice, and spat at the judge. Thereupon two executioners began to tear her body with iron hooks, and lighted torches were applied tc the wounds.

The fire then caught her hair, and Eulalia was stifled by the smoke and flame.

Prudentius tells us that a white dove seemed to come out of her mouth and fly away upward, at which the executioners were so terrified that they fled. Snow fell and covered the body and the whole forum where it lay, till her relics were entombed by the Christians near the place ·of her martyrdom. A church was built on the spot and the altar raised over them before Prudentius wrote his hymn; he says that " pilgrims come to venerate her bones, and she, near the throne of God, beholds them and protects those that sing hymns to her".

The veneration of St Eulalia spread to Africa, and there is a homily of St Augustine for her feast-day; the oldest existing French poem, the" Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie ", of the later ninth century, relates her story; and she is among the martyrs mentioned by Bede in his hymn in honour of St Etheldreda and by St Aldhelm. St Eulalia of Barcelona, named separately in the Roman Martyr­ ology on February 12, is greatly venerated throughout Catalonia, under the names Aulaire, Aulazie, Olalla and other forms; but she is now generally recognized as a double of St Eulalia of Merida. The fact that Prudentius and Venantius pay tribute to the heroism of one Spanish martyr named Eulalia, making especial mention of Merida, seems to constitute proof of the genuineness of the cult in • Alban Butler accords two and a half pages of text to St Eulalia and four and a half pages of small-print footnote (including a paragraph on Sedulius) to Prudentius, " the glory of the ancient Christian poets ".

53°

ST GREGORY III

[December 10

her case, but it constantly happens that fictitious stories are afterwards written which cause a duplication of the subject so honoured.

The passio printed by Florez (Espana Sagrada, vol. xiii, pp. 392-398) must be as old as the sixth century because it was known to St Gregory of Tours, but no dependence can be placed upon the story it contains. Even the few details provided in the poem of Prudentius are probably not much more reliable, but he mentions IVlerida as also does Fortunatus, though St Augustine in hi's sermon says nothing more than that she suffered in Spain.

Competent opinion is now definitely satisfied that there was only one St Eulalia, the martyr of Merida. The Barcelona story is a much later development, incorporating many features of the earlier legend. See on this the convincing essay of H. Moretus in the Re'tJue des questions historiques, vol. lxxxix (1911), pp. 85-119; which investigation is endorsed by Poncelet, Delehaye (CMH., p. 642), and Leclercq, in DAC., vol. v, cc. 705-732. In this last article the greater part of Moretus' essay is reprinted. The attempt of Z. Garcia Villada (Historia eccll!siastica de Espana, vol. i, 1929, pp. 283-300) to vindicate the independent existence of the Barcelona martyr is too plainly biased by patriotic conservatism. The question of the notices of Eulalia in the early martyrologies has been very fully dealt with

by Dom Quentin in his Les martyrologes historiques, pp. 71, 162-164, etc. See also the Acta Sanctorum, February, vol. ii, and BHL., nne 2693-2698. There was a Eulalia abbess of Shaftesbury c. 1074.

ST GREGORY III,

POPE

(A.D. 741)

AMONG the clergy at the funeral of Pope St Gregory II, in the year 731, there was a priest of Syrian nationality who \\ras so well known for his holiness, learning and ability that the people spontaneously carried him off from the procession and elected him by acclamation to the vacant see; he accordingly became pope as Gregory III. He inherited from his ptedecessor the problem of dealing with the Emperor Leo III the Isaurian, who had begun a campaign against the ve~.eration of holy images, and one of Gregory's first acts was to send a letter of protest. But the bearer, George, a priest, got frightened and returned to ROIne \vithout delivering it, to the indignation of the pope, who threatened to degrade him. So George set out again, but was seized by the imperial officers in Sicily and banished. There足 upon Gregory summoned a synod at Rome, wherein bishops, lower clergy and lay足 people approved the excommunication of any who should condemn the veneration of images or destroy them. Leo retorted as some of his predecessors had done in similar circumstances: he sent ships to bring Gregory to Constantinople; but they were lost in a storm, so the emperor contented himself with seizing the papal estates in Calabria and Sicily and recognizing the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople over eastern Illyricum.

After this inauspicious beginning of his pontificate there was a period of peace, during which St Gregory rebuilt and decorated a number of churches; in par足 ticular he set up a row of pillars before the confessio of St Peter, with images of our Lord and the saints thereon and lamps burning around them, a mute but solid protest against Iconoclasm. He sent the pallium to St Boniface in Germany, and when the English missionary made his third visit to Rome, in 738, Gregory wrote an appeal to the" Old Saxons" : the letter consisted chiefly of quotations from the Bible, which perhaps were not very meaningful to its heathen recipients. It was this pope who sent the English monk St Willibald to help Boniface.

Towards the end of St Gregory's life the Lombards again threatened Rome.

The pope sent a famous appeal for help to Charles Martel and the Franks of the West, rather than to the emperor in the East, but it was long before they could be induced to act. To the bishops of Tuscany Gregory wrote urging them to work

53!

December

TIlE LIVES OF THE SAIN1"S

10]

for the recovery of four cities captured by the Lombards: if they did not, " I myself, ill as I am, will make the journey, and save you from the responsibility of being unfaithful to your duty". Then, on October 22, 741, Charles Martel died, and a few weeks later, on Decerrtber 10, St Gregory III followed him to the grave. " He was", says the Liber Pontificalis, " a man of deep humility and true wisdom.

He had a good knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures and their meaning, and knew the psalms by heart. He was a polished and successful preacher, skilled in both Latin and Greek, and a stout upholder of the Catholic faith; a lover of poverty and the poor, a protector of the widowed and the orphaned, a friend to monks and nuns."

There is nothing which can be called an early biography of St Gregory III; the account in the Liber Pontificalis is meagre. What we know of him is gathered from the chroniclers and from the remnants of his correspondence. See Mann, History of the Popes, vol. i, pt 2, pp. 204-224, and Hartmann, Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter, vol. ii, pt 2, pp. 169 seq.

THE LONDON MARTYRS OF 1591 ON October 18, 1591, a royal proclamation led to the stricter enforcement of the laws against Catholics in England, the first fruits of which were seven martyrdoms in London on the following December 10. The principal priest concerned was BD EDMUND GENINGS, who had been born at Lichfield in 1567 and brought up a Protestant. As a boy he was of a serious turn of mind, much given, as his brother tells us, to star-gazing, both literally and figuratively. At the age of sixteen he became page to a Catholic gentleman and was soon reconciled to the Church, whereupon he went to the college at Rheims. It looked as if ill-health would forestall his desires, but he made a marvellous recovery and by dispensation was ordained at the age of twenty-three. Mr Genings was a confessor of the faith before he ever left France, for on their way to the court, in April 1590, he and his companions were robbed and imprisoned for three days by Huguenots. They made a dangerous landing near Whitby, and Genings made his way home, only to find all his family dead except his brother John, who was in l/ondon. He looked for him during a month, and had determined to leave town the following day, when he met him on Ludgate Hill. John was not particularly pleased to see Edmund, whom he strongly suspected of being a priest, and warned him that if he were he would bring death upon himself and discredit on his friends. Edmund accordingly decided that it was not opportune then to attempt his brother's conversion, and departed into the country.¡ He was back in London in the autumn of 1591, and offered Mass at a house in Gray's Inn Lane, the residence of Bn SWITHIN WELLS. Mr Wells was the sixth son of Thomas Wells, a gentleman of Brambridge, near Winchester, and until middle age seems to have led a peaceful country life, varied by travelling abroad and periods of service in noble houses. "He was a witty man skilled in divers languages something given to honest and innocent diversions, yet always devout in prayer " For six years he gave himself" to a more â&#x20AC;˘ John Genings himself confesses that he " rather rejoiced than any way bewailed the untimely and bloody end of his nearest kinsman, hoping thereby to be rid of all persuasions, which he mistrusted he should receive from him touching the Catholic religion". But ten days after the martyrdom he underwent a sudden and very remarkable change of heart and mind, as results of which he became a Catholic, a friar minor, and the minister of the English Franciscan province. The convent of English tertiary sisters formerly at Taunton was founded by Fr John Genings at Brussels in 1619-21.

53 2

THE LONDON MARTYRS OF

[December

1591

10

profitable employment of training up young gentlemen in virtue and learning", in other words, he kept a boys' school at Monkton Farleigh in Wiltshire, and eventually came with his wife Margaret to live in London in 1585. He was in pris0n on account of his religion at least twice during the next six years, and several times examined. On the morning of November 8, 1591, Mr Genings celebrated l\lass in his house with a small congregation, and during the celebration Topcliffe the priest-catcher arrived with his officers. The men kept them at bay by force and cajolery until Mass was finished, and then Bd Edmund was seized, together with BB. POLYDORE PLASDEN, also a priest, JOHN MASON and SIDNEY HODGSON, laymen, Mrs Wells and others. Mr Wells was not present but was arrested shortly after.

At their trial Edmund Genings and Polydore Plasden were found guilty of being priests coming in to the realm, Wells of harbouring them, and Mrs Wells, Mason and Hodgson of relieving them, contrary to 27 Eliz. c. 2, and sentenced to death. * Bd Edmund was hanged, drawn and quartered, and Bd Swithin hanged, in Gray's Inn Fields, hard by the Wells's house. On the way thither from Newgate Swithin shouted to someone in the crowd, " Farewell, old friend! Farewell all hawking and hunting and old pastimes-I am now going a better way!" Edmund was still fully conscious when the butchery began and cried out in his agony, to whom his companion responded, " Alas, sweet soul! your pain is great, but it is almost past.

Pray for me now, good saint, that mine may come." The hangmen and others reported that he invoked St Gregory when his heart and viscera were out of his body. Swithin complained of their keeping him, an old man, standing about in his shirt on a cold day while the noose was arranged, and said to the hangman, " I pray God make of you, a Saul, a Paul". When rropcliffe said to hirn, " See what your priests have brought you to, Mr Wells", he replied, " I am happy and thank God to have been allowed to have so many and such saint-like priests under my roof". The other three, BB. Polydore, John and Sidney, were executed on the same day, December 10, at Tyburn. \Vith them suffered BD EUSTACE WHITE and BD BRIAN LACEY. Lacey, a Yorkshire gentleman, was a cousin and assistant of the Ven. Montford Scott and after torture was condemned to be hanged for aiding and abetting this priest. Bd Brian's own brother had informed against them. Eustace \Vhite came from -Louth, and was a priest ordained in Rome. His parents were Protestants and at his conversion his father had deliberately cursed him. He laboured on the mission in the west of England for three years, until he was betrayed at Blandford by a lawyer with whom he had talked too freely of religion. During his detention in Blandford he made so strong an impression on the local Protestants that it was openly advocated that a petition should be sent to the queen for his release. He was, however, taken to London and treated with extreme barbarity in Bridewell : left closely chained for over six weeks, insufficiently fed, and tortured by Topcliffe seven times, all in a vain hope of making him divulge the names of those who had helped him or in whose houses he had celebrated Mass. He was condemned for his priesthood, and the brutal details of his martyrdom at Tyburn reproduce those of Bd Edmund Genings elsewhere on the same day, whereas his fellow priest, Bd Polydore Plasden, was allowed to hang till he was dead.

A life of Edmund Genings, alias Ironmonger, was written by his brother John Genings and printed at St Omers in 1614. Further sources throwing light upon all this group of

* Mrs' Wells was reprieved and died in prison eleven years later. for further evidence.

533

Her cause is postponed

December

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

10]

martyrs will be found in the publications of the Catholic Record Society, vol. v (1908) ; see especially pp. 204 seq., 131 seq. and passim. Consult also the full account in MMP .• pp. 169-185; B. Camm, Tyburn and the English Martyrs (1904), pp. 60-72; and]. H. Pollen, Acts of English Martyrs, PP. 98-127.

BB.

JOHN (A.D.

ROBERTS

AND

THOMAS

SOMERS,

MARTYRS

1610)

SOME miles north by west of the Merionethshire town of Dolgelley, at the top of the valley between the Rhinogs and the Arenigs, lies the village of Trawsfynydd, near which John Roberts was born in 1577. His family and the exact place of his birth are uncertain, but he seems to have been of ancient stock on both sides, and he is one of the most distinguished figures among the hundred and thirty-six martyrs declared blessed by Pope Pius XI on December 15, 1929. He received his early education from an aged priest and, though brought up nominally a Protestant, he was, as he himself said, always a Catholic at heart. When he was nineteen he went to St John's College at Oxford, where William Laud was still in residence, and Roberts shared the rooms of John Jones, Llanfrynach, afterwards well known as Father Leander-of-St-Martin, O.S.B. He did not finish his course at Oxford, but in 1598 entered as a student of law at Furnivall's Inn. He did not stay there long, for early in the same year he went abroad. The only object of his journey was " amusement and recreation", but in June he was formally reconciled with the Church at Notre-Dame in Paris by Canon Louis Godebert. He at once betook himself to the English College at Valladolid, where he was admitted on October 18 " on account of his burning desire to become a worker in the vineyard of the Lord". In 1599 John Roberts followed the example of Augustine (John) Bradshaw and, in the face of many difficulties caused by the authorities at the college, received the Benedictine habit at the royal monastery of San Benito at Valladolid. His old friend John Jones soon joined him, and they were professed, together with six others from the English College, before the end of the following year at the monastery of St Martin at Compostela, Roberts being known in religion as Brother John of Merioneth (Meirion; de Mervinia).

It seemed at the time that the young Welshmen and Englishmen who took this step endangered their call to be missionaries in their own land, for the Spanish Benedictines were bound by perpetual enclosure. But they were justified in listening first to the call of the traditional cloister by subsequent events. On February 27, 1601, Bd Mark Barkworth, who had been the originator and leader of the Benedictine movement among the English students at Valladolid, was martyred at Tyburn. Thereupon petitions were presented to the Holy See that the English monks might be free to go on the mission, and on December 5, 1602, Pope Clement VIII granted this faculty to those of both the Valladolid and Cas­ sinese congregations. Twenty-one days later, on the feast of St Stephen the First Martyr, Father John Roberts set out accompanied by Father Augustine Bradshaw. " Roberts ", says another Welshman, Lewis Owen, a spy from Father John's own neighbourhood and his inveterate enemy, " was the first that had his mission from the pope and his own Spanish prelate to go for England, which made him not a little proud that he should be a second Augustine monk, to .convert and reconcile his countrymen to the Roman Antichrist." It took the two monks three months to reach London, and although, unlike their predecessors in 597, they came dis­ guised in plumed hats, doublets and swords, they were soon arrested and deported.

534

BB. JOHN ROBERTS AND THOMAS SOMERS

[December

10

On the testimony of Lewis Owen, Father John did not" neglect his Lord and Master's business, but bestirred himself night and day in negotiating His affairs".

The history of his apostolate is a record of repeated arrest, imprisonment, release and exile; nevertheless the contemporary Dom Bucelin in his Benedictus Redivivus says that: "Amid all the religious who have worked in that island this man may almost be reckoned the chief, both as regards labour and fruitfulness of preaching."

In a few weeks he was back in London, succouring the victims of an epidemic so devastating that over 30,000 are said to have died during its first and worst year: all early writers who refer to John Roberts mention his conduct at this time with especial admiration, and he made many converts. In the spring of 1604 he was arrested at some port in the south when about to embark to attend a general chapter of his congregation, accompanied by four postulants. His captors, however, failed to identify him as a priest, and he was released to continue his labours until, during the round-up of Catholics on the day of Gunpowder Plot, November 5, 16째5, he was taken at the house of Mr Knight, a scrivener, in Holborn by Chancery Lane, and was committed to the Gatehouse prison at Westminster, within the precincts of the abbey. Here he was kept for eight months and then, at the intervention of the ambas~ador of France, released and banished. 'This time Father John remained abroad for over a year, during which time he took a principal part in the foundation, with Father Augustine Bradshaw, of a monastery for English monks of the Valladolid congregation at Douay; this became the headquarters of the wonderfully preserved English congregation, and is now St Gregory's Abbey at Downside. He returned to England and was arrested for the fourth time at the end of 16째7. After an examination at which he refused to take the oath of allegiance in a condensed form (3 Jas. I, cc. 4, 5), Father John escaped from prison, and was at large but in great secrecy till May 16째9, when he was first in the Gatehouse, and then Newgate. Again the French ambassador came to the rescue and again John was banished. He went to Spain and then to St Gregory's, Douay, and on a renewed outbreak of plague came back to England for the last time early in 1610.

Some Benedictine, perhaps he, was arrested and escaped in July; but on December 2 he was certainly seized for the last time.

It was the first Sunday of Advent, and he was just ending Mass, probably in Mrs Scott's house, when the officers broke in and carried him off, still in his vestments, to Newgate.

Father John Roberts was arraigned, together with Bd Thomas Somers (alias Wilson), a secular priest from Westmorland, before Coke, L.C.]., George Abbot, Bishop of London, and others, charged with their priesthood under 27 Eliz. c. 2.

They again refused the oath, and Father John admitted under examination that he was a priest and a monk who had come into the country " to work for the salvation of souls, and would continue to do were I to live longer". Abbot called him a disturber and seducer of the people, to which Father John replied that if he were so " then were our ancestors deceived by blessed St Augustine, the apostle of the English, who was sent here by the pope of Rome, St Gregory the Great. . . .

I am sent here by the same Apostolic See that sent him before me." When ordered to be silent, he exclaimed, " I must speak, as my mission is from Heaven. St Matthew says in chapter 28: 'Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.' Your ministers do not do this, because they do not fulfil in their lives and actions the command of Christ. They do not administer the sacrament of penance or of extreme unction. I do. And withal I teach obedience to princes as a matter of

535

December

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

1 I]

conscience, against the false doctrine of Luther and his companions. All this I can prove to you." lIe rebuked the bishop for sitting with civil judges in the trial of a capital cause, and appealed to the bench to decide the case themselves lest the jury, simple and ignorant men unable to distinguish between a priest as such and a man as a traitor, should incur blood-guiltiness. The appeal was disregarded, the jury found both prisoners guilty, and they were condemned to death.

The next day the Spanish lady Luisa de Carvajal bribed the jailer of Newgate to transfer the two priests from the condemned cell to the company of other Catholic prisoners, and in the evening was enacted a remarkable scene. Twenty confessors of the faith sat down together for supper: at the head of the table was Dona Luisa, to her right and left Father Roberts and Mr Somers. Both martyrs were joyous, and the monk had a scruple of conscience. "Do you not think ", he asked his hostess, "that I may be causing disedification by my great glee?

Had I not better withdraw and give myself to prayer?" "N0, certainly not," she answered. " You cannot be better employed than in letting them all see with what cheerful courage you are about to die for Christ." Before the party broke up Dona Luisa washed the feet of the martyrs, an act of homage which greatly angered the king (James I) when it was reported to him. The next morning they were handed over to the sheriff of Middlesex, drawn on hurdles to Tyburn, and there hanged with sixteen common felons. They were allowed to hang till they were dead, owing to the sympathy and threatening attitude of the crowd. Their heads ,,,,ere then displayed on London Bridge and their bodies buried at Tyburn, from whence they were in great part recovered by Bd Maurus Scott and Dona Luisa. Some relics of Bd Thomas Somers are now at Downside, but the rest have disappeared in revolutionary upheavals. Bd John Roberts was only thirty-three years old, and" the first who out of a monastery, after the suppression of monas足 teries in England, attacked the gate of Hell and provoked the prince of darkness in his usurped kingdom, which he overcame like his great Master, the prince of martyrs, by losing his life in the conflict."

A full biography of John Roberts was published by Dom Bede Camm in 1897 and this embodies an exhaustive account of the sources. Challoner's narrative (MMP., pp. 317-323) is naturally less complete. On certain subsidiary questions raised in the life consult The Month, December 1897, pp. 581-600; October 1898, pp. 364-377; October 1899, pp.

233-245; and November, pp. 348-365. See also T. P. Ellis, Catholic Martyrs of Wales (1933), pp. 79-9 1 , and Welsh Benedictines of the Terror (193 6), pp. 43-54, 76-104 and passim; and cf. B. Camm, Nine Martyr Monks (1931). For Somers, see MMP., pp. 321-323; and for the relics of both martyrs, B. Camm, Forgotten Shrines (19 10), pp. 355-356, 373, 378.

11 : ST

DAMASUS,

POPE

OPE DAMASUS is said in the Liber Pontificalis to have been a Spaniard, which may be true of his extraction but he seems to have been born at Rome, where his father was a priest. Damasus himself was never married, and he became deacon in the church which his father served. When Pope Liberius died in 366, Damasus, who was then about sixty years old, was chosen bishop of Rome.. His accession was far from unopposed, a minority electing another deacon, called U rsicinus or U rsinus, whom they supported with great violence. It appears

P

53 6

ST DAMASUS

[December

I I

that the civil power in its maintenance of Damasus used considerable cruelty足 Butler's expression, " barbarous proceedings", is not too strong-from concurrence in which the contemporary Rufinus exonerates him. The adherents of the antipope were not easily quelled, and so late as 378 Damasus had to clear himself both before the Emperor Gratian and a Roman synod of a charge of incontinence maliciously laid against him by his enemies.

Ammianus Marcellinus, the pagan historian of those times, says that the standard of living of the prelates of Rome was a tempting object of ambition, and wishes they would imitate the plainness of the clergy in the provinces. Some show of pomp and state was certainly then made since, as St Jerome reports, a pagan senator of Rome, Praetextatus, said to Pope Damasus, " Make me bishop of Rome, and I will be a Christian to-morrow". The reflection of this heathen shows how necessary Christian moderation is, if we would properly show in our足 selves the spirit of the gospel. Damasus certainly did not deserve to fall under this censure. For St Jerome, who knew him well, being his secretary for a time, severely inveighs against the luxury and state which some ecclesiastics at Rome displayed, and he was not the man to spare their bishop had he deemed him involved. But to such a degree were St Jerome's strictures justified that in 370 Valentinian issued a regulation forbidding clergy to induce orphans and widows to make them any gift or legacy. This edict St Damasus was severe in putting into execution.

Pope St Damasus had to oppose several heresies, but in 380 Theodosius I in the East and Gratian in the West proclaimed Christianity, as professed by the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, to be the religion of the Roman state, and Gratian, on the petition of the Christian senators, supported by St Damasus, removed the altar of Victory from the senate-house and laid aside the title of Pontifex Maximus.

In the following year the second oecumenical council was held, the first of Con足 stantinople, at which the pope was represented by legates. But the action of Damasus that was most far-reaching and beneficial down to this day was his patronage of St Jerome and encouragement of his biblical studies, which had their consummation in the Vulgate version of the Bible. Jerome tells us that Damasus himself was learned in the Scriptures, "a virgin doctor of the virgin Church", and Theodoret says that " He was illustrious for his holy life, and ready to preach and do all things in defence of apostolic doctrine".

St Damasus is, too, specially remembered for his care for the relics and resting.. . places of the martyrs and for his work in the draining, opening out and adornment of the sacred catacoInbs; and notably-by the ordinary Christian imbued with pietas no less than by the historian and archaeologist-for the inscriptions which he set up therein. A large number of his inscriptions and epigrams in verse are extant, either in originals or copies; one of the best known is that to which we are indebted for all we know about St Tarcisius. St Damasus died on December I I, 384, at the age of about eighty.

He had put up in the" papal crypt" of the cemetery of St Callistus a general epitaph which ends: I, Damasus, wished to be buried here, but I feared to offend the ashes of these holy ones.

He was accordingly laid to rest with his mother and sister at a small church he had built on the Via Ardeatina; and among his epitaphs which have been preserved in writing is the one which he wrote for himself, an act of faith in Christ's'resur足 rection and his own.

537

DecembfY 1I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

He who walking on the sea could calm the bitter waves, who gives life to the dying seeds of the earth; He who was able to loose the mortal chains of death, and after three days' darkness could bring again to the upper world the brother for his sister Martha: He, I believe, will make Damasus rise again from the dust.

There is nothing 'in the nature of an ancient biography of St Damasus which is of any account except the sections devoted to him in the Liber Pontificalis (see Duchesne's edition, vol. i, pp. 212 seq., with the valuable notes and preface). For our knowledge of his life we depend mainly upon his correspondence, the epitaphs he composed and scant references in the historians, ecclesiastical and secular. The prologue to the Libellus Precum (printed in Migne, PL., vol. xiii, cc. 83-1°7) is no better than a rrtaliciqus lampoon composed by his enemies. The standard edition of the epitaphs is that of Ihm (1895) but consult also E. Sch afer, Die Bedeutung der Epigramme des Papstes Damasus fur die Geschichte der H eiligell­ verehrung (1932). Among the more important contributions to the study of the pontificate of St Damasus may be mentioned those of 1\1. Rade, Damasus Bischof von Rom (1882) ; J. Wittig, Papst Damasus I (1902), as also the same scholar's book Die Friedenspolitik de~ Papstes Damasus I (1912); O. Marucchi, II Pontificato del Papa Damaso (1905); and J. Vives, Damasiana in the collection Gesammelte Aufsiitze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens (1928). See also the account in Duchesne, History of the Early Church (1912), vol. ii and the article in DAC., vol. iv, cc. 145-197, which provides a very full bibliography. CMH. (pp. 643-644) contains useful references especially regarding the pope's burial place. There is an exeellent new edition of the epigrams by Fr Antony Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana (194 2 ).

ST BARSABAS,

MARTYR

(No

DATE)

IN his fictitious legend Barsabas is called an abbot in Persia, who had under him twelve monks. In the beginning of the persecution by 8apor they were all seized and led in chains to Istachr, a city near the ruins of Persepolis. After vai~ly trying to make them apostatize by tortures which a human being could hardly survive, the governor condemned them to lose their heads. The martyrs went joyfully to the place of execution, surrounded by soldiers and followed by a mob of people, and the slaughter began. A Mazdean, travelling that way with his wife and children, beheld the venerable abbot singing praises to God, and taking each monk by the hand in turn, as if to deliver him to the executioner; he saw too a fiery cross shining above the bodies of the slain. The man was so impressed that he got off his horse and whispered to Barsabas, asking to be admitted into his holy company. The abbot assenting, he passed through his hands after the ninth monk, and was beheaded, the executioner not knowing him. Last of all the venerable Barsabas presented his neck to the sword. The example of her husband moved his wife and family to become Christians.

I t is difficult to understand what induced Baronius to include this alleged Persian martyr in the Roman 1\llartyrology. He is wholly unknown in the West, and the Constantinople synaxary barely mentions his name under December I I. In the Ethiopic synaxary his story is told in September. Though the story is different, Barsabas seems only a doublet of St Simeon Barsabae, on April 21.

SSe FUSCIAN, VICTORICUS,

AND

GENTIAN,

MARTYRS

(DATE

UNKNOWN)

THE legend of these martyrs tells us that Fuscian and Victoricus were Roman missionaries who came into Gaul at the same time as 8t Quintinus, and set them­ selves the task of evangelizing the Morini. Victoricus established his headquarters at Boulogne and Fuscian at Therouanne, or rather near by at the village of Helfaut,

53 8

[December

ST DANIEL 1'HE STYLITE

I

1

where he built a small church. Both of them met with opposition from the pagan Gauls and Romans, but made a number of conversions. After a time they went together to visit St Quintinus, but when they reached Amiens they found perse足 cution raging against Christians; they therefore passed on to Sains, and there lodged with an old man named Gentian. He was a heathen, but well disposed towards Christianity, and in talking to him of the faith the two missionaries learned of the martyrdom of St Quintinus six weeks before. 'Vhen he heard that two Christian priests were at Sains, the governor Rictiovarus arrived there with a troop of soldiers. He was met by Gentian with a drawn sword, threatening him because he was a persecutor and declaring that he was ready to die for the true God. Rictiovarus accordingly had him beheaded on the spot. Fuscian and Victoricus were then taken in chains to Amiens, and as they would not renounce their faith after divers tortures they were beheaded, at Saint-Fuscien-aux-Bois. Among the embroideries of the story of SSe Fuscian and Victoricus is that they rose up and walked away with their severed heads after execution; Rictiovarus \vas driven mad.

The extravagant passio of these martyrs is preserved in varying forms. The text is printed in the Memoires de La Societe des antiquaires de Picardie, vol. xviii (1861), pp. 23-43.

Although the story is plainly fabulous and has been framed in dependence upon the not less incredible legend of St Quintinus (October 3 I), still the occurrence of the names of S8.

Fuscian and companions in the Hieronymianum is some guarantee of the fact that a martyrdom took place in the locality indicated. The question has been discussed by Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. iii, pp. 141-152.

ST DANIEL THE STYLITE

(A.D. 493)

AFTER St Simeon the Elder, the first and greatest of them, this DanIel is the best known among the stylites or pillar-saints. He Was a child of promise, dedicated to God from before his birth, and a native of the town of Maratha, near Samosata.

At twelve years of age he was received at a neighbouring monastery, where some years after he became a monk. His abbot going on a journey to Antioch took Daniel with him and passing by 1~elanissae they went to see St Simeon on his pillar. He let Daniel come up to him, gave him his blessing, and foretold that he would suffer much for Jesus Christ. The abbot died soon after and the monks would have put Daniel in his place, but he declined and went again to see St Simeon, spending fourteen days in the monastic settlement which was near his pillar. He afterwards undertook a journey to the Holy Land, but finding the way stopped by war went instead to Constantinople. Here he passed seven days in the church of St Michael outside the walls, and then made a hermitage for himself at Philempora in an abandoned temple. He remained there for nine years, under the protection of the patriarch St Anatolius.

After this time he resolved to imitate the manner of life of St Simeon, whose cloak he had obtained after his death in 459. Simeon had bequeathed this garment to the Emperor Leo I, but his disciple Sergius had been unable to get admittance to the imperial presence to deliver it and so had given it to Daniel. He selected a spot some miles from the city, overlooking the Bosphorus, and ascended the broad-topped pillar which had been provided by a friend. Later, having been nearly frozen to death one night, the emperor built him a higher and better home; it consi.sted of two pillars fastened together with iron bars, whereon masonry was placed, on the top of which was fixed a covered-in shelter and a balustrade. The 539

December

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

I I]

country was subject to high winds, and very severe frosts, but this did not oblige him to leave his pillar, where he lived till he was eighty-four years old. Without descending from it, he was ordained priest by 8t Gennadius, Patriarch of Con­ stantinople, who, having read the prayers at the bottom of the pillar, went up to the top of it presumably to impose his hands on Daniel, though this is not stated, but only that he gave him holy communion. Daniel did not want to be ordained and accordingly refused to come down. In 465 a fire happened at Constantinople, which consumed eight of its regions. 8t Daniel had foretold it and advised the patriarch and the emperor to order public prayers to be said twice a week; but no credit was given to him. The event made them remember, and the people ran in crowds to his pillar where the saint, stretching out his hands to Heaven, prayed for them. The Emperor Leo frequently visited and greatly respected him; when the king of the Lazi in Colchis came to renew his alliance with the Romans, Leo took him to see 8t Daniel, as a wonder of his empire. The barbarian king pros­ trated himself before the pillar, and the holy man was witness of the treaty between the two princes. The sick, who were often allowed to come up his pillar, were frequently cured by Daniel laying his hands upon them or by anointing them with the " oil of the saints", as it is called in his life; by which we are to understand the oil which burnt before the relics or images of the saints.· But not all respected the holy man, and early on a plot was laid, by " those who hunted after women of her sort", to seduce him by means of a well-known harlot named Basiane. When it failed, she asserted that it had in fact succeeded, till her nerve failed and she publicly disclosed the names of those who had egged her on.

A pillar-saint is an unfamiliar, rather frightening and perhaps repellent figure.

But the narrative of the life of 8t Daniel is a fascinating one, and in character he is found to be as simple and practical as his way of life was bizarre: when he taught the crowds that flocked to him, he said nothing " rhetorical or philosophical" but spoke about" the love of God and the care of the poor and almsgiving and brotherly love and of the everlasting condemnation which is the lot of sinners" . There is a pleasant ironical touch here and there, as when Daniel prophesied sore difficulties for Zeno going on a Inilitary expedition into Thrace. "Is it possible, I beg you" , asked the Emperor Leo, " for anyone to survive a war without some labour and trouble? " Leo I died in 474 and Zeno succeeded in the same year and put an equal trust in the wisdom and virtue of 8t Daniel. Then Basiliscus, brother to the dowager­ empress Verina, usurped the throne and declared himself the protector of the Eutychian heretics. The patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius, sent to 8t Daniel to acquaint him with what the usurper had done. Basiliscus on his side sent to him to complain of Acacius, whom he accused of raising rebellion against him.

8t Daniel replied that God would overthrow his government, and added such reproaches that the messenger dared not report them, but besought the saint to write them down and to seal, the letter. The patriarch sent twice urgently to entreat Daniel to come to the succour of the Church. At length, with reluctance, he came down from his pillar-" with difficulty, because of the pain in his feet"­ and was received with joy and excitement. Basiliscus, frightened at the uproar, retired to his country place, whither Daniel followed him. Not being able to walk for lack of practice, he was carried shoulder-high in a chair, surrounded by the • The custom of anointing both the sick and the healthy with oil from the church lamps is still kno"\vn in the East.

54°

[December

BD PETER OF SIENA

I I

people as though he were, as was said by one in derision, a new consul. At the palace the guards would not allow St Daniel to enter, so he shook off its dust from his feet as a testimony against Basiliscus, and returned to the city. Basiliscus at length went himself to the saint and promised to annul his orders in favour of heresy-he pleaded that he was a " simple soldier-man". Daniel rebuked him severely for stirring up such trouble, and returned to the top of his pillar where he lived many years longer, watching over all that went on in the world at his feet, a power in the troubled history of Constantinople at that time. But Zeno after twenty months returned with an army from Isauria, and Basiliscus fled. One of the first things the emperor did after his return was to visit St Daniel, who had foretold both his banishment and his restoration.

When he was eighty-four years old St Daniel gave his testament for his friends and disciples: a very short document breathing a lovely spirit of charity and affection and setting out succinctly the whole duty of man. After celebrating the Holy Mysteries at midnight on his pillar for the last time he knew he was dying. The Patriarch Euphemius was sent for, and there St Daniel died in the year 493, and was buried at the foot of the pillar whereon he had lived for thirty-three years.

The history of all the better-known pillar-saints has been very carefully studied by Delehaye in his monograph, Les Saints Stylites (1923). In that book will be found a critical text of the long Greek life of St Daniel (pp. 1-94), as well as that of an early compendium (pp. 95-1°3), and of the adaptation of the Metaphrast (pp. 1°4-147); there is also in the preface (pp. xxxv to Iviii) a description of the manuscripts used and a summary of the life itself. The main biography was the work of a contetpporary who had himself seemingly been one of the disciples of St Daniel. I t is a hagiographical document of the highest value, and its general accuracy is confirmed by a study of other sources for the history of the same period. The life was published for the first time in the Analeeta Bollandiana, vol. xxxii (1913), and there is an excellent English version, with introduction and notes, in E. Dawes and N. H. Baynes, Three Byzantine Saints (1948). See also H. Lietzmann, Byzantinisehe Legenden (191 I), pp. I-52.

BD PETER OF SIENA

(A.D. 1289)

PETER TECELANO was a citizen of Siena and a comb-maker by trade. After living for some years in happiness with his wife, she died, leaving him childless, and he joined the third order of St Francis, determining to devote to his neighbour the time and money that was no longer required for his own household. His life was quite without exterior event, such as might be led by any pious artisan. He worked hard and for long hours, and at night would go to some church to pray, where meditating on St Francis's following of our Lord he conceived the desire to be yet more closely associated with his religious children. The guardian of the Friars Minor accordingly gave him permission to live in a cell adjoining their infirmary, where he continued to carry on his business almost to the end of his life. He used frequently to visit the sick in the hospital of our Lady della Scala and he had a strong sense of his public as well as his private duties as a citizen: once when he had been deliberately passed over in the collection of a war-tax, he assessed himself and insisted on paying what seemed to him to be due.

Bd Peter attained to a high degree of contemplative prayer and received spiritual graces which it was difficult to hide, so that his holiness became known to many.

His opinion and advice were valued by priests and theologians equally with lay­ brothers and fellow workmen, but not at all by himself: "You are raising too

54 1

Dec..ember 1 I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

much wind for this poor dust", he said to one who praised him. Among his chief faults in his own opinion was talkativeness, and it took him fourteen years of hard work to reduce- it and build up the habit of silence at which he aimed. He lived to a very advanced age, and as he lay dying foresaw the calainities which were shortly to fall on Pistoia and Florence as well as on his own city. He was buried in the Franciscan church and pilgrims came from all over Italy to pray and be cured of their infirmities at his tomb. This cultus was approved in 1802.

This holy tertiary, who is sometimes called Peter Pettinaio (comb-maker), is noticed

by Wadding and other annalists of the Franciscan Order. There is a life by Peter di Monterone, said to have been a contemporary, which was printed in Italian in 1529. Another account was based upon a set of breviary lessons compiled in 1333. Further details regarding sources will be found in the Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, vol. xiv (1921), p. 27. See also Monumenta Franciscana, vol. v (1890), pp. 34-52; Mazzara, Leggendario Francescano, vol. iii (1680), pp. 618-623, and Leon, Aureole sbaphique (Eng. trans.), vol. i, pp. 456-463.

I t is commonly held that the" Pier Pettinagno ", the efficacy of whose prayers is made known

by Dante in the Purgatorio, canto xiii, line 128, was no other than this beatus.

BD FRANCO OF GROTTI FRANCO LIPPI was a native of Grotti, near Siena, and was born in 121 I. As a youth he was violent, insubordinate and lazy, and after the death of his father he spent all his time and money in gambling and debauchery. To avoid a prosecution for murder he joined a band of condottieri wherein his evil propensities had full scope, and by middle age his excesses had ruined his health and more than once brought him nearly to death. When he was fifty he lost his eyesight, and the shock of this sudden deprivation occasioned a complete change in him. He made a general confession and set out on a long and painful pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Compostela. There his blindness was healed, but his spiritual sight remained and he made a further pilgrimage, barefooted, from Compostela to Rome.

While praying in a Carmelite church Franco had a vision of our Lady in which he was told he must make public reparation for the endless scandals he had caused in Siena. He accordingly went about the streets clothed in sackcloth and beating himself with a whip, and eventually asked to be admitted into the Carmelite Order.

But his age-he was now sixty-five-and his appalling reputation made the friars dubious of such a postulant, and they told him to try again in five years' time.

Franco persisted, and at last he was allowed to join as a lay-brother. He lived for ten years in Carmel, and not only his brethren but the whole city was amazed and edified by his fervour and the austerity of his penance. Visions and miracles were said to be accorded him, and after his death on December II, 1291, there was a spontaneous recognition of him as a very holy penitent. This cultus was confirmed in 1670~ No early separate biography seems to be known, but G. Lombardelli published in 1590,

La vita del b. Franco Sanese da Grotti, and another account by S. Grassi appeared in 168o.

For a more modern setting see II Monte Carmelo (1917), pp. 300 seq.

BD HUGOLINO MAGALOTTI

(A.D. 1373)

FEW p~rticulars are known of the life of this holy man, whose feast is kept by the Friars Minor. He was born near Camerino in the early part of the fourteenth

54 2

[December

BD JEROME RANUZZI

II

century, and was left an orphan while a young man. Thereupon he gave his patrimony away to the poor, put on the Franciscan tertiary habit, and became a hermit. His life was entirely given to manual work, contemplation and penance, and the fame of his holiness drew many to his lonely cell. God glorified him with the gift of miracles, and numbers of the sick were healed at his intercession. He died on December I I, 1373, and was buried at the parish church of Fiegni. Pope Pius IX confirmed his cultus in 1856.

See Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 177-178, where it is stated that an old manuscript life was in existence at the time of the beatification. We are also told that he is mentioned by J acobilli in his Santi e beati dell' Umbria, and by other writers of that district.

BD JEROME RANUZZI THERE is a notable contrast between the characters of the two Servite beati com足 memorated this month, both in their youth and their maturity. Bonaventure Buonaccorsi was a preacher and \vhat is called a man of action, Jerome Ranuzzi was a scholar and contemplative; while the one spent his life in violence and disorder till nearly middle age, the other from his earliest years was noted for his devoutness and studious habits. Ranuzzi was born near the end of the fourteenth century at Sant' Angelo in Vado, a little town near U rbino which was one of the first to have a convent of Servite nuns, and before his twentieth year took the habit of the Servite friars, receiving the name of Jerome. After his profes足 sion he was sent to the University of Bologna, where he took his doctorate in theology, and was afterwards ordained priest and employed as professor in various houses-of-studies of his order in Italy. He was thus engaged for some years, till at last he was given permission to retire for a time to the priory in his native town.

Father Jerome became the valued friend of the whole neighbourhood. His solicitude in both temporal and spiritual works of mercy, his wisdom in both temporal and spiritual difficulties, soon made him known as an " angel of good counsel". His quality was known to Frederick of Montefeltro, Duke of U rbino, who asked the Servite authorities for his services as theologian and personal adviser.

This was the last thing that Bd Jerome wanted, but he was constrained by obedience to accept the post. It is not known how long he remained at Frederick's court, but he was as successful there as in a monastery and conducted negotiations with the Holy See and other matters of state to the satisfaction of his prince. He eventually was allowed to go back to Sant' Angelo, where before his death he rebuilt the nuns' convent. Jerome Ranuzzi died rather suddenly on December 11,1455, and the devotion of the people was so great and miracles so numerous that his body, instead of being buried in the conventual graveyard, was at once enshrined above an altar in the church of the Servites at Sant' Angelo. This cultus was confirmed in 1775.

Some account of this beatus may be gathered from A. Giani, Annales Ordinis Servorum, vol. i, pp. 491-492; and some miracles attributed to him are recounted in vol. iii, pp.

599-600. That no very copious information is obtainable may be gathered from the fact that writers of the Servite Order itself (so Giani complains) have confused this Jerome with another Servite named Jerome, who lived some time before him and died in another part of the coun try.

543

December

THE LIVES OF

12]

12 : SS. EPIMACHUS

AND

ALEXANDER

1~HE

SAINTS

AND OTHER MARTYRS

(A.D.

25 0 )

HILST the persecution set on foot by Decius raged at Alexandria in 250 and the magistrates were active in searching for Christians, Alexander and Epimachus fell into their hands. Upon confessing the name of Jesus Christ they were loaded with chains and suffered a long and rigorous con­ finement. After this trial of their faith and patience they were beaten, their sides were torn with iron hooks, and they achieved their martyrdom by fire. St Epi­ machus is the same who is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, with St Gordian, on May 10 as having had his relics translated from Alexandria to Rome. 8t Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, an eyewitness of part of their sufferings, gives this short account of them, and also mentions four wornen martyrs who were crowned on the same day, and at the same place. Ammonaria, the first of them, was cruelly tortured, but declared that nothing could make her repeat the blas­ phemies dictated by the judge, and was at length led to execution, being, as it seems, beheaded. The second was named Mercuria, a woman of considerable age; the third was Dionysia who, though a mother of children, cheerfully com­ mended them to God and suffered for His love; the name of the fourth is not recorded. The judge was furious at not being able to break down the resolution of Ammonaria, and to save his face ordered the other three to be executed at once without preliminary torture.

W

We know no more regarding SSe Epimachus and Alexander than we are told in a long extract which Eusebius (Eccles. Hist., bk vi, ch. 41) makes from a letter of St Dionysius of Alexandria.

ST FINNIAN OF CLONARD,

BISHOP

(c.

A.D.

549)

FINNIAN of Clonard was the outstanding figure among the holy men of Ireland in the period following St Patrick, but the accounts of his life contain many inconsistencies and anachronisms. Three hundred years after his death it ,vas believed that, after becoming a monk, he made a long s~ay in Wales. He is said to have spent some time at St Cadoc's monastery at Nantcarfan and on the island in the Severn estuary now called Flatholm, which he miraculously cleared of vermin.

Many other marvels were attributed to him, including the deliverance of his hosts from Saxon marauders by causing the raiders' camp to be swallowed up by an earthquake. Together with St Cadoc he projected a pilgrimage to Rome, but was admonished by an angel not to undertake it, and to return to Ireland instead. The details are quite unreliable, but it seems that Finnian may have come under the influence of St Cadoc, St Gildas and other Britons, with their emphasis on studies and on the superiority of the monastic state.

When he got back to Ireland Finnian founded churches in Leinster, including schools and monasteries at Aghowle and Mugna. At this last he was the object of a conspiracy, the chieftain's son Cormac provoking his elder brother Crimthann to persecute the saint, in the hope that Finnian would bring misfortune on ~Crim­ thann. We are told that this amiable plan suc.ceeded. Crimthann tried to expel Finnian by force, and in the struggle got his leg broken, which accident Finnian named as an omen of the young man's future. But his great monastery was on the Boyne, at Clonar<i in Meath. Soon after he canle here he was visited by a

544

ST CORENTIN, OR CURY

[December

12

pagan elder, named Fraechan, who was reputed a magician. Finnian asked him from whom came his art, whether from God or another. "You ought to be able to find that out for yourself", replied Fraechan. "Very well," said the saint, " tell me where is the place of my resurrection." "Not on earth, but in Heaven", was the reply. "Try again." Fraechan answered as before. "Try yet again ", said St Finnian, rising from his seat. Then it dawned on the magician that he was being made fun of: "It is from where you were sitting! " he exclaimed.

Yet St :Finnian had spoken truly in a double sense, for when disciples gathered round him at Clonard there was indeed a resurrection of religion and learning from his teacher's chair. These are said eventually to have numbered three thousand.

Finnian was to be known as the "Teacher of the Saints of Ireland"; he was " The Master"; and" like the sun in the high heavens he sent forth rays of goodness and holy teaching to give light to the world". The education of saints who lived long after his time came to be credited to St Finnian. He ,vas famed for his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and Clonard for <;enturies perpetuated the renown of his biblical studies; but the school suffered much from the Danes and then from the Normans, till in the beginning of the thirteenth century it ceased to be the religious centre of the diocese of Meath, and the foundation of St Finnian became a monastery of Augustinian canons; this remained till the sixteenth century. Both on his missions and teaching at Clonard many surprising miracles were attributed to Finnian, especially when it was a question of overcoming the hard-heartedness of some chieftain. He died during the epidemic of yellow足 plague in the middle of the sixth century, offering his life for his countrymen: " As Paul died in Rome for the sake of the Christian people, lest they should all perish in Hell, so Finnian died at Clonard for the sake of the people of the Gael, that they might not all perish of the yellow-pest", says his Irish life. The feast of St Finnian of Clonard is kept throughout Ireland; he is venerated as a bishop, but it is doubtful if he ever was one.

There is a life in Irish which has been edited by Whitley Stokes in his Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore (Anecdota Oxoniensia), pp. 75-83 and 222-230. A life in Latin in the Codex Salmanticensis has been printed by De Smedt in Acta SSe Hiberniae Cod. Sal., cc. 189-210. Some portions of these are translated in Wade-Evans, Life of St David, pp.

43-46, and other references will be found in R. A. S. Macalister, The Latin and Irish Lives of Ciaran (1921), especially pp. 76-79. See also J. Ryan, Irish Monasticism, pp. 115-11 7 and passim,. L. Gougaud, Christianity in Celtic Lands, pp. 67-70; and J. F. Kenney, Sources for the Early History of Ireland, vol. i. The Penitential ascribed to " Vinnianus " may possibly be a compilation by St Finnian (or Findan) of Clonard, but cf. note under St Finnian of Moville (September 10). The whole subject of Finnian of Clonard has been excellently studied by Miss Kathleen Hughes; see her paper on the cult in Irish Historical Studies, vol. ix (1954), pp. 13 seq., and on the historical value of the Lives in the English Historical Review, vol. lxix (1954), pp. 353 seq.

ST CORENTIN, OR CURY, BISHOP

(SIXTH CENTURY?)

FROM early in the middle ages St Corentin was venerated as the first bishop of Cornouaille, whose see is now at Quimper, and during the seventeenth centu~ his cultus became yet more popular owing to the preaching of the great missioner, Bd Julian Maunoir. But nothing can be said with certainty of the life of the saint. A number of legends about him are current in Brittany and are found in his vita, which probably was not written before the thirteenth century. It relates that the people of Cornouaille eventually drew him from his hermitage and sent

545

December 12]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

him to Tours to be consecrated as their bishop by St Martin. By the chapel of St Corentin at Plomodiern there is a " holy well ", and in this stream he used to keep a marvellous fish; he could cut from it every day sufficient for his require足 ments, return the fish to the water, and next morning it was whole again.揃 On one occasion he was able from this fish alone to feed the ruler of the neighbourhood, Grallon, and all his attendants. But one of them tried to verify this miracle for himself and so mutilated the fish that St Corentin, having healed it, dismissed it down the stream for ever, lest worse should befall it. This Grallon is supposed to have endowed his host with land, and Plomodiern belonged to the diocese of Cornouaille until the Revolution. During the Norman invasion the relics of St Corentin were taken from Quimper to the abbey of Marmoutier for safety, from whence an arm was brought back early in the seventeenth century. Veneration of St Corentin was known in the west of England, and he is the eponymous patron of Cury in Cornwall. The confusion of Menez Hom in Cornouaille with Men足 heniot in Cornwall (which is nowhere near Cury) has given rise to a baseless legend that he was once a hermit there.

The Latin life has been printed by Dom Plaine in the Bulletin de la Societe Archeologique du Finistere, vol. xiii (1886), pp. I 18-152. See Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. ii, pp.

242 and 371-375; LBS., vol. ii, pp. 181-182; F. Duine, Memento . . ., vol. i, n. 55, 222 ; but especially Canon G. H. Doble, St Corentin (1925); and also A. Oheix and E. C. Fawtier足 Jones, La Vita ancienne de S. Corentin (1925); and R. Largilliere, S. Corentin et ses Vies latines (1925).

ST EDBURGA, ABBESS

OF

MINSTER, VIRGIN

(A.D. 751)

THIS Edburga) belonging to the royal family of Kent, was a disciple of St Mildred, whom she succeeded in the abbacy of Minster-in-Thanet. She is chiefly known as a friend and correspondent of St Boniface, who on one of his visits to Rome met her on pilgrimage there; but her letters are not extant. After the death of Radbod, which enabled him to return to Frisia, Boniface wrote at once to tell Edburga the news, and asked her to send him a copy of the Acts of the Martyrs; with her reply she sent him fifty pieces of gold and a carpet, and asked him to pray for the souls of her parents. Edburga seems to have had some reputation as a calligrapher, for later on St Boniface writes from Thuringia again asking for books, to be sent by the priest Eoba, this time the epistles of St Peter, which he would have her write out for him in golden letters. "Gifts of books and clothes, tokens of your affection, have often been a consolation to me in my troubles", he says.

Boniface's companion St Lull, too, included a silver stilus for writing on wax among the presents that he sent to St Edburga. Boniface wrote again thanking her for" holy books", with which and with " spiritual light " she had " comforted his exile in Germany". "Fully trusting in your love, I implore you to pray for me, for I am shaken by my shortcomings." Once more, in a letter full of quotations from the Scriptures, he urges the abbess to pray for him, some years before the end came in blood and glory at Dokkum. The life of St Edburga was apparently as peaceful as that of St Boniface was eventful. Nothing more is known of her

* Miraculous fish are common in Celtic folklore; c/. the Irish myth of the cc salmon of knowledge". Several holy wells of Wales had eels in them, and two trout were kept in Ffynnon Beris at Llanberis dO\\Tn to our own day. The eponymous saint of this place, Peris, was commemorated on December 1 I. Nothing whatever is known about him; in old Welsh references he was commonly called " the Cardinal ".

546

ST VICELIN

[December 12

except that she had a new monastery built on a fresh site, where the present Benedictine convent at Minster stands.

There is a short Latin life, printed in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Angliae, on which see T. D. Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue of Materials (Rolls Series), vol. i, pp. 475-477. A fragment in Anglo-Saxon referring to St Mildred and St Edburga has also been printed by Cockayne in his Leechdoms, vol. iii, pp. 422-433. But these tell us very little. The only reliable material is to be found in the letters of St Boniface and St Lull quoted above.

This Edburga is a different person from the Eadburh who is made the subject of a romantic account by Asser: see R. M. Wilson, Lost Literature of Medieval England (195 2 ), pp. 3 6-3 8.

ST VICELIN,

BISHOP OF STAARGARD

VICELIN, who was to be the apostle of the Wends of what is now Holstein and district, was born at Hameln on the Weser about the year 1086. He studied in the cathedral school at Paderborn, and became in due course head of the school at Bremen and a canon of the cathedral there. It is said, but it is not certain, that he studied at Laon in France; he was ordained priest by St Norbert at Magdeburg, and in 1 126 began those missionary labours among the heathen Wends and other Slavonic tribes that lasted for over twenty years.

The first centre of St Vicelin was at Lubeck, that lovely city that was one of the first victims of " saturation-bombing" in the second world-war, on whose site he founded the first church. But his protector died soon after, and Vicelin moved to Wippenthorp, near Bremen. He was a tireless preacher and teacher and a most successful missionary; but like other missionaries his work was interrupted and undone from time to time by war. To provide a more permanent centre he founded in Holstein a monastery (afterwards called Neumunster) for Augustinian canons, where one of his pupils was the chronicler Helmold; later he established another at Hogersdorf, and began a third at Segeberg. The missionaries made many converts and all seemed going well when a dire catastrophe blighted their efforts.

Obotrite pirates descended upon the whole district, devastating the country and burning and sacking the houses. Their fury was especially directed against the Christians, most of whom were killed or driven out. The priests from Lubeck managed to escape and hid in the marshes, with water up to their necks, until at last they reached safety at Bishorst. But at Segeberg Bd Volker, who is described as " a brother of great simplicity", was killed by the sword, whilst the other monks took to flight, bearing away the books and relics of the monastery which was utterly destroyed.

In spite of opposition from Frederick Barbarossa, St Vicelin was in 1149 made bishop of Staargard (now Oldenburg) in Holstein, but there is some doubt whether he ever took over his see. In any case he was struck down by paralysis three years later, and spent the last two years of his life in sickness and suffering at the abbey of Neumunster, where he died on December 12, 1154. It is rather curious that this missionary should not be mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, but his feast is observed on this day in north-western Germany.

Helmold, mentioned above, gives an account of St Vicelin's missionary \-vork irt his Chronica Slavorum, which incorporates much other matter that he learned from the saint himself: it is printed in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xxi. See also Kreusch, Kirchengeschichte der Wendenlande (1902); Krimphove, Die Heiligen und Seligen des Wtstfalenlandes; A. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, vol. iv; and the Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. i (Bd Volker).

547

December 13]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

BD THOMAS HOLLAND, MARTYR

(A.D. 1642)

THOMAS HOLLAND was born in 1600 at Sutton, near Prescot in Lancashire, and was educated in the English colleges at Saint-Orner and Valladolid. When in 1623 the Prince of Wales, Charles Stuart, came to Madrid to negotiate for the hand of the Infanta Maria, Mr Holland was chosen to go and welcome him on behalf of the English students, which he did in a Latin address " which is said to have given great satisfaction to his royal highness and his attendants". Holland was fluent in French, Flemish and Spanish as well as Latin, and for his learning and goodness was dubbed Bibliotheca pietatis, "the library of goodness", by his fellows.

He entered the Society of Jesus, and was sent on the English mission in 1635.

He ministered with considerable fruit for seven years, though handicapped by poor health, which was aggravated by the conditions of life of a missionary priest in London in those days. On October 4, 1642, he was arrested on suspicion, and brought to trial at the Old Bailey two months later on the charge of being a priest from overseas. The evidence of four witnesses against him was insufficiently cogent; but upon his refusing to make oath that he was not a priest the jury found him guilty, a verdict that gave dissatisfaction to the Lord Mayor and others on the bench, so that the Recorder's deputy gave sentence with reluctance.

Many people visited Mr Holland in prison during the two days before his execution, among them the Duke of Vendome, who offered to intercede on the prisoner's behalf, an offer that was courteously refused. On the Sunday he heard many confessions and was able to celebrate Mass, which he did again the next day, just before he was led off to Tyburn. At the scaffold it was remarked that neither the sheriff of London nor of Middlesex was present, and it was freely canvassed that this was because they were not satisfied with the justice of the proceedings. The martyr now declared openly before the people that he was a Catholic, a priest and a Jesuit, and prayed aloud for the king and his people, " for whose prosperity and conversion to the Catholic faith, if I had as many lives as there are hairs on my head, drops of water in the ocean, or stars in the firmament, I would most willingly sacrifice them all ". "Which last words were received with a shout of the people. . . ." The hangman allowed him to hang till he was dead, before carrying out the rest of the bloody business.

See Challoner in MMP., where he made use of a Latin life published at Anrn"erp in 1645. Also Pollen, Acts of English Martyrs, and Foley, REPS]., vol. i.

13 : ST

T

LUCY, VIRGIN AND MARTYR

HE English bishop St Aldhelm of Sherborne at the end of the seventh century celebrated St Lucy both in prose and verse, but unfortunately the " acts" on which he relied are a worthless compilation. They relate that Lucy was a Sicilian, born of noble and wealthy parents in the city of Syracuse, and brought up in the faith of Christ. She lost her father in infancy, and she was yet young when she offered her virginity to God. This vow, however, she kept a secre~, and her mother, Eutychia, pressed her to marry a young man who was a pagan. Eutychia was persuaded by her daughter to go to Catania and offer up 548

[December 13

55. EUSTRATIUS AND HIS COMPANIONS

prayers to God at the tomb of St Agatha for relief of a haemorrhage from which she suffered. St Lucy accompanied her, and their prayers were answered. Then the saint disclosed her desire of devoting herself to God and bestowing her fortune on the poor, and Eutychia in gratitude left her at liberty to pursue her inclinations.

Her suitor was very indignant, and in hIs anger accused her before the governor as a Christian, the persecution of Diocletian then being at ,its height. When Lucy remained resolute the judge commanded her to be exposed to prostitution in a brothel; but God rendered her immovable, so that the guards were not able to carry her thither. Then attempt was made to burn her, but this also was unsuccess足 ful. At length a sword was thru~t into her throat.

Though the acta of St Lucy, preserved in various recensions both Latin and Greek, are quite unhistorical, her connection \vith Syracuse and her early cultus admit of no question. She was honoured at Rome in the sixth century amongst the most illustrious virgin martyrs whose triumphs the Church celebrates, and her name was inserted in the canon of the Mass both at Rome and l\lilan. Possibly on account of her name, which is suggestive of light or lucidity, she was invoked during the middle ages by those who suffered from eye-trouble, and various legends grew up, e.g. that her eyes were put out by the tyrant, or that she herself tore them out to present them to an unwelcome suitor who ,vas smitten by their beauty. In either case they were miraculously restored to her, more beautiful than before.

In the cemetery of St John at Syracuse an inscription (fourth or early fifth century) referring to St Lucy has been found, upon which see P. Orsi in the Romische Quartalschrift, vol. ix (1895), pp. 299-308. A letter of Pope Gregory the Great proves that in his time dedications were made to her in Rome. See also ClVIH., p. 647 ; DAC., vol. ix, CC. 2616足 2618; and G. Goyau, Sainte Lucie (1921). There were many folk-lore usages connected with her day, December 13, including the saying" Lucy-light, the shortest day and the longest night". See Bachtold-Staubli, Handworterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. v, cc. 1442-1446. She is often represented carrying her two eyes upon a dish. See Kiinstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, and Drake, Saints and their Emblems,. as also Dunbar, A Dictionary of Saintly Women, vol. i, pp. 469-47属. The enthusiasm evoked by the story of St Lucy is curiously attested by Sigebert of Gembloux who wrote a Latin poem of 1400 lines in her honour, which was printed by E. Diimmler in 1893. The reference to St Aldhelm is to his De laudibus Ivirginitatis,. see Aldhelmi Opera, ed. R. Ehwald in MGH., Auct. antiquiss., yol. xv (1919), in prose, pp. 293-294, in verse, lines 1779-1841.

SSe

EUSTRATIUS

AND

HIS

COMPANIONS,

MARTYRS

(DATE

UNKNOWN) " IN Armenia ", says the Roman Martyrology, "the passion of the holy martyrs Eustratius, Auxentius, Eugenius, Mardarius and Orestes, during the persecution under Diocletian. Of these, Eustratius, first of all under Lysias and then at 8ebastea under the governor Agricolaus, was together with Orestes subjected to cruel torments, and being cast into a furnace gave up the ghost. Orestes, however, was laid upon a fiery metal plate, and so passed to the Lord. The others, having suffered the cruellest punishments from the governor Lysias at Arabraca, achieved martyrdom in various ways. Their bodies were afterwards translated to Rome and honourably buried in the church of St Apollinaris." St Eustratius was an Ar足 menian of good family, and 8t Orestes a soldier who was converted by the sight of his fortitude under torture. St Eugenius was his servant, and Mardarius and Auxentius two friends who had interceded for him. Their relics are still venerated in the church of Sant' Apollinare. The passio of St Eustratius is a good example

549

December 13]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

of how such documents were interpolated and expanded for didactic and edificatory ends: the martyr is made to argue at great length with the magistrate, discussing passages from Plato and the poets in support of their arguments.

There is a late Greek passio which has been printed in Migne, PG., vol. cxvi, pp. 468-5°5.

It has been pointed out that the mention of a will or testament in this account shows a dependence on the story of the forty martyrs of Sebastea (March 10). Consult also Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs . . . (1921), pp. 266-268, and Zeitschrift f. kath. Theologie, 1894, pp. 291-292. Reference is not infrequently made to this group in Byzantine literature under the name of " the five saints". Fragments of the passio have been found in a ninth­ century handwriting, but we have no guarantee that there were five martyrs who bore these names or that they suffered in the persecution of Diocletian. An Armenian version of the passio i~ printed in Vitae et Passiones Sanctorum, published at Venice in 1874, vol. i, pp.

435-475·

ST JUDOC,

OR

JOSSE

(A.D. 668)

J UDOC was a son of Juthael, King of Armorica (Brittany), and brother of that Judicael who has a cultus in the diocese of Quimper. The Chronicle of Saint­ Brieuc says of Judicael that " Terror of his name alone was sufficient to keep evil men from violence, for God, who watched over him without ceasing, had made him brave and mighty in battle; it happened more than once that with the aid of the Almighty he was able to put whole troops of the enemy to flight by the strength of his sword-arm alone" . About this King Dagobert I at Paris had rather different views, and he sent St Eligius to try and restrain his turbulent neighbour, to whom the foundation of the abbey of Paimpont is attributed.

About the year 636 Judoc withdrew from secular life and, it is said, was ordained priest in Ponthieu. After a pilgrimage to Rome he eventually settled as a hermit at Runiacum near the mouth of the Canche, later called after him, Saint-Josseo Here he died about the year 668. We are told that his body was not buried in the earth and that it remained incorrupt; moreover, the surprising circumstance is added that his hair, beard and nails continued to grow with such luxuriance that his successors in the hermitage had to cut them from time to time, It is said that Charlemagne gave this hermitage at Saint-Josse-sur-Mer to Alcuin as a hospice for cross-Channel travellers, and that Alcuin sometimes stayed there.

According to the tradition of the New Minster (Hyde) at Winchester, St Judoc's relics were brought there, about the year 90 I, and this translation was commemo­ rated on January 9. The saint's name figures in half-a-dozen old English calendars, and he is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology. Chaucer's Wife of Bath swears " by God and by Seint Joce ".

One early Latin life of St Judoc, dating from the beginning of the ninth century, has been printed by Mabillon, vol. ii, pp. 542-547. There are, however, others of later date, notably that of Isembard, a monk of Fleury, and that of Florentius of Saint-Josse-sur-Mer, which have probably contributed more to the relatively wide diffusion of this popular legend.

The monograph of J. Trier, Der hI. Jodocus,. sein Leben und seine Verehrung (1924) is not exhaustive as regards sources, nor wholly reliable; see on this the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xliii (1925), PP. 193-194. For a sermon on St Josse by Lupus of Ferrieres, see W. Levison, in the Festschrift Walter Goetz (1927). The cult of St Judoc was widespread: churches were dedicated in his honour even in the Tirol (Fink, Kirchenpatrozinien Tirols, 1928). Consult also Duine, Memento, p. 49, and Van der Essen, Etude critique sur les saints merovingiens, pp. 411-413. The treatment of St Judoc in art is discussed by Ktinstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 330-331; and the folk-lore aspects in Bachtold-Staubli, Hand­ wi;'rterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. iv, cc. 701-703. For the resting-place of the saint's relics, see Fr P. Grosjean in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxx (1952), p. 404.

55°

ST ODILIA, OR OTTILIA

ST AUBERT,

[December

13

BISHOP OF CAMBRAI AND ARRAS

A LIFE of St Aubert (Autbertus) was written at the beginning of the eleventh century (which is sometimes, but probably wrongly, attributed to St Fulbert of Chartres), but it is so inadequate that the four pages which Alban Butler devotes to the saint are made up chiefly of vague generalities and more or less irrelevant historical notes. Nothing at all is known of St Aubert until he came to the see of Cambrai in 633 or later. When about the year 650 the unknown hermit St Gislenus set about establishing a monastery near Mons, attempts were made to prejudice the bishop against him. St Aubert refused to judge him unseen, and as the result of an interview gave him every encouragement and eventually consecrated his church. Among those studying for the priesthood at Cambrai was a young man called Landelin, who ran away to live a wild and dissolute life. He came back penitent, and was so well handled by St Aubert that he became a monk, founded monasteries, and is named as a saint in the Roman Martyrology.

The name of St Aubert is associated with the undertaking of the monastic life by a number of distinguished lay-people at this time, such as St Vincent Madelgarius and his family and St Amalburga, the mother of St Gudula. More certain is his presence at the translation of the relics of St Fursey to Peronne

by St Eligius about 650. Aubert's own burial-place was in St Peter's church at Cambrai, where was afterwards an abbey of canons regular which bore his name.

The Latin life mistaken}.!y ascribed to Fulbert is printed in full by Ghesquiere, Acta S anctorum Belgii, vol. iii, pp. 52~564. A collection of miracles will be found in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xix (1900), pp. 198-212. On the confusion which has arisen between A utbert, Bishop of Cambrai, and Audebert, Count of Ostrevant, see the Ana/ecta Bollandiana, vol. Ii (1933), pp. 99-116.

ST ODILIA,

OR

OTTILIA,

VIRGIN

(c.

A.D. 720)

THERE lived in the time of King Childeric II a Frankish lord of Alsace named Adalric, married to a lady named Bereswindis. To them was born, near the end of the seventh century, at Obernheim in the Vosges Mountains, a daughter who was blind from her birth. This was a matter first of irritation and then of un足 reasoning fury to Adalric; he regarded it as a personal affront to himself and a reflection on the honour of his family, in which such a misfortune had never happened before. In vain did his wife try to persuade him that it was the will of God, decreed in order that His almighty power might be made manifest in the child. Adalric would have none of it, and insisted that the babe should be slain.

Bereswindis was able at length to turn him from this crime, but only on condition that the child should be sent away and nobody told to whom it really belonged.

She fulfilled the first part of this condition, but not the second, confiding the baby and its history to a peasant woman who had formerly been in her service. When this woman's neighbours asked awkward questions, Bereswindis arranged for her and all her family to go away and live at Baume-Ies-Dames, near Besan~on, where there was a nunnery in which the girl in due course could be brought up. Here she lived until she was twelve years old, without, for reasons not explained, ever having been baptized. Then St Erhard, a bishop at Regensburg, was warned in a vision that he was to go to the convent at Baume, where he would find a young

55 1

December

I

3]

'fHE LIVES OF THE SAIN'fS

girl who had been born blind; her he \vas to baptize, giving her the name of Odilia, and she would receive her sight. St Erhard thereupon con~ulted St Hidulf at Moyenmoutier, and together they went to Baume. They found the girl and baptized her, giving her the name of Odilia (Ottilia, Othilia, Odile), and when he had anointed her head St Erhard touched her eyes \vith the chrism and at once she could see.

Odilia continued to serve God in the convent, but the miracle of which she had been the subject and the progr~~s she now made in studies raised up the jealousy of some of the nuns and they began to indulge in p~tty persecution. So Odilia sent a letter to her brother Hugh, of whose existence she had been told, asking him to do for her \vhatever his kind heart should suggest. St Erhard meanwhile had acquainted Adalric with his daughtees recovery, and that unnatural parent was more angry than ever, flatly refusing Hugh's request to have Odilia home and forbidding the mention of her name. Hugh nevertheless sent for her, and it so happened that he was standing with his father on a neighbouring hill when Odilia arrived in a wagon, surrounded by a crowd of people. \Vhen Adalric heard who it was and how she came to be there, he raised his heavy staff and with one blow stretched Hugh dead at his feet. In his remorse he turneJ to his daughter and was as affectionate to her as he had before been cruel. Odilia lived at Obernheim \vith a few companions who joined her in her devotions and charitable works among the poor. After a time her father wanted to marry her to a German duke, whereupon she fled from home and, when she was closely pursued, a cliff-face at the Schlossberg, near Freiburg in Breisgau, opened to admit and conceal her. To get her home again Adalric promised her his castle of Hohenburg (no\v called the Odilienberg) to turn into a monastery, and here she became abbess. Finding that the steepness of the mountain \vas a discouragement and inconvenience to pilgrims she founded an auxiliary convent lower down on the eastern side, called Nieder足 munster, with a hospice attached.

I t is said of the holy foundress that some time after the death of her father she received a supernatural assurance that her prayers and penances had released him from the state of Purgatory, and that St John the Baptist appeared to her a~d in足 dicated the site and din1ensions for a chapel which she wished to build in his honour. Other supernatural visitations and a number of miracles are also attributed to her. After ruling the convent for many years St Odilia died on December 13, abollt the year 720.

Such, in brief, is the legend of St Odilia about whose life the truth is as elusive as the popular veneration of the saint is definite. Her shrine and her abbey were the objects of a great devotion throughout the middle ages; they were favoured by the emperors from Charlemagne to Charles IV, and among those who were drawn to Hohenburg by devotion \vere St Leo IX, while he was still bishop of Toul, and, it is said, King Richard I of England. The pilgrimage was no less popular among the common people, and St Odilia was venerated as the patroness of Alsace before the sixteenth century. Tradition pointed to a spring as having been by her miraculously called from the rock for the convenience of the nuns and their pilgrims, and its waters were (and are) used for bathing unhealthy eyes while invoking the intercession of the once blind saint. The same custom is observed by pilgrims to the Odilienstein in Breisgau, where the rock opened to receive her. After under足 going rnany vicissitudes the shrine of St Odilia and the remains of her monastery carne into the possession of the diocese of Strasburg, and since the middle of last

55 2

BD JOHN MARINONI

[December 13

century the Odilienberg has again become a place of pilgrimage. Her relics are preserved in the chapel of 8t John the Baptist, a medieval building on the site of the one above referred to as built by 8t Od;lia herself: it is no\v more commonly called by her name.

The text of what has been proved to be a tenth-century Life of St Odilia has been edited

by W. Levison in MGH., Scriptores Merov., vol. vi (H)13), pp. 24-50; and cf. Analecta Bollandialla, vol. xiii (1894), pp. 5-32 and II3-12I. But even here in the judgement of Levison hardly anything can be accepted as reliable history. At the same time St Odilia continues to be one of the rnost popular saints not only in Alsace but also in Germany and France. There is a considerable literatl1re concerning her, of which an idea may be formed from the references in Potthast, Wegweiscr s vol. ii, p. 1498, and in DAC., vol. xii (193 6), cc. 1921-1934. Much information may be gleaned from different volumes of the Archiv f. elsiissische Kirchengeschichte, as for exampl~ an article in vol. viii, pp. 287-316 on "Das Odilienlied in Lothringen". For the nlost part the devotional lives of St Odilia, such for example as that of H. Welschinger in the series" Les Saints ", are historically unreliable.

This last even treats as a serious document the forgery of ] erorne Vignier which was exposed

by L. I-Iavet in the Bibliotheque de I'Ec:Jle des Chartes, fer 1885. On St Odilia in art see Ktinstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 475-478, and C. Champion, Ste Odile (1931), At the time of the battles of Verdun during \Vorld \Var I, St Odilia became very celebrated in France through the attribution to her of a completely apocryphal prophecy. It was again current, though less widely, durin? 1939-1945.

BD JOHN MARINONI

(A.D. 1562)

THIS servant of God is the last in order of date of (' ::lcial veneration to be included in Alban Butler's text and is one of the few beati (whether officially or popularly so called) admitted by him into his work. The cultus of Bd John was authorized by Pope Clement XIII in 1762, so that Butler must have written the notice of him to be added to the second editioH. Francis Marinoni was the third and youngest son of a good family of Bergamo, but was born at Venice in 1490. Having entered the ecclesiastical state, he s('rved among the clergy of 8t Pantaleon's church; and when he was ordained priest became chaplain, and afterwards superior, of the hospital for incurables at Venice. He was called thence to be a canon in the church of 8t Mark, where his life was the edification of his colleagues and of the whole city. Out of a desire of ser\ ing God more effectively he resigned his benefice and in 1528 joined the clerks regular called Theatines. He made his profession in 1530, being then forty years of age, under the eyes of their founders, 8t Cajetan and Mgr Caraffa, and on this occasion changed his first name for John. When 8t Cajetan was called from Venice to found the house of clerks regular of 8t Paul at Naples he took lVlarinoni with him. In that city he never ceased to preach the word of God \vith admirable simplicity and fruitfulness, and was chosen several times superior of his comrIlunity, which he maintained in a perfect spirit of apostolic charity and zeal. Both by his prayers and by his exhortations in the pulpit and confessional he was an instrument of salvation to many. When 8t Cajetan came back to Naples in 1543 Bd John was his right-hand man in the establishment of montes pietatis, benevolent pawnshops for the help of the poor, in the city and its neighbourhood. He refused the office of archbishop of Naples, and died there on December 13, 1562, ministered to by 8t Andrew Avellino, who wrote an account of his former novice-master.

See a "biography by J. L. Bianchi, Ragguaglio della vita del B. Giovanni Marinolli (1763), and another sketch by J. Silos, republished in view of the beatification in 1762.

553

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

J)('ce.mber 13]

BD ANTONY GRASSI VINCENT GRASSI, of Fermo in the Italian province of the Marches, was a gentleman of pious life \\'ith a great devotion to our Lady of Loreto. When he died in 1602 his son Antony \vas ten years old, and the boy inherited his father's devotion while he improved his piety into holiness. As a schoolboy he got into the habit of frequenting the local church of the Oratorian fathers, and there he met Father Flaminio Ricci, a personal disciple of St Philip Neri, who determined the boy's vocation and encouraged him therein. Accordingly, in spite of some spirited opposition from his mother, Antony when he was seventeen joined the community at the Oratory. He was a keen student and entered the congregation bearing the reputation of a " walking dictionary", and soon acquired the good grasp of scrip足 tural and theological science that he already had of the classics and philosophy.

The Oratory at Fermo ",'as the third founded during the lifetime of St Philip N eri, and in the atmosphere of his gracious spirit Bd Antony was formed as a Christian priest. For some years he was tormented by scruples, but these left him entirely from the hour that he celebrated his first Mass, and thenceforward an imperturbable serenity was his notable characteristic. "I have never seen him put out", said Father Mazziotti, S.J., and Cardinal Facchinetti of Spoleto testified to the same effect.

In 1621, when he was twenty-nine and had been some years a priest, a thing happened which left an indelible mark on Father Grassi: a small scar on his body but a profound impression on his soul. He was kneeling at prayer in the church of the Holy House at Loreto when he was struck by lightning. Such an experience is of sufficient rarity to make his account of it of great interest.

I felt shaken and as though I were outside myself; and it seemed to me that my soul was separated from my body and that I was in a swoon. . . .

Then I was roused by a great crash, like thunder, and I opened my eyes and found that I had fallen head-first down the steps. I saw bits of stone on the floor and the air was filled with a smoke so thick that it seemed like dust.

I thought that plaster must have fallen from the ceiling, but on looking up I saw that it was undamaged. Then I saw that a piece of skin had been ripped off one of my fingers, and I remembered a story I had heard of a priest at Camerino who was killed by lightning, on whose body there was no mark except some skin off his hand. So when I saw my finger I thought that I too was going to die. And a sort of heat burning my inside made me feel yet more like it, and when I tried to move my legs there was no feeling in them. I was afraid that that scorching heat would reach my heart and kill me. I was helpless, and lay without moving on the steps, thinking that if I could not die in the Oratory I should at any rate do so in a sanctuary of the Mother of God. Then someone bent over me, and I told him I could not move; he called for help and a chair was brought and I was put in it, when I fainted again. But I was conscious that my head and arms and legs were dangling uselessly, and my sight and speech had failed, though my hearing was acute. I knew someone was suggesting the holy names of Jesus and Mary to me.

W~en he recovered full consciousness Father Grassi still thought he was going to die, and asked for extreme unction. The doctor recommended that it should

554

BD ANTONY GRASSI

[December 13

be given, but that Father Grassi be first carried to his lodging. "Then I made the discovery that if we believe death to be close at hand we become quite indifferent to this world and know all earthly things to be emptiness. . . . After this they gave me some soup, and I passed a quiet night." He recovered in a few days, when he found that his underclothes had been scorched: these were given" to the Loreto church as a thank-offering. He also states that the shock completely cured him of acute indigestion. A more important result was that henceforward Father Grassi felt that his life belonged to God in a very special manner; not a day was allowed to pass without his making a special act of thanksgiving for his preservation, and every year he made a pilgrimage to Loreto with the same intention.

Shortly after this happening Bd Antony asked for and received faculties to hear confessions, which for the remainder of his life was one of his most notable activities.

He brought to it the same simplicity as to everything else: listening to the penitent's accusation, saying a few words of exhortation, imposing a penance and giving absolution. He preferred not to give direction or to suggest rules of life or to give advice on anything not directly bearing on the matter of the confession. At the process of his beatification convincing testimony was given that he possessed the gift of reading consciences, not merely in generalities but in specific actions of which he could have no natural knowledge. In 1635 Bd Antony was elected superior of the Fermo Oratory, an office which he filled with such satisfaction to his brethren that they re-elected him every three years till the end of his life. He used to say that in forming an estimate of a person care should be taken not to regard a single action or trait alone but the whole of them, in which more good than bad would generally be found. He was, accordingly, a very gentle superior, and when he was asked why he did not show more severity replied, " I do not think I should know how. Is this the way? " and assumed a sham air of authoritarian pomposity.

In the same way he neither practised nor recommended unusual bodily austerities.

When some inquisitive person asked him if he wore a hair-shirt he replied that he did not, because he had learnt from St Philip that it is better to begin with spiritual mortification. "Humbling the mind and will", he said, " is more effective than a hair-shirt between your skin and your clothes."

This did not mean that he was easy-going; on the contrary, he insisted on the following of the Oratorian constitution ad litteram and maintained his community at a very high level of observance and efficiency by his personal example and by quiet encouragement and reproof. His quietness extended to his own voice, and loud speech he would not tolerate. His playful admonition, "If you please, Father, only a few inches of voice ", was quite enough. Bd Antony's influence extended beyond his own house; Archbishop Gualtieri of Fermo said he could not bear to think of losing hirn, and Cardinal Facchinetti of Spoleto and Cardinal Emilio Altieri (afterwards Pope Clement X) used frequently to seek his counsel on both spiritual and administrative matters. When food riots took place at Fermo in 1649 it was Father Grassi who tried to mediate between the cardinal-governor and the people, and was nearly shot by the mob for his pains. At all times he had a great concern for the good of his native town and its people: nothing would induce him to make social or ceremonial engagements, but he would go out at any time of the day or night to visit the sick or dying or anyone else who needed his services. As he grew older his prescience, both of the future and of events at a distance, .increased, and was frequently used both for consolation and warning in his dealings with the many who came to him.

555

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 14]

As he approached his eightieth year Bd Antony had the humiliation of the failure of some of his faculties. He had to give up preaching because, owing to the loss of teeth, he could not make himself understood, and then to cease hearing confessions. But he was still as active as ever in intent, especially when there \vas any chance of reclaiming a sinner. But after a fall downstairs Bd Antony was confined to his room, and at the end of November 167 I he had to take to his bed.

He died a fortnight later, Archbishop Gualtieri having come every day himself to give him holy communion. Almost his last acts \vere to reconcile two fiercely足 quarrelling brothers and to restore the sight of Father Remigio Leti sufficiently to enable him to celebrate Mass, which he had not been able to do for nine years.

Numerous miracles \vere attributed to the intercession of Antony Grassi, but owing to civil disturbances and other causes his beatification was not achieved until the year 1900.

Father Antony's life was written by his devoted friend and disciple Fr Cristoforo Antici, and very shortly after death an official enquiry into his virtues and reputed miracles was begun by the archbishop of Fermo, Mgr Gualtieri, \vho knew him well and held him in much veneration. T'he printed documents of the process of beatification are still accessible.

In 1901 a detailed biography for English readers was publi.)hed by Lady Amabel Kerr under the title A Saint of the Oratory; see, too, E. 1. \Vatkin, Neglected Saints (1955).

14 : ST

SPIRIDION,

BISHOP OF TREIVlITHCS

(FOURTH CENTURY)

ANY stories are told of this Cypriot saint, who was at the same time a shepherd, married and a bishop. Sozomen, who wrote in the middle of the fifth century, says that a gang of thieves attempting one night to carry off some of his sheep were stopped by an invisible hand, so that they could neither steal nor make their escape. Spiridion (or better, Spyridon), finding them thus the next morning, set them at liberty by his prayers and gave them a ram, lest they should ha\ e been up all night for nothing. The same historian says that it was the saint's custom to fast with his fanlily for some days in Lent without eating anything. Once during this time, when he had no bread in his house, a traveller called to rest and refresh himself on the road. Spiridion, having nothing else, ordered some salt pork to be boiled, for he saw the traveller \vas very tired. T'hen he invited the stranger to eat. He excused himself, saying that he was a Christian.

Spiridion, himself setting the example by way of courtesy, replied that therefore he was quite free to eat; thereby reminding the stranger both that ecclesiastical precepts do not bind unreasonably and that to a Christian no food is in itself forbidden.

St Spiridion was chosen bishop of Tremithus, on the sea-coast near Salamis, and thenceforth combined the care of sheep with the care of souls. His diocese was very small and the inhabitants poor, but the Christians wete regular in their lives; there remained among them some idolaters. In the persecution of Galerius he made a glorious confession of the faith. The Roman Martyrology says he was one of those "rho lost their right eye, had the left leg hamstrung, and in that state were sent to work in the mines, and (mistakenly) that he was among the bishops at the Council of Nicaea in 325. There is a legend in the East that on the way to the council he fell in with a party of other bishops, who were alarmed lest the rustic simplicity of Spiridion should compromise the cause of orthodoxy. So they told

M

55 6

ST SPIRIDION

[December 14

their servants to cut the heads off the mules of Spiridion and his deacon, which was done. When he prepared to set off before dawn the next day and discovered the crime, Spiridion was not at all discomfited. He told the deacon to put the severed heads upon the bodies, and at once they grew together and the animals lived. But when the sun rose it was found that a mistake had been made in the dark: for the bishop's white mule had a brown head and the deacon's brown mule had a white head. During the council a pagan philosopher named Eulogius made an attack on Christianity, and an aged, one-eyed bishop, unpolished in manner and appear­ ance, got up to reply to the urbane scoffer. He affirmed the omnipotent God and the incarnation of the Son for the redemption of all people as things beyond proof to be held by faith: did Eulogius believe them, or did he not? After a pause the philosopher was constrained to admit that he did. "Then", said the bishop, " come with me to the church and receive the sign of faith." And Eulogius did so, for, he said, words and arguments cannot resist virtue, meaning thereby the power of the Holy Ghost manifested in the unlearned bishop. Later writers identify this bishop with St Spiridion, but without authority.

A certain person had deposited for safety in the hands of Spiridion's daughter Irene something of great value. This he demanded of the bishop after her death; but it was not to be found and nobody knew where it was. Whereupon, it is said, St Spiridion went to the place where his daughter was buried, called her by her name, and asked where she had put the missing article. Then she answered him, giving directions where she had hid it that it might be more safe: and it was found there. Spiridion had very little learning, but he had made the Scriptures his daily study and had learned what respect is due to the word of God. Once when the bishops of Cyprus were assembled together, St Triphyllius, Bishop of Ledra (whom St Jerome commends as the most eloquent man of his time), was preaching a sermon. Mentioning that passage, " Take up thy bed, and walk", he said "couch" instead of " bed ", thinking that word the more elegant and suitable. St Spiridion objected against this false nicety and attempt to add graces to what was more adorned with simplicity, and asked the preacher whether the word our Lord Himself had used was not good enough for him.· The relics of St Spiridion were translated from Cyprus to Constantinople, and again to Corfu, where they are still venerated. He is the principal patron of the Catholics of Corfu, Zakynthos and Kephalonia.

Besides the relatively early references made to St Spiridion by the historians Socrates and Sozomen, it seems that a life of him was written at the beginning of the seventh century

by Leontius of Neapolis. This is preserved to us only in the later adaptation of the Meta­ phrast (Migne, PG., vol. cxvi, pp. 417-468). There is also a memorial discourse by Theodore of Paphos (printed in part by Usener, Beitriige zur Geschichte der Legendenliteratur, pp.

222-232, and edited complete in 1901 by S. Papageorgios), but it proves to be in large part simply a plagiarism from an anonymous Life of Bishops Metrophanes and Alexander of Constantinople (see P. Heseler, Hagiographica, 1934). It is also stated that a life of St Spiridion was written in elegiacs by his pupil, Triphyllius of Ledra, but this has not survived.

In Byzantine art Spiridion is recognizable by his peculiar shepherd's cap: see, for example, G. de Jerphanion, Les eglises rupestres de Cappadoce (1932); and the Byzantinische Zeitschrtjt for 1910, pp. 29 and 107. See P. Van den Ven, La Legende de S. Spyridon (1953), " beau travail d'edition et de critique" (Fr F. Halkin).

• The obvious reflection that this rebuke would sometimes apply also to Alban Butler himself is modified by the further reflection that the fashions of the eighteenth century are not ours.' But there are not wanting writers and speakers to-day who might with advantage ponder this anecdote.

557

December 14]

SSe

TI-IE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

NICASIUS, BISHOP OF RHEIMS, AND HIS COl\lPANIONS, (A.D. 451 ?)

MARTYR~

AN army of barbarians ravaging part of Gaul plundered the city of Rheims.

Nicasius, the bishop, had foretold this calamity to his flock in consequence of (l vision, and urged them to prepare for the visitation by works of penance. \'-Then he saw the enemy at the gates and in the streets, forgetting himself and solicitous only for his spiritual children, he went from door to door encouraging all to patience and constancy. When the people asked him whether they should yield or fight to the end he, kno\ving that the city must fall, replied, " Liet us abide the mercy of God and pray for our enemies. I am ready to give myself for my people."

Standing at the door of his church, in endeavouring to save the lives of some, he exposed himself to the swords of the infidels, who cut off his head. St Florentius, his deacon, and St Jucundus, his lector, were massacred by his side. His sister, St Eutropia, seeing herself spared in order that hers might be another fate, threw herself upon her brother's murderer and kicked and scratched him till she too was cut down and killed.

There is a passio incorporated in Flodoard, Historia Remensis ecclesiae, for 'which see MGH., Scriptores, vol. xiii, pp. 417-420, and other texts in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. i and vol. v. Consult also Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. iii, p. 81. It seems probable that Nicasius was martyred by the Huns in 451, rather than by the Vandals in 407.

ST VENANTIUS 6°5)

FORTUNATUS, BISHOP OF POITIERS

(c. A.D.

VENANTIUS HONORIUS CLEMENTIANUS FORTUNATUS, born near Treviso about 535 and educated at Ravenna, is better known as a poet than as a saint. He was a popular man during his lifetime, admired by King Sigebert and his courtiers as well as by St Radegund and her nuns, and his writings continued to receive in­ creasing appreciation up to the time that a sixteenth-century Italian panegyrist said that his heavenly pindaric hymns were enough to make Horace himself feel humble. After that there was a reaction, which helped the formation of a more just estimate. But it can hardly be denied that the popularity of Fortunatus was in a measure due to an obvious human \veakness-his desire to please and to be pleased. St Radegund and Abbess Agnes and Duke Lupus deserved the eulogies he addressed to them; such people as Charibert and Fredegund did not at their best. Fortunatus left Italy when he was about thirty in order to return thanks at the shrine of St Martin at Tours for his recovery from some eye-trouble. He wrote poems to all the bishops and other distinguished people who entertained him on the road and, his visit to the court of Metz coinciding with the royal wedding, he composed an epithalamium for Sigebert and Brunehilda. At Paris he was particularly impressed by the care with which the clergy sang the Divine Office.

From Tours Fortunatus went to Poitiers, where he settled do\vn, was ordained priest, and formed his lifelong friendship with St Radegund, Abbess Agnes, and the nuns of Holy Cross, for whom he became a sort of factotum and unofficial steward. A constant exchange of letters went on between him, his" mother" Radegund, and his" sister" Agnes, letters that were often accompanied by poems, most of which are lost. The friendship was intimate enough to be playful, and

5S 8

ST VENANTIUS FORTUNATUS

[December 14

serious enough to be fruitful. One Lent Fortunatus wrote Radegund a letter in Latin verse in which he asks her not to shut herself up so closely during the peni足 tential season: "Even though the clouds have gone and the sky is serene, the day is sunless when you are absent." He tells her to drink wine and to eat more for the sake of her health, and thanks her for the fruit and dishes she had sent him. " You told me to eat two eggs in the evening: to tell the truth I ate four. I wish I could find my mind always as prepared to submit as my stomach is ready to obey your orders." And he tells her he sends flowers, roses and lilies, when he can get them.

In 569 the Emperor Justin II sent a relic of the True Cross to the monastery, and we see Fortunatus in another mood. King Sigebert deputed St Euphronius of Tours solemnly to deposit it in Holy Cross (Meroveus of Poitiers, who was no friend of Fortunatus, having refused), and for that occasion Fortunatus wrote the hymn Vexilla regis prodeullt, which we now sing as a Vespers hymn at Passiontide and on feasts of the Cross. He was at his best as a liturgical poet, and there is another hymn of the Passion of his used in the Roman liturgy, Pallge Lingua gloriosi laurealll {ert(lIl/illis,. the Easter Sah'e festa dies is also his. St Radegund died in 587, and Agnes also dying about that time Fortunatus mixed more in public and ecclesiastical affai r~, being a welcome guest on all occasions that could be suitably celebrated in verse. He associated particularly with three holy bishops, SS. Felix of Nantes, Leontius of Bordeaux and Gregory of Tours, the last of whom encouraged him to collect and publish his poems. Ten books of them were made public during hi~ life.

His lTIOre formal vvorks include Lives of St l\1artin and St Radegund and of several other saints. Sometime about the

year 600 he was elected bishop of Poitiers, but governed the see for only a very short time.

Venantius Fortunatus was peculiarly, almost morbidly, alive to the sufferings and hardships of women, as may be seen in his lines on virginity, addressed to the Abbess Agnes, and elsewhere in his works. But this sensitiveness of temperament makes him the more valuable as a recorder of the part played by Christian life and thought in Merovingian Gaul, a part which in its finer manifestations was to a very considerable extent in the hands of women. The usual estimate of Fortunatus personally is that he was" an illustrious personage, a good poet and a great bishop".

Not all judgements have been so kind, and adverse critics have asserted that he pushed tact and prudence beyond the border of mean-spiritedness and flattery, and that his guiding principle was to get as much enjoyment out of life as possible. It must be admitted that he seems often rather too anxious to please; but it must also be admitted that, properly understood, to " make the best of both worlds", is a praiseworthy Christian ambition. No honest way of life is inconsistent with sanctity, and St Venantius Fortunatus was a cultured Roman gentleman of refined taste and rather fastidious habits. His name has not been admitted to the Roman Martyrology but his feast is kept by several French and Italian dioceses.

Our knowledge of Fortunatus is mainly derived from Gregory of Tours and from the poet's own writings and correspondence. The best text of these is that edited by Leo and Krusch in MGH., Auctores antiquissimi, vol. iv. For a literary appreciation of his writings it will be sufficient to refer to M. Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittel足 alters, vol. i, pp. 170-181, with other references in the succeeding volumes. See also a long article in DAC., vol. v, cc. 1982-1997; DTC., col. vi, cc. 611-614; and DCB., vol. ii,

559

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 14]

pp. 552-553, in which last article the shortcomings of Fortunatus are perhaps a little unduly emphasized. Text and translation of five lyrics of Venantius in Helen Waddell. l'rLediaeval Latin Lyrics (1935), pp. 58-67. For the cultus, see Fr B. de Gaiffier in Analecta Bollandiana, yo1. lxx (1952), pp. 262-284.

BD BARTHOLOMEW OF SAN GIMIGNANO

(A.D. 13°°)

BARTHOLOMEW BUONPEDONI, commonly called Bartolo, was born at Mucchio, near San Gimignano in Tuscany, during the earlier part of the thirteenth century, and was destined by his father for marriage and a secular avocation. But Bartolo had other ideas, and left home to become a servant in the Benedictine abbey of St Vitus at Pisa. He worked in the infirmary and made so good an impression that it was suggested to him that he should take the habit. 'Vhile he was considering this our Lord appeared to him in sleep, and told him that he would win his crown by twenty years of physical suffering rather than by becoming a monk. Having received some training at the Inonastery, Bartolo, when he was thirty, was ordained priest and appointed to the parish of Peccioli. He had become a tertiary of the Order of St Francis, and he lived and fulfilled his pastoral duties in complete accord with the spirit of that saint. He took into his house a youth Vivaldo (LTbald), who after Bartolo's death became a hermit and is venerated for his sanctity to this day.

In 1280 Bd Bartolo was smitten by a disease which was recognized as leprosy, and he remembered what our Lord had told him about twenty years of suffering.

Accompanied by the faithful Vivaldo, he retired to the leper-house of Celloli, of which he was made master and chaplain, and though the disease was malignant in him it never incapacitated him from celebrating Mass. He lived thus, in infinite patience and ministering to his fellow sufferers, until December 12, 1300, just twenty years after his leprosy began. He was buried in the Augustinian church of San Gimignano, where towards the end of the century one of the friars wrote an account of his life and miracles. His tomb is still venerated in the same church.

He has been called " the Job of Tuscany", and he is known always in San Gimig­ nano as Santo Bartolo. A local feast was approved in 1499 and the cultus was formally confirmed in 1910, the Friars Minor fixing the feast for December 14.

1~he decree of confirmation of cultus, printed in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. ii (1910), pp. 411-414, contains a relatively full summary of the life of this beatus, and it mentions that Prosper Lambertini (Benedict XIV) considered that the cultus had already been equiva­ lently sanctioned in 1499 in virtue of a papal delegation of Alexander VI. Fuller details of Bartolo's history are given in Wadding, Annaies Ordinis Minorum,. and in l\lazzara, Leggendario Francescano (1680), vol. ii, pt 2, pp. 681-684. See also Leon, .Aureole Seraphique (Eng. ed.), vol. iv, pp. 165-169, who appeals more directly to a life by the Augustinian, Fra Giunta, written, it is said, in the fourteenth century. There is a popular life in Italian

by E. Castaldi, Santo Bartolo (1928).

BD CONRAD OF OFFIDA

(A.D. 1306)

CONRAD became a friar minor when he was fourteen years old, and was afterwards associated both with the friary founded by St Francis himself at Forano in the Apennines and with the great convent of Alvernia. Before he was ordained priest and became a preacher he was employed for years as cook and questor, and several remarkable stories are told of him. He is said to have had the same guardian angel as St Francis, and to have often conversed with him about the seraphic founder.

Throughout his life Conrad had only one religious habit, he always went barefoot, and his love of poverty impelled him to that party in his order which at first was

560

BD BONAVENTURE BUONACCORSI

[December 14

known as the Spirituals or Zelanti. He was closely associated with Peter John Olivi, and in sympathy with Angelo Clareno and Fra Liberato, the leaders of the " Celestine" hermits; Bd Conrad's own ideas were more moderate, though he gave credence and circulation to the legend that St Francis had risen from the dead to encourage the Spirituals, having, it was said, been told it by Brother Leo. But the chief companion of his life was Bd Peter of Treja, who accompanied him in his preaching journeys and was present in the woods on that Candlemas-day ,vhen our Lady appeared to Conrad and laid the Child Jesus in his arms. It was said of these two that they were " two shining stars in the province of the Marches, like d\vellers in Heaven; for between them there was such love as seemed to spring from one and the same heart and soul, so that they bound themselves, each to the other, by an agreement that every consolation that the mercy of God might vouch足 safe them they would lovingly reveal the one unto the other". The author of the Fioretti further calls Brother Conrad a " marvellous zealot of gospel poverty and of the Rule of St Francis, of so religious a life and so deserving before God that Chrisl' the Blessed One, honoured him in life and in death with many miracles".

When he was sixty-five years old Bd Conrad died while preaching at Bastia, near Assisi, and was buried there. Some years later his relics were carried off to Perugia, and they now rest in the cathedral of that city beside those of Brother Giles. His cultus was confirmed in 1817.

The main outlines of his life are sketched by Bartholomew (Albizzi) of Pisa and other Franciscan chroniclers. See, for example, Mazzara, Leggendario Francescano (1680), vol. ii, pt 2, pp. 678-68 I. The biography compiled by B. Bartolomasi as far back as 1807 was published by M. Faloci-Pulignani in the Miscellanea Francescanl1, vol. xv-xvii, but it tells us very little of Bd Conrad's relations with the Zelanti, the great point of interest. See, however, the Historisches Jahrbuch for 1882, pp. 648-659, and for 1929, pp. 77-81, as also the Archivum Franciscanum historicum, vol. xi (1918), pp. 366-373. There is an account of Bd Conrad in Leon, .Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 174-177.

BD BONAVENTURE BUONACCORSI IN the year 1276 St Philip Benizi came to Pistoia to preside at a general chapter of the Servite Order, and took the opportunity to preach to the people of the place, which was torn by factions. Among his hearers \vas a man, some thirty-six years old, belonging to the noble Buonaccorsi family, who was a leader of the Ghibellines and notorious as a desperate character. This Bonaventure was so moved by St Philip's exhortations to peace and concord that he went to him and accused himself of being a prominent fomenter of disorder and a cause of much misery and injustice.

So penitent \vas he that he asked to be admitted among the Servite friars. St Philip was naturally a little doubtful about so sudden and complete a change, and tested the aspirant by imposing a public penance: Bonaventure had openly to make reparation for his misdeeds and personally ask the pardon of all whom he had wronged or caused to oppose him. This he did with such thoroughness and goodwill that St Philip took him from Pistoia to Monte Senario to make his novitiate at the headquarters of the order. Bonaventure persevered in his good resolutions, and after his profession was joined to St Philip as socius and admitted to the priest足 hood. For the next few years he was constantly with the prior general, who with the papal legate Cardinal Latino was trying to bring peace to Bologna, Florence and other distracted cities. The spectacle of the reformed Ghibelline going about in the habit of a mendicant friar and preaching brotherly love made a deep impression.

561

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 14]

In 1282 Bd Bonaventure was made prior at Orvieto, but on the death of St Philip was called to the side of his successor, Father Lottaringo, and was eventually made preacher apostolic, with a commission to preach missions throughout Italy, which he did with great effect. In 1303 he was made prior at Montepulciano for the second time, and there assisted St Agnes in the foundation of her community of Dominican nuns, whose director he was. From thence he was moved to his native Pistoia, where civil war had again broken out and the enfeebled city was threatened by the Florentines. By the diffusion of confraternities and of the Servite third order, called Mantellate, Bd Bartholome\v endeavoured to bring back the people to a sense of their responsibilities as Christians, and was tireless in his preaching on behalf of peace and civic unity. He died at Orvieto on December 14, 1315, and was buried in the Servite church in the chapel of our Lady of Sorrows as a testimony of the respect in which he was held by his brethren. 1-'his was also testified by the fact that even in his lifetime he was known as if Beato, and miracles were reported both before and after his death. The cuftus of Bd Bonaventure Buonaccorsi was confirmed in 1822.

There seems to be no mention of any separate medieval life of Bd Bonaventure, but Poccianti in his Chronicon (1567) provides the outlines of a biography, which is developed

by A. Giani, Annales Ordinis Servorum, vol. i, pp. 118 seq. and passim. See also Sporr, Lebensbilder aus dem Servitenorden (1892), p. 621. Further reference should be made to the early volumes of the Monumenta Ordinis Servorum B.M. V., which began to be published in 1892.

BD NICHOLAS FACTOR VINCENT FACTOR was a Sicilian tailor who came to live at Valencia in Spain, where he married a young woman called Ursula, and in 1520 their son, Peter Nicholas, was born. He was a pious child and quick at school, and when he was fifteen his father wanted him to go into the business, but Nicholas heard a call to the religious life and in 1537 joined the Friars Minor of the Observance in his native town. He made rapid progress in his order, and many times asked to be sent on foreign missions, but had to content himself with working for the conversion of the Moors in Spain: he is said twice to have offered to throw himself into a furnace if, on his coming out unhurt, his hearers would receive baptism. But the offer was refused. During the last year of his life Bd Nicholas migrated to the Capuchin Friars Minor at Barcelona, but returned to his own branch after a few months. " I left those men, who are entirely holy", he told the Carthusians at La Scala, " to go back to men who are also entirely holy."

The biographers of Bd Nicholas devote most of their space to accounts of his austerities and of the marvels connected with his name. He used always to take the discipline before celebrating Mass and three times before preaching, and carried his physical mortifications to such a degree that he was delated to the Inquisition for singularity. His raptures, miracles and visions were so frequent that St Louis Bertrand said he lived more in Heaven than on earth, and among many examples of supernatural knowledge was an announcement of the victory of Lepanto the day after the battle. He was known and revered by the great ones of Spain from King Philip II downwards, and his personal friends included St Paschal Baylon, St Louis Bertra~d and Bd John de Ribera, all of whom gave evidence for his beatification.

Among the characteristic stories told of Nicholas, in which there would seem to be

562

[December 15

ST NINO

a considerable degree of exaggeration or misunderstanding, are that our Lady through the mouth of a statue once told him to go and celebrate Mass, whereupon he was assisted in vesting by St Francis and St Dominic; that divine love so warmed his heart that cold water into which he plunged became heated almost to boiling足 point; and that Satan frequently attacked him in the form of a lion, a bear, a snake and the like. Bd Nicholas Factor died at Valencia on December 23, 1583, and was beatified in 1786.

Long accounts of Bd Nicholas may be found in all the Franciscan chroniclers. For example, in Mazzara's Leggendario Francescano (1680), he fills pages 718 to 749 in vol. ii, pt 2; and in the Croniche of Leonardo da Napoli, pt 4, vol. ii, more than 120 closely printed pages are devoted to him. The best biography is probably that of G. Alapont, Compendio della Vita del B. Niccolo Fattore, which claims to be based upon the process of beatification and was printed in 1786. A short life in English was included in the Oratorian Series in the middle of the last century, and see also Leon, Aureole Seraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 178- 191.

15 : ST

NINO,

VIRGIN

(FOURTH CENTURY)

NCERTAINTY surrounds the beginnings of Christianity in the former kingdom of Georgia (Iberia), but the story of the beginning of its evangel足 ization told by Rufinus is accepted-and improved on-by the Georgians themselves and generally in the East. He tells us that early in the fourth century an unnamed maiden (whom the Georgians call Nino and the Roman Martyrology, not knowing her name, " Christiana "), carried off captive into the country, made a great impression on the people by the sobriety and chastity of her life and the long time, by day and night, that she gave to prayer. When questioned, she simply told them that she worshipped Christ as God. One day a mother brought her sick child to Nino, asking her how it ought to be treated. Nino told her that Jesus Christ was able to heal the most desperate cases and, wrapping the child in her rough mantle, called on the name of the Lord, and gave the baby back in perfect health to its mother. Rumours of this cure came to the queen of Iberia, who was herself ill, and she sent for Nino; when Nino declined to come, the queen had herself carried to her, and she also was cured. When she would thank and reward her benefactress she was told that, " It is not my work, but Christ's; and He is the Son of God who made the world ". She reported these words to the king who, when he soon after got lost in a mist while hunting, swore that if this Christ was God and would show him his way home he would believe in Him. Instantly the mist cleared; and the king kept his word. He and his wife were instructed

by St Nino, he announced his change of religion to the people, gave licence to the slave-girl to preach and teach, and began to build a church. In the course of its building God worked another miracle at the word of His servant, for a huge pillar, which neither men nor oxen had been able to move, turned itself on to its base and, after remaining suspended in the air, transported itself to its right place, before the eyes of a large crowd. The king sent an embassy to the Emperor Constantine, telling him what had happened and asking that bishops and priests might be sent to Iberia, which was duly done.

Rufinus learned this story from an Iberian prince, Bakur, whom he met in Palestine before the beginning of the fifth century, and it may well be believed that the conversion of Georgia was begun in the reign of Constantine and that a

U

5 63

December 15]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

woman had a prominent part in it. The narrative of Rufinus has been translated -and amplified-into Greek, 8yriac, Armenian, Coptic, Arabic and Ethiopic, while in Georgian literature there is a whole cycle of Nino legends, which are utterly worthless. Rufinus gives no localities for his events, or the name of the king and queen concerned, or even the name of the saint--much less her nationality or place of origin. Later versions supply these omissions several times over.

Nino (sometimes said to have been not a captive slave but a voluntary fugitive from the persecution of Diocletian) came from Cappadocia-and also from Rome, Jerusalem and the Franks: the Armenians make her an Armenian and associate her with 8t Hripsime. After seeing Christianity firmly established in the land she is said to have retired to a cell on a mountain at Bodbe in Kakheti. Here she died and was buried; later the place was made an episcopal see and her tomb is still shown in the cathedral. It is also interesting to note that from time immemorial the cathedral of Mtzkheta has been known as the church of the Living Pillar. It is certain that Georgia was largely Christian at the time Rufinus wrote, but what was the truth behind the story he heard from the Georgian prince (and even what exactly that story itself was) it is now impossible to say.

The passage of Rufinus, regarding the provenance of which there has been much dis颅 cussion, may be best consulted in Mommsen's text as published in the Berlin Academy's edition of Eusebius. But the whole question has been greatly elucidated by Fr Paul Peeters in his article" Les Debuts du Christianisme en Georgie" (Analecta Bollandiana, vol. 1, 1932, pp. 5-58). The elements which have contributed to the development of the fantastic story of St Nino in its various forms are too complicated to be discussed here. The legend does not appear in its best known shape before 973, and the texts written in Georgian are still later in date. In the Oxford Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica, vol. v, a life of St Nino has been translated into English from the G~orgian by M. and }. Wardrop, and a somewhat cognate Armenian text is made accessible in the version of F. C. Conybeare, but the early dates there assigned to these documents are quite unwarranted. In German an essay by M. Kekelidze, Die Bekehrung Georgiens zum Christentum (1928) may be read with advantage.

On the miraculous cross of St Nino see also Peeters in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. liii (1935), pp. 30 5-3 06 . In Egypt, St Nino was sometimes known as " Theognosta ", a name which seems to have arisen out of a misunderstanding of the Greek version or text of Rufinus, who does not give any name to the maiden apostle.

SSe VALERIAN AND

OTHER MARTYRS IN AFRICA

(A.D.

457

AND

482 )

IN addition to 8t Dionysia and those mentioned with her on the sixth, other victims of the Vandal persecutions are commemorated this month. Under King Genseric took place the martyrdom of the bishop 8t Valerian " who, when more than eighty years old, was told to give up the sacred vessels of his church. On his constant refusal so to do it was commanded that he be driven out of the city by himself and that no one be allowed to receive him in his house or on his land; wherefore he remained for a long time in the public street, uncared for, under the open sky, and in this confession and defence of Catholic truth he ended the course of his blessed life." On the morrow, likewise, is kept the feast of the many con颅 secrated virgins who suffered under Huneric. They were hung up by the arms and jerked up and down, branded with hot irons, sold into slavery, driven into the desert and in other ways harried and killed for Christ's name's sake.

We know nothing of these martyrs beyond what we learn from the Historia Wandalicae PersecUtionis (bk i, c. 39) by Victor of Vita. See also Quentin, Martyrologes historiques, P路353路

[December 15

ST PAUL OF LATROS

ST STEPHEN, BISHOP OF SUROSH

(c.

A.D.

760)

ACCORDING to his Greek vita this Stephen was a native of Cappadocia in Asia Minor, who became bishop of Surosh (now Sudak) in the Crimea on the coast of the Black Sea. During the Iconoclast persecution under the Emperor Leo III he was exiled for his defence of the veneration of images, but \vas restored to his see on the accession of Constantine V to the imperial throne in 740. In his later years St Stephen was outstanding for his preaching of the gospel among the neighbouring Slavs and Khazars and even, it is said, among the Varangians. The very late (fifteenth century) Russian version of his life narrates that a band of Varango-Russians marauding in the Crimea was dispersed by the sudden appear足 ance of the bishop; the conversion of their leader, Yury, said to be from N ovgorod, followed. The feast of St Stephen of Surosh is kept by the Russians, and there has been a revived interest in the saint among the learned in recent times together with St George of Amastris (February 21), because of their significance for the early history of the Varangians and of Christianity in Russia.

See Baumgarten, Aux origines de La Russie, cap. ii (1939); Taube, Rome et fa Russie, t. i, passim (1947); Maltzev's lYlenofogium (1900). Father 1\1artynov, in Annus ecclesiasticus Graeco-SLavicus (Acta sanctorum, October, vol. xi), in his observanda on the calendar for December 15 gives a number of references of value to students.

ST PAUL OF LATROS

(A.D. 956)

THE father of this hermit was an officer in the imperial army who was slain in an engagement with the Saracens. His mother then retired from Pergamos, which was the place of his birth, to Bithynia, taking her two sons with her. Basil, the elder, took the monastic habit upon Mount Olympus in that country, but soon for the sake of greater solitude retired to Mount Latros (Latmus). When their mother was dead he induced his brother to embrace the same state of life. Though young, Paul had experienced the world sufficiently to understand the emptiness and dangers of what it has to offer. Basil recommended him to the care and instruction of the abbot of Karia. St Paul desired for the sake of greater solitude and austerity to lead an eremitical life; but his abbot, thinking him too young, refused him leave so long as he lived. After his death Paul's first cell was a cave on the highest part of Mount Latros, where for some weeks he had no other food than green acorns, which at fir~t made him very sick. After eight months he was called back to Karia.

It is said that when he worked in the kitchen the sight of the fire so forcibly reminded him of Hell that he burst into tears every time he looked at it.

When he was allowed to pursue his vocation Paul chose a new habitation on the most rocky part of the mountain, where for the first three years he suffered grievous temptations. A peasant sometimes brought him a little food, but he mostly lived on what grew wild. The reputation of his holiness spreading through the province, several men chose to live near him and built there a laura of cells.

Paul, who had been careless about all corporal necessaries, was much concerned lest anything should be wanting to those that lived under his direction. After twelve years his solitude was so much broken into that he withdrew to another part of the mountains, whence he visited his brethren from time to time to cheer and encourage them; he sometimes took them into the forest to sing the Divine Office together in the open air. When asked why he appeared sometimes so joyful,

565

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 15]

at other times so sad, he answered, "When nothing diverts my thoughts from Goc, my heart overflows with joy, so much that I often forget my food and every颅 thing else; and when there are distractions, I am upset". Occasionally he disclosed something of the wonderful communications which passed between his soul and God and of the heavenly graces which he received in contemplation.

But St Paul wished for yet closer retirement, so he passed over to the isle of Samos, and there concealed himself in a cave. But he was soon discovered and so many flocked to him that he re-established three lauras which had been ruined by the Saracens. The entreaties of the monks at Latros induced him to return to his former cell there. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote frequently to him asking his advice, and often had reason to repent when he did not follow it.

Paul had a great tenderness for the poor and he gave them more of his food and clothes than he could properly spare. Once he would have sold himself for a slave to help some people in distress had he not been stopped. On December 6 in 956, foreseeing that his death drew near, he came down from his cell to the church, celebrated the Holy Mysteries more early than usual and then took to his bed. He spent his time in prayer and instructing his monks till his death, which fell on December 15, on which day he is commemorated by the Greeks. He is sometimes referred to as St Paul the Younger.

After having been printed for the first time in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xi (1892), a still more carefully revised text was edited by Delehaye in the volume Der Latmos, issued in 1913 by T. Wiegand and other scholars, with abundant illustrations and archaeological comments. The Life of St Paul, written by an anonymous disciple, is one of the most trustworthy of Byzantine biographies. In Wiegand's volume it is supplemented by a panegyric from MS. Vatican 704 previously unprinted. See also the Zeitschrift f. hath.

Theologie, vol. xviii (1894), pp. 365 seq., and the Revue des quest. histor., vol. x (1893), pp.

49- 8 5.

ST MARY

DI

ROSA, VIRGIN, FOUNDRESS OF THE HANDMAIDS OF (A.D. 1855)

CHARITY OF BRESCIA

THREE and a quarter centuries after Savonarola had foretold woe on the wickedness of the city of Brescia (prophecy that was fulfilled when the French seized and sacked the city in 15 12), there was born there the third of the holy ones who, in the first half of the nineteenth century, were the contemporary glories of its citizens; the other two were Bd Ludovic Pavoni and Bd Teresa Verzeri. Mary di Rosa (called Paula or Pauline at home), born in 18 I 3, was sixth of the nine children of Clement di Rosa, and his wife, Countess Camilla Albani. Her childhood was uneventful, but saddened by the death of her deeply loved mother when Paula was eleven.

When she was seventeen Paula left school to look after the household for her father, and he began to look around for a suitable husband for her. When he had found one, Paula was rather startled, and took her difficulties to the archpriest of the cathedral, Mgr Faustino Pinzoni, a sagacious priest who had already dealt prudently with her spiritual problems. He decided himself to see Clement di Rosa, and explained gently to him that his daughter had decided that she would never marry.

At a time when it was common, especially at the higher social levels, for fathers to pay little attention to the likes and dislikes of their children, notably in the matter of daughters' marriages, it speaks well for Cav. Clement that he agreed to respect Paula's路resolution almost without demur, and throughout his life he seems to have supported her in what may have appeared to him as wild schemes.

566

ST MARY DI ROSA

[December

I

5

During the next ten years Paula continued to live at home, but engaging herself more and more in social good works, in which she had the worthy example of her father before her eyes. Among his properties was a textile mill at .A.cquafredda where a number of girls worked, and one of Paula's first undertakings was to look after the spiritual welfare of these young women; this solicitude she extended to those of Capriano, where the Rosas had a country house. Here, with the co­ operation of the parish priest, she established a women's guild and arranged retreats and special missions in the parish, with such good results that the rector hardly knew his own flock. Reference has already been made, in speaking of Bd Ludovic Pavoni and Bd 1"eresa Verzeri, to the cholera epidemics that devastated northern Italy at this time, and the outbreak at Brescia in 1836 gave Paula di Rosa another opportunity. She asked her father's permission to work among the stricken in the hospital, and after some doubt and with considerable trepidation he agreed. The hospital welcomed Paula, who was accompanied by a wido\v, Gabriela Echenos-Bornati, who had already had some experience of nursing the sick, and they set an example of selfless hard work and gentle care that made a very deep impression on everybody.* In consequence Paula was asked to undertake the supervision of an institution which was a sort of workhouse for penniless and abandoned girls-a delicate and difficult post for a young woman of only twenty-four. She filled it successfully for two years, but then resigned in consequence of a difference with the trustees, who did not want the girls to lodge in the house at night. Paula herself then established a small lodging-house with room for a dozen girls to sleep, and at the same time gave her attention to a work that had been projected by her brother Philip and Mgr Pinzoni, namely, a school for deaf-and-dumb girls, on the lines of what Ludovic Pavoni was doing for boys. This school was still in its infancy when Paula handed it over to the Canossian sisters, who wished to do the same work in Brescia on a bigger scale.

All this was a really extraordinary ten-year record for a woman still under thirty and of delicate health and physique. But there was a certain virile quality in Paula di Rosa, and she had a physical energy and courage hardly to be expected --she once rescued somebody from a bolting horse and carriage in very dangerous circumstances. And her mind was to match, quick, acute and steady, so that, while living with heroic virtue, she was not content that intellectually and psycho­ logically her religion should remain at the level of the " penny catechism". She acquired an unusual knowledge of theology, and brought to her reading the same liveliness of spirit and delicacy of perception that informed her dealings with practical affairs. Her mental ability was particularly noted when she became involved in the complexities inseparable from the establishment of a religious congregation, and she was further helped by a remarkably good memory for people and things, large and small.

This congregation began to take shape in 1840, first in the form of a religious society of which Paula was appointed superioress by the Archpriest Pinzoni. With her was associated Mrs Bornati (who indeed may be called co-foundress), and the object of the society was to look after the sick in hospitals, not simply as nurses but as giving the whole of their time and interest unreservedly to the sick and suffering. They took the name of IIandmaids of Charity, and the first four

* IVlanzoni's description in The Betrothed (1 Promessi Sposi) of the isolation-hospital in Milan gives an idea of the conditions in which they ·worked.

5 67

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 15]

members took up their residence in an inconvenient and dilapidated house near the hospital; these were soon joined by fifteen Tirolese, who had heard about the undertaking from a visiting missioner, and before long the community numbered thirty-two. Their work aroused admiration that was publicly expressed in the press by a local doctor, who underlined the spiritual as well as the physical activities of the handmaids; but at the same time there was serious unfavourable criticism.

Some people resented their presence as intruders, and tried to discredit them.

This did not prevent an invitation, within three months of their foundation, to undertake similar work at Cremona, and this invitation was accepted. Of the difficulties at Brescia, " I hope that is not our last cross", wrote Paula to the Cremona house, " because to tell the truth I should have been sorry had we not been persecuted".

Before long a new and more commodious house in Brescia was given to the handmaids by Clement di Rosa, and their provisional rule of life was approved by the bishop in 1843; but there was a counter-balance to these causes for rejoicing a few months later, when Gabriela Bornati died. Paula was thus deprived (tf her chief lieutenant, but she still had Mgr Pinzoni to advise and guide her, and the society continued to grow and to undertake the direction of new hospitals. But in the summer of 1848 death took the archpriest too, and that at a time when political upheaval was convulsing Europe and war had come to northern Italy.

Paula's first response to new opportunities was to staff St Luke's military hospital, where again the handmaids had to meet the opposition of doctors who preferred secular nurses and military orderlies. Civilian victims of war and prisoners were succoured and, anticipating Florence Nightingale by several years, the Handnlaids of Charity ministered to the souls and bodies of the wounded on the battlefields.

In the following year came the terrible" Ten Days of Brescia". Paula and her sisters were at the disposal of all sufferers without distinction, but some disorderly troops made an attempt on the hospital. Paula, supported by half-a-dozen sisters, went to the front door to meet them: they carried a great crucifix, with a lighted candle on either side. The soldiers wavered, halted, and slunk away. And the crucifix (still preserved at Brescia) was carried from sick-bed to sick-bed that each occupant might give it a grateful kiss.

Paula aimed at a body of sisters who should combine spiritual with temporal care, lives of prayer and work, active but not " activist" or busybodies, " rushing about the streets with bowls of soup )', as St Louisa de Marillac put it; and there was wide scope for such organizations in Italy at that time. So in the autumn of 1850 she set out for Rome; on October 24 she was received by the pope, Pius IX ; and two months later, with most remarkable speed for Rome, the constitutions of the congregation of Handmaids of Charity of Brescia were approved. The approval of the civil power was less speedy, and it was not till the summer of 1852 that the first twenty-five sisters and their foundress made their vows, and Paula took the name of Maria Crocifissa, "Mary of the Crucified". The canonical erection of the congregation was the signal for its quick extension, but for Mother Mary the end was at hand, so far as this world was concerned. She was only forty-two, but she had taken every ounce out of her slight and delicate frame, and her recovery from illness on Good Friday 1 R55 looked miraculous. There was still work to be done-a threat of cholera at Brescia, convents to be opened at Spalat0 in Dalmatia and near Verona. Then at Mantua she collapsed, and reached home only to say, " Thank God He has let me get home to Brescia to die". And

568

ST EUSEBIUS OF VERCELLI

[December 16

die she did, very peacefully and quietly, three weeks later, on December 15, 1855.

Mgr Pinzoni, who knew her so well, said of St Mary di Rosa that " her life is a marvel that astonishes everybody who sees it "; and the spirit of it all was confided to one of her sisters when she told her that " I can't go to bed with a quiet conscience if during the day I've missed any chance, however slight, of preventing wrong-doing or of helping to bring about some good ". She would go out at a moment's notice by day or night to look after somebody ill, to sit at the bedside of a dying sinner, to settle a quarrel, to comfort someone in distress.

And the people of Brescia acknowledged this when they flocked to her funeral.

She was canonized in 1954.

There is a full life in Italian by V. Bartoccetti, Beata Maria Crocifissa di Rosa (1940) ; a very adequate ninety-page summary, under the same title, by a member of the congregation; and another life by Dr L. Fossati. There seems to be nothing about her in any other language, perhaps because all the houses of the Handmaids of Brescia are in Italy or near by.

16 : ST

EUSEBIUS,

BISHOP OF VERCELLI

(A.D. 371)

T EUSEBIUS was born in the isle of Sardinia, where his father is said to have died in chains for the faith. His mother, when left a widow, took him and a daughter, both in their infancy, to Rome, where Eusebius was brought up and ordained lector. He was called to Vercelli, in Piedmont, and served that church with such distinction that he was chosen to govern it by the clergy and people. He is the first bishop of Vercelli whose name we know. St Ambrose assures us that he was the first who in the West united the monastic discipline with the clerical, living himself with some of his clergy a common life in community.

For this reason St Eusebius of Vercelli is specially venerated by the canons regular.

He saw that the best and first means to labour effectually for the sanctification of his people was to form under his own eyes a clergy on whose virtue, piety and zeal he could depend. In this he succeeded so well that other churches demanded his disciples for their bishops, and a number of prelates came out of his school who were shining lamps in the Church of God. He was at the same time very careful personally to instruct his flock, and, moved by the force of the truth which he preached and persuaded by the sweetness and charity of his conduct, many sinners were encouraged to change their lives. But in 354 he was called to the public work of the Church at large, and for ten years following was a distinguished and persecuted confessor of the faith.

In that year Pope Liberius deputed St Eusebius, with Lucifer of Cagliari, to beg the Emperor Constantius to assemble a council to try and end the trouble between Catholics and Arians. Constantius agreed, and a council met at Milan in 355. Eusebius, seeing things would be carried by force through the power of the Arians, though the Catholic prelates were more numerous, refused to go to it till he was pressed by Constantius himself. When the bishops were called on to sign a condemnation of St Athanasius that had been drawn up, Eusebius refused, and instead laid the Nicene creed on the table and insisted on all signing that before the case of St Athanasius should be considered. Great tumult and confusion followed. Eventually the emperor sent for St Eusebius, St Dionysius of Milan and Lucifer of Cagliari, and pressed them to condemn Athanasius. They insisted

S

569

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 16]

upon his innocence and that he could not be condemned without being heard, and urged that secular force might not be used to influence ecclesiastical decisions.

The emperor stormed and threatened to put them to death, but was content to banish them. The first place of exile of St Eusebius was Scythopolis (Beisan) in Palestine, where he was put in charge of the Arian bishop, Patrophilus.

He was lodged at first with St Joseph of Palestine (the only orthodox household in the town), and was comforted by the visits of St Epiphanius and others, and by the arrival of the deputies of his church of Vercelli with money for his subsistence.

But his patience was to be exercised by great trials. Count Joseph died, and the Arians insulted the bishop, dragged him through the streets half naked, and shut him up in a little room, where he was pestered for four days with all manner of annoyances to make him conform. They forbade his deacons and other fellow confessors to be admitted to see him, so he sent a letter to Bishop Patrophilus addressed, " Eusebius, the servant of God, with the other servants of God who suffer with him for the faith, to Patrophilus the jailer, and to his officers ". After a short account of what he had suffered, he asked that his deacons might be allowed to come to him. Eusebius undertook a sort of " hunger-strike", and after he had remained four days without food the Arians sent him back to his lodging. 1'hree weeks afterwards they came again, broke into the house, and dragged him away.

They rifled his goods, plundered his provisions, and drove away his attendants.

St Eusebius found means to write a letter to his flock, in which he mentions these particulars. Later he was removed from Scythopolis into Cappadocia, and some time afterwards into the IJ pper Thebaid in Egypt. We have a letter which he wrote from this place to Gregory, Bishop of Elvira, praising him f0r his constancy against those who had forsaken the faith of the Church. The undaunted confessor expresses a desire to end his life in suffering for the kingdom of God. When Constantius died towards the end of the year 361, Julian gave leave to the banished prelates to return to their sees, and St Eusebius came to Alexandria to concert measures with St Athanasius for applying proper remedies to the evils of the Church. He took part in a council there, and then went on to Antioch to put into effect the wish of the council that St Meletius should there be recog­ nized as bishop and the Eustathian schism healed. But he found it widened by Lucifer of Cagliari, who had blown on the coals afresh by ordaining Paulinus bishop for the Eustathians. Eusebius remonstrated with him for this rash act; but the hasty Lucifer resented this, and broke off communion with him and with all who, with the Council of Alexandria, received the ex-Arian bishops. This was the origin of the schism of Lucifer, who by pride lost the fruit of his former zeal and sufferings.

IJ nable to do any good at Antioch, St Eusebius travelled over the East and through Illyricum, confirming in the faith those who \\J'ere wavering and bringing back many that were gone astray. In Italy St Hilary of Poitiers and St Eusebius met, and were employed together in opposing the arianizing Auxentius of Milan.

Vercelli, on the return of its bishop after so long an absence, "laid aside her garments of mourning", as St Jerome puts it, but of the last years of St Eusebius nothing is known. He died on August I, on which day his eulogy occurs in the Roman Martyrology. He is therein referred to as a martyr, but the Breviary makes it clear that he was so by his sufferings and not by his death. In the cathedral of Vercelli is shown a manuscript copy of the gospels said to be written by St Eusebius : it was almost worn out with age nearly a thousand years ago when King Berengarius

57°

[December 16

BD ADO

caused it to be covered with plates of silver. This manuscript is the earliest codex of the Old Latin version in existence. St Eusebius is among the several persons to whom the composition of the " Athanasian Creed" has been attributed.

The fathers who by their zeal and learning maintained the true faith made humility the foundation of their labours. Conscious that they were liable to be mistaken, they said with St Augustine, " I may err, but I will never be a heretic".

This humility and caution is necessary in profane no less than in religious studies.

Many pursue their speculations so far as to lose touch with common sense, and by too close an application to things beyond their abilities spoil their own under­ standing. Cicero justly remarks that nothing can be invented so absurd that some philosopher has not said it. So true it is, as the Apostle tells us, that" knowledge puffeth up ": not of itself, but through the propensity of the human heart to pride; the most ignorant are usually the more apt to overrate their knowledge and abilities.

In the absence of any proper biography of St Eusebius-that printed by Ughelli is of late date and little value-we are dependent upon the bishop's own letters, upon a notice in the Viri illustres of St Jeronle, and upon the controversial literature of the times. But the main incidents of his life have to do with general ecclesiastical history. See, for example, Hefele­ Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, vol. i, pp. 872 seq. and 961 seq. ,. Duchesne, Hist. ancienne de I'Eglise, vol. ii, pp. 341-35°; Bardenhewer, Ceschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, vol. iii, pp.

486-487; and especially Savio, Cli antichi vescovi d'Italia, vol. i, pp. 412-420, and 514-544.

BD ADO,

ARCHBISHOP OF \TIENNE

ADO came of a good family of the Gatinais and was educated in the abbey of Ferrieres, near Sens, under the celebrated Lupus Servatus. Refusing all induce­ ments to return to the world he became a monk there, and soon had an established reputation for holiness and learning. He was still young when Markward, abbot of Pri.im, begged of Abbot Sigulf that Ado might teach the sacred sciences in his monastery, and the request was not refused. Ado so taught as to make all that were under his care truly servants of God; but difficulties and disagreements arose, and he had to leave Pri.im. Eventually he came to Lyons, and St Remigius, archbishop of the city, kept him there and gave him charge of the parish church of St Romanus. His former master, Lupus, who had been chosen abbot of Ferrieres, became his advocate, and, the see of Vienne falling vacant, Ado was chosen archbishop and consecrated in 859. He was indefatigable in preaching the truths of salvation. He usually began his sermons with the words: "Hear the eternal truth which speaks to you in the gospel", or " I-Iear Jesus Christ, who says to you ", or a similar expression. He was an altogether admirable bishop, and an implacable opponent of Lothair II of Lorraine in the matrimonial affairs that came before Pope St Nicholas I. King Charles the Bald sent him to Rome to present the case of the wronged Theutberga, and he was the legate sent by the pope with letters imperatively annulling the infamous proceedings of the Synod of Metz.

Bd Ado was the author of several written works, of which the best known is the martyrology that bears his name, of which the first version was prepared at Saint-Romain between 855 and 860. Dom Leclercq says of it that" It has con­ tributed in a considerable measure to mislead the traditions of martyrologists and its unfortunate influence is found at work in almost all [pertinent] questions that have embarrassed historians". Through the Martyrology of Usuard, which was an abridgement of it, and its use in later revisions, it has had a strong and regrettable

57 1

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 16]

influence on the official Roman Martyrology. Among the works which Ado used in its preparation was one known as the Martyrologium Romanum Parvum, pur足 porting to be an ancient martyrology of the Roman church. He tells us that when he was at Ravenna he saw a manuscript of this, which had been sent by one of the popes to Aquileia, and he accordingly made a copy of it for his own use. It is now known that the Parvum was spurious, a document contemporary with Ado himself. It has even been suggested that it was Ado who fabricated it. This need cause no surprise, for it was not till long after his time that the forgery or " doctoring" of documents began to be seen as a practice deserving the reprobation that is now properly given to it. Even in our own time it is not uncommon to find continued currency given to pious legends and hagiological stories, without ex足 pressed advertence to their being only doubtfully true or even certainly false as records of historical fact.

Bd Ado also wrote Lives of St Desiderius (Didier) and St Theuderius (Chef), and a Universal Chronicle of the Six Ages of the World, from the Creation to A.D. 869. It was considered desirable that Vienne, like other episcopal cities in southern Gaul (see, e.g. ArIes, under St Trophimus on the 29th of this month, and Lazarus at Marseilles on the 17th), should have had an apostolic origin; and it seems that Ado was responsible for the tradition that Crescens was sent by St Paul not into Galatia but into Gaul (2 Timothy iv 10): his solemn commemoration at Vienne as its first bishop is still recorded in the Roman Martyrology on December 29, and referred to in the entry of his martyrdom in Galatia on June 27. Ado died at Vienne on December 16, 875. He is often accorded the title of Saint, but the Roman Martyrology refers to him as Beatus only.

There is a life of Ado printed in Mabillon, vol. iv, pt 2, pp. 262-275, but its v-alue as an historical source is questionable. Ado's connection with the see of Vienne is discussed

by Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. i, pp. 147, 162, 210. The whole matter of his relation to the martyrology called by his name has been very thoroughly investigated by Dom Quentin in his Martyrologes historiques (1908). See also DAC., vol. i, cc. 535-539; and DHG., vol. i, cc. 585-586.

ST ADELAIDE,

WIDOW

(A.D.

999)

WHEN in the year 933 Rudolf II of Upper Burgundy concluded a treaty with Hugh of Provence in their struggle for the crown of Italy (Lombardy), one of the terms was that Rudolf's daughter, Adelaide, then a baby of two, should marry Hugh's son, Lothair. Fourteen years later her brother, Conrad of Burgundy, saw to the fulfilling of this contract, Lothair being by then nominally king of Italy, but actually in the power of Berengarius of Ivrea. One child was born of the marriage, Emma (she eventually married Lothair II of France), and in 950 Lothair of Italy died, not without strong suspicion of having been poisoned by Berengarius, who succeeded him. Berengarius then tried to make Adelaide marry his son, and on her refusal treated her with brutality and indignity, and shut her up in a castle on Lake Garda.

At this time the German king, Otto the Great, was leading an army into Italy to try to reduce the north to order. He defeated Berengarius and released Adelaide; or, as it is said, she escaped from her prison and joined him. To consolidate his authority in Italy, Otto married Adelaide, who was twenty years his junior, on Christmas day 951, at Pavia. Of this union five children were born. Ludolf, Otto's .son by his first wife (sister of Athelstan of England), was jealous of the influence of his stepmother and her children and became a centre of discontent 57 2

BD SEBASTIAN OF BRESCIA

[December 16

and rebellion, but to the German people the gentle and gracious Adelaide soon endeared herself. In 962 Otto was crowned emperor at Rome. Nothing is heard of Adelaide for the next ten years, till in 973 her husband died and their eldest son succeeded.

Otto II was a good and spirited prince, but hasty and self-sufficient, and on his accession to power he soon estranged his mother and allowed himself to be turned against her by his wife, the Byzantine Theophano, and other counsellors.

Adelaide left the court and went to her brother, Conrad, at Vienne. She appealed to St Majolus, abbot of Cluny, whom she had wanted to see made pope when Benedict VI was murdered in 974, and he eventually succeeded in bringing about a reconciliation; mother and son met at Pavia, and Otto asked pardon on his knees for his unkindness. She sent gifts to the shrine of St Martin at Tours, including Otto's best cloak, and asking for her son the saint's prayers-" you who had the glory of covering with your own cloak Christ the Lord in the person of a beggar".

But similar trouble came when Otto died in 983. Otto III was a baby and his mother, Theophano, became regent. She had the flair for politics of the great Byzantine princesses and in this respect was more capable than her mother-in-law.

Adelaide again left the court, but Theophano died suddenly in 991 and the old empress came back to be herself regent, a task now beyond her strength and peace足 loving nature, though she had the assistance of St Willigis of Mainz. Throughout her life she had shown herself generous and forgiving to enemies, and amenable to the wise guidance in tum of St Adalbert of Magdeburg, St Majolus and St Odilo of Cluny, who called her" a marv~l of beauty and grace". She founded and restored monasteries of monks and nuns, and was urgent for the conversion of the Slavs, whose movements on the eastern frontier troubled her closing years before she finally returned to Burgundy. Death overtook her at a monastery of her foundation at Seltz, on the Rhine near Strasburg, on December 16, 999. St Adelaide was canonized c. 1097.

The most reliable source of information regarding St Adelaide is the " Epitaphium " of St Odilo of Cluny. It is printed in MGH., Scriptores, vol. iv, pp. 635-649, and in Migne, PL., vol. cxlii; <,c. 967-992. But a good deal may also be gleaned from the chroniclers of the period. There is a German life by F. P. Wimmer, Kaiserin Adelheid (1897). See also DHG., vol. i, cc. 516-517.

BD SEBASTIAN OF BRESCIA DURING the thirteenth century the family of the Maggi was one of the most powerful in Brescia and at the head of the party of the Guelfs; at the time of the birth of Bd Sebastian, early in the fifteenth century, it had declined from its former estate, but the name was still held in honour. Sebastianentered the Order of Preachers when he was fifteen, and his ministry was attended with much success: large numbers were brought to repentance, quarrelling families and communes were reconciled, and the work of his order strengthened; but few particulars are known of his busy life.

He was a powerful preacher and an admirable superior in the many friaries that he governed. He recognized the genius and virtues of Jerome Savonarola, whose confessor for a time he was, and at the age of twenty-nine, when Father Jerome had been professed only six years, he made him master of the novices at Bologna.

Bd Sebastian was a strict upholder of monastic observance, and worked doggedly at the reform of several houses, especially that of Lodi, where he set the example 573

Dec~ber

16]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

of begging from door to door for the support of the community. As a superior he wished to be treated with the openness of a father, and was then gentle and indulgent; but when his brethren regarded him merely as a master, he was accordingly severe. When suffering from sickness Bd Sebastian insisted on carry足 ing out a visitation of his province, but when he reached the priory of Santa Maria di Castello at Genoa he could go no further; this, he said to his companions, was to be the place of his rest for ever. He died there on December 16, 1496, and all Genoa came to his tomb, whereat many miracles were reported. The cultus of Bd Sebastian Maggi was confirmed in 1760.

Mortier in his Histoire des maitres genbaux D.P., vol. iv, pp. 548-550, speaks in some detail of Bd Sebastian, and he figures in nearly all the lives of Savonarola: see, for example, Herbert Lucas, Fra Girolamo Sa'vonarola (1906), pp. 10, 191 seq., etc. A short account is also given by Procter, Lives of Dominican Saints, pp. 339-342. For a fuller bibliography see Taurisano, Catalogus hagiographicus D.P.

BD MARY OF TURIN,

VIRGIN

THERE lived at Turin during the seventeenth century a count of Santena named John Donato Fontanella. He was a religious and well-loved man and married an equally good wife, Mary Tana, whose father was cousin-german to St Aloysius Gonzaga. They had eleven children, of whom the ninth, Marianna, was a girl of particular intelligence and promise. When a child of six, emulating St Teresa, she concocted a scheme with her little brother to run away and live" in the desert" ; but they spoiled it by oversleeping on the morning intended for their departure.

Two years later, when making recovery from a serious illness, she experienced her first vision, and from that time began to show a strongly ascetic disposition; in the following year she made her first communion. A deep impression had been made on her mind by contemplation of the blow in the face given to our Lord by the servant of Caiaphas, and a strange incident is related in that connection. One evening, when Marianna was kneeling at Benediction with one of her sisters, a strange man on her other side turned suddenly and violently slapped her cheek.

The man escaped in the ensuing confusion and was never seen again. When she was something over twelve, Marianna, by a not very creditable ruse in concert with the nuns to evade her mother, joined the Cistercians at Saluzzo to live among their alumnae,. but she was not happy there and, on the death of her father, went home to keep house for her mother. She became ever more drawn to the religious life and in 1676, after some difficulties with her family, was admitted in her sixteenth year to the Carmel of Santa Cristina. Here her first experience was one of great home-sickness; following that, an intense distaste for her new life and dislike of the novice-mistress. But she persevered and was in due course professed.

After seven years in the convent Sister Mary-of-the-Angels, as she was now called, was visited by a long and severe "dark night", during which she was tormented by numerous diabolical assaults and manifestations. She was guided through this by a very able director, Father Laurence-Mary, Q.C.D., and at the end of three years began to come into more peaceful ways and to attain higher states of prayer. In 1690 she wrote to Father Laurence an account of a mystical experi足 ence which marked the end of her violent struggles. That Sister Mary herself was of a vehement disposition her own physical penances show. At one time she was scourging herself to blood daily, compressing her tongue with an iron ring,

574

[December 16

BD MARY OF TURIN

dropping molten wax on her skin, even suspending herself cross-wise by ropes from a beam in her cell. Of such practices we may borrow from the words of Father George O'Neill, S.J., her Irish biographer: "No one is asked to imitate, no one is bound to admire them." When she was thirty she was appointed novice­ mistress, and three years later prioress, offices which she took up with deep re­ luctance and discharged with an equally marked ability. At the suggestion of Bd Sebastian Valfre she undertook a new foundation with a small house and inadequate endowment at Moncaglieri; and having overcome opposition from both ecclesiastical and civil authorities she was able to establish the nucleus of a community there in 1703, and the convent is still in being. Sister Mary herself wished to go there, but the people of Turin would not suffer it; all, from the members of the ducal family of Savoy downwards, were accustomed to go and ask the advice and prayers of the prioress of Santa Cristina, especially during the war with the French.

During the last twenty years of her life Bd Mary continued to have remarkable experiences and gifts, among them what appeared to be a literal " odour of sanc­ tity". This scent emanated from her person, and was communicated to her clothes and even to things that she touched, from which it was sometimes difficult to eradicate. From about 1702 this phenomenon was permanent, and among the witnesses to it was Father Costanzo, afterwards archbishop of Sassari in Sardinia.

He characterized it as " neither natural nor artificial, nor like flowers or aromatic drugs or any mixture of perfumes, but only to be called an ' odour of sanctity' ".

It is stated that certain secondary relics of the beata at Moncaglieri still retain this fragrance. At the same time Bd Mary, like so many other mystics, was also notably proficient and careful in the practical matters, keeping accounts, looking after workmen, and so on, which fell to her lot as prioress. At the end of the priorate of Mother Teresa-Felix in 1717 the nuns of Santa Cristina wished to elect Bd Mary for a fifth term of office. She thought that her physical weakness would prevent her from giving a proper example of observance, and appealed to her confessor and to the prior provincial, but they both refused to interfere. Whereupon she set herself to pray that, if it were God's will, she might shortly die; and within three weeks she was very ill. Punctilious obedience to superiors had been so marked in her life that the nuns now implored them to " give her an obedience" to recover. They demurred, and Mary said, " Obedience wills what God wills, and therefore I will what obedience wills. Were the impossible possible I would do as you ask; but I have so stormed the heart of Jesus to get my desire that He has granted it. It cannot be changed now." She blessed all her sisters, and Father Costanzo asked, without saying who she was, for a last word for" another daughter", who was in fact the young Princess di Carignano who had hurried to the convent when she heard that Mother Mary was dying. "May our Lord bless her", she murmured, " and give her real detachment from the world-for every­ thing here comes to an end." Bd Mary-of-the-Angels died on December 16, 1717, and seven years later her cause was introduced at the instance of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy; but she was not officially declared blessed until 1865.

A full account of this Carmelite mystic will be found in the book of Father G. O'Neill, Bd Mary of the Angels (1909). It is based upon a life written in Italian by Father Elias-of­ St-Teresa who had known the beata personally and was able to utilize what survived of an autobiography which she '\\'rote by command of her superiors. A later Italian account is

by Father Benedetto (1934).

575

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 17]

17 : ST

LAZARUS

(FIRST CENTURY)

N the eleventh chapter of his gospel St John gives a full account of the raising from the dead by our Lord of Lazarus of Bethany, the brother of Martha and Mary and the much-loved friend of Jesus; but the Bible tells us nothing of the subsequent life of this man called back from the dead. N or is anything really known. The pseudo-Clementine writings say he follo\\'ed St Peter into Syria, but according to the tradition received in the East he, with his sisters and others, was put into a leaking boat by the Jews at Jaffa, and by a supernatural interposition of providence landed safely on the island of Cyprus. He was, they say, made bishop at Kition (Larnaka), and died there in peace after thirty years. In 890 the Emperor Leo VI built a church and monastery in his honour at Constantinople, and translated some of the reputed relics from Cyprus.

The presence of St Lazarus in the West is first heard of in the eleventh century, in connection with the legend of St Mary Magdalen in Provence. In a letter written by Pope Benedict IX on the occasion of the consecration of the abbey church of St Victor at Marseilles reference is made to its possessing the relics of St Lazarus of Bethany, but nothing is said of his having been bishop there or preaching in Provence as the medieval legends assert. According to these Lazarus was put into the oarless and rudderless boat with the others (Mary Magdalen, Martha, Maximinus, etc.) and landed with them in the south-east of Gaul. He made a number of converts at Marseilles, became their bishop, and was martyred under Domitian on the site of the Saint-Lazare prison. He was buried in a cave, over which the abbey of St Victor was subsequently built. From there his relics are supposed to have been taken to Autun, where some human remains were enshrined in the new cathedral in 1146. The existence in the crypt of St Victor's at Marseilles of the epitaph of a fifth-century bishop of Aix named Lazarus, who had to resign his see and visited Palestine before dying at Marseilles and being buried there, may throw light on the origin of these curious legends about 8t Lazarus of Bethany; and also the bringing of relics of St N azarius from Milan to Autun in 542.

There is abundant evidence that the memory of Lazarus was devotionally honoured both in early days at Jerusalem and later throughout the Church. The pilgrim lady Etheria (c. 390), tells us of the procession which took place to the Lazarium (where Lazarus had been raised from the dead) on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. Etheria was much impressed by the enormous crowd which packed the whole vicinity. But we also find some similar celebration, nearly always connected with Lent, in the 'Vestern church. At Milan, Passion Sunday was called Dominica de Lazaro, and in Africa, as we learn from St Augustine, the gospel of the restoring to life of Lazarus was read at the night office before the dawn of Palm Sunday.

I

See DAC., vol. viii, cc. 2009-2086, and the references already given under St Mary Magdalen (July 22). Mention may also be made of the article" Lazarus" by L. Clugnet in the Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. ix, p. 98), and of a contribution of Father Thurston to the Irish quarterly, Studies, vol. xxiii (1934), pp. 110-123. No heed can be paid to the supposed presence of relics of St Lazarus at Autun; there is much better ground for crediting the oriental"tradition that his body reposes at Kition in Cyprus. See the Lexikon f. Theologie und Kirch/!, vol. vi, c. 432. For the liturgical observances, see Abbot Cabrol in DAC.,

576

[December 17

ST 01"YMPIAS

vol. viii, cc. 2086-2088. In the later middle ages 8t Lazarus was credited with having left an account of what he had seen in the next world before he was recalled to life: see Max Voigt, Beitriige zur Geschichte der Visionenliteratur im M.A., vol. ii (1924). rrhe military order of hospitaller-knights of 8t Lazarus of Jerusalem (still existing in the form of two separate orders, of merit and knighthood, in Italy and France) did not take its name from this 8t Lazarus but from the fictitious Lazarus, " full of sores ", of our Lord's parable.

ST OLYMPIAS,

\iVIDOW

(c.

A.D.

408)

ST OLYMPIAS, called by St Gregory Nazianzen " the glory of the widows in the Eastern church", was to St John Chrysostom something of what 8t Paula was to St Jerome. Her family belonged to Constantinople, and was one of distint:tion and wealth. She was born abollt the year 361, and left an orphan under the care of the prefect Procopius, her uncle; it was her happiness to be entrusted by him to Theodosia, sister to St Amphilochius, a woman \vho, St Gregory told her, was a pattern of goodness in whose life she might see as in a glass all excellences.

Olympias had inherited a large fortune and was attractive in person and character, so that her uncle had no difficulty in arranging a marriage that was acceptable to him and to her, namely with N ebridius, for some time prefect of Constantinople.

St Gregory wrote apologizing because age and bad health kept him from attending the wedding, and enclosing a poem of good advice for the bride. The husband appears to have been an exacting man, but within a very short time Nebridius was dead, and the hand of Olympias was being sought by several of the most consider足 able men of the court. The Emperor Theodosius \vas very pressing with her to accept Elpidius, a Spaniard and his near relation. She declared her resolution of remaining single the rest of her days: "Had God wished me to remain a wife", she said, " He would not have taken Nebridius away." Theodosius persisted, and as her refusal continued, he put her fortune in the hands of the urban prefect with orders to act as her guardian till she was thirty years old. The prefect even hindered her from seeing the bishop or going to church. She wrote to the emperor, somewhat acidly perhaps, that she was obliged to him for easing her of the burden of managing and disposing of her money, and that the favour would be complete if he would order it all to be divided between the poor and the Church. Theodosius, struck with her letter, made an inquiry into her manner of living, and restored to her the administration of her estate in 391.

St Olympias thereupon offered herself to St Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople, for consecration as a deaconess, and established herself in a large house \vith a number of maidens who wished to devote themselves to the service of God. Her dress was plain, her furniture simple, her prayers assiduous, and her charities without bounds, so that St John Chrysostom found it necessary to tell her some足 times to moderate her alms, or rather to be more cautious in bestowing them, that she might be able to succour those whose distress deserved preference: " You must not encourage the laziness of those who live upon you without necessity. It is like throwing your money into the sea." In 398 Chrysostom succeeded Nec足 tarius in the see of Constantinople, and he took St Olympias and her disciples under his protection, and guided by him her benefactions were spread abroad; an orphanage and a hospital were attached to their house, and when the expelled monks came from Nitria to appeal against Theophilus of Alexandria they were fed and

577

December 17]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

sheltered at the expense of Olympias. St Amphilochius, St Epiphanius, St Peter of Sebaste and St Gregory of Nyssa were among her friends, and Palladius of Helenopolis refers to her as " a wonderful woman . . . like a precious vase filled with the Holy Spirit"; but it was with her own bishop that friendship was most mutually affectionate and trusting, and she was one of the last persons whom Chrysostom took leave of when he went into banishment in 404. It was necessary to tear her from his feet by violence.

After his departure, Olympias shared the persecution in which all his friends were involved. She was brought before Optatus, the prefect of the city, who was a heathen, on a charge of having set fire to the cathedral, but really that she might be persuaded to hold communion with Arsacius, the usurper of the bishopric. But Olympias was more than a match for Optatus, and was dismissed for that time.

She was very ill all the winter, and in the spring was exiled, and wandered from place to place. About midsummer in 405 she was brought back to Constantinople and again presented before Optatus, who sentenced her to pay a heavy fine because she refused to communicate with Arsacius. Atticus, successor of Arsacius, dispersed the community of widows and maidens which she directed, and put an end to all their charitable works. Frequent sicknesses, outrageous slanders and persecutions succeeded one another. St John Chrysostom comforted and en­ couraged her from his places of exile by letters, of which seventeen have come down to us and give an idea not only of his misfortunes but of hers as well. "As you are well acquainted with suffering you have reason to rejoice, inasmuch as by having lived constantly in tribulation you have walked in the road of crowns and laurels.

All manner of corporal diseases have been yours, often more cruel and harder to be endured than many deaths; you have never been free from sickness. * You have been overwhelmed with slanders, insults, and injuries and never been free from some new tribulation; tears have always been familiar to you. Among all these, one single affliction is enough to fill your soul with spiritual riches." In another letter he. writes: "I cannot cease to call you blessed. The patience and dignity with which you have borne your sorrows, the prudence and wisdom with which you have managed delicate affairs, and the charity which has made you throw a veil over the malice of your persecutors have won a glory and reward which here­ after will make all your sufferings seem light and passing in the presence of eternal joy." We know also from these letters that St John entrusted Olympias with the execution of important commissions for him.

It is not known where St Olympias was when she heard of St John Chrysostom's death in Pontus on September 14, 4°7; she herself died at Nicomedia on July 25 in the following year, not much more than forty years old. Her body was taken to Constantinople, where" she had become so celebrated for her great goodness that her very name was considered worthy of imitation, parents hoping that their children would be built on a like model ".

Our knowledge of this holy widow is derived partly from Palladius, the letters of Chrysos­ tom and the writings of other contemporaries, but also from a Greek Life which was printed

* Elsewhere he writes to her: "Much patience is needed to see oneself unjustly deprived of wealth, driven from home and country to exile in an unhealthy climate, chained and im­ prisoned, loaded \\'ith insults, railing and contempt. Even the calmness of Jeremias could not resist such trials. Yet not even these or the loss of children dear as our very heart's blood or death itself, the most terrible of evils in human estimation, are so trying to bear as bad health."

ST STURMI

[December 17

for the first time in the AnaIecta Bollandiana, vol. xv (1896), pp. 400-423, together with an account of the translation of her remains (ibid., vol. xvi, pp. 44-5 I) written much later by the superioress (Ama) Sergia. See also the article of J. Bousquet, " Vie d 'Olympias la diaconesse ", contributed to the Revue de [,Orient chretien, second series, vol. i (19 0 6), pp. 225-250, and vol. ii (1907), pp. 255-268. The life seems to have been composed in the middle of the fifth century and is clearly posterior to Palladius, as is proved by quotations made from this source. One chapter, the eleventh, seems to be a later interpolation by another hand. The letters of St John Chrysostom to St Olympias have been translated into French by P. Legrand, Exhortations a Theodore; Lettres a OIympias (1933). See also H. Leclercq in DAC., vol. xii, cc. 2064-2°71.

ST BEGGA,

WIDOW

PEPIN of Landen, mayor of the palace to three Frankish kings, and himself com­ monly called Blessed, was married to a saint, Bd Itta or Ida, and two of their three children figure in the Roman Martyrology: St Gertrude of Nivelles and her elder sister, St Begga. Gertrude refused to marry and was an abbess soon after she was twenty, but Begga married Ansegisilus, son of St Arnulf of Metz, and spent practically the whole of her long life as a nobleman's wife" in the world". Of this union was born Pepin of Herstal, the founder of the Carlovingian dynasty in France. After the death of her husband, St Begga in 691 built at Andenne on the Meuse seven chapels representing the Seven Churches of Rome, around a central church, and in connection therewith she established a convent and colonized it with nuns from her long-dead sister's abbey at Nivelles. It afterwards became a house of canonesses and the Lateran canons regular commemorate St Begga as belonging to their order. She is also venerated by the Beguines of Belgium as their patroness, but the common statement that she founded them is a mistake due to the similarity of the names. St Begga died abbess of Andenne and was buried there.

A life of St Begga, together with some coliections of miracles, has been printed in Ghesquiere, Acta Sanctorum BeIgii, vol. v (1789), pp. 70-125; it is of little historical value. See also Berliere, Monasticon BeIge, vol. i, pp. 61-63 ; and DHG., vol. ii, cc. 1559­ 156o. There can be little doubt that the word beguinae, which we first meet about the year 1200 and which, as stated above, has nothing to do with St Begga, was originally a term of reproach used of the Albigensians: see the Dictionnaire de SpirituaIite, vol. i, CC. 1341-1342.

ST STURMI,

ABBOT

(A.n. 779)

STURMI, the son of Christian parents in Bavaria, was entrusted to the care of St Boniface who left him to be educated under St Wigbert in his abbey of Fritzlar.

He was there in due course ordained priest and did mission work in Westphalia for three years, after which he was allowed with two companions to lead an ere­ miticallife in the forest at Hersfeld. This place was unprotected from the maraud­ ing Saxons, and was otherwise unsuited to them, and was soon abandoned. St Boniface had found a district further south more suitable for a monastery from which the Saxons could be evangelized, and St Sturmi rode down into it on his donkey and selected a site at the junction of the Greizbach and the Fulda. In 744 the monastery of Fulda was founded, St Boniface appointing St Sturmi its first abbot. It was the favourite foundation of St Boniface, who intended it to be what in fact it became under the fostering care of Sturmi, the pattern monastery and seminary of priests for all Germany; he used frequently to visit it to superintend

579

Dec~mber

17]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

its progress, and his body was buried in the abbey church. Soon after its founda足 tion St Sturmi went into Italy to study Benedictine observance at its fountain-head at Monte Cassino, and it seems that Pope St Zachary gave his monastery complete autonomy by withdrawing it from episcopal jurisdiction and subjecting it directly to the Holy See. The abbey of Fulda continued to prosper under St Sturmi, but he,. was involved in se rious difficulties after the martyrdom of St Boniface, for the attitude of his successor at Mainz, St Lull, towards the monastery was very different.

Lull claimed that it should be subject to him as bishop, and the ensuing struggle was long and bitter. In 763 an order was obtained from Pepin for the banishment of Sturmi, and Lull nominated a superior in his place, but the monks of Fulda refused to accept him and expelled him from the house, threatening that they would go in a body and appeal to the king. To pacify them Lull told them to choose a superior of their own, whereupon they elected a life-long disciple of Sturmi. He took a deputation of monks to court, and they were successful in inducing Pepin to recall their beloved abbot, who returned to Fulda amid great rejoicing after two years of exile.

The efforts of St Sturmi and his monks to convert the Saxons did not meet with much external success, and the wars of Pepin and Charlemagne, first punitive and then of conquest, were not calculated to recommend his religion to the heathen.

St Sturmi, like many missionaries before and since, was working under the greatest handicaps furnished by the civil power: it seemed to the Saxons that the faith of Christ was preached to them " with an iron tongue by their bitterest enemies ".

When Charlemagne was recalled from Paderborn to attack the Moors in Spain, the Saxons at once rose and drove out the monks; Fulda itself was threatened. In 779 Charlemagne returned aI\d St Sturmi accompanied him to the mobilization at Duren which preceded fresh military success against the Saxons, but he did not live to recommence his missions. He was taken ill at Fulda and, in spite of the efforts of the physician sent by Charlemagne, died on December 17, 779. The name of St Sturmi, called by the Roman Martyrology the Apostle of the Saxons, was added to the roll of saints in I 139; he is apparently the first German known to have become a Benedictine monk.

The Vita /~. Sturmii belongs to the best class of early medieval biographies. It was written by Eigil, himself also abbot of Fulda, about fifty years after the founder's death.

It has been many times printed, e.g. in Migne, PL., vol. cv, cc. 423-444, and in MGH., Scriptores, vol. ii, pp. 366-377. See also the sketch of Sturmi's activities given by H. Timerding in Die Chr'istliche Frilhzeit Deutschlands,. zweite Gruppe (1929); and M. Tangl, Leben des hi. Bonijazius, der hi. Leoba und des Abtes Sturmi (1920), Introduc足 tion. The life by Eigil is translated by C. H. Talbot in Anglo-Saxon k!issionaries in Germany (1954).

ST WIVINA,

VIRGIN

(A.D. 1170?)

LrITLE is related of the life of St Wivina that is not common to many other holy nuns of the middle ages. She was a Fleming, well brought up, and by the time she was fifteen had made up her mind to " leave the world" and her father's house.

She was, however, sought in marriage by a number of suitors-foremost among whom was a young nobleman named Richard, who had the approval of her parents.

This young man was very much in love with her, and when she made it clear to him that she would accept no earthly husband he took it so hardly that he became ill and" his life even was in danger. Feeling herself responsible for his unhappy

S80

[December 18

ST GATIAN

state, Wivina prayed and fasted for him until he was restored to health, as it were miraculously. When she was twenty-three she left her father's house secretly, taking only a psalter "tith her, and with one companion made a hermitage of branches in a wood near Brussels, at a place called Grand-Bigard. Here her solitude was much disturbed by people who came from the city to see her out of curiosity. Count Godfrey of Brabant offered her the land and an endowment wherewith to build a monastery on it, which she gladly accepted. She put herself and her community under the direction of the abbot of Affiighem, a monastery near Alost (it is still in being) which at that time, according to the testimony of St Bernard, ",'as peopled by angels rather than men~ Under such auspices the nunnery of Grand-Bigard prospered, though not without grave difficulties for the abbess; some of her subjects found her lacking in discretion, especially in the matter of austerities, and did not keep their opinions to themselves. St Wivina pointed out to them that they were being led away by Satan, but it required a miracle to persuade them that their abbess was in the right. After her death the abbey became a place of pilgrimage, and many miracles of healing took place at her tomb. 'fhe relics of St Wivina are now in Notre-Dame-du-Sablon at Brussels.

There is a legendary account of her 'which has been printed by the Bollandists in the volume Anecdota J. Gielemans ( 1895), PP. 57-79. Her psalter, written in the early twelfth century, is still preserved at Orbais in Brabant. See also Van Ballaer, Officium cum Missa (19 0 3).

18 : SSe

RUFUS

AND

ZOSIMUS,

l\1ARTYRS

(c.

A.D.

107)

HEN St Ignatius of Antioch was at Philippi in Macedonia, on his way to martyrdom in Rome, he had with him SSe Rufus and Zosimus, citizens of Antioch or of Philippi itself. On the instruction of Ignatius, the Philippian Christians wrote a fraternal letter to their fellows at Antioch, and were answered by St Polycarp of Smyrna, to whom St Ignatius had commended the care of his chv.rch. In his letter, which during the fourth century was read publicly in the churches of Asia, he refers to Rufus and Zosimus, who had the happiness to share in Ignatius's chains and sufferings for Christ, and likewise glorified God by martyrdom under Trajan about the year 107. St Polycarp says of them: "They have not run in vain but in faith and righteousness, and they are gone to the place that was due to them from the Lord, with whom they also suffered. For they loved not the present world, but Him who died and was raised again by God for us. . . . Wherefore I exhort all of you that you obey the word of righteousness and exercise all patience, which you have seen set forth before your eyes, not only in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, but in others that have been among you and in Paul himself and the rest of the apostles."

W

Nothing more is known of these martyrs than is contained in St Polycarp's letter. is no indication of an early cultus of any kind.

ST GATIAN,

BISHOP OF TOURS

(A.D.

There

301 ?)

ACCORDING to St Gregory of Tours St Gatian was one of the six missionary bishops who came to Gaul from Rome with St Dionysius of Paris about the

581

Dec'ember 18]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

middle of the third century. He preached the faith principally at Tours, of which church he is venerated as the founder and the first bishop. Having con足 tinued his labours with unwearied zeal amid many dangers for fifty years he died in peace. His memory was held in veneration, but it appears that much of his work was undone. A medieval legend says that St Gatian was one of the seventy-two disciples and was sent to Gaul by St Peter himself. This is certainly a fiction.

St Gregory of Tours mentions St Gatian in his Historia Francorum, bk i, ch. 10, and bk x, ch. 3 I, as also in his Gloria confessorum, bk iv, ch. 39. The fact that Gatian is not com足 memorated in the Hieronymianum suggests there was no very active cultus, but we are told that St Martin of Tours enshrined his relics with honour. Duchesne discusses the case of Gatian in his Fastes Episcopaux, vol. ii, pp. 286, 302.

ST FLANNAN,

BISHOP

(SEVENTH CENTURY?)

8T FLANNAN, whose feast is kept throughout Ireland, is venerated as the first bishop of Killaloe, a diocese nearly conterminous with the district of Thomond, of which his father, Turlough, was chieftain. Flannan was educated by a monk, who taught him not only letters but also" to plow, sow, reap, grind, winnow and bake for the monks". According to his very late life, Flannan determined, in spite of the opposition of his friends and relatives, to make a pilgrimage to Rome, and he achieved the voyage in the miraculous manner common in Celtic hagiology, namely, on a floating stone. While there he was consecrated bishop by Pope John IV (d. 642), and on his return to Killaloe all the people assembled to hear the instructions and messages of the Holy Roman See. The exhortations and teaching of St Flannan caused his father in his old age to become a monk under St Colman at Lismore. Three of his sons having been killed, Turlough asked Colman for a special blessing on his family. Whereupon Colman made seven strides and said, " From you shall seven kings spring": and so it was, all of them called Brian.

Flannan was afraid that the kingship would descend to him, and that he might be ineligible for it he prayed that he should be visited with a physical deformity.

Accordingly, says his biographer, " scars and rashes and boils began to appear on his face so that it became most dreadful and repulsive". 8t Flannan is supposed to have preached as well in the Western Isles: a small group off the west coast of Lewis, the Seven Hunters, is also known by his name. Several great marvels are attributed to him, as well as such Celtic practices as reciting his office immersed in icy water.

There is a Latin life of St Flannan in the Codex Salmanticensis (defective in one leaf).

It has been printed in the Bollandist edition of the Acta Sanctorum Hibertliae ex Codice Salmanticensi, pp. 643-680. Another text has been edited by Fr Paul Grosjean, from a Bodleian manuscript, in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xlvi (1928), pp. 124-141, and with this also a third fragment in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. "Flannan, prince of gentleness ,) is a phrase which occurs in some manuscripts of the Felire of Oengus on December 18. The life of St Flannan seems to be rather exceptionally late and extravagant.

See also KSS., p. 350.

ST WINEBALD,

ABBOT

I T has been related herein under the date February 7 that a certain West Saxon, 8t Richard, set out on a pilgrimage to Rome with his two sons, SSe Willibald and Winebald, and died at Lucca. The young men went on to their destination,

582

ST WINEBALD

[December 18

whence Willibald undertook a further pilgrimage to the Holy Land; but Winebald (or Wynbald), who had been delicate from his childhood and was ill, remained at Rome, where he studied for seven years and devoted himself with his whole heart to the divine service. Then, returning to England, he engaged several among his kindred and acquaintances to accompany him back to Rome, and there he dedicated himself to God in a religious state. St Boniface came on his third visit to Rome in 739 and enlisted Winebald to help in the founding of the Church in Germany.

Winebald followed him into Thuringia and, being ordained priest there, received the care of seven churches, which he ministered to from Sulzenbrticken, near Erfurt. Being harried by the Saxons, he extended his labours into Bavaria, and after some years of strenuous missionary work returned to St Boniface at Mainz.

But he could not settle down there, and went to his brother St Willibald, who was now bishop of Eichstatt. Willibald wanted to found a double monastery which might be a pattern and seminary of piety and learning to the numerous churches which he had planted, and he asked Winebald and his sister St Walburga to undertake it.

Winebald therefore went to Heidenheim in Wtirttemberg, where he cleared a wild spot of ground of trees and bushes and built first little cells for himself and his monks and shortly afterwards a monastery. A nunnery was set up adjoining, which St Walburga governed. The idolaters attempted the life of St Winebald because of his unflinching efforts to impose Christian morality, but he escaped these dangers and continued to enlarge Christ's fold, maintaining in his religious community the spirit of their holy state, teaching them above all things to persevere in prayer and to keep inviolably in mind the life of our Lord, as the standard from which they were never to waver and never to cease to hold up to the pagans around them. He established the Rule of St Benedict in both the monasteries, which formed an important centre of English learning. St Winebald was afflicted for many years with sickness (he had an altar in his own cell at which he offered Mass when he was not able to go to the church) and this much hampered his missionary work for he could undertake only short journeys. For this reason he was unable to end his days at Monte Cassino as he wished to do. Once he set out on a visit to Wtirzburg and on the way was brought almost to the point of death at the shrine of St Boniface at Fulda; after three weeks he was better, but at the next town had a relapse and was in bed for another week. The end came after three years of nearly continual illness, and after a tender exhortation to his monks he died in the arms of his brother and sister on December 18, 761. Hugeburc, the nun who wrote the Life of St Winebald, assures us that miraculous cures took place at his tomb, and St Ludger writes in the Life of St Gregory of Utrecht that, "Winebald was very dear to my master Gregory, and shows by great miracles since his death what he did whilst living".

The trustworthy biography of St Winebald was written by a nun of Heidenheim, Hugeburc; the best text is that of Holder-Egger in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xv, pp. 106-117.

Some further information is furnished in the Hodoeporicon of St Willibald, written by the same Hugeburc, which is translated in C. H. Talbot, Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (1954), and also for the Palestine Pilgrims Text Society by Bishop Brownlow in 1891.

Other details may be gathered from the correspondence of St Boniface, from the Life of St Walburga and from the earlier portion of F. Heldingsfelder's Die Regesten der Bischofe von Eichstiitt (1915).

See also Analecta Bollandiana, yol. xlix (193 1 ), pp. 353-397; and W. Levison, England and the Continent . . . (1946); see therein for Hugeberc, P路294路

December 19]

19 : SSe

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

NEMESIUS AND OTHER MARTYRS

(A.D. 250)

DRING the persecution of Decius, Nemesius, an Egyptian, was appre足 hended at Alexandria upon a charge of theft. He cleared himself of that, but was immediately accused of being a Christian. Thereupon he was sent to the prefect of Egypt and, confessing his faith, he was ordered to be scourged doubly more grievously than the thieves. Afterwards he was condemned to be burnt in company with robbers and other malefactors; whereby, as the Roman Martyrology says, he had the honour and happiness more perfectly to imitate the death of our divine Redeemer.

ARSENIUS, HERON and ISIDORE, with DIOSCORUS, a youth only fifteen years old, were committed at Alexandria in the same persecution. First of all the judge took the boy in hand and began to cajole him with fair speeches; then he assailed him with various tortures, but Dioscorus could be overcome in neither \vay. 'The rest, after enduring like torments, were burnt alive. But the judge discharged Dioscorus, on account of his years, saying he allo\ved him time to repent; and he departed free, " for the consolation of the faithful". In the Roman Martyrology St Nemesius is commemorated on December 19, the rest of these martyrs on the 14th. On the 8th is mentioned the finding of the relics at Rome of another ST NEMESIUS and other martyrs. They have two other entries in the Martyrology足 their martyrdom on August 25 and translation of relics on October 3 I -though they are known only from the spurious passio of Pope St Stephen.

Alban Butler also mentions in this place SSe MEURIS and THEA, two women at Gaza in Palestine, who when persecution raged under the successors of Diocletian bore bravely the cruelty of men and malice of the devil, and triumphed over both.

Meuris died at the hands of the persecutors; but Thea lived some time after she had passed through dreadful torments, as we learn from the Life of St Porphyrius of Gaza.

D

Of Nemesius we know nothing but the few sentences which Eusebius (Eccl. Hist., bk vi, ch. 41) has extracted from St. Dionysius of Alexandria. Similarly Meuris and Thea are mentioned only in the Life of Porphyrius by Mark the Deacon.

ST ANASTASIUS I, POPE

(A.D. 401)

ST ANASTASIUS was a Roman and the successor of St Siricius in the year 399 ; among his friends and admirers were St Jerome, St Augustine and St Paulinus of Nola. The first named wrote of him that he was a distinguished man, of blameless life and apostolic solicitude, whom Rome did not deserve to possess long lest the world's head be cut off while ruled by such a bishop (referring to the subsequent invasion by Alaric the Goth). St Jerome was as kind in speaking of his friends as he was merciless to his opponents, and Anastasius earned his gratitude by con足 demning certain writings of Origen (d. 254), about which Jerome was having a fierce controversy with Rufinus.

Besides the account in the Liber Pontificalis (for which see the text and notes of Duchesne's edition, vol. i, pp. 218 seq.), we have a few authentic papal letters, as well as references in St Jerome, St Paulinus of Nola, and St Augustine. Consult further E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, vol. i (1930), pp. 280-294, and Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, vol. ii, pp. 126-1 35.

BD URBAN V

[December 19

BD WILLIAM OF FENOLI

(c.

A.D.

1205)

INFORMATION is lacking about this holy Carthusian lay-brother, whose cultus was confirmed by Pope Pius IX in 186o. It is known that he belonged to the charter足 house Casularum in Lombardy and as he was in charge of the external business of the monastery his sanctity was a matter of more public knowledge than is usually the case among Carthusian monks. "He was untutored in theology, in philosophy and in worldly knowledge, but ill spiritual life and good works he was most learned.

His holiness was made known by very many miracles both during his life and after his death." Accounts of some of the miracles attributed to him have been pre足 served. One preposterous marvel is stated to have happened during his lifetime.

When returning from his field work leading a mule William was attacked by robbers. Having no weapon to defend himself, he seized the leg of the mule, pulled it out of its socket, and brandishing it against his assailants, put them all to flight. This done he restored the leg to its place and the mule went on uninjured.

It seems to be certain that in still existing paintings Bd William is represented with the leg of a mule or donkey in his hand.

An account of this good brother is given both in Le Couteulx, Annales Ordinis Cartusiensis vol. iii, pp. 293-302; and in the Analecta Juris Pontijicii, vol. v, 1861, cc. 129-134. In both, the greater part of the space is taken up with attestations of miracles alleged to have been worked at the intercession of Bd William many centuries after his death.

BD URBAN V,

POPE

WILLIAM DE GRIMOARD was born at Grisac in Languedoc in 1310, his father being a local nobleman and his mother a sister of St Elzear de Sabran. He was educated in the universities of Montpellier and Toulouse and became a Benedictine; after his ordination he returned to his old universities and then went on to Paris and Avignon to study for his doctor's degree. He taught in those places, and was appointed abbot of St Germain's at Auxerre in 1352. At this time the popes were residing at Avignon and for the next ten years Abbot William was constantly called on to undertake diplomatic missions for Pope Innocent VI, who in 1361 made him abbot of 8t Victor's at Marseilles and sent him to Naples as legate to Queen Joanna. While he was there he heard that Innocent was dead and that he had been elected in his place. He returned at once to Avignon, where he was consecrated and crowned, and took the name of Urban because "all the popes called Urban had been saints". He was the best of the Avignon popes, though like most of them he was too much of a " nationalist" (as we should say now) to be a really satisfactory pontiff of the Universal Church, and the abuses by which he was surrounded were beyond his strength to eradicate.

The great event of his pontificate was his attempt, abortive though it was, to restore the papacy to Rome. In 1 366, ignoring the opposition of the French king and the French cardinals, he informed the emperor of his intention to return to the City, and in April of the following year he set out. At Carneto he was met by a host of envoys, ecclesiastical and lay, by a Roman embassy bearing the keys of Sant' Angelo, and by Bd John Columbini and his Gesuati waving palms and singing hymns. Four months later he entered Rome in state, the first pope it had seen for over half a century, and when he looked upon the state of the City he wept.

585

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 19]

The great churches, even the Lateran, St Peter's and St Paul's, were almost in ruins, and he at once set to work to restore them and to make the papal residences habitable. Immediate steps were taken to revive the discipline of the clergy and the fervour of the people, work was soon found for all, and food was distributed freely to the destitute.

In the following year Urban met the Emperor Charles IV, a new alliance was made between the empire and the Church, and Charles entered Rome leading the mule on which the pope rode. Twelve months later the emperor of the East, John V Palaeologus, also came, disclaiming schism and seeking help against the Turks. Urban received him on the steps of St Peter's, but he could give him no help: it was more than he could do to maintain his own position. He had failed to crush the condottieri, Perugia had revolted, France was at war with England, his French court was restless and discontented, his health was failing: Urban prepared to go back to France. The Romans implored him to stay, Petrarch made himself the mouthpiece of Italy to keep him in Rome, St Bridget of Sweden rode out to Montefiascone on her white mule to warn him that if he left Italy his death would swiftly follow. But it was all to no purpose. In June 1370 he declared to the Romans that he was leaving them for the good of the Church and to help France; on September 5, "sorrowful, suffering and deeply moved ", he embarked at Carneto; and on December 19 he was dead. Petrarch wrote: "Urban would have been reckoned among the most glorious of men if he had caused his dying bed to be laid before the altar of St Peter's and had there fallen asleep with a good conscience, calling God and the world to witness that if ever the pope had left this spot it was not his fault but that of the originators of so shameful a flight." But this one weakness was forgiven him, and a chronicler of Mainz sums up contemporary opinion: "He was a light of the world and a way of truth; a lover of righteousness, flying from wickedness and fearing God." Urban V was entirely free from the prevailing vices of his age and worked hard for the reform of the clergy, beginning with his own court, where the venality of the officials was notorious. * He maintained many poor students and encouraged learning by his support of universities, e.g. Oxford, and his encouragement of the foundation of new ones, e.g. at Cracow and Vienna. He awarded the custody of the relics of St Thomas Aquinas to the Dominicans of Toulouse, and instructed the university of that city that: " We will and enjoin on you that you follow the teaching of the blessed Thomas as true and Catholic teaching, and promote it to the utmost of your power." Pilgrims came to Urban's tomb in the abbey church of St Victor at Marseilles, his canonization was asked for and Pope Gregory XI promised the King of Denmark that it should be undertaken. The times were too troubled; but the cultus continued, and in 1870 it was confirmed by Pope Pius IX, the feast of Bd Urban being added to the calendar of Rome and of several French dioceses.

From the point of view of this pontiff's personal holiness the most important sources will be found collected in the volume of J. 1-1. Albanes and U. Chevalier, Actes anciens et documents concernant Ie B. Urbain V (1897). This includes the ancient lives, of which there are several, and the evidence, reports of miracle", etc., presented in view of his canonization

* Among the cardinals he made was Simon IJangham, Archbishop of Canterbury, \vho was promptly turned out of his see by King Edward I I I because he had not asked the king's leave to accept the honour.

586

ST PHILOGONIUS

[December

20

as early as 1390. There is besides this a very considerable literature, of which an excellent bibliography is provided in G. Mollat, Les papes d'Avignon (1912), pp. 102-103. See further G. Schmidt in Sdralek's Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen, vol. iii, pp. 157-173, and E. Hocedez in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxvi (1907), pp. 305-316. There is a life by L. Chaillan (191 x) in the series" Les Saints ", but the best account is that of G. Mollat in his work mentioned above.

20 : SSe AMMON AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS

S

T DIONYSIUS, Bishop of Alexandria during the persecution under the Emperor Decius, wrote to Fabian, Bishop of Antioch, an account of the sufferings, heroism and failures of the Egyptian Christians, which has been preserved for us in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. In the course of it he mentions a certain Christian who, when he was brought to trial, began to fear and to waver. Some Christian soldiers who were among the guards, fearing that the man would deny his faith, made signs to him by looks, gestures, and nods to stand firm. The magistrate noticed this, made an inquiry, and amid the clamour of the onlookers five soldiers broke from the ranks and declared themselves Christians.

The magistrates were extremely disturbed and the prisoners correspondingly encouraged by the profession of the soldiers, who duly suffered with the rest; " and by their victory Christ, who had given them this firmness of mind, gloriously triumphed". Their names were Ammon, Zeno, Ptolemy, Ingenes and an. older man, Theophilus.

As in the case of St Nemesius we know nothing of these martyra but what St Dionysius of Alexandria reports in a passage cited by Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., bk vi, ch. 41.

ST PHILOGONIUS, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH ST PHILOGONIUS was brought up to the law, and made a considerable name at the bar for his eloquence, integrity and ability to make " the wronged stronger than the wronger". While still a layman, with a wife and daughter, he was in 3 19 placed in the see of Antioch upon the death of Vitalis; and St John Chrysostom mentions the flourishing state of that church in his time as proof of his zeal and excellent administration. In the storms which were raised against the Church

by Maximinus and Licinius, St Philogonius confessed his faith and was imprisoned.

His festival was celebrated at Antioch on December 20 in the year 386, at which Chrysostom pronounced his panegyric, touching lightly on his virtues because, as he says, he left the detail of them to the bishop Flavian, who was to speak after him.

Chrysostom speaks in moving terms of the peace which this saint now enjoys in a state where there are no conflicts, no insurgent passions, no more of " those icy words, 'mine' and 'yours'," which fill the world with wars, families with quarrels, and individuals with disquiet, envy and malice. St Philogonius had so renounced the world that he received in this life the earnest of Christ's spirit in its fullest degree. A soul must here learn that spirit and state of the blessed if she hopes to reign with them hereafter: she must have some acquaintance beforehand with the mysteries of grace and the works of love and praise. People are not invited to consort even with a temporal king, as St Macarius says, until they have

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THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 20]

been instructed in the manners and customs of a court, so that they may not come to it in complete ignorance of its ways.

Here again all the information we possess comes from a single source, a sermon of St John Chrysostom. The text is printed in Migne, PG., vol. xlviii, pp. 747-756. On the degree of credit which attaches to the evidence of such panegyrics see the warnings given

by Delehaye in his book Les Passions des Martyrs et les Genres litteraires (1921), ch. ii, pp.

18 3-235.

ST URSICINUS,

ABBOT

(c. A.D. 625)

Swiss town of Saint-Ursanne, on the Doubs at the foot of Mont Terrible, has its name from U rsicinus (or U rsinus), a disciple of St Columban. He was one of the monks who left Luxeuil and joined their abbot at Metz after he had been driven from his monastery. Like St Gall and others, St U rsicinus settled down in what is now Switzerland, formed a small community which he governed according to the Rule of St Columban followed at Luxeuil, and preached the gospel to the pagans of the neighbourhood. St U rsicinus died some time before the middle of the seventh century, revered for his holiness and miracles. 'rwo other saints of this name are commemorated this month. On the 1st the Roman Martyrology has a bishop of Brescia, of whom nothing is known except that he took part in the Council of Sardica in 347; and on the 14th a sixth-century bishop is venerated at Cahors.

THE

Not much that is certain is kno~Nn of St Ursicinus. The short text printed in Trouillat, Monuments de l'eveche de Bale, vol. i, pp. 40-44, is only a compendium of an eleventh-century life and quite unreliable. See, however, Chevre, Histoire de Saint-Ursanne (1891). The cult of St Ursicinus is attested by some early church dedications.

In DCB. vol., iv, p.

1070, he is described as an " Irish monk ", but Dom Gougaud d\:-:s not mention him in ~1.is Saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (1937). On the other hand the mention of a bell which purports to be a relic of St Ursicinus, see Sttickelberg, Geschichte der Reliquien in der Schweiz (1908) is perhaps suggestive of an Irish origin. See also the brief mention of St Ursanne in Mgr Besson, Nos origines chretiennes: Etude sur la Suisse romande (1921).

ST DOMINIC OF SILOS,

ABBOT

(A.D.

1073)

Dominic was born at the beginning of the eleventh century at Canas in Navarre, on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. His people were peasants, and for a time he followed their way of life, looking after his father's flocks among the foothills of the mountains. This work encouraged his taste for solitude and quietness, and he soon became a monk at the monastery of San Millan de la Cogolla.

He made great progress in his new state, was entrusted \vith works of reform, and became prior of his monastery. In this office he came into conflict with his sovereign, Garcia III of Navarre, because he refused to give up some possessions of the monastery which were claimed by the king. Garcia at length drove Dominic and two other monks away, and they were welcomed by Ferdinand I of Old Castile, who sent them to the monastery of St Sebastian at Silos, of which Dominic was appointed abbot. 1'he monastery was in a remote and sterile part of the diocese of Burgos, and was in a state of extreme decay, both materially and spiritually.

Under the government of St Dominic this decay was arrested, then the house began to progress, and eventually he made it one of the most famous in Spain. lVlany miracles were recorded of Dominic in the course of his work, and it was said that there were no diseases known to man which had not been cured by his prayers.

THIS

588

[December

ST THOMAS THE APOSTLE

21

The Roman Martyrology refers to the belief that Christian slaves among the Moors, to the number of three hundred, were liberated when they called upon God in his name. Dominic died on December 20, 1073.

St Dominic of Silos is especially venerated in the order of Friars Preachers, because a century less four years after his death, he appeared, according to the tradition, to Bd Joan of Aza who had made a pilgrimage from Calaroga to his shrine, and promise,d her that she should bear another son. That son was the founder of the Preachers, and he was named Dominic after the holy abbot of Silos.

Until the revolution of 1931 it was the custom for the abbot of Silos to bring the staff of St Dominic to the royal palace whenever a queen of Spain was in labour and to leave it by her bedside until the birth had taken place.

There is a life by a monk, Grimaldus, who purports to be a contemporary. This has been printed, with a few slight omissions, in Mabillon, vol. vi, pp. 299-320. A metrical life by Gotlzalo de Berceo (edited by J. D. Fitzgerald in 1904), which was written about 1240, adds little to our historical knowledge but is perhaps the earliest verse composition in Castilian speech. Much interest has been taken in St Dominic since the treasures of the library of Silos have become known: see, for example, M. Ferotin, Histoire de l'Abbaye de Silos (1897); A. Andres in the Boletin de la real Academia Espanola, vol. iv (1917), pp.

172-194 and 445-458; L. Serrano, El Obispado de Burgos)' Castilla primitiva (1935), vol. ii; and a short life by R. Alcocer (1925).

21 : ST THOMAS,

ApOSTLE

(FIRST CENTURY)

TTHOMAS was a Jew and probably a Galilean of humble birth, but we are not told that he was a fisherman or the circumstances in which our Lord made him an apostle. His name is Syriac, and means the " twin"; Didy­ mus, as we know he was also called, is the Greek equivalent. When Jesus was going up to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem in order to raise Lazarus to life the rest of the disciples endeavoured to dissuade Him, saying, " Rabbi, the Jews but now sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again ?" But St Thomas said, " Let us also go, that we may die with Him ", so ardent was his love of his Master.

At the last supper, when our Lord said, "Whither I go you know, and the way you know", it was Thomas who asked, " Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? " and so drew from Him those words in which are contained the whole Christian faith, " I am the Way and the Truth aud the Life. No mail cometh to the Father but by me." But this apostle is especially remembered for his incredulity after our Lord had suffered, risen from the dead, and on the same day appeared to His disciples to convince them of the truth of His resurrection. Thomas was not then ÂĽ/ith them and refused to believe their report that He was truly risen: "Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger in the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." Eight days later, when they were all together and the doors shut, the risen Christ was suddenly in the midst of them, greeting them: "Peace be to you." Then He turned to Thomas and said," Put in thy finger hither, and see my hands; and bring hither thy hand and put it into my side. And be not faithless, but believing." And Thomas fell at His feet, exclaiming, "My Lord and my GoJ!" Jesus answered, "Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed."

S

December

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

2 I]

This is all that we are told of St 1'homas in the New Testament, but, as with the other apostles, there are traditions, of great unreliability, about his missionary activities after the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. Eusebius states that he sent St Thaddeus (Addai; August 5) to Edessa to baptize King Abgar, and the field of his own ministry is assigned to Parthia and " the Medes, Persians, Car­ manians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians and other nations in those parts". But the most persistent tradition is that which says that he preached the gospel in India. This is supported from several seemingly independent sources, of which the chief is the Acta Thomae, a document dating apparently from the first quarter of the third century. The story told by these acta is as follows: When the Apostles at Jerusalem divided the countries of the world for their labours, India fell to the lot of Judas Thomas (so he is often called in Syriac legends). He was unwilling to go, pleading lack of strength and that a Hebrew could not teach Indians, and even a vision of our Lord could not alter his resolution. Thereupon Christ appeared to a merchant named Abban, the representative of Gundafor, a Parthian king who ruled over part of India, and sold Thomas to him as a slave for his master. When he understood what had taken place, Thomas said, " .A.s thou wilt, Lord, so be it ", and embarked with Abban, having only his purchase price, twenty pieces of silver, which Christ had given to him. During the voyage they landed at a port and were present at the wedding festivities of the ruler's daughter. At the playing of a Hebrew flute-girl Thomas was moved to sing, and he sang of the beauty of the Church under the figure ofoa bride. But as he sang in his own tongue nobody but the flute-girl understood him; and she loved him, but he sat with his eyes on the ground and would not raise them to her. That night Jesus Christ, having the appearance of Thomas, appeared to the bridal pair and persuaded them to a life of complete continence. When the ruler heard of this he was indignant and sent for the stranger, but Abban and Thomas were gone, and only the flute-girl remained, weeping because she had not been taken with them. But when they told her what had befallen the young couple she put away her grief, and went to wait upon them.

Meanwhile Abban and Thomas continued their journey and came to Gundafor's court in India, and when the king asked the apostle's trade he replied, " I am a carpenter and builder. I can make yokes and ploughs and ox-goads, oars for boats and masts for ships; and I can build in stone, tombs and monuments and palaces for kings." So Gundafor ordered him to build a palace, and Thomas laid out the plans, with " doors towards the east for light, windows towards the west for air, a bake-house on the south, and water-pipes for the service of the house on the north". Gundafor went on a journey, and in his absence Thomas did no building but spent all the money given him for the work on the poor, saying, " That which is the king's to the kings shall be given". And he went about the land preaching and healing and driving out evil spirits. On his return Gundafor asked to be shown his new palace. "You cannot see it now, but only when you have left this world", replied Thomas. Whereupon the king cast him into prison and purposed to flay him alive. But just then Gundafor's brother died, and being shown in Heaven the palace that Thomas's good works had prepared for Gundafor, he was allowed to come back to earth and offer to buy it from the king for himself. Gundafor declined to sell, and in admiration released Thomas and received baptism together with his brother and many of his subjects. "And at dawn he broke the Eucharist and let them partake at the table of the Messias; and they rejoiced and were glad."

59°

[December

ST TfIOMAS THE APOSTLE

21

Afterwards Thomas was preaching and doing marvels throughout India, until he got into trouble with a King Mazdai for converting (" bewitching") his wife, his son and other important people. Eventually Thomas was led to the top of a hill where, having had orders from the king, "soldiers came and struck him all together, and he fell down and died ". He was buried in a royal sepulchre, but afterwards some of the brethren carried away his relics to the West.

It is now commonly agreed that there is no truth behind the extravagant but interesting story just outlined, though there was undoubtedly a king named Gondo足 phernes or Guduphara, whose dominions about the year A.D. 46 included the territory of Peshawar; and attempts have been made to identify King Mazdai (whose name might be traced to a Hindu original) with the contemporary King Vasudeva of Mathura. Unfortunately, speculation about St Thomas cannot be left there. At the other end of India from the Punjab, along what is known as the Malabar Coast, particularly in the states of Cochin and Travancore, there is a large population of native Christians who call themselves" the Christians of St Thomas" .

Their history is known in detail since the sixteenth century, but their origin has not yet been indisputably determined-though theories are far from wanting.

There have certainly been Christians there since very early times, and in their liturgy they use forms and a language (Syriac) that undoubtedly were derived from Mesopotamia and Persia. *= They claim, as their name indicates, to have been originally evangelized by St Thomas in person. They have an ancient oral tradition that he landed at Cranganore on the west coast and established seven churches in Malabar; then passed eastward to the Coromandel Coast, where he was martyred, by spearing, on the" Big Hill", eight miles from Madras; and was buried at Mylapore, now a suburb of that city. There are several medieval references to the tomb of St Thomas in India, some of which name Mylapore ;t and in 1522 the Portuguese discovered the alleged tomb there, with certain small relics now preserved in the cathedral of St Thomas at M ylapore. But the bulk of his reputed relics were certainly at Edessa in the fourth century, and the Acta Thomae relate that they were taken from India to Mesopotamia. They were later translated from Edessa to the island of Khios in the Aegean, and from thence to Ortona in the Abruzzi, where they are still venerated.

The Roman Martyrology combines several legends and adopts the view that St Thomas preached the gospel to the Parthians, Medes, Persians and H yrcanians, passed into India, and was there martyred at " Calamina ". This name occurs only in later writings and nobody has yet succeeded in identifying the place; upholders of the Malabar tradition have of course endeavoured to connect it with the neighbourhood of Mylapore. The Martyrology mentions the translation of his relics to Edessa on July 3, but in Malabar, and indeed throughout the Syrian

* In addition to other native Christians there are over 11 million Christians of St Thomas, of whom more than a half are Catholics (called "of the Syro-Malabar rite".

Also, since 1930, the small body of the Syro-Malankara rite). Most of the remainder are now Jacobites, but there i3 a considerable number of " Reformed Syrians" (who particularly arrogate to themselves the name of St Thomas Christians: Mar Thomakkar) and some Protestants, as well as a tiny group of Nestorians. All these divisions have happened sir.ce 16 53. t It is stated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that King Alfred in 883 sent Sighelm, Bishop of Sherborne, with offerings to Rome and to SSe Bartholomew and Thomas in India, in fulfilmen t of avow. ' 59 1

December

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

2 I]

churches, this date is the principal feast of St Thomas, commemorating his martyr­ dom " in the year 72 A.D." 1~he apocryphal Acts of St Thomas may be most conveniently consulted in the edition of Max Bonnet (1883). It is generally agreed that the original text has not been preserved in its primitive shape but that the Greek form in which it has come down to us does not very materially depart from its first conception. The Syriac version has undergone much more substantial revision and interpolation. Although the strong gnostic colouring of these acts has been exaggerated (see on this Harnack, Die Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur, vol. i, pp. 545-549) still it cannot be mistaken, and, as Fr P. Peeters rightly insists, the apocryphal character of the document was patent to all orthodox teachers in the early Church.

I t is denounced by St Epiphanius, by St Augustine, by St Turibius of Astorga, by Pope St Innocent I and in the decree of Pseudo-Gelasius. The Syrian Greek who was probably the fabricator of the story would have been well able to learn from traders and travellers such details as the name Gondophernes with other topical matter, and this colouring does not warrant us in supposing that any germ of historical truth forms the basis of the Acta Thomae.

See on all this Peeters in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xviii (1899), pp. 275-279; vol. xxv (1906), pp. 196-200; vol. xxxii (1913), pp. 75-77; vol. xliv (1926), pp. 402-403. These notices all deal with books which propound theories from divergent points of view founded on the contents of the apocryphal acts. A few may be mentioned as roughly representative of the considerable literature of the subject. A. von Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften, ii, pp. 332-394) was dominated by the idea that the acts represent a Christianized version of Buddhist legends. Sylvain Levi in the Journal Asiatique for 1897 strove to elucidate names and incidents as if he were dealing with an historic document; W. R. Philipps in The Indian Antiquary for 1903, and J. F. Fleet in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 19°5 brought criticism to bear on the identifications of Levi; Bishop Medlycott in his uncritical book, India and the Apostle Thomas (1905), sought to find confirmation in the acts for the tradition that St Thomas died at Mylapore; Fr J. Dahlmann, Die Thomas-Legende (cf. Fr Thurston in The Month for August 1912, pp. 153-163), attached great importance to the historic data of the story but did not attempt to reconcile it with l\1ylapore, while Father A. Vath in a booklet, Der hi. Th01nas, der Apostel Indiens (1925), follows circumspectly in the saine course.

At the same tilDe the defenders of the southern India tradition have not been silent. Among many brochures printed in support of the claims of Mylapore, the book of F. A. D'Cruz, St Thomas the Apostle in India (1929), deserves notice. It takes account of such later literature as the articles of Dr A. Mingana and D. J. N. Farquhar in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester (1925). Beyond doubt a few Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) inscriptions, seemingly Christian in character, engraved round crosses, exist at Mylapore and in Travan­ core. It is likely enough that the Malabar coast was evangelized from Edessa at a later date, and that in the course of time a confused tradition connected this with the Apostle St Thomas himself. Father Thurston summarizes the question in the Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. xiv, pp. 658-659. The Apostles in India (Patna, 1953), by A. C. Perumalil, is a useful popular summary.

ST ANASTASIUS II,

PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH, MARTYR

THE intrepid defender of orthodoxy, St Anastasius I of Antioch, was succeeded in that see in 599 by another Anastasius. He at once sent a profession of faith and notice of his election to Pope St Gregory the Great, who in his reply approved the orthodoxy of Anastasius and urged him, as the first fruits of his episcopate, to purge the Antiochene churches of simony. In the year 609 the Syrian Jews broke out into riots, provoked by the forced "conversions" among them of the Emperor Phocas, and among their Christian victims was the patriarch. After treating him with great indignity they put him to death, mutilated his corpse, and burned it.

This crime was punished by the imperial officers with a severity and injustice no less criminal. Anastasius was looked on as a martyr and his name has been inserted in the Roman Martyrology, but he receives no cultus in the East. The translation into Greek of St Gregory's De CUTa pastorali is due to St Anastasius II, though

59 2

ST FRANCES XAVIER CABRINI

[December

22

some have assigned it to his predecessor and identified the two bishops as one.

Nevertheless, St Anastasius I was a separate person, who was exiled from his see for twenty-three years for having opposed the amateur theologizing of the Emperor Justinian; he is commemorated on April 2 I. Apart from two letters of Pope St Gregory I, we know nothing of St Anastasius but what we learn from T'heophanes, Chronographia, in Migne, PG., vol. cviii, p. 624. See also DHG., vol. ii, c. 1460.

22 : ST

FRANCES XAVIER CABRINI,

VIRGIN,

1\1ISSIONARY SISTERS OF THE SACRED HEART

FOUNDRESS

(A.D.

OF THE

1917)

In a Motu Proprio of John XXIII dated 25 July, 1960, this feast was transferred to 3 January. In the United States this feast is celebrated on 13 November.

X

GUSTINE CABRINI appears to have been what in England of the past was called a very substantial yeoman, who owned and farmed land around Sant' Angelo Lodigiano, between Pavia and Lodi; his wife, Stella Oldini, was a Milanese; and they had thirteen children, of \\Thom the youngest \vas born on July IS, 1850, and christened Maria Francesca (later she was to add Saverio to the second name, which is what Xavier becomes in Italian).

The Cabrini were a solidly religious family-everything about them \vas solid -and little Frances came particularly under the strict care of her sister Rosa, who had been a school-teacher and had not escaped all the dangers of that profession.

But the child profited by Rosa's teaching, and suffered no harm from her unbending discipline. There was perhaps a certain precocity about the child's religion, but it was none the less real. Family reading aloud from the " Annals of the Propa足 gation of the Faith" inspired her with an early determination to go to the foreign missions-China was the country of her predilection. She dressed her dolls as nuns; she made paper boats and floated them dow'n the river manned with violets to represent the missionaries going to foreign parts; and she gave up sweets, for in China there would be no sweets so she had better get used to it. Her parents, however, had decided on Frances being a school-teacher, and when old enough she was sent to a convent boarding-school at Arluno. She duly passed her examina足 tions when she \vas eighteen, but then came a great blow: in 1870 she lost both her parents.

During the two years that fol1owel~ she lived on quietly with Rosa, her unassum足 ing goodness making a deep impression on all who knew her. '-fhen she sought admittance to the religious congregation at whose school she had been, and was refused on the ground of poor health; she tried another-with the same result.

But the priest in whose school she was teaching at Vidardo had got his eye on her.

In 1874 this Don Serrati was appointed provost of the collegiate church at Codogno, and found in his new parish a small orphanage, called the House of Providence, whose state left much to be desired. It was managed, or rather mismanaged, by its eccentric foundress, Antonia '-fondini, and two other \vomen. The Bishop of Lodi and Mgr SeI rati invited Frances Cabrini to help in this institution and to try to turn its staff into a religious conununity, and with considerable unwillingness she agreed.

Thus she entered upon what a Benedictine nun has called" a novitiate of sorts, compared to which one in a regular convent would have been child's play".

Antonia Tondini had consented to her coming, but instead of co-operation gave 593

Dec~mber 22J

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

her only obstruction and abuse. Frances stuck to it, however, obtained several recruits, and with seven of them in 1877 took her first vows. At the same time the bishop put her in charge as superioress. This made matters much worse. Sister Tondini's behaviour was such that it became an open scandal-indeed, she seems to have become somewhat insane. But for another three years Sister Cabrini and her faithful followers persevered in their efforts to build up the House of Providence, patiently hoping for better times, till the bishop himself gave up hope and ordered the place to be closed. He sent for Sister Cabrini and said to her, ' , You want to be a missionary sister. Now is the time. I don't know any institute of missionary sisters, so found one yourself." And quite simply she went out to do so.

There was an old, disused and forgotten Franciscan friary at Codogno, and into this Mother Cabrini and her seven faithful followers moved, and as soon as they were fairly settled in she set herself to draw up a rule for the community. Its work was to be principally the Christian education of girls, and its name The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. During the same year these constitutions were approved by the bishop of Lodi; within two years the first daughter house was opened, at Grumello, and soon there was another, at Milan.

The above few sentences are easily written; the actuality was rather different.

There were such tiresome obstructions as objection to the word " Missionary" in the sisters' title (" Inappropriate to women "), and the mother who invoked the law because of the " enticement" of her daughter. But the general progress of the congregation and the trust of Mother Cabrini were such that in 1887 she went to Rome to ask the Holy See's approbation of her little congregation and permission to open a house in Rome. Influential efforts were made to dissuade her from this enterprise-seven years' trial was far too little: and the first interview with the cardinal vicar of the City, Parocchi, confirmed the prudence of her advisers. But only the first. The cardinal was won over; Mother Cabrini was asked to open not one but two houses in Rome, a free school and a children's home, and the decree of first approval of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart was issued within a few months.

We have seen that from early days Frances Cabrini's eyes had been turned towards China. But now people were trying to make her look the other way. The bishop of Piacenza, Mgr Scalabrini, who had established the Society of St Charles to work among Italian immigrants in America, suggested she should go out there to help the work of those priests. She would not entertain the idea. The arch足 bishop of New York, Mgr Corrigan, sent her a formal invitation. She was worried: everyone-except her old friend Mgr Serrati-was pointing in the same direction.

Then she had a very impressive dream, and she determined to consult the pope himself. And Leo XIII said, " Not to the East, but to the West". When a child Frances Cabrini once fell into a river, and ever afterwards she had a fear of water.

She now, with six of her sisters, set out on the first of many voyages across the Atlantic; and on March 31, 1889, they landed in New York.

Everybody knows the huge numbers of Italians, Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs, Croats, Slovaks and others that have emigrated to the United States in relatively recent times. The religious history of these immigrations has yet to be properly written. It is enough to say here that at that time there were 50,000 Italians in and around New York City alone. The majority of them seem never to have learned the elements of Christian doctrine; not more than 1200 of them ever assisted at Mass; ten of the twelve priests of their own nationality had left Italy

594

ST FRANCES XAVIER CABRINI

[December

22

on account of misbehaviour. It was much the same in north-western Pennsylvania.

For most of them their economic and social conditions were to match. No wonder that the third plenary council of Baltimore and Archbishop Corrigan and Pope Leo XIII were very perturbed.

Nor was the sisters' reception in New York much more encouraging. They had been asked to organize an orphanage for Italian children and to take charge of an elementary school: but on arrival, though warmly welcomed, they found no home ready for them, and had to spend the first night at least in lodgings that were filthy and verminous. And when l\1other Cabrini met Archbishop Corrigan she learned that, owing to disagreements between 'himself and the benefactress con­ cerned, the orphanage scheme had fallen through, and the school consisted of pupils but no habitable building. The archbishop wound up by telling her that he could see nothing for it but that the sisters should go back to Italy. To which St Frances replied with characteristic firmness and definiteness, " No, Monsignor, not that. The pope sent me here, and here I must stay". The archbishop was impressed by this straightforward little woman from Lombardy, and also by her credentials from Rome; moreover, it must be admitted he was a man of no great firmness of policy, liable to change his mind quickly and often. He now raised no objection to their staying, and arranged for them to be temporarily accommodated by the Sisters of Charity. Within a few weeks St Frances Cabrini had made friends with the benefactress, Countess Cesnola, reconciled her with Mgr Corrigan, found a house for the sisters, and made a start with the orphanage on a modest scale. By July 1889 she was able to revisit Italy, taking with her the first two Italo-American recruits to her congregation.

Nine months later she returned to America with reinforcements to take over West Park, on the Hudson river, from the Society of Jesus. The growing orphan­ age was transferred to this house, which also became the mother house and novitiate of the congregation in the United States. Its work was prospering, both among immigrants in North America and among the people at home in Italy, and soon Mother Cabrini had to make a trying journey to Managua in Nicaragua where, in difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances, she took over an orphanage and opened a boarding-school. On her way back she visited New Orleans at the request of its archbishop, the revered Francis Janssens. Here the scattered Italians, mostly from the south and Sicily, were in a specially sad state: they included some wild, lawless elements, and only a little time before eleven of them had been lynched by infuriated but no less lawless Americans. The upshot of St Frances's visit was that she was able to make a foundation in New Orleans.

That Frances Cabrini was an extraordinarily able woman needs no demonstra­ tion: her works speak for her. Like Bd Philippine Duchesne before her, she was slow in learning English and never lost her strong accent; bu·t this apparently was no handicap in successful dealings with people of all kinds, and those with whom she had financial business (necessarily many and important) were particularly impressed. In only one direction did her tact fail, and that was in relation to non-Catholic Christians. She met such in America for the first time in her life­ and that was the root of the trouble: it took her a long time to recognize their good faith and to appreciate their good lives. Her rather shocking remarks in this connection in earlier days were the fruit of ignorance and consequent lack of understanding. But she was far-seeing and ready to learn, and did not reject things simply because they were new, as her ideas about children's education show.

595

December

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

22]

It is obvious that Mother Cabrini was a born ruler, and she was as strict as she was just. Sometimes she seems to have been too strict, and not to have seen where her inflexibility was leading. It is not clear, for instance, how she thought she was upholding sexual morality when she refused to take illegitimate children in her fee-paying schools: it would appear to be a gesture that penalized only the innocent.

But love ruled all, and her strictness was no deterrent to the affection she gave and received. "Love one another ", she urged her religious. "Sacrifice your­ selves for your sisters, readily and always. Be kind to them, and never sharp or harsh. Don't nurse resentment, but be meek and peaceable."

The year 1892, fourth centenary of the discovery of the New World, was also marked by the birth of one of the best-known of St Frances's undertakings, the Columbus Hospital in New York. Actually it had been begun in a small way by the Society of St Charles a little before, and the " take-over" was attended by difficulties that left with some a legacy of resentment against Mother Cabrini.

Then, after a visit to Italy, where she saw the start of a " summer house" near Rome and a students' hostel at Genoa, * she had to go to Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, across the Andes into Brazil, and so to Buenos Aires-a very different journey in 1895 from what it is today, though l\10ther Cabrini's love of natural scenery did much to compensate for its rigours. In Buenos Aires she opened a high-school for girls: and of those who pointed out the difficulties and hazards of what she was doing, she enquired, " Are we doing this ?--or is our Lord ?" After another voyage to Italy, where she had to cope with a long lawsuit in the ecclesiastical courts and face riots in Milan, she went to France and made there her first European foundations outside Italy; and the autumn of 1898 saw her in England. Mgr (later cardinal) Bourne, then bishop of Southwark, had already met St Frances at Codogno and asked her to open a convent in his diocese, but no foundation was made at this time.

And so it went on for another dozen years. Surely were a patron saint more recent and less nebulous than St Christopher required for travellers, St Frances Cabrini would be first on the short list. Her love for all the children of God took her back and forth over the western hemisphere from Rio to Rome, from Sydenham to Seattle; by the time the constitutions of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart were finally approved in 1907 the eight members of 1880 had increased to over a thousand, in eight countries; St Frances had made more than fifty founda­ tions, responsible for free-schools and high-schools and hospitals and other estab­ lishments, no longer working in America for Italian immigrants alone-did not the prisoners in Sing~Sing send her an illuminated address at the congregation's jubilee? Of the later foundations only two can be named here: the great Colum­ bus Hospital at Chicago and, in 1902, the school at Brockley, now at Honor Oak. Nor can the attendant trials and troubles be dwelt on, such as the difficulties caused by the Bishop of Vitoria (St Frances was first invited to Spain by Queen Maria Christina) or the opposition of factions in Chicago, Seattle and New Orleans, which last the sisters later repaid with their heroic work during the yellow-fever epidemic of 1905.

From 1911 Mother Cabrini's health was failing: she was then sixty-one and physically worn out. But it was not till six years later that she was seen to be failing alarmingly. And then the end came with extreme suddenness. No human U

• On the way back Mother Cabrini went ashore at Gibraltar and recorded seeing the English canon of incredible size". Undoubtedly a " big gun ".

59 6

[December

BD JUTTA OF DIESSENBERG

22

person was present when St Frances Xavier Cabrini died in the convent at Chicago on December 22, 1917. Mother Cabrini was canonized in 1946; her body is enshrined in the chapel of the Cabrini Memorial School at Fort Washington, N.Y. No doubt there were many saints in the United States before her, no doubt there have been, and will be, many after. But she was the first citizen of that country to be canonized, to have her sanctity publicly recognized by the Church of Christ.

Her glory belongs to Italy and to America, to the Church and to mankind. It is hardly conceivable that anybody should do what she did, in the way she. did it, without having been a saint, one who lived with heroic goodness: Pope Leo XIII saw this, and more, nearly fifty years before her canonization, when he said, " Mother Cabrini is a woman of fine understanding and great holiness . . .~ she is a saint".

The first standard life of Mother Cabrini was La Madre Francesca Saverio Cabrini, written by one of her congregation (Mother Xavier de Maria) and published in 1928. Ten years later appeared La Beata Francesca Saverio Cabrini by Emilie de Sanctis Rosmini, and there are other biographies in Italian. Viaggi della Madre Cabrini, narrati in varie sue lettere has been translated into English. A short and characteristic study by Father Martindale was published in 1931, and a life by the Rev. E. J. McCarthy at Chicago in 1937. Frances Xavier Cabrini: the Saint of the Emigrants (1944), by a Benedictine dame of Stanbrook, is a model of excellence as a life of a saint intended for general readers. For a short and unambiguous reference to the state of Italian immigrants in U.S.A., see Zwierlein, Life and Letters of Bishop McQuaid, vol. ii, pp. 333-335, and for their statistics, etc., the Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. viii, pp. 202-206. Another American biography is Too Small a World, by Theodore Maynard (1948).

SSe

CHAEREMON, 25 0 )

ISCHYRION

AND

OTHER

MARTYRS

(A.D.

ST DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA in his letter to Fabian of Antioch, speaking of the Egyptian Christians who suffered in the persecution under Decius, refers to the many who were driven or fled into the desert, where they perished from hunger, thirst and exposure, by wild beasts and by men as wild; many also were seized and sold into slavery, of which only some had been ransomed at the time he wrote.

He singles out for mention by name Chaeremon, a very old man and bishop of Nilopolis, who with one companion had taken refuge in the mountains of Arabia and had never been seen or heard of again; search was made by the brethren but not even their bodies were found. St Dionysius also mentions Ischyrion, who was the procurator of a magistrate in some city of Egypt, traditionally Alexandria. His master ordered him to sacrifice to the gods, but he refused and neither abuse nor threats could move him. So the enraged magistrate had him mutilated and impaled. Both these martyrs are named in the Roman Martyrology today.

These again are martyrs whose names are only rescued from oblivion by an extract which Eusebius (bk vi, ch. 42) has made from a letter of St Dionysius of Alexandria.

BD JUTTA OF DIESSENBERG, VIRGIN

(A.D. 1136)

BD JUTTA was sister to Count Meginhard of Spanheim, and she led the life of a recluse in a small house next to the monastery founded by St Disibod on the Diessenberg. She was the "noble woman" to whom was confided the care of St Hildegard, when she was a child, and it was Jutta who first taught her Latin,

597

December

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

22]

to read and to sing. Other disciples came to her, and these were formed into a community over which she presided as prioress for some twenty years. "This woman", says St Hildegard, " overflowed with the grace of God like a river fed by many streams. Watching, fasting, and other works of penance gave no rest to her body till the day that a happy death set her free from this mortal life. God has given testimony to her holiness by many startling miracles." The relics of Bd Jutta drew crowds of pilgrims to the Diessenberg, and their forthcoming removal was one of the grounds of the opposition of the monks to 8t Hildegard's transference of her community to Bingen.

No life of Bd Jutta seems to have been printed, but a manuscript account is in existence copied from the great legendarium of the Augustinian canons of Bodeken. See the Analecta Bolland£ana, vol. xxvii (1908), p. 341 ; and also J. May, D£e hi. Hildegard (191 I).

BD ADAM OF LOCCUM

(c.

A.D. 1210)

THIS monk, with others of the name, is called Blessed in menologies of the Cis­ tercian Order; the little that is known of him is derived from the Dialogue of Visions and Miracles of his fellow Cistercian, Caesarius of Heisterbach. Adam was priest and sacristan of the abbey of Loccum in Hanover, and while still a schoolboy was twice miraculously delivered from ill-health, as he related to Caesarius. While he was at Loccum the church of the monastery was being repaired, and Adam began to carve a piece of the stone that was lying among the builder's materials. His schoolmaster saw him and, after the manner of many of his kind, peremptorily told him to put the stone down or he would be excom­ municated. Young Adam was so frightened by this threat that he was taken ill, and even believed to be dying. However, he saw in a vision St Nicholas and St Paternian, who decided that he should not die just then, and he was well in the same hour. Another time he was at school at Munster in Westphalia and got up one morning to go to church, when he found he had made a mistake in the time and the church was not yet open. He therefore knelt down and said the Angelical Salutation thrice according to his custom when entering a church, and upon looking up saw that the door was open and seven beautiful women sitting therein.

Adam was at that time suffering from eczema, and one of them asked him why he didn't look after his head. He replied that he did but the physicians had not done it any good. Then the lady told him that she was the Mother of Christ and that she knew his devotion to her, and commanded him to approach. He was to wash his head in a decoction of the wood of the spindle-tree three times before Mass, in the name of the Holy Trinity. She laid her hand on his head, and when he had done as he was told his complaint was cured never to return. " It is clear that there is nothing more efficacious and no remedy more sure than the medicine of the Blessed Virgin", observes the novice in the Dialogue.

To which the monk replies: "And no wonder. For it was she who brought to us the medicine of the whole human race, as it is written, ' Let the earth bring forth the living creature', that is to say, let Mary bring forth the man Christ."

Bd Adam told other marvels to Caesarius, but these were not written down for our delectation and improvement.

This' holy Cistercian is spoken of by Caesarius in his D£alogus de Miraculis in bk vii, 17 and 25, as well as in bk viii, ch. 74. Nothing more seems to be known of Bd Adam

em.

598

SSe V'ICTORIA AND ANATOLIA

[December 23

than Caesarius tells us. There is an English translation of the Dialogus (2 vols., 1929).

The monastic buildings at Loccum are now a Protestant seminary, and the Lutheran land-bishop of Hanover has the official title" Abbot of Loccum ".

23 : THE

TEN MARTYRS OF CRETE

PON the publication of the edict against Christians under Decius the activity of a barbarous governor soon made victims in the isle of Crete.

Among the martyrs who there triumphed none were more conspicuous than Theodulus, Saturninus, Euporus, Gelasius, Eunician, Zoticus, Cleomenes, Agathopus, Basilides and Evaristus, commonly called the Ten Martyrs of Crete.

The three first were citizens of Gortyna, the capital. United in their confession of Christ, they were arrested, dragged along the ground to prison, beaten, stoned by the mob, and at length presented to the governor at Gortyna. As soon as they appeared in court they were ordered to sacrifice to Jupiter, because on that very day their countrymen celebrated a festival in his honour. They answered that they would never sacrifice to idols. The president said, ' , You shall know the power of the gods; you show no respect to this great assembly, which worships the omnipotent J upiter, Juno, Rhea and the rest". The martyrs replied that they were only too well acquainted with the history of the life and actions of Jupiter, and that those who look upon him as a god must look upon it as a divine thing to imitate his wickedness.

The people were ready to tear them to pieces on the spot if the governor had not restrained them and commanded the martyrs to be tortured. They endured all with joy, and answered to the cries of the mob, who pressed them to spare themselves by obeying and sacrificing to their gods, " We are Christians and would rather die a thousand times". The governor at length, seeing himself vanquished, condemned them to die by the sword. They went forth triumphantly to the place of execution, praying that God would have mercy on them and on all mankind, and would deliver their countrymen from the blindness of idolatry. When their heads were struck off, and the crowds dispersed, other Christians buried their bodies, which were afterwards taken to Rome. The fathers who conlposed the Council of Crete in 458, writing to the Emperor Leo I, claimed that through the intercession of these martyrs their island had been till that time preserved from heresy.

U

The Greek passio of these martyrs is preserved in two forms. The more trustworthy is that edited by A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus in his Analecta, vol. iv, pp. 224-237. The second belongs to the class usually attributed to the Metaphrast and it is printed in Migne, PG., vol. cxvi) pp. 565-573. The tradition of their martyrdom still seems very strong in the neighbourhood of Gortyna. The village in which they actually suffered bears the name Hagioi Deka (Ten Saints): a broken slab is shown with ten hollow depres~ions which is said to mark the places where they knelt to receive the fatal stroke. See the Ana/efta Bollandiana, vol. xviii (1899), p. 280.

SSe VICTORIA

AND

ANATOLIA,

VIRGINS

AND

MARTYRS

(DATF

UNKNOWN)

THE valueless passio of St Anatolia relates that when she refused, in consequence of a vision, to accept her suitor Aurelius he went to her sister, Victoria, and asked

599

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 23]

her to persuade Anatolia to marry him. Victoria's efforts were not only unsuccess足 ful, but she herself was converted to her sister's views and broke off her own betrothal with one Eugenius. The young men then removed the maidens from Rome to their respective country villas and tried to starve them into a different franle of mind. Anatolia was denounced as a Christian, and her end is thus summarized in the Roman Martyrology on July 9: "After she had healed many throughout the province of Picenum who were suffering from various diseases and had brought them to believe in Christ, she was afflicted with several punishments by order of the judge Faustinian; and after she had been freed from a serpent that was set upon her and had converted [the executioner] Audax to the faith, lifting up her hands in prayer, she was pierced with a sword." Victoria met with a similar fate, perhaps at Tribulano in the Sabine hills. "She refused either to marry Eugenius or to sacrifice and, after working many miracles whereby numerous maidens were gathered to God, she was smitten to the heart by the executioner's sword at the request of her betrothed ".

Both St Anatolia and St Victoria had a cultus in various parts of Italy, but the real circumstances of their martyrdom are not known. The sentiments regarding marriage expressed in their passio are of the exaggerated and unguarded kind which, though often found in Christian documents, approximate more to the heretical doctrines of Encratism than to the teaching of the Catholic Church. Like the passio of St Lucy, that of St Victoria was utilized by St Aldhelm of Sherborne in his works De laudibus virginitatis.

Although the passio of these martyrs, preserved to us in varying and inconsistent texts (see BHL., nne 417-420 and 8591-8593), is historically valueless, still there are grounds for believing in their real existence. See P. Paschini, La passio delle martire Sabine ~Tittoria ed Anatolia (1919); Lanzoni, Le diocesi d'Italia, pp. 347-350; Schuster, Bolletino diocesano per Sabina, etc. (1917), pp. 163-167; and especially Delehaye's CMH., pp. 364 and 654, with his Etude sur le Legendier romain (1936), pp. 59-60.

ST SERVULUS

(c.

A.D.

590)

IN this holy man was exemplified what our divine Redeemer taught of Lazarus, the poor man full of sores who lay at the gate of the rich man's house. Servulus was a beggar, afflicted with the palsy from his infancy, so that he had never been able to stand, sit upright, lift his hand to his mouth, or turn himself from one side to another. His mother and brother carried him to the porch of St Clement's church at Rome, where he lived on the alms of those that passed by, and whatever was left over he distributed among other needy persons. And for all that he was able to save enough to buy some books of Holy Scripture which, as he could not read himself, he got others to read to him; and he listened with such attention as to learn them by heart. Much time he passed singing hymns of praise and thanks足 giving to God in spite of continual pain. After years thus spent he felt his end draw near, and in his last moments he asked the poor and pilgrims who had often shared his charity to sing hymns and psalms by his bed. Whilst he joined his voice with theirs he on a sudden cried out, " Do you hear the great and wonderful music in heaven?" When he had spoken these words he died, and his soul was carried by angels into everlasting bliss. The body of Servulus was buried in St Clement's church, and his feast is annually celebrated in that church on the Coelian Hill outside of which he was wont to lay.

St Gregory the Great concludes the account he gives of Servulus, in a sermon 600

[December 23

BD HARTMAN

to his people, by observing that the behaviour of this poor sick beggar loudly condemns those who, when blessed with good health and fortune, neither do good works nor suffer the least cross with tolerable patience. He speaks of him as one who was well known both to himself and his hearers, and says that one of his monks, who was present at his death, used to speak of the fragrant smell which came from the dead beggar's body. Servulus was a true lover of God, not careful and troubled about his own life, but solicitous that God be honoured, and all that he could suffer for this end he looked upon as reward. By his constancy and fidelity he overcame the world and all bodily afflictions.

We know nothing about Servulus but what we learn from St Gregory the Great. See his Dialogues, bk iv, ch. 14, and also one of his homilies, printed in Migne, PL., vol. lxxvi, C.1133路

ST DAGOBERT II OF AUSTRASIA Two French dioceses keep the feast of King Dagobert II, who was the son of another sainted king, Sigebert III; but there seems no particular reason except popular tradition why he should be regarded as a saint, much less as a martyr. He was still a child when he succeeded to the throne of Austrasia in 656, and he was exiled by his guardian, Grimoald, the unworthy son of Bd Pepin of Landen, who gave the crown to his own son, Childebert. Dagobert was taken to Ireland by Dido, Bishop of Poitiers. We learn from Eddi's Life of St Wilfrid of York that that saint befriended Dagobert, who in 675, on the murder of Childeric II, was repatriated by the good offices-and "in style"-of St. Wilfrid and recovered his kingdom. When Wilfrid was on his 'way to Rome to appeal against St Theodore of Canterbury and King Egfrid, he came to the court at Metz and the king wished to reward his services by bestowing on him the vacant see of Strasburg; but Wilfrid refused it. When Dagobert met his death on December 23, 679, while hunting in the forest of Woevre in Lorraine, it was attributed to " the treachery of dukes with the consent of bishops". He was buried near by at Stenay. As in the several other similar instances, e.g. St Sigismund of Burgundy, the circum颅 stances of his death caused Dagobert to be regarded as a martyr and this led to his cultus as a saint.

The tenth-century Life of Dagobert (best edited by B. Krusch in MGH., Scriptores Merav., vol. ii, pp. 511-524) is of little value, but see Krusch's supplement in vol. vii, pp.

474 and 494. Eddi's references to Dagobert are of great interest. They may conveniently be consulted in Colgrave's edition of the Life of St Wilfrid (1927), and cj. Vacandard, Vie de St Ouen, PP. 283-286. See further Bede's Eccles. Hist., in Plummer's edition, vol. ii, pp. 318 and 325; F. Lot, Histoire du moyen age (1928), vol. i, pp. 282 and 286; B. Krusch in Historische Aujsiitze K. Zeumer gewidmet (1910), pp. 411-438 ; and Gougaud, Christianity in Celtic Lands, p. 153. Referring to the many years Dagobert is said to have spent in Ireland, Gougaud remarks: "No doubt this fact accounts for the presence of these Irishmen in Aquitaine at a later time." Cj. also W. Levison, England and the Continent . .. (1946), PP路49-51.

BD HARTMAN, BISHOP

OF

BRIXEN

HARTMAN was born at Polling and educated at the Augustinian monastery of St Nicholas at Passau, wherein he eventually became a canon. His virtues and talents were unusual, and when Conrad, archbishop of Salzburg, wished to introduce regular discipline and the common life among his clergy he invited Hartman to 601

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 23]

become dean of the metropolitan chapter. This was in 1122. When Hartman had formed these canons to the regular life, Conrad transferred him to the provost足 ship of the monastery of Herrenchiemsee in order that it might be reformed, and from there he was called by St Leopold, Margrave of Austria, to the house of canons he had founded at Klosterneuburg. When the see of Brixen in Tirol became vacant in 1140, Bd Hartman was called to be its bishop, and two years later he founded the regular chapter of Neustift in his cathedral city and liberally endowed it. Shortly after, with one of his cathedral canons, he established the hospice of the Holy Cross for poor pilgrims in Brixen. Bd Hartman was highly respected by the Emperors Conrad III and Frederick I. He was involved in the troubles between the last-named and Pope Alexander III, but neither threats nor promises could alienate him from the Holy See. After governing his church most holily for twenty-four years he died-in a bath-on December 23, 1164. In 1784 the cultus of Bd Hartman was confirmed by Pope Pius VI. There is a medieval Latin Life of Bd Hartman which is printed in Pez, Scriptores rerum austriacarum, vol. i, and which was also edited by H. Zeibig, Vita b. lIartmanni (1846).

See upon this H. R. von Zeissberg in the Archiv f. iisterreich. Geschichte, vol. lvi (1878), pp. 447-464. A more modern biography, in German, is that of A. Sparber (1910).

ST THORLAC, BISHOP OF SKALHOLT

(A.D. 1193)

CHRISTIANITY was planted in Iceland at the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century, and made such progress that the island was soon divided into two dioceses, Skalholt and Holar, which in 1152 were made suffragans of Nidaros (Trondhjem): Iceland had been colonized and evangelized from Norway.

During the twelfth century two bishops, one from each see, were venerated as saints locally and in Norway, namely, John of Holar and Thorlac of Skalholt. The life of the last-named is narrated in the Thorlakssaga by a cleric of Skalholt. We are told that Thorlac Thorhallsson was a deacon when he was fifteen and a priest three years later, and then, being a promising young man, was sent abroad to study: he is said to have visited Lincoln. After ten years, in 1161, Thorlac returned to Iceland full of reforming zeal. He was joyfully received by his mother and sisters, who expected him to settle down to the semi-secular life led by most of the clergy there in those days, but instead he devoted himself to study and the ministry. His biographer gives an account of Thorlac's daily rule of life, which began with the singing of the Credo, Pater noster, and a hymn directly he awoke; he recited a third of the psalter every day, and had an especial devotion to the titular saints of the churches in which he ministered. Some years later an heirless farmer died, leaving his land and house to the Church with instructions that Thorlac should establish a monastery there, and he accordingly formed a community of canons regular, of which he was abbot. We are told that Thorlac's mother went with him to Thykkviboer to be cook and housekeeper for the new community. In 1178 he became bishop of Skalholt, and was consecrated by Archbishop St Eystein in Nidaros.

The way was now clear for Thorlac to introduce and promote the higher spiritual standards and improved ecclesiastical discipline which he knew that the good of souls required and the Church demanded. On the side of discipline this resolved itself chiefly into endeavours to impose the observance of clerical celibacy' and to' abolish lay patronage and impropriation, with their associated abuse of simony, and his episcopal career is a record of his efforts in these directions and the 602

BD MARGARET OF SAVOY

[December 23

successes, difficulties and checks with which he met. He received far more opposition than encouragement, often from men of goodwill or from those to whom he could reasonably look for support, but to the end he did not withdraw from the struggle or modify his policy. He had the encouragement of his metropolitan, the forceful St Eystein, who was fighting a similar battle in Norway, and with his approval used the weapon of excommunication for the first time in Iceland. In his sixtieth year Thorlac determined to resign his see and retire to the abbey of Thykkviboer, but death overtook him before he could put this resolution into effect, on December 23, 1193. Five years later he was canonized by the althing (assembly) of Iceland. This proceeding of course had no valid ecclesiastical effect, but it encouraged the popular and liturgical cuItus that was undoubtedly accorded to Thorlac until the change of religion. This cuItus has not been confirmed by the Holy See. Two books of the miracles of Thorlac Thorhallsson were written down within a few years of his death.

There are certain fragments of Latin lives or breviary lessons relating to St Thorlac, which have been printed by Langebek in his Scriptores rerum Danicarum, vol. iv, pp. 624-630, as well as the Thorlakssaga. A pretty full notice is devoted to him by G ley in the Biographie universelle, but otherwise it seems difficult for any who are not specialists in the Scandinavian languages to learn much about Bishop Thor]ac that is reliable. C/. also Baumgartner in Kirchenlexikon, s.v. Island. The Saga of Thorlac may be read in a German translation by W. Baetke, Islands Besiedlung und iilteste Geschichte (1928).

BD MARGARET OF SAVOY,

\VIDOW

BD MARGARET was allied in blood to the principal royal houses of Europe, her father being Amadeus of Savoy and her mother a sister of the Clement VII who claimed to be pope at Avignon during the " great schism". In 1 403 she made a marriage befitting this high rank, with Theodore Palaeologus, Marquis of Mont足 ferrat, a widower with two children, a headstrong soldier but a good Christian at heart. Margaret herself had no children but was devoted to those of her husband, and soon endeared herself on all hands, working selflessly for the people during a plague and the famine which followed it in Genoa. In 1418 the Marquis of Mont足 ferrat died. Margaret, after endeavouring for a time to bring the unhappy marital affairs of her step-daughter to a successful issue, went to live on her estate at Alba in Piedmont, where she bound herself by vow to widowhood and a life of good works. But she was still young, thirty-six at the most, and politically a most desirable match, and Philip Visconti of Milan wanted to marry her. He was an old enemy of the Montferrats and a man of deplorable character, and Margaret refused him, pleading her vow. So Visconti went off to Pope Martin V and came back with a dispensation for her, but she remained firm in her determination not again to change her state.

In her youth she had been friendly with St Vincent Ferrer, and to strengthen her position she took the habit of the third order of St Dominic and with other ladies formed a community at Alba. This retired life of prayer, study and charit足 able works lasted for some twenty-five years; there is in the royal library at Turin a volume of the letters of St Catherine of Siena and other matters copied and bound " by order of the illustrious lady, Margaret of Savoy, Marchioness of Montferrat " during this time. Then Pope Eugenius IV gave permission for the tertiary sisters to become nuns, in the same place and under the rule of Bd Margaret. During the last sixteen years of her life ecstasies and miracles are alleged in abundance,

6属3

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 24]

among them a vision of our Lord offering her three arrows, labelled respectively Sickness, Slander and Persecution. Certainly Margaret suffered from all three.

She was accused of hypocrisy, of tyrannizing over her nuns, and her ill-health was attributed to self-indulgence, and Philip Visconti spread the rumour that the convent was a centre of the Waldensian heresy. This was a peculiarly shocking charge to bring against children of St Dominic, and the innocent friar who was their confessor and director found himself in prison. Margaret went to demand his release, but only had her hand brutally crushed between the heavy doors of the castle for her pains, and it was some time before the man was vindicated from the malicious accusation of having corrupted both the faith and morals of his charges.

Bd Margaret of Savoy died on November 23, 1464, strengthened by a vision, seen by others besides herself, of St Catherine of Siena. Her cultus was confirmed in 1669.

Four or five lives of Bd Margaret seem to have been published in the seventeenth century, that by G. Baresiano appearing in 1638. In more modern times we have an Italian biography

by F. G. Allaria (1877), another without the author's name (Torino, 1883), and a shorter notice included in M. C. de Ganay's book, Les Bienheureuses Dominicaines (1914), pp.

251-277. See also Procter, Lives of Dominican Saints, pp. 334-337.

24 : ST GREGORY OF SPOLETO,

MARTYR

(A.D. 304?)

T

HIS Gregory is said to have been a priest and martyr at Spoleto, but apparently there is doubt whether he ever existed outside the pages of his fictitious passio. This tells us that when Flaccus, the governor of Umbria, arrived at that city with an order from the Emperor Maximian to punish all Christians, its inhabitants were gathered into the forum and Flaccus asked whether they had all abandoned worship of the gods. The chief magistrate said that they had not, but that a man called Gregory was very active among them and had thrown down images. Soldiers were immediately despatched to bring him before the tribunal. When he appeared Flaccus asked, "Who is your God?" Gregory replied, " He who made man to His own image and likeness, who is all-powerful and immortal and who will render to all men according to their works." Flaccus told him not to talk so much and to do as he was told, to which Gregory answered, " I know not what your command implies, but I do what I am bound to do ". "If you want to save yourself", said the governor, " go to the temple, and sacrifice to Jove and Minerva and Aesculapius. Then you shall be our friend and receive favour from our most invincible emperors." St Gregory retorted, " I desire no such friendship, nor do I sacrifice to devils but only to my God, Jesus Christ".

The judge commanded him to be hit in the face for his blasphemies and to be roasted to death. But from this he was saved by an earthquake which destroyed a quarter of the city. The next day, after further torture, he was beheaded.

The passio of this martyr, which survives in many manuscript copies, has been printed

by Surius, and, subject to a curious transformation by which it has been converted into a story of the martyrdom of St George, by Father Delehaye in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxvii (1908), pp. 373-383. Delehaye points out that the passio is a mere work of fiction, and that there is no independent evidence that any such martyr as Gregory was honoured at Spoleto in the early centuries. A copy of this fabrication was in the hands of Ado and through "him the notice has passed into the Roman Martyrology. Some comments on the paJsio will be found in Dufourcq, Etude sur Ies Gesta Martyru1N romains, vol. iii, pp. 98-100.

6째4

[December 24

SSe I'RMINA AND ADELA

ST DELPHINUS, BISHOP OF BORDEAUX

(A.D. 403)

THE first mention of this, the second bishop of Bordeaux, is his presence at the Synod of Saragossa in the year 380, when the Priscillianists and other heretics were condemned. The greatness and holiness attaching to the name of Delphinus are chiefly a matter of inference from the facts that he was a valued correspondent of St Ambrose and had strong influence with Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus, better known as St Paulinus of Nola. The conversion of the last-named was principally the work of his wife and St Delphinus, who eventually baptized him.

Five of the letters of Paulinus to his spiritual benefactor have been preserved and '~-;tness to the respect in which he held St Delphinus.

Besides St Ambrose and St Paulinus (the latter is best consulted in the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum, vol. xxix, nne 10, 14, 19, 20 and 35), Sulpicius Severus also makes mention of Delphinus in his Chronicle (bk ii, ch. 48). A Vie de St Delphin was published by Fr Moniquet in 1893, but it is severely criticized in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xii, pp. 160-462.

SSe TH! RSILLA AND EMILIANA, VIRGINS

(c. A.D. 550)

ST GREGORY the Great had three aunts, sisters to his father, Gordian the regionarius, \vho led an ascetic religious life in their father's house. Their names were Tharsilla, who was the eldest, Emiliana and Gordiana. rrharsilla and Emiliana were even more united by the fervour of their hearts and the bond of charity than by blood.

They lived in their father's house on the Clivus Scauri as in a monastery and, encouraging one another to virtue by discourse and example, made great progress in spiritual life. Gordiana joined them, but she was often impatient of silence and retirement and, being called to another way of living, married her guardian. rrharsilla and Emiliana persevered in the path they had chosen, enjoying divine peace and love until they were called to receive the recompense of their fidelity.

St Gregory tells us that Tharsilla was visited one night with a vision of her great足 grandfather, Pope St Felix II (III), who showed a place prepared for her in Heaven, saying, " Come; I will receive you into this habitation of light". She fell sick soon after, and as her friends were crowding round her bed she cried out, " Away!

Away! My saviour Jesus is coming!" After these words she breathed out her soul into the hands of God on the vigil of Christmas. The skin of her knees and elbows was found to be hardened, " like the hide of a can1el ", by her continual prayer. A few days later she appeared to Emiliana, and called her to celebrate the Epiphany in Heaven. Emiliana in fact died on January 5 following. Both are named, on the respective days of their death, in the Roman Martyrology.

St Gregory the Great speaks of these aunts not only in his Dialogue~ (bk iv, ch. 16), but also in a homily (see Migne, PL., vol. lxxvi, C. 1291). Cf. Dudden, St Gregory the Great, vol. 1, pp. 10-1 I, and Dunbar, Diet. of Saintly Women, vol. ii, p. 242.

SSe IRMINA, VIRGIN, AND ADELA, WIDO\V

(c. A.D.

710

AND

c. 734) ACCORDING to the tradition the Princess Irmina, called a daughter of St Dagobert II, was to have been married to a Count Herman. All preparations had been made for the wedding at Trier when one of the princess's officers, who was himself in love with her, inveigled Hernlan to a steep cliff outside the town and there threw his rival and himself over the edge. After this tragic end to her hopes Irmina 605

December 24]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

obtained her father's permission to become a nun. Dagobert founded or restored for her a convent near Trier. 8t Irmina was a zealous supporter of the missionary labours of St Willibrord, and in 698 gave him the manor on which he founded his famous monastery of Echternach. This gift is said to have been in recognition of his having miraculously stayed an epidemic that was devastating her nunnery, and is about the only thing that seems certain concerning Irmina.

St Adela, another daughter of Dagobert II, became a nun after the death of her husband, Alberic. She is probably the \vido\v Adula, who about 691-692 was living at N'ivelles with her little son, the future father of St Gregory of Utrecht.

She founded a monastery at Palatiolum, now pfalzel, near Trier; she became its first abbess and governed it in holiness for many years. Adela seems to have been among the disciples of St Boniface, and a letter in his correspondence from Abbess AelfHed of Whitby to an Abbess i\dola is addressed to her. St Irmina is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, but the cultus accorded popularly to St Adela has not been confirmed and she is not venerated liturgically.

The story of Irmina's early life, recounted only by the monk Thiofrid nearly 400 years after her death, is probably quite fabulous. There is evidence that part of it is based upon a forged charter. The Latin Life of St Irmina, edited by Weiland in lVIGH., Scriptores, vol. xxiii, pp. 48-50, is, however, the work of Thiofrid, and not of Theodoric nearly a century later. See for all this the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. viii (1889), pp. 285-286; and also C. Wampach, Grundherrschaft Echternach, vol. i, pt i (1929), pp. 113-135, and cf. the documents printed in pt ii (1930). On Adela consult DHC;.,- vol. i, c. 525. See further, E. Ewig in St Bonifatius (1954), p. 418; and C. Wampach, Irmina von Deren und ihre Familie" in Trierer ZeitschrzJt, vol. iii (1928), pp. 144-154.

H

BD PAULA CERIOLI, WIDOW, FOUNDRESS OF THE INSTITUTE OF THE HOLY FAMILY OF BERGAMO

(A.D. 1865)

CONSTANCE CERIOLI was born at Soncino, near Bergamo, in 1816, the last of the sixteen children of Don Francis Cerioli and his wife Countess Frances Corniani, and was educated by the Visitation nuns. At the age of nineteen she was married to a wealthy widower of sixty, Gaetano Buzecchi-Tassis. He was a worthy man but misanthropic and unattractive, and in any case Constance's agreement to the marriage was only passive. The match was made by the parents in accordance with the custom of the time and place, of which custom her biographer, Father Federici, says, " It is not so much illogical . . . as a usurpation". The results in this case were certainly painful, but not tragic, for from very early years Con足 stance was drawn to God and sincerely relied upon His grace. 1'he marriage subsisted for nineteen years, and three children were born. Two died in infancy; the eldest, Charles, lived to be only sixteen, and his memory was an important influence throughout his mother's life.

Gaetano Buzecchi died in 1854, leaving his widow extremely well off. That the orphans of the countryside should be the real heirs of this fortune was finally decided by a chance word of her parish priest. Constance at once took two motherless children into her mansion of Comonte, at Seriate in Lombardy; and she determined to devote herself and her estate to the welfare of orphans, boys and girls, specifically the children of peasants, who should be brought up and trained with the life of the land in view.

Her. first helper and always her right-hand was Louisa Corti. Her advisers and faithful friends were Canon Valsecchi and the bishop of Bergamo, Mgr

606

THE' BIRTHDAY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

[December 25

Speranza. On the other side were those who said she was " cracked", as the bishop reported to her. "So I am ", she replied, " by the lunacy of the Cross".

Other helpers soon joined, and in 1857 Constance Cerioli made her religious vows, taking the names Paula Elizabeth; a few months later the Sisters of the Holy Family came officially into being. They increased and prospered, and in another five years the second part of Sister Paula's project was born; a brothers' branch of the congregation, to look after male orphans, was established at Villa Campagna, near Soncino, in the care of John Capponi, a hospital official from Leffe.

Sister Paula always resolutely confined her work to the preparation of children and young people for rural life. In those days agriculture and its workers were not the public concern that they are today, and Italy owes not a little in this matter to the Institute of the Holy Family, notably to the agricultural training given at the boys' establishments. It is appropriate that this work should have been begun not a great way from Virgil's Mantua. 0 fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, agricolas: "How blest indeed are husbandmen, did they but know their happiness!" It was part of Bd Paula's vocation to help them to know it, in spite of the atrocious poverty of Italian peasant life.

She did not long survive the foundation at Villa Campagna. She had always been delicate, with a slight spinal deformity, and her heart became increasingly troublesome. She died in her sleep at Comonte in the early hours of Christmas eve, 1865. She had named her foundation after the Holy FamilY1 her devotion to St Joseph was outstanding: the day could not have been better. And the quietness of her passing was of a piece with a life that, for all its activities, was always marked by interior peace and devotion to Jesus Christ. Bd Paula Cerioli was beatified in 1950.

In addition to the documents of the beatification process there are the memoirs of Mother Corti and the writings of the beata. A biography by Mgr P. Merati was published in 1899.

These were all fully used by the Rev. E. Federici in his official life of Bd Paula (1950).

25 : THE BIRTHDAY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST,

COMMONLY

CALLED CHRISTMAS DAY

HEN all things were accomplished which according to the ancient prophets were to precede the coming of the Messias, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, having taken human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and being made man, was born of her for the redemption of mankind. 1-'he all-wise and all-merciful providence of God had, from the fall of our first parents, gradually disposed all things for the fulfilling of His promises and the accomplishing of the greatest of His mysteries, the incarnation of His divine Son. A decree had been issued by the Emperor Augustus ordaining that all persons should be registered at certain places, according to their respective provinces, cities and families. This decree was an occasion for the manifestation to the whole world that Christ was a descendant of the house of David and tribe of Juda. For those of that family were ordered to be registered at Bethlehem, a small town in the tribe of Juda, six miles from Jerusalem to the south. It had been David's home, and Joseph and Mary had come thither from Nazareth, fifty-six miles almost north from Jerusalem.

Micheas had foretold that Bethlehem-Ephrata (i.e. house of bread: fruitful) should be ennobled by the birth of " the ruler in Israel", Christ. Mary therefore

W

6째7

D( < ember 25]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

undertook this tedious journey with her husband, in obedience to the emperor's order for their enrolment in that city. After a slow journey through mountainous country they arrived at Bethlehem, and there found the public inns already full ; nor were they able to get any lodgings at all. In this distress they at last went into a cavern in the side of the ridge whereon Bethlehem is buIlt, which was used as a stable. It is a common tradition that an ox and an ass were in it at the time. * In this place the mother \vhen her time was come brought forth her divine Son, wrapped I-lim in swaddling clothes and laid Him in the manger.

God was pleased that I-lis Son, though born on earth in obscurity and poverty, should be at once acknowledged by men and receive the first fruits of their homage and devotion. But the great ones of the world, the wise among the Jews and Gentiles, the elders and princes, who seemed raised above the level of their fellows, are passed over. Certain shepherds were at the time keeping the watches of the night over their flock. To them an angel appeared, they saw themselves surrounded with a great light, and they were suddenly seized with fear. But the angel said to them, " Fear not! For behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people. For this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find the infant wrapped in s\vaddling clothes and laid in a manger." And there appeared with the angel a multitude of heavenly spirits, praising God and saying, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good v/ill ! " Then the wondering shepherds said to one another, " Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hath shewed to us ". They hastened thither, and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. "And, seeing, they understood of the \vord that had been spoken to them concerning this child. And all that heard wondered at those things that were told them by the shepherds (but Mary kept all these \\fords, pondering them in her heart)." Then they did homage to the Messias as to the spiritual king of men, and returned to their flocks glorifying and praising God. The message delivered by the angel to those shepherds is addressed also to us, " to all the people". By them \ve are invited to worship our new-born Saviour; and our hearts must be insensible to all spiritual things if they are not filled with joy at the consideration of the divine goodness and mercy manifested in the In足 carnation, the coming of the promised Messias. 'rhe thought and foreknowledge of this mystery comforted Adam in his banishment; the promise of it sweetened the pilgrimage of Abraham; it encouraged Jacob to dread no adversity and Moses to brave all dangers and conquer all difficulties in delivering the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. All the prophets saw it in spirit with Abraham, and they rejoiced. If the expectation gave the patriarchs such joy, how much more ought the accomplishment to give to us. "The letter of a friend ", says St Peter l~hryso足 logus, " is comforting, but his presence is much more wel~ome; a bond is useful, but the payment more so; blossoms are pleasing, but only till the fruit appears.

The ancient fathers received God's letters, we enjoy His presence; they had the

t

.. It was current in the fifth century_ Such a tradition is a very natural one to arise, and Isaias i 3 could be quoted ill. support of it (by, of course, an accommodation): "The ox kno\veth his owner and the ~.us his master's crib. . . ." t The cave beneath the basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem has an unbroken tradition of authenticity of very g~eat antiquity. In its floor is set a silver star, around which is the inscription: Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus G'hristus natus est; Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary.

608

THE BIRTI-IDAY OF OUR LORD JFSUS CHRIST

[December 25

promise, we the accomplishnlent; they the bond, we the payment." Love is the tribute which God asks of us in a particular manner in this mystery; this is the return for all He has done and suffered for us. He says to us, " Son, give me thy heart" . 1-'0 love Him is our sovereign happiness and the highest dignity of a human creature.

Christ's life is the gospel reduced to practice. He instructs us at rIis very birth, beginning first to practise, then to preach. The manger was His first pulpit, and from it He teaches us the cure of our spiritual maladies. I-Ie came among us to seek our miseries, our poverty, our hunliliation, to repair the dishonour our pride had offered to the Godhead, and to apply a remedy to our souls. And He chose a poor mother, a little town, a stable. He who adorns the world and clothes the lilies of the field beyond the majesty of Solomon is wrapped in clouts and laid in a manger. This He chose to be the very sign of His identity. "This shall be a sign to you ", said the angel to the shepherds, " you shall find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger." It is a powerful instruction. "The grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing us ", says the Apostle, all men, the rich and the poor, the great and the small, all who desire to share His grace and His kingdom, instructing us in the first place in humility.

What is the whole mystery of the Incarnation but the most astonishing humbling of the Deity? To expiate our pride the eternal Son of God divests Himself of His glory and takes the form of man in his every circumstance-save sin. Who would not think that the whole creation would be overwhelmed with the glory of His presence and tremble before Him? But nothing of this was seen. "He came not", says St John Chrysostom, "so as ' ) shake the world at the presence of majesty; not in thunder and lightning as on Sinai: but He came quietly, no man knowing it."

In the 5199th year of the creation of the world, from the time when God in the beginning made out of nothing the heavens and the earth; the 2957th year after the flood; the 2015th year from the birth of Abraham; the 15IOth year from Moses c.nd the going-out of the people of Israel from Egypt; the I032nd year from the anointing of David king; in the 65th week according to the prophecy of Daniel; in thL 194th olympiad; the 752nd year from the foundation of the city of Rome; the 42nd year of the rule of Octavian Augus­ tus, all the earth being at peace, in the sixth age of the world: Jesus Christ, the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, willing to consecrate the world

by His most merciful coming, being conceived by the Holy Ghost and nine months having passed since His conception, was born in Bethlehem of Juda of the Virgin Mary, being made man. The birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.

No other celebration of the Christian year, not even Easter itself, does the Roman Martyrology announce in so solemn a fashion. But for all that-and it seems especially strange to English-speaking people for whom in practice Christmas is the great rehgious festival of the year-this feast is not among the most primitive in the Church, and, liturgically considered, ranks not only below Easter, but also below Pentecost and the Epiphany. The commemoration of the birth of our Lord by a separate feast began only in the fourth century (before 336), and at Romt;, from whence it soon spread to the East, where hitherto the birth had been commemorated as a lesser aspect of the feast of the Epiphany.

6°9

Dece'mber 25]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

The dates or reckonings in the quotation from the Roman Martyrology given above are of course not all historica1ly correct or verifiable: for example, we know now that the creation of the world took place many more than 5199 years before the birth of our Lord, and it is likely that that birth was earlier than in the year 752 after the founding of the city. But if the year of the birth of Christ is uncertain, its day is even more so, and there is hardly a month of the twelve to which respect­ able authorities have not assigned it. How December 25 came to be pitched on for the commemoration is not known, and has been the subject of lively discussions.

The notion of an origin in the Roman Saturnalia of December can be safely dis­ regarded; but there is some likelihood that the solar feast of natalis Invicti (the Birthday of the Unconquered [Sun]), itself observed at the winter solstice about December 25, helped to determine the date. In any case the Roman custom of commemorating the birthday by a special feast on that date became general, and has so remained throughout Christendom, with a few isolated exceptions. The N estorians are said not to have adopted the separate feast until the fourteenth century; the dissident Armenians never have done so.

They continue the primitive usage of commemorating our Lord's birth and baptism together on the Epiphany (" she"ring forth "), and so are the only Christians in the world who have no Christmas day.* Father Delehaye in his commentary on the Hieronymianum lays stress upon the reluctance of the church of Jerusalem to admit what they regarded as this new feast of the birth of our Lord, though a sermon of St John Chrysostom makes it clear that it had been adopted in the Syrian city of Antioch as early as 376. In the sixth century Cosrnas Indicopleustes apparently considered it something of a scandal that in Jerusalem no celebration of the Nativity as such had yet been introduced; but before the death of· the Patriarch St Sophronius, which occurred about 638, it is plain from one of his sermons that Jerusalem had conformed to that usage of the rest of Christendom. Since Father Delehaye wrote, a thoroughly systematic, and, one may say, exhaustive discussion of the origin of the Christmas festival has been published by Dom B. Botte, who thinks that the evidence con­ strains us to admit that the assignment of the birth of our Lord to December 25 was due to th~ occurrence on that day of the pagan celebration of the natalis Invicti.

I t must be remembered that as long as paganism was dominant or widely prevalent, the Christians, a gens luclfuga, had much reason to mask their own distinctive beliefs and practices under observances or symbols which attracted no attention.

On the other hand, IVlgr Duchesne holds that the birth of Christ was identified with December 25 because His conception was supposed to have occurred on the day on which He also died, both coinciding with the (official) spring equinox, March 25. The same was the day, according to a widespread belief, on which the world was created. It may well be held, with Abbe Michel Andrieu, that these theories are not irreconcilable and that there is truth in both. The little tractate of the fourth century, De solstitiis et aequinoctiis, of which Dom Botte has published a critical text, does not conflict with the suggestion. Dom Botte has • Among the stricter sort of Protestant dissenter in England and1 especially, Wales, there is, or was till recently, an interesting survival of Puritan tradition. These, when Christmas falls on a SWlday, observe it in the penitential manner proper to their conception of what is due to the Lord's Day (or, as they put it, " the Sabbath is more important than Christmas "). The usual Christmas rejoicings and observances are deferred till Monday.

Some Scottish Presbyterians apparently ignore Christmas altogether.

610

THE' BIRTHDAY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

[December 25

also collected a number of testimonies regarding the pagan celebration in oriental lands of the birth of an " aeon ", some greater divinity, on January 6. This being associated with a Dionysus festival, in which wine replaced water in the fountains, may possibly have found expression in the curiously mixed character of the Epiphany feast, combining as it did the homage of the Magi, the baptism of our Lord, and the miracle of Cana.

When the pilgrim lady Etheria visited Jerusalem near the end of the fourth century the Nativity was still observed there as part of the Epiphany on January 6, but the birthday aspect was very much to the fore. She describes how on the vigil the bishop, clergy, monks and people of Jerusalem went to Bethlehem and made a solemn station at the cave of the Nativity. At midnight a procession was formed, they returned to Jerusalem, and sang the morning office just before dawn.

Then in the morning they assembled again for a solemn celebration of the Holy Eucharist, which was begun in the great basilica of Constantine (the M artyrion) and consummated in the chapel of the Resurrection (the Anastasis). In the sixth century these Jerusalem observances were duplicated or imitated at Rome. At cockcrow the pope celebrated Mass at the Liberian basilica (St Mary Major), to which the reputed relics of the wooden crib were brought during the seventh century; then, later in the day, a procession was made to St Peter's, where he sang Mass again. In between these two celebrations came another, which took place at the church of (St) Anastasia below the Palatine (see notice below). By the middle of the twelfth century the third Mass also was being sung at St Mary Major, because of the distance of St Peter's from the Lateran, where the popes then lived.

Thus is seen the origin of the three Masses which every priest may celebrate on Christmas Day; and these Masses are still labelled in the Missal with the vtame of the respective stations: "at the Crib at St Mary Major", " at St Anastasia", " at St Mary Major". Later, the observance was given a mystical significance, the Masses representing the aboriginal, the Judaic and the Christian dispensations, or the " triple birth" of our Lord, by which He proceeds from the Father before all time, was born of the Virgin Mary, and is spiritually reborn in our souls, by faith and charity. Or they may be regarded in this way: The midnight Mass celebrates the eternal birth of Jesus the divine Word. "The Lord said to me: Thou art my Son. . . . With thee is the principality in the day of thy strength ... from the womb before the day-star I begot thee." The Mass at dawn sees Jesus as the true light, the spiritual sun. "A light shall shine upon us this day. . . . We are bathed in the new light of thy incarnate Word." And in the third Mass the Babe of Bethlehem is honoured as Christ the King, God and man. "A child is born to us . . . whose government is upon his shoulder. . . . All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. . . . Come, ye nations, and worship the Lord . . . justice and judgement are the preparation of thy throne."

There is, of course, an immense literature dealing with the birth of our Lord from every point of view, devotional, chronological and liturgical. In addition to the references given herein on January 6 under the Epiphany, attention must be specially called to what is noted

by Fr Delehaye in CMH., pp. 7-8, and to Dom B. Botte's Les origines de !a Noe'! et de I'Epiphanie (1932). See also L. Duchesne, Christian Worship (193 1), pp. 257-265; M. Andrieu, in the Revue des sciences re!igieuses, vol. xiv (1934), p. 624; and what is said herein on March 25 under the Annunciation. For other points of view see H. Usener, Das Weih­ nachtsfes~ (191 I); A. Baumstark in Oriens Christianus, 19°2, pp. 441-446, and 1927, pp.

310-333; Cabrol in DAC., vol. v, cc. 1412-1414; Kellner, Heorto!ogy, pp. 127-157; Schuster, The Sacramentary, vol. i, pp. 361-377; O. Cullman, Weihnachten in der alten 611

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 25]

Kirche (1947; French trans., 1949); and studies by FF. Frank and Engberding in the Maria Laach Archiv fur Liturgiewissenschaft, vol. ii (1950). For a good summary of the development of the feast, see A. A. McArthur, The Evolution of the Christian Year (1953), pp. 3 I seq.

ST EUGENIA,

VIRGIN AND MARTYR

(DATE UNKNO\\ .~)

THE legend of 8t Eugenia, like that of 8t Marina, St Reparata and others, is the tale of a woman disguised as a monk and accused of a crime she could not commit.

For variety it may here be told in the words of the Golden Legend.

Eugenia, the noble virgin, which was daughter to Philip, duke of Alex足 andria, which for the emperor of Rome governed all the land of Egypt.

Eugenia issued privily out of her father's palace with t\VO servants [called SSe Protus and Hyacinth], and she went into an abbey in the habit and array of a man, in which abbey she led so holy a life that at the last she was made abbot of the same. It happed so that no man kne\v that she was a woman, yet there was a lady accused her of adultery tofore the judge, which was her o\vn father.

Eugenia was put in prison for to be judged to death. At the last she said to her father much thing for to draw him to the faith of Jesus Christ. She rent her coat and showed to him that she was a woman and daughter of him that held her in prison, and so she converted her father unto the Christian faith.

And he was after an holy bishop, and at the hour that he sang his Mass he was beheaded for the faith of Jesus Christ; and the lady that had falsely accused Eugenia was burnt with fire of Hell with all her party. And after that Claudia [the mother of Eugenia] and all her children carne to Rome, and much people were by them converted, and many virgins by Eugenia. Which Eugenia was much tormented in divers manners and at the last by the sword accomplished her martyrdom, and thus made the offering of her proper body to our Lord Jesus Christ, qui est benedictus in saecula saeculorum, Amen.

Eugenia was sent to join the monks in the first place by Helenus, Bishop of Heliopolis, who had met and baptized her when .she had fled from her father's house in male clothes; and the false accusation was prompted by her repelling the advances of a woman whom she had miraculously cured of sickness.

The romantic particulars of her masquerading as a young man seem to have been arbitrarily attributed to St Eugenia, a Roman martyr who was buried in the cemetery of Apronian on the Via Latina, where afterwards a basilica was built in her honour, which was restored during the eighth century.

Two Latin texts of this legend have attracted attention. The older is that printed in the Sanctuarium of Mombritius, but from this a very much revised version was constructed at an early date and has acquired wider publicity. It is printed in Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum, pp. 340-349, and is also to be found twice over in Migne, PL., vols. xxi and lxxiii. Two or three different Greek adaptations are also known in manuscript, and that of the Metaphrast is printed in Migne, PG., vol. cxvi, pp. 609-652. Besides these there is a Syriac version, published with an English translation by Mrs A. Smith-Lewis in Studia Sinaitica, vols. ix and x; and another in Armenian which F. C. Conybeare edited and translated in The Armenian Apology of Apollonius, though the early date he assigns to this text is quite un足 warranted. Finally, the earlier portion of the story exists in an Ethiopic text, which has been printed and rendered into English by E. J. Goodspeed. Delehaye in his Etude sur Ie ligendier romain (1936), pp. 171-186, has commented upon the legend exhaustively, and both here and in his CMH. he shows that there is solid ground for heiieving that St Eugenia was an authentic Roman martyr.

612

[December 25

ST ANASTASIA

MANY MARTYRS AT NICOMEDIA

(A.D. 303)

THE martyrdom of, according to the Greeks, 20,000 Christians at Nicomedia on Christmas day in the year 303 is thus recorded by the Roman Martyrology: "At Nicomedia the passion of many thousands of martyrs, who came together for the Lord's service on Christ's birthday. The Emperor Diocletian ordered the doors of the church to be shut and fire to be made ready round about it and a tripod with incense to be set before the door: and then that a herald should proclaim so that he could be heard that they who wished to escape the fire should come outside and offer incense to Jupiter. And when they all with one voice declared that they were ready to die for Christ's sake, the fire was kindled and they were consumed therein. And so they merited to be born in Heaven on that very day whereon Christ for the world's salvation was pleased to be born on earth."

There is historical record of the church at Nicomedia being wrecked-not burned-on February 23, 303, by order of Diocletian, but nothing is said of people being killed; on the other hand, there was no feast of Christmas kept there so early as the beginning of the fourth century.

This has been taken over into the Roman Martyrology from a Greek source. The Synaxary of Constantinople, as edited for the Acta Sanctorum, commemorates on December 28 (cc. 349-352) 20,000 martyrs burned to death at Nicomedia, adding details corresponding to the above. The number is, of course, wildly exaggerated, but there is much evidence both in Eusebius (bk vi, chs. 5-8) and in the Syriac breviarium that Nicomedia was a hotbed of persecution in the year 303.

ST ANASTASIA,

MARTYR

(A.D. 304?)

THE passio of St Anastasia relates that she was the daughter of a noble Roman named Praetextatus and had St Chrysogonus for her adviser. She married a pagan, Publius, and during the persecution of Diocletian cared for the confessors of the faith in prison, whereupon her husband forbade her to leave the house. Chryso足 gonus having gone to Aquileia, she kept up a correspondence with him and, when Publius died on an embassy to Persia, went to Aquileia herself to succour the Christians there. After the martyrdom of SSe Agape, Chionia and Irene, Anastasia herself was arrested and brought before the prefect of Illyricum at Sirmium, being visited in prison and fed by the dead St Theodota. Then with another Christian and a number of pagan criminals she was put aboard a vessel and abandoned at sea; but Theodota appeared again and piloted it to land, and the pagans were all converted. Anastasia was taken to the island of Palmaria and put to death by being burned alive, staked to the ground with her arms and legs outstretched and the fire kindled about her; two hundred men and seventy women were martyred in various ways at the same time.

These stories are entirely apocryphal. St Anastasia has been venerated at Rome since the late fifth century, when her name was put in the canon of the Mass, but so far as is known she had nothing to do with the City. Her cultus originated at Sirmium in Pannonia, where she was perhaps martyred under Diocletian, but no authentic particulars of her life and passion have come down to us. While St Gennadius was patriarch of Constantinople, during the second half of the fifth century-, the relics of St Anastasia were translated from Sirmium to that city, and a considerable cultus of the saint followed. The special interest of St Anastasia 61 3

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 25]

is in the historico-liturgical fact that she has the distinction of being commemorated at the second Mass on Christmas day.

There was in Rome, at the foot of the Palatine Hill near the Circus Maximus, a church called the titulus Anastasiae; it had been built in the fourth century and had its name from a foundress called Anastasia. It was an important church, and it soon came to be called the church of 8t Anastasia-as it is to this day. It was at this church that the pope sang the second Mass on Christmas day and, during the sixth century and for some time after, this MOass was proper to 8t Anastasia.

This adventitious liturgical importance of the martyr, due to local conditions at Rome in the fifth-sixth century, is now reduced to the familiar commemoration at the Mass of the Dawn. It does not even seem that there was any tradition of St Anastasia having been put to death on December 25: the Greeks now keep her feast on the twenty-second, venerating her as a megalomartyr and" the Poison­ healer" .

The long document which may be called the" Acts of St Anastasia" has never been printed as a whole, though the several episodes of which it is made up have most of them been edited separately under the names of the martyrs respectively concerned, e.g. Passio S. Chrysogoni, Passio S. Theodotae, etc. There is also a Greek version which only exists in manuscript. A very full discussion of this strange medley will be found in Delehaye's Etude sur le legendier romain, pp. 151-171. As he shoÂĽ,rs, the purpose with which this hagiographical fiction was compiled was to claim Anastasia as a Roman saint, seeing that she was now honoured there as patron of the titulus Anastasiae. It is possible that Arnobius the Younger, who lived in the middle of the fifth century, was already acquainted with the story of St Anastasia (see DOTT\ Morin, Etudes, textes, decouvertes, 19 13, pp. 328, 391-392), but the matter is not clear. Consult further Duchesne in Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire, vol. vii (1887), pp. 387-413; J. P. Kirsch, Die r6mischen Titelkirchen (1918), pp. 18-23; Lanzoni, Titoli presbiterali (1925), pp. 11-12 and 58-59.

BD JACOPONE OF TODI

(A.D. 1306)

J ACOPONE, baptized Jacopo, was born of the good family of Benedetti at Todi in Umbria about the year 1230. He read law at Bologna, where he probably took his doctorate, and began to practise in his native town. He seems to have been known neither for virtue nor evil-living, and. certainly showed no signs in his earlier years of his later religious fervour. About 1267 he married Vanna di Guidone, a young woman beautiful both in person and character, who, for all their married life lasted only a year, proved to be his good angel. Vanna was tragically killed at a wedding festa, when a balcony upon which she and other guests were standing collapsed. She was the only one to lose her life, and the shock of this sudden deprivation, coupled with the vivid realization of his wife's goodness (he is said, for example, to have discovered an unsuspected hair-shirt on her dead body, which he supposed to be worn in penance for his sins), wrought a remarkable change in Jacopo. Indeed, it would be not unreasonable to conclude that for a time his mind was unhinged. He threw up his profe~sion, put on the habit of the Franciscan tertiaries, and became, as it has been put, "a sort of Christian Diogenes "; his eccentricities were so absurd and so public that the children in the streets of Todi looked on him as a harmless show and familiarly called him Jacopone: the name stuck. On one occasion he crawled on hands and knees across the main square, wearing the harness of a donkey; on another, he turned up among a wedding party at his brother's house tarred and feathered all over.

He lived thus as a sort of public penitent for ten years.

61 4

BD JACOPONE OF TODI

[December 25

In 1278, after some natural hesitation on the part of the friars, Jacopone was admitted among the Franciscans of San Fortunato at Todi as a lay-brother. He is said to have chosen this state out of humility. He may well have done so. But the fact that his sympathies were with the more strict party among the Franciscans, the Spirituals, may have had something to do with it, for they considered that St Francis had intended his followers to be priests only exceptionally. For a dozen years or so Brother J acopone remained at Todi, and as he gradually attained a more stable state of equilibrium he began to produce more and more lyric poems and songs in the Umbrian dialect, which were very popular. They were deeply religious and mystical verses, these laude, and were adopted by the Flagellants and other zealots for public singing and reciting; both words and cadence lent them­ selves aptly to that Franciscan jubilus whose manifestations seem to have been remarkably like those of the Welsh preachers' hwyl. But Jacopone was candid and outspoken, and San Fortunato was a Conventual house. He was involved in difficulties with his brethren there, and became a more and more prominent figure among the Spirituals, of whom Bd Conrad of Offida and Bd John of Alvernia \vere his close personal friends. J acopone was among those friars who in 1294 petitioned Pope St Celestine V for permission to live apart from the order, but in a few \veeks Celestine had resigned and Cardinal Gaetani, the opponent of the Spirituals, was pope as Boniface VI I I. When in 1297 there was an open rupture between the two Colonna cardinals and the pope, J acopone \vas one of the three Franciscans who helped in the drawing-up of the m~~£f~sto \vhich claimed that Boniface had been invalidly elected; he became a literary propagandist for the Colonna party and produced a savage attack on the pope, beginning: "0 papa Bonifatio molt ay jocato al mondo." Without subscribing to the extravagant opinion that" to have had [Boniface] for an adversary was itself an honour", it may well be held that Friar Jacopone opposed the pope in perfect good faith: partisans \vere not the only people at the time who held the view that Pope Celestine's abdication was uncanonical. When the papal forces captured Palestrina, the Colonna stronghold, J acopone was seized and imprisoned in a horrid dungeon there for five years. Not even the jubilee year of 1300 saw his release. During this time he composed some of the most beautiful of his poems, and also some of the most aggressive, satirical and trenchant pieces in curious contrast with the touching devotion and searching mysticism of the others.

J acopone is best known as the putative author of the hymn Stabat Mater dolorosa, but there is no certainty as to who in fact wrote it. He is also credited with the companion hymn, or as some stern critics say the parody, the less well­ kno\vn Stabat Mater speciosa (for Christmas). The Dolorosa is said to have been ascribed to him in a manuscript of the fourteenth century, and both appear in an edition of his laude printed at Brescia in 1495. The Speciosa was rescued from oblivion by Frederick Ozanam, who reprinted it for the first time in his Poetes fran­ ciscains en Italie au Xllle siecle in 1852. The English hymnologist Mearns inclined to the view that Jacopone wrote the Speciosa but not the Dolorosa; but there is no certain proof that he wrote any Latin poems at all.

On the death of Boniface VIII at the end of 13°3 Friar J acopone was set at liberty, and he went to live first at a hermitage near Orvieto and then at a Poor Clare convent at Collazzone, between Todi and Perugia. Here he died on Christ­ mas day, 1 306( ?). He received the last sacraments from Bd John of Alvernia and there are moving, but conflicting, accounts of his last moments. In 1433 his relics

61 5

December 26]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

were translated to the church of San Fortuc.ato at Todi, and how he was regarded there can be read upon his tomb: "The bones of Blessed Jacopone dei Benedetti of Todi, of the Order of Friars Minor. He became a fool for Christ's sake and, having deceived the world by a new artifice, took Heaven by storm. He fell asleep in the Lord on March 25, A.D. 1296 [sic]. This monument was put up by Angelo Cesi, Bishop of Todi, in the year 1596."

Much has been written abCJut Fra J acopone. In the Bollettino Francescano storico足 bibliografico, vol. ii (1931), pp. 81-118 and 201-223, no less than 994 books and articles are enumerated which are in one way or another concerned with him. Apart from what can be gathered from his poems, we learn curiously little of his life except for the sketch in the Franceschina of J acopo Oddi (fifteenth century); most of our information is late and unreliable. In a short but valuable review of the centenary literature in the Analecta Bol足 landiana, vol. xxviii (1909), pp. 231-234, Fr Van Ortroy states that the cult was confirmed by the Holy See in 1868, and he points out that further support has been found for Ozanam's contention that the famous satire" 0 papa Bonifatio " has been interpolated. The specialist, A. Tenneroni, in the Nuova Antologia, 1906, pp. 623-636, has satisfied himself that the most bitter passages were added subsequently by another hand; and see his work on the poet published in 1939. For English readers there is an excellent article on Fra Jacopone

by Father L. Oliger in the Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. viii, pp. 363-365; a sympathetic study by Edmund Gardner in The Constructive Quarterly, vol. ii (1912), pp. 446-460, and such books as those of Evelyn Underhill, Jacopone da Todi (1919), and A. Macdonnell, Sons of St Francis (1902). See also]. Pacheu, Jacopone de Todi, Frere Mineur (1914) ; C. Cadomo, II Cantore della Poverta (1923); N. Sapegno, Frate Jacopone (1923); P. Barbet, B. Jacopone de Todi, l'auteur du Stabat (1943); and I. Steiger, Jacopone da Todi, Welthass .und Gottesliebe (1945). The text of the" Laude" may be conveniently consulted in vol. vi of the series I Libri della Fede, edited by G. Papini (1922). It is interesting to find that St Bernardino of Siena made long extracts from J acopone's writings. Some of these are still preserved in the saint's own handwriting with this heading: "Here begin certain canticles or laude of our holy modern David, Fra Jacopone da Todi." See Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, vol. xxix (1937), p. 237.

26 : ST

STEPHEN,

THE FIRST MARTYR

(c.

A.D.

34)

HAT St Stephen was a Jew is unquestionable, and he probably was a Hellenist of the Dispersion, who spoke Greek. The name Stephen is Greek, Stephanos, and signifies "crown". The circumstances of his conversion to Christianity are not known. St Epiphanius says he was one of the seventy disciples of our Lord, but this is unlikely. We are told of him in the book of the Acts of the Apostles when, there being numerous converts, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews, complaining that their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. The Apostles assembled the faithful and told them that they could not relinquish the duties of preaching and prayer to attend to the care of tables; and recommended them to choose seven men of good character, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, who might superintend that business. The sug足 gestion was approved, and the people chose Stephen, " a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost", and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicholas a proselyte of Antioch. These seven were presented to the Apostles, who praying, imposed hands upon them, and so ordained them the first deacons. " And the word of the Lord increased, and the number of the disciples was multipl~ed in Jerusalem exceedingly; a great number also of the priests obeyed the faith. And Stephen, full of grace and fortitude, did great wonders and signs

T

616

[December 26

ST STEPHEN

among the people." He spoke with such wisdom and spirit that his hearers were unable to resist him, and a plot was laid by the elders of certain synagogues in Jerusalem. At first they undertook to dispute with Stephen; but finding them足 selves unequal to the task they suborned false witnesses to charge him with blas足 phemy against Moses and against God. The indictment was laid in the Sanhedrin, and he was dragged thither. The main point urged against him was that he affirmed that the temple would be destroyed, that the Mosaic traditions were but shadows and types no longer acceptable to God, Jesus of Nazareth having put an end to them. "And all that sat in the council, looking on him, saw his face as if it had been the face of an angel." Then leave was given him to speak, and in a long defence, set out in Acts vii 2--53, he showed that Abraham, the father and founder of their nation, was justified and received the greatest favours of God in a foreign land; that Moses was commanded to set up a tabernacle, but foretold a new law and the l\1essias; that Solomon built the Temple, but it was not to be imagined that God ,vas confined in houses made by hands: the temple and the Mosaic law were temporary, and were to give place when God introduced more excellent institutions by sending the l\le ssias himself. He ended with a stinging rebuke: "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do you also. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them who foretold of the coming of the Just One, of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers: who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it."

The whole assembly raged at Stephen, but he, being full of the Holy Ghost and looking up steadfastly to the heavens, saw them opened and beheld the glory of God and the Saviour standing at the right hand of the Father. And he said, " Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God". "And they, crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears and with one accord ran violently upon him. And, casting him forth without the city, they stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man whose name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit'. And falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice, saying, ' Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'. And when he had said this he fell asleep in the Lord." The reference to the witnesses required by the law of Moses, and the whole circumstances, suggest that this was not an act of mob violence, but a judicial execution. And of those that were "consenting to his death " one, Saul, the future apostle of the Gentiles, was the first and greatest fruit of the seed of the blood of the first martyr of Christ. "Devout men took order for Stephen's funeral, and made great mourning over him "; the finding of his relics by the priest Lucian in the fifth century is referred to herein under August 3.

We have, of course, no knowledge of the life of St Stephen outside the pages of the New Testament. But with regard to the festival and the cultus of the protomartyr the reader may consult with advantage the CMH., and Duchesne's Christian Worship, pp. 265-268.

From before the close of the fourth century both in the East (as the Apostolic Constitutions, viii, 33, show even for Syria) and in the West, St Stephen was commemorated on December 26. There seems to be nothing to tell us why at so early a period this particular day should have been pitched upon. The early cultus of Stephen in Jerusalem has been discussed very fully by Cardinal Rampolla, S. Melania Giuniore, pp. 271-280. On t;he representations of St Stephen in art, and on popular beliefs and practices associated with his day, see -Ktinstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 544-547; Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche, vol. ix, ce. 796-799; and Leclercq in DAC., vol. v, cc. 624-671.

61 7

Dece.,mber 26]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

ST ARCHELAUS,

BISHOP OF KASHKAR

(No

DATE?)

Roman Martyrology signalizes the death on this day in Mesopotamia of St Archelaus the bishop, famous for his learning and holiness. St Jerome says in his De viris illustribus that: "Archelaus, a Mesopotamian bishop, composed a book in Syriac about the discussion that he had carried on with Manes, who came from Persia. This book has been translated into Greek and is known to many.

Archelaus lived in the time of the Emperor Probus, the successor of Aurelian and of Tacitus." The story is that a Syrian named Marcellus had brought about the release of a number of Christian slaves, and was congratulated on his charitable action by the heresiarch Manes, who took the opportunity to inculcate his teaching.

Marcellus reported the matter to his bishop, Archelaus, who undertook disputations with Manes. These "acts)) are an interesting document in the history of Manichaeism, but it was not written in Syriac or by Archelaus. Photius, in recommending his brother to read the book against the manichaeans of Heraclian of Chalcedon (whose style, he says, " combines atticism with ordinary language, like a schoolmaster entering into a contest of superatticism "), quotes Heraclian as saying that the disputation of Archelauswas written by one Hegemonius.

Research has shown that the disputation was only a literary device, and that it was composed years after Manes was dead. It therefore seems that St Archelaus, of whom nothing else is recorded, was as fictitious as his dispute, invented for the occasion by Hegemonius.

1-'HE

The whole matter of the Acta Archelai is very obscure; but see Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, vol. iii, pp. 265-269; DCB., vol. i, pp. 152-153 ; and P. Alfaric, Les ecritures manicheenes (1918), pp. 55 seq.

ST DIONYSIUS,

POPE

BECAUSE of persecution the Roman see was vacant for nearly a year after the martyrdom of St Sixtus II. It was then filled in the person of the presbyter Dionysius-perhaps a Greek-who was described by his namesake of Alexandria as an admirable and learned man. By a synod convened by the pope this same St Dionysius in Egypt was required to give an account of views expressed by him when writing against Sabellianism, which he did at considerable length. Like Stephen I and others of his predecessors, Pope St Dionysius sent alms to Christians in distant lands, especially to the church of Caesarea in Cappadocia, which had been ravaged by the Goths. The edict of tolerance of the Emperor Gallienus enabled Dionysius to restore order in ecclesiastical administration and forward the works of religion after a period of persecution; though not the first pope to die in peace, he is the first to whom the title of martyr is not accorded liturgically.

As in the case of all the early popes, there is nothing corresponding to a biography.

We depend upon a few sentences in the Liber Pontificalis (Duchesne, vol. i, p. 157) and upon scattered references to his activities in Eusebius (bk vii, chs. 7 and 30) and in St Athanasius, St Basil, etc. See E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, vol. i (1930), pp. 92 seq.; F. X. Seppelt, Der Aufstieg des Papsttums; Leclercq in DAC., vol. xiii, cc. 1186-1188. It is astonishing to find that Pope St Dionysius is venerated as a member of the Carmelite Order -a claim which it would be difficult to substantiate.

ST ZOSIMUS,

POPE

(A.D. 418)

ST ZOSIMUS is said by the Liber Pontificalis to have been a Greek by birth, son of the presbyter Abram, and he succeeded Pope St Innocent I. Nothing is known

618

BD VINCENTIA LOPEZ

[December 26

of his previous career or personal life, but his pontificate of under two years was a busy one, chiefly due to the appeal of the Pelagian Caelestius from his condemna足 tion by the bishops of Africa. Zosimus was constrained to modify his first judgement in this matter; and he had further difficult relations \vith the African bishops, arising out of an irregular appeal to Rome made by a priest and the erroneous ascription by the pope of a canon, quoted in justification of the priest, to the Council of Nicaea. During his last illness St Zosimus had several cataleptic seizures which so much resembled death that he was several times supposed to be dead before he was. He died on December 26, 418.

The notice of Pope Zosimus in the second edition of the Liber Pontificalis (Duchesne, vol. i, p. 225), differs some\vhat from the first. See also E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, vol. i, pp. 344 seq.; Seppelt, Der Aufstieg des Papsttums, pp. 158 seq.; DAC., vol. xiii, c. 1263.

BD VINCENTIA LOPEZ Y VICUNA, DAUGHTERS OF MARY IMMACULATE

VIRGIN, (A.D.

FOUNDRESS

OF

THE

1890)

THIS beata was born in 1847, daughter of a well-to-do la\vyer at Cascante in Navarre, and from her earliest years her father gave careful attention to her religious up足 bringing. rrhe decisive point of her life was when she \vent to Madrid in order to go to school there, and came under the strict but beneficent influence of an aunt who had founded a home for orphans and domestic servants. At the age of nineteen Vincentia made a vow of celibacy, and \vas soon convinced that she had a call to the religious life, though not to an enclosed congregation. In particular she was concerned about what would happen to the work for girls when her aunt was no longer alive. In her uncertainty she received no help from her parents who, since she rejected both marriage and a Visitation convent, could see no alternative to her going on living at home. However, an illness of their daughter alarmed them, and she was allowed to return to her aunt, Dona Eulalia, in Madrid.

Here, under the supervision of Father Hidalgo, S.J., plans were drawn up to form the staff of the servants' home into a religious community, and in 1876 Vincentia and two others were clothed in the religious habit by Bishop Sancha of Madrid. Mother Vincentia's intense spiritual life was combined \vith a very practical and far-seeing charity; she did not make the mistake of expecting too much from people borne down by the difficulty of keeping body and soul together, and her work at the home bore good fruit. Vocations were plentiful, half a dozen similar establishments were opened in other cities, and in 1888 the Holy See issued the decree of praise of the institute of Daughters of Mary Immaculate for the Protection of Working Girls. Mother Vincentia refused to finance the work by conducting schools: instead she chose the hard way of begging, and insisted to her nuns that those who would help the poor must be prepared to be poor them足 selves. Dona Eulalia, who had learned the practical needs of such an undertaking, gave herself and her whole fortune to it; and homes, hostels, technical-training schools, canteens and the like for domestic and other workers were brought within the orbit of the congregation's activities. It was soon realized how true is the proverb that " The Devil finds work for idle hands to do ", and that religion is bound up with social questions, "politics": it became a sort of slogan with Mother Vincentia's daughters that "Steady employment is the safeguard of virtue ".

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 27]

At her clothing Bd Vincentia declared that the work she was undertaking " so completely satisfies my heart's desire that, should it cost me suffering or death, I here and now offer God that sacrifice. I count myself happier in the service of these my sisters than the great ones of this world in the service of their lords and kings. May our Lord give me grace to fulfil my undertaking". That grace she received abundantly and used abundantly; and in the event the sacrifice of death was early called for. She was not yet forty-four when she died on December 26, 1890. Afterwards her congregation spread to South Africa and other lands (including England), and the foundress was solemnly beatified in 1950.

Among Bd Vincentia's works was the formation of a " triple alliance" between the houses of her congregation and the convents of Carmel and the Visitation in Spain to make reparation for the indifference shown by so many to the love of the Sacred Heart and especially for the carelessness and tepidity of some of those vowed to perfection in the religious life.

See J. Artero, Vida de la V. Madre Vicenta Maria; A. Romano, La Beata Vincenza M. Lopez Vicuna (1950). A C.T.S. pamphlet seems to be the only item in English.

27 : ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST,

S

ApOSTLE

(c.

A.D.

100)

T JOHN THE EVANGELIST, distinguished as the" disciple whom Jesus loved " and often called in England, as by the Greeks, " the Divine" (i.e. the Theologian), was a Galilean, the son of Zebedee and brother of St James the Greater with whom he was brought up to the trade of fishing. He was called to be an apostle with his brother, as they were mending their nets on the sea of Galilee, soon after Jesus had called Peter and Andrew. Christ gave them the nick-name of Boanerges, " sons of thunder", whether as commendation or on account of some violence of temperament (c/. Luke ix 54) is not clear. St John is said to have been the youngest of all the apostles, and outlived the others, being the only one of whom it is sure that he did not die a martyr. In the gospel which he wrote he refers to himself with a proud humility as " the disciple¡ whom Jesus loved ", and it is clear he was one of those who had a privileged position.

Our Lord would have him present with Peter and James at His transfiguration and at His agony in the garden; and He showed St John other instances of kindness and affection above the rest, so that it was not without human occasion that the wife of Zebedee asked the Lord that her two sons might sit the one on His right hand and the other on His left in His kingdom. John was chosen to go with Peter into the city to prepare the last supper, and at that supper he leaned on the breast of Jesus and elicited from Him, at St Peter's prompting, who it was should betray Him. It is generally believed that he was that" other disciple" who was known to the high priest and went in with Jesus to the court of Caiaphas, leaving St Peter at the outer door. He alone of the apostles stood at the foot of the cross with Mary and the other faithful women, and received the sublime charge to care for the mother of his Redeemer. '" Woman, behold thy son.' â&#x20AC;˘ Behold thy mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own." Our Lord calls us all brethren, and He recommends us all as such to the loving care of His own mother: but amongst these adoptive sons St John is the first-born. To him

620

ST JOHN THE EVAN(;ELIST

[December 27

alone was it given to be treated by her as If she had been his natural mother, and to treat her as such by honouring, serving and assisting her in person. vVhen Mary lVlagdalen brought word that Christ's sepulchre \vas open, Peter and John ran there ilnmediately, and John, who \vas younger and ran faster, arrived first. But he \vaited for 8t Peter to come up, and followed him in: "and he saw and believed " that Christ was indeed risen. A few days later Jesus manifested Himself for the third time, by the sea of Galilee, and He walked along the shore questioning Peter about the sincerity of his love, gave him the charge of I-lis Church, and foretold his martyrdom. St Peter, seeing St John walk behind and being solicitous for his friend, asked Jesus, "Lord, what shall this man do ? " And Jesus replied, " If I will have hirn to remain till I come, \vhat is it to thee?

Follo\v thou me." It is therefore not surprising that it was rumoured among the brethren that John should not die, a rumour \vhich he himself disposes of by pointing out that our Lord did not say, "He shall not die". After Christ's ascension we find these two same apostles going up to the Temple and miraculously healing a cripple. They were imprisoned, but released again with an order no more to preach Christ, to which they answered, " If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge yeo For we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard." Then they were sent by the other apostles to confirm the converts which the deacon Philip had made in Samaria. When St Paul went up to Jerusalem after his conversion he addressed himself to those who" seemed to be pillars" of the Church, chiefly James, Peter and John, who confirmed his mission among the Gentiles, and about that time St John assisted at the council which the apostles held at Jerusalem. Perhaps it was soon after this that John left Palestine for Asia Minor. No doubt he was present at the passing :~f our Lady, whether that took place at Jerusalem or Ephesus; St Irenaeus says that he settled at the last-named city after the martyrdom of SSe Peter and Paul, but how soon after it is impossible to tell. There is a tradition that during the reign of Domitian he was taken to Rome, where an attempt to put him to death \vas miraculously frus足 trated (see May 6); and that he was then banished to the island of Patmos, where he received those revelations from Heaven \vhich he wrote down in his book called the Apocalypse.

After the death of Domitian in the year 96 St John could return to Ephesus, and many believe that he wrote his gospel at this time. His object in writing it he tells us himself: "1-'hese things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, you may have life in His name."

I t is entirely different in character from the other three gospels, and a work of such theological sublimity that, as 1"heodoret says, it " is beyond human understanding ever fully to penetrate and comprehend". His soaring thought is aptly represented by the eagle which is his symbol. St John also \vrote three epistles. The first is called catholic, as addressed to all Christians, especially his converts, whom he urges to purity and holiness of life and cautions against the craft of seducers. The other two are short, and directed to particular persons: the one probably to a local church; the other to Gaius, a courteous entertainer of Christians. The same inimitable spirit of charity reigns throughout all his \vritings. 1~his is not the place to refer to the objections that have been raised against St John's authorship of the Fourth Gospel.

Early writers speak of St John's determined opposition to the heresies of the Ebionites and of the followers of the gnostic Cerinthus. On one occasion he was 621

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 27]

going to the baths when, learning that Cerinthus was within, he started back and said to some friends that were with him, " Let us, brethren, make haste and be gone, lest the bath wherein is Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, should fall upon our heads". St Irenaeus tells us he received this from the mouth of St Polycarp, St John's personal disciple. Clement of Alexandria relates that in a certain city St John saw a young man of attractive appearance in the congregation, and being much taken with him he presented him to the bishop whom he had ordained there, saying, " In the presence of Christ and before this congregation I commend this young man to your care". The young man was accordingly lodged in the bishop's house, instructed, kept to good discipline, and at length baptized and confirmed.

But the bishop's attention then slackened, the neophyte got into bad company, and became a highway robber. Some time after St John was again in that city, and said to the bishop, " Restore to me the trust which Jesus Christ and I committed to you in presence of your church ". The bishop was surprised, imagining he meant some trust of money. But when John explained that he spoke of the young man, he replied, " Alas! he is dead". "What did he die of ? " asked St John. "He is dead to God and is turned robber ", was the reply. Thereupon the aged apostle called for a horse and a guide, and rode away to the mountain where the robber and his gang lived. Being made prisoner he cried out, " It is for this that I am come: lead me to such an one". When the youth saw it was St John he began to make off with shame. But John cried out after him, " Child, why do you run from me, your father, unarmed, and an old man? There is time for repentance.

I will answer for you to Jesus Christ. I am ready to lay down my life for you.

I am sent by Christ." At these words the young man stood still and burst into tears, tears wherein, as Clement says, he sought to find a second baptism. Nor would St John leave that place until he had reconciled the sinner to the Church.

This charity which he had so conspicuously himself he constantly and affectionately urged in others. St Jerome writes that when age and weakness grew upon him at Ephesus so that he was no longer able to preach to the people, he used to be carried to the assembly of the faithful, and every time said to his flock only these words: " My little children, love one another." When they asked him why he always repeated the same words, he replied, " Because it is the word of the Lord, and if you keep it you do enough ". St John died in peace at Ephesus about the third year of Trajan, that is, the hundredth of the Christian era, being then about ninety-tour years old according to St Epiphanius.

As we may learn from St Gregory of Nyssa, from the Syriac breviarium of the early fifth century, and from the Carthaginian Calendar, the practice of celebrating the feast of St John immediately after that of St Stephen is of very ancient date.

In the original text of the Hieronymianum (about A.D. 600) the commemoration seems to have been thus entered: "The Assumption of St John the Evangelist at Ephesus and the ordination to the episcopate of St James, our Lord's brother, who was the first of the Jews to be ordained by the apostles bishop of Jerusalem and gained the crown of martyrdom at the time of the pasch." One might have expected John and James, the sons of Zebedee, to be coupled in such a notice, but this is clearly the other James, the son of Alpheus, who is now honoured with St Philip on May I. The phrase " Assumption of 8t John" is notable, containing as it does a clear reference to the last portion of the apocryphal " Acts of 8t John".

In this. widely circulated fiction, dating from the late second century, it was repre足 sented (evidently in view of the saying that this particular disciple" should not die", 622

[December 27

ST FABIOLA

John xxi, 23) that 8t John at the end of his days in Ephesus simply disappeared: his body was never found. On the other hand, according to the Greeks his resting足 place at Ephesus was well known, and famed for marvels. The Acta Johannis, though preserved to us only imperfectly and condemned for heretical tendencies by many early authorities, e.g. Eusebius, Epiphanius, Augustine and Turibius of Astorga, seems to have done much to create a traditional legend. From this source, or in any case from pseudo-Abdias, comes the story which was the basis of the frequently recurring representation of 8t John with a chalice and a viper.

The apostle was challenged by Aristodemus, the high priest of Diana at Ephesus, to drink of a poisoned cup. He did so without sustaining any harm and thereby converted the high-priest himself. Upon this incident seems to be founded the folk-custom, prevalent especially in Germany, of the "Johannis-Minne ", the loving-cup or poculum charitatis, which was drunk in honour of 8t John. In medieval ritualia a number of forms of blessing are preserved which were supposed to render such a draught efficacious against dangers to health and helpful to the attaining of Heaven.

The literature about St John and his writings is of course extremely extensive and need not be gone into here. On the more general historical question consult Fouard, St John (Eng. trans.); Fillion, St Jean l'Evangeliste (19属7); C. C. Martindale, Princes of his People, vol. i (1920) ; J. Chapman, John the Presbyter (1911) ; and on the liturgical aspects, Duchesne, Christian Worship, pp. 265-268; and Kneller in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, vol. lxvii (1904), pp. 538-556. The apocryphal literature is very fully discussed in Hennecke, Neutestament足 liche Apokryphen (1904), especially pp. 423-459; and its sequel, Handbuch zu den neutesta足 mentlichen Apokryphen (1904), pp. 492-543. The best edition of the Acta Johannis is that of Max Bonnet (1898). For special points see Delehaye's CMH., and Synaxarium Cp., c. 665; A. Franz, Die Kirchlichen Benediktionen in Mittelalters (1909), vol. i, pp. 294-334 ; Bachtold-Staubli, Handwiirterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. iv, cc. 745-757; and Ktinstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 341-347.

ST FABIOLA, MATRON

(A.D. 399)

FABIOLA, of the gens Fabia, was one of the patrician Roman ladies who entered the path of holiness and renunciation under the influence of 8t Jerome, but her life was for the most part very different from that of 8t Marcella or 8t Paula or 8t Eustochium, and she was not a member of the circle that gathered round Jerome while he was living in Rome. Or at least a coolness sprang up between them, for Fabiola was of a lively, passionate and headstrong disposition, and when the dissolute courses of her husband made married life impossible she obtained a civil divorce and, her husband yet living, united herself with another man.

Upon the death of her second consort Fabiola submitted to the canons of the Church, presenting herself for public penance at the Lateran basilica, and was readmitted to communion with the faithful by Pope 8t 8iricius. 8he now devoted her great wealth to works of charity, gave large sums to churches, and communities in Italy and the adjoining islands, and founded a hospital for the sick whom she gathered from the streets and alleys of Rome, waiting on them in person. It was a great moment in the history of our civilization, for this was the first Christian public hospital in the West of which there is record.

In the year 395 Fabiola went to visit 8t Jerome at Bethlehem, in company with a relative named Oceanus, and stayed there with 88. Paula and Eustochium.

Jerome was on bad terms with the bishop of Jerusalem, John, on account of the

62 3

De~ember

27]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

controversy with Rufinus about the teaching of Origen, and attempts were made, even fraudulently, to enlist the sympathy and influence of Fabiola on the side of the bishop, but they failed to shake her loyalty to her teacher. Fabiola wanted to spend the rest of her days at Bethlehem, but the life of the consecrated women was not suited to her: she needed company and activity, and St Jerome remarks that her idea of the solitude of the stable of Bethlehem was that it should not be cut off from the crowded inn. A threatened incursion of the Huns finally determined her to quit Palestine. They had overrun Syria, and Jerusalem itself seemed in danger, so St Jerome retreated with his followers to the coast for a while. When the peril was past and they returned to Bethlehem, Fabiola went back to Rome.

At this time a priest named Amandus put a dubium to St Jerome: Might a woman, who by force had been made to take another man while her dissolute husband was still living, be received to the communion of the Church without doing canonical penance? This question ostensihly referred to the sister of Amandus, but is generally supposed to have been put on behalf of Fabiola as a " feeler" before taking a third partner. St Jeronle made no mention of her in his reply, but was contemptuous of the" force" alleged in the case: "If your sister wishes to receive Christ's body and not to be accounted an adulteress, she must do penance", he answered. Anyway, for the remaining three years of her life Fabiola continued her works of public and private charity, notably being associated with St Pammachius in the foundation at Porto of a large hospice for poor and sick pilgrims. It was the first of its kind and within a year of its opening " became known", says St Jerome, " from Parthia to Britain". But Fabiola continued to be restless, and was on the point of setting out on another long journey when death overtook her. The whole of Rome attended the funeral of their beloved bene足 factress. St Jerome was in touch with St Fabiola till the end, and wrote two treatises for her: one, on the priesthood of Aaron and the mystical significance of the sacerdotal vestments, he completed while her ship was being got ready to sail from Jaffa; the other, on the " stations" of the Israelites in the wilderness, was not finished till after her death. It was eventually sent to Oceanus together with an account of Fabiola's life and death, the one wandering journey being a type or image of the other.

What we know of St Fabiola is mainly from St Jerome, Epist., 77, which is printed in Migne, PL. vol. xxii, cc. 690-698. See also A. Thierry, Saint Jerome, vol. ii, and F. Cavallera, S. Jerome, sa vie et son ceuvre, vol. ii, with Leclercq in DAC., vol. vii, cc. 2274-2275; and DeB., vol. ii, pp. 442-443.

ST NICARETE,

VIRGIN

(c.

A.D.

410)

THE Roman Martyrology mentions today St Nicarete, an oldish woman of Con足 stantinople who" flourished in holines$ during the reign of the Emperor Arcadius ".

She belonged to a good family of Nicomedia and left home to live in Constantinople, where she devoted herself to good works. She is said to have successfully treated St John Chrysostom when he was ill, and he wished her to become a deaconess and supervise the unattached consecrated virgins of the city; but St Nicarete would undertake neither office. She was a steadfast upholder of the bishop against his adversaries, and in consequence suffered persecution with St Olympias and other faithful ones, and like them chose to go into exile. It is not known

62 4

SS. XHEODORE AND TI-IEC)PJ-IANES

[December 27

whither she went or when or where she died, but it \vas probably her native Nicomedia.

The church-historian Sozomen speaks of Nicarete (bk viii, ch. 3), \vho is believed to be the lady skilful in the healing art to whom ChrysostoITI refers in his fourth letter to Olympias.

There SeeITIS, however, to be no evidence of cultus even among the Greeks. See further Tillemont, .1\1hnoires, vol. xi, pp. 133-134.

SSe THJi:ODORE

AND

THEOPHANES

l"HESE brothers were natives of Kerak, across the Dead Sea, formerly the land of the Moabites, froln \vhence their parents went and settled at Jerusalem.

They both in their youth became monks in the monastery of St Sabas, and by their progress in learning and virtue acquired a high reputation. The patriarch of Jerusalem obliged Theodore to receive priestly orders, and when Leo the l\rmenian waged war against holy images sent him to exhort the emperor not to disturb the peace of the Church.

L,eo had Theodore scourged, and banished him \vith Theophanes to an island at the mouth of the Black Sea, where they suffered much from hunger and cold. But they \vere not long there before Leo died, when they returned to their monastery at Constantinople. The Emperor Theophilus, a violent iconoclast who ascended the throne in 829, caused the t\VO brothers to be whipped and banished once more. rr\VO years later they \vere brought back to Constantinople, and when they still persisted in their refusal to communicate with the iconoclasts, Theophilus com足 manded t\velve lines of iambic verse, composed for that purpose by a courtier, to be inscribed on their foreheads. T'he sense of the verses \vas as follows: "These TIlen have appeared at Jerusalem as vessels full of the iniquity of superstitious error, and were driven thence for their crirnes. Having fled to Constanti<v)ple, they forsook not their impiety. Wherefore they have been banished from thence and thus stigmatized on their faces." They were laid upon benches and the letters cut or pricked upon their skin. This barbarity took a long time and \vas interrupted by the coming on of night, so the torture \vas completed the next day. Then they \vere again banished, this time to Apamea in Bithynia, where 5t Theodore died. rTheophilus died about the same tilne, and St Methodius \vas lnade patriarch and restored holy iJ11ages in 842. 5t Theophanes \vas then honoured for his confession of the faith and made bishop of Nicaea, that he might more effectually concur in overthrowing a heresy over \vhich he had already triumphed. tIe wrote a number of hymns, including one on 8t rTheodore, and died on October I I, 845. I-Ie is distinguished by the Greeks as "the Poet", but both hrothers arc commonly surnamed " Graptoi ", that is, "the \r ritten-on ". rrhey are named together in the Roman Martyrology today.

I n thIS case \\'e haye a (;reek life of rrheodore attributed to the l\1etaphrast. It is printed in l\Tigne, P(;., Y01. cx\"i, pp. 653--684. rT'hese confessors are also spoken of by such later historians as Cedrenus and Zonaras in their account of the reign of the Emperor rT'heophilus.

Son1e Ineasure of {U!tllS seenlS to be attested by the fact that a notice of Theodore and Theo足 phanes appears in the Constantinople Synaxary (ed. Delehaye, pp. 130-131), but the day there assigned to their InelTIOry is October 1 I, though in other texts a mention occurs on Decenlber 28.

62 5

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Dece,nber 28]

28 : THE

HOLY INNOCENTS

(c.

A.V.C.

750)

EROD, called" the Great", who governed Jewry under the Romans at the time of the birth of our Lord, was an Idumaean; not a Jew of the house of David or of Aaron, but the descendant of people forcibly judaized

by John Hyrcanus and himself exalted by the favour of imperial Rome. From the moment, therefore, that he heard that there was One " born king of the Jews ", and that already wise men came from the East to worship Him, Herod was troubled for his throne. He called together the chief priests and scribes, and asked them where it was that the expected Messias should be born; and they told him, " In Bethlehem of Juda ". Then he sent for the Magi secretly, and cross-examined them about their movements and their expectations, and finally dismissed them to Bethlehem, saying, " Go and find out all about this child. And when you know where he is, come and tell me-that I too may go and worship him." But the Magi were warned in their sleep not to return to Herod, and they went back to their own country by another way. And God by an angel warned Joseph to take his wife Mary and her child Jesus and fly into Egypt, " for it will come to pass that Herod will seek the child to destroy him ". " Then Herod, perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry. And sending killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying: A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children and would not be comforted, because they were not" (Matt. ii).

Josephus says of Herod that " he was a man of great barbarity towards every足 body", and narrates a number of his crimes, crimes so shocking that the slaughter of a few young Jewish babies becomes insignificant among them, and Josephus does not mention it. The number of Herod's victims is popularly supposed to have been great: the Byzantine liturgy speaks of 14,000, the Syrian menologies 64,000, and by an accommodation of Apocalypse xiv 1-5, it has even been put at 144,000. Of the lowest of these figures Alban Butler justly remarks that it " exceeds all bounds, nor is it confirmed by any authority of weight ". Bethlehem was a small place and, even including the environs, could not at one time have had more than twenty-five boy-babies under two, at the very most; some inquirers would put the number so low as about half a dozen. There is an oft-repeated story told

by Macrobius, a heathen writer of the fifth century, that the Emperor Augustus, when he heard that among the children under two which Herod had commanded to be slain his own son had been massacred, said, " It is better to be Herod's hog (hus) than his son (huios)", alluding to the Jewish law of not eating, and conse足 quently not killing, swine. But in fact the son referred to was an adult, Antipater, put to death by order of his dying father.

The feast of these Holy Innocents (who in the East are called simply the Holy Children) has been kept in the Church since the fifth century, and she venerates them as martyrs, who died not only for Christ but actually instead of Christ: " flores martyrum ", she calls them; buds, as St Augustine says, killed by the frost of persecution the moment they showed themsel\res. Nevertheless they are not treated liturgically as ordinary martyrs. The colour of the vestments at Mass

H

626

ST THEODORE THE SANCTIFIED

[December 28

is purple and the Gloria and Alleluia are not sung but on the octave-day, and when the feast falls on a Sunday, red vestments are worn and Gloria and Alleluia sung as usual. This feast was formerly called Childermas in England, and St Bede wrote a long hymn in honour of the Innocents. They are naturally specially venerated at Bethlehem; their feast is there a holiday of obligation, and every afternoon of the year the Franciscan friars and children of the choir visit their altar under the basilica of the Nativity and sing the hymn from Lauds of the feast, " Salvete, flores martyrum ".

It may be sufficient here to note that throughout the Western church, excepting apparently in the Mozarabic ritual, the Holy Innocents from the sixth century onwards have been commemorated on this day, December 28.

In the Hieronymianum, however, the phrase used is natale sanctorum infantium et lactantium (the birthday of the holy babes and sucklings), and the still earlier calendar of Carthage also speaks of infantes, not innocentes. On the other hand, in certain sermons of St Augustine where" the octave day of the infants)) is mentioned, the context makes it plain that he is not thinking of the children of Bethlehem, but of those who were" infants)) because they were recently baptized. See CMH., p. 13 ; Duchesne, Christian Worship, p. 268; and Kneller in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, vol. lxvii (1904), pp. 53 8-55 6 .

ST THEODORE THE SANCTIFIED,

ABBOT

(A.D. 368)

SUCH was the glory which the Church received in the fourth and fifth centuries from the light of the monastic order which then shone in the deserts of Egypt that Theodoret and Procopius apply to the state of these holy recluses those passages of the prophets in which it is said of the age of the new law of grace that, " The wilderness shall rejoice and shall flourish like the lily; it shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise" (Isaias xxxv I, 2, etc.). One of the most eminent among these saints was the abbot Theodore, disciple of St Pachomius. He was born in the Upper Thebaid about the year 314, of wealthy parents, and when he was between eleven and twelve years of age, on the feast of the Epiphany, he gave himself to God \"ith precocious fervour, determining that he would never prefer anything to the divine love and service. Eventually the reputation of St Pachomius drew him to Tabenna, where he appeared among the foremost in promise of his followers, and Pachomius made him his companion when he made the visitation of his monasteries. Pachomius had him promoted to the priesthood and committed to him the government of Tabenna, shutting himself up in the little monastery of Pabau.

St Pachomius died in 346, and Petronius, whom he had declared his successor, died thirteen days after him. St Orsisius was then chosen abbot, but finding the burden too heavy for his shoulders and the group of monasteries threatened with rising factions, he placed St Theodore in charge. He assembled the monks, exhorted them to unanimity, inquired into the cause of the divisions and applied effectual remedies. By his prayers and endeavours union and charity was restored.

St Theodore visited the monasteries one after the other, and instructed, comforted and encouraged every monk in particular, correcting faults with a sweetness which gained the heart. He wrought several miracles, and foretold things to come.

Being one day in a boat on the Nile with St Athanasius, ,he assured him that his persecutor, Julian the Apostate, was that moment dead in Persia and that his successor would restore peace to him and the Church: both of which were soon confirmed. One of St Theodore's miracles provides an early example of the use of blessed water as a sacramental for the healing of body and soul. The story is

62 7

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 28]

told by a contemporary-St Ammon. A man came to the monastery at Tabenna, asking St Theodore to come and pray over his daughter, who was sick. Theodore was not able to go, but reminded the man that God could hear his prayers路wherever they were offered. To which the man replied that he had not a great faith, and brought a silver vessel of water, asking the monk that he would at least invoke the name of God upon that so it might be as a medicine for her. Then Theodore prayed and made the sign of the cross over the water, and the man took it home.

He found his daughter unconscious, so he forced open her mouth and poured some of it down her throat. And by virtue of the prayer of St Theodore the girl was saved and recovered her health.

I t is related that once while St Theodore was giving a conference to his monks, who were working at the same time making mats, two vipers crawled about his feet from under a stone. So as not to interrupt himself or disturb his audience he set his foot upon them till he had finished his discourse. Then taking away his foot he let them be killed, having received no harm. One of his monks happening to die on Holy Saturday in 368, Theodore went to assist him in his last moments, and said to those that were present, " This death will shortly be followed by another which is little expected". At the close of the week St Theodore made a customary discourse to his monks, for it was their custom to meet all together in the monastery of Pabau for the celebration of Easter, and had no sooner dismissed them to their own monasteries than he was taken ill, and died peacefully on April 27. His body was carried to the top of the mountain, and buried in the cemetery of the monks there, but it was soon removed and laid with that of St Pachomius. St Athanasius wrote to the monks of Tabenna to comfort thepl for the loss of their abbot, and bids them have before their eyes the glory of which he was then possessed.

Such information as was available in the seventeenth century concerning the history of St Theodore will be found collected in the account of St Pachomius which was published in the Acta Sanctorum, May, vol. iii. A number of new texts have come to light, mostly in Coptic, or in translations from Coptic sources: see the bibliography given herein under St Pachomius (May 9). But for the life of St Theodore the Epistola Ammonis is especially important: it is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, May, vol. iii, pp. 63-71. For English readers nluch may be learnt from H. G. Evelyn White, The Mo'nasteries of the Wadi n'Natrun, pt ii, but heed must be paid also to the criticisms published thereon by P. Peeters in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. Ii (1933), pp. 152-157. The Greeks commemorate this saint in May, and the Roman Martyrology formerly on December 28, but in the latest editions he is named on the date of his death, April 27.

ST ANTONY OF LERINS

(c.

A.D.

520)

HE was born at Valeria in Lower Pannonia during the time of the barbarian in颅 vasions, and his father dying when he was eight years old he was entrusted to the care of St Severinus, the intrepid apostle of Noricum. Antony probably lived with him in the monastery he had founded at Faviana, and as a boy saw Odoacer go by on his triumphant march to Rome. Severinus died about 482 and Antony was then taken charge of by his uncle Constantius, Bishop of Lorch in Bavaria.

He became a monk, and withdrew from Noricum into Italy with the other Romans in 488. He was then about twenty. He made his way to the neighbourhood of Lake Como, and there attached himself to a priest named Marius, who directed a number of disciples there. Marius conceived a great admiration for Antony and wa.nted him to be ordained priest and share in his work; but Antony's vocation was for the solitary life and, leaving Marius, he joined two hermits near the tomb 628

[December 29

ST THOMAS BECKET

of St Felix at the other end of the lake. Here he lived in a cave, spending his time in prayer, study and cultivating his garden, but he was distracted by frequent visitors. A murderer, hiding from justice, simulated devotion and attached himself to Antony as a disciple, but the saint" read his soul", exposed his impos足 ture, and the man fled. Antony had to go also, for this incident made him better known than ever. At last, despairing of finding complete solitude and fearing the respect he received would make him vain, he passed over the Alps into southern Gaul and became a monk at Lerins. St Antony died there revered for his virtues and miracles. His life was written by St Ennodius of Pavia.

Little is known to us of this Antony beyond what Ennodius has recorded in the life referred to. It has been edited in the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, vol. vi, pp. 383-393 ; in MGH., Auctores antiquissimi, vol. vii, pp. 185-19属; and in Migne, PL., vol. lxiii, cc. 239-246. See also DHG., vol. iii, c. 739.

29 : ST

THOMAS BECKET, (A.D. 1170)

ARCHBISHOP

OF

CANTERBURY,

MARTYR

HERE is a well-known story that the mother of St Thomas Becket was a Saracen princess who followed his father, a pilgrim or crusader, from the Holy Land and wandered about Europe uttering her sole words of English, " London" and" Becket". till she found him; whereupon she became a Christian and married him. There is no foundation in fact for this legend. Several con足 temporaries speak of the saint's parentage. FitzStephen, a cleric in his household, says, "His father was Gilbert, sheriff of London, and his mother's name was Matilda. Both were citizens of burgess stock, who neither made money by usury nor followed any trade, but lived respectably on their income."* Others say that her name was Rohesia; she was a Norman like her husband. Their son was born on St Thomas's day I I 18, in the city, and he was sent to school with the canons regular at Merton in Surrey. When he was twenty-one he lost his mother, and soon after his father. Gilbert's means had been seriously diminished, and Thomas " went into the office" of a relative in I-Jondon, one Osbert Eightpence (Huit足 deniers). He was also employed by Richer de l'Aigle, who used to take him out hawking and hunting and encouraged in Thomas the love of field-sports that never left him. One day when he was in pursuit of gaIne his hawk made a stoop at a duck and dived after it into a river. Thomas, fearing to lose his hawk, leaped into the water and the rapid stream carried him down to a mill, where he was saved only by the sudden stopping of the wheel, which appeared miraculous. This incident is characteristic of Thomas's impetuosity, rather than a cause of his "taking life more seriously".t When he was about twenty-four he obtained a post in the household of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury. He received minor orders and was greatly favoured by Theobald, who saw to it that Thomas was provided with a number of benefices, from Beverley to Shoreham. In I I 54 he was ordained deacon and the archbishop nominated him archdeacon of Canterbury,

T

* Typical examples, no doubt, of those worthy folk of whom FitzStephen himself speaks: " The citizens of London are notable before all other citizens in civility of manners, attire, table and talk. The matrons of this city are perfect Sabines." t It is traditionally located at a place called Wade's Mill in Hertfordshire, on the Rib between -Ware and St Edmund's College, a spot better known for its association with another Thomas, viz. Clarkson, the slavery abolitionist.

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which was then the first ecclesiastical dignity in England after the bishoprics and abbacies. Theobald committed to him the management of delicate affairs, seldom did anything without his advice, and sent him several times to Rome on important missions; nor had he ever reason to repent of the choice he had made or of the confidence he reposed in Thomas of London, as he was commonly called.

In the Norse Thomas Saga E'rkibyskups the brilliant young ecclesiastic is described as, "slim of growth and pale of hue, with dark hair, a long nose and straightly-featured face. Blithe of countenance was he, winning and loveable in his conversation, frank of speech but slightly stuttering in his talk, so keen of discernment and understanding that he could always make difficult questions plain after a wise manner." It is such men that monarchs like to have around them.

Moreover, it was the diplomacy of Thomas of London that had obtained from the pope, Bd Eugenius III, discouragement of the succession to the throne of Stephen's son Eustace, thus making the crown secure to Henry of Anjou. Accordingly we find him in I 155, at the age of thirty-six, appointed chancellor by King Henry II. " Thomas now", says his secretary, Herbert of Bosham, " as it were laid aside the archdeacon and took on the duties of chancellor, which he discharged with en足 thusiasm and ability", and his talents had full scope, for the importance of the chancellor was equalled only by that of the justiciar. As a later chancellor and martyr named Thomas was the personal friend as well as the servant of his sover足 eign, Henry VIII, so Becket was a friend of Henry II-but with a yet greater degree of intimacy. It was said that they had but one heart and one mind, and this being so it can hardly be questioned that to Becket's influence were partly due those reforms for which Henry is justly praised, e.g. his measures to secure justice and equitable dealing by a more uniform system of law. But their friendship was not confined to a common interest in affairs of state, and their personal relations at times of relaxation have been aptly described as " frolicsome".

One of the outstanding virtues of Thomas the Chancellor was unquestionably magnificence-but it is to be feared that he erred by excess of it. His household compared with that of the king, and when he was sent into France to negotiate a royal marriage his personal retinue numbered two hundred men; there were several hundred more, knights and esquires, clerics and servants, in the column, eight wagon-loads of presents, music and singers, hawks and hounds, monkeys and mastiffs. * The French gaped and asked, " If this is the chancellor's state, what can the king's be like?" His entertainments were on a correspondingly generous scale, and his liberality to the poor proportionate. In I I 59 Henry raised an army of mercenaries in France to recover his wife's county of Toulouse. In the resulting war Becket served, followed by seven hundred of his own knights, and showed himself not only a good general, but a good fighting-man as well.

Clad in armour he led assaults and even, cleric though he was, engaged in hand-to足 hand encounters. It is not surprising that the prior of Leicester, meeting him at Rouen, exclaimed, " What do you mean by dressing like that? You look more like a falconer than a cleric. Yet you are a cleric in person, and many times over in office: archdeacon of Canterbury, dean of Hastings, provost of Beverley, canon of this church and that, procurator of the archbishopric-and likely to be arch足 bishop too, the rumour goes!" Thomas took the reproach in good part, and said

* Two wagons, FitzStephen tells us, were laden with beer in iron-bound casks, to be given to the French, " who like that kind of drink; for it is wholesome, clear, wine-coloured and of a better taste."

ST THOMAS BECKET

[December 29

he knew three poor priests in England anyone of whom he would rather see arch­ bishop than himself, for he would inevitably have to choose between the royal favour and God's. Though immersion in public affairs and a secular grandeur of state was the predominating aspect of Becket's life as chancellor, it was not the only one. He was proud, irascible, violent and remained so all his life; but we also hear of " retreats" at Merton, of taking the discipline and of prayer in the nightwatches; and his confessor during the first part of his career testified to the blamelessness of his private life under conditions of extreme danger and temptation.

And if he sometimes co-operated too far in schemes of his royal master that infringed the rights of the Church, he was not afraid to withstand him in such matters as the marriage of the abbess of Romsey.

Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, died in 1161. King Henry was then in Normandy with his chancellor, whom he had resolved to raise to that dignity.

Thomas flatly told the king, " Should God permit me to be archbishop of Canter­ bury I should soon lose your Majesty's favour, and the affection with which you honour me would be changed into hatred. For several things you do in prejudice of the rights of the Church make me fear you would require of me what I could not agree to; and envious persons would not fail to make this the occasion of endless strife between us." The king paid no regard to his remonstrance; and Thomas refused to acquiesce in accepting the dignity till Cardinal Henry of Pisa, legate from the Holy See, overruled his scruples. The election was made in May 1162 ; Prince Henry, then in London, gave his consent in his father's name; and Becket set out immediately from London to Canterbury. On the road he gave private charge to several clergy of his church to warn him of the faults which they should observe in his conduct, "for four eyes see more clearly than two". On Saturday in Whit-week he was ordained priest by Walter, bishop of Rochester, and on the octave of Pentecost was consecrated by Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester.· Soon after he received the pallium from Pope Alexander III, and by the end of the year there was a notable change in his manner of life. Next his skin he wore a hair-shirt, and his ordinary dress was a black cassock and linen surplice, with the sacerdotal stole about his neck. By the rule of life which he laid down for himself he rose early to read the Holy Scriptures, keeping Herbert of Bosham by him that they might discuss the meaning of passages together. At nine o'clock he sang Mass, or was present when he did not celebrate himself. At ten a daily alms was distributed, and he doubled all the ordinary alms of his predecessor. He took a siesta in the afternoon, and dined at three o'clock among the guests and household in the great hall, and, instead of music, a book was read. He kept a notably good table, decently served for the sake of others, but was himself now very temperate and moderate. He visited the infirmary and the monks working in the cloister nearly every day, and sought to establish a certain monastic regularity in his own household. He took an especial care for the selection of candidates for holy orders, examining them personally, and in his judicial capacity exerted a rigorously even-handed justice: "the letters and requests of the king himself were of no use to a man who had not right on his side".

Although the archbishop had resigned the chancellorship contrary to the wish

* St Thomas decreed that this anniversary should be observed throughout his province as a feast of the Most Holy Trinity, over a hundred and fifty years before the feast was made general in the West.

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of the king, the relations bet\vecn them remained for some time pretty much as before. I n spite of SOlne differences l-Ienry still sho\ved him great marks of favour and seemed still to love him as he had done from their first acquaintance. 'The first serious sign of displeasure happened at vVoodstock, \vhen the king \vas holding his court there. It ",'as custoIDary to pay two shillings a year upon every hide of land to the sheriffs of the counties, \vho in return protected the contributors against the rapacity of minor officials (it apparently \vas " graft" of the \vorst kind). This sum the king ordered to be paid into his exchequer. rrhe archbishop renlonstrated that it \vas a yoluntary payment \vhich could not be exacted as a revenue of the cro\vn, adding, " If the sheriffs, their sergeants and officers defend the people, we shall pay; other\\'ise, not". ~rhe king replied v;ith an oath, " By God's eyes, this shall be paid! " "By the reverence of those eyes, my lord king", ans\vered '"fhomas, " not a penny shall be paid froln my lands." Henry said no more at that time, but his resentment v;as roused. 'T'hen came the affair of Philip de Brois, a canon \\'ho \\Tas accused of murder. According to the law of those times he \vas tried in the ecclesiastical court, and ",'as acquitted by the bishop of I.jincoln; but a king's justice-in-eyre, Simon Fitzpeter, then tried to bring him before his o\vn court; Philip refused to plead, and addressed Fitzpeter in insulting terms. '"There足 upon }-Ienry ordered him to be tried both for the former murder and the later rnisdemeanour. l'homas pressed for the case to come before his o\vn court, and the king reluctantly agreed. Philip's plea of previous acquittal \vas accepted for the ITlurder, but for the contempt of court he was sentenced to be flogged and suspended for a time frOID his benefice. '"fhe king thought the sentence too mild, and said to the assessors, " By God's eyes, you shall swear that you did not spare him because he was a cleric". '"fhey offered to S\\Tear it; but Henry \vas not satisfied. ~L\ccumulation of conflicts of these kinds provoked him in October 1163 to call the bishops to a council at \Vestminster, at \vhich he demanded the handing oyer of criminal clergy to the civil po\ver for punishment. '"The bishops \vavered, but 8t T'homas stiffened them. l'hen Henry required a promise of observance of his (unspecified) royal customs. St '"fhomas and the council agreed, but" saving their order". So far as the king's object was concerned this ",'as equivalent to a refusal, and the next day he ordered '"fhomas to give up certain castles and honours which he had held since he was chancellor. In a stormy intervie\v at ~ orthampton the king in vain tried to make his old friend modify his attitude, and the trouble came to a head at the Council of Clarendon, near Salisbury, at the beginning of 1164.

For a brief space 8t '"fhomas, having received little encouragement from Pope Alexander III, was very conciliatory and promised to accept the customs; but when he sa\v the constitutions in \vhich were expressed the royal customs which he was to uphold, he exclaimed, " By the l.lord Almighty, no seal of mine shall be put to them ! " '"fhey provided inter alia that no prelate should leave the kingdom without the royal licence or appeal to Rome without the king's consent; no tenant足 in-chief \vas to be excoInmunicated against the royal \vill (this had been claimed from the time of \Villiam I, but \\'as a clear infringement of spiritual jurisdiction) ; the custody of vacant benefices and their revenues \vas to be held by the king (this abuse had been recognized during the reign of Henry I); and--\vhat proved to be the critical point-that clerics convicted and sentenced in ecclesiastical courts should be at the disposition of the royal officers (involving a possibility of double punishment).

[December 29

ST THOMAS BECKET

The archbishop was bitterly remorseful for having weakened in his opposition to the king and setting an example which the other bishops were too ready to follow. "I am a proud, vain man, a feeder of birds and follower of hounds ", he said, " and I have been made a shepherd of sheep. I am fit only to be cast out of the see which I fill." For forty days and more, while awaiting absolution and permission from the pope, he would not celebrate Mass. He tried assiduously to heal the breach, but Henry now pursued him with persecution which culminated in a suit for 30,000 marks alleged to be owing from the time when he was chancellor (although he had received a clear discharge on becoming archbishop). At Wood足 stock the king refused him audience, and Thomas twice made vain attempts to cross the Channel to put his case before the pope. Then Henry summoned a council at Northampton. It resolved itself into a concerted attack on the archbishop, in which the prelates followed in the wake of the lords. First he was condemned to a fine for contempt in not appearing at a case in the king's court when summoned; then various monetary causes were brought against him, and finally the demand to produce certain chancery-accounts. Bishop Henry of Winchester pleaded the chancellor's discharge; it was disallowed. Then he offered an ex gratia payment of 2000 marks of his own money; it was refused. On Tuesday, October 13, 116 4, St Thomas celebrated a votive Mass of St Stephen the Protomartyr.

Then, without mitre or pallium, but bearing his metropolitan's cross in his own hand, he went to the council-hall. The king and the barons were deliberating in an inner room. After a long delay the Earl of Leicester came out and addressed the archbishop. "The king commands you to render your accounts. Otherwise you must hear judgement." "J udgement ? " exclaimed St Thomas, " I was given the church of Canterbury free from temporal obligations. I am therefore not liable and will not plead concerning them." As Leicester turned to report this to the king, Thomas stopped him. "Son and earl, listen: You are bound to obey God and me before your earthly king. Neither law nor reason allows children to judge their father and condemn him. Wherefore I refuse the king's judgement and yours and everybody's; under God, I will be judged by the pope alone. You, my fellow bishops, who have served man rather than God, I summon to the presence of tpe pope. And so, guarded by the authority of the Catholic Church and the Holy See, I go hence." Cries of " Traitor! " followed him as he left the hall. That night St Thomas fled from Northampton* through the rain, and three weeks later secretly embarked at Sandwich.

St Thomas and his few followers landed in Flanders and, arriving at the abbey of St Bertin at Saint-Omer, sent deputies to Louis VII, King of France, who received them graciously and invited the archbishop into his dominions. The pope, Alexander III, was then at Sense The bishops and others from King Henry arrived there and accused St Thomas before him, t but left again before the arch足 bishop reached the city. Thomas showed the pope the sixteen Constitutions of Clarendon, of which some were pronounced intolerable, and he was rebuked for ever having considered their acceptance. On the day following he confessed that he had received the see of Canterbury, though against his will, yet by an election

* St Thomas of Canterbury is a principal patron of the present diocese and cathedral of Northampton. t Hi~ chief clerical enemy, Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London, began to harangue with great vehemence. The pope interrupted him: "Spare, brother." "Shall I spare him, my lord? " asked Gilbert. "Brother, I did no~ say spare him, but spare yourself."

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perhaps uncanonical, and that he had acquitted himself ill in it. Wherefore he resigned his dignity into the hands of his Holiness and, taking the ring off his finger, delivered it to him and withdrew. The pope called him again and rein足 stated him in his dignity, with an order not to abandon it for that would be visibly to abandon the cause of God. Then Alexander recommended the exiled prelate to the abbot of Pontigny, to be entertained by him.

St Thomas regarded this monastery of the Cistercian Order as a religious retreat and school of penance for the expiation of his sins; he submitted himself to the rules of the house and was unwilling to allow any distinction in his favour.

His time he passed in study, but also in writing both to his supporters and oppon足 ents letters which were increasingly unlikely to help on a peaceful settlement.

King Henry meanwhile confiscated the goods of all the friends, relations and domestics of Thomas, banished them, and obliged all who were adults to go to the archbishop that the sight of their distress might move him. These exiles arrived in troops at Pontigny. When the general chapter of the Cistercians met at Citeaux it received an intimation from the King of England that if they continued to harbour his enemy he would sequestrate their houses throughout his dominions.

The abbot of Citeaux can hardly be blamed for hinting to St Thomas that he should leave Pontigny, which he did, and was received at the abbey of St Columba, near Sens, as the guest of King Louis. Negotiations between the pope, the archbishop, and the king dragged on for nearly six years. St Thomas was named legate a latere for all England except York, excommunicated several of his adversaries, and was menacing as well as conciliatory, so that Pope Alexander saw fit to annul some of his sentences. King Louis of France was drawn into the struggle. In January 1169 the two kings had a conference with the archbishop at Montmirail, whereat Thomas refused to yield on two points; a similar conference in the autumn at Montmartre failed through Henry's last-minute intransigence. St Thomas prepared letters for the bishops ordering the publication of a sentence of interdict on the kingdom of England; and then suddenly, in July 1170, king and archbishop met again in Normandy and a reconciliation was at last patched up, apparently without any overt reference to the matters in dispute.

On December 1 St Thomas landed at Sandwich, and though the sheriff of Kent had tried to impede him the short journey from there to Canterbury was a triumphal progress: the way was lined with cheering people and every bell of the primatial city was tinging. But it was not peace. * Those in authority \vere glowering, and Thomas was faced with the task of dealing with Roger de Pont-l'Eveque, archbishop of York, and the bishops who had assisted him at the coronation of Henry's son, in defiance of the right of Canterbury and perhaps of the instructions of the pope. St Thomas had sent in advance the letters of suspension of Roger and others and of excommunication of the bishops of London and Salisbury, and the three bishops together had gone over to appeal to King Henry in France; while in Kent Thomas was being subjected to insult and annoyance at the hands of Ranulf de Broc, from whom the archbishop had recently (and rather tactlessly at such a time) again demanded the restoration of Saltwood castle, a manor belonging to the see. After a week at Canterbury St Thomas visited London, where he was joyfully received, except by Henry's son, " the young King", who refused to see

* In the previous March St Godric had sent St Thomas a message foretelling that he would return to England and die soon after. His farewell words to the bishop of Paris were, " I am going to England to die ".

ST THOMAS BECKET

[December 29

him; after visiting several friends he arrived back in Canterbury on or about his fifty-second birthday. Meanwhile the three bishops had laid their complaints before the king at Bur, near Bayeux, and somebody declared aloud that there would be no peace for the realm while Becket lived. And Henry, in one of his fits of ungovernable rage, pronounced the fatal words which were interpreted by some of his hearers as a rebuke for allowing this pestilent clerk to continue to live and disturb him. At once four knights set off for England, where they made their way to the infuriated Brocs at Saltwood. Their names were Reginald Fitzurse, William de Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Richard Ie Breton.

On St John's day the archbishop received a letter warning him of his danger, and all south-east Kent was in a state of suppressed ferment and ominous expecta足 tion. In the afternoon of December 29* the knights from France came to him.

There was an interview, in which several demands were made, particularly that St Thomas should remove the censures on the three bishops; it began quietly and ended angrily, the knights departing with threats and oaths. A few minutes later, shouting, breaking of doors and clangour of arms was heard, and St Thomas, urged and hustled by his attendants, began to move slowly towards the church, his cross carried before him. Vespers was being sung, and at the door of the north transept he was met by a crowd of terrified monks. "Get back to choir ! " he exclaimed, " I will not come in all the time you are standing there." They drew back a little, and as he entered the church armed men were seen behind in the dim light of the cloister (it was nearly dark). Monks slammed the door and bolted it, shutting out some of their brethren in the confusion. These beat loudly at the door. Becket turned round. "Away, you cowards! " he cried, " a church is not a castle", and re-opened the door himself. Then he went up the steps towards the choir. Only three were left with him, Robert, prior of Merton, William FitzStephen, and Edward Grim;t the rest had fled to the crypt and elsewhere, and soon Grim alone remained. The knights, who had been joined by a subdeacon named Hugh of Horsea, ran in, shouting, "Where is Thomas the traitor?" "Where is the archbishop ? " " Here I am ", he replied, "no traitor, but archbishop and priest of God", and came back down the steps, standing between the altars of our Lady and St Benedict.

They shouted at him to absolve the bishops. "I cannot do other than I have done ", he answered. "Reginald! you have received many favours from me.

Why do you come into my church armed?" Fitzurse's reply was to threaten him with an ~'1{e. "I am ready to die ", said St Thomas, " but God's curse be on you if you harm my people." Fitzurse seized his cloak and pulled him towards the door. Becket snatched himself clear. Then they tried to carry him outside bodily, and he threw one of them to the ground. Fitzurse flung away his axe and drew his sword. " You pander! " exclaimed the archbishop, " you owe me fealty and submission!" "lowe no fealty contrary to the king", Fitzurse shouted back. "Strike!" And he knocked off his cap. St Thomas covered his face and called aloud on God and his saints. Tracy struck a blow, which Grim intercepted

* It was a Tuesday. Becket was born and baptized on a Tuesday; his flight from Northampton, his leaving England, a vision of martYrdom he had at Pontigny, his return from exile, his death, all took place on Tuesday. Henry II was buried and the martyr's relics were translated on Tuesdays. t Respectively, his aged adviser and confessor, a cleric of his household, and an English monk.

TIlE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 29]

with his own arm, but it grazed Thomas's head and blood ran down into his eyes. He wiped it away, and when he saw the crimson stain cried, "Into thy hands, 0 Lord, I commend my spirit!" Another blow from Tracy beat him to his knees, and murmuring, " For the name of Jesus and in defence of the Church I am willing to die", he pitched forward on to his face. Le Breton with a tre足 mendous stroke severed his scalp, breaking his sword against the pavement, and Hugh of Horsea scattered the brains out of the skull with his sword-point. Hugh de Morville alone struck no blow. Then, shouting "The king's men! The king's men! " the murderers dashed away through the cloisters-the whole thing was over in ten minutes-while the great church filled with people and a thunder足 storm broke overhead. The archbishop's body lay alone, stretched in the middle of the transept, and for long no one dared to touch or even go near it.

Even after making full allowance for the universal horror which such a deed of sacrilege-the murder of a metropolitan in his own cathedral-was bound to excite in the twelfth century, the indignation and excitement which soon spread throughout Europe and the spontaneous canonization of Thomas Becket by the common voice testify to the fact that the inner significance of his death was realized on all hands: that a necessary vindication had been made of the rights of the Church against an aggressive state and that the archbishop of Canterbury, in some ways an unsympathetic character, whose methods were not beyond reasonable criticism,:If: was a martyr and worthy to be venerated as a saint. T'he discovery of his hair-shirt and other evidences of an austere private life, and the miracles which from the very first were reported in large nuinbers at his tomb, added fuel to this fire of devotion. It is very doubtful how far Henry II can be held directly and deliberately responsible for the murder; but the public conscience could not be satisfied by anything less than that the most powerful sovereign in Europe should undergo a public penance of a most humiliating kind. rrhis he did in July, 1174,t eighteen months after the solemn canonization of St Thomas as a martyr by Pope Alexander at Segni.! On July 7, 1220, the body of St rfhomas was solemnly * Even in the moment of his death Grim overheard a monk declare that it was the deserved penalty for his obstinacy, and at the University of Paris and elsewhere could be found some who maintained that it was a just execution of one who " wished to be more than king". t When news of the murder was brought to him he shut hinlself up lamenting, and fasted alone for forty days. He narrowly escaped an interdict, which, indeed, his French dominions were put under for a short time. His first penance, when he received absolution from the papal legates, was at Avranches in May I 172. A pillar still marks the spot, at the site of the old cathedral. t In his interesting and valuable Historical Memorials of Canterbury Dean Stanley discusses the subsequent careers of the murderers. In reference to the legend that three of them went to Palestine, died there, and were buried in Jerusalem " ante ostium templi ", he adds a footnote: "The front of the church of the Holy Sepulchre is, and always must have been, a square of public resort to all the pilgrims of the world, where no tombs either of n1urderer or saint could ever have been placed. T'he church of the Templars was the Mosque of the Rock, and the front was the sacred platform of the sanctuary-a less impossible place, but still very improbable. Nothing of the kind now exists on either spot." The learned dean was here mistaken on both points. In the square before the Holy Sepulchre church there is the tomb of an Anglo-Norman knight, one Philip d'Aubigny-not one of Becket's murderers. On the south side of the platform of the Dome of the Rock is the mosque called al-Aksa, formerly a church. Herein, some thirty years ago, the present writer wa~ shown by the imam the place where tradition says the three knights were buried.

It was then covered with nlatting, but I was assured there was no trace of the inscription which Roger Hoveden mentions. But the place is also called the tomb of the sons of Aaron.

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tt;anslated from its tomb in the crypt to a shrine behind the high altar by the archbishop, Cardinal Stephen Langton, in the presence of King Henry III, Cardinal Pandulf, the papal legate, the archbishop of Rheims, and a vast gathering. From that day until September 1538 the shrine of St rrhomas was one of the half-dozen most favoured places of pilgrimage in Christendom, famous as a spiritual sanctuary, for its material beauty and for its wealth. No authentic record of its destruction and spoliation by Henry VIII remaihs; even the fate of the relics is a matter of uncertainty, though they were probably destroyed at that time when his memory was, naturally enough, particularly execrated by the king (but that he held a form of trial at which " Thomas, sometime archbishop of Canterbury", was convicted of treason and his bodily remains ordered to be publicly burnt, is almost certainly apocryphal). The feast of St Thomas of Canterbury is kept throughout the Western church, and in England he is venerated as protector of the secular clergy; the city of Portsmouth has the privilege of observing as well the anniversary of the translation.

There is probably no other medieval saint of whom so many biographies were written by contemporaries as St Thomas of Canterbury. A list of the Latin lives will be found in BHL., nn. 8170-8248, and all the more important of these, together with the collections of miracles, have been printed in the seven volumes of Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, edited for the Rolls Series by Canon J. C. Robertson and Dr J. B. Sheppard. Further, there are several lives in French or Anglo-Norman, of which the most noteworthy is that

by Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, as well as others in Icelandic, more particularly one which seems to have used contemporary materials now no longer in existence. This was edited for the Rolls Series by E. Magnusson, under the title, Thomas Saga Erkibyskups.

Of some of the lives the authorship is known, as, for example, that by William FitzStephen and that by John of Salisbury, but there are others in which identification of the writer is not so easy. A discussion of this problem and of that of the priority or interdependence of these biographical materials would be out of place here. The critics who have undertaken the task, such as Louis Halphen (in the Revue Historique, vol. cii, 1909, pp. 35-45), and E. Walberg (La Tradition historique de St Thomas Becket avant la fin du XIIe siecle, 1929) are by no means in agreement. See on this the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xl (1922), pp.

432-436, and vol. xli, pp. 454-456. The Life of St Thomas Becket by John Morris (1885), still retains its value, and that of L'Huillier, St Thomas de Cantorbery (2 vols., 1891), is also full and fairly reliable; the shorter sketch by M. Demimuid in the series" Les Saints" is not so satisfactory, but that of Robert Speaight (1938) may be recommended. For the history of the conflict between Thomas and Henry, see D. Knowles, The Episcopal Colleagues of . . . Becket (1951); and see the same writer's Raleigh lecture, Archbishop Thomas Becket (1949); and R. Foreville, L'Eglise et la royaute en Angleterre sous Henri II (1943).

Several Anglican contributions to the subject may also be recommended as making faithful and on the whole sympathetic use of the historical materials. For example, the essay of Professor Tout, The Place of St Thomas of Canterbury in History (1921), is an excellent publication of the Rylands Library, Manchester. The same may be said of the pages referring to the martyr in Z. N. Brooke's The English Church and the Papacy (1931), as also of W. H. Hutton's Thomas Becket (1926), and of Miss Norgate's article in the DNB. On the other hand, The Development of the Legend of 1'homas Becket (1930), by P. A. Brown, and E. A. Abbott's St Thomas, his Death and Miracles (1898) are notably censorious and rationalistic. The contention supported by'Canon A. J. Mason (in his book, What became of the Bones of St Thomas?, 1920), that a skeleton brought to light in the crypt of Canterbury cathedral in 1888 was that of the martyr, has been answered by Fathers Morris and Pollen (see The Month, March 1888, January 1908, and May 1920), and this negative conclusion is supported by such Anglican authorities as Dean Hutton and Professor Tout. l\ surprising feature regarding the martyrdom is the rapidity and world-wide range of the cultus which followed. Barely ten years later we find St Thomas depicted in the mosaics of the cathedral of Monreale in Sicily, and at the end of little more than a century he is inscribed on December 29 in an Armenian synaxary. For the pictorial representations of St Thomas of Canterbury, see especially the monograph of Tancred Borenius, St Thomas Becket in Art (1932).

637

December 29]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

ST TROPHIMUS, BISHOP OF ARLES

(THIRD CENTURY?)

AMONG those who accompanied St Paul on his third missionary journey was a Gentile from Ephesus called Trophimus, the same whose presence with him later in Jerusalem was the occasion of the uproar against the Apostle. He" hath brought in Gentiles into the Temple and hath violated this holy place! For they had seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the Temple." He is mentioned again in the second epistle to Timothy as ·having been left at Malta, sick.

When Pope St Zosimus wrote to the bishops of Gaul in 417, he refers to the Holy See having sent a Trophimus into Gaul, whose preaching at ArIes was the source from which the waters of the faith spread over all the land. One hundred and fifty years later St Gregory of Tours says that St Trophimus of ArIes, its first bishop, was one of the six bishops who came from Rome with St Dionysius of Paris in the middle of the third century. Nothing at all is known of Trophimus of ArIes except the statement of Pope Zosimus, but he came to be identified with his namesake of Ephesus.

There is of course nothing in the nature of a life, though St Trophirrlus, in view of the dedication of the cathedral of Arles, the words of Pope Zosimus, and other references, must be accounted an authentic historical personage. The statement that he was identical with the Trophimus mentioned by St Paul in 2 Tim. iv 20, is a characteristically wild invention of the martyrologist Ado. See Quentin, Martyrologes historiques, pp. 303 and 6°3; Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. i, pp. 253-254; and DeB., vol. iv, p. 1055.

ST MARCELLUS AKIMETES, ABBOT

(c.

A.D.

485)

THE Akoimetoi differed from other Eastern monks only by this particular rule, that the monastery was divided into several choirs which, succeeding one another, continued the Divine Office day and night without interruption; whence was derived their name of the " not-resters". This institution was set on foot by a Syrian, St Alexander, who founded a monastery at Gomon on the Black Sea. His successor John removed his community to a monastery which he built at the Eirenaion, a pleasant place on the opposite shore of the Bosphorus to Constantinople.

St Marcellus, who was chosen third abbot of this house, raised its reputation to the highest pitch, and he was himself the most distinguished of the Akoimetoi monks.

He was born at Apamea in Syria, and by the death of his parents was left master of a large fortune. He conceived a distaste for secular pursuits and, repairing to Antioch, made sacred studies his whole employment. He then went to Ephesus, and there put himself under the direction of certain men of God, and what time was not spent in prayer he employed in copying books. Soon the reputation of the austerity and solitude of the Akoimetoi drew him thither, and he made such progress that John, when he was chosen abbot, compelled him to be his assistant; and upon his death Marcellus was elected in his place.

When the opposition of the Emperor Theodosius II and some of the ecclesias­ tical authorities had died down, the monastery flourished exceedingly under his prudent and saintly administration; and when he was at a loss how sufficiently to enlarge his buildings, he was abundantly supplied with means by a rich man, who took the habit with all his sons on the same day. St Marcellus himself when he became .a monk had insisted on giving away every penny he had left; he was most insistent on the observance of poverty and would allow no hoarding or investment

63 8

ST EBRULF, OR EVROULT

[December 29

of any sort: he thought a ten-days' supply of food in hand too much. The Akoimetoi had been hitherto rather contemptuous of manual work, and this also he insisted that they should all undertake, whether they liked it or not. The community numbered three hundred members, and from all parts of the East applications wet"e made to St Marcellus for individual monks to be made abbots, or groups to form nuclei of new establishments. The most famous of these was the monastery in Constantinople founded with some Akoimetoi by the ex-consul Studius in 463.

Apostolic work that could be conducted from their monastery was included in the activities of these monks, and St Marcellus was an outstanding figure in all contemporary movements against heresy at Constantinople; he was one of the twenty-three archimandrites who signed the condemnation of Eutyches in the synod held by St Flavian in 448, and he assisted at the Council of Chalcedon.

When the Emperor Leo I proposed to raise the Goth consul Patricius to the dignity of caesar, Marcellus protested against such power being given to an Arian, and correctly foretold the approaching ruin of the family of Patricius. In 465 a great fire took place in Constantinople, eight of the sixteen quarters of the city being destroyed. The people testified to the holy reputation of St Marcellus by attri­ buting the staying of the disaster to his intercession. He governed his monastery for some forty-five years and died on December 29, 485.

Our information comes from a detailed Greek biography attributed to the Metaphrast and printed in Migne, PG., vol. cxvi, pp. 705-745. See also Synax. Const. (ed. Delehaye), cc. 353-354; Pargoire in DAC., vol. i, cc. 315-318, and Echos d'OrÂŁent, vol. ii, pp. 305-308 and 365-372; and Revue des questions historiques, January 1899, pp.69-79.

ST EBRULF,

OR

EVROULT, ABBOT

(A.D. 596)

EBRULF was brought up at the court of King Childebert I. Here he married but after a time the pair agreed to separation; the lady took the veil in a nunnery, whilst he distributed his goods among the poor. It was, however, a considerable time before he was able to obtain the leave of Clotaire I to go from court. At length, he was enabled to go to a monastery in the diocese of Bayeux, where his virtues gained him the esteem and veneration of his fellow monks. But the respect which he met with was a temptation, and to avoid it he withdrew, with three others, and hid in a remote part of the forest of Ouche in Normandy. These new hermits had taken no proper measures for their support, but they settled near a spring of water, made an inclosure with a hedge, and built themselves wattle huts. A peasant discovered them, to his great astonishment, and warned them that the wood was a haunt of outlaws. "We have come here", replied Ebrulf, " to weep for our sins. We put our confidence in the mercy of God, who feeds the birds of the air. We fear no one." The countryman brought them the next morning loaves and some honey, and soon after joined them. One of the thieves happened upon them, and he too endeavoured to persuade them that their lives would be in danger. St Ebrulf answered him as he had answered the peasant. The robber himself was converted and brought many of his companions, like-minded with himself, to the saint, by whose advice they betook themselves to work for an honest living. The hermits tried to cultivate the land, but it was too barren to yield sufficient, even for their abstemious way of living. So the inhabitants of the country brought them in little provisions, which St Ebrulf accepted as alms.

639

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 29J

The advantages and consolations of uninterrupted contemplation made Ebrulf desire to live always as an anchorite, without being burdened with the care of others. But he could not be indifferent to the salvation of his neighbours. He therefore received those who desired to live under his direction, and for them he was obliged to build a monastery which afterwards bore his name. His community increasing and many offering him land, he built other monasteries of men or women.

He used to exhort his religious particularly to manual labour, telling them that they would gain their bread by their work and Heaven by serving God in it. St Ebrulf died in 596 in his eightieth year after, it is said, living for over six weeks without being able to swallow anything except the Sacred Host and a little water. 'rhere is a rather full life compiled by an anonymous ninth-century writer. It has been printed by Surius with his usual emendations of the Latin phraseology. But the abridged or modified version which will be found in Mabillon, vol. i, pp. 354-361, with supplementary additions from Ordericus Vitalis, may be regarded as reasonably adequate. See also the preface of Leopold Delisle's edition of Ordericus's Historia ecclesiastica, pp. lxxix-Ixxxiv.

In the Bulletin de fa soc. hist. arch. de /'Orne, vol. vi (1887), pp. 1-83, J. Blin has edited a French poem of the twelfth century recounting the history of St Evroult. There is also a short popular life by H. G. Chenu (1896).

BD fETER THE VENERABLE,

ABBOT

(A.D. 1156)

AT the beginning of the twelfth century the abbacy of Cluny, an office which entailed a headship of hundreds of monasteries and their dependencies throughout Europe, was held by an incompetent and unworthy monk, Pontius, who had been elected when he was too young. In the face of a growing discontent, he resigned in circumstances that amounted to deposition and, his successor having died almost at once, Peter de Montboissier, Prior of Domene, was elected. Peter, of a noble family of Auvergne, had been educated at the Cluniac house of Sauxillanges, and by the time he was twenty he was already prior of Vezelay; when chosen to rule the mother house and federation he was still only thirty. That was in 1122, and during the thirty-four years that he governed Cluny it reached a point of influence and prosperity that it never again touched. But the early days were not auspicious.

In 1125 the ex-abbot Pontius came out of Italy with an armed following, threw himself into Cluny when Peter was absent, drove out all who would not accept him, and proceeded to conduct the monastery and its affairs in a most disorderly way. Both parties were summoned to Rome, and Pope Honorius II sentenced Pontius to be degraded and imprisoned. An unhappy controversy sprang up between Citeaux and Cluny, St Bernard accusing the Cluniacs of being relaxed, and they retorting that Cistercian life was impracticable. The general trend of the controversy showed Abbot Peter as more representative of the tolerant \videness of St Benedict's rule; and in so far as the Cistercian complaints were justified Peter, together with Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, ultimately met the criticism by inaugurating a reform and tightening up discipline. It was at this time, in 1130, that Abbot Peter visited England, when an attempt was made to bring the abbey of Peterborough under Cluny. In 1139 he journeyed into Spain, where he found two translators who knew Arabic, and for the advancement of learning he paid them well to make for him Latin versions of the Koran and of some astronomical works.

In 1140 Peter Abelard came to Cluny on his way to Rome to appeal against the condemnation of his opinions pronounced at Sens, but while there news was

64째

SSe 'SABINUS AND HIS COMPANIONS

[December 30

brought that the condemnation had been confirmed by Pope Innocent. Abbot Peter thereupon offered Abelard a home, obtained a mitigation of his sentence from the Holy See, and brought about a meeting and reconciliation between him and St Bernard. He showed himself a most generous friend to Abelard, and when he died two years later Abbot Peter sent his body for burial to the Abbess Heloise at the Paraclete, with an assurance that he had died absolved and in communion with the Church. He also wrote an extravagant epitaph, comparing the dead philosopher with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. It was typical of Peter the Vener足 able that he combined kindness and sympathy for the erring with a just detestation of their errors: he defended the Jews against massacre but admitted that they gave provocation; he wrote against the Petrobrusian heretics in the south of France; and he assisted at the synod of Rheims when the teachings of Gilbert de la Porree, bishop of Poitiers, were impugned. He was greatly esteemed by his contemporaries and kept up a large correspondence with those who consulted him, as well as writing theological and polemical treatises, sermons and hymns, e.g. the Christmas prose " Caelum, gaude, terra, plaude ". It is appropriate that the author of this lovely hymn should have died, according to his wish, on Christmas day, I I 56, after having preached abol:lt the feast to his monks.

Peter the Venerable was revered as a saint by the faithful at large as well as by his own congregation. This cultus has never been formally approved by the Holy See, but his name was inserted in French martyrologies and his feast is observed in the diocese of Arras on December 29.

Two medieval lives of Peter the Venerable are preserved to us. The first and more important is by Rodulf, his constant companion; .the second is not properly a biography but a collection of extracts from the chronicle of Cluny. Both are printed in Migne, PL., vol. clxxxix, cc. 15-42, and some other materials in the form of poems or panegyrics are added in the same prolegomenon to Peter's own writings and letters. It is from these last that our knowledge of him and his character is mainly derived. l\n excellent account of the holy abbot and his literary work is furnished by P. Sejourne in DTC., vol. xii (1933), cc.

2065-2082; and there is also a good article by G. Grutzmacher in the Realencyklopiidie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche, vol. xv, pp. 222-226. The bulk of this article may be read in English in the Expository Times for 1904 (vol. xv, pp. 536-539). See further, J. de Ghellinck, Le mouvement theologique au Xlle Siecle (1914); Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, vol. iii (1931), pp. 136-144; and J. Leclercq, Pierre Ie Venerable (1946), an excellent work.

30 : SS. SABINUS

AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS

X

(A.D.

303 ?)

CORDING to the legend, Sabinus, claimed as a bishop by several Italian cities, and several of his clergy were arrested during the persecution under Diocletian; Vellustian, the governor of Etruria, had them before him and offered for the veneration of Sabinus a small statue of Jupiter. The bishop threw it contemptuously to the ground and broke it, whereupon Venustian ordered the hands of Sabinus to be cut off. His two deacons, Marcellus and Exsuperantius, also made a confession of faith, and were scourged and racked, under which torments they both died. Sabinus was taken back to prison and the bodies of his two deacons were buried at Assisi. A widow named Serena brought her blind son to 8abinus, who blessed him with his handless arms and the boy was healed.

Whereupon a number of the bishop's fellow-prisoners asked for baptism. This,

64 1

De~ember 30]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

it is said, led also to the conversion of the governor Venustian, who had an affliction of the eyes, and he with his wife and children gave their lives for Christ. 8t 8abinus was beaten to death at 8poleto, and buried a mile from that city. 8t Gregory the Great speaks of a chapel built in his honour near Fermo, for which he asks relics of the martyr from Chrysanthus, bishop of 8poleto. These martyrs are remembered today in the Roman Martyrology, which on December 11 names another ST 8ABINUS, bishop of Piacenza, during the fourth century. He was a man of so great learning and holiness that 8t Ambrose used to submit his writing to him for criticism and approval before publication.

The story told above depends upon a worthless passio which was fabricated in the fifth or sixth century. There is no evidence that Sabinus was bishop of Assisi or Spoleto or any other place. The passio was first published in the Miscellanea of Baluze-Mansi, vol. i, pp. 12-14. See further, Delehaye, Origines du culte des martyrs, p. 317, who does not dispute that there was, in fact, a martyr of this name who was buried a short distance from Spoleto, though we know nothing of his story. Consult also Lanzoni, Le diocesi d'Italia, vol. i, pp. 439-440 and 461-463! with G. Cristofani, Storia di Assisi, vol. iii, pp. 21-23.

ST ANYSIA,

MARTYR

(A.D.

304?)

ANYSIA was a Christian girl whose parents had both died, leaving her wealth with which she generously befriended the needy. Whilst the governor Dulcitius carried on a cruel persecution at Thessalonica to deter the Christians from holding religious assemblies, she one day resolved to go to the meeting of the faithful. As she passed the gate of Cassandra, one of the guards happened to see her and stepping in front of her asked where she was going. Anysia started back and, fearing danger, made the sign of the cross on her forehead. The soldier seized hold of her and asked roughly, " Who are you, and where are you going?" "I am a servant of Jesus Christ", she replied, "and am going to the Lord's assembly." "I will prevent that", he said, "and will take you to sacrifice to the gods. Today we worship the sun." As he spoke he tore off her veil to look at her face. Anysia tried to stop him, and struggled with the man, who became so angry that he drew his sword and ran her through the body. 8he fell in her tracks, and there died, and when peace came to the Church the Christians of Thessalonica built an oratory there. The acta say that the murderer acted on the strength of an (entirely mythical) edict of Galerius who, thinking the execution of Christians beneath his dignity, had given permission for them to be killed at sight.

The Greek passio of St Anysia, which lacks historical confirmation, was first printed by C. Triantafillis in a miscellany of Greek unpublished texts which he brought out at Venice in 1874. St Anysia was, however, commemorated in countries under Byzantine influence and a short notice of her is found in the Constantinople Synaxary (ed. Delehaye), cc. 355-357.

A second text of the passio was published by J. Viteau in 1897, but it is very inadequately edited. See the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, vol. vii, pp. 480-483.

ST ANYSIUS, BISHOP OF THESSALONICA

(c.

A.D.

410)

WHEN Ascholius, bishop of Thessalonica, died in the year 383 and Anysius was put in his place, 8t Ambrose wrote to the new bishop saying he had heard he was a zealous disciple of Ascholius and expressing the hope that he would prove " another Eliseus to his Elias " . Very few particulars are known of the life of 8t Anysius, but he is known in church history on account of the action of Pope 8t

642

ST EGWIN

[December 30

Damasus in making him patriarchal vicar in Illyricum, which was later to become debated ground between Rome and Constantinople; these powers were renewed and confirmed by 8t 8iricius and 8t Innocent I. 8t Anysius was a strong supporter of 8t John Chrysostom and went to Constantinople to uphold his cause against Theophilus of Alexandria; in 404, together with fifteen other Macedonian bishops, he appealed to Pope Innocent to judge the cause on account of which Chrysostom had been exiled from his see, that they might abide by his decision. Chrysostom wrote a letter thanking Anysius for his efforts. It was during this saint's episcopate that there took place at Thessalonica the shocking massacre which has been referred to in the account of 8t Ambrose. The virtues of 8t Anysius were highly praised both by 8t Innocent I and 8t Leo the Great.

There is no life of St Anysius and our knowledge of him is dependent upon scattered notices, which are discussed, for example, by Tillemont, Memoires, vol. x, pp. 156-158.

See also Duchesne, "L'Illyricum ecc1esiastique" in the Byzantinische ZeitschnJt, vol. i (1892), pp. 531-55°; }. Zeiller, Les origines chretiennes dans les provinces danubiennes i (1918), pp. 310-325; and L. Petit, "Les eveques de Thessalonique" in Echos d'Orient, vol. iv (I 901), pp. 141 seq.

ST EGWIN,

BISHOP OF WORCESTER

EGWIN, said to have been a descendant of the Mercian kings, devoted himself to God in his youth, and succeeded to the episcopal see of Worcester about 692. By his zeal and severity in reproving vice he incurred the hostility of some of his own flock, which gave him an opportunity of performing a penitential pilgrimage to Rome, to answer before the Holy See complaints that had been made against him.

Some legends tell us that before setting out he put on his legs iron shackles, and threw the key into the Avon, but found it in the belly of a fish, some say at Rome, others on his passage from France to England. After his return, with the assistance of Ethelred, King of Mercia, he founded the famous abbey of Evesham, under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin. According to the story, a herdsman called Eof had a vision of our Lady, who was then seen by Egwin himself, and at the place of these visions the monastery was established (Evesham === Eof's hamm, or meadow). Then, probably about 709, the bishop undertook a second journey to Rome, in the company of Kings Cenred of Mercia and Offa of the East Saxons, and we are told he received considerable privileges for his founda­ tion from Pope Constantine; after the disturbances of the tenth century, Evesham became one of the great Benedictine houses of medieval England.

According to Florence of Worcester, St Egwin died on December 30, in 717, and was buried in the monastery of Evesham. His f~ast is observed in the archidocese of Birmingham.

There is an eleventh-century life printed by Mabillon (saec. iii, pt I, pp. 316-324), and see BHL. 2432-2439; for the life and miracles in the Gotha MS. I. 81, see Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lviii (1940), pp. 95-96; and cf. T. D. Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue . .., vol. i, pp. 415-420; the Evesham Chronicle, ed. W. D. Macray in the Rolls Series (vol. xxix, 1863, Introduction); and R. M. Wilson, Lost Literature of Medieval England (1952), p. 104. See the Acta Sanctorum, January, vol. i; Stubbs in DCB., vol. ii, pp. 62-63 ; and St Egwin and his Abbey . . . (1904), by the Stanbrook nuns. St Egwin's body was translated to a more honourable place in 1183, probably on January 1 I, on which day many English martyrologies mark his festival. See Stanton, Menology, pp. 615 seq. It is a very curious thing, as William of Malmesbury long ago pointed out, that Bede makes no mention of Egwin or of Evesham.

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 31]

31 : ST SILVESTER I,

POPE

(A.D. 335)

ILVESTER I, like his predecessor, St Miltiades, is better remembered for the events which took place during his pontificate than for anything we know about his personal life and acts. Living at a time of such importance it was inevitable that many legends should grow up around him, such as those incorporated in the Vita beati Silvestri, but they are without value as historical records. The Liber Pontificalis states that he was the son of a Roman named Rufinus. He succeeded Miltiades in 314, less than a year after the Edict of Milan had granted freedom to Christianity, and the most significant legends about him are those which bring him into relation with the Emperor Constantine. These represent Constantine as suffering from leprosy, which, upon his conversion to Christianity, was cured by baptism received at the hands of Silvester; whereupon, in gratitude and in recognition of the vicar of Christ on earth, the emperor granted numerous rights to the pope and his successors and endowed the Church with the provinces of Italy. This story of the" Donation of Constantine", which was embroidered and used for political and ecclesiastical ends during the middle ages, has now long been recognized as a fabrication. But one point in it, the baptism of Constantine

by St Silvester, still finds a place in the Roman Martyrology and Breviary. * A few months after his accession St Silvester was represented at a synod con足 vened at ArIes to deal with the Donatist dispute: the bishops there commended the pope for not coming in person but instead remaining in the place " where the Apostles daily sit in judgement". In June 325 there assembled at Nicaea in Bithynia the first oecumenical or general council of the Church: probably over 220 bishops attended, nearly all orientals, and Silvester of Rome sent legates, two priests: a Western bishop, Hosius of Cordova, presided. The council condemned the heresy of Arius, but this was only the beginning of a devastating struggle within the Church. There is no record that St Silvester formally confirmed the signature of his legates to the acts of the council.

It is probable that it was to Silvester rather than to Miltiades that Constantine gave the palace of the Lateran, and there the pope set up his cathedra and estab足 lished the Lateran basilica as the cathedral church of Rome. During his pontificate the emperor (who in 330 removed his capital from Rome to Byzantium) built also the first churches of St Peter on the Vatican, Holy Cross in the Sessorian palace and St Laurence outside the Walls; and the pope's name, joined with that of 8t Martin, is now given to the cardinalitial-titular church founded at this time near the Baths of Diocletian by a priest called Equitius. St Silvester also built a church at the cemetery of Priscilla on the Salarian way: there he was himself buried in 335; but in 761 his relics were translated by Pope Paul I to St Silvester in Capite, now the national church of English Catholics in Rome. His feast has been general in the Western church since the thirteenth century, on December 31, and it is also observed in the East (January 2), the first pope of Rome after the Church emerged from the catacombs.

S

In an article entitled" Konstantinische Schenkung und Silvester-Legende " contributed to the Miscellanea Francesco Ehrle, vol. ii (1924), pp. 159-247-the thirty-eighth issue of

* In fact the first Christian emperor remained a catechumen till he lay on his death-bed, and then, eighteen months after the death of St Silvester, was baptized by an Arian bishop at Nicomedia.

[December 3 I

ST COLUMBA OF SENS

the series Studi e Testi-W. Levison, whose critical competence will be disputed by none has published a most valuable study of the famous" Donation of Constantine". Of this spurious document a good account is given by J. P. Kirsch in the Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. v, pp. 118-121), but Levison has arrived at a much clearer determination of the various elements which contributed to the fabrication of the forgery in the more developed form.

Earliest in date seems to be a story of St Silvester invented for the edification of pious readers in the second half of the fifth century. It includes, for example, an account of a theological discussion between St Silvester and twelve Jewish doctors. There are signs that the Liber Pontificalis (see Duchesne's edition, vol. i, pp. cxxxv and 170-201) has borrowed from this in speaking of the" Constitutum Silvestri". But there was also another redaction of this legend which transposes the incident of the dragon and modifies some other details. In the ninth century we find texts in which these elenlents were fused together and supplemented.

Moreover, as early as the sixth century, Greek versions of the story began to appear (see BHG., nn. 1628-1632). One text of this Greek rendering has been preserved to us in as many as forty existing copies. Levison, however, firmly rejects the theory of A. Gaudenzi that the Greek text of the Donation of Constantine is the source from which the Latin was copied. There were also translations of the" acts" of St Silvester in Syriac and Armenian, and a metrical homily attributed to James of Sarug. In some of these oriental versions St Silvester is represented as accompanying St lIelen to Palestine and as having taken part in the discovery of the True Cross. A good idea of the important place occupied by St Silvester in later medieval thought may be obtained from the Speculum Ecclesiae of Giraldus Cambrensis and from the Polychronicon of Ralph Higden, vol. v. Cf. also Dollinger, Papstfabeln, pp. 61 seq. and Donato, Un papa legendario (1908). For the history of the pontificate see E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, vol. i, pp. 115 seq., and Poisnel, " Un concile apocryphe du Pape St Silvestre" in Melanges d'archeol. et d'histoire, 1886, pp. 3-13.

For a supplementary note to Levison's article see Zeitschrift der Savigny . . ., vol. xlvi (1926), pp. 501-51 I. Cf. N. H. Baynes, Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (t9 2 9)路 I

ST

COLUMBA

OF

SENS,

VIRGIN

AND

MARTYR

(DATE

UNKNOWN)

THIS Columba is traditionally regarded as a native of Spain who, when she was sixteen, came into Gaul, with other Spaniards who were subsequently martyred, and settled at Sense She is supposed to have been of noble but pagan parents, and, having left them secretly to avoid the worship of false gods, to have been baptized at Vienne. When Aurelian came to Sens he ordered St Columba and her companions to .be put to death. Her passio tells an extravagant tale of her being defended, first from dishonour and then from the hands of her gaolers, by one of the bears belonging to the amphitheatre. She was beheaded at the fountain of Azon on the road to Meaux, and buried by a man who had recovered his sight upon invoking her.

The cultus of St Columba spread over France and Spain, and to Italy, and her feast is still kept in certain dioceses. But an attempt to revive popular devotion towards her in France in the middle of last century was not very successful. The abbey of Sainte-Colombe, which sheltered her relics, was the chief religious house of Sens; its third church was consecrated by Pope Alexander III in I 164. In the next year St Thomas Becket arrived at the monastery, when he fled from England to appeal to the pope and had had to leave Pontigny, and made it his headquarters till he returned home to martyrdom.

This passio, though preserved in varying forms in a good many manuscripts, is historically worthless. It has been printed by Mombritius, and by the Bollandists in their Catalogus hagiographicus Bruxellensis, vol. i, pp. 302-306. See further Tillemont, Memoires, vol. iv, p. 347; and especially G. Chastel, Ste Col~mbe de Sens (1939), containing a new text of the passio and important particulars of the cultus.

645

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

December 3 I]

ST MELANIA THE YOUNGER,

WIDOW

(A.D. 439)

MELANIA the Elder was a patrician lady of the gens Antonia, who was married to Valerius Maximus, who probably was prefect of Rome in the year 362. At twenty-two she was left a widow and, having put her son, Publicola, in the hands of guardians, she went into Palestine and built a monastery at Jerusalem for fifty maidens. There she settled down herself, living a life of austerity, prayer and good works. Her son meanwhile grew up in Rome, became a senator, and married Albina, the Christian daughter of the pagan priest Albinus. Their daughter was St Melania the Younger, who was brought up a Christian in the luxurious household of her religious but ambitious father.

In order to ensure a male heir to his great wealth and family reputation Publicola affianced his daughter to her kinsman Valerius Pinianus, a son of the prefect Valerius Severus. Melania, however, wished to devote herself entirely to God in a state of maidenhood. But her parents would have none of it and in 397, her fourteenth year, she was married to Pinian, who was then seventeen. It is not surprising that, having been forced into marriage against her will, and deeply shocked by the sensual licence that she sawall around her, Melania asked her husband that they should live together in continence. But Pinian would not, and in due course their first child, a girl, was born. She died in infancy. Melania's inclinations were known to be as strong as ever, and her father took steps to prevent her associating with those religious people who would encourage her discontent with the life which he wished her to lead. On the vigil of the feast of St Laurence in the year 399, her father having forbidden her to watch in the basilica because she was again with child, she spent the whole night on her knees in prayer in her own room. In the morning she assisted at the Holy Mysteries in the church of St Laurence, and on her return home was prematurely brought to bed and, with difficulty and danger, gave birth to a boy. He died the next day. Melania lay between life and death, and Pinian, who was sincerely and devotedly attached to her, swore that if she were spared she should be free to serve God as she wished. Melania recovered and Pinian kept his vow, but Publicola bitterly disapproved and for another five years made her conform exteriorly to the life of her status in every respect. Then he was overtaken by mortal sickness, and as he lay dying he both confirmed to his daughter all his estates and begged her forgiveness because, " fearing the ridicule of evil tongues, I have grieved you by opposing your heavenly vocation ".

Her mother Albina and Pinian became more than reconciled to Melania's new way of life; they adopted it themselves, and all three left Rome for a villa in the country. Pinian was only gradually won over, and long insisted on wearing the rich dress affected by those of his rank. The biographer gives a touching and convincing account of how his wife persuaded him to lay aside the more for the less expensive clothes, and finally to be content with plain garments made by herself.

They took with them many slaves and set an example by their treatment of them, and soon many young girls, widows and over thirty families had joined them. The villa became a centre of hospitality, of charity and of religious life. But St Melania was fabulously wealthy-estates belonging to the Valerii were to be found all over the empire-and she was oppressed by all these possessions; she knew that the superfluity of the rich belongs to their hungry and naked neighbours, that, as St Ambrose says, the rich man who gives to the poor does not bestow an alms but pays a debt. She therefore asked, and received, the consent of Pinian to the sale 646

[December 31

ST MELANIA THE YOUNGER

of some of her properties for the ben~fit of the needy. At once their relatives, who thought them mad, prepared to profit by this latest lunacy. Severus, the brother of Pinian, for example, bribed the tenants and slaves on his brother's lands to promise that if they were sold they would refuse to recognize any master but himself. Such difficulties were made that recourse was had to the emperor, Honorius. St Melania, dressed in plain woollen clothes and veiled, presented herself before Serena, the emperor's mother-in-law, and so impressed her by her bearing and words that she persuaded Honorius to take the equitable sale of the estates under the protection of the state. The proceeds were as far-flung as the lands themselves: the poor, the sick, captives, bankrupts, pilgrims, churches, monasteries were relieved and endowed in large numbers all over the empire, and in two years Melania gave their freedom to eight thousand slaves. Palladius, in his contemporary Lausiac History, says that the monasteries of Egypt, Syria and Palestine received benefactions from her, and gives a detailed account of her manner of life.

In 406 she, with Pinian and others, was staying with St Paulinus at Nola in Campania. He would have liked to have had her and her husband as " perpetual guests": he called her the " blessed little one" and the '" joy of Heaven"; but they returned to the villa near Rome, only to have to flee within a few months before the oncoming invasion of the Goths. They took refuge in a villa which St Melania had retained at Messina, where they had with them the aged Rufinus. But inside of two years the Goths had reached Calabria and burned Reggio, and they deter足 mined to go to Carthage. They purposed first to visit St Paulinus in sympathy with his sufferings under the invasion, but they were driven by a storm to shelter at an island, probably Lipari, which was being held to ransom by pirates. To save the people from catastrophe St Melania bought off the freebooters with a huge sum in gold. They eventually took up their residence at Tagaste in Numidia.

Pinian made as profound an impression as his wife, and when he 'visited St Augus足 tine at Hippo (he called them " real lights of the Church ") a riot occurred in a church because the people wanted him to be ordained priest to minister to them and they thought he was being held back by the bishop of Tagaste, St Alipius.

Order was only restored by the promise of Pinian that, were he ever ordained, he would exercise his ministry at Hippo. While in Africa St Melania established and endowed two new monasteries, one for men and one for women from among those who had been slaves on her land there. She herself lived with the women, but would not let them try to emulate her own standard of austerity, for she took food only every other day. Her personal work was the transcription of books, in both Greek and Latin, and five hundred years later manuscripts were still in circulation that were attributed to her hand.

In the year 417, accompanied by her mother and her husband, Melania left Africa for Jerusalem, and lodged in the pilgrims' hospice near the Holy Sepulchre.

From thence she made an expedition with Pinian to visit the monks of the Egyptian deserts, and on her return, fortified by the example of these athletes, she settled at Jerusalem to a life of solitude and contemplation. Here she met her cousin, Paula, niece of St Eustochium, and was by her introduced to the society of the marvellous group presided over by 8t Jerome at Bethlehem, whose fast friend she became.

When they first met, Melania, we are told, " went to meet him in her usual recol足 lected and respectful way, and kneeled down at his feet humbly asking his blessing".

After fourteen years in Palestine Albina died, and in the next year Pinian followed 647

De~ember

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

31]

her to the grave: he is named with Melania in the Roman Martyrology. She buried them side by side on the Mount of Olives, and built for herself a cell close by the tombs of her faithful companions. This was the nucleus of a large convent of consecrated virgins, over whom St Melania presided. She was very solicitous for the health of her charges (a bath was provided, for which an ex-prefect of the imperial palace paid) and her rule was remarkable for its mildness at a time when early monas'ticism sometimes seemed to degenerate into the pursuit of corporal austerity for its own sake. Four years after the death of her husband St Melania heard that her maternal uncle, Volusian, who was still a pagan, had come on an embassy to Constantinople. Several efforts had been made to convert him, and she determined now to try herself to move him in his old age. She therefore set out with her chaplain (and biographer), Gerontius, and after a hard winter journey reached Constantinople in time to forward and witness the conversion of Volusian, who died in her arms the day after receiving baptism. Before he had made up his mind, the enthusiasm of Melania was going to carry the matter to the Emperor Theodosius. We are told that Volusian appealed to her piety and good feeling not to do so: "Do not force the free will which God has given to me. I am ready and anxious to have the stains of my many sins washed away; but were I to do it at the emperor's order I should be as one constrained and have no merit of voluntary choice."

On Christmas eve, 439, St Melania went to Bethlehem, and after the Mass at dawn told Paula that death was at hand. On St Stephen's day she assisted at Mass in his basilica and then with her sisters read the account of his martyrdom from the Bible. At the end they wished her good health and " many happy returns of the day". She answered, " Good health to you also. But you will never again hear me read the lessons." Then she made a visit of farewell to the monks, and on her return was seen to be seriously ill. She summoned her sisters and asked their prayers, " for I am going to the Lord ", and saying that if she had sometimes spoken severely it was for love of them: reminding them of her words: "The Lord knows that I am unworthy, and I would not dare compare myself with any good woman, even of those living in the world. Yet I think the Enemy himself will not at the Last Judgement accuse me of ever having gone to sleep with bitter­ ness in my heart." Early on Sunday, December 31, Gerontius celebrated Mass and his voice was so choked with tears that St Melania sent him a message that she could not hear the words. All day long visitors came, until she said, " Now let me rest ". At the ninth hour she grew weaker, and in the evening, repeating the words of Job, " As the Lord willed, so it is done", she died. She was fifty-six years old.

St Melania has been venerated liturgically from early times in the Byzantine church, but, beyond the insertion of her name in the Roman Martyrology, she has had no cultus in the West until our own day. Cardinal Mariano Rampolla published a monumental work on St Melania in 1905. This attracted much attention, and a certain cultus ensued. In 19°8 Pope Pius X approved the annual observance of her feast by the Italian congregation of clerks regular called the Somaschi, and it has also been adopted by the Latin Catholics of Constantinople and Jerusalem.

Considerable fragments of a Latin life of St Melania had long been known to exist in various libraries, and these were printed in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. viii (1889), pp.

16-63. The Greek text was edited from a manuscript in the Barberini library by Delehaye in the same Analecta, vol. xxii (1903), pp. 5-50. In 1905 Cardinal Rampolla, who had

64 8

[December 3 1 discovered a complete copy of the Latin in the Escorial, printed both Latin and Greek in a sumptuous folio volume, Santa Melania Giuniore Senatrice Romana, with a long introduction, dissertations and notes. Considerable difference of opinion existed regarding the relations of the Greek and Latin versions, which are far from being concordant in either content or phrasing. In a long contribution to the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxv (1906), pp. 401-450, Fr Adhemar d'Ales examined their variations in detail, arriving at the conclusion that the life had been compiled by her disciple Gerontius about nine years after her death in a first draft written in Greek, but that the texts in Greek and Latin which we now possess were elaborated independently a few years afterwards from this original. Some centuries later the Metaphrast produced his own sophisticated version of the biography. This has long been in print in Migne, PG., vol. cxvi, pp. 753-794. An admirable resume of Melania's history was published by G. Goyau in the series" Les Saints" (1908), and in English there is an adaptation of the biographical sketch which Cardinal Rampolla prefixed to his book (1908). See also Leclercq in DAC., vol. xi, cc. 209-230.

BD ISRAEL

(A.D. 1014)

holy Augustinian is venerated as a saint by the canons regular of the Latera!l and in the diocese of Limoges, but little is recorded of him except vague and edi足 fying generalities: "he gave a good example to all and was assiduous at the Divine Office, careful in attending to the wants of the sick, most careful in celebrating the Holy Mysteries according to the Church's rites. . .." He became a canon regular at Dorat in the Limousin, and was promoted to the office of precentor, from which he was taken to be official to Aldoin, bishop of Limoges, whom he accompanied to the French court. At the request of the canons.he was sent by Pope Silvester II to be provost of the monastery of St Junian, in Haute足 Vienne, and he restored this community both temporally and spiritually: destroying factions, reforming observance, and rebuilding their church. Bd Israel then returned to Dorat, where he had the formation of St Walter, afterwards abbot of L'Esterp, and took up again the duties of precentor. He died there on December 31, 1014, and his tomb was made famous by miracles.

THIS

A medieval Latin life was printed in 1657 by P. Labbe in his Nova Bibliotheca manu足 scriptorum librorum, vol. ii, pp. 566-567. As he is the presumed author of a poem on our Lord Jesus Christ, a short notice of Bd Israel is also given in the Histoire litteraire de France, vol. vii, pp. 229-230.

saints and just, from the beginning of time and throughout the world, who have been made perfect, everlasting monuments of God's infinite power and clemency, praise His goodness without ceasing; casting their crowns before His throne they give to Him all the glory of their triumphs: "His gifts alone in us He crowns." We are called upon with the whole Church militant on earth to join in praising and thanking God for the grace and glory he has bestowed on his saints. At the same time we earnestly implore Him to exert His almighty power and mercy in raising us from our miseries and sins, healing the disorders of our souls and leading us by the path of repentance to the company of His saints, to which He has called us. They were once what we are now, travellers on earth: they had the same weaknesses which we have. We have difficulties to encounter: so had the saints, and many of them far greater than we can meet with; obstacles from kings and whole nations, sometimes from the prisons, racks and swords of THE

649

De~ember 3 I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

persecutors. Yet they surmounted these difficulties, which they made the very means of their virtue and victories. It was by the strength they received from above, not by their own, that they triumphed. But the blood of Christ was shed for us as it was for them and the grace of our Redeemer is not wanting to us; if we fail, the failure is in ourselves. The saints are a " cloud of witnesses over our head ", showing us that a life of Christian perfection is not impossible.

APPENDIX I A MEMOIR OF ALBAN BUTLER

By

HERBERT THURSTON, S.J.

HE completion of this revision of Butler's Lives of the Saints seems to provide a suitable occasion for saying a few words about Alban Buder himself. One feels that, even at the distance of nearly two centuries, an apology is due to that venerable scholar for the scant respect with which his great work may seem to have been treated. I must frankly admit that in this new edition little, comparatively speaking, has been retained of the eighteenth-century original.

Mr Attwater, in that portion of the undertaking for which he is responsible, has shown rather more deference to the primitive text than is paid in the first six volumes, but I doubt if anywhere in the series half a dozen consecutive sentences of Butler have 'been retained without alteration. Readers who may compare, for example, the new November entries with the old, will observe that whereas in the latter the notice of St Charles Borromeo occupied fifty pages, only twelve pages are now:Me devoted to this model of pastors. All this compression is, no doubt, regrettable, but when room has to be found for almost twice the number of entries space must inevitably be economized. Moreover, in the case of such well-known saints as St Charles Borromeo, St Francis of Assisi, St Antony of Padua, St Teresa, etc., a C.T.S. pamphlet can always be purchased for a few pence which will provide more copious detail than can reasonably be looked for in any encyclopedia or general collection of biographies. And Butler's style, it must be confessed, as judged by modern standards, is deplorably stilted and verbose. Indeed, in not a few of his biographical notices and pious moralizings he seems to be deliberately spinning out the slenderest thread of fact or of thought in order to make it cover as many pages as possible.

But Alban Butler as a man, a priest and a scholar, leaves, to my thinking, a far more favourable impression than in his character of a writer of English. Though it may seem to be beginning at the wrong end, I am tempted to quote a passage from a letter of an English lady, Mrs Paston, then resident at St Orner's, written on May 23, 1773, eight days after his death.t The original, still preserved, bears the address :

T

A Madame Madame Mere Superieure tres digne des Dames Chanoinesses Anglaises Rue des Cannes a Bruges. â&#x20AC;˘ [That is, in the first revised edition.-D. A.] I am greatly indebted to the Reverend Mother Prioress of the Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, still occupying the sa.me convent at Bruges, for the communication of this letter and of other documents. Charles Butler, in his Memoir of his uncle, says: "Those who remember him during his residence at St Orner's, will recollect his singular respect for Mrs More, the Superior of the English convent of Austins at Bruges."

t

65 1

Appendix I]

THE LIVES OF 'THE SAINTS

There is little punctuation in the document and the spelling and phrasing would even then, I fancy, have been open to criticism. But it would spoil the eighteenth-century flavour of this feminine epistle if I tampered with either.

I reproduce the relevant portion exactly as it stands in the accurate copy sent to me : I have met with a severe trial which has greatly desordered me by the Death of that great and good Man Dear Mr. Butler he died like a Saint and when his speech failed him ye tears of Devotion streamed down his face with his Eyes Lifted up to Heaven he quited this miserable World, it seems as if he foresaw his Death as he settled all his temporall affairs so short a time before his illness; he desired to be buired in a Church yard ye nearest any English house where his Death might happen but ye Heads of ye Church here would not consent to that. Ye service and high Mass was first performed at ye Collidge Church after which he was caried to ye Parish Church ye service again performed and his Body brought Back in ye most solemn manner and buired close to his confessional, I was so happy [sic] not to be present, such a melancholy sight was never seen here; their was hundreds of people as at ye Great Procession, and ye tears shed by men and women of all ranks was never seen before. Many I believe was not sensible how much they esteemd him till he was no more. I pitty ye poor Gentlemen of ye Collidge who are quite sensible of their Loss and greatly afflicted.

Mrs Paston was evidently on intimate terms with Alban Butler, then president of the College of St Orner's. Her daughter Harriet, probably under his direction, had shortly before entered the convent at Bruges, and the mother adds in a postscript to her letter: Our kind respects waits on Mr. Berington路 and all ye good Community please Madam to assure Harriet of all thats kind and tender from us. I received her Letter which I shall not answer till I have ye pleasure of hearing from her how she settles in her new state of life, Mr. James Butler [Alban's brother] told me it ought to be a great satisfaction; that he saw good Mr. Butler shed tears of tenderness for Harriet after she left his room; which was a great mark of his friendship for her. Many thanks Dear Madam for yr goodness to my Son, who we expect soon.

At the back of another fold of the letter is written: Poor Mr. Butler's picture was drawn after his death; I have not yet seen it they say it is not so good a likeness as might have been expected as he looked much better after he was dead, I have procured a few locks of his venerable grey hairs which I shall keep with true veneration.t

* Mr Thomas Berington was then the convent chaplain and confessor. See the sym颅 pathetic references to him in C. S. Durrant, Flemish Mystics and English Martyrs, pp.

353-35 6 . t There can be little doubt that Mrs Paston belonged to the Norfolk Pastons and was a near connection of the Bedingfields of Oxburgh, who were so closely associated with the English nuns at Bruges. It would not, therefore, be extravagant to regard the letter just quoted as a sort of tardy supplement to the famous Paston correspondence of three centuries earlier. This, as is well known, is the most important collection of English letters which has come down to us from the middle ages, throwing as it does a remarkable light upon the religious and social life of the fifteenth century.

65 2

A MI;MOIR OF ALBAN BUTLER

[Appendix I

Curiously enough, it seems to be stated in the Laity's Directory for 1774 that Alban Butler was buried in the chapel of the English Augustinian nuns (i.e. the Canonesses of the Lateran) at Bruges;* but this must certainly be a mistake. It was no doubt caused by the memorial tablet, which, as is duly recorded in the convent "Annals", was put up outside their chapel at the request of Butler himself, who left them six guineas in his will. The inscription runs as follows: D.O.M.

o

GOD, FATHER OF ALL,

MAY THY NAME BE SANCTIFIED,

BY ALL, IN ALL THINGS, ETERNALLY. MAY THY MOST PERFECT WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED

BY ALL BEINGS UNIVERSALLY : AND MAY THE SOULS OF YE FAITHFULL REST IN PEACE. AMEN

R.A.D.D. ALBANUS BUTLER COLLEGII ANGLO-AUDOMAROPOLIT.

PRlESES PIISSIMUS AC DOCTISSIM :

HUJUS CONVENTUS

AMICUS ET BENEFACTOR,

PONERE. JUSSIT.

OBIIT

DIE

xv MAIl 1773.

R. I. P.

A man who, as these extracts show, was himself capable of so much feeling and of inspiring it in others, is not likely to have been a dried-up pedant or an uncom­ promisingly stern ascetic. And indeed, whenever we are able to learn anything of the impression made by Alban Butler upon those who were in personal contact with him, we find a note of kindliness, tolerance and understanding which belies the rather grim severity of the reflections scattered throughout the " Lives". A few extracts illustrating this side of his character will be quoted later on, but we may turn now to the recognized data of his career so far as they are made known to us in published documents.

Alban Butler, the famous hagiographer, was born on October 24, 1710, at Appletree in Northamptonshire. His family had at one time possessed consider­ able landed property and they seem to have been for the most part faithful to the old religion. A century earlier there had been another Alban Butler at Aston­ le-Walls, which is the next parish to Appletree, and this ancestor, who owned a large estate, undoubtedly professed Catholicism even in the days of James I and his son. But Simon, the grandfather of our Alban, seems to have been an unsatis­ factory character. He turned Protestant and is said to have squandered the family fortunes in riotous living. Alban's father, however, was a devout Catholic, though, since we are told that he died in 1712, he can have exercised no personal influence upon the religious training of his children. The mother may have lived somewhat • See the Publications of the Catholic Record Society, vol. xii, Obituaries (1913), p. 17 ; but as the statement is in square brackets this may be an addition by the editor.

653

Bppendix I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

longer, but it is clear from a farewell letter of hers which has been preserved that she was taken from her family while they were still quite young. Charles Butler in his Memoir of his uncle has printed this letter which certainly shows Alban's mother to have been a model Christian, of that " Garden of the Soul" type which those days of persecution brought forth in wondrous plenty. She writes:

My

DEAR CHILDREN,

Since it pleases Almighty God to take me out of this world, as no doubt wisely forseeing I am no longer a useful parent to you (for no person ought to be thought necessary in this world, when God thinks proper to take them out), so, I hope, you will offer the loss of me with a resignation suitable to the religion you are of, and offer yourselves. He who makes you orphans so young, without a parent to take care of you, will take you into His protection and fatherly care if you do live and serve Him who is the author of all goodness.

Above all things prepare yourselves, whilst you are young, to suffer patiently what afflictions He shall think proper to lay upon you, for it is by this He trieth His best servants. In the first place give Him thanks for your education in the true faith (which many thousands want), and then I beg of you earnestly to petition His dir~ction what state of life you shall undertake, whether it be for religion or to get your livings in the world. No doubt but you may be saved either way, if you do your duty to God, your neighbour and yourselves.

And I beg of you to make constant resolutions rather to die a thousand times, if possible, than quit your faith; and always have in your thought what you would think of were you as near death as I now think myself. There is no preparation for a good death but a good life. Do not omit your pr2yers, and to make an act of contrition and examen of conscience every night, and frequent the blessed sacraments of the Church. I am so weak I can say no more to you, but I pray God bless and direct you and your friends to take care of you.

Lastly I beg of you never to forget to pray for your poor father and mother when they are not capable of helping themselves. So I take leave of you, hoping to meet you in heaven to be happy for all eternity. Your affectionate mother.

ANN BUTLER

*

So little of this world's goods had been left to Ann and her husband that the education of the children had to be provided for by friends. Alban, according to his nephew's Memoir, " was sent to a school in Lancashire at a very early age".

Assuming that this statement is correct, it is quite likely that the school in question was one kept by Dame Alice Harrison at Fernyhalgh, not far from Preston, and the late Mr Joseph Gillow tells us that he had seen a long narrow oak t&1ble which was used in Dame Alice's school. "It was covered", he says, " with initials cut by the boys, amongst whom were many who subsequently became distinguished ecclesiastics, such as Alban Butler, the writer of the Lives of the Saints."t The occurrence of the initials A. B. can hardly of itself be regarded as conclusive evidence,

* Her maiden name was Birch; she was the daughter of Henry Birch, Esq., of Gorscott, Staffordshire. t S.ee the Publications of the Catholic Record Society, vol. xxiii (Lancashire Registers, IV, 1922), p. 130.

A MEMOIR OF ALBAN BUTLER

[Appendix 1

and one cannot but suspect that there is some looseness of statement in Charles Butler's references to these early days. On the one hand he appeals to the testi­ mony of a school-fellow of Alban's in the following terms: "A gentleman, lately deceased, mentioned to the editor that he remembered him at this [Lancashire] school, and frequently heard him repeat to a numerous and wondering audience of little boys, the history of the chiefs and saints of the Saxon era of our history, with a surprising minuteness of fact and precision of chronology." On the other hand, Charles Butler in the very next sentence communicates this further informa­ tion: "About the age of eight (!) years, he was sent to the English college at Douay.

It appears from the diary of that college that Mr Holman of Warkworth (whose memory, for his extensive charities, is still in benediction in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire), became security for the expenses of his education. About this time he lost his father and mother." Now it is quite certain from a series of entries in the Seventh Douay Diary,* that Alban Butler and his brother James first came to Douay on June 14, 1724, and that in the October of the same year Alban was placed in the class of " Grammar", while James was assigned to "Rudiments". Alban was then fourteen, not eight, years of age. It is possible, therefore, that the future hagiographer was at school in Lancashire until he was more than thirteen, and this renders the story of the little ones sitting entranced while Alban told them stories of the Anglo-Saxon saints a little less improbable.

In the Douay Diary the steps of Alban Butler's career, first as pupil and then as master, can be traced from year to year. On Easter Sunday, 1734, during his fourth year of theology, he was ordained priest. Subsequently the office was assigned him, first of professor of philosophy, and afterwards of theology. He was also at this period engaged in copying manuscripts connected with the lives and sufferings of the English martyrs for the use of Bishop Challoner, who was then preparing his book, Memoirs of Missionary Priests. Butler's transcripts, which include twenty-seven separate pieces written in his own hand, are now at Oscott College. In August 1745 it is recorded in the Douay Diary that John and James Talbot, the brothers of the Earl of Shrewsbury, in company with Butler, went to Dunkirk on a holiday excursion, and the tour seems to have extended even to Italy. Both the two brothers Talbot afterwards became vicars apostolic in England.

In 1749 Alban Butler returned to labour in his own country, but his hope of being able to work in London at his great book on the lives of the saints was to some extent shattered by the claim of the vicar apostolic of the Midland district to retain his services for Staffordshire. Later he became chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk and tutor to his nephew and heir, whom he accompanied on tours. Neverthe­ less, helped by a period of residence in Paris, Butler was able to bring the earlier months of his Lives of the Sa£nts to completion before 1756, in which year the first volume was issued. It is commonly stated that at Bishop Challoner's suggestion the footnotes prepared for the work were omitted on account of the cost. This however, is only partially true. Some of the quite disproportionately long notes which appear in the posthumous library edition are not to be found in the book as it was originally printed in 1756-59, but it would be a great mistake to suppose that the first issue is devoid of reasonable annotation. In 1766 he was appointed president of the English College of St Orner which had formerly belonged to the • See the Publications of the Catholic Record Society, vol. xxviii, pp.

In this volume the Seventh Douay Diary is printed in full.

655

117, 121,

etc.

Appendix I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Jesuits now expelled from France, and this office he still retained at the time of his death in 1773 :1:.

From these facts it will be realized that Alban Butler was above all a scholar, not primarily a man of great missionary activities. At the same time he was always ready to give spiritual help to any who appealed to him, and throughout his life he was most conscientious in the discharge of every religious duty. Sundry letters quoted in his nephew's published Memoir emphasize these characteristics. One of these writers, who was with Alban for eight years at Douay College (i.e. from October 1741 to October 1749), says for example: He opened the college door to me when I came as a boy to Douay and the first sight of him appeared to me then so meek and so amiable that I thought I would choose him for my ghostly Father. . . . As to heroic acts of virtue which strike with admiration all that see or hear of them I cannot recollect more than an uniform constant observance of all the duties of a priest, pro­ fessor and confessor. He was always at morning meditations, seldom omitted the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which he said with a heavenly composure, sweetness and recollection, studying and teaching assiduously, aictating with an unwearied patience so equally and leisurely that everyone could, if he wished to do it, write his dictates in a clear and legible hand; nor do I remember that he ever sent a substitute to dictate for him, so exact and punctual he was in his duty as a professor. I never knew one more ready to go to the confession seat, at the first intimation of any, even the least or youngest boy. He heard his penitents with wonderful meekness, and his penetration, learning, judgement and piety were such as to move them to place in him a singular confidence.

The same writer stresses the zeal with which he lent spiritual and temporal aid to the needs of the Irish soldiers fighting on the French side, and to "the English, wounded and maimed, who were brought prisoners to Douay in 1745 and quartered in barracks, in great numbers, after the battle of Fontenoy ", and he goes q,n " he -also procured for them temporal succour and relief, so beneficently, that the Duke of Cumberland, then Generalissimo of the British and allied armies, being informed of it, promised him special protection, whenever he came over into England ".t Another enthusiastic admirer, this time a Frenchman, the Abbe de la Sepouze, who was his colleague as vicar general at the time that Alban Butler, in the last years of his life, was president of St Omer's College, speaks of him with not less affection and reverence, and in particular lays stress upon the keenness of his pursuit of learning even to the end of his days. He writes, for example: Every instant that Mr Butler did not dedicate to the government of his College he employed in study; and, when obliged to go abroad, he would â&#x20AC;˘ [When in 1755 there was question of choosing a coadjutor to Bishop York as vicar apostolic of the Western district, Bishop Challoner \\'rote to Bishop Stonor that Bishop Petre " is more inclined to name Alban Butler (whom he thinks the gentry of that part of the world will be more taken with) than Mr Walton" (quoted by Dom Basil Hemphill in The Early Vicars Apostolic of England, 1954, p. 145)]. t Charles Butler, An Account of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Alban Butler, pp. 12-14 (1799).

A M'EMOIR OF ALBAN BUTLER

[Appendix I

read as he walked along the streets. I have met him with a book under each arm, and a third in his hands, and have been told that, travelling one day on horseback, he fell a-reading, giving his horse full liberty. The creature used it to eat a few ears of corn that grew on the roadside. 'The owner came in haste, swearing he would be indemnified. Mr. Butler, who knew nothing of the damage done, no sooner perceived it, than blushing he said to the country­ man with his usual mildness that his demand ,vas just; he then draws out a Louis-d'or and gives it to the fellow, who would have been very well satisfied with a few pence, makes repeated apologies to him, easily obtains forgiveness and goes his way.* Lest it be thought that these favourable appreciations were prompted only by a clannishness which bound together the numerically insignificant band of devotees of the ancient faith, the victims of the drastic penal laws which were still in force, it may be interesting to borrow from the diary of an Anglican clergyman, an antiquary of recognized learning who counted Horace Walpole and the poet Gray with many other distinguished men among his intimate friends. This was the Rev. William Cole, rector of Bletchley and later vicar of Burnham, Buckingham­ shire, to whom a rather lengthy notice is devoted in the Dictionary of National Biography. lIe is himself the charmingly gossiping writer of a diary which has in great part been published with introductions by Miss Helen Waddell.t Mr Cole came to make Alban Butler's acquaintance in circumstances which we may leave him to describe later, but meanwhile, an amusing incident, recorded in another of Mr Cole's voluminous manuscripts, may serve to give an idea of the diarist's very friendly attitude towards Catholics. He had chanced to mention the Lives of the Saints which he had purchased, and he then goes on : There happened an odd affair relating to the author of this book the Rev. Mr Alban Butler, a secular priest of Doway and chaplain to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk. I was told it at the time when it happened by his and my friend the Rev. Charles Bedingfield, Recollect and friar of the Franciscan Convent of Doway, of the Suffolk family of that name! . . . for the friar was bred a Prutestant but was afterwards converted pretty early in life. He now lives as chaplain to the family of Mrs. Markham, at Somerby Hall, near Grantham in I.~incolnshire. Having received two letters from him since I returned from Paris, I write this Feb. I, 1766.

This gentleman Mr Alban Butler, going upon a mission to Norwich, had directed his portmanteau by the carrier to be left at the Palace for him in that city. It seems the Duke of Norfolk's house is called' the Palace '.

As he was utterly unknown at Norwich, and as there was a Doctor Butler at that time as a visitor with Bishop Hayter, the portmanteau was carried by

* Charles Butler, An Account of the Llfe and Writings of the Rev. Alban Butler, p. 110 (1799)· t A Journal of my Journey to Paris in 1765, by William Cole, M.A., F.S.A., edited by F. G. Stokes (1931). The Bletcheley Diary of Mr William Cole, edited by F. G. Stokes (193 1 ). t Mr Cole explains in a parenthesis that" Father Charles Bedingfield was not of the Baronet's family, but of a Protestant family related to it, the head of which I well remember, a fellow-commoner of St John's College, Cambridge". All this is in MS. Addit. 5826 (fol. 15 VO ) in the British Museum.

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Appendix I]

mistake to the Bishop's Palace, and was opened by Dr Butler, who finding therein a hair-shirt, disciplines, indulgences, missals, etc., the mistake was soon found out, and as soon communicated to the Bishop, who began to make a stir about it. But by the mediation of the Duke of Norfolk, the affair was hushed up, and Mr Butler had his box or portmanteau restored to him.

It must be remembered that at this date not one of the penal laws against Catholics had yet been repealed. It was still open to the common informer to denounce any priest for saying Mass, and so when we read that Bishop Hayter cc began to make a stir about it ", any action on his part might easily have involved good Mr Butler in consequences even more serious than mere expense and un足 pleasantness. A certain William Payne, known as cc the Protestant carpenter", was as active in those days in conducting a campaign against all that savoured of Popery as the Kensits have been in our own times. The judges, for the most part, were reluctant to convict, and when, on June 25, 1768, the Rev. Mr Webb was tried in the King's Bench, Lord Mansfield, who presided, pointed out in delivering judgement that cc all the twelve judges had been consulted on the point, and that they had all agreed in opinion that the statutes were so worded that, in order to convict a man upon them, it was necessary that he should be first proved to be a priest, and secondly that it should be proved that he had said Mass". lit: But even after this ruling the cc Protestant carpenter" did not desist, and as late as 1771 Bishop James Talbot, the coadjutor of Bishop Challoner, was brought to trial at the Old Bailey for cc exercising the functions of a popish bishop". That such prosecutions most frequently failed was but a poor compensation for the annoyance created; and they did not always fail. In 1767 an Irish priest, J. B. Maloney, was convicted of saying Mass and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment.

Mr Cole tells us that he had made a note of the story just recounted on the back of the title-page of one of the volumes of Mr Butler's Lives of the Saints~ and he adds: I had bought all his books [4 volumes of the Lives of the Saints printed at London in 8vo, the first volume in 1756 and the last in 1759] as they came out and had often read them much to my satisfaction, as he is both a very ingenious and learned man, as his said books very sufficiently evince, and, as I had heard also a very great character of his humanity from several of our common friends, I was determined to call upon him, as well to satisfy my curiosity in viewing the noble college founded by Lewis XIV, or rather rebuilt by him for the English Jesuits in that city, as to see a person whose character and writings had given me much pleasure.

Accordingly, on my arrival at the post-house, a very noble inn, where I ordered my dinner, getting there from Calais about 3 o'clock, while that was preparing, I went to the college and introduced myself to Mr Butler, then President of the same since the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in 1762 and 1763, who received me with great civility, insisted on my sending for my portmanteaux and servant from the inn and my supping and lying at the college. His manner of pressing me was so insistent and urgent that I could not refuse it; though it is probable I was the first priest of the Church of England that ever slept within those walls. Before we went out he showed

* See

The Catholic Magazine, vol. i, p. 717 (1832).

65 8

A MEMOIR OF ALBAN BUTLER

[Appendix I

me every part of that very noble College, which was now converted into a seminary for English secular priests, and for a place of education of Catholic English scholars, over whom Mr Butler was placed as chief with the title of President. I was informed that he was very averse from taking this charge upon him, as it seemed to intrude upon the rights of a Society for whom he had a great regard; yet being much importuned by the Archbishop of Rheims, the Bishops of Beauvais and Amiens, and well knowing that if he did not accept of it, the whole would have been converted to some other use, and not to the benefit of the English, and that the Society could not be injured by his acceptance of it, he at length yielded to the judgement of his friends, who thought none of his order more capable of discharging so difficult a task as the right education of youth as himself.

Mr Cole goes on to give some description of the building, as he does also in his Paris diary recently printed. From the independent account in MS. Addit.

5826 the following passage may be of some interest: It is a very large and spacious College with a noble and beautiful front of stone to the street, which is a principal one leading from the cathedral to 8t Bertin's Abbey. The chapel of the College is but small considering the great number of students it contained during the time the Jesuits had pos足 session of it. There are now not above 30 scholars under Mr Butler's direc足 tion, but there can be no doubt that it will increase after a time, as the present governor of it has shown himself to be so able as well as so religious and pious a scholar.

In the printed diary we learn that Mr Butler took Cole for a walk to see the abbey of Saint-Bertin and the cathedral. On their return to the college: It being a fish day, we had a very elegant supper of fish, omelette, sallads and other things of that sort in the parlour where three young English priests, whose names I don't recollect, Sir Piers Mostyn, Baronet, a young gentleman of about 17 or 18 years of age, thin and seemingly not very healthful, who was there for his education, and a thin tall gentleman of Durham, who had lost one eye, of the age of between 30 and 40, as I judged, and a great talker, but whose name I heard not, supped and spent the evening with us. There was also an Irish priest, who was called in a certificate I saw in his hand, the Abbe Morison, who that day brought from Lisbon a young English merchant's sons, to be put under the care of Mr Butler. I was very hospitably and agreeably entertained, and slept in a very neat and pretty apartment, purposely kept for strangers. My servant also lodged in the College, the servants of which undertook to get me a place in the Lille diligence for the morrow. As it set out by 4 in the morning [the date being October 19th, it must have been completely dark at that hour] I took leave of the President and the other gentlemen by about 10 that evening with many acknowledgements of their kind and civil treatment. * Trivial as these details may seem they help to fill in the picture we may form of the life led by Alban Butler in the years of his presidency at St Orner's. He was fifty...five at the date of Cole's visit, and died less than eight years later. There

* The

Paris Diary of William Cole, p.

659

I I.

Appendix I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

can be no doubt that our traveller-the friend, let me repeat, of such men as Horace Walpole and the poet Gray-was favourably, even deeply, impressed by his contact with the author of The Lives of the Saints. The references made to Butler in his letters to Father Bedingfield and other friends are always more than civil, and it is clear that the good Franciscan, who was Cole's neighbour in England, knew that the antiquary was greatly interested in the President of St Orner's. Writing to Cole on August II, 1767, Bedingfield reports: I heard some time ago that the Bishop of 8t Orner's· was coming to England with his intimado Mr Alban Butler. The latter is grumbled at by his friends on this side for making them wait so long for his" Movable Feasts".

But it seems the nuns of Lisbon have prevailed with him to \vrite the Life of one of their own community, which is just come out, and I propose getting one of my popish bookseller, Coghlan of Duke Street, Grosvenor Square, who sends me down anything I write for.t To which Cole replies that he " wished he could have seen Mr Butler while he was in England to have returned his civilities to me at St Orner's". And he adds that he would be glad to have his book concerning the life of the nun of Lisbon. Father Bedingfield, no doubt, always hoped that this very tolerant Anglican parson would end by joining the Church, and Cole, in December 1765, mentions having received a letter from him " speaking", he says, " in a sort of style as if I was going over sea with a full resolution of turning Catholic; in which he was much mistaken ".t Still, it is certain that there were aspects of ecclesiastical life in France which made a great appeal to Cole. On returning home after his visit to Paris he sent to Butler some notes and emendations, couched in very courteous language, which he had jotted down in reading the latter's valued work on the saints, and he also expressed his grief and alarm at the great wave of irreligion which, as he had himself noted on his journey,§ seemed to be spreading over France. His letter, perhaps, is worth quoting almost entire as giving an idea of the tone of French society at that date. This was what Butler would have to encounter, if ever he ventured forth from his retreat to mix with the world around him.

I found (Cole writes) it would not be easy to find any sympathetic com­ panionship with the natives who do not love us and indeed have no reason to do so; but the one thing which disgusted me most was the looseness of their principles in point of religion. I travelled to Paris through Lille and Cambray in their public voitures and was greatly scandalized and amazed at their open and unreserved disrespect, both of the trading and military people, for their clergy and religious establishment. When I got to Paris it was much worse.

I had an opportunity, by a friend's being at Paris, with whom I spent most of my afternoons II and where was a great resort of French company of the best sort, as he was a man of fashion and literature, to be further convinced of the

* This was Mgr de Conzie \\I-ho was translated from Arras to the see of Saint-Orner in 1766. Charles Butler, in his Memoir, speaks of him at some length. t Addit. MS. 5824, fo1. 25 vo • t Paris Diary, p. 374. § Cole speaks feelingly of this in his Paris Diary, pp. 25, 218, etc.

II This was undoubtedly Sir Horace Walpole.

660

A MEMOIR OF ALBAN BUTLER

[Appendix I

great prevalency of deism in that kingdom, where if they go on at the rate they have done for these last few years, it is much to be feared that any mode of Christianity, much more the best, will fare but ill with so loose a people.

I was shocked at this barefaced infidelity, as well as my friend who is so far from being a bigot to any form of Christianity that we rather looked upon him in England as indifferent to all: so that it was with the greatest pleasure I often heard hirn engaged very warmly in defence of our common Christianity against these " Philosophers" as the French deists affect to call themselves; and upon this principle that it was time enough to think of pulling down the present established form of worship when they could agree among themselves to establish a better. The French nobility, ladies as well as men, military, gentry and even tradesmen, etc., are infected ,vith this new philosophy~ God alone knows where it will end; but I fear the ,vorst. I ever thought we were bad in England; but I never heard so much public infidelity anywhere as while I ,vas in France; where, however, to its honour be it spoken, they have spewed out Rousseau; while England, according to custom, has licked up the vomit. I hope you will pardon the indelicacy of the expression, but resentment to see the folly, blindness and ill-judgement of my countrymen, who are now a-madding in caressing a man, whom all good government, Christian or heathen, ought to detest, forced me to make use of it. All our newspapers for this last fortnight have had regularly t",¡o or three articles relating to this great Mr Rousseau and his settling in England. If the Em­ peror had paid us a visit, more noise could not have been made about it; and we seem to think we have made a great acquisition in a man, who, was it not already in part done to his hands, has it in his heart to unloose all tics, both civil and ecclesiastic. But I will have done with this argument, and "rill only add that it gave me the most hearty concern to think what was likely to become of the flourishing Gallican Church, if a stop, a providential stop, be not put to this present phrenzy. * For all that, Cole concludes his letter with the surprising suggestion that he himself would be glad to settle down on the other side of the English Channel.

His actual words are these : I must own I still long after a retreat sornewhere about you, or in Nor­ nlandy, if a proper place could be found. I lament I had so short a time with you, as I am fearful I shall have no opportunity of talking this and other matters over ""ith you in England. However, if you should have a call here, I should be infinitely happy to see you at this place; which I might the sooner hope for as you told rne the neighbouring county of Northampton was your native one. I assure you a most hearty welcome and shall be glad of every opportunity to approve myself, reverend sir, your much obliged and faithful servant Wm. Cole.

Bletcheley Feb. I, 1766.

Butler returned a very full reply; and that his correspondent valued it is proved by the fact that he not only kept the original-it may still be found bound up in Addit. MS. 64oo-but also made a copy in another of his manuscript books

* Letter of William Cole to Alban Butler, dated January 26, 1766, in MS. Addit. 5826, fols. 18 vO to 2l vo .

661

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Appendix I]

(Addit. MS. 5826). Its main portion is a sympathetic reinforcement of Cole's lament over the spread of infidelity in France, telling 'him, with a characteristic exuberance of phrase, that his" frightful portraiture of the monstrous growth of libertinism and irreligion alarms and disturbs me beyond expression. A good deal indeed I knew to be true." But the conclusion of the epistle is in a thoroughly practical vein, and was intended no doubt to encourage Cole in the idea of settling abroad.

The necessaries and conveniencies of life are grown much dearer in France than formerly, 'but not in the same proportion as in England, where, I much fear, in a few years one-half the people will become beggars, and be main足 tained by the other half. I have every\vhere found amongst the French a sufficient number of friends both obliging and very cordial and agreeable.

Should you ever be inclined to try these parts (and the neighbourhood of England I have always found to have very agreeable circumstances) it would make me completely happy, if in my power, to contribute in any thing to make your situation agreeable. The most advantageous way of employing money here is now in the life prents upon the King which yield 10 per cent, or on the clergy for ever 5 per cent.

The final courteous phrases are those of the period: I am sorry you should think our poor entertainment to have deserved to be remembered. I shall always think myself much obliged to your goodness in accepting our humble lodging, and shall more so, if you ever find it con足 venient to favour us with your company for a longer time and as frequently as it shall suit your convenience. In every thing in my power I shall be very happy to obey your orders, execute any commissions, or give any proof of the most sincere respect and esteem with which I am, Hond. revd. Sir, Your most obliged and devoted humble servant, A. BUTLER Alban Butler did not write with the vivacity and point which distinguish the letters of Horace Walpole, Lord Chesterfield or Fanny Burney. His realization of the eternal verities no doubt kept him always far removed from anything like a frivolous tone. But it seems, none the less, to have been the conviction of all with whom he came in contact that he was a friend who inspired trust, a man whose high ptinciples were stimulating to those more worldly or infirm of purpose, a Christian in whom asceticism had not killed human feeling, and a scholar who, in intellectual matters, sought only the truth and never spared himself pains to attain it.

Perhaps a few words may here be added to supplement what has been written in the preface to the first volume of this series on Alban Butler's work as a hagio足 grapher. He was not, of course, the first to produce in English a general collection of saints' lives arranged in the order of the calendar. One of the earliest compila足 tions of this kind was the Legenda Aurea, written in the middle of the thirteenth century by the Dominican, Bd James de Voragine, who died archbishop of Genoa (see herein under July 13). This work was translated and printed by William Caxton, "the father of English typography. In its English dress the Golden Legend proved to be almost the most popular of Caxton's publications. Several editions,

662

A MEMOIR OF ALBAN BUTLER

[Appendix I

reproducing the same version, came from the press in the first thirty years of the sixteenth century, but after the breach with Rome it was not reprinted, and under the repressive influence of Elizabeth's enactments against the introduction of popish books, Catholics for a long time had nothing to take its place. It was only in 16°9 that there appeared, probably at Douay, the first part of a work bearing the title: The Lives of Saints written in Spanish, by the learned and reverend Father Alfonso Villegas, Divine and Preacher; translated out of Italian into English and conferred with the Spanish. By W. and E. K. B. The translators are believed to have been two brothers, William and Edward Kinsman, but a certain amount of obscurity surrounds the whole production.

The last four months of the year did not appear until 1614, with a rather pathetic preface, of which I quote a few sentences: We present thee now at length, dear Christian reader, with the four last months of their glorious lives, whose names, as renowned saints of God, are in the Roman calendar. This debt, I must confess, hath been due this long time, but could not be discharged until this present, wherein the grace of God hath freed our passage through a main sea of difficulties. For such is the nature of all Catholic writings in our distressed country. What through penury, pressure, and long imprisonment of their authors at home, ignorance, neglect and carelessness of such as are put in trust abroad, we must wind ourselves out of a labyrinth of crosses, before we can bring to light our labours.

And even then must they run so many hard fortunes and have such bad welcome and entertainment, that only this were able to check all endeavours not strengthened by the hand of God. The welcome, however, does not seem after all to have been so very cold, for several reimpressions followed in the course of the next twenty years, some of them being augmented by additions from Father Ribadeneira and other sources.

This bulky work of Father Pedro de Ribadeneira (who, as a lively youth of only thirteen, had been received into the Society of Jesus by St Ignatius Loyola himself as far back as 1540) was entitled Fios Sanctorum and was published in Spanish at Madrid. The first volume, a folio of 708 pages, appeared in 1599; the second, containing 870 pages, followed in 1601. The work was dedicated to the queen of Spain, Margaret of Austria, and had a great vogue, being translated into many other languages and frequently reprinted, sometimes entire and sometimes in abridgements. So far as devout Catholic readers were interested in hagiography, Father de Ribadeneira's work was probably the main source of information about the saints during the seventeenth century and a great part of the eighteenth, for all but the very scholarly. In 1669 a translation of it appeared in English in a sur­ prisingly sumptuous form with the following title : The Lives of Saints, with other Feasts of the year, according to the Roman Calendar. Written in Spanish by the Rev. Fr. Peter Ribadeneira, Priest of the Society of Jesus, and translated into English by W. P. Esquire. To which are added all those which have been put into the Calendar since the author's edition until the year 1669; besides those Feasts of Spain which the author himself hath inserted. Printed with Licence. St. Omers; Joachim Cartier. 1669.

Appendix I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

The book was a folio of 1属36 pages and it contained several full-plate illustrations. A second edition of the same translation, but this time divided into two volumes, was printed in 1730 under the editorship of Father Thomas Coxon, s.J. The" W. P. Esquire" who had made this version, much more, we may assume, as a labour of love than in hope of any financial advantage, was the Hon. William Petre, the son of the second Lord Petre, by Katherine, daughter of Edward Somerset, fourth Earl of Worcester. He had been a student both at Exeter and Wadham Colleges in Oxford and had attended the Inns of Court.

But in the course of the seventeenth century there had come about a great advance in hagiographical studies, especially through the work of the Bollandists, as well as those of Mabillon and rrillemont. Education was spreading, and many devout people, both ecclesiastics and laymen, began to realize that much which was recorded of the more popular saints, especially the stories of martyrdoms in the early centuries and miracles at a later date, was pure legend and quite unworthy of credence. A certain reaction set in against the wholesale and unquestioning reception of the supernatural which prevailed in such books as those of Ribadeneira and Villegas. Writers who took their tone from I.Jaunoy or Baillet felt free to ridicule the credulity of the devout, and made it an accusation against the Church that she propagated such fables for her o\vn pecuniary interest. Something of this change of feeling no doubt manifested itself in the book which Dr Charles Fell (a priest whose real name seems to have been Umfreville) began to publish in London in 1729 with the following title: Lives of the Saints collected from Authentick Records of Church History, with a full Account of the other Festivals throughout the year. The whole interspersed \vith suitable Reflections, together with a Treatise on the Move足 able Feasts and Fasts of the Church.

It came out, \\<'ith certain delays, in four volumes, but it seems to have been by no means a financial success. Dr John Kirk, in his Biographies, tells us of these Ijves that " Dr Robert Witham of Douay wrote observations on them and de足 nounced them at Rome. His principal complaint was that the author had taken them mainly from Baillet and had recorded few miracles." \\Te cannot doubt that Alban Butler, who knew Robert Witham well, was fully acquainted with the opinions entertained at Douay regarding Dr Fell's Lives; rnoreover, Baillet's book, Les Vies des Saints composees sur ce qui nous est reste de plus authentique et de plus assure dans leur histoire (Paris, 1701), was at that date a burning topic in ecclesiastical circles throughout France. * It set;ms to me that anyone who reads attentively Butler's "Introductory Discourse" to his first volume cannot fail to detect a reference to the situation which then existed, and a very clear expression of his determination, while following the sound criticism of Tillemont and the Bollandists, to abstain from anything which might seem like sympathy with Baillet's uncompromising mistrust of the super足 natural. " Certain critics of this age, as they style themselves", writes Butler, "are displeased with all histories of miracles, not considering that these wonders are,

* The greater part of this collection of Lives was delated to Rome and eventually put on the Index.

A MEMOIR OF ALBAN BUTLER

[Appendix I

in a particular manner, the works of God, intended to raise our attention to His holy providence and to awake our souls to praise His goodness and power; often also to bear testimony to I-lis truth. Entirely to omit the mention of them would be an infidelity in history, and would tend, in some measure, to obstruct the great and holy purposes for which they were effected. Yet a detail of all miracles, though authentically attested, is not the design of this work. Wherefore in such facts it seemed often sufficient to refer the reader to the original records." Even more significant perhaps is a phrase occurring in a footnote a little further on, in which Butler remarks: "On the other hand, some French critics in sacred bio足 graphy have tinctured their works with a false and pernicious leaven and under the name of erudition established scepticism."

The Lives of the Saints, as sent to the press by Alban Butler in 1756, were at an early date translated into French by a certain Abbe Godescard, possibly with some additions and modifications. As may be seen from the printed catalogue of the Bibliotheque N ationale, this French translation was often reprinted, but its tone seems to have given great offence to Mgr Paul Guerin, subsequently the editor of a rival and much more voluminous collection of saints' lives, known as Les Petits Bollandistes. On the very first page of his preface Mgr Guerin brackets Godescard (i.e. Butler) with Baillet, and declares that the reader of either of these books carries away "the same sort of impression which is given by a beautiful garden which has been blighted by the onset of winter. The breath of the critic, cold and death-dealing, has swept over it, and has not left a single blossom or a trace of perfume." Nor is this enough; a few lines further on he tells his readers : Butler is not a faithful mirror of the past. He is far from transmitting to us the radiance of those saintly characters which the men of their own day beheld in all its splendour. If he does not cast them down from the pedestal upon which the piety of past ages has grown accustomed to v~nerate them, he rarely leaves intact that halo of glory with which God encircled their modest heads. If he does justice to the courage with which they stripped themselves of all earthly attachments, he is careful not to disclose anything of that mantle of glory with which God invested them in exchange. No doubt, he was afraid of dazzling or shocking eyes which in the bare and arid atmo足 sphere of Protestantism had become atrophied and thus insensible to any gleam of divine light or to the sweet and tender glow in human lives which is a reflection of heaven.

All this is a curious revelation of the mentality which prevailed both among the clergy and the devout laity of France in the middle of the last century. It is inconceivable that anyone acquainted with the original text of Butler's Lives could look upon the author as hypercritical, or as a denicheuT des saints, to use the phrase originally coined, I think, to fit the case of de I.Jaunoy. The entire honesty of Butler and his great personal devotion to the saints is conspicuous in every word of his preface. His criticism is based entirely upon that of such approved guides as the early Bollandists, who, as their successors in our own day have shown, did not even in many cases push their criticism of sources far enough. Butler never took the Jead in any sort of inconoclastic assault upon tradition. His own personal attitude, both to the saints and to his readers, was very much that of the William 665

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

App'endix I]

or Edward Kinsman who, in the 1614 preface from which I have previously quoted, concluded with these words: Wherefore, dear Christian reader, doubt not to welcome and entertain that gue6t whose presence with pleasure will afford thee profit. And when thou dost find some few such things as are more to be admired than imitated, pass not thy judgement upon them with passion; measure not the virtues of God his Saints by thy own feebleness, go not about to weaken or discredit the promises of Christ, nor confine the omnipotence of God within the narrow bounds of human reason; for the holy God hath already foretold us that God is admirable in His Saints, and Christ did promise that His disciples should work greater wonders than their Master's.

666

APPENDIX II

BEATI AND SANCTI

By

HERBERT THURSTON, 8.J.

HERE is a popular impression, an impression shared even by some Catholics, that the process followed in the beatification and canonization of saints is analogous to that by which the Sovereign creates a Knight of the Garter or raises a commoner to the peerage. The analogy, if it exists at all, is a very imperfect one, for it suggests that the initiative in this conferring of spiritual dignities comes from the pope and not from the people. The assumptiop is that the vicar of Christ, having honours to bestow in the Church triumphant as well as in the Church militant, causes search to be made among the available records in order to discover the most worthy recipient of his favourr According to this mistaken view the Sovereign Pontiff fixes his choice upon this one or that, who has died in the repute of sanc~ity and then, after a certain measure of inquiry, declares the servant of God to be " Blessed". Supposing that this is well received and that further miracles are reported, canonization follows in due time, and the candidate thus approved is proclaimed worthy of universal veneration.

An investigation of past history, or a study of such an essay as that of the Bollandist Father H. Delehaye, entitled Sanctus, will show that the idea thus outlined is almost the reverse of what actually happens, and of what in fact has always happened, since the beginning. It is not the pope who is anxious to " make saints", but the people who have to be restrained from making them too easily.

The impulse comes, not from above, but from below. The faithful of some particular locality, impressed by the virtue, the sufferings or the miracles of one who has lived in their midst, are convinced that he must be dear to God and are eager while invoking his intercession to pay him such honour as their devotion suggests. In the earliest centuries it was the martyr who alone evoked this popular enthusiasm, but soon it was realized that a martyrdom which was lifelong and self-imposed might be even more worthy of admiration than that which was terminated by a single blow of the executioner's sword. Thus confessors and virgins took their place among those heavenly patrons in whose honour the holy sacrifice was offered. For many centuries no other sanction was sought than that of the local bishop. With his permission the sacred remains were disinterred and enshrined in some more conspicuous place. Following upon this " elevation", Mass was celebrated each year upon the anniversary of him or her who was so commemorated, and this dies natalis (heavenly birthday) was entered in the calendar or martyrology of the diocese or province.

This was the first step in what we might describe as the evolution of the process of canonization. So far as it went, it really corresponded much more closely to the modern beatification. The holy people who were so honoured were entitled only to a local and restricted veneration, and the recognition of eminent virtue had no binding force for the Church at large. But often the cult, which seemed to be favoured by miraculous answers to prayer, spread to other countries, even those

T

667

App~ndix I I]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

remote from the place of origin. Relics or representative tokens where conveyed to a distance, and in these ne'w shrines they became the nucleus of a fresh mani足 festation of popular enthusiasm. The local martyr-lists and calendars borrowed from one another, and when a name was famous, such, let us say, as that of St Cyprian, St Basil, St l\lartin of Tours or St Athanasius, it was ere long adopted everywhere, and the cult was thus ratified by the acceptance of the universal Church. To this day the majority of the feasts which stand in the calendar of the Roman missal commemorate saints who had no other canonization than that \vhich is involved in this general approval. No formal pronouncement of the Holy See has ever proclaimed them holy, and no evidence of miracles performed was deemed necessary for this recognition.

It is, however, obvious enough that any such rough and ready canonization by popular acclaim, subject only to the sanction of the local bishop, was open to grave abuses. rrhe enthusiasm of the crowd is not always discriminating, nor were medieval bishops in all cases sufficiently learned or vigilant to cope with the indiscretions-and not seldom the frauds-of foolish or mercenary promoters of a new cult. In the course of time the Holy See found it necessary to intervene, or, more correctly, the pope began to be appealed to to ratify a decision already arrived at in practice. The first papal canonization is believed to be that of Bishop Ulric of Augsburg, \vho died in 973 and was formally declared by Pope John XV t\venty years later to be entitled to the devout veneration of all the faithful. Then in the latter part of the twelfth century, Alexander III definitely reserved to the Holy See the right to pronounce when the claims of a candidate to saintship were in question, and although for a time local cults still grew up and flourished in many pl3.ces without much interference, the principle that a valid canonization could only be effected by a papal bull of a very formal kind eventually came to be every\vhere recognized.

Do\vn to the beginning of the sixteenth century, or even later, there is little evidence that any significant distinction existed between the terms beatus and sanetus as applied to holy people, nor does the word" beatification" seem to occur with a technical meaning which opposes it to " canonization". The early cases quoted by Benedict XIV in his great work on the subject (De Servorum Dei beati足 fieatione et Beatorum eanonizatione, lib. I, cap. xx, nne 18-19) are not entirely conclusive. At the same time it may be assurned, as already suggested, that the exhumation (or "elevation") and enshrining of an ascetic's holy remains did constitute a recognition of his sanctity, roughly equivalent to the later process of beatification. It was in any case accepted as a preliminary step to canonization and a sufficient warrant for local cults. But with the close of the sixteenth century, or possibly earlier, a quite definite distinction was established between the beatus and the sanetus. By the papal decree of beatification the veneration of a particular servant of God was permitted, but with limitations confining the public expression of the cult to the celebration of Mass in his honour or the exposing of his picture or relics, to certain localities, or to a certain religious order, or to churches to which the privilege was specially granted. Even so, there was for a long time no public solemnity in St Peter's at Rome to celebrate the papal approval of the virtues of the newly beatified. The first public function of this sort, such as now generally takes place even for an approbatio euitus, seems to have occurred in 1662, under Alexander VII on the occasion of the beatification of St Francis de Sales. Earlier than this, and notably in the sixteenth century, the pope often deputed the bishop

668

BEATI AND SANCTI

[Appendix II

of the diocese or some prelate of distinction to inquire into the case, and by dele足 gated authority to permit the celebration of Mass or other forms of cultus, a definite clause being inserted in the instrument to the effect that this concession was not to be understood as constituting a canonization of the holy person in question. A case in point is preserved in the decree of Hugh, bishop of Constance, who in virtue of powers conferred by Pope Julius II permitted the monastery of St Gall in 15 13 to keep the feast of Blessed Notker, the famous writer of sequences, who had been a monk in that abbey. As Notker Balbulus died in 912, this formal, even if indirect, approval of cultus takes us back to a time earlier than that of St Ulric of Augsburg, who, as stated above, passes for the first saint to have been papally canonized. But there have been many other confirmations of cultus since then which approve the liturgical veneration of bishops, abbots, martyrs, etc., still more remote in date. To take a single example, Pope Leo XIII, on the appeal of the then recently created hierarchy of Scotland, sanctioned the keeping by that country of nineteen separate festivals, amongst which is that of 8t Palladius who is supposed to have lived in the fifth century. The claim of most of these celebrations to continued recognition seems to have been mainly based upon the fact of their inclusion in the Aberdeen Breviary, a service book of the late middle ages.* It is in virture of decrees similar to the one just mentioned that feasts in honour of St Theodore of Canterbury, St Chad, St Oswald, St Winifred, etc., are kept in various English dioceses.

Since the pontificate of Urban VIII the procedure in beatification causes, in spite of some modifications subsequently introduced, has been definitely regulated, and remains quite distinct from the canonization process which may supervene.

It consists essentially in a petition addressed to the Holy See by some person of credit, or some corporate body, such as a religious order, that a process of inquiry may be set on foot regarding the sanctity of a particular individual who has died in the repute of holiness. If the petition is acceded to, a postulator of the cause is appointed, who approaches the bishop of the diocese concerned with a view to the constitution of an " informative process" in which witnesses are interrogated before a court of ecclesiastical judges in accord with a carefully drafted question足 naire, and the8e depositions are recorded in writing. The court, composed of a president and at least two assessors, conducts the proceedings in the presence of an official critic, "the promoter of the faith ", who though he cannot himself cross-examine the witnesses, can call upon the judges to put questions which he considers desirable. All the evidence having been heard, the proces verbal is sealed up and despatched to Rome, together with letters from the judges and the promoter of the faith, but these are not opened until after the writings of the servant of God have been read and approved, and the question arises of the formal " introduction of the cause". From the materials provided by the " informative process" a summary of the case is printed and distributed to the Congregation of Rites. To this are commonly added some specimens of the petitions which have been addressed to the Holy See, begging that the matter of the beatification may be taken in hand without delay. If all is approved by the congregation, the sanction of the Sovereign Pontiff is obtained and the cause is thereby formally introduced, the first stage in the process being thus completed. The servant of God, however, accordin.g to present legislation, is not yet entitled to be styled " Venerable ".

* The decree is dated July 1I, 1898, and is printed in the Analecta Ecclesiastica for that year, page 403.

Appe~dix II]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

There still remains, in fact, very much to be done. Letters are addressed to the Holy See to obtain the signing of litterae remissoriales in which a new examina足 tion of witnesses in the diocese of origin, called the processus apostolicus, is conducted before judges, this time deputed by the Holy See itself. It is only after this evidence has been collected and discussed that the material is again submitted to the Congregation of Rites, who pronounce a series of verdicts, first on the proof of the repute for sanctity in general, then on the validity of the process, then on the heroic character of the candidate's virtues in particular, then on the super足 natural origin of the miracles adduced, and finally on the question whether a decree of beatification can safely (de tuto) be pronounced. At all these stages, often separated by considerable intervals of time, opportunity is given to the promoter of the faith to expound and print his objections. After a favourable decision has been arrived at as to the heroic character of the virtues, the candidate is entitled to be called " Venerable", and when the decision de tuto has been reached, the papal decre"e of beatification and the solemn proclamation in the Vatican basilica usually follow without notable delay.

As already stated, the whole process has its starting-point in an appeal made to the Holy See by those who are cognisant of the virtues of the servant of God. Moreover, after the " informative", or diocesan, process has been completed and sent to Rome, the Codex Juris Canonici (canon 2077) suggests that it is desirable that petitions for the expediting of the cause should be addressed to the Holy See by persons of standing, providing only that these petitions be spontaneous and made by those who have knowledge of the facts. A book on the Canonization of Saints, by Canon T. F. Macken (1910), goes so far as to say: "The Church rarely takes action until petitioned in this way, and the memorials should give expression to the remarkable reputation for sanctity . . . enjoyed by the deceased servant of God, and the widespread holy desire that the Supreme Pontiff should place him on the venerated roll of th~ saints." What is made clear in the official Codex pro postulatoribus is that these petitions are meant to lay stress upon the continuance and further spread of the repute for sanctity, as well as upon the urgent popular desire that the beatification should be proceeded with. All this bears out the idea that the starti.og-point in the canonization process is the appeal of some group of the Christian faithful who are eager to pay homage to one of God's servants whom they believe to be especially dear to Him and whose intercession they consequently wish to in\,('lce. But before acceding to this desire the Supreme Pontiff has to be satisfied relarding two points in particular. First of all it must be made clear that the subject who has inspired this devotion has given a worthy example of holiness and in fact has practised virtue in an heroic degree. Secondly, he must be con足 vinced that the desire which prompted the appeal for a declaration of sanctity was not a mere evanescent wave of feeling, but persists.

In the case of martyrs another important point which nowadays has to be rigorously established by evidence, is the fact that the martyr was put to death in odium fidei. This is a question which has two aspects. On the one hand it should be shown that the persecutor was animated with malice against the Christian faith or against some feature of the Church's teaching. On the other hand the disposition of the martyr is also in question, and it must be made clear that he faced death not for vainglory or any unworthy motive, but steadfastly in a spirit of loyaity to Christ and His Church. Among those who in earlier ages were venerated as martyrs, there are not a few who seem to have been simply the victims

67属

BEATI AND SANCTI

[Appendix II

of some brutal assault provoked by personal resentment, greed or frustrated ambition. It may be said that with regard to the whole patristic and early medieval period, the Church, recognizing the impossibility of any adequate historical inquiry after the lapse of so many centuries, is content to abide by the traditions of the past. Those who can be shown by the testimony of martyrologies and calendars to have been honoured then with the veneration of the faithful, are left in possession of their courtesy title. They are in this way honoured with an equipollent canoniza足 tion, but the infallibility of the Holy See is not in any way involved if subsequent discoveries make it clear that grave misunderstandings have occurred, and that the faith of simple people has in some sense been imposed upon.

With regard, however, to those whose virtuous life and blessed death have been proclaimed to the world in a solemn bull of canonization, it is the more commonly held opinion that such a pronouncement is irreformable, and that the Church cannot have erred in declaring them to be the friends of God and in the enjoyment of bliss everlasting. This does not, of course, apply to statements which may occur in the bull of canonization relating, for example, to past historical facts or to the supernatural character of certain events represented as miraculous. No stigma of heresy attaches to the denial that any particular cure or portent was a true miracle~ though it is mainly upon the proof of the occurrence of such reputed miracles, after beatification has taken place, that the resumption of the cause depends and also its successful progress towards the goal of final canonization.

The implication undoubtedly is that by the working of fresh miracles the Almighty has set His seal upon the decision arrived at in the beatification decree, and that the Sovereign Pontiff is thereby empowered to declare with full confidence that universal and unrestricted veneration may be paid to the blessed soul whom God has so honoured.

I am not in this brief note attempting any sort of analysis of the modifications which arise from varying circumstances when the case is presented per viam non cultus, or as extraordinaria casus excepti seu cultus. Neither need anything be said of the special case of martyrs except to note that the same evidence is not required of heroic virtue, and that miracles may here more easily be dispensed with. rrhe feature which I wish particularly to emphasize is the fact that in the equipollent canonizations of those holy men and women who lived before the thirteenth century, and the beatifications which are conceded merely in the form of a con足 firmatio cultus, the Church is committed to little or nothing in the way of a sifting of evidence. Nothing more is affirmed than that the faithful may legitimately continue the practices of devotion which many centuries have made familiar.

[An example of confirmatio cultus is provided by the first group of blessed English martyrs. Their so-called beatification in 1886 was in fact a recognition and confirmation by the Holy See of the cultus approved by Pope Gregory XIII in 1583 when he allowed their representation as martyrs on the walls of the chapel of the English College in Rome.

Since the above appendix was written an important article by S. Kuttner on " La reserve papale du droit du canonisation " has appeared in the Revue historique de droit francais et etranger, n.s., vol. xvii, pp. 172-228; and in English an Anglican scholar, the Rev. E. W. Kemp, has published a study of Canonization and Authority in the Western Church (1948) ; see also Father Delehaye's Sanctus (1927), mentioned above. For the general reader there is a good summary by Mgr P. E. Hallett, The Canonization of Saints (C.T.S., 1948).-D. A.]

APPENDIX III RECENT BEATIFICATIONS During the ten years that have elapsed since this edition of Butler's "Lives" was published there has been a number of new beatifications and canonizations. There have also been considerable changes in the general calendar of the Ronlan church, on which other calendars in the Western church are based.

Changes have been inserted in many places in these volunles each ti111e the volu111es \vent to press. Notes of beatifications and canonizations are given belo\v \vhere it \vas impossible to insert the biographies in their proper places. The conlplete index in volunle IV, however, does contain cross references. Changes that have already been noted in the text are not repeated here.

JANUARY

4:

BD ELIZABETH ANN SETON (nee Bayley). Born in New York City, 1774; l11arried William Seton, 1794; widowed in 1803; received into the Catholic Church in 1805; l11ade religious vows, 1809; died at En1mitsburg in Maryland, 4 January 1821. Mother Seton founded the Anlerican Sisters of Charity and was the first native-born Anlerican citizen to be beatified, in 1963.

5:

BD JOHN NEPOMUCEN NEUl\1ANN. Born in Bohemia, 1811; he \vas ordained priest in New York City in 1836 and joined the Reden1ptorist congregation; conse足 crated fourth bishop of Philadelphia in 1852; he died there on 5 January 1860.

Bishop N eunlann, a naturalized An1erican citizen, organized Catholic schools into a diocesan systenl. He was beatified in 1963.

FEBRUARY

7:

BD EUGENIA SMET (Mother Mary of Providence), foundress of the Helpers of the Holy Souls. Born in Lille in 1825; founded her congregation in 1856 in Paris; died there, 1871. She \vas beatified in 1957.

MARCH

3:

BD INNOCENT OF BERZO. Born at Berzo in northern Italy, 1844. He \vas a secular priest fron1 1867 until 1874, \vhen he joined the Capuchin Friars ~Till0r. lIe died at Berganlo, 3 March 1890, and was beatified in 196I.

15 :

BD PLACID RICCARDI, Benedictine nlonk. He \vas born at Trevi in U111bria, 1844; entered the nlonastery of St Paul outside the \valls at Ronle, I 868; died there 15 11arch 19 15. He was beatified in 1954.

APRIL

7:

BD MARY ASSUNTA PALLOTTA, religious of the Franciscan lVlissionarie:-; of Mary. Born in Italy in 1878; died in China, 7 April 1905 and beatified in 1954.

11:

BD HELEN GUERRA, foundress of the Congregation of St Rita, later called the Oblates of the Holy Spirit. She \vas born at Lucca in 1835, and died there on I T April 1914. It was through her that Pope Leo XIII \vrote the encyclical letter "Divinum illud nlunus," on devotion to the Holy Spirit. She \vas beatified in 1959.

MAY

4:

BD JOHN MARTIN MOYE. He \vas a nlissionary priest in China and founder of the Sisters of Divine Providence. Born in Lorraine, 1730; died a1 Trier on 4 ~1ay 1793 and beatified in 1954.

JUNE

6:

BD MARCELLINUS CHAMPAGNAT, founder of the teaching congregation of Little Brothers of Mary, or Marist Brothers. He was born near Lyon in 1789, died on 6 June 1840, and was beatified in 1955.

[Appendix III

RECENT BEATIFICATIONS

15:

BD ALOYSIUS PALAZZOLO, founder of the Brothers of the Holy Family and the Sisters of the Poor. Born at Bergamo in 1827; ordained priest, 1850. His chari­ table work was particularly concerned with the reclaiming of prostitutes. He died on 15 June 1886 and "vas beatified in 1963.

JULY

20:

BB. LEO IGNATIUS MANGIN, ANN WANG and their con1panions, Martyrs. Four French Jesuits and fifty-two Chinese lay people l11artyred by the Boxers in 1900.

Beatified in 1955 (cf. herein, vol. iii, pp. 59-62).

AUGUST

11 : Bn

INNOCENT XI. Benedict Odescalchi, born at Con10, 161 I; elected pope, 1676; died in Ronle on I I August 1689. He was beatified in 1956.

20:

BD TERESA JORNET TBARS, foundress of the Little Sisters of the Aged Poor.

She "vas born in Catalonia in 1843, and was a school teacher for a tin1e before n1aking her religious foundation. She died 20 August 1897 and "vas beatified in 1957.

27:

BD DOMINIC BARBERI. Born near Viterbo in Italy, 1792; ordained priest in the Passionist congregation, 1818; n1issioner for seven years in England, "vhere he received John Henry Newman into the Church in 1845. He died near Reading in 1849 and \vas beatified in 1963.

OCTOBER

17:

BB. JOHN BAPTIST TURPIN DU CORMIER, MARY L'HuILIER and their COl11­ pallions. Fourteen priests, three nuns and a lay "VOl11an nlartyred at Laval i11 1794 during the French Revolution. They were beatified in 1955.

9:

DECEMBER

BD FRANCIS ANTONY F ASANI, priest in the order of Conventual Friars Minor.

He \vas born at Lucera in Apulia in 1681, and died at the friary there in 1742. He \\'as beatified in 1951.

15: BD

MARY MARGARET n'YouvILLE (nee Dufrost de Lajenlmerais). Born at \Tarennes near Montreal, 1701 ; left a widow in 1722, she devoted herself to hospital \\'ork and in 1738 founded the Grey Nuns of Canada. She died on 23 December 177 I and \"as beatified in 1959.

*

*

*

BD LEONARD M UR1ALDO. A secular priest, born at Turin in 1828. He devoted his Ii fe to the \velfare of young people and of nlanual workers, establishing the first "falnily house" in Italy for young working men. He founded the Society of St Joseph in Turin, \vhere he died in 1900. He "vas beatified in 1963.

BD N LTNZ10 S ULPRIZIO. A laynlan, born 1817 in the Abruzzi province of Italy. He \va~ a blacks111ith by trade, who died in 1836 at the age of nineteen. He "vas beatified in 1963.

Bn \lINCENT RO:MANO. Born near Naples, 1751. He was the parish priest of Herculano (possibly the forn1er Herculaneunl, near Pon1peii). He died in 1831 and \vas beatified in 1963.

N oT£.-ln an article on the mystic Orsola Benincasa printed in The Month for February 1939, Father Herbert Thurston refers to Bd GIOVANNA MARIA BONOMO as "a stigmatica and a mystic vvhose writings had considerable influence"; and he expresses regret that he omitted an account of her from the revised Butler. This beata was born in the diocese of Vicenza in 1606, and became a Benedictine nun at Bassano, where she died in the convent of St Jerome on March I, 1670. She \vas beatified in 1783. Father Thurston gives ref~rences to a Life in French by Du Bourg ,(1910) and to the Dictionnaire de S piritualite ~ vol. i, c. 1860. The article referred to above is reprinted in Surprising Mj'stics (1955), a collection of Father Thurston's papers edited by Father J. H. Crehan, S.].

INDEX GENERAL INDEX IN THIS VOLUME

Individual members of groups, e.g., of martyrs, are not entered in this index if they have only a bare mention in the text.

A Abbo of Fleury, St, 333

Abercius, St, 174

Abibus, St (with Gurias), 348

Abraham of Kratia, St, 507

Abraham of Rostov, St, 218

Acca, St, 156

Acisclus, St (with Victoria), 367

Adam of Loccum, Bd, 598

Adela, St, 605

Adelaide, St (wid.), 572

Ado, Bd, 571

Aedesius, St, 208

Aedh Mac Brice, St, 308

Man, St, 354

Agericus, St, 454

Agilbert, St, 87

Agnes of Assisi, St, 358

Agricola, St (with Vitalis), 263

Aignan, St, 367

Airy, St, 454

Alacoque, Margaret M., St, 134

Albert the Great, St, 345

Albert of Louvain, St, 400

Alexander, St (with Epimachus), 5+4­

Alexander Briant, Bd, 469

Alexander of Pavia, St, 90

All Saints, 232

All Souls, 239

Allowin, St, 5

Allucio, St, 186

Almato, Peter, Bd, 284

Almond, John, Bd, 502

Alodia, St (with Nunilo), 178

Alpais, Bd, 253

Alphaeus, St (with Zachaeus), 366

Alphonsus Rodriguez, St, 225

Alphonsus Rodriguez, Bd (mart.), 377

Amboise, Frances d', Bd, 266

Ambrose, St, 509

Ambrose of Camaldoli, Bd, 397

Amicus, St, 249

Ammon, St, 32

Ammon, St (mart.), 587

Amphilochius, St, 408

Anastasia, St, 613

Anastasia, St (with Cyril), 214

Anastasius, St (bp.), 325

Anastasius I, St (pope), 584

Anastasius II of Antioch, St, 592

Anastasius of Cluny, St, 130

Anatolia, St (with Victoria), 599

Andrew, St (ap.), 450

Andrew Avellino, St, 305

Andrew of Antioch, Bd, 452

Andrew of Crete, St (mart.), 157

Andronicus, St (with Athanasia), 69

Andronicus, St (with Tarachus), 83

Angadrisma, St, 1°9

Angel Guardians, 8

Angelo of Acri, Bd, 228

Anianus of Orleans, St, 367

Anne Wang, Bd, 672

Anno, St, 490

Ansanus, St, 454

Anstrudis, St, 140

Antony Baldinucci, Bd, 292

Antony Bonfadini, Bd, 460

Antony Claret, St, 179

Antony Grassi, Bd, 554­

Antony of Lerins, St, 628

Anysia, St, 642

Anysius, St, 642

Apollinaris of Valence, St, 36

Apphia, St, 4°5

Apuleius, St (with Marcellus), 58

Aquilinus, St, 150

Arcadius, St (mart.), 328

Archelaus, St, 618

Aretas, St, 19 I

Artaldus, St, 5 I

Artemius, St, 155

Arthaud, St, 51

Assunta Pallotta, Bd, 672

Asterius, St, 221

Astrik, St, 325

Athanasia, St (with Andronicus), 69

Attilanus, St, 18

Aubert of Cambrai, St, 551

Augustus Schomer, Bd, 283

Austremonius, St, 236

Austrude, St, 140

Avellino, Andrew, St, 3°5

B Bacchus, St (with Sergius), 58

Baldinucci, Antony, Bd, 292

BaHachi, Simon, Bd, 254

Balthasar of Chiavari, Bd, 201

Barbara, St, 487

Barlaam, St (mart.), 392

Barlaam, St (with Josaphat), 432

Barlaam of Khutyn, St, 277

Barsabas, St, 538

Bartholomew of Grottaferrata, St, 318

Bartholomew of l\t!antua, Bd, 502

Bartholomew of San Gimignano, Bd, 560

Bartholomew of Vicenza, Bd, 187

Bartolo, Bd, 560

Basle, St, 425

Basolus, St, 425

Bavo, St, 5

Bean, St, 206

Beehe, John, Bd, 463

Becket, Thomas, St, 629

Begga, St, 579

Bellacci, Thomas, Bd, 200

Benefatti, James, Bd, 427

Benen, St, 303

Benedict of Benevento, St, 324

[October, Nooemher, December

INDEX Benignus, St, 303

Benignus of Dijon, St, 236

Bentivoglia, Bd, 458

Benvenuta of Cividale, Bd, 223

Bercharius, St, 128

Berchmans, John, St, 427

Bernard of Parma, St, 493

Bernardino of Fossa, Bd, 437

Bernward, St, 396

Berrio-Ochoa, Valentine, Bd, 284

Bertilla, St, 268

Bertilla Boscardin, St, 161

Bertrand, Louis, St, 72

Bertrand of Comminges, St, 130

Beuzec, St, 525

Bibiana, St, 470

Birinus, St, 500

Birthday of Our Lord, The, 607

Bodey, John, Bd,244

Boethius, Severinus, St, 18o

Bojani, Benvenuta, Bd, 223

Bonaventure Buonaccorsi, Bd, 561

Bonaventure of Potenza, Bd, 207

Bonfadini, Antony, Bd, 460

Bonnard, John L., Bd, 283

Bonomo, Giovanna, Bd, 672

Borgia, Francis, St, 74

Borromeo, Charles, St, 255

Boscardin, Bertilla, Bd, 161

Breganza, Bartholomew, Bd, 186

Brian Lacey, Bd, 533

Briant, Alexander, Bd, 469

Brice, St, 328

Bridget, St (wid.), 53

Britius, St, 328

Bruno, St, 40

Bruno, St (bp.), 88

Budoc, St, 525

Buonaccorsi, Bonaventure, Bd, 561

Buoni, John, Bd, 187

Buonpedoni, Bartholomew, Bd, 560

Burchard, St, 110

Buxton, Christopher, Bd, 7

C Cabrini, Frances X., St, 593

Cadfan, St, 239

Caesarius, St (with Julian), 235

Cagnoli,~nrrd,Bd,460

Calixtus I, St, 107

Callistus I, St, 107

Campion, Edmund, Bd, 4 66

Campion, Edward, Bd, 7

Canice, St, 86

Cantelupe, Thomas, St, 19

Cantius, John, St, 154

Caprasius, St (mart.), 155

Carreri, Matthew, Bd, 53

Cassian of Tangier, St, 484

Castillo, John de, Bd, 377

Catherine Laboure, St, 443

Catherine of Alexandria, St, 420

Cecco, Bd, 6

Cecilia, St, 402

Cedd, St, 2째5

Cerbonius, St, 80

Cerioli, Paula, Bd, 606

Chaeremon, St, 597

Champagnat, Marcellinus, Bd, 672

Charles Borromeo, St, 255

Chef, St, 2 I 7

Christiana, St, 563

Christina of Stommeln, Bd, 277

Christmas, 607

Christopher Buxton, Bd, 7

Christopher of Romagnola, Bd, 200

Chromatius, St, 471

Chrysanthus, St (with Daria), 196

Chrysogonus, St,418

Claret, Antony, St, I 79

Clarus, St (mart.), 264

Claudius, St (with Hilaria), 483

Clement I, St, 4째5

Clement of Alexandria (note), 489

Cleopatra, St, 149

Colman of Cloyne, St, 419

Colman of Kilmacduagh, St, 2 I 8

Coloman, St (mart.), 105

Colonna, Margaret, Bd, 290

Columba of Sens, St, 645

Columban, St, 409

Comgan, St, 104

Condedus, St, 170

Conrad of Constance, St, 425

Conrad of Offida, Bd, 560

Contardo Ferrini, Bd, 210

Corentin, St, 545

Cosimo di Carbognano, Bd, 270

Crispin, St (with Crispinian), 197

Crispina, St, 497

Crispinian, St (with Crispin), 197

Crockett, Ralph, Bd, 8

Cuby, St, 295

Cuenot, Stephen, Bd, 283

Cumian Fota, St, 323

Cungar, St, 435

Cunibert, St, 322

Cury, St, 545

Cuthbert Mayne, Bd, 447

Cybi, St, 295

Cyprian, St (with Felix), 93

Cyran, St, 501

Cyril, St (with Anastasia), 214

D Dagobert II, St, 601

Damas us, St, 536

Damian of Finario, Bd, 207

Daniel, St (mart.), 81

Daniel the Stylite, St, 539

Daria, St (with Chrysanthus), 196

Dasius, St, 393

Dedication of St John Lateran, 299

Dedication of St Peter's and St Paul's, 381

Delphinus, St, 605

Demetrian, St, 276

Demetrius, St (mart.), 63

Demetrius of Alexandria, St, 67

Denis of Paris, St, 67

Desiderius of Cahors, St, 348

Deusdedit, St (pope), 296

Diego, St, 327

Didacus, St, 327

Didier of Cahors, St, 348

Octo,ber, November, December]

Dionysia, St (with Majoricus), 507

Dionysius, St (pope), 618

Dionysius, St (with Redemptus), 448

Dionysius of Alexandria, St, 364

Dionysius of Paris, St, 67

Dionysius the Areopagite, St, 66

Dioscorus, St, 584

Dominic Loricatus, St, 110

Dominic Spadafora, Bd, 21

Dominic of Silos, St, 588

Donatus of Fiesole, St, 178

Dorothy of Montau, Bd, 224

Dubricius, St, 340

Duchesne, Philippine, Bd, 378

Dyfrig, St, 340

E Eata, St, 206

Ebregisilus, St, 194

Ebrulf, St, 639

Edburga of Minster, St, 546

Edmund Campion, Bd, 466

Edmund Genings, Bd, 532

Edmund of Abingdon, St, 355

Edmund of Canterbury, St, 355

Edmund the Martyr, St, 394

Edward Campion, Bd, 7

Edward James, Bd, 8

Edward the Confessor, St, 100

Edwin, St, 94

Egwin, St, 643

Elesbaan, St, 191

Eleutherius, St (mart.), 9

Eleutherius, St (with Denis), 67

Eligius, St, 455

Elizabeth, St (with Zachary), 267

Elizabeth of Hungary, St, 386

Elizabeth the Good, Bd, 375

Eloi, St, 455

Emeric, Bd, 266

Emilian Cucullatus, St, 321

Emiliana, St (with Tharsilla), 605

Englebert, St, 289

Enselmini, Helen, Bd, 290

Epimachus, St (with Alexander), 544

Episteme, St (with Galation), 268

Ethbin, St, 149

Ethelburga of Barking, St, 95

Ethelnoth, St, 222

Eucherius of Lyons, St, j53

Eugenia, St, 612

Eugenius of Toledo, St, 329

Eugraphus, St (with Mennas), 529

Eulalia of Merida, St, 530

Eulampia, St (with Eulampius), 79

Eulampius, St (with Eulampia), 79

Eusebius of Vercelli, St, 569

Eustace White, Bd, 533

Euthymius the Younger, St, 122

Eustratius, St, 549

Eutychian, St, 516

Evaristus, St, 204

Evergislus, St, 195

Evroult, St, 639

Ewalds,.The Two, 17

Eynon, John, Bd,463

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

F Fabiola, St, 623

Factor, Nicholas, Bd, 562

Faith, St, 45

Fanti, Bartholomew, Bd, 502

Faringdon, Hugh, Bd, 462

Faro, St, 216

Fasani, Francis A., Bd, 449

Faustus, St (with Januarius), 103

Feargal of Salzburg, St, 436

Felix, St (with Cyprian), 93

Felix of ThibiuC8, St, 189

Felix of Valois, St, 392

Fergus, St, 436

Ferretti, Gabriel, Bd, 326

Ferrini, Contardo, Bd, 210

Fidelis of Como, St, 215

Finnian of Clonard, St, 544

Fintan of Rheinau, St, 350

Fintan of Taghmon, St, 170

Flannan, St, 582

Flora, St (with Mary), 419

Flora of Beaulieu, St, 38

Florentinus of Strasburg, St, 286

Foillan, St, 230

Fontanella, Mary, Bd, 574

Fortunatus, Venantius, St, 558

Four Crowned Martyrs, The, 293

Fourier, Peter, St, 526

Frances Cabrini, St, 593

Frances of Brittany, Bd, 266

Francis Borgia, St, 74

Francis Xavier, St, 474

Francis of Assisi, St, 22

Francis of Lucera, Bd, 449

Francis of Pesaro, Bd, 6

Franco of Grotti, Bd, 542

Frederick of Regensburg, Bd, 446

Frideswide, St, 150

Froilan, St, 18

Fronto, St (with George), 198

Frumentius, St, 208

Furcheri, Damian, Bd, 207

Fuscian, St (with Victorinus), 538

G

Gabriel of Ancona, Bd, 326

Galation, St (with Episteme), 268

Gall, St, 126

Galla, St, 36

Gatian, St, 581

Gaudentius, St, 199

Gelasius I, St, 399

Genings, Edmund, Bd, 532

Gentian, St (with Fuscian) 53 8

George, St (with Fronto), ;9 8

George Napper, Bd, 30 4

Gerard Cagnoli, Bd, 4 60

Gerard Majella, St, 13 1

Gerard of Aurillac, St, 104

Gerard of Brogne, St, 17

Gereon, St, 78

Germanus of Capua, St, 222

Gertrude the Great, St, 35 1

Gery, St, 348

INDEX

[October, November, December

Ghislain, St, 71

Giovanna Bonomo, Bd, 672

Gislenus, St, 71

Godfrey of Amiens, St, 298

Gommaire, St, 88

Gomidas Keumurgian, Bd, 270

Gonzalez, Roque, Bd, 376

Gorgonia, St, 524

Gozzolini, Silvester, St, 422

Grassi, Antony, Bd, 554

Gratia of Cattaro, Bd, 360

Gregory III, St, 531

Gregory of Girgenti, St, 409

Gregory of Spoleto, St, 604

Gregory of Tours, St, 367

Gregory the Wonderworker, St, 362

Griesinger, James, Bd, 89

Guardian Angels, 8

Gummarus, St, 88

Gunther, Bd, 71

Gurias, St (with Samonas), 348

Gwenfrewi, St, 245

Gwyn, Richard, Bd, 202

H Hartman, Bd, 601

Hedwig, St, 124

Helen of Arcella, Bd, 290

Helye, Thomas, Bd, 151

Herculanus, St, 285

Hermogenes, St (with Mennas), 52 9

Hermosilla, Jerome, Bd, 284

Hesychius, St, 16

Hilaria, St (with Claudia), 483

Hilarion, St, 163

Hilda, St, 369

Hipparchus, St, 522

Hodgson, Sidney, Bd, 533

Holland, Thomas, Bd, 548

Holy Innocents, The, 626

Homobonus, St, 334

Howard, Philip, Bd, 152

Hubert, St, 247

Hugh Faringdon, Bd, 4 62

Hugh of Avalon, St, 370

Hugh of Lincoln, St, 370

Hugolino lVlagalotti, Bd, 542

Humilis of Bisignano路, Bd, 438

Ida of Toggenburg, Bd, 253

Ignatius of Constantinople, St, 185

Illtud, St, 274

Illtyd, St, 274

Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, 518

Irmina, St, 605

Isaac, St (with Sapor), 452

Ischyrion, St, 597

Israel, Bd, 649

J

Jacopone of Todi, Bd, 614

James, Edward, Bd, 8

James, Roger, Bd, 462

James Intercisus, St, 433

James Thompson, Bd, 441

James of Galich, Bd, 172

James of Mantua, Bd, 427

J ames of the March, St, 440

James of VIm, Bd, 89

J anuarius, St (with Faustus), 103

Jerome IIermosilla, Bd, 284

Jerome Ranuzzi, Bd, 543

Joan deMaille.Bd. 279

Joan of Signa, Bd, 374

Joannicius, St, 265

John, St (ev.), 620

John Almond, Bd, 502

John Beche, Bd, 463

John Berchmans, St, 427

John Bodey, Bd, 244

John Bonnard, Bd, 283

John Buoni, Bd, 187

John de Castillo, Bd, 377

John Eynon, Bd, 463

John Leonardi, St, 65

John Liccio, Bd, 344

John Marinoni, Bd, 553

John Mason, Bd, 533

John Moye, Bd, 672

John della Pace, Bd, 326

John Angelo Porro, Bd, 195

John Roberts, Bd, 534

John Robinson, Bd, 8

John Rugg, Bd, 463

John Ruysbroeck, Bd, 472

John Slade, Bd, 224

John Thome, Bd, 462

John Turpin, Bd, 672

John Zedazneli, St, 264

John of BridJington, St, 171

John of Kanti, St, 154

John of Vercelli, Bd, 459

John of the Cross, St,413

John the Dwarf, St, 138

Josaphat, St (with Barlaam), 432

Josaphat of Polotsk, St, 337

Joseph Pignatelli, St, 442

Joseph Sanjurjo, Bd, 285

Josepha Rossello, St, 516

Josse, St, 550

Jude, St (ap.), 213

Judoc, St, 550

Julian, St (with Caesarius), 235

Justina, St, 50

Justus of Beauvais, St, 143

Justus of Canterbury, St, 309

Justus of Lyons, St, 108

Jutta of Diessenberg, Bd. 597

K Kenneth, St, 86

Keumurgian, Gomidas, Bd, 270

Keyne, St, 63

Kilian, St, 330

Kolobos, John, St, 138

Kostka, Stanislaus, St, 335

Kunsevich, Josaphat, St, 337

L Laboure, Catherine, St, 443

Lacey, Brian, Bd, 533

677

Octo?'er, NOfJember, December] Langley, Richard, Bd, 470

Laurence O'Toole, St, 341

Lazarus, St, 576

Lebuin, St, 324

Leger, St, 9

Leo Mangin, Bd, 672

Leocadia, St, 524

Leodegarius, St, 9

Leonard of Noblac, St, 273

Leonard of Port Maurice, St, 429

Leonard of Vandreuvre, St, 121

Leonardi, John, St, 65

Leopold of Austria, St, 350

L'Huilier, Mary, Bd,. 672

Liafwine, St, 324

Liccio, John, Bd, 344­ Lippi, Franco, Bd, 542

Livinus, St, 323

Lopez, Vincentia, Bd, 61 9

Louis Bertrand, St, 72

Louis Morbioli, Bd, 359

Lucian, St (with Marcian), 204

Lucius, St, 481

Lucius, St (with Ptolemaeus), 148

Lucy, St, 548

Lucy of Narni, Bd, 360

Luke, St (ev.), 14Z

Lull, St, 129

M MacCarthy, Thaddeus, Bd, 201

Machar, St, 322

Maelor, St, 193

Magalotti, Hugolino, Bd, S4z

Magdalen Panattieri, Bd, 106

Magenulf, St, 37

Maggi, Sebastian, Bd, 573

Maglorius, St, 193

Maharsapor, St, 79

Maille, Joan M. de, Bd, 279

Majella, Gerard, St, 131

Majoricus, St (with Dionysia), 507

Malachy of Armagh, St, 249

Malchus, St, 168

Mallonus, St, 178

Malo, St, 349

Manechildis, St, 1°9

Mangin, Leo, Bd, 672

Marcellinus Champagnat, Bd, 672

Marcellus, St (with Apuleius), 5,8

Marcellus Akimetes, St, 638

Marcellus of Paris, St, 238

Marcellus the Centurion, St, 220

Marcian, St, 242

Marcian, St (with Lucian), 204

Margaret Colonna, Bd, 2<)0

Margaret Mary, St, 134

Margaret of Lorraine, Bd, 281

Margaret of Savoy, Bd, 603

Marinoni, John, Bd, 553

Mark, St (or Martin), 193

Mark, St (pope), 50

Martial, St (with Faustus), 103

Martin, St (or Mark), 193

Martin I, St, 319

Martin de Porres, St, 269

Martin of Tours, St, 310

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS Martin of Vertou, St, 194­

Martinian, St (with Maxima), 126

Martyrs of Canterbury, 7

Martyrs of Ceuta, 81

Martyrs of Crete, The Ten, 599

Martyrs of Douay, 219

l\tartyrs of Indo-China, I I, 282

Martyrs of London, 1591, 532

Martyrs of Najran, 191

Martyrs of Nicomedia, 613

Martyrs of Paraguay, 376

Martyrs of Samosata, The Seven, 522

Martyrs of Valenciennes, 141

Maruthas, St, 489

Mary, B.V., Immaculate Conception of, 518

Mary, B.V., Motherhood of, 82

Mary, B.V., Presentation of, 398

Mary, B.V., Rosary of, 48

Mary, St (mart.), 237

Mary, St (with Flora), 419

Mary L'Huilier, Bd, 672

Mary di Rosa, St, 566

Mary Soledad, Bd, 91

Mary Teresa de Soubiran, Dd, 157

Mary Frances of Naples, St, 46

Mary of Turin, Bd, 574

Mason, John, Bd, 533

Mathurin, St, 238

Matthew of Girgenti, Dd, 173

Matthew of Mantua, Dd, 52

Matthia of Matelica, Dd, 291

Maturinus, St, 238

Maudez, St, 383

Maurice of Carnoet, St, l0S

Mawes, St, 383

Maxellendis, St, 330

Maxentia, St, 394

Maxima, St (with Martinian), 126

Maximilian of Lorch, St, 93

Maximus of Riez, St, 435

Mayne, Cuthbert, Bd, 447

Mechtildis, St, 351

Meinulf, St, 37

Melaine, St, 274

Melania the Younger, St, 646

Melchiades, St, 528

Mellon, St, 178

Melorus, St, 4

Menehould, St, 1°9

Mennas, St (mart.), 313

Mennas, St (with Hermogenes), 529

Mercurius, St, 421

Miltiades, St, 528

Millan de la CogolIa, St, 321

Mochumma, St, 322

Mommolinus, St, 128

Morbioli, Louis, Bd, 359

Moses, St (mart.), 422

Motherhood of Our Lady, 82

Moye, John M., Bd, 672

Munnu, St, 170

Mylor, St,4­

N Napper, George, Bd, 3°4­

Narcissus of Jerusalem, St, 217

Nazzarei, Matthia, Bd, 291

678

[October, November, December

INDEX Nectarius, St, 86

Nemesius, St, 584

Nerses I, St, 391

Nerses of Sahgerd, St, 393

Netter, Thomas, Bd, 243

Nicarete, St, 624

Nicasius, St, 558

Nicetas of Constantinople, St, 45

Nicetius of Trier, St, 499

Nicholas I, St, 331

Nicholas Factor, Bd, 562

Nicholas of Bari, St, 503

Nicholas of Forca Palena, Bd, 7

Nicholas of Myra, St, 503

Nicholas of Sibenik, Bd, 501

Nikon " Metanoeite ", St, 426

Nilus the Elder, St, 320

Nino, St, 563

Nonius, Bd, 281

Nothelm, St, 140

Nunilo, St (~ith AIodia), 178

Nynlpha, St (with Trypho), 307

o Odhran, St, 209

Odilia, St, 551

Odo of Cluny, St, 384

Olympias, St, 577

Osmund, St, 492

Osyth, St, 51

O'Toole, Laurence, St, 341

Otteran, St, 209

Ottilia, St, 551

P Pallotta, Assunta, Bd, 672

Panattieri, Magdalen, Bd, 106

Pascual, Peter, Bd, 508

Paul of Latros, St, 565

Paula Cerioli, Bd, 606

Paulinus of York, St, 80

Pelagia the Penitent, St, 59

Peter Almato, Bd, 284

Peter Chrysologus, St, 485

Peter Fourier, St, 526

Peter Pascual, Bd, 508

Peter of Alcantara, St, 144

Peter of Alexandria, St, 423

Peter of Ruffia, Bd, 291

Peter of Siena, Bd, 541

Peter of Tiferno, Bd, 172

Peter the Venerable, Bd, 640

Petronius, St, 33

Philemon, St (with Apphia), 405

Philip Howard, Bd, 152

Philip of Heradea, St, 175

Philippine Duchesne, Bd, 378

Philogonius, St, 587

Pierius, St, 263

Pignatelli, Joseph, St, 442

Pirminus, St, 248

Placid, St, 34

Placid Riccardi, Bd, 672

Plasden, Polydore, Bd, 533

Polish Brothers, The Five, 324

Polydore Plasden, Bd, 533

Pontian, St, 391

Pontius of Faucigny, Bd, 426

Porres, Martin de, Bd, 269

Porro, John A., Bd, 194

Presentation of Our Lady, 398

Probus, St (with Tarachus), 83

Produs, St, 189

Prosdocimus, St, 51

Ptolemaeus, St (with Lucius), 148

Publia, St, 68

Q Quentin, St, 229

Quintinus, St, 229

R Radbod, St, 446

Rainerius of Arezzo, Bd, 326

Ralph Crockett, Bd, 8

Ralph Sherwin, Bd, 464

Ranuzzi, Jerome, Bd, 543

Raphael the Archangel, St, 188

Raymund of Capua, Bd, 39

Redemptus, St (with Dionysius), 448

Remi, St, I

Remigius, St, I

Reparata, St, 62

Respicius, St (with Trypho), 307

Riccardi, Placid, Bd, 672

Rich, Edmund, St, 355

Richard Gwyn, Bd, 202

Richard Langley, Bd, 470

Richard Whiting, Bd, 461

Robert Widmerpool, Bd, 7

Robert Wilcox, Bd, 7

Roberts, John, Bd, 534

Robinson, John, Bd, 8

Rodriguez, AIphonsus, St, 225

Rodriguez, AJphonsus, Bd, 377

Roger James, Bd, 462

Romanus of Antioch, St, 383

Romanus of Rouen, St, 184

Romanus the Melodist, St, 3

Romaric, St, 521

Roque Gonzalez, Bd, 376

Rosa, Mary di, St, 566

Rosary, Our Lady's, 48

Rossello, Josepha, St, 516

Rufus, St (with Zosimus), 5 81

Rugg, John, Bd, 463

Rumwald, St, 247

Rusticus, St (with Denis), 67

Rusticus of Narbonne, St, 205

Ruysbroeck, John, Bd, 472

S Sabas, St, 494

Sabinus, St (bp. and mart.), 641

Saire, St, 215

Salome, Bd, 374

Salvius, St, 215

Samonas, St (with Gurias), 348

Sanjurjo, Joseph, Bd, 285

Sapor, St (with Isaac), 452

Saturninus, St (mart.), 445

Saturninus, St (bp. and mart.), 445

Sauli, Alexander, St, 90

Savin, St, 70

679

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

October, NOfJember, December] Schoffier, Augustus, Bd, 283

Sebastian of Brescia, Bd, 573

Sechnall, St, 434

Secundinus, St, 434

Senoch, St, 192

Seraphino, St, 141

Serapion, Bd (mart.), 344

Serapion of Antioch, St, 2 I 9

Sergius, St (with Bacchus), 58

Sernin, St, 445

Servulus, St, 600

Seurin, St, 181

Severinus Boethius, St, 181

Severinus of Bordeaux, St, 181

Sherwin, Ralph, Bd, 464

Sidney Hodgson, Bd, 533

Sigiramnus, St, 501

Silvester I, St, 644

Silvester Gozzolini, St, 422

Simeon, Holy, 59

Simeon Metaphrastes, St, 439

Simon, St (ap.), 213

Simon of Rimini, Bd, 254

Siricius, St, 424

Slade, John, Bd, 224

Sola, St, 485

Somers, Thomas, Bd, 534

Soubiran, Mary T. de, Bd, 157

Spadafora, Dominic, Bd, 2 I

Spiridion, St, 556

Stanislaus Kostka, St, 335

Stephen, St (mart.), 616

Stephen Cuenot, Bd, 283

Stephen of Surosh, St, 565

Stephen the Younger, St, 438

Strepar, James, Bd, 172

Sturmi, St, 579

Suliau, St, 296

Swithin Wells, Bd, 532

T

Tarachus, St (with Probus), 83

Tavilic (Tavigli), Nicholas, Bd, 501

Tecelano, Peter, Bd, 541

Teresa of Avila, St, I I I

Teresa of Lisieux, St, 12

Thaddeus, St (ap.), 213

Thaddeus of Cork, Bd, 20 I

Thais, St, 61

Tharsilla, St (with Emiliana), 605

Thaumaturgus, Gregory, St, 362

Thecla of Kitzingen, St, 122

Theoctista, St, 307

Theodore, St (with Theophanes), 625

Theodore Tiro, St, 30 I

Theodore the Sanctified, St, 627

Theodore the Studite, St, 3 14

Theodoret, St, 180

Theophanes, St (with Theodore), 625

Theophanes Venard, Bd, 282

Theuderius, St, 2 I 7

Thomas, St (ap.), 589

Thomas Becket, St, 629

Thomas Holland, Bd, 548

Thomas Somers, Bd, 534

Thomas of Biville, Bd, lSI

Thomas of Florence, Bd, 200

Thomas of Hereford, St, 19

Thomas of Walden, Bd, 243

Thompson, James, Bd, 441

Thorlac, St, 602

Thorne, John, Bd, 462

Thwing, John, St, 171

Torres-Acosta, Mary S., Bd, 91

Traversari, Ambrose, Bd, 397

Trond, St, 413

Trophimus, St, 638

Trudo, St, 4 13

Trypho, St (with Respicius), 307

Tudwal, St, 455

Turpin, John B., Bd, 672

Tysilio, St, 296

U Urban V, Bd, 585

Ursicinus, St, 588

Ursula, St (mart.), 165

Ursuline Martyrs, 141

V

Valentine Berrio-Ochoa, Bd, 284

Valerian, St (bp. and mart.), 564

Vanne, St, 304

Varus, St, 149

Venantius Fortunatus, St, 558

Venard, Theophanes, Bd, 282

Vicelin, St, 547

Victoria, St (with Acisclus), 367

Victoria, St (with Anatolia), 599

Victoricus, St (with Fuscian), 538

Victorinus of Pettau, St, 242

Vigor, St, 238

Vincentia Lopez, Bd, 619

Virgil of Salzburg, St, 436

Vitalis, St (with Agricola), 263

Vitonus, St, 304

Viviana, St, 470

W Wang, Anne, Bd, 672

Wells, Swithin, Bd, 532

White, Eustace, Bd, 533

Whiting, Richard, Bd, 461

Widmerpool, Robert, Bd, 7

Wilcox, Robert, Bd, 7

Wilfrid, St, 96

Willehad, St, 297

William of Fenoli, Bd, 585

Willibrord, St, 286

Winebald, St, 582

Winifred, St, 245

Winnoc, St, 276

Wivina, St, 580

Wolfgang, St, 230

x

Xavier, Francis, St, 474

Z Zachaeus, St (with Alphaeus), 366

Zachary, St (with Elizabeth), 2 67

Zosimus, St (pope), 618

Zosimus, St (with Rufus), 581

680

GENERAL INDEX OF NAMES

References in this index are given to the four volumes; on these dates, see the beati and beatae are so noted; all the members of groups. e.g. of martyrs, are

dates of feasts under which the names occur in these editor's preface in Volume I, page vi. Names of rest are, or are commonly called, Saint. Individual not entered herein if they have only a bare mention in the text.

A Aaron (with Julius) July 3 Abachum January 19 Abbo. See Goericus Abbo of Fleury November 13 Abdon July 30 October 22 Abercius Abibus (with Gurias) November 15 March 16 Abraham Kidunaia Abraham of Carrhae February 14 December 6 Abraham of Kratia Abraham of Rostov October 29 August 21 Abraham of Smolensk Abundius (with Abundantius) September 16 Acacius (or Achatius) March 31 May 8 Acacius (or Agathus) October 20 Acca Achard. See Aichardus Achatius. See Acacius Achilleus (with Felix) April 23 May 12 Achilleus (with Nereu"s) Acisclus November 17 February 2 Adalbald Adalbert of Egmond June 25 Adalbert of Magdeburg June 20 Adalbert of Prague April 23 Adalhard (or Adelard) January 2 December 22 Adam of Loccum, Bd Adamnan of Coldingham January 31 Adamnan (or Eunan) of Iona September 23 Adauctus (with Felix) August 30 Adaucus February 7 Addai August 5 Adela December 24 Adelaide (empress) December 16 Adelaide of Bellich February 5 Adelard. See Adalhard Adelelmus (or Aleaume) January 30 December 16 Ado, Bd Adolf of Osnabrtick February 14 Adrian (martyr) March 4 Adrian (with Eubulus) March 5 September 8 Adrian (with Natalia) Adrian III July 8 Adrian Fortescue, Bd July I I Adrian of Canterbury January 9 Adulf June 17 Aedesius. See Frumentius November 10 Aedh Mac Bricc Aegidius. See Giles Aelred (or Ailred) March 3 Aengus (or Oengus) the Culdee March I I Aengus MacNisse. See Macanisius

Aemilius (with Castus) May 22 Afan November 16 Afra August 5 Agape (with Chionia) April 3 Agape of Terni February 15 Agapitus (martyr) August 18 Agapi tus (wi th Sixtus) August 6 Agapitus I April 22 Agapius (with Timothy) August 19 Agatha February 5 Agatha Kim, Bd. See Laurence Imbert Agathangelo of Vendome, Bd August 7 Agathangelus (martyr) January 23 Agatho (pope) January 10 Agathonice April 13 Agathopus April 4 Agathus. See Acacius Agericus (or Airy) December I Agilbert October I I Agnello of Pisa, Bd March 13 Agnes January 21 Agnes of Assisi November 16 Agnes of Bohemia, Bd March 2 Agnes of Mon tepulciano April 20 Agrecius January 13 Agricola (or Aregle) March 17 Agricola (with Vitalis) November 4 Agricolus September 2 Agrippina June 23 Aichardus (or Achard) September 15 Aidan (or Maedoc) of Ferns January 31 Aidan of Lindisfarne August 31 Aignan. See Anianus .Aigulf (or Ayoul) of Bourges May 22 Aigulf (or Ayoul) of Lerins September 3 September 12 Ailbhe Ailred. See Aelred Airy. See Agericus Al ban June 2 I Al ban (or Bartholomew) Roe, Bd January 21 Alban (or Albinus) of Mainz June 21 Alberic (abbot) January 26 Alberic Crescitelli, Bd. See the Martyrs of China, II Albert the Great November 15 May I I Albert of Bergamo, Bd Albert of Cashel January 19 Albert of Jerusalem September 25 Albert of Louvain November 21 Albert of Montecorvino April 5 Albert of Trapani August 7 Albinus. See Alban of Mainz Albinus (or Aubin) of Angers March I

681

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

January-December] September 7 Alcmund (bishop) March 19 Alcmund (martyr) May 19 Alcuin, Bd April 26 AIda, (or Aldobrandesca), Bd January 30 Aldegundis March 24 Aldemar May 23 Aldhelm Aldobrandesca. See AIda Aldric January 7 Aleaume. See Adelelmus August I Aled (or Almedha) December 12 Alexander (with Epimachus) April 22 Alexander (with Epipodius) May 3 Alexander (with Eventius) May 29 Alexander (with Sisinnius) February 23 Alexander Akimetes December I Alexander Briant', Bd April 7 Alexander Rawlins, Bd October I I Alexander Sauli February 26 Alexander of Alexandria August I I Alexander of Comana August 28 Alexander of Constantinople March 18 Alexander of Jerusalem Alexia. See Alix Alexis July 17 Alexis Falconieri. See Founders of the Servites Aleydis (or Alice) June 15 Alferius April 12 Alfwold March 25 Alice. See Aleydis Alipius August 18 Alix Le Clercq, Bd January 9 All Saints November I All Souls November 2 Allowin. See Bavo Allucio October 23 Almachius (or Telemachus) January I Almedha. See Aled Alnoth February 27 Alodia October 22 Aloysius Gonzaga June 2 I Aloysius Palazzolo, Ed

Appendix III

Aloysius Rabata, Bd May I I Alpais, Bd November 3 Alphaeus November 17 Alphege (or Elphege) of Canterbury April 19 Alphege (or Elphege) bf Winchester March 12 May 10 Alphius Alphonsus Liguori~ August 2 Alphonsus Navarette, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Alphonsus de Orozco, Bd September 19 Alphonsus Rodriguez October 30 Alphonsus Rodriguez (martyr), Bd. See Roque Gonzalez .

Altman August 8 Alto February 9 February 19 Alvarez of Cordova, Bd Amadeus Amidei. See Founders of the Servites Amadeus of Lausanne January 28 Amadeus IX of Savoy, Bd March 30 Amadour (or Amator) August 20 Amalburga (virgin) July 10 Amalburga (widow) July 10

February 6 Amand (bishop) June 18 Amand of Bordeaux Amata, Bd June 9 Anla tor. See Amadour May I Amator (or Amatre) Amatre. See Amator September 13 Amatus (or Arne), (abbot) September 13 Amatus (or Arne), (bishop) Ambrose (doctor) December 7 Ambrose Autpert July 19 September 10 Ambrose Barlow, Bd November 20 Ambrose Traversari, Bd March 20 Ambrose of Siena, Bd Arne. See Amatus Amicus November 3 October 4 Ammon (abbot) December 20 Ammon (martyr) Amphilochius November 23 Anacletus. See Cletus Anastasia (martyr) December 2S Anastasia (with Basilissa) April IS Anastasia (with Cyril) October 28 Anastasia Patricia March 10 Anastasius (or Astrik) November 12 Anastasius I (pope) December 19 Anastasius I of Antioch April 21 Anastasius II of Antioch December 21 Anastasius of Cluny October 16 Anastasius the Fuller September 7 Anastasius the Persian January 22 Anatolia (with Victoria) December 23 Anatolius of Constantinople ...1ul'y 3 Anatolius of Laodicea July 3 Andrew (apostle) November 30 Andrew Abellon, Bd May 17 Andrew Avellino November 10 Andrew Bobola ",\.fay 21 Andrew Corsini February 4 Andrew Dotti, Bd September 4 Andrew Fournet May 13 Andrew Hibernon, Bd April 18 Andrew Kagwa, Bd. See Charles Lwanga Andrew of Anagni, Bd February 17 Andrew of Antioch, Bd November 30 Andrew of Crete July 4 Andrew of Crete (the Calybite) October 20 Andrew of Fiesole August 22 Andrew of Montereale, Bd April 12 Andrew of Peschiera, Bd January 19 Andrew of Pistoia, Bd May 30 Andrew of Rinn, Bd July 12 Andrew of Siena, Bd March 19 Andrew of Spello, Bd June 3 Andrew of Strumi, Bd March 10 Andrew the 'fribune August 19 Andronicus (with Athanasia) October 9 Andronicus (with Tarachus) October I I Angadrisma October 14 Angela Merici May 3 1 Angela of Foligno, Bd February 28 Angelina of Marsciano, Bd July 21 Angelo (martyr) May S Angelo of Acri, Bd October 30 Angelo of Borgo, Bd February 15 Angelo of Chivasso, Bd April 12 Angelo of Florence, Bd August 18 Angelo of Foligno, Bd August 27

682

GENER.AL INDEX Ar,gelo of Furcio, Bd February 6 Augelo of Gualdo, Bd February 14 Angilbert February 18 Anianus (or Aignan) November 17 Anianus of Alexandria April 25 Anicetus (pope) April 17 Anne July 26 Anne, or Susanna (virgin) July 23 Anne J avouhey, Bd July 15 Anne Line, Bd February 27 Anne Taigi, Bd June 9 Anne Wang, Bd. Appendix III Anne of St Bartholomew, Bd June 7 Annemund (or Dalfinus) September 28 Anno December 4 Ansanus December I Ansbert February 9 Anscar. See Anskar Ansegisus July 20 Anselm of Canterbury April 2 I Anselm of Lucca March 18 Anselm of Nonantola March 3 Ansfrid May I I Anskar February 3 Ansovinus l\t[arch 13 Anstrudis (or Austrude) October 17 Anthelm June 26 Antherus January 3 Anthimus of Nicomedia April 27 Anthony. See Antony Antonia. See Antonina Antonia of Florence, Bd February 28 Antonina (or Antonia) (martyr) June 12 Antoninus (martyr) September 2 Antoninus of Florence May 10 Antoninus of Sorrento February 14 Antony (abbot) January 17 Antony (with John) April 14 Antony Baldinucci, Bd Nove'mber 7 Antony Bonfadini, Bd December I Antony della Chiesa, Bd July 28 Antony Claret October 24 Antony Daniel. See Martyrs of North America Antony Gianelli June 7 Antony Grassi, Bd December 13 Antony Ixida, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Antony Kauleas Februarv 12 Antony Middleton, Bd M"'a y 6 Antony Neyrot, Bd April 10 Antony Pavoni, Bd April 9 Antony Pechersky July 10 Antony Primaldi, Bd AUl?ust 14 A!1tony Pucci Janua1'y 14 Antony Turner, Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot Antony Zaccaria July 5 Antony of Amandola, Bd January 28 Antony of Lerins December 28 Antony of Padu~ June 13 Antony of Siena, Bd April 27 Antony of Stroncone, Bd February 7 Antony of Tuy, Bd June I February I Antony the Pilgrim, Bd Anysia December 30 Anysius December 30

[January-December Aphraates April 7 Apollinaris (virgin) January 5 Apollinaris Franco, Bd September 10 Apollinaris of Ravenna July 23 Apollinaris of Valence October 5 ApoJIinaris the Apologist January 8 Apollo (abbot) January 25 Apollonia February 7 Apollonius (with Philemon) March 8 Apollonius the Apologist April 18 Apphian April 2 Apuleius October 8 Aquila (with Prisca), Juty 8 Aquilina June 13 Aquilinus of Evreux October 19 Araght. See Attracta Arbogast July 21 Arcaciius (martyr in Africa) January 12 Arcadius (martyr in Spain) November 13 Archangela Girlani, Bd February 13 Archangelo of Bologna, Bd April 16 Archangelo of Calatafimi, Bd July 30 Archelaus of Kashkar December 26 Archinimus March 29 Ardalion April 14 Ardo March 7 Aregle. See Agricola Aretas October 24 Arialdo. See Andrew of Strumi August 16 Armel Armogastes March 29 Arnou!. See Arnulf Arnulf of Metz July 18 Arnulf of Soissons August 15 Arnulf of Villers, Bd June 30 Arsacius August 16 Arsenius July 19 Artaldus (or Arthaud) October 7 Artemas January 25 Artemius (martyr) October 20 Arthaud. See Artaldus Arthelais Alarch 3 Asaph May I I As clas January 23 Asicus (or Tassach) April 27 Assunta Pallotta, Bd. Appendix III Asterius (with Claudius) August 23 Asterjus of Amasea October 30 Astrik. See Anastasius Astyrius (with Marinus) March 3

Athanasia (with Andronicus) October 9

Athanasia of Aegina August 14

Athanasius (doctor) May 2 Athanasius of Naples July 15 Athanasius the Athonite July 5 Athenogenes July 16 Attalas March 10 Attalus June 2 Attilanus October 3 Attracta (or i\raght) August I I Aubert of Avranches September 10 Aubert of Cambrai December 13 Au bierge. See Ethelburga Aubin. See Albinus of Angers Audifax January 19 Audoenus. See Ouen Audomarus. See Orner

January-December]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Audrey. See Etheldreda Augustine (doctor) August 28 Augustine Novello, Bd May 19 Augustine Webster, Bd. See Martyrs of the Charterhouse Augustine of Biella, Bd July 24 Augustine of Canterbury May 28 Augustine of Lucera, Bd August 3 Augustus Chapdelaine, Bd. See Martyrs of China, I Augustus Schomer, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, I I Aunacharius (or Aunaire) â&#x20AC;˘ September 25 Aunaire. See Aunacharius Aurea (virgin) March I I Aurelian (bishop) June 16 Aurelius (with Natalia) July 27 Aurelius of Carthage July 20 Austin. See Augustine Austreberta February 10 Austregisilus (or Outril) Mav 20 Austremonius (or Stremoine) November I Austrude. See Anstrudis Auxentius (hermit) February 14 Avertanus, Bd February 25 Avertinus May 5 Avitus (abbot) June 17 Avitus of Vienne February 5 Aybert April 7 Ayoul. See Aigulf Ayrald, Bd January 2 B

Babylas of Antioch January 24 Bacchus October 8 Bademus April 10 Bagnus (or Bain) June 20 Bain. See Bagnus Bairre. See Finbar Balbina March 31 Baldomerius (or Galmier) February 27 March 6 Balred Balthasar of Chiavari, Bd October 25 Baptist of Mantua, Bd March 20 Baptista Varani, Bd June 7 Barachisius March 29 Baradates February 22 Barbara December 4 Barbasymas January 14 Barbatus February 19 Bardo June IS Barhadbesaba July IS Barlaam (martyr) November 19

Barlaam (\vith Josaphat) November 27

Barlaam of Khutyn November 6

Barnabas June I I Barnard. See Bernard of Vienne Barontius March 25 Barsabas (martyr) December I I Barsanuphius April I I Barsimaeus January 30 Bartholomea Capitanio July 26 Bartholomew (apostle) August 24 Bartholomew of Cervere, Bd April 22 Bartholomew of Fame June 24

Bartholomew of Grottaferrata November I I Bartholomew of Mantua, Bd December 5 Bartholomew of Montepulciano, Bd May 23 Bartholomew of San Gimignano, Bd December 14 Bartholomew of Vicenza, Bd October 23 Basil (doctor) June 14 Basil of Ancyra March 22 Basil the Younger March 26 Basilides (with Cyrinus) June 12 Basilissa (or BasilIa), martyr May 20 Basilissa (with Anastasia) April IS Basilissa (with Julian) January 9 BasilIa. See Basilissa Basle. See Basolus Basolus (or Basle) November 26 Bathildis January 30 May 20 Baudelius Bavo (or A110win) October I Bean October 26 Beatrice (with Simplicius) July 29 Beatrice (or Brites) da Silva, Bd August 18 May 10 Beatrice of Este, Bd Beatrice of Este of Ferrara, Bd January 18 Beatrice of Ornacieu, Bd February 13 Beatus of Liebana February 19 Beatus of Lungern May 9

Beatus of Vendome May 9

Bede May 27

Bee. See Bega September 6 Bega (or Bee) Begga December 17 Benedict (abbot) March 21 May 8 Benedict II Benedict XI, Bd July 7 Benedict Biscop January 12 April 16 Benedict Labre February I I Benedict of Aniane November 12 Benedict of Benevento Benedict of Coltiboni, Bd January 20 March I I Benedict of Milan Benedict of Urbino, Bd April 30 Benedict the Black April 4 Benedict the Hermit March 23 Benen (or Benignus) NO'Vember 9 Benezet April 14 Benignus. See Benen Benignus of Dijon November I Benildus August 13 Benincasa, Bd May I I Benjamin (martyr) March 31 Benno of Meissen June 16 Benno of OsnabrUck, Bd July 22 Bentivoglia, Bd December I Benvenuta of Cividale, Bd October 30 Benvenuto of Gubbio, Bd June 27 Benvenuto of Osimo March 22 Benvenuto of Recanati, Bd May 21 Beocca. See Martyrs under the Danes Berard (martyr) January 16 Bercharius October 16 Berhtwald of Canterbury January 9 Berhtwald of Ramsbury January 22 Bernadette April 16 Bernard (doctor) August 20 Bernard Scammacca, Bd February 16 Bernard Tolomei, Bd August 21

684

GENERAL INDEX

[January-December

of Baden, Bd July 15 of Capua March 12 of CorJ.eone, Bd January 19 of Montjoux (or of Menthon) May 28 Bernard of Offida, Bd August 26 Bern2rd of Parma December 4Bernard'ofTiron (or of Abbeville) Aprill4Bernard of Vienne January 23 Bernard the Penitent, Bd April 19 Bernardino Realino July 3 Bernardino of Feltre, Bd September 2.8 Bernardino of Fossa, Bd November 27 Bernardino of Siena May 20 Berno January 13 Bernward November 20 Bertha (with Rupert) May 15 Bertha of Blangy July 4Berthold March 29 Berthold of Garsten, Bd July 27 Bertilia of Mareuil January 3 Bertilla Boscardin October 20 Bertilla of Chelles November 5 Bertinus September 5 Bertoul. See Bertulf of Renty Bertrand of Comminges October 16 Bertrand of Garrigues, Bd September 6 Bertrand of Le Mans June 3 0 Bertulf of Bobbio August 19 Bertulf (or Bertoul) of Renty February 5 Besas February 27 Bessarion June 17 Bettelin September 9 Beuno April 21 Beuzec. See Budoc Bibiana (or Viviana) December 2 Bilfrid March 6 Birgitta. See Bridget Birinus December 5 Birthday of Our Lord, The December 25 Blaan (or Blane) August I I Blaise Februar}' 3 Blandina. See Pothinus Blane. See Blaan Blesilla January 22 Bodo September 22 Boethius. See Severinus Boethius Bogumilus June 10 Boisil. See Boswell Bonaventure (doctor) July 14­ Bonaventure Buonaccorsi, Bd December 14­ Bonaventure of Barcelona, Bd September I I Bonaventure of Forll, Bd March 31 Bonaventure of Peraga, Bd June 10 Bonaventure of Potenza, Bd October 26 Bonavita, Bd March I Bonet. See Bonitus Bonfilius. See Founders of the Servites Boniface I September 4Boniface IV May 8 Boniface of Lausanne February 19 Boniface of Mainz (or of Crediton) June 5 Boniface (or Bruno) of Querfurt June 19 Boniface of Savoy, Bd July 14Boniface of Tarsus May 14Bonitus (or Bonet) January IS Bonosus (with Maximian) August 21 Bernard Bernard Bernard Bernard

Boris (or Romanus) July 24­ Bosa March 9 Boswell (or Boisil) February 23 Botolph (or Botulf) June 17 Botulf. See Botolph Botvid July 28 Braulio March 26 Brendan May 16 Brian Lacey, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1591 Brice (o!r Britius) November 13 Bride. See Brigid Bridget (or Birgitta) October 8 Brieuc (or Briocus) May I Brigid (or Bride) February I Brigjd (with Maura) July 13 Briocus. See Brieuc Brites, Bd. See Beatrice da Silva Britius. See Brice Brocard September 2 Bronislava, Bd August 30 Bruno October 6 Bruno of Cologne (bishop) October I I Bruno (or Boniface) of Querfurt June 19 Bruno of Segni July 18 Bruno of W tirzburg May 17 Budoc (or Beuzec) December 9 Bulgaria, Seven Aposties of July 17 Buonagiunta. See Founders of the Servites Burchard of W tirzburg October 14­ Burgundofara (or Fare) April 3

C Cadfan November I Cadoc September 23 Cadroe March 6 Caedmon February I I Caedwalla April 20 Caesaria January 12 Caesarius (with Julian) November I Caesarius of Aries August 27 Caesarius of Nazianzen February 25 Cagnoald. See Chainoaldus Cainnech. See Canice Caius (pope) April 22 Cajetan (or Gaetano) August 7 Calais. See Carilefus Calepodius May 10 Calixtus. See Callistus Callistus (or Calixtus) I October 14­ Calocerus (martyr). See Faustinus and Jovita Calocerus (with Parthenius) May 19 Camerinus August 21 Camillus Costanzo, Bd. See Apollinaris Franco Camillus de Lellis July 18 Candida. See Wite Candlemas February 2 Canice (or Kenneth) October I I Cantianella May 31 Cantianus May 31 Cantius May 31 Canute January 19

68 5

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

January-December] Canute Lavard January 7 Caprais. See Caprasius October 20 Caprasius of Agen Caprasius of Lerins June I Caradoc April 14 Carannog. See Carantoc May 16 Carantoc (or Carannog) July 1 Carilefus (or Calais) Carpus April 13 Carthach. See Carthage Carthage (or Carthach) May 14 Casimir March 4 Caspar de Bono, Bd July 14 Caspar del Bufalo January 2 Cassian. See John Cassian Cassian of Imola August 13 Cassian of Nantes, Bd August 7 Cassian of Tangier December 3 Cassius of Narni June 29 September 2 Castor of Apt Castora Gabrielli, Bd June 14 March 26 Castulus of Rome May 22 Castus (with Aemilius) May 10 Catald (or Cathal) Cathal. See Catald Catherine Laboure November 28 Catherine dei Ricci February 13 Catherine of Alexandria November 25 Catherine of Bologna March 9 Catherine of Genoa September 15 Catherine of Pallanza, Bd April 6 Catherine of Palma April I Catherine of Parc-aux-Dames, Bd May 4 Catherine of Racconigi, Bd September 4 Catherine of Siena April 30 Catherine of Vadstena March 24 Ceadda. See Chad Ceallach. See Celsus of Armagh Cecco, Bd. ~C;ee Francis of Pesaro Cecilia (or Cecily) November 22 Cecilia, Bd June 9 Cecilius June 3 Cecily. See Cecilia Cedd October 26 Celestine I April 6 Celestine V May 19 Celsus (with Nazarius) July 28 Celsus (or Ceallach) of Armagh April 7 Ceolfrid September 25 Ceolwulf January 15 Cerase. See Ceratius Ceratius (or Cerase) June 6 Cerbonius October 10 Cerneuf. See Serenus the Gardener Ceslaus, Bd July 17 Chad (or Ceadda) March 2 Chaeremon December 22 Chainoaldus (or Cagnoald) September 6 Charity (with Faith) August I Charlemagne, Bd January 28 Charles Borromeo November 4 Charles Garnier. See Martyrs of North America Charles Lwanga, Bd June 3 Charles Spinola, Bd September 10 Charles of Blois, Bd September 29 Charles of Sezze January 19

Charles the Good, Bd March 2 Chef. See Theuderius Chelidonius March 3 Chiarito, Bd. See Claritus Chionia April 3 Christian, Bd March 18 Christiana. See Nino Christina of Aquila, Bd January 18 Christina of Boisena July 24 Christina of Spoleto, Bd February 13 Christina of Stommeln, Bd November 6 Christina the Astonishing July 24 Christmas December 25 Christopher July 25 Christopher Bales, Bd March 4 Christopher Buxton, Bd. See Martyrs of Canterbury Christopher Macassoli, Bd March 1 I Christopher of l\tlilan, Bd March I Christopher of Romagnola (or of Cahors), Bd October 25 Chrodegang of Metz March 6 Chromatius of Aquileia December 2 Chrysanthus (with Daria) October 25 Chrysogonus November 24 Ciaran. See Kieran Circumcision of Our Lord, The January I Cisellus August 21 Clare of Assisi August 12 Clare of Montefalco August 17 Clare of Pisa, Bd April 17 Clare of Rimini, Bd February 10 Claritus (or Chiarito), Bd May 25 Clarus (abbot) January I Clarus (martyr) November 4 Claud La Colombiere, Bd February 15 Claud of BesanfYon June 6 Claudia August 7 Claudius (with Asterius) August 23 Claudius (with Hilaria) December 3 Clement (with Agathangelus) January 2j Clement I (pope) November 23 Clement Hofbauer March 15 Clement of Okhrida July 17 Clement of Osimo (or of Sant' Elpidio), Bd April 8 Cleopatra October 19 Cletus (or Anacletus), pope April 26 Clodoald. See Cloud (hermit) Clodulf. See Cloud of Metz Clotilda June 3 Cloud (hermit) September 7 Cloud of Metz June 8 Codratus of Corinth March 10 Coemgen. See Kevin Colette March 6 Colman of Cloyne November 24 Colman of Dromore June 7 Colman of Lann Elo September 26 Colman of Kilmacduagh October 29 Colman of Lindisfarne February 18 Colmcille. See Columba of lona Coloman October 13 Columba of Cordova September 17 Columba of lona June 9 Columba of Rieti, Bd May 20 Columba of Sens December 3 I

686

GENERAL INDEX

[January-December

Columban November 23 May I I Comgall Comgan October 13 Conan of Man January 26 January I Concordius of Spoleto Condedus October 21 Conlaed. See Conleth J.Way 10 Conleth (or Conlaed) ,April 19 Conrad of Ascoli, Bd Conrad of Bavaria, Bd February 14 November 26 Conrad of Constance Conrad of Offida, Bd December 14 April 21 Conrad of Parzham Conrad of Piacenza February 19 .J.Way 2 Conrad of Seldenbtiren, Bd Conran February 14 Constantine (with Theodore) September 19 March I I Constantine of Cornwall Constantius of Fabriano, Bd February 25 Contardo .

April 16 Contardo Ferrini, Bd October 27 Convoyon January 5 September 8 Corbinian Corentin (or Cury) December 12 Cornelius (pope) September 16 Cosimo di Carbognano, Bd. See Gomidas Keumurgian Cosmas (with Damian) September 27 Crescentia (with Vitus) June 15 Crescentia of Kaufbeuren, Bd April 5 Crispin (with Crispinian) October 25 May 21 Crispin of Viterbo, Bd Crispina December 5 Crispinian October 25 April 28 Cronan of Roscrea Cronion February 27 Cross, Exaltation of the September 14 Cross, Finding of the May 3 Crowned Martyrs, The Four November 8 Cuby. See Cybi Cumian the Tall November 12 Cunegund (empress) March 3 Cunegund (or Kinga), Bd July 24 Cungar November 27 Cunibert November 12 Cury. See Corentin Cuthbert March 20 Cuthbert Mayne, Bd November 29 Cuthburga September 3 Cuthman February 8 Cybard. See Eparchius Cybi November 8 Cyneburga March 6 Cyneswide J.Warch 6 Cyprian September 16 Cyprian (with Felix) October 12 September 26 Cyprian (with Justina) Cyran (or Sigiramnus) December 5 Cyriacus (or Judas Quiriacus) May 4 Cyriacus (with Largus) August 8 Cyricus (or Quiricus) June 16 Cyril (with Anastasia) October 28 Cyril (with Methodius) July 7 Cyril of Alexandria February 9 Cyril of Caesarea .lvlay 29 Cyril of Constantinople March 6 Cyril of Heliopolis March 29

March 18 April 28 January 3 1

Cyril of Jerusalem Cyril of Turov Cyrus (with John)

D Dagobert II of Austrasia December 23 Dalfinus. See Annemund September 26 Dalmatius Moner, Bd December I I Damasus Damian (with Cosmas ) September 27 Damian of Finario, Bd October 26 Daniel (martyr) October 10 Daniel the Stylite December I I Darerca. See Modwenna Daria (with Chrysanthus) October 25 Dasius November 20 Datius January 14 February I I Dativus (with Saturninus) David (or Dewi) March I David (or Gleb) July 24 David (with Theodore) September 19 David Gonson, Bd. See Adrian Fortescue David Lewis, Bd August 27 David of Munktorp July 15 David of Scotland Alay 24 Declan July 24 Dedication of St John Lateran November 9 Dedication of St Peter's and 5t Paul's November 18 Dedication of St Mary Major August 5 Dedication of St Michael's September 29 Deicolus (or Desle) January 18 Deiniol September I I Delphina, Bd September 27 Delphinus December 24 Demetrian of Khytri November 6 Demetrius (martyr) October 8 Demetrius of Alexandria October 9 Denis. See Dionysius Deodatus (or Die) of Nevers June 19 Deogratias March 22 Derfel Gadarn Ap'ril 5 Desideratus (or Desire) of Bourges May 8 Desiderius of Cahors November 15 Desiderius of Therouanne, Bd January 21 Desiderius of Vienne May 23 Desire. See Desideratus Desle. See Deicolus Deusdedit (pope) November 8 Deusdedit of Canterbury July 14 Dewi. See David Diana, Bd June 9 Didacus (or Diego) of Cadiz, Bd March 24 Didacus (or Diego) of Seville J.Vovember 13 Didier. See Desiderius Didymus (with Theodora) April 28 Die. See Deodatus Diego. See Didacus Diemoda (or Diemut), Bd March 29 Diemut. See Diemoda Diogo Carvalho, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Dionysia (with Majoricus) December 6 Dionysius (pope) December 26

687

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS Dionysius, Bd (with Redemptus) November 29 November 17

Dionysius of Alexandria April 8 Dionysius of Corinth May 25 Dionysius of Milan Dionysius of Paris October 9 Dionysius the Areopagite October 9 Dioscorus. See Nemesius of Alexandria Disibod September 8 Dismas. See The Good Thief Dodo, Bd March 30 Dogmael June 14 Dometius the Persian August 7 Dominic August 4 Dominic, Bd (with Gregory) April 26 Dorninic Barberi, Bd

Appendix III

Dominic Loricatus Dominic Savio Dominic Spadafora, Bd Dominic of the Causeway Dominic of Silos Dominic of Sora Dominica (martyr) Dominica (with Indractus) Domitian of Maestricht Domitilla Domnolus of Le Mans Donald Donatian (with Laetus) Donatian (with Rogatian) Donatus of Arezzo Donatus of Fiesole Donnan Dorotheus (with Peter) Dorotheus of Tyre Dorotheus the Younger Dorothy Dorothy of Montau, Bd Dositheus Drausin. See Drausius Drausius (or Drausin) Drithelm Droctoveus (or Drott~) Drogo (or Druon) Drostan Drott~. See Droctoveus Druon. See Drogo Dubricius (or Dyfrig) Dulas. See Tatian Dunstan Duthac Dyfrig. See Dubricius Dympna

October 14 March 9 October 3

May December

12 20 22

January July 6 February 5 May 7 May 12 May 16 July IS September 6 May 24

August 7 October

22

April 17 March 12 June 5 January 5 February 6 October 30 February 23 March 7 September

1

March 10 April 16 July II November 14

May 19 March 8 May IS

E

Eanswida Eata Ebba Eberhard of Einsiedeln, Bd Eberhard of Marchthal, Bd Eberhard of Salzb\15g Ebrulf (or Evroult) Edbert Edburga of Minster Edburga of Winchester

September 12 October 26 August 25 August 14

April 17 June 22 December 29

May 6 December

12

June IS

Edith of Polesworth July IS Edith of Wilton September 16 Edmund (martyr) November 20 Edmund Arrowsmith, Bd August 28 Edmund Campion, Bd December 1 Edmund Catherick, Bd April 13 Edmund Genings, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 159 I Edmund of Abingdon (or of Canterbury) November 16

Edward Campion, Bd. See Martyrs of Canterbury Edward Coleman, Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot Edward Fulthrop, Bd. See William Andleby Edward James, Bd. See Martyrs of Canterbury May 6 Edward Jones, Bd April 7 Edward Oldcorne, Bd Edward Powell, Bd July 30 January 21 Edward Stransham, Bd January 7 Edward Waterson, Bd October 13 Edward the Confessor March 18 Edward the Martyr October 12 Edwin April 24 Egbert December 30 Egwin Eiluned. See Aled October 24 Elesbaan Eleusippus January 17 Eleutherius (with Dionysius) October 9 Eleutherius (abbot) September 6 April 18 Eleutherius (martyr) Eleutherius (pope) May 30 Eleutherius of Nicomedia October 2 Eleutherius of Tournai February 20 Elfleda February 8 Elias (martyr) February 16 Elias of Jerusalem July 20 Eligius (or Eloi) December I Elizabeth (with Zachary) November 5 Elizaheth Ann Seton

Appendix III

Elizabeth Bichier des Ages August 26 Elizabeth of Hungary November 19 Elizabeth of Mantua, Bd February 20 Elizabeth of Portugal July 8 Elizabeth of Schonau June 18 Elizabeth the Good, Bd November 17 Elmo. See Erasmus and Peter Gonzalez Eloi. See Eligius Elphege. See Alphege September 27 Elzear of Sabran January 23 Emerentiana NOfJember4 Emeric, Bd March 3 Emeterius N OfJember 12 Emilian Cucullatus December 24 Emiliana September 19 Emily de Rodat Emily de Vialal June 17 August 19 Emily of Vercelli, Bd Emma June 30 July 10 Emmanuel Ruiz, Bd September 22 Emmeramus August 9 Emygdius April 16 Encratis March 21 Enda

688

GENERAL INDEX

[january- December June

Eneco (or Hugo)

1

Noonnber 7

Engelbert

Engelmund June 21 Ennodius July 17 Eoghan. See Eugene Eparchius (or Cybard) July I Ephraem June 18 Epimachus (with Alexander) December 12 Epimachus (with Gordian) May 10 Epiphanius of Pavia January 21 Epiphanius of Salamis May 12 Epiphany of Our Lord, The January 6 Epipodius April 22 Episteme November 5 Equitius August I I Erasmus (or Elmo) June 2 Ercongota July 7 Erconwald May 13 Erembert May 14 Erentrude June 30 Erhard January 8 Eric of Sweden May 18 Ermengard, Bd July 16 Ermengild (or Ermenilda) February 13 Ermenilda. See Ermengild Erminold January 6 Eskil June 12 Esterwine March 7 Ethbin October 19 Ethelbert (martyr) May 20 Ethelbert of Kent February 25 Ethelburga (or Aubierge) July 7 Ethelburga of Barking October 12 Ethelburga of Lyminge Aprils Etheldreda (or Audrey) June 23 Ethelnoth October 30 Ethelwald of Lindisfarne February 12 Ethelwald the Hermit March 23 Ethelwold of Winchester August I Eubulus March 5 Eucherius of Lyons November 16 Eucherius of Orleans February 20 Eugendus (or Oyend) January I Eugene (or Eoghan) of Ardstraw August 23 Eugenia December 25 Eugenia Smet, Bel

Eusebius (with Nestabus) September 8 Eusebius of Cremona March 5 Eusebius of Rome August 14 Eusebius of Saint-Gall January 3 I Eusebius of Samosata June 21 Eusebius of Vercelli December 16 Eustace (or Eustachius) September 20 Eustace (with John) April 14 Eustace White, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1591 Eustachius: See Eustace Eustathius of Antioch July 16 Eustathius of Carrhae. See Eutychius Eustochium of Bethlehem September 28 Eustochium of Messina, Bd February 16 Eustochium of Padua, Bd February 13 Eustorgius of Milan June 6 Eustratius of Sebastea December 13 Euthymius the Enlightener May 13 Euthymius the Great January 20 Euthymius the Younger October IS Eutropius (with Tigrius) January 12 Eutropius of Orange May 27 Eutropius of Saintes April 30 Eutychian (pope) December 7 Eutychius (or Eustathius) of Carrhae March 14 Eutychius of Constantinople April 6 Eva of Liege, Bd May 26 Evangelist of Verona, Bd March 20 Evaristus (pope) October 26 Eventius May 3 Everard Hanse, Bd July 30 Evergislus October 24 Everild July 9 Evermod February 17 Evodius of Antioch May 6 Evroult. See Ebrulf Ewalds, The Two October 3 Expeditus April 19 Exsuperantius of Ravenna May 30 Exsuperius (or Hesperus) May 2 Exsuperius of Toulouse September 28 Eystein January 26

Appendix III

Eugenius I June 2 Eugenius III, Bd July 8 Eugenius of Carthage July 13 Eugenius of Toledo November 13 Eugraphus December 10 Eulalia of Merida December 10 Eulampia October 10 Eulampius October 10 Eulogius of Alexandria September 13 Eulogius of Cordova March I I Eunan. See Adamnan of Iona Euphemia September 16 Euphrasia (or Eupraxia) March 13 Euphrasia Pelletier April 24 Euphrosyne January I Euphrosyne of Polotsk May 23 Euplus Avgust 12 Eupraxia. See Euphrasia Eurosia June 25 Eusebia of Harnage March 16 Eusebius (pope) August 17

F Fabian (pope) January 20 Fabiola December 27 Fachanan August 14 Faith (with Hope) August I Faith of Agen October 6 Fanchea March 21 Fantinus August 30 Fare. See Burgundofara Faro October 28 Faustinus (with Jovita) February 1 S Faustinus (with Simplicius) July 29 Faustus of Cordova October 13 Faustus of Riez September 28 Feargal. See Virgil of Salzburg Febronia June 2S Fechin January 20 Felicia of Milan, Bd July 24 Felician (with Primus) June 9 Felician of Foligno January 24

January-December]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS Francis Arrighetto, Bd May 12 Francis Bianchi, Bd January 31 Francis Borgia October 10 Francis de Capillas, Bd January 15 Francis Caracciolo June 4 Francis Clet, Bd. See Martyrs of China, I Francis Dickenson, Bd April 30 Francis Galvez, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Francis di Girolamo May I I Francis Godoy, Bd. See Ignatius Azevedo Francis Pacheco, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II April 20 Francis Page, Bd A-lay 12 Francis Patrizzi, Bd September 20 Francis de Posadas, Bd Francis de Sales January 29 July 13 Francis Solano Francis Xavier December 3 Francis of Assisi October 4 Imprinting of the Stigmata September 17 Francis of Calderola, Bd September 28 Francis of Camporosso September 17 Francis of Fabriano, Bd April 22 Francis of Lucera, Bd November 29 Francis of Paola April 2 Fr~ncis of Pesaro, Bd October 1 Franco of Grotti, Bd December I I Frederick of Regensburg, Bd November 29 Frederick of Utrecht July 18 Frediano. See Frigidian Frideswide October 19 Fridolin March 6 Frigidian (or Frediano) March 18 Froilan October 3 Fronto of Perigord October 25 Fructuosus of Braga April 16 Fructuosus of Tarragona January 21 Frumentius October 27 Fulbert of Chartres April 10 Fulco of Neuilly, Bd March 2 Fulgentius of Ruspe January I Fulrad July 16 Fursey January 16 Fuscian December I I

August 6 Felicissimus (with Sixtus) March 6 Felicity (with Perpetua) Felicity (with the Seven Brothers) July 10 Felicula June 13 Felim August 9 Felix (with Achilleus) April 23 Felix (with Adauctus) August 30 Felix (with Cyprian) October 12 Felix (with Fortunatus) June I I Felix (with NalJor) July 12 Felix I May 30 Felix II (III) March 1 Felix" II " July 29 Felix III (IV) September 22 Felix of Bourges January I Felix of Cantalice May 18 Felix of Dunwich March 8 Felix of Nantes July 7 Felix of Nicosia, Bd June I Felix of Nola January 14 Felix of Thibiuca October 24 Felix of Trier March 26 Felix of Valois November 20 Ferdinand of Castile May 30 Ferdinand of Portugal, Bd June 5 Fergus of Strathearn Nove711ber 27 Ferreolus (with Ferrutio) June 16 Ferreolus of C;renoble, Bd January 16 Ferreolus of Vienne September 18 Ferrutio June 16 Fiachra. See Fiacre Fiacre (or Fiachra) September I Fidelis of Como October 28 Fidelis of Sigmaringen April 24 Fillan (or Foelan) January 19 Fina. See Seraphina Finan of Lindisfarne February 17 Finbar (or Bairre) September 25 Finnian Lobhar March 16 Finnian of Clonard December 12 Finnian of Moville September 10 Fintan of Cloneenagh February 17 Fintan of Rheinau November 15 Fintan (or Munnu) of Taghmon October 21 Firminus of Anliens September 25 Flannan December 18 Flavian of Antioch July 20 Flavian of Constantinople February 18 Flora (with Mary) November 24 .

G Flora of Beaulieu October 5 Florentius of Strasburg November 7 Gabra Michael, Bd September I Florian of Lorch May 4 Gabriel (archangel) March 24 Floribert of Liege April 27 Gabriel Lalement. See Martyrs of Florus (with Laurus) August 18 North America Foelan See Fillan Gabriel Mary, Bd August 27 Foillan of Fosses October 3 I Gabriel Possenti February 27 Forannan April 30 N ove71lber 12 Gabriel of Ancona, Bd Fortunatus (with Achilleus) April 23 Gaetano. See Cajetan Fortunatus (with Felix) Ju1le I I Gaiana September 29 Fortunatus (with Hermagoras) July 12 Galation November 5 Founders of the Servites, The Seven April 18 Galdinus February 12 Galfrido. See Walfrid Franca of Piacenza April 26 Gall (hermit) October 16 Frances d'Amboise, Bd No'vember 4 Gall of Clermont July I Frances Cabrini Jan. ]. See December 22 Galla (widow) October 5 Frances of Rome March 9 Gallicanus June 25 Galmier. See Baldomerus Francis Antony, Hd Appendix I II

[January-December

GENERAL INDEX G'andulf of Binasco, Bd April 3 Gatian December 18 Gaucherius April 9 Gaudentius of Brescia October 2S Gaugericus (or Gery) August I I Gelasius I (pope) November 21 Gemma Galgani April I I Gemma of Soln10na, Bd May 12 Genesius of ArIes August 25 Genesius of Clermont June 3 Genesius the Comedian August 25 Genevieve (or Genovefa) January 3 Gengoul. See Gengulf Gengulf (or Gengoul) May I I Gennadius of Astorga May 25 Genou. See Genulf Genovefa. See Genevieve Gentian December I I Gentilis, Bd September 5 Gen ulf (or Genou) .'January 17 George (martyr) April 23 George (with Fronto) October 25 George Gervase, Bd April I I George Mtasmindeli June 27 November 9 George Napper, Bd George Swallowell, Bd. See Martyrs of Durham George of Amastris February 21 George the Younger April 7 Gerald of Aurillac October 13 Gerald of Mayo March 13 Gerard Cagnoli, Bd December I Gerard Majella October 16 Gerard of Brogne October 3 Gerard of Clairvaux, Bd Jr!,ne 13 Gerard of Csanad September 24 Gerard of Gallinaro August I I Gerard of l\10nza, Bd June 6 Gerard of Sauve-Majeure April 5 Gerard of Toul April 23

Gerard of Villan1agna, Bd May 23

Gerasimus (abbot) March 5

Gerebernus May 15

Geremarus (or Germer) September 24 Gereon October 10 Gerlac January 5 Gerland February 25 Germain. See Germanus of Paris Germaine of Pibrac June 15 Germanicus January 19 Germanus of Auxerre August 3 Germanus of Capua October '30 Germanus of Constantinople May 12 Germanus of Granfel Februarv 21 Germanus of Paris May 28 Germanus of Valaam june 28 Germer. See Geremarus Germerius (or Germier) May 16 Germier. See Germerius Geroldus April 19 Gerontius of Cervia May 9 Gertrude of Altenberg, Bd August 13 Gertrude of Delft (or " van Oosten "), Bd January 6 Gertrude of Helfta November 16 Gertrude of Nivelles March 17 Gervase (with Protase) june 19

Gervinus March 3 Gery. See Gaugericus Getulius June 10 Ghislain. See Gislenus May 8 Gibrian Gilbert of Caithness April I Gilbert of Sempringham February 16 Gildas January 29 September I Giles (or Aegidius) February 7 Giles Mary, Bd Giles of Assisi, Bd April 23 Giles of Lorenzana, Bd January 14 Giles of Portugal, Bd May 14 Giovanna Bonomo, Bd. Appendix I I I Gislenus (or Ghislain) October 9 Gleb (or David) July 24 Glyceria of Heraclea May 13 Goar July 6 Goban June 20 April II Godeberta Godehard. See Gothard Godeleva July 6 Godfrey of Amiens November 8 Godfrey of Kappenburg, Bd January 13 May 21 Godric Goericus (or Abbo) September 19 Gohard June 25 Gomidas Keumurgian, Bd November 5 Gommaire. See Gummarus Gonsalo Garcia. See Martyrs of Japan, I Gonsalo of Amarante, Bd January 16 Gontran. See Guntramnus Good Thief, The (Dismas) March 25 Gorazd. See Clement of Okhrida Gordian May 10 Gorgonia December 9 Gorgonius (martyr) September 9 Gorgonius (with Peter) March 12 Gothard (or Godehard) May 4 Gottschalk June 7 Gratia of Cattaro, Bd November 16 Gregory, Bd (with Dominic) April 26 Gregory I March 12 February I I Gregory II Gregory III December 10 Gregory VI I May 25 Gregory X, Bd January 10 Gregory Barbarigo, Bd June 18 Gregory Grassi, Bd. See Martyrs of China, I I Gregory Lopez, " Bd " July 20 Gregory Makar March 16 Gregory Nazianzen May 9 Gregory of Girgenti November 23 Gregory of Langres January 4 Gregory of Nyssa March 9 Gregory of Spoleto December 24 Gregory of Tours November 17 Gregory of Utrecht August 25 Gregory of Verucchio, Bd May 4 Gregory the Enlightener September 30 Gregory the Wonderworker November 17 Grimbald July 8 Grimonia ..f)eptmlber 7 Guala of Brescia, Bd September 3 Gualfardus. See Wolf hard Guardian Angels, The October 2

69 1

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

janua.ry-Deemaber]

Guarinus of Palestrina February 6 Guarinus (or Guerin) of Sion January 6 Gudula January 8 Gudwal (or Gurval) June 6 Gu~noI6. See Winwaloe Gu~rin. See Guarinus of Sion Guibert May 23 Gummarus (or Gommaire) October I I Gundisalvus. See Gonsalo Gundleus (or Woolo) March 29 Gunther, Bd October 9 Guntramnus (or Gontran) March 28 Gurias November 15 Gurval. See Gudwal Guthlac April I I Guy Maramaldi, Bd June 25 Guy of An4erlecht September 12 Guy of Cortona, Bd June 16 Guy of Pomposa March 31 Gwenfrewi. See Winifred Gwladys March 29

H Hallvard May 15 Hartman, Bd December 23 Harvey (or Herv~) June 17 Haymo of Savigliano, Bd August 18 Hedda. See Martyrs under the Danes Hedda of Winchester July 7 Hedwig October 16 Hedwig, Bd February 28 Hegesippus April 7 Heimrad June 28 Heldrad March 13 Helen (empress) August 18 Helen Guerra, Bd

Appendix III

Helen of Areella, Bd N O'Vember 7 Helen of Bologna, Bd September 23 Helen of Skovde July 3 1 Helen of Udine, Bd April 23 Helier July 16 Heliodorus of Altino July 3 Helladius of Toledo February 18 Helpers, The XIV Holy August 8 Hemma. See Emma Henry (emperor) July 15 Henry Abbot, Bd. See William Andleby Henry Morse, Bd February I Henry Suso, Bd March 2 Henry Walpole, Bd April, Henry of Cocket January 16 Henry of Olomuc, Bd June 25 Henry of Treviso, Bd June 10 Henry of Uppsala January 19 Henry the Shoemaker, Bd June 9 Herbert March 20 Herculanus of Perugia November 7 Herculanus of Piegaro, Bd June I Heribald April 25 Heribert March 16 Herluin, Bd August 26 Herman Joseph, Bd April?

Herman the Cripple, Bd September 25 Hermenegild April 13 Hermenland March 25

6gz

Hermes of Rome August 28 Hermina Grivot, Bd. See Martyrs of China, II Hermogenes (with Menna) Herv~. See Harvey Hesperus. See Exsuperius Hesychius (abbot) October 3 Hesychius of Durostorum June 15 Hidulf July I I Hilaria (with Claudius) December 3 Hilarion October 21 Hilarus February 28 Hilary of Aries May 5 Hilary of Galeata May 15 Hilary of Poitiers January 14足 Hilda November 17 Hildegard (abbess) September 17 Hildegard, Bd April 30 Hildegund (virgin) April 20 Hindegund (widow) February 6 Hildelitha Sq,tember 3 Himelin March 10 Hippolytus (with Timothy) August 22 Hippolytus Galantini, Bd March 20 Hippolytus cf Rome August 13 Holy Name of Jesus, The January 2 Homobonus November 13 Honoratus of Amiens May 16 Honoratus of Aries (or of Urins)January 16 Honorius of Canterbury September 30 llope (with Faith) August I Hormisdas (martyr) August 8 Honnisdas (pope) August 6 Hroznata, Bd July 14足 Hubert November 3 Hugh, Little St August 27 Hugh Faringdon, Bd December I Hugh Green, Bd. See John Cornelius Hugh More, Bd September I Hugh Uguccione. See Founders of the Servites Hugh of Anzy, Bd April 20 Hugh of Bonnevaux April I Hugh of Cluny April 29 Hugh of Fosses, Bd February 10 Hugh of Grenoble April I Hugh of Lincoln November 17 Hugh of Rouen April 9 Hugolino Magalotti, Bd December I I Hugolino of Cortona, Bd March 24足 Hugolino of Gualdo, Bd January I Humbeline, Bd August 21 Humbert of Romans, Bd July 14足 Humbert of Savoy, Bd March 4 November 27 Humilis, Bd May 22 Humility March 8 Hunphrey (or Hunfrid) Humphrey Middlemore, Bd. See Martyrs of the Charterhouse Hunfrid. See Humphrey April 15 Hunna (or Huva) Huva. See Hunna Hyacinth August 17 Hyacinth (with Pro~) September I I Hyacinth Casteneda, Bd. See Martyrs

of Indo-China, I

GENERAL INDEX Hyacintha Mariscotti Hyginus Hypatius (abbot)

[January-December January 30 January I I ]uru 17

I

la (martyr) August 4 la (virgin) February 3 Ibar April 23 Ida of Boulogne, Bd April 13 Ida of Herzfeld September 4 Ida of Louvain, Bd April 13 Ida of Toggenburg, Bd November 3 April 18 Idesbald Ignatius Azevedo, Bd July 15 Ignatius Delgado, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, I Ignatius Loyola July 3 1 February I Ignatius of Antioch Ignatius of Constantinople October 23 May I I Ignatius of Laconi May 28 Ignatius of Rostov Ildephonsus January 23 November 6 Illtud (or Illtyd) Illtyd. See Illtud Imelda, Bd May 13 Indractus Februar~' 5 Ines, Bd. See Josepha of Benigamin Inigo. See Eneco July 28 Innocent I Innocent V, Bd June 22 Innocent XI, Bd Appendix III Innocent of Berzo Appendix III

Innocent of Tortona Innocents, The Holy Irenaeus (with Mustiola)

April 17 December 28 .'July 3 Irenaeus of Lyons July 3. See June 28 Irenaeus of Sirmium March 24 Irene (with Chionia) April 3 Irmina December 24 Isaac (or Sahak) September 9 Isaac Jogues. See Martyrs of North America Isaac of Constantinople May 30 Isaac of Cordova June 3 April I I Isaac of Spoleto Isabel Fernandez, Bd. See Apollinaris Franco Isabel of France, Bd February 26 Isabel of Portugal. See Elizabeth Isaiah of Cracow, Bd February 8 Isaias of Rostov May 15 Ischyrion (with Chaeremon) December 22 Isidore of Alexandria January 15 Isidore of Chios May 15 Isidore of Pelusium February 4 Isidore of Seville April 4 Isidore the Husbandman May 15 Isnardo of Chiampo, Bd March 22 Israel, Bd Dece1nber 3 I I ta of Killeedy January 15 Ithamar June 10 Ivo (bishop) April 24 Ivo of Chartres May 23 Ivo of Kermartin May 19

J Jacopino of Canepaci, Bd March 3 Jacopone of Todi, Bd December 25 James (apostle; the Greater) July 25 Jamc:s (apostle; the Less) May 1 James (with Marian) April 30 April 20 James Bell, Bd James Bertoni, Bd .i\1ay 30 James Bird, Bd March 25 James Carvalho, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II James Duckett, Bd April 19 James Fenn, Bd. See Thomas Hemerford James Sales, Bd February 7 James Strepar, Bd October 21 James Thompson, Bd November 28 James of Bevagna (or of Mevania), Bd August 23 James of Bitetto, Bd April 27 James of Cerqueto, Bd April 17 James of Certaldo, Bd April 13 April 18 James of Lodi, Bd James of Mantua, Bd November 26 James of the March November 28 James of Naples, Bd March 14 James of Nisibis July 19 James of VIm, Bd October I I James of Voragine, Bd July 13 James the Almsgiver, Bd January 28 November 27 James" the Cut-to-pieces U James the Venetian, Bd May 31 Jane de Chantal August 21 Januarius (with Faustus) October 13 Januarius of Benevento September 19 Jarlath June 6 July 12 Jason February 16 Jeremy (martyr) March I I Jermyn Gardiner, Bd Jerome (doctor) September 30 Jerome de Angelis, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Jerome Emiliani July 20 Jerome Hermosilla, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, II Jerome Ranuzzi, Bd December I I Joachim August 16 Joachim of Siena, Bd April 16 Joachima de Mas May 22 Joan Antide-Thouret August 25 Joan Bonomo, Bd. Appendix III Joan Delanoue, Bd August 17 Joan de l,estonnac February 2 Joan de Maille, Bd November 6 Joan Soderini, Bd September I Joan of Arc May 30 Joan of Aza, Bd August 8 Joan of France (or of Valois) February 4 Joan of Orvieto, Bd July 23 Joan (Jane) of Portugal, Bd May 12 Joan (Jane) of Reggio, Bd July 9 Joan of Signa, Bd November 17 Joan of Toulouse, Bd March 31 Joannicius November 4 John (evangelist) December 27 before the Latin Gate May 6 John (with Cyrus) January 31

693

January-December] John John John John John

(with Paul) Junt26 I (pope) May 27 Almond, Bd December S March 16 Amias, Bd the Baptist Ju nt2 4 his Beheading August 29 John Baptist Machado, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II John Baptist Rossi . May 23 John Baptist Turpin, Bd. AppendIx III John Baptist de la Salle May 15 John Baptist of A-lmodovar, Bd February 14 John Baptist of Fahriano, Bd March I I John Beche, Bd December I John Berchmans NO'Vember 26 John Bodey, Bd Noc'e11lber 2 John Bonnard, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, I I John Bosco January 3 I John Boste, Bd. See Martyrs of Durham John de Brebeuf. See Martyrs of North America John de Britto February 4 John Buoni, Bd October 23 John Calybites January 15 John Carey, Bd. See John Cornelius John Cassian July 23 John de Castillo, Bd. See Roque Gonzalez John Chrysostom January 27 John Climacus March 30 John Colombini, Bd July 31 John Cornay, Bd. See Martyrs of IndoChina, I John Cornelius, Bd July 4 John Damascene March 27 John Dominici, Bd June 10 John Duckett, Bd September 7 John Eudes August 19 John Eynon, Bd. See Hugh Faringdon John Felton, Bd August 8 John Fenwick, Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot John Finch, Bd April 20 John Fisher July 9 John Forest, Bd May 22 John Gavan, Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot John Grande, Bd June 3 John Grove, Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot John Gualbert July 12 John Haile, Bd May I I John Hewett, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 15 88

John Houghton, Bd. See Martyrs of the Charterhouse John Ingram, Bd. See Martyrs of Durham John Ireland, Bd March I I John Jones, Bd July 12 John J oseph (of the Cross) March 5 John Kemble, Bd August 22 John Lalande. See Martyrs of North America John Lantrua, Bd. Set Martyrs of Chiria, I John Larke, Bd March I I

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS John John John John John John

September 2 October 9 November 14 July 22 April 13 December 13

du Lau, Bd Leonardi Liccio, Bd Lloyd, Bd Lockwood, Bd Marinoni, Bd

John Martin Moye

John Mason, Bd. 159 1

John Massias, Bd John Munden, Bd. John Nelson, Bd John Nepomucen

Appendix III

See Martyrs of London, September 18 See Thomas Ht:merford February 3 May 16

John N epomucen Neumann

Appendix III

John Nutter, Bd. See Thomas Hemerford John Ogilvie, Bd March 10 John della Pace, Bd November 12 John Payne, Bd April 2 John Pelingotto, Bd June 1 John Perboyre, Bd September I I John Pibush, Bd February 18 John Plesington, Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot John Porro, Bd October 24 John Rainuzzi, Bd June 8 John Regis June 16 John Ri, Bd. See Laurence Imbert John de Ribera January 6 John Rigby, Bd June 21 John Roberts, Bd December 10 John Robinson, Bd. See Martyrs of Canterbury John Roche, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 15 88

John Rochester, Bd. See Martyrs of the Charterhouse John Rugg, Bd. See Hugh Faringdon John Ruysbroeck, Bd December 2 John Sarkander, Bd March 17 John Shert, Bd May 28 John Slade, Bd October 30 John Soreth, Bd July 30 John Southworth, Bd June 28 John Speed, Bd. See Martyrs of Durham John Stone, Bd May 12 John Storey, Bd June I John Thorne, Bd. See Richard Whiting John Vianney August 8 John Wall, Bd August 26 John Zedazneli N OtJember 4 John of Alvernia, Bd August 13 John of Avila, Bd May 10 John of Bergamo July I I John of Beverley May 7 John of Bridlington October 2 I John of Capistrano March 28 John of Chinon June 27 John of Constantinople August 28 John of Dukla, Bd September 28 John of Egypt March 27 J oho of Gorze February 27 John of the Goths June 26 John of Kanti October 20 John of Matera (or of Pulsano) June 20 John of Matha February 8 John of Meda September 26

[January-December

GENERAL INDEX September 7 John of Nicomedia March 19 John of Panaca John of Parma, Bd March 20 John of Penna, Bd April 3 September I John of Perugia, Bd John of Prado, Bd May 24 January 28 John of Reomay August 9 John of Rieti, Bd June 12 John of Sahagun August 9 John of Salerno, Bd July 24 John of Tossignano, Bd John of Triora, Bd. See Martyrs of China, I April 26 John of Valence. Bd March 10 John of Vallombrosa, Bd December I John of Vercelli, Bd March 16 John of Vicenza, Bd April 14 John of Vilna January 27 John of Warneton, Bd January 23 John the Almsgiver November 24 John of the Cross October 17 John the Dwarf March 8 John of God January 10 John the Good February I John " of the Grating " July 12 John the Iberian John the Silent (or the Hesychast) May 13 June 3 John the Sinner, Bd June 2S John the Spaniard, Bd June 15 Jolenta, Bd March 29 Jonas (with Barachisius) March 6 Jordan of Pisa, Bd February 15 Jordan of Saxony, Bd November 27 Josaphat (with Barlaam) November 14 Josaphat of Polotsk March 19 Joseph (See also I May) July 20 Joseph Barsabas June 23 Joseph Cafasso August 27 f oseph Calasanctius April 29 Joseph Cottolengo Joseph Marchand, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, I Joseph Mkasa, Bd June 3 Joseph Oriol March 23 Joseph Pignatelli November 28 Joseph Sanjurjo, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, I I Joseph Tommasi, Bd January I Joseph of Arimathaea March 17 Joseph of Cupertino September 18 Joseph of Leonessa February 4 Joseph of Palestine (comes) July 22 Josepha Rossello December 7 Josepha (or liies) of Benigamin, Bd January 22 Josse. See Judoc Jovita February 15 Judas Quiriacus. See Cyriacus October 28 Jude (or Thaddeus) (apostle) June 29 Judith Dece1nber 13 Judoc (or Josse) April 8 Julia Billiart, Bd February 15 Julia of Certaldo, Bd May 22 Julia of Corsica January 9 Julian (with Basilissa) November I Julian (with Caesarius) February 27 Julian (with Cronion)

Julian (with Theodulus) February 17 Julian Maunoir, Bd January 28 Julian Sabas January 17 Julian of Antioch March 16 Julian of Brioude August 28 Julian of Le Mans January 27 Julian of Norwich, Bd May 13 ] ulian of St Augustine, Bd April 8 Julian of Toledo March 8 Julian the Hospitaller February 12 Juliana Falconieri June 19 Juliana of Cumae February 16 Juliana of l\Jlount Cornillon, Bd Aprils Julitta (with Cyricus) June 16 Julitta of Caesarea July 3째 Julius (with Aaron) July 3 Julius I (pope) April 12 Julius of Durostorum May 27 Justa (with Rufina) July 19 Justin (martyr) April 14 Justin de Jacobis, Bd July 3 1 Justina (with Cyprian) September 26 Justina of Arezzo, Bd March 12 Justina of Padua October 7 Justus (with Pastor) August 6 Justus of Beauvais October 18 Justus of Canterbury November 10 Justus of Lyons October 14 Justus of Urgel May 28 Jutta May S Jutta of Diessenberg, Bd December 22 Jutta of Huy, Bd January 13 J uvenal Ancina, Bd August 3 1 Juvenal of Narni May 3 J uventinus Ja12uary 2S

K Katherine. See Catherine Kenelm July 17 Kenneth. See Canice Kennoch. See Mochoemoc Kentigern (or Mungo) January 14 Kentigerna. See FiIlan Kessog March 10 Kevin (or Coemgen) June 3 Keyne October 8 Kieran of Clonmacnois September 9 Kieran of Saighir (or of Ossory) March 5 Kilian (martyr) July 8 Kinga, Bd. See Cunegund, Bd Kizito, Bd. See Charles Lwanga

L

May I I Ladislaus of Gielniow; Bd June 27 Ladislaus of Hungary September 6 Laetus (with Donatian) Laisren. See Laserian April 14 Lambert of Lyons September 17 Lambert of Maestricht May 26 Lambert of Vence June IS Landelinus (abbot) June 10 Landericus (or Landry) of Paris March 19 Landoald

JanIJary-December]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Landry. See Landericus May 24 Lanfranc of Can terhury, Bd June 23 Lanfranc of Pavia, Bd April 14 Lanvinus, Bd August 8 Largus (with Cyriacus) April 18 Laserian (or Molaisse) August 10 Laurence (martyr) Septe11,ber 5 Laurence Giustiniani Laurence Humphrey, Bd. See Roger Dickenson Laurence Imhert, Bd September 2 I Laurence Loricatus, Bd August 16 Laurence N erucci, Bd August 31 Laurence O'Toole N o'Vember 14 Laurence Richardson, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1582 Laurence of Brindisi July 21 Laurence of Canterbury Febru.ary 3 Laurence of Rippafratta, Bd September 28 Laurence of Spoleto February 3 Laurence of Villamagna, Bd June 6 Laurentinus (with Pergentinus) June 3 Laurus August 18 Lazarus December Lazarus of Milan February I I Leander of Seville February Lebuin (or Liafwine) November 12 Leger (or Leodegarius) October 2 Lelia August 1 I Leo (with Paregorius) February 18 Leo I April I I Leo II July J Leo III June 12 Leo IV July Leo IX April 19 I~o l\langin, Bd. Appendix III Leo (or Lye) of Mantenay May 25 Leo of Saint-Bertin, Bd February 26 Leobinus (or Lubin) March 14 l~ocadia December 9 Leocritia. See Lucretia Leodegarius. See Leger Leonard Kimura, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Leonard Murialdo, Bd Appendix III Leonard of Noblac N Of.-'ember 6 Leonard of Port Maurice November 26 Leonard of Vandreuvre October 15 Leonides of Alexandria April 22 Leontius of Rostov May 23 Leopold of Austria November I 5 Leopold of Gaich~, Bd April 2 Lesin. See Licinius Lesmes. See Adelelmus Leu. See Lupus of Sens Leufroy. See Leutfridus Leutfridus (or Leufroy) June 21 Lewina July 24 Lewis. See Louis Liaf\vine. See Lebuin Liberata. See Wilgefortis Liberatus of Capua August September, Liberatus of Loro, Bd Libert. See Lietbertus Liborius July 23 Licinius (or Lesin) February 13

I'

2'

I'

I'

Lietbertus (or Libert) June 23 Lifard. See Liphardus February 22 Limnaeus Linus September 23 September 28 Lioba Liphard. See Liudhard Liphardus (or Lifard) June 3 May, Liudhard November 12 Livinus Loman February Longinus March 15 Louis of France August 25 Louis Allemand, Bd September 16 Louis Bertrand October 9 Louis Grignion of Montfort April 28 Louis Morbioli, Bd November 16 Louis Sotelo, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Louis Taurin-Dufresse, Bd. See Martyrs of China, I Louis of Anjou August 19 Louis of Thuringia, Bd September I I Louisa Albertoni, Bd February 28 Louisa de Marillac March 15 Louisa of Savoy, Bd September 9 Loup. See Lupus of Troyes Luan. See Moloc Lubin. See Leobinus Luchesio, Bd April 28 Lucian (with Marcian) October 26 Lucian of Antioch January, Lucian of Beauvais January 8 Lucillian June 3 Lucius (" king ") December 3 Lucius (with Montanus) February 24 Lucius (with Ptolemaeus) October 19 Lucius I (pope) March 4 Lucius of Adrianople February I I Lucretia (or Leocritia) March 15 Lucy (martyr) December 13 Lucy Filippini March 25 Lucy de Freitas, Bd. See Apollinaris Franco Lucy of Amelia, Bd July Lucy of Caltagirone, Bd September 26 Lucy of Narni, Bd November 16 Ludan February 12 Ludger March 26 Ludmila September 16 Ludolf March 30 Ludovic Pavoni, Bd April 1 Ludwig, Bd. See Louis of Thuringia Lufthildis January 23 Lughaidh. See Molua Luke (evangelist) October 18 Luke Belludi, Bd February Luke Kirby, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 15 8 2 Luke the Younger February, Lull October 16 Lupicinus (with Romanus) February 28 Lupus (or Leu) of Sens September I Lupus (or Loup) of Troyes July 29 Lutgardis June 16 Luxorius August 21 Lydwina of Schiedam, Bd April 14 Lye. See Leo of Mantenay

696

I'

2'

I'

GENERAL INDEX

[JaftIItJI'Y-Deeernber

M Macanisius September 3 Macarius of Alexandria January 2 Macarius of Ghent April 10 March 10 Macarius of Jerusalem Macarius the Elder January 15 Macarius the Wonderworker April I Macartan March 26 Maccul. See Maughold Macedonius the Barley-eater January 24 Machabees, The Holy August I Machar (or Mochumma) November 12 Machutus. See Malo Macrina the Elder January 14 Macrina the Younger June 19 Madeleine Barat May 2S Madeleine Fontaine, Bd June 27 Madelgaire. See Vincent Madelgarius Madelgisilus (or Maugeille) May 30 Madern. See Madron Madron (or Madern) May 17 Maedoc. See Aidan of Ferns Maelor. See Maglorius Maelrubha. See Malrubius Mafalda May 2 Magdalen Albrizzi, Bd May IS Magdalen di Canossa, Bd May 14 Magdalen Panattieri, Bd October 13 Magenulf (or Meinulf) October S Magi, The July 23 Maglorius (or Maelor) October 24 Magnericus July 2S Magnus of Orkney April 16 Maharsapor October 10 Maimbod January 23 Majolus (or Mayeul) May II Majoricus December 6 Malachy of Armagh November 3 Malchus October 21 Mallonus. See Mellon Malo (or Machutus) November IS Malrubius (or Maelrubha) April 'ZI Mamas August 17 Mamertus May II Mamilian. See Maximilian (martyr) Manechildis (or M~n~hould) October 14 Manettus. See Founders of the Servites Mannes, Bd

July 30 Mappalicus

April 17 Marcella of Rome

January 3 I Marcellian (with Mark)

Ju"e 18 Marcellina

July 17 Marcellinus (pope)

April 26 Marcellinus (with Peter)

JuM 2 Marcellinus Champagnat, Bd. Appendix

III

Marcellinus of Carthage Marcellinus of Embrun Marcellus (with Apuleius) Marcellus (with Valerian) Marcellus I (pope) Marcellus of Apamea Marcellus of Paris Marcellus of Tomi Marcellus Akimetes Marcellus the Centurion

April 6 April 20 October 8 September 4 January 16 August 14 November

I

August 27 December 29 October 30

Marchelm July 1 4 Marcian (or Marian) April 20 Marcian (with Lucian) October 26 Marcian (with Nicander) June 1 7 Marcian of Constantinople January 10 Marcian of Cyrrhus November 2 Marciana of Rusuccur January 9 Marcolino of Forll, Bd Jamuuy 24 Marcoul. See Marculf Marculf (or Marcoul) May I Margaret (or Marina) July 20 Margaret Bourgeoys, Bd January 19 Margaret Clitherow, Bd March 35 Margaret Colonna, Bd November 7 Margaret Mary October Margaret Pole, Bd Maya8 Margaret Ward, Bd. See Martyrs of London, I S88 Margaret of Citta-di-Castello (or of Metola), Bd April J 3 Margaret of Cortona February 22 Margaret " of England " February 3 Margaret of Hungary ]4nuary 26 Margaret of Lorraine, Bd November 6 Margaret of Louvain, Bd September z.

Margaret of Ravenna, Bd Jamiary 2] Margaret of Savoy, Bd December Z-3 Margaret of Scotland June 10 Margaret the Barefooted August 27 Margaret the Penitent. See Pelagia the Penitent Mari August 5 Marian. See Marcian Marian (with James) April 3Q Mariana of Quito Maya6 Marianus Scotus, Bd February 9 Marina (or Margar<'t) July 20 Marina (or Pelagia) Feb.ruary I a Marinus (San Marino) S'I'tnnber 4 Marinus (with Astyrius) March 3 Marius (or May) January 27 Marius (with Martha) JatlUQry 19 Mark (evangelist) April as Mark (pope) October 7 Mark (or Martin) October a4 Mark (with Marcellian) Ju1l~ 18 Mark Barkworth, Bd February 27 Mark Crisin, Bd Septnnber 7 Mark Fantucci, Bd Aj)rillo Mark of Arethusa March Z9 Mark of Modena, Bd SejJtember 23 Mark of Montegallo. Bd Marclt 20 Maro Febnuzry l 4 Mars. See Martius Martha July 29 Martha (with Marius) January 19 Martial (with Faustus) October IJ Martial of Limoges JuneJo Martin (or Mark) October Martin I (pope) November 12 Martin de Pones,. St. N ovnc1Jer 5 Martin of Braga March 30 Martin of Tours N oonnber I I Martin of Vertou October 24 lVlartina Jamlary 30 Martinian (with Maxima) October 16 Martinian (with Processus) Ju/ya

I'

a.

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

January-December] Martinian the Hermit February 13 Martius (or Mars) AprillJ Martyrius (with Sisinnius) May 29 Martyrs of Arras Jun~27 Martyrs under the Boxers July 9 and Appendix III Martyrs of Canterbury and others October I Martyr, tl~s Carmes. S~~ John du Lau Martyrs of the Charterhouse May I I Martyrs of China, I February 17 Martyrs of China, I I July 9 Martyrs of Compiegne, Carmelite July 17 Martyrs of Crete, The Ten December 23 Martyrs of Damascus July 10 Martyrs under the Danes April 10 Martyrs of Dorchester July 4 Martyrs of Douay October 29 Martyrs of Durham July 24 Martyrs of Ebsdorf February 2 Martyrs of England and Wales (general) May 4 Martyrs of Gorcum July 9 Martyrs of Indo-China, I July I I Martyrs of Indo-China, II November 6 Martyrs of Japan, I February 5 Martyrs of Japan, I I June I Martyrs of Japan, III September 10 Martyrs of Korea September 21 Martyrs of Laval. Appendix III Martyrs of Lithuania April 14 Martyrs under the Lombards March 2 Martyrs of London, 1582 MtQ.y 28 Martvrs of London, 1588 August 28 Martyrs of London, 1591 December 10 Martyrs of Lyons June 2 Martyrs of Mar Saba March 20 Martyrs of Najran October 24 Martyrs under Nero June 24 Martyrs at Nicomedia December 25 Martyrs of North America September 26 Martyrs of the Oates Plot June 20 Martyrs of Orange July 9 Martyrs of Paraguay Nove11lber.17 Martyrs in Persia, The CXX Apr,l 6 Martyrs of the Alexandrian Plague

February 28

Martyrs of Prague, Servite August 3 J Martyrs of Salsette July 27 Martyrs of Samosata, The Seven

December 9 Martyrs Martyrs Martyrs Martyrs Martyrs Martyrs Martyrs Martyrs Martyrs

of of of of of of of of of

Scillium July 17 Sebastea, The Forty March 10 September 1792 September 2 the Serapeum March 17 Sinai January 14 Toulouse May 29 Uganda June 3 Utica August 24 Valenciennes, Ursuline

Maruthas Mary, The Blessed Virgin the Annunciation her Assumption her Birthday her Immaculate Conception her Immaculate Heart

October 17 December 4 August 15 March 25 August 15 September 8 December 8 August 22

her Motherhood October I I her Presentation November 21 her Purification February 2 her Sorrows September 15 her Visit to Elizabeth July 2 Our Lady of Lourdes February I I Our Lady of Mount Carmel July 16 Our Lady of Ransom September 24 Mary, Our Lady" of the Snow " August 5 the Name of Mary September 12 the Holy Rosary October 7 Mary (martyr) November I Mary (with Flora) November 24 Mary Assunta, Bd Appendix III May 28 Mary Bartholomea, Bd Mary Cleophas April 9 August 26 Mary Desmaisieres October 6 Mary Frances Mary Goretti July 6 Mary L'Huilier, Bd. Appendix III Mary Magdalen July 22 Mary Magdalen Martinengo, Bd July 27 Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi May 29 Mary Magdalen Postel July 16 Mary l\largaret d"Youville Appendix III Mary de Mattias, Bd August 20 Mary Mazzarello May 14 Mary Pelletier April 24 Mary di Rosa December 15 Mary Soledad, Bd October I I Mary de Soubiran, Bd October 20 Mary of Cerevellon September 19 Mary of Egypt April 2 Mary of Oignies, Bd June 23 .Mary of Pisa, Bd January 28 Mary of Turin, Bd December 16 Mary of the Incarnation (Acarie). Bd

April

18

Masabkis, The. See Emmanuel Ruiz Maternus of Cologne September 14 Mathurin. See Maturinus Matilda. See Mechtildis Matilda (widow) March 14 Matrona March IS Matthew (evangelist) September 21 Matthew of Girgenti, Bd October 21 Matthew of Mantua, Bd October 7 Matthia of Matelica, Bd November 7 Matthias (apostle) February 24 Matthias Murumba, Bd. See Charles Lwanga Maturinus (or Mathurin) November I Maturus. See Pothinus Maudez. See Mawes Maughold (or Maccul) April 27 Maugille. See Madelgisilus Maura (with Brigid) July 13 Maura (with Timothy) May 3 Maura of Leucadia. See Anne (virgin) Maura of Troyes September 21 M~urice of Agaunum September 22 Maurice of Carnoet October 13 Maurice of Hungary, Bd March 20 Maurilius of Angers September 13 Mauruntius May 5 Maurus (abbot) January 15 Mawes (or Maudez) November 18

GENERAL INDEX Maxellendis November 13 November 20 Maxentia of Beauvais Maxentius (abbot) June 26 Maxima (with Martinian) October 16 August 21 Maximian (with Bonosus) March 12 Maximilian (martyr) October 12 Maximilian of Lorch Maximinus (with Juventinus) January 25 Maximinus of Aix June 8 Maximinus of Trier May 29 Maximus (with Tiburtius) April 14 Maximus of Ephesus April 30 Maximus of Riez November 27 Maximus of Turin June 25 Maximus the Confessor August 13 May. See Marius Mayeul. See Majolus Mechtildis of Edelstetten May 31 Mechtildis of Helfta November 16 Medard June 8 l\1edericus (or Merry) August 29 Meen (or Mewan) June 21 Meingold February 8 Meinrad January 21 Meinulf. See Magenulf Meinwerk, Bd June 5 Mel February 6 Melaine November 6 Melangell (or Monacella) May 27 Melania the Younger December 31 Melchiades. See Miltiades Melchu February 6

Meletius of Antioch February 12

Meleusippus January 17

Melito April I Mellitus of Canterbury Aprt'/24 Mellon (or Mallonus) October 22 Melorus. See Mylor Menehould. See Manechildis Mennas (with Hermogenes) December 10 Mennas of Constantinople August 25 Mennas of Egypt November I I Menodora September 10 Mercurius of Caesarea November 25 Meriadoc (or Meriasek) June 7 Meriasek. See Meriadoc Merry. See Medericus Mesrop February 19 Messalina. See Felician of Foligno Methodius (with Cyril) July 7 Methodius of Constantinople June 14 Methodiu~ of Olympus September 18 Metrodora September 10 Metrophanes June 4 Meuris. See Nemesius Mewan. See Meen Michael (archangel) September 29 his Appearing May 8 Michael Carvalho, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Michael Garicolts May 14 Michael Giedroyc, Bd May 4 Michael Ghebre, Bd. See Gabra Michael Michael de Sanctis April 10 Michael of Chernigov September 2 I Michelina of Pesaro, Bd June 20 Milburga February 23

[January-December Mildgytha. See Milburga Mildred July 13

Miles Gerard, Bd April 30

Milo of Selincourt, Bd July 16

Miltiades (or Melchiades) December 10 Mirin September 15 Mochoemoc March 13 Mochta August 19 Mochuda. See Carthage Mochumma. See Machar Mocius. See Mucius Modan February 4 Modestus (with Vitus) June 15 Modoaldus May 12 Modomnoc February 13 Modwenna July 6 l\1olaisse. See Laserian Moling June 17

Moloc (or Luan) June 25

Molua (or Lughaidh) August 4

Mommolinus October 16 Monacella. See l\1elangell Monegundis July 2 Monica May 4 Moninne. See Modwenna Montanus (with Lucius) February 24 Morand June 3 Moses (bishop) February 7 Moses (martyr) November 25 Moses the Black August 28 Mucius (or Mocius) May 13 Munchin January 2 Mungo. See Kentigern Munnu. See Fintan of Taghmon Muredach. See Murtagh Murtagh (or Muredach) August 12 Mustiola July 3 Mylor (or Melorus) October I

N Nabor (with Felix) Narcissus of Jerusalem Narses. See Nerses Natalia (with Adrian) Natalia (with Aurelius) Nathalan Nathanael. See Bartholomew Nathy Nazarius (with Celsus) Nectan Nectarius of Constantinople Nemesian Nemesius of Alexandria Neot Nereus Nerses I (bishop and martyr) N erses Klaietsi Nerses Lampronazi N erses of Sahgerd Nestabus Nestor (with Eusebius) Nestor of Magydus Nicander (with Marcian) Nicarete Nicasius of Rheims

July 12 October 29 September 8 July 27 January 19 (apostle) August 9 July 28 June 17 October 1 I September 10 December 19 July 31 May 12 November 19 August 13 July 17 November 20 September 8 September 8 February 26 June 17 December 27 December 14

January-Decmaber]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Nicephorus (martyr) February 9 Nicephorus of Constantinople March 13 Nicetas (abbot) April 3 Nicetas of Constantinople October 6 Nicetas of Novgorod January 31 Nicetas of Pereaslav May 24 N icetas of Remesiana June 22 N icetas the Goth September 15 Nicetius (or Nizier) of Besan~on February 8 Nicetius (or Nizier) of Lyons April 2 Nicetius of Trier December 5 Nicholas I (pope) November 13 Nicholas Albergati, Bd May 9 Nicholas Factor, Bd December 14 Nicholas von FlUe March 22 Nicholas Owen, Bd March 12 Nicholas Paglia, Bd February 14 Nicholas Pieck July 9 Nicholas Studites February 4 Nicholas of F orca Palena, Bd October I Nicholas of Linkoping, Bd July 24 Nicholas of Myra (or of Bari) December 6 Nicholas of Sibenik, Bd December 5 Nicholas of Tolentino September 10 Nicholas the Pilgrim June 2 N icomedes September IS Nikon " Metanoeite " Nooember 26 Nilus of Rossano September 26 Nilus the Elder November 12 Ninian September 16 Nino December IS Nizier. See Nicetius Noel ChabaneI. See Martyrs of North America February 21 Noel Pinot, Bd Non (or Nonnita) March 3 November 6 Nonius (or Nunes), Bd Nonna August 5 Nonnita. See Non Norbert June 6 Notburga September 14 Nothelm October 17 April 6 Notker Balbulus, Bd Novellone, Bd August 13 Nunes, Bd. See Nonius N unilo October 22 Nunzio Sulprizio, Bd

Appendix III

November September

Nympha Nymphodora

10 10

o Octave of Christmas Oddino, Bd Odhran. See Otteran Odilia (or Ottilia) Odilo Odo of Cambrai Odo of Canterbury Odo of Cluny Odo of Novara, Bd Odoric of Pordenone, Bd Odulf Oengus. See Aengus Olaf Oldegar. See Ollegarius Olga

January

July

I

21

December 13 January I June 19

July

4

November 18 January 14 January 14 June 12

July

29

July

II

Olive of Palermo, Bd Oliver Plunket, Bd Ollegarius (or Oldegar) Olympias Omer (or Audomarus) Onesimus the Slave Onuphrius Opportuna Optatus of Milevis Optatus of Saragossa Oringa, Bd Orsiesius Osanna of Cattaro, Bd Osanna of Mantua, Bd Osburga Osmund Oswald of Northumbria Oswald of Worcester Oswin Osyth Otger Otteran (or Odhran) of Iona Ottilia. See Odilia Otto of Bamberg Oudoceus. See Teilo Ouen (or Audoenus) OutriI. See Austregisilus Oyend. See Eugendus

June 10 July I I March 6 December 17 September 9 February 16 June 12 April 22 June 4 April 16 January 4 June 15 April 27 June 20 March 30 December 4 August 9 February 28 August 20 October 7 May 8 October 27 July August

2

24

P Pachomius May 9 Pacifico of Cerano, Bd June 8 Pacifico of San Severino September 24 Pacian March 9 Padarn (or Patern) April IS Pair. See Paternus of Avranches Palladius (bishop in Ireland) July 7 Pambo July 18 Pammachius August 30 Pamphilus of Caesarea June I Pamphilus of Sulmona April 28 Pancras (martyr) May 12 Pancras of Taormina April 3 Pantaenus July 7 Pantaleon (or Panteleimon) July 27 Panteleimon. See Pantaleon Paphnutius (bishop) September I I Papylus April 13 Paregorius February 18 Parisio June 1 I Parthenius (with Calocerus) May 19 Paschal I (pope) February I I Paschal Baylon May 17 Paschasius Radbertus April 26 Pastor (with Justus) August 6 Patern of Ceredigion. See Padam Paternus of Abdinghof April 10 Paternus (or Pair) of Avranches April 16 Patiens of Lyons September II Patricia August 25 Patrick March 17 Patrick Salmon, Bd. See John Cornelius Patroclus of Troyes January 21 Paul (apostle) June 29 his Conversion January 25

GENERAL INDEX

[January-December

Paul (with John) June 26 Paul (with Thea) July 25 Paul I (pope) June 28 Paul Aurelian (or of Leon) March 12 Paul Miki. See Martyrs of Japan, I Paul Navarro, Bd. See Apollinaris Franco Paul I of Constantinople June 7 Paul IV of Constantinople August 28 Paul of Cyprus March 17 Paul of Latros December 15 Paul of Narbonne March 22 Paul of the Cross April 28 Paul the Hermit January IS Paul the Simple March 7 Paula (widow) January 26 Paula Cerioli, Bd December 24 Paula Frassinetti, Bd June I I Paula Gambara-Costa, Bd January JI Paula of Montaldo, Bd. See Beatrice da Silva Paulinus of Aquileia January 28 Paulinus of Nola June 22 Paulinus of Trier Augwt J I Paulinus of York October 10 Pega January 8 Pelagia of Antioch June 9 Pelagia of Tarsus May 4 Pelagia (or Margaret) the Penitent October 8 Pelagius of Cordova June 26 Peleus September 19 Pepin of Landen, Bd February 21 Peregrine, Bd (with Evangelist) March 20 1..{ay I Peregrine Laziosi Peregrine of Auxerre May 16 Peregrine of Falerone, Bd September 6 Pergentinus June J Perpetua (with Felicity) March 6 Perpetuus of Tours April 8 Peter (apostle) June 29 his Chair at Antioch February 22 his Chair at Rome January 18 his church ad Vincula Augwt I Peter (with Gorgonius) March IZ Peter (with Marcellinus) June 2 Peter Almato, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, II Peter Arbues September 17 Peter Armengol, Bd April 27 Peter Balsam January 3 Peter Baptist. See Martyrs of Japan, I Peter Canisius April 27 Peter Chanel April 28 Peter Chrysologus December 4 Peter Claver September 9 Peter Damian February 23 Peter Dumoulin-Borie, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, I Peter Eymard August 3 Peter Favre (or Faber), Bd August I I Peter Fourier December 9 Peter Geremia, Bd March 10 Peter Gonzalez, Bd (CC St Elmo") April 14 Peter Igneus, Bd February 8 Peter Martyr (or of Verona) April 29 Peter Nolasco January 28 Peter Orseolo JtmIUlYy 10 Peter Pascual, Bd December 6

Peter Petroni, Bd May 29

Peter Regalatus May 13

Peter Roque, Bd March I

Peter Sanz, Bd May 26

Peter Thomas January 28 Peter Wright, Bd May 19 Peter of Alcantara October 19 Peter of Alexandria November 26 Peter of Athos June 12 Peter of Atroa JamMlTY I Peter of Braga April 36 Peter of Castelnau, Bd January IS March 4 Peter of Cava September I I Peter of Chavanon Peter of Cluny, Bd December 29 Peter of Cuerva, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Peter of Gubbio, Bd March 23 Peter of Jully, Bd June 2J May 15 Peter of LampsacllS Peter of Luxemburg, Bd July 2 Peter of Mogliano, Bd July JO Peter of Pisa, Bd June 17 Peter of Poitiers, Bd April 4 Peter of Ruffia, Bd November 7 September I Peter of Sassoferrato, Bd Peter of Sebastea January 9 December 11 Peter of Siena, Bd May 8 Peter of Tarentaise October 21 Peter of Tiferno, Bd Peter of Treia, Bd February 17 Petroc June 4 May 6 Petronax Petronilla May JI Petronilla of Moneel, Bd May 14 Petronius of Bologna October 4 Pharaildis January 4 July 18 Philastrius Phileas February 4 March 8 Philemon (with Apollonius) November 22 Philemon (with Apphia) August 20 Philibert May I Philip (apostle) Augwt 2J Philip Benizi Philip Evans, Bd July 22 October 19 Philip Howard, Bd May 26 Philip Neri Philip Powell, Bd JuneJo October 22 Philip of Heraclea Philip of Zell MaYJ Philip the Deacon June 6 February 16 Philippa Mareri, Bd Philippine Duchesne, Bd November 17 December 20 Philogonius Augwt 10 Philomena Phocas of Antioch March 5 September 22 Phocas the Gardener September J Phoebe March 20 Photina Pierius November 4 February I Pionius Piran March 5 Pirminus November 3 Pius I July I I Pius V Mays Pius X September 3 Placid (martyr) October 5

7째1

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Janupry-December]

Placid Riccardi, Bd. Appendix III Placida Viel, Bd March 4足 Plato April Plechelm Maya Plutarch June 28 Poemen Augwt 27 Pollio April 28 Polycarp January 26 Polydore Plasden, Bd. Su Martyrs of London. 1591 Polyeuetea of Melitene Felmuwy I ] Pompilio Pirrotti July 15 Pontian (pope) November 19 Ponticus. See Pothinus Pontius (martyr) May 14 Pontius of Carthage March 8 Pontius of Faucigny, Bd November 26 Poppo January 35 Porcarius August 12 Porphyry of Gaza February 26 Possidius May 16 Potamiaena June 28 Potamon May 18 Pothinus June 2 Praejectus (or Prix) January 25 Praetextatus (or Prix) February 24 Praxedes July 21 Precious Blood of Our Lord, The July I Primus (with Felician) June 9 Pr~sca (or Pr~sc~lla).

January 18 Pnsca (or Pnscdla) (WIth Aquila) July 8 Priscilla. See Prisca January 16 Priscilla (matron) Priscus (or Prix) of Auxerre May 26 Prix. See Praejectus, Praetextatus, Priscus Probus (with Tarachus) October 1 I Processus July 2 Proclus of Constantinople October 24 Procopius of Caesarea July 8 Proculus (bishop) June I Proculus " the Soldier " June I Prosper of Aquitaine June 25 Prosper of Reggio June 25 Protase (with Gervase) June 19 February 28 Proterius Protus (with H yacinth) September I I Prudence, Bd May 6 Prudentius of Troyes April 6 Ptolemaeus (with Lucius) October 19 Publia October 9 Publius (abbot) January 25 Pudens May 19 Pudentiana May 19 September 10 Pulcheria

Q

Quadratus of Athens Quentin (or Quintinu~) Quintinus. See Quentin Quiriacus. See Cyriacus Quiricus. See Cyricus

May 26 October 31

Quirinus of Siscia Quiteria

June 4 May 22

R

Rabanus Maurus, Bd February 4 Radbod November 29 Radegund (queen) August 13 Rainerius Inclusus, Bd April I I Rainerius of Arezzo, Bd November 12 Rainerius of Pisa June 17 Ralph Ashley, Bd April 7 Ralph Corby, Bd September 7 Ralph Crockett, Bd. See Martyrs of Canterbury Ralph Milner, Bd. See Roger Dickenson Ralph Sherwin, Bd December I Ralph (or Raoul) of Bourges June 24 Raoul. See Ralph of Bourges Raphael (archangel) October 24 Raphaela Porras, Bd January 6 Ratho, Bd May 17 Raymund Lull, Bd September S Raymund Nonnatus August 31 Raymund of Capua, Bd October S February 6 Raymund of Fitero, Bd Raymund of Peiiafort January 23 Raymund of Toulouse July 8 Redemptus, Bd (with Dionysius) November 29 Regina. See Reine February 17 Reginald of Orleans, Bd Regulus (or Rieul) March 30 Reine (or Regina) of Alise September 7 July 16 Reineldis Reinold January 7 September 3 Remaclus Rembert February 4 October I Remi (or Remigius) Remigius. See Remi Ren~ Goupil. See Martyrs of North America October 8 Reparata of Caesarea Respicius N ooember 10 Re~tit~ta of Sora May 27 Rhlpslme September 29 Richard (" king ") February 7 Richard Fetherston, Bd July 30 Richard Gwyn. Bd October 25 Richard Herst, Bd August 29 Richard Kirkman, Bd August 22 Richard Langhorne, Bd. June 20 Richard Langley, Bd December I Richard Newport, Bd May 30 Richard Reynolds, Bd May I I Richard Rolle, Bd September 29 Richard Thirkeld, Bd May 29 Richard Whiting, Bd December I Richard of Andria June 9 Richard of Chichester April 3 Richardis September 18 Richarius (or Riquier) April 26 ~chimi!

January 17 Rlctrudls May 12

GENERAL INDEX

[January-December

Rieul. See Regulus Rigobert January 4 Riquier. See Richarius May 22 Rita of Cascia Rizzerio, Bd February 7 Robert Anderton, Bd April 26 Robert Bellarmine May 13 Robert Dalby, Bd March 16 Robert Johnson, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1582 Robert Lawrence, Bd. See Martyrs of the Charterhouse Robert Southwell, Bd February 21 Robert Sutton, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1588 Robert Watkinson, Bd April 20 Robert Widmerpool, Bd. See Martyrs of Canterbury Robert Wilcox, Bd. See Martyrs of Canterbury Robert of Arbrissel, Bd February 25 Robert of Chaise-Dieu April 17 Robert of Knaresborough, Bd September 24Robert of Molesmes April 29 Robert of Newminster June 7 Rock August 17 Roderic March 13 Rogatian (with Donatian) May 24July 7 Roger Dickenson, Bd Roger Ie Fort, Bd March I Roger James, Bd. See Richard Whiting Roger of EIlant, Bd January 4Roger of Todi, Bd January 14Romaeus, Bd February 25 Romanus (or Boris) July 24Romanus (monk) May 22 Romanus (martyr) August 9 Romanus (with Lupicinus) February 28 Romanus of Antioch NOfJember 18 Romanus of Rouen October 23 Romanus the Melodist October I Romaric December 8 Rombaut. See Rumold Romuald February 7 Romula July 23 Romulus of Fiesole July 6 Ronan. See Rumon Roque Gonzalez, Bd November 17 Rosalia September 4足 Rose Venerini, Bd May 7 Rose of Lima August 30 Rose of Viterbo September 4足 Roseline, Bd January 17 Rosendo. See Rudesind Ruadan April 15 Ruan. See Rumon Rudesind (or Rosendo) March I Rudolf Aquaviva, Bd July 27 Rufina (with Justa) July 19 Rufina (with Secunda) July 10 Rufinus (with Valerius) June 14Rufus (with Zosimus) December 18 Rumold (or Rombaut) July 3 Rumon (or Ruan) August 30 Rumwald November 3 Rupert (with Bertha) May 15 Rupert of Salzburg March 29

Rusticus (with Dionysius) Rusticus of Narbonne

October 9 October 26

S Sabas (abbot) December 5 Sabas the Goth April 12 Sabina of Rome August 29 Sabinian of Troyes January 29 Sabinus of Canosa February 9 Sabinus of Piacenza January 17 Sabinus of Spoleto December 30 Sadoc, Bd June 2 Sadoth February 20 Sahak. See Isaac Saire. See Salvius (hermit) Salaberga September 22 Salome, Bd (widow) NO'Vember 17 Salome (with Judith) June 29 Salvator of Horta March 18 Salvius (or Saire), hermit October 28 Salvius (or Sauve) (with Superius) June 26 Salvius (or Salvy) of Albi September 10 Salvius (or Sauve) of Amiens January I I Salvy. See Salvius of Albi Samonas N O'Vember IS Samson of Constantinople June 27 July 28 Samson of Dol Sanchia of Portugal June 17 Sancho. See Sanctius Sanctius (or Sancho) June 5 Sanctus. See Pothinus Santes of Monte Fabri, Bd. See Peregrine of Falerone Santuccia, Bd March 22 Sapor NOfJember 30 Saturninus (martyr) NO'Vember 29 Saturninus (with Dativus) February I I Saturninus (or Sernin) of Toulouse November 29 Saturus (with Armogastes) March 29 September 17 Satyrus of Milan Sauve. See Salvius Sava January 14足 Savin October 9 February 10 Scholastica Sebald August 19 Sebastian (martyr) January 20 Sebastian Aparicio, Bd February 25 Sebastian Kimura, Bd. See Apollinaris Franco Decnnber 16 Sebastian Maggi, Bd Sebastian Newdigate, Bd. See Martyrs of the Charterhouse January 30 Sebastian Valfr~. Bd September I Sebbe Sechnall. See Secundinus July 10 Secunda (with Rufina) Secundinus (or Sechnall) NO'Vember 27 Seine. See Sequanus March 8 Senan of Seattery May 28 Senator of Milan Sennen July 30 October 24 Senoch

7属3

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Jtl1tf4(Uy-December] September 19 Sequanus (or Seine) March 12 Seraphina (or Fina) September 9 Seraphina Sforza, Bd October 17 Seraphino November 14 Serapion, Bd (martyr) October 30 Serapion of Antioch March 21 Serapion of Thmuis May 7 Serenicus May 7 Serenus (with Serenicus) Serenus (or Cerneuf) the Gardener February 23 Serf (or Servanus) July 1 Sergius (with Bacchus) October 8 Sergius I (pope) September 8 Sergius of Radonezh September 2S Sergius of Valaam Ju~ 28 Serlo, Bd March 3 Sernin. S" Satuminus of Toulouse Servais. See Servatius Servanus. See Serf Servatius (or Servais) May 13 Servulus of Rome December 23 Sethrida July 7 Seurin. See Severinus of Bordeaux July 10 Seven Brothers, The Seven Sleepers, The July 27 Severian of Scythopolis February 21 Severinus Boethius October 23 Severinus of Agaunum February I I Severinus (or Seurin) of Bordeaux October 23 Severinus of Noricum January 8 Seve,inus of Septempeda January 8 Sexburga July 6 Shenute July I Sibyllina of Pavia, Bd March 23 Sidney Hodgson, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1591 Sidonius Apollinaris August 21 Sidwell. See Paul Aurelian February I Sigebert of Austrasia February 15 Sigfrid of Vixjo Sigfrid of Wearmouth August 22 Sigiramnus. See Cyran Sigismund May I Silas (or Silvanus) July 13 Silvanus. See Silas June 20 Silverius December 31 Silvester I (pope) Nooember 26 Silvester Gozzolini Silvester of Valdiseve, Bd June 9 February 7 Silvin October 8 Simeon, Holy April 21 Simeon Barsabas November 28 Simeon Metaphrastes July I Simeon Salus January 5 Simeon Stylites September 3 Simeon Stylites the Younger February 18 Simeon of Jerusalem June I Simeon of Syracuse July 26 Simeon the Armenian October 28 Simon (apostle) May 16 Simon Stock Simon Yempo, Bd. See Martyrs of Japan, II Simon of Cascia, Bd February 3 Simon of Crepy September 30

Simon of Lipnicza, Bd July 3 0 Simon of Rimini, Bd November 3 September 28 Simon of Rojas, Bd April 20 Simon of Todi, Bd Simon of Trent March 24 August 13 Simplician of Milan March 10 Simplicius (pope) Simplicius (with Faustinus) July 29 Simplicius of Autun June 24 November 26 Siricius Sisinnius (with Martyrius) May 29 July 6 Sisoes April 3 Sixtus I August 6 Sixtus II August 19 Sixtus III August 8 Smaragdus September 17 Socrates (with Stephen) Sola December 4 May 10 Solangia Solomon (with Roderic) May 13 Sophia. See Wisdom Sophronius of Jerusalem March I I Sostenes. See Founders of the Servites Soter (pope) April 22 Soteris February 10 Sozon September 7 Speratus July 17 Speusippus January 17 Spiridion December 14 Stanislaus Kostka Nooember 13 Stanislaus of Cracow May 7 Stephana Quinzani, Bd JanuarY'2 Stephen (protomartyr) December 26 finding of his Relics August 3 Stephen (with Socrates) September 17 Stephen I (pope) August 2 Stephen Bandelli, Bd June 12 Stephen Bellesini, Bd February 3 Stephen Cuenot, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, I I Stephen Harding April 17 Stephen of Hungary September 2 Stephen of Muret February 8 March 8 Stephen of Obazine Stephen of Perm April 26 Stephen of Rieti February 13 Stephen of Surosh December 15 Stephen of Sweden June 2 Stephen of Vladimir April 27 November 28 Stephen the Younger Stilla, Bd July 19 Sturmi December 17 Suliau. See Tysilio Sulpice. See Sulpicius January 29 Sulpicius cc Severus " Sulpicius (or Sulpice) of Bourges January 17 Sunniva July 8 Superius June 26 Susanna. See Anne August I I Susanna (with Tiburtius) March I Swithbcrt Swithin. See Swithun Swithin Wells, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1591 Swithun (or Swithin) July 15

August 2

Syagrius of Autun Symmachus (pope) July 19

7째4

GENERAL INDEX

[January-December

Symphorian (with Timothy) Symphorosa Syncletica

August 22 July 18 January 5

T February 15 Tanco (or Tatto) October II Tarachus February 25 Tarasius August IS Tarcisius Tassach. See Asicus June 15 Tatian Dulas Tatiana. See Martina Tatto. See Tanco February 9 Teilo Telemachus. See Almachius January 5 Telesphorus September 26 Teresa Couderc, Bd Teresa

Jornet

Ihars

Appendix III

March I I Teresa Redi Alarch 3 Teresa Verzeri, Bd October 15 Teresa of Avila Teresa of Lisieux October 3 Teresa of Portugal June 17 Ternan June 12 Thaddeus. See Jude Thaddeus MacCarthy, Bd October 25 October 8 Thais February 22 Thalassius (with Limnaeus) May 20 Thalelaeus (martyr) February 27 Thalelaeus the Hermit Tharsilla December 24 Thea. See Nemesius Thea (with Valentina) June 25 Theban Legion, The September 22 Thecla (with Timothy) August 19 Thecla of Iconium September 23 Thecla of Kitzingen October 15 Thecusa May 18 Theobald of Alba June I Theobald (or Thibaud) of Marly July 27 Theobald (or Thibaud) of Provins June 30 Theoctista November 10 Theodard of Maestricht September 10 Theodard of Narbonne May I Theodora (with Didymus) April 28 Theodora of Alexandria September I I Theodore (with David) September 19 Theodore Graptus December 27 Theodore Tiro November 9 Theodore of Canterbury September 19 Theodore of Chernigov September 21 Theodore of Heraclea February 7 Theodore of Sykeon April 22 Theodore the Sanctified December 28 Theodore the Studite November I I Theodoret October 23 Theodoric (or Thierry) of Mont d 路Or July I Theodosia (with Apphian) April 2 Theodosia of Constantinople May 29 Theodosius Pechersky July 10 Theodosius the Cenobiarch January I I Theodota of Nicaea August 2 Theodota of Philippopolis September 29 Theodotus (with Thecusa) May 18 Theodulus (with Agathopus) April 4 Theodulus (with Alexander) May 3

Theodulus (with Julian) February 17 Theophanes Graptus December 27 Theophanes Venard. Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China. I I March 12 Theophanes the Chronicler May 21 Theophilus of Corte February 4 Theophilus the Penitent March 7 Theophylact February 18 Theotonius Theuderius (or Chef) October 29 Thibaud. See Theobald Thierry. See Theodoric December 21 Thomas (apostle) Thomas Abel. Bd July 30 July 6 Thomas Alfield, Bd Thomas Aquinas March 7 Thomas Bosgrave, Bd. See John Cornelius Thomas Corsini, Bd June 23 Thomas Cottam, Bd. See Martyrs of London. 1582 Thomas Felton, Bd. See Martyrs of London. 1588 Thomas Ford. Bd. See Martyrs of London. 1582 Thomas Garnet. Bd June 23 Thomas Hemerford, Bd February 12 Thomas Holford. Bd. See Martyrs of London. 1588 Thomas Holland. Bd December 12 Thomas Maxfield. Bd July I Thomas More July 9 Thomas Percy. Bd August 26 Thomas Pickering. Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot Thomas Plumtree. Bd February 4 Thomas Reynolds. Bd January 21 Thomas Sherwood. Bd February 7 Thomas Somers. Bd December 10 Thomas Thwing. Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot Thomas Tunstal. Bd July 13 Thomas Tzugi. Bd. See Martyrs of Japan. II

Thomas Warcop. Bd. See William

Andleby Thomas Welbourn. Bd August I Thomas Whitebread. Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot Thomas Woodhouse. Bd June 19 Thomas of Biville. Bd October 19 Thomas of Canterbury December 29 Thomas of Cori. Bd January 19 Thomas of Dover August 3 Thomas of Florence. Bd October 25 Thomas of Hereford October 3 Thomas of Tolentino. Bd April 9 Thomas of Villanova September 22 Thomas of Walden, Bd November 2 Thomasius, Bd March 25 Thorfinn January 8 Thorlac December 23 Three Wise Men, The July 23 Tibba March 6 Tiburtius (with Susanna) August I I Tiburtius (with Valerius) April 14 Tigernach April 4

January-December]

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Tigrius January 12 Tilbert September 7 Tillo January 7 Timothy (bishop) January 24 Timothy (with Agapius) August 19 Timothy (with Hippolytus) Augwt 22 Timothy (with Maura) May 3 Timothy of Montecchio, Bd August 26 February 6 Titus (bishop) March 16 Torello, Bd Toribio. See Turibius Torquatus May 15 Transfiguration of Our Lord, The August 6 Triphyllius June I J Trond. See Trudo Trophimus of ArIes December 29 Trudo (or Trond) November 23 February 10 Trumwin Trypho (with Respicius) November 10 Tudwal December I Turibius of Astorga April 16 Turibius of Lima April 27 Tutilo March 28 Twelve Brothers, The September I Tychon June 16 Tyrannio February 20 Tysilio (or Suliau) November 8

u Ubald of Florence, Bd Ubald of Gubbio Ulphia Ulric of Augsburg Ulric of Zell Ultan of Ardbraccan Ultan of Fosses Uncumber. See Wilgefortis Urban I Urban II, Bd Urban V, Bd Urbicius (abbot) Ursicinus (abbot) Ursmar Ursula Ursulina, Bd

April 9 May 16 JanJUlry 31

July July

4 14 September 4 May 2

May 25

July

29

December 19 June 3 December 20 April 19 October 21

April'7

v Vaast. See Vedast

Vaclav. See Wenceslaus

July 25 Valentina

Valentine (bishop)

January 7 February 14足 Valentine (martyr)

Valentine Berrio-Ochoa, Bd. See Martyrs of Indo-China, I I April 28 Valeria (with Vitalis) Valerian (martyr in Mrica) December 15 Valerian (with Marcellus) September 4 June 14 Valerius (with Rufinus) April 14 Valerius (with Tiburtius) Valerius of Saragossa. See Vincent of Saragossa

Val~ry

(or Walaricus) April I Vaneng. See Waningus Vanne (or Vitonus) N ooember 9 V'8rus October 19 Vedast (or Vaast) February 6 Venantius Fortunatus December 14 Venantius of Camerino May 18 Venerius of Milan May 4 Verdiana, Bd February 16 Veremund (abbot) March 8 Verena September I Veronica July 12 Veronica Giuliani July 9 Veronica of Binasco, Bd January 13 Viator. See Justus of Lyons December 12 Vicelin Victor I July 28 Victor III, Bd September 16 Victor Maurus May 8 Victor of Marseilles July 21 Victor the Hermit February 26 Victoria. See Satuminus, with Dativus Nooember 17 Victoria (with Acisclus) Victoria (with Anatolia) December 23 Victoria Fornari-Strata, Bd September 12 Victorian (abbot) JanJUlry 12 Victorian (martyr) March 23 Victoricus (with Fuscian) December I I Victorinus of Corinth February 25 Victorinus of Pettau Nooember 2 Victricius August 7 Vigilius of Trent June 26 Vigor Nooember I Villana, Bd Jf'ebruary 28 Vincent Ferrer April 5 Vincent Madelgarius September 20 Vincent Pallotti January 22 Vincent de Paul July 19 Vincent Romano, Bd

Appendix III September 2S June 9

Vincent Strambi Vincent of Agen Vincent of Aquila, Bd. See Alvemia Vincent of Cracow, Bd Vincent of Urins Vincent of Saragossa Vincentia Gerosa Vincentia Lopez, Bd Vincentian Vindician Virgil of ArIes Virgil (or Feargal) of Salzburg Vitalian (pope) Vitalis (with Agricola) Vitalis (with Valeria) Vitalis of Savigny, Bd Vitonus. See Vanne Vitus (with Modestus) Vivaldo, Bd Viviana. See Bibiana Vladimir Vodalus (or Voel) VoeI. See Vodalus Volusian Vulflagius (or Wulphy) Vu]mar

John .of March 8 May 24 JanJUlry 22 June 4 December 26 January 2 March I I March S November 27 January 27 Nooember 4

April 28 September 16

June 15 May

II

July

15

February 5 JanJUlry 18 June 7

July

20

GEN~RALINDEX

[January-December

W Walaricus. See Valery Walburga February 25 Waldebert May 2 Waldetrudis (or Waudru) April 9 Walfrid (or Galfrido) February 15 Walstan May 30 Walter of LtEsterp May I I Walter of Pontoise April 8 Walthen. See Waltheof Waltheof (or Walthen) August 3 Waltman, Bd April I I Wandregesilus. See Wandrille WandrilJe (or Wandregesilus) July 22 Waningus (or Vaneng) January 9 Waudru. See Waldetrudis Wenceslaus (or Vaclav) September 28 Werburga February 3 Wiborada May 2 Wigbert August 13 October 12 Wilfrid Wilfrid the Younger April 29 Wilgefortis (or Liberata) July 20 November 8 Wiliehad William Andleby, Bd July 5 William Brown, Bd August I William Dean, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1588 William Exmew, Bd. See Martyrs of the Charterhouse William Filby, Bd. See Martyrs of London t 1582 William Firmatus April 24足 William Freeman, Bd August 13 William Harcourt, Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot William Harrington, Bd February 18 William Hart, Bd March 15 William Hartley, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1588 William Howard, Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot William Ireland, Bd. See Martyrs of the Oates Plot William Lacey, Bd August 22 William Marsden, Bd April 25 William Patenson, Bd January 22 William Richardson, Bd February 17 William Saultemouche, Bd February 7 William Scott, Bd May 30 William Tempier, Bd March 27 William Walworth, Bd. See Martyrs of the Charterhouse William Ward, Bd July 26 William Way, Bd. See Martyrs of London, 1588 William of Bourges January 10 William of Eskill April 6 William of Fenoli, Bd December 19 William of Gellone May 28 William of Hirschau, Bd July 4

William of Maleval February 10 William of Norwich March 24足 William of Polizzi, Bd April 16 William of Rochester May 23 William of Roskilde September 2 William of Saint Benignus January I William of Saint-Brieuc July 29 William of Scicli, Bd April 7 William of Toulouse (martyr) May 29 William of Toulouse, Bd May 18 William of Vercelli (or of Monte Vergine) June 25 William of York (or of Thwayt) June 8 Willibald June 7 Willibrord November 7 Willigis February 23 Wiltrudis January 6 Winebald December 18 Winifred (or Gwenfrewi) November 3 Winnoc November 6 Winwaloe (or Guenole) March 3 Wiro May 8 Wisdom (with Faith) August I Wistan June I Wite (or Candida) June I Withburga July 8 Wivina December 17 Wolfgang October 31 Wolfhard (or Gualfardus) April 30 Wolfhelm, Bd April 22 Woolo. See Gundleus Wulfram March 20 Wulfric February 10 Wulfstan (or Wulstan) January 19 Wulphy. See Vulftagius Wulsin January 8 Wulstan. See Wulfstan

x Xystus.

See Sixtus

Z Zachaeus (with Alphaeus) Zachary (pope) Zachary (with Elizabeth) Zdislava, Bd Zeno (with Eusebius) Zeno of Verona Zenobius (with Tyrannio) Zenobius of Florence Zephyrinus Zita Zoe Zoilus of Cordova Zosimus (pope) Zosimus (with Mary) Zosimus (with Rufus) Zosimus of Syracuse

707

November 17 March 15 Novembers January I September 8 April 12 February 20 May 25 August 26 AprilZ7 May 2 June 27 December 26 April 2 December 18 March 30