The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints Part 49

Footnotes: 1. Evag. l. xi. c. 11.

2. Conc. Calced. act. 4.

SS. THEODULUS AND JULIAN, MM.

THEY suffered at Caesarea, in Palestine, at the same time with those mentioned yesterday, but are named on this day in the Roman Martyrology.

Theodulus was an old man of eminent virtue and wisdom, who enjoyed one of the most honorable posts in the household of Firmilian, the governor of Palestine, and had several sons. His personal merit gained him the love of all that knew him, and the governor had a particular esteem for him. This holy man had seen the invincible courage and patience of the five Egyptian martyrs at Caesarea, and, going to the prisons, made use of their example to encourage the other confessors, and prepare them for the like battles. Firmilian, vexed at this conduct of an old favorite servant, sent for him, reproached him strongly with ingrat.i.tude, and, without hearing his defence, condemned him to be crucified. Theodulus received the sentence with joy, and went with transports to a death which was speedily to unite him to his Saviour, and in which he was thought worthy to bear a near resemblance to him. Julian, who shared the glory of that day with the other martyrs, was a Cappadocian, as was also St. Seleucus; he was only a catechumen, though highly esteemed by the faithful for his many great virtues, and he was just then come to Caesarea. At his arrival, hearing of the conflicts of the martyrs, he ran to the place, and finding the execution over, expressed his veneration for them, by kissing and embracing the bodies which had been animated by those heroic and happy souls. The guards apprehended {426} him, and carried him to the governor, who, finding him as inflexible as the rest, would not lose his time in useless interrogatories, but immediately ordered him to be burnt. Julian, now master of all he wished for, gave G.o.d thanks for the honor done him by this sentence, and begged he would be pleased to accept of his life as a voluntary sacrifice. The courage and cheerfulness which he maintained to his last moment, filled his executioners with surprise and confusion. See Eusebius, an eye-witness, l. de Mart. Palaest. c. 12, p. 337.

ST. SILVIN OF AUCHY, B.C.

HE was born of a considerable family in the territory of Thoulouse, and pa.s.sed his first years at the court of two successive kings, Childeric II. and Theodoric III. Every thing was ready for his marriage, when, powerfully touched by divine grace, he renounced all worldly prospects, and retired from court. His thoughts were now bent upon Jesus Christ alone, and he longed for nothing so much as to enjoy silence and solitude. After several devout penitential pilgrimages to Jerusalem and other places, he took orders at Rome, and was consecrated bishop, some say of Thoulouse, others of Terouenne. But his name is not found in any ancient register of either of those churches, and it is now agreed, among the most judicious critics, that he was ordained a regionary bishop to preach the gospel to infidels. His zeal carried him into the north of France, and he spent most of his time in the diocese of Terouenne, which was then full of Pagans, and Christians but one remove from them. He was indefatigable in preaching to them the great truths and essential obligations of our holy faith, and taught them to despise and renounce the pleasures of this life, by appearing on all occasions a strong lesson of self-denial and mortification. Instructing them thus, both by words and actions, he gathered a large harvest in a wild and uncultivated field. After many years thus spent, he died at Auchy, in the county of Artois, on the 15th of February, in 718. He is commemorated in Usuard, the Belgic and Roman Martyrologies, on the 17th, which was the day of his burial: but at Auchy on the 15th. The greatest part of his relics is now at St. Bertin's, at St. Omers, whither they were carried in 951, for fear of the Normans. Usuard is the first who styles St. Silvin bishop of Terouenne. Some think he was born, not at Thoulouse, but at Thosa, or Doest, near Bruges; or rather at another Thosa, now Doesbury, in Brabant; for in his life it is said that he travelled westward to preach the gospel. His original life, which was ascribed to Antenor, a disciple of the saint, is lost: that which we have was compiled in the ninth century. See Bolland. t. 3, Feb. p. 29, Mabillon, Act. Bened. Saec. 3, par. 1, p. 298. Chatelain's Notes, p. 659.

ST. LOMAN, OR LUMAN, B.C.

JOCELIN calls him a nephew of St. Patrick, by a sister. He was at least a disciple of that saint, and first bishop of Trim, in Meath.

Port-Loman, a town belonging to the Nugents in West-meath, takes its name from him, and honors his memory with singular veneration. St.

Forcher{n}, son of the lord of that territory, was baptized by St.

Loman, succeeded him in the bishopric of Trim, and is honored among the saints in Ireland, both on this same day and on the 11th of October. See Colgan on the 17th Febr. Usher's Antiqu. ad ann. 433.

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ST. FINTAN, ABBOT OF CLUAINEDNECH,

WHICH Usher interprets the Ivy-Cave, in the diocese of Lethglean, in Leinster, in the sixth century. He had for disciple St. Comgal, the founder of the abbey of Benchor, and master of St. Columban. Colgan reckons twenty-four Irish saints of the name of Fintan; but probably several of these were the same person honored in several places. Another St. Fintan, surnamed Munnu, who is honored on the 21st of October, was very famous. See Colgan, Usher, and Henschenius.

FEBRUARY XVIII.

ST. SIMEON, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM, M.

From Euseb. l. 3, c. 32. Tillem. t. 1, p. 186, and t. 2. Le Quien, Oriens Christ. t. 3, p. 140.

A.D. 116

ST. SIMEON was the son of Cleophas, otherwise called Alpheus, brother to St. Joseph, and of Mary, sister of the Blessed Virgin. He was therefore nephew both to St. Joseph and to the Blessed Virgin, and cousin-german to Christ. Simeon and Simon are the same name, and this saint is, according to the best interpreters of the holy scripture, the Simon mentioned,[1] who was brother to St. James the Lesser, and St. Jude, apostles, and to Joseph or Jose. He was eight or nine years older than our Saviour. We cannot doubt but he was an early follower of Christ, as his father and mother and three brothers were, and an exception to that of St. John,[2] that our Lord's relations did not believe in him. Nor does St. Luke[3] leave us any room to doubt but that he received the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, with the blessed Virgin and the apostles; for he mentions present St. James and St. Jude, and the brothers of our Lord. St. Epiphanius relates,[4] that when the Jews ma.s.sacred St. James the Lesser, his brother Simeon reproached them for their atrocious cruelty. St. James, bishop of Jerusalem, being put to death in the year 62, twenty-nine years after our Saviour's resurrection, the apostles and disciples met at Jerusalem to appoint him a successor. They unanimously chose St. Simeon, who had probably before a.s.sisted his brother in the government of that church.

In the year 66, in which SS. Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom at Rome, the civil war began in Judea, by the seditions of the Jews against the Romans. The Christians in Jerusalem were warned by G.o.d of the impending destruction of that city, and by a divine revelation[5] commanded to leave it, as Lot was rescued out of Sodom. They therefore departed out of it the same year, before Vespasian, Nero's general, and afterward emperor, entered Judaea, and retired beyond Jordan to a small city called Pella; having St. Simeon at their head. After the taking and burning of Jerusalem they returned thither again, and settled themselves amidst its {428} ruins, till Adrian afterwards entirely razed it. St. Epiphanius[6]

and Eusebius[7] a.s.sure us, that the church here flourished extremely, and that mult.i.tudes of Jews were converted by the great number of prodigies and miracles wrought in it.

St. Simeon, amidst the consolations of the Holy Ghost and the great progress of the church, had the affliction to see two heresies arise within its bosom, namely, those of the Nazareans and the Ebionites; the first seeds of which, according to St. Epiphanius, appeared at Pella.

The Nazareans were a sect of men between Jews and Christians, but abhorred by both. They allowed Christ to be the greatest of the prophets, but said he was a mere man, whose natural parents were Joseph and Mary: they joined all the ceremonies of the old law with the new, and observed both the Jewish Sabbath and the Sunday. Ebion added other errors to these, which Cerenthus had also espoused, and taught many superst.i.tions, permitted divorces, and allowed of the most infamous abominations. He began to preach at Cocabe, a village beyond Jordan, where he dwelt; but he afterwards travelled into Asia, and thence to Rome. The authority of St. Simeon kept the heretics in some awe during his life, which was the longest upon earth of any of our Lord's disciples. But, as Eusebius says, he was no sooner dead than a deluge of execrable heresies broke out of h.e.l.l upon the church, which durst not openly appear during his life.

Vespasian and Domitian had commanded all to be put to death who were of the race of David. St. Simeon had escaped their searches; but Trajan having given the same order, certain heretics and Jews accused him, as being both of the race of David and a Christian, to Atticus, the Roman governor in Palestine. The holy bishop was condemned by him to be crucified: who, after having undergone the usual tortures during several days, which, though one hundred and twenty years old, he suffered with so much patience that he drew on him a universal admiration, and that of Atticus in particular, he died in 107, according to Eusebius in his chronicle, but in 116, according to Dodwell, bishop Loyde, and F. Pagi.

He must have governed the church of Jerusalem about forty-three years.

The eminent saints among the primitive disciples of Jesus Christ, were entirely animated by his spirit, and being dead to the world and themselves, they appeared like angels among men. Free from the secret mixture of the sinister views of all pa.s.sions, to a degree which was a miracle of grace, they had in all things only G.o.d, his will and honor, before their eyes, equally aspiring to him through honor and infamy. In the midst of human applause they remained perfectly humbled in the centre of their own nothing: when loaded with reproaches and contempt, and persecuted with all the rage that malice could inspire, they were raised above all these things so as to stand fearless amid racks and executioners, inflexibly constant in their fidelity to G.o.d, before tyrants, invincible under torments, and superior to them almost as if they had been impa.s.sible. Their resolution never failed them, their fervor seemed never slackened. Such wonderful men wrought continual miracles in converting souls to G.o.d. We bear the name of Christians, and wear the habit of Saints; but are full of the spirit of worldlings, and our actions are infected with its poison. We secretly seek ourselves, even when we flatter ourselves that G.o.d is our only aim, and while we undertake to convert the world, we suffer it to pervert us. When shall we begin to study to crucify our pa.s.sions and die to ourselves, that we may lay a solid foundation of true virtue, and establish its reign in our hearts?

Footnotes: 1. Matt. xiii.55.

2. John vii. 5.

3. Acts i. 14.

4. Haer. 78. c. 14.

5. Eus. l. 3, c. 5, Epiph. haer. 29, c. 7, haer. 30, c. 2.

6. L. de Pond. et Mensur. c. 15.

7. Demonst. l. 3, c. 5.

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SS. LEO AND PAREGORIUS, MARTYRS

From their ancient authentic acts in Ruinart, Bollandus, &c.

THIRD AGE.

ST. PAREGORIUS having spilt his blood for the faith at Patara, in Lycia, St. Leo, who had been a witness of his conflict, found his heart divided between joy for his friend's glorious victory, and sorrow to see himself deprived of the happiness of sharing in it. The proconsul of Asia being absent in order to wait on the emperors, probably Valerian and Galien, the governor of Lycia, residing at Patara, to show his zeal for the idols, published an order on the festival of Serapis, to oblige all to offer sacrifice to that false G.o.d. Leo seeing the heathens out of superst.i.tion, and some Christians out of fear, going in crowds to adore the idol, sighed within himself, and went to offer up his prayers to the true G.o.d, on the tomb of St. Paregorius, to which he pa.s.sed before the temple of Serapis, it lying in his way to the martyr's tomb. The heathens that were sacrificing in it knew him to be a Christian by his modesty. He had exercised himself from his childhood in the austerities and devotions of an ascetic life, and possessed, in an eminent degree, chast.i.ty, temperance, and all other virtues. His clothes were of a coa.r.s.e cloth made of camel's hair. Not long after his return home from the tomb of the martyr, with his mind full of the glorious exit of his friend, he fell asleep, and from a dream he had on that occasion, understood, when he awaked, that G.o.d called him to a conflict of the same kind with that of St. Paregorius, which filled him with inexpressible joy and comfort.

Wherefore, the next time he visited the martyr's tomb, instead of going to the place through by-roads, he went boldly through the market-place, and by the Tychaeaum, or temple of Fortune, which he saw illuminated with lanterns. He pitied their blindness; and, being moved with zeal for the honor of the true G.o.d, he made no scruple to break as many of the lanterns as were within reach, and trampled on the tapers in open view, saying: "Let your G.o.ds revenge the injury if they are able to do it."

The priest of the idol having raised the populace, cried out: "Unless this impiety be punished, the G.o.ddess Fortune will withdraw her protection from the city." An account of this affair soon reached the ears of the governor, who ordered the saint to be brought before him, and on his appearance addressed him in this manner; "Wicked wretch, thy sacrilegious action surely bespeaks thee either ignorant of the immortal G.o.ds, or downright mad, in flying in the face of our most divine emperors, whom we justly regard as secondary deities and saviours." The martyr replied with great calmness: "You are under a great mistake, in supposing a plurality of G.o.ds; there is but one, who is the G.o.d of heaven and earth, and who does not stand in need of being worshipped after that gross manner that men worship idols. The most acceptable sacrifice we can offer him is that of a contrite and humble heart."

"Answer to your indictment," said the governor, "and don't preach your Christianity. I thank the G.o.ds, however, that they have not suffered you to lie concealed after such a sacrilegious attempt. Choose therefore either to sacrifice to them, with those that are here present, or to suffer the punishment due to your impiety." The martyr said: "The fear of torments shall never draw me from my duty. I am ready to suffer all you shall inflict. All your tortures cannot reach beyond death. Eternal life is not to be attained but by the way of tribulations; the scripture accordingly {430} informs us, _that narrow is the way that leads to life_." "Since you own the way you walk in is narrow," said the governor, "exchange it for ours, which is broad and commodious." "When I called it narrow," said the martyr, "this was only because it is not entered without difficulty, and that its beginnings are often attended with afflictions and persecutions for justice sake. But being once entered, it is not difficult to keep in it by the practice of virtue, which helps to widen it and render it easy to those that persevere in it, which has been done by many."

The mult.i.tude of Jews and Gentiles cried out to the judge to silence him. But he said, he allowed him liberty of speech, and even offered him his friendship if he would but sacrifice. The confessor answered: "You seem to have forgot what I just before told you, or you would not have urged me again to sacrifice. Would you have me acknowledge for a deity that which has nothing in its nature of divine?" These last words put the governor in a rage, and he ordered the saint to be scourged. While the executioners were tearing his body unmercifully, the judge said to him: "This is nothing to the torments I am preparing for you. If you would have me stop here, you must sacrifice." Leo said: "O judge, I will repeat to you again what I have so often told you: I own not your G.o.ds, nor will I ever sacrifice to them." The judge said: "Only say the G.o.ds are great, and I will discharge you. I really pity your old age." Leo answered: "If I allow them that t.i.tle, it can only be with regard to their power of destroying their worshippers." The judge in a fury said: "I will cause you to be dragged over rocks and stones, till you are torn to pieces." Leo said: "Any kind of death is welcome to me, that procures me the kingdom of heaven, and introduces me into the company of the blessed." The judge said: "Obey the edict, and say the G.o.ds are the preservers of the world, or you shall die." The martyr answered: "You do nothing but threaten: why don't you proceed to effects?" The mob began to be clamorous, and the governor, to appease them, was forced to p.r.o.nounce sentence on the saint, which was, that he should be tied by the feet, and dragged to the torrent, and there executed; and his orders were immediately obeyed in a most cruel manner. The martyr being upon the point of consummating his sacrifice, and obtaining the accomplishment of all his desires, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, prayed thus aloud: "I thank thee, O G.o.d, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for not suffering me to be long separated from thy servant Paregorius. I rejoice in what has befallen me as the means of expiating my past sins. I commend my soul to the care of thy holy angels, to be placed by them where it will have nothing to fear from the judgments of the wicked. But thou, O Lord, who willest not the death of a sinner, but his repentance, grant them to know thee, and to find pardon for their crimes, through the merits of thy only Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

He no sooner repeated the word Amen, together with an act of thanksgiving, but he expired. His executioners then took the body and cast it down a great precipice into a deep pit; and notwithstanding the fall, it seemed only to have received a few slight bruises. The very place which was before a frightful precipice, seemed to have changed its nature; and the acts say, no more dangers or accidents happened in it to travellers. The Christians took up the martyr's body, and found it of a lively color, and entire, and his face appeared comely and smiling; and they buried it in the most honorable manner they could. The Greeks keep his festival on the 18th of February.

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FEBRUARY XIX.

ST. BARBATUS, OR BARBAS, C.

BISHOP OF BENEVENTO.

From his two authentic lives in Bollandus, t. 3, Febr. p. 139. See Ugh.e.l.li, Italia Sacra, t. 8, p. l3.

A.D. 682.

ST. BARBATUS was born in the territory of Benevento, in Italy, towards the end of the pontificate of St. Gregory the Great, in the beginning of the seventh century. His parents gave him a Christian education, and Barbatus in his youth laid the foundation of that eminent sanct.i.ty which recommends him to our veneration. Devout meditation on the holy scriptures was his chief entertainment; and the innocence, simplicity, and purity of his manners, and extraordinary progress in all virtues, qualified him for the service of the altar, to which he was a.s.sumed by taking holy orders as soon as the canons of the church would allow it.

He was immediately employed by his bishop in preaching, for which he had an extraordinary talent; and, after some time, made curate of St.

Basil's, in Morcona, a town near Benevento. His parishioners were steeled in their irregularities, and averse from whatever looked like establishing order and discipline among them. As they desired only to slumber on in their sins, they could not bear the remonstrances of their pastor, who endeavored to awake them to a sense of their miseries, and to sincere repentance: they treated him as a disturber of their peace, and persecuted him with the utmost violence. Finding their malice conquered by his patience and humility, and his character shining still more bright, they had recourse to slanders, in which, such was their virulence and success, that he was obliged to withdraw his charitable endeavors among them. By these fiery trials, G.o.d purified his heart from all earthly attachments, and perfectly crucified it to the world.

Barbatus returned to Benevento, where he was received with joy by those who were acquainted with his innocence and sanct.i.ty. The seed of Christianity had been first sown at Benevento by St. Potin, who is said to have been sent thither by St. Peter, and is looked upon as the first bishop of this see. We have no names of his successors till St.

Januarius, by whom this church was exceedingly increased, and who was honored with the crown of martyrdom in 305. Totila, the Goth, laid the city of Benevento in ruins, in 545. The Lombards having possessed themselves of that country, repaired it, and king Autharis gave it to Zotion, a general among those invaders, with the t.i.tle of a duchy, about the year 598, and his successors governed it, as sovereign dukes, for several ages. These Lombards were at that time chiefly Arians; but among them there remained many idolaters, and several at Benevento had embraced the Catholic faith, even before the death of St. Gregory the Great, with their duke Arichis, a warm friend of that holy pope. But when St. Barbatus entered upon his ministry in that city, the Christians themselves retained many idolatrous superst.i.tions, which even their duke, or prince Romuald, authorized by his example, though son of Grimoald, king of the Lombards, who had edified all Italy by his conversion. They expressed a religious veneration to a golden viper, and prostrated themselves before it: they paid also a superst.i.tious honor to a tree, on which they hung {432} the skin of a wild beast, and these ceremonies were closed by public games, in which the skin served for a mark at which bowmen shot arrows over their shoulder. St. Barbatus preached zealously against these abuses, and labored long to no purpose: yet desisted not, but joined his exhortations with fervent prayer and rigorous fasting, for the conversion of this unhappy people. At length he roused their attention by foretelling the distress of their city, and the calamities which it was to suffer from the army of the emperor Constans, who, landing soon after in Italy, laid siege to Benevento. In their extreme distress, and still more grievous alarms and fears, they listened to the holy preacher, and, entering into themselves, renounced their errors and idolatrous practices. Hereupon St. Barbatus gave them the comfortable a.s.surance that the siege should be raised, and the emperor worsted: which happened as he had foretold. Upon their repentance, the saint with his own hand cut down the tree which was the object of their superst.i.tion, and afterwards melted down the golden viper which they adored, of which he made a chalice for the use of the altar. Ildebrand, bishop of Benevento, dying during the siege, after the public tranquillity was restored, St. Barbatus was consecrated bishop on the 10th of March, 653; for this see was only raised to the archiepiscopal dignity by pope John XIII., about the year 965. Barbatus, being invested with the episcopal character, pursued and completed the good work which he had so happily begun, and destroyed every trace or the least remain of superst.i.tion in the prince's closet, and in the whole state. In the year 680 he a.s.sisted in a council held by pope Agatho at Rome, and the year following in the sixth general council held at Constantinople against the Monothelites. He did not long survive this great a.s.sembly, for he died on the 29th of February, 682, being about seventy years old, almost nineteen of which he had spent in the episcopal chair. He is named in the Roman Martyrology, and honored at Benevento among the chief patrons of that city.

Many sinners are moved by alarming sensible dangers or calamities to enter into themselves, on whom the terrors of the divine judgment make very little impression. The reason can only be a supine neglect of serious reflection, and a habit of considering them only transiently, and as at a distance; for it is impossible for any one who believes these great truths, if he takes a serious review of them, and has them present to his mind, to remain insensible: transient glances effect not a change of heart. Among the pretended conversions which sickness daily produces, very few bear the characters of sincerity, as appears by those who, after their recovery, live on in their former lukewarmness and disorders.[1] St. Austin, in a sermon which he made upon the news that Rome had been sacked by the barbarians, relates,[2] that not long before, at Constantinople, upon the appearance of an unusual meteor, and a rumor of a pretended prediction that the city would be destroyed by fire from heaven, the inhabitants were seized with a panic fear, all began to do penance like Ninive, and fled, with the emperor at their head, to a great distance from the city. After the term appointed for its pretended destruction was elapsed, they sent scouts to the city, which they had left quite empty, and, hearing that it was still standing, returned to it, and with their fears forgot their repentance and all their good resolutions. To prevent the danger of penitents imposing upon themselves by superficial conversions, St. Barbatus took all necessary precautions to improve their {433} first dispositions to a sincere and perfect change of heart, and to cut off and remove all dangerous occasions of temptations.

Footnotes: 1. The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; The devil was well, the devil no monk was he.

2. S. Aug. Serm. de Excidio Urbis, c. 6, t. 6, p. 627, ed. Ben.