His old abbot hearing of his sufferings, sent two monks to assist him, and ordered prayers for him. The confessor, after carrying stones all the day, spent the greatest part of the night in prayer, to the surprise of his companions: one of whom, a Jew, saw and showed him to others at prayer in the night, shining in brightness and glory like a blessed spirit, and angels praying with him. As the confessor was chained to a man condemned for a public crime, he prayed always with his neck bowed downwards, keeping his chained foot near his companion not to disturb him. Marzabanes in the mean time having informed Chosroes, and received his orders, acquainted the martyr by a messenger, without seeing him, that the king would be satisfied on condition he would only by word of mouth abjure the Christian faith: after which he might choose whether he would be an officer in the king's service, or still remain a Christian and a monk; adding, he might in his heart always adhere to Christ, provided he would but for once renounce him in words privately, in his presence, "in which there could be no harm, nor any great injury to his Christ," as he said. Anastasius answered firmly, that he would never even seem to dissemble, or to deny his God. Then the governor told him, that he had orders to send him bound into Persia to the king. "There is no need of binding me," said the saint: "I go willingly and cheerfully to suffer for Christ." The governor put on him and on two other prisoners the mark, and gave orders that they should set out after five days. In the mean time, on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, the 14th of September, at the request of the Comerciarius, or tax-gatherer for the king, who was a Christian of distinction, Anastasius had leave to go to the church and assist at the divine service. His presence and exhortations encouraged the faithful, excited the tepid to fervor, and moved all to tears. He dined that day with the Comerciarius, and then returned with joy to his prison. On the day appointed, the martyr left Caesarea, in Palestine, with two other Christian prisoners, under a strict guard, and was followed by one of the monks whom the abbot had sent to assist and encourage him. The acts of his martyrdom were written by this monk, or at least from what be related by word of mouth. The saint received great marks of honor, much against his inclination, from the Christians wherever he came. This made him fear lest human applause should rob trim of his crown by infecting his heart with pride. He wrote from Hierapolis, and again from the river Tigris, to his abbot, begging the prayers of his brethren.
Being arrived at Barsaloe in Assyria, six miles from Discartha, or Dastagerde, near the Euphrates, where the king then was, the prisoners were thrown into a dungeon till his pleasure was known. An officer came from Chosroes to interrogate the saint, who made answer, with regard to his magnificent promises, in these words: "My religious habit and poor clothes show that I despise from my heart the gaudy pomp of the world. The honors and riches of a king, who must shortly die himself, are no temptation to me." Next day the officer returned to the prison, and endeavored to intimidate him by blustering threats and reproaches. But the saint said calmly: "My lord judge, do not give yourself so much trouble about me. By the grace of Christ I am not to be moved: so execute your pleasure without more ado." The officer caused him to be unmercifully beaten with staves, after {199} the Persian manner, insulting him all the time, and often repeating, that because he contemned the king's bounty, he should be treated in that manner every day as long as he lived. This punishment was inflicted on him three days; on the third the judge commanded him to be laid on his back, and a heavy beam pressed down by the weight of two men on his legs, crushing the flesh to the very bone. The martyr's tranquillity and patience astonished the officer, who went again to acquaint the king of his behavior. In his absence the jailer, being a Christian by profession, though too weak to resign his place rather than detain such a prisoner, gave every one free access to the martyr. The Christians immediately filled the prison; every one sought to kiss his feet or chains, and kept as relics whatever had been sanctified by their touch: they also overlaid his fetters with wax, in order to receive their impression. The saint, with confusion and indignation, strove to hinder them, and expressed how extremely dissatisfied he was with such actions. The officer returning from the king caused him to be beaten again, which the confessor bore rather as a statue, than as flesh and blood. Then he was hung up for two hours by one hand, with a great weight at his feet, and tampered with by threats and promises. The judge despairing to overcome him, went back to the king; for his last orders, which were, that he and all the Christian captives should be put to death. He returned speedily to put them in execution, and caused Anastasius's two companions, with threescore and six other Christians, to be strangled one after another on the banks of the river, before his face, whom the judge all the time pressed to return to the Persian worship, and to escape so disgraceful a death, promising, in case of compliance, that he should be made one of the greatest men in the court. Anastasius, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, gave thanks to God for bringing his life to so happy a conclusion; and said he expected that he should have met with a more cruel death in the torture of all his members: but seeing God granted him one so easy, he embraced with joy that end of a life which he otherwise must shortly have lost in a more painful manner. He was accordingly strangled, and after his death his head was cut off. This was in the year 628, the seventeenth of the emperor Heraclius, on the 22d of January, on which day both the Latins and Greeks keep his festival. His body, among the other dead, was exposed to be devoured by dogs, but it was the only one they left untouched. It was afterwards redeemed by the Christians, who laid it in the monastery of St. Sergius, a mile from the place of his triumph, in the city Barsaloe, called afterwards from that monastery, Sergiopolis. The monk that attended him brought back his Colobium, or liners tunic without sleeves. The saint's body was afterwards brought into Palestine. Some years after, it was removed to Constantinople, and lastly to Rome.
The seventh general council[1] proves the use of pious pictures from the head of this holy martyr, and his miraculous image, then kept at Rome with great veneration: where it is still preserved in the church belonging to the monastery of our Lady ad Aquas Sylvias, which now bears the name of SS. Vincent and Anastasius.[2] The rest of his relics are reposited in the holy chapel ad Scalas Sanctas, near St. John Lateran. See the history of many miracles wrought by them in Bollandus. St. Anastasius foretold the speedy fall of the tyrant Chosroes: and ten days after his martyrdom the emperor Heraclius entered Persia.
Footnotes: 1. Act. 4. 2. Mabill. Iter. Ital. p. 141.
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JANUARY XXIII.
ST. RAYMUND, OF PENNAFORT, C.
From the bull of his canonization, by Clement VIII. in 1601, and his life, written by several Spanish, Italian, and French authors. See Fleury, b. 78, n. 55, 84, and chiefly Touron, Hommes Illustres de l'Ordre de S. Domin. t. 1, p. 1.
A.D. 1275.
THE house of Pegnafort, or, as it is pronounced, Pennafort, was descended from the counts of Barcelona, and nearly allied to the kings of Aragon. Raymund was born in 1175, at Pennafort, a castle in Catalonia, which in the fifteenth century was changed into a convent of the order of St. Dominick. Such was his rapid progress in his studies, that at the age of twenty he taught philosophy at Barcelona, which he did gratis, and with so great reputation, that he began then to be consulted by the ablest masters. His principal care was to instil into his scholars the most perfect maxims of a solid piety and devotion, to compose all differences among the citizens, and to relieve the distressed. He was about thirty years of age when he went to Bologna, in Italy, to perfect himself in the study of the canon and civil law, commenced Doctor in that faculty, and taught with the same disinterestedness and charity as he had done in his own country. In 1219 Berengarius, bishop of Barcelona, who had been at Rome, took Raymund home with him, to the great regret of the university and senate of Bologna; and, not content with giving him a canonry in his church, made him his archdeacon, grand vicar, and official. He was a perfect model to the clergy, by his innocence, zeal, devotion, and boundless liberalities to the poor, whom he called his creditors. In 1222 he took the religious habit of St. Dominick at Barcelona, eight months after the death of the holy founder, and in the forty-seventh year of his age. No person was ever seen among the young novices more humble, more obedient, or more fervent. To imitate the obedience of a Man-God, who reduced himself to a state of subjection to his own creatures, to teach us the dangers and deep wound of self-will, and to point out to us the remedy, the saint would depend absolutely on the lights of his director in all things. And it was upon the most perfect self-denial that he laid the foundation of that high sanctity which he made the object of his most earnest desires. The grace of prayer perfected the work which mortification had begun. In a spirit of compunction he begged of his superiors that they would enjoin him some severe penance, to expiate the vain satisfaction and complacency which he said he had sometimes taken in teaching. They indeed imposed on him a penance, but not such a one as be expected. It was to write a collection of cases of conscience for the instruction and conveniency of confessors and moralists. This produced his Sum, the first work of that kind. Had his method and decisions been better followed by some later authors of the like works, the holy maxims of Christian morality had been treated with more respect by some moderns than they have been, to our grief and confusion.
Raymund joined to the exercises of his solitude the functions of an apostolical life, by laboring without intermission in preaching, instructing, hearing confessions with wonderful fruit, and converting heretics, Jews, and Moors. Among his penitents were James, king of Aragon, and St. Peter Nolasco, {201} with whom he concerted the foundation of the Order of the B. Virgin of mercy for the redemption of captives. James, the young king of Aragon, had married Eleonora of Castile within the prohibited degrees, without a dispensation. A legate was sent by pope Gregory IX. to examine and judge the case. In a council of bishops of the two kingdoms, held at Tarragon, he declared the marriage null, but that their son Don Alphonso should be reputed lawfully born, and heir to his father's crown. The king had taken his confessor with him to the council, and the cardinal legate was so charmed with his talents and virtue, that he associated him in his legation, and gave him a commission to preach the holy war against the Moors. The servant of God acquitted himself of that function with so much prudence, zeal, and charity, that he sowed the seeds of the total overthrow of those infidels in Spain. His labors were no less successful in the reformation of the manners of the Christians detained in servitude under the Moors, which were extremely corrupted by their long slavery or commerce with these infidels. Raymund showed them, by words full of heavenly unction and fire, that, to triumph over their bodily, they must first conquer their spiritual enemies, and subdue sin in themselves, which made God their enemy. Inculcating these and the like spiritual lessons, he ran over Catalonia, Aragon, Castile, and other countries. So general a change was wrought hereby in the manners of the people, as seemed incredible to all but those who were witnesses of it. By their conversion the anger of God was appeased, and the arms of the faithful became terrible to their enemies. The kings of Castile and Leon freed many places from the Moorish yoke. Don James, king of Aragon, drove them out of the islands of Majorca and Minorca, and soon after, in 1237, out of the whole kingdom of Valentia. Pope Gregory IX. having called St. Raymund to Rome in 1230, nominated him his chaplain, (which was the title of the Auditor of the causes of the apostolic palace,) as also grand penitentiary. He made him likewise his own confessarius, and in difficult affairs came to no decision but by his advice. The saint still reserved himself for the poor, and was so solicitous for them that his Holiness called him their father. He enjoined the pope, for a penance, to receive, hear, and expedite immediately all petitions presented by them. The pope, who was well versed in the canon law, ordered the saint to gather into one body all the scattered decree, of popes and councils, since the collection made by Gratian in 1150. Raymund compiled this work in three years, in five books, commonly called the Decretals, which the same pope Gregory confirmed in 1234. It is looked upon as the best finished part of the body of the canon law; on which account the canonists have usually chosen it for the texts of their comments. In 1235, the pope named St. Raymund to the archbishopric of Tarragon, the capital of Aragon: the humble religious man was not able to avert the storm, as he called it, by tears and entreaties; but at length fell sick through anxiety and fear. To restore him to his health, his Holiness was obliged to consent to excuse him, but required that he should recommend a proper person. The saint named a pious and learned canon of Gironne. He refused other dignities with the like constancy.
For the recovery of his health he returned to his native country, and was received with as much joy as if the safety of the whole kingdom, and of every particular person, had depended on his presence. Being restored again to his dear solitude at Barcelona, he continued his former exercises of contemplation, preaching, and administering the sacrament of penance. Except on Sundays, he never took more than one very small refection in the day. Amidst honors and applause he was ever little in his own eyes. He appeared in the schools like a scholar, and in his convent begged the {202} superior to instruct him in the rules of religious perfection, with the humility and docility of a novice. Whether he sung the divine praises with his brethren, or prayed alone in his cell, or some corner of the church, he poured forth an abundance of tears; and often was not able to contain within himself the ardor of his soul. His mildness and sweetness were unalterable. The incredible number of conversions of which he was the instrument, is known only to Him who, by his grace, was the author of them. He was employed frequently in most important commissions, both by the holy see and by the king. But he was thunderstruck by the arrival of four deputies from the general chapter of his order at Bologna, in 1238, with the news that he was chosen third general, Jordan of Saxony being lately dead. He wept and entreated, but at length acquiesced in obedience. He made the visitation of his order on foot, without discontinuing any of his penitential austerities, or rather exercises. He instilled into his spiritual children a love of regularity, solitude, mortification, prayer, sacred studies, and the apostolical functions, especially preaching. He reduced the constitutions of the order into a clearer method, with notes on the doubtful passages. Thus his code of rules was approved in three general chapters. In one held at Paris in 1239, he procured the establishment of this regulation, that a voluntary demission of a superior, founded upon just reasons, should be accepted. This he contrived in his own favor; for, to the extreme regret of the order, he in the year following resigned the generalship, which he had held only two years. He alleged for his reason his age of sixty-five years. Rejoicing to see himself again a private religious man, he applied himself with fresh vigor to the exercises and functions of an apostolical life, especially the conversion of the Saracens. Having this end in view, he engaged St. Thomas to write his work 'Against the Gentiles;' procured the Arabic and Hebrew tongues to be taught in several convents of his order; and erected convents, one at Tunis, and another at Murcia, among the Moors. In 1256, he wrote to his general that ten thousand Saracens had received baptism. King James took him into the island of Majorca. The saint embraced that opportunity of cultivating that infant church. This prince was an accomplished soldier and statesman, and a sincere lover of religion, but his great qualities were sullied by a base passion for women. He received the admonitions of the saint with respect, and promised amendment of life, and a faithful compliance with the saint's injunctions in every particular; but without effect. St. Raymund, upon discovering that he entertained a lady at his court with whom he was suspected to have criminal conversation, made the strongest instances to have her dismissed, which the king promised should be done, but postponed the execution. The saint, dissatisfied with the delay, begged leave to retire to his convent at Barcelona. The king not only refused him leave, but threatened to punish with death any person that should undertake to convey him out of the island. The saint, full of confidence in God, said to his companion, "A king of the earth endeavors to deprive us of the means of retiring; but the King of heaven will supply them." He then walked boldly to the waters, spread his cloak upon them, tied up one corner of it to a staff for a sail, and having made the sign of the cross, stepped upon it without fear, while his timorous companion stood trembling and wondering on the shore. On this new kind of vessel the saint was wafted with such rapidity, that in six hours he reached the harbor of Barcelona, sixty leagues distant from Majorca. Those who saw him arrive in this manner met him with acclamations. But he, gathering up his cloak dry, put it on, stole through the crowd, and entered his monastery. A chapel and a tower, built on the place where he landed, have transmitted the memory of this miracle to posterity. {203} This relation is taken from the bull of his canonization, and the earliest historians of his life. The king became a sincere convert, and governed his conscience, and even his kingdoms, by the advice of St. Raymund from that time till the death of the saint. The holy man prepared himself for his passage to eternity, by employing days and nights in penance and prayer. During his last illness, Alphonsus, king of Castile, with his queen, sons, and brother; and James, king of Aragon, with his court, visited him, and received his last benediction. He armed himself with the last sacraments; and, in languishing sighs of divine love, gave up his soul to God, on the 6th of January, in the year 1275, and the hundredth of his age. The two kings, with all the princes and princesses of their royal families, honored his funeral with their presence: but his tomb was rendered far more illustrious by miracles. Several are recorded in the bull of his canonization, published by Clement VIII. in 1601. Bollandus has filled fifteen pages in folio with an account of them. His office is fixed by Clement X. to the 23d of January.
* * * * *
The saints first learned in solitude to die to the world and themselves, to put on the spirit of Christ, and ground themselves in a habit of recollection and a relish only for heavenly things, before they entered upon the exterior functions even of a spiritual ministry. Amidst these weighty employments, not content with reserving always the time and means of frequent retirement for conversing with God and themselves, in their exterior functions by raising their minds to heaven with holy sighs and desires, they made all their actions in some measure an uninterrupted prayer and exercise of divine love and praise. St. Bonaventure reckons it among the general exercises of every religious or spiritual man,[1] "That he keep his mind always raised, at least virtually, to God: hence, whensoever a servant of God has been distracted from attending to him for ever so short a space, he grieves and is afflicted, as if he was fallen into some misfortune, by having been deprived of the presence of such a friend who never forgets us. Seeing that our supreme felicity and glory consists in the eternal vision of God, the constant remembrance of him is a kind of imitation of that happy state: this the reward, that the virtue which entitles us to it. Till we are admitted to his presence, let us in our exile always bear him in mind: every one will behold him in heaven with so much the greater joy, and so much the more perfectly, as he shall more assiduously and more devoutly have remembered him on earth. Nor is it only in our repose, but also in the midst of our employments, that we ought to have him present to our minds, in imitation of the holy angels, who, when they are sent to attend on us, so acquit themselves of the functions of this exterior ministry as never to be drawn from their interior attention to God. As much as the heavens exceed the earth, so much larger is the field of spiritual meditation than that of all terrestrial concerns."
Footnotes: 1. S. Bonav. de Profectu Religios. l. 2, c. 20. p. 604.
ST. JOHN THE ALMONER, C.
PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA.
HE received his surname from his profuse alms-deeds; was nobly descended, very rich, and a widower, at Amathus in Cyprus, where, having buried all his children, he employed the whole income of his estate in the {204} relief of the poor, and was no less remarkable for his great piety. The reputation of his sanctity raised him to the patriarchal chair of Alexandria about the year 605, at which time he was upwards of fifty years of age. On his arrival in that city, he ordered an exact list to be taken of his Masters. Being asked who these were, his answer was, "The poor;" namely, on account of their great interest in the court of heaven in behalf of their benefactors. Their number amounted to seven thousand five hundred, whom he took under his special protection, and furnished with all necessaries. He prepared himself, by this action, to receive the fulness of grace in his consecration. On the same day he published severe ordinances, but in the most humble terms, conjuring and commanding all to use just weights and measures, in order to prevent injustices and oppressions of the poor. He most rigorously forbade all his officers and servants ever to receive the least presents, which are no better than bribes, and bias the most impartial. Every Wednesday and Friday he sat the whole day on a bench before the church, that all might have free access to him to lay their grievances before him, and make known their necessities. He composed all differences, comforted the afflicted, and relieved the distressed. One of his first actions at Alexandria was to distribute the eighty thousand pieces of gold which he found in the treasury of his church, among hospitals and monasteries. He consecrated to the service of the poor the great revenues of his see, then the first in all the East, both in riches and rank. Besides these, incredible charities flowed through his hands in continual streams, which his example excited every one to contribute according to their abilities. When his stewards complained that he impoverished his church, his answer was, that God would provide for them. To vindicate his conduct, and silence their complaints, he recounted to them a vision he had in his youth, of a beautiful woman, brighter than the sun, with an olive garland on her head, whom he understood to be Charity, or compassion for the miserable; who said to him "I am the eldest daughter of the great King. If you enjoy my favor, I will introduce you to the great monarch of the universe. No one has so great an interest with him as myself, who was the occasion of his coming down from heaven to become man for the redemption of mankind." When the Persians had plundered the East, and sacked Jerusalem, St. John entertained all that fled from their swords into Egypt; and sent to Jerusalem, for the use of the poor there, besides a large sum of money, one thousand sacks of corn, as many of pulse, one thousand pounds of iron, one thousand loads of fish, one thousand barrels of wine, and one thousand Egyptian workmen to assist in rebuilding the churches; adding, in his letter to Modestus, the bishop, that he wished it had been in his power to have gone in person, and contributed the labor of his hands towards carrying on that holy work. He also sent two bishops and an abbot to ransom captives. No number of necessitous objects, no losses, no straits to which he saw himself often reduced, discouraged him, or made him lose his confidence in divine providence, and resources never failed him in the end. When a certain person, whom he had privately relieved with a most bountiful alms, expressed his gratitude in the strongest terms, the saint cut him short, saying, "Brother, I have not yet spilt my blood for you, as Jesus Christ, my master and my God, commands me." A certain merchant, who had been thrice ruined by shipwrecks, had as often found relief from the good patriarch, who the third time gave him a ship belonging to the church, laden with twenty thousand measures of corn. This vessel was driven by a storm to the British Islands, and a famine raging there, the owners sold their cargo to great advantage, {205} and brought back a considerable value in exchange, one half in money, the other in pewter.
The patriarch lived himself in the greatest austerity and poverty, as to diet, apparel, and furniture. A person of distinction in the city, being informed that our saint had but one blanket on his bed, and this a very sorry one, sent him one of value, begging his acceptance of it, and that he would make use of it for the sake of the donor. He accepted of it, and put it to the intended use, but it was only for one night; and this he passed in great uneasiness, with severe self-reproaches for being so richly covered, while so many of his masters (his familiar term for the poor) were so ill accommodated. The next morning he sold it, and gave the price to the poor. The friend being informed of it, bought it for thirty-six pieces, and gave it him a second, and a third time; for the saint always disposed of it in the same way, saying facetiously, "We shall see who will be tired first." He was well versed in the scriptures, though a stranger to the pomp of profane eloquence. The functions of his ministry, prayer, and pious reading, employed his whole time. He studied with great circumspection to avoid the least idle word, and never chose to speak about temporal affairs, unless compelled by necessity, and then only in very few words. If he heard any detract from the reputation of their neighbor, he was ingenious in turning the discourse to some other subject, and he forbade them his house, to deter others from that vice. Hearing that when an emperor was chosen, it was customary for certain carvers to present to him four or five blocks of marble, to choose one out of them for his tomb, he caused his grave to be half dug, and appointed a man to come to him on all occasions of pomp, and say, "My lord, your tomb is unfinished; be pleased to give your orders to have it completed, for you know not the hour when death will seize you." The remembrance of the rigorous account which we are to give to God, made him often burst into the most pathetic expressions of holy fear. But humility was his distinguishing virtue, and he always expressed, both in words and actions, the deepest sentiments of his own nothingness, sinfulness, miseries, and pride. He often admired how perfectly the saints saw their own imperfections, and that they were dust, worms, and unworthy to be ranked among men.
The saint regarded injuries as his greatest gain and happiness. He always disarmed his enemies of their rancor by meekness, and frequently fell at the feet of those who insulted him, to beg their pardon. Nicetas, the governor, had formed a project of a new tax, very prejudicial to the poor. The patriarch modestly spoke in their defence. The governor in a passion left him abruptly. St. John sent him this message towards evening: "The sun is going to set:" putting him in mind of the advice of the apostle: Let not the sun go down upon your anger. This admonition had its intended effect on the governor, and pierced him to the quick. He arose, and went to the patriarch, bathed in tears, asked his pardon, and by way of atonement, promised never more to give ear to informers and tale-bearers. St. John confirmed him in that resolution, adding, that he never believed any man whatever against another, till he himself had examined the party accused; and that he punished all calumniators and tale-bearers in a manner which might deter others from so fatal a vice. Having in vain exhorted a certain nobleman to forgive one with whom he was at variance, he soon after invited him to his private chapel to assist at his mass, and there desired him to recite with him the Lord's prayer. The saint stopped at that petition; Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. When the nobleman had recited it alone, he conjured him to reflect on what he had been saying to God at the hour of the tremendous mysteries, {206} begging to be pardoned in the same manner as he forgave others. The other, feeling himself struck to the heart, fell at his feet, and from that moment was sincerely reconciled with his adversary. The saint often exhorted men against rash judgment, saying, "Circumstances easily deceive us; magistrates are bound to examine and judge criminals; but what have private persons to do with others, unless it be to vindicate them?" He used to relate many examples of persons who were found innocent and eminent saints, though they had been condemned by the world upon circumstances; as that of a certain monk, who brought to that city a Jewess whom he had converted, but was accused as guilty of lewdness with her, and cruelly scourged; for he said nothing to justify himself, out of a desire of humiliation and suffering. But his innocence and sanctity were soon after brought to light. St. John employed Sophronius and John Moschus in reducing to the faith the Severians and other heretics. Observing that many amused themselves without the church, during part of the divine office, which was then of a very considerable length, he followed them out, and seated himself among them, saying, "My children, the shepherd must be with his flock." This action, which covered them with confusion, prevented their being guilty of that irreverence any more. As he was one day going to church, he was accosted on the way by a woman who demanded justice against her son-in-law that had injured her. The woman being ordered by some standers-by to wait the patriarch's return from church, he overhearing them, said, "How can I hope that God will hear my prayer, if I put off the petition of this woman?" Nor did he stir from the place till he had redressed the grievance complained of.
Nicetas, the governor, persuaded the saint to accompany him to Constantinople, to pay a visit to the emperor. St. John was admonished from heaven, while he was on his way, at Rhodes, that his death drew near, and said to Nicetas, "You invite me to the emperor of the earth; but the King of heaven calls me to himself." He therefore sailed for Cyprus, and soon after died happily at Amathus, about the year of our Lord 619, in the sixty-fourth of his age, and tenth of his patriarchal dignity. His body was afterwards carried to Constantinople, where it was kept a long time. The Turkish emperor made a present of it to Matthias, king of Hungary, which he deposited in his chapel at Buda. In 1530 it was translated to Tall, near Presbourg; and, in 1632, to the cathedral itself of Presbourg, where, according to Bollandus, it still remains. The Greeks honor this saint on the 11th of November, the day of his death; but the Roman Martyrology on the 23d of January, the day marked for the translation of his relics. His life, written by his two vicars, Sophronius and Moschus, is lost; but we have that by Leontius, bishop of Naplouse in Cyprus, from the relation of the saint's clergy, commended in the seventh general council. It is published more correct by Rosweide and Bollandus. We have another life of this saint, conformable to the former, given us by Metaphrastes. See Le Quien, Oriens Christi, t. 2, p. 446.
ST. EMERENTIA, V.M.
SHE suffered about the year 304, and is named in the Martyrologies under the name of St. Jerom, Bede, and others. She is said in her acts to have been stoned to death, while only a catechumen, praying at the tomb of St. Agnes.
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ST. CLEMENT OF ANCYRA, B.M.
HE suffered under Dioclesian, and is ranked by the Greeks among the great martyrs. His modern Greek acts say, his lingering martyrdom was continued by divers torments during twenty-eight years; but are demonstrated by Baronius and others to be of no authority. Two churches at Constantinople were dedicated to God under the invocation of St. Clement of Ancyra; one called of the Palace, the other now in Pera, a suburb of that city. Several parts of his relics were kept with great devotion at Constantinople. His skull, which was brought thence to Paris when Constantinople was taken by the Latins, in the thirteenth century, was given by queen Anne of Austria to the abbey of Val de Grace. See Chatelain, p. 386. Le Quien, Oriens Chr. t. 1, p. 457.
ST. AGATHANGELUS,
THE fellow-martyr of St. Clement, bishop of Ancyra. His relics, with those of St. Clement, lay in a church in the suburbs of Constantinople, now called Pera; but were brought into the West when that city was taken by the Latins.
ST. ILDEFONSUS, B.
HE was a learned Benedictin abbot of a monastery called Agaliense, in a suburb of Toledo, promoted to the archbishopric of that city after the death of Eugenius, in December, 657, according to F. Flores; sat nine years and two months, and died on the 23d of January, 667, according to the same learned author, in the eighteenth year of king Rescisvintho. His most celebrated work is a book On the spotless virginity of the Virgin Mary, against Helvidius, Jovinian, and a certain Jew: he breathes in it the most tender devotion to her, and confidence in her intercession with her Son. He had a singular devotion to St. Leocadia, patroness of Toledo. Certain sermons of St. Ildefonsus on the B. Virgin Mary, and some letters, are published by Flores.[1] Some of his letters, which were first given us by D'Achery, were reprinted by cardinal D'Aguirre.[2] In Spanish this saint is called Ildefonso, and by the common people Alanso, for Alphonsus, which is an abbreviation of Ildefonsus. See his short life by St. Julian, bishop of Toledo, twenty-three years after his death. In Mabillon, saec. 2. Fleury, b. 39, n. 40. That by Cixila is not authentic. See especially the remarks of the learned F. Flores on these two lives, &c., in his Spana Sagrada, t. 5, tr. 5, c. 3, n. 31, p. 275, and app. 9, ib. p. 522. F. Flores reckons St. Ildefonsus the thirty-first bishop of Toledo, from St. Eugenius, the disciple of St. Dionysius of Paris, whom, with the writers of his country, he counts the first, in the year 112.
Footnotes: 1. F. Flores. Spana Sagrada, t. 5, append. 7, p. 490. 2. Card. D'Aguirre, Conc. Hispan. t. 2, p. 534.
{208}
ST. EUSEBIUS,
AN ABBOT BETWEEN ANTIOCH AND BER[OE]A
HIS example was a perpetual and a most moving sermon, and his very countenance inspired all who beheld him with the love of virtue. He took nourishment but once in four days, but would not allow any of his monks to pass above two days without eating. He prescribed them mortifications of each sense in particular, but made perpetual prayer his chief rule, ordering them to implore the divine mercy in their hearts, in whatever labor their hands were employed. While Ammianus, who had resigned to him the government of the abbey, was one day reading aloud, out of the scriptures, for their mutual edification, Eusebius happened to cast his eye on certain laborers in the field where they sat, so as not to give due attention to the lecture: to punish himself for this slight fault, he put on, and wore till his death, for above forty years, a heavy iron collar about his neck, fastened by a stiff chain to a great iron girdle about his middle, so that he could only look downwards under his feet: and he never afterwards stirred out of his cell but by a narrow passage from his cell to the chapel. His sanctity drew many disciples to him. He flourished in the fourth century. See Theodoret Philoth. c. 4. Item Hist. Eccles. l. 4, c. 28.
JANUARY XXIV.
ST. TIMOTHY, B. AND M.
See Tillemont, t. 2, p. 142.
ST. TIMOTHY, the beloved disciple of St. Paul, was of Lycaonia, and probably of the city Lystra. His father was a Gentile, but his mother Eunice a Jewess. She, with Lois his grandmother, embraced the Christian religion, and St. Paul commends their faith. Timothy had made the holy scriptures his study from his infancy.[1] When St. Paul preached in Lycaonia, in the year 51, the brethren of Iconium and Lystra gave him so advantageous a character of the young man, that the apostle, being deprived of St. Barnaby, took him for the companion of his labors, but first circumcised him at Lystra. For though the Jewish ceremonies ceased to be obligatory from the death of Christ, it was still lawful to use them (but not as of precept and obligation) till about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem with the temple, that the synagogue might be buried with honor. Therefore St. Paul refused to circumcise Titus, born of Gentile parents, to assert the liberty of the gospel, and to condemn those who erroneously affirmed circumcision to be still of precept in the New Law. On the other side, he circumcised Timothy, born of a Jewess, by that condescension to render him the more acceptable to the Jews, and to make it appear that himself was no enemy to their law. St. Chrysostom[2] here admires the prudence, steadiness, {209} and charity of St. Paul; and we may add, the voluntary obedience of the disciple. St. Austin[3] extols his zeal and disinterestedness in immediately forsaking his country, his house, and his parents, to follow this apostle, to share in his poverty and sufferings. After he was circumcised, St. Paul, by the imposition of hands, committed to him the ministry of preaching, his rare virtue making ample amends for his want of age. From that time the apostle regarded him not only as his disciple and most dear son, but as his brother, and the companion of his labors.[4] He calls him a man of God,[5] and tells the Philippians, that he found no one so truly united to him in heart and sentiments, as Timothy.[6] This esteem of the apostle is a sufficient testimony of the extraordinary merit of the disciple, whose vocation and entrance into the ministry was accompanied with prophecies in his behalf.[7]
St. Paul travelled from Lystra over the rest of Asia, sailed into Macedon, and preached at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ber[oe]a, in the year 52. Being compelled to quit this last city by the fury of the Jews, he left Timothy behind him, to confirm the new converts there. On St. Paul's arrival at Athens he sent for him, but being informed that the Christians of Thessalonica lay under a very heavy persecution for the faith, he soon after deputed him to go thither, to comfort and encourage them under it; and he returned to St. Paul, then at Corinth, to give him an account of his success in that commission.[8] Upon this the apostle wrote his first epistle to the Thessalonians. From Corinth St. Paul went to Jerusalem, and thence to Ephesus, where he spent two years. Here he formed a resolution of returning into Greece, and sent Timothy and Erastus before him through Macedon, to apprize the faithful in those parts of his intention, and to prepare the alms intended to be sent the Christians of Jerusalem.
Timothy had a particular order to go afterwards to Corinth, to correct certain abuses, and to revive in the minds of the faithful there the doctrine which the apostle had taught them; who, writing soon after to the Corinthians, earnestly recommended this disciple to them.[9] St. Paul waited in Asia for his return, and then went with him into Macedon and Achaia. St. Timothy left him at Philippi, but rejoined him at Troas. The apostle on his return to Palestine was imprisoned, and after two years custody at Caesarea, was sent to Rome. Timothy seems to have been with him all or most of this time, and is named by him in the titles of his epistles to Philemon, and to the Philippians and Thessalonians, in the years 61 and 62. St. Timothy himself suffered imprisonment for Christ, and gloriously confessed his name, in the presence of many witnesses; but was set at liberty.[10] He was ordained bishop by a prophecy, and a particular order of the Holy Ghost.[11] He received by this imposition of hands, not only the grace of the sacrament, and the authority to govern the church, but also the power of miracles, and the other exterior gifts of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul being returned from Rome into the East, in the year 64, left St. Timothy at Ephesus, to govern that church, to oppose false teachers, and to ordain priests, deacons, and even bishops.[12] For St. Chrysostom[13] and other fathers observe, that he committed to him the care of all the churches of Asia: and St. Timothy is always named the first bishop of Ephesus.[14]
St. Paul wrote his first epistle to Timothy from Macedon, in 64; and his second, in 65, from Rome, while there in chains, to press him to come to Rome, that he might see him again before he died. It is an effusion of his heart, full of tenderness towards this his dearest son. In it he encourages {210} him, endeavors to renew and stir up in his soul that spirit of intrepidity, and that fire of the Holy Ghost, with which he was filled at his ordination; gives him instructions concerning the heretics of that time, and adds a lively description of such as would afterwards arise.[15]
We learn[16] that St. Timothy drank only water: but his austerities having prejudiced his health, on account of his weak stomach and frequent infirmities, St. Paul ordered him to use a little wine. The fathers observe that he only says a little, even in that necessity, because the flesh is to be kept weak, that the spirit may be vigorous and strong. St. Timothy was then young: perhaps about forty. It is not improbable that he went to Rome to confer with his master. In the year 64 he was made by St. Paul bishop of Ephesus, before St. John arrived there, who resided also in that city as an apostle, and exercising a general inspection over all the churches of Asia.[17] St. Timothy is styled a martyr in the ancient martyrologies.
His acts, in some copies ascribed to the famous Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, but which seem to have been written at Ephesus, in the fifth or sixth age, and abridged by Photius, relate, that under the emperor Nerva, in the year 97, St. John being still in the isle of Patmos, St. Timothy was slain with stones and clubs by the heathens, while he was endeavoring to oppose their idolatrous ceremonies on one of their festivals called Catagogia, kept on the 22d of January, on which the idolaters walked in troops, every one carrying in one hand an idol, and in the other a club. St. Paulinus,[18] Theodorus Lector, and Philostorgius,[19] inform us, that his relics were with great pomp translated to Constantinople in the year 356, in the reign of Constantius. St. Paulinus witnesses, that the least portion of them wrought many miracles wherever they were distributed. These precious remains, with those of St. Andrew. and St. Luke, were deposited under the altar, in the church of the apostles in that city, where the devils, by their howlings, testified how much they felt their presence, says St. Jerom;[20] which St. Chrysostom also confirms.[21]
* * * * *
Pious reading was the means by which St. Timothy, encouraged by the example and exhortations of his virtuous grandmother and mother, imbibed in his tender years, and nourished during the whole course of his life, the most fervent spirit of religion and all virtues; and his ardor for holy reading and meditation is commended by St. Paul, as the proof of his devotion and earliest desire of advancing in divine charity. When this saint was wholly taken up in the most laborious and holy functions of the apostolic ministry, that great apostle strongly recommends to him always to be assiduous in the same practice,[22] and in all exercises of devotion. A minister of the gospel who neglects regular exercises of retirement, especially self-examination, reading, meditation, and private devotion, forgets his first and most essential duty, the care he owes to his own soul. Neither can he hope to kindle the fire of charity in others, if he suffer it to be extinguished {211} in his own breast. These exercises are also indispensably necessary in a certain degree, in all states and circumstances of life; nor is it possible for a Christian otherwise to maintain a spirit of true piety, which ought to animate the whole body of all his actions, and without which even spiritual functions want as it were their soul.
Footnotes: 1. 2 Tim. iii. 15. 2. Praef. in 1 Tim. 3. Serm. 177, n. 7. 4. 1 Thess. iii. 2. 1 Cor. iv. 17. 5. 1 Tim. vi. 11. 6. Phil. ii. 20. 7. 1 Tim. i. 18. 8. Acts xviii. 9. 1 Cor. xvi. 10. 10. Heb. xiii. 23. 11. 1 Tim. iv. 14. 12. 1 Tim. {}. 13. Hom. 15, in 1 Tim. 14. Eus. l. 3, c. {} Conc. t. 4, p. 699. 15. 2 Tim. iii. 1, 2. 16. 1 Tim. v. 23. 17. In the Apocalypse, which was written in the year 95, Christ threatens the bishop of Ephesus, because he was fallen from his first charity, and exhorts him to do penance and return to his first works. (Apoc. xi. 4.) Calmet says, that this bishop could be no other than St. Timothy; Pererius, Cornelieus a Lapide, Grotius, Alcazar, Bossuet, and other learned men, agree in this point; also Tillemont, t. 2, p. 147, and Bollandus ad 21 Jan. pp. 563 & 564. Nicholas a Lyra and Ribera cannot be persuaded that St. Timothy ever deserved such a censure, unless we understand it only of his flock. The others say, he might have fallen into some venial remissness in not reprehending the vices of others with sufficient vigor; which fault he repaired, upon this admonition, with such earnestness, as to have given occasion to his martyrdom, in 97. He was succeeded in the see of Ephesus by John I., who was consecrated by St. John Evangelist. (See Consitut. Apostol. l. 8, c. 46.) Onesiumus was third bishop of Ephesus. See Le Quien Oriens. Chris. t. 1, p. 672. 18. Carm. 26. 19. L. 3, c. 2. 20. In Vigilant. c. 2. 21. Hom. 1, ad Pop. Antioch. 22. 1 Tim. iv. 7 and 13.
ST. BABYLAS,
BISHOP OF ANTIOCH AND MARTYR.
From St. Chrysostom, l. contra Gentiles de S. Babyla, and hom. de S. Babyla, t. 2, ed. Ben. p. 531. He wrote the first discourse against the Gentiles, expressly to confound them by the miracles of this saint. He spoke the second five years after, in 3871 on St. Babylas's feast, before a numerous auditory, and mentions Flavian, the bishop of Antioch, and others, who were to speak after him on the same subject. The miracles were recent, performed before the eyes of many then present. Nome of the three acts of this saint in Bollandus can be authentic. See Tillemont, Mem. t. 3, p. 400, and Hist. des Empereurs, t. 3, and F. Merlin. Dissertation contre M. Bayle sur ce que rapporte S. Chrysostome du Martyre de S. Babylas, Mem. de Trevoux, Juin 1737, p. 1051. Also Stilting, the Bollandist, in Vit. S. Chrysost. Sec.15. p 439, ad 14 Septemb. t. 4.
About the year 250.
THE most celebrated of the ancient bishops of Antioch, after St. Ignatius, was St. Babylas, who succeeded Zebinus in the year 237, and governed that church with great zeal and virtue, about thirteen years, under the emperors Gordian, Philip, and Decius. Philip, an Arabian by birth, and of mean extraction, raised by the young emperor Gordian to be prefect of the praetorian guards, perfidiously murdered his master at the head of his victorious army in Persia, and caused himself to be acknowledged emperor by the senate and people of Rome, in the year 244. We have very imperfect histories of his reign. Eusebius says that he abolished the public stews and promiscuous bathing in Rome, which Alexander Severus, the most virtuous of the heathen emperors, had in vain attempted to do. The same historian adds, it was averred[1] that Philip, being a Christian, subjected himself to canonical penance at Antioch, where being arrived on the eve of a great festival, as the chronicle of Alexandria relates, he presented himself at the Christian oratory, with his wife; but being excluded by the bishop, with a meek rebuke for his crimes, he made his exomologesis, or confession, and ranked himself among the penitents without doors. St. Jerom, Vincent of Lerins, Orosius, and others, positively affirm that this emperor was a Christian: and Eusebius, Rufinus, St. Jerom, Vincent of Lerins, and Syncellus say, that Origen wrote two letters, one to the emperor Philip, another to his wife, with an authority which the Christian priesthood gave him over emperors.
Philip assisted at the heathenish solemnity of the thousandth year of Rome; but his presence was necessary on that occasion, nor is he said to have offered sacrifice. He was indeed a bad Christian, and probably only a catechumen, an ambitious and cruel tyrant, who procured the death of Misitheus, father-in-law of Gordian, murdered Gordian himself to usurp his empire, and put to death the young prince, son of the king of Persia, of the Parthians, left a hostage in his hands: circumstances mentioned by St. Chrysostom. Having reigned something upwards of five years, he was slain with his son Philip, his colleague in the empire, by Decius, about the middle of the year 249. The peace and favor which the church had enjoyed during his reign, had much increased her numbers, but had relaxed the fervor of many, as we see in St. Cyprian's works, and in the life of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. Whole cities had embraced the faith, and public {212} churches were erected. Decius equally hated the Philips and the Christian religion, against which he published the most cruel edicts in the year 250; which caused the seventh general persecution, permitted by God to purge away the dross to his flock, and to awake them to fervor.
St. Chrysostom extols the courage and zeal of St. Babylas, in shutting the church-doors against an emperor and a barbarous tyrant, then at the head of a victorious army. We find Philip styled conqueror of the Parthians, in an inscription in Gruter,[2] by which he seems to have returned triumphant, though Zonoras pretends he had bought a peace. Eusebius mentions it as a report, that the emperor received the bishop's rebuke with meekness, and submitted to public penance: but St. Chrysostom insinuates, that the same tyrant, in a rage for being refused admittance, threw St. Babylas into a dungeon, where he soon died. St. Jerom says that Decius imprisoned him, which seems the true account. F. Stilting thinks that Decius, after being proclaimed emperor in Pannonia, marched first against Philip, and when he was slain, led his army into Syria, where Priscus, Philip's brother, commanded the troops of those parts, and Jotapian about that time assumed the purple, but was soon crushed. At this time he doubts not but Decius was forbid by St. Babylas to enter the church, because he was an idolater, and had perfidiously murdered a prince who was the son of some king of a nation of barbarians, who had sent him as a hostage to that tyrant. For many transactions of that time are not recorded by the Roman historians. At least it seems to have been under Decius that St. Babylas consummated his martyrdom by the hardships of his prison: and when dying, ordered his chains to be buried with him, as the happy instruments and marks of his triumph. The Christians built a church over his tomb. His body rested here about one hundred years, till 351, when Gallus Caesar translated it to Daphne, five miles from Antioch, to oppose the worship of a famous idol of Apollo, which gave oracles in that place. Gallus erected a church, sacred to the name of St. Babylas, near the profane temple, and placed in it his venerable ashes in a shrine above ground. The neighborhood of the martyr's relics struck the devil dumb, as is averred by St. Chrysostom. Theodoret,[3] Sozomen, and others, who triumph over the pagans on this account.[4] Eleven years after, Julian the Apostate came to Antioch, in the year 362, and by a multitude of sacrifices endeavored to learn of the idol the cause of his silence. At length the fiend gave him to understand, that the neighborhood was full of dead bones, which must be removed before he could be at rest and disposed to give answers. Julian understood this of the body of St. Babylas, and commanded that the Christians should immediately remove his shrine to some distant place; but not touch the other dead bodies. Thus do the fathers and Christian historians of that age relate this miracle.[5] The Christians obeyed the order, and with great solemnity carried back in procession the sacred relics to Antioch, singing on this occasion the psalms which ridicule the vanity and feebleness of idols, repeating after every verse: "May they who adore idols and glory in false gods, blush with shame and be covered with confusion." The following evening, lightning fell on the temple of Apollo, and reduced to ashes all the rich and magnificent ornaments with which it was embellished, and the idol itself, leaving only the walls standing. Julian, the emperor's uncle, {213} and governor of the East, upon this news hastened to Daphne, and endeavored by tortures to compel the priests to confess if the accident had happened by any negligence, or by the interposition of the Christians: but it was clearly proved by the testimony of these very priests, and also by that of several peasants who saw the fire fall from heaven, that lightning was the cause. The Apostate durst not restore the idol lest the like thunder should fall on his own head: but he breathed nothing but fury against the Christians in general, more especially against those of Antioch, the fatal effects of which he intended they should feel at his return from the Persian war. Vain projects against God, who defeated them by his unhappy death in that expedition! The ruins of this temple remained in the same condition above twenty years after. The Roman Martyrology, with that of St. Jerom and others of the West, celebrate the memory of St. Babylas on the 24th of January, but the Greeks on the 4th of September, together with three children martyred with him, as St. Chrysostom and others mention. His body is said to be now at Cremona, brought from the East in the crusades. St. Babylas is the titular saint of many churches in Italy, France, and Spain.
Footnotes:
1. [Greek: Touton katexei xristianon honta] Eus. l. 6, c. 3.
2. P. 273.
3. Theodoret l. 3. Hist. c. 6, and de Graecor. Affect. l. 10. Rufin.
Chrys.
4. St. Chrysostom has given us the lamentation of Libanius, the
celebrated heathen sophist, bewailing the silence of Apollo at
Daphne; adding that Julian had delivered him from the neighborhood
of a dead man, which was troublesome to him.
5. Ammianus Marcellinus, a heathen, and Julian's own historian, says b.
2, p. 225, that he caused all the bones of dead men to be taken away
to purify the place.
ST. SURANUS, ABBOT IN UMBRIA,
WHO gave all things, even the herbs out of his garden, to the poor. He was martyred by the Lombards in the seventh century, and his relics were famed for miracles.[1]
Footnotes: 1. St. Greg. Dial. l. 4, c. 22.
ST. MACEDONIUS, ANCHORET IN SYRIA.
HE lived forty years on barley moistened in water, till finding his health impaired, he ate bread, reflecting that it was not lawful for him to shorten his life to shun labors and conflicts, as he told the mother of Theodoret; persuading her, when in a bad state of health, to use a proper food, which he said was physic to her. Theodoret relates many miraculous cures of sick persons, and of his own mother among them, by water on which he had made the sign of the cross, and that his own birth was the effect of his prayers, after his mother had lived childless in marriage thirteen years.[1] {214} The saint died, ninety years old, and is named in the Greek menologies. See Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. l. 5, c. 19, and Philotheae, c. 13. St. Chrysost. hom. 17, ad Pop. Antioch.
Footnotes: 1. The great Theodoret was dedicated to God by his parents before he was born, and was educated in the study of every true branch of Syriac, Greek, and Hebrew learning. He gave a large estate to the poor, and entered a monastery near Apamea, but was taken out of it against his will, and consecrated bishop of Cyrus in 423, being very young. He converted all the Marcionites, Arians, and other heretics in his diocese, in which he reckons eight hundred churches, or parishes. (Ep. 113, p. 987.) Cyrus was a very small poor town in a desert country, eighty miles from Antioch, one hundred and twenty from Apamea, and one hundred and seventeen from Samosata. Though Theodoret lived in great poverty, he enriched the poor and the churches, and built for his city an aqueduct, two large bridges, porticoes, and baths. In 430 pope Celestin and St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote to John, patriarch of Antioch, against Nestorius, who on his side sent an orthodox letter to the same prelate: soon after St. Cyril wrote his third letter to Nestorius, to which he subjoined twelve anathematisms against the errors of Nestorius. In this writing certain obscure phrases occur, which John of Antioch thought favorable to the heresy of Apollinaris: whereupon he engaged Theodoret to undertake a confutation of them. Theodoret carried on this contest with great warmth in several writings, and when the ecumenical council of Ephesus was assembled in 431, refused, with John of Antioch, and the rest of the forty Oriental bishops, to enter it, because Nestorius had been condemned in it on the 21st of June, before they arrived at Ephesus on the 27th. They even went so far as to pretend to excommunicate St. Cyril, and form a schism in the church. F. Garnier, the most declared enemy to Theodoret among the moderns, lays to his charge several things, of which Tillemont and others clear him. It is certain that he wrote with great bitterness against St. Cyril, and his anathematisms, as appears from the works which he wrote upon that occasion, especially certain letters and fragments of his Pentalogus, (or work in five books, against St. Cyril,) still extant. But St. Cyril having made a clear confession of his faith in a letter to Acacius of Ber[oe]a, Theodoret loudly declared him orthodox, and this he proved even in letters which he wrote to Nestorius himself, and to Alexander of Hierapolis, his own metropolitan, the warmest of all St. Cyril's enemies. John of Antioch and many others made their peace with St. Cyril, about the month of April. In 433, Theodoret stood out some time longer, by refusing to condemn the person of Nestorius. St. Cyril and John of Antioch afterwards admitted him to their communion without requiring that condition, and Theodoret labored to gain over Alexander of Hierapolis; but in vain, so that this prelate was banished by the emperor; Theodoret himself, though he enjoyed the communion of St. Cyril, and of John of Antioch, was often accused, because he persisted to defend the person of Nestorius. The persecution was often renewed against Theodoret, so long as he adhered to Nestorius, especially after St. Cyril, St. Proclus, and all the western prelates condemned the writings of Theodorus of Mopsuestia, as the master of the heresiarch Nestorius in his capital error. The Orientals defended Theodorus, and Theodoret endeavored to justify him by several writings against St. Cyril, of which only fragments quoted in the fifth council are extant. St. Cyril, by his silence and moderation, calmed this dispute, and always maintained peace with the Orientals from the time it was settled between them. His death happened in June, 444, and Dioscorus, the impious Eutychian, was his successor. Theodorus, bishop of Mopsuestia, in Cilicia, who died in 428, in his erroneous writings laid the foundation both of the Pelagian and Nestorian heresies. Theodoret, in his writings against St. Cyril, adopts certain expressions which favored Nestorianism, and were condemned in the fifth general council; nevertheless, his sentiments were always orthodox, as is proved by Tillemont, (Art. 20, t. 15, p. 253,) Natalis Alexander, Graveson, &c. By exerting his zeal against Eutyches and Dioscorus, he incurred the indignation of their sect, and the false council of Ephesus pronounced a pretended sentence of deposition against him. Theodosius the younger first forbade him to stir out of his diocese, and when he desired to go to Rome to justify himself, in 450, banished him to his monastery near Apamea. The emperor Marcian put an end to the persecution raised by the Eutychians under his predecessor; yet Theodoret chose to continue in his monastery till he was called by pope Leo to assist at the council of Chalcedon. He had received, with great applause, the excellent letter of that pope to Flavian, and St. Leo declared null all the proceedings of Dioscorus against him at Ephesus, and restored him to his see, (Conc. t. 4, p. 622.) The council of Chalcedon met in 451, and in the seventh session, held on the 26th of October, Theodoret presented his request that his writings and faith might be examined. Those who were prepossessed against him would not allow any such examination, but required that he should anathematize Nestorius, which he at length did; and the council, with high commendations, declared him orthodox, and worthy of his see. Marcian, by a law published the following year, annulled the edict of Theodosius against him and Flavian. He died at Cyrus, about the year 458. The heresy of Nestorius he had clearly condemned from the beginning, with John of Antioch, in their exhortatory letter to Nestorius, (Conc. t. 3, p. 394). What mistakes and faults he fell into he cancelled by his edifying repentance; and the great virtues which he practised even under his disgrace, the extent of his learning, and the sublimity and acuteness of his genius, have established his reputation in all succeeding ages, and he is deservedly ranked among the must illustrious fathers of the church. His excellent writings are the most authentic monuments of his extraordinary learning and piety. He modestly compares himself (Proleg. in Osee. t. 2, p. 700) to the Jewish poor women, who in the building of the tabernacle, having neither gold nor silver to give to God towards this work, picked and gathered together the hair, thread, or cloths, contributed by others, or spun, or sewed something, not to be found quite empty-handed. St. Chrysostom was taken away from Antioch in 397, and Theodoret was only born about the year 393: but though he had not the happiness of hearing his divine discourses, he took him for his principal model, and especially in his comments on the scriptures usually adhered to those of that incomparable doctor. His works were printed at Paris, in 1642, in four volumes in folio, to which F. Garnier, a learned Jesuit, in 1684, added a fifth under the title of an Auctarium, containing certain letters and discourses of this father, with several prolix historical dissertations on the Nestorian heresy. The judicious F. Sirmond, far more equitable than F. Garnier. admires Theodoret's brevity, joined with great perspicuity, especially in his commentaries, and commends the pleasing beauty and attic elegance of his style. Photius praises his fruitfulness of invention, the purity of his language, the choice of his words, and the smoothness and neatness of his style, in which he finds everywhere a decent and noble elevation, though he thinks his metaphors sometimes too bold. This great critic calls his method of short notes the most accomplished model for interpreting the holy scriptures, and mentions, as an instance of his sincere humility, that he never employs a single word, or produces a quotation for ostentation, never falling into digressions foreign to his purpose; we may almost say, that a superfluous word scarce ever escapes him. (Phot. Cod. 203, p. 526. Cod. 31, 46, 56.)
His comments on St. Paul, and on most of the books of the old Testament, are concise literal, and solid, but contain not that inexhausted and excellent treasure of morality which we find in St. Chrysostom, whose commentaries Theodoret had always before him: this latter excels chiefly on the prophets. His church history, in five books, from the close of that of Eusebius in 324 to 429, is a valuable compilation. Photius justly prefers his style to that of Eusebius, Evagrius, Socrates, and Sozomen, as more historical, clear, and lofty, without any redundancy. (Cod. 31) His religious history, or Philothea, (i.e. History of the Friends of God,) contains the lives of thirty monks and anchorets of his time. He was himself an eye-witness to several of the miracles which he relates to have been wrought by the sign of the cross, holy water, and blessed oil. Of some other miracles which he mentions, he tells us that they were so authentic and notorious that no one who believes those of Moses, Elias, and the Apostles, could deny them. The five books, Of Heretical Fables, are a history of ancient heresies which he wrote at the request of Sporacius, one of the imperial commissaries at the council of Chalcedon, who was consul in 452. In the fourth book, he inveighs most bitterly against Nestorius, whom he had for some time unwarily favored. The letters of Theodoret which are extant, amount to the number of 146. His book Against the twelve Anthematisms of St. Cyril, he tacitly recalled by his condemnation of Nestorius; also his Pentalogus on the same subject, which is now lost, except some fragments preserved by Marius Mercator. His three dialogues against the Eutychians, he entitled Polymorphus, (i.e. of many shapes,) and Eranistes, that is, the Beggar, because the Eutychian error was gathered from the various heresies of Marcian, Valentin, Arius, and Apollinaris. The first dialogue he calls the Unchangeable, because in it he shows that the divine Word suffered no change by becoming man. The second is entitled The Inconfused, from the subject, which is to prove that in Christ, after the Incarnation, the divine and human nature remain really distinct. The third is called, The Impassible, because in it the author demonstrates that the divinity neither did nor could suffer; the same is the purport of his Demonstration by syllogisms. The dialogues were written about the year 447; for the author clearly confutes Eutyches, though he never names him; and it appears that St. Cyril was then dead, the author reckoning him in the end among the Catholic doctors, who had formerly flourished in the church, and among the stars which had enlightened the world. (Dial. 2. p. 86, and 111.)
Theodoret's ten sermons On Providence, is a work never yet paralleled by any other writer, ancient or modern, on that sublime subject; whether we consider the matter and the choice of thoughts, or the author's sincere piety, or his extensive knowledge, and the depth of his philosophical inquiries, or the strength and solidity of his reasoning, or the noble sublimity of the expression, and the elegance and perspicuity of the diction. It was the love of God which engaged him to undertake, in this task, the defence of the cause of our best Father and supreme Lord, as he modestly assures us, (p. 320,) and this motive animated him with fresh life and uncommon vigor in exerting and displaying the strength and beauty of his genius on so great a subject.
His twelve discourses On healing the Prejudices of the Greeks, are an excellent apology for our faith against the pagans; a performance which falls little short of the former. In it we meet with many curious anecdotes relating to the heathenish theology of the ancients, and the impiety and vices with which their philosophers disgraced their profession. In the eighth of these discourses, which is entitled, On the Martyrs, he clearly demonstrates that the veneration which Christians pay to the saints in heaven, is entirely different from the worship which the heathens give to their false gods, and elegantly explains (pp. 591, 660, 606) in what manner the souls of the martyrs now in heaven, with the choirs of angels, are our protectors and mediators with God, the physicians of our bodies, and savers of our souls: the portions of their divided relics are the guard and protection of our cities, which through their intercession with God obtain divine gifts: Christians give their names to their children to put these under their patronage: it was a custom to hang up before their shrines, gold or silver images of eyes, feet, or hands, as tokens or memorials of health, or other benefits received by their means: they keep their festivals, as those of Peter, Paul, Thomas, Sergius, Marcellus, Leontius, Panteleemon, Antoninus, Mauritius, and others, in prayer, divine canticles, and holy sermons. The same he testifies in his other works. Almost every life of holy monks which he wrote, he closes by imploring their intercession, and mentions that as far as Rome, handicraftsman hang up in their shops the picture of St. Simeon Stylites, hoping by their devotion to share in the protection of his prayers. (Philoth. c. 26, p. 862.) We learn from, him, that Christians were always accustomed to make the sign of the cross on the cup before they drank. (Hist. Eccl. l. 3, c. 13.) He often extols the virtues of that holy sign, honored, as he says, by all Christians, whether Greeks, Romans, or Barbarians, (Serm. 6, de Prov. p. 580, t. 4,) and he relates, (Hist. Eccl. l. 3. c. 1,) that Julian the Apostate, by making it in a fright, drove away the devils which one of his enchanters was invoking. His book in praise of virginity, to which he refers us, (on 1 Cor. vii. 33.) is lost; also the book in which he confuted both Eutyches and Nestorius, which is mentioned by Gennadius (c. 89) and Marcellinus. (ad an. 466.) His book Against the Jews, and several others, have not reached us. Among those which are extant his Octateuch, (or comments on the five books of Moses, and those of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth,) to which he added comments on the books of Kings and Paralipomenon, much commended by Photius, seems to be the last work which he wrote. See Tillem. t. 15. Ceillier.
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ST. CADOCUS, OR CADOC, ABBOT IN WALES.
CADOC was son to Gundleus, a prince of South Wales, by his wife Gladusa, daughter of Braghan, whose name wax given to the province now called Brecknockshire. His parents were not less ennobled by their virtues than by their blood, and his father, who some years before his death renouncing the world, led an eremitical life near a country church which he had built, was honored in Wales among the saints. Cadoc, who was his eldest son, succeeded in the government, but not long after followed his father's example; and embracing a religious life, put himself under the direction of St. Tathai, an Irish monk, who had opened a famous school at Gwen{t}, the ancient Venta Silurum of the Romans, afterwards a bishop's see, now in ruins in Monmouthshire. Our saint made such progress both in learning and virtue, that when he returned into Glamorganshire, his own country, he spread on every side the rays of his wisdom and sanctity. Here, three miles from Cowbridge, he built a church and a monastery, which was called Llan-carvan, or the Church of Stags, and sometimes Nancarvan, that is, the Vale of Stags. The school which he established in this place became most illustrious, and fruitful in great and holy men. By our saint's persuasion St. Iltut renounced the court and the world, and learned at Llan-carvan that science which he preferred to all worldly treasures. He afterwards founded the great monastery of Llan-Iltut. These two monasteries and that of St. Docuinus, all situated in the diocese of Landaff, were very famous for many ages, and were often governed by abbots of great eminence. St. Gildas, after his return from Ireland, entered the monastery of St. Cadoc, where he taught for one year, and copied a book of the gospels, which was long preserved with great care in the church of St. Cadoc, and highly reverenced by the Welsh, who used it in their most solemn oaths and covenants. After spending there one year, St. Gildas and St. Cadoc left Llan-carvan, being desirous to live in closer retirement. They hid themselves first in the islands of Ronech and Echni. An ancient life of St. Cadoc tells us, that he died at Benevenna, which is the {216} Roman name of a place now called Wedon, in Northamptonshire. Some moderns take it for Benevento, in Italy, where they suppose him to have died. Chatelain imagines this St. Cadoc to be the same who is honored at Rennes, under the name of Cadoc, or Caduad, and from whom a small island on the coast of Vennes is called Enes-Caduad. St. Cadoc flourished in the beginning of the sixth century, and was succeeded in the abbacy of Llan-carvan, by Ellenius, "an excellent disciple of an excellent master," says Leland. See the Acts of St. Cadoc, in Capgrave; Usher's Antiquities, c. 13, p. 252. Chatelain's Notes on the. Martyr. p. 399.
JANUARY XXV.
THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.
See Tillemont, t. 1, p. 192.
THIS great apostle was a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin. At his circumcision, on the eighth day after his birth, he received the name of Saul. His father was by sect a Pharisee, and a denizen of Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia: which city had shown a particular regard for the cause of the Caesars; on which account Cassius deprived it of its privileges and lands; but Augustus, when conqueror, made it ample amends by honoring it with many new privileges, and with the freedom of Rome, as we read in the two Dions and Appian. Hence St. Paul, being born at Tarsus, was by privilege a Roman citizen, to which quality a great distinction and several exemptions were granted by the laws of the empire.[1] His parents sent him young to Jerusalem, where he was educated and instructed in the strictest observance of the law of Moses, by Gamaliel,[2] a learned and noble Jew, and probably a member of the Sanhedrim; and was a most scrupulous observer of it in every point. He appeals even to his enemies to bear evidence how conformable to it his life had been in every respect.[3] He embraced the sect of the Pharisees, which was of all others the most severe, though by its pride the most opposite to the humility of the gospel.[4] It was a rule among the Jews that all their children were to learn some trade with their studies, were it but to avoid idleness, and to exercise the body, as well as the mind, in something serious.[5] It is therefore probable that Saul learned in his youth the trade which he exercised even after his apostleship, of making tents.[6]
Saul, surpassing all his equals in zeal for the Jewish law and their traditions, which he thought the cause of God, became thereby a, blasphemer, a persecutor, and the most outrageous enemy of Christ.[7] He was one of those who combined to murder St. Stephen, and by keeping the garments of all who stoned that holy martyr, he is said by St. Austin to have stoned him by the hands of all the rest;[8] to whose prayers for his enemies he ascribes {217} the conversion of St. Paul:[9] "If Stephen," said he, "had not prayed, the church would never have had St. Paul."