Title: The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Vol. 7. July
Author: Alban Butler
Release date: August 4, 2015 [eBook #49604]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation has been standardized.
The cover image was provided by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated with a Transcriber’s Note.
Footnotes are identified in the text with a superscript number and have been accumulated in a table at the end of the text.
Transcriber’s Notes are used when making corrections to the text or to provide additional information for the modern reader. These notes are not identified in the text, but have been accumulated in a table at the end of the book.
Only Complete and Unabridged Edition with nearly 100 pages of Chronological and General Index, Alphabetical and Centenary Table, etc.
THE
LIVES
OF
THE FATHERS, MARTYRS,
AND OTHER
PRINCIPAL SAINTS;
COMPILED FROM
ORIGINAL MONUMENTS, AND OTHER AUTHENTIC RECORDS;
ILLUSTRATED WITH THE
REMARKS OF JUDICIOUS MODERN CRITICS AND HISTORIANS.
BY THE REV. ALBAN BUTLER.
With the approbation of
MOST REV. M. A. CORRIGAN, D.D.,
Archbishop of New York.
VOL. VII.
NEW YORK:
P. J. KENEDY,
PUBLISHER TO THE HOLY SEE,
EXCELSIOR CATHOLIC PUBLISHING HOUSE,
5 Barclay Street.
1908
PATRON OF MECHLIN.1
From the Bollandists. Ward, Act. &c. S. Rumoldi, Lov. 1662, 4to. Sellerii Act. S. Rumoldi, An. 1718, &c.
A. D. 775.
St. Rumold renounced the world in his youth and embraced a state of voluntary poverty, being convinced that whatever exceeds the calls of nature is a useless load and a perfect burden to him that bears it. He was the most declared enemy to voluptuousness; and by frugality, moderation, and a heart pure and disengaged from all seducing vanities, and desires of what is superfluous, he tasted the most solid pleasure which virtue gives in freeing a man from the tyranny of his passions, when he feels them subjected to him, and finds himself above them. Victorious over himself, by humility, meekness, and mortification, he reaped in his soul, without any obstacles from self-love or inordinate attachments, the sweet and happy fruits of assiduous prayer and contemplation, whereby he sanctified his studies, in which he made great progress, and at the same time advanced daily in Christian perfection. He had faithfully served God many years in his own country, when an ardent zeal for the divine honor and the salvation of souls induced him to travel into Lower Germany to preach the faith to the idolaters. He made a journey first to Rome to receive his mission from the chief pastor, and with the apostolic blessing went into Brabant, great part of which country about Mechlin he converted to the faith. He was ordained a regionary or missionary bishop without any fixed see. He frequently interrupted his exterior functions to renew his spirit before God in holy solitude. In his retirement he was slain on the 24th of June in 775, by two sons of Belial, one of whom he had reproved for adultery. His body was thrown into a river, but being miraculously discovered, it was honorably interred by his virtuous friend and protector, count Ado. A great and sumptuous church was built at Mechlin to receive his precious relics, which is still possessed of that treasure, and bears the name of this saint. The city of Mechlin keeps his feast a solemn holiday, and honors him as its patron and apostle. Janning the Bollandist gives a long history of his miracles. His great church at Mechlin was raised to the metropolitical dignity by Paul IV. Ware says that the feast of St. Rumold was celebrated as a double festival with an office of nine lessons throughout the province of Dublin before the reformation. It was extended to the whole kingdom of Ireland in the year 1741.
It was from the spirit of prayer that the saints derived all their lights and all their strength. This was the source of all the blessings which heaven through their intercession showered down on the world, and the means which they employed to communicate an angelical purity to their souls. “This spirit,” says a father of the Church,2 “is nourished by retreat, which in some manner may be called the parent of purity.” This admirable transformation of our souls produced by prayer is to be attributed to God’s glory, which by prayer he makes to shine in the secret of our hearts. In fine, when all the avenues of our senses are closed against the creature, and that God dwells with us, and we with God; when freed from the tumult and distractions of the world we apply all our attention to interior things and consider ourselves such as we are, we then become capable of clearly contemplating the kingdom of God, established in us by that charity and ardent love which consumes all the rust of earthly affections. For the kingdom of heaven, or rather the Lord of heaven itself, is within us, as Jesus Christ himself assures us.
These saints were Britons, and seem to have taken, the one a Roman and the other a Hebrew name at their baptism. They glorified God by martyrdom at Caerleon upon Usk in Monmouthshire, in the persecution of Dioclesian, probably about the year 303. St Gildas,3 St. Bede,4 and others, speak of their triumph as having been most illustrious. Leland and Bale say, SS. Julius and Aaron had travelled to Rome, and “there applied themselves to the sacred studies.” Bede adds, “very many others of both sexes, by unheard-of tortures, attained to the crown of heavenly glory.” Giraldus Cambrensis informs us, that their bodies were honored at Caerleon in the year 1200, when he wrote. Each of these martyrs had a titular church in that city; that of St. Julius, belonged to a nunnery, and that of St. Aaron to a monastery of canons. See Godwin De Episc. Landav. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Giraldus Cambrensis, Leland, and Tanner, Bibl. Britan. p. 1.
He was of the family of the counts palatine of Champagne, and son of count Arnoul. He was born at Provins in Brie in 1017, and was called Theobald from the most virtuous archbishop of Vienne, who was his uncle. In his youth he preserved his heart free from the corruption of the world amidst its vanities; and the more pains others took to make him conceive a relish for them, the more diligent he was in fencing his heart against their dangers, the more perfectly he discovered their emptiness and secret poison. In reading the lives of the fathers of the desert he was much affected by the admirable examples of penance, self-denial, holy contemplation, and Christian perfection, which were set before his eyes as it were in a glass, and he earnestly desired to imitate them. The lives of St. John the Baptist, of St. Paul the hermit, St. Antony, and St. Arsenius in their wildernesses, charmed him, and he sighed after the like sweet retirement, in which he might without interruption converse with God by prayer and contemplation. He often resorted to an holy hermit named Burchard, who lived in a little island in the Seine; and by making essays he began to inure himself to fasting, watching, long prayers, and every rigorous practice of penance. He declined all the advantageous matches and places at court or in the army which his father could propose to him. His cousin Eudo, count palatine of Champagne, and count of Chartres and Blois, upon the death of his uncle Rodolph, the last king of Burgundy, in 1034, laid claim to that crown as next heir in blood; but the emperor Conrad the Salic seized upon it by virtue of the testament of the late king.5 Hereupon ensued a war, and count Arnoul ordered his son to lead a body of troops to the succor of his cousin. But the young general represented so respectfully to his father the obligation of a vow by which he had bound himself to quit the world, that he at length extorted his consent.
Soon after the saint and another young nobleman called Walter, his intimate friend, each taking one servant, went to the abbey of St. Remigius in Rheims, and thence having sent back their servants with their baggage, they set out privately; and in the clothes of two beggars, in exchange for which they had given their own rich garments, they travelled barefoot into Germany. Finding the forest of Petingen in Suabia a convenient solitude for their purpose, they built themselves there two little cells. Having learned from Burchard that manual labor is a necessary duty of an ascetic or penitential life, and not being skilled in the manner of working to make mats or baskets, they often went into the neighboring villages and there hired themselves by the day to serve the masons, or to work in the fields, to carry stones and mortar, to load and unload carriages, to cleanse the stables under the servants of the farmers, or to blow the bellows and to make fires for the forges. With their wages they bought coarse brown bread, which was their whole subsistence. Whilst they worked with their hands, their hearts were secretly employed in prayer; and at night retiring again into their forest, they watched long, singing together the divine praises, and continuing in holy contemplation. Their carriage and the tenderness of their complexion discovered that they had not been trained up in manual labor, and the reputation of their sanctity after some time drew the eyes of men upon them. To shun which they resolved to forsake a place where they were no longer able to live in humiliation and obscurity. They performed barefoot a pilgrimage to Compostella, and returned into Germany.
Passing through Triers, it happened that Theobald there met his father count Arnoul; but with his tanned face, and in his ragged clothes, passing for a beggar, he was not known by him. He was strongly affected, and was scarcely able to stifle the tender sentiments with which his heart was quite overcome at the sight of so dear and affectionate a parent. However, he suppressed them; but to quit the neighborhood where he might be again exposed to the like trial, he undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. The two fervent penitents travelled everywhere barefoot; and after they had visited all the holy places in Italy, they chose for their retirement a hideous woody place called Salanigo, near Vicenza, where with the leave of the lord of the manor they built themselves two cells, near an old ruinous chapel. Prayer and the exercises of penance were their constant employment, till after two years God called Walter to himself. Theobald looked upon this loss as a warning that he had not long to live, and he exerted his whole strength, redoubling his pace to run with greater vigor as he drew near the end of his race. He had lived on oat bread and water, with roots and herbs, but at length he interdicted himself even the use of bread, taking no other food but herbs and roots. He always wore a rough hair shirt; his bed was a board, and for the five last years of his life he took his rest sitting on a wooden seat. The bishop of Vicenza promoted him to priest’s orders, and several persons put themselves under his direction. His lineage and quality being discovered, his aged parents were no sooner informed that their son was alive, and that the hermit of Salanigo, the reputation of whose sanctity, prophecies, and miracles filled all Europe, was that very son whose absence had been to them the cause of so long a mourning; but they set out with great joy to see him. His frightful desert, his poor cell, his tattered clothes, and above all his emaciated body, made so strong impressions upon their hearts at the first sight that they both cast themselves at his feet, and for a considerable time were only able to speak to him by their tears. When they were raised from the ground, and had recovered from their first surprise, faith overcame in them the sentiments of nature, and converted their sorrow into joy. The sight of so moving an example extinguished in their hearts all love of the world, and they both resolved upon the spot to dedicate themselves to the divine service. The count was obliged by his affairs to return into Brie, but Gisla, the saint’s mother, obtained her husband’s consent to finish her course near the cell of her son. The saint made her a little hut at some distance from his own, and took great pains to instruct her in the practice of true perfection. He was shortly after visited with his last sickness; his body was covered over with blotches and ulcers, and every limb afflicted with some painful disorder. The servant of God suffered this distemper with a most edifying patience and joy. A little before his death he sent for Peter the abbot of Vangadice, of the order of Camaldoli, from whose hands he had received the religious habit a year before. To him he recommended his mother and his disciples: and having received the viaticum he expired in peace on the last day of June, 1066, being about thirty-three years old, of which he had spent twelve at Salanigo and three in Suabia, and in his pilgrimages. His relics were translated to the church dependent on the abbey of St. Columba, at Sens, and afterward to a chapel near Auxerre called St. Thibaud aux Bois. He was canonized by Alexander III. and his name is in great veneration at Sens, Provins, Paris, Auxerre, Langres, Toul, Triers, Autun, and Beauvais. See his life faithfully written by a contemporary author.
BISHOP OF CLERMONT, IN AUVERGNE.
He was born about the year 489. His father George was of the first houses of that province, and his mother Leocadia was descended from the family of Vettius Apagatus, the celebrated Roman, who suffered at Lyons for the faith of Christ. They both took special care of the education of their son; and when he arrived at a proper age, proposed to have him married to the daughter of a respectable senator. The saint, who had taken a resolution to consecrate himself to God, withdrew privately from his father’s house to the monastery of Cournon, near the city of Auvergne, and earnestly prayed to be admitted there amongst the monks; and having soon after obtained the consent of his parents, he with joy renounced all worldly vanities to embrace religious poverty. Here his eminent virtues distinguished him in a particular manner, and recommended him to Quintianus, bishop of Auvergne, who promoted him to holy orders.
The bishop dying in 527, St. Gal was appointed to succeed him; and in this new character his humility, charity, and zeal were conspicuous; but, above all, his patience in bearing injuries. Being once struck on the head by a brutal man, he discovered not the least emotion of anger or resentment, and by this meekness disarmed the savage of his rage. At another time Evodius, who from a senator became a priest, having so far forgot himself as to treat him in the most insulting manner, the saint, without making the least reply, arose meekly from his seat and went to visit the churches of the city. Evodius was so touched by this conduct, that he cast himself at the saint’s feet in the middle of the street and asked his pardon. From this time they both lived on terms of the most cordial friendship. St. Gal was favored with the gift of miracles; and died about the year 553. He is mentioned this day in the Roman Martyrology. See St. Greg. of Tours, his nephew, Vit. Patr. c. 6. Hist. Franc. l. 4, c. 5; also the remarks of Mabillon, sec. 1. Bened. Gall. Christ, Nov. t. 2, p. 237, and Selier the Bollandist, t. 1, Jul. p. 103.
Another St. Gal, called the Second, is honored at Clermont on the 1st of November. He was bishop of that see in 650. See Gall. Christ. Nova, t. 2, p. 245.
FIRST ABBOT OF ANILLE IN MAINE.
He was born in Auvergne, of a family equally virtuous and noble. He was yet a child when they sent him to the monastery of Menat in the diocess of Clermont, in order to be early principled in knowledge and piety. Here he became a religious, and practised all the prescriptions of the rule with the greatest fervor. After some time he quitted the monastery with St. Avi, and they both retired to the abbey of Micy near Orleans. The bishop of this city having destined them for holy orders, they withdrew themselves from the abbey, and advancing together as far as Perche, led by their fervor to the austerities of an eremitical life, they separated. St. Calais was followed by two persons, who by no means would consent to quit him, and with these he went to Maine, where he perfectly revived the rigorous discipline of the ancient eastern hermits. But as he was constantly visited by numbers who sought to live under his direction, he at length consented to receive them. King Childebert gave him land whereon to build a monastery, which was first called Anisole or Anille, from the river on which it was situated,6 but it is now, as well as the little town built round it, called after the saint. The life of the holy founder was not only extraordinary for penance and prayer, but he excelled in the exact observance of his rules; insomuch that he constantly refused the visit of queen Ultrogotha wife of Childebert, because one of the statutes forbade to enter the monastery. He died in 542, and his name is mentioned this day in the Roman Martyrology. A portion of his relics is kept in the abbey of St. Calais, but the greatest part is in the chapel of the castle of Blois, which also bears his name. See the life of St. Calais, written by Siviard, fifth abbot of Anille, with the notes of Mabillon, and the Bollandist, t. 1, Jul. p. 85, and Martenne Ampl. Coll. t. 1, præf. p. 4, &c.
He was of a noble family in Wales, and educated under the care of St. Iltut; and passing over into that part of France called the province of Domnone, he founded a monastery between the rivers of Rancé and Arguenon, on a piece of ground which was given him by Jona, the lord of the country. His many extraordinary virtues drew the attention of king Childebert, who very pressingly invited him to Paris, where he was received by this prince and his royal consort Ultrogotha with every possible demonstration of the highest respect. At his return he had the affliction to hear that his protector Jona was stripped of his possessions, and murdered by Conomor. Happily however he arrived time enough to shelter that unfortunate nobleman’s son Judual from the bloody tyrant’s cruelty, and conveyed him safely to England: whence Judual afterward returned, and recovered his inheritance. The saint is styled bishop, though he had no fixed see. For it was then an established custom in Brittany to honor the principal abbots with the episcopal dignity. The year in which St. Leonorus died is not known. His body was translated to a parochial church near St. Malo, which still retains the name of St. Lunaire: here his tomb is shown, which is empty, his relics being inclosed in a shrine. The feast of his translation is on the 13th of October, but he is principally honored in the several diocesses of Brittany on the 1st of July. He is patron of many churches. See the Breviary of Leon, of the abbey of St. Meen, &c. also Lobineau, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, p. 91, and the Martyrology of Usuard.
He was a native of Egypt, and born about the year 522. Having performed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he retired to a desert near the Red Sea, where he remained twenty-nine years in the constant practice of a most austere penitential life. Here he was constantly revolving in mind that we must love humiliations if we would be truly humble; that at least we should receive those which God sends us with resignation, and own them exceedingly less than the measure of our demerits; that it is even sometimes our advantage to seek them; that human prudence should not always be our guide in this regard; and that there are circumstances where we ought to follow the impulse of the Holy Spirit, though not unless we have an assurance of his inspiration. The servant of God, animated by an ardent desire to be contemptible among men, quitted the desert, and at Emesus succeeded to his wish; for by affecting the manners of those who want sense, he passed for a fool. He was then sixty years old, and lived six or seven years in that city, when it was destroyed by an earthquake in 588. His love for humility was not without reward, God having bestowed on him extraordinary graces, and even honored him with the gift of miracles. The year of his death is unknown. Although we are not obliged in every instance to imitate St. Simeon, and that it would be rash even to attempt it without a special call; yet his example ought to make us blush, when we consider with what an ill will we suffer the least thing that hurts our pride. See Evagrius, a contemporary writer, l. 4, c. 5; the life of the saint by Leontius, bishop of Napoli in Cyprus; that of St. John the Almoner; and the Bollandists, t. 1, Jul. p. 129.