The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Vol. 7. July

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

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

CONTENTS.

JULY 1.

SAINT RUMOLD, B. M.

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.

SS. JULIUS AND AARON, MM.

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.

ST. THEOBALD OR THIBAULT, C.

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.

SAINT GAL, CALLED THE FIRST.

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.

ST. CALAIS, IN LATIN CARILEPHUS.

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.

SAINT LEONORUS, IN FRENCH LUNAIRE, B.

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.

ST. SIMEON, SURNAMED SALUS.[7]

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.

SAINT THIERRI, ABBOT OF MONT-D’HOR, NEAR RHEIMS.

He was born in the district of Rheims. His father Marquard was abandoned to every infamous disorder. An education formed on the best Christian principles in the house of such a person would more than probably be blasted by his bad example; but our saint was happily removed, and educated in learning and piety, under the edifying example of the holy bishop Remigius.

He married in complaisance to his relations; but easily persuaded his wife to embrace the virgin state; and becoming himself a monk, he was made superior of an abbey founded by St. Remigius on Mont-d’Hor, near Rheims. Some time after he received holy orders, and became famous by the many extraordinary conversions he wrought through the zeal and unction wherewith he exhorted sinners to repentance; among these was his own father, who persevered to his death under the direction of his son. He succeeded also, in conjunction with St. Remigius, in converting an infamous house into a nunnery of pious virgins. According to the most common opinion he died on the 1st of July, 533. It is said that king Thierri assisted at his funeral, and esteemed himself honored in being one of his bearers to the grave. His relics, lest they should be exposed to the impiety of the Normans, were hidden under ground, but discovered in 976, and are still preserved in a silver shrine. He is mentioned on this day in the Roman Martyrology. See Mabillon, Act. t. 1, p. 614. Bulteau, Hist. de l’Ordre de St. Ben. t. 1, p. 287; Baillet ad l. Jul. and Gal. Christ. Nov. t. 9, p. 180.

SAINT CYBAR, A RECLUSE AT ANGOULEME.

Eparcus, commonly called Cybar, quitted the world in spite of his parents, who would hinder him to follow his vocation; and retiring to the monastery of Sedaciac in Perigord, he there served God some time under abbot Martin, and soon became known and admired for his extraordinary virtues and miracles. Wherefore, in dread of the seduction of vain-glory, he left his monastery to hide himself in absolute solitude. It was near Angouleme, with the bishop of Perigueux’s and his abbot’s leave, he shut himself up in a cell. But his virtues were too striking for concealment, and the bishop of Angouleme obliged him to accept the priesthood. Cybar was extremely austere in his food and apparel, especially during Lent. Although a recluse, he did not refuse to admit disciples; but he would not allow them manual labor, as, after his own example, he willed they should be constantly occupied in prayer. When any of them would complain for want of necessaries, he would tell them with St. Jerom, that “Faith never feared hunger.” Nor was he deceived in his trust on Providence, as he always found abundance for himself and his disciples in the beneficence of the faithful; insomuch that he was even enabled to redeem a great number of captives. He died the 1st of July, 581, having lived about forty years in his cell. His relics were kept in the abbey church of his name until 1568, when they were burnt by the Huguenots. See Mabillon, Act. t. 1, p. 267; Bulteau, Histoire de l’Ordre de St. Benoit, t. 1, p. 235; Gallia Chr. Nov. t. 2, p. 978, 979, &c.

JULY II.

THE VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

From the example of Christ, his blessed Mother, and the apostles, St. Thomas shows[8] that state to be in itself the most perfect which joins together the functions of Martha and Mary, or of the active and contemplative life. This is endeavored by those persons who so employ themselves in the service of their neighbor, as amidst their external employs or conversation often to raise their minds to God, feeding always on their heavenly invisible food, as the angel did in Toby’s company on earth.Who also, by the practice and love of daily recollection and much solitude, fit themselves to appear in public; and who by having learned the necessary art of silence in its proper season, and by loving to speak little among men,[9] study to be in the first place their own friends,and by reflection and serious consideration to be thoroughly acquainted with themselves, and to converse often in heaven.[10] Such will be able to acquit themselves of external employs without prejudice to their own virtue, when called to them by duty, justice, or charity. They may avoid the snares of the world, and sanctify their conversation with men. Of this the Blessed Virgin is to us a perfect model in the visit paid to her cousin Elizabeth, as St. Francis of Sales takes notice, who borrowed from this mystery the name which he gave to his Order of nuns, who, according to the first plan of their institute, were devoted to visit and attend on the sick.

The angel Gabriel, in the mystery of the Annunciation, informed the mother of God, that her cousin Elizabeth had miraculously conceived, and was then in the sixth month of her pregnancy. The Blessed Virgin, out of humility, concealed the favor she had received and the wonderful dignity to which she was raised by the incarnation of the Son of God in her womb; but in the transport of her holy joy and gratitude, she would go to congratulate the mother of the Baptist; with which resolution the Holy Ghost inspired her for his great designs in favor of her Son’s precursor not yet born. Mary therefore arose, saith St. Luke, and with haste went into the hilly-country into a city of Juda; and entering into the house of Zachary saluted Elizabeth. She made this visit to a saint, because the company of the servants of God is principally to be sought, from whose example and very silence the heart will always treasure up something, and the understanding receive some new light and improvement in charity. As glowing coals increase their flame by contact, so is the fire of divine love kindled in a fervent soul by the words and example of those who truly love God. In this journey what lessons of humility does the holy Virgin give us! She had been just saluted mother of God, and exalted above all mere creatures, even the highest seraphim of heaven; yet far from being elated with the thoughts of her incomprehensible dignity, she appears but the more humble by it. She prevents the mother of the Baptist in this office of charity; the mother of God pays a visit to the mother of her Son’s servant; the Redeemer of the world goes to his precursor. What a subject of confusion is this to the pride of the children of the world! who, not content with the rules of respect which the law of subordination requires, carry their vanity to an excess of ceremoniousness contrary even to good manners, and to the freedom of conversation, which they make an art of constraint and of torture both to themselves and others; and in which they seek not any duty of piety or improvement in virtue, but loathsome means of foolish flattery, the gratification of vanity, or that dissipation of mind which continually entertains it with trifles and idleness, and is an enemy to serious consideration and virtue.

When the office of charity called upon Mary, she thought of no dangers or difficulties in so painful and long a journey of above fourscore miles from Nazareth in Galilee to Hebron, a sacerdotal city in the mountainous country on the western side of the tribe of Juda. The inspired writer takes notice, that she went with haste or with speed and diligence, to express her eagerness to perform this good office. Charity knows not what sloth is, but always acts with fervor. She likewise would hasten her steps out of modesty, not choosing to appear abroad, but as compelled by necessity or charity; not travelling out of vanity, idleness, or curiosity, but careful in her journey to shun the dissipation of the world, according to the remarks of St. Ambrose. Whence we may also gather with what care she guarded her eyes, and what was the entertainment of her pious soul with God upon the road. Being arrived at the house of Zachary, she entered it, and saluted Elizabeth. What a blessing did the presence of the God-man bring to this house, the first which he honored in his humanity with his visit! But Mary is the instrument and means by which he imparts to it his divine benediction; to show us that she is a channel through which he delights to communicate to us his graces, and to encourage us to ask them of him through her intercession. At the voice of the mother of God, but by the power and grace of her Divine Son, in her womb, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost and the infant in her womb was sanctified; and miraculously anticipating the use of reason, knew by divine inspiration the mystery of the incarnation, and who it was that came to visit him.From this knowledge he conceived so great, so extraordinary a joy as to leap and exult in the womb.[11] If Abraham and all the ancient prophets exulted only to foresee in spirit that day when it was at the distance of so many ages, what wonder the little Baptist felt so great a joy to see it then present! How eagerly did he desire to take up his office of precursor, and already to announce to men their Redeemer that he might be known and adored by all! But how do we think he adored and reverenced him present in his mother’s womb? and what were the blessings with which he was favored by him? He was cleansed from original sin, and filled with sanctifying grace, was made a prophet, and adored the Messiah before he was yet born.

At the same time Elizabeth was likewise filled with the Holy Ghost; and by his infused light, she understood the great mystery of the Incarnation which God had wrought in Mary, whom humility prevented from disclosing it even to a saint, and an intimate friend. In raptures of astonishment, Elizabeth pronounced her blessed above all other women, she being made by God the instrument of his blessing to the world, and of removing the malediction which through Eve had been entailed on mankind. But the fruit of her womb she called blessed in a sense still infinitely higher, he being the immense source of all graces, by whom only Mary herself was blessed. Elizabeth, then turning her eyes upon herself, cried out—Whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? She herself had conceived barren and by a miracle; but Mary, a virgin, and by the Holy Ghost; she conceived one greater than the prophets, but Mary the eternal Son of God, himself true God. The Baptist, her son, used the like exclamation to express his confusion and humility when Christ came to be baptized by his hands. In the like words and profound sentiments ought we to receive all the visits of God in his graces, especially in the holy sacraments. Elizabeth styles Mary, Mother of her Lord, that is, mother of God; and she foretells that all things would befall her and her Son which had been spoken by the prophets.

Mary hearing her own praise, sunk the lower in the abyss of her nothingness, and converting all good gifts to the glory of God, whose gratuitous mercy had bestowed them, in the transport of her humility, and melting in an ecstasy of love and gratitude, burst into that admirable canticle called the Magnificat. It is the first record in the New Testament, and both in the noble sentiments which compose it, and in the majesty of the style, surpasses all those of the ancient prophets. It is the most perfect model of thanksgiving and praise for the incarnation of the Son of God, and the most precious monument of the profound humility of Mary. In it she glorifies God with all the powers of her soul for his boundless mercies, and gives to him alone all the glory. In the spiritual gladness of her heart she adores her Saviour, who had cast his merciful eyes upon her lowliness. Though all nations will call her blessed, she declares that nothing is her due but abjection, and that this mystery is the effect of the pure power and mercy of God; and that he who had dethroned tyrants, fed the hungry in the wilderness, and wrought so many wonders in favor of his people, had now vouchsafed himself to visit them, to live among them, to die for them, and to fulfil all things which he had promised by his prophets from the beginning. Mary stayed with her cousin almost three months; after which she returned to Nazareth.

Whilst with the Church we praise God for the mercies and wonders which he wrought in this mystery, we ought to apply ourselves to the imitation of the virtues of which Mary sets us a perfect example. From her we ought particularly to learn the lessons by which we shall sanctify our visits and conversation; actions which are to so many Christians the sources of innumerable dangers and sins. We must shun not only scurrilous and profane discourse, but whatever is idle, light, airy, or unprofitable; whilst we unbend our mind, we ought as much as possible to see that conversation which is conducive to the improvement of our hearts or understandings, and to the advancement of virtue and solid useful knowledge. If we suffer our mind to be puffed up with empty wind, it will become itself such as is the nourishment upon which it feeds. We should shun the vice of talkativeness, did we but consult that detestable vanity itself which betrays us into this folly. For nothing is more tyrannical or more odious and insupportable in company than to usurp a monopoly of the discourse. Nothing can more degrade us in the opinion of others than for us to justle, as it were, for the word; to vent all we have in our hearts, at least a great deal that we ought to conceal there; and without understanding ourselves, or taking a review of our meaning or words, to pour out embryos of half-formed conceptions, and speak of the most noble subjects in an undress of thoughts. What proofs of our vanity and folly, what disgraces, what perplexities, what detractions, and other evils and sins should we avoid, if we were but sparing and reserved in our words! If we find ourselves to swell with an itch of talking, big with our own thoughts, and impatient to give them vent, we must by silence curb this dangerous passion, and learn to be masters of our words.

SS. PROCESSUS AND MARTINIAN, MARTYRS.

By the preaching and miracles of SS. Peter and Paul at Rome, many were converted to the faith, and among others several servants and courtiers of the emperor Nero, of whom St. Paul[12] makes mention.[13] In the year 64 that tyrant first drew his sword against the Christians, who were in a very short time become very numerous and remarkable in Rome. A journey which he made into Greece in 67, seems to have given a short respite to the Church in Rome. He made a tour through the chief cities of that country, attended by a great army of singers, pantomimes, and musicians, carrying instead of arms, instruments of music, masks, and theatrical dresses. He was declared conqueror at all the public diversions over Greece, particularly at the Olympian, Isthmian, Pythian, and Nemæan games, and gained there one thousand eight hundred various sorts of crowns. Yet Greece saw its nobility murdered, the estates of its rich men confiscated, and its temples plundered by this progress of Nero. He returned to Rome only to make the streets of that great city again to stream with blood. The apostles SS. Peter and Paul, after a long imprisonment, were crowned with martyrdom. And soon after them their two faithful disciples Processus and Martinian gained the same crown. Their acts tell us that they were the keepers of the Mamertine jail during the imprisonment of SS. Peter and Paul, by whom they were converted and baptized. St. Gregory the Great preached his thirty-second homily on their festival, in a church in which their bodies lay, at which, he says, the sick recovered their health, those that were possessed by evil spirits were freed, and those who had forsworn themselves were tormented by the devils. Their ancient church on the Aurelian road being fallen to decay, pope Paschal I. translated their relics to St. Peter’s church on the Vatican hill, as Anastasius informs us. Their names occur in the ancient Martyrologies. See Tillemont, Hist. Eccl. t. 1, p. 179, and Hist. des Emp. Crevier, &c.

ST. OTHO, BISHOP OF BAMBERG, CONFESSOR.

He was a native of Swabia, in Germany, and being a clergyman eminent for piety and learning, was chosen by the emperor Henry IV. to attend his sister Judith in quality of chaplain when she was married to Boleslas III. duke of Poland,that state remaining deprived of the royal dignity[14] from the year 1079 till it was restored in 1295, in favor of Premislas II. After the death of that princess, Otho returned, and was made by Henry IV. his chancellor. That prince caused the seals and crosses of every deceased bishop and great abbot to be delivered to him, and he sold them to whom he pleased. This notorious simony and oppression of the Church was zealously condemned by the pope, in opposition to whom the emperor set up the antipope Guibert. Otho labored to bring his prince to sentiments of repentance and submission, and refused to approve his schism or other crimes. Notwithstanding which, so great was the esteem which the emperor had for his virtue, that, resolving to make choice at least of one good bishop, he nominated him bishop of Bamberg in 1103. The saint, notwithstanding the schism, went to Rome and received his confirmation together with the pall from pope Paschal II. He labored to extinguish the schism, and to obviate the mischiefs which it produced; and for this purpose he displayed his eloquence and abilities in the diet at Ratisbon in 1104. Henry V. succeeding his father in 1106, continued to foment the schism; yet inherited the esteem of his predecessor for our saint, though he always adhered to the holy see, and was in the highest credit with all the popes of his time; so strongly does virtue command respect even in its adversaries, and such is the power of meekness in disarming the fiercest tyrants. St. Otho joined always with the functions of his charge the exercises of an interior life, in which he was an admirable proficient. He made many pious foundations, calling them inns which we erect on our road to eternity.

Boleslas IV. duke of Poland, son of that Boleslas who had married the sister of Henry IV. having succeeded his elder brother Ladislas II. and conquered part of Pomerania, entreated St. Otho to undertake a mission among the idolaters of that country. The good bishop having settled his own diocess in good order, and obtained of pope Honorius II. a commission for that purpose, took with him a considerable number of zealous priests and catechists, and passed through Poland into Prussia, and thence into eastern Pomerania. He was met by Uratislas II. duke of Upper Pomerania, who received the sacrament of baptism with the greatest part of his people in 1124. St. Otho returned to Bamberg for Easter the following year, having appointed priests every where to attend the new converts, and finish the work he had so happily begun. The towns of Stetin and Julin having again relapsed into idolatry, St. Otho, with a second blessing of pope Honorius II. returned into Pomerania in 1128, brought those cities back to the faith, and through innumerable hardships and dangers carried the light of the gospel into Noim, and other remote barbarous provinces. He returned again to the care of his own flock, amidst which he died the death of the saints on the 30th of June, 1139. He was buried on the 2d of July, on which day he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology. He was canonized by Clement III. in 1189. The rich shrine which contains his sacred remains is preserved in the electoral treasury at Hanover. See Thesaurus Reliquiarum Electoris Brunswico-Luneburgensis, folio, printed at Hanover in 1713. See also the accurate life of this saint in the latter editions of Surius, and in Acta Sanctorum, by the Bollandists, t. 1, Julii.

ST. MONEGONDES, A RECLUSE AT TOURS.

She was a native of Chartres, and honorably married. She had two daughters, who were the objects of her happiness and most ardent desires in this world till God was pleased, in mercy towards her, to deprive her of them both by death. Her grief for this loss was at first excessive, and by it she began to be sensible that her attachment to them had degenerated into immoderate passion; though she had not till then perceived the disorder of a fondness which had much weakened in her breast the love of God, and the disposition of perfect conformity to his holy will above all things and in all things. A fear of offending God obliged her to overcome this grief, and she confessed the divine mercy in the cure of her inordinate affection which stood in need of so severe a remedy. However, resolving to bid adieu to this transitory treacherous world, she, with her husband’s consent, built herself a cell at Chartres, in which she shut herself up, serving God in great austerity and assiduous prayer. She had no other furniture than a mat strewed on the floor on which she took her short repose, and she allowed herself no other sustenance than coarse oat bread with water which was brought her by a servant. She afterward removed to Tours, where she continued the same manner of life in a cell which she built near St. Martin’s. Many fervent women joining her, this cell grew into a famous nunnery, which has been since changed into a collegiate church of secular canons. St. Monegondes lived many years a model of perfect sanctity, and died in 570. She is named in the Roman Martyrology.

The loss of dear friends is a sensible affliction, under which something may be allowed to the tenderness of nature. Insensibility is no part of virtue. The bowels of saints are always tender, and far from that false apathy of which the stoics boasted.“I condemn not grief for the death of a friend,” says St. Chrysostom,[15] “but excess of grief. To mourn is a part of nature; but to mourn with impatience is to injure your departed friend, to offend God, and to hurt yourself. If you give thanks to God for his mercies and benefits, you glorify him, honor the deceased, and procure great advantages for yourself.” Motives of faith must silence the cries of nature.“How absurd is it to call heaven much better than this earth, and yet to mourn for those who depart thither in peace,” says the same father in another place.[16]

ST. OUDOCEUS.

THIRD BISHOP OF LANDAFF, IN ENGLAND.

This saint, dedicated to God from his infancy by his parents, was reared in Christian principles under the inspection of his uncle Saint Theliau, bishop of Landaff; and succeeded him in this see about the year 580.[17] Mauric, king of Glamorgan, held him in the highest veneration, and assisted him in all his endeavors to promote the glory of God; being however excommunicated by the saint for assassinating a prince called Cynedu, he, by his humble submission and penance, was at length restored to the communion of the Church. St. Oudoceus dying about the end of the sixth century, is mentioned in the English Calendars on the 2d of July. See Usher, Antiquit. Britan. p. 291; Wharton, Anglia Sacra, t. 2, p. 669; Alford, in Annal. and Lobineau, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, p. 89.

JULY III.

ST. PHOCAS, GARDENER, M.

From his panegyric, written by St. Asterius, and another by St. Chrysostom, t. 2, ed. Ben. p. 704, Ruinart, p. 627.

A. D. 303.

St. Phocas dwelt near the gate of Sinope, a city of Pontus, and lived by cultivating a garden, which yielded him a handsome subsistence, and wherewith plentifully to relieve the indigent. In his humble profession he imitated the virtue of the most holy anchorets, and seemed in part restored to the happy condition of our first parents in Eden. To prune the garden without labor and toil was their sweet employment and pleasure. Since their sin, the earth yields not its fruit but by the sweat of our brow. But still, no labor is more useful or necessary, or more natural to man, and better adapted to maintain in him vigor of mind or health of body than that of tillage; nor does any part of the universe rival the innocent charms which a garden presents to all our senses, by the fragrancy of its flowers, by the riches of its produce, and the sweetness and variety of its fruits; by the melodious concert of its musicians, by the worlds of wonders which every stem, leaf, and fibre exhibit to the contemplation of the inquisitive philosopher, and by that beauty and variegated lustre of colors which clothe the numberless tribes of its smallest inhabitants, and adorn its shining landscapes, vying with the brightest splendor of the heavens, and in a single lily surpassing the dazzling lustre with which Solomon was surrounded on his throne in the midst of all his glory. And what a field for contemplation does a garden offer to our view in every part, raising our souls to God in raptures of love and praise, stimulating us to fervor, by the fruitfulness with which it repays our labor, and multiplies the seed it receives; and exciting us to tears of compunction from our insensibility to God by the barrenness with which it is changed into a frightful desert, unless subdued by assiduous toil! Our saint joining prayer with his labor, found in his garden itself an instructive book, and an inexhausted fund of holy meditation. His house was opened to all strangers and travellers who had no lodging in the place; and after having for many years most liberally bestowed the fruit of his labor on the poor, he was found worthy also to give his life for Christ. Though his profession was obscure, he was well known over the whole country by the reputation of his charity and virtue.

When a cruel persecution, probably that of Dioclesian in 303, was suddenly raised in the Church, Phocas was immediately impeached as a Christian, and such was the notoriety of his pretended crime, that the formality of a trial was superseded by the persecutors, and executioners were despatched with an order to kill him on the spot wherever they should find him. Arriving near Sinope, they would not enter the town, but stopping at his house without knowing it, at his kind invitation they took up their lodging with him. Being charmed with his courteous entertainment, they at supper disclosed to him the errand upon which they were sent, and desired him to inform them where this Phocas could be most easily met with. The servant of God, without the least surprise, told them he was well acquainted with the man, and would give them certain intelligence of him next morning. After they were retired to bed he dug a grave, prepared everything for his burial, and spent the night in disposing his soul for his last hour. When it was day he went to his guests, and told them Phocas was found, and in their power whenever they pleased to apprehend him. Glad at this news, they inquired where he was. “He is here present,” said the martyr,—“I myself am the man.” Struck at his undaunted resolution, and at the composure of his mind, they stood a considerable time as if they had been motionless, nor could they at first think of imbruing their hands in the blood of a person in whom they discovered so heroic a virtue, and by whom they had been so courteously entertained. He indirectly encouraged them saying, that as for himself, he looked upon such a death as the greatest of favors, and his highest advantage. At length, recovering themselves from their surprise, they struck off his head. The Christians of that city, after peace was restored to the Church, built a stately church which bore his name, and was famous over all the East. In it were deposited the sacred relics, though some portions of them were dispersed in other churches.

St. Asterius, bishop of Amasea about the year 400, pronounced the panegyric of this martyr, on his festival, in a church, probably near Amasea, which possessed a small part of his remains.In this discourse[18] he says, “that Phocas from the time of his death was become a pillar and support of the churches on earth: he draws all men to his house; the highways are filled with persons resorting from every country to this place of prayer. The magnificent church which (at Sinope) is possessed of his body, is the comfort and ease of the afflicted, the health of the sick, the magazine plentifully supplying the wants of the poor. If in any other place, as in this, some small portion of his relics be found, it also becomes admirable, and most desired by all Christians.” He adds, that the head of St. Phocas was kept in his beautiful church in Rome, and says, “The Romans honor him by the concourse of the whole people in the same manner they do Peter and Paul.” He bears testimony that the sailors in the Euxine, Ægean, and Adriatic seas, and in the ocean, sing hymns in his honor, and that the martyr has often succored and preserved them; and that the portion of gain which they in every voyage set apart for the poor is called Phocas’s part. He mentions that a certain king of barbarians had sent his royal diadem set with jewels, and his rich helmet a present to the church of St. Phocas, praying the martyr to offer it to the Lord in thanksgiving for the kingdom which his divine majesty had bestowed upon him.St. Chrysostom received a portion of the relics of Saint Phocas, not at Antioch, as Baronius thought, and as Fronto le Duc and Baillet doubt, but at Constantinople as Montfaucon demonstrates.[19] On that solemn occasion the city kept a great festival two days,and St. Chrysostom preached two sermons, only one of which is extant.[20] In this he says, that the emperors left their palaces to reverence these relics, and strove to share with the rest in the blessings which they procure men. The emperor Phocas built afterward another great church at Constantinople in honor of this martyr, and caused a considerable part of his relics to be translated thither. The Greeks only style Saint Phocas hiero-martyr or sacred martyr, which epithet they sometimes give to eminent martyrs who were not bishops, as Ruinart demonstrates against Baronius.

ST. GUTHAGON, RECLUSE.

He was an Irishman of royal blood, who forsaking the world to labor in securing eternal happiness, led a penitential, contemplative life at Oosterk, near Bruges, in Flanders, with B. Gillon, an individual companion. He was famed for his eminent sanctity, attested by miracles after his death. His shrine is there held in veneration, and a chapel built in his honor. He is said to have lived in the eighth century. Gerard, bishop of Tournay, translated the relics of this saint on the 3d of July, 1059, in the presence of the abbots of Dun, Oubenbourg, and Ececkout; and on the 1st of October, 1444, they were visited by Nicholas, suffragan bishop of Tournay. See Colgan in MSS. and Molanus, p. 136.

SAINT GUNTHIERN, ABBOT IN BRITTANY.

This saint flourished in the sixth century. He was a prince in Wales, which he left in his youth, and retired into Armorica to live a recluse. He stopt at the isle of Groie, which is about a league from the mouth of the Blavet. Grallon was then lord of the isle, and was so edified at his conversation, that he bestowed on him, for founding a monastery, the land between the confluence of the river Isol and Ellé. For which reason even to this day, the abbey is called Kemperle, which in the old British language signifies the conflux of Ellé.One year that a prodigious swarm of insects devoured the corn, Guerech I., count of Vannes, dreading a famine, deputed three persons of quality to engage the saint’s prayers to God for turning away the scourge. Gunthiern sent him water which he had blessed, which he desired to be sprinkled over the fields, and the insects were destroyed. The count, in gratitude for this extraordinary blessing, gave him the land near the river Blavet, which was then called Vernac; but is now known by the name of Hervegnac or Chervegnac. The saint, it is thought, died at Kemperle. During the incursions of the Normans, his body was concealed in the isle of Groie.It was discovered in the eleventh century, and brought to the monastery of Kemperle,[21] which now belongs to the Benedictine Order. St. Gunthiern is patron of this abbey as well as of many other churches and chapels in Brittany. He is mentioned in ancient calendars on the 29th of June, but the moderns place his feast on the 3d of July. See Lobineau, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, p. 49.

ST. BERTRAN,[22] BISHOP OF MANS.

He seems to have been born in Poitou, and having dedicated himself to the service of the Church, he received the tonsure in the city of Tours. St. Germain, bishop of Paris, invited him to his diocess, formed him to virtue, and, in token of esteem for his merit, made him his archdeacon. After the death of Baldegisil, an unworthy prelate, who sought only to enrich himself by the spoils of his church, St. Bertran was chosen his successor in the diocess of Mans in 586. At first he met some opposition from the corrupt manners of his people, but zealous endeavors to restore them to virtue had soon the deserved success. By his prudence he saved the state from a war which threatened it from Waroc and Windimacle, princes of Brittany. He was called to the court of Gontran, king of Orleans and Burgundy, to negotiate certain interesting matters regarding the Church. He built, endowed, and repaired a great number of hospitals and churches. His will, which he made in 615, is an esteemed piece of church-antiquity. In it are many considerable legacies to churches and monasteries. But what is singularly remarkable, we see by it, that the holy bishop enjoyed on every occasion the favor and protection of Fredegonda. During the troubles occasioned by the civil wars in France, St. Bertran was three several times banished from his diocess. This introduced many disorders among his people, which he happily removed with the assistance of Clotaire, who after long struggles at length united to his kingdom those of Burgundy and Austrasia. It is believed that he died the 30th of June, 623. But he is honored on the 3d of July, being the day on which his relics were translated. See St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. l. 8, c. 39, and l. 9, c. 18; and the saint’s will published with excellent notes by Papebroke, 6 Jun. and Baillet, under the 3d of July.

JULY IV.

ST. ULRIC, BISHOP OF AUSBURG, CONFESSOR.

From his accurate life, written by Gerard of Ausburg, in Mabillon, sæc. 2, Ben. &c. See the Bollandists.

A. D. 973.

St. Ulric or Udalric was son of count Hucbald, and of Thietberga, daughter of Burchard, one of the first dukes of Higher Germany. He was born in 893, and was educated from seven years of age in the abbey of St. Gal. Guiborate, a holy virgin who lived a recluse near that monastery, foretold him that he should one day be a bishop, and should meet with severe trials, but exhorted him to courage and constancy under them. So delicate and tender was the complexion of the young nobleman that all who knew him judged he could never live long. But regularity and temperance preserved a life, and strengthened a constitution which excessive tenderness of parents, care of physicians, and all other arts would probably have the sooner worn out and destroyed:which cardinal Lugo shows to have often happened by several instances in austere religious Orders.[23] The recovery of the young count was looked upon as miraculous. As he grew up, his sprightly genius, his innocence and sincere piety, and the sweetness of his temper and manners charmed the good monks; and he had already made a considerable progress in his studies when his father removed him to Ausburg, where he placed him under the care of Adalberon, bishop of that city. The prelate, according to the custom of those times, made him his chamberlain when he was only sixteen years old, afterward promoted him to the first orders, and instituted him to a canonry in his cathedral. The young clergyman was well apprised of the dangers, and instructed in the duties of his state, which he set himself with all his strength faithfully to discharge. Prayer and study filled almost all his time, and the poor had much the greatest share in his revenues. During a pilgrimage which he made to Rome, this bishop died, and was succeeded by Hiltin. After his return he continued his former manner of life, advancing daily in fervor and devotion, and in the practices of humility and mortification. He was most scrupulously careful to shun as much as possible the very shadow of danger, especially with regard to temptations against purity, and it was his usual saying to others: “Take away the fuel, and you take away the flame.”

Hilton dying in 924, Henry the Fowler, king of Germany, nominated our saint, who was then thirty-one years of age, to the bishopric of Ausburg, and he was consecrated on Holy Innocents’ day. The Hungarians and Sclavonians had lately pillaged that country, murdered the holy recluse Saint Guiborate, whom the Germans honor as a martyr, plundered the city of Ausburg, and burnt the cathedral. The new bishop, not to lose time, built for the present a small church, in which he assembled the people, who in their universal distress stood in extreme need of instruction, comfort, and relief; all which they found so abundantly in Ulric, that every one thought all the calamities they had suffered sufficiently repaired by the happiness they enjoyed in possessing such a pastor. He excused himself from attending the court, knowing of what importance the presence of a bishop is to his flock, for which he is to give a severe account to God. The levying and care of his troops, which in quality of prince of the empire he was obliged to send to the army, he entrusted to a nephew, devoting himself entirely to his spiritual functions. He rose every morning at three o’clock to assist with his canons at matins and lauds: after which he recited the psalter, litany, and other prayers. At break of day he said in choir the office for the dead, and prime, and was present at high mass. After tierce and long private devotions he said mass. He only left the church after none, and then went to the hospital, where he comforted the sick, and every day washed the feet of twelve poor people, giving to each of them a liberal alms. The rest of the day he employed in instructing, preaching, visiting the sick, and discharging all the duties of a vigilant pastor. He took his frugal meal only in the evening before complin. In this the poor always shared with him, for whom and for strangers meat was served up, except on fast-days, though he never touched it himself. He allowed himself very little time for sleep, lay on straw, and never used any linen. In Lent he redoubled his austerities and devotions. He made every year the visit of his whole diocess, and held a synod of his clergy twice a year. Upon the death of Henry I. Otho I. succeeded in the kingdom of Germany, between whom and his unnatural son Luitolf, a civil war broke out. St. Ulric strenuously declared himself against the rebels, who on that account harassed and plundered his diocess. But Arnold, count palatine, being slain before the walls of Ratisbon, St. Ulric obtained the king’s pardon for his son and the rest of the rebels.

The saint had fenced the city of Ausburg with strong walls, and erected several fortresses to secure the people from the inroads of barbarians. This was a precaution of the utmost importance; for the Hungarians made a second incursion, and laid siege to Ausburg. The good pastor continued in prayer, like Moses on the mountain, for his people, whom he convened in frequent processions and devotions. His prayers were heard, and the barbarians, being seized with a sudden panic fear, raised the siege and fled in great confusion. They were met and cut to pieces by Otho, who, in 962, was crowned Emperor by the pope. St. Ulric built his cathedral in a stately manner, and dedicated it again to God in honor of St. Afra, the celebrated patroness of Ausburg, in which city she received the crown of martyrdom in the persecution of Dioclesian. She is commemorated on the 5th of August. The saint earnestly desired to resign his bishopric, and retired to the monastery of St. Gal, some time before his death; but met with too great opposition. He made a second journey of devotion to Rome, and was received with extraordinary marks of esteem by the pope, and at Ravenna by the emperor and his pious empress. Otho I. died in May, 973, and from that time the saint’s health began sensibly to decline. During his last sickness he redoubled his fervor. In his agony he caused himself to be laid on ashes blessed and strewed on the floor in the form of a cross, in which posture he died amidst the prayers of his clergy, on the 4th of July, 973, being about fourscore years old, and having been bishop fifty years. He was buried in the church of St. Afra, which at present bears his name. His sanctity was attested by miracles, and he was canonized by pope John XV. in 993.

The saints living by faith had recourse to God in all their actions, and by that means drew down his blessing on their undertakings.It was the saying of a great man, that persons who expose themselves to many dangers and sins, often meet with temporal miscarriages,[24] like the Israelites when they were deceived by the Gabaonites, because they neglect to commend their enterprises to God by fervent prayer and to consult his will.

SAINT ODO, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, C.

He was born in the province of East Angles, of noble Danish parents, who, about the year 870, had accompanied Inguar and Hubba in their barbarous expedition, and had acquired a peaceable plentiful settlement in that part of England. Odo from a child loved the Christian religion, frequented the churches, and often spoke with honor of Christ to his parents; for which he was frequently severely chastised by them, and at length disinherited and turned out of doors. The young nobleman, rejoicing to see himself naked, and found worthy to suffer something for God, chose him for his inheritance; and, fearing lest by sloth he should lose the advantages he had already gained, resolved to give himself wholly to God, and embrace an ecclesiastical state.He was enabled to perform his studies by the liberality of the most noble and virtuous duke Athelm, who seems to have been son of the ealderman Athelm, who in the reign of king Ethelwolf, being assisted by the Dorsetshire men, had defeated the Danes near Portland, in 838. The duke or governor Athelm was one of the principal noblemen of England in the reign of king Alfred, and in the Saxon annals, is styled ealderman of Wiltshire. Being a most religious man, he was much taken with the piety of Odo. In 887 he made a devout pilgrimage to Rome, and carried thither the alms of king Alfred and of the West-Saxons, as the Saxon Annals testify. He had before that time procured Odo to be ordained priest, and made use of him for his confessarius, as did many others who belonged to the court. He recited every day the church office with him, as it was then customary for pious persons among the laity to do. Our saint accompanied him to Rome in quality of chaplain. On the road, this nobleman fell sick of a fever which in seven days reduced him almost to extremity. But Odo, after praying for him, presented him a glass of wine on which he had made the sign of the cross, bidding him have an entire confidence in God. Athelm had no sooner drunk the glass, than he found himself perfectly cured, and able to get on horseback. Athelm died in 898.

Odo continued to be caressed as much as ever, and was often employed by the kings Alfred and his son Edward the Elder, who began his reign in 901. King Alfred had by his wisdom and prowess raised the English monarchy to the highest pitch of grandeur, and the Danes who, from the time of the martyrdom of St. Edmund, were possessed of part of Northumberland, and of the kingdom of the East-Angles, were confined within those territories, and restrained in the eastern provinces from making inroads by the famous ditch running from the northern fens to the river Ouse, and into Suffolk, separating Mercia and the kingdom of the East-Angles, called at this day, from a town of that name, Reech-dike, and by the common people Devil’s-dike. This great ditch, mentioned by the Saxon Annals in the reign of Edward the Elder, seems made about this time. When the Danes broke the truce, king Edward entirely subdued them in the country of the East-Angles; he also defeated the Scots, Cumbrians, and Welch.He built towns and fortresses in many parts of the kingdom, as Ethelred, earl of Mercia, and after his death his courageous and virtuous widow Ethelfleda, daughter to king Alfred, did in the middle counties. But nothing reflects greater honor on the name of this king, and on his wise counsellors, than the body or code of laws which he added to those of his father Alfred,[25] in enacting which the Danish king of the East-Angles, Guthrun, or rather Guthrun’s successor, Eoric, concurred. In these laws only pecuniary fines are prescribed for theft, and most other crimes; for which capital punishments were not generally instituted before the thirteenth century. Edward the Elder reigned twenty-four years, and dying in 925 was buried in the monastery which his father Alfred had founded at Winchester.

Athelstan, his eldest son, reigned fourteen years with great prudence and valor. His father Edward having extinguished the kingdom of the Danes among the East-Angles, Athelstan expelled them out of Northumberland; obliged the Welch to pay him a considerable annual tribute; and in 938 vanquished also the Scots. For their king, Constantine, protecting the Danes in Northumberland under their last king Guthfrith and his son Anlaff, drew on himself the arms of king Athelstan, who marched with his victorious army to the very north of Scotland, in 934, as William of Malmesbury relates. In the same year Constantine invaded England with a great army of Scots, Danes, and Irish, another Anlaff, king of Dublin and some of the Western Islands, coming over to his assistance. Athelstan met them at Brunanburgh, a place at present unknown, near the Humber, and with his valiant West-Saxons attacking Anlaff, whilst his cousin Turketil, at the head of the Londoners, fell on the Scots, he gained a most complete victory, which he ascribed to the intercession of Saint John of Beverly. Having on the other side driven the Welch out of Exeter he founded there a noble monastery, which was afterward made the cathedral when the bishopric was removed from Crediton to that city. Alfred of Beverly calls Athelstan the first monarch of all England, though out of modesty he never assumed that title, but left it to his brother Edred to take. For after the extinction of the Danish kingdom in Northumberland, and the death of Ethelfleda, countess of Mercia, there remained no petty sovereign in his dominions, which had always been the case from Egbert to his time. Athelstan also subdued the Welch and the Scots, and according to our historians made not only the former, but likewise the latter tributary, though this the Scottish writers deny with regard to their country. King Athelstan was a great lover of peace, piety, and religion: he was devout, affable to all, learned himself, and a patron of learned men; and he was as much admired and beloved by his subjects for his humility and humanity as he was feared by enemies and rebels for his military skill and invincible courage. He framed many good laws, in which he inflicted chiefly pecuniary penalties for crimes; for which purpose he fixed for every offence a value or price according to every one’s rank and estate. This great king reposed an entire confidence in the prudence and sanctity of his chaplain, and not content to make use of his counsels in his most weighty concerns, he carried him with him in his war, that he might always animate himself to virtue by his example and holy advice. The kingdom of the West-Saxons was for some time all comprised under the diocess of Winchester, till in the reign of king Ina, about the year 705, the see of Shirburne was erected, and in 905 that of Wilton for Wiltshire, though these two sees were again united and fixed at Salisbury in 1046. King Athelstan about the beginning of his reign procured St. Odo to be chosen second bishop of Wilton, according to Le Neve’s Fasti, though some say of Shirburne. Nevertheless, the saint was obliged often to attend the king, and was present at the great battle of Brunanburgh, against the Danes, Scots, and Irish, in which Athelstan, being attacked by Anlaff, and almost surrounded by enemies, having also broken or lost his sword, called aloud for help. St. Odo ran in upon this occasion, and first discovered to the king a sword hanging by his side, which was thought to have been sent from heaven, with which, animated by the saint, he gained one of the most glorious and advantageous victories that ever was won by the English nation.

Athelstan dying in 941, left the crown to his brother Edmund, at that time only eighteen years of age. This prince reduced a second time the Northumbers and Anlaff the Dane, who had again revolted; and governed by the wise counsels of St. Odo, he enacted many wholesome laws, especially to prevent family feuds and murders. By one of these it is ordained that if several thieves combine together, the eldest shall be hanged, the rest whipped thrice. This seems the first law by which robbery was punished in England by death. The king was religious and valiant, and being a judge of men, reposed an entire confidence in St. Odo, who, in 942, was translated to the metropolitan see of Canterbury. The saint had consented to his first promotion with great reluctance. But he opposed the second a long time with a dread which saints are usually filled with on such occasions. He alleged first, his unworthiness, secondly, the canons against translations, and thirdly, that he was no monk. His two first difficulties were overruled; and as to the third, he at length consented to receive the Benedictin habit from the hands of the abbot of Fleuri, now St. Bennet’s on the Loire, a house then famous for its regularity. The abbot was therefore invited into England for this purpose, or according to others, St. Odo travelled to Fleuri, and received the habit from his hands; after which he was installed archbishop. King Edmund was assassinated by Leof, an outlawed thief, who had insolently seated himself at the king’s table, in a great banquet which the king gave on the feast of St. Austin, archbishop of Canterbury, in 948.

Edmund left two sons very young, Edwy and Edgar, but was succeeded by his brother Edred, in whose days happened the following miracle, related by Eadmer in his exact life of our saint; also by William of Malmesbury, and the Chronicles of the Church of Canterbury, quoted in Parker’s British Antiquities, and Du Pin.[26] Some of the clergy at Canterbury being tempted to doubt of the real presence of Christ’s body in the holy eucharist, St. Odo begged by his prayers that God would be pleased mercifully to demonstrate to them the truth of this sacred mystery; and at this petition, whilst he was saying mass in his cathedral, at the breaking of the host, blood was seen by all the people distilling from it into the chalice; the saint called up to the altar those who labored under the temptation before-mentioned, and others then present, to bear witness to the miracle. Full of gratitude, they afterward celebrated with their archbishop a solemn thanksgiving for this wonderful miracle, in which Christ had manifested himself visible in the flesh to their corporeal eyes. King Edred died in 955, after a lingering illness, which he sanctified by the most edifying patience and acts of devotion, having reigned nine years and a half. He took the title of king of Great Britain, as he styles himself in a charter which he gave to the abbey of Croyland, recited by Ingulphus.In another, given to the abbey of Reculver,[27] he calls himself Monarch of all England.

Edwy, the eldest son of king Edmund, succeeded next to the throne, and was crowned at Kingston by St. Odo. But being a youth abandoned to excessive lust, after the coronation dinner he left his bishops and nobles to go to his mistress Ethelgiva, who was his own near relation. St. Dunstan, then abbot of Glastenbury, reproved him by order of St. Odo, but was banished by the tyrant, and the monks turned out of Glastenbury and many other monasteries. St. Odo exerted his zeal against the adulteress, but the king repaired to Gloucester when she fled to that city. The enormities of his reign stirred up the Mercians and Northumbers to take up arms against him, and to crown his younger brother Edgar. Edwy retained the kingdom of the West-Saxons till his death, which happened in 959, according to Florence of Worcester and Laud’s copy of the Saxon annals.

Edgar exceedingly honored St. Odo, recalled St. Dunstan, and advanced him to the bishopric of Worcester. He reigned about sixteen years in uninterrupted peace and prosperity, till his death in 975, beloved by all his subjects, and revered by foreigners. William of Malmesbury and Florence of Worcester mention his two great fleets, said to have consisted of three thousand six hundred ships, with which he yearly scoured the British seas; and he had six or eight petty kings often to wait on him, namely, Kenneth of the Scots, Malcolm of Cumberland, Maccus, lord of Man and the Isles, and five princes of Wales, who all rowed his galley from Chester down the river Dee.These princes of Wales were the successors of Howel Dha, the wise legislator and powerful prince of all Wales.[28] King Edgar’s salutary laws are chiefly to be ascribed to St. Odo and St. Dunstan. This great king, by the direction of these holy men, set himself earnestly to repair the damages which the Church and State had received under the tyranny of his brother.

St. Odo never intermitted the daily instruction of his clergy and flock, notwithstanding his great age, and strenuously labored to advance daily in the divine love. He died in 961. His relics, when his shrine was plundered at the change of religion, seem to have been deposited under a small tomb which is seen at this day in the same place where the shrine formerly stood. His name was famous in our English Martyrologies. For his virtue he was usually styled whilst living, Odo se gode, that is, in the Saxon language, Odo the Good.The Constitutions of St. Odo seem charges delivered by him to the clergy.[29] The laws of the kings Athelstan, Edmund, and Edgar, are part laws of the State, part of the Church. They were enacted in general assemblies or synods, and are for the most part to be ascribed to St. Odo. See Matthew of Westminster, Florence of Worcester, and the life of St. Odo, written, not by Osbern the famous monk of Canterbury, in 1070, as Mabillon conjectured, Sæc. Ben. V. p. 203, but by Eadmer, the disciple of St. Anselm, in 1121, as Henry Wharton demonstrates in his Preface, vol. 2, p. 10, Anglia Sacra. The Life of St. Odo, written by Osbern, and quoted by William of Malmesbury, seems nowhere to be extant. The History of St. Odo is compiled by Ericus Pantopidanus in his Gesta Danorum extra Daniam. Hafniæ. 1740. t. 2, § 2, § 8, p. 157.

ST. SISOES OR SISOY, ANACHORET IN EGYPT.

After the death of St. Antony, St. Sisoes was one of the most shining lights of the Egyptian deserts.He was an Egyptian by birth. Having quitted the world from his youth, he retired to the desert of Sceté, and lived some time under the direction of abbot Hor. The desire of finding a retreat yet more unfrequented induced him to cross the Nile and hide himself in the mountain where Saint Antony died some time before. The memory of that great man’s virtues being still fresh, wonderfully supported his fervor. He imagined he saw him, and heard the instructions he was wont to deliver to his disciples; and he strained every nerve to imitate his most heroic exercises, the austerity of his penance, the rigor of his silence, the almost unremitting ardor of his prayer, insomuch that the reputation of his sanctity became so illustrious as to merit the full confidence of all the neighboring solitaries. Some even came a great distance to be guided in the interior ways of perfection; and, in spite of the pains he took, he was forced to submit his love of silence and retreat to the greater duty of charity. He often passed two days without eating, and was so rapt in God that he forgot his food, so that it was necessary for his disciple Abraham to remind him that it was time to break his fast.He would sometimes be even surprised at the notice, and contend that he had already made his meal; so small was the attention he paid to the wants of his body.[30] His prayer was so fervent that it often passed into ecstasy.At other times his heart was so inflamed with divine love, that, scarce able to support its violence, he only obtained relief from his sighs, which frequently escaped without his knowledge, and even against his will.[31] It was a maxim with him,that a solitary ought not to choose the manual labor which is most pleasing to him.[32] His ordinary work was making baskets. He was tempted one day as he was selling them, to anger; instantly he threw the baskets away and ran off. By efforts like these to command his temper he acquired a meekness which nothing could disturb.His zeal against vice was without bitterness; and when his monks fell into faults, far from affecting astonishment or the language of reproach, he helped them to rise again with a tenderness truly paternal.[33] When he once recommended patience and the exact observance of rules, he told the following anecdote: “Twelve monks, benighted on the road, observed that their guide was going astray. This, for fear of breaking their rule of silence, they forbore to notice, thinking within themselves that at daybreak he would see his mistake and put them in the right road. Accordingly, the guide discovering his error, with much confusion, was making many apologies; when the monks being now at liberty to speak, only said, with the greatest good humor, ‘Friend, we saw very well that you went out of your road; but we were then bound to silence.’The man was struck with astonishment, and very much edified at this answer expressive of such patience and strictness of observance.”[34]

Some Arians had the impudence to come to his mount, and utter their heresy before his disciples. The saint, instead of an answer, desired one of the monks to read St. Athanasius’s treatise against Arianism, which at once stopped their mouths and confounded them. He then dismissed them with his usual good temper. St. Sisoes was singularly devoted to humility; and in all his advices and instructions to others, held constantly before their eyes this most necessary virtue. A recluse saying to him one day, “Father, I always place myself in the presence of God;” he replied, “It would be much more your advantage to place yourself below every creature, in order to be securely humble.”Thus, while he never lost sight of the divine presence, it was ever accompanied with the consciousness of his own nothingness and misery.[35] “Make yourself little,” said he to a monk, “renounce all sensual satisfactions, disengage yourself from the empty cares of the world, and you will find true peace of mind.”[36] To another, who complained that he had not yet arrived at the perfection of St. Antony, he said, “Ah! if I had but one only of that great man’s feelings, I would be all one flame of divine love.”[37] Notwithstanding his extraordinary mortifications, they appeared so trifling in his mind, that he called himself a sensual man, and would have every one else to be of the same opinion.[38] If charity for strangers sometimes constrained him to anticipate dinner-hour, at another season, by way of indemnification, he protracted his fast, as if his body were indebted to so laudable a condescension.[39] He dreaded praise so much, that in prayer, as was his custom, with hands lifted up to heaven, when sometimes he apprehended observation, he would suddenly drop them down.He was always ready to blame himself, and saw nothing praiseworthy in others which did not serve him for an occasion to censure his own lukewarmness.[40] On a visit of three solitaries wanting instruction, one of them said, “Father, what shall I do to shun hell-fire?” He made no reply. “And for my part,” added another, “how shall I escape the gnashing of teeth, and the worm that never dies?” “What also will become of me,” concluded the third, “for every time I think on utter darkness I am ready to die with fear?” Then the saint breaking silence, answered, “I confess that these are subjects which never employ my thoughts, and as I know that God is merciful, I trust he will have compassion on me. You are happy,” he added, “and I envy your virtue. You speak of the torments of hell, and your fears on this account must be powerful guards against the admission of sin. Alas! then, it is I should exclaim, What shall become of me? I, who am so insensible as never even to reflect on the place of torments destined to punish the wicked after death. Undoubtedly this is the reason I am guilty of so much sin.”The solitaries retired much edified with this humble reply.[41] The saint said one time, “I am now thirty years praying daily that my Lord Jesus may preserve me from saying an idle word, and yet I am always relapsing.”This could only be the language which humility dictates; for he was singularly observant of the times of retirement and silence, and kept his cell constantly locked to avoid interruption, and always gave his answers to those who asked his advice in the fewest words.[42] The servant of God, worn out with sickness and old age, yielded at last to his disciple Abraham’s advice, and went to reside a while at Clysma, a town on the border, or at least in the neighborhood of the Red Sea.[43] Here he received a visit from Ammon, or Amun, abbot of Raithe, who, observing his affliction for being absent from his retreat, endeavored to comfort him by representing that his present ill state of health wanted the remedies which could not be applied in the desert. “What do you say,” returned the saint, with a countenance full of grief, “was not the ease of mind I enjoyed there everything for my comfort?” He was not at ease till he returned to his retreat, where he finished his holy course. The solitaries of the desert assisting at his agony, heard him, as Rufinus relates, cry out, “Behold, abbot Antony, the choir of prophets and the angels come to take my soul.” At the same time his countenance shone, and being some time interiorly recollected with God, he cried out anew, “Behold! our Lord comes for me.”At the instant he expired, his cell was perfumed with a heavenly odor.[44] He died about the year 429, after a retreat of at least sixty-two years in St. Antony’s Mount. His feast is inserted in the Greek Menologies on the 6th of July; and in some of the Latin Calendars on the 4th of the same month. See Rosweide, Cotelier, Tillemont, t. 12, p. 453, and the Bollandists ad diem 6 Julii, t. 2, p. 280.

This saint must not be confounded with two other Sisoes, who lived in the same age. One, surnamed the Theban, lived at Calamon, in the territory of Arsinoe. Another had his cell at Petra. It is of Sisoes the Theban that the following passage is related, though some authors by mistake have ascribed it to St. Sisoes of Sceté. A certain recluse having received some offence, went to Sisoes to tell him that he must have revenge. The holy old man conjured him to leave his revenge to God, to pardon his brother, and forget the injury he had received. But seeing that his advice had no weight with him, “At least,” said he, “let us both join in an address to God,” then standing up, he prayed thus aloud: “Lord, we no longer want your care of our interests or your protection, since this monk maintains that we can and ought to be our own avengers.”This extraordinary petition exceedingly moved the poor recluse, and throwing himself at the saint’s feet, he begged his pardon, protesting that from that moment he would forget he had ever been injured.[45] This holy man loved retirement so much that he delayed not a moment even in the church after the mass to hasten to his cell. This was not to indulge self-love or an affected singularity, but to shun the danger of dissipation, and enjoy in silence and prayer the sweet conversation of God. For at proper seasons, especially when charity required it, he was far from being backward in giving himself to the duties of society. Such was his self-denial that he seldom or ever eat bread.However, being invited one time by the neighboring solitaries to a small repast, in condescension, and to show how little he was guided by self-will, observing that it would be agreeable, “I will eat,” said he, “bread, or anything you lay before me.”[46] See Bulteau, Hist. Mon. d’Orient, l. 1, c. 3, n. 7, p. 56. Tillemont, t. 12, and Pinius, one of the continuators of Bollandus, on the 6th of July.

SAINT BERTHA, WIDOW.

ABBESS OF BLANGY IN ARTOIS.

She was the daughter of count Rigobert and Ursana, related to one of the kings of Kent in England. In the twentieth year of her age she was married to Sigefroi, by whom she had five daughters, two of whom, Gertrude and Deotila, were saints. After her husband’s death, she put on the veil in the nunnery which she had built at Blangy in Artois, a little distance from Hesdin. Her daughters Gertrude and Deotila followed her example. She was persecuted by Roger or Rotgar, who endeavored to asperse her with king Thierri III. to revenge his being refused Gertrude in marriage. But this prince, convinced of the innocence of Bertha, then abbess over her nunnery, gave her a kind reception, and took her under his protection. On her return to Blangy, Bertha finished her nunnery, and caused three churches to be built, one in honor of St. Omer, another she called after St. Vaast, and the third in honor of St. Martin of Tours. And then, after establishing a regular observance in her community, she left St. Deotila abbess in her stead, having shut herself in a cell, to be employed only in prayer. She died about the year 725.A great part of her relics are kept at Blangy.[47] See Mabillon, sec. 3, Ben. part. 1, p. 451, Bulteau, Hist. de l’Ordre de St. Benoit, t. 2, l. 4, c. 31, and Baillet on the 4th of July.

ST. FINBAR, ABBOT.

AND FOUNDER OF A FAMOUS MONASTERY IN THE ISLE OF CRIMLEN, BETWEEN KINSELECH AND DESIES.

See Colgan in MSS. ad 4 Julii. He is not to be confounded with St. Finbar, the first bishop of Cork, who is honored on the 25th of September.

ST. BOLCAN, ABBOT.

A Disciple of St. Patrick in Ireland. His relics remain at Kilmore, i. e. Great Cell, where his monastery stood. See Colgan, ib.

JULY V.

ST. PETER OF LUXEMBURG, C.

CARDINAL, BISHOP OF METZ.

From his life, written by John de la Marche, his professor in laws, the year after his death, with the notes of Pinius the Bollandist, Julii, t. 1, p. 486. See also the bull of his beatification in Miræus, and a history of a great number of miracles wrought by his intercession and relics in Pinius, ib. His life is compiled by a Celestine monk from original authentic MSS. kept in the houses of the Celestines at Avignon, Paris, Nantes, &c., printed at Paris in 1681.

A. D. 1387.

The most illustrious houses of the dukes and counts of Luxemburg and St. Pol, not only have held for several centuries the first rank among the nobility of the Low Countries, but vie with most royal families in Europe; the former having given five emperors to the Germans, several kings to Hungary and Bohemia, a queen to France, and innumerable renowned heroes, whose great actions are famous in the histories of Europe and the East. But none of their exploits have reflected so great a lustre on these families as the humility of our Saint Peter. He was son to Guy of Luxemburg, count of Ligny, and to Maud, countess of St. Pol; and was born at Ligny, a small town in Lorrain, in the diocess of Toul, in 1369. He was nearly related to the emperor Wenceslas, Sigismund, king of Hungary, and Charles VI., king of France.He lost his pious father at three years of age, and his most virtuous mother a year after; but his devout aunt, the countess of Orgieres and countess dowager of St. Pol,[48] took care of his education, and made a prudent choice of most virtuous persons whom she placed about him. By the excellent example and precepts of his masters, and the strong impressions of an early grace, he seemed formed by nature to perfect virtue. In his tender age the least sallies of the passions seemed rather prevented than subdued; and his ardor in the pursuit of virtue so far surpassed the ordinary capacity of children of his tender age, that it was a matter of astonishment to all that knew him. His assiduity and fervor in prayer, his secret self-denials, great abstemiousness, and, above all, his love of humility in an age when others are usually governed only by the senses, seemed a miracle of divine grace. He made a private vow of perpetual chastity before he was seven years of age, and he contrived by a hundred little artifices that no poor person should ever be dismissed wherever he was without an alms. At ten years of age he was sent to Paris, where he studied Latin, philosophy, and the canon law. In the meantime his eldest brother Valeran, count of St. Pol, was taken prisoner by the English in a battle in which they defeated the French and Flemings in Flanders. Upon the news that his brother was made prisoner and sent to Calais, Peter, in 1381, interrupted his studies, went over to London, and delivered himself up a hostage for his brother till his ransom should be paid. The English were charmed with his extraordinary virtue, and after he had stayed a year in London, generously gave him his liberty, saying his word was a sufficient pledge and security for the ransom stipulated. King Richard II. invited him to his court; but Peter excused himself, and hastened back to Paris to his studies. His watchings and fasts were very austere, and he made no visits but such as were indispensable, or to persons of extraordinary virtue, from whose conversation and example he might draw great spiritual advantage for the benefit of his own soul. With this view he often resorted to Philip of Maisiers, a person eminently endowed with the double spirit of penance and prayer, who, having been formerly chancellor of the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus, led for twenty-five years a retired life in the convent of the Celestines in Paris, without taking any vows, or professing that Order. From this devout servant of God our saint received important instructions and advice, which gave him great light in the exercises of prayer, and in the paths of interior spiritual perfection.

In 1383 his brother, the count of St. Pol, obtained for him a canonry in our Lady’s at Paris; which ecclesiastical preferment was to him a new motive to increase his fervor in the divine service. His devotion and assiduity in choir, his charity towards all, his innocence, his perfect spirit of mortification, and his meekness, edified exceedingly the whole city; and the modesty with which he endeavored to conceal his virtues was like a fine transparent veil through which they shone with redoubled lustre. His humility was most conspicuous, of which the following instance, among others, is recorded: When a young clerk refused to carry the cross at a solemn procession, the new canon took it up, and carried it with so much devotion, that the whole city was struck with admiration to see him. Peter strove only to advance in humility and Christian perfection: this was the sole point which he had in view in all his actions and undertakings; and he was very far from aspiring to the least ecclesiastical dignity. But the reputation of his extraordinary sanctity reaching Avignon, Clement VII., who, in the great schism, was acknowledged by France for true pope, nominated him archdeacon of Dreux, in the diocess of Chartres, and soon after, in 1384, bishop of Metz, his great sanctity and prudence seeming to many a sufficient reason for dispensing with his want of age. But Peter’s reluctance and remonstrances could only be overcome by a scruple which was much exaggerated to him, that by too obstinate a disobedience he would offend God. He made his public entry at Metz barefoot, and riding on an ass, to imitate the humility of our Redeemer. He would suffer no other magnificence on that occasion than the distribution of great arms and largesses among the poor; nor would he admit any attendants but what might inspire modesty and piety.

He had no sooner taken possession of his church than with the suffragan, Bertrand, a Dominican, who was given him for his assistant, and consecrated bishop of Thessaly, he performed the visitation of his diocess, in which he everywhere corrected abuses, and gave astonishing proofs of his zeal, activity, and prudence. He divided his revenues into three parts, allotting one to his church, a second to the poor, and reserving a third for himself and family, though the greatest share of this he added to the portion of the poor. On fast-days commanded by the Church he took no other sustenance than bread and water; and he fasted in the same austere manner all Advent, and all Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays throughout the year. When several towns had revolted from him and created for themselves new magistrates, his brother, the count of St. Pol, reduced them to their duty by force of arms. The holy bishop was exceedingly mortified at this accident, and out of his own patrimony made amends to every one even among the rebels for all losses they had sustained, which unparalleled charity gained him all their hearts. Though he was judged, by those who were best acquainted with his interior, during his whole life never to have stained his baptismal innocence by any mortal sin, he had so high an idea of the purity in which a soul ought always to appear in the divine presence, especially when she approaches the holy mysteries, that he went every day to confession with extraordinary compunction, and bewailed the least imperfections with many tears. The very shadow of the least sloth or failing in any action affrighted him. In the year 1384, Clement VII., soon after he had nominated him bishop, created him cardinal, under the title of St. George, and in 1386 called him to Avignon, and obliged him to reside there near his person. Peter continued all his former austerities in the midst of a court, till Clement commanded him to mitigate them for the sake of his health, which seemed to be in a declining condition. His answer was: “Holy Father, I shall always be an unprofitable servant, but I can at least obey.” He desired to compensate for what he lost in the practices of penance by redoubling his alms-deeds. By his excessive charities his purse was always empty; his table was most frugal, his family very small, his furniture mean, and his clothes poor, and these he never changed till they were worn out. It seemed that he could not increase his alms, yet he found means to do it by distributing his little furniture and his equipage among the indigent, and selling for them the episcopal ring which he wore on his finger. Everything about him breathed an extraordinary spirit of poverty, and published his affection for the poor. At his death his whole treasure amounted only to twenty-pence. In all his actions he seemed attentive only to God; and he fell into raptures sometimes in the street, or whilst he waited on the pope at court. An ancient picture of the saint is kept in the collegiate church of our Lady at Autun, in which he is painted in an ecstasy, and in which are written these words which he was accustomed frequently to repeat: “Contempt of the world, contempt of thyself: rejoice in thy own contempt, but despise no other person.”

Ten months after his promotion to the dignity of cardinal, the saint was seized with a sharp fever, which so much undermined his constitution that his imperfect recovery was succeeded by a dangerous slow fever. For his health he was advised to retire to Villeneuve, an agreeable town situate opposite to Avignon, on the other side of the Rhone. He was glad by this opportunity to see himself removed from the noise and hurry of the court. During his last illness he went to confession twice every day; never passed a day without receiving the holy communion; and the constant union of his soul with God, and the tenderness of his devotion, seemed continually to increase as he drew near his end. His brother Andrew coming to see him, the saint spoke to him with such energy on the vanity of the world, and on the advantages of piety, that his words left a deep impression on his heart during his whole life. This brother afterward taking holy orders was made bishop of Cambray, and became one of the most holy prelates of that age. Our saint recommended to him in particular his sister Jane of Luxemburg, whom he had induced to make a vow of perpetual chastity, and whose whole life was a perfect pattern of Christian perfection. Saint Peter sent her by this brother a small treatise containing certain rules of perfection, which he had drawn up for her. Finding his strength quite exhausted, he desired and received the last sacraments; after which he called all his servants, and as they stood weeping round his bed, he begged their pardon for not having edified them by his example as he ought to have done. He then conjured them all to promise to do for his sake one thing which he was going to ask of them. To this they most readily engaged themselves. But they were much surprised when he ordered them to take a discipline which lay under his pillow, and every one to give him many stripes on his back, in punishment for the faults he had committed in regard to them, who were, as he said, his brethren in Christ and his masters. Notwithstanding their extreme unwillingness they were obliged to comply with his request in order to satisfy him. After this act of penance and humiliation, he conversed with God in silent prayer till he gave up his innocent soul into his hands, on the 2d of July, 1387, being eighteen years old, wanting eighteen days. Though he had the administration of a diocess, he had not received priestly orders, but seems to have been deacon, and his dalmatic is shown at Avignon. He was buried without pomp, according to his orders, in the church-yard of St. Michael.

On account of many miracles that were wrought both before and after his interment, the citizens of Avignon built a rich chapel over his grave. The convent and church of the Celestines have been since built over that very spot, and in this church is the saint’s body at present enshrined under a stately mausoleum. The history of the miracles which have been wrought at his tomb fills whole volumes. A famous one in 1432, moved the city of Avignon to choose him for its patron. It is related as follows: A child about twelve years old fell from a high tower in the palace of Avignon upon a sharp rock, by which fall his skull was split, his brains dashed out, and his body terribly bruised. The father of the child, almost distracted at this accident, ran to the place, and falling on his knees with many tears, implored the intercession of St. Peter. Then gathering up the scattered bloody pieces of the child’s skull, he carried them with the body in a sack, and laid them on the saint’s tomb. The people and the Celestine monks joined their earnest prayers; and after some time the child returned to life, and was placed upon the altar that all might see him thus wonderfully raised from the dead. This miracle happened on the 5th of July, on which day the festival of the saint has ever since been celebrated at Avignon. After juridical informations on his life and miracles, the bull of his beatification was published by the true pope Clement VII. of the family of Medicis, in 1527.

St. Peter was a saint from the cradle, because he always strove to live only for God, and his divine honor. If one spark of that ardent love of God which inflamed the saints in their actions animated our breasts, it would give wings to our souls in all we do. We should devote ourselves every moment to God with our whole strength; and by our fidelity, and by the purity and fervor of our intention, we should with the saints make all our actions perfect sacrifices of our hearts to him.“God considers not how much, but with how ardent an affection the thing is given,” says St. Cyprian.[49] And, as St. Ambrose writes,[50] “Thy affection stamps the name and value on thy action. It is just rated at so much as is the ardor from which it proceeds. See how just is this judge—He asks thy own soul what value he is to set on thy work.”

SAINT MODWENA, A NOBLE IRISH VIRGIN.

Having led a religious life several years in her own country, she came into England in the reign of king Ethelwolf, about the year 840. That pious and great king being acquainted with her sanctity, committed to her care the education of his daughter Editha, and founded for her the monastery of Pollesworth, near the forest of Arden in Warwickshire, which flourished till the dissolution, bearing usually the name of St. Editha, its patroness and second abbess. St. Modwena had before established two famous nunneries in Scotland, one at Stirling, the other in Edinburgh. She made some other pious foundations in England, but to apply herself more perfectly to the sanctification of her own soul, she led during seven years in anachoretical life in an isle in the Trent, which was called Andresey from the apostle St. Andrew, in whose honor she procured her oratory to be dedicated. When the great abbey of Burton-upon-Trent was founded in the year 1004, it was dedicated under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin and St. Modwena, and was enriched with the relics of this saint, which were translated thither from Andresey; whence Leland calls the monastery of Burton Modwenestow. See Pinius the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 241. Tanner’s Notitia Mon. &c.

SAINT EDANA, OR EDAENE, IN IRELAND, V.

She is titular saint of the parish of new Tuamia, in the diocess of Elphin, and another in that of Tuam. A famous holy well bears her name, much resorted to by the sick. See Colgan, ad 5 Jul.

JULY VI.

SAINT PALLADIUS, B. C.

APOSTLE OF THE SCOTS.[51]

From St. Prosper and other historians, quoted by Usher, Antiq. Brit. Eccles. c. 16, p. 416, 424; Keith. Cat. Episc. Scot. p. 233; and the Bollandists 6 Jul. t. 2, Jul. p. 286.

ABOUT THE YEAR 450.

The name of Palladius shows this saint to have been a Roman, and most authors agree that he was deacon of the church of Rome. At least St. Prosper in his chronicle informs us, that when Agricola, a noted Pelagian, had corrupted the churches of Britain with the insinuation of that pestilential heresy, pope Celestine, at the instance of Palladius the deacon, in 429, sent thither St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, in quality of his legate, who, having ejected the heretics, brought back the Britons to the Catholic faith. The concern of Palladius for these islands stopped not here; for it seems not to be doubted, but it was the same person of whom St. Prosper again speaks, when he afterwards says, that in 431 pope Celestine sent Palladius, the first bishop, to the Scots then believing in Christ.From the lives of SS. Albeus, Declan, Ibar, and Kiaran Saigir, Usher shows[52] that these four saints preached separately in different parts of Ireland, which was their native country before the mission of St. Patrick. St. Ibar had been converted to the faith in Britain; the other three had been instructed at Rome, and were directed thence back into their own country, and according to the histories of their lives, were all honored with the episcopal character. St. Kiaran Saigir (who is commemorated on the 5th of March) preceded St. Patrick in preaching the gospel to the Ossorians, and was seventy-five years of age on St. Patrick’s arrival in Ireland. Hence it is easy to understand what is said of St. Palladius, that he was sent bishop to the Scots believing in Christ: though the number of Christians among them must have been then very small.St. Prosper, in his book against the Author of the conferences,[53] having commended pope Celestine for his care in delivering Britain from the Pelagian heresy, adds, that “he also ordained a bishop for the Scots, and thus, whilst he endeavored to preserve the Roman island Catholic, he likewise made a barbarous island Christian.” Usher observes that this can be understood only of Ireland; for though part of North-Britain was never subject to the Romans, and the greatest part of it was then inhabited by the Picts, yet it never could be called a distinct island. It is also clear from Tertullian, Eusebius, St. Chrysostom, and others, that the light of the gospel had penetrated among the Picts beyond the Roman territories in Britain, near the times of the apostles. These people, therefore, who had lately begun to receive some tincture of the faith when our saint undertook his mission, were doubtless the Scots who were settled in Ireland.

The Irish writers of the lives of St. Patrick say, that Palladius had preached in Ireland a little before St. Patrick, but that he was soon banished by the king of Leinster, and returned to North Britain, where they tell us he had first opened his mission.It seems not to be doubted but he was sent to the whole nation of the Scots, several colonies of whom had passed from Ireland into North Britain, and possessed themselves of part of the country, since called Scotland.[54] After St. Palladius had left Ireland, he arrived among the Scots in North Britain, according to St. Prosper, in the consulate of Bassus and Antiochus, in the year of Christ 431.[55] He preached there with great zeal, and formed a considerable church. The Scottish historians tell us, that the faith was planted in North Britain about the year 200, in the time of king Donald, when Victor was pope of Rome.But they all acknowledge that Palladius was the first bishop in that country, and style him their first apostle.[56] The saint died at Fordun, the capital town of the little county of Mernis, fifteen miles from Aberdeen to the south, about the year 450.His relics were preserved with religious respect in the monastery of Fordun, as Hector Boetius[57] and Camden testify. In the year 1409, William Scenes, archbishop of St. Andrew’s and primate of Scotland, enclosed them in a new shrine enriched with gold and precious stones. His festival is marked on the 6th of July in the Breviary of Aberdeen and the Scottish Calendars; but in some of the English on the 15th of December. Scottish writers, and calendars of the middle ages, mention St. Servanus and St. Ternan as disciples of St. Palladius, and by him made bishops, the former of Orkney, the latter of the Picts. But from Usher’s chronology it appears that they both lived later.

It is easy to conceive how painful and laborious the mission of this saint must have been; but where there is ardent love, labor seems a pleasure, and either is not felt or is a delight. It is a mark of sloth and impatience for a man to count his labors, or so much as to think of pains or sufferings in so glorious an undertaking. St. Palladius surmounted every obstacle which a fierce nation had opposed to the establishment of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Ought not our hearts to be impressed with the most lively sentiments of love and gratitude to our merciful God, for having raised up such great and zealous men, by whose ministry the light of true faith has been conveyed to us.

ST. JULIAN, ANCHORET.

This saint was carried away captive from some Western country when he was very young, and sold for a slave in Syria. For some years he much aggravated the weight of his chains by his impatience under them; till having the happiness to receive the light of faith he found them exceedingly lightened by the comfort which religion afforded him. A right use of his afflictions from that moment contributed much to the sanctification of his soul. Not long after, he recovered his liberty by the death of his master, and immediately in the fervor of his devotion dedicated himself to the service of God in an austere monastery in Mesopotamia. He frequently resorted to the great St. Ephrem for advice and instructions in the exercises of virtue; and that holy man went often to see him, that he might edify himself by his saintly conversation. This learned doctor of the Syriac church tells us, that he could not forbear always admiring the sublime sentiments and spiritual lights with which God favored a man who appeared in the eyes of the world ignorant and a barbarian. Julian was of a robust body, inured to labor, but he weakened and emaciated it by great austerities. He worked with his hands, making sails for ships; and wept almost continually at the consideration of his past sins, and of the divine judgments. St. Ephrem tells us that he often admired to find that in the copies of the holy Bible after Julian had used them some days, several words were effaced, and others rendered scarcely legible, though the manuscripts were entire and fair before; and that the holy man candidly confessed to him when he one day asked him the reason, that the tears which he shed in reading often blotted out letters and words. Our saint always looked upon himself as a criminal, trembling, and expecting every moment the coming of his judge to call him to an account. It is easy to imagine how remote such a disposition of mind was from being capable of entertaining the very thought of amusements. His extreme humility appeared in his words, dress, and all his actions. He had much to suffer from certain tepid and slothful monks, but regarded himself as happy to meet with so favorable opportunities of redeeming his sins, and of exercising acts of penance, patience, meekness, and charity. Prayer was almost the uninterrupted employment of his heart. He made in his little cell a kind of a sepulchre, where he lived retired for greater solitude whenever his presence was not required at duties of the community. He assisted at the divine office without ever moving his body, keeping his whole attention fixed on God, as if he had been standing before the tribunal of his sovereign judge. Saint Ephrem assures us that God honored him with the gift of miracles.Sozomen writes[58] that his life was so austere, that he seemed almost to live without a body. Thus he spent twenty-five years in his monastery, purifying his soul by patience, obedience, and the labors of penance. He passed to a glorious immortality about the year 370. See his life written by his friend St. Ephrem, Op. t. 3, p. 254, ed. Vatic.

ST. SEXBURGH, ABBESS.

She was daughter of Anna the religious king of the East-Angles, and his devout queen Hereswide, sister to St. Hilda. A pious education laid in her the foundation of that eminent sanctity for which she was most conspicuous during the whole course of her life. She was given in marriage to Ercombert, king of Kent, a prince of excellent dispositions, which she contributed exceedingly to improve by her counsels and example. She had a great share in all his zealous undertakings for promoting virtue and the happiness of his people, especially in extirpating the last remains of idolatry in his dominions, and in enforcing the observance of Lent, and other precepts of the Church, by wholesome laws. Her virtue commanded the reverence, and her humility and devotion raised the admiration of all her subjects; and her goodness and unbounded charity gained her the love of all, especially the poor. She had a longing desire to consecrate herself wholly to God in religious retirement, and that others at least might attend the divine service for her night and day without impediment, she began in her husband’s lifetime to found a monastery of holy virgins in the isle of Sheppey, on the coast of Kent, which she finished after his death in 664, whilst her son Egbert sat on the throne. Here she assembled seventy-four nuns, but hearing of the great sanctity of St. Etheldreda at Ely, and being desirous to live in greater obscurity, and to be more at liberty to employ all her thoughts on heaven, she left the kingdom of Kent, and retired to Ely before the year 679, in which she was chosen to succeed her sister St. Etheldreda, or Audry, in the government of that house. Sixteen years after she caused the body of that saint to be taken up, and passed herself to bliss in a good old age, on the 6th of July, toward the end of the seventh century. Her monastery in Sheppey, called Le Mynstre in Sheppey, was destroyed by the Danes, but rebuilt in 1130, and consecrated by William, archbishop of Canterbury, in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Sexburgh; and it subsisted in the hands of Benedictin nuns till the dissolution of abbeys. St. Ermenilda, daughter of king Ercombert and St. Sexburgh, was married to Wulpher, king of Mercia, but after his death retired to Ely, near her mother and her two aunts St. Audry and St. Withburg, three daughters of king Anna. St. Wereburgh, daughter of St. Ermenilda and king Wulpher, was a nun at Hearburgh (which seems to have been near Stanford or Croyland). Her relics were venerated at Hearburgh, till in the ninth century they were removed to Leicester. See the life of St. Sexburgh in Capgrave; also Bede and Narratio de Sanctis qui in Anglia quiescunt, in Hickes, Diss. Epistol. p. 117. Thesaur. t. 1, and Monast. Anglic. t. 1, p. 88, et 152. Weever’s Funeral Monuments, p. 283, and Kalendarium in quo annotantur dies obitûs Sororum Monasterii de Sheppey. MS. Bibliot. Cotton.

ST. GOAR, PRIEST, C.

Aquitain gave this saint his birth and education; but out of a desire of serving God entirely unknown to the world, in 519 he travelled into Germany, and settling in the territory of Triers, he shut himself in his cell, and arrived at such an eminent degree of sanctity as to be esteemed the oracle and miracle of the whole country. He resolutely refused the archbishopric of Triers, and died in 575. Round his cell arose the town of St. Guver, on the left bank of the Rhine between Wesel and Boppard. See Brower and Pinius the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 328.

ST. MONINNA, VIRGIN.

Of Sliabh-Cuillin, i. e. Mount Cullen, where she led a most holy life in austere penance and heavenly contemplation. She died in 518, and is much honored in that part of Ireland. See Colgan ad 6 Jul.

JULY VII.

ST. PANTÆNUS.

FATHER OF THE CHURCH.

See St. Jerom, Catal. Clem. Alex. and Eusebius. Also Ceillier, t. 2, p. 237.

This learned father and apostolic man flourished in the second age. He was by birth a Sicilian, by profession a stoic philosopher. For his eloquence he is styled by St. Clement of Alexandria the Sicilian Bee. His esteem for virtue led him into an acquaintance with the Christians, and being charmed with the innocence and sanctity of their conversation he opened his eyes to the truth. He studied the holy scriptures under the disciples of the apostles, and his thirst after sacred learning brought him to Alexandria in Egypt, where the disciples of St. Mark had instituted a celebrated school of the Christian doctrine. Pantænus sought not to display his talents in that great mart of literature and commerce; but his great progress in sacred learning was after some time discovered, and he was drawn out of that obscurity in which his humility sought to live buried. Being placed at the head of the Christian school some time before the year 179, which was the first of Commodus, by his learning and excellent manner of teaching he raised its reputation above all the schools of the philosophers, and the lessons which he read, and which were gathered from the flowers of the prophets and apostles, conveyed light and knowledge into the minds of all his hearers, as St. Clement of Alexandria, his eminent scholar, says of him. The Indians who traded to Alexandria, entreated him to pay their country a visit, in order to confute their Brachmans. Hereupon he forsook his school, and was established by Demetrius, who was made bishop of Alexandria in 189, preacher of the gospel to the Eastern nations. Eusebius tells us that St. Pantænus found some seeds of the faith already sown in the Indies, and a book of the gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew, which St. Bartholomew had carried thither. He brought it back with him to Alexandria, whither he returned after he had zealously employed some years in instructing the Indians in the faith.The public school was at that time governed by St. Clement, but St. Pantænus continued to teach in private till in the reign of Caracalla, consequently before the year 216, he closed a noble and excellent life by a happy death, as Rufinus writes.[59] His name is inserted in all Western Martyrologies on the 7th of July.

The beauty of the Christian morality, and the sanctity of its faithful professors, which by their charms converted this true philosopher, appear nowhere to greater advantage than when they are compared with the imperfect and often false virtue of the most famous sages of the heathen world.[60] Into what contradictions and gross errors did they fall, even about the divinity itself and the sovereign good! To how many vices did they give the name of virtues! How many crimes did they canonize! It is true they showed indeed a zeal for justice, a contempt of riches and pleasures, moderation in prosperity, patience in adversities, generosity, courage, and disinterestedness. But these were rather shadows and phantoms than real virtues, if they sprang from a principle of vanity and pride, or were infected with the poison of interestedness or any other vitiated intention, which they often betrayed, nay, sometimes openly avowed, and made a subject of their vain boasts.

SAINT WILLIBALD, BISHOP OF AICHSTADT, C.

He was son of the holy king St. Richard, and was born about the year 704 in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, about the place where Southampton now stands. When he was three years old his life was despaired of in a violent sickness; but when all natural remedies proved unsuccessful, his parents carried him and laid him at the foot of a great cross which was erected in a public place near their house, according to the custom in Catholic countries to this day. There they poured forth their prayers with great fervor, and made a promise to God that in case the child recovered they would consecrate him to the divine service. God accepted their pious offering, and the child was immediately restored to his health. St. Richard kept the child two years longer at home, but only regarded him as a sacred depositum committed to him by God; and when he was five years old placed him under the abbot Egbald, and other holy tutors in the monastery of Waltheim. The young saint, from the first use of his reason, in all his thoughts and actions seemed to aspire only to heaven, and his heart seemed full only of God and his holy love. He left this monastery about the year 721, when he was seventeen years old, and his brother Winibald nineteen, to accompany his father and brother in a pilgrimage of devotion to the tombs of the apostles at Rome, and to the Holy Land. They visited many churches in France on their road; but St. Richard died at Lucca, where his relics are still venerated in the church of St. Fridian, and he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 7th of February. The two sons went on to Rome, and there took the monastic habit.

Above two years after this, Winibald having been obliged to return to England, St. Willibald with two or three young Englishmen set out to visit the holy places which Christ had sanctified by his sacred presence on earth. They added most severe mortifications to the incredible fatigues of their journey, living only on bread and water, and at land using no other bed than the bare ground. They sailed first to Cyprus and thence into Syria. At Emesa St. Willibald was taken by the Saracens for a spy, was loaded with irons, and suffered much in severe confinement for several months, till certain persons who were charmed with his wonderful virtue, and moved with compassion for his disaster, satisfied the caliph of his innocence, and procured his enlargement. The holy pilgrims expressed their gratitude to their benefactors, and pursued their journey to the holy places. They resolved in visiting them to follow our Divine Redeemer in the course of his mortal life; and therefore they began their devotions at Nazareth. Our saint passed there some days with his companions in the continual contemplation of the infinite mercies of God in the great mystery of the incarnation; and the sight of the place in which it was wrought drew from his eyes streams of devout tears during all the time of his stay in that town. From Nazareth he went to Bethlehem, and thence into Egypt, making no account of the fatigues and hardships of his journey, and assiduously meditating on what our Blessed Redeemer had suffered in the same. He returned to Nazareth, and thence travelled to Cana, Capharnaum, and Jerusalem. In this last place he made a long stay to satisfy his fervor in adoring Christ in the places where he wrought so many great mysteries, particularly on the mountains of Calvary and Olivet, the theatres of his sacred death and ascension. He likewise visited all the famous monasteries, lauras, and hermitages in that country, with an ardent desire of learning and imitating all the most perfect practices of virtue, and whatever might seem most conducive to the sanctification of his soul. The tender and lively sentiments of devotion with which his fervent contemplation on the holy mysteries of our redemption inspired him at the sight of all those sacred places, filled his devout soul with heavenly consolations, and made on it strong and lasting impressions. In his return a severe sickness at Acon exercised his patience and resignation. After seven years employed in this pilgrimage he arrived safe with his companions in Italy.

The celebrated monastery of Mount Cassino having been lately repaired by pope Gregory II. the saint chose that house for his residence, and his fervent example contributed very much to settle in it the primitive spirit of its holy institute during the ten years that he lived there. He was first appointed sacristan, afterward dean or superior over ten monks, and during the last eight years porter, which was an office of great trust and importance, and required a rooted habit of virtue which might suffer no abatement by external employs and frequent commerce with seculars. It happened that in 738 St. Boniface coming to Rome begged of pope Gregory III. that Willibald, who was his cousin, might be sent to assist him in his missions in Germany. The pope desired to see the monk, and was much delighted with the history of his travels, and edified with his virtue. In the close of their conversation he acquainted him of bishop Boniface’s request. Willibald desired to go back at least to obtain the leave and blessing of his abbot; but the pope told him his order sufficed, and commanded him to go without more ado into Germany. The saint replied that he was ready to go wheresoever his holiness should think fit. Accordingly he set out for Thuringia where St. Boniface then was, by whom he was ordained priest. His labors in the country about Aichstadt, in Franconia and Bavaria, were crowned with incredible success, and he was no less powerful in words than in works.

In 746 he was consecrated by St. Boniface bishop of Aichstadt. This dignity gave his humility much to suffer, but it exceedingly excited his zeal. The cultivation of so rough a vineyard was a laborious and painful task; but his heroic patience and invincible meekness overcame all difficulties. His charity was most tender and compassionate, and he had a singular talent in comforting the afflicted. He founded a monastery which resembled in discipline that of Mount Cassino, to which he often retired. But his love of solitude diminished not his pastoral solicitude for his flock. He was attentive to all their spiritual necessities, he visited often every part of his charge, and instructed all his people with indefatigable zeal and charity. His fasts were most austere, nor did he allow himself any indulgence in them or in his labors on account of his great age, till his strength was entirely exhausted. Having labored almost forty-five years in regulating and sanctifying his diocess, he died at Aichstadt on the 7th of June, 790, being eighty-seven years old. He was honored with miracles, and buried in his own cathedral. Pope Leo VII. canonized him in 938. In 1270 the bishop Hildebrand built a church in his honor, into which his relics were translated, and are honorably preserved to this day; but a portion is honored at Furnes in Flanders. See the three lives of St. Willibald written by contemporary authors, especially that by a nun of his sister St. Walburga’s monastery. She gives from the saint’s own relation a curious and useful description of the Holy Land, as it stood in that age; which is rendered more curious by the notes of Mabillon, and those of Basnage in his edition of Canisius’s Lect. Antiquæ. On St. Willibald, see Solier the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 485.

ST. HEDDA, B. C.

He was an English Saxon, a monk of the monastery of St. Hilda, and was made bishop of the West-Saxons in 676. He resided first at Dorchester near Oxford, but afterward removed his see to Winchester.King Ceadwal going to Rome to be baptized died there, and was buried in the church of St. Peter in 688. His kinsman Ina succeeded him in the throne.[61] In his wise and wholesome laws, the most ancient extant among those of our English Saxon kings, enacted by him in a great council of bishops and ealdermen in 693, he declares that in drawing them up he had been assisted by the counsels of St. Hedda and St. Erconwald.[62] In these laws theft is ordained to be punished with cutting off a hand or a foot; robbery on the highway, committed by a band not under seven in number, with death, unless the criminal redeem his life according to the estimation of his head. Church dues are ordered to be paid under a penalty of forty shillings; and if any master order a servant to do any work on a Sunday, the servant is made free and the master amerced thirty shillings.St. Hedda governed his church with great sanctity about thirty years, and departed to the Lord on the 7th of July, 705. Bede[63] and William of Malmesbury assure us, that his tomb was illustrated by many miracles. His name is placed in the Roman Martyrology. See Solier the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 482.

ST. EDELBURGA, V.

She was daughter to Anna king of the East Angles, and out of a desire of attaining to Christian perfection, went into France, and there consecrated herself to God in the monastery of Faremoutier, in the forest of Brie, in the government of which she succeeded its foundress St. Fara.After her death her body remained uncorrupt, as Bede testifies.[64] She is honored in the Roman, French, and English Martyrologies on this day.[65] In these latter her niece St. Earcongota is named with her. She was daughter to Earconbercht king of Kent, and of St. Sexburga; accompanied St. Edelburga to Faremoutier, and there taking the veil with her, lived a great example of all virtues, and was honored after her happy death by many miracles, as Bede relates. Hereswide, the wife of king Anna, the mother of many saints, after the death of her husband, retired also into France, and consecrated herself to God in the famous monastery of Cale or Chelles, five leagues from Paris, near the marne (founded by St. Clotilda, but chiefly endowed by St. Bathildes), where she persevered, advancing daily in holy fervor to her happy death. See the history of the monastery of Chelles in the sixth tome of the late history of the diocess of Paris, by Abbé Lebeuf, and Solier on this day, p. 481, &c.

ST. FELIX, BISHOP OF NANTES, C.

The most illustrious among the bishops of Nantes was saint Felix, a person of the first rank in Aquitain, some say of Bourges in the First Aquitain; others more probably think of the Second Aquitain on the sea-coast and nearer Brittany. In the world he was more illustrious by his virtue, his eloquence, and learning, than by his dignities and high birth. The Greek language was as familiar to him as his own; he was a poet and orator, and seems from Fortunatus’s expression to have written a panegyric on the queen St. Radegundes in verse. He had been married when he was called to succeed Evemer, the holy bishop of Nantes, toward the close of the year 549, in the 37th year of his age. His zeal for discipline and good order appeared in the regulations he made for his own diocess, and in the decrees of the third council of Paris in 557, in the second of Tours in 566, and the fourth of Paris in 573. His charity to the poor had no other bounds but those of their necessities, and considering that the revenues of the Church were the patrimony of the poor, he reserved to himself only the prudent and troublesome administration of them for their use. He sold for them and the Church his own patrimony, and made it his study and earnest endeavor that no one in his diocess should pass unrelieved in distress. His predecessor had formed a project of building a cathedral within the walls of the city of Nantes, which Felix executed in the most magnificent manner. Fortunatus describes it to have been composed of three naves, of which the middle was supported by great pillars. A great cupola was raised in the middle. The church was covered with tin, and within was only azure, gold, mosaic, paintings, pilasters, foliages, various figures, and other ornaments. Euphronius archbishop of Tours, and the bishops of Angers, Mans, Rennes, Poitiers, and Angouleme performed the dedication; no bishop of the Britons was invited to the ceremony; for which it appears that their commerce with the French was not entirely free. The Britons were then possessed of no lands in the diocess of Nantes except the territory of Croisic, in which was the palace of Aula Quiriaca or Guerrande, vulgarly Warand, probably so called from Guerech I. the British count of Vannes, who resided there. Canao, one of his successors, when Felix was made bishop, had put to death three of his brothers, and held a fourth named Macliau in prison. St. Felix by his intercession saved his life, and obtained his liberty. St. Gregory of Tours complains that bishop Felix had been prepossessed by false informations against Peter, Gregory’s brother, and accused him of favoring an unworthy nephew; but in other places bears testimony to his eminent sanctity, which is much extolled by Fortunatus and others. Guerech II. count of Vannes, plundered the diocesses of Rennes and Vannes, and repulsed the troops which king Chilperic sent against him; but, at the entreaties of St. Felix, withdrew his forces, and made peace. The holy prelate died on the 8th of January in 584, the seventieth year of his age, of his episcopal dignity thirty-three.

He is honored at Nantes, of which he was the sixteenth bishop from St. Clair, on the 7th of July, the day of the translation of his relics. See Fortunatus, l. 3, c. 4, 5, 6, 7. St. Gregory of Tours, l. 5, c. 5. Ceillier, t. 16, p. 562. M. Travers, Histoire abrégée des Evêques de Nantes, tome 7, part 2, des Mémoires de Littérature recueillis par P. Desmolets de l’Oratoire. Stilting the Bollandist, t. 2, Jul. p. 470. Lobineau, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, p. 121.

ST. BENEDICT XI. POPE, C.

His family name was Nicholas Bocasini. He was a native of Treviso, which city was then an independent commonwealth, but since the year 1336 is subject to that of Venice. He was born in 1240, and studied first at Treviso, and afterwards at Venice, where, at fourteen years of age, he took the habit of St. Dominick. He seemed desirous to set no bounds to his fervor and fidelity in the practice of every means of improving his soul daily in virtue: and, during fourteen years, enriched his mind with an uncommon store of sacred learning. After this term he was appointed professor and preacher at Venice and Bologna, and with incredible fruit communicated to others those spiritual riches which he had treasured up in silence and retirement, being always careful by the same means to preserve and increase his own stock. He wrote several sermons and comments on the holy scripture, which are still extant.He was chosen provincial of Lombardy, and, in 1296, the ninth general of his Order. On that occasion, by a pathetic circular letter,[66] he exhorted his brethren to a love of poverty, humility, retirement, prayer, charity, and obedience. In 1297 he was sent by Boniface VIII. nuncio into France, to be the mediator of peace between that nation and the English; and was created cardinal during his residence there in 1298. Nothing but the strict command of his Holiness could have obliged him to accept that dignity, which cost him many tears. He was made soon after bishop of Ostia, and dean of the sacred college; and in 1301 went legate a latere into Hungary, to endeavor to compose the differences which divided that nation into factions, and had already laid it waste by a dreadful civil war; in which cardinal Boncasini succeeded to a miracle. He also abolished in that country several superstitious practices, and other abuses and scandals. He afterward exerted his zeal in Austria and at Venice, being successively legate in both those places.

Boniface VIII. dying on the 11th of October, 1303, the cardinals entered the conclave on the 21st of the same month, and on the day following unanimously chose our saint pope. He was seized with trembling at the news; but being compelled to acquiesce, was crowned on the following Sunday. He continued his former practices of humility, mortification, and penance. When his mother came to his court in rich attire, he refused to see her till she had put on again her former mean apparel. Rome was at that time torn by civil divisions, especially by the factions of the Colonnas against the late pope, but the moderation, meekness, and prudence of our saint soon restored the whole country to perfect tranquillity. He pardoned the Colonnas and other rebels, Sciarra Colonna and William of Nogaret excepted, who remained under the former sentence of proscription. He pacified Denmark, and other kingdoms of the North, and appeased the State and Church of France. He reconciled the cities of Venice and Padua without effusion of blood. He joined his zealous endeavors with Helena, queen of Servia, in the conversion of her son Orosius. This good pope died the martyr of peace, to make which reign over the whole Christian world he seemed only to have lived. Having sat only eight months and seventeen days, he departed this life at Perugia, on the 6th of July, in the year of our Lord, 1304, of his age sixty-three. Some say he died of poison secretly given him by the contrivance of certain wicked men who were enemies to the public tranquillity. He was honored by miracles, examined and approved by the bishop of Perugia, and attested by Platina and other historians. See Conc. t. 10, also his life collected by Pagi, in his Annals, and in an express work by the late learned Dominican, F. Peter Thomas Campana; and Vie de S. Benoit XI. ou Caractère de la Sainteté du B. Benoit XI. à Toulouse, 1739. See also F. Touron, Hommes Illustres, t. 1, l. 7, p. 655, and Benedict XIV. de Canoniz, t. 4, Append. and in his new Roman Martyrology on the 7th of July.

JULY VIII.

SAINT ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF PORTUGAL.

From her Authentic Life, written by a Franciscan friar; Mariana, and other Spanish historians. See Janning the Bollandist, Julij, t. 2, ad diem 4, p. 169.

A. D. 1336.

St. Elizabeth was daughter of Peter III. king of Arragon, and grand-daughter of James I. who had been educated under the care of St. Peter Nolasco, and was surnamed the Saint, and from the taking of Majorca and Valentia, Expugnator or the Conqueror. Her mother, Constantia, was daughter of Manfred king of Sicily, and grandchild to the Emperor Frederic II. Our saint was born in 1271, and received at the baptismal font by the name of Elizabeth, from her aunt, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who had been canonized by Gregory IX. in 1235. Her birth established a good understanding between her grandfather James, who was then on the throne, and her father, whose quarrel had divided the whole kingdom. The former took upon himself the care of her education, inspired her with an ardor for piety above her age, though he died in 1276 (having reigned sixty-three years), before she had completed the sixth year of her age.

Her father succeeded to the crown, and was careful to place most virtuous persons about his daughter, whose example might be to her a constant spur to all virtue. The young princess was of a most sweet and mild disposition, and from her tender years had no relish for anything but what was conducive to piety and devotion. It was doing her the most sensible pleasure if any one promised to lead her to some chapel to say a prayer. At eight years of age she began to fast on vigils, and to practise great self-denials; nor could she bear to hear the tenderness of her years and constitution alleged as a reason that she ought not to fast or macerate her tender body. Her fervor made her eagerly to desire that she might have a share in every exercise of virtue which she saw practised by others, and she had been already taught that the frequent mortification of the senses, and still more of the will, is to be joined with prayer to obtain the grace which restrains the passions, and prevents their revolt. How little is this most important maxim considered by those parents who excite and fortify the passions of children, by teaching them a love of vanities, and indulging them in gratifications of sense! If rigorous fasts suit not their tender age, a submission of the will, perfect obedience, and humble modesty, are in no time of life more indispensably to be inculcated; nor is any abstinence more necessary than that by which children are taught never to drink or eat out of meals, to bear several little denials in them without uneasiness, and never eagerly to crave anything. The easy and happy victory of Elizabeth over herself was owing to this early and perfect temperance, submissiveness, and sincere humility. Esteeming virtue her only advantage and delight, she abhorred romances and idle entertainments, shunned the usual amusements of children, and was an enemy to all the vanities of the world. She could bear no other songs than sacred hymns and psalms; and from her childhood said every day the whole office of the breviary, in which no priest could be more scrupulously exact. Her tenderness and compassion for the poor made her, even in that tender age, to be styled their mother.

At twelve years of age she was given in marriage to Dionysius, king of Portugal. That prince had considered in her, birth, beauty, riches, and sprightliness of genius, more than virtue; yet he allowed her an entire liberty in her devotions, and exceedingly esteemed and admired her extraordinary piety. She found no temptation to pride in the dazzling splendor of a crown, and could say with Esther, that her heart never found any delight in the glory, riches, and grandeur with which she was surrounded. She was sensible that regularity in our actions is necessary to virtue, this being in itself most agreeable to God, who shows in all his works how much he is the lover of order; also a prudent distribution of time fixes the fickleness of the human mind, hinders frequent omissions of pious exercises, and is a means to prevent our being ever idle and being governed by humor and caprice in what we do, by which motives a disguised self-love easily insinuates itself into our ordinary actions. Our saint therefore planned for herself a regular distribution of her whole time, and of her religious exercises, which she never interrupted, unless extraordinary occasions of duty or charity obliged her to change the order of her daily practices. She rose very early every morning, and after a long morning exercise, and a pious meditation, she recited matins, lauds and prime of the Church office. Then she heard mass, at which she communicated frequently every week. She said every day also the little office of our Lady, and that of the dead: and in the afternoon had other regular devotions after even-song or vespers. She retired often into her oratory to her pious books, and allotted certain hours to attend her domestic affairs, public business, or what she owed to others. All her spare time she employed in pious reading, or in working for the altar, or the poor, and she made her ladies of honor do the like. She found no time to spend in vain sports and recreations, or in idle discourse or entertainments. She was most abstemious in her diet, mean in her attire, humble, meek, and affable in conversation, and wholly bent upon the service of God in all her actions. Admirable was her spirit of compunction, and of holy prayer; and she poured forth her heart before God with most feeling sentiments of divine love, and often watered her cheeks and the very ground with abundant tears of sweet devotion. Frequent attempts were made to prevail with her to moderate her austerities, but she always answered that if Christ assures us that his spirit cannot find place in a life of softness and pleasure, mortification is nowhere more necessary than on the throne, where the passions find more dangerous incentives. She fasted three days a week, many vigils besides those prescribed by the Church; all Advent; a Lent of devotion, from the feast of St. John Baptist to the feast of the Assumption; and soon after this she began another Lent, which she continued to St. Michael’s day. On all Fridays and Saturdays, on the eves of all festivals of the Blessed Virgin and the apostles, and on many other days, her fast was on bread and water. She often visited churches and places of devotion on foot.

Charity to the poor was a distinguishing part of her character. She gave constant orders to have all pilgrims and poor strangers provided for with lodging and necessaries. She made it her business to seek out and secretly relieve persons of good condition who were reduced to necessity, yet out of shame durst not make known their wants. She was very liberal in furnishing fortunes to poor young women, that they might marry according to their condition, and not be exposed to the danger of losing their virtue. She visited the sick, served them, and dressed and kissed their most loathsome sores. She founded in different parts of the kingdom many pious establishments, particularly an hospital near her own palace at Coïmbra, a house for penitent women who had been seduced into evil courses, at Torres-Novas, and an hospital for foundlings, or those children who, for want of due provision, are exposed to the danger of perishing by poverty, or the neglect and cruelty of unnatural parents. She was utterly regardless of her own conveniences, and so attentive to the poor and afflicted persons of the whole kingdom, that she seemed almost wholly to belong to them; not that she neglected any other duties which she owed to her neighbor, for she made it her principal study to pay to her husband the most dutiful respect, love, and obedience, and bore his injuries with invincible meekness and patience. Though king Dionysius was a friend of justice, and a valiant, bountiful, and compassionate prince, yet he was, in his youth, a worldly man, and defiled the sanctity of the nuptial state with abominable lusts. The good queen used all her endeavors to reclaim him, grieving most sensibly for the offence of God, and the scandal given to the people; and she never ceased to weep herself, and to procure the prayers of others for his conversion. She strove to gain him only by courtesy, and with constant sweetness and cheerfulness cherished his natural children, and took great care of their education. By these means she softened the heart of the king, who, by the succor of a powerful grace, rose out of the filthy puddle in which he had wallowed for a long time, and kept ever after the fidelity that was due to his virtuous consort. He instituted the order of Christ in 1318; founded, with a truly royal magnificence, the university of Coïmbra, and adorned his kingdom with public buildings. His extraordinary virtues, particularly his liberality, justice, and constancy, are highly extolled by the Portuguese, and after his entire conversion, he was the idol and glory of his people. A little time before his perfect conversion there happened an extraordinary accident. The queen had a very pious, faithful page, whom she employed in the distribution of her secret alms. A wicked fellow-page envying him on account of this favor, to which his virtue and services entitled him, treacherously suggested to his majesty that the queen showed a fondness for that page. The prince, who by his own sensual heart was easily inclined to judge ill of others, gave credit to the slander, and resolved to take away the life of the innocent youth. For this purpose he gave order to a lime-burner, that if on such a day he sent to him a page with this errand to inquire, “Whether he had fulfilled the king’s commands?” he should take him and cast him into the lime-kiln, there to be burnt; for that death he had justly incurred, and the execution was expedient for the king’s service. On the day appointed he despatched the page with this message to the lime-kiln; but the devout youth on the road passing by a church, heard the bell ring at the elevation at mass, went in and prayed there devoutly; for it was his pious custom, if he ever heard the sign given by the bell for the elevation, always to go thither, and not depart till mass was ended. It happened, on that occasion, that as the first was not a whole mass, and it was with him a constant rule to hear mass every day, he stayed in the church, and heard successively two other masses. In the meantime, the king, who was impatient to know if his orders had been executed, sent the informer to the lime-kiln, to inquire whether his commands had been obeyed; but as soon as he was come to the kiln, and had asked the question, the man, supposing him to be the messenger meant by the king’s order, seized him, and threw him into the burning lime, where he was soon consumed. Thus was the innocent protected by his devotion, and the slanderer was overtaken by divine justice. The page who had heard the masses went afterward to the lime-kiln, and having asked whether his majesty’s commands had been yet executed, brought him back word that they were. The king was almost out of himself with surprise when he saw him come back with this message, and being soon informed of the particulars, he easily discovered the innocence of the pious youth, adored the divine judgments, and ever after respected the great virtue and sanctity of his queen.

St. Elizabeth had by the king two children, Alphonsus, who afterward succeeded his father, and Constantia, who was married to Ferdinand IV., king of Castille. This son, when grown up, married the infanta of Castille, and soon after revolting against his own father, put himself at the head of an army of malecontents. St. Elizabeth had recourse to weeping, prayer, fasting, and almsdeeds, and exhorted her son in the strongest terms to return to his duty, conjuring her husband at the same time to forgive him. Pope John XXII. wrote to her, commending her religious and prudent conduct; but certain court flatterers whispering to the king that she was suspected of favoring her son, he, whom jealousy made credulous, banished her to the city of Alanquer. The queen received this disgrace with admirable patience and peace of mind, and made use of the opportunity which her retirement afforded, to redouble her austerities and devotions. She never would entertain any correspondence with the malecontents, nor listen to any suggestions from them. The king himself admired her goodness, meekness, and humility under her disgrace; and shortly after called her back to court, and showed her greater love and respect than ever. In all her troubles she committed herself to the sweet disposal of divine providence, considering that she was always under the protection of God, her merciful father.

Being herself of the most sweet and peaceable disposition, she was always most active and industrious in composing all differences between neighbors, especially in averting war, with the train of all the most terrible evils which attend it. She reconciled her husband and son, when their armies were marching one against the other; and she reduced all the subjects to duty and obedience. She made peace between Ferdinand IV., king of Castille, and Alphonsus de la Cerda, his cousin-german, who disputed the crown: likewise between James II., king of Arragon, her own brother, and Ferdinand IV., the king of Castille, her son-in-law. In order to effect this last she took a journey with her husband into both those kingdoms, and to the great satisfaction of the Christian world, put a happy period to all dissensions and debates between those states. After this charitable work, king Dionysius, having reigned forty-five years, fell sick. St. Elizabeth gave him most signal testimonies of her love and affection, scarce ever leaving his chamber during his illness, unless to go to the church, and taking infinite pains to serve and attend him. But her main care and solicitude was to secure his eternal happiness, and to procure that he might depart this life in sentiments of perfect repentance and piety. For this purpose she gave bountiful alms, and caused many prayers and masses to be said. During his long and tedious illness he gave great marks of sincere compunction, and died at Santaren, on the 6th of January, 1325. As soon as he had expired, the queen retired into her oratory, commended his soul to God, and consecrating herself to the divine service, put on the habit of the third Order of Saint Francis. She attended the funeral procession, with her husband’s corpse, to Odiveras, where he had chosen his burying-place in a famous church of Cistercian monks. After a considerable stay there, she made a pilgrimage to Compostella, and returning to Odiveras, celebrated there her husband’s anniversary with great solemnity; after which she retired to a convent of Clares, which she had begun to rebuild before the death of her husband. She was desirous to make her religious profession, but was diverted from that design for some time upon a motive of charity, that she might continue to support an infinity of poor people by her alms and protection. She therefore contented herself at first with wearing the habit of the third Order, living in a house which she built contiguous to her great nunnery, in which she assembled ninety devout nuns. She often visited them, and sometimes served them at table, having for her companion in this practice of charity and humility her daughter-in-law, Beatrix, the queen then reigning.However, by authentic historical proofs it is evinced that before her death she made her religious profession in the aforesaid third Order, as pope Urban VIII., after mature discussion of those monuments, has declared.[67]

A war being lighted up between her son Alphonsus IV., surnamed the brave, king of Portugal, and her grandson, Alphonsus XI., king of Castille, and armies being set on foot, she was startled at the news, and resolved to set out to reconcile them, and extinguish the fire that was kindling. Her servants endeavored to persuade her to defer her journey, on account of the excessive heats, but she made answer that she could not better expend her health and her life than by seeking to prevent the miseries and calamities of a war. The very news of her journey disposed both parties to peace. She went to Estremoz, upon the frontiers of Portugal and Castille, where her son was; but she arrived ill of a violent fever, which she looked upon as a messenger sent by God to warn her that the time was at hand wherein he called her to himself. She strongly exhorted her son to the love of peace and to a holy life; she confessed several times, received the holy viaticum on her knees at the foot of the altar, and shortly after extreme unction; from which time she continued in fervent prayer, often invoking the Blessed Virgin, and repeating these words: “Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy, defend us from the wicked enemy, and receive us at the hour of our death.” She appeared overflowing with heavenly joy, and with those consolations of the Holy Ghost which make death so sweet to the saints; and in the presence of her son, the king, and of her daughter-in-law, she gave up her happy soul to God on the 4th of July, in the year 1336, of her age sixty-five. She was buried with royal pomp in the church of her monastery of poor Clares, at Coïmbra, and honored by miracles. Leo X. and Paul IV. granted an office on her festival; and in 1612 her body was taken up and found entire. It is now richly enshrined in a magnificent chapel, built on purpose. She was canonized by Urban VIII. in 1625, and the 8th of July appointed for her festival.

The characteristical virtue of St. Elizabeth was a love of peace. Christ, the prince of peace, declares his spirit to be the spirit of humility and meekness; consequently the spirit of peace. Variance, wrath, and strife, are the works of the flesh, of envy, and pride, which he condemns, and which exclude from the kingdom of heaven. Bitterness and contention shut out reason, make the soul deaf to the motives of religion, and open the understanding to nothing but what is sinful. To find the way of peace we must be meek and patient, even under the most violent provocations; we must never resent any wrong, nor return railing for railing, but good for evil; we must regard passion as the worst of monsters, and must judge it as unreasonable to hearken to its suggestions as to choose a madman for our counsellor in matters of concern and difficulty; above all, we must abhor it not only as a sin, but as leading to a numberless variety of other grievous sins and spiritual evils. Blessed are the peacemakers, and all who love and cultivate this virtue among men, they shall be called the children of God, whose badge and image they bear.

ST. PROCOPIUS, M.

He was a native of Jerusalem, but lived at Bethsan, otherwise called Scythopolis, where he was reader in the church, and also performed the function of exorcist, and dispossessing demoniacs, and that of interpreter of the Greek tongue into the Syro-Chaldaic.[68] He was a divine man, say his acts, and had always lived in the practice of great austerity and patience, and in perpetual chastity. He took no other sustenance than bread and water, and usually abstained from all food for two or three days together. He was well skilled in the science of the Greeks, but much more in that of the holy scriptures; the assiduous meditation on which nourished his soul, and seemed also to give vigor and strength to his emaciated body. He was admirable in all virtues, particularly in a heavenly meekness and humility. Dioclesian’s bloody edicts against the Christians reached Palestine in April, 303, and Procopius was the first person who received the crown of martyrdom in that country, in the aforesaid persecution.He was apprehended at Bethsan and led, with several others, bound to Cæsarea, our city, say the acts, and was hurried straight before Paulinus, prefect of the province.[69] The judge commanded the martyr to sacrifice to the gods. The servant of Christ answered he never could do it; and this he declared with a firmness and resolution that seemed to wound the heart of the prefect as if it had been pierced with a dagger. The martyr added, there is no God but one, who is the author and preserver of the world. The prefect then bade him sacrifice to the four emperors, namely Dioclesian, Herculius, Galerius, and Constantius. This the saint again refused to do, and had scarce returned his answer but the judge passed sentence upon him, and he was immediately led to execution and beheaded. He is honored by the Greeks with the title of The Great Martyr. See his original Chaldaic Acts, published by Steph. Assemani, t. 2, p. 166, and a less accurate old Latin translation; given by Ruinart, and by Henry Valois, Not. in Euseb. l. 8. The author of these acts was Eusebius of Cæsarea, an eye-witness.

SS. KILIAN BISHOP, COLMAN PRIEST, AND TOTNAN DEACON, MM.

Kilian or Kuln was a holy Irish monk, of noble Scottish extraction. With two zealous companions he travelled to Rome in 686, and obtained of pope Conon a commission to preach the gospel to the German idolaters in Franconia; upon which occasion Kilian was invested with episcopal authority. The missionaries converted and baptized great numbers at Wurtzburg, and among others Gosbert, the duke of that name. This prince had taken to wife Geilana, the relict of his deceased brother; and though he loved her tenderly, being put in mind by St. Kilian that such a marriage was condemned and void by the law of the gospel, he promised to dismiss her, saying that we are bound to love God above father, mother, or wife. Geilana was tormented in mind beyond measure at this resolution; jealousy and ambition equally inflamed her breast; and, as the vengeance of a wicked woman has no bounds, during the absence of the duke in a military expedition, she sent assassins, who privately murdered the three holy missionaries in 688. The ruffians were themselves pursued by divine vengeance, and all perished miserably. St. Burchard, who, in the following century, was placed by St. Boniface in the episcopal see of Wurtzburg, translated their relics into his cathedral. A portion of those of St. Kilian, in a rich shrine, was preserved in the treasury of the elector of Brunswic-Lunenburg in 1713, as appears from the printed description of that cabinet. See the acts of these martyrs compiled by Egilward, monk of St. Burchard’s at Wurtzburg, extant imperfect in the eleventh century, in Surius, t. 4, entire in Canisius, t. 4, par. 2, p. 628, and t. 3, ed. Basn., p. 174. Also among the Opuscula of Serrarius, printed at Mentz in 1611, in the collection of the writers of Wurtzburg published by Ludewig, p. 966, and in Mabillon and the Bollandists. See also Thesaurus reliquiarum Electoralis Brunsvico-Luneburgicus. Hanoveræ, 1713, and Solier, t. 2, Julij, p. 600.

ST. WITHBURGE, V.

She was the youngest of the four sisters, all saints, daughters of Annas the holy king of the East-Angles. In her tender years she devoted herself to the divine service, and led an austere life in close solitude for several years at Holkham, an estate of the king her father, near the sea-coast in Norfolk, where a church, afterward called Withburgstow, was built. After the death of her father she changed her dwelling to another estate of the crown called Dereham. This is at present a considerable market-town in Norfolk, but was then an obscure retired place. Withburge assembled there many devout virgins, and laid the foundation of a great church and nunnery, but did not live to finish the buildings. Her holy death happened on the 17th of March, 743. Her body was interred in the church-yard of Dereham, and fifty-five years after, found uncorrupt, and translated into the church. One hundred and seventy-six years after this, in 974, Brithnoth (the first abbot of Ely, after that house, which had been destroyed by the Danes, was rebuilt), with the consent of king Edgar, removed it to Ely, and deposited it near the bodies of her two sisters. In 1106 the remains of the four saints were translated into the new church and laid near the high altar. The bodies of SS. Sexburga and Ermenilda were reduced to dust, except the bones. That of St. Audry was entire, and that of St. Withburge was not only sound but also fresh, and the limbs perfectly flexible. Warner, a monk of Westminster, showed this to all the people, by lifting up and moving several ways the hands, arms, and feet. Herbert bishop of Thetford, who in 1094 translated his see to Norwich, and many other persons of distinction, were eye-witnesses hereof.This is related by Thomas, monk of Ely, in his history of Ely,[70] which he wrote the year following, 1107.This author tells us, that in the place where St. Withburge was first buried, in the church-yard of Dereham, a large fine spring of most clear water gushes forth.[71] It is to this day called St. Withburge’s well, was formerly very famous, and is paved, covered, and inclosed; a stream from it forms another small well without the church-yard. See her life, and Leland, Collect. vol. iii. p. 167.

B. THEOBALD, ABBOT.

He was by his virtue the great ornament of the illustrious family of Montmorency in France. He was born in the castle of Marli. His father, Bouchard of Montmorency, gave him an education suitable to his birth, and trained him up to the profession of arms, in which so many heroes of that family have signalized themselves. But Theobald manifested from his infancy a strong inclination to a state of holy retirement, dreading the least shadow of danger which could threaten his innocence. He spent great part of his time in prayer, and resorted often to the church of the nunnery called Port-Royal, which had been founded in 1204 by Matthew of Montmorency, and on which his father Bouchard had bestowed so many estates that he was regarded as a second founder. Theobald took the Cistercian habit at Vaux de Cernay in 1220, and was chosen abbot of that house in 1234. He lived in the midst of his brethren as the servant of every one, and surpassed all others in his love of poverty, silence, and holy prayer. He was highly esteemed by St. Lewis. His happy death happened in 1247. His shrine in his abbey is visited by a great concourse of people on the Whitsun-holidays. His solemn festival is there kept on the 8th, and in some places on the 9th of July, probably the day on which the first translation of his relics was made. The Bollandists defer his life to the 8th of December, the day of his death. See Le Nain, Histoire de Citeaux, t. 9.

SAINT GRIMBALD, NATIVE OF ST. OMER, ABBOT.

He was a monk at St. Bertin’s, and with his abbot entertained king Alfred in that abbey when that prince was going to Rome. This king, afterward by the advice of Eldred archbishop of Canterbury, sent messengers to St. Bertin’s to invite Grimbald over into England, where he arrived, Hugh being twelfth abbot of that monastery, in the year 885. Asserius, a monk of Menevia or St. David’s, whom king Alfred honored with his particular esteem, and who was afterward bishop of Shireburn, was one of these messengers.

The Oxonian writers tell us that Grimbald was appointed first professor of divinity at Oxford, when he is said to have founded that university; and that Asserius, John Erigena, and St. Neot taught there at the same time. The learned Mr. Hearne says not only that Grimbald built St. Peter’s church in the East, but also that the eastern vault of his ancient structure is standing to this day, of which he gives a plan. Upon the death of Eldred archbishop of Canterbury, king Alfred pressed Grimbald to accept that dignity; but was not able to extort his consent, and was obliged to allow him to retire to the church of Winchester. King Alfred’s son and successor Edward, in compliance with his father’s will, built the New Minstre close to the old, in which he placed secular canons, says Tanner, and appointed St. Grimbald abbot over them; this title being then given to a superior of secular or regular priests. About sixty years after, bishop Ethelwolph brought in monks in place of those secular canons. King Henry I. removed this monastery of New Minstre out of the walls of the city to the place called Hide, which still continued sometimes to be called St. Grimbald’s monastery. The body of the great king Alfred was removed by his son from the Old Minstre, and that of his queen Alswithe from the nunnery of Nunnaminstre, and deposited together in the New Minstre, afterward in Hide-Monastery. Nunnaminstre was founded by king Alfred, or rather by his queen Alswithe. St. Edburge, a daughter of king Edward, was a nun, and, according to Leland, abbess there. St. Grimbald in his last sickness, though extremely feeble, gathered strength when the sacred viaticum was brought, rose out of bed, and received it prostrate on the ground. After this he desired to be left alone for three days, which he spent in close union of his heart with God. On the fourth day the community was called into his chamber, and amidst their prayers the saint calmly breathed forth his happy soul on the 8th of July in the year 903, of his age eighty-three. His body was reposed in this church, and honored amongst its most precious relics. It was taken up by St. Elphegus, and exposed in a silver shrine. See his life written by Goscelin, monk of St. Bertin’s; Capgrave; Leland, Collect. t. 1, p. 18. John Yperius in Chron. S. Bertini; Molan. in Natal. Sanct. Belgii; Hearne, Præf. in Lelandi Collect. t. 1, p. 28, t. 2, p. 217, and Præf. in Thomæ Caii Vindicias Oxon. contra Joan. Caium Cantabrig. p. 27. Woode Ant. Oxon. t. 1, p. 9.

JULY IX.

ST. EPHREM OF EDESSA, C.

DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH.

From his works in the late Vatican edition; also from St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his panegyric of St. Ephrem; and from Palladius, Theodoret, Sozomen, &c. See t. 1, Op. St. Ephrem, Romæ, An. 1743, or St. Ephrem Syri Opera Omnia Latine. Venetiis, 1755, 2 tomis.

A. D. 378.

This humble deacon was the most illustrious of all the doctors, who, by their doctrine and writings, have adorned the Syriac church. He was born in the territory of Nisibis, a strong city on the banks of the Tigris, in Mesopotamia. His parents lived in the country, and earned their bread with the sweat of their brows, but were ennobled by the blood of martyrs in their family, and had themselves both confessed Christ before the persecutors under Dioclesian, or his successors. They consecrated Ephrem to God from his cradle, like another Samuel, but he was eighteen years old when he was baptized.Before that time he had committed certain faults which his enlightened conscience extremely exaggerated to him after his perfect conversion to God, and he never ceased to bewail, with floods of tears, his ingratitude towards God, in having ever offended him. Sozomen[72] says these sins were little sallies of anger, into which he had sometimes fallen with his playfellows in his childhood.The saint himself mentions in his confession[73] two crimes (as he styles them) of this age, which called for his tears during his whole life. The first was, that in play he had driven a neighbor’s cow among the mountains, where it happened to be killed by a wild beast; the second was a doubt which once came into his mind in his childhood, whether God’s particular providence reached to an immediate superintendency over all our individual actions. This sin he exceedingly magnifies in his contrition, though it happened before his baptism, and never proceeded further than a fluctuating thought from ignorance in his childhood; and in his Testament he thanks God for having been always preserved by his mercy since his baptism from any error in faith. Himself assures us that the divine goodness was pleased in a wonderful manner to discover to him, after this temptation, the folly of his error, and the wretched blindness of his soul in having pretended to fathom the secrets of providence.

Within a month after he had been assaulted by the temptation of the aforesaid doubt, he happened in travelling through the country to be benighted, and was forced to take up his quarters with a shepherd who had lost in the wilderness the flock committed to his charge. The master of the shepherd suspected him guilty of theft, and pursuing him, found him and Ephrem together, and cast them both into prison, upon suspicion that they had stolen his sheep. Ephrem was extremely afflicted at his misfortune, and in the dungeon found seven other prisoners, who were all falsely accused or suspected of different crimes, though really guilty of others. When he had lain seven days in prison in great anguish of mind, an angel appearing to him in his sleep told him he was sent to show him the justice and wisdom of divine providence in governing and directing all human events; and that this should be manifested to him in the case of those prisoners who seemed to suffer in his company unjustly. The next day the judge called the prisoners before him, and put two of them to the torture, in order to compel them to confess their crimes. While others were tormented, Ephrem stood by the rack trembling and weeping for himself, under the apprehension of being every moment put to the question. The bystanders rallied him for his fears, and said—“Ay, it is thy turn next; it is to no purpose now to weep: why didst thou not fear to commit the crime?” However, he was not put on the rack, but sent back to prison. The other prisoners, though innocent of the crimes of which they were first arraigned, were all convicted of other misdemeanors, and each of them received the chastisement due to his offence. As to Ephrem, the true thief having been discovered, he was honorably acquitted, after seventy days’ confinement.This event the saint relates at length in his confession.[74] God was pleased to give him this sensible proof of the sweetness, justice, and tender goodness of his holy providence, which we are bound to adore in resignation and silence; waiting until the curtain shall be drawn aside, and the whole economy of his loving dispensations to his elect displayed in its true amiable light, and placed in its full view before our eyes in the next life. Though, to take a view of the infinite wisdom, justice, and sanctity which God displayeth in all the dispensations of his providence, we must take into the prospect the rewards and punishments of the next world, and all the hidden springs of this adorable mystery of faith; yet his divine goodness to excite our confidence in him, was pleased, by this revelation to his servant, to manifest in this instance his attributes justified in part, even in this life, of which he hath given us a most illustrious example with regard to holy Job.

St. Ephrem, from the time of his baptism, which he received soon after this accident, began to be more deeply penetrated with the fear of the divine judgment, and he had always present to his mind the rigorous account he was to give to God of all his actions, the remembrance of which was to him a source of almost uninterrupted tears. Hoping more easily to secure his salvation in a state in which his thoughts would never be diverted from it, soon after he was baptized he took the monastic habit, and put himself under the direction of a holy abbot, with whose leave he chose for his abode a little hermitage in the neighborhood of the monastery. He seemed to set no bounds to his fervor. He lay on the bare ground, often fasted whole days without eating, and watched a great part of the night in prayer. It was a rule observed in all the monasteries of Mesopotamia and Egypt, that every religious man should perform his task of manual labor, of which he gave an account to his superior at the end of every week. The work of these monks was always painful, that it might be a part of their penance; and it was such as was compatible with private prayer, and a constant attention of the mind to God; for they always prayed or meditated at their work; and for this purpose, the first task which was enjoined a young monk was to get the psalter by heart. The profits of their labor, above the little pittance which was necessary for their mean subsistence in their penitential state, were always given to the poor. St. Ephrem made sails for ships. Of his poverty he writes thus in his Testament: “Ephrem hath never possessed purse, staff, or scrip, or any other temporal estate; my heart hath known no affection for gold or silver, or any earthly goods.” He was naturally choleric, but so perfectly did he subdue this passion, that meekness was one of the most conspicuous virtues in his character, and he was usually styled The meek, or the peaceable man of God. He was never known to dispute or contend with any one; with the most obstinate sinners he used only tears and entreaties. Once, when he had fasted several days, the brother who was bringing him a mess of pottage made with a few herbs for his meal, let fall the pot, and broke it. The saint seeing him in confusion, said cheerfully,—“As our supper will not come to us, let us go to it.” And sitting down on the ground by the broken pot, he picked up his meal as well as he could. Humility made the saint rejoice in the contempt of himself, and sincerely desire that all men had such a knowledge and opinion of his baseness and nothingness as to despise him from their hearts, and to look upon him most unworthy to hold any rank among creatures. This sincere spirit of profound humility all his words, actions, and writings breathed in a most affecting manner.

Honors and commendations served to increase the saint’s humility. Hearing himself one day praised, he was not able to speak, and his whole body was covered with a violent sweat, caused by the inward agony and confusion of his soul at the consideration of the last day; for he was seized with extreme fear and dread, thinking that he should be then overwhelmed with shame, when his baseness and hypocrisy should be proclaimed and made manifest before all creatures, especially those very persons who here commended him, and whom he had deceived by his hypocrisy. We may hence easily judge how much the thought of any elevation or honor affrighted him. When a certain city sought to choose him bishop, he counterfeited himself mad.

Compunction of heart is the sister of sincere humility and penance, and nothing seemed more admirable in our saint than this virtue. Tears seemed always ready to be called forth in torrents as often as he raised his heart to God, or remembered the sweetness of his divine love, the rigor of his judgments, or the spiritual miseries of our souls. “We cannot call to mind his perpetual tears,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, “without melting into tears. To weep seemed almost as natural to him as it is for other men to breathe. Night and day his eyes seemed always swimming in tears. No one could meet him at any time, who did not see them trickling down his cheeks.” He appeared always drowned in an abyss of compunction. This was always painted in most striking features on his countenance, the sight of which was, even in his silence, a moving instruction to all that beheld him. This spirit of compunction gave a singular energy to all his words and writings; it never forsakes him, even in panegyrics or in treating of subjects of spiritual joy. Where he speaks of the felicity of paradise or the sweetness of divine love in transports of overflowing hope and joy, he never lost sight of the motives of compunction, and always returns to his tears. By the continual remembrance of the last judgment he nourished in his soul this constant profound spirit of compunction.

St. Gregory of Nyssa writes, that no one can read his discourses on the last judgment without dissolving into tears, so awful is the representation, and so strong and lively the image which he paints of that dreadful day. Almost every object he saw called it afresh to his mind. The spotless purity of our saint was the fruit of his sincere humility, and constant watchfulness over himself. He says that the great St. Antony, out of modesty, would never wash his feet, or suffer any part of his body, except his face and hands, to be seen naked by any one.

St. Ephrem spent many years in the desert, collected within himself, having his mind raised above all earthly things, and living as it were out of the flesh, and out of the world, to use the expression of St. Gregory Nazianzen. His zeal drew several severe persecutions upon him from certain tepid monks, but he found a great support in the example and advice of St. Julian, whose life he has written. He lost this comfort by the death of that great servant of God; and about the same time died in 338 (not 350, as Tillemont mistakes), St. James, bishop of Nisibis, his spiritual director and patron. Not long after this, God inspired St. Ephrem to leave his own country, and go to Edessa, there to venerate the relics of the saints, by which are probably meant chiefly those of the apostle St. Thomas. He likewise desired to enjoy the conversation of certain holy anchorets who inhabited the mountains near that city, which was sometimes reckoned in Mesopotamia and sometimes in Syria. Under the weak reigns of the last of the Seleucidæ, kings of Asia, it was erected into a small kingdom by the princes called Abgars. As the saint was going into Edessa, a certain courtezan fixed her eyes upon him, which when he perceived he turned away his face, and said with indignation: “Why dost thou gaze upon me?” To which she made this smart reply. “Woman was formed from man; but you ought always to keep your eyes cast down on the earth, out of which man was framed.” St. Ephrem, whose heart was always filled with the most profound sentiments of humility, was much struck and pleased with this reflection, and admired the providence of God, which sends us admonitions by all sorts of means. He wrote a book on those words of the courtezan, which the Syrians anciently esteemed the most useful and the best of all the writings of this incomparable doctor, but it is now lost. It seems to have contained maxims of humility.

St. Ephrem lived at Edessa, highly honored by all ranks and orders of men. Being ordained deacon of that church, he became an apostle of penance, which he preached with incredible zeal and fruit. He from time to time returned into his desert, there to renew in his heart the spirit of compunction and prayer; but always came out of his wilderness, inflamed with the ardor of a Baptist, to announce the divine truths to a world buried in spiritual darkness and insensibility. The saint was educated with great natural talents, which he had improved by study and contemplation. He was a poet, and had read something of logic; but had no tincture of the rest of the Grecian philosophy. This want of the heathenish learning and profane science was supplied by his good sense and uncommon penetration, and the diligence with which he cultivated his faculties by more sublime sacred studies. He learned very accurately the doctrine of the Catholic faith, was well versed in the holy scriptures, and was a perfect master of the Syriac tongue, in which he wrote with great elegance and propriety. He was possessed of an extraordinary faculty of natural eloquence. Words flowed from him like a torrent, which yet were too slow for the impetuosity and multitude of thoughts with which he was overwhelmed in speaking on spiritual subjects. His conceptions were always clear, his diction pure and agreeable. He spoke with admirable perspicuity, copiousness, and sententiousness, in an easy unaffected style; and with so much sweetness, so pathetic a vehemence, so natural an accent, and so strong emotions of his own heart, that his words seemed to carry with them an irresistible power. His writings derive great strength from the genius and natural bold tropes of the Oriental languages applied by so great a master, and have a graceful beauty and force which no translation can attain; though his works are only impetuous effusions of an overflowing heart, not studied compositions. What recommends them beyond all other advantages of eloquence, is, they are all the language of the heart, and a heart penetrated with the most perfect sentiments of divine love, confidence, compunction, humility, and all other virtues. They present his ardent, humble, and meek soul such as it was, and show how ardently he was occupied only on the great truths of salvation; how much he humbled himself without intermission, under the almighty hand of God, infinite in sanctity and terrible in his justice; with what profound awe he trembled in the constant attention to his adorable presence, and at the remembrance of his dreadful judgment, and with what fervor he both preached and practised the most austere penance, laboring continually with all his strength “to prepare himself a treasure for the last hour,” as he expresses himself. His words strongly imprint upon the souls of others those sentiments with which he was penetrated: they carry light and conviction; they never fail to strike, and pierce to the very bottom of the soul.Nor is the fire which they kindle in the breast a passing warmth, but a flame which devours and destroys all earthly affections, transforms the soul into itself, and continues without abating, the lasting force of its activity.[75] “Who that is proud,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, “would not become the humblest of men by reading his discourse on humility? Who would not be inflamed with a divine fire by reading his treatise on charity? Who would not wish to be chaste in heart and spirit, by reading the praises he has given to virginity?”

The saint, though most austere to himself, was discreet in the direction of others, and often repeated this advice, that it is a dangerous stratagem of the enemy to induce fervent converts to embrace in the beginning excessive mortifications.[76] Wherefore it behooves them not to undertake without prudent counsel any extraordinary practices of penance; but always such in which they will be able to persevere with constancy and cheerfulness. Who ever laid on a child a burden of a hundred pounds weight, under which he is sure to fall?

St. Ephrem brought many idolaters to the faith, and converted great numbers of Arians, Sabellians, and other heretics. Saint Jerom commends a book which he wrote against the Macedonians, to prove the divinity of the Holy Ghost. He established the perfect efficacy of penance against the Novatians, who, though the boldest and most insolent of men, seemed like children without strength before this experienced champion, as St. Gregory of Nyssa assures us. Not less glorious were his triumphs over the Millenarians, Marcionites, Manichees, and the disciples of the impious Bardesanes, who denied the resurrection of the flesh, and had in the foregoing century spread his errors at Edessa, by songs which the people learned to sing. St. Ephrem, to minister a proper antidote against this poison, composed elegant Catholic songs and poems which he taught the inhabitants both of the city and country with great spiritual advantage. Apollinaris began openly to broach his heresy a little before the year 376, denying in Christ a human soul, which he pretended that the divine person supplied in the humanity: whence it would have followed that he was not truly man, but only assumed a human body, not the complete human nature. St. Ephrem was then very old, but he opposed this new monster with great vigor. Several heresies he crushed in their birth, and he suffered much from the fury of the Arians under Constantius, and of the Heathens under Julian, but in both these persecutions reaped glorious laurels and trophies.

It was by a divine admonition, as himself assures us,[77] that about the year 372, he undertook a long journey to pay a visit to Basil. Being arrived at Cæsarea he went to the great church, where he found the holy bishop preaching.After the sermon, St. Basil sent for him, and asked him by an interpreter, if he was not Ephrem the servant of Christ.[78] “I am that Ephrem,” said he, “who have wandered astray from the path of heaven.” Then melting into tears, and raising his voice, he cried out,—“O my father, have pity on a sinful wretch, and lead me into the narrow path.” St. Basil gave him many rules of holy life, and after long spiritual conferences dismissed him with great esteem, having first ordained his companion priest.St. Ephrem himself never would consent to be promoted to the sacerdotal dignity, of which he expresses the greatest dread and apprehension, in his sermon on the priesthood.[79] Being returned to Edessa he retired to a little solitary cell, where he prepared himself for his last passage, and composed the latter part of his works. For, not content to labor for the advantage of one age, or one people, he studied to promote that of all mankind, and all times to come. The public distress under a great famine called him again out of his retirement in order to serve, and procure relief for the poor. He engaged the rich freely to open their coffers, placed beds for the sick in all the public porticos, visited them every day, and served them with his own hands. The public calamity being over, he hastened back to his solitude, where he shortly after sickened of a fever. He wrote about that time his seventy-six Paræneses or moving exhortations to penance, consisting in a great measure of most effective prayers; several of which are used by the Syrians in their Church office. His confidence in the precious fruits of the holy sacrament of the altar raised his hope, and inflamed his love, especially in his passage to eternity.Thus he expresses himself:[80] “Entering upon so long and dangerous a journey I have my viaticum, even Thee, O Son of God. In my extreme spiritual hunger, I will feed on thee, the repairer of mankind. So it shall be that no fire will dare to approach me; for it will not be able to bear the sweet saving odor of thy body and blood.” The circumstances of our saint’s death are edifying and deserve our notice. For nothing more strongly affects our heart, or makes on it a more sensible impression, than the behavior and words of great men in their last moments.

St. Ephrem was always filled with grief, indignation, and confusion when he perceived others to treat him as a saint, or to express any regard or esteem for him.In his last sickness he laid this strict injunction on his disciples and friends:[81] “Sing no funeral hymns at Ephrem’s burial: suffer no encomiastic oration. Wrap not my carcase in any costly shroud: erect no monument to my memory. Allow me only the portion and place of a pilgrim; for I am a pilgrim and a stranger as all my fathers were on earth.” Seeing that several persons had prepared rich shrouds for his interment, he was much afflicted, and he charged all those who had such a design to drop it, and give the money to the poor, which he in particular obliged a rich nobleman, who had bought a most sumptuous shroud for that purpose, to do. St. Ephrem, as long as he was able to speak, continued to exhort all men to the fervent pursuit of virtue, as his last words sufficiently show, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, meaning the saint’s Testament, which is still extant genuine, and the same that was quoted by St. Gregory, Sozomen, &c. In it he says:“I Ephrem die. Be it known to you all that I write this Testament to conjure you always to remember me in your prayers after my decease.”[82] This he often repeats. He protests that he had always lived in the true faith, to which he exhorts all most firmly to adhere. Deploring and confessing aloud the vanity and sinfulness of his life, he adjures all present that no one would suffer his sinful dust to be laid under the altar, and that no one would take any of his rags for relics, nor show him any honor, for he was a sinner and the last of creatures. “But,” says he, “throw my body hastily on your shoulders, and cast me into my grave, as the abomination of the universe. Let no one praise me; for I am full of confusion, and the very abstract of baseness. To show what I am, rather spit upon me, and cover my body with phlegm. Did you smell the stench of my actions, you would fly from me, and leave me unburied, not being able to bear the horrible corruption of my sins.” He forbids any torches or perfumes, ordering his corpse to be thrown into the common burying-place among poor strangers. He expresses most feeling sentiments of compunction, and gives his blessing to his disciples, with a prediction of divine mercy in their favor; but excepts two among them, Aruad and Paulonas, both persons famed for eloquence; yet he foresaw that they would afterward apostatize from the Catholic faith. The whole city was assembled before the saint’s door, every one being bathed in tears; and all strove to get as near to him as possible, and to listen to his last instructions. A lady of great quality named Lamprotata, falling at his feet, begged his leave to buy a coffin for his interment; to which he assented, on condition that it should be a very mean one, and that the lady would promise to renounce all vanities in a spirit of penance, and never again to be carried on the shoulders of men, or in a chair; all which she cheerfully engaged herself to perform. The saint, having ceased to speak, continued in silent prayer till he calmly gave up his soul to God. He died in a very advanced age about the year 378. His festival was kept at Edessa immediately after his death. On it St. Gregory of Nyssa soon after spoke his panegyric at the request of one Ephrem, who having been taken captive by the Ismaelites had recommended himself to this saint his patron, and had been wonderfully delivered from his chains and from many dangers. St. Gregory closes his discourse with this address to the saint. “You are now assisting at the divine altar, and before the prince of life with the angels, praising the most holy Trinity: remember us all, and obtain for us the pardon of our sins.” The true Martyrology of Bede calls the 9th of July the day of his deposition; which agrees with Palladius, who places his death in harvest-time, though the Latins have long kept his festival on the 1st of February, and the Greeks on the 28th of January. His perpetual tears, far from disfiguring his face, made it appear more serene and beautiful, and his very aspect raised the veneration of all who beheld him. The Greeks paint him very tall, bent with old age, of a sweet and beautiful countenance, with his eyes swimming in tears, and the venerable marks of sanctity in his looks and habit.

Saint Austin says, that Adam in paradise praised God and did not sigh; but in our present state, a principal function of our prayer consists in sighs and compunction.Divine love, as St. Gregory observes,[83] our banishment from God, our dangers, our past sins, our daily offences, and the weight of our own spiritual miseries, and those of the whole world, call upon us continually to weep, at least spiritually and in the desire of our heart, if we cannot always with our eyes. Every object round about us suggests many motives to excite our tears. We ought to mingle them even with our hymns of praise and love. Can we make an act of divine love without being pierced with bitter grief and contrition, reflecting that we have been so base and ungrateful as to have offended our infinitely good God? Can we presume without trembling to sing his praises with our impure affections, or to pronounce his adorable name with our defiled lips? And do we not first endeavor by tears of compunction to wash away the stains of our souls, begging to be sprinkled and cleansed by hyssop dipped, not in the blood of sheep or goats, but in the blood of the spotless lamb who died to take away the sins of the world? If the most innocent among the saints weeps continually from motives of holy love, how much more ought the sinner to mourn!“The voice of the turtle hath been heard in our land.”[84] If the turtle, the emblem of innocence and fidelity, makes its delight to mourn solitary in this desert, what ought not the unfaithful soul to do? The penitent sinner, instead of the sighs of the turtle, ought to pour forth his grief in loud groans, imitating the doleful cries of the ostrich, and in torrents of tears, by which the deepest sorrow for having offended so good a God, forces his broken heart to give it vent.

ON THE WRITINGS OF SAINT EPHREM.

The first volume of the Vatican edition of this father’s works begins with his sermon On Virtues and Vices. He expresses in it a surprise to see the full seek food from him who was empty, and says he is confounded to speak, seeing every word would accuse and condemn himself. However, trembling, he recommends to his hearers the fear of God; charity, by which we are meek, patient, tender to all, desirous to serve, give to all; hope, and longanimity, by which we bear all; patience, meekness, sweetness to all; inviolable love of truth in the smallest things, obedience, temperance, &c., and speaks against all the contrary vices, envy, detraction, &c.

His two Confessions or Reprehensions of himself are only effusions of his heart in these dispositions. The first he begins as follows: “Have pity on me, all ye that have bowels of compassion.” Then he earnestly begs their prayers that he may find mercy with God, though he was from his infancy an useless abandoned vessel. He laments his spiritual miseries in the most moving words, declaring that he trembles lest, as flames from heaven devoured him who presumed to offer profane fire on the altar, so he should meet with the same judgment for appearing before God in prayer without having the fire of his divine love in his heart. He invites all men to weep and pray for him, making a public confession of the failings which his pure lights discovered in his affections; for in these, notwithstanding his extraordinary progress in the contrary virtues, he seemed to himself to discern covetousness, jealousy, and sloth, though he appeared of all men the most remote from the very shadow of those vices; and by tears of compunction he studied more and more to purify his heart, that God might vouchsafe perfectly to reign in it. The second part of this work is a bitter accusation of his pride; which sin, as he adds, destroys even the gifts of God in a soul, blasts all her virtues, and renders them a most filthy abomination; for all our virtues will be tried at the last day by a fire which only humility can stand. He laments how pride infects the whole world; that some, by a strange frenzy, seek to gratify it in earthly fooleries, and the most silly vanities, on which the opinion of madmen has stamped a pretended dignity and imaginary value. He laments bitterly, that even spiritual men are in danger of sinning, by taking pride in virtue itself, though this be the pure gift of God; and when by his mercy we are enriched with it, we are, nevertheless, base and unprofitable servants.

In his second Reprehension of himself, after having elegantly demonstrated a particular providence inspecting and governing the minutest affairs and circumstances, he grievously accuses himself of having entertained a doubt of it in his youth, before his conversion to God. He condemns himself as guilty of vain-glory, sloth, lukewarmness, immortification, irreverence in the church, talkativeness, contentiousness, and other sins. He fears lest his repentance should be like that of Esau, and begs the pity and prayers of all men for an infamous blind leper. He weeps to see that some men had conceived an esteem for him to whom none was due; and he cries out to them—“Take off my false covering, and you will see in me nothing but worms, stench, and filth: remove the cloak of hypocrisy, and you will find me a hideous and nauseous sepulchre.” He compares himself to the Pharisees, as wearing only the habit of the prophets and saints, to his heavier condemnation; for vice, covered with a mask of virtue, is always more odious and detestable. In another Confession (t. 3, p. 439), after accusing himself of sloth, pride, uncharitableness, and other sins, he most movingly entreats all men to weep for him; wishing they could see the extreme miseries of his heart, which could not fail most powerfully to excite their compassion, though they could not be able to bear the hideous sight of the load of his monstrous iniquities.

His treatise on the Passions is of the same nature, a lamentation that from his infancy he had been a contemner of grace, and slothful to virtue, strengthened daily his passions, and groaned in the midst of snares which made him fear to live lest he should go on relapsing into sloth.

He has left us many tracts on Compunction, which indeed all his writings breathe. In the first which bears this title, he invites all, rich and poor, old and young, to join him in weeping, to purchase eternal life and to be delivered from everlasting death: by weeping and crying to see with the blind man in the gospel, the soul will be enlightened to see her miseries. God, the angels, all heaven expect and invite us earnestly to these tears: God’s terrible judgment is at hand which he describes, and then adds, to prevent its justice we must weep not one day only, but all the days of our life, as David did, in affliction, continual prayer, austerities, and alms. The narrow gate does not admit others; the Judge will exclude those who sought their joy on earth and pampered their flesh. Then it will be too late to trim our lamps, or seek for the oil of good works; then no more poor will stand at any door for us to redeem our sins by alms. He laments our spiritual miseries, especially his sins and sloth continued all his life now to the eleventh hour. He awakes his soul by the short time that remains, and that uncertain too.

In his second he relates, that going out of Edessa early one morning, accompanied with two brethren, and beholding the heavens beautifully spangled with bright stars, he said to himself—“If the lustre of these luminaries be so dazzling, how will the saints shine when Christ shall come in glory! But suddenly the thought of that terrible day struck my mind, and I trembled in all my joints, and was seized with convulsions, and in an agony of fear, sighing and overwhelmed with a flood of tears, I cried out in bitter anguish of mind: ‘How shall I be then found! How shall I stand before that tribunal! A monster infected with pride among the humble and the perfect, a goat among the sheep, and a barren tree without fruit. The martyrs will show their torment, and the monks their virtues; but thou, alas! O sinful, vain, and arrogant soul, wilt only bear thy sloth and negligence.’” His two companions, moved by the excess of his tears, wept with him.

In his Discourse, that we ought never to laugh with a worldly joy, but to always weep, he enforces the obligation of perpetual compunction and tears.

In his ascetic Sermon, he says grief and zeal compel him to speak, but his unworthiness and his sins persuade him to be silent, his eyes delight only in tears to bewail night and day in floods the wounds of his soul, and above all that pride which conceals them from him. He laments tepidity and love of earthly things should be found among monks, and that some interrupt their mortifications, weeping one day and laughing the next, lying one night on the ground, the next on a soft bed, whereas all our life ought to be a course of penance; he extols the humility and constant mortification of the ancient and all true monks, like shining diamonds in the world. The rest of this long discourse is a vehement exhortation of the monks to fervor and zeal, this life being a time of traffic, and very short, and a nothing; the recompense immense, and the rigor of God’s justice terrible to all. He pronounces woes to himself in the confusion he expected in the last day before all who esteemed him here. Begs earnestly all pray for him. One of the principal means to preserve this fervor, is a strict examen every night and morning. A trader casts up every day his losses and gains, and is solicitous to repair any losses; so do you, says he, every morning and night make up your accounts carefully; examine yourself: Have I to-day spoken any idle words, despised any, &c.? Have I this night watched, prayed, &c.? He advises not to undertake too much in austerities, but such as the soul will not relax in, than which nothing is more pernicious.

His parænetic Sermon is also addressed to young monks, whom he advises to the continual presence of God in their minds most earnestly under temptations. Against sloth, he observes, this succeeding fervor by fits makes a life one chain of risings and falling again; building by mortification and destroying again by relaxing. He bids them have this inscription in the beginning of their book: Sloth banished for ever and ever from my soul.

His two sermons on the Fathers deceased, are also to monks, showing and lamenting their tepidity by the fervor of their fathers in the deserts. His Hypomnisticon is an exhortatory epistle to the same.

His treatise on Virtue is to a novice; he tells him obedience has no merit unless in hard and harsh things, for even wild beasts grow tame by mild treatment.

Next follows his book in Imitation of Proverbs, in definitions and strong sentences on all virtues, in which he teaches tears in prayer are the beginning of a good life; vain-glory is like a worm in a tree. He speaks much on humility, presumption, charity, tears out of the desire of eternal happiness, and weeps to consider his own wretchedness and poverty.

His treatise for the Correction of those who live wickedly, is full of zeal, humility, and an extraordinary contempt of himself, and spirit of compunction.

That on Penance is a pathetic exhortation to sinners to return by the mercy of God, who expects them before the dawning of the day of life which is coming on; by the comfort which the angels will receive, and from the frightful trial at the last day, against which he prays for himself.

His discourse On the Fear of Souls, is a lamentation and prayer for himself at the sight of the heavens, still in stronger expressions and tears.

His sermon On the Second Coming of Christ, shows the joy of the blessed, and exaggerates the severity of that trial from the immensity of God’s benefits to us.

In his Tetrasyllabus he explains how the devil vanquished by the fervent, always says, I will then go to my friends, the slothful, where I shall have no labor, nor want stratagems. I have but to fetter them in the chains with which they are pleased, and I shall have them always willing subjects. He exhorts all therefore to constant fervor. In another place he exhorts all continually to repeat to themselves against sloth; “Yet a little of thy journey remains and thou wilt arrive at thy place of rest. Then take thy rest not now on the road.”

In his book on those words, Attende Tibi, to a monk, he presses the precept of being always fervent, never relaxing, in every virtue, especially in purity; and adds the example of St. Anthony, who, as St. Athanasius relates, notwithstanding his great mortifications, which he never relaxed from his youth to his old age, would never bathe or so much as wash his feet, or ever suffered any part of his body to be seen, except his face and hands, till after his death.

He has left us an excellent long prayer for a soul to say in time of any temptation; another for grace and pardon of sins.

A novice among the monks often had begged of St. Ephrem some direction. The saint extols his zeal and humility in desiring advice from a sinner, whose intolerable stench infects all his works. His first lesson to him is that he always remember the presence of God, and avoid all unnecessary words. He recommends then to him, in ninety-six lessons, perfect obedience, abstinence, silence, solitude, which frees a man from three dangers, viz., of the eyes, ears, and tongue; never to have so much compassion for any novice as to offend God, and so perish with him; if he be tepid, it is better he should perish alone than you also by condescension; never to speak to a superior in favor of an expelled brother, without most evident proofs of his perfect conversion; for a little spark falling into a barn, easily destroys all the labors of a whole year: to avoid frequent long conversations with any young man about piety or other things, for fear of fond love; never to desire anything great or public, for God’s honor, but rather to love to be hid and unknown; many in dens and deserts were the greatest saints, but without humility the most glorious virtues and the greatest actions are lost; never to seek the care of souls, but to employ in it the utmost diligence, if it be laid upon him: always to walk in the narrow way of compunction and mourning. His other lessons conduce to humility and other virtues.

His fifty-five Beatitudes comprise the happiness of all virtues, as of ever glorifying God, which is to be as the cherubim and seraphim. He closes them bursting into tears at the reflection how far he is from any of them by his sloth under a holy garb, and how distant from the holy servants of God, who persevered some in sackcloth and chains, others on pillars, others in enclosure and fasting, others in obedience, &c. He adds twenty other beatitudes.

His book of one hundred chapters on humility, consists chiefly of short examples; as, a certain novice always kept silence. Some said to him, He is silent because he knows not how to speak. Others said, No, but it is because he has a devil. He, hearing all this, gave no answer, but glorified God in his heart.

In the second volume we have the life of St. Abraham; a long panegyric on the Patriarch Joseph; a sermon on the Transfiguration; one on the Last Judgment, and on the necessity and advantage of spending this life in tears; a treatise of ninety chapters on the right way of living; fifty paræneses or exhortations to the monks, on obedience, humility, &c.; a most pathetic sermon on the second coming of Christ, in which he expresses himself as follows: “Beloved of Christ, lend a favorable attention to what I am going to say on the dreadful coming of our Lord. Remembering that hour, I tremble with an excess of fear. For who can relate those horrible things? what tongue can express them? When the King of kings, arising from his throne of glory, shall descend, and sit the just judge, calling to an account all the inhabitants of the earth. At this thought I am ready to swoon away: my limbs quake for fear, my eyes swim in tears, my voice fails, my lips shrink, my tongue falters, and my thoughts are wrapt up in silence. I am obliged to denounce these things to you; yet fear will not suffer me to speak. A loud thunder now affrights us; how then shall we stand at the sound of the last trumpet, louder than any thunder, summoning the dead to rise! Then the bones of all men in the bowels of the earth, hearing this voice, shall suddenly run, and seek out their joints; and, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall see all men risen and assembled to judgment. The great king shall command, and instantly the earth quaking, and the troubled sea shall give up the dead which they possess, whether devoured by fish, beast, or fowl. All in a moment shall appear present, and not a hair will be wanting.” He goes on describing the frightful fire consuming all things on the earth; the angels separating the sheep and the goats; the standard of the great king, that cross on which he was nailed, shining bright, and borne before him; men standing to meet this tremendous majesty, revolving their own deeds; the just with joy, the wicked worse than dead with fear; the angels and cherubim appearing, singing, Holy, Holy, Holy; the heavens opened, and the King of kings revealed in such incomparable glory, that the heavens and the earth will fly from before his face. “Who then,” says he, “can stand? He places before our eyes the books opened, and all our actions, thoughts, and words called to an account!” He then cries out: “What tears ought we not to shed night and day without intermission, for that terrible appearance!” Here the venerable old man was no longer able to break through his sighs and tears, and stood silent. The auditory cried out—“Tell us what more terrible things will follow.” He answered, “Then all mankind will stand with eyes cast down, between life and death, heaven and damnation, before the tribunal; and all degrees of men shall be called to a rigorous examination. Wo to me! I desire to tell you what things will follow, but my voice fails me through fear, and I am lost in confusion and anxiety; the very rehearsal of these things is most dreadful.” The audience repeated again: “Tell us the rest, for God’s sake, for our advantage and salvation.” He therefore proceeded, “Then, beloved of Christ, shall be required in all Christians the seal of baptism, entire faith, and that beautiful renunciation which they made before witnesses, saying, I renounce Satan, and all his works; not one, or two, or five, but all the works of the devil. In that hour this renunciation will be demanded of us, and happy is he who shall have kept it faithfully as he promised.” Here, he stopping in tears, they cried again: “Tell us also what follows this.” He answered: “I will tell you in my grief, I will speak through my sighs and tears; these things cannot be related without tears, for they are extremely dreadful.” The people entreated again: “O servant of God, we beseech you to instruct us fully.” The holy man, again striking his breast, and weeping bitterly, said: “O my brethren, beloved of Christ, how sorrowful, and how frightful things do you desire to hear! O terrible hour! Wo to me, wo to me! Who will dare to relate, or who will bear to hear this last and horrible rehearsal; all you who have tears, sigh with me! and you who have not, hear what will befall you; and let us not neglect our salvation. Then shall they be separated, without hopes of ever returning to each other again, bishops from fellow-bishops, priests from fellow-priests, deacons from fellow-deacons, subdeacons and lectors from their fellows; those who were kings as the basest slaves; children from parents; friends from kindred and intimates. Then princes, philosophers, wise men of the world, seeing themselves thus parted, shall cry out to the saints with bitter tears; ‘Farewell eternally, saints and servants of God; farewell parents, children, relations, and friends; farewell prophets, apostles, and martyrs; farewell Lady Mother of God; you prayed much for us that we might be saved, but we would not. Farewell life-giving cross; farewell paradise of delights, kingdom without end, the heavenly Jerusalem. Farewell ye all; we shall never more behold one of you, hastening to our torment without end or rest,’” &c.

A Sermon on fraternal Charity, and on the Last Judgment, in which his tears again hindered him from pursuing his subject. Nothing can be more terrifying or more moving than these discourses, or than the next on Antichrist, or that after on the Cross, or that of Interrogations. There follow his Testament, his Sermon on the Cross and on Charity, in which he salutes and honors that holy instrument of our redemption in the strongest words and highest epithets, which, as he says, all nations adore, and which saving sign we mark on our doors, foreheads, eyes, mouths, breast, and our whole body. His Sermon against heretics on the precious margarite, to prove the Virgin Mary mother of God; that on the vice of the tongue; his Panegyric on St. Basil; his Sermon on the Sinful Woman in the gospel; on the Forty Martyrs; on Abraham and Isaac; on Daniel and the three children. Sermons on the eight capital bad thoughts; gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, sadness, sloth, vain-glory, and pride; on perfection, on patience, and suffering; and many small tracts to monks. One contains a relation of a holy virgin in a monastery of three hundred, who was never seen eating, but worked washing the dishes and cleaning the scullery, feigning herself a fool, and bearing blows and all insults without murmuring or answering a word; called by derision, Salla or Sallop. St. Pityrumus, an anchoret, was admonished by an angel to go and see in her one who surpassed him and the others in virtue: having seen all the nuns he found not her, she being left behind in the kitchen. At his desire, which all laughed at, she was brought out. The anchoret immediately fell at her feet, crying, “Bless me, Amma” (i. e. spiritual mother). She also fell at his feet. The nuns said to him, “Don’t incur such a disgrace; this is Salla.” “No (said he), you are all Salæ.” Upon this all honored her, and one confessed, that she had thrown on her the washings of the dishes; another had struck her; another had thrust mustard up her nostrils, &c. She not bearing esteem, retired thence unknown, and was never more heard of.

The third volume contains many Sermons and Discourses, chiefly on the judgments of God and the last day; on penance, compunction, prayer, charity, and other virtues; and on vices and passions. Also the life of St. Julian the anchoret. Pious poems and several panegyrics of, and prayers to the Blessed Virgin, whose virginity and dignity of mother of God he clearly asserts.

The fourth volume consists of his Commentaries on the five books of Moses, on Joshua, Judges, and the four books of Kings. St. Gregory of Nyssa says, he studied and meditated assiduously on the holy scriptures, and expounded them all from the first book of Genesis to the last in the New Testament, with an extraordinary light, with which the Holy Ghost filled him. Many other Oriental writers testify the same. His exposition is very literal, full, and learned; nothing escapes him in them.

The fifth volume gives us his Commentaries on Job and on all the prophets. Eleven sermons on several passages of holy scripture, in which he exhorts principally to avoid all occasions of sin, and to perpetual tears and penance. Thirteen sermons on the birth of Christ; and fifty-six polemical sermons against heresies, viz. of the Marcionites, Manicheans, especially their judiciary astrology; of the Novatians, Messalians, &c. His zeal was moved seeing these errors spread in his country. He employs the Church’s authority, scriptures, and reasons to confute them.

The sixth volume gives us ninety other polemical Discourses against the Arian and Eunomian heretics or Searchers, as he calls them, because they attempted to penetrate the divine mysteries, and the incomprehensible nature of God himself. They are equally solid and strong; not dry, as most writings of controversy, but full of unction and of the greatest sentiments of devotion, and an inexpressible ardor to ever love and praise our great God and Redeemer. His sermon against the Jews is no less remarkable.

His Necrosima or eighty-five funeral canons, were written on Death and God’s judgments, which he had always before his eyes. He teaches evidently in them the use of ecclesiastical funeral rites and prayers at burials; that the souls of the departed immediately are judged by a particular judgment; the good immediately admitted to the enjoyment of God; those who die without having expiated venial sin, suffer in the flames of purgatory till it be satisfied for, but are relieved by the sacrifices, prayers, and other pious works of the faithful on earth. Of these fifty-four are short funeral discourses on the death of bishops, monks, and persons of all conditions. They are full of his extreme fear of the divine judgment, and a great contempt of the vanity of the world. He says in the eighty-first canon, “Entering on so long and dangerous a journey, I have my viaticum, thee, O Son of God; when hungry, I will eat thee, repairer of mankind; so it shall be, that no fire will dare approach my members, for it will not be able to bear the sweet saving odor of thy body and blood,” &c. He uses the same motive of confidence of immortality, from being fed with the body and blood of Christ, and employs that endearing divine grace to move God to have mercy on him. He repeats the same prayer in his thirteenth Parænesis. Nothing can be clearer than the texts collected by Ceillier (t. 8, p. 101) from the writings of St. Ephrem, in favor of the real presence of the sacred body of Christ in the holy eucharist. See on them the judicious remarks of an able critic, Mém. de Trev. Jan. 1756, p. 55.

Here follow four sermons on Freewill; also seventy-six moving Paræneses or exhortations to penance. In the forty-second, he tells us, that when he lay down to take a little repose in the night, he reflected on the excessive and boundless love of God, and instantly rose again to pay him the tribute of the most fervent praise and thanks he was able. “But being deterred,” says he, “by the remembrance of my sins, I began to melt into tears, and should have been disturbed beyond my strength, had not the thief, the publican, the sinful woman, the Cananean, the Samaritan, and other examples of mercy, given me comfort and courage.” He says that at other times, when he was going to fall asleep, the remembrance of his sins banished all thoughts of giving rest to his wearied body, and made sleep yield to sighs, groans, and floods of tears, to which he invited himself by the example of the penitent David, washing his bed with briny torrents; for the silence of night is the most proper season for our tears. It appears he composed this work, at least part, a little before his death; for in the forty-third Parænesis he writes, “I Ephrem am now dying. I write my last will and testament to all lovers of truth, who shall rise up after me. Persevere night and day in prayer. The husbandman reapeth a great crop by assiduous labor; so will you, if you never interrupt your devotion. Pray without ceasing.”

His book in fifteen elegant discourses on the Terrestrial Paradise, explaining its history in Genesis, and comforting himself with the name and happiness of the good thief on the cross, makes a transition to the heavenly Paradise, on the felicity of which he speaks with incredible joy and pleasure. In his eighth discourse he teaches the soul cannot perfectly see God before the resurrection; but means by the perfectly complete enjoyment, for he is very express (loc. cit. supra) that the blessed behold God immediately on their death; as Muratori demonstrates against Burnet, in his dissertation on Paradise, c. 2.