Palladius, who, from 391, lived three years under our saint, was eye-witness to several miracles wrought by him. He relates, that a certain priest, whose head, in a manner shocking to behold, was consumed by a cancerous sore, came to his cell, but was refused admittance; nay, the saint at first would not even speak to him. Palladius, by earnest entreaties, strove to prevail upon him to give at least some answer to so great an object of compassion. Macarius, on the contrary, urged that he was unworthy, and that God, to punish him for a sin of the flesh he was addicted to, had afflicted him with this disorder: however, that upon his sincere repentance, and promise never more during his life to presume to celebrate the divine mysteries, he would intercede for his cure. The priest confessed his sin with a promise, pursuant to the ancient canonical discipline, never after to perform any priestly function. The saint thereupon absolved him by the imposition of hands; and a few days after the priest came back perfectly healed, glorifying God, and giving thanks to his servant. Palladius found himself tempted to sadness, on a suggestion from the devil, that he made no progress in virtue, and that it was to no purpose for him to remain in the desert. He consulted his master, who bade him persevere with fervor, never dwell on the temptation, and always answer instantly the fiend: "My love for Jesus Christ will not suffer me to quit my cell, where I am determined to abide in order to please and serve him agreeably to his will."

The two saints of the name of Macarius happened one day to cross the {076} Nile together in a boat, when certain tribunes, or principal officers, who were there with their numerous trains, could not help observing to each other, that those men, from the cheerfulness of their aspect, must be exceeding happy in their poverty. Macarius of Alexandria, alluding to their name, which in Greek signifies happy, made this answer: "You have reason to call us happy, for this is our name. But if we are happy in despising the world, are not you miserable who live slaves to it?" These words, uttered with a tone of voice expressive of an interior conviction of their truth, had such an effect on the tribune who first spoke, that, hastening home, he distributed his fortune among the poor, and embraced an eremitical life. In 375, both these saints were banished for the catholic faith, at the instigation of Lacius, the Arian patriarch of Alexandria. Our saint died in the year 394, as Tillemont shows from Palladius. The Latins commemorate him on the 2d, the Greeks with the elder Macarius, on the 19th of January.

In the desert of Nitria there subsists at this day a monastery which bears the name of St. Macarius. The monastic rule called St. Macarius's, in the code of rules, is ascribed to this of Alexandria. St. Jerom seems to have copied some things from it in his letter to Rusticus. The concord, or collection of rules, gives us another, under the names of the two SS. Macariuses; Serapion (of Arsinoe, or the other of Nitria;) Paphnutius (of Becbale, priest of Scete;) and thirty-four other abbots.[10] It was probably collected from their discipline, or regulations and example. According to this latter, the monks fasted the whole year, except on Sundays, and the time from Easter to Whitsuntide; they observed the strictest poverty, and divided the day between manual labor and hours of prayer; hospitality was much recommended in this rule, but, for the sake of recollection, it was strictly forbid for any monk, except one who was deputed to entertain guests, ever to speak to any stranger without particular leave.[11] The definition of a monk or anchoret, given by the abbot Rance of la Trappe, is a lively portraiture of the great Macarius in the desert when, says he, a soul relishes God in solitude, she thinks no more of any thing but heaven, and forgets the earth, which has nothing in it that can now please her; she burns with the fire of divine love, and sighs only after God, regarding death as her greatest advantage; nevertheless they will find themselves much mistaken, who, leaving the world, imagine they shall go to God by straight paths, by roads sown with lilies and roses, in which they will have no difficulties to conquer, but that the hand of God will turn aside whatever could raise any in their way, or disturb the tranquillity of their retreat: on the contrary, they must be persuaded that temptations will everywhere follow them, that there is neither state nor place in which they can be exempt, that the peace which God promises is procured amidst tribulations, as the rose-bud amidst thorns; God has not promised his servants that they shall not meet with trials, but that with the temptation, he will give them grace to be able to bear it:[12] heaven is offered to us on no other conditions; it is a kingdom of conquest, the prize of victory—but, O God, what a prize!

Footnotes: 1. Some confound our saint with Macarius of Pisper, or the disciple of Saint Antony. But the best critics distinguish them. The latter, with his fellow-disciple Amathas, buried St. Antony, who left him his staff, as Cronius, the Priest of Nitria, related to Palladius. To this Macarius of Pisper St. Antony committed the government of almost five thousand monks as appears from the life of saint Posthumias. 2. Hist. Lausiac, c. 20. 3. Pallad. Laus. c. 20. 4. Ib. 5. Rosweide b. 8, c. 20, p. 722. 6. Pallad. Laus. c. 20. 7. Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 2, c. 29, p. 481. 8. S. Hier. ep. 18 (ol. 22) ad. Eustoch. T. 4, par. 2, p. 44, ed. Ben. et Rosw. Vit. Patr. l. 3, c. 319 9. Acts viii. 20. 10. Concordia Regularum, autore S. Benedicto Ananiae Abbate, edita ab Hugone Menardo, O.S.B. in 4to Parisiis, 1638. Item, Codex Regularum collectus a S. Benedicto Ananiae, auctus a Luca Holstenio, two vols. 4to. Romae, 1661. 11. C. 60, p. 809 edit. Mena{}. 12. 1 Cor. x. 13.

On the same day

Are commemorated many holy martyrs throughout the provinces of the Roman empire; who, when Dioclesian, in 303, commanded the holy scriptures, {077} wherever found, to be burnt, chose rather to suffer torments and death than to be accessary {sic.} to their being destroyed by surrendering them into the hands of the professed enemies of their Author.[1]

Footnotes: 1. See Baron. n. annal. et annot. in Martyr. Rom. Eus. l. 8, c. 2. H. Vales. not. ib. p. 163. Ruinart, in Acta SS Saturn &c. and S. Felicis. Fleury. Moeurs des Chret. p. 45. Tillem. Pers. de. Dicol. art. 10, t. 5. Lactant. de mort. Pers. c. 15 et 18, cum not. Baluz. &c.

Also, ST. CONCORDIUS, M.

A HOLY subdeacon, who in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, was apprehended in a desert, and brought before Torquatus, governor of Umbria, then residing at Spoletto, about the year 178. The martyr, paying no regard to his promises or threats, in the first interrogatory was beaten with clubs, and in the second was hung on the rack, but in the height of his torments he cheerfully sang: "Glory be to thee, Lord Jesus!" Three days after, two soldiers were sent by Torquatus, to behead him in the dungeon, unless he would offer sacrifice to an idol, which a priest who accompanied them carried with him for this purpose. The saint showed his indignation by spitting upon the idol, upon which one of the soldiers struck off his head. In the Roman Martyrology his name occurs on the 1st, in some others on the 2d of January. See his genuine acts in Bollandus, p. 9, and Tillemont, t. 2, p. 439.

Also, ST. ADALARD, OR ADALARD. A.C.

Pronounced ALARD.[1]

THE birth of this holy monk was most illustrious, his father Bernard being son of Charles Martel, and brother of king Pepin, so that Adalard was cousin-german to Charlemagne, by whom he was called in his youth to the court, and created count of his palace. A fear of offending God made him tremble at the sight of the dangers of forfeiting his grace, with which he was surrounded, and of the disorders which reigned in the world. Lest he should be engaged to entangle his conscience, by seeming to approve of things which he thought would endanger his salvation, he determined to forsake at once both the court and the world. His sacrifice was the more perfect and edifying, as he was endowed with the greatest personal accomplishments of mind and body for the world, and in the flower of his age; for he was only twenty years old, when, in 773, he took the monastic habit at Corbie in Picardy, a monastery that had been founded by queen Bathildes, in 662. After he had passed a year in the fervent exercises of his novitiate, he made his vows; the first employment assigned him in the monastery was that of gardener, in which, while his hands were employed in the business of his calling, his thoughts were on God and heavenly things. Out of humility, and a desire of closer retirement, he obtained leave to be removed to mount Cassino, where he hoped he should be concealed from the world; but his eminent qualifications, and the great example of his virtue, betrayed and defeated all the projects of his humility, and did not suffer him to live long unknown; he was brought back to Corbie, and some years after chosen abbot. Being obliged by Charlemagne often to attend at court, he appeared there as the first among the king's counsellors, as he is styled by Hincmar,[2] who had seen him there in 796. He was compelled by Charlemagne {078} entirely to quit his monastery, and take upon him the charge of chief minister to that prince's eldest son Pepin, who, at his death at Milan in 810, appointed the saint tutor to his son Bernard, then but twelve years of age. In this exalted and distracting station, Adalard appeared even in council recollected and attentive to God, and from his employments would hasten to his chamber, or the chapel, there to plunge his heart in the centre of its happiness. During the time of his prayers, tears usually flowed from his eyes in great abundance, especially on considering his own miseries, and his distance from God. The emperor recalled him from Milan, and deputed him to pope Leo III. to assist at the discussion of certain difficulties started relating to the clause inserted in the creed, concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. Charlemagne died in 814, on the 28th of January, having associated his son, Lewis le Debonnaire, in the empire in the foregoing September. While our saint lived in his monastery, dead to the world, intent only on heavenly things, instructing the ignorant, and feeding the poor, on whom he always exhausted his whole revenue, Lewis declared his son, Lothaire, his partner and successor in the empire, in 817: Bernard, who looked upon that dignity as his right, his father Pepin having been eldest brother to Lewis, rebelled, but lost both his kingdom and his life. Lewis was prevailed upon, by certain flatterers, to suspect our saint to have been no enemy to Bernard's pretensions, and banished him to a monastery, situated in the little island Heri, called afterwards Hermoutier, and St. Philebert's, on the coast of Aquitain. The saint's brother Wala (one of the greatest men of that age, as appears from his curious life, published by Mabillon) he obliged to become a monk at Lerins. His sister Gondrada he confined in the monastery of the Holy Cross, at Poitiers; and left only his other sister Theodrada, who was a nun, at liberty in her convent at Soissons. This exile St. Adalard regarded as his gain, and in it his tranquillity and gladness of soul met with no interruptions. The emperor at length was made sensible of his innocence, and, after five years' banishment, called him to his court towards the close of the year 821; and, by the greatest honors and favors, endeavored to make amends for the injustice he had done him. Adalard (whose soul, fixed wholly on God, was raised above all earthly things) was the same person in prosperity and adversity, in the palace as in the cell, and in every station: the distinguishing parts of his character were, an extraordinary gift of compunction and tears, the most tender charity for all men, and an undaunted zeal for the relief and protection of all the distressed. In 823, he obtained leave to return to the government of his abbey of Corbie, where he with joy frequently took upon himself the most humbling and mortifying employments of the house. By his solicitude, earnest endeavors, and powerful example, his spiritual children grew daily in fervor and divine love; and such was his zeal for their continual advancement, that he passed no week without speaking to every one of them in particular, and no day without exhorting them all in general, by pathetic and instructive discourses. The inhabitants of the country round his monastery had also a share in his pious labors, and he exhausted on the poor the revenue of his monastery, and whatever other temporal goods came to his hands, with a profusion which many condemned as excessive, but which heaven, on urgent occasions, sometimes approved by sensible miracles. The good old man would receive advice from the meanest of his monks, with an astonishing humility; when entreated by any to moderate his austerities, he frequently answered, "I will take care of your servant, that he may serve you the longer;" meaning himself. Several hospitals were erected by him. During his banishment, another Adalard, who governed the monastery by his appointment, began, upon our saint's project, to {079} prepare the foundation of the monastery of New Corbie, vulgarly called Corwey, in the diocese of Paderborn, nine leagues from that city, upon the Weser, that it might be a nursery of evangelical laborers, to the conversion and instruction of the northern nations. St. Adalard, after his return to Corbie, completed this great undertaking in 822, for which he went twice thither, and made a long stay, to settle the discipline of his colony. Corwey is an imperial abbey; its territory reaches from the bishopric of Paderborn to the duchy of Brunswick, and the abbot is one of the eleven abbots, who sit with twenty-one bishops, in the imperial diet at Ratisbon: but the chief glory of this house is derived from the learning and zeal of St. Anscharius, and many others, who erected illustrious trophies of religion in many barbarous countries. To perpetuate the regularity which he established in his two monasteries, he compiled a book of statutes for their use, of which considerable fragments are extant:[3] for the direction of courtiers in their whole conduct, he wrote an excellent book, On the Order of the Court; of which work we have only the large extracts, which Hincmar has inserted in his Instructions of king Carloman, the master-piece of that prelate's writings, for which he is indebted to our saint. A treatise on the Paschal Moon, and other works of St. Adalard, are lost. By those which we have, also by his disciples, St. Paschasius Radbertus, St. Anscharius, and others, and by the testimony of the former in his life, it is clear that our saint was an elegant and zealous promoter of literature in his monasteries: the same author assures us, that he was well skilled, and instructed the people not only in the Latin, but also in the Tudesque and vulgar French languages.[4] St. Adalard, for his eminent learning, and extraordinary spirit of prayer and compunction, was styled the Austin, the Antony, and the Jeremy of his age. Alcuin, in a letter addressed to him under the name of Antony, calls him his son;[5] whence many infer that he had been scholar to that great man. St. Adalard was returned out of Germany to Old Corbie, when he fell sick three days before Christmas: he received extreme unction some days after, which was administered by Hildemar, bishop of Beauvais, who had formerly been his disciple; the viaticum he received on the day after the feast of our Lord's circumcision, about seven o'clock in the morning, and expired the same day about three in the afternoon, in the year 827, of his age seventy-three. Upon proof of several miracles, by virtue of a commission granted by pope John XIX. (called by some XX.) the body of the saint was enshrined, and translated with great solemnity in 1040; of which ceremony we have a particular history written by St. Gerard, who also composed an office in his honor, in gratitude for having been cured of a violent headache through his intercession: the same author relates seven other miracles performed by the same means.[6] The relics of St. Adalard, except a small portion given to the abbey of Chelles, are still preserved at Corbie, in a rich shrine and two smaller cases. His name has never been inserted in the Roman Martyrology, though he is honored as principal patron in many parish churches, and by several towns on the banks of the Rhine and in the Low Countries. See his life, compiled with accuracy, in a very florid pathetic style, by way of panegyric, by his disciple Paschasius Radbertus, {080} extant in Bollandus, and more correctly in Mabillon, (Act. Ben. t. 5, p. 306, also the same abridged in a more historical style, by St. Gerard, first monk of Corbie, afterwards first abbot of Seauve-majeur in Guienne, founder by William, duke of Aquitain and count of Poitiers, in 1080. The history of the translation of the saint's body, with an account of eight miracles by the same St. Gerard, is also given us by Bollandus.)

Footnotes: 1. It was usual among the ancient French, to add to certain words, syllables, or letters which they did not pronounce; as Chrodobert, or Rigobert, for Robert: Cloves for Louis; Clothaire for Lotharie, &c. 2. Hinc. l. Inst. Regis, c. 12. 3. Published by D'Achery, Spicil. tom. 4, p. 1, 20. 4. From this testimony it is clear, that the French language, used by the common people, had then so much deviated from the Latin as to be esteemed a different tongue; which is also evident from Nithard, an officer in the army of Lewis le Debonnaire, who, in his history of the divisions between the sons of Lewis le Debonnaire, (published among the French historians by du Chesne,) gives us the original act of the agreement between the two brothers, Charles the Bald, and Lewis of Germany, at Strasburg, in 842. 5. Alcuin, Ep. 107. 6. St. Gerard, of Seauve-majeur, died on the 5th of April, 1095, and was canonized by C[oe]lestine III. in 1197. See his life, with an account of the foundation of his monastery, in Mabillon, Acts, Sanctorum ad S. Benedict. t. 9, p. 841.

JANUARY III.

ST. PETER BALSAM, M.

From his valuable acts in Ruinart, p. 501. Bollandus, p. 128. See Tillemont, T. 5. Assemani, Act Mart. Occid. T. 2, p. 106.

A.D. 311.

PETER BALSAM, a native of the territory of Eleutheropolis, in Palestine, was apprehended at Aulane, in the persecution of Maximinus. Being brought before Severus, governor of the province, the interrogatory began by asking him his name. Peter answered: "Balsam is the name of my family, but I received that of Peter in baptism." SEVERUS. "Of what family, and of what country are you?" PETER. "I am a Christian." SEVERUS. "What is your employ?" PETER. "What employ can I have more honorable, or what better thing can I do in the world, than to live a Christian?" SEVERUS. "Do you know the imperial edicts?" PETER. "I know the laws of God, the sovereign of the universe." SEVERUS. "You shall quickly know that there is an edict of the most clement emperors, commanding all to sacrifice to the gods, or be put to death." PETER. "You will also know one day that there is a law of the eternal king, proclaiming that every one shall perish, who offers sacrifice to devils: which do you counsel me to obey, and which, do you think, should be my option; to die by your sword, or to be condemned to everlasting misery, by the sentence of the great king, the true God?" SEVERUS. "Seeing you ask my advice, it is then that you obey the edict, and sacrifice to the gods." PETER. "I can never be prevailed upon to sacrifice to gods of wood and stone, as those are which you adore." SEVERUS. "I would have you know, that it is in my power to revenge these affronts by your death." PETER. "I had no intention to affront you. I only expressed what is written in the divine law." SEVERUS. "Have compassion on yourself, and sacrifice." PETER. "If I am truly compassionate to myself, I ought not to sacrifice." SEVERUS. "My desire is to use lenity; I therefore still do allow you time to consider with yourself, that you may save your life." PETER. "This delay will be to no purpose, for I shall not alter my mind; do now what you will be obliged to do soon, and complete the work, which the devil, your father, has begun; for I will never do what Jesus Christ forbids me."

Severus, on hearing these words, ordered him to be hoisted on the rack, and while he was suspended in the air, said to him scoffing: "What say you now, Peter; do you begin to know what the rack is? Are you yet willing to sacrifice?" Peter answered: "Tear me with iron hooks, and talk not of my sacrificing to your devils: I have already told you, that I will sacrifice to that God alone for whom I suffer." Hereupon the governor {081} commanded his tortures to be redoubled. The martyr, far from fetching the least sigh, sung with alacrity those verses of the royal prophet: One thing I have asked of the Lord; this will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.[1] I will take the chalice of salvation, and will call upon the name of the Lord.[2] The governor called forth fresh executioners to relieve the first, now fatigued. The spectators, seeing the martyr's blood run down in streams, cried out to him: "Obey the emperors: sacrifice, and rescue yourself from these torments." Peter replied: "Do you call these torments? I, for my part, feel no pain: but this I know, that if I am not faithful to my God, I must expect real pains, such as cannot be conceived." The judge also said: "Sacrifice, Peter Balsam, or you will repent it." PETER. "Neither will I sacrifice, nor shall I repent it." SEVERUS. "I am just ready to pronounce sentence." PETER. "It is what I most earnestly desire." Severus then dictated the sentence in this manner: "It is our order, that Peter Balsam, for having refused to obey the edict of the invincible emperors, and having contemned our commands, after obstinately defending the law of a man crucified, be himself nailed to a cross." Thus it was that this glorious martyr finished his triumph, at Aulane, on the 3d of January, which day he is honored in the Roman Martyrology, and that of Bede.

* * * * *

In the example of the martyrs we see, that religion alone inspires true constancy and heroism, and affords solid comfort and joy amidst the most terrifying dangers, calamities, and torments. It spreads a calm throughout a man's whole life, and consoles at all times. He that is united to God, rests in omnipotence, and in wisdom and goodness; he is reconciled with the world whether it frowns or flatters, and with himself. The interior peace which he enjoys, is the foundation of happiness, and the delights which innocence and virtue bring, abundantly compensate the loss of the base pleasures of vice. Death itself, so terrible to the worldly man, is the saint's crown, and completes his joy and his bliss.

Footnotes: 1. Ps. xxvi. 4. 2. Ps. cxv. 4.

ST. ANTERUS, POPE.

HE succeeded St. Pontianus in 235. He sat only one month and ten days, and is styled a martyr by Bede, Ado, and the present Roman Martyrology. See Card. d'Aguirre, Conc. Hispan. T. 3. In the martyrology called S. Jerom's, kept at S. Cyriacus's, it is said that he was buried on the Appian road, in the Paraphagene, where the cemetery of Calixtus was afterwards erected.

ST. GORDIUS.

MARTYRED at Caesarea, in Cappadocia, was a centurion to the army, but retired to the deserts when the persecution was first raised by Dioclesian. The desire of shedding his blood for Christ made him quit his solitude, while the people of that city were assembled to the Circus[1] to solemnize public games in honor of Mars. His attenuated body, long beard and hair and ragged clothes, drew on him the eyes of the whole assembly; yet, with this strange garb and mien, the graceful air of majesty that appeared in his {082} countenance commanded veneration. Being examined by the governor, and loudly confessing his faith, he was condemned to be beheaded. Having fortified himself by the sign of the cross,[2] he joyfully received the deadly blow. St. Basil, on this festival, pronounced his panegyric at Caesarea, in which he says, several of his audience had been eye-witnesses of the martyr's triumph. Hom. 17, t. 1.

Footnotes: 1. The Circus was a ring, or large place, wherein the people sat and saw the public games. 2. [Greek: Heautou ton tupon tou staurou perigrapsas.] St. Basil, t. 1, p. 452.

ST. GENEVIEVE, OR GENOVEFA, V.

CHIEF PATRONESS OF THE CITY OF PARIS.

HER father's name was Severus, and her mother's Gerontia: she was born about the year 422, at Nanterre, a small village four miles from Paris, near the famous modern stations, or Calvary, adorned with excellent sculptures, representing our Lord's Passion, on Mount Valerien. When St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, went with St. Lupus into Britain to oppose the Pelagian heresy, he lay at Nanterre in his way. The inhabitants flocked about them to receive their blessing, and St. Germanus made them an exhortation, during which he took particular notice of Genevieve, though only seven years of age. After his discourse he inquired for her parents, and addressing himself to them, foretold their daughter's future sanctity, and said that she would perfectly accomplish the resolution she had taken of serving God, and that others would imitate her example. He then asked Genevieve whether it was not her desire to serve God in a state of perpetual virginity, and to bear no other title than that of a spouse of Jesus Christ. The virgin answered, that this was what she had long desired, and begged that by his blessing she might be from that moment consecrated to God. The holy prelate went to the church of the place, followed by the people, and, during long singing of psalms and prayers, says Constantius,[1]—that is, during the recital of None and Vespers,[2] as the author of the life of St. Genevieve expresses it,[3] he held his hand upon the virgin's head. After he had supped, he dismissed her, giving a strict charge to her parents to bring her again to him very early the next morning. The father complied with the commission, and St. Germanus asked Genevieve whether she remembered the promise she had made to God. She said she did, and declared she would, by the divine assistance, faithfully perform it. The bishop gave her a brass medal, on which a cross was engraved, to wear always about her neck, to put her in mind of the consecration she had made of herself to God; and at the same time, he charged her never to wear bracelets, or necklaces of pearls, gold, or silver, or any other ornaments of vanity. All this she most religiously observed, and considering herself as the spouse of Christ, gave herself up to the most fervent practices of devotion and penance. From the words of St. Germanus, in his exhortation to St. Genevieve never to wear jewels, Baillet and some others infer, that she must have been a person of quality and fortune; but the ancient Breviary and constant tradition of the place assure us, that her father was a poor shepherd. Adrian, Valois, and Baluze, observe, that her most ancient life ought not to be esteemed of irrefragable authority, and that the words of St. Germanus are {083} not perhaps related with a scrupulous fidelity.[4] The author of her life tells us, that the holy virgin begging one day with great importunity that she might go to the church, her mother struck her on the face, but in punishment lost her sight, which she only recovered, two months after, by washing her eyes twice or thrice with water which her daughter fetched from the well, and upon which she had made the sign of the cross. Hence the people look upon the well at Nanterre as having been blessed by the saint. About fifteen years of age, she was presented to the bishop of Paris to receive the religious veil at his hands, together with two other persons of the same sex. Though she was the youngest of the three, the bishop placed her the first, saying, that heaven had already sanctified her; by which he seems to have alluded to the promise she had already made, in the presence of SS. Germanus and Lupus, of consecrating herself to God. From that time she frequently ate only twice in the week, on Sundays and Thursdays. Her food was barley bread with a few beans. At the age of fifty, by the command of certain bishops, she mitigated this austerity, so far as to allow herself a moderate use of fish and milk. Her prayer was almost continual, and generally attended with a large flow of tears. After the death of her parents she left Nanterre, and settled with her god-mother at Paris; but sometimes undertook journeys upon motives of charity, and illustrated the cities of Meaux, Leon, Tours, Orleans, and all other places wherever she went, with miracles and remarkable predictions. God permitted her to meet with some severe trials; for at a certain time all persons indiscriminately seemed to be in a combination against her, and persecuted her under the opprobrious names of visionary, hypocrite, and the like imputations, all tending to asperse her innocency. The arrival of St. Germanus at Paris, probably on his second journey to Britain, for some time silenced her calumniators; but it was not long ere the storm broke out anew. Her enemies were fully determined to drown her, when the archdeacon of Auxerre arrived with Eulogies, or blessed bread, sent her by St. Germanus, as a testimony of his particular esteem for her virtues, and a token of communion. This seems to have happened while St. Germanus was absent in Italy in 449, a little before his death. This circumstance, so providentially opportune, converted the prejudices of her calumniators into a singular veneration for her during the remainder of her life. The Franks or French had then possessed themselves of the better part of Gaul; and Childeric, their king, took Paris.[5] During the long blockade of that city, the citizens being extremely distressed by famine, St. Genevieve, as the author of her life relates, went out at the head of a company who were sent to procure provisions, and brought back from Arcis-sur-Aube and Troyes several boats laden with corn. Nevertheless, Childeric, when he had made himself master of Paris, though always a pagan, respected St. Genevieve, and, upon her intercession, spared the lives of many prisoners, and did several other acts of clemency and bounty. Our saint, out of her singular devotion to St. Dionysius and his companions, the apostles of the country, frequently visited their tombs at the borough of Catulliacum, which many think the borough since called Saint Denys's. She also excited the zeal of many pious persons to build there a church in {084} honor of St. Dionysius, which King Dagobert I. afterwards rebuilt with a stately monastery in 629.[6] Saint Genevieve likewise performed several pilgrimages, in company with other holy virgins, to the shrine of St. Martin at Tours. These journeys of devotion she sanctified by the exercise of holy recollection and austere penance. King Clovis, who embraced the faith in 496, listened often with deference to the advice of St. Genevieve, and granted liberty to several captives at her request. Upon the report of the march of Attila with his army of Huns, the Parisians were preparing to abandon their city, but St. Genevieve persuaded them, in imitation of Judith and Hester, to endeavor to avert the scourge, by fasting, watching, and prayer. Many devout persons of her sex passed many days with her in prayer in the baptistery; from whence the particular devotion to St. Genevieve, which is practised at St. John-le-rond, the ancient public baptistery of the church of Paris, seems to have taken rise. She assured the people of the protection of heaven, and their deliverance; and though she was long treated by many as an impostor, the event verified the prediction, that barbarian suddenly changing the course of his march, probably by directing it towards Orleans. Our author attributes to St. Genevieve the first design of the magnificent church which Clovis began to build in honor of SS. Peter and Paul, by the pious counsel of his wife Saint Clotilda, by whom it was finished several years after; for he only laid the foundation a little before his death, which happened in 511.[7] St. Genevieve died about the same year, probably five weeks after that prince, on the 3d of January, 512, being eighty-nine years old. Some think she died before King Clovis. Prudentius, bishop of Paris, had been buried about the year 409, on the spot where this church was built. Clovis was interred in it: his remains were afterwards removed into the middle of the choir, where they are covered with a modern monument of white marble, with an inscription. St. Clotilda was buried near the steps of the high altar in 545; but her name having been enrolled among the saints, her relics were enshrined, and are placed behind the high altar. Those of St. Alda, the companion of St. Genevieve, and of St. Ceraunus, bishop of Paris, are placed in silver shrines on the altar of S. Clotilda. The tombs of St. Genevieve and King Clovis were near together. Immediately after the saint was buried, the people raised an oratory of wood over her tomb, as her historian assures us, and this was soon changed into the stately church built under the invocation of SS. Peter and Paul. From this circumstance, we gather that her tomb was situated in a part of this church, which was only built after her death. Her tomb, though empty, is still shown in the subterraneous church, or vault, betwixt those of Prudentius, and St. Ceraunus, bishop of Paris. But her relics were enclosed, by St. {085} Eligius, in a costly shrine, adorned with gold and silver, which he made with his own hands about the year 630, as St. Owen relates in his life. In 845 these relics, for fear of the Normans, were removed to Atis, and thence to Dravel, where the abbot of the canons kept a tooth for his own church. In 850 they were carried to Marisy, near Ferte-Milon, and five years after brought back to Paris. The author of the original life of St. Genevieve concludes it by a description of the Basilick which Clovis and St. Clotilda erected, adorned with a triple portico, in which were painted the histories of the patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, and confessors. This church was several times plundered, and at length burnt, by the Normans. When it was rebuilt, soon after the year 856, the relics of St. Genevieve were brought back. The miracles which were performed there from the time of her burial, rendered this church famous over all France, so that at length it began to be known only by her name. The city of Paris has frequently received sensible proofs of the divine protection, through her intercession. The most famous instance is that called the miracle of Des Ardens, or of the burning fever. In 1129, in the reign of Louis VI., a pestilential fever, with a violent inward heat, and pains in the bowels, swept off, in a short time, fourteen thousand persons; nor could the art of physicians afford any relief. Stephen, bishop of Paris, with the clergy and people, implored the divine mercy, by fasting and supplications. Yet the distemper began not to abate till the shrine of St. Genevieve was carried in a solemn procession to the cathedral. During that ceremony many sick persons were cured by touching the shrine; and of all that then lay ill of that distemper in the whole town, only three died, the rest recovered, and no others fell ill. Pope Innocent II. coming to Paris the year following, after having passed a careful scrutiny on the miracle, ordered an annual festival in commemoration of it on the 26th of November, which is still kept at Paris. A chapel near the cathedral, called anciently St. Genevieve's the Little, erected near the house in which she died, afterward, from this miracle, (though it was wrought not at this chapel, but chiefly at the cathedral, as Le Beuf demonstrates,) was called St. Genevieve des Ardens, which was demolished in 1747, to make place for the Foundling Hospital.[8] Both before and since that time, it is the custom, in extraordinary public calamities, to carry the shrine of St. Genevieve, accompanied with those of St. Marcel, St. Aurea, St. Lucan, martyr, St. Landry, St. Merry, St. Paxentius, St. Magloire, and others, in a solemn procession to the cathedral; on which occasion the regular canons of St. Genevieve walk barefoot, and at the right hand of the chapter of the cathedral, and the abbot walks on the right hand of the archbishop. The present rich shrine of St. Genevieve was made by the abbot, and the relics enclosed in it in 1242. It is said that one hundred and ninety-three marks of silver, and eight of gold, were used in making it; and it is almost covered with precious stones, most of which are the presents of several kings and queens. The crown or cluster of diamonds which glitters on the top, was given by Queen Mary of Medicis. The shrine is placed behind the choir, upon a fine piece of architecture, supported by four high pillars, two of marble, and two of jaspis.[9] See the Ancient Life of St. Genevieve, written by an anonymous author, eighteen years after her death, of which the best edition is given by F. Charpentier, a Genevevan regular canon, in octavo, in 1697. It is interpolated in several editions. Bollandus has added another more modern life; see also Tillemont, t. 16, p. 621, and notes, ib. p. 802. Likewise, Gallia Christiana Nova, t. 7, p. 700.

Footnotes: 1. Constant. in vit. S. Germani. Altiss. l. 1, c. 20. 2. Nonam atque duodecim. It deserves the attention of clergymen, that though anciently the canonical hours were punctually observed in the divine office, SS. Germanus and Lupus deferred None beyond the hour, that they might recite it in the church, rather than on the road. The word duodecima used for Vespers, is a clear demonstration that the canonical hour of Vespers was not five, but six o'clock,—which, about the equinox, was the twelfth hour of the natural day: which is also proved from the name of the Ferial hymn at Vespers, Jam ter quaternis, &c. See Card. Bona, de div. Psalmodia, &c. 3. Apud Bolland. 4. See Piganiol, Descrip. de Paris, t. 8, v. Nanterre. 5. Paris was called by the Romans the castle of the Parisians, being by its situation one of the strongest fortresses in Gaul; for at that time it was confined to the island of the river Seine, now called the Isle du Palais, and the City: though the limits of the city are now extended somewhat beyond that island, it is the smallest part of the town. This isle was only accessible over two wooden bridges, each of which was defended by a castle, which were afterwards called the Great and Little Chatelet. (See Lobineau. Hist. de la Ville de Paris, t. l, l. 1.) The greatest part of the neighboring country was covered with thick woods. The Roman governors built a palace without the island, (now in Rue de l'Harpe,) which Julian, the Apostate, while he commanded in Gaul, exceedingly embellished, furnished with water by a curious aqueduct, and, for the security of his own person, contrived a subterraneous passage from the palace to the castle or Great Chatelet; of all which works certain vestiges are to be seen at this day. 6. Some think that Catualliacum was rather Montmartre than St. Denys's, and that the church built there in the time of St. Genevieve stood near the bottom of the mountain, because it is said in her life to have been at the place where St. Dionysius suffered martyrdom; and it is added, that she often visited the place, attended by many virgins, watched there every Saturday night in prayer, and that one night when she was going thither with her companions in the rain, and through very dirty roads, the lamp that was carried before her was extinguished, but lighted again upon her taking it into her own hands: all which circumstances seem not to agree to a place two leagues distant, like St. Denys's. 7. The author of the life of St. Bathildes testifies, that Clovis built this church for the use of monks; which Mabillon confirms by other proofs, (Op. Posth. t. 2, p. 356.) He doubts not but it continued in their hands, till being burnt by the Normans in 856 (as appears from Stephen of Tournay, ep. 146,) it was soon after rebuilt, and given to secular canons. These, in punishment of a sedition, were expelled by the authority of Eugenius III., and Suger, abbot of St. Denys's, and prime minister to Lewis VII., or the Young, in 1148, who introduced into this church twelve regular canons of the order of St. Austin, chosen out of St. Victor's abbey, which had been erected about forty years before, and was then most famous for many great men, the austerity of its rule, and the piety and learning which flourished in it. Cardinal Francis Rochefoucault, the history of whose most edifying life and great actions will be a model of all pastoral virtues to all ages to come, having established an excellent reformation in the abbey of St. Vincent, at regular canons, at Senlis, when he was bishop of that see, being nominated abbot of St. Genevieve's by Lewis XIII., called from St. Vincent's F. Charles Faure, and twelve others, in 1624, and by their means introduced the same reformation in this monastery, which was confirmed in 1634, when F. Faure was chosen abbot coadjutor to the cardinal. He died in odor of sanctity in 667, the good cardinal having passed to a better life in 1645. 8. De Miraculo Ardentium. See Anonym. ap. Bolland. et Brev. Paris. ad 26 Nov. 9. See Piganiol, Descr. de Paris, t. 5, p. 238, et Le Fevre Calendrier Hist. de l'Eglise de Paris, Nov 26, et Jan. 3. Gallia Christian. Nova, t. 7, p. 700. Le Beuf l. 2, p. 95, et l. 1, p. 387.

{086}

JANUARY IV.

ST. TITUS, DISCIPLE OF ST. PAUL, B.

See St. Paul, ep. ad Tit. and 1 and 2 ad Cor.; also, Tillemont T. 2, Calmet, T. 8, Le Quien Oriens Christianus, T. 2, p. 256. F. Farlat Illyrici sacri. T. 1, p. 354 ad 392.

ST. TITUS was born a Gentile, and seems to have been converted by St. Paul, who calls him his son in Christ. His extraordinary virtue and merit gained him the particular esteem and affection of this apostle; for we find him employed as his secretary and interpreter; and he styles him his brother, and copartner in his labors; commends exceedingly his solicitude and zeal for the salvation of his brethren,[1] and in the tenderest manner expresses the comfort and support he found in him,[2] insomuch, that, on a certain occasion, he declared that he found no rest in his spirit, because at Troas he had not met Titus.[3] In the year 51, he accompanied him to the council that was held at Jerusalem, on the subject of the Mosaic rites. Though the apostle had consented to the circumcision of Timothy, in order to render his ministry acceptable among the Jews, he would not allow the same in Titus, apprehensive of giving thereby a sanction to the error of certain false brethren, who contended that the ceremonial institutes of the Mosaic law were not abolished by the law of grace. Towards the close of the year 56, St. Paul sent Titus from Ephesus to Corinth, with full commission to remedy the several subjects of scandal, as also to allay the dissensions in that church. He was there received with great testimonies of respect, and was perfectly satisfied with regard to the penance and submission of the offenders; but could not be prevailed upon to accept from them any present, not even so much as his own maintenance. His love for that church was very considerable, and at their request he interceded with St. Paul for the pardon of the incestuous man. He was sent the same year by the apostle a second time to Corinth, to prepare the alms that church designed for the poor Christians at Jerusalem. All these particulars we learn from St. Paul's two epistles to the Corinthians.

St. Paul, after his first imprisonment, returning from Rome into the east, made some stay in the island of Crete, to preach there the faith of Jesus Christ: but the necessities of other churches requiring his presence elsewhere, he ordained his beloved disciple Titus bishop of that island, and left him to finish the work he had successfully begun. "We may form a judgment," says St. Chrysostom,[4] "from the importance of the charge, how great the esteem of St. Paul was for his disciple." But finding the loss of such a companion too material, at his return into Europe the year after, the apostle ordered him to meet him at Nicopolis in Epirus, where he intended to pass the winter, and to set out for that place as soon as either Tychichus, or Arthemas, whom he had sent to supply his place during his absence, should arrive in Crete. St. Paul sent these instructions to Titus, in the canonical epistle addressed to him, when on his Journey to Nicopolis, in autumn, in the year 64. He ordered him to establish Priests,[5] that is, {087} bishops, as St. Jerom, St. Chrysostom, and Theodoret expound it, in all the cities of the island. He sums up the principal qualities necessary for a bishop, and gives him particular advice touching his own conduct to his flock, exhorting him to hold to strictness of discipline, but seasoned with lenity. This epistle contains the rule of episcopal life, and as such, we may regard it as faithfully copied in the life of this disciple. In the year 65, we find him sent by St. Paul to preach in Dalmatia.[6] He again returned to Crete, and settled the faith in that and the adjacent little island. All that can be affirmed further of him is, that he finished a laborious and holy life by a happy death in Crete, in a very advanced old age, some affirm in the ninety-fourth year of his age. The body of St. Titus was kept with great veneration in the cathedral of Gortyna, the ruins of which city, the ancient metropolis of the island, situated six miles from mount Ida, are still very remarkable. This city being destroyed by the Saracens in 823, these relics could never since be discovered: only the head of our saint was conveyed safe to Venice, and is venerated in the Ducal basilica of St. Mark (See Creta Sacra, Auctore Flaminio Cornelio, Senatore Veneto. Venetiis, anno 1755, de S. Tito, T. 1, p. 189, 195.) St. Titus has been looked upon in Crete as the first archbishop of Gortyna, which metropolitical see is fixed at Candia, since this new metropolis was built by the Saracens. The cathedral of the city of Candia, which now gives its name to the whole island, bears his name. The Turks leave this church in the hands of the Christians. The city of Candia was built in the ninth century, seventeen miles from the ancient Gortyn or Gortyna. Under the metropolitan of Candia, there are at present in this island eleven suffragan bishops of the Greek communion.

When St. Paul assumed Titus to the ministry, this disciple was already a saint, and the apostle found in him all the conditions which he charged him so severely to require in those whom he should honor with the pastoral charge. It is an illusion of false zeal, and a temptation of the enemy, for young novices to begin to teach before they have learned themselves how to practise. Young birds, which leave their nests before they are able to fly, are sure to perish. Trees which push forth their buds before the season, yield no fruit, the flowers being either nipped by the frost, or destroyed by the sun. So those who give themselves up to the exterior employments of the ministry, before they are thoroughly grounded in the spirit of the gospel, strain their tender interior virtue, and produce only unclean or tainted fruit. All who undertake the pastoral charge, besides a thorough acquaintance with the divine law, and the maxims and spirit of the gospel, and experience, discretion, and a knowledge of the heart of man, or his passions, must have seriously endeavored to die to themselves by the habitual practice of self-denial, and a rooted humility; and must have been so well exercised in holy contemplation, as to retain that habitual disposition of soul amidst exterior employments, and in them to be able still to say, I sleep, and my heart watches;[7] that is, I sleep to all earthly things, and am awake only to my heavenly friend and spouse, being absorbed in the thoughts and desires of the most ardent love.

Footnotes: 1. 2 Cor. viii. 16, xii. 18. 2. 2 Cor. vii. 6, 7. 3. 2 Cor. xi. 13. 4. Hom. i. in Tit. 5. [Greek: Presbuterous], Tit. i. 5. See the learned Dr. Hammond's dissertation on this subject. From the words of St. Paul, Tit. i. De Marca de Concord. l. 1, c. 3, n. 2. and Schelstrate, T. 2, Ant. Eccl. Diss. 4, c. 2 prove archbishops to be of apostolic institution. 6. St. Titus certainly preached in Dalmatia, 2 Tim. iv. 10, &c. He is honored in that country as its principal apostle, on which see the learned Jesuit F. Fariat, Illyrici Sacr. T. i. p. 355. Saint Domnius, who is honored among the saints on the 7th of May, is said to have been ordained by him first bishop of Salona, then the metropolis, which see was afterwards translated to Spalatro. 7. Cant. v.

{088}

ST. GREGORY, B.

HE was one of the principal senators of Autun, and continued from the death of his wife a widower till the age of fifty-seven, at which time, for his singular virtues, he was compelled from his private penitential life, and consecrated bishop of Langres, which see he governed with admirable prudence and zeal thirty-three years, sanctifying his pastoral labors by the most profound humility, assiduous prayer, and extraordinary abstinence and mortification. An incredible number of infidels were converted by him from idolatry, and worldly Christians from their disorders. He died about the beginning of the year 541, but some days after the Epiphany. Out of devotion to St. Benignus, he desired to be buried near that saint's tomb at Dijon, which town was then in the diocese of Langres, and had often been the place of his residence. This was executed by his virtuous son Tetricus—who succeeded him in his bishopric. The 4th of January seems to have been the day of the translation of his relics. He is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology. See his miracles recorded by St. Gregory of Tours. Vit. Patr. c. 7. Hist. Franc. l. 3, c. 15, 19. Cointe Annal. et Gall. Christ.

ST. RIGOBERT, OR ROBERT.

HE was abbot of Orbais, afterwards bishop of Rheims, was favored with the gift of miracles, and suffered an unjust banishment under Charles Martel. He was recalled by Pepin, but finding Milo in possession of his see, retired to Gernicour, a village four or five leagues from Rheims, where he led a retired life in the exercises of penance and prayer. He died about the year 750, and was buried in the church of St. Peter at Gernicour, which he had built. Hincmar, the fifth bishop from him, translated his relics to the abbey of St. Theodoric, and nine years after, to the church of St. Dionysius at Rheims. Fulco, Hincmar's successor, removed them into the metropolitan church of our lady, in which the greater part is preserved in a rich shrine; but a portion is kept in the church of St. Dionysius there, and another portion in the cathedral of Paris, where a chapel bears his name. See his anonymous life in Bollandus; also Flodoard, l. 2. Hist. Rhemens. &c.

ST. RUMON, B.C.

WILLIAM of Malmesbury informs us, that the history of his life was destroyed by the wars, which has also happened in other parts of England. He was a bishop, though it is not known of what see. His veneration was famous at Tavistock, in Devonshire, where Ordulf, earl of Devonshire, built a church under his invocation, before the year 960. Wilson, upon informations given him by certain persons of that country, inserted his name on this day; in the second edition of his English Martyrology. See Malmesb. l. 2. De gestis Pont. Angl. in Cridiensibus.

{089}

JANUARY V.

ST. SIMEON STYLITES, C.

From the account given of him by Theodoret, one of the most judicious and most learned prelates of the church, who lived in the same country, and often visited him; this account was written sixteen years before the saint's death. Also from St. Simeon's life written by Antony, his disciple, published genuine in Bollandus, and the same in Chaldaic by Cosmas, a priest; all three contemporaries and eye-witnesses. This work of Cosmas has been lately published by Monsignor Stephen Assemani,[1] from a Chaldaic MS, which he proves to have been written in the year 474, fifteen years only after the death of St. Simeon. Also from the ancient lives of SS. Euthyinius, Theodosius, Auxentius, and Daniel Stylites. Evagrius, Theodorus Lector, and other most faithful writers of that and the following age, mention the most wonderful actions of this saint. The severest critics do not object to this history, in which so many contemporary writers, several of them eye-witnesses, agree; persons of undoubted veracity, virtue, and sagacity, who could not have conspired in a falsehood, nor could have imposed upon the world facts, which were of their own nature public and notorious. See Tillemont, T. 14.

A.D. 459.

ST. SIMEON was, in his life and conduct, a subject of astonishment, not only to the whole Roman empire, but also to many barbarous and infidel nations. The Persians, Medes, Saracens, Ethiopians, Iberians, and Scythians, had the highest veneration for him. The kings of Persia thought his benediction a great happiness. The Roman emperors solicited his prayers, and consulted him on matters of the greatest importance. It must, nevertheless, be acknowledged, that his most remarkable actions, how instrumental soever they might be to this universal veneration and regard for him, are a subject of admiration, not of imitation. They may serve, notwithstanding, to our spiritual edification and improvement in virtue; as we cannot well reflect on his fervor, without condemning and being confounded at our own indolence in the service of God.

St. Simeon was son to a poor shepherd in Cilicia, on the borders of Syria, and at first kept his father's sheep. Being only thirteen years of age, he was much moved by hearing the beatitudes one day read in the church, particularly these: Blessed are they that mourn; blessed are the clean of heart. The youth addressed himself to a certain old man, to learn the meaning of those words; and begged to know how the happiness they promised was to be obtained. He told him that continual prayer, watching, fasting, weeping, humiliation, and patient suffering of persecutions, were pointed out by those texts as the road to true happiness; and that a solitary life afforded the best opportunities for enforcing the practice of these good works, and establishing a man in solid virtue. Simeon, upon this, withdrew to a small distance, where, falling prostrate upon the ground, he besought Him, who desires all may be saved, to conduct him in the paths which lead to happiness and perfection; to the pursuit of which, under the help of his divine grace, he unreservedly from that moment devoted himself. At length, falling into a slumber, he was favored with a vision, which it was usual with him afterward to relate.. He seemed to himself to be digging a pit for the foundation of a house, and that, as often as he stopped for taking a little breath, which was four times, he was commanded each time to dig deeper, till at length he was told he might desist, the pit being deep enough to receive the intended foundation, on which he would be able to raise a superstructure of what kind, and to what height he pleased. "The event," says Theodoret, "verified the prediction; the actions of this wonderful man were so superior {090} to nature, that they might well require the deepest foundation of humility and fervor whereon to raise and establish them."

Rising from the ground, he repaired {"here paired" in the original text} to a monastery in that neighborhood under the direction of a holy abbot, called Timothy, and lay prostrate at the gate for several days, without either eating or drinking; begging to be admitted on the footing of the lowest servant in the house, and as a general drudge. His petition was granted, and he complied with the terms of it with great fervor and affection for four months. During this time he learned the Psalter by heart, the first task enjoined the novices; and his familiarity with the sacred oracles it contains, greatly helped to nourish his soul in a spiritual life. Though yet in his tender youth, he practised all the austerities of the house; and, by his humility and charity, gained the good-will of all the monks. Having here spent two years, he removed to the monastery of Heliodorus, a person endowed with an admirable spirit of prayer; and who, being then sixty-five years of age, had spent sixty-two of them in that community, so abstracted from the world, as to be utterly ignorant of the most obvious things in it, as Theodoret relates, who was intimately acquainted with him. Here Simeon much increased his mortifications; for whereas those monks ate but once a day, which was towards night, he, for his part, made but one meal a week, which was on Sundays. These rigors, however, he moderated at the interposition of his superior's authority, and from that time was more private in his mortifications. With this view, judging the rough rope of the well, made of twisted palm-tree leaves, a proper instrument of penance, he tied it close about his naked body, where it remained unknown both to the community and his superior, till such time as it having eat into his flesh, what he had privately done was discovered by the stench proceeding from the wound. Three days successively his clothes, which clung to it, were to be softened with liquids, to disengage them; and the incisions of the physician, to cut the cord out of his body, were attended with such anguish and pain, that he lay for some time as dead. On his recovery, the abbot, to prevent the ill consequences such a dangerous singularity might occasion, to the prejudice of uniformity in monastic discipline, dismissed him.

After this he repaired to a hermitage, at the foot of mount Telnescin, or Thelanissa, where he came to a resolution of passing the whole forty days of Lent in a total abstinence, after the example of Christ, without either eating or drinking. Bassus, a holy priest, and abbot of two hundred monks, who was his director, and to whom he had communicated his design, had left with him ten loaves and water, that he might eat if he found it necessary. At the expiration of the forty days he came to visit him, and found the loaves and water untouched, but Simeon stretched out on the ground, almost without any signs of life. Taking a sponge, he moistened his lips with water, then gave him the blessed Eucharist. Simeon, having recovered a little, rose up, and chewed and swallowed by degrees a few lettuce-leaves, and other herbs. This was his method of keeping Lent during the remainder of his life; and he had actually passed twenty-six Lents after this manner, when Theodoret wrote his account of him; in which are these other particulars, that he spent the first part of Lent in praising God standing; growing weaker, he continued his prayer sitting; and towards the end, finding his spirits almost quite exhausted, not able to support himself in any other posture, he lay on the ground. However, it is probable, that in his advanced years he admitted some mitigation of this wonderful austerity. When on his pillar, he kept himself, during this fast, tied to a pole; but at length was able to fast the whole term, without any support. Many attribute this to the strength of his constitution, which was naturally very {091} robust, and had been gradually habituated to such an extraordinary abstinence. It is well known that the hot eastern climates afford surprising instances of long abstinence among the Indians.[2] A native of France has, within our memory, fasted the forty days of Lent almost in that manner.[3] But few examples occur of persons fasting upwards of three or six days, unless prepared and inured by habit.

After three years spent in this hermitage, the saint removed to the top of the same mountain, where, throwing together some loose stones, in the form of a wall, he made for himself an enclosure, but without any roof or shelter to protect him from the inclemencies of the weather; and to confirm his resolution of pursuing this manner of life, he fastened his right leg to a rock with a great iron chain. Meletius, vicar to the patriarch of Antioch, told him, that a firm will, supported by God's grace, was sufficient to make him abide in his solitary enclosure, without having recourse to any bodily restraint: hereupon the obedient servant of God sent for a smith, and had his chain knocked off.

The mountain began to be continually thronged, and the retreat his soul so much sighed after, to be interrupted by the multitudes that flocked, even from remote and infidel countries, to receive his benediction; by which many sick recovered their health. Some were not satisfied unless they also touched him. The saint, to remove these causes of distraction, projected for himself a new and unprecedented manner of life. In 423, he erected a pillar six cubits high, and on it he dwelt four years; on a second twelve cubits high, he lived three years; on a third, twenty-two cubits high, ten years: and on a fourth, forty cubits high, built for him by the people, he spent the last twenty years of his life. Thus he lived thirty-seven years on pillars, and was called Stylites, from the Greek word Stylos, which signifies a pillar. This singularity was at first censured by all, as a mark of vanity or extravagance. To make trial of his humility, an order was sent him, in the name of the neighboring bishops and abbots, to quit his pillar and new manner of life. The saint, ready to obey the summons, was for stepping down: which the messenger seeing, said, that as he had shown a willingness to obey, it was their desire that he might follow his vocation in God. His pillar exceeded not three feet in diameter on the top, which made it impossible for him to lie extended on it; neither would he allow a seat. He only stooped, or leaned, to take a little rest, and often in the day bowed his body in prayer. A certain person once reckoned one thousand two hundred and forty-four such reverences of adoration made by him in one day. He made exhortations to the people twice a day. His garments were the skins of beasts, and he wore an iron collar about his neck. He never suffered any woman to come within the enclosure where his pillar stood. His disciple Antony mentions, that he prayed most fervently for the soul of his mother after her decease.

God is sometimes pleased to conduct certain fervent souls through extraordinary paths, in which others would find only dangers of illusion, vanity, and self-will, which we cannot sufficiently guard ourselves against. We should notwithstanding consider, that the sanctity of these fervent souls does not consist in such wonderful actions, or miracles, but in the perfection of their unfeigned charity, patience, and humility; and it was the exercise {092} of these solid virtues that rendered so conspicuous the life of this saint; these virtues he nourished and greatly increased, by fervent and assiduous prayer. He exhorted people vehemently against the horrible custom of swearing, as also, to observe strict justice, to take no usury, to be assiduous at church and in holy prayer, and to pray for the salvation of souls. The great deference paid to his instructions, even by barbarians, is not to be expressed. Many Persians, Armenians, and Iberians, with the entire nation of the Lazi in Colchis, were converted by his miracles and discourses, which they crowded to hear. Princes and queens of the Arabians came to receive his blessing. Vararanes V. king of Persia, though a cruel persecutor, respected him. The emperors Theodosius the younger, and Leo, often consulted him, and desired his prayers. The emperor Marcian visited him, disguised in the dress of a private man. By his advice the empress Eudoxia abandoned the Eutychian party a little before her death. His miracles and predictions are mentioned at large in Theodoret and others. By an invincible patience he bore all afflictions, austerities, and rebukes, without ever mentioning them. He long concealed a horrible ulcer in his foot, swarming with maggots. He always sincerely looked upon, and treated himself, as the outcast of the world, and the last of sinners; and he spoke to all with the most engaging sweetness and charity. Domnus, patriarch of Antioch, administered unto him the holy communion on his pillar: undoubtedly he often received that benefit from others. In 459, according to Cosmas, on a Wednesday, the 2d of September, this incomparable penitent, bowing on a pillar, as if intent on prayer, gave up the ghost, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. On the Friday following his corpse was conveyed to Antioch, attended by the bishops and the whole country. Many miracles, related by Evagrius,[4] Antony, and Cosmas, were wrought on occasion; and the people immediately, over all the East, kept his festival with great solemnity.[5]

The extraordinary manner of life which this saint led, is a proof of the fervor with which he sought to live in the most perfect sequestration from creatures, and union with God and heaven. The most perfect accomplishment of the Divine Will was his only view, and the sole object of his desires; whence upon the least intimation of an order from a superior, he was ready to leave his pillar; nor did he consider this undertaking as any thing great or singular, by which he should appear distinguished from others. By humility he looked upon himself as justly banished from among men and hidden from the world in Christ. No one is to practise or aspire after virtue or perfection upon a motive of greatness, or of being exalted by it. This would be to fall into the snare of pride, which is to be feared under the cloak of sanctity itself. The foundation of Christian perfection is a love of humiliation, a sincere spirit of humility. The heroic practice of virtue must be undertaken, not because it is a sublime and elevated state, but because God calls us to it, and by it we do his will, and become pleasing to him. The path of the cross, or of contempt, poverty, and sufferings, was chosen {093} by the Father for his divine Son, to repair his glory, and restore to man the spiritual advantages of which sin had robbed him. And the more perfectly we walk in his spirit, by the love and esteem of his cross, the greater share shall we possess in its incomparable advantages. Those who in the practice of virtue prefer great or singular actions, because they appear more shining, whatever pretexts of a more heroic virtue, or of greater utility to others they allege, are the dupes of a secret pride, and follow the corrupt inclinations of their own heart, while they affect the language of the saints. We are called to follow Christ by bearing our crosses after him, leading at least in spirit a hidden life, always trembling in a deep sense of our frailty, and humbled in the centre of our nothingness, as being of ourselves the very abstract of weakness, and an unfathomed abyss of corruption.

Footnotes: 1. Act. Mart. T. 2, app {}. 2. Lettres edifiantes et curieuses. 3. Don Claude Leaute, a Benedictin monk of the congregation of St. Maur, in 1731, when he was about fifty-one years of age, had fasted eleven years, without taking any food the whole forty days, except what he daily took at mass; and what added to the wonder is, that during Lent he did not properly sleep, but only dozed. He could not bear the open air; and towards the end of Lent he was excessively pale and wasted. This fact is attested by his brethren and superiors, in a relation printed at Sens, in 1731; and recorded by Dom L'Isle, in his History of Fasting; and by Feyjoo, in his Theatro Critico Universal. 4. Evagrius, l. 1, c. 13, 14. 5. Monsignor Majelli, a domestic prelate to pope Benedict XIV., in his dissertation on the Stylites, or religious men living on pillars, represents the pillar of St. Simeon enclosed with rails around the top. Whenever he slept a little he leaned on them, or his staff. This author shows the order of the Stylites to have been propagated in the East from saint Simeon, down to the Saracen and Turkish empires. The inclemency of the air makes that manner of life impracticable to the West. However, St. Gregory of Tours mentions one (l. 8. c. 15) V{}filaick, a Lombard, and disciple of the abbot St. Yrier, who leaving Limousin went to Triers, and lived some time on a pillar in that neighborhood. He engaged the people of the villages to renounce the worship of idols, and to hew down the great statue of Diana at Ardens, that had been famous from the time of Domitian. The bishop ordered him to quit a manner of life too severe for the cold climate. He instantly obeyed, and lived afterwards in a neighboring monastery. He seems to have been the only Stylite of the West. See Fleury, l. 35, T. 8, p. 54.

ST. TELESPHORUS, P.M.

HE was a Grecian by birth, and the seventh bishop of Rome. Towards the end of the year 128, he succeeded Saint Sixtus I., sat eleven years, and saw the havoc which the persecution of Adrian made in the church. "He ended his life by an illustrious martyrdom," says Eusebius;[1] which is also confirmed by St. Irenaeus.[2]

Footnotes: 1. Hist. l. 4, c. 10. 2. L. 3, c. 3.

ST. SYNCLETICA, V.

SHE was born at Alexandria in Egypt, of wealthy Macedonian parents. From her infancy she had imbibed the love of virtue, and in her tender years she consecrated her virginity to God. Her great fortune and beauty induced many young noblemen to become her suitors for marriage, but she had already bestowed her heart on her heavenly spouse. Flight was her refuge against exterior assaults, and, regarding herself as her own most dangerous enemy, she began early to subdue her flesh by austere fasts and other mortifications. She never seemed to suffer more than when obliged to eat oftener than she desired. Her parents, at their death, left her heiress to their opulent estate; for the two brothers she had died before them; and her sister being blind, was committed entirely to her guardianship. Syncletica, having soon distributed her fortune among the poor, retired with her sister into a lonesome monument, on a relation's estate; where, having sent for a priest, she cut off her hair in his presence, as a sign whereby she renounced the world, and renewed the consecration of herself to God. Mortification and prayer were from that time her principal employment; but her close solitude, by concealing her pious exercises from the eyes of the world, has deprived us in a great measure of the knowledge of them.

The fame of her virtue being spread abroad, many women resorted to her abode to confer with bet upon spiritual matters. Her humility made her unwilling to take upon herself the task of instructing, but charity, on the other side, opened her mouth. Her pious discourses were inflamed with so much zeal, and accompanied with such an unfeigned humility, and with so many tears, that it cannot be expressed what deep impressions they made on her hearers. "Oh," said the saint, "how happy should we be, did we but take as much pains to gain heaven and please God, as worldlings do to heap up riches and perishable goods! by land they venture among thieves and robbers; at sea they expose themselves to the fury of winds and storms; {094} they suffer shipwrecks, and all perils; they attempt all, try all, hazard all; but we, in serving so great a master, for so immense a good, are afraid of every contradiction." At other times, admonishing them of the dangers of this life, she was accustomed to say, "We must be continually upon our guard, for we are engaged in a perpetual war; unless we take care, the enemy will surprise us, when we are least aware of him. A ship sometimes passes safe through hurricanes and tempests, yet, if the pilot, even in a calm, has not a great care of it, a single wave, raised by a sudden gust, may sink her. It does not signify whether the enemy clambers in by the window, or whether all at once he shakes the foundation, if at last he destroys the house. In this life we sail, as it were, in all unknown sea. We meet with rocks, shelves, and sands; sometimes we are becalmed, and at other times we find ourselves tossed and buffeted by a storm. Thus we are never secure, never out of danger; and, if we fall asleep, are sure to perish. We have a most intelligent and experienced pilot at the helm of our vessel, even Jesus Christ himself, who will conduct us safe into the haven of salvation, if, by our supineness, we cause not our own perdition." She frequently inculcated the virtue of humility, in the following words: "A treasure is secure so long as it remains concealed; but when once disclosed, and laid open to every bold invader, it is presently rifled; so virtue is safe so long as secret, but, if rashly exposed, it but too often evaporates into smoke. By humility, and contempt of the world, the soul, like an eagle, soars on high, above all transitory things, and tramples on the backs of lions and dragons." By these, and the like discourses, did this devout virgin excite others to charity, humility, vigilance, and every other virtue.

The devil, enraged to behold so much good, which all his machinations were not capable to prevent, obtained permission of God, for her trial, to afflict this his faithful servant, like another Job: but even this served only to render her virtue the more illustrious. In the eightieth year of her age she was seized with an inward burning fever, which wasted her insensibly by its intense heat; at the same time an imposthume was formed in her lungs; and a violent and most tormenting scurvy, attended with a corroding hideous stinking ulcer, ate away her jaws and mouth, and deprived her of her speech. She bore all with incredible patience and resignation to God's holy will; and with such a desire of an addition to her sufferings, that she greatly dreaded the physicians would alleviate her pains. It was with difficulty that she permitted them to pare away or embalm the parts already dead. During the three last months of her life, she found no repose. Though the cancer had robbed her of her speech, her wonderful patience served to preach to others more movingly than words could have done. Three days before her death she foresaw, that in the third day she should be released from the prison of her body; and on it, surrounded by a heavenly light, and ravished by consolatory visions, she surrendered her pure soul into the hands of her Creator, in the eighty-fourth year of her age. The Greeks keep her festival on the 4th, the Roman Martyrology mentions her on the 5th of January.[1] The ancient beautiful life of S. Syncletica is quoted in the old lives of the fathers published by Rosweide, l. 6, and in the ancient notes of St. John Climacus. It appears, from the work itself, that the author was personally acquainted with the saint. It has been ascribe to St. Athanasius, but without sufficient grounds. It was translated into {095} French, though not scrupulously, by d'Andilly, Vies des SS. Peres des De certs, T. 3, p. 91. The antiquity of this piece is confirmed by Montfaucon, Catal. Bibl. Coislianae, p. 417.

Footnotes: 1. She must not have lived later than the fourth century, for we find her life quoted in the fifth and sixth; and as she lived eighty-four years, she could not at least be much younger than St. Athanasius. From the age in which she lived, she is thought by some to have been the first foundress of nunneries, of religious women living in community, as St. Antony was of men. On this head consult Helyott, Hist. des Ord., and Mr. Stevens in his English Monasticon, c. 1, p. 16. However, St. Antony's sister found a nunnery erected when she was but young, and this was prior to the time of Constantine the Great.

JANUARY VI.

THE EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD.

EPIPHANY, which in the original Greek signifies appearance or manifestation, as St. Austin observes,[1] is a festival principally solemnized in honor of the discovery Jesus Christ made of himself to the Magi, or wise men; who, soon after his birth, by a particular inspiration of Almighty God, came to adore him and bring him presents.[2] Two other manifestations of our Lord are jointly commemorated on this day in the office of the church; that at his baptism, when the Holy Ghost descended on him in the visible form of a dove, and a voice from heaven was heard at the same time: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.[3] The third manifestation was that of his divine power at the performance of his first miracle, the changing of water into wine, at the marriage at Cana,[4] by which he manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.[5] Upon so many accounts ought this festival to challenge a more than ordinary regard and veneration; but from none more than us Gentiles, who, in the persons of the wise men, our first-fruits and forerunners, were on this day called to the faith and worship of the true God. Nothing so much illustrates this mercy as the wretched degeneracy into which the subjects of it were fallen. So great this, that there was no object so despicable as not to be thought worthy of divine honors, no vice so detestable as not to be enforced by the religion of those times of ignorance,[6] as the scripture emphatically calls them. God had, in punishment of their apostasy from him by idolatry, given them over to the most shameful passions, as described at large by the apostle: Filled with all iniquity, fornication, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, contention, deceit, whisperers, detracters, proud, haughty, disobedient, without fidelity, without affection, without mercy, &c.[7] Such were the generality of our pagan ancestors, and such should we ourselves have been, but for God's gracious and effectual call to the true faith.

The call of the Gentiles had been foretold for many ages before in the clearest terms. David and Isaias abound with predictions of this import; the like is found in the other prophets; but their completion was a mercy reserved for the times of the Messiah. It was to him, who was also the consubstantial Son of God, that the eternal Father had made the promise of all nations for his inheritance;[8] who being born the spiritual king of the {096} whole world, for the salvation of all men,[9] would therefore manifest his coming both to those that were near, and those that were afar off;[10] that is, both to Jew and Gentile. Upon his birth, angels[11] were dispatched ambassadors to the Jews, in the persons of the poor shepherds, and a star[12] was the divine messenger on this important errand to the Gentiles of the East;[13] conformably to Balaam's prophecy,[14] who foretold the coming of the Messias by that sign.

The summons of the Gentiles to Bethlehem to pay homage to the world's Redeemer was obeyed by several whom the scripture mentions under the name and title of Magi,[15] or wise men; but is silent as to their number. The general opinion, supported by the authority of St. Leo, Caesarius, Bede, and others, declares for three.[16] However, the number was small, comparatively to those many others that saw that star, no less than the wise men, but paid no regard to this voice of heaven: admiring, no doubt, its uncommon brightness, but culpably ignorant of the divine call in it, or hardening their hearts against its salutary impressions, overcome by their passions, and the dictates of self-love. In like manner do Christians, from the same causes, turn a deaf ear to the voice of divine grace in their souls, and harden their hearts against it in such numbers, that, notwithstanding their call, their graces, and the mysteries wrought in their favor, it is to be feared, that even among them many are called, but few are chosen. It was the case with the Jews, with the most of whom, St. Paul says, God was not well pleased.[17]

How opposite was the conduct of the wise men! Instead of being swayed by the dictates of self-love, by the example of the crowd, and of many reputed moral men among them, they no sooner discovered the heavenly messenger, but, without the least demur, set out on their journey to find the Redeemer of their souls. Convinced that they had a call from heaven by the star, which spoke to their eyes, and by an inward grace, that spoke to their hearts, they cut off all worldly consultations, human reasonings, and delays, and postponed every thing of this kind to the will of God. Neither any affairs to be left unfinished, nor the care of their provinces or families, nor the difficulties and dangers of a long and tedious journey through deserts and mountains almost unpassable, and this in the worst season of the year, and through a country which in all ages had been notoriously {097} infested with robbers: nothing of all this, or the many other false lights of worldly prudence and policy, made use of, no doubt, by their counsellors and dependents, and magnified by the enemy of souls, could prevail with them to set aside or defer their journey; or be thought deserving the least attention, when God called. They well know that so great a grace, if slighted, might perhaps have been lost forever. With what confusion must not this their active and undaunted zeal cover our sloth and cowardice!

The wise men being come, by the guidance of the star, into Jerusalem, or near, it, it there disappears: whereupon they reasonably suppose they are come to their journey's end, and upon the point of being blessed with the sight of the new-born king: that, on their entering the royal city, they shall in every street and corner hear the acclamations of a happy people, and learn with ease the way to the royal palace, made famous to all posterity by the birth of their king and Saviour. But to their great surprise there appears not the least sign of any such solemnity. The court and city go quietly on in seeking their pleasure and profit! and in this unexpected juncture what shall these weary travellers to? Were they governed by human prudence, this disappointment is enough to make them abandon their design, and retreat as privately as they can to screen their reputation, and avoid the raillery of the populace, as well as to prevent the resentment of the most jealous of tyrants, already infamous for blood. But true virtue makes trials the matter and occasion of its most glorious triumphs. Seeming to be forsaken by God, on their being deprived of extraordinary, they have recourse to the ordinary means of information. Steady in the resolution of following the divine call, and fearless of danger, they inquire in the city with equal confidence and humility, and pursue their inquiry in the very court of Herod himself: Where is he that is born king of the Jews? And does not their conduct teach us, under all difficulties of the spiritual kind, to have recourse to those God has appointed to be our spiritual guides, for their advice and direction? To obey and be subject to them,[18] that so God may lead us to himself, as he guided the wise men to Bethlehem by the directions of the priests of the Jewish church.

The whole nation of the Jews, on account of Jacob's and Daniel's prophecies, were then in the highest expectation of the Messiah's appearance among them; the place of whose birth having been also foretold, the wise men, by the interposition of Herod's authority, quickly learned, from the unanimous voice of the Sanhedrim, or great council of the Jews,[19] that Bethlehem was the place which was to be honored with his birth; as having been pointed out by the prophet Micheas,[20] several ages before. How sweet and adorable is the conduct of divine providence! He teaches saints his will by the mouths of impious ministers, and furnishes Gentiles with the means of admonishing and confounding the blindness of the Jews. But graces are lost on carnal and hardened souls. Herod had then reigned upwards of thirty years; a monster of cruelty, ambition, craft, and dissimulation; old age and sickness had at that time exasperated his jealous mind in an unusual manner. He dreaded nothing so much as the appearance of the Messiah, whom the generality then expected under the notion of a temporal prince, and whom he could consider in no other light than that of a rival and pretender to his crown; so no wonder that he was startled at the news of his birth. All Jerusalem, likewise, instead of rejoicing at such happy tidings, were alarmed and disturbed together with him. We {098} abhor their baseness; but do not we, at a distance from courts, betray several symptoms of the baneful influence of human respects running counter to our duty? Likewise in Herod we see how extravagantly blind and foolish ambition is. The divine infant came not to deprive Herod of his earthly kingdom, but to offer him one that is eternal; and to teach him a holy contempt of all worldly pomp and grandeur. Again, how senseless and extravagant a folly was it to form designs against those of God himself! who confounds the wisdom of the world, baffles the vain projects of men, and laughs their policy to scorn. Are there no Herods now-a-days; persons who are enemies to the spiritual kingdom of Christ in their hearts?

The tyrant, to ward off the blow he seemed threatened with, has recourse to his usual arts of craft and dissimulation. He pretends a no less ardent desire of paying homage to the new-born king, and covers his impious design of taking away his life, under the specious pretext of going himself in person to adore him. Wherefore, after particular examination about the time when the wise men first saw this star, and a strict charge to come back and inform him where the child was to be found, he dismisses them to the place determined by the chief priests and scribes. Herod was then near his death; but as a man lives, such does he usually die. The near prospect of eternity seldom operates in so salutary a manner on habitual sinners, as to produce in them a true and sincere change of heart.

The wise men readily comply with the voice of the Sanhedrim, notwithstanding the little encouragement these Jewish leaders afford them from their own example to persist in their search; for not one single priest or scribe is disposed to bear them company, in seeking after, and paying due homage to their own king. The truths and maxims of religion depend not on the morals of those that preach them; they spring from a higher source, the wisdom and veracity of God himself. When therefore a message comes undoubtedly from God, the misdemeanors of him that immediately conveys it to us can be no just plea or excuse for our failing to comply with it. As, on the other side, an exact and ready compliance will then be a better proof of our faith and confidence in God, and so much the more recommend us to his special conduct and protection, as it did the wise men. For no sooner had they left Jerusalem, but, to encourage their faith and zeal, and to direct their travels, God was pleased to show them the star again, which they had seen in the East, and which continued to go before them till it conducted them to the very place where they were to see and adore their God and Saviour. Here its ceasing to advance, and probably sinking lower in the air tells them in its mute language: "Here shall you find the new-born king." The holy men, with an unshaken and steady faith, and in transports of spiritual joy, entered the poor cottage, rendered more glorious by this birth than the most sumptuous stately palace in the universe, and finding the child with his mother, they prostrate themselves, they adore him, they pour forth their souls in his presence in the deepest sentiments of praise, thanksgiving, and a total sacrifice of themselves. So far from being shocked at the poverty of the place, and at his unkingly appearance, their faith rises and gathers strength on the sight of obstacles which, humanly speaking, should extinguish it. It captivates their understanding; it penetrates these curtains of poverty, infancy, weakness, and abjection; it casts them on their faces, as unworthy to look up to this star, this God of Jacob: they confess him under this disguise to be the only and eternal God: they own the excess of his goodness in becoming man, and the excess of human misery, which requires for its relief so great a humiliation of the Lord of glory. St. Leo thus extols their faith and devotion: "When a star had conducted them to adore Jesus, they did not find him commanding devils, or raising the dead, {099} or restoring sight to the blind, or speech to the dumb, or employed in any divine actions; but a silent babe, under the care of a solicitous mother, giving no sign of power, but exhibiting a miracle of humility."[21] Where shall we find such a faith in Israel? I mean among the Christians of our days. The wise men knew by the light of faith that he came not to bestow on us earthly riches, but to banish our love and fondness for them, and to subdue our pride. They had already learned the maxims of Christ, and had imbibed his spirit: whereas Christians are for the greatest part such strangers to it, and so devoted to the world, and its corrupt maxims, that they blush at poverty and humiliation, and will give no admittance in their hearts to the humility and the cross of Jesus Christ. Such by their actions cry out with those men in the gospel: We will not have this man to reign over us.[22] This their opposite conduct shows what they would have thought of Christ and his humble appearance at Bethlehem.

The Magi, pursuant to the custom of the eastern nations, where the persons of great princes are not to be approached without presents, present to Jesus, as a token of homage, the richest produce their countries afforded, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold, as an acknowledgment of his regal power: incense, as a confession of his Godhead: and myrrh, as a testimony that he was become man for the redemption of the world. But their far more acceptable presents were the holy sentiments and affections of their souls; their fervent charity, signified by gold; their devotion, figured by frankincense; and the unreserved sacrifice of themselves by mortification, represented by myrrh.[23] The divine king, no doubt, richly repaid their generosity by favors of a much greater excellency, the spiritual gifts of his grace. It is with the like sentiments and affections of love, praise, gratitude, compunction, and humility, that we ought frequently, and particularly on this solemnity, to draw near, in spirit, to the infant Jesus; making him an affectionate tender of our hearts, but first cleansed by tears of sincere repentance.

The holy kings being about to return home, God, who saw the hypocrisy and malicious designs of Herod, by a particular intimation diverted them from their purpose of carrying back word to Jerusalem, where the child was to be found. So, to complete their fidelity and grace, they returned not to Herod's court; but, leaving their hearts with their infant Saviour, took another road back into their own country. In like manner, if we would persevere in the possession of the graces bestowed on us, we must resolve from this day to hold no correspondence with a sinful world, the irreconcilable enemy to Jesus Christ; but to take a way that lies at a distance from it, I mean that which is marked out to us by the saving maxims of the gospel. And pursuing this with an unshaken confidence in his grace and merits, we shall safely arrive at our heavenly country.

It has never been questioned but that the holy Magi spent the rest of their lives in the fervent service of God. The ancient author of the imperfect comment on St. Matthew, among the works of St. Chrysostom, says, they were afterwards baptized in Persia, by St. Thomas the apostle, and became themselves preachers of the gospel. Their bodies were said to have been translated to Constantinople under the first Christian emperors. From thence they were conveyed to Milan, where the place in which they were deposited is still shown in the Dominicans' church of that city. The emperor Frederick Barbarossa having taken Milan, caused them to be translated to Cologne in Germany, in the twelfth century.

Footnotes: 1. St. Aug. Serm. 203, ol. 64, de div. 2. According to Papebroch, it was pope Julius the First, in the fourth century, by whom the celebration of these two mysteries, the nativity and manifestation of Christ to the Magi, was first established in the western church on distinct days. The Greeks still keep the Epiphany with the birth of Christ on Christmas-day, which they call Theophany, or the manifestation of God, which is the ancient name for the Epiphany in St. Isidore of Pelusium, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Eusebius, &c. See Thomassi Tr. des Fotes, Martenne Anecd. T. 5, p. 206, B. et in Nota, ib. 3. Matt. iii. 17. 4. Footnote: Jo. ii. 11. 5. Bollandus (Pref. gen. c. 4) and Ruinart (in Cal. in calce. act. Mart.) quote a fragment of Polemeus Sylvius written in 448, in which is said that all these three manifestations of Christ happened on this day, though S. Maximus of Turin was uncertain. 6. Acts xvii. 30. 7. Rom. i. 8. Ps. ii. 8. 9. 1 Tim. ii. 4. 10. Eph. ii. 17. 11. Luke ii. 10, 11. 12. This phenomenon could not have been a real star, that is, one of the fixed, the least or nearest of which is for distance too remote, and for bulk too enormous, to point out any particular house or city like Bethlehem, as St. Chrysostom well observes; who supposes it to have been an angel assuming that form. If of a corporeal nature, it was a miraculous shining meteor, resembling a star, but placed in the lower region of our atmosphere; its motion, contrary to the ordinary course of the stars, performing likewise the part of a guide to these travellers; accommodating itself to their necessities, disappearing or returning as they could best or least dispense with its guidance. See S. Thomas, p. 3, quaest 36, a. 7. Federicus Miegius Diss. De Stella a Magis conspecta in Thesauro Dissertationum in Nov. Testament. Amstelodami. An. 1702, T. 1, Benedictus XIV. de Canoniz. l. 4, part 1, c. 25. 13. What and where this East was, is a question about which interpreters have been much divided. The controverted places are Persia, Chaldea, Mesopotamia, and Arabia Felix. As they lay all more or less eastward from Palestine, so, in each of these countries, some antecedent notions of a Messias may be accounted for. In Persia and Chaldea, by the Jewish captivity and subsequent dispersion; also the prophecies of Daniel. In Arabia, by the proximity of situation and frequent commerce. In Mesopotamia, besides these, the aforesaid prophecy of Balaam, a native of that country. 14. Num. xxiv. 17. 15. In the eastern parts, particularly in Persia,Magi was the title they gave to their wise men and philosophers. In what veneration they were there held appears from the most important affairs, sacred and civil, being committed to their administration. They were deemed the oracles of the eastern countries. These that came to Bethlehem on this solemn occasion are vulgarly called kings, as they very likely were at least of an inferior and subordinate rank. They are called princes by Tertullian, (L. contra Judaeos, c. 9, L. 5, contra Marcion.) See Gretser, l. 1. de Festis, c. 30, (T. 5, Op. nup. ad. Ratisp.) Baronius ad ann. l, n. 30, and the learned author Annot. ad histor. vitae Christi, Urbini, anno 1730, c. 7, who all agree that the Magi seem to have been governors, or petty princes, such anciently being often styled kings. See a full account of the Magi, or Magians, in Prideaux's Connexion, p. 1, b. 4. 16. St. Leo, Serm. 30, &c. St. Caesar. Serm. 139, &c. See Maldonat. on Saint Matt. ii. for the grounds of this opinion. Honoratus of St. Mary, Regles de la Critique, l. 3, diss. 4, a. 2, F. Ayala in Pictor Christian. l. 3, c. 3, and Benedict XIV. de Festis Christi. l. 1, c. 2, de Epiph. n. 7, p. 22. This last great author quotes a picture older than St. Leo, found in an ancient Roman cemetery, of which a type was published at Rome in a collection of such monuments printed at Rome in 1737. T. 1., Tab. 22. 17. 1 Cor. x. 5. 18. Heb. xiii. 17. 19. This consisted principally of the chief priests and scribes or doctors of the law. 20. Ch. v. 2. 21. Ser. 36, in Epiph. 7, n. 2. 22. Luke xix. 14. 23. Myrrh was anciently made use of in embalming dead bodies: a fit emblem of mortification, because this virtue preserves the soul from the corruption of sin.

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S. MELANIUS, B.C.

HE was a native of Placs or Plets, in the diocese of Vannes in Brittany and had served God with great fervor in a monastery for some years, when Noon the death of St. Amandus, bishop of Rennes, he was compelled by the clergy and people to fill that see, though his humility made great opposition. His virtue was chiefly enhanced by a sincere humility, and a spirit of continual prayer. The author of his life tells us, that he raised one that was dead to life, and performed many other miracles. King Clovis after his conversion held him in great veneration. The almost entire extirpation of idolatry in the diocese of Rennes was the fruit of our saint's zeal. He died in a monastery which he had built at Placs, the place of his nativity, according to Dom Morice, in 490. He was buried at Rennes, where his feast is kept on the 6th of November. In the Roman Martyrology he is commemorated on the 6th of January. St. Gregory, of Tours, mentions a stately church erected over his tomb. Solomon, sovereign prince of Brittany, in 840, founded a monastery under his invocation, which still subsists in the suburbs of Rennes, of the Benedictin order. See the anonymous ancient life of St. Melanius in Bollandus; also St. Greg. Tour. l. de glor. Conf. c. 55. Argentre, Hist. de Bretagne. Lobineau, Vies des Saints de Bretagne, p.32 Morice, Hist. de Bretagne, note 28, p. 932.