FOOTNOTES:[124]Rev. ii. 9.[125]Bath-hildrin Norse, meaning the maiden (hildr) of theBath-stofa, the female apartment in a Norse, Saxon or Frankish house. She is sometimes called Bathildes, sometimes Baltidis.
[124]Rev. ii. 9.
[124]Rev. ii. 9.
[125]Bath-hildrin Norse, meaning the maiden (hildr) of theBath-stofa, the female apartment in a Norse, Saxon or Frankish house. She is sometimes called Bathildes, sometimes Baltidis.
[125]Bath-hildrin Norse, meaning the maiden (hildr) of theBath-stofa, the female apartment in a Norse, Saxon or Frankish house. She is sometimes called Bathildes, sometimes Baltidis.
S. Julian,B., of Mans, in France.S. Julian,M., at Atina, in Italy, circ.a.d.133.S. Devota,M., in Corsica, circ.a.d.303.S. Peter the Egyptian,H., in Syria, circ.a.d.400.S. Chrysostom,B. D., at Constantinople,a.d.407.S. Domitian,Monk and Deacon in Judea,a.d.473.S. Marius,Ab. of La-val-benoit, near Sisteron, in France, 6th cent.S. Lupus,B., of Chalons-sur-Saone, in France, beginning of 7th cent.S. Vitalian,Pope of Rome,a.d.671.S. Emerius,Ab., and his mother,S. Candida,at Banoles, in Spain,end of 8th cent.S. Gamelbert,P., in Bavaria, end of 8th cent.S. Sulpicius,B., of S. Ghislain in Belgium.S. Theodoric II.,B, of Orleans,a.d.1022.S. Gildwin,Can. of Dol, in Brittany,a.d.1077.S. John,B. of French Flanders,a.d.1130.
(DATE UNCERTAIN.)
[Called the Apostle of Celtic Gaul; he is commemorated on this day in the Roman Martyrology. In the Paris Martyrology on the 28th Jan., others on the 31st; that of Cologne on 26th Jan. In the Roman Martyrology he is said to have been sent by S. Peter into Gaul; but as Bollandus has shown, this is an error. His life was written by one Brother Lethald in, or about,a.d.990.]
S.
aint Julian was the first to carry the light of the Gospel into that portion of France of which Le Mans is the capital. There he laboured with great success, destroyed the idol which the people worshipped, and persuaded great numbers to be baptized. His life, written several hundreds of years after his death, is of small authority, and contains little of interest. His relics were given to Paderborn in Westphalia,in 1143.
(about a.d.303.)
[Deivota seems to have been the correct form of her name, but she is usually called Devota. Authority: her Acts.]
Deivota, or Devota was brought up from childhood in the Christian faith; when she was quite young, she was taken into the house of Eutyches, a senator, and probably a relation.
Eutyches was not a Christian, but he was a kindly disposed man, who disliked persecution. On the publication of the edict of Diocletian against Christianity, he sacrificed along with the other senators; but the governor, being told that he sheltered in his house a little Christian maiden, ordered him to be poisoned, and Devota to be executed with great barbarity. Her feet were tied together, and she was dragged over rough ground till her limbs were dislocated, and she was cut and bruised over her entire person. When, after this, she was stretched on the rack, she besought Jesus Christ to release her. Her prayer was heard, and with a gentle sigh she expired. At the same moment a white dove was seen fluttering over her; it expanded its pure wings, and mounting, was lost in the deep blue of the sky. During the night a devout priest, named Benenatus, a deacon, Apollinarius, and a believing boatman, Gratian by name, removed her body, and placing it amidst spices in the little skiff, rowed out to sea. Then a white dove appeared, skimming over the water, then waiting, and hovering before them, then darting forward; and they, remembering the apparition at her death, followed the guidance of the dove, and reached Monaco, where theylaid her.
(a.d.407.)
[Authorities: Socrates, Sozomen, life by Palladius, and his own writings, &c.]
John Chrysostom was the son of Secundus, a military officer, born about 347, at Antioch, and on his father's death, soon afterwards, he became indebted for a careful and Christian training to his pious mother, Anthusa. He studied rhetoric under the accomplished pagan teacher Libanius, who afterwards, on being asked to name his own successor, replied, "John would be the fittest, if the Christians had not stolen him."
He was baptized by Meletius, patriarch of Antioch; his chief friend was S. Basil, and Anthusa's earnest pleadings were required to counteract Basil's proposal that they should both retire into monastic life. Chrysostom, as we may most conveniently call him, could not resist his mother's appeal; he continued to live at home, but in the practice of monastic asceticism and the diligent reading of Scripture. He studied theology under Diodore, the companion of Flavian, who had been the champions of orthodoxy against Arianism, first as laymen, and afterwards as priests, in Antioch. Meletius, who had baptized John Chrysostom, was himself a confessor. It was probably about 372-374 that Chrysostom and Basil were spoken of as likely to be made bishops; and Chrysostom, by a singular artifice—the justification of which forms the least pleasing portion of his treatise "On the Priesthood,"—procured Basil's consecration while evading the burden himself.
For several years he carried out the plan which, during his mother's lifetime he had abandoned, living first in cenobitic "tabernacles," and afterwards as a hermit in a cave,until his health, never robust, gave way, and he was obliged to return to Antioch, where he entered the ministry.
Early in 387, an increase of taxes provoked the people of Antioch to sedition. They threw down the brazen statues of the Emperor Theodosius, and his deceased wife, the pious and charitable Flacilla. Flavian, who had been elected and consecrated patriarch, on the death of Meletius, set forth a little before Lent, to appease the emperor, and met the officers of the empire, sent from court to avenge the insult. His absence was well supplied by Chrysostom, who had recently received priest's orders, and who began to turn this trouble to account by a course of "Sermons on the Statues," as they are called. In these he endeavoured to allay the people's terror, and to convince them of their besetting sins—of which swearing was the chief—and so far succeeded, that the churches were thronged all day. The people of Antioch were pardoned by the emperor at the intercession of the patriarch.
S. Chrysostom had been five years deacon, and twelve years priest, when Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople died, in 397, after an episcopate which had relaxed the general tone of the clergy. "Then," says the biographer of S. Chrysostom, "there came together some who were not wanted, priests unworthy of the priesthood, besetting the palace gates, resorting to bribery, falling on their knees even, before the people." Disgusted by this scandalous eagerness for an office which saints were wont to dread, the faithful entreated Arcadius, the Emperor, to look out for one who could administer it worthily. Eutropius, the emperor's chamberlain, had learned by visiting Antioch to admire the character of Chrysostom. He made Arcadius write to the military commander at Antioch, desiring him to send the priest John to Constantinople, without causing any publicexcitement. The commander sent a message to Chrysostom, asking him to meet him "at the Church of the Martyrs, near the Roman Gate." Chrysostom complied; was placed in a public conveyance, and hurried away from the scene of his early life and priestly labours. Several bishops were summoned for the consecration. Theophilus of Alexandria had come to Constantinople to solicit the appointment for his priest Isidore. He was required to consecrate Chrysostom, but endeavoured to withdraw, reading the decision and earnestness of Chrysostom in his face, and disliking him, for he was a thoroughly worldly, self-seeking prelate. Eutropius showed him some papers, however, saying, "Choose between consecrating John, and undergoing a trial on the charges made against you in these documents." Theophilus could make no reply. He consecrated Chrysostom on Feb. 26th,a.d.398; but he never forgave him for having been the cause of this severe mortification.
Over a city in which intrigue and adulation were practised as the royal road to honour, John Chrysostom, straight forward and outspoken, was set as patriarch. He came to be chief shepherd over a clergy given up to ease and sycophancy, flattering the rich and powerful, fawning on the emperor for place, and betraying their charge, the poor.
Chrysostom set to work at once as a reformer of abuses. He forbad the clergy frequenting the banquets of great men; he struggled against the practice of entertaining "spiritual sisters." Several clergy were deprived; Chrysostom drew upon himself the bitter dislike of many members of their body. He examined the accounts of the church-stewards, cut off superfluous expenses, and ordered the sum thus saved to be applied to the maintenance of hospitals. He scrutinized the lives of the widows receiving pension from the Church; he earnestly besought contributions to a fund for the poor; he exhorted the faithful to attend the nocturnalservices, but to leave their wives at home with the children. He rebuked the rich for their pride and selfishness. So great was the charm of his "golden tongued" eloquence, and of the unmistakeable nobleness and sincerity of his character, that "the city put on a new aspect of piety;" and the worship of the Catholics became more real, and their lives more earnest and pure.
Among those of the higher classes in Constantinople who were offended by the uncompromising character of their new archbishop, was Eutropius, the chamberlain, who had raised him to the see. He desired to see the Church respectable and subservient, the patriarch pious and obedient, to the state. The Church, in his view, was a portion of the state organization, the clergy the moral police, always to be under the direction of the crown. But under Chrysostom's government it was becoming unmanageable and independent. To curtail its liberties, he procured a law to annul the right of asylum in the churches, which had been growing up during the century. But he was soon driven himself, by a revolution in the emperor's counsels, to clasp the altar as the safeguard of his life. Chrysostom violated the new law in defence of its author; and while Eutropius lay cowering in the sanctuary, bade the people take home this new lesson on the vanity of vanities. "The altar," said he, "is more awful than ever, now that it holds the lion chained." He called on his hearers to beg the emperor's clemency, or rather, to ask the God of mercy to save Eutropius from threatened death, and enable him to put away his many crimes. He bravely withstood the court in the cause of Christian humanity; but Eutropius himself quitted the church, and was condemned to exile.
At this time the Origenist controversy was raging with great acrimony. It is difficult to pronounce an opinion upon it. Origen had unquestionably published someheretical opinions, but some were also attributed to him which he did not hold. Theophilus of Alexandria had leaned strongly towards the Origenists, but he was not a man of principle, and he adopted that view which suited his purposes at the time. Finding it would answer his ends better to oppose Origenism, he denounced it in his Paschal letters, in 401. The monks and hermits of Egypt had been regarded with an evil eye by heathens, Arians, and insincere Christians. All the learned, the philosophers, and men of letters, among the pagans, were emulous in their protest. The impassioned activity of the monks against idolatry, their efforts, more and more successful, to extirpate it from the heart of the rural population, naturally exasperated the last defenders of the idols. The Arians were still more implacable than the Pagans. The tendency of these enemies of the Divinity of Christ was in everything to abuse, degrade, and restrain the spirit of Christianity. How should the monastic life, which was its most magnificent development escape their fury? The war between them and the monks was therefore long and cruel. The persecution which Paganism had scarcely time to light up to its own advantage under Julian, was pitiless under the Arian Constantius, and more skilful, without being more successful, under the Arian Valens. In the time of Constantius, entire monasteries, with the monks they contained, were burnt in Egypt, and in the frightful persecution under the Arian patriarch Lucius, raised in Alexandria, a troop of imperial soldiers ravaged the solitude of Nitria, and massacred its inhabitants. And now Lucius was succeeded by the worldly, ambitious, and utterly unspiritual Theophilus, who hated the poor monks of the desert as a living reproach upon his own self-seeking, and his aim to accommodate Christianity to worldliness. He soon quarrelled with S. Isidore the hospitaller, who had suffered under the ArianLucius, and whom he now drove from Alexandria, hating him, as those holding to mammon always will hate those who hold to Christ. Isidore fled to Nitria. Theophilus brought the charge of Origenism against the monks there. The chief Nitrian monks were Dioscorus, Bishop of Nitria, Ammonius, Eusebius, and Euthymius; they were known as the "Tall Brothers." Theophilus ordered them to be expelled; when they came to remonstrate, his eyes flashed, his face became livid, he threw his episcopal pall round the neck of Ammonius, struck him on the face with open palm and clenched fist, and cried, "Heretic, anathematize Origen!" They returned to Nitria; the patriarch, in a synod, condemned them unheard, and proceeded by night to attack their monasteries, at the head of a drunken band. Dioscorus was dragged from his throne; the cells of the other three were burned, together with copies of both Testaments, and even the reserved portions of the Holy Eucharist. It was said that a boy perished in the flames. The brothers, with many of their companions, fled to Scythopolis in Palestine, hoping to support themselves in a place famous for palms, by their occupation of weaving palm-baskets. The enmity of Theophilus hunted them out of this refuge; they reached Constantinople, and fell at Chrysostom's feet, "Who is it," asked he with tears, "that has injured you?" They answered, "Pope Theophilus; prevail upon him, father, to let us live in Egypt, for we have never done aught against him or against our Saviour's law."
He lodged them in the church called Anastasia; allowed them to attend the service, but prudently, to avoid, if possible, a breach with their persecutor, debarred them from the communion. They had been condemned by their own patriarch, and it was not for him to admit them to communion without a fair investigation and authoritative exculpation. He wrote to Theophilus, in the tone of a "son andbrother," praying him to be reconciled to the fugitives; but Theophilus, who disclaimed his right to interfere, defamed them as sorcerers and heretics. The Tall Brothers now appealed to the emperor and empress, who ordered Theophilus to be summoned, and the accusations against the brothers made by him to be examined. The accusations were soon proved to be groundless. Theophilus, who openly said he was "going to court in order to depose John," arrived in Constantinople in June, 402, with a load of gifts for the emperor, the empress, and the court, from Egypt and India. He at once assumed a tone of contumelious hostility towards S. Chrysostom. He would not visit or speak to him; he even abstained from entering the church.
While Chrysostom declined to hear judicially the complaints of the Tall Brothers, Theophilus was concocting a scheme for his deposition. All the courtiers among the bishops, and the worldly among the clergy desired it, for their tempers rebelled against godly discipline, and the example of his own self-denial was a standing protest against their self-indulgence. Acacius, Bishop of Berrhœa, had been provided with so homely a lodging by Chrysostom that he joined the malcontents, venting his spleen in the curious menace, "I will cook a dish for him!" Eudoxia, the empress, who had heard of a sermon in which Chrysostom had lashed the pride of women, took the side of his enemies, who determined to hold a council at a suburb of Chalcedon, called "The Oak." The bishops who attended were thirty-six. Twenty-nine charges were advanced against the patriarch. Some were of open violence; that he had beaten and chained a monk, had struck a man in church so as to draw blood, and then had offered the sacrifice. Others were of evil speaking; he had said his clergy "were not worth three-pence;" he had accused three deacons of having stolen hispall. He was also charged with misconduct in his office; he sold church furniture, had been careless in conferring orders; he was unsociable, gave women private interviews, was irreverent in church, and ate wafers while sitting on his throne. Some of these charges were gross exaggerations of that plain-spoken severity which knew no respect of persons. Others were inventions more or less malignant. One of the basest was the charge about disposing of church ornaments. Like other saints, he had done so for the sake of the suffering poor.
While these charges were being read at the Oak, he sat in his palace with forty bishops, and consoled them by quoting texts of Scripture. "I am now ready to be offered. Do not weep and break my heart! To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."
Now entered two young bishops from the council at the Oak citing "John" to appear, with other clergy. The forty bishops sent a deputation to remonstrate with Theophilus. Chrysostom, for himself, sent word that he objected to Theophilus and three others as disqualified, by avowed hostility, to be his judges. A bishop, named Isaac, produced a new list of charges, three of which were remarkable. He had used strong language about fervour of rapturous devotion. He had been emphatic in his assurances of Divine long-suffering. This was denounced as an encouragement of sinners in their sins; but it was forgotten that he had warned men against presuming thereon. "He had eaten before administering baptism," that is the Paschal baptism which was followed immediately by a celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and which therefore implied non-fasting performance of the sacrifice; and "he had given the Eucharist to persons who were not fasting;" two charges which he vehemently denied. "If I have done this, may my name be effaced from the roll of bishops," he said. The council pronounced him contumacious,and deposed him, requesting the emperor, Arcadius, also to punish him for insolence towards Eudoxia. This was in 403.
Appealing in vain to a more just tribunal, Chrysostom was dragged from his church, and hurried by night into Bithynia. That night an earthquake shook the palace; Eudoxia, frightened at the omen, wrote to the exile, entreating him to return. He was escorted to the city by a joyous multitude, bearing tapers and chanting psalms, who forced him, in spite of the irregularity of such a proceeding, to ascend his throne, before the sentence of the council of the Oak could be annulled. This was, however, speedily done by a synod of sixty bishops; the hostile assembly could not stand its ground, and Theophilus, after meanly forcing the two surviving brothers, on the ground of their monastic obedience, to ask his pardon, consulted his safety by flight to Alexandria.
New troubles soon began. In September of the same year 403, a silver statue of the Empress Eudoxia was erected near the cathedral, and the Manichean governor of the city encouraged wild and heathenish dancing in its honour, which interrupted the church service. Chrysostom spoke strongly on the subject, and was said to have begun a sermon with the words, "Again Herodias rages, again she demands the head of John." The foes of the archbishop seized the opportunity. His old enemy Theophilus sent three bishops to Constantinople. The feeble Emperor Arcadius was persuaded to order that Chrysostom should be refused the use of the churches. Easter-eve came, April 16. Arcadius said to the chief adversaries of Chrysostom, "See to it, that you are not giving me wrong counsel." "On our heads," they answered, "be the deposition of John!" One of the forty faithful bishops bade the haughty empress fear God, and have pity on her own children. As the churcheswere closed to S. John Chrysostom, he held the solemn services of the day in the Baths of Constantine. Thither the people thronged, abandoning the churches. The courtier bishops complained, and it was resolved to break up this assembly. A band of soldiers was sent together with four hundred barbarian recruits to clear the bath, about 9 p.m. They pressed onwards to the font, dispersed the catechumens, for on that day it was customary to baptize great numbers, struck the priests on the head until their blood was mingled with the baptismal water, rushed up to the altar where the sacred Body and Blood were reserved for communicating the newly baptized, and overthrew them, so that as S. Chrysostom says in his letter to Pope Innocent of Rome, "the most holy Blood of Christ, as might be expected in so great a tumult, was spilled on the clothes of the soldiers." Thus were the Arian horrors renewed. On Easter-day, Arcadius, riding out of the city, saw some three thousand newly baptized in their white robes. "Who are those persons?" he asked. "They are heretics," was the answer; and a new onslaught was made upon them. During the paschal season, those who would not disown S. Chrysostom were cast into prison. Within the churches, instead of the joyful worship of the season, were heard the sounds of torture, and the terrible oaths by which men were commanded to anathematize the archbishop. His life was twice attempted; his people guarded his house; he wrote an account of what had happened to the Bishops of Rome, Milan and Aquileia. Pope Innocent, who had already heard Theophilus' version of the story, continued his communion for the present to both parties, but summoned Theophilus to attend a council.
Towards the end of Whitsun-week, Arcadius was prevailed upon to send another mandate to Chrysostom—"Commend your affairs to God, and depart." Chrysostomwas persuaded to depart secretly; he called his friends to prayer; kissed them, bade farewell in the baptistry to the deaconesses, and desired them to submit to a new bishop, if he were ordained without having solicited the see. "The Church cannot be without a bishop." Whilst the people waited for him to mount his horse at the great western door, he went out at the eastern; repeating to himself the words of Job, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked I return thither!"
This was his final expulsion, June 20th, 404; he crossed over to Bithynia, while a fire broke out which consumed the cathedral and the palace of the senate. Some ascribed it to incendiaries; others called it a sign of divine wrath. Several of Chrysostom's friends, the "Joannites," as they were called, were cruelly treated, as if guilty of the fire.[126]
The place of his exile was Cucusus, in Armenia; and there, after a journey, the pain of which was only alleviated by marks of sympathy and reverence, he arrived in the middle of September. The bishop of Cucusus offered to resign his see in his favour; and Dioscorus, a man of rank, entreated him as a favour to occupy his own house, which he fitted up for the exile's convenience, with a liberality against which Chrysostom writes, "I am continually exclaiming." Very soon after he reached Cucusus, the Empress Eudoxia bore a dead child and expired.
Pope Innocent wrote to the exile, exhorting him to patience by Scriptural examples. "A good man can be exercised, but he cannot be overcome, while the Divine Scriptures fortify his mind. Venerable brother, let your conscience comfort you." He also wrote to the clergy and laity of Constantinople, declaring his intention of holding a General Council for the composing of these miserable quarrels.
The saintly exile in Cucusus, while suffering from illness and intense cold, and in constant peril from freebooters, continued to discharge the office of a good shepherd. He wrote letter after letter to the faithful lady Olympias in Constantinople, exhorting her to remember that the only trial really terrible was sin. He lamented that faithful bishops were suffering for adherence to his communion; he exhorted them and their clergy to be of good courage. His pastoral thoughtfulness extended far beyond a merely general care for his brethren's welfare. We find him rebuking two priests of Constantinople, one of whom had only preached five times between his expulsion and October, while the other had not preached once; setting on foot a mission to the pagans of Phœnicia; anxious to have a good bishop consecrated for the Goths; drawing tighter the old ties which bound him to the clergy of Antioch, and employing part of his friend's contributions in the redemption of captives, and the relief of the poor.
Pope Innocent now boldly espoused his cause, as that of a confessor for righteousness' sake. He assembled a synod, and persuaded Honorius, Emperor of the West, who had already remonstrated with Arcadius, Emperor of the East, to write in a more peremptory tone, demanding a council at Thessalonica, and pointing out Theophilus of Alexandria as the reputed author of the present evils.
Towards the end of the year, the furious incursions of the Isaurian robbers, filling the country with rapine and bloodshed, compelled S. Chrysostom to take shelter in the castle of Arabiscus. The winter was again a time of discomfort; he could not obtain a sufficiency of medicines; and the snow-drifts prevented him from receiving his friend's letters. About this time the western delegates sent from Rome with four eastern bishops who had gone thither to plead the cause of Chrysostom, were interceptedon their way to Constantinople, and confined in a fortress, their credentials were violently wrung from them, and instead of being allowed to see Arcadius, the westerns were sent back to Italy, the easterns banished to the frontiers of the empire. On their way they were cruelly harassed, robbed of their money, wearied by prolonged days' journeys, and compelled to lodge in the lowest haunts of profligacy. One of them consoled his brethren by observing that their presence recalled the wretched women to thoughts of God, which might result in their salvation, and His glory. That the persecution was in great measure a systematic revenge on Chrysostom as the representative of clerical strictness, is evidenced by such a fact as that a venerable man named Hilary was scourged, not by a judge, but by the clergy. Chrysostom wrote to thank his western friends for their sympathy, and sent a second letter to Pope Innocent, assuring him that "in the third year of exile, amid famine, pestilence, war, sieges, indescribable solitude, and daily peril from Isaurian swords, he was greatly consoled and delighted by Innocent's genuine, stedfast, and abundant charity."
The winter of 406-7 was severe, but Chrysostom preserved his health by never stirring out of a close and well-warmed chamber. In the summer his enemies, dreading his influence on the people of Antioch, who went to visit him, procured an order for his removal to Pityus on the shores of the Black Sea, the last fortress of the empire. His guards were ordered to exhaust him by long journeys. Through scorching heat and drenching rains, he was hurried on, and never allowed the refreshment of the bath; one only of the guards being disposed to show him furtive kindnesses. For three months this painful journey lasted; at length they halted at the Church of S. Basiliscus, a short distance from Comana, in Pontus. That night, the suffererhad a foreboding that his release was at hand. The martyr Basiliscus appeared to him and said, "Courage, brother John, tomorrow we shall be together." In the morning, Sept 14, 407, he begged to be allowed to stay in the church until eleven o'clock in the forenoon. It could not be; he was forced to proceed, but after travelling about four miles, he was so evidently dying, that they returned to the church. There he asked for white garments, and exchanged for them those which he wore. He was still fasting; he received the Holy Communion, doubtless from the priest of the church, offered up his last prayer, added his usual thanksgiving, "Glory to God for all things," and sealed it with a final, Amen. "Then he stretched out his feet, which had run so beauteously for the salvation of the penitent, and the rebuke of the habitual sinners," and calmly expired, in about the sixtieth year of his age, and in the tenth of his episcopate. He was buried beside the martyr Basiliscus, the funeral being attended by a throng of virgins and monks from Syria, Cilicia, Pontus, and Armenia. No comment on his glorious life could be so expressive as the doxology with which it closed, and which, gathering into one view all its contrasts, recognised not only in success and honour, but in cruel outrage, and homeless desolation, the gracious presence of a never-changing Love.[127]
(7th cent.)
[Called in FranceLoup,Leul, orLeu. He was canonized by Pope John VIII, in 879; he is commemorated on this day at Châlons; also there on April 30th, the day of his canonization. His life is by an anonymous writer, who says that he wrote it from the remembrance of those who had read the Acts of S. Lupus which had been destroyed by fire.]
S. Lupus, Bishop of Cabilinum, or Châlons sur Saone, flourished about the year 610. He was the son of honourable parents, and he commended himself to the people by his abundant charity, his self-denial, and his tenderness to the sick. Châlons being ill-provided with drinking water, and the soil dry and sandy, he miraculously provided it with an abundant spring which flows to the present day. The story is thus told. He stood one day with his ivory pastoral staff in hand watching the hay makers; the sun was hot, and the labourers were exhausted. Moved with compassion, and knowing that the turbid waters of the river were unfit to drink, he struck his staff into the sand, and a limpid spring bubbled up. When dying he sent for the governor of Châlons, and begged him to pardon the unfortunate wretches who languished in the prison under sentence of death. The governor roughly refused. After Lupus was dead, his funeral passed the city prison, and the bier was set down at that place. The prisoners stretched their hands through the bars of their windows crying piteously. Instantly their chains fell off, the doors flew open, and they were set at liberty.
(a.d.1022.)
[Called in FranceThierry. Authority: an ancient life in Bollandus.]
S. Thierry was born at Château Thierry, so called from an ancestor of the saint, whose family was noble and wealthy. He was taken to court and gained the confidence of King Robert the Good. On the death of Bishop Arnulf of Orleans, Thierry was elected, with the consent of the king, to fill the vacant see. His appointment was opposed by a priest named Adalric who had desired the throne for himself, and who had the indecency to burst into the churchwith a band of armed men, and thrust up to the very altar, uttering violent menaces, when Thierry was being consecrated, in the hopes of terrifying the consecrating bishops from what they were doing. Afterwards the priest at the head of a party of ruffians waylaid the Bishop by night, in a lane, and throwing him from his horse, ran him through, as they believed, with a sword. The weapon providentially cut through his garments without wounding him; and when the would-be assassins had fled, he rose and regained the city. Adalric, fearing the consequences, threw himself on the compassion of the Bishop, and asked his pardon, which Thierry frankly accorded him. Thierry died on a journey at Tonnerre, where his kinsman Count Milo built the church of S. Michael over his body. He was succeeded on the throne of Orleans by the priest Adalric.
(a.d.1130.)
This saint was forced into the episcopate by Pope Urban against his desire. He was a most meek and gentle-spirited man, full of thought for others, but severe upon himself, as was evidenced by one little fact noticed by his biographer. He was wont to rise very early to his prayers, and when he did so, he took the greatest care not to disturb others in the room and house. When he was dying, crowds of people came to see his loved face for the last time, and he gave them his benediction, and died in so doing.
FOOTNOTES:[126]See concerning the fire and subsequent persecution in the account of SS. Eutropius and Tygris, Jan. 12th; p.163.[127]This life is, for the most part, taken from the Rev. Canon Bright's "Hist. of the Church froma.d.313 toa.d.451." London, 1863.
[126]See concerning the fire and subsequent persecution in the account of SS. Eutropius and Tygris, Jan. 12th; p.163.
[126]See concerning the fire and subsequent persecution in the account of SS. Eutropius and Tygris, Jan. 12th; p.163.
[127]This life is, for the most part, taken from the Rev. Canon Bright's "Hist. of the Church froma.d.313 toa.d.451." London, 1863.
[127]This life is, for the most part, taken from the Rev. Canon Bright's "Hist. of the Church froma.d.313 toa.d.451." London, 1863.
SS. Thyrsus, Leucius and Others,MM., in Asia,a.d.250.SS. Emilian,B.,Hilarian,Mk.,and Others,MM., at Trevi, inUmbria,a.d.303.S. Valerius,B. of Saragossa, beginning of 4th cent.S. Palladius,H., in Syria, end of 4th cent.S. Cyril,Pat. of Alexandria,a.d.444.S. John,Ab. of Reomay, circ.a.d.545.S. James,H., in Palestine, 6th cent.S. Paulinus,Patr. of Aquileia,a.d.804.B. Charlemagne,Emp.,a.d.814.S. Richard,Ab. of Valcelles, in France, 12th cent.S. Julian,B. of Cuenca, in Spain,a.d.1207.B. Margaret,of Hungary, V.O.S.D.;a.d.1271.B. Gentile,W., Ravenna,a.d.1530.
(a.d.250.)
[Roman Kalendar on Jan. 28th; Greek Menæa on Dec. 14th; Mart. attributed to S. Jerome on Jan. 20th. The martyrs not having all suffered the same day or in the same places, has led to considerable variety in the days of their commemoration. Their Acts are extant in three forms, agreeing together in most particulars, and evidently amplifications by different hands of the original Acts. They are not to be implicitly relied upon.]
I.
n the reign of the Emperor Decius, Combritius, the governor of Bithynia, made the circuit of the province, to carry into execution the severe imperial edict against the Christians. Being a man of a naturally cruel disposition he subjected those brought before him to the most exquisite torments his ingenuity could devise. Thyrsus had his eyelids pierced, and rings put through them, and molten lead was poured down his back. His arms and legs were broken. He died in prison. Leucius was hung up, and torn with iron hooks, and then decapitated; Callinicus and several others suffered in thispersecution by various deaths.
(beginning of 4th cent.)
[Roman Martyrology, but in others on Jan. 19th, 22th, 23rd, or 29th.]
Of this saint little is known, except that he associated with him S. Vincent, to speak for him, he having an impediment in his speech. When Dacian persecuted the Church, S. Valerius was taken to Valentia and there imprisoned. When brought forth and interrogated, his nervousness prevented him from articulating a word, therefore Vincent, the deacon, spoke for him. Vincent was ordered to execution, but Valerius was banished.
(end of 4th cent.)
[This Palladius is not to be confounded with the author of the Historia Lausiaca. He is mentioned by Theodoret, who relates of him all that is known.]
Palladius was a friend of Simeon the Ancient; they often met to encourage one another in the practice of self-denial and prayer. One incident in the life of this hermit has been alone transmitted to us. Not far from his cell was a frequented market. A merchant who had been at it was waylaid, robbed and murdered by a man who, after having done the deed, cast the body by the door of the hermit's cell. Next day a crowd assembled, instigated by the murderer, and with threatening looks and words, they broke open the hermit's door, and drew him forth, charging him with the murder. Then Palladius raised his hands and eyes to heaven and prayed. And when his prayer was concluded, he turned to the corpse and said, "Young man, designatethe murderer!" Thereupon the dead man partly rose, raised his hand and pointed at him who had killed him; and when he was apprehended, articles belonging to the deceased were discovered upon him.
(a.d.444.)
[Roman Martyrology. The Greeks celebrate the memory of S. Cyril on June 9th, and commemorate him together with S. Athanasius on June 18th. Authorities: Socrates, Sozomen, Marius Mercator, the Acts of the council of Ephesus, and his own letters and treatises &c.]
This great champion of the faith has been attacked by modern writers as passionate and intolerant; it is true that he was guilty of several errors in administrating his patriarchate, and that his impetuosity gave the impulse which led to serious violation of justice. But we must remember that no man, not the greatest of saints, is without imperfection of character, and that the greatest of saints are they who, having serious natural defects, have mastered them by their faith and self-control. S. Cyril began his patriarchate under disadvantageous circumstances. He was the nephew of Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, Chrysostom's worst enemy, a man devoid of principle, wholly given up to pride of station; on October 15th, 412, he closed his episcopate of twenty-seven years; a melancholy instance of great powers rendered baneful to the Church by a worldly spirit and a violent temper. He was succeeded by his nephew Cyril. The evil of his uncle's example hung about him for some time, obscuring the nobleness which was to shine out afterwards. He desired above all things the ascendancy of the Church; as to the means of obtainingwhich, he had fewer scruples than became a minister of Him who rebuked the attack on Malchus. He closed the Novatian church, took away its sacred ornaments, and deprived its Bishop of his property. The Jews of Alexandria—a powerful body during many centuries—had procured the disgrace and punishment of Hierax, an admirer of Cyril's sermons. Cyril, naturally indignant, menaced the chief of their community; the Jews' revenge was to raise a cry at midnight, "The Church of S. Alexander is on fire!" and to massacre those Christians who rushed out to save their church. Cyril appears to have made up his mind that the Christians must right them, without expecting justice from the præfect Orestes, and he organized at daybreak a force which attacked the synagogues, expelled the Jews from Alexandria, and treated their property as rightful spoil. Orestes, exasperated at this hasty and lawless vengeance, would not listen to the explanations which Cyril offered; and the archbishop, after vainly holding out the Gospels to enforce his attempts at a reconciliation, gave up all hopes of peace. Five hundred monks of Nitria, inflamed by a furious partisanship, entered the city and reviled the præfect as a pagan. "I am a Christian," he exclaimed; "Atticus of Constantinople baptized me." A monk named Ammonius disproved his own Christianity by throwing a stone at the præfect, which inflicted a ghastly wound. He was seized, and expired under tortures; but Cyril so miserably forgot himself as to call this ruffian an "admirable" martyr, a proceeding of which he was afterwards heartily ashamed. Then followed a darker tragedy. Hypatia, a learned lady, and teacher of philosophy, and a heathen, who had great influence in the city in opposing Christianity, was supposed to have embittered Orestes against Cyril; and some fiery zealots, headed by a reader of the church, named Peter, draggedher from her house and tore her to pieces, limb from limb. Cyril was no party to this hideous deed,[128]but it was the work of men whose passions he had originally called out. Had there been no onslaught on the synagogues, there would have been no murder of Hypatia. The people of Alexandria were singularly fiery and given to civil contensions. Gibbon says of them, "The most trifling occasion, a transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of an accustomed salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public baths, or even a religious dispute, were at any time sufficient to kindle a sedition among that vast multitude, whose resentments were furious and implacable."[129]A ferocious civil war which lasted twelve years, and raged within the city, till a considerable portion had been reduced to ruins in the reign of Valerian, had originated in a dispute between a soldier and a townsman about a pair of shoes.
Cyril had inherited all his uncle's violent prejudice against S. John Chrysostom. Pope Innocent had not been able to procure the vindication of his memory at Constantinople. But soon after his death, Atticus his successor, a good man, but weak and timid, and a declared enemy to Chrysostom, who had resisted the Pope's exhortation, yielded to the popular feeling, and to the advice of the Emperor Theodosius, who thought that "for peace and unity there would be no harm in writing a dead man's name on a diptych,"i.e., on the table of names of the departed prayed for at the Mass. Atticus excused himself for this compliance in a letter to Cyril, in which he observed that, in these Eucharistic commemorations, laymen as well as bishops were included. The nephew of Theophilus was not likely to be thus appeased; and he extracted from the messengers ofAtticus the confession that Chrysostom was now commemorated as a Bishop. In his view, Chrysostom was simply a man who had forfeited the episcopate; and he called upon Atticus to "expunge from the sacerdotal catalogue the name of one who was no minister," distinctly intimating that unless he resolved to uphold the authority of the Council of the Oak,[130]he would forfeit the communion of the patriarchate of Alexandria.
But as time passed, Cyril thought better of this, and regretted his violence and prejudice. Isidore of Pelusium, a pious abbot, wrote to him, "Put an end to these dissensions, lest you incur the judgment of God," and urged him not to make a perpetual schism in the Church by refusing to commemorate Chrysostom. He placed the name of Chrysostom on his diptychs, and immediately was received into communion with Rome from which he had been estranged by his adherence to the prejudices of his uncle.
Atticus, patriarch of Constantinople, was succeeded in 426, by Sisinius, who died on Christmas Eve, 427. Nestorius, a Syrian bred in Antioch, of high reputation and great powers as a speaker, ascetic and studious in his habits, was consecrated to the see on April 10th, 428. His first sermon indicated a feverish polemical zeal. "Give me," he exclaimed, addressing the Emperor, "give me the earth clear of heretics, and I will give you heaven in return! Help me to overthrow the heretics, and I will help you to overthrow the Persians." He began his episcopate by attacking an Arian meeting-house; the Arians set fire to it in their despair; the flames caught other buildings, and the new patriarch received the ominous name of "the Incendiary." The early violence of Cyril ought neither to be extenuated nor exaggerated; but there was somewhat less of provocationfor the persecuting zeal of Nestorius. Shortly before Christmas, 428, a priest named Anastasius, whom the new archbishop had brought from Antioch, was preaching in S. Sophia. In the sermon he said, "Let no one call Mary the Mother of God; for she was a human creature, of whom God could not be born." Nestorius was present and approved; and on Christmas Day he himself began a short course of sermons, in which he called the title heathenish, and spoke of Mary's Son as a mere man, the instrument employed, and the vesture worn by God. Eusebius, a lawyer in the city, stood up in full church, and proclaimed that the Eternal Word Himself was born after the flesh. Nestorius denounced this doctrine; "It was not the Word that was born," said he; "It was only themanJesus."
Soon after, on a festival in honour of the Virgin, probably the Annunciation, a certain Bishop Proclus preached in the great church before Nestorius. After speaking of S. Mary in glowing language, as the bush burning and unconsumed, the cloud that bore the cherub-throne, Gideon's fleece filled with heavenly dew, he passed to the practical bearings of the Catholic doctrine. "If the Word had not dwelt in the womb, Flesh had never sat down on the holy throne. It was necessary, either that the doom of death should be executed on all, for all have sinned, or that such a price should be paid in exchange as could fully claim the release. Man could not save, for he was under the pressure of the debt of sin. An angel could not redeem humanity, for he had lacked such a ransom as was needed. One only course remained, that the sinless God should die for sinners. It was God who out of His compassion became Man. We do not proclaim a man deified, but we confess a God Incarnate. The Self-same was in the Father's bosom, and in the Virgin's womb; in a mother's arms, and on the wings of the wind. He was adored by angels, while He sat at meat with publicans.The servant buffeted Him, and creation shuddered. He was laid in the tomb, and he spread out the heavens as a curtain. O the mystery! I see the miracles, and I proclaim the Godhead; I see the sufferings and I declare the Manhood." Nestorius rose from his throne and rebuked the preacher. He said that to speak of God as virgin-born was erroneous, and in after sermons he argued that God who "held the circle of the earth" could not be wrapt in grave-clothes; that the Sustainer of all things could not rise from the dead. Christ, he said, was a sinless man, the image of the Godhead through His goodness; and that as a child was of the same nature as its mother, therefore that Christ could not be divine as Mary was not divine. He allowed to Christadivinity, but notthedivinity, placing Him rather as chiefest of saints than as God. It was Arianism under another form.
His sermons caused a great excitement at home as well as abroad. Men saw that the question was no strife of words; laymen who felt that Catholic truth was their inheritance, no less than that of the clergy, shrank from the communion of a bishop who made void the Incarnation. Clergy began to preach against him, "They are croaking frogs," said Nestorius, and he obtained an imperial order to silence them. A priest began to celebrate in private, an abbot and a monk told Nestorius to his face that he was in error, and were savagely beaten and imprisoned for so doing. A monk who dared to denounce him as a heretic was scourged and exiled. Among his supporters a bishop named Dorotheus was the chief. When he preached his heresy, the congregation uttering a cry of indignation, rushed out of church, but Nestorius proceeded with the service, and administered Communion to the preacher.
The careful circulation of the archbishop's sermons brought them into the hands of the Egyptian monks. Cyril strove toundo their effect by a letter addressed to the monks, about the end of April, 429. They would have done better, he said, by abstaining from the controversy; but it was necessary as things stood, to impress on them the positive truth. Since Christ was Emmanuel, since He who was in the form of God assumed the form of a servant, since the Son of Man was adorable, since the Lord of glory was crucified, it was impossible to divide the persons, and separate the manhood from the Godhead. To sum up all in one simple formula; "If our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how can His Mother, the holy Virgin, benotMother of God?" He guarded himself from misrepresentation by clearly confessing that it was from Mary that Christ derived His human nature, but that it was not from her that He derived His divine nature. He was God, from her He received His humanity, but to her He was not indebted for His Godhead.
About Midsummer he wrote his first letter to Nestorius, urging him not to produce scandal and a schism by asserting that God dwelt in Christ instead of proclaiming the Catholic doctrine that Christ was God. In February, 430, S. Cyril wrote his second letter to Nestorius—the great Epistle which received in subsequent councils a formal sanction from the Church. He set forth his faith in the clearest terms, insisting on a real, not a merely moral union of God and Man in Christ. Nestorius replied, showing a strange confusion of mind in the matter, which contrasts painfully with the bright, crisp, and lucid style of Cyril. He was ready to allow that Christ was an association of God with the man, Jesus; but he would not admit that God and man made one Christ.
Now it was that Cyril shone as a bright star in the firmament of the Church, proved a pillar in the house of God, sustaining the truth. For this God had raised him up, to maintain in the face of heresy, the Unity of the Person in our Blessed Lord. What S. Athanasius had done for the Church when assailed by Arianism, Cyril was called to perform when she was beaten by Nestorianism. "I care not for distress, or insult, or bitterest revilings," said he in a letter to his clergy, "Only let the faith be kept safe."