The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints Part 64

ST. PACIAN, BISHOP OF BARCELONA, C.

WAS a great ornament of the church in the fourth century. He was illuustrious by birth, and had been engaged in marriage in the world.

His son Dexter was raised to the first dignities in the empire, being high chamberlain to the emperor Theodosius, and praefectus-praetorio under Honorius. St. Pacian having renounced the world, was made bishop in 373.

St. Jerom, who dedicated to him his Catalogue of ill.u.s.trious men, extols his eloquence and learning, and more particularly the chast.i.ty and sanct.i.ty of his life. We have his Exhortation to Penance, and three letters to Symp.r.o.nia.n.u.s, a Novatian n.o.bleman, on Penance, and on the name of Catholic; also a sermon on Baptism. See St. Jerom, Catal. Vir.

Ill.u.s.t. c. 106, p. 195 t 4: Ceillier, t. 6; Tillem. t. 8.

APPENDIX

ON

THE WRITINGS OF ST. PACIAN OF BARCELONA.

WHEN he was made bishop of Barcelona, in 373, there lived in the neighborhood of that city one Symp.r.o.nian, a man of distinction, whom the bishop calls brother and lord, who was a Donatist, and also engaged in the heresy of the Novatians, who, following the severity of the Montanists, denied penance and pardon for certain sins. He sent St.

Pacian a letter by a servant, in which he censured the church for allowing repentance to all crimes, and for taking the t.i.tle of Catholic.

St. Pacian answers him in three learned letters.

In the first he sums up the princ.i.p.al heresies from Simon Magus to the Novatians and asks Symp.r.o.nian, which he will choose to stand by: entreats him to examine the true church with docility and candor, laying aside all obstinacy, the enemy to truth. He says {558} the name Catholic comes from G.o.d, and is necessary to distinguish the dove, the undivided virgin church, from all sects which are called from their particular founders. This name we learned from the holy doctors, confessors, and martyrs. "My name," says he, "is Christian, my surname Catholic: the one distinguishes me, the other points me out to others." "Christia.n.u.s mihi nomen est; Catholicus veto cognomen: illud me nuncupat, istud ostendit; hoc probor, inde significor." He says that no name can be more proper to express the church, which is all obedient to Christ, and one and the same through the whole world. "As to penance," says he, "G.o.d grant it be necessary to none of the faithful; that none after baptism fall into the pit of death--but accuse not G.o.d's mercy, who has provided a remedy even for those that are sick. Does the infernal serpent continually carry poison, and has not Christ a remedy? Does the devil kill, and cannot Christ relieve? Fear sin, but not repentance. Be ashamed to be in danger, not to be delivered out of it. Who will s.n.a.t.c.h a plank from one lost by s.h.i.+pwreck? Who will envy the healing of wounds?" He mentions the parables of the lost drachma, the lost sheep, the prodigal son, the Samaritan, and G.o.d's threats, adding: "G.o.d would never threaten the impenitent, if he refused pardon. But you'll say, only G.o.d can do this.

It is true; but what he does by his priests, is his power. What is that he says to his apostles? Whatsoever you shall bind, &c., Mat. xvi. Why this, if it was not given to men to bind and to loosen? Is this given only to the apostles? Then it is only given to them to baptize, to give the Holy Ghost, (in confirmation,) to cleanse the sins of infidels, because all this was commanded to no other than to the apostles. If therefore the power of baptism and of chrism, (confirmation,) which are far greater gifts, descended from the apostles to bishops; the power of binding and loosing also came to them." He concludes with these words: "I know, brother, this pardon of repentance is not promiscuously to be given to all, nor to be granted before the signs of the divine will, or perchance the last sickness; with great severity and strict scrutiny, after many groans, and shedding of tears; after the prayers of the whole church. But pardon is not denied to true repentance, that no one prevent or put by the judgment of Christ." St. Pacian answers his reply by a second letter, that remedies seem often bitter, and says, "How can you be offended at my catalogue of heresies, unless you was a heretic? I congratulate with you for agreeing upon our name Catholic, which if you denied, the thing itself would cry out against you." St. Pacian denies that St. Cyprian's people were ever called Apostatics or Capitoline, or by any name but that of Catholics, which the Novatians, with all their ambition for it, could never obtain, nor ever be known but by the name of Novatians. He says, the emperors persecuted the Novatians of their own authority, not at the instigation of the church. "You say I am angry," says he, "G.o.d forbid. I am like the bee which sometimes defends its honey with its sting." He vindicates the martyr St. Cyprian, and denies that Novatian ever suffered for the faith; adding, that "if he had, he could not have been crowned, because he was out of the church, out of which, no one can be a martyr. Etsi occisus, non tamen coronatus: quidni? Extra Ecclesiae pacem, extra concordiam, extra eam matrem cujus portio debet esse, qui martyr est. Si charitatem non habeam, nihil sum.

1 Cor. xiii." In his third letter he confutes the Novatian error: that the church could not forgive mortal sin after baptism. "Moses, St. Paul, Christ, express tender charity for sinners; who then broached this doctrine? Novatian. But when? Immediately from Christ? No; almost three hundred years after him: since Decius's reign. Had he any prophets to learn it from? any proof of his revelation? had he the gift of tongues?

did he prophesy? could he raise the dead? for he ought to have some of these to introduce a new gospel. Nay, St. Paul (Gal. i.) forbids a novelty in faith to be received from an angel. You will say, Let us dispute our point. But I am secure; content with the succession and tradition of the church, with the communion of the ancient body. I have sought no arguments." He a.s.sents that the church is holy, and more than Symp.r.o.nian had given it: but says it cannot perish by receiving sinners.

The good have always lived amidst the wicked. It is the heretic who divides it, and tears it, which is Christ's garment, asunder. The church is diffused over the whole world, and cannot be reduced to one little portion, or as it were chained to a part, as the Novatians, whose history he touches upon. Symp.r.o.nian objected, that Catholic bishops remitted sin. St. Pacian answers, "Not I, but only G.o.d, who both blots out sin in baptism, and does not reject the tears of penitents. What I do is not in my own name, but in the Lord's. Wherefore, whether we baptize, or draw to penance, or give pardon to penitents, we do it by Christ's authority. You must see whether Christ can do it, and did it--Baptism is the sacrament of our Lord's pa.s.sion; the pardon of penitents is the merit of confession. All can obtain that, because it is the gratuitous gift of G.o.d, but this labor is but of a small number who rise after a fall, and recover by tears, and by destroying the flesh."

The saint shows the Novatians encourage sin by throwing men into despair; whereas repentance heals and stops it. Christ does not die a second time indeed for the pardon of sinners, but he is a powerful Advocate interceding still to his Father for sinners. Can he forsake those he redeemed at so dear a rate? Can the devil enslave, and Christ not absolve his servants? He alleges St. Peter denying Christ after he had been baptized, St. {559} Thomas incredulous, even after the resurrection; yet pardoned by repentance. He answers his objections from scripture, and exhorts him to embrace the Catholic faith; for the true church cannot be confined to a few, nor be new. "If she began before you, if she believed before you, if she never left her foundation, and was never divorced from her body, she must be the spouse; it is the great and rich house of all. G.o.d did not purchase with his blood so small a portion, nor is Christ so poor. The church of G.o.d dilates its tabernacles from the rising to the setting of the sun."

Next to these three letters we have his excellent Paraenesis, or exhortation to penance. In the first part he reduces the sins subjected to courses of severe public penance by the canons to three, idolatry, murder, and impurity; and shows the enormity of each. In the second he addresses himself to those sinners, who out of shame, or for fear of the penances to be enjoined, did not confess their crimes. He calls them shamefully timorous and bashful to do good, after having been bold and impudent to sin, and says, "And you do not tremble to touch the holy mysteries, and to thrust your defiled soul into the holy place, in the sight of the angels, and before G.o.d himself, as if you were innocent."

He mentions Oza lain for touching the ark, (2 Kings vi.,) and the words of the apostle, (1 Cor. xi.,) adding, "Do not you tremble when you hear, he shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord? One guilty of the blood of a man would not rest, and can he escape who has profaned the body of the Lord? What do you do by deceiving the priest, or hiding part of your load? I beseech you no longer to cover your wounded conscience.

Rogo vos etiam pro periculo men, per illum Dominum quem occulta non fallunt, desinite vulneratam tegere conscientiam. Men sick are not backward to show their sores to physicians, and shall the sinner be afraid or ashamed to purchase eternal life by a momentary confusion?

Will he draw back his wounds from the Lord, who is offering his hand to heal them? Peccator timebit? peccator erubeseet perpetuam vitam praesenti pudore mercari? et offerenti ma.n.u.s Domino vulnera male tecta subducet?"

In his third part he speaks to those who confessed their sins entirely, but feared the severity of the penance. He compares these to dying men who should not have the courage to take a dose which would restore their health, and says, "This is to cry out, behold I am sick, I am wounded; but I will not he cured." He deplores their delicacy, and proposes to them king David's austere penance. He describes thus the life of a penitent. "He is to weep in the sight of the church, to go meanly clad, to mourn, to fast, to prostrate himself, to renounce the bath, and such delights. If invited to a banquet, he is to say, such things are for those who have not had the misfortune to have sinned; I have offended the Lord, and am in danger of peris.h.i.+ng forever: what have I to do with feasts? Ista felicibus: ego deliqui in Dominum, et peric.l.i.tor in aeternum perire: quo mihi epulas qui Dominum laesi? You must moreover sue for the prayers of the poor, of the widows, of the priest, prostrating yourself before them, and of the whole church; to do every thing rather than to perish. Omnia prius tentare ne pereas." He presses sinners to severe penance, for fear of h.e.l.l, and paints a frightful image of it from the fires of Vesuvius and aetna. His treatise or Sermon On Baptism, is an instruction on original sin, and the effects of this sacrament, by which we are reborn, as by chrism or confirmation we receive the Holy Ghost by the hands of the bishop. He adds a moving exhortation that, being delivered from sin, and having renounced the devil, we no more return to sin; such a relapse after baptism being much worse. "Hold, therefore, strenuously," says he, "what you have received, preserve it faithfully; sin no more; keep yourselves pure and spotless for the day of out Lord."

Besides these three books, he wrote one against the play of the stag, commended by St. Jerom, but now lost. The heathens had certain infamous diversions with a little stag at the beginning of every year, mentioned by St. Ambrose, (in Ps. 141,) and by Nilus, (ep. 81.) It seems from the sermons, 129, 130, in the appendix to St. Augustine's, (t. 5,) that it consisted of masquerades, dressed in the figures of wild beasts. Some Christians probably joined in them. St. Pacian's zeal dictated that book against it, but the effect it produced at that time, seemed chiefly to make many more curious and more eager to see that wicked play, as St.

Pacian himself says in the beginning of his exhortation to penance. The beauty of this holy doctor's writings can only be dis covered by reading them. His diction is elegant, his reasoning just and close, and his thoughts beautiful: he is full of unction when he exhorts to virtue, and of strength when he attacks vice.

ST. CATHERINE OF BOLOGNA, VIRGIN,

ABBESS OF THE POOR CLARES IN THAT CITY.

SHE was born of n.o.ble parentage at Bologna, in 1413. Early ardent sentiments of piety seemed to have prevented in her the use of reason.

{560} At twelve years of age she was placed in quality of a young maid of honor in the family of the princess Margaret, daughter to Nicholas of Est, marquis of Ferrara. Two years after, upon the marriage of that princess, she found means to recover her liberty, and entered herself in a community of devout ladies of the Third Order of St. Francis, at Ferrara, who soon after formed themselves into a regular monastery, and adopted the austere rule of St. Clare. A new nunnery of Poor Clares being founded at Bologna, St. Catherine was chosen first prioress, and sent thither by Leonarda, abbess of the monastery of Corpus Christi, in which she had made her religions profession at Ferrara. Catherine's incredible zeal and solitude for the souls of sinners made her pour forth prayers and tears, almost without intermission, for their salvation. She always spoke to G.o.d, or of G.o.d, and bore the most severe interior trials with an heroic patience and cheerfulness. She looked upon it as the greatest honor to be in any thing the servant of the spouses of Christ, and desired to be despised by all, and to serve all in the meanest employments. She was favored with the gifts of miracles and prophecy: but said she had been sometimes deceived by the devil. She died on the 9th of March, 1453, in the fiftieth year of her age. Her body is still entire, and shown in the church of her convent through bars and gla.s.s, sitting richly covered, but the hands, face, and feet naked. It was seen and described by Henschenius, La.s.sels, and other travellers. Her name was inserted in the Roman Martyrology by Clement VIII., in 1592. The solemnity of her canonization was performed by Clement XI., though the bull was only published by Benedict XIII., in 1724.[1] A book of her revelations was printed at Bologna, in 1511. She also left notes in her prayer-book of certain singular favors which she had received from G.o.d. These revelations were published and received their dress from another hand, which circ.u.mstance is often as great a disadvantage in such works as if an illiterate and bold transcriber were to copy, from a single defective ma.n.u.script, Lycophron, or some other obscure author, which he did not understand. St. Catherine wrote some treatises in Italian, others in Latin, in which language she was well skilled. The most famous of her works is the book ent.i.tled, On the Seven Spiritual Arms. See her life in Bollandus, written by F. Paleotti, fifty years after her death.

Footnotes: 1. Bullar. Roman. t. 13, p. 87.

MARCH X.

THE FORTY MARTYRS OF SEBASTE.

From St. Basil's Homily on their festival, Hom. 20, t. 1, p. 453, and three discourses of St. Gregory of Nyssa, t. 2, p. 203, t. 3, pp. 499, 504, followed by St. Ephrem. ed. Vatic. Gr. and Let. t. 2, p. 341. St.

Gaudeatis, St. Chrysostom, quoted by Photius. See Tillemont, t. 5, p.

518. Ruinart, p. 523. Ceillier, t. 4, l. 62 Jos. a.s.semani in Cal. Univ.

ad 11 Martii, t. 6, p. 172.

A.D. 320.

THESE holy martyrs suffered at Sebaste, in the Lesser Armenia, under the emperor Licinius, in 320. They were of different countries, but enrolled in the same troop; all in the flower of their age, comely, brave, and robust, and were become considerable for their services. St. Gregory of Nyssa and Procopius say, they were of the thundering legion, so famous {561} under Marcus Aurelius for the miraculous rain and victory obtained by their prayers. This was the twelfth legion, and then quartered in Armenia. Lysias was duke or general of the forces, and Agricola the governor of the province. The latter having signified to the army the orders of the emperor Licinius, for all to sacrifice, these forty went boldly up to him, and said they were Christians, and that no torments should make them ever abandon their holy religion. The judge first endeavored to gain them by mild usage; as by representing to them the dishonor that would attend their refusal to do what was required, and by making them large promises of preferment and high favor with the emperor in case of compliance. Finding these methods of gentleness ineffectual, he had recourse to threats, and these the most terrifying, if they continued disobedient to the emperor's order, but all in vain. To his promises they answered, that he could give them nothing equal to what he would deprive them of: and to his threats, that his power only extended over their bodies, which they had learned to despise when heir souls were at stake. The governor, finding them all resolute, caused them to be torn with whips, and their sides to be rent with iron hooks. After which they were loaded with chains, and committed to jail.

After some days, Lysias, their governor, coming from Caesarea to Sebaste, they were re-examined, and no less generously rejected the large promises made them than they despised the torments they were threatened with. The governor, highly offended at their courage, and that liberty of speech with which they accosted him, devised an extraordinary kind of death; which being slow and severe, he hoped would shake their constancy. The cold in Armenia is very sharp, especially in March, and towards the end of winter, when the wind is north, as it than was; it being also at that time a severe frost. Under the walls of the town stood a pond, which was frozen so hard that it would bear walking upon with safety. The judge ordered the saints to be exposed quite naked on the ice.[1] And in order to tempt them the more powerfully to renounce their faith, a warm bath was prepared at a small distance from the frozen pond, for any of this company to go to, who were disposed to purchase their temporal ease and safety on that condition. The martyrs, on hearing their sentence, ran joyfully to the place, and without waiting to be stripped, undressed themselves, encouraging one another in the same manner as is usual among soldiers in military expeditions attended with hards.h.i.+ps and dangers; saying, that one bad night would purchase them a happy eternity.[2] They also made this their joint prayer: "Lord, we are forty who are engaged in this combat; grant that we may be forty crowned, and that not one be wanting to this sacred number." The guards in the mean time ceased not to persuade them to sacrifice, that by so doing they might be allowed to pa.s.s to the warm bath. But though it is not easy to form a just idea of the bitter pain they must have undergone, of the whole number only one had the misfortune to be overcome; who, losing courage, went off from the pond to seek the relief in readiness for such as were disposed to renounce their faith: but as the devil usually deceives his adorers, the apostate no sooner entered the warm water but he expired. This misfortune afflicted the martyrs; but they were quickly comforted by seeing his place and their number miraculously filled up. A sentinel was warming himself near the bath, having been posted there to observe if any of the martyrs were inclined to submit. While he was attending, he had a vision of blessed spirits descending from heaven on the martyrs, and distributing, {562} as from their king, rich presents, and precious garments, St. Ephrem adds crowns, to all these generous soldiers, one only excepted, who was their faint-hearted companion, already mentioned.

The guard, being struck with the celestial vision and the apostate's desertion, was converted upon it; and by a particular motion of the Holy Ghost, threw off his clothes, and placed himself in his stead among the thirty-nine martyrs. Thus G.o.d heard their request, though in another manner than they imagined: "Which, ought to make us adore the impenetrable secrets of his mercy and justice," says St. Ephrem, "in this instance, no less than in the reprobation of Judas, and the election of St. Matthias."

In the morning the judge ordered both those that were dead with the cold, and those that were still alive, to be laid on carriages, and cast into a fire. When the rest were thrown into a wagon to be carried to the pile, the youngest of them (whom the acts call Melito) was found alive; and the executioners, hoping he would change his resolution when he came to himself, left him behind. His mother, a woman of mean condition, and a widow, but rich in faith, and worthy to have a son a martyr, observing this false compa.s.sion, reproached the executioners; and when she came up to her son, whom she found quite frozen, not able to stir, and scarce breathing, he looked on her with languis.h.i.+ng eyes, and made a little sign with his weak hand to comfort her. She exhorted him to persevere to the end, and, fortified by the Holy Ghost, took him up, and put him with her own hands into the wagon with the rest of the martyrs, not only without shedding a tear, but with a countenance full of joy, saying, courageously: "Go, go, son, proceed to the end of this happy journey with thy companions, that thou mayest not be the last of them that shall present themselves before G.o.d." Nothing can be more inflamed or more pathetic than the discourse which St. Ephrem puts into her mouth, by which he expresses her contempt of life and all earthly things, and her ardent love and desire of eternal life. This holy father earnestly entreats her to conjure this whole troop of martyrs to join in imploring the divine mercy in favor of his sinful soul.[3] Their bodies were burned, and their ashes thrown into the river; but the Christians secretly carried off, or purchased part of them with money. Some of these precious relies were kept at Caesarea, and St. Basil says of them: "Like bulwarks, they are our protection against the inroads of enemies."[4] He adds, that every one implored their succor, and that they raised up those that had fallen, strengthened the weak, and invigorated the fervor of the saints. SS. Basil and Emmelia, the holy parents of St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Peter of Sebaste, and St. Macrina, procured a great share of these relics.[5] St.

Emmelia put some of them in the church she built near Anneses, the village where they resided. The solemnity with which they were received was extraordinary, and they were honored by miracles, as St. Gregory relates. One of these was a miraculous cure wrought on a lame soldier, the truth of which he attests from his own knowledge, both of the fact and the person, who published it everywhere. He adds: "I buried the bodies of my parents by the relics of these holy martyrs, that in the resurrection they may rise with the encouragers of their faith; for I know they have great power with G.o.d, of which I have seen clear proofs and undoubted testimonies." St. Gaudentius, bishop of Brescia, writes in his sermon on these martyrs: "G.o.d gave me a share of these venerable relics and granted me to found this church in their honor."[6] He says, that the two nieces of St. Basil, both abbesses, gave them to him as {563} he pa.s.sed by Caesarea, in a journey to Jerusalem; which venerable treasure they had received from their uncle. Portions of their relics were also carried to Constantinople, and there honored with great veneration, as Sozomen[7] and Procopius[8] have recorded at large, with an account of several visions and miracles, which attended the veneration paid to them in that city.

Though we are not all called to the trial of martyrdom, we are all bound daily to fight and to conquer too. By multiplied victories which we gain over our pa.s.sions and spiritual enemies, by the exercise of meekness, patience, humility, purity, and all other virtues, we shall render our triumph complete, and attain to the crown of bliss. But are we not confounded at our sloth in our spiritual warfare, when we look on the conflicts of the martyrs? "The eloquence of the greatest orators, and the wisdom of the philosophers were struck dumb: the very tyrants and judges stood amazed, and were not able to find words to express their admiration, when they beheld the faith, the cheerfulness and constancy of the holy martyrs in their sufferings. But what excuse shall we allege in the tremendous judgment, who, without meeting with such cruel persecution and torments, are so remiss and slothful in maintaining the spiritual life of our souls, and the charity of G.o.d! What shall we do in that terrible day, when the holy martyrs, placed near the throne of G.o.d, with great confidence shall display their glorious scars, the proofs of their fidelity? What shall we then show? shall we produce our love for G.o.d? true faith? a disengagement of our affections from earthly things?

souls freed from the tyranny of the pa.s.sions? retirement and peace of mind? meekness? alms-deeds and compa.s.sion? holy and pure prayer? sincere compunction? watching and tears? Happy shall he be whom these works shall attend. He shall then be the companion of the martyrs, and shall appear with the same confidence before Christ and his angels. We beseech you, O most holy martyrs, who cheerfully suffered torments and death for his love, and are now more familiarly united to him, that you intercede with G.o.d for us slothful and wretched sinners, that he bestow on us the grace of Christ, by which we may be enlightened and enabled to love him."[9]

Footnotes: 1. The acts and the greater part of the writers of their lives, suppose that they were to stand in the very water. But this is a circ.u.mstance which Tillemont, Badlet, Ruinart, Ceillier and others, correct from St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa.

2. St. Gregory of Nyssa says, that they endured three days and three nights, this lingering death, which carried off their limbs one after another.

3. S. Ephrem, Or. in 40 Mart. t. 2, Op. Gr. and Lat. p. 354, ed. Nov.

Vatic. an. 1743.

4. St. Basil, Or. 20, 459.

5. St. Greg. Nyss. Or. 3, de 40 Mart. t. 2, pp. 212, 213.

6. S. Gaud. Bris. Serm. 17, de 40 Mart.

7. L. 9, c. 1, 2.

8. L. 1, de aedific. Justinian, c. 7.

9. S. Ephrem in Homil. in SS. Martyres, Op Gr. and Lat. ed. Vat. an 174{} t. 2, p. 341.

ST. DROCTOVaeUS, ABBOT.

KING CHILDEBERT having built at Paris a famous abbey in honor of St.

Vincent; this saint, who was a native of the diocese of Autun, had been educated under St. Germa.n.u.s, abbot of St. Symphorian's at Autun, and was a person eminent for his learning and extraordinary spirit of mortification and prayer, was appointed the second, according to Duplessis, according to others, the first abbot of this house, since called St. Germain-des-Prez, in which he died about the year 580. His body is kept in that abbey, and he is honored by the church on the 10th of March. His original life being lost, Gislemar, a Benedictin monk of this house, in the ninth age, collected from tradition and scattered memoirs that which we have in Bollandus and more accurately in Mabillon.

Footnotes: 1. Duplessis' Annales de Paris, pp. 60, 68.

{564}

ST. MACKESSOGE, OR KESSOGE, C.

BISHOP IN THE PROVINCES OF LEVIN AND BOIN, IN SCOTLAND.

BY his instructions and counsels the pious king Congal II. governed with extraordinary prudence, zeal, and sanct.i.ty. This saint was ill.u.s.trious for miracles, and died in 560. A celebrated church in that country still bears the t.i.tle of St. Kessoge-Kirk. The Scots, for their cry in battle, for some time used his name, but afterwards changed it for that of St.

Andrew. They sometimes painted St. Kessoge in a soldier's habit, holding a bow bent with an arrow in it. See the Aberdeen Breviary, the chronicle of Pasley, (a great monastery of regular canons in the s.h.i.+re of Renfrew,) Florarium, and Buchanan, l. 5.

MARCH XI.

ST. EULOGIUS OF CORDOVA, P.M.

From his authentic life by Alvarus, his intimate friend, and from his works, Bibl. Patr. t 9. See Acts Sanct. t. 7. Fleury, b. 48. p. 57.