Part 29

He was born in Anjou of a family allied to the emperor Charlemagne. From his infancy it was his only ambition to serve Christ with his whole heart. When he was of an age to be settled in the world, his parents obliged him to accept a ring sent him by a great lord of the country named Baronte, as a token that he would marry his daughter; but to prevent this engagement, he fled into Auvergne, and there received the monastic habit at the hands of St. Chaffre or Theofrede, who was then œconome of the monastery of Carmery or Cormeri, so called from its founder Carmen, duke of that country, since called St. Theofrede’s or Chaffre’s monastery in Auvergne, four leagues from Puy in Velay, whom he had met at Menat, and followed to this abbey. Here he lived seven years under the holy abbot Eudo; then returned to Menat seven leagues from Clermont; this monastery he built in such a manner as to have borne the name of its founder. He governed it for many years with great sanctity, and died in 720. He is honored with singular veneration in Auvergne and Anjou, and mentioned by Usuard on the 22d of July. See Mabillon, Sec. 3, Ben., part 1, Labbe, t. 2, Bibl. Novæ, p. 591. Branche, Vies des SS. d’Auvergne et Velay. Baillet, &c.

ST. DABIUS OR DAVIUS, C.

A zealous Irish priest who preached with wonderful fruit in his own country and in Albany in Scotland; is titular saint of the parish of Domnach Cluana in the county of Down, and of Kippau in the Highlands, where a famous church is dedicated to God under his invocation by the name of Movean. See Colgan in MSS.

JULY XXIII.

SAINT APOLLINARIS, MARTYR.

BISHOP OF RAVENNA.

See Pinius in the Acts of the Saints, Julij, t. 5, p. 329, and Farlat, Illyrici Sacra, t. 1, p. 259.

St. Apollinaris was the first bishop of Ravenna. Bede, in his true Martyrology, says that he sat twenty years, and was crowned with martyrdom in the reign of Vespasian. His acts say that he was a disciple of St. Peter, and made by him bishop of Ravenna. Though their authority deserves little regard, this circumstance must be allowed, being agreeable to the time, and supported by other authorities. St. Peter Chrysologus, the most illustrious among his successors, has left us a sermon in honor of our saint,[261] in which he often styles him a martyr; but adds, that though he frequently spilt portions of his blood for the faith, and ardently desired to lay down his life for Christ, yet God preserved him a long time to his Church, and did not suffer the persecutors to take away his life. So he seems to have only been a martyr by the torments he endured for Christ, which he survived at least some days. His body lay first at Classis, four miles from Ravenna, still a kind of suburb to that city, and its sea-port, till it was choked up by the sands. In the year 549 his relics were removed into a more secret vault in the same church, as an inscription still extant there testifies. See Mabillon.[262] St. Fortunatus exhorted his friends to make pilgrimages to his tomb, and St. Gregory the Great ordered parties in doubtful suits at law to be sworn before it. Pope Honorius built a church under his name in Rome about the year 630. It occurs in all Martyrologies, and the high veneration which the Church paid early to his memory is a sufficient testimony of his eminent sanctity and apostolic spirit.

The virtue of the saints was true and heroic, because humble, and proof against all trials. That of the heathen philosophers was lame, and generally false and counterfeit, whence Tertullian calls the latter, Traders in fame. “Where is now the similitude,” says he, “between a philosopher and a Christian? a disciple of Greece and of heaven? a trader in fame, and a saver of souls?[263] between a man of words, and a man of works?” And St. Jerom writes, “A philosopher is an animal of fame, one who basely drudges for the breath of the people.”[264] Lactantius severely rallies Cicero, because, though he was very sensible of the vanity of the worship then established, yet he would not have that truth told the people for fear of unhinging the religion of the state. “Now what is to be done with a man,” says our Christian philosopher, “who knows himself in an error, yet wilfully dashes upon a rock, that the people may do so too? who makes no use of his wisdom for the regulation of his life, but entangles himself to ensnare others, whom, as the wiser person, he was obliged to rescue from error? But O Cicero, if you have any regard for virtue, attempt rather to deliver the people out of ignorance. It is a noble enterprise, and worthy all your powers of eloquence. Never fear but your oratory will hold out in so good a cause, which never failed you in the defence of so many bad ones. But Socrates’s prison is the thing you dread; and therefore truth must want a patron; but certainly, as a wise man, you ought to despise death in competition with truth; and you had fallen much more honorably by speaking well of truth, than for speaking ill of Antony; nor will you ever rise to that height of glory by your Philippics, as you would have done by laboring to undeceive the world, and dispute the people into their senses.”[265] The philosophers did not love truth well enough to suffer for it. Plato dissembled, for fear of Socrates’s hemlock; but the Christian religion raised its professors above all considerations present, for the joy that was set before them.

ST. LIBORIUS, BISHOP OF MANS, C.

He was descended of a noble Gaulish family, and by his innocence and sanctity of life was recommended to the priesthood in the church of Mans. He loved retirement and prayer, never conversed with seculars but on spiritual accounts, and linked himself only with those among the clergy whose actions and words were such as might inspire him more and more with the spirit of his state. His distinguished learning and virtue fixed all eyes upon him, and in 348 he was chosen fourth bishop of Mans. Indefatigable in all the functions of his charge, he prayed and fasted much, and was most attentive in succoring the necessities of the poor, by that means to draw down the blessing of God upon himself and his flock. He built and endowed many new churches in his diocess, and having governed it forty-nine years, died about the year 397. His remains were translated to Paderborn in 836, and he is honored as patron of that city. See Tillemont, t. 10, p. 307. Fleury, l. 28, n. 61, p. 495.

JULY XXIV.

ST. LUPUS, BISHOP OF TROYES, C.

From his ancient accurate life, extant in Surius, and illustrated with notes by F. Bosch the Bollandist, Julij, t. 7, p. 19. See also Ceillier, t. 15, p. 40. Tillemont, t. 16, p. 127. Rivet, Hist. Littér. t. 2, p. 486. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, t. 1, l. 6, n. 44, p. 274, and Camuzat, Catal. Episc. Trecens. p. 153, et Antiquitates Tricassinæ, &c., 8vo., 1610.

A. D. 478.

St. Lupus, called in French St. Leu, was born of a noble family at Toul, and being learned and eloquent, pleaded at the bar for some years with great reputation. He married Pimeniola, a virtuous sister of St. Hilary of Arles. After six years spent in holy wedlock, fired with an ardent desire of serving God with greater perfection, they parted by mutual consent, and made a mutual vow of perpetual continency. Lupus betook himself to the famous abbey of Lerins, then governed by St. Honoratus. He lived there a year, and added many austerities to those prescribed by the rule, yet always regulated his fervor by the advice of St. Honoratus. He sold great part of his estate for the benefit of the poor, when he renounced the world. After the first year, when St. Honoratus was made bishop of Arles, he went to Macon in Burgundy to dispose of an estate he had left there, in charitable uses. He was preparing to return to Lerins when he was met by the deputies of the church of Troyes, which, upon the death of St. Ursus, in 426, had chosen him bishop, the eighth from St. Amator, founder of this see. His resistance was to no purpose, and he was consecrated by the prelates of the province of Sens. In this dignity he continued the same practices of humility, mortification, and as much as possible even of poverty. He never wore any other garments than a sackcloth and a single tunic, lay upon boards, and allotted every second night entire to watching in prayer. He often passed three days without taking any nourishment, and after so rigorous a fast allowed himself nothing but a little barley bread. Thus he lived above twenty years; laboring at the same time in all his pastoral functions with a zeal worthy an apostle.

About the latter end of the fourth century, Pelagius, a British monk, and Celestius a Scot, broached their heresy in Africa, Italy, and the East, denying the corruption of human nature by original sin, and the necessity of divine grace. One Agricola, a disciple of these heresiarchs, had spread this poison in Britain. The Catholics addressed themselves to their neighbors the bishops of Gaul, begging their assistance to check the growing evil. An assembly of bishops, probably held at Arles in 429, deputed St. Germanus of Auxerre and St. Lupus of Troyes, to go over into our island to oppose this mischief. The two holy pastors, burning with zeal for the glory of Christ, accepted the commission the more willingly as it seemed laborious and painful. They came over and entirely banished the heresy by their prayers, preaching, and miracles. St. Lupus, after his return, set himself with fresh vigor to reform the manners of his own flock. In this he displayed so great prudence and piety, that St. Sidonius Apollinaris calls him, “The father of fathers and bishop of bishops, the chief of the Gallican prelates, the rule of manners, the pillar of truth, the friend of God, and the intercessor to him for men.”[266] He spared no pains to save one lost sheep, and his labors were often crowned with a success which seemed miraculous. Among other instances it is recorded that a certain person of his diocess, named Gallus, had forsaken his wife and withdrawn to Clermont. St. Lupus could not see this soul perish, but wrote to St. Sidonius, then bishop of Clermont, a strong letter so prudently tempered with sweetness, that Gallus by reading it was at once terrified and persuaded, and immediately set out to return to his wife. Upon which St. Sidonius cried out, “What is more wonderful than a single reprimand, which both affrights a sinner into compunction, and makes him love his censor!” This letter of St. Lupus and several others are lost; but we have one by which he congratulated Sidonius upon his promotion to his see, having passed from a secular prefecture or government to the episcopacy, which charge he shows to be laborious, difficult and dangerous. He strongly exhorts him, above all things, to humility. This letter was written in 471, and is given us by D’Achery.[267]

God at that time afflicted the western empire with grievous calamities, and Attila with a numberless army of Huns overran Gaul, calling himself “The Scourge of God,” to punish the sins of the people. Rheims, Cambray, Besançon, Auxerre, and Langres had already felt the effects of his fury, and Troyes was the next place threatened. The holy bishop had recourse to God in behalf of his people by fervent prayer, which he continued for many days, prostrate on the ground, fasting and weeping without intermission. At length, putting on his bishop’s attire, full of confidence in God, he went out to meet the barbarian at the head of his army. Attila, though an infidel, seeing him, was moved to reverence the man of God, who came up to him boldly, followed by his clergy in procession, with a cross carried before them. He spoke to the king first, and asked him who he was? “I am,” said Attila, “the scourge of God.” “Let us respect whatever comes to us from God,” replied the bishop; “but if you are the scourge with which heaven chastises us, remember you are to do nothing but what that almighty hand, which governs and moves you, permits.” Attila, struck with these words, promised the prelate to spare the city. Thus the saint’s prayer was a better defence than the most impregnable ramparts. It protected a city which had neither arms, nor garrison, nor walls, against an army of at least four hundred thousand men, which, after plundering Thrace, Illyricum, and Greece, crossing the Rhine, had filled with blood and desolation the most flourishing countries of France. Attila, turning with his army from Troyes, was met on the plains of Chalons by Aëtius, the brave Roman general, and there defeated. In his retreat he sent for St. Lupus, and caused him to accompany him as far as the Rhine, imagining that the presence of so great a servant of God would be a safeguard to himself and his army; and sending him back, he recommended himself to his prayers. This action of the good bishop was misconstrued by the Roman generals, as if he had favored the escape of the barbarian, and he was obliged to leave Troyes for two years. He spent that time in religious retirement, in great austerity and continual contemplation. When his charity and patience had at length overcome the envy and malice of men, he went back to his church, which he governed fifty-two years, dying in the year 479. The chief part of his body is kept in a rich silver shrine; his skull and principal part of his head in another far more precious, in the figure of a bishop, formed of silver, adorned with jewels and diamonds said by some to be the richest in France. Both are in the abbatial church of regular canons of St. Austin, which bears the name of St. Lupus. He was first buried in the church of St. Martin in Areis, of the same Order, then out of the walls, though long since within them. Many churches in England bear his name. The family name of Sentlow among us is derived from St. Leu, as Camden remarks.

It was by omnipotent prayer that the saints performed such great wonders. By it Moses could ward off the destruction of many thousands, and by a kind of holy violence disarm the divine vengeance.[268] By it Elias called down fire and rain from heaven. By it Manasses in chains found mercy, and recovered his throne; Ezechias saw his health restored, and life prolonged; the Ninevites were preserved from destruction; Daniel was delivered from the lions, St. Peter from his chains, and St. Thecla from the fire. By it Judith and Esther saved God’s people. By the same have the servants of God so often commanded nature, defeated armies, removed mountains, cast out devils, cured the sick, raised the dead, drawn down divine blessings, and averted the most dreadful judgments from the world, which, as an ancient father says, subsists by the prayers of the saints.[269]

ST. FRANCIS SOLANO, C.

This saint was born at Montilia in Andalusia to 1549, performed his studies in the schools of the Jesuits, and in 1569 made his religious profession amongst the Franciscans in the place of his nativity. An extraordinary humility and contempt of himself and of worldly vanity and applause; self-denial, obedience, meekness, patience, and the love of silence, recollection, and prayer mental and vocal, formed his character. Whole nights he frequently passed without sleep on the steps of the altar, before the Blessed Sacrament, in meditation and devout prayer, with wonderful interior delight and devotion. Burning with holy zeal and charity, and an ardent desire of the salvation of souls, after he was promoted to the priesthood, he divided his time between silent retirement and the ministry of preaching. His sermons, though destitute of the ornaments of studied eloquence, powerfully withdrew men from vice, and kindled in their breasts an ardent desire of virtue. The saint was appointed master of novices, first in the convent of Arizava, two miles from Cordova, afterward in that of Monte. Then he was made guardian in the province of Granada. His whole life, says Alvarez de Paz, may be called a holy uninterrupted course of zealous action, yet was at the same time a continued most fervent prayer, abounding with heavenly illuminations and consolations. A perfect spirit of poverty emptied his heart of the love of all created things, that Christ alone might occupy and fill it; and he rejoiced in his nakedness and privation of earthly goods, that he might barely use them to serve the necessities of nature, without suffering them to enslave his heart, or to find any place in his affections, which he reserved pure and entire for spiritual goods. Interior humility and self-denial perfected the disengagement of his heart, and the extraordinary austerities of his penitential life subjected his senses, and rendered the liberty which his soul enjoyed complete; by which he was prepared for the spirit of prayer and the pure love of heavenly things. Earthly comforts used with moderation, and as supports of our weakness, may be sanctified by a good intention; but whilst they bolster up our weakness, they keep it alive and strengthen it; and if they are sought after, or made use of with eagerness and attachment, immoderately or frequently, they strongly nourish self love and sensuality, and produce a distrust of the solid food of devotion and divine love.

The mortified lives of all the saints who arrived at a familiarity with God in holy prayer, are but a comment upon, or sensible examples of, the indispensable gospel precept of dying to ourselves. By no other steps could St. Francis Solano have arrived at the perfection of spiritual life. A pestilence which raged at Granada afforded him an opportunity of exerting his heroic virtue in attending the infected; but a more noble theatre of action was opened to him by the mission into America, upon which he was sent. Peru and Tucuman were the countries in which he reaped the principal harvest; and the five last years of his life he preached chiefly at Lima, and induced the inhabitants of that great city, by sincere repentance, to appease the divine anger, which they had provoked by their sins. The reputation of his wonderful sanctity was enhanced by many miracles. Yet by humility he looked upon himself as the least among men, and he never appeared in public but when called abroad by zeal for the salvation of souls. Before his death he was purified by a lingering illness, and in his last moments repeated those words of the psalmist: _I have rejoiced in those things which have been said to me: We will go into the house of the Lord_. He departed this life on the 14th of June in 1610, the sixty-second of his age, and fortieth of his religious profession. F. Alvarez de Paz, an eye-witness, describes the stately and religious pomp of his funeral, at which the viceroy of Peru and the archbishop of Lima assisted, with extraordinary devotion. The saint was beatified by Clement X. and canonized by Benedict XIII. in 1726, and his principal festival was appointed on the 24th of July. See his life compiled by Didacus of Cordova; also by Alphonsus of Mondietta. See likewise the History of the Provinces of Peru, and the edifying account of our saint given by the pious and learned Jesuit F. Alvarez de Paz, l. 5, c. 14, t. 2, Op. p. 1752 and 1753; and Benedict XIV., De Canoniz. t. 1, Append. Also the Lives of Saints, published in High Dutch, by F. Maximilian Rasler, S. J.; and F. Charlevoix, Hist. de Paraguay, t. 1, l. 3, and 4.

SS. ROMANUS AND DAVID, MM.

PATRONS OF MUSCOVY.[270]

The history of the conversion of the Russians (now called Muscovites) to the faith of Christ, has been perplexed by the mistakes of many who have treated this point of history. The learned Jesuit F. Antony Possevin was betrayed into many falsities concerning this people.[271] And upon his authority some have pretended that the Muscovites received the faith from the Greek schismatics, and at the same time adhered to their schism; than which, nothing can be more notoriously false, as Henschenius and Papebrochius[272] show. F. Stilting, another learned Bollandist, has demonstrated by an express dissertation,[273] that the Muscovites were at first Catholics, and that even in the time of the Council of Florence the Catholics and schismatics in Russia made two equal halves. The Greek schism was formed by Cerularius several years after the conversion of the Russians. The schism indeed of Phocius was a short prelude to it.

Cedrenus, Zonaras, and some others relate, that an army of Russians besieged Constantinople in the time of the emperor Michael III., when Photius held that see; and that being obliged to raise the siege, they obtained certain Greek priests from Constantinople, who instructed them in the Christian faith. This first mission Baronius places in 853, Pagi in 861; but this must either be understood of some tribe of Russians in Bohemia, where St. Cyril then preached; or these authors must have confounded together things which happened at different times; for the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenetta, who lived near that time, and could not but be acquainted with this transaction, says both in his life of his grandfather, Basil the Macedonian, and in his book, On administering the Empire, that the Russians besieged the city in the time of Photius, but that they were converted to the faith by priests sent at their request from Constantinople in the time of Basil the Macedonian and the patriarch St. Ignatius, whom that prince restored upon his ascending the throne in 867; which also appears from Zonarus.