September Martyrs

THE MARTYRS OF SEPTEMBER
Living With The Daily Martyrology of the Church

“Can you drink the chalice that I shall drink? … My chalice indeed you shall drink!” (Matthew 20:22-23).

SEPTEMBER 1ST
The Martyrs of the Day
THE TWELVE HOLY BROTHERS
Martyred in the Third Century, around 278

Saints Felix, Donatus, Arontius, Honoratus, Fortunatus, Sabinianus, Septimius, Januarius, Felix, Vitalis, Satyrus, and Repositus were natives of Adrumetum in Africa, and after suffering grievous torments for the Faith in that city, were sent into Italy, where they finished their glorious martyrdom under the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian in year 258.

Four were beheaded in Potenza, Italy on August 27th. Three were beheaded at Vanossa on August 28th. The others were beheaded at Sentiana on September 1st. They were brought together and enshrined at Benevento in 760.

SEPTEMBER 2ND
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. MAXIMA & ST. ASANUS
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 304

St. Maxima was a house servant and ‘nanny’ to a family of imperial nobility in ancient Rome. She was given responsibility for caring for the family’s son, Ansanus, and she secretly baptized him as a child and raised him as a Christian.

When he was 19, Ansanus’ own father denounced him as a Christian during a persecution. Ansanus boldly admitted his Faith, and both he and Maxima were beaten and scourged, in the persecution conducted by Emperor Diocletian, around 304. Maxima died from these wounds. Ansanus survived, and escaped Rome and fled north.

As he traveled, he told those he met the good news of Jesus Christ, and baptized so many people in the region near Siena that he became known as Ansanus the Baptizer. He was finally captured and beheaded by order of the emperor.

St. Ansanus is known as the Apostle of Siena and is that city’s patron saint; his feast day is December 1st. The relics of St. Maxima rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.

SEPTEMBER 3RD
The Martyr of the Day
ST. SERAPIA
Martyred in the Second Century, around 119

Serapia was a Roman saint, a slave and martyr, also called Seraphia of Syria. Saint Serapia was born at Antioch in the late 1st century, of Christian parents who, fleeing the persecution of Emperor Hadrian, went to Italy and settled in Rome. When her parents died, Serapia was sought in marriage by many, but having resolved to consecrate herself to God alone, she sold all her possessions and distributed the proceeds to the poor. Then she sold herself into voluntary slavery, and entered the service of a Roman noblewoman named Sabina. The piety of Serapia, her love of work, and her charity soon gained the heart of her mistress, who eventually became a Christian.

In the reign of Hadrian, Serapia was commanded to do homage to the gods of Rome. She refused and the governor Virilus gave orders to bring Serapia to trial. Desiring a crown of martyrdom from the Lord, she fearlessly went to the executioner at the first summons. The devoted Sabina accompanied her. Seeing that illustrious lady, Virilus at first set the maiden free, but after several days he again summoned Serapia and began the trial.

She was handed over to two men who tried to rape her, but she resisted. They then tried to set her on fire with torches, but could not do so. By command of the judge Derillus, she was beaten with rods and then beheaded by sword. Her body was buried by Sabina in Sabina's own tomb, near the Vindician field. She suffered upon the 29th day of July, but the memory of her martyrdom is kept more especially on September 3rd, on which day their common tomb was finished, adorned and consecrated as a fitting place of prayer. She died in 119. In art, St. Serapia holds a tablet or book; sometimes she appears with St. Sabina.

SEPTEMBER 4TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. MARCELLUS & ST. VALERIAN
Martyred in the Second Century, around 179

Antoninus Pius and his adopted son and successor, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, surnamed the Philosopher, were renowned for their wisdom, moderation, and attention to the good of the Roman Empire. The latter is no less admirable for the government of himself, if his meditations are the portraiture of his practice. His virtues and wise administration are represented to advantage by Crevier; but their luster is not without shades.

In the very book of Crevier’s meditations, where he commends necessary resignation to death, he condemns that of the Christians, which he ascribes to mere obstinacy. Their constancy he had experienced, having raised the fifth general persecution of the Church, and published fresh edicts, by which he commanded Christians to be punished with death, as is attested by St. Melito, quoted by Eusebius.

After his victory over the Quadi and Marcomanni, in 174, he ordered peace to be restored to the Christians: but did not check the fury of the populace, or of particular governors, who, in several places, often availed themselves of former laws made against them.

The horrible massacre of the martyrs at Lyons and Vienna happened in the year 177. In the former of these cities, our two future martyrs, Marcellus and Valerian, withdrew themselves from that tempest by a seasonable flight, and preached the Gospel in the neighboring provinces, and were crowned with martyrdom in 179.

Marcellus was apprehended in the country near Challons, and, after enduring many torments in that city, was buried alive up to the middle, in which posture he died on the third day, which was the 4th day of September.

St. Valerian fell into the hands of the persecutors near Tournus, a town built on the Saone, between Macon and Challons. After suffering the rack and being torn with iron hooks, he was beheaded at Tournus on the 15th of September.

The relics of St. Marcellus are honourably kept in the great church which bears his name at Challons, and belongs to a royal monastery, which King Gontran founded in his honour.

A church was built at Tournus over the tomb of St. Valerian, before the time of St. Gregory of Tours. Saints Marcellus and Valerian are honored as the apostles of that country. The great abbey of St. Valerian at Tournus is the head of a monastic congregation to which it gives its name. It was a small monastery when, in 875, Charles the Bald gave it to the monks of the isle of Nermoutier, or Ner, or Hero, on the coast of Poitou, who had been expelled by the Normans. They carried with them the relics of St. Filibert, or Filbert, their founder.

This abbey was rebuilt in 1018; from which time it took the name of St. Filbert. In the sixteenth age the Huguenots plundered this church, and burnt part of the relics of St. Valerian; but the principal portion escaped their sacrilegious search. The abbey of Tournus was converted into a college of secular canons in 1627; only the dignity of abbot was retained with an extensive jurisdiction and large revenue. It was enjoyed in commendam by Cardinal Fleury.

The two holy martyrs, whom we honor on this day, made the whole tenor of their lives a preparation to martyrdom, because they devoted it entirely to God by the constant exercise of all virtues. To be able to stand our ground in the time of trial, and to exercise the necessary acts of virtue in the article of death, we must be thoroughly grounded in strong habits of all virtues; and we shall not otherwise exert them readily on sudden and difficult occasions. He whose soul is well regulated, and in whose heart virtue has taken deep root, finds its practice easy and, as it were, natural in times of sickness, persecution, or other occasions. Nay, he makes everything that occurs matter of its exercise, subjects to himself even obstacles, and converts them into occasions of exerting the most noble and heroic virtues, such as resignation, patience, charity, and good will towards those who oppose or persecute him.

SEPTEMBER 5TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. ROMULUS
Martyred in the Second Century, around 115

The Martyr Romulus lived during the reign of the emperor Trajan (98-117) and was a confidant of the emperor by virtue of his office of military commander. While the emperor was waging war in the East to put down the uprisings of various peoples against the Romans, the Iberians, the Sarmatians, the Arabs.

In the year 107, and again a second time in 115, the emperor conducted a review of the military strength of his army, and found in his troops upwards of 11,000 Christians. Trajan immediately sent these Christians into exile in Armenia in disgrace. St Romulus, in view of this, reproached the emperor for his impiety and the sheer folly to diminish the army’s strength during a time of war. St Romulus, moreover, acknowledged that he himself was a Christian. The enraged Trajan had the holy martyr subjected to a merciless beating, after which St Romulus was beheaded.

SEPTEMBER 6TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. ONESIPHORUS & ST. PORPHYRIUS
Martyred in the Third Century, around 258

The Holy Martyrs Onesiphorus and Porphyrius of Ephesus suffered during the persecution against Christians by the emperor Domitian in the First Century. This Onesiphorus is sometimes confused with another Onesiphorus who was martyred two centuries later.

Onesiphorus (meaning "bringing profit" or "useful") is referred to in the Second letter of St. Paul to St. Timothy: “The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiphorus: because he hath often refreshed me, and hath not been ashamed of my chain. But when he was come to Rome, he carefully sought me, and found me. The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord in that day: and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou very well knowest … Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus” (2 Timothy 1:16-18 and 4:19). According to the letter, sent by St. Paul, Onesiphorus sought out Paul who was imprisoned at the time in Rome.

St Onesiphorus was bishop at Colophon (Asia Minor), and later at Corinth. According to tradition, Onesiphorus and Porphyrius went to Spain in the footsteps of St. Paul and then suffered martyrdom on the Hellespont, under Emperor Domitian. They were tied to wild horses and torn to pieces. Porphyrius was said to be a member of Onesiphorus' household. They died as martyrs in the city of Parium (not far from Ephesus) on the shores of the Hellespont, where he had gone to proclaim Christ among the local pagans.

They beat them and burned them. After this, they tied the saints to wild horses, which dragged them over the stones, after which the Martyrs Onesiphorus and Porphyrius died. Believers gathered the remains of the saints and reverently buried them.

SEPTEMBER 7TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. REGINA
Martyred in the Third Century, around 251

Regina was born in Autun, France, to a a prominent pagan citizen named Clement. Her mother died at her birth, and her father, entrusted the child to a Christian nurse who baptized her. When he learned of this fact, Clement, her father flew into a rage and repudiated his own daughter. Regina then went to live with the Christian nurse, who possessed little means and was very poor. Regina helped-out by tending sheep, during which time she conversed with God in prayer and meditated on the lives of the saints.

In 251, at the age of fifteen, she attracted the eye of a man called Olybrius, the prefect of Gaul, who determined to have her as his wife. He sent for the girl and discovered that she was of noble race and of the Christian Faith. Disappointed, he attempted to have her deny her Faith, but the saintly maiden resolutely refused and also spurned his proposal of marriage. Thereupon, Olybrius had her thrown into prison in the town of Aliza, formerly a large town called Alexia, famous for the siege which Cæsar laid to it, now a small village in the diocess of Autun in Burgundy.

Regina remained incarcerated, chained to the wall, while Olybrius went to ward off the invasions of the barbarians. On his return, he found the saint even more determined to preserve her vow of virginity and to refuse to sacrifice to idols. In a rage, he had recourse to whippings, scorchings, burning pincers, and iron combs — all to no avail as the grace of God sustained the saint. All the while, she continued to praise God and defy Olybrius. In the end, her throat was cut and she was beheaded as she went forth to meet her heavenly Bridegroom.

Her martyrdom took place in the persecution of Decius, in 251, or under Maximian Herculeus in 286, as some Martyrologies mention. She is honored in many ancient Martyrologies. Her relics are kept with great devotion in the neighboring abbey of Flavigny, a league distant, whither they were translated in 864, and where they have been rendered famous by miracles and pilgrimages, of which a history is published by two monks of that abbey.

SEPTEMBER 8TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. EUSEBIUS, ST. NESTABULUS & ST. ZENO
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 360

In the reign of Julian the Apostate (355-363), Eusebius, Nestablus, and Zeno, three zealous Christian brothers at Gaza, were seized by the pagans in their houses, where they had concealed themselves: they were carried to prison, and inhumanly scourged. Afterwards the idolaters, who were assembled in the amphitheater at the public shows, began loudly to demand the punishment of the sacrilegious criminals, as they called the confessors. By these cries the assembly soon became a tumult; and the people worked themselves into such a ferment that they ran in a fury to the prison, which they forced, and hauling out the three brothers, began to drag them, sometimes on their bellies, sometimes on their backs, bruising them against the pavement, and striking them with clubs, stones, or any thing that came in their way. The very women, quitting their work, ran the points of their spindles into them, and the cooks took the kettles from off the fire, poured the scalding water upon them, and pierced them with their spits.

After the martyrs were thus mangled, and their skulls so broken that the ground was smeared with their brains, they were dragged out of the city to the place where the beasts were thrown that died of themselves. Here the people lighted a fire, burned the bodies, and mingled the bones that remained with those of camels and asses, that it might not be easy for the Christians to distinguish them.

This cruelty only enhanced the triumph of the martyrs before God, who watches over the precious remains of his elect, to raise them again to glory. With these three brothers there was taken a young man, named Nestor, who suffered imprisonment and scourging as they had done; but as the furious rioters were dragging him through the street, some persons took compassion on him on account of his great beauty and comeliness, and drew him out of the gate. He died of his wounds, within three days, in the house of Zeno, a cousin of the three martyrs, who himself was obliged to fly, and, being taken, was publicly whipped.

SEPTEMBER 9TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. DOROTHEUS, ST. GORGONIUS & COMPANIONS
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 304

Dorotheus was first chamberlain to the Emperor Diocletian; Gorgonius and Peter were under-chamberlains. They were the three principal eunuchs of the palace; had sometimes borne the weight of the most difficult affairs of state, and been the support both of the emperor and of his court.

When the palace of Nicomedia was set on fire, probably by the contrivance of Galerius, who unjustly charged the Christians with it, Dorotheus, with Gorgonius, and several others under his dependence, were very cruelly tortured, and at length strangled.

Peter having refused to sacrifice, was hung up naked in the air, and whipped on all parts of his body. After the executioners had torn his flesh in such a manner that the bones started out, without being able to shake his constancy, they poured salt and vinegar into his wounds; then had a gridiron brought, and a fire made, on which they broiled him as we do meat, telling him at the same time that he should continue in that condition if he would not obey; but he was resolute to the last, and died under the torture. The

bodies of St. Dorotheus and his companions were cast into the sea by an order of Diocletian, lest the Christians should worship them as gods, as Eusebius mentions, which mistake of the heathens could only arise from the veneration which Christians paid to the relics of martyrs.

The martyr Gorgonius, whose name was famous at Rome, seems different from the former. The Liberian Calendar, published by Bucherius, mentions his tomb on the Lavican way, and he was honoured with an office in the sacramentary of Pope Gelasius. Sigebert in his chronicle on the year 764, Rabanus Maurus in his martyrology, and others, relate that St. Chrodegang obtained from Rome, of Pope Paul, the relics of St. Gorgonius, and enriched with that treasure his great monastery of Gorze, situated two leagues from Metz. Among the poems of Pope Damasus is an epitaph on St. Gorgonius.

SEPTEMBER 10TH
The Martyrs of the Day
SAINTS NEMESIAN, FELIX, LUCIUS,
ANOTHER FELIX, LITTEUS, POLYAN, VICTOR, JADER, DATIVUS, & OTHERS
Martyred in the Third Century

In the first year of the eighth general persecution, raised by Valerian, St. Cyprian was banished by the proconsul of Carthage to Curubis. At the same time the Governor of Numidia, proceeded with more severity against the Christians, tortured many, and afterwards put several to barbarous deaths, and sent others to work in the mines, or rather in quarries of marble; for Pliny tells us there were no other in Numidia.

Out of this holy company some were frequently called to be tormented afresh, or inhumanly butchered, whilst others continued their lingering martyrdom in hunger, nakedness, and filth, exhausted with hard labor, and tormented with daily stripes, and perpetual reproaches and insults.

St. Cyprian wrote from the place of his banishment to comfort and encourage these gallant sufferers for their Faith. He tells them, that hearing of their glorious conflicts he earnestly desired to wait upon them in person, and hasten to their embraces; but was not able, being himself in banishment, and confined to the limits of the place appointed for him. He adds: “Yet in heart and spirit I am with you, and my letter must perform the office of my tongue, in expressing to you the joy of my soul for the glory of your virtues, and the share I reckon myself to have in it, though not by a participation of your sufferings, yet by the communion of charity. It is impossible for me to be silent when I hear such glorious things of my nearest and dearest friends, whom the favorable providence of God hath vouchsafed to honor with such extraordinary graces; some of your happy company having already attained the crown of martyrdom, whilst others stay yet behind in bonds, or in the mines, and by the delay of their consummation, encourage our brethren to follow their example, and to aspire after like honors with them. Their slow and lingering torments enhance their crowns, and each day of their continuance in a state of suffering will entitle them to a distinct reward. That our Lord should prefer you to the highest honors, I cannot wonder, since you have all along proceeded in one regular and uniform course of Faith and obedience; and the Church hath ever found you peaceable and orderly members, diligent and faithful in the charge committed to you; careful always of the poor; vigorous and constant in the defense of the truth; firm and strict in your observance of her discipline:”(that is to say, never giving into the faction of those who encouraged unreasonable relaxations;) “and to crown your other virtues you now by your example lead on the rest of our brethren to martyrdom.

“As to the entrance you made upon your gallant confession by being beaten with clubs, Christians should not shrink at a club, who have all their hopes founded in the wood of the cross, by which they were redeemed unto life eternal. A servant of Christ discerns in wood a figure of his salvation, and embraces in it the instrument by which he is preferred to the martyr’s glory. They have manacled your feet with fetters marked with infamy; but they cannot reach your souls; and that iron sits rather as an ornament upon persons devoted to God. Happy are the feet so bound, which are moving forward in their blessed journey to paradise.

“You have nothing but the ground to receive your weary limbs after the labors of the day; but surely you will not account it a punishment to lie on the ground with your master Christ. Your bodies are loathsome and nasty for want of bathing: but your spirits are cleansed in the inner man, proportionately as the flesh of the outer suffers through dirt and filth. Your bread is poor and scanty; but man doth not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. You are in want of clothing to keep out the cold; but he who hath put on Christ is abundantly clothed and adorned. The hair of your head, when half of it is shaved, hath a dismal and ignominious aspect; but nothing can misbecome a head, renowned for its adherence to Christ. How will all these deformities, which make such a shocking appearance in the eye of the Gentile world, be recompensed in eternal glory with honors proportionate to your disgrace! Neither can your religion suffer, even from that hard circumstance, that the priests among you have not the liberty, nor the opportunity to offer, and celebrate the divine sacrifice; but you present yourselves victims to God with the sacrifice of a contrite and humbled heart, which he will not despise, and which you cease not to offer day and night.”

The holy archbishop goes on pathetically encouraging the confessors to take the cup of salvation with readiness and alacrity, and to receive with courage and constancy that death which is precious in the sight of God, who graciously looks down upon their conflict, approves and assists their ardor, and crowns them when victorious, recompensing the virtues which himself hath wrought in them. That great saint puts them in mind that their crowns would be multiplied by all those whom their courage should excite to virtue.

“Accordingly,” says he, “a great number of our lay-brethren have followed your example, have confessed our Lord, and stand thence entitled to a crown with you; as being united to you in the bonds of an invincible charity, and not suffering themselves to be divided from their bishops, either in the mines, or in the prison. Nor are you without the company of tender virgins, who move forward to their crown with the double title of virgins and martyrs. Even the courage of children hath approved itself beyond their age, and the glory of their confession hath surpassed their years; so that your blessed troop of martyrs hath each age and sex to adorn it. How strong, my beloved brethren, is even now the sense of your victory! How joyful must it be to you to consider that each of you stand in readiness to receive the promised recompense at the hands of God; that you are secure of the issues of the last judgment; that Christ affordeth you his gracious presence, and rejoiceth to see the fortitude and patience of his servants who follow his steps to their joy and crown. You live in daily expectation of being dismissed to your proper home, to your heavenly habitation,” etc.

The confessors thanked St. Cyprian for his letter, which, they say, had alleviated their stripes and hardships, and rendered them insensible of those noisome exhalations with which the place of their confinement abounded. They tell him, that by gloriously confessing his Faith in the proconsul’s court, and going before them into banishment, he had sounded the charge to them, and animated all the soldiers of God to the conflict. They conclude, begging his prayers, and say: “Let us assist one another by our prayers, that God and Christ, and the whole choir of angels may lend us their favourable succour when we shall most want it.” This glorious company of saints is commemorated on this day in the Roman Martyrology.

SEPTEMBER 11TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. PROTUS & ST. HYANCINTHUS
Martyred in the Third Century, around 257

The saints whose victory the Church commemorates on this day are honored among the most illustrious martyrs that ennobled Rome with their blood, when the emperors of the world attempted, with the whole weight of their power, to crush the little flock of Christ. Their epitaph, among the works of Pope Damasus, calls them brothers, and informs us that Hyacinthus sustained the first conflict, but that Protus obtained his crown before him. They are said, in the Acts of St. Eugenia, to have been eunuchs and retainers to that virtuous lady and martyr, who is honored on the 25th of December.

Their martyrdom, and that of Eugenia, is placed in these acts under Valerian, in 257, but the Liberian Calendar assures us, that St. Basilla, who seems to have been a companion of St. Eugenia, received her crown on the 22d of September, in the persecution of Diocletian, in 304, and was buried on the Salarian Way. St. Avitus, of Vienna, about the year 500; Fortunatus, and others, make mention of St. Eugenia among the most celebrated virgins and martyrs. 1 The ancient calendar, drawn up in the pontificate of Liberius, mentions the festival of Saints Protus and Hyacinthus on the 11th of September, as celebrated at their tomb on the old Salarian Way, in the cemetery of Basilla, who lay buried at some distance. Her name ought rather to be written Bassilla, as it is in the Liberian Calendar; for it is derived from Bassus. This cemetery was afterwards comprised under that of St. Priscilla, who was buried not far off on the new Salarian Way.

Saints Protus and Hyacinthus are honored in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, in the ancient martyrology, published by F. Fronto, and in those of Bede, Usuard, Vandelbert, &c. Pope Damasus, in 366, removed the earth which hid the tomb of these two martyrs from the view of the faithful; and, during his pontificate, a priest named Theodorus built over it a church, as appears from an ancient epitaph, published by Baronius. Anastasius relates, that Pope Symmachus afterwards adorned it with plates and vessels of silver. Pope Clement VIII., in 1592, caused the sacred remains of Saints Protus and Hyacinthus to be removed from this church into the city, and to be deposited in the church of St. John Baptist, belonging to the Florentines; of which translation an account is given us by Sarazanius, an eye-witness, in his notes on the poems of Pope Damasus. A considerable part of their relics was given to the Benedictin abbey at Mulinheim, now called Saligunstat—i. e., seat of the blessed, in the diocess of Mentz, in 829, as Eginhard and others relate; part to the church of St. Vincent, at Metz, about the year 972.

What words can we find sufficiently to extol the heroic virtue and invincible fortitude of the martyrs! They stood out against the fury of those tyrants whose arms had subdued the most distant nations; to whose yoke almost the whole known world was subject, and whose power both kings and people revered. They, standing alone, without any preparation of war, appeared undaunted in the presence of those proud conquerors, who seemed to think that the very earth ought to bend under their feet. Armed with virtue and divine grace, they were an over-match for all the powers of the world and hell; they fought with wild beasts, fires, and swords; with intrepidity and wonderful cheerfulness they braved the most cruel torments, and by humility, patience, meekness, and constancy, baffled all enemies, and triumphed over men and devils. How glorious was the victory of such an invincible virtue! Having before our eyes the examples of so many holy saints, are we yet so dastardly as to shrink under temptations, or to lose patience under the most ordinary trials?

SEPTEMBER 12TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. AUTONOMOUS
Martyred in the Third Century, around 300

During Diocletian's persecution, Autonomus left Italy for Asian Bithynia, for a place called Soreoi. There, he converted many to Christianity, and built a church for them dedicated to the holy Archangel Michael. Autonomus lived in the home of a devout Christian, Cornelius, whom he first ordained as a presbyter, and then consecrated to the episcopacy. Not far from Soreoi there was a place called Limnae, inhabited entirely by pagans. St. Autonomus went to this place and soon enlightened many with the Gospel of Christ. This embittered the pagans, and one day they rushed into the Church of the Holy Archangel Michael in Soreoi during the divine service and slew Autonomus in the sanctuary, and killed many other Christians in the Church. During the reign of the Emperor Constantine, Severian, a royal nobleman, built a church over the tomb of St. Autonomus. Two hundred years after his death, St. Autonomus appeared to a soldier named John. John exhumed the relics of the saint and found them to be completely incorrupt, and many who were sick received healing from Autonomus's relics. Thus, God glorifies the one who glorified Him while living in the flesh.

SEPTEMBER 13TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. MACROBIAN
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 311-314

Gordian and Macrobian served in the imperial court, and they enjoyed the particular favor of the emperor. When he found out that they were Christians, he sent them to Scythia. There they met Zoticus, Lucian and Elias, who were also courageous confessors of Christ. First of all, Saints Gordian and Macrobius suffered. After this Sts Elias, Zoticus, Lucian and Valerian were tortured and then beheaded in the city of Tomis in Scythia (Tomis, Romania). They suffered at Paphlagonia (Asia Minor) at the beginning of the fourth century during the reign of the Roman emperor Licinius (311-324).

SEPTEMBER 14TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. CYPRIAN
Martyred in the Third Century, around 258

Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, was born in about the year 200 in the city of Carthage (Northern Africa), where all his life and work took place. Thascius Cyprianus was the son of a rich pagan senator, and received a fine secular education becoming a splendid orator, and a teacher of rhetoric and philosophy in the school of Carthage. He often appeared in the courts to defend his fellow citizens.

Cyprian afterwards recalled that for a long time “he remained in a deep dark mist.., far from the light of Truth.” His fortune, received from his parents and from his work, was spent on sumptuous banquets, but they were not able to quench in him the thirst for truth. He became acquainted with the writings of the Apologist Tertullian, and became convinced of the truth of Christianity. The holy bishop later wrote that he thought it was impossible for him to attain to the regeneration promised by the Savior, because of his habits.

He was helped by his friend and guide, the presbyter Cecilius, who assured him of the power of God’s grace. At 46 years of age the studious pagan was received into the Christian community as a catechumen. Before accepting Baptism, he distributed his property to the poor and moved into the house of the presbyter Cecilius.

When St Cyprian was finally baptized, he wrote in the Treatise To Donatus: “When the water of regeneration cleansed the impurity of my former life, a light from on high shone into my heart... and the Spirit transformed me into a new man by a second birth. Then at once, in a miraculous manner, certainty replaced doubt, mysteries were revealed, and darkness became light.... Then it was possible to acknowledge that what was born of the flesh and lived for sin was earthly, but what the Holy Spirit had vivified began to be of God.... In God and from God is all our strength.... Through Him we, while living upon the earth, have a hint of future bliss.”

Two years after his Baptism, the saint was ordained to the priesthood. When Bishop Donatus of Carthage died, St Cyprian was unanimously chosen as bishop. He gave his consent, having complied with his guide’s request, and was consecrated Bishop of Carthage in the year 248.

The saint first of all concerned himself about the welfare of the Church and the eradication of vices among the clergy and flock. The saintly life of the archpastor evoked in everyone a desire to imitate his piety, humility and wisdom. The fruitful activity of St Cyprian became known beyond the bounds of his diocese. Bishops from other sees often turned to him for advice on how to deal with various matters.

A persecution by the emperor Decius (249-251), revealed to the saint in a vision, forced him to go into hiding. His life was necessary to his flock for the strengthening of Faith and courage among the persecuted. Before his departure from his diocese, the saint distributed the church funds among all the clergy for the aid of the needy, and in addition he sent further funds.

He kept in constant touch with the Carthaginian Christians through his epistles, and he wrote letters to presbyters, confessors and martyrs. Some Christians, broken by torture, offered sacrifice to the pagan gods. These lapsed Christians appealed to the confessors, asking to give them what is called a letter of reconciliation, i.e. an certificate for accepting them back into the Church. St Cyprian wrote a general letter to all the Carthaginian Christians, stating that those who lapsed during a time of persecution might be admitted into the Church, but this must be preceded by an investigation of the circumstances under which the falling away came about. It was necessary to determine the sincerity of contrition of the lapsed. To admit them was possible only after penance, and with the permission of the bishop. Some of the lapsed insistently demanded their immediate re-admittance into the Church and caused unrest in the whole community. St Cyprian wrote the bishops of other dioceses asking their opinion, and from all he received full approval of his directives.

During his absence the saint authorized four priests to examine the lives of persons preparing for ordination to the priesthood and the deaconate. This met with resistance from the layman Felicissimus and the presbyter Novatus, roused to indignation against their bishop. St Cyprian excommunicated Felicissimus and six of his followers. In his letter to the flock, the saint touchingly admonished all not to separate themselves from the unity of the Church, to be subject to the lawful commands of the bishop and to await his return. This letter kept the majority of Carthaginian Christians faithful to the Church.

In a short while, St Cyprian returned to his flock. The insubordination of Felicissimus was put to an end at a local Council in the year 251. This Council decreed that it was possible to receive the lapsed back into the Church after a penance, and it affirmed the excommunication of Felicissimus.

During this time there occurred a new schism, led by the Roman presbyter Novatian, and joined by the Carthaginian presbyter Novatus, a former adherent of Felicissimus. Novatian asserted that those who lapsed during a time of persecution could not be readmitted, even if they repented of their sin. Besides this, Novatian with the help of Novatus convinced three Italian bishops during the lifetime of the lawful Roman bishop Celerinus to place another bishop on the Roman cathedra. Against such iniquity, St Cyprian wrote a series of encyclicals to the African bishops, and later a whole book, On The Unity Of The Church.”

When the discord in the Carthage church began to quiet down, a new calamity began: a pestilential plague flared up. Hundreds of people fled from the city, leaving the sick without help, and the dead without burial. St Cyprian, providing an example by his firmness and his courage, tended the sick and buried the dead himself, not only Christians but also pagans. The plague was accompanied by drought and famine. A horde of barbarian Numidians, taking advantage of the misfortune, fell upon the inhabitants, taking many into captivity. St Cyprian moved many rich Carthaginians to offer up means for feeding the starving and ransoming captives.

When a new persecution against Christians spread under the emperor Valerian (253-259), the Carthaginian proconsul Paternus ordered the saint to offer sacrifice to idols. He steadfastly refused to do this. He also refused to give the names and addresses of the presbyters of the church of Carthage. They sent the saint to the city of Curubis, and Deacon Pontus voluntarily followed his bishop into exile.

On the day the saint arrived at the place of exile he had a vision, predicting for him a quick martyr’s end. While in exile, St Cyprian wrote many letters and books. Desiring to suffer at Carthage, he returned there. Taken before the court, he was set at liberty until the following year. Nearly all the Christians of Carthage came to take leave of their bishop and receive his blessing.

At the trial, St Cyprian calmly and firmly refused to offer sacrifice to idols and was sentenced to beheading with a sword. Hearing the sentence, St Cyprian said, “Thanks be to God!” All the people cried out with one voice, “Let us also be beheaded with him!”

Coming to the place of execution, the saint again gave his blessing to all and arranged to give twenty-five gold coins to the executioner. He then tied a handkerchief over his eyes, and gave his hands to be bound to the presbyter and archdeacon standing near him and lowered his head. Christians put their cloths and napkins in front of him so as to collect the martyr’s blood. St Cyprian was executed in the year 258. The body of the saint was taken by night and given burial in a private crypt of the procurator Macrobius Candidianus.

Some say that his holy relics were transferred to France in the time of King Charles the Great (i.e. Charlemagne, 771-814).

St Cyprian of Carthage left the Church a precious legacy: his writings and 80 letters. The works of St Cyprian were accepted by the Church as a model of Orthodox confession and read at two Ecumenical Councils (Ephesus and Chalcedon).

In the writings of St Cyprian the Orthodox teaching about the Church is stated: It has its foundation upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and was proclaimed and built up by the Apostles. The inner unity is expressed in an unity of Faith and love, and the outer unity is actualized by the hierarchy and sacraments of the Church.

In the Church Christ comprises all the fullness of life and salvation. Those having separated themselves from the unity of the Church do not have true life in themselves. Christian love is shown as the bond that holds the Church together. “Love is the foundation of all the virtues, and it continues with us eternally in the Heavenly Kingdom.”

SEPTEMBER 15TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. SABAS & ST. NICETAS
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 370

Saints Sabas and Nicetas are the two most renowned martyrs among the Goths. The former is honored on the 12th of April, the latter, whom the Greeks place in the class of the great martyrs, is commemorated on this day. He was a Goth, born near the banks of the Danube, and converted to the Faith in his youth by Theophilus, who was bishop of the Scythians and Goths in the reign of Constantine the Great. When Valens ascended the imperial throne in the East, in the year 364, the nation of the Goths was divided into two kingdoms.

Athanaric, king of the Eastern Goths, who bordered upon the Roman empire towards Thrace, being a savage prince, and a declared enemy to the Christian religion, in 370, raised a furious persecution against the church in his dominions. By his order, an idol was carried in a chariot through all the towns and villages, where it was suspected that any Christians lived, and all who refused to adore it were put to death.

The usual method of the persecutors was to burn the Christians with their children in their houses, or in the churches where they were assembled together; sometimes they were stabbed at the foot of the altar. In the numerous army of martyrs, which glorified God amongst that barbarous people on this occasion, St. Nicetas held a distinguished rank. It was by the fire that he sealed his Faith and obedience with his blood, and, triumphing over sin, passed to eternal glory.

By the lively expectation of a happy immortality, and the constant remembrance of the divine judgments, the saints courageously overcame all the assaults of the devil, the world, and their own flesh. We have these enemies to fight against, nor can we expect any truce with them so long as we remain in this mortal state. They are never more to be feared than when they lull us into a false confidence by seeming themselves to sleep. We must always watch, by assiduous prayer, self-denial, and flight of all dangerous occasions, that we may discover and shun all the dangerous arts and stratagems by which our crafty enemies seek to decoy or betray us into ruin; and we must always hold our weapons in our hands, that we may be ever ready to repulse all open assaults. Many have fallen in the security of peace who had vanquished the most violent persecutions. If we do not meet with the fiery trials of the martyrs, we are still in danger of perishing in a calm, unless we arm ourselves with watchfulness and fortitude.

SEPTEMBER 16TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. CORNELIUS & ST. CYPRIAN
Martyred in the Third Century, around 252 to 258

The holy pope Fabian having been crowned with martyrdom on the 20th of January, in the year 250, the see of Rome remained vacant above sixteen months, the clergy and people not being able all that while, through the violence of the persecution, to assemble for the election of a bishop. St. Cyprian says, that such was the rage of the persecutor Decius, that he would more easily have suffered a competitor in his empire than a bishop in Rome. At length, however, when that emperor was taken up in opposing the revolt of Julius Valens, or in his wars against the Goths, at a distance from Rome, Cornelius was chosen to fill the apostolic chair in 251.

St. Cyprian testifies that he was a person of an unblemished character and virginal purity, remarkable for his humility; meek, modest, peaceable, and adorned with all other virtues; that he was not advanced to the episcopal dignity on a sudden, but had gone through all the orders of the clergy, as the previous steps, and served the Lord in the functions of each distinct order, as the canons require. At the time of St. Fabian’s death he was a priest in the Roman church, and had the chief share in the direction of affairs during the vacancy of the Holy See. Far from aiming at, or desiring the supreme dignity in the Church to which he was raised, he suffered violence, says the same St. Cyprian, and was promoted to it by force and compulsion. In this we see the character of the Spirit of God, which teaches holy men in humility and distrust sincerely to fear and decline such posts, which presumption, vanity and ambition make others seek and invade, who by this mark alone, are sufficiently proved to be most unworthy.

And Cornelius, by gradually proceeding through all the functions of the ministry, according to the spirit of the Church, had attained all the graces and virtues by which he was qualified for that high station. The election of Cornelius was made by a due assembly of almost all the clergy of Rome; a great number also of the laity, who were present, consented to and demanded his ordination. The concurring suffrages of sixteen ancient and worthy bishops, (two of whom were Africans,) who happened then to be in Rome, confirmed the same, and the elect was compelled to receive the episcopal consecration. St. Cyprian and other bishops, according to custom, dispatched to him letters of communion and congratulation. Matters were thus settled when the devil found in Novatian an instrument to disturb the peace of the Church.

This man had been a Stoic philosopher, and had gained a considerable reputation by his eloquence. He at length embraced the Faith, but continued a catechumen, till, falling dangerously ill, and his life being despaired of, he was baptized in bed, not by immersion, which was then the most usual method, but by infusion, or the pouring on of water. Recovering, he received not the seal of the Lord by the hand of the bishop, says St. Pacian, that is to say, the sacrament of confirmation. Both these defects were, by the ancient discipline of the Church, bars to holy orders. The Clinici, or persons who had been baptized in bed in time of sickness, were declared irregular, and excluded from the priesthood; not as if such a baptism was defective, but in detestation of the sloth and lukewarmness by which such persons put off their baptism till they were in immediate danger of death.

Novatian, notwithstanding this double irregularity, was afterwards ordained priest. The persecution coming on, he kept himself shut up in his house; and when the deacons solicited him to go and assist his brethren, he went away in a rage, saying he would no longer serve the Church, being fond of another kind of philosophy. Afterwards, with a view to make himself conspicuous by opposing the pastors, he became very rigid, and complained that some who had fallen in the persecution were too easily admitted again. By this pharisaical zeal he made a small party, and counted some among the confessors who were in prison at Rome in his interest.

He was much emboldened in his cabals by Novatus, a wicked priest of Carthage. This man having strenuously abetted the deacon Felicissimus in the schism which he raised against St. Cyprian, about the beginning of the year 251, to avoid the sentence of excommunication with which St. Cyprian threatened him, fled to Rome, and there, joining Novatian, either first stirred him up to commence an open schism, or at least very much encouraged him in it. So notoriously were ambition and faction the aim of this turbulent man, that though at Carthage he had condemned the conduct of St. Cyprian towards the lapsed as too severe, he was not ashamed to ground his schism at Rome upon the opposite principle, calling there the self-same discipline of the Church a criminal relaxation of the law of the Gospel.

To frame a clear conception of this controversy, it is necessary to observe that those Christians who in the persecution had offered incense to idols, were called Sacrificati and Thurificati; others who purchased with money of the imperial officers libels or certificates of safety, as if they had offered sacrifice, (by which they were guilty of the same scandal,) were called Libellatici, or certificate-men. All the lapsed, upon giving marks of sincere repentance, were admitted by the Church to a course of severe canonical penance, which was shorter and milder with regard to the certificate-men than to apostates; which term being completed, (or abridged by an indulgence given by the bishop,) they were received to communion. If any penitent, during the course of his penance, happened to be in danger of death the benefit of absolution and communion was granted him. This discipline was confirmed by several councils at Rome, in Africa, and other places, and at this Novatian took offence, pretending that the lapsed ought never to be again admitted to penance, or to receive absolution, not even after having performed any course of penance, or in the article of their death. Yet he did not bid them despair, but left them to the divine mercy, exhorting them privately (though excluded from the communion of the rest of the faithful) to make application to God for mercy, hoping that he would be moved to show them compassion at the last day.

Novatian soon added heresy to his schism, maintaining that the Church had not received from Christ power to absolve sinners from the crime of apostasy, how penitent soever they might be. His followers afterwards taught the same of murder and fornication, and condemned second marriages. His disciples were called Novatians and Cathari, that is, pure. Having separated many persons from the communion of Cornelius, he decoyed three bishops from a corner of Italy, to come to Rome, and ordain him bishop of that city. One of these bishops returned soon after to the Church, bewailing and confessing his guilt, and was admitted by St. Cornelius to lay-communion; for he remained deposed from his dignity, as well as the two other bishops who were concerned with him, and Pope Cornelius sent others to fill up their sees. Thus Novatian was the first anti-pope, though he was author, not only of a schism, but also of a heresy, and was acknowledged bishop only by heretics. On account of his errors he is called by St. Cyprian, “A deserter of the Church, an enemy to all tenderness, a very murderer of penance, a teacher of pride, a corrupter of the truth, and a destroyer of charity.”

St. Cornelius assembled at Rome a synod of sixty bishops, in which he confirmed the canons, by which it was ordained to admit the lapsed that were penitent to public penance; and bishops and priests, who had fallen, only to the rank of laymen, without power of exercising any sacerdotal function. Novation, who was there present, and obstinately refused to communicate with such penitents, was excommunicated. The confessors, Maximus a priest, Urbanus, Sidonius, Celerinus, and Moses, who had been seduced by Novatian to favour his schism, were disabused by the letters of St. Cyprian and the evidence of truth and justice, and were all received to communion by St. Cornelius, to the great joy of the people, as appears from a letter of this pope to St. Cyprian, and from a fragment of the last of his four letters to Fabius, bishop of Antioch, preserved by Eusebius. This historian informs us that there were in the church of Rome, in the time of Pope Cornelius, forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two exorcists, lectors, and janitors, or door-keepers, and one thousand five hundred widows and other poor persons whom the church maintained.

St. Cyprian exceedingly extols the zeal and piety with which St. Cornelius behaved in his pastoral charge; and the courage and steadfastness with which he adhered to his duty in the most perilous times. “Should not he be ranked among the most illustrious martyrs and confessors,” says he, “who continued so long under the expectation of tormentors and savage executioners from the enraged tyrant, to mangle his body; to behead, or to burn, or to crucify: or, with some new and unexampled invention of malice and cruelty to tear and torture the bowels of this intrepid champion, opposing the dreadful edicts, and, through the mighty power of his Faith, despising the torments wherewith he was threatened! Though the goodness of God hath hitherto protected his bishop, yet Cornelius gave sufficient evidence of his love and fidelity, by being ready to suffer all he could suffer, and by his zeal conquering the tyrant (Decius) first, who was soon after conquered in battle.”

Our saint, who deserved by his constancy to be ranked among the martyrs in the persecution of Decius, attained to his crown a short time after. Decius being defeated by the Goths in Thrace, perished in a bog, towards the end of the year 251, and was succeeded by Gallus, the general of his army, who had betrayed him. The respite which this revolution seemed to give the Church was of a short continuance. A pestilence which ravaged the empire, alarmed the superstition of the new emperor, who thought he should appease the anger of his false gods by taking vengeance on the Christians, though his persecution is called by most writers a part of the seventh, or a continuation of that of Decius, whose edicts he put more rigorously in execution than that emperor himself had ever done. Pope Cornelius was the first person who was apprehended at Rome. Having made a glorious confession of his Faith, he was sent into banishment to Centumcellæ, now called Civita Vecchia. St. Cyprian wrote him a congratulatory letter upon the news of his happiness in suffering for Christ. In this epistle he clearly foretels the approaching conflicts of them both, and says God had, by a special revelation, warned him of his own, and that he therefore earnestly exhorted his people to prepare for it in continual watchfulness, fasting, and prayer. He adds: “Whoever of us shall be first favoured with a removal hence, let our charity persevere with the Lord for our brethren in never-ceasing prayers unto the Father for our brethren and sisters.”

St. Cornelius was called to eternal bliss in 252, on the 14th of September, on the same day on which St. Cyprian was martyred six years after, though they are commemorated together in the present Roman Martyrology on the 16th. The Liberian Calendar mentions, that St. Cornelius having been banished to Centumcellæ, slept in the Lord on the 14th of this month. St. Jeromee tells us, in his life of St. Cyprian, that this holy pope was brought back from Centumcellæ to Rome, and there suffered death, which is confirmed by Eusebius in his chronicle, by St. Prosper in his, by St. Eulogius of Alexandria, quoted by Photius, St. Pacianus. St. Cyprian, writing to his successor St. Lucius, and in a letter to the next pope, Stephen, styles Cornelius a blessed martyr. His relics were first interred in the cemetery of Calixtus, where St. Leo. I built a chapel in honor of them; Adrian I placed them in a stately church, which he built in the city to bear his name, as Anastasius relates. In the reign of Charles, the son of Louis Debonnaire, the sacred remains of St. Cornelius were translated to Compiegne in France, where the emperor built a church and monastery of canons to receive them, which in 1150 was put in the hands of Benedictine monks; of which famous abbey of St. Cornelius a considerable portion of these relics is to this day esteemed the richest treasure. The head and one arm were removed to the abbey of Inda, on the river of that name, near Aix la Chapelle, and there honoured with pilgrimages to this day, and miracles. Part of this arm and other bones were translated from Inda to Rotnay, or Rosnay, formerly a monastery founded by St. Amand, in the diocess of Cambray, now in that of Mechlin, between Courtray and Tourney, and converted long since into a collegiate church of canons.

St. Irenæus, Origen, and other fathers observe, that most of the heretics were spared in the persecutions, which fell either solely, or at least most heavily upon the Catholics. This was sometimes owing to the subterfuges of the heretics, often to the persecutors. St. Cyprian, in his last letter to Pope Cornelius, makes the same remark concerning the Novatians; but attributes it to the devil: “Who,” says he, “are the servants of God, whom the devil so molests? Who are truly Christians, whom Antichrist with all his might opposes? For the devil troubles not himself with those whom he hath already made sure of, nor does he labor to conquer those who are now in his power. The great enemy of the Church overlooks them as his captives and passes them by without thinking them worth his notice, whom he hath already seduced and alienated from the Church, and employs his pains and stratagems upon those in whom he observes Christ to dwell. Although, if it should so happen, that one of that wretched company should be seized, he could have no reason to flatter himself with any hopes upon his confession of Christ; since it is an agreed rule, that whoever suffers without the Church, is so far from being entitled to the crown of Faith, that he continues obnoxious to the punishment of having forsaken it.”

SEPTEMBER 17TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. LAMBERT (LANDEBERT)
Martyred in the Eighth Century, around 709

St. Lambert (Landebert), Bishop of Maestricht, and Patron of Liege, called in latter ages Lambert, was a native of Maestricht, and born of a noble and wealthy family, who had been Christians for many descents. His father caused him to be instructed from his infancy in sacred learning, and afterwards recommended him to St. Theodard to perfect his education.

This holy bishop had succeeded St. Remaclus, first, in the government of his two great abbeys of Malmedi and Stavelo, and, ten years after, when the former retired to Stavelo, in the episcopal see of Maestricht. He had such an esteem for this illustrious and holy pupil, that he spared no attention in instructing and training him up to the most perfect practice of Christian virtue. St. Theodard, in 669, resolved to go to King Childeric II, who resided in Austrasia, to obtain an order of that prince for the restitution of the possessions of his church, which had been usurped by certain powerful persons; but was assassinated upon the road by those who withheld his possessions, and torn limb from limb, in the forest of Benalt, near Nemere, since called Spire. He is honored as a martyr on the 10th of September.

St. Lambert was chosen to succeed him, with the consent of King Childeric and the applause of his whole court, where the saint was in great repute. Lambert regarded the episcopal charge as a burden too heavy for his shoulders, as saints have always done, and, trembling under its grievous obligations, set himself earnestly to discharge them without human respect or fear, imploring light and strength from above by assiduous humble prayer.

Childeric II reigned first in Austrasia, Vulfoade being at that time mayor of his palace, whilst Theodoric III. succeeded his brother, Clotaire III, in Neustria and Burgundy, under whom Ebroin tyrannically usurped the dignity of mayor of the palace. So detestable did the cruelty of this minister render the reign of the prince, that his subjects deposed him, so that Childeric became king of all France, Theodoric and Ebroin being shorn monks, the former at St. Denis, the latter at Luxeu; to which condition they both consented, that their lives might be spared. King Childeric II., a debauched and cruel prince, was slain by a conspiracy of noblemen in the year 673, the eleventh of his reign; and Theodoric, his brother, leaving the monastery of St. Denis, was again acknowledged king in Neustria, and Dagobert II, the son of King Sigebert, in Austrasia.

This revolution affected St. Lambert, merely because he had been heretofore greatly favored by Childeric. He was expelled from his see, in which was placed one Faramond. Our saint retired to the monastery of Stavelo, with only two of his domestics; and, during the seven years that he continued there, he obeyed the rule as strictly as the youngest novice could have done. One instance will suffice to show with how perfect a sacrifice of himself he devoted his heart to serve God according to the perfection of his state.

As he was rising one night in winter to his private devotions, he happened to let fall his wooden sandal or slipper, so that it made a noise. This the abbot heard, and, looking upon it as a breach of the silence then to be observed in the community, he ordered him that had given occasion to that noise, to go and pray before the cross. This was a great cross which stood in the open air before the church door. Lambert, without making any answer, or discovering who he was, laid down the upper garment he was going to put on, and went out as he was, barefoot, and covered only with his hair shirt; and in this condition he prayed, kneeling before the cross, three or four hours.

Whilst the monks were warming themselves after matins, the abbot inquired if all were there. Answer was made, that he had sent one to the cross, who was not yet come in. The abbot ordered that he should be called; and was strangely surprised to find that the person was the holy bishop, who made his appearance quite covered with snow, and almost frozen with cold. At the sight of him the abbot and the monks fell on the ground, and asked his pardon. “God forgive you,” said he, “for thinking you stand in need of pardon for this action. As for myself, is it not in cold and nakedness, that, according to St. Paul, I am to tame my flesh, and to serve God?”

Whilst St. Lambert enjoyed the tranquility of holy retirement, he wept to see the greater part of the churches of France laid waste. When Theodoric re-ascended the throne, he appointed Leudisius, son of Erchinoald, mayor of his palace. Ebroin at the same time left the monastery of Luxeu, and sacrilegiously broke the sacred engagements of his vows. He had already made the whole kingdom of Theodoric feel the effects of his power and tyrannical dispositions, when, in 677, he became mayor of the palace to that prince, and absolute master in Neustria and Burgundy, and soon after also in Austrasia, when, upon the death of Dagobert II (who was murdered by a conspiracy of his nobles, through the contrivance of Ebroin), Theodoric was acknowledged king of the whole French monarchy. Dagobert II had filled his dominions with religious foundations, and, after his death, was honored at Stenay, where he was buried, as a martyr.

Ebroin, who had in this prince’s life-time extended his violence to several churches subject to him, especially that of Maestricht, after the death of this king oppressed them with greater fury, and persecuted our holy bishop without control. He was, however, overtaken by the divine vengeance; for, three years after the martyrdom of St. Leodegarius, he was himself slain in 681. A nobleman, called Hermenfred, whose estate he had seized, and whom he had threatened with death, watched him one Sunday before it was light, as he came out of his house to matins, and killed him with a blow which he gave him on his head with a sword. From this and other instances we see, as Fleury remarks, that at that time even those noblemen and princes, who were most employed, and who had the least sense of religion and piety, did not exempt themselves from attending at the divine office even in the night.

Pepin of Herstal (grandson of St. Pepin of Landen, by St. Bega and Ansegesil), being made mayor of the palace, set himself to repair the evils done by Ebroin, expelled the usurping wicked bishops whom he had intruded into many sees, and, among many other exiled prelates, restored St. Lambert to the see of Maestricht. The holy pastor, from the exercise of the most heroic virtues, to which he had devoted the time of his exile and retirement, returned to his flock animated with redoubled fervour, preaching and discharging his other functions with wonderful zeal and fruit. Finding there still remained many pagans in Taxandria, a province about Diest, in Brabant, he applied himself to convert them to the Faith, softened their barbarous temper by his patience, regenerated them in the holy water of baptism, and destroyed many temples and idols. He frequently visited and conferred with St. Willibrord, the apostle of Friesland.

Under the weak reigns of the slothful kings, the greatest disorders prevailed in France, and every bold and powerful man set himself above the laws, and put himself at the head of a seditious faction. Of this the death of St. Lambert furnishes us with a flagrant example. Pepin, who resided at his castle of Herstal, near Liege, on the Maes or Meuse, lived for some years in a scandalous adultery with a concubine named Alpais, by whom he had Charles Martel. St. Lambert reproved the parties with so much earnestness, that some say certain friends of the lady thence took occasion to conspire against his life.

Others assign the following occasion of his death: Two brothers, by their violence and plunders of the church of Maestricht, were become insupportable, and could not be restrained by the laws. At this, certain relations of St. Lambert were so exasperated, that, finding themselves driven to the last extremity, they slew the two brothers. Dodo, a kinsman of the two young men who were slain, a rich and powerful officer under Pepin, and related to Alpais, resolved to revenge their death upon the innocent and holy bishop, and attacked him with a considerable body of armed men, at Leodium, then a small village, now the city of Liege.

St. Lambert had retired to sleep after matins, when Dodo with his troop broke into his house. The bishop would not suffer his two nephews nor any of his domestics to take arms to defend him, saying: “If you love me truly, love Jesus Christ, and confess your sins unto him. As for me, it is time that I go to live with him.” Then prostrating himself on the ground, with his hands extended in form of a cross, he prayed, shedding many tears. The troop of enemies, entering the house, put to the sword all they met, and one of them, throwing a dart at the holy bishop, slew him. This unjust death, suffered with so great patience and meekness, joined with the eminent sanctity of the life of this holy bishop, has been looked upon as a degree of martyrdom. It happened on the 17th of September, 709, St. Lambert having held the episcopal dignity forty years from the time he succeeded St. Theodard. His body was conveyed in a bark to Maestricht, where it was interred in St. Peter’s church. Several miracles which ensued excited the people to build a church on the spot where the house stood in which he was slain. His successor, St. Hubert, translated thither his relics in 721. At the same time he removed to the same place the episcopal see, as it had been formerly transferred from Tongres to Maestricht, by St. Servatius.

Fortitude, which appears most heroical and most conspicuous in martyrdom, is a cardinal virtue, and the mother of many glorious virtues, as courage, greatness of soul, tranquility of mind under all dangers, patience, longanimity, constancy, and perseverance. It is the band and support of all other virtues. As the root of a tree bears the trunk, branches, flowers, and fruit, so fortitude sustains, and is the strength of the whole system of moral and Christian virtues, which sink at the first shock without it. This, therefore, is an ingredient of every perfect virtue, by which a man is ready to suffer any hardships or death, to expose himself to any dangers, and to forego all temporal advantages rather than swerve from the path of justice. By confounding rashness, inconsiderate hardiness, and fury with courage, many form a false idea of fortitude, which is defined, “a considerate alacrity in bearing hardships and undergoing dangers.” It moderates in us the two opposite extremes of fear and confidence, it teaches us reasonably to fear dangers and death, and to decline and avoid them, when nothing obliges us to expose ourselves to them; for to be fool-hardy and needlessly to precipitate ourselves upon danger, is the height of folly and vice, and the strongest mark of a corrupt and abandoned heart. But it is true fortitude to undertake and encounter all dangers, when duty or the cause of virtue requires it. How noble and heroic is this virtue of fortitude! how necessary in every Christian, especially in a pastor of souls, that neither worldly views nor fears may ever in the least warp his integrity, or blind his judgment!

SEPTEMBER 18TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. METHODIUS
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 311

This illustrious father of the church was bishop, first of Olympus, a town on the sea coast, in Lycia, as St. Jerome and others testify; or, according to Leontius, of Byzantium or Patara, which see was then probably united to that of Olympus. He was translated to the bishopric of Tyre, probably after the glorious martyrdom of St. Tyrannio who suffered under Diocletian. Such translations of bishops were not then allowed except in extraordinary cases of necessity. St. Methodius was crowned with martyrdom at Chalcis in Greece toward the end of the last general persecution, says St. Jerome; consequently about the year 311 or 312. St. Jerome usually styles him, the most eloquent Methodius.

His works were famous among the ancients; and in large quotations and extracts in Photius, St. Epiphanius, St. Jerome, and Theodoret, we have considerable fragments of many valuable writings of this father, especially of his book, On Free-will, against the Valentinians, and that, On the Resurrection of the Bodies, against Origen. His Banquet of Virgins, often mentioned by ancient writers, was published entire by Leo Allatius at Rome in 1656; by F. Poussines, the Jesuit, at Paris, in 1657; and by F. Combefis, the Dominican, with notes in 1672. See also the notes on it collected by Fabricius, in the end of the second volume of the works of St. Hippolitus printed at Hamburgh, 1718.

This book was composed in imitation of a work of Plato entitled, The banquet of Socrates, and is an eulogium of the state and virtue of virginity. In it a matron named Gregorium is introduced telling her friend Eubulus (that is Methodius himself) all the conversation of ten virgins in an assembly at which she was present. A discourse is put into the mouth of each of these virgins in commendation of holy virginity. Marcella, the first, teaches that Christ, the prince of virgins, coming from Heaven to teach men the perfection of virtue, planted among them the state of virginity, to which a particular degree of glory is due in Heaven. Theophila, the second virgin, proves that marriage is good, instituted by God, and necessary for the propagation of the world; but not so necessary since the world was peopled, as before.

The precept, however, still subsists, that some persons marry, but this is far from obliging all men; so that virginity embraced for the sake of virtue is a more perfect state than marriage. She observes that eating on Good-Friday or on fast-days was forbidden, yet allowed to those who were sick and not able to fast. In the following discourses the excellency of holy virginity is displayed, which the author calls, “The greatest gift of God to man, and the most noble and most beautiful offering that can be made by man to God, the most excellent among all vows, but a virtue the more difficult, and surrounded with the greater dangers as it is of higher excellence.” He inculcates, that to be truly a virgin, it is necessary not only to keep continent, but also to purify the mind from all sensual desires, pride, and vanity, and to watch and labor incessantly lest idleness and negligence give an entrance to other sins. St. Methodius was surnamed Eubulus or Eubulius: and so he calls himself in this and his other works. His style is diffusive, swelling, and full of epithets: and he is fond of comparisons and allegories.

SEPTEMBER 19TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. JANUARIUS & COMPANIONS
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 305

St. Januarius, a native some say of Naples, others of Benevento, was bishop of this latter city, when the persecution of Diocletian broke out. Sosius, deacon of Miseno, Proculus, deacon of Puzzuoli, and Eutyches, or Eutychetes, and Acutius, eminent laymen, were imprisoned at Puzzuoli for the Faith, by an order of Dracontius, governor of Campania, before whom they had confessed their Faith. Sosius, by his singular wisdom and sanctity, had been worthy of the intimate friendship of St. Januarius, who reposed in him an entire confidence, and for many years had found no more solid comfort among men than in his holy counsels and conversation.

Upon the news that this great servant of God and several others were fallen into the hands of the persecutors, the good bishop determined to make them a visit, in order to comfort and encourage them, and provide them with every spiritual succour to arm them for their great conflict; in this act of charity no fear of torments or danger of his life could terrify him; and martyrdom was his recompense. He did not escape the notice of the inquisitive keepers, who gave information that an eminent person from Benevento had visited the Christian prisoners.

Timothy, who had just succeeded Dracontius in the government of that district of Italy, gave orders that Januarius, whom he found to be the person, should be apprehended, and brought before him at Nola, the usual place of his residence; which was done accordingly. Festus, the bishop’s deacon, and Desiderius, a lector of his church, were taken up as they were making him a visit. They had a share in the interrogatories and torments which the good bishop underwent at Nola.

Some time after the governor went to Puzzuoli, and these three confessors, loaded with heavy irons, were made to walk before his chariot to that town, where they were thrown into the same prison where the four martyrs already mentioned were detained: they had been condemned, by an order from the emperor, to be torn in pieces by wild beasts, and were then lying in expectation of the execution of their sentence.

The day after the arrival of St. Januarius and his two companions, all these champions of Christ were exposed to be devoured by the beasts in the amphitheater; but none of the savage animals could be provoked to touch them. The people were amazed, but imputed their preservation to art-magic, and the martyrs were condemned to be beheaded. This sentence was executed near Puzzuoli, as Bede testifies, and the martyrs were decently interred near that town. Some time after the Christian Faith had become triumphant, towards the year 400, their precious relics were removed. The bodies of SS. Proculus, Eutyches, and Acutius were placed in a more honorable manner at Puzzuoli: those of SS. Festus and Desiderius were translated to Benevento: that of Sosius to Miseno, where it was afterwards deposited in a stately church built in his honor.

The city of Naples was so happy as to get possession of the relics of St. Januarius. During the wars of the Normans they were removed, first to Benevento, and some time after, to the abbey of Monte-Vergine; but, in 1497, they were brought back to Naples, which city has long honored him as principal patron.

Among many miraculous deliverances which it ascribes to the intercession of this great saint, none is looked upon as more remarkable than its preservation from the fiery eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, now called La Somma, which is only eight miles distant, and which has often threatened the entire destruction of this city, both by the prodigious quantities of burning sand, ashes, and stones, which it throws up on those occasions to a much greater distance than Naples; and, by a torrent of burning sulfur, niter, calcined stones, and other materials, which like a liquid fire has sometimes gushed from that volcano, and, digging itself a channel, (which has sometimes been two or three miles broad,) rolled its flaming waves through the valley into the sea, destroying towns and villages in its way, and often passing near Naples.

Some of these eruptions, which in the fifth and seventh centuries threatened this city with destruction, by the clouds of ashes which they raised, are said to have darkened the sky as far as Constantinople, and struck terror into the inhabitants of that capital. The intercession of St. Januarius was implored at Naples on those occasions, and the divine mercy so wonderfully interposed in causing these dreadful evils suddenly to cease thereupon, especially in 685, Bennet II. being pope, and Justinian the Younger emperor, that the Greeks instituted a feast in honou of St. Januarius, with two yearly solemn processions to return thanks to God. The protection of the city of Naples from this dreadful volcano by the same means was most remarkable in the years 1631 and 1707. In this last, whilst Cardinal Francis Pignatelli, with the clergy and people, devoutly followed the shrine of St. Januarius in procession to a chapel at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, the fiery eruption ceased, the mist, which before was so thick that no one could see another at the distance of three yards, was scattered, and at night the stars appeared in the sky.

The standing miracle, as it is called by Baronius, of the blood of St. Januarius liquefying and boiling up at the approach of the martyr’s head, is likewise very famous. In a rich chapel, called the Treasury, in the great church at Naples, are preserved the blood, in two very old glass vials, and the head of St. Januarius. The blood is congealed, and of a dark colour; but, when brought in sight of the head, though at a considerable distance, it melts, bubbles up, and, upon the least motion, flows on any side. The fact is attested by Baronius, Ribadeneira, and innumerable other eye-witnesses of all nations and religions, many of whom most attentively examined all the circumstances.

Certain Jesuits, sent by F. Bollandus to Naples, were allowed by the archbishop, Cardinal Philamurini, to see this prodigy; the minute description of the manner in which it is performed is related by them in the life of F. Bollandus. It happens equally in all seasons of the year, and in variety of circumstances. The usual times when it is performed are the feast of St. Januarius, the 19th of September; that of the translation of his relics (when they were brought from Puzzuoli to Naples) the Sunday which falls next to the calends of May; and the 20th day of December, on which, in 1631, a terrible eruption of Mount Vesuvius was extinguished, upon invoking the patronage of this martyr.

The same is done on extraordinary occasions at the discretion of the archbishop. This miraculous solution and ebullition of the blood of St. Januarius are mentioned by Pope Pius II. when he speaks of the reign of Alphonsus I of Arragon, king of Naples, in 1450: Angelas Cato, an eminent physician of Salerno, and others mention it in the same century. Almost two hundred years before that epoch, historians take notice that King Charles I of Anjou coming to Naples, the archbishop brought out the head and blood of this martyr. The continuator of the chronicle of Maraldus says the same was done upon the arrival of King Roger, who venerated these relics, in 1140. Falco of Benevento relates the same thing. From several circumstances this miracle is traced much higher, and it is said to have regularly happened on the annual feast of St. Januarius, and on that of the translation of his relics, from the time of that translation, about the year 400.

SEPTEMBER 20TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. EUSTACHIUS (ESUTACE)
Martyred in the Second Century, around 118

St. Eustachius, called by the Greeks Eustathius, and before his conversion named Placidus, was a nobleman who suffered martyrdom at Rome, about the reign of Adrian, together with his wife Theopista, called before her baptism Tatiana, and two sons, Agapius and Theopistus. These Greek names they must have taken after their conversion to the Faith. The ancient sacramentaries mention in the prayer for the festival of St. Eustachius, his profuse charity to the poor, on whom he bestowed all his large possessions, some time before he laid down his life for his Faith. An ancient church in Rome was built in his honor, with the title of a Diacony; the same now gives title to a cardinal. His body lay deposited in this church till, in the twelfth century, it was translated to that of St. Denis, near Paris. His shrine was pillaged in this place, and part of his bones burnt by the Huguenots in 1567; but a portion of them still remains in the parish church which bears the name of St. Eustachius in Paris.

How noble is it to see integrity and virtue triumphing over interest, passion, racks, and death, and setting the whole world at defiance! To see a great man preferring the least duty of justice, truth, or religion to the favor or menace of princes; readily quitting estate, friends, country, and life, rather than consent to anything against his conscience; and at the same time, meek, humble, and modest in his sufferings; forgiving from his heart and tenderly loving his most unjust and treacherous enemies and persecutors! Passion and revenge often make men furious; and the lust of power, worldly honor, applause, or wealth may prompt them to brave dangers; but these passions leave them weak and dastardly in other cases, and are themselves the basest slavery, and most grievous crimes and misery. Religion is the only basis on which true magnanimity and courage can stand. It so enlightens the mind as to set a man above all human events, and to preserve him in all changes and trials steady and calm in himself; it secures him against the errors, the injustices, and frowns of the world, it is by its powerful motives the strongest spur to all generous actions, and under afflictions and sufferings a source of unalterable peace, and overflowing joy which spring from an assured confidence that God’s will is always most just and holy, and that he will be its protector and rewarder. Does religion exert this powerful influence in us? Does it appear in our hearts, in our actions and conduct? It is not enough to encounter dangers with resolution; we must with equal courage and constancy vanquish pleasure and the softer passions, or we possess not the virtue of true fortitude.

SEPTEMBER 21ST
The Martyr of the Day
ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE
Martyred in the First Century, date unknown

St. Matthew is called by two evangelists Levi, both which names are of Jewish extraction. The latter he bore before his conversion, the other he seems to have taken after it, to show that he had renounced his profession, and had become a new man. St. Mark calls him the son of Alphæus; but the conjecture which some form from hence, that he was brother to St. James the Less, has not the very shadow of probability. He seems to have been a Galilæan by birth, and was by profession a publican, or gatherer of taxes for the Romans, which office was equally odious and scandalous among the Jews.

The Romans sent publicans into the provinces to gather the tributes, and this was amongst them a post of honor, power, and credit, usually conferred on Roman knights. T. Flavius Sabinus, father of the Emperor Vespasian, was the publican of the provinces of Asia. These Roman general publicans employed under them natives of each province, as persons best acquainted with the customs of their own country. These collectors or farmers of the tributes often griped and scraped all they could by various methods of extortion, having frequent opportunities of oppressing others to raise their own fortunes, and they were usually covetous. On this account even the Gentiles often speak of them as exactors, cheats, and public robbers. Zaccheus, a chief among these collectors, was sensible of these occasions of fraud and oppression, when he offered four-fold restitution to any whom he had injured.

Among the Jews these publicans were more infamous and odious, because this nation looked upon them as enemies to their privilege of natural freedom which God had given them, and as persons defiled by their frequent conversation and dealing with the pagans, and as conspiring with the Romans to entail slavery upon their countrymen. Hence the Jews universally abhorred them, regarding their estates or money as the fortunes of notorious thieves, banished them from their communion in all religious worship, and shunned them in all affairs of civil society and commerce. Tertullian is certainly mistaken when he affirms that none but Gentiles were employed in this sordid office, as St. Jeromee demonstrates from several passages in the Gospels. And it is certain that St. Matthew was a Jew, though a publican. His office is said to have particularly consisted in gathering customs of commodities that came by the lake of Genesareth or Tiberias, and a toll which passengers paid that came by water; of which mention is made by Jewish writers. St. Mark says that St. Matthew kept his office or toll-booth by the side of the lake, where he sat at the receipt of custom.

Jesus having lately cured a famous paralytic, went out of Capharnaum, and walked on the banks of the lake or sea of Genesareth, teaching the people who flocked after him. Here he espied Matthew sitting in his custom-house, whom he called to come and follow him. The man was rich, enjoyed a very lucrative post, was a wise and prudent man, and perfectly understood what his compliance would cost him, and what an exchange he made of wealth for poverty. But he overlooked all these considerations, and left all his interests and relations to become our Lord’s disciple, and to embrace a spiritual kind of commerce or traffic. We cannot suppose that he was before wholly unacquainted with our Savior’s person or doctrine, especially as his custom-office was near Capharnaum, and his house seems to have been in that city, where Christ had resided for some time, had preached and wrought many miracles, by which he was in some measure prepared to receive the impression which the call of Christ made upon him.

St. Jeromee says, that a certain amiable brightness and air of majesty which shone in the countenance of our divine Redeemer, pierced his soul, and strongly attracted him. But the great cause of his wonderful conversion was, as Bede remarks, that, “He who called him outwardly by his word, at the same time moved him inwardly by the invisible instinct of his grace.” We must earnestly entreat this same gracious Savior that he would vouchsafe to touch our hearts with the like powerful interior call, that we may be perfectly converted to him. He often raises his voice in the secret of our hearts: but by putting willful obstacles we are deaf to it, and the seed of salvation is often choked in our souls.

This Apostle, at the first invitation, broke all ties; forsook his riches, his family, his worldly concerns, his pleasures, and his profession. His conversion was sincere and perfect, manifesting itself by the following marks. First, it admitted no deliberation or delay; to balance one moment between God and sin or the world, is to resist the divine call, and to lose the offered grace. Secondly, it was courageous; surmounting and bearing down all opposition which his passions or the world could raise in his way. Thirdly, it was constant; the Apostle from that moment looked no more back, but following Christ with fervor, persevered to the end, marching every day forward with fresh vigor.

It is the remark of St. Gregory, that those Apostles who left their boats and nets to follow Christ, were sometimes afterwards found in the same employment of fishing, from which they were called: but St. Matthew never returned to the custom-house, because it was a dangerous profession, and an occasion of avarice, oppression, and extortion. St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom take notice, that St. Mark and St. Luke mention our Apostle by the name of Levi, when they speak of his former profession of publican, as if it were to cover and keep out of sight the remembrance of this Apostle’s sin, or at least to touch it tenderly; but our evangelist openly calls himself Matthew, by which name he was then known in the church, being desirous out of humility to publish his former infamy and sin, and to proclaim the excess of the divine mercy which had made an Apostle of a publican. The other evangelists, by mentioning him in his former dishonourable course of life under the name of Levi, teach us, that we ought to treat penitent sinners with all modesty and tenderness; it being against the laws of religion, justice, and charity, to upbraid and reproach a convert with errors or sins which God himself has forgiven and effaced, so as to declare that he no longer remembers them, and for which the devil himself, with all his malice, can no longer accuse or reproach him.
St. Matthew, upon his conversion, to show that he was not discontented at his change, but looked upon it as his greatest happiness, entertained our Lord and his disciples, at a great dinner in his house, whither he invited his friends, especially those of his late profession, doubtless hoping that by our Savior’s divine conversation, they also might be converted. The Pharisees carped at this conduct of Christ, in eating with publicans and sinners.

Our divine Savior answered their malicious secret suggestions, that he came for the sick, not for the sound and healthy, or for those who conceited themselves so, and imagined they stood in no need of a physician; and he put them in mind, that God prefers acts of mercy and charity, especially in reclaiming sinners, and doing good to souls, before ritual observances, as the more necessary and noble precept, to which other laws were subordinate.

Commerce with idolaters was forbidden the Jews for fear of the contagion of vice by evil company. This law the proud Pharisees extended not only beyond its bounds, but even against the essential laws of charity, the first among the divine precepts. Yet this nicety they called the strict observance of the law, in which they prided themselves, whereas in the sight of God it was hypocrisy and overbearing pride, with a contempt of their neighbors, which degraded their pretended righteousness beneath the most scandalous sinners, with whom they scorned to converse, even for the sake of reclaiming them, which the law, far from forbidding, required as the first and most excellent of its precepts.

Christ came from Heaven, and clothed himself with our mortality, in the bowels of the most tender compassion and of his infinite mercy for sinners: he burned continually with the most ardent thirst for their salvation, and it was his greatest delight to converse with those who were sunk in the deepest abyss, in order to bring them to repentance and salvation. How affectionately he cherished, and how tenderly he received those who were sincerely converted to him he has expressed by the most affecting parables, and of this, St. Matthew is, among others, an admirable instance.

The vocation of St. Matthew happened in the second year of the public ministry of Christ, who soon after forming the college of his Apostles, adopted him into that holy family of the spiritual princes and founders of his church. The humility of our saint is remarked in the following circumstance. Whereas the other evangelists, in describing the Apostles by pairs, constantly rank him before St. Thomas, he places that Apostle before himself, and in this very list adds to his name the epithet of the publican. He delighted in the title of Matthew the Publican, because he found in it his own humiliation, magnified by it the divine mercy and grace of his conversion, and expressed the deep spirit of compunction in which he had his former guilt always before his eyes.

Eusebius and St. Epiphanius tell us, that after our Lord’s ascension, St. Matthew preached several years in Judea and the neighboring countries till the dispersion of the Apostles; and that a little before it he wrote his Gospel, or short history of our blessed Redeemer, at the entreaty of the Jewish converts, and, as St. Epiphanius says, at the command of the other Apostles. That he compiled it before their dispersion appears, not only because it was written before the other Gospels, but also because St. Bartholomew took a copy of it with him into India, and left it there. Christ nowhere appears to have given any charge about committing to writing his history or divine doctrine; particular accidents gave the occasions.

St. Matthew wrote his Gospel to satisfy the converts of Palestine; St. Mark at the pressing entreaties of the faithful at Rome; St. Luke, to oppose false histories; St. John, at the request of the bishops of Asia, to leave an authentic testimony against the heresies of Cerinthus and Ebion. It was, nevertheless, by a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, that this work was undertaken and executed by each of them. The Gospels are the most excellent part of the sacred writings. For in them Christ teaches us, not by his prophets, but by his own divine mouth, the great lessons of Faith, and of eternal life; and in the history of his holy life the most perfect pattern of sanctity is set before our eyes for us to copy after.

The Gospel of St. Matthew descends to a fuller and more particular detail in the actions of Christ, than the other three, but from chapter 5 to chapter 14, he often differs from them in the series of his narration, neglecting the order of time, that those instructions might be related together which have a closer affinity with each other. This evangelist enlarges chiefly on our Savior’s lessons of morality, and describes his temporal or human generation, in which the promises made to Abraham and David, concerning the Messias to be born of their seed, were fulfilled; which argument was a particular inducement to the Jews to believe in him.

St. Matthew, after having made a great harvest of souls in Judea, went to preach the Faith to the barbarous and uncivilized nations of the East. He was a person much devoted to heavenly contemplation, and led an austere life, using a very slender and mean diet; for he ate no flesh, satisfying nature with herbs, roots, seeds, and berries, as St. Clement of Alexandria assures us. St. Ambrose says, that God opened to him the country of the Persians. Rufinus and Socrates tell us, that he carried the Gospel into Ethiopia, meaning probably the southern and eastern parts of Asia. St. Paulinus mentions, that he ended his course in Parthia. Venantius Fortunatus relates, that he suffered martyrdom at Nadabar, a city in those parts. According to Dorotheus, he was honourably interred at Hierapolis in Parthia. His relics were long ago brought into the West. Pope Gregory VII, in a letter to the bishop of Salerno, in 1080, testifies that they were then kept in a church which bore his name in that city. They still remain in the same place.

St. Irenæus, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and other fathers find a figure of the four evangelists in the four mystical animals represented in Ezechiel, and in the Apocalypse of St. John. The eagle is generally said to represent St. John, who in the first lines of his Gospel soars up to the contemplation of the eternal generation of the Word. The calf agrees to St. Luke, who begins his Gospel with the mention of the priesthood. St. Augustine makes the lion the symbol of St. Matthew, who explains the royal dignity of Christ; but others give it to St. Mark, and the man to St. Matthew, who begins his Gospel with Christ’s human generation.

In the Gospel, The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared him, and hath delivered to us the most sublime truths. Wherefore St. Augustine writes, “Let us hear the Gospel as if we listened to Christ present.” The primitive Christians always stood up when they read it, or heard it read. St. Jerome says: “While the Gospel is read, in all the churches of the East, candles are lighted, though the sun shine, in token of joy.” St. Thomas Aquinas always read the Gospel on his knees. In this divine book not only the divine instructions of our Blessed Redeemer are delivered to us, but moreover a copy of his sacred life on earth is painted before our eyes. As St. Basil says; “Every action and every word of our Savior Jesus Christ is a rule of piety. He took upon him human nature that he might draw as on a tablet, and set before us a perfect model for us to imitate.” Let us study this rule, and beg the patronage of this Apostle, that the spirit of Christ, or that of his humility, compunction, self-denial, charity, and perfect disengagement from the things of this world, may be imprinted in our hearts.

SEPTEMBER 22ND
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. MAURICE & COMPANIONS
Martyred in the Third Century, around 286

The Roman Emperor Maximian at first favored the Christians, yet in certain circumstances, especially in the army, he put many to death for the Faith. The Emperor Constantius spared the Christians; but was only made Cæsar in 293, whereas this massacre of St. Maurice and the Theban Legion most probably happened soon after Maximian was associated to the empire in 286. Neither is it certain that the territory where it was committed was in Constantius’s dominions: and, were it so, his power as Cæsar could not tie up that of the emperor, especially over his own soldiers, wherever he marched with them. The martyrdom of St. Maurice is not to be confused with the martyrdom of St. Mauritius, who, with his companions, after suffering many torments for the space of ten days, was martyred under Maximian, at Apamea in Syria.

The Emperor Carus, who had impiously assumed the title of a god, being killed by lightning, and his son Numerianus Augustus being cut off by the treachery of his uncle Aper, it was therefore Diocletian, a man of low birth, who, on the 17th of September, 284, was saluted emperor by the army which he then commanded in the East. The following year Diocletian defeated and slew Carinus, the second debauched son of Carus, in Mæsia, and after this victory took the haughty name of Jovius from Jupiter, and then promoting Maximian to the role of Cæsar, the Emperor Diocletian allotted to him the care and defense of the West.

The Bagaudæ, a people consisting chiefly of peasants in Gaul, who had been attached to the interest of Carinus, took up arms to revenge his death, under two commanders, Amandus and Ælian. Diocletian ordered Maximian to march against them, and on that occasion declared him to be Augustus and partner in the empire; and this new emperor assumed the surname of Herculeus, from the god Hercules. In this expedition the most judicious historians place the martyrdom of the Thebean legion. It seems to have received its name from being raised in Thebais or Upper Egypt, a country full of zealous Christians. This legion was entirely composed of these Christians; and St. Maurice, who seems to have been the first commanding officer of the Legion, had made it a point to admit no others but Christians among them.

Diocletian, in the beginning of his reign, was no enemy to the Christian religion, and employed many who openly professed it, near his own person, and in posts of trust and importance, as Eusebius assures us. Yet even private governors, and the giddy populace were at liberty to indulge the blindest passion and fury against the servants of Christ; and Maximian, on certain extraordinary occasions, stained his progress with the blood of many martyrs.

The Thebean legion was one of those which were sent by Diocletian out of the East to form his army for an expedition into Gaul (France). Maximian in crossing the Alps made a halt with his army some days, that the soldiers might repose themselves in their tedious march, while some detachments filed off towards Triers. They were then arrived at Octodurum, at that time a considerable city on the Rhone, above the lake of Geneva, now a village called Martignac or Martigny, in the Valais, Switzerland. Its episcopal see seems to have been transferred to Sion in the sixth century.

Here Maximian issued out an order that the whole army should join in offering sacrifice to the gods for the success of their expedition. The Thebean legion hereupon withdrew itself, and encamped near Agaunum, now called St. Maurice, three leagues from Octodurum. The emperor sent them repeated orders to return to the camp, and join in the sacrifice; and, upon their constant and unanimous refusal, he commanded them to be decimated. Thus every tenth man was put to death, according as the lot fell; the rest exhorting one another all the while to perseverance.

After the first decimation, a second was commanded, unless the soldiers obeyed the orders given; but they cried out over their whole camp, that they would rather suffer all tortures than do anything contrary to their holy religion. They were principally encouraged by three of their general officers, Maurice or Mauricius, Exuperius, and Candidus. St. Eucherius does not portray St. Mauricius as the tribune, but Primicerius, which was the dignity of the first captain, next to that of the tribune or colonel. He calls Exuperius Campiductor or Major, and Candidus the senator of the troops.

The emperor sent forth fresh threats that it was in vain they confided in their multitude; and that if they persisted in their disobedience, not a man among them should escape death. The legion, by the advice of their generous leaders, answered him by a dutiful remonstrance, the substance of which was as follows:

“We are your soldiers, but are servants of the true God. We owe you military service and obedience; but we cannot renounce Him who is our Creator and Master, and also yours, even whilst you reject him. In all things which are not against his law we most willingly obey you, as we have done hitherto. We readily oppose all your enemies, whoever they are; but we cannot dip our hands in the blood of innocent persons. We have taken an oath to God before we took one to you: you can place no confidence in our second oath, should we violate the first. You command us to punish the Christians: behold we are all such. We confess God the Father, author of all things, and his Son, Jesus Christ. We have seen our companions slain without lamenting them; and we rejoice at their honour. Neither this extremity to which we are reduced, nor any provocation hath tempted us to revolt. We have arms in our hands; but we do not resist, because we had rather die innocent than live by any sin.”

This legion consisted of about six thousand six hundred men, who were all well-armed, and might have held their lives very dearly. But they had learned to give to God what is God’s, and to Cæsar what is Cæsar’s, and they showed their courage more in dying than they had ever done in the most hazardous enterprises.

Maximian having no hopes of overcoming their constancy, commanded his whole army to surround them, and cut them to pieces. They made no resistance, but, dropping their arms, suffered themselves to be butchered like innocent sheep, without opening their mouths, except mutually to encourage one another; and not one out of so great a number failed in courage to the last. The ground was covered with their dead bodies, and streams of blood flowed on every side.

Maximian gave the spoils of the slain to his army for their booty, and the soldiers were making merry over them, when Victor, a veteran soldier, who belonged not to that troop, happened to pass by. They invited him to eat with them; but he, detesting their feast, and began to retire from them. At this the soldiers inquired if he was also a Christian. He answered that he was, and would always continue one: upon which they instantly fell upon him and slew him.

Ursus and Victor, two straggling soldiers of this legion, were found at Solodora, now Soleure, and massacred upon the spot. Their relics are still preserved at Soleure.

There suffered at Turin, about the same time, SS. Octavius, Adventitius, and Solutor, who are celebrated by St. Maximus in his sermons, and by Ennodius of Pavia, in his poems.

These martyrs were styled by Fortunatus, “The happy legion.” Their festival is mentioned on this day in the Martyrologies of St. Jerome, Bede, and others. St. Eucherius, speaking of their relics preserved at Agaunum, in his time, says: “Many come from different provinces devoutly to honor these saints, and offer presents of gold, silver, and other things. I humbly present this monument of my pen, begging intercession for the pardon of my sins, and the perpetual protection of my patrons.” He mentions many miracles to have been performed at their relics, and says of a certain woman who had been cured of a palsy by them: “Now she carries her own miracle about her.” The foundation of the monastery of St. Maurice at Agaunum is generally ascribed to King Sigismund in 515; but Mabillon demonstrates it to have been more early, and that Sigismund only repaired and enlarged it.

In the martyrs we learn the character of true fortitude, of which virtue many may form a very false idea. Real valor differs infinitely from that fury, rashness, and inconsiderate contempt of dangers, which the basest passions often inspire. It is founded in motives of duty and virtue; it doth brave and great things, and it beareth injuries and torments; nor this for hope or reward, the desire of honor, or the fear of punishment; but out of a conscience of duty, and to preserve virtue entire. So infinitely more precious is the least part of integrity than all the possessions of this world, and so much does it overbalance all torments, that, rather than suffer it to be lost or impaired in the least point, the good man is ready to venture upon all perils, and behaves amidst them without terror. This foundation of great and heroic performances, this just and rational, this considerate and sedate, this constant, perpetual, and uniform contempt of dangers, and of death in all its shapes, is only derived from the Christian principle. The characters of true virtue go along with it, especially patience, humility, and gentleness. The Christian hero obeys the precepts of loving his enemies, doing good to those who persecute him, bearing wrong, and being ready to give his coat, without repining, to him who would take away his cloak.

SEPTEMBER 23RD
The Martyr of the Day
ST. THECLA
Martyred in the First Century, date unknown

St. Thecla, whose name has always been most famous in the Church, and who is styled by St. Isidore of Pelusium and all the Greeks the protomartyr of her sex, was one of the brightest ornaments of the apostolic age. She was a native of Isauria or Lycaonia. St. Methodius, in his Banquet of Virgins, assures us that she was well versed in profane philosophy, and in the various branches of polite literature, and he exceedingly commends her eloquence, and the ease, strength, sweetness, and modesty of her discourse. He says that she received her instructions in divine and evangelical knowledge from St. Paul, and was eminent for her skill in sacred science. The same father extols the vehemence of her love for Christ, which she exerted on many great occasions, especially in the conflicts which she sustained with the zeal and courage of a martyr, and with the strength of body equal to the vigor of her mind.

St. Augustine, St. Epiphanius, St. Ambrose, and other fathers mention, that St. Paul by his preaching converted her to the Faith at Iconium, probably about the year 45, and that his discourses kindled in her breast a vehement love of holy virginity, which state she eagerly embraced, in an age which seemed very tender for so great a resolution. Upon this holy change she broke off a treaty of marriage, which had been set on foot by her parents, with a rich, comely, and amiable young nobleman, of one of the best families in the country.

St. Gregory of Nyssa says, that this blessed virgin undertook the sacrifice of herself, by giving death to the flesh, practicing on it great austerities, extinguishing in herself all earthly affections, and subduing her passions by a life dead to the senses, so that nothing seemed to remain living in her but reason and spirit: the whole world seemed dead to her as she was to the world. St. Chrysostom, or an author of the same age, whose homily is attributed to that father, lets us know that her parents perceiving an alteration in her conduct, without being acquainted with the motive upon which she acted, plied her with the strongest arguments, mixed with commands, threats, reprimands, and tender persuasion, to engage her to finish the affair of her marriage to their satisfaction.

The young gentleman, her suitor, pressed her with the most endearing flatteries and caresses, her servants entreated her with tears, her friends and neighbors exhorted and conjured her, and the authority and threats of the civil magistrate were employed to bring her to the desired compliance.

Thecla, strengthened by the arm of the Almighty, was proof against all manner of assaults; and regarding these worldly pagan friends as her most dangerous enemies, when she saw herself something more at liberty from the fury of their persecution, she took the first favorable opportunity of escaping out of their hands, and fled to St. Paul to receive from him comfort and advice. She forsook father and mother, and a house abounding in gold and riches where she lived in state and plenty: she left her companions, friends, and country, desiring to possess only the treasure of the love and grace of God, and to find Jesus Christ, who was all things to her.

The young nobleman to whom she was engaged, still felt his heart warm with his passion for the saint, and, instead of overcoming it, thought of nothing but how to gratify it, or to be revenged of her, from whom he pretended he had received a grievous affront. In these dispositions he closely pursued, and at length overtook her, and, as she still refused to marry him, he delivered her into the hands of the magistrates, and urged such articles against her, that she was condemned to be torn in pieces by wild beasts. Nevertheless her resolution was invincible.

She was exposed naked in the amphitheater, but clothed with her innocence; and this ignominy enhanced her glory and her crown. Her heart was undaunted, her holy soul exulted and triumphed with joy in the midst of lions, leopards, and tigers: and she waited with a holy impatience the onset of those furious beasts, whose roarings filled even the spectators with terror. But the lions on a sudden forgetting their natural ferocity, and the rage of their hunger, walked gently up to the holy virgin, and laying themselves down at her feet, licked them as if it had been respectfully to kiss them: and, at length, notwithstanding all the keepers could do to excite and provoke them, they meekly retired like lambs, without hurting the servant of Christ. This wonderful circumstance is related and set off with the genuine beauties of unaffected eloquence, by Saints Ambrose, Chrysostom, Methodius, Gregory Nazianzen, and other fathers.

She was at another time, by the divine interposition, delivered from the power of fire, and preserved without hurt in the midst of the flames, as St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Methodius, and others testify: who add that she was rescued from many other dangers, to which the rage of persecutors exposed her.

A very ancient Martyrology which bears the name of St. Jerome, published by Florentinius, mentions that Rome was the place where God extinguished the flames to preserve the life of this holy virgin. She attended St. Paul in several of his apostolic journeys, studying to form her own life upon that excellent model of Christian perfection. She is styled by Saints Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Augustine and others, a virgin and martyr. Her sufferings justly purchased her this latter title, though Bede in his Martyrology, tells us, that she died in peace; which is proved also from other authorities by Papebroke and Tillemont.

The latter part of her life she spent in devout retirement in Isauria, where she died, and was buried at Seleucia, the metropolis of that country. Over her tomb in that city a sumptuous church was built under the first Christian emperors, which bore her name, was visited by St. Marana and St. Cyra, two female hermits mentioned by Theodoret, and crowds of pilgrims, and rendered famous by many miracles, as we learn both from Theodoret, St. Gregory of Nazianzen, Basil of Seleucia and others. The great cathedral at Milan is dedicated to God in honor of St. Thecla, and has been long possessed of part of her precious remains.

SEPTEMBER 24TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. GERARD
Martyred in the Eleventh Century, around 1046

St. Gerard, the apostle of a large district in Hungary, was a Venetian, and born about the beginning of the eleventh century. He renounced early the enjoyments of the world, forsaking family and estate to consecrate himself to the service of God in a monastery. By taking up the yoke of our Lord from his youth he found it light, and bore it with constancy and joy. Walking always in the presence of God, and nourishing in his heart a spirit of tender devotion by assiduous holy meditation and prayer, he was careful that his studies should never extinguish or impair it, or bring any prejudice to the humility and simplicity by which he studied daily to advance in Christian perfection.

After some years, with the leave of his superiors, he undertook a pilgrimage to the holy sepulcher at Jerusalem. Passing through Hungary, he became known to the holy king St. Stephen, who was wonderfully taken with his sincere piety, and, with great earnestness, persuaded him that God had only inspired him with the design of that pilgrimage, that he might assist, by his labors, the souls of so many in that country, who were perishing in their infidelity.

Gerard, however, would by no means consent to stay at court, but built a little hermitage at Beel, where he passed seven years with one companion called Maur, in the constant practice of fasting and prayer. The king, having settled the peace of his kingdom, drew Gerard out of his solitude, and the saint preached the Gospel with wonderful success. Not long after, the good prince nominated him to the episcopal see of Chonad or Chzonad, a city eight leagues from Temeswar.

Gerard considered nothing in this dignity but labors, crosses, and the hopes of martyrdom. The greater part of the people were infidels, those who bore the name of Christians in this diocese were ignorant, brutish, and savage. Two-thirds of the inhabitants of the city of Chonad were idolaters; yet the saint, in less than a year, made them all Christians. His labors were crowned with almost equal success in all the other parts of the diocese.

The fatigues which he underwent were excessive, and the patience with which he bore all kinds of affronts was invincible. He commonly travelled on foot, but sometimes in a wagon: he always read or meditated on the road. He regulated everywhere all things that belonged to the divine service with the utmost care, and was solicitous that the least exterior ceremonies should be performed with great exactness and decency, and accompanied with a sincere spirit of religion. To this purpose he used to say, that men, especially the grosser part, (which is always the more numerous,) love to be helped in their devotion by the aid of their senses.

The example of our saint had a more powerful influence over the minds of the people than the most moving discourses. He was humble, modest, mortified in all his senses, and seemed to have perfectly subdued all his passions. This victory he gained by a strict watchfulness over himself. Once finding a sudden motion to anger rising in his breast, he immediately imposed upon himself a severe penance, asked pardon of the person who had injured him, and heaped upon him great favors. After spending the day in his apostolic labors, he employed part of the night in devotion, and sometimes in cutting down wood and other such actions for the service of the poor.

All distressed persons he took under his particular care, and treated the sick with uncommon tenderness. He embraced lepers and persons afflicted with other loathsome diseases with the greatest joy and affection; often laid them in his own bed, and had their sores dressed in his own chamber. Such was his love of retirement, that he caused several small hermitages or cells to be built near the towns in the different parts of his diocese, and in these he used to take up his lodging wherever he came in his travels about his diocese, avoiding to lie in cities, that, under the pretense of reposing himself in these solitary huts, he might indulge the heavenly pleasures of prayer and holy contemplation; which gave him fresh vigor in the discharge of his pastoral functions. He wore a rough hair shirt next his skin, and over it a coarse woolen coat.

The holy king St. Stephen seconded the zeal of the good bishop as long as he lived. But that prince’s nephew and successor Peter, a debauched and cruel prince, declared himself the persecutor of our saint: but was expelled by his own subjects in 1042, and Abas, a nobleman of a savage disposition, was placed on the throne. This tyrant soon gave the people reason to repent of their choice, putting to death all those noblemen whom he suspected not to have been in his interest. St. Stephen had established a custom, that the crown should be presented to the king by some bishop on all great festivals. Abas gave notice to St. Gerard to come to court to perform that ceremony.

The saint, regarding the exclusion of Peter as irregular, refused to pay the usurper that compliment, and foretold him that if he persisted in his crime, God would soon put an end both to his life and reign. Other prelates, however, gave him the crown; but, two years after, the very persons who had placed him on the throne turned their arms against him, treated him as a rebel, and cut off his head on a scaffold. Peter was recalled, but two years after banished a second time. The crown was then offered to Andrew, son of Ladislas, cousin-german to St. Stephen, upon condition that he should restore idolatry, and extirpate the Christian religion. The ambitious prince made his army that promise. Hereupon Gerard and three other bishops set out for Alba Regalis, in order to divert the new king from this sacrilegious engagement.

When the four bishops were arrived at Giod near the Danube, St. Gerard, after celebrating mass, said to his companions: “We shall all suffer martyrdom to-day, except the bishop of Benetha.” They were advanced a little further, and going to cross the Danube, when they were set upon by a party of soldiers, under the command of Duke Vatha, the most obstinate patron of idolatry, and the implacable enemy of the memory of St. Stephen. They attacked St. Gerard first with a shower of stones, and, exasperated at his meekness and patience, overturned his chariot, and dragged him on the ground. Whilst in their hands the saint raised himself on his knees, and prayed with the protomartyr St. Stephen: “Lord, lay not this to their charge; for they know not what they do.” He had scarcely spoken these words when he was run through the body with a lance, and expired in a few minutes.

Two of the other bishops, named Bezterd and Buld, shared the glory of martyrdom with him: but the new king coming up, rescued the fourth bishop out of the hands of the murderers. This prince afterwards repressed idolatry, was successful in his wars against the Germans who invaded his dominions, and reigned with glory.

St. Gerard’s martyrdom happened on the 24th of September, 1046. His body was first interred in a church of our Lady near the place where he suffered; but soon after removed to the cathedral of Chonad. He was declared a martyr by the pope, and his remains were taken up, and put in a rich shrine in the reign of St. Ladislas. At length the republic of Venice, by repeated importunate entreaties, obtained his relics of the king of Hungary, and with great solemnity translated them to their metropolis, where they are venerated in the church of our Lady of Murano.

The good pastor refuses no labor, and declines no danger for the good of souls. If the soil where his lot falls be barren, and he plants and waters without increase, he never loses patience, out redoubles his earnestness in his prayers and labors. He is equally secure of his own reward if he perseveres to the end; and can say to God, as St. Bernard remarks: “Thou, O Lord, wilt not less reward my pains, if I shall be found faithful to the end.” Zeal and tender charity give him fresh vigor, and draw floods of tears from his eyes for the souls which perish, and for their contempt of the infinite and gracious Lord of all things. Yet his courage is never damped, nor does he ever repine or disquiet himself. He is not authorized to curse the fig-tree which produces no fruit, but continues to dig about it, and to dung the earth, waiting to the end, repaying all injuries with kindness and prayers, and never weary with renewing his endeavors. Impatience and uneasiness in pastors never spring from zeal or charity; but from self-love, which seeks to please itself in the success of what it undertakes. The more deceitful this evil principle is, and the more difficult to be discovered, the more careful must it be watched against. All sourness, discouragement, vexation, and disgust of mind are infallible signs that a mixture of this evil debases our intention. The pastor must imitate the treasures of God’s patience, goodness, and long-suffering. He must never abandon any sinner to whom God, the offended party, still offers mercy.

SEPTEMBER 25TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. FIRMIN
Martyred in the Third Century, around 250

If we may rely on “The Acts of Firmin”, he was a native of Pampelone, in Navarre, initiated in the Christian Faith by Honestus, a disciple of St. Saturninus of Toulouse, and consecrated bishop by St. Honoratus, successor to St. Saturninus, in order to preach the Gospel in the remoter parts of Gaul. He preached the Faith in the regions of Agen, Anjou, and Beauvais, and, being arrived at Amiens, there chose his residence, having founded there a numerous church of faithful disciples. He received the crown of martyrdom in that city, whether under the prefect, Rictius Varus, as Usuard says, or in some other persecution from Decius, in 250, to Diocletian, in 303, is uncertain. Faustinian buried him in his field called Abladana, where Firmin II (who is honored on the 1st of September) built the first church under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin. St. Salvius, in the beginning of the seventh century, translated his relics into the cathedral. St. Godefrid made another translation of them about the year 1107, and Bishop Theobald put them into a gold shrine about the year 1200.

SEPTEMBER 26TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. CYPRIAN & ST. JUSTINA
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 303

St. Cyprian, surnamed the Magician, was an illustrious instance of the divine grace and mercy. He was a native of Antioch, (not the capital of Syria, but a small city of that name, situated between Syria and Arabia,) which the Romans allotted to the government of Phœnicia, to the jurisdiction of which province this martyr was subject. The detestable superstition of his idolatrous parents, put them upon devoting him, from his infancy, to the devil, and he was brought up in all the impious mysteries of idolatry, judicial astrology, and the black art.

In hopes of making great discoveries in these infernal pretended sciences, he left his native country, when he had grown up, and travelled to Athens, Mount Olympus in Macedon, Argos, Phrygia, Memphis in Egypt, Chaldæa, and the Indies, places at that time famous for superstition and magical arts. When Cyprian had filled his head with all the extravagances of these schools of error and delusion, he stuck at no crimes, blasphemed Christ, and committed secret murders, to offer the blood, and inspect the bowels of children, as decisive of future events. His skill was employed in attempting the modesty of virgins; but he found Christian women resistant against his assaults and spells.

There lived at Antioch a young lady called Justina, whose birth and beauty drew all eyes upon her. She was born of heathen parents, but was brought over to the Christian Faith, and her conversion was followed by that of her father and mother. A pagan young nobleman fell deeply in love with her, and finding her modesty inaccessible, and her resolution invincible, he applied to Cyprian for the assistance of his art. Cyprian was no less smitten with the lady than his friend, and heartily tried every secret, with which he was acquainted, to conquer her resolution.

Justina, perceiving herself vigorously attacked, studied to arm herself by prayer, watchfulness, and mortification against all his artifices and the power of his spells. “She defeated and put to flight the devils by the sign of the Holy Cross,” says Photius, from Eudocia. St. Cyprian writes in his Confession: “She armed herself with the sign of Christ, and overcame the invocation of the demons.” St. Gregory Nazianzen adds: “Suppliantly beseeching the Virgin Mary that she would succour a virgin in danger, she fortified herself with the antidotes of fasting, tears, and prayers.”

Cyprian finding himself overcome by a superior power, began to consider the weakness of the infernal spirits, and resolved to quit their service. The devil, enraged to lose one by whom he had made so many conquests of other souls, assailed Cyprian with the utmost fury, and, having been repulsed in several other assaults, he at length overspread the soul of the penitent sinner with a gloomy melancholy, and brought him almost to the brink of despair at the sight of his past crimes. God inspired him, in this perplexity, to address himself to a holy priest named Eusebius, who had formerly been his school-fellow: by the advice of this priest he was wonderfully comforted and encouraged in his conversion.

Cyprian, who, in the pressure of his heart, had been three days without eating, by the counsel of this charitable director took some refreshment, and, on the following Sunday, very early in the morning, was conducted by him to the assembly of the Christians; for though it was forbidden for persons not initiated by baptism to assist at the celebration of the divine mysteries, this did not regard other devotions, to which such as were under instruction in the Faith might be admitted. These assemblies were then held very early in the morning, both to watch in prayer, and for fear of the heathens. So much was Cyprian struck at the awful reverence and heavenly devotion with which this act of the divine worship was performed, that he writes of it: “I saw the choir of heavenly men, or of angels, singing to God, adding at the end of every verse in the psalms the Hebrew word Alleluia, so that they seemed not to be men.”

Every one present was astonished to see Cyprian introduced by a priest among them, and the bishop was scarcely able to believe his own eyes; or at least to be persuaded that his conversion was sincere. But Cyprian gave him a proof, the next day, by burning, before his eyes, all his magical books, giving his whole substance to the poor, and entering himself among the catechumens. After due instruction and preparation, he received the sacrament of regeneration, Baptism, from the hands of the bishop. Agladius, who had been the first suitor to the holy virgin, was likewise converted and baptized. Justina herself was so moved at these wonderful examples of the divine mercy, that she cut off her hair in order to dedicate her virginity to God, and disposed of her jewels and all her possessions to the poor.

St. Gregory Nazianzen beautifully describes the astonishing change that was wrought in Cyprian, his edifying deportment, his humility, modesty, gravity, love of God, contempt of riches, and assiduous application to heavenly things. The same father tells us, that, out of humility, with earnest entreaties, he prevailed to be employed as sweeper of the church. Eudocia, quoted by Photius, says he was made door-keeper; but that, after some time, he was promoted to the priesthood, and, after the death of Anthimus the bishop, was placed in the episcopal chair of Antioch. Joseph Assemani thinks, not of Antioch, but of Damascus, or some other city in Syria.

The persecution of Dioclesian breaking out, Cyprian was apprehended, and carried before the governor of Phœnicia, who resided at Tyre. Justina had retired to Damascus, her native country, which city at that time was subject to the same presidial; and, falling into the hands of the persecutors, was presented to the same judge. She was inhumanly scourged, and Cyprian was torn with iron hooks, probably at Damascus. After this they were both sent in chains to Dioclesian, residing at Nicomedia, who, upon reading the letter of the governor of Phœnicia, without more ado, commanded their heads to be struck off: which sentence was executed upon the banks of the river Gallus, which passes not far from the city of Nicomedia.

Theoctistus, also a Christian, was beheaded with them for speaking to Cyprian as he was going to execution. Their relics were procured by certain Christians who came from Rome, and were carried by them thither on board their vessel. In the reign of Constantine the Great a pious lady, named Rufina, of the family of Claudius, built a church in their memory, near the square which bears the name of that prince. These relics were afterwards removed into the Lateran basilica.

If the errors and disorders of St. Cyprian show the degeneracy of human nature corrupted by sin, and enslaved to vice, his conversion displays the power of grace and virtue to repair it. How strangely the image of God is disfigured in man by sin appears by the disorders of his spiritual faculties, the understanding, and will in which the divine resemblance was stamped in the creation. Not only beasts and other creatures have revolted from his dominion, and the shattered frame of his body is made a prey to diseases and death, but his will is rebellious, and the passions strive to usurp the empire, and destroy in his soul the government of reason and virtue. Also the understanding, that should be the eye to the blind will, is itself blind, and the light within us is become darkness. In the state of innocence it was clear, serene, and free from the vapors of the passions: it directed the verdict of the imagination and the senses, and gave to the soul, by intuition and without study, a full view into all speculative natural truths, suited to man’s condition; but its most valuable privilege was, that it taught man all the practical rules and notions of moral virtue firm and untainted, so that he carried this law in his bosom, and had but to look into his own conscience for the direction of his actions in the practice of all moral virtue, which, by the strong assistance of grace, was always easy to him. His understanding was also enlightened by a perfect divine revelation, and his will found no obstacle in the exercises of all theological and other supernatural virtues. The most fatal consequence and punishment of his disobedience we deplore in the extravagances, folly, crimes, and errors into which men are betrayed when they become once enslaved to their passions. Religion and Faith alone secure us from these dangers, enlighten our understanding, and offer us the means to restore the rectitude of the will.

SEPTEMBER 27TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. COSMAS & ST. DAMIAN
Martyred in the Third Century, around 287

Saints Cosmas and Damian were brothers, and born in Arabia, but studied the sciences in Syria, and became eminent for their skill in medicine. Being Christians, and full of that holy virtue of charity, in which the spirit of our divine religion consists, they practiced their profession with great application and wonderful success—not more by their knowledge of medicine, than by the power of Christ, they healed diseases which had been hopeless for others. However, they never took any gratification or fee, on which account they are styled by the Greeks as Anargyri, that is, without fees, because they took no money.

They lived at Ægæ, or Egæa, in Cilicia, and were remarkable both for the love and respect which the people bore them, on account of the benefits which they received from their charity, and for their zeal for the Christian Faith, which they took every opportunity their profession gave them to propagate.

When the persecution of Diocletian began to rage, it was impossible for persons of so distinguished a character to remain concealed. When the Prefect Lysias, governor of Cilicia, learnt to what Faith they belonged, he commanded them to be brought before him, and questioned them as to their way of life, and the confession of their religion; and then, forasmuch as they freely admitted themselves to be Christians and that the Christian Faith was necessary for salvation, he commanded them to worship the gods, under threats of torments and a most cruel death.

But when he found that it was but in vain to lay such things before them, he said: “Bind their hands and feet together, and torture them with the greatest torments!” His commands were carried out, but nevertheless Cosmas and Damian persisted in their confession of the Faith. Therefore, still bound by fetters, they were cast into the depth of the sea, but they came forth again, whole and unbound. The Prefect attributed their survival to the magical arts, and cast them into prison. The next day he commanded that they be thrown upon a great fire, but the flame turned away from them. He then had then tortured in various cruel ways, and lastly, beheaded with the axe. Thus did they bear witness for Christ Jesus even until they grasped the palm of their testimony.

Their bodies were carried into Syria, and buried at Cyrus. Theodoret, who was bishop of that city in the 5th century, mentions that their relics were then deposited in a church there, which bore their names. He calls them two illustrious champions, and valiant combatants for the Faith of Jesus Christ. The Emperor Justinian, who began his reign in 527, out of a religious regard for the treasure of these precious relics, enlarged, embellished, and strongly fortified this city of Cyrus; and finding a ruinous church at Constantinople, built in honor of these martyrs, a stately edifice in its room, as a monument of his gratitude for the recovery of his health in a dangerous fit of sickness, through their intercession, as Procopius relates.

To express his particular devotion to these saints, he also built another church, under their names, at Constantinople. Marcellinus, in his chronicle, and St. Gregory of Tours, relate several miracles performed by their intercession. Their relics were conveyed to Rome, where the holy Pope St. Felix, great-grandfather to St. Gregory the Great, built a church to their honor, in which these relics are kept with veneration to this day.

These saints regarded it as a great happiness, that their profession offered them perpetual opportunities of affording comfort and relief to the most distressed part of their fellow-creatures. By exerting our charity towards all in acts of benevolence and beneficence, according to our abilities; and in treating enemies and persecutors with meekness and good offices, we are to approve ourselves followers of Christ, animated with his spirit.

Thus we shall approach nearest in resemblance to our divine original, and show ourselves children of our heavenly Father, who bears with the most grievous sinners, inviting them to repentance and pardon, and showering down his mercies and benefits upon them. He only then arms himself with his justice against them, when they by willful malice forfeit his grace, and obstinately disappoint his gracious love and kindness. His very nature is boundless goodness, and continual emanations of mercy descend from him upon his creatures.

All the scattered perfections and blessings which are found in them, come from this source. In the imitation of the divine goodness, according to our abilities, at least in the temper of our mind, consists that Christian perfection, which, when founded in the motive of true charity, is the accomplishment of the law. Men engaged in professions instituted for the service of their neighbor, may sanctify their labor or industry, if actuated by the motive of charity towards others, even whilst they also have in view the justice which they owe to themselves and their family, of procuring an honest and necessary subsistence, which is itself often a strict obligation and no less noble a virtue, if it be founded in motives equally pure and perfect.

SEPTEMBER 28TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. WENCESLAS
Martyred in the Tenth Century, around 938

St. Wenceslas was son of Uratislas, duke of Bohemia, and of Drahomira of Lucsko, and grandson of Borivor, the first Christian duke, and the blessed Ludmilla. His father was a valiant and good prince; but his mother was a pagan, and her heart was not less depraved, as to sentiments of morality, than as to those of religion.

This princess was not less cruel than haughty, nor less perfidious than impious. She had two sons, Wenceslas, and Boleslas. Ludmilla, who lived at Prague ever since the death of her husband, obtained, as the greatest of favours, that the education of the elder might be intrusted to her, and she undertook, with the utmost care and application, to form his heart to devotion and the love of God.

In this task she was assisted by Paul, her chaplain, a man of great sanctity and prudence, who likewise cultivated the young prince’s mind with the first rudiments of learning. The pious pupil perfectly corresponded with their endeavors, and with the divine grace which rendered him a saint from the cradle.

At a convenient age he was sent to a college at Budweis, above sixty miles from Prague, where, under the direction of an excellent master, he made great progress in the sciences, and other exercises suitable to his rank, and much more in all the virtues which compose the character of a Christian and a saint. He was extremely devout, mortified, meek, modest, a great lover of purity, and scrupulously careful in avoiding all occasions in which that virtue could be exposed to the least danger.

He was yet young, when his father dying, his mother Drahomira, assumed the title of regent, and seized on the government. Being no longer held in by any restraint, she gave a free loose to her rage against the Christians (which she had concealed whilst her husband lived) and published a severe order for shutting up all the churches, prohibiting the exercise of our holy religion, and forbidding priests and all others who professed it, to teach or instruct children. She repealed all the laws and regulations which Borivor and Uladislas had made in favor of the Christians, removed the Christian magistrates in all the towns in Bohemia, put heathens in their places, and employed only such officers as were blindly devoted to follow the dictates of her passions and tyranny; and these she incited everywhere to oppress the Christians, of whom great numbers were massacred.

Ludmilla, sensibly afflicted at these public disorders, and full of concern for the interest of religion, which she and her consort had established with so much difficulty, by strong remonstrances showed Wenceslas the necessity of his taking the reins of the government into his own hands, promising to assist him with her directions and best advice. The young duke obeyed, and the Bohemians testified their approbation of his conduct: but, to prevent all disputes between him and his younger brother, they divided the country between them, assigning to the latter a considerable territory, which retains from him the name of Boleslavia, and is one of the chief circles of Bohemia.

Drahomira, enraged at these steps, secured herself an interest in Boleslas, her younger son, whose heart she had so far perverted, as to taint him with the most execrable idolatry, hatred of the Christian religion, boundless ambition, and implacable cruelty.

Wenceslas, on the other hand, pursuant to the impressions of virtue which he had received in his education, was more careful than ever to preserve the innocence of his morals, and acquire every day some new degree of Christian perfection. He directed all his views to the establishment of peace, justice, and religion in his dominions, and, by the advice of Ludmilla, chose able and zealous Christian ministers.

After spending the whole day in acts of piety and application to the affairs of state, and of his court, he employed a great part of the night in prayer. Such was his devout veneration for the holy sacrament of the altar, that he thought it a great happiness to sow the corn, gather the grapes, and make the wine with his own hands which were to be made use of at mass. Not content to pray often in the day, with singular joy and fervor, before the Blessed Sacrament in the church, he usually rose at midnight, and went to pray in the churches, or even in the porches; nor did he fail in this practice in the deepest snows.

His austerities in a court seemed to equal those of hermits in the deserts, and he applied himself with great diligence to all manner of charitable offices, in relieving orphans and widows, helping the poor, accompanying their bodies to the grave, visiting prisons, and redeeming captives. It was his desire to shut himself up in a monastery, had not the necessities of his country and religion fixed him in a public station: however, amidst the distractions of government, he found rest for his soul in God, its center.

The good prince stood in need of this comfort and support amidst the storms with which he was assailed. Drahomira never ceased to conjure up all the furies of hell against him. Looking upon Ludmilla as the first mover of all counsels in favor of the Christian religion, she laid a plot to take away her life. Ludmilla was informed of it, and, without being disturbed, prepared herself for death. With this view she distributed her goods and money among her servants and the poor, confirmed the duke in his good resolutions for maintaining religion, made her confession to her chaplain Paul, and received the holy viaticum. The assassins found her prostrate in prayer before the altar in her domestic chapel, and, seizing on her, strangled her with her own veil. She is honored in Bohemia as a martyr on the 16th of September.

This complicated crime was very sensible to St. Wenceslas; a circumstance which exceedingly aggravated his grief was, that so execrable an action should have been perpetrated by the direction of his mother. But he poured out his complaints to God alone, humbly adored his judgments and holy providence, and interceding for the conversion of his unnatural mother. She was seconded in her malicious intrigues by a powerful faction. Radislas, prince of Gurima, a neighboring country, despising the saint’s piety, invaded his dominions with a formidable army.

Wenceslas, willing to maintain peace, sent him a message, desiring to know what provocation he had given him, and declaring that he was ready to accept any terms for an accommodation that was consistent with what he owed to God and his people. Radislas treated this embassy as an effect of cowardice, and insolently answered, that the surrender of Bohemia was the only condition on which he would hear of peace.

Wenceslas finding himself obliged to appear in arms, marched against the invader. When the two armies were near one another, our saint desired a conference with Radislas, and proposed, that, to spare the blood of so many innocent persons, it was a just expedient to leave the issue of the affair to a single combat between them.

Radislas accepted the proposal, imagining himself secure of the victory. The two princes accordingly met at the head of both armies, in order to put an end to the war by this duel. Wenceslas was but slightly armed with a short sword and a target; yet, making the sign of the cross, marched boldly towards his antagonist, like a second David against Goliah. Radislas attempted to throw a javelin at him, but, as the Bohemian historians assure us, saw two angels protecting the saint. Whereupon he threw down his arms, and falling on his knees, begged his pardon, and declared himself at his disposal.

The emperor Otho I, having assembled a general diet at Worms, St. Wenceslas arrived at it late in the day, having been stopped by hearing a high mass on the road. Some of the princes took offence at this, but the emperor, who had the highest opinion of his sanctity, received him with great honor, would have him sit next his person, and bade him ask whatever he pleased, and it should be granted him.

The saint asked an arm of the body of St. Vitus, and a part of the relics of St. Sigismund, king of Burgundy. The emperor readily granted his request; adding, that he conferred on him the regal dignity and title, and granted him the privilege of bearing the imperial eagle on his standard, with an exemption from paying any imperial taxes throughout all his dominions. The good duke thanked his majesty, but excused himself from taking the title of king: which, however, the emperor and princes of the empire from that time always gave him in letters, and on all other occasions. When he had received the above-mentioned relics, he built a church in Prague, in which he deposited them; and caused the body of St. Ludmilla, three years after her death, to be translated into, the church of St. George, which had been built by his father in that city.

The severity with which the saint checked oppressions, and certain other disorders in the nobility, made some throw themselves into the faction of his unnatural mother, who concerted measures with her other son, Boleslas, to take him off at any rate. St. Wenceslas had made a vow of virginity; but restless ambition is impatient of delays. A son being born to Boleslas, that prince and his mother invited the good duke to favor them with his company at the rejoicings on that occasion.

St. Wenceslas went without the least suspicion of treachery and was received with all imaginable marks of kindness and civility. This they did the better to cover their hellish design. The entertainment was splendid: but nothing could make the saint neglect his usual devotions. At midnight he went to offer his customary prayers in the church. Boleslas, at the instigation of Drahomira, followed him there, and, when his attendants had wounded him, he dispatched him with his own hand, running him through the body with a lance. The martyrdom of the holy duke happened on the 28th of September, in 938.

The emperor Otho marched with an army into Bohemia, to revenge his death; the war continued several years; and, when he had vanquished the Bohemians, he contented himself with the submission of Boleslas, who engaged to recall the banished priests, to restore the Christian religion, and to pay him an annual tribute. Drahomira, perished miserably soon after the perpetration of her horrible crime.

Boleslas, terrified at the reputation of many miracles wrought at the martyr’s tomb, caused his body to be transferred to the church of St. Vitus, at Prague, three years after his death. His son and successor, Boleslas II, surnamed the Pious, was a faithful imitator of his uncle St. Wenceslas, and became one of the greatest princes of his time. A church was erected in honor of St. Wenceslas, in Denmark, in 951, and his name was in great veneration over all the North.

The safety and happiness of government, and of all society among men, is founded upon religion. Without it princes usually become tyrants, and people lawless. He who, with Hobbes, so far degrades human reason, as to deny any other difference between virtue and vice, than in the apprehension of men; or who, with the author of the Characteristics, reduces virtue to an ideal beauty, and an empty name, is, of all others, the most dangerous enemy to mankind, capable of every mischief: his heart being open to treachery, and every crime.

The general laws of nations and those of particular states are too weak restraints upon those who, in spite of nature itself, laugh the law of God out of doors. Unless religion bind a man in his conscience, he will become so far the slave of his passions, as to be ready, with this unnatural mother and brother, to commit every advantageous villainy to which he is prompted, whenever he can do it with secrecy or impunity. It is safer to live among lions and tigers than among such men. It is not consistent with the goodness and justice of God to have created men without an interior law, and a law enforced by the strongest motives, and the highest authority. Nor can his goodness and justice suffer obedience to his law to go unrewarded, or disobedience and contempt to remain unpunished. This consideration alone, leads us to the confession of that just providence which reserves in the life to come the recompense of virtue, and chastisement of vice, which faith reveals to us; this is the sacred band of justice and civil society in the present life.

Jeroboam, Numa, Mahomet, and Machiavel himself, thought a persuasion of a false religion necessary for government, where they despaired of accommodating a true one to their wicked purposes, being sensible, that without strong inward ties, proclamations will be hung upon walls and posts only to be despised, and the most sacred laws lose their force. A false religion is not only a grievous crime, but also too feeble a tie for men; it is exposed to uncertainties, suspicion, and the detection, of its imposture, and is in itself always infinitely defective and pernicious. True religion insures to him who sincerely professes it, comfort, support, and patience amidst the sharpest trials, security in death itself, and the most happy and glorious issue, when God shall manifest himself the protector and rewarder of his servants. Virtue, here persecuted and oppressed, will shine forth with the brighter luster at the last day, as the sun breaking out from under a cloud displays its beam with greater brightness.

SEPTEMBER 29TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. THEODOTA
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 318

Towards the end of the reign of Licinius, on a Friday, in September, in the year 642 from the death of Alexander the Great, that is, of Christ 318, a persecution was raised at Philippi, not the city so called in Macedon, which was at that time comprised in the empire of Constantine, but that called Philippopolis, anciently Eumolpias, in Thrace. Agrippa, the prefect, on a certain festival of Apollo, had commanded that the whole city should offer a great sacrifice with him.

Theodota, who had been formerly a harlot, was accused of refusing to conform, and being called upon by the governor, answered him, that she had indeed been a grievous sinner, but could not add sin to sin, nor defile herself with a sacrilegious sacrifice. Her constancy encouraged seven hundred and fifty men (who were, perhaps, some troop of soldiers) to step forth, and professing themselves Christians, to refuse to join in the sacrifice.

Theodota was cast into prison where she lay twenty days; all which time she employed in continual prayer. Being brought to the bar, as she entered the court she burst into tears, and prayed aloud that Christ would pardon the crimes of her past life, and arm her with strength, that she might be enabled to bear with constancy and patience the cruel torments she was going to suffer.

In her answers to the judge she confessed that she had been a harlot, but declared that she had become a Christian, though unworthy to bear that sacred name. Agrippa commanded her to be cruelly scourged. The pagans who stood near her, ceased not to exhort her to free herself from torments by obeying the governor but for one moment. But Theodota remained constant, and under the lashes cried out: “I will never abandon the true God, nor sacrifice to lifeless statues.”

The governor ordered her to be hoisted upon the rack, and her body to be torn with an iron comb. Under these torments she earnestly prayed to Christ, and said: “I adore you, O Christ, and thank you, because you have made me worthy to suffer this for your name.”

The judge, enraged at her resolution and patience, said to the executioner: “Tear her flesh again with the iron comb; then pour vinegar and salt into her wounds.” She said: “So little do I fear your torments, that I entreat you to increase them to the utmost, that I may find mercy and attain to the greater crown.”

Agrippa next commanded the executioners to pluck out her teeth, which they violently pulled out one by one with pincers. The judge at length condemned her to be stoned. She was led out of the city, and, during her martyrdom, prayed thus: “O Christ, as you showed favor to Rahab the harlot, and received the good thief; so turn not your mercy from me.” In this manner she died, and her soul ascended triumphant to Heaven in the year 318.

SEPTEMBER 30TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. VICTOR & ST. URSUS
Martyred in the Third Century, around 258

St. Victor

Victor of Solothurn and Geneva, was a member of Roman Theban Legion, a large number of whom were
martyred in Switzerland. Victor was killed at Solothurn during the reign of Emperor Diocletian (reigned 284-305), on the spot where the Chapel of Saint Peter later arose.

The account of the martyrdom of St. Victor and St. Ursus states that, on their refusal to obey the imperial command of Emperor Maximian (286-305) to sacrifice to the heathen gods and slaughter innocent Christian natives, the Roman governor of Solothurn, Hirtacus, subjected them to barbarous tortures, during which miracles occurred. The saints' shackles broke, and as they were made to walk on blazing embers, the fire was instantaneously extinguished. In the end Hirtacus ordered them beheaded. Both approached their executioner without resistance, and their headless bodies emitted dazzling light before they were thrown into the river Aar. Afterward, according to Surius and to the Codex Signacensis, the saints stepped out of the water with their heads in their hands, walked a distance from the bank, then knelt and prayed at the spot of their burial, where the Chapel of Saint Peter arose over their tomb. A monastery was founded there by order of Queen Bertrada, wife of Pepin the Short and mother of Charlemagne, in the first half of the eighth century.

In 602 the identification of Saint Victor's remains at his new resting place near Geneva was made by Bishop Hiconius in the presence of King Theodoric II (587-613). At the beginning of the eleventh century, the saint's relics were placed under the altar. However, in the Calvinistic upheavals of the sixteenth century, the church was demolished (1534). In 1721, a leaden coffin containing bones was discovered; it was inscribed with the Roman numerals 8-30, which were interpreted as 30 September, commemoration day of Saint Victor.

There is hardly any doubt about the ethnic origin of Saint Victor of Solothurn. He not only is mentioned among the Thebans in the earliest sources (Saint Eucherius and the anonymous account of Einsiedeln), but his name has always been familiar among the Copts and still is today. It is written Buktor but reads Victor because the letter b is pronounced v when followed by a vowel.

His name appears in the Passio Agaumensium Martyrum of Saint Eucherius, bishop of Lyons (434-450) as well as in the anonymous account entitled The Passion St. Maurice and his Companions, of the monastery of Einsiedeln, Switzerland. According to Fredegar's Chronicle (602), Saint Victor's relics were transferred from the Chapel of Saint Peter to a basilica built in his honor outside Geneva, whereupon he became the patron saint of that city. Citation of his martyrdom was frequent in medieval times. In the ninth century, both Codex 569 of the Library of the Convent of Saint Gall (fols. 224-31) and the Codex Signacensis, originally from the monastery of Signy at Rheims (published by the Bollandists in Acta sanctorum, 30 September), refer to Saint Victor's story. Moreover, the Martyrologium Romanum of Ado, archbishop of Vienne (800-875), published at Paris in 1645, and the Vitae Sanctorum (Lives of the Saints) of the Carthusian Surius (1522-1578), both cite the martyrdom of St. Victor under the entry for September 30th.

St. Ursus

St. Ursus is the patron of the principal church of Solothurn (Soleure) in Switzerland, honored from very early times, as a martyr of the Theban Legion, and recorded in the Roman Martyrology, with St. Victor, on September 30th. Relics of him are shown in many churches of Switzerland, and since the twelfth century the baptismal name Ursus is very common in the neighbourhood of Solothurn. The legend, by St. Eucher of Lyons (Acta SS., Sept. VIII, 461), classed by Delehaye ("Legends of the Saints," New York, 1907, p. 120) among the historical romances, says that Ursus, after many cruel torments suffered for his constancy in refusing to sacrifice to the idols, was beheaded c. 286 under the Emperor Maximian Herculeus and the Governor Hyrtacus. Between the years 473 and 500 the body of St. Victor was brought to Geneva by the Burgundian Queen Theudesinde; it is probably that about the same time a church was built over the remains of St. Ursus. In 1519 the old coffin was found and the event was commemorated at Solothurn and Bern. The Roman urn containing the relics bears the inscription:

Conditus hoc sanctus
Tumulo Thebaidus Ursus.
(Buried in this tomb is the holy Ursus the Theban.)

Ursus of Solothurn was a 3rd-century Roman Christian venerated as a saint. He is the patron of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Solothurn, Switzerland, where his body is located. He was associated very early with the Theban Legion and Victor of Solothurn, for instance in the Roman Martyrology. The Life of Ursus was written by Saint Eucherius of Lyon in the 5th century; it recounts that Ursus was tortured and beheaded under Emperor Maximian and the governor Hyrtacus for refusing to worship idols around 286.

Having lived among the Christians in Thebes, members of the Legion refused Maximian's orders to worship the gods of Rome. Victor was killed at Solothurn during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. He and Ursus of Solothurn are patron saints of the Cathedral of St. Ursus and St. Victor in Solothurn, Switzerland. His feast day is the 30th of September.