The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints Part 25

ST. CLEMENT OF ANCYRA, B.M.

HE suffered under Dioclesian, and is ranked by the Greeks among the great martyrs. His modern Greek acts say, his lingering martyrdom was continued by divers torments during twenty-eight years; but are demonstrated by Baronius and others to be of no authority. Two churches at Constantinople were dedicated to G.o.d under the invocation of St.

Clement of Ancyra; one called of the Palace, the other now in Pera, a suburb of that city. Several parts of his relics were kept with great devotion at Constantinople. His skull, which was brought thence to Paris when Constantinople was taken by the Latins, in the thirteenth century, was given by queen Anne of Austria to the abbey of Val de Grace. See Chatelain, p. 386. Le Quien, Oriens Chr. t. 1, p. 457.

ST. AGATHANGELUS,

THE fellow-martyr of St. Clement, bishop of Ancyra. His relics, with those of St. Clement, lay in a church in the suburbs of Constantinople, now called Pera; but were brought into the West when that city was taken by the Latins.

ST. ILDEFONSUS, B.

HE was a learned Benedictin abbot of a monastery called Agaliense, in a suburb of Toledo, promoted to the archbishopric of that city after the death of Eugenius, in December, 657, according to F. Flores; sat nine years and two months, and died on the 23d of January, 667, according to the same learned author, in the eighteenth year of king Rescisvintho.

His most celebrated work is a book On the spotless virginity of the Virgin Mary, against Helvidius, Jovinian, and a certain Jew: he breathes in it the most tender devotion to her, and confidence in her intercession with her Son. He had a singular devotion to St. Leocadia, patroness of Toledo. Certain sermons of St. Ildefonsus on the B.

Virgin Mary, and some letters, are published by Flores.[1] Some of his letters, which were first given us by D'Achery, were reprinted by cardinal D'Aguirre.[2] In Spanish this saint is called Ildefonso, and by the common people Alanso, for Alphonsus, which is an abbreviation of Ildefonsus. See his short life by St. Julian, bishop of Toledo, twenty-three years after his death. In Mabillon, saec. 2. Fleury, b. 39, n. 40. That by Cixila is not authentic. See especially the remarks of the learned F. Flores on these two lives, &c., in his Spana Sagrada, t.

5, tr. 5, c. 3, n. 31, p. 275, and app. 9, ib. p. 522. F. Flores reckons St. Ildefonsus the thirty-first bishop of Toledo, from St. Eugenius, the disciple of St. Dionysius of Paris, whom, with the writers of his country, he counts the first, in the year 112.

Footnotes: 1. F. Flores. Spana Sagrada, t. 5, append. 7, p. 490.

2. Card. D'Aguirre, Conc. Hispan. t. 2, p. 534.

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ST. EUSEBIUS,

AN ABBOT BETWEEN ANTIOCH AND BER[OE]A

HIS example was a perpetual and a most moving sermon, and his very countenance inspired all who beheld him with the love of virtue. He took nourishment but once in four days, but would not allow any of his monks to pa.s.s above two days without eating. He prescribed them mortifications of each sense in particular, but made perpetual prayer his chief rule, ordering them to implore the divine mercy in their hearts, in whatever labor their hands were employed. While Ammia.n.u.s, who had resigned to him the government of the abbey, was one day reading aloud, out of the scriptures, for their mutual edification, Eusebius happened to cast his eye on certain laborers in the field where they sat, so as not to give due attention to the lecture: to punish himself for this slight fault, he put on, and wore till his death, for above forty years, a heavy iron collar about his neck, fastened by a stiff chain to a great iron girdle about his middle, so that he could only look downwards under his feet: and he never afterwards stirred out of his cell but by a narrow pa.s.sage from his cell to the chapel. His sanct.i.ty drew many disciples to him. He flourished in the fourth century. See Theodoret Philoth. c. 4. Item Hist. Eccles. l. 4, c. 28.

JANUARY XXIV.

ST. TIMOTHY, B. AND M.

See Tillemont, t. 2, p. 142.

ST. TIMOTHY, the beloved disciple of St. Paul, was of Lycaonia, and probably of the city Lystra. His father was a Gentile, but his mother Eunice a Jewess. She, with Lois his grandmother, embraced the Christian religion, and St. Paul commends their faith. Timothy had made the holy scriptures his study from his infancy.[1] When St. Paul preached in Lycaonia, in the year 51, the brethren of Iconium and Lystra gave him so advantageous a character of the young man, that the apostle, being deprived of St. Barnaby, took him for the companion of his labors, but first circ.u.mcised him at Lystra. For though the Jewish ceremonies ceased to be obligatory from the death of Christ, it was still lawful to use them (but not as of precept and obligation) till about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem with the temple, that the synagogue might be buried with honor. Therefore St. Paul refused to circ.u.mcise t.i.tus, born of Gentile parents, to a.s.sert the liberty of the gospel, and to condemn those who erroneously affirmed circ.u.mcision to be still of precept in the New Law. On the other side, he circ.u.mcised Timothy, born of a Jewess, by that condescension to render him the more acceptable to the Jews, and to make it appear that himself was no enemy to their law. St.

Chrysostom[2] here admires the prudence, steadiness, {209} and charity of St. Paul; and we may add, the voluntary obedience of the disciple.

St. Austin[3] extols his zeal and disinterestedness in immediately forsaking his country, his house, and his parents, to follow this apostle, to share in his poverty and sufferings. After he was circ.u.mcised, St. Paul, by the imposition of hands, committed to him the ministry of preaching, his rare virtue making ample amends for his want of age. From that time the apostle regarded him not only as his disciple and most dear son, but as his brother, and the companion of his labors.[4] He calls him a man of G.o.d,[5] and tells the Philippians, that he found no one so truly united to him in heart and sentiments, as Timothy.[6] This esteem of the apostle is a sufficient testimony of the extraordinary merit of the disciple, whose vocation and entrance into the ministry was accompanied with prophecies in his behalf.[7]

St. Paul travelled from Lystra over the rest of Asia, sailed into Macedon, and preached at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ber[oe]a, in the year 52. Being compelled to quit this last city by the fury of the Jews, he left Timothy behind him, to confirm the new converts there. On St.

Paul's arrival at Athens he sent for him, but being informed that the Christians of Thessalonica lay under a very heavy persecution for the faith, he soon after deputed him to go thither, to comfort and encourage them under it; and he returned to St. Paul, then at Corinth, to give him an account of his success in that commission.[8] Upon this the apostle wrote his first epistle to the Thessalonians. From Corinth St. Paul went to Jerusalem, and thence to Ephesus, where he spent two years. Here he formed a resolution of returning into Greece, and sent Timothy and Erastus before him through Macedon, to apprize the faithful in those parts of his intention, and to prepare the alms intended to be sent the Christians of Jerusalem.

Timothy had a particular order to go afterwards to Corinth, to correct certain abuses, and to revive in the minds of the faithful there the doctrine which the apostle had taught them; who, writing soon after to the Corinthians, earnestly recommended this disciple to them.[9] St.

Paul waited in Asia for his return, and then went with him into Macedon and Achaia. St. Timothy left him at Philippi, but rejoined him at Troas.

The apostle on his return to Palestine was imprisoned, and after two years custody at Caesarea, was sent to Rome. Timothy seems to have been with him all or most of this time, and is named by him in the t.i.tles of his epistles to Philemon, and to the Philippians and Thessalonians, in the years 61 and 62. St. Timothy himself suffered imprisonment for Christ, and gloriously confessed his name, in the presence of many witnesses; but was set at liberty.[10] He was ordained bishop by a prophecy, and a particular order of the Holy Ghost.[11] He received by this imposition of hands, not only the grace of the sacrament, and the authority to govern the church, but also the power of miracles, and the other exterior gifts of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul being returned from Rome into the East, in the year 64, left St. Timothy at Ephesus, to govern that church, to oppose false teachers, and to ordain priests, deacons, and even bishops.[12] For St. Chrysostom[13] and other fathers observe, that he committed to him the care of all the churches of Asia: and St. Timothy is always named the first bishop of Ephesus.[14]

St. Paul wrote his first epistle to Timothy from Macedon, in 64; and his second, in 65, from Rome, while there in chains, to press him to come to Rome, that he might see him again before he died. It is an effusion of his heart, full of tenderness towards this his dearest son. In it he encourages {210} him, endeavors to renew and stir up in his soul that spirit of intrepidity, and that fire of the Holy Ghost, with which he was filled at his ordination; gives him instructions concerning the heretics of that time, and adds a lively description of such as would afterwards arise.[15]

We learn[16] that St. Timothy drank only water: but his austerities having prejudiced his health, on account of his weak stomach and frequent infirmities, St. Paul ordered him to use a little wine. The fathers observe that he only says a little, even in that necessity, because the flesh is to be kept weak, that the spirit may be vigorous and strong. St. Timothy was then young: perhaps about forty. It is not improbable that he went to Rome to confer with his master. In the year 64 he was made by St. Paul bishop of Ephesus, before St. John arrived there, who resided also in that city as an apostle, and exercising a general inspection over all the churches of Asia.[17] St. Timothy is styled a martyr in the ancient martyrologies.

His acts, in some copies ascribed to the famous Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, but which seem to have been written at Ephesus, in the fifth or sixth age, and abridged by Photius, relate, that under the emperor Nerva, in the year 97, St. John being still in the isle of Patmos, St.

Timothy was slain with stones and clubs by the heathens, while he was endeavoring to oppose their idolatrous ceremonies on one of their festivals called Catagogia, kept on the 22d of January, on which the idolaters walked in troops, every one carrying in one hand an idol, and in the other a club. St. Paulinus,[18] Theodorus Lector, and Philostorgius,[19] inform us, that his relics were with great pomp translated to Constantinople in the year 356, in the reign of Constantius. St. Paulinus witnesses, that the least portion of them wrought many miracles wherever they were distributed. These precious remains, with those of St. Andrew. and St. Luke, were deposited under the altar, in the church of the apostles in that city, where the devils, by their howlings, testified how much they felt their presence, says St.

Jerom;[20] which St. Chrysostom also confirms.[21]

Pious reading was the means by which St. Timothy, encouraged by the example and exhortations of his virtuous grandmother and mother, imbibed in his tender years, and nourished during the whole course of his life, the most fervent spirit of religion and all virtues; and his ardor for holy reading and meditation is commended by St. Paul, as the proof of his devotion and earliest desire of advancing in divine charity. When this saint was wholly taken up in the most laborious and holy functions of the apostolic ministry, that great apostle strongly recommends to him always to be a.s.siduous in the same practice,[22] and in all exercises of devotion. A minister of the gospel who neglects regular exercises of retirement, especially self-examination, reading, meditation, and private devotion, forgets his first and most essential duty, the care he owes to his own soul. Neither can he hope to kindle the fire of charity in others, if he suffer it to be extinguished {211} in his own breast.

These exercises are also indispensably necessary in a certain degree, in all states and circ.u.mstances of life; nor is it possible for a Christian otherwise to maintain a spirit of true piety, which ought to animate the whole body of all his actions, and without which even spiritual functions want as it were their soul.

Footnotes: 1. 2 Tim. iii. 15.

2. Praef. in 1 Tim.

3. Serm. 177, n. 7.

4. 1 Thess. iii. 2. 1 Cor. iv. 17.

5. 1 Tim. vi. 11.

6. Phil. ii. 20.

7. 1 Tim. i. 18.

8. Acts xviii.

9. 1 Cor. xvi. 10.

10. Heb. xiii. 23.

11. 1 Tim. iv. 14.

12. 1 Tim. {}.

13. Hom. 15, in 1 Tim.

14. Eus. l. 3, c. {} Conc. t. 4, p. 699.

15. 2 Tim. iii. 1, 2.

16. 1 Tim. v. 23.

17. In the Apocalypse, which was written in the year 95, Christ threatens the bishop of Ephesus, because he was fallen from his first charity, and exhorts him to do penance and return to his first works. (Apoc. xi. 4.) Calmet says, that this bishop could be no other than St. Timothy; Pererius, Cornelieus a Lapide, Grotius, Alcazar, Bossuet, and other learned men, agree in this point; also Tillemont, t. 2, p. 147, and Bollandus ad 21 Jan. pp. 563 & 564.

Nicholas a Lyra and Ribera cannot be persuaded that St. Timothy ever deserved such a censure, unless we understand it only of his flock.

The others say, he might have fallen into some venial remissness in not reprehending the vices of others with sufficient vigor; which fault he repaired, upon this admonition, with such earnestness, as to have given occasion to his martyrdom, in 97. He was succeeded in the see of Ephesus by John I., who was consecrated by St. John Evangelist. (See Consitut. Apostol. l. 8, c. 46.) Onesiumus was third bishop of Ephesus. See Le Quien Oriens. Chris. t. 1, p. 672.

18. Carm. 26.

19. L. 3, c. 2.

20. In Vigilant. c. 2.

21. Hom. 1, ad Pop. Antioch.

22. 1 Tim. iv. 7 and 13.

ST. BABYLAS,

BISHOP OF ANTIOCH AND MARTYR.

From St. Chrysostom, l. contra Gentiles de S. Babyla, and hom. de S.

Babyla, t. 2, ed. Ben. p. 531. He wrote the first discourse against the Gentiles, expressly to confound them by the miracles of this saint. He spoke the second five years after, in 3871 on St. Babylas's feast, before a numerous auditory, and mentions Flavian, the bishop of Antioch, and others, who were to speak after him on the same subject. The miracles were recent, performed before the eyes of many then present.

Nome of the three acts of this saint in Bollandus can be authentic. See Tillemont, Mem. t. 3, p. 400, and Hist. des Empereurs, t. 3, and F.

Merlin. Dissertation contre M. Bayle sur ce que rapporte S. Chrysostome du Martyre de S. Babylas, Mem. de Trevoux, Juin 1737, p. 1051. Also Stilting, the Bollandist, in Vit. S. Chrysost. --15. p 439, ad 14 Septemb. t. 4.

About the year 250.

THE most celebrated of the ancient bishops of Antioch, after St.

Ignatius, was St. Babylas, who succeeded Zebinus in the year 237, and governed that church with great zeal and virtue, about thirteen years, under the emperors Gordian, Philip, and Decius. Philip, an Arabian by birth, and of mean extraction, raised by the young emperor Gordian to be prefect of the praetorian guards, perfidiously murdered his master at the head of his victorious army in Persia, and caused himself to be acknowledged emperor by the senate and people of Rome, in the year 244.

We have very imperfect histories of his reign. Eusebius says that he abolished the public stews and promiscuous bathing in Rome, which Alexander Severus, the most virtuous of the heathen emperors, had in vain attempted to do. The same historian adds, it was averred[1] that Philip, being a Christian, subjected himself to canonical penance at Antioch, where being arrived on the eve of a great festival, as the chronicle of Alexandria relates, he presented himself at the Christian oratory, with his wife; but being excluded by the bishop, with a meek rebuke for his crimes, he made his exomologesis, or confession, and ranked himself among the penitents without doors. St. Jerom, Vincent of Lerins, Orosius, and others, positively affirm that this emperor was a Christian: and Eusebius, Rufinus, St. Jerom, Vincent of Lerins, and Syncellus say, that Origen wrote two letters, one to the emperor Philip, another to his wife, with an authority which the Christian priesthood gave him over emperors.

Philip a.s.sisted at the heathenish solemnity of the thousandth year of Rome; but his presence was necessary on that occasion, nor is he said to have offered sacrifice. He was indeed a bad Christian, and probably only a catechumen, an ambitious and cruel tyrant, who procured the death of Misitheus, father-in-law of Gordian, murdered Gordian himself to usurp his empire, and put to death the young prince, son of the king of Persia, of the Parthians, left a hostage in his hands: circ.u.mstances mentioned by St. Chrysostom. Having reigned something upwards of five years, he was slain with his son Philip, his colleague in the empire, by Decius, about the middle of the year 249. The peace and favor which the church had enjoyed during his reign, had much increased her numbers, but had relaxed the fervor of many, as we see in St. Cyprian's works, and in the life of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. Whole cities had embraced the faith, and public {212} churches were erected. Decius equally hated the Philips and the Christian religion, against which he published the most cruel edicts in the year 250; which caused the seventh general persecution, permitted by G.o.d to purge away the dross to his flock, and to awake them to fervor.