The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints Part 63

SS. APOLLONIUS, PHILEMON, &c., MARTYRS.

APOLLONIUS was a zealous holy anch.o.r.et, and was apprehended by the persecutors at Antinous in Egypt. Many heathens came to insult and affront him while in chains; and among others one Philemon, a musician, very famous, and much admired by the people. He treated the martyr as an impious person and a seducer, and one that deserved the public hatred.

To his injuries the saint only answered, "My son, may G.o.d have mercy on thee, and not lay these reproaches to thy charge." This his meekness wrought so powerfully on Philemon, that he forthwith confessed himself a Christian. Both were brought before the judge whom Metaphrastes and Usuard call Arian, and who had already put to death SS. Asclas, Timothy, Paphnutius, and several other martyrs: after making them suffer all manner of tortures, he condemned them to be burnt alive. When the fire was kindled about them, Apollonius prayed: "Lord, deliver not to beasts the souls who confess thee; but manifest thy power." At that instant a cloud of dew encompa.s.sed the martyrs, and put out the fire. The judge and people cried out at this miracle: "The G.o.d of the Christians is the great and only G.o.d." The prefect of Egypt being informed of it, caused the judge and the two confessors to be brought, loaded with irons, to Alexandria. During the journey, Apollonius, by his instructions, prevailed so far upon those who conducted him, that they presented themselves also to the judge with their prisoners, and confessed themselves likewise to be Christians. The prefect, finding their constancy invincible, caused them all to be thrown into the sea, about the year 311. Their bodies were afterwards found on the sh.o.r.e, and were all put into one sepulchre. "By whom," says Rufinus, "many miracles are wrought to the present time, and the vows and prayers of all are received, and are accomplished. Hither the Lord was pleased to bring me, and to fulfil my requests." See Rufinus, Vit. Patr l. 2, c. 19, p. 477.

Palladius Lausiac. c. 65, 66.

ST. JULIAN, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO, C.

HE presided in the fourteenth and fifteenth councils of Toledo. King Wemba, falling sick, received penance and the monastic habit from his hands, and recovering, lived afterwards a monk. St. Julian has left us a History of the Wars of king Wemba, a book against the Jews, and three books On Prognostics, or on death, and the state of souls after death.

He teaches that love, and a desire of being united to G.o.d, ought to extinguish in us the natural fear of death: that the saints in heaven pray for us, earnestly desire our happiness, and know our actions, either in G.o.d whom they behold, and in whom they discover all truth which it concerns them to know; or by the angels, the messengers of G.o.d on earth: but that the d.a.m.ned do not ordinarily know what pa.s.ses on earth, because they neither see G.o.d nor converse with our angels. He says that prayers for the dead are thanksgivings for the good, a propitiation for the souls in purgatory, but {549} no relief to the d.a.m.ned. He was raised to the see of Toledo in 680, and died in 690. See Ildefonse of Toledo, Append. Hom. Ill.u.s.tr.

ST. DUTHAK, BISHOP OF ROSS, IN SCOTLAND, C

HIS zeal and labors in preaching the word of G.o.d, his contempt of himself, his compa.s.sion for the poor and for sinners, his extreme love of poverty, never reserving any thing for himself, and the extraordinary austerity of his life, to which he had inured himself from his childhood, are much extolled by the author of his life. The same writer a.s.sures us, that he was famous for several miracles and predictions, and that he foretold an invasion of the Danes, which happened ten years after his death, in 1263, in the reign of Alexander III., when, with their king Achol, they were defeated by Alexander Stuart, great-grandfather to Robert, the first king of that family. This victory was ascribed to the intercession of St. Andrew and St. Duthak. Our saint, after longing desires of being united to G.o.d, pa.s.sed joyfully to bliss, in 1253. His relics, kept in the collegiate church of Thane, in the county of Ross, were resorted to by pilgrims from all parts of Scotland. Lesley, the pious bishop of Ross, (who, after remaining four years in prison with queen Mary, pa.s.sed into France, was chosen suffragan of Rouen, by cardinal Bourbon, and died at Brussels, in 1591,) had an extraordinary devotion to this saint, the chief patron of his diocese. See Lesley, Descript. Scot. p. 27, and the MS. life of St.

Duthak, compiled by a Scottish Jesuit, nephew by the mother to bishop Lesley, and native of that diocese. See also King in Calend.

ST. ROSA, OF VITERBO, VIRGIN.

FROM her childhood she addicted herself entirely to the practice of mortification and a.s.siduous prayer; she was favored with the gift of miracles, and an extraordinary talent of converting the most hardened sinners. She professed the third rule of St. Francis, living always in the house of her father in Viterbo, where she died in 1261. See Wading's Annals, and Barbaza, Vies des SS. du Tiers Ordre, t. 2, p. 77.

ST. SENAN, B.C.

HE was born in the country of Hy-Conalls, in Ireland, in the latter part of the fifth century, was a disciple of the abbots Ca.s.sidus and Natal, or Naal: then travelled for spiritual improvement to Rome, and thence into Britain. In this kingdom he contracted a close friends.h.i.+p with St.

David. After his return he founded many churches in Ireland, and a great monastery in Inis-Cathaig, an island lying at the mouth of the river Shannon, which he governed, and in which he continued to reside after he was advanced to the episcopal dignity. The abbots, his successors for several centuries, were all bishops, till this great diocese was divided into three, namely, of Limerick, Killaloe, and Ardfert. St. Senan died on the same day and year with St. David; but was honored in the Irish church on the 8th of March. A town in Cornwall bears the name of St.

Senan. See his acts in Colgan, p. 602.

{550}

ST. PSALMOD, OR SAUMAY, ANCRORET.

HE was born in Ireland, and, retiring into France, led an eremitical life at Limousin, where he acquired great reputation for his sanct.i.ty and miracles. He died about 589. See the Martyrology of Evreux.

MARCH IX.

ST. FRANCES, WIDOW, FOUNDRESS OF THE COLLATINES.

Abridged from her life by her confessor Canon. Mattiotti; and that by Magdalen Dell'A{}ara, superioress of the Oblates, or Coliatines. Helyot, Hist. des Ordr. Mon. t. 6, p. 208.

A.D. 1440.

ST. FRANCES was born at Rome in 1384. Her parents, Paul de Buxo and Jacobella Rofredeschi, were both of ill.u.s.trious families. She imbibed early sentiments of piety, and such was her love of purity from her tender age, that she would not suffer her own father to touch even her hands, unless covered. She had always an aversion to the amus.e.m.e.nts of children, and loved solitude and prayer. At eleven years of age she desired to enter a monastery, but, in obedience to her parents, was married to a rich young Roman n.o.bleman, named Laurence Ponzani, in 1396.

A grievous sickness showed how disagreeable this kind of life was to her inclinations. She joined with it her former spirit; kept herself as retired as she could, shunning feastings and public meetings. All her delight was in prayer, meditation, and visiting churches. Above all, her obedience and condescension to her husband was inimitable, which engaged such a return of affection, that for forty years which they lived together, there never happened the least disagreement; and their whole life was a constant strife and emulation to prevent each other in mutual complaisance and respect. While she was at her prayers or other exercises, if called away by her husband, or the meanest person of her family, she laid all aside to obey without delay, saying: "A married woman must, when called upon, quit her devotions to G.o.d at the altar, to find him in her household affairs." G.o.d was pleased to show her the merit of this her obedience; for the authors of her life relate, that being called away four times in beginning the same verse of a psalm in our Lady's office, returning the fifth time, she found that verse written in golden letters. She treated her domestics not as servants, but as brothers and sisters, and future co-heirs in heaven; and studied by all means in her power to induce them seriously to labor for their salvation. Her mortifications were extraordinary, especially when, some years before her husband's death, she was permitted by him to inflict on her body what hards.h.i.+ps she pleased. She from that time abstained from wine, fish, and dainty meats, with a total abstinence from flesh, unless in her greatest sicknesses. Her ordinary diet was hard and mouldy bread.

She would procure secretly, out of the pouches of the beggars, their dry crusts in exchange for better bread. When she {551} fared the best, she only added to bread a few unsavory herbs without oil, and drank nothing but water, making use of a human skull for her cup. She ate but once a day, and by long abstinence had lost all relish of what she took. Her garments were of coa.r.s.e serge, and she never wore linen, not even in sickness. Her discipline was armed with rowels and sharp points. She wore continually a hair s.h.i.+rt, and a girdle of horse-hair. An iron girdle had so galled her flesh, that her confessor obliged her to lay it aside. If she inadvertently chanced to offend G.o.d in the least, she severely that instant punished the part that had offended; as the tongue, by sharply biting it, &c. Her example was of such edification, that many Roman ladies having renounced a life of idleness, pomp, and softness, joined her in pious exercises, and put themselves under the direction of the Benedictin monks of the congregation of Monte-Oliveto, without leaving the world, making vows, or wearing any particular habit.

St. Frances prayed only for children that they might be citizens of heaven, and when she was blessed with them, it was her whole care to make them saints.

It pleased G.o.d, for her sanctification, to make trial of her virtue by many afflictions. During the troubles which ensued upon the invasion of Rome by Ladislas, king of Naples, and the great schism under pope John XXIII. at the time of opening the council of Constance, in 1413, her husband, with his brother-in-law Paulucci, was banished Rome, his estate confiscated, his house pulled down, and his eldest son, John Baptist, detained a hostage. Her soul remained calm amidst all those storms: she said with Job: "_G.o.d hath given, and G.o.d hath taken away._ I rejoice in these losses, because they are G.o.d's will. Whatever he sends I shall continually bless and praise his name for." The schism being extinguished by the council of Constance, and tranquillity restored at Rome, her husband recovered his dignity and estate. Some time after, moved by the great favors St. Frances received from heaven, and by her eminent virtue, he gave her full leave to live as she pleased; and he himself chose to serve G.o.d in a state of continency. He permitted her in his own life-time to found a monastery of nuns, called Oblates, for the reception of such of her own s.e.x as were disposed to embrace a religious life. The foundation of this house was in 1425. She gave them the rule of St. Benedict, adding some particular const.i.tutions of her own, and put them under the direction of the congregation of the Olivetans. The house being too small for the numbers that fled to this sanctuary from the corruption of the world, she would gladly have removed her community to a larger house; but not finding one suitable, she enlarged it, in 1433, from which year the founding of the Order is dated. It was approved by pope Eugenius IV. in 1437. They are called Collatines, perhaps from the quarter of Rome in which they are situated; and Oblates, because they call their profession an oblation, and use in it the word offero, not profiteer. St. Frances could not yet join her new family; but as soon as she had settled her domestic affairs, after the death of her husband, she went barefoot, with a cord about her neck, to the monastery which she had founded, and there, prostrate on the ground, before the religious, her spiritual children, begged to be admitted. She accordingly took the habit on St. Benedict's day, in 1437. She always sought the meanest employments in the house, being fully persuaded she was of all the most contemptible before G.o.d; and she labored to appear as mean in the eyes of the world as she was in her own. She continued the same humiliations, and the same universal poverty, though soon after chosen superioress of her congregation. Almighty G.o.d bestowed on her humility, extraordinary graces, and supernatural favors, as frequent visions, raptures, and the gift of prophecy. She enjoyed the familiar conversation of her angel-guardian, as her life and the process of her canonization {552} attest. She was extremely affected by meditating on our Saviour's pa.s.sion, which she had always present to her mind. At ma.s.s she was so absorbed in G.o.d as to seem immoveable, especially after holy communion: she often fell into ecstasies of love and devotion. She was particularly devout to St. John the Evangelist, and above all to our Lady, under whose singular protection she put her Order. Going out to see her son John Baptist, who was dangerously sick, she fell so ill herself that she could not return to her monastery at night. After having foretold her death, and received the sacraments, she expired on the 9th of March, in the year 1440, and of her age the fifty-sixth. G.o.d attested her sanct.i.ty by miracles: she was honored among the saints immediately after her death, and solemnly canonized by Paul V. in 1608.

Her shrine in Rome is most magnificent and rich: and her festival is kept as a holyday in the city, with great solemnity. The Oblates make no solemn vows, only a promise of obedience to the mother-president, enjoy pensions, inherit estates, and go abroad with leave. Their abbey in Rome is filled with ladies of the first rank.

In a religious life, in which a regular distribution of holy employments and duties takes up the whole day, and leaves no interstices of time for idleness, sloth, or the world, hours pa.s.s in these exercises with the rapidity of moments, and moments by fervor of the desires bear the value of years. There is not an instant in which a soul is not employed for G.o.d, and studies not with her whole heart to please him. Every step, every thought and desire, is a sacrifice of fidelity, obedience, and love offered to him. Even meals, recreation, and rest, are sanctified by this intention; and from the religious vows and habitual purpose of the soul of consecrating herself entirely to G.o.d in time and eternity, every action, as St. Thomas teaches, renews and contains the fervor and merit of this entire consecration, of which it is a part. In a secular life, a person by regularity in the employment of his time, and fervor in devoting himself to G.o.d in all his actions and designs, may in some degree enjoy the same happiness and advantage. This St. Frances perfectly practised, even before she renounced the world. She lived forty years with her husband without ever giving him the least occasion of offence; and by the fervor with which she conversed of heaven, she seemed already to have quitted the earth, and to have made paradise her ordinary dwelling.

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA, B.C.

HE was younger brother to St. Basil the Great; was educated in polite and sacred studies, and married to a virtuous lady. He afterwards renounced the world, and was ordained lector; but was overcome by his violent pa.s.sion for eloquence to teach rhetoric. St. Gregory n.a.z.ianzen wrote to him in the strongest terms, exhorting him to renounce that paltry or ign.o.ble glory, as he elegantly calls it.[1] This letter produced its desired effect. St. Gregory returned to the sacred ministry in the lower functions of the altar: after some time he was called by his brother Basil to a.s.sist him in his pastoral duties, and in 372 was chosen bishop of Nyssa, a city of Cappadocia, near the Lesser Armenia.

The Arians, who trembled at his name, prevailed with Demosthenes, vicar or deputy-governor of the province, to banish him. Upon the death of the Arian emperor, Valens, in 378, St. Gregory was restored to his see by the emperor Gratian. Our holy prelate was chosen by his colleagues to redress the abuses and dissensions which heresy had introduced {553} in Arabia and Palestine. He a.s.sisted at the council of Constantinople in 381, and was always regarded as the centre of the Catholic communion in the East. Those prelates only who joined themselves to him, were looked upon as orthodox. He died about the year 400, probably on the 10th of January, on which the Greeks have always kept his festival: the Latins honor his memory on the 9th of March. The high reputation of his learning and virtue procured him the t.i.tle of Father of the Fathers, as the seventh general council testifies. His sermons are the monuments of his piety; but his great penetration and learning appear more in his polemic works, especially in his twelve books against Eunomius. See his life collected from his works, St. Greg. n.a.z.ianzen, Socrates, and Theodoret, by Hermant, Tillemont, t. 9, p. 561; Ceillier, t. 8, p. 200.

Dr. Cave imagines, that St. Gregory continued to cohabit with his wife after he was bishop. But St. Jerom testifies that the custom of the eastern churches did not suffer such a thing. She seems to have lived to see him bishop, and to have died about the year 384; but she professed a state of continency: hence St. Gregory n.a.z.ianzen, in his short eulogium of her, says, she rivalled her brothers-in-law who were in the priesthood, and calls her sacred, or one consecrated to G.o.d; probably she was a deaconess.

Footnotes: 1. [Greek: {apstzen eaostzian}], Naz. {}.

APPENDIX

ON

THE WRITINGS OF ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA.

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA wrote many learned works extant in three volumes in folio, published by the learned Jesuit, Fronto le Duc, at Paris, an.

1615 and 1638. They are eternal monuments of this father's great zeal, piety, and eloquence. Photius commends his diction, as surpa.s.sing that of all other rhetoricians, in perspicuity, elegance, and a pleasing turn of expression, and says, that in the beauty and sweetness of his eloquence, and the copiousness of his arguments in his polemic works against Eunomius, he far outwent the rest who handled the same subjects.

He wrote many commentaries on holy scripture. The first is his Hexaemeron, or book on the six days' work of the creation of the world.

It is a supplement to his brother Basil's work on the same subject, who had omitted the obscurer questions, above the reach of the vulgar, to whom he preached. Gregory filled up that deficiency, at the request of many learned men, with an accuracy that became the brother of the great Basil. He shows in this work a great knowledge of philosophy. He finishes it by saying, The widow that offered her two mites did not hinder the magnificent presents of the rich, nor did they who offered skins, wood, and goats' hair towards the tabernacle, hinder those who could give gold, silver, and precious stones. "I shall be happy," says he, "if I can present hairs; and shall rejoice to see others add ornaments of purple, or gold tissue." His book, On the Workmans.h.i.+p of Man, may be looked upon as a continuation of the former, though it was written first. He shows it was suitable that man, being made to command in quality of king all this lower creation, should find his palace already adorned, and that other things should be created before he appeared who was to be the spectator of the miracles of the Omnipotent.

His frame is so admirable, his nature so excellent, that the whole Blessed Trinity proceeds as it were by a council, to his formation. He is a king, by his superiority and command over all other creatures by his gift of reason; is part spiritual, by which he can unite himself to G.o.d; part material, by which he has it in his power to use and even enslave himself to creatures. Virtue is his purple garment, immortality his sceptre, and eternal glory his crown. His resemblance to his Creator consist in the soul only, that is, in its moral virtues and G.o.d's grace; which divine resemblance men most basely efface in themselves by sin. He speaks of the dignity and spiritual nature of the soul, and the future resurrection of the body, and concludes with an anatomical description of it, which shows him to have been well skilled in medicine, and in that branch of natural philosophy, for that age. The two homilies on the words, _Let us make man_, are falsely ascribed to him. When {554} desired by one Caesarius to prescribe him rules of a perfect virtue, he did this by his Life of Moses, the pattern of virtue. He closes it with this lesson, that perfection consists not in avoiding sin for fear of torments, as slaves do, nor for the hope of recompense, as mercenaries do; but in "fearing, as the only thing to be dreaded, to lose the friends.h.i.+p of G.o.d; and in having only one desire, viz., of G.o.d's friends.h.i.+p, in which alone man's spiritual life consists. This is to be obtained by fixing the mind only on divine and heavenly things." We have next his two treatises, On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, and An Exposition of the sixth Psalm, full of allegorical and moral instructions. In the first of these, extolling the divine sentiments and instructions of those holy prayers, he says, that all Christians learned them, and thought that time lost in which they had them not in their mouths: even little children and old men sung them; all in affliction found them their comfort sent by G.o.d those who travelled by land or sea, those who were employed in sedentary trades; and the faithful of all ages, s.e.xes, and conditions, sick and well, made the Psalms their occupation. These divine canticles were sung by them in all times of joy, in marriages and festivals; by day, and in the night vigils, &c.

His eight homilies, On the three first Chapters of Ecclesiastes, are an excellent moral instruction and literal explication of that book. He addressed his fifteen homilies, On the Book of Canticles, which he had preached to his flock, to Olympias, a lady of Constantinople, who, after twenty months' marriage, being left a widow, distributed a great estate to the church and poor, a great part by the hands of our saint, whom she had settled an acquaintance with in a journey he had made to the imperial city. St. Gregory extols the excellency of that divine book, not to be read but by pure hearts, disengaged from all love of creatures, and free from all corporeal images. He says the Holy Ghost instructs us by degrees; by the book of Proverbs to avoid sin; by Ecclesiastes to draw our affections from creatures; by this of Canticles he teaches perfection, which is pure charity. He explains it mystically.

He has five orations On the Lord's Prayer. In the first, he elegantly shows the universal, indispensable necessity of prayer, which alone unites the heart to G.o.d, and preserves it from the approach of sin.

Every breath we draw ought also to be accompanied with thanksgiving, as it brings us innumerable benefits from G.o.d, which we ought continually to acknowledge. But we must only pray for spiritual, not temporal things. In the second, he shows that none can justly call G.o.d Father, who remain in sin, without desires of repentance, and who consequently bear the ensigns of the devil. Resemblance with G.o.d is the mark of being his son; that t.i.tle further obliges us to have our minds and hearts always in heaven. By the next we pray that G.o.d alone may reign in us, and his will be ever done by us; and that the devil or self-love never have any share in our hearts or actions. By the fourth we ask bread, _i.e._, absolute necessaries, not dainties, not riches, or any thing superfluous, or for the world, and even bread only for today, without solicitude for to-morrow, which perhaps will never come: all irregular desires and all occasions of them must be excluded. "The serpent is watching at your heel, but do you watch his head: give him no admittance into your mind: from the least entrance he will draw in after him the foldings of his whole body. If Eve's counsellor persuades you that any thing looks beautiful and tastes sweet, if you listen you are soon drawn into gluttony, and l.u.s.t, and avarice, &c." The fifth pet.i.tion he thus paraphrases, "I have forgiven my debtors, do not reject your suppliant.

I dismissed my debtor cheerful and free. I am your debtor, send me not away sorrowful. May my dispositions, my sentence prevail with you. I have pardoned, pardon: I have showed compa.s.sion, imitate your servant's mercy. My offences are indeed far more grievous; but consider how much you excel in all good. It is just that you manifest to sinners a mercy suiting your infinite greatness. I have given proof of mercy in little things, according to the capacity of my nature; but your bounty is not to be confined by the narrowness of my power, &c." His eight sermons, On the Eight Beat.i.tudes, are written in the same style. What he says in them on the motives of humility, which he thinks is meant by the first beat.i.tude, of poverty of spirit, and on meekness, proves how much his heart was filled with those divine virtues.

Besides what we have of St. Gregory on the holy scripture, time has preserved us many other works of piety of this father. His discourse ent.i.tled, On his Ordination, ought to be called, On the Dedication. It was spoken by him in the consecration of a magnificent church, built by Rufin, (praefect of the praetorium,) ann. 394, at the Borough of the Oak, near Chalcedon. His sermon, On loving the Poor, is a pathetic exhortation to alms, from the last sentence on the wicked for a neglect of that duty. "At which threat," he says, "I am most vehemently terrified, and disturbed in mind." He excites to compa.s.sion for the lepers in particular, who, under their miseries, are our brethren, and it is only G.o.d's favor that has preserved us sound rather than them; and who knows what we ourselves may become? His dialogue Against Fate was a disputation with a heathen philosopher, who maintained a destiny or overruling fate in all things. His canonical epistle to Letoius, bishop of Melitine, metropolis of Armenia, has a place among the canons of penance in the Greek church, published by Beveridge. He condemns apostacy to perpetual penance, deprived of the sacraments till the article of death: if only extorted by torments, for nine years; the same law for witchcraft; nine years for simple fornication; eighteen for adultery; twenty-seven for {555} murder, or for rapine. But he permits the terms to be abridged in cases of extraordinary fervor. Simple theft he orders to be expiated by the sinner giving all his substance to the poor; if he has none, to work to relieve them.

His discourse against those who defer baptism, is an invitation to sinners to penance, and chiefly of catechumens to baptism, death being always uncertain. He is surprised to see an earthquake or pestilence drive all to penance and to the font: though an apoplexy or other sudden death may as easily surprise men any night of their lives. He relates this frightful example. When the Nomades Scythians plundered those parts, Archias, a young n.o.bleman of Comanes, whom he knew very well, and who deferred his baptism, fell into their hands, and was shot to death by their arrows, crying out lamentably, "Mountains and woods, baptize me; trees and rocks, give me the grace of the sacrament." Which miserable death more afflicted the city than all the rest of the war.

His sermons, Against Fornication, On Penance, On Alms, On Pentecost, are in the same style. In that against Usurers, he exerts a more than ordinary zeal, and tells them: "Love the poor. In his necessity he has recourse to you to a.s.sist his misery, but by lending him on usury you increase it; you sow new miseries on his sorrows, and add to his afflictions. In appearance you do him a pleasure, but in reality ruin him, like one who, overeome by a sick man's importunities, gives him wine, a present satisfaction, but a real poison. Usury gives no relief, but makes your neighbor's want greater than it was. The usurer is no way profitable to the republic, neither by tilling the ground, by trade, &c.; yet idle at home, would have all to produce to him; hates all he gains not by. But though you were to give alms of these unjust exactions, they would carry along with them the tears of others robbed by them. The beggar that receives, did he know it, would refuse to be fed with the flesh and blood of a brother; with bread extorted by rapine, from other poor. Give it back to him from whom you unjustly took it. But to hide their malice, they change the name usury into milder words, calling it interest or moderate profit, like the heathens, who called their furies by the soft name Eumenides." He relates that a rich usurer of Nyssa, so covetous as to deny himself and children necessaries, and not to use the bath to save three farthings, dying suddenly, left his money all hid and buried where his children could never find it, who by that means were all reduced to beggary. "The usurers answer me," says he, "then we will not lend; and what will the poor do? I bid them give, and exhort to lend, but without interest; for he that refuses to lend, and he that lends at usury, are equally criminal;" viz. if the necessity of another be extreme. His sermon On the Lent Fast displays the advantage of fasting for the health of both body and soul; he demands these forty days' strenuous labor to cure all their vices, and insists on total abstinence from wine at large, and that weakness of const.i.tution and health is ordinarily a vain pretence.

Saint Gregory's great Catechistical Discourse is commended by Theodoret, (dial. 2 & 3;) Leontius, (b. 3;) Enthymius, (Panopl. p. 215;) Germa.n.u.s, patr. of Constantinople, (in Photius, cod. 233, &c.) The last lines are an addition. In the fortieth chapter he expounds to the catechumens the mysteries of the Unity and Trinity of G.o.d, and the Incarnation: also the two sacraments of baptism and the body of Christ, in which latter Christ's real body is mixed with our corruptible bodies, to bestow on us immortality and grace.

In his book upon Virginity he extols its merit and dignity.

St. Gregory was much scandalized in his journey to Jerusalem to see contentions reign in that holy place; yet he had the comfort to find there several persons of great virtue, especially three very devout ladies, to whom he afterwards wrote a letter, in which he says, (t. 3, pp. 655, 656:) "When I saw those holy places, I was filled with a joy and pleasure which no tongue can express." Soon after his return, he wrote a short treatise on those who go to Jerusalem, (t. 3. app. p. 72,) in which he condemns pilgrimages, when made an occasion of sloth, dissipation of mind, and other dangers; and observes that they are no part of the gospel precepts. Dr. Cave (p. 44) borrows the sophistry of Du Moulin to employ this piece against the practice of pilgrimages; but in part very unjustly, as Gretser (not. in Notas Molinei) demonstrates.

Some set too great a value on pilgrimages, and made them an essential part of perfection: and by them even many monks and nuns exchanged their solitude into a vagabond life. These abuses St. Gregory justly reproves.

What he says, that he himself received no good by visiting the holy places, must be understood to be a Miosis, or extenuation to check the monks' too ardent pa.s.sion for pilgrimages, and only means, the presence of those holy places, barely of itself, contributes nothing to a man's sanctification: but he does not deny it to be profitable by many devout persons uniting together in prayer and mortification, and by exciting hearts more powerfully to devotion. "Movemur locis ipsis in quibus eorum quos admiramur aut diligimus adsunt vestigia," said Atticas in Cicero.

"Me quidem illae ipsae nostrae Athenae, non tam operibus magnificis exquisitisque antiquorum artibus delectant, quam recordatione summorum virorum, ubi quis habitare, ubi sedere, ubi disputare sit, solitus, studiuseque eorum sepulchra contemplor." Much more must the sight of the places of Christ's mysteries stir up our sentiments and love. Why else did St. Gregory go over Calvary, Golgotha, Olivet, Bethlehem? What was the unspeakable (spiritual, certainly, not corporal) pleasure he was filled with at their sight? a real spiritual {556} benefit, and that which is sought by true pilgrims. Does he not relate and approve the pilgrimages of his friend, the monk Olympius? Nor could he be ignorant of the doctrice and practice of the church. He must know in the third century that his countryman Alexander, a bishop in Cappadocia, admonished by divine oracle, went to Jerusalem to pray, and to visit the holy places, &c., as Eusebius relates; (Hist. lib. 6, cap. 11, p. 212,) and that this had been always the tradition and practice; "Longum est nuns ab ascensu Domini usque ad praesentem diem per singulas aetates currere, qui episcoporum, qui martyrum, qui eloquentium in doctrine ecclesiastica, virorum venerint Hierosolymam, putantes se minus religionis, minus habere scientiae, nec summam ut dicitur manum accep.i.s.se virtutum, nisi in illis Christum adora.s.sent locis de quibus primum Evangelium de patibulo coruscaverat." St. Jerom, in ep. Paulae et Eustochii ad Marcellam, (T. 4, p. 550, ed. Ben) As for the abuses which St. Gregory censures, they are condemned in the canon law, by all divines and men of sound judgment. If with Benedict XIV. we grant this father reprehended the abuses of pilgrimages, so as to think the devotion itself not much to be recommended, this can only regard the circ.u.mstances of many who abuse them, which all condemn. He could not oppose the torrent of other fathers, and the practice of the whole church. And his devotion to holy places, relics, &c. is evident in his writings, and in the practice of St. Macrina and his whole family.

His discourse On the Resurrection is the dialogue he had with his sister St. Macrina the day before her death. His treatise On the Name and Profession of a Christian, was written to show no one ought to bear that name, who does not practise the rules of this profession, and who has not its spirit, without which, a man may perform exterior duties, but will upon occasions betray himself, and forget his obligation. When a mountebank at Alexandria had taught an ape dressed in woman's clothes to dance most ingeniously, the people took it for a woman, till one threw some almonds on the stage; for then the beast could no longer contain, but tearing off its clothes, went about the stage picking up its dainty fruit, and showed itself to be an ape. Occasions of vain-glory, ambition, pleasure, &c., are the devil's baits and prove who are Christians, and who hypocrites and dissemblers under so great a name, whose lives are an injury and blasphemy against Christ and his holy religion. His book On Perfection teaches, that that life is most perfect which resembles nearest the life of Christ in humility and charity, and in dying to all pa.s.sions and to the love of creatures that in which Christ most perfectly lives, and which is his best living image, which appears in a man's thoughts, words, and actions; for these show the image which is imprinted on the soul. But there is no perfection which is not occupied in continually advancing higher. His book On the Resolution of Perfection to the monks, shows perfection to consist in every action being referred to G.o.d, and done perfectly conformable to his will in the spirit of Christ. St. Gregory had excommunicated certain persons, who instead of repenting, fell to threats and violence. The saint made against them his sermon, ent.i.tled, Against those who do not receive chastis.e.m.e.nt submissively; in which, after exhorting them to submission, he offers himself to suffer torments and death, closing it thus: "How can we murmur to suffer, who are the ministers of a G.o.d crucified? yet under all you inflict, I receive your insolences and persecutions as a father and mother do from their dearest children, with tenderness." In the discourse On Children dying without Baptism, he shows that such can never enjoy G.o.d; yet feel not the severe torments of the rest of the d.a.m.ned. We have his sermons On Pentecost, Christ's Birth, Baptism, Ascension, and On his Resurrection, (but of these last only the first, third, and fourth are St. Gregory's) and two On St.

Stephen, three On the forty Martyrs: the lives of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Theodorus, St. Ephrem, St. Meletius, and his sister, St. Macrina: his panegyric on his brother St. Basil the Great, the funeral oration of Pulcheria, daughter to the Emperor Theodosius, six years old, and that of his mother, the empress Flaccilla, who died soon after her at the waters in Thrace. St. Gregory was invited to make these two discourses, in 385, when he was at Constantinople. We have only five of St. Gregory's letters in his works. Zacagnius has published fourteen others out of the Vatican library. Caraccioli of Pisa, in 1731, has given us seven more with tedious notes.

Saint Gregory surpa.s.ses himself in perspicuity and strength of reasoning, in his polemic works against all the chief heretics of his time. His twelve books against Eunomius, were ever most justly valued above the rest. St. Basil had refuted that heresiarch's apology; nor durst he publish any answer till after the death of that eloquent champion of the faith. Then the Apology of his Apology began to creep privately abroad. St. Gregory got at last a copy, and wrote his twelve excellent books, in which he vindicates St. Basil's memory, and gives many secret histories of the base Eunomius's life. He proves against him the Divinity and Consubstantiality of G.o.d the Son. Though he employs the scripture with extraordinary sagacity, he says, tradition, by succession from the apostles, is alone sufficient to condemn heretics. (Or. 3, contra Eunom. p. 123.) We have his treatise To Ablavius, that there are not three G.o.ds. A treatise On Faith also against the Arians. That On Common Notions is an explication of the terms used about the Blessed Trinity. We have his Ten Syllogisms against the Manichees, proving that evil cannot be a G.o.d. The heresy {557} of the Apollinarists beginning to be broached, St. Gregory wrote to Theophilus patriarch of Alexandria, against them, showing there is but one Person in Christ. But his great work against Apollinaris is his Antirretic, quoted by Leontius, the sixth general council, &c. Only a fragment was printed in the edition of this father's works; but it was published from MSS. by Zacagnius, prefect of the Vatican Library, in 1698. He shows in it that the Divinity could not suffer, and that there must be two natures in Christ, who was perfect G.o.d and perfect man. He proves also, against Apollinaris, that Christ had a human soul with a human understanding.

His book of Testimonies against the Jews is another fruit of his zeal.

St. Gregory so clearly establishes the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, that some Greeks, obstinate in that heresy, erased out of his writings the words _out of_, as they confessed in a council at Constantinople, in 1280. He expressly condemned Nestorianism before it was broached, and says, "No one dare call the holy Virgin and mother of G.o.d, mother of man." (Ep. ad Eustath. p. 1093.) He a.s.serts her virginity in and after the birth of Christ. (Or. contr. Ennom. p. 108, and Serm.

in natale Christi, p. 776.) He is no less clear for transubstantiation in his great catechistical discourse (c. 37, pp. 534, 535,) for the sacrifice and the altar. Or in Bapt. Christi, p. 801. Private confession of sins is plain from his epistle to Letoius, (p. 954,) in which he writes thus: "Whoever secretly steals another man's goods, if he afterwards discovers his sins by declaration to the priest, his heart being changed, he will cure his wound, giving what he has to the poor."

This for occult theft, for which no canonical penance was prescribed. He inculcates the authority of priests of binding and loosing before G.o.d, (Serm. do Castig. 746, 747,) and calls St. Peter "prince of the apostolic choir," (Serm. 2, de Sancto Stephano edito a Zacagnio, p.

339,) and (ib. p. 343,) "the head of the apostles;" and adds, "In glorifying him all the members of the church are glorified, and that it is founded on him." He writes very expressly and at length on the invocation of saints, and says they enjoy the beatific vision immediately after death, in his sermons on St. Theodorus, on the Forty Martyrs, St. Ephrem, St. Meletius, &c.