The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints Part 7

3. Ceillier demonstrates, (T. 20, p. 258,) against Basnage, (observ. in vit. Adelaid. T. 3, le t. Canis, p. 71,) that the life of St. Alice the empress is the work of St. Odilo, no less than the life of St.

Mayeul. We have four letters, some poems, and several sermons of this saint in the library of Cluni, (p. 370,) and in that of the Fathers, (T. 17, p. 653.) Two other sermons hear his name in Martenn{} (Anned. T. 5.)

{071}

ST. ALMACHUS, OR TELEMACHUS, M.

WAS a holy solitary of the East, but being excited by the ardors of a pious zeal in his desert, and pierced with grief that the impious diversion of gladiators should cause the d.a.m.nation of so many unhappy souls, and involve whole cities and provinces in sin; he travelled to Rome, resolved, as far as in him lay, to put a stop to this crying evil.

While the gladiators were ma.s.sacring each other in the amphitheatre, he ran in among them; but as a recompense for his kind remonstrance, and entreating them to desist, he was beaten down to the ground, and torn in pieces, on the 1st of January, 404. His zeal had its desired success; for the effusion of his blood effected what till that time many emperors had found impracticable. Constantine, Constantius, Julian, and Theodosius the elder, had, to no purpose, published several edicts against those impious scenes of blood. But Honorius took occasion from the martyrdom of this saint, to enforce their entire abolition. His name occurs in the true martyrology of Bede, in the Roman and others. See Theodoret, Hist. l. 5, c. 62, t. 3, p. 740.[1]

Footnotes: 1. The martyrologies of Bede, Ado, Usuard, &c. mention St. Almachus, M.

put to death at Rome, for boldly opposing the heathenish superst.i.tions on the octave of our Lord's nativity. Ado adds, that he was slain by the gladiators at the command of Alypius, prefect of Rome. A prefect of this name is mentioned in the reign of Theodosius, the father of Honorius. This name, the place, day, and cause seeming to agree, Baronius, (Annot. In Martyr. Rom.) Bolland, and Baillet, doubt not but this martyr is the same with St.

Telemachus, mentioned by Theodoret. Chatelain, canon of the cathedral at Paris, (Notes sur le Martyr. Rom. p. 8,) and Benedict XIV., (in Festo Circ.u.mcis. T. 10, p. 18.) think they ought to be distinguished, and that Almachus suffered long before Telemachus.

Wake, (on Enthusiasm,) Geddes, &c. pretend the name to have been a mistake for Almanachum; but are convicted by Chatelain of several unpardonable blunders, and of being utterly unacquainted with ancient MSS. of this kind, and the manner of writing them. Scaliger and Salmasius tell us that the word Almanach is of Arabic extraction. La Crosse observes, (Bibl. Univ. T. 11,) that it occurs in Porphyry, (apud Eus. Praef. Evang. l. 3, c. 4,) who says that horoscopes are found [Greek: en tois almenichiaxois], where it seems of Egyptian origin. But whatever be the meaning of that term in Porphyry, Du Cange, after the strictest search, a.s.sures us that the barbarous word Almanach is never met with in any MS. Calendars or Ephemerides. Menage (Origine de la Langue Francoise V. Almanach) shows most probably that the word is originally Persian, with the Arabic article prefixed. It seems to have been first used by the Armenians to signify a calendar, ib.

ST. EUGENDUS, IN FRENCH OYEND, A.

AFTER the death of the two brothers, St. Roma.n.u.s and St. Lupicinus, the holy founders of the abbey of Condate, under whose discipline he had been educated from seven years of age, he was first coadjutor to Minausius, their immediate successor, and soon after, upon his demise, abbot of that famous monastery. His life was most austere, his clothes being sackcloth, and the same in summer as in winter. He took only one small refection in the day, which was usually after sunset. He inured himself to cold and all mortifications; and was so dead to himself, as to seem incapable of betraying the least emotion of anger. His countenance was always cheerful; yet he never laughed. By meekness he overcame all injuries, was well skilled in Greek and Latin, and in the holy scriptures, and a great promoter of the sacred studies in his monastery. No importunities could prevail upon him to consent to be ordained priest. In the lives of the first abbots of Condate, of which a MS. copy is preserved in the Jesuit's library in the college of Clermont, at Paris, enriched with MS. notes by F. Chifflet, it is mentioned, that the monastery which was built by St. Roma.n.u.s, of timber, being consumed by fire, St. Eugendus rebuilt it of stone; and also near the oratory, which St. Roma.n.u.s had built, erected a handsome church in honor of SS. Peter, Paul, and Andrew, enriched with precious relics. His prayer was almost continual, and his devotion so tender, that the hearing {072} of a pious word was sufficient visibly to inflame his soil, and to throw him sometimes into raptures even in public, and at table. His ardent sighs to be united with his G.o.d, were most vehement during his last illness. Having called the priest among his brethren, to whom he had enjoined the office of anointing the sick, he caused him to anoint his breast according to the custom, says the author of his life, and he breathed forth his happy soul five days after, about the year 510, and of his age sixty-one.[1] The great abbey of Condate, in Franche-comte, seven leagues from Geneva, on mount Jura, or Mont-jou, received from this saint the name of St. Oyend; till in the thirteenth century it exchanged it for that of St. Claude; who having resigned the bishopric of Besanzon, which see he had governed seven years in great sanct.i.ty, lived fifty-five years abbot of this house, a perfect copy of the virtues of St. Oyend, and died in 581. He is honored on the 6th of June. His body remains entire to this day; and his shrine is the most celebrated place of resort for pilgrims in all France.[2] See the life of St. Oyend by a disciple, in Bollandus and Mabillon. Add the remarks of Rivet. His. Liter. T. 3, p. 60.

Footnotes: 1. The history of the first Abbots of Condate, compiled, according to F. Chifflet, in 1252, mentions translation of the relics of St.

Eugendus, when they were enshrined in the same Church of St. Peter, which had been made with great solemnity, at which this author had a.s.sisted, and of which he testifies that he had already wrote the history here quoted. F. Chifflet regrets the loss of this piece, and adds that the girdle of St. Eugendus, made of white leather, two fingers broad, has been the instrument of miraculous cures, and that in 1601 Petronilla Birod, a Calvinist woman in that neighborhood, was converted to the Catholic faith, with her husband and whole family, having been suddenly freed from imminent danger of death and child-bearing, and safely delivered by the application of this relic.

2. The rich abbey of St. Claude gave rise to a considerable town built about it, which was made an episcopal see by pope Benedict XIV., in 1743: who, secularizing the monastery, converted it into a cathedral. The canons, to gain admittance, must give proof of their n.o.bility for sixteen degrees, eight paternal and as many maternal.

St. Roma.n.u.s was buried at Beaume, St. Lucinius at Leu{}nne, and St.

Oyend at Condate: whence this last place for several ages bore his name.

S. FANCHEA, OR FAINE, V.

HER feast has been kept for time immemorial in the parish church of Rosairthir, in the diocese of Clogher, in Ulster: and at Kilhaine near mount Bregh, on the borders of Meath, where her relics have been in veneration. She seems to have been an abbess, and is thought to have flourished in the sixth century, when many eminent saints flourished in Ireland. Her name was not known to Bollandus or Sir James Ware. See Chatelain.

S. MOCHUA, OR MONCAIN, ABBOT,

OTHERWISE CALLED CLAUNUS.

HAVING served his prince in the army, he renounced the world, and devoted himself to G.o.d in a monastic state, with so much fervor as to become a model of perfection to others. He is said to have founded thirty churches, and one hundred and twenty cells, and pa.s.sed thirty years at one of these churches, which is called from him Teach Mochua, but died at Dayrinis on the 1st of January, in the ninety-ninth year of his age, about the sixth century. See his life in Bollandus, p. 45.

SAINT MOCHUA OF BELLA,

OTHERWISE CALLED CRONAN,

WAS contemporary to S. Congal, and founded the monastery (now a town) named Balla, in Connaught. He departed to our Lord in the fifty-sixth year of his age. See Bollandus, p. 49.

{073}

JANUARY II.

S. MACARIUS OF ALEXANDRIA,

ANCh.o.r.eT.

From Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis, who had been his disciple, c. 20.

Rufin, Socrates, and others in Rosweide, D'Andilly, Cotelier, and Bollandus, p. 85 See Tillemont, t. 8, p. 626. Bulteau, Hist. Mon.

d'Orient, l. 1, c. 9, p. 128.

A.D. 394.

ST. MACARIUS the younger, a citizen of Alexandria, followed the business of a confectioner. Desirous to serve G.o.d with his whole heart, he forsook the world in the flower of his age, and spent upwards of sixty years in the deserts in the exercise of fervent penance and contemplation. He first retired into Thebais, or Upper Egypt, about the year 335.[1] Having learned the maxims, and being versed in the practice of the most perfect virtue, under masters renowned for their sanct.i.ty; still aiming, if possible, at greater perfection, he quitted the Upper Egypt, and came to the Lower, before the year 373. In this part were three deserts almost adjoining to each other; that of Scete, so called from a town of the same name on the borders of Lybia; that of the Cells, contiguous to the former, this name being given to it on account of the mult.i.tude of hermit-cells with which it abounded; and a third, which reached to the western branch of the Nile, called, from a great mountain, the desert of Nitria. St. Macarius had a cell in each of these deserts. When he dwelt in that of Nitria, it was his custom to give advice to strangers, but his chief residence was in that of the Cells.

Each anch.o.r.et had here his separate cell, which he made his continued abode, except on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, when all a.s.sembled in one church to celebrate the divine mysteries, and partake of the holy communion. If any one was absent, he was concluded to be sick, and was visited by the rest. When a stranger came to live among them, every one offered him his cell, and was ready to build another for himself. Their cells were not within sight of each other. Their manual labor, which was that of making baskets or mats, did not interrupt the prayer of the heart. A profound silence reigned throughout the whole desert. Our saint received here the dignity of priesthood, and shone as a bright sun influencing this holy company, while St. Macarius the elder lived no less eminent in the wilderness of Scete, forty miles distant. Palladius has recorded[2] a memorable instance of the great self-denial professed and observed by these holy hermits. A present was made of a newly-gathered bunch of grapes to St. Macarius: the holy man carried it to a neighboring monk who was sick; he sent it to another: it pa.s.sed in like manner to all the cells in the desert, and was brought back to Macarius, who was exceedingly rejoiced to perceive the abstinence of his brethren, but would not eat of the grapes himself.

The austerities of all the inhabitants of that desert were extraordinary; but St. Macarius, in this regard, far surpa.s.ses the rest.

For seven years {074} together he lived only on raw herbs and pulse, and for the three following years contented himself with four or five ounces of bread a day, and consumed only one little vessel of oil in a year; as Palladius a.s.sures us. His watchings were not less surprising, as the same author informs us. G.o.d had given him a body capable of bearing the greatest rigors; and his fervor was so intense, that whatever spiritual exercise be heard of, or saw practised by others, be resolved to copy the same. The reputation of the monastery of Tabenna, under St.

Pachomius, drew him to this place in disguise, some time before the year 349. St. Pachomius told him that he seemed too far advanced in years to begin to accustom himself to their fastings and watchings; but at length admitted him, on condition he would observe all the rules and mortifications of the house. Lent approaching soon after, the monks were a.s.siduous in preparations to pa.s.s that holy time in austerities, each according to his strength and fervor; some by fasting one, others two, three, or four days, without any kind of nourishment; some standing all day, others only sitting at their work. Macarius took some palm-tree leaves steeped in water, as materials for his work, and standing in a private corner, pa.s.sed the whole time without eating, except a few green cabbage leaves on Sundays. His hands were employed in almost continual labor, and his heart conversed with G.o.d by prayer. If he left his station on any pressing occasion, he never stayed one moment longer than necessity required. Such a prodigy astonished the monks, who even remonstrated to the abbot at Easter against a singularity of this nature, which, if tolerated, might on several accounts be prejudicial to their community. St. Pachomius entreated G.o.d to know who this stranger was; and learning by revelation that he was the great Macarius, embraced him, thanked him for his edifying visit, and desired him to return to his desert, and there offer up his prayers for them.[3] Our saint happened one day inadvertently to kill a gnat that was biting him in his cell; reflecting that he had lost the opportunity of suffering that mortification, he hastened from his cell for the marshes of Scete, which abound with great flies, whose stings pierce even boars. There he continued six months exposed to those ravaging insects; and to such a degree was his whole body disfigured by them with sores and swellings, that when he returned he was only to be known by his voice.[4] Some authors relate[5] that he did this to overcome a temptation of the flesh.

The virtue of this great saint was often exercised with temptations. One was a suggestion to quit his desert and go to Rome, to serve the sick in the hospitals; which, by due reflection, he discovered to be a secret artifice of vain-glory inciting him to attract the eyes and esteem of the world. True humility alone could discover the snare which lurked under the specious gloss of holy charity. Finding this enemy extremely importunate, he threw himself on the ground in his cell, and cried out to the fiends: "Drag me hence if you can by force, for I will not stir."

Thus he lay till night, and by this vigorous resistance they were quite disarmed.[6] As soon as he arose they renewed the a.s.sault; and he, to stand firm against them, filled two great baskets with sand, and laying them on his shoulders, travelled along the wilderness. A person of his acquaintance meeting him, asked him what he meant, and made an offer of easing him of his burden; but the saint made no other reply than this: "I am tormenting my tormentor." He returned home in the evening, much fatigued in body, but freed from the temptation. Palladius informs us, that St. Macarius, desiring to enjoy more perfectly the sweets of heavenly contemplation, at least for five days without interruption, {075} immured himself within his cell for this purpose, and said to his soul: "Having taken up thy abode in heaven, where thou hast G.o.d and the holy angels to converse with, see that thou descend not thence: regard not earthly things." The two first days his heart overflowed with divine delights; but on the third he met with so violent a disturbance from the devil, that he was obliged to stop short of his design, and to return to his usual manner of life. Contemplative souls often desire, in times of heavenly consolation, never to be interrupted in the glorious employment of love and praise: but the functions of Martha, the frailty and necessities of the human frame, and the temptations of the devil, force them, though reluctant, from their beloved object. Nay, G.o.d oftentimes withdraws himself, as the saint observed on this occasion, to make them sensible of their own weakness, and that this life is a state of trial.

St. Macarius once saw, in a vision, devils closing the eyes of the monks to drowsiness, and tempting them by diverse methods to distractions, during the time of public prayer. Some, as often as they approached, chased them away by a secret supernatural force, while others were in dalliance with their suggestions. The saint burst into sighs and tears; and, when prayer was ended, admonished every one of his distractions, and of the snares of the enemy, with an earnest exhortation to employ, in that sacred duty, a more than ordinary watchfulness against his attacks.[7] St. Jerom[8] and others relate, that a certain anch.o.r.et in Nitria, having left one hundred crowns at his death, which he had acquired by weaving cloth, the monks of that desert met to deliberate what should be done with that money. Some were for having it given to the poor, others to the church: but Macarius, Pambo, Isidore, and others, who were called the fathers, ordained that the one hundred crowns should be thrown into the grave and buried with the corpse of the deceased, and that at the same time the following words should be p.r.o.nounced: "_May thy money be with thee to perdition_."[9] This example struck such a terror into all the monks, that no one durst lay up any money by him.

Palladius, who, from 391, lived three years under our saint, was eye-witness to several miracles wrought by him. He relates, that a certain priest, whose head, in a manner shocking to behold, was consumed by a cancerous sore, came to his cell, but was refused admittance; nay, the saint at first would not even speak to him. Palladius, by earnest entreaties, strove to prevail upon him to give at least some answer to so great an object of compa.s.sion. Macarius, on the contrary, urged that he was unworthy, and that G.o.d, to punish him for a sin of the flesh he was addicted to, had afflicted him with this disorder: however, that upon his sincere repentance, and promise never more during his life to presume to celebrate the divine mysteries, he would intercede for his cure. The priest confessed his sin with a promise, pursuant to the ancient canonical discipline, never after to perform any priestly function. The saint thereupon absolved him by the imposition of hands; and a few days after the priest came back perfectly healed, glorifying G.o.d, and giving thanks to his servant. Palladius found himself tempted to sadness, on a suggestion from the devil, that he made no progress in virtue, and that it was to no purpose for him to remain in the desert.

He consulted his master, who bade him persevere with fervor, never dwell on the temptation, and always answer instantly the fiend: "My love for Jesus Christ will not suffer me to quit my cell, where I am determined to abide in order to please and serve him agreeably to his will."

The two saints of the name of Macarius happened one day to cross the {076} Nile together in a boat, when certain tribunes, or princ.i.p.al officers, who were there with their numerous trains, could not help observing to each other, that those men, from the cheerfulness of their aspect, must be exceeding happy in their poverty. Macarius of Alexandria, alluding to their name, which in Greek signifies _happy_, made this answer: "You have reason to call us happy, for this is our name. But if we are happy in despising the world, are not you miserable who live slaves to it?" These words, uttered with a tone of voice expressive of an interior conviction of their truth, had such an effect on the tribune who first spoke, that, hastening home, he distributed his fortune among the poor, and embraced an eremitical life. In 375, both these saints were banished for the catholic faith, at the instigation of Lacius, the Arian patriarch of Alexandria. Our saint died in the year 394, as Tillemont shows from Palladius. The Latins commemorate him on the 2d, the Greeks with the elder Macarius, on the 19th of January.

In the desert of Nitria there subsists at this day a monastery which bears the name of St. Macarius. The monastic rule called St. Macarius's, in the code of rules, is ascribed to this of Alexandria. St. Jerom seems to have copied some things from it in his letter to Rusticus. The concord, or collection of rules, gives us another, under the names of the two SS. Macariuses; Serapion (of Arsinoe, or the other of Nitria;) Paphnutius (of Becbale, priest of Scete;) and thirty-four other abbots.[10] It was probably collected from their discipline, or regulations and example. According to this latter, the monks fasted the whole year, except on Sundays, and the time from Easter to Whitsuntide; they observed the strictest poverty, and divided the day between manual labor and hours of prayer; hospitality was much recommended in this rule, but, for the sake of recollection, it was strictly forbid for any monk, except one who was deputed to entertain guests, ever to speak to any stranger without particular leave.[11] The definition of a monk or anch.o.r.et, given by the abbot Rance of la Trappe, is a lively portraiture of the great Macarius in the desert when, says he, a soul relishes G.o.d in solitude, she thinks no more of any thing but heaven, and forgets the earth, which has nothing in it that can now please her; she burns with the fire of divine love, and sighs only after G.o.d, regarding death as her greatest advantage; nevertheless they will find themselves much mistaken, who, leaving the world, imagine they shall go to G.o.d by straight paths, by roads sown with lilies and roses, in which they will have no difficulties to conquer, but that the hand of G.o.d will turn aside whatever could raise any in their way, or disturb the tranquillity of their retreat: on the contrary, they must be persuaded that temptations will everywhere follow them, that there is neither state nor place in which they can be exempt, that the peace which G.o.d promises is procured amidst tribulations, as the rose-bud amidst thorns; G.o.d has not promised his servants that they shall not meet with trials, but that with the temptation, he will give them grace to be able to bear it:[12]

heaven is offered to us on no other conditions; it is a kingdom of conquest, the prize of victory--but, O G.o.d, what a prize!

Footnotes: 1. Some confound our saint with Macarius of Pisper, or the disciple of Saint Antony. But the best critics distinguish them. The latter, with his fellow-disciple Amathas, buried St. Antony, who left him his staff, as Cronius, the Priest of Nitria, related to Palladius.

To this Macarius of Pisper St. Antony committed the government of almost five thousand monks as appears from the life of saint Posthumias.

2. Hist. Lausiac, c. 20.

3. Pallad. Laus. c. 20.

4. Ib.

5. Rosweide b. 8, c. 20, p. 722.

6. Pallad. Laus. c. 20.

7. Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 2, c. 29, p. 481.

8. S. Hier. ep. 18 (ol. 22) ad. Eustoch. T. 4, par. 2, p. 44, ed. Ben.

et Rosw. Vit. Patr. l. 3, c. 319 9. Acts viii. 20.

10. Concordia Regularum, autore S. Benedicto Ananiae Abbate, edita ab Hugone Menardo, O.S.B. in 4to Parisiis, 1638. Item, Codex Regularum collectus a S. Benedicto Ananiae, auctus a Luca Holstenio, two vols.

4to. Romae, 1661.

11. C. 60, p. 809 edit. Mena{}.

12. 1 Cor. x. 13.

_On the same day_

Are commemorated many holy martyrs throughout the provinces of the Roman empire; who, when Dioclesian, in 303, commanded the holy scriptures, {077} wherever found, to be burnt, chose rather to suffer torments and death than to be accessary {sic.} to their being destroyed by surrendering them into the hands of the professed enemies of their Author.[1]

Footnotes: 1. See Baron. n. annal. et annot. in Martyr. Rom. Eus. l. 8, c. 2. H.

Vales. not. ib. p. 163. Ruinart, in Acta SS Saturn &c. and S.

Felicis. Fleury. Moeurs des Chret. p. 45. Tillem. Pers. de. Dicol.

art. 10, t. 5. Lactant. de mort. Pers. c. 15 et 18, c.u.m not. Baluz.

&c.