The Lives of the Saints, Volume 1 (of 16)

Three years had passed since John and Arcadius had sailed from Byzantium, and the parents began to despair of hearing any tidings of them, when one day they visited the monastery of the abbot who had received Arcadius. The old man having heard their story, knew at once that one of their sons was with him, and from what he had learned, he conjectured that the other was alive in another house. He therefore bade them be of good cheer, assuring them that their sons lived, and he bade them meet him on a certain day upon Mount Calvary, by which time he would be supplied with further information.

Now it fell out that John was then in Jerusalem visiting the scenes of the Passion. The aged abbot sent for him and spake with him, and soon learned that his suspicions were correct, and that he was the brother of his monk. Arcadius at this moment arrived. The abbot said to John, "Brother, what is thy history, I pray thee relate it to me." So John began, "I am the son of wealthy parents in Byzantium, who sent me with my brother to Berytus, to study law; I loved my brother as my own soul. He was dearer to me than my life. On our voyage a storm fell on us, and the vessel was wrecked, then my brother Arcadius and I" – hereat Arcadius trembled, and extended his hands, and fell at the feet of the abbot, and stammered forth, "It is my brother, my brother!" And when John heard his voice, he knew him; but they knew each other not before, for they were both cowled, and greatly altered through fasting. And the brothers lifted up their voices and wept, and embraced each other with exceeding joy. Then the abbot said, "My sons, I bid you be silent and restrain yourselves. Your parents come this way, and too great joy falling too suddenly upon them may be more than they can bear, therefore I say unto you, refrain yourselves awhile." Hardly had he done speaking, and the two monks had fallen behind, before Xenophon came up Calvary, leading Mary.

They were much aged by care. They came on with their wistful eyes fixed on the old abbot; and scarce regarded the monks who followed him, for their thoughts were on what he had to tell them. They cried, "Where are our dear sons, father?" Then the abbot said, "Rejoice, my children, rejoice and praise the Lord! your sons are found. Now go and prepare a feast, and I will come shortly with my two disciples whom you see here, and when we have eaten, I will bring your sons to your arms."

Now when Xenophon and Mary heard this, they were filled with joy, and they hasted and made ready a feast, and the abbot came, he and his two disciples, and they sat down and did eat. But all the while, as Arcadius and John heard the dear voices of father and mother, they shook with suppressed emotion, and turned their heads aside, and bowed them on their breasts, that the tears might trickle unseen. And as they ate, the conversation turned to the holy lives of the ascetics in the monasteries and lauras of Palestine. "Oh" said Xenophon; "how peaceful and glad of heart are all there; methinks there the word of the prophet is fulfilled, that the desert should bloom as a rose. Right glad should I be, were my dear boys to seek such blessed places of heavenly consolation, and lying down in those green pastures, there find rest." "But if they were to do this, thou wouldst be deprived of their society," said the abbot.

"That matters not," said Xenophon; "If I could but see their faces again, and know that they had set their hearts on God alone, I should be comforted."

"And now," said the abbot; "let one of these monks speak, and say why he has entered on the monastic life." Thereupon Arcadius began with faltering voice: "I and my brother here present were born at Byzantium, of good Christian parents, and the name of the one was Xenophon, and the name of the other was Mary."

Upon this the father and mother uttered a cry, and ran, and they were locked in the embrace of their children.

The abbot stood by and saw with joy their tears and kisses; and after a while he said, "Give glory to God!" so they raised their hands and eyes to heaven, and praised Him who had brought them together again.

But now that Xenophon and his wife had found their children, they felt that there was nothing more for which they cared on earth, and they also went into solitude, and served God in fasting and prayers night and day. Thus the whole family laboured with one heart for one end, the salvation of their souls and the glory of God; and though separated in body, they were united in heart, and now they dwell together in the Paradise of God.

S. BATHILD, Q(about a.d. 670.)

[Roman and other Martyrologies. In some, however, on Jan. 27th; at Paris on Jan. 30th. Authorities: her life by two contemporary writers. The first is in plain unpolished style. Its date appears from allusions such as this: – "The venerable Theudofred, who is now bishop, was then abbot." "The illustrious offspring of Bathild, now reigning, &c." The writer of the other expressly states that he had seen and known the virtues of her whom he describes.]

Archimbold, mayor of the palace, in the reign of Dagobert, King of France, bought a slender fair-haired English slave girl. The name of this girl was Bathild, given her probably because of her work, for the name signifies "the damsel of the lady's bower."125 In service she grew up to woman's estate, and was very beautiful, but, withal, adorned with a meek and quiet spirit.

She is thus described by one of her biographers: – "Her pious and admirable conversation attracted the admiration of the prince, and all his ministers. For she was of a benignant spirit and sober manners, prudent and shy, never scheming evil, never light in talk, or pert in speech; but in all her actions upright. She was of Saxon race, in shape graceful and pleasing, with a bright face and a staid gait, and as such, she found favour with the prince, so that he constituted her his cup-bearer, and as such, dealing honestly, she stood often by him ministering to him. But so far from being lifted up by her position, she showed the utmost humility to her fellow-servants, cheerfully obeying them, ministering reverently to her elders, often taking their shoes off for them, scraping and cleaning them, and bringing them their washing water, and mending their clothes also. All this she did without a murmur, with gentle and pious alacrity."

Now it fell out that Archimbold lost his wife, and he looked about for one to fill her place. Then his glance rested on the fair-haired, blue-eyed Saxon maid, so kindly and so obliging. But when he announced that it was his intention to make her his wife, she was so alarmed that she hid herself among the under maids of the kitchen, dishevelled her light hair, begrimed her face, and worked in rags, so that the mayor supposed she had gone clean away, and after a while forgot her, and possibly thinking that such a match might have been after all a mistake, he married some one else. Then Bathild shook her tatters off, braided her flaxen hair, washed her sunny face, and shone forth in her accustomed place. But she had fled the mayor to catch the king. How Clovis became attached to her is not recorded; possibly he had long noticed the meek maiden at the mayor's elbow filling his wine goblet, and her disappearance had made him aware of the strength of his passion. Certain it is that shortly after, he asked her to be his lawful wife, and to sit at his side on the throne of France. There was no escaping a king; and at the age of nineteen, in 649, she was married accordingly to Clovis II. As queen she exercised a most salutary influence over the mind of her husband, and persuaded him to enact many salutary laws. She became a nursing mother to the Church in France, and exerted herself to the utmost of her power to relieve the necessities of the poor, and ameliorate the condition of the serfs. She bore her husband three sons, who all successively wore the crown, Clothaire III., Childeric II., and Thierry I. After six years of married life, in 655, Bathild was left a widow, when her eldest son was only five years old. She then became regent of the kingdom. The gentle queen remembered her sorrows as a slave, and resolved to become the benefactress of the slave. Slavery was universally and firmly established in France. To root out such an institution at once was impossible; it could only be done with caution, lest it should alarm and rouse to opposition the great slave owners. She had sufficient penetration to discover the great cause of slavery in France. The old Gallic population was crushed beneath an enormous tax, to pay which mothers were obliged to sell their children, and which reduced into bondage those unfortunates who could not pay. This impost she abolished, and thereby cut off the source of slavery. She also forbade the retention or purchase of Christian slaves; but, to save vested interests, this law did not emancipate those already in bonds, but was of future operation only. She employed, moreover, all the money she could spare in the purchase out of bondage of such children as mothers had sold, out of dire necessity. She also sent ambassadors to all the European courts, to announce that the sale of French subjects was strictly forbidden, and that any slave who should set foot on French soil would be held from that moment to be free.

Bathild also founded a large number of religious houses. France was then overspread with forests; vast districts were pathless wildernesses, uninhabited by men. Old cities which had thriven under the Roman empire had fallen into ruins, and the wolf made his lair in the deserted chambers. How was all this desolation to be remedied, this waste land to be reclaimed? A number of men must be gathered together at certain spots, and these must become civilizing centres, diffusing knowledge amongst the people, and cultivating the soil. Such were the monasteries. They were dotted about in the wildest parts of the vast woods, and little by little the trees were cleared away about them, and pastures and corn land usurped their place, and with the advance of agriculture, civilization spread. Bathild founded Corbie, Chelles, and Jumièges, besides others of less note. Towards the close of her days, when her son Clothaire was of an age to govern, she retired into the monastery of Chelles, where she finished her days in peace, dying at the age of fifty, in 680.

S. THEORITGITHA, V., AT BARKING(7th cent.)

[Anglican Martyrologies, but new Anglo-Roman Martyrology, Jan. 23. Authority: Bede's Eccl. Hist. lib. 4. c. 9.]

Theoritgitha was a holy sister in the convent of Barking on the Thames, under the rule of the abbess Ethelberga. "She had always endeavoured to serve God in all humility and sincerity," says Bede, "and she took care to assist this same mother in keeping up regular discipline, by instructing and reproving the younger ones." She suffered nine years from a cruel distemper, which purified her soul. She saw in a vision a sign of the approaching death of S. Ethelberga.

January 27

S. Julian, B., of Mans, in France. S. Julian, M., at Atina, in Italy, circ. a.d. 133. S. Devota, M., in Corsica, circ. a.d. 303. S. Peter the Egyptian, H., in Syria, circ. a.d. 400. S. Chrysostom, B. D., at Constantinople, a.d. 407. S. Domitian, Monk and Deacon in Judea, a.d. 473. S. Marius, Ab. of La-val-benoit, near Sisteron, in France, 6th cent. S. Lupus, B., of Chalons-sur-Saone, in France, beginning of 7th cent. S. Vitalian, Pope of Rome, a.d. 671. S. Emerius, Ab., and his mother, S. Candida, at Banoles, in Spain, end of 8th cent. S. Gamelbert, P., in Bavaria, end of 8th cent. S. Sulpicius, B., of S. Ghislain in Belgium. S. Theodoric II., B, of Orleans, a.d. 1022. S. Gildwin, Can. of Dol, in Brittany, a.d. 1077. S. John, B. of French Flanders, a.d. 1130.

S. JULIAN, B. OF MANS(DATE UNCERTAIN.)

[Called the Apostle of Celtic Gaul; he is commemorated on this day in the Roman Martyrology. In the Paris Martyrology on the 28th Jan., others on the 31st; that of Cologne on 26th Jan. In the Roman Martyrology he is said to have been sent by S. Peter into Gaul; but as Bollandus has shown, this is an error. His life was written by one Brother Lethald in, or about, a. d. 990.]

Saint Julian was the first to carry the light of the Gospel into that portion of France of which Le Mans is the capital. There he laboured with great success, destroyed the idol which the people worshipped, and persuaded great numbers to be baptized. His life, written several hundreds of years after his death, is of small authority, and contains little of interest. His relics were given to Paderborn in Westphalia, in 1143.

S. DEVOTA, V. M., IN CORSICA(about a.d. 303.)

[Deivota seems to have been the correct form of her name, but she is usually called Devota. Authority: her Acts.]

Deivota, or Devota was brought up from childhood in the Christian faith; when she was quite young, she was taken into the house of Eutyches, a senator, and probably a relation.

Eutyches was not a Christian, but he was a kindly disposed man, who disliked persecution. On the publication of the edict of Diocletian against Christianity, he sacrificed along with the other senators; but the governor, being told that he sheltered in his house a little Christian maiden, ordered him to be poisoned, and Devota to be executed with great barbarity. Her feet were tied together, and she was dragged over rough ground till her limbs were dislocated, and she was cut and bruised over her entire person. When, after this, she was stretched on the rack, she besought Jesus Christ to release her. Her prayer was heard, and with a gentle sigh she expired. At the same moment a white dove was seen fluttering over her; it expanded its pure wings, and mounting, was lost in the deep blue of the sky. During the night a devout priest, named Benenatus, a deacon, Apollinarius, and a believing boatman, Gratian by name, removed her body, and placing it amidst spices in the little skiff, rowed out to sea. Then a white dove appeared, skimming over the water, then waiting, and hovering before them, then darting forward; and they, remembering the apparition at her death, followed the guidance of the dove, and reached Monaco, where they laid her.

S. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, B. D(a. d. 407.)

[Authorities: Socrates, Sozomen, life by Palladius, and his own writings, &c.]

John Chrysostom was the son of Secundus, a military officer, born about 347, at Antioch, and on his father's death, soon afterwards, he became indebted for a careful and Christian training to his pious mother, Anthusa. He studied rhetoric under the accomplished pagan teacher Libanius, who afterwards, on being asked to name his own successor, replied, "John would be the fittest, if the Christians had not stolen him."

He was baptized by Meletius, patriarch of Antioch; his chief friend was S. Basil, and Anthusa's earnest pleadings were required to counteract Basil's proposal that they should both retire into monastic life. Chrysostom, as we may most conveniently call him, could not resist his mother's appeal; he continued to live at home, but in the practice of monastic asceticism and the diligent reading of Scripture. He studied theology under Diodore, the companion of Flavian, who had been the champions of orthodoxy against Arianism, first as laymen, and afterwards as priests, in Antioch. Meletius, who had baptized John Chrysostom, was himself a confessor. It was probably about 372-374 that Chrysostom and Basil were spoken of as likely to be made bishops; and Chrysostom, by a singular artifice – the justification of which forms the least pleasing portion of his treatise "On the Priesthood," – procured Basil's consecration while evading the burden himself.

For several years he carried out the plan which, during his mother's lifetime he had abandoned, living first in cenobitic "tabernacles," and afterwards as a hermit in a cave, until his health, never robust, gave way, and he was obliged to return to Antioch, where he entered the ministry.

Early in 387, an increase of taxes provoked the people of Antioch to sedition. They threw down the brazen statues of the Emperor Theodosius, and his deceased wife, the pious and charitable Flacilla. Flavian, who had been elected and consecrated patriarch, on the death of Meletius, set forth a little before Lent, to appease the emperor, and met the officers of the empire, sent from court to avenge the insult. His absence was well supplied by Chrysostom, who had recently received priest's orders, and who began to turn this trouble to account by a course of "Sermons on the Statues," as they are called. In these he endeavoured to allay the people's terror, and to convince them of their besetting sins – of which swearing was the chief – and so far succeeded, that the churches were thronged all day. The people of Antioch were pardoned by the emperor at the intercession of the patriarch.

S. Chrysostom had been five years deacon, and twelve years priest, when Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople died, in 397, after an episcopate which had relaxed the general tone of the clergy. "Then," says the biographer of S. Chrysostom, "there came together some who were not wanted, priests unworthy of the priesthood, besetting the palace gates, resorting to bribery, falling on their knees even, before the people." Disgusted by this scandalous eagerness for an office which saints were wont to dread, the faithful entreated Arcadius, the Emperor, to look out for one who could administer it worthily. Eutropius, the emperor's chamberlain, had learned by visiting Antioch to admire the character of Chrysostom. He made Arcadius write to the military commander at Antioch, desiring him to send the priest John to Constantinople, without causing any public excitement. The commander sent a message to Chrysostom, asking him to meet him "at the Church of the Martyrs, near the Roman Gate." Chrysostom complied; was placed in a public conveyance, and hurried away from the scene of his early life and priestly labours. Several bishops were summoned for the consecration. Theophilus of Alexandria had come to Constantinople to solicit the appointment for his priest Isidore. He was required to consecrate Chrysostom, but endeavoured to withdraw, reading the decision and earnestness of Chrysostom in his face, and disliking him, for he was a thoroughly worldly, self-seeking prelate. Eutropius showed him some papers, however, saying, "Choose between consecrating John, and undergoing a trial on the charges made against you in these documents." Theophilus could make no reply. He consecrated Chrysostom on Feb. 26th, a. d. 398; but he never forgave him for having been the cause of this severe mortification.

Over a city in which intrigue and adulation were practised as the royal road to honour, John Chrysostom, straight forward and outspoken, was set as patriarch. He came to be chief shepherd over a clergy given up to ease and sycophancy, flattering the rich and powerful, fawning on the emperor for place, and betraying their charge, the poor.

Chrysostom set to work at once as a reformer of abuses. He forbad the clergy frequenting the banquets of great men; he struggled against the practice of entertaining "spiritual sisters." Several clergy were deprived; Chrysostom drew upon himself the bitter dislike of many members of their body. He examined the accounts of the church-stewards, cut off superfluous expenses, and ordered the sum thus saved to be applied to the maintenance of hospitals. He scrutinized the lives of the widows receiving pension from the Church; he earnestly besought contributions to a fund for the poor; he exhorted the faithful to attend the nocturnal services, but to leave their wives at home with the children. He rebuked the rich for their pride and selfishness. So great was the charm of his "golden tongued" eloquence, and of the unmistakeable nobleness and sincerity of his character, that "the city put on a new aspect of piety;" and the worship of the Catholics became more real, and their lives more earnest and pure.

Among those of the higher classes in Constantinople who were offended by the uncompromising character of their new archbishop, was Eutropius, the chamberlain, who had raised him to the see. He desired to see the Church respectable and subservient, the patriarch pious and obedient, to the state. The Church, in his view, was a portion of the state organization, the clergy the moral police, always to be under the direction of the crown. But under Chrysostom's government it was becoming unmanageable and independent. To curtail its liberties, he procured a law to annul the right of asylum in the churches, which had been growing up during the century. But he was soon driven himself, by a revolution in the emperor's counsels, to clasp the altar as the safeguard of his life. Chrysostom violated the new law in defence of its author; and while Eutropius lay cowering in the sanctuary, bade the people take home this new lesson on the vanity of vanities. "The altar," said he, "is more awful than ever, now that it holds the lion chained." He called on his hearers to beg the emperor's clemency, or rather, to ask the God of mercy to save Eutropius from threatened death, and enable him to put away his many crimes. He bravely withstood the court in the cause of Christian humanity; but Eutropius himself quitted the church, and was condemned to exile.

At this time the Origenist controversy was raging with great acrimony. It is difficult to pronounce an opinion upon it. Origen had unquestionably published some heretical opinions, but some were also attributed to him which he did not hold. Theophilus of Alexandria had leaned strongly towards the Origenists, but he was not a man of principle, and he adopted that view which suited his purposes at the time. Finding it would answer his ends better to oppose Origenism, he denounced it in his Paschal letters, in 401. The monks and hermits of Egypt had been regarded with an evil eye by heathens, Arians, and insincere Christians. All the learned, the philosophers, and men of letters, among the pagans, were emulous in their protest. The impassioned activity of the monks against idolatry, their efforts, more and more successful, to extirpate it from the heart of the rural population, naturally exasperated the last defenders of the idols. The Arians were still more implacable than the Pagans. The tendency of these enemies of the Divinity of Christ was in everything to abuse, degrade, and restrain the spirit of Christianity. How should the monastic life, which was its most magnificent development escape their fury? The war between them and the monks was therefore long and cruel. The persecution which Paganism had scarcely time to light up to its own advantage under Julian, was pitiless under the Arian Constantius, and more skilful, without being more successful, under the Arian Valens. In the time of Constantius, entire monasteries, with the monks they contained, were burnt in Egypt, and in the frightful persecution under the Arian patriarch Lucius, raised in Alexandria, a troop of imperial soldiers ravaged the solitude of Nitria, and massacred its inhabitants. And now Lucius was succeeded by the worldly, ambitious, and utterly unspiritual Theophilus, who hated the poor monks of the desert as a living reproach upon his own self-seeking, and his aim to accommodate Christianity to worldliness. He soon quarrelled with S. Isidore the hospitaller, who had suffered under the Arian Lucius, and whom he now drove from Alexandria, hating him, as those holding to mammon always will hate those who hold to Christ. Isidore fled to Nitria. Theophilus brought the charge of Origenism against the monks there. The chief Nitrian monks were Dioscorus, Bishop of Nitria, Ammonius, Eusebius, and Euthymius; they were known as the "Tall Brothers." Theophilus ordered them to be expelled; when they came to remonstrate, his eyes flashed, his face became livid, he threw his episcopal pall round the neck of Ammonius, struck him on the face with open palm and clenched fist, and cried, "Heretic, anathematize Origen!" They returned to Nitria; the patriarch, in a synod, condemned them unheard, and proceeded by night to attack their monasteries, at the head of a drunken band. Dioscorus was dragged from his throne; the cells of the other three were burned, together with copies of both Testaments, and even the reserved portions of the Holy Eucharist. It was said that a boy perished in the flames. The brothers, with many of their companions, fled to Scythopolis in Palestine, hoping to support themselves in a place famous for palms, by their occupation of weaving palm-baskets. The enmity of Theophilus hunted them out of this refuge; they reached Constantinople, and fell at Chrysostom's feet, "Who is it," asked he with tears, "that has injured you?" They answered, "Pope Theophilus; prevail upon him, father, to let us live in Egypt, for we have never done aught against him or against our Saviour's law."