Part 38 (1/2)

Asaph's, places his martyrdom about the end of the year 116: for John Malalas of Antioch tells us the great earthquake, in which Dion Ca.s.sias mentions that Trajan narrowly escaped at Antioch, happened in that journey of Trajan in which he condemned St. Ignatius. Now Trajan marching to the Parthian war, arrived at Antioch on the 8th of January, in 113, the sixteenth year of his reign: and in his return from the East, above two years later, pa.s.sed again through Antioch in 116, when this earthquake happened. St. Ignatius suffered at Rome towards the end of that year. Le Quien prefers this date, because it best agrees with the chronology of his successors to Theophilus. Orien. Christ. t. 2, p. 700.

11. Evagr. Hist. Eccl. l. 1, c. 16, Ed. Vales.

12. Or. in S. Ignat. t. 2, p. 600. Ed. Nov.

13. See Baron. Annal. ad an. 637, and Not. ad Martyr. Rom. ad 17 Dec.

14. See Henschenius, Feb. t. 1, p. 35.

ST. PIONIUS, M.

HE was priest of Smyrna, a true heir of the spirit of St. Polycarp, an apostolic man, who converted mult.i.tudes to the faith. He excelled in eloquence, and in the science of our holy religion. The paleness of his countenance bespoke the austerity of his life. In the persecution of Decius, in 250, on the 23d of February, he was apprehended with Sabina and Asclepiades, while they were celebrating the anniversary festival of St. Polycarp's martyrdom. Pionius, after having fasted the eve with his companions, was forewarned thereof by a vision. On the morning after their solemn prayer, taking the holy bread (probably the eucharist) and water, they were surprised and seized by Polemon, the chief priest, and the guardian of the temple. In prolix interrogatories before him, they resisted all solicitations to sacrifice; professed they were ready to suffer the worst of torments and deaths rather than consent to his impious proposals, and declaring that they wors.h.i.+pped one only G.o.d, and that they were of the Catholic church. Asclepiades being asked what G.o.d he adored, made answer: ”Jesus Christ.” At which Polemon said: ”Is that another G.o.d?” Asclepiades replied: ”No; he is the same they have just now confessed.” A clear confession of the consubstantiality of G.o.d the Son, before the council of Nice. Being all threatened to be burnt alive, Sabina smiled. The pagans said: ”Dost thou laugh? thou shalt then be led to the public stews.” She answered: ”G.o.d will be my protector on that occasion.” They were cast into prison, and preferred a lower dungeon, that they might be more at liberty to pray when alone. They were carried by force into the temple, and all manner of violence was used to compel them to sacrifice. Pionius tore the impious garlands which were put upon his head, and they resisted with all their might. Their constancy repaired the scandal given by Eudaemon, the bishop of Smyrna, there present, who had impiously apostatized and offered sacrifice. In the answers of St. Pionius to the judges, and in all the circ.u.mstances of his martyrdom, we admire the ardent piety and courage of one who had entirely devoted himself to G.o.d, and employed his whole life in his service. When Quintilian the proconsul arrived at Smyrna, he caused Pionius to be hung on the rack, and his body to be torn with iron hooks, and afterwards condemned him to be burned alive; he was accordingly nailed to a trunk or post, and a pile heaped round him and set on fire.

Metrodorus, a Marcionite priest, underwent the same punishment with him.

His acts were written by eye-witnesses, quoted by Eusebius, l. 4, c. 15, and are extant genuine in Ruinart, p. 12. See Tillemont t. 3, p. 397; Bollandus, Feb. t. 1, p. 37.

{334}

ST. BRIDGIT, OR BRIDGET, V.

AND BY CONTRACTION, BRIDE, ABBESS, AND PATRONESS OF IRELAND.

SHE was born at Fochard, in Ulster, soon after Ireland had been blessed with the light of faith. She received the religious veil in her youth, from the hands of St. Mel, nephew and disciple of St. Patrick. She built herself a cell under a large oak, thence called Kill-dara, or cell of the oak; living, as her name implies, the bright s.h.i.+ning light of that country by her virtues. Being joined soon after by several of her own s.e.x, they formed themselves into a religious community, which branched out into several other nunneries throughout Ireland; all which acknowledged her for their mother and foundress, as in effect she was of all in that kingdom. But a full account of her virtues has not been transmitted down to us, together with the veneration of her name. Her five modern lives mention little else but wonderful miracles. She flourished in the beginning of the sixth century, and is named in the Martyrology of Bede, and in all others since that age. Several churches in England and Scotland are dedicated to G.o.d under her name, as, among others, that of St. Bride in Fleet-street; several also in Germany, and some in France. Her name occurs in most copies of the Martyrology which bears the name of St. Jerom, especially in those of Esternach and Corbie, which are most ancient. She is commemorated in the divine office in most churches of Germany, and in that of Paris, till the year 1607, and in many others in France. One of the Hebrides, or western islands which belong to Scotland, near that of Ila, was called, from a famous monastery built there in her honor, Brigidiani. A church of St. Brigit, in the province of Athol, was reputed famous for miracles, and a portion of her relics was kept with great veneration in a monastery of regular canons at Aburnethi, once capital of the kingdom of the Picts, and a bishopric, as Major mentions.[1] Her body was found with those of SS.

Patrick and Columba, in a triple vault in Down-Patrick, in 1185, as Giraldus Cambrensis informs us:[2] they were all three translated to the cathedral of the same city;[3] but their monument was destroyed in the reign of king Henry VIII. The head of St. Bride is now kept in the church of the Jesuits at Lisbon.[4] See Bollandus, Feb. t. 1, p. 99.

Footnotes: 1. Major de Gestis Scotor. l. 2, c. 14.

2. Topogr. Hibern. dist. 3, c. 18. Camden, &c.

3. {Footnote not in text} Camden.

4. Bolland. p. 112 and p. 941, t. 1, Februarii.

ST. KINNIA. V.

HER memory was long sacred in Ireland, and her relics were in veneration at Lowth, in the southern part of Ulster; but we have no other authentic account of her actions, than that she was baptized by St. Patrick, and received the religious veil at his hand. See Jocelin's life of St.

Patrick, Colgan, and Bollandus, ad 1 Feb. p. 96.

ST. SIGEBERT II., FRENCH KING OF AUSTRASIA, C.

DAGOBERT I., king of France, led for some time a very dissolute life, but was touched by an extraordinary grace upon the birth of his son Sigebert {335} and from that time entirely converted to G.o.d. Bagnetrude, our saint's mother, is only styled the concubine of Dagobert, though he was publicly married to her. The father desiring to have his son baptized by the most holy prelate of his dominions, recalled St. Amand, bishop of Ma.s.stricht, whom he had banished for his zeal in reproving his vices, fell at his feet at Clichi, near Paris, to ask his pardon, promised amendment, and by the advice of St. Owen and St. Eligius, then laymen in his court, engaged him to initiate his son in the sacrament of regeneration. The ceremony was performed with great pomp at Orleans, Charibert, king of part of Aquitaine, and brother to Dagobert, being G.o.d-father. The young prince's education was intrusted by the father to the blessed Pepin of Landen, mayor of his palace, who being forced by the envy of the n.o.bility to withdraw for some time, carried Sigebert into the dominions of Charibert in Aquitaine, where he enjoyed a considerable estate, the paternal patrimony of his wife, the blessed Itta. Pepin remained there about three years; after which term he was recalled to the court of Dagobert, who declared his son Sigebert, though only three years old, in 633, king of Austrasia, and gave him for his ministers, St. Cunibert, archbishop of Cologne, and duke Adelgise, and committed the administration of the whole kingdom to Pepin, whom he always kept near his own person. Dagobert's second son, Clovis II., was born in the following year, 634, and to him the father allotted for his inheritance all the western part of France, containing all Neustria and part of Burgundy.[1] Austrasia, or Eastern France, (in which sense Austria retains a like name in Germany,) at that time comprised Provence and Switzerland, (dismembered from the ancient kingdom of Burgundy,) the Albigeois, Auvergne, Quercy, the Cevennes, Champagne, Lorraine, Upper Picardy, the archbishopric of Triers, and other states, reaching to the borders of Friesland; Alsace, the Palatinate, Thuringia, Franconia, Bavaria, Suabia, and the country which lay betwixt the Lower Rhine and Old Saxony. Dagobert died in 638, and was buried at the abbey of St.

Denys, of which he was the munificent founder. According to the settlement which he had made, he was succeeded in Austrasia by St.

Sigebert, and in the rest of France by his youngest son Clovis II. Pepin of Landen, who had been mayor of the palace to the father, discharged the same office to his death under St. Sigebert, and not content to approve himself a faithful minister, and true father to the prince, he formed him from the cradle to all heroic Christian virtues. By his prudence, virtue, and valor, St. Sigebert in his youth was beloved and respected by his subjects, and feared by all his enemies. Pepin dying in 640, the virtuous king appointed his son Grimoald mayor of his palace.

He reigned in perfect intelligence with his brother, of which we have few examples among the Merovingian kings whenever the French monarchy was divided. The Thuringians revolting, he reduced them to their duty; and this is the only war in which he was engaged. The love of peace disposed his heart to be a fit temple of the Holy Ghost, whom he invited into his soul by a.s.siduous prayer, and the exercise of all Christian virtues. His patrimony he employed in relieving the necessitous, and in building or endowing monasteries, churches, and hospitals. He founded twelve monasteries, the four princ.i.p.al of which were Cougnon, now a priory, not far from Bouillon; Stavelo and Malmedi, two miles from each other, and St. Martin's, near Metz. St. Remaclus brought from Solignac the rule of St. Columban, which king Sigebert {336} in his charter to Cougnon calls the rule of the ancient fathers. This that holy abbot established first at Cougnon, and afterwards at Malmedi and Stavelo. A life filled with good works, and devoted all to G.o.d, can never be called short. G.o.d was pleased to call this good king from the miseries of this world to the recompense of his labors on the 1st of February, in the year 656, the eighteenth of his reign, and the twenty-fifth of his age.[2] He was interred in the abbey of St. Martin's, near Metz, which he had built. His body was found incorrupt in 1063, and placed in a monument on the side of the high altar: and in 1170 it was enshrined in a silver case. The monastery of St. Martin's, and all others in the suburbs, were demolished by Francis of Lorraine, duke of Guise, in 1552, when Charles V. laid siege to Metz. The relics of St. Sigebert are now deposited in the collegiate church of our Lady at Nancy. He is honored among the saints in great part of the dominions which he governed, and in the monasteries and churches which he founded. See Fredegarius and his continuator, Sigebert of Gemblours, in his life of this saint, with the learned remarks of Henschenius, p. 40. Also Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, t. 1, p. 419. Schoepflin, Alsatia Ill.u.s.trata, Colmariae, an.

1751. Sect. 2, p. 742.

Footnotes: 1. Charibert, though he took the t.i.tle of king, and resided at Toulouse, held his estates of his brother Dagobert, and by his gift.

After Charibert's death, Chilperic, his eldest son, was put to death by Dagobert; but his second son, Boggis, left a numerous posterity, which was only extinguished in Louis d'Armagnac, duke of Nemours, slain at the battle of Cerignole, where he commanded for Louis XII.

against Gonzales de Cordova, surnamed The Great Captain, for the Catholic king Ferdinand in 1503, by which the French lost the kingdom of Naples. So long did the family of Clovis II. subsist. See Vaisette, Hist de Languedoc, Henault, Abr. de l'Hist. de France, t.

1, pp. 26, and 818.

2. St. Sigebert left his son Dagobert, about seven years old, under the care of Grimoald, mayor of his palace, who treacherously sent him into Ireland, and placed his own son Childebert on the throne. This usurper reigned seven months, as Schoepflin proves from the express testimony of Chronicon Brevissimum, and from circ.u.mstances mentioned by Fredegarius, against the mistake of the authors, l'Art de verifier les Dates, p. 481, who say he only reigned seven days. By an insurrection of the people, Grimoald and his son were deposed, and both perished in prison: but Dagobert not being found, Clovis II. united Austrasia to his other dominions. Dagobert II., by the a.s.sistance of St. Wilfrid, afterwards archbishop of York, returned into France eighteen years after the death of his father, and recovered Alsace and some other provinces by the cession either of Childeric II., son of Clovis II., (then monarch of all France,) or of his brother Theodoric III., who succeeded him before the month of April, in 674: for the reign of Dagobert II must be dated from the latter end of 673, with Henault, or from 674, with Schoepflin. The spirit of religion and piety, which he had learned in the school of afflictions, and under the great masters of a spiritual life, who then flourished among the Scots and Irish, was eminently the distinguis.h.i.+ng part of his character. As he resided chiefly in Alsace, he filled that country, in the first place, with monuments of his devotion, being so liberal in founding and endowing monasteries and churches, that though his reign was only of six years, Schoepflin a.s.sures us that the French church is not more indebted to any reign than to this, at least in those parts, (p.

740.) St. Wilfrid, bishop of York, had exceedingly promoted his return into France; and when that prelate was compelled to leave England Dagobert entertained him with the most cordial affection, and, upon the death of St. Arbogastus, earnestly pressed him to accept of that see. St. Wilfrid declined that dignity, promising, however, to call upon this good king in his return from Rome, where he obtained a sentence of pope Agatho in his favor. But coming but into France, he found his royal friend cut off by a violent death.

It is the general persuasion of the French historians, that the impious Ebroin, mayor of the palace to Theodoric III., king of Burgundy and Noustria, was the author of his death, with a view to seize his dominions. Dagobert was murdered by a.s.sa.s.sins at Stenay upon the Meuse, now the best town in the duchy of Bar in Lorraine.

The people, however, chose Pepin and Martin dukes or governors of Austrasia, who defended their liberty against Ebroin. Martin was afterwards a.s.sa.s.sinated by the contrivance of Ebroin, and Ebroin by Ermenfrid; but Pepin, in 687, defeated Theodoric III. at Testry, took Paris, and the king himself; from which time, under the t.i.tle of mayor, he enjoyed the supreme power in the French monarchy. The death of St. Dagobert happened in 679, on the 23d of December, on which day he is commemorated in the Martyrology of Ado and others, and honored as a martyr at Stenay, in the diocese of Verdun, ever since the eighth century. The church of Strasburg was much enriched by this prince, as maybe seen in Schoepflin's Alsatia Ill.u.s.trata.

The same author gives an account of some of the monasteries which were founded by this prince in those parts, (c. 11, --254, p. 736,) and shows from his charters that the palace where he chiefly resided was at Isenburg in Alsace. (Sect. 1, c. 10, --146, p. 693.) The year of the death of Dagobert II. is learned from the life of St.

Wilfrid, who returned from Rome when St. Agatho sat in St. Peter's chair. See on this holy king the lives of St. Wilfrid and St.