Part 48 (1/2)
BISHOP, APOSTLE OF SWEDES.
From Joan. Magnus, Hist. Goth. l. 17, c. 20, quoted by Bollandus, and chiefly from a life of this saint, compiled at Wexlow about the year 1205, published from an ancient MS. by the care of Ericus Benzelius junior, in his Monuments Historica vetera Ecclesiae Suevogothicae, printed at Upsal in 1709, p. 1, ad p. 14, and in Prolegom. Sect. 1. The editor was not able to discover the author's name: upon which he repeats the remark of the learned Maussac, (in Diss. Critica ad Harpocrat.,) that ”many monkish writers endeavored to conceal their names out of humility.” On which see Mabillon, Diar. Ital. p. 36. Benzelius gives us a considerable fragment of a second life of this holy prelate, ib. p.
21, ad 29, and some verses of bishop Brynoth the third, on St. Sigfrid and the other bishops of this province, ib. p. 72.
Our zealous ancestors having received the light of our faith, propagated the same throughout all the northern provinces of Europe. St. Anscarius had planted the faith in, in 830; but it relapsed soon into idolatry.
King Olas Scobcong entreated king Edred, who died in 91{} to send him missionaries to preach the gospel in his country. Sigefride, an eminent priest of York, undertook that mission, and on the 21st of June, in 950, arrived at Wexiow, in Gothland, in the territory of Smaland. He first erected a cross, then built a church of wood, celebrated the divine mysteries, and preached to the people. Twelve princ.i.p.al men of the province were converted by him, and one who died, was buried after the Christian manner, and a cross placed upon his grave. So great numbers were in a short time brought to the faith, that the cross of Christ was triumphantly planted in all the twelve tribes into which the inhabitants of South-Gothland were divided. The fountain near the mountain of Ostrabo, since called Wexiow, in which St. Sigefride baptized the catechumens, long retained the names of the twelve first converts, engraved on a monument. King Olas was much pleased with the accounts he heard of the man of G.o.d, and many flocked from remote parts, out of mere curiosity to hear his doctrine, and to see him minister at the altar, admiring the rich ornaments of linen, and over them of silk, which he wore in celebrating the divine mysteries, with a mitre on his head, and a crosier, or pastoral staff, in his hand. Also the gold and silver vessels which he had brought with him for the use of the altar, and the dignity and majesty of the ceremonies of the Christian wors.h.i.+p, attracted their attention. But the sublime truths of our religion, and the mortification, disinterestedness, zeal, and sanct.i.ty of the apostolic missionaries, engaged them to give them a favorable reception, and to open their eyes to the evidence of the divine revelation. St.
Sigefride ordained two bishops, the one of East, the other of West Gothland, or Lingkoping, and Scara. The see of Wexiow he continued himself to govern so long as he lived. His three nephews, Unaman, a priest, and Sunaman and Wiaman, the one a deacon, the other a subdeacon, were his chief a.s.sistants in his apostolic labors. Haring intrusted the administration of his see of Wexiow to Unaman, and left his two brothers to a.s.sist and comfort him, the saint himself set out to carry {418} the light of the gospel into the midland and northern provinces. King Olas received him with great respect, and was baptized by him, with his whole court and his army. St. Sigefride founded many churches, and consecrated a bishop of Upsal, and another of Strengues. The former of these sees had been founded by St. Anscharius, in 830, and the bishop was declared by pope Alexander III., in 1160, metropolitan and primate of the whole kingdom. During the absence of our saint, a troop of idolatrous rebels, partly out of hatred of the Christian religion, and partly for booty, plundered the church of Wexiow, and barbarously murdered the holy pastor Unaman and his two brothers. Their bodies they buried in the midst of a forest, where they have always remained hid. But the murderers put the heads of the martyrs into a box, which, with a great stone they had fastened to it, they threw into a great pond. But they were afterwards taken out, and kept richly enshrined in the church of Wexiow till their relics were removed by the Lutherans. These three holy martyrs were honored in Sweden. Upon the news of this ma.s.sacre St. Sigefride hastened to Wexiow to repair the ruins of his church. The king resolved to put the murderers to death; but Sigefride, by his earnest entreaties, prevailed on him to spare their lives. However, he condemned them to pay a heavy fine, which he would have bestowed on the saint, but he refused accepting a single farthing of it, notwithstanding his extreme poverty, and the difficulties which he had to struggle with, in laying the foundation of that new church. He had inherited the spirit of the apostles in an heroic degree. Our saint died about the year 1002, and was buried in his cathedral at Wexiow, where his tomb became famous for miracles. He was canonized about the year 1158, by pope Adrian IV.,[1]
an Englishman, who had himself labored zealously, and with great success, in the conversion of Norway, and other northern countries, about a hundred and forty years after St. Sigefride, who was honored by the Swedes as their apostle, till the change of religion among them.[2]
Footnotes: 1. Vastove, Vinea Aquilonis.
2. In the life of St. Sigefride, published by Benzelius, it is mentioned, that St. Sigefride, upon his first arrival in Sweden, preached chiefly by interpreters.
FEBRUARY XVI.
ST. ONESIMUS, DISCIPLE OF ST. PAUL.
HE was a Phrygian by birth, slave to Philemon, a person of note of the city of Colossae, converted to the faith by St. Paul. Having robbed his master, and being obliged to fly, he providentially met with St. Paul, then a prisoner for the faith at Rome, who there converted and baptized him, and sent him with his canonical letter of recommendation to Philemon, by whom he was pardoned, set at liberty, and sent back to his spiritual father, whom he afterwards faithfully served. That apostle made him, with Tychicus, the bearer of his epistle to the Colossians,[1]
and afterwards, as St. Jerom[2] and other fathers witness, a preacher of the gospel, and a bishop. The Greeks say he was crowned with martyrdom under Domitian, in the year 95, and {419} keep his festival on the 15th.
Bede, Ado, Usuard, the Roman and other Latin martyrologists mention him on the 16th of February.[3]
Baronius and some others confound him with St. Onesimus, the third bishop of Ephesus, after St. Timothy, who was succeeded first by John, then by Caius. This Onesimus showed great respect and charity to St.
Ignatius, when on his journey to Rome, in 107, and is highly commended by him.[4]
When a sinner, by the light and power of an extraordinary grace, is s.n.a.t.c.hed like a firebrand out of the fire, and rescued from the gates of h.e.l.l, we cannot wonder if he is swallowed up by the deepest and most lively sense of his own guilt, and of the divine mercy; if such a one loves much, because much has been forgiven him; if he endeavors to repair his past crimes by heroic acts of penance and all virtues, and if he makes haste to redeem his lost time by a zeal and vigilance hard to be imitated by others. Hence we read of the _first love of the church of Ephesus_[5] as more perfect. The ardor of the compunction and love of a true penitent, is compared to the unparalleled _love of Judah in the day of her espousal_.[6] This ardor is not to be understood as a pa.s.sing sally of the purest pa.s.sions, as a shortlived fit of fervor, or desire of perfection, as a transient taste or sudden transport of the soul: it must be sincere and constant. With what excess of goodness does G.o.d communicate himself to souls which thus open themselves to him! With what caresses does he often visit them! With what a profusion of graces does he enrich and strengthen them! It often happens that, in the beginning, G.o.d, either to allure the frailty of a new convert, or to fortify his resolution against hazardous trials, favors him with more than usual communications of the sweetness of his love, and ravishes him by some glances, as it were, of the beatific vision. His tenderness was not less, when, for their spiritual advancement, their exercise in heroic virtues, and the increase of their victories and glory, he conducted them through severe trials. On the other side, with what fidelity and ardor did these holy penitents improve themselves daily in divine love and all virtues! Alas! our coldness and insensibility, since our pretended conversion from the world and sin, is a far greater subject of amazement than the extraordinary fervor of the saints in the divine service.
Footnotes: 1. Colos. iv.
2. Ep. 62, c. 2.
3. Tillem. t. 1, p. 294, and note 10, on St. Paul.
4. Ep. ad Ephes.
5. Apoc. 11. 4.
6. Jerem. 11. 2.
SS. ELIAS, JEREMY, ISAIAS, SAMUEL, AND DANIEL,
WITH OTHER HOLY MARTYRS AT CaeSAREA, IN PALESTINE.
From Eusebius's relation of the martyrs of Palestine, at the end of the eighth book of his history, c. 11, 12, p. 346. Ed. Vales.
A.D. 309.
In the year 309, the emperors Galerius Maximia.n.u.s and Maximinus continuing the persecution begun by Dioclesian, these five pious Egyptians went to visit the confessors condemned to the mines in Cilicia, and on their return were stopped by the guards of the gates of Caesarea, in Palestine, as they were entering the town. They readily declared themselves Christians, together with the motive of their journey; upon which they were apprehended. The day following they were brought before Firmilian, the governor of Palestine, together with St.
Pamphilus and others. The judge, before {420} he began his interrogatory, ordered the five Egyptians to be laid on the rack, as was his custom. After they had long suffered all manner of tortures, he addressed himself to him who seemed to be their chief, and asked him his name and his country. They had changed their names, which, perhaps, before their conversion, were those of some heathen G.o.ds, as was customary in Egypt. The martyr answered, according to the names they had given themselves, that he was called Elias, and his companions, Jeremy, Isaias, Samuel, and Daniel. Firmilian then asked their country; he answered, Jerusalem, meaning the heavenly Jerusalem, the true country of all Christians. The judge inquired in what part of the world that was, and ordered him to be tormented with fresh cruelty. All this while the executioners continued to tear his body with stripes, while his hands were bound behind him, and his feet squeezed in the woodstocks, called the Nervus. The judge, at last, tired with tormenting them, condemned all five to be beheaded, which was immediately executed.
Porphyrius, a youth who was a servant of St. Pamphilus, hearing the sentence p.r.o.nounced, cried out, that at least the honor of burial ought not to be refused them. Firmilian, provoked at this boldness, ordered him to be apprehended, and finding that he confessed himself a Christian, and refused to sacrifice, ordered his sides to be torn so cruelly, that his very bones and bowels were exposed to view. He underwent all this without a sigh or tear, or so much as making the least complaint. The tyrant, not to be overcome by so heroic a constancy, gave orders for a great fire to be kindled, with a vacant s.p.a.ce to be left in the midst of it, for the martyr to be laid in, when taken off the rack. This was accordingly done, and he lay there a considerable time, surrounded by the flames, singing the praises of G.o.d, and invoking the name of Jesus; till at length, quite broiled by the fire, he consummated a slow, but glorious martyrdom.
Seleucus, an eye-witness of this victory, was heard by the soldiers applauding the martyr's resolution; and being brought before the governor, he, without more ado, ordered his head to be struck off.