SEPTEMBER XIII

ST. EULOGIUS, C.

PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA

From Nicephorus’s Chronicle, the Paschal Chronicle, Photius, Bibl. Cod. 181, 208, 220, 230, &c.

A.D. 608.

ST. EULOGIUS was a Syrian by birth, and embraced young the monastic state in that country. The Eutychian heresy was then split into various sects, as it usually happens among such as have left the centre of union These, by their tyranny and the fury of their contests, had thrown the churches of Syria and Egypt into much confusion, and a great part of the monks of Syria were at that time become remarkable for their loose morals and errors against faith. Eulogius learned from the fall of others to stand more watchfully and firmly upon his guard, and was not less distinguished by the innocence and sanctity of his manners than by the purity of his doctrine. Having, by an enlarged pursuit of learning, attained to a great variety of useful knowledge in the different branches of literature, he set himself to the study of divinity in the sacred sources of that science, which are the holy scriptures, and the tradition of the Church explained in its councils, and the approved writings of its eminent pastors. From the time of his retreat he made this his chief study, to which he directed everything else; and, as his industry was indefatigable, his parts quick, his apprehensions lively, and his judgment solid, his progress was such as to qualify him to be an illustrious champion for the truth, worthy to be ranked with St. Gregory the Great and St. Eutychius as one of the greatest lights of the Church in the age wherein he lived. His character received still a brighter lustre from his sincere humility and spirit of holy compunction and prayer. In the great dangers and necessities of the Church he was drawn out of his solitude, and made priest of Antioch by the patriarch St. Anastasius, who was promoted to that dignity in 561, and, dying in 598, was succeeded by Anastasius the Younger. Saint Eulogius, whilst he lived at Antioch, entered into the strictest connexions with St. Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople, and joined his forces with that holy prelate against the enemies of the truth,
The emperor Justinian and his nephew and successor, Justin the Younger, had been the plunderers of their empire, and the grievous oppressors of their subjects; the former to support his extravagance and vanity, the latter to gratify his insatiable avarice and scandalous lusts. Justin II, dying in 576, after a reign of ten years and ten months, Tiberius Constantine, a Thracian, and a virtuous prince, was raised to the throne. He applied himself to heal the wounds caused during the former reigns, both in the Church and State. His charities in all parts of the empire were boundless, and all his treasuries were open to the poor. Amongst the evils with which the Church was then afflicted, the disorders and confusion into which the tyranny of the Eutychians had thrown the church of Alexandria, called aloud for a powerful remedy, and an able and zealous pastor, endued with prudence and vigor to apply them. Upon the death of the patriarch John, St. Eulogius was raised to that patriarchal dignity toward the close of the year 583, at the earnest desire of the emperor, who, having reigned only six years and ten months, died the same year, leaving his son-in-law, Mauritius, his successor in the imperial throne. Our saint was obliged to make a journey to Constantinople, about two years after his promotion, in order to concert measures concerning certain affairs of his church. He met at court Saint Gregory the Great, and contracted with him a holy friendship, so that, from that time, they seemed to be one heart and one soul. Among the letters of St. Gregory, we have several extant which he wrote to our saint. St. Eulogius composed many excellent works against the Acephali, and other sects of Eutychians. Photius has preserved us valuable fragments of some of these treatises; also of eleven discourses of our saint, the ninth of which is a commendation of a monastic life; likewise of his six books against the Novatians of Alexandria, in the fifth of which he expressly sets himself to prove that the Martyrs are to be honored.1 Photius makes no mention of the treatise of St. Eulogius against the Agnoëtæ, a sect of Eutychians, who ascribed to Christ, as man, ignorance of the day of judgment, and many other things. St. Gregory the Great, to whose censure the author submitted it, sent him his approbation with high commendations, saying, “I have not found anything but what is admirable in your writings, &c.”2 St. Eulogius did not long survive St. Gregory, for he died in the year 606, or, according to others, in 608.

We admire the great actions and the glorious triumphs of the saints; yet it is not so much in these that their sanctity consisted, as in the constant habitual heroic disposition of their souls. There is no one who does not sometimes do good actions; but he can never be called virtuous who does well only by humor, or by fits and starts, not by steady habits. It is an habitual poverty of spirit, humility, meekness, patience, purity, piety, and charity, which our Divine Master recommends to us. We must take due pains to plant the seeds of virtue in our souls, must watch and labor continually to improve and strengthen them, that they may be converted into nature, and be the principle by which all the affections of our souls, and all the actions of our lives are governed. If these pure heroic sentiments perfectly possess and fill our hearts, the whole tenor of our conduct, whether in private or in public life, will be an uniform train of virtuous actions, which will derive their perfection from the degree of fervor and purity from which they spring, and which, according to the essential property of virtue, is always improving and always improveable.

ST. AMATUS, B. C.

ST. AMATUS, called in French Amé, was born of a wealthy family, and had the happiness to learn the spirit of Jesus Christ, not that of the world, from the example and assiduous instructions of his pious parents. Being applied young to his studies, he discovered in them a clear apprehension, and a solid judgment; but set bounds to his curiosity in his application to profane sciences, religiously practising the maxim of St. Jerom, that it is better never to learn what cannot be known without danger. In the meantime his ardor was unquenchable in learning the true science of the saints, that is, the knowledge of God and himself: and in the most profound humility of heart he never ceased to ask of God the grace of his most pure and holy love. His parents were careful to fence his mind from his infancy against the love of vanity and pleasure, and against the other snares that are incident to youth; they watched to remove out of his way all dangers of bad company, and whatever could in the least sully the purity of his mind, take him off from the gravity of his deportment, and his application to his studies, or damp his ardor in the pursuit of virtue. In this they were to him themselves a constant spur, being aware that the corruption of a young man’s mind in one particular, generally draws others after it, and that to fall from fervor into slackness, or into the least habitual infidelity to divine grace, is to slide insensibly, and, as it were, blindfold into the broad way of vice.
Amatus, formed by these maxims to virtue, seemed in his youth to have already attained to perfection; but this consists in more and more strenuous endeavors always to advance higher. He some time deliberated with himself what course of life to steer, in which every desire of his soul, every action of his life, might be a step advancing in a direct line towards that happiness for which he was created by God; and him he consulted, by earnest and humble prayer, upon this important and critical choice. The issue of his deliberation was, that with the consent and advice of those to whom prudence or duty obliged him to listen, he embraced an ecclesiastical state. No sooner had he from the bottom of his heart said to God, that he was his portion and his inheritance for ever, but prayer, sacred studies, and exercises of charity and other virtues, became his whole employment. It was his great comfort and joy that the very habit which he wore freed him from many dangers and importunities of the world, and exempted him from visits, amusements, and idle employments, which in other states various circumstances make sometimes necessary, and which though they may be sanctified by a good intention yet are often dangerous, and always great consumers of the little time we have here, to purge our affections, to strengthen our souls in habits of virtue, and to lay in a due provision for eternity by actions which are the most conducive to those great purposes. Such being his inclinations and views, there was no danger of his entertaining any superfluous commerce with the world by frequenting its company or amusements: a commerce always pernicious and contrary to the spirit of ecclesiastics, and which the world itself is just enough to condemn, even though by allurements it invited them into the snare. The closest retirement afforded our saint leisure and means for all those exercises of compunction, devotion, and heavenly contemplation, and for laying in a good store of sacred learning and practical knowledge, by which he qualified himself for the high functions of the ministry to which he aspired. He prepared himself afresh for every new step in holy orders by the fervent practice of virtue, and by all suitable dispositions, that when he was raised to the priesthood he might receive the plenitude of its graces. Out of a desire of greater perfection he took the monastic habit at Agaunum, a monastery at that time famous both for regular discipline, and the sacred studies. St. Amatus, with the leave of the abbot, dwelt in a little cell cut in a rock, with an oratory adjoining which is now called our Lady’s in the rock.
Some time after, Amatus was chosen bishop of Sion in the Valais,* about the year 669. In this exalted station the example of his virtue shone forth with new lustre, and greater authority; he was enabled to deal his alms more plentifully among the poor, and was furnished with the means of everyway exerting his zeal more powerfully in advancing the divine honor, and the spiritual good of souls. He preached, instructed, comforted, and relieved all persons according to their particular necessities. In a word, he was an accomplished pastor, sanctifying both himself and those that were committed to his charge. He had governed his diocess almost five years, when the devil, jealous of the victories which the holy pastor daily gained over his empire, stirred up against him certain wicked instruments, who could not bear in others that virtue which they had not courage to practise themselves.
Theodoric III. son of Clovis II. king, first of Austrasia, afterwards of all France, was for several years abandoned to vice and evil counsellors, and is the first of those who, governing by the mayors of his palace, are called by some historians the Idle Kings. Ebroin, mayor of his palace, was one of the wickedest tyrants that ever had any share in the administration of the French kingdom; the murder of St. Leodegarius, and other holy bishops and saints, of which he was the author, are instances of his injustice, cruelty, and irreligion. The enemies of St. Amatus found it an easy matter to accuse him before such a king and such a minister, of crimes which had not the least foundation in truth; some say, of accusing Ebroin of tyrany. Theodoric, without further examination, or so much as allowing the holy man a hearing, banished him to St. Fursey’s monastery at Peronne, where St. Ultan, the abbot, treated him with all imaginable respect and veneration. The holy exile rejoiced in his disgrace to find the tranquillity of holy retirement, in which he enjoyed a sweet calm, with the happy means of living to himself and God, conversing always in heaven, and giving free scope to his zeal in the practice of the most rigorous and penitential austerities. The flagrant injustice that was done him never drew from him the least complaint, though no synod had been assembled to hear him, no sentence of deposition issued out, no crime so much as laid to his charge in a juridical manner. The only circumstance which afflicted him was to see a wolf intruded by the king into his see, not to feed, but to devour his flock.
After the death of St. Ultan, St. Mauront was charged with the custody of St. Amatus, and took him first to the monastery of Hamaye; but soon after built a new abbey upon an estate of his own, at a place called Breüil or Broile, now Merville (that is, Little Town), upon the Lis in Flanders. St. Amatus removed with him to Breüil. St. Mauront rejoiced to be possessed of such a guest, and resigned to him the government of that abbey. St. Amatus, both by words and example, excited the monks to fervor and humility, and having settled the house in excellent order, shut himself up in a little cell near the church, in which he occupied his soul with so much ardor in heavenly contemplation, as scarce to seem to be any longer an inhabitant of the earth. Thus he lived five years with these monks, and only left them to become an intercessor with Christ in his glory for them, about the year 690. Ebroin, who had sacrificed many innocent bishops and noblemen to his cruel Policy, was himself massacred in 679. King Theodoric died in 691, but entering into himself some time before his death, had severely condemned himself for having unjustly persecuted St. Amatus, and in satisfaction made several donations to the abbey of Breüil. Gramaye takes this house to have been a community of secular priests; but that they were monks is evident, since the Capuchin friars, in digging up the ground, found remains of their bodies buried in the monastic habit, as Castilian remarks.1 In the incursions of the Normans these monks retired with the relics of St. Amatus first to Soissons, but soon after to Douay.* This translation was made on the 1st of May, in 870, by Eruannicus, abbot of Breüil, and St. Bainus, fifth bishop of Tarvanne,2 when these relics were deposited in the chapel which St. Mauront had built in honor of St. Amatus, soon after his death, in the church of our Lady, which, four years after, began to be called St. Amatus’s or St. Amé’s, when these monks obtained of John, bishop of Arras and Cambray, king Charles the Bald, and Baldwin I., surnamed the Iron-armed (who had been made by that prince sovereign count of Flanders and Artois or the Morini), proper authority to remove from Breüil, and fix their residence at this church in Douay. The monastery thus settled at Douay, was secularized, and converted into a college of canons in 940. A priory and a holy chapel subsisted long after this at Breüil, on the spot where St. Mauront received St. Amatus, and where both led an anachoretical life. The land to this day belongs to this church of St. Amatus or Amé, in Douay. The relics of St. Mauront were translated to St. Amé’s in Douay, from Marchiennes, in 1485. See the life of St. Amatus, written before the translation of his relics, or the destruction of the monastery of Breüil, or Merinville, or Merville. Also Bulteau, l. 3, c. 36; Gramaye, Antiqu. Duac. p. 202; Castillion, Chronol. Eccl. Belgic. seu Episc. Belgic. in Duaco, p. 38, 39; and D. Henry and D. Tachereau in the last part of Gallia Christiana, and the Bollandists, p. 120–133.

ANOTHER ST. AMATUS, OR AME

ABBOT AND CONFESSOR

IS commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on this day. His youth he consecrated to God in the most fervent exercises of all virtue in the monastery of Agaunum, and was called by obedience to Remiremont in Lorrain, and constituted abbot of that numerous community. Continually enlarging the capacity of his soul by purifying his desires, and inflaming his affections more and more, he received continually new accessions of grace and virtue, and thereby made perpetual approaches towards the fountain of all perfection. He considered that a uniform religious life is not an idle dull round of the same exercises, but a daily advancing in fervor and purity of heart, by which all the regular practices of devotion and penance become, as it were, every day new. Thus persevering and improving in every grace, and in every virtue, he happily attained to the prize of eternal bliss, to which he was called about the year 627. His relics are enshrined at Remiremont, of Romberg, in the diocess of Toul. See his life, and those of his two successors, SS. Romaric and Adelphus, written in a clear plain style by a monk of that house, who lived under the two latter; extant in Mabillon, Acta Bened. t. 2, p. 135, 415, 602. See also Bulteau, Hist. Monast. d’Occid. t. 1. p. 419. The Bollandists, t. 3, Sept. p. 95.

SAINT MAURILIUS, BISHOP OF ANGERS, C.

IN the fifth century, leaving a large estate and a tender mother at Milan, in order to serve God in holy retirement, he addressed himself to St. Martin of Tours, by whom he was directed in the narrow path of Christian perfection. He founded a monastery on a hill called Prisciac, near the village Calon on the Loire, four miles from Angers, to which he often retired, even after he was made bishop, and where, after his death, his body rested and was held in great veneration till it was translated from this church, which bore his name, into that of St. Martin, by Nesing, bishop of Angers, about the year 970. It is there exposed in a rich shrine, and has been honored with many miracles. His Life was written by St. Magnobodus, bishop of Angers, about two hundred years after his death, and by others. That which bears the name of St. Gregory of Tours does not seem to be his work. See the Bollandists, p. 64, who prefer his life b

Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 3, pp. 650–655). New York: P. J. Kenedy.