April III

SS. Agape, Chionia, And Irene, Sisters

and their companions, martyrs

From their original acts, abridged out of the presidial court registers of Thessalonica, in Surius Ruinart, p. 421. Tillemont, t. 5, pp. 240 and 680. Ceillier, t. 3, p. 490.

A. D. 304.

These three sisters lived at Thessalonica, and their parents were heathens when they suffered martyrdom. In the year 303, the emperor Dioclesian published an edict forbidding, under pain of death, any persons to keep the holy scriptures. These saints concealed many volumes of these sacred books, but were not discovered or apprehended till the year following; when, as their acts relate, Dulcetius, the governor, being seated in his tribunal, Artemesius, the secretary, said: “If you please, I will read an information given in by the Stationary,* concerning several persons here present.” Dulcetius said: “Let the information be read.” The solicitor read as follows: “The Pensioner Cassander to Dulcetius, president of Macedonia, greeting. I send to your highness six Christian women, with a man, who have refused to eat meats sacrificed to the gods. They are called Agape, Chionia, Irene, Casia, Philippa, Eutychia, and the man’s name is Agatho; therefore I have caused them to be brought before you.” The president, turning to the women, said: “Wretches, what madness is this of yours, that you will not obey the pious commands of the emperors and Cæsars?” He then said to Agatho: “Why will you not eat of the meats offered to the gods, like other subjects of the empire?” He answered: “Because I am a Christian.” Dulcetius.—“Do you still persist in that resolution?” “Certainly,” replied Agatho. Dulcetius next addressed himself to Agape, saying: “What are your sentiments?” Agape answered: “I believe in the living God, and will not by an evil action lose all the merit of my past life.” Then the president said: “What say you, Chionia?” She answered: “I believe in the living God, and for that reason did not obey your orders.” The president, turning to Irene, said: “Why did not you obey the most pious command of our emperors and Cæsars?” Irene said: “For fear of offending God.” President.—“But what say you, Casia?” She said: “I desire to save my soul.” President.—“Will not you partake of the sacred offerings?” Casia.—“By no means.” President.—“But you, Philippa, what do you say?” She answered: “I say the same thing.” President.—“What is that?” Philippa.—“That I had rather die than eat of your sacrifices.” President.—“And you, Eutychia, what do you say?” “I say the same thing,” said she, “that I had rather die than do what you command.” President.—“Are you married?” Eutychia.—“My husband has been dead almost these seven months.” “By whom are you with child?” She answered: “By him whom God gave me for my husband.” President.—“I advise you, Eutychia, to leave this folly, and resume a reasonable way of thinking; what do you say? will you obey the imperial edict?” Eutychia.—“No: for I am a Christian, and serve the Almighty God.” President.—“Eutychia being big with child, let her be kept in prison.” Afterwards Dulcetius added: “Agape, what is your resolution? will you do as we do, who are obedient and dutiful to the emperors?” Agape.—“It is not proper to obey Satan; my soul is not to be overcome by these discourses.” President.—“And you, Chionia, what is your final answer?” “Nothing can change me,” said she. President.—“Have you not some books, papers, or other writings, relating to the religion of the impious Christians?” Chionia said: “We have none: the emperors now reigning have taken them all from us.” President.—“Who drew you into this persuasion?” She said, “Almighty God.” President.—“Who induced you to embrace this folly?” Chionia repeated again, “Almighty God, and his only Son our Lord Jesus Christ.” Dulcetius.—“You are all bound to obey our most puissant emperors and Cæsars. But because you have so long obstinately despised their just commands, and so many edicts, admonitions, and threats, and have had the boldness and rashness to despise our orders, retaining the impious name of Christians; and since to this very time you have not obeyed the stationaries and officers who solicited you to renounce Jesus Christ in writing, you shall receive the punishment you deserve.” Then he read their sentence, which was worded as follows: “I condemn Agape and Chionia to be burnt alive, for having out of malice and obstinacy acted in contradiction to the divine edicts of our lords the emperors and Cæsars, and who at present profess the rash and false religion of Christians, which all pious persons abhor.” He added: “As for the other four, let them be confined in close prison during my pleasure.”

After these two had been consumed in the fire, Irene was a third time brought before the president. Dulcetius said to her: “Your madness is plain, since you have kept to this day so many books, parchments, codicils and papers of the scriptures of the impious Christians. You was forced to acknowledge them when they were produced before you, though you had before denied you had any.* You will not take warning from the punishment of your sisters, neither have you the fear of death before your eyes your punishment therefore is unavoidable. In the mean time I do not refuse even now to make some condescension in your behalf. Notwithstanding your crime, you may find pardon and be freed from punishment, if you will yet worship the gods. What say you then? will you obey the orders of the emperors? are you ready to sacrifice to the gods, and eat of the victims?” Irene.—“By no means: for those that renounce Jesus Christ, the Son of God, are threatened with eternal fire.” Dulcetius.—“Who persuaded you to conceal those books and papers so long?” Irene.—“Almighty God, who has commanded us to love him even unto death; on which account we dare not betray him, but rather choose to be burnt alive, or suffer anything whatsoever than discover such writings.” President.—“Who knew that those writings were in the house?” “Nobody,” said she, “but the Almighty, from whom nothing is hid: for we concealed them even from our own domestics, lest they should accuse us.” President.—“Where did you hide yourselves last year, when the pious edict of our emperors was first published?” Irene.—“Where it pleased God, in the mountains.” President.—“With whom did you live?” Irene.—“We were in the open air, sometimes on one mountain, sometimes on another.” President.—“Who supplied you with bread?” Irene.—“God, who gives food to all flesh.” President.—“Was your father privy to it?” Irene.—“No; he had not the least knowledge of it.” President.—“Which of your neighbors knew it?” Irene.—“Inquire in the neighborhood, and make your search.” President.—“After you returned from the mountains, as you say, did you read those books to anybody?” Irene.—“They were hid at our own house, and we durst not produce them; and we were in great trouble, because we could not read them night and day, as we had been accustomed to do.” Dulcetius.—“Your sisters have already suffered the punishments to which they were condemned. As for you, Irene, though you were condemned to death before your flight for having hid these writings, I will not have you die so suddenly; but I order that you be exposed naked in a brothel, and be allowed one loaf a day, to be sent you from the palace; and that the guards do not suffer you to stir out of it one moment, under pain of death to them.” The infamous sentence was rigorously executed; but God protecting her, no man durst approach her, nor say or do any indecency to her. The president caused her to be brought again before him, and said to her: “Do you still persist in your rashness?” “Not in rashness,” said Irene, “but in piety towards God.” Dulcetius.—“You shall suffer the just punishment of your insolence and obstinacy.” And having called for paper, he wrote this sentence: “Since Irene will not obey the emperor’s orders and sacrifice to the gods, but, on the contrary, persists still in the religion of the Christians, I order her to be immediately burnt alive, as her sisters have been.” Dulcetius had no sooner pronounced this sentence but the soldiers seized Irene, and brought her to a rising ground where her sisters had suffered martyrdom, and having lighted a large pile, ordered her to mount thereon. Irene, singing psalms, and celebrating the glory of God, threw herself on the pile, and was there consumed in the ninth consulship of Dioclesian, and the eighth of Maximian, on the 1st day of April; but Ado, Usuard, and the Roman Martyrology name St. Agape and Chionia on the 3d, and St. Irene on the 5th of April.

These saints suffered a glorious martyrdom, rather than to offend God by an action which several Christians at that time on various foolish pretexts excused to themselves. How many continually form to themselves a false conscience to palliate the enormity of gross sins, in spite of the light of reason and the gospel; in which their case is far more deplorable and desperate than that of the most flagrant sinners. These are often awakened to sincere repentance: but what hopes can we have of those who, wilfully blinding themselves, imagine all goes right with them, even while they are running headlong into perdition? How many excuse to themselves notorious usuries and a thousand frauds, detractions, slanders, revenge, antipathies, sensual fondnesses, and criminal familiarities, envy, jealousy, hypocrisy, pride, and numberless other crimes! How often do men canonize the grossest vices under the glorious names of charity, zeal, prudence, constancy, and other virtues! The principal sources of this fatal misfortune of a false conscience are, first, the passions. These so strangely blind the understanding and pervert the judgment, that men fail not to extenuate the enormity of their crimes, and even to justify to themselves many violations of the divine law, where any passion hath a strong bias. Whatever men are eagerly bent to commit, they easily find pretences to call lawful. A second cause of our practical errors are the example and false maxims of the world. We flatter ourselves that what everybody does must be lawful, as if the multitude of sinners could authorize any crime, or as if the rule by which Christ will judge us, was the custom or example of others; or lastly, as if the world had not framed a false system of morals very opposite to the gospel. A third source of this dreadful and common evil is an affected ignorance. Parents, magistrates, priests, and others, are frequently unacquainted with several essential obligations of their state. How ofter are Christians ignorant of many practical duties which they owe to God, their neighbors, and themselves!

St. Richard, B. C.

From his life by Ralph Bocking, some time his Confessarius, in two books, dedicated to Isabel, countess of Arundel; extant in the Acta Sanctorum. The same is abridged in Surius. See another life of this saint in Capgrave, written also soon after his death; and F. Papebroke, t. 1, April. p. 277.

A. D. 1253.

St. Richard was born at the manor of Wiche, famous for its salt wells, four miles from Worcester, being second son to Richard and Alice de Wiche. In order to keep faithfully his baptismal vows, he from his infancy always manifested the utmost dislike to gay diversions, and ever held in the highest contempt all worldly pomp: instead of which his attention was wholly employed in establishing for himself a solid foundation of virtue and learning. Every opportunity of serving others he regarded as his happiness and gain. The unfortunate situation of his eldest brother’s affairs gave him an occasion of exercising his benevolent disposition. Richard condescended to become his brother’s servant, undertook the management of his farms, and by his industry and generosity effectually retrieved his brother’s before distressed circumstances. Having completed this good work, he resumed at Paris those studies he had begun at Oxford, leading with two select companions, a life of piety and mortification, generally contenting himself with coarse bread and simple water for his diet; except that on Sundays and on particular festivals he would, in condescendence to some visitors, allow himself a little meat or fish. Upon his return to England, he proceeded master of arts at Oxford, from whence he went to Bologna, in Italy, where he applied himself to the study of the canon law, and was appointed public professor of that science. After having taught there a short time, he returned to Oxford, and, on account of his merit, was soon promoted to the dignity of chancellor in that university. St. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, having the happiness of gaining him for his diocese, appointed him his chancellor, and intrusted him with the chief direction of his archbishopric; and Richard was the faithful imitator of his patron’s piety and devotions. The principal use he made of his revenues was to employ them to charitable purposes, nor would he on any terms be prevailed on to accept the least present in the execution of his office as ecclesiastical judge. He accompanied his holy prelate in his banishment into France, and after his blessed death at Pontigni, retired into a convent of Dominican friars in Orleans. Having in that solitude employed his time in the improving himself in theological studies, and received the order of priesthood, he returned to England to serve a private curacy, in the diocese of Canterbury. Boniface, who had succeeded St. Edmund in that metropolitan see, compelled him to resume his office of chancellor, with the care of his whole diocese. Ralph Nevil, bishop of Chichester, dying in 1244, king Henry III. recommended to that see an unworthy court favorite, called Robert Passelew: the archbishop and other prelates declared the person not qualified, and the presentation void: and preferred Richard de Wiche to that dignity. He was consecrated in 1245. But the king seized his temporalities, and the saint suffered many hardships and persecutions from him and his officers, during two years, till his majesty granted him a replevin: upon which he recovered his revenues, but much impaired. And as, after having pleaded his cause at Rome before pope Innocent IV. against the king’s deputies, and obtained a sentence confirming his election, he had permitted no persecution, fatigue, or difficulty to excuse him to himself for the omission of any part of his duty to his flock: so now, the chief obstacles being removed, he redoubled his fervor and attention. He, in person, visited the sick, buried the dead, and sought out and relieved the poor. When his steward complained that his alms exceeded his income: “then,” said he, “sell my plate and my horse.” Having suffered a great loss by fire, instead of being more sparing in his charities, he said, “Perhaps God sent us this loss to punish our covetousness;” and ordered upon the spot more abundant alms to be given than usual. Such was the ardor of his devotion, that he lived as it were in the perpetual contemplation of heavenly things. He preached the word of God to his flock with that unction and success which only an eminent spirit of prayer could produce. The affronts which he received, he always repaid with favors, and enmity with singular marks of charity. In maintaining discipline he was inflexible, especially in chastising crimes in the clergy: no intercession of the king, archbishop, and several other prelates could prevail with him to mitigate the punishment of a priest who had sinned against chastity. Yet penitent sinners he received with inexpressible tenderness and charity. While he was employed in preaching a holy war against the Saracens, being commissioned thereto by the pope, he fell sick of a fever, foretold his own death, and prepared himself for it by the most melting ejaculations of divine love and thanksgiving. He died in an hospital at Dover, called God’s House, on the 3d of April, in the year of our Lord 1253, of his episcopal dignity the ninth, of his age the fifty-sixth. His body was conveyed to Chichester, and interred before the altar which he himself had consecrated in his cathedral to the memory of St. Edmund. It was removed to a more honorable place in 1276, on the 16th of June, on which day our ancestors commemorated his translation. The fame of miraculous cures of paralytic and other distempers, and of three persons raised to life at his tomb, moved the pope to appoint commissaries to inquire into the truth of these reports, before whom many of these miracles were authentically proved upon the spot; and the saint was solemnly canonized by Urban IV., in 1262.

St. Ulpian, M.

He was a young zealous Christian of Tyre, who, being encouraged by the example of St. Apian and other martyrs at Cæsarea, boldly confessed Christ before the cruel judge Urbanus. The enraged governor ordered him to be first severely scourged, and then tortured on the rack; his joints being thereby dislocated, his bones broke, and his body so universally sore that the slightest touch occasioned excessive pain. He was sewed up after this in a leather bag, with a dog and an aspic, laid on a cart drawn by black bulls, carried to the sea-side, and cast into the waves. See Eusebius on the Martyrs of Palestine, ch. 5.

St. Nicetas, Abbot

He was a native of Bithynia, and from his infancy was brought up in austere monasteries by the care of his pious father Philaretus, who, after the loss of his wife, had himself embraced a monastic state. Nicetas emulated the most perfect examples of virtue: his mind was wholly occupied in prayer and pious reading, and his body was so extenuated by the severity of his fasts and watching, that it nearly resembled a walking skeleton. But his soul grew the more vigorous and active in proportion as it was more disengaged from the flesh, and by contemplation approached nearer to the angels. St. Nicephorus appointed him his coadjutor, and afterwards recommended him to be his successor in the abbey of Medicion, which he had founded on mount Olympus, under the rule of the Acæmetes. In this calm and amiable retreat the saint, and a hundred holy monks under his direction, led the lives of terrestrial angels, when the devil found means to disturb their tranquillity, though in the end his attempts only served to furnish their virtue with more distinguished occasions of triumph. In 813, the emperor Leo the Armenian renewed the war against holy images, and in 814, banished the patriarch St. Nicephorus, and intruded into his see one Theodosius, an impious officer of the court. The zeal of Nicetas for the Catholic faith was recompensed by two banishments, a rigid imprisonment, and other severe sufferings. Theodosius, having pronounced anathema against all who did not honor the image of Jesus Christ, our abbot, regarding him as orthodox, consented, with many other confessors, to receive the communion from his hands; but was immediately stung with remorse, fearing lest he had been drawn into a conformity which some might interpret to the prejudice of the truth. Hereupon he openly protested that he would never abandon the faith of his ancestors, or obey the false patriarch. He rejected the offers of preferment at court, and chose rather to suffer a cruel banishment into the island of St. Glyceria, in the extremities of the Propontis, under the guard of Anthimus, a court eunuch, who confined him in a dark dungeon, the key of which he always kept in his own custody. A little food, merely what seemed necessary to preserve him alive, was carelessly thrown in to him through a little window. In this martyrdom he lingered six years, till the death of Leo the Armenian, who was murdered on Christmas-day, in 820 Michael the Stutterer, who then ascended the throne, released the prisoners. St. Nicetas chose, out of humility, neither to return to his monastery, nor to live at Constantinople, but, shutting himself up in a small hermitage near that city, prepared himself for death, which he met with joy on the 3d of April, 824. Many miracles rendered his name illustrious on earth. See his life, by an intimate acquaintance, in Surius, d’Andilly, Papebroke, Fleury b. 46.

* Stationarius was a person appointed to keep ward in any place. Such officers, when distinguished by certain privileges, or particular benefits, conferred upon them for past services in the army, were also called Beneficiarii.

* They probably were not then in her custody, at least not known to Chionia, who had denied them: or she only denied herself convicted of the fact in court.

 Butler, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) II, 19-25.