June XXVIII

St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, Martyr

See Tillemont, t. 3; Ceillier, t. 2, p. 135; Orsi, t. 2; F. Colonia, Hist. Litiéraire de la Ville de Lyon, See. 3, p. 103; and Dom. Massnit, in his edition of this father’s works.

A. D. 202.

This saint is himself our voucher that he was born near the times of Domitian,¹ consequently not in the close, as Dupin conjectures, but in the beginning of Adrian’s reign, about the year 120. He was a Grecian; probably a native of Lesser Asia. His parents, who were Christians, placed him under the care of the great St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. It was in so holy a school, that he learned that sacred science which rendered him afterwards a great ornament of the church in the days of her splendor, and the terror of her enemies. St. Polycarp cultivated his rising genius, and formed his mind to piety by precepts and example; and the zealous scholar was careful to reap all the advantages which were offered him by the happiness of such a master. Such was his veneration for his sanctity, that he observed every action, and whatever he saw in that holy man, the better to copy his example, and learn his spirit. He listened to his instructions with an insatiable ardor; and so deeply did he engrave them in his heart, that the impressions remained most lively even to his old age, as he declares in his letter to Florinus, quoted by Eusebius.² St. Jerom informs us, that St. Irenæus was also a scholar of Papias, another disciple of the apostles. In order to confute the heresies of that age, which, in the three first centuries, were generally a confused medley drawn from the most extravagant systems of the heathens and their philosophers, joined with Christianity, this father studied diligently the mythology of the pagans, and made himself acquainted with the most absurd conceits of their philosophers, by which means he was qualified to trace up every error to its sources, and set it in its full light. On this account he is styled by Tertullian,³ “The most diligent searcher of all doctrines.” St. Jerom often appeals to his authority. Eusebius commends his exactness. St. Epiphanius calls him “A most learned and eloquent man, endowed with all the gifts of the Holy Ghost.” Theodoret styles him, “The light of the western Gauls.”

The great commerce between Marseilles and the ports of Lesser Asia, especially Smyrna, made the intercourse between those places very open. The faith of Christ was propagated in that part of Gaul in the times of the apostles, and from thence soon reached Vienne and Lyons; this latter town being then, by the advantage of the Rhone, no less famous a mart than it is at this day. While the desire of wealth encouraged many to hazard their persons amidst the dangers of the seas and robbers, in the way of trade, a zeal for the divine honor and the salvation of souls, was a more noble and more powerful motive with others, to face every danger and surmount every difficulty for so glorious an achievement. Among the Greeks and Orientals whom we find crowned with martyrdom with others at Lyons and Vienne, several doubtless had travelled into those parts with a view only to carry thither the light of the gospel. St. Gregory of Tours informs us, that St. Polycarp himself sent St. Irenæus into Gaul, perhaps in company with some priest. He was himself ordained priest of the church of Lyons by St. Pothinus; and, in 177, he was sent deputy in the name of that church to pope Eleutherius, to entreat him not to cut off from the communion of the church the Orientals, on account of their difference about the celebration of Easter, as Eusebius⁴ and St. Jerom⁵ take notice. The multitude and zeal of the faithful at Lyons stirred up the rage of the heathens, and gave occasion to a tumultuary and most bloody persecution, of which an account has been given June 2d. St. Irenæus gave great proofs of his zeal in those times of trial; but survived the storm, during the first part of which he had been absent in his journey to Rome. St. Pothinus having glorified God by his happy death in the year 177, our saint upon his return was chosen the second bishop of Lyons, in the heat of the persecution. By his preaching, he in a short time converted almost that whole country to the faith, as St. Gregory of Tours testifies. Eusebius tells us that he governed the churches of Gaul; but the faith was not generally planted in the more remote provinces from Marseilles and Lyons before the arrival of St. Dionysius and his companions in the following century.

Commodus, succeeding his father Marcus Aurelius in the empire in 180, though an effeminate debauched prince, restored peace to the church. But it was disturbed by an execrable spawn of heresies, particularly of the Gnostics and Valentinians. St. Irenæus wrote, chiefly against these last, his five books against heresies. The original Greek text of this work was most elegant, as St. Jerom testifies. But, except some few Greek passages which have been preserved, only a Latin translation is extant in which the style is embarrassed, diffusive, and unpolished. It seems to have been made in the lifetime of St. Irenæus, and to be the same that was made use of by Tertullian, as Dom. Massuet shows.⁶ This Valentinus was a good scholar, and preached with applause, first in Egypt, and afterwards at Rome. We learn from Tertullian,⁷ that he fell by pride and jealousy, because another was preferred before him in an election to a bishopric in Egypt. He first broached his heresy in Cyprus, but afterwards propagated it in Italy and Gaul.* When Florinus, who had been his fellow-disciple under St. Polycarp, and was afterwards a priest, of the church of Rome, blasphemously affirmed that God is the author of sin, and was on that account deposed from the priesthood, St. Irenæus wrote him a letter, entitled, “On the Monarchy or Unity of God, and that God is not the author of sin,” which is now lost. Eusebius quotes from it a passage in which the holy father in the most tender manner reminds him with what horror their common master, St. Polycarp, had he been living, would have heard such impieties. Florinus was by this letter reclaimed from his error, but being of a turbulent proud spirit, he soon after fell into the Valentinian heresy. On which occasion St. Irenæus wrote his Ogdoade, or Confutation of Valentinus’s eight principal Æônes, by whom that heresiarch pretended that the world was created and governed. In the end of this book, the saint added the following adjuration, preserved by Eusebius: “I conjure you, who transcribe this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by his glorious coming to judge the living and the dead, that you diligently compare your copy, and correct it by the original.” By this precaution, we may judge of the extreme care of the fathers in this respect, and how great their abhorrence was of the impudent practice of some heretics in adulterating writings. One Blastus, a priest at Rome, formed a schism, by keeping Easter on the fourteenth day of the first moon, and to this schism added heresy, teaching this to be a divine precept.⁸ He was deposed from the priesthood, and St. Irenæus wrote against him his treatise on schism. The dispute about Easter being renewed, pope Victor threatened to excommunicate the Asiatics; but was prevailed upon to tolerate for some time that practice of discipline by a letter of St. Irenæus, who entreated and advisee that, considering the circumstances, a difference of practice might be allowed, in like manner, as the faithful did not all observe in the same manner the fast of Superposition, or of one or more days without taking any sustenance in holy week; but some kept it of one, others of two, others of more days.⁹ Thus the pope’s severity prevented these false teachers, who pretended the legal ceremonies to be of precept, from drawing any advantage from this practice of the Orientals; and the moderation of St. Irenæus preserved some from a temptation of sinning by obstinacy and disobedience, till a uniformity in that important point of discipline could be more easily established.

The peace which the church at that time enjoyed, afforded our saint leisure to exert his zeal, and employ his pen to great advantage. Commodus began his reign with extraordinary moderation; and though he afterwards sunk into debauchery and cruelty, yet he never persecuted the Christians. He was poisoned and strangled in 192, being thirty-one years old, of which he had reigned twelve. Pertinax, an old man, was made emperor by compulsion, but reigned only eighty-seven days, always trembling for his own safety. Being esteemed too frugal and rigorous, he was slain; and the prætorian guards, who had often made and unmade emperors at pleasure, whom the never-gainsaying senate confirmed, on that occasion debased to the last degree the dignity of the Roman empire by exposing it to sale by public auction. Didius Julianus and Sulpicianus having several times outbid each other, when the latter had offered five thousand drachms, Julianus at once rose to six thousand two hundred and fifty drachms, which he promised to give every soldier; for which price he carried the empire. The senate confirmed the election, but the purchaser being embarrassed to find money to acquit himself of his engagement, was murdered sixty-six days after; having dearly bought the honor of wearing the purple, and of having his name placed among the emperors. Severus was next advanced to the throne by a part of the troops, and acknowledged emperor by the senate. Niger and Albinus were proclaimed by different armies; but Severus defeated the first by his generals, in 194, and the latter himself near Lyons in Gaul, in 197. The Christians had no share in these public broils. Tertullian at that time much extols the fidelity of the Christians to their princes, and says, none of them were ever found in armies of rebels, and, particularly, that none of them were ever engaged in the party either of Niger or Albinus.* It is evident from the whole series of the history of the Roman emperors, that the people, from the days of Augustus, never looked upon that dignity as strictly hereditary.^† The confirmation of the senate, in the name of the whole Roman people, seems to have been regarded as the solemn act of state, by which an emperor was legally invested with that supreme dignity; on this account the Christians everywhere acknowledged and faithfully obeyed Severus. He had also other obligations to them. Tertullian tells us,¹⁰ that a Christian, called Proculus, cured him of a certain distemper, for which benefit the emperor was for some time favorable to the Christians, and kept Proculus as long as he lived in his palace. This Proculus was the steward of Euhodus, who was a freed man of the emperor Severus, and by him appointed to educate his son Caracalla. Tertullian mentions this cure as miraculous, and joins it to the history of devils cast out. This cure is confirmed by pagan writers.¹¹ Yet the clamors of the heathens at length moved this ungrateful emperor, who was naturally inclined to severity, to raise the fifth persecution against the church; for he was haughty, cruel, stubborn, and unrelenting.* He published his bloody edicts against the Christians about the tenth year of his reign, of Christ 202. Having formerly been governor of Lyons, and eye-witness to the flourishing state of that church, he seems to have given particular instructions that the Christians there should be proceeded against with extraordinary severity, unless this persecution was owing to the fury of the particular magistrates, and of the mob. For the general massacre of the Christians at Lyons seems to have been attended with a popular commotion of the whole country against them, while the pagans were celebrating the decennial games in honor of Severus. It seems to have been stirred up, because the Christians refused to join the idolaters in their sacrifices. Whence Tertullian says, in his Apology, “Is it thus that your public rejoicings are consecrated by public infamy?”^† Ado, in his chronicle, says that St. Irenæus suffered martyrdom with an exceeding great multitude. An ancient epitaph, in leonine verses, inscribed on a curious mosaic pavement in the great church of St. Irenæus at Lyons, says the martyrs who died with him amounted to the number of nineteen thousand.^‡ St. Gregory of Tours writes, that St. Irenæus had in a very short time converted to the faith almost the whole city of Lyons; and that with him were butchered almost all the Christians of that populous town; insomuch, that the streets ran with streams of blood.^§ Most place the martyrdom of these saints in 202, the beginning of the persecution, though some defer it to the year 208, when Severus passed through Lyons in his expedition into Britain. The precious remains of St. Irenæus were buried by his priest Zachary, between the bodies of the holy martyrs SS. Epipodius and Alexander. They were kept with honor in the subterraneous chapel in the church of St. John, till, in 1562, they were scattered by the Calvinists, and a great part thrown into the river. The head they kicked about in the streets, then cast it into a little brook; but it was found by a Catholic, and restored to St. John’s church.¹² The Greeks honor his memory on the 23d of August, the Latins on the 28th of June. The former say he was beheaded.

It was not for want of strength or courage, that the primitive Christians at still and suffered the most grievous torments, insults, and death; but from a principle of religion which taught them the interest of faith does not exempt men from the duty which they owe to the civil authority of government, and they rather chose to be killed than to sin against God, as Tertullian often takes notice. Writing at this very time, he tells the pagans, that the Maurs, Marcomans, and Parthians, were not so numerous as the Christians, who knew no other bounds than the limits of the world. “We are but of yesterday,” says he,¹³ “and by to-day we are grown up, and overspread your empire; your cities, your islands, your forts, towns, assemblies, and your very camps, wards, companies, palace, senate, forum, all swarm with Christians. Your temples are the only places which you can find without Christians. What war are not we equal to?¹⁴ And supposing us unequal in strength, yet considering our usage, what should we not attempt? we whom you see so ready to meet death in all its forms of cruelly. Were the numerous host of Christians but to retire from the empire, the loss of so many men of all ranks would leave a hideous gap, and the very evacuation would be abundant revenge. You would stand aghast at your desolation, and be struck dumb at the general silence and horror of nature, as if the whole world was departed.” He writes that the Christians not only suffered with patience and joy every persecution and insult, but loved and prayed for their enemies, and by their prayers protected the state, and often delivered the persecutors from many dangers of soul and body, and from the incursions of their invisible enemies the devils. He says: “When we come to the public service of God, we come as it were in a formidable body to do violence to him, and to storm heaven by prayer; and this violence is most grateful to God. When this holy army of supplicants is met, we all send up our prayers for the life of the emperors, for their ministers, for magistrates, for the good of the state, and for the peace of the empire.”¹⁵ And in another place:* “To this almighty Maker and Disposer of all things it is, that we Christians offer up our prayers, with eyes lifted up to heaven; and without a prompter, we pray with our hearts rather than with our tongues; and in all our prayers are ever mindful of all our emperors and kings wheresoever we live, beseeching God for every one of them, that he would bless them with length of days, and a quiet reign, a well established family, a valiant army, a faithful senate, an honest people, and a peaceful world, with whatever else either prince or people can wish for. Thus, while we are stretching forth our hands to God, let your tormenting irons harrow our flesh, let your gibbets exalt us, or your fires consume our bodies, or your swords cut off our heads, or your beasts tread us to the earth. For a Christian, upon his knees to his God, is in a posture of defence against all the evils you can crowd upon him. Consider this, O you impartial judges, and go on with your justice; rack out the soul of a Christian, which is pouring out herself to God for the life of the emperor.”^† He says indeed, that there are some Christians who do not live up to their profession; but then they have not the reputation of Christians among those who are truly such; and no Christian had then ever been guilty of rebellion; though even philosophers among the heathens were often stained with that and other crimes. Hippias was killed while he was engaged in arms against his country; whereas no Christian had ever recourse to arms or violence, even for the deliverance of his brethren, though under the most provoking and barbarous usage.^‡

St. Leo II., Pope, C.

He was by birth a Silician, eminent for his piety, and perfectly skilled in the Latin and Greek tongues, in the church music, and both in sacred and polite literature. Pope Agatho dying on the 1st of December, 681, he was chosen to fill the pontifical chair. He confirmed, by the authority of St. Peter, as he says, (writing to the zealous emperor Constantine Pogonatus,¹) the sixth general council held at Constantinople, in which his predecessor St. Agatho had presided by his legates. In the censure of this council we find the name of Honorius, joined with the Monothelite heretics, Theodorus bishop of Pharan, and Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter of Constantinople. Pope Leo II. in his first letter to the bishops of Spain,² gives the reason, because Honorius “did not extinguish the flame of the heretical doctrine in its rise, as it became the apostolical authority, but fomented it by negligence.” And in his letter to king Ervigius³ he makes the same distinction between Honorius and the others. It is evident from the very letters of Honorius himself, which are still extant, from the irrefragable testimony of his secretary who wrote those letters, and from others, that he never gave in to the Monothelite error; though had he fallen into heresy, this would have only hurt himself; nor is the question of any other importance than as an historical fact. Favorers are sometimes ranked with principals.⁴ Honorius had by unwariness, and an indiscreet silence, temporized with a powerful heresy, before his eyes were opened to see the flame, which he ought to have labored strenuously to extinguish when the first sparks appeared. St. Leo reformed the Gregorian chant, composed several sacred hymns for the divine office, and did many things for the advancement of religion, though he was only pope one year and seven months. He pointed out the path to Christian perfection no less by the example of his life, than by his assiduous instructions, and zealous exhortations; and was in a particular manner the father of the poor, whom he diligently relieved, comforted, and instructed with a most edifying tenderness, charity, and patience. He passed to a better life on the 23d of May, 683, and was buried in the Vatican church on the 28th of June; on which day he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology, that of Notker, and the ancient German Calendar published by Beckius. See Anastasius Biblioth, and his Epistles, Conc. t. 6.

SS. Plutarch, Etc., MM.

The school of Origen at Alexandria was a school of virtue and martyrdom; for the master, notwithstanding his extraordinary reputation in the sciences, made it the first part of his care to train up all his scholars in the most heroic maxims of Christian perfection. Hence it is not to be wondered that out of it came many illustrious martyrs in the persecution of Severus, which raged with great fury from 202, the year before Origen was made catechist, to the death of that emperor in 211.

The first of these heroes of virtue was St. Plutarch, brother of St. Heraclas, afterwards bishop of Alexandria. These two eminent brothers were converted to the faith at the same time by hearing certain lectures read by Origen. Plutarch prepared himself for martyrdom by a holy life, and being a person of distinction was soon apprehended. Origen visited and encouraged him in prison, and accompanied him to the place of execution where he narrowly escaped death himself, from the resentment of Plutarch’s pagan friends, who looked upon him as the cause of their losing him. Serenus, another scholar of Origen, was burnt alive for the faith: Heraclides, a third, yet a catechumen, and Hero, who had been lately baptized, were beheaded: another Serenus, after undergoing many torments, had his head also cut off. Herais, a damsel, being but a catechumen, was burnt, and according to the __EXPRESSION__ of Origen, baptized by fire; for Origen had among his disciples several illustrious ladies. See Eusebius, l. 6 3, 4.

SS. Potamiana or Potamiena, and Basilides,

martyrs

These two also owed their instruction in virtue to the same master with the former, as Henry Valesius proves from Eusebius’s history, and as Rufinus assures us. Potamiana was by condition a slave, but had the happiness to be educated in the faith by a pious mother whose name was Marcella, and seeking the ablest master of piety, applied herself to Origen. She was young, and of amazing beauty, and her heathen master conceived a brutish desire to abuse her; but finding her resolution and virtue invincible, and all his artifices, threats, and promises in vain, he delivered her to the prefect Aquila, entreating him not to hurt her if she could be prevailed upon to consent to his passion, and on that condition promising him a considerable sum of money. The prefect not being able to persuade her, made her undergo several torments, and at length caused a caldron of boiling pitch to be prepared, and then said to her, “Go, obey your master, or you shall be thrown into this caldron.” She answered, “I conjure you by the life of the emperor whom you respect, that you do not let me appear uncovered; command me rather to be let down by degrees into the caldron with my clothes on, that you may see the patience with which Jesus Christ, of whom you are ignorant, endues those who trust in him.” The prefect granted this request, and delivered her to Basilides, one of her guards, to carry her to execution. Basilides treated her with mildness and civility, and kept off the people, who pressed on to insult her modesty, with lewd and opprobrious speeches, all the way she went. The martyr, by way of requital, bade him be of good courage; and promised, that “after her death she would obtain of God his salvation,” as Eusebius expresses it. When she had spoken thus, the executioners put her feet into the boiling pitch, and dipped her in by degrees to the very top of her head; and thus she finished her martyrdom. Her mother, Marcella, was burnt at the same time. Tertullian¹ and Origen² testify that many were then called to the faith by visions and apparitions.* By such a favor was the conversion of the soldier Basilides wrought through the prayers of St. Potamiana, who while alive had promised he should feel the effects of her gratitude when she should be gone to Christ. A little after her martyrdom, the soldiers who were his comrades, being about to make him swear by their false gods, he declared that he was a Christian, and could by no means do it. They at first thought he jested; but finding him to persist in his resolution, they carried him to the prefect, who caused him to be put in prison. The Christians who came to visit him there, asked him the cause of his sudden change. He answered them, that Potamiana had appeared to him on the night after the third day from her martyrdom, and had placed a crown on his head, saying, that she had besought the Lord to give him the grace of salvation, and had obtained her request; and that he should shortly be called by Him to glory. After this, having received from the brethren the seal of the Lord, (that is, baptism,) he made the next day, a second time, a glorious confession of the faith before the tribunal of the prefect, and sentence of death being passed upon him, his head was cut off with an axe. St. Potamiana appeared to several others in dreams, and they were converted to the faith. See Eusebius Hist. 1 6, c. 5, and Palladius, Lausiac, c. 3.

¹ L. 5, c. 30

² L. 5. c. 20. See St. Polycarp’s life.

³ L. contra Valent. c. 5.

⁴ Eus. 1. 5, c. 4.

⁵ St. Ilier. catal., c. 29.

⁶ In op. S. Irenæi Diss. 2, p. 101.

⁷ L. contra Valent., c. 4.

* St. Irenæus in his first book gives us in detail the ridiculous dreams of Valentinus concerning the progeny of thirty Æônes, an imaginary kind of inferor deities, which this heretic pretended to be produced by the eternal, invisible, and incomprehensible God, called Bathos, or Depth, and his wife Enuoia, or Thought, otherwise called Sige, or Silence. These chimeras he forged from Hesiod’s book of the generation of the heathen gods, and some notions of Plato; and some truths he borrowed from the gospel of St. John. St. Irenæus refutes him by the holy scriptures, by the Creed, of which he mentions almost all the articles, and by the unanimity of all churches in the same faith, to which he opposes the disagreement of the heretics among themselves; for there was not a disciple of Valentinus who did not correct or change his master’s doctrine. He mentions several of their variations, and describes at length the superstitions and impostures of the heresiarch Mark, who, in consecrating chalices filled with water and wine, according to the Christian rite, made the chalices appear filled with a certain red liquor which he called blood, and who allowed women to consecrate the holy mysteries. The saint gives also a history of the other first heretics. In his second book he shows that God created the universe, and refutes the system of Æônes. He testifies (l. 2, c. 57, ed. Benolim c. 32) that Christians wrought miracles in the name of the Son of God. “Some,” says he, “cast out devils truly and most powerfully, so that they who have been delivered, most frequently have turned believers; others have the foreknowledge of future events, visions, and prophetic sayings: others cure the sick of any disease by the imposition of hands Some persons that were dead have been raised again and have continued among us many years. Nor can we sum up the miraculous works which the church, by the gift of God, performs every day over the whole world in the name of Christ Jesus.” And in the preceding chapter, speaking of the disciples of Simon Magus, who pretended to miracles, or magical delusions, he writes: “They cannot give sight to the blind, nor hearing to the deaf, nor cast out all devils, but only such as they themselves have sent in. So far are they from raising the dead, as our Lord raised them, and as the apostles did by prayer, and as in the brotherhood oftentimes is done, when the whole church of the place hath begged it with much fasting and prayer, the spirit of the dead man hath returned and the man hath been given back to the prayers of the saints,” &c. Thus he assigns the gift of miracles as a mark of the true church. See this first testimony quoted by Eusebius, Hist. l. 5, c. 7, who assures us himself that some remains of the miraculous powers continued in his time, in the fourth century. (Demonst. Evangel. l. 3, pp. 109 and 132.) The same author, speaking of the successors of the apostles at the end of the first and beginning of the second age, says, “They went about with God’s co-operating grace; for even then the divine Spirit performed very many miracles by them.” ἐισέτι τοτε δἱ ἀυτῶν πλεῖσαι παραδόξοι δυνάμεις ̓ ἐνηργοῦν. In the middle of the second century St. Justin Martyr writes: “There are prophetic gifts among us even till now.” Παρὰ γὰρ ἡμῖν καὶ μέχρι νῦν προφητικὰ χαρίσυατα ἐσιν. And among these gifts he reckons up miraculous powers, as healing the sick, casting out devils, &c., pp. 315, 330. The testimonies of St. Theophilus, and all other writers of those times, are no less full and express.

St. Irenæus, in his third book, complains that when the heretics are pressed by scripture, they elude it by pretending to fly to tradition; but that when tradition is urged against them, they abandon it to appeal to the scriptures alone; whereas, both scripture and tradition confute them. He observes that the apostles certainly delivered the truth, and all the mysteries of our faith, to their successors the pastors. To these, therefore, we ought to have recourse to learn them, especially “to the greatest church, the most ancient and known to all, founded at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, which retains the tradition which it received from them, and which is derived through a succession of bishops down to us. Showing which, we confound all who, any way out of self-conceit, love of applause, blindness, or false persuasions, embrace what ought not to be advanced; for to this church, (of Rome,) on account of its chiefer presidentship, it is necessary that every church, that is, the faithful everywhere, address themselves, in which church the tradition from the apostles is everywhere preserved.” To show this succession in the Roman church, he names its bishops: saying that SS. Peter and Paul chose Linus to govern it after them, who was succeeded by Anacletus, Clemens, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, Anicetus, Soter, and Eleutherius, who is now the twelfth bishop of Rome, says he. St. Irenæus adds, chap. 4: “What should we have done if the apostles had left us no writings? We should certainly have followed this channel of tradition. As many barbarous nations possess the faith without the use of writing, who would stop their ears were they to hear the blasphemies of the heretics, who, on the contrary, have nothing but the novelty of their doctrine to show: for the Valentinians were not before Valentinus, nor the Marcionites before Marcion. All these arose much too late.” In his fourth book he proves the unity of the Godhead, and teaches (c. 17, 18) that Christ, abolishing the ancient sacrifices, instituted the clean oblation of his body and blood to be offered everywhere, as is foretold in Malachi. He gives the multitude of martyrs as a mark of the true church, saying the heretics cannot boast the like advantage, though some few of them have been mingled with our martyrs. (l. 4, c. 33.) In the fifth book he proves our redemption by Christ, and the resurrection of the dead; and again (c. 6) mentions the prophetic gifts and other miraculous powers as then subsisting in the church. He makes a recapitulation of the heresies he had confuted, and says that their novelty alone suffices to confound them. He adds some remarks on the coming of Antichrist, and, from a mistaken interpretation of a passage of the Apocalypse received from his master Papias, he infers the millenarian reign of Christ on earth with his elect, before the last judgment, in spiritual pleasures, (not in carnal delights, which was the heresy of Cerintbus and others.) This opinion was soon after exploded by consulting the tradition of the church, according to the rule of St. Irenæus; though the millenarian system has been revived by several Lutherans in Germany, and among the English Protestants by Dr. Wells, Notes on the Apoc., and some others.

The works of St. Irenæus were published by Erasmus, then by F. Feuardent, and in 1702 by Graber though this last editor often made too bold with the text, and his heterodox notes disfigure his work, in which he turns every thing topsy-turvy to favor the idol of his new religion; especially, his fond new idea of the great eucharistic sacrifice of bread and wine. Dom. Massuet, a Benedictin Maurist monk, gave us the most correct edition in 1710. Psaff, a Lutheran, in 1715, published from a manuscript in the library of Turin, four other fragments of this father. The second fragment is a remarkable proof of the eucharistic sacrifice.

⁸ Tert. Præscr., c. 53. Eus. Hist., l. 5, c. 25.

⁹ Apud Eus., l. 5, c. 24.

* Nunquam Albiniani nec Nigriani nec Cassiani inveniri potuerunt Christiani. Tert. ad Scap., c. 2.

^† This point Dr. Hicks might have taken for granted, and have spared himself the pains he was at to prove it in his Jovian. The senate, from the time that it first was compelled to choose a master, could no more oppose an election of an emperor made by the armies than it could withstand the will of an emperor. So weak was it become, that, when some of that body complained that it was deprived of all cognizanes of state affairs. Domitian paid it a mock compliment, by vouchsafing to consult it what was the best way of dressing a huge turbot, which had been sent him for a present. Which grave deliberation, with the flatteries of the senators to the tyrant upon that occasion, as portending victories and triumphs, is facetiously described by Juvenal. But nothing shows more notoriously the slavery of the senate, than the most abject flatteries which it bestowed on Caligula, Nero, and Heliogabalus, for their most outrageous acts of madness and inhuman tyranny. Notwithstanding its dependence, the decree of this supreme court was at least a solemn enregistration, and the definitive ceremony in the most important acts of state.

¹⁰ L. de Scapul., c. 4.

¹¹ See Tillem. Hist. des Emp., t. 3, p. 89; and Hist. Eccl., t. 3, p. 111; and Fabricius, Bibl. Gr., t. 8, p. 460.

* Vere pertinax, vere severus, as the common people used to say of them, alluding to his names, Pertinax, Severus.

^† “Siccine exprimitur publicum gaudium per publicum dedecus!” Tert. Apol.

^‡ “Millia dena novemque fuerunt sub duce tanto,” &c. See F. Colonia.

^§ “Modici temporis spatio prædicatione suâ maximè, in integro civitatem reddidit Christianam. Tanta multitudo Christianorum est jugulatarunt, ut per plateas flumina currerent de sanguine Christiano, quorum nec numerum nec nomina colligere potuerimus. B. Irenæum carnifex Domino per martyrium dedicavit.” S. Greg. Turon. Hist. Francor., l. 1, c. 29. See St. Gregory the Great, ep. 50. ad Etherium Lugdun. St. Justin vel alius Resp. ad question. ad Orthodox. Bede, Ado, and Usuard in Martyrol., and the Greek Menæa.

¹² Gallia Christ. nova, t. 4, p. 12.

¹³ Apolog. c. 37.

¹⁴ Cui bello non idonei?

¹⁵ Apolog. c. 30.

* Oramus etiam pro imperatoribus, pro ministris. &c. Apol. c. 39.

^† Hoc agite, boni præsides, extorquete animam Deo supplicantem pro imperatere. Apol. c. 30.

^‡ Hippias dum civitali insidias disponit, occiditur; hoc pro suis omni attrocitate dissipatis nemo unquam Christianus tentavit. Apol. c. 46. Hippias, a celebrated Grecian philosopher, having deserted to Dailus Bystaspis the Persian, before the battle of Marataun, was slain fighting against his country.

¹ Conc. t. 6, p. 1817.

² Conc. t. 6, p. 1257.

³ Ibid. p. 1252.

⁴ See Nat Alex. Hist. Sæc. 7; Diss. de Honorio; Tournely, Tr. de Incarn. &c.

¹ L. de Animâ. c. 4.

² Orig. contra Cels. l. 1, p. 35.

* Among these miraculous conversions, none was more celebrated than that of the rhetorician Arnobius. This learned man holds an eminent place among those original authors of the primitive apes who learned from the enemy himself the art to conquer him, and borrowed from idolatry arms by which they defeated it. He was a native of Sicca in Africa, and being eminent among the heathens for knowledge and eloquence, at first taught rhetoric in Numidia. Being obliged by his profession to read both ancient and modern authors, he acquired an extensive knowledge in pagan theology, of which he was afterwards to become the destroyer. He was a most fiery stickler for idolatry at the time when, like another St. Paul, he was “compelled by heavenly admonitions” to acknowledge the evidence of the divine revelation somniis compulsus, says St. Jerom, (Chronic. ad an. 20, Constant.) Several examples of pagans converted to the faith, in those times of distress, by divine admonitions, dreams, or visions, are recorded by the best historians, as of the soldier St. Basilides, mentioned above by Eusebius, (Hist. l. 6, c. 5.) Origen gives us a most authentic testimony concerning miraculous conversions by divine impulses upon hearts disposed to receive them, in the following words: “Many people have been brought over to Christianity by the Spirit of God giving a sudden turn to their minds, and offering visions to them, either by day or by night; so that instead of hating the word of God, they became ready to lay down their lives for it. I have seen many examples of this sort—God is my witness, that my sole purpose is to recommend the religion of Jesus, not by fictitious tales, but by the truth, and what happened in my presence,” (l. 1, contra Celsum. p. 35.) Arnobius, being thus miraculously converted, desired baptism, but the bishop of Sicca considering with what fury he had declaimed and stirred up the people against the church, before he would admit him to the laver of salvation, required for a condition that he should, by some earned work, give a public testimony to the truth which he had so violently combated. The sincere convert was impatient to attain to the desired happiness, and composed his seven books Against the Gentiles, as St. Jerom informs us, who censures his composition for want of method, and inequality of style, (Ep. 46, ad Paulin.) Nevertheless, Arnobius is a valuable author, writes with a degree of elegance, and doubtless would have better polished his style, if the haste with which he wrote had allowed him leisure to give it the last finishings. He borrows many passages from Cicero, and from St. Clemens of Alexandria; but never quotes the holy scriptures, which perhaps he had not then read; but he mentions, and lays great stress on the miracles of Christ. He begins his first book by answering the reproach of the idolaters, that the Christians, by despising the gods, were the cause of all the calamities that befell the empire. Tertullian said long before: “If the Tiber overflows to the walls, or the Nile does not rise; If the weather is unseasonable; if an earthquake, famine, or pestilence happen, the general cry is, ‘Straight away with the Christians to the lions.’ ” Statim Christianos ad leones, (Apol. c. 40.) Origen mentions the same to have been their clamor upon every misfortune, that the gods were angry with men for the Christian religion. Arnobius shows that such calamities were even more frequent before Christianity; that earthquakes arising from natural causes must sometimes happen in the present frame of the universe, and that they are indeed disposed by the hand of providence, but could not be produced in hatred of the Christians, seeing the heathens felt them no less severely than the Christians, &c. the idolaters objected that we pay divine honors to a man that was crucified; in answer to this, Arnobius proves Christ to be truly God, (l. 1 and 2,) and employs the general motives of the credibility of the gospel, namely, the miracles of Christ and his disciples, which were the effects, not of magical enchantments, as the infidels pretended, but of divine power. He elegantly displays the great and rapid progress of the faith, which had been spread over the world by a few illiterate persons, in spite of the most bloody persecutions, &c. He says, that the very name of Christ expelled evil spirits, and made their oracles dumb, (l. 2.) He points out the time when he wrote, by mentioning the edicts of Dioclesian in 302, commanding the scriptures to be burnt, and those churches to be demolished in which the Christians offered their joint prayers to God for the princes, magistrates, armies, friends, and enemies, the living and the dead, (l. 4.) He proves the unity of God: and at large confutes idolatry from its own forms, customs and doctrines, closely examining into its origin, temples, images, oracles, sacrifices, divinations, games, and deifications; turning its own testimony from its earliest antiquity against itself. He reasons with great force, and beautifies his arguments with the touches of a delicate and flowery imagination. His raillery of the gods and their crimes is executed with a great deal of genteel wit and humor. Nothing seems more to bespeak a fine genius than the easy and decent manner in which he treats this subject; his satire is innocent, and always pointed against the error, not the man; and the heathens he treats with a respectful regard, as men mistaken and unhappy. Thus he gains their heart, and solicits the reader by the united charms of pleasure and truth. He wrote this work while a novice in the faith; yet shows an accurate knowledge of its doctrine. Some have charged him with certain mistakes, from which Nourry, Ceillier, and others justify him. We have no correct edition of the works of Arnobius. See Ceillier, t. 3, p. 373

Lactantius, the famous Latin orator, was in his youth a disciple of Arnobius, at Sicca in Africa. He was converted to the faith from idolatry, (inst. l. 7, c. ult. et epit. 1. 2, c. 110,) but we have no account by what means this was done. Ceillier, Le Brun, and Franceschini, prove from his works that it happened at Nicomedia, whither he was invited out of Africa, in the reign of Dioclesian, about the year 290, to teach rhetoric in the Latin tongue. He stayed there ten years, but the Greek language only being in request in that country, he had few scholars, and lived in so great poverty, that he almost wanted even necessaries, as St. Jerom assures us. Poverty indeed is a disease which often rages in the republic of letters. About the year 317 he was sent for by Constantine the Great into Gaul, and appointed preceptor to Crispus Cæsar, whom that emperor had by his first wife Minervina, and who was then about nine years old. The great virtues and qualifications of this young prince endeared him exceedingly to his master; but Fausta, Constantine’s second wife, daughter of Maximian Herculeus, falsely accused him of having made an attempt upon her chastity, and prevailed upon Constantine to give an order that he should be put to death, as it is thought, about the year 326 or before. Soon after, the malice of the slander was brought to light, and Constantine caused the wicked author Fausta to be stifled in a hot bath. The tutor continued always faithful to the memory of a disciple whom he loved entirely, and after his death found no comfort but in his study. He was very old when he was called to superintend the instruction of Crispus Cæsar, and his extreme poverty seems to have preceded that employment. But Eusebius (in Chron. ad an. 318) and St. Jerom (in Catal.) sufficiently give us to understand that he lived always poor, and by choice; retaining to his dying day the utmost, contempt of riches and honors, and being very far from making any pursuits after pleasure, for which riches are chiefly sought in the world. This circumstance gives us no mean idea of his piety; for he must certainly have been a very virtuous man that could live poorly at a court, that could neglect the care even of necessary things in the midst of plenty, and had not the least taste of pleasures, when he resided among persons that were overwhelmed in them. He seems to have continued at Triers after the death of his royal pupil, and to have there ended his life. He declares that he should think his life well spent, and his labors fully recompensed, if he should by them reclaim some men from error, and bring them into the path of eternal life. “Satis me vixisse arbitrabor, et officium hominis implesse, si labor mens aliquos homines ab erroribus liberatos ad iter cœleste direxent,” (l. de Opificio. c. 20.) This was the end which he proposed to himself in writing. He is the most eloquent of all the Christian authors who wrote in Latin; his style is pure, equal, natural, and florid, so extremely like Cicero’s, that accurate critics have confessed themselves at a loss to find any difference between them. Whence Lactantius is called the Christian Tully: but he far surpasseth Cicero in his thoughts. He discourseth of God after a very sublime and exalted manner; and as the mysteries and maxims of the Christian religion infinitely excel the doctrine of the heathen philosophers, his writings are full of admirable precepts of morality; he lays down clear and perspicuous descriptions of all the virtues, and with invincible eloquence exhorts men to the practice of them. But his pen is chiefly employed in overthrowing paganism, which he confutes with all the ardor and spirit imaginable. It must, however, be confessed that he has handled theology after too philosophical a manner, that he has fallen into some mistakes in ancient chronology, and other things, and that both he and Arnobius have not spoken of all the mysteries of faith with the accuracy and precision of some other fathers.

Lactantius, after his conversion, first wrote his book Of the Word of God, in which he proves a divine providence superintending all things from man, his principal work; giving an elegant description of the principal parts of the human body, and the faculties of the soul. In his book Of God’s Anger, he shows that justice and the chastisement of sin is no less an attribute of God than mercy. His great work is that of Divine Instructions, comprised in seven books, in which he overturns the system of idolatry, and establishes the true worship of God. He first published this work about the year 320, during the persecution of Licinius, and seems to have revised it about four years after. In it he mounts up to the original of Idolatry, demolishes it in all its forms, and confounds its most sanguine protectors. He combats the different sects of the heathen philosophers, pursuing them through all the labyrinths of error and false judgment, without ever losing himself. Having exploded falsehood, he introduces the most noble, sublime, and perfect philosophy of the holy scriptures, which alone satisfies all the inquiries of human reason, where all systems of philosophers are infinitely deficient. This consideration leads him on to the great proofs of Christianity. He represents the law of God in the most amiable light, as the re-establishment of original rectitude, as the band of benevolence, the source of true peace and unalterable consolation, and the infallible rule conducting to bliss. He ends the work with a dissertation on happiness. Virtue requires so many and such sharp conflicts, that though men love the reward, they are too apt to shrink at the price. Therefore this author advises us, while we pass through this checkered hie to keep our eyes always fixed upon the other world, whither we are going, and to which this life is the only way. If this be a painful state of trial, a boisterous (though short) passage, we must comfort and encourage ourselves, bearing in mind that when we have once crossed it, we shall receive a boundless reward. Lactantius’s manner is no less winning than his argument is everywhere strong. He mixes in the dispute no sharpness, no invective: his apology is easy, modest, and affecting. Truth in the hands of such a champion is sure to triumph. When once the heart is gained, it cannot be long deaf to persuasion. This talent of insinuation, which perhaps is seldomer met with than that of sublimity, or any other ingredient of eloquence, was the character Lactantius particularly shone in. The flowers of a lively imagination are set off by the cleanness and purity of his language, and by the neat Ciceronian turn of his phrase and way of writing. To these advantages we must add that no composition can be more methodical. How great an excellency this is, appears from all writers of true taste and judgment. To this was Dr. Tillotson chiefly indebted for his reputation in oratory, though he wanted many other qualifications, and often, by multiplying subdivisions, carried this to an excess. But by improving what bishop Wilkins had begun, in correcting the extreme neglect of method which had reigned in the English pulpit, especially from the time of queen Elizabeth, he acquired a greater name for eloquence than he had any just claim to. This book of Lactantius is a model in this respect. A kind of mathematical taste runs through the whole work, the plan of which is so disposed, that it is one cine of thoughts and reasoning, and by the perfect unity which is preserved in the subject, the several parts seem to flow consequently from what went before, in as easy a train as the natural succession of our ideas in a close reasoning. The works of Lactantius have run through a greater number of editions than those of any other father; though some very defective and faulty. The first was published at Subbiaco in 1465. The German edition, procured by Buneman in 1739, is more complete than that published by Dr. Spark at Oxford, in 1684, or that by Mr. Wasse. John Baptist Le Brun Desmarettes, the editor of St. Paulinus’s works, had begun to prepare a perfect edition of Lactantius, which was finished by Nicholas Longlet du Fresnoy, and printed at Paris in two volumes quarto, in 1748. F. Francis Xavier Franceschini, a Carmelite friar, has most correctly published at Rome, in 1754, the works of Lactantius in nine volumes octavo, with new and judicious dissertations. To the notes of so many critics on this author, we must add the Theological Notes and Remarks of Dom. Nicholas Le Nourry, (Apparatus ad Bibl. Patr. t. 2, p. 571. &c.)

The most valuable book of Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, quoted by St. Jerom, was first published by the learned Baluze. Dom. Nourry denied it to be the offspring of our author; but has been abundantly confuted by others. It is addressed to a confessor named Donatus, who had suffered several times during the persecution. Lactantius relates in it the several persecutions which the church had suffered, and the exemplary punishments which God had inflicted on the persecutors. He tells us that as the emperor Maximums was offering sacrifice, one of his officers made the sign of the cross, and thereupon, to the great trouble of the pagans, the auspices were disturbed, and the demons disappeared. This book is written with elegance and spirit. Dr. Gilbert Burnet says, the style is too flowery for history, but the work is not merely historical. The doctor translated it into English, and printed it first in 1686, and again in 1714, prefixing a preface against persecution on account of religious matters. See p. 51. He published the same in French at Utrecht in 1687. See Tillemont, t. 6, p. 206. and Ceilllier t. 3, p. 387.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 654–664). New York: P. J. Kenedy.