November XVII

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop, C.

From his life by St. Gregory of Nyssa, Eusebius, l. 6, c. 23; St. Jeram in Catal., and the saint’s Oranon a Origen; also St. Basil, 1. de Spir. Soc. c. 29, ep. 62–65. See Tillemont, t. 4; Ceillier, t. 3, p. 307; Cave’s Primitive Fathers.

a. d. 270.

Theodorus, afterwards called Gregory, and, from his extraordinary miracles, surnamed Thaumaturgus, or Worker of Wonders, was of Neocsarea in Pontus, born of parents eminent for their rank and fortune, but engaged in the superstitions of idolatry. At fourteen years of age he lost his father, and from that time began to discover the vanity of the heathenish religion, as his reason grew more quick and manly, and was improved by education; and by this means his inclinations were insensibly turned towards the belief of the unity of the Deity and the Christian faith.¹ His mother pursued the plan, begun by his father, in giving him a literary education, with an intention of bringing him up to the bar, and the practice of oratory. In the study of rhetoric he made such surprising progress, that it was easy to foresee he would one day be one of the greatest orators of the age. He learned the Latin tongue, which was a necessary qualification for preferment to great dignities in the Roman empire: his masters also persuaded him to study the Roman laws, an acquaintance with which they said would be a great advantage to him in whatever profession he should afterwards embark. His sister being married to the assessor, or assistant of the governor of Csarea in Palestine, she was conducted thither at the public charge, with such as she was disposed to take with her. Gregory accompanied her upon this occasion, with his brother Athenodorus, who was afterwards a bishop and suffered much for the faith of Jesus Christ. From Csarea the two brothers went to Berytus, to attend a famous school of the Roman law in that neighborhood. After a short stay there, they returned to Csarea.

Origen had arrived there a little before, in 231, having left Alexandria to avoid the trouble which Demetrius gave him there. That great man opened a school at Csarea with extraordinary reputation, and, at the first interview with our saint and his brother, discovered in them an admirable capacity for learning, and excellent dispositions to virtue; which encouraged him to inspire them with a love of truth, and an eager desire of attaining the sovereign or chief good of man. Charmed with his discourses they entered his school, and laid aside all thoughts of going back to Berytus. Origen began with the praise of philosophy, by which term he understood true wisdom. He observed to them, that self-knowledge is the first step to the true life of a rational being; but no one can deserve that appellation who does not know his last end, and the means by which he is to attain to it, and to perfect the abilities which are in him; likewise the impediments which he is to remove, the vices which he must conquer, and the like. Indeed, what can be more ridiculous than for a man to pretend to the knowledge of all things that are out of himself, and foreign to his happiness, while he is unacquainted with himself, and what it most essentially concerns him to know? For this he must carry his inquiries to real good and evil, in order to embrace the former and avoid the latter. Origen pursued his point several days; but never put on the air of a disputant who aimed at confounding his adversaries. He, on the contrary, behaved himself in the whole course of his conversation like one who had no other view but that of making his scholars happy by bringing them acquainted with what is really good; and he spoke with such a lovely mixture of sweetness and strong reasoning, that it seemed impossible to hold out against the attack; and the two young men soon forgot their own country, their friends, and all their former designs and views. Origen having thus gained their hearts, and engaged their attention, sounded their dispositions, and explored the strength of their genius, with a judgment and sagacity peculiar to that great man; and having thus prepared them, he undertook to give them a regular course of instructions. In this procedure masters have an admirable lesson what method they ought to take with their scholars, not beginning by laying down dry, dull rules, but by laying open the reasons, and showing the importance of these rules, to render the study rational, instructive, and agreeable.

Origen entered upon his course of philosophy with them by logic, which, as laid down by him, taught them neither to admit nor reject a proof at a venture, but to examine an argument to the bottom, without being dazzled at or amused with terms. He then proceeds to natural philosophy, which, as managed by that religious and learned man, led them to consider and adore the infinite power and wisdom of God, and admire the various and beautiful works of the creation with a becoming humility. The mathematics were their next employment, under which astronomy and geometry were comprehended; but all this master’s lessons tended to raise the minds of his scholars above the earth, and to warm their hearts to the love and eager pursuit of truth. These studies were succeeded by lectures of morality, and St. Gregory does justice to Origen by assuring us that he excited them to virtue no loss by his example than by his discourses; and tells us that he inculcated to them that, in all things, the most valuable knowledge is that of the first cause, and thus he led them on to theology. Upon this head he put into their hands and opened to their view all that the philosophers and poets had written concerning God, observing to them what was true and what was erroneous in the doctrine of each, and showing them the incompetence of human reason for attaining to certain knowledge in the most important of all points, that of religion, which manifestly appears from the capital errors into which the most considerable philosophers fell, whose monstrous opinions destroy one another, and by their absurdity and inconsistency confute themselves. Having brought them thus far on their way, he clearly set forth that, in what regards the Deity, we can only give credit to God himself, who speaks to us by his prophets, and he expounded to them the scriptures. Gregory and his brother were so charmed with this admirable light, that they were ready to quit every thing that interfered with their design of making God the object of their thoughts. In the mean time, the persecution broke out in the East under Maximian, which obliged Origen to leave Csrea, in 235, and he concealed that and the two following years.

Gregory in the mean time repaired to Alexandria, where then flourished a famous school of the Platonic philosophy and another of physic. His morals at Alexandria were so strict and regular, that the young students grew jealous of his virtue, and looked upon his behavior as a tacit censure of their own irregularities. To be revenged, they instructed an infamous prostitute to affront him in the following manner: while Gregory was engaged in a serious discourse with some of his learned particular friends, she impudently went up to him and made a demand of arrears due to her, as she falsely pretended, upon contract for criminal familiarities. Those who knew his virtue, were fired with resentment at so base a calumny and aspersion; but he, without the least emotion, desired one of his friends to satisfy her demands that she might be gone, and their, conversation might suffer no interruption by her importunities. This easy compliance made some of his friends suspect him guilty, and begin to reproach him; but God rewarded his patience and meekness by clearing his innocence; for no sooner had the strumpet received the money, but she was seized with an evil spirit, howled in a frightful manner, and fell down tearing her hair, foaming at the mouth, and staring with all the fury and distraction of a fiend. Gregory’s charity prompted him to call upon God in her favor; and she immediately recovered.² Gregory remained at Alexandria from 235 to 238 when, the persecution being over, he returned to Csarea, and finished his studies under Origen in two years more, so that he passed five years in his school, and three at Alexandria—in all eight. Whether he received baptism in this latter city, or after his return to Csarea, is uncertain. Before he took leave of Origen, to testify his gratitude to such a master, he thanked him publicly by an oration, which he made before him in a numerous auditory, and which Du Pin calls one of the most finished and elegant panegyrics extant; Gerard Vossius, Casaubon, Fabricius, and other critics, agree that it is an excellent and elegant performance. In it he extols the method and wisdom by which his great master conducted him through his studies; and thanks God, who had given him such a master, and his guardian angel, for having conducted him to this school; gives a wonderful character of Origen, and elegantly bewails his departure from his school as a kind of banishment from paradise. He clearly teaches original sin, and the divinity of God the Son,³ and in the close prays that his guardian angel may conduct him in his way.*

Gregory and his brother were scarce arrived at Neocsarea, but Origen wrote a tender letter to our saint, in which he calls him his holy lord, and his true son; and exhorts him to employ for the service of religion all the talents which he had received from God, and to borrow from the heathenish philosophy only what might serve that purpose, as the Jews converted the spoils of the Egyptians to the building of the tabernacle of the true God, recommending to him the study of the holy scripture with prayer. At his return his countrymen expected to see great fruits of his studies, the wise and great men importuned him to aspire to posts of honor and authority, and to display his abilities among them. But, relinquishing all that he possessed in the world, he retired to a solitary place in the country, there to converse solely with God and his own mind. Phedimus, archbishop of Amasea, metropolitan of Pontus, cast his eye upon him to raise him to the episcopal dignity, judging that his ripe parts and piety more than made up for his want of age. The good man, hearing of this, shifted his quarters, and no sooner was he sought for in one desert but he tied to another. However, at length he compounded that a delay should be allowed him, to prepare himself for that sacred character; after which he received the episcopal ordination with the accustomed ceremonies. About the same time he received and committed to writing the famous creed or rule of faith, concerning the mystery of the Holy Trinity, which is extant in his works, and of which we have in Lambecius a most valuable ancient Latin translation, published from a copy which was sent by Charlemagne a present to pope Adrian I. St. Gregory of Nyssa assures us, that this creed was delivered to the saint by the Blessed Virgin and St. John Evangelist, in a vision, which he relates as follows: one night, while St. Gregory was taken up in a profound meditation on the mysteries of our holy faith, a venerable old man appeared to him, and said he was sent by God to teach him the truth of the holy faith. A woman stood by, who appeared above the condition of what is human, and, calling the other by his name, John the Evangelist, bade, him discover to the young man the mystery of the true religion, He answered that, seeing it was the desire of the mother of our Lord, he was ready to do it. He then delivered the doctrine by word of mouth, which Gregory committed to writing, and the vision immediately disappeared. St. Gregory made this creed the rule of his preaching, and left the same a legacy to his church, which, by following it, has to this day, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, remained free from all heresy, namely, of the Ariaus and Semiarians; for this creed clearly explains the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.⁴ St. Gregory of Nyssa testifies that in his time the original copy was preserved in the archives of the church of Neocsarea; it is quoted by St. Gregory Nazianzen, Rufinus, &c.

The city of Neocsarea was rich, large, and populous, but so deeply buried in vice, and so miserably addicted to superstition and idolatry, that it seemed to be the place where Satan had fixed his seat, and Christianity had as yet scarce been able to approach its neighborhood, though it was in a flourishing condition in many parts of Pontus. St. Gregory, animated with zeal and charity, applied himself vigorously to the charge commuted to him, and God was pleased to confer upon him an extraordinary power of working miracles, of some of which St. Gregory of Nyssa gives us the following account. As the saint was returning from the city to the wilderness, a violent rain obliged him to take shelter in a heathenish temple, the most famous in the country, upon account of oracles and devinations, delivered there. At his entrance he made the sign of the cross several times to purify the air, and then spent the night there with his companion in prayer, according to custom. The next morning he pursued his journey, and the idolatrous priest performed his usual superstitions in the temple; but the devils declared they could stay there no longer, being forced away by the man who had passed the last night there. After several vain attempts to bring those powers back, the priest hastened after the saint, threatening to carry his complaints against him to the magistrates and to the emperor Gregory, without the least emotion, told him, that with the help of God he could drive away or call the devils when he pleased. When the idolater saw he disregarded all his menaces, and heard that he had a power of commanding demons at pleasure, his fury was turned into admiration, and he entreated the bishop, as a further evidence of the divine authority, to bring the demons back again to the temple. The saint complied with his request, and dismissed him with a scrip of paper, in which he had written, “Gregory to Satan Enter.” This being laid upon the altar, and the usual oblation made, the demons gave their answers as usual. The priest, surprised at what he saw, went after the holy bishop, and begged he would give him some account of that God whom his gods so readily obeyed. Gregory explained to him the principles of the Christian faith, and finding the priest mocked at the doctrine of the incarnation, told him, that great truth was not to be enforced by words or human reasoning, but by the wonders of the divine power. The priest hereupon pointing to a great stone, desired the saint to command that it should change its place to another, which he named, St. Gregory did so, and the stone obeyed, by the power of him who promised his disciples that by faith they should be able to remove mountains. The priest was converted by this miracle, and, forsaking his house, friends, and relations, resigned himself up to the instructions of divine wisdom.

The people of Neocsarea, hearing of the miraculous actions of Gregory, were all ambitious to see so wonderful a man, and received him with great applause when he first arrived among them. But he passed unconcerned through the crowd, without so much as casting his eye on one side or another. His friends, who had accompanied him out of the wilderness, were solicitous where he should meet with entertainment. The saint asked them if they were banished the divine protection; and bade them not be solicitous concerning their bodies, but about their minds, which are of infinitely greater importance, and are to be prepared and built up for heaven. Many were ready to open their doors to so welcome a guest; and he accepted the invitation of Musouius, a person of great honor and esteem in the city, and lodged with him. That very day he fell to preaching, and, before night, had converted a number sufficient to form a little church. Early the next morning the doors were crowded with sick persons, whose distempers he cured, and at the same time he wrought the conversion of their souls. The body of Christians soon became so numerous that the saint was enabled to build a church for their use, to which all contributed either money or labor. Though churches were afterwards demolished in the days of Dioclesian, and though an earthquake threw down most of the neighboring buildings, this escaped both dangers, and not a stone of it was shaken to the ground. St. Jerom and venerable Bede mention, that when St. Gregory built this famous church near the sea, he commanded a rock, which obstructed the work, to yield place; which it did. The river Lycus, now called Casalmach, which passed by the walls of Neocsarea, falling from the mountains of Armenia, some times by its impetuous floods swept away inhabitants, cattle, houses, and crops. St. Gregory, moved with compassion, fixed his staff near the bank and prayed that the waters might not exceed those bounds, and they obeyed his voice; and no such floods happened again to the time when St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote: the staff also took root, and became a large tree. Once when the saint was upon a journey, he was espied by two Jews, who, knowing his charitable disposition, made use of a stratagem to impose upon him. One lay on the ground, feigning himself dead, and the other, lamenting his miserable fate, begged somewhat of the bishop towards his burial; who took his coat and cast it on the man that lay as dead. When St. Gregory was got out of sight, the impostor came back laughing, and required his companion to rise; but found him really dead. The miracles and wisdom of the saint brought him into such reputation, that, even in civil causes, wherever the case was knotty and difficult, it was usually referred to his decision. Two brothers happened to be at law about a lake, both challenging it to belong to their part of the inheritance; nor was the saint able by words to accommodate the difference between them; but each resolved to maintain his right by force of arms, and a day was set when they were to bring into the field all the force they could raise with their tenants. To prevent unjust bloodshed, St. Gregory continued all the night before the intended engagement in prayer upon the spot, and the next day the lake was turned into solid land, whereby the contention was removed: the remains of the lake were shown long after. The saint being invited to assist at the election of a bishop at Comana, the people set their eyes upon persons honorable for their birth and eloquence, and much esteemed in the world. The saint told them, that sanctity, virtue, and prudence were more to be considered than such qualifications. Then, said one, we may take Alexander, the collier for bishop. This Alexander was a wise and holy man, who, leaving his books, had put on the disguise of a collier in the city of Comana, where he lived by the labor of his hands. God revealing to our saint what kind of man he was, he caused him to be brought in, and, by putting many questions to him, showed the people that he was much more than he seemed to be, and that under that mean clothing was hidden great wisdom and sanctity. Then calling him aside he obliged him to confess who he was; and having caused his clothes to be changed, gave him the people for their bishop. This Alexander discharged the episcopal office with great zeal and sanctity and dying a martyr for the faith, is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 11th of August. These miracles of St. Gregory Thauinaturgus are related by St. Gregory of Nyssa: some of them are also mentioned by St. Basil, who both lived within less than a hundred years after him, and whose grandmother Macrina, who taught them in their youth, and had care of their education, had known him and heard him preach in her younger years. St. Basil says, that he was a man of a prophetic and apostolic temper, and that the whole tenor of his life expressed the height of evangelical conversation. In all his devotions he showed the greatest reverence and deepest recollection, and never covered his head at prayer. The simplicity and modesty of his speech were such that yea and nay were the measure of his conversation. He abhorred lies and falsehood, especially all cunning and artificial methods of detraction. Envy and pride he was a stranger to Slandering and reproaching others he greatly hated: no anger, wrath, or bitterness ever appeared in his words or carriage.

The persecution of Decius breaking out in 250, St. Gregory advised his flock rather to save their souls by flying, than by abiding the fierce conflicts, to expose themselves to the danger of losing their faith: by which means, and by his zealous exhortation, not one among them fell. Setting them an example he withdrew himself into the desert, accompanied only with the Gentile priest whom he had before converted, and who then served him in the office of deacon. The persecutors were informed that he was concealed upon a certain mountain, and sent soldiers to apprehend him. These returned, saying they had seen nothing but two trees; upon which the informer went again to the place, and finding the bishop and his deacon a their prayers, whom the soldiers had mistaken for two trees, judged their escape to have been miraculous, threw himself at the bishop’s feet, and became a Christian, and the companion of his retreat and dangers. The wolves despairing to meet with the shepherd, fell with the fiercer rage upon that part of his flock which stayed behind, and seizing upon men, women, and children who had any reverence for the name of Christ, cast them into prisons. St. Gregory in his wilderness saw in spirit the conflict of the holy martyr Troadius, a young man of distinction in the city, who, after a great variety of torments gained a glorious triumph by dying for the faith. The persecution ending with the life of the emperor, in 251, Gregory returned to Neocsarea, and soon after undertook a general visitation of the whole country, made excellent regulations for repairing the damage done by the late storm, and instituted solemn anniversary festivals, in honor of the martyrs who had suffered in the persecution. On a day devoted to the solemn worship of one of the heathen deities, the whole country flocked to the diversions at the theatre in Neocsarea, and some of them finding the crowd troublesome, prayed that Jupiter would make room for them. This being told the holy bishop he said, they should soon have no reason to complain for want of room. At that time a dreadful pestilence broke out, which ravaged all Pontus. It was at length stopped in that part by the prayers of Gregory; upon which occasion most of the remaining infidels were converted to the faith. During the weak administration of the emperor Gallienus, the Goths and Scythians overran Thrace and Macedon, and passing into Asia burnt the temple of Diana, at Ephesus, and plundered Pontus and other countries, committing the most horrible disorders. In those times of confusion several Christians who had been plundered by the barbarians plundered others in their turn, or purchased of the infidels their unjust booty. St. Gregory being consulted by another bishop concerning the penance which was to be enjoined for these crimes, wrote his canonical epistle, which holds an eminent rank among the penitential canons of the ancient church.⁵ In it he says:⁶ “Let no one deceive himself under the presence of having found a thing; it is not even lawful to make use of that which we find. If in the time of peace it is not lawful to advantage ourselves at the expense of a brother, or even of an enemy who neglects what belongs to him through carelessness; how much less at the expense of an unfortunate person who leaves it, through necessity, in order to fly from enemies? Others deceive themselves in keeping what belongs to another because they have found it in the place of their own. Thus because the Borades and Goths exercise hostilities against them, they become Borades and Goths to others.” He adds,⁷ “They who (in restoring what they have found) fulfil the commandment of God, ought to do it without any secular views, without making any demand, either as having discovered, or saved, or found a thing, or on any other pretence whatever.” Which maxim of justice is excellently inculcated by St. Austin. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus mentions the distinct orders of penitents, as the hearers, the prostrati, &c.

In 264 a council was held at Antioch against the heresies broached by Paul of Samosata, who had been four years bishop of that city. He asserted that there was but one person in the Godhead, and that our Saviour was no more than a mere man, with other monstrous errors.⁸ He was also one of the most haughty and vain of mortals, and caused hymns in his own praise to be sung in the church. In this synod St. Gregory and his brother Athenodorus are named the first among the subscribers. Paul only escaped personal censures by dissembling his errors, which he afterwards renewed and was therefore condemned and deposed in the second council of Antioch in 270, though he kept possession of the episcopal house till after the defeat of Zenobia, queen of the east, his protectress, in 272. Our saint seems to have passed to eternal glory in that interval; but the year is uncertain: it seems to have been in 270 or 271, on the 17th of November. A little before his death, being sensible of its near approach, he inquired how many infidels yet remained in the city, and being told there were seventeen, he sighed, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, expressed his grief that any continued strangers to the true religion, but thankfully acknowledged as a great mercy, that having found but seventeen Christians at his first coming thither, he left but seventeen idolaters. Having then heartily prayed for the conversion of the infidels, and the confirmation and perfect sanctification of those that believed in the true God, he enjoined his friends not to procure him my peculiar place of burial, but that as he lived as a pilgrim in the world, claiming nothing for himself, so after death he might enjoy the portion of a stranger, and be cast into the common lot. He peaceably resigned his soul into the hands of his Redeemer, and is named in all eastern and western Martyrologies on the 17th of November. Neocsarea, the capital of that part of Pontus, became afterwards an archiepiscopal see, and at present is called by the Greeks, Nixar, (which is a corruption of its original name,) by the Turks, Tocate, and is the seat of a Beglierberg.

The greatest geniuses which the world ever produced, men the most penetrating, the most judicious, the most learned, and at the same time the most sincere, the most free from all bias of interest or passions, the most disengaged from the world, whose very sanctity and perfect victory over pride and all the passions of the human mind was the most visible miracle of divine grace, and the prodigy of the world, are venerable vouchers of the truth of the divine revelation of the Christian religion, and of the evident miracles by which it was confirmed and established. Their testimony is the more unexceptionable, as they maintained it in the most perfect spirit of humility, meekness, and charity, and in opposition to every view of pride and all human interest. Yet, if we believe modern freethinkers, their party alone is that of good sense, and in proportion as a man is endowed with better understanding, and a more sublime genius, the more he is inclined to religious skepticism and incredulity. But they attempt in vain by an overbearing impudence, impertinence, and ridicule, to bring the faith of a divine revelation into contempt, and too visibly betray, that pride or other base passions have corrupted their hearts; whence arise these clouds which darken their understanding. Let them impartially examine into the causes of their error, and they will find that they accuse and shut their eyes to the clearest light, because it condemns them, and that they turn infidels because it is the interest of their vices to be so. Let them correct the irregularities of their own hearts, and bring to the inquiry sincere simplicity, and a teachable mind: then all their difficulties will immediately vanish, and the evidence of the divine revelation will appear manifest. The most monstrous absurdities, evident falsehoods, glaring inconsistencies, and wretched sophistry, which we meet with in almost every line or rather word of their most boasted writings, suffice to prove how much it is in spite of reason that they declaim, and how ridiculous their claim to it is. A submission to divine revelation authentically manifested to us, in the judgment of all who impartially consider its triumphant motives, to the eyes of reason will always appear to be the most just and glorious use that man can make of his reason.

S. Dionysius, Archbishop of Alexandria, C.

St. Basil and other Greeks usually honor this holy prelate with the epithet of The Great: and he is called by St. Athanasius the doctor of the Catholic church. His parents were rich and of high rank in the world: according to the patriarchal chronicle of Alexandria, published by Abraham Echellensis, he was by birth a Sabaite, of one of the principal families of that country in Arabia Felix. Alexandria, which seems to have been the place of his education, was then the centre of the sciences, and Dionysius, while yet a heathen, ran through the whole circle of profane learning, and professed oratory.¹ Falling, at length, upon the epistles of St. Paul, he found in them charms which he had not met with in the writings of the philosophers, and opening his heart to the truth, he renounced the errors of idolatry. He assures us that he was converted to the faith by a vision and a voice which spake to him, and by diligent reading, and an impartial examination. At the same time that his understanding was opened to the heavenly light, he turned his heart so perfectly to God, that he trampled under his feet all the glory of the world, and the applause which his merit quality, senatorial dignity, and prefectures, drew upon him from the most honorable persons. He became a humble scholar in the catechetical school of Origen, and made such progress that he was ordained priest; and when Heraclas was made bishop, the care of that school was committed by him to our saint, in 221, who, upon his death, in the beginning of the year 247, the fourth of the emperor Philip, was chosen archbishop. Though the reign of this prince was favorable to the Christians, soon after the exaltation of St. Dionysius, the populace, stirred up by a certain heathen false prophet, at Alexandria, raised a tumultuary persecution: on which, see the life of St. Apollonia, February the 9th. When Decius had murdered his master, Philip, and usurped the empire, in 249, his violent persecution put arms into the hands of the enraged enemies of the Christian name. Many of all ages, ranks, and professions, were put to the most exquisite tortures: multitudes fled into the mountains and woods, where many perished by hunger, cold, wild beasts, or thieves, and several falling into the hands of the Saracens, were reduced to a state of slavery worse than death itself. But the most dreadful affliction to the holy bishop was the apostacy of several, who, in this terrible time of trial, denied their faith. The scandal, indeed, which these gave, was, in some measure, repaired by the invincible constancy wherewith others of both sexes, and of every age and condition, maintained their faith under the sharpest torments, and most cruel deaths, and by the wonderful conversion of several enemies; for, some who scoffed and insulted the martyrs, were so powerfully overcome by the example of their meekness, and courage in their sufferings, that they suddenly declared themselves Christians, and ready to undergo all torments for that profession. Two did this under the judge’s eyes, with such undaunted resolution that he was strangely surprised, and seized with trembling; and sentence being passed upon them, they went out of the court rejoicing to give so glorious a testimony to Christ.²

Decius’s sanguinary edict reached Alexandria in the beginning of 25 Dionysius was particularly active in arming and preparing the soldiers Christ for the combat, and though Sabinus, the prefect of Egypt, despatch a guard in quest of him, he escaped by lying four days concealed in his house; then left it by divine direction, as he assures us, with a view of seeking a safe retreat; but, with several persons who accompanied him, fell into the hands of the persecutors, who, by the prefect’s orders, conducted them to a small town called Taposiris, in the province of Mareotis, about three leagues from Alexandria. A considerable body of peasants taking arms and making their appearance there in defence of the bishop, the guards were alarmed and fled, leaving the prisoners behind them. The bishop, who was every moment waiting for death, was carried off by them by main force, and set at liberty to choose a safe retreat. St. Dionysius, attended by Peter, Caius, Paul, and Faustus, made his way to a desert in the province of Marmarica, in Lybia, where he lay concealed with Peter and Caius, two priests, till the end of the persecution in the middle of the year 251, but, during that interval, often sent priests with directions and letters for the comfort of his flock, especially of those who suffered for the faith. Our saint was returned to Alexandria when he was informed of the schism formed by Novatian against pope Cornelius. The antipope sent him notice of his election in form. St. Dionysius, in his answer, said to him: “You ought rather to have suffered all things than have raised a schism in the church. To die in defence of its unity would be as glorious as laying down one’s life rather than to sacrifice to idols; and, in my opinion, more glorious; because, here the safety of the whole church is consulted.—If you bring your brethren to union, this will overbalance your fault, which will be forgot, and you will receive commendation. If you cannot gain others, at least save your own soul.” Our saint wrote thrice to the clergy and to those confessors who supported the schism at Rome, and had the satisfaction of seeing the confessors abandon it before the end of the year. To oppose the heresy of Novatian, who denied in the church the power of remitting certain sins, he ordered that the communion should be refused to no one that asked it at the hour of death. Fabian, bishop of Antioch, seemed inclined to favor the rigorism of Novatian towards the lapsed. The great Dionysius wrote to him several letters against that principle; in one of which, he relates that an old man called Serapion, who had offered sacrifice, and had therefore been refused the communion, and detained among the penitents, in his last sickness lay senseless and speechless three days: then, coming to himself, cried out: “Why am I detained here? I beg to be delivered.” And he sent his little grandson to the priest, who, being sick, and not able to come, sent the holy encharist by the child, directing him to moisten it, and give it his grandfather: for, during the primitive persecutions, the blessed sacrament was allowed to be so carried and received in domestic communion. When the child entered the room, Serapion cried out: “The priest cannot come: do as he ordered you, and dismiss me immediately.” The old man expired with a gentle sigh, as soon as he had swallowed it. St. Dionysius observes that his life was miraculously preserved that he might receive the holy communion. In 250, a pestilence began to rage, and made great havoc for several years. By St. Dionysius’s direction, many, in Egypt, died martyrs of charity on that occasion.³

The opinion that Christ will reign on earth with his elect a thousand years before the day of judgment, was an error founded chiefly on certain mistaken passages of the Apocalypse or Revelation of St. John. Those who, with Corinthus, understood this of a reign in sensual pleasures, were always deemed abominable heretics. But some Catholics admitted it in spiritual delights; which opinion was for some time tolerated in the church Nepos, a zealous and learned bishop of Arsino, who died in the communion of the church, propagated this mistaken notion in all that part of Egypt, an wrote in defence of it two books entitled. On the Promises. This work St. Dionysius confuted by two books against the Millenarian heresy. He also took a journey to Arsino, and held a public conference with Coracion, the chief of the Milienarians, in which he confuted them with no less mildness and charity, than strength of reasoning, and with such advantage, that Coracion publicly revoked that mistaken interpretation, which was exploded out of the whole country, and was unanimously condemned upon examination into the sound constant tradition, which could not be obscured by the disagreement of some few persons or particular churches. When pope Stephen threatened to excommunicate the Africans for rebaptizing all heretics, St. Dionysius prevailed with him by letters to suspend the execution. St. Jerom was misinformed when he attributed the opinion of the Africans to St. Dionysius, who, as St. Basil testifies,⁴ admitted even the baptism of the Pepuzeni, which was rejected in Asia, because the heretics (who, as it were, by a constant rule, differ from themselves in different ages and countries) in certain places corrupted the essential form of baptism, which the same sect retained in others.* The persecution being renewed by Valerian, in 257, Emilian, prefect of Egypt, caused St. Dionysius, with Maximus a priest, Faustus, Eusebius, and Queremon, deacons, and one Marcellus, a Roman, to be apprehended and brought before him and pressed them to sacrifice to the gods, the conservators of the empire. St. Dionysius replied: “All men adore not the same deities. We adore only one God, the Creator of all things, who hath bestowed the empire on Valerian and Gallien. We offer up prayers to him without ceasing for the peace and prosperity of their reign.” The prefect attempted in vain to persuade them to adore the Roman deities with their own God: and at length sent them into banishment to Kephro, in Lybia. And he forbade the Christians to hold assemblies, or go to the places called Cemeteries; that is, the tombs of martyrs. St. Dionysius converted the pagan savages of the country to which he was sent; but, by an order of the prefect, the saint and his companions were afterwards removed to Collouthion near Mareotis, now called the Lake of Alexandria. The neighborhood of that city afforded him in this place an opportunity of receiving from and sending thither frequent messages and directions. His exile continued two years, and during it he wrote two paschal letters.

The captivity of Valerian, who was taken prisoner by the Persians in 260, and the peace which Gallien granted the church by public edicts, restored St. Dionysius to his flock. But the region of this lower world is stormy, and one wave perpetually presses upon the neck of another. The prefect, Emilian, seized upon the public store-houses of Alexandria, which were the granary of Rome, and assumed the imperial dignity. This revolt filled the city and country with the calamities which attend on civil wars, till Emilian was defeated by Theodotus, whom Gallien sent against him; and, being taken, he was sent to Rome, and strangled. A trifling incident gave occasion to another sedition in that populous city. A servant to one of the civil magistrates happening to tell a soldier that his shoes were finer than another man’s, he was taken up, and beaten for this affront. The whole town ran to arms to revenge this quarrel, the streets were filled with dead bodies, and the waters ran with blood. The peaceable demeanor of the Christians could not screen them from violences, as St. Dionysius complains; and, for a long time, a man could neither keep at home nor stir out of doors without danger. The pestilence still continued its havoc, and while the Christians attended the sick, with inexpressible pains and charity, the heathens threw the putrid carcasses into the highways, and often put their dying friends out of doors, and left them to perish in the streets, hoping, by their caution, to avoid the contagion, to which the apprehension which seized their imagination, exposed them the more. The heresies, which at that time disturbed the church, also exercised the zeal of our holy pastor. Sabellius of Ptolemais, in Lydia, a disciple of Notus of Smyrna, renewed the heresy of Praxeas, denying the real distinction of the three Divine Persons. St. Dionysius, to whom belonged the care of the churches of Pentapolis, sent thither to admonish the authors of this error to forsake it; but they defended their impious doctrine with greater impudence. He therefore condemned them in a council at Alexandria, in 261. Before this, by a letter, of which Eusebius has preserved a fragment, he had given information of the blasphemies of Sabellius to St. Sixtus II, bishop of Rome, who sat from 257 to 259.⁵ In his letter to Euphranor and Ammonius against this heresy, he insists much on the proofs of Christ’s human nature, to show that the Father is not the Son. Some persons took offence at his doctrine, and their slanders were carried to St. Dionysius, bishop of Rome, who had succeeded St. Sixtus. That pope wrote to our saint upon the subject, who cleared himself by showing that when he called Christ a creature, and differing in substance from the Father, he spoke only of his human nature. This was the subject of his Apology to Dionysius, bishop of Rome, in which he demonstrated that the Son, as to his divine nature, is of the same substance with the Father, as is clearly shown by St. Athanasius, in his book On the Opinion of Dionysius. In the same work our saint established the divinity of the Holy Ghost, as St. Basil testifies by quotations extracted from it in his book on that subject.

The loss of our saint’s works is extremely regretted; for of them nothing has reached us except some fragments quoted by others, and his canonical epistle to Basilides, which has a place among the canons of the church. In the first canon he mentions a difficulty then often propounded, at what hour on Easter morning the fast of Lent might be lawfully broken; and says that though midnight was looked upon to close the fast (which is long since certain as to the church precept) yet this being not a natural or usual hour for eating, he thought it could not be excused from intemperance, to eat then, and advised the morning to be waited for, though all Christians spent that whole night in watching at their devotions. He speaks of the fasts of superposition observed in the last week of Lent, and says, that some fasted the whole six days before Easter, without taking any nourishment; others five three, two, or one day, according to their strength and devotion, this not being a matter of precept as to the superposition of several days. He inculcates, that great purity, both of mind and body, is required in all who approach the holy table, and receive the body and blood of our Lord.⁶ St. Dionysius of Alexandria, a little before his death, defended the divinity of Jesus Christ against Paul of Samosata. bishop of Antioch, a man infamous both for his abominable heresies, and also for his intolerable haughtiness, vanity, avarice, extortions, and other crimes. St. Dionysius, being invited to the synod that was held at Antioch against this heretic, in 264, and not being able to go thither, by reason of his old age and infirmities, wrote several letters to the church of Antioch, wherein he refuted the heresiarch’s errors, but would not condescend to salute him.⁷ Nevertheless, the crafty fox dissembled his sentiments, and palliated his disorders in this council renouncing what he could not conceal, so that he continued some time longer in his station.* Towards the end of the year 265, soon after the Antiochian synod was over, St. Dionysius died at Alexandria, after he had governed that church with great wisdom and sanctity about seventeen years.^† His memory, says St. Epiphanius, was preserved at Alexandria by a church dedicated in his honor, but much more by his incomparable virtues and excellent writings. See Eus. Hist. l. 6 and 7: St. Jerom, in Catal. &c., also Tillemont, t. 4; Cave, Prim. Fathers, t. 2; Ceillier, t. 3, p. 241, Corn, Bie the Bollandist, ad 3 Oct t. 2, p. 8.

St. Gregory, Bishop of Tours, C.

The second ornament of the church of Tours after the great St. Martin, was George Florentius Gregory. He was born at Auvergne, of one of the most illustrious families of that country, both for riches and nobility; and, what was far more valuable, piety seemed hereditary in it. Leocadia, his grandmother, descended from Vettius Epagatus, the illustrious martyr of Lyons. His father was brother to St. Gallus, bishop of Clermont, under whom, and his successor St. Avitus, Gregory had his education. He received the clerical tonsure from the former, and was ordained deacon by the latter. Having contracted a dangerous distemper, for the recovery of his health he made a visit of devotion to the tomb of St. Martin at Tours, and had scarce left that city when, upon the death of St. Euphronius, the clergy and people, who had been charmed with his piety, learning, and humility chose him bishop. Their deputies overtook him at the court of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, and the saint being compelled to acquiesce, though much against his will, he was consecrated by Giles, bishop of Rheims, on the 22d day of August in 573, being thirty-four years old.^‡ Faith and piety, in the diocese of Tours, received a new increase under his conduct. He rebuilt his cathedral (which was founded by St. Martin) and several other churches; he assisted at the council of Paris in 577, and there defended St. Prtextatus, bishop of Rouen, with so much zeal and prudence as to gain the applause of king Chilperic himself, the persecutor of that injured prelate. The Arians and Sabellians in France were often confounded by him, and the greatest part of them were brought over to the unity of faith by his mildness and erudition. St. Odo extols his meekness, profound humility, ardent zeal for religion, and charity towards all, especially his enemies. The admirable purity of his life and manners could not shelter him from slanders and persecutions, and he was accused of a design of surrendering the city of Tours to king Childebert; but cleared in a council held at Braine, a royal palace three leagues from Soissons, in 580. Chilperic condemned at Braine a nobleman named Dacco, accused by treachery, to be put to death. Dacco besought a priest, without the king’s privity, to admit him to venance; which being done, he was executed. This is an instance of secret penance and confession at the point of death,¹ and of the impious maxim which anciently prevailed, sometimes in the civil courts in France, of refusing the sacraments to dying criminals that were guilty of grievous crimes. The stupidity and vanity of king Chilperic appear in his rash disputations with St. Gregory about the fundamental articles of our faith, in which the saint vigorous y opposed his extravagances.² In 594 our saint went to Rome out of devotion, and was received with distinction by St. Gregory the Great, who made him a present of a gold chain. That pope admired the great graces and virtues of his soul, and the lowness of his stature. To whom the bishop of Tours replied: “We are such as God has framed us but he is the same in the little and in the great;” meaning, that God is the author of all the good that is in us, and to him alone all praise is due. Several miracles are ascribed to St. Gregory of Tours, which he attributed to St. Martin and other saints, whose relics he always carried about him. When certain thieves who had robbed the church of St. Martin were taken, St. Gregory was afraid lest king Chilperic should put them to death, and wrote to him to save their lives; and as no one appeared to carry on the prosecution against them, they were pardoned.* This saint was bishop twenty-three years, and died on the 17th of November in 596. Before his death he ordered his body to be buried in a place where all who came to the church should walk over his grave, and where no memorial could be erected. But the clergy afterwards raised a monument to his honor on the left hand of St. Martin’s tomb. See his works most correctly published by Ruinart, in folio, 1699, and the life of the saint compiled by St. Odo, abbot of Cluni, prefixed to that edition. See also Rivet, Hist. Litter t. 3, p. 372; Ceillier. t. 17, p. 1; Maun, Hist. de l’Egl. de Tours.

St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, C.

The foundations of an interior life are most safely laid in holy solitude, which is the best preparation for the functions of the active life, and the support of a spirit of piety amidst its distractions. In the desert of Chartreuse St. Hugh learned first to govern himself, and treasured up in his hear the most lively sentiments of pure and perfect virtue, the most essential qualification of a minister of Christ. He was born of a good family in Burgundy in 1140: lost his mother before he was eight years old, and was educated from that age in a convent of regular canons, situate near his father’s seat, who, after having served as an officer in the army with great reputation for honor and piety, retired himself to the same place, and there ended his days in the exercises of a devout and penitential religious life. Hugh, being blessed with a happy genius and good natural parts, made great progress in every branch of learning to which he applied himself. A venerable ancient priest was appointed by the abbot to instruct him in his studies and in religious discipline, whose serious admonitions made a deep impression on his soul. When he was nineteen years old the abbot took the saint with him to the Chartreuse near Grenoble, on an annual visit which he was accustomed to make to that holy company. The retirement and silence of the desert, and the assiduous contemplation and saintly deportment of the monks who inhabited it, kindled in Hugh’s breast a strong desire of embracing that institute. Nor were the canons, his brethren, able to dissuade him from this resolution after his return; so that being persuaded that God called him to this state, he secretly went back to the Chartreuse, and was admitted to the habit. The interior conflicts which he sustained served to purify his soul, and make him more fervent and watchful. Under these trials he was often refreshed with consolations and great heavenly sweetness; and, by mortification and humble continual prayer, the fiery darts of the enemy were at length extinguished. The time approaching when he was to be promoted to priest’s orders, an old father whom he served according to the custom of the order, asked him if he was willing to be ordained priest. Hugh answered him with simplicity, out of the vehement desire he had of offering daily to God the holy victim of the altar, that there was nothing in the world he more earnestly desired. The old man, fearing the danger of presumption, and a want of the great apprehension which every one is bound to have of that tremendous function, said to him with a severe countenance: “How dare you aspire to a degree, to which no one, how holy soever, is advanced, but with trembling, and by constraint?” At this rebuke, St. Hugh, struck with holy fear, fell on the ground, and begged pardon with many tears. The other, moved at his humility, told him he knew the purity of his desires; and said he would be advanced not only to the priesthood, but also to the episcopal dignity. The saint had passed ten years in his private cell when the general procuratorship of the monastery was committed to him: in which weighty charge the reputation of his prudence and sanctity was spread over all France.

King Henry II. of England founded the first house of Carthusian monks in England, at Witham in Somersetshire; but so great difficulties occurred in the undertaking, under the two first priors, that the monastery could not be settled. The king, therefore, sent Reginald, bishop of Bath, with other honorable persons, to the great Chartreuse, to desire that the holy monk, Hugh, might be sent over to take upon him the government of this monastery. After much debating in the house it was determined that it became not Christian charity so to confine their views to one family as to refuse what was required for the benefit of many others; and though the saint protested that of all others he was most unfit for the charge, he was ordered by the chapter to accompany the deputies to England. As soon as he landed, without going to court, he went directly to Witham, and wonderfully comforted and encouraged the few monks he found there. Being sent for by the king, he received from his royal bounty many presents, and a large provision of all things necessary for his monastery, and set himself to finish the buildings; at which he worked with his own hands, and carried stones and mortar on his shoulders. By the humility and meekness of his deportment, and the sanctity of his manners, he gained the hearts of the most savage and inveterate enemies of that holy foundation; and several persons, charmed with the piety of the good prior and his little colony, began to relish their close solitude, and, abandoning the cares of the world, consecrated themselves to God under the discipline of the saint, who became in a short time the father of a numerous and flourishing family. The king, as he returned with his army from Normandy to England, was in great danger at sea, in a furious storm which defeated all the art of the sailors. All fell to their prayers: but their safety seemed despaired of when the king made aloud the following address to heaven: “O blessed God, whom the prior of Witham truly serves, vouchsafe through the merits and intercession of thy faithful servant, with an eye of pity to regard our distress and affliction. This invocation was scarce finished but a calm ensued, and the whole company, who never ceased to give thanks to the divine clemency, continued their voyage safe to England.

The confidence which king Henry reposed in St. Hugh, above all other persons in his dominions, was from that time much increased. The see of Lincoln having been kept by his majesty some years vacant, he was pleased to give leave to the dean and chapter to choose a pastor, and the election fell upon St. Hugh. His excuses were not admitted, and he was obliged by the authority of Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, to drop the strong opposition which he had made, and to receive the episcopal consecration in 1186, on the 21st of September. As soon as he was raised to the episcopal chair, he engaged several clergymen of the greatest learning and piety to be his assistants; and he employed all the authority which his station gave him, in restoring ecclesiastical discipline, especially among his clergy. By sermons and private exhortations he labored to quicken in all men the spirit of faith, and in ordinary conversation incited others to divine love by instructions adapted to their particular condition and circumstances; but was always cheerful and affable, with decent gravity. In administering the sacraments, or consecrating churches, he sometimes spent whole days, beginning before break of day, and persevering some hours in the night, without allowing himself any corporal refection. Good part of his time he always bestowed in inquiring into, and relieving the necessities of the poor, whom he frequently visited, and affectionately comforted. The hospitals of lepers he attended above others, and with singular tenderness kissed the most loathsome ulcers of the infected. To one who jeeringly said to him, that St. Martin did so to heal their ulcers, which he did not do, the good bishop answered: “St. Martin’s kiss healed the leper’s flesh, but their kiss heals my soul.” In travelling he was so recollected that he usually never cast his eyes about him, or saw any thing but the mane of the horse on which he rode. Devotion seemed always to give him vigor and strength, and the sentiments with which he nourished his soul in reciting the psalms, seemed more than human. He was so punctual in observing the canonical hours of the divine office, that once he would not stir out of the inn till he had said his morning office, though his attendants brought him word, trembling, that if he did not get away as fast as he could his life would be in danger from a troop of madmen who were coming into the road where he was to pass, and who spared nothing that came in their way. It was the holy bishop’s custom to retire at least once a year to his beloved cloister at Witham, and there pass some time observing the common rule, without any difference but that of wearing the episcopal ring on his finger. In this retirement, as from a high tower, he surveyed the vanity of human things, the shortness of life, and the immense greatness of eternity. Also turning his eyes inward upon himself, he took an impartial review of the affections of his own hear and of all his actions; he also considered the obligations and infinite difficulties of spiritual government, and the dreadful precipice upon which all prelacies stand. By letters and agents which he sent to the holy see, he besought with importunity to be disburdened of the episcopal administration, and restored to his cell. But his supplications were never heard, and he was sometimes commanded silence with rebukes. Though mild and obliging to all the world, he seemed by his sovereign contempt of earthly things to be above the reach of temptations of human respect.

Henry II., a prince most impatient of advice, and uncontrollable in his resolutions, stood in awe of this holy prelate, and received his admonitions with seeming deference, though it, was only by afflictions in the decline of life that he learned effectually to reform his passions. The king’s foresters, or overseers of the royal forests and chases, exercised an inhuman tyranny in the country, putting to death, or maiming upon the spot, any one who had killed or maimed a wild beast, or any game, whatever loss the farmers sustained by the deer in their harvest or gardens; and these foresters, upon the slightest suspicion, put whomever they pleased to the water-ordeal trial, which, notwithstanding the prohibitions of the church, remained still in frequent use among these officers of the crown,¹ who immediately put to death whoever was cast by that trial. And by customs usurped a good while, of by unjust and tyrannical forest laws, as the learned and pious Peter of Biois (who lived some time at the court of Henry II.) sticks not to call them, it was in the power of these foresters to require limb for limb, or life for life of that of a beast. A company of these rangers had, upon a slight occasion, laid hands on a clerk, and condemned him in a considerable sum of money. St. Hugh, after due summons, and a triple citation, excommunicated the head of them. This action king Henry took very ill. However, he dissembled his resentment, and soon after by a messenger and letters requested of him a prebend, then vacant in the diocese of Lincoln, in favor of one of his courtiers. St. Hugh, having read the petition, returned this answer by the messenger: “These places are to be conferred upon clerks, not upon courtiers; nor does the king want means to reward his servants.” Neither could the bishop be prevailed upon, at the king’s request, to absolve the ranger till he acknowledged his crime, with signs of repentance. Here upon his majesty sent for the bishop, and summing up the favors he had done him, upbraided him with ingratitude, and complained bitterly of the treatment he had received. The bishop, no ways troubled or daunted, with a grave and sweet countenance, demonstrated to him how, in the whole affair, he had had a regard purely to the service of God, and to the salvation of his majesty’s soul, which incurred manifest danger if oppressors of the church were protected, or ecclesiastical benefices rashly conferred on unworthy persons. The king was so moved by his discourse as to remain perfectly satisfied. The ranger showed himself penitent, and was absolved by the bishop in the usual form, in a public manner, and by his exhortation appeared truly reformed, and from that time became the saint’s most steady friend. It was a custom for the clergy to present yearly a precious mantle to the king at the charge of the people, for which they made a large collection, and retained the overplus for their own use. This St. Hugh abolished, and obtained of the king a renunciation of the present. Punishments in the ecclesiastical court, consisting chiefly in pecuniary mulects which the rich little regarded, St. Hugh changed them into other chastisements which carried with them marks of infamy. St. Hugh finished the building of his cathedral.* Henry II died in 1189, after a reign of thirty-four years.

Hugh, with the same liberty, exhorted king Richard I. to shun incontinence and all oppression of his subjects, and defended the immunities of the church in his reign, and in that of king John, who came to the crown in 1199. St. Hugh was sent ambassador by this latter into France, to king Philip Augustus, to conclude a peace between the two crowns; in which negotiation, the reputation of his sanctity contributed greatly to the success.² This important affair being finished, he paid a visit to his brethren at the grand Chartreuse. In his return, while he lodged at a Chartreuse called Arneria, some of the nonks asked him what news? At which question he was startled, and answered that a bishop who is engaged in the commerce of the world, may sometimes hear and tell news; but that such inquiries in religious men are an idle curiosity, and a dissipation repugnant to their state. The saint arrived at London just as a national council was ready to be opened at Lincoln. It was his intention to assist at it, but he was seized with a fever which followed a loss of appetite he had been afflicted with some time, and which the author of his life attributes to his excessive abstemiousness. He distinctly foretold his death; spent almost his whole time in fervent addresses to God, or to the Blessed Virgin, or in devout colloquies with his angel-guardian, or the saints. He received the viaticum and extreme unction on St. Matthew’s day, but survived till the 17th of November. On that day he caused many monks and priests, besides his chaplains, to recite the divine office in his chamber. Seeing them weep, he said many tender things to comfort them; and laying his hand upon them, one by one, recommended them to the divine custody. His voice beginning to fail, he ordered the floor to be swept, and a cross of blessed ashes to be strewed upon it. And while the ninetieth psalm at Compline was said, would be lifted out of bed, and laid upon that cross; in which posture, as he was repeating the canticle, Nunc dimittis, &c., he calmly expired, in the year of our Lord, 1200, of his age sixty, of his episcopal charge fifteen. His body was embalmed, and with great pomp conveyed from London to Lincoln, where two kings, John of England, and William of Scotland, (the latter, who had dearly loved the saint, bathed in tears,) three archbishops, fourteen bishops, above a hu