May XXVII

St. John, Pope, M.

See Anastasins, Theophanes, Marcellinus, &c., collected by Papebroke, Maij, t. 6; Fleury, Hist. b. 32.

A. D. 526.

Pope John was by birth a Tuscan. He distinguished himself from his youth in the Roman clergy, of which he became the oracle and the model. He was archdeacon, when, after the death of Hormisdas, in 523, he was chosen pope. Theodoric, the Arian king of the Goths, held Italy in subjection, and though endowed with some great qualities, did not divest himself of that disposition to cruelty and jealousy, which is always an ingredient in the character of an ambitious tyrant and a barbarian. It happened that the emperor Justin published an edict, ordering the Arians to deliver up all the churches they were possessed of to the Catholic bishops, by whom they were to be consecrated anew. Theodoric, who was the patron of that sect, took this law very ill; and in revenge threatened, that if it was not repealed in the East, he would not only treat the Catholics in his dominions in the same manner, but would fill Rome with blood and slaughter. Being, however, in some awe of the emperor, he resolved to try what he could do by negotiation; and sent the pope at the head of an embassy of five bishops and four senators, of which three had been consuls, to Constantinople on that errand. John used all manner of entreaties to decline such a commission, but was compelled by the king to take it upon him. He was received in the East with the greatest honors possible; and the whole city of Constantinople went out twelve miles to meet him, carrying wax tapers and crosses. The emperor, to use the words of Anastasius, prostrated himself before the most blessed pope, who also relates that the saint entering the city, restored sight to a blind man at the golden gate, who begged that favor of him. The same is mentioned by St. Gregory the Great, who adds, that the horse on which he rode would never after bear any other rider.¹ The joy of that city was universal on this occasion, and the pomp with which the successor of St. Peter was received, seemed to surpass the festival of a triumph. Authors vary as to the issue of his embassy; some say that the pope confirmed Justin in his resolution of taking away the churches from the heretics; but Anastasius tells us that the pope persuaded Justin to treat the Arians with moderation, and to leave them the churches of which they were possessed, and that the emperor acquiesced. However that be, while our saint was in the East, Theodoric caused the great Boëtius, who was the pope’s most intimate friend, both before and after he was raised to the pontificate, to be apprehended.* And no sooner was pope John landed at Ravenna in Italy, but together with the four senators, his colleagues, he was cast into a dark and loathsome dungeon. The tyrant forbade any succor or comfort to be allowed to the prisoners, so that by the hardships of his confinement and the stench or the place, the good pope died at Ravenna on the 27th of May, 526, soon after the cruel execution of Boëtius, having sat two years and nine months. His body was conveyed to Rome, and buried in the Vatican church. The two letters which bear his name are supposititious, as appears from their very dates, &c.

When we see wicked men prosper, and saints die in dungeons, we are far from doubting of providence, we are strengthened in the assured belief, that God, who has stamped the marks of infinite wisdom and goodness on all his works, has appointed a just retribution in the world to come. And faith reveals to us clearly this important secret. We at present see only one end of the chain in the conduct of providence towards men; many links in it are now concealed from our eyes. Let us wait a little, and we shall see in eternity God’s goodness abundantly justified. Who does not envy the happiness of a martyr in his dungeon, when he beholds the inward joy, peace, and sentiments of charity with which he closes his eyes to this world! and much more when he contemplates in spirit the glory with which the soul of the saint is conducted by angels, like Lazarus, to the abodes of immortal bliss! On the contrary, the wicked tyrant cannot think himself safe upon his throne, and amidst his armies; but sits, like Damocles, under the terrible sword in the midst of his enjoyments, in the dreary expectation every moment of perishing. At best, his treacherous pleasures are a wretched exchange for the true joy and peace of virtue; nor can he fly from the torment of his own conscience, or the stench of his guilt. How dreadfully are his horrors increased upon the approach of death! And how will he to all eternity condemn his extravagant folly, unless by sincere repentance he shall have prevented everlasting woes!

Saint Bede, Confessor,

father of the church

From the short account he has given of himself in the last chapter of his Ecclesiastical History; his disciple Cuthbert’s relation of his death; his two short anonymous lives extant, one in Capgrave, the other quoted by F. Mathew; also from Simeon of Durham, Hist. Dunelm. c. 14, 15, et 1. de Pontif. Eborac. in manuscript; Cotton. Malmesb. de Reg. Angl. l. 2, c. 4; Matt. of West. ad an. 734. See Mabillon, sæc. 3, Ben. p. 1, p. 539; Bulteau, t. 2, p. 316; Cave, Hist. Lit. t. 1, Ed. noviss; Ceillier, t. 18, p. 1; Tanner, Bibl. script. Brit. p. 86; Biographia Brit. t.1, V. Bede; and Smith in app. after Bede’s Eccl. Hist. p. 791.

A. D. 735.

The celebrated Dom. Mabillon,¹ mentioning Bede as a most illustrious in stance of learning in the monastic institute, says: “Who ever applied himself to the study of every branch of literature, and also to the teaching of others more than Bede? yet who was more closely united to heaven by the exercises of piety and religion? To see him pray, says an ancient writer, one would have thought he left himself no time to study; and when we look at his books we admire he could have found time to do any thing else but write.” Camden calls him “the singular and shining light,” and Leland “the chiefest and brightest ornament of the English nation, most worthy, if any one ever was, of immortal fame.” William of Malmesbury tells us, that it is easier to admire him in thought than to do him justice in __EXPRESSION__ Venerable Bede, called by the ancients Bedan, (who is not to be confounded with a monk of Landisfarne of the same name² but older,) was born in 673, as Mabillon demonstrates from his own writings, in a village which soon after his birth became part of the estate of the new neighboring monastery of Jarrow, but was gained upon by the sea before the time of Simeon of Durham. St. Bennet Biscop founded the abbey of St. Peter’s at Weremouth, near the mouth of the Were, in 674, and that of St. Paul’s at Girvum, now Jarrow, in 680, on the banks of the river Tyne, below the Capræ-caput, still called Goat’s head, or Gateshead, opposite to Newcastle. Such a harmony subsisted between the two houses that they were often governed by the same abbot, and called the same monastery of SS. Peter and Paul. St. Benne was a man of extraordinary learning and piety, and enriched these monasteries with a large and curious library which he had collected at Rome, and in other foreign parts. To his care Bede was committed at seven years of age, but was afterwards removed to Jarrow, where he prosecuted his studies under the direction of the abbot Ceolfrid, who had been St. Bennet’s fellow-traveller. Among other able masters, under whom he made great progress, he names Trumbert, a monk of Jarrow, who had formerly been a disciple of St. Chad, bishop, first of York, afterwards of Litchfield, who had established a great school in his monastery of Lestingan in Yorkshire. The church music, or chant, Bede learned of John, formerly precentor of St. Peter’s on the Vatican, and abbot of St. Martin’s at Rome, whom pope Agatho had sent over to England with St. Bennet Biscop. The Greek language our saint must have learned of Theodorus, archbishop of Canterbury, and the abbot Adrian, by whose instruction that language became as familiar to several of their English scholars as their native tongue. For an instance of which Bede mentions Tobias, bishop of Rochester. How great a master Bede was of that language appears from his Ars Metrica, and other works. His poem on St. Cuthbert and other performances show him to have been a good poet for the age wherein he lived. But his comments on the holy scriptures, and his sermons prove that the meditation on the word of God, and the writings of the holy fathers, chiefly engrossed his time and attention.

His great piety and endowments supplying the defect of age, by the order of his abbot Ceolfrid, he was ordained deacon in 691, at nineteen years of age, by St. John of Beverley, who was at that time bishop of Hexham, in which diocese Jarrow was situated, there being then no episcopal see at Durham. From this time he continued his studies, till, at thirty years of age, in 702, he was ordained priest by the same St. John, who was made bishop of Hexham in 685, and bishop of York in 704. In king Alfred’s version Bede is styled Mass-Priest, because it was his employment to sing every day the conventual mass. He tells us that the holy abbot and founder, St. Bennet Biscop, like the rest of the brethren, used to winnow the corn and thrash it, to give milk to the lambs and calves, and to work in the bake-house, garden, and kitchen. Bede must have sometimes had a share in such employments, and he was always cheerful, obedient, and indefatigable. But his studies and writings, with assiduous meditation and prayer, must have chiefly employed him. He often copied books. From the time that he was promoted to priestly orders he began to compose books; and he had a great school, in which he brought up many eminent and holy scholars, and instructed his fellow monks, who amounted to the number of six hundred. Bede tells us of himself that he applied himself wholly to the meditation of the holy scriptures, and amidst the observance of regular discipline, and the daily care of singing in the church, it was his delight to be always employed either in learning, teaching, or writing. He says, that from the time of his being made priest, to the fifty-ninth year of his age when he wrote this, he had compiled several books for his own use, and that of others, gathering them out of the works of the venerable fathers, or adding new comments according to their sense and interpretation.* He gives a list of forty-five different works which he had then composed, of which thirty, and many of those are divided into several books, consist of comments on the Old and New Testament. He wrote several other works after this. All the sciences and every branch of literature were handled by him; natural philosophy, the philosophical principles of Aristotle, astronomy, arithmetic, the calendar, grammar, ecclesiastical history, and the lives of the saints; though works of piety make up the bulk of his writings. The ornaments of rhetoric were not his study; but perspicuity, (the first qualification in writing,) an unaffected honesty and simplicity, and an affecting spirit of sincere piety and goodness of heart and charity, run through all his compositions, and cannot fail to please. An honest candor and love of truth are so visibly the characteristics of his historical works, that if some austere critics have suspected him sometimes of credulity, no man ever called in question his sincerity. If on the scriptures he often abridged or reduced to a methodical order the comments of St. Austin, St. Ambrose, St. Jerom, St. Basil, and other fathers, this he did, not out of sloth or for want of genius, (as some later writers have done,) but that he might stick closer to tradition in interpreting the sacred oracles; and in what he found not done by other eminent fathers, he still followed their rules lest he should in the least tittle deviate from tradition. In the original comments which he wrote, he seems, in the opinion of good judges, not inferior in solidity and judgment to his ablest masters among the fathers. John Bale, the apostate Carmelite friar, and the sworn enemy of the monks and fathers, who was bishop of Ossory under Edward VI., and died canon of Canterbury under queen Elizabeth, could not refuse Bede the highest encomiums, and affirms, that he certainly surpassed Gregory the Great in eloquence and copiousness of style, and that there is scarce any thing in all antiquity worthy to be read, which is not found in Bede. Dr. John Pitts³ advances, that Europe scarce ever produced a greater scholar; and that even while he was living, his writings were of so great authority that a council ordered them to be publicly read in the churches. Folchard, a very learned monk of Christ-church, in Canterbury, and abbot of Thorney, in the days of St. Edward the Confessor, and the Conqueror, originally from Sithiu, in his Life of St. John of Beverley, quoted by Leland, says of Bede: “It is amazing how this great man became so perfect in all the branches of those sciences to which he applied himself, whereby he conquered all difficulties, and brought those of his own nation to form right notions; so that from the rude and boorish manners of their ancestors they began to be exceedingly civilized and polite through their desire of learning, of which he not only taught them the grounds while living, but in his works left them a kind of Encyclopædia (or universal library) for the instruction of youth after his decease.” Fuller writes of him: “He expounded almost all the Bible, translated the Psalms and New Testament into English, and lived a comment on those words of the apostle,—shining as a light in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” What we most admire in Bede is the piety with which he pursued and sanctified his studies, and the use which he made of them. What he says of St. Chad was a transcript of his own life, that he studied the holy scriptures so as to meditate assiduously on the mysteries of faith and the maxims and rules of piety, treasuring up in his heart the most perfect sentiments of divine love, humility, and all virtues, and diligently copying them in his whole conduct. Hence his life was a model of devotion, obedience, humility, simplicity, charity, and penance. He declined the abbatial dignity which was pressed upon him. Malmesbury gives us a letter of pope Sergius,⁴ by which with many honorable __EXPRESSION__s he was invited to Rome, that pope desiring to see and consult him in certain matters of the greatest importance. This must have happened about the time that he was ordained priest. Bede out of modesty suppressed this circumstance. What hindered his journey thither we know not; but we have his word for it that he lived from his childhood in his monastery without travelling abroad, that is, without taking any considerable journey. His reputation drew to him many visits from all the greatest men in Britain, particularly from the pious king Ceolwulph. Ecgbright, or Egberct, brother to Eadbyrht, king of Northumberland, who was consecrated archbishop of York in 734, had been a scholar of Bede. At his pressing invitation our saint went to York, and taught there some months, but excused himself from leaving his monastery the following year.⁵ This school set up at York became very flourishing, and Alcuin, one of its greatest ornaments, is said to have been himself a scholar of Bede. Our saint died soon after Ecgbright’s accession to the see of York; but lived long enough to write him a letter of advice upon his advancement. Herein he puts him in mind that it was a most essential part of his duty to place everywhere able and learned priests, to labor strenuously himself in feeding his flock, in correcting all vice, and endeavoring to convert all sinners, and to take care that every one knew the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed, and was thoroughly instructed in the articles of our holy religion. He gives it as an important piece of advice, that all among the laity whose lives are pure, (or free from vice,) communicate every Sunday, and on the festivals of the apostles and martyrs, as he says Ecgbright had seen practised at Rome; but Bede requires that married persons prepare themselves by continence to receive the holy communion,⁶ which was formerly a precept repeated in several councils; but is now by disuse looked upon as no more than a counsel, but a counsel which St. Charles Borromeo recommends to be inculcated. Bede died within the compass of a year after he wrote this letter. Cuthbert, called also Antony, one of his scholars, to whom the saint dedicated his book, De Arte Metrica, wrote to one Cuthwin a monk, who had formerly been his schoolfellow under Bede, an account of the death of their dear master. This Cuthbert was afterwards abbot of Jarrow, in which dignity he succeeded Huethbert, called also Eusebius, another scholar of Bede.

The letter of Cuthbert⁷ deserves to have a place in the life of Bede, though it is here something abridged. “To his most beloved in Christ, and fellow reader Cuthwin, his schoolfellow Cuthbert wishes eternal salvation in our Lord. Your small present was very acceptable, and your letter gave me much satisfaction, wherein I found what I greatly desired, that masses and prayers are diligently said by you for Bede, the beloved of God, our late father and master. For the love I bear him, I send you in few words an account of the manner in which he departed this world, understanding it is what you desire. He began to be much troubled with a shortness of breath about two weeks before Easter, yet without pain: thus he lived cheerful and rejoicing, giving thanks to Almighty God every day and night, nay every hour, till the day of our Lord’s Ascension, which was the 26th of May. He daily read lessons to us his scholars; the rest of the day he spent in singing psalms; he also passed all the night awake in joy and thanksgiving, only when he was interrupted by a short slumber; but awaking, he repeated his accustomed exercises, and ceased not to give thanks to God, with his hands expanded. O truly happy man! He sung that sentence of St. Paul: It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; and much more out of holy writ. Being well skilled in English verses he recited some things in our tongue. He said in English: ‘No man is too wise to consider what good or evil he has done, before the necessary departure:’ that is, to examine the state of his soul sufficiently before his death. He also sung anthems according to his and our custom; one of which is: ‘O glorious King, Lord of Hosts, who triumphing this day didst ascend above all the heavens, leave us not orphans; but send down the Father’s Spirit of truth upon us: Alleluia.’ When he came to that word, ‘leave us not,’ he burst into tears, and wept much; and an hour after he began to repeat the same anthem he had commenced, and we hearing it, grieved with him. By turns we read, and by turns we wept; nay, we always wept even when we read. In such joy we passed the fifty days, and he rejoiced much, and gave God thanks because he deserved to be so infirm. He often repeated that God scourgeth every son whom he receiveth; and much more out of the scripture; also that sentence of St. Ambrose: ‘I have not lived so as to be ashamed to live among you; nor am I afraid to die, because we have a good God.’ During these days, besides the daily lessons he gave, and the singing of psalms, he composed two works for the benefit of the church; the one was a translation of St. John’s gospel into English, as far as those words: But what are these among so many? the other, some collections out of St. Isidore’s book of notes; for he said, ‘I will not have my scholars read a falsehood after my death, and labor without advantage.’ On Tuesday before the Ascension he began to be much worse in his breathing, and a small swelling appeared in his feet; but he passed all that day pleasantly, and dictated in school, saying now and then, ‘Go on quickly; I know not how long I shall hold out, and whether my Maker will soon take me away.’ To us he seemed very well to know the time of his departure. He spent the nigh awake in thanksgivings. On Wednesday morning he ordered us to write speedily what he had begun. After this, we made the procession according to the custom of that day,* walking with the relics of the saints till the third hour, (or nine o’clock in the morning;) then one of as said to him: ‘Most dear master, there is still one chapter wanting. Do you think it troublesome to be asked any more questions?’ He answered: ‘It is no trouble. Take your pen and write fast.’ He did so. But at the ninth hour (three in the afternoon) he said to me: ‘Run quickly; and bring all the priests of the monastery to me.’ When they came, he distributed to them some pepper-corns, little cloths or handkerchiefs, and incense which he had in a little box,* entreating every one that they would carefully celebrate masses and say prayers for him; which they readily promised to do. They all wept at his telling them, they should no more see his face in this world: but rejoiced to hear him say: ‘It is now time for me to return to him who made me, and gave me a being when I was nothing. I have lived a long time; my merciful Judge most graciously foresaw and ordered the course of my life for me. The time of my dissolution draws near. I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. Yes; my soul desires to see Christ my king in his beauty.’ Many other things he spoke to our edification, and spent the rest of the day in joy till the evening. The above-mentioned young scholar, whose name was Wilberth, said to him: ‘Dear master, there is still one sentence that is not written.’ He answered, ‘Write quickly. The young man said: ‘It is now done.’ He replied: ‘You have well said it is at an end: all is finished. Hold my head, that I may have the pleasure to sit, looking towards my little oratory where I used to pray; that while I am sitting I may call upon my heavenly Father, and on the pavement of his little place sing, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.’ Thus he prayed on the floor, and when he had named the Holy Ghost, he breathed out his soul. All declared that they had never seen any one die with such great devotion and tranquility: for so long as his soul was in his body, he never ceased, with his hands expanded, to give thanks and praise to God, repeating, Glory be to the Father, &c., with other spiritual acts. I have many other things I could relate of him; and I have a thought of writing more amply on this subject,” &c.

Ranulph Higden⁸ relates the manner of his holy departure: “After teaching all day, it was his custom to watch much in the nights. Finding by the swelling of his feet that death approached, he received extreme unction, and then the Viaticum on the Tuesday before the Ascension of the Lord, and gave the kiss of peace to all his brethren, imploring their pious remembrance after his death. On the feast of the Ascension, lying on sackcloth spread on the floor, he invited the grace of the Holy Ghost; and continued in praise and thanksgiving, in which he breathed forth his holy soul.” St Bede died in the year 735, of his age sixty-two,^† on Wednesday evening the 26th of May, after the first vespers of our Lord’s Ascension; whence many authors say he died on the feast of the Ascension; for our Saxon ancestors reckoned festivals from the firs vespers. Thus from repeating the divine praises here in the most pure and profound sentiments of compunction, humility, zeal, and love, he passed, as it were without intermission, to sing eternally the same praises with affections at once infinitely dilated with inexpressible holy joy, ardor, and love, in the glorious choirs of the blessed, and in the beatific contemplation of God, whom he praised and loved. His feast was kept in England in some places on the 26th of May, with a commemoration only in the office of St. Austin; in others it was deferred to the 27th, on which it occurs in the Roman Martyrology. In the constitution of John Alcock, bishop of Ely, for the festivals of his diocese, printed in 1498 by Pynson, Bede’s feast is ordered to be kept with an office on the 13th of March, the day of his death being taken up by the office of St. Austin. Certain congregations of the Benedictine order have long kept his office on the 29th of October, perhaps on account of some translation. On the same day it is celebrated at present in England, and by a special privilege, the office is said by all English priests who live in foreign countries, by an indult or grant of pope Benedict XIV. given in 1754 which grant, at least with regard to those clergymen or regulars who are in England, was interpreted at, Rome to imply a precept.

Alcuin⁹ having extolled the learning and virtues of this holy doctor, says that his sanctity was attested by the voice of heaven after his death; for a sick man was freed from a fever upon the spot by touching his relics. St. Lullus, archbishop of Mentz, wrote to his scholar Cuthbert, then abbot of Weremouth and Jarrow, to beg a copy of Bede’s works, and sent him a cloak for his own use, and a silk vest to cover the shrine of this great servant of God. At that time a vest was a usual present even to kings. Bede was buried in St. Paul’s church in Jarrow, where a porch on the north side bore his name. In 1020 his sacred remains were conveyed to Durham, and laid in a bag and wooden trunk in the shrine of St. Cuthbert, as Simeon of Durham relates. In 1155 they were taken up by Hugh, bishop of Durham, and enclosed in a rich shrine of curious workmanship, adorned with gold, silver, and jewels, as we learn from the appendix to the history of Durham, compiled by Simeon of Durham, who wrote from the memoirs of Turgot the learned prior of Durham in the reign of Edward the Confessor, made archbishop of St. Andrew’s in the reign of the Conqueror, whose declared enemy he was. Hence Turgot’s history has been by some ascribed to him. At the change of religion in England the shrines of the saints were plundered by the royal commissioners, but these were anticipated by private robbers in many places. At the same time the relics were scattered or publicly burned. This latter part of the commission, which was rigorously executed near the court and in the southern provinces, was not much regarded in the more remote northern counties, where they were usually interred in the churches where their shrines were kept, as we see in St. Cuthbert’s, St. John of Beverley’s, &c. Speed, in his Theatre of Britain, says his marble monument subsisted, when he wrote in our Lady’s chapel in the western part of the church of Durham. Sir George Wheeler, who died prebendary of Durham, and was a great admirer of Bede according to his will, is buried within the cathedral, near the foot of Bede’s tomb, and has an inscription, whereas none is now found over St. Bede’s. Mr. Smith has given a type of the remains which are now standing,¹⁰ and another of the altar of St. Cuthbert and St. Bede, delineated from the paintings of the eastern window.¹¹ Nevertheless, the monks of Glastenbury laid claim to St. Bede’s relics, or a portion of them.¹² Boniface calls St. Bede the lamp of the English church; St. Lullus, Alcuin, and other writers from the time of his death, exceedingly extol his learning and sanctity. By Lanfranc and many others he is styled the doctor and father of the English. Trithemius imagined that the title of “Venerable” was conferred on him in his lifetime. But Mabillon shows from the silence of all former writers, that it was begun to be given him, out of a peculiar respect, only in the ninth age, when it was used by Amalarius, Jonas, Usuard, &c.¹³ He was styled Saint, and placed in foreign Martyrologies long before that time, by Hincmar, Notker,¹⁴ in the litany of St. Gall’s, &c. Rabanus Maurus mentions an altar at Fulde, of which Bede was titular saint. The second council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 836, calls him “The venerable and in the modern times admirable doctor,” &c.

It was the happiness of Venerable Bede, that receiving his education under the direction of saints, by their example, spirit, and instructions he learned from his infancy the maxims and practice of perfect sanctity. St. Chrysostom¹⁵ wished that parents would breed up their children in monasteries till they are to be produced in the world. Several Roman senators, and other noblemen, committed the education of their sons to St. Bennet. The most austere and regular monasteries have been chosen by virtuous parents of the first rank, whose principal desire was that their children should be brought up among saints, where their passions would be in no danger of being flattered, and where their minds would be filled with Christian verities and Christ’s spirit, and their hearts formed to piety, grounded in the love, and exercised in habits of all virtues. This is the first and essential advantage which parents are bound to procure their children, upon which their temporal and eternal happiness depends, and all other advantages and qualifications are to be founded. Let them not be neglected, but let this be secured in the first place, and at all rates.

St. Julius M.

This martyr was a veteran soldier, and was impeached by his officers for the Christian faith, before Maximus, governor of the Lower Mœsia, which was afterwards called Bulgaria. Pasicrates and Valention, both of the same regiment, had received the crown of martyrdom a little before. The judge employed caresses, promises, and threats; but Julius professed that to die for Christ, in order to live eternally with him, would be the accomplishment of all his desires. Whereupon he was condemned to lose his head, and led forth to the place of execution. As he went, Hesychius, a Christian soldier, who was also a prisoner, and suffered martyrdom a few days after him, said: “Go with courage, and run to the crown which the Lord hath promised; and remember me, who shall shortly follow you. Commend me to the servants of God, Pasicrates and Valention, who, by confessing the holy name of Jesus, are gone before us.” Julius, embracing Hesychius, said, “Dear brother, make haste to come to us; they whom you salute have already heard you.”* Julius bound his eyes with a handkerchief, and presenting his neck to the executioner, said,—“Lord Jesus, for whose name I suffer death, vouchsafe to receive my soul in the number of thy saints.” His martyrdom happened on the 27th of May, two days after that of St. Pasicrates, about the year 302, in the reign of Dioclesian, at Durostoro, on the Danube, in the second Mœsia. See his genuine acts in Ruinan. p. 615. Tillem. t. 5.

¹ Dial. l. 3, c. 2. See Dom Francis Gianottl’s Diss, on the embassy of pope John to the empero Justin among the Dissertations of the Academy of Church History at Bologna in 1758.

* Anitius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boetius, was born at Rome in 470. His father Itoëtius, who had been thrice consul, died in 490. The son at ten years of age was sent to Athens, where he continued his studies nineteen years: after which, returning home, he was declared patrician. He married a lady of great learning, wit, and beauty, named Elpis, to whom are ascribed the hymns which are used by the church on the festival of SS. Peter and Paul, (see Boëtius, l. 2, de Consol.) In the year 500, king Theodoric, who mostly resided at Spoletto or Ravenna, came to Rome; where he was so charmed with the generosity, disinterestedness, integrity, and abilities of Boëtius, that he made him master of the palace, and secretary for all public affairs, which two great offices vested him with the whole authority and management of the State. Boëtius set himself to govern the people by the most excellent maxims of policy and virtue, which he studied also to instil into the mind of the barbarian king. He taught him, though an Arian, to forbear all persecution, and even to cherish and protect the Catholic church: to establish his throne by encouraging and promoting virtue: to study peace, because the glory of a prince consists in the tranquillity and happiness of his subjects; and a king that is truly the father of his people, ought to be sensible that it is his first and most essential duty to improve his kingdom, and to govern well his people: which arduous duty calls for his whole application; and for which he cannot find leisure, who too easily busies himself in foreign wars. An ambitious conqueror is the greatest tyrant and scourge of his own people, as well as of other nations. Our philosopher, moreover, persuaded his prince to ease, the burdens and taxes of his subjects, because their riches were the prince’s strength: to husband well his treasury, a neglect of which bringeth upon a commonwealth contempt abroad, weakness at home, and misery on all sides; it maketh the people hungry, the prince necessitous, contemptible, and impotent soldiers mutinous, and subjects miserable. He counselled him to entertain in time of peace well-disciplined troops, which would add majesty to his State, and he a terror to his enemies; and in this sense Theodoric used to say, that war was never better made than in time of peace. The wise and Christian statesman taught him never to confer any office or dignity but according to merit, without any regard to favor; also to be severe and vigilant in executing the laws, and in punishing delinquents; for justice is the basis of the throne and the security of the people; as by it thieves, adulterers, and forgers tremble; oppressors of the poor are punished as disturbers of the peace and enemies to the State, and crimes are banished. He advised him to cherish both the useful and the liberal arts, and to encourage learned men, which conduct never fails to promote wit, prudence, valor, a public spirit, and every means of temporal happiness. He exhorted him to be magnificent in public buildings, and certain manly well-chosen recreations, making them suitable to the majesty of his kingdom.

By these and the like maxims Theodoric governed some years like an excellent prince, as Eunodius draws his portrait in his panegyric. He was assisted in his councils by most virtuous and learned men, among whom were his secretary, Cassiodorus, (who afterwards, under king Vitiges, put on the monastic habit in Calabria) Eunodius. Boëtius, and others; and while the French, Visigoths, and other new nations, which shared among them the spoils of the Roman empire, remained sunk in barbarism, his court was the centre of politeness; under the reign of a Goth, literature was cultivated, and some rays of the golden age of Augustus seemed again to warm Italy, and make it almost forget that it was fallen a prey to barbarians. Of these advantages, the illustrious daughter of Theodoric, Amalasunta, reaped in her education the most happy fruits; but much more happy had Italy been if the prince himself had not forgot these excellent lessons.

Boëtius, to unbend in some measure, and to improve his mind, always joined with his application to public affairs, the amusement of serious studies, and in his leisure hours made various mathematical instruments. He composed music, of which he sent several pieces to Clovis, the king of the French; he also made, and sent to Gondebald king of the Burgundians, sun-dials constructed to every different aspect of the sun, hydraulics, and machines which marked exactly the course of the sun, moon, and stars though without wheels, weight, or spring, by the means only of water in a hollow tin globe, which turned perpetually by its own weight. The Burgundians admired how these machines were moved, and marked the hours, and watched them day and night to satisfy themselves that nobody ever touched them; and being convinced of the fact, imagined that some divinity resided in them, and moved the finger upon the dial-plate. This gave occasion to a correspondence between that nation and Boëtius, which he made use of to dispose them heartily to embrace the maxims of the gospel.

This great man was a long time the oracle of his prince and the idol of the people; and the highest honors in the State were not thought adequate to his virtue aad abilities. He was thrice consul, and for a singular distinction of his merits in 510, without a colleague. In 522 his two sons were appointed consuls in their non-age, a privilege which had only been granted to the sons of emperors. He confesseth, that if joy can be derived from frail honors of the world he had reason enough to rejoice on that day, when he saw his two sons carried in pomp through the city in a triumphal car, accompanied with the whole senate and an infinite concourse of people, and himself was seated in the great court of the circus between his two sons consuls, receiving there the congratulations of the king and all the people. On which day, after his harangue to the king in the senate-house, he was presented with a crown, and saluted king of eloquence. After the death of Elpis, he took to wife Rusticiana, the daughter of Symmachus, the most accomplished of all the Romao ladies. But such is the inconstancy of human things, that the highest honors often only raise a man that his fall may be the greater. Neither friends, dignities, nor riches could protect Boëtius from the frowns of fortune; under which, however, his virtue, which was the sole cause of his sufferings, triumphed with the greater lustre.

Happy and glorious had Theodoric reigned, so long as he followed the wise councils of Boëtius. But seeing himself firmly established on the throne, he abandoned himself to his disposition to tyranny, and growing old, became melancholy, jealous, and mistrustful of everybody that was about his person, making two avaricious and perfidious Goths, called Conigast and Trigilla, the depositaries of his whole authority and confidence. These ministers, to gratify their insatiable covetousness, began to load the people with excessive taxes, which the king had till then forborne. In a great scarcity, they obliged the people to sell their corn into the king’s granaries, and for the soldiery, almost at no price: they upon groundless suspicious removed Albinus and Paulinus, two of the most illustrious senators, and others. Boëtius undertook to lay before the king in private the tears of his provinces, which had formerly so often softened his heart to compassion, and opened his hands to liberality; but finding no redress all avenues being obstructed by harpies and flatterers, he publicly addressed him on these heads in the full senate-house. He professed the most steady allegiance and obedience to him in his own name, and in that of the other senators; declaring that they revered his royal authority in whatever hands it was lodged, and left to him the distribution of his favors more free than are the rays of the sun. They craved, however, the liberty, which had ever been the most precious inheritance of that empire, that they might lay open their grievances and inform him that base flatterers abused his confidence to the excessive oppression of his subjects in somuch, that to be born rich was to become a pray, and that the very stones related the oppressions and moans of the people. He reminded him of those noble words which they had formerly often heard from his mouth, that “the flock may be shorn, but not flayed; and that there is no tribute comparable to the precious commodities and advantages which a prince derived from the love of his subjects.” He entreated him to reassume that spirit which made him reign in their hearts as well as in the provinces: to listen to those whose loyalty had been approved by the successes of his prosperous reign: to bear his subjects in his bosom, not to trample them under his feet, and to remember that kings are given by heaven for the happiness of the people; not to govern by the utmost exertion and extent of their power, but by the rule of their obligations: to be the fathers of children, not masters of slaves, and to reign over men, not as tyrants at will, but so that the laws themselves only govern. He conjured him to open his eyes, and see the miseries of the provinces bewailing the concussions which they suffered, while they were obliged to satisfy with their sweat and blood the avarice of some particular persons, who yet were as greedy as fire, and as insatiable as the abyss. The issue of this generous speech was, that it was deemed by the king an act of rebellion, and through his artifices Boëtius was banished by a decree of the mercenary, ungrateful senate. After which sentence, by an order of the king, he and his father-in-law Symmachus were carried prisoners to the strong fortress of Pavia, in 523. Trigilla and Conigast unjustly accused them of high treason, and Symmachus was beheaded. Boëtius was also put to death in a castle situated in a desert place, about midway from Pavia to Rome. He is said to have been first tortured by means of a wheel, to which was fastened a cord, wherewith his head was bound; and by the turning of the wheel, was squeezed with such violence that his eyes flew out. Then he was laid on a beam and beaten with clubs by two executioners upon all the different parts of his body from his neck down to his feet; and being still alive, he was beheaded, or rather his head was clove asunder, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, on the 23d of October, 525. Boëtius is proved innocent of the conspiracy of which he was suspected with the good pope, in his new life prefixed to the third and last French translation of his book, Consolation de la Philosophie, Traduction Nouvelle, 12mo. chez Gogue, 1771. The Catholics carried off his body, and some time after buried it at Pavia. Two hundred years after, king Luitprand caused it to be removed into the church of St. Austin, where he honored it with a scarcely mausoleum; and the emperor Otho III. erected another to his memory with magnificent inscriptions. His estates were confiscated by Theodoric, but after his death restored by his daughter Amalasunta to his widow, who survived till Belisarius had expelled the Goths; at which time he broke down all the statues of Theodoric in Italy, though his stately sepulchral monument still remains near Ravenna, the admiration of travellers. The tyrant having cut off several other senators, fell into a deep melancholy, and was distracted with jealousies, fears, and remorse. About three months after the death of the holy pope John when the head of a great fish was served at table, he imagined it to be the head of Symmachus, demanding vengeance against him; nor was any one able to calm his apprehension: in this phrensy he was carried raging to his bed, and he died miserably a few days after.

The cause of the death of Boëtius seems to have been complicated in part with that of religion, as was the death of pope John, whom he zealously seconded in defending the faith. The constancy with which he embraced his barbarous death, calling it a gift of God, and forbidding any one to weep at it, and his great zeal and piety, have rendered his memory dear to all good men. He fell a martyr of the liberty of the people, and of the dignity of the Roman senate, and probably in part of the Catholic faith, of which he was, with pope John, the chief support. An ancient author published by Mabillon, (Iter. Ital. p. 22.) affirms him to have been impeached for a correspondence with the emperor Justin. But the silence of other writers persuades us that this was a slander of his enemies.

Boëtius translated from the Greek the works of Euclid, Ptolemy, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, &c., and with so much propriety, perspicuity, and purity of language, that Cassiodorus (l. 1, ep. 45) prefers his versions to the originals themselves. He was so much taken with the close reasoning and method of Aristotle, that he first translated several of his treatises into Latin. The works of our author are chiefly philosophical; with five theological tracts, principally written against the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies, and almost all dedicated to the deacon John, afterwards pope and martyr. His Profession of Faith is one of the most methodical pieces of ecclesiastical antiquity, justly styled by his editor, a golden book. But his masterpiece are the five books On the Consolation of Philosophy, which he wrote without the help of any book, during his long confinement at Pavia, under frequent interrogatories, and the daily expectation of tortures and death. He names not Christ in this whole work, but he expresses the sentiments of a perfect Christian, in a dialogue with the increated wisdom. He establishes a divine providence from reason, and speaks of the torments of the world to come. The versification in this work is not equal to the prose, though the thoughts are everywhere sublime. It shows Boëtius to have been one of the finest geniuses that the world has ever produced. He formed the most just and noble conceptions of things with an astonishing ease; and in the most abstract and difficult matters in metaphysics, theology, and every other subject. So elegant and so finished is this original piece, that few productions of the most flourishing ages of the Latin eloquence are superior to it in purity of style, in truth and loftiness of thought, or in sweetness of __EXPRESSION__. He says, that the only cause of his disgrace was a desire of preserving the honor of the senate, (De Consol. Phil. c. 1.) In his juvenile works his style is more rugged. See his life by Abbé Gervaise at Paris in 1715, and by Ceillier, t. 15, p. 563; also the life of Boëtius by Richard Graham viscount Preston, prefixed to the English translation of his book On the Consolation of Philosophy, published with notes by that noble lord. Papebroke honors Severinus Boëtius with the title of Saint, joins his life with that of pope John, and mentions the calendars of Ferrarius and of certain churches in Italy in which his name is inserted on the 23d of October, on which he is commemonted in the divine office in St. Peter’s church at Pavia. See Papebroke, t. 6, Maij. p. 707.

¹ Tr. des Etudes Monast t. 1, p. 111, ed. Par. 1692.

² Vit S. Cuthbert, c. 37. See Mabil Anal. t. 4, pp. 521, 549

* Bede wrote his Church History of the English in the year 731, the fifty-ninth of his age, at the request of Ceolwulph, (to whom it was dedicated,) a very learned and pious king of the Northumbrians, who three years after Bede’s death resigned his kingdom to his son Edbert, and became a monk at Lindisfarne, where he died in 740. Milton and some others complain of omissions of dates and civil transactions. But Bede’s undertaking was only a history of the English Church; a work suitable to his profession and piety. He speaks sparingly of the British churches, because they fell not directly under his plan. If he relates many visions and miracles, he usually names his vouchers. The best editions of this history are those of Abr. Wheloc, with notes, at Cambridge, in 1644; of Peter Fr. Chifflet, a Jesuit, with notes, at Paris, in 1681, and especially of Dr. John Smith, at Cambridge, in 1722, in folio, with Bede’s other historical works, as his Chronicle, or on the six ages of the world; his Lives of St. Cuthbert and St. Felix; his Letters to archbishop Ecgberct; his book on the Holy Places, (p. 315;) his Genuine Martyrology, (p. 327.) first published without the posterior additions of Florus, monk of St. Tron’s, and others, by the Bollandists, (Mart. r. 2, Proleg.) Bede’s Lives of the five first abbots of Weremouth, (St. Bennet Biscop, St. Ceolfrid. Estervin Sigefrid, and Witbert,) is accurately published by Sir James Ware, at Dublin, in 1664, and by Henry Wharton, at London, in 1693. The life of St. Cuthbert he wrote both in prose and in verse that of St. Felix he only translated into prose from the poems of St. Paulinus. Several lives published among Bede a works belong to other authors; that of St. Gregory the Great, to Paul the deacon; those of SS. Columban, Attalus, Eustatius, Bertulfus, and Fara, the Jonas, the disciple of St. Columban; that of St. Vedastus to an anonymous Frenchman; that of St. Patrick to Probus. The other works of Bede are comments on the scripture, and several homilies or sermons; others treat on poesy, grammar, rhetoric, astronomy, music, the art of notation or of memory, the calendar, on Easter or the Equinox. &c. His book on the Holy Places is an abridgment of Adamnan, &c. His hymns and epigrams are lost. The works of Bede were printed at Paris in 1499 and in 1545, in three tomes; and at Basil in 1563 in eight tomes; at Cologne in 1612 and 1688. See Fabricius, Bibl. Lat. 254: Mabillon, sæc. Ben. iii. in Elogio Histórico de Beda, ejusqoe scriptis; Cave, Hist. Liter, t. 1, p. 612; Tanner, Bibl. Brit. p. 86. and Boston Buriens, p. 29, ap. Tan. in Præf. Cave calls it a disgrace to our nation that no accurate or complete edition of Bede’s works has been sent forth, especially as many genuine valuable writings of this father are found in manuscripts which have never been published, of which catalogues are given by Cave and Tanner. The former has published Bede’s Prologue to the Canonical Epistles, (p. 614,) pretending that the primacy of St. Peter seems to have been unknown to the author. Bede indeed thinks the epistle of St. James may have been placed first, because the gospel began to be preached at Jerusalem, and because St. James wrote his epistle before St. Peter. But see this prologue more correctly given by Trombelli, a canon regular of St. Saviour, at Bologna, in 1755. (Bedæ Claudii Taurinensis aliorumque Veterum Patrum Opuscula.) This piece is published by the warmest abettors of St. Peter’s supremacy; so far are they from industriously suppressing it, as Cave insinuates. Neither can any one form from it an objection to that article, which no one more manifestly establishes than Bede in many parts of his works. Nor can Bede’s religion as to any other points of controversy in faith be ambiguous to any one who is the least conversant in his writings, especially as to the doctrine of praying for the dead, invoking saints, venerating their relics and holy images, &c., to all which practices he ascribes miracles, &c. He proves that God in the decalogue forbade only idols, not all holy images; for he commanded himself the brazen serpent, &c., (l. De Templo Solom. c. 19, t. 8, p. 40.) His Church History, which is in every one’s hands, may suffice alone to speak for him. See him also on praying for the dead. (Hom. 2, t. 5; Anecd. Martenne, p. 239, &c.) It may seem worth notice that (l. De Nat. Rerum. p. 46; Op. t. 2, p. 37) he teaches the world and the earth to be round. The Protestants would be unwilling to stand by his verdict or testimony of the church’s faith; though they have not refused him the just tribute of praise. Meiancthon (De Corrigeodis Studiis) confesses venerable Bede to have been a person singularly skilled in Greek and Latin; also in mathematics, philosophy, and sacred literature. Bishop Tanner (p. 86) gives this character of him: “He was a prodigy of learning in an unlearned age, whose erudition we can never cease admiring. If we think that he sometimes failed in his judgment or by credulity, when we take a view of all his writings together, we shall confess that he alone is a library and a treasure of all the arts.” The geography of Bede, even in his description! of foreign countries, is incomparably exact, though he never travelled abroad; which shows how careful by was in procuring the best information, which he also discovers in his preface to his history, where he speaks of the sources of his intelligence.

³ De script. Angl.

⁴ L. 1, de Reg. c. 3.

⁵ Bed. ep. Ecgbright, ap. Smith, p. 306.

⁶ Ib. p. 311.

⁷ Ap. Simeon. Dunelm. Hist. Dunelm. l. 1, c. 15, el ap. Smith, p. 792.

* Usque ad tertiam horam, ambulavimus deinde cum reliquiis sanctorum, ut consuetudo diei illius poscebat, p. 793, ed. Smith. This was the procession of the Rogations on the eve of Ascension-day.

* Ziperem, oraria et incensa. The incense was used to burn at high mass, as Gemmulus, a deacon of Rome, mentions, (Ep. ad S. Bonifac. inter ep. Bonif. 149,) who sent the like present to St. Boniface. Oraria means little cloths to wipe the mouth, as Vossius shews, (c. 3. De Vitiis Serm. c. 31.) Bede, by these little presents, desired to give tokens of mutual charity, and memorials to put others in mind to remember him in the divine office, as Mabillon and Smith observe. Monks were then allowed, with the abbot’s tacit consent, to leave such little tokens as memorials, as is clear from St. Bennet’s rule. St. Lullus sent to the abbess Kaneboda a present of pepper, incense, and cinnamon. The epistles of St. Boniface and others furnish several like instances. Such little tokens were intended to put persons in mind to pray for one another. Fortunatus, returning thanks for such a present of herbs, chestnuts, and plums, says, “Munere in angusto cernitur amplus amor;” l. 11, epigr. 23. See Mabillon, loco cit. § 8. De Xeniolis. Smith, loc. cit.

⁸ Polychron. I. 5. ad an. 732.

^† This calculation of Mabillon agrees with the saint’s writings and History, and with the Paschal Cycle of that year; though some make him to have lived only fifty-nine years; and the life of Alcuin seems to say that he died in his ninetieth year; consequently, that he lived thirty years after he had written his Church History; which system is adopted by bishop Tanner, who says he died in 762, ninety years ad sib Britan. n. 92.

⁹ Alcuin, Carm. de Pontif. et Sanct. Eccl. Eborac. v. 1305.

¹⁰ App. ad Hist. Bedæ, p. 805.

¹¹ Frontispiece, ib.

¹² See Monast. Angl. t. 1, and John of Glastenbury

¹³ Mab. Ib. Elog. Hist. et ap. Smith in App. p. 807.

¹⁴ Notker ad 13. Cal. Apr.

¹⁵ St. Chrys. 1. 3, contr. Vitap. Vitæ. monast. pp. 94, 95, 99, t. 1, ed. Ben.

* Mandata tua jam audierunt quos salutasti. Ruinart

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 424–435). New York: P. J. Kenedy.