June VII

St. Paul, M., Bishop of Constantinople

From St. Athanasius, Ep. ad Solitar. &c., Socrates, Sozomen, &c. See Titlem. t. 7, p. 251. Baert, the Bollandist, t. 2, Junii, p. 13.

A. D. 350.

St. Paul was a native of Thessalonica, but deacon of the church of Constantinople in 340, when the bishop, Alexander, lying on his death-bed, recommended him for his successor. He was accordingly chosen, and being a great master in the art of speaking, and exceeding zealous in the defence of the Catholic faith, he was a terror to the Arians. Macedonius, who was passionately in love with that dignity, and supported by a powerful faction of the heretics, spread abroad many calumnies against the new bishop. But the accusation being destitute of all probability, he was obliged to drop the charge; and he so well acted the part of a hypocrite, that he was soon after ordained priest by St. Paul.¹ However, Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was the ringleader of the Arians, and had been already translated from the see of Berytus to that of Nicomedia, against the canons, began to cast his ambitious eye on that of Constantinople, revived the old slanders, and impeached Paul falsely, alleging that he had led a disorderly life before his consecration: and secondly, that he ought not to have been chosen bishop without the consent of the two neighboring metropolitans of Heraclea and Nicomedia. The election of Paul had happened during the absence of Constantius. This was made a third article of the impeachment; and the two former having been easily confuted, this was so much exaggerated to that prince, as a contempt of his imperial dignity, that St. Paul was unjustly deposed by an assembly of Arian prelates, and the ambitious Eusebius placed in his see in 340. Our saint, seeing himself rendered useless to his flock, whilst Arianism reigned triumphant in the East, under the protection of Constantius, took shelter in the West, in the dominions of Constans. He was graciously received by that prince and by St. Maximinus at Triers, and, after a short stay in that city, went to Rome, where he found St. Athanasius, and assisted at the council held by pope Julius in 341, of about eighty bishops, in the church, in which, as St. Athanasius informs us, the priest Vito was accustomed to hold assemblies of the people; that is, as priest of that parish. This is that Vito who, with Vincent and Osius, was legate of St. Sylvester in the council of Nice.¹ By this synod. St. Athanasius, Marcellus of Ancyra, and St. Paul were ordered to be restored to their respective sees. And pope Julius, as Socrates and Sozomen relate,* by virtue of his authority in the church, sent them back with letters to the eastern bishops, requiring them to restore them to their bishoprics. The excellent letter of pope Julius to the oriental bishops, is preserved by St. Athanasius.² The pope particularly reproves the persecutors for having presumed to judge bishops, even of the principal sees which the apostles had governed without having first written to him, according to custom.^†

St. Paul went back to Constantinople, but could not recover his see till the death of his powerful antagonist, who had usurped it, made way for him in 342. Though the Catholics took that opportunity to reinstate him in his dignity, the Arians, who were headed by Theognis of Nice, and Theodorus of Heraclea, constituted Macedonius their bishop. This schismatical ordination was followed by a furious sedition, in which almost the whole city ran to arms, and several persons lost their lives. Constantius, who was then at Antioch, upon the news of these commotions, ordered his general, Hermogenes, who was going into Thrace, to pass by Constantinople and drive Paul out of the city. The general found the mob in too violent a ferment, and while he endeavored to execute his commission by force, lost his own life. This outrage drew Constantius himself to Constantinople in the depth of winter. At the entreaty of the senate he pardoned the people, but banished Paul. Nevertheless he refused to confirm the election of Macedonius, on account of his share in the late sedition. St. Paul seems to have retired back to Triers. We find him again at Constantinople in 344, with letters of recommendation from the emperor of the West. Constantius only allowed his re-establishment for fear of his brother’s arms, and the saint’s situation in the East continued very uneasy; for he had much to suffer from the power and malice of the Arian party. He hoped for a redres from the council of Sardica, in 347. The Eusebians, withdrawing to Philipopolis, thundered out an excommunication against St. Paul, St. Athanasius, pope Julius, and several other pillars of the Catholic faith. The death of Constans in 350 left Constantius at full liberty to treat the Catholics as he pleased. Upon application made to him by those of his party, he sent from Antioch, where he then was, an order to Philip, his Præfectus Prætorii, to drive Paul out of the church and city of Constantinople, and to place Macedonius in his see. Philip, being attached to the Arian party, but fearing a sedition from the great affection which the people bore their pastor, privately sent for him to one of the public baths of the city, and there showed him the emperor’s commission. The saint submitted cheerfully, though his condemnation was in every respect notoriously irregular. The people, suspecting some foul design, flocked about the door; but Philip caused a passage to be made by breaking down a window on the other side of the building, and sent him under a safeguard to the palace, which was not far off. From thence he was shipped away to Thessalonica, and at first allowed to choose the place of his exile. But his enemies soon repented of this mildness; and he was loaded with chains, and sent to Singara in Mesopotamia. From thence he was carried to Emesa in Syria, and afterwards to Cucusus, a small town on the confines of Cappadocia and Armenia, famous for its bad air and unhealthful situation, in the deserts of mount Taurus. Here he was confined in a close dark place, and left to starve to death. After he had passed six days without food, he was, to the great disappointment of his enemies, found alive. Upon which they strangled him, and gave out that he died after a short sickness. Philagius, an Arian officer, who was upon the spot when this was executed, told the whole affair to several persons, from whom St. Athanasius had it.³ His martyrdom happened in 350 or 351. The divine vengeance soon overtook Philip, who the same year was deprived of his honors and estate, and banished. The Arians from this time remained masters of the church of Constantinople, till the year 379, when St. Gregory Nazianzen was chosen bishop. The body of St. Paul was brought to Ancyra in Galatia, and, by the order of Theodosius the Great, was thence translated to Constantinople in 381 about thirty years after his death. It was buried there in the great church built by Macedonius, which from that time was known by no other name than that of St. Paul.⁴ His remains were removed to Venice in 1226 where they are kept with great respect in the church of St. Laurence, belonging to a noble monastery of Benedictin nuns.⁵

The Arian emperor Constantius objected to the Catholics the prosperity of his reign, as a proof of the justice and truth of his cause; but he had not then seen the issue. When Polycrates of Samos boasted that fortune was in his pay, he little thought that he should shortly after end his life at Sardis on a cross. The smiles of the world are usually, to impenitent sinners, the most dreadful of all divine judgments. By prosperity they are blinded in their passions, and “resemble victims fattened for slaughter, crowned for a sacrifice,” according to the elegant __EXPRESSION__ of Minutius Felix.⁶ Of this we may understand the divine threat of showing them temporal mercy: Let us have pity on the wicked man, and he will not learn justice.⁷ Upon which words Saint Bernard cries, “This temporal mercy of God is more cruel than any anger. O Father of mercies, remove far from me this indulgence excluding from the paths of justice.”⁸ Who does not pray that if he err he may rather be corrected by the tenderness of a father, than disinherited as a castaway? Even the just must suffer with Christ, if they hope to reign with him. He who enjoys here an uninterrupted flow of prosperity, sails among rocks and shelves.

Saint Robert,

abbot of newminster, in england, of the cistercian order

He was a native of Yorkshire, and even in his childhood an enemy to the usual amusements of that age, loving only prayer, serious reading, and useful and pious employments. Having finished his studies, he was ordained priest, and instituted to a rectorship of a parish in the diocese of York; but after discharging that office some time with great assiduity and zeal, he resigned that living, and took the religious habit in the Benedictin monastery of our Lady in York. Richard, the prior of this house, and twelve others, desiring to serve God according to the primitive institute of the Benedictin Order, left the monastery, with leave of the abbot, and endeavoring to execute their project, struggled with incredible hardships; till Thurstan, the pious archbishop of York, gave them a desert valley, called Scheldale, with the town of Sutton, where, in the midst of winter, and in extreme poverty, they founded the celebrated abbey which, from certain springs, was called Fountains, in 1132. The Cistercian Order, which had been lately introduced into England, and settled at Rievalle, was perfectly agreeable to the fervent dispositions of this holy colony; and at their request the monastery of Fountains was received into it by St. Bernard, who in his letters extols the perfection and sanctity of this new nursery of saints, which, from the beginning, was a model to the whole order for devotion, austerity in fasts, labor, by which all the monks procured their subsistence, fervor in all religious exercises, and cheerfulness in singing assiduously the divine praises. No murmur or sadness was known among them; nor any strife or contention ever heard of, unless of charity or humility: they never yielded to rest, till fatigued with labor; and always came hungry from their slender table, which was chiefly furnished with pulse and roots from their garden. St. Robert seemed so far to eclipse the rest of this holy company by the lustre of his piety, that they all had their eyes on him in their religious duties, and studied to transcribe his fervor in their actions. Ranulph of Merley, baron of Morpeth,* paying a visit to the monastery of Fountains, five years after its foundation, was so struck with the edifying deportment of the terrestrial angels who inhabited it, that he obtained of the abbot Richard a certain number of these monks, and built for them a monastery called Newminster, near Morpeth, in Northumberland, in 1137, of which St. Robert was appointed abbot.

The saint in his new dignity thought it his duty not only to walk before his brethren, but to go beyond them all in every religious observance; and all his virtues seemed to receive new vigor, and a new degree of perfection in this eminent station. His affection to holy prayer is not to be expressed. He recommended to God continually those committed to his care, and with many tears poured forth his soul for them night and day. He was favored with the gift of prophecy and miracles. He founded another monastery a Pipinelle, or Rivebelle, in Northamptonshire, and lived in the strictest union of holy friendship with St. Bernard; also with St. Godric, a holy hermit in those parts, illiterate as to secular learning, but a most spiritual man. St. Robert finished his course by a happy death on the 7th of June, 1159 Miracles attested his sanctity to the world. He is named in the Roman Martyrology. See Dugdale, Monast. Angl., t. 1, p. 743; Le Nain, t. 2, p. 397; the Annals of his Order, and the Bollandists, t. 2, Junii.

St. Colman, Bishop of Dromore, C.

Dromore, in the province of Ulster, sixty-three miles from Dublin to the north, derives the succession of its bishops from St. Colman, who was descended from the sept of the Arads, and born in 516, according to bishop Usher. He was the first abbot of Muckmore, in the county of Antrim, and afterwards chosen first bishop of Dromore, a small see under Armagh, and not far distant from it. Jocelin, in his life of St. Patrick, tells us that his eminent virtue was foretold by St. Patrick; and his legend ascribes many miracles to him, and the wonderful conversion of a great number of souls to God. The ancient scholiast on the Ængussian Martyrology observes, that he was also called Mocholmoc. He died about the year 610, on the 7th of June, on which his principal festival was kept, or, according to some, on the 27th of October, on which he was also commemorated. See Usher, Primord., p. 1126; Colgan in MSS., ad 7 Jun.; Ware, p. 257, and Baërt the Bollandist, t. 2 Junij, p. 24.

St. Godeschalc,

prince of the western vandals, and his companions mm.

In the reign of the emperor Henry the Salic, Gneus and Anatrog, who were idolaters, and Uto, the son of Misliwoi, a loose Christian, were princes of the Winuli, Slavi, and Vandals, and tributary to the emperor, the fear of whose arms and those of Knut, king of Denmark, and Bernard, duke of Saxony, kept these barbarians long in peace. Uto being murdered by a certain Saxon for his cruelty, his son Godeschalc, who had been educated a Christian in the monastery of Lumburg, under the care of Godeschalc, a Gothic bishop, apostatized, and joined the two Pagan princes, to revenge his father’s death upon the Saxons. He long harassed their country till he was taken prisoner by duke Bernard, who detained him a long time in close confinemen. When he recovered his liberty, Ratibor, a powerful prince, was possessed of his territories among the Slavi. Godeschalc, therefore, betook himself to the Danes at the head of a numerous troop of Slavi, his partisans. Some time after, he was converted to the Christian faith by a certain Saxon, and king Knut employed him in his wars in Norway, and being much pleased with his valiant behavior, afterwards sent him with Sueno, his nephew by his sister Ethride, afterwards king, on an expedition into England. His great exploits there were so agreeable to the king of Denmark, that he gave him his daughter in marriage. After the death of Knut and his children, Godeschalc returned from England, subdued the whole country of the Slavi, and compelled part of the Saxons to pay him a rearly tribute, and to acknowledge their subjection.

He reigned after this many years in peace, and is called by Adam of Bremen the most powerful of all he princes who ever arrived at the sovereignty among the Slavi. And as he surpassed all the rest in prudence, power, and valor, so did he also after his conversion in piety and holy zeal. All the parts of his dominions he filled with churches and priests, and by his zealous endeavors he brought over to the faith great part of the idolaters among the different nations that were subject to him, as the Wagiri, the Obotridi or Reregi, the Polabingi, the Linoges, the Warnabi, the Chissini, and the Circipani, who inhabited the northern coast of Germany, from the Elbe to Mecklenburg. He likewise founded many monasteries of both sexes at Lubec, Aldinburg, Lenzin, Razizburg, three in the city of Magdeburg, and others in other places. The archbishop of Hamburg he honored as his father, and frequently resorted to that city to perform his devotions in that metropolitical church. Among the missionaries who labored with the greatest success in executing the holy projects of the king, Helmold names in the first place, John, a Scotsman, whom Albert, archbishop of Hamburg, sent to preach at Mecklenburg. He extended his missions into all the dominions of Godeschalc, and baptized himself many thousands. Godeschalc often interpreted to the people in the Sclavonian tongue the sermons and instructions of the priests in the church. During the reign of the good emperor Henry II., the Slavi, Bohemians, and Hungarians lived in peace and in subjection to his empire. But when his son, a child only eight years old, succeeded to his throne, various rebellions were raised among these barbarians. Bernard, the duke, who had governed Saxony forty years, died soon after St. Henry, and his dominions were divided between his two sons Ordulf and Herman. Ordulf, who took the title of duke of Saxony, fell far short of his father in military skill and valor. Five years after this, the Vandals, or Slavi, who remained obstinately attached to their idolatry, about the present country of Wagrie and the duchy of Mecklenburg, revolted, and began their sedition by the murder of Godeschalc, the Machabee of the Christians, whom they slew in the city of Lenzin, on the 7th of June, together with Ebbo, a priest, whom they laid upon the altar and stabbed in 1066. The historians of the northern nations unanimously agree that the only cause of their death was the hatred which these Pagans had conceived of the Christian religion; and the Carthusians of Brussels, in their additions to the Martyrology of Usuard, place them among the martyrs honored in the church on this day. Upon this authority Henschenius, t. 2, Junij, p. 40, doubts not but St. Godeschalc and his companions were honored in several of the northern churches, whose calendars and ecclesiastical monuments and titles were entirely destroyed or lost upon the change of religion, as the Bollandists, in their notes on St. Norbert’s life, and in other places, and Jos. Assemani on Adalbert of Magdeburg, take notice. On St. Godeschalc and his companions, see Adam Bremensis, l. 3, c. 21; Kranzius, l. 2; Wandaliæ, c. 46; Helmold and other northern historians, and from them Henschenius, t. 2, Junij, p. 40.

St Meriadec, Bishop of Vannes, Confessor

While he lived in the world, he employed the revenue of a great estate of which he was master, in charitable works, and at length stripped himself of it principally in favor of the poor. From that time he lived a recluse in a desert place, a mile from the castle of Pontivi in the viscounty of Rohan, in Brittany. The viscount himself visited the saint, and had the greatest veneration for his sanctity.* The canons and people of Vannes, seconded by the bishops of the province, compelled him much against his will to fill the episcopal see of that city. With this dignity his charity to the poor received a great increase; for he looked upon himself by that sacred character as it were anointed the father and comforter of all the distressed. Under his episcopal ornaments he wore a rough hair shirt, and had no better covering to his bed than sackcloth. The legend and ancient lessons of Treguir place his death in 1302. In the old Breviary of Nantes, in that of Vannes, &c., an office is appointed in his honor on the 7th of June. He is titular saint of the chapel of the castle of Pontivi, and of several others in Brittany. See Henschenius, t. 2, Junij, p. 36, and Lobineau, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, p. 242.

¹ Le Large, in his history of the illustrious men of St. Malo’s, and in his posthumous history of the bishops of St. Malo.

¹ Socr. l. 2, c. 6. Sozom. 1. 3, c. 4. S. Athan. ad Solitar. p. 813.

* Et quoniam propter sedis dignitalem omnium cura ad ipsum spectabat, suam cuique ecclesiam restituit. Sozomen, l. 3, c. 8, ed. Vales. Cum Julio Romanæ urbis episcopo causam suam exposuissent, ille, quæ est Romanæ ecclesiæ prærogativa, liberioribus litteris eos communitos in orientem remisit; singulis sedem suam restituens. Socrates, l. 2, c. 15.

² Apud S. Athanas. Apol. contra Arianos, p. 141.

^† An ignoratis hanc esse consuetudinem, ut primum nobis scribatur, et hint quod justum est deceruatar. Quæ accepimus a beato Petro Apostolo, ea vobi significo: non scriptures tamen, quod nota apud omnes ea oxistiment, nist quæ gesta sunt, nos conturbassent. Julius apud Athan. p. 153.

³ St. Athan. ad Solitar. t. 1, p. 813, et de fugâ suâ, p. 703.

⁴ Socr. l. 5, c. 9. Sozom. t. 7, c. 10. Photius, Cod. 257.

⁵ See Baërt, p. 24.

⁶ n Octav.

⁷ Isa. 26:19.

⁸ Serm. 42, in Cant

* This barony of Morpeth was transferred from Roger of Merley, the fifth baron, to the lords of Grey stock.

* This circumstance ascertains the age in which St. Medadec lived. For the title of viscounts of Rohar in Brittany was not known before the twelfth century. That derives its chief honor from the marriage of the viscount John II. with Mary, daughter of Francis I., duke of Brittany, and his wife Isabet Stuart daughter of James I., king of Scotland, in 1445

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 518–524). New York: P. J. Kenedy.