April VI
St. Sixtus, or Xistus I., Pope and Martyr
See Eus. b. 4, c. 4, 5. Tiltemont, t. 2, p. 262.
second age
This holy pope succeeded St. Alexander about the end of the reign of Trajan, and governed the church ten years, at a time when that dignity was the common step to martyrdom; and in all martyrologies he is honored with the title of martyr. But it seems to be Sixtus II. who is mentioned in the canon of the mass, whose martyrdom was more famous in the church. A portion of the relics of St. Sixtus I., given by pope Clement X. to cardinal de Retz, was by him placed with great solemnity in the abbey of St. Michael in Lorraine.1
Those primitive pastors who were chosen by God to be his great instruments in propagating his holy faith, were men eminently endued with the spirit of the most heroic Christian charity, so that we wonder not so much that their words and example were so powerful in converting the world, as that any could be so obstinate as to resist the spirit with which they delivered the divine oracles, and the miracles and sanctity of their lives, with which they confirmed their mission. What veneration must not the morality of the gospel command, when set off with all its lustre in the lives and spirit of those who profess it, seeing its bare precepts are allowed by deists and infidels themselves to be most admirable, and evidently divine! Only the maxims of the gospel teach true and pure virtue, and are such as extort applause from its enemies. The religion of a God crucified is the triumph over self-love; it commands us to tame our rebellious flesh, and subject it to the spirit; to divest ourselves of the old man, and to clothe ourselves with the new; to forget injuries and to pardon enemies. In these virtues, in this sublime disposition of soul, consists true greatness; not in vain titles and empty names. Religion, barely for the maxims which it lays down, and in which it is founded, claims the highest respect. The morality of the wisest pagan philosophers was mingled with several shocking errors and extravagances, and their virtues were generally defective in their motives. Worldly heroism is founded in vice or human weaknesses. It is at the bottom no better than a base ambition, avarice, or revenge, which makes many despise death, though they gild over their courage with the glorious name of zeal for their prince or country. Worldly actions spring not from those noble motives which appear, but from some base disorder of the soul or secret passion. Among the heathen philosophers, the Stoic led an austere life; but for the sake of a vain reputation. Thus he only sacrificed one passion to another; and while he insulted the Epicurean for his voluptuousness was himself the dupe of his own illusion.
A Hundred and Twenty Martyrs of Hadiab,
or hadiabena, in persia
From their genuine acts in Syriac, published by Assemani, t. I, p. 105.
A. D. 345.
In the fifth year of our persecution, say the acts, Sapor being at Seleucia, caused to be apprehended in the neighboring places one hundred and twenty Christians, of which nine were virgins, consecrated to God; the others were priests, deacons, or of the inferior clergy. They lay six months in filthy stinking dungeons, till the end of winter: during all which space Jazdundocta, a very rich virtuous lady of Arbela, the capital city of Hadiabena supported them by her charities, not admitting of a partner in that good work. During this interval they were often tortured, but always courageously answered the president that they would never adore the sun, a mere creature, for God; and begged he would finish speedily their triumph by death, which would free them from dangers and insults. Jazdundocta, hearing from the court one day that they were to suffer the next morning, flew to the prison, gave to every one of them a fine white long robe, as to chosen spouses of the heavenly bridegroom; prepared for them a sumptuous supper, served and waited on them herself at table, gave them wholesome exhortations, and read the holy scriptures to them. They were surprised at her behavior, but could not prevail on her to tell them the reason. The next morning she returned to the prison, and told them she had been informed that that was the happy morning in which they were to receive their crown, and be joined to the blessed spirits. She earnestly recommended herself to their prayers for the pardon of her sins, and that she might meet them at the last day, and live eternally with them. Soon after, the king’s order for their immediate execution was brought to the prison. As they went out of it Jazdundocta met them at the door, fell at their feet, took hold of their hands, and kissed them. The guards hastened them on, with great precipitation, to the place of execution; where the judge who presided at their tortures asked them again if any of them would adore the sun, and receive a pardon. They answered, that their countenance must show him they met death with joy, and contemned this world and its light, being perfectly assured of receiving an immortal crown in the kingdom of heaven. He then dictated the sentence of death, whereupon their heads were struck off Jazdundocta, in the dusk of the evening, brought out of the city two undertakers, or embalmers for each body, caused them to wrap the bodies in fine linen, and carry them in coffins, for fear of the Magians, to a place at a considerable distance from the town. There she buried them in deep graves, with monuments, five and five in a grave. They were of the province called Hadiabena, which contained the greatest part of the ancient Assyria, and was in a manner peopled by Christians. Helena, queen of the Hadiabenians, seems to have embraced Christianity in the second century.1 Her son Izates, and his successors, much promoted the faith; so that Sozomen says2 the country was almost entirely Christian. These one hundred and twenty martyrs suffered at Seleucia, in the year of Christ 345, of king Sapor the thirty-sixth, and the sixth of his great persecution, on the 6th day of the moon of April, which was the 21st of that month. They are mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on the 6th.
St. Celestine, Pope, C.
He was a native of Rome, and held a distinguished place in the clergy of that city, when, upon the demise of pope Boniface, he was chosen to succeed him, in September, 422, by the wonderful consent of the whole city, as St. Austin writes. That father congratulated him upon his exaltation, and conjured him, by the memory of St. Peter, who abhorred all violence and tyranny, not to patronize Antony, bishop of Fussala, who had been convicted of those crimes, and on that account condemned, in a council of Numidia, to make satisfaction to those whom he had oppressed by rapine and extortion. This Antony was a young man, and was formerly a disciple of St. Austin, by whom he had been recommended to the episcopal dignity This promotion made him soon forget himself, and lay aside his virtuous dispositions: and falling, first by pride, he abandoned himself to covetousness and other passions. St. Austin, fearing lest by the share he had in his promotion his crimes would be laid to his own charge, was of all others the most zealous and active to see them checked. Antony had gained his primate, the metropolitan of Numidia, who presided in the council by which he was condemned. Hoping also to surprise the pope by his artful pretences, he appealed to Rome. Boniface seeing the recommendation of his primate, wrote to the bishops of Numidia, requiring them to reinstate him in his see, provided he had represented matters as they truly were. Antony returning to Fussala, threatened the inhabitants that, unless they consented to receive him as their lawful bishop, in compliance with the orders of the apostolic see, he would call in the imperial troops and commissaries to compel them. Pope Boniface dying, St. Austin informed St. Celestine of these proceedings, who finding Antony fully convicted of the crimes with which he was charged, confirmed the sentence of the council of Numidia, and deposed him. “From these letters, that were written by the Africans on this occasion,” says Mr. Bower,1 “it appears, that the bishops of Rome used in those days to send some of their ecclesiastics into Africa, to see the sentences which they had given executed there; and that those ecclesiastics came with orders from the court for the civil magistrates to assist them, where assistance should be required.” Saint Celestine wrote to the bishops of Illyricum, confirming the archbishop of Thessalonica vicar of the apostolic see in those parts. To the bishops of the provinces of Vienne and Narbonne in Gaul, he wrote, to correct several abuses, and ordered, among other things, that absolution or reconciliation should never be refused to any dying sinner, who sincerely asked it; for repentance depends not so much on time, as on the heart. In the beginning of this letter he says: “By no limits of place is my pastoral vigilance confined: it extendeth itself to all places where Christ is adored.” He received two letters from Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, in which his heresy was artfully couched; also an information from St. Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, concerning his errors. Wherefore he assembled a synod at Rome, in 430, in which the writings of that heresiarch were examined, and his blasphemies in maintaining in Christ a divine and a human person were condemned. The pope denounced an excommunication against him, if he did not repent of his errors within ten days after the sentence should be notified to him, and wrote to St. Cyril, commissioning him, in his name, and by the authority of his see, to execute the same.* Nestorius remaining obstinate, a general council was convened at Ephesus, to which St Celestine sent three legates from Rome, Arcadius and Projectus, bishops, and Philip, priest, with instructions to join themselves to St. Cyril. He also sent a letter to the council, in which he said that he had commissioned his legates to see executed what had been already decreed by him in his council at Rome. He exhorts the fathers to charity, so much recommended by the apostle St. John, “whose relics,” as he writes, “were there the object of their veneration.”* This letter was read in the council with great acclamations. The synod was held in the great church of the Blessed Virgin, on the 22d of June, 431: in the first session one hundred and ninety-eight bishops were present. St. Cyril sat first as president,2 in the name of St. Celestine.3 Nestorius refused to appear, though in the city, and showing an excess of madness and obstinacy, was excommunicated and deposed. It cost the zeal of the good pope much more pains to reconcile the Oriental bishops with St. Cyril: which, however, was at length effected. Certain priests in Gaul continued still to cavil at the doctrine of St. Austin, concerning the necessity of divine grace. St. Celestine therefore wrote to the bishops of Gaul, ordering such scandalous novelties to be repressed; highly extolling the piety and learning of St. Austin, whom his predecessors had honored among the most deserving and eminent doctors of the church, and whose character rumor could never asperse nor suspicion tarnish.4 Being informed that one Agricola, the son of a British bishop called Severianus, who had been married before he was raised to the priesthood, had spread the seeds of the Pelagian heresy in Britain, he sent thither, in quality of his vicar, St. Germanus of Auxerre, whose zeal and conduct happily prevented the threatening danger.† He also sent St. Palladius, a Roman, to preach the faith to the Scots, both in North-Britain and in Ireland. Many authors of the life of St. Patrick say that apostle likewise received his commission to preach to the Irish from St. Celestine, in 431. This holy pope died on the 1st of August, in 432, having sat almost ten years. He was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla, which, to testify his respect for the council of Ephesus, he had ornamented with paintings, in which that synod was represented. His remains were afterwards translated into the church of St. Praxedes. His ancient original epitaph testifies that he was an excellent bishop, honored and beloved of every one, who for the sanctity of his life now enjoys the sight of Jesus Christ, and the eternal honors of the saints. The same is the testimony of the Roman Martyrology on this day. See Tillemont, t. 14, p. 148; Ceillier, t. 13, p. 1.
St. William, Abbot of Eskille, Confessor
He was born of an illustrious family in Paris, about the year 1105, and received his education in the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prez, under his uncle Hugh, the abbot. By the regularity of his conduct, and the sanctity of his manners, he was the admiration of the whole community. Having finished his studies, he was ordained sub-deacon, and installed canon in the church of St. Genevieve-du-Mont. His assiduity in prayer, love of retirement and mortification, and exemplary life, seemed a troublesome censure of the slothful and worldly life of his colleagues; and what ought to have gained him their esteem and affection, served to provoke their envy and malice against him. Having in vain endeavored to prevail on this reformer of their chapter, as they called him, to resign his canonry, in order to remove him at a distance, they presented him to the curacy of Epinay, a church five leagues from Paris, depending on their chapter. But not long after, pope Eugenius III. coming to Paris, in 1147, and being informed of the irregular conduct of these canons, he commissioned the celebrated Suger, abbot of St. Denys, and prime minister to King Louis the Young, to expel them, and introduce in their room regular canons from the abbey of St. Victor: which was happily carried into execution, Eudo of St. Victor’s being made the first abbot. St. William with joy embraced this institute, and was by his fervor and devotion a pattern to the most perfect. He was in a short time chosen sub-prior. The perfect spirit of religion and regularity which he established in that community, was an illustrious proof of the incredible influence which the example of a prudent superior has over docile religious minds. His zeal for regular discipline he tempered with so much sweetness and modesty in his injunctions, that made all to love the precept itself, and to practise with cheerfulness whatever was prescribed them. The reputation of his wisdom and sanctity reached the ears of Absalon, bishop of Roschild, in Denmark, who, being one of the most holy prelates of his age, earnestly sought to allure him into his diocese. He sent the provost of his church, who seems to have been the learned historian Saxo the Grammarian, to Paris on this errand. A prospect of labors and dangers for the glory of God was a powerful motive with the saint, and he cheerfully undertook the voyage. The bishop appointed him abbot of Eskille, a monastery of regular canons which he had reformed. Here St. William sanctified himself by a life of prayer and austere mortification; but had much to suffer from the persecutions of powerful men, from the extreme poverty of his house in a severe climate, and, above all, from a long succession of interior trials: but the most perfect victory over himself was the fruit of his constancy, patience, and meekness. On prayer was his chief dependence, and it proved his constant support. During the thirty years of his abbacy, he had the comfort to see many walk with fervor in his steps. He never left off wearing his hair-shirt, lay on straw, and fasted every day. Penetrated with a deep sense of the greatness and sanctity of our mysteries, he never approached the altar without watering it with his tears, making himself a victim to God in the spirit of adoration and sacrifice, together with, and through the merits of the holy victim offered thereon: the dispositions in which every Christian ought to assist at it. He died on the 6th of April, 1203, and was canonized by Honorius III. in 1224. See his life by a disciple in Surius, and at large in Papebroke’s Continuation of Bollandus, t. 1, Apr. p. 620. Also M. Gourdan in his MSS. Lives of Illustrious Men among the regular Canons at St. Victor’s, in Paris, kept in the library of MSS. in that house, in fol. t. 2, pp. 324 and 814.
St. Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes, C.
He was by birth a Spaniard; but fled from the swords of the infidels into France, where in 840, or 845, he was chosen bishop of Troyes. He was one of the most learned prelates of the Gallican church, and was consulted as an oracle. By his sermon on the Virgin St. Maura, we are informed that, besides his other functions and assiduity in preaching, he employed himself in hearing confessions, and in administering the sacraments of the holy eucharist and extreme unction. In his time Gotescalc, a wandering monk of the abbey of Orbasis, in the dioceso of Soissons, advanced, in his travels, the errors of predestinarianism, blasphemously asserting that reprobates were doomed by God to sin and hell, without the power of avoiding either. Nottinge, bishop either of Brescia or Verona, sent an information of these blasphemies to Rabanus Maurus, archbishop of Mentz, one of the most learned and holy men of that age, and who had, while abbot of Fulde, made that house the greatest nursery of science in Europe.* Rabanus examined Gotescalc in a synod at Mentz in 848, condemned his errors, and sent him to his own metropolitan Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, a prelate also of great learning and abilities.1 By him and Wenilo, archbishop of Sens, with several other prelates, the monk was again examined in a synod held at Quiercy on the Oise, in the diocese of Soissons, a royal palace of king Charles the Bald, in 849. Gotescalc being refractory, was condemned to be degraded from the priesthood, and imprisoned in the abbey of Haut-villiers in the diocese of Hincmar. By the advice of St. Prudentius, whom Hincmar consulted, he was not deprived of the lay-communion till after some time Hincmar, seeing his obstinacy invincible, fulminated against him a sentence of excommunication, under which this unhappy author of much scandal and disturbance died, after twenty-one years of rigorous confinement, in 870. Some suspected Hincmar to lean towards the contrary Semipelagian error against the necessity of divine grace; and Ratramnus of Corbie took up his pen against him. St. Prudentius wrote to clear up the point, which seemed perplexed by much disputing, and to set the Catholic doctrine in a true light, showing on one side a free will in man, and that Christ died for the salvation of all men; and on the other, proving the necessity of divine grace, and that Christ offered up his death in a special manner for the salvation of the elect. When parties are once stirred up in disputes, it is not an easy matter to dispel the mist which prejudices and heat raise before their eyes. This was never more evident than on that occasion. Both sides agreed in doctrine, yet did not understand one another. Lupus Servatus, the famous abbot of Ferrieres, in Gatinois, Amolan, archbishop of Lyons, and his successor St. Remigius, wrote against Rabanus and Hincmar, in defence of the necessity of divine grace, though they condemned the blasphemies of the predestinarians. Even Amolan of Lyons and his church, who seem to have excused Gotescalc in the beginning, because they had never examined him, always censured the errors condemned in him: for the divine predestination of the elect is an article of faith; but such a grace and predestination as destroy free-will in the creature, are a monstrous heresy. Neither did St Remigius of Lyons, nor St. Prudentius, interest themselves in the defence of Gotescalc, which shows the inconsistency of those moderns, who, in our time, have undertaken his justification* In 853, Hincmar and other bishops published, in a second assembly at Quiercy, four Capitula, or assertions, to establish the doctrines of free-will, and of the death of Christ for all men. To these St. Prudentius subscribed, as Hincmar and the annals of. St. Bertin testify. The church of Lyons was alarmed at these assertions, fearing they excluded the necessity of grace: and the council of Valence, in 855, in which St. Remigius of Lyons presided, published six canons, explaining, in very strong terms, the articles of the necessity of grace, and of the predestination of God’s elect. St. Prudentius procured the confirmation of these canons by pope Nicholas I. in 859. Moreover, fearing the articles of Quiercy might be abused in favor of Pelagianism, though he had before approved them, he wrote his Tractatoria to confute the erroneous sense which they might bear in a Pelagian mouth, and to give a full exposition of the doctrine of divine grace. He had the greater reason to be upon his guard, seeing some, on the occasion of those disputes, openly renewed the Pelagian errors. John Scotus Erigena, an Irishman in the court of Charles the Bald, a subtle sophist, infamous for many absurd errors, both in faith and in philosophy,† published a book against Gotescalc, On Predestination, in which he openly advanced the Semipelagian errors against grace, besides other monstrous heresies. Wenilo, archbishop of Sens, having extracted nineteen articles out of this book, sent them to his oracle St. Prudentius, who refuted the entire book of Scotus by a treatise which is still extant. This saint, having exerted his zeal also for the discipline of the church, and the reformation of manners among the faithful, was named with Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres, to superintend and reform all the monasteries of France; of which commission he acquitted himself with great vigor and prudence. He died on the 6th of April, 861, and is named in the Gallican martyrologies, though not in the Roman.‡ At Troyes he is honored with an office of nine lessons, and his relics are exposed in a shine.§ See Ceillier, t. 19, p. 27, Clemencez, Hist. Littér, de la France, t. 5, p. 240; also Les Vies de S. Prudence de Troyes, et de S. Maure, Vierge, à Troyes, 1725; with an ample justification of this holy prelate: and Nicolas Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispanica Vetus, 1. 6, c. 1, an. 259, ad 279, which work was published at Rome by the care of Card. D’Aguirre, in 1696.
St. Celsus, in Irish, Ceallach
Archbishop of Armagh, is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on this day. He died on the 1st of April in 1129, at Ard-Patrick, (that is, Patrick’s Mount,) in Munster. See the life of St. Malachy, his successor, and Sir James Ware.
1 Baron. ad an. 154.
1 See Baronius ad an. 44, n. 66.
2 Sozom. b. 2. c. 19
1 Lives of the Popes, t. 1. p. 369, Lond. edit.
* Authoritate tecum nostræ sedis adscitâ nostrà vice asus hanc exequêns sentendam.
* Cujus reliqulas præsentes veneramini ep. ad Conc. 1159.
2 Conc. t. 3, pp. 656 and 980. St. Leo, ep. 72, can. 3.
3 Ib. t. 4, p 562, In Conc. Chalced.
4 Ep. 21, ad Gallos.
† Vice suà, S. Prosp. in Chron.
* Rabanus Maurus was archbishop of Mentz from the year 847 to 856, in which he died, on the 4th of February, on which his name occurs in certain private German Martyrologies, though he has never been publicly honored among the Saints. See Bolland. Febr. t. 1, p. 511. and Mabillon, t. 6; Act. SS. Bened. p. 37. His works were printed at Mentz, in 1626, in six tomes. They consist of letters, comments on the holy scriptures, and several dogmatical and pious treatises. The principal are his Instruction of the Clergy, and On the Ceremonies of Divine Offices, in three books; and his Martyrology, which he compiled about the year 844. Dom. Bernard Pez published his pious discourse On the Passion of Christ. Anecdot. t. 4, part 2, p. 8. His poems, which fall short of his prose writings, were published by F. Brower with those of Fortunatus. The Veni Creator is found among his writings, and in none more ancient; whence some ascribe to him that excellent hymn. He quotes the Gloria, laus et honor; which is known to be the work of Theodulph, bishop of Orleans, who died in 821, and left us Capitulars and other works in prose, and some in verse, collected by F. Sirmond in 1646. See Opera P. Sirmundi. Venetiis. 1728. t. 2.
Hincmar, a monk of St. Denis, chosen archbishop of Rheims in 845, died in 882. His letters are much better written than his other works, nor is the style so lax and diffusive. Sirmond published his works in two vols. folio. in 1645. F. Cellot added a third volume in 1658.
Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres in Gatinois, (whom all now agree to have been the same person with Lupus Servatus, as F. Sirmond and Baluze have demonstrated against Manguin,) died in 862. His letters and his famous treatise On the three Questions (relating to Predestination) are written in a nervous and elegant style. The most accurate editions are those of Baluze, in 1664, at Paris, and with additions at Leipsic in 1710, (the title page says falsely at Antwerp.)
Amoton succeeded Agohard in the see of Lyons in 810, and died in 852. In the Library of the Fathers, t. 13 and 14, and in an appendix to the works of Agobard by Baluze, we have his works on Grace and Predestination, and his letter to Theutlaald, bishop of Langres, in which he orders him to remove out of the church, and bury decently certain doubtful relics, according to the practice of St. Martin, and the decree of pope Gelasius. As to certain pretended miracles of women falling into convulsions, and being seized with pains before them, he commands them to be rejected and despised: for true miracles restore often health, but never cause sickness in such circumstances.
St. Remigius of Lyon, Amolon’s successor, died on the 28th of October, 875, and is named among the Saints in the private calendars of Ferrari and Saussay. On his writings. On Grace and Predestination, see Mabillon, Suppl. Diplont. p. 64, et in Analectis, p. 426, and F. Colonia, Hist. de Lyons, t. 2 p. 139.
Florus, deacon of Lyons, and a learned professor, author of additions to Rede’s Martyrology, wrote both against Gotescalc and John Scotus Erigena. See t. 15, Bibi. Patr. and Batuze, t. 2. op. Agobardi. Append.
1 T. 5, Concil. Harduin, pp. 15, 16. Annal. Fuldens. ad an. 848.
* Bishop Usher, Jansenius, and Manguin are advocates for the Predestinarians; consequently suspected persons in this history. Their vindication of Gotescalc is confuted by the Cardinal de Laurea. Opusc. 1, c. 7. Nat. Alexander, F. Honoratus of St. Mary, and Tournely, in accurate dissertations on that subject F. Ziegelbaver in the Hist. Liter. Ord. S. Bened. t. 3, p. 105, gives us both Card. Noris’s Apology for Gotescalc, and the Jesuit Du Mesnil’s history of his heresy.
† See a catalogue of some of his errors and absurditles in Witasse’s Tr. de Euchar. t. 1, p. 414, and in Mr. Paris, Diss. at the end of the Perpétuité de la Foi, art. 4. Had Dr. Cave lived to read these authors, or Mabillon, sæc. 4 and 6, Bened. or Nat. Alexander, Hist. sæc. 9 and 10; Diss. 14, p. 359, t. 6, &c., he would not have confounded this John Scotus Erigena with John Scotus, abbot of Ethelinge, king Alfred’s master, and one of the first professors at Oxford; nor is it likely he would have suppressed his errors, or the disgrace with which, by an express order of pope Nicholas I., he was expelled France. Hist. Liter. t. 5, p. 36.
‡ It is strange that Baillet should imagine this to be the Prudentius named in the Roman Martyrology, as bishop of Tarracona, on the 28th of April; who, by the report of Tamayo and Lubln, was bishop of that see in 586, and his relics are shown there to this day.
§ The Bollandists, p. 531, on the 6th of April, with Lewis Cellot, Hist. Gotescalci, l. 3, c. 9. charge prudentius of Troyes with errors in doctrine, and with opposing Hincmar out of jealousy and revenge, because the archbishop had seemed to infringe the rights of his church, according to the author of the Annales Britannici, who wrote within twenty years after his death. But this seems only a slander propagated by some of his adversaries. His writings, which are extant, t. 15, Bibl. Patr. p. 467, are understood In an orthodox sense by most learned Catholic theologians: at least we cannot doubt but he submitted them to the judgment of the Church. See Cacciari, Monitum in S. Leonis. ep. 136, t. 8, p. 452.
The works of St. Prudentius, see t. 15, Bibl. Patr. His letter to his brother, who was a bishop, probably in Spain, is published by Mabillon, Analecta, p. 418. His panegyric On St. Maura, a virgin at Troyes is extant in Surius; and translated Into French, and defended against Daillé, by Abbé Brayer, canon at Troyes, at the end of his Défense de l’Eglise de Troyes, at Paris. 1725.
Butler, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) II, 38-45.