OCTOBER XXXI
ST. QUINTIN, MARTYR
From his Acts in Surius, written in a good style, before St. Eligius’s time, but later than Nestorius. The author assures us, that he compiled them from a history written by one who was present at the first translation of the martyr’s relics, fifty-five years after his death. But the author has added certain circumstances from popular traditions, with a fertur; which are not of equal authority. Other Acts of St. Quintin, but of an inferior stamp, are given us by Claude Hemere, in his History of the Town of St. Quintin’s. See Tillemont, t. 4, pp. 433, 436, 700.
A. D. 287.
ST. QUINTIN was a Roman, descended of a senatorian family, and is called by his historian the son of Zeno. Full of zeal for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and burning with a holy desire to make his powerful name and the mysteries of his love and mercy known among the infidels, he left his country, renounced all prospect of preferment, and, attended by St. Lucian of Beauvais, made his way to Gaul. They preached the faith together in that country till they reached Amiens in Picardy, where they parted. Lucian went to Beauvais, and having sown the seeds of divine faith in the hearts of many, received the crown of martyrdom in that city. St. Quintin stayed at Amiens, endeavoring by his prayers and labors to make that country a portion of our Lord’s inheritance. Desiring nothing so earnestly as to destroy the kingdom of the devil, that the name of God might be glorified he besought the Author of all good, without ceasing, that he would infuse his saving knowledge and holy love into the souls of those to whom he announced the divine law. God made him equally powerful in words and works, and his discourses were authorized and strongly recommended by great numbers of miracles, and illustrated and enforced by a most holy and mortified life. The reward of his charitable labors was the crown of martyrdom, which he received in the beginning of the reign of Maximian Herculeus, who was associated in the empire by Dioclesian, in the year 286. Maximian made Rictius Varus prefect of the prtorium: for though Augustus had appointed but one prtorian prefect to judge causes and receive appeals from all the provinces of the empire, in the reign of Dioclesian, each emperor appointed one, so that there were four prtorian prefects, according to the number of emperors that then reigned together. But Constantine the Great was the first who made this number regular, and determined the districts and jurisdiction of these supreme magistrates of the Roman empire. Rictius Varus, whose hatred of the Christian religion has stored the Martyrology with lists of many illustrious martyrs, seems to have resided at Triers, the metropolis of the Belgic Gaul. But, making a progress into the Second Gaul, when he was near Soissons, he had intelligence of the great progress the Christian faith had made at Amiens, and resolved to cut him off who was the author of this great change. When he arrived at Amiens, he ordered St. Quintin to be seized, thrown into prison, and loaded with chains. The next day the holy preacher was brought before the prefect, who assailed his constancy with promises and threats; and, finding him proof against both, ordered him to be whipped unmercifully, and then confined to a close dungeon without the liberty of receiving either comfort or assistance from the faithful. In two other examinations before the same magistrate, his limbs were stretched with pulleys on the rack till his joints were dislocated; his body was torn with rods of iron wire; boiled pitch and oil were poured on his back, and lighted torches applied to his sides. The holy martyr, strengthened by Him whose cause he defended, remained superior to all the cruel arts of his barbarous persecutor, and preserved a perfect tranquillity of mind in the midst of such torments as filled the spectators with horror.
When Rictius Varus left Amiens, he commanded Quintin to be conducted to the territory of the Veromandui, whither he was directing his course in his return. The capital of that country was called Augusta Veromanduorum. In this city of the Veromandui the prefect made fresh attacks upon the champion of Christ, with threats and promises; and being ashamed to see himself vanquished by his courage and virtue, caused his body to be pierced with two iron wires from the neck to the thighs, and iron nails to be struck under his nails, and in his flesh in many places, particularly into his scull; and, lastly, his head to be cut off. This was executed on the 31st of October, in 287. The martyr’s body was watched by the soldiers till night, and then thrown into the river Somme: but it was recovered by the Christians some days after, and buried on a mountain near the town; fifty-five years after, it was discovered by Eusebia, a devout lady; and a certain blind woman recovered her sight by the sacred relics.1 The knowledge of the place was again lost in the persecution of Julian the Apostate, though a chapel which was built near it remained, when in the beginning of the year 641, St. Eligius, bishop of Noyon and the Vermandois caused the holy relics to be sought; and when they were discovered, together with the great nails with which the body had been pierced, he distributed these nails, the teeth, and hair, in other places, and enclosed the rest of the sacred treasure in a rich shrine of his own work which he placed behind the high altar, as St. Owen relates in his life. A new stately church of St. Quintin was built in the reign of Louis Debonnaire, and another translation of the relics was made on the 25th of October, 825.2 They were removed to Laon for fear of the Normans, but brought back on the 30th of October, 885, and are still kept in the great church, which was in the hands of monks from the time of Ebertran, the first abbot, till these were afterwards dispersed by the inroads of the Normans. In the following age, secular canons were put in possession of this famous church. Another church was built here in the honor of St. Quintin, in the place where his body had been concealed during fifty-five years, in an island in a marsh formed by the river Somme. It became a famous monastery, now in the hands of the Benedictin monks of St. Maur: it is called St. Quintin’s in the Island. St. Quintin’s on the Mountain, a mile from Peronne, is another monastery of the same congregation, founded by Eilbert, brother to Herbert, count of Vermandois, in the seventh century. From the time of the translation of the martyr’s relics in the reign of Louis le Dbonnaire the town has taken the name of St. Quintin’s.*
Martyrdom, when we are called to it, is an homage we owe to God, and a debt due to faith and religion. Happy are they whom God, by a special grace, allows to seal their fidelity to him by their blood! How great is the honor and happiness for a poor mortal man, and a poor sinner to lay down his mean miserable life for Him, who, out of infinite love for us, gave his most precious life! Martyrs are holocausts offered to the divine love and glory. They are witnesses, as the word imports in the original Greek, bearing testimony to the infinite power and goodness of God, in which they place an entire confidence, and to the truth of his holy revealed faith, which they confirm with their blood. No testimony can be more authentic, more glorious to God, more edifying to the faithful, or more convincing to infidels. It is by the constancy of martyrs that our holy religion is established. God was pleased to choose it for one of the means by which he would accomplish this great work. Are we witnesses to God and his holy religion, at least by lives of self-denial, meekness, and sanctity? Or do we not rather by a contrary deportment disgrace his holy church, of which we have the honor to be members, and expose his adorable name to the blasphemies of infidels.
SAINT WOLFGANG, BISHOP OF RATISBON
RADERUS derives this saint’s pedigree from the most illustrious families of Suabia; but the ancient author of his life published by Mabillon assures us, that his parents were of a middle condition in the world. He was a native of Suabia, and at seven years of age was put into the hands of a neighboring virtuous ecclesiastic; but some time after removed to the abbey of Richenaw (in Latin Augia) founded by Charles Martel in 724, near Constance, united in 1536 to the bishopric of Constance. This monastery was at that time a most flourishing school of learning or piety, which furnished many churches with eminent pastors. In this house our saint contracted an intimacy with a young nobleman called Henry, brother to Poppo, bishop of Wurtzburg, who had set up a great school in that city, and engaged an Italian professor, called Stephen, to leave his own country to give lectures there. It was Wolfgang’s earnest desire never to know any other employment but that of Mary, and to spend his life in the contemplation and praises of his Creator. But Henry, who was charmed with his virtue and other great qualifications, could not bear to be separated from him, and prevailed upon him to bear him company to this new school at Wurtzburg. Once when a difficult passage in an author raised a contest among the scholars about the sense, Wolfgang explained it with so much perspicuity and evidence, that in all perplexing difficulties the rest had recourse to him, rather than to the master. This raised in him a jealousy against the saint, and made him many ways persecute him. Wolfgang, by silence, patience, and meekness, made his advantage of all the contradictions and humiliations he met with, thinking no happiness greater than the means and opportunities of subduing his passions, and gaining a complete victory over himself. But observing how easily petty jealousies, envy, resentments, vanity, and other dangerous passions prevailed among both masters and scholars, he lamented to see those who professed themselves lovers of wisdom, so much strangers to it, and more addicted to the meanest and most ungenerous passions of the human mind than the most ignorant and boorish among the common people; so that, perverting their very studies and science, they made them the means, not of virtue, but of sin, and the nourishment of their most dangerous passions, for want of studying to know and perfectly vanquish themselves, without which even the best food of the mind is converted into the worst poison. What can poor scholars do in such a school, but contract from their tender years the contagious spirit of the masters by their example and conversation? The misfortune of others, (which was the more grievous by the usual blindness that attended it,) and the sight of his danger of falling insensibly into the same, served the more to alarm the saint; who was therefore more watchful, and kept the stricter guard over all the motions of his own heart; and whilst, by tender charity, he studied to be blind to the faults of others, he judged and condemned himself the more severely. In the apprehension of his own weakness, he was desirous of finding a holy monastery of mortified religious men, sincerely dead to the world and themselves, whose example might be a spur to him in the necessary duty of dying to himself without dangerous temptations or trials. But such a society is not to be found in this life; it is even necessary that our patience, meekness, and humility be exercised by others here, that they may be made perfect. Nor is there any company of saints in which trials fail. This is the very condition of our hire in the divine service, and of our apprenticeship to heaven. We can never be like the angels and saints; we can never bear the image of God, unless by humility, patience, and meekness, we learn perfectly to die to ourselves; nor are these virtues to be learned, or the spirit of Christ to be put on, but by bearing well contradictions. Henry perceived this inclination of Wolfgang for a monastic life, and engaged him to serve his neighbor; and being himself chosen archbishop of Triers in 956, he pressed the saint to accompany him thither.
Wolfgang could not be prevailed upon to take upon him any other charge than that of a school for children; and afterwards that of a community of ecclesiastics, with the title of dean; in both which posts he succeeded to a miracle, and to the edification of the whole country, in planting the spirit of Christ in those that were committed to his care. Upon the death of the archbishop of Triers he made some stay with Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, but could not be prevailed on to accept of any bishopric, and retired soon after to the monastery of Enfilden, governed at that time by George, an Englishman, who had left his own country to serve God in silence and mortification. The abbot soon found the reputation of Wolfgang to be inferior to his merit, and appointed him director of the school of the monastery, which, under his care, became the most flourishing in the whole country. St. Ulric, bishop of Ausburg, in whose diocese this abbey stood, ordained St. Wolfgang priest, in spite of all the opposition his humility could form. With his ordination the holy man received an apostolical spirit, and having obtained his abbot’s leave, in 972, went with a select number of monks to preach the faith to the Hungarians. The success of this undertaking seemed not sufficiently to correspond to his zeal; but the bishop of Passaw detained him some time, and, by a private message recommended him to the emperor Otho II. as a person of all others the best qualified to fill the see of Ratisbon, which was then vacant. To put a cheat upon the saint’s humility, the emperor ordered him to repair to Ratisbon as if it had been for some other affairs. When he arrived there, the archbishop of Salzburg, and several bishops of the province were ready to receive him, and to see the election duly performed by the clergy and people. He was then put into safe hands, and conducted to the emperor at Frankfort, who gave him the investiture of the temporalities, though the saint entreated him on his knees to allow him to return to his monastery. Being sent back to Ratisbon he was consecrated and enthroned. He never quitted the monastic habit, and practised all the austerities of a religious life when in possession of the episcopal dignity. The first thing he did in it, after an excellent regulation of his own conduct and household, was to settle a thorough reformation among all his clergy, and in all the monasteries of his diocese, especially the nunneries of Obets Munster and Nider Munster; disorders in the sanctuary being of all others the most pernicious, and of the most fatal influence. He was indefatigable in preaching, and, being a man of prayer, possessed powerfully the art of touching the hearts of his hearers. Every other duty of his station he discharged with extraordinary vigilance and fidelity during twenty-two years’ administration. The poor had always the greatest share in his table and revenues, though in his profuse charities he seemed to conceal from his own left hand what his right hand gave. The time which was not taken up in business, he consecrated entirely to the strictest silence and retirement; and he employed a considerable part of the nights in devout prayer. Not content with this, he sometimes retired into some remote cell for a time and once lay a long time concealed in a wilderness, that by heavenly contemplation he might repair and nourish his own soul. Good part of Bohemia being part of his diocese, he found it too extensive, gave up a great part of his revenue to settle a bishopric in that country, and procured St. Adelbert to be placed in it. Henry, duke of Bavaria, held this good prelate in the highest veneration, and intrusted to him the education of his four children: these were, St. Henry, afterwards emperor of Germany, Bruno, who died bishop of Ausburg, Gisela, queen of Hungary, and Brigit, who, renouncing the world, died abbess at Ratisbon. The virtue and eminent qualifications of all these princes and princesses made many say: “Find saints for masters, and you will have holy emperors.” We ought to pray that Christ send us such holy prelates, and we shall see the primitive splendor of the church restored. He was taken ill in a journey of charity, and died at Pupping, in Austria on the 31st of October, 994.* His body was brought to Ratisbon, and deposited in St. Emmeran’s church. His name was enrolled among the saints by Leo IX. in 1052, upon the testimony of many miracles, and his relics enshrined by order of the same pope. See his life written by a disciple in Mabillon, Sc. v. Ben. p. 812; Hundius, Hist. Eccl. Metrop, Salzburgens; Aventin. Ann. Boior. Raderus in Bavaria Sancta, t. 1, p. 94.
ST. FOILLAN, M.
ST. ULTAN, St. Fursey, and St. Foillan, were three brothers, sons of Fyltan, king of Munster in Ireland. Fursey embraced a monastic life in the islands, and, after some years, returning home, persuaded Ultan, who was the eldest brother, and Foillon also, to renounce the world. St. Fursey having travelled into England, and built the monastery of Knobersburg in the kingdom of the East-Angles, invited Foillan thither from Ireland, and left him abbot of that house. After the death of St. Fursey, which happened at Peronne about the year 650, SS. Ultan and Foillan went into France. Some authors say St. Foillan travelled to Rome, and was made regionary bishop. If this be true, at least he soon returned to St. Ultan, and they went both together from Cambray to Nivelle in Brabant, where St. Gertrude governed a great nunnery, which her parents, B. Pepin of Landen, and B. Ita, had founded, with a neighboring monastery of men. They both stayed here some time, till St. Gertrude, after the death of her mother, in 652, gave to St. Ultan a territory to build an hospital and monastery, which is called Fosse, situate between the Meuse and the Sambre, in the diocese of Maestricht, now of Liege. St. Gertrude detained St. Foillan at Nivelle, where he instructed the nuns, and preached to the people in the country. He was going to pay a visit to his brother St. Ultan at Fosse in 655, when he and three companions were assassinated by robbers, or infidels, in the forest of Sonec, now Charbonniere, in Hainault, on the 31st of October. His relics are kept with veneration in the church of Fosse, formerly served by monks, now by secular canons. St. Ultan governed the monasteries of Fosse and Mont-Saint-Quentin many years, and died on the 1st of May, towards the year 686. See Bede, Hist. l. 3, c. 19, and his ancient life published by Dom Menard, Addit. ad. Martyr. Benedict. p. 900. Le Cointe, ad an. 654, 656, et 686; Molanus, Mirus, and Usher, Antiqu. Brit.
BUTLER, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) IV, 315-320.
OCTOBER XXXI ST. QUINTIN, MARTYR 
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