June IV

St. Quirinus, B. M.

From his original beautiful Acts In Surius and Ruinart: and from Prudentius, hymn. 7. See Tillemont, t. 5, p. 428, and F. Hanciz, Germania Sacra, t. 1, p. 38.

A. D. 304.

St. Quirinus was bishop of Siscia, a city in Pannonia, situate upon the river Save; which being now reduced to a borough, called Sisek or Sisseg in Hungary, the episcopal see is removed to Zagrab, capital of modern Croatia. St. Jerom makes honorable mention of this saint in his Chronicle, upon the year 309. Prudentius calls him an eminent martyr. Fortunatus ranks him among the most illustrious martyrs of the church. He suffered on the 4th of June, 303, or 304. His acts give the following account of his triumph.

The holy prelate having intelligence that Maximus, the chief magistrate of the city, had given an order for his apprehension, left the town, but was pursued, taken, and carried before him. Maximus asked him whither he was flying. The martyr answered: “I did not fly, but went away to obey the order of my Master.* For it is written: When they persecute you in one city, fly to another.” Maximus said: “Who gave you that order?” Quirinus—“Jesus Christ, who is the true God.” Maximus—“Know you not that the emperor’s orders would find you out anywhere? Nor can he whom you call the true God help or rescue you when you are fallen into their hands, as you now see to your cost.” Quirinus—“The God whom we adore is always with us wherever we are, and can always help us. He was with me when I was taken, and is now with me. It is he that strengthens me, and now answers you by my mouth.” Maximus—“You talk much, and are guilty thereby of delay in executing the commands of our sovereigns: read their divine edicts, and comply with what they enjoin.” Quirinus—“I make no account of such injunctions, because they are impious; and, contrary to God’s commandments, would oblige us his servants to offer sacrifice to imaginary divinities. The God whom I serve is everywhere; he is in heaven, on earth, and in the sea. He is above all things, containing every thing within himself; and by him alone every thing subsists.” Maximus said: “Old age has weakened your understanding, and you are deluded by idle tales. See, here is incense; offer it to the gods, or you will have many affronts to bear, and will suffer a cruel death.” Quirinus—“That disgrace I account my glory; and that death will purchase me eternal life. I respect only the altar of my God, on which I have often offered to him a sacrifice of sweet odor.” Maximus—“I perceive you are distracted, and that your madness will be the cause of your death. Sacrifice to the gods.” “No, said Quirinus, “I do not sacrifice to devils.” Maximus then ordered him to be beaten with clubs, and the sentence was executed with great cruelty. The judge said to him, under that torment: “Now confess the power of the gods whom the great Roman empire adores. Obey, and I will make you the priest of Jupiter.” Quirinus replied: “I am now performing the true function of a priest, in offering myself a sacrifice to the living God. I feel not the blows which my body has received: they give me no torment. I am ready to suffer much greater tortures, that they who have been committed to my charge may be encouraged to follow me to eternal life.” Maximus commanded that he should be carried back to prison, and loaded with heavy chains till he grew wiser. The martyr in the dungeon made this prayer: “I thank thee, O Lord, that I have borne reproaches for thy sake; and I beseech thee to let those who are in this prison know that I adore the true God, and that there is no other besides thee.” Accordingly, at midnight, a great light was seen in the prison, which being perceived by Marcellus the jailer, he threw himself at the feet of St. Quirinus, and said, with tears: “Pray to the Lord for me; for I believe that there is no other God but him whom you adore.” The holy bishop, after a long exhortation, signed him in the name of Jesus Christ. This __EXPRESSION__ of the acts seems to imply, that he conferred on him the sacraments of baptism and confirmation.

This magistrate, not having authority to put the martyr to death, after three days’ imprisonment, sent him to Amantius, governor of the province called the First Pannonia. Prudentius calls him Galerius, governor of Illyricum, under which Pannonia was comprised. He had probably both those names, a usual thing at that time among the Romans. The bishop was carried in chains through all the towns that lay on the Danube, till being brought before Amantius, then on his return from Scarabantia, the governor ordered him to be conducted to Sabaria,* whither he himself was going. Certain Christian women in the mean time brought him refreshments, which as he was blessing, his chains dropped off from his hands and feet. On his arrival at Sabaria, Amantius ordered him to be brought before him on the public theatre, and having read the records of what had passed between him and Maximus, asked the saint if he owned the truth of the contents, and whether or no he persisted in his former confession of the Christian faith. The saint answered: “I have confessed the true God at Siscia: I have never adored any other. Him I carry in my heart, and no man on earth shall ever be able to separate me from him.”^† Amantius endeavored to overcome his resolution by large promises, and by the consideration of his old age: but finding him inflexible, he sentenced him to be thrown into the river with a millstone at his neck, and his order was obeyed. But to the great astonishment of the spectators, (who were assembled in crowds on the banks of the river to behold the execution,) the saint, instead of sinking to the bottom, continued a long time above water, with the millstone at his neck, exhorting the Christians to continue steadfast in the faith, and to dread neither torments nor death itself. But perceiving that he sunk not at all, he began to fear he should lose the crown of martyrdom. He thereupon addressed himself to Christ in these words: “It is not wonderful for thee, O almighty Jesus, to stop the course of rivers as thou didst that of Jordan, not to make men walk upon the water as Peter did on the sea, by thy divine power. These people have had a sufficient proof in me of the effect of thy power. Grant me what now remains, and is to be preferred to all things, the happiness of dying for thee, Jesus Christ my God.” He soon after sunk to the bottom: upon whose death the acts of the martyr make this reflection, “That he with difficulty obtained by his prayers to be drowned.”^‡ His body was found a little below the place, and laid in a chapel built on the bank. Soon after a great church was erected near the gate of Sabaria, leading to Scarabantia, in which his remains were laid. When, by the inroads of barbarians, the Pannonians were afterwards driven out of their country, the relics of this martyr were carried to Rome, and deposited in the catacombs of St. Sebastian, but removed in 1140 into the church of St. Mary, beyond the Tiber. Molanus proves that they are now kept in a monastery in Bavaria. The river in which St. Quirinus was drowned was called Sabarius, now Guntz.

The martyrs are victims of divine love. Their example invites us to shake off all sloth, and to devote our whole lives and all cur strength to the service of Him who created us for himself alone, till we shall have consummated our sacrifice to the eternal glory of his holy name. Thus we shall attain to our last end, and shall find immortal happiness; and shall refer to it all our steps in this mortal life, and all the desires of our hearts. These being all formed, actuated, and influenced by faith and love, as by a vital principle, will be consecrated to God; will be a constant source of patience, meekness, charity, zeal, and all heroic virtues; will root the soul daily more and more strongly in a steady habit of holiness, and continually increase her vigor and fervor in the service of God, to the consummation of our sacrifice of love.

S. Optatus, Bishop of Milevum, Confessor

From his own writings. See Tillemont, Hist. des Donatistes, t. 6, p. 142. Ceillier, t. 6, p. 625. D. Collins Dissert. sur l’llérés. des Donat., Bolog. 1758; also Hist. Donat. Ballerini, App. in Op. Card. Noris. Veronæ, 1732.

fourth age

This father was an African, and an illustrious champion of the church of Christ in the fourth age. He was educated an idolater, and Saint Austin names him with St. Cyprian and St. Hilary, among those who had passed from the dark shades of paganism to the light of faith, and carried into the church the spoils of Egypt, that is, human science and eloquence. In another place he styles him a prelate of venerable memory, who was by his virtue an ornament to the Catholic church. St. Fulgentius honors him with the title of saint, and places him in the same rank with St. Austin and St. Ambrose. He was bishop of Milevum in Numidia, and the first Catholic prelate who undertook by writing to stem the tide of the Donatist schism in Africa. Parmenian, the third bishop of that sect at Carthage, wrote five books in defence of his party, in which he declaimed in general against the Traditors, and proved what recoiled upon himself, that there can be but one church and one baptism. The Donatists boasted of the advantage they pretended this performance gave them over the Catholics: indeed, their champion was a man of learning and abilities, well versed in the art of sophistry, and capable of covering the worst cause with specious glosses. Against this Goliath, Saint Optatus stepped forth, stripped him of the armor in which he trusted and turned all his artillery against himself. This he performed by six books against Parmenian, to which he several years after, in the time of pope Siricius, about the year 385, added a seventh.* In this work we admire the elegance and loftiness of the style, everywhere animated, and beautifully ornamented with bold and noble figures: and remarkable for a sententious energy and conciseness, which distinguishes the best African writers from all others. It is, however, observable that the Augustan polish, and the purity of the Latin tongue, had been long before upon the declension. But the chief usefulness and value of this father’s writings are derived from the strength and perspicuity with which he sets off the privileges and marks of the Catholic church, and from the important maxims which he lays down to distinguish the true spouse of Christ from adultresses, by which sound rules he has overturned all heresies to the end of the world. St. Optatus wrote his six first books about the year 370. To set the state of this controversy in a clear light, it is necessary to take a short view of the Donatist schism, which took its rise from a circumstance that happened in the persecution of Dioclesian.

The Traditors or Christians, who for fear of torments and death, delivered the holy scriptures into the hands of the persecutors, that they might be burned, were guilty of a crime which bordered upon apostacy. Upon their repentance, according to the severity of the ecclesiastical discipline, they were to be enjoined a public austere course of penance, and if in holy orders, to be deposed. But in this the bishops had power to dispense, or to grant a relaxation or indulgence. Mensurius, primate of Carthage, and many other Catholic bishops, admitted penitent priests and bishops to their functions without insisting on this condition, alleging a necessity for such an indulgence, and the danger of a schism if they separated themselves from the communion of all that had fallen into that crime. Certain false Numidian zealots, blinded by jealousy or pique, took offence at this mildness, and by their hypocrisy, and pretended zeal and severity, drew many into schism. Donatus, bishop of Casæ-Nigræ, began this breach, and refused to communicate with Mensurius and his deacon Cecilian, because they held communion with penitent Traditors. By his clamors he engaged many others in his party, and by a notorious slander accused Mensurius himself of having given up the scriptures into the hands of the heathens. This point was discussed in a famous council held at Cirta, the capital of Numidia, in 305. Mensurius dying in 311, Cecilian was chosen bishop of Carthage; upon which, certain factious spirits who attempted to oppose his election, broke out into a greater flame than ever. Among these no one was more active than a certain rich and powerful lady of Carthage, named Lucilla, who bore Cecilian a grudge because she had formerly received from him a rebuke; and wanted humility and discretion, without which, the show of piety is only a shadow, and pharisaical hypocrisy, and easily degenerates into error and superstition. She was accustomed every morning before she received the body and blood of our Lord, to kiss the bone of an unknown dead man, whom she pretended to have been a martyr, but who was not, or at least had not been acknowledged such by the pastors of the church. For, to prevent abuses and superstition, it was always a necessary law in the church, that without the bishop’s approbation, no private persons should be allowed to pay to relics the honor due to those of martyrs. And it is on this circumstance that St. Optatus and St. Austin lay the stress of this affair. Cecilian, in quality of archdeacon, thought it his duty to put her in mind of her fault: but through the midst of her passions, she was not able to discern the charity of this just and necessary correction. Her resentment for this pretended affront seemed to have no bounds when she saw him raised to the archiepiscopal chair of Carthage, and she protected and abetted the faction which was formed against him with the whole weight of her interest and power. This party found no other pretence to set aside his election, but upon the foolish plea that he admitted the penitent Traditors to his communion, and thereby defiled the sanctity of the Catholic church. Upon no better grounds, Donatus, bishop of Casæ-Nigræ, first erected altar against altar; and refusing to hold communion with Cecilian, celebrated the divine mysteries at Carthage in domestic chapels; in which he was imitated by other factious persons. The schismatics, having gained the keepers of the treasury of the church of Carthage, got possession of the gold and silver chalices, and other vessels and rich ornaments that belonged to that church. Thus St. Optatus observes,¹ That anger was the mother of the schism, ambition the nurse, and covetousness the champion to defend it. And St. Austin, on this occasion, makes the following remark, that, All who disturb the peace of the church, do this either blinded by pride, distracted with envy, or seduced by worldly covetousness, or by soft passions and lust.² The faction being by these arts propagated, soon became numerous. Lucilla, by her money and interest, instigated the heads of the party to carry matters to the last extremity, in which she was seconded by two priests of Carthage, who having been competitors with Cecilian, were discontented at his preferment.

Seventy bishops, chiefly Numidians, espoused this party and met at Cirta, having at their head Secundus the primate of Numidia, Donatus of Mascula Victor Marinus, Purpurius, and the first author of the schism, Donatus of Casæ-Nigræ. Among these, Donatus of Mascula, Victor, and several others, were notoriously guilty of having delivered up the holy scriptures to the persecutors. But the crime was passed over in them; and by how much the more guilty of such practices the schismatics were themselves, so much the more vehemently did they accuse others; that their pretended zeal, against those sins falsely imputed to others, might serve as a cloak to cover their own real guilt, as St. Austin and St. Optatus observe. Some of them, however, confessed their crime in this synod, and were absolved. Next, the schismatical council presumed to pronounce sentence of deposition against Cecilian, alleging that he was a Traditor, or at least that he communicated with Traditors. Therefore they chose and ordained the domestic chaplain of Lucilla, by name Majorinus, the schismatical bishop of Carthage. The bishops of Italy and Gaul, and in particular pope Miltiades in a council at Rome, acquitted Cecilian, and condemned the schismatics, who thereupon forged many slanders against the pope. Schism frequently leads men into heresy; and this was the present case.

The Donatists, pretending that Cecilian was no minister of Christ, nor those that adhered to him members of the true church, maintained they had no true sacraments; and, by admitting to their communion lapsed persons, and profane Traditors, were themselves defiled, and ceased to be of the true church. Hence they usually called the Catholics pagans, idolaters, and Traditors, and rebaptized all who came over to them, pretending that baptism and holy orders cannot be validly conferred out of the Catholic church. To condemn this their capital error, the great council of Arles was assembled out of all the western provinces of the empire in 314. But the schismatics were no less deaf to authority than blind to the evidence of the Catholic truth. They were so far from being daunted by all these sentences, that by obstinacy, their spirit and faction seemed to grow greater, and they appealed to the emperor. Matters of fact being part of the charge, Constantine gave the plaintiffs a full hearing, in hopes by this condescension to bring them over to their duty.³ But seeing them invincibly obstinate, he, in 316, enacted severe laws against such Donatists as refused to acquiesce in the decision of the church. In the same year, upon the death of Majorinus, they placed in the schismatical chair at Carthage, one Donatus, a man of an austere life, eloquent and learned, but one of the most ambitious, vain, and proud of mortals, betraying in his carriage an unbecoming levity, and passionate to a degree of phrensy. He became the idol of the party, which, according to several good authors, took its name from him, not from the other Donatus of Casæ-Nigræ, the first author of the schism. St. Optatus and St. Austin⁴ charge the Donatists with heresy also in another point, inasmuch as they affirmed the Catholic church, which can never fail, and which is the church of all nations, had perished throughout the rest of the world, and was confined to one corner of the earth in Africa. In a great assembly of two hundred and seventy bishops held at Carthage, and in others in several other places, they had the insolence to unchurch the whole Christian world besides themselves, and commanded all who had been baptized by Catholics to be again baptized: to prevent which sacrilege, Constantine bylaw made it capital for any one to rebaptize another.⁵ They boasted of great purity and sanctity, like the Novatians, but their severity resembled that of the Pharisees; for, blinded by their passions, they did not see the inward uncleanness of their own hearts, defiled by pride, disobedience, and the whole train of other vices which attend those master-springs of spiritual disorders.

About the year 347, a sect of fanatics called Circumcellions sprang up among the Donatists, whose communion they enjoyed, but were their scandal and reproach. These were chieny wild and ignorant peasants, who pretending to devote themselves to martyrdom, wandered about for some months or years, pampering themselves as victims fed for sacrifice, and at length cast themselves from rocks or into rivers, or any other way laid violent hands upon themselves, which death they called martyrdom. Many of them compelled strangers whom they met on the high roads to murder them. Some Catholics who met them in this mad phrensy, to save their own lives, and not imbrue their hands in the blood of these fanatics, insisted first upon binding them before they could proceed to do them the desired good turn in sacrificing them: but when they were tied, beat them till they came to their senses, and were contented to live, as Theodoret relates.⁶ Such are the extravagancies into which men are led when they have once lost the anchor of truth, and their minds are set afloat on the tide of passions and error. Of this we have the most sensible proof, not only in the follies and impiety of paganism, and in various heresies in past ages, but also in the deism, fanaticism, and numberless wild chimeras and mad dreams in which our own times have been so fruitful among those who wander in the endless mazes of error. The Donatists were very numerous in Africa for above one hundred years, till the zeal of St. Austin, seconded by many others, almost extinguished that sect. St. Optatus had before given this hydra a mortal blow by his books against Parmenian, who had succeeded Donatus in the schismatical see of Carthage.

In this work our saint applauds the principle laid down by Parmenian, that the church is but one: for Christ is only one, and he is the spouse of one church, which is called his only dove, the garden shut up, and the seal ed fountain. He joins issue with his adversary, that heretics are prostitutes, and have no right to the jurisdiction or keys of the church, which Peter received; and which were not given to them. He adds, that heretics and schismatics are branches lopped off from the vine, and reserved for the fire.⁷ He exaggerates the guilt of schism as a crime more enormous than pairicide, and which deserves a punishment like that of Core, Dathan, and Abiron.⁸ In these principles both Catholics and Donatists were agreed. St. Optatus then proceeds to show that the latter cannot be the true church, “because,” says he, “in them where is the propriety of the Catholic name;—cooped up as they are in one little part of Africa, in one corner of a single country?—Whereas the church is catholic or universal, and is spread everywhere.”⁹ He shows by several texts of the prophets this universality to be one of the essential characteristics of the church. He adds as other marks, its unity, sanctity, and the chair of Peter, “which,” says he, “is ours; and by this it is plain that we possess its other prerogatives” He adds: “Peter sat first in this chair, and was succeeded by Linus.” He names the bishops of Rome from him down to Siricius, “at this day,” says he, “united in our fraternity, in which the whole world agrees with us joined in one communion.¹⁰—To Peter Christ said, ‘To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ Whence therefore do you claim the keys, who, with a sacrilegious presumption and insolence fight against the chair of Peter?”¹¹ He says again: “You cannot deny that you know the episcopal chair was first given to Peter in the city of Rome, in which first sat the head of the apostles, Peter, which chair was one, that all others might preserve unity by the union they had with it, and lest the other apostles might erect and defend chairs to themselves so that now he is a schismatic and an offender who sets up another against the only chair.” He gives the history of the origin and follies of the Donatist sect. “As to your party,” says he, “which would willingly be thought to be the church, inquire after the original of your chair” He says the Donatists answered, they had also a bishop of Rome, named Macrobius, who succeeded to Eucolpius, Eucolpius to Boniface of Balli, and Boniface to one Victor Garbiensis, whom the Donatists had sent from Africa to Rome to preside in their little schismatical church in that city. To this our holy doctor replies: “Can Macrobius say that he sits in the chair of St. Peter, which perhaps he never saw? for certainly he never went to the sepulchre of the apostles;” (that is, to officiate in the cathedral, or be regarded by the Catholic church as seated in the apostolic chair.) “He is disobedient to the command of the apostle, who would have us communicate in the memory of the saints. We see the relics of the two apostles, SS. Peter and Paul, are in the church of Rome: Tell me, I pray, if he could ever offer in the place where these relics are certainly kept. Macrobius your brother must then confess that he was seated in the chair of Eucolpius, Boniface of Balli, and Victor Garbiensis. This Victor is a son without a father, a disciple without a master, a successor without a predecessor.”

Among the other marks of the church, St. Optatus enlarges and insists particularly upon its extent or universality. “Wherefore,” says he, “would you unchurch an infinite number of Christians that are in the East and the West? You are but a small number of rebels, who have opposed all the churches of the world,” &c.¹² He confutes the errors of the Donatists, who pretended that the sacraments are null if given out of the true church, and mentions the exorcisms¹³ used in baptism to expel the unclean spirit, (in which sacrament they are still used;) as do also St. Cyril of Jerusalem,¹⁴ St. Austin,¹⁵ Tertullian, &c. St. Optatus speaks often of the holy oil and chrism, and relates that “certain Donatists also caused a bottle full of holy oil to be thrown out of a window on purpose to break it; but though it was cast down from a very high place, yet being supported by angels it fell upon the stones without breaking.”¹⁶ He says, “that the furious Donatist mob broke down the altars, which the Catholics had made use of;” on which he writes as follows: “What hath Jesus Christ done to you,” says he to the Donatists, “that you should destroy the altars on which he rests at certain times? Why do ye break the sacred tables where Jesus Christ makes his abode? Ye have imitated the crime of the Jews; for as they put Jesus Christ to death upon the cross, so ye have beaten him upon these altars.” He then humorously objects their ridiculous inconsistency: “All the faithful know,” says he, “that linen cloths are laid upon the altars for the celebration of the holy mysteries. The eucharist does not touch the wood of the altars, but only the linen cloths. Why then do you break, why do you scrape, why do you burn the wood of the altar? If the impurity can pass through the linen, why cannot it penetrate the wood, nay, and the ground also? If therefore ye scrape off something from the altars because they are impure, I advise you to dig into the ground, and there to make a great ditch, that ye may offer in a most pure place. But take care you do not dig down into hell, where you will find your masters Core, Dathan, and Abiron.” From this raillery he passes to other accusations still more grievous, and says: “You have also redoubled your sacrileges in breaking the chalices which carried the blood of Jesus Christ;* you have melted them down to make ingots of gold and silver, which you have sold in the markets indifferently to every one that offered to buy them. O enormous crime! O unheard of impiety!” The holy eucharist itself they threw to beasts, “than which,” says he, “what could be more impious?¹⁷ Your bishops commanded the eucharist to be thrown to the dogs; but presently visible tokens of the divine anger appeared; for the same dogs, being enraged, turned upon their masters, and with their avenging teeth, bit and tore those who were guilty of profaning the holy body?”* From these and many other instances, it is clear that the holy eucharist was then kept in churches after the sacrifice, no less than at present. The saint mentions that the altars were then usually of wood, and for greater respect, covered with a linen cloth.¹⁸ He reproaches the schismatics with having washed the palls and sacred liner, cloths, and pretended by washing, to purify the walls of the churches which the Catholics had used.¹⁹ Also with having compelled their sacred virgins to lay aside the veils which they wore, and the little mitres which they put upon their heads as signs or marks of their profession, and to wear mitres of another color, and another sort of linen.²⁰ Du Pin writes of this father: “He teaches that we are all born in sin, and that baptism is necessary to the remission of it. He mentions exorcism as a necessary ceremony at baptism. He speaks of chrism as a holy thing, and of the unction that was used at baptism. He expresses himself in so plain terms about the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist, and about the adoration that is due to this holy sacrament, that nothing can be desired more express He observes many ceremonies at the celebration of the eucharist, to which he gives the name of sacrifice.” The Donatists used and reverenced the holy oblation or mass, and all the sacraments; but pretended those administered by persons who were not of their own sect to be void and null: and that they were only holy among themselves who were pure. St. Optatus writes, “that the church has judges,” says Du Pin, “that she punishes crimes, that she exacts penances of those that confess their sins or are convicted of them. He observes that a vow of virginity was solemnly made by those who dedicated themselves to God, and that they carried a small covering upon their heads, which was the sign of the vow they had made. He testifies the respect that in his time was paid to the relics of the saints, when he speaks of the sepulchre of SS. Peter and Paul; and speaking of Lucilla, he blames those that honored the relics of false martyrs not owned by the church.” St. Optatus survived the year 384; but the time of his death is not known. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 4th of June. St. Optatus makes schism a more grievous crime than murder.²¹ Saint Austin asks: What will a sound faith profit a man, when the soundness of his charity is destroyed by the fatal wound of schism? He often repeats with St. Cyprian, that even martyrdom is not available to the salvation of a wilful heretic or schismatic. St. Vincent of Lerins makes no scruple to affirm, that Donatus and his followers, who did not expiate their crime by repentance, have their portion with the apostate angels.²² Hence, the ancient fathers charge us not to make shipwreck of our faith, as we value our everlasting happiness, and they took so much pains to point to the rocks upon which so many have split, and to show the highway which Christ himself has chalked out; which is his true Church.^†

St. Walter, Abbot

He was a native of Rome, and in his youth withdrew himself from the tumult of the world to make the study of God and himself his only employment. By the exercises of self-denial and holy contemplation, he had already made great progress in an interior life, when, out of a desire of following perfectly the sweet call of divine grace, he retired to San-Serviliano, a town in the diocese of Fermo, in the Marche of Ancona, where he some time after built a monastery, of which he was chosen the first abbot. Though endowed with an eminent spirit of all Christian virtues, and a sublime gift of heavenly contemplation, he was most remarkable for his tender and extraordinary devotion to the cross and sacred passion of Christ. He flourished in the thirteenth century. His body is enshrined on the right side of the high altar in the parish church of St. Mark at San-Serviliano; and several churches in that country keep his festival on the 4th of June. See his life, written in the fifteenth century, with the notes of Papebroke, t. 1, Junii, p. 405.

Another saint of the same name, an Englishman by birth, was the thirty-fourth abbot of Fontenelle, or St. Vandrille’s, and the fortieth saint of that house. Pope Innocent II. commended his humility and piety, and his extraordinary zeal for regular observance. He died in 1150. See the particular lessons for his office, and Chatelain.

Saint Petroc, in French Perreuse, Abbot, Confessor

Having laid the foundation of a virtuous education in Wales, his native country, he passed into Ireland, and there spent twenty years in sacred studies, and in the most fervent exercises of devotion and penance. For his further improvement he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and returning into Cornwall, shut himself up in a monastery of which he was himself the founder, at a place since called from him Petrocs-Stow, now Padstow, which stands at the mouth of the river Alan, or Camel, on the Bristol channel: it is a good sea-port, much frequented by Irish, who make up a considerable part of the inhabitants.

Bodmin, a flourishing town almost in the centre of Cornwall, about twelve miles from each of the two seas, was also illustrious for having been some time the dwelling-place of St. Petroc, whom some distinguish from St. Petroc of Padstow, because Dugdale calls him a bishop. But it was not uncommon in Ireland at that time, for eminent abbots to be raised to the episcopal dignity in their own monasteries by the neighboring bishops. And Sir James Ware and Mr. Harris find, in some Irish legends, the title of Bishop promiscuously used for that of Abbot. At least, neither in the registers or archives of Exeter, nor in Godwin, Le Neve, or any others is his name found in the list of the bishops of Cornwall.* And all accounts, in Leland and others, suppose the same St. Petroc to have retired from Padstow to Bodmin, and there founded a second monastery and a great church which king Athelstan afterwards favored with great benefactions and singular privileges. In this place, St. Petroc ended his mortal course about the year 564, on the 4th of June. His shrine and tomb in Leland’s time, in the reign of Henry VIII., remained in the eastern part of the church of Bodmin not far from the high altar. At Padstow he had, among others, three eminent holy disciples, Credan, Medan, and Dachan. From his numerous monastery at Bodmin, that place was anciently called Bosmana, or Bodnanachie, that is, The Mansion of Monks. This great church was originally served by monks: after king Athelstan’s munificent benefactions by secular clergy, and in the reign of Henry I., it became a flourishing monastery of regular canons of St. Austin. The relics of St. Petroc were carried privately to St. Meen’s monastery in Brittany in 1178; but upon the complaint of Roger, prior of the regular canons at Bodmin, the king of England procured them to be brought back and restored to the great church of Bodmin the year following, where it was still standing in Leland’s time.

St. Petroc is titular saint of a church in Nivernois, in France, Bodmin, and several other churches and chapels in Cornwall and Devonshire, &c. In the calendars of some churches and monasteries of Brittany the feast of St. Petroc is ordered to be kept of the first class with an octave. See Lobineau, p. 1, &c. On St. Petroc, see Leland in his Itinerary, second edition, vol. 8, p. 52, vol. 3, p. 2, vol. 2, p. 84: in his Collectanea, vol. 1, p. 75, vol. 3, pp. 188 and 209; Capgrave, Chatelain, Colgan in MSS. ad 4 Junii, and Borlase, Antiquities of Cornwall.

St. Breaca, Now Breague, V.

She was a disciple of St. Patrick, and coming from Ireland into Cornwall, landed at Reyver on the eastern bank of the river Hayle, now called Alin, in the hundredth of Penrith, and led there a solitary life in great sanctity. She was honored there with a church famous for pilgrimages and miracles. See Borlase, Antiq. of Cornwall, and Leland.

St. Burian, an Irish Woman;

To honor whose relics, king Athelstan built a college within sight of the Scilly rocks, with a church, which enjoyed the privilege of a sanctuary See Borlase, ib. p. 349, Leland, Camden, &c.

St. Nenooc, or Nennoca. V.

She served God first in Britain, her native country, and is said to have gone with St. Germanus of Auxerre into France. At least she retired into Armorica, and there became a directress of many holy virgins in the paths of perfect virtue. She is said to have died in 467. Many miracles are ascribed to her in her legend in the monastery of the Cross of Quimperlé in the diocese of Quimper, in Brittany. See Colgan in MSS., and Chatelain ad 4 Junii.

* By this answer, he means that he did not withdraw through cowardice or fear of death but in compliance with the precept of Christ.

* Sabaria is now called Sarwar, and stands on the confluence of the rivers Guntz and Rab. See Marumere and Hoffman. Scarabantia is now called Sopron, by the Germans Oedenburg, eight German miles from Vienna to the East. Ibid.

^† These words, compared with those above to Maximus, are a clear testimony given to the divinity of the Son of God.

^‡ Vix orans ut mergeretur obtinuit. This circumstance is also mentioned by Prudentius, in his elegant poem on this holy martyr; and by Euseblus in his chronicle. Ruinart places the martyrdom of St. Qulrsus in the year 309; but Hanciz shows that he received his crown In 303 or 304.

* Rivet and Du Pin pretend the seventh book was written soon after by another hand. Bat the learned publisher of the new edition of the works of this father demonstrates it to have been written by him no less than the other six, though St. Jerom seems never to have seen it. The author of this seventh bool assures us that he had written the former six: and the style bears so perfect a resemblance, that Casauboa affirms it to be impossible they should not be all the offspring of the same parent.

¹ St. Optat., p. 41.

² St. Aug., t. 3, contra Parmen.

³ L. 2, p. 52.

⁴ Hær. 60.

⁵ See Cod Justin. St. Hæret et l. 2.

⁶ Hæret. fabul.

⁷ St. Optal. l. 1, n. 10.

⁸ N. 21.

⁹ L. 2. n. 1. p. 26.

¹⁰ Ib. 3. n. 3

¹¹ Ib. 2. n. 5 et 2.

¹² L. 2, p. 28.

¹³ Ib. 4, pp. 73, 74.

¹⁴ Procateches, p. 7.

¹⁵ L. 2, De Nupt. et Concup. c. 29, et l. 5, Op. Impers. c. ult.

¹⁶ L. 2, p. 39.

* Calices sanguinis Christi portitores. O scelus nefandum! facinus inauditum! l. 6, n. 2, p. 93.

¹⁷ L. 2, p. 43.

* Sancti corporis reos, dente vindice, tamquam Ignotos et inimicos lamaverunt, t. 2, c. 39.

¹⁸ Ib. 6, p. 93.

¹⁹ Ib. 6, n. 6.

²⁰ Ib. 6, n. 4.

²¹ L. 1.

²² Commonit

^† The ancient editions of the works of St. Optatus are very faulty, not excepting even that of Paris is 1631, with notes, observations, and dissertations, by Aubespine, bishop of Orleans. The best and most exact of all, is that of Dupin, printed at Paris in 1700, at Amsterdam in 1701, and a Antwerp in 1702, in fol. See Oudin, de script. Eccles t. 1, p. 579.

* Devonshire and Cornwall, being part of Wessex, were long subject to the bishop of that kingdom, who resided first at Dorchester, and after 660 at Winchester. A bishopric being erected at Shirburne in 705, (which was removed to Sarum in the eleventh century.) these counties belonged to it, till at the request of king Ina, a bishop was placed at Bodmin for Cornwall, about the year 720, whose name was Conan, whose ten successors are enumerated by Godwin and Le Neve. In 905 Werstan, called also Adulphe, was consecrated bishop for Devonshire, and resided at Bishop’s Tawton in that county: but Eadulph the third from him removed his see to Crediton, or Kirton, seven miles from Exeter. His eleventh successor Leofred was also bishop of Cornwall, and in 6050 removed both these sees to Exeter.

That of Cornwall had been translated in the reign of king Athelstan by bishop Sydenham, the seventh from Werstan, from Bodmin to the town of St. German’s, the cathedral of St. Petroc’s and the bishop’s palace with the greatest part of the town having been burnt down by the Danes when they plundered the countries of Devonshire and Cornwall. Three bishops of Cornwall resided at St. German’s till the unlos of these sees at Exeter. See Leland’s Collectanea, t. 1, p. 75, Le Neve, Fasti, &c.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 487–497). New York: P. J. Kenedy.