August I

St. Peter ad Vincula

or st. peter’s chains

From Acts 12. Tillemont, t. 1, p. 185, 536. Orsi, l. 1, n. 37, p. 58. See Jos. Assem. In Cal. Univ ad Jan. t. 6, p. 84, and Monsacrati, Diss, de Catenis S. Petri ad Bend. XIV. 1750.

The chains and prisons of the saints were the subject of their greatest joy and glory, and the source of the highest graces and crowns. God honored them in the prince of the apostles with wonderful miracles. It has been related in the life of St. James the Great, that Herod Agrippa, king of the Jews, having put to death that apostle in the year 44, in order to gain the affection and applause of his people, by an action still more agreeable to them, caused St. Peter, the prince of the sacred college, to be cast into prison. It was his intention to put him publicly to death after Easter. The whole church at Jerusalem put up its prayers and cries to God, without ceasing, for the deliverance of the chief pastor of his whole flock, and God favorably neard them. The king took all precautions possible to prevent the escape of his prisoner, as he and the other apostles had formerly been miraculously delivered out of prison by an angel.¹ St. Peter himself remained, no doubt, in perfect joy, committing himself with entire confidence and submission to the divine disposal. In this tranquillity of mind, and entire resignation of himself, he lay fast asleep, on the very night before the day intended for his execution, when it pleased God to deliver him out of the hands of his enemies. He was guarded by sixteen soldiers, four of whom always kept sentry in their turns; two in the same dungeon with him, and two at the gate. He was fastened to the ground by two chains, and slept between the two soldiers. In the middle of the night a bright light shone in the prison, and an angel appeared near him, and striking him on the side, awaked him out of his sleep, and bade him instantly arise, gird his coat about him, put on his sandals and his cloak, and follow him. The apostle did so, for the chains had dropped off from his hands. Following his guide, he passed after him through the first and second ward or watch, and through the iron gate which led into the city, which opened to them of its own accord. The angel conducted him through one street; then, suddenly disappearing, left him to seek some asylum. Till then the apostle, in his surprise, doubted whether the whole was not a mere vision; but, upon the angel’s vanishing, he acknowledged his miraculous deliverance, and blessed the author of it. He went directly to the house of Mary the mother of John, surnamed Mark, where several disciples were met together and were sending up their prayers to heaven for his deliverance. As he stood knocking without, a young woman going to the door and perceiving it was his voice, ran in and acquainted the company that Peter was at the door; and when she persisted in the thing, they concluded rather it must be his guardian angel, sent by God upon some extraordinary account: until, being let in, he related to them the whole manner of his miraculous escape; and having enjoined them to give notice thereof to St. James and the rest of the brethren, he withdrew to a place of more retirement and security, carrying, wherever he went, the heavenly blessing and life. The next day, when he was not to be found, Agrippa commanded the keepers to be put to death, as supposing them accessary to St. Peter’s escape. This wonderful deliverance is a proof that though God does sometimes allow the wicked to execute their designs, yet, when it pleases him, he restrains them, and sets bounds to their wickedness, and that he always watches over his faithful servants. We likewise see, by this event, the power and efficacy of public prayer. The Jewish passover that year fell on the 1st of April; but the Greek Menæa commemorates this miracle and St. Peter’s chain on the 16th of January, in memory of the dedication of a church called St. Peter’s Chain, in which one of his chains was kept. The Western church has long kept this festival on the 1st of August, on account of the dedication made on this day of the famous old church of this title in Rome, which has been a place of great devotion.* It gives a title to a cardinal. Mention is made of priests of this church in the fifth century.^†

Such was the veneration of the faithful for the relics of the apostles SS. Peter and Paul, deposited at Rome, that the popes themselves durst not presume to touch, separate, or give away part of the precious remains of their bodies. This St. Gregory the Great often testifies in his epistles.² Pope Hormisdas assures us of the same in his letter to Justinian, nephew to the emperor Justin I., and afterward his successor, who had begged a small particle of them for a church he was building to their honor at Constantinople.³ Both these popes testify that it was the custom for the popes only to put down a linen cloth, called Brandeum, upon the tomb of the apostles, which, being thus blessed, was sent and received with the respect due to a relic; and God often worked miracles by these Brandeums. Justinian was satisfied with such a relic, and with the reasons of respect for the sacred bodies alleged by the pope. His ambassadors at the same time begged and obtained a small portion of St. Peter’s chains, which were kept at Rome with great devotion in the ancient church which is known by that title, at least ever since the fifth century. The popes were accustomed to send the filings of these chains as precious relics, to devout princes, and they were often instruments of miracles. The pope himself rasped off these filings, which he enclosed in a cross or in a golden key, as appears from St. Gregory,⁴ who says in his letter to king Childebert,⁵ to whom he sent one of these keys, that many persons, out of devotion, hung such keys about their necks as preservatives from dangers. St. Cæsarius says,⁶ that the chains with which this apostle was bound in his last imprisonment before his martyrdom, were preserved by the faithful, and honored at Rome in his time. Arator, subdeacon of the church of Rome, who composed a poem on the Acts of the Apostles, in the reign of Justinian, says, that Rome was also enriched with one of the chains with which that apostle was bound by Agrippa at Jerusalem, and from which the angel delivered him. St. Chrysostom affirms the same, and expresses the most earnest desire to have been able to go so far to see and kiss that relic of this great apostle’s glorious sufferings.⁷ It is said, that Eudocia, the wife of Theodosius the Younger, in 439, brought from Jerusalem two chains with which St. Peter had been bound in that city, and having given one to a church in Constantinople, sent the other to Rome to her daughter Eudoxia, who was married to Valentinian III., and who is said to have built a church on the Esqui line hill, in which it was deposited.⁸

The iron chains of this apostle have been esteemed as more precious and valuable than gold, says St. Cæsarius.⁹ Pagan Rome never derived so much honor from the spoils and trophies of a conquered world as Christian Rome receives from the corporeal remains of these two glorious apostles, before which the greatest emperors lay down their diadems, and prostrate themselves, as St. Chrysostom¹⁰ and St. Austin¹¹ observe. Among other proofs of the veneration of the primitive Christians towards those sacred pledges, Orsi appeals¹² to the images of SS. Peter and Paul, which are found frequently carved in the ancient cemeteries of Rome, and on many sepulehral urns, which many antiquaries have shown to be more ancient than the persecution of Diocletian. Eusebius¹³ tells us, that he had seen the pictures of these two apostles which had been preserved down to his time. That of St. Paul agrees with the description given of him in the dialogue entitled Philopatris, written about the end of the first century, before Lucian who was born under Trajan, and flourished under Mareus Aurelius.* It also agrees with that extant in the very ancient, though apocryphal acts of St. Theela.¹⁴

The 1st day of August is called by us Lammas-day, softened from Loaf-mass; a mass of thanksgiving for the first fruits of the earth, or of the corn,^† being anciently celebrated in England on this day.¹⁵ It was kept with a solemn procession, and was also called the Guild of August. The solemn blessing of new grapes was performed both among the Greeks and Latins, in some places on the 1st, in others on the 6th day of August, and is expressly mentioned in ancient liturgical books, as cardinal Bona and others take notice.^‡

We owe to God, in a special manner, the first fruits of our lives, and of all our actions, in acknowledgment that he is our beginning and last end. Of this tribute he is extremely jealous, as he expressed in the old law by his rigorous precept of the sacrifice of first fruits. A Christian, to acquit himself of this duty, ought to begin every day, and every undertaking, by fervently renewing the consecration of himself and of all his actions to God, with an humble sacrifice of thanksgiving for his benefits, and an earnest petition of the divine blessing and grace to make a good use of the gifts of heaven.

The Seven Machabees, Brothers, With Their Mother, MM.

The seven brothers, called Machabees, are holy Jewish martyrs who suffered death in the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, the impious king of Syria. The Jews returned from the Babylonish captivity in the first year of the reign of Cyrus,* and were allowed to form themselves into a republic, to govern themselves by their own laws, and live according to their own religion Their privileges were much extended by Artaxerxes Longimanus; but their liberty was limited and dependent, and they lived in a certain degree of subjection to the Persian kings, and shared the fate of that empire under Alexander the Great, and after his death under the Seleucidæ, kings of Syria. Antiochus III. (the sixth of these kings) was complimented with the surname of The Great, on account of his conquests in Asia Minor, and his reduction of Media and Persia; though these two latter provinces soon after submitted themselves again to the Parthians. But this prince met afterward with great disgraces, especially in his war with the Romans, who curtailed his empire, taking from him all his dominions which lay west of mount Taurus, a good part of which they bestowed on Eumenes.¹ He was likewise obliged to give up to them all his armed galleys, and all his elephants, to pay to them for twelve years the annual tribute of one thousand talents (or two hundred and fifty-eight thousand three hundred and thirty-three pounds sterling) and one hundred and forty thousand modii of the best wheat (or thirty-five thousand English bushels), and to send to Rome twenty hostages, of which his son Antiochus was to be one. In Elymais, a province of Persia, between Media and the Persian gulf, which, from the death of Alexander, was governed by its own kings, there stood two famous rich temples, the one of Diana, the other of Jupiter Belus. Antiochus, after his fall, being in extreme want of money, marched to Elymais, and in the night plundered this temple of Belus, but the inhabitants pursued and slew him, and recovered the treasure.² The Jews had often done important services to this king, and to several of his predecessors, particularly in the reign of his father Seleucus II. When a numerous army of Gauls or Galatians had invaded Babylonia, and the Syrians and Macedonians had not courage to meet them in the field, six thousand Jews boldly attacked, and, by the divine assistance, defeated and repulsed them, having slain a hundred and twenty thousand of them.³

Seleucus III., eldest son of Antiochus, succeeded him in the throne, and continued for some time to favor the Jews as his father had done. The Jews were then in such high esteem, that sovereign princes courted their friendship, and made magnificent presents to the temple; and Seleucus furnished out of his own treasury all the expenses of it. Judæa enjoyed a profound peace; and their laws were observed with a religious strictness under their worthy high-priest Onias III.⁴ until a misunderstanding which happened between him and Simon, a powerful man of the tribe of Benjamin, and governor of the temple, brought a series of evils on the whole nation. This contest grew to such a height, that Simon, finding he could not carry his iniquitous design into execution, or get the better of the zealous high-priest, who had then held that dignity about sixteen years, went away to Apollonius, governor of Cœlosyria and Palestine under Seleucus, and acquainted him that there were immense treasures deposited in the temple of Jerusalem, which might be seized upon for the king’s use. The governor sent to inform Seleucus of the matter, who, being in distress for money to pay the Roman tribute, was taken with the bait, and despatched Heliodorus to fetch the treasure away to Antioch.

When this officer was arrived at Jerusalem, and had disclosed his commission to the high-priest, the pontiff made the strongest remonstrances against the sacrilegious attempt, urging that the sacred treasure consisted of things consecrated to God, or the deposits of orphans and widows. Heliodorus, still intent upon executing the king’s orders, entered the place with a body of armed men; and, as he was about to seize upon the treasure, there appeared a man on horseback in shining armor, who flew upon him with the utmost fury, and whose horse struck him with his fore feet. There were seen at the same time two other young men, strong, beautiful, and glorious; who, standing by him, one on each side, scourged him severely. Heliodorus fell down to the ground half-dead; and all that presumed to accompany him were struck with fear and trembling. Being carried out in a litter almost dead, he continued in this condition till some of his friends entreated Onias to call upon God to grant him his life; who having offered a sacrifice for the man’s recovery, he was restored to health. He thereupon went back to Antioch, and made a faithful relation to the king of all that had befallen him; adding that, if he had any enemy whom he desired to get rid of, he needed but send him to rifle that sacred place, and he would see him come back in such a condition as would convince him that the Jewish temple was under the protection of some divine and irresistible power.⁵ Heaven did not long defer punishing this king for his sacrilegious attempt, by that very hand which he had employed in it. Seleucus had agreed with the Romans to send his own son Demetrius, then ten years old, to remain an hostage at Rome in the place of his brother Antiochus, who should be allowed to return to Syria. During the absence of the two heirs to the crown, Heliodorus cut off Seleucus by poison, and placed himself on the throne. Antiochus, who was then at Athens on his return, obtained by great promises the assistance of Eumenes, king of Pergamus, and of Attalus, that king’s brother, who led him into Syria with a powerful army, and driving out the usurper, left him in quiet possession of the kingdom. Antiochus took the title of Epiphanes, or The Illustrious, though by the whole series of his life he better deserved that of Vile or Despicable, which was given him long before his birth by the prophet Daniel,⁶ and which is confirmed by Polybius and Philarchus, his contemporaries, quoted by Athenæus. Livy and Diodorus Siculus say, that he would frequently ramble about the streets of Antioch with two or three lewd companions, drink and carouse with the dregs of the people, and intrude himself into the parties of the vilest rakes, and be their ringleader in wanton frolics, public lewdness, and a thousand ridiculous follies, without any regard to virtue, law, decency, or his royal character: above all other vices, he was addicted to drunkenness and lust, and most profuse and extravagant in squandering away his revenues; on which see Guyon, Hist. des Emp. t. 7, p. 218. Upon the death of Ptolemy Epiphanes in Egypt, and his widow Cleopatra, a war was lighted up between the Syrians and the two Ptolemies, the elder brother surnamed Philometor, and the younger Physcon or Big-bellied, who reigned sometimes jointly, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other alone, as their parties prevailed; though the latter survived, and was the most profligate and barbarous tyrant that ever reigned in Egypt.

Joshua or Jesus, the wicked brother of Onias the good high-priest, blinded by ambition, changed his name into that of Jason, which he thought more conformable and pleasing to the Greeks, and repairing to Antiochus Epiphanes as soon as he was settled on the throne, for the price of four hundred and forty talents of silver, procured from him the high-priesthood, and an order that Onias should not only be deposed, but sent to Antioch, and confined to dwell there. Jason, apostatizing in many articles from the Jewish religion, gave Antiochus another sum of a hundred and fifty talents of silver for the liberty of erecting at Jerusalem a gymnasium, or place of public exercises, such as were practised in Greece, with an academy for training up of youth in the fashion and manners of the heathens; and for the liberty of making such as he thought fit free of the city of Antioch. By this bait he drew many Into his apostasy, whom commerce with the heathens, and vanity of interest had already disposed to prefer worldly advantages to those which are to come. Jason had not enjoyed his ill-gotten dignity three years when another Jew, brother of the treacherous Simon above-mentioned,⁷ changed his name Onias into that of Menelaus, bought the high-priesthood of Antiochus for three hundred talents more, and outdid Jason in his apostasy, endeavoring to engage the Jews to forsake their religion, and wholly to conform to that of the heathens. He procured Onias, the true high-priest, to be put to death at Antioch.

Dreadful signs in the heavens prognosticated the evils that were to befall the city of Jerusalem.⁸ They were begun by the seditions raised by Jason and Menelaus. Upon a false report that Antiochus was slain in the Egyptian war, Jason came out of the land of the Ammonites, and at the head of a thousand men possessed himself of the city and temple of Jerusalem. But he was obliged to retire upon the approach of Antiochus, who led his army from Egypt to Jerusalem; and, in the space of three days, killed in that city four score thousand Jews, sold forty thousand to neighboring nations for slaves,⁹ and made as many more prisoners. His fury did not stop here. He caused the traitor Menelaus, who had recovered his good graces, to lead him into the most holy recesses of the temple, and he laid his impious hands upon all that was most sacred. He seized the golden altar of incense, the golden table of the shewbread, the golden candlestick, the censers, vessels, and other holy utensils, and the crowns, golden shields, and other ornaments which had been dedicated to the temple, besides one thousand eight hundred talents of gold and silver, which he forcibly took out of the treasury. He took away the gold plating that covered the gates, the veil of the innermost sanctuary, and all that was valuable, whether for its metal or workmanship. After this, leaving Philip, a most brutish Phrygian, governor of Judæa, and the impious Menelaus in possession of the high priesthood, he returned to Antioch in triumph, “thinking through pride, that he might now make the land navigable, and the sea passable on foot; such was the haughtiness of his mind.”¹⁰ He thence set out at the head of a numerous army on another expedition into Egypt, having nothing less in view than the entire conquest of that rich kingdom. He reduced the country as far as Memphis, and there received the submission of most of the other cities and provinces. Thence he marched towards Alexandria, but at Eleusina, a village but four miles from that city, was met by Caius Popilius Lænas, Caius Decimius, and Caius Hostilius, three ambassadors sent by the Roman senate, with an order that he should suspend all hostilities, and put an end to the war; which, if he refused to do, the Roman people would no longer look upon him as their friend and ally. Popilius delivered to him this decree at the head of his army; and when the king desired leave to advise with his council about an answer, the ambassador drew a circle round him in the sand with the staff he held in his hand, and raising his voice, said, “You shall not go out of this circle, till you either accept or reject the proposal which is made you.” Hereupon the king answered, “I will do what your republic requires of me.”¹¹

Antiochus, exceedingly mortified at this check, led back his army, but being resolved to vent his rage upon the Jews, in his return detached Apollonius with twenty-two thousand men to plunder Jerusalem. Apollonius came to that city dissembling his design under an outward show of a peaceable intention. But on the next sabbath-day, when all things were in proround quiet, he commanded his soldiers to go through the streets, and massacre all persons they should meet; which they did without the least resistance from the Jews, who suffered themselves to be butchered for fear of violating he sabbath. About ten thousand persons who escaped the slaughter were carried away captives; and some others fled. Apollonius then ordered the city to be plundered, and afterward set on fire. The walls were demolished, the service of the temple quite abandoned, and the holy place everywhere polluted. The temple itself was dedicated to Jupiter Olympius, and his statue was erected on the altar of burnt-offerings, which was foretold by Daniel.¹² Sacrifices were begun to be offered to this abominable idol on the king’s birth-day, which was the 25th day of the month Casleu, which answers to part of our November and December.¹³

About the same time the temple of the Samaritans on mount Garizim was dedicated to Jupiter Hospitalis, or the Protector of Strangers; which implied that the Samaritans were not originally natives of that country, but a colony of strangers settled there. These latter strove to prevent the king’s orders; so ready were they to offer sacrifice to their abominable idol. Many also among the Jews, who professed the true religion, apostatized under this persecution; but others courageously sealed their fidelity to the law of God with their blood. Altars and statues were set up in every town of Judæa, and groves were in every part consecrated to idolatrous mysteries; and the Jews were compelled, under pain of death, to offer sacrifice to idols; so that the whole land became a scene of idolatry, debaucheries, and the most horrid butcheries. It was made immediate death to be caught observing the sabbath, the rite of circumcision, or any other part of the Mosaic law. Two women having been discovered to have circumcised their children, were led, with their infants hung about their necks, through the streets of Jerusalem, and at length thrown headlong from the walls. Great multitudes fled into the deserts, and hid themselves among craggy rocks in holes and caverns. Philip the governor, being informed that a considerable number of Jews were assembled in caves to keep the sabbath, marched against them with a sufficient force; and, after having in vain offered them a general amnesty if they would forsake their religion, caused them all, men, women, and children, to be burnt. The persecutors committed to the flames the books of the law of God, and put to death every one with whom those books were found, and whoever observed the law of the Lord; but many determined that they would not eat unclean things, and chose rather to die than to be defiled with forbidden meats, or to break the holy law of God.¹⁴

Among the glorious martyrs who preferred torments and death to the least violation of the divine law, one of the most eminent was Eleazar. He was one of the chief among the scribes or expounders of the law, a man ninety years old; and, notwithstanding his great age, of a comely aspect. His countenance, breathing a mixture of majesty and sweetness, inspired all who approached him with veneration for his person, and confidence in his virtue. The persecutors flattered themselves that they should gain all the rest, if they could succeed in perverting this holy man, whose example held many others steadfast. Him, therefore, they brought upon the butchering stage; and as it was their design not so much to torment as to seduce him, they employed successively threats and promises. Finding these weapons too feeble against so stout a soldier, they had recourse to a most ridiculous act of violence, opening his month by force that they might at least thrust into it some swine’s flesh; not considering that an action in which the heart has no share, can never be construed a criminal transgression of the law; but this free consent was what they could never extort from the martyr. To purchase life by such an infidelity he justly regarded as the basest infamy and crime; and, out of a holy eagerness rather to suffer the most dreadful torments and death he courageously walked of his own accord towards the place of execution. Certain Gentiles or apostates who were his friends, being moved with a false and wicked pity, taking him aside, desired that flesh might be brought which it was lawful for him to eat, that the people might believe that he had eaten swine’s flesh, and the king be satisfied by such a pretended obedience; but the holy old man rejected with horror the impious suggestion, and answered, that by such a dissimulation the young men would be tempted to transgress the law, thinking that Eleazar, at the age of fourscore and ten years, had gone over to the rites of the heathens; adding, that if he should be guilty of such a crime, he could not escape the hand of the Almighty, either alive or dead. Having spoken thus, he was forthwith carried to execution; and they that led him were, by his resolute answer, exceedingly exasperated against him. When he was ready to expire under the stripes, he groaned, and said, “O Lord, whose holy light pierces the most secret recesses of our hearts, thou seest the miseries I endure; but my soul feeleth a real joy in suffering these things for the sake of thy law, because I fear thee.” With these words the holy man gave up the ghost, leaving, by his death, an example of noble courage, and a memorial of virtue to his whole nation.

The glorious conflict of this venerable old man was followed by the martyrdom of seven brothers, who suffered, one after another, the most exquisite torments with invincible courage and constancy; whilst their heroic mother, divested of all the weakness of her sex, stood by, encouraging and strengthening them, in the Hebrew tongue, and last of all died herself with the same cheerfulness and intrepidity. Their victory was the more glorious because they triumphed over the king in person, who seems to have taken a journey to Jerusalem on purpose to endeavor, by the weight of his authority, and by the most barbarous inventions of cruelty, to overcome the inflexible constancy of men who were proof against all the artifices and most barbarous racks of his ministers. Some moderns think they rather suffered at Antioch than at Jerusalem:¹⁵ but this latter city seems the theatre of this as well as of the other transactions related by the sacred writer.¹⁶ By an order of Antiochus, these seven brothers were apprehended with their mother, and tormented with whips and scourges in order to compel them to eat swine’s flesh, against their divine law. The eldest said to the tyrant, “We are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of God.” The king being provoked at this resolute answer, commanded the frying-pans and brazen caldrons to be made hot; then the tongue of him that had spoken thus to be cut out, and the skin of his head to be drawn off, and afterward the extremities of his hands and feet to be chopped off, his mother and the rest of his brothers looking on. When he was maimed in all his parts, the tyrant commanded him, yet alive, to be brought to the fire, and to be fried in a pan. While he was suffering therein a long time, the other brothers and the mother exhorted one another to die manfully, because God, who is glorified by the fidelity of his servants, takes pleasure in beholding them suffering for his truth. The first having thus ended his painful life, the guards advanced with his second brother. The executioner having flayed off all the hair and skin of his beard, face, and head, inquired whether he would eat of the meats the king commanded, before they proceeded any farther, and tormented him. Finding by his answer that ne was in the same noble resolution with his brother, they inflicted on him the same torments. When he was at the last gasp, he said to the king, with a courage and strength which God alone can inspire in those moments, “You indeed destroy our mortal life; but the king of the world, for whose laws we suffer, will raise us up in the resurrection of eternal life.” After him the third was made a laughing-stock; and when he was commanded he quickly put forth his tongue, and courageously stretched out his hands, saying with confidence, “These have I received from heaven, and with pleasure resign them, to bear testimony to the laws of God; and I trust that I shall one day receive them again from the omnipotent hand of Him that gave them.” The king and his courtiers stood amazed at his courage, not understanding by what means religion could inspire such an excess of greatness of soul, by which a tender youth despised, in such an age, the most frightful torments; but the tyrant seeing his power set at naught and foiled, grew more enraged than ever, and after this martyr was dead, without giving himself time to breathe, or to put any questions to the fourth, he commanded him to be flayed, his hands and feet maimed, and his body at length thrown into the burning pan; but he, looking upon the king, said, “Death is our advantage, who meet it with an assured hope in God that he will raise us up again. As for thee, thou wilt have no share in the resurrection to eternal life.” No sooner had his brother finished his course, but the fifth was brought forth to be butchered after the like manner, unless he chose to accept of the conditions of escape; but the executioners finding him resolute, they inflicted on him the same torments with those already mentioned. Being near his end, he told the king, that he ought not to imagine God had entirely forsaken his people, and that he had reason to tremble for himself, for he should very soon find himself and his family overtaken by the divine vengeance. When he was dead, the sixth youth was presently brought forward, and being put into the hands of the bloody executioners, on his refusal to comply with the king’s orders, they immediately fell to work, cutting, slashing, and burning him without being able to shake his constancy. Addressing himself also to the barbarous king in his latter moments, he said, “Deceive not thyself; for though we suffer these things because we have offended God, do not flatter thyself that thou wilt escape unpunished: who hast attempted to fight against God.”

The admirable mother, animated by a lively faith, saw her seven sons slain, one after another, by the most barbarous torments, in the space of one day. Filled with a heavenly wisdom, and more than heroic courage, she overcame the weakness of her sex, and giving nothing to nature, did not let drop one dangerous tear, which might have discouraged her children; all this time she thought of nothing but of securing their victory, to which she animated them by the strongest and most inflamed exhortations. She bravely encouraged every one of them in her own language. “I know not how you were formed in my womb,” said she to them, “you received not a soul or life from me; nor did I frame your limbs. It is God, the Creator of the world, who gave you all this; it is easy to him to repair his own work, and he will again restore to you, in his mercy, that breath and life which you now despise for the sake of his laws.” The tyrant all this while was intent only on the affront which he thought put upon him by the courageous martyrs, who seemed to outbrave his power, to which he desired to make everything bend; and his mind was wholly taken up in carrying his impotent revenge to the utmost extremities; but his rage was turned into despair when he saw himself already so often vanquished, and that of these heroic brothers there now remained only one tender child alive. He earnestly desired at least to overcome him, and for this purpose he had recourse to that feigned compassion which tyrants often make so dangerous a use of, and by a thousand engaging caresses endeavored to seduce him. He called himself his master, his king, and his father; and promised him upon his oath, if he would comply with his desire and turn to his religion, he would make him rich, happy, and powerful; would treat him as his friend, and always rank him among his principal favorites; in a word, that his obedience should be recompensed beyond his utmost desires.

The youth not being yet moved, the king addressed himself also to the mother with a seeming compassion for her loss, and entreated her to prevail upon her only surviving child; in pity to herself at least, to spare this small remnant of the family, and not to give her the affliction of having her whole offspring torn away from her at once. She joyfully undertook to give him counsel, but of a very different kind from that intended by the king; for, bearing towards her son, and leaning to his ear, she said in her own language. “My dear child, now my only one, have pity on me thy mother, who bore thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age. Afflict me not by any base infidelity and cowardice. Look up to the heavens, behold the earth, and the vast variety of creatures in both; and consider, I conjure thee, my son, that God made them all out of nothing, by his almighty power. This is the God whom thou adorest. Have him before thy eyes, and thou wilt not fear this bloody executioner. Show thyself worthy of thy brothers, and receive death with constancy; that I may have the comfort to see you all joined in martyrdom, and meet you in the place of eternal mercy and repose.” The young martyr had scarce patience to hear his mother finish these words, but desiring ardently to complete his sacrifice, and to follow his brothers, cried out to his executioners, “For whom do you wait? I do not obey the command of the king, but the precept of the divine law.” Then addressing himself to the king, he said, “You, who glory in the invention of so much malice and evil against the Hebrews, shall not escape the hand of God. We suffer thus for our sins, yet God will be again reconciled to his servants. My brothers having now undergone a short pain, are under the covenant of eternal life. Like them, I offer up my life and my body for the holy laws of our fathers, begging God to be speedily merciful to our people. In me and in my brothers the wrath of the Almighty, which has been justly brought upon our nation, shall cease.” The king hearing him speak to this purpose, was no longer master of himself; but, condemning himself for having had this little spark of patience, resolved to wreak his vengeance on this tender child with greater excess and cruelty than he had done on all his brothers. This last, therefore, stood the utmost shock of the rage of the executioners, and exhausted both their invention and their strength. Persevering, faithful to his last breath, he deserved to receive the most glorious crown. The mother standing now alone amidst the mangled limbs of her seven sons, triumphed with joy, and embraced their dead bodies with greater tenderness than she had ever embraced them living. She sighed to arrive herself at the like crown of martyrdom, and prayed that God would give her a share in the glory of her sons, to survive whom one day would have been her grief. Antiochus, always the same tyrant, ashamed to yield, and incapable of relenting or forgiving, gave orders that the mother should likewise be tormented, and put to death. She, therefore, was cut off last of all. These martyrs suffered in the year of the world 3837, of the æra of the Seleucidæ 145, before Christ 164.

Antiochus, covered with confusion and shame to see himself vanquished by a weak woman and her children, retired; giving everywhere the strictest orders for the extirpation of the Jewish religion; but God turned his rage and vain projects to his own disgrace and ruin, and raised his people again to a flourishing condition. This was effected by the glorious achievements chiefly of the sons of Mattathias, who, when the temple was profaned, had left Jerusalem, and retired into the mountains near Modin, his native place. He was an eminent priest, of the family of Joarib, which was the first of the twenty-four classes appointed by David to officiate in the temple.¹⁷ He was descended from Aaron by his eldest son and successor Eleazar, and was the son of John, the son of Simon, the son of Asmoneus, from whom the princes of this family, that afterward reigned in Judæa, were called Asmoneans. Mattathias was then very old, and had with him his five sons, John surnamed Gaddis, Simon surnamed Thasi, Judas called Machabeus, Eleazar, and Jonathan. When the officers of king Antiochus arrived at Modin, to compel all the Jews to forsake the true religion, he went to the town; and to encourage others to remain steadfast, declared to those officers that he would continue faithful to God, and, imitating the zeal of Phineas, he slew an apostate who was going to offer sacrifice to an idol. After which he fled into the wilderness, and was followed by others. Dying soon after, in the hundred and sixty-sixth year before Christ, he appointed Judas Machabeus general.¹⁸

This valiant captain, with six thousand men, defeated and slew Apollonius, the governor of Samaria, and a great persecutor of the Jews, who had marched against him with a numerous army. Seron, deputy-governor of Cœlosyria, under Ptolemy Macron the chief governor, advanced with a fresh body of forces, but was overthrown and killed. Philip the Phrygian, governor of Jerusalem, sent to Antioch for succor. Antiochus being absent beyond the Euphrates, Lysias, whom he had left regent, despatched forty thousand foot to Ptolemy Macron, governor of Cœlosyria and Phœnicia, with Nicanor and Gorgias, two experienced commanders; but Judas discomfited Nicanor, burned Gorgias’s camp, and when Timotheus, governor of the country beyond the Jordan, with Bacchides, another famous general, came up, he met and overthrew them in a set battle, killing twenty thousand of their men. Upon this news Lysias, the regent, came in person into Judæa with sixty thousand foot and five thousand horse. Judas, by the divine assistance, gave him an entire overthrow, and obliged him to fly to Antioch. After the retreat of the enemy, Judas purified the temple, celebrated the dedication during eight days, and restored the sacrifices to the true God. This dedication* was performed on the twenty-fifth of the month Casleu, in the hundred and sixtieth year before Christ, the second of Judas’s government, on the very day on which the temple had been polluted by the abomination of desolation, or the statue of Jupiter Olympius set up in it three years before. Judas prospered exceedingly, and performed exploits of valor against three Syrian kings and other enemies of the people of God, far more wonderful, and more glorious than those of the most famous heroes recorded in profane history. He was no less eminent for virtue and religion. He died in battle with great honor in the hundred and fifty-seventh year before Christ, having been general six years, and executed the office of high-priest three years, as Josephus says.

Menelaus the apostate high-priest having been condemned to death by the young king Antiochus IV. or Eupator, son of Epiphanes, and smothered in ashes, Alcimas, an apostate of the race of Aaron, obtained of king Demetrius Soter (who, by the murder of Antiochus Eupator and his regent Lysias, had stepped into the throne) the title of high-priest, and fought against Judas, and his religion and country. Onias, son of Onias III., to whom the high-priesthood belonged, upon the intrusion of Alcimus, retired to Alexandria, and with leave of Ptolemy Philometor built a temple at Heliopolis in Egypt, for the Hellenistical Jews in the year 169 before Christ. Alcimus being struck with a palsy, and carried off by a miserable death, Jonathan the worthy brother of Judas Machabeus, who after his death had been chosen general of the people of God, was appointed lawful high-priest in the hundred and fifty-third year before Christ, and was succeeded in both those dignities by his virtuous and valiant brother Simon. The posterity of this last enjoyed the same, and are called the Asmonean princes. His son and immediate successor, John Hircanus, discharged the functions of that double office with virtue, wisdom and valor; and added to his dominions Idumæa, Samaria, and Galilee. His sons Aristobulus (during a short reign of one year) and Alexander Jannæus, about one hundred and seven years before Christ, assumed the regal diadem and title, but degenerated from the virtue of their ancestors; and from their time pride, hypocrisy, and luxury, began to overrun the Jewish state and nation, and to pave the way to the most grievous of all crimes, the crucifixion of the Son of God, by which that ungrateful people completed the measure of their iniquities.

The servants of God equally triumphed, whether by a glorious death or by temporal victories in the cause of virtue.* Infinitely different was the miserable conflict which the persecutor sustained with himself in the terrible agonies of his unhappy death. Antiochus being much distressed for money, his treasury being always drained by his perpetual follies and extravagant expenses, he marched with fifty thousand men beyond the Euphrates in quest of spoils; but, attempting to plunder a rich temple in Persepolis, and afterward another at Elymais,¹⁹ he was in both places repulsed by the inhabitants. Wherefore he fled with great grief and shame towards Babylonia, and met on the road about Ecbatana an express with news that Judas had defeated Lysias, taken his fortresses in Judæa, and exterminated the idol which he had set up. Swelling with anger, he said he would march straight to Jerusalem, and make it a sepulchre of the Jews. In this fit of rage he commanded his chariot to be driven with the utmost speed, and without stopping. He had no sooner done speaking than God struck him with an incurable disease, and a dreadful pain in his bowels came upon him, and bitter torments of the inner parts. Still breathing revenge in his rage against the Jews, and travelling in great haste, he fell from his chariot and his body was grievously bruised. Then he, who seemed to himself to command the waves of the sea, and to be raised above the condition of man, being cast down to the ground, was carried in a litter: worms swarmed out of his body, and his flesh fell off; and the man who, a little before, thought he could reach to the stars, no man could endure to carry, by reason of the intolerable stench of his body which was noisome to the whole army; and when he was not able to bear the smell of his own flesh, and great grief came upon him, he called for all his friends, and said to them, “Sleep is gone from my eyes, and I am fallen away, and my heart is cast down through anxiety. And I said in my heart: Into what tribulation am I come, and into what floods of sorrow, wherein I now am? I who was pleasant, and beloved in my power; but now I remember the evils that I did in Jerusalem. I know that for this cause these evils have found me: and behold I perish with great grief in a strange land.²⁰ He promised to make Jerusalem a free city, and to favor it with the most honorable privileges, equal to those which the commonwealth of Athens enjoyed; to adorn the temple with great gifts, increase the holy vessels, and allow out of his revenues the charges belonging to the sacrifices; also that he would become a Jew, and go through every place of the earth, and declare the power of God; but his repentance was only founded on temporal motives. Wherefore the Holy Ghost says of him: This wicked man prayed to the Lord, of whom he was not likely to obtain mercy.²¹ He died one hundred and sixty years before the Christian era. See 2 Mach. 5, 6, 7. Joseph. l. de Imperio Rationis. Guyon, t. 7. Univ. Hist. t. 10, p. 275. Calmet on the Machabees. F. Berruyer, t. 7. The feast of the Seven Machabees and their mother was celebrated on the 1st of August in the first ages of the Church, as may be seen by very ancient Calendars, especially that of Carthage.²² Also by those of the Syrians, Arabians, and other Orientals.²³ We have panegyrics in honor of these Martyrs by SS. Greg. Naz. Chrysost. August. Gaudent. and Leo the Great.

SS. Faith, Hope, And Charity, VV. MM.

These three holy sisters suffered many torments and a cruel death for the faith at Rome, in the reign of Adrian. St. Sophia, their mother, gave them these names out of devotion, and her love of the theological virtues. She trained them up in the most perfect sentiments of religion and piety, rejoiced exceedingly to see them honored with the crown of martyrdom, and exhorted them in their conflict. She served God in holy widowhood, and died in peace. She is commemorated on the 30th of September. The names of these saints have been always famous both in the Eastern and Western churches.

Saint Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, C.

This saint was nobly born, and a native of Winchester. Being moved in his youth with an ardent desire totally to devote himself to the divine service, he for some time made it his most earnest request to the Father of lights, that he might find an experienced guide in the paths of salvation. He met with this director in the great St. Dunstan, then abbot of Glastenbury, to whom he addressed himself, and received from his hands the monastic habit. Knowing that heavenly wisdom is an inestimable treasure, to purchase which we must sell all things and exert our whole strength, he bid adieu to all other thoughts and pursuits, and never ceased to sigh, to pray, to weep, and to labor, with all the ardor of his soul, that he might be so happy as to obtain so great a good, to which God himself vouchsafes, in his mercy, to invite us. The earnestness with which he sought daily to improve his soul in perfect virtue, was the surest mark how much the Holy Ghost already reigned in his heart. At the same time his zeal for knowledge made him embrace every branch of the sacred sciences with so much the greater ardor as these studies were become his essential duty. St. Dunstan, after some time, made him dean of his monks. In 947, king Edred* rebuilt and richly endowed the abbey of Abingdon in Berkshire, which had formerly been founded by king Cissa, in 675, and augmented by Ina. Ethelwold was appointed abbot of this great monastery, which he rendered a perfect model of regular discipline, and a nursery of other like establishments. He procured from Corbie a master of church music, and sent Osgar to Fleury, a monastery which at that time surpassed all others in the reputation of strict observance of the most perfect monastic discipline. The fury of the Danes had made such havoc of religious houses, that no monks were then left in all England except in the two monasteries of Glastenbury and Abingdon, as the historian of this latter place, published by Wharton, testifies; and the education of youth, and every other support of learning and virtue, was almost banished by the ravages of those barbarians. These deplorable circumstances awaked the zeal of the virtuous, especially of St. Dunstan, St. Ethelwold, and St. Oswald. These three also set themselves with great industry to restore learning.¹

St. Ethelwold was consecrated bishop of Winchester by St. Dunstan. The disorders and ignorance which reigned among some of the clergy of England occasioned by the Danish devastations, produced a scandalous violation of some of the canons. Ethelwold found these evils obstinate and past recovery among the disorderly secular canons of the cathedral of Winchester. Wherefore he expelled them, allotting to each of them a part of their prebends for their annual subsistence, and placing monks from Abingdon in their room, with whom he kept choir as their bishop and abbot.^† Three of the former canons took the monastic habit, and continued to serve God in that church. The year following, St. Ethelwold expelled the seculars out of the new monastery of Winchester, and placed there monks with an abbot. He repaired the nunnery dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the same city, and bought of the king the lands and ruins of the great nunnery of St. Audry in the isle of Ely, which had been burnt by the Danes a hundred years before; and he erected on the same spot a sumptuous abbey of monks, which king Edgar exceedingly enriched, as is related by Thomas of Ely. He likewise purchased the ruins of Thorney in Cambridgeshire, which he restored in like manner about the year 970.^‡ He assisted and directed Adulph to buy the ruins of Peterborough abbey, and rebuild the same in a most sumptuous manner. The foundation of this house was laid by Peada, the first Christian king of the Mercians, in 646; but it was finished by that king’s brothers Wulphere and Ethelred, and their devout virgin sisters Kineburg and Kinewith, who were there interred. This abbey, after having flourished two hundred years in great reputation for piety, was destroyed by the Danes in 870. Adulph, chancellor to king Edgar, having buried his only son, who died in his infancy in 960, gave his whole estate to this house,* took the monastic habit in it, and was chosen the first abbot. St. Ethelwold, who labored so strenuously to propagate the divine honor, and the sanctification of others, was always solicitous and zealous, in the first place, to adorn his own soul with all virtues, and to make himself in all things a sacrifice agreeable to God; for it is only the humility and charity of the heart that give a value to exterior actions; without these, to give our goods to the poor, and our bodies to the flames, would not avail us. The fervor of devotion and compunction must be always nourished and increased in the breast, or it grows slack, as an arrow shot from a bow loses by degrees its force, and at length falls to the ground. In our saint, the fervent exercise of interior devotion, and the practice of exterior actions of virtue, mutually supported and gave strength to each other. He rested from his labors on the 1st of August, 984, and was buried in the cathedral of Winchester, on the south side of the high altar. Authentic proofs of miracles wrought through his intercession having been made, his body was taken up and solemnly deposited under the altar by St. Elphege, his immediate successor, afterward archbishop of Canterbury, and martyr. See his life written by Wolstan, his disciple, in Mabillon, Act. Ben. Sæc. 5. See also the histories of Glastenbury, Ely, and Abingdon monasteries.

St. Pellegrini or Peregrinus, Hermit

An Irish young prince of royal blood, who, after visiting the holy places in Palestine, led an austere eremitical life for forty years in the chain of mountains near Modena in Italy. He died in 643. He is honored among the patrons of the country of Modena and Lucca, and from him that chain of the Apennine hills is called Monti di S. Pellegrini. See Colgan in MSS. ad 1 Aug and Dempster in his Etruria Regalis, printed at Florence in 1723, in 2 vols. folio, at the expense of Mr. Thomas Coke, afterward earl of Leicester.

¹ Acts 5:19.

* The church of St. Peter in Carcere in Rome stands over the ancient Roman dungeon, called Tulliano from king Tullus Hostilius, who built it; and Mamertino, either from Ancus Martins who enlarged it, or from the neighboring street Mamertino. St. Peter was prisoner here. It is a double, frightful dark cave it a rock. See the history and description In Venustis Rom. Antiq. p. 58.

^† See Florentinius, Not. in Martyr S. Hieronymi

² See Greg. M. l. 3, ep. 30, p. 567, &c.

³ Conc. t. 4. p. 1515.

⁴ L. 3, ep. 30. L. 5, ep. 6. L. 11. ep. 49. L. 6, ep. 23.

⁵ L. 5, ep. 650.

⁶ Serm. 203, in Append. Op. S. Aug. n. 5.

⁷ S. Chrys. hom. 8, in Ephes.

⁸ See Baron. ad ann. 439.

⁹ Loco cit

¹⁰ Ib.

¹¹ St. Aug. ep. 332, alias 42, ad Madaur.

¹² Orsi, l. 2, n. 24, p. 265.

¹³ Eus. l. 7, hist. c. 18.

* Lucian died above a hundred years after St. Paul, and cannot be the author of this Dialogue, as is demonstrated in the notes upon the new edition of Lucian’s works, put out at Amsterdam in 1745. and in the learned dissertation of Gesner, surnamed the German Pliny. Not only the style of this dialogue differs entirely from Lucian’s manner of writing, but this author tells us he had seen St. Paul, and had been baptized by him.

¹⁴ Grabe, Spicil. t. 1.

^† In all ancient Saxon books it is called Hlaf-mass, that is, Loaf-mass, as may be seen in old Saxon MS. books in the Cottonian and other libraries. This name often occurs in the printed Saxon Chronicle, and is particularly described to be the feast of the first fruits of corn, ibid. ad. ann. 921. This etymology is clearly demonstrated by the learned Somner in his Saxon Glossary, v. Hlaf and by Francis Junius in his accurate Dictionarium Etymologicum Anglicanum, published by Mr. Edmund Lye in 1743. Sec also Ham’s Resolves, &c. It was formerly the custom for tenants who held lands of the cathedral of York, to pay on this day a live lamb to that church: but Bailey, Johnson, and others, who derive this name from that custom, or from a supposed offering or tithing of Iambs at this time, never consulted the Saxon Antiquities, the true etymology of the word, or any competent vouchers.

¹⁵ See Hearne on Rob. of Gloc. t. 2, p. 679.

^‡ See Bona de Rebus Liturgicis: also for the Greeks, F. Goar’s notes on the Euchologium, and Constantine Porphyrogenetta, l. 1, de Ceremoniis Aulæ Byzantinæ, c. 78. p. 217, who describes the ceremonies with which the emperor and patriarch went before the vintage from the country palace of Hieria to a neighboring vineyard with a great procession, where, on a marble table, the patriarch blessed a basket of grapes, after which the emperor gave a grape to each patrician. nobleman, and officer among his attendants, &c.; for the Latins, see the notes of Dom. Menard on the Sacramentary of St. Gregory the Great; and the comments of the Jesuit Azevedo, on an ancient missal of the Lateran basilic, published by him at Rome in 1754.

* The ten tribes among the Jews, commonly called the kingdom of Israel, in punishment of their repeated infidelities and obstinate abuse of divine grace, deserved at length to be cast off by Almighty God. In the reign of Phacee, Theglathphalasar, king of Assyria, led away captives the tribes of Nepthali, Ruben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses that bordered on Syria,^*and placed them in the country about Habor, Lahela, and the river Gozan, in Media.^† Seventeen years after this expedition of Theglathphalasar against Phacee, his successor Salmanasar, in the year of the world 3283, before the Christian æra 721, took the city of Samaria under Osee the last king of Israel, and transplanted the residue of those ten tribes into the same country with the former.^‡ This Calmet shows most probably to have been Colchis and its borders,^§ and that some part afterward were dispersed into Great Tartary, others into Mesopotamia, and some returned into Judæa after the Jews had rebuilt Jerusalem; for some remains of them are mentioned in all these places. But they no where formed a body politic, nor retained the distinction of their tribes, as some moderns have pretended.

The tribes of Juda and Benjamin, of which the kingdom of Juda consisted, were subdued by Nabuchodonosor, in the reign of Joakim, in the year of the world 3398, before the Christian æra 606, the first of Nabuchodonosor, when he began to reign with his father Nabopolassar, who dying two years after, in the year of the world 3400, left to him the entire empire of Babylon. Upon the revolt of Joakim, Nabuchodonosor’s general besieged Jerusalem a second time, in 3409, and Joakim being slain, his son Joachim or Jechonias succeeded in the throne; but Nabuchodonosor, coming in person to the siege, took the city, and led away captives to Babylon the new king, and his chief princes, having appointed Sedecias king. This prince also rebelled against the Chaldeans, and sought the alliance of their enemy the king of Egypt. Nabuchodonosor, returning into Judæa, laid siege to Jerusalem, in 3414, defeated the king of Egypt who was marching to relieve it, and took that city in 3416, burned the temple, caused the eyes of Sedecias to be put out, carried him to Babylon, and soon after the whole nation of the Jews, except the poorest sort over whom his general Nabuzardan placed Godolias governor.

Nabuchodonosor, having taken Tyre and conquered Egypt, died in 3442. His son and successor Evilmerodach, after a reign of two years, was slain by Neriglissor, who reigned four years. Cyaxeres II. son of Astyages, king of the Medes, assisted by Cyrus, son of Cambyses (a Persian of low birth) and of Mandana, daughter of the late king Astyages, at the head of the Persians, defeated and slew Neriglissor In 3448. Laborosoarchod, the son of Nenglissor, after a reign of nine months, was killed by Nabonides, called in scripture Baltassar, son of Evilmerodach, in 3449.

Cyrus took Babylon in 3466, and Baltassar being slain, added Chaldæa to the empire of his uncle Cyax ares, called by Daniel Darius the Mede, then sixty-two years old. (Beros. Herodot. Xenophon, Jeremy, Daniel, Usher.) He dying in 3468, Cyrus united in one empire the great kingdoms of the Chaldæans, Medes, and Persians, under the name of the Persian empire. The same year, which was the seventieth from the first taking of Jerusalem by Nabuchodonosor, he gave the Jews leave to return into Palestine, and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. Zorobabel, a prince of the royal house of David, led back a colony of Jews, and laid the foundations of the city; but the Samaritans opposing the undertaking, it was interrupted during the reigns of Cambyses or Assuerus, (Esd. 4:6), and of Smerdis Magus or Artaxerxes. (Esd. 4:7.) But in the second year of Darius Hystaspis, of the world 3483, on the prophets Aggæus and Zachary encouraging the Jews, and with the leave of that prince, the foundations of the temple were laid. (Aggæ, 1:12.) It was completed and dedicated in the eighth year of his reign, and of the world 3488. He filled the throne thirty-six years, and his son Xerxes twenty-one.

In the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, after he was associated by his father Xerxes, and the first after the death of Xerxes Esdras, a holy priest and prophet, obtained leave to lead back from Babylon to Judæa the remainder of his people, and to finish the buildings begun at Jerusalem. In the twentieth year of the same prince, Nehemias, his cup-bearer, a most zealous and virtuous Jew, whether of the tribe of Juda or of Levi is uncertain, procured the most ample authority to encompass Jerusalem with walls, and to restore its splendor; which authority was again confirmed to him two years after (2 Esd. 2:5). This excellent man re-established over all Judæa the commonwealth of the Jews, though still subject to the Persians. The empire of the latter flourished during two hundred and seven years, under thirteen kings. But the princes that succeeded Artaxerxes Longimanus degenerated from the temperance and valor of their predecessors; and loathing the cresses and salads, which were the abstemious food of Cyrus and the first Persians, abandoned themselves to voluptuousness, at least if we except Artaxerxes Mnemon. It was also a standing defect in this state, that it was not so properly a regular empire as a tumultuous disjointed assemblage of many nations; divided by their languages, interests, laws, customs, and government, which circumstances weakened its power, and rendered its fall inevitable.

Alexander the Great having vanquished the last king of Persia, Darius the son of Codomanus, in the year of the world 3674, before Christ 330, the sixth of his reign, founded the Grecian empire, which he extended in the East as far as the ocean. This rapid conqueror, who is compared in Daniel to a pard with four wings (Dan. 7:6). flew rather than marched; and in the space of six years made himself master of all the East. Having reigned twelve years, he fell sick at Babylon; and this lord of so many empires, and terror of so many kings, saw himself suddenly in the jaws of death, and divided his empire among his captains. (1 Mac. 1:7. See Calmet.) He left his wife Roxana with child, and her son when born was name Alexander, and styled king under the regency of his weak uncle, called Aridæus or Philip. But Perdiccas general of the household troops, Ptolemy in Egypt, Antipater in Macedon, Eumenes in Cappadocia, Antigonus in Phrygia, Lysimachus In Thrace, Laomedon In Syria, Cassander in Carla, Scleucns, general of the royal cavalry and governor of Babylon, and others, under the title of governors, acted the part of kings (Arrian. de Exped. Alex. Diodor. Justin.) Perdiccas, attacking Ptolemy, was slain. Antigonus made great conquests in Asia, and Cassander in Macedon; this latter his already murdered Olympias the mother of Alexander, caused his widow Roxana and his son Alexander Ægus, then about fourteen year, of age, to be secretly put to death by the keeper of the castle wherein they were confined. Hercules, the eldest son of Alexander by a concubine, was also treacherously murdered by him. The ambitious Antigonus, flushed with success, was the first among the captains that put a crown upon his own head in Asla and sent another to his son Demetrius. This was immediately imitated by Ptolemy in Egypt After which Scleucus, Lysimachus, and Cassander also took the title of king. Antigonus was slain, four years after, In battle, by Seleucus, and after various vicissitudes of fortune in Macedon and in Asia, Demetrius fell into his hands; and though he was honorably treated by him, died of grief when he had been a prisoner three years.

After various struggles, the empire of Alexander remained divided into four principal kingdoms. That of Macedon, founded by Antipater, devolved successively on Cassander, Demetrius, Pyrrhus king of Epirus, and Ptolemy; but at length was settled in the line of Antigonus king of Asia, by Antigonus Gonatas, son of Dometrius. That of Egypt was founded by Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, surnamed Soter, three hundred and four years before Christ. This prince was th