The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March
In the Martyrology attributed to S. Jerome, in those of Ado, Notker, Rabanus Maurus, and many others, on this day is marked, "In Jerusalem, our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified," or words to this effect. This being by many supposed to be the day of the month on which Christ died. In an ancient Roman Martyrology, published by Rosweydus, on March 25th is inserted, "Annuntiatio Dominica et Crucifixio." Some ancient lines on this day, which occur in some Martyrologies, deserve quotation: "In hac die multa, mirabilia facta sunt, quæ notantur in his versibus": —
"Salve festa dies, quæ vulnera nostra coerces;Angelus est missus, est Christus in cruce passus.Est Adam factus, et eodem tempore lapsus.Ob meritum decimæ cadit Abel fratris ab ense,Offert Melchisedech, Isaac supponitur aris,Est decollatus Christi Baptista Joannes.Est Petrus ereptus, Jacobus sub Herode peremptus.Corpora Sanctorum cum Christe multa resurgunt.Latro dulce tamen per Christum sucipit. Amen."Molanus, in his additions to Usuardus, adds to the two mysteries of the Annunciation and the Crucifixion, "On the same day the genesis of the world; also the victory of Michael, the archangel, over the dragon." This victory is commemorated on this day in many old martyrologies. An old Brussels MS. Martyrology adds, "On the same day the formation of Adam and his ejection from Paradise." Many insert the death of Abel; in that of Canisius, "Abel the just, the proto-martyr of the Old Testament, at once virgin, priest, and martyr, and the first of mankind to die." Also the sacrifice of Melchisedek, and the sacrifice of Isaac, are inserted on this day in many martyrologies. In some likewise, "On this day Israel crossed the Red Sea"; in some, "S. Veronica, who wiped the face of Christ"; in some also the decollation of S. John the Baptist, the passion of S. James, and the liberation of S. Peter.
March 25.
But in the Greek Menæa, March 23rd is marked as that of the "Crucifixion and memorial of the Penitent Thief": on March 22nd is commemorated the Last Supper; on March 24th the Repose in the Tomb; and on March 25th, the Resurrection.
THE PENITENT THIEF[Modern Roman Martyrology.]
The modern Roman Martyrology has on this day: "In Jerusalem the commemoration of the Blessed Thief, who confessed Christ on the Cross, and merited to hear from him: This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." Baronius, in his notes to the Martyrology, adds that the thief is traditionally called Dimas, under which name chapels have been dedicated to him, but that as this name is derived from apocryphal sources, it is not sanctioned by the Roman Martyrology. Masinus asserts that the body of S. Dimas, the Penitent Thief, is preserved in the church of SS. Vitalis and Agricola at Bologna.
S. QUIRINUS, M(A.D. 269.)[Roman Martyrology. Another S. Quirinus on March 30th, and another on June 4th. The Quirinus on this day, March 25th, is mentioned in the Acts of SS. Maris, Martha, Andifax, and Habakkuk (Jan. 19th), which are genuine. All other accounts of Quirinus are fabulous.]
Quirinus is said, but the statement is palpably false, to have been the son of the emperor Philip, and to have been converted by his Christian mother, Severa. Putting this idle fable aside, we know of Quirinus only that he was executed with the sword in prison in 269, and the body was thrown into the Tiber, but was recovered by a priest named Pastor, who buried it in the Pontiani cemetery, whence it was removed in the pontificate of pope S. Zacharias (March 15th), and it found a shrine and resting-place eventually in the monastery of Tengern-see, in Bavaria. A spring of naphtha rising there goes by the name of Quirinus-oil.
The S. Quirinus of Rome commemorated on March 30th, according to the Roman Martyrology, is supposed to have been a military tribune, chiefly from the fact that he has been represented in armour seated on horseback. He is the patron Saint of Cologne, Correggio, and Neuss. This S. Quirinus is often represented with a falcon, which circumstance has been said to indicate his high birth, and has also led to his being reputed to have been of the Imperial family, and so being identified with the S. Quirinus commemorated on March 25th. The real reason for the falcon's presence seems, however, to lie in the story related of his martyrdom (see page 504).
S. IRENÆUS, B. M(A.D. 304.)[By the Greeks on Aug. 25th; by the Latins on this day, or March 6th or 25th. Authorities: – The authentic Acts of his martyrdom.]
S. Irenæus, bishop of Sirmich or Mitrovitz on the Save, in Pannonia, the modern Hungary, died on March 25th, in the year 304. He was arrested by order of Probus, the governor of Pannonia, and was led before his tribunal. All his family were present. His mother, wife, and children surrounded him, and some of the younger children clung to his knees and implored him not to leave them. His wife cast her arms round his neck and burst into tears on his breast, and conjured him to submit to the imperial edict so as to preserve himself for her and his innocent children. The governor joined in this attempt to shake his constancy. But S. Irenæus said, "Our Lord Jesus Christ hath declared that the man who loveth father or mother, wife or children, more than Him, is not worthy of Him, so that I forget I am a father, a husband, and a son."
Irenæus was then ordered to have his head struck off and his body cast into the river Save.
S. DULA, V. M(DATE UNKNOWN.)[Roman and most ancient Western Martyrology.]
Nothing is known of this saint, except that she was a servant or slave-girl – as indeed her name implies – to a soldier at Nicomedia, and that she steadfastly resisted his importunities, till, exasperated at her opposition to his passion, he killed her, in an explosion of anger. Her real name is unknown; the name Dula is simply the Greek word for servant-maid.
S. CAMIN OF INISKELTRA, AB(A.D. 653.)[Irish Martyrologies. Authority: – Scattered notices in lives of other Irish saints collected by Colgan.]
S. Camin was of the princely house of Hy-kinselogh by his father Dima, a half-brother of Guair, king of Connaught, by his mother Cumania. Little else is recorded of him, until he retired to the island of Iniskeltra, in Lough Derg, where he led a very austere and solitary life, but after some time was obliged to erect a monastery to accommodate the numbers of disciples who resorted to him. Although of a delicate constitution, he closely applied himself to ecclesiastical studies, and wrote a commentary on the Psalms, collated with the Hebrew text.
S. HUMBERT, P. C(ABOUT A.D. 680.)[Belgian, French, and German Martyrologies. Authority: – A life of S. Humbert by a monk of Marolles, in the 13th cent., based apparently on older documents.]
This saint was born at Maizières, on the river Oise, in the province anciently called Upper Picardy; his parents were noble, and the virtue of his father Everard obtained for him, after his death, the title of Benedictus, or the Blessed. The child from infancy showed the utmost delight in the practice of religion, and his parents took him to a monastery in Laon, where he received the clerical tonsure. He was educated and ordained priest in the monastery, and remained in it till the death of his parents, when he was obliged to leave it that he might take possession and dispose of his inheritance, which was considerable. He left the city of Laon with the blessing of the bishop, and the sanction of his superiors, and returned to Maizières, where he lived in great retirement. After a while he received S. Amandus, who had just laid aside his bishopric of Maestricht, and was on his way to Rome with S. Nicasius, monk of Elno. He accompanied them to Italy. One night as they were camping on their journey a bear attacked their sumpter horse, and killed it. When Humbert went in quest of the horse next morning to lay on it the baggage, he found it lying dead on the grass, and the bear mangling it. Humbert at once ordered the wild beast to come to him, and when it obeyed he laid on it the pack-saddle and the baggage, and made the bear carry for them all they needed till they reached the gates of Rome, when he dismissed Bruin, who retired, looking every now and then behind him, as if expecting a recall.
He afterwards made a second pilgrimage to Rome, and on his return from it, he went to visit S. Amandus in his monastery of Elno, on the Scarpe; and after having deliberated with him on a suitable place for a retreat, he retired into the monastery of Marolles, or Maroilles, in Hainault, on the little river Hespres, which flows into the Sambre. This house had been built shortly before by count Rodobert, or Chonebert, in his territory of Famart. Humbert having resolved to spend the rest of his days there, gave to the new monastery all his lands at Maizières, in 671. It was then a poor little cell lost in a forest, but this donation made it very wealthy. A story is told of Humbert at Marolles which resembles many recorded in the lives of other saints, and which shows that the old hermits and monks were the protectors of wild animals.
One day as Humbert was busy tearing up the brambles and thistles which covered the land which he was desirous of reclaiming, and had cast off his cloak on account of the heat, the horns of the hunters proclaimed that a large party was engaged in the chase near the monastery, and shortly after he saw a frightened beast which the dogs pursued dart over the open ground and fall panting and wearied out on his cloak. The dogs surrounded the mantle, yelping, but did not venture to fall on the wild creature, and the arrows of the hunters fell short of the mark. Seeing this remarkable interposition in behalf of the poor animal, the sportsmen withdrew, highly extolling the virtue of the holy man who by his mantle could protect a beast from injury.
Humbert seldom left his monastery, except to meet S. Aldegunda, abbess of Maubeuge, with whom he had contracted an intimate union of charity and prayers. He is sometimes called abbot or superior of Marolles; at all events he had disciples, in whose arms he died, about the year 680, on March 25th.
In art he is represented with a bear by his side, and a cross marked on his shaven crown, which, according to the legend, was miraculously impressed.
S. ALFWOLD, B. OF SHERBORNE(A.D. 1075.)[Mayhew in Trophæa Cong. Angl. O.S.B.; Gabriel Bucelinus in his Menologium Benedictinum. Hieron. Porter, in his Flores Vitarum Sanct. Angliæ. Authorities: – William of Malmesbury, and Henry Knyghton.]
In the reign of the Confessor, Alfwold, a monk of Winchester was raised to the bishopric of Sherborne. At that time the English people were greatly addicted to the pleasures of the table, and it was expected of the bishops to keep open house and have their tables well provided with abundant and delicate fare. But Alfwold, though ready to show all hospitality, lived plainly himself, drinking water out of a common bowl, and eating out of a wooden platter. He had S. Cuthbert's life and example ever before his eyes, and repeated to himself constantly the antiphon for his festival, "The blessed bishop Cuthbert, a man perfect in all things, in the midst of a crowd remained a monk, and to all was venerable." He visited Durham, and opening the shrine of S. Cuthbert addressed him lovingly as a friend, and deposited by his side a token of his regard.
S. WILLIAM, CHILD M(A.D. 1144.)[Anglican Martyrologies. But the day of his invention, April 15th, was observed as his festival at Norwich. Authority: – An account of his martyrdom in Capgrave.]
According to the legend related by Capgrave, there lived in Norwich in the 12th century a couple named Wenstan and Elwina, of the peasant class, who became parents of a boy, named William. One day Wenstan went to a feast and took his little son with him. During the meal a beggar came in with irons on his hands, worn as an act of penance; the child put out his hands to touch the chains and manacles, and instantly they broke and fell at the feet of the mendicant. At the age of seven the boy was so filled with the ardour of self-mortification, that he fasted three days in the week, and was constantly in the church singing psalms and reciting prayers.
On the Passover in 1144, some Jews of Norwich took the child, and having strangled him, crucified him, and then took the body in a sack out of the town, to bury it in a wood. But a certain Aelward saw them entering the wood, and followed them. Then, in alarm, the Jews ran away, and considering that their only chance of safety lay in bribing the viscount, who was chief magistrate of the town, they offered him a hundred marks of silver if he would hush the matter up. The viscount took the money, sent for Aelward, and threatened and persuaded him to hold his tongue about what he had seen. Aelward kept the secret for five years, till he was on the point of death, when the martyred boy appeared to him, and bade him disclose what he had witnessed. Now at the same time, early in the morning, a nun was walking in the wood, when she came suddenly on a child's body lying at the foot of an oak tree, with two ravens fluttering over it, and the woman was so frightened that she ran into Norwich and told what she had seen. Then a crowd of people went forth and took up the body, which though it had lain five years unburied in the wood, was incorrupt, and brought it into Norwich; at the same time Aelward made his confession, and thus the whole of the circumstances were made clear; the people readily concluding that this newly found body was the same that had been left by the Jews, according to Aelward's account, unburied in the wood, five years before. The body was buried, and a rose bush was planted at the head, about the festival of S. Michael, (Sept. 29th), and it at once put forth fresh leaves and flowers, and bloomed till the feast of S. Edmund, (Nov. 20th). Many miracles were performed at the grave. It does not appear that this discovery was followed by a massacre of the Jews.
Throughout the Middle Ages three accusations were constantly brought against the Jews by the populace; all three were denounced by the authorities of the time as imaginary. They were accused of killing children. A law of the duke of Poland, in 1264, renewed in 1343, rebuked those who made this charge, and required that it should be substantiated by the testimony of three Jews. They were accused of poisoning the wells. Pope Innocent IV. in a bull denounced this charge, and in 1349, the king of the Romans ordered that the Jews in Luxemburg should be protected against the insolence of the people, because, said he, the pope and he regarded them as innocent of the many crimes attributed to them. Lastly, they were accused of sacrilege. The Abbé Fleury, in his Ecclesiastical History gives one instance of the manner in which this charge was made, "In a little town called Pulca, in the diocese of Passau, a layman found a bloody Host before the house of a Jew, lying in the street upon some straw. The people thought that this Host was consecrated, and washed it and took it to the priest, that it might be taken to the church, where a crowd full of devotion assembled, supposing that the blood had flowed miraculously from wounds dealt it by the Jews. On this suspicion, and without any other examination, or any other judicial procedure, the Christians fell on the Jews, and killed several of them; but wiser heads judged that this was rather for the sake of pillaging their goods than avenging the pretended sacrilege. This conjecture was fortified by a similar accident which took place a little while before at Neuburg, in the same diocese of Passau, where a certain clerk placed an unconsecrated Host steeped in blood in the church, but confessed afterwards in the presence of the bishop Bernhard and other persons deserving of credit, that he had dipped these Hosts in blood for the purpose of rousing hostility against the Jews."89
If, however, we consider the intolerable treatment of the Jews throughout the Middle Ages, it makes it by no means improbable that their pent-up wrongs should have exasperated them into committing acts of vengeance, when they had the opportunity. Through centuries they were ground under an intolerable yoke. They could call nothing really their own, not even their persons. They were obliged to wear a distinctive mark, like outlaws and harlots; if they emigrated, their feudal lords were under mutual agreement to seize them in foreign lands; their children were stolen from them to be baptized; if their wives wished to abjure, they were divorced; they were taxed on going in and coming out of and sojourning in any city; on the smallest pretext, their debtors refused to pay their debts. At Toulouse on every Good Friday a Jew was brought upon the cathedral stairs to have his ears publicly boxed; their lives were at the mercy of every one. The magistrates burnt them, the people massacred them, the kings hunted them down to despoil them of all, when their exchequer was low. All these insults, outrages and injustices must have created an intense hatred of Christianity, and every thing and person that was Christian, and may well have found vent occasionally in some savage murder in parody of the Crucifixion, or sacrilegious outrage on the Blessed Sacrament, which the Jews knew full well was the great object of Christian love and devotion. They would not have been human had it not been so, and though many of the stories of murders and sacrileges told against them were undoubtedly false, yet some may have been true. But at the same time it is impossible to doubt that most of these charges brought against them were invented by their enemies for the purpose of plundering them; and that others had their origin in the imagination of the people, ready to believe anything against those whose strong-boxes they lusted to break open.
The first mention of the crucifixion of a boy by the Jews is in Socrates, (Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. c. 16.) He says that about A.D. 414, at a place called Immestar, between Antioch in Syria and Chalcis, "the Jews, while amusing themselves in their usual way with a variety of sports, impelled by drunkenness, were guilty of many absurdities. At last they began to scoff at Christians, and even at Christ himself; and in derision of the cross and those who put their trust in the Crucified, they seized a Christian boy, and having bound him to a cross, began to laugh and sneer at him. But in a little while they became so transported with fury that they scourged the child until he died under their hands." The emperors being informed of this ordered the delinquents to be punished with the utmost severity.
The Jews in England were accused of having crucified a child in 1160, a boy, Robert, at Bury S. Edmunds, in 1181, at whose tomb miracles were also wrought. Another boy, Hugh, is said to have met with the same fate at Lincoln, in 1255, the place of whose image and shrine is still shown in the cathedral of that city. Matthew Paris, in his English history, under the date 1239, says, "In this year, on the feast of S. Alban, and on the following day, a great massacre and destruction of the Jews took place by order of Geoffry the Templar, a particular councillor of the king, who oppressed, imprisoned, and extorted money from them. At length, after great suffering, these wretched Jews, in order to enjoy life and tranquillity, paid the king a third part of all their money debts, as well as chattels. The original cause of this calamity was the perpetration of a clandestine murder committed by the Jews in the city; and not long after this, owing to a boy having been circumcised by the Jews at Norwich, four of the richest of that community, having been clearly convicted of that offence, were hung."
And again, under 1240, "About this time the Jews circumcised a Christian boy at Norwich; they then kept him to crucify him. The father of the boy, however, from whom the Jews had stolen him, after a diligent search, at length discovered him, and with a loud cry pointed out his son, shut up in a room in one of the Jew's houses. When this came to the knowledge of William de Rele, the bishop, a wise and circumspect prelate (!) and of some other nobles, – that such an insult to Christ might not be passed over unpunished, all the Jews in the city were made prisoners, and when they wished to place themselves under the royal protection, the bishop said, 'These matters belong to the Church, they are not to be decided by the king's court.' Four of the Jews, having been found guilty, were dragged at the tails of horses, and afterwards hung on a gibbet."
Six boys are reported to have been martyred by the Jews at Ratisbon, in 1586; another, named Johannet, at Siegesburg, another at Bacharach, another, S. Richard, at Paris, in 1182, Simon of Trent has already been spoken of (March 24th), and Raderus in his Bavaria Sancta mentions another, George, at Sappendalf, in 1540. There was another S. Richard, child-martyr at Pontoise; and the last we hear of was in 1650, in Bohemia.90
March 26
S. Castulus, M. at Rome, circ. A.D. 286.
SS. Montanus and Maxima, MM. at Sirmium.
SS. Bathus, P.M., Verca and Children, MM. among the Goths, circ. A.D. 370.
S. Eutychius, Subd. M. at Alexandria, A.D. 356.
S. Felix, B. of Treves, circ. A.D. 426.
S. Braulio, B. of Saragossa, A.D. 646.
S. Mochelloc, Ab., in Ireland, between A.D. 639-656.
S. Ludger, B. of Munster, Ap. of Westphalia, A.D. 809.
S. Basil the Less, H. at Constantinople, circ. A.D. 952.
S. CASTULUS, M(ABOUT A.D. 286.)[Roman and almost all Latin Martyrologies. In the Archdiocese of Prague the feast of this saint is kept as a double; so also in the dioceses of Ratisbon, Frisingen, and Passau. By the Greeks on Dec. 18th. Authorities: – The Acts, and another account of his passion in the Acts of S. Sebastian.]
Saint Castulus, chamberlain of the palace to Diocletian, was wont to receive Christians into his house, and screen them from the pursuit of the magistrates. He was denounced to Fabian, the prefect of the city, who, after having tortured him in many ways, had him cast into a pit and buried in sand. He was betrayed by a renegade Christian named Torquatus, the same whom Cardinal Wiseman has introduced into his historical sketch of "Fabiola."
SS. MONTANUS AND MAXIMA, MM(DATE UNCERTAIN.)[Roman Martyrology, and those of Bede and S. Jerome. Authority: – The notices in the Martyrologies.]
S. Montanus was a priest at Sirmium, in Pannonia, and Maxima was his wife. They were drowned for the faith either in a river or in a lake; probably during the persecution of Maximian.
SS. BATHUS, P., VERCA, AND THEIR CHILDREN, MM(ABOUT A.D. 370.)[Greek Menæa and Menology of the Emp. Basil the Younger.]
Bathus, a Gothic priest, his wife Verca, their two sons and two daughters, and some others were burned in the church by the Gothic Jungeric. Gaatha, a Gothic queen, collected their relics, and conveyed them into Roumania; but on her return she was stoned to death.
S. BRAULIO, B. OF SARAGOSSA(A.D. 646.)[Roman Martyrology. Saragossa Martyrology on March 18th. Authority: – The letters of his great friend S. Isidore.]
S. Braulio is traditionally said to have been divinely designated for the episcopate, when the clergy and people were assembled to elect to the vacant see of Saragossa, by the appearance of a tongue of flame on his head. He was an intimate friend of S. Isidore, bishop of Hispalis, or Seville, and he has been by some writers erroneously called the brother of Isidore and Leander. S. Braulio sat in the 5th and 6th Councils of Toledo. After having held the bishopric twenty years he died. The day of his death was spent in incessant psalmody. A pleasing modern legend, which the Bollandists have shown to be without ancient authority, tells that he heard angelic voices chant in choir, "Arise, my friend, and come away," to which he replied, "Behold, here am I."
S. LUDGER, B. OF MUNSTER(A.D. 809.)[Roman Martyrology, Molanus and Greven in their additions to Usuardus. The Treves Martyrology, those of Utrecht and S. Gudule at Brussels, the Benedictine Martyrology, and many others. Authorities: – His life by Altfrid, B. of Münster, his disciple, derived from personal knowledge, or from information furnished by the saint's brother Hildegrim, or by his nephew, Gerfried, or by his sister, Heriburgh. There are other lives of him in prose, and three styled litanies, written in rhyme. One of the former is by an anonymous Frieslander, a contemporary; another by the monks of Werden, composed about 890. Our saint's name appears in three forms: viz., Ludger, Liudger, and Luidger. He is commonly called Ludger, a spelling he himself adopts in his life of Gregory, abbot of Utrecht. He is styled Liudger both in Altfrid's life of him, and in the verses sent to him from York by a disciple of Alcuin.]
