The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints. January, February, March

by Alban Butler

FEBRUARY XX.

SS. TYRANNIO, BISHOP OF TYRE,

ZENOBIUS, AND OTHERS, MARTYRS IN PHOENICIA, ETC.

From Eusebius, Hist l. 8, c.7, 13, 25. St. Jerom in Chron. Euseb.

A.D. 304, 310.

EUSEBIUS, the parent of church history, and an eye-witness of what he relates concerning these martyrs, gives the following account of them. "Several Christians of Egypt, whereof some had settled in Palestine, others at Tyre, gave astonishing proofs of their patience and constancy in the faith. After innumerable stripes and blows, which they cheerfully underwent, they were exposed to wild beasts, such as leopards, wild bears, boars, and bulls. I myself was present when these savage creatures, accustomed to human blood, being let out upon them, instead of devouring them, or tearing them to pieces, as it was natural to expect, stood off, refusing even to touch or approach them, at the same time that they fell foul on their keepers, and others that came in their way.[1] The soldiers of Christ were the only persons they refused, though these martyrs, pursuant to the order given them, tossed about their arms, which was thought a ready way to provoke the beasts, and stir them up against them. Sometimes, indeed, they were perceived to rush towards them with their usual impetuosity, but, withheld by a divine power, they suddenly withdrew; and this many times, to the great admiration of all present. The first having done no execution, others were a second and a third time let out upon them, but in vain; the martyrs standing all the while unshaken, though many of them very young. Among them was a youth of not yet twenty, who had his eyes lifted up to heaven, and his arms extended in the form of a cross, not in the least daunted, nor trembling, nor shifting his place, while the bears and leopards, with their jaws wide open, threatening immediate death, seemed just ready, to tear him to pieces; but, by a miracle, not being suffered to touch him, they speedily withdrew. Others were exposed to a furious bull, which had already gored and tossed into the air several infidels who had ventured too near, and left them half dead: only the martyrs he could not approach; he stopped, and stood scraping the dust with his feet, and though he seemed to endeavor it with his utmost might, butting with his horns on every side, and pawing the ground with his feet, being also urged on by red-hot iron goads, it was all to no purpose. After repeated trials of this kind with other wild beasts, with as little success as the former, the saints were slain by the sword, and their bodies cast into the sea. Others who refused to sacrifice were beaten {434} to death, or burned, or executed divers other ways." This happened in the year 304, under Veturius, a Roman general, in the reign of Dioclesian.

The church on this day commemorates the other holy martyrs, whose crown was deferred till 310. The principal of these was St. Tyrannio, bishop of Tyre, who had been present at the glorious triumph of the former, and encouraged them in their conflict. He had not the comfort to follow them till six years after; when, being conducted from Tyre to Antioch, with St. Zenobius, a holy priest and physician of Sidon, after many torments he was thrown into the sea, or rather into the river Orontes, upon which Antioch stands, at twelve miles distance front the sea. Zenobius expired on the rack, while his sides and body were furrowed and laid open with iron hooks and nails. St. Sylvanus, bishop of Emisa, in Phoenicia, was, some time after, under Maximinus, devoured by wild beasts in the midst of his own city, with two companions, after having governed that church forty years. Peleus and Nilus, two other Egyptian priests, in Palestine, were consumed by fire with some others. St. Sylvanus, bishop of Gaza, was condemned to the copper mines of Phoenon, near Petra, in Arabia, and afterwards beheaded there with thirty-nine others.

St. Tyrannio is commemorated on the 20th of February, in the Roman
Martyrology, with those who suffered under Veturius, at Tyre, in 304.
St. Zenobius, the priest and physician of Sidon, who suffered with him
at Antioch, on the 29th of October: St. Sylvanus of Emisa, to whom the
Menology gives many companions, on the 6th of February: St. Sylvanus of
Gaza, on the 29th of May.

* * * * *

The love of Christ triumphed in the hearts of so many glorious martyrs, upon racks, in the midst of boiling furnaces, or flames, and in the claws or teeth of furious wild beasts. How many inflamed with his love have forsaken all things to follow him, despising honors, riches, pleasures, and the endearments of worldly friends, to take up their crosses, and walk with constancy in the narrow paths of a most austere penitential life! We also pretend to love him: but what effect has this love upon us? what fruit does it produce in our lives? If we examine our own hearts, we shall be obliged to confess that we have great reason to fear that we deceive ourselves. What pains do we take to rescue our souls from the slavery of the world, and the tyranny of self-love, to purge our affections of vice, or to undertake any thing for the divine honor, and the sanctification of our souls? Let us earnestly entreat our most merciful Redeemer, by the power of this his holy love, to triumph over all his enemies, which are our unruly passions, in our souls, and perfectly to subdue our stubborn hearts to its empire. Let it be our resolution, from this moment, to renounce the love of the world, and all self-love, to seek and obey him alone.

Footnotes:
1. Rufinus adds, that these beasts killed several of the keepers and
spectators. It is in this sense that some have translated this
passage with Nicephorus. See Vales. In Annot. p. 165. But it seems
improbable that the spectators, who were separated from the arena by
iron rails, and seated on stone benches gradually ascending ten or
twenty men deep all round, should be killed or injured by the
beasts, unless some were so rash as to venture within the rails with
the keepers; which we see several do in the combats of wild beasts.
This, therefore, we are to restrain to the keepers and those who
kept them company.

S. SADOTH, BISHOP OF SELEUCIA AND CTESIPHON,

WITH 128 COMPANIONS, MARTYRS.

From his genuine acts in Metaphrastes, Bollandus, and Ruinart; but more correctly in the original Chaldaic given us by Assemani, t. 1, p. 83. Orsi, Hist. t. 5, l. 13. See Le Quien, Oriens Christ. t. 2, p. 1108.

A.D. 342.

SADOTH, as he is called by the Greeks and Latins, is named in the original Persian language, Schiadustes, which signifies "friend of the king," from schiah, king, and dust, friend. His unspotted purity of heart, his ardent zeal, and the practice of all Christian virtues, prepared him, from his {435} youth, for the episcopal dignity, and the crown of martyrdom. St. Simeon, bishop of Selec, or Seleucia, and Ctesiphon, then the two capital cities of Persia, situate on the river Tigris, being translated to glory by martyrdom, in the beginning of the persecution raised by Sapor II., in 341, St. Sadoth was chosen three months after to fill his see, the most important in that empire, but the most exposed to the storm. This grew more violent on the publication of a new edict against the Christians, which made it capital to confess Christ. To wait with patience the manifestation of the divine will, St. Sadoth, with part of his clergy, lay hid for some time; which did not however hinder him from affording his distressed flock all proper assistance and encouragement, but rather enabled him to do it with the greater fruit. During this retreat he had a vision which seemed to indicate that the time was come for the holy bishop to seal his faith with his blood. This he related to his priests and deacons, whom he assembled for that purpose. "I saw," said he, "in my sleep, a ladder environed with light and reaching from earth to the heavens. St. Simeon was at the top of it, and in great glory. He beheld me at the bottom, and said to me, with a smiling countenance: 'Mount up, Sadoth, fear not. I mounted yesterday, and it is your turn to-day:' which means, that as he was slain last year, so I am to follow him this." He was not wanting on this occasion to exhort his clergy, with great zeal and fervor, to make a provision of good works, and employ well their time, till they should be called on in like manner, that they might be in readiness to take possession of their inheritance. "A man that is guided by the Spirit," says St. Maruthas, author of these acts, "fears not death; he loves God, and goes to him with an incredible ardor; but he who lives according to the desires of the flesh, trembles, and is in despair at its approach: he loves the world, and it is with grief that he leaves it."

The second year of the persecution, king Sapor coming to Seleucia, Sadoth was apprehended, with several of his clergy, some ecclesiastics of the neighborhood, end certain monks and nuns belonging to his church, to the amount of one hundred and twenty-eight persons. They were thrown into dungeons, where, during five months' confinement, they suffered incredible misery and torments. They were thrice called out, and put to the rack or question; their legs were straight bound with cords, which were drawn with so much violence, that their bones breaking, were heard to crack like sticks in a fagot. Amidst these tortures the officers cried out to them: "Adore the sun, and obey the king, if you would save your lives." Sadoth answered in the name of all, that the sun was but a creature, the work of God, made for the use of mankind; that they would pay supreme adoration to none but the Creator of heaven and earth, and never be unfaithful to him; that it was indeed in their power to take away their lives, but that this would be the greatest favor they could do them; wherefore he conjured them not to spare them, or delay their execution. The officers said: "Obey! or know that your death is certain, and immediate." The martyrs all cried out with one voice: "We shall not die, but live and reign eternally with God and his Son Jesus Christ. Wherefore inflict death as soon as you please; for we repeat it to you that we will not adore the sun, nor obey the unjust edicts." Then sentence of death was pronounced upon them all by the king; for which they thanked God, and mutually encouraged each other. They were chained two and two together, and led out of the city to execution, singing psalms and canticles of joy as they went. Being arrived at the place of their martyrdom, they raised their voices still higher, blessing and thanking God for his mercy in bringing them thither, and begging the grace of perseverance, and that by this baptism of their blood they might enter into his glory. These prayers and praises of God did not cease but with {436} the life of the last of this blessed company. St. Sadoth, by the king's orders, was separated from them, and sent into the province of the Huzites, where he was beheaded. He thus rejoined his happy flock in the kingdom of glory. Ancient Chaldaic writers quoted by Assemani say, St. Schiadustes, or Sadoth, was nephew to Simeon Barsaboe, being son to his sister. He governed his church only eight months, and finished his martyrdom after five months imprisonment, in the year 342, and of king Sapor II. the thirty-third. These martyrs are honored in the Roman Martyrology on this day.

ST. ELEUTHERIUS, MARTYR,

BISHOP OF TOURNAY.

A.D. 532.

HE was born at Tournay, of Christian parents, whose family had been converted to Christ by St. Piat, one hundred and fifty years before. The faith had declined at Tournay ever since St. Piat's martyrdom, by reason of its commerce with the heathen islands of Taxandria, now Zealand, and by means of the heathen French kings, who resided some time at Tournay. Eleutherius was chosen bishop of that city in 486; ten years after which king Clovis was baptized at Rheims. Eleutherius converted the greatest part of the Franks in that country to the faith, and opposed most zealously certain heretics who denied the mystery of the Incarnation, by whom he was wounded on the head with a sword, and died of the wound five weeks after, on the first of July, in 532. The most ancient monuments, relating to this saint, seem to have perished in a great fire which consumed his church, and many other buildings at Tournay, in 1092, with his relics. See Miræus, and his life written in the ninth century, extant in Bollandus, p. 187.[1] Of the sermons ascribed to St. Eleutherius, in the Library of the Fathers t. 8, none seem sufficiently warranted genuine, except three on the Incarnation and Birth of Christ, and the Annunciation. See Dom. Rivet, Hist. Littér., t. 3, p. 154, and t. 5, pp. 40, 41. Gallia Christ. Nova, t. 3, p. 571, and Henschenius, p 180.

Footnotes:
1. This author wrote before the invasion of the Normans, and the
translation of the saint's relics; but long after the saint's death,
and by making him born in the reign of Dioclesian, yet contemporary
with St. Medard, destroys his own credit. Some years after, another
author much enlarged this life, and inserted a history of the
translation of the relics of this saint, made in 897. A third writer
added a relation of later miracles, and of the translation of these
relics into the city of Tourney, in 1164. All these authors deserve
little notice, except in relating facts of their own time.

ST. MILDRED, V. ABBESS.

EORMENBURGA,[1] pronounced Ermenburga, otherwise called Domneva, was married to Merwald, a son of king Penda, and had by him three daughters and a son, who all consecrated their whole estates to pious uses, and were all honored by our ancestors among the saints. Their names were Milburg, Mildred, Mildgithe, and Mervin. King Egbert caused his two nephews, Ethelred and Ethelbright, to be secretly murdered in the isle of Thanet. Count Thunor, whom he had charged with that execrable commission, buried the bodies of the two princes under the king's throne, in the {437} royal palace at Estrage, now called Estria. The king is said to have been miraculously terrified by seeing a ray of bright light dart from the heavens upon their grave, and, in sentiments of compunction, he sent for their sister Eormenburga, out of Mercia, to pay her the weregeld, which was the mulct for a murder, ordained by the laws to be paid to the relations of the persons deceased. In satisfaction for the murder, he settled on her forty-eight ploughs of land, which she employed in founding a monastery, in which prayers might be continually put up to God for the repose of the souls of the two princes. This pious establishment was much promoted by the king, and thus the monastery was founded about the year 670; not 596, as Leland[2] and Speed mistake. The monastery was called Menstrey, or rather Minstre, in the isle of Thanet. Domneva sent her daughter Mildred to the abbey of Chelles, in France, where she took the religious veil, and was thoroughly instructed in all the duties of that state, the perfect spirit of which she had imbibed from her tender years. Upon her return to England she was consecrated first abbess of Minstre, in Thanet, by St. Theodorus, archbishop of Canterbury, and at the same time received to the habit seventy chosen virgins. She behaved herself by humility as the servant of her sisters, and conducted them to virtue by the authority of her example, for all were ashamed not to imitate her watching, mortification, and prayer, and not to walk according to her spirit. Her aunt, Ermengitha, served God in the same house with such fervor, that after her death she was ranked among the saints, and her tomb, situated a mile from the monastery, was famous for the resort of devout pilgrims. St. Mildred died of a lingering, painful illness, towards the close of the seventh century. This great monastery was often plundered by the Danes, and the nuns and clerks murdered, chiefly in the years 980 and 1011. After the last of these burnings, here were no more nuns, but only a few secular priests. In 1033, the remains of St. Mildred were translated to the monastery of St. Austin's at Canterbury, and venerated above all the relics of that holy place, says Malmesbury,[3] who testifies frequent miracles to have been wrought by them: Thorn and others confirm the same. Two churches in London bear her name. See Thorn's Chronicle, inter Decem Scriptores, coll. 1770, 1783, 1906. Harpsfield: an old Saxon book, entitled, Narratio de Sanctis qui in Angliâ quiescunt published by Hickes, Thesaur., t. 1, in Dissert. Epistolari, p. 116. Monast. Anglic. t. 1, p. 84. Stevens Supplem. vol. 1, p. 518. Reyneri Apostolat. Bened. t. 1, p. 61, and Lewis's History of the isle of Thanet, (printed at London in 1723, in 4to.,) pp. 51, 62, and in Append. n. 23.

Footnotes:
1. Eadbald, king of Kent, had by his queen Emma, daughter to a king of
the French, St. Eanswithe, (whose relics were venerated at
Folkstone, till the change of religion,) and two sons, Eorcombert
(afterwards king) and Eormenred, surnamed Clito. This last left four
children by his wife Oslave, namely, Eurmenburga and St.
Eormengitha, with two sons, St. Ethelred and St. Ethelbright. King
Eorcombert had, by his queen Sexburga, Egbert and Lothaire,
successively kings, and St. Eormenilda and St. Ercongota.
Eormenburga was surnamed Moldeva, as we are assured by the ancient
English Saxon account of these saints, published by Hickes: though
Capgrave frequently speaks of them as different women.
2. Leland, Collect. t. 1, p. 97.
3. L. 2, de Reg. Angl. c. 13.

ST. EUCHERIUS, BISHOP OF ORLEANS, C.

OUR saint's mother, who was a lady of eminent virtue, and of the first quality at Orleans, while she was with child of him, made a daily offering of him to God, and begged nothing for him but divine grace. When he was born, his parents dedicated him to God, and set him to study when he was but seven years old, resolving to omit nothing that could be done towards cultivating his mind, or forming his heart. His improvement in virtue kept pace with his progress in learning: he meditated assiduously on the sacred writings, especially on St. Paul's manner of speaking on the world, and its enjoyments, as mere empty shadows, that deceive us and vanish away;[1] and took particular notice that the apostle says, the wisdom of those who love the pleasures and riches of this life is no better than folly before God. {438} These reflections at length sunk so deep into his mind, that he resolved to quit the world. To put this design in execution, about the year 714, he retired to the abbey of Jumiege, on the banks of the Seine, in the diocese of Rouen. When he had spent six or seven years here, in the practice of penitential austerities and obedience, Suavaric, his uncle, bishop of Orleans, died: the senate and people, with the clergy of that city, deputed persons to Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, to beg his permission to elect Eucherius to the vacant see. That prince granted their request, and sent with them one of his principal officers of state to conduct him from his monastery to Orleans. The saint's affliction at their arrival was inexpressible, and he entreated the monks to screen him from the dangers that threatened him. But they preferred the public good to their private inclinations, and resigned him up for that important charge. He was received at Orleans, and consecrated with universal applause, in 721. Though he received the episcopal character with grievous apprehensions of its obligations and dangers, he was not discouraged, but had recourse to the supreme pastor for assistance in the discharge of his duties, and devoted himself entirely to the care of his church. He was indefatigable in instructing and reforming his flock, and his zeal and even reproofs were attended with so much sweetness and charity, that it was impossible not to love and obey him. Charles Martel, to defray the expenses of his wars and other undertakings, and to recompense those that served him, often stripped the churches of their revenues, and encouraged others to do the same. St. Eucherius reproved these encroachments with so much zeal, that flatterers represented it to the prince as an insult offered to his person; therefore, in the year 737, Charles, in his return to Paris, after having defeated the Saracens in Aquitaine, took Orleans in his way, ordered Eucherius to follow him to Verneuil upon the Oise, in the diocese of Beauvais, where he then kept his court, and banished him to Cologne. The extraordinary esteem which his virtue procured him in that city, moved Charles to order him to be conveyed thence to a strong place in Hasbain, now called Haspengaw, in the territory of Liege, under the guard of Robert, governor of that country. The governor was so charmed with his virtue, that he made him the distributer of his large alms, and allowed him to retire to the monastery of Sarchinium, or St. Tron's. Here prayer and contemplation were his whole employment, till the year 743, in which he died on the 20th of February. He is named in the Roman, and other martyrologies. See his original life by one of the same age, with the preliminary dissertation of Henschenius, and the remarks of Mabillon, sæc. 3, Ben. The pretended vision of the damnation of Charles Martel, is an evident interpolation, found only in later copies and in Surius.

Footnotes: 1. 1. Cor. vii {}, m. 19.

ST. ULRICK, A RECLUSE.

HE was born near Bristol, and being promoted to the priesthood, took great pleasure in hunting, till being touched by divine grace, he retired near Hoselborough in Dorsetshire, where he led a most austere and holy life. He died on the 20th of February, in 1154. See Matthew Paris, Ford Henry of Huntingdon, and Harpsfield, sæc. 12, c. 29

{439}

FEBRUARY XXI.

ST. SEVERIANUS, MARTYR.

BISHOP OF SCYTHOPHOLIS.

From the life of St. Euthymius, written by Cyril the monk; a letter of the emperor Marcia{}agrius, l. 2, c. 5. Nicephorus Calixt. l. 15, c. 9, collected by Bollandus, p. 246.

A.D. 452, or 453.

IN the reign of Marcian and St. Pulcheria, the council of Chalcedon which condemned the Eutychian heresy, was received by St. Euthymius, and by a great part of the monks of Palestine. But Theodosius, an ignorant Eutychian monk, and a man of a most tyrannical temper, under the protection of the empress Eudoxia, widow of Theodosius the Younger, who lived at Jerusalem, perverted many among the monks themselves, and having obliged Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, to withdraw, unjustly possessed himself of that important see, and in a cruel persecution which he raised, filled Jerusalem with blood, as the emperor Marcian assures us: then, at the head of a band of soldiers, he carried desolation over the country. Many, however, had the courage to stand their ground. No one resisted him with greater zeal and resolution than Severianus, bishop of Scythopolis, and his recompense was the crown of martyrdom; for the furious soldiers seized his person, dragged him out of the city, and massacred him in the latter part of the year 452, or in the beginning of the year 453. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology, on the 21st of February.

* * * * *

Palestine, the country which for above one thousand four hundred years had been God's chosen inheritance under the Old Law, when other nations were covered with the abominations of idolatry, had been sanctified by the presence, labors, and sufferings of our divine Redeemer, and had given birth to his church, and to so many saints, became often the theatre of enormous scandals, and has now, for many ages, been enslaved to the most impious and gross superstitions. So many flourishing churches in the East which were planted by the labors of the chiefest among the apostles, watered with the blood of innumerable glorious martyrs, illustrated with the bright light of the Ignatiuses, the Polycarps, the Basils, the Ephrems, and the Chrysostoms, blessed by the example and supported by the prayers of legions of eminent saints, are fallen a prey to almost universal vice and infidelity. With what floods of tears can we sufficiently bewail so grievous a misfortune, and implore the divine mercy in behalf of so many souls! How ought we to be alarmed at the consideration of so many dreadful examples of God's inscrutable judgments, and tremble for ourselves! Let him who stands beware lest he fall. Hold fast what thou hast, says the oracle of the Holy Ghost to every one of us, lest another bear away thy crown.

{440}

SS. GERMAN, ABBOT OF GRANFEL,

AND RANDAUT, OR RANDOALD, MARTYRS.

From their acts, written by the priest Babolen in the same age, in Bollandus, Le Cointe, ad an. 662. Bulteau, Hist. Mon. d'Occid. l. 3, c. 44, p. 661.

ABOUT THE YEAR 666.

ST. GERMAN, or GERMANUS, was son of a rich senator of Triers, and brought up from the cradle under the care of Modoald, bishop of Triers. At seventeen years of age, he gave all he could dispose of to the poor, and with Modoald's consent applied himself to St. Arnoul, who having resigned his dignities of bishop of Metz, and minister of state under Dagobert, then led an eremitical life in a desert in Lorrain, near Romberg, or Remiremont. That great saint, charmed with the innocence and fervor of the tender young nobleman, received him in the most affectionate manner, and gave him the monastic tonsure. Under such a master the holy youth made great progress in a spiritual life, and after some time, having engaged a younger brother, called Numerian, to forsake the world, he went with him to Romberg, or the monastery of St. Romaric, a prince of royal blood, who, resigning the first dignity and rank which he enjoyed in the court of king Theodebert, had founded in his own castle, in concert with his friend St. Arnoul, a double house, one larger for nuns, the other less for monks; both known since under the name of Remiremont, situated on a part of Mount Vosge. St. Romaric died in 653, and is named in the Roman Martyrology on the 8th of December, on which his festival is kept at Remiremont, and that of the Blessed Virgin deferred to the day following. He settled here the rule of Luxeu, or of St. Columban.[1] St. German made the practices of all manner of humiliations, penance, and religion, the object of his earnest ambition, and out of a desire of greater spiritual advancement, after some time passed with his brother to the monastery of Luxeu, then governed by the holy abbot, St. Walbert. Duke Gondo, one of the principal lords of Alsace, having founded a monastery in the diocese of Basil, called the Great Valley, in German, Granfel, and now more commonly Munster-thal, or the Monastery of the valley, St. Walbert appointed St. German abbot of the colony which he settled there. Afterwards the two monasteries of Ursiein, commonly called St. Ursitz, and of St. Paul Zu-Werd, or of the island, were also put under his direction, though he usually resided at Granfel. Catihe, called also Boniface, who succeeded Gondo in the duchy, inherited no share of his charity and religion, and oppressed both the monks and poor inhabitants with daily acts of violence and arbitrary tyranny. The holy abbot bore all private injuries in silence, but often pleaded the cause of the poor. The duke had thrown the magistrates of several villages into prison, and many ways distressed the other inhabitants, laying waste their lands at pleasure, and destroying all the fruits of their toil, and all the means of their poor subsistence. As he was one day ravaging their lands and plundering their houses at the head of a troop of soldiers, St. German went out to meet him, to entreat him to spare a distressed and innocent people. The duke listened to his remonstrances and promised to desist; but while the saint stayed to offer up his prayers in the church of St. Maurice, the {441} soldiers fell again to killing, burning, and plundering: and while St. German was on his road to return to Granfel, with his companion Randoald, commonly called Randaut, they first stripped them, and then, while they were at their prayers, pierced them both with lances, about the year 666. Their relics were deposited at Granfel, and were exposed in a rich shrine till the change of religion, since which time the canonries, into which this monastery was converted, are removed to Telsberg, or Delmont.

Footnotes:
1. Remiremont was destroyed in the tenth century by the Hungarians or
New Huns, but rebuilt in the reign of Louis III., in the plain
beyond the Moselle, at the bottom of the mountain, where a town is
formed. It has been, if not from its restoration, at least for
several centuries, a noble collegiate church for canonesses, who
make proof of nobility for two hundred years, but can marry if they
resign their p{}ends; except the abbess, who makes solemn religious
vows.

SS. DANIEL, PRIEST, AND VERDA, VIRGIN,

MARTYRS.

From their authentic acts, written by St. Maruthas, in Syriac, and published by Stephen Assemani among the Oriental Martyrs, t. 1, p. 103.

A.D. 344.

Two years after the martyrdom of St. Milles, Daniel, a priest, and a virgin consecrated to God, named Verda, which in Chaldaic signifies a rose, were apprehended in the province of the Razicheans, in Persia, by an order of the governor, and put to all manner of torments for three months, almost without intermission. Among other tortures, their feet being bored through, were put into frozen water for five days together. The governor, seeing it impossible to overcome their constancy, condemned them to lose their heads. They were crowned on the 25th of the moon of February, which was that year the 21st of that month, in the year of Christ 344, and of king Sapor II., the thirty-fifth. Their names were not known either to the Greek or Latin martyrologists: and their illustrious triumph is recorded in few words by St. Maruthas: but was most glorious in the sight of heaven.

B. PEPIN OF LANDEN, MAYOR OF THE PALACE

TO THE KINGS CLOTAIRE II., DAGOBERT, AND SIGEBERT.

HE was son of Carloman, the most powerful nobleman of Austrasia, who had been mayor to Clotaire I., son of Clovis I. He was grandfather to Pepin of Herstal, the most powerful mayor, whose son was Charles Martel, and grandson Pepin the Short, king of France, in whom began the Carlovingian race. Pepin of Landen, upon the river Geete, in Brabant, was a lover of peace, the constant defender of truth and justice, a true friend to all servants of God, the terror of the wicked, the support of the weak, the father of his country, the zealous and humble defender of religion. He was lord of great part of Brabant, and governor of Austrasia, when Theodebert II., king of that country, was defeated by Theodoric II., king of Burgundy, and soon after assassinated in 612: and Theodoric dying the year following, Clotaire II., king of Soissons, reunited Burgundy, Neustria, and Austrasia to his former dominions, and became sole monarch of France. For the pacific possession of Austrasia he was much indebted to Pepin, whom he appointed mayor of the palace to his son Dagobert I., when, in 622, he declared him king of Austrasia and Neustria. The death of Clotaire II., in 628, put him in possession of all France, except a small part of Aquitaine, with Thoulouse, which was settled upon his younger brother, Charibert. When king Dagobert, forgetful of the maxims instilled into him in his youth, had given himself up to a shameful lust, this faithful minister {442} boldly reproached him with his ingratitude to God, and ceased not till he saw him a sincere and perfect penitent. This great king died in 638, and was buried at St. Denys's. He had appointed Pepin tutor to his son Sigebert from his cradle, and mayor of his palace when he declared him king of Austrasia, in 633. After the death of Dagobert, Clovis II. reigning in Burgundy and Neustria, (by whom Erchinoald was made mayor for the latter, and Flaochat for the former,) Pepin quitted the administration of those dominions, and resided at Metz, with Sigebert, who always considered him as his father, and under his discipline became himself a saint, and one of the most happy among all the French kings. Pepin was married to the blessed Itta, of one of the first families in Aquitaine, by whom he had a son called Grimoald, and two daughters, St. Gertrude, and St. Begga. The latter, who was the elder, was married to Ansigisus, son of St. Arnoul, to whom she bore Pepin of Herstal. B. Pepin, of Landen, died on the 21st of February, in 640, and was buried at Landen; but his body was afterwards removed to Nivelle, where it is now enshrined, as are those of the B. Itta, and St. Gertrude in the same place. His name stands in the Belgi martyrologies, though no other act of public veneration has been paid to his memory, than the enshrining of his relics, which are carried in processions. His name is found in a litany published by the authority of the archbishop of Mechlin. See Bollandus, t. 3, Fehr. p. 250, and Dom Bouquet, Recueil des Hist. de France, t. 2, p. 603.