ST. PROCOPIUS, M.
He was a native of Jerusalem, but lived at Bethsan, otherwise called Scythopolis, where he was reader in the church, and also performed the function of exorcist, and dispossessing demoniacs, and that of interpreter of the Greek tongue into the Syro-Chaldaic.[68] He was a divine man, say his acts, and had always lived in the practice of great austerity and patience, and in perpetual chastity. He took no other sustenance than bread and water, and usually abstained from all food for two or three days together. He was well skilled in the science of the Greeks, but much more in that of the holy scriptures; the assiduous meditation on which nourished his soul, and seemed also to give vigor and strength to his emaciated body. He was admirable in all virtues, particularly in a heavenly meekness and humility. Dioclesian’s bloody edicts against the Christians reached Palestine in April, 303, and Procopius was the first person who received the crown of martyrdom in that country, in the aforesaid persecution.He was apprehended at Bethsan and led, with several others, bound to Cæsarea, our city, say the acts, and was hurried straight before Paulinus, prefect of the province.[69] The judge commanded the martyr to sacrifice to the gods. The servant of Christ answered he never could do it; and this he declared with a firmness and resolution that seemed to wound the heart of the prefect as if it had been pierced with a dagger. The martyr added, there is no God but one, who is the author and preserver of the world. The prefect then bade him sacrifice to the four emperors, namely Dioclesian, Herculius, Galerius, and Constantius. This the saint again refused to do, and had scarce returned his answer but the judge passed sentence upon him, and he was immediately led to execution and beheaded. He is honored by the Greeks with the title of The Great Martyr. See his original Chaldaic Acts, published by Steph. Assemani, t. 2, p. 166, and a less accurate old Latin translation; given by Ruinart, and by Henry Valois, Not. in Euseb. l. 8. The author of these acts was Eusebius of Cæsarea, an eye-witness.
SS. KILIAN BISHOP, COLMAN PRIEST, AND TOTNAN DEACON, MM.
Kilian or Kuln was a holy Irish monk, of noble Scottish extraction. With two zealous companions he travelled to Rome in 686, and obtained of pope Conon a commission to preach the gospel to the German idolaters in Franconia; upon which occasion Kilian was invested with episcopal authority. The missionaries converted and baptized great numbers at Wurtzburg, and among others Gosbert, the duke of that name. This prince had taken to wife Geilana, the relict of his deceased brother; and though he loved her tenderly, being put in mind by St. Kilian that such a marriage was condemned and void by the law of the gospel, he promised to dismiss her, saying that we are bound to love God above father, mother, or wife. Geilana was tormented in mind beyond measure at this resolution; jealousy and ambition equally inflamed her breast; and, as the vengeance of a wicked woman has no bounds, during the absence of the duke in a military expedition, she sent assassins, who privately murdered the three holy missionaries in 688. The ruffians were themselves pursued by divine vengeance, and all perished miserably. St. Burchard, who, in the following century, was placed by St. Boniface in the episcopal see of Wurtzburg, translated their relics into his cathedral. A portion of those of St. Kilian, in a rich shrine, was preserved in the treasury of the elector of Brunswic-Lunenburg in 1713, as appears from the printed description of that cabinet. See the acts of these martyrs compiled by Egilward, monk of St. Burchard’s at Wurtzburg, extant imperfect in the eleventh century, in Surius, t. 4, entire in Canisius, t. 4, par. 2, p. 628, and t. 3, ed. Basn., p. 174. Also among the Opuscula of Serrarius, printed at Mentz in 1611, in the collection of the writers of Wurtzburg published by Ludewig, p. 966, and in Mabillon and the Bollandists. See also Thesaurus reliquiarum Electoralis Brunsvico-Luneburgicus. Hanoveræ, 1713, and Solier, t. 2, Julij, p. 600.