ST. ALICE, OR ADELAIDE, V. ABBESS.

SHE was daughter of Megendose, count of Guelders, and governed the nunnery of Bellich on the Rhine, near Bonn, (now a church of canonesses,) but died in 1015, abbess of our Lady's in Cologne, both monasteries having been founded by her father. Her festival, with an octave, is kept at Bellich, or Vilich, where the nunnery which she instituted, of the order of St. Bennet, is now converted into a church of canonesses. See her life in Surius and Bollandus; also Miræus, in Fastis Belgicis, &c.

{367}

ST. ABRAAMIUS, BISHOP OF ARBELA, M.

THIS city, after the fall of Ninive, was long the capital of Adiabene, in Assyria, and was one bishopric with Hazza, anciently called Adiab. Arbeta, now called Irbil, was famous for the victory of Alexander; but received far greater lustre from the martyrdom of St. Abraamius, its bishop, who sealed his faith with his blood, after having suffered horrible torments, which were inflicted by order of an arch magian, in the fifth year of king Sapor's persecution, that is, of Christ 348. See Sozomen, l. 2, c. 12 and the Greek Menæa and Synaxary.

FEBRUARY VI.
ST. DOROTHY, VIRGIN AND MARTYR.

See S. Aldhelm, Ado, Usuard, &c., in Bollandus, p. 771.

ST. ALDHELM relates from her acts,[1] that Fabritius, the governor of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, inflicted on her most cruel torments, because she refused to marry, or to adore idols: that she converted two apostate women sent to seduce her: and that being condemned to be beheaded, she converted one Theophilus, by sending him certain fruits and flowers miraculously obtained of her heavenly spouse. She seems to have suffered under Dioclesian. Her body is kept in the celebrated church which bears her name, beyond the Tiber, in Rome. She is mentioned on this day in the ancient Martyrology under the name of St. Jerom. There was another holy virgin, whom Rufin calls Dorothy, a rich and noble lady of the city of Alexandria, who suffered torments and a voluntary banishment, to preserve her faith and chastity against the brutish lust and tyranny of the emperor Maximinus, in the year 308, as is recorded by Eusebius[2] and Rufinus:[3] but many take this latter, whose name is not mentioned by Eusebius, to be the famous St. Catharine of Alexandria.

* * * * *