A.D. 828.
THEODORUS, the father of our saint, was secretary to the emperor Constantine Copronymus: but when that tyrant declared himself a persecutor of the Catholic church, the faithful minister, remembering that we are bound to obey God rather than man, maintained the honor due to holy images with so much zeal, that he was stripped of his honors, scourged, tortured, and banished. The young Nicephorus was from his cradle animated to the practice of virtue by the domestic example of his father: and in his education, as his desires of improvement were great, and the instructions he had very good, the progress he made was as considerable; till, by the maturity of his age, and of his study, he made his appearance in the world. When Constantine and Irene were placed on the imperial throne, and restored the Catholic faith, our saint was quickly introduced to their notice, and by his merits attained a large share in their favor. He was by them advanced to his father's {583} dignity, and, by the lustre of his sanctity, was the ornament of the court, and the support of the state. He distinguished himself by his zeal against the Iconoclasts, and was secretary to the second council of Nice. After the death of St. Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, in 806, no one was found more worthy to succeed him than Nicephorus. To give an authentic testimony of his faith, during the time of his consecration he held in his hand a treatise which he had written in defence of holy images, and after the ceremony laid it up behind the altar, as a pledge that he would always maintain the tradition of the church. As soon as he was seated in the patriarchal chair, he began to consider how a total reformation of manners might be wrought, and his precepts from the pulpit received a double force from the example he set to others in an humble comportment, and steady uniform practice of eminent piety.[1] He applied himself with unwearied diligence to all the duties of the ministry; and, by his zealous labors and invincible meekness and patience, kept virtue in countenance, and stemmed the tide of iniquity. But these glorious successes rendered him not so conspicuous as the constancy with which he despised the frowns of tyrants, and suffered persecution for the sake of justice.
The government having changed hands, the patrician Leo the Armenian, governor of Natolia, became emperor in 813, and being himself an Iconoclast, endeavored both by artifices and open violence to establish that heresy. He studied in the first place, by crafty suggestions, to gain over the holy patriarch to favor his design. But St. Nicephorus answered him: "We cannot change the ancient traditions: we respect holy images as we do the cross and the book of the gospels." For it must be observed that the ancient Iconoclasts venerated the book of the gospels, and the figure of the cross, though by an inconsistency usual in error, they condemned the like relative honor with regard to holy images. The saint showed, that far from derogating from the supreme honor of God, we honor him when for his sake we pay a subordinate respect to his angels, saints, prophets, and ministers: also when we give a relative inferior honor to inanimate things which belong to his service, as sacred vessels, churches, and images. But the tyrant was fixed in his errors, which he at first endeavored to propagate by stratagems. He therefore privately encouraged soldiers to treat contemptuously an image of Christ which was on a great cross at the brazen gate of the city; and thence took occasion to order the image to be taken off the cross, pretending he did it to prevent a second profanation. Saint Nicephorus saw the storm gathering, and spent most of his time in prayer with several holy bishops and abbots. Shortly after, the emperor, having assembled together certain Iconoclast bishops in his palace, sent for the patriarch and his fellow-bishops. They obeyed the summons, but entreated his majesty to leave the government of the church to its pastors. Emilian, bishop of Cyzicus, one of their body, said: "If this is an ecclesiastical affair, let it be discussed in the church, according to custom, not in the palace." Euthymius, bishop of Sardes said: "For these eight hundred years past, since the coming of Christ, there have been always pictures of him, and he has been honored in them. Who shall now have the boldness to abolish so ancient a tradition?" St. Theodorus, the Studite, spoke after the bishops, and said to the emperor: "My Lord, do not disturb the order of the church. God hath placed in it apostles, prophets, pastors, and teachers.[2] You he hath intrusted with the care of the state; but leave the church to its pastors." The emperor, {584} in a rage, drove them from his presence. Sometime after, the Iconoclast bishops held a pretended council in the imperial palace, and cited the patriarch to appear before them. To their summons he returned this answer: "Who gave you this authority? was it the pope, or any of the patriarchs? In my diocese you have no jurisdiction." He then read the canon which declares those excommunicated who presume to exercise any act of jurisdiction in the diocese of another bishop. They, however, proceeded to pronounce against him a mock sentence of deposition; and the holy pastor, after several attempts made secretly to take away his life, was sent by the emperor into banishment. Michael the Stutterer, who in 820 succeeded Leo in the imperial throne, was engaged in the same heresy, and also a persecutor of our saint, who died in his exile, on the 2d of June, in the monastery of St. Theodorus, which he had built in the year 828, the fourteenth of his banishment, being about seventy years old. By the order of the empress Theodora, his body was brought to Constantinople with great pomp, in 848, on the 13th of March, on which day he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology.[3]
* * * * *
It is by a wonderful effect of his most gracious mercy and singular love, that God is pleased to visit all his faithful servants with severe trials, and to purify their virtue in the crucible, that by being exercised it may be made heroic and perfect. By suffering with patience, and in a Christian spirit, a soul makes higher and quicker advances in pure love, than by any other means or by any other good works. Let no one then repine, if by sickness, persecution, or disgraces, they are hindered from doing the good actions which they desire, or rendered incapable of discharging the duties of their station, or of laboring to convert others. God always knows what is best for us and others: we may safely commend to him his own cause, and all souls, which are dearer to him than they can be to us. By this earnest prayer and perfect sacrifice of ourselves to God, we shall more effectually draw upon ourselves the divine mercy than by any endeavors of our own. Let us leave to God the choice of his instruments and means in the salvation of others. As to ourselves, it is our duty to give him what he requires of us: nor can we glorify him by any sacrifice either greater or more honorable, and more agreeable to him, than that of a heart under the heaviest pressure, ever submissive to him, embracing with love and joy every order of his wisdom, and placing its entire happiness and comfort in the accomplishment of his adorable most holy will. The great care of a Christian in this state, in order to sanctify his sufferings, must be to be constantly {585} united to God, and to employ his affections in the most fervent interior exercises of entire sacrifice and resignation, of confidence, love, praise, adoration, penance, and compunction, which he excites by suitable aspirations.
Footnotes:
1. The Confession of Faith which, upon his promotion, he sent to pope
Leo III., is published by Baronius ad an. 811 and in the seventh
tome of Labbe's councils, &c. In it the saint gives a clear
exposition of the principal mysteries of faith, of the invocation of
saints, and the veneration due to relics and holy images.
2. Eph. iv. 11.
3. St. Nicephorus has left us a chronicle from the beginning of the
world: of which the best editions are that of F. Goar, with the
chronicle of George Syncellus at Paris, in 1652, and that of Venice
among the Byzantine historians, in 1729. Also a short history from
the reign of Mauritius to that of Constantine and Irene, published
at Paris, in 1616, by F. Petau; and reprinted among the Byzantine
historians, at Paris, in 1649, and again at Venice, in 1729. The
style is justly commended by Photius. (col. 66.) The seventeen
canons of St. Nicephorus are extant in the collection of the
councils, t. 7, p. 1297, &c. In the second he declares it unlawful
to travel on Sundays without necessity. Cotelier has published four
others of this saint, with five of the foregoing, and his letter to
Hilarion and Eustrasius, containing learned resolutions of several
cases. (Monum. Græc. t. 3, p. 451.) St. Nicephorus wrote several
learned tracts against the Iconoclasts, as three Antirrhetics or
Confutations, &c. Some of these are printed in the Library of the
Fathers, and F. Combefis's Supplement or Auctuarium, t. 1, in
Canisius's Lectiones Antiquæ, republished by Basnage, part 2, &c.
But a great number are only found in MSS. in the libraries of
England, Paris, and Rome. The saint often urges that the Iconoclasts
condemned themselves by allowing veneration to the cross, for the
image of Christ upon the cross is more than the bare cross. In the
second Antirrhetic he most evidently establishes the real presence
of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist; which passage is quoted by
Leo Allatius. (l. 3, de Consens. Ecclesiæ Occident. et Orient. c.
15, p. 1223.) He does the same almost in the same words, l. de
Cherubinis a Moyse Factis, c. 7, apud Canis. t. 2, ed. Basm. part 2,
p. 19, & t. 9, Bibl. Patr. Three Antirrhetics are entitled, against
Mamonas (i. e. Constantine Copronytnus) and the Iconoclasts. A
fourth was written by him against Eusebius and Epiphanides to prove
that Eusebius of Cæsarea was an obstinate Arian, and Epiphanides a
favorer of Manicheism, and a very different person from St.
Epiphanius of Salamine. F. Anselm Bauduri, a Benedictin monk of
Ragusa, undertook at Paris a complete edition of the works of St.
Nicephorus, in two volumes in folio: but his death prevented the
publication. His learned Prospectus, dated in the monastery of St.
Germain-des-Prez, in 1785, is inserted by Fabricius in Biblioth. Gr.
t. 6, p. 640, and in part by Oudin, de Scrip. t. 2, p. 13.
ST. EUPHRASIA, V.
ANTIGONUS, the father of this saint, was a nobleman of the first rank and quality in the court of Theodosius the younger, nearly allied in blood to that emperor, and honored by him with several great employments in the state. He was married to Euphrasia, a ladv no less illustrious for her birth and virtue, by whom he had one only daughter and heiress, called also Euphrasia, the saint of whom we treat. After her birth, her pious parents, by mutual consent, engaged themselves by vow, to pass the remainder of their lives in perpetual continence, that they might more perfectly aspire to the invisible joys of the life to come; and from that time they lived together as brother and sister, in the exercises of devotion, alms-deeds, and penance. Antigonus died within a year, and the holy widow, to shun the importunate addresses of young suitors for marriage, and the distraction of friends, not long after withdrew privately, with her little daughter, into Egypt, where she was possessed of a very large estate. In that country she fixed her abode near a holy monastery of one hundred and thirty nuns, who never used any other food than herbs and pulse, which they took only after sunset, and some only once in two or three days; they wore and slept on sackcloth, wrought with their hands, and prayed almost without interruption. When sick, they bore their pains with patience, esteeming them an effect of the divine mercy, and thanking God for the same: nor did they seek relief from physicians, except in cases of absolute necessity, and then only allowed of ordinary general remedies, as the monks of La Trappe do at this day. Delicate and excessive attention to health nourishes self-love and immortification,[1] and often destroys that health which it studies anxiously to preserve. By the example of these holy virgins, the devout mother animated herself to fervor in the exercises of religion and charity, to which she totally dedicated herself. She frequently visited these servants of God, and earnestly entreated them to accept a considerable annual revenue, with an obligation that they should always be bound to pray for the soul of her deceased husband. But the abbess refused the estate, saying: "We have renounced all the conveniences of the world, in order to purchase heaven. We are poor, and such we desire to remain." She could only be prevailed upon to accept a small matter to supply the church-lamp with oil, and for incense to be burned on the altar.
The young Euphrasia, at seven years of age, made it her earnest request to her mother, that she might be permitted to serve God in this monastery. The pious mother, on hearing this, wept for joy, and not long after presented her to the abbess, who, taking up an image of Christ, gave it into her hands. The tender virgin kissed it, saying: "By vow I consecrate myself to Christ." Then the mother led her before an image of our Redeemer, and lifting up her hands to heaven, said: "Lord Jesus Christ, receive this child under your special protection. You alone doth she love and seek: to you doth she recommend herself."[2] Then turning to her dear daughter, she said: "May God, who laid the foundations of the mountains, strengthen you always in his holy fear." And leaving her in the hands of {586} the abbess, she went out of the monastery weeping. Some time after this she fell sick, and being forewarned of her death, gave her last instructions to her daughter, in these words: "Fear God, honor your sisters, and serve them with humility. Never think of what you have been, nor say to yourself that you are of royal extraction. Be humble and poor on earth, that you may be rich in heaven." The good mother soon after slept in peace. Upon the news of her death, the emperor Theodosius sent for the noble virgin to court, having promised her in marriage to a favorite young senator. But the virgin wrote him, with her own hand, the following answer: "Invincible emperor, having consecrated myself to Christ in perpetual chastity, I cannot be false to my engagement, and marry a mortal man, who will shortly be the food of worms. For the sake of my parents, be pleased to distribute their estates among the poor, the orphans, and the church. Set all my slaves at liberty, and discharge my vassals and servants, giving them whatever is their due. Order my father's stewards to acquit my farmers of all they owe since his death, that I may serve God without let or hinderance, and may stand before him without the solicitude of temporal affairs. Pray for me, you and your empress, that I may be made worthy to serve Christ." The messengers returned with this letter to the emperor, who shed many tears in reading it. The senators who heard it burst also into tears, and said to his majesty: "She is the worthy daughter of Antigonus and Euphrasia, of your royal blood, and the holy offspring of a virtuous stock." The emperor punctually executed all she desired, a little before his death, in 395.
St. Euphrasia was to her pious sisters a perfect pattern of humility, meekness, and charity. If she found herself assaulted by any temptation, she immediately discovered it to the abbess, to drive away the devil by that humiliation, and to seek a remedy. The discreet superioress often enjoined her, on such occasions, some humbling and painful penitential labor; as sometimes to carry great stones from one place to another; which employment she once, under an obstinate assault, continued thirty days together with wonderful simplicity, till the devil being vanquished by her humble obedience and chastisement of her body, he left her in peace. Her diet was only herbs or pulse, which she took after sunset, at first every day, but afterwards only once in two or three, or sometimes seven days. But her abstinence received its chief merit from her humility; without which it would have been a fast of devils. She cleaned out the chambers of the other nuns, carried water to the kitchen, and, out of obedience, cheerfully employed herself in the meanest drudgery; making painful labor a part of her penance. To mention one instance of her extraordinary meekness and humility: it is related, that one day a maid in the kitchen asked her why she fasted whole weeks, which no other attempted to do besides the abbess. Her answer was, that the abbess had enjoined her that penance. The other called her a hypocrite. Upon which Euphrasia fell at her feet, begging her to pardon and pray for her. In which action it is hard to say, whether we ought more to admire the patience with which she received so unjust a rebuke and slander, or the humility with which she sincerely condemned herself; as if, by her hypocrisy and imperfections, she had been a scandal to others. She was favored with miracles both before and after her death, which happened in the year 410, and the thirtieth of her age. Her name is recorded on this day in the Roman Martyrology. See her ancient authentic life in Rosweide, p. 351, D'Andilly, and most correct in the Acta Sanctorum, by the Bollandists.