S. MELAS, B. C. OF RHINOCLUSA.
(4th cent.)
[Roman and German Martyrologies. Authority for his life, Sozomen.]
Rhinoclusa, or Rinocorurus, was near the river of Egypt, dividing Egypt from Palestine; of this city and monastic settlement S. Melas was Bishop. Sozomen, in his Ecclesiastical History, gives the following account of him (lib. vi. c. 31):—
"Rinocorurus was celebrated at this period, on account of the holy men who were born and flourished there. I have heard that the most eminent among them were Melas, the Bishop of the country; Denis and Solon, the brothers and successors of Melas. When the decree went forth for the ejection of all bishops opposed to Arianism, the officers appointed to execute the mandate found Melas engaged in trimming the lights of the church, and clad in an old cloak soiled with oil, fastened by a girdle. When they asked him for the Bishop, he replied that he was within, and that he would conduct them to him. As they were fatigued with their journey, he led them to the episcopal dwelling, made them sit down at his table, and placed before them such things as he had. After the repast, he supplied them with water to wash their hands, and then told them who he was. Amazed at his conduct, they confessed the mission on which they had arrived; but, from respect to him, gave him full liberty to go wherever he would. He, however, replied that he would not shrink from the sufferings to which the other bishops, who maintained the same sentiments as himself, were exposed, and that he was ready to go into exile. He had been accustomed, from his youth up, to practise all the virtues of asceticism. The Church of Rinocorurus, having been thus, from the beginning, under the guidance of such exemplary bishops, never afterwards swerved from their doctrine. The clergy of this Church dwell in one house, sit at the same table, and have all things in common."
S. HONORATUS, B. OF ARLES.
(about a.d. 430.)
[Honoratus, in French Honoré, is commemorated in almost all the Western Kalendars. His life by his kinsman and successor, S. Hilary. Another life of him is apocryphal. "A tissue," says Bollandus, "of fables and crazes;" "which," says Baronius, "cannot be read without nausea, except by those with iron stomachs, and wits covered with the rust of ignorance." This life, therefore, must be completely put aside, as worthless, and we must draw all our information from that by S. Hilary, Bishop of Arles.]
The sailor who proceeds from the roadstead of Toulon towards Italy or the East, passes among two or three islands, rocky and dry, surmounted here and there by a slender cluster of pines. He looks at them with indifference, and avoids them. However, one of these islands has been, for the soul and for the mind, a centre purer and more fertile than any famous isle of the Greek sea. It is Lerins, formerly occupied by a city, which was already ruined in the time of Pliny, and where, at the commencement of the fifth century, nothing more was to be seen than a desert coast, rendered unapproachable by the number of serpents which swarmed there.