aint Julian was the first to carry the light of the Gospel into that portion of France of which Le Mans is the capital. There he laboured with great success, destroyed the idol which the people worshipped, and persuaded great numbers to be baptized. His life, written several hundreds of years after his death, is of small authority, and contains little of interest. His relics were given to Paderborn in Westphalia, in 1143.
S. DEVOTA, V. M., IN CORSICA.
(about a.d. 303.)
[Deivota seems to have been the correct form of her name, but she is usually called Devota. Authority: her Acts.]
Deivota, or Devota was brought up from childhood in the Christian faith; when she was quite young, she was taken into the house of Eutyches, a senator, and probably a relation.
Eutyches was not a Christian, but he was a kindly disposed man, who disliked persecution. On the publication of the edict of Diocletian against Christianity, he sacrificed along with the other senators; but the governor, being told that he sheltered in his house a little Christian maiden, ordered him to be poisoned, and Devota to be executed with great barbarity. Her feet were tied together, and she was dragged over rough ground till her limbs were dislocated, and she was cut and bruised over her entire person. When, after this, she was stretched on the rack, she besought Jesus Christ to release her. Her prayer was heard, and with a gentle sigh she expired. At the same moment a white dove was seen fluttering over her; it expanded its pure wings, and mounting, was lost in the deep blue of the sky. During the night a devout priest, named Benenatus, a deacon, Apollinarius, and a believing boatman, Gratian by name, removed her body, and placing it amidst spices in the little skiff, rowed out to sea. Then a white dove appeared, skimming over the water, then waiting, and hovering before them, then darting forward; and they, remembering the apparition at her death, followed the guidance of the dove, and reached Monaco, where they laid her.
S. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, B. D.
(a.d. 407.)
[Authorities: Socrates, Sozomen, life by Palladius, and his own writings, &c.]
John Chrysostom was the son of Secundus, a military officer, born about 347, at Antioch, and on his father's death, soon afterwards, he became indebted for a careful and Christian training to his pious mother, Anthusa. He studied rhetoric under the accomplished pagan teacher Libanius, who afterwards, on being asked to name his own successor, replied, "John would be the fittest, if the Christians had not stolen him."