The temple of Bacchus at Alexandria having been given to the Christians to be converted into a church, the patriarch ordered its thorough purification. Whilst this was being performed, many abominations and much evidence of trickery were brought to light. This so exasperated the pagans that a sedition broke out, and rushing down from the Serapion, a magnificent temple situated on a hill and fortified, they carried off a number of Christians, and bringing them into the temple, endeavoured to force them to sacrifice to Serapis. As they refused, the pagans crucified some, broke the bones of others, and put others to death in various ways. When the emperor Theodosius heard of the tumult, he ordered those who had fallen victims to be enrolled in the number of the blessed, but forbade any reprisals upon their executioners, hoping that this exhibition of mercy would be efficacious in attracting them to the true faith. He, however, ordered the Serapion to be levelled with the dust.
S. AGRICOLA, B. OF CHALONS-SUR-SAONE.
(A.D. 580.)
[Roman and Gallican Martyrologies. Authority:—His contemporary, Gregory of Tours.]
S. Agricola was born of a senatorial family. In stature he was diminutive, but the greatness of his soul redeemed him from that disrespect which his short stature might have brought upon him. He was eloquent, of refined manners, prudent in judgment. In his youth he formed a warm attachment for S. Venantius Fortunatus, the Christian poet, and author of the magnificent hymn, Vexilla regis, "The royal banners forward go." In 532, he was appointed bishop of Châlons-sur-Saône. He died at the age of eighty-three, in the year 580, and was buried in the Church of S. Marcellus, near Châlons, where his relics are preserved over the high altar.
S. PATRICK, AP. OF IRELAND.
(ABOUT A.D. 465.)
[Roman, and almost all Western Martyrologies, Bede, Usuardus, Ado, &c. Authorities:—The most authentic are S. Patrick's Confession, and his letter against Coroticus, Fiech's hymn, or metrical sketch of the life of the saint, and the life by Probus. The hymn is attributed to Fiech, bishop of Sletty, who lived in the 5th cent. The Bollandists and other critics doubt his having been the author of it; but at any rate it is very ancient, and not later than the 7th, or perhaps the 6th cent. Probus is supposed to have been teacher of a school at Slane, who was burnt in a tower fired by the Danes, in 950. There is also a hymn attributed to Secundinus, one of S. Patrick's first companions, in which the saint is spoken of as still living. A very interesting document, of the early part of the 7th cent., is a litany in Anglo-Saxon characters, published by Mabillon, in which S. Patrick is invoked. The Antiphonarium Benchorense, apparently of the 8th cent., contains a hymn in honour of S. Patrick. There exist some notes or scholia on Fiech's metrical life, which are usually quoted under the title of Fiech's Scholiast. They were written partly in Irish, and partly in Latin. These notes are of various dates, and by different hands, and consequently of very different values. Colgan gives some lives, which he calls the second, third, and fourth, but these are full of fables, and seem to have been copied either from each other, or from some common original. Here and there they contain facts, but these are smothered in fable. Colgan is utterly wrong in assigning to them a high antiquity. The Tripartite Life, so called because it is divided into three parts, is published by Colgan, and attributed by him wrongly to S. Evin, who lived in the 6th cent. This work, though founded on older lives, was really put together in the 10th century, as certain persons are named in it who lived about that period. With the exception of certain fables it contains, it is a very useful work, and contains a much greater variety of details concerning the proceedings of S. Patrick during his mission in Ireland than any other of his lives. It is not to be confounded with a Latin work quoted by Usher under the same title, and which belongs to a later period. Of all the lives of S. Patrick this is the worst, though it has been published oftener than the others. "So wretched a composition is scarcely worth attending to," says Dr. Lanigan. Another authority is Jocelin of Furness, who flourished about 1185, and compiled S. Patrick's life at the request of Thomas, archbishop of Armagh, Malachias (another Irish prelate) and John de Courcy, the conqueror of Ulster. It is of little historical value compared with the earlier and more authentic sources of information, which it not unfrequently contradicts on the authority of some idle legend.]
The precise time at which Christianity was originally introduced into Ireland cannot be ascertained. Nor is it to be wondered at, that, while the first establishment of Christian Churches in Britain, Gaul, and Spain, is enveloped in obscurity, a similar difficulty should meet those seeking the origin of the Irish Church. Palladius, according to Prosper, was the first bishop sent from Rome to Ireland. He was a deacon of the Roman Church, who had already distinguished himself by his exertions in delivering Britain from the Pelagian heresy. From this and other circumstances, it seems probable that he was a native of that country. He was consecrated bishop and sent into Ireland, accompanied by some missionaries, four of whom, Sylvester, Solonius, Augustine, and Benedict, are mentioned by name in some of the lives of S. Patrick. It seems that his arrival was early in the year 431. The most authentic accounts of his mission agree in stating that, besides having baptized some persons, he erected three churches; and the news of his success, perhaps magnified in its transit, excited such a confident assurance in Rome of his complete conquest of the island to the Cross, that Prosper did not hesitate to say that, through the exertion of pope Celestine, Ireland was become a Christian country. This book "Against Cassian," was written not long after the mission of Palladius, and before he had heard of the reverses which that pioneer of the Gospel had met with. The success Palladius had met with alarmed the heathen, and he was denounced to the king of that part of Ireland in which he then was, as a dangerous person, and he was ordered to quit the country. He sailed from Ireland towards the latter end of the same year, 431, in which he had landed, and arriving in Britain, died, not long after, as is commonly reported, at Fordun, in the district of Mearns, in Scotland.
The great work of the general conversion of the people of Ireland was reserved for the ministry of S. Patrick, according to the Irish adage that, "Not to Palladius, but to Patrick, did God grant the conversion of Ireland."