S. JOACHIM.
[Roman Martyrology; by the Greeks on Sept. 9th. The insertion of this name in the Martyrologies is not earlier than the 16th century. The Roman Breviary of 1522, pub. at Venice, contained it with special office, but this was expunged by pope Pius V., and in the Breviary of 1572, neither name nor office are to be found.]
Nothing whatever is known of S. Joachim, except what is related in the Apocryphal Gospels, whence the name is derived. It is probable, however, that the name was traditionally preserved, and adopted by the author of the Apocryphal Gospels.
S. CUTHBERT, B. OF LINDISFARNE.
(A.D. 687.)
[Martyrologies of Bede, Usuardus, Ado, Rabanus Maurus; the Anglican, Scottish, and Irish Martyrologies; the Benedictine and the Roman as well. Authorities:—Bede's Life of S. Cuthbert, another by a monk of Lindisfarne, written in the reign of Egfrid (d. 705). The following life is extracted from Montalembert's "Monks of the West.">[
Of the parentage of Cuthbert, nothing for certain is known. The Kelts have claimed him as belonging to them, at least by birth. They made him out to have been the son of an Irish princess, reduced to slavery, like Bridget, the holy patroness of Ireland, but who fell, more miserably, victim to the lust of her savage master. His Celtic origin would seem to be more conclusively proved by his attitude towards S. Wilfrid, the introducer of Roman uniformity into the north of England, than by the tradition of the Anglo-Saxon monks of Durham. His name is certainly Saxon, and not Keltic. But, to tell the truth, nothing is certainly known either of his place of birth, or the rank of his family.
His first appearance in history is as a shepherd in Lauderdale, a valley watered by a river which flows into the Tweed near Melrose. It was then a district annexed to the kingdom of Northumbria, which had just been delivered by the holy king Oswald from the yoke of the Mercians and Britons. As he is soon afterwards to be seen travelling on horseback, lance in hand, and accompanied by a squire, it is not to be supposed that he was of poor extraction. At the same time, it was not the flocks of his father which he kept, as did David in the plains of Bethlehem; it is expressly noted that the flocks confided to his care belonged to a master, or to several masters. His family must have been in the rank of those vassals to whom the great Saxon lords gave the care and superintendence of their flocks upon the vast extent of pastures which, under the name of folcland or common, was left to their use, and where the cowherds and shepherds lived day and night in the open air, as is still done by the shepherds of Hungary.
Popular imagination in the north of England, of which Cuthbert was the hero before, as well as after, the Norman Conquest, had thus full scope in respect to the obscure childhood of its favourite saint, and delighted in weaving stories of his childish sports, representing him as walking on his hands, and turning somersaults with his little companions. A more authentic testimony, that of his contemporary, Bede, informs us that our shepherd boy had not his equal among the children of his age, for activity, dexterity, and boldness in the race and fight. In all sports and athletic exercises he was the first to challenge his companions, with the certainty of being the victor. The description reads like that of a little Anglo-Saxon of our own day—a scholar of Eton or Harrow. At the same time, a precocious piety showed itself in him, even amid the exuberance of youth. One night, as he said his prayers, while keeping the sheep of his master, he saw the sky, which had been very dark, broken by a track of light, upon which a cloud of angels descended from heaven, returning afterwards with a resplendent soul, which they had gone to meet on earth. Next morning he heard that Aidan, the holy bishop of Lindisfarne, the apostle of the district, had died during the night. This vision determined his monastic vocation.