Saint Proculus was the fourth bishop of Verona. During the persecution waged by Dioclesian and Maximian against the Church, Anulinus the consul came to Milan breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the faithful. And when he had laid his hands on SS. Firmus and Rusticus, the holy bishop Proculus went to them into their prison to encourage them to strive manfully for Christ. And he kissed them and said, "Be strong in the Lord Jesus, and receive me, my brethren, as your fellow in death; for I desire greatly to be your companion, that we may have but one will and one struggle for the Lord, so that we may merit to enter into His glory and sing His praises eternally?" And they answered, "So be it." Now Anulinus had sent to have the martyrs brought before him; and the officers came to the door, and saw the old man sitting with Firmus and Rusticus, and they laughed, and said, "What does that old man want with these condemned criminals?" Then the blessed Proculus answered, "They are not condemned criminals, but crowned victors of the Lord; and would that I might share their glory!" So saying he held out his hands to the officers that they might be bound; so they bound him.
Anulinus sat on his judgment seat, and they brought before him Firmus and Rusticus, and after them the venerable Proculus. "Who is this old man?" asked the magistrate; and when they told him, Anulinus said, "He drivels, send him off." So they unbound him and beat him about the face, and drove him out of the city.
So far from the Acts of SS. Firmus and Rusticus, other accounts of S. Proculus are less authentic. According to these latter, he went to Jerusalem together with some companions, when the persecution was at an end, and was taken captive and sold as a slave; but was released, on account of his advanced age. On his way home he passed through Pannonia, and an odd story is related of the journey. The old man felt the want of a razor, and was ill-content at remaining unshaven so long. At length, passing through a country where there was no water, and unable to endure the growth on his chin and place of tonsure any longer, he summoned water out of the rock, and giving an old blunt knife to his attendant bade him shave boldly. Then wondrous to relate the bristles on the old man came off lightly, as though mown by the keenest razor.
The relics of the saint were discovered on the rebuilding of the confession or church of S. Proculus, in 1492.
SS. FINGAR, M., AND PIALA, V. M.
(ABOUT A.D. 450.)
[Anglican Martyrology of J. Wilson. In Brittany at Lok-Eguignar, where the church is dedicated to him; the saint is commemorated on December 14th. Colgan by mistake, February 23rd. The Life and Martyrdom of S. Fingar, written by one Anselm, but not S. Anselm of Canterbury, is fabulous.]
There was a prince named Corotic[86] of Cornwall or South Wales, who was a pirate and a persecutor at once. In, or about, A.D. 450, but certainly just before S. Patrick left Munster, in 452, Corotic landed with a party of his armed followers, many of whom were Christians, at a season of solemn baptism, and set about plundering a district in which S. Patrick had just baptized and confirmed a great many converts, and on the very day after the holy chrism was seen shining on the brows of the white-robed neophytes. Having murdered several persons, these marauders carried off a considerable number of people, whom they sold as slaves to the Scots and Picts. S. Patrick wrote a letter, now extant, which he sent to these pirates, requesting them to restore the baptized captives, and some part of the booty. The letter was received with scorn, and S. Patrick was under the necessity of issuing a circular epistle against them and their chief Corotic, in which he proclaimed that he excommunicated and cut off from Christ those same robbers and murderers, and forbade Christian people receiving them and giving them meat or drink. He requested the faithful to read the epistle everywhere, and before Corotic himself, and to communicate it to his soldiers, in the hope that they and their master might return to God.
It is probable that S. Fingar was one of the sufferers in this expedition. He and his sister Piala were probably carried to Cornwall, and there put to death. But all this is very uncertain. The life by Anselm tells the story thus: Fingar or Guigner, the son of the Irish king Clito, and a convert to Christianity through the preaching of S. Patrick, fled his country to avoid the consequences of his father's wrath, together with several young nobles to Brittany, where he was kindly received by the chief of the province, and having got ample possessions from him, erected an oratory. Afterwards he returned to Ireland, and there collected nearly eight hundred faithful, among whom were seven bishops and his sister Piala. Leaving Ireland they arrived at the port of Hayle, in Cornwall, anciently called Pen-dinas, but now called Hayle, after S. Hija, an Irish virgin, who had set out after them, on a leaf of a tree which had been blown into the sea, and on which she was wafted to the Cornish coast. S. Hija received them hospitably, and forwarded them on their way. At night they reached the hut of a pious woman who invited them all in, and as there were not beds enough for the whole company, pulled the thatch off her roof, and strewed it on the floor. Then she killed her only cow, and served its meat to the holy comrades, who satisfied themselves thereon, and then S. Fingar took the skin, put the bones inside it, and having prayed, the cow rose up whole, and began to low. Theodoric—this is Anselm's version of the name Corotic—the earl of Cornwall, hearing of the passage through his lands of this large party of saints, waylaid and massacred them. S. Fingar planted his staff at his side, and stretched forth his neck, and his head was smitten off at one blow. Then a spring bubbled up from the ground moistened by his blood, and his staff grew and put forth leaves beside the holy well.