Genseric had ordered, on the advice of the Arian bishops, that no Catholic should be allowed to hold office in his house. Now there was found one, named Armogastes, in the service of his son Theodoric. He was tortured with cords bound round his forehead and legs, compressing the flesh painfully. But he looked up to heaven, made the sign of the Cross, and the cords broke like a spider's web. Stouter cords of hemp were then used, but they proved equally inefficacious. He was next suspended by one foot, with his head downwards. His master, Theodoric, wished to cut off his head, but his hand was arrested by an Arian priest present, named Jucundus, who said, "If thou strikest off his head, the Romans will honour him as a martyr; therefore make him languish to death in other ways." By Romans, he meant the conquered inhabitants of the province. Theodoric then sent Armogastes into the province of Byzacene, to dig the earth. He afterwards recalled him to Carthage, and to disgrace him before all men, made him cow-keeper.
The confessor having had a revelation that his death was at hand, said to a Catholic, named Felix, "I pray thee, bury me under this oak tree, or thou shalt have to give account before God for not doing this." Felix replied, "God forbid that I should do so; I will bury thee, as thou deservest, in some church." Armogastes urged him, and Felix promised to fulfil his wish, so as not to vex him. The saint died a few days after, and Felix began his grave beneath the tree, but the roots incommoded him. He, therefore, got an axe, and cut through them, and found, to his surprise, an ancient marble sarcophagus beneath them; and in this he laid the body of Armogastes.
A certain Archinimus, of the city of Mascula, was also called on to confess Christ about the same time. The king himself endeavoured to persuade him to disbelieve in the eternal Godhead of Christ, and promised him great wealth and favour if he would comply with his wishes. But when he found that the man would not be persuaded, he gave orders that he should be executed, but he sent secret instructions that his life should be spared if he maintained his constancy to the last. The saint showed no disposition to yield, and he was spared.
Satur, procurator of Huneric, often spoke against Arian misbelief. For this he was denounced by an Arian deacon, named Varimad. Huneric threatened, unless he conformed to the established heresy, that he would deprive him of his house, his goods, his slaves, his children, even of his wife, and publicly wed her in his presence to a camel-driver. Satur remained inflexible, and was despoiled of all things. His wife implored delay, and going to her husband, with her garments rent, cast herself at his feet, and implored him not, by his obduracy, to expose her to such a public disgrace, and to such a sin as marriage to another whilst her husband lived. He replied, "You speak like one of the foolish women. (Job xi. 10.) If you loved me, you would not urge me to a second death. He that forsaketh not even his wife, the Lord said, when called upon so to do for His sake, cannot be His disciple." Then Satur was robbed of all, and reduced to beggary; he was even forbidden to go forth from his place. Thus was he despoiled of wealth and family, and liberty. "But," says Victor of Utica, "Of his baptismal robe they could not rob him." These three men are honoured, for their sufferings, as martyrs.
S. EUSTACE, AB. OF LUXEUIL.
(A.D. 625.)
[Roman Martyrology, and that of Ado; not in the genuine one of Bede, nor in that of Usuardus; but in those of Notker and Maurolycus; and in the Gallican and Benedictine Martyrologies; and in the Scottish one of Dempster. His life was written by Jonas, monk of Bobbio, in 664.]
Eustace, born of a noble family in Burgundy, had spent his youth in arms, but he renounced the world and joined S. Columbanus at Luxeuil, and when, through the persecution of that she-wolf, Brunehault, and her grandson, Thierry, king of Burgundy, Columbanus was driven from his monastery, and from the country, Eustace was deemed worthy to succeed him in the government of the abbey. His marvellous sweetness and tender companion to all who suffered, mentally or corporeally, endeared him to his monks; and when they confessed their faults to him, his tears mingled with theirs, and filled their hearts with consolation.
By order of Clothaire II., he travelled into Italy to recall Columbanus, and the two saints had the happiness of once more falling on each other's necks, embracing. Columbanus having refused to return, Eustace went back to the king and explained to him the reasons of the saint for declining his invitation. Eustace, therefore, remained at the head of the great abbey of Luxeuil, which attracted an increasing number of monks. However, the missionary spirit and desire to preach exercised an overwhelming influence over Eustace, as over all the disciples of the great Irish missionary. The bishops, assembled in the Council of Bonneuil-sur-Marne, by Clothaire II., nominated him to preach the faith to unconverted nations. He began with the Varasques, who inhabited the banks of the Doubs, near Baume, some of whom worshipped the wood-spirit, whilst others had fallen victims to heresy. He afterwards travelled beyond the countries which Columbanus had visited, to the extremity of northern Gaul, among the Boii or Bavarians. His mission was not without success; but Luxeuil, which could not remain thus without a head, soon recalled him.
During the ten years of his rule, a worthy successor of Columbanus, he succeeded in securing the energetic support of the Frank nobility, as well as the favour of Clothaire II. Under his active and intelligent administration, the abbey founded by S. Columbanus attained its highest pitch of splendour, and was recognised as the monastic capital of all the countries under Frank government. The other monasteries, into which laxness had but too frequently found its way, yielded, one after another, to the happy influence of Luxeuil, and gradually reformed themselves by its example. This remarkable prosperity was threatened with a sudden interruption by means of the intrigues of a false brother who had stolen into the monastic family of Columbanus. A man named Agrestin, who had been secretary to king Thierry, the persecutor of S. Columbanus, came one day to give himself and his property to Luxeuil. Being admitted among the monks, he soon showed a desire to go, like Eustace, to preach the faith to the pagans. In vain the abbot, who could see no evangelical quality in him, attempted to restrain that false zeal. He was obliged to let him go. Agrestin followed the footsteps of Eustace into Bavaria, but made nothing of it, and passed from thence into Istria and Lombardy, where he embraced the schism of the Three Chapters, and endeavoured to involve therein Attalus, the second abbot of Bobbio. Failing, he returned to Luxeuil, where he tried to corrupt his former brethren. Eustace then remembered what the exiled Columbanus had written to him, in his letter from Nantes, just before his embarkation:—"If there is one among you who holds different sentiments from the others, send him away;" and he commanded Agrestin to leave the community. To avenge himself, the schismatic began to snarl, says the contemporary annalist, hawking here and there injurious imputations against the rule of S. Columbanus. Abellinus, bishop of Geneva, listened to his denunciations, and exerted himself to make the neighbouring prelates share his dislike. King Clothaire, who heard of it, and who was always full of solicitude for Luxeuil, assembled most of the bishops of the kingdom of Burgundy in the council of Macon. To this council Eustace was called, and the accuser invited to state his complaints against the rule. They were directed against certain insignificant peculiarities. "I have discovered," said he, "that Columbanus has established usuages which are not those of the whole Church." And thereupon he accused his former brethren, as with so many heresies, of making the sign of the cross upon their spoons when eating; of asking a blessing in entering or leaving any monastic building; and of multiplying prayers at Mass. He insisted especially against the Irish tonsure, which Columbanus had introduced into France, and which consisted solely in shaving the front of the head, from one ear to the other, without touching the hair of the back part, while the Greeks shaved the entire head, and the Romans only the crown.