When Constantine became Emperor both the young men were baptised, retired into solitude and embraced the monastic life.
The name of Febronia is in the Greek, Coptic and Abyssinian Kalendars. The simple and apparently quite trustworthy account of her death was by Thomais, the nun who saw her die, and had known her all her short life.
THE DAUGHTER OF CONSTANTINE.
V
THE DAUGHTER OF CONSTANTINE
Constantia, whose name does not appear in the Roman Kalendar, but which has found its way into several unauthorised lists of the Saints, is chiefly known through the Acts of S. Agnes. Little or nothing reliable is recorded concerning her, and her story would not have been included in this collection, were it not for two circumstances—one, that two of the most interesting monuments of Old Rome are associated with her name, one directly, the other indirectly; and next, that a caution, very desirable of being exercised, may be learned from a consideration of her story—not to cast over as utterly fabulous and worthless the legends that come down to us of the Saints of early times, because they are stuffed with unhistorical and ridiculous incidents and marvels. Let us now see very briefly what the legend is concerning Constantia.
She was the daughter of Constantine the Great, and was afflicted with a distressing disease, supposed at the time to be leprosy, but which was in all probability scrofula.
The Roman general, Gallicanus, having been in favour with the Emperor, and having lost his wife, was offered Constantia in marriage by his master—not a particularly inviting proposal, and Gallicanus did not, possibly, regret that he was called away by an inroad of the barbarians into Thrace, to defend the Roman frontiers against them. Before engaging in battle he made a vow, in the event of success, that he would believe in Christ and be baptised. He succeeded in repulsing the enemy, and returned to Rome to find that Constantia had been healed of her disorder at the tomb of S. Agnes, and that she had persuaded his three daughters, Augusta, Attica, and Artemia, to live with her, as consecrated virgins, near the shrine of the Virgin Martyr, to whose intercession she attributed her cure.
Constantia had two chamberlains, John and Paul, to whom, at her death, she bequeathed much of her possessions.
When Julian the Apostate assumed the purple, in 361, he did not openly persecute the Church, but he turned out of their situations such officers of the court and army as refused to renounce Christ. John and Paul he particularly disliked, partly because they were zealous Christians, and had had much to do with the conversion of Gallicanus, but also because they had obtained by bequest so much of Constantia’s estate, which he desired to draw into the imperial treasury. He sent word that they were to be deprived of their offices, and were to be privately put to death in their own house.