[59] His worship meant canaille.
February 9.
St. Apollonia.
She is called, by Butler, “the admirable Apollonia, whom old age and the state of virginity rendered equally venerable.” He relates, that in a persecution of the Christians, stirred up by “a certain poet of Alexandria,” she was seized, and all her teeth were beaten out, with threats that she should be cast into the fire, “if she did not utter certain impious words;” whereupon, of her own accord, she leaped into the flames. From this legend, St. Apollonia is become the patron saint of persons afflicted by tooth-ach.
In the “Horæ B. Virginis” is the following prayer:—
“O Saint Apollonia, by thy passion, obtain for us the remission of all the sins, which, with teeth and mouth, we have committed through gluttony and speech; that we may be delivered from pain and gnashing of teeth here and hereafter; and loving cleanness of heart, by the grace of our lips we may have the king of angels our friend. Amen.”
If her teeth and jaws in Romish churches be good evidence, St. Apollonia superabounded in these faculties; the number of the former is surprising to all who disbelieve that relics of the saints multiply of themselves. A church at Bononia possesses her lower jaw, “which is solemnly worshipped by the legate;” St. Alban’s church at Cologne also has her lower jaw—each equally genuine and of equal virtue.