The Lives of the Saints, Volume II (of 16): February. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ of the Studium, together with S. Theodore, the abbot, or archimandite, of the monastery were called to suffer. Nicolas was scourged with leather thongs on the back and limbs, and his arms extended, so that they became for a time paralysed. His back, which was lashed and bleeding, was tenderly bathed with warm water and healing lotions by S. Theodore, his superior, till it was healed. Both were driven into exile, and kept for three years in nakedness, and without sufficient food and drink, in a wretched prison. They were beaten again at Smyrna, and further imprisoned for twenty-two months, with their feet in the stocks. On the death of Leo, the confessors were released, and visited S. Nicephorus at Chalcedon. This took place during the absence of Constantine Copronymus, who had undertaken an expedition against the Saracens. During this absence, his kinsman, Artavasdus, assumed the purple, and everywhere the sacred images were triumphantly restored. Constantine flew for refuge to his paternal mountains; but he descended at the head of the bold Isaurians, and his final victory placed the unfortunate Catholics once more at the mercy of a brutal tyrant. This monster of crime derived his name Copronymus from having defiled his baptismal font. This incident of his infancy was accepted as an augury of his maturity, and he did not belie it. His reign was one long butchery of whatever was most noble, or holy, or innocent, in his empire. In person the emperor assisted at the execution of his victims, surveyed their agonies, listened to their groans, and indulged, without satiating, his appetite for blood: a plate of noses was accepted as a grateful offering, and his domestics were often scourged or mutilated by his royal hand. His long reign was distracted with clamour, sedition, conspiracy, mutual hatred, and sanguinary revenge. The hatred borne by this ruffian against monks and images was implacable. Images were torn down and defaced with wanton malice throughout the empire by an officer called the Dragon, sent round for that purpose; all religious communities were dissolved, their buildings were converted into magazines or barracks; the lands, moveables, and cattle, were confiscated, and the monks were mutilated in eyes and ears and limbs, with refined cruelty.

      Under this emperor, Theophilus (829), Nicolas and Theodore again suffered persecution. Theodore, and the abbot Theophanes, kinsman of Nicolas, were mutilated by certain verses being cut upon their brows. During the persecution, S. Nicolas remained concealed; on the accession of the indifferent emperor, Michael III., (842), he emerged from his hiding place, and was elected archimandite of the Studium, the abbot Theodore being dead. After exercising the government for three years, he resigned it to Sophronius, and retired to Firmopolis, that he might pass the remainder of his days in peace; but it was not so to be; after four years he was recalled to the abbacy of the Studium, on the death of Sophronius, and was at once involved in conflict. For the patriarch Ignatius, having rebuked the Cæsar Bardas for incest, and then excommunicated him, the emperor Michael III., his nephew, was persuaded to exile Ignatius, and to intrude Photius into the Patriarchal see. The abbot Nicolas refused to communicate with the intruder, and was consequently driven from his monastery, and a monk, Achillas, was appointed in his room. Nicolas was pursued from one retreat to another by the hostility of the intruded patriarch, and after many wanderings, rested in the Crimea. Upon the death of Bardas and Michael, Bardas having been murdered by his nephew Michael, and Michael by his successor, Basil I., (867), the patriarch Ignatius was recalled, and the patriarch persuaded Nicolas to return to his government of the Studium, where he died the following year.

S. REMBERT, B. C(A.D. 888.)

      [Roman Martyrology; this being the day of his consecration to the Archbishopric of Bremen and Hamburg. But in some German Martyrologies, on June 11th, the day of his death. Authority: – his life written by a coeval author or authors].

      This saint was born at Thourout, in Flanders, where was a monastic cell, that had been given by King Louis the Pious to S. Anskar. As Anskar was at Thourout one day, he noticed some boys going to church, and amongst them was one who, by his gravity, pleased him; and when the boy entered the church, he crossed himself, and behaved with so great reverence, that the archbishop went to him, and asked his name. He told him that he was called Rembert. Then S. Anskar took him and placed him in the little monastery, and bade that he should be well instructed. In after years, the apostle of Sweden called Rembert to assist him in his mission; and he loved his young friend greatly, and prayed to God for three days incessantly that He would grant to Rembert to accomplish the work that he, Anskar, had begun, and to make them companions together in the Heavenly Zion. After Anskar died, in 865, S. Rembert was unanimously chosen Archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen, and he superintended all the churches of Sweden, Denmark, and Lower Germany. He also began a mission to the Wends and Sclavonic race of Mecklenburg and Brandenburg, which was attended with considerable success. He sold the sacred ornaments of the Church to redeem captives from the Northmen. On one occasion he saw a party of these marauders pass, dragging after them a poor girl, who raised her shackled hands towards the bishop, and began to chant one of David's psalms. Then S. Rembert leaped off his horse, and ran to the chief, and offered him the horse if he would release the captive Christian maiden. And this he did, well pleased to obtain so valuable a horse. S. Rembert died on June 11th, in the year 888.

S. GILBERT OF SEMPRINGHAM, AB(A.D. 1189.)

      [Roman, Anglican, Belgian, Benedictine, and Cistercian Martyrologies. Authority: – his life, by a contemporary, published by Bollandus.]

      This S. Gilbert, of whom Henricus Chrysostomus, a Cistercian chronicler, speaks as "a disciple of Bernard the mellifluous, a man of apostolical zeal, of most severe and rigid life, in purity conspicuous, illustrious for his gift of prophecy, and the mirific performer of stupendous miracles," was born about the year a. d. 1083, near the close of the reign of William the Conqueror. From an apparently contemporary pedigree he seems to have been related on the mother's side to that monarch, who may have rewarded the services of his father, "a bold and skilful warrior," with the hand of one of his relations, in addition to the manor of Sempringham, where Gilbert first saw the light. His mother is said to have received, shortly before his birth, a miraculous presage of the future greatness of her child, a greatness, however, of which few external tokens would seem to have manifested themselves during his childhood; since one of his biographers relates that as a child he was so dull and spiritless as to provoke the contempt and ill-usage of even the servants of his father's household. Driven by this maltreatment from his home and country, or more probably sent from home by the care of his parents, who discerned in him a greater aptitude for the cloister than for the camp, he passed some years in Gaul in the peaceful study of letters and philosophy. His childish education completed, he returned to England, and took up his abode with one of his father's dependents. Here he fell in love with the daughter of his host, and gave the first proof of his vocation to the counsels of perfection; for finding his passion increase daily in strength, and fearing lest he should be overcome by it, he fortified his soul by prayer and fasting; and then seeking the company of his beloved, he so wrought upon her by his exhortations and entreaties, that he prevailed upon her to join him in a vow of perpetual chastity, and she was one of the first who afterwards became nuns under his rule.

      He now took to keeping a school, and gathered together a number of children of both sexes, to be instructed in the rudiments of religion, and especially taught them to live an orderly and pious life in the world, without as yet leading them forward to the higher life of the cloister; and these afterwards became the nucleus (primitiæ plantæ) of his order.

      During this time he seems to have lived in the family of the then Bishop of Lincoln, and to have been admitted by him to the minor orders of the ministry; for the next thing related of him is that being presented by his father to the united benefices of Sempringham and Torrington he most willingly accepted the charge, and devoted the whole revenue of his livings to charitable purposes. Such was the fervour of his devotion at this time, that it is related that having one day invited one of his companions to join him in his prayers, the youth was so fatigued by the length of the office, and the punctilious care with which Gilbert genuflected whenever the holy names of God and of Christ occurred, that he swore he would never pray with him again.

      After a while he was ordained priest by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, who held him in such high esteem that he made him his confessor, and would have appointed him Archdeacon; but this Gilbert resolutely declined saying, "that he knew not of a shorter road to perdition."

      Persevering СКАЧАТЬ