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Editorial
This article examines the wide range of anonymous and pseudonymous naming practices to be found in West African newspapers between the 1880s and 1930s, and asks about the shape of a West African history of anonymity as compared with recent histories of anonymity in European literature. The article also discusses the ways in which colonial West African uses of anonymity and pseudonyms challenge postcolonial scholarship on agency, subjectivity, resistance, authenticity and identity.

The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints

A >> Alban Butler >> The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints




Palladius, who, from 391, lived three years under our saint, was
eye-witness to several miracles wrought by him. He relates, that a
certain priest, whose head, in a manner shocking to behold, was consumed
by a cancerous sore, came to his cell, but was refused admittance; nay,
the saint at first would not even speak to him. Palladius, by earnest
entreaties, strove to prevail upon him to give at least some answer to
so great an object of compassion. Macarius, on the contrary, urged that
he was unworthy, and that God, to punish him for a sin of the flesh he
was addicted to, had afflicted him with this disorder: however, that
upon his sincere repentance, and promise never more during his life to
presume to celebrate the divine mysteries, he would intercede for his
cure. The priest confessed his sin with a promise, pursuant to the
ancient canonical discipline, never after to perform any priestly
function. The saint thereupon absolved him by the imposition of hands;
and a few days after the priest came back perfectly healed, glorifying
God, and giving thanks to his servant. Palladius found himself tempted
to sadness, on a suggestion from the devil, that he made no progress in
virtue, and that it was to no purpose for him to remain in the desert.
He consulted his master, who bade him persevere with fervor, never dwell
on the temptation, and always answer instantly the fiend: "My love for
Jesus Christ will not suffer me to quit my cell, where I am determined
to abide in order to please and serve him agreeably to his will."

The two saints of the name of Macarius happened one day to cross the
{076} Nile together in a boat, when certain tribunes, or principal
officers, who were there with their numerous trains, could not help
observing to each other, that those men, from the cheerfulness of their
aspect, must be exceeding happy in their poverty. Macarius of
Alexandria, alluding to their name, which in Greek signifies _happy_,
made this answer: "You have reason to call us happy, for this is our
name. But if we are happy in despising the world, are not you miserable
who live slaves to it?" These words, uttered with a tone of voice
expressive of an interior conviction of their truth, had such an effect
on the tribune who first spoke, that, hastening home, he distributed his
fortune among the poor, and embraced an eremitical life. In 375, both
these saints were banished for the catholic faith, at the instigation of
Lacius, the Arian patriarch of Alexandria. Our saint died in the year
394, as Tillemont shows from Palladius. The Latins commemorate him on
the 2d, the Greeks with the elder Macarius, on the 19th of January.

In the desert of Nitria there subsists at this day a monastery which
bears the name of St. Macarius. The monastic rule called St. Macarius's,
in the code of rules, is ascribed to this of Alexandria. St. Jerom seems
to have copied some things from it in his letter to Rusticus. The
concord, or collection of rules, gives us another, under the names of
the two SS. Macariuses; Serapion (of Arsinoe, or the other of Nitria;)
Paphnutius (of Becbale, priest of Scete;) and thirty-four other
abbots.[10] It was probably collected from their discipline, or
regulations and example. According to this latter, the monks fasted the
whole year, except on Sundays, and the time from Easter to Whitsuntide;
they observed the strictest poverty, and divided the day between manual
labor and hours of prayer; hospitality was much recommended in this
rule, but, for the sake of recollection, it was strictly forbid for any
monk, except one who was deputed to entertain guests, ever to speak to
any stranger without particular leave.[11] The definition of a monk or
anchoret, given by the abbot Rance of la Trappe, is a lively portraiture
of the great Macarius in the desert when, says he, a soul relishes God
in solitude, she thinks no more of any thing but heaven, and forgets the
earth, which has nothing in it that can now please her; she burns with
the fire of divine love, and sighs only after God, regarding death as
her greatest advantage; nevertheless they will find themselves much
mistaken, who, leaving the world, imagine they shall go to God by
straight paths, by roads sown with lilies and roses, in which they will
have no difficulties to conquer, but that the hand of God will turn
aside whatever could raise any in their way, or disturb the tranquillity
of their retreat: on the contrary, they must be persuaded that
temptations will everywhere follow them, that there is neither state nor
place in which they can be exempt, that the peace which God promises is
procured amidst tribulations, as the rose-bud amidst thorns; God has not
promised his servants that they shall not meet with trials, but that
with the temptation, he will give them grace to be able to bear it:[12]
heaven is offered to us on no other conditions; it is a kingdom of
conquest, the prize of victory--but, O God, what a prize!

Footnotes:
1. Some confound our saint with Macarius of Pisper, or the disciple of
Saint Antony. But the best critics distinguish them. The latter,
with his fellow-disciple Amathas, buried St. Antony, who left him
his staff, as Cronius, the Priest of Nitria, related to Palladius.
To this Macarius of Pisper St. Antony committed the government of
almost five thousand monks as appears from the life of saint
Posthumias.
2. Hist. Lausiac, c. 20.
3. Pallad. Laus. c. 20.
4. Ib.
5. Rosweide b. 8, c. 20, p. 722.
6. Pallad. Laus. c. 20.
7. Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 2, c. 29, p. 481.
8. S. Hier. ep. 18 (ol. 22) ad. Eustoch. T. 4, par. 2, p. 44, ed. Ben.
et Rosw. Vit. Patr. l. 3, c. 319
9. Acts viii. 20.
10. Concordia Regularum, autore S. Benedicto Ananiae Abbate, edita ab
Hugone Menardo, O.S.B. in 4to Parisiis, 1638. Item, Codex Regularum
collectus a S. Benedicto Ananiae, auctus a Luca Holstenio, two vols.
4to. Romae, 1661.
11. C. 60, p. 809 edit. Mena{}.
12. 1 Cor. x. 13.

_On the same day_

Are commemorated many holy martyrs throughout the provinces of the Roman
empire; who, when Dioclesian, in 303, commanded the holy scriptures,
{077} wherever found, to be burnt, chose rather to suffer torments and
death than to be accessary {sic.} to their being destroyed by
surrendering them into the hands of the professed enemies of their
Author.[1]

Footnotes:
1. See Baron. n. annal. et annot. in Martyr. Rom. Eus. l. 8, c. 2. H.
Vales. not. ib. p. 163. Ruinart, in Acta SS Saturn &c. and S.
Felicis. Fleury. Moeurs des Chret. p. 45. Tillem. Pers. de. Dicol.
art. 10, t. 5. Lactant. de mort. Pers. c. 15 et 18, cum not. Baluz.
&c.

_Also_, ST. CONCORDIUS, M.

A HOLY subdeacon, who in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, was apprehended
in a desert, and brought before Torquatus, governor of Umbria, then
residing at Spoletto, about the year 178. The martyr, paying no regard
to his promises or threats, in the first interrogatory was beaten with
clubs, and in the second was hung on the rack, but in the height of his
torments he cheerfully sang: "Glory be to thee, Lord Jesus!" Three days
after, two soldiers were sent by Torquatus, to behead him in the
dungeon, unless he would offer sacrifice to an idol, which a priest who
accompanied them carried with him for this purpose. The saint showed his
indignation by spitting upon the idol, upon which one of the soldiers
struck off his head. In the Roman Martyrology his name occurs on the
1st, in some others on the 2d of January. See his genuine acts in
Bollandus, p. 9, and Tillemont, t. 2, p. 439.

_Also_, ST. ADALARD, OR ADALARD. A.C.

Pronounced ALARD.[1]

THE birth of this holy monk was most illustrious, his father Bernard
being son of Charles Martel, and brother of king Pepin, so that Adalard
was cousin-german to Charlemagne, by whom he was called in his youth to
the court, and created count of his palace. A fear of offending God made
him tremble at the sight of the dangers of forfeiting his grace, with
which he was surrounded, and of the disorders which reigned in the
world. Lest he should be engaged to entangle his conscience, by seeming
to approve of things which he thought would endanger his salvation, he
determined to forsake at once both the court and the world. His
sacrifice was the more perfect and edifying, as he was endowed with the
greatest personal accomplishments of mind and body for the world, and in
the flower of his age; for he was only twenty years old, when, in 773,
he took the monastic habit at Corbie in Picardy, a monastery that had
been founded by queen Bathildes, in 662. After he had passed a year in
the fervent exercises of his novitiate, he made his vows; the first
employment assigned him in the monastery was that of gardener, in which,
while his hands were employed in the business of his calling, his
thoughts were on God and heavenly things. Out of humility, and a desire
of closer retirement, he obtained leave to be removed to mount Cassino,
where he hoped he should be concealed from the world; but his eminent
qualifications, and the great example of his virtue, betrayed and
defeated all the projects of his humility, and did not suffer him to
live long unknown; he was brought back to Corbie, and some years after
chosen abbot. Being obliged by Charlemagne often to attend at court, he
appeared there as the first among the king's counsellors, as he is
styled by Hincmar,[2] who had seen him there in 796. He was compelled by
Charlemagne {078} entirely to quit his monastery, and take upon him the
charge of chief minister to that prince's eldest son Pepin, who, at his
death at Milan in 810, appointed the saint tutor to his son Bernard,
then but twelve years of age. In this exalted and distracting station,
Adalard appeared even in council recollected and attentive to God, and
from his employments would hasten to his chamber, or the chapel, there
to plunge his heart in the centre of its happiness. During the time of
his prayers, tears usually flowed from his eyes in great abundance,
especially on considering his own miseries, and his distance from God.
The emperor recalled him from Milan, and deputed him to pope Leo III. to
assist at the discussion of certain difficulties started relating to the
clause inserted in the creed, concerning the procession of the Holy
Ghost from the Father and the Son. Charlemagne died in 814, on the 28th
of January, having associated his son, Lewis le Debonnaire, in the
empire in the foregoing September. While our saint lived in his
monastery, dead to the world, intent only on heavenly things,
instructing the ignorant, and feeding the poor, on whom he always
exhausted his whole revenue, Lewis declared his son, Lothaire, his
partner and successor in the empire, in 817: Bernard, who looked upon
that dignity as his right, his father Pepin having been eldest brother
to Lewis, rebelled, but lost both his kingdom and his life. Lewis was
prevailed upon, by certain flatterers, to suspect our saint to have been
no enemy to Bernard's pretensions, and banished him to a monastery,
situated in the little island Heri, called afterwards Hermoutier, and
St. Philebert's, on the coast of Aquitain. The saint's brother Wala (one
of the greatest men of that age, as appears from his curious life,
published by Mabillon) he obliged to become a monk at Lerins. His sister
Gondrada he confined in the monastery of the Holy Cross, at Poitiers;
and left only his other sister Theodrada, who was a nun, at liberty in
her convent at Soissons. This exile St. Adalard regarded as his gain,
and in it his tranquillity and gladness of soul met with no
interruptions. The emperor at length was made sensible of his innocence,
and, after five years' banishment, called him to his court towards the
close of the year 821; and, by the greatest honors and favors,
endeavored to make amends for the injustice he had done him. Adalard
(whose soul, fixed wholly on God, was raised above all earthly things)
was the same person in prosperity and adversity, in the palace as in the
cell, and in every station: the distinguishing parts of his character
were, an extraordinary gift of compunction and tears, the most tender
charity for all men, and an undaunted zeal for the relief and protection
of all the distressed. In 823, he obtained leave to return to the
government of his abbey of Corbie, where he with joy frequently took
upon himself the most humbling and mortifying employments of the house.
By his solicitude, earnest endeavors, and powerful example, his
spiritual children grew daily in fervor and divine love; and such was
his zeal for their continual advancement, that he passed no week without
speaking to every one of them in particular, and no day without
exhorting them all in general, by pathetic and instructive discourses.
The inhabitants of the country round his monastery had also a share in
his pious labors, and he exhausted on the poor the revenue of his
monastery, and whatever other temporal goods came to his hands, with a
profusion which many condemned as excessive, but which heaven, on urgent
occasions, sometimes approved by sensible miracles. The good old man
would receive advice from the meanest of his monks, with an astonishing
humility; when entreated by any to moderate his austerities, he
frequently answered, "I will take care of your servant, that he may
serve you the longer;" meaning himself. Several hospitals were erected
by him. During his banishment, another Adalard, who governed the
monastery by his appointment, began, upon our saint's project, to {079}
prepare the foundation of the monastery of New Corbie, vulgarly called
Corwey, in the diocese of Paderborn, nine leagues from that city, upon
the Weser, that it might be a nursery of evangelical laborers, to the
conversion and instruction of the northern nations. St. Adalard, after
his return to Corbie, completed this great undertaking in 822, for which
he went twice thither, and made a long stay, to settle the discipline of
his colony. Corwey is an imperial abbey; its territory reaches from the
bishopric of Paderborn to the duchy of Brunswick, and the abbot is one
of the eleven abbots, who sit with twenty-one bishops, in the imperial
diet at Ratisbon: but the chief glory of this house is derived from the
learning and zeal of St. Anscharius, and many others, who erected
illustrious trophies of religion in many barbarous countries. To
perpetuate the regularity which he established in his two monasteries,
he compiled a book of statutes for their use, of which considerable
fragments are extant:[3] for the direction of courtiers in their whole
conduct, he wrote an excellent book, On the Order of the Court; of which
work we have only the large extracts, which Hincmar has inserted in his
Instructions of king Carloman, the master-piece of that prelate's
writings, for which he is indebted to our saint. A treatise on the
Paschal Moon, and other works of St. Adalard, are lost. By those which
we have, also by his disciples, St. Paschasius Radbertus, St.
Anscharius, and others, and by the testimony of the former in his life,
it is clear that our saint was an elegant and zealous promoter of
literature in his monasteries: the same author assures us, that he was
well skilled, and instructed the people not only in the Latin, but also
in the Tudesque and vulgar French languages.[4] St. Adalard, for his
eminent learning, and extraordinary spirit of prayer and compunction,
was styled the Austin, the Antony, and the Jeremy of his age. Alcuin, in
a letter addressed to him under the name of Antony, calls him his
son;[5] whence many infer that he had been scholar to that great man.
St. Adalard was returned out of Germany to Old Corbie, when he fell sick
three days before Christmas: he received extreme unction some days
after, which was administered by Hildemar, bishop of Beauvais, who had
formerly been his disciple; the viaticum he received on the day after
the feast of our Lord's circumcision, about seven o'clock in the
morning, and expired the same day about three in the afternoon, in the
year 827, of his age seventy-three. Upon proof of several miracles, by
virtue of a commission granted by pope John XIX. (called by some XX.)
the body of the saint was enshrined, and translated with great solemnity
in 1040; of which ceremony we have a particular history written by St.
Gerard, who also composed an office in his honor, in gratitude for
having been cured of a violent headache through his intercession: the
same author relates seven other miracles performed by the same means.[6]
The relics of St. Adalard, except a small portion given to the abbey of
Chelles, are still preserved at Corbie, in a rich shrine and two smaller
cases. His name has never been inserted in the Roman Martyrology, though
he is honored as principal patron in many parish churches, and by
several towns on the banks of the Rhine and in the Low Countries. See
his life, compiled with accuracy, in a very florid pathetic style, by
way of panegyric, by his disciple Paschasius Radbertus, {080} extant in
Bollandus, and more correctly in Mabillon, (Act. Ben. t. 5, p. 306, also
the same abridged in a more historical style, by St. Gerard, first monk
of Corbie, afterwards first abbot of Seauve-majeur in Guienne, founder
by William, duke of Aquitain and count of Poitiers, in 1080. The history
of the translation of the saint's body, with an account of eight
miracles by the same St. Gerard, is also given us by Bollandus.)

Footnotes:
1. It was usual among the ancient French, to add to certain words,
syllables, or letters which they did not pronounce; as Chrodobert,
or Rigobert, for Robert: Cloves for Louis; Clothaire for Lotharie,
&c.
2. Hinc. l. Inst. Regis, c. 12.
3. Published by D'Achery, Spicil. tom. 4, p. 1, 20.
4. From this testimony it is clear, that the French language, used by
the common people, had then so much deviated from the Latin as to be
esteemed a different tongue; which is also evident from Nithard, an
officer in the army of Lewis le Debonnaire, who, in his history of
the divisions between the sons of Lewis le Debonnaire, (published
among the French historians by du Chesne,) gives us the original act
of the agreement between the two brothers, Charles the Bald, and
Lewis of Germany, at Strasburg, in 842.
5. Alcuin, Ep. 107.
6. St. Gerard, of Seauve-majeur, died on the 5th of April, 1095, and
was canonized by C[oe]lestine III. in 1197. See his life, with an
account of the foundation of his monastery, in Mabillon, Acts,
Sanctorum ad S. Benedict. t. 9, p. 841.


JANUARY III.

ST. PETER BALSAM, M.

From his valuable acts in Ruinart, p. 501. Bollandus, p. 128. See
Tillemont, T. 5. Assemani, Act Mart. Occid. T. 2, p. 106.

A.D. 311.

PETER BALSAM, a native of the territory of Eleutheropolis, in Palestine,
was apprehended at Aulane, in the persecution of Maximinus. Being
brought before Severus, governor of the province, the interrogatory
began by asking him his name. Peter answered: "Balsam is the name of my
family, but I received that of Peter in baptism." SEVERUS. "Of what
family, and of what country are you?" PETER. "I am a Christian."
SEVERUS. "What is your employ?" PETER. "What employ can I have more
honorable, or what better thing can I do in the world, than to live a
Christian?" SEVERUS. "Do you know the imperial edicts?" PETER. "I know
the laws of God, the sovereign of the universe." SEVERUS. "You shall
quickly know that there is an edict of the most clement emperors,
commanding all to sacrifice to the gods, or be put to death." PETER.
"You will also know one day that there is a law of the eternal king,
proclaiming that every one shall perish, who offers sacrifice to devils:
which do you counsel me to obey, and which, do you think, should be my
option; to die by your sword, or to be condemned to everlasting misery,
by the sentence of the great king, the true God?" SEVERUS. "Seeing you
ask my advice, it is then that you obey the edict, and sacrifice to the
gods." PETER. "I can never be prevailed upon to sacrifice to gods of
wood and stone, as those are which you adore." SEVERUS. "I would have
you know, that it is in my power to revenge these affronts by your
death." PETER. "I had no intention to affront you. I only expressed what
is written in the divine law." SEVERUS. "Have compassion on yourself,
and sacrifice." PETER. "If I am truly compassionate to myself, I ought
not to sacrifice." SEVERUS. "My desire is to use lenity; I therefore
still do allow you time to consider with yourself, that you may save
your life." PETER. "This delay will be to no purpose, for I shall not
alter my mind; do now what you will be obliged to do soon, and complete
the work, which the devil, your father, has begun; for I will never do
what Jesus Christ forbids me."

Severus, on hearing these words, ordered him to be hoisted on the rack,
and while he was suspended in the air, said to him scoffing: "What say
you now, Peter; do you begin to know what the rack is? Are you yet
willing to sacrifice?" Peter answered: "Tear me with iron hooks, and
talk not of my sacrificing to your devils: I have already told you, that
I will sacrifice to that God alone for whom I suffer." Hereupon the
governor {081} commanded his tortures to be redoubled. The martyr, far
from fetching the least sigh, sung with alacrity those verses of the
royal prophet: _One thing I have asked of the Lord; this will I seek
after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my
life_.[1] _I will take the chalice of salvation, and will call upon the
name of the Lord_.[2] The governor called forth fresh executioners to
relieve the first, now fatigued. The spectators, seeing the martyr's
blood run down in streams, cried out to him: "Obey the emperors:
sacrifice, and rescue yourself from these torments." Peter replied: "Do
you call these torments? I, for my part, feel no pain: but this I know,
that if I am not faithful to my God, I must expect real pains, such as
cannot be conceived." The judge also said: "Sacrifice, Peter Balsam, or
you will repent it." PETER. "Neither will I sacrifice, nor shall I
repent it." SEVERUS. "I am just ready to pronounce sentence." PETER. "It
is what I most earnestly desire." Severus then dictated the sentence in
this manner: "It is our order, that Peter Balsam, for having refused to
obey the edict of the invincible emperors, and having contemned our
commands, after obstinately defending the law of a man crucified, be
himself nailed to a cross." Thus it was that this glorious martyr
finished his triumph, at Aulane, on the 3d of January, which day he is
honored in the Roman Martyrology, and that of Bede.

* * * * *

In the example of the martyrs we see, that religion alone inspires true
constancy and heroism, and affords solid comfort and joy amidst the most
terrifying dangers, calamities, and torments. It spreads a calm
throughout a man's whole life, and consoles at all times. He that is
united to God, rests in omnipotence, and in wisdom and goodness; he is
reconciled with the world whether it frowns or flatters, and with
himself. The interior peace which he enjoys, is the foundation of
happiness, and the delights which innocence and virtue bring, abundantly
compensate the loss of the base pleasures of vice. Death itself, so
terrible to the worldly man, is the saint's crown, and completes his joy
and his bliss.

Footnotes:
1. Ps. xxvi. 4.
2. Ps. cxv. 4.

ST. ANTERUS, POPE.

HE succeeded St. Pontianus in 235. He sat only one month and ten days,
and is styled a martyr by Bede, Ado, and the present Roman Martyrology.
See Card. d'Aguirre, Conc. Hispan. T. 3. In the martyrology called S.
Jerom's, kept at S. Cyriacus's, it is said that he was buried on the
Appian road, in the Paraphagene, where the cemetery of Calixtus was
afterwards erected.

ST. GORDIUS.

MARTYRED at Caesarea, in Cappadocia, was a centurion to the army, but
retired to the deserts when the persecution was first raised by
Dioclesian. The desire of shedding his blood for Christ made him quit
his solitude, while the people of that city were assembled to the
Circus[1] to solemnize public games in honor of Mars. His attenuated
body, long beard and hair and ragged clothes, drew on him the eyes of
the whole assembly; yet, with this strange garb and mien, the graceful
air of majesty that appeared in his {082} countenance commanded
veneration. Being examined by the governor, and loudly confessing his
faith, he was condemned to be beheaded. Having fortified himself by the
sign of the cross,[2] he joyfully received the deadly blow. St. Basil,
on this festival, pronounced his panegyric at Caesarea, in which he says,
several of his audience had been eye-witnesses of the martyr's triumph.
Hom. 17, t. 1.

Footnotes:
1. The _Circus_ was a ring, or large place, wherein the people sat and
saw the public games.
2. [Greek: Heautou ton tupon tou staurou perigrapsas.] St. Basil, t. 1,
p. 452.

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