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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




ST. CANUT,

SECOND son of Eric the Good, king of Denmark, was made duke of Sleswig,
his elder brother Nicholas being king of Denmark. Their father, who
lived with his people as a father with his children, and no one ever
left him without comfort, says the ancient chronicle Knytling-Saga, p.
71, died in Cyprus, going on a pilgrimage to the holy land, in which he
had been received by Alexius Comnenus, emperor, at Constantinople, with
the greatest honor, and had founded an hospital at Lucca for Danish
pilgrims. He died in 1103, on the 11th of July. Mallet, 1. 2, p. 112.

Canut set himself to make justice and peace reign in his principality:
those warriors could not easily be restrained from plundering. One day,
when he had condemned several together to be hanged for piracies, one
cried out, that he was of blood royal, and related to Canut. The prince
answered, that to honor his extraction, he should be hanged on the top
of the highest mast of his ship, which was executed. (Helmold, l. 6, c.
49) Henry, king of the Sclavi, being dead, and his two sons, St. Canut
his nephew succeeded, paid homage to the emperor Lothaire II. and was
crowned by him king of the Obotrites, or western Sclavi. St. Canut was
much honored by that emperor, in whose court he had spent part of his
youth. Valor, prudence, zeal, and goodness, endeared him to all. He was
slain by conspiracy of the jealous Danes, the 7th of January, 1130, and
canonized in 1171. His son became duke of Sleswig, and in 1158 king of
Denmark, called Valdemar I. and the Great, from his virtuous and
glorious actions.

{108}


JANUARY VIII.

ST. APOLLINARIS, THE APOLOGIST,

BISHOP

From Eusebius, Theodoret, St. Jerom, &c. See Tillemont, Mem. t. 2, p.
492, and Hist des Emp. t. 2, p. 309.

A.D. 175.

CLAUDIUS APOLLINARIS, bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, was one of the
most illustrious prelates of the second age. Notwithstanding the great
encomiums bestowed on him by Eusebius, St. Jerom, Theodoret, and others,
we know but very little of his actions; and his writings, which then
were held in great esteem, seem now to be all lost. Photius,[1] who had
read them, and who was a very good judge, commends them both for their
style and matter. He wrote against the Encratites, and other heretics,
and pointed out, as St. Jerom testifies,[2] from what philosophical sect
each heresy derived its errors. The last of these works was against the
Montanists and their pretended prophets, who began to appear in Phrygia
about the year 171. But nothing rendered his name so illustrious, as his
noble apology for the Christian religion, which he addressed to the
emperor Marcus Aurelius, about the year 175, soon after the miraculous
victory that prince had obtained over the Quadi by the prayers of the
Christians, of which the saint made mention.

Marcus Aurelius having long attempted, without success, to subdue the
Germans by his generals, resolved in the thirteenth year of his reign,
and of Christ 171, to lead a powerful army against them. He was beyond
the Danube, (for Germany was extended much further eastward than it is
at present,) when the Quadi, a people inhabiting that tract now called
Moravia, surrounded him in a very disadvantageous situation, so that
there was no possibility that either he or his army could escape out of
their hands, or subsist long where they were, for want of water. The
twelfth legion, called the Melitine, from a town of that name in
Armenia, where it had been quartered a long time, was chiefly composed
of Christians. These, when the army was drawn up, but languid and
perishing with thirst, fell upon their knees, "as we are accustomed to
do at prayer," says Eusebius, and poured forth earnest supplications to
God in this public extremity of their state and emperor, though hitherto
he had been a persecutor of their religion. The strangeness of the sight
surprised the enemies, who had more reason to be astonished at the
event; for all on a sudden the sky was darkened with clouds, and a thick
rain showered down with impetuosity just as the Barbarians had assailed
the Roman camp. The Romans fought and drank at the same time, catching
the rain, as it fell, in their helmets, and often swallowing it mingled
with blood. Though by this means exceedingly refreshed, the Germans were
much too strong for them; but the storm being driven by a violent wind
upon their faces, and accompanied with dreadful flashes of lightning,
and loud thunder, the Germans were deprived of their sight, beaten down
to the ground, and terrified to such a degree, that they were entirely
routed and put to flight. Both heathen and Christian writers give this
account of the victory. The heathens ascribe it, some to the power of
{109} magic, others to their gods, as Dio Cassius;[3] but the Christians
unanimously recount it as a miracle obtained by the prayers of this
legion, as St. Apollinaris in his apology to this very emperor, who
adds, that as an acknowledgment, the emperor immediately gave it the
name of the Thundering Legion, and from him it is so called by
Eusebius,[4] Tertullian,[5] St. Jerom,[6] and St. Gregory of Nyssa.[7]

The Quadi and Sarmatians brought back thirteen thousand prisoners, whom
they had taken, and begged for peace on whatever conditions it should
please the emperor to grant it them. Marcus Aurelius hereupon took the
title of the _seventh time emperor_, contrary to custom, and without the
consent of the senate, regarding it as given him by heaven. Out of
gratitude to his Christian soldiers, he published an edict, in which he
confessed himself indebted for his delivery _to the shower obtained_,
PERHAPS, _by the prayers of the Christians_;[8] and more he could not
say without danger of exasperating the pagans. In it he forbade, under
pain of death, any one to accuse a Christian on account of his religion;
yet, by a strange inconsistency, especially in so wise a prince, being
overawed by the opposition of the senate, he had not the courage to
abolish the laws already made and in force against Christians. Hence,
even after this, in the same reign, many suffered martyrdom, though
their accusers were also put to death; as in the case of St. Apollonius
and of the martyrs of Lyons. Trajan had in like manner forbid Christians
to be accused, yet commanded them to be punished with death if accused,
as may be seen declared by him in his famous letter to Pliny the
Younger. The glaring injustice of which law Tertullian demonstrates by
an unanswerable dilemma.

St. Apollinaris, who could not see his flock torn in pieces and be
silent, penned his apology to the emperor, about the year 172, to remind
him of the benefit he had received from God by the prayers of the
Christians, and to implore his protection. We have no account of the
time of this holy man's death, which probably happened before that of
Marcus Aurelius. The Roman Martyrology mentions him on the 8th of
January.

* * * * *

We believe the same great truths, and divine mysteries,--we profess the
same faith which produced such wonderful fruits in the souls of the
saints. Whence comes it that it has not the like effects in us?--that
though we acknowledge virtue to be the richest treasure of the soul of
man, we take little pains about it, passionately seek the things of this
world, are cast down and broken under every adversity, and curb and
restrain our passions only by halves?--that the most glorious objects,
God and heaven, and the amazing and dreadful truths, a judgment to come,
hell, and eternity, strike us so feebly, and operate so little in us?
The reason is plain: because we meditate not sufficiently on these great
truths. Our notions of them are dim and imperfect; our thoughts pass so
slightly over them, that they scarce retain any print or traces of them.
Otherwise it is impossible that things {110} so great and terrible
should excite in us no fear, or that things in their own nature
infinitely amiable, should enkindle in us no desire. Slight and faint
images of things move our minds very weakly, and affect them very
coldly, especially in such matters as are not subject to our senses. We
therefore grossly deceive ourselves in not allotting more time to the
study of divine truths. It is not enough barely to believe them, and let
our thoughts now and then glance upon them: that knowledge which shows
us heaven, will not bring us to the possession of it, and will deserve
punishments, not rewards, if it remain slight, weak, and superficial. By
serious and frequent meditation it must be concocted, digested, and
turned into the nourishment of our affections, before it can be powerful
and operative enough to change them, and produce the necessary fruit in
our lives. For this all the saints affected solitude and retreats from
the noise and hurry of the world, as much as their circumstances allowed
them.

Footnotes:
1. {}
2. Ep. 83, ad Magn.
3. B. 71.
4. Hist. B. 5, c. 5.
5. Apol. c. 5. L. ad Scap. c. 4.
6. Chron.
7. Or. 2, de 40 mart.
8. _Christianorum_ FORTE _militum precationibus impetrato imbri_.
Tertull. Apolog. c. 5. Euseb. l. 5, c. 5. Some take the word _forte_
here to signify, _casually, accidentally, as hap was_. Several
learned Protestants have written in defence of this miracle: see Mr.
Weston's dissertation in 1748. The exceptions of Le Clerc, Hist.
Eccl. p. 744, and of Moyle, in his essay on the Thundering Legion,
deserve no notice. The deliverance of the emperor is represented on
the _Columna Antoniniana_, in Rome, by the figure of a Jupiter
Pluvius, being that of an old man flying in the air, with his arms
expanded, and a long beard which seems to waste away in rain. The
soldiers are there represented as relieved by this sudden tempest,
and in a posture, partly drinking of the rain-water, and partly
fighting against the enemy; who, on the contrary are represented as
stretched out on the ground with their horses, and upon them only
the dreadful part of the storm descending. The original letter of
Marcus Aurelius concerning this matter, was extant when Tertullian
and St. Jerom wrote. See Hier. in Chron. Euseb. ad annum 176. Tert.
Apol. c. 5, et lib. ad Scapul. The letter of Marcus Aurelius to the
senate now extant, is rejected as supposititious by Scaliger,
(Animadv. In Eus. ad an. 189.).It is published in the new edition of
the works of Marcus Aurelius, printed by Robert Fowlis in 1748, t.
1, p. 127, in Greek, t. 2, p. 126, in Latin, with notes, ib. p. 212.
Mamachi, t. 1, p 366.

ST. SEVERINUS, ABBOT,

AND APOSTLE OF NORICUM, OR AUSTRIA.

From his life, by Eugippius his disciple, who was present at his death.
See Tillemont, t. 16, p. 168. Lambecius Bibl. Vend. t. 1, p. 28, and
Bollandus, p. 497.

A.D. 482.

WE know nothing of the birth or country of this saint. From the purity
of his Latin, he was generally supposed to be a Roman; and his care to
conceal what he was according to the world, was taken for a proof of his
humility, and a presumption that he was a person of birth. He spent the
first part of his life in the deserts of the East; but, inflamed with an
ardent zeal for the glory of God, he left his retreat to preach the
gospel in the North. At first he came to Astures, now Stokeraw, situate
above Vienna; but finding the people hardened in vice, he foretold the
punishment God had prepared for them, and repaired to Comagenes, now
Haynburg on the Danube, eight leagues westward of Vienna. It was not
long ere his prophecy was verified; for Astures was laid waste, and the
inhabitants destroyed by the sword of the Huns, soon after the death of
Attila. St. Severinus's ancient host with great danger made his escape
to him at Comagenes. By the accomplishment of this prophecy, and by
several miracles he wrought, the name of the saint became famous.
Favianes, a city on the Danube, twenty leagues from Vienna, distressed
by a terrible famine, implored his assistance. St. Severinus preached
penance among them with great fruit; and he so effectually threatened
with the divine vengeance a certain rich woman, who had hoarded up a
great quantity of provisions, that she distributed all her stores among
the poor. Soon after his arrival, the ice of the Danube and the Ins
breaking, the country was abundantly supplied by barges up the rivers.
Another time by his prayers he chased away the locusts, which by their
swarms had threatened with devastation the whole produce of the year. He
wrought many miracles; yet never healed the sore eyes of Bonosus, the
dearest to him of his disciples, who spent forty years in almost
continual prayer, without any abatement of his fervor. The holy man
never ceased to exhort all to repentance and piety: he redeemed
captives, relieved the oppressed, was a father to the poor, cured the
sick, mitigated or averted public calamities, and brought a blessing
wherever he came. Many cities desired him for their bishop; but he
withstood their importunities by urging, that it was sufficient he had
relinquished his dear solitude for their instruction and comfort.

{111}

He established many monasteries, of which the most considerable was one
on the banks of the Danube, near Vienna; but he made none of them the
place of his constant abode, often shutting himself up in a hermitage
four leagues from his community, where be wholly devoted himself to
contemplation. He never ate till after sunset, unless on great
festivals. In Lent he ate only once a week. His bed was sackcloth spread
on the floor in his oratory. He always walked barefoot, even when the
Danube was frozen. Many kings and princes of the Barbarians came to
visit him, and among them Odoacer, king of the Heruli, then on his march
for Italy. The saint's cell was so low that Odoacer could not stand
upright in it. St. Severinus told him that the kingdom he was going to
conquer would shortly be his; and Odoacer seeing himself, soon after,
master of Italy, sent honorable letters to the saint, promising him all
he was pleased to ask; but Severinus only desired of him the restoration
of a certain banished man. Having foretold his death long before it
happened, he fell ill of a pleurisy on the 5th of January, and on the
fourth day of his illness, having received the viaticum, and arming his
whole body with the sign of the cross, and repeating that verse of the
psalmist, _Let every spirit praise the Lord_,[1] he closed his eyes, and
expired in the year 482. Six years after, his disciples, obliged by the
incursions of Barbarians, retired with his relics into Italy, and
deposited them at Luculano, near Naples, where a great monastery was
built, of which Eugippius, his disciple, and author of his life, was
soon after made the second abbot. In the year 910 they were translated
to Naples, where to this day they are honored in a Benedictin abbey,
which bears his name. The Roman and other Martyrologies place his
festival on this day, as being that of his death.

* * * * *

A perfect spirit of sincere humility is the spirit of the most sublime
and heroic degree of Christian virtue and perfection. As the great work
of the sanctification of our souls is to be begun by humility, so must
it be completed by the same. Humility invites the Holy Ghost into the
soul, and prepares her to receive his graces; and from the most perfect
charity, which he infuses, she derives a new interior light, and an
experimental knowledge of God and herself, with an _infused_ humility
far clearer in the light of the understanding, in which she sees God's
infinite greatness, and her own total insufficiency, baseness, and
nothingness, after a quite new manner; and in which she conceives a
relish of contempt and humiliations as her due, feels a secret sentiment
of joy in suffering them, sincerely loves her own abjection, dependence,
and correction, dreads the esteem and praises of others, as snares by
which a mortal poison may imperceptibly insinuate itself into her
affections, and deprive her of the divine grace; is so far from
preferring herself to any one, that she always places herself below all
creatures, is almost sunk in the deep abyss of her own nothingness,
never speaks of herself to her own advantage, or affects a show of
modesty in order to appear humble before men, in all good, gives the
_entire_ glory to God alone, and as to herself, glories only in her
infirmities, pleasing herself in her own weakness and nothingness,
rejoicing that God is the great _all_ in her and in all creatures.

Footnotes:
1. Ps. 150.

{112}

ST. LUCIAN,

APOSTLE OF BEAUVAIS, IN FRANCE.

HE preached the gospel in Gaul, in the third century; came from Rome,
and was probably one of the companions of St. Dionysius, of Paris, or at
least of St. Quintin. He sealed his mission with his blood at Beauvais,
under Julian, vicar or successor to the bloody persecutor Rictius Varus,
in the government of Gaul, about the year 290. Maximian, called by the
common people Messien, and Julian, the companions of his labors, were
crowned with martyrdom at the same place a little before him. His
relics, with those of his two colleagues, were discovered in the seventh
age, as St. Owen informs us in his life of St. Eligius. They are shown
in three gilt shrines, in the abbey which bears his name, and was
founded in the eighth century. Rabanus Maurus says, that these relics
were famous for miracles in the ninth century.

St. Lucian is styled only martyr, in most calendars down to the
sixteenth century, and in the Roman Martyrology, and the calendar of the
English Protestants, in all which it is presumed that he was only
priest; but a calendar compiled in the reign of Lewis le Debonnaire,[1]
gives him the title of bishop, and he is honored in that quality at
Beauvias. See Bollandus, p. 540; though the two lives of this saint,
published by him, and thought to be one of the ninth, the other of the
tenth age, are of little or no authority. Tillemont, T. 4, p. 537.
Loisel and Louvet, Hist. de Beauvais, p. 76.

Footnotes:
1. Spicileg. T. 10, p. 130.

ST. PEGA, V.

SHE was sister to St. Guthlack, the famous hermit of Croyland, and
though of the royal blood of the Mercian kings, forsook the world, and
led an austere retired life in the country which afterwards bore her
name, in Northamptonshire, at a distance from her holy brother. Some
time after his death she went to Rome, and there slept in the Lord,
about the year 719. Ordericus Vitalis says, her relics were honored with
miracles, and kept in a church which bore her name at Rome, but this
church is not now known. From one in Northamptonshire, a village still
retains the name of Peagkirk, vulgarly Pequirk; she was also titular
saint of a church and monastery in Pegeland, which St. Edward the
Confessor united to Croyland. She is called St. Pee in Northamptonshire,
and St. Pege at Croyland. See Ingulph. et Ord. Vitalis, l. 4. Florence
of Worcester, ad ann. 714. Harpsfield, sec. 8, c. 19.

ST. VULSIN, BISHOP OF SHIREBURN, C.

WILLIAM of Malmesbury informs us, that St. Dunstan, when bishop of
London, appointed him abbot of twelve monks at Thorney, since called
Westminster, where Saint Mellitus had built a church in honor of St.
Peter. Vulsin was afterwards chosen bishop of Shireburn; his holy life
was crowned with a happy death in 973. He is called Ultius by Matthew of
Westminster, {113} but his true ancient name, given by Capgrave, is
Vulsin. See Malmesbury de Pontif. Angl. l. 2. Capgrave and Harpsfield,
saec. 10, c. 9, saec. 11, c. 16.

ST. GUDULA, V.

CALLED IN BRABANT GOULE, OR ERGOULE, IN FLEMISH SINTE-R-GOELEN,

PATRONESS OF BRUSSELS.

ST. AMALBERGE, mother of this saint, was niece to Pepin, mayor of the
palace. Gudula was educated at Nivelle, under the care of St. Gertrude,
her cousin and god-mother; after whose death, in 664, she returned to
the house of count Witger, her father, and having by vow consecrated her
virginity to God, led there a most austere and holy life, in watching,
fasting, and prayer. By her profuse alms, in which she bestowed her
whole revenue on the poor, she was truly the mother of all the
distressed; though her father's castle was two miles from the church of
our Saviour at Morzelle, she went thither early every morning, with a
maid to carry a lantern before her; and the wax taper being once put
out, is said to have miraculously lighted again at her prayers, whence
she is usually represented in pictures with a lantern. She died on the
8th of January, not in 670, as Miraeus says, but in 712, and was buried
at Ham, near Villevord. In the reign of Charlemagne, her body was
removed to the church of our Saviour at Morzelle, and placed behind the
high altar; this emperor, out of veneration of her memory, often
resorted thither to pray, and founded there a nunnery, which soon after
changed its name of St. Saviour for that of St. Goule: this house was
destroyed in the irruptions of the Normans. The relics of St. Gudula, by
the care of Charles, duke of Lorrain, (in which Brabant was then
comprised,) were translated to Brussels, in 978, where they were first
deposited to the church of St. Gery, but in 1047, removed into the great
collegiate church of St. Michael, since called from her St. Gudula's.
See her life wrote by Hubert of Brabant, in the eleventh century, soon
after this translation of her relics to St. Michael's, who assures us
that he took the whole relation from an ancient life of this saint,
having only changed the order and style.

ST. NATHALAN, BISHOP OF ABERDEEN, C.

HE possessed a large estate, which he distributed among the poor; and
seeing that agriculture is an employment best suiting a life of
contemplation, he made this an exercise of penance, joining with the
same assiduous prayer. He was a proficient in profane and sacred
learning, and being made bishop, (to which dignity he was raised by the
pope, in a journey of devotion which he made to Rome,) he continued to
employ his revenues in charities as before, living himself in great
austerity by the labor of his hands, and at the same time preaching the
gospel to the people. By his means Scotland was preserved from the
Pelagian heresy. He was one of the apostles of that country, and died in
452. He resided at Tullicht, now in the diocese of Aberdeen, and built
the churches of Tullicht Bothelim, and of the Hill; in the former of
these he was buried, and it long continued famous for miracles wrought
by his relics, which were preserved there till the change of religion.
See King, the Chronicles of Dumferling, and the lessons of the Aberdeen
Breviary on this day. The see of Aberdeen was {114} not then regularly
established; it was first erected at Murthlac by St. Bean, in the
beginning of the eleventh century, and translated thence to Aberdeen by
Nectan, the fourth bishop, in the reign of king David.[2] See Hector
Boetius in the lives of the bishops of Aberdeen,[3] and Spotswood, b. 2,
p. 101.

Footnotes:
1. The Aberdeen Breviary resembles that called _of Sarum_, and contains
the feasts of many French saints. It was printed at Edinburg, by
Walter Chapman, in 1509.
2. Few authentic memoirs of the ancient Scotch church, or history, have
been handed down to us, except those of certain noble families. A
catalogue of the bishops of Galloway, from St. Ninianus, in 450; of
the archbishops of Glascow, from St. Kentigern; of St. Andrew's,
from the year 840; and of the bishops of the other sees, from the
twelfth century, is printed at the end of an old edition of
Spotsword in 166{} and reprinted by bishop Burnet, in an appendix to
his memoirs of the house of Hamilton.
3. De vitis episcopor. Aberd. Praelo. Afrensiano, anno 1522.


JANUARY IX.

ST. PETER OF SEBASTE, B.C.

From the life of his sister St. Macrina, composed by their brother St.
Gregory of Nyssa; and from St. Gregory Naz. Or. 20. See also Theodoret,
Hist. Eccl. l. 4, c. 30. Rufin, l. 2., c. 9, and the judicious
compilation of Tillemont, in his life of St. Gregory of Nyssa, art. 6,
t. 9, p. 572.

About the year 387.

THE family of which St. Peter descended, was very ancient and
illustrious; St. Gregory Nazianzen tells us, that his pedigree was made
up of a list of celebrated heroes; but their names are long since buried
in oblivion, while those of the saints which it gave to the church, and
who despised the world and its honors, are immortal in the records of
the church, and are written in the book of life; for the light of faith,
and the grace of the Almighty, extinguishing in their breasts the sparks
of worldly ambition, inspired them with a most vehement ardor to attain
the perfection of Christian virtue, and changed their family into a
house of saints; three brothers were at the same time eminently holy
bishops, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Peter of Sebaste; and
their eldest sister, St. Macrina, was the spiritual mother of many
saints and excellent doctors; their father and mother, St. Basil the
Elder, and St. Emolia, were banished for their faith in the reign of the
emperor Galerius Maximian, and fled into the deserts of Pontus; they are
recorded together in the Roman Martyrology, on the 30th of May: the
grandmother of our pious and fruitful family of saints, was the
celebrated St. Macrina the Elder, who was instructed in the science of
salvation, by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. St. Peter of Sebaste was the
youngest of ten children, and lost his father in his cradle, some think
before he was born; and his eldest sister, Macrina, took care of his
education, in which it was her only aim to instruct him in the maxims of
religion, and form him to perfect piety; profane studies she thought of
little use, to one who designed to make salvation the sole end of all
his inquiries and pursuits, nor did he ever make them any part of his
employment, confining his views to a monastic state. His mother had
founded two monasteries, one for men, the other for women; the former
she put under the direction of her son Basil, the latter under that of
her daughter Macrina. Peter, whose thoughts were wholly bent on
cultivating the seeds of piety that had been sown in him, retired into
the house governed by his brother, situated on the bank of the river
Iris; when St. Basil was obliged to quit that post, in 362, he left the
abbacy in the hands of St. Peter, who discharged this office for {115}
several years with great prudence and virtue. When the provinces of
Pontus and Cappadocia were visited by a severe famine, he gave a
remarkable proof of his charity; human prudence would have advised him
to be frugal in the relief of others, till his own family should be
secured against that calamity; but Peter had studied the principles of
Christian charity in another school, and liberally disposed of all that
belonged to his monastery, and whatever he could raise, to supply with
necessaries the numerous crowds that daily resorted to him, in that time
of distress. Soon after St. Basil was made bishop of Caesarea in
Cappadocia, in 370, he promoted his brother Peter to the priesthood; the
holy abbot looked on the holy orders he had received as a fresh
engagement to perfection. His brother St. Basil died on the 1st of
January, in 379, and his sister Macrina in November, the same year.
Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste, in Armenia, a violent Arian, and a
furious persecutor of St. Basil, seems to have died soon after them, for
St. Peter was consecrated bishop of Sebaste in 380, to root out the
Arian heresy in that diocese, where it had taken deep root; the zeal of
a saint was necessary, nor can we doubt but God placed our saint in that
dignity for this purpose. A letter which St. Peter wrote, and which is
prefixed to St. Gregory of Nyssa's books against Eunomius, has entitled
him to a rank among the ecclesiastical writers, and is a standing proof,
that though he had confined himself to sacred studies, yet by good
conversation and reading, and by the dint of genius, and an excellent
understanding, he was inferior to none but his incomparable brother
Basil, and his colleague Nazianzen, in solid eloquence. In 381, he
attended the general council held at Constantinople, and joined the
other bishops in condemning the Macedonian heretics. Not only his
brother St. Gregory, but also Theodoret, and all antiquity, bear
testimony to his extraordinary sanctity, prudence, and zeal. His death
happened in summer, about the year 387, and his brother of Nyssa
mentions, that his memory was honored at Sebaste (probably the very year
after his death) by an anniversary solemnity, with several martyrs of
that city.[1] His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology, on the 9th of
January.

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