Joseph Addison and Others - "The De Coverley Papers"

William Shakespeare - "Ein St. Johannis Nachts Traum"

Guillermo A. Sherwell - "Simon Bolivar, the Liberator"

John Burroughs - "The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers"

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




* * * * *

Christ has taught us {by} the divine model of prayer which he has
delivered to us, that we are bound to recommend to him, before all other
things, the exaltation of his own honor and glory, and to beg that the
kingdom of his holy grace and love be planted in all hearts. If we love
God above all things, and with our whole hearts, or have any true
charity for our neighbor, this will be the centre of all our desires,
that God be loved and served by all his creatures, and that he be
glorified in the most perfect manner, in our own souls. By placing this
at the head of our requests, we shall most strongly engage God to crown
all our just and holy desires. As one of his greatest mercies to his
church, we must earnestly beseech him to raise up in it zealous pastors,
eminently replenished with his Spirit, with which he animated his
apostles.

Footnotes:
1. Apud Eus. l. 2, c. 24, alias 25.
2. Ibid.
3. L. 3, c. 3.
4. L. 2, c. 13 & 15, &c.
5. Ib. l. 3, c. 1.
6. L. de. Excid. Hier. {}.
7. L. 3.
8. Ser. de Basilicis.
9. L. de Haeres. c. 1, &c.
10. L. 17, ad Marcell.
11. Adv. Parm.
12. L. 7, c. 1.
13. The general opinion with Eusebius, St. Jerom, and the Roman
calendar, fixes the first arrival of St. Peter at Rome in the second
year of Claudius. If this date be true, the apostle returned into
the East soon after; for he was imprisoned in Judaea, by Agrippa, in
the year of Christ 43. Lactantius does not mention this first coming
of St. Peter to Rome, but only the second, saying, that he came to
Rome in the reign of Nero, who put him and St. Paul to death. L. de
Mort. Persec. n. 2.
14. Ep. 55, ad. Cornel. pap.
15. L. 2, c. 17.
16. Notae in Martyr.
17. Tr. des Fetes, l. 2, c. 10.

SS. PAUL, AND THIRTY-SIX COMPANIONS, MM. IN EGYPT.

From their authentic acts in Ruinart, p. 624.

IN Egypt, thirty-seven Christian noblemen, all persons of high birth and
plentiful fortunes, but richer in the gifts of grace, entered into a
zealous confederacy to propagate the gospel throughout the country.
Their leader and head was one Paul, a true imitator of the great apostle
whose name he bore. They divided themselves into four several bands:
Paul and nine others went eastward: Recombus, with eight more, towards
the north: Thoonas, with the like number, to the south: and Papias, with
the remaining eight, to the west. They labored zealously in extending
the kingdom of Christ on every side, planting the faith, instructing the
docile, and purifying the souls of penitents who confessed their sins.
But the greatest part of the inhabitants of that great kingdom loved
darkness rather than light. The servants of God were treated with all
manner of injuries, apprehended, and laid in irons. The governor,
alarmed at the news of their enterprise, sent orders for their being
brought before him from different parts of the kingdom. He employed both
promises and threats to compel them to sacrifice. Paul answered, in the
name of them all, that it was better for them to die, saying: "Do not
spare us." The judge condemned them all to death: those who went to the
east and south, to be burned; those from the north, to be beheaded; and
those from the west to be crucified. But he was affrighted and surprised
beyond expression to see with what joy and courage this brave army
marched out, and bowed their heads to death. They suffered on the 18th
of January, but in what year it is not mentioned in their acts.

ST. PRISCA, V.M.

SHE was a noble Roman lady, and after many torments finished her triumph
by the sword, about the year 275. Her relics are preserved in the
ancient church which bears her name in Rome, and gives title in a
cardinal. {177} She is mentioned in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, and
in almost all western Martyrologies. The acts of her martyrdom deserve
no regard: St. Paul, in the last chapter of his epistle to the Romans,
salutes Aquila, a person of Pontus, of Jewish extraction, and Priscilla,
whom he and all churches thanked, because they had exposed themselves
for his sake. He mentions the church which assembled in their house,
which he attributes to no other among the twenty-five Christians whom he
saluted, and were then at Rome. This agrees with the immemorial
tradition at Rome, that St. Peter consecrated an altar, and baptized
there in an urn of stone, which is now kept in the church of St. Prisca.
Aquila and Priscilla are still honored in this church, as titular
patrons with our saint, and a considerable part of their relics lies
under the altar. Aquila and Priscilla were tent-makers, and lived at
Corinth when they were banished from Rome under Claudius: she who is
called Priscilla in the Acts of the Apostles, and Epistles to the Roman,
and first to the Corinthians, is named Prisca in the second to Timothy.
See the Roman Martyrology on the 18th of January and the 8th of July;
also Chatelain, not. p. 333.

ST. DEICOLUS, ABBOT.

IN IRISH DICHUL, CALLED BY THE FRENCH, ST. DEEL, OR DIEY

HE quitted Ireland, his native country, with St. Columban, and lived
with him, first in the kingdom of the East Angles, and afterwards at
Luxeu; but when his master quitted France, he founded the abbey of
Lutra, or Lure, in the diocese of Besanzon, which was much enriched by
king Clothaire II.[1] Amidst his austerities, the joy and peace of his
soul appeared in his countenance. St. Columban once said to him in his
youth: "Deicolus, why are you always smiling?" He answered in
simplicity: "Because no one can take my God from me." He died in the
seventh century. See his life and the history of his miracles in F.
Chifflet, and Mabillon, Acta Bened. t. 2, p. 103, both written by a monk
of Lure in the tenth century, as the authors of l'Hist. Lit. de la
France take notice, t. 6, p. 410. By moderns, this saint is called
Deicola; but in ancient MSS. Deicolus. In Franche-comte his name Deel is
frequently given in baptism, and Deele to persons of the female sex.

Footnotes:
1. The abbot of Lure was formerly a prince of the empire. At present the
abbey is united to that of Morbac in Alsace. Lure is situated three
leagues from Laxeu, which stands near mount Vosge, two leagues from
Lorraine towards the south.

ST. ULFRID, OR WOLFRED, BISHOP AND MARTYR.

HE was an Englishman of great learning and virtue; and preached the
faith, first in Germany; afterwards in Sweden, under the pious king Olas
II., who first took the title of king of Sweden; for his predecessors
had only been styled kings of Upsal. The good bishop converted many to
Christ; till in the year 1028, while he was preaching against the idol
Tarstans or Thor, and hewing it down with a hatchet, he was slain by the
pagans. See Adam of Bremen, who wrote his most faithful History of the
Church in the North, in 1080, l. 2 c. 44. Albert Kranxius, l. 4. Metrop.
c. 8. Baron. ad an. 1028, n. 10.

{178}


JANUARY XIX.

SS. MARIS, MARTHA, AUDIFAX, AND ABACHUM MM.

Abridged from their acts, concerning which see Bollandus, who allows
them, Tillem. t. 4, p. 673; and Chatelain, notes, p. 339.

A.D. 270.

MARIS, a nobleman of Persia, with his wife Martha, and two sons, Audifax
and Abachum, being converted to the faith, distributed his fortune among
the poor, as the primitive Christians did at Jerusalem, and came to Rome
to visit the tombs of the apostles. The emperor Aurelian then persecuted
the church, and by his order a great number of Christians were shut up
in the amphitheatre, and shot to death with arrows, and their bodies
burnt. Our saints gathered and buried their ashes with respect; for
which they were apprehended, and after many torments under the governor
Marcianus, Maris and his two sons were beheaded; and Martha drowned,
thirteen miles from Rome, at a place now called Santa Ninfa.[1] Their
relics were found at Rome in 1590. They are mentioned with distinction
in all the western Martyrologies from the sacramentary of St. Gregory.
Their relics are kept principally at Rome; part in the church of St.
Adrian, part in that of St. Charles, and in that of St. John of
Calybite. Eginhart, sole-in-law and secretary of Charlemagne, deposited
a portion of these relics, which had been sent him from Rome, in the
abbey of Selghenstadt, of which he was the founder, in the diocese of
Mentz.

* * * * *

The martyrs and confessors triumphed over the devil by prayer; by this,
poor and weak as they were, they were rendered invincible, by engaging
Omnipotence itself to be their comfort, strength, and protection. If the
art of praying well be the art of living well, according to the received
maxim of the fathers and masters of a spiritual life,[2] nothing is
certainly of greater importance, than for us to learn this heavenly art
of conversing with God in the manner we ought. We admire the wonderful
effects which this exercise produced in the saints, who by it were
disengaged from earthly ties and made spiritual and heavenly, perfect
angels on earth; but we experience nothing of this in ourselves. Prayer
was in them the channel of all graces, the means of attaining all
virtues, and all the treasures of heaven. In us it is fruitless: the
reason is plain; for the promises of Christ cannot fail: we ask, and
receive not, because we ask amiss.

Footnotes:
1. Ninfa, or Nympha, in the corrupted ages of the Latin tongue,
signifies water. In this place are several pools called by the
Italians from these martyrs, Santa Ninfa. See Chatelain, p. 340, and
Du Cange.
2. Vere novit recta vivere, qui recti novit orare. Inter Serm. S.
Augustini, Sermon 55, in Appendix, ed. Ben. t. 5, p. 101.

{179}

ST. CANUTUS, KING OF DENMARK, M.

From his life, faithfully written by AElnoth, a monk of Canterbury, who
had lived twenty-four years in Denmark, and wrote in 1105. It was
printed at Copenhagen, in 1602. See also Saxo Grammaticus, the most
elegant and judicious of the Danish historians.

A.D. 1086.

ST. CANUTUS, or KNUT, the fourth of that name, king of Denmark, was
natural son of Swein III., whose great uncle Canutus had reigned in
England. Swein having no lawful issue, took care of the education of
Canutus, who being endowed with excellent qualities both of mind and
body, answered perfectly well the care of his preceptors and governors.
It is hard to say, whether he excelled more in courage, or in conduct
and skill in war; but his singular piety perfectly eclipsed all his
other endowments. He scoured the seas of pirates, and subdued several
neighboring provinces which infested Denmark with their incursions. The
kingdom of Denmark was elective till the year 1660; wherefore, when
Swein died, many pitched upon our saint, whose eminent virtues best
qualified him for the throne; but the majority, fearing his martial
spirit, preferred his eldest natural brother Harald, the seventh king of
that name, who, for his stupidity and vices, was commonly called the
Slothful. Canutus retired into Sweden to king Halstan, who received him
with the greatest marks of kindness and esteem; but the king could never
induce him to undertake any expedition against Denmark; on the contrary,
the Christian hero employed all his power and interest in the service of
his country. Harald dying after two years' reign, Canutus was called to
succeed him.

Denmark had received the Christian faith long before; some say in 826,
but wanted a zealous hand at the helm, to put the finishing stroke to
that good work. St. Canutus seems to have been pitched upon by
providence for this purpose. He began his reign by a successful war
against the troublesome barbarous enemies of the state, and by planting
the faith in the conquered provinces of Courland, Samogitia, and
Livonia. Amidst the glory of his victories, he humbly prostrated himself
at the foot of the crucifix, laying there his diadem, and offering
himself and his kingdom to the King of kings. After having provided for
its peace and safety, and enlarged its territories, he married Eltha, or
Alice, daughter of Robert, earl of Flanders, by whom he had a pious son,
St. Charles, surnamed the Good, afterwards also earl of Flanders. His
next concern was to reform abuses at home. For this purpose, he enacted
severe, but necessary laws, for the strict administration of justice,
and repressed the violence and tyranny of the great, without respect of
persons. He countenanced and honored holy men, granted many privileges
and immunities to the clergy, to enhance the people's esteem of them;
and omitted nothing to convince them of their obligation to provide for
their subsistence by the payment of tithes. His charity and tenderness
towards his subjects made him study by all possible ways to ease them of
their burdens, and make them a happy people. He showed a royal
magnificence in building and adorning churches, and gave the crown which
he wore, of exceeding great value, to the church of Roschild, in
Zealand, his capital city, and the place of his residence, where the
kings of Denmark are yet buried. He chastised his body with fasting,
discipline, and hair-cloths. Prayer was his assiduous exercise. When
William the Conqueror had made himself master of England, Canutus sent
forces to assist the vanquished; but these troops finding no one willing
to {180} join them, were easily defeated in the year 1069. Some time
after, being invited by the conquered English, he raised an army to
invade this island, and expel the Normans; but through the treacherous
practices of his brother Olas, or Olaus, was obliged to wait so long on
the coast, that his troops deserted him. The pious king, having always
in view the service of God, and judging this a proper occasion to induce
his people to pay tithes to their pastors, he proposed to them either to
pay a heavy fine, by way of punishment for their desertion, or submit to
the law of tithes for the pastors of the church. Their aversion to the
latter made them choose the tax, to the great mortification of the king,
who, hoping they would change their resolution, ordered it to be levied
with rigor. But they, being incensed at the severity of the collectors,
rebelled. St. Canutus retired for safety into the isle of Fionia, and
was hindered from joining his loyal troops by the treachery of Blanco,
an officer, who, to deceive him, assured his majesty that the rebels
were returned to their duty. The king went to the church of St. Alban,
the martyr, to perform his devotions, and return God thanks for that
happy event. This the rebels being informed of by Blanco, they
surrounded the church with him at their head. In the mean time the holy
king, perceiving the danger that threatened his life, confessed his sins
at the foot of the altar, with great tranquillity and resignation, and
received the holy communion. His guards defended the church doors, and
Blanco was slain by them. The rebels threw in bricks and stones, through
the windows, by which they beat down the shrines of certain relics of
St. Alban and St. Oswald, which St. Canutus had brought over from
England. The saint, stretching out his arms before the altar, fervently
recommended his soul into the hands of his Creator: in which posture he
was wounded with a javelin, darted through the window, and fell a victim
to Christ. His brother Benedict, and seventeen others, were slain with
him, on the 10th of July, 1086, as AElnoth, a contemporary author,
testifies, who has specified the date of all the events with the utmost
exactness. His wicked brother Olas succeeded him in the kingdom. God
punished the people during eight years and three months of his reign
with a dreadful famine, and other calamities; and attested the sanctity
of the martyr, by many miraculous cures of the sick at his tomb. For
which reason his relics were taken up out of their obscure sepulchre,
and honorably entombed towards the end of the reign of Olas. His
successor, Eric III., a most religious prince, restored piety and
religion, with equal courage and success, and sent ambassadors to Rome,
with proofs of the miracles performed, and obtained from the pope a
declaration authorizing the veneration of St. Canutus, the proto-martyr
of Denmark. Upon this occasion a most solemn translation of his relics,
which were put in a most costly shrine, was performed, at which AElnoth,
our historian, was present. He adds, that the first preachers of the
faith in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were English priests; that the
Danes then zealously embraced the Christian religion, but that the
Swedes still continued more obstinate, among whom Eschil, an Englishman,
received the crown of martyrdom, while he was preaching Christ to
certain savage tribes.

ST. HENRY, ARCHBISHOP OF UPSAL, M.

HE was an Englishman, and preached the faith in the North with his
countryman, cardinal Nicholas Breakspear, the apostle of Norway, and
legate of the holy see, afterwards pope Adrian IV., by whom he was
raised to this see, in 1148. St. Eric, or Henry, (for it is the same
name,) was {181} then the holy king of Sweden.[1] Our saint, after
having converted several provinces, went to preach in Finland, which
that king had lately conquered. He deserved to be styled the apostle of
that country, but fell a martyr in it, being stoned to death at the
instigation of a barbarous murderer, whom he endeavored to reclaim by
censures, in 1151. His tomb was in great veneration at Upsal, till his
ashes were scattered on the change of religion, in the sixteenth
century. See John Magnus, l. 1, Vit. Pout. Upsal. Olaus Magnus, l. 4.
Bollandus, and chiefly his life published by Benzelius. Monum. Suec. p.
33.

Footnotes:
1. Stiernman, in his discourse, "On the State of Learning among the
ancient Swedes," observes, that Sweden was chiefly converted to
Christianity by English Saxon missionaries. The principal among
these were Ansgar, Sigfrid, Roduard, Richolf, Edward, Eskil, David,
and Henric, as he gives their names.

In the history of the bishops and archbishops of Upsal, published by
Benzelius in his Monum. Suec. p 37, the first whose name is recorded
is Everin, whom Benzelius supposes to be the person whom St. Sigfrid
consecrated to this see. He seems to have been one of his English
colleagues. Stephen, the sixth bishop of Upsal, was the first
archbishop. See the life of St. Sigfrid, and Benzelius's notes on
the catalogue of the bishops of Upsol, p. 186.

ST. WULSTAN, BISHOP OF WORCESTER, C.

HE was a native of Icentum, in Warwickshire. In his youth, perceiving
himself somewhat touched with wanton love on seeing a woman dance, he
withdrew into a thicket hard by, and, lying prostrate, bewailed his
fault before God, with very great contrition. And he was endowed from
that time, by Almighty God, with the gift of such a constant
watchfulness over his senses, as prevented his being ever more annoyed
with the like temptations. He laid the foundation of his studies and
education in the monastery of Evesham, but completed the same at
Peterborough. His parents having by mutual consent taken the monastic
habit at Worcester; his father, Athelstan, in the great monastery of
men, and his mother, Wulfgeva, in a nunnery; St. Wulstan put himself
under the direction of Brithege, bishop of Worcester, by whom he was
advanced to the holy orders of priesthood. In this station he redoubled
his ardor for prayer, and practised greater austerities in the world,
than monks in their convents. At first, he allowed himself the use of
flesh; but being one day distracted in saying mass, by the smell of meat
that was roasting in the kitchen, he bound himself by vow never more to
eat any flesh. Not long after he entered himself a novice in the great
abbey at Worcester, where he was remarkable for the innocence and
sanctity of his life. The first charge with which he was intrusted in
the monastery, was the care of instructing the children. He was
afterwards made preceptor, and then treasurer of the church. In these
two last stations he devoted himself totally to prayer, and watched
whole nights in the church. As the meanest employments were always the
object of his love and choice, it was contrary to his inclination that
he was made prior of Worcester, and, in 1062, bishop of that see, when
Aldred was translated to that of York. Though not very learned, he
delivered the word of God with so much dignity and unction, as often to
move his whole audience to tears. He always recited the psalter while he
travelled, and never passed by any church or chapel without going in, to
pour forth his soul before the altar with tears, which seemed to stand
always ready in his eyes for prayer. When the conqueror had deprived the
English, both nobility and clergy, of the posts of honor they possessed
in the church and state, in favor of his Normans, on whose fidelity he
could depend, Wulstan kept his see, though not without a miracle, as St.
Aelred, Florentius, and Capgrave relate, as follows: In a synod, held at
Westminster, in which archbishop Lanfranc {182} presided, Wulstan was
called upon to give up his crosier and ring, upon pretext of his
simplicity and unfitness for business. The saint confessed himself unfit
for the charge, but said, that king Edward, with the concurrence of the
apostolic see, had compelled him to take it upon him, and that he would
deliver his crosier to him. Then going to the king's monument, he fixed
his crosier to the stone; then went and sat down among the monks. No one
was able to draw out the crosier till the saint was ordered to take it
again, and it followed his hand with ease. From this time the conqueror
treated him with honor. Lanfranc even commissioned him to perform the
visitation of the diocese of Chester for himself. When any English
complained of the oppression of the Normans, he used to tell them, "This
is a scourge of God for your sins, which you must bear with patience."
The saint caused young gentlemen who were brought up under his care, to
carry in the dishes and wait on the poor at table, to teach them the
practice of humiliation, in which he set the most edifying example. He
showed the most tender charity for penitents, and often wept over them,
while they confessed their sins to-him. He died in 1095, having sat
thirty-two years, and lived about eighty-seven. He was canonized in
1203. See his life by William of Malmesbury, in Wharton, t. 2, p. 244.
Also, a second, by Florence of Worcester, and a third in Capgrave; and
his history, at length, by Dr. Thomas, in his History of the Cathedral
of Worcester.

ST. BLAITHMAIC,

SON of an Irish king, and abbot in the isle of Hij, in Scotland. He was
martyred by Danish pirates, to whom he refused to betray the treasures
of the church, in 793. See his life, by Wilfridus Strabo, in Canisius
Antiq. {} &c.

ST. LOMER, OR LAUDOMARUS, ABBOT.

IN his childhood he kept his father's sheep; in which employment he
macerated his body by regular fasts, and spent his time in studies and
prayer, under the direction of a certain holy priest. Being afterwards,
by compulsion, ordained priest, he was made canon and cellerer (some
moderns say provost) of the church of Chartres. After some years he
retired into a neighboring forest: Mabillon thinks at the place where
now stands Bellomer, a monastery of the order of Fontevrald. Many
disciples being assembled near his hermitage, he removed with them into
another desert, where he built the monastery of Corbion, (at present a
priory called Moutier-au-Perche, six leagues from Chartres,) about the
year 575. A wonderful spirit of prayer, and gift of miracles, rendered
his name famous. He died on the 19th of January, in 593, at Chartres, in
the house of the bishop, who had called him thither some time before. In
the incursions of the Normans, his remains were removed from place to
place, till they were lodged at Perly, in Auvergne. His head is now kept
in the priory of Maissac, called St. Laumer's, in Auvergne; the rest of
his relics were removed to Blois, where an abbey was built which bears
his name. Set his anonymous life, written by one who knew him, in
Bollandus and Mabillon; also Chatelain and the Paris Breviary.

{183}


JANUARY XX.

ST. FABIAN, POPE, M.

See Tillemont, t. 3, p. 362.

A.D. 250.

HE succeeded St. Anterus in the pontificate, in the year 236. Eusebius
relates,[1] that in an assembly of the people and clergy, held for the
election of a pastor in his room, a dove, unexpectedly appearing,
settled, to the great surprise of all present, on the head of St.
Fabian; and that this miraculous sign united the votes of the clergy and
people in promoting him, though not thought of before, as being a layman
and a stranger. He governed the church sixteen years, sent St. Dionysius
and other preachers into Gaul, and condemned Privatus, a broacher of a
new heresy in Africa, as appears from St. Cyprian.[2] St. Fabian died a
glorious martyr in the persecution of Decius, in 250, as St. Cyprian and
St. Jerom witness. The former, writing to his successor, St. Cornelius,
calls him an incomparable man; and says, that the glory of his death had
answered the purity and holiness of his life.[3]

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