Hans Christian Andersen - "O. T., A Danish Romance"

Mrs. Humphry Ward - "Marriage a la mode"

Charles Raymond Barrett - "Short Story Writing"

Arthur Elson - "Woman's Work in Music"

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




Anastasius was always the first at all spiritual duties, especially in
assisting at the celebration of the divine mysteries. His attention to
pious discourse testified the earnest thirst of his soul; nor was he
less fervent in practice. He never read the triumphs of the martyrs
without abundance of tears, and burned with an ardent desire of the like
happiness. Being molested beyond measure with blasphemous thoughts of
magic and superstitions, which his father had taught him, he was
delivered from that troublesome temptation by discovering it to his
director, and by his advice and prayers. After seven years spent in
great perfection in this monastery, his desire of martyrdom daily
increasing, and having been assured by a revelation, that his prayers
for that grace were heard, he left that house, and visited the places of
devotion in Palestine, at Diospolis, Garizim, and our Lady's church at
Caesarea, where he stayed two days. This city, with the greatest part of
Syria, was then subject to the Persians. The saint seeing certain
Persian soothsayers of the garrison occupied in their abominable
superstitions in the streets, boldly spoke to them, remonstrating
against the impiety of such practices. The Persian magistrates
apprehended him as a suspected spy; but he informed them that he once
enjoyed the dignity of Magian with them, and had renounced it to become
a humble follower of Christ. Upon this confession he was thrown into a
dungeon, where he lay three days without eating of drinking, till the
return of Marzabanes, the governor, to the city. Being interrogated by
him, he confessed his conversion to the faith, and equally despised his
offers of great preferments, and his threats of crucifying him.
Marzabanes commanded him to be chained by the foot to another criminal,
and his neck and one foot to be also linked together by a heavy chain,
and condemned him in this condition to carry stones. The Persians,
especially those of his own province of Rasech, and his former
acquaintance, upbraided him as the disgrace of his country, kicked and
beat him, plucked his beard, and loaded him with burdens above his
strength. The governor sent for him a second time, but could by no means
prevail with him to pronounce the impious words which the Magians used
in their superstitions: he said, "That the wilful calling them to
remembrance would defile the heart." The judge then threatened he would
write immediately to the king against him, if he did not comply. "Write
what you please," said the saint, "I am a Christian: I repeat it again,
I am a Christian." Marzabanes commanded him to be forthwith beaten with
knotty clubs. The executioners were preparing themselves to bind him
fast on the ground; but the saint told him it was unnecessary, for he
had courage enough to lie down under the punishment without moving, and
he regarded it as his greatest happiness and pleasure to suffer for
Christ. He only begged leave to put off his monk's habit, lest it should
be treated with contempt, which only his body deserved. He therefore
laid it aside in a respectful manner, and then stretched himself on the
ground, and without {198} being bound did not stir all the time of the
cruel torment, bearing it without changing his posture. The governor
again threatened him to acquaint the king of his obstinacy: "Whom ought
we rather to fear," said Anastasius, "a mortal man, or God, who made all
things out of nothing?" The judge pressed him to sacrifice to fire, and
to the sun and moon. The saint answered, he could never acknowledge as
gods, creatures which God had made only for our use; upon which he was
remanded to prison.

His old abbot hearing of his sufferings, sent two monks to assist him,
and ordered prayers for him. The confessor, after carrying stones all
the day, spent the greatest part of the night in prayer, to the surprise
of his companions: one of whom, a Jew, saw and showed him to others at
prayer in the night, shining in brightness and glory like a blessed
spirit, and angels praying with him. As the confessor was chained to a
man condemned for a public crime, he prayed always with his neck bowed
downwards, keeping his chained foot near his companion not to disturb
him. Marzabanes in the mean time having informed Chosroes, and received
his orders, acquainted the martyr by a messenger, without seeing him,
that the king would be satisfied on condition he would only by word of
mouth abjure the Christian faith: after which he might choose whether he
would be an officer in the king's service, or still remain a Christian
and a monk; adding, he might in his heart always adhere to Christ,
provided he would but for once renounce him in words privately, in his
presence, "in which there could be no harm, nor any great injury to his
Christ," as he said. Anastasius answered firmly, that he would never
even seem to dissemble, or to deny his God. Then the governor told him,
that he had orders to send him bound into Persia to the king. "There is
no need of binding me," said the saint: "I go willingly and cheerfully
to suffer for Christ." The governor put on him and on two other
prisoners the mark, and gave orders that they should set out after five
days. In the mean time, on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, the
14th of September, at the request of the Comerciarius, or tax-gatherer
for the king, who was a Christian of distinction, Anastasius had leave
to go to the church and assist at the divine service. His presence and
exhortations encouraged the faithful, excited the tepid to fervor, and
moved all to tears. He dined that day with the Comerciarius, and then
returned with joy to his prison. On the day appointed, the martyr left
Caesarea, in Palestine, with two other Christian prisoners, under a
strict guard, and was followed by one of the monks whom the abbot had
sent to assist and encourage him. The acts of his martyrdom were written
by this monk, or at least from what be related by word of mouth. The
saint received great marks of honor, much against his inclination, from
the Christians wherever he came. This made him fear lest human applause
should rob trim of his crown by infecting his heart with pride. He wrote
from Hierapolis, and again from the river Tigris, to his abbot, begging
the prayers of his brethren.

Being arrived at Barsaloe in Assyria, six miles from Discartha, or
Dastagerde, near the Euphrates, where the king then was, the prisoners
were thrown into a dungeon till his pleasure was known. An officer came
from Chosroes to interrogate the saint, who made answer, with regard to
his magnificent promises, in these words: "My religious habit and poor
clothes show that I despise from my heart the gaudy pomp of the world.
The honors and riches of a king, who must shortly die himself, are no
temptation to me." Next day the officer returned to the prison, and
endeavored to intimidate him by blustering threats and reproaches. But
the saint said calmly: "My lord judge, do not give yourself so much
trouble about me. By the grace of Christ I am not to be moved: so
execute your pleasure without more ado." The officer caused him to be
unmercifully beaten with staves, after {199} the Persian manner,
insulting him all the time, and often repeating, that because he
contemned the king's bounty, he should be treated in that manner every
day as long as he lived. This punishment was inflicted on him three
days; on the third the judge commanded him to be laid on his back, and a
heavy beam pressed down by the weight of two men on his legs, crushing
the flesh to the very bone. The martyr's tranquillity and patience
astonished the officer, who went again to acquaint the king of his
behavior. In his absence the jailer, being a Christian by profession,
though too weak to resign his place rather than detain such a prisoner,
gave every one free access to the martyr. The Christians immediately
filled the prison; every one sought to kiss his feet or chains, and kept
as relics whatever had been sanctified by their touch: they also
overlaid his fetters with wax, in order to receive their impression. The
saint, with confusion and indignation, strove to hinder them, and
expressed how extremely dissatisfied he was with such actions. The
officer returning from the king caused him to be beaten again, which the
confessor bore rather as a statue, than as flesh and blood. Then he was
hung up for two hours by one hand, with a great weight at his feet, and
tampered with by threats and promises. The judge despairing to overcome
him, went back to the king; for his last orders, which were, that he and
all the Christian captives should be put to death. He returned speedily
to put them in execution, and caused Anastasius's two companions, with
threescore and six other Christians, to be strangled one after another
on the banks of the river, before his face, whom the judge all the time
pressed to return to the Persian worship, and to escape so disgraceful a
death, promising, in case of compliance, that he should be made one of
the greatest men in the court. Anastasius, with his eyes lifted up to
heaven, gave thanks to God for bringing his life to so happy a
conclusion; and said he expected that he should have met with a more
cruel death in the torture of all his members: but seeing God granted
him one so easy, he embraced with joy that end of a life which he
otherwise must shortly have lost in a more painful manner. He was
accordingly strangled, and after his death his head was cut off. This
was in the year 628, the seventeenth of the emperor Heraclius, on the
22d of January, on which day both the Latins and Greeks keep his
festival. His body, among the other dead, was exposed to be devoured by
dogs, but it was the only one they left untouched. It was afterwards
redeemed by the Christians, who laid it in the monastery of St. Sergius,
a mile from the place of his triumph, in the city Barsaloe, called
afterwards from that monastery, Sergiopolis. The monk that attended him
brought back his Colobium, or liners tunic without sleeves. The saint's
body was afterwards brought into Palestine. Some years after, it was
removed to Constantinople, and lastly to Rome.

The seventh general council[1] proves the use of pious pictures from the
head of this holy martyr, and his miraculous image, then kept at Rome
with great veneration: where it is still preserved in the church
belonging to the monastery of our Lady ad Aquas Sylvias, which now bears
the name of SS. Vincent and Anastasius.[2] The rest of his relics are
reposited in the holy chapel ad Scalas Sanctas, near St. John Lateran.
See the history of many miracles wrought by them in Bollandus. St.
Anastasius foretold the speedy fall of the tyrant Chosroes: and ten days
after his martyrdom the emperor Heraclius entered Persia.

Footnotes:
1. Act. 4.
2. Mabill. Iter. Ital. p. 141.

{200}


JANUARY XXIII.

ST. RAYMUND, OF PENNAFORT, C.

From the bull of his canonization, by Clement VIII. in 1601, and his
life, written by several Spanish, Italian, and French authors. See
Fleury, b. 78, n. 55, 84, and chiefly Touron, Hommes Illustres de
l'Ordre de S. Domin. t. 1, p. 1.

A.D. 1275.

THE house of Pegnafort, or, as it is pronounced, Pennafort, was
descended from the counts of Barcelona, and nearly allied to the kings
of Aragon. Raymund was born in 1175, at Pennafort, a castle in
Catalonia, which in the fifteenth century was changed into a convent of
the order of St. Dominick. Such was his rapid progress in his studies,
that at the age of twenty he taught philosophy at Barcelona, which he
did gratis, and with so great reputation, that he began then to be
consulted by the ablest masters. His principal care was to instil into
his scholars the most perfect maxims of a solid piety and devotion, to
compose all differences among the citizens, and to relieve the
distressed. He was about thirty years of age when he went to Bologna, in
Italy, to perfect himself in the study of the canon and civil law,
commenced Doctor in that faculty, and taught with the same
disinterestedness and charity as he had done in his own country. In 1219
Berengarius, bishop of Barcelona, who had been at Rome, took Raymund
home with him, to the great regret of the university and senate of
Bologna; and, not content with giving him a canonry in his church, made
him his archdeacon, grand vicar, and official. He was a perfect model to
the clergy, by his innocence, zeal, devotion, and boundless liberalities
to the poor, whom he called his creditors. In 1222 he took the religious
habit of St. Dominick at Barcelona, eight months after the death of the
holy founder, and in the forty-seventh year of his age. No person was
ever seen among the young novices more humble, more obedient, or more
fervent. To imitate the obedience of a Man-God, who reduced himself to a
state of subjection to his own creatures, to teach us the dangers and
deep wound of self-will, and to point out to us the remedy, the saint
would depend absolutely on the lights of his director in all things. And
it was upon the most perfect self-denial that he laid the foundation of
that high sanctity which he made the object of his most earnest desires.
The grace of prayer perfected the work which mortification had begun. In
a spirit of compunction he begged of his superiors that they would
enjoin him some severe penance, to expiate the vain satisfaction and
complacency which he said he had sometimes taken in teaching. They
indeed imposed on him a penance, but not such a one as be expected. It
was to write a collection of cases of conscience for the instruction and
conveniency of confessors and moralists. This produced his Sum, the
first work of that kind. Had his method and decisions been better
followed by some later authors of the like works, the holy maxims of
Christian morality had been treated with more respect by some moderns
than they have been, to our grief and confusion.

Raymund joined to the exercises of his solitude the functions of an
apostolical life, by laboring without intermission in preaching,
instructing, hearing confessions with wonderful fruit, and converting
heretics, Jews, and Moors. Among his penitents were James, king of
Aragon, and St. Peter Nolasco, {201} with whom he concerted the
foundation of the Order of the B. Virgin of mercy for the redemption of
captives. James, the young king of Aragon, had married Eleonora of
Castile within the prohibited degrees, without a dispensation. A legate
was sent by pope Gregory IX. to examine and judge the case. In a council
of bishops of the two kingdoms, held at Tarragon, he declared the
marriage null, but that their son Don Alphonso should be reputed
lawfully born, and heir to his father's crown. The king had taken his
confessor with him to the council, and the cardinal legate was so
charmed with his talents and virtue, that he associated him in his
legation, and gave him a commission to preach the holy war against the
Moors. The servant of God acquitted himself of that function with so
much prudence, zeal, and charity, that he sowed the seeds of the total
overthrow of those infidels in Spain. His labors were no less successful
in the reformation of the manners of the Christians detained in
servitude under the Moors, which were extremely corrupted by their long
slavery or commerce with these infidels. Raymund showed them, by words
full of heavenly unction and fire, that, to triumph over their bodily,
they must first conquer their spiritual enemies, and subdue sin in
themselves, which made God their enemy. Inculcating these and the like
spiritual lessons, he ran over Catalonia, Aragon, Castile, and other
countries. So general a change was wrought hereby in the manners of the
people, as seemed incredible to all but those who were witnesses of it.
By their conversion the anger of God was appeased, and the arms of the
faithful became terrible to their enemies. The kings of Castile and Leon
freed many places from the Moorish yoke. Don James, king of Aragon,
drove them out of the islands of Majorca and Minorca, and soon after, in
1237, out of the whole kingdom of Valentia. Pope Gregory IX. having
called St. Raymund to Rome in 1230, nominated him his chaplain, (which
was the title of the Auditor of the causes of the apostolic palace,) as
also grand penitentiary. He made him likewise his own confessarius, and
in difficult affairs came to no decision but by his advice. The saint
still reserved himself for the poor, and was so solicitous for them that
his Holiness called him their father. He enjoined the pope, for a
penance, to receive, hear, and expedite immediately all petitions
presented by them. The pope, who was well versed in the canon law,
ordered the saint to gather into one body all the scattered decree, of
popes and councils, since the collection made by Gratian in 1150.
Raymund compiled this work in three years, in five books, commonly
called the Decretals, which the same pope Gregory confirmed in 1234. It
is looked upon as the best finished part of the body of the canon law;
on which account the canonists have usually chosen it for the texts of
their comments. In 1235, the pope named St. Raymund to the archbishopric
of Tarragon, the capital of Aragon: the humble religious man was not
able to avert the storm, as he called it, by tears and entreaties; but
at length fell sick through anxiety and fear. To restore him to his
health, his Holiness was obliged to consent to excuse him, but required
that he should recommend a proper person. The saint named a pious and
learned canon of Gironne. He refused other dignities with the like
constancy.

For the recovery of his health he returned to his native country, and
was received with as much joy as if the safety of the whole kingdom, and
of every particular person, had depended on his presence. Being restored
again to his dear solitude at Barcelona, he continued his former
exercises of contemplation, preaching, and administering the sacrament
of penance. Except on Sundays, he never took more than one very small
refection in the day. Amidst honors and applause he was ever little in
his own eyes. He appeared in the schools like a scholar, and in his
convent begged the {202} superior to instruct him in the rules of
religious perfection, with the humility and docility of a novice.
Whether he sung the divine praises with his brethren, or prayed alone in
his cell, or some corner of the church, he poured forth an abundance of
tears; and often was not able to contain within himself the ardor of his
soul. His mildness and sweetness were unalterable. The incredible number
of conversions of which he was the instrument, is known only to Him who,
by his grace, was the author of them. He was employed frequently in most
important commissions, both by the holy see and by the king. But he was
thunderstruck by the arrival of four deputies from the general chapter
of his order at Bologna, in 1238, with the news that he was chosen third
general, Jordan of Saxony being lately dead. He wept and entreated, but
at length acquiesced in obedience. He made the visitation of his order
on foot, without discontinuing any of his penitential austerities, or
rather exercises. He instilled into his spiritual children a love of
regularity, solitude, mortification, prayer, sacred studies, and the
apostolical functions, especially preaching. He reduced the
constitutions of the order into a clearer method, with notes on the
doubtful passages. Thus his code of rules was approved in three general
chapters. In one held at Paris in 1239, he procured the establishment of
this regulation, that a voluntary demission of a superior, founded upon
just reasons, should be accepted. This he contrived in his own favor;
for, to the extreme regret of the order, he in the year following
resigned the generalship, which he had held only two years. He alleged
for his reason his age of sixty-five years. Rejoicing to see himself
again a private religious man, he applied himself with fresh vigor to
the exercises and functions of an apostolical life, especially the
conversion of the Saracens. Having this end in view, he engaged St.
Thomas to write his work 'Against the Gentiles;' procured the Arabic and
Hebrew tongues to be taught in several convents of his order; and
erected convents, one at Tunis, and another at Murcia, among the Moors.
In 1256, he wrote to his general that ten thousand Saracens had received
baptism. King James took him into the island of Majorca. The saint
embraced that opportunity of cultivating that infant church. This prince
was an accomplished soldier and statesman, and a sincere lover of
religion, but his great qualities were sullied by a base passion for
women. He received the admonitions of the saint with respect, and
promised amendment of life, and a faithful compliance with the saint's
injunctions in every particular; but without effect. St. Raymund, upon
discovering that he entertained a lady at his court with whom he was
suspected to have criminal conversation, made the strongest instances to
have her dismissed, which the king promised should be done, but
postponed the execution. The saint, dissatisfied with the delay, begged
leave to retire to his convent at Barcelona. The king not only refused
him leave, but threatened to punish with death any person that should
undertake to convey him out of the island. The saint, full of confidence
in God, said to his companion, "A king of the earth endeavors to deprive
us of the means of retiring; but the King of heaven will supply them."
He then walked boldly to the waters, spread his cloak upon them, tied up
one corner of it to a staff for a sail, and having made the sign of the
cross, stepped upon it without fear, while his timorous companion stood
trembling and wondering on the shore. On this new kind of vessel the
saint was wafted with such rapidity, that in six hours he reached the
harbor of Barcelona, sixty leagues distant from Majorca. Those who saw
him arrive in this manner met him with acclamations. But he, gathering
up his cloak dry, put it on, stole through the crowd, and entered his
monastery. A chapel and a tower, built on the place where he landed,
have transmitted the memory of this miracle to posterity. {203} This
relation is taken from the bull of his canonization, and the earliest
historians of his life. The king became a sincere convert, and governed
his conscience, and even his kingdoms, by the advice of St. Raymund from
that time till the death of the saint. The holy man prepared himself for
his passage to eternity, by employing days and nights in penance and
prayer. During his last illness, Alphonsus, king of Castile, with his
queen, sons, and brother; and James, king of Aragon, with his court,
visited him, and received his last benediction. He armed himself with
the last sacraments; and, in languishing sighs of divine love, gave up
his soul to God, on the 6th of January, in the year 1275, and the
hundredth of his age. The two kings, with all the princes and princesses
of their royal families, honored his funeral with their presence: but
his tomb was rendered far more illustrious by miracles. Several are
recorded in the bull of his canonization, published by Clement VIII. in
1601. Bollandus has filled fifteen pages in folio with an account of
them. His office is fixed by Clement X. to the 23d of January.

* * * * *

The saints first learned in solitude to die to the world and themselves,
to put on the spirit of Christ, and ground themselves in a habit of
recollection and a relish only for heavenly things, before they entered
upon the exterior functions even of a spiritual ministry. Amidst these
weighty employments, not content with reserving always the time and
means of frequent retirement for conversing with God and themselves, in
their exterior functions by raising their minds to heaven with holy
sighs and desires, they made all their actions in some measure an
uninterrupted prayer and exercise of divine love and praise. St.
Bonaventure reckons it among the general exercises of every religious or
spiritual man,[1] "That he keep his mind always raised, at least
virtually, to God: hence, whensoever a servant of God has been
distracted from attending to him for ever so short a space, he grieves
and is afflicted, as if he was fallen into some misfortune, by having
been deprived of the presence of such a friend who never forgets us.
Seeing that our supreme felicity and glory consists in the eternal
vision of God, the constant remembrance of him is a kind of imitation of
that happy state: _this_ the reward, _that_ the virtue which entitles us
to it. Till we are admitted to his presence, let us in our exile always
bear him in mind: every one will behold him in heaven with so much the
greater joy, and so much the more perfectly, as he shall more
assiduously and more devoutly have remembered him on earth. Nor is it
only in our repose, but also in the midst of our employments, that we
ought to have him present to our minds, in imitation of the holy angels,
who, when they are sent to attend on us, so acquit themselves of the
functions of this exterior ministry as never to be drawn from their
interior attention to God. As much as the heavens exceed the earth, so
much larger is the field of spiritual meditation than that of all
terrestrial concerns."

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.