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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




Footnotes:
1. The imitation of the ten principal virtues, of which the mysteries
of the Blessed Virgin, honored by the Church in her yearly
festivals, furnish perfect models, is the peculiar end of this
religious institute, which takes its name from the first and
principal of the joyful mysteries of the mother of God. These nuns
wear a gray habit with a red scapular, with a gold cross (or of
silver gilt) hanging before their breast, and a gold ring on one of
their fingers. A noble Genoese widow, called Mary Victoria Fornaro,
instituted in 1604 another Order of the same title, called of the
Celestial Annunciades, Annuntiatae Coelestinae. As an emblem of
heaven, their habit is white, with a blue mantle to represent the
azure of the heavens. The most rigorous poverty, and a total
separation from the world, are prescribed. The religious are only
allowed to speak to externs six times in a year, and then only to
near relations, the men to those of the first, the women to those of
the first and second degree. See the life of ven. Mary Victoria
Fornaro, by F. Ambrose Spinola, Jesuit; and Hist. des Ordres Relig.
t. 4, p. 297.
2. See Henschenius, p. 578.

ST. ISIDORE OF PELUSIUM.

HE was a monk from his youth, and became superior of a monastery in the
neighborhood of that city, in the fifth age. Facundus and Suidas assure
us that he was promoted to the dignity of priest. He was looked upon as
a living rule of religious perfection, and treated by his patriarch, St.
Cyril, and the other prelates of his time, as their father. He chose St.
Chrysostom for his model. We have still extant two thousand and twelve
of his letters, abounding with excellent instructions of piety, and with
theological {355} and critical learning. They are concise, and the style
natural, very elegant, agreeable, full of fire and penetration. Possevin
laments that they are not in use as a classic author for the Greek
language. His prudence, undaunted zeal, profound humility, ardent love
of God, and other virtues, shine admirably in them. He died about the
year 449. See Photius, Bibl. Cod. 232 and 228. Tillem. t. 15, p. 97.
Bolland. 4 Feb, p. 468.

ST. REMBERT, ARCHBISHOP OF BREMEN, C.

HE was a native of Flanders, near Bruges, and a monk in the neighboring
monastery of Turholt. St. Anscharius called him to his assistance in his
missionary labors, and in his last sickness recommended him for his
successor, saying: "Rembert is more worthy to be archbishop, than I to
discharge the office of his deacon." After his death, in 865, St.
Rembert was unanimously chosen archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen, and
superintended all the churches of Sweden, Denmark, and the Lower
Germany, finishing the work of their conversion. He also began the
conversion of the Sclavi and the Vandals, now called Brandenburghers. He
sold the sacred vessels to redeem captives from the Normans; and gave
the horse on which he was riding for the ransom of a virgin taken by the
Sclavi. He was most careful never to lose a moment of time from serious
duties and prayer, and never to interrupt the attention of his mind to
God in his exterior functions. He died on the 11th of June, in 888, but
is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 4th of February, the day
on which he was chosen archbishop. His life of St. Anscharius is
admired, both for the author's accuracy and piety, and for the elegance
and correctness of the composition. His letter to Walburge, first abbess
of Nienherse, is a pathetic exhortation to humility and virginity. The
see of Hamburg being united to Bremen by St. Anscharius, this became the
metropolitan church of all the north of Germany: but the city becoming
Lutheran, expelled the archbishop in the reign of Charles V. This see
and that of Ferden were secularized and yielded to the Swedes by the
treaty of Westphalia, in 1648. See his life written soon after his
death, in Henschenius, p. 555. Mabillon, Act. Bened., &c.

ST. MODAN, ABBOT IN SCOTLAND, C.

DRYBURGH, situated near Mailros, was anciently one of the most famous
monasteries in Scotland: in this house of saints, Modan dedicated
himself to God, about the year 522. Being persuaded that Christian
perfection is to be attained by holy prayer and contemplation, and by a
close union of our souls with God, he gave six or seven hours every day
to prayer, and moreover seasoned with it all his other actions and
employments. A spirit of prayer is founded in the purity of the
affections, the fruit of self-denial, humility, and obedience. Hence
proceeded the ardor with which our saint studied to crucify his flesh
and senses by the practice of the greatest austerities, to place himself
beneath all creatures by the most profound and sincere humility, and in
all things to subject his will to that of his superiors with such an
astonishing readiness and cheerfulness, that they unanimously declared
they never saw any one so perfectly divested of all self-will, and dead
to himself, as Modan. The abbacy falling vacant, he was raised against
his will to that dignity. In this charge, his conduct was a clear proof
of the well-known maxim, that no man possesses the art of governing
{356} others well, unless he is perfectly master of that of obeying. His
inflexible firmness, in maintaining every point of monastic discipline,
was tempered by the most winning sweetness and charity, and an
unalterable calmness and meekness. Such, moreover, was his prudence, and
such the unction of his words in instructing or reproving others, that
his precepts and very reprimands gave pleasure, gained all hearts, and
inspired the love, and communicated the spirit of every duty. He
preached the faith at Stirling, and in other places near the Forth,
especially at Falkirk; but frequently interrupted his apostolic
employments to retire among the craggy mountains of Dunbarton, where he
usually spent thirty or forty days at once in the heavenly exercises of
devout contemplation, in which he enjoyed a kind of anticipation or
foretaste of the delights in which consists the happiness of the
blessed. He died in his retirement near Alcluid, (a fortress on the
river Cluid,) since called Dunbritton, now Dunbarton. His death is
usually placed in the seventh century, though some think he flourished
later. His relics were kept with singular veneration in a famous church
of his name at Rosneith. He is also titular saint of the great church at
Stirling, and honored particularly at Dunbarton and Falkirk. See Hector
Boetius, Lesley, King, in his Calendar, the Breviary of Aberdeen, and
the Chronicle of Scone: also Bollandus, p. 497.

ST. JOSEPH OF LEONISSA, C.

THIS saint was born to 1556, at Leonissa a small town near Otricoli, in
the ecclesiastical state, and at eighteen years of age made his
profession among the Capuchin friars, in the place of his birth, taking
the name of Joseph; for before he was called Eufranius. He was always
mild, humble, chaste, patient, charitable, mortified, and obedient to an
heroic degree: with the utmost fervor, and on the most perfect motive of
religion, he endeavored to glorify God in all his actions. Three days in
the week he usually took no other sustenance than bread and water, and
passed several Lents in the year after the same manner. His bed was hard
boards, with the trunk of a vine for his pillow. The love of injuries,
contumelies, and humiliations, made him find in them his greatest joy.
He looked upon himself as the basest of sinners, and said, that indeed
God by his infinite mercy had preserved him from grievous crimes; but
that by his sloth, ingratitude, and infidelity to the divine grace, he
deserved to have been abandoned by God above all creatures. By this
humility and mortification he crucified in himself the _old man with his
deeds_, and prepared his soul for heavenly communications in prayer and
contemplation, which was his assiduous exercise. The sufferings of
Christ were the favorite and most ordinary object of his devotions. He
usually preached with a crucifix in his hands, and the fire of his words
kindled a flame in the hearts of his hearers and penitents. In 1587 he
was sent by his superiors into Turkey, to labor as a missioner among the
Christians at Pera, a suburb of Constantinople, He there encouraged and
served the Christian galley-slaves with wonderful charity and fruit,
especially during a violent pestilence, with which he himself was
seized, but recovered. He converted many apostates, one of whom was a
bashaw. By preaching the faith to the Mahometans he incurred the utmost
severity of the Turkish laws, was twice imprisoned, and the second time
condemned to a cruel death. He was hung on a gibbet by one hand, which
was fastened by a chain, and pierced with a sharp hook at the end of the
chain; and by one foot in the same manner. Having been some time on
{357} the gibbet, he was released,[1] and the sentence of death was
changed by the sultan into banishment. Wherefore, embarking for Italy,
he landed at Venice; and after two years' absence arrived at Leonissa.
He resumed his apostolic labors in his Own country with extraordinary
zeal, and an uncommon benediction from heaven. To complete his
sacrifice, he suffered very much towards the end of his life from a
painful cancer, to extirpate which he underwent two incisions without
the least groan or complaint, only repeating: "Holy Mary, pray for us
miserable afflicted sinners:" and holding all the while a crucifix to
his hand, on which he fixed his eyes. When some said, before the
operation, that he ought to be bound or held, he pointed to the
crucifix, saying: "This is the strongest band: this will hold me unmoved
better than any cords could do." The operation proving unsuccessful, the
saint happily expired, on the 4th day of February, in 1612, being
fifty-eight years old. His name was inserted in the Roman Martyrology on
the 4th of February. See the history of his miracles in the acts of his
beatification, which ceremony was performed by Clement XII. in 1737, and
in those of his canonization by Benedict XIV. in 1746. Acta
Canonizationis 5 Sanctorum, viz. Fidelis a Sigmaringa, M. Camilli de
Lelia, Petri Regalati, Josephi a Leonissa, and Catharinaea de Riccis, a
Benedicto XIV., an. 1746, printed at Rome an. 1749, pp. 11, 85, and the
bull for his canonization, p. 558. Also Bollan. t. 15, p. 127.

Footnotes:
1. Some say he was released by an angel, after hanging three days, but
this circumstance is not mentioned by Benedict XIV., in the decree
for his canonization, p. 559.


FEBRUARY V.

ST. AGATHA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR.

We have her panegyrics by St. Aldhelm, in the seventh, and St.
Methodius, patriarch of Constantinople, in the ninth, centuries; also a
hymn in her honor among the poems of pope Damasus, and another by St.
Isidore of Seville, in Bollandus, p. 596. The Greeks have interpolated
her acts, but those in Latin are very ancient. They are abridged by
Tillemont, t. 3, p. 409. See also Rocci Pyrrho, in Sicilia Sacra on
Palermo, Catana, and Malta.

A. D 251.

THE cities of Palermo and Catana, in Sicily, dispute the honor of her
birth: but they do much better who, by copying her virtues, and claiming
her patronage, strive to become her fellow-citizens in heaven. It is
agreed that she received the crown of martyrdom at Catana, in the
persecution of Decius, in the third consulship of that prince, in the
year of our Lord 251. She was of a rich and illustrious family, and
having been consecrated to God from her tender years, triumphed over
many assaults upon her chastity. Quintianus, a man of consular dignity,
bent on gratifying both his lust and avarice, imagined he should easily
compass his wicked designs on Agatha's person and estate, by means of
the emperor's edict against the Christians. He therefore caused her to
be apprehended and brought before him at Catana. Seeing herself in the
hands of the persecutors, she made this prayer: "Jesus Christ, Lord of
all things, you see my heart, you know my desire: possess alone all that
I am. I am your sheep, make me worthy to overcome the devil." She wept,
and prayed for courage and strength all the way she {358} went. On her
appearance, Quintianus gave orders for her being put into the hands of
Aphrodisia, a most wicked woman, who with six daughters, all
prostitutes, kept a common stew. The saint suffered in this infamous
place, assaults and stratagems against her virtue, infinitely more
terrible to her than any tortures or death itself. But placing her
confidence in God, she never ceased with sighs and most earnest tears to
implore his protection, and by it was an overmatch for all their hellish
attempts, the whole month she was there. Quintianus being informed of
her constancy after thirty days, ordered her to be brought before him.
The virgin, in her first interrogatory, told him, that to be a servant
of Jesus Christ was the most illustrious nobility, and true liberty. The
judge, offended at her resolute answers, commanded her to be buffeted,
and led to prison. She entered it with great joy, recommending her
future conflict to God. The next day she was arraigned a second time at
the tribunal, and answered with equal constancy that Jesus Christ was
her life and her salvation. Quintianus then ordered her to be stretched
on the rack, which torment was usually accompanied with stripes, the
tearing of the sides with iron hooks, and burning them with torches or
matches. The governor, enraged to see her suffer all this with
cheerfulness, commanded her breast to be tortured, and afterwards to be
cut off. At which she made him this reproach: "Cruel tyrant, do you not
blush to torture this part of my body, you that sucked the breasts of a
woman yourself?" He remanded her to prison with a severe order, that
neither salves nor food should be allowed her. But God would be himself
her physician, and the apostle St. Peter in a vision comforted her,
healed all her wounds, and filled her dungeon with a heavenly light.
Quintianus, four days after, not the least moved at the miraculous cure
of her wounds, caused her to be rolled naked over live coals mixed with
broken potsherds. Being carried back to prison, she made this prayer:
"Lord, my Creator, you have ever protected me from the cradle. You have
taken from me the love of the world, and given me patience to suffer:
receive now my soul." After which words she sweetly gave up the ghost.
Her name is inserted in the canon of the mass, in the calendar of
Carthage, as ancient as the year 530, and in all martyrologies of the
Latins and Greeks. Pope Symmachus built a church in Rome on the Aurelian
way, under her name, about the year 500, which is fallen to decay.[1]
St. Gregory the Great enriched a church which he purged from the Arian
impiety, with her relics,[2] which it still possesses. This church had
been rebuilt in her honor by Ricimer, general of the western empire, in
460. Gregory II. built another famous church at Rome, under her
invocation, in 726, which Clement VIII. gave to the congregation of the
Christian doctrine. St. Gregory the Great[3] ordered some of her relics
to be placed in the church of the monastery of St. Stephen, in the Isle
of Capreae, now Capri. The chief part, which remained at Catana, was
carried to Constantinople by the Greek general, who drove the Saracens
out of Sicily about the year 1040: these were brought back to Catana in
1127, a relation of which translation, written by Mauritius, who was
then bishop, is recorded by Rocci Pyrrho, and Bollandus.[4] The same
authors relate in what manner the torrent of burning sulphur and stones
which issue from mount AEtna, in great eruptions, was several times
averted from the walls of Catana by the veil of St. Agatha, (taken out
of her tomb,) which was carried in procession. Also that through her
intercession, Malta (where she is honored as patroness of the island)
was preserved from the Turks who invaded it in 1551. Small portions of
relics of St. Agatha are said to be distributed in many places.

{359}

* * * * *

The perfect purity of intention by which St. Agatha was entirely dead to
the world and herself, and sought only to please God, is the
circumstance which sanctified her sufferings, and rendered her sacrifice
complete. The least cross which we bear, the least action which we
perform in this disposition, will be a great holocaust, and a most
acceptable offering. We have frequently something to suffer--sometimes
an aching pain in the body, at other times some trouble of mind, often
some disappointment, some humbling rebuke, or reproach, or the like. If
we only bear these trials with patience when others are witnesses, or if
we often speak of them, or are fretful under them, or if we bear
patiently public affronts or great trials, yet sink under those which
are trifling, and are sensible to small or secret injuries, it is
evident that we have not attained to true purity of intention in our
patience; that we are not dead to ourselves, and love not to disappear
to the eyes of creatures, but court them, and take a secret complacency
in things which appear great. We profess ourselves ready to die for
Christ; yet cannot bear the least cross or humiliation. How agreeable to
our divine spouse is the sacrifice of a soul which suffers in silence,
desiring to have no other witness of her patience than God alone, who
sends her trials; which shuns superiority and honors, but takes all care
possible that no one knows the humility or modesty of such a refusal;
which suffers humiliations, and seeks no comfort or reward but from God.
This simplicity and purity of heart; this love of being hid in God,
through Jesus Christ, is the perfection of all our sacrifices, and the
complete victory over self-love, which it attacks and forces out of its
strongest intrenchments: this says to Christ, with St. Agatha, "Possess
alone all that I am."

Footnotes:
1. Fronteau Cal. p. 25.
2. Disi. l. 3, c. 30.
3. L. 1, ep. 52.
4. Feb. {}1, p. 647.

THE MARTYRS OF JAPAN.

See the triumph of the martyrs of Japan. by F. Trigault, from the year
1612 to 1640, the history of Japan, by F. Crasset, to the year 1658, and
that by the learned F. Charlevoix in nine volumes: also the life of F.
Spinola, &c.

THE empire of Japan, so called from one of the islands of which it is
composed, was discovered by certain Portuguese merchants, about the year
1541. It is generally divided into several little kingdoms, all which
obey one sovereign emperor. The capital cities are Meaco and Jedo. The
manners of this people are the reverse of ours in many things. Their
characteristic is pride, and an extravagant love of honor. They adore
idols of grotesque shapes, by which they represent certain famous wicked
ancestors: the chiefest are Amida and Xacha. Their priests are called
Bonzas, and all obey the Jaco, or high-priest. St. Francis Xavier
arrived in Japan in 1549, baptized great numbers, and whole provinces
received the faith. The great kings of Arima, Bungo, and Omura, sent a
solemn embassy of obedience to pope Gregory XIII. in 1582: and in 1587
there were in Japan above two hundred thousand Christians, and among
these several kings, princes, and bonzas, but in 1588, Cambacundono, the
haughty emperor, having usurped the honors of a deity, commanded all the
Jesuits to leave his dominions within six months: however, many remained
there disguised. In 1593, the persecution was renewed, and several
Japanese converts received the crown of martyrdom. The emperor
Tagcosama, one of the proudest and most vicious of men, was worked up
into rage and jealousy by a suspicion suggested by certain European
merchants desirous of the monopoly of this trade, that the view of the
missionaries in preaching the Christian faith was to facilitate the
conquest of their country by the Portuguese or Spaniards. Three Jesuits
and six Franciscans were crucified on {360}a hill near Nangasaqui in
1597. The latter were partly Spaniards and partly Indians, and had at
their head F. Peter Baptist, commissary of his Order, a native of Avila,
in Spain. As to the Jesuits, one was Paul Michi, a noble Japanese and an
eminent preacher, at that time thirty-three years old. The other two,
John Gotto and James Kisai, were admitted into the Society in prison a
little before they suffered. Several Japanese converts suffered with
them. The martyrs were twenty-six in number, and among them were three
boys who used to serve the friars at mass; two of them were fifteen
years of age, and the third only twelve, yet each showed great joy and
constancy in their sufferings. Of these martyrs, twenty-four had been
brought to Meaco, where only a part of their left ears was cut off, by a
mitigation of the sentence which had commanded the amputation of their
noses and both ears. They were conducted through many towns and public
places, their cheeks stained with blood, for a terror to others. When
the twenty-six soldiers of Christ were arrived at the place of execution
near Nangasaqui, they were allowed to make their confession to two
Jesuits of the convent, in that town, and being fastened to crosses by
cords and chains, about their arms and legs, and an iron collar about
their necks, were raised into the air, the foot of each cross falling
into a hole prepared for it in the ground. The crosses were planted in a
row, about four feet asunder, and each martyr had an executioner near
him with a spear ready to pierce his side, for such is the Japanese
manner of crucifixion. As soon as all the crosses were planted, the
executioners lifted up their lances, and at a signal given, all pierced
the martyrs almost in the same instant; upon which they expired and went
to receive the reward of their sufferings. Their blood and garments were
procured by Christians, and miracles were wrought by them. Urban VIII.
ranked them among the martyrs, and they are honored on the 5th of
February, the day of their triumph. The rest of the missionaries were
put on board a vessel, and carried out of the dominions, except
twenty-eight priests, who stayed behind in disguise. Tagcosama dying,
ordered his body should not be burned, as was the custom in Japan, but
preserved enshrined in his palace of Fuximi, that he might be worshipped
among the gods under the title of the new god of war. The most stately
temple in the empire was built to him, and his body deposited in it. The
Jesuits returned soon after, and though the missionaries were only a
hundred in number, they converted, in 1599, forty thousand, and in 1600,
above thirty thousand, and built fifty churches; for the people were
highly scandalized to see him worshipped as a god, whom they had
remembered a most covetous, proud, and vicious tyrant. But in 1602,
Cubosama renewed the bloody persecution, and many Japanese converts were
beheaded, crucified, or burned. In 1614, new cruelties were exercised to
overcome their constancy, as by bruising their feet between certain
pieces of wood, cutting off or squeezing their limbs one after another,
applying red-hot irons or slow fires, flaying off the skin of the
fingers, putting burning coals to their hands, tearing off the flesh
with pincers, or thrusting reeds into all parts of their bodies, and
turning them about to tear their flesh, till they should say they would
forsake their faith: all which, innumerable persons, even children, bore
with invincible constancy till death. In 1616, Xogun succeeding his
father Cubosama in the empire, surpassed him in cruelty. The most
illustrious of these religious heroes was F. Charles Spinola. He was of
a noble Genoese family, and entered the Society at Nola, while his uncle
cardinal Spinola was bishop of that city. Out of zeal and a desire of
martyrdom, he begged to be sent on the Japanese mission. He arrived
there in 1602; labored many years in that mission, gained many to
Christ, by his mildness, and lived in great austerity, for his usual
food was only a little rice and {361} herbs. He suffered four years a
most cruel imprisonment, during which, in burning fevers, he was not
able to obtain of his keepers a drop of cold water out of meals: yet he
wrote from his dungeon: "Father, how sweet and delightful is it to
suffer for Jesus Christ! I have learned this better by experience than I
am able to express, especially since we are in these dungeons where we
fast continually. The strength of my body fails me, but my joy increases
as I see death draw nearer. O what a happiness for me, if next Easter I
shall sing the heavenly Alleluia in the company of the blessed!" In a
long letter to his cousin Maximilian Spinola, he said: "O, if you had
tasted the delights with which God tills the souls of those who serve
him, and suffer for him, how would you contemn all that the world can
promise! I now begin to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, since for his
love I am in prison, where I suffer much. But I assure you, that when I
am fainting with hunger, God hath fortified me by his sweet
consolations, so that I have looked upon myself as well recompensed for
his service. And though I were yet to pass many years in prison, the
time would appear short, through the extreme desire which I feel of
suffering for him, who even here so well repays our labors. Besides
other sickness, I have been afflicted with a continual fever a hundred
days without any remedies or proper nourishment. All this time my heart
was so full of joy, that it seemed to me too narrow to contain it. I
have never felt any equal to it, and I thought myself at the gates of
paradise." His joy was excessive at the news that he was condemned to be
burnt alive, and he never ceased to thank God for so great a mercy, of
which he owned himself unworthy. He was conducted from his last prison
at Omura to Nangasaqui, where fifty martyrs suffered together on a hill
within sight of that city-nine Jesuits, four Franciscans, and six
Dominicans, the rest seculars: twenty-five were burned, the rest
beheaded. The twenty-five stakes were fixed all in a row, and the
martyrs tied to them. Fire was set to the end of the pile of wood
twenty-five feet from the martyrs, and gradually approached them, two
hours before it reached them. F. Spinola stood unmoved, with his eyes
lifted up towards heaven, till the cords which tied him being burnt, he
fell into the flames, and was consumed, on the 2d of September, in 1622,
being fifty-eight years old. Many others, especially Jesuits, suffered
variously, being either burnt at slow fires, crucified, beheaded, or
thrown into a burning mountain, or hung with their heads downward in
pits, which cruel torment usually put an end to their lives in three or
four days. In 1639, the Portuguese and all other Europeans, except the
Dutch, were forbid to enter Japan, even for trade; the very ambassadors
which the Portuguese sent thither were beheaded. In 1642, five Jesuits
landed secretly in Japan, but were soon discovered, and after cruel
tortures were hung in pits till they expired. Thus hath Japan encouraged
the church militant, and filled the triumphant with glorious martyrs:
though only the first-mentioned have as yet been publicly declared such
by the holy See, who are mentioned in the new edition of the Roman
Martyrology published by Benedict XIV. in 1749.

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