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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




St. Romuald built many other monasteries, and continued three years at
one he founded near Parenzo, one year in the community to settle it, and
two in a neighboring cell. Here he labored some time under a spiritual
dryness, not being able to shed one tear; but he ceased not to continue
his devotions with greater fervor. At last being in his cell, at those
words of the psalmist; _I will give thee understanding, and will
instruct thee_, he was suddenly visited by God with an extraordinary
light and spirit of compunction, which from that time never left him. By
a supernatural light, the fruit of prayer, he understood the holy
scriptures, and wrote an exposition of the {374} psalms full of
admirable unction. He often foretold things to come, and gave directions
full of heavenly wisdom to all who came to consult him, especially to
his religious, who frequently came to ask his advice how to advance in
virtue, and how to resist temptations; he always sent them back to their
cells full of an extraordinary cheerfulness. Through his continual
weeping he thought others had a like gift, and often said to his monks:
"Do not weep too much; for it prejudices the sight and the head." It was
his desire, whenever he could conveniently avoid it, not to say mass
before a number of people, because he could not refrain from tears in
offering that august sacrifice. The contemplation of the Divinity often
transported him out of himself; melting in tears, and burning with love,
he would cry out: "Dear Jesus! my dear Jesus! my unspeakable desire! my
joy! joy of the angels! sweetness of the saints!" and the like, which he
was heard to speak with a jubilation which cannot be expressed. To
propagate the honor of God, he resolved, by the advice of the bishop of
Pola and others, to exchange his remote desert, for one where he could
better advance his holy institute. The bishop of Paienzo forbade any
boat to carry him off, desiring earnestly to detain him; but the bishop
of Pola sent one to fetch him. He miraculously calmed a storm at sea,
and landed safe at Capreola. Coming to Bifurcum, he found the monks'
cells too magnificent, and would lodge in none but that of one Peter, a
man of extraordinary austerity, who never would live in a cell larger
than four cubits. This Peter admired the saint's spirit of compunction,
and said, that when he recited the psalms alternately with him, the holy
man used to go out thirty times in a night as if for some necessity, but
he saw it was to abandon himself a few moments to spiritual consolation,
with which he overflowed at prayer, or to sighs and tears which he was
not able to contain. Romuald sent to the counts of the province of
Marino, to beg a little ground whereon to build a monastery. They
hearing Romuald's name, offered him with joy whatever mountains, woods,
or fields he would choose among them. He found the valley of Castro most
proper. Exceeding great was the fruit of the blessed man's endeavors,
and many put themselves with great fervor under his direction. Sinners,
who did not forsake the world entirely, were by him in great multitudes
moved to penance, and to distribute great part of their possessions
liberally among the poor. The holy man seemed in the midst of them as a
seraph incarnate, burning with heavenly ardors of divine love, and
inflaming those who heard him speak. If he travelled, he rode or walked
at a distance behind his brethren, reciting psalms, and watering his
cheeks almost without ceasing with tears that flowed in great abundance.

The saint had always burned with an ardent desire of martyrdom, which
was much increased by the glorious crowns of some of his disciples,
especially of St. Boniface. At last, not able to contain the ardor of
his charity and desire to give his life for his Redeemer, he obtained
the pope's license, and set out to preach the gospel in Hungary, in
which mission some of his disciples accompanied him. He had procured two
of them to be consecrated archbishops by the pope, declining himself the
episcopal dignity; but a violent illness which seized him on his
entering Hungary, and returned as often as he attempted to proceed on
his intended design, was a plain indication of the will of God in this
matter; so he returned home with seven of his associates. The rest, with
the two archbishops, went forward, and preached the faith under the holy
king, St. Stephen, suffering much for Christ, but none obtained the
crown of martyrdom. Romuald in his return built some monasteries in
Germany, and labored to reform others; but this drew on him many
persecutions. Yet all, even the great ones of the world, trembled in his
presence. He refused to accept either water or wood, without {375}
paying for it, from Raynerius; marquis of Tuscia, because that prince
had married the wife of a relation whom he had killed. Raynerius, though
a sovereign, used to say, that neither the emperor nor any mortal on
earth could strike him with so much awe as Romuald's presence did. So
powerful was the impression which the Holy Ghost, dwelling in his
breast, made on the most haughty sinners. Hearing that a certain
Venetian had by simony obtained the abbey of Classis, he hastened
thither. The unworthy abbot strove to kill him, to preserve his unjust
dignity. He often met with the like plots and assaults from several of
his own disciples, which procured him the repeated merit, though not the
crown, of martyrdom. The pope having called him to Rome, he wrought
there several miracles, built some monasteries in its neighborhood, and
converted innumerable souls to God. Returning from Rome, he made a long
stay at Mount Sitria. A young nobleman addicted to impurity, being
exasperated at this saint's severe remonstrances, had the impudence to
accuse him of a scandalous crime. The monks, by a surprising levity,
believed the calumny, enjoined him a most severe penance, forbid him to
say mass, and excommunicated him. He bore all with patience and in
silence, as if really he had been guilty, and refrained from going to
the altar for six months. In the seventh month he was admonished by God
to obey no longer so unjust and irregular a sentence pronounced without
any authority and without grounds. He accordingly said mass again, and
with such raptures of devotion, as obliged him to continue long absorbed
in ecstasy. He passed seven years in Sitria, in his cell, in strict
silence, but his example did the office of his tongue and moved many to
penance. In bis old age, instead of relaxing, he increased his
austerities and fasts. He had three hair-shirts which he now and then
changed. He never would admit of the least thing to give a savor to the
herbs or meal-gruel on which he supported himself. If any thing was
brought him better dressed, he, for the greater self-denial, applied it
to his nostrils, and said: "O gluttony, gluttony, thou shalt never taste
this; perpetual war is declared against thee." His disciples also were
remarkable for their austere lives, went always barefoot, and looked
excessive pale with continual fasting. No other drink was known among
them but water, except in sickness. St. Romuald wrought in this place
many miraculous cures of the sick. At last, having settled his disciples
here in a monastery which he had built for them, he departed for
Bifurcum.

The holy emperor St. Henry II., who had succeeded Otho III., coming into
Italy, and being desirous to see the saint, sent an honorable embassy to
him to induce him to come to court. At the earnest request of his
disciples he complied, but not without great reluctance on his side. The
emperor received him with the greatest marks of honor and esteem, and
rising out of his chair, said to him: "I wish my soul was like yours."
The saint observed a strict silence the whole time the interview lasted,
to the great astonishment of the court. The emperor being convinced that
this did not proceed from pride or disdain, but from humility and a
desire of being despised, was so far from being offended at it, that it
occasioned his conceiving a higher esteem and veneration for him. The
next day he received from him wholesome advice in his closet. The German
noblemen showed him the greatest respect as he passed through the court,
and plucked the very hairs out of his garments for relics, at which he
was so much grieved, that he would have immediately gone back if he had
not been stopped. The emperor gave him a monastery on Mount Amiatus.

The most famous of all his monasteries is that of Camaldoli, near
Arezzo, in Tuscany, on the frontiers of the ecclesiastical state, thirty
miles east from Florence, founded by him about the year 1009. It lies
beyond a mountain, {376} very difficult to pass over, the descent from
which, on the opposite side, is almost a direct precipice looking down
upon a pleasant large valley, which then belonged to a lord called
Maldoli, who gave it the saint, and from him it retained the name
Camaldoli.[2] In this place St. Romuald built a monastery, and by the
several observances he added to St. Benedict's rule, gave birth to that
new order called Camaldoli, in which he united the cenobitic and
eremitical life. After seeing in a vision his monks mounting up a ladder
to heaven all in white, he changed their habit from black to white. The
hermitage is two short miles distant from the monastery. It is a
mountain quite overshaded by a dark wood of fir-trees. In it are seven
clear springs of water. The very sight of this solitude in the midst of
the forest helps to fill the mind with compunction, and a love of
heavenly contemplation. On entering it, we meet with a chapel of St.
Antony for travellers to pray in before they advance any further. Next
are the cells and lodgings for the porters. Somewhat further is the
church, which is large, well built, and richly adorned. Over the door is
a clock, which strikes so loud that it may be heard all over the desert.
On the left side of the church is the cell in which St. Romuald lived,
when he first established these hermits. Their cells, built of stone,
have each a little garden walled round. A constant fire is allowed to be
kept in every cell, on account of the coldness of the air throughout the
year: each cell has also a chapel in which they may say mass: they call
their superior, major. The whole hermitage is now enclosed with a wall:
none are allowed to go out of it; but they may walk in the woods and
alleys within the enclosure at discretion. Every thing is sent them from
the monastery in the valley: their food is every day brought to each
cell; and all are supplied with wood and necessaries, that they may have
no dissipation or hinderance in their contemplation. Many hours of the
day are allotted to particular exercises; and no rain or snow stops any
one from meeting in the church to assist at the divine office. They are
obliged to strict silence in all public common places; and everywhere
during their Lents, also on Sundays, Holydays, Fridays, and other days
of abstinence, and always from Complin till prime the next day.

For a severer solitude, St. Romuald added a third kind of life; that of
a recluse. After a holy life in the hermitage, the superior grants leave
to any that ask it, and seem called by God, to live forever shut up in
their cells, never speaking to any one but to the superior when he
visits them, and to the brother who brings them necessaries. Their
prayers and austerities are doubled, and their fasts more severe and
more frequent. St. Romuald condemned himself to this kind of life for
several years; and fervent imitators have never since failed in this
solitude.

St. Romuald died in his monastery in the valley of Castro, in the
marquisate of Ancona. As he was born about the year 956, he must have
died seventy years and some months old, not a hundred and twenty, as the
present copies of his life have it. The day of his death was the 19th of
June; but his principal feast is appointed by Clement VIII. on the 7th
of February, the day of his translation. His body was found entire and
uncorrupt five years after his death, and again in 1466. But his tomb
being sacrilegiously opened, and his body stolen in 1480, it fell to
dust, in which state it was translated to Fabriano, and there deposited
in the great church, all but the remains of one arm, sent to Camaldoli.
God has honored his relics with many miracles. The order of Camaldoli is
now divided into five congregations, under so many generals or majors.
The life of the hermits is very severe, though something mitigated since
the time of St. Romuald. The {377} Cenobites are more like Benedictines,
and perhaps were not directly established by St. Romuald, says F.
Helyot.

* * * * *

If we are not called to practise the extraordinary austerities of many
saints, we cannot but confess that we lie under an indispensable
necessity of leading mortified lives, both in order to fulfil our
obligation of doing penance, and to subdue our passions and keep our
senses and interior faculties under due command. The appetites of the
body are only to be reduced by universal temperance, and assiduous
mortification and watchfulness over all the senses. The interior powers
of the soul must be restrained, as the imagination, memory, and
understanding: their proneness to distraction, and the itching curiosity
of the mind, must be curbed, and their repugnance to attend to spiritual
things corrected by habits of recollection, holy meditation, and prayer.
Above all, the will must be rendered supple and pliant by frequent
self-denial, which must reach and keep in subjection all its most
trifling sallies and inclinations. If any of these, how insignificant
soever they may seem, are not restrained and vanquished, they will prove
sufficient often to disturb the quiet of the mind, and betray one into
considerable inconveniences, faults, and follies. Great weaknesses are
sometimes fed by temptations which seem almost of too little moment to
deserve notice. And though these infirmities should not arise to any
great height, they always fetter the soul, and are an absolute
impediment to her progress towards perfection.

Footnotes:
1. Sanuti tells us, that St. Peter Urseoli, from his cradle, devoted
himself with his whole heart to the divine service, and proposed to
himself in all his actions the holy will and the greater glory of
God. He built in the church of St. Mark a chapel, in which the body
of that evangelist was secretly laid, the place being known by very
few. Being chosen doge, he refused that dignity for a long time with
great obstinacy, but at length suffered himself to be overcome by
the importunity of the people. He had held it only two years and
eight months, when he retired. Sanuti. Vite de Duchi di Venezia, c.
976. Maramri, Rerum Italicar. Scriptores, t. 22, p. 564.
2. Contracted from Campo Maldoli.

ST. RICHARD, KING AND C.

THIS saint was an English prince, in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, and
was perhaps deprived of his inheritance by some revolution in the state
or he renounced it to be more at liberty to dedicate himself to the
pursuit of Christian perfection. His three children, Winebald,
Willibald, and Warburga, are all honored as saints. Taking with him his
two sons, he undertook a pilgrimage of penance and devotion, and sailing
from Hamble-haven, landed in Neustria on the western coasts of France.
He made a considerable stay at Rouen, and made his devotions in the most
holy places that lay in his way through France. Being arrived at Lucca
in Italy, in his road to Rome, he there died suddenly, about the year
722, and was buried in St. Fridian's church there. His relics are
venerated to this day in the same place, and his festival kept at Lucca
with singular devotion. St. Richard, when living, obtained by his
prayers the recovery of his younger son Willibald, whom he laid at the
foot of a great crucifix erected in a public place in England, when the
child's life was despaired of in a grievous sickness and since his
death, many have experienced the miraculous power of his intercession
with God, especially where his relics invite the devotion of the
faithful. His festival is kept at Lucca, and his name honored in the
Roman Martyrology on the 7th of February. See the Life of St. Willibald
by his cousin, a nun of Heidenhelm, to Canisius's Lectiones Antiquae,
with the notes of Basnage. Henschenius, Feb. t. 2, p. 70.

ST. THEODORUS OF HERACLEA, M.

AMONG those holy martyrs whom the Greeks honor with the title of
Megalomartyrs, (_i.e._ great martyrs,) as St. George, St. Pantaleon,
&c., four are {378} distinguished by them above the rest as principal
patrons, namely, St. Theodorus of Heraclea, surnamed Stratilates,
(_i.e._ general of the army,) St. Theodorus of Amasea, surnamed Tyro,
St. Procopius, and St. Demetrius. The first was general of the forces of
Licinius, and governor of the country of the Mariandyni, who occupied
part of Bithynia, Pontus, and Paphlagonia, whose capital at that time
was Heraclea of Pontus, though originally a city of Greeks, being
founded by a colony from Megara. This was the place of our saint's
residence, and here he glorified God by martyrdom, being beheaded for
his faith by an order of the emperor Licinius, the 7th of February, on a
Saturday, in 319, as the Greek Menaea and Menologies all agree: for the
Greek Acts of his martyrdom, under the name of Augarus, are of no
authority. It appears from a Novella of the emperor Manuel Comnenus, and
from Balsamon's Scholia on the Nomocanon of Photius,[1] that the Greeks
kept as semi-festivals, that is, as holydays till noon, both the 7th of
February, which was the day of his martyrdom, and that of the
translation of his relics, the 8th of June, when they were conveyed soon
after his death, according to his own appointment, to Euchaia, or
Euchaitae, where was the burial-place of his ancestors, a day's journey
from Amasea, the capital of all Pontus. This town became so famous for
his shrine, that the name of Theodoropolis was given it; and out of
devotion to this saint, pilgrims resorted thither from all parts of the
east, as appears from the Spiritual Meadow,[2] Zonaras,[3] and
Cedrenus.[4] The two latter historians relate, that the emperor John I.,
surnamed Zemisces, about the year 970, ascribed a great victory which he
gained over the Saracens, to the patronage of this martyr: and in
thanksgiving rebuilt in a stately manner the church where his relics
were deposited at Euchaitae.[5] The republic of Venice has a singular
veneration for the memory of St. Theodorus of Heraclea, who, as Bernard
Justiniani proves,[6] was titular patron of the church of St. Mark in
that city, before the body of that evangelist was translated into it
from another part of the city. A famous statue of this St. Theodorus is
placed upon one of the two fine pillars which stand in the square of St.
Mark. The relics of this glorious martyr are honored in the magnificent
church of St. Saviour at Venice, whither they were brought by Mark
Dandolo in 1260, from Constantinople; James Dandolo having sent them to
that capital from Mesembria, an archiepiscopal maritime town in Romania,
or the coast of Thrace, when in 1256 he scoured the Euxine sea with a
fleet of galleys of the republic, as the Venetian historians inform
us.[7] See archbishop Falconius, Not. in Tabulis Cappon. and Jos.
Assemani in Calend. Univ. on the 8th and 17th of February, and the 8th
of June;[8] also Lubin. Not. in Martyr. Rom. p. 283, and the Greek
Synaxary.

Footnotes:
1. Tit. 7, c. 1, Thomassin, l. 1, c. 7, n. 3.
2. Prat. Spir. c. 180.
3. Zonar. 3, parte Annal.
4. Ced. in Joanne Zemisce Imp.
5. See Baronius in his notes on the Martyrology, (ad 9 Nov.,) who
justly censures those who confound this saint with St. Theodoras
Tyro, as Fabricius has since done. (t. 9, Bibl. Graecae, p. 147.) Yet
himself falsely places Tyro's shrine at Euchaitae, and ascribes to
him these pilgrimages and miracles which certainly belong to St.
Theodorus Stratilates, or of Heraclea.
6. De Rebus Venetis, l. 6.
7. Sansovin, l. 13, Hist. &c.
8. The modern Greeks have transferred his feast from the 7th to the
8th of February.

ST. TRESAIN, IN LATIN, TRESANUS, PRIEST, C.

He was a holy Irish priest, who, having left his own country, preached
with great zeal in France, and died curate of Mareuil upon the Marne, in
the sixth century. His relics are held in great veneration at Avenay in
Champagne. See his life in Colgan and Bollandus.

{379}

ST. AUGULUS, B M.

HIS name occurs with the title of bishop in all the manuscript copies of
the ancient Western Martyrology, which bears the name of St. Jerom. That
of the abbey of Esternach, which is very old, and several others, style
him martyr. He probably received that crown soon after St. Alban. All
martyrologies place him in Britain, and at Augusta, which name was given
to London, as Amm. Marcellinus mentions; never to York, for which
Henschenius would have it to be taken in this place, because it was at
that time the capital of Britain. In the ancient copy of Bede's
martyrology, which was used at St. Agnan's at Orleans, he is called St.
Augustus; in some others St. Augurius. The French call him St. Aule.
Chatelain thinks him to be the same saint who is famous in some parts of
Normandy under the name of St. Ouil.


FEBRUARY VIII.

ST. JOHN OF MATHA,

FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF THE TRINITARIANS

From several bulls of Innocent III. and the many authors of his life,
especially that compiled by Robert Gagnin, the learned general of this
Order, in 1490, collected by Baillet, and the Hist. des Ordres Relig. by
F. Helyot. See also Annales Ordinis SS. Trinitatis, auctore Bon. Baro,
Ord. Minor. Romae. 1684, and Regula et Statuta Ord. SS. Trinitatis, in
12mo. 1570.

A.D. 1213.

ST. JOHN was born of very pious and noble parents, at Faucon, on the
borders of Provence, June the 24th, 1169, and was baptized John, in
honor of St. John the Baptist. His mother dedicated him to God by a vow
from his infancy. His father, Euphemius, sent him to Aix, where he
learned grammar, fencing, riding, and other exercises fit for a young
nobleman. But his chief attention was to advance in virtue. He gave the
poor a considerable part of the money his parents sent him for his own
use: he visited the hospital every Friday, assisting the poor sick,
dressing and cleansing their sores, and affording them all the comfort
in his power.

Being returned home, he begged his father's leave to continue the pious
exercises he had begun, and retired to a little hermitage not far from
Faucon, with the view of living at a distance from the world, and united
to God alone by mortification and prayer. But finding his solitude
interrupted by the frequent visits of his friends, he desired his
father's consent to go to Paris to study divinity, which he easily
obtained. He went through these more sublime studies with extraordinary
success, and proceeded doctor of divinity with uncommon applause, though
his modesty gave him a reluctancy in that honor. He was soon after
ordained priest, and said his first mass in the bishop of Paris's
chapel, at which the bishop himself, Maurice de Sully, the abbots of St.
Victor and of St. Genevieve. and the rector of the {380} university,
assisted; admiring the graces of heaven in him, which appeared in his
extraordinary devotion on this occasion, as well as at his ordination.

On the day he said his first mass, by a particular inspiration from God,
he came to a resolution of devoting himself to the occupation of
ransoming Christian slaves from the captivity they groaned under among
the infidels: considering it as one of the highest acts of charity with
respect both to their souls and bodies. But before he entered upon so
important a work, he thought it needful to spend some time in
retirement, prayer, and mortification. And having heard of a holy
hermit, St. Felix Valois, living in a great wood near Gandelu, in the
diocese of Meux, he repaired to him and begged he would admit him into
his solitude, and instruct him in the practice of perfection. Felix soon
discovered him to be no novice, and would not treat him as a disciple,
but as a companion. It is incredible what progress these two holy
solitaries made in the paths of virtue, by perpetual prayer,
contemplation, fasting, and watching.

One day, sitting together on the bank of a spring, John disclosed to
Felix the design he had conceived on the day on which he said his first
mass, to succor the Christians under the Mahometan slavery, and spoke so
movingly upon the subject that Felix was convinced that the design was
from God, and offered him his joint concurrence to carry it into
execution. They took some time to recommend it to God by prayer and
fasting, and then set out for Rome in the midst of a severe winter,
towards the end of the year 1197, to obtain the pope's benediction. They
found Innocent III. promoted to the chair of St. Peter, who being
already informed of their sanctity and charitable design by letters of
recommendation from the bishop of Paris, his holiness received them as
two angels from heaven; lodged them in his own palace, and gave them
many long private audiences. After which he assembled the cardinals and
some bishops in the palace of St. John Lateran, and asked their advice.
After their deliberations he ordered a fast and particular prayers to
know the will of heaven. At length, being convinced that these two holy
men were led by the spirit of God, and that great advantages would
accrue to the church from such an institute, he consented to their
erecting a new religious order, and declared St. John the first general
minister. The bishop of Paris, and the abbot of St. Victor, were ordered
to draw up their rules, which the pope approved by a bull, in 1198. He
ordered the religious to wear a white habit, with a red and blue cross
on the breast, and to take the name of the order of the Holy Trinity. He
confirmed it some time after, adding new privileges by a second bull,
dated in 1209.

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