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Editorial
This article examines the wide range of anonymous and pseudonymous naming practices to be found in West African newspapers between the 1880s and 1930s, and asks about the shape of a West African history of anonymity as compared with recent histories of anonymity in European literature. The article also discusses the ways in which colonial West African uses of anonymity and pseudonyms challenge postcolonial scholarship on agency, subjectivity, resistance, authenticity and identity.

The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints

A >> Alban Butler >> The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints




* * * * *

In the most perfect state of heavenly contemplation which this life
admits of, there must be a time allowed for action, as appears from the
most {408} eminent contemplatives among the saints, and those religious
institutes which are most devoted to this holy exercise. The mind of man
must be frequently unbent, or it will be overset. Many, by a too
constant or forced attention, have lost their senses. The body also
stands in need of exercise, and in all stations men owe several exterior
duties both to others and themselves, and to neglect any of these, upon
pretence of giving the preference to prayer, would be a false devotion
and dangerous illusion. Though a Christian be a citizen of heaven, while
he is a sojourner in this world, he is not to forget the obligations or
the necessities to which this state subjects him, or to dream of flights
which only angels and their fellow inhabitants of bliss take. As a life
altogether taken up in action and business, without frequent prayer and
pious meditation, alienates a soul from God and virtue, and weds her
totally to the world, so a life spent wholly in contemplation, without
any mixture of action, is chimerical, and the attempt dangerous. The art
of true devotion consists very much in a familiar and easy habit of
accompanying exterior actions and business with a pious attention to the
Divine Presence, frequent secret aspirations, and a constant union of
the soul with God. This St. Catharine of Ricci practised at her work, in
the exterior duties of her house and office, in her attendance on the
sick, (which was her favorite employment, and which she usually
performed on her knees,) and in the tender care of the poor over the
whole country. But this hindered not the exercises of contemplation,
which were her most assiduous employment. Hence retirement and silence
were her delight, in order to entertain herself with the Creator of all
things, and by devout meditation, kindling in her soul the fire of
heavenly love, she was never able to satiate the ardor of her desire in
adoring and praising the immense greatness and goodness of God.

Footnotes:
1. {Footnote not in text} Gallon. apud Contin. Bolland. Acta Sanctorum,
Maii, t. 6, p. 503, col. 2, n. 146.
2. Ibid. p. 504, col. 2.
3. In Bolland. Cherubini, t. 4, p. 8.

ST. LICINIUS, CONFESSOR,

CALLED BY THE FRENCH, LESIN, BISHOP OF ANGERS.

HE was born of a noble family, allied to the kings of France, about the
year 540. He was applied to learning as soon as he was capable of
instruction, and sent to the court of king Clotaire I., (whose cousin he
was,) being about twenty years of age. He signalized himself by his
prudence and valor, both in the court and in the army, and acquitted
himself of all Christian duties with extraordinary exactitude and
fervor. Fasting and prayer were familiar to him, and his heart was
always raised to God. King Chilperic made him count or governor of
Anjou, and being overcome by the importunities of his friends, the saint
consented to take a wife about the year 578. But the lady was struck
with a leprosy on the morning before it was to be solemnized. This
accident so strongly affected Licinius, that he resolved to carry into
immediate execution a design he had long entertained of entirely
renouncing the world. This he did in 580, and leaving all things to
follow Jesus Christ, he entered himself among the clergy, and hiding
himself from the world in a community of ecclesiastics, found no
pleasure but in the exercises of piety and the most austere penance, and
in meditating on the holy scriptures. Audouin, the fourteenth bishop of
Angers, dying towards the year 600, the people, remembering the equity
and mildness with which Licinius had governed them, rather as their
father than as a judge or master, demanded him for their pastor. The
voice of the clergy seconded that of the people, and, the concurrence of
the court of Clotaire II. in his minority, under the regency of his
mother Fredegonda, overcame {409} all the opposition his humility could
make. His time and his substance were divided in feeding the hungry,
comforting and releasing prisoners, and curing the bodies and souls of
his people. Though he was careful to keep up exact discipline in his
diocese, he was more inclined to indulgence than rigor, in imitation of
the tenderness which Jesus Christ showed for sinners. Strong and
persuasive eloquence, the more forcible argument of his severe and
exemplary life, and God himself speaking by miracles, qualified him to
gain the hearts of the most hardened, and make daily conquest of souls
to Christ. He renewed the spirit of devotion and penance by frequent
retreats, and desired earnestly to resign his bishopric, and hide
himself in some solitude: but the bishops of the province, whose consent
he asked, refusing to listen to such a proposal, he submitted, and
continued to spend the remainder of his life in the service of his
flock. His patience was perfected by continual infirmities in his last
years, and he finished his sacrifice about the year 618, in the
sixty-fifth of his age. He was buried in the church of St. John Baptist,
which he had founded, with a monastery, which he designed for his
retreat. It is now a collegiate church, and enriched with the treasure
of his relics. His memory was publicly honored in the seventh age: the
1st of November was the day of his festival, though he is now mentioned
in the Roman Martyrology on the 13th of February. At Angers he is
commemorated on the 8th of June, which seems to have been the day of his
consecration, and on the 21st of June, when his relics were translated
or taken up, 1169, in the time of Henry II., king of England, count of
Anjou. See his life, written from the relation of his disciples soon
after his death; and again by Marbodius, archdeacon of Angers,
afterwards bishop of Rennes, both in Bollandus.

ST. POLYEUCTUS, M.

THE city of Melitine, a station of the Roman troops in the Lesser
Armenia, is illustrious for a great number of martyrs, whereof the first
in rank is Polyeuctus. He was a rich Roman officer, and had a friend
called Nearchus, a zealous Christian, who, when the news of the
persecution, raised by the emperor against the church, reached Armenia,
prepared himself to lay down his life for his faith; and grieving to
leave Polyeuctus in the darkness of Paganism, was so successful in his
endeavors to induce him to embrace Christianity, as not only to gain him
over to the faith, but to inspire him with an eager desire of laying
down his life for the same. He openly declared himself a Christian, and
was apprehended and condemned to cruel tortures. The executioners being
weary with tormenting him, betook themselves to the method of argument
and persuasion, in order to prevail with him to renounce Christ. The
tears and cries of his wife Pauline, of his children, and of his
father-in-law, Felix, were sufficient to have shaken a mind not superior
to all the assaults of hell. But Polyeuctus, strengthened by God, grew
only the firmer in his faith, and received the sentence of death with
such cheerfulness and joy, and exhorted all to renounce their idols with
so much energy, on the road to execution, that many were converted. He
was beheaded on the 10th of January, in the persecution of Decius, or
Valerian, about the year 250, or 257. The Christians buried his body in
the city. Nearchus gathered his blood in a cloth, and afterwards wrote
his acts. The Greeks keep his festival very solemnly: and all the Latin
martyrologies mention him. There was in Melitine a famous church of St.
Polyeuctus, in the fourth age, in which St. Euthymius often prayed.
There was also a very stately one in Constantinople, under {410}
Justinian, the vault of which was covered with plates of gold, in which
it was the custom for men to make their most solemn oaths, as is related
by St. Gregory of Tours.[1] The same author informs us, in his history
of the Franks,[2] that the kings of France, of the first race, used to
confirm their treaties by the name of Polyeuctus. The martyrology
ascribed to St. Jerom, and the most ancient Armenian calendars, place
his feast on the 7th of January, which seems to have been the day of his
martyrdom. The Greeks defer his festival to the 9th of January: but it
is marked on the 13th of February in the ancient martyrology, which was
sent from Rome to Aquileia in the eighth century, and which is copied by
Ado, Usuard, and the Roman Martyrology. See his acts taken from those
written by Nearchus, the saint's friend, and Tillem. t. 3, p. 424. Jos.
Assemani, in Calend. ad 9 Januarii, t. 6.

Footnotes:
1. De Glor. Mart. c. 103.
2. Hist. l. 7, c. 6.

ST. GREGORY II., POPE, C.

HE was born in Rome, to an affluent fortune, and being educated in the
palace of the popes, acquired great skill in the holy scriptures and in
ecclesiastical affairs, and attained to an eminent degree of sanctity.
Pope Sergius I., to whom he was very dear, ordained him subdeacon. Under
the succeeding popes, John the sixth and seventh, Sisinnius, and
Constantine, he was treasurer of the church, and afterwards library
keeper, and was charged with several important commissions. The fifth
general council had been held upon the affair of the three chapters, in
553, in the reign of Justinian, and the sixth against the Monothelites,
in those of Constantine Pogonatus and pope Agatho, in 660. With a view
of adding a supplement of new canons to those of the aforesaid two
councils, the bishops of the Greek church, to the number of two hundred
and eleven, held the council called Quini-sext, in a hall of the
imperial palace at Constantinople, named Trullus, in 692, which laid a
foundation of certain differences to discipline between the Eastern and
Western churches; for in the thirteenth canon it was enacted, that a man
who was before married should be allowed to receive the holy orders of
subdeacon, deacon, or priest, without being obliged to leave his wife,
though this was forbid to bishops. (can. 12.) It was also forbid, (canon
55,) to fast on Saturdays, even in Lent. Pope Sergius I. refused to
confirm this council; and, in 695, the emperor, Justinian II., surnamed
Rhinotmetus, who had succeeded his father, Constantine Pogonatus, in
685, was dethroned for his cruelty, and his nose being slit, (from which
circumstance he received his surname,) banished into Chersonesus. First
Leontius, then Apsimarus Tiberius, ascended the throne; but Justinian
recovered it in 705, and invited pope Constantine into the East, hoping
to prevail upon him to confirm the council in Trullo. The pope was
received with great honor, and had with him our saint, who, in his name,
answered the questions put by the Greeks concerning the said council.
After their return to Rome, upon the death of Constantine, Gregory was
chosen pope, and ordained on the 19th of May, 715. The emperor Justinian
being detested both by the army and people, Bardanes, who took the name
of Philippicus, an Armenian, one of his generals, revolted, took
Constantinople, put him and his son Tiberius, only seven years old, to
death, and usurped the sovereignty in December, 711. In Justinian II was
extinguished the family of Heraclius. Philippicus abetted warmly the
heresy of the Monothelites, and caused the sixth council to be
proscribed in a pretended synod at Constantinople. His reign was very
short, for Artemius, his secretary, {411} who took the name of
Anastasius II., deposed him, and stepped into the throne on the fourth
of June, 713. By him the Monothelites were expelled; but, after a reign
of two years and seven months, seeing one Theodosius chosen emperor by
the army, which had revolted in January, 716, he withdrew, and took the
monastic habit at Thessalonica. The eastern army having proclaimed Leo
III., surnamed the Isaurian, emperor, on the 25th of March, 717,
Theodosius and his son embraced an ecclesiastical state, and lived in
peace among the clergy. Pope Gregory signalized the beginning of his
popedom by deposing John VI., the Monothelite, false patriarch of
Constantinople, who had been nominated by Philippicus, and he promoted
the election of St. Germanus, who was translated to that dignity from
Cyzicus, in 715. With unwearied watchfulness and zeal he laid himself
out in extirpating heresies on all sides, and in settling a reformation
of manners. Besides a hospital for old men, he rebuilt the great
monastery near the church of St. Paul at Rome, and, after the death of
his mother, in 718, changed her house into the monastery of St. Agatha.
The same year he re-established the abbey of Mount Cassino, sending
thither, from Rome, the holy abbot St. Petronax, to take upon him the
government, one hundred and forty years after it had been laid in ruins
by the Lombards. This holy abbot lived to see monastic discipline
settled here in so flourishing a manner, that in the same century,
Carloman, duke or prince of the French, Rachis, king of the Lombards,
St. Willebald, St. Sturmius, first abbot of Fulda, and other eminent
persons, fled to this sanctuary.[1] Our holy pope commissioned zealous
missionaries to preach the faith in Germany, and consecrated St.
Corbinian bishop of Frisingen, and St. Boniface bishop of Mentz. Leo,
the Isaurian, protected the Catholic church during the first ten years
of his reign, and St. Gregory II. laid up among the archives of his
church several letters which he had received from him, from the year 717
to 726, which proved afterwards authentic monuments of his perfidy. For,
being infatuated by certain Jews, who had gained an ascendant over him
by certain pretended astrological predictions, in 726 he commanded holy
images to be abolished, and enforced the execution of his edicts of a
cruel persecution. St. Germanus, and other orthodox prelates in the
East, endeavored to reclaim him, refused to obey his edicts, and
addressed themselves to pope Gregory. Our saint employed long the arms
of tears and entreaties, yet strenuously maintained the people of Italy
in their allegiance to their prince, as Anastasius assures us. A
rebellion was raised in Sicily, but soon quelled by the death of
Artemius, who had assumed the purple. The pope vigorously opposed the
mutineers, both here and in other parts of the West. When he was
informed that the army at Ravenna and Venice, making zeal a pretence for
rebellion, had created a new emperor, he effectually opposed their
attempt, and prevented the effect. Several disturbances which were
raised in Rome were pacified by his care. Nevertheless, he by letters
encouraged the pastors of the church to resist the heresy which the
emperor endeavored to establish by bloodshed and violence. The tyrant
sent orders to several of his officers, six or seven times, to murder
the pope: but he was so faithfully guarded by the Romans and Lombards,
that he escaped all their snares. St. Gregory II. held the pontificate
fifteen years, eight months, and twenty-three days, and died in 731, on
the 10th of February; but the Roman Martyrology consecrates to his
memory the 13th which was probably the day on which his corpse was
deposited in the Vatican church.

Footnotes:
1. Bulteau, Hist. Mon. d'Occid. t. 2, l. 4, c. 2, p. 8.

{412}

ST. MARTINIANUS, HERMIT AT ATHENS.

MARTINIANUS was born at Caesarea in Palestine, during the reign of
Constantius. At eighteen years of age he retired to a mountain near that
city, called, The place of the Ark, where he lived for twenty-five years
among many holy solitaries in the practice of all virtues, and was
endowed with the gift of miracles. A wicked strumpet of Caesarea, called
Zoe, hearing his sanctity much extolled, at the instigation of the devil
undertook to pervert him. She feigned herself a poor woman, wandering in
the desert late at night, and ready to perish. By this pretext she
prevailed on Martinianus to let her remain that night in his cell.
Towards morning she threw aside her rags, put on her best attire, and
going in to Martinianus, told him she was a lady of the city, possessed
of a large estate and plentiful fortune, all which she came to offer him
with herself. She also instanced, in the examples of the saints of the
Old Testament, who were rich and engaged in the conjugal state, to
induce him to abandon his purpose. The hermit, who should have imitated
the chaste Joseph in his flight, was permitted, in punishment perhaps of
some secret presumption, to listen to her enchanting tongue, and to
consent in his heart to her proposal. But as it was near the time that
he expected certain persons to call on him to receive his blessing and
instructions, he told her he would go and meet them on the road and
dismiss them. He went out with this intent, but being touched with
remorse, he returned speedily to his cell, where, making a great fire,
he thrust his feet into it. The pain this occasioned was so great, that
he could not forbear crying out aloud. The woman at the noise ran in and
found him lying on the ground, bathed in tears, and his feet half
burned. On seeing her he said: "Ah! if I cannot bear this weak fire, how
can I endure that of hell?" This example excited Zoe to sentiments of
grief and repentance; and she conjured him to put her in a way of
securing her salvation. He sent her to Bethlehem, to the monastery of
St. Paula, to which she lived in continual penance, and lying on the
bare floor, with no other sustenance than bread and water. Martinianus,
as soon as his legs were healed, which was not till seven months after,
not being able all that time to rise from the ground, retired to a rock
surrounded with water on every side, to be secure from the approach of
danger and all occasions of sin. He lived here exposed always to the
open air, and without ever seeing any human creature, except a boatman,
who brought him twice a year biscuit and fresh water, and twigs
wherewith to make baskets. Six years after this, he saw a vessel split
and wrecked at the bottom of his rock. All on board perished, except one
girl, who, floating on a plank, cried out for succor. Martinianus could
not refuse to go down and save her life: but fearing the danger of
living on the same mountain with her till the boatman should come, as
was expected in two months, resolved to leave her there to subsist on
his provisions till that time, and she chose to end her days on this
rock in imitation of his penitential life. He, trusting himself to the
waves and Providence, to shun all danger of sin, swam to the main land,
and travelled through many deserts to Athens, where he made a happy end
towards the year 400, being about fifty years old. His name, though not
mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, occurs in the Greek Menaea, and was
in great veneration in the East, particularly at Constantinople, in the
famous church near Sancta Sophia. See his acts in the Bollandists, and
in most compilers of the lives of the saints. Also Jos. Assemani in Cal.
Univ. ad 13 Feb. t. 6, p. 145.

{413}

ST. MODOMNOC, OR DOMINICK, OF OSSORY, C.

HE is said to have been of the noble race of the O'Neils, and, passing
into Wales, to have studied under St. David in the Vale of Ross. After
his return home he served God at Tiprat Fachna, in the western part of
Ossory. He is said to have been honored there with the Episcopal
dignity, about the middle of the sixth century. The see of Ossory was
translated from Seirkeran, the capital of this small county, to Aghavoa,
in the eleventh century, and in the twelfth, in the reign of Henry II.,
to Kilkenny. See Sir James Ware, l. De Antiquitatibus Hiberniae, and l.
De Episcopal. Hibern.

ST. STEPHEN, ABBOT.

HE was abbot of a monastery near the walls of Rieti in Italy, and a man
of admirable sanctity. He had despised all things for the love of
heaven. He shunned all company to employ himself wholly in prayer. So
wonderful was his patience, that he looked upon them as his greatest
friends and benefactors, who did him the greatest injuries, and regarded
insults as his greatest gain. He lived in extreme poverty, and a
privation of all the conveniences of life. His barns, with all the corn
in them, the whole subsistence of his family, were burned down by wicked
men. He received the news with cheerfulness, grieving only for their sin
by which God was offended. In his agony angels were seen surrounding him
to conduct his happy soul to bliss. He lived in the sixth age. He is
named in the Roman Martyrology. See St. Gregory, hom. 35, in Evang. t.
1, p. 1616, and l. 4, Dial. c. 19.

B. ROGER, ABBOT, C.

HAVING embraced the Cistercian order at Loroy, or Locus Regis, in Berry,
he was chosen abbot of Elan near Retel in Champagne, and died about the
year 1175. His remains are enshrined in a chapel which bears his name,
in the church at Elan, where his festival is kept with a mass in his
honor on the 13th of February. His life was written by a monk of Elan.
See Chatelain, on the 4th of January, on which day his name occurs in a
Cistercian calendar printed at Dijon.


FEBRUARY XIV.

ST. VALENTINE, PRIEST AND MARTYR.

His acts are commended by Henschenius, but objected to by Tillemont, &c.
Here is given only an abridgment of the principal circumstances, from
Tillem. l. 4, p. 678.

THIRD AGE.

VALENTINE was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his
family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He
was {414} apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome;
who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith
ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards to be
beheaded, which was executed on the 14th of February, about the year
270. Pope Julius I. is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to
his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate, now called
Ports del Popolo, formerly Porta Valentini. The greatest part of his
relics are now in the church of St. Praxedes. His name is celebrated as
that of an illustrious martyr, in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, the
Roman missal of Thomasius, in the calendar of F. Fronto, and that of
Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado, Notker, and all other martyrologies on
this day. To abolish the heathen's lewd superstitious custom of boys
drawing the names of girls, in honor of their goddess Februata Juno, on
the 15th of this month, several zealous pastors substituted the names of
saints in billets given on this day. See January 29, on St. Francis de
Sales.

ST. MARO, ABBOT.

From Theodoret Philoth. c. 16, 22, 24, 30, Tillem. t. 12, p. 412. Le
Quien, Oriens Christ. t. 3, p. 5, Jos Assemani Bibl. Orient. t. 1, p.
497.

A.D. 433.

ST. MARO made choice of a solitary abode on a mountain in the diocese of
Syria and near that city, where, out of a spirit of mortification, he
lived for the most part in the open air. He had indeed a little hut,
covered with goat skins, to shelter him from the inclemencies of the
weather; but he very seldom made use of it for that purpose, even on the
most urgent occasions. Finding here a heathen temple, he dedicated it to
the true God, and made it his house of prayer. Being renowned for
sanctity, he was raised, in 405, to the dignity of priesthood. St.
Chrysostom, who had a singular regard for him, wrote to him from
Cucusus, the place of his banishment, and recommended himself to his
prayers, and begged to hear from him by every opportunity.[1]

St. Zebinus, our saint's master, surpassed all the solitaries of his
time, with regard to assiduity in prayer. He devoted to this exercise
whole days and nights, without being sensible of any weariness or
fatigue: nay, his ardor for it seemed rather to increase than slacken by
its continuance. He generally prayed in an erect posture; but in his old
age was forced to support his body by leaning on a staff. He gave advice
in very few words to those that came to see him, to gain the more time
for heavenly contemplation. St. Maro imitated his constancy in prayer:
yet he not only received all visitants with great tenderness, but
encouraged their stay with him; though few were willing to pass the
whole night in prayer standing. God recompensed his labors with most
abundant graces, and the gift of curing all distempers, both of body and
mind. He prescribed admirable remedies against all vices. This drew
great multitudes to him, and he erected many monasteries in Syria, and
trained up holy solitaries. Theodoret, bishop of Cyr, says, that the
great number of monks who peopled his diocese were the fruit of his
instructions. The chief among his disciples was St. James of Cyr, who
gloried that he had received from the hands of St. Maro his first
hair-cloth.

God called St. Maro to his glory after a short illness, which showed,
says Theodoret, the great weakness to which his body was reduced. A
{415} pious contest ensued among the neighboring provinces about his
burial. The inhabitants of a large and populous place carried off the
treasure, and built to his honor a spacious church over his tomb, to
which a monastery was adjoined, which seems to have been the monastery
of St. Maro in the diocese of Apamea.[2]

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