George Eliot - "O May I Join the Choir Invisible!"

Various - "Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853"

Various - "The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865"

Henry A. Shute - "'Sequil'"

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




The actions of several apostles and other illustrious saints were never
committed to writing: and, with regard to some others, the records of
their transactions, by falling a prey to the moths or flames, have
perished in the general wreck: yet their names could not be omitted. If
their history affords little to gratify vain curiosity, at least a heart
which seeks and loves God will find, even in these scanty memoirs, every
thing interesting and entertaining. If the names of some saints have
been transmitted down to us without particular accounts of their
lives,[4] their virtues shine with no {051} less lustre in heaven; and
this very circumstance is pleasing and favorable to humility, which
studies and loves to lie concealed and unknown; and it was pointed out
by the hidden life of Christ. It is also objected, that certain actions
of some saints, which were performed by a special instinct of the Holy
Ghost, are to us rather objects of admiration than imitation; but even
in these we read lessons of perfect virtue, and a reproach of our own
sloth, who dare undertake nothing for God. But some may say, What
edification can persons in the world reap from the lives of apostles,
bishops, or recluses? To this it may be answered, that though the
functions of their state differ from ours, yet patience, humility,
penance, zeal, and charity, which all their actions breathe, are
necessary virtues in all persons. Christian perfection is in its spirit
and essence everywhere the same, how much soever the means or exercises
may vary. Though edification be the primary view in works of this
nature, the other ends of history are not neglected, as it becomes more
entertaining and useful in proportion as it is more clear, complete, and
important. This, it is hoped, will excuse certain short digressions
which are sometimes inserted, and which the laws of correct writing
allow when not too long, frequent, or foreign, when they have a natural
connection with the subject, and when the want of regularity is
compensated by greater perspicuity and utility. This liberty is more
freely taken in parts which would have otherwise seemed barren. Notes
are added, which seemed useful to the bulk of those for whom this work
was designed, or likely to attract the curiosity of some to whom these
lives would otherwise have seemed obscure, or not sufficiently
interesting. This method renders sacred biography a more universal
improvement in useful knowledge, and by enlarging the view, becomes more
satisfactory and engaging.

Certain critics of this age, as they style themselves, are displeased
with all histories of miracles, not considering that these wonders are,
in a particular manner, the works of God, intended to raise our
attention to his holy providence, and to awake our souls to praise his
goodness and power, often also to bear testimony to his truth. Entirely
to omit the mention of them would be an infidelity in history, and would
tend, in some measure, to obstruct the great and holy purposes for which
they were effected. Yet a detail of all miracles, though authentically
attested, is not the design of this work. Wherefore, in such facts, it
seemed often sufficient to refer the reader to the original records. But
miracles may be the subject of a particular disquisition.

A tedious sameness in the narration hath been carefully avoided, and in
relating general virtues, it is hoped that the manner, diction, and
thoughts will be found new. Where memoirs allowed it, such a collection
of remarkable actions and sayings of the saints hath been selected as
seems neither trifling nor redundant; and may serve to express their
character and spirit. In this consists the chief advantage of biography,
as in painting, a portraiture draws its life from the strength of the
features. By thus singular excellency doth Plutarch charm his readers,
cover, or at least compensate for, his neglect of style and method, and
other essential blemishes, and make even the most elegant writers who
have attempted a supplement to his {052} lives,[5] to appear tedious and
dull to one who hath first read his work. What eloquence could furnish
so fine a description, or convey so strong a idea of the pride of
Alexander, as the short answers of that prince to the Cynic philosopher,
or to Darius? or of the modesty of Phocion, as the well-chosen
circumstances of his disinterestedness and private life?[6]

In these lives of the saints pious reflections are sometimes
interspersed, though in general sparingly, not to swell the volume, or
seem to suspect the judgment of the reader, or to forestall the pleasure
of his own reflections. The study and exercise of virtue being the
principal end which every good Christian ought to propose to himself in
all his actions and undertakings, and which religious persons have
particularly in view in reading the lives of saints, in favor of those
who are slow in forming suitable reflections in the reading, a short
instruction, consisting of maxims drawn from the writing or example of
each saint, is subjoined to the principal life for each day, which may
be omitted at discretion. A succinct account of the writings of the
fathers is given in marginal notes, as a key to young theologians in
studying their works: their ascetical lucubrations are principally
pointed out, in which their spirit is often discovered, even to better
advantage than in the best histories which are left us of their actions.

The compiler's first care in this work, hath been a most scrupulous
attachment to truth, the foundation, or rather the soul of all history,
especially of that which tends to the advancement of piety and religion.
The indagation is often a task both nice and laborious. If we weigh the
merit of original authors, some we shall find careless and injudicious,
and many write under the bias of party prejudice, which strangely
perverts the judgment. By this, James Basnage could, in his History of
the Jews, (b. 6,) notoriously mistake and misrepresent, by wholesale,
the clearest authorities, to gratify his prepossession against an
incontestable miracle, as the most learned Mr. Warburton hath
demonstrated in his Julian, (b. 2, ch. 4.) Some write history as they
would a tragedy or a romance; and, seeking at any rate to please the
reader, or display their art, often sacrifice the truth for the sake of
a fine conceit, of a glittering thought, or a point of wit.[7] Another
difficulty is, that ancient writings have sometimes suffered much by the
bold rashness of modern critics, or in the manuscripts, by the slips of
careless copiers.[8] Again, authors who polish the style, or abridge the
histories of others, are seldom to be trusted; and experience will show
us the same of translations. Even Henry Valois, the most learned and
celebrated Greek interpreter, is accused of having sometimes so far
mistaken the sense of Eusebius, as to have given in his translation the
contradictory of the meaning of his author.

A greater mischief than all these have been the forgeries of impostors,
especially heretics. Indeed, if the father of lies, by the like
instruments, {053} found means to counterfeit forty-eight or fifty false
gospels, of which a list is given by Calmet,[9] is it surprising that,
from the same forge, he should have attempted to adulterate the
histories of certain saints? But the vigilance of zealous pastors, and
the repeated canons of the church, show, through every age, how much all
forgeries and imposture were always the object of their abhorrence. Pope
Adrian I., in an epistle to Charlemagne, mentions this constant severe
law of the church, and says, that no acts of martyrs are suffered to be
read which are not supported by good vouchers.[10] The council in
Trullo,[11] and many others down to the present age, have framed canons
for this purpose, as F. Honoratus of St. Mary shows.[12] Pope Gelasius
I., in his famous Roman council in 494, condemns the false acts of St.
George, which the Arians had forged,[13] &c. Tertullian[14] and St.
Jerom[15] inform us, that, in the time of the apostles, a certain priest
of Asia, out of veneration for St. Paul and St. Thecla, forged false
acts of their peregrinations and sufferings; but for this crime he was
deposed from the priesthood by St. John the Evangelist. No good end can,
on any account, excuse the least lie; and to advance that pious frauds,
as some improperly call them, can ever be lawfully used, is no better
than blasphemy. All wilful lying is essentially a sin, as Catholic
divines unanimously teach, with St. Austin, against the
Prisciallianists. It is contrary and most hateful to the God of truth,
and a heinous affront and injury offered to our neighbor: it destroys
the very end and use of speech, and the sacred bond of society, and all
commerce among men; for it would be better to live among dumb persons,
than to converse with liars. To tell any lie whatsoever in the least
point relating to religion, is always to lie in a matter of moment, and
can never be excused from a mortal sin, as Catholic divines teach.[16]
Grotius, the Protestant critic, takes notice that forgeries cannot be
charged upon the popes, who, by the most severe canons, forbid them,
punish the authors if detected, and give all possible encouragement to
judicious critics.[17] This also appears from the works of innumerable
learned men among the Catholics, and from the unwearied labors with
which they have given to the public the most correct editions of the
ancient fathers and historians. Good men may sometimes be too credulous
in things in which there appears no harm. Nay, Gerson observes,[18] that
sometimes the more averse a person is from fraud himself, the more
unwilling he is to suspect imposture in others. But no good man can
countenance and abet a known fraud for any purpose whatever. The
pretence of religion would exceedingly aggravate the crime.

If any particular persons among the monks could be convicted of having
attempted to palm any false writing or lie on the world, the obligations
of their profession would render their crime the more odious and
enormous. But to make this a charge upon that venerable order of men in
any age, is a most unjust and a notorious slander. Melchior Cano, who
complains of interpolations which have crept into some parts of sacred
biography, justifies the monks from the infamous imputation which some,
through ignorance or malice, affect to cast upon them;[19] and Mabillon
has vindicated them more at large.[20] On their diligence and
scrupulosity in general, in correctly copying the manuscripts, see Dom.
Coutant,[21] and the authors of the new {054} French Diplomatique.[22]
In the Penitentia of St. Theodore the Studite, a penance is prescribed
for a monk who had made any mistake in copying a manuscript. In 1196, in
the general chapter of the Cistercians, it was ordered that the church
of Lyons and the monastery of Cluni should be consulted about the true
reading of a passage in a book to be copied. Anciently, books were
chiefly copied and preserved in monasteries, which for several ages were
the depositories of learning. Mr. Gurdon[23] and Bishop Tanner[24] take
notice, that in England the great abbeys were even the repositories of
the laws, edicts of kings, and acts of parliament. The history of Wales
was compiled and kept through every age, by public authority, in the
monastery of Ystratflur for South Wales, where the princes and noblemen
of that country were interred; and in the abbey of Conwey for North
Wales, which was the burying-place of the princes of that part.
Conringius,[25] a German Protestant, writes, "In the sixth, seventh, and
eighth centuries there is scarce to be found, in the whole Western
church, the name of a person who had written a book, but what dwelt, or
at least was educated in a monastery." Before universities were erected,
monasteries, and often the palaces of bishops, were the seminaries of
the clergy, the nurseries for the education of young noblemen, and the
great schools of all the sciences. To the libraries and industry of the
monks we are principally indebted for the works of the ancients which we
possess. Grateful for this benefit, we ought not to condemn them
because, by a fatality incident to human things, some works are come
down to us interpolated or imperfect.[26]

Accidental causes have given frequent occasions to mistakes, which, when
we consider, we cannot be surprised if sometimes good men have been
deceived by false memoirs. As to authors of wilful forgeries, we have no
name harsh enough to express, nor punishment equal to their crime. But
the integrity even of Geoffry of Monmouth is no longer impeached, since
it hath been proved that in his British history he was not the author of
the fables which he published upon the credit of other vouchers.

Nevertheless, upon these, and the like accounts, history calls aloud for
the discernment of criticism. And many learned men, especially of the
monastic order, have, for our assistance, with no less industry than
success, separated in ancient writings the sterling from the
counterfeit, and by collating manuscripts, and by clearing difficult
points, have rendered the path in this kind of literature smooth and
secure. The merit of original authors hath been weighed; we have the
advantage of most correct editions of their works; rash and groundless
alterations of some modern critics, and the blunders of careless copiers
or editors are redressed; interpolations foisted into the original
writings are retrenched; and a mark hath been set on memoirs of inferior
authority. Moreover, the value of ancient manuscripts, being known,
ample repositories of such monuments have been made, curious lists of
which are communicated to the public, that any persons may know and have
recourse to them. It must also be added, that the laborious task of
making the researches necessary for this complicated work, hath been
rendered lighter by the care with which several judicious and learned
men have compiled the lives of many particular saints. Thus have
Mabillon and {055} Bulteau writ the lives of the saints of the order of
St. Benedict; the elegant Touron of that of St. Dominick; Le Nain, of
the Cistercian order; Tillemont, the Maurist Benedictin monks, and Orsi,
these of the principal fathers of the church, &c.[27] The genuine acts
of the primitive martyrs, the most valuable monument of ecclesiastical
history, have been carefully published by Ruinart. Some of them are
presidial acts, _i.e._ extracted from the court registers; others were
written from the relations of eye-witnesses of undoubted veracity. To
this treasure an accession, which the learned Orsi and others doubt not
to call of equal value, hath been lately made by the publication of the
genuine acts of the martyrs of the East, or of Persia, and of the West,
or Palestine, in two volumes, folio, at Rome. Those of the East were
written chiefly by St. Maruthus, a neighboring bishop of Mesopotamia:
the others seem to contain the entire work of Eusebius on the martyrs of
Palestine, which he abridged in the eighth book of his history. Both
parts were found in a Chaldaic manuscript, in a monastery of Upper
Egypt, and purchased by Stephen Evodius Assemani, archbishop of Apamea,
and his uncle Joseph Simonius Assemani, first prefect of the Vatican
library, at the charges of pope Clement XII., who had sent the former
into the East on that errand. The manuscripts are deposited in the
Vatican library. Joseph Assemani is known in the republic of letters by
his invaluable Oriental library, his _Italicae Historiae Scriptores_, his
_Kalendaria Ecclesiae Universae notis Ilustrata_, &c., and Stephen, by his
share in the publication of the works of St. Ephrem, and by the _Acta
Martyrum Orientalium et Occidentalium_. The learned Jesuits at Antwerp,
Bollandus and his continuators, have given us the _Acta Sanctorum_,
enriched with curious remarks and dissertations, in forty-one large
volumes in folio, to the 5th day of September. To mention other
monuments and writers here made use of, would be tedious and
superfluous. The authorities produced throughout the work speak for
themselves: the veracity of writers who cannot pretend to pass for
inspired, ought to be supported by competent vouchers.

The original authors are chiefly our guides. The stream runs clear and
pure from the source, which in a long course often contracts a foreign
mixture; but the lucubrations of many judicious modern critics have cast
a great light upon ancient historians: these, therefore, have been also
consulted and compared, and their labors freely made use of.

Footnotes:
1. Cicero, l. 2, de Orat. c. 9.
2. Voss. Ars Hist. cap. 5.
3. Voltaire's Annals of the Empire of Germany.
4. Some call in question the existence of certain saints, as SS.
Bacchus, Quirinus, Mercurius, Nilammon, Hippolytus, &c., because
these names are of pagan original. But that Christians often
retained those names is evident, not only from the oldest
Martyrologies, but from Eusebius, Theodoret, and other ancient
writers, who often mention Christians named Apollonius and
Apollinerius, from Apollo &c., and St. Paul speaks of a disciple
called Hermes, or Mercurius; and had another named Dionysius, or
Bacchus. Dr. Geddes and others object to the existence of St.
Almnachius, St. George, St. Wenefred, &c., but we shall find their
honor supported in this work by irrefregable authorities. Longinus
not only signifies a spear, but was a Roman name, and that of a
soldier and martyr, on the 15th of March: whether he be the person
who opened the side of Christ with a spear or no, is a point of less
importance. Mr. Addison and Dr. Middleton thought they had hit on a
great discovery when they transformed Mount Soracte into St.
Orestes. But that mountain is commonly called, not St. Orestes, but
San Sylvestro, together with the monastery on its summit. Moreover,
we find both in the Roman Martyrology and Greek Menaea two saints of
the name of Orestes recorded, the one on the 9th of November, the
other on the 19th of December, who both suffered under Dioclesian,
one in Armenia, the other in Cappadocia. The latter is also named by
St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his oration on St. Basil. If, by slips of
copiers, mistakes have happened to some names, of accidental
circumstances; or if certain private persons should be convicted of
having been any time deceived in some saint, this would not affect
the credit of authentic general Martyrologies.
5. Mrs. Dacier, Mr. Rowe.
6. This made Theodorus Gaza say, that if learning must suffer a general
shipwreck, and he had only his choice left him of preserving one
author, Plutarch should be the man.
7. With this fault the famous king of Prussia, who is perfectly
acquainted with the affairs of the North, charged the florid author
of the history of Charles XII. of Sweden. Nor could this historian,
as it is said, give any other answer to the complaint of the
Hamburghers, that he had notoriously slandered them with regard to
their conduct towards the citizens of Altena, than that his fiction
was plausible and ingenious, founded in their mutual jealousy,
according to the maxim of dramatic writers, _Feign with
probability_. Of this cast, indeed, though we have many modern
examples, we know, perhaps, none among the authors of antiquity.
8. Thirty thousand various readings were found by Mr. Mills in the
Greek New Testament; Dr. Bentley reckoned twenty thousand in
Terence, and twice as many as there are verses in the poet Manilius.
Even the most valuable Vatican and Alexandrian manuscripts of the
Bible abound in faults of the copiers; and editions of works made
from single manuscripts are always very defective.--witness those of
Cornelius Nepos, and the Greek Hesychius. Patrick Young, (called in
Latin, Patricius Junius,) when keeper of the king's library at
London, scrupled not to erase and alter several words in the most
valuable Alexandrian Greek manuscript copy of the Bible, as is
visible to this day. What wonder, then, (how intolerable such
liberties are,) if the like has been sometimes done by others in
books of less note, with a presumption like that of Dr. Bentley in
his amendments of Horace.
9. Prelim Dissert. on St. Matthew.
10. Sine probabilibus autoribus, Conc. t. 7, 954.
11. Can. 62.
12. Regies de la Critique, t. 2, p. 12, 20, et Diss. 3, p. 134.
13. See Mabillon, Disquis. de Cursu Gallic. Sec.1.
14. Tert. l. de Bapt. c. 17.
15. Catal. Vir Illustr. c. 7.
16. See Nat. Alexander, Collet, Henno, &c., in Decalogum de Mendacio.
17. Grot. l. de Antichr. t. 3, Op. Theolog.
18. Gerson, ep. ad Morel.
19. De Loc. Theol. l. 11, c. 5.
20. Diplomat. l. 3, c. 3.
21. Coutant, Vindic. veter. Cod. Confirm. p. 32, 550, &c.
22. Diplom. t. 4, p. 452, &c.
23. Gurdon, Hist. of Parliament, t. 1.
24. Pref. to Notitia Monastica, in folio.
25. Dissert. 3, de Antiq. Acad.
26. How easy was the mistake of a copyist or bookseller, who ascribed
the works of some modern Austin to the great doctor of that name? or
who, finding several sermons of St. Caesarius annexed in the same copy
to those of St. Austin, imagined them all to belong to one title?
Several disciples published, under the names of St. Austin, St.
Gregory, or St. Zeno, sermons or comments which they had heard from
their mouths: by the same means we have three different editions of
the confession of St. Ephrem. We have already seen many works
falsely published under the name of Boerhaave, which never came from
his pen; as, The Method of Studying Physic, Materia Medica, Praxis
Medica, and a spurious edition of his Chemistry, which seem all to
come from the pens of his scholars.
27. Among the compilers of the lives of saints, some wanted the
discernment of criticism. Simeon Metaphrastes, patrician, first
secretary and chancellor to the emperors Leo the Wise, and
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in 912, (of whose collection one
hundred and twenty-two lives are still extant,) sometimes altered
the style of his authors where it appeared flat or barbarous, and
sometimes inserted later additions and interpolations, often not
sufficiently warranted, though not by him forged; for Psellus, in
his panegyric, furnishes us with many proofs of his piety. See Cave,
(Hist. Liter. t. 2, p. 88,) who, with other judicious critics,
entertains a much more favorable opinion of Metaphrastes than
Baillet. See Metaphrastes vindicated by Leo Allatius. (Diatr. de
Nilis, p. 24.) James de Voragine, of the order of St. Dominick, and
archbishop of Genoa, author of the _Golden Legend_, in 1290, wrote
still with less judgment, and, in imitation of Livy, often made the
martyrs speak his own language. Lippoman, bishop of Verona in 1550,
and Laurence Surius, a Carthusian monk of Cologne in 1570, sometimes
wanted the necessary helps for discernment in the choice of
materials. The same is to be said of Ribadeneira, except in the
lives of saints who lived near his own time, though a person
otherwise well qualified for a writer of sacred biography. Several
who have augmented his works in France, Spain, or Italy, labored
under the same misfortune and often gathered together whatever the
drag-net of time had amassed. John Capgrave, an Austin friar, some
time confessor to the duke of Gloucester, who died at Lynn in
Norfolk, in 1484, compiled the legend of the saints of England, from
a more ancient collection, the Sanctilogium of John of Tinmouth, a
monk of St. Alban's, in 1366, of which a very fair manuscript copy
was, before the last fire, extant in the Cottonian library. By the
melting of the glue and warping of the leaves, this book is no
longer legible unless some such method be used as that which is
employed in unfolding the parched and mouldering manuscripts found
in the ruins of Herculaneum.

On the other hand, some French critics in sacred biography have
tinctured their works with a false and pernicious leaven, and, under
the name of criticism, established skepticism.

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{057}

CONTENTS.

JANUARY.


1.
THE Circumcision of our Lord..................... 59
St. Fulgentius, Bishop and Confessor............. 63
St. Odilo, or Olon, Sixth Abbot of Cluni......... 69
St. Almachus, or Telemachus, Martyr.............. 71
St. Eugendus, Abbot.............................. 71
St. Fanchea, or Faine, Virgin, of Ireland........ 72
St. Mochua, or Moncain, alias Claunus, Abbot
in Ireland..................................... 72
St. Mochua, alias Cronan, of Bella, Abbot in
Ireland........................................ 72

2.
St. Macarius, of Alexandria, Anchoret............ 73
SS. Martyrs for the Holy Scriptures.............. 76
St. Concordius, Martyr........................... 77
St. Adalard, or Alard, Abbot and Confessor....... 77

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