The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March. Baring-Gould Sabine
after having been attacked by a leopard, were also assaulted by a bear. Saturus dreaded nothing so much as a bear, and therefore hoped a leopard would despatch him at once with his teeth. He was then exposed to a wild boar, but the beast turned upon his keeper, who received such a wound from him, that he died in a few days after, and Saturus was only dragged along by him. Then they tied the martyr near a bear, but that beast came not out of his lodge, so that Saturus, being sound and not hurt, was called upon for a second encounter. This gave him an opportunity of speaking to Pudens, the gaoler that had been converted. The martyr encouraged him to constancy in the faith, and said to him, "Thou seest I have not yet been hurt by any beast, as I desired and foretold: believe then stedfastly in Christ; I am going where thou wilt see a leopard with one bite take away my life." It happened so, for a leopard being let out upon him, sprang upon him, and in a moment he was deluged with blood, whereupon the people jeering, cried out, "He is well baptized." The martyr said to Pudens, "Go, remember my faith, and let our sufferings rather strengthen than trouble thee. Give me the ring thou hast on thy finger." Saturus, having dipped it in his wound gave it him back to keep as a pledge to animate him to steadfastness in his faith, and soon after, fell down dead. Thus he went first to glory, to wait for Perpetua, according to her vision.
In the mean time, Perpetua and Felicitas had been exposed to a wild cow; Perpetua and Felicitas were the first attacked, and the cow having tossed the former, she fell on her back. Then putting herself in a sitting posture, and perceiving her clothes were torn, she gathered them about her in the best manner she could, to cover herself, thinking more of decency than her sufferings.30 Getting up, not to seem disconsolate, she tied up her hair, which was fallen loose, and perceiving Felicitas on the ground much hurt by a toss of the cow, she helped her to rise. They stood together, expecting another assault from the beasts, but the people crying out that it was enough, they were led to the gate Sanevivaria, where those that were not killed by the beasts were despatched at the end of the shows by the confectores. Perpetua was here received by Rusticus, a catechumen. She seemed as if just returning out of a long ecstasy, and asked when she was to fight the wild cow. When told what had passed, she could not believe it till she saw on her body and clothes the marks of what she had suffered. She called for her brother, and said to him and Rusticus, "Continue firm in the faith, love one another, and be not distressed at our sufferings." All the martyrs were now brought to the place of their butchery. But the people, not yet satisfied with beholding blood, cried out to have them led into the middle of the amphitheatre, that they might have the pleasure of seeing them receive the last blow. Upon this, some of the martyrs rose up, and having given one another the kiss of peace, went of their own accord into the arena; others were despatched without speaking, or stirring out of the places they were in. S. Perpetua fell into the hands of a very timorous and unskilful apprentice of the gladiators, who, with a trembling hand, gave her many slight wounds, which made her languish a long time. Thus, says S. Augustine, did two women, amidst fierce beasts and the swords of gladiators, vanquish the devil and all his fury. The day of their martyrdom was the 7th of March, as it is marked in the most ancient martyrologies, and in a Roman Martyrology as old as the year 554. S. Prosper says they suffered at Carthage, which agrees with all the circumstances. Their bodies were preserved in the great church of Carthage, in the 5th century, as Victor of Utica relates. The body of S. Perpetua is said to be preserved at Bologna, in the Church of the Franciscans, but it is very questionable whether it is that of the S. Perpetua of Carthage, whose passion has just been narrated.
[By the Greeks on Feb. 3rd, in conjunction with S. Adrian; but by the Roman Martyrology on this day, and S. Adrian on March 5th. Authority: – Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. lib. viii., c. 11.]
In the persecution in Palestine, carried out under the ferocious governor Firmilian, Adrian and Eubulus, natives of Manganæa, suffered. They came to Cæsarea, and were asked the cause of their coming, as they entered the gates of the city. They confessed that they had come to see and minister to the martyrs of Jesus Christ. They were at once apprehended and brought before Firmilian. He ordered them to be scourged and torn with hooks, and then to be devoured by the beasts. After the lapse of two days, on the third of the nones of March, Adrian was cast before a lion, and afterwards slain with the sword. Eubulus was also reserved to the nones of March, and was then cast to the beasts. He was the last to suffer for the faith at Cæsarea in that persecution.
[Greek Menæa and Roman Martyrology on the same day. But some Latin Martyrologies on Dec. 18th, others on Jan. 11th. Authorities: – Palladius, in his Hist. Lausiaca; Ruffinus, in his Lives of the Fathers of the Desert; and Sozomen, Hist. Eccles., lib. i., c. 13.]
Paul the Simple was one of the first disciples of S. Antony. He did not embrace the religious life till he was sixty, and then it was in consequence of the bad conduct of his wife. He had been a labourer in a village of the Thebaid, and was very ignorant. He came to S. Antony, but the patriarch of hermits refused to admit him, thinking him too old to adopt the monastic life. Paul, however, remained three days and nights outside the cell of Antony, and would not leave. Antony then came forth, and found that the man had no food; he, therefore, received him for a while, hoping to disgust him with the life of a hermit by the severity of his discipline. He set Paul to pray outside his door, and told him not to desist till he was released. The simple old labourer obeyed, and Antony observed him, unseen, praying with the blazing sun shining down on his head at noon-day, and the moon looking on him at night, as rigid and immoveable as one of the date palms of the desert. He then brought him into his cave, and gave him some platting to do. When it was accomplished he rebuked Paul for his having doing it badly, and bade him undo his work again. The postulant did as ordered without a murmur. Then Antony brought bread, and set the table in order for supper, and called the hungry Paul to it; then he said, "Before we eat, let us recite twelve psalms and twelve prayers," and he did so; and when the psalms and prayers were done, Antony said, "We have looked on the bread, that will suffice for supper; now let us retire to rest." Yet Paul murmured not; so Antony saw that he was qualified to be a monk.
Once, as Antony and some of his guests were discoursing on spiritual matters, Paul asked very simply, "Were the prophets before Jesus Christ, or Jesus Christ before the prophets?" Then Antony reddened, and bade him keep in the background, and hold his tongue. Now Paul at once obeyed, and remained for some time silent, and out of sight, and they told Antony of it. Then he said, "Oh, my brethren! learn from this man what our obedience towards God ought to be. If I say anything, he does it instantly and cheerfully, and we – do we thus behave towards our God?"
[The oldest notices of S. Thomas are found in Gerard de Fracheto; in Thos. Cantipratensis; Stephen de Salanacho; Tocco, a Dominican, who had seen S. Thomas, and heard him preach, left an account of his life and miracles, this work formed the basis of the labours of the Inquisition into our saint's miracles, held in 1319. This, and the bull of his canonization, issued by John XXII., in 1323, is the foundation of the first part of Guido's life and acts of S. Thomas; the latter part contains the miracles substantiated at the second Inquisition, or those told on trustworthy authority. There are many other lives, as also histories of the translations of his body. John XXII. ordered his festival to be kept as that of a confessor, on March 7th; Pius V., in 1567, ordered it to be honoured in the same manner as were the feasts of the Four Doctors of the Church.]
"The age of S. Thomas Aquinas," says Bareille, "was that of Innocent III., and of S. Louis, of Albert the Great, and of Roger Bacon, of Giotto, and of Dante. That age witnessed the birth of the cathedral of Cologne, and the Summa Theologiæ, of the Divine Comedy, and La Sainte Chapelle, of the Imitation of Jesus Christ, and the cathedral of Amiens. It was so fruitful in great men and great monuments, that it would need an entire volume to give a complete list of both. When we wander amidst the marvels of the thirteenth century, we are astonished at the injustice done to it through the ignorance of mankind.
"This astonishment is increased when we consider more attentively the vast movement which was then going on in the bosom of mankind. This was the age in which the Universities of Oxford and Paris were founded, in which S. Louis established his kingdom on a legitimate basis; in which the barons wrung the Magna Charta from king John; in which the great religious
Does not this remind the classic scholar of the description of the death of Polyxena, by Talthybius, in the Hecuba, "She even in death showed much care to fall decently."