The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March. Baring-Gould Sabine

Germanus appointed the penitent Eudocia to be superior in her room.

      There was a young man, who had been a lover of Eudocia, who was greatly vexed at her conversion, and resolved, partly out of passion, and partly out of love of adventure, to seek her out in her seclusion, and entice her back into the world of pleasure. To accomplish his object he assumed a monastic habit, and went to the convent, and tapped at the door. The portress partly opened the window, and, peeping through it, asked who was there. Then the man answered, after the manner of monks, "I am a sinner, and seek to communicate in your prayers and benedictions." Then the sister answered, "Thou art mistaken in coming here. No men are admitted into the house. But go on thy way, and thou wilt find a monastery governed by the blessed Germanus; he will take thee in." Then she shut the window in his face.

      The young man, whose name was Philostratus, made his way to the monastery of Germanus, and he found the old man sitting in the porch, reading. He fell at his feet, and declared himself a sinner, who desired to amend his life. Germanus looked hard at him, and a certain wantonness of the eye made him hesitate about receiving him. "We are all old men here," said he; "and are not the proper advisers and guides of a hot-headed, fire-blooded youth. Go elsewhere my son, and get a director who is nearer thine age." "My father!" exclaimed the dissembler, "How cans't thou reject me, after that thou hast received Eudocia. She has passed through the fires of temptation such as assail youth, and could well advise me. Let her give me some counsel, and I will go my way strengthened thereby."

      Germanus had acted somewhat injudiciously in appointing a reclaimed harlot to be superior of a sisterhood after only thirteen months' probation; he now committed another indiscretion in allowing the strange monk ingress into the convent. But he was guileless himself, and thought no evil of another, so he listened to the petition of Philostratus, and calling to him the monk who offered the incense in the convent, and was, therefore, allowed to enter it, bade him take with him the stranger, and give him audience of the superior. So Philostratus was led back to the convent, and the door was opened, and he was admitted into the room of Eudocia, some of the sisters standing afar off, according to the rule of the house, to witness the meeting, though out of hearing of the conversation. Then Philostratus looked at the sordid room, and the horsehair cover thrown over the pallet bed, and the haggard cheeks and sunken eyes of his former mistress, and he burst forth into entreaties that she would leave this wretched life of constant self-watching and self-denial, and return to the gaiety of city life, smart gowns, and pearl necklaces, costly feasts, and obsequious admirers. "All Heliopolis awaits thee," he urged, "ready once more to lavish on thee its gold and its adulation; return once more to the raptures and liberty of a life of pleasure."

      But she had chosen that better part which was not to be taken away from her, and she resisted all his persuasion, and dismissed him, startled, humbled, and resolved to lead a better life.

      So far the story of Eudocia is natural and devoid of improbabilities. But the Greek writer was not content to leave it thus deficient in marvels, and he has added several chapters of fanciful adventures, as insipid as they are untrue; and the contrast they make with the earlier portion of the history, and of the final chapter, points them out as an interpolation. In this interpolation Eudocia converts "King" Aurelian at Heliopolis, and appears before the governor, Diogenes, armed only with a particle of the Holy Eucharist, which she bears in her bosom. The king orders her to be stripped, and when she has been divested of her clothes, till the Host is exposed, then the B. Sacrament is suddenly transmuted into a blazing fire, which consumes the governor and all the bystanders, and an angel veils modestly the naked shoulders and bosom of Eudocia.

      The sudden extinction of a governor could hardly have been passed over by profane history had it really occurred, and, therefore, the falsifier of the Acts found it advisable to revive him. Accordingly, Eudocia is represented as taking the charred corpses by the hand and restoring them instantly to perfect soundness.

      But putting aside this absurd story, which is to be found repeated ad nauseam in almost all the forged and falsified Greek Acts of martyrdoms, with slight variations, we pass to the last chapter of the Life, which simply narrates the execution, by the sword, of Eudocia in her convent, by order of Valerius, the governor, without any sermons, inflated declamations, and theological disquisitions, such as usually accompany corrupted, interpolated acts, and are an invariable feature in forgeries.

S. ANTONINA, M(4TH CENT.)

      [Greek Menæa, and Menologium of the Emperor Basil. Inserted in the Roman Martyrology by Baronius. Authority: – The account in the Menologium.]

      Antonina is said to have lived in the city of Nicæa, in the reign of Maxentius. On account of her refusal to offer incense to the gods she was stripped of her clothes, hung up, and her sides torn with rakes. Then she was thrust into a sack, or earthen vessel (it is uncertain which), and was drowned in a lake near the city. A head and body are shown at Bologna as those of S. Antonina, "but whether of this one or of another we are not able to divine," say the Bollandists. A curious instance of the facility with which some forgeries may be detected is connected with S. Antonina. Canisius published an edition of the Greek Menologium in the 16th century; in it occurred a mistake. S. Antonina was stated to have suffered at Cæa, a misprint for Nicæa. Shortly after, the Jesuit, Hieronymus Romanus de Higuera, forged a chronicle of Flavius Dexter, Bishop of Barcelona, in the 4th century. He had seen the Menologium of Canisius, and, as there was a Ceija in Spain, he inserted S. Antonina in his Spanish Chronicle as having suffered there, and this blunder was partly the means of the detection of the forgery.

S. DOMNINA, V. H(ABOUT A.D. 460.)

      [Greek Menologium. Authority: – Theodoret.]

      Theodoret, after relating the virtues of S. Maro the hermit, (Feb. 14th) goes on to tell of a holy virgin, named Domnina, who lived in a small shed, and attended prayers in the Church at cock-crow. She was emaciated with continuous fasting; she neither looked at any one, nor suffered her own face to be seen. Whenever she took the hand of Theodoret, the bishop, to kiss it, he drew it away moistened with her tears. She spent her time, when not engaged in prayer, in ministering to the necessities of travellers.

S. DAVID, ABP. OF MENEVIA, AND PATRON OF WALES(A.D. 544.)

      [Roman, Irish, Scotch, and ancient Anglican Martyrologies. His festival was celebrated in England with rulers of the choir, and nine lessons. Pope Callixtus II. ordered him to be venerated throughout the Christian world. There are no very ancient accounts of S. David, The oldest is a life existing in MS. at Utrecht, which was not known to Usher or Colgan. Usher cites Ricimer, Giraldus, and John of Tynemouth, a Durham priest, who collected the Acts of the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish Saints, and who lived in 1360. Ricimer was Bishop of S. David's about 1085, and died about 1096. His life of S. David seems to have been the foundation of all subsequent biographies of that saint. Several MSS. of this life are extant; and a portion of it containing matter not found in the life of the same saint by Giraldus Cambrensis, was printed by Wharton in the Anglia Sacra. Giraldus Cambrensis wrote his life of S. David about 1177. S. Kentigern (d. 590) mentions S. David, and there are numerous allusions to him in the lives of contemporary Welsh and Irish saints.]

      S. David, or Dewi, as the Welsh call him, was born about 446, at Mynyw, which was named S. David's after him. His father was Sandde, son of Ceredig, who was the son of Cunedda, the great conqueror of N. Wales. His mother's name was Nôn; she was the daughter of Gynyr of Caergawch. Giraldus says he was baptized at Porth Clais by Alveas, Bishop of Munster, "who by divine providence had arrived at that time from Ireland." The same author says he was brought up at "Henmenen," which is probably the Roman station Menapia.

      S. David was educated under Iltyt at Caerworgon. He was afterward ordained priest, and studied the Scriptures for ten years with Paulinus at Ty-gwyn-ar Dâf, or Whitland, in Caermarthenshire. He then retired for prayer and study to the Vale of Ewias, where he raised a chapel, and a cell on the site now occupied by Llanthony Abbey. The river Honddu furnished him with drink, the mountain pastures with meadow-leek for food. His legendary history states that he was advised by an angel to move from under the shadow of the Black Mountains to the vale of Rhos, and to found a monastery at Mynyw, his birth place.

      He built a monastery on the boggy land which forms nearly the lowest point of that basin-shaped glen: on, or near its site stands the present Cathedral