The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March

S. ZOSIMUS, B. OF SYRACUSE

(ABOUT A.D. 660.)

[Commemorated in Greek Menologies on Jan. 21st, save in that of Cardinal Sirlet, which assigns him to this day. Life, in Menologies and in Bollandists, by a contemporary Sicilian who derived his statements from B. Elias or from John the Deacon.]

Our saint's life was calm and almost uneventful; yet it is not without interest or profit to those who love to see the life of Christ reflected in some degree in the unruffled mirror of His saints' lives. His parents owned a farm or small estate near the convent of S. Lucia, in the neighbourhood of Syracuse. Brought up among all the delights of a pastoral life in Sicily, of which Theocritus sings in such inimitable strains, he yet yearned for higher and holier joys. Accordingly, he gladly assented to his parents' wish to dedicate him to S. Lucia; and, about 578, when seven years old, he was offered as a living sacrifice to God in her convent. His chief duty was to watch by the precious shrine of S. Lucia. Some only of her relics could have been preserved there, for after the translation of her body from Syracuse to Rome, it was removed by order of the emperor Otho I. to Metz. Her touching history will be told on the 13th December, the day on which she suffered as a martyr for chastity and Christianity. The little Zosimus doubtless often knelt in prayer for his father and mother in the recess beneath the silver shrine where her relics rested. Still such communion with his parents did not satisfy the natural cravings of his heart, for once when he was ordered by the abbot Faustus to do some disagreeable task out of doors, he ran home to his friends. They brought the truant back to the convent, where he was set to watch the tomb again. That night it seemed to him the hinges of the shrine creaked, and the virgin herself stepped forth, and standing over him seemed to threaten him with punishment. Then he saw another lady of gracious aspect by her side, interceding for him and promising in his name that he would never so offend again; a promise which he gladly ratified with his own lips. The virgin returned to her shrine, and he was left alone in the still dark night watching the lamps which shone in front of her tomb.

Henceforth he approached her shrine with more than his former awe: his visits home were short and less frequent, he only just stayed to greet his parents, and then hurried back to the threshold of the virgin martyr. Prayer, the constant attendance at the shrine, the regular life of the convent, gave calmness and depth to his character. He once again, it is said, witnessed the wrath of the virgin. A lady of rank, suffering from disease, came to the shrine with an unseemly request. The saint moved from her resting-place, and smote the petitioner on the cheek. Zosimus summoned her servants to take up their mistress: they took her up —dead.

After thirty years had been passed by our saint in contemplation, obedience, and cheerful acts of kindness to his brethren, Abbot Faustus died. The brethren could not fix upon a successor. Leaving Zosimus in charge of the shrine and the church, they went in a body to S. John, Bishop of Syracuse. He asked, "Is there no one else beside in your convent?" They said "No." But the bishop rejoined, "Go and see whether there be no one." Then they admitted that there was the doorkeeper of the church, whom all had forgotten. The Bishop sent for him. As Zosimus entered, S. John looking stedfastly at him, and reading his character in his face, said, "Behold him, whom the Lord has chosen." They accepted Zosimus as their Abbot. Then one of the brethren said to him, "Verily of a truth this scripture is fulfilled in thee to-day. 'On whom shall My spirit rest, save on him that is of a humble and contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My word.'"

The same bishop ordained him priest a few days after, to serve the Church of the Blessed Mary ever Virgin. He ruled his monastery for forty years with singular success. His like was never seen before or after in the convent of S. Lucia. He was loved by the good for his gentleness, yet he was never lax in his treatment of the bad.

On the death of the saintly Peter, Bishop of Syracuse, the people elected Zosimus, the clergy, a priest named Venerius to succeed him. The latter was boastful, full of vain glory, ambitious for the post. Zosimus would willingly have declined the burden of the episcopate, but his friends would not let him. An appeal was made to Rome. Pope Theodore, who sat in S. Peter's chair from 641 to 649, chose and consecrated Zosimus Bishop of Syracuse.

As Zosimus landed in the port of Ortygia, the people and clergy flocked to meet him and escort him with all due honour to his cathedral. The once glorious city of Syracuse had then shrunk to a shadow of its former self: it did not extend beyond the limits of the island of Ortygia, yet its people were still wealthy, and its cathedral well supplied with silver plate. When the Saracens sacked it about two hundred years after, the plate of the cathedral alone weighed five thousand pounds of silver, and the entire spoil of the city was estimated at one million pieces of gold (about four hundred thousand pounds sterling). Zosimus taught his people diligently. Two remarks of his are preserved: "Anger differs as much from gentleness as storm from calm." "Death is to the virtuous a rest from trouble and toil, and a loosing of bands: to the wicked it is the beginning of punishment."

His benevolence to the needy was unfailing. He bade his deacon John give two coins to a man, who asked an alms. John replied, "Our purse is empty." "Go and sell thy cloak and give to him that needeth," was the quick reply. It was a new one just bought, so John murmured and hesitated; the bishop took off his own cloak and handed it to him and bade him go and sell it. When he returned from relieving the beggar, he saw a young man lay a heavy purse of gold at the bishop's feet. The bishop rebuked John for having so little faith in God.

The bishop would not suffer any one to wait on him. One day he fell asleep while a priest was reading his psalter near. The flies tormented the sleeping bishop, so the priest drove them away with a fan. Zosimus awoke and said to him, "Never do so again, but sit still and read thy psalter."

He re-built and re-decorated the church of S. Mary, and offered the unbloody sacrifice there in the 82nd year of his age, and the fifth of his episcopate, when it was again opened for Divine Service.

Eupraxius, chamberlain of the Emperor Constans II., who made Syracuse his abode for the last six years of his life, found Zosimus in his last illness lying on a mat and covered with a few rags. He sent him some splendid rugs and coverlets. The saint lay on them for a time, and then bade his attendants make him a bed of straw and sell the rugs and give the price to the poor and the stranger. He died in 656, and was followed to his grave by the people, who mourned over him as a father, for such he had been to them during the thirteen years of his episcopate.

March 31

S. Balbina, V. at Rome, A.D. 132.

S. Acacius, B.C. at Melitene, in Armenia, 3rd cent.

S. Benjamin, D.M. in Persia, 5th cent.

S. Renovatus, B. of Merida, in Spain, circ. A.D. 633.

S. Guido, Ab. of Pomposa, in N. Italy, A.D. 1026.

S. Daniel, C. at Venice, A.D. 1411.

S. BALBINA, V

(A.D. 132.)

[Usuardus, and Roman Martyrology. Authority: – The Acts of S. Alexander Pope and M. (May 3rd); but these, as has been already stated, are not trustworthy. There exists Acts which represent her as a Martyr, but they are even more untrustworthy than those of S. Alexander.]

Saint Balbina was the daughter of S. Quirinus the Tribune, whose legend has been given on March 30th. She was converted at the same time as her father, and received baptism at the hands of S. Alexander. The legend is as follows: – Quirinus said to his prisoner Alexander the Pope, "I have a daughter whom I desire to see married, but she is scrofulous. Cure her, and we will together believe in Christ." Then said Alexander, "Go, go, and bring her into my dungeon, and take the prison collar from my neck and lay it on her, and speedily she will be whole." Then the father did as he was commanded, and brought Balbina to the Pope, and he laid his collar about her neck, and then Alexander said to the father, "Depart, I pray thee." So Quirinus went forth. And suddenly there appeared a boy bearing a torch, and he went to the maiden and said, "Be constant in thy virginity, O damsel, and receive perfect soundness of body; and thou shalt see thy Bridegroom who for love of thee shed His blood." And so saying he disappeared. Then the father, coming in, found that she was healed of her infirmity, and himself was baptized and his whole house.

Now after the martyrdom of S. Quirinus, she was seen by S. Alexander often kissing the collar which had healed her. Then said he, "Cease from kissing this collar, and seek rather to embrace the chains of S. Peter." Then she had no rest till she had found those chains – how and where she found them we are not told; and "she began with great fear to kiss them eagerly, and to give praise to the King of Heaven." And these chains she gave afterwards to S. Theodora, a devout woman, the sister of S. Hermes the Prefect, and they are shown to this day at Rome in the church of S. Peter "ad vincula."

In these fabulous acts it is impossible to say how much of truth lies overgrown with legend. A church dedicated to S. Balbina certainly existed in Rome in 590, when three priests of the church of that dedication subscribed the acts of a council held in Rome.

Her body is preserved in this church, but other relics are said to be in the Dominican church at Bologna.

There are other saints of the same name commemorated among the virgin company of S. Ursula, and it is probably the head of one of these which is preserved in Cologne, in the Franciscan church. In the church of S. Pantaleon, in the same city, are the bones of S. Balbina – no doubt she was one of the Ursuline band. But the cathedral of Cologne claims to have the bones of the Roman S. Balbina. Another head was shown at Millen, but it was removed to Siburg, and according to the popular tradition Mass could not be said again on the altar from which the relics had been removed, as the candles refused to burn; but as soon as they were restored to their former position, no more difficulty was experienced in getting the tapers to keep alight. In art S. Balbina appears holding the chains of S. Peter, with the collar of S. Alexander either about her neck or in her hand. She is invoked against scrofula.

S. BENJAMIN, D. M

(5TH CENT.)

[Greek Menæa and Menologium of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus, and the Modern Roman Martyrology. Authority: – Theodoret, Hist. Eccl. 46 v., c. 38.]

Abdas, a bishop in Persia, with highly intemperate zeal, set fire to a heathen temple and consumed it to the ground. This injudicious act aroused a persecution against the Christians, the King Isdegerdes being greatly incensed against the bishop. Abdas suffered, and is commemorated by the Greeks on the same day, or on May 16th. Benjamin, his deacon, suffered inhuman tortures, some of indescribable horror. Sharp splinters of reed were driven up the quick of his nails in hands and feet, and he was impaled upon a knotted stick.

S. RENOVATUS, B. OF MERIDA

(ABOUT A.D. 633.)

[Spanish Martyrologist and modern Roman Martyrology. Authority: – His life by Paul, deacon of Merida, who seems to have lived about the middle of the 7th cent., certainly not long after the death of S. Renovatus.]

S. Renovatus is chiefly memorable for his treatment of a gluttonous monk in his monastery at Cauliana, of which he was abbot. Indeed this is the only incident of his life recorded, and it is given at considerable length. Renovatus was much troubled in his abbey by the conduct of one of his monks, whose love of eating and drinking was a governing passion. The fellow would steal what he was not given, and he became a scandal to the community. Renovatus exhorted him, and reproached him, in vain. Then he ordered him to be whipped; but the whipping proved as inefficacious as the admonitions. The abbot then gave him leave to depart if he liked, or, if he stayed in the monastery, to take anything he found most succulent and dainty in the house. The monk went into the kitchen, opened the cupboards, and helped himself to everything he fancied, then descended to the cellars and carried off some flasks of wine under his arm, out of the abbey gates; and finding a pleasant shady nook among some bushes, picnicked on what he had brought, and ate and drank till he could contain no more, when he lay down and fell asleep. The dogs carried off the rest of his food, and the cellarer, who little liked the abstraction of the bottles of best wine, and had dogged his steps, when he heard him snoring, stole up to the half-consumed meal and recovered what was left of the precious wine. Towards evenfall the monk came home, tumbled into bed, was left undisturbed to sleep through matins and lauds, and rose when it pleased him, took another turn through the larder and cellar, helped himself to the best of everything, and spent another jovial day of eating, drinking, and sleeping, with no churchgoing to interrupt its calm delight. So he lived for some days, and the daily surfeiting began to tell on his constitution. One morning, as he went forth with some wine bottles under his arm, and a fat capon in his hood, he heard the schoolboys reciting an antiphon they had been learning, "Consider the terrible judgment of the Lord, and the dread sentence at the trial; consider the dread avenging severity of His judgment; consider the years of thine age, and now at last change thy ways for the better, or even one day before thy death correct thy life."[95 - "Considera judicium terribile Domini; considera tremendi examinis metendam sententiam; considera formidandam atque horrendam ejus judicii ultricem severitatem; considera etiam annos ætatis tuæ, et sic tandem mores commuta in melius et vel uno die ante mortem tuam corrige vitam tuam."]

The monk feeling fever in his blood, and hearing the solemn appeal, was conscience-struck, and sending for the abbot, he confessed his sinful life with heartfelt contrition, and falling ill with fever, died a few days after.

S. Renovatus was afterwards elected bishop of Mende, but nothing is related of the events of his episcopate. He is said to have been a very stately, handsome man, with a sweet expression of countenance. He was buried before the altar in the Church of S. Eulalia, whence the bones were raised and enshrined, and where they are still preserved.

S. DANIEL, C

(A.D. 1411.)

[Martyrology of Camaldoli, and Bucelinus in his Menology of the Order of S. Benedict. Authority: – Augustine Fortunatus in his History of the Order of Camaldoli.]

S. Daniel was a German by birth; having entered a mercantile life, his business took him to Venice. But though the affairs of commerce engaged the greater part of his time, they did not take possession of his heart, and whenever he had a few minutes of leisure, he was wont to hasten to a church, and spend the precious moments in prayer. Also to prevent himself from becoming ensnared with the love of gain, he regularly distributed a portion of all his proceeds among the poor. The convent of S. Matthias belonging to the Order of Camaldoli presented to his mind great attractions, and he was fond of entering it for the purpose of making retreats, or for converse with the fathers, or for the sake of the peace and atmosphere of prayer which hung about its cloisters.

At length he resolved to live nearer to that house which was to him a port of safety, and he obtained permission from the prior to build himself a chamber opening on the cloisters, into which he might retire as guest of the Fathers, without giving up his business, and adopting the habit and rule of the Order. In 1411 he was assassinated in this little room, one night, by robbers who broke in, thinking that they would find therein considerable wealth amassed.

His relics are preserved in a shrine in the church of Camaldoli at Venice, where an altar is erected under his invocation.

notes

1

In the reign of Trajan, says the Life, but this is very questionable. Monastic life was not developed then to the extent shown in this story.

2

The wealth of some of the harlots of olden times was enormous. Phryne offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes at her own cost if allowed to inscribe on them, "What Alexander, the conqueror, pulled down, Phryne, the harlot, set up."

3