The Lives of the Saints, Volume 01 (of 16): JanuaryBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
The Lives of the Saints, Volume 01 (of 16): January
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Christian saints
S. PONTIAN, _M., at Spoleto, 2nd cent._
S. FELIX, _P. C., at Nola, 3rd cent._
S. MACRINA, _at Neocaesarea, 4th cent._
SS. THEODULUS, PAUL, PROCLUS, HYPATIUS, ISAAC, AND OTHERS,
_Monks, MM., at Sinai, 5th cent._
S. DATIUS, _Abp. of Milan_, A.D. 552.
S. FULGENTIUS, _B. of Carthagina_, A.D. 619.
B. ENGELMAR, _H. M. in Bavaria, beginning of 12th cent._
B. SABBAS, _Abp. of Servia, 13th cent._
B. ORDORICO, _Friar at Udine, in Italy_, A.D. 1331.
For S. HILARY, see JAN. 13.
S. FELIX, P. C., AT NOLA.
(3RD CENT.)
[On this day are commemorated two priests, Confessors, of Nola, of
the same name, Felix. This has led to almost inextricable confusion
among Martyrologists. There is another, a martyr, of this name. The
life of S. Felix is given by S. Gregory of Tours, De Glor. Martyr,
lib. i. c. 104, and by the Venerable Bede. The miracles wrought by
him have also been recorded by S. Paulinus of Nola.]
Saint Felix was a native of Nola, in Campania, where his father,
Hermias, who was by birth a Syrian, and had served in the army, had
purchased an estate and settled. He had two sons, Felix and Hermias, to
whom, at his death, he left his property. The younger, loving the things
of Caesar rather than the things of God, says Bede, served in the army,
but Felix, more _happy_--as his name implies--enrolled himself as a
soldier of Jesus Christ. Having passed the grades of lector and
exorcist, he was finally ordained priest by Maximus, Bishop of Nola.
Persecution having broken out, the aged Bishop, mindful of the
injunction, "When they persecute you in one city flee to another" (Matt.
x. 23), escaped to the hills, and left his flock to the charge of Felix,
whom he designated as his successor. The persecutors, not finding the
Bishop, seized on Felix, and cast him, heavily ironed, into a dungeon
strewn with broken crockery, into which no ray of light entered. In the
meantime, Maximus was perishing with cold and hunger in the mountains,
hardships which his great age made him unable to endure.
One night an angel appeared to Felix, and bade him go forth out of
prison and succour the aged Bishop. Then his chains fell off his neck,
and hands, and feet, and the doors opened to him of their own accord,
and guided by the angel, he was brought to the hiding place of Maximus,
whom he found prostrate and speechless, and apparently dying. He
moistened the old man's lips with wine, and forced some food into his
mouth, and chafed his frozen limbs. By slow degrees the Bishop was
restored, and then laying him upon his shoulders, Felix carried him home
before daybreak, where a pious old woman took care of him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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