The Lives of the Saints, Volume 03 (of 16): MarchBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
The Lives of the Saints, Volume 03 (of 16): March
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Christian saints
"His shafts, not at the Church, but at her Lord addrest," might well be
cast back upon himself by a manifestation of "the finger of God," as
real and awe-inspiring as any of those natural phenomena, the presence
of which under particular circumstances made them a sign of judgment
against Pharaoh.
Julian promised, in his vexation, says Orosius, to revenge his failure
on S. Cyril on his return from the Persian war. But this return never
took place. Cyril was again exiled by the Arian emperor Valens,
in 367. He returned in 378, when the emperor Gratian ordered the
restoration of the Catholics. He found his diocese rent by schism,
corrupted by heresy. Adultery, robbery, and poisoning were general.
The council of Antioch in 379, informed of the deplorable condition of
the diocese, sent Gregory of Nyssa, already charged with reforming the
churches of Arabia, to assist him in pacifying spirits, and repressing
immorality; but his labours were without result. In 381, S. Cyril was
present at the General Council of Constantinople, and subscribed the
condemnation of the semi-Arians and Macedonians. He died in 386, at the
age of seventy.
S. FRIGIDIAN OR FINNIAN, B. OF LUCCA.
(A.D. 589.)
[Roman and Irish Martyrologies. At Lucca the feast of his translation
is observed on Nov. 19th. Authorities:--Mention in life of S. Enda,
March 21st.]
S. Finnian of Moville is mentioned in the life of S. Enda as one
of his disciples in Aran, the Isle of Saints. This remarkable man
was the son of Ultach, an Irish king, and was baptized without his
father's consent. He was first placed under the care of S. Colman of
Dromore, who flourished about the year 510. It is expressly mentioned
in the life just referred to, that it was from Aran he set out on his
pilgrimage to Rome. This was probably his first visit to the apostolic
See. Being of an active temperament, he there devoted himself with
great ardour for several years to the study of the ecclesiastical and
apostolic traditions. He then returned to Ireland, carrying with him
a rich store of relics of the saints given him by the pope, and the
penitential canons, which in his biographer's time, were still called
"The Canons of S. Finnian." He also brought to Ireland the earliest
copy of S. Jerome's translations of the Gospels; a treatise of such
value in the estimation of his ecclesiastical contemporaries, that the
records of this period very frequently refer to them as S. Finnian's
Gospels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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