SAINT CAIUS—A.D. 283

 

SAINT CAIUS, a priest of Spulatro, in Dalmatia, son of Saint Caius, priest, brother of Saint Gabinus, uncle of Saint Susanna, virgin and martyr, and nephew of the Emperor Diocletian, was created pontiff on the 16th of December, 283.

He confirmed the custom which required clerics to pass through the seven inferior orders of the Church during a fitting period before they could be created bishops. In five ordinations he created, in December, five bishops, twenty-five priests, and eight deacons, and he governed the Church twelve years, four months, and seventeen days. He died on the 22d of April, A.D. 296. He was a man of rare prudence and virtue. He was interred in the cemetery of Calixtus. The Holy See was vacant ten days.

Under this pontificate reigned the Emperor Maximianus. Desiring to pass into Gaul, he brought from the East a legion named the Theban, which was composed of Christians; and he wished to make them, like other soldiers, instruments in the persecution of the Christians. The regiment refused to obey. The emperor, to rest from the fatigues of the journey, stopped upon the Alps, in a place called Octodurum, now Martinach in the Valais. The Theban legion was then near there, at a place called Agaunus, at the foot of the mountain now known as the Great St. Bernard. The emperor, irritated by the disobedience of the Theban legion, ordered it to be decimated, and then repeated his orders that the rest should persecute the Christians. Decimation was a military punishment of offending soldiery. The Theban legion, on receiving this second order, began to exclaim throughout the camp that they would rather suffer the utmost extremities than do anything against the Christian religion. The emperor ordered them to be again decimated, and the survivors to be reduced to obedience. Every tenth man was again put to death, and the survivors encouraged each other to persevere.

They were principally encouraged by three of their officers, Mauritius, Exuperus, and Candidas, who exhorted them to follow the example of their comrades. Under the advice of their officers, the soldiers sent a remonstrance to the emperor. "We are your soldiers, lord," said the remonstrance, "but servants of God we confess it freely. To you we owe the service of war, to him the service of innocence; from you we receive pay, from him we receive life. We cannot obey you in renouncing God our Creator and Master, and yours also. If nothing be demanded from us that is offensive to him, we will obey you, as hitherto we always have done; otherwise we shall obey him rather than you. We offer you our hands against all enemies, be they whom they may: but we do not deem ourselves permitted to imbrue those hands in the blood of the innocent. We made an oath to God before we did so to you: you could not believe the latter oath would be kept, should we break the former one. You command us to search for Christians, that they may be punished: you have only to search after others; for ourselves, we confess God the Maker of all things, and Jesus Christ his Son. We have seen our companions slain, without pitying them; we even rejoiced that they had the honor to suffer for their God. Neither their death nor despair has led us to revolt; we are armed, yet we shall not resist, because we prefer to die innocent rather than live guilty."

Maximianus, despairing of being able to conquer such constancy, ordered that all the survivors of the legion should be put to death, and the other soldiers surrounded them to cut them to pieces. They made no resistance, but grounded their arms and presented their throats to their destroyers, and the ground was soon covered with their bodies. It is supposed that about six thousand men were thus destroyed, that being the usual number of the legions.

A veteran soldier, named Victor, who did not belong to that legion, and was out of the service, found himself, while on the road, in the company of those who had slain the martyrs and who were feasting and rejoicing over their plunder. They invited the veteran to eat with them, and told him exultingly all that had passed. Detesting alike their banquet and themselves, he turned to depart from them, when they asked him if he was not a Chrstian. He answered that he was and always would be. They instantly threw themselves upon him and put him to death.

 

SAINT MARCELLINUS—A.D. 296

 

THIS saint, Marcellinus, son of Projectus, a Roman, was, according to some, a Benedictine, and was created pontiff on the 3d of May, A.D. 296.

The Church never suffered more than at this terrible period. The vast edifice of idolatry, gradually ruined by the Christians, and in some of its parts destroyed, was ready to crumble to its very foundations. The heathen altars lacked flowers, ana the priests lacked victims; the aruspices no longer read in the entrails of slaughtered animals the signs and tokens of the future; the oracles were dumb, and the magicians were powerless. In such a state of things, it seemed as though all the gods of darkness made a last effort against the God cf light. Diocletian, Maximianus, Galerius and Maximinus in succession, were the four chiefs of that infernal enterprise. Galerius, the most furious of them all, had taken from Diocletian the fatal sentence which ordered that cruel persecution, at once atrocious and universal, without truce and without pity. The churches were pulled down in most of the provinces; men and women, old men, children, and virgins were alike given up to the executioners. Heaven was peopled with martyrs, and earth, at the sight of such courage, warmed into a love for Catholicism. The persecutor hoped to destroy the religion of Christ, and all that fury only served to raise the throne of the faith upon the wreck and ruins of paganism.

The States subject to Rome, watered with the blood of the persecuted, only became the more productive of Christian branches. Tortures tore the bodies of the martyrs, but their souls, firmly embracing the faith, remained invulnerable and invincible. Nevertheless, there were some weak spirits that yielded to threats, and with whom self-love prevailed over religion; and it has even been said that among those weak ones was Marcellinus himself. The falsehood which was circulated on this head was adorned with all the circumstances which might give it an air of probability. It was pretended that the pontiff, perceiving his fault, presented himself as a suppliant before a council of three hundred bishops, assembled at Sinuessa. There, ran the story, the culprit confessed his error, and, weeping, demanded that he should be sentenced to the punishment he had incurred; and the council replied: "Pronounce sentence on thyself; the chief see cannot be judged but by itself." But in this statement every particular is false; it is now ascertained that the accusation is calumnious, and that the pontiff committed no fault. Saint Augustine, speaking of Petilius, author of that fable, says: "He calls Marcellinus a sacrilegious wretch; I declare him innocent. It is not necessary for me to weary myself to support my defence by proofs; for Petilius himself supports his accusation by no proof." In our own days that accusation has been repeated, and it has been said, with some foundation, too, that the Roman Breviary seems to support the tale, under the date of the 26th of April Muratori writes that it is so, and every one can convince himself of it. But Lambertini, before he was pope, speaking of the Breviary, or of its authority, says that the fact is false. He says: "1. All the ancient writers of the lives of the popes are silent on that head; 2. The Donatists could never prove the truth of their assertion, and were guilty of useless impostures," and he cites those words of Saint Augustine which we quoted above.

Baronius warns us on the subject that the Roman Church is not accustomed to have the acts of the saints read as if they were a gospel. Each, says Novaes, after Gelasus, may examine into things in conformity to the rule given by Saint Paul when he said: "Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good". The fall of that pontiff is denied by Schelstrate, Roccaberti, Pierre de Marca, Pierre Constant, Papebrock, Natalis Alexander, Pagi, Aguirre, Sangallo, and Xavier de Marco, a Jesuit. The last-mentioned writer has put forth that denial in a very mportant work.

Thus, according to the testimony of Theodoret, it is proved that Marcellinus was distinguished for the firmness of his courage; and the imputation against him was sustained only by Petilius and the sectarians of his time. The early Donatists never reproached the Church with such a fall of her head, eager as they were to support their own evil cause by collecting even the slightest errors of Catholic bishops, and especially of pontiffs. Everything leads to the belief, after Tillemont, that Marcellinus received the crown of martyrdom. He was interred in the cemetery of Priscilla, on the Salarian Way, near the Salarian bridge. According to Novaes, the Holy See was vacant only six months and twenty-four days; but, according to the Diario, the vacancy lasted nearly four years. In two ordinations, in the month of December, this pope created five bishops, four priests, and four or five deacons. He governed the Church eight years and some months.

In the seventh year of the pontificate of Saint Marcellinus, Diocletian passed the winter in Nicomedia. Galerius Maximian visited him there, after having vanquished the Persians, and wanted to persuade Diocletian to order a new persecution which shol'd everywhere cause paganism to triumph.

The old emperor for a long time resisted Galerius, and pointed out how dangerous it was to disturb the world and to shed so much blood. But Galerius was not to be over­ruled by such arguments, and would have advice; for such was the malignity of his nature that he wanted no advice when he would do good, but always required it when he wanted to do evil—so that he might cast the blame on others. Diocletian, finding that all around him were divided in opinion, sent an aruspice to Apollo of Miletus. Apollo replied —not by the medium of a priestess, but from the depth of a dark cave— that the just on earth prevented him from saying the truth, and that that was the reason why the oracles he gave from the tripod were false. The priestess of Apollo said the same, with her hair dishevelled, and she lamented the misfortunes of the human race. Diocletian asked his officers who were the just on earth. One of those who served at the sacrifices answered: "They are the Christians, without doubt."

The emperor was pleased with that reply, and resolved upon the persecution, being unable to resist the urgings of his friends, of Caesar and of Apollo.

Then commenced the terrible persecution of Nicomedia, of Tyre, of Antioch, of Ancyra, and of Arabia.