August V

The Dedication of St. Mary ad Nives

There are in Rome three patriarchal churches, in which the pope officiates on different festivals, and at one of which he always resides when in the city. These are the Basilics of St. John Lateran, St. Peter’s on the Vatican hill, and St. Mary Major.^† This last is so called because it is, both in antiquity and dignity, the first church in Rome among those that are dedicated to God in honor of the Virgin Mary. The name of the Liberian Basilic was given it, because it was founded in the time of pope Liberius, in the fourth century; it was consecrated under the title of the Virgin Mary, by Sixtus III. about the year 435.¹ It is also called St. Mary ad Nives, or at the snow, from a popular tradition, that the Mother of God chose this place for a church under her invocation by a miraculous snow that fell upon this spot in summer, and by a vision in which she appeared to a patrician named John, who munificently founded and endowed this church in the pontificate of Liberius. The same Basilic has sometimes been known by the name of St. Mary ad Prœsepe, from the holy crib or manger of Bethlehem, in which Christ was laid at his birth. It resembles an ordinary manger, is kept in a case of massy silver, and in it lies an image of a little child,^‡ also of silver. On Christmas day the holy manger is taken out of the case, and exposed. It is kept in a sumptuous subterraneous chapel in this church. It is well known how much this holy relic excited the devotion of St. Jerom, St. Paula, and others, when it remained yet at Bethlehem.^§

This church is, at least next to Loretto, the most famous place in the whole world for the devotion of the faithful to the Mother of God. They here assemble with great fervor from many parts of Christendom, to unite their suffrages together in praising God for the mercies he has shown to this holy Virgin, and through her to the whole world; and in imploring her patronage and intercession. Supplications which are public and general are most honorable to God and powerful in obtaining his mercy. To say nothing of the precious relics of many saints which are there deposited, and the many great graces which, by the joint prayers of the faithful, have been there obtained for the whole Church this circumstance alone suffices particularly to recommend the sanctity of this, and other such venerable churches, beyond all that could set off the temple of Solomon in the Jewish law.

The Church, which is always solicitous, by the mouths of her pastors, to instruct her children in the most powerful means of attaining to salvation, never ceases, from the primitive ages, strongly to excite them to make their most fervent assiduous addresses to the Mother of God, as a most efficacious means of working their sanctification. She teaches us earnestly to conjure Him who is the author of our being and of our salvation, to listen to her prayers for us; and humbly to remind Him that through her he bestowed himself upon us, and that for love of us he vouchsafed to be born of her, she always remaining a spotless virgin,* &c. She excites us to call her “the mother of grace and pity,” and to place a confidence in her mediation, that by it we shall more easily obtain from her Son, and through his merits, all graces. That Christian neglects a great means of succor who does not every day most earnestly recommend himself, and his particular difficulties and necessities in his main concern, to her intercession. To render our supplications the more efficacious, we ought to unite them in spirit to those of all fervent penitents and devout souls, in invoking this advocate for sinners. We ought to be ashamed not to appear among the foremost and the most ardent in our addresses, in proportion to our extreme necessities, and particular obligations.

St. Oswald, King and Martyr

The English Saxon kingdom of the Northumbers was founded by Ida in 547. After his death the northern part called Bernicia was preserved by his children; but Deira, that is, the southern part, comprising Yorkshire and Lancashire, was occupied by Ælla or Alla, and after his death was recovered by Ethelfrid, grandson of Ida, who ruled the whole kingdom of the Northumbers twenty-four years. He being slain in battle by Redwald, king of the East-Angles, in 617, his sons Eanfrid, Oswald, and Oswi took refuge among the Scots, where they were instructed in the Christian faith, and received the sacrament of regeneration. In the mean time, Edwin, the son of Alla, reigned seventeen years over both kingdoms; but in 633 was killed fighting against the united forces of Penda the Mercian, and Cadwalla king of the Britons or Welsh, a Christian by profession, but a stranger to the maxims of his religion; in his manners a barbarian, and an implacable enemy to the English Saxons. Upon this revolution the three sons of Ethelfrid returned from Scotland; and Eanfrid, the eldest, obtained the kingdom of the Deira, whilst Osric, cousin-german to Edwin, was chosen king of Bernicia. Both these princes loved the glory of men more than God, and apostatized from the faith which they had embraced; but were both slain the same year by Cadwalla; Osric in battle, and the other soon after by treachery. Hereupon Oswald was called to the crown, both of Deira and Bernicia, he being the son of Ethelfrid, and nephew of Edwin, whose sister Acca was his mother. This prince had embraced the faith with his whole heart, and far from forsaking Christ, as his unhappy brothers had done, to court the favor of his subjects, he had no other view than to bring them to the spiritual kingdom of divine grace, and to labor with them to secure a crown of eternal glory.

At that time Cadwalla ravaged all the Northumbrian provinces, not as a conqueror, but as a cruel tyrant, laying everything waste with fire and sword, at the head of a vast army, which he boasted nothing could resist. Oswald assembled what troops he was able, and being fortified by faith in Christ, marched confidently, though with a small force, against this mighty enemy, who had by that time proceeded as far as the Picts’ wall. Oswald gave him battle at a place called by Bede Denis-burn,* that is, the brook Denis, adjoining to the Picts’ wall on the north side. Being come near the enemy’s camp, the evening before the engagement, the pious king caused a great wooden cross to be made in haste, and he held it up himself with both his hands whilst the hole dug in the earth to plant it in was filled up round the foot. When it was fixed, St. Oswald cried out to his army, “Let us now kneel down, and jointly pray to the Omnipotent, and only true God, that he would mercifully defend us from our proud enemy; for he knows that we fight in a just war in defence of our lives and country.” All the soldiers did as he commanded them.¹ The place where this cross was set up was called in the English tongue Hevenfelth, that is, Heaven’s field, by a happy omen, says Bede, because there was to be erected the first heavenly trophy of faith; for, before that time, no church or altar was known to have been raised in the whole kingdom of the Bernicians. This cross of St. Oswald remained afterward very famous. Bede tells us, that to his time, many cut little chips of it, which they steeped in water, which being drank by sick persons, or sprinkled upon them, many recovered their health. He adds, that after the death of king Oswald, the monks of Hexham used to come to the place on the day before the anniversary of his death, there to watch the night in prayer, reciting the office with many psalms for his soul,^† and the next morning to offer the victim of the holy oblation. A church was built on the spot some time before Bede wrote, who mentions that one of the monks of Hexham, named Bothelm, then living, having broken his arm by falling on the ice as he was walking in the night, and having suffered a long time much anguish from the hurt, was perfectly cured in one night by applying a little of the moss which was taken off from this cross, and brought him. The learned Alcuin, in his poem on the bishops and saints of York, published by Mr. Thomas Gale, at Oxford,² relates how the pious king, no ways daunted at the multitude and ferocity of his enemies, encouraged his soldiers to a confidence in Christ, and exhorted them to implore his protection prostrate with him on their faces before the cross which he had set up.* This author likewise adds an account of several miracles wrought down to his time in 780, at the relics of St. Oswald, and at this cross; or by chips cut from it infused in water, by drinking which, many sick were cured, even in Ireland, and other distant countries. So great was the veneration of the people for this cross, that the abbey of Durham used for its seal, during several ages, this cross on one side, and on the reverse the figure of St. Oswald’s head, as Mr. Smith exhibits it from several ancient records. Almighty God was pleased to bless the king’s faith and devotion by granting him and his small army a complete victory over Cadwalla, who was killed in the battle, and his forces, with those of his allies, entirely routed.

St. Oswald, after giving thanks to God, immediately set himself to restore good order throughout his dominions, and to plant in them the faith of Christ. By his ambassadors he entreated the king and bishops in Scotland to send him a bishop and assistants, by whose preaching the people whom he governed might be grounded in the Christian religion, and receive baptism. Aidan,^† a native of Ireland, and a monk of the celebrated monastery of Hij, was chosen for the great and arduous undertaking; and by his mildness soon repaired the mischief done by another monk sent thither before him, whose harshness had alienated many from the sweet law of the gospel. The king bestowed on Aidan the isle of Lindisfarne for his episcopal seat; and was so edified with his learning and zeal, that this great prince, before the bishop could sufficiently speak the English language, would be himself his interpreter, and explain his sermons and instructions to the people.

Oswald filled his dominions with churches and monasteries, and whilst he was governing his temporal kingdom, was intent only to labor and pray for an eternal crown. He very often continued in prayer from the time of matins (at midnight, to which he rose with the monks) till day-light; and by reason of his frequent custom of praying or giving thanks to our Lord at all times, it is said that wherever he was sitting he would have his hands on his knees turned upwards toward heaven. Bede says that he reigned over Britons, Picts, Scots, and English. The kingdom of Northumberland was then extended as far as the Frith of Edinburgh; but by this __EXPRESSION__ of Bede some other provinces of the Picts, and others in Wales must have paid homage to him. Penda, the Mercian, being one of the allies of Cadwalla, and, according to Malmesbury, present at his defeat, Mercia also paid him a kind of submission; and so great was his power, that all the other kings of the Heptarchy acknowledged a certain dependence; whence Adamnan, abbot of Hij, in the life of St. Columba, styles him emperor of Britain.

Wonderful was the humility, affability, and charity of this great king amidst his prosperity; of which Bede gives us the following instance. One Easter-day, whilst he was sitting down to dinner, an officer, whose business it was to take care of the poor, came in, and told him there was a great multitude of poor people at his gate desiring alms. Whereupon the king sent them a large silver dish full of meat from his own table, and ordered the dish to be broken into small pieces, and distributed among them. Upon this, St. Adian, who happened to be at table, taking him by the right hand, said, “Let this hand never corrupt.” Bede adds, that this arm being cut off from his body after he was slain, remained uncorrupt till his time, and was then kept, being honored by all with due veneration, in the church of St. Peter, at the royal castle of Bebbaborough (so called from Bebba, a former queen), now Bamborough in Northumberland. Simon of Durham, and Ingulphus, testify that his arm was afterward kept at Peterborough.

When St. Oswald had reigned eight years in great prosperity, Penda, the barbarous pagan king of Mercia, who nine years before had slain the pious king Edwin, uncle to St. Oswald by his mother, but had been vanquished by our saint in the beginning of his reign, found means again to raise a great army, and invade the Christian dominions of our holy king. St. Oswald met him with an inferior force, and was killed in the battle that was fought between them. When he saw himself surrounded with the arms of his enemies, he offered his prayer for the souls of his soldiers. Whence it became a proverb; “O God be merciful to their souls, said Oswald when he fell.” He was slain in the thirty-eighth year of his age, of our Lord 642, on the 5th of August, in a place called Maserfield. This seems to have been at Winwick in Lancashire, where is a well still called St. Oswald’s, which was formerly visited out of devotion; and that this territory was called Maserfelte, appears from an old inscription in Winwick church. Nevertheless, Oswaldtry, that is, Oswald’s cross, a market town, seven miles from Shrewsbury, is supposed by some to have also been formerly called Maserfelth; and Capgrave, Camden, and others, think this the place where St. Oswald was slain; for, he might before this, say they, when he defeated Penda, have added that part of Shropshire to his kingdom. The famous church of St. Oswald there stands without the New gate. Leland, in his Itinerary, says it was once a monastery; this must have been in the Saxon times; but soon after the Norman conquest this church of Oswaldtry or Oswald’s cross, was a parish when it was given to the monastery of Shrewsbury, to which it afterward belonged, and was impropriate. See Tanner, in his monastic history; who says, the town called Album monasterium, or White-minster, was not Oswaldtry, but Whit-church, which was once a monastery. The church of Oswaldtry was probably so called from St. Oswald’s cross, of which it was probably possessed; but Winwick in Masserfelth in Lancashire more justly claims the honor of his martyrdom.* The inhuman tyrant caused the saint’s head and arms to be struck off, and fixed on poles; but St. Oswald’s brother and successor Oswi took them away the year following, and carried the arms to his own royal palace, and sent the head to Lindisfarne. The head was afterward put in the same shrine with the body of St. Cuthbert, and with it translated to Durham, as Malmesbury and others assure us. The rest of St. Oswald’s body was translated by his niece Osfrida, wife of Etheldred, king of Mercia, to the monastery of Bardney in Lincolnshire. During the Danish irruptions these relics were removed, by the care of Edilred, king of the Mercians, to Gloucester, where Elfleda, countess of Mercia, and daughter to king Alfred, built the church of St. Peter. The monument erected to St. Oswald there is still to be seen in a chapel of this cathedral, between two pillars; but part of the relics were translated to the abbey of St. Winoc’s Berg in Flanders, in 1221, and deposited there with great solemnity by Adam, bishop of Terouanne.* The barbarous king Penda, after he had slain five pious kings, Edwin, Oswald, Sigebert, Egric, and Annas, turned his arms against Oswi, who tried in vain to soften him by presents and the most favorable proposals. Seeing himself rejected by man, he turned his gifts into prayers, and bound himself by vow, in case he should be victorious, to consecrate to God his daughter Enfleda, then only one year old, and give with her twelve portions of laud (each of which was sufficient to maintain ten families) to build and endow monasteries. God heard his vow: and Oswi, with an inferior army, defeated and slew the tyrant near Loyden, now Leeds, in Yorkshire, in 655. The place of this battle was called Winwidfield, or Field of Victory; situated on the river Winuaed, now Aire. With Penda, who was then eighty years old, of which he had reigned thirty, fell thirty commanders of royal blood. See the Saxon Chronicle, ad an. 655. Bede, Hist. Angl., 1. 3, c. 1, 2, 3; 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; and Alcuin, Poem. de Pontificibus et Sanctis Eborac., published by Gale, t. 2.

St. Afra and Companions, MM.

The persecution of Dioclesian was carried on with great cruelty by his colleague Maximian Herculeus in Africa, Italy, Rhetia, Vindelicia, Noricum, and Upper Pannonia, the government of which provinces fell to his share in the division of the empire. At Ausburg, in Rhetia, the apparitors apprehended a woman called Afra, known to have formerly been a common prostitute. The judge, by name Gaius, who knew who she was, said, “Sacrifice to the gods: it is better to live than to die in torments.” Afra replied, “I was a great sinner before I knew God; but I will not add new crimes, nor do what you command me.” Gaius said, “Go to the capitol and sacrifice.” Afra answered, “My capitol is Jesus Christ, whom I have always before my eyes. I every day confess my sins; and because I am unworthy to offer him any sacrifice,^† I desire to sacrifice myself for his name, that this body in which I have sinned may be purified and sacrificed to him by torments.” “I am informed,” said Gaius, “that you are a prostitute. Sacrifice, therefore, as you are a stranger to the God of the Christians, and cannot be accepted by him.” Afra replied, “Our Lord Jesus Christ hath said, that he came down from heaven to save sinners. The gospels testify that an abandoned woman washed his feet with her tears, and obtained pardon, and that he neve rejected the publicans, but permitted them to eat with him.” The judge said, “Sacrifice, that your gallants may follow you, and enrich you.” Afra answered, “I will have no more of that execrable gain. I have thrown away as so much filth what I had by me of it. Even our poor brethren would not accept of it, till I had overcome their reluctance by my entreaties, that they might pray for my sins.”* Gaius said, “Jesus Christ will have nothing to do with you. It is in vain for you to acknowledge him for your God: a common prostitute can never be called a Christian.” Afra replied, “It is true I am unworthy to bear the name of a Christian: but Christ hath admitted me to be one.” Gaius said, “Sacrifice to the gods, and they will save you.” The martyr replied, “My Saviour is Jesus Christ, who upon the cross promised paradise to the thief that confessed him.” The judge said, “Sacrifice, lest I order you to be whipped in the presence of your lovers.” Afra replied, “The only subject of my confusion and grief are my sins.” “Sacrifice,” said the judge, “I am ashamed that I have disputed so long with you. If you do not comply, you shall die.” Afra replied, “That is what I desire, if I am not unworthy to find rest by this confession.” The judge said, “Sacrifice, or I will order you to be tormented, and afterward burnt alive.” Afra answered, “Let that body which hath sinned, undergo torments; but as to my soul, I will not taint it by sacrificing to demons.” Then the judge passed sentence upon her as follows: “We condemn Afra, a prostitute, who hath declared herself a Christian, to be burnt alive, because she hath refused to offer sacrifice to the gods.”

The executioners immediately seized her, and carried her into an island in the river Lech, upon which Ausburg stands. There they stripped her, and tied her to a stake. She lifted up her eyes to heaven, and prayed with tears, saying, “O Lord Jesus Christ, Omnipotent God, who camest to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance, accept now the penance of my sufferings, and by this temporal fire deliver me from the everlasting fire, which torments both body and soul.” Whilst the executioners were heaping a pile of vine branches about her, and setting fire to them, she was heard to say, “I return thee thanks, O Lord Jesus Christ, for the honor thou hast done me in receiving me a holocaust for thy name’s sake; thou who hast vouchsafed to offer thyself upon the altar of the cross a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, the just for the unjust, and for sinners. I offer myself a victim to thee, O my God, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost world without end. Amen.” Having spoken these words she gave up the ghost, being suffocated by the smoke.

Three maids of the martyr, Digna, Eunomia, and Eutropia, who had been sinners as well as their mistress, but were converted, and baptized at the same time by the holy bishop Narcissus,^† stood all the while on the banks of the river, and beheld her glorious triumph. After the execution they went into the island, and found the body of Afra entire. A servant man who was with them swam back, and carried the news to Hilaria, the martyr’s mother. She came in the night with some holy priests, and carried away the body, which she interred in a sepulchre she had built for herself and family, two miles from the city. The sepulchres of the ancients were lofty buildings, and big enough to contain several apartments. Whilst Hilaria and her attendants were still there, Gaius was informed of what they had done. He therefore despatched soldiers thither with an order to persuade the whole company to offer sacrifice, and if they refused, to burn them alive without any other formality. The soldiers used both mild words and threats; but finding all to no purpose, they filled the vault of the sepulchre with dry thorns and vine branches, shut the door upon them, and having set fire to the sticks, went away. Thus St. Afra, her mother, and three servants, were honored with the crown of martyrdom on the same day, which was the 7th of August, as Ruinart and Tillemont² observe; though their festival is kept on the 5th. They suffered in the year 304. St. Afra is honored as chief patroness at Ausburg. In her we admire the perfect sentiments of a true penitent. At every word and in every thought she had her sins always before her eyes; persuaded she never could do enough to efface them, she never thinks on what she has already done for that end; immediately upon her conversion she gave what she possessed to the poor, doubtless led a most penitential life till her death, and she rejoiced to suffer in order to atone for her former crimes. See her genuine acts, copied from the public register, in Surius, Ruinart, p. 455, &c.

St. Memmius, in French, Menge

first bishop and apostle of chalons on the marne

The Catalaunian plains, according to Jornandes, one hundred leagues in length, and seventy in breadth, famous for the defeat of Attila, and other great victories, gave name to the whole province of Champagne, and were the theatre of the apostolic labors of St. Memmius, the first bishop and apostle of Chalons, in the decline of the third century. Flodoard is our voucher that he was contemporary with Sixtus, bishop of Rheims in 290. He is honored on the 5th of August, the day of his death. His relics, after several translations, are deposited in a rich shrine of silver gilt, together with those of his sister St. Poma, and famous for many miracles. St. Gregory of Tours relates that when he was travelling through Chalons his servant fell dangerously ill of a fever: St. Gregory, prostrate before the tomb of St. Memmius, prayed earnestly for his recovery; and the next morning the youth found himself perfectly well.¹ St. Memmius’s two immediate successors, Donatian and Domitian, are also honored among the saints, and their relics enshrined in the Basilic of St. Memmius. Likewise St. Elasius and his brother and successor Laudomerus or Lumier, the thirteenth and fourteenth bishops of Chalons from 565 to 590, are honored, the former on the 19th of August, the latter on the second of October, though he died on the 30th of September.

^† The pope’s three great palaces in Rome are the Lateran and the Vatican (both contiguous to the two great churches of the same name), and that of Monte Cavallo. This last is situated in the most healthful part of the city. When the pope resides at this palace, he dates all bulls, &c., at St. Mary Major.

¹ See Anastaslus in Liberius, and Sixtus III.

^‡ Or bambino, to use the Italian word.

^§ In this same church is the Borghesian chapel, the finest in all Rome, enriched with a picture of our Lady, which is said to have been painted by St. Luke. There is another picture of the Blessed Virgin kept in the church of the Dominicanesses in Rome, and others in other parts, which are ascribed to the how hand. They seem to be at least copies from some very ancient original, which might be painted by St. Luke. Theodorus Lector, who flourished a Constantinople in 518, relates (l. 1. p. 551), that such a picture drawn by that evangelist was sent from Jerusalem to the empress Pulcheria in the fifth age. When the Turks look Constantinople they stripped this picture of the rich frame and ornaments with which it was decorated, dragged it through the streets, and destroyed it.

* Memento, Rerum Conditor, &c.

Maria mater Gratiæ, Dulcis Parens Clementiæ, &c.

* Not Devilsbourn, as Camden falsely read it, who imagined this place to be Devilston or Dilston; but that lies south from the Picts’ wall, and even from the Tyne. Mr. Smith (Append, in Bed. n. 13. p. 720), demonstrates the brook Denis to be that which is now called Erringburn, which runs through Bingfield, one mile north from the wall. About a mile beyond Bingfield to the north is Hallington, formerly Hale-down, anciently Havenfelth: though probably the whole country for two miles from Hallington through Bingfield to the wall was called Havenfelth. On the place where Oswald erected this cross, a church was afterward built. A church of St. Oswald stands there at this day, says Mr. Smith.

¹ Bede, 1. 3, c. 2, p. 104.

^† “Pro salute animæ ejus.” These prayers were always changed into thanksgivings, when the person was enrolled among the martyrs.

² Gale, Historiæ Anglic scriptor. t. 2, Oxford, 1691.

* “Nunc, precor, invictas animis assumite vires,

Auxiliumque Dei, cunctis præstantius armis,

Poscite, corde pio, precibus; prosternite vestros

Vultus ante crucem, quam vertice montis in isto

Erexi, rutilat quæ Christi clara trophæo,

Quæ quoque nunc nobis præstabit ab hoste triumphum

Tunc clamor populi fertur super astra precantis,

Et cruce sic coram, Dominumque Deunique potentem

Poplitibus flexis, exercitus omnis adorat,” &c.

Alcuin. de Pontifieibus et Sanctis Ecciesiæ Eborac. v. 244, p. 707. This passage clearly explains his epistle annexed to the council of Francfort.

^† See the life of St. Aldan on the 31st of August.

* Powell, in his description of Wales, says Bede’s Maserfelth, must have been sitnate in what was property the kingdom of the Northumbrians, and not in Oswaldtry in Shropshire, which was called by the Britons Maesuswalht, not Maserfelth, as Camden, and from him Rapin, Carte, and Guthrie imagined. Hence the learned antiquary, Dr. Cowper, in his notes on his life of St. Wereburg, places it in Lancashire near Winwick, the famous rich church of which town was formerly a place of the grentest devotion to St. Oswaldt. “There is a large fee called Mackerfield.” says he, “in which lies part of Winwick parish, where, and especially in the town of Newton, in that district, is a tradition that king Oswald had a palace or castle thereabouts, where he mostly resided.” On the south outside wall of Winwick church art carved, in the old English character, some verses relating to this prince.

“Hic locus, Oswalde, quondam placuit tibi valde.

Nortanhumbrorum fueras Rex, nuncque Polorum

Regna tenes,” &c.

St. Oswald, in the former part of his reign, seems to have lived chiefly at Bamborough, anciently Babbenburg, a castle in Northumberland, built by Ida, first king of the Northumbers. as we learn from the Saxon Chronicle ad an. 547. and so called from queen Bebba. Penda marched to the place and laid siege to it after the death of St. Oswald, but was baffied and retreated.

* King Oswald was succeeded in Bernicia by his brother Oswi, and in Deira by Oswin, a cousin of the great king Edwin. The latter was remarkable for his humility and singular piety. Having once given a fine horse to St. Aidan, and the bishop having bestowed it on a poor man, he told him that a worse horse would have been better bestowed on the beggar; but, reflecting on what he had said, he soon after cart himself at the bishop’s feet, promising never again to concern himself whatever he should give to the children of God. After reigning seven years, Oswin was slain in war by Oswi, at Gilliny near Richmond, in Yorkshire, and buried at Tinmouth. His body was found in a stone coffin there in 1065, and enshrined, See the MS. life of Oswin, Bibl. Cotton, and Matt. Westmin. an. 1110. This church was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and St. Oswin, and some time after given to the abbey of Jarrow. Oswi, repenting of this murder, built a monastery for the monks to pray for his soul, and that of the king whom he had slain Oswin is styled a martyr in some calendars on the 20th of August, and honored as chief patron of Tinmouth.

^† Sinners under canonical penance were not allowed to assist at the divine mysteries, but proved with out the church door during mass.

* The Church, by its ancient discipline, would not receive, even for the benefit of the poor, the offerings of public sinners, or money which was acquired by wicked means. See Constit. Apostol. 1. 4, c. 5. 6.

^† This St. Narcissus is honored at Ausburg as the apostle of that country, on the 29th of October, but he is named in the Roman Martyrology on the 18th of March. He is said to have fled from the persecution in Spain, to have preached at Ausburg, and to have returned afterward to his church of Gironne is Catalonia, where he received the crown of martyrdom with a deacon named Felix Mentioned by Prudenius, hymno 4

² Tillem. t. 5, p. 274.

¹ L. de Gl. Conf. c. 66.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 3, pp. 322–329). New York: P. J. Kenedy.