May I

St. Philip, Apostle

St. Philip was of Bethsaida, in Galilee, and called by our Saviour is follow him¹ the day after St. Peter and St. Andrew.* He was at that time a married man, and had several daughters;^† but his being engaged in the married state hindered him not, as St. Chrysostom observes, from meditating continually on the law and the prophets, which disposed him for the important discovery of the Messias in the person of Jesus Christ, in obedience to whose command he forsook all to follow him, and became thenceforth the inseparable companion of his ministry and labors. Philip had no sooner discovered the Messias, than he was desirous to make his friend Nathanael a sharer in his happiness, saying to him: We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, that is, the Messias; Jesus, the son of Joseph, of Nazareth. Nathanael was not so ready to give his assent to this assertion of his friend, by reason that the supposed Messias was reported to be of Nazareth. Philip therefore desired him to come himself to Jesus and see; not doubting but, upon his personal acquaintance with the Son of God, he would be as much convinced of the truth as he was himself. Nathanael complied, and Jesus, seeing him approach, said, within his hearing: Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. Nathanael asked him, how he came to know him: Jesus replied: Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee. Nathanael, as two holy fathers explain the matter, calling to mind that the closeness of his retirement on that occasion was such, that no human creature could see him, owned him hereupon for the Son of God, and the King of Israel, or, in other words, the Messiah, foretold by Moses and the prophets. The marriage at Cana of Galilee happening three days after, to which Jesus and his disciples were invited, St. Philip was present at it with the rest. The year following, when our Lord formed the college of apostles, Philip was appointed one of that number, and, from the several passages of the gospel, he appears to have been particularly dear to his divine Master. Thus, when Jesus was about to feed five thousand persons, who had followed him into the wilderness, for the greater evidence of the miracle, and for the trial of this apostle’s faith, Jesus proposed to him the difficulty of feeding the multitudes in that desolate place.² And a little before our Saviour’s passion, certain Gentiles, desirous to see Christ, made their first address to Philip, and by him and St. Andrew obtained that favor. Our Saviour, in the discourse he made to his disciples immediately after his last supper, having promised them a more clear and perfect knowledge of his heavenly Father than they had had hitherto, St. Philip cried out, with a holy eagerness and impatience: Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. From which words our Saviour took occasion to inculcate afresh a steady belief of his divinity, and perfect equality with the Father, saying So long a time have I been with you, (teaching you who I am both by my words and actions,) and have you not known me? (If you beheld me with the eyes of faith such as I really am, in seeing me you would see the Father also, because) I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.³

After our Lord’s ascension the gospel was to be preached to the whole world by a few persons, who had been eye-witnesses of his miracles, and were enabled, by the power of the Holy Ghost, to confirm their testimony concerning him by doing the like wonderful works themselves. That this might be accomplished, it was necessary that the disciples should quickly disperse themselves into all parts of the world. St. Philip accordingly preached the gospel in the two Phrygias, as Theodoret and Eusebius assure us from undoubted monuments. St. Polycarp, who was only converted in the year 80, enjoyed his conversation for some time,⁴ consequently St. Philip must have lived to a very advanced age. It appears, from a passage of Polycrates, quoted by Eusebius,⁵ that he was buried at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, which city was indebted to his relics for its preservation by continual miracles, as is averred by the author of the sermon on the twelve apostles, attributed to St. Chrysostom.⁶ An arm of St. Philip was brought from Constantinople to Florence, in 1204, whereof we have an authentic history in the Bollandists. The Orientals keep his festival on the 14th of November; the Latins on the 1st of May, with St. James. His body is said to be in the church of SS. Philip and James, in Rome, which was dedicated to God under their name, in 560. The emperor Theodosius, in a vision, received from St. John the Evangelist, and St. Philip, the assurance of victory over the tyrant Eugenius, the morning before the battle, in 394, as Theodoret relates.⁷

From St. Philip we must particularly learn an ardent love of God, and desire to see the Father. He asked only this favor, because this was his only desire. Is it ours? Do we feel it so perfect as to extinguish all inordinate earthly affections and desires in our breasts? Do we employ the proper means to attain to this happy disposition? To obtain it, let us employ the succor of this apostle’s prayers, and by disengaging our hearts from corruption and vanity, become, in desires and affections, citizens of heaven. The pilgrim soul sees herself a stranger here on earth, and discovers nothing in this desert place of her banishment hut an abyss of vanity, and subjects of compunction, grief, and fears. On the other side, looking up to God, she contemplates the magnificence and splendor of his kingdom, which will have no end; its peace, security, sanctity without stain, delights without sorrow, unchangeable and incomprehensible joys; and she cries out in a holy transport: “O joy surpassing all joys, and without which there is no true joys, when shall I possess you? O, sovereign good, discover to me some ray of thy beauty and of thy glory; may my heart be set on flame by thy love, und my soul languish and waste with desire to be united to thee, to behold thee face to face, to sing thy praises night and day, to drink of the plenty of thy house, and of the torrent of thy delights, to be forever confirmed in thy love, and in some measure transformed into thee!” Such a soul seeks to hide herself from the eyes of men, to live unknown to the world; and, in retirement and repose, to apply herself to prayer, all her thoughts being taken up in contemplating the glorious things which are said of the blessed city of her God. All worldly enjoyments and distractions are insupportable to her, and she finds no comfort in this place of banishment but in singing the praises of her God, in adoring and in doing always his will, and in the sweet sighs and tears with which she seeks him, and begs him to reign perfectly in her affections by his grace and love, and to draw her speedily to himself out of this Babylon, in which every object increases her affliction, and inflames her desire, seeming to say to her: Where is thy God?

St. James the Less, Apostle

See Tillemont, t. 1, p. 405, Ceillier, t. 1, p. 422.

St. James, to distinguish him from the other apostle of the same name the son of Zebedee, was called the Less; which apellation is supposed to have taken its rise, either from his having been called later to the apostleship than the former, or from the lowness of his stature, or from his youth. He is also known by the title of James the Just, a denomination all agree, with Hegesippus¹ and St. Clement of Alexandria, to have been given on account of his eminent sanctity. He was the son of Alpheus* and Mary, the sister of the Blessed Virgin, and seems to have been born some years before our Lord. Jesus came with his brethren, and probably St. James among the rest, to settle in Capharnaum, at the beginning of his ministry.² James and his brother Jude were called to the apostleship in the second year of Christ’s preaching, soon after the Pasch, in the year 31. He was favored with an extraordinary apparition of his Master after his resurrection.³ Clement of Alexandria says, that Christ being risen from the dead, communicated the gift of science⁴ to SS. James the Just, John, and Peter, and that they imparted it to the other apostles. We are told by SS. Jerom⁵ and Epiphanius,⁶ that our Lord, at his ascension, recommended his church of Jerusalem to St. James; in consequence whereof the apostles, before their dispersion, constituted him bishop of that city. It was probably for a mark of his episcopal authority, and as an ensign of his dignity, that he wore on his head a lamina, or plate of gold, as is recounted by St. Epiphanius.⁷ Polycrates, quoted by Eusebius,⁸ testifies, that St. John did the same: others relate the like of St. Mark. It was probably done in imitation of the Jewish high-priest.

St. James governed that church in perpetual dangers, from the fury of the people and their violent persecutions; but his singular virtue procured him the veneration of the Jews themselves. As to his sanctity, Eusebius⁹ and St. Jerome¹⁰ give from Hegesippus the following account concerning him: “He was always a virgin, and was a Nazarite, or one consecrated to God. In consequence of which he was never shaved, never cut his hair, never drank any wine or other strong liquor; moreover, he never used any bath, or oil to anoint his limbs, and never ate of any living creature except when of precept, as the paschal lamb: he never wore sandals, never used any other clothes than one single linen garment. He prostrated so much in prayer, that the skin of his knees and forehead was hardened like to camels’ hoofs.” St. Epiphanius says,¹¹ that, in a great drought, on stretching out his arms to heaven, he, by his prayers, instantly obtained rain. His eminent sanctity made even the Jews style him the just man: and Origen observes,¹² that Josephus himself gives him that epithet, though it is not to be found now in Josephus’s works. The same reverence for his person procured him the privilege of entering at pleasure into the Sanctum or Holy place, namely, that part of the temple where none but the priests were allowed by the law to enter.¹³ St. Jerom adds,¹⁴ that the Jews strove, out of respect, who should touch the hem of his garment. In the year 51, he assisted at the council of the apostles, held at Jerusalem, about the observance of circumcision, and the other legal ceremonies of the law of Moses. Here, after having confirmed what St. Peter said, he devised the sentence which the apostles drew up on that occasion.¹⁵ This apostle being bishop of a church, which then chiefly consisted of Jewish converts, tolerated the use of the legal ceremonies,¹⁶ and, together with others, advised St. Paul to purify himself and offer sacrifice.¹⁷ He is the author of a canonical epistle which he wrote in Greek. It is at the head of those called catholic, or universal, because addressed not to any one particular church, but to the whole body of the converted Jews dispersed throughout the then known world. It was penned some time after those of St. Paul to the Galatians, in 55, and to the Romans in 58. It could not, therefore, be written before the year 59, fourteen years after the death of St. James the greater. The author’s view in this epistle is to refute the false teachers, who, abusing certain expressions in St. Paul’s writings, pretended that faith alone was sufficient to justification without good works: whereas, without these, he declares our faith is dead. He adds excellent precepts of a holy life, and exhorts the faithful not to neglect the sacrament of extreme unction in sickness.

The oriental liturgy or mass, which bears the name of this apostle, is mentioned by Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople, and by the council in Trullo, and is of venerable antiquity.* St. Basil, indeed, testifies,¹⁸ that the words of the sacred invocation in the consecration of the bread and of the cup, were not committed to writing, but learned and preserved by tradition down to the fourth century, which was done on a motive of respect and veneration: but other parts of the liturgy were written. Perhaps St. James gave only general directions about this liturgy, upon whose plan it was afterwards drawn up or enlarged. His singular learning in sacred matters is extolled by St. Clement of Alexandria,¹⁹ and St. Jerom.²⁰

The Jews, being exasperated at the disappointment of their malicious designs against St. Paul by his appeal to Cæsar, to whom he was sent by Festus, in the year 60, were resolved to revenge it on St. James. That governor, dying before the arrival of his successor, Albinus, this vacancy gave them an opportunity of acting more arbitrarily than otherwise they durst have done. Wherefore, during this interval, Ananus, the high-priest, son of the famous Annas mentioned in the gospels, having assembled the Sanhedrim, or great council of the Jews, summoned St. James and others before it. Josephus, the Jewish historian, says,²¹ that St. James was accused of violating the laws, and delivered to the people to be stoned to death. And Hegesippus adds,²² that they carried him up to the battlements of the temple, and would have compelled him from thence to make a public renunciation of his faith in Christ, with this further view, thereby to undeceive, as they termed it, those among the people who had embraced Christianity. But St. James took that opportunity to declare his belief in Jesus Christ, after the most solemn and public manner. For he cried out aloud from the battlements, in the hearing of a great multitude, which was then at Jerusalem on account of the passover, that Jesus, the Son of man, was seated at the right hand of the Sovereign Majesty, and would come in the clouds of heaven to judge the world. The Scribes and Pharisees, enraged at this testimony in behalf of Jesus, cried out: “The just man also hath erred.” And going up to the battlements, they threw him headlong down to the ground, saying, “He must be stoned.” St. James, though very much bruised by his fall, had strength enough to get upon his knees, and in this posture, lifting up his eyes to heaven, he begged of God to pardon his murderers, seeing that they knew not what they did. The rabble below received him with showers of stones, and at last a fuller gave him a blow on the head with his club, such as is used in dressing of cloths, after which he presently expired. This happened on the festival of the Pasch, the 10th of April, in the year of Christ 62, the seventh of Nero. He was buried near the temple, in the place in which he was martyred, where a small column was erected. Such was the reputation of his sanctity, that the Jews attributed to his death the destruction of Jerusalem, as we read in St. Jerom,²³ Origen,²⁴ and Eusebius,²⁵ who assure us that Josephus himself declared it in the genuine editions of his history. Ananus put others to death for the same cause, but was threatened for this very fact by Albinus, and deposed from the high-priesthood by Agrippa. The episcopal throne of St. James was shown with respect at Jerusalem, in the fourth century. His relics are said to have been brought to Constantinople about the year 572.

St. Asaph. Bishop, C.

St. Kentigern, bishop of Glasgow, in Scotland, being driven from his own see, founded a monastery and episcopal chair on the banks of the river Elwy, in North Wales. Bishop Usher writes, from John of Tinmouth, that, in this abbey, nine hundred and sixty-five monks served God in great continence. Three hundred who were illiterate, this holy abbot appointed to till the ground, and take care of the cattle: other three hundred to do necessary work within the monastery; and three hundred and sixty-five he deputed to celebrate the divine office. These last never went out of the monastery, unless upon some urgent necessity, but attended continually in God’s sanctuary, being divided into companies, one of which began the divine office in the choir as another had finished it, and went out, as among the Acæmetes, at Constantinople: by this means the divine praises suffered no interruption in the church. Among these monks St. Asaph shone as a bright light, most illustrious for his birth, virtues, and miracles. When St. Kentigern was called back to Glasgow, he appointed St. Asaph, the most distinguished for learning and piety among his disciples, abbot and bishop at Llan-Elwy. Our saint was a diligent preacher, and had frequently this saying in his mouth: “They who withstand the preaching of God’s word, envy the salvation of men.” St. Asaph wrote certain canons or ordinances of his church, the life of St. Kentigern, and some other works. He died about the close of the sixth century; for he flourished about the year 590. From him the see of Elwy took the name of St. Asaph’s: though it continued long vacant; for we find no mention of any other bishop of St. Asaph’s before the twelfth century, when Geoffrey of Monmouth was advanced to that episcopal chair. Wharton gives him a predecessor named Gilbert. See Le Neve’s Fasti, p. 20; Dr. Brown Willis, and principally Leland de Script. Angl.

St. Marcou, or Marculfus,

Abbot of Nanteu, in the diocese of Coutances, in Normandy, famous for miracles, especially in healing the scrofulous disorder, called the king’s evil. He died on the first of May, in 558, and is honored in the Martyrologies of Coutances, Evreux, &c.

St. Sigismund, King of Burgundy, M.

Wonderful is the providence of God in the means by which he preserves his elect from the contagion of vice, and conducts them to eternal life. This saint was son of Gondebald, the Arian king of the Burgundians, but embraced the Catholic faith through the instructions of St. Alcimus Avitus, bishop of Vienne.* He succeeded to the kingdom of his father in 516, and in the midst of barbarism lived humble, mortified, penitent, devout, and charitable, even on the throne; a station in which the very name of true virtue is too often scarce known. Before the death of his father, he built the famous monastery of St. Maurice at Agaune, in the Valais, in the year 515, where many holy hermits lived before that time in scattered cells. God permitted this good prince to fall into a snare. He suffered his son Sigeric to be put to death, upon an accusation forged by his second wife, of a conspiracy against his life: but afterwards discovering the calumny, and pierced to the quick with remorse, he retired to Agaune, where he did penance in tears and sackcloth. He made it his prayer to God that he might be punished in this life, to escape the divine vengeance in the next. His prayer was heard: for being taken prisoner by Chlodomir, the barbarous king of the Franks, he was, by his order, drowned in a well at Columelle, four leagues from Orleans, after he had reigned one year. His body was kept honorably at Agaune, till it was removed to the cathedral of Prague by the emperor Charles IV.¹ It has been famous for many miracles. See St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Fr. 1. 3, c. 5 and 6, and Henschenius’s Collections, t. 1, Maij p. 83.

St. Andeolus, Martyr

He was a disciple of St. Polycarp, preached the gospel in Gaul, and received the crown of martyrdom at Bergoiate upon the Rhone, his head being sawn asunder with a wooden saw, by an order of the emperor Severus, in his march through Gaul for Britain, in the year 208.* The town of St. Andiol, in Vivarez, is possessed of the treasure of his relics See Bosquet, part 2; Hist. Eccles. Gallic. p. 91; Henschenius, p. 35.

S. Brieuc, in Latin Briocus, B. C.

He was of an illustrious extraction in Great Britain, a native of the province called Coriticiana, which some take for Ceretica, now Cardiganshire: others for the Coretans, situated on the Trent, now in Staffordshire and Derbyshire: others will have it to be Cornwall. His father was called Cerpus, and his mother Eldrude.^† St. Germanus of Auxerre, coming into Britain in 429, St. Brieuc, then about twenty years of age, became his disciple, and followed him back to France, where he was some time after promoted to priest’s orders. Returning afterwards into his own country, he converted his parents, and, with their liberal assistance, built a famous church called Grande-Lann, and there trained up a great number of disciples. Several years after he passed into Armorica, where he landed at Achm, perhaps in the country of Achk, in the bishopric of Leon. In the territory of Treguier he converted from a worldly life a wealthy nobleman named Conan, by whose liberality he was enabled to build a monastery in the northern part of Armorica, which he governed some years. At length, appointing another abbot of the numerous community which he had formed, he repaired to his relation and friend, prince Riwallon, or Rigald, anciently prince of Domnonia, in Britain. This prince, who had lately settled with a colony of his British subjects in part of Armorica, gave to the saint a house and parcel of lands, where he built a monastery and a church, which was afterwards dedicated to God under the patronage of St. Stephen. The saint took upon him the government of this monastery, and departed to God in peace about the year 502, being upwards of ninety years old. His legend mentions not his episcopal character, but he is styled a bishop in an inscription on a marble stone, found in his shrine, in 1210. He seems to have been ordained a regionary bishop before he left Britain. The monastery of St. Brieuc, which was then grown into a considerable town, was only erected into a bishopric in 844. The relics of St. Brieuc, during the invasion of the Normans, were translated to the abbey of St. Sergius, at Angers, in 866, but a portion was restored to St. Brieuc’s, in 1210. See Dom. Lobineau, Vies des Sts. de la Bretagne p. 11, who recovered great part of his acts, which Henschenius was not able to meet with. T. 1, Maij. p. 81.

S. Amator, Bishop of Auxerre, C.

He served God from his infancy with his whole heart, and applied himself to the study of the sacred sciences under Valerian, bishop of Auxerre. In compliance with the desires of his parents, he took to wife Martha, a rich young lady of Langres; but no sooner was the contract solemnized in the church, but, taking her aside, he spoke to her in such strong terms on the advantages of holy virginity, that, by her free consent, they on the spot engaged themselves, by a mutual vow, to embrace that state for the sake of more perfect virtue. She soon after took the religious veil, and he received the clerical tonsure. Being afterwards chosen bishop of Auxerre, he governed that church thirty years, from 388 to 418, laboring to conduct his flock by his example and assiduous exhortations, in the paths of eternal salvation. He died on the first of May, 418. See his life, and that of Saint Germanus and other monuments, collected by Henschenius, t. 1, Maij. p. 50.

SS. Acius and Acheolus,

called in french ss. ach and acheul, martyrs of amiens

They seem to have suffered about the year 200, and are honored in the Gallican Martyrologies, and especially at Amiens, on the first of May. See Molanus in Auctario Usuardi, and Henschenius, 1st of May, and an old Martyrology under the name of St. Jerom, quoted by him.

The church of St. Acheul, without the walls of Amiens, was originally the cathedral; but this being removed by St. Salvius to our Lady’s in the city, the church of St. Acheul became dependent on it. A community of regular canons was there erected in 1145. It is now a member of the reformed congregation of St. Genevieve. In digging foundations for a new church, five very ancient tombs were found, which nave been the subject of many dissertations, especially whether one is not that of St. Firminus, bishop and confessor, whose relics are enshrined in the cath

¹ Jo. 1:43.

* St. Clement of Alexandria relates, as a thing well known, that St. Philip was the person, who, when called by our Lord, begged leave to go home first and bury his father; which occasioned the reply: Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead. By which words Christ mean: not to condemn duties of that kind, but gave the disciple to understand, that, being called to the highest spiritual functions, these were to be preferred to corporal works of mercy.

^† Some of these, as St. Clement of Alexandria testifies, (Strom. l. 3, p. 428,) he settled in marriage. But two of them lived always virgins to a great age, and were buried at Hierapolis, as we learn from Polycrates, quoted by Eusebius, (b. 2, c. 31.) Sozomen relates, (l. 7, c. 27,) that one of them raised a dead man to life; and Papias says, (Eus. Hist. l. 3, c. 39,) that he heard this miracle from their own mouths, though not as wrought by them. Polycrates mentions a third daughter, of great sanctity, probably married buried at Ephesus, and calls these three sisters the Lights of Asia.

² Jo. 6:5.

³ Ib. xiv.

⁴ See Tillemont, t. 1, p. 384.

⁵ B. 3, c. 31.

⁶ T 8, Ed 3en.

⁷ B. 5, c. 24.

¹ B. 2, c. 1, 23.

* Some take Alphens and Cleophas to be only different names for the same person. Others are of opinion that Cleophas was Mary’s father, or perhaps she married Cleophas after the death of Alphens. Joseph, called in the original text Jose, was a brother of St. James, and son of Mary, (Mark 15:10.) St. Jude styles himself his brother, (Jude 1) He had also a brother called Simon, the same with Simeon son of Cleophas, and bishop of Jerusalem, whose life wax given on the 18th of February. These were called our Lord’s brethren, according to the use of that word among the Jews, which extends it to all near relations. They had also sisters: St. Epiphanius names two, Mary and Salome. The sons of Cleophas were likewise cousins-german to our Saviour, by St. Joseph his reputed father: for Hegesippus assures us that Cleophas was brother of St. Joseph. Cleophas was himself a disciple of Christ, who going to Emmnaus with another disciple, was favored with the apparition related, Luke 24. He is honored in the Roman Martyrology the 25th of September; and Mary, His spouse, who had followed and served Christ in Galilee, and attended him to his passion and burial, on the 9th of April.

² John 2:12.

³ 1 Cor. 15:7.

⁴ Τὴν γνῶσιυ, Eus. b. 2, c. 1

⁵ In Gal. p. 164.

⁶ Hær. 87.

⁷ Hær. 29.

⁸ Eus. b. 3, c. 24.

⁹ B. 2, c. 23.

¹⁰ In Jovin. b. 2, c. 24.

¹¹ Hær. 78.

¹² Orig. in Cels. l.1, p. 35.

¹³ Heges. apud Eus. ib.

¹⁴ In Galat. 1:19.

¹⁵ Acts 15.

¹⁶ Gal. 2:11.

¹⁷ Acts 21:17.

* See Le Brus, Sur les liturgies.

¹⁸ L. de Spir. 8. c. 27.

¹⁹ Apud Eus t. 2, c. 1.

²⁰ L. contra Cels.

²¹ Ant. 1. 20.

²² Apud Eus. l. 2. c. 23.

²³ In Jovin. b. 1, c. 24.

²⁴ Contra Cels. 1, and in Matt. p. 223.

²⁵ Eus. Hist. l. 1. c 23.

* The Burgundians were a principal tribe of the Vandals, as Pliny and Zozimus assure us, and is further proved in the late history of Burgundy, and in L’Essai sur les premiers Rois de Bourgone, et sur l’Origine des Bourguignons, Dijon, 4to. 1771. They are first met with on the banks of the Vistula, in Prussia. When Procopius wrote, on this side of the Elbe, below the Thuringi; in 407, they passed the Rhine into Gaul, and, under their first king, Gondicaire, in 413, conquered the country between the Upper Rhine, the Rhone, and the Saone, where they settled their kingdom, and shortly after extended its limits, so that it comprised what was afterwards the duchy of Burgundy, the Franche Comté, Provence, Lyon nois, Dauphine, Savoye, &c., with the cities Geneva, Lyons, Autun, Basil, Nevers, Grenoble, Besançon, Langres, Viviers, Embrun, Vienne, Orange, Carpentras, Apt, &c. Gondicarius, the first king of the Burgundians, reigned fifty years, from 413 to 463, as appears from his letter to pope Hilary, and that pope’s answer, in which he styles him his son, &c. Chilperic, his son, who succeeded him, was a zealous Catholic prince; but, having reigned about twenty-eight years, was assassinated with his wife, two sous, and brother Godomar, by his ambitious brother, Gondebald, who had embraced the Arian heresy. After a reign of twenty-five years, he died, in 516. leaving two sons, Sigismund and Godomar. He reformed the code of the Burgundian laws, called from him Loi Gombette. His brother Chilperic’s two daughters were brought up at his court at Geneva: Chrone, the eldest, took the religious veil, Clotildis, the second, was married to Clovis, king of the Franks, who waged war against him, to revenge the murder of Chilperic, and besieged him in Avignon, but afterwards made peace with him. Clodomir, king of Orleans, with his brothers, renewed this war against St. Sigismund, whom he took and caused to be drowned at Orleans, in 524. Clo domir pursued his brother and successor Godomar; but was defeated by him and slain. Ten years after, Clotaire and Childebert vanquished him, in 533, from which time the ancient kingdom of Burgundy was divided among the kings of the Franks. Among these, Gontran, son of Clotaire I., took the title of king of Burgundy, and reigned at Chalons sur Saone, though his brother Sigebert possessed a large part of that country. Childebert, son of Sigebert, in 523, and Thierri II., the son of Childebert, in 596, bore the same title. After the death of the latter, in 613, Burgundy lost its title of a kingdom in the hands of French monarchs; but was revived for a short time in Charles youngest son of the emperor Lothaire, with the title of king of Provence, afterwards of Arles. Upper Burgundy was called Franche Comté, because it owed only military service.

We find the Burgundians Christians and Catholics, under Gondicaire, soon after they had crossed the Rhine, and were settled in France. From Sozomen it appears that their conversion happened about the year 317. Those moderns who imagine them infected with Arianism almost as soon as they were Christians, are certainly mistaken. For it is manifest from Socrates, Nicephorus, Orosius, &c., that they remained zealous Catholics above a century and a half after their conversion to Christianity; not only to the year 440, fixed by Tillemont, but down to 491. They fell into Arianism only in the close of that century, and remained attached to that heresy no longer than about twenty years, during the reign of Gondebald, their third king. See Abrégé Chronologique de l’Hist. Eccl. Civile et Littér. de Bourgogne, par M. Mille, 8vo. 1770.

¹ On this translation see Henschenius, t. l, Maij. p. 88.

* At the request of St. German, bishop of Paris, king Childebert founded at Paris the chapel of St. Andeol, which he subjected to the abbey of St. Vincent, now St. Germain-des-Prez. This chapel afterwards became a great parochial church, under the title of St. Andrew’s Des Arcs, in Latin De Arcubus, because it was built with arches, a thing formerly very extraordinary. It is sometimes corruptly called St. Andre des Arts. St. Andeol is still honored in it as primitive titular patron.

^† Eldrude is not only a Saxon name, as Henschenius pretends, but also British, from Ell, the reduplicative preposition, and Drud which signifies illustrious, or well-beloved.

Butler, Alban, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) II, 203-211.