Monas

ON ST. MONAS, BISHOP OF MILAN, IN INSUBRIA,

IN THE YEAR 249

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Monas, bishop of Milan, conf., in Insubria (S.)

BY G. H.

To discharge the promise given by our Predecessors in tome 3 of March, among those Passed Over at the 25th day of that month, Ancient Acts of the first Bishops of Milan. by which they undertook to give the Acts of St. Monas today, we present these to the reader together with Henschen's Commentary on them, which he began and continued thus: The 25th day of March, celebrated for the mysteries of the most sacred Jesus Christ, Incarnate and dead on the cross for our salvation, various Saints have also made illustrious by their departure from this life, or by a sudden martyrdom for the name of Christ: among whom in the first place comes St. Monas, bishop of the city of Milan, who on the 8th day before the Kalends of April, having left this mortal life, attained the eternal and immortal. His Acts and those of the other first Prelates we ourselves copied at Milan from a manuscript codex of the Ambrosian Library marked with the letter P and the number 246, on which were inscribed these words: A codex venerable for an antiquity of 800 years. But who inscribed those words, and at what time, is not clear. The second part of this codex, in an older script and on parchment of larger format than the first, after narrating the coming of St. Barnabas into the city of Milan, begins the Lives of the holy Bishops of this city thus: But now from the very time of Anatelon down to these centuries which are running their course at present, with however faltering a step, I shall direct the course of this pen, which, unless you, most excellent Prelate, extending your right hand, bless and sharpen it, will go astray through by-paths, blunted by the roughness of the track. And immediately the history begins with Anatelon, ordained bishop there by St. Barnabas, and with an unbroken thread are carried down the Acts of the succeeding bishops, SS. Caius, Castritianus, Calimerus, Monas and Maternus. The Acts of this last, though somewhat abridged here and there, are also read in Mombritius, with this closing clause in both: He has laid up his labours in heaven. For although his works are seen here, the merits of his works have passed over there. Then, when the author has noted the day and time of death, he concludes the writing in the usual manner: Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is honour and glory for ages of ages. Amen. Galesini, in his Notes at the 12th of October, calls it a very old Volume of the Ambrosian Basilica. The author is certainly ancient, and one who seems with the Life of St. Maternus to have completed the first book of the work he had designed, embracing the first age of the Church under the heathen emperors; would that he had carried the work begun down to his own times, or at least had expressed the name of him whom he calls most excellent Prelate; because of the grandeur of which title we sometimes doubted whether the age of the author were not indicated as referable to the seventh century of Christ or even the eighth. Since, however, a title of this sort was received into common usage in no century, but is employed in this place by the free usage of the author, just as other titles straying beyond the accustomed form are sometimes employed by other writers, I think nothing hinders the author from having lived and written even in the sixth century; and I would say he was St. Datius, afterwards the 26th bishop of Milan, if it were sufficiently established, as more recent writers commonly say, that he wrote the Lives of his predecessors. Now Datius was ordained bishop in the year 530, and died in 552, on the 14th of January, on which day he is venerated and we have given his Acts. Whoever it was that began the work lived at a time when very few of the Prelates of the city of Milan had been enrolled for whom the term of the present life did not run its course even to great old age; which I do not know whether it can conveniently be extended beyond the 6th century.

[2] Cult in the ancient Fasti on March 25: whether also on March 26? *The ancient veneration of St. Monas on the 25th of March, after the said Acts, is confirmed by the very old Martyrology of the cathedral church of St. Mary in the city of Arras, which was written eight hundred or perhaps nine hundred years ago, and was taken from the genuine Martyrology of Bede and enlarged, as we shall show elsewhere. In this codex, then, these words are found: And the deposition of the confessor

of Christ and bishop Monas. That this veneration was brought to the people of Arras from other ritual Fasti of the Gallican church, and above all of the church of Milan, everyone sees. Since, however, the solemnity of the Lord's Incarnation and of the Angelic Annunciation to the Virgin Mother of God claims this day for itself, the commemoration of St. Monas seems to have been transferred to the following day, and from this, perhaps, the doubt arose on what day St. Monas departed this life. Certainly the 7th day before the Kalends of April is assigned for his death by the Acts or Table of the Archbishops of Milan printed in the year 1584 and afterwards, by the Breviary of the church of Milan published by order of St. Charles Borromeo, and with them by Giovanni de Deis in the Successors of St. Barnabas, Francesco Besozzi in the Pontifical History of the church of Milan, Placido Puccinelli in the Zodiac of the same church, Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, and others. But Carlo Bascapè (a Basilica S. Petri) and Giuseppe Ripamonti in the Ecclesiastical History of Milan leave undecided whether he had the 8th or the 7th day before the Kalends of April as his last; after all of whom Ughelli better asserts that he flew to heaven on the 8th day before the Kalends of April: which is manifest from what has been said. These things notwithstanding, following the usage of the church of Milan, we have deferred his Life to the present 12th of October, on which he is now venerated on the occasion of the translation of his body.

[3] [Whether some translation of the body was made in the year 826; whether it was first made in the year 1030 on the 12th of October.] That the place of burial of St. Monas was unknown in his own time is written by the author of the Life, num. 10. But when it was found is not sufficiently established. Alciato in Puccinelli has as follows: Carried secretly to the tomb, as, fearing the fury of the profane, he had so ordered when dying, and he would still lie unknown, had he not himself — a wonderful thing! — shown it by night to Eribert, his successor after a long time. But long before the times of Eribert, who flourished in the 11th century, Ripamonti asserts, book 9, page 585, that Angilbert Pusterla, the first bishop of this name, who lived no more than the sixth month in that pastoral watch, translated the bones of St. Monas from an obscure tomb into that resting-place which was worthy of the relics of so great a Man. Giovanni de Deis and Ughelli only have that Angilbert translated the relics of St. Monas to a more becoming place. Ughelli assigns the year 826 [but Papebroch shows in the Catalogue that he died in 823 after a short episcopate of 12 months.] In the Table or Acts of the Archbishops it is said that the body of St. Monas the archbishop was translated by Angisbert into the church of St. Michael at the Duomo. But Besozzi asserts that it was translated to the church of St. Vitalis: which others, with Alciato, relate to have been done in the year 1030 by Eribert or Aribert or also Eubert the archbishop, and the Table or Acts of the Archbishops have these words: Heribert translated the body of St. Monas the archbishop at Milan into the church of Blessed Vitalis the martyr. Others, because of the closeness of the names Angilbert and Aribert or Heribert, judge that no translation was made under Angilbert, but only under Heribert. So Carlo Bascapè: I have read, he says, that the finding and translation of the body of this Saint took place in the time of Archbishop Eribert, about the year of the Lord 1030, and I judge that his feast, which the church of Milan celebrates on the 4th day before the Ides of October, derives from that translation. At which day the Milanese Breviary in the 3rd Lesson has this: His body was first translated by Archbishop Eubert to the church of St. Vitalis on the 4th day before the Ides of October, on which day his festival is kept. That this was said for the day was observed by Molanus in the Auctarium of Usuard in these words: At Milan the translation of St. Monas the archbishop. Galesini, in his Notes on this day, asserts that the Translation is celebrated, and gives a long encomium from the Acts: it is also recorded in the present Roman Martyrology, Galesini and the Tables of the Church of Milan being cited in the Annotations. Ferrari does the same in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, affirming that the Translation is celebrated.

[4] In the same Lesson of the cited Breviary it is said that the body of St. Monas was then piously and honourably laid up in the metropolitan basilica by St. Charles, Cardinal of St. Praxedes, archbishop, with a solemn festival of Translation. Another made by St. Charles Borromeo, described in his Life by Carlo Bascapè, This solemnity is accurately described towards the end of book 3 of the Life of St. Charles Borromeo by Carlo Bascapè, who was present at it, and we give it here, taken from that place. There was, between the basilica of SS. Nabor and Felix and the Ambrosian, another dedicated under the name of St. Vitalis, which is thought to have been the basilica of Faustus, of which there is mention also in St. Ambrose. When Charles had removed from it the title of parish, he was soon also persuaded to grant it to the Ambrosian monks: first, however, he thought that the body of the ancient archbishop of Milan, Monas, laid under the altar, should be carried out from there; whose memory is venerated in the church of Milan on the day before the Ides of October. And a day having been appointed for the Translation, which followed after the Nones of February, on which day there was the first Supplication to St. Ambrose for the preparation, already mentioned, for the Jubilee, he sent in the evening men to examine the place and prepare what was needed: by night he came himself. There, a stone chest, which had been dug into the ground, having been opened, after prayer, with the stole put about his neck, prostrate at the tomb, he took out one by one those venerable bones, and arranged them in a chest adorned within with silk cloth, silently and with his mind fixed on the merits of the holy Father, some canons standing by, clad in linen vestments, who assisted at the pious work, and other priests and deacons likewise being present, some of whom could not hold back their tears for sweetness and joy of soul. Then the chest with the bones having been placed upon the altar, we first recited the night prayers adapted to the Saint's honour; afterwards we also added those belonging to that day: then, when we had departed, other canons succeeded, and after them others, so that throughout the whole night there were, according to the sacred ordinances, those who watched and prayed there. In the morning, those things which pertained to the supplication having been completed, we came from the Ambrosian basilica to the body, which was to be carried on the shoulders on a most richly adorned bier. The dear burden was taken up in front by Charles and the bishop of Salamis, behind by two canons of chief dignity: outside the church the canons, succeeding one another in turn, carried it as far as the greater church, all adorned with sacred and most precious vestments. For many days now the sky had been troubled with clouds and rains: but when the sacred body was carried out, to the great joy and wonder of all, it shone with a serene and most clear light. The whole clergy sang musically in choirs hymns and psalms suited to the occasion: the frequent sound of trumpets stirred pious emotions of souls: the senate followed, a countless multitude besides, an innumerable quantity of lights. When they had come to the greater church, the bier having been placed on the altar, Charles delivered a sermon on the Saint's praises. The whole day the people came together to venerate, nay rather to recognize, the relics of the blessed Father, since most did not even know his name: then with great eagerness they had crowns of beads prepared for praying touched to the bier for devotion's sake. In the evening, words having been fittingly addressed to the people by the bishop of Salamis, the body was carried with a great concourse into the underground church.*

[5] narrated otherwise by the same in the Life of St. Monas. Thus Carlo Bascapè in the Life of St. Charles, who in the Life of St. Monas narrates it more briefly and in some points otherwise, so that it seems worth while to add it here too. He writes, then, thus: Archbishop Charles translated his body into the greater basilica on the 6th day before the Ides of February 1576, on the fourth weekday. For when, on the day before that day, the archbishop had had the place where the body was examined by priests, he himself came at the third hour with some canons, among whom I too was: he took the holy bones out of the marble chest and arranged them in a little wooden chest covered with silk cloths, in which they were to be carried: and there he remained, devoting himself to prayer until the eighth hour, the remaining time having been distributed among the other canons, in which they in turn might keep sacred vigils in the same place. In the morning, when, by virtue of the Roman Jubilee granted that year to this city by Pope Gregory XIII, the archbishop had gone in procession with the clergy of the greater church to the Ambrosian church, he immediately came to celebrate the Translation. The august bier was raised at the back by Archbishop Charles and Girolamo, then bishop of Famagusta, now of Bergamo (whom the supreme Pontiff had sent on purpose as legate to visit this province), in front by the more dignified of the clerics of the greater church who were then to be found. So, the whole clergy going before, the senate, the other Orders and the whole people of Milan accompanying, while all things resounded with hymns of voices and the music of trumpets, the canons, succeeding in turn, carried the sacred relics to the greater church: when also out of a sad and cloudy sky a pleasant clear weather had suddenly appeared. And when they had been upon the altar that whole day, the people continually came together with a wonderful concourse to venerate them, and eager to carry back something which had at least touched the outside of the chest. The holy body was then placed again in the confession of that church, and afterwards, with the other relics, laid up with the greatest diligence under the altar by Charles the bishop.

[6] Ripamonti, book 2, page 85, having indicated the veneration of St. Monas, [Whether he built a basilica to St. Peter, whence the family was surnamed a Basilica Petri.] adds this: The public honours are accompanied by the private eagerness of one family, which does not hesitate to refer its name to Monas, alleging thus: that when that divine Pontiff was dividing the city into parishes (as is said below, num. 5), he had great care and solicitude that each parish should have its own and separate church: and because a pious man, from whom they derive their origin, assisted this solicitude, freely giving houses which, either by the convenience of their site or by their size and breadth, offered a suitable space for building a church, it was therefore granted to that man's race and stock that they should obtain a surname from the name of the Saint to whom that church should be consecrated. It having been consecrated and dedicated to the Prince of the Apostles, the descendants of the donor began to be called a Basilica-Petri: hence the ancient appellation remains to them, Monas being its father and author, who rewarded the piety of the family with this gift. Of this appellation, which he had found in Giovanni de Deis, Carlo a Basilica-Petri writes this: I had it in mind to omit what has been added to the eulogy of this holy Man in the little book published at Rome on the Successors of St. Barnabas, but I have been induced to set it down, knowing that I should be doing a thing pleasing to many, and yet that it is to be examined by the judgment of learned men. Now the little book has this: He first dedicated a church in the city of Milan in honour of Blessed Peter the Apostle, and in it publicly preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For a house was offered to him by a certain Christian citizen, in which the basilica of Peter is founded, and in memory of that pious and holy offering, the successors of that citizen, by decree of the bishop and of the Christians, were afterwards called, as nobles, a Basilica-Petri.

[7] But because the ancient Acts are silent, and no other monuments are brought forward, Whether he was sprung from the Burra family. *we cannot sufficiently

assent, as neither to those things which Ripamonti adds. Nor less, he says, is the ambition and glory of the Burri family concerning the origin of Monas himself. That family is anciently among the first at Milan in letters and arms: it is believed to have taken its name from the river Burrus, which flows through the territory of Asti: stones and monuments testify that it is older than the birth of Christ. It had great wealth, immensely increased, until by the usual calamity and dissension the one mass was torn into several members. This family, then, divided today into many households and spread abroad, asserts and claims for itself the whole of Monas by no more certain right of kinship than that by which all the most illustrious houses likewise claim and defend ancient names of ancestors placed beyond all memory. Yet arguments are not lacking to the Burri, of which I would by no means have despised this one. Curia Picta is a village of no obscure name in the territory of Milan, which the common people today, by a corrupted and contracted word, as usually happens, call Corbetta. This village, an ancient seat and possession of the family, has a noble church sacred to St. Victor, with an order of canons added, and lands assigned for the worship, by a constant report that Monas established those lands and those monuments out of his own patrimony and income. Since, then, the name of the Burri holds a family right over those lands and those priesthoods, why should we not also assent that Monas, their founder, was of the family of the Burri? But these and other things, however they may finally be received, I shall regard as of slight moment. Thus Ripamonti; and Paolo Morigia follows, book 1 on the Nobility of Milan, chap. 5, and many others. And because in Tacitus, books 12, 13 and 14 of the Annals, Burrhus Afranius is mentioned, Prefect of the Praetorium, who accompanied the emperor Nero to the guard of the palace, Governor of the imperial youth, known for his experience of many things, summoned by Nero to the counsel about killing his mother; Puccinelli, in the Zodiac cited above, thought and wrote it to be to the praise of St. Monas if he were said to be sprung from this family. But if solid proofs were added, greater credence would be found with the reader. We, content with his outstanding virtues, propose these to the most noble family of the Burri for imitation.

[8] Thus far Henschen, excepting nevertheless Some things are observed those things which were said towards the end of num. 1 concerning the age of the author who wrote on the site of the city of Milan, or rather on the bishops of Milan, which have Papebroch as their author. It is indeed certain that he is ancient, since Landulf the Elder, a writer of the 11th century, calls that book aged, in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, tome 4, page 77. But the book which Papebroch thought written about the 6th century, Muratori, because certain things occur in it which seem not yet to have been born in the 6th century, refers in its origin to the 9th or 10th century: but neither can anything certain be concluded from this, since it may be that some things were afterwards thrust here and there into that book which were absent from the original text. And indeed that that codex was corruptly written and is not free from the fault of interpolation appears even from its very beginning, where it is read: I am urged by the most religious command of your Amplitude, O most blessed Prelate Anatalon. Yet there was no prelate at Milan of this name except Anatalon, the first bishop of Milan, at whose command its author certainly did not set his mind to writing.

[9] in what has been said thus far. It was likewise doubtful, when Henschen was writing, at what time the first translation of St. Monas was made, some determining that it was done under Angilbert, others under Heribert: but afterwards, by the diligence of Muratori, the History of Arnulf of Milan was printed, who in tome 4 of the Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, page 13, writes on that matter in this manner: In his time (that of Arnulf, whom Heribert immediately succeeded in the year 1019) the relics of the holy confessor Monas were revealed in the church of St. Vitalis near St. Nabor. Now this Arnulf here cited was contemporary with Heribert himself, as he himself presently reveals in the praised Muratori, page 14, saying that he would thenceforth write what he had come to know by seeing, and forthwith setting about to explain the deeds of Heribert. From the testimony of this author, therefore, if not the solemn translation of St. Monas, certainly the finding of his relics is to be set under Arnulf, although perhaps it happened that they were first found under Arnulf, but afterwards translated with a more solemn rite under Heribert, his next successor. Finally, concerning the day on which he passed from this life, there is not one opinion of all, as was said in num. 2: Henschen's opinion, by which he determines that he died on the 8th day before the Kalends of April, or the 25th of March, is confirmed by the Sitonian Calendar, published by Muratori in the Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, tome 2, part 2, in the year 1726, but written, as he judges, seven hundred years before, which makes a twofold mention of St. Monas, one at the 12th day of October, on which he is venerated; the other at the 25th day of March, in these words: And the deposition of St. Monas the archbishop.

* rather the fourth

LIFE

From a very old Milan manuscript.

Monas, bishop of Milan, conf., in Insubria (S.)

BHL Number: 5994

FROM THE MILAN MS.

CHAPTER I.

The birth, studies, diaconate and episcopate of St. Monas.

St. Monas, noble by birth, is formed in ecclesiastical studies by St. Calimerus, When St. Calimerus ^a had been destined from the inevitable course of this world to the service of the heavenly King, they anxiously inquire who ought to be chosen as his successor, or who could be made equal to the merits of the most holy man. At last the whole clergy, namely, and people alike, gathered in the Portian ^b church, most instantly entreat the Lord of heaven that the most clement Giver of good things would forthwith meet the prayers of his household, and of his goodness would designate from heaven a Patron from the priestly or levitical rank, one suited to his people, the most fitting among the rest and most worthy in his sight. There was at that time an admirable man, Monas by name, of the highest holiness, of insuperable patience also, and of inviolable chastity; one of those who discharged the office of deacons in the aforesaid church. Higher indeed than almost all in the clergy in the origin of his stock, but not inferior in humility of heart; more distinguished among men by the consular ^c fasces, but far more excellent with God by his levitical functions. Him St. Calimerus of blessed memory, having taken him up almost from the very cradle, had formed in the studies of ecclesiastical discipline: for as soon as the tongue of the stammering little boy broke forth into finished modes of speech, he was forthwith committed by his most devout parents to the sacred altars: and soon the lips of the tender infant, steeped in the canticles of David, were dedicated perpetually to the divine praises; most worthily, to be sure, so that the tongue which was to promulgate sacred laws should first be bound over to sacred song.

[2] [he is ordained deacon, is adorned with virtues: he distributes his paternal goods to the poor and to the uses of the Church:] There, then, instructed by the studies of the most holy Man, and walking, as has been said, from virtue to virtue, he was brought, by God's favour, to the eminence of the diaconate. One could see in him, under a youthful breast, a great increase of all the virtues. For if you weighed the grace of his charity, you would say there was nothing like it anywhere. But if you looked at his endurance in humility and patience, you would think him lower and meaner than all. Again, if you considered the keenness of his prudence and the industry of his mind, you would confess that the knowledge of all the philosophers was surpassed by him: and likewise if you saw him mild and simple, you would affirm that no one simpler or milder than he dwelt anywhere. He, as soon as, succeeding to the hereditary right of his father's fortunes, he was seen to use the estates with full power, having sold the greater part and expended their prices to the best purpose on the poor, gave the rest to his mother the church, whose watchman also he was, that their revenue might be common for the uses of the brethren and for his own needs. But he himself never wished either to enjoy of his own accord the deaconry or to obtain the least offices of any kind.

[3] [while they pray God for the election of a bishop, as he distributes the Eucharist he appears clothed in a white cloud: he is judged worthy of the episcopate] Him, then, who at that time among the rest was beseeching with all his prayers, and with groans of heart in the inner man, on which the divine choice looks, tearfully sighing over the absence of their own Prelate and Pastor, Christ Jesus by his judgment made manifest to all established in the Church as worthy of the Pontifical fillets: for when the prayers which each of the faithful had long poured out within himself, not with voice but with mind, were finished, and the canticles of the psalms which, in the accustomed manner, they had sung before sacrifice was offered with the Body and Blood of the immaculate Lamb, while he was offering the same sanctified gifts to the assemblies of the faithful, he is said to have been suddenly surrounded with a certain golden and unexpected greenness ^d, and as it were with the shade of a cloud, so hemmed in by a sudden splendour. Then indeed those who chanced to see a miracle of this kind, astounded, sign to one another that St. Monas was rapt in ecstasy, and gaze on him clothed in a hollow cloud ^e. Why say more? At length there comes a great concourse of those who saw it and who cried out together: Monas is worthy of the honour. But he, terrified at their clamour, and not knowing what was being done about him, stood for a little while with astonished and pricked-up ears. All on every side modestly acclaiming and gravely redoubling the very same: Monas is worthy of the honour. And as when nets have been cast in the sea's deep, men skilled indeed in the art of fishing, but ignorant of the uncertain catch, hold back their fearful senses from joy, until, the nets being placed at the surface, they recognize the omens by certain signs. And when they have plainly perceived them, they cry out excitedly; and, the little boats being gathered into one, they drag to the shore with the seine huge dolphins, or whatever it may be, enormous prey of the sea's abundance, the rubbish being gathered up: and when it has been laid out on the shore, now no longer timid but very joyful, they raise all together a mingled shout of jubilation, whose echo the curved shores send back in harmony to heaven. Not otherwise, the sign of the future Prelate having been shown beforehand from heaven, which they had anxiously longed for, the faithful people, full of congratulation, applauds with exceeding great dancing the Pastor found, and, as if caught in a kind of seine by the bonds of intent prayer, in its affection can in no way be satisfied: but, until it draws him to the sacred summit of holy benediction, it does not wish to leave the house even for an hour.

[4] Then indeed, when he perceived what all were intent upon, he asserts himself unworthy; but at length yields to the prayers of others. or what they were astonished acclaiming, he resisted exceedingly, and, drawing deep sighs from the inmost breast, most obstinately professed himself undeserving and unserviceable. But they could not be readily persuaded of this: inasmuch as they knew very well the grace of the Man, vigorously bearing fruit from his earliest years, especially since, by a sign divinely made public, they had learned with undoubting faith that he was most worthy of the episcopal chair. What, then, should he do, whither should he turn? he began to be tossed in fear. At length, coming to himself and bent by the prayers of his brethren, that he should not refuse to their needs his own workshop, bountiful for all things, that he should anxiously weigh also the goodness of the assenting Lord towards him, declared by an evident miracle, and finally that, formed by the teaching of Christ Jesus, he ought to consult not his own advantage but that of his neighbours, after much and long groaning, he permitted to be done what he believed to be undertaken by the will of God ^f.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

Labours in the episcopate. Heathens converted. Heretics refuted.

[He recalls those scattered by persecution: he preaches also to the Ligurians: he establishes new parishes: he converts very many nobles and common people:] Having been ordained, then, gathering at once the little flock of the worshippers of Christ, scattered hither and thither by the storm of the pressing persecution, and refreshing the weary sheep with sweet food, the gracious Pastor called them back to their own fold: and he put substitutes, delegated each to their proper offices, in place of all those in the three orders of the churches whom by chance the devouring heat of the noonday sun had consumed. Thence, travelling through the villages, towns and fortresses situated round about, he brought back very great spoils of idolatry to the Spouse of Christ and queen, the Church. And now that pastor gave his labour not only to the citizens of Milan, but also to all the Ligurians ^a, preaching diligently, and lending the Gospel seed indifferently to all as a generous usurer, baptizing everywhere whomsoever he had persuaded, and as a most illustrious censor enrolling the people of Christ, finally destroying profane things with all his effort and dedicating sanctuaries of Christ, so that no small multitude of villagers, townsmen or husbandmen were signed through him with the seal of Christ: some of whom, having contributed resources and supplied the necessary expenses, asked St. Monas to establish parishes ^b. Then he, understanding by a deeper counsel that it would benefit the Christian faith, assented, and, masters having been distributed and ministers appointed, satisfied excellently the wishes of the faithful. And both by their insistence and by his more inclined care (for he did not cease everywhere to admit to Christian liberty and freeborn rank the great number of all persons whatsoever, not only nobles but also those of middle rank, and camp-followers and outlaws), there were daily losses to the idolaters, and daily immense gains to the Church of God, which was spread through the whole world: and the latter grew day by day and the former nevertheless was brought to nothing. For all the labour and zeal of the priests and masters of the Church of God was then directed to this, that with all their endeavour they should rescue the race of men from the most heavy yoke of demonic slavery and submit their happy necks perpetually to the most sweet and light yoke of Christ. Not prompt to buy or sell, holding unshaken to that custom of the primitive Church, they most willingly put whatever they had at the disposal of the common use. Hence it came about that, various kinds, as it were, of fishes having been drawn to this institution in the Lord's net, the house of God also abounded in various foods; and not now the nobles and masters only, but even the more subject and despised gatherings of the common people, imbued with most holy doctrines, sprinkled as it were with certain salts, and roasted by the fire of the Holy Spirit, and passed into the body of the Church, furnished most sweet savours to the heavenly palate.

[6] These things concerning the excellent institutions of holy Mother Church, which had arisen in time through the teaching of good masters, having been recited in summary, let our attention return to what was proposed. St. Monas, then, being distinguished by the pastoral offices, and being an excellent guardian of the Lord's flock, [he watches against the enemies of souls, the heretics, Valentinus, Cerdo and others.] faithful in what was entrusted to him and not unbelieving of the reward laid up, anxiously guarding against the snares of the wolves howling round on every side through the folds entrusted to him, the enemy of human salvation could not easily find an approach for doing harm. For though formerly, the Pastor having been struck, as usually happens, he had scattered his sheep, yet again, another having been restored, he found them more stubborn and more watchful than if he had never invaded before. At length, when not only in certain subject members of the Catholic Church, but even in the Roman citadel, the principal part of the whole body, the pernicious scab of the heretics had begun to break out, and, the storm of persecution ceasing for a time, the deadly breath of evil and rotten members, infecting many with corruption, stirred up by the horrid blast of the old and slippery dragon himself, had breathed upon the frame of Mother Church of which we are speaking; by the vigilance of the aforesaid most holy Pastor and the industry of the good physician, with Christ's help, he obtained that none of those subject to him was harmed, or if perchance anyone was harmed in any respect, none was endangered. For he was humble among the brethren, lofty among persecutors; gentle to his own, terrible to adversaries, subject to Christ, erect against the devil. Already then Valentinus and Cerdo ^c, Ebion, Cerinthus ^d and very many other enemies of the truth had in various places stained the pure seeds of the Word of God with the guile of tares, and had defiled the Lord's threshing-floors by the admixture of adulterous darnel. But the man of God Monas, with his contemporaries and fellow brethren established in the bosom of his metropolis, after the manner of a watchful husbandman, took care to shake out and drive away the evil seeds from the company of his sheaves. Nay rather, as an eminent Pastor, forestalling the lurkers in ambush against Christ with cries and at the same time with pursuits, he chased them far off, warning and instructing his followers to have no communion with such men. Nay further, that if anywhere they chanced to meet any of them, they should refute them with fitting invective and, pressing hard upon them at close quarters, lay them low.

[7] For whom nevertheless, as a follower of the most clement Master, [he has prayers poured out for them and for the emperors, that they may be converted. He was eighty years old at the conversion of the emperor Philip.] he diligently admonished that general supplications of all the faithful ought to be made: and not only for these, but also for the princes of the Roman world, whom an ill-accustomed slavery to demons rather than to gods had rendered more wretched than any camp-followers subjugated to dishonourable servitudes and bound in the bonds of sins. For he openly confessed to all with free voice that he was held by much distress as to why those who, adorned with the gifts of almost the whole world, were thought to be lords of all things, should lack so great a gift of grace. This, with continual vows, this he prayed night and day, that, faithfulness to the true and living God having been granted, through the Lord of all, at least to one out of all the princes of august dignity, which he expected and believed with certain hope and most entire faith, the hearts of all the faithful might be gladdened in this deed, the blind superstition of the unbelievers being confounded, as is fitting. Hence it came about that, according to what the psalmist prophet says of our God, the Almighty did the will of him that feared him and heard the prayers of his servant: for, as they report who could know it by paternal tradition, he was almost eighty years old at the time when Philip ^e, the most Christian emperor, first of the Augusti to submit his neck to the yoke of Christ, decreed that the trophy of the cross should be the bulwark of the Roman empire.

[8] Only the fifth Bishop in the time of St. Fabian the Pontiff. But if anyone thinks it wonderful, or advises that it should not be thought credible, that only five prelates had presided over the church of Milan down to those times, while in the Roman See the twentieth after the Apostles was then living, a man most faithful to God, Pope and Martyr Fabian ^f; let him, whoever he is, weigh the hidden and unsearchable judgment of God the disposer, why he bestowed longer courses of life on these and shorter ones on those. These, though of a lower rank, reserved longer for the profit of their faithful, accustoming them to long conflict, he had joined to the Host for the triumph of the victors, so that at the last, as Old men of labours fully served, they might afterwards be a rule of life and an example to many soldiers: but those, namely the chief primates and leaders of the spiritual contest, the more bravely they fought in the battle-array of the Christian faith, the more swiftly hastening to the palace of heaven, crowned with the victor's laurel, he granted to reign with him perpetually. Nor was it fitting otherwise than that the Rectors of the whole Church, succeeding one another in turn and continuously upon so preeminent a throne of the Pontifical chair, should fill the whole world with their monuments; from whom also the other princes and masters of the churches might take boldness for contending and constancy for preaching, and also confidence of bringing back a triumph. And since no one has been able to weigh clearly in the balance of human judgment the cause of so great a scrutiny, he must needs exclaim with the Apostle and say: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how incomprehensible are his judgments and his ways unsearchable!* Nevertheless, that he may know more certainly than certain that we have drawn out the entire series of years in the page of the present matter, let him inquire with diligent search into the annals of the ancient writers, of those who carefully described the Olympiads ^g of former times and the acts of the Blessed, and he will find that I have set down nothing other than I had found in them: otherwise I should have decided to keep silent rather than to say false things. And not only among all the ancients and the worshippers of the first Christianity, but also among the moderns, such a wonderful dispensation of the heavenly Will is plainly recognized to have happened rather frequently in equal balance; while both among the Pontiffs of the Roman citadel a course of shorter life is decreed, scarcely reaching the measure of the first Pastor, and very few of the Prelates of Milan have been enrolled for whom the term of the present life did not run its course even to great old age. Come then, let the end of this man be set forth, whom I have marked as having been in the fifth place after the first in the aforesaid city, whose life and apostolic manners I have set out briefly but with full truth: that the expedition of the voyage begun, the South wind blowing more gently, may arrive at the shores intended.

ANNOTATIONS.

d. Ebion

and Cerinthus lived in the first century, against whom St. John wrote his Gospel and showed the divinity of Christ. There were therefore still remnants of these heresies, which St. Monas destroyed: and so Alciato has it: There flourished then very many who followed the opinions of Valentinus and Cerinthus, which the most holy Man strove to expel from the breasts of men.

* Rom. 11:33.

CHAPTER III.

Preparation for death; a happy death.

[For the conversion of the emperor Philip he gives thanks to God; he foretells future persecutions.] When, therefore, as I have said before, the most full reception of the faith by the Christian Augustus was known, the most blessed Prelate was made very joyful, and, giving praises to the immense God, his eyes suffused with tears, he began with these words: O wonderful power of the Creator! O preeminent goodness of the Redeemer! to whose nod all ability is subject! Thou hast fulfilled, Lord Jesus, what I diligently besought of thee with undoubting faith. Thou hast fulfilled what I very often promised thy little clients that thou wouldst soon fulfil. Thou hast fulfilled what the madness of the faithless derided when I foretold it. Now at last I shall joyfully await death, which, as thou hast deigned to promise, will become the gate of a life to endure without end for those who have loved and sought thee, the Lord, with a pure mind. And turning to the disciples standing by, he said: Rejoice, most dear ones, and praise our God with all the proclamations of a pious voice, because he has not forgotten our prayer, but has graciously granted it to his household. But know that by this deed the greatest envy has arisen among the enemies of the Christian name. Moreover, that the rival of all goodness, stirred up by grievous and most atrocious goads of ancient spite, and with the furies of wrath aroused, will forthwith stir up war ^a: and again crosses, slaughters and dire destructions by punishments will, at his most wicked instigation, be heaped upon the faithful of Christ more atrociously than usual, and beyond what can be believed. But do not fear those things, do not be afraid. Immense fires indeed will the master of a thousand arts of harm stir up against the Church of God, but they will be quenched the more swiftly, the dew of heavenly mercy falling from above ^b.

[10] [He asks of God the perseverance of his own: he is esteemed by them and by the unbelievers: perfect in the love of God and of his neighbour: he was bishop for 59 years.] And when he had been silent a little while, he perceived that those standing by were not a little disturbed by the things he had said; and having bent the knee in prayer, since it happened that they were standing in that place, he applied himself for some time to prayers, to intercede with the Father of the Lord Jesus for the constancy of his sons. And those who were present were very greatly astonished, because no discrepancy in the event interrupted the efficacy of his discourse. For from that time he began not only to be venerated and honoured more by the believers, but moreover also to be feared by the unbelievers: who confessed that he had not obtained so great a knowledge of foretelling the future without a divine Power: for on that account too they did not hesitate to assert that he was begotten of the great god Apollo: because he was a clear-sighted inquirer into all prudence, Christianity excepted. For the Man of the Lord was so affable to all who came to him that to the gentle and simple he was sweet in address and winning in speech ^c; but to the more shrewd most shrewdly eloquent, and irrefutably most prudent against objections: counting this very thing also as in place of prayer, if he gave the help of his exhortation to weak brethren. For he knew that, as it is written, as we are to love the Lord God, so it is commanded that we love our neighbour . Which two things, as long as he remained in the body, he held so unshakenly that he bestowed the same vigilance on the divine offices even to old age, the same care on the needs of his brethren even to the last moment of life: and thus for about fifty-nine years [d], bearing the pastoral burden with equal constancy of mind and body, he never ceased from the service entrusted to him, namely by lending out at interest to the minds of his hearers the talents entrusted to him and ministering the pasture of the Word of God to the hungry flocks.

[11] [In the last year of the emperor Philip he dies holily and is buried with the preceding bishops] And now it was the time of which the most wise Solomon says: A time to cast away stones and a time to gather them. It was the time, I say, at which the building of that heavenly Jerusalem was to be restored, and the living stones, which had been scattered through the four-square world, gathered man by man and reassigned to the corner stone, were to be joined together into the eternal house of God in the heavens, to endure for ever, never more to be scattered. Which the Man beloved of God understanding, he strove with all his strength to make the pearl of his heart most pure, desiring the more quickly to be dissolved and to be with Christ. For he had been reserved for the profit of many until the seventh [d] year of Philip, which was also the last, whom it happened that I mentioned before. Having called together, therefore, his sons in Christ and his brethren, he indicates that the day of his dissolution has drawn near, and admonishes them to accompany him with prayers: with whom, praying and bending the knees, as into sleep, so was he dissolved into death, or rather into life, which alone is truly to be called life. O ineffable grace of merit! O admirable calling of one who hastened! For lest perchance the soul of the glorious Old man should be troubled by the storm that was to follow a little after, he joyfully saw the solemnity of the Lord, which he had long awaited, and merited to enter into it. Then all who were present, seized with the greatest wonder at so sudden a death of the blessed Man, almost fell into ecstasy: and seeing him, by whose accustomed blessing and sweet kiss of peace, which he was wont continually to bestow indifferently on all whomsoever of clergy or people, they had a short while before been in a manner refreshed and gladdened, taken from the body by an unexpected calling, they hesitated with anxious breasts as to what they ought to wonder at, what to grieve over, and what also to rejoice in. At length, dissolved in tears, groaning with sobs mingled at times, they take up the fresh corpse of their Patron, and join it to the tombs of his predecessors. Which place remains until now unknown to mortals ^e, chiefly for this reason, that at that time, on account of the abominable persecutions, they committed the bodies of the Saints secretly to burial. Whence it happened that, through years extending far, the places of venerable memory fell out of the knowledge of the faithful: and they become the more illustrious to mutual ^f celebration in proportion as they were revealed not by human but by divine search. And the man of the Lord, the memorable prelate Monas, died on the eighth day before the Kalends of April.

[12] And he lived in the times of Severus ^g, Antoninus, Macrinus ^h, March 25. Aurelius ⁱ, Alexander ^k, Maximus ^l, Gordian and the prince Philip, who, as I have said before, was the first of the Augusti to take up, keep and honour the Christian name. Who, not long after, having been carried to the heavenly granary as a kind of bright sheaf of the first-fruits of the Augusti, and having been transported with exceedingly happy dignity from the earthly and fleeting to the heavenly and everlasting kingdom, the enemy of the human race shuddered and envied the heaping-up of so great a prerogative: forthwith he filled the surface of the Roman field with sterile and burning nettle: by whose growing heavier the footsteps of the spiritual husbandmen going in every direction were burned, and they were by no means suffered to give themselves to rest. For after Philip arose the mad Decius, made successor of the Caesar by tyranny: who, goaded by hatred of his predecessor, strove with all his endeavour to overturn the house of God from its foundations. First, namely, he ordered to be put to death not any of the Christians whatever, but above all the very prelates of the churches: then afterwards to drive out from heaven and earth, by various kinds of punishments, the religion of the Christian name as hateful, the temples of the gods to be restored, the churches of God destroyed, the most holy altars profaned and polluted. You would have thought that the Majesty itself had yielded to his command and could no longer come to the help of its own household servants. Forthwith you would have seen the worshippers of Christ being laid low by the heathen with the most various torments, while those who looked on insulted everywhere and shouted back, Where is their God? But our God, in heaven above, almighty in heaven and upon earth, did not suffer himself long to be despised by the faithless. Nay rather, when he willed, he drew forth his heavenly quiver, and the enemy of his name, not two whole years ^m having been spent in his ill-seized principate, slain together with his sons, he deprived of the Roman summit and of life ⁿ.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Matt. 19:19.

* Muratori: read 49