to the communion of the church; pretending that he was become a convert, and used several artifices to convince our saint that he really was so; but he was too well acquainted with them to be imposed on. This holy pope died soon after, on the 28th of March, in 440, having sat in the see near eight years. See his letters, Anastasius's Pontifical, with the notes of Bianchini, &c.

St GONTRAN, King and Confessor. He was son of king Clotaire, and grandson of Clovis I. and St Clotildis. Being the second son, whilst his brothers Charibert reigned at Paris, and Sigebert in Austrasia, residing at Metz, he was crowned king of Orleans and Burgundy, in 501, making Challons on the Saone his capital. When compelled to take up arms against his ambitious brothers and the Lombards, he made no other use of his victories under the conduct of a brave general called Mommol, than to give peace to his deminions. He protected his nephews against the practices of the wicked dowager queens Brunehault of Sigebert, and Fredegonde of Chilperic, the firebands of France. The putting to death the physicians of the queen at her request on her death-bed, and the divorcing his wife Mercatrude, are crimes laid to his charge, in which the barbarous manners of his nation involved him but these he effaced by tears of repentance. He governed his kingdom, studying rather to promote the the temporal happiness of others than his own, a stranger to the passions of pride, jealousy and ambition, and making piety the only rule of his policy. The prosperity of his reign, both in peace and war, condemns those who think that human policy cannot be modelled by the maxims of the gospel, whereas nothing can render a government more flourishing. He always treated the pastors of the church with respect and veneration, regarding them as his fathers, and honouring and consulting them as his masters. He was the protector of the oppressed, and the tender parent of his subjects, whom he treated as his children. He poured out his treasures among them with a holy VOL. III,

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profusion; especially in the time of a pestilence and famine. He gave the greatest attention to the care of the sick. He fasted, prayed, wept, and offered himself to God night and day, as a victim ready to be sacrificed on the altar of his justice, to avert his indignation, which he believed he himself. had provoked, and drawn down upon his innocent people. He was a severe punisher of crimes in his officers and others, and by many wholesome regulations restrained the barbarous licentiousness of his troops; but no man was more ready to forgive offences against his own person. He contented himself with imprisoning a man who, through the instigation of queen Fredegonde, had attempted to stab him; and he spared another assassin sent by the same wicked woman, because he had taken shelter in a church. With royal magnificence he built and endowed many churches and monasteries. St Gregory of Tours relates many miracles performed by him both before and after his death, to some of which he was an eye-witness. This good king, like another penitent David, having spent his life after his conversion, though on the throne, in the retirement and penance of a recluse (as St Hugh of Cluny says of him, exhorting king Philip I. to imitate his example) died on the 28th of March in 593, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, having reigned thirtyone, and some months. He was buried in the church of St Marcellus, which he had founded. The Huguenots scattered his ashes in the sixteenth century: only his scull escaped their fury, and is now kept there in a silver case. He is mentioned in the Roman martyrology. See St Gregory of Tours, Fredegarius and Baillet.

MARCH X. XIX.

SS. JONAS, BARACHISIUS, AND THEIR COMPANIONS, MARTYRS.

From their genuine acts compiled by Esaias, a noble Armenian knight in the troops of king Sapor, an eye-witness; published in the original Chaldaic by Stephen Assemani, A&t. Mart. Orient. T. 1. p. 211. They were much adulterated by the Greeks in Metaphrastes. Ruinart and Tillemont think Sapor raised no persecution before his fortieth year: but Assemani proves, from these acts and several other monuments, a persecution in his eighteenth year. See Præf. Gen, and p. 214. app.

A. D. 327.

KING Sapor, in the eightenth year of his reign, raised a bloody persecution against the Christians and demolished their churches and monasteries. Jonas and Barachisius, two brothers of the city Beth-Asa, hearing that several Christians lay under sentence of death at Hubaham, went thither to encourage and serve them. Nine of that number received the crown of martyrdom. After their execution Jonas and Barachisius were apprehended, for having exhorted them to die. The president mildly intreated the two brothers to obey the king of kings, meaning the king of Persia, and to worship the sun, moon, fire and wa

ter.

Their answer was, that it was more reasonable to obey the immortal King of heaven and earth than a mortal prince, The Magians were much offended to hear their king called mortal. By their advice the martyrs were separated, and Barachisius was cast into a very narrow close dungeon. Jonas they detained with them, endeavouring to persuade him to sacrifice to fire, the sun and water. The prince of the Magians, seeing him inflexible, caused him to be laid flat on his belly, with a stake under his navel, and to be beaten both with knotty clubs and with. rods. The martyr all the time continued in prayer, saying: "I thank you, O God of our father Abraham. Enable me, I beseech you, to offer to you acceptable holocausts. One thing I have asked of the *

In

Lord: this will I seek after. (1) The sun, moon, fire and water, I renounce: I believe and confess the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." The judge ordered him next to be set in a frozen pond, with a cord tied to his foot. After supper and a short nap, he sent for Barachisius, and told him his brother had sacrificed. The martyr said it was impossible that he should have paid divine honours to fire, a vile creature; and spoke much on the immensity and power of God, and with such eloquence and force, that the Magians were astonished to hear him, and said one to another, that if he were permitted to speak in public he would draw over many from their religion. Whereupon they concluded for the future to hold his interrogatories in the night. the mean time they caused two red-hot iron plates, and two red-hot hammers to be applied under each arm, and said to him: " If you shake off either of these, by the king's fortune, you deny Christ." He meekly replied: "I fear not your fire; nor shall I throw off your instruments of torture. I beg you to try without delay all your torments on me. He who is engaged in combat for God is full of courage.' They ordered melted lead to be dropped into his nostrils and eyes; and, that he should then be carried to prison, and there hung up by one foot. Jonas after this being brought out of his pool, the Magians said to him: "How do you find yourself this morning? We imagine you past the last night but very uncomfortably." No, replied Jonas: from the day I came into the world I never remember a night more sweet and agreeable: for, I was wonderfully refreshed by the remembrance of Christ's sufferings." The Magians said: "Your companion hath renounced." The martyr interrupting them answered: “I know that he hath long ago renounced the devil and his angels." The Magians urged: "Take care lest you perish, abandoned both by God and man." Jonas replied: "If you are really wise as you boast, judge if it be not better to sow the corn than to keep it hoarded up.

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(1) Ps. xxvi. 4.

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Our life is a seed sown to rise again in the world to come, when it will be renewed by Christ in immortal light." The Magians said: "Your books have drawn many aside." Jonas answered: "They have indeed drawn many from worldly pleasures. When a servant of Christ is in his sufferings inebriated with love from the passion of his Lord, he forgets the transitory state of this short life, its riches, estates, gold and honours; regardless of kings and princes, lords and noblemen, where an eternity is at stake, he desires nothing but the sight of the only true King, whose empire is everlasting, and whose power reaches to all ages." The judges commanded all his fingers and toes to be cut off joint by joint, and scattered about. Then they said to him: "Now wait the harvest to reap other hands from this seed." To whom he said: Other hands I do not ask. God is present who first framed me, and who will give me new strength." After this, the skin was torn off the martyr's head, his tongue was cut out, and he was thrown into a vessel of boiling pitch; but the pitch by a sudden ebullition running over, the servant of God was not hurt by it. The judges next ordered him to be squeezed in a wooden press, till his veins, sinews and fibres burst. Lastly, his body was sawn with an iron-saw, and by pieces thrown into a dry cistern. Guards were appointed to watch the sacred relicks lest Christians should steal them. away. The judges then called upon Barachisius to spare his own body. To whom he said: "This body I did not frame, neither will I destroy it. God its maker will again restore it; and will judge you and your king." Hormisdatscirus, turning to Maharnarses, said: "By our delays we affront the king. These men regard neither words nor torments." They therefore agreed that he should be beaten with sharp-pointed rushes; then that splinters of reeds should be applied to his body, and by cords strait drawn and pulled, should be pressed deep into his flesh, and that in this condition his body, pierced all over with sharp spikes, armed like a porcupine, should be rolled on the ground. After these tortures, he was put into