Saints John and Paul

One thing made known even more how great was their merit, and the credit they had with God. The Scythians having thrown themselves into Thrace with a formidable army, which made it feared that they would push their conquests as far as Constantinople, which was then being built with extraordinary magnificence, the emperor immediately raised troops to oppose this invasion; and as he had just recognized, by the defeat of the Persians, that an officer by the name of Gallican had all th e qualit Gallican Roman general who converted, founder of a hospital in Ostia, and martyr. ies one could wish for in a great captain, he made him general of his army. This lord wished to take advantage of this occasion, and, seeing himself necessary, he set two conditions for the service that was asked of him: first, that if he returned victorious, he would be made consul for the second time, for he had already been one once; second, that he would be given the princess Constance in marriage, so that he would have the honor of being the emperor's son-in-law.

Constantine easily acquiesced to the first condition; but, for the second, it gave him much anxiety, because he knew that his daughter had made a vow of virginity, and that she would rather let herself be put to death than transgress it. This holy girl, knowing her father's trouble, and that, in the state in which affairs were, it was very difficult for him to refuse anything to Gallican, came to find him herself, and told him not to make any difficulty about promising her in marriage to Gallican, if he returned victorious from the war against the Scythians, because she hoped that God would be the protector and guardian of her chastity; that she only asked that this captain, as a mutual pledge of their affection, take with him to the war John and Paul, her two faithful officers, and that he leave with her two daughters he had from a first marriage, one of whom was called Attica and the other Artemia.

Things having been settled as Constance wished, these two virgins remained with her, and the two holy brothers John and Paul left with Gallican to go and fight the Barbarians. Then the blessed princess, prostrating herself before the majesty of God, who has all the hearts of men in his hands, prayed to him with great fervor and many sighs to open the eyes of the soul to this general and his two daughters, who were still wrapped in the errors of paganism, and to grant them the grace to recognize him as the only true God with his only Son Jesus Christ; she also addressed herself to Our Lord, and, representing to him one after the other all the actions of her earthly life, she conjured him to give the father and the daughters, with the light of faith, the contempt of the world, the love of purity, the desire to please him only, and constancy in his service.

Her prayer was answered: for, on one hand, the conversation she had with Attica and Artemia was so salutary that they renounced the worship of idols and embraced the profession of chastity along with Christianity; and, on the other, Gallican was also converted in the midst of his army, by the means of John and Paul, and by a miracle that God performed to make him victorious. Here is this miracle: As he was about to be entirely destroyed by the Scythians, a part of his troops having already been cut to pieces, and several of his officers having then surrendered to these Barbarians, John and Paul, who saw him uselessly offering victims to the idols to obtain a change of fortune, addressed him and said to him: "Although everything seems desperate, and there seems to be no other way to save one's life than by a shameful flight which will bring great evils upon the State, we are sure, nevertheless, that if you would promise the God of heaven to become a Christian, and to worship him as the only Lord of all things, you would win the victory and make yourself master of your enemies." Reduced to the last extremity, Gallican willingly listened to this proposal, and made a vow, on the spot, to embrace Christianity if he returned victorious to the emperor. At that very hour, he saw beside him a young man of beautiful stature, who had a cross on his shoulder, who, having ordered him to take his sword and follow him, led him against the enemies; he also saw around him an army of celestial soldiers, who, casting terror on all sides, forced the Barbarians to lay down their arms, to throw themselves at his feet, to surrender at discretion, to abandon all their spoils, and to offer to withdraw to their country, and to pay a perpetual tribute to the emperor.

Such a happy success was followed by the perfect conversion of this general: he returned to Constantine, no longer with the intention of taking the consular robe, nor of marrying Constantia, but with the resolution, after his baptism, to withdraw entirely from the world and to follow the counsels of the Gospel. Indeed, it was only against his will that he received the honor of the triumph and was declared consul; and, even during his consulship, he freed five thousand slaves he owned and gave them property to live honorably in the world; he also sold a portion of his inheritances, the price of which he gave to the poor. After his consulship, he retir ed to Ostie Episcopal see held by Peter Damian. Ostia, where he had a large hospital built and dedicated himself, with Saint Hilarinus, to receiving the poor and pilgrims: which caused such great admiration in the world that people came from all sides to have the happiness of seeing this man, so illustrious for his offices and his triumphs, humbly wash the feet of the poor, make their beds, dress their wounds, serve them at table, and render them all the duties that Christian humility and charity can inspire.

However, Saint John and Saint Paul, having returned to the court to be with the holy princess Constantia, continued to practice there the works of piety and mercy which they had always professed; and as they received large stipends from the liberality of their mistress, they distributed them with holy profusion for the sustenance and relief of the poor. After the death of Constantine, they remained in the service of his children, and were always among their principal officers, even though Constantia had also passed away; but when Julian the Apostate ascended the throne , seeing that th Julien l'Apostat Roman emperor and persecutor of Christians. is prince had abandoned Christianity to return to the infamous worship of idols, and that he was even working to re-establish it throughout the empire, they renounced all their offices and the rank they held in the State, and retired to their private life, wishing to have no dealings with this emperor, who had abandoned his God to offer sacrifices to the demon.

Julian was no less thirsty for the treasures than for the blood of the Christians; he had them stripped on all sides of their goods, saying mockingly that, "since the Gospel taught them that one must become poor to become perfect, it was doing them a signal service to remove this obstacle to their perfection." Proposing to enrich some of his favorites with the spoils of our two holy brothers, he ordered Terentianus, captain of one of his guard companies, to go see them and tell them on his behalf t Térentien Captain of Julian's guards and executioner of saints. hat, his design being to honor the old officers of his predecessors, he wished them to come to him to hold the same rank at court that they had held under Constantine and his children. John and Paul replied that there was a great difference between these emperors and Julian; that these great princes professed to be servants of Jesus Christ, and that, coming to church, they adored Him on bended knee, after having laid down their crown and diadem; but that as for Julian, he was an apostate and an impious man, who, having been baptized in the Catholic Church, had since abandoned the true religion; that thus they could not render him the honor and respect they had rendered to their former masters; but, on the contrary, they detested him, and had resolved to have no communication with him. Terentianus made this answer known to Julian, who, inflamed with anger, had them told "that he had expected them to honor him as their emperor, but that, since they had the boldness to despise him, he would know well how to take vengeance; that he was, however, giving them ten more days to deliberate on what they had to do, and that if, after this term, they did not fall into line with their duty, he would punish them according to their merit." The blessed brothers replied to this second message that "Julian would have reason to complain of them if they had preferred any other mortal person to him; but that it was wrongly that he complained that they had preferred the immortal King and the Creator of heaven and earth to him; that, for the rest, they did not need ten days to deliberate on this subject, that their deliberation was already made and their resolution taken, and that one could already regard these ten days as expired, because nothing in the world would be capable of making them renounce the religion of the true God, in which they hoped to gain eternal life."

They were nevertheless left in peace for ten days, and these Saints made advantageous use of this delay, not to hide or to flee, but to prepare themselves for martyrdom through all kinds of works of charity and religion. They sold what they could of their possessions, and distributed to the poor not only the money they received for them, but also all the clothes and precious furniture they had; they spent a large part of this time either in prayer, or in strengthening the faithful and encouraging them to suffer martyrdom generously for Jesus Christ. Finally, the term having expired, Terentianus came to find them in their house, bringing with him a small idol of Jupiter, to force them to worship it. He found them in prayer, and waiting only for the hour to give their lives for the truth. He told them, however, that he had come one last time to urge them to obey the emperor; that he was not asking them to come publicly into the temples to offer sacrifices to the ancient deities of the empire; but all he wished of them, to save their goods, their honor, and their lives, was that they prostrate themselves before this image and worship the great Jupiter before it. "God forbid," replied the holy Martyrs, "that we should worship a demon! Julian may command us in matters purely temporal for the good of the State and his person; but when he commands us to worship idols or men who have been vicious and impious, or demons, we no longer recognize him as lord and master, and we have reason to refuse him obedience; in a word, we have no other God than the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are one God in three persons." Terentianus, seeing that he could not shake the invincible courage of these blessed brothers, had a pit dug in their garden, and, at the third hour of the night, he had them beheaded in his presence and buried secretly in the pit that had been dug for them.

Afterwards, fearing that this execution might incite a sedition in Rome, he spread the rumor that John and Paul had been sent into exile; but despite all the diligence he exercised, he could not hide their martyrdo m; f Rome Birthplace of Maximian. or the demons who were in the bodies of the possessed published it on all sides and even confessed that they were tormented by their merits. But what made it more famous was that the son of Terentianus, this cruel executor of Julian's unjust sentence, was also possessed by a horrible demon, and could not be delivered from it until his father had prayed and wept for a long time at the tomb of the holy Martyrs. The favor he obtained through their intercession was the cause of his conversion with his whole family, and he wrote the history that we have just reported.

Saint Gallicanus, of whom we have spoken, was treated with no less inhumanity than Saints John and Paul. Julian, unable to endure the acts of charity and mercy that he exercised toward the poor, pilgrims, and the sick—which were at the same time proof of the holiness and truth of our religion, and a condemnation of idolatry—ordered his officers to seize four beautiful estates that he had allocated for the sustenance of his hospital. They immediately sent men to take possession of them; but God showed, by a great miracle, that inheritances given to the poor are under His special protection: for all those who went there with this intent were struck with fever and cruelly tormented by the demon. Julian, being informed of this, and having learned from the demon himself that these lands could never be plundered unless Gallicanus sacrificed to the gods, sent him an order to either worship the idols or leave Italy. The Saint chose the latter course and withdrew to Alexandria, where he continued to assist the faithful with all his power, both spiritually and temporally. Finally, this admirable man, who had refused the alliance of Constantine, which could have opened the way to the empire for him, in order to serve Jesus Christ in His members, and who had subsequently also refused the bishopric of Ostia, which he was very insistently asked to accept, was put to death for the faith by the judge Raucianus, in a solitude to which he had retired. His memory is marked in the martyrology on June 25, as is that of Saint John and Saint Paul on the 26th, in the year 362.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The memory of these two illustrious Martyrs was so famous in Rome that a church was built there in their honor near that of Saint Peter; a monastery was also founded there under their name. There is still one today, which is built on the site of the house of the two Saints and served by the Passionist Fathers. In the nave of this church, one can see a small space surrounded by a grille; it is there that Saint John and Saint Paul were beheaded.

In England, their feast was formerly among those called third-class, that is to say, those where there was an obligation to hear Mass before work; which is proven by a constitution of the council held at Oxford in 1222.

The names of Saint John and Saint Paul have always been very famous in the Church since the 5th century. The brilliance of their miracles spread far and wide, and Saint Gregory of Tours, who wrote in the second half of the 6th century, already spoke of them as being renowned in France for their relics, which were sought after everywhere. Saint Hilary had a church built in Poitiers under the invocation of Sain t John a Poitiers City where the saint settled and lived as a recluse. nd Saint Paul, where he wished to be buried.

This sanctuary, having been ruined by the Barbarians, covered with its rubble the crypt where Saint Hilary rested. When these ruins had been cleared by Saint Fridolin, and the name of Saint Hilary had consecrated the new basilica, the Church of Poitiers did not want to leave without honor the glorious names of the holy Martyrs it had adopted before any other, and it was from then on established that on the day the feast of the Translation of Saint Hilary was celebrated each year, an oration in memory of Saint John and Saint Paul would be added to his office.

We have completed this biography with the *Lives of the Saints of the Church of Poitiers*, by Mr. Abbé Auber; Godescard, etc.

Lives of the Saints. — VOLUME VII.