Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
death_n world_n year_n zeal_n 32 3 7.0470 4 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A36721 An historical dissertation upon the Thebean Legion plainly proving it to be fabulous / by John Dubourdieu ...; Dissertation historique et critique sur le martyre de la légion thébéenne. English Dubourdieu, Jean, 1652-1720. 1696 (1696) Wing D2409; ESTC R17246 111,591 210

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

Orange But what if some Impostour here disguised himself under the Name of a Famous Disciple of St. Cesarius At least this pretended Disciple seems not to be much inform'd of his Masters Affairs He saith in one place that St. Cesarius sent some Grave and Learned Men to a Council Assembled at Valence to Condemn the Opinions of Pelagius Which having given me occasion to examine the Acts of the Councils held at Valence I ●ind nothing in them concerning the Heresie of Pelagius wherein St. Cesarius could have any hand So that being mistaken in a matter of Fact of this Importance he might as well have been over-seen in joyning Eucherius and Cesarius in the Cure of that Diseased Woman It appears that the Learned Doctor Cave relyed a little too much upon this Life of St. Cesarius He saith in his History of Ecclesiastical Writers that this Holy Bishop understanding that he was suspected of Pelagianism caused a Council to be Assembled at Valence to clear himself of this accusation and being hindred by reason of the illness of his Health from going to it he maintained there publickly by his Legates that Man in the state of Sin cannot work out his Salvation without a preventing Grace But if instead of following this Cyprian Disciple of St. Cesarius and who was afterwards Bishop of Thoulon Doctor Cave had given himself the trouble to look over the Councils of Valence he would have observed that in the first which was held in the Year 734. their whole business was about Bigamy that in the Second which met in 599. some place it in the Year 684 and some in 589. they were wholly taken up with the great Donatives which Guntran King of Burgundy had bestowed upon the Church And that the Third in which Pelagius Hinmark and John Scot were Condemned and the Acts whereof are cited by Forbesius in his Instructions was not called till the Year 855. as appears by the Acts of it being presented to the Emperour Lothary and to Charles the Bald. Now St. Cesarius was unborn at the time of the First Council since Doctor Cave brings him into the World only in the Year 469. And he was Dead when the Second met according to the same Doctor who places his Death in the Year 542. And 't is I think needless to add that he was not concern'd in the Third which was held in 855. and in which the Pelagian Opinions were Condemned This short digression which we have thought necessary to remove St. Cesarius from St. Eucherius's times will not seem I hope unseasonable It appears then that Bellarmine for all his Conjecture cannot bring St. Eucherius near enough to St Sigismond King of Burgundy The distance is too great to admit of any means of reconciling the Dispute We shall observe by the way that Usuard and Aimonius have commited the like mistake But because it is but a matter of three or four Years difference they may perhaps find Friends to help them out These two Writers say that Clovis was delivered from a dangerous Sickness by the Vows and Prayers of St. Severine Abbot of Agaunum And it is certain that Clovis was Dead three or four Years before Sigismond had founded that Monastery Gregory of Tours saith that he caused the same to be Built and richly Endowed it after the Death of his Father Gombaldus But Marius Bishop of Avanches marks precisely the Year in his Chronicle and saith that Sigismond founded the Agaunian Monastery under the Consulship of Florentius and Anthemius viz. Four Years after the Death of Clovis This Remark is owing to Monsieur de Valois in his Notice of the Gauls where he saith that he cannot understand how Severine could have been Abbot of that Monastery in Clovis's time Nevertheless the Miraculous recovery of a great King being of great Credit to the Prayers and Suffrages of Monasteries Usuard and Aimonius who were both Monks caused Prayers to be made for Clovis in Agaunum even before King Sigismond had it in his thoughts to build a Monastery there 'T is true that Bollandus would fain perswade us that this Prince did only repair and beautifie it But this he asserts without any ground since both the Ancient and Modern Writers who speak of the first Foundation of the Agaunian Monastery do all generally agree that 't was St. Sigismond King of Burgundy who caused it to be Built to the Honour of the Thebean Legion which suffered Martyrdom in that place CHAP. VI. That the Acts of the Council of Agaunum concerning the Thebean Legion are as false as the Acts of their Passion BUT whether King Sigismond only beautified the Monastery of Agaunum or whether he laid the first Foundations thereof 't is all one to us 'T is enough that we can prove that the Passion which we assert to be false is posteriour to all this And that it is so cannot be deny'd since mention is made there of the Basilick which was Dedicated at Agaunum to the Memory of the Thebean Souldiers If you are not pleased to rely upon the History of their Passion as it is related in Surius and Baronius and wherein notice is taken of the Rules made by St. Sigismond in the Agaunian Monastery we shall willingly pitch upon and refer our selves to the latter Acts that are mended since in these as well as in the others mention is made of a Miracle that happen'd when the Church of Agaunum was a building to the Honour of the Thebean Legion For if King Sigismond did only repair and Adorn that Church the time of these Works must necessarily be plac'd in the Year 500. and consequently St Eucherius could not have made mention of them seeing all do agree that he dyed about the Year 440. We may strengthen this Argument with another taken from the Acts of a Council supposed to have been assembled by order of King Sigismond at Agaunum and in which Sixty Bishops put it into his Head to gather the Bones of the Thebean Souldiers and to Dedicate a Basilick or stately Church to them Though this Council is visibly false and supposititious yet it will be of good help to discover the falsity of the Passion of the Souldiers of Agaunum Fathered upon St. Eucherius The Acts of this pretended Council are set down in the Fourth Tome of the Councils by Labbe and Cossart These two Learned Jesuites were very sensible of the Forgery of these Acts but it would have been too much against the grain to have confessed it They were therefore content to say they wondered they did not see amongst the Subscriptions the Name of Avitus Archbishop of Vienna who both by reason of his Eminent Qualities and for the Dignity of his See ought of course to have been present at that Council The Oratory-Priests being fairer dealers than the Jesuites Le Cointe one of them freely declares in his Annals that the Acts of this Council were altogether false However as false as they are they
Christians did now no longer with Joseph of Arimathea frequent the Sepulchre of our Lord. The Death of Christ was to them an old Story and grown out of date and new Objects were then required to excite the Zeal and Devotions of Christians Hence it was that from time to time some Thebean Souldier or other was digged out of the Ground and proposed to their Veneration The Citizens of Pignerol make their boast of having there in the Abbey of our Lady the Corps of St. Tiberius In the Diocess of Saluces are shewed the Tombs of Constantius and Theophredus or Jafredus and a new Inscription clapt thereon causeth them to be worshipped as Souldiers of the Thebean Legion Some Years ago passing by Fossano I had the curiosity to go and view the Place where according to the Tradition of that Town Alverius and Sebastianus Thebean Souldiers are said to be Buried Garnier in his History of St. Alexander saith that the Bodies of Cassius Severinus Licinius and Secundus lye deposited at Como in the Milanese Crantzius tells us that at Brunswick they believe that they have some Martyrs of Agaunum The City of Colen vaunteth to have a great number of them But above all the Town of Turin brags of having been enrich'd with their Spoils In the Abbey of St. Solutor are kept some Reliques with this Title Reliquiae Sancti Benigni Thebensis They shew in the same Abbey a Manuscript wherein are recorded the Lives of Solutor Adventor and Octavius set off with all those incidents and flourishes which generally adorn the common Legends The Jesuites of Turin have made a sudden discovery all at once of Ciro John Cacusat Chrysogon Cyriacus Felix Fortunatus and Achilles as they inform us in the History which they have published of the Holy Martyrs Abondius and Abondantius When you have passed the Bridge of Turin and taken your way towards the Mountain that leads to Chiers you find on the side of the River Pô a little Chappel where there is an Inscription which I had amongst my Papers but by mischance it hath been almost blotted out however here is the remainder of it D. O. M. Beatae Virgini Mariae Thebaeorum Martyrum .... Ex vetustate labentem Aediculam ampliorem .... Divinoque Ministerio eptiorem Comes Gregorius Johaninus ..... a Solo excitavit .... an 1654. I remember that the Names of two Theb. Souldiers are to be seen there And it is certain that if in travelling through Italy One would be at the trouble to take information of the Saints of every particular Place and to read both the printed and manuscript Lives of Saints that are kept in the Archives of the Cathedral Churches there would great numbers of Theb. Souldiers start up from behind the bushes who had no other being but what they received from the Monks of the last Ages in order to serve their turns and promote the Trade they made of the poor People's superstition However it be as the case stands I have in this Dissertation struck of from the Romish Church 6666 Saints as the learned Father Sirmond with one dash of his Pen had taken lately from them eleven thousand For having met with these Words in an Old Martyrology S S Vrsula Vnde ci milla V. M. i. e. Vndecimilla Virgin and Martyr he shew'd the shameful blunder of those who imagin'd that Vnde ci milla with the V and M had been an abbreviation to express eleven thousand Virgins Mr. de Launoy had both the honesty and courage to publish what he thought of St. Bruno and several other Saints and might he have enjoy'd the protection either of the Court or Clergy he would have been a great instrument of Reformation in the Roman Worship I was told That this Mr. de Launoy being once at dinner with the Curate of a Country Parish in the Diocess of Mans on the Festival of the Chief Saint of that Village desired the Curate to tell him the Name of that Saint You must excuse me for that answered the Curate for should you once go about to pull down my Saint as you have done so many others I should be undone and my Boors would find themselves without a Patron Mr. de Valois saith that the Life of St. Catharine Virgin and Martyr is but a Fabulous Legend from the beginning to the end and likewise that of St. Eustachius Patron of the biggest Parish in Paris and as for what is related of St. Lazarus of St. Martha of Mary Magdalen and of the St. Baume he added credant qui volent as for me I shall never believe a Word of it and I hold their arrival into France to be one of the most Fabulous things in the World Mr. Menage in his Book of Learned Women having enumerated amongst them St. Catharine takes Notice That Baronius suspected it to be but a Fable And it is material to observe by the by that Baronius's suspition was grounded upon the silence of Eusebius which we have also alledged against the Agaunian Martyrs Moreover Mr. Menage tells us that Francis de Harlay Arch-Bishop of Paris having chosen some of the most understanding Men of his Clergy in 1680 to revise and reform the Breviary for the use of the Church of Paris these Doctors thought fit to expunge the Life of St. Catharine looking upon the Acts of her Martyrdom as a meer Fiction The Bishops of St. Pons in the year 1684 took from the Calendar of his Diocess about sixty Holy-days amongst which were St. Amarante the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary the Chair of St. Peter St. Ignatius Loyola c. He is a Prelate who has very much distinguished himself both by his Learning and Piety but who had the misfortune to incur the hatred of the Jesuits as being a Disciple of the famous Bishop of Alet and also to displease the Court for refusing to persecute the Protestants of his Diocess and not following Cardinal Bonzi and the Bishops of his Cabal in Voting in the States of Lauguedoc the Subsidies that were demanded by the French King Therefore the Jesuites looking for an occasion to bring him into Trouble the Abbot of Aulergues his Archdeacon devoted himself to serve their Revenge So that if an Archdeacon is call'd in the Canons of the Church Oculus Episcopi it may be well said that here the Light of the Body became darkness This Abbot appealed from his Bishop against the Reformation of his Calendar to the Parliament of Toulouse The Jesuites who cared but little for the other Saints but resented very much the disgrace put upon their St. Ignatius procured an Order from the Court to that Parliament that they should favour the Abbot's Cause without further delay I was then at Toulouse where I was oblig'd to stay during the Months of July August and September at which time the Cause was Pleaded I was present at the hearing and the Kings Attorney broke into a furious passion against