JULY 10.

THE SEVEN BROTHERS, MARTYRS,

AND

SS. RUFINA & SECUNDA, VIRGINS & MARTYRS.

THREE times within the next few days will the number seven appear in the holy Liturgy, honouring the Blessed Trinity, and proclaiming the reign of the Holy Spirit with His sevenfold grace. Felicitas, Symphorosa, and the mother of the Machabees, each in turn will lead her seven sons to the feet of Eternal Wisdom. The Church, bereaved of her Apostolic founders, pursues her course undaunted, for the teaching of Peter and Paul is defended by the testimony of martyrdom, and when persecutions have ceased, by that of holy virginity. Moreover, "the "blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians :" the heroes who in life were the strength of the Bride, give her fecundity by their death; and the family of God's children continues to increase.

Great indeed was the faith of Abraham, when he hoped against all hope that he would become the father of nations through that same Isaac whom he was commanded to slay: but did Felicitas show less faith, when she recognised in the immolation of her seven children the triumph of life and the highest blessing that could be bestowed on her motherhood?

1 TERTULLIAN, Apolog. 50.

Honour be to her, and to those who resemble her! The worldly-wise may scorn them; but they are like noble rivers transforming the desert into a paradise of God, and fertilizing the soil of the gentile world after the ravages of the first age.

Marcus Aurelius had just ascended the throne, to prove himself during a reign of nineteen years nothing but a second-rate pupil of the sectarian rhetors of the second century, whose narrow views and hatred of Christian simplicity he embraced alike in policy and in philosophy. These men, created by him prefects and proconsuls, raised the most coldblooded persecution the Church has ever known. The scepticism of this imperial philosopher did not exempt him from the general rule that where dogma is rejected, superstition takes its place; and monarch and people were of one accord in seeking a remedy for public calamities in the rites newly brought from the East, and in the extermination of the Christians. The assertion that the massacres of those days were carried on without the prince's sanction, not only does not excuse him, it is moreover false; it is now a proven truth that, foremost among the tyrants who destroyed the flower of the human race, stands Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, stained more than Domitian or even Nero with the blood of Martyrs.

The seven sons of St. Felicitas were the first victims offered by the prince to satisfy the philosophy of his courtiers, the superstition of the people, and, be it said, his own convictions, unless we would have him to be the most cowardly of men. It was he himself who ordered the prefect Publius to entice to apostasy this noble family whose piety angered the gods; it was he again who, after hearing the report of the cause, pronounced the sentence, and decreed that it should be executed by several judges in different places, the more publicly to make known the policy

of the new reign. The arena opened at the same time in all parts not only of Rome, but of the empire; the personal interference of the sovereign intimated to the hesitating magistrates the line of conduct to pursue if they wished to court the imperial favour. Felicitas soon followed her sons; Justin the philosopher found out by experience what was the sincerity of Cæsar's love of truth; every class yielded its contingent of victims to the tortures which this would-be wise master of the world deemed necessary for the safety of the empire. At length, that his reign might close as it had begun in blood, a rescript of the so-called mild emperor sanctioned wholesale massacres. Humanity, lowered by the unjust flattery heaped upon this wretched prince even up to our own day, was thus duly rehabilitated by the noble courage of a slave such as Blandina, or of a patrician such as Cæcilia.

Never before had the south-wind swept so impetuously through the garden of the Spouse, scattering far and wide the perfume of myrrh and spices. Never before had the Church, like an army set in array, appeared, despite her weakness, so invincible as now, when she was sustaining the prolonged assault of Cæsarism and false science from without, in league with heresy within. Want of space forbids us to enter into the details of a question which is now beginuing to be more carefully studied, yet is far from being thoroughly understood. Under cover of the pretended moderation of the Antonines, hell was exerting its most skilful endeavours against Christianity at the very period which opened with the martyrdom of the Seven Brothers. If the Cæsars of the third century attacked the Church with a fury and a refinement of cruelty unknown to Marcus Aurelius, it was but as a wild beast taking a fresh spring upon the prey that had well nigh escaped him.

Such being the case, no wonder that the Church has from the very beginning paid especial honour to these seven heroes, the pioneers of that decisive struggle which was to prove her impregnable to all the powers of hell. Was there ever a more sublime scene in that spectacle which the saints have to present to the world? If there was ever a combat which angels and men could equally applaud, it was surely this of the 10th July 162; when in four different suburbs of the Eternal City, these seven patrician youths, led by their heroic mother, opened the campaign which was to rescue Rome from these upstart Cæsars and restore her to her immortal destinies. After their triumph, four cemeteries shared the honour of gathering into their crypts the sacred remains of the martyrs; and the glorious tombs have in our own day furnished the Christian archeologist with matter for valuable research and learned writings. As far back as we can ascertain from the most authentic monuments, the 6th of the Ides of July was marked on the calendars of the Roman Church as a day of special solemnity, on account of the four stations where the faithful assembled round the tombs of "the Martyrs." This name, given by excellence to the seven brothers, was preserved to them even in time of peace-an honour by so much the greater as there had been torrents of blood shed under Diocletian. Inscriptions of the fourth century, found even in those cemeteries which never possessed their relics, designate the 11th July as the "day following the feast of the Martyrs.'

The honours of this day whereon the Church sings the praises of true fraternity, are shared by two valiant sisters. A century had passed over the empire, and the Antonines were no more. Valerian, who at first seemed, like them, desirous of obtaining a character for moderation, soon began to follow them

along the path of blood. In order to strike a decisive blow, he issued a decree whereby all the principal ecclesiastics were condemned to death without distinction, and every Christian of rank was bound under the heaviest penalties to abjure his faith. It is to this edict that Rufina and Secunda owed the honour of crossing their palms with those of Sixtus and Lawrence, Cyprian and Hippolytus. They belonged to the noble family of the Turcii Asterii, whose history has been brought to light by modern discovery. According to the prescriptions of Valerian, which condemned Christian women to no more than confiscation and exile, they ought to have escaped death; but to the crime of fidelity to God they added that of holy virginity, and so the roses of martyrdom were twined into their lily-wreaths. Their sacred relics lie in St. John Lateran's, close to the baptistery of Constantine; and the second Cardinalitial See, that of Porto, couples with this title the name of St. Rufina, thus claiming the protection of the blessed martyrs.

Let us read the short account of their martyrdom given us in to-day's Liturgy, beginning with that of the Seven Brothers.

At Rome, in the persecution of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the prefect Publius tried first by fair speeches and then by threats to compel seven brothers, the sons of St. Felicitas, to renounce Christ and adore the gods. But, owing both to their own valour and to their mother's words of encouragement, they persevered in their confession of faith, and were all put to death in various ways. Januarius was scourged to death with leaded whips,

PENT. IV.

Septem Fratres, filii sanctæ Felicitatis, Romæ in persecutione Marci Aurelii Antonini a Publio præfecto primum blanditiis, deinde terroribus tentati, ut Christo renuntiantes, deos venerarentur: et sua virtute, et matre hortante, in fidei confessione perseverantes, varie necati sunt. Januarius plumbatis cæsus: Felix et Philippus fustibus contusi: Silvanus ex altissimo loco præceps dejectus est: Alexan

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