WHO being chosen bishop of Geres, and finding the patriarch Theophilus
deaf to his tears and excuses, prayed that God would rather take him out
of the world than permit him to be consecrated bishop of the place, for
which he was intended. His prayer was heard, for he died before he had
finished it.[1] His name occurs in the modern Roman Martyrology on this
day. See Sozomen, Hist. l. 8, c. 19.
Footnotes:
1. A like example is recorded in the life of brother Columban,
published in Italian and French, in 1755, and abridged in the
Relation de la Mort do quelques religieux de la Trappe, T. 4. p.
334, 342. The life of this holy man from his childhood at Abbeville,
the place of his birth, and afterwards at Marseilles, was a model of
innocence, alms-deeds, and devotion. In 1710 he took the Cistercian
habit, according to the reformation of la Trappe, at Buon Solazzo in
Tuscany, the only filiation of that Institute. In this most rigorous
penitential institute his whole comportment inspired with humility
and devotion all who beheld him. He bore a holy envy to those whom
he ever saw rebuked by the Abbot, and his compunction, charity,
wonderful humility, and spirit of prayer, had long been the
admiration of that fervent house, when he was ordered to prepare
himself to receive holy orders, a thing not usually done in that
penitential institute. The abbot had herein a private view of
advancing him to the coadjutorship in the abbacy for the easing of
his own shoulders in bearing the burden of the government of the
house. Columban, who, to all the orders of his superior, had never
before made any reply, on this occasion made use of the strongest
remonstrances and entreaties, and would have had recourse to flight,
had not his vow of stability cut off all possibility. Being by
compulsion promoted gradually to the orders of deacon, he most
earnestly prayed that God would by some means prevent his being
advanced to the priesthood; soon after he was seized with a lameness
in his hands, 1714, and some time after taken happily out of this
world. These simples are most edifying in such persons who were
called to a retired penitential life. In the clergy all promotion to
ecclesiastical honors ought to be dreaded, and generally only
submitted to by compulsion; which Stephen, the learned bishop of
Tourney, in 1179, observes to be the spirit and rule of the
primitive church of Christ, (ser. 2.) Yet too obstinate a resistance
may become a disobedience, an infraction of order and peace, a
criminal pusillanimity, according to the just remark of St. Basil,
Reg. disput. c. 21 Innocent III. ep. ad Episc. Calarit. Decret. l.
2, tit. 9, de Renunciatione.