See S. Aldhelm, Ado, Usuard, &c., in Bollandus, p. 771.
ST. ALDHELM relates from her acts,[1] that Fabritius, the governor of
Caesarea, in Cappadocia, inflicted on her most cruel torments, because
she refused to marry, or to adore idols: that she converted two apostate
women sent to seduce her: and that being condemned to be beheaded, she
converted one Theophilus, by sending him certain fruits and flowers
miraculously obtained of her heavenly spouse. She seems to have suffered
under Dioclesian. Her body is kept in the celebrated church which bears
her name, beyond the Tiber, in Rome. She is mentioned on this day in the
ancient Martyrology under the name of St. Jerom. There was another holy
virgin, whom Rufin calls Dorothy, a rich and noble lady of the city of
Alexandria, who suffered torments and a voluntary banishment, to
preserve her faith and chastity against the brutish lust and tyranny of
the emperor Maximinus, in the year 308, as is recorded by Eusebius[2]
and Rufinus:[3] but many take this latter, whose name is not mentioned
by Eusebius, to be the famous St. Catharine of Alexandria.
* * * * *
The blood of the martyrs flourished in its hundred-fold increase, as St.
Justin has well observed: "We are slain with the sword, but we increase
and multiply: the more we are persecuted and destroyed, the more are
added to our numbers. As a vine, by being pruned and cut close, shoots
forth new suckers, and bears a greater abundance of fruit; so is it with
us."[4] Among other false reflections, the baron of Montesquieu, an
author too much admired by many, writes:[5] "It is hardly possible that
Christianity should ever be established in China. Vows of virginity, the
assembling of women in the churches, their necessary intercourse with
the ministers of religion, their participation of the sacraments,
auricular confession, the marrying but one wife; all this oversets the
manners and customs, and strikes at the religion and laws of the
country." Could he forget that the gospel overcame {368} all these
impediments where it was first established, in spite of the most
inveterate prejudices, and of all worldly opposition from the great and
the learned; whereas philosophy, though patronized by princes, could
never in any age introduce its rules even into one city. In vain did the
philosopher Plotinus solicit the emperor Gallienus to rebuild a ruined
city in Campania, that he and his disciples might establish in it the
republic of Plato: a system, in some points, flattering the passions of
men, almost as Mahometism fell in with the prejudices and passions of
the nations where it prevailed. So visibly is the church the work of
God.
Footnotes:
1. L. de Laud. Virgin. c. 25.
2. L. 8, c. 14.
3. L. 1, c. 17.
4. Apol. 2, ol. 1.
5. L'Esprit des Loix, b. xix. 18.