SERENUS was by birth a Grecian. He quitted estate, friends, and country,
to serve God in an ascetic life, that is, in celibacy, penance, and
prayer. Coming with this design to Sirmium, in Pannonia or Hungary, he
there bought a garden, which he cultivated with his own hands, and lived
on the fruits and herbs it produced. The apprehension of the persecution
made him hide himself for some months; after which he returned to his
garden. On a certain day, there came thither a woman, with her two
daughters, to walk. Serenus seeing them come up to him, said, "What do
you seek here?" "I take a particular satisfaction," she replied, "in
walking in this garden." "A lady of your quality," said Serenus, "ought
not to walk here at unseasonable hours, and this you know is an hour you
ought to be at home. Some other design brought you hither. Let me advise
you to withdraw, and be more regular in your hours and conduct for the
future, as decency requires in persons of your sex and condition." It
was usual for the Romans to repose themselves at noon, as it is still
the custom in Italy. The woman, stung at our saint's charitable
remonstrance, retired in confusion, but resolved on revenging the
supposed affront. She accordingly writes to her husband, who belonged to
the guards of the emperor Maximian, to complain of Serenus as having
insulted her. Her husband, on receiving her letter, went to the emperor
to demand justice, and said: "While we are waiting on your majesty's
person, our wives in distant countries are insulted." Whereupon the
emperor gave him a letter to the governor of the province to enable him
to obtain satisfaction. With this letter he set out for Sirmium, and
presented it to the governor, conjuring him, in the name of the emperor
his master, to revenge the affront offered to him in the person of his
wife during his absence. "And who is that insolent man," said the
magistrate, "who durst insult such a gentleman's wife?" "It is," said
he, "a vulgar pitiful fellow, one Serenus, a gardener." The governor
ordered him to be immediately brought before him, and asked him his
name. "It is Serenus," said he. The judge said: "Of what profession are
you?" He answered: "I am a gardener." The governor said: "How durst you
have the insolence and boldness to affront the wife of this officer?"
Serenus: "I never insulted any woman, to my knowledge, in my life." The
governor then said: "Let the witnesses be called in to convict this
fellow of the affront he offered this lady in a garden." Serenus,
hearing the garden mentioned, recalled this woman to mind, and answered:
"I remember that, some time ago, a lady came into my garden at an
unseasonable hour, with a design, as she said, to take a walk: and I own
I took the liberty to tell her it was against decency {446} for one of
her sex and quality to be abroad at such an hour." This plea of Serenus
having put the officer to the blush for his wife's action, which was too
plain an indication of her wicked purpose and design, he dropped his
prosecution against the innocent gardener, and withdrew out of court.
But the governor, understanding by this answer that Serenus was a man of
virtue, suspected by it that he might be a Christian, such being the
most likely, he thought, to resent visits from ladies at improper hours.
Wherefore, instead of discharging him, he began to question him on this
head, saying: "Who are you, and what is your religion?" Serenus, without
hesitating one moment, answered: "I am a Christian." The governor said:
"Where have you concealed yourself? and how have you avoided sacrificing
to the gods?" "It has pleased God," replied Serenus, "to reserve me for
this present time. It seemed awhile ago as if he rejected me as a stone
unfit to enter his building, but he has the goodness to take me now to
be placed in it; I am ready to suffer all things for his name, that I
may have a part in his kingdom with his saints." The governor, hearing
this generous answer, burst into rage, and said: "Since you sought to
elude by flight the emperor's edicts, and have positively refused to
sacrifice to the gods, I condemn you for these crimes to lose your
head." The sentence was no sooner pronounced, but the saint was carried
off and led to the place of execution, where he was beheaded, on the 23d
of February, in 307. The ancient Martyrology attributed to St. Jerom,
published at Lucca by Florentinius, joins with him sixty-two others,
who, at different times, were crowned at Sirmium. The Roman Martyrology,
with others, says seventy-two.
The garden affords a beautiful emblem of a Christian's continual
progress to the path of virtue. Plants always mount upwards, and never
stop in their growth till they have attained to that maturity which the
author of nature has prescribed: all the nourishment they,receive ought
to tend to this end; if any part wastes itself in superfluities, this is
a kind of disease. So in a Christian, every thing ought to carry him
towards that perfection which the sanctity of his state requires; and
every desire of his soul, every action of his life, to be a step
advancing to this in a direct line. When all his inclinations have one
uniform bent, and all his labors the same tendency, his progress must be
great, because uninterrupted, however imperceptible it may often appear.
Even his temporal affairs must be undertaken with this intention, and so
conducted as to fall within the compass of this his great design. The
saints so regulated all their ordinary actions, their meals, their
studies, their conversation and visits, their business and toil, whether
tilling a garden or superintending an estate, as to make the love of God
their motive, and the accomplishment of his will their only ambition in
every action. All travail which leadeth not towards this end is but so
much of life misspent and lost, whatever names men may give to their
political or military achievements, study of nature, knowledge of
distant shores, or cunning in the mysteries of trade, or arts of
conversation. Though such actions, when of duty, fall under the order of
our salvation, and must be so moderated, directed, and animated with a
spirit of religion, as to be made means of our sanctification. But in a
Christian life the exercises of devotion, holy desires, and tender
affections, which proceed from a spirit of humble compunction, and an
ardent love of our Saviour, and by which a soul raises herself up to,
and continually sighs after him, are what every one ought most
assiduously and most earnestly to study to cultivate. By these is the
soul more and more purified, and all her powers united to God, and made
heavenly {447} These are properly the most sweet and beautiful flowers
of paradise, or of a virtuous life.