See Pinius in the Acts of the Saints, Julij, t. 5, p. 329,
and Farlat, Illyrici Sacra, t. 1, p. 259.
St. Apollinaris was the first bishop of Ravenna. Bede, in his true
Martyrology, says that he sat twenty years, and was crowned with
martyrdom in the reign of Vespasian. His acts say that he was a
disciple of St. Peter, and made by him bishop of Ravenna. Though
their authority deserves little regard, this circumstance must
be allowed, being agreeable to the time, and supported by other
authorities. St. Peter Chrysologus, the most illustrious among his
successors, has left us a sermon in honor of our saint,[261] in which
he often styles him a martyr; but adds, that though he frequently
spilt portions of his blood for the faith, and ardently desired to
lay down his life for Christ, yet God preserved him a long time to
his Church, and did not suffer the persecutors to take away his life.
So he seems to have only been a martyr by the torments he endured
for Christ, which he survived at least some days. His body lay
first at Classis, four miles from Ravenna, still a kind of suburb
to that city, and its sea-port, till it was choked up by the sands.
In the year 549 his relics were removed into a more secret vault in
the same church, as an inscription still extant there testifies.
See Mabillon.[262] St. Fortunatus exhorted his friends to make
pilgrimages to his tomb, and St. Gregory the Great ordered parties
in doubtful suits at law to be sworn before it. Pope Honorius built
a church under his name in Rome about the year 630. It occurs in all
Martyrologies, and the high veneration which the Church paid early
to his memory is a sufficient testimony of his eminent sanctity and
apostolic spirit.
The virtue of the saints was true and heroic, because humble, and
proof against all trials. That of the heathen philosophers was lame,
and generally false and counterfeit, whence Tertullian calls the
latter, Traders in fame. “Where is now the similitude,” says he,
“between a philosopher and a Christian? a disciple of Greece and of
heaven? a trader in fame, and a saver of souls?[263] between a man
of words, and a man of works?” And St. Jerom writes, “A philosopher
is an animal of fame, one who basely drudges for the breath of the
people.”[264] Lactantius severely rallies Cicero, because, though he
was very sensible of the vanity of the worship then established, yet
he would not have that truth told the people for fear of unhinging
the religion of the state. “Now what is to be done with a man,”
says our Christian philosopher, “who knows himself in an error, yet
wilfully dashes upon a rock, that the people may do so too? who makes
no use of his wisdom for the regulation of his life, but entangles
himself to ensnare others, whom, as the wiser person, he was obliged
to rescue from error? But O Cicero, if you have any regard for
virtue, attempt rather to deliver the people out of ignorance. It is
a noble enterprise, and worthy all your powers of eloquence. Never
fear but your oratory will hold out in so good a cause, which never
failed you in the defence of so many bad ones. But Socrates’s prison
is the thing you dread; and therefore truth must want a patron; but
certainly, as a wise man, you ought to despise death in competition
with truth; and you had fallen much more honorably by speaking well
of truth, than for speaking ill of Antony; nor will you ever rise to
that height of glory by your Philippics, as you would have done by
laboring to undeceive the world, and dispute the people into their
senses.”[265] The philosophers did not love truth well enough to
suffer for it. Plato dissembled, for fear of Socrates’s hemlock; but
the Christian religion raised its professors above all considerations
present, for the joy that was set before them.