Eusebius writes of the persecution under Dioclesian, at CÆsarea,—"Who could fail to be struck with admiration at the sight or recital of the things that then took place? For, as the heathen in every place were on the point of celebrating their accustomed games and festivals, it was much noised abroad that besides the other exhibitions, those who had been condemned to wild beasts were to be made to fight. This report having gained ground, there were six young men, who, first binding their hands, hastened to Urbanus (the governor of the province), to prove their readiness to endure martyrdom, as he was on his way to the amphitheatre. Their names were Timolaus, a native of Pontus, Dionysius of Tripolis in Phoenice, Romulus, a subdeacon of the church at Diospolis Paesis, and Alexander, both Egyptians; and another Alexander from Gaza. They were immediately committed to prison. Not many days after, two others were added to the number, of whom one had already witnessed a good confession several times, under various dreadful tortures. His name was Agapius, but the other, who supplied them with the necessaries of life, was named Dionysius. All these, being eight in number, were beheaded in one day at CÆsarea, on the twenty-third day of the month Dystrus, that is, the ninth of the Kalends of April."

S. DOMANGART OF SLIEVE DONART, B.

(UNCERTAIN.)

[Irish Martyrologies. He is not to be confounded with S. Domangart, the brother of S. Domnoch, or Modomnoc (Feb. 13th.) Giraldus Cambrensis calls him Dominick. Usher, thinking this S. Dominick was the same as Dominick of Ossory mentioned elsewhere by Giraldus, and not acquainted with the history of S. Domangart, fell into the mistake of making the mountain Slieve Slainge, called afterwards Slieve Donart, to be Grenore point, in Wexford. Ware followed Usher. Archdall calls the saint S. Domangard of Ossory, whereas the saint of Ossory was Domnoc, or Modomnoc, and not Domangart at all, and makes the promontory Carnsore.]

S. Domangart is said to have been the son of Euchodius, king of Ulster, in the latter part of the 5th century, and during a part of the 6th. In the Tripartite Life of S. Patrick he is represented as a bigoted heathen and a persecutor. His two daughters having embraced Christianity made a vow of perpetual virginity, and their father, highly incensed, ordered them to be cast into the sea. Therefore S. Patrick cursed him and his seed for ever, excepting, however, his unborn son, at the petition of the queen, who was with child. The son born to him after this was Domangart, and his birth is placed a short time before the foundation of Armagh, and it is added that he afterwards became a disciple of the apostle. But, as Dr. Lanigan has proved in his "Irish Ecclesiastical History," S. Patrick did not survive the foundation of Armagh more than about ten years. How then could Domangart have been his disciple? Then we are given to understand, that Domangart was not born till after his father's death, which the Four Masters assign to A.D. 503 (504.) This sets aside the whole story; for S. Patrick was dead many years before this date. Jocelin, who follows the Tripartite as to Euchodius, Domangart, &c., omits what is said of the latter having been a disciple of S. Patrick. There is a fable concerning S. Domangart having been raised from the dead at Rome by S. Patrick, according to which he would have lived in the 5th cent. Such contradictory stories show what little reliance can be placed in the accounts of the saint. All that we can be certain of is that he founded a monastery on the promontory of Slieve Slainge, where in Colgan's time stood two churches dedicated to him.

S. HILDELITHA, V. ABSS. OF BARKING.

(ABOUT A.D. 720.)

[Ancient Anglican Martyrologies, and Gallican Martyrology. Authority:—Bede, Ecc. Hist. l. iv. c. 10.]

Hildelitha was one of the first virgins of the English nation who consecrated herself a spouse to Christ, going abroad to a French monastery, there being, at that time, none in England. When S. Erkonwald had founded the monastery of Chertsey for himself, and the convent of Barking, in Essex, for his sister Ethelburga, he sent to France for S. Hildelitha, and committed his sister to her care, to be by her instructed in monastic discipline. Thus S. Ethelburga herself, who was the first abbess of Barking, was a disciple of S. Hildelitha, though she died before her, and was succeeded by her in the government of the community. Bede highly commends the piety of this saint, and that she was highly esteemed by others we may gather from S. Aldhelm having addressed to her his poetical treatise on virginity, and from mention of her in one of the epistles of S. Boniface, where he relates what great things he had learned of her.

S. Hildelitha departed to our Lord in a good old age, but the date of her death is undetermined.

S. SIMON, BOY M.

(A.D. 1475.)

[Roman Martyrology. Authority:—The Acts of Canonization by Benedict XIV., and the Acts published in the Italian immediately after the event took place.]

Through the Middle Ages, in Europe the Jews were harshly treated, suffering from sudden risings of the people, or from the exactions of princes and nobles. This nourished in them a bitter hatred of Christians and Christianity, and in some instances led to cruel reprisals. Such was, perhaps, the case in Trent, where on Tuesday in Holy Week, 1475, the Jews met to prepare for the approaching Passover, in the house of one of their number named Samuel, and it was agreed between three of them, Samuel, Tobias, and Angelus, that a child should be crucified, as an act of revenge against their tyrants, and of hatred against Christianity. The difficulty, however, was how to get one. Samuel sounded his servant Lazarus, and attempted to bribe him into procuring one, but the suggestion so scared the fellow, that he packed up all his traps and ran away. On the Thursday, Tobias undertook to get the boy, and going out in the evening, whilst the people were in church during the singing of TenebrÆ, he prowled about till he found a child sitting on the threshold of his father's door in the Fossati Street, aged twenty-nine months, and named Simon. The Jew began to coax the little fellow to follow him, and the boy did so, and he conducted him to the house of Samuel, where he was put to bed, and given raisins and apples to amuse him.

In the mean time the parents, Andrew and Mary, missing their child, began to seek him everywhere, but not finding him, and night falling darkly upon them, they returned, troubled and alarmed to their home.

During the night, when all was still, a Jew named Moses took the child from its bed, and carried it into the vestibule of the synagogue, which formed a part of the house of Samuel, and sitting down on a bench began to strip the infant; a handkerchief being twisted round its throat to prevent it from crying. Then stretching out his limbs in the shape of a cross they began the butchery of the child, cutting the body in several places, and gathering his blood in a basin. The child being half dead, they raised him on his feet, and whilst two of them held him by the arms, the rest pierced his body on all sides with their awls.

When the child was dead, they hid the body in a cellar behind the barrels of wine.

All Friday the parents sought their son, but found him not, and the Jews, alarmed at the proceedings of the magistrates, who had taken the matter up, and were making investigations in all quarters, consulted what had better be done. They could not carry the body away, as every gate was watched, and the perplexity was great. At length they determined to dress the body again and throw it into the stream which ran under Samuel's window, but which was there blocked by an iron cage in which the refuse was caught. Tobias was to go to the bishop and chief magistrates and tell them that there was a child's body entangled in the grate, and he hoped that by thus drawing attention to it all suspicion of having been implicated in the murder would be diverted from him and his co-religionists.

This was done, and when John de Salis, the bishop, and James de Sporo, the governor, heard the report of the Jew, they at once went, and the body was removed before their eyes, and conveyed to the cathedral, followed by a crowd. As, according to a popular mediÆval superstition, blood is supposed to flow from the wound when the murderer approaches, the officers of justice examined the body as the crowds passed it; and they noticed that blood exuded as Tobias approached. On the strength of this the house of Samuel and the synagogue were examined, and blood and other traces of the butchery were found in the cellar, and in the place where the deed had been done, and the bowl of blood was discovered in a cupboard. The most eminent physicians were called to investigate the condition of the corpse, and they unanimously decided that the child could not have been drowned, as the body was not swollen, and as there were marks on the throat of strangulation. The wounds they decided were made by sharp instruments like awls and knives, and could not be attributed to the gnawing of water-rats. The popular voice now accusing the Jews, the magistrates seized on the Jews and threw them into prison, and on the accusation of a renegade Jew named John, who had been converted to Christianity seven years before, and who declared that the Jews had often sought to catch and kill a child, and had actually done this elsewhere, more than five of the Jews were sentenced to be broken on the wheel, and then burnt.

The blood found in the basin is preserved in the cathedral of Trent, and the body of the child is also enshrined there in a magnificent mausoleum.

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