After three days' sail, they made land, probably in the north of Scotland: but wandered twenty-seven days through deserts, and were a long while distressed for want of provisions, finding nothing to eat.

Patrick had often entertained the company on the infinite power of G.o.d: they therefore asked him, why he did not pray for relief. Animated by a strong faith, he a.s.sured them that if they would address themselves with their whole hearts to the true G.o.d, he would hear and succor them. They did so, and on the same day met with a herd of swine. From that time provisions never failed them till on the twenty-seventh day they came into a country that was cultivated and inhabited. During their distress, Patrick refused to touch meats which had been offered to idols. One day a great stone from a rock happened to fall upon him, and had like to have crushed him to death, while he was laid down to take a little rest.

But he invoked Elias, and was delivered from the danger. Some years afterwards, he was again led captive; but recovered his liberty after two months. When he was at home with his parents, G.o.d manifested to him, by divers visions, that he destined him to the great work of the conversion of Ireland. He thought he saw all the children of that country from the wombs of their mothers, stretching out their hands, and piteously crying to him for relief.[2]

Some think he had travelled into Gaul before be undertook his mission, and we find that, while he preached in Ireland, he had a great desire to visit his brethren in Gaul, and to see those whom he calls the saints of G.o.d, having been formerly acquainted with them. The authors of his life say, that after his second captivity, he travelled into Gaul and Italy, and had seen St. Martin, St. Germa.n.u.s of Auxerre, and pope Celestine, and that he received his mission, and the apostolical benediction, from this pope, who died in 432. But it seems, from his Confession, that he was ordained deacon, priest, and bishop, for his mission in his own country. It is certain that he spent many years in preparing himself for those sacred functions. Great opposition was made against his episcopal consecration and mission, both by his own relations and by the clergy.

These made him great offers in order to detain him among them, and endeavored to affright him by exaggerating the dangers to which he exposed himself amidst the enemies of the Romans and Britons, who did not know G.o.d. Some objected, with the same view, the fault which he had committed thirty years before as an obstacle to his ordination. All these temptations threw the saint into great perplexities, {601} and had like to have made him abandon the work of G.o.d. But the Lord, whose will he consulted by earnest prayer, supported him, and comforted him by a vision; so that he persevered in his resolution. He forsook his family, sold, as he says, his birthright and dignity, to serve strangers, and consecrated his soul to G.o.d, to carry his name to the end of the earth.

He was determined to suffer all things for the accomplishment of his holy design, to receive in the same spirit both prosperity and adversity, and to return thanks to G.o.d equally for the one as for the other, desiring only that his name might be glorified, and his divine will accomplished to his own honor. In this disposition he pa.s.sed into Ireland, to preach the gospel, where the worship of idols still generally reigned. He devoted himself entirely for the salvation of these barbarians, to be regarded as a stranger, to be contemned as the last of men, to suffer from the infidels imprisonment and all kinds of persecution, and to give his life with joy, if G.o.d should deem him worthy to shed his blood in his cause. He travelled over the whole island, penetrating into the remotest corners, without fearing any dangers, and often visited each province. Such was the fruit of his preachings and sufferings, that he consecrated to G.o.d, by baptism, an infinite number of people, and labored effectually that they might be perfected in his service by the practice of virtue. He ordained everywhere clergymen, induced women to live in holy widowhood and continence, consecrated virgins to Christ, and inst.i.tuted monks. Great numbers embraced these states of perfection with extreme ardor. Many desired to confer earthly riches on him who had communicated to them the goods of heaven; but he made it a capital duty to decline all self-interest, and whatever might dishonor his ministry. He took nothing from the many thousands whom he baptized, and often gave back the little presents which some laid on the altar, choosing rather to mortify the fervent than to scandalize the weak or the infidels. On the contrary, he gave freely of his own, both to pagans and Christians, distributed large alms to the poor in the provinces where he pa.s.sed, made presents to the kings--judging that necessary for the progress of the gospel--and maintained and educated many children, whom he trained up to serve at the altar. He always gave till he had no more to bestow, and rejoiced to see himself poor, with Jesus Christ, knowing poverty and afflictions to be more profitable to him than riches and pleasures. The happy success of his labors cost him many persecutions.

A certain prince named Corotick, a Christian, though in name only, disturbed the peace of his flock. He seems to have reigned in some part of Wales, after the Britons had been abandoned by the Romans. This tyrant, as the saint calls him, having made a descent into Ireland, plundered the country where St. Patrick had been just conferring the holy chrism, that is, confirmation, on a great number of Neophytes, who were yet in their white garments after baptism. Corotick, without paying any regard to justice, or to the holy sacrament, ma.s.sacred many, and carried away others, whom he sold to the infidel Picts or Scots. This probably happened at Easter or Whitsuntide. The next day the saint sent the barbarian a letter by a holy priest whom he had brought up from his infancy, entreating him to restore the Christian captives, and at least part of the booty he had taken, that the poor people might not perish for want; but was only answered by railleries, as if the Irish could not be the same Christians with the Britons: which arrogance and pride sunk those barbarous conquerors beneath the dignity of men, while by it they were puffed up above others in their own hearts.. The saint, therefore, to prevent the scandal which such a flagrant enormity gave to his new converts, wrote with his own hand a public circular letter. In it he styles himself a sinner and an ignorant man; for such is the sincere {602} humility of the saints, (most of all when they are obliged to exercise any acts of authority,) contrary to the pompous t.i.tles which the world affects. He declares, nevertheless, that he is established bishop of Ireland, and p.r.o.nounces Corotick and the other parricides and accomplices separated from him and from Jesus Christ, whose place he holds, forbidding any to eat with them, or to receive their alms, till they should have satisfied G.o.d by the tears of sincere penance, and restored the servants of Jesus Christ to their liberty. This letter expresses his most tender love for his flock and his grief for those who had been slain, yet mingled with joy, because they reign with the prophets, apostles, and martyrs. Jocelin a.s.sures us, that Corotick was overtaken by the divine vengeance. St. Patrick wrote his Confession as a testimony of his mission, when he was old.[3] It is solid, full of good sense and piety, expresses an extraordinary humility and a great desire of martyrdom, and is written with spirit. The author was perfectly versed in the holy scriptures. He confesses everywhere his own faults with a sincere humility, and extols the great mercies of G.o.d towards him in this world, who had exalted him, though the most undeserving of men: yet, to preserve him in humility, afforded him the advantage of meeting with extreme contempt from others, that is, from the heathens. He confesses, for his humiliation, that, among other temptations, he felt a great desire to see again his own country, and to visit the saints of his acquaintance in Gaul; but durst not abandon his people; and says, that the Holy Ghost had declared to him that to do it would be criminal.

He tells us, that a little before he wrote this, he himself and all his companions had been plundered and laid in irons for his having baptized the son of a certain king against the will of his father: but were released after fourteen days. He lived in the daily expectation of such accidents, and of martyrdom; but feared nothing, having his hope as a firm anchor fixed in heaven, and reposing himself with an entire confidence in the arms of the Almighty. He says, that he had lately baptized a very beautiful young lady of quality, who some days after came to tell him that she had been admonished by an angel to consecrate her virginity to Jesus Christ, that she might render herself the more acceptable to G.o.d. He gave G.o.d thanks, and she made her vows with extraordinary fervor six days before he wrote this letter.

St. Patrick held several councils to settle the discipline of the church which he had planted. The first, the acts of which are extant under his name in the editions of the councils, is certainly genuine. Its canons regulate several points of discipline, especially relating to penance.[4] St. Bernard and the tradition of the country testify, that St. Patrick fixed his metropolitan see at Armagh. He established some other bishops, as appears by his Council and other monuments. He not only converted the whole country by his preaching and wonderful miracles, but also cultivated this vineyard with so fruitful a benediction and increase from heaven, as to render Ireland a most flourishing garden in the church of G.o.d, and a country of saints. And those nations, which had for many ages esteemed all others barbarians, did not blush to receive from the utmost extremity of {603} the uncivilized or barbarous world, their most renowned teachers and guides in the greatest of all sciences, that of the saints.

Many particulars are related of the labors of St. Patrick, which we pa.s.s over. In the first year of his mission he attempted to preach Christ in the general a.s.sembly of the kings and states of all Ireland, held yearly at Taraghe, or Themoria, in East-Meath, the residence of the chief king, styled the monarch of the whole island, and the princ.i.p.al seat of the Druids or priests, and their paganish rites. The son of Neill, the chief monarch, declared himself against the preacher: however, he converted several, and, on his road to that place, the father of St. Benen, or Benignus, his immediate successor in the see of Armagh. He afterwards converted and baptized the kings of Dublin and Munster, and the seven sons of the king of Connaught, with the greatest part of their subjects, and before his death almost the whole island. He founded a monastery at Armagh; another called Domnach-Padraig, or Patrick's church; also a third, named Sabhal-Padraig, and filled the country with churches and schools of piety and learning; the reputation of which, for the three succeeding centuries, drew many foreigners into Ireland.[5] Nennius, abbot of Bangor, in 620, in his history of the Britons,[6] published by the learned Thomas Gale, says, that St. Patrick took that name only when he was ordained bishop, being before called Maun; that he continued his missions over all the provinces of Ireland, during forty years; that he restored sight to many blind, health to the sick, and raised nine dead persons to life.[7] He died and was buried at Down in Ulster. His body was found there in a church of his name in 1185, and translated to another part of the same church. His festival is marked on the 17th of March, in the Martyrology of Bede, &c.

The apostles of nations were all interior men, endowed with a sublime spirit of prayer. The salvation of souls being a supernatural end, the instruments ought to bear a proportion to it, and preaching proceed from a grace which is supernatural. To undertake this holy function, without a competent stock of sacred learning, and without the necessary precautions of human prudence and industry, would be to tempt G.o.d. But sanct.i.ty of life, and the union of the heart with G.o.d, are qualifications far more essential than science, eloquence, and human talents. Many almost kill themselves with studying to compose elegant sermons, which flatter the ear yet reap very little fruit. Their hearers applaud their parts, but very few are converted. Most preachers, now-a-days, have learning, but are not sufficiently grounded in true sanct.i.ty, and a spirit of devotion. Interior humility, purity of heart, recollection, and the spirit and the a.s.siduous practice of holy prayer, are the princ.i.p.al preparation for the ministry of the word, and the true means of acquiring the science of the saints. A short devout meditation and fervent prayer, which kindle a fire in the affections, furnish {604} more thoughts proper to move the hearts of the hearers, and inspire them with sentiments of truer virtue, than many years employed barely in reading and study. St. Patrick, and other apostolic men, were dead to themselves and the world, and animated with the spirit of perfect charity and humility, by which they were prepared by G.o.d to be such powerful instruments of his grace, as, by the miraculous change of so many hearts, to plant in entire barbarous nations not only the faith, but also the spirit of Christ. Preachers, who have not attained to a disengagement and purity of heart, suffer the petty interests of self-love secretly to mingle themselves in their zeal and charity, and have reason to suspect that they inflict deeper wounds in their own souls than they are aware, and produce not in others the good which they imagine.

Footnotes: 1. According to Usher and Tillemont, in 372. The former places his death in 493: but Tillemont, about the year 455. Nennius, published by Mr. Gale, says he died fifty-seven years before the birth of St.

Columba, consequently in 464.

2. St. Prosper, in his chronicle, a.s.sures us that pope Celestine ordained St. Palladius bishop of the Scots in 431, and by him converted their country to the faith; this apostle seems to have preached to this nation first in Ireland, and afterwards in Scotland. Though Palladius be styled by St. Prosper and Bede their first bishop, yet the light of the faith had diffused its rays from Britain into Ireland before that time, as several monuments produced by Usher demonstrate. But the general conversion of the inhabitants of this Island was reserved for St. Patrick.

The Scot are distinguished from the native Irish in the works of St.

Patrick, and in other ancient monuments. As to their original, the most probable conjecture seems to be, that they were a foreign warlike nation, who made a settlement in Ireland before the arrival of St. Patrick. We find them mentioned there in the fourth century.

Several colonies of them pa.s.sed not long after into Scotland. But the inhabitants of Ireland were promiscuously called Scots or Irish, for many ages.

3. The style is not polished; but the Latin edition is perhaps only a translation: or his captivities might have prevented his progress in polite learning being equal to that which he made in the more sublime and more necessary studies.

4. A second council, extant in the same collection, ought rather to be ascribed to a nephew of this saint. Other Irish canons, published in the ninth tome of D'Achery's Spicilege, and more by Martenne, (Anecd. tome 4, part 2,) though they bear the name of St. Patrick, are judged to have been framed by some of his successors. See Wilkins, Conc. Britan. & Hibern. t. 1, p. 3.

The treatise, of the Twelve Abuses, published among the works of St.

Austin and St. Cyprian, is attributed to St. Patrick, in a collection of ecclesiastical ordinances made in Ireland, in the eighth age, by Arbedoc, and in other ancient monuments. The style is elegant; but it may be a translation from an Irish original. Sir James Ware published the works of St. Patrick at London, in 1658, in octavo.

5. It seems demonstrated that the St. Patrick who flourished among the hermits of Glas...o...b..ry, and was there buried, was distinct from our saint, and somewhat older.

6. C. 55, 56, 57, 58, 61.

7. The popular tradition attributes the exemption of their country from venomous creatures to the benediction of St. Patrick, given by his staff, called the staff of Jesus, which was kept with great veneration in Dublin, as is mentioned in the year 1360, by Ralph Higden, in his Polychronicon, published by Mr. Gale and by others.

The isle of Malta is said to derive a like privilege from St. Paul, who was there bit by a viper.

St. Patrick's purgatory is a cave in an island in the lake Dearg, in the county of Donnegall, near the borders of Fermanagh. Bollandus shows the falsehood of many things related concerning it. Upon complaint of certain superst.i.tious and false notions of the vulgar, in 1497, it was stopped up by an order of the pope. See Bollandus, Tillemont, p. 787, Alemand in his Monastic History of Ireland, and Thiers, Hist. des Superst. t. 4. ed. Nov. It was soon after opened again by the inhabitants; but only according to the original inst.i.tution, as Bollandus takes notice, as a penitential retirement for those who voluntarily chose it, probably in imitation of St.

Patrick, or other saints, who had there dedicated themselves to a penitential state. The penitents usually spend there several days, living on bread and water, lying on rushes or furze, and praying much, with daily stations which they perform barefoot.

MANY MARTYRS AT ALEXANDRIA, IN 892.

THEOPHILIIS, patriarch of Alexandria, obtained a rescript of the emperor Theodosius, to convert an old deserted temple of Bacchus into a Christian church. In clearing this place, in the subterraneous secret caverns, called by the Greeks Adyta, and held by the pagans as sacred, were found infamous and ridiculous figures, which Theophilus caused to be exposed in public, to show the extravagant superst.i.tions of the idolaters. The heathens in tumults raised a sedition, killed many Christians in the streets, and then retired into the great temple of Serapis as their fortress. In sallies they seized many Christians, and upon their refusing to sacrifice to Serapis, put them to death by cruel torments, crucifying them, breaking their legs, and throwing them into the sinks and jakes of the temple with the blood of their victims. The princ.i.p.al ancient divinities of Egypt were Apis, called also Osiris, once a great king and benefactor of that country, who was worshipped under the figure of a bull, and the wife of Apis, named Isis, who is said to have taught or improved agriculture.[1]

The temple of Serapis, in Alexandria, was most stately and rich, built on an eminence raised by art, in a beautiful s.p.a.cious square, with an ascent of one hundred steps, surrounded with lofty edifices for the priests and officers. The temple was built of marble, supported with precious pillars, and the walls on the inside were covered with plates of bra.s.s, silver, and gold. The idol was of so enormous a size, that its arms being extended, they reached to the opposite walls of the temple: its figure was that of a venerable old man, with a beard and long hair; but with it was joined a monstrous figure of an animal, with three heads: the biggest, in the middle, was that of a lion; that of a dog fawning came out on the right side, and that of ravenous wolf on the left: a serpent was represented twining round these three animals, and laying its head on the right hand of Serapis: on the idol's head was placed a bushel, an emblem of the fertility of the earth. The statue was made of precious stones, wood, and all sorts of metal together; its color was at first blue, but the steams or moisture of the place had turned it black. A hole in the temple was contrived, to admit the sun's rays upon its mouth at the hour when the idol of the sun was brought in to visit it. Many other artifices were employed to deceive the people into an opinion of its miracles. No idol was so much respected in Egypt; and on its account Alexandria was looked upon as a holy city.

The emperor, being informed of the sedition, called those happy who {605} had received by it the crown of martyrdom: and not to dishonor their triumph, he pardoned their murderers, but sent an order to demolish the temples in Egypt. When this letter was read at Alexandria, the pagans raised hideous cries; many left the city, and all withdrew from the temple of Serapis. The idol was cast down by pieces, and thrown into a fire. The heathens were persuaded, that if any one should touch it the heavens would fall, and the world return into the state of its primitive chaos. Seeing no such judgment threaten, they began themselves to deride a senseless trunk reduced to ashes. The standard of the Nile's increase was kept in this temple, but it was on this occasion removed into the cathedral. The idolaters expected the river would swell no more: but finding the succeeding years very fertile, they condemned the vanity of their superst.i.tions, and embraced the faith. Two churches were built on the place where this temple stood, and its metal was converted to the use of churches. The busts of Serapis on the walls, doors, and windows of the houses, were broken and taken away. The temples all over Egypt were demolished, during the two following years. In pulling down those of Alexandria, the cruel mysteries of Mithra were discovered, and in the secret Adyta were found the heads of many infants cut off, cruelly mangled, and superst.i.tiously painted. The artifices of the priests of the idols were likewise detected: there were hollow idols of wood and bra.s.s, placed against a wall, with subterraneous pa.s.sages, through which the priests entered the hollow trunks of the idols, and gave answers as oracles, as is related by Theodoret,[2] and Rufinus.[3]

Where the idols were cast down, figures of the cross were set up in their places. These martyrs suffered in the year 392. See Theodoret, Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, Fleury, b. 19. Tillemont in the history of Theodosius, art. 52-55.

Footnotes: 1. Those mistake the truth, who confound Serapis with Osiris, or who imagine him to have been the patriarch Joseph. Serapis was a modern divinity, raised by the Ptolemies. See Celmet, Banier on Mythology, &c.

2. B. 5, c. 22.

3. Ib. 2, c. 25.

ST. JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.

HE was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrim, but a faithful disciple of Jesus. It was no small proof of his great piety, that, though he had riches and honors to lose, he feared not the malice of men, but at a time when the apostles trembled, boldly declared himself a follower of Jesus who was crucified; and with the greatest devotion embalmed and buried his sacred body. This saint was the patron of Glastenbury, where a church and hermitage, very famous in the times of the ancient Britons,[1] were built by the first apostles of this island: among whom some moderns have placed St. Joseph himself, and Aristobulus.

Footnotes: 1. See Matthew of Westminster, and John of Glastenbury in their histories of that famous abbey published by Hearne; also Tanner's Not.i.tia Monastica.

ST. GERTRUDE, VIRGIN,

ABBESS OF NIVELLE.

SHE was daughter of Pepin of Landen, mayor of the palace to the French kings of Austrasia, and younger sister to St. Begga. She was born in 626. Her father's virtuous palace was the sanctuary of her innocence, and the school of her tender piety. Being pressed to marry, she declared in presence of king Dagobert: "I have chosen for my spouse him from {606} whose eternal beauty all creatures derive their glory, whose riches are immense, and whom the angels adore." The king admired her gravity and wisdom in so tender an age, and would not suffer her to be any more disturbed on that account. Her mother, the blessed Itta, employed St. Amand to direct the building of a great nunnery at Nivelle, in Brabant, for Gertrude. It is now a double chapter of canons and canonesses. The virgin was appointed abbess when only twenty years of age. Her mother, the blessed Itta, lived five years under her conduct, and died in the twelfth year of her widowhood, in 652. She is honored in the Belgic Martyrologies on the 8th of May. Gertrude governed her monastery with a prudence, zeal, and virtue, that astonished the most advanced in years and experience. She loved extreme holy poverty in her person and house; but enriched the poor. By a.s.siduous prayer and holy meditation she obtained wonderful lights from heaven. At thirty years of age, she resigned her abbey to her niece Wilfe{t}rude, and spent the three years which she survived, in preparing her soul for her pa.s.sage to eternity, which happened on the 17th of March, in 659. Her festival is a holyday at Louvain, and throughout the duchy of Brabant. It is mentioned in the true Martyrology of Bede, &c. See her life, written by one who was present at her funeral, and an eye-witness to the miracles, of which there is an account in Mabillon, and the Acts of the Saints. See also Rivet, Hist. Litter. t. 4, p. 39. An anonymous author much enlarged this life in the tenth century, but the additions are of small authority.

This work was printed by Ryckel, abbot of St. Gertrude's, at Louvain, in 1632. See Hist. Litter. t. 6, p. 292. Also La Vie de S. Gertrude, abbesse de Nivelle, par Gul. Descoeuvres, in 12mo. at Paris, Ann. 1612.

Consult likewise Dom Bouquet, Recueil des Hist. de France, t. 2, p. 603, &c.

MARCH XVIII.

SAINT ALEXANDER, B.M.

BISHOP OF JERUSALEM.

From St. Jerom, Catal. c. G. Euseb. Hist. b. 6, c. 8, 10, 14, 20. See Tillemont, t. 3, p. 415, and Le Quien Oriens Christ. t. 3, p. 150.

A.D. 251.

ST. ALEXANDER studied with Origen in the great Christian school of Alexandria, under St. Pantenus and his successor, St. Clement. He was chosen bishop of a certain city in Cappadocia. In the persecution of Severus, in 204, he made a glorious confession of his faith, and though he did not then seal it with his blood, he suffered several years'

imprisonment, till the beginning of the reign of Caracalla, in 211, when he wrote to congratulate the church of Antioch upon the election of St.

Asclepias, a glorious confessor of Christ, to that patriarchate; the news of which, he says, had softened and made light the irons with which he was loaded. He sent that letter by the priest St. Clement of Alexandria, a man of great virtue, whom G.o.d had sent into Cappadocia to instruct and govern his people during his confinement.

{607}

St. Alexander being enlarged soon after, in 212, was commanded by a revelation from G.o.d to go to Jerusalem to visit the holy places.[1] The night before his arrival, St. Narcissus, bishop of Jerusalem, and some other saints of that church, had a revelation, in which they heard a distinct voice commanding them to go out of the city and take for bishop him whom G.o.d sent them. St. Narcissus was then very old and decrepit: he and his flock seized Alexander, and by the consent of all the bishops of Palestine, a.s.sembled in a council, made him his coadjutor and joint bishop of Jerusalem. SS. Narcissus and Alexander still governed this church together, when the latter wrote thus to the Antinoits: "I salute you in the name of Narcissus, who held here the place of bishop before me, and, being above one hundred and sixteen years old, is now united with me by prayer. He conjures you with me to live in inviolable peace and union." St. Alexander collected at Jerusalem a great library, consisting of the writings and letters of eminent men, which subsisted when Eusebius wrote. He excelled all other holy prelates and apostolic men in mildness and in the sweetness of his discourses, as Origen testifies. St. Alexander was seized by the persecutors under Decius, confessed Christ a second time, and died in chains at Caesarea, about the end of the year 251, as Eusebius testifies. He is styled a martyr by St.

Epiphanius, St. Jerom, and the Martyrologies, and honored in the Roman Martyrology on the 18th of March; by the Greeks on the 16th of May and the 22d of December.

A pastor must first acquire a solid degree of interior virtue, before he can safely undertake to labor in procuring the salvation of others, or employ himself in exterior functions of the ministry. He must have mortified the deeds of the flesh by compunction, and the habitual practice of self-denial; and the fruits of the spirit must daily more and more perfectly subdue his pa.s.sions. These fruits of the spirit are charity and humility, which stifle all the motions of anger, envy, and pride: holy joy, which banishes carnal sadness, sloth, and all disrelish in spiritual exercises; peace, which crushes the seeds of discord, and the love and relish of heavenly things, which extinguish the love of earthly goods and sensual pleasures. One whose soul is slothful, sensual, and earthly, deserves not to bear the name of a Christian, much less of a minister of the gospel. There never was a saint who did not carry his cross, and walk in the steps of Christ crucified. St.

Alexander would have thought a day lost in which he did not add something to the sacrifice of his penance in order to continue and complete it. By this he prepared himself to die a victim of fidelity and charity. This is the continued martyrdom by which every true Christian earnestly labors to render himself every day more and more pleasing to G.o.d, making his body a pure holocaust to him by mortification, and his soul, by the fervor of his charity and compunction.

Footnotes: 1. Eus. b. 6, c. 14. S. Hieron. in Catal.

SAINT CYRIL, CONFESSOR,

ARCHBISHOP OF JERUSALEM.

From the church historians, and his works collected by Dom Touttee in his excellent edition of them at Paris, in 1720.

A.D. 386.