the marquis of Austria, he married Theophania, a Grecian princess, and so far forgot his duty to his good mother as to banish her from court. Her tears for his irregularities were not shed in vain. Misfortunes opened : ple were hardened against the truth and several of the missionaries being massacred by them, the rest with the bishop with great difficulty escaped out of their hands, and despairing of success returned to their monasteries. This mission happened in the year 961. Adelbert was made abbot of Wurtzburg in 966, and in 970 first archbishop of Magdeburg, which see was raised to the dignity of Metropolitan of the Slavi, by pope John XIII. at the request of Otho I. who seeing many provinces of the Slavi converted to the faith, procured the establishment of this church with five suffragans under it, namely of Merseburg, Cicen, Misna, Posna or Brandenburg, and Havelberg, all situated in the territory of the Slavi. That great prince, the conqueror of Bohemia and of all the Northern nations of Germany, built, or rather exceedingly enlarged and ennobled, the city of Magdeburg, at the desire of his first queen Editha, daughter to king Edmund of England. She was buried in this city, as was afterwards the emperor himself, who died there in the year 973. His second wife St Alice, who survived him, passed here the greatest part of her time during her widowhood, under the direction of the good archbishop. By his prudent care were many churches erected in all those parts, and supplied with able pastors for the instruction and spiritual assistance of the converted nations. He settled in most excellent order the chapter of his metropolitical church, which the aforesaid emperor had munificently founded; and he converted to the faith great numbers of the Slavi whom he found still bewildered in the shades of infidelity. He enriched the church of Magdeburg, with the relicks of St Maurice, and many other martyrs, was endued with the spirit of prophecy, and discharged all the duties of an apostle during the twelve years which he governed his church. He was taken ill whilst he was performing the visitation of the diocese of Merseburg, and having said mass as Messeburch, he found himself so weak that he laid himself down on a carpet, received there the last rites of the church, and, amidst the prayers of the clergy happily departed to our Lord, on the 20th day of June, 982. He is usually styled saint by agiographers, who give his life on the 20th of June: but his name is not found in any known calendars of the church. Papebroke and Baillet think he was honoured among the saints at Magdeburg before the change of religion, by which all former monuments of saints there were abolished; insomuch that none had been preserved of the veneration of St Norbert, had it not been for the care which was taken by his Order.. Nevertheless, Joseph Assemani thinks positive proofs ought to be produced, before his name be placed in the calendars. On his life see Lambert of Shafnaburg, 1. De rebus gestis Germanorum, an. 950. Ditmarus, Helmoldus, two chronicles of Magdeburg quoted by Mabillon, Sec. 5. Ben. his eyes; he recalled her, and with the most dutiful deference reformed the abuses of the government by her councils. The young emperor having been defeated by the Greeks in Calabria, died of a dysentery at Rome in 983 after he had reigned nine years. His imperious widow Theophania, who became regent for her son Otho III., made it a point of honour to insult her pious mother-in-law; but Alice made no other return for all the ill treatment she received at her hands but that of meekness and patience. The young empress being snatched away by a sudden death, she was obliged to take upon her the regency. On this occasion it appeared how perfectly she was dead to herself. Power she looked upon merely as a burden and most difficult stewardship: but she applied herself to public affairs with indefatigable care. She shewed herself so much a stranger to all resentment as to load with benefactions those courtiers who had formerly given her most to suffer. Her attention to the public concerns never made her neglect the exercises of mortification and devotion. At set hours she retired to her oratory, there to seek by humble prayer the direction and light of heaven in her counsels, and to weep before God for those sins of the people which it was not in her power to remedy. In correcting others she felt in her own breast the confusion and trouble which her correction must give them; hence she forgot nothing which could soften it. Thus by gaining their Ben. p. 575. and Jos. Assemani, in Calend. De Origin. Sclavorum, N B. Baronius ad an. 959. Pagi, ib. Mabillon, sæc. 5. Ben. p. 573. and the Bollandists by mistake confound the Rugi with the Russi, and falsely imagine that St Adelbert preached to the Russians and Muscovites on whom see St Bruno or Boniface, June XIX. and SS. Romanns and David, July XXIV. The Rugi continued in their apostacy till in 1168, Waldemar, king of Denmark, with the assistance of the princes of Pomerania, and especially the Obotrite, subdued this whole nation, destroyed their famous temple, and caused their great idol Swantewith to be hewn to pieces and burnt. Absolon bishop of Roschilde, and Berno bishop of Meckelburg, who accompanied him, erected twelve church. es in the country of these Slavi, which remained a long time tribu tary to Denmark. See Helmold, 1. 2. c. 12. and Jos. Assemani, in Calend. Univ. T. 1. p. 258. confidence and affection, she easily conducted them to virtue. Her own household appeared as regular as the most edifying monastery. She filled all the provinces which had the happiness to share in her protection, but especially the city of Magdeburg, with religious houses, and other monuments of charity and piety, and she zealously promoted the conversion of the Rugi and other infidels. In the last year of her life she took a journey into the kingdom of Burgundy, to reconcile the subjects of that realm to king Ralph her nephew, and died on the road, at Salces, in Alsace, in the year 999. Her name is honoured in the calendars of several churches in Germany, though not in the Roman. A portion of her relicks is kept in a costly shrine in the Treasury of Relicks at Hanover, and is mentioned in the Lipsanogra phia of the electoral palace of Brunswick-Lunenburg, printed in 1713. See the life of St Alice written by St Odilo, with histories of her miracles, published by Leibnitz, Collectio Scriptorum Brunswicensium, T. 2. p. 262. The Irish commemorate on this day St BEANUS, a Bishop in Leinster. Colgan, MSS. DECEMBER XVII. From St Chrysostom's seventeen letters to her, Palladius in his life. Another Palladius in Lausiac. c. 43. Sozom. 1. 8. c. 2. Leo Imp. in Encomio S. Joan. Chrysostomi. See l'illemont, T. II. p. 416. ABOUT THE YEAR 410. ST OLYMPIAS, the glory of the widows in the Eastern church, was a lady of illustrious descent and a plentiful fortune. She was born about the year 368, and left an orphan under the care of Procopius, who seems to have been her uncle: but it was her greatest happi ness that she was brought up under the care of Theodosia, sister to St Amphilochius, a most virtuous and prudent woman, whom St Gregory Nazianzen called a VOL. XII. S f perfect pattern of piety, in whose life the tender virgin saw as in a glass the practice of all virtues, and it was her study faithfully to transcribe them into the copy of her own life. From this example which was placed before her eyes, she raised herself more easily to contemplate and to endeavour to imitate Christ, who in all virtues is the divine original which every Christian is bound to act after. Olympias, besides her birth and fortune, was, moreover, possessed of all the qualifications of mind and body which engage affection and respect. She was very young when she married Nebridius, treasurer of the emperor Theodosius the Great, and for some time prefect of Canstantinople; but he died within twenty days after his marriage. Our saint was addressed by several of the most considerable men of the court, and Theodosius was very pressing with her to accept for her husband Elpidius, a Spaniard, and his near relation. She modestly declared her resolution of remaining single the rest of her days; the emperor continued to urge the affair, and, after several decisive answers of the holy widow, put her whole fortune in the hands of the prefect of Constantinople, with orders to act as her guardian till she was thirty years old. At the instigation of the disappointed lover, the prefect hindered her from seeing the bishops, or going to church, hoping thus to tire her into a compliance. She told the emperor that she was obliged to own his goodness in easing her of the heavy burden of managing and disposing of her own money; and that the favour would be complete, if he would order her whole fortune to be divided between the poor and the church. Theodosius, struck with her heroic virtue, made a farther inquiry into her manner of living, and conceiving an exalted idea of her piety, restored to her the administration of her estate, in 391. The use which she made of it, was to consecrate the revenues to the purposes which religion and virtue prescribe. By her state of widowhood, according to the admonition of the apostle, she looked upon herself as exempted even from what the support of her rank seemed to require in the world, and she rejoiced that the slavery of vanity and luxury was by her condition con demned even in the eyes of the world itself. With great fervour she embraced a life of penance and prayer. Her tender body she macerated with austere fasts, and never eat flesh or any thing that had life: by habit long watchings, became as natural to her as much sleep is to others; and she seldom allowed herself the use of a bath, which is thought a necessary refreshment in hot countries, and was particularly so before the ordinary use of linen. By meekness and humility she seemed perfectly crucified to her own will, and to all sentiments of vanity, which had no place in her heart, nor share in any of her actions. The modesty, simplicity, and sincerity, from which she never departed in her conduct, were a clear demonstration what was the sole object of her affections and desires. Her dress was mean, her furniture poor, her prayers assiduous and fervent, and her charities without bounds. These St Chrysostom compares to a river which is open to all, and diffuses its waters to the bounds of the earth, and into the ocean itself. The most distant towns, isles and deserts, received plentiful supplies by her liberality, and she settled whole estates upon remote destitute churches. Her riches indeed were almost immense, and her mortified life afforded her an opportunity of consecrating them all to God. Yer St Chrysostom found it necessary to exhort her sometimes to moderate her alms, or rather to be more cautious and reserved in bestowing them, that she might be enabled to succour those whose distresses deserved a preference. The devil assailed her by many trials, which God permitted for the exercise and perfecting of her virtue. The contradictions of the world served only to increase her meekness, humility and patience, and with her merits to multiply her crowns. Frequent severe sicknesses, most outrageous slanders and unjust persecutions, succeeded one another. St Chrysostom, in one of his letters, writes to her as follows (1): "As you are well acquainted with the advantages and merit of sufferings, you have reason to rejoice, inasmuch as by having lived constantly in tribulation, you have walked in the road of (1) St Chrys. ep. 3 |