John died in peace at Ephesus, in the third year of Trajan (as seems to be gathered from Eusebius's chronicle) that is, in the hundredth of the Christian æra, or the sixtysixth from our Lord's crucifixion, the saint being then about ninety-four years old, according to St Epiphanius (41). Some amongst the ancients pretend that St John never died, but are very well confuted by St Jerom and St Austin. The same opinion has been revived by James Le Fevre d'Etaples (42) and Florentinius, (43), whom Tillemont has accurately refuted (44). St John was buried on a mountain without the town. The dust of his tomb was carried away out of devotion, and was famous for miracles, as St Austin (45), St Ephrem (46), and St Gregory of Tours, (47) mention. A stately church stood formerly over this tomb, which is at present a Turkish mosque, though Mr Wheeler tells us that there are not at present above fifty Turkish families, and no Christian, in that town, once so famous. The 26th of September is consecrated to the memory of St John in the Greek church; and in the Latin the 27th of December.

The great love which this glorious saint bore to his God and Redeemer, and which he kindled from his master's divine breast, inspired him with the most vehement and generous charity for his neighbour. Without the sovereign love of God no one can please him. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is charity (48). Let us therefore love God, because God first loved us (49). This is the first maxim in a spiritual life, which this apostle most tenderly inculcates. The second is, that our fidelity in shunning all sin and in keeping all God's commandments, is the proof of our love for God (50), but especially a sincere love for our neighbour is its great

a

(41) St Epiph. hær. 51 c. I. (42) Faber. Stapul. Diss. de unâ ex tribus Mariâ, fol. 82. (43) Florentinius, Not. in Martyr. vetus Hieronimi. (44) Tillem. Vie de St Jean Evang. T. 1. art. 10, 11. Note 15, 16, 17, 18. See Calmet, Diss. sur la Mont. de St Jean. l'Evang. T. 7. p. 65. ed. in fol. 145) St Aug. hom. 124. in Joan. (46) St Ephr. Ant. ap. Phot. Cod. 229. (47) St Greg, Tur. 1. 1. de glor. mart. c. 30. (48) John iv. 8. (49) John iv. 19. (59) Ib. c. iii. c. iv. &c.

test. For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can be love God whom he seeth not? says St John (51). Our blessed Redeemer, in the excess of his boundless charity for all men, presses this duty upon all men, and, as an infinitely tender parent, conjures all his children to love one another even for his sake. He who most affectionately loves them all, will have them all to be one in him, and therefore commands us to bear with one another's infirmities, and to forgive one another all debts or injuries, and, as much as in us lies, to live peaceably with all men (52). This is the very genius and spirit of his law, without which we can have nothing of a Christian disposition, or deserve the name of his children or disciples. Neither can we hope, with a peevish, passionate, or unforgiving temper, ever to be heirs of heaven. Harmony, goodness, unanimity, mutual complacency, and love, will be the invariable temper of all its blessed inhabitants. No ruffling passion, no unfriendly thought, will ever be found amongst them. Those happy regions are the abode of everlasting peace and love. We must learn and cultivate this temper of heaven here on earth, or can never hope to get thither. We are all professedly travelling together toward that blessed place, where if we are so happy as to meet, we shall thus cordially embrace each other. Does not this thought alone suffice to make us forget little uneasinesses, and to prevent our falling out by the way? St John teaches us, that to attain to this heavenly and christian disposition, to this twofold charity toward God and toward our neighbour, for his sake we must subdue our passions, and die to the inordinate love of the world and ourselves. His hatred and contempt of the world was equal to his love of God, and he cries out to us (51). My little children, love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any one loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. An excessive love of the world (whether of its pleasure, interest, or vanity and preferment) is a general temptation of mankind, and if predominant or unconquered, strongly tends to extinguish in the heart all love and relish of spiritual things. (51) John iv. 20 (52) Heb. xii. 14. Rom. xii. 18.

When men are in a full and precipitant career after the things of this world, they first forget God, and then forsake him. A man can never lift up that heart to God which is already chained to the earth. This vice, when in power, is of all others the most bewitching, and inconceivably withdraws a soul from God. Those who live in the world, must, by their assiduity in the private devotional exercises of reading, meditation, and prayer, keep up an acquaintance with God and their own souls; they must frequently, amidst their business, recall their serious thoughts, recover and strengthen the picus frames of their minds; or their charity will soon suffer shipwreck.

ON THE SAME DAY.

St THEODORUS GRAPT, C. This saint was of the country of the Moabites; but his parents, who were rich and virtuous, went and settled at Jerusalem, in order to procure him the advantage of an holy education. He was placed by them, when he was very young, in the monastery of Sabas, and by his progress in learning, the extraordinary purity of his manners, and the habitual mortification of his senses, attained in a short time to an eminent degree of virtue, and acquired a high reputation in the world. The patriarch of Jerusalem obliged him to receive priestly orders, and when Leo the Armenian waged a cruel war against holy images, sent the saint to that emperor to exhort him not to disturb the peace of the church. The tyrant, instead of relenting, caused St Theodorus to be scourged, and banished him with his brother Theophanes, a monk of the same monastery, and his companion, into an island in the mouth of the Euxine sea, where they suffered much by hunger and cold. Butthey had not stayed long there before the emperor died in 822, when they returned to Constantinople, and St Theodorus published some writings in defence of the truth. Michael the Stutterer, who succeeded in the imperial throne, and is thought either to have had no religion, or to have leaned most to that of the Manichees or Paulicians, was for steering a middle course between the Catholics and the Icono

clasts. He cast St Theodorus into prison, and afterward sent him into exile. His son and successor, Theophilus, a violent Iconoclast, and barbarous persecutor, who ascended the throne in 829, caused the two brothers to be whipped, then banished them into the island of Aphusia. Two years after, they were brought back to Constantinople, buffeted in presence of the emperor till they fell down quite stunned at his feet, then stripped, and publicly scourged. When they had lain some days in prison, and still persisted in their refusal to communicate with the Iconoclasts, the emperor commanded twelve Iambic verses, composed for that purpose by an Iconoclast courtier, to be inscribed on their foreheads. The sense of the verses was as follows: "These men have appeared at Jerusalem as vessels of iniquity, full of superstitious error, and were driven thence for their crimes; and having fled to Constantinople, they forsook not their impiety. Wherefore they have been again banished from thence, and are stigmatized on their faces." Though the wounds which they had received by their stripes, were yet much inflamed, and very painful, they were laid upon benches, whilst the letters which composed those verses, were cut or pricked upon their faces. The operation was long and tedious, and interrupted by the coming on of the night; and the confessors were sent back to prison, their faces being still bloody. They were soon after banished to Apamea in Syria, where St Theodorus died of his sufferings. From the inscription cut in his forehead he is surnamed Grapt, which signifies in Greek, Marked or Engraved. Theophilus died about the same time, and the empress Theodora, a zealous catholic, becoming regent for her son Michael, St Methodius was made patriarch, and restored holy images in 842. Theophanes was then honoured for his glorious confession of the faith, and constituted bishop of Nice, that he might more effectually concur in overthrowing an heresy, over which he had already triumph

ed St Theodorus Grapt is named in the Roman martyrology with his brother Theophanes on this day. The Greeks honour the former on the 27th of December, and St Theophanes, whom, on account of sacred hymns

which he composed, they stile the poet, on the 11th of October. See the authentic life of St Theodorus Grapt in Metaphrastes, Baronius, and Fleury, 1. 47, &c. The twelve Iambic verses, which were wrote on their foreheads, with a red hot steel pencil, are recited in the Greek Synaxary on this day.

DECEMBER XXVIII.

THE HOLY INNOCENTS.

Mat. ii. 16.

OUR Divine Redeemer was persecuted by the world

as soon as he made his appearance in it. For he was no sooner born than it declared war against him. We cannot expect to be better treated than our great Master was before us. He himself bids us remember, that if it hated him first, it will likewise hate us, though we have more reason to fear its flatteries and smiles than its rage. The first make a much more dangerous and more violent assault upon our hearts. Herod, in persecuting Christ, was an emblem of Satan and of the world. That ambitious and jealous prince had already sacrificed to his fears and suspicions the most illustrious part of his council, his virtuous wife Mariamne, with her mother Alexandra, the two sons he had by her, and the heirs to his crown, and all his best friends. Hearing from the Magians, who were come from distant countries to find and adore Christ, that the Messias, or spiritual king of the Jews, foretold by the prophets, was born among them, he trembled lest he was come to take his temporal king. dom from him. So far are the thoughts of carnal and worldly men from the ways of God; and so strangely do violent passions blind and alarm them. The tyrant was disturbed beyond measure, and resolved to take away the life of this child, as if he could have defeated the decrees of heaven. He had recourse to his usual arts of policy and dissimulation, and hoped to receive intelligence of this child by feigning a desire himself to adore him, But God laughed at the folly of his short-sighted