terrupt or disturb the attention of his auditory during that sacred function, that he set his foot upon them till he had finished his discourse. Then taking away his foot, he suffered them to be killed, having received no harm. One of his monks happening to die on Holy Saturday, in 367, St Theodorus left the divine office to assist him in his last moments, and said to those that were present: This death will shortly be followed by another, which is little expected. The brethren watched that night by the corpse, and interred it on Easterday in the morning with singing of psalms. At the close of the octave of that solemnity St Theodorus made a moving discourse to all his monks; for it was their custom to meet all together in the monastery of Paban for the celebration of Easter. Our saint had no sooner dismissed them to their own monasteries, in the year above mentioned, but he was taken ill, and, after a fervent preparation for his last passage, having recommended the care of the community to St Orsisius, (a) he happily expired on the 27th of April, in the year 367, the fifty-third of his age. His body was carried to the top of the mountain, and buried in the cemetery of the monks with singing of psalms: but it was soon after removed, and laid with that of St Pachomius. St Athanasius wrote to the monks of Tabenna to com

(a) St ORSISIUS is honoured by the Greeks on the 15th of June. After the death of St Theodorus St Orsisius resumed the government of the monastic congregation of Tabenna, and acquitted himself of every duty belonging to that charge with great prudence and charity. St Athanasius and St Antony on every occasion testified the highest esteem of his person. This holy abbot always closed the exhortation which he made to his monks every evening, after their day's work and their repast, with prayer, because God alone can give the practice and spirit of virtue. The time of St Orsisius's death is not known: but we have extant a spiritual work, entitled, The Doctrine of Orsisius, which St Jerom translated into Latin. This holy abbot composed it by way of spiritual testament to his monks. It is an abridgement of the principal rules and maxims of a monastic life. The exhortations are vehement, and the instructions solid and beautiful. The author declares he had made it his constant endeavour to neglect nothing in his power to engage them to render themselves agreeable to the Lord; and in order to render his exhortations efficacious, had accompanied them with his tears. this work in Bibl. Patrum, ed. Colon. T. 4. p. 92.

See

fort them for the loss of their holy abbot, and bids them have before their eyes the glory of which he was then possessed. The Greeks commemorate this saint on the 16th of May: the Roman martyrology on the 28th of December. See the life of St Pachomius in the Bollandists on the 14th of May, p. 295. especially the Appendix, p. 334. and 337. Also Tillemont, T. 7.

Ceillier, T. 5. P. 373.

DECEMBER XXIX.

ST THOMAS ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, M.

See his life by John of Salisbury, his chaplain, who attended him during most part of his exile, and was present at his death: he died bishop of Chartres, and his learning and integrity are much extolled by Cave, Hist. Liter, T. 2. p. 243. This work was published entire, with the epistles of John of Salisbury, at Paris, in 1611; but is mangled and curtailed in the Quadrilogus, or Life of St Thomas, compiled by command of pope Gregory II. out of four original lives of this saint brought into one, viz. by Herbert the martyr's clerk, William of Canterbury, Alan abbot of Deoche, and John of Salisbury. This Quadrilogus, or Quadripartite, was printed at Brussels by the care of Lupus, with a large collection of St Thomas's epistles, An. 1682. Many of his letters had been published by Baronius: but a great number remains unpublished amongst the MSS. in the Cottonian library, several libraries at Oxford, Bennet College at Cambridge, and other places. M. Sparke, among Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Varii nunc primum editi, printed at London in 1723, has given us the life of St Thomas, compiled by William Fitz Stephens, (in Latin Stephanides), a clergymen, who belonged first to his court of Chancery, afterward to his family, lived with him several years, and saw him wounded by the assasins, and expire. This saint's life by Edmund Grime, and another life which begins, Post summi favoris; also P. Thoma Rubrica seu Consuetudines, are kept in MSS. in the Norforcian or Arundelian library, given to the Royal Society by H. duke of Norfolk in 1679. * Another account call

ed

*Edward Grime is often written Edmund; for these names were anciently the same, and used promiscuously, as appears in our MSS. of the middle ages. Yet the etymology differs in the English-Saxon language. Eadward signifies Happy keeper, from Ward a Keeper. Eadmund is Happy peace: for Mund is Peace. In Law the word Mundbrech is breach of peace; In proper names Aelmund is All. peace: Kinmund, peace to his kindred: Ethelmund, noble peace:

Phare

ed Passio S. Thomæ, is given by Martenne, Thesaur. Anecdot. T. 3. p. 1137. Several epistles, and other writings relating to his history, are published by Wilkins, Conc. Birit. T. 1. p. 437. The life of St Thomas was wrote by Dr Stapleton, and is extant in his Tres Thome. An English life of this martyr, extracted chiefly from Baronius, dedicated to Dr Richard Smith, bishop of Calcedon, was printed in 1639. An history of his canonization is given us by Muratori, Scriptor. Ital. T. 2. in Vita Alexandri III. See also the histories and chronicles of Hoveden, Mathew Paris, Gervase, Brompton, &c. His life is well compiled in French by M. Du Fossè, who had a share in the Lives of Saints compiled by the messieurs of Port Royal. On the virtues of this saint, see the most honourable and edifying account of his saintly deportment given by Peter of Blois, the pious and learned archdeacon of Bath, in a letter which he wrote upon his martyrdom, ep, 27. See Hearne, Not. in Gul. Neubr. T. 3. 638. Item on Peter Langtoft's chronicle, T. 2. p. 529. also Benedictus abbas Petrob. de Gestis Henr. II. & Rich. I. by Hearn, T. 1. p. 10, 11, 12,

20.

A. D. 1175.

ST THOMAS BECKET was born in London in 1117,

on the 21th of December. His father Gilbert Becket was a gentleman of middling fortune, who in his youth made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem with divers others, and falling into the hands of the Saracens, remained a year and a half a prisoner, or rather a slave, to one of their emirs, or admirals. An only daughter of this emir hearing him one day explain the christian faith, and declare, upon the question being put to him, that he should with the greatest joy lay down his life for the love of

Pharamund, true peace; though some have construed this trus mouth. Edmund, as he is more frequently called, though Edward in the ancient MSS. of Clair marias, long attended St Thomas, and was his cross-bearer at the saint's martyrdom by endeavouring to inter. pose his own body, he received a wound in his arm. After the archbishop's death he continued to live at Canterbury, and some years after wrote his life or passion, which bears the title: Magistri Elvardi Vita vel Passio S. Thomae Cant. Archiep. The short Prologue begins Professores Artium. The life: Dilectus igitur, &c. It ends with a letter of two cardinals to the archbishop of Sens; these being the last words: Relaxavit episcopos de promissione quam ei fecerant, de consuetudinibus observandis, promisit quod non exiget in futurum. There follow in the MSS. of the Cistercian abbey of Clair-marias near St Omer, four long books of the miracles wrought at his shrine or through his invocation, as inveterate dead palsies cured instantaneously, &c.

God, if he was made worthy of such an happiness, was so touched, as to conceive on the spot a desire of becoming a Christian. This she made known to Mr Becket, who contented himself with telling her, that she would be very happy if God gave her that grace, though it were attended with the loss of every thing this world could afford. He and his fellow-slaves soon after made their escape in the night time, and returned safe to London. The young Syrian lady privately left her father's house, and followed him thither, and being instructed in the faith, and baptized by the name of Maud, or Mathildes, she was married to him in St Paul's church by the bishop of London. Soon after Gilbert went back into the East, to join the crusade or holy war, and remained in those parts three years and an half. Maud was brought to bed of our saint a little time after his departure, about a twelve-month after their marriage, and being herself very pious, she taught her son from his infancy to fear God, and inspired him with a tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin. His father, after his return to England, was, in his turn, sheriff (a) of London: Fitz-Stephens assures us, that he never put money out at interest, and never embarked in any commerce, but, being contented with his patrimony, lived on the annual income. His death, in 1138, left our saint exposed to the dangers of the world at an age when the greatest mistakes in life are frequently committed. But he had been edcuated in habits of temperance, obedience, and self-denial, and was so thoroughly grounded in the maxims of the gospel as to stand firmly upon his guard, and to do nothing but by good advice. His father had placed him in his childhood in a monastery of canon-regulars, and after his death Thomas continued his studies in London, where Fitz-Stephens informs us there were then three very great schools belonging to the three principal churches, in which public declamations were made, and frequent literary disputations held, with great emulation between both masters and scholars. Here Thomas pursued his studies till the age of twenty-one years, when having (4) Vicecomes.

lost his mother he discontinued them for a year: but considering the dangers which surrounded him while unemployed, he resolved to reassume them. He therefore went first to Oxford, and shortly after to Paris, where he applied himself diligently to the canon law, and various other branches of literature. When he came back to London he was first made clerk or secretary to the court of the city, and distinguished himself by his capacity in public affairs. He was afterwards taken into the family of a certain young nobleman in the country, who was extremely fond of hunting and hawking. In this situation Thoinas began to be carried away with a love of these diversions which were become his only business; so that by this company he grew more remiss in the service of God. An awakening accident opened his eyes. One day when he was eager in the pursuit of game, his hawk made a stoop at a duck, and E dived after it into a river. Thomas, apprehensive of losing his hawk, leaped into the water, and the stream being rapid, carried him down to a mill, and he was saved only by the sudden stopping of the wheel, which appeared miraculous. Thomas, in gratitude to God his deliverer, resolved to betake himself to a more serious course of life, and returned to London. His virtue and abilities gave him a great reputation; and nothing can sooner gain a man the confidence of others, as that inflexible integrity and veracity which always formed the character of our saint. Even in his childhood he always chose rather to suffer any blame, disgrace or punishment, than to tell an untruth; and in his whole life he was never found guily of a lie in the smallest

matter.

A strict intimacy had intervened betxixt Theobald, who was advanced to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1138, and our saint's father, they being both originally from the same part of Normandy, about the village of Tierrie. Some persons therefore having recommended Thomas to that prelate, he was invited to except of some post in his family. Attended only with one squire named Ralph of London, he joined the archbishop, who then was at the village of Harwe or Harrow. Thomas