be my protector on that
occasion." They were cast into prison, and preferred a lower dungeon,
that they might be more at liberty to pray when alone. They were carried
by force into the temple, and all manner of violence was used to compel
them to sacrifice. Pionius tore the impious garlands which were put upon
his head, and they resisted with all their might. Their constancy
repaired the scandal given by Eudaemon, the bishop of Smyrna, there
present, who had impiously apostatized and offered sacrifice. In the
answers of St. Pionius to the judges, and in all the circumstances of
his martyrdom, we admire the ardent piety and courage of one who had
entirely devoted himself to God, and employed his whole life in his
service. When Quintilian the proconsul arrived at Smyrna, he caused
Pionius to be hung on the rack, and his body to be torn with iron hooks,
and afterwards condemned him to be burned alive; he was accordingly
nailed to a trunk or post, and a pile heaped round him and set on fire.
Metrodorus, a Marcionite priest, underwent the same punishment with him.
His acts were written by eye-witnesses, quoted by Eusebius, l. 4, c. 15,
and are extant genuine in Ruinart, p. 12. See Tillemont t. 3, p. 397;
Bollandus, Feb. t. 1, p. 37.

{334}

ST. BRIDGIT, OR BRIDGET, V.

AND BY CONTRACTION, BRIDE, ABBESS, AND PATRONESS OF IRELAND.

SHE was born at Fochard, in Ulster, soon after Ireland had been blessed
with the light of faith. She received the religious veil in her youth,
from the hands of St. Mel, nephew and disciple of St. Patrick. She built
herself a cell under a large oak, thence called Kill-dara, or cell of
the oak; living, as her name implies, the bright shining light of that
country by her virtues. Being joined soon after by several of her own
sex, they formed themselves into a religious community, which branched
out into several other nunneries throughout Ireland; all which
acknowledged her for their mother and foundress, as in effect she was of
all in that kingdom. But a full account of her virtues has not been
transmitted down to us, together with the veneration of her name. Her
five modern lives mention little else but wonderful miracles. She
flourished in the beginning of the sixth century, and is named in the
Martyrology of Bede, and in all others since that age. Several churches
in England and Scotland are dedicated to God under her name, as, among
others, that of St. Bride in Fleet-street; several also in G