e, and her joy, because by it she is
prepared to receive the divine grace: and if self-love be destroyed, the
devil can have no power over us; for he never makes any successful
attacks upon us but by the secret intelligence which he holds with this
domestic enemy. The crucifixion of the old man, and perfect
disengagement of the heart, by the practice of universal self-denial, is
absolutely necessary before a soul can ascend the mountain of the God of
Jacob, on which his infinite majesty is seen, separated from all
creatures; as Blosius,[2] and all other directors in the paths of an
interior life, strongly inculcate.

Footnotes:
1. See Codex Regularum, collectus a B. Benedicto Anianae, auctus a Luca
Holstenio, printed by Holstenias at Rome, in 1661. Also, Concordia
Regularum, authore B. Benedicto Anianae abbate, edita ab. Hug.
Menardo Benedictia{} Parisiis, 1638.
2. Instit. Spir. c. 1, n. 6, &c.

{401}

ST. MELETIUS, PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH, C.

HE was of one of the best families of Lesser Armenia, and born a
Melitene, which Strabo and Pliny place to Cappadocia; but Ptolemy, and
all succeeding writers, in Lesser Armenia, of which province it became
the capital. The saint, in his youth, made fasting and mortification his
choice, to the midst of every thing that could flatter the senses. His
conduct was uniform and irreproachable, and the sweetness and affability
of his temper gained him the confidence and esteem both of the Catholics
and Arians; for he was a nobleman of charming simplicity and sincerity,
and a great lover of peace. Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste, a semi-Arian,
being deposed by the Arians, in a council held at Constantinople, in
360, Meletius was promoted to that see; but meeting with too violent
opposition, left it, and retired first into the desert, and afterwards
to the city of Beraea, in Syria, of which Socrates falsely supposes him
to have been bishop. The patriarchal church of Antioch had been
oppressed by the Arians, ever since the banishment of Eustathius, in
331. Several succeeding bishops, who were intruded into that chair, were
infamous abettors of that heresy. Eudoxus, the last of these, had been
removed from the see of Germanicia to that of Antioch, upon the death of
Leontius, an Arian like himself, but was soon expelled by a party of
Arians, in a sedition, and be shortly after usurped the see of
Constantinople. Both the Arians and several Catholics agreed to raise
St. Meletius