of
the wicked. But thou, O Lord, who willest not the death of a sinner, but
his repentance, grant them to know thee, and to find pardon for their
crimes, through the merits of thy only Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
He no sooner repeated the word Amen, together with an act of
thanksgiving, but he expired. His executioners then took the body and
cast it down a great precipice into a deep pit; and notwithstanding the
fall, it seemed only to have received a few slight bruises. The very
place which was before a frightful precipice, seemed to have changed its
nature; and the acts say, no more dangers or accidents happened in it to
travellers. The Christians took up the martyr's body, and found it of a
lively color, and entire, and his face appeared comely and smiling; and
they buried it in the most honorable manner they could. The Greeks keep
his festival on the 18th of February.

{431}

FEBRUARY XIX.

ST. BARBATUS, OR BARBAS, C.

BISHOP OF BENEVENTO.

From his two authentic lives in Bollandus, t. 3, Febr. p. 139. See
Ughelli, Italia Sacra, t. 8, p. l3.

A.D. 682.

ST. BARBATUS was born in the territory of Benevento, in Italy, towards
the end of the pontificate of St. Gregory the Great, in the beginning of
the seventh century. His parents gave him a Christian education, and
Barbatus in his youth laid the foundation of that eminent sanctity which
recommends him to our veneration. Devout meditation on the holy
scriptures was his chief entertainment; and the innocence, simplicity,
and purity of his manners, and extraordinary progress in all virtues,
qualified him for the service of the altar, to which he was assumed by
taking holy orders as soon as the canons of the church would allow it.
He was immediately employed by his bishop in preaching, for which he had
an extraordinary talent; and, after some time, made curate of St.
Basil's, in Morcona, a town near Benevento. His parishioners were
steeled in their irregularities, and averse from whatever looked like
establishing order and discipline among them. As they desired only to
slumber on in their sins, they could not bear the remonstrances of their
pastor, who endeavored to awake them to a sense of their miseries, and
to sincere repentance: they treated him as a disturber of their peace,
and persecuted him with the utmost violence. Finding their malice
conquered by his patience and humility, and his character shining still
more bright, they had recourse to slanders