th of St. Celestine, Sixtus was chosen pope in 432. He
wrote to Nestorius to endeavor to reclaim him after his condemnation at
Ephesus, in 431: but his heart was hardened, and he stopped his ears
against all wholesome admonitions. The pope had the comfort to see a
happy reconciliation made, by his endeavors, between the Orientals and
St. Cyril: in which he much commended the humility and pacific
dispositions of the latter. He says "that he was charged with the care
and solicitude of all the churches in the world,[1] and that it is
unlawful for any one to abandon the faith of the apostolic Roman church,
in which St. Peter teaches in his successors what he received from
Christ."[2] When Bassus, a nobleman of Rome, had been condemned by the
emperor, and excommunicated by a synod of bishops for raising a grievous
slander against the good pope, the meek servant of Christ visited and
assisted him in person, administered him the viaticum in his last
sickness; and buried him with his own hands. Julian of Eclanum or
Eculanum, the famous Pelagian, earnestly desiring to recover his see,
made great efforts to be admitted to the communion of the church,
pretending that he was become a convert, and used several artifices to
convince our saint that he really was so: but he was too well acquainted
with them to be imposed on. This holy pope died soon after, on the 28th
of March, in 440, having sat in the see near eight years. See his
letters, Anastasius's Pontifical, with the notes of Bianchini, &c.

Footnotes:
1. Ep. 1, ad Episc. Orient. p. 1236. Ep. decret. t. 1.
2. Ep. 6, and Joan. Antioch. contra Nestor.

{671}

ST. GONTRAN, KING AND CONFESSOR.

HE was son of king Clotaire, and grandson of Clovis I. and St.
Clotildis. Being the second son, while his brothers Charibert reigned at
Paris, and Sigebert in Austrasia, residing at Metz, he was crowned king
of Orleans and Burgundy in 561, making Challons on the Saone his
capital. When compelled to take up arms against his ambitious brothers
and the Lombards, he made no other use of his victories under the
conduct of a brave general called Mommol, than to give peace to his
dominions. He protected his nephews against the practices of the wicked
dowager queens, Brunehault of Sigebert, and Fredegonde of Chilperic, the
firebrands of France. The putting to death the physicians of the queen,
at her request, on her death-bed, and the divorcing his wife Mercatrude,
are crimes laid to his char