the heart that this foundation is to
be laid: we must entertain no attachment, says St. Gregory of Nyssa,[2]
to any thing, especially where there is most danger of passion, by some
sensual pleasure annexed; and we must begin by being upon our guard
against sensuality in eating, which is the most ancient enemy, and the
father of vice: we must observe in our whole life the most exact rule of
temperance, never making the pleasure of sense our end, but only the
necessity of the use we make of things, even those in which a pleasure
is taken. In another treatise he says,[3] he who despises the world,
must also renounce himself, so as never to follow his own will, but
purely to seek in all things the will of God; we are his in justice, his
will must be the law and rule of our whole life. This precept of dying
to ourselves, that Christ may live in us, and all our affections and
actions governed by his spirit, is excellently inculcated by St. Basil
the Great.[4]

Footnotes:
1. St. Gr. Nyss. ep. ad Flav. t. 3, p. 645.
2. St. Gr. Nyss. de Virg. c. 9.
3. St. Basil, in Ps. 34, de Bapt. l. 1, et interr. 237.
4. Id. de perfecta Christi forma.

{116}

SS. JULIAN AND BASILISSA, MM.

ACCORDING to their acts, and the ancient Martyrologies, though engaged
in a married state, they by mutual consent lived in perpetual chastity,
sanctified themselves by the most perfect exercises of an ascetic life,
and employed their revenues in relieving the poor and the sick; for this
purpose they converted their house into a kind of hospital, in which, if
we may credit their acts, they sometimes entertained a thousand indigent
persons. Basilissa attended those of her sex, in separate lodgings from
the men, of whom Julian took care, who from his charity is surnamed the
Hospitalarian. Egypt, where they lived, had then begun to abound with
examples of persons, who, either in cities or in deserts, devoted
themselves to the most perfect exercises of charity, penance, and
contemplation. Basilissa, after having stood severe persecutions, died
in peace; Julian survived her many years, and received the crown of a
glorious martyrdom, together with Celsus a youth, Antony a priest,
Anastatius, and Marcianilla the mother of Celsus. They seem to have
suffered in the reign of Maximin II., in 313, on the 6th of January;
for, in the most ancient lectionary used in the church of Paris, under
the first race of the French kings, quoted by Chatelain,[1] and several