virgins,
that of widows, and that of married persons; in each state it will
receive its crown, as St. Ambrose observes,[11] but in the first is most
perfect, so that St. Austin calls its fruit an hundred fold, and that of
marriage sixty fold; but the more excellent this virtue is, and the
higher its glory and reward, the more heroic and the more difficult is
its victory; nor is it perfect unless it be embellished with all other
virtues in an heroic degree, especially divine charity and the most
profound humility.

Footnotes:
1. Ep. 8.
2. Serm. 274.
3. Footnote: S. Ambrose, l. 1, Virgin.
4. Prudent. S. Ambrose.
5. St. Basil witnesses, (l. de vera Virgin.,) that when virgins were
exposed by the persecutors to the attempts of lewd men, Christ
wonderfully interposed in defence of their chastity. Tertullian
reproached the heathens with this impiety, in these words: Apolog.
"By condemning the Christian maid rather to the lewd youth than to
the lion, you have acknowledged that a stain of purity is more
dreaded by us than any torments or death. Yet your crafty cruelty
avails you not: it rather serves to gain men over to our holy
religion."
6. This church gives title to a cardinal, and every year on her feast
the abbot of St. Peter's ad Vincula blesses in it, at high mass, two
lambs, which are thence carried to the pope, by whom they are again
blessed. After which they are sent to the nuns of St. Laurence's in
Panisperna, or sometimes to the Capucinesses, who make of their wool
palliums, which his holiness blesses, and sends to archbishops as
emblem of meekness and spotless purity.
7. Matt. xix. 11.
8. Wells, Paraph. on S. Matt. p. 185.
9. 1 Cor. vii. 7, 8, 25, 27, 32, 38.
10. Apoc. xiv. 1, 3, 4, 5.
11. S. Ambr. l. de Viduis, t. 5, p. 635.

SAINT FRUCTUOSUS, BISHOP OF TARRAGON, AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS

From his most valuable acts in Ruinart, quoted by St. Austin, Serm. 273,
and transcribed by Prudentius, hymno 6.

A.D. 259.

ST. FRUCTUOSUS was the zealous and truly apostolical bishop of Tarragon,
then the capital city of Spain. The persecution of Valerian and Gallien
raging in the year 259, he was apprehended by an order of Emilian the
governor, who sent the soldiers, called Beneficiarii,[1] for that
purpose. They seized the good bishop in his lodgings, with two deacons,
Augurius and Eulogius, on Sunday the 16th of January. He was then laid
down o