John Joseph A'Becket

“ His strength, never very great, began to decline, and a severe attack of ague made him seek rest and recuperation, first at Palermo and then at Naples. But without avail, for he died in the latter city. His sterling worth was little known through his modesty and humility. In his youth his musical talent and genial wit supplied much innocent gaiety, but the pressure of serious responsibilities and the adoption of a spiritual life somewhat subdued its exercise. ”

“ In 1125 Henry V was on his deathbed, and being without male issue sent the imperial insignia to his wife Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. The politic Adalbert, ever on the alert to ward off any danger of a schism, induced Matilda to return the insignia, and called an assembly of princes, who chose as Henry's successor Lothair II the Saxon, afterwards crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Innocent II (1133) . Thus the Empire passed from the house of Franconia to that of Saxony, which had so long proved itself loyal to the cause of Rome. ”

“ His life is fully described by Lucian in his Ψευδόμαντις, or "Alexander, the Oracle-Monger." Being intellectual, of pleasing appearance and captivating address, he gained many followers, not only in his own country but from different parts of the Roman Empire. By cleverly devised oracles he prepared souls for a new birth and exhibited a huge serpent as the embodiment of his new divinity. His fame spread, and about 150 he built in his native city of Paphlagonia a temple to Esculapius, that was soon visited by many from all parts of Greece and Italy. ”

“ Maria gained such reputation as a mathematician that she was appointed by Benedict XIV to teach mathematics in the University of Bologna, during her father's illness. This was in 1750, and two years later her father died. Maria then devoted herself to the study of theology and the Fathers of the Church. Her long aspirations to the religious life were destined to be gratified, for after acting for some years as director of the Hospice Trivulzio of the Blue Nuns in Milan, she joined the order and died a member of it, in her eighty-first year. ”

“ After this strange schooling for a future cardinal, Charles went to Rome when he was twenty and entered the Academia Ecclesiastica, where ecclesiastics intending to be candidates for public offices receive a special training. An essay of his attracted the attention of the Secretary of State, della Somaglia, and Leo XII made him a chamberlain and attaché to the Paris Nunciature, where he had the best opportunity to become acquainted with diplomacy. Pius VIII recalled him and named him vice-legate, granting him choice of any of the four legations over which cardinals presided. ”

“ The pleasure and excitement of such a life did not distract her from the desire of a religious life, and as soon as the year, which she had consented to pass with her parents before taking any step in the matter, was at an end, she returned to Montreal and entered the Hôtel-Dieu, making her religious profession in 1810. The convent chapel was thronged, many American friends coming to witness the strange spectacle of Ethan Allen's daughter becoming a Catholic nun. After eleven years of zealous life in religion, Frances Allen died at the Hôtel-Dieu, of lung trouble, 10 December, 1819. ”

“ Despite its brevity and occasional obscurity, the work is valuable as a specimen of Greek analytical genius in the service of Christian theology, "a calm but vigorous protest of the trained scientific intellect against the vague dogmatism of the Oriental theosophies". ”

“ The ignorant converts, including many women, were pardoned. Of the principals, four were condemned to imprisonment for life. Ten others, priests and clerics, who had obstinately refused to retract their errors, after being publicly degraded, were delivered to the secular authority and suffered the penalty of death by fire. Five years later (1215) the writings of Aristotle, which had been distorted by the sectaries in support of their heresy, were forbidden to be read either in public or in private. ”

“ He consequently decided that such persons should be baptized, not conditionally but absolutely. Heretics, it was argued, have not the true faith; they cannot absolve from sin; the water in their baptism cannot cleanse from sin. ”

“ Alcock is also thought to have written a metrical work in English on the Seven Penitential Psalms. Bale says of him that he "made such a proficiency in virtue that no one in England had a greater reputation for sanctity". He restored many ecclesiastical buildings, and founded Jesus College, Cambridge, on the ruined nunnery of St. Rhadegund. He also endowed Peterhouse. Alcock was a distinguished canonist, but made no provisions for the study of this branch in Jesus College. His life was one marked by the practice of Christian virtues, full of zeal and of a penitential spirit. ”

“ Abbé, a French word meaning primarily and strictly an abbot or superior of a monastery of men. It came eventually to be applied, in France, to every man who wears the dress of a secular ecclesiastic (Littré) . ”

“ The Pope transferred the council from Basle to Ferrara, 18 September, 1437. In this council, and later, in that of Florence, Ambrose by his efforts, and charity toward some poor Greek bishops, greatly helped to bring about a union of the two Churches, the decree for which, 6 July, 1439, he was called on to draw up. He died soon after. His works are a treatise on the Holy Eucharist, one on the Procession of the Holy Ghost, many lives of saints, a history of his generalship of the Camaldolites. He also translated from Greek into Latin a life of Chrysostom (Venice, 1533) ”

“ Competent surgeons and physicians attend to the patients, and the Brothers are nurses and do the housework of the hospitals.
Bishop Vaughan of Salford, England (later, Cardinal) , invited the Alexian Brothers to take charge of a new home and hospital in his diocese, which led to their establishing themselves in England in June, 1875. Dr. Lacy, Bishop of Middlesborough, secured them for his diocese in 1884. In 1885, the Brothers established a Province of their Order and a novitiate in the United Kingdom. ”

“ From 1653, when the Scottish clergy were incorporated into a missionary body by the Congregation of the Propaganda, until 1695, the Catholics of Scotland were governed by prefects-apostolic. Then followed vicars-apostolic until 4 March, 1878, when Leo XIII, in the first year of his pontificate, restored the hierarchy of Scotland by the Bull "Ex supremo Apostolatus apice", and Vicar-Apostolic John MacDonald was translated to the restored See of Aberdeen as its first bishop. ”

“ William of Malmesbury says he received his education in Ireland, where he passed his early life, and imbibed there a love of learning and learned men. He was well versed in the Scriptures. His taste for literature is shown by his parting with a large piece of land as payment for a copy of the "Cosmographi". Adamnan, Abbot of Iona, on the occasion of his visit to England for the redemption of some captives, presented his book "De Locis Sanctis" to Aldfrith as a testimonial of the King's appreciation of learning, and Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, dedicated his work on "Metres" to him. ”

“ The Amalricians, like their founder, professed a species of pantheism, maintaining, as the fundamental principle of their system, that God and the universe are one; that God is everything and everything is God. ”

“ Mary's Convent, Newton Heath, Manchester, was later transferred to Twyford Abbey, near Ealing, which the Alexian Brothers had purchased. In England they do not have any asylums for the care of the insane, as in Germany, Belgium, and America. The English establishments are only for the aged and infirm. ”

“ Abecedarians, a sect of Anabaptists who affected an absolute disdain for all human knowledge, contending that God would enlighten His elect interiorly and give them knowledge of necessary truths by visions and ecstasies. They rejected every other means of instruction, and pretended that to be saved one must even be ignorant of the first letters of the alphabet; whence their name, A-B-C-darians. They also considered the study of theology as a species of idolatry, and regarded learned men who did any preaching as falsifiers of God's word. ”

“ Her parents promptly withdrew her from the convent and sought by bestowing on the young girl every worldly pleasure and social enjoyment to obliterate the religious sentiments with which she was imbued. ”

“ He entered the University of Prague when quite young and took his degree in medicine in 1387. Desiring to prosecute the study of civil and canon law with more profit, he went to Italy and received the Doctor's degree in 1404, at Padua. On his return to Prague, he taught medicine for twenty years in the University. He was appointed physician-in-chief to Wenceslaus IV who recommended him as successor to the archbishopric of Prague, on the death of its incumbent in 1409. ”

“ On their refusal to adopt some one of the religions tolerated in Bohemia, Joseph II banished them to Transylvania in 1783. Some became converted later on to the Catholic Faith. There are still found in Bohemia some whose religious belief suggests that of the Abrahamites.— (3) Martyrs in the time of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus, when a persecution of Catholics took place on account of the revival of the heresy of the Iconoclasts. ”

“ He continued in this debasing career for many years before the public deserted him. He had predicted that he would die when 150 years old, translated from this sphere of action to another by a thunderbolt. ”

“ Alva y Astorga, Pedro d', a Friar Minor of the Strict Observance, and a voluminous writer on theological subjects, generally in defense of the Immaculate Conception; b. at Carbajales, Spain, toward the end of the sixteenth century; d. in Belgium, 1667. He took the Franciscan habit in Peru. He lectured on theology, was Procurator-General of the Franciscans, in Rome, and Qualificator of the Holy Office. He was an indefatigable traveller. His principal opponents were the Dominicans. His polemic had such a personal tone and was so violent that he was sent to the Low-Countries. ”

“ Acuas, one of the first to spread Manicheism in the Christian Orient. He was probably a Mesopotamian, and introduced the heresy into Eleutheropolis (Palestine) . The Manichieans were sometimes called after him Acuanitæ. ”

“ Abra de Raconis, Charles François d', A French bishop, born at the Château de Raconis in 1580 of a Calvinistic family; died 1646. In 1592, this family was converted to the Catholic faith, of which Charles then twelve years of age, was to become an earnest defender. He taught philosophy at the College of Plessis, in 1609 ”

“ The word Agapetæ was also the name of a branch of the Gnostics in 395, whose tenet was that the relations of the sexes were purified of impropriety if the mind was pure. They taught that one should perjure himself rather than reveal the secrets of his sect. ”

“ Very little is known about him. and the main reason for mentioning him is a work in ten books called "Historia Certaminis Apostolici" which is imputed to him. It tells of the labours and deaths of the Apostles. This compilation purports to have been translated from Hebrew into Greek by Eutropius, a disciple of Abdias, and, in the third century, from Greek into Latin by (Julius) Africanus, the friend of Origen. But it is really a Latin work, for in it are cited, with the Vulgate of St. Jerome, the "Ecclesiastical History" of Rufinus and his Latin translation of the "Recognitiones" of Clement. ”

“ Accessus, a term applied to the voting in conclave for the election of a pope, by which a cardinal changes his vote and "accedes" to some other candidate. When the votes of the cardinals have been counted after the first balloting and the two-thirds majority has fallen to none of those voted for, at the following vote opportunity is granted for a cardinal to change his vote, by writing, Accedo domino Cardinali, mentioning some one of those who have been voted for, but not the cardinal for whom he has already voted. If he should not wish to change his vote, the cardinal can vote Nemini, i.e. ”

“ Accorso, or Accursius, was not proficient in the classics, but he was called "the Idol of the Jurisconsults". (2) Francesco, son of the preceding, and also a lawyer, b. at Bologna, 1225; d. 1293. The two are often confounded. Francesco was more distinguished for his tact than for his wisdom. Edward I of England, returning from the Holy Land, brought him with him to England. He returned to Bologna in 1282, and practiced law there until his death. His two sons, Cervottus and Guglielmo, and a daughter studied law with him and also practised in Bologna. ”

“ Acephali, a term applied to the Eutychians who withdrew from Peter Mongus, the Monophysite Patriarch of Alexandria, in 482. With the apparent purpose of bringing the orthodox and heretics into unity, Peter Mongus and Acacius of Constantinople had elaborated a new creed in which they condemned expressly Nestorius and Eutyches, but at the same time affected to pass over the decisions of the Council of Chalecdon and rejected them hypocritically. ”

“ They committed many barbarous acts and deeds of violence. Whether they called themselves "fighters" (Agonistic) because they fought the battles of the Lord, or because they were forced to fight those who sought to protect their property against their invasions, is not clear. The Catholics styled the Agonistici, "Circumcellions," i.e. circum cellas euntes, because they roved about among the peasants, living on those they sought to indoctrinate. ”