Italy, near Aquileia. He was sent to Rome to learn rhetoric under Donatus and Victorinus, became secretary to Damasus, and was afterwards baptized. He studied divinity with Gregory Nazianzen, Epiphanius, and Didymus, and, to perfect his qualifications, he learned Hebrew from one Barraban a Jew. He spent most of his time in a monastery at Bethlehem, where he lived in great retirement, austerity, and hard study, and where he translated the Bible into Latin, now generally known as the Vulgate, and wrote very learnedly against the errors of Pelagius, whose followers hated him so much that they burnt down his monastery at Bethlehem, and he only saved his life by flight. He died at an advanced age, on

Sept. 30, A.D. 420.

S. Jerome was a favourite subject of medieval art, and is very variously represented; but almost always as an old man with a long beard, reading, praying, or writing, before a cave, with a skull on the table, or shelf near him. He has generally a lion, the emblem of solitude, by his side, and in allusion to his severe penances he sometimes has a stone in his hand with which to beat his breast; or he kneels upon thorns, or has thorns wound round his naked body. A cardinal's cap is also frequently introduced near him, or on his head, probably in allusion to some duties he might have performed at Rome, similar to those of a cardinal now, as this dignity was not created till some centuries after S. Jerome's death.

Sometimes he carries a Church, symbolical of his being a great and learned defender of it. The lion is also accounted for by a legend of his extracting a thorn from its foot, very similar to the much older one of Androcles and the lion.

October.

OCTOBER 1. S. Remigius, Bishop, A.D. 535. Was born at Laon in the year 439, descended from a noble family in Gaul, and was chosen Archbishop of Rheims, when only 22 years of age. Clovis, the founder of the French monarchy, was converted and baptised to the Christian faith by this saint, who was remarkable for his extraordinary learning and sanctity, and died in his 96th year. The cruise which he made use of is preserved to this day, and the kings of France are anointed from it at their coronation; and ever since his time Rheims has been the metropolitical see of France.

He is represented as an aged Bishop with a long beard, and a dove flying over him, with an oil cruise in its mouth. At the anointing of King Clovis, the attendant with the sacred oil could not get near him on account of the great crowd, and at the prayer of

the saint a dove brought him a cruise of oil from heaven. Seven Churches are dedicated to this name in England, but they may with equal probability commemorate S. Remigius of Lincoln. (See ac

count of him in Part II.)

OCTOBER 6. S. Faith, Virgin and Martyr, A.D. 920. S. Faith, or Fides, was born at Agen, in Aquitain, and though of remarkable beauty, was insensible to all the allurements of the world. When very young, after undergoing the most dreadful torments for refusing to sacrifice to Diana, being beaten with rods, and then half roasted on a brazen bed, she, with a number of other Christians, was beheaded by the orders of Dacian, prefect of the Gauls. Emblem, a bundle of rods, or a brazen bed in her hand. Sixteen Churches in England are named in her sole honour, and Little Wittenham, in Berks, in the names of S. Faith and All Saints. The crypt of old S. Paul's, too, was dedicated in her name, and is famous in our Church history as the chapel of S. Faith.

S. FAITH, from a brass in S, Laurence Church Norwich,

OCTOBER 9. S. Denis, or Dionysius, was Bishop of Paris, and died c. A.D. 272. He is said to have

been the first who preached the Gospel in France, and is considered as the tutelar saint of that country: his relics are enshrined in the beautiful Church which bears his name, near Paris. The tradition says that he was beheaded on Mont Martre, and miraculously took up his head after it was severed from his body, and walked with it two miles, where he laid down and expired. This S. Denis should not be confused with Dionysius the Areo

S. DENIS,

screen, Grafton Regis,
Northants.

pagite, the convert of S. Paul, from a painting on the roodand Archbishop of Athens, who is honoured in the Church of Rome only, on Oct. 3. Even Wheatly has fallen into this common error. He is represented as a Bishop headless, carrying his head in his hand. There are forty-three Churches dedicated in his honour in England, nine of which are in Lincolnshire and six in Leicestershire.

OCTOBER 13. Translation of the relics of S. Edward the Confessor, A.D. 1163. He was born at Islip, Oxfordshire, and was the youngest

son of King Ethelred; but all his elder brothers being dead he succeeded to the crown in the year