From: rich <
richarra@gmail.com>
April 8th - St. =C3=86desius, Martyr
Venerated in
Roman Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast
8 April (Western calendar)
2 April (Eastern calendar)[2]
HE was brother to St. Apian, who received his crown at C=C3=A6sarea, on the
2nd of April, and a native of Lycia, had been a professed philosopher,
and continued to wear the cloak after his conversion to the faith. He
was long a scholar of St. Pamphilus at C=C3=A6sarea. In the persecution of Galerius Maximianus he often confessed his faith before magistrates,
had sanctified several dungeons, and been condemned to the mines in
Palestine. Being released from thence, he went into Egypt, but there
found the persecution more violent than in Palestine itself, under
Hierocles, the most barbarous prefect of Egypt, for Maximinus Daia,
C=C3=A6sar. This governor had also employed his pen against the faith, presuming to put the sorceries of Apollonius of Tyana upon a level
with the miracles of Christ, whom Eusebius confuted by a book
entitled, Against Hierocles.
=C3=86desius being at Alexandria, and observing how outrageously the judge proceeded against the Christians, by tormenting brave men, and
delivering women of singular piety, and even virgins, to the infamous purchasers of slaves, he boldly presented himself before this savage
monster, rather than a man, and reproached him with his crying
inhumanity, especially in exposing holy virgins to lewdness. He
endured courageously the scourge, and the greatest torments which the
rage of such a tyrant was capable of inventing, and was at length cast
into the sea, in 306, after the same manner as his brother, who
obtained his crown a little while before, as the Chaldaic acts
expressly inform us, though Henschenius is of the contrary opinion.
See Eusebius on the martyrs of Palestine, ch. 5, and the martyr's
Chaldaic acts in Assemani, t. 2. p. 195.
Saint Quote:
"God wishes that there should be poor in this world, so that the rich
may atone for their sins"
--St. Augustine (Doctor, 354-430) - "Instructions On Christian Morality"
Bible Quotes:
"And God provideth for him that sheweth favour: he remembereth him
afterwards, and in the time of his fall he shall find a sure stay" (Ecclesiasticus 3:)
"For the poor you have always with you"=C2 (Matt 26:11)
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The story
=C2 =C2 He is the One who brought us out of slavery into freedom, out=
of
darkness into light, out of death into life, out of tyranny into an
eternal kingdom; who made us a new priesthood, a people chosen to be
his own for ever. He is the Passover that is our salvation. It is he
who endured every kind of suffering in all those who foreshadowed him.
In Abel he was slain, in Isaac bound, in Jacob exiled, in Joseph sold,
in Moses exposed to die. He was sacrificed in the Passover lamb,
persecuted in David, dishonored in the prophets.
=C2 =C2 It is he who was made man of the Virgin, he who was hung on t=
he
tree; it is he who was buried in the earth, raised from the dead, and
taken up to the heights of heaven. He is the mute lamb, the slain
lamb, the lamb born of Mary, the fair ewe. He was seized from the
flock, dragged off to be slaughtered, sacrificed in the evening, and
buried at night. On the tree no bone of his was broken; in the earth
his body knew no decay. He is the One who rose from the dead, and who
raised us from the depths of the tomb.
--Melito of Sardis
--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
* Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)