St. Peter martyr, Bishop of
Alexandria and Meletius Bishop of Lycopolis also in Egypt. (early
third century AD)
This
great Bishop was hailed as an excellent doctor of the Christian religion,
admirable both for his skill in the sciences and profound knowledge of Holy
scripture. He succeeded to the See of
Alexandria in the year 300 and governed for twelve years. The nine last he suffered the fury of the
Diocletian persecutions. Virtue is tried
and made perfect by sufferings and the fervour of our saint's piety and the
rigor of his penances increased with the calamity of the church. He never ceased begging of God for himself
and his flock the necessary grace and courage, and exhorting them daily to die
to their passions, that they might be prepared to die for Christ. His watchfulness and care extended to all
churches in Egypt and Libya.
Notwithstanding his charity and zeal, several in whom the love of the
world prevailed basely betrayed their faith to escape torments and death.
Among
those who fell none was more considerable that Meletius Bishop of
Lycopolis. That bishop was charged with
several crimes but his apostasy was the main article alleged against him. St Peter called a council where Meletius was
convicted of having sacrificed to idols and other crimes, and sentence of
deposition was passed against him.
The apostate had not humility enough to
submit, or to seek the remedy of his deep wounds by condign repentance, but put
himself at the head of a discontented party which appeared ready to follow him
to any lengths. To justify his disobedience, and to impose
upon men by pretending a holy zeal for discipline, he published many calumnies
against St Peter and his council; and had the assurance to tell the world that
he had left the archbishops communion, because he was too indulgent to the
lapsed in receiving them too soon and too easily to communion. Thus he formed a pernicious schism, which
took its name from him and subsisted a hundred and fifty years.
Arius, who was then among the clergy at
Alexandria gave signs of his pride and turbulence by espousing Meletius’s cause
as soon as the breach was open. The holy
Bishop St Peter, by his knowledge of mankind, was convinced that pride, the
source of uneasiness and inconstancy, had taken deep root in the heart of this
unhappy man; and that so long as this
evil was not radically cured the wound of his soul was only skinned
over by a pretended conversion, and would break out again with greater violence
than ever. He therefore excommunicated
him, and could never be prevailed with to revoke the sentence.
Every clergyman is bound to be
thoroughly acquainted with the great obligations of his state and profession;
for it is one of the general and most just rules of canon law, and even of the
law of nature, that “No man is excused from a fault by the ignorance in things
which, by his office he is bound to know”
Butlers lives
of the Saints published by Virtue 1949
