The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

empire; who, when Dioclesian, in 303, commanded the holy scriptures,
{077} wherever found, to be burnt, chose rather to suffer torments and
death than to be accessary {sic.} to their being destroyed by
surrendering them into the hands of the professed enemies of their
Author.[1]
Footnotes:
1. See Baron. n. annal. et annot. in Martyr. Rom. Eus. l. 8, c. 2. H.
Vales. not. ib. p. 163. Ruinart, in Acta SS Saturn &c. and S.
Felicis. Fleury. Moeurs des Chrét. p. 45. Tillem. Pers. de. Dicol.
art. 10, t. 5. Lactant. de mort. Pers. c. 15 et 18, cum not. Baluz.
&c.
_Also_, ST. CONCORDIUS, M.
A HOLY subdeacon, who in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, was apprehended
in a desert, and brought before Torquatus, governor of Umbria, then
residing at Spoletto, about the year 178. The martyr, paying no regard
to his promises or threats, in the first interrogatory was beaten with
clubs, and in the second was hung on the rack, but in the height of his
torments he cheerfully sang: "Glory be to thee, Lord Jesus!" Three days
after, two soldiers were sent by Torquatus, to behead him in the
dungeon, unless he would offer sacrifice to an idol, which a priest who
accompanied them carried with him for this purpose. The saint showed his
indignation by spitting upon the idol, upon which one of the soldiers
struck off his head. In the Roman Martyrology his name occurs on the
1st, in some others on the 2d of January. See his genuine acts in
Bollandus, p. 9, and Tillemont, t. 2, p. 439.
_Also_, ST. ADALARD, OR ADALARD. A.C.
Pronounced ALARD.[1]
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THE birth of this holy monk was most illustrious, his father Bernard
being son of Charles Martel, and brother of king Pepin, so that Adalard
was cousin-german to Charlemagne, by whom he was called in his youth to
the court, and created count of his palace. A fear of offending God made
him tremble at the sight of the dangers of forfeiting his grace, with
which he was surrounded, and of the disorders which reigned in the
world. Lest he should be engaged to entangle his conscience, by seeming
to approve of things which he thought would endanger his salvation, he
determined to forsake at once both the court and the world. His
sacrifice was the more perfect and edifying, as he was endowed with the
greatest personal accomplishments of mind and body for the world, and in
the flower of his age; for he was only twenty years old, when, in 773,
he took the monastic habit at Corbie in Picardy, a monastery that had