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

which extend from the eastern bank of the Euphrates, over Mesopotamia
and Chaldea to the Tigris and the parts beyond it; by the western, he
denotes the martyrs who suffered in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Stephen
Assemani was the nephew of Joseph Assemani, whose Kalendaria will be
mentioned in another place. Joseph was first præfect of the Vatican
library; Stephen was archbishop of Apamea; both of them were Maronite
monks, and sent into the east by pope Clement XII. to purchase
manuscripts.
IX. 3. It was the pious custom of the early Christians to celebrate
yearly the memory of the martyrs, on the days on which they suffered. On
that day the martyr was considered to be born to a life of glory and
immortality, and, with respect to that second life, it was called the
day of his birth. The different churches, therefore, were careful to
preserve an exact account of the particular days on which the martyrs
obtained the crown of martyrdom. The book which contained this account
was called a _Calendar_. At first the calendar contained the mention of
the martyrs only; but, in the course of time, the confessors, or those
who, without arriving at the glory of martyrdom, had confessed their
faith in Christ by their heroic virtues, were admitted to the same
honor. The calendars were preserved in the churches; a calendar of the
Church of Rome was published by Boucher; another by Leo Alatius; a third
by Joannes Fronto, chancellor of Paris, and canon regular of the church
of St. Genevieve at Paris. A most ancient calendar of the church of
Carthage was published by Mabillon. But under this head no publication
is more respectable than Joseph Assemani's _Kalendaria Ecclesiæ universæ
notis illustrata._
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IX. 4. The calendars gave rise to the _Martyrologies_; the object of
them was to collect, in one volume, from the calendars of the different
churches, the names of the martyrs and confessors throughout the world,
with a brief mention of the day of their decease, and the place in which
they suffered, or which they had illustrated by their birth, their
residence, their rank, or their virtues. The Roman Martyrology is
mentioned in the following terms by St. Gregory, (Lib. 8. Epist. Indict.
1.) in a letter to Eulogius, the bishop of Alexandria: "We," says his
holiness, "have the names of almost all the martyrs collected into one
volume, and referred to the days on which they suffered; and we
celebrate the solemn sacrifice of the mass daily in their honor. But our
calendar does not contain the particulars of their sufferings; it only
mentions their names, and the place and time of their martyrdom." The
Roman calendar seems to have been adopted generally through the western
church. It certainly was received in England. At the council held at
Shovesham in 747, by Cuthbert, the archbishop of Canterbury, it was