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

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ordered, "That throughout the year, the feasts of the saints should be
celebrated on the days appointed by the Martyrology of the church of
Rome, with the proper psalms." It was once generally believed to have
been composed by St. Jerom; but this opinion is now universally
rejected. It suffered much in the middle ages. Pope Gregory XIII.,
immediately after he had completed the great work of reforming the
calendar, used the most earnest endeavors to procure a correct edition
of the Roman Martyrology. He committed the care of it to some of the
most distinguished writers of his time on ecclesiastical subjects. Among
them, Bellarmin, Baronius, and Gavant deserve particular mention. With
this edition Baronius himself was not satisfied. He published another
edition in 1586: and afterwards, at the instigation of cardinal Sirlet,
published a still more correct edition, with notes, in 1598. He prefixed
to his edition a dissertation, in which he appears to have exhausted the
subject. A further correction of the Roman Martyrology was made by pope
Urban VIII. They were all surpassed by that published by pope Benedict
XIV., at Cologne, in 1751. But the most useful edition is that published
at Paris, in 1661, by father Lubin, an Augustinian friar. It is
accompanied with excellent notes and geographical tables. Politus, an
Italian divine, published, in 1751, the first volume of a new edition of
the Roman Martyrology. It comprises the month of January, but the plan
of annotation is so extended, that it fills five hundred folio pages of
the smallest print; from the time of Drackenborch's edition of Livy, so
prolix a commentary had not been seen. Among other principal
Martyrologies, is that of the _Venerable Bede_. After several faulty
editions of it had appeared, it was correctly published by Henschenius
and Papebroke, and afterwards by Smith, at the end of his edition of
Bede's Ecclesiastical History. Notwithstanding Bede's great and deserved
celebrity, the Martyrology of _Usuard_, a Benedictine monk, was in more
general use; he dedicated it to Charles the Bald, and died about 875. It
was published by Solerius at Antwerp, in 1714, and by Dom Bouillard, in
1718; but the curious still seek for the earlier edition by Molanus, in
1568, as, in the subsequent editions, some parts of it were omitted.
Another Martyrology of renown is that of _Ado_; he was archbishop of
Vienne, in Dauphiné, and died in 875. The best edition of it is that by
Roswede, in 1613, published at Rome in 1745.--Such have been the
exertions of the church of Rome, to perpetuate the memory of those who
have illustrated her by their virtues. During the most severe
persecutions, in the general wreck of the arts and sciences, in the
midst of the public and private calamities which attended the
destruction of the Roman empire, the providence of God always raised
some pious and enlightened men, who preserved the deposit of faith, sod
transmitted to future times the memory of whatever had been most
virtuous in former ages or their own.
IX. 5. The Greek church has also shown great attention to preserve the