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

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memory of the holy martyrs and saints. This appears from her Menæon and
Monologue. The Menæon is divided into twelve months, and each month is
contained in a volume. All the saints, whose festivals occur in that
month, have their proper day assigned to them in it: the rubric of the
divine office, to be performed on that day, is mentioned; the
particulars of the office follow; an account of the life and actions of
the saint is inserted; and sometimes an engraving of him is added. If it
happen that the saint has not his peculiar office, a prose or hymn in
his praise in generally introduced. The greater solemnities have an
appropriate office. From this the intelligent reader will observe that
the Menæon of the Greeks is {024} nearly the same as a work would be,
which should unite in itself the Missal and Breviary of the Roman
Catholic church. It was printed in twelve volumes in folio at Venice.
Bollandus mentions that Raderus, a Tyrolese Jesuit, had translated the
whole of the Menæon, and pronounced it to be free from schism or heresy.
_The Menologium_ answers to the Latin Martyrology. There are several
Menologia, as, at different times, great alterations have been made in
them. But the ground-word of them all is the same, so that they are
neither wholly alike nor wholly different. A translation of a Menologium
into Latin by cardinal Sirlet, was published by Henry Canisius, in the
third volume of his _Lectiones Antiquæ_. The Greek original, with a new
version, was published by Annibal Albani, at Urbino, in 1727. From these
works it is most clear that the Greek church invokes the saints, and
implores their intercession with God: "_Haud obscure ostendit_," says
Walchius, "_Græcos eo cultu prosequi homines in sanctorum ordinem
ascriptos, ut ilios incocent_." Bib. Theologica, vol. iii. 668. From the
Menæon, and the Menologium, Raderus published a collection of pious and
entertaining narratives, under the title of _Viridarum Sanctorum_. It is
to be wished that some gentleman would employ his leisure in a
translation of it. We should then be furnished, from the works of the
Agiographists of the eastern church, with a collection of pious and
instructing narratives, similar to those in the well-known _Histoires
Choisies_. One of the most curious articles inserted in the _Acta
Sanctorum_ of the Bollandists, is the _Muscovite or Russian Calendar_,
with the engravings of the saints. It was first published by father
Possevin. He praises the Russians for the great attention to decency
which they observe in their pictures and engravings of holy subjects. He
mentions that the Russians, who accompanies him in his return to Rome,
observed with surprise in the Italian paintings of saints, a want of the
like attention. Father Papebroke, when he cites this passage, adopts the
remark, and loudly calls on Innocent XII. to attend to the general
decency of all public paintings and statues. _A Greek Calendar of the
Saints_ in hexameter verse accompanies the Russian Calendar, in the
_Acta Sanctorum_; both are illustrated with notes by father Pane broke.