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

The love of Christ triumphed in the hearts of so many glorious martyrs,
upon racks, in the midst of boiling furnaces, or flames, and in the
claws or teeth of furious wild beasts. How many inflamed with his love
have forsaken all things to follow him, despising honors, riches,
pleasures, and the endearments of worldly friends, to take up their
crosses, and walk with constancy in the narrow paths of a most austere
penitential life! We also pretend to love him: but what effect has this
love upon us? what fruit does it produce in our lives? If we examine our
own hearts, we shall be obliged to confess that we have great reason to
fear that we deceive ourselves. What pains do we take to rescue our
souls from the slavery of the world, and the tyranny of self-love, to
purge our affections of vice, or to undertake any thing for the divine
honor, and the sanctification of our souls? Let us earnestly entreat our
most merciful Redeemer, by the power of this his holy love, to triumph
over all his enemies, which are our unruly passions, in our souls, and
perfectly to subdue our stubborn hearts to its empire. Let it be our
resolution, from this moment, to renounce the love of the world, and all
self-love, to seek and obey him alone.
Footnotes:
1. Rufinus adds, that these beasts killed several of the keepers and
spectators. It is in this sense that some have translated this
passage with Nicephorus. See Vales. In Annot. p. 165. But it seems
improbable that the spectators, who were separated from the arena by
iron rails, and seated on stone benches gradually ascending ten or
twenty men deep all round, should be killed or injured by the
beasts, unless some were so rash as to venture within the rails with
the keepers; which we see several do in the combats of wild beasts.
This, therefore, we are to restrain to the keepers and those who
kept them company.
S. SADOTH, BISHOP OF SELEUCIA AND CTESIPHON,
WITH 128 COMPANIONS, MARTYRS.
From his genuine acts in Metaphrastes, Bollandus, and Ruinart; but more
correctly in the original Chaldaic given us by Assemani, t. 1, p. 83.
Orsi, Hist. t. 5, l. 13. See Le Quien, Oriens Christ. t. 2, p. 1108.
A.D. 342.
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SADOTH, as he is called by the Greeks and Latins, is named in the
original Persian language, Schiadustes, which signifies "friend of the
king," from _schiah_, king, and _dust_, friend. His unspotted purity of
heart, his ardent zeal, and the practice of all Christian virtues,
prepared him, from his {435} youth, for the episcopal dignity, and the