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

luna. (Ep. 10, t 6, Conc. pp. 15, 21, et Bibl. Patr. Inter. Epist.
S. Bonif.) To imagine different worlds of men upon earth, some not
descending from Adam, nor redeemed by Christ, is contrary to the
holy scriptures, and therefore justly condemned as erroneous, as
Baronius observes, (add. ann. 784, n. 12.)
2. Many ancient philosophers thought the earth flat, not spherical, and
believed no Antipodes. Several fathers adopted this vulgar error in
philosophy, in which faith no way interferes, as St. Austin, (l. 16,
de Civ. Dei, c. 9,) Bede, (l. 4, de Principiis Philos.,) and Cosmas
the Egyptian, surnamed Indicopleustes. It is, however, a mistake to
imagine, with Montfaucon, in his preface to this last-mentioned
author, that this was the general opinion of Christian philosophers
down to the fifteenth century. For the learned Philophonus
demonstrated before the modern discoveries, (de Mundi Creat. l. 3,
c. 13,) that the greater part of the fathers teach the world to be a
sphere, as St. Basil, the two SS. Gregories, of Nazianzum and of
Nyssa, St. Athanasins, &c. And several among them mention Antipodes,
as St. Hilary, (in Ps. 2, n. 32,) Origen, (l. 2, de princip. c. 3,)
St. Clement, pope, &c.
MARCH XVI.
ST. JULIAN, OF CILICIA, M.
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From the panegyric of St. Chrysostom, t. 2, p. 671. Ed. Ben. Tillem. t.
5, p. 573.
THIS saint was a Cilician, of a senatorian family in Anazarbus, and a
minister of the gospel. In the persecution of Dioclesian he fell into
the hands of a judge, who, by his brutal behavior, resembled more a wild
beast than a man. The president, seeing his constancy proof against the
sharpest torments, hoped to overcome him by the long continuance of his
martyrdom. He caused him to be brought before his tribunal everyday;
sometimes he caressed him, at other times threatened him with a thousand
tortures. For a whole year together he caused him to be dragged as a
malefactor through all the towns of Cilicia, imagining that this shame
and confusion might vanquish {598} him: but it served only to increase
the martyr's glory, and gave him an opportunity of encouraging in the
faith all the Christians of Cilicia by his example and exhortations. He
suffered every kind of torture. The bloody executioners had torn his
flesh, furrowed his sides, laid his bones bare, and exposed his very
bowels to view. Scourges, fire, and the sword, were employed various
ways to torment him with the utmost cruelty. The judge saw that to
torment him longer was laboring to shake a rock, and was forced at
length to own himself conquered by condemning him to death: in which,