Maria Lectrix has posted audio of all of St. Sulpitius Severus’ life of St. Martin of Tours. She posted it in several installments, which are archived together here. But please do visit her own site, too, to experience Ms. Lectrix’s unexpurgated running commentary. This lady is a national treasure. Somebody, please, send her a million-dollar grant.

The Weekly Roman Observer has posted yet another podcast interview with me on Apple’s iTunes service. That brings the total to four, and they’re all downloadable from the same page.

Inscriptions tell the story of Christian “triumphalism” at the toppling of idols.

On the Byzantine calendar, today is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel and the Angelic hosts. On my mom’s calendar, it’s her youngest child’s forty-third birthday. I was born just days after she turned forty-seven. So — as those whiz-kid math majors among you have already figured out — my mom just passed that milestone ninetieth birthday. (She points out, however, that zeroes don’t count for anything, so she’s only nine. But I digress.)

My family of origin is 100% Latin Rite, so I was not named for the archangel on his Feast in the East. I was named for my dad (God rest his soul). But I was very pleased when I learned of the coincidence of my birthday with the Byzantine memorial. I found out because of the coincidence of landing an apartment a couple of blocks away from St. Michael’s Byzantine Catholic Church in Canonsburg, Pa. It was that neighborly experience that got me looking Eastward for the first time, and all under the auspices of my heavenly patron.

So, I say, let the festivities begin, even here in the West.

St. Clement of Alexandria gives us good reason. Commenting on Jude 9, he said: “The one who fought with the devil as our guardian angel is here called Michael.” Clement’s countryman St. Anthony of Egypt had a vision that confirmed the continuing role of Michael as a warrior on behalf of humankind. And the sixth-century North African bishop Primasius chimed in that “Michael with his angels fights [present tense] against the devil, because by praying according to the will of God for the Church in this world and by granting her his aid, he is properly understood to be fighting for her. And so the apostle says, ‘Are not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?” (Heb 1:14). Primasius went on to interpret Daniel 10 and 12 in favor of Michael’s continuing role in your life and mine.

I don’t know about you, but I’m very glad to know I have an archangel like Michael on my side.

And Venerable Bede tells us that Michael’s more than a guardian; he’s also a role model. “Here is what we have to learn from this incident: if the archangel Michael refrained from cursing the devil and dealt gently with him, how much more should we mere mortals avoid blaspheming, especially as we might offend the majesty of the Creator by an incautious word.”

OK, so try to be nice to all the candidates who won the election, especially the ones you voted against. If you won’t do it for me on my birthday, do it for St. Michael on his feast.

If you want to read more of the best angelology of the Fathers, I urge you to run off right now and buy Revelation: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, volume XII. The whole series, in fact, is mighty fine, gathering patristic commentary on every verse of Scripture. You can even buy it on searchable CD-ROM.

Phil summons all patristibloggers to a Patristics Carnival. Don’t be a Jonah. It only leads to trouble.

Al Ahram reports on four ancient Nubian cathedrals discovered in the 1960s, with 120 wall paintings in good condition. The excavation was part of an archeological campaign that found several other, smaller churches as well, built in the sixth through ninth centuries. The story is in two parts, here and here.

N.S. Gill has posted a very helpful guide to reading Latin inscriptions. This will be especially useful for those of you who are planning to join Scott Hahn and me in Rome for our May 2007 pilgrimage. In some Roman neighborhoods, it’s hard to turn your head without knocking it against another ancient inscription. Sign up today.

(Thanks to those of you who pointed out the botched URL. It’s fixed now.)

Phil chimes in on R.R. Reno’s essay “The Return of the Fathers.” As Phil kindly points out, you heard it here first.

Don’t forget to put Reno’s Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible on your Christmas wish list.

The life of Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little) stretched across the fifth and sixth centuries. He was a monk in a land that is today part of Romania. Dionysius was renowned for his humility, which is where the “Little” moniker comes from, and which is why you probably don’t know his name. But I’ll bet you’ve used his technology, and unless you’re a scholar working in a multi-religious environment you’re probably using it still. (Pluralists favor “C.E.” for “Common Era.”)

Dionysius liked to calculate calendars. He was the go-to guy for figuring out the date of Easter. But he’s best known for inventing the term “Anno Domini” (A.D.) — “The Year of the Lord” — to differentiate the years after the Incarnation from the years before. So you might say he had a big impact on history, for such a little guy.

Roger Pearse points us to the first English translation of Dionysius’ most important work. It’s only partial, but it’s free and posted on a Russian site. Roger’s thinking about finishing the job in his spare time.

A patristic-era monastery is caught up in a border dispute between Azerbaijan and Georgia. Via Archaeologica.

The world now has its first blog devoted entirely to New Testament apocrypha. You’ll love this title: Apocryphicity. It’s run by Canadian scholar Tony Chartrand-Burke. Give him a warm patristic welcome.

Thanks for the tip, as often, go to PaleoJudaica.

About.com’s N.S. Gill points us to some remarkable sites related to Constantine’s Battle of the Milvian Bridge. When in Rome for our May 2007 pilgrimage, we’ll be staying quite near the Bridge. Please consider joining us!

• Maria Lectrix, the ubersource for audio of the works of the Fathers, has just posted the first installment of Tertullian’s On Patience. For Tertullian to write on patience is kind of like Jerome writing on meekness. Don’t miss it. And raise an Ave for Maureen, the blog’s hostess and narratrix-in-chief. She’s down sick this week.

• While you’re listening to Maureen’s best imitation of Tertullian, you can check her website for progress on her gradual transcription of Thomas Livius’s great work The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries. She’s not only typing it up; she’s also annotating it with a useful glossary. Once you’ve been suitably impressed, then raise another Ave for Maureen’s return to health.

• Adrian Murdoch at Bread and Circuses got me thinking about inscriptions — and surfing around. Here and here are a couple of interesting sites on inscriptions from Christian antiquity.

• And, for those of you who want to learn Coptic, there are these recent sightings: a book, So, You Want to Learn Coptic?, and software, The Sahidic Coptic Collection.

Today is the Feast of All Souls, when Christians traditionally pray for the dead, that they may have eternal rest.

The early Church testifies to belief in purgatory, in both its literary and archeological remains. Many Christians commissioned gravestones with epitaphs begging prayers for their souls. The apocrypha sketch out the doctrine, and the Fathers expound it. The existence of purgatory is implicit in both the Old Testament and the New (including the Gospels). The early Church kept many graveside traditions that, in effect, made a habit of prayer for the dead. It was customary to mark the anniversary of a dead person’s passing (three days, one week, one year) with the celebration of the Mass. In the fourth century, St. Monica urged her priest-son Augustine to remember her soul in prayer when he said Mass. And, like a good boy, he did. “If we had no care for the dead,” Augustine said, “we would not be in the habit of praying for them.” Augustine held that there are “temporary punishments after death.” There is remedial pain as the soul undergoes its purification and preparation for heaven. St. Gregory the Great emphasized that this doctrine was not optional.

The earliest records in the paper trail are not to be missed, for they’re the most poetic. And you’ll find a sampling online here.

The best book on the subject is, without a doubt, Purgatory, by Michael Taylor, S.J. It presents the scriptural, patristic, and theological evidence in an accessible readable form. It’s a friendly treatment, good for handing to a skeptical friend.

“He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin” (2 Maccabees 12:43-45). “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins” (2 Maccabees 12:46, Vulgate).

A few weeks back I groused that David Bercot’s Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs was deficient in its treatment of the cult of the saints in Christian antiquity. In fact, the only entries under “Should Christians pray to the dead?” are condemnations of necromancy by Tertullian and Lactantius! In an otherwise fine volume, this section grossly misrepresents the literary and archeological record of the early Church. For the early Christians practiced a lively and deep devotion to the saints.

Not to worry, though, because other books make up for the bit that is lacking in Bercot, and there’s always more room on the bookshelf. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press offers a nice anthology in its popular patristics series: The Cult of the Saints includes St. John Chrysostom’s homilies and letters related to the great men whom St. Paul refers to as the “saints in light” (Col 1:12). When you have Fathers praising Fathers — in this case, Chrysostom praising Ignatius (and many others) — you’ve got to listen up.

In his standard work on Early Christian Doctrines, J.N.D. Kelly notes how the earliest Christians reverently preserved the relics of the martyrs and every year celebrated their “birthdays” (into heaven, that is). Origen and Cyprian attest to the custom of seeking the intercession of the saints. And their literary remains find echo in graffiti throughout the ancient world. The ancient liturgies invoke the saints of both the Old and New Testaments, as well as the martyrs. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, st. Ambrose, St. Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory Nazianzen exhort their flocks to seek the help of the saints. And it’s a multimedia testimony. We can still look upon those early images of saints, painted on the walls of the catacombs, engraved on tombstones, and etched into the sides of pilgrim flasks and oil lamps. Everywhere the Gospel reached, the strain re-echoed: “Pray for us!”

There’s more evidence in Peter Brown’s The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (The Haskell Lectures on History of Religions). Though Brown does not write from a perspective of faith — perhaps because he doesn’t — he is a reliable witness. He has no dog in the Protestant-Catholic fight over the intercession of the saints. But Catholics will recognize a familiar devotion in some of their ancient forebears, as they appear in Brown’s book. (I like his description of the Mediterranean region after the rise of Christianity: “while it may not have become markedly more ‘otherworldly,’ it was most emphatically ‘upperworldly.'”)

Orthodox and Catholic Christianity still is. We profess belief in “life everlasting. We believe also that we live amid a “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1). We believe that Christians must “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2). We believe that the dead cry out before the altar in heaven, pleading with God to right the wrongs upon earth (Rev 6:9-10).

In short, we believe in the faith of our Fathers. There’s good patristic material in the online Catholic Encyclopedia and at Catholic Answers. So celebrate the day with gusto. Celebrate with all the saints in heaven and on earth!