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During the supper at Bethany, Mary, to express her gratitude to JESUS, took a pound of spikenard, a very precious perfume, and poured it on the head and feet of JESUS, wiping his feet with the hair of her head: and the whole house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Judas Iscariot was highly offended at this generous action; but his Master vindicated Mary and told him, that by this she had performed an act preparatory to his embalment, signifying, that his death and burial were not far off. This is the last account of her in Scripture.

MARY OF CLEOPAS.

ST. JEROM says, that Mary had the name of Cleopas, on account of her father, her family, or some other reason not known. Others believe, with greater probability, that she was wife of Cleopas, and mother of St. James the Less, However, she was present at the last passover, just before the death of our Saviour; she followed him to Mount Calvary: and, during his pas sion, she was, together with the virgin, at the foot of his cross she was also present at his burial, and on the Friday before had prepared the perfumes for embalming him.

The year when Mary the wife of Cleopas died is not known; but the Greeks keep the eighth of April in memory of the holy women who brought perfumes to embalm the body of CHRIST, and pretend to have their bodies at Constantinople in a church of the holy virgin, built by Justin II.

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MARY SALOME, AN HEBREW CONVERT.

THIS holy woman was the daughter of Mary of Cle

opas, mentioned in the preceding article and the sister of St. James the Less, and others, who are in Scripture called the brethren of our Lord: she was cousin-german to the blessed JESUS, according to the flesh, and niece to the blessed virgin Mary. Her proper name was Salome and was improperly called Mary, which was the name of her mother; she was the wife of Zebedee, and mother of St. James the Great, and St. John the evangelist: she was also one of these pious women that used to attend upon our blessed Saviour in his journeys, and to minister to him. It was she that requested JESUS to place her two sons, James and John, the one on his right-hand and the other on his left in his kingdom.

Salome followed our Saviour to Calvary, and did not forsake him even at the cross: she was also one of the holy women who brought perfumes to embalm him, and for that purpose came early on the Sunday morning to the sepulchre.

TROPHIMUS, A GENTILE CONVERT. TROPHIMUS was a disciple of St. Paul, a Gentile by religion, and an Ephesian by birth. After Paul had converted him, he constantly adhered to him nor did he quit him ever after. He came with the apostle from Ephesus to Corinth, and kept him company in his whole journey from Corinth to Jerusalem, in the year of our Lord fifty-eight. The Greeks keep the fourteenth of April in honour of Trophimus; and say he was beheaded by the command of Nero, together with St. Paul. Ilis festival is observed on the twenty-ninth day of December by those of Arles.

TYCHICUS, A GENTILE CONVERT. TYCHICUS was also a disciple of St. Paul, whom that apostle had often made use of for carrying his letters to the several churches. He was of the province of Asia, and accompanied St. Paul, when in the year fifty-eight, he made his journey from Corinth to Jerusalem. He carried the epistle to the Colosians written in the year sixty-one; and that to the Ephesians written in sixty-five, and the first to Timothy, written in sixtyfour.

The Greeks celebrate the festival of Tychicus on the eighth or ninth of December, and give him the title of one of the seventy disciples, and bishop of Colophon, in the province of Asia. Other martyrologists mark his festival on the nineteenth of April.

TERTIUS, A GENTILE CONVERT.

TERTIUS, called also Tirentius, was the amanuensis

or scribe of St. Paul, when he wrote his epistle to the Romans in the year of CHRIST fifty-eight, as appears in the sixteenth chapter, I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord. The Greeks keep his festival on the tenth of November and give him great commendations and they make him successor to Sosipater in the bishoprick of Iconium, in Asia.

LINUS, A GENTILE CONVERT.

LINUS

was one of St. Paul's disciples, who mentions him in the first chapter of his second epistle to Timothy, "Linus and Claudia, and all the brethren greet ye." St. Irenæus, Eusebius, Optatus, Epiphanius, St. Jerom, and Theodoret, affirm, that Linus succeeded im

mediately to St. Peter in the see of Rome: he governed for twelve years and some months. The destruction of Jerusalem happened during his pontificate, in the year of CHRIST seventy. His festival is kept on the fifth of November by the Greeks, and on the twentythird of September by the Latins.

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ONESIPHORUS, A GENTILE CONVERT.

ONESIPHORUS was a disciple of St. Paul, and is

mentioned by him in the first chapter of his second epistle to Timothy. He came to Rome in the year of CHRIST sixty-five, while the apostle was in prison for the faith, and at a time when almost every one had forsaken him. The Greeks place his festival on the twenty-ninth of April and the eighth of December, and rank him in the order of the seventy disciples, and seem to ascribe martyrdom to him. The Roman martyrology on the sixteenth of December says, that he suffered martyrdom on the Hellespont, whither he went to preach the gospel along with Porphyrius.

STEPHANUS, A GENTILE CONVERT.

STEPHANUS was one of the principal christians of Corinth, whom St. Paul baptised with all his family, as we find in the first chapter of the epistle to the Corin. thians, propably about the fifty-second year of CHRIST.

Stephanus devoted himself to the service of the church; and in the year of our Lord fifty-six, he came to St. Paul at Ephesus, and according to Chrysostom, brought him letters which the church of Corinth wrote to him, in order to consult him concerning marriage, continency, and perhaps other subjects, which St. Paul treats of in the said first epistle to the Corinthians.

This the apostle wrote from Ephesus in the fifty-sixth year; and it was sent by Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, to the Corinthian church.

PHEBE, A DEACONNESS.

PHEBE, for whom St. Paul had a particular esteem was a deaconness of the port of Corinth called Cenchrea: and Theodoret thinks, that the apostle lodged at the house of this holy woman for some time, while he continued in or near Corinth. In the sixteenth chapter of Romans, Paul says, I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: that ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints? and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: for she hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also. Some moderns have advanced a notion that Phebe was wife to St. Paul; but none of the ancients have said any thing like it. It is thought that, in quality of deaconness, she was employed by the church in some ministrations suitable to her sex and condition; such as visiting and instructing the Christian women attending them in their sicknesses and distributing alms to them. Phebe's festival is fixed by the martyrologists on the third of September.

SOSIPATER, A GENTILE CONVERT.

WE think, that it may be confidently asserted, that this Sosipater, who was at Rome in the fifty-eighth year of CHRIST, when St. Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans of Berea: since he accompanied Paul, in the same year fifty-eight, in his journey to Jerusalem; and who probably went with him from Corinth, whence the epistle to the Romans was written, to go by the way of Macedonia to Jerusalem; as may be seen in the twentieth chapter of the acts of the apostles.

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