Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/494

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480 SS. LYBE AND LEONIS hearing of it, camo from Firmana where she lived, bringing her remaining son Mark, a baby at the breast, and accom- panied by her brother John, a deacon. She expired while praying at the tomb of her hasband and sons, and is counted among the martyrs. This happened during an invasion of barbarians when Italy was devastated, first by Parthians, and then by Saracens from Gilicia during the reign of the Emperors Justin and Louis the Pious. The Bollandists reject the story as fabulous, on the grounds that no such places as Antissa and Pallonia were ever heard of in Italy; that the two emperors lived three centuries apart; and that the inroad of barbarians cannot bo identified with any invasion recorded in history. The bodies of the martyrs are said to have been found at Antissa in 1039. AA.SS,y PrsBter. SS. Lybe or Libya, and Leonis or Leonidbs, mm. at Palmyra in Syria, June 15, 25. Lybo was beheaded, her sister Leonis burnt. They are mentioned in Bryene's exhortation to Febronia (1). B.M. AA,SS. St. Lydia (l), Aug. 3. 1st century. Patron of dyers. St. Paul, the apostle, went into Macedonia in obedience to a vision, and at Philippi, the capital, he went with his companions to a place by the riverside whero prayer was wont to be made. They sat down and spake to the women who resortod thither ; Lydia was one at them; she was a seller of purple and a native of Thyatira in Lydia. It has been supposed that she was called Lydia at Philippi from the name of her country, and is therefore ono of the many famous saints whose real names are not known. She may, however, have been christened by this name, by which she was already commonly called. She and her household were baptized, and she invited the Christian preachers to stay in her house. They did so, and it was while lodging with her that SS. Paul and Silas were cast into prison on the accusation of certain men out of whose slave they had cast a spirit of divination. On their liberation from prison they visited Lydia before they departed from Philippi. In all probability she was one of those labourers in the apostolic work, whom St. Paul mentions in his epistle to the Philippians iv. -i. Acts xvi. 0. B.M. AA.SS. Baillet. Smith's Dic» of the Bible. St Lydia (2), March 27, M. 2ud century. Wife of Philetus, a senator. They were martyred in Illyricum, with their son and daughter Macodo and Theoprepedes, and fifty-five other persons, in the reign of Adrian. They are all erroneously claimed as Spaniards, and Lydia is called Leda by the writers of that country. B,M. AA.SS. St Lydmily, Ludmilla. St. Lydwig, Lydewiges, Lydwyn or Lytwyn, Lidwina. END OF VOL. I ^C/3 - < J PKIMTKO BT WUXXAM CL0WB8 AMD 80V8, UMITBO, LOHDOIC AKD BB0CL18.