OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Paul of Middelburg

From volume 11 of the work.
A scientist and bishop, born in 1446 at Middelburg, the ancient capital of the province of Zealand, belonging then to the German Empire, now to Holland; died in Rome, 13 December, 1534. After finishing his studies in Louvain he received a canonry in his native town, of which he was afterwards deprived. The circumstances of this fact are not known, but in his apologetic letter on the celebration of Easter he calls it a usurpation, and shows great bitterness against his country, calling it "barbara Zelandiæ insula", "vervecum patria", "cerdonum regio", etc. He then taught for a while in Louvain, was invited by the Signoria of Venice to take a chair for sciences in Padua (1480), travelled through Italy, became physician to Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, and friend to Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, afterwards emperor. By the former he was endowed with the Benedictine Abbey St. Christophorus in Castel Durante (1488), and by the latter he was recommended to Alexander VI for the Bishopric of Fossombrone (Moroni, LXXXV, 314). Being nominated to that see, in 1494, he destroyed some of his former publications; first "Giudizio dell' anno 1480", in which he had censured a number of mathematicians; then a "Practica de pravis Constellationibus", and a defence of that work against the nephew of Paul II (1484); and finally an "Invectiva in superstitiosum Vatem". He chose for himself an astronomical coat of arms, and, in 497, enlarged and embellished the episcopal palace. Besides some smaller treatises against usurers and against the superstitious fear of a flood in 1524 (Fossombrone, 1523), he wrote important works on the reform of the Calendar, which procured for him invitations by Julius II and Leo X to the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-1518). His "Epistola ad Universitatem Lovaniensem de Paschate recte observando" (1487) was followed by an "Epistola apologetica" (1488), and finally by his principal work "Paulina, de recta Pasch celebratione" (Fossombrone, 1513). The contents and result of the work are described under the article LILIUS. He died while assisting at the Divine Office in Rome, and was buried in S. Maria dell' Anima. His family name is unknown, but in one place he is called Paolo di Adriano (Moroni, XLIV, 120). Scaliger, who calls him "Omnium sui sæculi mathematicorum . . . facile princeps", was his godson.
SCHMIDLIN, Gesch. der deutschen Nationalkirche in Rom (Freiburg, 1906), 349.
J. G. Hagen.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Paul Ragueneau

From volume 12 of the work.
Jesuit missionary, b. in Paris, 18 March, 1608; d. 8 Sept., 1680. He entered the Society in 1626. In 1636 he went to Quebec and was soon sent to the Hurons with Le Moyne, Depron, Jogues, and Garnier, to labour under Brébeuf during the long and painful period preceding the conversion of that nation. He was one of the heroic band who, in 1637, being exposed to death at every moment, signed and sent to their superior as their last will a joint act of resignation to martyrdom. In 1645 Ragueneau was superior of the Huron mission which counted eighteen workers. He possessed a perfect mastery of the language. The death of the martyr Jogues was the signal for many conversions, and Ragueneau writes with admiration of the fervour of his neophytes. Five of his fellow missionaries won the martyr's crown in different posts under Ragueneau's direction, the first being Father Daniel (4 July, 1648). He remained at his post on St. Mary's on the Wye until persuaded by the Huron captains to join the fugitives on St. Joseph's island (1649). The notable increase in the number of conversions (3000 Indians being baptized in 1649) rewarded his zeal. After a bloody defeat, followed by the massacres of Father Chabanel and Garnier, Ragueneau, yielding to the entreaties of the few whom famine, pestilence, and the fury of the Iroquois had spared, led the small band of 400 survivors, the remnants of a nation of ten thousand, to their final refuge, Quebec, after a long and perilous journey. In 1650 he became vice rector of the College of Quebec and superior of the Canadian mission. It was during this time that he directed in the ways of holiness a highly privileged soul, Sister Catherine of St-Augustine, whose life he wrote. His influence in the supreme council and with Governor de Lauzon was the occasion of his removal to Three Rivers (1656). The year following he was sent as superior to the Iroquois mission. On his way to Onondaga he witnessed the butchery of his Huron companions, for which he reproved the murderers, the Senecas and Onondagas, at the peril of his own life. Informed of the impending massacre of all the French in the Iroquois country, Ragueneau's genius planned and realized their escape and return to Quebec (1658). He returned to France (1662) with Bishop Laval, and remained there as procurator of the missions. Besides a life of Sister Catherine of St-Augustine (Paris, 1671), Ragueneau wrote "Relations" of 1648-9, 1649-50, 1650-1, and 1651-2. No other Jesuit in Canada wrote so much as he. On one of his missions he saw and mentioned Niagara Falls thirty-five years before Hennepin, the alleged discoverer, described the cataract.
ROCHEMONTIEUX, Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle-France (Paris, 1896); CAMPBELL, Pioneer Priests of North America (new York, 1908); PARKMAN, The Jesuits of North America (Toronto, 1899); THWAITES, Jesuit Relations (Cleveland, 1896-1901).
LIONEL LINDSAY
# Chinese Fairy Tales (H. Giles, 1920)/12

THE TALKING BIRD
There was a man who had a pet bird, very like a starling, which he taught to talk; and the bird was in the habit of travelling about with him all over the country as his companion. This went on for some years, until once he found himself far away from home with all his money spent and without means of getting home. He was in a great state of perplexity, when suddenly the bird said to him, "Why not sell me? Try to get me into the prince's palace; I ought to fetch a good sum, and then you will have enough to get home with." To this the man said, "My dear bird, I couldn't do it; I couldn't bear to part with you." "Never mind that," said the bird; "Wait for me under the big tree a little way out of the city." So he took the bird along, chattering together as they went, until he was seen by a eunuch of the palace, who promptly reported to the prince. The prince at once sent for the man and offered to buy the bird; but the man said that he and the bird were leading their lives together and could not possibly be parted. Then the prince turned to the bird and said, "Would you like to live here?" "Very much indeed," replied the bird; "give my master ten ounces of silver for me, not more." The prince was delighted with the bird, and immediately gave orders for the ten ounces to be weighed out and ​given to the man, who went away grumbling at his bad luck. The prince had a long conversation with the bird, and by and by sent for some meat for it to eat. After this, the bird said, "Please, your Highness, may I have a bath?" At this the prince told the servants to bring water in a golden bowl, and he opened the cage door for the bird to come out. The bird splashed about in the bath; and when it had finished, flew up and perched on the eaves of the palace, where it shook itself and smoothed its feathers, talking all the time to the prince. When it was quite dry it suddenly said "Good-bye, your Highness; I'm off!" And in half a moment the bird was out of sight. The prince was very angry, and immediately sent out to call the man back; but he had disappeared. Later on some people saw the man and the bird back again in their own old home.
THE END
# Chinese Fairy Tales (H. Giles, 1920)/8

THEFT OF A DUCK
In a country village, there lived an honest old farmer, named Chang, who had a large flock of fine fat ducks. One day, a good-for-nothing fellow named Lin who lived near by, stole one of these ducks and carried it off to his home and ate it for supper. In the middle of the night he began to itch violently all over; and when morning came, he found to his horror that he was entirely covered with feathers which were growing out of his skin and now began to smart terribly. He was in great pain all day but at night he managed to get off to sleep, and then he dreamt that a man appeared to him and said, "You are being punished for stealing that duck; and you will never get well until you go to Mr. Chang and make him say, "You dirty thief!" Lin was very much troubled at this, but he soon thought of a plan by which he hoped to escape. He went to see Mr. Chang and said to him, "Sir, I have something to tell you privately. Your duck was stolen by old Wang who lives down the road; he doesn't like being called bad names, and if you go and say to him 'You dirty thief!'" he will be sure to pay you for the duck and will take care never to steal any more." At this, Mr. Chang laughed loudly, and said, "I haven't got time to go about calling people bad names, all for the loss of a duck; I won't do anything of the kind." Just ​then Lin's skin began to smart so dreadfully that he had nothing left but to fall on his knees and own that he himself had stolen the duck, and implore Mr. Chang to say "You dirty thief!" to him. To this Mr. Chang replied, that he had never been in the habit of using bad language and that he certainly was not going to begin doing so. However, when Lin opened his shirt and showed Mr. Chang the feathers which had grown all over his body, and told him with tears in his eyes what pain he was suffering, Mr. Chang at last consented, and said to him, "You dirty thief!" From that moment the feathers disappeared from his body, and he took care never to steal ducks again.
# Chinese Fairy Tales (H. Giles, 1920)/9

LIVING FOR EVER
Hundreds of years ago, there were a great many learned men in China, who were always trying to find out something which would make them live for ever. They mixed up all kinds of things together, and boiled them for a long time over the fire, and then drank the juice. Some of them were soon poisoned, while all the rest made themselves very ill, and did not live any longer than other people. One man sent a bottle of his mixture to the king, only it never reached his Majesty, because it was stolen and drunk up by the door-keeper of the palace. At this the king was very angry, and sent for the door-keeper and ordered his head to be cut off on the spot. But the door-keeper said, "Please, your Majesty, if you kill me, it shows that the medicine I drank cannot make people live for ever; so that it would have been of no use to your Majesty." The king laughed at this, and let him off.
However, there was another man, who had spent about fifty years in trying to make this wonderful medicine. He had mixed up every kind of drug and plant it was possible to get hold of, and he had tried his mixture on a great number of old people; but all of them had died, some perhaps sooner than they would otherwise have done. Well, one day as he was sitting at a table in his garden, working ​away at his mixtures, he was so pleased with a new kind he had made that he felt positive he had found the secret at last. So he determined, before giving it to anybody else, to make sure of some for himself, and there and then he drank off nearly a cupful. Immediately, he felt himself rising slowly from the ground, and soon he began going faster and faster, until he was quite high up in the air. This seemed to frighten him, for he dropped the cup with a lot of the mixture in it. The cup fell in his backyard, and the cocks and hens ran at once to get a sip of the mixture, thinking it was probably something good to eat. His dog too ran to take a lick, and even the cat had a taste. Very soon they were all sailing after their master up into the sky, and gradually passed out of sight, and were never heard of again.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Gluttony

From volume 6 of the work.
(From Lat. gluttire, to swallow, to gulp down), the excessive indulgence in food and drink. The moral deformity discernible in this vice lies in its defiance of the order postulated by reason, which prescribes necessity as the measure of indulgence in eating and drinking. This deordination, according to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor, may happen in five ways which are set forth in the scholastic verse: "Prae-propere, laute, nimis, ardenter, studiose" or, according to the apt rendering of Father Joseph Rickably: too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, too daintily. Clearly one who uses food or drink in such a way as to injure his health or impair the mental equipment needed for the discharge of his duties, is guilty of the sin of gluttony. It is incontrovertible that to eat or drink for the mere pleasure of the experience, and for that exclusively, is likewise to commit the sin of gluttony. Such a temper of soul is equivalently the direct and positive shutting out of that reference to our last end which must be found, at least implicitly, in all our actions. At the same time it must be noted that there is no obligation to formerly and explicitly have before one's mind a motive which will immediately relate our actions to God. It is enough that such an intention should be implied in the apprehension of the thing as lawful with a consequent virtual submission to Almighty God. Gluttony is in general a venial sin in so far forth as it is an undue indulgence in a thing which is in itself neither good nor bad. Of course it is obvious that a different estimate would have to be given of one so wedded to the pleasures of the table as to absolutely and without qualification live merely to eat and drink, so minded as to be of the number of those, described by the Apostle St. Paul, "whose god is their belly" (Phil., iii, 19). Such a one would be guilty of mortal sin. Likewise a person who, by excesses in eating and drinking, would have greatly impaired his health, or unfitted himself for duties for the performance of which he has a grave obligation, would be justly chargeable with mortal sin. St. John of the Cross, in his work "The Dark Night of the Soul" (I, vi), dissects what he calls spiritual gluttony. He explains that it is the disposition of those who, in prayer and other acts of religion, are always in search of sensible sweetness; they are those who "will feel and taste God, as if he were palpable and accessible to them not only in Communition but in all their other acts of devotion." This he declares is a very great imperfection and productive of great evils.
JOSEPH F. DELANY
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Godfrey Henschen

From volume 7 of the work.
(Or Henskens.)
Jesuit, hagiographer; b. at Venray (Limburg), 21 June, 1601; d. at Antwerp, 11 Sept., 1681. The son of Henry Henschen, a cloth merchant, and Sibylla Pauwels, he studied the humanities at the Jesuit College of Bois-le-Duc ('s Hertogenbosch) and entered the novitiate at Mechlin, 22 Oct., 1619. He taught successively Greek, poetry, and rhetoric at Bergues, Bailleul, Ypres, and Ghent, and was ordained priest on 16 April, 1634, sent to the professed house at Antwerp the following year, and admitted to the profession of the four vows on 12 May, 1636. From the time of his arrival in the city he was associated as collaborator with Father Bollandus, who was then preparing the first volumes of the "Acta Sanctorum". As has been said in speaking of this collection (see Bolandists), it was Henschen who, by his commentary on the Acts of St. Amand, suggested to Bolandus the course to follow, and gave to the scientific work undertaken by his learned master its definitive form. The same article speaks of the literary journey, undertaken by Henschen in company with Father Papebroch, to Italy, France, and Germany (22 July, 1660-21 December, 1662). He collaborated on the volumes for January, February, March, and April, and on the first six volumes for May, that is on seventeen volumes of the "Acta Sanctorum". Several of his posthumous commentaries appeared in the succeeding volumes. A list of some other works from his pen will be found in De Backer's "Bibliothèque des escrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus". Henschen was the first librarian of the museum Bollandianum at Antwerp.
Papebroch, De vitâ, operibus, et virtutibus God. Henschenii in Acta SS., VII, May; Habets, Godfried Henschenius medestichter der Acta Sanctorum (Maastricht, 1868).
HIPPOLYTE DELEHAYE
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Gobban Saer

From volume 6 of the work.
Regarded in traditional lore as the greatest Irish architect of the seventh century, and popularly canonized as St. Gobban; b. at Turvey, near Malahide, Co. Dublin, about 560. He was employed by many Irish saints to build churches, oratories, and bell-towers, and he is alluded to in an eighth-century Irish poem, now in a monastery in Carinthia. So wonderful are the stories told of this great master-builder that many writers have gone so far as to regard him as a mythical personage, but he undoubtedly must be classed as an historical figure. He was much in advance of his time as an architect, and received commissions all over Ireland. In the "Life of St. Abban" it is prophetically said that "the fame of Gobban as a builder in wood as well as stone would exist in Ireland to the end of time." Certain it is that even at the present day innumerable stories in the Irish tongue are still current of the Gobban Saer, or Gobban the Builder. He lived into the first half of the seventh century, or even later, according to some writers, but he laboured as late as 645.
W. H. Grattan-Flood.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Serapion

From volume 13 of the work.
Bishop of Antioch (190-211). Known principally through his theological writings. Of these Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, 19) mentions a private letter addressed to Caricus and Pontius against the Montanist heresy; a treatise addressed to a certain Domninus, who in time of persecution abandoned Christianity for the error of "Jewish will-worship" (Hist. eccl., VI, 12); a work on the Docetic Gospel attributed to St. Peter, in which the Christian community of Rhossus in Syria is warned of the erroneous character of this Gospel. These were the only works of Serapion with which Eusebius was acquainted, but he says it is probable that others were extant in his time. He gives two short extracts from the first and third.
[Note: St. Serapion is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on 30 October.]
JEROME, De Viris Ill., c. 31; SOCRATES, H. E., III, 7; ROUTH, Reliquiae sacrae, 447-62; HARNACK, Chronologie, II, 132; Acta SS., XIII Oct., 248-52.
PATRICK J. HEALY
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Servus servorum Dei

From volume 13 of the work.
(SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD.)
A title given by the popes to themselves in documents of note. Gregory the Great was the first to use it extensively, and he was imitated by his successors, though not invariably till the ninth century. John the Deacon states (P.L., LXXV, 87) that Gregory assumed this title as a lesson in humility to John the Faster. Prior to the controversy with John (595), addressing St. Leander in April, 591, Gregory employed this phrase, and even as early as 587, according to Ewald ("Neues Archiv fur altere deutsche Geschichtskunde", III, 545, a. 1878), while still a deacon. A Bull of 570 begins: "Joannes (III) Episcopus, servus servorum Dei". Bishops actuated by humility, e.g. St. Boniface [Jaffe, "Monum. Mogun." in "Biblioth. Rer. Germ.", III (Berlin, 1866), 157, 177 etc.], and the archbishops of Benevento; or by pride, e.g. the archbishops of Ravenna as late as 1122 [Muratori, "Antiq. Ital.", V (Milan, 1741), 177; "Dissertazioni", II, disser. 36]; and even civil rulers, e.g. Alphonsus II, King of Spain (b. 830), and Emperor Henry III (b. 1017), applied the term to themselves. Since the twelfth century it is used exclusively by the pope. (See BULLS AND BRIEFS.)
DU CANGE, Glossarium med. et inf. lat.
ANDREW B. MEEHAN
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Seven-Branch Candlestick

From volume 13 of the work.
One of the three chief furnishings of the Holy of the Tabernacle and the Temple (Exodus 25:31-40; 37:17-24). In reality it was an elaborate lampstand, set on the south side of the Holy Place so as to face the loaves of proposition. It was beaten out of finest gold. A central shaft, together with three pairs of branches curving upward from out of the shaft, all exquisitely ornamented and surmounted with stands, held in a line the seven golden lamps that gave light to the sanctuary. The priests dressed the lamps in the morning and set them on the lampstand in the evening (Exodus 30:7, 8). All night long the seven lamps were kept burning (Exodus 27:20-21; Leviticus 24:3; I Kings 3:3). As for the day, Josephus (Antiq. Jud., III, viii, 3) tells us that three lamps were lighted. Levites of the family of Caath cared for the golden lampstand on the march (Numbers 3:31). It was among the spoils brought by Vespasian and Titus to grace their triumph at Rome, and may be seen sculptured upon the Arch of Titus.
WALTER DRUM
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Seven Deacons

From volume 13 of the work.
The seven men elected by the whole company of the original Christian community at Jerusalem and ordained by the Apostles, their office being chiefly to look after the poor and the common agape. The number of believers at Jerusalem had grown very rapidly, and complaints had been made that poor widows of Hellenistic Jews were neglected. The Apostles, not desiring to be drawn away from preaching and the higher spiritual ministry to care for material things, proposed to the believers to transfer such duties to suitable men, and following this suggestion the "Seven" were appointed (Acts, vi, 1-6). This was the first separation of an ecclesiastical, hierarchical office from the Apostolate in which up to then the ecclesiastico-religious power had been concentrated. The "seven men" were "full of the Holy Ghost" and therefore able partially to represent the Apostles in more important matters referring to the spiritual life, as is seen in the case of St. Stephen (q.v.) at Jerusalem, of St. Philip in Samaria, and elswhere. Nothing further is known of several of the seven deacons, namely Nicanor, Timon, and Parmenas. Philip, who is called the "Evangelist", preached with much success in Samaria (Acts, viii, 5 sq.), so that the two Apostles Peter and John went there later to bestow the Holy Ghost on those whom he had baptized. He also baptized the eunuch of the Queen of the Ethiopians (Acts, viii, 26 sqq.). According to the further testimony of the Book of the Acts (xxi, 8 sqq.) he lived later with his prophetically gifted daughters at Caesarea. His feast is observed on 6 June, by the Greek Church on 11 October. In later narratives Prochorus is said to be one of the seventy disciples chosen by Christ; it is related that he went to Asia Minor as a missionary and became Bishop of Nicomedia. The apocryphal Acts of John were wrongly ascribed to him [cf. Lipsius, "Apokryphe Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden", I (Brunswick, 1883), 355 sqq.]
In the second half of the second century a curious tradition appeared respecting Nicholas. Irenaeus and the anti-heretical writers of the early Church who follow him refer the name of the Nicolaitans — a dissolute, immoral sect that are opposed, as early as the Apocalypse of John — to that of Nicholas and trace the sect back to him (Irenaeus, "Adv. haer.", I, xxvi, 3; III, xi, 1). Clement relates as a popular report (Stromat., II, xx) that Nicholas was reproved by the Apostles on account of his jealousy of his beautiful wife. On this he set her free and left it open for any one to marry her, saying that the flesh should be maltreated. His followers took this to mean that it was necessary to yield to the lusts of the flesh (cf. the Philosophumena, VII, 36). This narrative points to a similar tradition, such as is found in Irenaeus respecting the Nicolaitans. How far the tradition is historical cannot now be determined, perhaps the Nicolaitans themselves falsely ascribed their origin to the Deacon Nicholas [cf. Wohlenberg, "Nikolas von Antiochen und die Nikolaiten" in the "Neue kirchl. Zeitschrift" (1895), 923 sqq.].
J.P. KIRSCH