[In some authors on Jan. 28th; in others, on Feb. 17th; in others, on Feb, 25th; also on Feb. 18th. Authority:--The Acts of S. Agnes, attributed to S. Ambrose, but of questionable authenticity; and the apocryphal Acts of SS. John and Paul.]
S. Constantia, daughter of Constantine the Great, was afflicted with a distressing disease, apparently scrofula. The Roman general, Gallicanus, being much in favour with Contantine, and having lost his wife, was offered Constantia in marriage by the emperor. Gallicanus was called off to oppose an inroad of the barbarians on Thrace, and he vowed, if he obtained the victory, to accept the faith of Christ. He succeeded in repulsing the enemy, and returned to Rome to find that Constantia had been healed of her scrofula at the tomb of S. Agnes, and that she had persuaded his three daughters, Augusta, Attica, and Artemia, to live with her, as consecrated virgins, near the shrine of the virgin martyr, to whose intercession she attributed her cure. It is difficult to decide what shadow of historical foundation there is for this story.
[Roman Martyrology; but by the Greeks on Feb. 16th. Authorities:--Nicephorus Callistus, Evagrius, and the letters of S. Leo the Great to Flavian.[54]]
It is not easy to understand the position of any great man of the eventful 4th and 5th centuries, without a general knowledge of the struggles of the Church against one heresy after another for the maintenance of the true doctrine, as to the natures and person of Christ Jesus, and this it is almost impossible to compress into a single article on the life of one actor in that eventful period. S. Proclus, author of the famous "Tome," as it was called, or doctrinal statement on the Incarnation, was patriarch of Constantinople. S. Leo, pious, earnest, Roman-spirited, was bishop of Rome. Domnus was patriarch of Antioch. The great S. Cyril of Alexandria was dead, and had left a large bequest to his successor, conjuring him, "by the venerable and awful mysteries," to befriend his kindred. The archdeacon Dioscorus was elected in his place, and forthwith extorted from the family of Cyril considerable sums, and imprisoned and otherwise outraged the nephews of the deceased patriarch. The new patriarch had previously borne a fair character, but his exaltation revealed a spirit at once tyrannous and sensual. His life became openly scandalous. He deposed from their functions those whom Cyril had favoured; he burnt the house, felled the trees, and hacked up the land of one deacon against whom he bore a grudge.