Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/794

 SERAPHIN

726

SERENA

NER (Cambridge, 1896); Marti (Tubingen, 1900); Condamin (Paris, 1905). Theolog>' of the Old Testament: Oehler (tr. New York, 1883); Dillmann-Kittel (Leipzig, 1895); Schultz (tr. Edinburgh, 1898).

Francis E. Gigot.

Seraphin of Montegranaro, Saint, b. at Montegranaro, 1540; d. at Ascoli, 12 Oct., 1604. He was born of a poor, pious family, and in his youth was employed as a shepherd, an occupation which gave him much leisure for prayer and other pious exercises. Upon the death of his parents he was sub- jected to harsh and cruel treatment by his eldest brother. At the age of sixteen, Seraphin entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. He was distin- guished from the first by his humihty, mortification, and obedience as well as charity, which towards the poor knew no bounds. He had a special devotion to the Blessed Eucharist and to Our Lady. Seraphin was endowed with the gift of reading the secrets of hearts, and with that of miracles and prophecy. Although unlettered, his advice was sought by secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries, and was a fruitful source of virtue to souls. His tomb is in the convent at Ascoli. He was canonized by Clement XIII, 16 July, 1767. His feast is celebrated in the Fran- ciscan Order on 12 October.

Clary, Lives of the Saitils and Blessed of the Three Orders of St. Francis, III (Taunton, 1886), 292-96; Acta SS., Oct., VI, 128-60; Lechner, Leben der Heiligen axis dem Kapuzinerorden, I (1863), 229-72; Svampa, Vita di S. Serafino da Montegranaro Laico Cap- puccino (Bologna, 1904).

Ferdinand Heckmann.

Seraphina Sforza, Blessed, b. at Urbino about 1434; d. at Pesaro, 8 Sept., 1478. Her parents were Guido Antonio of Montefeltro, Count of Urbino, and Cattarina Colonna. She was brought up at Rome by her maternal uncle, Martin V. In 1448 Serajjhina married Alexander Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Ten years afterwards her hu.sband gave himself up to a dissolute life. All the efforts of Seraphina to reform him were in vain. Instead, he heaped insults and ill-treatment upon her, and even attempted her life, and finally forced her to enter the convent of the Poor Clares at Pesaro. Her life there was one of incessant prayer especially for the conversion of her husband, which was finally granted. In 1475 Seraphina was elected abbess of the monastery at Pesaro. Her body, ex- humed some years after her death, was found incor- rupt, and is preserved in the cathedral at Pesaro. She was beatified by Benedict XIV in 1754, and her feast is kept on 9 September throughout the Franciscan Order.

Clary, Lives of the Saints and Blessed of the Three Orders of St. Francis, III (Taunton, 1886), 114-20; Acta SS.. Sept., Ill 312- 25; Wadding, Ann. Min., XIV, 209-13; Lives of Bl. Seraphina were written by Alegiani (2nd ed., Pesaro, 1855) ; Gallccci (3rd ed., Rome, 1724); Felicianegli (Pistoia, 1903).

Ferdinand Heckmann.

Serapion, Saint, Bishop of Thmuis in Lower Eg37jt, date of birth unknown; d. after 362. His parents were Christian and he was educated among the clergy of Alexandria, probably under the direc- tion of St. Athanasius, who always held him in high esteem. After presiding over a monastery for some years, he was consecrated Bishop of Thmuis some time before 343, for in that year he attendtid the Council of Sardica as a defender of the Nicene Faith. In 3.'j5 St. Athanasius sent him and four other Egyjjtian bishops on an embassy to Emperor Con- stantius (337-61) that they might plead on his behalf and refute the charges which the Arians had brought against him. Serapion was deprived of his see in 3.59 by George, the anti-Patriarch of Alexandria, and Bent into exile, hence the title "Confessor" conferred upon him by St. Jerome and the Ploman Martyrology (21 March). Between the years 358-62 St. Athana- sius afldre.s.sffi to him a letter on the death of Arius (P. G., XXV, 685-90; and four dogmatic epistles,

of which one was on the Son of God and three on the Holy Ghost (P. G., XXVI, 529-676). Serapion was a man of great purity of life and extraordinary elo- quence. St. Jerome calls him a "scholasticus", or scholar, and says that he wrote a treatise against the Manichaeans, another on the titles of the Psalms, and many useful letters to different parties. The work on the Psalms is lost ; the treatise on the Manichaeans was published from the editio princeps of Basnage (1725) by Migne (P. G. XL, 599-924) and, with the addition of a newly-discovered fragment, by Brinkmann (Berliner Sitzungsberichte, 1894, pp. 479-91). Of his letters there remain: one to a cer- tain bishop Eudoxios, otherwise unknown (P. G. XL, 923-925) ; a letter to the solitaries of Alexandria on the dignity of the religious life (ibid., 925-42); a fragment of his twentj^-third letter (Pitra, "Analecta sacra", II, p. xl); three fragments extant only in Syriac (Pitra, op. cit., IV, 214-5), and a letter on the Father and the Son, first published in 1898 by Wob- bermin from MS. 149 of the Convent of Laura on Mount Athos (Texte und Untersuchungen, XVII, new series II, fasc. 3b). From the same MS. Wob- bermin published (ibid.) the Greek text of a "eucholo- gion" of which Serapion is considered to be the author or redactor. Though some attribute the discovery of this work to Wobbermin its text had already been published in 1894 by Dmitrijewski in the periodical, " Trudy ", of the ecclesiastical academy of Kiew and by Paulov in the xP<"'"^o ^v^amva (from the same MS.?). This euchologion contains thirty prayers, eighteen of which refer to the Mass, seven to baptism and confirmation, three to Holy orders, two to the anoint- ing of the sick, and one to the burial of the dead. These prayers were arranged in their proper liturgical order by Brightman, and in this order they were pub- lished (text and Lat. tr.) by Funk in his "Didascalia" under the title "Sacramentarium Scrapionis". They have been translated into English by Wordsworth in his work, "Bishop Serapion's Prayer Book". This euchologion is a most important document for the history of the Egyptian liturgy in the fom-th century.

SozoMEN, P. G., LXVII, 1371; St. .Iero.me, De uir. i//., xcix; TiLLEMONT, Memoires ,VIII (Venice, 1732); Quatremere, M^m. sur VEgyple (Paris, 1811); Brinkmann in Berliner Sitzungsbe- richte (1894); WoBBERMi.N in Tezte und Untersuchungen, XVII, n. s. II, fasc. 3b (Leipzig, 1898); Brightman, Journal of Theol. Studies (London, 1900); Drews in Zeits. fur Kirchengesch. (Gotha, 1900); Batiffol, La litlSrature grecque (Paris, 1901); Baumbtark in Rdmische Quartalschrift (Rome, 1904); Funk, Didascalia et Constitutiones apostolorum (Paderborn, 190.5); Du- chesne, Lea origines du cuUe chretien (4th ed., Paris, 1908) ; Wordb- WORTH, Bishop Serapion's Prayer-Book (London, 1910).

A. A. Vaschauje.

Serapion, Bishop of Antioch (190-211), is known principally through his theological writings. Of these Eusebius (Hist, eccl., V, 19) mentions a private letter addressed to Caricus and Pontius against the Montan- ist 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 Easebius was acquainted, but he says it is prob- able that others were extant in his time. He gives two short extracts from the first and third.

Jerome, De Viris III., c. 31 ; Socrates, //. E., Ill, 7; Routh, Reliquia: sacrce, 447-62; Harnack, Chronologie, II, Vi'2; Acta SS., XIII Oct., 248-52.

Patrick J. Healy.

Serena, La, Diocese of (de Serena, Sereno- politana), embracing Atacama and Coquimbo provinces (Chile), suffragan of Santiago, erected 1 JuW, 1840. The boundaries of the diocese were definitively established on 26 March, 1844; on 5 June, 1844, the first bishop, Jos6 Agustin de la Sierra, waa installed. Mgr. Jara, fifth bishop, waa