St. Angelus, Carmelite Friar, Martyr


HE was of Jewish parents, and a native of Jerusalem. Being converted to the faith, he embraced the austere life of certain anchorets on the banks of the Jordan; from whom he passed to the hermits of the desert on Mount Carmel. He seems to have been one amongst them at the time when the blessed Albert drew up a rule for them in 1206: at least he became one of the first friars of that holy Order. Coming to preach in the West, he was massacred by the heretics at Licate or Leocato, in Sicily, in 1225, by the contrivance of a powerful rich man, whose incest with a sister he had severely reproved, and had converted her from that scandalous life. The annals of the Order furnish the most material circumstances of his glorious death, and the account of his miracles. See Papebroke the Bollandist, t. 2, Maij. p. 56, who sets no great value on any of the three different acts or relations of his martyrdom, but gives long accounts of miracles performed since his death, and of the great veneration which is paid to him in Sicily, especially at Leocata and at Palermo. See also on St. Angelus, the new Bibliotheca Carmelitana, printed at Orleans, in 1752, t. 1, p. 113.	1