THE OLD CHARGES OF BRITISH FREEMASONS.
85
was thought rather to be the cloak than the master
Woodford, "Amphibalus" is mentioned in the Dowland MS,,^
to in his work,^ suggests that Amjjhibalus
of St Alban.
According to
but I have been unable to trace this reference.
legend of St Alban must be relegated
however, clear that the crafi
and romance. All accounts
It seems,
to the region of fable
concur in representing St Amphibalus as a priest or missionary from Eome, who, arriving
Verulamiura during the Diocletian persecution, was generously sheltered by St Alban,
at
man
Eoman
and of high rank, and that the almost immediate
conversion of Alban by his guest was followed by equally rapid detection and the martyrdom
"
of the two saints, along with numerous other Christians and
new proselytes." To suppose
then a pagan, a
that St
of
origin
Amphibalus was merely the
did
the latter certainly
of St Alban, though
cloak
try to conceal him by covering him with his own rich official garment, is
Such individuals quite forget that the habit of
assumption of self-opinionated critics.
nicknames was one for which the Eomans were notorious, and that hardly a great
applying
name in their history can be cited which does not fall witliin this description. For example,
the ridiculous
"
"
"
"
Caracalla
always called
Caligula
(a shoe), and Antoninus Bassianus,
short Gaulish cloak).
would signify a long, ample
translated, "Amphibalus
Literally
(a
garment, such as a pilgrim might naturally carry with him. The first mention of these
Caius Caesar
is
'
saints
— Alban and Amphibalus— occurs
in the life of St
Germanus
Auxerre by
of
his friend
and companion Constantius, who relates how the former, after having confuted the Pelagians,
"
and vanquished the Picts at IMaes-garmon (the Halleluia victory "), held a solemn assembly
at the spot
where the two
purpose from the
They
martjTdom.
we
fiud nothing
saints lay buried,
sanctity
in
which
beyond a reference
was
it
are next alluded to
and which he seems
held.
to
have selected
for that
This was about 120 years after the
and later by Bede, but
Gildas,^ circa A.D. 570,
by
to the story already given,
and there
is
no hint or
No trace of the fa ֖Ɩ