ON ST. ELPHEGE THE MARTYR,
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY IN ENGLAND.
A.D. 1012.
PrefaceElphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, in England (St.)
G. H.
Among the illustrious men of the English Church stands out St. Elphege, or Elfeagus. He was born in the said kingdom about the year of Christ 954, in adolescence, having taken the monastic habit, lived in the monastery of Deerhurst. Born in the year 954, Then when he had for some time led a solitary life in the place of Bath, made there founder of a monastery, Bishop of Winchester in the year 984, Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1006. he presided over the monks as Abbot. Afterwards in the year 984, a revelation having been made through St. Andrew, he was consecrated Bishop of Winchester on October 19; and at length in the year 1006 Archbishop of Canterbury. Which city having been captured and burned by the Danes in the year 1011, after long incarceration, he was put to death by the same Danes on April 19 of the year 1012, on the Saturday after the Paschal solemnity, killed in the year 1012. He was renowned in life and death with many miracles, but his body was first carried to London, and deposited in the church of St. Paul, thence in the year 1023 was brought back to Canterbury: where even in the year 1105 it was found incorrupt. Some writing was soon composed concerning his deeds, sacred cult soon employed? and Ecclesiastical veneration applied as concerning a Pontiff Martyr, and he is said to have been inscribed in the Catalog of Saints with the bringing back of the body to the Canterbury people.
[2] Bl. Lanfranc, ordained Archbishop in the year 1070, raised a scruple with St. Anselm, then still Abbot of Bec in Normandy, afterwards his successor in the See of Canterbury, whether he was rightly venerated as a Martyr. Eadmer indicates Anselm's resolution in his Life, which we illustrate below on April 21: here content with having reported what Gervasius wrote on that matter in the Acts of the Pontiffs of Canterbury. rendered more solemn by Bl. Lanfranc, To Anselm, he says, is to be ascribed it that the memory of the holy Martyr Elphege is solemnly celebrated. For when he had come to England, to visit the churches committed to him, and to see his master now Archbishop Lanfranc; among other words of affection Lanfranc said, that the English had instituted certain Saints to themselves, among whom was a certain Archbishop Elphege, whom the Danes killed, because he was unwilling to despoil his own men for his redemption. To whom when Anselm had shown with probable reason, that Elphege, having suffered for justice, was a true Martyr of God;
Lanfranc instituted that his memory be solemnly celebrated. Baronius gathers more about his martyrdom in the Notes to this day, and we elsewhere have often said, that everywhere all Saints who fell by violent death are venerated among the Martyrs.
[3] Then by the order of Lanfranc the history of the life and passion of St. Elphege was written with diligent study by Osbern, Life written by Osbern is given from Mss., monk of the Canterbury Church: who prefaces that he hands down what he himself knew about the glorious Martyr of Christ Elphege, and received from those who saw it, or had it from those who saw it, or certainly from the elders, having already before not incommodiously found it written. We give this Life, hitherto unpublished, from our very ancient Ms. codex. There exist various compendia of this Life, some of which has been published in the New Legend of England, its Compendium in Capgrave and Surius: printed by John Capgrave at London in the year 1516; and afterwards reprinted by Laurence Surius on this April 19, with the name of Osbern prefixed, as if he were the author of the said compendium: and in this Baronius and more recent authors have followed Surius. We have a Ms. universal Chronicon, compiled by Theodoric Paul of Gorcum: in which the deeds of the Archbishops of Canterbury are laid out, and among other titles this one is prefixed: another in Mss. and in Bellovacensis: Original Legend of St. Elphege, glorious Archbishop and Martyr: or from this it could be doubted, whether it itself was that writing which Osbern mentioned had befallen him. Nevertheless we rather think it to be some compendium of Osbern, different from the former, which agrees in many things with that Life of St. Elphege, which Vincent of Beauvais published in book 25 of the Speculum historiale chapter 1 and the seven following: and which is also extant in the Mss. of Utrecht of St. Salvator, of Bodeken of the Regular Canons in Westphalia, and various others.
[4] Ancient English writers celebrate St. Elphege, Magnificent testimonies of St. Elphege are provided by the ancient Writers of English affairs. Of these in the century following the death of St. Elphege flourished Florence of Worcester, William of Malmesbury, Simeon of Durham, Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of Hoveden, Ralph de Diceto, John Bromton, Gervasius of Dover: of whom the last lived towards the end of the said century, or about the year twelve hundred. Younger are Matthew of Westminster and Ranulph of Chester, whose Chronicon we have hitherto unpublished: and these wrote in the 14th century or after the year 1300. Then in the following century the author of the Augustinian Chronology, in which the Canterbury Bishops are reviewed. All these recount the deeds of St. Elphege, his generous martyrdom and holy veneration, and have borrowed their own from the Acts described by Osbern, and often report his words, especially Bromton and Gervasius. But Malmesbury, book 1 of the Deeds of the English Pontiffs, expressly indicates, that the life of St. Elphege, full of virtues and miracles, was written by Osbern, and in book 2 transcribes many things from there. But faith should rather be applied to the English themselves, than to foreigners who have strayed further, following the more ancient Dithmar Bishop of Merseburg. Dithmar errs, For he from the report of a certain Sewald mixes in many things alien from the truth, which can be seen in him, or certainly refuted in Michael Alford in the Annals of the English Church at the year 1012 num. 7. A more sincere eulogy was made by Peter de Natalibus book 2 of the Catalog chapter 8, almost transcribing Bellovacensis. and on the day of death Peter de Natalibus, But of his own at the end, not without great error, he added these things: He suffered on the 5th day before the Kalends of January, namely on the day preceding the feast of Thomas the Martyr, his successor in the same Pontificate and in martyrdom. Others also have followed Peter, namely Whitford, Maurolycus, Felicius, Wion, Grevenus, and Ferrari; who conjectures the day noted by Peter to be the day of translation, and this is asserted in the English Martyrology; and it is indicated that this is the memory of the body brought back to the Canterbury people. But because this used formerly to be celebrated on March 12, as is had below, we think that in the said Martyrology that translation was inserted from the mere conjecture of the author.
[5] sacred memory on April 19, Celebrated especially is the memory of St. Elphege on April 19 in the Breviary of Sarum, where this prayer is prescribed: O God who didst decorate the Blessed Alphege, thy Confessor, with the dignity of the Priesthood and the palm of martyrdom; mercifully grant, that we may be so helped with thee by his intercessions, that with him we may be able to rejoice in eternal felicity. The same prayer is had in the ancient parchment Missal of the English Church: in which, in the Prayers secret and after Communion, he is called Martyr and Pontiff. In the Ms. Utrecht Martyrology of the Church of St. Mary, everywhere English Saints are noted and these things are reported on this day: In Kent the passion of St. Elsegi, Archbishop and Martyr, who captured by pagans and killed, was buried at London. A similar cult of St. Elphege flourishes at Dol among the Armorican Britons, as appears from the Breviary printed for its use about the year 1519. His name is inscribed in the Ms. Trier Martyrology of St. Martin, the Ms. Florarium of the Saints, likewise in Grevenus and Molanus in the Additions to Usuard, and in Whitford, Canisius, Galesinius and others, and with all these in today's Roman Martyrology in these words: At Canterbury in England, of St. Elphege, Bishop and Martyr. Constantine Ghini proposes the same in the Natalia of the Canonical Saints; but Wion, Dorganius, Menardus, Bucelinus, and Edouard Maihew ascribe him to the Benedictine order, following Trithemius, who reports him book 3 of Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict chapter 237 and book 4 chapter 113, asserting him to have been a monk and Abbot of a monastery in England, which is called Bath. To us also it seems more probable that he was of the order of St. Benedict on account of other things to be said about the antiquity of the Benedictine Rule in England, not a little more effectively proved to us than before from the recently published opuscule of Bede on the Life and Deeds of his own Abbots. Osbern num. 4 says that, for the instruction of monks by the zeal of piety, he proposed himself such and so great a holy man, that no reading by which they might be instructed was needed; but all might read in his life, what each should avoid or imitate.
[6] Among the relics, which were formerly preserved in the monastery of Glastonbury, it is indicated in the English Monastic page 6 that there was one bone of St. Alphege, from Glastonbury, Archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr.
LIFE
By Osbern, monk of the Canterbury Church.
From the Ms. codex of St. Mary of Bonnefontaine.
Elphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, in England (St.)
BHL Number: 2518, 2519
BY OSBERN
PROLOGUE.
[1] To all remaining in the faith of Christ, the unworthy Osbern, son of the holy Metropolitan Canterbury Church: grace to you and peace from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and from the Holy Spirit of both. If the heavenly sentence decreed a grave punishment against him, who preferred to put the received money in a napkin, rather than to place it on the table of the money-changers; I in no way think I should be blamed, if avoiding the peril of this sentence, The author writes what he knew, I propose those things which I myself have known about the glorious Martyr of Christ Elphege, to be known also to others. But it shall be of divine providence, both to give to me truthfully speaking, and to those healthfully hearing, the benefit of its retribution; so that neither may I regret the somewhat laborious narration, nor they the operation of usury. That also invites me not mediocrely to speaking; since we often accuse of torpor those, done in their own times, who things which they knew to have been done in their own times for the honor of the Most High, were unwilling to transmit by the office of repeating to those following. Whose sloth we ought certainly not to vituperate, or ourselves bring forth the things which we have been able to know as worthy of memory, lest in things which we disapprove in predecessors, we seem to be most of all disapproved by those following. or received from those who had seen or had from those who saw: Indeed I so promise the truth of things, that I profess I shall say nothing, the splendor of words if any was in them being removed, which I have not received from those who saw, or from those who heard from those who saw; and these of very great faith and authority. Whose names indeed I spontaneously flee; since I do not wish to discolor the first fruits of speaking with barbarous appellations. Yet I have found some things not incommodiously written concerning these matters: whose sentences thence taken, and had committed to writing, I have judged to be inserted in the present writing in suitable order. Therefore relying on the help of him, by whose gratuitous goodness we are whatever we well are; by whose abundant mercy we taste whatever we well taste; let us touch the psaltery, let us touch the cithara: so that in the one we may exultingly preach the eternal glory of the Martyr, in the other imitating venerate his bodily sufferings. in whose praise he had made certain music, at the urging of Bl. Lanfranc. And just as at the command of the most unconquerable master of all Latinity Archbishop Lanfranc, we have formerly extolled the man with musical modulation: so, compelled by the reasons we have said, let us extol the same in oratorical narration.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER I. Birth, upbringing, monastic life.
[2] Elphege, drawing the beginning of his birth from most splendid origins, instituted life with great prudence and the highest humility. Sprung from splendid birth, His parents admiring the genius of his mind and together with it the innocence of life, and as it were presages of things to come, what the Divinity was going to work through him; handed him over to be imbued with literary science and the wisdom of the Christian religion. When as an adolescent he had vehemently embraced both of these; he embraces studies with virtue: then indeed most vehemently this, because it showed Christ to him, because it excited in him the love of eternal life. Therefore, having read and reread those things which seemed sufficient for salvation, he turned the whole study of philosophy to loving God; always desiring to know him, to obey him, to be enslaved to his yoke. But fearing lest maternal affection should oppose his pious desire (for he was piously and uniquely loved by his mother) he prayed assiduously to the Lord, that
his will be done in him, and whatever was most pleasing in his sight, he would teach either by hidden inspiration or manifest revelation: promising that he would not by the instinct of father, nor of mother, nor of all relations, omit whatever the Divine goodness should indicate as to be done.
[3] Therefore touched by the spirit of majesty, neglecting the paternal inheritance, forgetting maternal grief, he deserts the world, enters the monastery whose name is b Deerhurst, he enters the monastery of Deerhurst: puts on the habit of religion, composes life with the habit. And although the same place was rarely inhabited with inhabitants, yet virtue made those who lived there most approved: while they rejected with vivid insistence all that could allure their souls, and each prepared himself to endure. Therefore animated beyond what can be said by their humble severity and severe humility, the adolescent began to drive away private desires and solitary wishes: to subject himself to the service of all: and (to speak with the common) to make himself the instrument of all: to love God with a fervent spirit untiringly; and, that he might exhibit the most ample place in himself for his love, he advances in the love of God, to procure this by much assiduity of fasting and vigils: not to make an advantage for himself by another's disadvantage, indeed by his own disadvantage greatly to seek another's advantage: and he strives to profit others: and, that we may say in sum, to whomever he could he profited: but those whom he could not profit, he resolved not to harm.
[4] When some years had been overcome, spent in much religion, when he saw the time of adolescence passing by, and reckoned as little whatever of labors he had sustained for God; he strove to seize the path of a stricter life, and to enter singular combat with the malign enemy. Therefore having gone out of the monastery, to go wherever the divine grace wished to lead him; he lives as a solitary in Bath: he came to a place, which in the tongue of the English is c Bathan, in Latin truly called Balneum: because warm water emerging there furnishes the use of baths according to the will of users. Coming to which, he builds a habitation; in the built one he encloses himself; enclosed, he binds himself with incredible rigor. Nor delay, noblemen flock together to him, uncovering the wounds of their souls, and seeking heavenly counsel from him. Who after they had recognized those things, which they had received from spreading fame; honor him with great gifts of benefits, by which he could protect both himself and all those adhering to him from the injury of hunger and cold. Others, secular ambition laid aside, loose the belt, and under his discipline, about to change life and habit together, come. he receives a throng of monks fleeing to him: Whence it came about, that not a small throng of monks was in a short time gathered there: which, driven from wild custom, guarded the soul with gentlest reasons: everywhere showing forth the same sincerity of life, preserving the same rectitude of morals through all things. For whose instruction by zeal of piety, the holy man proposed himself such and so great, that no reading by which they might be instructed was needed, but all might read in his life, what each should avoid, and what imitate.
[5] He blamed not a little those who would change the secular habit, but not change life. For if, he says, those who in any way lie, Wis. 1:11 he insists that they lead a life worthy of the habit: are disapproved by divine judgment, as Scripture says, The mouth that lies kills the soul; what shall become of those, who never hold the reckoning of truth, but at all times, in the eyes of all, put forth the appearance of falsity? Does he not seem to you full of lying, who shows himself to be what he is not: when he simulates one thing in garment, bears another in heart? For falsity operates not only by the motion of the lips, but also by the showing of signs. Wherefore from this the sensible man ought to gather, in the day of the perdition of the impious how much grief, how great confusion will accompany them; whom now the voice of all calls just, but then in the eyes of all creation the sentence of eternal vengeance will press. Man, believe me (for this was the man's manner of swearing), it is better not to change the garment, than under the garment to neglect life. And although these things regarded some very wicked one, and one either ignorant or negligent of his profession; yet they regarded especially those, who on account of poverty or stricter discipline deserting their own churches, and coming into the English land, empty of good things and full of miseries, were wandering here and there with uncertain seats. But when in a most ample dwelling completed, he had imposed the law of sobriety on the disciples, and taught them that carnal appetites should be moderated with the bridle of reason; he himself took himself to a most narrow little house, he lives enclosed: an idoneous Provost having been delegated who would bring them victuals. Yet the causes of the highest matters were referred to him.
[6] But since one scarcely lives without a mixture of evils in the assembly of the good; until the day dawn, and it appear who is fit for fire, who for the granary; very many of his disciples, making little of his admonitions, unmindful of faith and profession, among unruly monks, dispose to repeat the ways of the world; and they meditate how they may more opportunely fulfill what is disposed. Therefore valuing common life as nothing, in the middle of the nights to eat stolen foods, to give operation to drunkenness, to be wanton, and altogether to work those things which were dishonest, as much as hidden audacity permitted: for in the knowledge of the Father no one would receive the daring. But the wrath of the Omnipotent, one suddenly extinguished, for the man whom they had mocked, unwilling to let them pass with impunity; him who was capital in the crime, with a horrible and sudden judgment killed, rolled, slew. But on the night, which had succeeded the day of his burial, Elphege celebrating the sacred vigils as was his custom, and offering himself as a sweet sacrifice to the Lord, it happened that strong voices were heard within the precinct of the monastery; voices as of those inflicting force or as of those sustaining inflicted. a tumult stirred up at night, But the man of God thinking, either sacrilegious ones caught in the sacred, or by the envy of demons the Brethren suffering something incommodious in sleeping, quickly rising, with hastened step makes for the monastery. And when he had passed before the doors of the hall, in which he was accustomed to feed, the clamor heard sounded more clearly. Therefore the Saint stops his step, with astonished ears he catches the sound, discerns the words, then breaks into the house. And behold he who had recently died, he finds January wretchedly afflicted by the demon, and then carried off: lay miserably afflicted on the ground: over whom men of horrid aspect and filthiest clothing stood, who were scourging him with bull-whips and fiery serpents. With him wailing and emitting dire howls from the anguish of pain; these whom he suffered as tormentors, were throwing such reproaches at him: Neither you to God, nor we to you. And repeating the same things often, they drag the captive from the place.
[7] Then the Saint failing in spirit, and pouring himself wholly into tears, with hands clasped retired, and so retiring said: O unhappy hour, in which birth led us into light! he spends the night weeping: How much happier would we be as cattle, since after death we would not be delivered to the tyranny of such exactors. For the beast, when it dies, loses its penalty with life: of man, while he lives, there is continuous labor; while he dies, if he dies badly, eternal grief. He said: and what remained of the night he spent weeping and mourning sleepless. And now the solar splendor had put the stars to flight, when the Saint at once gathered the disciples, about to say what the Lord manifesting he himself had seen. Therefore after the matter was heard in common, you would see some put on pallor in their faces, others weep, certain ones conquered by fear as though insane, but all tremble. But these whom the crime of the dead man had had as companions, when they see nothing of secrets to hide from the Father, he indicates things seen to the other monks, leap into the middle, confess error, ask the wicked deeds to be avenged, lest they remain liable to divine vengeance. Asked where they had had their place of meeting and feasting; they designate that place, in which the wicked spirits had tortured the soul of the deceased. and amends the unruly. Thus the pious God, on account of the excellent merits of the man, while he wished the crime of one to lie hidden, did not wish the evils of all to be uncovered; and while he did not wish to spare one, willed to heal the diseases of all.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II. Episcopate of Winchester. Virtues exercised.
[8] Meanwhile, with Ethelwold of happy memory, a Bishop of Winchester, b With St. Ethelwold Bishop of Winchester dead, withdrawn from this light, and translated to the heavenly kingdoms, there was a great contest as to who should worthily take up the relinquished Church to be ruled: some wanting one thing, some another, but none able to attain the effect of their will. For the Clerics of the same Church, leading a most wicked life, living against the statutes of the Canons in all things, when being often corrected by the aforesaid Bishop they were unwilling to correct their wicked morals, indeed wanted with a pertinacious spirit to defend what wicked things they had done; it had been decreed by royal sanction that they should be expelled, and with monks substituted in place of the Clerics, and others who were more worthy should have to perform their office. Therefore c with the Clerics given to banishment, monks fearing the Lord are admitted: from which it came to pass that in the election of a Priest, the Clerics wished a Cleric, the Monks a Monk, the dispute arisen about electing a Bishop each wanted a favorer of their own will, each an author of their own profession. But how the strife of this contention received an end, not by human wit, but by the counsel of divinity, will afterwards appear.
[9] St. Dunstan resolves it At that time Dunstan, Archbishop of the holy Church of Canterbury, presided as Primate over all the cities established in the English region, and also other regions subjected to the kingdom of the English; a man indeed just in all things, a holy man, and kindled beyond human estimation with the fire of divine love; whom, sanctified before he was begotten, the grace of the Omnipotent had so advanced and protected, that he passed the whole age without notable reproach, and over Kings themselves and tyrants, both by virtue of mind, and by the authority of sanctity, he powerfully commanded. He was not a man whom power deterred, whom favor enticed; but in whatever men, in whatever nobles he perceived divine injuries, soon against that one without delay he more sharply took vengeance. No one could ever turn him away from the true and the just, no one saw him to have accepted the person of anyone in judgment: but with equal right preserved for all, neither
was he, as usually happens, contrary to the poor on account of poverty; nor did he, as they are wont, flatter the rich on account of substance. Thus he appeared terrible indeed to the wicked, venerable to all the good. In giving counsels there was such efficacy in the man, that he wisely judged the statutes of all; and what had been judged by him, could afterwards be corrected by no one. The wars extinguished in his time, peace confirmed, the abundance of divine blessing, which poured forth such abundance of things on mortals, as up to that point no veteran had seen, testify to his counsels and wisdom. For who sanctioned the best laws, if not he? Who invented just measures, if not he? Who at last conferred full authority on the churches of the English, if not he? Or when could the impious and wicked have lived with him, who would not even have allowed the good themselves to be without discipline? To these things the eloquence of the tongue accorded with the cleanness of life; so that if you had seen the life of the abstinent, and heard his words of one evangelizing, you would have utterly not known what in the man you should most of all admire: so he endowed with the grace of both things neither taught others and himself neglected to do it, nor himself did and knew not how to teach others.
[10] This happy man therefore, having learned that the aforesaid Bishop had fallen, and that no small dissension of parties had arisen about electing a Priest; fearing lest under such scandal there be destruction of many souls, after prayer directed his mind to the duty of prayer; supplicating God, to whom the knowledge of things to come lies open, that with the piety by which he deigned to show other things, who ought to succeed as a fit Pastor for ruling the Church. And while Dunstan multiplied prayers in that strife; behold the bearer of the divine message is present, the Apostle Andrew, using such an oracle: Why, he says, dearest, are you saddened? Why do you utter such lugubrious complaints with weeping? Arise therefore, and lay your hand on Elphege the Abbot, and him anointed with the sacred unction, constitute as Priest of the desolate Church: nor let the power of any men prevent you; because not from any man, but from the mouth of omnipotent God this sentence proceeded about him. And that I may not render you doubtful about the person speaking with you, [from St. Andrew appearing he understands that St. Elphege is to be the future one.] know me to be Andrew, Apostle of the Son of God, and the most worthy guardian of your salvation. Thus he spoke, and thus speaking withdrew his presence. Therefore the Pontiff, made most joyful by such an oracle, sets forth to Palatine ears what he had received from the Apostolic narration: makes the hearers attentive, admonishes them to cease being favorers of parties.
[11] He is elected with the joy of the King, Therefore an assembly being made all passed into the sentence, shouting that they wished what God wished, and what God's Pontiff deliberated. But King Ethelred d was possessed with no small joy on two accounts, either because he had such a monk in the kingdom, who supported by divine testimony could be promoted to the Pontificate; or because a Pontiff of so much merit had been found, who for promoting him was worthy to be heard. Soon the Priests having been called, who had flocked to Canterbury for the zeal of consecrating the Pontiff, taking the Father Elphege on the right and left they draw him to the church, he is consecrated, and manifest the causes of his election to the crowds standing by. A huge clamor of the people arises, with immense praises prosecuting the mighty things of God that had been shown to him. May he live, the Bishops shout, for innumerable years, may he live grateful to God, may he live dear to men. And the tumult being settled, the Bishops expend upon Elphege those things which are the Bishop's. e Then he disposes to visit his own See. Which having been received, the people of Winchester from far off, he is received with joy and reverence by the people of Winchester, all as if taught by divine magisterium, all as if led by one spirit, leap forth to meet him, acclaiming, Blessed is he who comes. For they esteemed themselves to be happy, if whom they had received, sought out by such studies of men, shown by so great a miracle; they would merit to have him as Teacher of their life and at the same time Guardian. Nor did their opinion deceive them: for from the time the same Blessed one ascended the throne of the dignity he had obtained, he conducted himself so strenuously, so efficaciously in all things, that no one doubted that He sat as Moderator of his heart, by whose election he had been promoted before. Wherefore everywhere fear, everywhere reverence, nowhere oppressions of the poor, nowhere iniquitous exactions of the rich: but rather he who was more prompt in doing his will, he was proclaimed happy both to himself and to all. Whence the people, free from injury, were free to hear the word of God.
[12] Virtue grew daily in the man, from virtue fame, from fame the frequency of peoples. Therefore the providers of ecclesiastical things exult; because they saw such a companion divinely given to them; whose knowledge did not shun the will of doing well, nor did will accuse the poverty of knowledge. The illustrious troops of heroes rejoice, since they saw whom in succoring they knew to be most humane, him most friendly to royal power. But Elphege gave himself to the morals of all, that he might be both dear to all, and that no one (which is rare among men) envied his glory. And when all things could be found in him, which became a good and holy man; kind to others, yet this showed special admiration to the peoples in him, that while he was of highest mercy and beneficence toward all, to himself he appeared impious and cruel. For as has been brought to our awareness by those who were most knowing of his secrets, in winter time, hard on himself, when the whole earth stiff with icy cold was hardened, and deep sleep occupied all men; he was accustomed to rise secretly from his bed, he spends the nights in the cold praying, and to seek an outside place. There barefoot, dressed in a simple garment, he stood so long praying, until the rising sun put the lesser stars to flight, and he himself understood the presence of the true sun to be present. f When he entered the zeta as if about to dine, he rose almost as empty from the table, as empty as he had approached the table: so that he could neither be convicted of having eaten nor of not having eaten by those sitting with him. by excessive abstinence he contracts leanness, Whence his body was so attenuated with leanness, that at the time of the holy Sacrifice, when he extended his hands stretched on high in ecclesiastical manner, through the middle joints of the palms the clarity of the air could be seen, if perhaps he had before him a window, which the solar ray clearly illuminated. Which thing was not a small spectacle to some.
[13] Now indeed how great the virtue of mercy and munificence shone in him, I think that neither the human mind is able to conjecture, much less the tongue to explain. merciful toward the poor, For he knew how to temper his speech and mind to every kind of men. But for teaching this in some way enough of a sign will be, that he never suffered any of the parochial people publicly to serve in mendicity, nor permitted a poor man of another place to go away empty: thinking it an immense and horrid crime, if what nature established as common, a man should wish to usurp as private. Wherefore he watchfully disputed that he was not a member of the Lord's body, who would not come to the aid of the needs of the poor, he admonishes them to be helped as members of Christ, For if when one member of the body suffers the others suffer with it, it is manifest that that is not a member of the same body, which knows not to have the affection of compassion when another suffers. But if the member suffering poverty is of Christ, but he who does not sympathize is not a member of the suffering one, nor therefore is he a member of Christ. For it is alien to believe oneself to belong to the body of Christ, who in that thing in which they ought to surpass the enemies of Christ, in that they are surpassed by them most of all, nor only surpassed, but being surpassed are mocked in blasphemy of Christ. Look, he says, at the Jew, observe the pagan, and that the avaricious in giving alms give scandal to the Jews: observe with what great mutual love, for the custody of their religion, they are federated; and you will see among them no one to labor in penury of household goods, whom they do not immediately strive to relieve with money gathered into one. Who when they see us destitute of that virtue, to which these indeed are drawn by natural affection, but those are instructed by divine erudition; with a blasphemous mouth they attack Christ, the faith and religion of Christians, the expectation of future beatitude. Whom therefore does that blasphemy principally regard, except those who despise to attend to the miserable through the affection of compassion? By these sermons the possessors of riches are as much animated to lavishing alms, as by the sound of trumpets, with which there is a mind for joining battle, they are incited. For which reason in the same province no needy man remained, but the same Blessed one, both through himself, and through the powerful of this world, [he orders the treasures of the church, obtained by him, to be distributed to the poor.] then certainly through the kinship of those who were in need, helped all. Then where those things would have failed, which from the right of the Church could compete for the ministry of the poor; he orders the treasures of the Church, which he himself in manifold ways had prepared, to be distributed: teaching that the Churches possess all their most ornate things for this, that in the time of felicity they be for honor, but in the time of necessity be for utility. But if his benefits had raised anyone to honor, he was not easily willing to cast him off for any cause; pronouncing it a great prerogative in human affairs, if someone favors his own works and benefits, and does not look at another's merit, but considers the gift of his grace. Therefore, as we have said, for a man having all things of honesty, there was hatred against himself, piety toward others as much as possible.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III. Archbishopric of Canterbury. Roman journey. Rare virtues.
[14] But concerning the signs performed by him in the Episcopate it is not pertinent to say anything, since he both possessed the virtues, through which those shone, who were able to do signs; and our intention is rather to narrate those things, which we have been able to know by true report about his glorious martyrdom: and these we shall do in order, if we shall say a few things about his Patriarchate. St. Dunstan rejoices on account of the virtues of St. Elphege: Therefore the aforesaid defender of justice Dunstan, having received the rumor by which Bl.
Elphege was being proclaimed great and admirable among the people; offered exalted praises to omnipotent God, who with the clarity of such a light had sprinkled his native shores during his lifetime. But since he had foreseen that his own merits, indeed the gifts of God, were soon to be crowned, he prays that he be given as successor to himself, and feared that the Church of God should be troubled by the succession of evil men, with solicitous supplications he beats on the ears of the divine mercy, that he might leave Elphege as heir of his Patriarchate. To whom what he asks is immediately promised when he is heard; although not immediately, but with time elapsed, what had been promised was fulfilled. Which I think to have been delayed for this reason, both that it might be manifest to all how much God loved Dunstan, to whom what he had so benignly promised to him while living, this he exhibited to him so truly long after he was dead; and that Elphege might find those very times, which could carry him to the glory of martyrdom. For after the five years had passed, a in which the Pontiffs Dunstan and Elphege had lived together; but Dunstan having entered into the joy of his Lord with a frequent accompaniment of Angels; b three after him, succeeding one another in order, Patriarchs were instituted. who after three created and deceased before, Who when they had happily come to the supreme arbiter of being added to the Fathers, all the Pontiffs of the English with the whole Senatorial order running to meet one another, that by common deliberation they might treat of who ought to preside over all; all lift up the name of Elphege, with concordant voice they magnify Elphege, they strive in rivalry to give their hands to Elphege. Therefore in the year of the Incarnate Divinity one thousand six, he is elected in the year 1006, indiction the fourth, from the coming of the English into Britain the five hundred seventy-eighth, Elphege translated from Winchester to Kent was raised there as c Archbishop, fifty-two years old; when already by long exercise of Ecclesiastical disciplines he had been emeritus, and as much as is of man, filled with the universality of grace. What grief then, what murmur invaded the citizens of Winchester, amid the great grief of the Winchester people, escapes both me and the minds of all, unless those who had seen the people of Canterbury rejoicing: for by the joy of these, how great the sadness of those was, is much indicated: for as much as these were made joyful about the father received, so much those had been made sad about him lost.
[14] on a Roman journey, A very few days having rolled by, in which he disposed the regulations of an unknown honor, he determined to go to the City loftier than all. And now having entered Ausonia, he enters into the first town that meets him. Where when he rested weary from the magnitude of the journey, the townsmen having the man unknown, he retreats despoiled: consulting their avarice, break into the house, plunder his things, and the Saint himself deprived of all furniture, they compel to go out with words and blows. But he lightly bearing his own insults, but moderately grieving for those of his men, makes his return by the way by which he came. Not yet had he withdrawn far from the town, and behold horrid flames seize the walls, threatening ash to the buildings, loss to the citizens. but a fire having arisen, Therefore the people stirred up by the fire, leave their beds, and headlong runs to all things with frantic step. And when the flame growing to immensity had wandered through many things, nor had any hope of escaping the fire been in the citizens, becoming saner in sense, they treat in mind, lest perhaps the fire serve him for vengeance, which had troubled the man: and going out with the notables of the place, they seek the man, find him, adore, weep. But he, sought out he removes it: as one always having a most tender mind of piety, Let us return, he says, that we may be able to see the fire closely. And the Pontiff standing looks at the fire, distills tears, addresses God. O power of the Creator! O clemency of the Savior! Immediately the fire is suspended in the air, and transported through innumerable houses, is found outside the walls of the place. At the contemplation of which deed all, although somewhat sensible, aroused, glory that Angelic ministries had served them. But the author of the miracle being known, he rejects the gifts offered, all the common people poured through the gates, as water through cracks; to say wishing things, to offer gifts. To whom the Saint: Yours, he says, be yours, but for us our own things suffice. However if you have a vow that what the offense has merited be relaxed, hereafter do not trouble any pilgrim from your houses; nay rather take care to receive all; to those received, to extend things which are of office. For God is the inhabitant of good men, and therefore greatly is he to be congratulated, if in any man God is received, that another equally man merit to receive him. But if sometime your opinion should deceive you, that whom you thought religious, you afterwards perceive to be irreligious; do not esteem yourself alien from the reward on that account: because the internal judge regards not so much what is done, as with what mind each thing is done. Thus having spoken he received his own things, but receives his own: and ordered the crowd to return with his men.
[15] At last arriving at Rome, he presented himself to the d Roman Pontiff, sought colloquies. Who while he granted every opportunity of speaking, at Rome he is benevolently received by the Supreme Pontiff, they were united with so much love in speaking, that the same Apostolic one surrounded him with the very stole of his Apostolate, and honored him in memory of the heavenly key-bearer before all the Roman Senate. While these things were so going on; and days were protracted with mutual conversation; one of the days a grave sorrow invaded Elphege, which rendered him utterly oblivious of custom, and altogether disposed him to other motions than he was accustomed to have. Therefore the companions wondering at the unusual behavior of the man, he reveals the distant death of the Bishop of Winchester succeed in turn with art, trying to learn the causes of the grief, and to relieve his mind with prudent consolation. But he pursuing the grief of the mourning begun, No one, he says, shall see me cheerful today, because he who succeeded me at Winchester as e Bishop has put off the man. But they neither easy to believe, because no one had come who announced the thing done; nor again difficult to believe, because they knew God to be in the man, and for that reason believed he could not lie; they mark the day which was at hand, that they might try whether with a prophetic mouth, or under the ambiguity of opinion he had foretasted these things. Then having greeted and been greeted in turn the Pope and the Archbishop, they depart joyful amid sorrows. And now with foot turned back Elphege had passed over the Alps, when the greater part of the English nobility ran to meet them, which either by the zeal of praying, or allured by the desire of seeing, was trying to reach the city of Rome. Who asked about the Bishop, already long announced as dead by the servant of God; confess that the man had departed from life on the day on which it was established that Elphege had wept. Who may now pass by, how much of divine grace shone in the breast of this Blessed one, who knew native motions far removed from his native land, dead on the same day, and the soul of the Winchester Prelate gone out from the habitation of flesh, while still under the name of a pilgrim he dwelt in Rome. The fame of which thing running far and wide in his native land, persuaded much more than can be estimated of a man, what should be estimated concerning him; who could be so easy a knower of absent things, and so true an assertor.
[16] Returned to Canterbury, But, to restore the man to where he set out from; Elphege having arrived in Britain, and been placed in the See of the Fathers, not only did not diminish the state of his former life, but even incomparably augmented it. For from that time he frequently and opportunely did not cease f to celebrate councils, to expound the orthodox faith to the Fathers, lest those who ought to take away the errors of others should themselves err, he frequently celebrates Councils: and deviate from the way of truth, having wandered. Those sinning, that they might be converted to the Lord, if he could not with words, he provoked with benefits. Neglecting nothing which concerned him: he amends sinners by benefits and prayers, that those whom the admonition of the word did not correct, the liberality of benefit might overcome. He himself wept over the sins of all, and for the salvation of all offered the saving host twice on each day. But if a principal solemnity was at hand, devout in prayer, in which it behooved him to exhibit Sacerdotal grace for the people, led by the hands of the Priests into the sacristy, he at once took himself to the side, and amid the hymns sung with festive clamor, he offered private Masses so much the more devoutly, as he did it more remote from the sight of the people. Thence full of God returning to the altar, he performed the office which he had before begun. He himself in a white garment, above clothed with the pallium, using a white garment, with the hair bound with a miter, spent the day; that through the exterior habit of garment, he might stir up the interior habit of virtue; and his spectators might be rendered more devout to reverence, as they saw him more becoming in grace.
[17] he adorns the church: The ornament of the church, of which he himself with Christ as author sat as moderator, he amplified with many and splendid riches, which afterwards either Elphege expended in the uses of the poor, or the pagan by seizing carried off for his own abuses. The virtue of modesty obtained so great a principality in him, he cultivates modesty: that no one in his hearing dared to utter an obscene word, much less in his sight carry out a foul deed. For he said this to be the first and chief mistress of preserving chastity, that those whom the rashness that corrupts souls casts down, the bearer of morals modesty should restrain. But why should I pursue the rest of his merits, since to the sole heralding of his mercies to be narrated all facetiousness of experts succumbs? He was all flowing with clemency, all dissolved in tears; the most pious consoler of the poor, the most prompt reliever of the oppressed; liberal in giving, difficult in receiving; one hope to all coming to him; liberal toward the poor and afflicted. the only refuge on this earth for the afflicted. From which thing it happened, that while nothing was left, which he could lavish from his own to his neighbors, he did not fear to give this very thing which was; preferring to be absent from this life by dying, than not to profit his neighbors by living. Which I shall now enter upon to say in his name, by whose clement goodness it was brought about, that I could learn these things.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV. Irruption of the Danes into England, and toward Canterbury. The generous mind of St. Elphege.
[18] During the same a time the pirates (a worst kind of robbers, because want makes them bold, and error untraceable, and desperation
makes invincible), with Sueno and Turchill as Leaders, most powerful Princes of the Danes, the Danes, had inflicted not a little blemish on the land of the English: but with Sueno b terribly killed by omnipotent God, Turchill obtained by lot the Princedom of the malignant inheritance. With this leader the pirates wandering all the ports of the sea, and now here, now there leaping forth from ships, were a great loss to the neighbors and terror to those far away. For that race of enemies was not one which cultivated piety, which before faith spared anyone: this alone was good in them, they were unwilling to lie a promised faith: and this sometimes. barbarous men, For the rest, no cult of God among them; and if cult, no religion of worship. For they equally celebrate all the days of the year, equally all feed on all; not only not to receive the sacraments of the mysteries, but neither to enter the church; legitimate marriages far to spurn, but she who was nearer in blood, she the more pleasing in embrace. And since action in them did not prefer religion, piety was diminished, cruelty daily augmented: accordingly there was as it were a law, that each one set there the limit of evil, where his power failed. Therefore with the obstacle ceasing, devastating England, the enemy is spread through all England, and whatever resisted, he ground down, both by slaughter and fire. Therefore the land deserted from without by the inhabitants, flight was made from every side to neighboring cities: the land meanwhile lies, liable to the fury of the robbers, blessed by no cultivator. For the King of the English Ethelred, unwarlike because weak, showed himself by action rather as a monk than a soldier: but the men corrupted by riches, obligated to pleasures, thought nothing honest besides the advantage of the body. Wherefore to learn military service, to do some thing bravely, to be willing to die for the fatherland (lest what each had prepared for himself, should at his death pass into the right of a neighbor) they counted as entirely foolish and execrable. Thus while each one feared for himself and his possessions, all refrained from war, no one attempted to experience combat for the cause of all; though on that account they should rather have striven, that for what each wished to be his own, for this he should fight most splendidly. Yet individual Princes, each one guarding his own places with what virtue they could, brought back frequent and noble triumphs from the enemies: sometimes also the enemies triumphed not ignobly over them themselves.
[19] approaches: Therefore in so great a crisis of affairs, Elphege was accustomed to do what was most difficult to do, to approach the enemies, to preach to them the word of life, to redeem captives with the price given, and to feed those whom famine was oppressing. And divine grace granted him such ability of pleasing the enemies, that not only captives from temporal, he converts many to the faith, but also their captors from eternal servitude he freed; while both those without faith, he called to faith; and those whom faith had admitted, he invited to the works of faith. But when most of the throng of the people had been added to the number of believers, yet a not small part detained in the error of infidelity, envied the salvation of their companions, and by nefarious conspiracy was thinking to kill the author of their salvation. For they feared lest, these being taken away, by whose assistance they were accustomed to wage the custom of war, they might have less license of harming, or power of resisting when matters required; and for that reason they grieved, that the beastly minds of men had passed into a rational quality, not fearing to undergo the peril of death. that cruelty was overcome by religion, that the business of fighting was exchanged for leisure of meditation. Whence as much as he was venerated, reverenced, loved by the faithful people; so much also he was contemned, derided, hated by the infidel multitude. But that Blessed one, preferring to be called with the Lord Beelzebub, than with the Pharisee Rabbi, did not cease to give operation to the work begun, to comfort the faithful in faith, to call the infidel to faith, to do all things with supreme authority. Nor indeed was it lawful that he should yield to the fear of any, who had the divine spirit as director of his mind, and the greatest part of the people as fautress of his will.
[19] But the master and at the same time minister of all malignity, the devil I say, while he had not been able to drive the small number of infidels to the unjust killing of the just man, because of the abundance of the faithful; approaches another art of perpetrating the crime: by which they, all fear of companions removed, most cruelly might execute what they most wickedly had thought. For the King had established a certain c Edric as Prefect of his whole empire, a man of humble stock indeed, but to whom the tongue had acquired riches and nobility; with Edric a perfidious man, crafty in wit, sweet in eloquence, and who surpassed all mortals of that time both in envy and perfidy, and in pride and cruelty. Therefore his brother, first gratuitously cursing the nobility of Canterbury in the presence of the King, on account of his brother killed by the people of Canterbury, then invading with violent domination those things which had come to each by paternal inheritance; his brother, I say, slippery and proud, the same nobility having attacked him, had killed, had burned his house; with the just judgment of God acting, that he who had unjustly burned against others, himself justly should pay the penalties of vengeance. The surviving and raging brother demands vengeance for whose blood from the King. The King denies the things asked, pronounces the brother rightly slain, who had presumed to attack with so great levity of mind so great a nobility in the royal palace. The Prefect, with changed color, goes out of the palace; and having joined to himself ten thousand men most well armed, tries to avenge his slain brother. But when he saw his attempts had gone forward little, conspiring with the Danes, with those resisting whom he had as most unyielding adversaries, and contending against him with huge virtue; raised up in anger, he seeks the councils of the Danes, seeks auxiliaries; not now for subduing the Canterbury people alone, but for invading the bounds of all Britain: whose idleness he rebukes with curses, that they accomplished nothing after laboring for so many years; when especially the King was wasting with old age and languor, the Princes with leisure, all with riches and pleasures. Only work was needed for the beginning, the rest the matter itself would accomplish. The kingdom after victory was to be divided by equal lot; he would rule over the East Angles, but they would take possession of the North. By the promises of which man the Princes of the Danes, raised up, together also mindful of the companions snatched from them by the doctrine of the Pontiff, promise themselves as untiring companions to whatever he wished to lead, give and receive right hands, exact and offer oaths.
[21] Therefore with the counsel matured, the Danes and the English, the Danes (having left the station which for wintering they had taken near London) with an innumerable fleet and not slothfully armed enter the port of d Sandwich, Canterbury is designated to be besieged: for this reason, that they took it both fit for the reception of ships and close to the city to which they were going. But Edric, with innumerable pedestrian multitude himself on foot running to meet them, makes an intolerable army: the enemies threaten death to the Pontiff, the Prefect to the nobility, all to Canterbury. The city of Canterbury vehemently moved by the fame of which thing, because neither had supplies of food been in it, nor for procuring them did sufficient time remain; commends all its hopes and possessions into the hands of the high Priest; and frequents with assiduous supplication the temple of the Lord, which is there venerated with the most excellent veneration of all peoples. For they thought themselves to be able to be safe there on account of the sanctity of the place, and that all things might happen rather than that they should be torn away from there by the violent hand of enemies. But the true and eternal God is not as the gods of the nations, who not only give impunity of sinning to their worshipers, but also induce the same to sinning with various observances and delights, while they fear honors not owed them to be denied by men, if they have not striven to please them through the deadly licenses of execrable pleasures. Hence adulatory fictions of comedies discovered; hence scenic games instituted; and what the most malignant demons invented for prostituting souls, adulterous and illiberal gods, who can exhibit no reverence of cult to themselves, if they have not granted to men license of sinning. But our God and Lord, that he may manifest himself to need nothing of our good things, and through this that he himself is the true God; so exacts worship, that he fears not to give precepts of living; so gives precepts of living, that to those keeping them he proposes rewards, to those contemning them truly punishments; and what to those understanding little seems equally harsher, those whom before others he more familiarly loves, those he more grievously punishes their sins. Whence when he had promised that David's kingdom should be confirmed, concerning the posterity of his sons he subjoined these things, saying: But if his sons shall forsake my law, and shall not walk in my judgments, if they shall profane my justices, and shall not keep my commandments; I will visit their iniquities with the rod, and their sins with stripes: but my mercy I will not scatter from him: and through this they are in no way forsaken by the good God, who in such a way seem to be forsaken. Ps. 88:32
[21] St. Elphege resists those urging departure: Soon the whole nobility, which once had exercised vengeance on the violator of the law; the whole nobility, I say, with lamentable complaint surrounds the Pontiff, begs him to go out of the city, to consult his life. In the death of the common people there was loss indeed, but in any way tolerable, but his life surpassed all lives on earth. But that Blessed one perceiving the persuasion, though pious, yet unworthy of his esteem; Far otherwise, he says, I think I ought to go, while reviewing past labors with myself, I think on the eternal retribution of God. For you seem to me to give such counsel, that what I held more pleasant than life I should despise as very little: he desires martyrdom: and what I always with all desire sought from God, that offered by him I should voluntarily throw away. But far be it that I should exchange my glory for ignominy: far be it that I should flee from the immortality, which with God as author has been proposed to all, by the fear of death. But if for any cause whatsoever, base or honest, immortality could be seized, indeed it would be with all strength to be labored, that in whatever way we could reach it: but now when so great honor of dying for God exists, that he is more praiseworthy who would have wished to lose his soul, than he who would have striven to preserve the same; who would not voluntarily thrust himself into death, even if his most loving ones would wish to hinder him from death? having nothing why he should fear death, For we have not committed the misdeeds of the wicked, that hence we should fear the punishments of death. Is that truly to be a crime, that we have drawn their elect from the errors of paganism, and attracted them to the recognition and cult of the one true God? But blessed am I, if in such a cause it befall me to die: for which, that they might die, all the Martyrs of Christ labored. Or have we perhaps offended in this, that we restored the captives of our nation to their lost liberty; and those whom we could not restore, in captivity we did not hesitate to feed? But would that for such an offense so many wounds of death might rage against me, as varieties of limbs nature has formed in me. But truly if from this the immensity of their fury blazed forth, because I was reproving their life covered with disgraces and crimes with daily inveighing; the authority of him compelled me, who says the blood of the impious is to be required from my hand, if his crime was not announced to him by me. But if there are no other things, which can be blamed against me because of their zeal, and these same are known to be such, that of their
dignity they rather reconcile God to me, than exasperate him by indignity; I truly think it alien from my reasons, but prepared to lay down his soul for the sheep: with the best citizens left behind in the peril of death, to think of my singular safety, which ought not even to be called safety. I would be able to be a hireling, if seeing my sheep devoured by the wolf, I myself should begin to meditate flight. Accordingly let those in whom God has inspired that they be willing to endure good and evil justly, here await together those things which have been prepared for us.
[22] After men had received these things, to whom all things were dearer than death and the torture of the body; with counsel quickly taken, diverse ones, one to one place, one to another they transfer themselves, but more approached the Danes for the sake of appeasement, thinking themselves to be safe among the enemies, who could not be safe within the walls of the city. But quite the contrary all things turned out; and it grieves me to narrate these things. But Elphege, having called together the poor of his people, was exhorting them to be of good cheer, to have God before their eyes, to fear nothing besides him who can destroy body and soul in Gehenna. He also admonished them of the humility and patience of Christ, he strengthens his subjects, especially the poor: who although he was God, and the Father had given all things into his hands, not only did not wish to avenge himself on his enemies, but also forbade Peter's raging love from vengeance; and put back his sword, reddened with the blood of Malchus, in the sheath. He nevertheless taught that there were two liberations of men, one of which the public, the other the hidden course should prove; nor was it to be cared for with great labor, if that should not come about, which the judgment of human favor awaits: because any wicked person could participate in that, but that other, which acknowledges the knowledge of the divine secret, is so much more the best and to be sought with hostile strength, as no one except the good man can aspire to it. To these things he proposed the constancies of the Martyrs, and the victories of those who showed faith not by words but by torments, to whom Christian innocence, as long as they lived, was rather not an honor but a punishment. Having instructed them by these sermons, he fortifies them with his blessing and the sacred Eucharist. that Blessed one was rendering them most prepared for whatever torments the persecutor might impel: then pouring forth the Episcopal blessing over them, and in the holy kiss tasting the communion of peace, while he made all participants of the divine feast, he commended himself to them, them to himself, and both to God the protector of all.
ANNOTATIONS
CHAPTER V. Canterbury besieged and taken. St. Elphege Captured and shut up in prison. Enemies freed from death.
[23] And now the day was at hand, about to see the first tumults; and behold the whole city, a surrounded by the hostile army, denied to the citizens all liberty of going out. But they standing before the walls, The city besieged not so much showed as simulated audacity of resisting. But on the twentieth day of the siege, with whatever they had prepared for the use of life exhausted, one is sent by the Pontiff, he admonishes the enemy through messengers: to suggest to the Dane, that he desist from the undertaking; that the people were innocently suffering the siege; he should beware lest he abuse the whip of divine correction, granted for a time for the chastisement of sons, too insolently; that it happened very often, that the father strikes with a staff him whom he wishes to be heir, and afterwards throws the staff into the fire. But the English (for they had proven more prone to impiety) the more they saw the kindred people being afflicted, the more fiercely they pressed on, bringing up vineae, erecting towers, striking the wall with rams, throwing fire-brands, in a word having nothing untouched. Thence the deadly fire caught through contiguous houses, raises horrid hairs, and with the south wind raging spreads itself through all places by dilating. You would seem to see, it burned or to admire Nero at the Roman flames, or Aeneas weeping the burning of Troy. Then indeed was miserable hesitation among the citizens, whether with the bulwarks of the walls deserted they should rush to their own houses, or neglecting those attend to the fortification. Private affection, sweet remembrance of sons, innate compassion for protecting family overcame common utility. They run therefore headlong with fury, bold in spirit, neither mindful of life, nor able to die. They snatch from the midst of the flames wives and dear children, at once to be struck with the hostile sword. and taken by force, But while they were more attentively occupied at the ashes of the buildings, behold, what is also miserable to say, b the city being broken into the army enters, a terrible sound arises from the clamor of voices and at the same time from the blast of trumpets, so that all the foundations of the city seemed to be shaken.
[24] What face of affairs then, what miserable confusion of evils, can fall under the knowledge of no one, who has not been present as spectator of the same calamity. slaughtering with the sword whomever met them For some were slain with the sword, others consumed with flames, but more were thrown headlong over the walls; but some, which it is shameful to say, were suspended by the private parts. The Matrons fail, whom nobility had made brighter than the rest, while they are compelled to produce treasures which they did not have; dragged by the hair through all the streets of the city, at last thrown into flames, they die. Above all cruelty raged against the younger age, while the little ones torn from their mothers' breasts, were either caught on lances, or crushed piece by piece with a wagon driven over them. Now indeed the evils which follow, for the magnitude of grief I am hardly able to narrate. For behold the venerable Pontiff, not enduring such depopulation of his own, when he happened to be surrounded by a throng of monks lamenting in the church of the Savior, slipping out of the church suddenly slipped from the hands of those holding him, escaped from the church: and running to a place full of corpses, thrusts himself into the midst of the densest wedges of the enemies, shouting out such things with repetition: Spare, he says, spare; and if you know yourselves to be men, cease to pursue innocent age. This is not a victory, by which the innocence of sucklings is destroyed; nor is anything ascribed to praise, whatever is accomplished in warring against suppliants. he approaches and asks to be struck in place of his own If you expect glory from victory, this his throat chiefly will provide for you, whom the heavenly power has established to preside over all. Behold me, who to augment the Christian people, despoiled you of many a soldier: behold me, who always condemned the crimes of your impiety with free mouth: and who have fed, clothed, redeemed the captives of the fatherland, punished in a horrid prison. If it delights you to be wicked gratuitously, let your wrath rage especially against me, whom it is established to have offended you before all in so many ways of sinning.
[25] Therefore immediately the strongest athlete is seized with innumerable hands, and his throat being intercepted the voice of the speaker is hindered: his palms are wound with chains, his cheeks are cut with nails. Amid these things the servant of God most similar to a mute, not by even one word to betray pain, captured he is bound, and beaten: but strengthened by the consolation of the Holy Spirit, only to move his upper lips, as if speaking with God: and thus to the court of the temple, not so much led as impelled by the hands of the impious, he is ordered to stand as spectator of a new atrocity, led to the court of the temple, so that he might see death before death, and no kind of death should exist, which should pass him by either as patient or as condoling with his own. Therefore the sons of the devil approach the temple of the Son of omnipotent God, he sees the temple being burned, and set the vats, placed one on top of another, on fire, thence trying to burn the roof. Already the material of the lead, loosened by the face of the fire, began to flow down inside; when the blessed plebs of monks, with head covered by the pall, face bathed with bitter tears, trusting in God through all things, and the monks being killed: was going out; about to give for the Savior, what for all he deigned to expend. To receive whom with the sword a fierce executioner running to meet, lays waste the same with wonderful and miserable slaughter. What then, I ask, was happening in the mind of the Pontiff, when he saw the mother of the whole kingdom lying enveloped in pitiable ashes, the manifold troops of sons perishing through diverse slaughters of diverse deaths, himself entangled in chains, afflicted by wounds, sated with reproaches, destitute of consolations? For it would suffice for the common ruin of the kingdom either the injury of the Pontiff alone, or the deadly destruction of the city, let alone with England deprived of both honors, never thereafter to be reformed to its former state. But whatever that may be, which the eternal Wisdom provided in this deed; it is recognized to be something great and splendid, that with so pious, so excellent a martyrdom it adorned the Pontiff, the whole city being filled with menaces and slaughters, that there was one thing which would grieve him for the death of his sons, and another that he himself should sustain death. Therefore out of the whole number, which stretched to eight thousand men; we have received that only four men of monastic profession, and eight hundred of the inferior order remained, whom first in grace of benefit computed for tithes, then the Danes sharply exercised with blows, either judged worthy of pecuniary redemption, or led them off with themselves to be enslaved to servile works. To whom I think the Danes spared only for this reason, that in no times hereafter might those be lacking, who could proclaim their bloody victory. But God, who makes good use of the evils of men, what they prepared for the testimony of cruelty, this he prepared for the restoration of posterity.
[26] Up to this point we have wept for the destructions of the city, now let us restore tears for weeping for the death of the holy man. Now with the people cut down, now the city flaming, at last the temple of Christ violated, scrutinized, despoiled; the Saint is dragged out, bound in the whole body, to be killed by the hands of the raging people. he is dragged to the gate: And when he was being dragged to the north gate by the snatching of those going before and the pushing of those following; behold these, whom I mentioned a little before as the only ones remaining from all the ruin of the city, with feet inserted in beams, were held under military guard. Who, the Pontiff being seen, and the indignity of the evils which were being done toward the Pontiff; with hands lifted to heaven with huge roaring they cry out; requesting God to be inspector of such cruelty. All saw him, and with raised voice wept. about to console the captives; is gravely wounded: But the high Priest standing still, that by word he might strengthen their broken spirits, is suddenly wounded by those pushing him with a grave wound through the top of the shoulders, so that with the wave of flowing blood the shoulder appeared separated from the whole body. The bound ones shudder at the crime, the Danes themselves shudder, whoever were human in soul shudder. Nor did he cease to pray to God, to have his eyes to heaven, his mind truly to him who is above heaven, untiringly. He is held in a foul prison for 7 months: Therefore the victim of Christ is led from the city to the fleet, from the fleet to the prison, from the prison to the judge of iniquity. I pronounce it a prison, which the horror of shadows darkened, which
the narrowness of the walls confined, which the importunity of frogs befouled. There they kept the man for seven months surrounded by a guard of twelve soldiers, thinking that he would despoil the patrimonies of the Church, and give them for his own liberation. Elphege not at all intent on this, inasmuch as to him it seemed long, that being withdrawn from this mortal life, he might enjoy the eternal presence of God. Wherefore most patiently he endured all things, celebrated the sufferings of Christ there according to his power, performed the solemnities of a contrite heart grateful to God.
[27] Meanwhile the wrath of omnipotent God began to rage against the homicidal people to such a degree, with many thousands of enemies dying from a plague divinely inflicted, that in a small interval of time, with two thousand of them laid low by dire tortures of their inward parts, the rest of the multitude also, struck with a similar disease, experienced a similar destruction. But admonished by the faithful people, that they should acknowledge themselves guilty toward Christ, the temple, and his people, say it, weep for it, and moreover make satisfaction to the Pontiff, they defer the counsel of safety; opining that not so much by divine will, as by the instability of fortune this misfortune had befallen them. Meanwhile the disaster prevailed over all flesh, which had intended death for the Pontiff; and now by tens, now by twenties, now by more of these taken with terrible pain of the bowels, tortured, consumed, it struck great fear of undergoing death upon the living. Therefore with counsel quickly taken, brought honorably to the council, he strikes on the Lord's Supper. soon by all there is a running to him; the crime accomplished, although with unwilling tears, is deplored, that supplication be made to the King of heaven is begged. But that day of reconciliation was solemn, c on which the Savior committed to the disciples the most holy mystery of his Body and Blood. Then he, whom a little before the malignity of the tormentors was vehemently afflicting, now carried honorably by the hands of the same to the public sight of the people, and placed in a sedan chair, uttered these words from a holy breast. Although your unceasing cruelty leaves itself no place for obtaining pardon; yet it is of our duty, not so much to look at what it befits you to suffer, as what it becomes us to do. he explains the gentleness of Christ toward Judas the traitor, For we have the greatest document of this reflection in today's deed of Christ the Lord, who when he had deigned to wash the feet of his disciples, not only did he not exclude him by whom he had foreknown himself to be betrayed; indeed he also fed the same with the holy bread, and others seizing him, tasted by most holy hands. Thence when they had come to the place of his seizure, first he made sport of all the ministers of Pharisaic impiety with a word of his power; but forthwith in virtue of the dignity of benefit healed the same ones by raising them up. Thus with all things about him considered with diligent reason, we find that he always extended the clemency of his goodness to men, not that he avenged their evil deeds through the worthy penalty of tortures. And what is the mark of great goodness, those whom daily he sees resisting the heavenly commandments with pertinacious spirit, and still toward unfaithful men, those sitting in heaven he still suffers to live: to live, I say, to live, indeed to surpass greatly in human affairs the others, while both the clemency of heaven and the fecundity of earth, the grace of sons, the clientage of servants, the increase of money, and the subjection of enemies smile upon them. To this is added; that to you also, men indeed, but always living after the manner of dogs, he extends the patience of his long-suffering: whom he would long ago have destroyed with the sword of his fury, if he had not preferred your repentance rather than your death. Wherefore since I desire to exist as a devoted imitator of his examples, by which example forgiving all injury, forgetting the burnings of the city, forgetting the slaughters of the innocent, forgetting, I say, of the past impiety which has been done against me; just as he interpellated the Father for his crucifiers, so I for mine shall interpellate him for the tormentors. Therefore bring bread, at once to be returned to you as saving; so that from this refreshed, and having obtained the benefit of desired salvation, he gives them blessed bread: either you may render the solemn thanks of the Savior, or remain more wicked blasphemers.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VI. Enormous money demanded. Snares built by the demon for St. Elphege. Aid of Angels, and of St. Dunstan and others appearing: wounds healed.
[28] After the Prelate made an end of speaking, having invoked Christ the author of the world, and having given to all the bread blessed by him, he freed them all from the deadly calamity. Who being freed and comforted from man, nevertheless persisted in what they had set out with. But when the sacrosanct sabbath of the Lord's rest had been awaited, when they saw that they had received the integrity of perfect health, nor had anyone of all the people died through the whole triduum; the leaders of four legions send, who having gone to the Pontiff, first indeed give thanks for the benefit bestowed, For 60 talents of silver demanded then propose the address of this condition: that if he wish to possess life and liberty, he pay sixty talents of silver, with individual talents weighed at fifty pounds each. Besides these let him promise that he will persuade the King; that since it is impossible without great money for the English to be reconciled to the Danes, and 200 to be procured from the King, two hundred talents of the above weight be paid, and thus a firm treaty between both peoples be established. Which message being received he is said to have given such a response. The embassy, he says, is not legitimate, when that is sought which can rightly be denied to him who seeks it. But that can rightly be denied, which cannot reasonably be held. he denies that he will do anything But that cannot reasonably be held, which either fire has devoured, or the robber carried off. But if to fulfill the cupidity that is mistress of your mind, you are led by the reason that you think me either about to despoil ecclesiastical possessions, or to persuade the King against the honor of the fatherland, you are deceived: because it is not of a Christian man to give the flesh of Christians to be ground up by pagan teeth: I indeed would do that, if what poverty had prepared for life, I should give this to be abused by your bites.
[29] But those approaching, whose favor he more familiarly used, were asking him to speak more gently, that a writing be confirmed by his seal, [nor does he acquiesce to the counsel of friends that these be collected from the treasure of the temples,] which might be sent around to the despoiling of the relics of the Church; so that thence he might obtain the price of redemption. But he, who was always the father of the poor and unconquered defender of the fatherland, taking it unworthily that they had spoken unworthy things, thus responded: If you can persuade me to this crime, you will be able to persuade whatever crime is anywhere. But it is better to die through virtue, than in such a way to buy life: for what more unworthy can be said, than that Elphege in his last age should learn to be cruel, whom the virtue of clemency and gentleness adorned from the very cradles of infancy? Or what grace of reward shall I hope from God the most just rewarder of all, if what works of the faithful have been prepared for the honor of the Church, these shall have perished distracted by my work? Does the mind fail, with what laudable reason the most blessed Martyr Lawrence hid the treasures of the Church, lest the violent hand of the persecutor find them? What that he distributed them to the poor with such liberal diligence? But if he laudably concealed the treasures which he had received; shall I cruelly search out what I have not received, and more cruelly lose them? And if he gave to the needy what they did not have: shall I tear from them what they have? Unless perhaps it be more gentle to take away what is his own from the poor, than not to give what is ours. See therefore how impiously you have said that, which you thought you had said soberly. Thus he, and nothing in return from them.
[30] But after what he had said had been heard in the camp, then indeed all the poison of their fury to breathe, to raise a clamor mixed with the gnashing of teeth; and with malignant mind to treat what should be decided about the man. Nothing therefore had prior hunger, nothing the chains, nothing the military custody availed: all new things are forged, and these are piled up with multiplied tormentors. And the condition of things was pitiable, and one which not only mute animals, but also wood and stones, would shudder at: while on the day on which all the elements of the world rejoiced at the Resurrection of the founder, on the very day of Easter he is tortured dreadfully: on that same day he himself was punished with unheard questionings of torments. But he, because of the hope which he had in the Lord, in all these evils was delighted as if in feasts.
[31] Therefore the impious fury of the malignant dragon flared up, and he believed himself to perish by the dire blade of envy, if he did not cede conquered by his arts, whom he could not conquer by the torments of his own soldiers. Therefore he covers the augmentation of fury with the veil of piety; he tries by fraud to destroy, whom by the magnitude of terror he could not overcome: he becomes virtue in appearance not truth, Angel in mouth not in operation. Therefore on the fifth day of the Paschal festival having passed, on the 5th day an angel sent from God by the demon under the form of an Angel the author of darkness approaches the son of light: he lies that he was sent from the supernal seats; that with gentle sleep he should soothe the guards, and lead him for the common salvation of the nation out of the squalor of the prison; nor should he fear to be marked with the name of a cowardly soldier, since he was neither loftier than Peter, nor stronger than Paul, one of whom a basket covered, the other weighed down by the screeching of the prison the Angel released: that he should also hold the venerable feet of Christ, who that he might escape the hands of those stoning him went out of the temple, and commanded his own by evangelical precept the license of fleeing. He as though anointed with ointments by these speeches, goes out of the prison, following him as a guide of the way, who presumed to tempt the Son of God in the desert. But with many overflowings of waters through the obscure shadows of death traversed, he is led out to marshes: he who played the light-bearer in mouth, suddenly disappeared. Then the Saint, understanding the machinations of the pestiferous guide, from the depth of his breast grieving pants, and having thrown himself into the midst of the marshes, with the greatest weeping implores the Savior. O giver of life, O unique pitier of the race of Adam, recognizing himself seduced, why has your grace deserted me as an old man, whom in flourishing age it was never accustomed to desert? Mercifully preserved so long, at the end of life do you suffer me to perish cast off? O all that I desire, all that I long to enjoy, what does it profit to have been victor for a long day in battle, if with the day completed the vanquished shall snatch the prey from the victor? Or what praise to one skilled in swimming, if the shipwrecked one has escaped the middle of the sea, but at the shore has sustained the shipwreck of unseen death? How often have I found you Savior in the shipwreck of this life? he invokes Christ: Let me now, I pray, experience you as consoler in this illusion of the demon, helper in opportunities, in tribulation, Helper, I say, in tribulation, let me experience you as consoler in this illusion of the demon. Prison behind, before a river, darkness all around, the author of them nearby; Elphege, enclosed by all these hardships, is left to you alone, poor: you shall be helper to the orphan.
[31] Such things the man, not renowned for the Pontificate, but cheap
in reproach, recalling with groaning voice, does not cease to weep out to divine ears. But he who in the midst of darkness created a pillar of light, that his inheritance in the pathless might find a way; deigned to show the way to one erring, by which the illustrious warrior might be restored to the place from which he had departed, and might merit to receive the crown promised to him from heaven without any obstacle. Therefore soon when the dawn of day was rising, the true dawn of the true light appeared, a youth clothed with golden splendor, bearing before him the standards of the divine signet, and so delivering his address to the man: Where, from an Angel appearing he is taught the fallacies of the demon, he says, do your feet draw you? Where the impetus of flight? Where the envy of the leader? Is it thus gone to the crown, by fleeing the struggle of the contest? Or can he shine with the prize of the palm, who refused to complete the goals of running in the stadium? To whom when the Priest had replied, that he was not fleeing, but had obeyed the command of a divine messenger: Not this, he said, was the command of divinity, but the invention of diabolical malignity; nor did he so much wish to lead you out of the prison, as to seduce you outside the prison. For both the pious operation of your past life urges him, and the ever present consolation in such tribulations of the Holy Spirit, whose presence gives constancy to men, constancy victory, victory glory; and the crown to be obtained on the following day: and for that reason he prefers to try all things, rather than to depart confounded from you. Return therefore to the place, friend, deputed for the crown from heaven, knowing that tomorrow the Father will honor you in heaven, with that greatest honor, that you may be forever with his Son. Elphege therefore recalled by the Angel to the place of contest, joyfully awaited the hour, in which he should receive the crown from God.
[33] But when it was near, that he should have had to enter the terrifying cave, cruelly beaten, he is tortured with most fetid smoke: seized by a turbulent crowd of executioners, he is afflicted with the greatest blows; moreover with the brain of the head violated, half-dead he is shut up in prison, where with a fire kindled, and whatever would either generate most fetid smoke, or nourish it generated, through each hour of the day thrown in; they close the gates of the doors, he being left within, whom they thought should be tortured with such punishments. But the contender of God, mindful of those things which the Son of God had suffered for him, counted as the least whatever he could have sustained for him. Therefore with the greater part of the following night spent, when with the Sabbath of the Octaves beginning to shine, an eternal Sabbath was being prepared for the man in heaven; the terrifying house began to receive a share of heavenly grace, to breathe out the scents of eternal life, to resound with hymns modulated with the mellifluous voices of the Saints. he is refreshed by St. Dunstan appearing with other Saints: Whom that blessed one gazing upon with great joy of heart, sees Dunstan formerly Archbishop assisting, glorious in countenance and garment, and with hands extended to him, thus speaking: To you, most invincible soldier of the eternal King, to you to be honored with our service we have come, sent by him who both granted you victory over the enemy, and prepared an eternal crown in heaven. Behold, with whose fellowship after the death of the flesh forever you shall enjoy, a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem and of the household of God, if you shall patiently fulfill in your flesh those things which are lacking of the sufferings of Christ. For we have seen the manifold labors of the city, the burnings of the temple, the killing of the sons, your reproaches with chains; and, after benefits bestowed, doubled torments. Therefore receive willingly what remains, surrounded by the power of the Godhead, and he is healed from the blows. knowing that the sufferings of this time are not worthy, to the coming glory which shall be revealed in you. For one and today is a day for torture, but it will be continual and eternal for reward. Amid these things the knots of the chains are loosened, the gaping mouths of the wounds are tied up, and Elphege, absolved to wholeness of every wound of the body, singing with those singing, exulting with those exulting, walks.
CHAPTER VII. Martyrdom: body translated to London: miracles.
[34] The guards made afraid by the magnitude of the thing, announce to those who were in charge in the extreme part of the army, that the place, once condemned with dreadful horror, now is magnificently delighting in the watches of the gods. Who rushing with swift course in troops, By the Princes of the Danes he is adjudged to death: fall down leaning against the walls, wishing to see the present power of God: but struck more quickly than said, they leap back. As soon as the Princes of the army had received this, that their companions by troops were flowing away from them, and in rivalry flowing together to the man of God; they immediately promulgate a sentence of death against him; lest with him living longer they proceed armed against each other, and destroy themselves more gravely killed by their own than by foreign nations. Accordingly a not small band of armed men being sent, Elphege is led from the place of horror to the council of fury, from the house of foulness to the judgment of vanity. he is led to their council. And since they had long known that his feet had been eaten away by the long binding, to hasten the enormity of the crime, they showed the man this humanity; that they placed him upon a beast of burden, and thus dragged him to the synagogue of Satan. Great lamentation of the faithful, following the divine rider with mourning and tears: among whom he in the middle, he consoles those mourning for him: made a spectacle to Angels and men, prays that they be not a hindrance to him fighting against the prince of the world, but rather extend the aids of their prayers. Now would come to your mind the Son of God, either sitting on a lowly ass, or bearing the cross on his shoulders; the miserable tears of the lamenting women, the insulting Pharisees, and the soldiers crucifying. And when he was still the distance of a flying arrow away; with a vast murmur all the council roared these things: Bishop, gold, or today you will be a spectacle to the world. But he, reverently received by the hands of his own, first indeed from weariness was silent a little; then after, having received breath, he respired, thus he responded: Gold of divine wisdom I propose to you, that leaving behind the vanity which you love, you may turn your studies to the one living, true, and eternal God. he predicts ruin to those remaining in infidelity, But if you shall despise with obstinate mind the counsel of God announced to you through me, you shall indeed perish with a worse death than Sodom, nor shall you take root in this land forever.
[35] Then truly the satellites of the devil, foaming with venomous spirit of cruelty, nor now able to bear the weight of his words, leap with the impetus of most savage lions from their seats, with the backs of axes cast the man down, he is pelted with stones: then others and others pelt him with stones. And now he was at the entrance of life: when mindful of Christ the Lord hanging on the cross for the salvation of all, and praying the Father for the enemy people, he pressed his right knee, his left foot into the earth, taking up this prayer both for himself, and for those who were untiringly wearying him; Only-begotten Son of the Most High Father, Lord Jesus, he prays for his persecutors, who through the womb of the untouched Virgin camest into this world to make sinners safe; both receive me in peace, and have mercy on these. And having fallen down to the ground and rising again; again he says thus: Good shepherd, singular shepherd, protect the sons of the Church which dying I commend to you. and for the sons of the church, But a certain one b running up, whom he himself had received from the sacred font, when he saw the man longer laboring at the threshold of death; moved by impious piety, fixed an axe in his head: he is killed with an axe: who at once resting in eternal peace, directs his victorious spirit with triumph to heaven. Who, I say, after those who were the first of all leaders of the Lord's flock, either lived more innocently than this man, or ended his life more gently? Or whose merits were so similar, similar to St. Stephen: as those of this warrior of ours and Stephen the Protomartyr? except that that one could consecrate the divine mysteries, but to this one it was allowed to offer them; for both were skilled in dispensing the stipends of the Church, both were most vehement for the correction of the evil, equal in the kind of death, equal in love of enemies. But behold the stones of the sanctuary, once trodden under by the feet of those passing by, now to the highest cornerstone Christ are joined; who, although coming from different directions, makes them one in himself, in love, will, beatitude, eternity.
[36] lest the body be submerged But the Princes of the Danes, desiring to obscure both their own crime and the glory of Elphege, gathered together in one, decided that his body should be immersed in the river, thinking that the enormity of crimes could be more easily covered, the more the memory of him was taken from men. But what the Danes prepared for contumely, Christ prepared for Elphege for glory. those whom he had converted impede it, For immediately all the multitude of the people, who by his teaching had cast off error, proceeds armed; preferring to die together with the deceased, than to hand over to be swallowed by the river's abyss that body, by whose ministry it had received the mystery of sanctification. Thus that magnificent vessel in which while he lived the Holy Spirit was multiply operating, preserved by one and diverse people, was neither immersed nor buried. But with the sun setting toward the west, the Senators of both parts come together, to determine the strife of such contention by their reasons. And this deliberation of counsel was made with one assent of all, that all in common should ask the Saint, that if he had any power in this doubt, he should show the virtue of his power. the sanctity of the slain one is proved by a miracle, And when the question found its end in this, that the inimical Danes should choose the kind of virtue; Behold, they say, an oar from an ash branch, cut off, utterly stripped of sap and bark; if the morning light should find this, smeared with his blood, green, it will be established that we have killed one just and holy, and with what honor you may bury him will be in your power. But if the wood shall remain in its pristine dryness, we shall say that you have erred in loving him; but it will be of our arbitration, what we may wish to decide about his corpse. Therefore the condition of the decree pleased all: the approval of the deed followed the condition. Therefore that it might be established to all that after death Elphege was living, contrary to the order of nature the dry wood in the time of one night began to leaf: and burial is indulged, which the Danes late had fixed in the earth, and rising in the morning saw flowering. Therefore the Danes having nothing of contradiction further, in rivalry rushed into the embrace of the deceased, fixed frequent kisses, put their necks under, and filled all things with tears and wailings. Therefore the heavenly pearl lifted up, on the shoulders of the bearing enemies is carried to the tree distinguished by his triumph, accompanied by innumerable prodigies of signs, miracles and conversion of the Danes follow: shown from heaven by the powerful virtue of God. Then soon health is renewed to the sick, light is clearly poured over the blind, the gift of hearing is given to the deaf, the mute receives the organ of the tongue, the lame man walks with composed step. There with a house of prayer built over him, many of the magnates of the Danes, regenerated from water and spirit in the same, flew to the bosom of holy mother Church.
[37] But when the rumor of the cruelty perpetrated had flown to London, and the virtue of signs had loosed the tongues of all into the heralds of the Martyr, with faith interposed, the body is carried to London, they approach the Danes, already made more gentle in the new religion, doing this with a great sum of money and various pacts, that they might merit to become possessors of the most holy body. To whose importunity they scarcely acquiescing, the Londoners receive the treasure more precious than all gold, with no fewer than twelve thousand Danes and English going to the gate of the city,
and deploring the crime perpetrated with bitter tears. Thence received with the ineffable dancing of the whole city, carried to the church of the Doctor of the Gentiles, in the church of St. Paul, in the same it was proclaimed, honored, and placed. In which basilica, with many years completed in great clarity of virtues, when the times of peace returned, raised up by the magnificent King c Canute, with the whole body still incorrupt, and to the church of his Patriarchate, which he had always worshiped with love while living, afterwards incorrupt translated to Canterbury, strengthened with virtue, for which also and with which he had sustained death, it was translated. But for the rest whoever of the Danes, after that wondrous miracle of the flowering tree, was unwilling to be converted to the true and Catholic faith, at once seized by a horrid scourge, perished by a bitter death. I could indeed tell, who were torn by demonic vexation, who struck with the ulcer of cancer, who swallowed by the sea, who killed by their own hand. And what you may wonder more, if any of them had usurped some particles of his garments, terrified by the image of a nocturnal vision, there too he shines with miracles: unwilling they were returning the same, returning they expired. O faithful testimony of truth, declared for proving the merits of the man, while at his exequies both the faithful sick were marvelously healed, and the healthy infidels were terribly vexed. These things, I say, I could tell, if I did not fear to be a weariness to my readers.
[38] But now commending these things to the omnipotent Lord who alone doeth wonders, let us turn the course of narration to the affection of prayer. Great soldier of the great King Elphege, who hast washed thy stole in the gore of the Lamb of God, he is invoked by Osbern the writer, admit the prayers of the Sons crying to thee; and those whom thou hast honored by thy holy passion, relieve by pious intercession. Strong by divine help, thou hast overcome the prince of death, strengthen us Father against him, and help that we may conquer. Having pitied those stoning thee, have pity on those supplicating; nor let the commotion of the raging obtain more, than the devotion of those loving. Let thy little servants not know the gates of death and hell: but unbar the gates of paradise, by the power given thee by the Savior: who with the eternal Father and with the coeternal Spirit of both lives and reigns, one, only, and true God, through infinite ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VIII. Translation of the body to Canterbury. Afterwards added in the manner of an Appendix.
[39] Because we have formerly explained the venerable passion of the blessed Martyr Elphege with literary monuments; it has also pleased us to show grace to the will of those, who desire with most ardent devotion to know how his most sacred body was translated from London to Canterbury. And indeed that it was translated, we briefly touched upon at the end of his passion, but we did not by any means set forth the manner of the translation. Therefore we shall now set it forth. In the year therefore from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand twelve, The body of St. Elphege killed April 19, 1012, indiction ten, with the Saturday of the Paschal week growing toward evening, and the Lord's Day of the octaves of Easter beginning, on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of May, the most glorious Pontiff of the city of Canterbury, Elphege, falling with a most glorious passion for his sheep and together with the sheep entrusted to him by God, received the unfading crown of eternal glory, in the seventh year of his Patriarchate, but the fifty-ninth of his birth. Whose venerable body, received either by grace or by price from the faithful people, carried from the place of his martyrdom to the city of London, translated to London shines with miracles, and in the church of the blessed Apostle Paul was buried with innumerable prodigies of shining grace. Soon then health is renewed to the sick, light is clearly poured over the blind, the gift of hearing is given to the deaf, the lame walk with upright step, and to all faithfully asking divine benefits come forth most promptly. But those who had been authors of his death, the avenging wrath of God was not suffering to pass without terrible vengeance.
[40] The authors of the killing miserably perish, For that I may briefly touch a few of many things, I put forward Duke Hakon, piercing himself through with his own sword; a soothsayer, intent on the disciplines of mathematical learning, fixing a stylus in his throat; a Priest, pertinaciously hiding the Martyr's collar cross, killed by the hands of the same Martyr; and another man of the same order, rashly carrying his sandals, invaded by a demon and until they were drawn off from his feet, most dreadfully vexed before all the people of the city of London. From which things so vehement a fear invaded all the Princes of the Danes, that scarcely did the earth hold them; but giving themselves to maritime tempests, they thought they could escape the Martyr's wrath on the sea, whom the earth could not protect from his wrath. 160 ships submerged and 65 captured, But as soon as they had been led out into the deep with foaming oars, one hundred sixty ships, driven by adverse blasts of winds, were submerged in the depth of the sea; but forty, and also twenty-five, driven to foreign and unknown regions, and as though they had come for the sake of snares, were miserably killed by the same. Yet there remained in England the wickedly bold prince of the evils Turchill, for a little time about to be a robber, but forever to remain the prey of the damned spirit. Thurchill sent back from England to Denmark, For with a little time elapsed, the Prince of the Danes Canute came, with a great fleet into the land of the English; and dissenting from him because of certain things badly and perfidiously done, whatever remnant of the unspeakable people could be, as tablets are wont to be erased by the stylus, he erased: and put the Duke himself, protected only by six ships, to flight into Denmark. Who when he had escaped to land, killed by the common people. suspected by the Princes of the Danes lest he stir up intestine wars; immediately driven through all the places of that region, at last was killed by the ignoble common folk, and miserably cast to beasts and birds. So therefore from land and sea were taken away, those who killed the holy man and one to be named with honor, Elphege the Archbishop.
[41] But the prince of the Danes Canute, when he saw his people without intermission most cruelly cut down by the army of the English, and now almost because of the difficulty of things compelled to surrender; having summoned all the wiser English who had fled to him; consulted them what was the cause, that so many adversities had happened to him. Who all responding with one mouth said: It is the prophecy of the venerable Martyr Elphege, who when he had been surrounded by your fathers with cruel interrogation, predicted to them that in the kingdom of the English they were not to take root forever, but to perish by a worse death than Sodom. King Canute is persuaded to transfer the body of St. Elphege to Canterbury, Now therefore if you wish to make him placable to you in your times, bind yourself with him by the covenant of this promise, that when there shall be a happy succession of things, you may lift the venerable relics of his body from the place in which they have been placed, and strive to transfer them to the See of his Patriarchate, the custom of the ancients being preserved. Therefore the Prince assented to the counsel of the Senators: the declaration of divine propitiation follows the counsel. For not after many days Canute obtained peace, after peace half of the kingdom, after half the whole. And when from every tumult of wars b he was free, he summons c Egelnoth Archbishop of Canterbury: who coming to London, Archbishop Egelnoth summoned, proceeded straight to the church of Saint Paul. Which when the King had learned, he at once came to the Archbishop, and narrates by what grace he summons him: namely that he should take care that the body of Elphege be carried d to Canterbury. Then the Archbishop, astonished at the first hearing, tells the King his reasons, not sufficiently foreseen and premeditated for accomplishing so great a thing. That he feared therefore, lest he be torn apart by the citizens of London, who would prefer he fears tumult of the citizens, life rather than be deprived of so great a treasure and patron. To these things, You see, he says, we alone and two monks are present: and the stone by which the monument is closed is of such magnitude, that scarcely can several pairs of oxen move it. The King, armed with great faith, responds that the help of God and of the blessed man, if that translation pleased them, would not be lacking. Therefore this burden is laid upon those two monks, of whom one Godric was said to be a familiar of the Pontiff, the stone is removed; the other Alfward of Dunstan formerly. Who since other instruments were lacking, dispersed the cement and smaller stones with a certain iron candelabrum, which happened to be at hand. Then full of confidence, by which relying on that which was above their powers, with hope raised only in God and the blessed man, on bent knees they approached, and for moving that huge rock putting their shoulders to it, with a light impulse they turn it to the other side: and soon gaze upon the blessed relics. Yet another care still urged them, that the wooden tablet was lacking, on which they should carry the body to the ship: and behold, the body incorrupt is carried to the Thames: while they compose the body, and wrap it with linens, they see a tablet, as though prepared for that use, laid under the body. But the body was whole and e incorrupt: then placed on their shoulders the monks carry it to the banks of the Thames, with the King and the Archbishop following. But the King had disposed through the city and both banks of the Thames garrisons, against any (if perchance any should happen) tumult of the city. carried down to Canterbury, it is received: And when the body had been carried to the last banks of the Thames, led out of the ship the King himself with his own hands placed it on a carriage: and so with honored pomp and with a great garrison of soldiers it is carried to Canterbury, and it was received with the highest honor, and the incredible joy of all the citizens and Clergy: And after the third day Queen Emma with her son Harthacanute, religiously visited it, it shines with miracles. and offered ample gifts. Nor were divine miracles lacking, which both at that time honored this translation and also subsequent ones: and thenceforth he was held not only as a pious Pontiff, but also as a holy Martyr.