ON ST. WILFRID I,
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK IN ENGLAND.
IN THE YEAR 709.
PrefaceWilfrid, first Archbishop of York in England (St.)
By G. H.
In the city of Rheims stands an ancient monastery dedicated to St. Remigius, whose first Abbots were the same as the Archbishops of the city and province. Of these the third is reckoned Ebbo; under whom, before he was deposed by Louis the Pious the Emperor, there lived there the monk Bertogarius, and in his hand is preserved a copy of a Martyrology, [The birthday is celebrated April 24 in the Metrical Martyrology ascribed to Bede,] whose title declares Bede to have composed it in heroic verse — as though he composed it for his own monastery at Jarrow, that he might know without any error of hesitation the principal festivities of the whole year. This Martyrology Luke Achery took care to print in volume 10 of the Spicilegium; and being persuaded that the author was truly Bede, he consequently judged the Dedication of the Church mentioned on April 27 to be that of the said monastery at Jarrow. However that may be, it is the work of an old author. In it, for the month of April, four Saints are indicated, namely on April 23 George the Martyr, on this 24th Egbert the Priest and Wilfrid I Archbishop of York, and finally on the 29th Wilfrid II, likewise Archbishop of York. On which day we showed that the latter seems to have still lived after the death of St. Bede: and consequently the said Martyrology, if perhaps begun by Bede, was completed by another. Concerning Saints Egbert and Wilfrid I these things are joined there:
Egbert, bright with the worthy praise of virtues, Ascended venerably on the Octaves to the star-bearing Olympus. And on the same day Bishop Wilfrid penetrated the kindly Heavens, borne by an angelic company, beyond the summits of the sky.
[2] The MS Calendar of St. Maximin, In the Calendar also prefixed to the Psalter, a very ancient MS of the monastery of St. Maximin, the Birthday of Saints Wilfrid and Egbert the Bishops is indicated. Among the older monasteries of the Gauls which we visited returning from Rome to Belgium is Jumièges in the diocese of Rouen. There we saw a very old English Missal, as the Paschal table proves, beginning in the year 1000 to 1095. It had been received as a gift about the year 1050 from Robert, once Abbot there, then Bishop of London, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who at length returning from Rome, departed from this life in the said monastery of Jumièges around the year 1070. The MS Missal of Jumièges, In this Missal is prescribed for today the feast of St. Wilfrid, of whom we now treat. We have also a very old Martyrology, at least written on parchment in the 12th century among the English, where the memory of St. Wilfrid the Archbishop and Confessor is inscribed also on this April 24. The MS English Martyrology, Moreover, the Martyrology of Sarum, published in English at London in 1506 by Richard Whitford, adorns him with such an encomium for this day: "The feast of Saint Wilfrid, Archbishop of York. The Sarum Martyrology. He was born in England of royal blood, at whose birth a column of fire was seen, from which the whole house seemed to burn. As a youth he shone with virtue, and so persevered in singular perfection and in many miracles." Then was printed, namely in 1532, the Enchiridion of the illustrious church of Sarum, and the Enchiridion, filled with most devout prayers and most beautiful images, in whose Calendar similarly is indicated the feast of St. Wilfrid the Bishop and Confessor. Finally, in the ancient MS Martyrologies of Trier at the monastery of St. Maximin, of Rome of Cardinal Barberini, and of Cologne of St. Mary ad Gradus, and in 6 MSS. the same Saint is reported with Saints Mellitus the Bishop and St. Hechberactus, of whom we treat separately, and we accurately set forth the words of the Martyrologies. Moreover, the said Wilfrid is reported in the Florentine MSS of the Medicean library and of Senator Strozzi, and in the Florentine Martyrology published in 1486, but they are called St. Uldifrius the Bishop and Confessor. By which name also he is reported by Peter de Natalibus, Bishop of Equilium, near the end of book XI, no. 28. Francis de Rus-Puerta, author of the History of Jaén, had read Peter, and comparing his words whether some Spaniard can be understood here? with the words of Pseudo-Julian in the Chronicle for the year 288, no. 22, in which it is feigned: "In the city of Spain"
Utica of Baetica, St. Waldifredus, Bishop of the same city, an eminent Confessor of Christ in life and doctrine — he persuaded himself that Peter de Natalibus was treating of his Waldifredus under the name of Uldifru. So dreams are connected to dreams; and he who but lately was first thrust forth, the equally imaginary Bishop of the wholly imaginary Utica, seemed, by the like license of fatuous imaginings, to have a champion, if not ancient, at least prior to the most recent writers. We acknowledge no one besides the Englishman Wilfrid to whom the words of Equilinus can be fitted; and we think that the compilers of that fictitious Chronicle, unless they had utterly put off all shame, would have chosen any other name such as could fall in the third Christian century, rather than the Frankish or Teutonic "Waldifred," which scarcely began to be heard in the Spains after the invasion of the Goths. And let these things be said concerning St. Wilfrid as he is referred to April 24.
[3] Another day, dedicated to the veneration of the same St. Wilfrid, is October 12, Translation of the body October 12, on which day his sacred body (which had been translated to Canterbury by Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury) was placed by Blessed Lanfranc, Archbishop, in a more fitting place. So Eadmer below in the Life, no. 66: "A sepulchre," he says, "was made in the northern part of the altar, and in it on the 4th day before the Ides of October, the relics of St. Wilfrid are reverently enclosed." On which day his memory is celebrated in the above-mentioned MS Martyrology written in England in the 12th century; likewise in the MS Carmelite Martyrology preserved at Cologne, and in the cited Florentine MSS. In the Martyrology printed at Cologne and Lübeck in 1490, and in Grevenus and Molanus of the first edition, with the modern Roman Martyrology and other more recent ones, the name of St. Wilfrid is also read in October, but without any mention of translation or elevation, likewise without distinction of the day of birth, death, or deposition. Molanus in the later edition calls it his birthday, which we also read in a certain MS Calendar or Martyrology of the monastery of Jumièges, not very old. Also called natal day and deposition, In the MS of Utrecht, of the Church of St. Mary, it is called the deposition, and more recent writers have followed; by whom, in turn, the translation is assigned to this April 24 — which we have observed to be done also in the MS Altempsiano, brought from England to Rome. The cause of the error seems to have arisen because in Bede's English History, book 5, chapter 20, according to the formerly vulgate editions, it was read: "The Saint died on the 4th day before the Ides of October in his own monastery." On account of words intruded into Bede. But those words, "on the 4th day before the Ides of October," are lacking in the MS codex of Paris, of the monastery of St. Germain des Prés, and in the Saxon version of King Alfred; and therefore Abraham Wheloc, author of the Anglo-Saxon edition, enclosed them within parentheses as intruded into Bede's text by later hands. We therefore, adhering to the older and more certain monuments, judge the day of birth to heaven to be this April 24, and that his Acts are to be referred to it; while the festivity of the translation of the body to Canterbury is celebrated on the 4th day before the Ides of October, as is read in the title in Eadmer, who lived at Canterbury. And thus we correct the fact that, the matter not yet being accurately discussed, we had sometimes referred his death to the aforesaid October.
[4] Now we give the Life of St. Wilfrid accurately written by the aforesaid Eadmer. Who this writer was, The Life is given by Eadmer as author, we have expounded more fully on April 21, in the Life of St. Anselm, likewise Archbishop of Canterbury: to whom, having been present during his whole period in the See, he wrote his Life, together with the History of Novelties in England, as an eye-witness of many events. With equal authority in this Life of St. Wilfrid, in the first part of the first book, he treats of Blessed Lanfranc, St. Anselm's predecessor; and what had been done under him concerning the relics of St. Wilfrid he testifies below in the Epilogue that he beheld with his own eyes; the rest he says are strengthened by the authority of Archbishop Odo and Bede the Presbyter: The writings of others are indicated. which he also confirms in the Prologue. Indeed he uses the very words of Bede in many places, as we often note. We have not yet been able to see the little book of Odo. Under him lived Fridegodus, to whom, when Odo had ordered him to weave a Life of St. Wilfrid in heroic verse, having that poem before his eyes, Eadmer, following the same order of narration, sometimes transcribed entire verses. Fridegodus's verses, being earlier in time, could therefore have been placed before the Life written by Eadmer: but because they have not yet been found entire anywhere; and as they were able to be found, mutilated at the end, so Achery and Mabillon published them in the third Benedictine century; and finally because they are quite obscure, as Malmesbury notes in book 1 On the Deeds of the Pontiffs of England, we are unwilling, without new light and perfection for their reprinting, to uselessly swell the bulk of our work. Heddius Stephen (whom St. Wilfrid had summoned from Kent and set as master for teaching his church to sing) is also said to have written his Life, of which Eadmer does not make mention, and no monuments have hitherto been found. After Eadmer, historians of English affairs commonly inserted the deeds of St. Wilfrid into their writings — chiefly the aforesaid William the monk of Malmesbury, Richard the Prior of Hexham, Roger of Howden, Radulph de Diceto, John Bromton, Gervase of Canterbury, Thomas Stubbs, who described the Acts of the Pontiffs of York. Also the older Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of Bath, wrote a book on the Life of St. Wilfrid, and dedicated it to Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, who died in 1213; a fragment of which is read in volume 1 of Monasticon Anglicanum, page 172, where many things are related from the Life written by John Leland, and published by John Capgrave. The time of St. Wilfrid's life from his birth to his death is indicated by Eadmer, or explained in the Notes, so that there is no need to detain the reader by giving any account of it here.
LIFE
By Eadmer, monk of Canterbury.
Drawn from the Cottonian library.
Wilfrid, first Archbishop of York in England (St.)
BHL Number: 8893
By Eadmer
PROLOGUE.
[1] Britain, which the Angles, having vanquished and driven out the Britons, call England and inhabit, is on all sides girt by the Ocean. In the fertile region of Britain, Formerly it abounded, by marvelous plenty, in riches both inborn and brought from anywhere. Which, as it was powerful in the earthly plenty of things, so was it likewise in the great fecundity of most holy men. By whose exacting merits, the grace of Almighty God so adorned the whole island with his munificence, that both worship around God's service was multiplied on every side, and affairs, as much public as private, enjoyed much peace and happy prosperity.
[2] But since nature has granted nothing perfect from every side in worldly things, Often conflicts against holy men were stirred up, the blind condemning greed of the mind, when sometimes it had brought certain ones to this, that they did not know how to be content with their own possessions, broke the bulwarks of peace; peace broken, produced robberies, burnings, seditions, wars, and the destructions of all good things. Which were sometimes worn down by holy men of that same province; sometimes, those evils growing to immense size, those who were striving to wear down the evils were themselves worn by the various perturbation of mishaps. For while they placed their zeal chiefly on this, that they should not yield to the depravity of perverse men, losing the rectitude of their own condition; and while those on the other side strove by every means not to give themselves up even a little to the rectitude of these for their own correction; and exercising their wickedness now by force, now by frauds, those whom they had not been able to have as partners in wickedness, they would by no means have them as companions in common life. Hence many were deprived of their own dignity, many banished from their country, many also slain by most cruel death, and by God the just Judge gloriously crowned. These things the Church of England suffered partly, in the beginning of her growing faith, in preachers coming to her; partly, in the progress of the same faith, in her own preachers born among her. These things, no less, the same faith everywhere founded, she has atrociously suffered, partly from her own, partly from external enemies, in her Fathers. Hence, to be silent about others, the venerable bishops Mellitus and Justus a sought Gaul, being driven out from England; hence the most holy Father Wilfrid so often is cast out from the seat of his own dignity; hence also the most glorious King b Edmund and the most blessed Bishop Aelphege, condemned to an unjust death, are most worthily crowned with the glory of martyrdom; hence also, beyond doubt, that most illustrious man and of most excellent sanctity, Father Dunstan, is known to have been driven into exile. But it may suffice that I have touched briefly on these matters. For our elders have learned many things worthy of memory concerning these, and have left to posterity their writings, marked with the light of truth.
[3] Whence the history of Wilfrid is received, And since what is written concerning the aforesaid Wilfrid is proved to be scattered not in one but in several authors, asked by some whom I judged it unbecoming to gainsay — indeed, to confess the truth, moved by love of that most holy Father — I set about to put together in our work into one what is written scatteredly about him. For Bede, the most noble writer of the history of our people, in that history discusses several things concerning the same Father in various places. And Odo of blessed memory, Bishop of the holy church of Canterbury, published a certain little book on his life and conversation, after he took up the relics of that Saint from the place where they had first been placed, and transferred them to the mother Church of all Britain, which is situated in the city of Canterbury, with great honor of devotion. Following therefore the words of these in all things, I trust that I shall say almost nothing which cannot be supported by their authority, and nothing at all which is contrary. Let whoever shall deign to read or hear these things, I pray, understand that I did not so write that I would wish my writings to be preferred to any of the ancient ones on this matter, but rather let him consider both that I wished to comply with my friends asking me (as I have said), and to show the saint of God some service of my love and reverence.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
A birth famous by miracle. Retirement to the monastery of Lindisfarne. First journey to Rome. Various actions on the journey and the return at Lyons.
[4] Wilfrid is born in the year 634, In the 634th year of the Incarnation of the Word of God, with Eadbald, son of the most glorious King Ethelbert a of Kent, reigning in Kent, and with Oswald b, the most holy King of the Northumbrians, reigning in Northumbria as successor of the most noble King Edwin — from the illustrious stock of the English people — Wilfrid, the boy of God, was nobly born, and straightway nobly designated by a heavenly prodigy to the world. For when the blessed boy, in the silence of untimely night,
was coming forth from his mother's womb, with a column of fire appearing: a column of fire sent from heaven above the house in which he was being born wiped away all the darkness of the surrounding night with the ray of its light. All the neighbors, therefore, disturbed by sudden terror at the magnitude of so great a light, rushed out of their houses; and each, stricken with amazement, seized what he could first grasp, and formed into a crowd, with confused murmur, quickly ran to the fire. Arriving at the house, they find the flame sending out rays as it had begun: but they behold with wonder that neither the house nor anything in the vicinity was suffering any harm. Fearing, therefore, with great astonishment, "Oh!" they say, "what sign do you think this portends to us? Surely it is an omen of divine power." And to those who wished to rush into the house came out from the house the women, saying: "Hold, hold, we pray; whither do you rush? Do you so strive to know the cause of the fire which you have before your eyes? Know for certain that it is nothing other than a boy now born from his mother's womb." Knowing this, with bent step they return to their own, venerating with their devotion the great things of God. What shall be said to these things? We see the ancient miracle shown in the bush to Moses the servant of God; and behold, in the house of the boy of God fire rages and does not burn; flame flashes forth and consumes nothing. And what sign that ancient one made known the world now knows; but this, in itself experienced, almost the whole nobility of the English kingdom has learned. For it has been proved in the very fact that, just as formerly the Lord, about to free his people from the Egyptian slavery, entrusted the ministry of that liberation to Moses through the fire of the bush, so now the same Lord, about to lead forth another people of his from the darkness of vices, signified by fire sent from heaven whom he had chosen to have the office of that leading forth.
[5] Therefore, the most blessed Father Wilfrid, receiving the beginning of his life with the sign of so great nobility, grave from boyhood, while he was a boy of good disposition, studied to add by his own diligence to the same nobility the nobility of manners. Whence, surpassing his age in manners, he refused to admit anything of boyish lightness or insolence into his manners; but carried himself, at the still-tender age, so modestly and circumspectly in all things, that he was deservedly loved, venerated, embraced by his elders, as though one of themselves. For his face was of great beauty, but within the habit of his face there was far more beautiful to him the manner of probity. He took care to dedicate the offices of his eloquent tongue — as far as the tenor of that age could admit — not to garrulousness, detraction, or contention, but to those things which are God's, with the greatest zeal.
[6] By the counsel of Eanfled he retires to Lindisfarne. But after he had reached the bounds of a more perfect age, his mother having died, he resolved to leave the borders of his birth, that he might more freely give labor to the services of the Lord. c When he reported this to his father, he willingly granted his vows and heavenly desires, and ordered him to persevere in his saving undertaking. But when he had completed his 14th year, accompanied by the protection of God, he came to Queen d Eanfled by name; by whom he was kindly received, and for some time held with great honor. He made known to her the purpose of his mind: that it was most especially in this — that leaving the world he should devote himself to God's service. When the venerable Queen knew this, much rejoicing in the virtue of his spirit, she bestowed, with the devoted alacrity of her mind, both counsel and help for accomplishing so great a thing. And because she knew that that man preferred the monastic life particularly, she caused him, as it pleased him, to come to the island of Lindisfarne e, and to be associated with the monastery of the monks. Placed there, he took care diligently to learn and to do those things that belonged to monastic chastity and piety. And because he was of keen intellect, he learned very quickly the psalms and some codices, not yet indeed tonsured, but marked with no small distinction by those virtues which are greater than tonsure — namely humility and obedience: on account of which he was venerated by his seniors and by his peers with just affection.
[7] Thinking of Rome, When he had served Christ in that monastery for some years, the youth perceived little by little that the way of virtue which was handed down by the Scots was by no means perfect: and he proposed in his mind to come to Rome, and to see which rites, ecclesiastical or monastic, were observed at the Apostolic See. When he reported this to the brethren, they praised his proposal and urged him to carry out what he had disposed in his mind. And he, coming at once to the aforesaid Queen, made known to her the desire that was in him to visit the thresholds of the Apostles: who, delighted with the good proposal of the youth, sent him to Kent to King f Erconbert, who was g the son of her uncle, asking that he honorably send him to Rome. At that time h Honorius, one of the disciples of Blessed Pope Gregory, held the rank of Archbishop there, a man nobly instructed in ecclesiastical matters. When the youth of sagacious mind had remained there for a while, giving diligent heed to learning what he saw, there came there another youth named i Biscop, with the surname Benedict, of the English nobles, himself also desiring to come to Rome. The King therefore associated blessed Wilfrid as a companion of him, and ordered that he should lead him to Rome with himself.
[8] When they had come to Lyons, they were honorably received by the venerable k Dalfinus, Archbishop of the same city: Wilfrid was detained by the Bishop; Benedict went on as far as Rome. After some stay at Lyons with Bishop Dalfinus, For the Bishop was delighted with the prudence of the words of the most vigorous young man, with the grace of his handsome face, with the alacrity of his action, and the constant maturity of his intent: whence he abundantly gave him and his companions, while they wished to be with him, whatever necessaries they had. Moreover, he offered to blessed Wilfrid no small part of the Gauls to rule, and promised that he would give him his brother's daughter, a virgin, as a wife, if he wished to take one, so that he himself might be to him as a father, and he to him in such a connection as a son. But he, giving thanks for the piety which he deigned to have toward him, a stranger, answered that he had a greater purpose for another kind of life, and had begun to leave his fatherland and go to Rome on this account. Hearing these things, the Bishop, having given a guide for the journey, and abundant provision for what the need of so great a road demanded, sent him on to Rome, beseeching and with many entreaties urging him, that returning from Rome he should turn aside to him.
[9] When he came to Rome, he sought the thresholds of the most blessed Prince of the Apostles for the sake of prayer; and going out, he entered the oratory of the brother l of Blessed Peter, led by the same cause. He visits the thresholds of the Apostles, Prostrate on the ground, with this prayer he is said to have openly asked the pious Apostle, whom he saw present in his mind: "Most pious Apostle of God, brother of the most blessed Apostle Peter, behold I, a citizen of a foreign province, have come to your thresholds to ask pardon for my sins. I pray thee therefore by that piety which thou art proved, by the testimony of the whole world, to show to others, that the pardon of my sins, which I am confident to obtain through thee, I may not seek in vain, lest the progress of so great a journey be made for me in vain. But that I may experience the bonds of my impiety loosed through thy merits, loose, I beseech thee, the impediments of my mind and of my tongue, that I may be able to perceive the mysteries of God's word with my heart, and, in an eloquent manner of speech, to insinuate the same to others." O faith of the servant of God! O eminent sign of the piety of God's Apostle! O generous benignity and benign generosity of God's clemency! No sooner had he ended the words of his prayer than he knew he had received a most lively quickness of mind and a most ready mode of eloquence. He comes to himself, and gratefully marvels that he himself is no longer what he had been.
[10] Dwelling therefore at Rome, given over, as he had purposed in his mind, to prayer and daily meditation of ecclesiastical matters, he came to the notice of a most holy and most learned man, namely the Archdeacon m Boniface, who was also the counsellor of the n Apostolic lord: by whose teaching and friendship blessed, he learned from him the four books of the Gospels, the reasonable term of Easter, and several other things which he had not been able to learn in his own country.
[11] Therefore, greatly imbued with ecclesiastical discipline, He remains three years with Bishop Dalfinus: and suffused with the Apostolic blessing, he returned on his way, and joyfully came to Bishop Dalfinus, who was greatly in suspense about his return, and clung to him in faithful companionship for three years. By him he was tonsured, and held in such love that he thought of making him his heir. But that this might not be done, the Bishop was killed by a cruel death, and Wilfrid rather reserved for the bishopric of his own, that is, of the English nation. For at that time the Queen o of the Franks had brought a fierce tempest upon the Church of Christ: inflamed by the fire of demonic fury, she coveted the fortunes of all good men; coveting, she seethed with robberies and plunderings; seething, she condemned many by cruel examination, And buries him slain. and slew the condemned with the fierce ferocity of death. Whence, to be silent about other things — which she cruelly exercised against innumerable others, as it were lesser folk — she slew with the sword eight Fathers of churches, together with whom she released also the aforesaid venerable Bishop with equal punishment of death from this life. Whom Wilfrid followed as far as the place appointed for his killing, desiring either, if it were granted, to die for him, or at least, if it were permitted, to die along with him by the sword. But lest this should happen, the Bishop forbade by every means; and, lest the executioners add to their crimes so great a crime, the mercy of Christ and the pilgrimage of the holy man, and the thing which at that time was a great terror to many — namely his English nation — forbade. Yet he buried the body of the slain with due honor, and so returned to England with prosperous course.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
Priesthood. Dispute on Easter with St. Colman. Bishopric received in Gaul. Danger on the return. Various exercises through England.
[12] At that time the most Christian King Oswy a, successor of the most blessed King and Martyr Oswald, presided over the Northumbrian people. This Oswy made his son Alfrid b his associate in the kingdom. Both kings were fervent in the Christian religion, Summoned to the court by the Kings Oswy and his son Alfrid, most diligent in the care of churches, and most zealous hearers, lovers, and followers of Catholic doctrines. When, therefore, the blessed man of God Wilfrid had returned to his native land, the fame of his holiness and prudence, the fame of his eloquence and apostolic doctrine, became known everywhere with wonderful swiftness, and came with great praise to the ears of the aforesaid Princes. The sanctity and illustrious love of Christianity which had filled the hearts of the Kings could by no means allow the knowledge of the Saint to escape them. Thereupon, being presented to the court of King Alfrid, he is received kindly; shortly, what before was known only by hearing, is learned by the very experience, and he is familiarly associated with royal friendship. The probity too of his most upright life, which fame had first spread abroad; and the prudent simplicity and simple prudence, which flourished in him together with equal humility toward all, made him dear not only to the King but to all. For three years from this time he cherished the royal court, and by the virtue of his mind acquired for himself grace, glory, honor: whence, endowed by royal gift both with movable and immovable goods, he was illustrious even among worldly men. Moreover, also the Church of Ripon c, with what was of its right, was given to him by royal munificence. He is given the church of Ripon: And from then on he took the greatest care that his wealth should rather pass into food for the needy than be kept, after the manner of misers who lay up their wealth.
[13] Meanwhile there came to the King a Bishop of the West Saxons, named Ailbert d, a holy man and excellently instructed in ecclesiastical disciplines, He is ordained priest, who had also been joined in great love of familiarity with the same King. He, asked by the King, promoted Wilfrid to the office of the priesthood, as one whom he knew to be most worthy to exercise the priesthood. At that time the question of the observation of Easter had been raised, which had been great and frequent up to that point — those who had come from Kent and the Gauls proving and confirming that the Scots were celebrating the Lord's day of Easter contrary to the custom of the universal Church. For the Scots, not yet fully taught up to that time by the series of Scriptures disputing on this matter, concerning the question of Easter, often celebrated the Lord's day of Easter when the Lord's day was Palm Sunday, because on that very day was the fourteenth moon, which is the term of the Paschal day. Of this kind of sect, a man of most holy life, Aidan e, had been in his time a great support, to such a degree that he was tolerated by all with equanimity, since the eminent manner of his life in the work of God was considered. But when he died, Finan, following his footsteps entirely, was substituted in his bishopric. And when he in turn came to the end of this life, Colman succeeded into the sect and seat of both, in whose time a graver controversy was held concerning the Paschal observation and other disciplines of ecclesiastical life. Wherefore deservedly this question moved the feelings and hearts of many, fearing lest perhaps, having received the name of Christianity, they might run or had run in vain. It came also to the ears of the Princes, namely King Oswy and his son Alfrid: of whom the first, taught by the Scots and imbued with the sacraments of baptism, believed that nothing better could be conceived than what he had received from his teachers; the latter, following the privilege of a preferable faith, going before, held that the rite of the Roman and universal Church ought to take precedence over all. For the most Christian and most learned man Wilfrid, who both at Rome (as we said above) had received many documents of ecclesiastical discipline, and had been imbued with some things under Dalfinus, Pontiff of the Gauls at Lyons, had formed him with his own rational and Catholic teaching, and with every scruple removed, had confirmed him, so formed, in the stability of the true faith. So, the question concerning the Paschal observation having been raised (as we have said), it was arranged that a Synod should be convened, and this question ventilated and terminated. And both the Kings came there in a Synod gathered for this, — namely father and son — greatly praying that the Holy Spirit would deign to be present to them. And so the aforesaid Bishop Ailbert came, friend of King Alfrid, with blessed Wilfrid and his priest Agatho f. Against them came Colman with his clerics, and took with him into the Synod Hilda the Abbess g, patroness of his sect, with many others.
[14] Silence being made, first King Oswy, a preface being premised, is said to have spoken in this way: "Thus far, with King Oswy explaining the cause, venerable Fathers, the schism which has arisen in the churches of Christ has led certain men, less zealous for truth, to this point, that twice a year (which is proved a wrong even to say) holy Easter has been celebrated. And yet the cause of this is not so wonderful to those considering it well: for while the rams themselves take different ways, they also drag their flocks after them along divided paths. Where it is plain misery to see, when they strive by opposing ways to the kingdom of heaven, by what common purpose of faith they hasten to hurry; and those who are known to have only Christ as the undivided way of arriving at life, it is seen to be very absonant and absurd to wish to divide Christ himself in his mysteries with dissonant observance. For this reason, the very necessity of reason has chiefly led me to this opinion: that the defenders of both sides should come together by our command, that, having heard the reasoning on each side, we may be able — the error discussed — to see what is to be followed and what is to be fled. Wherefore thou, Colman, who art especially calumniated by some for celebrating Easter against the custom of the universal Church, stand forth first as defender of thy cause, in which I too am accused with thee of similar observation, that, the authority on which it rests being recognized, if it be so great, our observation under the same authority may henceforth be free from so many calumnies. But if, vanquished, thou shouldst show that the authority on which thou restest is less firm, certainly thou shalt have neither me nor any of mine further as follower of thy sect."
[15] Then Colman said: "Easter, Colman speaking for the Scots, from the fourteenth moon unto the twentieth we celebrate, and confirm must be celebrated, and prove that it ought to be so done by the buttress of valid authority. For the most blessed John, Apostle and Evangelist, so familiar a messmate of the Lord Jesus that he reclined above His breast at the Supper, celebrated it in the same order as we, and by his own authority prescribed that it should be celebrated in all the churches over which he presided. This has been handed down to us through the succession of prudent and equally most holy men; this has been founded in us by the teaching of our elders with stable firmness; this has been preserved by us hitherto with inviolable observance; and we maintain that by no reason is it not to be kept."
[16] When he had said these and several similar things, he himself speaks for the Romans, the King ordered Ailbert also to set forth his way of observance in the midst, that it might be known on what principle, or on whose authority it rested. Ailbert answered: "Let Wilfrid the Priest, I beseech, speak in my stead, because we two have one mind with the others here present as cultivators of ecclesiastical tradition; and he better and more clearly in the very English tongue, than I through an interpreter, can explain what we feel." Then Wilfrid, at the King's command, beginning, showed by clear reasoning that Colman not only falsely relied on the authority of blessed John, but also was thinking against John and against the Law and the Gospel, with great approval, and the doctrine of the Apostles, and even against the custom of the universal Church in the Paschal observance. Which proof we have omitted to write on this account, lest in a matter not necessary to this little work we should bring some disgust to the readers. But if anyone wants it, when sought in our (that is, the English) history h, he will find it. This having been omitted, let us pursue the life of the blessed man, as we began, in order, as far as He of whom we speak deigns to help us. When the conflict was finished and the contention resolved, Ailbert returned home: but Colman, having given up the bishopric of his see, sought Scotland i, because he did not wish to place his own traditions below ecclesiastical traditions.
[17] But the man of the Lord, Wilfrid, from this time was held in great veneration by all, Ordained Bishop in Gaul, as one nobly imbued with divine learning, and magnificently supported by the approved Lord's works. Wherefore by King Alfrid, with the acclamation of all the people, he is chosen for the bishopric; but he himself, with grave effort of reclamation, strove to resist, that this should not be done. At length, overcome by the importunity of all, he asked this of the King, that he should not permit him to be ordained in Britain in an inordinate manner; but that, in order that so great a thing might be accomplished according to the institutes of the canons, he would send him into Gaul to be ordained. For the venerable Deusdedit k, Archbishop of the holy Church of Canterbury, had now departed from this life; and in all Britain no Bishop canonically ordained survived, except Wine l, Bishop of the West Saxons; for Ailbert, of whom we made mention a little earlier, leaving Britain, had obtained the bishopric of Paris. When therefore matters were thus, the King most readily granted what was asked, and by the counsel of his father Oswy directed the blessed Father to the King m of the Gauls, asking and beseeching that he would honorably receive the man, and by his authority command him to be exalted to the rank of the bishopric. Therefore, as was fitting, he is honorably received by the King, and is directed to Bishop Ailbert with commands that he should promote the servant of the Lord with the highest honor to the order of the Episcopate: who, graciously obeying the commands, consecrated him with honor, with the cooperation of eleven Bishops. n
[18] While he lingered after his ordination in the lands across the sea, In the meantime St. Ceadda set over the people of York, those whose depraved sect had been detected and overthrown by him, thinking they had received an opportune time for returning the injuries, fraudulently and cunningly came upon King Oswy, and, beguiling him, led him to this opinion: that he should order Ceadda o to be made Bishop of the city of York, lest, the Church being too long without a Pastor, the faith of Christ should suffer some loss. "Especially since," they said, "it is utterly unknown where Wilfrid has gone, whom Alfrid sent into Gaul to be ordained for the government of the same Church." By this their cunning King Oswy, incautiously seized, having given to Ceadda the bishopric of that Church, sent him to Kent to be consecrated in the rank of the priesthood. Who coming with his own, and finding the same See bereft of a Pastor, turned aside, went to the aforesaid Bishop Wine, and obtained to be consecrated bishop by him. Having taken therefore two Bishops of the British nation, who had been ordained contrary to the writings of the canons, he ordained the same Ceadda in like manner inordinately.
[19] Having been thus ordained, he was set over the Church of York, when not many days later Blessed Wilfrid, resolving to return to his native land, boarded a ship, he returns and, tossed by a grave tempest, and for some time the ship is carried with prosperous course over the watery waves. Now half the sea having been crossed, and the blessed man with his clerics being intent in heart and mouth on those things which are God's, the winds changing, a very strong tempest arose. Tossed by great violence, they were at length cast upon the region of the South Saxons [p], which they did not know. When the waves had drawn them back into their own bays, the natives — still bound by pagan error — fly up, wishing to claim the ship and all that was in it as their own right; and holding this purpose with an obstinate heart, either to capture them or, if they resisted, to involve them in death. When the venerable man knew this, he offered them plenty of money, and humbly asked that they would depart from their intention. But they, grown fiercer at his words, proclaimed that they would take nothing from him for their dismissal: nay, they asserted that they would take into their own right not only all his goods, but also himself, with no cause to hinder. When the companions of the Bishop understood what the course of the affair was aiming at, having first made supplication to the Lord, they took up arms, preferring rather in the manner of men to fall bravely in battle, than by slothful captivity to prolong the space of a longer life to be preserved. When this was known to the pagans, He is attacked by pagans, they hastened to form a battle-line and to direct their darts against the people of the Lord. Their chief priest of idolatry, standing before the pagans on a high mound, strove by his magic incantations to strengthen his own as though by blessing, and to enervate the companions of God's servant by cursing. When he had given his whole zeal to this work, with mind, voice, and hand, a certain young servant of the man of God cast a stone with a sling, and struck down the same magician, piercing his forehead, and killed him. Against whom, when his own were fighting, he entreated victory, Soon there came back to the memory of the man of God the ancient miracle of God wrought through David against Goliath, when suddenly a wondrous tumult of the pagans arose, and the forces of all were exerted for the tearing to pieces of the Christian side. What more? The battle-lines rise; the soldier of Christ prostrates himself in prayers: but the Lord fighting for his own, the enemy, confused and vanquished, withdrew. A little after, more numerous and more savage, they return to the same, form battle-line, cast their darts in vain, receive darts not in vain, a great part falls, and the remainder flees. And why do I delay? Now three times defeated, when they were preparing for a fourth battle with their King, by the merits of Blessed Wilfrid the sea flowed out long before the hour, raised the ship, and prosperously carried the holy one of God with all his own — only five of his companions being lost — into the port of Sandwich [q]. Which seeing, the enemies returned to their own in greatest confusion, and groaning deplored the servant of the Lord departing as victor with happy serenity.
[20] Having thus reached his native port and fatherland, He withdraws to Ripon: at once it was reported to him how Ceadda had been substituted as Bishop in his See. For which thing, not at all troubled, with calm face and glad heart he went to Ripon; and there, intent on the services of God, he lived for some time in a more secret dwelling, with great steadfastness of mind. But because a city set on a mountain cannot be hid, he was visited by many and especially by nobles, moved by the fame of his eminent sanctity. The King also of the Mercians, named Wlfarius [r], a man greatly devoted to God, came to the servant of Christ, He is summoned by Wulfhere, King of the Mercians: and with an importunate prayer scarcely induced him to leave the place and stay with him; and having obtained his will, honored the blessed Father with a great affection of love, and enriched him with lands and honors.
[21] But the metropolitan See of all England, while these things were thus taking place, was without a Pastor, Archbishop Deusdedit having died (as we said above). He administers the Church of Canterbury at the request of King Egbert: And because so great a See could not be without Episcopal provision, King Egbert of Kent [s], having heard of Blessed Wilfrid's prudence and sanctity, sent to him, with the humblest supplication entreating that he would deign to visit the widowed Church with his presence, to raise it up with the help of consolation, to protect it from spiritual wickedness with the shield of his admonition, and to establish in it by Episcopal authority whatever the tenor of ecclesiastical tradition demanded. And he, thinking it in no wise right to resist in such a cause, gave assent to the royal will. He came therefore to the Church, and what he knew by the Holy Spirit must be done, he zealously administered. He was the first who, among the Bishops made from the English nation, had learned to hand down the Catholic manner of life to the churches of the English: whence also he spread many adjustments of Catholic observance throughout the same Churches by his doctrine. Whence it happened that, the Catholic institution growing day by day, all the Scots who were then dwelling among the English either gave their hands to these, or returned to their native land.
[22] But blessed Wilfrid, as means allowed him, was accustomed to go here and there for the sake of sowing the word of God, accompanied by a great multitude of people. When at a certain time he was doing this, he came to the place where he had been born and brought up: nourishing the inhabitants of which place with the word of heavenly life, he turned many from earthly love and converted them to the love of almighty God. He builds monasteries. Whence it came to pass that he established in that place several cells for those who wished to serve the Lord; and prudently instructed each one how his life should be arranged. And so for three continuous years, now on the disposition of the Church of Canterbury, now on the exhortation of these and the correction of those, he spent the care of his providence. And although he had nowhere a proper place of an episcopal chair, yet, zealously intent on the episcopal office, he strove how he might snatch from the devil his vessels, and reconcile them to Christ the Lord, and strengthen them in the purpose of holy conversation.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
Bishopric of York obtained. Illustrious exercises of virtues and miracles.
[23] With Ceadda departing. When the space of three years had elapsed, Theodore, consecrated Archbishop by Pope Vitalian and sent, came a to Kent; and having received the See of the Pontificate in the metropolitan city, at once, in accordance with what befitted ecclesiastical vigor, with the highest prudence and Pontifical authority, he studied to change for the better whatever was to be amended on every side. And when he found that Ceadda had been consecrated to the rank of the bishopric contrary to the canons' statutes, he rebuked him with public reproof, and threatened rather sternly that by right he ought to be degraded. But he, as he was a man of great humility and meekness, said: "If thou dost assert that I was ordained against the statutes of the canons, I willingly grant to be unordained, since truly I have never been of such account in my own view that I should for an hour preside in place of this rule. But commanded to undergo it for the sake of obedience, I, though unworthy, consented." By the humility of his answer,
Theodore was moved, and said he by no means wished to deprive him of the rank of the priesthood; but because (as we said) he had been ordained inordinately to so great a ministry, he himself completed his ordination by canonical reasoning. But he, considering that he had not justly obtained the bishopric of another bishop, led by penitence, chose rather to lack such honor than to preside any longer unjustly over another's cathedra. He therefore departed from the bishopric, and withdrew as a private man to his own monastery, which was at Lastingham.
[24] He obtains the See of York: Theodore then restored Blessed Wilfrid to the bishopric of the Church of York, and also of all the Northumbrians, and even of the Picts, as far as King Oswy had been able to extend his rule. And thus the most holy man both possessed his soul in patience, and, multiplied in honor, received back what had been his own, with the exultation of the whole people. At that time Wlfarius presided over the kingdom of the Mercians, whom we mentioned a little before. When, Jaramannus the Bishop being dead, he sought that another be given him and his own by Theodore, the latter was unwilling to ordain a new bishop for them, but gave them the aforesaid venerable Ceadda b. But the blessed Wilfrid, restored to his own, with excellent steadfastness of mind gave labor He restores what had collapsed from age: both that he might restore in the churches what long age or neglect had dissolved, and that he might eliminate what, in the manners of his subjects, could offend the eyes of the great God. The more he was intent on these works, the more he constrained himself in the greater exercise of virtues: so that it was for his subjects to see in his life with what diligence they ought to receive the teachings of his words.
[25] Those things which he had found destroyed being restored to integrity, he completed from the foundations a church c in honor of the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, He finishes and consecrates the church of Ripon: and consecrated it with much adornment, with an immense concourse of princes and peoples. But when it came to the office of his speech, the Lord's words in him were seen to be fulfilled more clearly than light: Matt. 10:20 "It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of my Father who speaks in you." Which is plainly to be considered in this fact, that both the people were affected with great love for the Lord from then on, and the hearts of the princes were kindled with so great fear and love of God, that they not only confirmed by their testaments the things which before belonged to the rights of that church, at his voice, but also bestowed some of their own possessions on that church. Three days after this, keeping the whole crowd with him, with the bread of life both heavenly and earthly he abundantly refreshed them; moreover, he enriched the church with great gifts and ornaments suited to the adornment of the house of God. And while he was doing these most praise-worthy works, he fled human praise as a deadly plague: and being thus placed in the midst of the people, he was to all a mirror and formation of good works.
[26] He raises a boy suffocated in a crowd of those to be confirmed. These things being thus, almighty God, that He might show how much He valued the merits of His servant in the world, willed to adorn him — whom first He had filled with the light of inner virtues — also outwardly by the display of miracles. Hence it is that on a certain day, when the venerable Pastor was imbuing the sheep of God with words and sacraments of faith, and was taking from the ancient enemy of the human race the right of dominion over them, and through the anointing of the sacred chrism was giving the Spirit of sevenfold grace to those already baptized, behold through the streams of people a woman, afflicted with excessive grief, ran to meet the minister of God, showing the funeral of her dead offspring by a miserable carrying in her arms. Seeing her, the Father was astounded and stood fixed in place. As he held himself back a little from the ministry of the work begun, the bereaved woman, disturbed by the fierce excess of her sorrow, fell prostrate, and prevented by sobs, scarcely could burst out in these words: "Behold," she said, "good lord, him whom I had resolved to bring to the imposition of thy hand to be confirmed in Christ, I now bring not only to be confirmed but first of all to be raised from the dead, to thy holy piety and pious sanctity. Thou preachest thy Christ omnipotent; I pray, prove it by works, and raise my only son from death. And of what moment is it to His omnipotence to raise up a little one, and to drive away the stings of my grief? Verily, nothing. Wherefore in this I ask, powerfully show that what thou preachest is true, that, to my consolation, thou mayest restore my only son to life." She reiterates her querulous voices, at whose vehement groaning all are compelled to fly together in one: behold a great lamentation. At length, the venerable servant of the Lord, moved to compassion, renders tacit thanks under his holy breast that a crowd not yet of perfect faith has known to ask the clemency of Christ the Lord: With great edification of the neophytes, and at once, prostrate on the ground, and his face drenched with tears, "O Lord Father," he said, "not to my merits but to the works of Thy piety, I beseech Thee, pacified, hearken, and bestow upon the troubles of this woman the help of Thy consolation by restoring to her her son sound and whole, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Thy only-begotten Son." When this was said, he rose, and with the extension of his right hand touched the head of the dead boy: and when, at his touch, he moved his head, the man of God extended his hand to him, and raised him up, and showed him alive and whole to all. The people were stirred to excessive cries of wonder and praise, and were strengthened in fullest faith in the observance of the Christian law. The boy, brought back to life, was confirmed in Christ by the imposition of hands, and was given back to his mother with joy on this condition — that after being nurtured for seven years by maternal care, he should be restored to the man of God. Which, after the pre-set time, lest it should happen — the father forbidding — she, an exile, fled to the foreign Britons with her offspring, knowing, namely, that the boy could by no means remain with her contrary to the precept of the man of God; which her flight brought to pass for him. After a few days a certain Prefect, against the will of the parents, returned the boy to the hands of the Father: who immediately consecrated him to God's service, and well instructed, made him afterwards imitable by many in holy conversation. Hence weigh each one of you what sign was shown over his cradle by the light of a radiant flame sent from heaven.
[27] At that time the kingdom of the English people shone with a twofold adornment, The peace of the English Church, then most flourishing, both because the kings burned with love of Christianity, and because the bishops carried out the workings of the divine mystery with the highest zeal. Hence royal providence was concerned chiefly with this, to draw each of the subjects rather from depravity of morals than to tear them apart by plundering their goods from cupidity of soul. Nor was there any care for them except how they themselves might rule as good over good subjects. Hence, no less, the priestly summit stood in fullest possession of its own office, giving its diligence only to those things for which God, the Institutor and Author of that order, had instituted it. On account of these things there was the highest quiet for the people holding the lawful rights; the land, rich in fruits and tranquility, not only took away poverty from its cultivators, but also permitted them to give care to the work of God without the solicitude of secular matters. The dread trumpets are silent, d nor is the incursion of robbers feared. What more? In brief, the Church flourishes, bound in a pacified covenant. When the devil saw this, in his own malignity he envied it, and plotting within himself, found causes for interrupting the peace. For with the spirit of his pride he invaded the people of the Picts to such a degree, With the Picts disturbing, that that nation tried by war to shake off what it had always been accustomed to bear, the yoke of the English. At that time Egfrid, son of King Oswy, reigned over the kingdom of the Northumbrians. He had e succeeded his father in the kingdom, a man vigorous in arms and strongly attached to the friendship of Blessed Wilfrid. He obtains victory over them for King Egfrid: He therefore explained to the Bishop the business of the Picts, which was pressing upon him, and with suppliant prayer asked that he would bring the aid of his intercession to his affairs. Fortified therefore by his blessing and accompanied by his most holy prayer, he met the Picts with a small band of soldiers, cast down by troops the Picts who met him, and repressed the swelling of the Picts with the vengeance of the sword. And why do I delay? "Far and wide they give slaughter; the chains return upon their necks": and thus, having obtained happy victory, he returned, and gave excellent thanks to his champion. In this way peace restored to the English people remained for several years. And another over the Mercians, But when the kingdom of the Mercians was later rent by dissension, the aforesaid King, desiring to recall peace by arms, went into war to meet their King, joined battle, and, having routed their leader and laid low their army, obtained the peace he was seeking as victor. Which thing indeed so advanced for this King, that God might show that the prayers of Blessed Wilfrid could not at all be cast aside before Him. Mark 9:23 Nor is it strange: for He who said in the Gospel that all things were to be possible to the believer, rightly to him — whom the Wisdom of the Lord itself saw to be Catholic in faith, and pre-eminent in the works of the same faith — ought to grant those things which he justly asked to be possible. For who can doubt of the integrity of his faith, or who worthily can dispute of the perfection of his works? Nevertheless, let some of his works be described in brief, that they may both give testimony to the integrity of his faith, and that those wishing to imitate the devotion of that heart may have before their eyes what they may imitate.
[28] He is zealous for virtues: And first it must be said that, instructed in the best morals from boyhood, by no reasoning could he be led away from these as long as he lived: a cultivator of immutable justice, neither could he be softened by favor, nor drawn away by detraction, nor deceived by praises, nor moved to zeal by reproaches. Through the night fixed on divine services, he afflicted his body — which he had kept clean from all contagion from his mother's womb — wonderfully both with vigils and with cold, dipping it every night in cold water; nor did he stop from this custom before John, f Pontiff of the Apostolic See, bade him, for the gravity of his age, put an end to this resolution. Neither the heat of summer nor the cold of winter could turn him aside from the urgency of the work of God begun. Moreover, going wherever the grace of God for preaching led, With the best edification of all. he was ready to give his life for the very truth which he was preaching, if a fitting opportunity should offer itself demanding that this should be done. If ever he took anything of luxuries in food by any chance, and that with the greatest parsimony, he afterwards avenged the same in himself with grave fasting. This institution of life produced in his breast the least of pride and the greatest zeal for humility: this set for his subjects an example of holy conversation; this led the same into the strait way of continence; this also led many, converted from their error, to the grace of Christ. Whence many of the nobles, roused, handed over their sons to the man to be consecrated to God's service, marveling, approving his merits with worthy praises, and desiring in every way that their own should become imitators of his probity. But, as often what avails to some for the advance of virtue proceeds in some to the effect of iniquity, so, whence some advanced to the love and veneration of the servant of God, thence certain ones burst out into hatred and contumely against him. But the athlete of God was pacific with those who hated peace, and recompensed the service of his meekness for their hatred.
29] Moreover, in the town of Hexham g, he built a temple [hof wonderful workmanship; which he himself dedicated to the Lord in honor of the blessed Apostle Andrew, He builds a temple to the Apostle Andrew at Hexham, in return for the benefit which the same Apostle had long since bestowed on him. In the construction of this temple the envy of the death-bringing serpent was not lacking. For while the masons were plastering the upper parts of the wall, the adversary of the human race hurling him down, one of them fell headlong, with all his limbs crushed, so that he was now thought to be dying. And as he labored as though in the exhalation of his spirit, all run out as if to his funeral rites. He restores life to the mason: But the man of the Lord Wilfrid, though absent in body, recognized all by the presence of his spirit. Soon he gave himself to tears, and teaching each of those sitting by him what had happened in order, he asked them to intercede for the brother's health. When they had come to the sick man, at the Father's touch his limbs received their pristine health; and, if it may be said, death blushed, when it saw itself driven back from the man of life, and life restored to the man. The devil, author of this death, seeing the man increasing his confusion both by the inward virtues of his soul and by the outward display of miracles, was kindled to excessive malignity of fury, seeking by what means he might turn his confusion back upon him.
[30] Now King Egfrid had received a wife named Adeldrida i, who had proposed rather to pass through this life in the vow of virginity than to be violated by another's lust: He confirms Etheldreda in her purpose of virginity. yet she had been joined to the aforesaid King by the law of marriage, not by carnal union. On this account the King approached Blessed Wilfrid both himself and through his friends, praying and beseeching him, and trying to entice him to this very thing by the promise of the greatest things, that he should persuade the Queen to give assent to the royal will, laying aside her purpose of virginity. But Wilfrid, knowing that it was written, "Vow and render to the Lord your God," preferred not to obey Egfrid in this matter, than to take his sacrifice from the Lord, lest by this he might prepare the losses of eternal death not only for the virgin but also for his own soul. Ps. 75:12 Therefore being a patron of her virginal vow, with the sagacity of a vigilant mind he saw to it that by no inconstancy of a woman's mind should the virgin put her purpose behind her, and subject her soul, conquered, to earthly enticements. So by his industry he brought it about that the virgin should rather seek a separation of the marriage from her husband, that, having obtained liberty, she might leave the world, and cleave happily to the bridal chamber of the eternal King: which indeed was done. For when the King learned that by no compact could she be changed from her purpose, though unwilling, yet he granted that, leaving the world as she wished, she might receive the badge of virginity. Happy in this permission, receiving the veil from Blessed Wilfrid, she deserted what is of the world with the world, despised it, and cast it far from the desire of her heart.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
Expulsion from the bishopric of York. Journey to Rome. Acts under Pope St. Agatho. The reign and killing of Dagobert II.
[31] Accused before the King through Ermenburga, But Ermenburga was joined by royal marriage. Through her, therefore, the devil, thinking it opportune to exercise the hatred which he had against the man of God, inflames her mind, stirring up certain grudges against him, and vehemently goads her, that she may stretch out the snares of her frauds against him. To which suggestion she yielded more easily, since the womanly inconstancy of mind, the intemperance of slippery ostentation, the oppression and plunder of violent condemnation — which were flourishing in her with great swelling — often armed the servant of the Lord with sharp invective for her reproof. For which reason, not a little offended within, and moreover kindled by demoniac fire, she began greatly to envy his glory and dignity, and to seek occasions how she might strip him of his dignity and cast him down when stripped. Considering therefore the glory of the man, how an affluence of dignity surrounded him on every side, she approached the King with womanly eloquence, as though about to act on certain of her own concerns, but in truth first obliquely to investigate whether she could have his mind willing to lean to what she wished. When she perceived that he was inclined to her purpose, to bring the man of God into envy, she began with fraudulent words to narrate his glory to the King with admiration. For having set out the abundance of riches, the multitude of monasteries, the magnitude of buildings, the crowd of subject princes, Concerning his excessive power dangerous to the kingdom, the plenty of attending soldiers furnished with royal garments and arms, she added: "And what more does he have than you have over him? Your whole kingdom is his bishopric; indeed, if your power be compared to his power, it is less. For the limit of your rule is confined by its borders; the limit of his bishopric by its authority goes beyond your borders. And, I confess, your faithful and friends are to fear lest, if at any time your enemies take up arms against you, he himself, by following the peace which he preaches, should keep his own free from arms, and you, by the fewness of your men, should fall vanquished, inferior to your enemies. Wherefore consider the business before the business; and lest in the very carrying of the business your strength fail, knowingly forestall what is hurtful. There are indeed some other things too which can honestly persuade you that it is by no means consistent with your honor to have — I do not say a superior, but any equal in your kingdom; which I do not acknowledge there is even need to say, because they are clear not only to your prudence, but also to any imprudent man, I am not unaware."
[32] About to be stripped of the bishopric, Moved by such words, the King, as though his own advantage were being consulted, wholly aroused to these things, thought that his affairs could be advised no better than if the man of God were deprived of all his possessions, and his bishopric divided among several Bishops. But because this could not at all be done without the consent of the Archbishop of Canterbury, they send the words of wicked accusation against the Bishop to Theodore, Bishop of that See, and bend the deceived man to the effect of their will. Therefore Theodore came to the royal court, about to fulfill by his own authority the royal will concerning Wilfrid: which was done — for soon in his place b he ordained three Bishops in his absence. The thing could not be hidden from the man: and led by the greatest astonishment, with a glad heart, cheerful face, and modest step, he entered the King's palace to inquire the cause of the business. To whom, it is said, this was the answer given to his inquiries: "We neither brand you at present with the commission of any crime, nor yet shall we change on this occasion the judgment pronounced concerning you." And he, not consenting that he was satisfied by such words, He appeals to the Apostolic See: appealed to the Apostolic See. And indignant at their injustice, with step turned he wished to leave the hall. But beholding some jeering at his misfortunes with a sufficiently foul laughter, he said, "And, O sons, may you lead long times in happy prosperity: but you should know that as quickly as possible ill fortune will dissolve these your joys, and you will not see this year pass before you pay for these derisions which you have over me with bitter mourning." Which prophecy became truth: for no long time after, when a grave battle was fought between Egfrid and Aelred c, King of the Mercians, near the river Trent, Elfuinus d the brother of King Egfrid was slain — a young man about eighteen years old, very beloved to both provinces. From whose death great and intolerable mourning struck Egfrid and his own; and all the joy which they had had from the expulsion of Blessed Wilfrid He foretells to his mockers the heavenly vengeance. was turned to sadness by the just judgment of God. Thus from that time at which they did not fear to drive from themselves the strongest soldier of the Lord, they never gained happy victory; but those who formerly, fortified by his intercession, had laid low huge forces with a small band of soldiers, afterwards fell defeated with a huge force by few soldiers. Nor unjustly: for, the one through whom they had been victorious having been rejected, there was no reason why they should not be defeated everywhere. But let us return to the order of the work we have begun.
[33] Farewell being said to his own, he departs for Rome: Blessed Wilfrid, deprived of the dignity of the episcopal chair, returned to his own; to his sons and brothers, greatly saddened by his misfortune, he uttered not a few words of consolation, patience, and true charity, saying among other things that that should be reckoned as nothing which was certain sometimes to be lost. He himself, about to go to Rome after this — and lest some scandal should threaten the Church of Christ on his account, to set forth his cause before the Apostolic See — is led to the sea, attended on the right and left by a venerable college of monks; he is placed on a ship, fortified with their pious prayer, and with prosperous course the sails are spread to the winds. But when the ship had proceeded a little way, with the wind changed he was driven to Frisia: where, received honorably by the barbarians and their King Aldgisl e, and honorably living there, he was held by all with the highest honor Honorably received in Frisia, as long as it pleased him to stay there, although the whole province still served the worship of idols. And so wishing to return a return for their kindness, he preached to them the word of God, and instructed many thousands in the word of truth, and washed them from the stains of their sins in the saving font. And thus he made his receivers both to be received by the Lord, and the Lord to be received in them. He converts many to the faith: Now before the coming of the blessed man, the land itself was of great saltness and great sterility, and as though in the manner of a rock of excessive harshness, and therefore of great inconvenience for any animals to inhabit. But when, at the preaching of the man of God, the same people received the faith of the Lord,
just as their hearts, softened by the dew of heavenly sweetness to the fertility of good works, were made fit for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, so also the saltness of their lands was turned into sweetness, the sterility into fertility, the harshness into softness and richness; and furnished all the inhabitants of it most lavishly with abundance of diverse comforts.
[34] Meanwhile those who, conquered by their own wickedness, had driven the friend of Christ from his proper dignity, possession, and land, He escapes snares laid for him in Neustria; send their legates into France — bound by the frauds of most unjust accusation, loaded with various gifts — to lay snares of deception and capture, snares of plunder, perdition, and death against the man of the Lord, partly by fraud, partly by gift. But that their snare, who, seduced by gifts, had laid the snare for the servant of God, might involve themselves, a certain priest of the Lord named Winfrid f, lately deposed from his bishopric and then going on a pilgrimage for the love of God, by the hidden judgment of God they despoiled of all his goods, deceived by the similarity of name and their own malignity. But when this was understood by them, and when it was recognized where the man of the Lord was at that time living, Ebroin, prince of the royal court and of that wickedness, sent writings with a great gift to King Aldgisl, asking that, Wilfrid having been stripped of all his goods, he should kill him with a cruel death. But the King, yielding to such great wickedness neither for prayers nor for gifts, the sent little letter being torn asunder with great indignation, he cast into the fire; and, reproaching the wickedness as was worthy, he at once ordered the legates, dismissed without honor, to return.
[35] The Bishop therefore, secure from the snares, passing the whole winter happily in that province with the new people of God, In Austrasia kindly treated by King Dagobert, then resumed the journey of going to Rome, and coming to Gaul entered the walls, known to him, of King Dagobert g. The King himself at once recognized him on seeing him, and received him in his guest-house with much joy, and calling his men, he addresses them with this speech: "This man whom you see here before you, I greatly commend to your affection, asking that you assist him in whatever business he may have need of you, if indeed — as it is right to believe — you love me with a sincere mind. For by his probity and industry I was restored to you, and set over you, as you now see, in royal dignity. For long ago, as you yourselves remember, when I was almost lost by the snares of the people, I was wandering here and there for the sake of my deliverance. Being also tossed on the sea, I had been carried to the cowardly Irish. On account of benefits formerly bestowed on him while exiled, He, bringing me thence, kept me with him for some time with great benevolence, protected me from all danger, and granted that I could be restored unharmed and safe to my native soil. Wherefore I adjure you by my salvation and yours, that, if there is any faith in you, we may preserve so great a friend, and commonly and graciously procure to return to him a recompense for the love and benevolence shown me." At these words each rejoices, and testifies his joy with vehement acclamation: for it was held no light thing among them that any subject should even mutter against the precept or will of his prince. Hence the King offered to the Saint Sees h and estates, dignities and various gifts, and with many prayers begged him to deign to inhabit the lands of his kingdom, and by inhabiting to claim them as his own right.
[36] But the Saint, mindful of his purpose, did not yield to the royal will; And by Duke Berther, but taking certain necessary things, and moreover associating with himself a certain Bishop named Deodatus i, he withdrew from the court. Then he went to the Duke of Champagne named Bertherus k, and was nobly received by him. Who, after the offices of true charity and humanity had been shown, sitting with the man of God, began to relate to him how his enemies had wanted to destroy him, and to bend him to their intent by offering gifts. "But I," he said, "not unmindful of what faith and friendship I once found in a certain pagan King, when driven from my country I was in exile with him, would not have it that a Christian should be found less faithful to a Christian than a pagan man was to me, a Christian man. For the king of the Huns, a gentile, frustrated in being solicited to his death. when he kept me with him for the sake of guarding my safety, entered with me into a covenant in the name of his gods, that on no occasion would he ever betray me to my enemies. But after some days, when messengers came to him from my enemies and promised him great money for my death, 'Then,' he said, 'let them cut down my own life, if I, yielding to you for any earthly gain, in any way break the covenant entered into.' If therefore an unfaithful man, that he might be faithful to his false god, refused to break the covenant, shall I, faithful by Christ's grace, violate the faith which I promised to the true God for any earthly advantage? Far be it, far be it: nay, I receive you under my protection, and I beseech you to stay with me as long as you will; this also I greatly desire to ask you, that if you love anything of mine more affectionately, you take, use, possess it." At the goodness and kindness of the man, the man of God was greatly delighted, and opened to him what he had rather proposed in his mind. And so, multiplied in possessions and companions, he graciously departed from him.
[37] Arriving at last at Rome, the fame of his sanctity already known at once spread everywhere, Restored at Rome in a Synod, and drew very many of the citizens to meet him coming. He arrived; and received with great favor of the people, he was reverently led into the hall of Blessed Peter. At that time Agatho of blessed memory l governed the Pontificate of the Apostolic See — a just and simple man, and no little skillful in ecclesiastical matters; in whose presence and that of very many Bishops m, when the cause of Blessed Wilfrid was ventilated, with his accusers present, by the judgment of all it was proved that he had been accused without crime, and was worthy of his bishopric. At which time, when the same Pope was gathering at Rome a Synod n of one hundred and twenty-five Bishops against those who were dogmatizing one will and one operation in the Lord our Saviour, he ordered Blessed Wilfrid to be called, and, sitting among the Bishops, to declare his faith and that of the province from which he had come. Declared innocent: And when he was found Catholic in faith with his own, and unjustly deprived of his sacerdotal dignity, it pleased that by the decree of the Roman See he should be restored to his bishopric, and as a monument of his Catholic faith this writing should be inserted in the acts o of the same Synod: "Wilfrid, beloved of God, Bishop of the city of York, appealing the Apostolic See concerning his cause, and by this power absolved from things certain and uncertain, and set with one hundred and twenty-five other fellow-bishops in the judicial seat of the Synod, for all the northern part of Britain and Ireland, which is inhabited by the nations of the English and Britons, and also the Scots and Picts, confessed the true and Catholic faith, and corroborated it with his subscription."
[38] Therefore being restored to the bishopric by Apostolic and Synodal decree, Seeking again his homeland, he is attacked by the killers of King Dagobert. and having received letters from the Apostolic See addressed to King Egfrid and Archbishop Theodore concerning the reintegration of his status, the servant of God, enriched with a great gift of relics of servants of God, resumed the journey of coming to England. And because he knew it was written, "He who walks in simplicity walks confidently," he went by the royal road. Prov. 10:9 But behold, contrary to what was expected, a band of robbers, ready to kill, met the man of the Lord in a procession by no means welcome: for they were those who had laid snares against King Dagobert [p] and had slain him with a sword plunged into his groin. These then, meeting the man of God and showing the fury of their soul by the fierceness of their face, offered battle with their hurled spears at close quarters. One of whom, who was held among them as if in the place of a prince, having cast aside the spear he held in his hand, reviled the soldier of Christ with foul mouth, saying: "Betrayer of the country, petulant and death-deserving wayfarer, you long ago violated the Gallic sceptre, you ruined the Gallic fields, you brought Gallic liberty into slavery, when by your insistence you set up as King a tyrant long since exiled by us. His cruelty has been punished by a most just death; and you also, as the greatest author of his death, I say, the same death declares you are to be punished. Therefore fall down, pestilent one, fall down, and, punished with worthy vengeance, succumb to the same death which you fostered against us." And the Father on the contrary: "If I did not rightly," he said, "when, so far as in me was, I preferred to his hereditary dignity a King unjustly driven from his kingdom, and if the equity of the most just Judge so holds it to be, I confess — I will most promptly pay the penalties of just vengeance. But if in this deed I was in no way opposed to justice, but did so rightly — as the very innocence of my mind at once testifies to me — the more willingly, if you wish to kill me, I desire to die, because I consider that I, slain for justice, am to be crowned with the glory of martyrdom." When they saw the man striving with such constancy of mind, struck with excessive terror, they cast away their weapons, prostrated themselves on the ground, sought the man's footsteps with kisses, and asked pardon. Which, having been found to their desire, enriched with his blessing, they restore the Bishop with all his own to the prosperity of the way; they themselves go on a fixed journey.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER V.
The suffering of prison and exile endured: the conversion of the South Saxons and of the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight.
[39] Arriving in Britain, the man of God carried to the King the letters which he had received from the Apostolic See; Returning to England, he shows the Pontifical letters to the King: and supported by the authority of those same letters, he defended his cause with living voice in the assembly of the nobles, and with free protestation showed that he had been falsely accused and injuriously degraded. But the King, the more he knew him walled round with the greater reason of truth, the more grieved that he himself was supported by less reason of truth; and imitating the manner of the worst men, preferred to persist in his obstinacy against equity, than to mitigate his obstinacy by the reason of equity. This sluggishness of his heart was greatly confirmed by the inveterate discord of the old informers, while they, whom it already possessed fully, poured the poisons of their malignity into the King's ears. And so the King, blinded by his own wrath, and drawn from truth by the flattery of those who seduced him, despised with swollen pride the letters of the Apostolic Pope; despising them, mocked them; mocking them, cast them far from himself; and brought upon the servant of God the charge of the worst accuser. By so great an indignation of the King, not a few clients, and even every noble, were so greatly moved, that they rose up with unanimous conspiracy against the Blessed one, And rejected with contempt, and afflicted him with many insults; and to show themselves fully faithful to the royal majesty, they desired fully to satisfy his indignation, and, snatching the man of God from the King's sight, they seized him to be thrust into the depth of the prison. But Ermenburga, persecutress of all the good, and untamable authoress of this schism, thrust herself into the midst of his plundering, impudently took from his neck the little box of relics, and, mocked with foul garrulity and womanly loquacity, cast him away. Therefore the illustrious hero, deprived on every side of companions and goods, turned himself as he could to his own, amid the hands of the wicked, and made a brief speech to them with these words: "Let not this injury," he said, "my lord brothers and my sons, let it not disturb you, nor in any way drive you from the path of truth. When he had animated his companions to endurance, Have always before your eyes that all who wish to live piously in Christ must suffer tribulation. But although the impious seem for a time to prevail over the pious, yet it will not always be so: for there will be a time when both the tribulation of the pious will be rewarded with perennial joy, and the proud elation of the impious will be punished with perennial sadness. But lest tribulation drive you to impatience, consider in what way the white-haired series of Fathers, having endured many tribulations, deserved with God's help to conquer their manifold enemies through patience. Nor do I wish it to be absent from your mind at all, that no one, according to the Apostle's saying, can be crowned, unless he has striven to contend legitimately against the devil. 2 Tim. 2:5 And surely the contests of this time are to be reckoned of small account, and not very long; yet through them the eternal happiness and happy eternity of God's kingdom is obtained. Love that happiness, I beseech you, brothers; desire it; aim for it, He is thrust into prison: and with whole intent of mind strive to come to it. If you do this, surely there will be no reason why you should fear the adversities of this life." Scarcely had he finished his words, when behold those in whose hands he was held, inflamed with fiercer fury by those very words, thrust him, bound, into a dark prison.
[40] O constancy of the man! For so, most holy Father, do I behold the cheerfulness of your heart in such adversity; so do I consider you are wont to be cheerful, when all prosperous things seemed to smile upon you. Yet lest you should seem to have in any way lost the bowels of piety in your children, you spent pious tears rather on their troubles than on yours; and when the dark prison enveloped you, you grieved more that the words of life were separated from their ears than that you yourself were stripped of the presence of corporeal light. For you shone with the brightness of inner light, by which you despised the prison darkness as nothing. Wherefore when God saw the splendor of divine light flourishing in you, He is illumined with heavenly light: He by no means allowed you to be pressed for long by human darkness, but, these being put to flight, He sent a ray of His light into the house which you inhabited. And rightly too. For because you, all-vigilant, stood before the eternal light both in the horror of night and of prison, He deemed it worthy to mark by the outpouring of His own light that your works had nothing in common with the gloom of darkness. The vigil of the guards attests this outpouring of light, who testify that about the hour of midnight they had, not without grave fear, seen the prison marvelously shining. But he who looks with a faithful eye at the merits of your sanctity considers that you did not need this testimony. I consider the prison of blessed Peter the Apostle rather along with yours, and greatly exult that you are compared with him, with the Gospel deliverance received, in the appearing of light. Though after this you were also freed from the danger of death by the visitation of the Archangel Michael, that it may be clear to all that you are crowned with the glory of God's kingdom together with the Apostle himself. a
[41] Meanwhile b the wife of the Prefect Offrid, who held Blessed Wilfrid in custody, was seized with a most bitter languor, and now, indeed, was brought to the end of life. And when he had healed his guard's wife with blessed water, She lay with her whole body weakened, and with joints relaxed, destitute of every office of her limbs: her sense lost besides, her dead nerves contracted, her bowels were as if flowing. Which matter brought upon her husband stings of great sorrow and anxiety, causes of great failing and horror. Moved by which misfortune, he came to the man of God with tearful complaints, loosed the chains by which he was burdened, bent him to the affection of piety, and having led him out of the dungeon, brought him to his wife as physician of health. The man of God was present, and at once ordered the crowds who had come for the woman's funeral to be removed. Then, with prayers sent ahead to the Lord, he blessed water, and sprinkled the blessed water over the body of the lying woman. Wonderful to say! No sooner had the water touched the sick woman's limbs, than, every languor driven away, perfect health returned to the woman. This being done, by all who were present thanks are given to God with harmonious voice, and the merits of the blessed Father are proclaimed as most worthy not of the prison but of every honor. But lest he should be thought by any to have done this sign of virtue for the grace of escaping the prison rather than for the love of piety, he would not remain outside, but, about to enjoy the light of divinity, as soon as possible revisited the enclosures of prison custody. But the wife of the Prefect, who had been given health, a few days later, despising the world, was designated into the service of Christ with the sacred veil.
[42] But the Prefect, from that time holding the servant of the Lord in great veneration, When he refused an unjust service, he is transported elsewhere, approaching the King through messengers, said: "By your safety and your kingdom I adjure you that you do not cause Wilfrid, the priest of the Lord, to be detained with me any longer: for I confess it is better for me to die than to exercise upon him any further injustices. But if, despising this adjuration, you prefer to persist in your sentence, know that I rather wish to undergo torments and death along with him than to hold him in torments." At these things the King, greatly angered, ordered the Saint to be led to his city Thymber, to a Prefect named Tydlin, as being more ferocious, ordering him to place the man, bound strongly with shackles and chains, in stricter custody. To be more inhumanly treated: Who, not daring to go against the order, receives the man, hands him over to custody, makes his chains. But when the hands of the ministers labored to bind him, either the same chains, broken, jumped off from his body, or certainly, not being able to bind him, they fell loose and slid off: and by the wondrous control of Christ, the less the power to bind him stood against him, the more savagely the hostile ferocity raged to bind. Whence they, greatly amazed, but by royal terror and their own madness stirred up into barbaric motions, prepare other and still other chains, to use up their effort in vain labor. But the chains, loosed of themselves, could never hold him: Ah, you insane hand, why do you rage, the power of binding having been taken from you? Why do you strive so greatly to attack him whom you can never conquer? Why do you so often change the chains for binding, and not rather change from yourself the chains by which you are bound by the desert of your depravity? Your thongs fear to be put on the neck of the just man, because they see that very neck subjected to the yoke of Christ with worthy veneration. Your manacles fear to be placed on his hands, because they consider that those hands have been stretched out for cherishing the poor. Your trembling fetters avoid binding his feet, because they consider that they have been swift to preach peace. All your strengths you spend in vain, when you strive to torture him whom you are not permitted to torture at all. But blessed Wilfrid, though enveloped in prison darkness, nevertheless illumined each of those who came with the light of the word of God, as he was permitted, taught them, and cleansed them by baptism from every stain of sins.
[43] In the meantime, while the King, accompanied by his own, was taking himself here and there for the fulfillment of his pleasure, The Queen, cause of all the evil, is invaded by a demon, and in great cheerfulness was loosing the reins of gladness, behold sudden joys are disturbed by an unexpected fall. For while the royal consort, swelling with excessive pride of impiety, dared to abuse the snatched relics, at once avenging wrath came upon her. For carrying those same relics, as when she would chatter with lively mind like a wanton partridge, it happened that soon, filled with a demon, as a little fox, with lost mind, she yapped insanely; and him whom before, in her petulance, willing she had worshipped, this man afterwards
unwillingly she cherished in the dwelling of her own body. When, on account of this, all were astonished, the mother d of the King came up and rebuked the raging woman with these words: "Are they clear, sister," she said, "are the offences of your old crime clear? And when the King's mother had taught that she deservedly suffered this, You drove Wilfrid from the seat of his bishopric by your false accusations, and now, the turn being changed, you have received a demon into the seat of your breast: that through this you may understand what sin you committed in that deed. You took from Wilfrid's neck unholily the relics of the saints; and behold, you have deserved that the demon should subject your neck to his dominion. You despised Wilfrid's most holy words, supported by the authority of blessed Peter; and on account of this, the demon possessing your heart, you have lost the right of your own words. Wilfrid, full of the light of divinity, does not fear the prison shadows, in which he was placed by you; and your soul, filled with demoniac fury, through this is now tortured with the most worthy vengeance." The King was there, greatly troubled, and kindled with a mighty fire of fury, breathing wind through his nostrils as if smoke. To him also his mother addressed this speech: "Now at last, my son, now at last remember yourself. Divine vengeance, as you see, afflicts your wife whom you too dearly love; and I confess, believe me, that she has well deserved to be wearied by such punishment, because, inflamed by diabolical indignation, she did not fear to pursue the servant of the Lord, Wilfrid, with wondrous afflictions. Wherefore doubt not, I entreat, that this vengeance inflicted on her but believe has been brought upon her on your account: and if you despise to be corrected spontaneously by this, beware lest you be corrected unwillingly by your own. Therefore release the man from prison, whom we know is detained for no crime of his own: and if you will not have him remain in your kingdom, order him to depart from the kingdom, lest, if he is held longer, you then wish first to dismiss him when you have been stricken with a greater punishment." With these admonitions, the King himself consented that the holy man should come out of prison. It was done, and from the darkness light went forth to the world. Released, he here heals the Queen, But the servant of God, preferring to return good for evil rather than evil for evil, prayed the Lord, and at once, the demon being put to flight, restored the Queen to health.
[44] Hence he leaves his country and kindred fields, and, as a stranger about to seek the southern lands, begins the journey of coming there. By Berhtwald the King's brother-in-law first well received, And since the proclamations of Truth cannot be violated by any deceit, nothing of what the need of life demanded could be lacking to the servant of God seeking first the kingdom of God. Whence it happened that a certain Berhtwald e, born of royal stock, met him as he was going, with great honor, and, detaining him with himself for a while, kindly supplied what he needed. But the diabolical envy could not endure that these things should be long bestowed: for it infected the aforesaid man with the poison of his perversity, and brought it about that he stripped the soldier of Christ of his munificence, and drove him from himself and all his own. For he was the brother of Ethelred, King of the Mercians, who had the sister of King Egfrid f as wife. Fearing therefore lest he should offend his brother's mind Then, on account of his constancy in the faith of the Pontiff, received badly, if he kept with him the man whom the brother of his wife held hostile, not fearing injustice, he cast Wilfrid away — not however without insult, that through this we may know that he was not immune in this deed from a malignant mind. For first, both by him and by King Ethelred and their wives, and also by the supporters of their will, he had been many times afflicted and injured, also by many terrors to the violation of his faith and to the condemnation of the Catholic and Apostolic tradition, for which chiefly he was attacked — incited and urged, but not laid low — and at last with dishonor he was driven out.
[45] Frustrated therefore of every human help, whither to go, He takes refuge with Centwine, whither to turn for hospitality, he knew not: having only this confidence before him, that he could by no means be deserted by God. Firmly relying on which confidence, whatever of inconvenience came to him he bore with the highest cheerfulness of heart; and the more he was struck by adversities, the more he was borne into God's works with all zeal. At length he came to the court of a certain King, who was named Centwine g: By whom also driven out, where, received kindly enough, he was well, but briefly, held: for just as elsewhere, so there too, by the instigation of the devil he suffered feminine wraths, for the royal wife was the sister of Ermenburga, authoress of almost all the evils done against the man of God. This woman therefore, not less than her sister h in malignity of mind, expelled the blessed bishop, afflicted with many contrarieties, from all her goods. Why, cruel fury of the devil, do you wander so greatly by raging against the servant of the Lord? Why do you try to knot snares of your deceit around him, and by trying to weary him with the tempest of various calumnies? Why do you strive to turn him from the edification of the human heart, and on account of this not suffer him to be joined with the fellowship of Christians? Behold, when you drive him from Christians, he will generously go to the pagans whether you will or not: and you, who fear that the minds of certain Christians may in any way be emptied of your deceptions through his conversation, bring it about far otherwise than you suppose, that an entire province is utterly deprived of your dominion.
[46] For after this he turned aside to the province of the South Saxons, He departs to the King of Sussex and converts very many: which at that time was still sweating at pagan worship. And there he preached the word of faith, and administered to believers the laver of salvation. Now the King of that people, Edilwalh i by name, had not long before been baptized in the province of the Mercians, and his Queen, named Eabe, had been baptized in her own, that is, the province of the Hwicce k. Blessed Wilfrid therefore, with the King's consent — nay, his great joy — washed with the holy font the first Dukes and Soldiers of the province, while his priests washed the rest of the people. For before this the whole province was ignorant of the divine name and faith, save for the King and Queen. There was nonetheless there a certain monk of the Scottish nation named Diculus, having a very small monastery in a place called Bosham l, surrounded by woods and the sea; and in it five or six brothers serving the Lord in a humble and poor life: but no one of the provincials took care either to emulate their life or to attend to their preaching. But the Bishop, preaching the Gospel to the people, rescued it not only from the trouble of perpetual damnation, but also from the dread disaster of temporal destruction. For three years before his coming into the province, And he obtains rain for them: no rain had fallen in those places: wherefore a most bitter famine had invaded the people and laid them low by impious death. Indeed they say that often forty or fifty men together, wasted by hunger, went to some cliff or the sea, and joining their wretched hands all together fell to perish by the ruin or to be swallowed up by the waves. But on the very day on which the nation received the baptism of faith, at the prayers of the eminent Father, rain fell clear but abundant: the earth bloomed again, the year, glad and fruitful, returned with greening fields; and thus, with superstition cast off and ancient idolatry blown away, the heart and flesh of all exulted in the living God, understanding that He who is the true God had enriched them both with inner and with outer goods of heavenly grace.
[47] When the Bishop had come into the province, and had seen there so great a penalty of hunger, he taught them to seek food by fishing. And he teaches them the art of fishing: For the sea and rivers abounded in fish, but no skill of fishing was in the nation, save only for eels. Therefore the eel-nets being collected from everywhere and cast by the Bishop's men into the sea, by the merits of their Father they were aided by divine liberality, and they caught three hundred fish of various kinds: of which, divided into three parts, they spent a hundred for the use of the poor, conferred a hundred on those from whom they had received the nets, and retained a hundred for their own uses. By which benefit the Bishop turned the heart of all greatly into love of himself: and when he preached, they began to hope for heavenly things with more confidence, by whose ministry they had received earthly goods.
[48] At that time King Edilwalh gave to the servant of the Lord the land of eighty-seven families, by name Selesey m, which in Latin is called the Island of the sea-calf, He builds the monastery of Selesey. where he might receive his men who wandered as exiles. Having received therefore this place, Bishop Wilfrid founded there a monastery and instituted it in the regular life, chiefly from those brothers whom he had brought with him: which monastery up to this day his successors are known to hold; however, the seat of the episcopal Cathedra was afterwards changed to Chichester n. And the illustrious Father Wilfrid administered the office of the bishopric in those parts for five years o, that is, until the death of Egfrid, endowed with wondrous sanctity and prudence, very dear and honorable to all; to whom the King of that place, with the aforesaid possession, gave all the goods that were found there, with the fields and the men. He washed in the baptismal wave all who were imbued with the faith of Christ: among whom he baptized servants of both sexes to the number of two hundred and fifty, whom, just as by baptizing he freed from diabolical servitude, so also by giving them liberty he released from the yoke of human slavery.
[49] After this, when [p] Caedwalla (who had been recalled from exile by the merits and interventions of Blessed Wilfrid) had obtained the kingdom of the Gewisse, He wins the people of the Isle of Wight to Christ. he thought to take the Isle of Wight in war, and, the natives being driven out, to substitute men of his province in that same island. But that same island had previously been wholly given to idolatry. When it came to the contest, the aforementioned Prince — though not yet regenerated in Christ — bound himself by a vow, that if he should take the island as victor, he would give a fourth part of it and of the spoil to Christ the Lord: which, having used his victory, he discharged in this way, that he offered it to Blessed Wilfrid to use for the Lord. And since the measure of that island, according to the estimation of the English, is of one thousand two hundred families, there was given to the Bishop a possession of land of three hundred families. But he committed the part he received to a certain one of his clerics, whose name was Bernuinus, who was the son of his sister, giving him a Priest named Hildila, commanding both to minister in that island, to whomsoever they could, the word and the laver of life. They, having undertaken the ministry of preaching, by the merits and intercessions of the blessed Father and by their own insistence, subjected the aforesaid island to the yoke of the Christian faith.
ANNOTATIONS.
Fridegodus inserts that St. Wilfrid did not suffer the Pontifical letters to be violated, in these verses:
Meanwhile tortured by many frauds, the holy Apostolic lines to curse and approve fierce deeds; "If my head be cut off with a bitter sword," he said, "Or pressing darts pierce my tender ribs, One iota by my deceit shall never be made vain, Of what the Fathers have sanctioned, following Peter's doctrines." So he chose to offend the dark faces of the chiefs, But did not consent to falsify the Apostolic rites.
CHAPTER VI.
Restoration to the See of York and a second expulsion. Acts in the Council of Estrefeld.
[50] In the 685th year of the Incarnated Word of God, He sees Egfrid's death from afar during the sacrifice of Mass: when Egfrid King of the Northumbrians had rashly led his army to lay waste the province of the Picts, the enemies feigning flight, he was drawn into the narrows of inaccessible mountains, and with the greatest portion of his army which he had brought with him was slain a. And rightly: for he who had by no means deigned to admit a man of life into his friendship or into the rights of his power, deservedly ought, having despised him, to die by the same enemies whom formerly, the same one being familiarly received, he had merited happily to subject to his dominion. Now at the very hour when the King himself was being pressed by a grave battle in the province of the Picts, the servant of almighty God, Wilfrid, in Sussex was attending to the sacred celebrations of Masses. And when, at the words "Lift up your hearts," the response "We have them unto the Lord" was given, caught up in a rapture of mind, he saw at the same moment, through the Spirit of God, Egfrid fall by a blow to his head to his death. Terrified by this vision, for a little while he was struck by greater terror. And he indicates to the attending priest, For when he followed the sequel of the Mass and in the Preface said "Through Christ our Lord," he looked, and behold, two evil spirits miserably bore the soul of the King before his eyes, and thus, sighing with a dreadful groan, bore it with them to the prison of hell. Immediately he called Acca his priest b, and narrated to him all that he had seen. At which the priest, struck with vehement astonishment, could scarcely patiently believe his words when he heard them. But commanded, he noted the day and hour of the King's killing, and after some days the testimony of the deed proved it was the same.
[51] Fame then announcing the King's death on every side, with swift report it came to the ears of Theodore, Bishop of the metropolitan See; [To Archbishop St. Theodore asking pardon because he had permitted him to be afflicted,] who, the fault which long ago he had committed against the servant of God — namely by consenting, as we said, that he should be unjustly afflicted with such great disturbances — wishing, I say, to correct this fault with humble satisfaction, he sent for him; and when he had been honorably led to him, he addressed him thus: "Son, nay rather Father most holy by the merits of virtues, I, who beyond others was set for this, that I should oppose every injustice which might arise in this kingdom, overcome by my own frailty, have greatly sinned by consenting to very many who were adversaries to you against right. But to me confessing my fault and in the depth of my heart doing penance, be present, I beseech, pious bestower of pardon. The last times of my life, as you see, now are at hand; and therefore grant what I ask, and suppliantly asked by me, intercede for me." Terrified at these words, the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ answered: "Indeed I am not unaware, venerable Shepherd, that I was afflicted by many tribulations with your consent; but far be it, far be it, that I should believe you to have done this, led by any malice. Rather, as I suppose, you did it with this intent, He rather professes that thanks are due to himself; because you wished me to be exercised through those very tribulations in patience; so that, driven by anxieties, I might through the way of patience reach the summit of perfection. Wherefore I ought much more to give thanks to you for your good intention, than that you should seek pardon from me: especially since pardon is never rightly sought, unless from some offense thought to have been contracted. But since I am not unaware that you are on every side sighted like a heavenly animal, and consider with perspicacity and subtlety what is to be seen, therefore, if you think, most beloved Father, that you have contracted any sin in those things in which you consented to what was done against me, as far as in my mind lies, I willingly forgive, and forgiving, I even ask with suppliant devotion that the mercy of the Judge may come upon you." From this, with a most firm and holy peace founded between these venerable men, they reconciled each other to Christ by pastoral authority; and rejoicing in spiritual gladness, they treated the things of God with unanimous assertion.
[52] Moreover, Theodore sent letters to Alfrid c, who succeeded Egfrid in the Northumbrian nation, And by his agency restored to the See in which with rhetorical eloquence he persuaded and convinced him that he should become a friend to Blessed Wilfrid from the heart, and honorably receive him into the see of his church from which he had been unjustly deposed. To Aelred d King of the Mercians also and to some others he sent commands on the same business, to whom he judged it not inappropriate to command on the matter. Who, all together with the Kings, favoring the commands with equal consent, with much alacrity of heart sent word back that they would receive into their own the most noble servant of the Lord. Indeed, King Alfred, through messengers sent from his side, with due service of veneration commanded the man to be called back. Therefore, convened by the royal invitation and the Pontifical precept, he e returned to his Church. O how happy that day was to all living in those places, and how great joy of mind it brought to all the peoples dwelling round about, who first deserved to see Blessed Wilfrid recalled from exile! Who fully grasps the form of this joy? Who pours it into the hearts of others through the office of his mouth? Repeated bands of monks come to meet the Father, With great joy of all, the ranks of clerics with the whole frequenting of the people strive in rivalry to meet their Shepherd, and all, blessing the Lord with uplifted voice, receive him and lead him to the church. In which, strengthened, and from which, after a little, having eliminated the things which the censure of equity showed ought to be removed, he quickly recovered whatever of lands or revenues belonged to the right of the Church. Nonetheless also the words of divinity are daily poured through him into the hearts of his subjects, and in them a fountain of water springing to eternal life rises up; the faith of Christ, with the return of good works, grows warm again, but the work of perfidy and malignity everywhere grows cold. Wherefore sincere peace of hearts, tranquil opulence of things, great alacrity in God's service, joyful delight, delightful joy went forth unto the Lord: all which stirred up great envy of the devil against him. But the soldier of Christ, now well instructed in the armor of the word of God, and having experienced very many temptations of the devil, in whatever war, the more stirred up, the harder he was to overthrow; and imitating the manner of a bravest warrior, he protected not only himself but also his fellow-soldiers, striking down the enemy on the right and left; and thus, impenetrable to the devil, he remained in the dignity of his state for five years f.
[53] He resists the King seizing sacred things and is again expelled, But O unextinguishable envy of the devil! O violent damnation of his! And how difficult it is to escape his right of possession, admitted by custom! For when he could not find what new thing to oppose against the man of virtue for the subversion of peace, he stirred up the persuaders of ancient dissensions to their former motions, and through them he quickly arms the King, peace being shaken off, in wrath against the Bishop. For inflamed by the words of the informers, he began with sudden cupidity to seethe toward his various and manifold possessions, and to take them not by right from the right of the churches to which they had been given: and because Wilfrid did not fear to oppose him by episcopal authority, he inflamed the King with grave wrath against himself. Whence it came to pass that the King proposed to drive him, stripped of all his goods, from his kingdom. That in this he might have the Archbishop of Canterbury as executor of his purpose, as refractory to the statutes of the Archbishop of Canterbury: he opposed against him that he was not keeping the statutes of the Pontiffs of that See, and especially of the venerable Theodore, who had most recently departed from life. And because it was wrong that a Bishop should be held in authority in the English kingdom who would dare even slightly to go against the statutes of the Bishop of Canterbury, he did not want Wilfrid, not able g wholly to excuse himself from this calumny, to be Bishop in his kingdom. For
Wilfrid did accept the statutes of Theodore and showed due obedience to those which were instituted by canons and established by him in peace in the first and last times of his archbishopric; but those which in the times of interrupted peace he had (as is reported) established according to his will and not according to reason, Wilfrid would by no means receive nor give his assent. Wherefore, as though a stain of disobedience and contumacy against the See — mother of all Britain — had been found in him, he was deprived of his former authority; and before Berhtwald the Archbishop, who h had succeeded Theodore, he was accused on this business. Cast off therefore, And withdraws to Mercia, he withdrew to his faithful friend King Ailred of the Mercians, by whom he was gloriously received, and lived for some time under the protection of God and of him i.
[54] Meanwhile, at the request of King Alfred, Archbishop Berhtwald commanded a general k Council of the bishops of all Britain to be convened in the field which is called Estrefeld: Accused in the Synod, and to this Council it was commanded that Wilfrid should present himself; and at the same time it was promised that he would receive full justice for the injury of which he complained to have been done him, if, however, he could show by certain reasoning that injury had been done to him. What more? He came to the Synod; but did not at all find the justice promised to him. For some Bishops, favoring the royal will, soon began in the council to drive the man of God with false calumnies, and to disturb him with whatever contrarieties they could. And when they could not prove, with no truth supporting, what they had objected, at length they added this to their objections, that he did not obey the decrees of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury. To whom he said: He confounds his adversaries: "The decrees of the venerable Father Theodore, which he promulgated in peace and with canonical authority, with conscience as witness, I with devout mind wish to submit to and (as is just) to obey in all things; and I by no means refuse to be judged according to them by reason. But I pray you to tell me: what is it that for many years now you have been disobedient to letters directed from the Apostolic See, and so greatly accuse me because I do not receive those institutions of Theodore which he himself composed, not by canonical authority, but by dissension dictating, as you yourselves best know?"
[55] Informed of the cause of the tumults by a faithful friend, When they hurled back words utterly lacking reason with troubled murmur, a certain young courtier, well familiar to the man of the Lord, thrust himself into the surrounding multitude, and coming to him, opened to him the cause of the whole tumultuous Council, urged him to provide for himself, and at once through the way by which he had come secretly returned to the court. Having therefore been forewarned and forearmed by the report of his faithful friend, he took up the defense of equity for himself the more constantly, the more he knowingly knew that his own judges were acting against justice. He stands therefore secure amid the darts of words, because the liberty of his conscience was an impenetrable wall to him on right and left. When they had discovered this — the man whom they could not overcome with words — they sought by threats added to turn him to their will. But when he was by no means willing to give answers to their wishes, "Know," they said, "that you will be punished with a just sentence of condemnation, He is not terrified by threats: unless quickly by your answer you blot out what has been objected to you." And he said: "To the greater charge which I understand has been brought against me by you, namely that I will not obey the decrees of the glorious Bishop of the Church of Canterbury, I have already responded; and this very thing, if you wish, I respond again and again, that I wish to be subject in all things to his canonical institutions." Which words they soon seized from his mouth with fraudulent cunning, and said that his canonical statute was this: "That the proud and disobedient should be humbled, but the humble and obedient exalted. But you both have been lifted up in pride against your lords, and no less proved disobedient to your Archbishop: He is confined to Ripon: wherefore by just reasoning it has been judged and decreed that, stripped of all your possessions, you pay the penalties of pride and disobedience." Hearing this, horror invaded even his very enemies, saying it was impious that a man everywhere honored by nations should thus, without any certain crime, be stripped of all his possessions. Whence the King and Archbishop, interpellated by some, granted him the monastery which Blessed Wilfrid himself had built at Ripon (as we said above), with everything pertaining to it, on this condition: that he should sit there quietly, and without the King's permission should not leave the enclosures of the monastery, nor administer further the care of the episcopal office.
[56] This clemency of the changed judgment having been carefully set forth before all, He refuses to be degraded: the work was made, and counsel was given to Wilfrid as though useful, that he himself, by pious signature, should choose to be degraded from the episcopal office, so that, free from the tumult of secular men, he might give himself to the contemplation of the heavenly life: especially since it would be happier for him privately (as they said) to live alone in God's service than sweating at the Pontifical ministry to be daily wearied by men's quarrels. The prudence of the man perceived from what fountain such counsel flowed, and marvelling at their deceit, he confuted them all with this speech: "The virtue of true counsel," he said, "which is numbered among the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, admits in itself no duplicity: and thus, the more it proceeds from a simpler fountain, the more freely it finds in the soul of the servant of God a place where it may be received. But your counsel, which anyone can understand to lack the simplicity of the Holy Spirit, I reject the further from me, the more from those things which you first heaped upon me, I see the more openly whence it proceeds. The lies, namely, which you maliciously composed against me, could not of themselves procreate the gift of the Spirit of truth. Wherefore according to true counsel, I will not cast down myself from the sacerdotal rank by the censure of my own judgment; for I confess that although I am unworthy, yet, aided by the Lord's grace, I have done works by no means unworthy of the pontificate. Hence it is that, behold, for forty years I have preached the truth of inviolate faith to whom I could, He sets forth the labors of 40 years: and have conquered the contradictors by invincible reason; the conquered I have corrected by teaching them the truth from every error; the corrected I have illumined with the light of the word of God, and joined to the members of the Church of Christ. These things, however, not I, but God himself through me. Moreover, the rite of ecclesiastical observance, depraved in many places throughout England by the Scottish tradition, I have corrected, supported by the Apostolic authority. Have these and many other things, which I am loath to remember at present, earned this, that, as though a betrayer of the laws and informer against the fatherland, I am nowhere permitted to be safe? Obey at least the precepts of the Apostolic See, which formerly, when I was similarly accused and condemned, excused me and established that I had been absolved, if neither for love nor for fear of God you are willing to permit me to be quiet. But, as I think, those precepts you have either forgotten, or certainly hold as nothing, known or recognized. Wherefore, although I am m worn out with age, yet in very truth you should know that I will prove at Rome before the Apostolic See that the calumnies which you lay upon me on account of the King's indignation He appeals against the injuries inflicted to the Apostolic See. are not true; nor less truly should you know that I will preach with what zeal you bear the sacerdotal ministry, you who would rather favor the injustice of men than hold the justice of God. Which is sufficiently manifest, while you attack me against what is right and true with so great zeal, whom by clear reasoning you see to be zealous for truth and justice; and moreover, with no adversity in me deserving, as conscience witnesses, of what you accuse me, you try to bring me to this, that contrary to right I may pronounce a sentence of condemnation on myself. But know in this matter that I will in no wise consent to you, but confidently appeal to the Apostolic See. But whoever wishes to deal truly with me, let him come with me thither to judgment, invited by me today." At such words the King, greatly kindled in wrath, thought to oppress him with the violence of his army and to compel him to submit to his judgment, if he could have had the Archbishop's consent in this.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VII.
Third journey to Rome. Illness on the return. Restoration to the See of York.
[57] Monks vexed on his account, After this, when the council had been dissolved, the man of the Lord returned to King Ailred, and opened to him the whole sum of the business. Who, stunned by the malignity of so great fraud, greatly grieved at the injury done him. Alfrid, because he could not deal with Wilfrid according to his will, lest in this part he should be thought to be powerless, set about entirely to tear away, dissipate, distract whatever he himself had provided for the servants of Christ for food, and to make that very place of their dwelling completely desolate. But the disposition of the Judge, who knows not how to yield to human fury, by no means permitted the place of his servants to come into the hands of sinners. Finally, Father Wilfrid, Wilfrid strengthens them; before he took up the road of going to Rome, came to the place, admonished the brothers to commend themselves in all things to God, and greatly commanded them not to fear man's wrath, saying that nothing at all could harm them, if they deserved to have God as protector: they would have him, however, if they truly loved him, and always served him with sincere heart. And they, by obedience received the words of their Father, and thence merited to have God as protector against all adversaries.
[58] When Blessed Wilfrid had come to Rome,
he was magnificently received both by John a, the Pontiff of the Apostolic See, and by the Roman people. And since the cause of his coming had to be ventilated before the Apostolic one and many Bishops, with his accusers present, he received the place of defending himself. So he arose, When at Rome he pleads his cause, and told his cause before all; what he said, with firm reasoning of truth he proved to be as he said. Whence by the sentence of common judgment the innocence of the man of God is proved, and the false calumnies of his accusers rejected. Beyond these things the venerable Pope John is asked by all that, by Apostolic sanction, both the justice of the just man may be lifted up by due honor, and the injustice of those opposing him may be pressed down by fitting damnation. But the reading of the Synod of the venerable Pope Agatho, which once (as we said) was held in his presence, when he sat among them in the council of Bishops, helped his cause. b For when, as the matter required, the same Synod was read at the Pope's command, and recited for some days before nobles and the frequenting of the people, they came to the place where it was written: "Wilfrid, beloved of God, Bishop of the city of York, appealing to the Apostolic See concerning his cause," and the rest which we placed above. When this was read, astonishment seized the hearers, and while the reader was silent, they began to ask one another who that Bishop Wilfrid was. And known to have once triumphed under Agatho, Then Boniface, counsellor of the Apostolic Pope, and many others who had seen him there in the times of Pope Agatho, said that it was the same Bishop who, having been accused by his own and to be judged by the Apostolic See, had recently come to Rome: "And long ago," they said, "likewise accused when coming here, soon, after the cause and controversy of both parties had been heard and judged, he was proved by Pope Agatho of blessed memory to have been unjustly driven from his bishopric. Whence also he was held in such esteem with him, that he commanded him, as a man of incorrupt faith and upright soul, to sit in the Council of Bishops which he had gathered." Absolved, he is sent back, Hearing which, all together with the Supreme Pontiff himself said that a man of such authority, who had carried out the bishopric for nearly forty years, ought by no means to be condemned, but should return to his fatherland absolved, as immune from all fault, with honor. c It was therefore written to the English Kings Ailred and Alfrid, that, if they were not willing to be struck with anathema, they should cause him to be received into the See of his bishopric without delay, because all held it as certain that he had been unjustly deposed.
[59] At Meaux sick to death, After this, the servant of the Lord, enriched with great relics of the saints, and exhilarated by the much veneration shown by many, resumed the way of returning to his fatherland. And when he had come into the parts of the Gauls, he is seized with a sudden infirmity: which growing, he is vexed with so much pain, that he was by no means able to be carried on a horse, but was carried on a pallet in the hands of his ministers. And so carried to d the city of Meaux in Gaul, for four days and nights he lay like a dead man, with only a very faint breath showing that he was not utterly cut off from life. When thus, without food and drink, without voice and hearing, he had persevered four days, on the fifth day at last, when, about to die at any moment, he was being lamented by his own, St. Michael the Archangel is sent by the Lord, He is healed by St. Michael appearing, through whom he may be restored to his former health. To whom the Father, attending and rejoicing as much as he could in the cheerfulness of his face as to one best known, lay silent, waiting what he might wish to say to him. So the Prince of Angels, standing, is said to have spoken these words to the man: "Wilfrid, most worthy fellow-citizen, rise, why do you lie down? For though you are numbered among the citizens of heaven, yet on account of the prayers of your sons you will not die at this time, chiefly through the merits and intercessions of blessed Mary, the Mother of God and perpetual Virgin. For she has prayed for you, because certain works done by you have been pleasing to her: for she knows what work you have done for Peter, and what for his brother Andrew you have built. Life granted for 4 years: Wherefore now you will be recalled from death, and restored to life and health: but be prepared, because after four years, returning, I will visit you. Coming to your fatherland, you will receive the greatest portion of your possessions which have been taken from you, and in tranquil peace you will end your life." When these things had been said, the vision of the conversing angel slipped from his sight. And he at once, as though roused from a heavy sleep, arose, sat up, and with opened eyes saw around him the choirs of Brothers chanting and weeping, and, sighing a little, asked where Acca the Priest was. Who, being at once called, entered, and seeing him better and able to speak, with bent knees, with all the Brothers who were present, gave thanks to God. Which he indicates to St. Acca: And when they had sat together a little, and had begun, trembling, to confabulate about the heavenly judgments, the Pontiff commanded the others to go out for an hour; then, turning to Acca the Priest, he related in order what he had seen, binding him by a dread adjuration that, so long as he lived this life, he should tell no man that vision.
[60] Returning to his country, he is received by Brithwald and Ethelred, The Bishop therefore recovered, all rejoicing; and resuming the journey, he came to Britain. Since the letters which he had received from the Bishop of the Roman See were read in the assembly of nobles, Archbishop Berhtwald and Ailred, formerly King and then e Abbot, most willingly favored them: which Ailred, calling Coenred to him, whom he had made King after himself, exhorted that he should ever cultivate the servant of the Lord from his heart, choose him, cherish him, and be tireless as his champion against all adversaries. The King agreed. But Alfrid, King of the Northumbrians, Rejected by Alfrid, preferring rather to be successor of his brother's indignation than of his kingdom, and to lay aside the rancor of his mind and assent to the Apostolic command, strove by certain ambages objected to show that it was utterly impossible for him to fulfill what was commanded. But he, shortly dying, But the Wisdom of God, searching out the secrets of all hearts, noticed his wickedness; noticing, examined it; examining, condemned it, and so weakened his body by the onset of sharp pain, that he was at once received in bed, and destitute of the office of almost all his limbs. When he knew that he was dying, with witnesses brought in, he promised that if God would grant him life, he would both obey the Apostolic commands, and always be inclined toward Wilfrid. But he departed f from life without retraction, and a certain Aedwulf succeeded him in the kingdom, Likewise by his successor Aedwulf, but soon driven out: surpassing his predecessor in cruelty and obstinacy of heart. For St. Wilfrid, coming to his court from Ripon, asked through messengers whether he would acquiesce to peace. To whom he, with his ancient and inbred wickedness, answered harshly: "By my safety," he said, "I swear that unless within the space of six days he departs from my kingdom, whomsoever I am able to find of his I will deprive of life." On this account, a conspiracy being made against him, he was driven from the kingdom which he had held for two months. After him, with Osred reigning, son of Alfrid, when a Synod was gathered near the river g Nid, after some conflict of both parties, at length, all favoring, Blessed Wilfrid was received into the See of his Church. Restored by Osred in the Synod of Nid, With his familiar friendship King Osred was joined by great affection, and through all the lands of his rule he commanded that no one should oppose him in any business, but that all should obey him in all things as the servant of God: which was done. For in the four years during which the Father himself survived, there was no one to contradict him; no one dared to despise his sayings, nor to interpret them sinisterly or lightly: all envy everywhere was oppressed both by love and by fear. For 4 years he rules his church: The Father himself, faithfully executing on every side what the care of his ministry demanded, the more he knew the day of his calling to be at hand, the more anxiously he pressed that he might return to his Lord the talent entrusted to him, with the interest multiplied.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VIII.
Illness, death, miracles. Translation of the body to Canterbury and relocation in a more fitting place.
[61] Seized with illness, And now he foresaw that the time promised by the angelic revelation was at hand, when behold, he is attacked by a grave languor of the body, and wearied, is received on his bed. The venerable bands of the brothers, and the greatest part of the people with their chief men, flow together in one, and tearfully surround the bed of the lying man; and there is great dread, lest perchance he should depart from them. But he, considering that he was migrating from labor to rest, from misery to blessedness, from sadness to perennial joy, consoled the sad hearts of the bystanders with what words he could, saying that they ought by no means to mourn for him, of whom they might have it most certain that after death he was to attain to no mockeries but to things supremely joyful. He exhorts his own, But who might unfold the very series of words which, for their consolation and for preserving the purpose of holy life, he spoke in exhortation? For the more he approached the immutability of true consolation and eternal life, the more fully he drank its sweetness, and, having drunk it, poured it into the ears of each of the bystanders: and that the hearts of the hearers might conceive the virtue of this sacred pouring-in, what he said in words he confirmed before their eyes with the wonderful efficacy of signs. Which efficacy of signs accompanied the man the more, the more, with the transitory fragility of this life slipping away, he was eternally joined to the supreme Truth. Whence, I confess, it is not mine to say He works healings: how many sick were healed of every infirmity through him, though sick; how many demoniacs freed, how many paralytics strengthened, how many blind illumined, how many deaf and dumb cured; how many afflicted by other calamities working
God through him were magnificently restored. For these and other causes the greatest multitude of men hastened from afar, and committed themselves and their close ones to him with pious zeal: whom he himself, commending them with holy affection of mind to God, exhorted to embrace the commandments of God with sincere charity, and to show due obedience to them in all things with reverence.
[62] Having comforted his own, Therefore the time and the hour were at hand which can be passed over by no mortal; and the whole infirmity which was oppressing the body of the servant of God attacked his vital parts. Troops of various order stand by, and pay vows of praise to God in expectation of his death: and although on account of their own desolation they could in no way not mourn, they are nevertheless consoled by the greatest hope, because they trusted that they would never be deserted by his spiritual presence. The Father himself, breathing faintly from the excessive love of the sons surrounding him, lifted his wearied head a little, and began to address them with these words: "With all your might give effort, sweetest Brothers, that the grace of divine love may continually remain in you: which grace that you may happily merit to obtain perpetually, zealously strive to exercise the offices of fraternal love toward one another. Heed nothing which may seduce you from such dutiful charity, lest you fall from that sincerity which is in Christ. You know the snares which the malignant adversary's envy stretches out for the faithful, seeking to catch their souls with deceptive fictions: which fictions, as you have often heard from me, beware with all solicitude, and cast them far from you as you have seen me do. Do these things, and the God of peace shall be with you. And now, my most beloved Brothers, do not bring delay to one migrating. You indeed, you already once called me back when I was going to life: but now spare me, I beseech you; for it helps me, the burden of flesh laid aside, to follow the Lamb of God. I shall no longer appear to you in this flesh, until Christ raises me up with you at the end of this age. O my bowels, farewell. I am pressed, O I shall now depart! And O Brothers, watch, lest the sleep of perpetual death envelop you." He said these things, and laid his limbs down for hard rest. While the Brothers were chanting the psalter in order, and were now coming as far as the verse of the 103rd Psalm, He dies in the year 709, "Send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created," he happily sent forth his own spirit into the hands of the Creator, and thus went to the banquet of the Lamb of God to be perpetually refreshed. He passed away in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 709, which is the 75th year of his life, but the 45th of his bishopric. a He was buried in his own monastery, He is buried at Ripon. which he himself had founded from the foundations at Ripon b, and consecrated to God in honor of the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles; where, that he may prove to mortals that he has by no means lost his life, but changed it for the better, he does not cease, when the matter demands, to perform, when subtracted from this life, the miracles which, placed in this life, he had been doing.
[63] His garment heals a paralytic: His garments, as he had ordered before his death, were distributed. Whence his inner garment, wet with the sweat of his most holy body, a minister received to be brought to a certain religious Abbess: which a certain woman, dissolved by paralysis, that she might merit to touch, earnestly asked. But she indeed did not merit to touch the very garment, but received in drink the water in which the same garment had been dipped, and at once was healed. After these things, the enemies of the man of God, kindled by the fire of their own iniquity, tried to burn by fire thrown in the house in which he had ended this life; The house is preserved unharmed from fire. but the virtue of the deceased terrified the living fire, preserved the house unharmed, put the enemies to flight, and so truly demonstrated that he was alive.
[64] A year having passed from the day of his deposition, a very great multitude of people came together from everywhere, namely to celebrate the watches of the memory of his pious deposition. His cult grows, with light sent down from heaven: When therefore the all-night crowd was paying their vows to the Lord, and was weeping that they had irrecoverably lost the affection of paternal consolation in him, they look, and behold, a light sent from heaven from the east illumined the whole place of the servant of God with wondrous splendor, and by its presence put to flight all the horror of night and darkness. Seeing which they were greatly cheered, holding fixed in their mind this, that they should not grieve much over the bodily absence of their Father, since over his spiritual presence — which by the open showing of light they had learned to be with them — they knew they ought to rejoice much more. From this, therefore, the vehement veneration of all toward the most blessed Father Wilfrid grew, holding this also as absolutely certain, that as the most holy Pontiff himself, while living in this transitory life temporally, was gentle and affable to all, so now also, living eternally with Christ in that perennial life, he is pious and entreatable to all loving him.
[65] The greatness, therefore, of the signs which the Lord was working at his body from day to day Various miracles are wrought: declared his merits far and wide, and gathered innumerable peoples, moved by a remarkable fame, to his memory. Wherefore the very place was for a long time held in the highest honor, and was very salutary for recovering health to those oppressed by any infirmities. The Lord also had calmed the hostile incursions on every side, because He did not wish the devotion of His people, which they had for the veneration of His servant, to be disturbed. Which cease with the cult weakening: But when, because of the continual flowing-together of the crowd, certain neighbors began to be affected with weariness, and on that account to be held back little by little from visiting the place, it happened that by their example others began to fall from the devotion of their fervor, and no longer visited the place itself according to their custom. And so it came about that those who first had kindled others to the zeal of pious action by their own zeal, afterwards, by their sloth, compelled very many to withdraw from the work of piety.
[66] Meanwhile it happened that a hostile incursion occupied that province, occupying it slew many thousands of men, and laid waste all the places surrounding the monastery of Blessed Wilfrid to the likeness of a solitude. The place of the monastery afterwards ruined, The monastery itself was overrun and destroyed, which before had been glorious with hymns and canticles, and now was shameful with the filth of beasts and enemies. Meanwhile the body of the Bishop of Christ, deprived of all honor, remained immovable in the midst of this filth in its first place of burial; but almighty God, who cannot be deprived of His piety and justice, stirred up the minds of certain devoted religious to the consideration of so great a matter, and afforded the affection and effect for its changing. At that time a good and holy man, e Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury, governed Christianity in England, as Primate of all Britain. With Archbishop Odo visiting; He, who with his solicitude watched over the arrangements of all the churches, was wont to visit those churches as reason demanded. Moved by this solicitude, when at a certain time he had come to the province of York and had vigorously accomplished those things for which he had come, he went to Ripon to consider the monastery of Blessed Wilfrid. He came; and seeing the horrid solitude, he flowed with tears. While he was lingering in those parts, those whose hearts (as I said) God had touched for the changing of the heavenly treasure, thinking that they had received an opportunity for the fulfillment of their will, with supplication sent ahead to the Lord, labored to carry out in work what they had long considered in mind; and so it happened. For on a fixed day they come to the place, The bones of St. Wilfrid are handed over, open the earth where the body of Blessed Wilfrid lay buried, reverently raise up all the bones with the dust, and present them to the venerable Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury: that he himself might bring them with him to Canterbury, and lay them up as he wished in the Church of Christ, over which he presided. For that monastery in which they had been buried having been, according to what has been said, reduced to a pitiable solitude, no place remained there in which they could safely be placed and preserved. Wherefore they judged that nowhere could or ought they to be preserved more safely or justly than in the Church of Canterbury, for this reason, To be borne to Canterbury: that both at that time Kent flourished in great peace, and because that blessed man himself, once undermined by the fraud of certain persons, when he could not dwell in the church of York, had bestowed his care through the sacerdotal office on that same church of Canterbury. It seemed just to them that he should dead rest in peace there, where living he had rested in peace. Beyond these things, too, the affection of sacred love which they had for the venerable Odo was the greatest cause: for when they knew him to love such gifts, they truly understood that in this they were complying with his love. Yet lest the place Except for particles to be preserved there. which Blessed Wilfrid himself, while he lived in the body, had loved beyond others, should be altogether deprived of his very relics, some small portion of them was retained by them with the dust, and placed in a fitting place. Thereafter the venerable Odo, enriched with so great a gift, returned to Canterbury, where, received with great exultation of the whole city and led into the hall of God with sacred praise, the most holy relics of Blessed Wilfrid which he had brought Odo lays them translated beneath the altar: he placed at the greater altar, which was consecrated in honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. Concerning which matter, lest any doubt should arise in posterity, the Father himself who received these same relics, translated them, and (as we said) laid them up in the altar, published what we have said in a brief sentence in the Prologue of the very work which he wrote about his life and conversation.
[67] We also, who received these very bones from the aforesaid place, are not permitted to fluctuate in any doubt about them. Lanfranc places them in a more fitting place, For in that very place, when they had been preserved untouched for many years, and already a hundredfold number of years was exceeded by some years from the time when they were first placed there, by the just and hidden judgment of almighty God, the city of Canterbury was almost totally burned by fire, g and the church of Christ constituted there was consumed in the same conflagration. In the third year of which conflagration, h Lanfranc of pleasant and glorious memory, Abbot of the monastery of Caen, took up the governance of that church: who, after he had been nobly strengthened on every side in the very patriarchate of the chief metropolis of the English, whatever of old work remained in that church — about to build all things anew — he overthrew. When therefore the aforesaid altar was being overturned, the relics of blessed Wilfrid were found and raised up, October 12. and placed in a shrine. But when after some years the will of the Brothers agreed in this, that they should be enclosed in a more fixed place, a sepulchre was made for them in the northern part of the altar, and in it they were reverently enclosed i on the 4th day before the Ides of October.
[68] Author's epilogue, We also, these things having been somehow arranged concerning this Father himself, now at last let us conclude the order of writing, and rendering thanks to God and our Lord Jesus Christ for all His gifts, let us put an end to this little work. But we have thought this should be added at the end: that if anyone reading or hearing these things, my unworthiness and the fatuity of my talent being set aside,
weighs by piety, and on that account despises to give credence to what has been said about so great a Father — let him know that all things which we have in any way written about him, we prove to be supported by the authority of venerable men, and its faith. namely Archbishop Odo and Bede the Priest, placing nothing in them on our own part except what we have seen with our own eyes. Yet that which I said about k the damnation of King Egfrid, I confess I have nowhere read; but so many and such men confirm it to have been so, that I have believed it to be of great impudence not to believe them. Let there be therefore praise and giving of thanks to almighty God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, through all ages of ages. Amen.
Epitaph from Bede.
Here Wilfrid the great Bishop rests in body, Who, led by the love of piety, made this hall to the Lord, And consecrated it with Peter's eminent name, To whom Christ, judge of the world, gave the keys of heaven; And devoutly clothed it with gold and Tyrian purple. Nay more, he placed here the sublime trophy of the cross Of shining metal; and also commanded the four books Of the Gospel to be written in order with gold, And fashioned a casket of worthy ruddy gold for them. He also corrected the solemn times of the Paschal course To the just dogma of the Catholic canon, Which the Fathers established: and the doubtful error removed, Showed his people certain rules of the rite. And in these places he gathered frequent swarms of monks; And by admonitions kept what the Rule of the Fathers zealously established; And tossed at home and abroad for long times by many perils, After he had spent fifteen times three years as Bishop, He passed away, and rejoicing sought the heavenly kingdoms. Grant, Jesus, that the flock may follow the path of the Shepherd.