ON BLESSED AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, OF THE ORDER OF THE FRIARS PREACHERS,
AT LUCERA IN APULIA,
In the year 1323.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Augustine, Bishop, at Lucera in Apulia (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. The legitimate cult of the Blessed from various monuments.
Lucera, commonly Lucera, which names in the course of time were exchanged with Nuceria and Nocera (as it is even now wont to be called), is an inland city of Apulia Daunia, yet set on a small hill toward the South at the river Cerbalus between Benevento and Siponto, Blessed Augustine at Lucera in Apulia from which last it is distant to the West thirty thousand paces, a little further from Benevento, from Naples toward the summer sunrise about seventy miles, near Volturara and Troia, and Equus Tuticus. But it is called Apulian (as also Nuceria of the Saracens) to distinguish it from the Nucerias of Campania, Umbria, and Cispadane Gaul: and that it was called Lucera because it shines luceat in Apulia on account of the pleasantness of the place in which it is situated, Peter Ranzano, bishop of that city, affirms
in the book which he wrote about his praises. So Ughelli in the Italia Sacra of the most recent Venetian edition, volume 8, column 313, adding there several things about the antiquity and various fortunes of the same city, which once merited to have blessed Augustine as bishop, and even today preserves his sacred relics with the utmost veneration.
[2] Our elders were long ago solicitous to be made more certain of the legitimate cult of this blessed Prelate. he is held for a Saint, Hence in the year 1687, by the care of our Charles a Manderscheidt, who then dwelt at Rome, they obtained from the Fathers Preachers of Lucera the following reply: The glorious Augustine, taken up from the Order of St. Dominic first to the bishopric of Zagreb, then to that of Lucera, rejoices not only in the title of Blessed, but even of Saint: for at Lucera he is thus acclaimed, called, and invoked both in public and in private prayers and processions, and even is thus inscribed; for in the choir of the cathedral church of St. Mary of Lucera, where is painted the image of the aforesaid glorious Augustine, is thus read: SAINT AUGUSTINE, BISHOP of Lucera, of the Order of Preachers. So too is it held in the chapel of St. Roch of the same church, where among the other statues is found also the statue of the same holy Augustine with the same inscription, namely: SAINT AUGUSTINE, BISHOP of Lucera. This is also seen in several places of the city, notably in the great gate, where is beheld the image of St. Augustine, as the principal patron; although now on account of the injury of time the aforesaid image does not wholly appear. These sufficiently prove the present-day cult of blessed Augustine, whose antiquity must now be investigated.
[3] Immediately from the death of the blessed Prelate there was a public fame of his holiness, whom Charles duke of Calabria, as is plain from the letter of Charles duke of Calabria, which in Ughelli, in the just-cited Venetian edition of the Italia Sacra, volume 8, columns 319 and 320, thus sounds: To the most holy Father in Christ and most clement Lord John, by divine providence supreme Pontiff of the most sacred Roman and universal Church, Charles duke of Calabria sends humble commendation, and the devout kisses of your blessed feet. Lest by much speaking, kind Father and Lord, I weary the most occupied ears of your Holiness, I have seen [fit] to desist from setting forth in the present page the very great praise which in these parts blessed father Augustine, once bishop of the city of St. Mary, formerly called Lucera, has claimed for himself from the affluence of miracles which after his death the divine clemency, as being copious in mercy and munificent in reward, has already shown by his merits, and daily deigns to show.
[4] I believe indeed that some of them have already been brought to your notice by the report of divulging fame, by letters given to Pope John XXII, and I await and even desire that severally the several miracles, which indeed are known to be great, be brought both to your very knowledge, and into public, through a course of opportune investigation: for as a trustworthy report lately instructed me, it was not unknown to your Beatitude, while he himself was still placed in this world, with how marvelous a sincerity of life he shone, prevailed by the brightness of knowledge, and glittered with wondrous works. I too, my reverend Lord, God and a good conscience being witness, speak, that, he conversing with me by turns some times, when he first sought these parts, I conceived and saw both in his word and face, and in his gesture, that his conversation was very amiable, and that all things which were in him seemed nothing but notable, and his erudition an edification unto virtues and unto salvation; and that when, after his migration to the Lord, out of the great devotion by which I am affected toward him, I had visited his shrine, great faith was made to me concerning several miracles divinely wrought by his excellent merits.
[5] Since, therefore, for instructing more certainly the knowledge of your Beatitude, and for devoutly asking that inquiry be made alike into the life and miracles of that same blessed Father, according to the custom of the Church usual in such matters, he asks that he be solemnly reckoned in the number of the Saints. the bearers of the present letters seek with due reverence and great confidence the feet of your Holiness, [and] I devout request, suppliant beseech, that your kind and perspicacious providence, benignly, if it please, discussing that petition with consideration, and deigning to bend the edge of your mind to hearing it, graciously deign to order that inquiry to be made, as is of custom and of law; which, when it has been accomplished, and presented to your sight, if its effect persuade, and your benignity decree it, that you inscribe the aforesaid Father, to the reverence and honor of him who as a praiseworthy rewarder deigned to sanctify him, in the register of the Saints, if it please, with the sonorous proclamation of canonization, lest his great merits and wondrous works lack their due reward; through which the holy mother Church may rejoice over so great a fellowship of new aggregation in the happy time of your presidency, and the city may exult in which he happily died, and more happily rests in the Lord. Written at Naples in the year of the Lord 1325, on the 20th day of October, in the ninth Indiction.
[6] From these authentic letters, Ughelli there prefaces that this copy of the letter was taken from the royal register of Charles the illustrious, folio 31, under the letter B. This too Sigismund Ferrarius testifies in the Appendix to the commentaries on the affairs of the Hungarian province of the Order of Preachers, page 43, where he published the same letter of Charles, and on the following page, to prove its authentic credit, subjoins this: The present copy has been extracted from the above-mentioned original register, which is preserved in the archive of the great royal curia at Naples, with which, a collation being made, it agrees, a better reading however always saved; and in faith of the aforesaid the magnificent Peter Vincenti, doctor of both laws, royal archivist, here subscribed himself, and affixed the customary sign. At Naples on the 20th day of the month of October 1623. From the same archive comes our manuscript transcript of the same letters, to which Antonius Vincenti (perhaps he is a kinsman of the preceding Peter, or an error crept into the first name), royal archivist, subjoined a similar clause, and at Naples on the 7th day of January 1628 subscribed his name. Further, these three copies of the suppliant letter do not so differ among themselves that it is worthwhile to observe some discrepancies of lighter moment, which easily arise from the drowsiness of typesetters or copyists.
[7] and by an old Office, The Fathers Preachers of Lucera in the above-mentioned reply assert that Pope John XXII satisfied the desire of Charles, and solemnly inscribed blessed Augustine in the catalogue of the Saints, although at this time the Bull of Canonization has perished or lies hidden somewhere. Moreover they add that there was then granted them by the same Pontiff a proper Office concerning their blessed Prelate, in which the lessons of the second and third nocturn are from the narrative history of the same Saint of all the miracles wrought by him, as they speak. This their assertion they prove from what the Apostolic Prescriptor (who he was, they do not indicate) in his treatise on the canonization of the Saints thus writes: John XXII granted an Office to the Friars Preachers of Lucera; which Bull indeed on the 3rd day of the month of August, on which day the feast of the aforesaid St. Augustine is celebrated, was shown to all the faithful people: and there are now many living who inspected it, although now on account of the negligence of the Fathers it is not found.
[8] This too the most illustrious Tomko Marnavich supposes, that by Pope John XXII who copiously collected the Acts of blessed Augustine, when in Sigismund Ferrarius in the just-cited Appendix, pages 42 and 43, he thus discourses: Further, his most ancient cult, immediately from his happy death, is supported by the grant of John XXII, in whose time he went to heaven, which grant is gathered from the following supplication of Charles duke of Calabria and vicegerent of king Robert throughout Apulia, as also from his anniversary sacred Office, continued from that same time by the clergy of Lucera, which lately received from the most illustrious and most reverend lord Suardo, bishop of Lucera, a man conspicuous for nobility and erudition, we shall join to the supplication. This was Fabritius Suardo of Naples, as we read in Ughelli, volume 8 of the Italia Sacra, column 325, born of a noble family and distinguished for erudition, who in the year of Christ 1619, on the 28th of January, ascended the chair of Lucera.
[9] Sigismund Ferrarius in the work on the affairs of the Hungarian province of the Order of Preachers, part 2, to the Fathers Preachers and clerics of Lucera book 1, chapter 18, published that whole Office in print, and prefixed to it this title: The Office on the feast of blessed Augustine, bishop of Lucera, wont to be recited and sung by the Friars Preachers by the indult of the supreme Pontiff John XXII. Then in it, besides other proper things which here for brevity I omit, at first Vespers is read the following prayer: Almighty and everlasting God, who willed to choose blessed Augustine of Dalmatia, of the Order of Preachers, as the true prelate of Lucera, and who conferred on him the grace of expelling demons and of healing the languors of all diseases, grant, we beseech, that we who keep his feasts may feel his patronage with you. Through the Lord, etc. But at Lauds this other prayer is recited: Grant, we beseech, almighty and merciful God, that we who most devoutly celebrate with an Office the solemnity of blessed Augustine the glorious bishop of Lucera, may both by his prayers obtain temporal tranquillity for us, and gain eternal life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc.
[10] For the rest, in this Office not only are the lessons of the second and third Nocturn from the narrative history of the same Saint of all his miracles, is said to have been granted, as the Preachers of Lucera above affirmed, but also in the Lessons of the first Nocturn and in the Responsories themselves miracles are enumerated. Whatever be the case with this matter, these same Fathers of Lucera sufficiently show that the Office of blessed Augustine is ancient, when, in answer to the questions of our elders proposed there, they thus reply: You will find the Office at Rome, written in the most ancient hand of the Lombards, with the most eminent Pamphili, who was made by the sacred Congregation Ponent of the cause of the aforesaid holy Augustine for the suit of precedence in the processions of Lucera between the same Saint and St. Anthony of Padua.
[11] The antiquity of the same Office is also sufficiently gathered from the testimony is gathered the ancient cult of that Prelate, which Sigismund Ferrarius subjoins to it in this manner: A copy of this Office, extracted from the old original, which is preserved on ancient parchment in the archive of the convent of St. Dominic of the city of Lucera, faithfully collated by abbot Charles Strangia, ordinary actuary, and public notary by Apostolic authority of the episcopal curia of Lucera, the very reverend father Friar Dominic Gravina, master of sacred theology, moderator of the royal theological chair in the university of Naples, theologian of the archiepiscopal curia, and consultor of the holy Office, obtained and transmitted to me, in the year 1636. But since he there confesses that in the edition of that Office a few words here and there, which on account of the Italian idiom would not be understood by the common people, were changed by him, the sense being faithfully retained, we shall afterward give those miracles in the original style from that manuscript Office which our Father Beatillus in the year 1639 from the city of Naples sent to our elders, and shall rather explain in the Annotations
those things which might seem obscure or difficult to understand.
[12] which in the past century still flourished, From these testimonies at least it is plain that in the city of Lucera the cult of blessed Augustine was celebrated and immemorial, which flourished even in the past century, as we understand from the frequent concourse of the people, and other signs of veneration, which the praised Ferrarius in the History of the Hungarian province of the Order of Preachers, part 2, book 1, chapter 16, narrates in these words: Since the virtue of blessed Augustine shines forth especially in expelling demons from human bodies, in great number daily the possessed come together from all sides to his sepulchre in hope of grace and liberation, who, by no means frustrated of their hope, [and] due thanks being paid to God and to the blessed Bishop, return glad to their own homes. And it is indeed a marvel how greatly the demons shudder at the relics of the blessed Bishop: for when a certain straw hat, which he was wont to wear, is placed on the possessed, their eyes are suffused, their head is twisted, they swell in breast and throat, and finally are convulsed in all the members of the body, so that they abundantly make plain that the torments of hell are not so grievous to them as those which they suffer from the touch of those holy remains.
[13] as is proved from the frequent concourse of the people Hence at the feet of the altar of the blessed Man there hangs from the wall a chain of middling size, with which not rarely the possessed, whether because they are furious and harmful, or for the greater contempt of the malignant spirits, are bound. Nor is it less worthy of admiration that, often, demoniacs coming from afar, when they have reached the territory of Lucera, the hidden demons are detected by various twistings, howlings, and other signs; and those who had already been detected are urged with greater torments from that very vicinity, as is openly shown by various signs and effects. Those who are burdened by fever or another graver disease think that they can apply no more present or effective remedy than if they drink the dust scraped from the marble tomb, sprinkled on water or another liquid, since for the most part they are thereby rendered whole. His priestly girdle, carried to women about to give birth, brings the felicity of giving birth and of the birth.
[14] and from the public veneration of his relics The straw hat, of which we already made mention, to whomever it is applied, they obtain the wished-for health. This hat, woven of straws (such as the reapers in Italy are wont to use on account of the vehemence of the heat), is covered round with a lighter black veil in such a way that it seems to be made of wool after the manner of others; and yet, since it is so often brought to those lying more gravely ill, and so frequently placed in the church on the heads of the pious, it is preserved so whole after three whole centuries as it was when the blessed Bishop died; whereas even an iron [one] would nearly have been consumed. But there is even reason whence you may admire the love of poverty and contempt of secular things of this blessed Man: who, when he had a church so copious in revenues, by which even in those times it more flourished, willed to be content with a hat of so scanty and mean a material.
[15] Sigismund Ferrarius shows. The city of Lucera, on account of the huge and innumerable benefits which it received from God by his merits and intercession, treated, a special consultation being applied, about choosing him as its special advocate and protector, in the year 1634 (that this was afterward done we learn from the end of the Acts which we shall exhibit below); and that, until the matter should attain the desired end, his solemnity might be celebrated with greater apparatus, decreed a certain sum of money to be offered yearly. Further, the third day of August, on which blessed Augustine died, is held solemn at Lucera, like a Paschal festival, with the greatest concourse of all the inhabitants, nobles, common people, peasants, and of every condition of men, [and] is celebrated with the prayers and Mass proper by the indult of John XXII, with sermons and proclamations of praise. Nay, even on the day before that day, namely the second of August, a great concourse of all is made to the shrine of St. Dominic, where, the knees being bent before the sacred bones, they venerate them as long as possible; and, the priest inclining the sacred hat over the heads of each, he thinks himself the more fortunate who, while the Antiphon is recited in honor of the blessed Bishop, has merited to retain it over himself. Now we proceed to establish the same cult from more recent instruments.
§ II. The increase of the same cult from a more recent confirmation and a new Office.
Certainly Clement XI, Pontiff of glorious memory, confirmed and augmented not a little the ancient cult of blessed Augustine, Pope Clement XI the cult of blessed Augustine, when in the year 1702 he approved a decree of the Congregation of sacred rites, as in the supplement of the great Roman Bullarium, part 2, pages 18 and 19, is read in this manner: Pope Clement XI, for the future memory of the matter. Lately, at the supplication of our beloved son Antoninus Cloche, Master general of the Order of the Friars Preachers, there issued from the Congregation of our venerable brethren the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, set over the sacred Rites, a decree of the following tenor, namely: "Of Lucera. Concerning the canonization of blessed Augustine the Dalmatian, of the Order of Preachers, bishop of Zagreb, and finally of Lucera. Since the Congregation of sacred rites, at the relation of the most eminent and most reverend lord Cardinal Petrucci, on the day the 19th of June 1700, with the ensuing approbation of His Holiness, judged that the immemorial cult rendered to the aforesaid blessed Augustine is established; Father Antoninus Cloche, Master general of the Order of Preachers, humbly supplicated the Congregation of sacred Rites that it would deign to grant that in the city of Lucera the celebration of the feast of the said blessed Augustine may be continued with the Office and Mass proper of the same Blessed, as was asserted to have been hitherto recited, and also that it would benignly deign to extend the same indult to the whole Order of Preachers, to the province of Benevento, in which the city of Lucera is situated, to the city and diocese of Trau, the fatherland of the same Blessed, and also to the city and diocese of Split.
[17] "And the same sacred Congregation of rites, at the relation of the most eminent and most reverend lord Cardinal Gabrielli, approved by the sacred Congregation of Rites, the most reverend archbishop of Myra, Promoter of the faith, being heard both by word and in writing, the pious supplications of the most eminent and most reverend lord Cardinal Orsini, archbishop of Benevento, of the archbishop of Split, of the bishop of Lucera, and of the other bishops of the whole province of Benevento, and of the bishop of Trau, offered to our most holy Lord, and remitted to the same Congregation of sacred rites, accruing, judged that the Office with the Mass of the aforesaid blessed Augustine may be granted for the cities of Lucera, Zagreb, and Trau, and for their dioceses and for the Order of Preachers, but from the common of Confessor pontiffs, if it seem good to our most holy Lord, on the first day of October 1701. And then, a relation of the aforesaid being made by me the secretary to our most holy Lord, His Holiness benignly assented on the 19th day of the same month of October and year 1701. G. Cardinal Carpineus. Place of the † seal."
[18] confirms by his authority, But since, as the said Antoninus Master general caused to be set forth to us thereupon, he greatly desires that a decree of this kind, that it may more firmly subsist, be fortified with the patronage of our Apostolic confirmation; We, wishing to follow that same Antoninus Master general with the favor of special grace, and absolving him from any sentences of excommunication, suspension, and interdict, and other ecclesiastical sentences, censures, and penalties, imposed by law or by man on any occasion or cause, if he be by any means bound by any, only for the effect of obtaining the present letters, by the tenor of these, and judging him to be absolved, inclined to his supplications humbly offered to Us on this matter in his name, approve and confirm the aforesaid inserted decree by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, and add to it the strength of inviolable Apostolic firmness, saving however always in the premises the authority of the mentioned Congregation of Cardinals.
[19] and strengthens with the customary clauses. Decreeing that these same present letters be and remain always firm, valid, and effective, and obtain their plenary and entire effects, and fully in all things support those to whom they pertain, and for the time will pertain; and that thus in the premises it must be judged and defined by any ordinary and delegated judges whatsoever, even the auditors of the causes of the Apostolic palace, and that it be null and void if it happen otherwise concerning these to be attempted by anyone of any authority knowingly or ignorantly. Notwithstanding the Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and other things whatsoever to the contrary. But we will that to the transcripts or copies, even printed, of these same present letters, subscribed by the hand of some public notary, and fortified with the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, the very same faith be given in judgment and outside [it] which would be given to these presents themselves, if they were exhibited or shown. Given at Rome at St. Peter's under the ring of the Fisherman on the 4th day of April 1702; in the second year of our Pontificate. Below was subscribed: F. Oliverius.
[20] The Fathers Preachers now recite a new Office of him Although blessed Augustine departed this life on the 3rd of August, nevertheless the Fathers Preachers now celebrate his annual festival, which Pope Clement XI extended to the whole Order, on account of other days being hindered, on the 8th of the same month, as is plain from their proper Offices, in which the lessons of the first and third Nocturn are prescribed from the common of a Confessor pontiff, and the following prayer is recited: O God, who deigned to provide for your Church in blessed Augustine your confessor and pontiff an example of a good shepherd: propitiously grant that by his intercession we may deserve to be placed forever in the place of your pasture. Through our Lord, etc.
[21] The lessons of the second Nocturn, which I judge to have been approved by the sacred Congregation of rites about the time of the mentioned decree, from which the proper lessons thus briefly narrate the chief deeds of that blessed Prelate: Lesson IV. Augustine was born at Trau in Dalmatia, under the archbishopric of Split, of parents illustrious for nobility and for the piety of the orthodox faith. As a youth, that he might devote himself wholly to God, his secular patrimony being left, he gave his name to the sacred family of the Preachers; and there so applied himself in following the footsteps of St. Dominic, whom he had chosen for himself as a father, that, while still young, he was set before all as a model of regular observance. His novitiate being finished, sent to Paris together with Friar Jacobus Ursini for the sake of studies, he had St. Thomas Aquinas as master, under whom it is a marvel how greatly he profited in knowledge, piety, and the other virtues.
[22] Lesson V. Having returned to his fatherland, by command of his superiors he was assigned to the preaching of the divine word. of the second Nocturn Meanwhile, burning with the greatest zeal for the salvation of souls, he never omitted anything by which he might recall the unbelieving to the faith, sinners to penance. Assiduous in prayer, applying himself to which he passed several nights sleepless, he frequently used that saying of the holy doctor Augustine: He rightly knows how to live, who rightly knows how to pray. But lest under a bushel the lamp of his virtues should lie hidden, he was promoted by Benedict XI to the bishopric of Zagreb. In which office he so shone by the praise of humility, patience, mercy toward the poor, and especially by his untiring labors in guarding the flock committed to him, that Robert king of Naples, having heard his fame, obtained by the utmost prayers from John the twenty-second that that shepherd be set over the church of Lucera, that he might purge it from the errors of the Saracens with which it had been infected.
[23] Lesson VI. Having set out for the church of Lucera,
about to purge the stains of his new bride from the defilement of the Saracens, these are here exhibited. it is a marvel what hardships, what labors he endured, until by the fervor of prayer, the efficacy of preaching, and the sanctity of morals he deserved to see his whole flock Catholic; and that he might keep it immune from any future contamination, he submitted the whole diocese, and especially the city of Lucera, to the powerful patronage of the Virgin Mother of God, which, the name being changed, he willed to be called the City of St. Mary; by which nomenclature the said city is adorned even in our times. At length, full of merits and illustrious for the fame of miracles, he rendered his soul to the Creator on the third day of August about the year of salvation one thousand three hundred and twenty-third, but of his own age the seventieth; whose body, honorably buried in the church which he had built for his Order, they report to have been marked by God with so many prodigies that a few years after his death Charles duke of Calabria gave suppliant letters to John XXII, supreme Pontiff, that he would deign to inscribe Augustine in the calendar of the Blessed. But Clement the eleventh benignly granted that in the whole Order of Preachers his feast be celebrated with the Office and Mass of the common of one Confessor pontiff. In these Lessons there occur several things which do not seem able to be reconciled with history and with the ancient instruments, as we shall say in the following paragraph.
§ III. The writer of the Acts, and their authority and chronology.
Three centuries after the death of the Blessed, Tomcus collected his Life, The most illustrious bishop of Bosnia, who by David Czuittinger in the Specimen of literary Hungary page 386 is called Tomko or Tomkus Marnavicio-Dalmata, and is said to have flourished about the year of Christ 1631, besides other offspring of his genius published a Life of B. Augustine, of whom we treat, which Sigismund Ferrarius in the Appendix to the History of the Hungarian province of the Order of Preachers first published in print. This most reverend biographer some Dominican authors wrongly ascribe to their Order, as Jacobus Echardus in the work on the writers of the Order of Preachers, tome 2 page 758, confesses in these words: John Tomkus Marnavitius, bishop of Bosnia in Hungary, is reckoned among ours by Fontana in the Dominican Theatre, and by Altamura in the Bibliotheca at the year 1402, whom Johannes Michaël Cavalieri follows, who last, in the year 1701, collected in Italian a work on the supreme Pontiffs and other prelates of the Church taken from the Order of Preachers.
[25] whom biographer some wrongly ascribe to the Order of Preachers, Then the praised Echardus in the same place rightly corrects their error, and roundly declares that they were all deceived: for Ferrarius, whom they cite, he says, but did not read attentively, nowhere says that Tomkus was of the Order of Preachers, or lived in the 15th century; nay, he exhibits him as a man equal to himself in time, that is, flourishing about 1630, bishop indeed of Bosnia, and coadjutor of Zagreb, but not of Lucera. But that he wrote the Life of B. Augustine de Gazothis, our saint, bishop of Bosnia (doubtless he meant to say of Zagreb) and afterward of Lucera, and other things, is no argument that he was a Dominican: for he undertook that only out of ardent zeal toward his own church. Further, that Tomcus flourished after the year 1619 is established from his own words, which we related above at number 8. From this age of the most illustrious author it is clear that these Acts were first composed more than three hundred years after the death of B. Augustine, and thus their authority and credibility on this side decrease not a little.
[26] and from whom we require more ancient testimonies, Perhaps someone will say that that Life of B. Augustine was collected by the most illustrious Tomcus from ancient documents of his fatherland. We reply that on that account we give credence to the greater part of his narration. Yet at the same time we fear lest he inserted into it certain things from popular tradition and from more recent historians. Would that at least he had distinctly indicated the old instruments of his history! The aforesaid Echardus desires this with us, when among the writers of the Order of Preachers tome 1 page 553 he reckons our B. Augustine, and concerning two orations which Tomcus published under his name thus pronounces in the same place: Whether those very ones were pronounced by Augustine, or feigned by Tomcus in place of the true ones that were lost, as is customary with historians, it is not for us to decide. It were to be wished that Tomcus had cited his authors for all the things which he elegantly narrates as written in the Life of Augustine. Further, we below in the Notes shall observe more concerning those two orations, and shall detect certain indications of their supposition.
[27] especially so that to some stupendous miracle which he narrates, Certainly the most illustrious Tomcus ought to have alleged trustworthy witnesses when he reports stupendous prodigies, among which may deservedly be numbered that which he narrates at number 11 in these words: Another thing no less to be wondered at also happened; for when the supreme Pontiff, by the right of Christian hospitality, had brought the same [man] to his table, and had caused some little birds to be set before him, as before one weakened by the hardships of the journey; but he, most tenacious of the institute of regular observance, by which the use of flesh-meats is perpetually forbidden to Dominican Friars, for some time like one hesitating, abstaining from touching them, having implored the help of God with the affection of his inmost heart—behold, the roasted little birds, as from a nest, flying out of the dish that had been set before him, all being astonished, by a divine metamorphosis left just as many roasted fishes in the same little vessel in place of themselves.
[28] Sigismund Ferrarius, in the work now so often praised, on the Affairs of the Hungarian province of the Order of Preachers, part 2, let us give sure credence. book 1, chapter 13, mitigating this prodigious narration, makes no mention of the flight of the little birds, and from Tomcus himself only reports that two partridges offered to him, who did not eat flesh by the institute of his sacred Religion, were by his silent prayers converted into fishes. We do not know by what authority Ferrarius changed those several little birds into two partridges, and omitted their flight. For the rest, we wonder that no memory of so stupendous a miracle was left to posterity by the ancient writers, since it is said to have happened publicly at the table of the Roman Pontiff. Wherefore, for believing that prodigy, we require more certain testimonies, which those also seem to have required who under Clement XI Pope composed or approved the proper Lessons of B. Augustine, since in them no word is made of so illustrious a miracle. Add that in the old Lucerine Office no mention of prodigies of this kind occurs. Let these things said about the Acts in general suffice. Now let us proceed to discussing historically and chronologically certain particular assertions of the same.
[29] Ferrarius, in the work just cited, part 2, book 1, chapter 17, reports various opinions of authors concerning the fatherland of B. Augustine, The true fatherland of the Blessed is assigned from ancient documents, some calling him a Hungarian, others a Dalmatian. But those opinions are now to be reconciled or abandoned, since Michas Madius de Barbazanis, a contemporary author, in John Lucius page 380 thus entitled chapter XXVII of his History: On the death of Augustine, bishop of Nuceria, a native of Tragurium. The same fatherland of the blessed Prelate he had already indicated above at chapter 4 of that History, where he had said that Augustine of Tragurium was ordained bishop of Zagreb by Benedict XI Pope. The same place of nativity he again repeats in the very text of chapter 27, as we shall say below on another occasion. Hence Stephen of St. Severus, a Lucerine Dominican, is convicted of error, who in Ferrarius at the place just cited writes that B. Augustine was by birth of Brazza. Therefore with the most illustrious Tomcus it must be asserted that the Traguriene city of Dalmatia truly glories in this holy Citizen.
[30] This fatherland of the blessed Man is also confirmed from the Carcassonne codex of Bernard Guido, [and from the Carcassonne codex; according to which also falls the opinion of those,] in which Soëgius the Dominican thus reports concerning our B. Augustine to be read in the margin: Sprung from the city of Traguria, which is in Dalmatia, in the Slavonic tongue, he entered the Order in the year 1277 or 1278. So testifies Echardus in the writers of the Order of Preachers tome 1 page 553, where from this testimony of the Carcassonne codex he thus rightly concludes: That he was a hearer of St. Thomas, some invent, which is entirely overthrown by the year in which he gave his name to the Order. That he was sent to Paris for the sake of studies in the year 1286 Pius narrates, and it is most probable. This is John Michael Pius, who is often cited in Latin under the name of Plodius, and who in the Italian work on the Illustrious men of the Order of Preachers, part 1, book 2, §16, asserts that B. Augustine as a youth in the year of Christ 1286, together with F. Jacobus Ursinus, went to Paris, that he might there give attention to studies. From this chronology of Pius or Plodius it follows that the blessed Youth then could not have had for master the Angelic Doctor, since he had already migrated to heaven from the year of Christ 1274.
[31] who doubtfully, Ferrarius saw this difficulty well enough, when in the work now so often praised, part 2, book 1, chapter 12, he proposes it in these words: As a very young man, Plodius being witness, he set out into Italy, thence to Paris; whither, when he was going, sent for the sake of studies by the general chapter of Paris held in the year 1286, with F. Jacobus Ursinus, nephew of Cardinal Matthæus Ursinus, at the valley of the river Ticinus he was gravely wounded in the head by certain assassins, who suddenly slew his companion before his eyes, and left [him] half-dead in the snows. They say the cause was the hatred conceived by the counts of Casate against all the Ursini, because one of these had made away with Thomas count of Casate and Cardinal of Milan by poison. Paganus of Petra Santa, a knight who delighted in Augustine, a great friend and patron of our Order, took care that care should be given by his people to the man carried into his castle of Rebecum, so that within a few days he recovered health. Which reckoning of time, assigned by Plodius from many weighty authors, if it is true, I do not see how B. Augustine could have been a hearer of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, as men of eminence assert more than once, either according to the truth of the matter, since the holy Doctor had already put off mortality in the year of Christ 1274, namely twelve years before it was the year 1286, when Augustine was setting out for Paris for the sake of studies. Thus indeed he touched the knot, but did not loose it.
[32] or stubbornly assert, John Rechacus in tome 3 on the Saints and Blessed of the Order of Preachers, in the French Life of B. Augustine chapter 2, thought that he had found a way by which he might reconcile these things so conflicting among themselves. He therefore devised a certain new chronological system, and first laid down that B. Augustine, in the fourteenth year of his age, about the year of Christ 1256 or 1257, gave his name to the Order of Preachers. Then he asserts that the blessed Youth in the year 1259 or 1260 went to Paris, that he might apply himself to studies under the mastership of the Angelic Doctor. Finally he feigns that B. Augustine afterward, being more than forty years old, was joined as companion to F. Jacobus Ursinus, that he might conduct him to Paris, and that then those things happened which we related above from Plodius, or rather from Plodius's interpreter Ferrarius. But all these things he confidently affirms without any witnesses or
records, as he was also not rarely wont to do in the Acts of other Saints.
[33] that he himself was a disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas. But that this whole chronology of Rechacus is fictitious is plain from the above-praised Carcassonne codex, which expressly notes that B. Augustine entered the Order in the year 1277 or 1278. And this year agrees excellently with those things which Plodius narrates to have happened in the year of Christ 1286: for the blessed Youth could, his novitiate being finished and philosophical and other disciplines being learned in his fatherland, be sent to Paris in the year 1286 that he might be imbued with theological learning, or perfect himself in it. But then certainly falls that opinion according to which Tomcus and others hand down that B. Augustine was a disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas, who had already departed from the living from the year of Christ 1274. Wherefore I do not see by what appearance of chronological or historical truth the Dominican Fathers in the more recent Office of this blessed Prelate read the following: His novitiate being finished, sent to Paris together with Friar Jacobus Ursini for the sake of studies, he had St. Thomas Aquinas as master; under whom it is a marvel how greatly he profited in knowledge, piety, and the other virtues.
[34] In the old Lucerine Office we read that B. Augustine gave his name to the Order of Preachers from boyhood. The more recent Acts of the Blessed, Hence we suspect that he embraced that sacred institute when he was passing his seventeenth or eighteenth year of age. But since, according to the Carcassonne codex, he entered the Order in the year of Christ 1277 or 1278, we conjecture with Echardus, not improbably, that he was born about the year of Christ 1260, under Bela IV king of Hungary, to whom Dalmatia also then was subject. But since, according to the Lucerine Office, from boyhood, and according to others as a very young man, he entered the Order of Preachers in the year of Christ 1277 or 1278, and died in the year 1323, as we shall afterward prove, from these things it further follows that he departed from this life not a septuagenarian, as Tomcus and the more recent Lessons of the Office assert, but about the sixty-third year of his age.
[35] It is pleasant here to insert a memorable answer of B. Augustine, to which also something new is added, which Tomcus omitted in his Acts, and which Echardus in the work now so often cited, tome 1, page 553, drew out from the Colbertine codex 2104; where an anonymous writer of the Dominican Order, living at that time, relates the matter in a collection of examples in this manner: B. Augustine, bishop of Gaçabria (he meant to say of Zagabria) of our Order, answered the Friars who were saying that he should ask a certain baron to give them so great a quantity of money as a certain lord had bequeathed to him, thinking that he would give it out of the greater reverence which he had toward him—for he had not paid it for two years—: My father (namely St. Dominic) left me in his testament that I should not have temporal possessions, and the father of that man (namely of the baron of whom they were asking) left instruction that he should have them. I wish and am bound to keep the rights of my father's testament sooner than of his. Then he adds that he was unwilling to ask.
[36] The most illustrious Tomcus in the Acts to be published below, certain things are handed down concerning the changed name of the Lucerine city, at number 75, narrates that B. Augustine, translated to the Lucerine bishopric, before all things gave command that the city should be called by no other name than that of Mary. Probably from Tomcus this was inserted into the sixth Lesson of the more recent Office, in which it is read that the blessed Prelate submitted his whole diocese, and especially the city of Lucera, to the powerful patronage of the Virgin Mother of God, which, the name being changed, he willed to be called the city of St. Mary. If these Acts or those Lessons mean to signify that the name of St. Mary was first imposed on the Lucerine city by this blessed Prelate, they manifestly contradict the ancient documents: for that surname was already in use in the time of Benedict XI Pope, who to Charles king of Sicily, in Raynaldus in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1303 number 55, among other things thus writes: Truly you, considering piously some time ago that, from the delay which the Saracens were making in the city of St. Mary, then called Luceria, very much was being derogated from the aforesaid faith, led by the Spirit of God caused the aforesaid Saracens to be exterminated from it, that from thenceforth Christians might freely inhabit there. Then the prelate of that city is in the same place by the same Pontiff called our venerable brother the bishop of St. Mary.
[37] Ferdinand Ughellus, tome 8 of Italy sacred, column 314, treating of the Lucerine city, which with the ancient instruments thus more distinctly explains the origin and cause of that surname: But after many centuries Frederick II, the enemy of the Church, as has been said, the Christians being driven thence and the bishop alone with twelve clerics being left, gave the city to be inhabited by Saracens summoned from Africa. The bishop remained outside the walls in the old cathedral, poor and almost cast down from his office, until, by Charles II the king, the Saracens being subdued to the last man, the city being recovered and purged, he betook himself into it to inhabit the new cathedral, which Charles had then built from the old stone, a work of exceedingly ample and royal magnificence, under the title imposed by him of St. Mary DE LA VITTORIA; by which title the bishop at the same time adorned himself, so that in the Roman provincial he was styled BISHOP OF ST. Mary DE Victoria, today of Lucera.
[38] are reconciled with difficulty. After these things Ughellus recites various instruments, and interposes his own observations, from all of which it evidently appears that Luceria, already long before the bishopric of B. Augustine, was, the name being changed, called the city of St. Mary. Since nevertheless we strive to defend the Acts of the Saints and the Lessons of the Breviaries as long as the manifest truth does not compel us to recede from them, it could here be said that perhaps in the time of B. Augustine the ancient name of Luceria again prevailed among the citizens, and that on that account the blessed Prelate gave command that that city should be called by the name of St. Mary. But if the Acts or Lessons wish more, certainly they stray from historical truth. It does not please us to linger longer in discussing the several points of the Acts, some of which we shall briefly observe in the Notes below. Meanwhile we shall proceed to assigning to our Blessed the certain year of his happy death.
[39] The year of his death, in assigning which several writers have erred, Plodius in the Italian work on the illustrious men of the Order of St. Dominic, part 1, book 2, §16, column 323, places the death of B. Augustine in the year 1332, and there cites others of the writers of his Order who wrongly fixed the same at various years. Bzovius, tome 14 of the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1332 number 16, incautiously followed this anachronism, which is refuted plainly enough from the letter of Charles duke of Calabria exhibited above, which he gave in the year of Christ 1325 to John XXII Pope, and in which he suppliantly begs that Roman Pontiff to inscribe B. Augustine, illustrious for virtues and miracles, in the list of the Saints. Hence also Michas Madius de Barbazanis erred (unless perhaps this error is to be attributed to the printer or copyist) when in his History chapter 27 he thus mentions the death of our Blessed: Likewise in the aforesaid years Augustine, formerly bishop of Zagreb, who was removed from the said bishopric by the lord Pope John at the petition of the King of Hungary, and placed in the church of Nuceria in Apulia among the bishops at the instance of the lord King Robert of Apulia, and so died * at Christ in the year 1329; whose body shows many miracles upon those who with devotion approach to it. This man was sprung from Dalmatia, from the city of Tragurium, and was a Friar Preacher of the Order of St. Dominic, a humble [man]. Since that contemporary writer could have known well enough the determined year in which B. Augustine died, we not rashly suspect that, by the negligence of printers or amanuenses, in this place the number 1329 crept into the text for 1323.
[40] it is determined from the Carcassonne codex, From whatever source that error arose, we entirely assent to the most illustrious Tomcus and other authors who fix the death of this blessed Prelate at the year 1323: for, besides other arguments, this persuades us, the above-mentioned Carcassonne codex, in which, in Echardus tome 1 of the work now often cited page 553, Soëgius reads the following: He died on the third day of the month of August on the feast of the finding of St. Stephen, and was buried (here in the margin it is noted, on the following day) on the vigil of St. Dominic in the Convent of the Friars Preachers in Luceria in the year of the Lord 1323, where his sanctity began to be declared by miracles, when his body appeared shining with snowy whiteness and gave forth of itself a most sweet odor; and the clerics of the cathedral church, who were trying to take his body away from the Friars and carry it off with them, being smitten with aurisia and blindness, were repelled. Cangius in the Glossary of middle and low Latinity says that by the word aurisia is signified blindness or darkness, in which latter signification it can here be taken, lest the same be twice repeated. See the same in the Additions to the first tome of the Glossary, where at column he cites Alan of the Isles, who against the Waldenses chapter 58 thus writes: There are many kinds of deception of sight. One is when we do not see what is presented to the eyes, which is called aurisia, that is un-seeing, with which they were smitten who were seeking Elisha.
[41] And these are the chief things which we judged ought to be premised concerning the Acts to be reprinted below, and a chronological compendium of his Life intending to observe briefly the rest of lighter moment in the Notes. Yet for the easier understanding of the times we here prefix to them a chronological compendium of his Life, which Ughellus, tome 8 of Italy sacred, column 319, composed accurately enough in this manner: Blessed Augustine, by nation a Dalmatian, of the Traguriene fatherland, born of Nicholas and Dragesta, noble parents, when he was still a youth sent notice of dismissal to the world and to the pomps of the age, and put on the habit of the divine Dominic; and in that Order made marvelous progress both in human and in divine letters, and at the same time in the virtues of Religion, and turned upon himself the admiration of all, so that, after various offices of his Order well discharged, he was created bishop of Zagreb by Benedict XI, supreme Pontiff, in the year 1303; in which dignity he labored much for the good and tranquillity of the whole kingdom of Hungary, whose service Cardinal Gentilis, legate of the Apostolic See, used for composing the arduous affairs of that same kingdom, and for confirming Charles Bertus as king; and when he had piously presided over the Zagreb flock for thirteen years, in favor of Robert, king of both Sicilies, he was translated by John XXII to this Lucerine church in Apulia, then called St. Mary's, in the year 1317.
[42] In governing his new flock, his mercy and charity toward the poor beyond measure, his zeal in preserving ecclesiastical discipline, it is set forth from Ughellus. and in all things his pastoral love and piety, so shone forth that he was deservedly numbered among the more excellent prelates of his age. He received the Friars of his Order within the city, for whom he founded a monastery and a church distinguished by the title of the divine Dominic. And when he had presided holily for more or less six years, illustrious for miracles,
more than a septuagenarian (above we probably conjectured that he died only more than a sexagenarian), he fell asleep in the Lord, on the very vigil of St. Dominic, namely the third of August 1323; buried in the same church of the divine Dominic, perpetually illustrious for innumerable miracles, for the inquiry into whose life, the investigation of whose miracles, and whose canonization Charles duke of Calabria, son of King Robert, wrote the following letters to John XXII, which were transcribed from the royal register of Charles the illustrious, folio XXXI, under the letter B. Then he subjoins the very letters of Charles, which we exhibited above in §1. Now we shall put an end to this preliminary Commentary, when in the following paragraph we shall first have related certain things about his posthumous glory.
Notes* perhaps read abiit he departed
§ IV. The sepulchre, relics, and more recent miracles of the Blessed.
Certain things are observed concerning the sepulchre of the Blessed, The most illustrious Tomcus in the Acts at number 81 has these things concerning the burial of B. Augustine: He was buried within the church beloved by him, constructed as a dwelling for his Friars, and for the memory of the holy father Dominic, and for his own reception, as we have said; until in the first year of this century (that is, in the year of Christ 1601, as Ferrarius and Ughellus assert) he was translated into another sepulchre wrought of precious marble, not without a frequency of miracles. The Lucerine Preachers in their above-said answer of the year 1687 teach us the following concerning the more recent state of that sepulchre: His body is preserved in a chapel which is situated in the church of St. Dominic of Luceria; in which chapel indeed hang very many votive tablets, and on his feast-day the head only is shown to the people, which is preserved in a silver statue: for the body rests in a tomb above the altar of the same Saint; and there is a very great concourse of the people when his feast is celebrated with the presence of the bishop, celebrating it pontifically.
[44] and his sacred relics On occasion of the cult we already above related some things concerning the sacred relics of B. Augustine from Ferrarius. But it will be useful to hear the same more distinctly from the just-praised Lucerine Fathers, who in the same letter of the year 1687 thus answer: Very many are the relics of that Saint which are preserved by the Friars Preachers existing at Luceria, namely the head of the Saint with the teeth; and there appears in the wound received in the same head from the Saracens, blood. But we rather think that this trace of a wound is to be ascribed to the assassins who killed F. Jacobus Ursinus and gravely wounded his companion B. Augustine in the head, as above at number 31 we narrated from Ferrarius, the interpreter of Plodius: for the Saracens had already long since been expelled from Luceria before our Blessed was translated to the Lucerine or St. Mary's chair, as may be seen in Raynaldus in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1269 number 1, and at the year 1303 number 55. However that matter may be, the other remains of the blessed Prelate are by the same Lucerine Fathers there thus enumerated: Moreover the stole, maniple, girdle, and alb which he used while living he celebrated Mass; a woolen undergarment which covers his flesh; a straw hat, which is preserved most whole, and is carried to the sick with the greatest veneration on account of the very many graces granted to them; and today the aforesaid devotion flourishes, and daily it is carried through the whole city with lights when the citizens labor under grave infirmity.
[45] and certain more recent miracles are related from Ferrarius. Since, after the Life of B. Augustine to be appended to this commentary, we are about to give his more ancient miracles from the old manuscript Lucerine Office, in this place we treat only of the more recent, which Sigismund Ferrarius, writing on the Affairs of the Hungarian province of the Order of Preachers, part 2, book 1, chapter 15, sets forth in these words: But not even in our age does God cease to work marvels through the blessed Man: for in the year 1604 God had sent so great a drought upon the earth that the times of the holy seer Elias, in which heaven was shut up that it might not give rain, seemed to have returned; and, all things withering, the people of Luceria not only despaired of being able to satisfy their creditors, but also feared that, in the utmost penury which the harvest threatened, they would lead out a wretched life.
[46] And so, to obtain the divine mercy and help, various prayers and supplications being held, [who narrates that the people of Luceria in the year 1604 miraculously obtained rain,] they carried many pious images. But when God seemed to be made no more appeased, they decreed that the head of the blessed Bishop should be carried through the city in a new public supplication. The clergy therefore and the religious men and the rest of the citizens being gathered to the church of the blessed Dominic on the first day of May, heaven being everywhere purged of clouds and serene, the heat raging as if the sun were in Leo; when they began to carry forth and to go out the statue in which the sacred head stands, on the very threshold of the temple of St. Dominic the air began to be troubled, the sky to be overcast with clouds; and when they had scarcely advanced sixty paces toward the greater church, the clouds began to drip; and when they were approaching thence to the gate of the city, to pour forth such rains that you would think the heavens were falling; and in the church of Pietas, which was the goal of the journey, they were compelled to leave the statue for two days and nights; the Friars betaking themselves, as they could, to the monastery, all acclaiming blessed Augustine a Saint.
[47] In the year 1611 two French women, in the habit of pilgrims, in the year 1611 a woman possessed having entered the church of St. Dominic of Luceria at the time when Compline was being said, where, having on bended knees poured forth pious prayers first before the most divine sacrament of the Eucharist, then at the altar of the most blessed Virgin of the Rosary, approached the tomb in which the bones of the blessed Bishop are kept. There the younger, who hitherto had given no sign of commotion, began to be so twisted in her whole body, and dissipated in all her members, that the Religious chanting the sacred prayers easily perceived that she was vexed by unclean spirits.
[48] There ran up at once a Father designated for that office, and, exorcisms being applied, to have been freed from eight demons, he understood her to be possessed by eight demons. And when, by the power of God and the merits of the blessed Bishop, he urged them to depart, they said they would depart, because they could no longer bear the presence of those bones: for four first departed into a certain copper coin, a sign being given; then another, a sign being made, left her into a twisted hair which the possessed woman had vomited; the sixth, in the likeness of a certain little rod of smoke, breathing out with force from the mouth as from a furnace, and going straight to the openings of the glass window which is in the shrine, went out, almost the whole city, which had flowed together, looking on. Finally, two others having gone out when they had thrust her to the ground, she was freed.
[49] In the year 1615 Antonius Platus, a peasant of Luceria, and in the year 1615 a peasant and certain others, his companions, were keeping a man possessed, brought to the tomb of blessed Augustine for deliverance. When therefore the Father exorcist, the demons being adjured, had for a while dismissed the possessed man, that he might not be too greatly tormented, to be guarded by those same men, the demon through the mouth of the possessed man urgently demanded cold water for allaying his thirst. Antonius and another of the companions, having entered the monastery, drew water from the well, and drank up all that was drawn. And when Antonius alone, his companion returning to the watch, was drawing up the rope already let down, about to carry the water to the possessed man, by the greatest force, as if the whole infernal phalanx were pushing him out by the feet, his head being turned into the well, he slipped down.
[50] Then he, calling more devoutly upon blessed Augustine, is held up unharmed upon the waters: to have escaped the imminent danger of drowning. whom (the demon indicating that he was not carrying the water because he had been plunged into the well) the Friars at once, and his companions running up, drew out alive and unhurt by the help of blessed Augustine (as is piously believed). Antonius was still living in the year 1634, bearing faithful testimony concerning the whole matter. Here, in the order of time, ought to be appended the public apparition of B. Augustine, by which he is believed to have saved the city of Luceria from an imminent and near earthquake, and on account of which benefit he was chosen patron of that same city. But since the most illustrious Tomcus has abundantly narrated this miracle at the end of the Acts, we refer the reader thither, and reprint the Acts themselves, and illustrate them with notes.
VITA
By the author John Tomco Marnavitio, bishop of Bosnia,
From the edition of Sigismund Ferrarius, who in the Appendix to the affairs of the Hungarian province of the Order of Preachers, from page 1, published in print that lucubration of John Tomco.
Augustine, bishop, of Luceria in Apulia (St.)
By the author John Tomco.
CHAPTER I.
The fatherland of the Blessed, his parents, his profession of religious life in the Order of Preachers, and his first labors.
The Blessed born at Tragurium in Dalmatia of noble stock, Tragurium a, a town of Roman citizens, founded by the Isseans b, noted for marble, Pliny being witness c, the noblest city of Dalmatia, a perennial seminary of most excellent men, produced Augustine about the middle of the thirteenth Christian century d, than which scarcely any other from the birth of Christ existed more fruitful in the novelty and variety of affairs no less political than pertaining to piety, especially in the institution of sacred families. His stock was patrician at that time when the Dalmatian cities, under the patronage of the kings of Hungary, flourished above all in free condition. His father was Nicholas by name, of the family of the Gazothi, which is now called Cassiotha, a man of great prudence and probity, among the senators of that fatherland. His mother was of the family of the Dragœvii, perpetually foremost among the Sicenses e, Dragoslava by name: they were blessed with a manifold and distinguished offspring.
[2] and piously educated by his parents The time of his birth, as also his boyhood education, by the fault of that age lie hidden in obscurity; yet it is certain that he was brought into the light under the reign of the most holy king, and the father of the most holy virgins Margaret f and Cunegund g, king Bela the fourth h of this name, who in almost those same years, being driven from his kingdom by the Tartars, fleeing to the shores of Dalmatia, had had a safe refuge in the city of Tragurium and the islands adjacent to it i. Liberally educated by the care of his parents, he grew up marvelously in piety and religion. Scarcely had he come to the crossroads of youth when, thinking that one must obey God calling rather than his parents, he consecrated the flower of his most pure life to Him who is fed among the lilies.
[3] There flourished through those times, by a marvelous sanctity of life and by evangelical zeal for winning souls to Christ, he enters the Order of Preachers, to the great increase of divine glory, and was being spread through the Christian world, the sacred family of Preachers, at the beginning of the same century instituted by the most holy man Dominic, Spanish by race, but Gothalanian k by origin. Attracted by his religious manners, the pious Youth, bidding farewell to the world and to his parents, asked to be enrolled among the recruits of that family, and obtained [it]. Admitted among the cenobites, in those arts and rudiments by which that age is formed to piety of every kind, he shortly profited excellently. His chief study was the total forgetfulness of secular customs and of human affairs, for the attaining of which, after macerations of the body, he devoted himself wholly to putting on a new mind and to imbibing new counsels; whereby easily thence there accrued simplicity of life, ardor for meditating on divine things, the casting away of self and the abdication of one's own judgment. Such virtues, the perpetual repression of his own appetites, and the assiduous exercise of opposing himself, finally the queen of the regular virtues adorned—blind, as they say, obedience; so that, while still a recruit, he was an example and an admiration to the very veterans, not to say to his fellow-soldiers.
[4] His novitiate finished, by the solemn [vow] of cloistered men
by his own vow, his novitiate being completed, he shines with various virtues, inserted into the Preacher family, in human letters and at the same time in divine he made great progress. Hence, conspicuous by the priesthood, raised by the nod of his superiors to the chairs and evangelical pulpits, he devoted excellent effort to the Church of God, no less by word than by example, in several places of the Christian world, always the same, persevering as at his first entrance into Religion. Hence neither more splendid offices nor worthier grades could ever draw him aside from the line of solid piety once drawn. Moreover he strove so to express in all things the character of Augustine, the most eminent doctor of the Church, whose name he had assumed in the regular camp, that in the conversation of the brethren, whether he presided over others in domestic magistracy, or was subject, he thought the admonitions of the great Father were perpetually before his eyes; which he also from time to time inculcated to the other confreres with great sweetness: especially that from Homily 4: He rightly knows how to live who rightly knows how to pray: as also that from the Tract on mercy: What is more excellent than prayer, what more useful to our life, what sweeter to the soul, what more sublime in our whole religion? That too he often repeated: The prayer of the just man is the key of heaven; the prayer ascends, and the mercy of God descends. And he concluded the excellence of praying with words of this kind: As from carnal foods the flesh is nourished, so from divine eloquences and prayers the inner man is nourished. And thus Augustine strove to exhibit Augustine, and to transform others into the same, by elevation of the mind to God.
[5] The greatest of the holy Doctors, Jerome, likewise a Dalmatian, and his companions, both by word he himself a Dalmatian frequently repeated, writing to Salvina: Let divine reading always be in your hands, and prayers so frequent that all the arrows of thoughts by which adolescence is wont to be struck may be repelled by a shield of this kind: for it is difficult, nay rather impossible, that anyone should be without the vices of perturbations. By the same master also he admonished himself and the rest that God is to be prayed to not with words only, but with the heart: for, as the same says, Better is the chanting of five Psalms with purity of heart, and serenity, and spiritual cheerfulness, than of the whole Psalter with anxiety of heart and sadness. By these steps, namely, he seemed to have attained perfect conjunction with God. But of humility, as also of charity toward others, he was most studious beyond what can be said.
[6] and by example, Hence, as by deed, so also by voice, he had most familiar those words with which Ambrose, the master of Augustine, once instructed the virgin Demetrias: Much, he said, does it avail to strengthen love, when, according to the Apostolic doctrine, men prevent one another in honor; and, each esteeming the other superior, they love to serve submissively, and know not how to swell when set over others; when both the poor man does not hesitate to prefer the rich to himself, and the rich man rejoices to make the poor man equal to himself; when both the exalted are not proud of the splendor of their lineage, and the poor are not lifted up over the communion of nature: when finally no more is attributed to great riches than to good morals, nor is the bedizened power of the unjust reckoned greater than the unhonored justice of the upright.
[7] rousing to perfection And because parables for the imitation of Christ were familiar to him, both in public sermons and in private conversations, when he frequently inculcated that saying of the Apostle to the Galatians, Bear ye one another's burdens, he proposed the similitude of stags from St. Augustine, question 71: For as concerning stags certain students of such knowledge have written, when they cross a strait to an island for the sake of pasture, they so arrange themselves that they bear the burdens of their heads, which they carry in their horns, upon one another, so that the hinder one, its neck thrown forward upon the one before, places its head upon it; and because it is necessary that there be one who precedes the rest, and has not before itself [one] to which it may incline its head, it is said to do this by turns, so that, wearied by the burden of its own head, he who precedes retires behind all, and there succeeds to him the one whose head he bore when he himself went before: thus, bearing one another's burdens by turns, they cross the strait until they come to the stability of land.
[8] for the Church and the Order he labors strenuously in diverse regions. So he. Who, when he saw some in the monasteries more remiss in keeping discipline, lest he should seem by a more rigid rebuke in any way to impinge upon fraternal charity, was wont, with great modesty, to recall to memory that saying of the same Augustine to the people of Hippo: From the time I began to serve God, as I have with difficulty experienced better [men] than those who have profited in monasteries, so I have not experienced worse than those who have fallen in monasteries. He was of profit to many sacred houses of the Preacher family, both in his fatherland and abroad: in his fatherland indeed he was himself the founder of very many monasteries, from which most excellent workmen of the holy Church came forth. To the Bosnian parts also, which were being devastated in a pitiable manner by the Manichees l, not long since swarming out of Greece and Thrace, he devoted Apostolic effort by word and example, with excellent profit of his labor. But translated to the Italian parts by the command of his superiors, by the preaching of the word of God and by sanctity of morals he bore himself as the good odor of Christ, to the great esteem of his Dominican family; especially since through those times the condition of Italian affairs was most unhappy, on account of the pestiferous factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines m, than which the human race had endured nothing more foul from the founding of the world.
ANNOTATA.
* perhaps read alitur is nourished.
* perhaps read elevatione mentis by elevation of the mind.
CHAPTER II.
His promotion to the bishopric of Zagreb, certain stupendous miracles and various virtues.
But truly, he who had brought timely help by Apostolic zeal to Italy, immersed in extreme evils, After many labors endured in Hungary is called forth out of Italy by divine disposition, about to succor the kingdom of Hungary, declining from the highest felicity to the depth of miseries, and is compelled to desert his own Dalmatian fatherland. For, the male offspring of the holy kings failing—illustrious for three hundred years in Pannonia—the inhabitants of the kingdom, divided into parties, were thrusting the honor of the sacred crown, by the force of arms rather than by the moderation of sacred laws, upon Bohemian, Bavarian, and Angevin princes, as descending through the female line, so to speak, from the Hungarian stock. But the right of the Angevins, as preferable to all the rest, the Roman Pontiff, solicited by the sounder part of the Hungarians, and also by that right by which Stephen, the Apostle of the Hungarians, had previously obtained from the Apostolic See the crown and the royal name, and also by that by which afterward the same king had consecrated the kingdom to St. Peter by a perpetual donation, defended by sacred authority.
[10] [by Benedict XI Pope, before whom he is reported to have wrought two remarkable miracles,] At which time, when, together with Boniface the eighth a, who had destined Nicholas b, cardinal of Ostia, as legate into Hungary, Benedict the tenth, called the eleventh c, after the third year from the thirteenth Christian century, chosen from the family of Preachers, a man of eminent piety, had been substituted in the see of Peter; and when at the same time the church of Zagreb d, the amplest of the whole Hungarian kingdom, on account of the translation of Michael, its fifteenth prelate, to the archbishopric of Strigonium, was about to be destitute of the solace of a pastor; Benedict, that he might set an apt prelate over so great a church, one who might avail to profit the Hungarian wounds even with Apostolic medicine, cast his eyes upon Augustine, whom he had long had for a colleague in the sacred family of Dominic, and, calling the same to Rome, even reluctant, compelled him to undertake the pastoral office e: with whom, while he was dealing more familiarly, according to their former acquaintance and kinship of manners, and was stretching out to him at his first approach a sickly hand for the sake of salutation, when it was first touched by his guest, and marked by a pious kiss, the pain being at once wiped away, the kissed hand recovered its whole strength, to the admiration of others greater than of the Pontiff, to whom the virtue of Augustine was most proven.
[11] it is reported, Another thing no less to be wondered at also happened; for when the supreme Pontiff, by the right of Christian hospitality, had brought the same [man] to his table, and had caused some little birds f to be set before him, as before one weakened by the hardships of the journey; but he, most tenacious of the institute of regular observance, by which the use of flesh-meats is perpetually forbidden to Dominican friars, for some time like one hesitating, abstaining from touching them, having implored the help of God with the affection of his inmost heart—behold, the roasted little birds, as from a nest, flying out of the dish that had been set before him, all being astonished, by a divine metamorphosis left just as many roasted fishes in the same little vessel in place of themselves.
[12] Hence the Pontiff, confirmed in the ancient opinion which he had long ago conceived of the holy Man in the common palaestra, [he is consecrated bishop of Zagreb, where he founds a monastery for the Friars Preachers,] destined the same, adorned by his own hands with the supreme priesthood, for the Zagreb flock. Over which, while he presided, he proved the care of a solicitous pastor and the affection of a most exact father, to the great increase of that church. Yet the first solicitude held him, lest, though
a bishop, he should remit anything of the prescription of the regular life. Thence, near his cathedral, a church being erected from the foundations, which he willed to be dedicated to St. Nicholas as the model of most holy prelates, he joined to it a monastery of Dominican friars, with whom he piously spent all that time which remained to him from the pontifical office, in the conversation of his dearest brethren. For whom also he built several other places within the bounds of his diocese, so that, as long as he traversed it by office, according to his inveterate custom, by turning aside to them, and intent on refreshing his spirit, he might be able to be a monk. And how much these counsels of Augustine were approved by God easily appeared; for when the place in which he had built the monastery near the cathedral church lacked more healthful waters, because the little river flowing by was infected with mineral qualities, once on his knees, and together with the brethren the divine aid being implored, with his own hand a small pit being dug in the side of a nearby mound, he drew forth a little fountain of most healthful water; which to this present day, avidly drunk by the faithful on account of its healthfulness equally of soul and of body, retains the name of Augustine.
[13] Once, being asked by a certain one of his clergy why the bishop so frequently betook himself to monasteries, and with regular observance whose duty it was always to be found in the midst of the peoples, he answered: the same was not only done by the great Augustine, greatest of bishops, but also commended in the book which he entitled the Manual, as always to be handled in the hands, in words of this kind: Flee, O man, for a little while your occupations, and hide yourself a moment from your tumultuous thoughts; be free a little while for God, and rest a little in Him, within the chamber of your mind; and exclude all things except God, and what avails to seek Him, and, the door being shut, seek Him. So he, who called such sacred places the hospices of itinerant bishops, adding: As a traveler, wearied by the labor of the journey, turns aside to be refreshed at the public hospices, so the pastor of souls turns aside to religious refuges.
[14] For the rest, as to the pastoral work, he never anywhere suffered his effort to be wanting, he joins pastoral care, especially since at that time the face of the church of Zagreb existed most deformed; inasmuch as sixty years before it had suffered the extremity from the filth of the Tartars, who, inundating from Northern Asia through Muscovy, Russia, Poland, Hungary, king Bela being driven out with his nobles, as we above intimated, all the Pannonias and Dalmatia itself as far as the Adriatic sea, devoting all things to iron and flames, with unheard-of cruelty, had emptied the whole kingdom of its colonists, those excepted to whom it was allowed to consult for themselves by flight g.
[15] On which occasion, Zagreb itself also being devastated, scarcely a few priests, in which office he restores the church of Zagreb, by transferring to the island of Arba h the ancient literary monuments, wont to be preserved in the sacristy of Zagreb, had snatched them from the flames; whence also the church of Zagreb (the work of the most holy king Ladislaus i), with the adjacent monastery of canons, lay almost overthrown, the greater apse excepted. And although, after the departure of the Tartars, Philip, the eleventh prelate of that church, had undertaken to restore it (a man most loving of the public good, inasmuch as he had also raised from the foundations, with sacred moneys, the castle called Medued, on the mountain overhanging Zagreb, for a refuge of the clergy and inhabitants, the nearby city of the Greek Mount not yet being enclosed by a wall): yet, scarcely the foundations of the church rising, being translated to the see of Strigonium k, he had left the work, begun with greater hope than effect, imperfect.
[16] Timothy nevertheless, his successor, with immense effort, he adorns [it with sacred furniture,] as long as he lived, had promoted the interrupted work to its highest height, and had it elaborated with remarkable work (as his ancestral coats of arms are a proof to posterity): nor had he only devoted eternally praiseworthy effort to the building of the walls, but had also furnished the sacred furniture with various golden, silver, and other precious ornaments, as the old monuments of the Zagreb sacristy testify. And would that Antony and John, successors one after the other, had followed in the footsteps of the excellent Timothy; and had not rather died inglorious, dilapidating the things prepared, and alienating the very castle of Medued—shall I say by the benefit, or more truly by the malefaction, of their kinsmen, and of their own soul—John especially; whence, between him and the cathedral chapter, huge lawsuits arose, [and] broke out into arms and open persecutions, to the great detriment of the most noble church, had not the right hand of the Lord cut short his life in the year of salvation 1295.
[17] and the morals of his clergy The excellent successor Michael took care to correct the evils of his predecessor; so much so that he did not abstain even from taking up arms, for the defense of his church and the quiet of the whole kingdom; especially since, through those times, Charles, son of Charles called the Lame, king of Sicily, born of Mary, daughter of Stephen the king, son of Bela the fourth l, called by the Hungarians to the ancestral crown, was compelled to contend unhappily in arms near Zagreb with Andrew the king, called the Venetian m. But he too, as we have said, being called to the church of Strigonium, left huge cares and labors to be borne by scarcely any other than Augustine, substituted to himself. But he, when he perceived that the wounds of his church were more pernicious than could be cured by human medicines, fleeing to divine help, bent all his strength to healing the clergy, running wild into secular manners, not to say military inhumanity.
[18] he corrects in various ways. Made therefore the pattern of the flock, he prescribed nothing to be observed which he himself did not perform in all its numbers, always by deed anticipating his commands. The fiercer he reduced by wonderful affability, the more petulant by kindness, the more haughty by prayers, the readier he rendered by gifts and honors, into observance and love of himself, and thence to affection for divine worship, and to frequency of the sacred offices, so that, the sacred prayers of the canonical hours being introduced to be discharged, according to the rite of the Dominican family, among a clergy more accustomed to handling arms than to sacerdotal psalmody, he transmitted the use of them even to this day to posterity. The dignities which they call the columns n of the chapter, the archdeacons—namely the cathedral and the rural—being increased in greater preeminence, he distinguished the canons into diverse classes. The number of prebendary clerics being added, for all these he supplied their necessities from his episcopal table. Whence he instructed, adorned, and enriched the clergy—second to no most ample Northern churches, to be regarded above all for number, discipline, and revenues—even to present times.
ANNOTATA.
CHAPTER III.
The exhortation which he is said to have made to the clergy of his diocese.
In a diocesan synod he exhorts his clerics By strengthening the discipline instituted in the synodal congregations every year, and, as he was strong in word as well as in examples, he brought most abundant fruits of Apostolic zeal into the granaries of the great father of the family. Once, a diocesan synod being gathered, when he had disposed many things to be observed concerning the sacred laws, from that theme of the Gospel: YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, he is reported a thus to have addressed his clergy: "Since, dearest brethren, by the help of divine grace, my speech is by no means to those whose ways are darkness and slippery, as the divine Psalmist sings, but, by heavenly favor and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, I address you, who, like perpetual stars of eternity, shine amid the storms of this most troubled sea of this life, that by your light, obscured by no eclipse of darkness,
you may show to the shipwrecked sinner the way to the port of salvation, since from today's Gospel to all of us, the priests of Christ, are insinuated those words: YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, and, LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE BEFORE MEN; it is expedient that we briefly inquire, from the consideration of the material wax-candle prepared for giving light, what kind of condition it behooves the evangelical priest to be of, that we may be able to avoid those things which can be a hindrance to the burning and irreprehensible lamp consigned to us by the priest at the baptismal font, and may be able to satisfy Christ commanding that our light shine before men.
[20] "That the waxen lamp that they may shine before others by good example, is fashioned of material, is certain. This material, moreover, is by no means gathered from minerals, or from other subterranean mines of the most obscure and most fetid pits, nearest to hell; but from the most beautiful and likewise the most noble flowers which the earth, with joyful pomp, displays to the heavens in her most ample bosom. Hence the evangelical priest is by no means formed from any sex whatever and from deformity of members; but from the nobler sex, from legitimate birth, from the Catholic religion, lacking every stain of infamy, compacted with no deformity of morals, after the example of Daniel and his companion boys of the royal seed, in whom there was no blemish, for handling the heavenly mysteries. Nor is it held enough that the wax be gathered from those which we said, the most beautiful and most noble flowers of the gladdened earth, to this end, that it become apt for making a lamp; but it is necessary that to the nobility and beauty of the flowers sweetness be added. By parity of reasoning, it does not suffice that the sacerdotal lamp be formed from the nobler sex, from legitimate birth, from the Catholic religion, lacking every wicked stain, compacted with no deformity of morals; but it is necessary that to all these be added the sweetness of a gentle nature, the fragrance of a pious education, that we may be able to be the good odor of Christ: for Daniel himself with his companions, however much they were known to be of royal race and without blemish, would by no means have been admitted to the ministry of the king unless they had been taught in all wisdom and discipline.
[21] let them keep chastity, "And although the material of the wax be plucked from the most noble, most beautiful, and finally these flowers, yet it is not made apt for composing a lamp unless first it be purified by the tongue of the bees, and be perfected by the industry of the dripping little lips of that same animal: an animal, I say, of a most chaste nature, most laborious in occupation, most tenacious of laws and discipline. So also a priest is not, because he excels in birth and morals, reckoned suitable for fashioning the evangelical lamp; but it is required that he excel in the chastity of a most pure life: for since he is by no means to be enrolled among the ministers of the Babylonian court, but among the courtiers of the immaculate lamb, he ought to be marked with virtue of this kind, since concerning such it is written: These are they who were not defiled with women; for they are virgins, and follow the lamb whithersoever He goeth. And since he ought to be a priest who face to face is to treat with God the greatest business of all, namely the salvation of the human race, it is necessary that he be strong in this purity: for, truth itself testifying, only the clean of heart can behold God; the excellence of which thing the once blind gentility in some fashion penetrated, which by a decree of the Roman senate judged that the care of kindling the fires at the altar of the goddess, as they called [her], Vesta b, must be committed to girls excelling in virginity.
[22] "The industry of the bee likewise, after purity of mind and body, is to be imitated by a priest, let them avoid idleness, for the sake of avoiding idleness: for according to that trite saying: Idleness has taught innumerable evils. Hence the greatest of our Doctors, Jerome, prescribing to Rusticus the monk a norm of living religiously, says: Always do something, that the devil may find you occupied. It is exceedingly unbecoming to see a man enrolled in the ecclesiastical office, marked with the sacred character, idly strolling through the streets, [and] passing the better part of the day in the houses of the great, in the tribunals of litigants, and, what is worse, whole days among droves of tipplers, the talent of virtue communicated to him by God being suppressed; but also (what is worst) by squandering and lavishing the ecclesiastical revenues bequeathed to him by the piety of the faithful, often to the diminution of his own patrimony, to the prejudice of his offspring and posterity, than which nothing is dearer among human things.
[23] "Recall to your memory, my brethren, let them labor with their hands, the Apostles, the first doctors of the Christian school, that they lived by the labor of their hands. Whence Paul, although wholly occupied with the solicitudes of all the churches, is not ashamed to confess it; nay, as we have in the Acts of the Apostles, he glories before the Ephesian church in the exercise of such industry, when he says: Silver and gold, or apparel, I coveted of no man, as you yourselves know; for such things as were needful for me, and for them that are with me, these hands have ministered. And presently by his own example he enjoins the same to be done by the rest of the faithful, when he subjoins: I have showed you all things, how that so laboring you ought to support the weak, and to remember the word of the Lord Jesus, how He said: It is more blessed to give than to receive.
[24] "Nor are they to be heard who say: One well enough provided and enriched with sacred revenues has no need to consult for himself by the labor of his hands: let them piously spend their revenues, for the Apostle expressly enjoins this to be done, that we may have whence to give to him that suffers need. We give from ecclesiastical goods, they say. But that is a matter of duty, answers the Apostle, nay even of debt, when he says to the Corinthians: Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required that among the dispensers one be found faithful; that is, according to the interpretation of the Fathers, that we so faithfully use the revenues of the Church that whatever is over and above our necessity (necessity, I say, not opulence, not prodigality, not luxury, not cook-shops, not harlots) we be bound to bestow wholly upon the faithful of Christ, our brethren, as upon members of the same body, seeing they are needy; both because by equal reason they pertain to them as to us, and most of all that provision be made for the refreshment and salvation of those pious persons by whom such revenues were instituted.
[25] let them give alms to the poor, "Otherwise each one of us is to be held a thief, and a defrauder of the patrimony of Christ, and to be delivered to eternal torments, until he pay the last farthing there where no manner of paying is found except through the penalties of immortality. Therefore, that alms may profit a priest, the Apostle requires that it be prepared by the sacerdotal hand. Wherefore our Jerome, otherwise the heir of a most rich patrimony, writing to Marcus Celedensis, testifies that he had most exactly fulfilled the precept of Paul, when he says: I have taken away nothing from anyone, I receive nothing in idleness; daily with our hand and our own sweat we seek food, knowing that it is written by the Apostle: He that does not work, neither let him eat. Thus Jerome. But someone will say: I am held ignorant of all arts. I answer: Whatever ecclesiastic knows how to write, to read, is held skilled enough, whence by such labor and industry he may provide for the public good as well as the private. Those old monks, the same Jerome being witness, admitted no one within their fellowship who was ignorant of some work.
[26] let them observe the ecclesiastical laws "Besides chastity and industry, the third natural endowment of the bees follows, the observance of laws and tenacity of discipline, with which the bees attend, venerate, and cherish their one prince, to whose command they are so devoted that they do not in the least fear to lavish their life for him, and, since they think it just to strike the enemy of their prince, thence they reckon it honorable and necessary to perish, as Maro himself sang concerning them: And they seek a beautiful death through wounds. And shall a man dedicated to the service and worship of the King of kings reckon it worth his while, after distorting and interpreting according to his own caprice, by a thousand sophistical devices, the laws and commands of his prelate—who exhibits the presence of the same King of kings—with expressed manifest contempt of the laws and of the lawgiver, to prop up the obstinacy of his contumacious and refractory head by innumerable inventions of exceptions and appeals, as they call them? What of the fact that the Apostle commands obedience to be given to masters and superiors, even the froward?
[27] let them observe [them exactly,] "Let a Christian priest be ashamed that among the heathen there was such esteem and reverence toward the dogmas of a single Pythagoras that by the sole answer, The Master said [it], they acquiesced in his commands against the authority of any persuading otherwise. Let us be ashamed, disciples of that Master who willed His glory to be placed in this, that, while He kept school among men, He should be known as obedient even unto death; let us be ashamed, I say, to wish by fair means and foul to be set over our prelates. I pass over here the clerics who are solicitors of causes, kindlers of immortal lawsuits; those, finally, who even, being judges, patronize the litigants, since among the heathen the patronage of advocates was believed to be permitted brigandage; clerics, I say, who, forgetful of their vocation, for the sake of base gain, willingly remit and spurn the grace of eternal and never-failing gain, seeing they are enriched enough by the Church, the sacred canons and ecclesiastical statutes vainly protesting.
[28] "Now we have sufficiently known the study of the bee about the material of the wax. let them tame their passions Yet we do not on that account find it as yet made apt for forming the waxen lamp, since it is further required that, from the industry of the bees, there be added the tempering by the purgation of fire and of the aerial dew of hoar-frosts. Which in a priest are nothing else than the mortifications of the passions of the old man, according to that great doctor of experience of this kind, the royal Seer, saying: We have passed through fire and water. Whence also the heathen poet himself sang of the hero cultivated in all virtues: Much he bore and did as a boy, he sweated and shivered.
[29] "Although the wax be now perfected in the manner which we have seen, let them often subdue [them,] it is nevertheless not yet fashioned into a waxen lamp unless it be kindled by a new fire. In like manner the evangelical priest will by no means coalesce, by a single mortification of the old Adam, into a lamp to be applied to the sacred altar, unless by the arts of mortification repeated and never laid down. Hence the praised master of this art said: For thy sake we are mortified all the day long; we are esteemed as sheep for the slaughter. And that other doctor of priests bids us continually to bear about the mortification of Jesus Christ in our body. Which the heathen poet, related by our Jerome, thoroughly examined in those words: So much shall you have profited as you shall have done violence to yourself.
[30] "And that the wax may attain its perfection through fires, let them pray and study letters, it does not, nevertheless, of itself alone suffice for giving light, unless from a white silk a wick intervene, that is, unless the sacerdotal heart be furnished with the study of most pure prayer: for as, by the twisting of a triple thread, a wick is furnished for the waxen lamp, so the prayer of the priest is then truly adapted to the evangelical light, when to mental prayer vocal prayer is added, and the ornament of both the contemplative lives is added, concerning which the holy Fathers rightly interpret that saying, One ought always to pray and never to faint. It is to be noted, however, that unless these three threads be twisted by art, the wick is by no means perfected; wherefore this twisting of the threefold prayer is reckoned the sacerdotal instruction and wisdom; and that indeed not of any easy erudition or superficial doctrine, but sought by the long twisting of the lips, since, according to that sacred dogma of Scripture, The lips of the priest keep wisdom, and they shall seek the law from his mouth. Truly, from whose mouth the law is to be sought, he ought to be marked with singular prudence and knowledge, taking care lest he experience that sentence pronounced against himself: Because thou hast rejected wisdom and knowledge,
I also will reject thee, that thou discharge not the priesthood for me.
[31] "Finally, what force for expelling darkness and displaying light will the waxen lamp, complete in all its numbers, obtain, charity unless it be kindled by a fiery flame? So what will all the enumerated endowments and their excellence be able to confer on a priest, unless they be kindled by the ardor of charity? In which matter it is to be diligently observed that charity can by no means be effectively exercised without a sense of one's own disadvantage, in exactly the same manner in which the kindled waxen lamp does not shine except by the diminution of itself. But alas how few, not indeed with the priest, but with the simple deacon Laurence, can cry out and burst forth into that saying of David: Thou hast tried me with fire. Why? Because he had dispersed and given to the poor; and not only by the bestowing of his own things, but also by the disadvantage of his own life. Therefore boldly and joyfully he subjoined: And iniquity has not been found in me.
[32] and liberality "To put one's hand into the purse, that we may disperse our own things for the sake of the poor, the hand is burned, humanly speaking. I do not deny, I do not gainsay it. But by fire of this kind Laurence was tried, and was brought into refreshment. One's own garments being stripped off in the very harshness of winter, that the naked may be covered, secular evil burns and scorches; but from such scorching our Martin, still a catechumen, hears Christ speaking: Martin, still a catechumen, has covered me with this garment. Nakedness burns and scorches Francis, that he may succor the needy; but upon his little naked body the stigmata, more precious than gems and gold, impressed, are spectacles to God, the angels, and men.
[33] let them exercise toward the needy, "Most lavish liberality scorches the hand, with which Stephen, king and apostle of the Hungarians, after founding from the foundations and most munificently endowing innumerable churches, that he might keep the peoples brought to the fold of Christ in the office of Christianity, never denied help to any that asked; but he had it most liberally by day and night, so that once, a throng of the needy rushing in among the shadows upon the most pious king, they even plucked out his beard, about to snatch alms rapidly, according to their innate importunity and impatience. But that same right hand, the whole rest of the body falling back into ashes, still remains entire, and, a most ample temple being named from that right hand, is held for the worship and veneration of all Hungary; and this most ample temple of all the Hungarian parts, in which we are seated, is raised to the glory of that most holy king himself—no reward is it of a scorched hand, but of that hero's right hand, concerning whom the royal Seer thunders: The just shall be in everlasting remembrance. And that: A crown of gold upon his head, etc. Hence also his royal head, gleaming with gold and gems; but more august by the memory of his eminent sanctity, glory, and honor, the tutelary deity of the whole Hungarian kingdom, the present ornament of this our fatherland, sits upon the most sacred altar, as you see.
[34] and let them take care lest the light, which they ought to carry before others, "We have seen, therefore, most beloved brethren, the qualities of the sacerdotal lamp; which, because it is placed not under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, as our Savior says, again and again I warn that care must be taken lest, by its splendor, it suffer any injury from the wind or from the waters, by which alone it can be extinguished; but, according to the precept of the same Savior, let it shine to all who are in the house of the great father of the family. Now the wind by whose injuries the sacerdotal lamp can be weakened is the solicitude of earthly things; to which, when we renounced it in being enrolled in the ecclesiastical warfare, at the time of the cutting of our hair by the episcopal hand, we cast off all earthly things, and solemnly adopted the Lord as the portion of our inheritance and of our cup.
[35] with earthly cares "Without danger to the splendor of our lamp it is not lawful for us to return to earthly cares: for, as our Jerome speaks to this matter to Nepotian the cleric, therefore they are called clerics, either because they are of the lot of the Lord, or because the Lord himself is the lot, that is, the portion, of the clerics. But he who is either himself the portion of the Lord, or has the Lord for his portion, ought to exhibit himself such that both he himself possess the Lord, and be possessed by the Lord. He who possesses the Lord and with the Prophet says: The Lord is my portion, can have nothing outside the Lord. But if he can have anything else besides the Lord, the Lord will not be his portion; for example, if gold, if silver, if possessions, if various furniture; with these portions the Lord will not deign to become a portion.
[36] "So he, who presently subjoins: I beseech you therefore, with the desire of temporal gain, and repeating I again warn, that you think not the office of the clericate to be some kind of warfare, that is, that you seek not the gains of the world in the warfare of Christ; that you have not more than when you began to be a cleric, and that it be said to you: Their clergy shall not profit them. And a little after (which, unless he himself said it, perhaps I would keep silent) he thus continues: It is the disgrace of a priest to study his own riches. Born in a poor house and in a rustic cottage, who could scarcely satisfy my roaring belly with millet and coarse bread, now I loathe fine flour and honey; I know both the kinds and the names of fishes; I am skilled on what shore a shell is gathered; by their savors I distinguish the provinces of birds, and at last the very rarity of foods and the losses themselves delight me. So he, to whose whole letter, for the sake of brevity, I gladly refer you, since the whole is treated concerning the clerical matter.
[37] "And that it may be still better known to us and with other affairs of the age with how great prejudice both to us and to all others we permit the splendor of the sacerdotal lamp to be diminished by such injuries of the winds, let us hear what the Roman Pontiff Gregory (and by that name ours too, by which the most illustrious dynasts, his nephews the Frangipani, who lately, by a virtue to be celebrated in the eternal annals, vindicating the Hungarian kingdom to its king, and the king to the kingdom, the impious Tartaric ferocity having nearly extinguished it, willed to be our citizens) deplores in Homily XVII on Luke: I think, he says, dearest brethren, that God endures no greater prejudice from others than from priests; when He sees those whom He set for the correction of others giving examples of depravity from themselves; when we ourselves sin, who ought to have restrained sins; we seek no gains of souls; we are daily free for our own pursuits, we covet earthly things, we grasp with intent mind at human glory; and because, by the very fact that we are set over the rest, we have greater license for doing whatever we will, we turn the ministry of the blessing received into an argument of ambition; we abandon the causes of God, we are free for earthly business; we receive the place of sanctity, and are entangled in earthly arts. Thus Gregory.
[38] "Nor is the sacerdotal lamp made deadly by the wind of earthly cares only, but also by the waters of carnal pleasures, or is extinguished by the pleasures of the flesh. and is extinguished in a pitiable manner; so that the royal Seer deservedly cries out under the sacerdotal name: Save me, O God, for the waters have come in even unto my soul; I am fixed in the mire of the deep, and there is no substance. For a priest immersed in the pleasures of the flesh, as in the mud of many waters, has no substance of splendor: for, purity being lost, by which alone he is deemed worthy of the divine gaze, he becomes a wallowing-place of uncleannesses; for it is certain, the Apostle testifying, that when anyone clings to a harlot, he becomes one body with the harlot; but if he becomes one body with a harlot, then no eminence of sacerdotal substance remains, since a woman is held incapable of the evangelical priesthood: nay, even a simply polluted woman, by the example of the Roman vestals, was repelled from the altars forever, and was extinguished by a most cruel kind of death.
[39] Hence he admonishes that the company of women is to be fled, "But lest I beget weariness in you by my speech, hear our Jerome from the same letter: Let the feet of women, he says, either rarely or never tread your little hospice. Either equally be ignorant of, or equally love, all girls and virgins of Christ. Dwell not under the same roof, nor trust in your past chastity. You can be neither holier than David, nor stronger than Samson, nor wiser than Solomon. Remember always that a woman cast the tiller of paradise out of his possession. When you are sick, let some brother assist you, or a sister or mother, or any of approved fidelity in the sight of all. But if there be no such persons of kinship and chastity, the Church nourishes many aged women, who both may render service, and may receive a benefit in ministering, so that even your infirmity may have the fruit of alms. I know that some have recovered in body, and have begun to sicken in soul. She ministers dangerously to you whose face you frequently regard. If, on account of the office of the clericate, either a widow or a virgin is visited, never enter the house alone.
[40] which are for the most part dangerous, "Have such companions as by whose company you may not be defamed. If a lector, if an acolyte, if a psalmist follows you, let them not be adorned with apparel, but with morals; nor curl their hair with a curling-iron, but by their chastity promise chastity of habit. Sit not alone with a woman alone in secret and without a witness or observer. If anything more familiar is to be spoken, she has an elder nurse of the house, a virgin, widow, or married woman; she is not so inhuman as to have no one except you to whom she may dare to entrust herself. Beware of all suspicions, and whatever can probably be feigned, avoid beforehand, lest it be feigned. These things our fellow-countryman c and presbyter Jerome; after whom I bring forward to you for an example my parent Augustine, as one who knew by his own evil what perils feminine intercourse holds: for he most constantly avoided the company and familiarity of all women, and among them of his sister and his brother's daughter; inasmuch as he would say: Even if kinswomen were not suspect, yet those who came to them could cause suspicion.
[41] and by the recorded falls of others, "And that we may put an end to the discourse, that saying I again and again inculcate with the Master of truth from the Gospel: See, priest, lest the light which is in thee become darkness. Judas was a priest, an Apostle, nay even a bishop; yet, the lamp being extinguished by the wind of avarice, he lost the bishopric, the apostolate, the priesthood, and his very soul. Tertullian, a most ancient and most learned doctor, blown upon by the very light wind of the envy of the Roman clergy, like a stubble before the face of the wind, the lamp being extinguished, fell into eternal darkness. Arius, a priest of the Alexandrian church, agitated by the wind of vanity, with what pestilent smoke he infected the Christian world after the evangelical lamp was extinguished, the ruins of several centuries testify. Sergius, a monk and likewise a priest, the lamp being overwhelmed by the mud of many waters, brought into the Christian world a most foul firebrand, the most impure Mahomet, the overthrower of so many kingdoms and empires (which no part of the earth is ignorant of).
[42] "Hugo d, primate of all Germany, he rouses his clergy to vigilance. the church of Magdeburg long had as a most holy prelate, whom at last, mocking God by the sport of the flesh, and himself, the mud of the infernal waters engulfed in a manner most terrible for all ages. And, what we experience not without tears, the very recent devastation of Hungary the rigor of divine justice hastened, from the stench of three most impure prelates, by the testimony of a holy man, known to several still living. Let your light therefore shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Yet so that he who stands may see that he fall not." Having thus addressed his clergy
he is said to have addressed his clergy. Moreover the synodal decrees he took care to introduce into morals with marvelous dexterity, proving the yoke of the Lord to be sweet by his innate discretion and affability, most precious endowments of episcopal majesty; so that he suffered no one, as far as could be done, to depart from him troubled by harsher words; and, if he was sometimes compelled to censure with sharper words the amendment—otherwise despaired of by human judgment—of someone, he at once so seasoned it with such benignity and placidity of words that even for desperate diseases they found a remedy.
ANNOTATA.
CHAPTER IV.
His pious deeds in the bishopric of Zagreb.
Munificent toward the poor and the churches He had bowels of charity toward all the needy most abundant perpetually: for, nothing being retained except what was necessary for his own sustenance and for his very small household, dedicated to his service, out of the most affluent sacred revenue he willed all the rest to be common to the poor of Christ, to guests and pilgrims. Nay, even every year in a public sermon before the clergy and people, he was wont to exhibit a most minute and most distinct account of receipts and disbursements. Meanwhile he was not wanting to the fabric of the cathedral church, promoted by Timothy, as we have said; which, although he had brought it almost to its summit, yet nowhere did he permit coats of arms to be sculpted, after the manner of others, nor to be carved or attached to the sacred furniture and the ornaments of the altars, for all of which he most munificently provided: since he said that memorials of this kind in those things which were prepared from the inheritance of Christ, not from an ancestral patrimony, by the office of a good pastor, were impostures. He added moreover that a sacrilegious robbery was committed when persons enriched by the blood of Christ and by the labors of the poor marked even the things dedicated to God in themselves with family arms and with their own names and titles. Nor yet did he condemn, for the sake of good example, the deed of those prelates who marked with their memorials gifts acquired either by their own patrimony, or by sobriety, or by some other honest industry a.
[44] he visits his diocese on foot, and heals many sick, His diocese, from East to West, as also from North to South, a journey of five days, he visited every year, and for the most part on foot; nor in approaching the houses of the pious did he ever yield to labors from any distance of places, roughness of mountains, or ferocity of the peoples. There met him throngs of the poor, the weak, and the infirm; these to implore soundness from the pastoral blessing, those the supports of life from the largess of his pious right hand; all of whom, received with wonderful charity, he dispatched with fatherly words and deeds. And it was observed that, although innumerable needy approached him, scarcely anyone ever departed from him without necessary help. This too was held for certain: since to so great a profusion the episcopal revenues, however ample, by no means corresponded, that by his providence nothing was wanting to him by whose help thousands of throngs from a few loaves and fishes in desert places were once wont to be abundantly satisfied. Hence he was wont to inculcate to his household, when out of the scanty store they were less promptly executing the holy Father's commands for succoring the needy: I have not seen the just forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread: but that a prelate is thence known to be just, if he promptly communicate to the poor of Christ the things prepared by the blood of Christ.
[45] for whose solace he plants a health-bringing tree, But since the grace of cures, which they experienced from the touch of his right hand, or from the blessing of the people, pervaded all places everywhere, even the more remote, he, an eminent cultivator of humility, devised such a way of declining popular favor that, in almost the middle of his territory, a linden tree being planted by his own hand, and blessed with prayers poured out to God, he persuaded the peoples to use the leaves of that same tree for a remedy of diseases. And to his persuasion there answered, at the prayers of the most holy Father, the assent of the merciful Father, that same tree, whole and green above three hundred years, amid the almost continual incursions of the impious through those places, spreading forth its most health-bringing branches, and, as often as they were struck off, supplying leaves enough for the piety of the inhabitants: by whom it is named the linden of St. Augustine. By which name, in the parish of Ugroc, the footpath leading to the parish church is still called, either because it was perhaps opened by his hand, or directed by his command for the convenience of the peoples.
[46] The sacred tree stood for three hundred years, as we have said, the memory of which still survives. perpetually growing green again, near a town occupied a hundred years ago by the Turks, called Cernik b, venerable even to the very enemies of the faith; by whom, when huge torches were perpetually kindled at the base of the trunk for the sake of obtaining their vows, the roots dying by the fiery heat, twenty years ago it fell; yet so that from its very roots, before they entirely dried up, a new linden grew up, cultivated with equal veneration by Turks as well as by Christians, assiduously, together with the still very nearly adjacent trunk; near which the Christians also raised a chapel, the Mahometan lords of the land by no means gainsaying, and committed it to the care of the Franciscans coming thither from nearby Bosnia c.
[47] Of procuring and preserving charity among the sheep committed to him he made no end, He reconciles those at variance among themselves, especially since at that time great dissensions of minds among the chief men of the region, to the greatest detriment of the public good, were fed by conflagrations, robberies, and other lethal injuries. There exist today several public documents of very many most noble families reconciled with one another by the effort of the holy Man, among some of the nobles of the kingdoms of Dalmatia, Croatia, and Sclavonia; but especially among the most noble counts of the whole Christian world, the Frangipani, offspring of the most ancient Roman Anician race, as we have said. In the possession of whose heroic scion Nicholas I lately saw a noble monument of a composition, made by Augustine as mediator, between the magnificent men Stephen Banus d of Sclavonia e, and the counts John and Radoslav, brothers, concerning the receiving and abolition of certain thirtieth-taxes, and also concerning the division of the tributes accruing in Ztenisniak and Zamobor.
[48] Yet in this kind the excellence of his charity shone forth beyond measure, and labors indefatigably for the peace of the Hungarian kingdom. when he drew the estates of the Hungarian kingdom, for many years at variance with most disastrous slaughters, as we have touched above, to the obedience of the one legitimate king Charles. For although, the period of the thirteenth Christian century being closed, Boniface the eighth, as has been said, had destined into Hungary Nicholas, cardinal of Ostia, his legate, for reducing the Hungarian estates to the obedience of Charles, prince of Anjou, as the offspring of Mary, daughter of Stephen, but sister of Ladislaus, the last of the male Hungarian stock, and wife of Charles king of Sicily; yet, the effort being frustrated in the great disturbance of the inhabitants of the kingdom, Wenceslaus king of Bohemia and Otho duke of Bavaria contending for the sacred crown, each of whom had obtained the same with solemn pomp, by the contention of their factions, but with an unhappy end (the one fleeing into Bohemia through fear of the Bavarian, the other being consigned to prison by Ladislaus prefect of Transylvania f, and finally driven from the kingdom), for nine whole years Charles was in exile from the ancestral kingdom.
ANNOTATA.
CHAPTER V.
The sermon which B. Augustine is reported to have delivered in the assembly of Hungary for quelling the disturbances and factions of that kingdom.
The blessed Prelate in the Hungarian assembly, Wherefore Pope Clement the fifth a, who had succeeded Benedict after Boniface, sent as legate to the Hungarians Gentilis b, a Cardinal chosen from the family of the Minors,
in the eighth year of the fifteenth * century, sent to the Hungarians, a man of great piety and prudence: who, coming to Spalato c in Dalmatia, having undertaken to conciliate the minds of the inhabitants of the kingdom to Charles, after he there knew that affairs were succeeding according to his wish, proceeds into Croatia; presently, by going to Zagreb d, he took Augustine—both a companion of his labors and a director of his counsels, as a man in great opinion of sanctity, and one who would be a co-worker in the Hungarian business—to Buda e, the seat of the kingdom, where, a whole year being spent in quieting the minds of the inhabitants of the kingdom, a solemn convention of all the estates being at length proclaimed, by the old institute of the nation, in the field which is called Rackos, on the bank of the Danube, near the city of Pest f, when after a most frequent concourse all were present, Augustine, by the command of the legate, delivered an oration in this manner:
[50] "After that, by the grace of God, by the authority of the legate, about to consult for our most afflicted fatherland, we have convened in this place, adopted from the beginning of the Hungarian kingdom for transacting public business; and since to me, less apt than all others (but who nevertheless in promoting the good of our public affairs would easily yield to none in ardor and zeal), the proposed matter of his oration, the province of speaking is committed, I shall, by no means pursuing eloquent but strong things, according to the sentence of St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, all verbosity being set aside, and all the allurement of eloquence, as befits a bishop, discharge the committed province in brief words; especially since, in the sight of most holy prelates, of the wisest nobles of the whole kingdom, and also of the choicest nobility of the inhabitants of the kingdom, I hold it now persuaded to myself that I have rather touched upon the matter than exaggerated it, [and] set it forth more than sufficiently: which I think I shall accomplish if I first taste somewhat of the petulance of the common people, by whose impulse this most ample kingdom is torn asunder, then of the authority of the Roman See in occasions of this kind, finally of the excellent right of King Charles to our sacred Hungarian crown.
[51] "And indeed, as to the first part, it is sufficiently explored by all, he narrates the petulance of the common people, that it is now the ninth year from that time when Boniface the eighth, the wisest of the Roman Pontiffs, sent a legate to these parts at the instance of the sounder part of the inhabitants of the kingdom, after the death of Andrew, the last king surviving of the stock of our kings, that this our common fatherland, like the Ocean, is agitated and troubled from the depth by the adverse storms of the winds. Nor is there cause why I should rub afresh the cause of the matter, as most manifest to all, since indeed the good Cardinal, solicited by the vote of the sacred prelates and nobles, and also of the better nobility, when he could find no way of conciliating the minds of certain little clerics and of the Hungarian rabble, endeavored to reduce them to a sound mind by ecclesiastical censures rather than by armed force, as befitted an ecclesiastical minister, the use of the sacred rites being interdicted: and that indeed by no new example, but one always used by the Apostolic See throughout the whole Christian world for healing evil of this kind and others similar.
[52] "But such medicine, in place of health, excited an unheard-of frenzy; and of certain clerics, as is observed by physicians in those bodies which either do not admit medicines suited to the disease, or do not use them in the manner in which they ought: for, to conclude in few words, what for a long time we looked up at and sighed over in astonishment, a throng of little clerics, armed with the fury of the common people, belching forth the pestilent man * as a physician, judged, by the din of bells, that the Apostolic See, which is judged by no one on earth, had smitten itself with an anathema g, a cause being feigned, as if the Roman Pontiff had violated the election of the king of Hungary, perpetually free to the estates of the Hungarian republic, by the violent intrusion, as they boasted, of Charles of Anjou. And such insanity proceeded so far that, various other princes being called into this kingdom to the sacred crown, for eight whole years the bowels of the Pannonian republic were dug into by the swords of their own people.
[53] and by various examples shows "But I pray, ponder a little with me, most wise hearers, whether at any time throngs could be more apt for anything than for exciting throngs, and troubling public affairs and quiet, and driving out everything from the center of festive peace; or from this, that they emanated from those same throngs under the name of most inauspicious throngs and turbulences: inasmuch as for transacting affairs nothing is more inept than throngs, which, if at some time, allured to hearing the admonitions of Truth, namely of Christ our Savior himself, the throng willed to approach him, it attempted it only by the pressing and offense of the heavenly Master, namely by rushing upon him, as the Evangelist relates: even though he, otherwise almighty, yet as a man, lest he should be utterly crushed by that throng, judged no readier way than that he should betake himself into the little boat which was Simon Peter's, among many others existing on the shore of Genezareth, and ask, through the same Peter, to be led a little from the land: for the throng knows not how to exercise even piety itself without irreverence and the vice of inhumanity.
[54] that throngs always do harm, "Whence in Matthew the ninth it is written that our Lord once had compassion on the throng. But of what kind? Lying, says the Evangelist, and as sheep without a shepherd. Consider what excellence a throng is of, which is equated to sheep without a shepherd, scattered hither and thither. But if a throng impious against Christ, and lying as sheep without a shepherd, is described in the Gospel, no wonder if against the Vicar of the same Christ, and the successor in the boat of Peter, the reverence of the pastor being cast aside, it raged with such frenzy as, since the monarchy of Christ was founded, was never heard, as you know. But you know, according to your singular erudition, most wise hearers, from Eusebius in the Life of Constantine, that a manifold empire, in which equal dignity, equal suffrage, is given to all men, and which fights against monarchy from the opposite side, deserves the name of confusion and sedition rather than of a kingdom.
[55] and proves from the political testimonies of the philosophers, "Hence the most ancient glory of the philosophers, the most excellent Aristotle, in the eighth book of the Ethics, chapter one, judged that the transgression of the power of the people is worse than tyranny: for, as the same says: It is worse if the many, than if one or a few, dominate. Seneca testifies that the people is the persuader and author of vices; Plato calls it an idle belly; Plutarch an unbridled and headlong horse; Cicero the throng, a boiling and seething sea. Once, when Diogenes was asked what it was to be wise, he answered: To depart from the opinion of the multitude. Chrysippus, moreover, thus argues, and indeed most wisely to our purpose: If, he says, the people cannot philosophize, how much more will it be inept for treating divine things and sacred laws? And, as Laertius wrote in book VII chapter II, shall we think that the common people can moderate the sacred dogma of theology?
[56] that the opinion of the common people in the affairs of the kingdom "Wherefore, if Anacharsis deservedly was indignant that in Greece a people ignorant of singing judged in the theatre concerning musical matters; shall we, as the same Laertius book one, chapter nine, says; shall we, I say, suffer the common people, unskilled in the sacred Letters, to make judgment concerning the most holy religions? If Appius Claudius, the wisest among the Roman senators, took it ill that Scipio Aemilianus was promoted to the censorship by butchers and barbers; how much more is it to be taken ill if priesthoods, if magistracies, if the sacred order, if the dispositions of kingdoms, and the discussions of the most holy laws be exposed to the censure of a sordid throng? Nay, if there be some whom, called apart, as Cato the elder said, no sane man would take into counsel of his own affair, [and] responses of religions be given by those gathered into a throng, what man of sound mind will admit [it]?
[57] "The same Seneca, as above, chapter two on the blessed Life, is to be despised, pronounced the throng a most bad argument. And, that we may come to the illustrator of our philosophy more by deed than by word: Polycarp the martyr, and likewise a disciple of the Apostle John, once being ordered by the proconsul, as Eusebius relates book IV of the History chapter XV, to give an account of himself to the people, said that he would give it to the praetor; for that it was given in vain to the people, whom he denied could be led by reason. Let us add to our religious philosopher, innumerable others being pardoned for the sake of brevity, a not most unwise prince of our nation, although in truth deservedly branded by all with the mark of a rather cruel disposition, Diocletian h. He, when the Roman senate had decreed a persecution against the Christians, in the penultimate, that is, the nineteenth year of his empire, the people in the circus acclaiming that the Christians be subjected to the beasts, pronounced that the vain voices of the people were by no means to be heard.
[58] "But let us close the matter, as we wish, with the example of Christ. which he confirms by the example of Christ. The Son of God himself, when he by no means disdained to be reckoned of the Nazarene people, and to be held one of the Nazarene citizens, and was intent on every advantage and benefit of his citizens; yet what reward for such favor did he receive from those very citizens? By popular fury he is led to the brow of the mountain, to be cast down from it, the Evangelist testifying. And shall we wonder that the Hungarian throng, in the manner of brutes, raged against the Vicar of Christ? But since we, as many as are here present, have known more surely than sure that the crime of the throng against the pious sentiments of the sacred prelates, of the most illustrious nobles, and of the most wise nobility, was absolutely a sacrilege, even from this, reason persuades that no delay must be made, that, driving off the turbulent vanities and false insanities of the throngs, we may freely and holily deliberate concerning our republic, nay concerning our own salvation, and, departing from the opinion of the multitude, may show ourselves to be wise.
[59] "Now concerning the authority of the Roman See, since I speak before those The authority of the Apostolic See whom not even a whisper has dared to try to move from the obedience and reverence of it, not only from that time when the Hungarian nation so strictly adhered to its veneration that among all the kings of the Christian world the Hungarian alone is called and held Apostolic, and legate a latere, as they say, of the Apostolic See, by a singular prerogative, perpetually transfused through St. Stephen into all his successors; but from the very rise of the Christian republic, when Paul the apostle shone before the Illyrian nation with the evangelical torch, leaving in Pannonia his nephew by his sister, Andronicus i the bishop (whence also the primacy of the churches of the most ample Illyrian nation for several centuries stood in the church of Sirmium k), I would reckon it superfluous to utter anything at all, did I not dread this heaven, sometime infected by the whirlwind of the throng troubling all things. Wherefore, with my accustomed brevity, I shall touch upon a few passages of sacred Scripture, by no means unknown to you, to which the constant sense and consent of all the holy Fathers has subscribed that ecclesiastical authority has always stood superior to secular power in the Church of God.
[60] from certain [testimonies of the old] "Hence none of those whose names, for the sake of brevity, as most well known to you, I pass over, ever doubted that those words of Jeremiah are to be understood of the Church: The mistress of the nations, and the princess of provinces. And of Ezekiel: I will raise up one Shepherd; of the Apocalypse: He that shall overcome, and keep my works unto the end, I will give him power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and as the vessel of a potter they shall be broken, as I also have received of my Father; of Isaiah: The nation, he says, and the kingdom (addressing the Church) that will not serve thee shall perish; of David: Two-edged swords, he says, in their hands, to execute vengeance upon the nations, chastisements among the peoples, to bind their kings in fetters, and their nobles in iron manacles, that they may execute upon them the judgment that is written; this glory is to all his saints. Thence in Luke, in the Apostolic college, two swords are approved.
And, that we may dismiss other authorities of the old Page Testament, our Jerome, whom the Church professes to have been provided to her by God as the greatest Doctor in explaining the senses of sacred Scripture, explains in express words that those words of Jeremiah, Behold, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root up, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to scatter, and to build, and to plant, pertain to Christ and the Church.
[61] and of the new Testament "Wherefore Christ himself commands Peter: Feed my sheep, that is, the whole ecclesiastical flock; and, Feed my lambs, that is, the princes of the ecclesiastical flock, according to the explanation of the Fathers. We know indeed that the Church was founded by Christ upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, when he gave equal power of binding and loosing both to Peter and to all the rest of the Apostles before his Passion and resurrection; as, rising from the dead, he breathed the Holy Spirit into all those same, and finally destined them, with every power, without any difference between Peter and the others, to baptize all nations throughout the whole earth.
[62] he defends by [scriptural texts,] "Nevertheless the supreme power of feeding the sheep, who are the faithful of Christ, and the lambs, who are the princes of the faithful, as we have said, without the multitude of the other Apostles, only Thomas, Nathanael, the two sons of Zebedee, and two others of the disciples being present—namely five witnesses, and John the sixth, one of the sons of Zebedee, taken as it were in place of a scribe—he willed to be committed to Peter alone. Hence Paul, writing to the Corinthians: The spiritual man judgeth all things; and he himself is judged of no man. But to the Romans: Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. And elsewhere: If we shall judge angels, how much more secular things? But Peter himself in his canonical epistle: You, he says, are a royal priesthood. Likewise: Grace to you and peace be accomplished in the knowledge of God, and of Christ Jesus our Lord; as all things of his divine virtue (the Greek text has: of his power) which pertain to life and piety, have been given [us].
[63] to which he adds several [testimonies of the holy Fathers,] "But the most holy Fathers also, from Christ to our own times, constantly held and taught that to the bishops and to the supreme Roman Pontiff belongs, and is, over all temporal things a royal and supreme power; which yet I would so understand that he has not directly temporal jurisdiction over them, but indirectly, inasmuch namely as it is necessary to the spiritual end and the salvation of souls, as has plainly now happened in this our kingdom. So Dionysius to Demophilus chapter 8 on the ecclesiastical Hierarchy; Ignatius to the Philadelphians, to the Smyrnaeans, and to the Trallians; Irenaeus book 4 chapter 44; Clement of Alexandria book 7 of the Stromata; Cyprian epistle 69 to Ruffinianus; Arnobius on psalm 139; Athanasius in the second oration against the Arians; Nazianzen oration 18; Ambrose 1 to the Corinthians chapter 3; Jerome on Isaiah chapter 60; Chrysostom book 3 on the Priesthood; Epiphanius Heresy 29; Cyril of Alexandria in the book of the Thesaurus; Augustine on the Apocalypse near the end; Paulinus to Citerius; Cassiodorus epistle 4, book 1; Gregory the great on the fourth of the Penitential Psalms; Angelomus book of Kings 1 chapter 2; Rabanus on the Institution of clerics; Anselm on the first epistle to the Corinthians 3; Otto of Freising book 3 chapter 36; Bernard book 3 chapter 8 to Eugenius.
[64] "The same taught all those whom we call scholastics; the opinions of the scholastics and of the councils, but especially my master l Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure de Balneo regio. National councils, as the Toletan and the Rhemensian, most clearly decreed upon this. But what of the fact that to so many scriptures, Fathers, and doctors are added the very facts explaining the scriptures? For we have in Zonaras that the emperor Anastasius was not crowned by the patriarch Euthymius before he promised in writing that he would remain in the Catholic faith. Clovis the Frank, having occupied Gaul, is held by the very writers of the Franks to have been crowned by the authority of the Roman Pontiff Hormisdas by Remigius the prelate of Rheims; as from the Spanish writers, Isidore especially, [and] Rodericus, it is held that the Visigoth kings who reigned among them were taken to their kingdoms through the bishops, and also thrust down from the throne. That Chilperic, king of the Franks, on account of his stupidity, was removed from the government of the kingdom by Zachary the Roman Pontiff, and Pippin substituted as king, the writers of that same nation confess.
[65] "And what is known to be of the greatest moment in this kind, and various histories of past time, it is most certain, by the testimony of very many writers, but especially of Eginhart who observed all things, that Charles, son of Pippin, was created Roman emperor by Leo the third Roman Pontiff, from whom, to Henry now reigning, you know, no one was held for a legitimate emperor who was not consecrated by the Papal hand; but until he was crowned, he was called and held emperor-elect. And you know that Henry the third, deprived of the empire by Gregory the seventh, lay abandoned by all, deprived, and unburied: that Otto the fourth was deposed by Innocent the third, as also Frederick the second by the fourth Innocent, by whom a guardian was assigned to the king of Portugal: for the kingdom of Portugal, as also that of the Scots, and very many others, are recognized as beneficiary of the Apostolic See. But let us come to our own affairs.
[66] "As long as the kings of Dalmatia and Croatia reigned for nearly six hundred years, and domestic examples, from the times of the emperor Heraclius to our most holy king Ladislaus, they were always beneficiary, always tributary of the Apostolic See, as also the Bans of Bosnia, as a member of the said kingdoms, execute the same even to this day. Within the memory of our fathers the dynast of Serblia m and Rascia n, named king by Honorius the third, both transmitted the royal title and the kingdom itself happily to the present posterity; and, that I may make an end to this matter, the most holy apostle of Hungary himself, Stephen, of whose successor we treat, was declared king by the Roman Pontiff Sylvester the second, and adorned with a perpetual Apostolic legation. But if we confess [it] in the fountain, why shall we not admit [it] in the rivulet? Yet so that I profess that thence no prejudice arises to that perpetual liberty by which the Hungarians choose their princes, independently of any other power whatsoever.
[67] from all which he concludes "There remains therefore no occasion of doubting by what right the Roman Pontiff, having compassion on the Hungarian dissensions, the sounder and more powerful Hungarians also demanding it, undertook Charles, by his authority, as universal Father and supreme judge, to be defended in the kingdom, by the right of blood owed to him. But that by right of blood, and that the best, above the other competitors, the ancestral diadem is owed to Charles, is clearer than the noonday sun, since he had for mother Mary, daughter of Stephen the fifth king of the Hungarians, sister of Ladislaus the third, and of the last sacred male offspring from Bela of the Hungarians. That the condition of Wenceslaus the Bohemian is far different, there is no cause why we should doubt: inasmuch as we recognize him to be born of the daughter of a daughter of Bela the fourth. By what glue Otto the Bavarian can be glued to the stock of our kings is by no means proved to me.
[68] that the Hungarian kingdom by right pertains "But to the rights of Charles this also—and it is rare on earth—is added, that his stock, heaven witnessing, is proved to flow from our most holy kings: for as Bela the fourth, his great-grandfather, rejoices to have produced Elizabeth o, his sister, [set] among the stars of the glory of sanctity for Germany; another Elizabeth [p], his niece by another sister, for Spain; Margaret [q] his daughter for Dalmatia (as my fellow-citizen, born namely at Tragurium); Cunegund [r] another daughter for Poland; so, from the nephew of Mary the mother of our Charles, our stock recognizes as its own Ludovicus [s], the most holy prelate of Toulouse, first of Italy, in which he drew vital airs, then of Gaul, from which he flew away to the rewards of eternity [t], the brother of our Charles. Likewise, as most acceptable to heaven and earth, the most excellent of the kings of the Franks, Ludovicus the ninth [u], who from his adolescence to his last breath never warred for himself, but for Christ, confesses our king Charles, through his brother Charles his great-grandnephew, born to the estates of the illustrious Hungarian kingdom for the handling of the most sacred sceptres, to be his posterity, and so commends [him].
[69] to Charles, who being crowned, "I add moreover, what is clear to all, that our king Charles never thrust himself upon the Hungarian kingdom; inasmuch as to him, as the firstborn offspring of his parent Charles the second, the most happy kingdom of all the world, Sicily, was destined by natural prerogative: but (whence we ought to have and to render him immortal thanks), being solicited by the better senators, by the command of the Roman Pontiff, he hastened to the aid of tottering Hungary, and yielding as a prey to foreign nations, the most noble and most rich kingdom of Sicily being set aside. Which things, as well known to all, as I premised at the beginning, by stronger rather than more eloquent arguments, as befits a bishop, since I have hitherto intimated, I would by no means doubt to have satisfied the wishes of all good men, the good of the fatherland, justice itself, and the admonitions of the supreme Roman Pontiff and of his legate here present [v]." Augustine had scarcely been heard, as an angel fallen from heaven, when the voices of all coincided in wishing prosperity to Charles, absolutely no one being found who gainsaid. Wherefore, soon being led to Alba by the custom of the ancestors, crowned with the sacred diadem, they reverently adored [him].
[70] The coronation being accomplished, both the Apostolic legate and Augustine, peace and the ancient splendor of Hungary returned. the king and the nobles urging, remained for some time in Hungary, until the face of the ecclesiastical order was restored to its former splendor: of whose pious industry the fruit, among others, was the confirmation, through the Apostolic legate, Augustine striving for it, of the Hermits under the name of St. Paul the first hermit [w], and under the prescript of the rule of St. Augustine, once instituted, to the great good of Hungary in the preceding century, by Eusebius [x], formerly a canon of Strigonium, a man of great sanctity: of which pious family king Charles [y], and after him Ludovicus [z] his son, undertook the chief care of promoting and protecting with royal guardianship.
ANNOTATA.
For, the interdict being strictly observed by the religious and the parish priests, there arose pseudo-priests and perfidious [men], who manifestly celebrated the divine offices for the people, and publicly ministered the ecclesiastical Sacraments to those under interdict. Moreover, heaping evil upon evil more perniciously, the people being convoked, lamps being lighted, they proclaimed with loud voices the supreme Pontiff, the vicar of Christ, the archbishops and all the bishops of the kingdom of Hungary, and the religious men, commonly excommunicated.
p. Here is indicated St. Elizabeth queen of Lusitania, if I am not mistaken, whose Acts at the day IV of July Janningus illustrated. But how she pertains to the Hungarian stock may be seen in tome 2 of July page 173 and following.
q. The Acts of St. Margaret of Hungary our Elders illustrated on the day XXVIII of January, as was again said above in the Notes to chapter 1 letter f.
r. The Life of that St. Cunegund at the day XXIV of July we published in our work from manuscripts, as again above in the Notes we advised.
s. The Acts of this St. Ludovicus, prelate of Toulouse, God favoring, we shall examine on the day XIX of August.
t. Some will have it that this holy Prelate died in the same place where he was born; which cannot be reconciled with this oration, and which we shall discuss more accurately on the day XIX of August.
u. This is the holy king of Gaul, concerning whom at the day XXV of August we shall have to treat copiously.
v. From the style and our observations let the learned readers judge whether this whole oration is not rather to be attributed to John Tomco Marnavitio than to B. Augustine.
w. Those Hermits chose St. Paul the first anchorite as their patron. Nevertheless Paulinus Klodauski wrongly contends that those hermits took their origin from St. Paul the Theban, as on another occasion at the day XVII of July, tome IV of that month page 331 and following, I demonstrated.
x. Our Martin Czeles in the Indicia of Hungarian sanctity page 94 and following narrates in compendium the Acts of this pious Eusebius, and adorns him with the title of blessed. But we desire to learn from the Hungarians whether he has a legitimate cult anywhere: for so he could be inserted in the supplement of January, since he is said to have died on the day XX of that month.
y. Charles presided over the Hungarians until the year of Christ 1342, as Abraham Bakschayus asserts in the Chronology of the kings of Hungary.
z. Ludovicus succeeded Charles being dead, and governed the Hungarian kingdom until the year 1382, as the praised Bakschayus there hands down.
* read: quartidecimi fourteenth.
* read: pestilens virus pestilent poison.
CHAPTER VI.
The translation of the Blessed from the bishopric of Zagreb to that of Lucera, his pastoral labors in this latter diocese, and his pious death.
While the blessed Prelate defends the rights of his church, But that Charles might not longer be able to enjoy the presence of the legate and the zeal of Augustine among the Hungarians, a general council proclaimed by Clement the fifth drew both to Vienna, the Gallic city a. Which being concluded, Augustine betook himself to his own church. And since, among other decrees of the Viennese council, it had been provided that goods taken from the churches by the violence of secular [men] should be restored to them, while the good Pastor was busy about the execution of the sacred decrees (as the insatiable condition of human cupidity, claiming all things for itself by fair means and foul, bears), he stirred up against himself the minds of the chief nobility and of the dynasts, who, in the time of the long interregnum, had persuaded themselves that whatever they pleased was lawful for them.
[72] The chief open enemy, not only of Augustine, but of God himself, was Mladinus, Ban of Dalmatia and Croatia. he is vexed by the prince Mladinus, For he, when he had succeeded his father Paul the Ban, and, swollen as much with the ancestral coats of arms as with riches through those times (for not only his parent, but also his grandfather and great-grandfather had descended from the Bans of Bosnia), abusing the dominion of Dalmatia and Croatia by a royal absolute rather than a Banal delegated authority, on the occasion of the disturbances of the Hungarian kingdom, usurping to himself by private right all the most excellent cities, towns, and citadels, and far abhorring from the piety of his ancestors, laying hands on sacred and profane things, had turned out an intolerable tyrant; so much so that he deposed and instituted bishops, abbots, abbesses, and other ecclesiastical prelates at a simple nod; occupied, dispersed, alienated the goods of the churches at his pleasure: sent out pirates with great fleets from the Adriatic sea to plunder the Italian shores: and, in a word, by the utmost impiety despising the purity of the Church, from some tincture of the sacred Letters which he arrogated to himself as the highest knowledge, was held grievous and hateful to all b. So dangerous a step do those princes take who, with Saul, rashly invade the sacerdotal office.
[73] Him therefore, when Augustine, as the dissipator of his flock and the disturber of the Church, had often exhorted with most humane addresses to take up saner counsels, and therefore, at the request of Robert king of Naples, he profited so little that he experienced the same, ever slipping into worse things, as a most hostile enemy, and the matter was brought to such a point that not even by royal authority could the petulance of the most powerful tyrant be restrained. But lest the dignity of the most holy Man should be trodden underfoot by the impious man, and the holy thing be longer exposed to dogs, it happened by divine dispensation. For, when Robert, king of the Neapolitan kingdom, from the affection with which he was borne toward the Catholic Church, bore most grievously that the Lucerine city was defiled by the Saracenic dregs c, which the impious Frederick the emperor, and likewise king of Sicily, had intruded among the other cities of the Neapolitan kingdom (although at the end before the previous century he had brought Luceria under his yoke); and when meanwhile the fame of Augustine's Apostolic zeal flew far and wide, Robert so dealt through legates with Charles his kinsman that, John the twenty-second, the supreme Pontiff d, assenting, Augustine was both absolved from the bond of the church of Zagreb, and set as pastor e and physician over the Lucerine city, to be purged of the Mahometan madness, after the fourteenth year spent in the Zagreb prelacy.
[74] and, the Roman Pontiff assenting, after the aforesaid ruin of his fatherland By the command therefore of the supreme Pontiff, and with the assent of king Charles, otherwise bearing ill the absence of so great a Man from his kingdom, Augustine, using a shortcut of ways, went down into Dalmatia, about to cross over thence into Apulia, and approached Tragurium, his native soil; where, when he had found his fellow-citizens, together with the Sicenses, adhering to the party of Mladinus, cooperating with his impiety, he studied, as much as he could, to recall them to piety. But not only, according to that saying of the Lord, A prophet was not accepted in his fatherland, but, departing from it with tears, he foretold that, he still living, both cities would pay the penalty, adding: Ungrateful fatherland, thou shalt not have my bones. The event proved the saying, as we shall say in its place. For as all men of the Illyric tongue labor with a natural discrepancy of minds, otherwise, as Herodotus writes, destined to be insuperable, and unconquerable of all nations; so the Dalmatians are afflicted with a disease of this kind, and among the Dalmatians the Tragurienses and the Sicenses are consumed above all.
[75] he is translated to the Lucerine bishopric, Augustine therefore, having crossed the Adriatic, not without tears at the obstinacy of a fatherland most beloved by him, but less acceptable to God, approached the Lucerine city. But before he set foot into it, attended only by a regular companion in the place of a retinue, his knees fixed on the ground, he commended himself and his new labors to the perpetual patronage of the Virgin Mother of God, toward whose worship he was singularly affected by the purity of an angelic life; protesting that he approached that city in no way to consult for himself and his own advantages: but that he might restore, to the glory of her Son and of his same pious Mother—they assenting and supplying strength to him otherwise unfit—the souls redeemed by the blood of Christ, that blood divinely fashioned from her inviolate bowels. To which end he vowed that he would never call it the city of Luceria, in which the true Light, which enlighteneth every man coming into this world, had long ago basely set, but the city of Mary, the same star of the sea shining upon him. Which things being uttered, and being admitted within the walls, the diploma of John the supreme Pontiff and the mandate of king Robert being exhibited to the citizens, before all things he gave command that the city should be called by no other name than that of Mary f. Under whose guidance, how great things he accomplished in the space of six years, no writer existed who dared to commit them to memory according to the magnitude of the matters; yet this is held beyond controversy, that a city for the most part cultivated by Saracens, or by Christians who, pressed by Saracenic force, retained nothing beyond the Christian name, in a short space of time, by the word and example of the most holy Pastor, coalesced into an excellent fold of the flock of Christ.
[76] whom he affected with many benefits, Among the deeds of his chief pastoral care was the introduction of the Friars Preachers, as the most excellent workmen of the vineyard of Christ, to whom, in the same manner as when he was at Zagreb, wearied by the solicitudes of Martha, about to be free for the best part of Mary, he was wont from time to time to betake himself. Among whom he also breathed his last breath, and gave command that his corpse be buried without any pomp. He was singularly affected toward the memories of holy Men, in emulation of whom he most earnestly longed for martyrdom. Whence he always, without any fear, set himself as a wall for the house of God, and, about gathering the Saracens to the Church, shrank from no danger. Which he had also done in his former church against Mladinus the Ban and his other favorers, by opposing himself to their impious attempts, and especially in composing the Hungarian disturbances; moreover with chief veneration he cultivated the memory of St. Peter Martyr, some years before called from his Dominican family to heaven by the palm of martyrdom; whose entire arm, left to the Zagreb bride, we still venerate in it.
[77] St. Thomas Aquinas also, whom he had heard teaching g, and in whom, after various pious works, as he strove to express in the purity of an angelic life, so in zeal for winning souls he emulated by the indefatigable patience of the word of God. For the increasing also of whose glory, among
men desirous of it, he omitted nothing whereby his enrollment among the holy Men might be obtained from the Apostolic See. Which grace God so granted him that, before he laid down the earthly burden, at that very last time of his life h, he most joyfully venerated his holy Doctor, enrolled among the other Doctors shining in perpetual eternity; and sang that saying of Simeon the Just (whose venerable body, whole to admiration, preserved with great piety in the church of Zara, he had often venerated i): Now thou dost dismiss, Lord, thy servant in peace.
[78] But as he sang this swan-song with an exulting mind, and the truth of his prophecy proved by the event, so with the bitternesses of Jeremiah he groaned over the miseries of his ungrateful fatherland once threatened, before his death actually proved. For in the year before his death, one thousand three hundred and twenty-second, when the Tragurienses and Sicenses knew that they were oppressed by the impious Mladinus with intolerable tyranny, his yoke being shaken off, they seized arms against him, relying on the protection of the Venetians. But he, a huge army being got ready, for a whole month afflicted the Sicenses with incredible troubles, their whole territory being devastated and reduced to a solitude: whence the citizens themselves were compelled to level to the ground the noble monastery of St. Andrew, founded by the hands of the seraphic Father Francis outside the walls of the city, lest it should be a fortification for the enemy; as the Tragurienses themselves also treated another such monastery dedicated to the Mother of God; the ruins to this day attesting the deed.
[79] Nor, satiated with so many evils, [did] the tyrant cease; having called forth from the Sicene city under public faith the Saracen Michael, and the deserved vengeance on the prince Mladinus, and also the sons of Elias Radovanerius, the chief citizen of the whole city, he cruelly subjected them to the sword in the same territory, as he had formerly dealt with the captive fourth of their brothers. Thence, hastening to the field of Tragurium, he perpetrated deeds of like ferocity upon the same. Yet it was some solace to the holy Man that in the same year the nobles of Dalmatia and Croatia, together with Paul himself, the brother of Mladinus, impatient of his savagery, arms being mutually taken up, so crushed the cruelty of the tyrant that they led him captive to king Charles, who at that time had approached with an army near the city of Tininium k, about to avenge the unworthy slaughter perpetrated by the parricide and sacrilege of the nephew by the brother of the same Mladinus, upon the head of Paulinus Draskovich, bishop of Scardona. Whence, despoiled of his magistracy, he was compelled to undergo captivity, in the very city of Zagreb, in which with the utmost impiety he had vexed the most holy Bishop l.
[80] But truly the just man did not so rejoice, when according to the Psalmist he saw the vengeance, and washed his hands in the blood of the sinner; as, about to go into the house of the Lord, he rejoiced, in the year 1323 he dies holily, and shines with miracles. because he saw the Jerusalem of his church built, so that where aliens, and Tyre, and the people of the Ethiopians had lain, he left the habitation of those rejoicing in the shadow of the most holy Mother Mary. Full therefore of days, more than a septuagenarian m, fortified with all the Sacraments of the Church, on the very vigil of his great patriarch Dominic, namely the third of August, likewise the three hundred and twenty-third year of that century, he flew away to the rewards of his labors into heaven, perpetually most illustrious for innumerable miracles: some of which, since they are related in the Office written for his anniversary memory, to be appended below, but others are circulated in a particular little book written about his miracles, that one thing I by no means reckon must be kept silent, which is read to have been granted to the merits of scarcely any holy Man: namely that those possessed by unclean spirits, hidden by any diabolical art whatsoever, as soon as they set foot within the bounds of the Lucerine church, at once, the spirit of darkness resisting in vain, are betrayed and recognized, and at his sepulchre are restored to their former health.
ANNOTATA.
CHAPTER VII.
The sepulchre, relics, miracles, and posthumous glory of the Blessed.
He was buried within the church beloved by him, constructed as a dwelling for his Friars, and for the memory of the holy father Dominic, The Blessed, whose form is described, and for his own reception, as we have said; until in the first year of this century he was translated, not without a frequency of miracles, into another sepulchre wrought of precious marble. He was of stature, as can be gathered from his sacred garments, still whole without any injury of age, exceeding the ordinary human, and rising rather to the gigantic; and, as the most ancient pictures both of the cathedral and of the conventual church of that place exhibit, with a bald head, a flowing beard, an ingenuous, rather cheerful aspect: his cheeks, though wrinkling, yet display a ruddiness.
[82] Nor only do his sacred garments—among which the girdle, applied to matrons in danger from the difficulty of childbirth, after death he confers benefits on various [persons through his relics,] shines with daily miracles—but also all the rest of the regular and episcopal vestments which he was wont to be clothed in. The episcopal hat especially, an argument of his apostolic poverty and humility, is shown to the peoples, [as] most illustrious; since otherwise he possessed most ample revenues. For it is woven of straw, with work subtle and careful enough, yet after the manner of the reapers of that fatherland; over it is drawn a woolen material still familiar to the Dominican fathers in the upper black cloak, and the same patched together with several patches, and sometimes of unequal material and color; yet it is bound round with a little cord, as it appears, of silk of green color. The marvelous virtue of this hat is experienced when it is placed upon the heads of the possessed; as also the scraping of dust from the sepulchre in which the sacred bones are now kept, drunk by the sick in some liquid, works marvels.
[83] Some years after his death, the fame of his miracles growing frequent a, which therefore his countrymen tried to carry off secretly; it roused his former fellow-citizens the Tragurienses that, the Adriatic being crossed, they might approach Luceria, about to carry off the relics of the holy Man by theft; that, these being exhumed by the benefit of deep night, they might restore the relics of their Citizen, in whatever way they could carry them off, to their earthly fatherland. They therefore board a ship, and, with a prosperous wind, holding the harbor called by the inhabitants Fertorium b, the ship being left in it, hasten by a short journey to the Lucerine city, and, by the benefit of deep night, the companion body being lifted, joyful at the success of the matter, carry it to the ship.
[84] Rest therefore being taken from the anxious labor of the preceding day and of the following night, [but with vain effort, because while living he had foretold that his fatherland would lack his bones;] while at early morning they wish to leave the harbor, they perceive that the treasure deceitfully obtained had vanished. Mourning therefore, while, gone out onto the shore, they search all the secret places both of the royal road and of the other recesses, they hear from passing travelers that the sacred bones, that very morning on which they had prepared to commit themselves to the sea-waves with the hoped-for prey, were found by the inhabitants before the church of St. Dominic in the city of Luceria. Which things being heard, having experienced that the robbery was by no means acceptable to God and to His Saint, with the greatest speed possible, cheated of their desire, they returned into the fatherland most sorrowful at the event of the matter, mindful of the prophecy of the holy Man about his bones not being possessed by his fatherland.
[85] [Yet he was not wanting to his fatherland, when he obtained the conversion of Mladinus,] But he who denied his bones to his fatherland increased his perpetual patronage toward the same. So that, as, by the testimony of Onias the high priest, Jeremiah, otherwise hateful to the people of Jerusalem for prisons and unworthy troubles, after death was the lover of the brethren and of the people of Israel, praying for it and the whole holy city: so at almost the same time in which the Tragurienses had attempted the sacred robbery with a vain event, the tyrant Mladinus, despoiled of his dignity and all his fortunes, like another Jason, a tyrant infamous in the history of the Maccabees, after he did not obtain the principate, as the sacred Historian notes, received confusion as the end of his snares: for, fleeing from city to city, as a fugitive from the laws and execrable, the most holy Prelate interceding for his citizens, he at length fell into the hands of the Tragurienses, his enemies, for whom the holy Citizen obtained from heaven such gentleness of minds that they cherished with comforts and services their most bitter enemy, hateful to gods and men (without doubt by the intercession of the same holy Prelate), coming to his senses and returning to good fruit, as long as he survived, and to him, being dead, set up a noble sepulchre, a perpetual monument of Traguriene piety, in their cathedral, with the following inscription, existing to this very day with a marble covering, before the marble chair, or precious pulpit for delivering the evangelical word to the citizens, in the style of those times not ignoble.
85] Alas, a splendid gem lies under this stone, [whose epitaph is here exhibited,Whose worth has now perished in a foul ditch, Mladinus, magnificent, who was Count of Clissa c, The sole hope to his own, why did he fall so swiftly, Born of George d, count of good memory, And lord of Almisium e, of Scardona f, The title of probity, of morals and of honor, As a blooming flower, a man of such worth failed; He was himself the strong shield of the Croats, Among all the stronger, whether willing or seeking; I discern his impious death to have happened freely For the sins of the peoples of Sclavonia. Weep, Slavs, for the noble grandson of the Bans, Your ample abundance of peace and of honors. So give prayers to the most high Creator, That He, merciful, may spare the sinner.
Here, under the course of the years of the Lord one thousand, Three hundred moreover, and forty, In the eighth, under the … day of the month, on the first day, On the Kalends of May, he was given to the dung of the grave; With good memory of himself death devoured him, Rendering his soul to God, who soon expired.
Thus far the epitaph, according to the style of barbarous times, made with as great diligence as could be from the marble—already worn by the feet of those passing, and with the gap of even a single word yawning—the marble itself being witness.
[86] and his afflicted kinsmen The same Saint who increased the patronage toward his citizens was by no means wanting to the Sicenses either, associates of his fellow-citizens in the faction of Mladinus, lest perchance he might seem to have forgotten also his maternal origin. For, the whole family of the Dragœvii being once proscribed, and their goods assigned to the treasury, [and] compelled to change their soil, because it was reckoned guilty of the concealment and suppression of certain writings concerning the public good, by the hatred of their prince; when no way of purging their innocence by human effort occurred, fleeing to the patronage of the holy Man, their kinsman, it experienced his present help.
[87] For he is present to the Father of the family praying, and admonishes that the wall be dug through, he freed [them from infamy,] the place of the ancestral house being designated: for there the remedy of their troubles would be at hand. Said, done: the wall being opened, the writings once hidden by the ancestors through fear of fires, and [now] found, restore the family to their home and liberty, and not without interest: for, in place of the dilapidated patrimony, the noble island of Colentina g, cultivated with two towns in the time of Ptolemy, is given by the perpetual benefit of posterity. There exists a monument of so great a matter in the same wall, a noble marble statue, elaborated with excellent work, clothed in the Dominican habit, but crowned with the episcopal mitre, seated on a throne, illustrious with family arms, exposed opposite to those entering the hall of the house, so that it seems to admonish the same of the benefit bestowed.
[88] Other admirable things, which from the most remote parts of the Christian world persons afflicted with various diseases assiduously experience at his sacred sarcophagus, and on account of Luceria being preserved from an earthquake as we have said, we pass over. But what lately happened, to the admiration of that whole province, it is not lawful to omit without offense. Widespread, and known in the whole world, is the unhappy ruin of the city called from St. Severus h, a small space distant from Luceria, ruined by an unheard-of earthquake such as had not occurred for many centuries, by which both the seas receded far from the shores, and the most ample lakes dried up for a time, the city being laid low with several towns and villages i. But when now, God being angered, all Apulia seemed to be borne into ancient chaos, the earth being opened, well nigh overturning or devouring all things, the Lucerine city, however, and diocese, while all round about were in extreme danger, while by the shaking of the earth all things were laid open, dispersed, overthrown, remained unharmed and unhurt, there appearing, all looking on, above the city a matron shining forth in most white garments, and beside her one clothed in episcopal ornament, in that very proportion and aspect in which the image of the holy Prelate is venerated at Luceria. Which vision so long held the eyes of the onlookers, as long as the effect of the divine wrath raged in the lands situated round about.
[89] Hence a sure faith held that the Mother of God, by whose name the city is denominated, he was solemnly chosen patron of that city not long ago. and St. Augustine, watched over their people, and preserved it from the imminent ruin. Wherefore, although hitherto his anniversary memory, from the vespers of the second day of August through the whole third day, was cultivated with solemn pomp, as of a feast of precept, by the clergy, citizens, and the whole dominion; yet after the aforesaid marvelous deed, by a decree of the senate of the city, he was enrolled as its particular Patron, and a solemn anniversary procession, or supplication, to the church of St. Dominic was instituted.
ANNOTATA.
MIRACLES OF MORE ANCIENT [DATE],
Which happened after the death of the Blessed.
From the old manuscript Lucerine Office, which we compared with the edition of Sigismund Ferrarius.
Augustine, bishop, of Luceria in Apulia (St.)
BHL Number: 0802
B. Augustine by his intercession Augustine, a citizen of the city of Tragurium, drew his origin from most noble and holy parents a, who, entering from boyhood the Order of the Friars Preachers, and instructed in the studies of letters, the supernal clemency providing for him, shone most effectively with a twofold knowledge, namely divine and human b; and also was in such degree pure, innocent, worshiping God, truthful, pious, mild, and abstaining from every depraved work, that, the bishop of the Lucerine city being dead, in the time of the Pontificate of the most holy Father and Lord Pope John XXII, divine grace inspiring, he was elected and confirmed as bishop of Lucera; and the infinite miracles which the wonderful God showed by the merits of the venerable father Augustine, bishop of the city of St. Mary c, both in life and after death, no one could unlock with the tongue.
[2] he saves a certain [man from the imminent danger of death,] But lest the fame of the most holy Man be neglected, let the love of faithful Christians avail to weigh with open ears how many miracles after his death the very Author of piety willed to show to all on account of his merits: for on the third day of the month of August, on which the said F. Augustine died, when the whole church of the Friars Preachers was full of men who had assembled to visit the venerable body of the said F. Augustine, Paschal de Quarata *, constable of the captain of the aforesaid city, lest from the multitude of men standing there some danger should arise, approaching the same church, when he wished to draw those men back, because there was a great pressing of those same men, and he was near the pit in which the venerable body of the said bishop was to be placed, and being pushed strongly, fell among the aforesaid men into the said pit, in which fall the sword which he held at his side went out of the scabbard, and, its pommel fixed in the ground, the well-sharpened point d remained erect on high, upon which point the same constable fixing his breast—into which the aforesaid point did not enter; but at once it was bent down to its pommel fixed in the ground, in nothing injuring the same [man] falling headlong.
[3] On the twentieth day of the said month of August a woman, by name Odina, and many suffering from fever, of a certain [man] of Bologna e, when from the bite of a dog she had a red and swollen shin, devotion being conceived toward the aforesaid blessed Augustine, approaching his sepulchre, and resting a little upon it, at once rose up perfectly cured; but there remained in the said shin only the holes of the teeth of the said dog, to show the miracle of the Saint.
On the same day a certain [man], by name Philip of Florence, suffering feverish shiverings, when he had approached the said sepulchre, devotion being conceived, resting there a little, at once rose up cured of all infirmity.
On the same day Isolda, wife of Nicholas the apothecary of the city of St. Mary, suffering a very great swelling in the throat, so that she could scarcely eat, when she had come to the said sepulchre, devotion being conceived, when she devoutly prostrated herself there, at once the swelling disappeared, and she rose up thence perfectly cured.
[4] On the twenty-sixth of the same month, Auribella of Foggia, long vexed by a demon, the possessed, not able to rest one hour, carried with devotion to the said sepulchre, was forthwith perfectly freed.
On the twenty-seventh day, a certain [man], by name William, of the aforesaid city, when for many years he had suffered a quartan fever, devotion being conceived toward the merits of the venerable Bishop, a vow being made, approaching the aforesaid sepulchre, where when he had devoutly prayed, asking of God by the merits of the same Saint, from then he felt himself cured of the quartan fever.
On the same day Rainaldus of Barletta, when for two years he had suffered a grave pain of the loins, so that he could not move himself from one place to another, devotion being conceived, coming with reverence to the said sepulchre, when he had devoutly prayed there, by the merits of blessed Augustine at once rose up perfectly cured of all infirmity of pain.
[5] On the twenty-eighth of the same month, Marcus, son of Angela, of the city of St. Mary, when from his birth he had had his right arm withered, the mute, the natural use of which he had totally lost, [was] carried with devotion to the said sepulchre; prostrating himself a little upon it, at once rose up with his arm cured.
On the same day William, son of Philip, of Luceria, when from the month of May of the sixth Indiction f then current, from a certain infirmity then supervening, he had totally lost speech *, so that he could in no way speak, nor utter any word from his mouth, approaching the said sepulchre with devotion, when he devoutly prostrated himself there, forthwith by the merits of blessed Augustine his former speech was restored to him.
[6] Romualda of St. Severus, having a certain son suffering the falling sickness, a most grievous disease, devoutly besought blessed Augustine that he would give her the son wholly free; who, carried to his sepulchre, forthwith rose up cured.
On the same day Margaret, sister of Romanella, of the city of St. Mary, when she had never seen from her birth, and had her whole body contracted and wholly curved, so that she could in no way walk erect, but as it were dragged her belly on the ground, was carried with devotion to the said venerable sepulchre; praying a little upon it, and when she had wiped her eyes with the dust of the aforesaid sepulchre, forthwith she rose up fully enlightened and stretched out and erect, cured of both infirmities.
On the same day Joanna, of the city of St. Mary,
when she was so contracted and curved that she could in no way walk erect, and was wholly deaf, and one who could hear nothing, devotion being conceived, approaching the aforesaid sepulchre, praying there a little, was at once cured of all her infirmity.
[7] the blind, On the same day Gregory, stepson of John the citron-seller, of the city of St. Mary, who had totally lost his sight, devotion being conceived and a vow made that in honor of the aforesaid blessed Augustine he would have six Masses sung, and one wax-candle lighted upon his sepulchre, forthwith his sight was restored to him, and he saw.
Henry * of Septem Fratres, an inhabitant of the city of St. Mary, oppressed with great pains, so that he could go only rarely, because he was greatly contracted in his whole person g, because he was placed near the aforesaid wondrous sepulchre, returned to his own home on his own feet, sound.
On the same day the son of Bartholomew Macius of Apice, who for seven months could not walk, having his legs wholly contracted, when he had been carried with devotion by his parents to the said sepulchre, was at once restored to his former health, and walked, as [one] sound.
[8] those suffering the falling sickness, On the same day John de Santorello, and the bailiff of Monteleone h, when they suffered a most acute fever, devotion being conceived toward the aforesaid blessed Augustine, said with desire: O would that we had a little of the dust of the sepulchre of blessed Augustine, and that we might drink that dust placed in water! After the drinking of it we firmly hope to obtain health. Which words being so devoutly uttered, forthwith the fever ceasing, they felt themselves perfectly cured of the infirmity by which they were afflicted.
On the same day Romualda of St. Severus, having a certain son suffering the falling sickness, from which he could be freed by no remedies, devotion being conceived through him toward the aforesaid blessed Augustine, carried her said son with devotion to his sepulchre: and, placed upon it, after a little rose up perfectly cured.
[9] those vexed by a demon, The noble Helena, of Casalnuovo, always vexed by a demon, who both in winter time and in summer rarely allowed her to rest; nor could she be freed by any remedy, until she had herself transported to the sacred sepulchre. A wondrous and great prodigy was wrought by the merits of St. Augustine.
On the same day Joannutius, son of John Hippolytus Buverius *, of the said city of St. Mary, when he had never seen, because he wholly lacked sight i; whom his father, devotion being conceived, was carrying with the greatest devotion to the said sepulchre, and was leading him by the hand, as he had been accustomed, while they were going thither, the said Joannutius said: Father, let me go, for I see well and clearly, and can walk by myself without a leader. And his sight was miraculously restored to him.
[10] the deaf, On the same day Flora, wife of Nicholas de Aqua Nigra, of the city of St. Mary, suffering a most grievous hiccup, when she could be freed by no remedies, approaching the said sepulchre with devotion, and staying there for a little hour, was forthwith cured of all infirmity.
On the same day Leo de Longobuvo *, of the aforesaid city, who from the month of May of the year of the sixth Indiction had totally lost the hearing of both ears, hearing nothing; a vow being made, when he had devoutly prayed at the said sepulchre, at once recovered his hearing.
Pretiosa, daughter of Guarnata, suffering a very great pain in the throat, so that thereby she had also lost speech, when she had come to the holy sepulchre and had drunk of its earth, at once the swelling of the throat disappeared, and the grace of God healed her.
On the same day the notary Odorisius de Monte Odori, of the aforesaid city, when for a long time he could not hear with his right ear, approaching with devotion the said sepulchre, and placing in the said ear some of the dust which was upon that sepulchre, at once by the merits of the said blessed Augustine recovered his hearing.
[11] On the penultimate [day] of the same month, Henry of Septem Fratres k, the paralytic, an inhabitant of the city of St. Mary, who for three years had suffered grave and various pains through the whole that time, so that he was thereby wholly contracted in person, who could walk neither on foot nor on horseback by himself alone, devotion being conceived, had himself carried to the said sepulchre on a certain ass: who, placed near the aforesaid venerable sepulchre, after a little rose up, perfectly cured of all the infirmity by which he was afflicted, and returns to his own home on his own feet.
On the same day Angela, wife of Malafosius *, of the city of St. Mary, when she had always been vexed by a demon for four years, so that she could not rest; carried with devotion to the said sepulchre, was at once perfectly freed from the aforesaid vexation.
[12] Bartholomaea of Alesina, daughter of Severus, was always deaf and mute all the time of her life. Devotion being conceived, she asks her aforesaid father that she be carried to the sepulchre of the blessed Prelate. And after she was in the church of the holy Bishop, speaking and hearing, she departed thence rejoicing.
On the same day Matthew Maccaronus, of the aforesaid city, those laboring with the stone, when he suffered a double tertian fever, devotion being conceived toward the aforesaid blessed Augustine, of the dust of whose sepulchre when he had with devotion drunk with water, was forthwith after the drinking cured of all infirmity.
On the same day Rainaldus, son of Francis Leo, of the aforesaid city, suffering the ailment of the stone * in the rod, so that from the carnival of the aforesaid year of the sixth Indiction l he could never freely and without pain make water, led by his mother with great devotion to the aforesaid sepulchre, at once made water freely there indeed twice in the greatest quantity without any pain, totally cured of all infirmity.
On the same day Doprina Henela *, of Casalnuovo, vexed for twenty years by a demon, never able to rest, nor to be freed by any other remedy, carried with devotion to the said sepulchre, was forthwith freed from the vexation of the demon by which she was held.
[13] On the last [day] of the same month, Philippa, daughter of Nicholas of St. Germanus, and those afflicted with other diseases of Luceria, when she saw nothing with one eye, was led with devotion by her mother to the said sepulchre, and at once was fully enlightened.
Nicholas, called Calaber, an inhabitant of the city of St. Mary, stood mourning, because there was no one to care for his offspring, and the child was thus gravely sick, and was lightly despaired of. And when the father grieved over the death of his son, he snatched up some of the earth of the sepulchre, to place it in the child's mouth m.
[14] by his patronage On the first of September of the seventh Indiction [n], Mansella of Casalnuovo, for many years gravely vexed by three demons, not able to be freed by any remedies, when she had been led by her husband to the church of St. Mary of Oliveto, the aforesaid St. Augustine then living, and staying in his Lucerine bishopric, while she took the road, the demons dwelling in the said body began to cry out with loud voices and to say: Augustine will make us go out hence, those who had heard them not knowing of what Augustine they had spoken. The aforesaid blessed Augustine afterward dying, on account of the many miracles by which he began to grow illustrious after his death, the said man carried the aforesaid demoniac woman with devotion to the said sepulchre: as they went thither, the two aforesaid demons, not presuming to approach the same sepulchre, departed from her body on the way: at whose going out they suddenly killed an ox staying there grazing. But the third, who had remained there still shut in, forthwith, when the said woman approached the said sepulchre, went out of her body with the greatest joy o.
[15] he heals prodigiously. A certain [man], by name Simeon, of Barletta, greatly smitten with blindness, asks of his son Nicholas that he be led by the hand to the church where the relics of the holy Bishop were, that the Friars Preachers might quickly apply them upon his eyes: who, moved by the prayers of the weeping [man], fulfilled the vow of the blind man. The holy Prelate, regarding his humility and devotion, by the clemency of the Savior gives enlightenment to the eyes of the blind man.
ANNOTATA.
n. Hence
it is clear that the Indictions at that time, even in the Lucerine city, took their beginning from the Kalends of September: for here from the first day of September of the year 1323 the seventh Indiction is numbered, while above, in the month of May of the same year, the sixth Indiction is reckoned.
* otherwise Quarato
* that is, speech
* otherwise Herricus
* otherwise Bucerii
* otherwise Longobuco
* otherwise Malafolii.
* that is, of the stone
* otherwise Dopreria Helena