ON ST. CHREMES, ABBOT AND CONFESSOR,
IN SICILY.
1116.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Cult and deeds.
Chremes, Abbot and confessor, in Sicily (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Here we give a Saint, as before others, Unknown to the rest, on the faith of our Ottavio Gaetani, from his most well-known Work on the Lives of the Sicilian Saints: for we freely confess that we have found neither the deeds nor the cult of Blessed Chremes elsewhere, except in the general Catalogue of Ferrari, where he is thus announced on this day: At Castiglione in Sicily, of Blessed Chremes, abbot of the Order of St. Basil. What Sicilian Martyrology, as he himself calls it, he consulted, I do not know: in the Pantheon of our Carrera he is received from Gaetani himself. The latter, moreover, has so instructed and taught us in all things required, that we may safely set down Chremes in this our Work as an exceptional athlete of Christ. It will be useful to weigh his remarks here, from which you will observe first that the praised Ferrari erred when he roundly asserted that his Life is preserved in manuscript in the monastery of St. Salvator near the aforesaid Castle. Let us hear Gaetani himself, better informed concerning all the monuments pertaining to the Saint:
[2] received from Gaetani The name of Master Chremes, father of monks, is celebrated in the town of Francavilla and the adjacent region; but that it was commended by no monuments of his own pupils was unworthy. And so, judging that one must intervene against the injuries of the times, I have judged it worth the labor to write what survives of the fame of the most holy Man, for the good of posterity. This Life of St. Chremes, therefore, we have composed from those things which we have received concerning him by hand from our elders, and which are held known and settled by the whole town of Francavilla, which is nearest to the monastery of Chremes. Indeed the building of this ancient monastery still remains, distinguished by the name of the most holy Savior of Placa; and there are extant in it certain monuments of the monks of the Rogerian age, Ritual books for divine worship, and Greek codices written by hand, which idiom they used in ancient times. Besides, the cranium of the head of St. Barbara, a bone of the arm of St. Ursula, and the entire head of Master Chremes, inscribed with Greek characters in this manner: The head of Blessed Chremes.
[3] Further, the head of the most holy abbot Chremes, preserved with the utmost piety in the same building, is reported. the men of that region venerate with the greatest celebrity, and especially on the eighth of the Ides of August, the feast day of the Transfiguration of our Lord the Savior, to whose name the church is dedicated, it is exposed on the altar for veneration: but the townsmen hold and revere Master Chremes as their patron. And these things abundantly suffice for the proof of an ancient and constant cult; his deeds are described with no less diligence. For the rest, the things which pertain to the donation of Roger and its instrument, translated from the Greek not happily enough, we have not judged should be recorded here at greater length: let it suffice us to subjoin the Life itself.
THE LIFE
By the author Ottavio Gaetani.
Chremes, Abbot and confessor, in Sicily (S.)
Chremes casts away all human things. Chremes, truly an exceptional athlete of Christ, lived in the last times in which the Saracens ruled in the island of Sicily. His fatherland, his parents, and the first beginnings of his age are as yet unknown to me. Already advanced in years, when he desired to devote himself to the offices of God, that he might attain this more conveniently, casting away all human cares, the ordinary hindrances of those who strive to press on to piety, he chose as his wrestling-ground a deserted place, not yet frequented. Near which place the town of Francavilla was founded long afterward. Here there rises a rock of immense and vast size, precipitous on every side, with only one approach from the west. This steep rock, remote from all human habitation, Chremes wished for his dwelling, where, paying the tribute of thanks to the supreme Godhead for benefits received, day and night he gave himself to prayers, and wore down his body with abstinence from food and with vigils and cold.
[2] At that season, while Count Roger, pursuing the Saracens in war, God gives Chremes obedient wild beasts, was going about Sicily, he passed by the rock above which Chremes was leading his heavenly life. Who, as soon as he learned this, thought it the price of charity if he should go to meet so great a Leader, well deserving of the Christian cause, and especially of the Sicilian, to congratulate him on the victories obtained over the enemies of Christ: and moreover should present the pious Count with some little gifts, proofs of his goodwill and gladness, rustic indeed, but such as should above all savor of piety: since indeed, as he was leading a life shrinking from the offices and cultivation of society and removed from cities, it was truly a difficult business to find in an uncultivated place wherewith to present a princely man. What plan, therefore, shall he take? He flees to the most full storehouses of his Lord, pours forth prayers for some while, and presently bids wild animals from the neighboring wood, such as would be fit for the eating of men, come to him in the name of God.
[3] Suddenly (a thing truly incredible to tell) a multitude of animals of various kinds from the woods and caves, Which, called, he leads to Count Roger. obeying (you would believe they had heard) the command of the man of God, was present. As leader, therefore, of this column Chremes makes his way to Roger, and when he came to him: having saluted him with the utmost lowliness of mind and countenance and with a cheerful aspect, he asked that he would receive as a gift the animals which he was himself leading. Roger and his soldiers, brought to the utmost admiration, at the same time took incredible pleasure from such a spectacle. Then at last Roger inquires of Chremes: By what art, I pray, or by what means, have these beasts been made tame by you? After he learned that at his word, at nearly the same time, they had been summoned from caves and groves, he could hardly bring himself to believe it, nor did he think it could come about that a herd of wild beasts, their timidity and their wildness, implanted by nature, being utterly laid aside, should suddenly be tamed. Then Chremes, that he might make plain the power of God, turning to the animals, said: Since Roger disdains you as a gift, depart hence, and enjoy your free manner of living, as before. As soon as the holy Man blessed them, they sought their former places with the greatest eagerness. Roger stuck fast at the greatness of the miracle, and straightway leapt down from his horse, and, humbly cast down at the feet of the most holy Man, said: Since your prayers are of such worth with God, I beg you that you would commend me, a sinner, to God; and earnestly he demanded that he would pray well for him.
[4] Roger reveres Blessed Chremes. When there was an end of conversing, Roger climbed that harsh rock by a difficult path, with Chremes as guide. Thence the most pious Count, inasmuch as sacred buildings were always wonderfully at his heart, having taken in the prospect around (which is toward the sea on the east, on the west over open fields as far as the hills of Randazzo, on the south toward Etna, on the north toward the Wood of Placa), the suitability of the place being recognized, judged it best that a monastery be built upon that rock, and said to Chremes: You, Father, and your monastery I present with the wood and the fields which you see, whence they may sustain life who shall have withdrawn to this place, and shall have wished to follow the institute of your life. Then Roger, when he had commended himself to the prayers of Chremes, having received a blessing from him, departed. Therefore by the wealth of the great Count Roger the monastery was begun to be built, and was completed. But very many, drawn by the fame of Chremes, loosed from the snares of human affairs, flew together, out of zeal for piety, to the little nest fastened to that rock.
[5] He raises a monastery. But Chremes, when he noticed the family growing more and more day by day, and rightly judged that he must tread in the footsteps of his elders, prescribed to his pupils the ancient and holy manner of living and the precepts of the Great Basil, father of monks; he himself, as he went before the rest in dignity, so also by the example of his life, showing himself to all a model of all virtues, so that those beholding it might transfer to themselves a perfect image of piety. Yet the demon could not bear this longer; since he plainly understood that he was mocked by so many wrestlers, and by the work of the master. Therefore through envy he lays snares for Chremes; so that, when he was removed, he might easily ruin the rest of the family. There happened to be in that monastery certain men who, cast down through sloth from the first and burning zeals of their life, and wearied of religious discipline, could not endure the severe manners of the Master. Into these the instigator of crimes instils his poison, and at length impels them to destroy the austere and hard old man, and to remove him from their midst. When they had conceived the crime in mind, they determine to carry it through. On an appointed day, having attacked Chremes as he was thinking of everything else and off his guard, they hurl him headlong from the precipitous rock. Doubtless this is what men of this kind seek, who cool off in the exercises of the virtues: to overthrow upright rulers, whose life and care are hateful to them, or to remove them far away, so that they may give themselves to their own desires.
[6] But that a monument of the crime committed, and likewise of the divine goodwill, might be left to posterity, Cast down, he imprints his footprint on the rock. the footprint of the most holy man Chremes was divinely impressed on the stone, against which, striking his foot at the first cast, he rebounded to the ground at the bottom. Which footprint is seen down to our own age, with the greatest admiration and piety of all, on the part where the rock slopes to the north. But the wicked men, thinking they had now foully destroyed the Old Man, in their madness rejoiced at their own evil. But indeed God, inasmuch as the safety of His own is His greatest care, straightway commands that Chremes, cast down, be caught up by His Angels, whom He has promised as ministers and guardians to pious men, and set down unharmed at the foot of the mountain.
Here the most gentle Man was not moved even in the least by the most wicked deed; but, having bound together a bundle of wood and placed it on his shoulders, just as though he had gone thither for the benefit of the monks, he climbed up to the monastery unruffled.
[7] When behold, unexpectedly, those who were exulting at the evil deed, With wonderful patience he bears the injury. expecting anything else, see Chremes coming and present: who, with mind and countenance composed to cheerfulness, with the utmost kindness bids his pupils be well. But then they, like men thunderstruck, scarcely had any power of speaking; they did not know whether the business were carried on in a dream or in waking: nor indeed could they rightly judge whether they were seeing a phantom of Chremes, or Chremes himself. When at length they learned how the matter had fallen out, and at the same time the sanctity of the Man, most humbly, and not without tears, cast down at his feet, they began to confess the crime, to beg pardon, to say that they were unworthy even of the sight of him, and other things of this kind which would indicate the utmost grief of mind. To the sons weeping with him the kindly father pardons the injury. Presently, the kiss of peace and a blessing being imparted to all, he receives them into his former favor, and treated them most lovingly.
[8] He asks to be buried beneath the steps of the Church. For the rest, Chremes, about at length to depart from life, first exhorted the assembled monks to take up with great earnestness of mind the zeal for living perfectly and so great a business, and to hold to it even to their last breath: and especially to preserve mutual love among themselves. At last, having prayed well for them, he earnestly asks and beseeches that he be not laid in an honorable sepulcher, but that they bury him before the steps of the church; so that whoever should enter the building might trample him with their feet. Then, commending his pure and holy soul to God, he breathed it forth amid the embraces and tears of his pupils. How pleasing and acceptable to God his zeal for lowliness was, and the example which he left in dying, was shown by a miracle. For a spring of the clearest water gushed forth from the bosom of the earth where the most holy body of Chremes was laid down, and gushes forth to our own age. Whose water, as soon as those laboring under quartan fever have drunk it with a pious affection of mind, they obtain their former health. The head of the most blessed Chremes, preserved with the highest cult, exposed on the altar on the eighth of the Ides of August, the feast day of Christ the Lord and Savior, to whom the church of the monastery is dedicated, the men of that region venerate with the greatest celebrity and piety.