Bernard of Alzira

ON ST. BERNARD OF ALZIRA, MARTYR, OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER, LIKEWISE ON SS. GRATIA AND MARIA, HIS SISTERS, VIRGINS AND MARTYRS,

AT ALZIRA NEAR VALENCIA IN SPAIN,

ABOUT THE YEAR 1180.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Bernard of Alzira, martyr, of the Cistercian Order (St.)

BY J. P.

§ I. The situation of Alzira; St. Bernard's birth; his brother and sisters; his office in the world; his marvelous conversion to the faith of Christ and to the Cistercian profession.

Alzira, a town in the diocese of Valencia among the Edetani, formerly ignoble, afterwards famed on account of the contest of these holy Martyrs, says Tamayo in his Spanish Martyrology at the XXII day of August, after their Acts. The curious reader will find more concerning this place in Gaspar Escolano, History of Valencia, book 8, chapter 24, column 908; where among other things he indicates that Alzira is six leagues distant from Valencia. The most illustrious Ángel Manrique will be our chief guide and authority in narrating the Acts of those Martyrs, although several others have treated of them, as will afterwards be seen, and a reason will be given why we have followed him above the others in preference. In the Cistercian Annals, therefore, volume 2, at the year of Christ 1156, he narrates his birth and other matters in chapter 1, number 2, in these words:

[2] Bernard's father was Almanzor, under the Saracen king of Valencia (for at that time the infidel Saracens held dominion over it, as over a great part of Spain), The Saint's father, brother, and sisters: his skill in public affairs. under the king, I say, Zaën, being himself a petty ruler: under whom were two towns, and those not small, Pintarrafes and Carlet. There was a brother older in age, heir both of the name and of the paternal domain; two sisters, Zaida and Zoraida: he himself, as I have reported, was called Ahmed. Both sons were in the court of Valencia among the royal ministers of the first rank; the daughters were kept in the father's house. And Almanzor, because he was the heir, excelled in authority; but Ahmed in industry — so much so that the graver affairs of the kingdom, the supplies of war, the expenditures, and the levies were scarcely entrusted to any other than him. Whether it was for redeeming Saracen captives, of whom very many from the continual engagements were detained at Barcelona; or for making a truce with the Christian king, and confirming the petty rulers in obedience, is in doubt; it is certain that he was sent as envoy by Zaën to conduct the affairs of the whole kingdom. Such was the youth's ability and prudence, which no matters, however arduous, could overcome. Thus in the praised Annals.

[3] But as God is wonderful in his Saints, and in all his works, so in calling those things which are not as though they were, he opened and poured out the inexhaustible treasure of his mercy upon St. Bernard, Having heard, of the monks of Poblet, when in a wholly marvelous manner he drew him from the thickest darkness of unbelief to the light of the true faith, and to the law of the most sacred Gospel together with the rule of religious perfection. Let us therefore hear the marvelous economy of his conversion from the lately praised Manrique, who describes it thus at number 3 and following: This, he says, was the door of salvation for Ahmed. For when he had come into Catalonia, first to Lérida (it is a city of Tarraconensian Spain, which is commonly called Lérida, and is situated in Catalonia), then, being led through uncertain and precipitous ways, when both the day and the road had failed him, in the middle silence of night he fell into a wood, dreadful to strangers even at very midday, and to be feared in the dead of night even by its own people. Thickets and brambles took away the earth, and the foliage the sky, from the eyes of those going along; and darkness alone lay open on every side to the sight; the tree-trunks, the less foreseen, the less avoidable, and by so much the more apt to terrify by a sudden touch those who feared nothing: so that it was not permitted to avoid dangers, and one must always be afraid even of what was safe. It pleased them, being unable to go forward, to rest; and — which is the greater prudence in straitened circumstances — to seize advantage from disadvantage: all those things which were an obstacle to men walking were of use to men halted; and shrubs and twigs served for bedding, foliage for roofs, trunks for walls: the penalties invited the horses to fodder and the riders to rest. The solemnity of the Virgin far purer than the sun was being kept, and the Saracen, midway between sleeping and waking, but nearer to sleeping, if he did not make amends for the losses of his error, at least found consolation. When behold, from afar were heard the voices of men singing, sweet, sonorous, grave; and being moderately distinguished by intervals, with alternating choirs, by their very variety they soothed the ears, and either ravished or roused the mind. He was astounded, his hair stood on end, and his voice stuck in his throat.

[4] by their sweet singing, For he was neither accustomed hitherto to hear men singing psalms, nor taught concerning angels: and, that he might know both, he had stood in doubt, nor could he determine who they were that were heard. The melody of the voices was prolonged beyond three hours, the longer the sweeter; since, fear being driven off by familiarity, the harmony alone of those singing was perceived. But then, the music failing together with the night, and there succeeding to the harmony the twilight of the day, which should announce the coming sun, it comes into his mind, the horses being mounted again, to traverse the wood so far as the brambles should allow: but that quarter before all others whence the voices heard had roused the affection of those who heard them. There was then growing, under father Grimald, an illustrious house, the work of Count Raymond, Poblet, which we have mentioned above, and, great even at its beginning, it was being prepared for still greater increases. This, close to the place, and as yet humble in its roofs, but lofty in sanctity and observance, lay hidden in the wood; and it purchased for itself the earth with its hands by mattock and plowshare, and heaven with its heart and tongue by the praises of God, by alternating turns.

[5] Therefore, as soon as he beheld close at hand the rising walls and the dwellings of men, he betakes himself to that monastery, judging — what was the truth — that the voices had been heard from thence, he halted more attentively; and he deliberated, whether providently or curiously, to search out what that manner of human life was, what the rite of that people, what their customs. They had come to the door of the monastery when the rising sun was already lighting up the wood; and, being summoned by the sound of the knocker, one came who should open, opened, and stopped short at the sight of the men, recognized indeed from their dress as Saracens, from their equipage as great men; whom he did not doubt to be enemies of the faith and therefore also of his own profession. Nevertheless Ahmed's courtesy overcame fear, for he promised, on an oath given, that he had come peaceably, and for the sake of learning about their life, not of harming it, and that he would enter unarmed, if they wished. Whether Grimald was encouraged by a heavenly admonition or by his own greatness of soul is in doubt; it is certain that he ordered the man to be brought to him, and that all the inner parts of the new house, the oratory, and the choir of the monks — which he himself most greatly longed for — should be shown him: nor did he refuse to admit his companions; if peaceable, perhaps to be converted; if bloodthirsty, to bring a glorious crown through martyrdom to himself and to others.

[6] Scarcely had Ahmed entered the monastery; scarcely had he spoken with the abbot Grimald; scarcely had he drunk in with his ears the words of the venerable old man, and, having stayed there and been instructed in the Christian faith; when he feels himself suddenly changed within; and he pondered whether he should be drawn to the law of the Christians, which had been wont to bring forth such men, or should envy it (he himself did not sufficiently know), and make others of his own like them, if he came rightly to know their life. Whatever it was, he asked and obtained to remain some days in the monastery, perhaps by feigning sickness, whereby he might deceive his companions; and, having meanwhile sent them on to Lérida, whence they could easily be summoned back when he had recovered. But then, left alone among the monks, and searching out and weighing each particular, and comparing the Christian law with the Mohammedan, he began first to doubt, then to discuss, and to judge concerning some matters: that all that came from Christ was serious and weighty; that many things from Mohammed were laughable and light; that these were misshapen to reason, those consonant with it; and that those were confirmed by miracles, such as these could bring forward none in their own favor. What of the fact that unarmed men, despised and humble, prevailing in the world, manifest by wholly certain indications the power of Christ; and wars and arms the impotence of Mohammed, nor has anyone hitherto been persuaded otherwise? That among ours virtue alone is held in esteem; among theirs even vices prevail; that the two religions are by no means compatible; and that, if a choice must be made of one, the Christian is superior not only in piety but in wisdom, and in men excelling in each, who have borne witness with their own blood, contending for the truth even unto death.

[7] he embraces both it and the monastic profession, Ahmed, turning these and like things over in his mind, and taught more deeply by the anointing as his teacher, resolved first upon the Christian faith, which was the harder — since his country, his parent, his riches, his kinsmen, and the favor of King Zaën had to be renounced together with the law, and whatever else he had either had hitherto or hoped for thereafter; then, what already seemed easier, upon the Cistercian institute, and upon that life which he had as the beginning of his salvation, to be emulated by him unto the end. There was not lacking to the noble Youth an inward struggle, greater from the offense of others than from himself. His father would bear ill an apostasy, as he would think it, from the true religion: nay, he would be held in contempt by the other petty rulers for having begotten a degenerate son: his sisters, uniquely beloved by him, would remain in error, whom perhaps, if he returned, he could win, nay, and the whole family. But what pressed more, the affairs of the kingdom entrusted to him, not to be abandoned unfinished by a noble man to whose faith they had been committed by the king: that he must at least return to render an account, lest his reputation be exposed to the rumors of the court, whose custom it is to interpret everything for the worse: that there would be those who would ascribe his forsaking of Mohammedanism to levity; others, to deception: both to be feared; but how much more, if he should assign among the causes a violated faith, a lost kingdom, a defrauded royal patrimony, or the like. This was the task, this the labor of Ahmed. Whom neither parents, nor country, nor kinsmen, nor the king's favor, nor riches had held back; whom, despising the troubles of the body, the rigor of the new life had not deterred; the mere mark of men's opinion almost drew him back; and, had not God been at hand to help, it is not doubtful that it would have held him back, however unwilling.

[8] But at length divine grace conquered in him, and drew him, bitterly deploring the truth hitherto unknown, and thirsting for it eagerly, he embraces: to the feet of the abbot Grimald. Let him be at hand and have mercy on a straying sheep, for which Christ died, not about to desert the rest in the desert, but to admit one coming of his own accord to the folds. Let him wash the defiled man with the sacred waters of the font, and, when he had been raised up by him, let him test him, if he would; he would faithfully carry out his commands, and would endure whatever hardships. He was unworthy of the fellowship of holy men, and, coming now for the first time out of paganism, an unequal servant, to whom greater and weighty things could be committed. By obeying, whatever

he was equal to anything, if only he were willing to put his shoulders under it. But neither should novices be kept back from the Gospel, which was planted by none but the newly converted — that is, the Apostles, called out of Judaism. Grimald perceived the ardor of the inflamed mind, and consented; and, a master being assigned him, he wished the catechumen presently to become a Christian and a monk. They report that within the space of a single week he was taught the law, the articles of faith, the precepts of both Tables, and then also the ecclesiastical prayers, the Sacraments, and whatever was necessary, not without the admiration of the very master appointed for him and of the others who saw it. For in some things he was even above his master; in others the master himself, or rather God in him, was proved.

[9] he receives baptism, changes his name, And so in this year (but it is doubtful on what day of it), his body being washed with the lustral waters of the sacred font, and his soul renewed through grace, and the old man with his deeds put off, he was worthy to put on the new man, begotten in Christ and born again from him, and destined at last to reign through him in the heavens. He laid aside the name of Ahmed together with the sect; and from the recent sanctity of Bernard he was called Bernard; who, from the very beginnings of his conversion, being devoted to that Saint above others, whether by the fame of his works or by zeal for the profession, wished so far as he could to cleave to him. Already the books of his Life were being read, especially the first one written by Abbot William, which had also been given to Ahmed to be initiated in sacred things. Since therefore the catechumen had set this man before him as the one to be imitated above others, he sought him no less as the standard-bearer of his name: whereby he could never be named by others without their bringing in Bernard; but neither could he himself remember his own self, thus renewed through Christ, without Bernard.

[10] The grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow endeavors, and Bernard, impatient of all delay, and is admitted to the monastic habit, scarcely yet a Christian, desired a more perfect and holier life in that law to which he had attached himself. There were then no decrees passed against the newly converted; there was no infamy from a religion received; and that simple age, imitating Christ, so that they should never fail to come to the Gospel, made those who came later equal to the earlier. Whether from zeal or from envy it has been brought about in our times that they are kept from the altar and from honors; since, the supply of ministers being abundant, we judge the older families should be preferred: nor do we doubt that they are firmer in religion, either because they know no other, or because they have never changed the one once received. Finally, the dangers experienced in some of a relapse have made men more cautious. And all these things are just and holy; if only they be tempered, and with due distinction of times, nay even of persons. But to set an obstacle to the conversion of the nations, and that those to be baptized, and their descendants also, coming even of their own accord, and even nobles, should from the very receiving of the sacred font be rendered infamous with a stain never afterwards to be washed away — which in our Spain has been received in usage and sanctioned by laws — whether this be sufficiently fitting, I leave to be judged by the discernment of others. However that may be, to Bernard, son of royalty, not even now would that stain be an obstacle, which royal blood is judged to absorb. Therefore he was received to the habit of Religion, to put on that of a monk after his probation.

[11] These things concerning the Man's beginnings, native land, and family; and concerning his reception of both religions, are excerpted from his life, illustrious in the exercise of virtues. which a modern author of the same Religion reduced to an abridgment from the ancient records of Poblet and of the monastery of the Fathers of the Holy Trinity, in which the body of the Martyr now rests, at the town of Alzira; with whom all the intermediate writers agree — Miedes, Beuter, Viciana — from whom some of the more recent also. That the novice outstripped the veterans in the exercise of virtues and in works of all piety is well ascertained. Nay, that in charity toward God and toward his own; that for these he preferred their conversion to the true faith of Christ, and for himself martyrdom for Christ; nor did he ask anything more urgently than that he might be consummated together with his own through martyrdom. But how at length he obtained this, after many years spent at Poblet, as also what and what sort of wonders God wrought through him before and after his death, we shall faithfully render in their places.

[12] Beuter, in part 1 of the General Chronicle of All Spain, The time of his conversion. and especially of the kingdom of Valencia, book 1, chapter 35, refers the conversion of St. Bernard to about the year of the Lord 1130. But that time openly conflicts with the narration already reported from Manrique; since the monastery of Poblet, of which we have spoken, was not yet in existence at that time, according to what we shall report from the same writer of the Annals in §2. Whence must also fall to the ground what Wion has in the Appendix to his Benedictine monastic Martyrology under the letter B, and Menard in book 1 of the Observations, at the XX day of the month of August, following Wion. For they record that he was made a monk in the said monastery about the year of the Lord 1090.

§ II. The Saint is accused; but is honored by God with a miracle; he wins his aunt for Christ; the monastery of Poblet.

The Saint, exceedingly liberal toward the poor, is traduced as a spendthrift; The most illustrious founder of the Cistercian Annals, at the year of Christ 1163, chapter 5, number 10, writes what office the Saint discharged among his own, and what accusations were on that occasion brought against him. Let us hear the matter from the text of the praised author: In Catalonia Bernard of Alzira, son of the petty ruler of Carlet, who had taken the monastic habit at Poblet, the later he had been converted to the faith of Christ, so much the more fervent was he, and was adorned with the more notable piety. Abbot Stephen had set him over the cellar of the monastery, and had ordered a man industrious and experienced to bestow labor upon the affairs of the house, as he once had upon the treasury of the king of Valencia. And the yearly produce increased under him: but this, being largely distributed to the poor, or, as it seemed to some, prodigally, was scarcely thought likely to suffice the Community. The concourse of those coming grew daily, nor, though the number of those to be fed was multiplied, was it observed that the loaves decreased or that less was given to each; and men were zealous lest the house of God, being exhausted, its provision failing, should be reduced to the utmost misery; that there is a measure in all virtues, beyond which they are no longer such: nor ought that to be called liberality which takes away out of the midst all matter for liberality. For whence should they afterwards be liberal, when they have nothing? Nay, if they should be compelled by want to beg, they would use up the mercy of others, which, being unequal to sustaining both, would thus allow as many poor to perish as it feeds monks. That therefore an account should be exacted from the cellarer, and the produce consumed reckoned against the produce received, and likewise what was needful up to the harvest: then whatever should perhaps remain over might be distributed; but what should be lacking, as needs it must, should presently be supplied rather from elsewhere than exhausted; and that a more prudent steward should be provided, who should extend liberality by frugality, not hinder it by profusion, nor be compelled to beg while he hastens to give. Thus Manrique. But let us see in what manner God honored the holy steward while he was being accused by the members of the community.

[14] but is honored by a miracle as a faithful steward. These and like things, says the same writer at number 11, being brought before the abbot, were at first passed over, whether by a magnanimous man or by a pusillanimous one is uncertain; certainly by one unwilling to acknowledge a deficiency which he could the less supply: but presently, the rumors growing, the matter was brought to examination, and Bernard was called to judgment to render an account of receipts and expenditures. The books were already set before the abbot; the expenses, compared with the produce received, were already found to have exceeded it nearly twofold; a huge debt was already feared, which Bernard had contracted for the excess: when the holy Man, full of the Spirit of God, and, from the showing of what had gone before (for the provision and the money had increased while he himself was less aware of it), conceiving a firm expectation of what was to come, said: "I have received nothing from strangers, nor have I any more certain books than the granaries and the storerooms of the monastery: let receipt and expenditure be reckoned there. Nothing has come in from outside; if anything shall be found there, that will be the sum of our debt, to be more prudently distributed for the remainder of the year." A marvelous thing, but certain, and by so much the more attested by many as it is the more marvelous! Grain, wine, oil, and money, and whatever else the community had acquired, overflowed in the casks, granaries, and chests, as if, twice as much having been gathered, nothing at all had been drawn from them. This was the beginning of the signs of the blessed Man converted from Mohammedanism, as it is narrated by ancient writers (there is cited in the margin Antonio Beuter, book 2, chapter 35). Thereafter, strengthened in faith and charity, he was daily more lavish; but neither did the monks, who had experienced the power of God and the merits of the holy Man, wish to have another steward. Escolano in the place assigned above, columns 914 and 915, records other marvels concerning the holy Man while he discharged the office of procurator; namely that the sick whom he fervently visited were freed from their infirmities through him by the sign of the cross; and further, that the peoples to whom he betook himself, moved by the fame of his marvelous works, went out to receive him, and offered him their sick that he might touch them, especially little children, because God had communicated to him a singular power of healing those suffering from hernia.

[15] Thus far we have seen him a faithful steward of the things which pertain to the sustenance of the body, Kindled with zeal for the salvation of his kinsfolk and pleasing to God; it remains that we show how faithful and how happy a steward he proved of the word of God. Manrique, at the year of Christ 1178, chapter 5, number 6 and following, narrates this bearing upon our purpose: In Spain, to Bernard of Carlet, now verging upon old age, rest was granted, and leisure from the care of the monastery indulged, the monks grieving and the neighboring peoples weeping — the men, because they were losing a common father, under whom neither could they lack what they might give, much less what they might possess; nor these, what they might receive. But then the Saint, stretching out his hand to higher things, and transferring the care hitherto committed to him of nourishing bodies to the converting of souls and to the enlightening, through the preaching of the Gospel, of the kinsfolk he had despised for Christ, licence having been sought from Abbot Hugo and obtained, came first to Lérida to his mother's sister; thence to go on to his sisters and his brother.

[16] She, who had beheld her nephew a young man resplendent in gold and purple, he is despised by his aunt: recognized him a withered old man in a cheap frock and a despised habit, insulting him at first, and casting in his teeth his new rites, the hateful worship of a crucified Man, a degenerate religion which under the appearance of virtue enervates minds and subjects bodies to a harsh servitude; but presently, when she heard more attentively Bernard discoursing of Christ and confuting the Mohammedan errors, more serene in countenance, and now more like one deliberating than one objecting, she said: "What support, my son, is there in the Christian law, in which dejection is taken for humility, patience for constancy, and miseries for glories? Which either produces or cloaks blindness under the honorable name of faith, and defers little to reason and discourse, and to old people nothing. Then, if in any law doubts arise, that life is to be preferred which, given either by fate or by divine providence, you may keep without fault, nor can you fulfill it save with praise — as parents, and country, and family are things received, not sought, nor to be exchanged for any others whatsoever; so it is a mark of constancy to keep to death the religion once drunk in; to examine it too much, of sacrilege; to forsake it, of perfidy; to vary it, of inconstancy and levity."

[17] but, having heard his sacred teachings These and like things did the aged woman say to Bernard. He on the contrary said that the blindness of faith was most keen-sighted, and that it was in no way contrary to reason that many things should be given which are above reason. That a man would not be a man if he could be comprehended by brutes; nor an angel, if by mortal man; and how much less God, if by creatures. That the things which he has revealed to us concerning himself rest upon so many and so great testimonies, and are proved by so many arguments, that he is blind who does not see the heavenly Godhead. Then, the divine truth once known, what is more lovable to us than God made man, dwelling among men, suffering for men, and taking men up into the divine being? That eternal souls, to be endowed with eternal rewards, are to be preferred to perishable bodies; which, if they rightly serve the spirit, will not remain unrewarded, but will rise to immortality: that country, parents, and family are by no means chosen, because they come before our will: that religion is subject to our own choice, being of all things the weightiest, and therefore the more advisedly to be chosen. That hitherto perhaps it was to be set down to ignorance, perhaps to inadvertence, that she had not examined it: but that now neither could be pretended by her. Let her see, look, compare, and choose the eternal — either to be damned or to reign.

[18] she embraces the orthodox faith, and shines in virtues. He spoke: and the woman, God touching her inwardly, as if she were waking from a heavy sleep, revolving in her mind that supreme beginning without beginning, unchangeable, immeasurable, and the whole of eternity, began first to spurn the Mohammedan trifles, to turn away from their filthinesses, to condemn that licence which stood most of all in the way of holy morals: presently to venerate and embrace the gravity of the Christian religion, and now to be more sharply terrified by the fear of the hell threatening her, now to be allured by the hope of glory: then, dissolved in tears by the love of that immeasurable goodness and mercy which had shone forth most deeply in the work of redemption, at length she embraced the Christian faith, nay, and, so far as was permitted, perfection also, being about to remain in both until death. Her goods were for the greater part distributed to the poor while she still lived: the rest were reserved for the woman's use, modest for the quality of royal blood, but enough for herself and hers, and, whatever should be left over, still for the poor. Then as a pledge of a grateful mind she wished these very things to pass after her death to Poblet, whence had come her salvation, whence the divine truth of the Gospel had shone upon her: and there remains today to the aforesaid monastery a shady wood not far from Lérida, which among other things tradition holds to have been the heroine's legacy, with documents, as they say, attesting it; which nevertheless he who collected the Acts of the Saint, whence we have drawn these things, laments that he did not find. This was the first harvest of Bernard of Carlet, which another and greater one, in his brother's own house, and the more glorious the more bloody, was awaiting. Meanwhile he returned to Poblet, that, more steadfast in mind and with new strength taken up again from quiet and prayer, he might more effectually set about his preaching.

[19] There is described For the rest, since mention of the monastery of Poblet recurs not infrequently in the course of this Commentary, I subjoin a notice of the place; which it will be useful to remember in §3, where we shall see that from ignorance of that place a great hallucination was committed, in attributing to St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, a miracle which was wrought by our Bernard of Poblet or of Alzira. Manrique at the year of Christ 1153, chapter 18, number 1, collected very many things concerning the said monastery, of which it has seemed good to select these: Poblet, at the roots of Mount Prades (commonly de Prades) in the diocese of Tarragona in Catalonia (and distant from Tarragona a little less than a day's journey, on the testimony of Domenech, to be cited below), Raymond Berengar founded, an illustrious prince, who possessed the kingdom of Aragon by dowry-title with his wife Petronilla, and the county of Barcelona by hereditary right. Some derive the name of the place from the frequency of the trees which they call poplars, because it abounded in plants of that kind. Others say it was called, from the size of the growing house, as it were a little town, which in the vernacular tongue they call poblet. Better those who derive it from a holy hermit of the same name, who for some years dwelt in that place. Tradition holds that he was captured by the neighboring Saracens, who were numerous there, and, being shackled with chains at Siurana (that is the name of the royal citadel), was miraculously delivered and restored to his desert; and that this very thing happened so often that at length the Hagarenes, yielding to the Deity, preserved the man there unharmed; nay, that they made him a gift of the surrounding place, that he might dwell in it with such companions as he wished. Finally that Cistercian monks, sent from Fontfroide, being joined to him, changed the hermitage into a monastery. So, in nearly every particular, Juan Álvaro, bishop of Solsona, in the Origins of the Monasteries of Aragon.

[20] Yepes at this year does not deny that the name was taken from the hermit, the monastery of Poblet. and that the miracle was received by tradition as it were from hand to hand: but that the place was given by the Saracens to a Christian man he does not so easily persuade himself; nor is it to be believed that Raymond of Barcelona would found a monastery, which he chose as a burial-place for himself and his own, outside the bounds of his own dominion, or would expose Cistercian monks, summoned from afar, to the perfidy of infidels, which he himself with his people had so often experienced. Certainly the registrars of the affairs of Aragon testify that the place for founding the monastery was given not to the hermit by the Saracens, but to Sanctius, abbot of the monastery of Fontfroide, by Count Raymond, with the boundaries described; whose words are cited there. Then the praised Annalist concludes thus: Whether therefore the hermit had already died, or survived the foundation of the monastery, the place, already wrested from the Saracens, was contained within Christian bounds. But neither is the site of the monastery the same as that which the hermit inhabited, although not far distant, and each is contained within the boundaries. Let it suffice to have brought forward this concerning the notice of this monastery, so far as our matter requires. But if the curious reader desires more concerning it, he may consult the author assigned above; in whom he will read a twofold donation: one, rendered from Arabic into Latin, of the pagan Almira Almominiz in favor of Poblet the hermit; the other, in Latin, of the Catholic prince Raymond, made to Sanctius abbot of Fontfroide in the year 1151 (for it preceded the coming of the monks); the tombs of the kings of Aragon; their notable munificence and liberality, whereby it came about that Poblet, growing and prospering, was enlarged to that power which it now has; which the same Manrique describes in the same place.

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§ III. A notable miracle wrought by the Saint; his fruitless labors in converting his brother; his two sisters brought by him to Christian worship; the Saint rescued by them from death.

Out of ignorance of the place, a miracle wrought by this Saint We follow again the oft-praised writer of the Cistercian Annals, who, after he had at the year of Christ 1180, chapter 4, numbers 1 and 2, praised Benno or Bruno the bishop for his burning zeal for propagating the orthodox faith and preaching the Gospel, goes on in the same place at number 3 to report what our Saint accomplished in that kind. In Spain, he says, Bernard of Carlet, kindled with a like zeal for preaching the Gospel, licence having been obtained from his abbot (Hugo or Stephen? For Stephen succeeded Hugo in this very year), and commending himself to the prayers of the Brethren, went on to Carlet, to convert his brother and sisters, and any others he could, from Mohammedanism to the true faith of Christ. His Acts affirm that miracles were wrought by him on the journey; but what or of what sort they by no means recount. Famous is that concerning the apostate monk converted by the Man of God, but not immediately returned to the monastery: who, presently dying and being buried in a clerical habit, when the Saint returned and searched the tomb, was found in a monastic cowl, not without the great astonishment of all. And this indeed was wrought by this Bernard, whether on this journey or on another: which manifestly appears from his Acts, though ascribed by error to the abbot of Clairvaux, especially by foreigners, who have less knowledge of the man of Carlet; from a manuscript of the monastery of Barbeaux (of which presently) Jean Picard published it in these very words:

[22] wrought upon an apostate monk, is wrongly ascribed "In the time of blessed Bernard it happened that a certain monk, going out from his monastery and discipline and leaving his habit, at the devil's persuasion returned to the world, and undertook the governance of a certain parish. For he was a priest. And because sin is often punished by sin, the deserter of the Order slips into the vice of lust. He took a concubine, as is the custom with many, to dwell with him: by whom he also begat children. It happened that after very many years, by the mercy of the Lord, who wishes no one to perish, holy Bernard passed through the village in which that same monk was staying, and turned aside to his house for the sake of lodging. He, recognizing him and receiving him with much reverence as his own father, devoutly ministered to him, and provided what was needful both for him and for the beasts: nevertheless he was not recognized by him. In the morning, when the holy Man, Matins having been said, was ready to go, and could not speak to the priest, because he had risen earlier and gone to the church, he said to that priest's son: "Go, carry this message to thy master." Now that boy was mute from birth. He, obeying the command and feeling in himself the power of him who commanded, ran to his father, and expressed the words of the holy Father in perfectly distinct words, saying: "Thus and thus the abbot commands thee."

[23] to St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux. "The father, hearing the first utterance of his son, and weeping for joy, urged him to repeat the same words a second and a third time: and asked what the abbot had done to him. He answered: "He did nothing else to me: but only said to me: 'Go, tell thy master these words.'" At so evident a miracle the priest, stricken with compunction, came in haste to the holy man, and prostrated himself with tears at his feet. "Lord father," he said, "I was such and such a monk of yours; and at such a time I departed from such a monastery. I ask therefore your Paternity that it may be permitted me to return with you to the monastery: because God has visited my heart at your coming." To whom the Saint said: "Wait for me here: and I, my business being finished, returning speedily, will take thee with me." He, fearing death, which he had not feared before, answered: "Lord, I fear to die in the meantime." To this he said: "Know this for certain: that if thou shalt have died in such a condition and purpose, thou shalt be found a monk before God." He withdrew, perhaps foreknowing: but presently returned, and hearing that the man had lately died and been buried, he ordered the tomb to be opened. To those who asked what he wished to do, he answered: "I wish to see whether a monk lies in the tomb, or a cleric." "We buried a cleric," they say, "in a secular habit." The earth being cast back, he appeared to all not in the garment in which he had been buried, but in the tonsure and in the habit of a monk, and God was magnified by all."

Thus far there concerning Bernard of Clairvaux, because he who wrote it was ignorant of the man of Carlet. Otherwise, that the miracle was wrought by this second Bernard all the authors who write his Life constantly affirm. Further, that it was not wrought by Father Bernard (although it might have happened to him \, and could easily have been done by both) is proved by the argument that it is passed over by the ancients — William, Arnold, and Geoffrey, the author of the Exordium* (namely the great one of the Cistercian Order) — and by others: and it is credible that, the name of Bernard having been read, it was applied

to the more principal Bernard, especially by those who know the Spaniard less, and who therefore thought that everything must be referred to the one whom they knew: which is commonly wont to happen with others also, as Manrique has it. Add that this miracle was not wrought in Spain by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, which is most certainly established from the fact that the holy Man never set foot in Spain, as was proved by us in his preliminary Commentary, which we gave yesterday, §44. Further, concerning Barbeaux, of which mention fell above, a monastery of the Cistercian institute in the diocese of Sens, Manrique treats at the year 1165, chapter 4, number 5. But let us now return to our St. Bernard, and take up again the year 1180, chapter 4.

[24] However that may have been (thus the praised author of the Annals continues in the same place at number 6), having entered his brother's house, [Bernard of Alzira attempts to bring his brother to the Christian faith; but in vain:] he was at first gladly received, as one who was judged to have returned to the vomit of paganism, and to have come only for this; pardon for his apostasy being at once granted, and, since his brother remained childless, a crown promised him, and a wife, from whom, though late, he might have successors. But after the Saint disclosed that his mind was different, and that the cause of his coming to his brother was far other, and protested that he would not be perverted to the sacrilegious ravings of Mohammed, which he had once abhorred on the authority of the Gospel; nay, that he would convert his brother Almanzor and his sisters Zoraida and Zaida, if he could, so that salvation, descending thence to the people, might procure for them the true crown, a loftier kingdom, and heavenly rewards — then indeed the petty ruler, stamping the ground with his foot, and flaming and fuming with eyes and nostrils, and no less on that account gnashing his teeth at him, as one moved by zeal for a violated religion, began to reproach him with apostasy, to heap up insults, and to declare himself not the brother but the enemy of a sacrilegious deserter, against whom he threatened stripes, the cross, weapons, and heavier punishments: and had not the pious sisters intervened, who promised that they would persuade their brother \, it would perhaps have been all over with the Saint's life, Almanzor slaying him \, whether to conciliate Mohammed by such a sacrifice, or, as is sometimes the policy of princes, to conciliate the people to himself under the appearance of religion. But Bernard, by divine providence, had as his preservers then the sisters whom he was afterwards to preserve, and who were thereafter to be crowned together with him.

[25] he converts his two sisters; Bernard therefore, being handed over to Zoraida and Zaida, that through them he might be recalled to the ancestral laws and the religion of his country, rather, such was the faith with which he was endowed and his zeal for the Christian profession, assailing them both, when he had discoursed to them much of the heavenly country, much of Christ and of the faith, he who had been handed over to his sisters to be perverted converted his sisters; and, when they had been fitly instructed in Christian doctrine and were truly faithful, devoutly washing them in the sacred font of baptism, he called the one Gratia, the other Maria: each commended by her very name — that one, namely, because it bears grace before it; this, because it bears the Mother of all grace: each likewise by virginity, whereby, though late to follow the Lamb, they should nevertheless follow him whithersoever he went. Nor is there any doubt that they had been preserved for himself by Christ, whom, long since ripe and marriageable, under a law that spurns continence, and excelling in wealth, birth, and beauty, several petty rulers would already have chosen for themselves as wives, had they not been forestalled by another Lover, to whom all men, even unwilling, must yield.

[26] who from the fury of their Mohammedan brother Meanwhile the Saint, assailing his brother Almanzor with salutary admonitions, and now hunting for an opening from the Mohammedan ravings, now from the excellence of the Christian law, when he saw that he was accomplishing nothing, and moreover when the new brides of Christ, Maria and Gratia, more ardently longed to serve the Bridegroom among Christians, and to be themselves also solemnly consecrated among the virgins consecrated to him, counsel being taken among them, and to each being assigned what had to be done, it pleased them to anticipate the time by flight. Then to Almanzor, as sisters despairing of recalling their brother, whom they had found to their prayers an altogether hard flint and an immovable rock, they say: "Nay, let us as soon as possible expel from our land the deserter of religion and the vile runaway; whom, being obstinate, it is not permitted to persuade, nor, being our brother, to kill, nor, being an apostate, to retain. Let him go, and, resuming the laborious and despised life which he once chose, let him pay the penalties of his obstinate perfidy. To other nations death in punishment, because they are wont to live in delights; to Christians life in bitterness, death in glory: whence they are ready for this, and are punished the more cruelly the longer they live."

[27] Almanzor believed his sisters as they said these and like things, and, having addressed Bernard rather severely, set him free for the time. bids him depart from the court, from the city, and from the kingdom, never again to return thither. He, solicitous as he was for his brother's salvation, although he embraced his sisters with a more ardent charity on account of the new bond of Christ, with tears rising said: "I shall depart, brother, and shall leave thee the earth lightly, provided I do not forsake heaven: and I who came to seek not thy goods but thee, am easily removed from those things which I did not seek. I had come to win thee for Christ, not wealth or a temporal kingdom for myself. I shall depart glad from those things which I gladly fled, nay, from those which I escaped. But thee, whom as a brother by the bond of nature, whom as a lord by right of succession I both loved and honored, held captive in the chains of eternal damnation and unwilling to be rescued, I shall mourn in sadness, I shall weep over in bitterness, nor shall I ever receive consolation for a lost brother whom I uniquely loved." He spoke, and almost moved the proud petty ruler to tears; whether the blood shared with Bernard boiled up within his own veins, or whether the powerful memory of eternal salvation or damnation wrung it even from an unwilling man. The sisters were present at his departure with drier eyes, which then served them for a tongue, whereby they recalled the hour and place agreed upon. Therefore Bernard, going out toward evening, at the second milestone from the city turned aside into a wood, to await Maria and Gratia and the rest of the household (for several had associated themselves with them) in the middle silence of the night. There, intent on prayers and supplications, he besought a manly courage for the holy Virgins, darkness for the night, a deep sleep for the doorkeepers of his brother's court, and finally a happy outcome for their pious attempts, and late knowledge of it for his brother. But let us leave him for a little while in that wood, intent upon prayer, while we follow the Virgins.

\ read bis*

\ fratri*

\ occisuro eum*

§ IV. The martyrdom of Bernard and of his two Sisters; whether these embraced the Cistercian institute; the burial, discovery, and glory of their bodies.

While Maria and Gratia were panting for martyrdom, The aforesaid Cistercian historiographer, at the year which we just noted, 1180, chapter 5, narrating the martyrdom of St. Bernard and of his two Sisters, says: Already deep night held the heavenly sphere, silence the lands, and sleep men: when the Virgins newly betrothed to Christ rose to go forth to meet their Bridegroom, and, having gathered those companions who were of the faith, and taken them with them, passing by the drowsy guards, they left first the court, then the city. Nor was it a light space of a single league to be traversed by them both; but especially by Maria and Gratia, royal women, and more accustomed to be carried than to walk; and the dark gloom of the night held them back, and the road for the most part unseen, unnoticed stones, and gaping fissures, and whatever else commonly met them that is wont either to hurt or to delay. But they, who had put on with faith charity also, and with charity all the virtues, experienced in themselves a new strength for all things, and a new fortitude beyond a man's, much more beyond a woman's. Therefore, as dawn was whitening, seeing first the wood, then before the wood their brother Bernard coming to meet them, who was already going out to meet the approaching company, they dissolved into tears and said: "Who shall further separate us from the charity of Christ? Not death, not life, not danger, not the sword. Let Almanzor seek his sisters, if he will, and find them, if he can: either life among Christians awaits us, or death for Christ. If we are hidden, the faithful await us; if we are discovered, the angels. And so, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. Meanwhile let the wood protect us in hiding, to come forth from our hiding-places when our brother's search has cooled."

[29] They had already spent two days in the same place, and the servants of Almanzor, Bernard falls in with his raging brother: who had ranged over the whole surrounding region, finding no traces at all, were returning cheated of their hope: when behold, Bernard, going out from his hiding-place to make for the nearest farmstead, whence he might bring his sisters something wherewith to sustain life, fell in (alas!) with the king and his servants — a lamb upon a wolf, a sheep upon butchers. Then indeed the petty ruler, stirred with insane fury, rushed upon his brother, and, had he not been held back by his own servants, would have run him through with the spear which he carried in his hand, as he offered himself of his own accord and refused not to be slaughtered for Christ. But the servants withstood his first attempts, and said: "If thou forestall this man by death, who will disclose Zaida to us, who Zoraida, whether left and hidden in the midst of the wood or elsewhere, and likely to perish before they are found? Let him rather live, and disclose the women in hiding, and by his counsels unteach to those who have strayed from the truth the deceits, and lay aside the frauds, with which he imbued them when he led them from their brother's house." The counsel pleased the petty ruler, though raging; and, considering in his mind that one who has been taken can always be driven to death, but can never be recalled to life, coming nearer he addresses Bernard with feigned words:

[30] by whom, with flattering words, "Dost thou then, brother — if thou wouldst but yield thyself to me — dearer to me than my own self, whom I had long since chosen as friend, as now the partner of my kingdom and presently its successor, even after our ancestral laws had been abjured, not only spurn me as a brother, but mock me? Dost thou then also take my sisters from me (for I will not say deceive them), so that I may not even take from them children to be adopted as my own? Grant that thou findest some crime in me, which thou thinkest should be punished with a still greater penalty: what have our fathers committed against thee? What have men so great deserved, whom thou defraudest of grandchildren? Whom thou utterly deprivest of succession? Grant that your law is better and more wholesome: did Christ ever approve or teach the impiety of children against their parents? Was he opposed to the preservation of the human race? Did he command or counsel that kings be childless, so that at their death there should be no place for peace, but successors should be marked out by arms? Nay, would not Ramiro \, king of Aragon, transferred from being a monk to marriage by the Pontiff's command, from whom sprang Petronilla — examples of your own nation, and those recent enough — make it plain how much more those who are not yet consecrated must be given in marriage, and a crown, however small, preserved? Nothing further need be disputed between us concerning religion, which is free to all; concerning the succession of the kingdom, who would forbid? Let each sister marry, let the one marry, and, provided it be to someone, let her marry a Christian, and observe the pious ordinances of your law, so that she may either persevere in matrimony, or, if she prefer, after offspring has been received return to celibacy, to remain in it until death." Pagi in the Baronian Critique* at the year 1134, from number 31, has collected various things concerning Ramiro or Ranimirus, who from a monk was made king of Aragon, and by his wife Matilda, daughter of William VIII count of Poitou, had a daughter Petronilla; which

may be read in the same place. Let us meanwhile follow on with what Almanzor did against his brother Bernard.

[31] then, assailed with threats, he is crowned with martyrdom: These things Almanzor said in guile to the Man of God, until they should come together to the Sisters. But after he had gained the desired prey, being turned to fury, he sets before him either to fall back from the Christian faith or to undergo a cruel death. There was now no middle course in the affairs of Ahmed (so he called Bernard by his former name), who must undergo either a crown or the sword: the former, if he would reign together with his brother; the latter, if, as he himself thought, with his Christ. That the women's minds, hitherto deceived under the appearance of piety, must by either means be brought back to the truth; if he persevered, by fear of a like death; if he came to his senses, by the same man as teacher who had been their deceiver. Then indeed the Saint said: "Thou hast rather deceived one willing to be deceived, and hast drawn by guile one offering himself of his own accord to sacrifice — guile which I could easily have foreseen. To me to live is Christ alone; to die for Christ is gain, which I have long sought. Nor shall I believe that Maria and Gratia, once betrothed to Christ, are to be torn from his faith by my death. Nay, watered as it were by a brother's blood, they will be rooted the deeper, and will receive the axe's stroke the more firmly." He spoke, and lifting his eyes first to heaven, then turning them to his sisters, as though inviting them to the passion, he said: "O Christ, since it is possible, let this cup pass from me to them; let them suffer with me, let them reign with me: and those who were born with me in flesh and in spirit, and whom thou hast adopted for thyself as daughters through grace, make them heirs together with me." Presently, offering his hands to the guards to be bound, and reverently saluting the tree to which he was being tied, as bearing the likeness of the wood of the Cross, at last, with an iron nail which a soldier happened to be carrying fixed into his forehead, he was slain with the greater torment, his Sisters and his brother looking on, and not weeping: they, because they rejoiced together at their brother's glory; he, because he congratulated himself on his own vengeance.

[32] Bernard being crowned through martyrdom, and the crown itself as it were fixed to his victorious brow by the nail, with which afterwards both his sisters also were consummated. that it might not easily fall or be torn away, there remained the Sisters, whom nature made inferior in strength, but grace made almost equal, and a triumph not unlike was awaiting them. These he first strove gently to seduce with promises and blandishments, and with those things which generally move women's minds — husbands being proposed to them, and to the one the succession of the kingdom, to the other a rich dowry and much treasure, such as kings would court, being liberally offered: intending to pervert womanly weakness by enticements, luxury, and delights. But when he sees that blandishments profit nothing, and that each sister is steadfast in the faith of Christ which she has received, turning to terrors, and now threatening sudden death with the sword, now savagely menacing a slaughter more bitter than his brother's slaughter, he says: "He, pierced through the head with a nail, fell: you shall give your several limbs to nails and hooks to be torn asunder piecemeal, that you may be tortured the longer and perish the more slowly. Shall I not appease God with your blood, who would not spare even my own? Or shall I have regard for insults to the heavenly Godhead, to the confusion of our whole nation, nay of the law itself? To make away with women by nature, sisters by birth, daughters by upbringing (for I have held you as such), after a brother has been slaughtered, seems, I confess, impious and inhuman: but to preserve transgressors and vile apostates will be sacrilege: and by as much as God excels all creatures, by so much must the religion of observance be preferred. They would perhaps give place to repentance (and O that you would repent!) if the same did not lie open to obstinacy: but since I rather expect this course than that, which you yourselves proclaim, you must perish, not so much because you have sinned as lest you sin." He spoke, and orders them to be slain, struck with the sword, in the sight of Bernard's corpse, which obtained for them strength from the earth, and his triumphing spirit strength no otherwise than from heaven — helps, and a desire of eternal life, contempt of the temporal, and gladness in death. Each holy Virgin received the blow steadfastly and eagerly: nor did her soul enter the heavens later than her trunk touched the earth. The court of the heavenly hall met each with royal display, as they exulted from heaven. The earth did not receive their bodies before it was strewn with their own blood as with royal purple. These things concerning the martyrdom of the unconquered Prince and of his Sisters he faithfully set down from Antonio Beuter, Martín de Viciana, and others, and also from the archives of Poblet, who compiled the Acts of the Saint for publication.

[33] It seems more probable that they were not Cistercian nuns. A controversy can here be raised, whether our holy Champion so led his own sisters to the Christian faith that they also embraced the Cistercian institute. Chrysostom Henriquez affirms it at the XXIII day of August, who after what he had premised concerning St. Bernard, their brother, continues thus: But Maria and Gratia his sisters, whom he himself had begotten in Christ, and, a vow of chastity being first made, had enrolled in the number of the Cistercians, etc. The same Chalemot holds in his Series of the Saints etc., saying at the same day that they were slaughtered the veil of religion having already been received. Add Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology at the said day, where he asserts that our Saint obtained that they should be admitted to the profession of the monastic life. But in Wion and Menard I read nothing of this matter. Manrique, moreover, whom I was just now citing, seems to have held this institute of the Cistercian religion either suspect, or at least not sufficiently proved, since, leaving it undecided, he did not dare to affirm or deny anything about it. For thus he speaks at number 7: Many assign Maria and Gratia to our Order, as nuns in spirit and by vow: which I have not been able to find in the ancient writers. Nay rather, that they were being led to their mother's sister, to live piously with her at Lérida. I do not doubt that women converted by Bernard, even if secular, must be ascribed to his glory: the rest I neither affirm nor deny, but leave entire to my reader.

[34] What was done with the bodies of the Martyrs. But what was done concerning the bodies of the holy Martyrs the same Cistercian historiographer had premised at number 6 in these words: The bodies of the Saints were left in the wood, exposed to the beasts of the earth and to the birds: and without doubt they would have fed both, had not one of the servants, less barbarous, or perhaps devoted to the Christian law, dug up the earth and committed them to burial in the very place of the martyrdom, not far from Alzira, a noble town, from which the glorious Martyr is to this day surnamed St. Bernard of Alzira. The tombs remained unknown for many years; until, under King James the First (whom, after the founding of the most holy Order of blessed Mary called of Mercy for the redeeming of Christian captives, after the storming of Majorca and Valencia, after many and illustrious victories won over the Saracens, the Cistercian family at last awaited), heavenly signs going before, they were discovered, and were endowed by him with an honorable chapel and a marble tomb: which we shall report more fully in its own time. Thus the holy Martyr, taken up from Cîteaux, and to be consummated in Cîteaux through the king, began to be venerated, the frequent miracles which God wrought through the sacred relics extorting the cultus of all the rest. But how, and on what occasion, they were again hidden and again discovered, and how the sacred place passed to the Convent of the Brethren of the Most Holy Trinity of the Redemption of Captives, whom God set as guardians of the sacred treasure, the Annals will likewise relate in its own time. But since what Manrique says here, and a little before, and finally above among us at §1, number 11, is to be related in its own time concerning the miracles, I do not find related in his Annals, I shall try to supply from elsewhere the finding of the bodies, and the public honors decreed to them, and also the miracles by which they became renowned, bringing forward those things which have come to our notice, when I have first treated of the public cultus of our Martyrs.

\* al. he is called Ramirus, and Ranimirus.

§ V. The public cultus; the findings and translations of the bodies; favors obtained through the patronage of St. Bernard.

St. Bernard the patron of Alzira. Manrique at the year just mentioned, 1180, number 7, left this noted concerning the cultus: Alzira venerates St. Bernard as the patron of the place, whom, having experienced him in many things a favorable and powerful intercessor with God, they frequently visit, and celebrate solemnly with a yearly votive festival. Bernard of Alzira is also honored by the monastic Martyrology of Hugues Ménard on the XX of August, although in the notes it sets the year far too early by the printer's carelessness; by Arnold Wion in the Appendix under the letter B; by Juan Vicente the Dominican, On the Saints of Catalonia; by Alfonso de Villegas, On the Saints of Spain; by Chrysostom Henriquez in the Menology, on the XXIII of August, and in the Fasciculus. Nay, we too, when we were young, having published a sermon in our Sanctorale, declaimed the praises of the blessed Martyr. To whom may be added Ferrari, who in his general Catalogue of the Saints announces our Martyrs thus at the XX day of August: At Alorica in Spain, of St. Bernard, monk and martyr, with his two Sisters.

[36] Besides their public veneration, it is well to observe some things concerning the day Different writers give different days, on which they are venerated. We have just seen that this is not marked at the same time by all. Bolland left noted in his own hand, as bearing on our matter, this observation: Further, he says, a certain Reverend Father of the Order of the Trinitarians, a Spaniard, who was commissary-general of the same Order throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, told me that this Saint is venerated on the 2nd of September, and that very many are healed of hernia by his aid. Juan de Marieta in book 3 On the Holy Religious Martyrs of Spain, chapter 31, indicates that he is venerated at Alorica or Alzira, and that his lessons are read on the XX day of August. Alonso del Castillo Solórzano in the Valencian Sanctuary asserts that his feast is celebrated on the same day on which is venerated the feast of St. Bernard, founder (rather, propagator) of the sacred Cistercian Order, which is the XXI (he meant to say the XX) day of August. Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology refers our three Martyrs to the XXII day of the same month. We, following Manrique, give them on this day, since it is hitherto not certainly established for us on what day their martyrdom happened, or on what day they ought to be venerated; for the same Tamayo in their Acts, which he published, has little or no firmness, when he says thus: They report that their contest took place on the XI of the Kalends of September. Let this be added from Miræus in the Auctarium of the Monastic Origins, or book 5, chapter 14, where, treating of our St. Bernard, he says: He is venerated with an ecclesiastical Office in the basilica of his own name at Alzira on the XX of August, where a part of his body is preserved.

[37] But we, to say it again, do not depart from the day which Manrique marks, even though elsewhere another is noted: we give him and his sisters on this day with Manrique. and why he reports the Martyrs on this day rather than on another, he explains thus at the year 1180, chapter 5, number 5: Concerning the day of their death nothing certain is established: nevertheless the memory of the three Brethren (that is, of one Brother and of his two Sisters) is venerated on the twenty-first day of the month of August: either because on it they underwent martyrdom; or because it is the first after the feast of the great Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, to whom they wished themselves to be subjoined, as to a Father

to daughters, if not, as is usual, because occasion was taken from the name. Not otherwise do those who dwell on the farthest banks of the river Douro venerate on the same day Bernard of Candeleda, mentioned above: whence that province is Estrema Daurii or Durii, commonly Estremadura, which extends broadly between Lusitania and Bætica and both Castiles. Of St. Bernard of Candeleda we treated on the XX day of this month.

[38] The cultus propagated from the finding Further, what we have premised concerning the public veneration of our Martyrs will be confirmed from the finding and honoring of the bodies; to which we shall add the miracles. Escolano, cited above, book 8, chapter 25, number 8 and following, gives various things bearing on our matter, of which we excerpt these. That author therefore indicates that those bodies for many years after their burial, while the whole kingdom of Valencia groaned under the servitude of the Mohammedans, not only remained unburied, but that also the memory both of them and of their burial lay hidden, until King James, pursuing his victories, that is, the recovery of the kingdom, on a certain night sent men to range over the territory of Alzira. And while these had composed themselves to sleep in this wood, they dreamed either that they heard, or in truth did hear, a certain most sweet melody. But on the following night, being intent upon this matter, they saw amid the darkness of the night six lights descending from heaven, which were divided equally into two choirs or rows. In fear they betook themselves to the place which the lights marked out, and found the ground wet with fresh blood, and, urged on by a divine impulse, they dug in that very place, and found the bodies of the three Martyrs: they covered them over in the best and most secret manner they could; and, retracing their journey to the king, they reported to him what had been done: to whom, a diligent inquiry into the same having been made and the truth attested among the Moors, the Martyrdom of these Brethren was narrated by them.

[39] and the translation of the bodies, Then he ordered them to be taken up thence with great veneration, and to be placed in a certain pious hermitage which he caused to be built, and which to this day, says Escolano, remains, and which we see combined with the monastery of the Brethren of the Most Holy Trinity. Likewise by the king's command a stone tomb was fashioned in the hermitage, together with an image or statue of St. Bernard, supported on six little columns. Beneath the tomb the relics of the Saint were laid, this inscription being added on the vault of the hermitage: HERE LIES THE BODY OF ST. BERNARD THE MARTYR. Besides this there was another inscription expressed in the Valencian tongue, which runs thus in Latin: Here are the bodies of St. Bernard the martyr, of St. Gratia and of St. Maria. But for the bodies of those two Sisters the king ordered another stone sepulchre to be erected, as the aforesaid historian reports, on whose faith we have transcribed the above hither, and from whom we shall cull a few more items which regard the translation of the bodies and the increase of the public cultus, and which he narrates at greater length.

[40] and also from the munificence of one of the two sons of the king of Valencia: He affirms therefore that as time went on there were certain disturbances in that kingdom; and that while a certain solitary was living in the said hermitage, there was fear lest those sacred bodies should be carried off by theft, because that place stood outside the circuit of the town: but that thence, with the utmost silence and caution, as the same author relates at greater length, those same bodies were translated and laid near the high altar. Then he adds that one of the two sons of the king of Valencia, whom he names Zeyte Abuzeyte, called Ferdinand Perez, who had already been converted to the Christian faith and washed with baptism, when he was drawing up his last testament at Valencia in the year 1262, gave commandment that a certain fixed sum from his goods should be given for the building of St. Bernard of Alzira and of St. Felix of Játiva; and that at his own expense the dormitory, as they call it, of the Valencian house of the Friars Minor should be built. He records that from that time the pious affection of veneration always increased; and that when the Trinitarian Brethren had come to the place of the sacred deposit, in order to convert the hermitage into a monastery, the place in which that sacred deposit was laid up was secretly revealed by the hermit to the Provincial of the same Order; and that the same notice was secretly communicated to one after another of the heads of the province: until in the year 1599, in the month of May (Solórzano at folio 28 verso marks the XXIII day of July) it was obtained from him who then governed the province that he should make manifest the hidden treasure, and grant leave to dig it up, that it might be honored with a costly tomb.

[41] No sooner said than done: pious works being first performed, the Religious girded themselves for the search after that sacred deposit: Another finding of the bodies, and a solemn translation: miracles. they labored through two nights: but on the third there is found a bone exceedingly large and fragrant: on the next night the Religious return to their labor, and find a sepulchre in which were the bones of the Saint joined together; and at the side the head with the hole of the nail, no trace of corruption appearing. Don Juan de Ribera, archbishop of Valencia, learns of the matter: without delay he sends his visitor, that he may learn from him the fact and its truth: this is accurately examined, and there is deliberation about instituting a most solemn translation of the relics to their due place, on the XXIV day of August in the year 1610, at which the aforesaid lord archbishop wished to be present, which was one of the notable things that have been seen in this kingdom, as the above-praised Escolano reports, from whom I have excerpted the above: and although some circumstances occur in this account which do not in every respect satisfy me, and which I could wish to have proved from elsewhere, nevertheless I have judged that the matter should be given as I found it in the same author. He adds that he will say something in its place concerning the more notable miracles of the three Valencian Martyrs; but since on this subject I find nothing in him in the second part of the first Decade — which Decade alone saw the light out of three promised by the author, as Nicolás Antonio testifies in the Bibliotheca Hispana — we shall try to supply this matter from elsewhere.

[42] Alonso Solórzano in the Valencian Sanctuary, folio 83 and following, reviews those miracles, A woman disabled in the knees, which we have turned from the Spanish tongue into Latin to this effect: A certain Religious of the monastery of St. Thecla in the city of Valencia, by name Emerentiana Plaça, had for two years been disabled in the knees and in their joints, so that she could not stand on her feet without help. And while she greatly afflicted herself, because she saw that she suffered from that evil and could not, together with the other nuns, give herself to the duties of the Order, she was wont to weep, and to ask our Lord that she might obtain health. She also invoked some Saints toward whom she had a special affection, that they might be favorable to her with God, and that health might be restored to her by him. To this end also she venerated such relics of the Saints as she could have. Among these they brought her oil which was burning in one of the lamps before the holy martyr Bernard. She kept it, moreover, until a certain feast day, on which, being set in a seat in the choir (for she had been brought thither because she could not move herself), before the most holy Sacrament, she anointed the joints of both knees: and presently on the instant she said that those parts which she had anointed were burning. But after other Religious had come to take her away from thence, and to see what was wanting to her, and to raise her upon her feet, at the time when the priest saying Mass was elevating the Host, they saw how she alone, with none helping, raised herself and was able to walk, thanks being rendered to our Lord with a rich abundance of tears, and also to St. Bernard, by whose patronage she had obtained health.

[43] [a woman suffering most dangerously from a flow of blood; a man struck by a leaden ball,] A certain woman, from the place of Castellón, having been brought to the last term of life, and already fortified with extreme unction on account of the flow of blood from which she suffered, and which had lasted many days, drinking a little water into which had been put earthy dust from the Saint's tomb, with great affection of piety, found herself whole and free from her infirmity, giving thanks to the holy Martyr for the favor bestowed upon her.

From the Son of the chief prefect of justice in Guadasuar, who today (Solórzano's book was published in the year 1635) is a Religious in the Convent of St. Bernard, on the same day on which he fulfilled his vow of embracing the religious state, there leapt out a leaden ball which he had in his throat from the shot of a firearm which his father had discharged at him, though not wishing to do it.

[44] likewise a man near to death; Miguel Valentín, an inhabitant of the place Castellón de Játiva (or of Játiva, if that word is to be referred to Miguel), was very grievously sick, so that not only had he been fortified with all the Sacraments of the Church, but the physician also said that he could not obtain health by human remedies, unless God should work some prodigy by his mighty hand. But while the sick man was awaiting when the term should come for paying the necessary debt of nature, on a certain night St. Bernard appeared to him, some Religious accompanying him, according to what the sick man said and affirmed; and without delay he began to call upon his wife, who had been sleeping in the same chamber upon a certain chest, and said: "Dost thou not see, lady, the glorious St. Bernard the martyr, who has come to visit me? Now I know that health has been imparted to me by him because of the great affection of piety with which I have pursued him throughout my whole life: and therefore from this day forward I purpose, for this grace which he has conferred upon me, not only to show myself grateful by prayers, but I also offer him that I will receive in hospitality all the Religious and household of his holy Convent." And presently on the next day the sick man felt that he had recovered, so that the physician confessed that God had wrought a special miracle in him, the Saint interposing his intercession.

[45] two infants suffering from hernia, and others from other ills, Catalina Rastrojo, an inhabitant of the place Alcoy, had two sons suffering from hernia: one of the age of two years and a half, the other of nine months: and since she saw how much trouble each of those children suffered, she determined to go to perform a nine days' exercise of piety in his honor, and to ask him very earnestly that, moved by mercy, he would furnish a remedy for her two sons. And carrying this good will into execution, and pursuing that good exercise daily, before those nine days were completed she saw her sons in good health, no other greater remedy having been applied to them than an anointing with a little of the oil of the lamps which burn before the Saint's altar.

A certain Religious of the monastery of St. Bernard suffered greatly from hemorrhoids; and when several times with great devotion he had anointed himself with a little of the oil from the Saint's lamps, he came out altogether whole.

Father Master Fray Honorio Gilbao y de Castro, who wrote the history of St. Bernard the martyr, felt himself afflicted with a great pain in the side, and also with the evil of the stone: and when on a certain night he had taken care that the novices should recite some hymns of jubilee concerning the Saint, and had anointed himself with the oil of his lamps, he recovered health.

To these Solórzano subjoins that the miracles which are here written have all been taken word for word from the book about that Saint: except

what God has wrought and works, many things, in those who are afflicted and are placed in need, and who commend themselves to him, finding a remedy in their afflictions and labors.

[46] Behold for thee, reader, certain other marvels from the metrical Life of Fray Lucas Freire de Daguarda, by St. Bernard which I shall indicate at greater length in the next paragraph, transcribed hither. These things, then, that metrical biographer left to posterity as bearing on our matter:

Now the happy roofs of Benimuslæum gleam: These too rejoice to have brought forth Bernard's favor. Antonio was the man's surname, Gilbert: He tilled the land and walls of Benimuslæum, A farmer, and bewailed a son void of sight, Who in his father's tongue had been called Lucas. He had not yet completed the eighth year of life, When, setting before his mind the labors of a wretched lot, And revolving with himself the renowned miracles of Bernard, And that he had bountifully granted sight to another blind man, Antonio besought his father with rising tears: And if by Bernard's merits and prayers he should obtain Health, and eyes clear of their wonted darkness, He would himself serve the Martyr's house for three years.

[47] And when the mother of the fates had girt the earth with darkness, And Cynthia was lending her borrowed light, are healed. Then the blind boy sought the gift of Morpheus and rest; But after the dawn, showing her rosy shapes, Foretold the bright lights of the flaming chariot, The blind boy is led down into his father's farm; Here by the Martyr's merits he beholds the shining stars, Glad, and saw that he kept the health he had wished. Thee too, illustrious Valencia, the gifts of Bernard Touch, while he shows too great a love for his nurse. Here Pedro González was the man's surname called; A hydrocele weighed him down in both groins: But by the Martyr's oil he drives the disease from his body.

In the Blaeu Geography, volume nine, in the geographical map of the kingdom of Valencia, I find a place Benimodo (perhaps Benimolo) situated in the territory of Alzira; whether the poet changed it thus for the sake of the meter, and means to signify it by the name Benimuslæum, or another place, it is not ready for me to say; it will be for those who are near to this doubtful place, and to whom accordingly I leave it to be examined. Hugrocela, in Greek ὑγροκέλη, is a species of hernia, or a watery rupture, as I read in the Greek-Latin Lexicon which I have before me. It also sends the reader to the word ἐντεροκήλη: concerning which Gorræus, treating in the Medical Definitions, says: It is a swelling of the scrotum, the intestine having slipped down into it: where more may be seen concerning this evil.

§ VI. The Acts written in bound and in loose style; the time of the martyrdom.

The beginning and end of the metrical Life sent from Spain to Rosweyde: Besides those writers who treat of our Martyrs, and who have been mentioned by us above in the course of this Commentary, another is suggested in a manuscript which we preserve, marked with this title in the hand of our Rosweyde: The Life of St. Bernard of Alzira, and of the holy virgins Gratia and Maria his sisters, martyrs, and also the foundation of the monastery of St. Mary of Poblet, of the Cistercian Order, described in verse by Fray Lucas Freire de Daguarda, of the royal monastery of St. Mary of Moreruela, of the sacred reformation of Spain or of Castile, of the same Order (in the diocese of Zamora. See Manrique's Annals in various places, and Jongelinus in the Notitia of the abbeys of the Cistercian Order, book 6, page 4). I received this Life, says the same Rosweyde in the margin of the title, from Spain from our Father Pedro Castelarnau. And it begins thus:

I shall not sing the miracles of Ogdoan Memphis, well known, The lofty colossi of the pyramids, the radiant signs: Nor indeed the wondrous walls of the Ninevite people, Which a hundred times ten thousand of the earth created. Let not my muse sing the noble Ammonian theater, About which shining horns gleam; My muse indeed shall cleave a high-sounding gulf, And shall bring a small bark down into fervid seas, Hesperia's star, ruddy with glittering light, A pattern comely in merits and in religion, And the admirable glory of the roof of Poblet, Bernard the Iberian, like to the Gaul, we shall relate, Lilies drawing their origin from harsh thorns.

But the end of this metrical Life runs thus:

But you, gleaming stars of the ethereal kingdom, And bright stars of the Spanish nation of the lands, And no small glory of the chapel of Poblet, Cherish us always with your blessed patronage.

[49] concerning which some things are noted. Because Castelarnau did not understand the word Ogdoæ, he therefore branded it with this censure in his letter written from Saragossa to Rosweyde on the XV day of February in the year 1627, writing thus: The first word of the Life of St. Bernard, Ogdoæ, has been corrupted through the unskillfulness of the interpreters of the Greek tongue. But he errs: for the Lexicons which I have seen relate that Memphis, a royal city of Egypt, was founded by King Ogdous, and was so called from the name of his daughter. For why, then, could the aforesaid poet not have used this epithet, taken from the founder of this city — and indeed have used it? His age is gathered from the letter of the aforesaid Castelarnau, addressed to the same Rosweyde in the year I noted, 1627, marked in the month of September, in which the following stand: Let him receive meanwhile the Life of St. Bernard of Alzira the martyr, twice copied: the earlier … copy was lost. A Benedictine monk, my kinsman, found it among the books which had belonged to Sancho, bishop of Barcelona, who died in the twentieth year of this century. Its author, Fray Lucas Freire de Daguarda, had dedicated it to him, etc. It seems to be the autograph itself. Further, we do not commit that Life to the press, both because it has nothing whereby it can be commended above others for its antiquity; and because it is adorned poetically; and finally because the most illustrious Manrique, historian of the Cistercian Order, diligently collected and wove into his Annals in loose style what he found written concerning our holy Martyr and his two Sisters; whom we accordingly have followed above, and from whom we have transcribed such Acts as there are.

[50] Our Father Karl von Manderscheid, in a letter sent hither on the 2nd of October 1666, says: A Life in Ughelli, also metrical. The beginning of the Life of that Cistercian Blessed which Ughelli has is this:

"Not untimely had she rushed with her cerulean trident."

And after some verses, which seem to be prefixed as a kind of prologue, he begins seriously to narrate the history of the Martyr, in these words:

"There stands in Hesperia, celebrated through long years."

The last verse of that Work, which consists of 500 verses, is this:

"May he receive rewards that shall perish through no age."

I do not find this Life among us: but the loss of it is not great: for neither the author's name nor his age are indicated in the said letter. And indeed, why should we have recourse to poets, when we have the deeds of the Martyrs published in prose?

[51] These things Tamayo also reports in loose and Latin style in his Spanish Martyrology at the XXII day of August, Concerning the Lives published in loose style by Tamayo and Manrique. prefacing thus concerning them: A certain Anonymous wrote his Acts in a short book, in the Spanish tongue, which I keep by me, out of which we shall give them. If you compare these with what we have already given from the Cistercian Annals of Manrique, you will find that both so agree with one another that they must be referred to the same fountain. Besides, such is in both places the Latin form of the narration that the words of the one copy are too conformable to the words of the other to be attributed to a different writer or translator, and not rather to one and the same. The version, therefore, from the Spanish tongue into Latin which Tamayo has seems borrowed from the Cistercian Annals of Manrique, for he wrote of our St. Bernard before him, and is cited by him among the other authors prefixed to the Acts of our Martyrs which I have just indicated from Tamayo. Further, whence the praised Manrique drew their Acts, he partly indicates in §1 of our Commentary above, recording thus at number 9: These things concerning the Man's beginnings, native land, and family, and concerning his reception of both religions, are excerpted from his Life, which a modern author of the same Religion reduced to an abridgment from the ancient records of Poblet and of the monastery of the Fathers of the Holy Trinity … with whom all the intermediate writers agree — Miedes, Beuter, Viciana — from whom some of the more recent also; and partly in §4, number 32, where those words were brought forward from Manrique: These things concerning the martyrdom of the unconquered Prince and of his Sisters he faithfully set down from Antonio Beuter, Martín de Viciana, and others, and also from the archives of Poblet, who compiled the Acts of the Saint for publication. These things Domenech also published in Spanish in the General History of the Saints and of the Men Illustrious in Sanctity of the Principality of Catalonia, book 2, folio 10; and Escolano, cited before, chapters 24 and 25; to whom add Solórzano, of whom above, folio 65 and following, and also Fray Honorio Gilbao de Castro, from what was said before at number 45 in our Commentary.

[52] The time of the martyrdom. It remains that we briefly discuss the year of the martyrdom. Solórzano fixes it to the year of the Lord 1180, as also do the Acts in Tamayo, where these words occur: They report that their contest took place on the XI of the Kalends of September in the year of the Lord 1180. Manrique, as we saw above, refers their palm to the same year, and we with him at the beginning of this our Commentary, even though in the Acts which we transcribed from that author we have not found this year expressly marked: for which cause we there noted it with some latitude, adding the particle about. Escolano, whom we assigned above, chapter 24, column 910, refutes Beuter and Viciana, who write that the matter happened in the year 1130: because, as we shall presently say, he says, it happened very near the monastery of Poblet, and we know from the History of Carbonell that it was begun to be built long afterwards, namely in the year 1153, by Count Berengar, who took to wife Petronilla queen of Aragon; but that it was completed by his son King Alfonso, who began to reign in the year 1162, and died in the year 1196; so that we cannot place the history of St. Bernard, says Escolano, except from the year 1153 to the year 1196, in conformity with Gilbao, who in chapter 3 places his martyrdom in the year 1180. Thus he. But we do not sufficiently grasp why the martyrdom of our Saints ought to be deferred as far as the year 1196. For this indeed Escolano's reasoning by no means proves, as will be plain to one who considers it. What we premised above in paragraph 2 concerning the monastery of Poblet may also be consulted. With these things we put an end to our Commentary.