ON ST. JUSTINIAN HERMIT AND MARTYR IN THE ISLAND OF LEMENEIA OF ENGLAND,
About the year 530 or 540.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The place of the martyrdom, the age of the Saint, the cult from immemorial time, the Acts, and certain discrepant circumstances of them.
Justinian, hermit and martyr in the island of Lemeneia of England (St.)
BY G. C.
In this island of obscure name, which is near to the Cambro-Britons, and is now commonly called Ramsey, the Saint set forth in the title passed a great part of his life, This Saint, in an English island, exercised various virtues, and at last found the glorious laurel of martyrdom. Camden, on page 838 of his Britannia, among the other islands neighboring England, thus discourses of the situation and name of this one: Thence in the bend of the district of Pembroke there occur Gresholme, Stockholme, and Scalmey, sufficiently grassy and very rich in wild thyme. Scalmey we once reckoned to have been the Silimnus of Pliny; but truth has now changed this opinion for us. For that Silimnus of Pliny it is likely, from the kinship of the word, to be the Limnus of Ptolemy; that this is the Britons' Lymen the very word teaches for me, upon which the Englishman today has inscribed a new name, namely Ramsey.
[2] This lies over against the episcopal see of holy David, near to Cambria or Wales, to which it belongs, and in the last age it was especially famous for the most holy end of a certain man Justinian, who, when he had betaken himself hither from Armorican Britain in that age most fruitful of Saints, and, wholly fixed upon God, had long lived a solitary, was at last slain by a servant and was reported into the catalogue of martyrs; in whose Life this island is rather often called Lemeneia: which appellation indeed, together with the British name Limen, by which this place is known to the Britons themselves, marks the drowsiness of him who makes the island next above the Limnus of Ptolemy, which the Britons now call Enhly, the English Bardsey, that is, the ISLAND OF BIRDS. John Speed in book 1 of the British Theater, chapter 3 (which Work Philemon Holland rendered into Latin from the English idiom), in the geographical map of the County of Pembroke, between pages 101 and 102, sets forth the situation of that same island toward the Irish sea before the very eyes of the curious reader.
[3] In this island, after the beginning of the sixth century, St. Justinian lived piously, flourished after the beginning of the 6th century, as we gather from the age of those Saints with whom he familiarly associated, and whom Ussher in the Antiquities of the British Churches, chapter 14, that is, page 527 of that Work, thus reckons: Justinian, Kyned, Teilo, and Paternus are recorded to have been contemporaries of Daniel and David, whose Lives, written out in the Sanctilogium of Britain by John of Tynemouth (and thence in the New Legend of England of John Capgrave), are extant. Justinian, having left Lesser Britain, his fatherland, is said to have led a religious life in the island of Lemeneia (which is named by Ptolemy Limnus, by the Britons Lymen, by the English Ramsey) together with Honorius, son of King Thefriaucus, and there at last, being slain by servants, to have been buried at the harbor called from his name, and thence to have been translated by David to the church of Menevia lying over against the island. Then he briefly records the deeds of the other contemporary Saints, and in the chronological Index, that is, page 1139, refers the death of St. David, bishop of Menevia, to the year of Christ 544.
[4] as English writers Harpsfield too, among the first six centuries of the Ecclesiastical History of England, chapter 28, ties the slaying of St. Justinian to the sixth century, and adorns him with the following eulogy: Justinian, of illustrious family, of distinguished learning, and exalted with the dignity of the priesthood, zealous in Britain for solitude and divine contemplation, having left his fatherland, led his life elsewhere, and among others by the intercourse of Bishop David
enjoyed most delightful intercourse; for (as the proverb has it) God drives like to like: whose sanctity the demon, not enduring, stirred up certain nefarious men who, affected with I know not what madness, butchered the innocent and holy man. His body was carried by David to Menevia. Ussher, in the chronological Index just cited, at the year of Christ 529, that is, page 1133, thus makes mention in passing of those contemporary Saints: Justinian and Honorius in the island of Ramsey, Kyned in western Gower, are said to have been renowned.
[5] against the opinion of Wilson Wherefore John Wilson must be corrected in both editions of his English Martyrology, where on the twenty-third day of August he expressly assigns the slaying and burial of St. Justinian to the year of Christ 486. This chronological error of Wilson our Alford seems to have observed, when in the Annals of the Anglo-Saxon Church, at the year of Christ 516, number 11, he wrote thus: I know that our Martyrology, on the twenty-third day of August, refers the martyrdom of this Justinian to about the year of the Lord 486; but since mention must be made of holy David, to whom Justinian seems to have belonged by a holier bond, therefore he is better joined with David. Then he excerpts the earlier deeds of St. Justinian from the Acts, and in the same place, number 13, thus discourses of their chronological arrangement: All these things, namely the coming of holy Justinian into Britain, his meeting with Honorius, and David's acquaintance with him, we think happened about these times (namely the year of Christ 516, in which Alford is here engaged). The rest, which are narrated of Justinian by Capgrave, although they are later, it pleases me now to append, because they are assigned to no certain time. We shall read them after this preliminary Commentary in the Acts themselves.
[6] everywhere hand down, The infamous apostate Bale, on the occasion of Honorius, whom he numbers among the writers of Britain, in the tenth Century, chapter 6, makes mention of our Saint of today in these words: Honorius the Cambrian, son of Trefriaucus, a most holy disciple, received the shining ornaments of virtue and erudition from David, archbishop of Menevia, his most holy teacher (as Leland has it), in that place where the extension of land bounds the West of Cambria. There lies beside that extension an island, small in circuit but greatest in fame, whose name of old, from a Greek origin, was Limenus; but now Ramesega. Here the illustrious Honorius passed a frugal and hard life. Justinian from Armorican Britain landed here for David's sake. The inhabitant received his guest most kindly. There came also the whole choir of the men of Menevia together with David to greet him. Pirates afterwards, bringing violence upon the island, killed Justinian. To the place of the martyrdom the name LEPROUS ROCK was given, from diseases thoroughly cured by God's benefit. Thus, while we restore Honorius, we have conveniently done as much for Justinian also. All this from Leland. Honorius was renowned in the year of our salvation 560, under Maglocunus, king of the Britons; but his writings have perished. Would that Bale had imitated this frugal and hard life of Honorius! Then certainly, for the sake of taking a wife, or rather a concubine, he would not have deserted his monastery and the Catholic faith. If anyone wish to know more of that sacrilegious monk and priest, let him consult Pits in the Prolegomena to the Illustrious Writers of England, where on page 53 and following he depicts in living colors the shamelessness of that deserter.
[7] Further, Honorius must have long survived St. Justinian, his companion, and he was slain there before the year of Christ 544. if he was still renowned in the year of Christ 560, as Bale affirms: for St. David, bishop of Menevia, who buried St. Justinian honorably, died in the year of Christ 544, as Ussher, Alford, and our Predecessors in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. David on the first day of March, that is, in volume 1 of that month, pages 40 and 41, have proved. Hence, however, we still do not know the determined time in which our Saint of today passed to the heavenly ones, although it certainly happened before the death of holy David. But since Ussher in the aforesaid chronological Index, at the year of Christ 529, asserts that St. Justinian with his comrade Honorius was then still renowned in the island of Ramsey, we probably think, on this hypothesis, that he departed from among the living about the year of Christ 530 or 540. Wherefore at the beginning of this Commentary we noted these two years in the margin disjunctively, since St. Justinian was slain about one or the other, as is drawn out from both chronologies of Ussher which we assigned above.
[8] From what has hitherto been said and reported the learned reader easily gathers That Martyr had an immemorial cult, that this Saint had the public veneration of the people from immemorial time: for English writers, both Catholic and heterodox, praise and acknowledge the sanctity of this man. With these the more recent Martyrologists conspire, among whom Richard Whitford in his English Martyrology on the fifth day of December excerpted his announcement and eulogy from the longer Acts. Ferrari in the General Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology briefly announces the same holy Martyr on the twenty-third day of August in these words: In England, of holy Justinian, monk and martyr. Wilson too on this day celebrates the annual memory of the same Saint in both editions of his Martyrology, and abridges his Acts in English. Although the authority of recent Martyrologists does not suffice to prove the immemorial or lawful cult of any Saint, yet here it deserves to be observed that the English Martyrology of Whitford was printed at London in the year of Christ 1526, and thus preceded by almost a hundred years the first and best-known decree of Pope Urban VIII on the cult of the Saints.
[9] Moreover Richard Whitford, who in the above-praised Work of Pits on the Illustrious Writers of England, page 695, is called a man notable for uprightness of character and for the praise of good letters, as is proved from the Martyrology of Whitford doubtless gathered his Martyrology from ancient and trustworthy monuments. Now this Martyrology was used by the church of Salisbury, as is read in English in the annotation prefixed to the month of January, which in Latin runs thus: Here begins the Martyrology according to the use of the church of Salisbury, and as it is read at Sion, with additions. What Sion here means thou wilt understand from Pits, who on the page just cited begins the eulogy of the praised Martyrologist with these words: Richard Whitford, an Englishman, a monk of the Order of holy Bridget in a monastery not far from London which is called Sion. After the eulogy Pits reckons among his other lucubrations the Martyrology of the Saints and its Additions. But who would easily believe that the Clergy of Salisbury, then still soundly Catholic, took up that Martyrology without mature examination, and honored in it new or uncertain Saints? Wherefore we conclude most probably that the Saints noted in this Martyrology obtained public veneration from immemorial time. Finally John of Tynemouth in the fourteenth century put together the Acts of St. Justinian, and in the fifteenth century Capgrave from him gathered his new Legend of the Saints of England, as may be seen in Pits and other bibliographers. Since therefore each of these hagiologists renders testimony to the ancient cult of St. Justinian, and both flourished a hundred years and more before the decree of Urban VIII, we have judged without scruple that a place must be granted to this holy Martyr in our Work.
[10] and from the Acts themselves, which John of Tynemouth, We have already advised that the Acts of St. Justinian the martyr were written by John of Tynemouth, concerning whom Cave in the Literary History, part 2, page 285, hands down the following: John of Tynemouth, who is sometimes named John the sinner, an Englishman by race, vicar of the not ignoble village of Tynemouth in the territory of the Northumbrians at the mouth of the river Tyne, and a monk of the Benedictine Order at St. Alban's, was renowned in the year 1366. When he had thoroughly searched the archives of churches and the libraries of monasteries, and had unrolled the chests of the ancients, he applied his mind to illustrating ecclesiastical history, and, busying himself to commend virtue and piety to posterity by the examples of former men, he committed to writing the Lives of very many Saints. Then, after assigning the libraries of England in which that still unpublished Work is preserved, he indicates how Capgrave composed his Legend from the same hagiology of John of Tynemouth, in these words: From this lucubration John Capgrave carried back in his Catalogue of the Saints of England not some gleanings, but, as they say, a full vintage — of which Work he deserved to be called not so much the author as the transcriber.
[11] and Capgrave collected, With Cave agrees Henry Wharton, when in the Appendix to Cave's Literary History, page 89, he writes thus of Capgrave: John Capgrave, an Englishman by race, a Kentishman by country, a monk of the Augustinian Order in the monastery of Canterbury, and, after obtaining the degree of doctor at Oxford, Provincial, confessor to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and most familiar with him. He flourished in the year 1450, and held the first place among the English theologians of his age, being wont to thunder sharply against the loose morals of ecclesiastics. He died at Lynn among the men of Norfolk on the twelfth day of August, in the year 1464, Edward IV being in power, and was buried among the Augustinians. So indeed Bale and Joseph Pamphilus. But Pits, whom Vossius and Miraeus support, reports that he died only under Richard III, in the year 1484. He wrote a Catalogue or Legend of the Saints of England, which was printed and published at London in 1516 in folio. Capgrave is said to have plundered that history from a huge and very beautiful volume of the same subject, which is kept in manuscript in the Cottonian library. From this London edition we shall reprint the Life of St. Justinian after this Commentary.
[12] Although the age of these biographers suffices to prove the immemorial cult of today's holy Martyr, and from which some circumstances yet we do not on that account at once lightly give credit to all the prodigious miracles which perhaps they found in papers that came to hand, or narrated simply from popular tradition. Hence our Alford, on the occasion of St. Justinian and his contemporaries, in the Annals of the Anglo-Saxon Church, at the year of Christ 516, number 10, thus advises the reader: These, either born in Britain, or there deceased with a great reputation for sanctity, have promised their memory to these times. But those who gathered their Life from various sources, stumbling upon I know not what miracles, seem to have been zealous rather for beguiling leisure than for the truth of the things done. This is sufficiently established, that Justinian, having left Lesser Britain, his fatherland, led a religious life in the island of Lemeneia together with Honorarius [], son of King Thefriaucus.*
[13] Now we shall indicate in passing some discrepancy of lesser moment we compare with the writings of others. which occurs, concerning the state of the holy Martyr and the authors of his slaying, among the Martyrologists and other English writers who have briefly made mention of our Saint of today. In the first place we do not know on what foundation Richard Whitford in his Martyrology praised above calls this Saint in English a bishop, since other writers are entirely silent about that episcopal dignity. But as concerns his slayers, there are of them almost as many opinions as heads: for Camden, cited above, asserts that he was killed by a servant, Ussher by servants, Bale by pirates bursting into the island of Lemeneia. Whitford and the Acts to be published below express the number of those homicides, and
call them three servants. Singular is the opinion of Wilson, who in both editions of his Martyrology affirms that that homicide was perpetrated by three Brothers (in English by three of the brethren). Perhaps by Brothers he here understands lay monks, who in a certain manner serve in monasteries, and thus that manner of speaking may in some fashion be reconciled with the Acts, which express three servants. Now nothing remains but that we illustrate with the customary Annotations the Acts to be reprinted here.
AnnotationsPerhaps Honorio*.
ACTS
collected by John Capgrave,
From the Legend of the Saints of England, printed at London in the year 1516, folios 201 and 202.
Justinian, hermit and martyr in the island of Lemeneia of England (St.)
BHL Number: 4576
By John Capgrave.
Holy Justinian drew his origin from a most noble stock of Lesser Britain: who, given over from boyhood to the studies of letters, was renowned also for wonderful knowledge among the most famous doctors of his nation a. For, having received the grade of the priesthood, he faithfully performed the divine office; This Saint from Lesser Britain and at last deserved to hear such a divine oracle as this: Go forth out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house. Which the holy man understanding, having joined to himself certain companions, he boarded a boat woven of hides and withies, continually beseeching God that He would bear him to a land in which he might lead the solitary life. And at length he landed at a land by the name of Cormer b; where, making a stay for some time, many now began by his example to leave the world and to hasten to the holy man's teaching. But shortly, just as at first it had been commanded him by God that he should go forth from his land and from his kindred, so likewise a second time it was said to him that he should leave that dwelling.
[2] sails to an island near Wales, Then, entering a little boat and committing himself to sea and winds, he came to an island which was then called the island of Lemeneia. In which a man devoted to God, Honorius, son of King Thefriaucus c, having left the things that are in the world, was giving himself wholly to God. Being therefore kindly received in hospitality, he grew with so great an ardor of piety that he handed over his place and dwelling to the holy man, that he might watch without any inconvenience for the gaining of souls to Christ. And so blessed Justinian, seeing the place fit for religious men and removed from all secular noise, said: I would assent to thy petition, if thy sister with her attendant may have a chamber removed from us. Which by certain unbelieving persons was turned into derision.
[3] where, living piously, But since the eloquence and beauty of his holy preaching, and the splendor of so great brightness, pleased the blessed man, he said: Holy father, that I may enjoy thy sweet and honorable society, I will send my sister away into another region. And so the sister of blessed Honorius, having received the blessing and leave of the holy men, departed into far regions. And there, when very many came together to him, they returned enlightened by the word of faith with the salvation of their souls. But when the fame of so great a man came to blessed David d, he, gladdened by the novelty and the coming of so great a man, calling him by messengers, humbly entreated that he would deign to come to him. And he, hastening, is honorably received by blessed David: and it pleased both blessed David and holy Justinian to be supported on either side by fellowship and prayers: and holy David received him as his confessor and, after God, the keeper of his life. And the little dwellings which he chose, both in the island and outside the island, he granted to him and to the brethren flocking to him.
[4] and tempted in vain by demons, But on a certain day, when he was giving his labor to prayer and reading in the island, men sailing in a certain skiff also arrived, and hastening to him said: Behold, he whom thou lovest is sick, charging that thou hasten to him, all delay being set aside. And he, having heard of the sickness of one dear to him in Christ, hurried to the skiff, and began to sing Psalms. But when by rowing he had come to the middle of the sea, then at last, lifting his face, he beheld them more deformed than the men whom he had been wont to see, and clearly understood that they were malignant spirits. Then, with hands and eyes lifted to heaven, he began the seventy-ninth Psalm, namely O God, come to my help. And when they chanted the second verse of the same Psalm, Let them be confounded and ashamed that seek my soul, they vanished like black ravens flying away: and thus, relying on the help of God, he was carried to land upon a certain rock divinely raised from the bottom of the sea e; but holy David, whom the malignant spirits asserted to be sick, he found sound and unharmed.
[5] Seeing therefore that he, the enemy of the human race, was overcome by the holy man, he is impiously slain for righteousness' sake, and that he could neither overcome him, attempted by frequent assaults, nor by malignant suggestions separate him from the divine service, he devised other machinations of his deceitful art, and poured his venom into three servants of the holy man f. Then the servants, seized with fury, not only despising the salutary admonitions of their master, by which he exhorted them to exercise themselves in labor, that they might not lead an idle life, but rushing upon him, throw him to the ground, and do not shrink from cruelly cutting off his head. But in the place where the holy head fell upon the ground, a well-watering spring of the clearest water, gushing forth straightway from the rock, flowed out: whose water, drawn by the sick, confers health of body upon all. A certain man by the name of Jonas, when poison had been given him in a draught of milk, had his belly wonderfully turned into a swelling, and, that water being taken, he at once vomited up a live frog, and the whole swelling of the belly vanished. But those sons of iniquity, after the crime of iniquity was committed, perceived plainly that they were smitten with leprosy and that divine vengeance was turned upon them. Going forth thence with groaning and lamentation, they came together to a certain rock, which to this present day is called the ROCK OF THE LEPERS. There afterwards they, mournful, and torturing their bodies with grievous punishments and scourging them with mutual blows, in grief and hardship alike, as long as they lived, closed their lives in the utmost penitence, and deserved to obtain pardon of their offenses by the merits of holy Justinian.
[6] For upon great miracles greater ones follow. For the body of the blessed Martyr, beheaded, rising at once, and after death he is renowned for various miracles. and taking its head between its arms g, went down to the shore of the sea, and, walking upon the sea, passed over to the harbor called from his name, and, falling to the ground in the place where now a church dedicated in his honor stands, lay there, and deserved to be buried in that place. And in the same church, in which the body of the holy Martyr rests, our Savior has deigned to show many miracles. For the sick, coming thither, held by whatever infirmity, return to their own whole and sound, giving thanks to God. But the holy bishop David, not ignorant of the passion of his beloved and of the whole outcome of the affair, being admonished by divine revelation, carried the holy body with his brethren to the church of Menevia with hymns and canticles, and honorably placed it in a new sarcophagus h.