ON ST. LICERIUS OR GLYCERIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT COUSERANS IN NOVEMPOPULANIA,
In the sixth century, BEFORE THE MIDDLE.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Licerius or Glycerius, bishop and confessor, at Couserans in Novempopulania (St.)
BY J. S.
Consoranum, or Consorannum, a city of Novempopulania, which is today commonly called Saint-Lizier de Couserans, The Saint's name in the sacred calendars, having taken its appellation from St. Licerius, whose Acts we shall here give, was briefly described in the treatise on St. Valerius, the first bishop of the same city, in volume 2 of July, page 227, and is more fully elucidated in volume 1 of Gallia Christiana, column [ ], in the preface to the bishops of Couserans. Of St. Licerius's cult there can be no doubt, although his memory is celebrated in few Martyrologies, and with great variety. The Roman Martyrology at the XXVII of August has this concerning him: At Lérida in Tarraconensian Spain, of St. Licerius, bishop. With this agrees Castellain in the Universal Martyrology. Yet it is not clearly declared here that he was a bishop in Spain, but that he is venerated there; which is true, as will presently appear. The Paris Martyrology announces his memory at the XXVI of August in these words: At Couserans, of St. Glycerius or Licerius, bishop, who subscribed to the council of Agde, by whose name the city and the cathedral church exist. Things like these Andreas Saussay wrote in the Gallican Martyrology at the VII of August.
[2] Let us hear the same Saussay in the Supplement at the XXVII of August, and his cult among the people of Couserans, where he changed his style and celebrates the Saint's memory thus: In Gascony, in the town of Couserans, of St. Licerius, bishop, from being a disciple of St. Faustus, prelate of Tarbes, who was the companion of his master when driven into exile for the faith and sound doctrine, and his colleague in the pastoral office, and his brave fellow soldier in the contests against the impious, and at last was made his consort in heavenly glory. And after his passing he shone with so great a glorification of merits that he gave his renowned name to the church over which he had presided and to the town, where he is venerated with great celebrity, as its chief protector, with the keeping of an octave. Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of the Saints at the XXVII of August has this briefly: At Couserans in Aquitaine, of St. Licerius, bishop. In his notes he cites the records of the church of Couserans, in which, he says, he is venerated with great celebrity, with an octave. He was the disciple of St. Faustus, bishop of Tarbes, and the nephew of St. Quintianus, bishop of Rodez. Of him there is mention in the old Toulouse Breviary and in the proper Office of the said church. These things abundantly prove the cult; but the facts here asserted will be discussed more fully.
[3] The Spaniards also hold St. Licerius in veneration, as is plain from the words of the recited Roman Martyrology, and in various places in Spain, and as Antonio Domenech further shows in the History of the Saints of Catalonia at the day XXVII of August, folio 79, and Vincencio Blasco de Lanuza in the History of the Kingdom of Aragon, last volume, book 4, chapter 14, whose Spanish account Nicolás Antonio reports in summary in a posthumous manuscript Work, which in the year 1721 the most worthy lord Adrian Connique, kinsman of the deceased, communicated to us. I subjoin therefore the words of the praised writer: Licerius, under the title of bishop of Carina, the church of Lérida in the principality of Catalonia formerly celebrated, before the Roman rite was made common to all churches; and to this day the town called Villamayor in the diocese of Barcelona celebrates his feast on the day XXVII of August, to whom it also has a church dedicated under the common title of Saint Lley. So far Antonio Domenech in the History of the Saints of Catalonia. To which Vincencio Blasco de Lanuza, later than he, in the Ecclesiastical and Secular History of the Kingdom of Aragon, adds that the relics of the same holy Bishop are in great veneration in the town of the same kingdom called Zuera *, and that the town itself is under his protection, in whose church he reports that an ancient Breviary and missal are preserved with a proper Office of St. Licerius.
[4] nor is he whom the Spaniards venerate other than the bishop of Couserans, Some Spaniards indeed maintain, out of the supposititious Works of Dexter and Julian, that this Licerius was bishop of Carina or Cara in Spain, and was translated with his see to Lérida , and so was distinct from St. Licerius, bishop of Couserans. But the impostures of pseudo-Dexter and pseudo-Julian are already better known to the learned than that I should wish to linger long in refuting them, or to set before the eyes of readers the words of Nicolás Antonio, who censures them sharply with many reasons. It will suffice therefore to show that the St. Licerius whom the Spaniards venerate in several places is the same as Licerius of Couserans. This can easily be done from the praised Lanuza, whose meaning Nicolás Antonio, after the foregoing, thus briefly expresses: He says also that there is extant in the archives of this church (of Zuera) a History of the holy Man written in an almost barbarous Latin tongue. Whence you may gather that the persuasion of the men of old in this town concerning their Licerius is this: namely that he was a Gaul, or in Gaul bishop of Couserans; then of Tarbes in the place of his master Faustus, in the time of Charlemagne; and that he lived as bishop four and forty years, and holily died in the Lord, several signs following after his death.* Although not all of these things agree exactly with the Acts to be published, yet so many agree that we can by no means doubt that that Spanish manuscript treats of the same Saint of whom our Acts treat. For in both places there is the same place of the episcopate, the same duration, the same master Faustus: then the same miracles, briefly reported in Lanuza and more fully described in our Acts, leave no doubt that it is the same St. Licerius whom the French and the Spaniards venerate.
[5] whose relics are believed to have been carried into Spain. Now indeed the relics of the same Saint could in various ways have been carried into Spain from that province of Gaul which is neighbor to the Spaniards, although it cannot be explained at what time or on what occasion that translation was made. Hear again the praised Nicolás Antonio: Concerning the translation of Licerius's body, or of some portion of it, from Gaul into this town of Spain, Lanuza brings forward nothing but the tradition of the town of Zuera. Yet he conjectures that it could have been brought by one of those whose zeal it once was to hurry from neighboring Gaul to the Spanish camps that were hostile to the Moors. For it is said to have been the custom of this nation to come down to this holy war armed no less with these spiritual weapons than with bodily ones. Hence plainly, or from the nearness and intercourse of the Catalans and Aragonese with the Gauls of Aquitaine, could have arisen the fact that the Gauls enriched our churches with very many of their sacred treasures, and perhaps the Spaniards also enriched the Gallic ones: of which thing you will meet examples everywhere in the praised History of the Saints of Catalonia. So far the praised writer: and these things we judge sufficient to show that our Saint is held in veneration by the Spaniards, and that he was bishop not of Carina or Cara, a city unknown to the Spaniards themselves, but of Couserans in Novempopulania. Now we come to another controversy, agitated among the French themselves.
[6] Le Cointe, in the Annals of the Franks at the year 508, number 16, judges that St. Licerius is the same as Glycerius, bishop of Couserans, It is disputed whether Glycerius and Licerius are the same bishop, who in the year 506 was present at the council of Agde, to which he is read as subscribed in Labbe, volume 4, column [ ]. With Le Cointe agree Longueval, in the History of the Gallican Church, volume 2, page 281, and the Paris Martyrology already cited. But Denis de Sainte-Marthe dissents from these in volume 1 of Gallia Christiana, in the catalogue of the bishops of Couserans, in which he places each separately, and contends that Glycerius is two centuries earlier than St. Licerius. Wherefore, since the age of St. Licerius also depends on this dispute, it will be worth the labor if we discuss the matter and establish the former opinion, which we hold altogether true, with those reasons in which searchers after truth may acquiesce.
[7] In the Life, at number 4, we have this: He came to the apostolic man Quintianus, bishop of the city of Rodez, and it is proved that he is the same, from the Life, and in his service was ordained subdeacon, deacon, and priest; then he was sent as bishop to the church of Couserans. These words alone suffice to settle the question: for St. Quintianus, bishop of Rodez, subscribed to the council of Agde together with Glycerius; and so we cannot doubt that St. Licerius is the same as Glycerius, since Sainte-Marthe himself, at column [ ], writes: Glycerius passed to Christ about the year DXLVIII; so that he became bishop about
the year 504, that is, about two years before the said council, provided that the epoch of his death be correct — on which my reasoning does not altogether depend. The praised writer was not ignorant that this consequence is necessary, but he denies that the words given above are to be understood of St. Quintianus, prelate of Rodez, and brings in a Quintianus bishop of Couserans, of whom he wishes these words to be understood. Whence Sainte-Marthe drew this is hidden from me: certainly what he brings forward to establish his conjecture is not only ineffectual to prove that the aforesaid words were uttered of Quintianus of Couserans, but does not even prove that any Quintianus presided over the church of Couserans, so that he seems to have divided one Quintianus into two, just as he tries to make two out of one Glycerius or Licerius.
[8] Take his proofs at column [ ]. Nor does it much stand against our conjecture, he says, that this Quintianus is called bishop of the city of Rodez; for the copyist could have added this of his own, because St. Quintianus, bishop of Rodez, was more celebrated and better known than the prelate of Couserans. Certainly we do not see by what right St. Quintianus, bishop of Rodez, should have ordained St. Licerius bishop in the church of Couserans, which was in another province. But nothing forbade St. Quintianus, prelate of Couserans, to have taken St. Licerius to himself as coadjutor and consecrated him bishop. A bold conjecture indeed, by which the copyist is said to have added words which contradict a preconceived opinion: and if it be lawful to use such conjectures without evident reason and manifest necessity, in a short time we shall corrupt all history with conjectures of this kind. But indeed there is here so little necessity of recurring to such a conjecture that the sense of the words openly refuses that conjecture: for the Life says: Then he was sent as bishop to the church of Couserans. He was therefore not made bishop in the same church in which he had been a priest, as Sainte-Marthe would have it; but he was sent to another, namely from that of Rodez to that of Couserans. What is objected concerning his ordination by Quintianus is neither said in the Life, nor, if it were said there, would it be incredible or unusual, since it could have been done out of friendship, with the consent of those bishops to whom it belonged to ordain the bishop of Couserans.
[9] which rest upon error: the Saint flourished, Then Sainte-Marthe objects another argument, resting either upon error or upon a slip of memory, and therefore utterly evanescent, in these words: But those who will have it that St. Licerius was ordained by St. Quintianus, bishop of Rodez, fall into a notable anachronism: for this prelate subscribed to the council of Agde in the year DVI; from which time St. Licerius is far removed. The slip of memory by which he was led into these precipices he discloses at column [ ], in the article on Glycerius, where he has this: Glycerius subscribed to the synod of Agde in the year DVI. He seems to have been other than the following Bl. Licerius, as the Life long since published hints, where St. Licerius is noted to have lived in the time of Charles Martel, duke of France and mayor of the palace. But there is not even a letter in the Life from which it could be gathered that St. Licerius lived in the time of Charles Martel. From this slip of memory I should suppose it came about that he pulled the two bishops Quintianus and Licerius apart into four. The epoch given by us can be confirmed from the fact that Faustus of Tarbes, St. Licerius's master, was sent into exile for the cause of the faith: for this must have been done by the Arian Visigoths, who in the fifth and sixth centuries banished other prelates also. But in the time of Charles Martel, that is, in the eighth century, the kings of the Visigoths in Spain had long been Catholics, and no heretics held rule in Gaul, so that Faustus's exile for the faith by no means fits those times, but must have happened toward the end of the fifth century or the beginning of the sixth.
[10] before the middle of the sixth century: Besides this, Sainte-Marthe objects at column [ ] a negative argument, in these words: Certainly in the Life of St. Licerius no mention is made of a journey undertaken that he might be present at the synod of Agde: which he would by no means have omitted, if he were the same as Glycerius: for the writer of this Life is careful to speak of Licerius's other journeys. One need only read the Life to see how weak this reason is: for it is so written that virtues and miracles are reported in it, while the deeds of forty-four years of episcopate are wrapped almost in silence. Who then can wonder that no mention of the council is made in it, since that happens in most Lives of holy bishops? From these things I conclude that the opinion which holds Glycerius and Licerius to be the same appears sufficiently certain: for neither could Licerius have succeeded Glycerius, as someone might suppose on account of some difference in the word, since between Glycerius and his successor Theodore the forty-four years cannot be found during which Licerius sat. Hence I further gather that the Saint died before the middle of the sixth century: for Theodore his successor was already sitting in the year 549, as Sainte-Marthe has it at column [ ]; but in what year he died cannot be precisely determined.
[11] The Acts of St. Licerius were already published by Labbe in volume 2 of the Bibliotheca of Manuscripts, from page 588, The Acts, and their author. where he teaches whence he received them, in this manner: We transcribed them from a copy of the Sanctoral of Bernard Gui, bishop of Lodève, communicated by the most illustrious and most reverend François Bosquet, bishop of Montpellier. Now Bernard Gui was not indeed near in age to St. Licerius, seeing that he flourished in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; yet since he was a learned man and consulted the Lives of the Saints both ancient and new, as he warns in the preface to his Speculum Sanctorale in Labbe, page 514, he ought not to be without authority; especially in this Life, in which nothing occurs which seems to contradict either right reason or true history. We have moreover certain fragments of the same Life from the manuscript codex of Moissac, transmitted by Monsieur Lebeuf, canon of Auxerre, well enough known by the little works he has published. These fragments, which are very faulty, we have collated with the Life published by Labbe, and in the annotations upon it I shall observe whatever occurs worthy of note; I shall also append certain lesser matters by an asterisk in the margin; but I did not think it worth the labor to note every trifle too scrupulously.
Annotations* Cuera
* Lerida
LIFE
By Bernard Gui, bishop of Lodève,
from Labbe's edition, collated with the Moissac manuscript.
Licerius or Glycerius, bishop and confessor, at Couserans in Novempopulania (St.)
BHL Number: 4916
By Bernard Gui, bishop.
The Saint's country, his father, and his pious training: The most blessed Licerius, prelate of the city of Couserans, which borders a on the Pyrenean Alps, which bound Gaul from the Iberians, was a Spaniard by nation, most illustrious in the sparkling ornament of nobility; who, being filled by his father with the ample eloquence of the rhetorical art, brought forth from himself by his venerable gifts a greater light of his race than he had received from his father, and adorned the offspring of his parent with rosy flowers into a better form. He, small in age but lofty in merits, was steeped by his father in liberal letters: but under an earthly master he was formed full of a heavenly instrument b. Thereafter he hastened to the concord of Abraham's faith, and mystically to that precept, as though it were spoken to himself: Go forth from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house. And therefore he came to the land which the merciful Rewarder showed him; and thus he began from his youth to be of a ripe beginning, so that he did in the time of boyhood what advancing years scarcely accomplish in an old man.
[2] And so, despising the seat of his country and the life of his parents, he loved the Lord, forsaking his parents, he becomes the disciple of St. Faustus, and, shutting out worldly renown, he chose a voluntary exile. He fled from his father's face, who fulfilled the belief of Abraham: he took the patriarch's road, and without doubt made himself a partaker of the same righteousness. He fled for refuge to that most blessed man endowed with miracles and with the palm of glory, Faustus d, bishop of the city of Tarbes c, truly happy in the tillage of the Lord, whose tongue was heard in each homily in the Church of God, to whom the triumphant crowd could say: Beautiful is your voice, by whose teaching and merit such a people of God is proved to be. And presently he handed himself over familiarly to his service, to be taught by him. But the most holy Faustus was sent into exile for the cause of Christ in the city of Vic-Julien e: then, when he returned thence, this man went with him as his companion to his own place.
[3] by the sign of the cross he heals an eye, Therefore blessed Licerius from his early youth was so girded with divine arms, the grace of God attending him, that wherever the unhappy warrior thrust himself in, he did not lack the glory of virtue. For, that we may set forth one example out of many: while among crowds of boys an incautious game was being played in sport, as is familiar to youthful years, he himself could foresee nothing, especially since the young men, in a snatched onrush, had rashly begun a disorderly game with mutual limbs. Taking up therefore the love of contending, a certain one, being struck, lost his eye while he was making merry; and he who was beset with grief had not that whereby to shed tears. But presently, the most holy man making the sign of the cross upon the eye, the inner brightness was restored. Behold what a light the most sacred Church was preparing for herself in this Youth, who receives examples of enlightenment; and what could now be impossible to him, for whom it was so easy f to heal an eye?
[4] [he is consecrated priest and bishop: he walks through the rain without being wet:] When therefore most blessed Faustus passed to the Lord, being unwilling to seek his parents again, he came to the apostolic man Quintianus, bishop of the city of Rodez g, and in his service was ordained subdeacon, deacon, and priest; then he was sent as bishop to the church of Couserans; and although to someone it seemed not fitting that he had been ordained a priest h, yet he was gladly received by all. For who could doubt of his election, in whom so great a power of the pontificate grew daily toward the crown of glory? There flourished in him a continual advance of religion, and also an abundance of dispensing the right mystery. And as much as his rank grew in him, so much did he himself rise up to the divine services. At that time also, as he was making a journey with his companions, by the providence of heavenly grace the assurance of the fair weather was suddenly changed; lightnings flash upon the earth, the air is confounded with thunders, the sky is girt with tempest, the clouds are armed with rain, and on every side the storm-clouds come down; the rain is poured out like rivers; not that it might overwhelm the just man, but prove him. For while drops streamed in on every side, over the places through which the most holy man Licerius the bishop was then walking with his companions, a dry cloud hung; and for the honor of the Pontiff the tempest raged there divided, so as rather to rescue him than to be fierce upon him: because wherever he set his step, the storm-cloud feared him. For one would have believed * that he had run along beneath some sort of roof, since he went through the midst of the waters with dry garment. Behold, there the reward was as illustrious as the dignity was venerable. I believe that if he had prayed that it might not rain at all, he would have renewed the merit of Elijah; and what the Lord withheld for his sake from a few, he would not have denied to all in general. He too has a bond from Moses of old, since what the latter did not feel in the sea,
this man avoided in the storm-cloud.
[5] merciful to the poor, he finds his bread multiplied: Let us come at last to the office of almsgiving piety, ascending on high, piercing the clouds, passing through heaven, standing before God, quenching sin. Which, among the other good examples of the triumphal palm, shall not take away from him occasion of boasting, nor shall it lack the fruit of a multiplied harvest. On a certain day, when a poor man begged a little food, that the blessed prelate Licerius might supply it to him without delay, then he to whom the care of the storeroom belonged, all being spent, running back to the cellar, answered that he had left no more than half a loaf which could be offered. But that he might now be excused by the Pontiff, and that, while the poor man cried out, he might with deaf ear deny him that half loaf, reckoning it a grave sin if the episcopal table should keep back a part of it while he was hungry, he entered the place, and before anything was offered, meaning to give of his mere will, he found the gift only in tenfold: for in place of the half loaf he found five whole loaves. O most pure mind, intent upon the divine commandments! O most sparing appetite, nourished with angelic feasts, generous to the poor, restricted to itself! He chose to hunger for food on account of the needy man, that he might not hunger for the heavenly mystery; but suddenly, having offered what was once an earthly crop, he gathered a heavenly harvest. Behold, he was accustomed to make of his food and his necessities a means to console strangers, out of regard to him who says: The hope of the field is with me. Nor could he distribute this without him who from five loaves satisfied five thousand men; where the crop is nourished more on the table than in the earth, and more in the delights given than in those received. How great, finally, was the priest's confidence, that he took not from the sod what he did not take from his word?
[6] I think it fitting that this also be disclosed, a man taking away the Saint's horse kills himself, lest, though it seem terrible to relate, it be a fault to pass it over in silence: for often a relation of this kind avails to the fruit of amendment. When therefore the Pontiff was hastening to a certain place, a man named Beatus followed after him, cruel not to him but to himself; who presently, driven by the fierceness of his mind, took his horse from him with great violence and force. Then, while the Saint prayed and kept his vigils, that man pierced himself with a sword that same night. Then the wicked right hand, kept for a cruel service, in one moment committing the fault and exacting the penalty, both inflicted injury on the priest and presented the vengeance. For the lost man, that he might make no delay for the divine retribution, did not wait to be struck by another. Perhaps for this reason no companion was found in his death, nor anyone who should be stained with his blood. For another took away the crime, when the evil author of it destroyed himself i.
[7] There must be added also a miracle of his healing, wholesome for many: [the household of another who injured him is smitten with fever, but is healed by his prayer:] for what was to his honor and singular ought not to be kept silent and so diminished. Meanwhile, when a tumult of wars arose, brought forth out of the discord of soldiers, while they rose up to shatter the kingdom and armed their forces to break it, a hostile judge sought from place to place the venerable man as he fled, held his horse by the bridle, heaped up troublesome words, and compelled him to return whence he had come; yet by the judgment of God proceeding, he found all his own household laboring with the weariness of sickness. For a pestilence had brought fevers upon his whole household, nor was any one of them released from his sickness before the judge, prostrating himself at the Saint's feet, entreated him. But by the prayer of him who was the cause of the wounds there was also the medicine, and by the shower of his intercession the vapor of the fevers departed, and the fire of faith quenched the fire of the sicknesses. Now most blessed was his will, which the divine will in a manner followed; because he so obeyed the heavenly commandments that he inclined the heavens to his prayers. For it was already so joined to the familiarity of Christ that what the Redeemer received through his secret prayers, he showed forth by signs.
[8] Nor is this to be passed over, that the Man came to the village of Arnespenos k, that it might be seen how great was his love in bestowing alms. When he had come to that place, having been invited to the blessed loaves l, [his liberality and his trust in God rewarded: a blasphemer punished at his prayer:] all having been given out, one loaf remained to him, which afterward, when the cellarer restored it, he shared among three poor men, saying: My Lord has whence to send me refreshment. Then in a moment a certain woman sent him forty loaves besides the rest, that what he had said might not be passed over *, since faith supplied him all things: because he so gave and did not deny, that he received what he did not have. It happened also that a certain man, depraved with many crimes, besides other robberies had violently killed a poor man's sheep. And being asked by the Pontiff why he continually committed so many crimes, he answered: It is the breed m that admits such things. Most blessed Licerius says to him: Then let us pray that that breed may be blotted out. And presently the vengeance of God, attending his word, in that same hour smote the shameless man with a heavier scourge than he had himself brought upon anyone. For he was invaded by such a burning that if he went down into water up to his ears, not even the wave brought him rest: he burned in the river, nor, while the hidden fire tormented him, did he escape the flames in the flood; because within himself he carried the furnace of his fault's oven. It came to pass therefore that he labored under such a pestilence to the very end, so that he became his own living corpse, whose flesh, to the increase of his pain, dissolved into ashes. For the dread fever fulfilled the office of the tomb in devouring his vitals, nor was there found in his body anything for the grave to consume, since the flame had first flowed away through his limbs.
[9] he heals a man bitten by a mad dog, I trust therefore that the devout people, though the page be lengthened, will feel no weariness in feasting upon the various delights of the miracles, since there comes from thence an increase of salvation, which is to be set forth so briefly. A certain man, then, torn by a mad dog and drenched with its venom, met the most holy Man, who, taking the napkin n from his own head, wrapped the man in peril in it, and by such a medicine freed the suppliant from imminent destruction.
[10] by his prayer he protects the city from enemies: I think it worth the labor that this also be inserted: how his prayer was the deliverance of the whole community, and how what he had first done for individuals he afterward proved in the case of all. When therefore Ricosyndus o, duke of the Goths, was coming to plunder the city, by the common report of the messenger of Christ, all being terrified and the city grievously afflicted, she, as one fearing the captivity to come, lamented that it had already come upon her. Then indeed all the citizens, despairing of themselves and looking for the only protection from the Pontiff's prayer, run to the priest, asking him with weeping rather than with voice that he would succor his country, doomed to perish at the entering in of the enemy; and they besought him that he would not suffer his flock to be defiled by the tooth of the ravening wolf. Then, all the citizens being present, the venerable Pastor, struck with compassion, ran to the divine help, where without doubt faith obtained its prayer; and presently he prostrates himself in prayer, the night is spent in vigils, the earth is watered with tears, heaven is opened by lamentations, and angelic arms come down, confessing the mysteries on high. Straightway that same night Bl. Licerius met in a vision on the road the duke of whom we have spoken, and driving him back with great violence, he adjured him not to presume to come further, granting him only so much space as would let him swiftly seek again the place whence he had come. Then that man, terribly chastised, scarcely waits for the light of day, nor did he undergo the penalty, but was allowed to walk back sound to his own house. He hastened therefore to his own place, nor was there anything further that he remembered in his terror, when the duke took to flight. Thus in one night, with himself alone waking, the people at rest, the citizen defended, the enemy repulsed, without the wounding of any man he was counted worthy to triumph, his voice alone conquering. O most happy bulwark of his country, whose javelins of the word, once hurled, did not fall in vain! O most sacred mind endowed with a heavenly gift, upon whose tongue the victory hung! Here the divine mercy showed examples of its compassion beyond what it had promised, when it found one man, and yet out of all preserved the inhabitants unharmed.
[11] But who could comprehend one by one his happy deeds, with the miracles increasing? and he grants many other benefits to the sick: To how many did he restore their former health by blessed loaves? How often did he send holy healing to the languishing? The sick man felt food beneath his tooth, and marveled at the medicine with a throat full of dainties, since he had scarcely hoped that helps for his sickness would be granted him. Spaniards also ran to him, because so often by his compassion and his health-bringing countenance he held out a remedy. And when he touched a sick man with a gentle hand, the grievous disease fled away. Behold the empire of that virtue, to which it was possible to heal by a look.
[12] But who worthily extols him, whose hope turned whatever it willed to salvation? the length of his episcopate, and his death. He was never taken up with any riches, nor with worldly matters, but, having cast off the common burden and bearing the cross of Christ, he followed on high naked, unencumbered, and trained, living to God and intent upon a holy manner of life. He fulfilled forty-four years distinguished with the pontifical honor. This most holy Man therefore, as his glorious triumph went forward, following Christ his leader with free step along the narrow and strait way, on the sixth day of the Kalends of September, leaving the earth, was received into heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom is honor and glory, strength and power through infinite ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
matters appears sufficiently certain from what was said in the Commentary.
in the manuscript Spanus*
in the manuscript præviator*
perhaps crederes*
in the manuscript præteriret*