ON SAINT SCHOLASTICA, VIRGIN, AT MONTE CASSINO IN ITALY,
AROUND THE YEAR OF CHRIST 513.
Preliminary Commentary.
Scholastica, Virgin, at Monte Cassino in Italy (Saint)
By J. B.
Section I. The feast day of Saint Scholastica the Virgin.
[1] The name of Saint Scholastica the Virgin is inscribed in all the Latin calendars under February 10; and not only her own but also her brother's extraordinary holiness has brought her the greatest renown, for scarcely anyone mentions her without calling her the sister of Saint Benedict; and all that is known of her deeds the feast day of Saint Scholastica has been drawn from his Life, written by Pope Saint Gregory. We shall treat below of her manner of life, the translation of her relics, and the encomia composed by various authors, after first presenting the eulogies from the various Martyrologies.
[2] The Martyrology of the Venerable Bede (for she is absent from the old Roman one, both the lesser edition published by our Heribert Rosweyde, and the greater one that we call Saint Jerome's) reads: The deposition of Saint Scholastica the Virgin. Nor do the ancient manuscripts of Laetium, her commemoration in the Martyrologies, Saint Maximin at Trier, and Saint Martin at Tournai record her in more words. But the manuscripts of Saint Lambert at Liege, the Morinian one, and that of the Professed House of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp have: At the fortress of Cassino, Saint Scholastica the Virgin. Usuard, and the Centula manuscript bearing the name of Bede, and certain other manuscripts, as well as Bellinus of Padua, have: At the fortress of Cassino, Saint Scholastica the Virgin, sister of Saint Benedict the Abbot. The Martyrology of the Order of Saint Benedict, long since printed, has: At Monte Cassino, Scholastica the Virgin, sister of our holy Father Benedict the Abbot. Lesser double. Wandelbert:
Soter, Irenaeus, and Scholastica the Virgin on the fourth day Shine forth equally, illustrious with the praise of their merits;
or, as Molanus has it, "gleam." The Roman Martyrology: At Monte Cassino, Saint Scholastica the Virgin, sister of Saint Benedict the Abbot, who saw her soul departing from her body in the likeness of a dove and ascending into heaven. The same is found in Felicius, Hugo Menardus, and Wion; nearly the same in Maurolycus and the manuscript Martyrology of Ado from the monastery of Saint Lawrence at Liege — which, because they were absent from other copies, Rosweyde relegated to an Appendix. Notker adds: Which she made known to the Brothers when they had completed the hymns of Matins, and thereupon gave thanks to God. Rabanus has the same, calling her a Virgin and a holy woman.
[3] Others compose a fuller eulogy. The manuscript Martyrology of the Church of Prague, the old Cologne edition printed in 1490, with a fuller eulogy, and many Belgian manuscripts: At the fortress of Cassino, Saint Scholastica the Virgin, sister of Saint Benedict the Abbot. Saint Benedict saw her soul departing from her body in the likeness of a dove, penetrating the secrets of heaven; rejoicing at her great glory, he gave thanks to God, and announced her death to the Brothers; whom he also immediately sent to bring her body to the monastery and to place it in the tomb which he had prepared for himself, so that those whose mind had always been one in God, their bodies also should not be separated in burial. Galesinius also celebrates her on this day, as do the Viola Sanctorum printed at Hagenau in 1508, Canisius, the manuscript Florarium, Jerome de Villa-vitis, Benedict Dorganius, Andrew Saussay in the Gallic Martyrology, Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, and Peter de Natalibus, book 3, chapter 110. The Bodecum manuscript, as we shall say below, places the feast of Saint Scholastica on the Ides themselves, with no other ecclesiastical records or writers' testimony to support it.
Section II. By whom was the Life of Saint Scholastica written?
[4] The praise of Saint Scholastica the Virgin has been celebrated by many writers. For scarcely anyone has touched upon the deeds of Saint Benedict without also mentioning his sister. First of all, Pope Saint Gregory the Great, in book 2 of his Dialogues, Saint Gregory wrote about her, which is entirely devoted to the virtues and miracles of Saint Benedict, in chapters 33 and 34 (not 37 and 38, as Arnoldus Wion has it), briefly commemorates Scholastica's annual meeting with her brother, her eagerness to hear discussions of divine matters, the admirable power of her prayers, and finally her death and burial. These two chapters we shall present here, for in them is contained the sum of all that the others relate. Among these the first is Saint Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, or of the West Saxons in England, Saint Aldhelm, who died in the year of Christ 709, as Bede, Florence of Worcester, and Matthew of Westminster and others report, and as we shall say on May 25. He extols the merit of Saint Scholastica in chapter 25 of his book On the Praise of Virginity, and at somewhat greater length in his metrical book On the Praise of Virgins, near the end, section 39, where he calls her a young maiden. Nearly contemporary with Aldhelm in the same England was Saint Bede the Priest, it is doubtful whether also Saint Bede; who (as we shall say on May 27) died in the year 735. In the seventh volume of his works, among various sermons following the winter Homilies on the Saints, the second is for the feast of Saint Scholastica, whose opening is "The reading of the holy Gospel, Brothers," etc.; and a poem is added in praise of the same Virgin, which Baronius considers to be not Bede's but that of Saint Bertharius, Abbot and Martyr, as we shall presently say.
[5] But Wion asserts that that poem, whose opening is "O blessed sister," is not by Bertharius but by Paul the Deacon. Paul was, as Leo of Ostia writes in book 1 of the Cassino Chronicle, chapter 17, the Notary of King Desiderius of the Lombards, and after the death of Prince Arechis of Benevento, Desiderius's son-in-law (around the year of Christ 788), he became a monk at Cassino, Paul the Deacon, lived many years afterward, and wrote several works in an elegant style; and among other things he also composed reciprocal verses and hymns about the individual miracles of Blessed Benedict in fluent speech. Wion testifies that he arranged for this Life of Saint Benedict and of Saints Maurus and Scholastica, composed by Paul in the same kind of verse, to be published at Rome in the year 1590 in the third volume of the poems of Prosper Martinengius. We have seen the first two volumes of this author, published some years earlier, but not the third. However, whoever composed that encomium of Saint Scholastica which Wion recites in book 3 of the Lignum Vitae under February 10, thinking it not to be found elsewhere (whereas, as we said, it had been printed thirty-two years earlier in volume 7 of the Works of Bede, somewhat more correctly and augmented by eight distichs) — but whoever the author of this encomium may be, whether Paul the Deacon, as Wion thinks, or Saint Bertharius, as Baronius holds — he himself testifies that he wrote a heroic poem about the same holy Virgin, in these words:
In heroic verses elsewhere, O most chaste one, We have written your praises, behold, in heroic verses.
This is a composition distinct from the one which Wion says he published with the poems of Martinengius, consisting of reciprocal verses, such that the first hemistich of the hexameter is the last of the pentameter.
[6] At least fifty years after the death of Paul, Saint Bertharius became Abbot of the monastery of Cassino and governed it for twenty-seven years and seven months, as Leo of Ostia reports in book 1, chapter 35; and at last he was crowned with martyrdom in the year 884, on October 22. Marcus Antonius Scipio treats of Saint Bertharius's erudition and literary works in his Eulogies of the Abbots of Cassino, as does John Trithemius in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, who calls him Berthorius. Saint Bertharius, Our Possevinus catalogues several of his works in the Apparatus, and among them a homily on the Ten Virgins for the feast of Saint Scholastica — evidently the very same one that is found in volume 7 of the works of Bede. Concerning this, Baronius writes in his Notes on the Martyrology: There exists in Bede, volume 7, a sermon on Saint Scholastica, and a poem added in her praise; which we have found in our library, in ancient manuscripts, to be by another author, namely Bertharius, Abbot of Cassino. Peter the Deacon, the Cassino Librarian, confirms this in his book On Illustrious Men of the Monastery of Cassino, chapter 12, where, treating of Saint Bertharius, he says that he wrote a homily on Saint Scholastica. We have this book of Peter, which is entitled The Origin and Life of the Just of the Sacred Monastery of Cassino, where he has little on Saint Bertharius, but says he will write his Life at length. Perhaps he did so in his book On Illustrious Men of the Monastery of Cassino, which is distinct from the former, as is evident from book 4 of the Cassino Chronicle, chapter 68. Wion cites the homily of Bede; then, as if it were a different work, that of Saint Bertharius the Abbot and Martyr, whose opening he says is: "The reading of the holy Gospel, Brothers"; and yet another by the same author with the opening: "The Life of the Lord's Virgin." Anthony Yepes, in century 1 of the Benedictine Chronicle, at the year 480, chapter 3, cites the sermon of Saint Bertharius on Saint Scholastica; but, as comparison makes evident, what he presents is drawn from the homily published among Bede's works, though in paraphrase, as was permitted to a translator. The Spanish of Yepes was rendered into Latin by Henry Zypaeus in his booklet On the Monastic Life of Saint Scholastica. Benedict Haeftenus, Provost of Affligem, in his Commentary on chapter 33 of the Life of Saint Benedict, which he prefixed to his Monastic Disquisitions with excellent illustration, presents some passages from Bede's homily; then from Yepes he cites the sermon of Saint Bertharius as if it were a different work. Therefore the homily attributed to Bede is in fact that of Saint Bertharius; we do not reproduce it here because it is readily available, and it narrates no deeds of Scholastica except those described by Saint Gregory, whose words it illustrates with moral commentary. We have not seen the other sermon of his cited by Wion. Whether the poem found in Bede and Wion is his or Paul the Deacon's, we have not yet been able to determine.
[7] Then Alberic the Deacon, a monk of Cassino, a most eloquent and learned man, as Leo of Ostia writes in book 3 of the Cassino Chronicle, chapter 33, Alberic the Deacon, composed the Life of the holy Virgin of Christ Scholastica, and a homily concerning her; he also composed verses on the Life of Saint Scholastica. Onuphrius Panvinius, in book 2 of his work On the Creation of Pontiffs and Cardinals, writes that this man was a Cardinal of the Roman Church; as do Scipio Mazella in his Description of the Kingdom of Naples, Wion in book 2 of the Lignum Vitae, chapter 9, Gerard John Vossius in book 2 of his Latin Historians, chapter 46, Possevinus in the Apparatus, and Alphonsus Ciacconius. The aforementioned Leo says nothing of his cardinalitial dignity, nor does Platina, who praises him under Nicholas II, nor Baronius when he treats of him in volume 11 at the year 1059, number 18. Yet none of these denies it. Panvinius in one edition writes that he was created by Stephen IX — who had been Abbot of Cassino, the predecessor of Desiderius, and died on April 28, 1057, in the eighth month of his pontificate. In another edition he says he was created Cardinal by Alexander II, who governed the Church from the year 1061 to April 22, 1073. Gerard John Vossius, a man otherwise meticulous, was confused in thinking this was the same Alberic whom Peter the Deacon treats in book 4 of the Cassino Chronicle, chapter 68. For the former, already a Deacon, a most eloquent and learned man, came to this place to live in the time of Abbot Desiderius, as Leo says; and he is said to have been called to the Roman Synod in the year 1059 and to have argued against Berengar in word and writing. The latter, however, scarcely more than a boy, moved by an admirable vision in his tenth year, left behind the pomps of the world and sought the monastery of Cassino, and was received with most grateful affection by Girard, who was made Abbot around the year 1111 after Saint Bruno, Bishop of Segni (of whom presently), and having received the habit of holy conversion, professed his military service to Christ the King; and he was still living when Peter the Deacon was writing the fourth book of the Cassino Chronicle, who confesses that he himself was offered by his parents to Blessed Benedict as a five-year-old in the year of Christ 1121 — or 1115, as the edition of Matthew Lauretus has it. Wion testifies that the sermon on Saint Scholastica by the elder Alberic exists in the Cassino manuscripts, with the opening: "You have heard, dearest Brothers." We have seen neither that sermon nor the Life written by him.
[8] Saint Bruno, Bishop of Segni in Latium, who is reported to have died in the year of Christ 1125, in the forty-fourth year of his episcopate, Saint Bruno, Bishop of Segni, as we shall say on July 18 or August 31 — he, having temporarily set aside his episcopate, lived as a private person in the monastery of Cassino, and from the year 1107 to 1111 was its Abbot, but was afterward compelled by Paschal II to return to his church. He wrote, among other things (concerning which Marcus Antonius Scipio treats in the Eulogies of the Abbots, Possevinus in the Apparatus, and Aubert Le Mire in the Ecclesiastical Library), a sermon on Saint Scholastica, Peter the Deacon, as Baronius reports from Peter the Deacon in his Notes on February 10, which Wion confesses he had in manuscript. The same Peter the Deacon of Cassino, already frequently cited, in his book On the Origin and Life of the Just of the Sacred Monastery of Cassino, included in the first place a brief compendium of the Lives of Saint Benedict, Saint Maurus, and Saint Scholastica. But the person who copied the exemplar of his book that we have — from Peter's own autograph, written in very difficult Lombard characters on parchment — omitted those three Lives. Wion cites a homily composed by an anonymous monk, whose opening is: "From the ancients and our elders."
[9] An anonymous Benedictine monk composed the Life of Saint Scholastica, or rather amplified the account drawn from Saint Gregory, an anonymous Benedictine, as one who likewise calls Saint Benedict "our holy Father." This Life, although not very accurate, we shall present from a manuscript codex of the Bodecum monastery of the Order of Canons Regular, in the diocese of Paderborn in Westphalia, transcribed by our John Gamansius. Peter de Natalibus, Hilarion of Verona, Peter de Natalibus narrates the same Life briefly, and mostly from Saint Gregory, in book 3, chapter 110. Somewhat more fully, and indeed in Gregory's own words, does Hilarion, a monk of Verona, in the Lives added to the Lombardic History of James de Voragine and published at Milan in the year 1494, as Vossius writes, and then at Strasbourg, as our copy has it, in 1496. Mombritius. That which was published by Boninus Mombritius, a Milanese patrician, in volume 2 of his Lives of the Saints, is also drawn from Gregory.
[10] A lengthy encomium of Saint Scholastica was written by Jerome Dungersheim of Ochsenfurt, Jerome Dungersheim, Professor of Theology and fellow of the greater college of the University of Leipzig, addressed to Henry, Abbot of the monastery of Saint Peter near Merseburg, a city of Meissen. This monastery on a hill near the city was founded by Werner, or Werinher, Bishop of Merseburg, appointed in the year 1073, as George Fabricius in book 2 of the Memorable Things of All Saxony and Ernest Brotuff in his Merseburg Chronicle, book 2, chapters 14 and 17, attest. That is the same Werinher who was a vigorous defender of ecclesiastical liberty, to whom the monk Bruno dedicated his history of the Saxon War. Moreover, as the same Brotuff relates, there were three Abbots of that monastery named Henry: the twenty-eighth and thirtieth, both surnamed Homberg, and the thirty-third, a native of Gotha in Thuringia. We conjecture that this encomium of Saint Scholastica was dedicated by Jerome Dungersheim to this last Henry, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was printed at Leipzig in the year 1515. Although it reports little more about the holy Virgin herself than what was narrated by Saint Gregory, nevertheless, because perhaps it has not been seen by many, and because it commemorates certain matters concerning other Saints that are not without interest, we have judged that it should be given here as well, but divided into chapters to relieve the tedium of readers.
[11] Several other authors, especially more recent ones, have celebrated Saint Scholastica in their writings: John Trithemius, On Illustrious Men of the Order of Saint Benedict, book 3, chapter 4; and others. Anthony Yepes, volume 1 of the Chronicles of the Order of Saint Benedict; Silvanus Razzius, Abbot of the Camaldolese Order, volume 1 of his work on women illustrious for holiness; Prosper Martinengius, volume 3, as Wion attests; Philip Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy; Francis Haraeus in the Lives of the Saints; William Gazaeus, James Dubletius, our Heribert Rosweyde, James Ferragius; and finally almost innumerable others.
Section III. Was Saint Scholastica a Religious or a Devout Laywoman?
[12] It never entered my mind to doubt whether Saint Scholastica lived her life in the monastic habit, in the company of other holy women, bound by fixed rules; or rather in a private dwelling, in a modest but ordinary garment, following a rule of life that she had either prescribed for herself or that some wise director of her soul had given to her alone — until a book was published at Bruges in Flanders that attempted, as it were, to prove this with certain arguments and to remove all scruple from everyone. She appears to have been a Religious. So ill-advised is it to try to confirm by shaking what seems solid by its very position and mass. Often what was believed to be firmly compacted of stone and mortar, if you wish too curiously to display its strength, you will find stuffed with straw and devoid of solidity. The images of that most holy Virgin which are everywhere to be seen, and especially the mutually agreeing opinion of all the pious and learned, and perhaps a certain hidden instinct, had so deeply fixed this conviction in my mind that even if some single person had wished to argue the contrary, I would not easily have allowed my preconceived judgment to be shaken. But when I saw a book written on this very question, by which that opinion was to be plainly and firmly established, and I diligently undertook to read it through, then at last I began to waver and hesitate — not indeed so far as to have entirely abandoned my former opinion, but such that, moved by a certain natural inclination and tendency of judgment rather than compelled by any weight of arguments, I now believe that she was truly and properly a Religious.
[13] That writer had perhaps hoped that he would ensure that no one would ever again have any scruple or doubt about the matter. And in order to adorn that task more splendidly, he seized the occasion for taking up his pen from a remark by some obscure preacher. For when this preacher, from the pulpit, was addressing Virgins who were indeed devoted to piety but not enclosed in the cloisters of religious orders a certain person proved this in a published book (whom the common people elsewhere call Spiritual Daughters, elsewhere Devout Women, and this writer, in language as un-Latin as it is ridiculous, calls "Devotaries"), he proposed the virtues of Saint Scholastica as a model for their imitation, saying that she too had been a Devout Woman. A dreadful accusation indeed, and one that would require Pauls and Anthonys to emerge from their deserts to refute it! A thousand insults are hurled at the Church in this age by wicked men, at the flourishing religious families within it, on a trivial occasion, and especially at the most sacred majesty of the Roman Pontiff, and indeed at the very Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, and the other Saints — and these are to be ignored. Against the Sacraments of the Church, the most certain safeguards of eternal salvation left to us by Christ, the most vile debauchees declaim from the pulpit with their most impure mouths — and the matter is not of such consequence that it is necessary even to provoke them with a word. With infamous pamphlets, bespattered with every kind of the most sordid reproach, the buffoons from the flock of Calvin and Luther attack all the orders of the Catholic Church — and this is to be treated with contempt. But if some Catholic preacher, at a sparsely attended sermon, while proposing examples of virtues for imitation, perhaps said, or seemed to some drowsy listener to have said, that Saint Scholastica was not a Religious — at once the writing tablets are demanded, the pen is seized, an entire book is composed, after solemnly invoking, in due form, to witness so legitimate a contest, they mix in false and inept matter, the holy Patriarchs of the religious orders — Augustine, Benedict, Dominic, Francis, and Ignatius. And upon the last of these, in order that he might more surely win his favor, the writer brands a double mark of inconstancy and plagiarism, saying that he was once clothed in the habit of laypeople at the monastery of Montserrat in order to lead an eremitical life there, but that he afterward abandoned this course, having been persuaded by his spiritual Father or some other person who perceived that he was born for greater things and was being gradually drawn by God to worthier ones — and that from there he nevertheless drew a great part of his spiritual exercises and many other things. I imagine this writer has been disabused of his ignorance, if he has read the most elegant refutations by several of our men against this fiction. But when he so rashly asserts this about Saint Ignatius, does he not provide grounds for suspecting that what he attributes to that preacher concerning Saint Scholastica was not actually said, or was not said so expressly and clearly?
[14] But his true purpose seems rather to have been to criticize Virgins devoted to God, or, as he prefers to say, "Devotaries," whom he therefore calls "Volumeae" and describes in other inept ways, injurious to Devout Virgins than to defend the honor of Saint Scholastica; and so scarcely a fifth of his book pursues this argument. He then at length criticizes, now ridicules, now seems to wish to instruct the Devout Women, so that the sincerity of the master might kindle the ardor of the students. He does, however, gather together some true commendations of the religious life, which you may find set forth far more elegantly and distinctly elsewhere, and especially in our Jerome Plati. But I now let go of this question about the Devout Women, because it does not pertain to my purpose to discuss it at greater length. I shall merely indicate briefly what kind of women are called Devout in our Belgium. There are very many in all cities — honorable Virgins and widows who, having renounced every worldly adornment, lead lives conspicuous for remarkable piety, chastity, abstinence, humility, and other virtues, either in the homes of their parents, for their comfort living laudably and as an example to the whole household, or elsewhere, alone or in pairs or threes; and lest idleness create any danger to their modesty, they engage in works befitting their sex, either to support themselves, or to have something to give to the poor, or to adorn churches and provide the apparatus for sacred services. Some, which brings the greatest advantages, instruct poorer young girls in letters and piety, and in some craft suited to their condition. In short, they so order their lives that all the praises with which Saint Cyprian and other Fathers adorn Virgins apply to them: "She is the flower of the ecclesiastical seed, the beauty and ornament of spiritual grace, a joyful nature, an entire and uncorrupt work of praise and honor, the image of God corresponding to the sanctity of the Lord, the more illustrious portion of the flock of Christ."
[15] Yet there is no Catholic who does not far prefer to these the condition of those who are enclosed in convents, provided that charity, the original spirit, and discipline flourish within them. For theirs is a more sublime state, whose state is inferior to the Religious, a more perfect renunciation of all things and self-emptying, a fuller obedience, and a safer chastity, more removed from every danger. But there are innumerable women for whom, although they have resolved to consecrate their body and soul immaculate to God, the way to Religious life is nevertheless blocked: because they lack the means to provide the dowry or the fixed sum of money that is required; for others their health is not sufficiently robust; some their parents will not allow to be torn from them, declaring that their old age cannot do without their help or comfort; for some, although chastity appeals to them, they do not possess that greatness of soul to wish themselves stripped of all things and comforts; and for some perhaps there is a temperament that is judged less suited to the common life and discipline of many. Meanwhile, since convents are full everywhere, so that it is necessary to seek admission for many years and with many entreaties, many women — either while they await the opportunity to enter Religious life, or having entirely abandoned the hope and thought of undertaking it — devote themselves to holiness in the world, and either order their lives by the counsels of religious men, or are governed by the authority of their parish priests. Nor can anyone, unless he belongs to the faction of Jovinian, Vigilantius, or Calvin, condemn such a manner of life. nevertheless commended by wise men. I am all the more surprised that a serious and pious man wished to seem to mock and hold up to ridicule a similar way of living. Our most learned and most holy Leonard Lessius approved it and celebrated it in a published book, showing it to be laudable and meritorious by the authority of Sacred Scripture, the testimonies of the holy Fathers, various arguments, the advantages that this state affords, and its many merits — for it should truly be called a State, if it is confirmed by a vow. Finally he prescribed certain things to be observed by such Virgins concerning their habit, veil, prayers, sacred reading, manual work, use of wealth, conversation, and other exercises; but a vow of obedience to a Confessor, since nothing concerning it has been handed down by the holy Fathers and it can bring many inconveniences, he does not approve at all. Our Heribert Rosweyde also wrote a treatise on the same subject in the Belgian language, himself also a man of solid erudition and piety. Valentine Bischopius wrote in the same language an Instruction for Virgins consecrated to God for ordering their lives in piety. Others have also written several books on a similar subject.
[16] But let what has been said thus far concerning the so-called Devout Women suffice. This moreover he confirms, by Tradition: As to why Scholastica was not in their class, that writer assembles many reasons; which Benedict Haeftenus collected more briefly from him and proposed more modestly in his commentary on chapter 33 of the Life of Saint Benedict. We shall touch briefly upon the chief ones. The first is the constant tradition of the entire Order, which we receive and embrace with the greatest reverence. To this is added the authority of many writers whom Haeftenus enumerates, 2. by authority: although among them there is no one who lived more than two hundred years ago; but the one who compiled the Life that we shall present from the Bodecum codex is perhaps somewhat more ancient. It may indeed seem surprising that this is nowhere expressly transmitted by Leo of Ostia and Peter the Deacon, who commemorate other distinctions of their monastery and Order with considerable accuracy. The third reason is 3. by agreement with her brother: that it seems unlikely either that Benedict, who drew all whom he could to the religious life, would not have persuaded his sister, or that she would not have complied with her brother's counsels — especially since Saint Gregory testifies that their mind was always one in God. Yet it would perhaps not be difficult to bring forward examples of friends and siblings who, in very different ways of life, were bound to each other by the greatest charity.
[17] The fourth reason is that she was dedicated to almighty God from the very time of her infancy, as the same Saint Gregory attests. Haeftenus expressed it thus: 4. by dedication from infancy: "Because from infancy she was consecrated to God in a monastery with certain ceremonies, as is customary, and as is established from chapter 59 of the Rule... and that monastery is reported to have been Saint Mary of Plumbariola." Therefore, if, as they themselves maintain, Scholastica was nearly the same age as Benedict, or even born together with him, that convent was far more ancient than Cassino, since Scholastica was consecrated to God in it from infancy. If this was done elsewhere, in a convent subject to the jurisdiction of some Bishop or Abbess (such as the one we showed was erected and organized by Saint Caesarius at the same period, in the Life of Saint Caesaria on January 12; and another which Saint Gregory in book 1 of the Dialogues, chapter 4, and Baronius at the year 504, number 12, testify existed under the governance of Saint Equitius), how could she migrate elsewhere and abandon the Rule she had undertaken? If someone denies that Scholastica was consecrated with certain ceremonies, and contends that she dedicated herself to divine worship by the mere resolution of her mind alone, and perhaps by assuming a modest garment suited to holiness, in her own or her parents' home — how will he be refuted? but not necessarily in the cloister: For that other author admits that the dedication can be said to have been only begun in infancy, and completed later by the blessing of a Priest when she was already fifteen years old. But he does not sufficiently prove that a public dedication was employed, or that, even if it had been public, with her hair cut and a veil imposed, she was thereby immediately made a nun. That most noble Victoria, about whom we shall speak on February 11 in the Acts of Saints Saturninus, Dativus, and their companions, was not a nun, and yet she preserved in the church the most sacred tresses of her head, consecrated and dedicated to God for perpetual virginity, with unshaken modesty.
[18] The fifth reason is that Saint Gregory calls her a "sanctimonialis femina" (a holy woman), a term that is used principally for a nun or religious. He confirms this with many authorities, and rightly so. For just as the word "Religious" signifies, in current usage, one who professes the ascetic life in some community of devout persons, having taken vows, 5. because she is called a sanctimonialis, so the term "sanctimoniales" is more commonly applied to those who, bound by vows in religious houses, apply themselves with special zeal to holiness. Yet, just as a religious man, a religious woman, and religious spouses are said of those who are outstanding in the integrity of their life, even if they live amid the tumults of the world, as also those who are not Religious: so women or Virgins may be called "sanctimoniales" who devote themselves to holiness with singular effort, especially if they profess this outwardly by some sign, even if they are bound by no monastic ties. Thus in the already cited Acts of February 11: "There were arrested Saturninus the Priest, with his four children, namely Saturninus the younger and Felix, who were Readers, Mary, a sanctimonialis, and Hilarion, an infant." Unless someone wishes to claim that there were already convents of Virgins in Africa at that time, when even long afterward the name of monk was not yet known in the West. However, the Author again triumphs too much in this argument, when, not content with the Latin word and the form "monialis" derived from it by elision, he appropriates the Greek translation of Pope Saint Zacharias, which does not much support his case. For although what Saint Gregory has in book 1 of the Dialogues, chapter 4, "that sanctimonialis," Zacharias translates as "a certain monastra" (nun), where it is clear that the discussion concerns a Virgin dwelling within a monastery, he nevertheless translates Scholastica — whom Gregory likewise calls a "sanctimonialis femina" — as "the most sacred and venerable Virgin," and then "the most holy Virgin," and then "the most holy woman." Was it perhaps because he did not use the term "monastra" (nun) here, as he did elsewhere, that he knew she had not led a monastic life?
[19] The sixth reason carries somewhat greater weight with me: that Scholastica is said to have withdrawn the next day to her own cell. For in the same book Saint Gregory sometimes uses "cell" for "monastery." It is certain, however, that the term has often been used in another sense, 6. because she dwelt in a cell, even by pagan authors, for a small chamber or a private dwelling. Alardus Gazaeus learnedly discusses the cells of monks in his commentary on Cassian's book 5, On the Institutes of Monasteries, chapter 37. Whoever might say that Scholastica inhabited a certain cell near a church — much like those who were later called "Inclusae" (anchoresses) — or some small dwelling either on her father's estate or in some other secluded place, with perhaps a maidservant, could neither support his assertion by the testimony of any ancient writer, nor be refuted by the words of Saint Gregory. Silvanus Razzius the Camaldolese, in volume 1 of his Lives of Women Illustrious for Holiness, writes that Scholastica returned home from that meeting with her brother.
[20] The Author brings forward another argument in his Preface to the Reader, as if in advance, explaining why no one from the mendicant Orders ought to deny that Saint Scholastica belonged to the Benedictine institute, since from this family very many benefits have flowed to each of those orders. We indeed acknowledge and proclaim that our Society was aided with paternal benevolence by many Superiors of your most holy Order at its very origin, [the contrary (even if it could have been done without offense to the Benedictines)] and has been heaped with very many and very great benefits ever since, and continues to be heaped daily. But no one of them, I think, demands such reciprocity from us that, if we consider something to be false, we should nevertheless affirm and defend it in honor of the Order. The Order is too illustrious to need any fictitious praises; too sincere to prefer any kind of ornament to the truth. We shall show elsewhere that the most holy men Romanus and Lupicinus were not Benedictines, and no one will be angry with us for demonstrating that they were far older than Benedict. We showed on February 1 that the most celebrated Virgin Brigid is rashly assigned by some to the Benedictines, since she died at a time when that institute had not yet penetrated into Gaul, let alone to the uttermost of mankind, the Irish. No one will justly be angry with us for this. We think differently about Scholastica, but we are not entirely convinced by this Author's arguments. We believe she ordered her life under her brother's Rule, whether with a few in a cell or with many in a larger convent; for before her brother was placed over monasteries of men and established his Rule, whether she lived privately, in the manner of present-day Devout Women, or in a convent of another institute, is not clear. Nor has any other member of our Society, so far as I have read, written otherwise. I believe that preacher of whom we spoke above either never pronounced the contrary, or not in such a way that he wished to maintain it obstinately. Besides Stephen Binet and Jerome Plati, whom Haeftenus cited above, others of our members have taught the same: recently indeed Francis Lahier in his Great Menologium of Virgins, no member of the Society of Jesus has written otherwise, which he published in French; and much earlier the most holy Peter Canisius, who in the first edition of his German Martyrology wrote: "At the fortress of Cassino, of the holy Virgin Scholastica, sister of Saint Benedict the Abbot, who from her earliest age served God in a monastery with great holiness. Her brother Benedict saw her soul going to heaven in the likeness of a dove, as Saint Gregory writes." In the second edition he celebrated her feast day thus: "At the fortress of Cassino, Saint Scholastica the Virgin, sister of Saint Benedict the Abbot, who served God from her earliest age, and with the contempt of earthly pleasures, by vigils, fasts, and prayers adorned her monastic state with great holiness of life. Saint Benedict, her brother, saw her soul flying to heaven in the likeness of a dove, as Saint Gregory writes." Besides those already cited, James Ferragius, Doctor of Theology and secular preacher to the Most Christian Queen, in his French Life of Saint Scholastica, learnedly and modestly proves that she was truly a Religious and an Abbess, and under the Rule of her most holy brother.
Section IV. Did Saint Scholastica dwell near Cassino?
[21] Having thus established these matters about the manner of life that Scholastica followed, we must now inquire where her dwelling (whether you prefer to call it a cell some say she dwelt near Cassino or a monastery) was situated. The author of the booklet cited above has no doubt that it was close to the monastery of Saint Benedict, following the authority of Wion, Yepes, and other more recent writers: "It was situated on the southern side of the Cassino monastery, somewhat toward the west, and it was a place of very austere life and full of the fragrance of sanctity, called Saint Mary of Plumbariola." So he writes in chapter 3; but in chapter 4 he says that for the intended purpose (that a new order might be propagated among Virgins), it was necessary that she with those Virgins should dwell not far from her brother. 1. for the sake of formation. "For how could a new discipline of living and the observance of a rule have been properly disseminated to a far-distant monastery, when for the formation of a new institute frequent presence of the master is needed, and exhortations to confirm the spirits of the hearers in their new undertaking?" And so he thinks it follows from the fact that Scholastica was a nun that her dwelling was close to her brother's monastery. But in the fifth chapter, reversing the argument, because she dwelt near her brother's monastery, he infers that she also followed his institute — as if she could not, even at a great distance from it, nevertheless observe his Rule together with other Virgins, or in some nearby village or cell order her life according to his prescriptions without being bound by monastic vows. Did Saint Florentina live near her brother Leander, from whom she had received a Rule? Or did his own sister live near Saint Anthony? Or was Frances de Blois, who dwelt in the fortress of Laetium depending on the instruction of her most holy brother Louis, therefore a Religious, and not rather a Devout Woman, if one may so call her? Therefore Scholastica was not "not a Religious" even if she dwelt farther from Cassino.
[22] He confirms the nearby dwelling by another argument, namely the example of Saint Pachomius: 2. by the example of the sister of Saint Pachomius, but who proves that Benedict preferred the example of Pachomius rather than that of so many others who, though their own sisters were devoted to holiness, did not induce them to dwell in a nearby place? He thinks that Scholastica's very convent is pointed out, as it were, by Saint Gregory in book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 19, where he writes: "Not far from the monastery there was a village in which a considerable number of people had been converted from the worship of idols to the faith of God through the exhortation of Benedict. 3. because there was a convent of Virgins there. There also were certain sanctimoniales women, and Benedict, the servant of God, took care to send his Brothers there frequently for the exhortation of souls. But on a certain day he sent one as usual; and the monk who had been sent, after giving his admonition, accepted napkins at the request of the sanctimoniales women." Neither the author himself nor Haeftenus, who follows him, doubts that a true monastery is being discussed here. And the translation of Pope Zacharias supports this, which reads: "Concerning him who received napkins from a nun and was rebuked by the Saint." And then: "In that very marketplace there was a convent of pious and venerable Virgins." He holds that Scholastica lived precisely in this convent; for since idol worship flourished in that region before the arrival of Saint Benedict, it is not likely that a convent of Virgins existed there beforehand; if it was built by Saint Benedict, or with his permission, since Tertullus had already given him possession of that mountain, then he gave it to Scholastica rather than to anyone else to inhabit. He says moreover, in chapter 7 and elsewhere, that Scholastica's convent was on Monte Cassino itself. But I do not believe that the village and the convent were on Monte Cassino, nor that it is sufficiently proved that Scholastica dwelt in this one.
[23] after the rebuilding, Just as the monastery of Saint Benedict, which the Lombards under Prince Zotto had destroyed, was rebuilt long afterward, so also, he says, the monastery of Saint Scholastica was eventually restored. For when King Rachis, converted by the exhortation of Pope Zacharias, had renounced the world, together with his wife and daughter, called Plumbariola, he was sent to the monastery of Cassino, while they restored the Monastery of Plumbariola. So he writes in chapter 3, as does Haeftenus. Finally, he infers that Scholastica's dwelling was nearby because Benedict announced her death to the Brothers, whom he also immediately sent to bring her body to the monastery. 4. because her body was brought to Cassino. For he maintains that the death of his sister was announced to the whole community, and the entire community was sent to bring her body to the Cassino monastery — not placed on a cart or ship, he says, but carried processionally, as the bodies of the deceased are customarily brought to the grave, accompanied by the clergy and others. Whence he thinks it is clearly deduced that she dwelt very nearby. But he does not sufficiently prove either the sending of the whole community or the manner of conveyance.
[24] And indeed, if Scholastica had her dwelling in so nearby a place, why did she come so solemnly to her brother once a year, solely for the purpose of conversing about divine matters, but she visited her brother only once a year, at a point midway between the two monasteries? Especially if to that convent of his sister he not only sent his Disciples as usual, but himself, as the same Author says in chapter 5, went there and provided counsels and other aids to salvation for the holy women? Who, when he hears that a Virgin was accustomed to come to her brother once a year, therefore from a distant place, yet not even to the very gate of the monastery, but was received in some country house, does not immediately suspect that she had come from ten or twelve leagues away, or six or eight at the minimum? Nor did Leo of Ostia write that the monastery of Plumbariola was restored by Thesia, the wife of Rachis, but rather that it was built by her. In book 1 of the Cassino Chronicle, chapter 8, he writes: "In those days also, Rachis, King of the Lombards, set out with a great army to besiege the city of Perugia. Plumbariola was built by Queen Thesia, While he was attacking it on all sides, the same Pope Zacharias went to him, and by prayers, admonitions, and many gifts persuaded him to return home. Retaining that king's admonitions, not long afterward, inspired by the Holy Spirit, having already reigned five years and six months, he came devoutly to Rome with his wife and daughter, to the threshold of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles. There, having laid aside the royal dignity, he was tonsured by the Pontiff of the Apostolic See himself, the holy Zacharias, made a cleric, and clothed also in the monastic habit, together with his wife and daughter. And soon, arriving at this monastery of Saint Benedict at the command of the same Apostolic authority, and entrusting himself to be trained under the regular discipline, after some years spent in the holy purpose of the religious life and in a manner of living pleasing to God, he rendered his spirit to God. There still exists near the monastery a vineyard called that of Rachis, because Rachis himself is believed to have both planted and cultivated it. His wife Thesia, however, and his daughter Rattruda, with the permission and assistance of the Abbot himself, BUILT a convent of women at their own expense, not far from Cassino, in the place called Plumbariola; and enriching it with many resources, leading their lives there under great caution and strict regular discipline, they ended their lives in their holy resolution." Baronius narrates these things from Anastasius and Leo at the year 750. Anthony Yepes, in volume 1 of the Benedictine Chronicle, at the year 532, chapter 4, writes that the distance between that convent and Cassino was four miles. Silvanus Razzius says the place was called Pumaruola, which some more recent writers say was rebuilt, and that the remains of a ruined church can still be seen there. For Ferrari it is Pumarola. Marcus Antonius Scipio, in his Preface to the Eulogies of the Abbots of Cassino, chapter 3, writes that Thesia and Rathruda lived separately on the neighboring mountain in a convent among holy women. And later, speaking of Petronax, the restorer of the Cassino monastery, he has this: "For having enclosed Thesia, wife of the same Rachis, and Ratruda, his daughter, at the foot of the mountain with other holy women in a particular convent, training them in piety, he tested their progress and constancy with similar trials of religious humility and patience." In the margin of the book he notes: "At the town of Plumbariola, where Saint Scholastica once led the monastic life and died."
[25] From the testimony of these writers it is clear that this tradition is now current among the people of Cassino; yet we are not easily persuaded to believe that it arose from fact, both on account of the arguments adduced to the contrary, and because Leo of Ostia, who most diligently collected the antiquities of the Cassino monastery, but not the older writers, makes no mention of it when he treats of the founding of Plumbariola; nor does Peter the Deacon in his book On the Origin and Life of the Just of the Sacred Monastery of Cassino, where he narrates the conversion of Rachis in number 23 as follows: "Rachis, King of the Lombards, coming with his wife and daughter to Cassino, laid aside his diadem and purple and, together with his children, was made a monk. There still exists to the present day a vineyard quite near the monastery, which the same King planted, and which is still called by his name. His wife and daughter, however, BUILDING a monastery at their own expense in Plumbariola, and leading a sufficiently strict life there, closed their last day in their holy purpose." If the tradition had been current at Cassino in his time that Saint Scholastica's convent had once existed in that same place, would Peter have concealed it? Certainly in book 4 of the Cassino Chronicle, chapter 101 (or, as the edition of Matthew Lauretus has it, 100, not 10 as our Author and Haeftenus have it), who marked the place of the conversation, he mentions the place where Saint Scholastica used to converse with Saint Benedict, thus: "But the Brothers who had been sent to the Chancellor, when they had reached that place where Father Benedict used to speak with his sister once a year," etc. Would Peter have been silent about what was of greater importance — if tradition held that a monastery existed at Plumbariola before Queen Thesia came there, and that Saint Scholastica had inhabited it? At that place of their pious conversations, as the Author reports from Simon Milletus, a chapel is now to be seen, which Silvanus Razzius testifies was begun in elegant workmanship by Chrysostom, the ninety-eighth Abbot, about a hundred years earlier, but was not completed.
[25] We must therefore look elsewhere for the dwelling of Saint Scholastica, farther from Cassino. Thomas Stapleton, in the Promptuarium Morale, winter part, for the first Sunday of Easter, text 1, points it out perhaps more reliably: "Saint Benedict had Saint Scholastica as his sister, the Mother of many Virgins, she appears rather to have dwelt around Subiaco, no less than he was the Father of monks; and to this day her very ample monastery exists, not far from that cave in which Saint Benedict lay hidden for three years, as we once observed with our own eyes." Benedict Haeftenus describes that cave of Saint Benedict most beautifully from the report of eyewitnesses, in his Commentary on chapter 1 of the Life of Saint Benedict. Certainly, just as Saint Benedict is said to have established twelve monasteries in that district of Subiaco before he came to Cassino, placing twelve monks in each, so it may seem probable that Scholastica too, if she embraced the monastic life by her brother's example, either founded a monastery for herself in those parts, or inhabited one erected by him or by another; nor does it seem that the necessity of migrating elsewhere could have been imposed upon her as it was upon Benedict. From there, therefore, she would have come to Cassino annually, for the sake of meeting her brother.
[26] These matters have perhaps been discussed by us in more words than was necessary, not so much to overthrow the received opinion, if it be supported by the competent testimony of an ancient writer, whether in the company of others, is uncertain, as to show that the arguments which that Author presents in his writing as most certain are insufficiently firm and solid, so that a judgment may be formed about the rest of what he heaps upon the Devout Women. This alone, therefore, we assert: that Saint Scholastica, even if not in the vicinity of her brother's monastery — which is proved by no ancient testimony — nevertheless appears to have become a Religious by the example and perhaps the exhortation of her most devout brother; but whether she dwelt in a large convent of Virgins, or with a few holy women, or alone with some maidservants, is established by no certain authority. Especially since Haeftenus, in his Commentary on chapter 19 of the Life of Saint Benedict, maintains that those Virgins who from the beginning of the Church, living privately in their own homes, vowed chastity before a Bishop and received the veil from him, were truly Religious — whereas others call them Devout Women, bound only by the vow of chastity, not also of obedience and poverty, all three of which are generally considered necessary for the proper definition of the religious state.
Section V. Was the body of Saint Scholastica translated to Gaul?
[27] Here there arises another most difficult and dangerous question, agitated not so much by the judgments of writers the body of her and her brother translated to Gaul as by the passions of entire nations: whether the bones of Saint Scholastica and Saint Benedict were translated to Gaul by Saint Aigulphus, then a monk of Fleury and afterward Abbot of Lerins and Martyr, of whom we shall treat on September 3. Concerning this whole question Baronius writes thus in volume 8, at the year of Christ 664, number 23: "It should be known, as the Acts of Aigulphus teach — and many other writers agree — that he was sent by Mummolus, Abbot of Fleury, to Cassino, to carry away from there the sacred relics of Saint Benedict the Abbot. some asserting, Others add that those of his sister Scholastica were taken away by the people of Le Mans or Orleans. Since most writers report this, they do not agree on the time, some assigning it to the pontificate of Pope Martin, others to the times of Deodatus. But others, innumerable, contradict this, to the point of adducing diplomas of the Roman Pontiffs attesting to it — others denying, a kind of proof which the opposing side also possesses. But the mind shrinks from entering so dense a thicket of this controversy, which one shudders to contemplate even from afar. Putting aside therefore all these perplexities, as if they did not exist, Baronius defines nothing, and recalling the question to its starting point, let us only consider what the conjectures suggest, observing more attentively as if from a watchtower — not to define what is true, but only to consider what is probable."
[29] It is certain that the monastery of Cassino was devastated by the Lombards. But I ask you, when those monks of Cassino migrated to Rome, it cannot have been left unguarded, if it could have been removed? who took care to carry with them even the measure of bread and wine, did they have no thought of the sacred bones of the most holy Benedict, if not of carrying them along, at least of hiding them, or guarding them with the assistance of some monk leading an anchoritic life there? You will plainly think so; for it does not seem permissible to suppose that such sacred pledges of Benedict and Scholastica were utterly abandoned there without any veneration by the Cassino monks living at Rome, when we see from examples that even monks most negligent of regular discipline are most tenacious of the memory of their own founder, and are prepared even to lay down their lives to preserve it. Certainly indeed, when Petronax of Brescia went to restore the place, he found some monks still residing there, as the same Paul the Deacon teaches.
[30] Or if we wish to suppose that all were snoring in excessive torpor, so as to have abandoned the venerable relics without any care, how could it not have occurred to them to transfer them to Rome, to the Lateran monastery, why did pilgrimages to Cassino continue, even by the Franks? with so many years passing by? Since it is established that they did not do this, it is an argument that the place was well tended and guarded at that time, to be restored one day. Again, if it became known to the Gauls, and they greatly rejoiced, that the body of Saint Benedict had been translated to Fleury, why were frequent pilgrimages for the sake of piety undertaken not to Fleury but to Cassino, by Frankish Princes and innumerable others flocking from all sides after this? How frequent and celebrated, from almost the entire world, but especially from the lands beyond the Alps, the pilgrimage to Monte Cassino was, the things that will be said in their proper places below will clearly demonstrate. These are things that, as we have said, conjecture prompts us to consider.
[31] We know, however, that the most ancient of all, Paul the Deacon, who lived in this century and closed his last day as a monk in the said Cassino monastery, unless perhaps the ashes were taken for the body, settles the question by saying that the bones were translated, but the flesh, reduced to dust, remained. And thus he understands the same thing that he says further on, when, treating of the restoration of the Cassino monastery accomplished through Petronax, he testifies without doubt that the body itself of Saint Benedict was there — an authority that carries very great weight with me. However that may be, the faithful may piously and holily venerate a complete body where only a thin dust of some Saint is held, since it possesses the same power as a complete body — as Gregory Nazianzen teaches against Julian.
[32] So says Baronius; and if he, a man of such profound erudition and already wielding such authority, did not dare to settle this question, how much more fitting is it that we should hold back our step and pen? Although after him various authors from both sides have published commentaries on the same matter. For Matthew Lauretus of Cervera in Spain, the Translation is contested in writing by Lauretus, Abbot of San Salvatore de Castelli, published a book of fair size at Naples in the year 1607, divided into two parts, of which the first treats of the true presence of the body of our holy Father Benedict in the Cassino church, and the second of his translation — where he assembles many things to prove that the relics of both were never carried away from Cassino, much less now exist in Gaul: diplomas of Pontiffs, and testimonies of Kings and Dukes. But the opponents will perhaps not esteem these greatly either, and will deny that they are authentic. and Barralis. Six years later, Vincent Barralis, a Salernian monk of Lerins, wrote a book on the deeds of the Abbots and other illustrious men of that island, where, moved by the authority of Leo of Ostia and the conjecture of Baronius (which we have reported), he says he was led to expunge from the Acts of Saint Aigulphus what had been inserted concerning that translation — with perhaps less reliability than befits the excavator of antiquities defended by Charles Saussay, that he professes himself to be. Neither his arguments nor those of Lauretus prevented Charles Saussay, Dean of Orleans, from publishing two years later, in book 4 of the Annals of the Church of Orleans, a notable treatise to establish the credibility of that Translation, in which he presents the testimonies of weighty writers who lived in each century after it and asserted it, and the usage of very many churches of Gaul celebrating it with an annual solemnity; and he both undermines the credibility and weight of the Pontifical diplomas that Lauretus recites, and opposes others against them. Hugo Menardus. After him, Hugo Menardus, a monk of the Congregation of Saint Maurus, published in the year 1629 the Benedictine Martyrology, illustrated by him with two books of Observations, in the first of which, under July 11, he discusses many things learnedly and cites some authors untouched by others who support the same Translation. Before both of them, John a Bosco the Celestine, in the work John a Bosco, he entitled the Library of Fleury, brought to light several books by ancient writers on the Translation and miracles of Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, and defended them with an apology composed by himself.
[33] But we defer this entire question to March 21, intending to discuss it more fully in the Life of Saint Benedict — if it will be permitted us to pronounce anything certain; or if nothing is certain, at least to present the documents of both sides, or at least to indicate what kind they are and where they are to be found. Let us here excuse the avoided discussion with the old formula: "Not proven." We do not deny, however, that the opinion of the French now appeals to us more. Paul the Deacon himself, a capital enemy of the French and afterward made a Cassino monk around the year 788, subscribes to this in book 6 of the History of the Lombards, chapter 2: "Around these times (of Romoald, Prince of Benevento, son of King Grimoald), when at the fortress of Cassino, where the sacred body of the most blessed Benedict rested, there had been, after the passage of several years, a vast solitude, at one time they took the bones away, Franks coming from the region of Le Mans or Orleans, while they pretended to spend the night in prayer beside the venerable body, Paul the Deacon, carried off the bones of the same venerable Father, and equally those of his revered sister Scholastica, and transported them to their own homeland. There two separate monasteries were built in honor of each, Blessed Benedict and Saint Scholastica. But it is certain to us that that venerable mouth, sweeter than all nectar, and those eyes that always beheld heavenly things, and the rest of his members, although dissolved into ashes, remained. having acknowledged that the ashes remained. For only the Lord's body uniquely did not see corruption. But the bodies of all the Saints, to be restored later to eternal glory, are subject to corruption — except those which are preserved without decay on account of divine miracles." So far Paul; who in chapter 40 of the same book does not hesitate to call those remains of Saint Benedict that stayed at Cassino "the body of Blessed Benedict": "Around these times," he says, "Petronax, a citizen of the city of Brescia, moved by divine love, came to Rome, and at the exhortation of Gregory, the then Pope of the Apostolic See, went to the fortress of Cassino, and having reached the sacred body of the blessed Father Benedict, he began to dwell there with certain simple men who had already been residing there before."
[34] The same Translation is affirmed by Regino, a monk of Prum in Belgium, who was living in the year 906, Regino, in book 1 of his Chronicle, writing thus: "Around these times (of Clovis II), when at the fortress of Cassino there was a vast solitude, Franks coming from the region of Le Mans or Orleans carry away the bodies of the venerable Father Benedict and of his sister Scholastica, and transport them to their own homeland. The body of Saint Benedict was buried in the territory of Orleans, in the monastery called Fleury. The body of Saint Scholastica was deposited in the region of Le Mans, through the devotion of the Religious." Midway between the ages of Paul Warnefrid and Regino there lived in the same monastery of Prum Wandelbert, who wrote around the year of Christ 842 a metrical Martyrology, Wandelbert, in which under July 11 he has:
The fifth day January sanctifies with martyrdom, and Holy Pelagia adorns with a similar splendor. Then the nourishing Loire now honors the remains Of the good Father Benedict, translated from the Beneventan mountains.
Nearly contemporary with Wandelbert was the monk Usuard, Usuard, who in his Martyrology under the same day writes: "The Translation of Saint Benedict the Abbot."
[35] But let us select from the Martyrologies only those entries proper to Saint Scholastica. At nearly the same time as Usuard and Wandelbert there lived Saint Ado, Saint Ado, Bishop of Vienne in Gaul. He has the following in his Martyrology under July 11: "The Translation of Saint Benedict the Abbot. For after his monastery had been laid waste by the heathens (just as he himself had predicted while still alive), his body was found by divine revelation, and translated to Gaul, and worthily buried in the territory of Orleans, in the monastery called Fleury. The body of Blessed Scholastica the Virgin, his sister, was likewise also translated, and deposited in the region of Le Mans, through the devotion of the Religious." The published Bede and the first edition of Molanus have nearly the same. The edition of Ado published by Rosweyde, and the manuscript of Saint Lambert at Liege bearing the name of Bede, add: "Whose soul the same man of God saw departing from her body in the likeness of a dove, penetrating the secrets of heaven; and he ordered her body to be placed with him in one tomb, so that those whose mind had always been one in God, their bodies also should not be separated in burial." Blessed Notker, who is said to have died in the year 912, Blessed Notker, has nearly the same, and adds the following: "But woe to the merits of the wretched, through whom those things suffered separation which by the disposition of the Holy Spirit deserved to be joined. But that place, made honorable by the relics of the Saints, did not long remain empty of the assembly of the faithful; for the Brothers who were able to escape the hands of the enemy, gathered once more into one body, and multiplied by others recruited in place of the scattered, tended the sacred ashes — now acting more cautiously themselves — with sufficient devotion, until recently, by the incursion of the Saracens, they were scattered to every wind." So he. That second dispersal of the monks occurred in the year 884, when the Abbot Saint Bertharius was crowned with martyrdom.
[36] The same Translation is confirmed by the anonymous author of the Life of Saint Deicola on January 18, who lived in the times of the Ottos, in the same tenth Christian century. He writes thus in chapter 1, number 3: "Indeed the special capital of the Lord's Cross, the imperial city of Orleans, the author of the Life of Saint Deicola, is seen to raise its handsome head above the neighboring cities by reason of its custody of the relics of the blessed Fathers Anianus and Evurtius. Now it comes more joyfully to the memory of all that in the parish of the aforesaid city the most noble place of Fleury, equally venerable for its very site, has in the very evening of the world been inestimably sustained by the wondrous favor of the Almighty. For recently, by divine command and angelic admonition, it merited its happy celestial treasure, that is, the most blessed Father and monarch Benedict, who is blessed in heaven and on earth, and together with him his holy sister Scholastica."
[37] But let us return to the Martyrologies. The Viola Sanctorum and many manuscripts bearing the name of Usuard: "The Translation of Saint Benedict the Abbot and of Saint Scholastica his sister." Bellinus of Padua, Paris edition: very many Martyrologies. "Likewise the Translation of Saint Scholastica the Virgin." A very ancient manuscript of the monastery of Centula, under the name of Bede: "In Gaul, at the monastery of Fleury, the arrival and translation of our most holy Father Benedict the Abbot, and together with him of Blessed Scholastica the Virgin his sister." The Martyrology published at Cologne in 1490: "At the monastery of Fleury in the territory of Orleans, the translation of the holy bodies of Benedict the Abbot and of his sister Scholastica the Virgin, from Italy to Gaul." Finally, the same translation of Saint Scholastica is recorded by Hermann Greven in his supplement to Usuard, Maurolycus, Canisius (who adds, as does Menardus, that both bodies were found on Monte Cassino by divine revelation), Andrew Saussay on February 10 and July 11, the manuscript of Saint Gudula at Brussels on February 10. The manuscript Florarium has: "The Translation of Blessed Benedict the Abbot, Commemoration. Likewise also of Saint Scholastica his sister, in the year of salvation 704. For when at Monte Cassino, where the sacred body of Benedict lay and rested, there was a vast solitude, certain persons coming from Gaul secretly carried away the bodies of Benedict and of his sister Scholastica to Gaul; and they placed the body of Blessed Benedict at the monastery of Fleury, situated in the diocese and territory of Orleans; but the body of his sister Scholastica at Le Mans. This the French say; but the Italians say the contrary, that it is still on Monte Cassino. Let piety endure, and the truth will be revealed." Wion writes that only a part of the body of each Saint was translated, evidently as Paul the Deacon says above. Peter de Natalibus in book 6, chapter 81, narrates the history of the Translation at length.
Section VI. Was the body of Saint Scholastica brought back to Italy?
[38] Since we consider it wrong for us to pronounce anything certain about the Translation itself in either direction, we shall also pass over the miracles that are narrated as having been performed either at both bodies while they were still interred together, or separately at the body of Saint Scholastica, a dead girl was raised at the body of Saint Scholastica in Gaul, at whose touch Adrenald of Fleury testifies, in his History of the Translation, chapter 8, that a lifeless girl was restored to life. There he also commemorates that the sacred relics were afterward carried in solemn procession to Le Mans. This is likewise reported in the Life of Saint Berarius, Bishop of Le Mans, which we shall present on October 17: "When therefore all doubt, to which their minds had long clung for the purpose of discerning the holy bodies, was removed, it was brought to Le Mans, the people of Le Mans reverently lifted up the body of Saint Scholastica, placed it on their own shoulders, and with immense joy directed their journey to the Lord Berarius, Bishop of their city; having as the leader of this enterprise a certain servant of God who, together with another venerable companion joined to him, had been sent by the aforesaid Lord Berarius to Rome and Benevento to accomplish this work. But when the other died on the journey, the survivor, remaining by the Lord's mercy to complete this business, most devoutly advanced the work that had been begun."
[39] "At length therefore, with the Lord's mercy going before, following, and accompanying them, they gradually drew near to the city of Le Mans, the fame of their coming having already been spread throughout that whole province. The Lord Berarius, the venerable Pontiff, together with vested Priests received by Bishop Saint Berarius, and clerics of all ranks with crosses, censers, and candlesticks, and with all the ecclesiastical banners, as well as with an innumerable multitude of both sexes and all ages, sounding forth a solemn harmony, most devoutly went out to meet them and reverently received the most sacred relic of Saint Scholastica. Entering the city, he conveyed it with litanies, hymns, and psalms, and various divine harmonies, with the greatest veneration, to the monastery which (as we have said) he had nobly and fittingly founded for this purpose from the ground up, between the city wall and the river Sarthe; deposited in a monastery built for this purpose, and there he placed it decorously and solemnly behind the altar in the church which he had already dedicated in honor of Saint Peter. Having arranged what was necessary for the women consecrated to God and leading the regular life, within a short space of time he assembled in the same monastery no fewer than a hundred and fifty noble women in the Lord's service and regular militia, who, having left the world, humbly devoted themselves to the Lord's yoke and His governance. He richly endowed the monastery itself from the resources of his bishopric and from his own possessions, or from whatever else his hand was able to attract or acquire; and he decreed that it, with everything belonging to it, should be forever subject to his See and to the Mother Church over which he presided, and he left it to be perpetually possessed by his successors, and by the Priests and remaining Canons of the Mother Church. Which to this day, through the merits of the most blessed Scholastica, is manifested by innumerable powers of miracles, by the grant of the holy and undivided Trinity, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." Matthew of Westminster commemorates the same events somewhat more briefly at the year 681.
[40] Whether, when Carloman, the brother of King Pepin and formerly Duke of the Franks together with him, was part brought back to Cassino? then a monk of Cassino, is narrated to have come to Gaul to reclaim the body of Saint Benedict — and to have obtained from the monks of Fleury not that body itself but some of its relics — he also obtained any relic of Saint Scholastica from Le Mans, I do not recall reading as reported by any ancient author. When Arnold Wion had read that on December 4 the feast of the Return, or Restoration, of Saint Benedict was celebrated, he wrote that on that day his body and his sister's were brought back from Gaul to Cassino: "At Monte Cassino," the memory of the Restoration recorded by Wion on December 4, he says, "the Restoration of our holy Father Benedict and of Saint Scholastica the Virgin, his sister, from the monastery of Fleury in Gaul to his own monastery." He cites Maurolycus and Molanus. The latter has: "At the monastery of Fleury, the Translation of Saint Benedict the Abbot." Maurolycus: "Likewise, the Translation of Saint Benedict the Abbot." But neither says a word about the return to Monte Cassino. He says, however, that it is noted in the calendars of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, in these words: "The Translation of the bodies of our holy Father Benedict and of his sister Scholastica from Gaul to Monte Cassino." How ancient these calendars are, by whom they were compiled, and what authority they possess, I do not know.
[41] I do know that on that day a twofold Translation of Saint Benedict is celebrated: the first from the Fleury church of Saint Peter to the church of Blessed Mary; the second from the city of Orleans to the same basilica of Fleury. For those who narrate that the sacred body was brought to Fleury from Cassino also report that it was deposited by Saints Mummolus and Aigulphus in the basilica of Saint Peter on July 11, [on account of another Translation and Restoration of Saint Benedict celebrated on that day,] until they should be more certainly instructed by some heavenly prompting whether it should be left there or placed elsewhere. When Mummolus then saw, on the darkest night, the front of the basilica of Blessed Mary of Fleury illuminated by a light as if fallen from heaven, he soon conveyed it with honor into that basilica, fittingly adorned, on December 4. Later, when two hundred years after these events that heavenly treasure had been carried to Orleans out of fear of the Normans, it was afterward restored to Fleury not without extraordinary miracles, and on the very anniversary of the first Translation, December 4, it was brought into the basilica of Saint Mary. And it was decreed, as Charles Saussay testifies in book 4 of the Annals of the Church of Orleans, that since both the Restoration and the first Conveyance had taken place on the same day in the cycle of years, they should henceforth be celebrated annually throughout all of Gaul. The same author adds a little further on: "We celebrate this Translation in the Church of Orleans with a more distinguished Office than the feast of Saint Benedict in March or that of the Translation in July." The same Translation, Conveyance, or Return is recorded in very many Martyrologies, which we shall cite elsewhere; in none of them is there mention on that day of Saint Scholastica.
[42] Wion cites other authors who indeed testify that the relics were translated to Gaul, but do not even hint at their return to Cassino — Anastasius, who is fabricated as an eyewitness, except for one whom he says was an eyewitness to the whole affair: Anastasius Bibliothecarius, a Cassino monk, whose narrative he testifies he possessed in manuscript, written in a simple and truthful style, though containing many things worthy of correction. But whatever it was, I wish he had published it in full. From the few passages he excerpts, one may conjecture that this author, hitherto unknown to all, a false narrative, easily a hundred years older than the other Anastasius, Bibliothecarius of the Holy Roman Church, the noble historian, never existed; and that under his assumed name a more recent person's composition has been dressed up — by no means sincere or solid. This anyone can easily judge from what Wion recites under December 4. For, to say nothing of the fact that he calls Saint Remigius, Archbishop of Rouen, "Aegidius," and says that he wished to remove the holy relics for his own gain, and introduces Carloman speaking to Pepin about the same Remigius his brother as follows: "Because, as I see, Archbishop Aegidius, inflamed by the torch of avarice, because it is injurious to Saint Remigius of Rouen, labors for his own gain, not for the benefit of the Church of Cassino, and desires to make these things his own" — to say nothing of this, when was this supposed to have happened? "In the tenth year of the Emperor Constantine," says Hugo of Fleury, cited by Wion himself, therefore in the year of Christ 750 or early 751. How then is Pepin said to have promised by oath to the most blessed Pope Stephen and to his brother Carloman concerning the holy relics? How is Aegidius, Archbishop of Rouen, said to have acted as the representative of the most holy Pope Stephen the Second there — and erring in chronology, when Stephen was not elevated to the pontificate until the year 752? When at last did Pope Stephen come to the monastery of Cassino with the same King Pepin and Carloman? To make the falsity of this narrative evident, we must first set forth what is certain from writers of undoubted reliability.
[43] The Annals of Einhard have the following: "In the year 746, Carloman set out for Rome, laid aside his worldly glory and changed his attire, and built a monastery on Monte Soratte in honor of Saint Sylvester... And having stayed there for some time, for Carloman became a monk in 746 or 747, by a better resolution he left that place and came to the monastery of Saint Benedict in the province of Samnium, situated near the fortress of Cassino, to serve God, and there he took the monastic habit." Other Frankish Annals assign Carloman's departure from Gaul to the year 747, which we shall examine more carefully on August 17 in the Life of the same Carloman. The same Annals of Einhard, in agreement with the others, have the following under the year 753: "In the same year Pope Stephen came to King Pepin at the estate called Quierzy, entreating him to defend himself and the Roman Church from the attacks of the Lombards. Carloman also came, the King's brother, already made a monk, at the command of his Abbot, he returned to Gaul in 753, to resist the petitions of the Roman Pontiff before his brother. He is thought, however, to have done this unwillingly, since neither could he contemn the orders of his Abbot, nor did the Abbot dare to resist the commands of the King of the Lombards, who had ordered him to do this. he remained there in 754. In the year 754, Pope Stephen, after he had received from King Pepin the guarantee of defense for the Roman Church, consecrated him by sacred unction to the honor of the royal dignity, and with him his two sons Charles and Carloman; and he remained in France during the winter... In the year 755, King Pepin, at the invitation and urging of the aforesaid Roman Pontiff, because of the domains of the Roman Church seized by the King of the Lombards, entered Italy with a powerful force. With the Lombards resisting and defending the passes of Italy, there was fierce fighting at the very mountain narrows called the Clusae; and as the Lombards gave way, all the forces of the Franks surmounted the difficult road without great effort. Aistulf, however, the King of the Lombards, not daring to join battle, was besieged by King Pepin in the city of Pavia; who did not lift the siege until he had received forty hostages as guarantee for the restoration of what had been taken from the Roman Church. When forty hostages had been given and the promises confirmed by oath, Pepin indeed returned to his own kingdom, and died in 755, and sent Pope Stephen back to Rome with the Priest and Chaplain Fulrad and a considerable force of Franks. Carloman the monk, the King's brother, who had remained with Queen Bertrada in the city of Vienne, before the King returned from Italy, was seized by a fever and died. His body was carried, by the King's order, to the monastery of Saint Benedict, where he had taken the monastic habit."
[44] With these facts established, I ask: when did Carloman, sent by Stephen, set out for Gaul in such a way that Pepin accompanied him all the way to Cassino? Not after the year 755, [therefore he did not return to Cassino with Pope Stephen and King Pepin, much less in 752, when Stephen was first elected,] because Carloman died in that year. Nor in 753 or 754, because in the former year he did indeed come to Gaul but did not return from there; and Stephen himself then remained there. Was it then in 752? Stephen, elevated to the pontificate at the end of March of that year, immediately suffered persecution from King Aistulf, so much so that, having sent legates with gifts to him in the third month of his ordination, then others, and having also vainly implored the aid of the Emperor Constantine, he was finally compelled the following year to journey to Gaul to see Pepin. Therefore Pepin did not come to Italy in that same first year of Stephen; for how could he have come? With an army? Why then did he not repress Aistulf at that time? Why was it necessary for Stephen to travel to him in Gaul? Without forces he could not have exposed himself to the cruel and treacherous Lombard. Therefore Pepin did not come to Rome with his brother Carloman while Stephen II or III was governing the Church, much less to Cassino. Indeed, it also follows that Carloman was not sent by Stephen to reclaim the relics. It is possible that, as Adrenald and others narrate, he was sent by Pope Zacharias around the year 750, and the relics he had obtained he brought to Cassino while the same Zacharias was still living.
[45] What, moreover, is one to make of what the same author writes? "And when all these with the army of Franks, Lotharingians, Alemans, the name of Lotharingians, then unknown, which he uses, Swabians, and Burgundians had entered the church," etc. Whence was the name "Lotharingians" known to him, a name that did not come into existence until a hundred years after these events, from Lothar, the son of the Emperor Lothar? More things could justly be criticized in that book, even by the judgment of Wion himself. Therefore nothing can be proved by its authority. And indeed, what Wion reports on the faith of this one source alone will not convince the Cassinese, who deny that the relics of Saint Benedict were ever absent from Monte Cassino; still less the French, who acknowledge that some portion of the relics was returned to Carloman, but previously, and that the principal part was left with them. But more on Saint Benedict elsewhere.
[46] Finally, says Charles Saussay in the Annals cited above, the history of the Church of Saint Peter at Le Mans records that the body of Blessed Scholastica, brought there from Italy along with the body of Saint Benedict, remains deposited there. [The people of Le Mans assert that they possess the body of Saint Scholastica, and honor it.] "For from that time a solemn celebration has been held of both feasts of Saint Scholastica — February 10 and July 11, the former of her Passing, the latter of her Translation and arrival in Gaul — so that on the day of the Translation, when her sacred body is carried through the city, it is customary to adorn the walls of the streets with hangings and tapestries; and on both feasts to abstain from work. Nor indeed was the body of Saint Scholastica brought without the body of Blessed Benedict, and it is still preserved in the church of Saint Peter behind the altar; which we ourselves venerated there, having gone to the city of Le Mans for the purpose of devotion in the year 1603." The same author a little above reports that the monastery which we mentioned was built by Saint Berarius for holy women was converted into a college of secular Canons, and that the church is still dedicated to Saint Peter, and the body of the holy Virgin is carefully preserved there in a silver casket.
[47] Some write that certain objects consecrated by the use and touch of the most holy Virgin exist elsewhere. The aforementioned Matthew Lauretus says that when the Lombards occupied the Cassino monastery, at Rome, perhaps her garments? the monks who fled to Rome brought with them, along with other things, the garments and shoes of Saints Benedict and Scholastica; he cites Paul the Deacon, book 4, chapter 18. Paul's words there are: "The monks also, fleeing from that place, made for Rome, carrying with them the codex of the holy Rule which the aforesaid Father had composed, and certain other writings, as well as the measure of bread and the measure of wine, and whatever furnishings they could carry away." Here there is no mention of the garments or shoes of both Saints, but of household or sacred furnishings, as I interpret it.
[48] Octavius Pancirolus, in his Hidden Treasures of the Noble City, in the Index of Relics, testifies or perhaps a veil? that in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline a veil and a cord of Saint Scholastica are preserved. The same author, when he enumerates the sacred buildings of the thirteenth region, which is called that of Saint Eustace, in chapter 13, writes that the people of Norcia were going to build a church and hospice in honor of their holy fellow citizens Benedict and Scholastica, and that a piece of land had already been purchased for this purpose some years before; and that a confraternity of pious men had been established which celebrates the feast day of both Saints with remarkable devotion, and has also been honored with privileges by Pope Paul V.
[49] Benedict Haeftenus, in his Commentary on chapter 33 of the Life of Saint Gregory, number 3, reports from Florentius Boulenger of the Recollect Friars Minor that in the monastery of Juvigny in Lorraine a sleeve of Saint Scholastica is preserved, elsewhere a sleeve and a girdle, or at least the greater part of it, together with her girdle; and that this sleeve is of natural black color, that is, not dyed, which they call dark or brown. But that it certainly follows from this that she was a nun, as he thinks, I fear he cannot prove. For women who profess a devotion to holiness, whether Virgins or widows, even if they remain in the world, use hardly any other color of garment than that black or dark one, most fitted to modesty. I do not know whether these are the relics that Ferragius in chapter 32 writes were obtained by Queen Richildis, by the authority of her husband Charles the Bald, from Robert, Bishop of Le Mans, and that she arranged for them to be transferred to her ancestral estate of Waberincum, and there she founded a monastery of Benedictine nuns called Juvigny. But he writes that it was a large and notable portion of the relics, and other relics, and that on June 8 the anniversary of their arrival there is celebrated.
[50] Antoine Courvasier, a most distinguished gentleman, in his History of the Bishops of Le Mans, testifies that Saint Scholastica is the Patron Saint of Le Mans; and that if any calamity rages or is feared, she is the Patron of Le Mans, the reliquary in which her relics are enclosed is brought out, public prayers are offered, vows are made, and divine wrath is appeased through her patronage.
[51] The same author elsewhere narrates that the monastery in which the body of Saint Scholastica had been placed by Saint Berarius was burned by the Normans near the end of the ninth century, her relics there were preserved when the monastery was burned, Priests were slaughtered, and the holy women were violated; but the relics of the holy Virgin were rescued from the fury of the barbarians through the industry of certain inhabitants. They were afterward translated to the church of Saint Peter, which is now a collegiate church, through the efforts of Count Hugo, at the beginning of the tenth century, on November 4, restored on November 4, and deposited in a fine casket. John Bondonnet, a man of distinguished learning and piety, also treats of the relics of Saint Scholastica brought to Le Mans, in his Lives of the same Bishops of Le Mans.
[52] In the year 1562, on April 3, by the treachery of a certain most impure demagogue named Merlin and of certain citizens whom he had driven mad with his sermons, Calvinist forces were admitted into the city of Le Mans and raged with such cruelty in the slaughter of Priests, the violation of Virgins — especially religious women — the plundering of sacred objects, and the burning of churches themselves, that anyone who reads Bondonnet and Antoine Courvasier, though they run through the mournful account only briefly, can scarcely hold back tears. rescued from the fury of the Calvinists in the year 1562, After very many golden and silver statues of the Saints and reliquaries had been broken and their relics burned, the single silver casket that contained the remains of Saint Scholastica was rescued from the fury of those wicked men. How this came about neither they record, nor does John Ferragius in his Life of Saint Scholastica. They do not, however, fail to mention that, having raged throughout the city for a full three months with every kind of vileness and cruelty, on the eve of the feast of Saint Scholastica — that is, on July 10 — terrified by a sudden panic, and they themselves were put to flight by a panic, about eight hundred men hurled themselves out of the city in a great tumult, with such alarm, or rather frenzy, that some leaped from the walls, others crushed one another in the gates, and through the whole following night, with no one anywhere pursuing them, they continued their flight — some to remote regions of France, a few even as far as England. The Catholics attributed this panic and flight of the impious to the patronage of Saint Scholastica, looking after the safety of her clients; and thereafter the religious observance and solemn procession of the following day, which was dedicated to her Translation, became all the more splendid.
[53] Elsewhere some relics of Saint Scholastica exist: at Antwerp, in the Professed House of the Society of Jesus, a tooth of that holy Virgin is preserved, some of her relics in Belgium, which two hundred years ago was held in honor in the Charterhouse near Utrecht, and was thence translated here. A tooth likewise exists, as Raissius attests, at Andain, or in the famous monastery of Saint Hubert in the Ardennes, of the Benedictine Order. In the Munster monastery of the same Order in the city of Luxembourg, there is a fragment of one finger.
[54] At Cologne, in the Charterhouse, a large bone of hers is to be seen, as Gelenius writes in book 3 of his work on the Greatness of Cologne, book 3, section 40, paragraph 2. and at Cologne. There are also some relics in the collegiate church of Saint Mary ad Gradus, as the same author says in book 3, section 7, paragraph 4, reliquary 22. And in the parish church of Saint Lupus, section 23, paragraph 2, reliquary 3. Concerning some of her hair, in the monastery of Saint Pantaleon, section 12, paragraph 3, reliquary 13.
LIFE
By Saint Gregory, book 2 of the Dialogues, chapters 33 and 34.
Scholastica, Virgin, at Monte Cassino in Italy (Saint)
BHL Number: 7514
By Pope Saint Gregory.
[1] Who, Peter, will there be in this life higher than Paul, who three times entreated the Lord concerning the thorn of his flesh and yet could not obtain what he wished? On which account it is necessary that I tell you something about the venerable Father Benedict: for there was something that he wished but was unable to accomplish. For his sister, Scholastica by name, dedicated to almighty God from the very time of her infancy, used to come to him once a year. To meet her the man of God would go down to a place not far outside the gate, on the property of the monastery. Saint Scholastica visits her brother annually.
[2] On a certain day she came as usual, and her venerable brother went down to meet her with his disciples. They spent the whole day in the praises of God and in sacred conversations, and when the darkness of night was already falling, they took food together. While they were still sitting at table, and the hour was growing late amid their sacred conversations, that same holy woman, his sister, entreated him, saying: "I beg you, when he wished to depart, do not leave me this night, so that we may speak until morning of the joys of the heavenly life." He replied: "What are you saying, sister? I cannot under any circumstances remain outside the cell." So great, moreover, was the serenity of the sky that not a cloud appeared in the air. she obtains rain by her prayers and detains him. But the holy woman, having heard her brother's refusal, placed her intertwined hands upon the table and bowed her head upon her hands to entreat the almighty Lord. When she raised her head from the table, such a force of lightning and thunder and such a flood of rain burst forth that neither the venerable Benedict nor the Brothers who were with him could move a foot beyond the threshold of the place where they sat. For the holy woman, bowing her head upon her hands, had poured a river of tears upon the table, through which she drew the serene sky to rain. Nor did that downpour follow slightly after her prayer, but so great was the coincidence of prayer and deluge that she lifted her head from the table together with the thunder; so that the very same moment saw her raise her head and the rain descend. Then the man of God, seeing that amid the flashes of lightning and the crashes of thunder and the flooding of an immense downpour he could not return to the monastery, began to complain in distress, saying: "May almighty God forgive you, sister; what have you done?" She replied: "See, I asked you, and you would not listen to me; I asked my Lord, and He heard me. Now then, if you can, go out and leave me behind, and return to the monastery." and she speaks with him all night about divine things. But he, unable to go out beyond the roof, remained unwillingly in the place where he had been unwilling to stay of his own accord. And so it came to pass that they spent the whole night in wakefulness, satisfying each other with mutual recounting through sacred conversations about the spiritual life. On which account I said that he wished something but was by no means able to accomplish it; for if we consider the mind of the venerable man, there is no doubt that he wished the same serenity in which he had come down to continue; but against what he wished, he found a miracle from the heart of a woman, in the power of almighty God. Nor is it surprising that the woman, who had desired to see her brother, was more powerful than he at that moment; for since, according to the word of John, God is love, by a supremely just judgment she who loved more was more powerful.
[3] When on the following day the same venerable woman had withdrawn to her own cell, the man of God returned to the monastery. And behold, three days later, while he was in his cell, he raised his eyes to the sky and saw his sister's soul, having departed from her body, she dies; seen ascending to heaven in the form of a dove, penetrate the secrets of heaven in the form of a dove. Rejoicing at her great glory, he gave thanks to almighty God in hymns and praises, and announced her death to the Brothers. He also immediately sent them to bring her body to the monastery and to place it in the tomb she is buried that he had prepared for himself. And so it came to pass that those whose mind had always been one in God, their bodies also should not be separated in burial.
AnnotationsANOTHER LIFE
by an anonymous Benedictine, drawn from the old Bodecum manuscript by John Gamansius of the Society of Jesus.
Scholastica, Virgin, at Monte Cassino in Italy (Saint)
BHL Number: 7523
By an anonymous author, from manuscripts.
[1] On Monte Cassino, most splendidly, as is fitting, the feast of the most blessed Virgin Scholastica is celebrated on the fourth day before the Ides of February; on which day her happy soul, happily borne away by Angels, passed to happy joys, most happily to remain without end, the Lord cooperating. This Virgin, I say, most noble, was the sister of our most holy Father Benedict, the Lord's own and our Master; Saint Scholastica born at Norcia, born of a kind father and a pious mother in the city of Norcia, in the province of Campania, which is one of the most noble regions, abounding in both wealth and abundance of goods.
[2] The parents of the blessed Virgin, since they had long been barren and childless and could not beget offspring, by constant prayers, continual fasts, from previously barren parents, and most generous alms, deserved to obtain from the Lord, the creator and begetter of all things, that they should produce these two great luminaries of the holy Church. For blessed Benedict, as the most holy Pope Gregory attests in the Dialogue that he writes to his Deacon Peter, was so acceptable to our Lord Jesus Christ from infancy, having heard of the holiness of her brother Saint Benedict, and led so religious, innocent, holy, and simple a life even while still a boy, that while still of infantile age he performed a miracle in restoring a sieve accidentally broken, for the sake of his nurse; and afterward, fleeing into the wilderness, he led a solitary life, until by divine direction and with his own vigor assisting, he began to govern monasteries and to beget spiritual sons for the Lord.
[3] Whence it came to pass that, while he was dwelling on Monte Cassino — having destroyed the idols of Apollo and Mars, and having built a most beautiful temple there (as can still be seen), and strenuously and regularly governing a large congregation of monks — his sister, the most blessed Virgin of Christ, Scholastica, who (as we said above) had been consecrated to God from the cradle and was filled with the Holy Spirit, hearing the fame of his holiness, came to him. And although she had long since devoted herself entirely to spiritual warfare, with no other teacher than the Holy Spirit, she too was holy from her earliest age, and had resolved from her earliest age not only to preserve the virginity of both her soul and body for God alone, but also to lay down her whole body for Christ in death if it should so be required, she nevertheless wished to commend the governance of her life to the blessedness of her brother rather than to have it subject to the freedom of her own will — wishing to submit herself to him, after the example of the Lord Savior Himself, who says in the Gospel: "I do not do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me, the Father." And when she had ascended Monte Cassino, yet had not presumed to approach more closely within the walls of the monastery, she comes to Monte Cassino, and had announced her arrival to our blessed Father Benedict through the brother who kept the gate, he hastened to meet her from his cell, her brother comes out to meet her outside the monastery, lest his blessed sister — although a Virgin already long since sanctified to Christ — should enter the cell of the Brothers, which seemed to him abominable and unlawful. For he had decreed — which is still observed in that monastery — that no woman whatsoever, of whatever person or dignity, should ever enter the monastery of Monte Cassino, lest through any occasion of the approach of women or matrons, some kind of scandal or disturbance should arise for the Brothers.
[4] Now there is on the slope of that mountain a place, like a promontory, a very beautiful and lovely ridge, and as if naturally constructed by the Lord the Creator in such a way that, on account of the excessive height all around, there can be no approach except by the road that faces the aforesaid monastery of Saint Benedict. To this place our most blessed Father came, as is still reported and widely told there, together with his sister — that is, Scholastica, already long since consecrated to God in heart and body. Therefore, sitting together in that place, while they poured forth sweet words to each other and together planned by divine counsel the little cell for Virgins that was to be established there in the future, as a heavenly light shone upon them, a glorification of heavenly grace came upon them, more beautiful than the sun and brighter than lightning. Then both from the depths of their hearts praised and glorified the divine clemency, which had deigned visibly to visit and consecrate that place. he encloses her there. After this, a cell having been built there, Saint Benedict enclosed his sister, teaching her the rule that he had learned from an Angel; and he wrote for her all the monastic decrees, which holy women and Virgins consecrated to God are still known to observe. the Rule prescribed.
[5] In this place, therefore, while the most blessed Virgin of the Lord, Scholastica, walked manfully in the law of the Lord her God according to the counsel of her brother, there gathered to her in no long time very many Virgins, she instructs others, so that by following in her footsteps they might deserve also to share in her rewards and heavenly glory, and to obtain the crown of the heavenly kingdom through the gift of Christ. When the most blessed Virgin of Christ, Scholastica, already long since become their spiritual Mother, had presided over them for a long time and had won many souls for the Lord, ill and foreseeing her death, almighty God, wishing to reward her with the eternal recompense who had been wearied by so many labors and afflictions for the love of Him, sent upon her a certain bodily infirmity, through which she might be tested for some time, so that thus purified she might be borne by angelic escort to the throne of Christ her Spouse — that is, to the rest of the eternal kingdom. And when, after fasts, after long prayers and vigils, she perceived in her spirit that she was soon to be taken from the body, she came nearer, before the cell of the man of God, wishing to visit her brother, namely Saint Benedict, so that she might receive from him, as was customary, the grace of consolation through sweet discourse. she comes to her brother, as she was accustomed to do annually. For she had been accustomed to come to him once a year, and the man of God, quickly summoned, would come not far outside the gate on the property of his monastery; and the same venerable Father, sitting with the company of some Brothers around his most dear sister, would satisfy her with sweet and honey-flowing words.
[6] They spent the whole day in the praises of God and in sacred conversations, extending and prolonging it, and when the darkness was already falling they took food together. While they sat at table, and the hour drew later amid their sacred conversations, the same holy woman, sister of our most holy Father, unwilling to remain with her by night, entreated him, saying: "I beg you, most holy brother and Father, do not leave me this night, but speak to me until morning of the joys of the heavenly life." He replied: "What are you saying, sister? I cannot under any circumstances remain outside the cell." So great, moreover, was the serenity of the sky that not a cloud appeared in the air. But the holy woman, having heard the words of her brother's refusal, placed her intertwined fingers upon the table and bowed her head upon her hands to entreat the almighty Lord. having elicited a sudden storm by her prayers, When she raised her head from the table, such a force of lightning and thunder and such a flood of rain burst forth that neither the venerable Benedict nor the Brothers who were with him could move a foot beyond the threshold of the place where they sat. For the holy woman, bowing her head upon her hands, had poured a river of tears upon the table, through which she had drawn the serene sky to rain. Nor did that downpour follow slightly after her prayer, but so great was the coincidence of prayer and deluge that she already raised her head from the table together with the thunder, so that the very same moment saw her raise her head and the rain descend. Then the man of God, amid the flashing of lightning and the thundering of the rainclouds and the great floods of showers, she detains him against his will, seeing that he could not return to the monastery, began to complain in distress, saying: "May almighty God forgive you, sister. What have you done?" She replied: "I asked you, and you would not listen to me; I asked my Lord Jesus Christ, and He heard me. Now then, if you can, go out and leave me behind, and return to the monastery." But he, unable to go out beyond the roof, who had been unwilling to remain of his own accord in the place, remained against his will. she converses with him all night about divine things. And so it came to pass that they spent the whole night in wakefulness, satisfying each other through sacred conversations about the spiritual life in mutual exchange. On which account I said that he had wished to go out to the monastery, but, with his own sister praying against God's will, he was unable; because by the just judgment of God, she who loved more was more powerful.
[7] When on the following day the same venerable woman had returned to her own cell, the man of the Lord, Saint Benedict, also returned to his monastery. When three days later he was in his cell, he raised his eyes to the sky and saw the soul of his sister — seen flying to heaven in the form of a dove, that is, of the most sacred Scholastica — departing from her body in the form of a dove, penetrating the secrets of heaven. When the most holy and most worthy Father of all memory and praise had seen this, he prostrated himself on the ground and prayed with tears to the Lord, that He might protect the soul of his most beloved sister with His right hand, so that she might be able to pass through the hosts of malign spirits without trembling or horror. The voice and petition of our most holy Father Benedict, entreating the Lord for the rest and peace of his most beloved sister, was therefore heard. Greatly consoled at once by the Lord, he rose from prayer and rejoiced not a little at her great glory, and gave immense thanks to almighty God in hymns and praises, and announced the most sweet death of his most sacred sister to the Brothers. He also immediately sent them to bring her body, anointed with spices, to his monastery and to bury it in the tomb that he had once ordered to be prepared for himself, so that those whose mind had always been one in the Lord, their bodies also should not be separated in burial.
[8] Therefore the holy sisters who had been present with devout minds at the funeral rites of their most blessed Mother Scholastica, seeing the glory surrounding her, fell on their faces and shed most abundant fountains of tears, saying: "Pray for us, Lady Mother, to your Spouse, our Lord Jesus Christ, that we may deserve to follow you on the path you have gone before us." after the funeral rites were celebrated, When the lamentation was completed, they gathered the body of the venerable Mother, anointed it with clean linens and precious spices, and placed it on a bier; and celebrating the funeral rites with hymns and psalmody, they kept vigil for three nights with tears and sobs. Brothers also from the monastery of Saint Benedict, coming in throngs, mourned with weeping and wailing the passing of the most blessed Virgin Scholastica, and raised their cry to heaven together with the sisters, saying: "Alas! Alas! Mother, and most dear Lady and Mistress, how have you so unexpectedly departed from us? To whom do you leave us? Intercede for us, most sacred and sweetest soul, before the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom you go. Sweet was your life, sweet your journey, sweet your passing, sweet your body, sweet your spirit, sweet your sleep, sweet your walk, sweet all things that were done in you and around you." When the lamentation was completed, they celebrated Masses, most devoutly commending her soul to God. After all the things that had to be done and celebrated concerning the funeral of so great a Mother had been completed, they took up her body and carried it to the oratory of Saint John the Baptist, and, as Saint Benedict the Father had commanded, buried it in the tomb that he had once ordered to be prepared for himself; she is buried in the tomb of Saint Benedict, and both the holy women and the Brothers of the monastery mourned her for many days.
a For the reading at the table of the Brothers while they eat must not be lacking, as Saint Benedict prescribes in chapter 38 of the Rule. Haftenus treats of this most fruitful institution in book 10, treatise 2. Our own Julius Nigronius comments on the Common Rules of the Society of Jesus.
b More frequently the form is querelati, a word used by Arnobius the Younger on Psalm 76 near the beginning: "He laments concerning present evils." In common usage, however, it signifies to contend in a lawsuit.
CHAPTER I
The Birth and Innocence of Saint Scholastica.
[2] Scholastica, therefore, a Virgin of God, Saint Scholastica, born of noble lineage: as may be observed, the preeminent Mother and Patroness of the nuns of the Latin Church, born in the region of Nursia from a family of great distinction according to worldly rank, is said to have been the daughter of a Count of those same regions, who is reputed to have traced his ancestral lineage all the way back to the blood of the Emperor Justinian — as indeed the full sister of Benedict, the life-giving founder of Western monasticism, whose origin is said to have been hers as well. These things, however, pertaining as they do to carnal descent, would be of little account, were it not that from so great a store of worldly nobility, wealth, and power, and through all these an abundant occasion of every allurement, she ascended, under the guidance of grace, to so great an excellence of the spiritual life. For even though the aforesaid things ought to serve, as it were, as certain instruments for the exercise of virtue, we observe that for many they prove rather a cause of ruin through misuse. But not so for Scholastica: hence the marks of her own uprightness ought to be seen as no little augmented by these circumstances. Especially since Divine Providence (which is not deceived in its own disposition) ordained her as the first leader of so great a religious order; adorned with great virtues, because she was the first leader of Religious women; namely of the nuns living far and wide throughout the entire Christian world under that sacred Rule composed by her aforesaid brother at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Nor is it right to doubt that those who by God's provision have been placed over others — the first Fathers or Mothers of sacred orders especially — have shone most brilliantly with prerogatives of graces and virtues: whom, evidently, all the professed members of those same orders, together with others who from them are to be built up in Christ until the consummation of the age, might imitate with greater confidence and complete eagerness in the way of conduct. For these appear to be, as it were, certain most fertile trees, from which so innumerable a fruitful multitude of branches has proceeded, and does not cease to proceed. Although some among these may be barren and unfruitful, destined indeed for the fires of hell, nevertheless, for the good who diligently work out their salvation to the glory of almighty God, the inscrutable wisdom of God ordains even those persons for the sake of a more ample exercise of virtue: and therefore this can neither prejudice the goodness of the tree nor detract from the holiness of the patron. For this arises from the misuse of free will, which, inclined to evil through the corruption of sensuality, preferred, to its own greatest detriment, to follow the enemy of perfection rather than the examples of the holy Fathers. But these things are perhaps to be spoken of more fully elsewhere: they have been touched upon here in relation to our purpose, so that the sanctity of that illustrious Virgin may shine forth more readily at the very threshold of our discourse.
[3] Scholastica is indeed to be counted among the wiser Virgins, and, excepting that she surrendered her spirit to the Creator in peace, she is without doubt to be numbered among the first handmaids of the Queen of Virgins. For who could count how many Virgins have been, and shall be, led to the King of Glory and the Virgin Queen Mother after her? Hence who would doubt that she is among those nearest to her? This indeed both the beginning and the end of her life clearly demonstrate, when the things that were done through her are also weighed according to the account of Gregory. He therefore begins his narrative from the fact that she was dedicated to God from infancy, and concludes that her soul penetrated the heavens in the form of a dove. illustrious in both the beginning and end of her life; What else shall we consider these things to declare, other than the admirable perfection of the sacred Virgin herself? For the outcome proves the deeds: and it is evident that it cannot be devoid of mystery that she was shown to have ascended above the stars in this manner to receive her reward, revealed to that brother of hers — a man who heard the words of God, who beheld the visions of the Almighty, to whom heavenly secrets were accustomed to be revealed. For Wisdom, transferring herself through nations into holy souls, establishes friends of God and prophets, and makes them companions through such things, showing them the greatness and value not only of things future or present, but also of things past. For it is not doubted that Moses, the promulgator of the ancient law, prophesied concerning the past in the description of Genesis. Nor should we believe that God, who brings all things to their appointed ends, wrought in vain in such a supernatural and miraculous manifestation.
[4] Now then, since the perfection of justice is completed in the turning away from evil (which is primarily accomplished through innocence) and likewise in the working of good, and the entire merit of the present life consists in these two things, let us demonstrate from the testimony of so great an Author that Scholastica eminently attained both of these parts. endowed with remarkable innocence, Moreover, innocence is a part of perfection most acceptable to God, pleasing to the Angels, exemplary to men, and exceedingly fruitful for the one who possesses it. It is indeed an unmingled fountain, clear and pure, and on that account all the more gracious in all things. Hence the royal Prophet, asking who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord, responds under God's inspiration: "the innocent in hands and clean of heart." Where he clearly signifies that purity of mind and deed is most pleasing to the Creator, and that there is no innocence in deed unless the mind itself is first innocent. Psalm 23:4 And when it is thus constituted, no perversity of deed can stand with it. For if the eye — that is, the mental eye — is single, the whole body of one's conduct shall be full of light. For from a pure fountain only a pure stream can flow. The Prophet also adds: "Who has not sworn deceitfully to his neighbor"; signifying that innocence must also be present in speech, and that thus at last one has not received one's soul in vain. Truly the blessed Virgin did not receive her soul in vain, who on account of the merits of this life was assumed by God so gloriously that she penetrated the heavens in the form of a dove, bearing the simplicity of innocence. O happy innocence, who are everywhere secure, everywhere unharmed, everywhere victorious, and triumph so powerfully over the most wicked enemy of the human race that, ascending by the direct way, you can fly across the very heavens without obstacle. While placed among mortal things, this Virgin could say what is written: Job 27:5 "Until I fail, I shall not depart from my innocence." For she had heard the Lord speaking: "The innocent and the upright have adhered to me." Psalm 24:21 And accordingly the promise was confirmed in her: 83:13 "He will not deprive of good things those who walk in innocence"; namely those good things concerning which the Prophet confidently says: "We shall be filled with the good things of your house"; in which, as the Lord says, there are many mansions of rewards. 64:5 Happy therefore are those who lived in the companionship of so great a Virgin, happy those whom she instructed, happy also those who more diligently imitate her blessed footsteps. John 14:2 For through this purity of innocence, sparkling like a most brilliant star, she illumines all. For Scripture declares that with the innocent one becomes innocent, and with the holy one holy. Psalm 17:26
[5] Although anyone who is ensnared in grievous sins and is drawn from the very jaws of hell by the grace of God (of which he has rendered himself unworthy) receives a most great and inestimable gift — so that he may henceforth live innocently himself and recover what he has lost — nevertheless, absolutely speaking, the gift that the innocent person possesses is greater: and therefore always advancing in virtue; especially if he further advances to an eminent accumulation of merits. This, in this Virgin most dear to God, I deem not unworthy of devout recollection; as the matters that follow will in part declare. For how much she progressed in virtue day by day is evident from this: that not to advance on the way of God is to go backward, and thus finally to fall from innocence — which God forbid that we should suspect of that chosen handmaid of God. For she was so fervent in love that she seemed unable to be satisfied with divine conversations either by day or by night. especially in the love of God. On account of which she so earnestly asked Benedict, the herald of the word of God, to continue these conversations sweeter than honey to her. Moreover, where there is so great an eagerness for the word of God, how shall the magnitude of fervent love not be present? For he who is of God hears the words of God. Finally, love also works great things if it is genuine; but if it refuses to work, it is not love. For the exhibition of work is the proof of indwelling love, as the Lord declares: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word." John 8:47 John 14:23 Therefore Scholastica, loving the Lord vehemently, worked diligently at whatever her hands could do. For it cannot be believed that without works preeminent in both number and magnitude she would have merited so great a glory as to penetrate the secrets of heaven in the form of a dove (which bird, just as it is not predatory but innocent, so also it is more prolific than many others among birds). For the offspring of the spirit is meritorious action. And the reward corresponds to merits. Moreover, Gregory more openly attests to the magnitude of her charity, when she so easily obtained from God what she wished. But of this, more later.
Annotationsa Saint Gregory in the preface of book 2 of the Dialogues writes that Saint Benedict, the brother of Saint Scholastica, was born of a more noble family in the province of Nursia. Arnold Wion constructs a remarkable genealogy for him, which we shall discuss, if it seems worthwhile, on March 21.
b Certain persons, relying on I know not what authorities and fictitious testimonies, hand down the tradition that the Emperor Justinian was the grandfather of Saint Benedict, though he was in fact younger than him. Others make them cousins. But Baronius rightly rejects the letters of Justinian by which they attempt to establish this, published with the Chronicle of Monte Cassino, at the year 541, number 28.
c Vossius cites a similar expression from the Great Chronicle of Belgium in book 4, On the Faults of Language, chapter 8.
d So John Major, nearly a contemporary of this author, in On the Deeds of the Scots, book 3, chapter 8: "they fed three hundred of the poor daily." In place of this, Saint Gerard, Abbot of Silva Maior, writes diatim in the Life of Saint Adelard, January 2, chapter 9, number 53.
CHAPTER II
The Training and Rule Received from Saint Benedict.
[6] Now let us recall that we spoke of the other part of justice in the execution of works. Scholastica without doubt imitated her brother, that burning and shining lamp, a man of the highest perfection. Having imitated her brother. Moreover, how great the works of this Leader were, the same Pope indicates that he writes, though in a rather lengthy treatise, yet not fully, nor all of them; referring the reader for the rest to the precepts of his holy Rule, because, as that man truthfully says, he could not have lived otherwise than he taught. Gregory, Dialogues 2, chapter 31. Scholastica likewise strove to live as her brother taught and lived: the magnitude of love bringing this about, together with the desire for perfection, which she ever more ardently breathed after; the spiritual affection of their kinship also concurring. In what order this came about may be conjectured in the following manner. She, having been dedicated early to God, illustrious from childhood in sanctity and miracles, while her brother was then still a boy, when the grace of his conversion began with no small perfection — manifested divinely by the miracle of the restored sieve — when, having left his nurse, the boy himself withdrew to the solitude of a cave; and when, after a remarkable passage of time, his distinguished manner of life had become known through a voice descending from heaven, and the Brothers of feigned life had been expelled — by whom he had been summoned as Abbot against his will, and whom he resisted because of the disparity in their way of life — when that Rule, preeminent in discretion as has been said, from which many excerpts are found in the sacred canons on account of the usefulness of its teaching, had been published by him; and when many were coming to him out of desire for the heavenly life, submitting their necks to the sweet yoke of Christ; she accepts his Rule; and when the Roman nobility was also entrusting its youth to him based on no false reputation of true sanctity; then, while she herself had meanwhile grown up, a sister in the flesh indeed, but more so in spirit, it may be believed that she embraced service under her brother's laws. For this Rule is shown to be adapted to the female sex as well.
[7] Moreover, whoever would more diligently behold the seeds of virtues which this most faithful cultivator of the Lord's field planted in that paradise of interior delight with an elegant and flourishing arrangement, in which excellent virtues are prescribed, would not undeservedly embrace the Spirit speaking in him. For it should not be supposed that this was accomplished by human talent, without a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit — namely, that he established institutions of such great discretion and authority. Hence, let us briefly review some of these by way of example. obedience, chapter 5. For he teaches first of all a prompt obedience, by which the subject obeys and complies with the superior without delay — by which, in the triumph of a signal victory, a man, though encompassed with mortal flesh, conquers himself, and in view of God subjects himself to the authority of another, conforming himself to the Lord and Savior, who is shown to have obeyed the Father even unto the torment of the most bitter cross for the salvation of all, and who will therefore without doubt reign together with Him. Moreover, the wise architect lays humility as the stable foundation of the spiritual structure, humility, chapter 7, that is, of good work, pursuing it at great length, because the more deeply one has cast himself down, the more sublimely he shall be exalted before God, according to the teaching and example of the heavenly Master, the Lord Jesus; by which the other virtues are also more securely guarded. Matthew 23:12. The fear of the Lord accompanies this, being the beginning of wisdom, and the same fear preserves one from every evil. From these follows the renunciation of one's own will and private self-love: which perverse love indeed causes the one infected by it to plunge into the cesspool of vices; just as its eradication causes one to rise to the attainment of perfection and heavenly blessedness. For this is true poverty of spirit, to which the Lord promises the kingdom of heaven. He wills, moreover, that one dedicated to a more austere life be content with mean and lowest things in the use of food, clothing, and other such necessities, so that he may more abundantly attain incomparably better goods, which the aforesaid things ought to serve. Matthew 5:3. silence, chapter 6. He wills also that such a one be devoted to silence and taciturnity, and not admit even the slightest indecorum through laughter or bodily gesture, in order to attain more easily the purity of the interior man. Although he commands that due honor be shown to God (who is everywhere) in all places, chapter 19, the discipline of psalmody, he prescribes this above all in sacred hymns and prayer. For in these we speak, as it were, to His present majesty, and render to Him the debt of our spiritual service. Moreover, how many things does he enumerate concerning the instruments of good works; chapter 4, instruments of good works: namely, not only not to inflict injury, but also to bear patiently injury inflicted, to bless those who curse, to love those who hate, to pray for persecutors and enemies; to drive away evil thoughts as soon as they arise and to dash them against the rock who is Christ; to love sacred reading, to be instant in prayer, to refer entirely to God whatever good one finds in oneself; to observe more carefully all the acts of one's life; to despise the present life and to sigh for the future; and (which is of a higher gift) to love God above all things with one's whole strength, and one's neighbor as oneself. These things, I say, together with very many others, how faithfully he teaches them cannot escape one who glances even cursorily at the tenor of the Rule itself. O exceedingly blessed are those whom he shall find not sluggish workers of such things, from which truly the fullness of all perfection is shown to proceed!
[8] In the observance of these things, therefore, that most blessed holy woman excelled; all of which Scholastica kept. and on that account she was not without reason called Scholastica — that is, "devoted to learning" — inasmuch as she had more fully mastered the teaching of perfection of her brother and at the same time preeminent Master; beyond which, through the gracious habit of contemplation, she was borne toward God with a richer sweetness. For she would not have listened with so great a desire to her brother speaking of the joys of the heavenly life, unless she ardently aspired thither: nor indeed would she have aspired so greatly, devoted to contemplation, unless she had already sweetly tasted in the ecstasy of contemplation. For spiritual things, the more they are known, the more they are desired: just as, on the contrary, bodily foods taken to satiety produce disgust. For God is accustomed to bestow upon His friends — those who for love of Him truly despise earthly things — the gifts of the Spirit more copiously, and to exhibit a prelude of future eternity, and to confer a certain foretaste of ineffable joy; so that they may taste beforehand what great rewards await them for merits so small: and in this life too receive a hundredfold, whereby they may always extend themselves toward better things, and as by a preliminary fragrance be drawn to things above. O with what great swiftness must we believe that Scholastica, thus imbued, ran in the fragrance of Christ's ointments, and therefore zealous for devout conversations, who through Benedict, the apothecary of the Holy Spirit, sought with such great tears that this fragrance of balsam be breathed upon her! Truly it was not so much with bodily steps as with the ardor of a most burning mind that she hastened swiftly toward the Lord, as the very outcome of the matter shows. O what resplendent luminaries had God then kindled in the world! What a great line of excellent and most holy persons did each of them draw after them through their religious influence! But of these things, as they pertain to her of whom we speak, we shall touch briefly below. Truly Benedict was a most splendid light, and Scholastica too a light of no small splendor; through whom God had prepared to show the way of truth to both sexes: although, as from a sun — her brother — the sister, like a moon moistened with charity and shining with wisdom, received the influx of regular light, God so providing. And so, diffusing the fragrance of a good odor and the splendor of the brightest light far and wide through the circuit of the world, they advanced so equally in life that not even in burial, as the blessed Gregory says, were they separated. For they had, as is read of the first who renounced the world, one heart and one soul in the Lord, brought about not so much by the origin of blood as by the covenant of a gracious blessing.
Annotationa Thus punitus is found in Cicero used in an active signification; on which see Quintilian, book 9, Institutes, chapter 3, near the beginning.
CHAPTER III
The Abstinence, Chastity, and Charity of Saint Scholastica.
[9] Finally, if it delights us to inspect more broadly the mighty deeds of the virtues of the Virgin of Christ and to profit therefrom, let us return to the sequence of Gregory's account. Devoted to abstinence, Her abstinence, which provides the most powerful aids for the splendor of chastity and the structure of the spiritual life, may be gathered from the late hour of her meal: when in a hospitable and joyful assembly, where others of even a more rigorous profession might perhaps more sumptuously than usual and more than once a day have taken refreshment, they scarcely sat down to a frugal table — content with regular foods — after sunset, and were moreover refreshed more by spiritual than by bodily delicacies. Her celibacy and unimpaired virginity — that she was dedicated to God from the very time of infancy, loving chastity, and never, even by thought, did the Bride of Christ, so consonant with such great perfection, make her vow void; rather she kept faith until she completed her course, whence she ascended to be crowned with such great glory. Her love of dwelling in her cell and of seclusion, and retirement; which in a Virgin dedicated to God is not undeservedly judged to be highly fitting — that not even with her brother, when she could lawfully have done so on account of her station, and certainly with such a brother from whom she could receive nothing but edification — she did not meet more than once in the course of an entire year: and not even then except to discuss heavenly things, where her conversation dwelt.
[10] These things ought to serve as an example to Prelates of both sexes and to all Ecclesiastical persons, that they should not wish to engage in idle conversations, to be imitated concerning conversations with men, nor hold suspect meetings; lest (which resembles a most vile and infernal monster) having begun in the spirit, they be consummated in the flesh. For what conversation should a Religious person, or anyone deputed to divine service, have with a Bride of Christ or with any woman — unless occasion arises for the requirements of penance, or for instruction in a better life, to be conducted as briefly as possible and only when necessary, or for some matter that has a legitimate cause without peril to salvation? For Virgins consecrated to God are not permitted to be horned: nor ought outrage to be done to the temple of God. For if anyone shall violate the temple of the Lord by even a nod, God will without doubt destroy that person. Who could think what unforeseen evils are wont to arise from incaution in these matters? What dissolution and imperceptible enervation of religious orders, otherwise laudably maintained, often dangerous: even if one considers, apart from carnal lapse, only lingering thoughts! For with incredible swiftness the adversary of all religion, Satan, casts his darts there most secretly and silently applies his birdlime; until (which will then not be difficult) he leads to the worst and manifest scandals. But it is not our present purpose to speak of these things.
[11] Moreover, that the grace of devotion, which a Religious person should above all desire, was very great in her, is evident from this: devoted to piety, that even in the presence of the Brothers whom her brother had brought with him, she readily shed abundant tears out of desire for heavenly things. For she could not so easily have done this in public unless she had habitual practice of this act, proceeding from intimate devotion. For even a gracious habit confers facility upon the act that proceeds from it. From this, moreover, let us understand her indefatigable constancy in the Divine praises. For to cease from these was painful, but to continue them at length was most sweet to her — as those most earnest tears of hers and her suppliant petition make clear. For when they had spent the entire day in the praises of God and in sacred conversations, as Gregory says, and could not refrain from them even at that late supper, she nevertheless at length said to her brother: "I beseech you, do not leave me this night, that we may speak until morning of the joys of the heavenly life" — intending without doubt to continue her request as long as she trusted she would obtain it from him. O sacred heart! Truly from your abundance your mouth spoke.
[12] Moreover, how great a grace of consolation was poured upon her lips — or rather infused into her very soul — shall we not rightly perceive through that wondrous flood of rains? Just as through the thunder gracious in speech; we may perceive the efficacy of the word of God proceeding from her mouth, by which she was able not only to gladden her disciples sufficiently, but also to affect her brother — to whom God had given the knowledge of the Saints — with a reciprocal exchange. For Christ had called James and John, who were brothers, "Boanerges," on account of the voice of the Father that they had heard, who were to be bearers of the word of God that they had received throughout the world. But here also were two siblings who had heard the voice of the Lord calling, and who spoke through the Spirit what they had heard. Then, through the lightning, let the exemplarity of her life be manifest. For she had applied oil and light to her lamp. Nor should we believe that miracles were lacking amid these things, since from the almighty Lord she suddenly obtained what was admirable even against Benedict in the working of them. She had her head in her hands — that is, a will most ready for works not only of the commandments but also of the counsels: whence she also had the Lord Jesus, the Head of the Church, prepared for all things. Therefore, it should be believed that there was nothing which she could not obtain or could not have obtained, if she had asked it desiringly. For she had interlaced the fingers of her hands, joining a pious intention to all her works.
[13] Moreover, it is worthy of great veneration that Gregory, a most authoritative and truthful witness, did not hesitate to place her, in the sublimity of charity, above Father Benedict himself, surpassing even her brother in charity, who was borne along by so great a fervor of that same virtue — though she was soon to be called away — at least in this deed, speaking thus of the miracle of the rains obtained through her tears: "For since, according to the voice of John, God is charity, by a truly just judgment she was more powerful who loved more" — that is, more than her own brother. 1 John 4:8 Moreover, it is established that the Apostle places this virtue before all others, when, discoursing about other gifts, even those bestowed from above, he adds concerning it: "I show you a still more excellent way," which if anyone possesses, he likewise possesses all the rest, and without which no one can truly possess any such virtue. 1 Corinthians 12:31. For this is the mother and form of the virtues, this their root and end. In this indeed, according to the sentence of truth, the whole law and the prophets depend, in which all the other such virtues are connected and cohere: without which nothing, however laborious it may appear, can be pleasing to God or meritorious of the future life, even if one should speak with the tongues of men and of Angels, the queen of all virtues; and distribute all one's goods to the poor, and endure death itself as if for God's sake. This most intimately reaches the Most High beyond all others, whom it regards under the aspect of the supreme good objectively, resting freely in Him who is exceedingly lovable and desirable with one's whole being; referring all things to Him, desiring in all things altogether His good pleasure and honor. Charity, then, is greater than the others, which the nurturing Father Benedict also so greatly enjoins according to the Scriptures. The higher the degree to which anyone attains this virtue, the more necessarily must he also surpass in all the others; for as it grows, the rest likewise grow and are intensified in a certain proportion.
[14] Since, therefore, as has been said, Scholastica possessed this virtue in so great a measure, whose every condition and effect she admirably expressed, how greatly shall we judge it to have shone in her other virtues? For with such and so great a virtue directing her, it certainly follows that she was very patient in enduring evils, and beneficent in working good toward her neighbor, and endowed with great kindness, by which, as if kindled by a good fire, her soul would so melt and glow that she could not fail to share with others the gifts bestowed upon her. Through this she firmly believed all things that were to be believed, and confidently hoped for all things that were promised. This same virtue also made her spirit constant and persevering in good: it rendered her graciously and modestly joyful in the progress of her companions, so that she would not grieve unless some fault had overtaken any one of them. And when this occurred, correcting in gentleness of spirit, she would not leave it unpunished. For through this virtue she could not be envious except in good; nor do anything wrongly, nor be puffed up; but rather be most humble in proportion to the greatness of her charity; and flee ambition as a kind of plague, and therefore not be provoked; and in all these things seek the honor of God and the profit of her neighbor. Proverbs 13:10 For Scripture testifies that among the proud there are always quarrels: but charity does not seek its own things, but the things of Jesus Christ. The trumpet of God, the Apostle, proclaims these to be the conditions of charity, and further defines it as the fullness of the law and the end of the precept. From these, who would doubt that her manner of life was most pleasing to her companions? For concerning this queen of virtues, a certain one of the Saints says: "O good mother charity, who, whether you cherish the weak, or exercise the perfect, or reprove the restless, showing different things to different persons, love all as children. When you reprove, you are gentle: when you flatter, you are sincere: you are accustomed to rage piously, to soothe without pain, to know how to be angry patiently, to be indignant humbly." By this same advance, moreover, Scholastica was so ready to refresh her brother — from whom she was fed — with a reciprocal serving of spiritual delicacies. For the manifold abundance and most extensive teaching of the Divine Scriptures, as another of the Saints says, "he comprehends without any error and guards without any labor, whose heart is full of charity." Hence, when she had advanced so greatly in charity, I would believe that she no longer met with her brother for instruction as formerly, but rather because of the salvific heat of her burning soul's charity, which she could not restrain. What, therefore, she perhaps did less in the execution of more rigorous works on account of the condition of her sex, the magnitude of her charity supplied. For God weighs and rewards the intention and works of a devout mind even according to this virtue.
Annotationsa I believe he means to say a deliberate and voluntary willing, not that which steals upon one unwilling or resisting. For what is otherwise less consonant with reason than that a Bride of Christ should turn over such thoughts in her mind?
b There seems to be a word missing, such as "shows," or something similar.
c You may find many examples of a similar expression in Vossius, book 4, On the Faults of Language, chapter 30.
d It was uncertain whether one should read seruatarum of those maintained or seruientium of those serving.
CHAPTER IV
The Virtues of Saint Scholastica Expressed through the Habits of the Dove.
[15] Beyond the fact that that dove-like departure to heavenly things Seen ascending to heaven in the form of a dove, has been said to signify the purity and innocence of her religious soul with which she was endowed, it remains to show from this same root as above that she also possessed the sevenfold grace of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. For the human mind is made well-disposed toward virtues through reason, but toward gifts through the Holy Spirit; although habits of both kinds proceed from God the generous Giver. The dove, therefore, is a bird that is simple and without gall, to the imitation of whose character Christ exhorted His disciples: namely, that through this simplicity they should not only not injuriously harm anyone or contrive deceits, but should walk in all things simply and without pretense. Matthew 10:16. For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the feigned, because simple as a dove, and will be reproved by supervening iniquity; and He who is both the giver of gifts and the Gift Himself appeared in the form of a dove over the Lord at His baptism, by which we might be taught that whoever possesses grace must also be adorned with these virtues and gifts. These follow one another mutually, so that neither can the simple one labor under the duplicity of pretense, nor can the hypocrite be simple: and the absence of gall excludes the excessive bitterness of precipitate anger and rancor against one's neighbor. Wisdom 1:5.
[16] Moreover, the Lord added the prudence of the serpent, by which, just as we do not wish to adversely harm others through injury or to deceive them, so too we may prudently avoid the snares of enemies — especially those who strive to drag us into the filth of sin and to harm our souls. Whence also the dove sent out during the flood, yet prudent; when she saw that everything was foul and muddy, and could not find a place where her foot might rest, returning to the ark while avoiding the danger, indicated by heavenly instinct that the elect are indeed exercised by temptations, but nevertheless profit all the more thereby; nor can they be so detained by the mire of sin that from all things a greater occasion of salvation is not prepared for them — which, if it is true of those who have perhaps fallen grievously, is all the more true of those who retain their innocence. Hence also the Scripture of Genesis commemorates that afterward the dove returned bearing a branch of green olive. Genesis 8:11.
[17] Now, that it may be shown more plainly, as we have begun, that the glorious soul of that most holy Virgin appeared in the form of a dove during her ascent, this clearly declares that her mind was copiously imbued with the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, adorned with the gifts of the Spirit; who, as has been said, appeared in the same form. For this too is traced by mystical understanding from the characteristics of this bird. For the dove, accustomed to reside near waters, does not tear with her beak what she eats, is wont to nurture the chicks of others, builds her nest in the clefts of the rock, selects the better grains; and she is a sacrificial creature, uttering a moan in place of song. Our dove rested near the waters of wisdom to drink them more eagerly, residing at the waters of wisdom, for which purpose she opportunely met with Benedict, the Lord's cupbearer, so that through his ministry, as through a certain channel, from the immense ocean of divinity a more copious river of wisdom might be directed into her, however liberally she was already inspired. with insatiable zeal; Nor indeed could she be satisfied with the words of grace proceeding from his mouth, but even through nocturnal conversation — far from experiencing any weariness — she thirsted with complete eagerness for more and more. For she knew what is written: "Hear, O wise one, and you shall be wiser." Proverbs 1:5. Truly in her was fulfilled what Wisdom says of herself: "Those who eat me shall still hunger; and those who drink me shall still thirst." Sirach 24:29. Moreover, it is the hearers who drink — not all indeed, but those who are faithful, such as she herself was. But she in turn, according to the abundance of her own store, refreshed the Master with a reciprocal exchange (according to Gregory). Without doubt, a wise brother applauds a wise sister, and by mutual sharing they kindled one another. O how sweet is the companionship of wisdom, whose fellowship has no tedium and whose conversation has no bitterness: for she is the mother of all good things, which all likewise come to the one who possesses her. The brother would have wished (I do not hesitate to say) to remain longer with her himself on this account, had not the example of religious discipline stood in the way, and had he not feared that an occasion of laxer imitation would arise from this, either for posterity or for those then present. For he also objected that remaining outside the cell was not fitting for him. Hence, however much each would have been made better by that encounter, so brilliantly illumined by the clarity of wisdom, he nevertheless wished to provide not only for what was expedient for himself or his sister, but also for others; until, by God's wondrous providence, through a sudden flood of rains it became known that something better would come of it.
[18] From these things, moreover, it can be apparent that she also shone with the gift of understanding, since she clung with unwearied perseverance and tireless alternation to the discourse of the word of God. not tearing or perverting the grains of doctrine; For she did not tear apart the sentences of sacred doctrine with a schismatic beak, nor (as is the way of heretics) did she corrupt good feasts of the word by perverting them, or defile them with the obstinacy of dissension, but clung firmly to the sacred Ecclesiastical teaching. Moreover, how fruitfully even to this day, under the title of her brother's religious order, she nourishes chicks gathered from everywhere with the most savory nourishment of the sanctity she spread after her, nurturing her disciples; is apparent in the propagation of so many thousands of Virgins and widows of every age and condition, emulating her with fervent zeal. For it should not be supposed that she wished to devote such effort to acquiring wisdom even from her brother without communicating it to her disciples, since she was not unaware that the manifestation of the spirit is given to each one for the common good. This, moreover, is recognized as pertaining to the gift of counsel for directing both herself and others.
[19] But how sweetly she dwelt in the clefts of that Rock which is the refuge of simple doves, her blessed perseverance teaches. For nothing could separate her from the love of God which is in Christ. This was accomplished by the gift of fortitude, by which her goods were made stable in the Lord, dwelling in the clefts of the rock, of which perseverance is no small part. She had gathered this in the clefts of the wounds of the Lord Jesus, who according to the Apostle is the Rock, that is, the wounds of Christ, most hard indeed through constancy, but lavishly flowing through the distribution of graces. To recall these things with compassion, therefore, and to kiss them with the most grateful kisses of interior lips, so strengthened her spirit in God that neither labor nor any pressing matter could divert her from her purpose of sanctity, as though the Lord called to her from the cross: "Come, my dove; dwell, that is, in the clefts of the rock, and therefore strong; in the hollow of the wall: where you may be sublimely instructed, learning the examples of fortitude and of all perfection in me, crucified, pierced, and as it were torn apart like a wall." 1 Corinthians 10:4. But also with diligent circumspection this most prudent Virgin selected the better grains of nourishment, and she shone with a great gift of knowledge. For she knew how to discern sagaciously between good and evil, excelling in discernment; to examine through the Spirit, which she had imbibed from earliest youth, whatever ought to be done or omitted, and to apply no sluggish effort to carrying it out. For it was sweet to her to treat of such matters, as the faithful interpreter easily perceives from the aforesaid things.
[20] Next, the dove has been called a sacrificial creature, and one lacking gall. By which indeed the gift of piety is signified, by which this beautiful dove Scholastica dedicated herself to divine service from infancy. Toward her neighbor also, conducting herself kindly, she was not moved by the gall of bitterness and anger; gentle, and without gall; but rather, if any trouble arose, bearing it patiently, she confidently had recourse with all gentleness of soul to the most kind Spouse of her soul, the Consoler of those who mourn. Whence she was unable to be moved sharply even against her brother, who, though he had been supplicated humbly, was unwilling to grant her request: but having been heard by the Lord, she merely showed him that he had acted less fittingly, preferring the Lord's compassion with devout piety to her brother's reasonable intention — which indeed bears the mark of a most gentle spirit. This woman, Brothers, is always sweet toward God, always kind toward men; having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
[21] Finally, let us see what song this disciple of the Holy Spirit observed. For the dove is said to utter a moan in place of song. Certainly she who ascended with such great joy — so that her brother, while still mortal, as though she had in some way already passed to another world, for whom moaning was in place of song: rejoiced and congratulated her — is more clearly shown to have previously meditated with sobs. For "Blessed are those who mourn," says the Lord, "for they shall be consoled." It was necessary that with many sighs she hungered and thirsted for that fullness which she at last attained. Matthew 5:5 It was necessary, I say, that she lived in the chaste and filial fear of the Lord, whom that Householder — who gives to each according to his own capacity — deemed worthy to be so excellently endowed with the heavenly inheritance. She now builds her nest, therefore, like a dove at the very summit of the opening of the cleft, whence none can pull her down: she who in this time roared from the groaning of her heart; grieving indeed over the prolongation of her sojourn, she was all the more anguished, condoling also in the errors of her neighbors out of filial reverence toward God. These things proceeded without doubt from the magnitude of love in which she excelled. For he who loves another — in proportion as he burns with greater love toward him — how shall he not be the more saddened by injuries against him? And likewise in the errors of those whom he loves for His sake, he cannot but be weakened.
[22] When, therefore, the weakness of her flesh could no longer easily bear so great a fervor of charity, she lingered but a little while after her departure from her brother, so that the dove of snowy whiteness might fly away to her Lord. Whence let us now briefly consider the end of her life. Scholastica, then, endowed with such great treasures of spiritual riches, was called by Christ, the most loving Spouse of her soul — not, as formerly, to the affliction of compassion, but to the participation of a most powerful kingdom in ineffable joy and glory — as though He said: "Arise, hasten, my beloved, called forth by Christ, my dove, my beautiful one, and come: my beloved through the excellence of charity, my dove through the most upright intention and innocence of a simple soul, my beautiful one through the abundance of virtues and gifts of grace. For now the winter of difficulties has passed, the rain of tears has gone away and departed: the flowers of the beauty of merits have appeared in our land: the time of the harvest of rewards has come." And she: "Behold me, Lord." she flew forth as a dove, For Benedict saw after three days her most blessed soul gloriously penetrating the heavens in the form of a dove. O day ever desired, because on it her soul was magnified above all her days. For she was forthwith endowed with the unfading crown of eternity, exalted by the perpetuity of blessedness, made wholly resplendent with deiform brightness, joined to the King of Glory in an unfailing espousals. To her, magnificently exalted, we must confidently flee for patronage; nor should we hesitate that she who intercedes for those who invoke her is heard, who, as has been said, while still placed among mortal things was so easily heard.
[23] Moreover, since according to the Scriptures the elect among men are to be transferred to the places of the fallen spirits from the various orders of the heavenly hierarchies, placed among the Seraphim on account of her love, I would not find it difficult to believe that she was exalted to the order of the Seraphim, because she loved God while placed on earth with so ardent a love. For "Seraphim" is interpreted as "burning ones," and the Saints affirm that those who excel in love are to be assumed there: especially since, as was said above, the magnitude of merit and reward is to be received in proportion to the magnitude of charity. Furthermore, because she was constituted as the first leader of so great a religious order. For if the first Fathers and Mothers of such great orders are not assumed there on account of their singular holiness, who after the first Saints will be worthy of this honor? Although, therefore, God is the weigher of spirits, yet it can be piously believed, on the testimony of blessed Gregory concerning the magnitude of her love. He also relates that Father Benedict, rejoicing at the glory of so great a sister, placed the relics of her virginal body, when they were brought, in his own sepulcher, so that for those whose spirit had always been one in the Lord in the present life, there might be one place of rest, and, God willing, due reverence.
CHAPTER V
Illustrious Imitators of Saint Scholastica.
[24] Having departed so happily from the world, she accomplished far more, now reigning with Christ, than she had begun while dwelling among men. For who could count how many flocks of holy Virgins and chaste souls have accompanied her up to the present? Of these, some who are better known to us — having formerly lived in neighboring places — are to be commemorated more briefly than is just, according to the promise made above. Where first there comes to mind the glorious Lady Kunegunde, Many holy women followed her; born of the blood of Emperors, the daughter of the Palatine of the Rhine, Saint Kunegunde, Empress, March 3 joined in matrimony to Saint Henry, the ruler of the Roman Empire, yet, with God as witness, always remaining a Virgin together with him. For theirs was a chaste and virginal marriage, and an undefiled bed, after the manner of the conjugal covenant of the illustrious Joseph and the Virgin, Mother of God and of Virgins. It is she whose innocence and integrity were such that not even glowing plowshares could harm her as she walked over them with bare feet, even while the devil hissed. After the departure of her memorable husband, who upon dying returned her to her friends as a Virgin, just as he had received her, she spurned the earthly throne of the kingdom and aspired with the utmost zeal, as she always had but then especially, to the summit of the heavenly kingdom. Hence, having put on a coarser habit, with the virginal veil imposed by Bishops, she more fittingly displayed the spirit and virtue of a consecrated woman, which she had borne beneath gilded garments befitting her dignity and the imperial diadem; and she fled to the monastery of Kaufungen, which she herself had magnificently built and abundantly endowed, under the wings of her heavenly Spouse, the Lord Jesus; and of all her possessions — as she had always been most generous to the poor — she made Christ the heir in the persons of His poor. But on account of her exceeding humility, though unwilling to administer the office of Abbess herself, she nevertheless took care that all things be conducted more religiously, while she herself was devoted to the contemplation of divine things. How great her merits were, the miracles exhibited both during her life and at her death demonstrate. Canonically declared a Saint by the Church, she rests in the Cathedral of Bamberg, which she had founded and completed together with her aforesaid saintly husband the Emperor, where she had also dwelt while constituted in the imperial dignity, together with him whom she always chastely loved in Christ.
[25] After this blessed woman there comes to mind Radegunde, the daughter of Berthachar, King of the Thuringians, Saint Radegunde, Queen of Gaul, August 13 who, when her father had been conquered by Clothar, King of the Franks, had fallen to him as booty and wife. At length, however, by God's disposition, she was permitted to serve Him more devoutly, as she had desired. She was greatly merciful to the poor, obtaining the release of captives by her prayers, and wore a hair shirt against her flesh even while in the kingdom. Afterward, at Poitiers, in a monastery built for her, she gathered a great multitude of young women, over whom she ruled most holily as Abbess. There, shining with the greatest virtues and miracles, among other things she restored to life one of her Sisters who had died, and the glory of her own death was revealed to a certain Tribune who was far distant.
[26] Next, the excellence of the memorable Virgin Gertrude presents itself, Saint Gertrude, March 17 who, as is transmitted by the most approved histories, was the daughter of Pepin, the other King of the Franks. When she was being pressed to take a husband and was unwilling, she fled with the help of her devout mother to the eastern parts of Francia, to a place called Karlsburg, three miles distant from the city of Wurzburg, bringing among others Attalongus, a priest of most honorable life and great repute, and having built a church there in honor of the Virgin Mother, she had divine services performed for her through him. To this same priest the bodies of the holy Martyrs — Kilian the Bishop, and his companions Colman the Priest and Totnan the Deacon — were also later marvelously revealed, in the time of Saint Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz; who, having most fittingly elevated the relics of the aforesaid Martyrs, with many miracles shining forth, established the Blessed Burchard as Bishop with Apostolic authority over the aforesaid city of Wurzburg. Gertrude, moreover, after the persistence and rejection of many suitors, was constituted Abbess of the monastery of Nivelles, where, having accumulated the greatest merits, God revealed to her the time of her death and joyfully called her to heavenly things; and her memory is widely celebrated throughout Germany.
[27] A niece of this holy Virgin through her brother was the Blessed Virgin Adaloga, the first Abbess of the monastery of Kitzingen in eastern Francia, Saint Adaloga, February 2 similarly situated in the diocese of Wurzburg on this side of the Main; which place was so augmented by her in properties and persons in a short time that it was reckoned among the foremost monasteries of Germany. She was, moreover, as has been written of her, very beautiful and exceedingly virtuous, greatly beloved of God and men; and, having passed over Kings and sons of Kings who pressed their suit from Britain, Pannonia, and Greece, she had wholly devoted herself to Christ — even though her father, Charles, King of the Franks, at first was greatly displeased, yet afterward, having been admonished through a vision, cooperated sufficiently with her. She established in the aforesaid monastery a great multitude not only of Virgins, as has been mentioned, but also of clerics who performed divine services for them. She was most generous to the poor and very compassionate, serving them personally with such great piety that she was called the mother of the poor. This woman, moreover, besides her other endowments of virtues, was illustrious for miracles, and had the greatest solicitude in life and death for her flock, which (as her history asserts) she had dedicated to the religious order of Saint Scholastica and had fed with the word of doctrine and the example of perfect virtue; illustrious for miracles; to such an extent that she even appeared in a dream to a certain Sister of hers who had nearly gone astray, and reformed her for the better with a sacred admonition. At length, after many labors in the way of God, when she was about to pass away with a holy end, she confidently made this prayer to her Spouse: "Lord Jesus Christ, for love of whom I despised earthly nuptials and endured many labors and sufferings, grant that when I have departed, I may deserve to be received by You in the choir of Virgins." That this indeed came to pass was made certain by signs wrought immediately upon her death. Moreover, the multitude of poor whom she had fed grieved vehemently for so great a Mother, and that entire region took refuge in her, as their patroness, through devout prayers.
[28] Saint Hedwig; In the same monastery of Kitzingen, after a lapse of time, the Blessed Hedwig was taught her letters; and Saint Elizabeth, the widow of the Blessed Louis, Landgrave of the Thuringians, Saint Elizabeth; Saint Walburga; lived there for a time with her aunt, who was Abbess, as is set forth in the histories of those Saints. Walburga also, a holy Virgin, British by nation but living in the diocese of Eichstatt, was the Mother of the Virgins of the monastery of Heidenheim, and the sister of Saint Willibald, Bishop of the same See. Among many other things, she restored to health through prayers poured out to the Lord the daughter of a distinguished man who was at the point of death; and she obtained from Christ for her Sisters a wondrous splendor of most brilliant light during the time of dark night. Moreover, the more she perceived, as is written of her, that God's clemency was working greater wonders through her, the more she adapted herself day by day to the excellence of a stricter life, and, utterly renouncing all things of the world, she left to the Virgins of God a most great example of imitable piety: finally falling asleep in the Lord, she rests in the said diocese.
[29] There was also the Blessed Virgin Hildegard of the family of Scholastica, that most holy Mother, Saint Hildegard; Abbess namely of the monastery of Saint Rupert situated in the diocese of Mainz. The fragrance of her holiness and the light of her revelations became so renowned (by God's favor) that not only the Emperor Conrad and many secular Princes, and the Bishops of many Churches, sought her prayers and counsels in difficult matters, as from a Prophet of God; but the Supreme Pontiffs also visited her through Apostolic letters and commended to her the Roman Church. She was moreover a contemporary of Blessed Bernard and personally known to him. Her revelations also, which she wrote in many volumes, Pope Eugene III approved, with the aforesaid holy Father Bernard present; and very many miracles commended her most celebrated life. There was also in those same times the sacred Virgin Elizabeth, Abbess of the Sisters of the monastery of Schonau, Saint Elizabeth of Schonau, which is situated in the Hercynian Forest, and she too had many revelations from God; among which she is read to have been instructed concerning the venerable Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, by the Mother of God herself appearing to her. She presided moreover over many Virgins there, whom she faithfully preserved for the heavenly Spouse through the word of doctrine and the example of holiness. Besides many other revelations, she profitably wrote a Book of the Ways of God; and she was known through letters and was on familiar terms with the aforesaid sacred Virgin Hildegard; and just as they shared one habit, so also they possessed one heart in the Lord, having attained likewise the same grace of divine revelations.
Annotationsa The father of Saint Kunegunde, Siegfried, was the Count of Luxembourg, as may be seen in Chesne's history of the house of Luxembourg.
b We shall give the Life of Saint Henry the Emperor on July 14. He died in the year 1024. In the following year Kunegunde, having convoked the Bishops for the dedication of the church of Kaufungen, laid aside the purple and took the religious habit, and survived fifteen years in her holy purpose, as the writer of her Life testifies.
c I think the Author wished to write "in fascibus" in the office, that is, in the imperial dignity.
d He is called Bertharius by others. He was killed by his brother Herminafrid; who then also defeated his other brother Baderic with the help of Theoderic, son of Clovis, King of the Franks.
e The Author confuses two Gertrudes, one of whom was the daughter of Blessed Pepin of Landen; the other of Pepin of Herstal. The former was only 14 years old when her father died in the third year of Clovis II.
f We shall treat of this discovery of Saint Kilian and his companions on July 8 and in the Life of Saint Burchard on October 14.
g We shall give the Life of Saint Boniface on June 5.
h Concerning Saint Adaloga, or as she is here called Adaloia, the daughter of Charles Martel, we treated above on February 2.
i The major Life of Saint Hedwig, which we shall give on October 15, says she was taught sacred letters in the cloister of Lusingo; Surius says in Lutzingen. Our Andreas Stredonius advised us that it should be read as Kitzingen or Kutzingen.
k We shall give the Life of Saint Elizabeth, Landgravine of Thuringia, on November 19.
l John Thurocz in the Chronicles of Hungary, part 2, chapter 73, writes that his feast is devoutly celebrated in Jerusalem. He died there on September 11.
m I believe this to be the one whom Gaspar Bruschius calls Dame Mechtild, Duchess of Meran, the twenty-third superior of that monastery. For Saint Hedwig was the daughter of the Duke of Merania.
n We shall treat of Saint Walburga below on February 25; of her brother Saint Willibald the Bishop, who is here called Wilewaldus, on July 7.
o We shall give the Life of Blessed Hildegard on September 17. Our Nicolas Serarius, History of Mainz, book 2, chapter 37, writes that she was born in the year 1098 and died in 1180. He lists the Pontiffs, Emperors, and Bishops whose letters to her survive.
p Conrad III was elected in 1138 and died on February 15, 1152.
q Eugene III was created Pontiff in 1145 and died on July 8, 1153.
r Saint Elizabeth of Schonau died in the year 1156, as we shall say on June 18. Schonau was a Benedictine monastery in the diocese of Trier, across the Rhine, under the dominion of the Princes of Nassau.
CHAPTER VI
Many Imitated the Example of Saint Scholastica, among them Saint Theotica.
[30] But lest I be overly prolix, from the remaining holy women, who are very many and are also inscribed in the Catalogue of holy Virgins, I shall subjoin some by name, just as I found them already collected. Among them was Saint Aldegonde, Many other Virgins and widows imitated Saint Scholastica: Abbess of the monastery of Maubeuge, whose feast is celebrated on the 30th of January. Saint Amelberga, a consecrated Virgin, on the 10th of July. Saint Anastasia, Abbess in Horreum at Trier, on the 9th of December. Saint Angadrisina, Abbess at Beauvais, on the 27th of March. Saint Aurea, Abbess at Paris, who sat in a chair full of iron nails, on the 4th of October. Saint Athgitta, a consecrated woman of Barking in England, on the 16th of September. Saint Basilissa, Abbess in Horreum at Trier, on the 18th of June. Saint Bathild, Queen of France and nun of the monastery of Chelles, on the 26th of January. Saint Benedicta, Abbess at Susteren, on the 16th of November. Saint Bilihild, Countess and afterward Abbess, on the 27th of November. Saint Cecilia, Abbess at Susteren, on the 16th of November. Saint Edelberg, Abbess of the monastery of Brige, on the 9th of July. Saint Elfleda. Saint Erkantrudis. Saint Etheldreda, Queen of the English and Abbess of Ely, on the 23rd of June. Saint Ethelburga, Abbess of Barking in England, on the 11th of October. Saint Fara, Abbess of the monastery of Faremoutiers, on the 3rd of April. Saint Glodesinde, a consecrated woman of Metz, on the 25th of July. Saint Hilda, Abbess of the monastery of Whitby in England, on the 28th of September. Saint Irmina, first Abbess in Horreum at Trier, daughter of King Dagobert, on the 23rd of December. Saint Lioba, Abbess at Bischofsheim, who rests at Fulda, on the 28th of September. Saint Luttrudis, a consecrated woman of the monastery of Corvey, on the 22nd of September. Saint Landrada, a consecrated woman in the diocese of Liege, on the 8th of July. Saint Mary, a nun in the monastery of Nivelles, on the 23rd of June. Saint Modesta, the second Abbess in Horreum at Trier, on the 6th of October. Saint Notburga, a consecrated woman of the Blessed Mary at Cologne, on the 31st of October. Saint Richardis, formerly the wife of Emperor Charles the Fat, and Abbess, on the 19th of August. Saint Regenflendis, a nun of the monastery of Denain, on the 8th of October. Saint Salaberga, Abbess in the suburb of Langres, on the 22nd of September. Saint Severa, Abbess of the monastery of Saint Symphorian at Trier, on the 20th of July. Saint Thebredia, Abbess, whose deeds are contained in the Life of Saint Adelphius. Saint Waldetrudis, Abbess of the monastery of Castrilocus, on the 10th of April, and so forth.
[31] There are also others of great merit before God and of sacred memory among men, although not canonized by the Church, so to speak. Nor indeed does canonization add anything to the sanctity of the one canonized; but it declares, by Ecclesiastical authority, that he or she possessed sanctity, for the incitement of posterity to virtue, many others not canonized, so that God may be more devoutly praised in His Saints. Nor, however, is it denied that the patronage of the deceased of proven and more excellent life, even those not canonized, may be privately invoked. Indeed, it is the Ecclesiastical custom that at the end of the Litanies all the Saints — that is, those reigning with Christ — be invoked to pray for those still sojourning in this world's exile. some distinguished for learning: There were, besides the aforesaid and among them, many who, beyond the rectitude of their lives, were preeminently instructed in letters. Among whom I deem that Hroswitha, a professed nun of the monastery of Gandersheim, Teutonic by nation but most distinguished in Latin eloquence for her time and sex, should be especially held in esteem, as the many works she composed in verse and prose attest.
[32] Innumerable, moreover, are those who, having followed the footsteps of the most blessed mother Scholastica, many unknown to the world: are indeed unknown to the world, but reign happily with their Spouse — besides those who, still dwelling among men, render spiritual service to the Lord and Savior, the one most beloved and best shepherd of their souls, faithfully paying their vows to Him; who also, persevering until they put off the body, will without doubt follow Him perpetually and blessedly wherever He goes. many still living. Of these, many also, having discharged their obligation of divine praises and peculiar devotion, without omitting the labor of their hands, diligently devote themselves to letters and make progress for the sake of a more devout worship of God. They are, by the grace of God, in greater numbers; so that eighty or even more monasteries of them are found in these regions. To these also, from a laxer life full of the peril of eternal damnation, many others are added by the grace of God through the support of regular reform, and it is hoped that still more will be added with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit: until their full number shall have entered upon the ways of the Lord, with Prelates and Princes of both orders lending their assistance in this, as is just. Of all of whom, under one Patriarch Benedict, the glorious Scholastica is mother and special Patroness.
[33] The Blessed Theotica, moreover, although she was not of their habit or profession, was nevertheless always joined to them in spirit. For she was a disciple of the venerable monastery over which you, Father, preside by the Lord's will; dwelling religiously within its walls, by the privilege of holiness, she was endowed by God with such great excellence of the most austere life, Saint Theotica, Virgin, and tested at length by the endurance of unheard-of sufferings, and so squared into a precious stone for the wall of the heavenly city, that it might seem almost incredible to the undevout, and convert even the devout to amazement. But on the other hand, how great the consolations she frequently received from God and His Saints amid these sufferings, it is pleasant to hear; and how much help she obtained for those who had recourse to her for the glory of God, it is most salutary to experience. For she shone with many and great miracles both while living and after death, and at last, departing most holily and festively to heavenly things, and not without reason believed to have obtained the palm of martyrdom, she deposited the relics of her sacred body in your oratory. On which account I would say it is truly far more blessed, because God wished to entrust to it so great a treasure. For, born of noble and devout parents at the royal castle of Bonneburg in the diocese of Mainz in the region of Hesse, she came thither by God's wondrous disposition. These things and very many others are preserved in a very lengthy and sufficiently lucid treatise written about her among you and elsewhere: from which I would not have reported the aforesaid, since they are very well known to you, unless perhaps others might someday read these things.
[34] Now let our prayer turn to you, O Scholastica, Virgin most pleasing to God. Remember us, we beseech you, while it is well with you; while you reap abundantly what you sowed here; while you rest in the shadow of your Beloved; and you who were so powerful before the Lord, the Spouse of all, while still dwelling among mortals, The Author invokes Saint Scholastica, are now incomparably more powerful, having been beneficently joined to Him: for you are proven all-powerful in your will, so that there is nothing you desire from Him that you do not obtain. You, I say, together with the sacred companions of your fellowship, obtain for us, we pray, who are placed in this fragile body, so to live that in that kingdom of blessedness, to which you gloriously arrived by your dove-like flight, we too may deserve to attain our hereditary portion: where the uncreated essence that creates life dwells, where is unfailing and most joyful salvation, where is the wisdom that created all things from nothing, where is a beauty brighter than the sun, where is the full satisfaction of every desire and satiety of every kind, where are all good things in one good, namely in Him who is all in all, blessed God, to whom is all honor and glory forever and ever, Amen.
Annotationsa The Author himself indicates the feast day of many of those that follow, whose Lives we shall give in their proper places.
b She is venerated by some as Angradisina, or Andagrisina, or Andragasina, on March 27, but by most on October 14.
c He seems to indicate Saint Edith, the daughter of King Edgar, who is venerated on that day and was placed in charge of the monastery of Barking; nevertheless she died at the age of 23 in the monastery of Wilton, in which she had grown up under the care of her mother Wulfrida or Wulfrudis. But Saint Ethelburga, who is called Edelburgis below, lived in the monastery of Barking, built by her brother Saint Erkenwald, Bishop of London.
d Most place her on May 20.
e Two Elfledas are recorded, one on February 8, the other on April 13.
f Perhaps Erentrudis, of whom we speak on June 30?
g She is commonly written Glodesindis.
h Rather, she is assigned by most to November 17; by others to December 15.
i This is Mary of Oignies, of most celebrated holiness indeed, but not yet enrolled among the saints, nor did she live in the monastery of Nivelles; but born in that town, she first led a most holy life in a neighboring place, then at Oignies.
k It seems he wished to write the 18th of September, the day on which she is assigned by most.
l The monastery in which Saint Ragenfredis lived with nine holy sisters is called Dononium, in French Denain, situated near the city of Valenciennes in Belgium.
m We shall give her Life on August 29, in which this Thebredia is called Tetra.
n This is now in the city of Mons in Belgium, a distinguished college of Canonesses.
o Hroswitha, also known as Roswitha, celebrated for her learning, wrote the history of Otto I in heroic verse, among many other works: she lived in the time of Otto II.
p This woman is still unknown to us.