ON ST. JOHN THERISTUS, MONK OF THE ORDER OF ST. BASIL, AT STILO IN CALABRIA
AROUND THE YEAR 1129.
Preliminary Commentary.
John Theristus, monk of the Order of St. Basil, at Stilo in Calabria (St.)
By G. H.
[1] John Theristus is venerated with ecclesiastical worship on the twenty-fourth day of February by the people of Palermo in Sicily and by the people of Stilo in Calabria: the former because he was once born to the world among them, the latter because he was reborn to heaven in a nearby monastery on this day. the feast day of St. John Theristus is February 24 Paul Gualteri indicates the devotion of the people of Stilo in his Glorious Triumph of the Saints of Calabria, page 167. Concerning the people of Palermo, Ottavio Gaetano, our confrere, writes this in his Sicilian Martyrology: February 24, at Palermo, of St. John, monk, surnamed Theristus, of the Order of St. Basil. He cites and describes the Sicilian Martyrology, and Ferrari in his General Catalogue conjectures in his Notes that perhaps this day is the day of the Translation, since the Roman Martyrology treats of the same person on June 24, where one reads: At Stilo in Calabria, of St. John, surnamed Theristus, not June 24 distinguished for the praise of monastic life and sanctity. The same is read in the Benedictine Martyrologies of Menard and Wion. Dorganius also mentions him, omitting the surname and place of veneration. Bucelinus in his Index notes that John Therectus belongs to June 24, on which day he nevertheless omitted him. on which day his church was consecrated Menard, in Book 1 of his Observations, notes that Gaetano asserts he was of the Order of St. Basil, which is made clear below from the Acts, in which in number 11 it is said that his church was consecrated on the eighth day before the Kalends of July; he himself flew to heaven on the sixth day before the Kalends of March.
[2] Baronius notes that faithful Acts of his exist, which were related to him by Cardinal Sirleto, and adds that Sirleto gave a definite account from the Acts of his surname -- his Acts were written in Greek why he was called Theristus from reaping. These are read in number 10 of the Acts. Anthony Beatillus, our confrere, sent them to us from Naples, having found them in Greek in a manuscript codex of the monastery of Grottaferrata, rendered into Latin and translated into Latin by Stephen Bardaro of Stilo, of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, as is read below in the epilogue. The same Acts were published in Italian by the aforesaid Gualteri, published in Italian from the same ancient codex of Grottaferrata, cited at the beginning: St. John Terrestri, Father of our Order, in Calabria, was born of distinguished parents who observed the religion of Christ, Savior of the human race. We give these same Acts in Latin from the translation of Bardaro. The Greek author is a monk of the same Basilian Order. the surname Theristus Gualteri writes the surname as Terrestri; the manuscript Acts have Theristi; Baronius and others, Theresti; Gaetano, most correctly, Theristis or Theristae. In Greek he is called Ioannes ho Theristes, the reaper, from therizein, to reap, to harvest, for the reason to be recounted below.
[3] Stilo, called Stillum by Leandro Alberti, is a most respectable town on a mountain, Stilo, a town of Calabria four miles inland from the Ionian Sea, in the Bruttii (now called Calabria Ultra), between Locri and the Gulf of Squillace. That an episcopal see once existed there, these Acts report, and indeed one that had been restored after the city and other neighboring towns had long since been destroyed by the Saracens, concerning which ancient records exist in Gualteri, page 166, in these words: formerly an episcopal see These are the bishoprics which were destroyed during that persecution: on the side of the Ocean, the bishoprics of Tauriana, Nicotera, Vibo, Amantea, Agello, Velia... On the side of the Adriatic Sea, the bishoprics of Bruzzano, Gerace, Stilo, Trischene... These bishoprics, beyond the defection of the peoples and the persecution, for many years lacked their own bishops. The Byzantine Empire could provide no assistance on account of the obstacle posed by the Cretans and the Saracens. So it reads there.
[4] Crete was occupied by the Spanish Saracens around the year 823. Sicily was occupied by the African Saracens around the year 828. Calabria and Apulia harassed by the Saracens From that time Calabria and Apulia with their neighboring territories lay open to Saracen depredation. But after about two hundred years, the Normans, having gained power in Apulia, gradually expelled both the Greeks and the Saracens from there. This is attributed especially to William, son of Tancred, who earned the surname "Iron Arm" and was also called Count of Apulia. His brothers succeeded him, liberated by the Normans the most prominent of whom was Robert Guiscard, whom the Acts mention below. Guiscard added Calabria to Apulia and was then created by Pope Nicholas II in the year 1059 Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and indeed also of Sicily, which he hoped to seize. Summoned to Robert the Duke's aid first with Counts being created was his brother Count Roger, father of the younger Roger, whom the Acts also mention. The latter occupied Messina in the year 1060, and fighting successfully with Duke Robert against the Saracens on many occasions, after capturing other cities of Sicily he wrested Palermo from them in the year 1071. After Duke Robert died in the year 1085, or even earlier according to some, his sons succeeded: Roger, called Duke, and Bohemund, who went to Syria and was created Prince of Antioch. Both Duke Roger and Prince Bohemund died in the year 1110. Roger the Duke was succeeded by his son Duke William, who died without leaving an heir on July 26, 1127. There survived the younger Roger, nephew through the brother of Duke Robert, who in January of the following year, before Pope Honorius II, having sworn an oath of fealty, was solemnly installed as Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily by the Archbishop of Capua, then with Kings of both Sicilies and finally on Christmas Day 1130, by the authority of Pope Anacletus, was crowned King of both Sicilies at Palermo. These events are related at greater length in Falco of Benevento, Geoffrey the monk, Lupus Protospatharius, and other writers of that age.
[5] Having related these facts, we arrange the chronology of St. John as follows. He died when the last Roger was the great and august Prince of Calabria, after the death of Duke William, and, as Gualteri rightly observes, before he had yet been crowned King -- St. John died around the year 1127 which we said occurred near the end of the year 1130, so that he departed for heaven on February 24 of the same year, or certainly one or two years earlier, laden with years and merits. Gaetano, page 77, assigns the year 1066, indeed under the Counts of Sicily, as the time when John was living the monastic life as a young man. John was sent by his mother from Sicily to Calabria at a time when Messina with the rest of Sicily still groaned under the Saracen yoke -- therefore before the year 1060, when we said Messina was wrested from the Saracens. He was then a budding youth, an adolescent, a young man, a boy, in his early manhood, beardless, as he is called by these various terms -- perhaps twelve or fourteen years of age. He was born after his mother had been carried captive to Palermo and his father had been killed in a Saracen raid on Calabria; but in what year is not known. born after the year 1040 Pandulph Collenuccio, Book 3 of his History of Naples, records that at the time when Emperor Henry II, crowned at Rome by Clement II, proceeded as far as Capua and settled the affairs of Campania, the Saracens again came to Italy and captured Squillace in Calabria. Clement II was made Pope on Christmas Day 1046 and immediately crowned Emperor Henry. That raid, or some earlier Saracen incursion, may be meant, so that St. John, dying, completed somewhat more than eighty years of life.
[6] Ferrari, in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, on the second day before the Nones of March, offers this eulogy, to be elucidated from what has been said: John, he says, a monk of St. Basil and afterwards an abbot at Stilo, a town of Calabria (which was formerly called Consilinum), surnamed Therestus, he was not an abbot shone with wonderful sanctity. He was a contemporary of St. Nilus the Abbot, who held him in such veneration that he would humbly kiss the ground nor did he live with Saints Nilus and Bartholomew that John walked upon, and called him a second John the Baptist. St. Bartholomew, the disciple of St. Nilus, also held him in the highest honor. Having been made abbot, he presided over the monastery for many years and governed it most holily, leaving behind many disciples of his own institute, and renowned for miracles, he rested there in peace. His body is held in great veneration by the people of Stilo. He adds that he draws these things from a sufficiently lengthy Life, in which his miracles are narrated at greater length. On this day he is venerated at Stilo, but in the Roman Martyrology he is treated on the eighth day before the Kalends of July. He is called Therestus, as if "reaper," and the reason is explained in the account of his miracles. Of him Girolamo Marafioto treats in his Chronicle of Calabria, Book 1. So says Ferrari in that Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, published in 1613; he later in 1625 published a new General Catalogue of Saints not in the Roman Martyrology and treats of St. John Theristus as we do on February 24, calling him a monk, not an abbot, and noting that his Life exists, written in Greek, which we give here translated into Latin. Ferrari is silent there about Saints Nilus and Bartholomew, having perhaps learned by then that they were older than St. John Theristus, and that St. Nilus had died long before he was born in Sicily; during his sojourn there under the Saracens, St. Bartholomew also appears to have died -- he who is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on November 11, and St. Nilus on September 26. In the Greek-Latin Life of St. Nilus published by Caryophilus at Rome in 1624, we find no mention of this John Theristus. Marafioto treats of both in Book 1, chapter 35, praising also the sanctity of a certain John whom Saints Nilus and Bartholomew revered, but he does not append the surname Theristus, so that he appears to have been a different John.
[7] A priest of the Congregation of the Oratory, who in marginal notes to the Roman Martyrology indicated the passages of Baronius's Annals where mention is made of the Saints, or, if none is made, suggested the times at which they flourished, noted at the aforesaid entry for St. John Theristus on June 24 he did not flourish in the year 976 that he flourished around the year 976, a contemporary of St. Nilus -- in which year Baronius commemorates some deeds of St. Nilus in the Annals, as the same priest also annotated at September 26. But we have already rejected these claims, drawn from Ferrari.
LIFE
by a monk of the Order of St. Basil, translated by Stephen Bardaro, from the manuscript of Anthony Beatillus of the Society of Jesus.
John Theristus, monk of the Order of St. Basil, at Stilo in Calabria (St.)
from manuscript.
CHAPTER I
The birth, education, conversion to the faith, and entrance into monastic life of St. John Theristus.
[1] St. John Theristi, Father of our Order, was born in Calabria of distinguished parents who observed the religion of Christ, Savior of the human race. St. John, descended from the Counts of Cursano in Calabria His father was a count of a certain town called Cursano, situated in the territory of Stilo, where in our time it is said to be Butteria. At that time Sicily was almost entirely filled with Moors, who, as perpetual enemies of the Christian name and people, having formed an impious alliance among themselves, assembled a huge fleet and a very large army on that island, to the great terror of the faithful. his father having been killed Setting sail from that island and landing on the shores of Calabria, they destroyed a great many villages and very many towns, among which were Tauriana, Vibo, Stilo, and Cursano. In the destruction of Cursano, by God's permission, the father of John was killed. His mother, however, who was pregnant, was dragged off to the famous city of Palermo, he is born in Sicily after his mother was carried off by the Saracens and a leading man of that city, finding her abundant in beauty and grace, took her as his wife. The woman imbued the little child she bore with the precepts of the Christian faith with her whole heart; her husband, however, instructed him in the laws of Muhammad.
[2] When the youth reached puberty, and his mother knew him to be modest and prudent, she addressed him thus: "My son, I myself was brought here as a captive; therefore this is not my homeland. Nor is that man whom you now consider your father your true sire. For your father, who was a count, was inhumanely slaughtered by this barbarous nation at Cursano, our noble town in Calabria, he learns from her his true lineage near Stilo, beside the river above the monastery of the Rhodian Order. And shortly after: My son, the lordship of Cursano and the disposition of our goods belong to you as the true heir his ancestral possessions and son. Therefore, if you wish to strive to gain possession of them, you will also find there a great treasure in our palace, which your father and I had long ago buried." And she told him thoroughly about the location. After this the Countess girded herself for what mattered most -- the salvation of the boy. Therefore she also said: "My son, those who adhere to the sect of the Moors assuredly await the punishments of hell; and the mysteries of the Christian faith but those who embrace the Christian faith will suffer no harm." She even added: "No one, my son, no one will be able to place his soul in safety or enjoy that most blessed and most delightful vision of God unless in this vale of sorrows he has been cleansed by the washing of regeneration, which remedy of human salvation is administered at Cursano. There true worship is rendered to God; here you cannot be saved, since there is no one to wash you with such a laver."
[3] about to depart for Calabria Making these and other pious words frequently, the nurturing mother inflamed the mind of her son toward the reception of baptism, and therefore he said: "Mother, my desire to go to Cursano burns with eagerness, even if I should perish." Then the woman brought forth that Prophetic saying: "Cast your care upon the Lord," etc. At last, understanding that her son was firm in this resolve, having received from her a small crucifix she gave him a small crucifix which she had been carefully keeping in her possession, fortified him with that greatest of signs, and admonished him to take refuge in it in adversity. And shedding many tears, she sent him on his way. Proceeding thence to the sea, Psalm 54:23 he boarded a small boat and boldly undertook the voyage. But when he was crossing the Strait of Mamertina, he was spotted by the guards of Messina he renders the Moors immobile and was immediately pursued. But the youth, taking the crucifix in his hands and turning toward them, rendered them all both stupefied and immobile.
[4] Meanwhile, as the west wind blew, he continued his journey most favorably and at last arrived safely at the shores of Stilo. in Calabria he is examined by the Bishop The inhabitants of the region, seeing him clothed in Moorish garb and attire, seized him and, by God's counsel and providence, brought him before the Bishop, who asked him who he was, where he came from, and what he sought. He humbly replied: "From the land of the Moors, because I have heard that in these regions the holy sacrament of baptism is administered." To him the Bishop said: "At your age you cannot attain this; nevertheless, if you are gripped by this desire, you must first enter a cauldron of boiling oil." Then the youth, with cheerful countenance: confronted with a cauldron of boiling oil "Behold, I am ready for everything, provided I may obtain what I desire." The Bishop, wishing to test the young man's spirit, ordered a fire to be kindled and a vessel placed over it, and he kept adding logs from the outside to make it boil quickly. When he saw that it was seething, the youth, ablaze with love for baptism, removed the outer garment in which he was clothed. The Bishop, admiring his fortitude, immediately embraced him. he is instructed and baptized Thereafter he catechized him with all the skill he could, and then led him to the church, where with great solemnity he baptized him, chose to call him John by his own name, and wished him to lodge and remain with him.
[5] Around the same time, the youth frequently visiting the church, once while examining the icons of various saints in it, he asked those standing by: "What image is this, and what is that one?" by occasion of the images in the church When he came to the image of St. John the Baptist: "Who is this one covered in camel skin?" They replied: "This is John the Baptist, most dear to God, who was a mirror of penance; he inquires about the life of St. John the Baptist whom you ought rightfully to imitate, since you have been given his name." And he asked them about the Baptist's life, and they explained as briefly as possible his harsh and barren life in the desert and the manner of his death.
[6] Having heard these things, John, illuminated by divine light, went to the Bishop to ask that he be permitted to withdraw into solitude away from the crowd of mortals, desiring to imitate him, he seeks the desert so that he might more securely serve the Lord of lords. The Bishop pointed out to him a small chapel in certain woods to the north, at the second milestone from the city, where at present the holy bones of John are venerated; in which place most devout Fathers, namely Ambrose and Nicholas, were leading a heavenly life according to the rule of our great Father Basil. Having obtained leave from the Bishop, he hastened to the monks he goes to the monks of St. Basil and besought them with humble words to admit him into their fellowship. But they: "Return, my son, for you are too young, and you have come here more for our disturbance than for our edification." To them the beardless youth: "My Fathers, I have come to you for no other reason than to attend to the salvation of my soul, after a long rejection by rendering service to God and to you." And the monks said to him: "Go back, boy, for our way of life is so arduous that we ourselves can scarcely endure it." Having said this and shut the stranger out, the monks had recourse in their prayers to the Father of lights. But the newcomer, standing outside the door for several days, entreating them with the utmost humility and tears, was at last admitted and admonished again with these words: "Return, my son, for you are exceedingly young and will by no means be able to bear the yoke of the rule." But the youth said: "With God's good help and relying on your assistance, I hope it will be easy for me." he is admitted When at last the constancy of his pleading was proved, the brothers, moved by divine impulse, admitted him into their fellowship with incredible joy on John's part.
[7] Some months later, the novice, not unmindful of his mother's words concerning his family's possessions and the buried treasure, informed the monks about them. he distributes his father's treasure to the poor Wherefore, sent by his superior to Cursano, he found the treasure intact and, to the immense joy of the monks, distributed it to the poor according to the rule of our most holy Father Basil. From then on he devoted himself to constant prayers, contemplations, fastings, mortifications of the body, he lives a holy life vigils, and the reading of Sacred Scripture.
AnnotationsCHAPTER II
Miracles. Death.
[8] Not far from the monastery there is a cave from which a perennial spring flows, which indeed, as tradition holds in our times, is called the Water of the Saint on account of what follows. To this place, with the permission of his Prior, John would withdraw at intervals to pour forth prayers to God most high. called the Water of the Saint Sometimes in winter, when he was praying here amid the freezing cold, the lord of Stilo, who was also named John, returning from the hunt and passing by this place, while the lord mocks him for bathing fixed his gaze upon the servant of Christ, and suddenly taking offense, he turned to his attendants and companions and said: "Look at what the monks do -- they wash themselves so as to appear more beautiful and attractive to others." And as he was speaking, his innards immediately felt as if a flame were burning most fiercely, a heat that never ceased increasing. Yet he managed to return laboriously to his house and, half-dead, fell upon his mother's neck, crying out and weeping bitterly. She asked: "My son, what is wrong?" struck by holy fire "Alas, Mother, my heart is being terribly consumed by flames!" When asked what he had done, where he had passed, or what he had seen, he answered: "I was hunting, and I passed by the cave near the hermitage, and there I saw a monk washing himself. Thereupon I fell into offense, and immediately this burning seized me." His mother, loving him above all else, casting aside all delay, hastened together with her servants to the monks' house, which she found them reciting the hourly psalms. When they had scarcely finished these, he is healed by drinking the water at St. John's command the sorrowful woman immediately summoned the hermits and, prostrate as a suppliant at their feet, with face, voice, and tears implored them to relieve the burning that afflicted her son. John, moved by the lady's prayers, held out a small vessel, saying: "Go, woman, to the cave, fill it with water, and devoutly give it to your son to drink." When he had tasted it -- wonderful to say -- the flame was extinguished and the sick man immediately recovered. For this reason, the lord himself, together with his mother and her brother, bestowed upon Blessed John a piece of land which they afterwards called Pyrito, a name meaning "fire," in memory of the kindness.
[9] A certain knight at the monastery of St. John of the Rhodians, which in our time is called Monasterace, being a great benefactor of the Fathers then dwelling in the hermitage, supplied them annually with necessities for bodily nourishment and clothing. John, wishing to visit this man in June during the harvest season, took for himself a wine flask full of unmixed wine and a portion of bread. When he arrived at the fields, one of which is called Maro and the other Muturavulo, St. John, mocked by the reapers of the pious knight he found there a strong and industrious multitude of the knight's reapers, harvesting them. When they caught sight of him, they began, as is their custom, to mock him and assail him with taunts. Yet the son of Basil, as if hearing nothing, approached them, offered a greeting, and presented them with the bread and wine he was carrying for their refreshment, and set it before them. They, eating and drinking, were all satisfied by the gift of God, he gives them food and drink, the quantity not diminished and what was most remarkable and worthy of admiration: the quantity of bread and wine always remained intact.
[10] John, contemplating this and wishing to give thanks to almighty God, deliberately withdrew from that place. Among his acts of thanksgiving, contrary to expectation, the sky gathered into clouds the sheaves, reaped and bound during his prayer and soon rain poured from heaven. Therefore the hired laborers, avoiding the rain, took shelter under the trees. When the Father had given due thanks to the Most High, he found both fields reaped and the sheaves bound. Fearing lest on account of this some veneration or attention should be shown to him, he abandoned his intended journey and returned to the monastery. Then, when the sky had cleared and the sun had returned, the eager band of young men rose to take up their sickles again; but when they beheld all the crops of the fields already reaped, and could not find the servant of Christ, a great astonishment seized them. At last, after various consultations among themselves, they made their way back to the knight's dwelling, singing songs and exulting with excessive joy, on account of their wages. The master, coming out to meet them, rebuked them, saying: "What is this foolishness? Are you out of your minds? Why have you left my fields at this hour, when it is not yet midday, and have not continued the work?" To him they answered with one voice: "Master, the harvest is finished and the sheaves are bound." Then the Knight: "How is this? Since even tomorrow the same number of workers would not suffice me?" he receives those fields as a gift from the Knight All the more firmly did they assert what they had narrated. He again: "Did you not call upon additional help?" "Not at all," they answered; "only that monk John came to us, who brought food and drink, and then departed." The master, upon investigation and having easily ascertained the truth of the matter, said: "Father John reaped my fields; therefore I have now resolved to bestow them upon him." A few days later the devout Knight carried this out, and from those fields the monks receive their produce and are sustained to this day. On account of this miracle, John was surnamed Theristi, and he is surnamed and depicted as Theristes which means "reaper." For this reason he is depicted with a wine flask, a sickle, and a portion of bread.
[11] Roger Guiscard the younger, nephew of Robert through his brother, the great and august Prince of Calabria, had long suffered from an incurable ulcer on his face, he dies on February 24 which even then, by God's permission, no physician had been able to cure. When the fame of John had spread widely to him, he went to visit him, scorning any difficulty of the journey, but found that he had already died; for shortly before, his soul -- on the sixth day before the Kalends of March -- had flown from this earthly prison to heaven. And although the death of the friend of Christ afflicted the Prince with the greatest sorrow, he nonetheless, falling to his knees before the holy and sweetly fragrant corpse, Roger Guiscard, Prince of Calabria, is healed at his corpse addressed him with great devotion: "O Blessed John, beseech the Lord on my behalf, that by His immense mercy He may deign to deliver me from this disease." Having completed this prayer, he reverently took a fringe of the deceased's habit, and rubbing it against the ulcer, by the mercy of God and the merits of the departed, the ulcer remained attached to the fringe -- to the great delight of the Prince -- and, what was even more remarkable, no trace of a scar appeared any longer on the Prince's face. The Prince, astounded by the miracle, and his entire retinue of nobles and attendants, all with full voice gave glory to God of gods in His servant. Moreover, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation declared the sanctity of His servant by many other innumerable portents and miracles, and various others for He restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, loosed the bond of the tongue for the mute, and delivered those
tormented by demons. He also drove away many other ailments and diseases. Moved by these things, Roger founded the monastery and church as it is seen today, and had it consecrated on the eighth day before the Kalends of July; he also bestowed certain fields and woodlands, from which the monastery to this day benefits and is sustained.
[12] I have extracted this Life of the holy John Theristus from a certain most ancient manuscript codex which is preserved in the monastery of Grottaferrata near Tusculum, Epilogue of the translator and have converted it from Greek into Latin -- though not elegantly, yet faithfully -- I, Brother Stephen Bardaro of Stilo, of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, in the year since the crushing of the serpent's head 1624, on the fourteenth day of June.
AnnotationsON BLESSED MEFORIUS, OR MEFORTIUS, CONFESSOR.
CommentaryMeforius, or Mefortius, Confessor (Bl.)
G. H.
An ancient manuscript Martyrology which is preserved in the Carmelite house at Cologne, after recording the feast of St. Matthias the Apostle and the Finding of the Head of St. John the Baptist on the twenty-fourth day of February, adds only this: At Caesarea in Cappadocia, of St. Sergius the Martyr. On that same day, of Blessed Mesorius the Confessor. Of St. Sergius we have treated above. Of Meforius, the manuscript Florarium of the Saints, the Martyrology printed at Cologne in the year 1490, and Hermann Greven in the supplement to Usuard published in 1515 and 1521 also treat, in these same words: On that same day, of Blessed Meforius the Confessor. But Maurolycus, Abbot of Messina, in his Martyrology gives the name thus: On that same day, of Blessed Mefortius the Confessor. The same Mefortius the Confessor was also ascribed to this day by Felicius in his Calendar published at Urbino in 1577. The other particulars concerning the place and times, along with his other Acts, remain unknown to us. The manuscript additions of the Carthusians of Brussels to Hermann Greven have this: On the same day, the Translation of St. Maurtus -- which appears to refer to the same Meforius or Mefortius.