Severin of Norikum

ON ST. SEVERINUS, PRIEST, APOSTLE OF THE NORICANS.

Year of Christ 482.

Severinus, Priest, Apostle of the Noricans, at Naples (St.)

From various sources.

[1] St. Severinus the Priest is celebrated with this eulogy by the Roman Martyrology on the sixth day before the Ides of January: "On the same day, among the Noricans, of St. Severinus the Abbot, who propagated the Gospel among that nation and was called the Apostle of the Noricans. The name of St. Severinus in the sacred calendars. His body was divinely brought to Lucullanum near Naples, and from there was later translated to the monastery of St. Severinus." On the same, Molanus in his Additions to Usuard says: "In Noricum, the deposition of St. Severinus the Abbot, who was widely renowned for the spirit of prophecy and miracles, and was translated to the fortress of Lucullanum near Naples." In a more recent edition, the same Molanus transferred what is said in Usuard about St. Severinus the brother of St. Victorinus (of whom we shall speak a little further on under this same day) to this Severinus, with these words: "At Naples in Campania, the birthday of St. Severinus: which Severinus, after the performance of many virtues, full of holiness, rested in peace." This plainly appears to be the Severinus who is venerated at Naples, as we shall say when we treat of St. Severinus, Bishop of Septempeda. The manuscript Martyrology of the monastery of Richenberg in Bavaria, bearing the name of Bede, also mentions St. Severinus on this day: "Likewise in the province of Bavaria, in the town of Passau, of Severinus the Confessor, a most holy man, endowed with the spirit of prophecy, whose life is extant." Maurolycus writes: "In Pannonia near Noricum and the small town of Astaris, of Severinus the Abbot, a man renowned for the prophetic spirit and miracles, in the time of Attila." But Maurolycus errs in many ways: for he died in Noricum itself, that is, in Austria; not at Astaris, or rather Asturis, but near Favianae, that is, Vienna; and not in the time of Attila, but twenty-eight years after his death, that is, nearly six years before Febanus was defeated by Odoacer, which occurred in the consulship of Boethius alone, in the year of Christ 487. Galesinius writes: "Among the Noricans, of St. Severinus the Abbot, who, renowned both for the spirit of prophecy, and for singular discipline of life, and for many deeds wonderfully accomplished, departed to the Lord. His body, by the authority of Pope Gelasius, was translated by Bishop Victor to the town of Lucullanum, which is near Naples." The Carthusians of Cologne in their Additions to Usuard: "Of Severinus the Abbot, who, after the death of Attila, King of the Huns, was renowned for the prophetic spirit, his life, and miracles." The German Martyrology has a lengthy eulogy of him, but in many respects it needs correction; as when it reports that he was buried in Hungary near the town of Astaris, and that he lived in Hungary at the very time when Attila was widely devastating the provinces, etc.

[2] The Life of St. Severinus was written by Eugippius the Priest, his disciple, whom some call Eugipius, others Eugypius, others Egippius, Life written by Eugippius. Crusenius calls Egippus, Lazius Eugippus, Sabellicus in Ennead 8, book 2 erroneously calls Egisippus, and still more absurdly Irenicus in his Exegesis Germaniae, book 3, chapter 14, called Cregiptius. St. Isidore mentions Eugippius in his book On Illustrious Men, chapter 13, as does Honorius of Autun, and others. He is different from that Eugippius whom Sigebertus in chapter 39 records as having composed from the works of St. Augustine a codex of great utility for the virgin Proba, if indeed that man, as Sigebertus himself writes, lived in the times of Pope Pelagius II and the Emperor Tiberius. Our Eugippius here wrote, as he himself attests in his letter to Paschasius the Deacon, the Life of St. Severinus two years after the consulship of Importunus, that is, in the consulship of Felix and Secundinus, in the year of Christ 511 — not, therefore, as Ferrarius would have it in his Catalogue of Italian Saints, at the command of Pope St. Gelasius, who died in the year 496, as we shall say on November 21. This Life was first published by Laurentius Surius, and from another manuscript codex by Baronius in volume 6 of the Annals; but more perfectly, with the addition of learned scholia, by Marcus Velserus. We have collated these editions with the manuscript of D. Nicolaus Belfortius, and have added the letter of Eugippius to Paschasius from the same manuscript and from volume 6 of the Antiquae Lectiones of Henricus Canisius.

[3] The illustrious deeds performed by St. Severinus, drawn from Eugippius, were described by Joannes Cuspinianus in his Austria, who nevertheless, rashly following Otto of Freising, book 4, chapter 30, and Godfrey of Viterbo, Chronicon, part 16, makes him an Archbishop of Ravenna, He was not a Bishop of Ravenna. who set out to those regions for the sake of preaching. St. Severus was an Archbishop of Ravenna, of whom we shall treat on February 1, but he was much earlier than St. Severinus. Hieronymus Rubeus in his History of Ravenna, book 3, citing Otto of Freising, does not deny that Severinus, the Apostle of the Noricans, was originally from Ravenna, but says he was bishop of another city, or perhaps not a bishop at all. Velserus read Rubeus less accurately, for Rubeus does not deny that Severus, as Velserus cites him, was a bishop, but rather Severinus, whom he expressly acknowledges to have come to Noricum. Joannes Aventinus also reviews the Acts of St. Severinus in his Annals of the Bavarians, book 2, near the end, but with little fidelity, Aventinus criticized. as anyone who compares will see, and we shall occasionally indicate below. Concerning his homeland and brother, Aventinus rashly fabricates the following: "This man, born in Africa ... after the death of Attila, I know not whether fleeing the cruelty of the Vandals, withdrew to these Roman provinces with his brother Victorinus." Those who wrote about St. Severinus. With greater fidelity, the deeds of Severinus are recounted by our Andreas Braunerus in book 4 of the Annals of Bavaria; our Matthaeus Raderus in volume 1 of Bavaria Sancta; M. Velserus in his Rerum Boicarum, book 3; Franciscus Haraeus; Henricus Fabricius in German; Heribertus Rosweydus in Belgian; Jacobus Tigeou in French; Zacharias Lippelous in volume 1; Petrus de Natalibus, book 2, chapter 56; Philippus Ferrarius in his Catalogue of Italian Saints. Wiguleus Hundius also treats of him in volume 1 of the Metropolis, in the catalogue of the Bishops of Lorch. Christophorus Gewoldus likewise in his Annotations there. The Chronicon of Richenberg, edited by the same Gewoldus.

[4] Paul the Deacon also mentions St. Severinus in book 1 of the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 19, with these words: "In these regions of the Noricans there was then the monastery of the Blessed Severinus, who, endowed with all the holiness of abstinence, was already renowned for many virtues: who, though he had dwelt in those same places until the end of his life, yet now Naples holds his body. He frequently admonished this Feletheus, of whom we have spoken, and his wife, whose name was Gisa, to cease from iniquity with heavenly words. When they spurned his pious words, he predicted long beforehand what afterwards befell them." Sigebertus in the Chronicon at the year 479. Vincent of Beauvais, book 20, chapter 99. Carolus Sigonius, book 15, On the Western Empire, at the year 487. The Blessed Ennodius also, in the Life of St. Antonius of Lerins, which we shall give on December 28, writes thus: "Lest he break the resolutions of his holy purpose through the blandishments of his parents, St. Antonius, December 28, his disciple. he was stripped of his father's guardianship at the age of scarcely eight. But soon thereafter, the age ignorant of deceit flew to the most illustrious man Severinus: who, while he caressed the boy with kisses, read in the child future good things as though already accomplished. For he was one from whose merits nothing was hidden. He proclaimed everywhere with pious voice that this boy would be his future companion: I believe, in order that the announced hope might strengthen the apprenticeship of the beginner." He then relates how, after Severinus died, the boy went to Constantius, Bishop of Lorch, his paternal uncle; and when this man also died, he was conducted to Italy by servants — at the very time, that is, when the relics of St. Severinus were carried away from Noricum.

[5] Caesar Engenius Caracciolus also treats of Severinus in his Neapolis Sacra, Things erroneously written about Severinus. but transmits certain things that do not agree with the history of Eugippius, and therefore do not deserve credence; as when he says that Severinus was born in Noricum or Hungary, but when Attila was devastating Austria and Hungary, he set out for Rome and there assumed the monastic habit; then returned from Milan to his homeland; and founded two monasteries in the German city of Bettulia, etc. He seems to have received these from Ambrosius Staibanus, who writes the same things, except that he reports that Severinus received the habit of that order not at Rome but in Tuscany, from disciples of St. Augustine; and that upon returning to his homeland, in order to encourage the Christians groaning under the tyranny of Attila, he restored a leper to health at Milan.

[6] Whether he belonged to the Order of St. Augustine. We do not wish to deny that he followed the institutes of St. Augustine, since the ancients have transmitted nothing in either direction: but those moderns who assert this ought to produce certain testimonies of the ancients, in order to find credence. Certainly what Nicolaus Crusenius writes about him in his Augustinian Monasticism, part 2, chapter 1, is not solid, especially since he approves Aventinus's conjecture about Africa as his homeland and the cause for leaving it, and reports it in such a way that it appears drawn from Eugippius. Then indeed what he adds is ridiculous: "This Severinus, as Ambrosius Staibanus reports, was an Augustinian monk under the discipline of Severus, Bishop of Mileve, of whom St. Augustine frequently speaks. While he strove to imitate the virtues of this man, and was already approaching them very closely, he was called by all Severinus, Fictitious origin of his name. as though a little Severus. Meanwhile, when the Vandals arrived, he migrated with his brother Victorinus and others to the city of Favianae and to the Vindelic provinces still subject to the Romans, where he conferred great benefits on the inhabitants and their neighbors." St. Augustine does indeed mention in Epistle 34, near the end, Severus, Bishop of Mileve, his fellow student. But from what does it appear that the fellow-studentship must be understood as referring to monasticism? Where does Staibanus report that Severinus was his disciple and was called by a diminutive form of his name? And even if he did report it, on what authority?

[7] At Naples, the celebration of the Translation of St. Severinus is observed on October 10, Translation October 10. as we shall say below, when we treat of the Translation after the Life.

[8] Christophorus Phreislebius (we do not know what authority he followed — he certainly cites none) reports that St. Severinus was Bishop of Naples in the time of Diocletian: then that he came to the Noric regions and built a small monastery near the river Oenus, and there with a few monks, according to the Evangelical and Apostolic teaching, endowed with all piety and chastity, led his life in prayer and fasting. It is uncertain whether he is speaking of St. Severinus the Apostle of the Noricans, by whom that small monastery was built, or of the one whom others report to have been Bishop of Naples. He plainly seems to have rashly confused the two, and to have followed the opinion of Petrus de Natalibus regarding the bishop's date.

LIFE

BY EUGIPPIUS THE PRIEST.

Severinus, Priest, Apostle of the Noricans, at Naples (St.) BHL Number: 7655

Letter of the Author to Paschasius the Deacon.

By Eugippius.

[1] To the holy lord and deservedly venerable Paschasius, Eugippius sends greetings in the Lord. Nearly two years ago, that is, in the consulship of Importunus, Basilicus, a celebrated monk. a letter from a certain noble layman, addressed to a certain priest, was presented to us for reading, containing the life of the monk Basilicus; who had formerly resided in the monastery on the mountain called Titas, above Ariminum, and afterward died in the region of Lucania — a man very well known both to many and to me. When I learned that this letter was being copied by several persons, I began to consider with myself, and also to declare to religious men, that the miracles so widely celebrated through divine effects wrought by the Blessed Severinus ought not to be concealed.

[2] When the author of the aforementioned letter learned of this, Eugippius asks Paschasius to write the Life of St. Severinus: with a readier spirit he commissioned me to send him certain records of the same St. Severinus, with which he might be equipped to write a book of his life that would profit the memory of those who came after. Compelled therefore immediately by this offer, I composed a Memorandum filled with numerous records drawn from the very well-known and daily accounts of our elders — not without great sorrow of mind, for I considered it unjust that, while you were still alive, a layman should be asked by us to undertake this work: upon whom both the manner and the style of the work could not be imposed without a certain presumption, lest perchance, polished only in secular literature, he might write the life in such a style that the ignorance of many would greatly labor over it; and the marvelous deeds, which had long lain hidden in a kind of silent night, might not — as far as concerns us — shine forth for those ignorant of liberal letters, on account of his obscure mode of discourse. But I shall no longer seek the little flame of that lamp, while you shine like the sun; only do not veil from me the rays of your skill under some cloud of excuse, accusing yourself of inexperience. Do not, I beseech you, strike me with such harsh words, when you say: "Why do you expect water from a stone?" Surely I no longer expect water from the stone of a worldly street, but from you, who, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, will refresh us from the firmest rock with that honey of speech which flows from you; from which, sending even now a foretaste of your most sweet promise, you bid me transmit a Memorandum or records of the life of the oft-mentioned Severinus, He sends him the material. which, until they are deemed worthy to pass into the book of your composition, may in no way offend the mind of the reader. For whoever seeks an architect to build a house must carefully prepare the necessary material: but if the mass is assembled out of unpolished stones, like walls, while the craftsman delays, one must never be said to have built, where no craftsmanship of a master builder has entered at all, and no proper foundations are laid beneath: so I too, barely preparing the precious material for your genius with the most humble arrangement, ought not be thought to have written what I desire, where no structure of liberal discipline and no beauty of grammatical refinement exists. It has, however, the sure foundation of faith alone, by which the holy man is acknowledged to have been resplendent with wondrous virtues, which I now offer through the hands of your tongue to be set in place, intending to render the praises due to Christ from the summit of your work.

[3] I also pray that you may deign to append those benefits of virtues and remedies of healings which were accomplished by divine power either on the journey or here at the memorial of that most blessed Father, Miracles of St. Severinus at Lucullanum. and since the faithful bearer, your son Deogratias, knows them very well, we commend them to be reported by word of mouth, hoping that we shall continually bear the name of porter also with regard to the completion of your work; so that the most faithful servant of God, rich in such great virtues, just as he is raised by the grace of Christ to the glory of the Saints through his own merits, may likewise be consecrated to human memory through your writings. Indeed, the homeland from which he originated is perhaps necessarily inquired of by us, so that from it, as is customary, the beginning of the life to be woven might be taken. Concerning which, although I confess that I have no clear document, nevertheless I shall not keep silent about what I have learned on this matter, also from you.

[4] Since therefore many priests and spiritual men, as well as noble and religious laymen, whether natives or those gathering to him from distant regions, frequently hesitated, inquiring among themselves, He conceals his homeland. of what nation the man was whom they saw shining with such great virtues, and no one at all dared to inquire of him — at length a certain Pirmenius, a priest of Italy, a noble man of full authority, who had fled to him at the time when the patrician Orestes was unjustly slain, fearing his killers because he was said to have been like a father to the slain man — after many days of acquired familiarity, he burst forth as though on behalf of all, and asked thus, saying: "Holy lord, from what province has God deigned to grant such a light to these regions?" To this the man of God first responded with gracious cheerfulness: "If you consider me a fugitive, prepare for yourself a price which you can offer for me when I am sought." Then, adding these words in earnest, he said: "What benefit is it for a servant of God to indicate his place or his lineage, when he can more holily avoid boasting by keeping silent about it — as the left hand, in ignorance of which I desire, by Christ's gift, to complete a good work — so that I may deserve to become a companion of the right hand and be enrolled as a citizen of the heavenly homeland? If you know that I, though unworthy, truly desire this, what need is there for you to know the earthly homeland which you seek? Know, however, that God, who granted that you should become a priest, himself also commanded me to be present among these imperiled people." And the aforementioned priest fell silent at such a response, nor did anyone before or after presume to question the blessed man about this matter. Yet his very speech testified that he was entirely a Latin man: and it is established that he had set out for a certain solitude of the East in the fervor of a more perfect life; and from there afterward came, driven by divine revelation, to the towns of Noricum Ripense, bordering upon Upper Pannonia, which were pressed by frequent incursions of the barbarians; as he himself, with a more secret motive, was accustomed to relate as though speaking of another, naming certain cities of the East, and indicating that he had marvelously passed through the perils of an immense journey. These things alone, which I have related, I always heard whenever conversation arose about the homeland of the Blessed Severinus, even while he was still alive. The records of his marvelous life, joined to this letter and reviewed under the headings set before the Memorandum, will, as I have asked, be made clearer by the mastery of your book. It remains for you not to cease joining your prayers to his, and not to desist from seeking pardon for me.

a He is called Opportunus by others; he was sole consul in the year of Christ 509, which was the eighteenth year of the Emperor Anastasius.

b Belfortius reads Bassi. Concerning Mount Titanus, or Titano, where there is now a village called San Marino, we shall treat on September 3 in the Life of St. Marinus.

c A famous city on the Adriatic sea, which takes its name from the river of the same name.

d Belfortius reads Pygmenius. Braunerus reads Primenius.

e This man, created commander of soldiers by the Emperor Julius Nepos, rebelled against him and made his own son Momyllus, also called Augustulus, emperor on the day before the Kalends of November, 475. Odoacer, summoned into Italy by the rivals of Orestes, killed him and his brother Paulus, and relegated Augustulus to Campania, in the year 476, in the consulship of Basiliscus II and Armatus.

f Baronius reads Senior.

g The edition of Henricus Canisius here inserts Africanum, a word which was absent from the manuscripts of Belfortius and Baronius, and does not seem necessary. Braunerus suspects Romanum: Baronius favors this. Aventinus writes that he was of African origin, as we have said.

h Noricum Ripense is whatever lies along the bank of the Danube from the Oenus, the boundary of Raetia and Vindelicia, all the way to the Pannonians. Velserus, on chapter 1.

i Baronius reads clauso sermone.

LETTER OF PASCHASIUS THE DEACON

to Eugippius the Priest.

Severinus, Priest, Apostle of the Noricans, at Naples (St.) BHL Number: 7657

[5] To the holy lord and always dearest Eugippius the Priest, Paschasius the Deacon sends greetings. Paschasius praises the Life of St. Severinus written by Eugippius. Dearest brother in Christ, while you, weighing the eloquence of your skill and the happiness of your leisure against our situation, disdain to reconsider the bitternesses and manifold occupations of sinners, bear the loss of modesty for the sake of love. You have sent a Memorandum to which the eloquence of the learned could add nothing; and you have disclosed in a brief compendium a work which the universal Church might review, while you have more truly explained the life and character of the Blessed Severinus, who dwelt in the provinces bordering Pannonia, and have handed down to the memory of posterity the miracles which divine power wrought through him, to endure for long ages. The deeds of the pious do not know how to pass away with the world: so that all may have him present, and in a certain manner feel him dwelling with them, to whom the account of reading shall have conveyed him. And therefore, since you yourself have spoken more simply and explained more easily those things which you were asking me to narrate, we have judged that nothing should be added by our effort to your labor. For we narrate what we have heard in one way, and set forth what we have experienced in another. The virtues of masters are more easily expounded by disciples, who are more frequently prompted by the conversation of their teachers.

[6] Inspired by divine gifts of grace, you know how much the deeds of the Saints impart of benefit to the minds of the good that are to be cultivated, The utility of the Lives of the Saints. how much fervor they bestow, how much purity they infuse, concerning which matter the authority of the Apostolic voice, becoming more widely known, says: "Be examples to the flock"; and the Blessed Paul commanded Timothy: "Be an example to the faithful." 1 Pet. 5:3; 1 Tim. 4:12. Whence the same Apostle, weaving together a catalogue of the just with the greatest brevity, beginning from Abel, proceeds to narrate the virtues of distinguished men. Heb. 11; 1 Macc. 2. So also that most faithful Mathathias, already approaching his most glorious death, distributed to his sons by hereditary right the examples of the Saints, so that, aroused more swiftly by their admirable contests, they might despise their own lives for the eternal laws in the fervor of holiness. Nor did the paternal instruction deceive the children: for the deeds of their ancestors profited those mentioned so greatly that, armed with the most manifest faith, they terrified princes, overcame sacrilegious camps, far and wide destroyed the demonic cults and altars, and secured for their splendid homeland the civic crown adorned with perennial garlands. Whence let us also rejoice to provide something by fraternal ministry for the adornments of the bride of Christ — not that, as I believe, in any age the more illustrious life of the ancestors was lacking, but that it is fitting for the house of the great King to have the banners of many triumphs. For true virtue is not excluded by a multitude of virtues, but is to that extent amplified by desired successes.

a Our Rosweydus had formerly collated this letter with the manuscript of Balthasar Moretus, with which the codex of Belfortius was largely in agreement.

b From this it is clear that Wiguleus is mistaken, who in volume 1 of the Metropolis, in the catalogue of the Bishops of Regensburg, makes Paschasius the author of the Life of St. Severinus.

c The manuscripts of Belfortius and Moretus read celebrius.

LIFE OF ST. SEVERINUS.

Severinus, Priest, Apostle of the Noricans, at Naples (St.) BHL Number: 7656

By Eugippius.

CHAPTER I.

St. Severinus predicts various things in Noricum: he assists those in distress.

[7] At the time when Attila, King of the Huns, died, both Pannonias and the other territories bordering on the Danube were thrown into turmoil by uncertain affairs: and first, among his sons, great conflicts arose over obtaining the kingdom, who, swollen with the disease of unjust domination, took their father's death as the occasion for their wickedness. At that time, therefore, the most holy servant of God, Severinus, arriving from the regions of the East, was dwelling in the neighboring parts of Noricum Ripense and the Pannonias, in a town which is called Asturis, living according to the Evangelical and Apostolic St. Severinus comes to Austria. teaching, endowed with all piety and chastity, fulfilling his venerable resolve with holy works in the confession of the Catholic faith. While therefore, strengthened by such exercises, he was innocently pursuing the palm of his heavenly calling, one day he proceeded to the church as was his custom: then, having called together the priest, the clergy, and the citizens, he began with all humility of mind to predict that they should ward off the imminent snares of the enemy by prayers and fasts and the fruits of mercy. He predicts the coming of the enemy. But their stubborn minds, inclined to carnal desires, proved the oracles of the preacher true at the peril of their own unbelief. The servant of God, however, returned to the lodging where he had been received by the custodian of the church, and revealing the day and hour of the imminent destruction, said: "From this obstinate town, soon to perish, I depart in haste." Thence he withdrew to the nearest town, which was called Comagenis. This town was guarded most strictly by barbarians stationed within it, who had entered into a treaty with the Romans, and no easy permission to enter or leave was granted to anyone. By these, however, the servant of God, though unknown, was neither questioned nor repelled. And so, having immediately entered the church, he exhorted all who were despairing of their own safety to arm themselves with fasting and prayers and almsgiving, setting before them examples of ancient deliverance, by which divine protection had miraculously freed his people contrary to everyone's expectation. And when they hesitated to believe him as he promised the safety of all at the very crisis of danger, He migrates to another place: there he predicts joyful things. an old man who had formerly been the host of so great a guest at Asturis arrived, and having been questioned by the guards of the gates with anxious inquiry, showed by his appearance and his words the destruction of his own town, adding that on the very day which a certain man of God had predicted, it had been destroyed by the devastation of the barbarians. On hearing this they responded anxiously: "Do you think he is the one who, when our situation was desperate, promised us the aid of God?" Soon therefore, when the servant of God was recognized in the church, the old man, prostrate at his feet, declared that he had been freed by his merits, lest he should undergo destruction together with the other townspeople.

[8] When the inhabitants of the aforementioned town heard these things, begging pardon for their unbelief, they obeyed the admonitions of the man of God with holy works, and devoting themselves to fasts, assembled in the church for three days, correcting their past errors with groaning and lamentation. On the third day, when the solemnity of the evening sacrifice was being completed, a sudden earthquake occurred, The barbarians routed by a miracle. and the barbarians dwelling within were so terrified that they forced the Romans to open the gates for them quickly. Going out, they all scattered in flight, believing themselves hemmed in by a siege of neighboring enemies, and increased in terror by divine power, confused by the darkness of the night, they cut each other down with mutual swords. When the adversaries were thus consumed by such destruction, the people, preserved by divine protection, learned through the holy man to fight with heavenly arms.

[9] At the same time, a severe famine had oppressed the city named Favianae: its inhabitants believed that the sole remedy available to them was to invite the man of God from the above-mentioned town of Comagenis with devout prayers. He is called to Vienna. Foreknowing that those who had come to him were about to go, while he hesitated whether to go with them or not, he was admonished by the Lord to go with them. When he had arrived there, he began to urge the citizens, saying: "You will be able to be freed from so great a plague of famine by the fruits of penance." When they were profiting from such instructions, the most blessed Severinus learned by divine revelation that a certain widow named Procula had hidden away great quantities of grain, and bringing her forward publicly, he rebuked her vehemently. "Why," he said, "born of most noble birth, do you make yourself a handmaid of greed, and show yourself a slave of avarice, which, as the Apostle teaches, is the servitude of idols? Eph. 5:5. He rebukes one who hoards grain in time of famine. Behold, while the Lord mercifully provides for his servants, you will have nothing to do with your ill-gotten goods, unless perhaps, casting the grain long denied into the currents of the Danube, you show humanity to the fish which you have denied to men. Wherefore, help yourself rather than the poor, from those things which you still think you are keeping while Christ hungers." When she heard these words, the woman, stricken with great fear, began willingly to distribute to the poor what she had hoarded. Not long after, therefore, many boats from the regions of Raetia, loaded with very many goods, were unexpectedly seen on the bank of the Danube, which for many days had been frozen fast by the thick ice of the river Oenus: Provisions arrive unexpectedly. which, loosened at once by God's command, brought an abundance of food to those suffering from famine. Then all began with continuous devotion to praise God, the bestower of unexpected relief, who had believed they would perish from the evil of prolonged famine, confessing that the boats, freed from the ice beyond the usual season, had arrived by the prayers of the servant of God.

a In the year 454.

b Of whom, as Jordanes writes in his work On the Affairs of the Goths, chapter 50, through the license of lust there was almost a whole nation. The eldest was called Ellac, others say Chabas: this one engaged in a memorable battle with his brother Aldaricus, by which the power of the Huns was utterly broken. Velserus, book 2 of the Rerum Boicarum.

c Surius, Baronius, Haraeus read Casturis. Lazius reads Castuns and Casturis, that is, as he says, Castris Augustis, a bold conjecture, as Velserus judges. Petrus de Natalibus and Ferrarius read Astaris. In the Notitia Imperii under the Duke of Pannonia I and Noricum Ripense there appears Austuris: Ortelius calls it Astura. Aventinus, Annals book 2: "The town of Asturis on the border of Noricum Ripense and Pannonia perished," namely in these times of Severinus. Cuspinianus in the Description of Austria, in the Life of St. Colomannus, holds it is Stockerau; Guido Panciroli, Commentary on the Notitia Imperii, chapter 83, makes it a town of Mysia, called Asutas by Stephanus, as he says. We do not find that word in Stephanus, but rather Asyra and Asyron, a city of Asiatic Mysia near the Troad.

d Petrus de Natalibus reads Commagonis. Velserus reads Comagenis, that is, at a camp. Antoninus has Comagenas in the Itinerary. Cuspinianus says it is called Kaumberg, Lazius says Hollenburg. Ferrarius writes that this town was then surrounded by a hostile siege; erroneously, as is evident from this passage.

e The manuscript of Belfortius reads conciti. Braunerus thinks these barbarians were remnants of the army of Attila; others think they were Boii.

f Cuspinianus writes that it was called Flavabis in Gothic, like Batabis which is now Batavia. Velserus says Castra Fabiana, from a cohort perhaps Fabian or Fabiana. From Fabianis, with the final syllables cut off on both sides and the A changed to E, is derived Wien, otherwise called Vindobona, now the capital of Austria. Georgius Brunus in his theater of cities does not approve this, but offers nothing more certain.

g Some read Aeni, better Oeni. It separates the Raetians from the Noricans and at Batava mingles with the Danube. Velserus. The manuscript of Belfortius reads Rheni, erroneously.

h Others read colligatae.

CHAPTER II.

He predicts victory and other things, or obtains them by prayer.

[10] At the same time, barbarian plunderers by an unexpected raid had led away captive whatever men and cattle they had found outside the walls. And so many of the citizens, coming to the man of God with tears, reported the destruction of the calamity inflicted upon them, at the same time showing the evidence of recent plundering. He then questioned Mamertinus, who was then a tribune, who was afterward ordained bishop, whether he had any armed men with him with whom he might more vigorously pursue the raiders. He replied: "I have very few soldiers indeed, and therefore I do not dare to engage with such a great multitude of the enemy. But if your reverence commands, although we lack the aid of arms, we believe that we shall become victors by your prayer." And the servant of God said: "Even if your soldiers are unarmed, they shall now be armed from the enemy: for neither numbers nor human strength is required where God is proved in all things to be the champion: only go quickly in the name of God, go confidently; for with the Lord mercifully going before, He promises victory. even the weakest shall appear most valiant: the Lord will fight for you, and you shall be silent. Go therefore in haste, observing this one thing above all, that you bring to me unharmed those whom you capture from the barbarians." Going forth, therefore, at the second milestone, upon a stream called Dicuntia, they found the aforementioned plunderers, He feeds the captives and sends them away. who were suddenly turned to flight, and they seized the arms of all of them: the rest they brought bound to the servant of God as he had commanded, as captives. Releasing them from their bonds, refreshing them with food and drink, he addressed them briefly: "Go, and announce to your accomplices that they should not dare to approach here any further out of greed for plunder; for they will immediately be punished by the judgment of heavenly vengeance, as God fights for his servants, whom he is accustomed to protect by divine power so that the weapons of the enemy bring them not wounds but rather supply them with arms." And so, having dismissed the barbarians, he himself rejoiced in the miracles of Christ, and promised from his mercies that that town would never again experience the plundering of the enemy, provided only that the citizens let neither prosperity nor adversity draw them away from the work of God.

[11] Then the Blessed Severinus, withdrawing to a more remote place which was called Ad Vineas, content with a small cell, was compelled by divine revelation to return to the aforementioned town, He loves solitude. so that although the quietude of his cell delighted him, nevertheless, obeying the commands of God, he built a monastery not far from the city, where he began to form many persons in the holy way of life, instructing the souls of his hearers more by deeds than by words. He himself, however, frequently withdrew to a secret dwelling-place called by the inhabitants Burgum, He builds a monastery. five miles distant from Favianae, so that, avoiding the throng of people who were accustomed to come to him, he might cling immediately to God in continual prayer. But the more he desired to dwell in solitude, the more frequently he was admonished by revelations not to deny his presence to the afflicted peoples. And so his merit increased day by day, and the fame of his virtues grew, which, spreading far and wide, revealed the signs of heavenly grace in him. For good things cannot remain hidden, since according to the saying of the Savior, neither can a lamp be concealed under a bushel, nor can a city set on a hill be hidden. For among the other great works which the Savior had granted him, receiving the outstanding gift of abstinence, he subjected his flesh to very many fasts, teaching that the body which is nourished with more abundant foods will immediately bring destruction to the soul. He walks barefoot even in winter. Never wearing any footwear at all, he was always content to walk with bare feet even in the middle of winter, which in those regions grows numb with fiercer frost, giving a singular proof of patience. As witness to the severity of this cold, the Danube itself is known to be so often frozen with excessive ice that it provides a solid passage even for wagons. Yet he who was elevated by such virtues through the grace of God professed the deepest humility, saying: His humility. "Do not think that what you see is of my merit; it is rather an example for your salvation. Let human rashness cease, let the pride of arrogance be restrained: we are chosen so that we may be capable of some good, as the Apostle says: 'Who chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and immaculate in his sight.' Pray rather for me, that the gifts of the Savior may profit me not unto an increase of condemnation, but unto an increase of justification." These and similar things he was accustomed to utter with tears, instructing men by a wondrous example of humility, fortified by the foundation of which virtue he shone with such splendor of the divine gift that even his heretical enemies honored him with the most reverent services.

[12] For indeed the King of the Rugii, named Flaccitheus, began to waver in the very beginnings of his reign, having the Goths from Lower Pannonia fiercely hostile to him; by whose innumerable multitude he was terrified. He therefore consulted the most blessed Severinus in his perils as though consulting a heavenly oracle. Coming to him while he was most violently disturbed, he lamented that he had requested from the Gothic princes passage to Italy, and did not doubt that, because this had been denied him, he would be killed by them. Then the aforesaid king received this response from the man of God: He instructs the King of the Rugii with salutary admonitions. "If one Catholic faith united us, you ought rather to have consulted me about the perpetuity of eternal life; but since you inquire only about your present safety, which is common to us both, listen and be instructed. You shall be troubled neither by the numbers nor by the hostility of the Goths, because soon, when they depart, you shall reign in the prosperity you desire, in security: only do not neglect the admonitions of my humility. Let it therefore not be irksome to you to seek peace even with the least, and never rely on your own strength. 'Cursed,' says Scripture, 'is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm and whose heart departs from the Lord.' Jer. 17:5. Learn therefore to guard against snares, not to set them; for you shall pass away on your bed with a peaceful end." When he departed rejoicing, having been admonished by such an oracle, a report was brought to him that a band of plundering barbarians had captured some of the Rugii, and he immediately sent to consult the man of God. The saint, by the Lord's revelation, forewarned him with holy commands not to pursue the plunderers, saying: He reveals the ambushes prepared for him. "If you pursue them, you will be killed; take care not to cross the river, and do not succumb with an improvident mind to the ambushes that have been prepared for you in three places: for soon a trustworthy messenger will arrive who will make you certain of all these things." Then two of the captives, fleeing from the very strongholds of the enemy, reported in order all the things that had been predicted by the most blessed man through the revelation of Christ. Therefore, when the ambushes of the adversaries had been frustrated, Flaccitheus, increased with more prosperous growth, ended his life in the most tranquil circumstances.

[13] After this, a certain man of the Rugian nation, He heals an invalid who had been bedridden for twelve years. afflicted for twelve years with an incredible pain of the bones, had lost all soundness of his limbs, and his intolerable agony had become very well known to all the neighbors far and wide by its very long duration. And so, when no variety of remedy availed, at length his widowed mother conveyed her son, placed on a vehicle, to the holy man, and throwing the hopeless case before the gate of the monastery, she prayed with continual weeping that her only son be restored to her in health. But the man of God, sensing that great things were being demanded of him, moved by her tears, said: "Why am I burdened by a false reputation? Why am I thought able to do what I cannot? It is not within my power to bestow such great things: yet I give counsel, as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord." Then he instructed the woman to distribute something to the poor according to her ability. She, without delay, quickly stripping herself of the garment she was wearing, hastened to divide it among the needy. When the man of God heard this, admiring her fervor, he again instructed her to cover herself with her own garments, saying: "When your son walks with you, the Lord being his healer, you shall fulfill your vows by your works." Therefore, after prescribing a fast of a few days as was his custom and pouring forth prayers to God, he immediately healed the sick man and sent him home walking on his own feet in full health. When afterward the man appeared at frequent market-days, he displayed a stupendous miracle before the eyes of all beholders: for some said, "Behold, he is the one who was broken by the rottenness of his body"; while others, flatly denying that it was he, gave rise to a welcome contention. For from that time when health was restored to the hopeless man, the entire nation of the Rugii, frequenting the servant of God, began to render the tribute of their gratitude, and to seek aid for their ailments. From other nations also, to which the fame of so great a miracle had spread, many desired to see the soldier of Christ.

[14] In the same spirit of devotion, even before this event, certain barbarians, while journeying to Italy, turned aside to him for the purpose of obtaining his blessing: among whom Odoacer also, who afterward ruled Italy, had come — then a young man of tall stature, wearing the most wretched garments. When he bowed down, He predicts the kingdom of Italy for Odoacer. lest he strike his head against the low roof of the cell, he learned from the man of God that he would become glorious. And as he was taking his leave, Severinus said: "Go to Italy, go — now covered with the most wretched skins, but soon to bestow very many gifts upon many."

a Aventinus makes him a governor: Velserus rightly disapproves.

b These words were absent from the codex of Surius; Velserus suspects a gloss, since at nearly the same time Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne in Gaul, was living, of whom we shall treat on May 11. Lazius identifies Mamertinus as the first Bishop of Vienna in Austria, and confirms this on the authority of an old chronicle; with little solidity, in Velserus's judgment.

c Surius reads Taguntia. Belfortius reads Gyguntia. Raderus reads Iaguntia, or Dicuntia. Staibanus reads Tiguntius.

d Belfortius reads Ad Iuncas. Lazius testifies that the ruins of the cell survive in the village of Siferinga, and that the village takes its name from St. Severinus. Cuspinianus testifies that he himself purchased a property there where the remains of Severinus's cell stood, in memory of him. It is a great mile from Vienna. But Lazius says the greater monastery was at the place called Heiligenstadt, that is, "holy place," from the dwelling of the Saints there. Thence St. Leopold removed stones for the construction of Klosterneuburg, as we shall say on November 15 in his Life. Ferrarius writes that this monastery was built for St. Severinus by the King of the Rugii.

e Cuspinianus interprets this as Burkensdorf: but what he says about Flaccitheus, King of the Rugii, having dwelt there is not proved. Staibanus and Engenius write that the saint went into a solitude called Burgum.

f Surius reads Rugiorum, which Velserus prefers. They seem to have inhabited the region contained between the Viadrus and Vipera rivers in the Duchy of Pomerania: whence certain of their forces, having set out, settled near the Danube. Paul the Deacon, book 1 of the Deeds of the Lombards, calls the territory inhabited by Feletheus, King of the Rugii — which, he says, the Danube separates from the borders of Noricum — Rugiland, which in Latin speech is called the homeland of the Rugii. Raderus thinks that, harassed by the Goths and a fugitive from the Ocean, he settled on those shores: whereas on the contrary, on those very shores, occupied by war, he was pressed by the neighboring Goths. Staibanus says he won a victory over the Goths, predicted by Severinus.

g Others read Flaccitheus, Flaciteus, Flacitheus; Irenicus reads Flactitetus.

h After the death of Attila, these received seats in Pannonia from the Romans. Jordanes, On the Affairs of the Goths, chapter 50.

i Belfortius reads Odouacar. Jordanes reads Odouacer. Elsewhere Odobagar and Otachar; Aventinus reads Odagrius and Odacer; commonly Odoacer, who became King of Italy in 476.

CHAPTER III.

Contempt for the saint is punished: he gathers relics: he shuns honors.

[15] Feletheus also, who was also called Fava, the King and son of the aforementioned Flacitheus, following his father's diligence, began to frequent the holy man at the beginning of his reign. His wife, savage and harmful, named Gisa, was always drawing him back from the remedies of clemency. She, therefore, among other contagions of her iniquity, even attempted to rebaptize certain Catholics; but out of reverence for the holy Severinus, as her husband did not consent, she quickly desisted from her sacrilegious intent. Nevertheless, she oppressed the Romans with harsh conditions, and even ordered some to be carried off across the Danube. For when one day, coming to a village near Favianae, she had ordered some to be transported across the Danube to her, The cruel Queen scorns St. Severinus. to be condemned to the servitude of the most menial tasks, the man of God, sending word to her, requested that she release them. But she, blazing with the fires of womanly fury, ordered the harshest reply to be brought back: "Pray for yourself," she said, "O servant of God, lurking in your cell; let it be permitted to us to dispose of our servants as we wish." When the man of God heard this, he said: "I trust in the Lord Jesus Christ that she will be compelled by necessity to fulfill what she has scorned through perverse will." And swift correction followed, which prostrated the spirit of the arrogant woman: for she had confined certain barbarian goldsmiths under strict guard for the making of royal ornaments. To these, the son of the aforementioned King, a very small child named Fredericus, on the very day on which the Queen had scorned the servant of God, rushed in, moved by childish impulse. Then the goldsmiths placed a sword against the child's breast, saying that if anyone attempted to approach them without a sworn guarantee, they would first run through the royal child, In the peril of her son, she implores his aid, experiences it, and gives thanks. and then slay themselves; since they promised themselves no hope of life, wasted as they were by long imprisonment. When the cruel and impious Queen heard this, rending her garments with grief, she cried out thus: "O Severinus, servant of God, is this how the injuries inflicted upon you are avenged by your God? Have you sought this vengeance for my contempt with profuse prayers, that you should wreak revenge upon my own flesh and blood?" And so, running about in manifold anguish and pitiable lamentation, she confessed that she was struck with the punishment of the present plague for the crime of contempt which she had committed against the servant of God, and immediately sending horsemen to beg pardon, she also sent the Romans whom she had taken that day, on whose behalf she had scorned the one who pleaded for them; and the goldsmiths, immediately receiving the oath, and releasing the little child, were themselves likewise released. When the most reverend servant of Christ heard these things, he rendered immense thanks to the Creator, who sometimes delays the requests of petitioners for this reason: that as faith, hope, and charity increase, while lesser things are asked, he may grant greater things. For this is what the power of the Almighty Savior accomplished: that while the savage woman subjected free people to servitude, she was compelled to restore servants to liberty. When these things were marvelously obtained, the Queen, immediately hastening with her husband to the servant of God, showed him the son whom she confessed had been freed from the brink of death by his prayers, promising that she would never again oppose his commands.

[16] The servant of God, St. Severinus ransoms captives: endowed with the grace of prophecy, also showed great diligence in ransoming captives. For he labored most zealously to restore to their native liberty those who were afflicted by barbarian dominion. Meanwhile, he commanded a certain man who had been ransomed along with his wife and children to cross the Danube, in order to seek an unknown man at a barbarian market, he shines with the spirit of prophecy. whom he had learned of by divine revelation to such an extent that he even described the signs of his stature, the color of his hair, the appearance of his face and the style of his garment, and indicated in what part of the market he would find him, adding that whatever the person he found should say to him, he should return and promptly report to him. Setting out, therefore, he found everything, marveling, just as the man of God had predicted. And so, questioned by that same man whom he marveled at having found, he heard him say: "Do you think I can find someone who will lead me to the man of God, whose fame is spread everywhere, for whatever price he wishes? For it has been a long time that I have been humbly entreating the holy Martyrs themselves, whose relics I carry, that I might at last be released from this unworthy service, which I have sustained until now not by rash presumption but by religious necessity." Then the messenger of the man of God presented him to Severinus, who, receiving the relics of the holy Martyrs Gervasius and Protasius with due honor, placed them in the basilica He collects the relics of saints. which he had built in the monastery, through the ministry of priests. In that place he gathered together the relics of very many Martyrs, which, however, he always obtained through preceding revelation, knowing that the adversary often creeps in under the name of holiness.

[17] When he was also asked to accept the honor of the episcopate, he declined with a definitive response, He refuses the episcopate. saying that it was sufficient for him that, deprived of his desired solitude, he had come by divine direction to that province in order to be present amid the frequent crowds of those in tribulation. Intending nevertheless to give a pattern to monks, he admonished them with greater care to follow in the footsteps of the blessed Fathers, from whom instruction in the holy way of life might be acquired, and that care should be taken lest he who has left parents and the world should desire, by looking backward, the allurements of worldly pomp which he had avoided; He instructs monks. and for this reason he set before them the terrible example of Lot's wife. He also recalled that the incentives of lust must be mortified by the fear of God, and declared that the fires of bodily pleasure could not otherwise be overcome unless they had been quenched by the font of tears through the grace of God.

a Elsewhere he is called Feletheus; by Paul the Deacon, book 1, chapter 19, Feletheus and Feua (Velserus and Lazius, book 12 of the Roman Republic, read Fethia); by others Febanus, Filitheus, Fauia, Fauianus, Felteus; Belfortius reads Seua. Braunerus also reads Faba. Raderus reads Feletus. Petrus de Natalibus reads Feuba. Staibanus reads Feletrus and Selettus; and he calls his wife Lisa.

b Aventinus, with his usual rashness, calls the goldsmiths and embroiderers Romans; he says that Severinus interceded for them, and that Gisa's son, stricken with illness, was healed by Severinus's prayers.

c Belfortius and Baronius read praesidio.

d Velserus warns that here not a place of public commerce is meant, but a rural village; both are expressed by the same German word Markt.

e They are venerated on June 19.

f Staibanus and Engenius write that the episcopate was offered to him by Odoacer. Who reports this?

CHAPTER IV.

He aids captives and the afflicted: he corrects the sacrilegious.

[18] A certain man named Maurus was the sacristan of the basilica of the monastery, whom the Blessed Severinus had ransomed from the hands of the barbarians. He frees captives from the hands of plunderers. One day the man of God commanded him, saying: "Take care that you do not go anywhere today; otherwise you will not be free from imminent danger." This man, therefore, contrary to the command of so great a Father, at the persuasion of a certain secular man, went out at midday to gather fruit at the second mile from Favianae, and was soon carried off across the Danube by barbarians as a captive together with the man who had persuaded him. At that hour the man of God, while reading in his cell, suddenly closing his book, said: "Seek Maurus immediately!" When he was found nowhere, Severinus himself, crossing the waters of the Danube as quickly as possible, hastened in pursuit of the plunderers, whom the common people called Scamari. Unable to bear his venerable presence, they humbly returned those whom they had captured as captives.

[19] While the upper towns of Noricum Ripense still stood, and scarcely any fortress avoided the incursions of the barbarians, the reputation of St. Severinus blazed so illustriously that individual fortresses competed to invite him to themselves for their own defense, believing that by his presence nothing adverse would befall them. He is sought by all the towns. This was not accomplished without the grace of the divine gift, so that all might be awed by his admonitions as though by heavenly oracles, and be instructed in good works by his example. The holy man had also been summoned by the devotion of the inhabitants to a fortress called Cucullis, where a great miracle was wrought which I cannot pass over in silence: which, however, we learned from the account of Marcianus, afterwards our priest, whose stupendous miracles in that same place are recorded. Part of the people, therefore, was attached to abominable sacrifices in a certain place. He miraculously detects and abolishes abominable sacrifices. When the man of God learned of this sacrilege, having addressed the people with many speeches, he persuaded the priest of the place to proclaim a three-day fast, and ordered candles to be brought from every house, which each person affixed to the walls of the church with his own hand. Then, when the Psalter had been chanted through as was customary, at the hour of the sacrifice, the man of God exhorted the priest and deacon to beseech with him, with all alacrity of heart, the common Lord, that he might show the light of his knowledge for discerning the sacrilegious. And so, when he had prayed with most copious tears and on bended knees, the greater part of the candles which the faithful had brought was suddenly kindled by divine power, while the remaining candles — those of persons who had been tainted by the aforementioned sacrileges and had denied it, wishing to remain hidden — remained unlit. Then those who had placed them, declared by the divine examination, immediately cried out and revealed the secrets of their hearts with acts of satisfaction, and by the testimony of their own candles, all attested to their own sacrileges with open confession. O merciful power of the Creator! — kindling candles and minds alike, the fire lit in the candles shone also in their senses. The visible light melted the waxes into flames, while the invisible light dissolved the hearts of those confessing into tears. Who would believe that those whom sacrilegious error had enveloped afterward shone more brightly in good works than those whose candles had been divinely kindled?

[20] At another time, in the territory of the same fortress, locusts that devour crops had settled in great numbers, devastating everything with their harmful bites. He drives away locusts by his prayers. Struck by such a plague, the priests and other inhabitants soon approached St. Severinus with the most earnest prayers, saying: "That the ferocity of so great a plague may be removed, we beg the proven support of your prayers, which we have recently perceived in the great miracle of the kindled candles to avail much with the Lord." Addressing them with greater devoutness, he said: "Have you not read what divine authority commanded a sinning people through the Prophet, saying: 'Turn to me with your whole heart, in fasting and weeping'? Joel 2:12, 15. And shortly after: 'Sanctify a fast, call an assembly, gather the people, sanctify the Church,' and the rest that follows. Fulfill these things, that you may easily escape the evil of the present time by worthy works: let none of you go out from me to the field, as if to ward off the locusts by human care, lest the divine indignation be further provoked." Without delay, therefore, when all had been gathered in the church, each one in his proper order was chanting psalms as was customary. Every age and sex, even those who could not utter the words, offered their prayer to God with tears; almsgiving did not cease; whatever good works the present necessity demanded was fulfilled, just as the servant of God had commanded. While all were occupied with such devotions, a certain very poor man, abandoning the work of God that had been begun, went out to his field to look after his own crop, which lay very small among the plantings of others, and, anxious all day long, drove off the cloud of locusts hovering overhead with what effort he could, and then entered the church to receive communion; The disobedience of a certain man punished. but a dense mass of locusts devoured his small crop, which was surrounded by the plentiful harvests of his neighbors. When these were driven from those territories that night by divine command, it was proved how much a faithful prayer avails. For in the morning, the violator and scorner of the holy work, going out again to his field in misplaced confidence, found it utterly consumed by the plague of the locusts, and greatly marveling that the plantings of all those around him were unharmed, he returned to the fortress with cries of lamentation; and when he had revealed what had happened, all went out to see this miracle, where the bites of the locusts had destroyed the disobedient man's crop as if along a regular line. Then, prostrate at the feet of all, he begged pardon for his offense with profuse lamentation and their intercession. On which account the man of God, finding an occasion for admonishment, taught all to learn to obey almighty God, at whose commands even the locusts obey. The aforementioned poor man, however, tearfully pleaded that he could obey commands henceforth if any hope of sustenance remained to him. Then the man of God, addressing the others, said: "It is just that he who by his own punishment has given you an example of humility and obedience should receive the food of the present year through your generosity." And so the poorest man, corrected and enriched by the collection of the faithful, learned how much loss unbelief brings, and how much benefit divine generosity confers upon those who worship.

a Belfortius reads Scameras. Velserus writes that this is not the name of a people but of a type of brigandage.

b Surius reads intraret. Velserus does not entirely condemn this reading.

c Surius reads Cocullis. Petrus de Natalibus reads Cocullo; Lazius reads Catullus, which he conjectures is today called Tulln. Staibanus and Engenius write that this miracle took place at Favianae.

d Others read Maiorani and Maioriani. Velserus rightly reproaches Lazius for asserting from this passage that Marcianus was made Bishop of Favianae immediately after Mamertinus, having passed from monk in the monastery of St. Severinus.

e The manuscript of Belfortius reads exterminatis.

CHAPTER V.

He performs various other miracles.

[21] Likewise, near the town called Iuba, when one day in the summer season they entered the basilica to celebrate the evening solemnity, and could find no fire to light the lamps, they were unable to strike a flame from stones in the usual manner, so long delaying with the mutual striking of iron and stone that the time of the evening solemnity was passing. But the man of God, with his knees fixed to the ground, was praying more intently. The candle of St. Severinus is miraculously lit. Soon therefore, in the sight of three spiritual men who were then present, the candle which the holy Severinus was holding in his hand was lit. By this light, the sacrifice of the evening hour was completed as was customary, and thanks were rendered to God in all things. Although the aforementioned man wished to conceal from those who had been present at this miracle — as also many other great works that had been celebrated through him by divine effects — nevertheless the brilliance of so great a virtue could not be hidden, but excellently kindled great faith in the rest.

[22] He restores to health a woman already laid out for burial. It also happened that a certain woman of the same place, afflicted with a long illness, lay half-dead, with funeral preparations already made; her relatives, suppressing the funereal voices with a mournful silence and a certain outcry of faith, laid her body, now nearly lifeless, before the door of the holy man's cell. When the man of God saw that his entrance was blocked by the obstacle of the bier, he said to them: "What is it that you have wished to do?" They answered: "That by your prayer the lifeless woman may be restored to life." Then he himself, bursting into tears, exclaimed: "Why do you demand great things of one so small? I know myself to be utterly unworthy; would that I might deserve to find pardon for my own sins." And they said: "We believe that if you pray, she will revive." Then St. Severinus, immediately pouring forth tears, prostrated himself in prayer, and as the woman at once rose up, he addressed them: He ascribes this to the faith of others. "Do not attribute any of this to my works, for the fervor of your faith has earned this grace; and this happens in many places and among many peoples, that it may be known that there is one God who works wonders in heaven and on earth, raising up the lost unto salvation and restoring the dead to life." The woman, having received her health, on the third day began to perform agricultural work with her own hands, according to the custom of the province.

[23] Quintanis was the name of a municipality of the second Raetia, situated on the bank of the Danube; on the other side a small river named Businca was nearby. This river, swelling from the frequent flooding of the overflowing Danube, would occupy some spaces of the fortress, because it was founded on flat ground. The inhabitants of the place also had a church built outside the walls from wood, which, extended in a hanging expanse, was supported by posts and forks driven into the depths, and instead of a floor it had a smoothly joined covering of planks; which, whenever the water exceeded its banks, the overflow would occupy. He restrains the flooding of the river by the Sign of the Cross. St. Severinus had been invited thither by the faith of the people of Quintanis, and when he had arrived in a time of drought, he inquired why the planked flooring appeared with its covering of obstacles stripped away. The inhabitants replied that by the frequent flooding of the river, whatever had been spread over it was continually washed away. And he said: "Let a pavement now be laid over the planks in the name of Christ, for from this time forth you will see the river restrained by heavenly command." When the pavement was completed, the man of God himself, taking an axe, descended beneath and, after offering a prayer, struck the posts, and to the water of the river, having impressed the sign of the venerable Cross, he said: "May my Lord Jesus Christ not permit you to exceed this sign of the Cross." From that time, therefore, whenever the river rose in its usual heaps and surrounded the neighborhood as it was wont to do, it was so much lower than the spaces of the church that it never at all exceeded the sign of the holy Cross which the man of God had impressed.

[24] It happened, however, that the very venerable priest of the aforementioned fortress, Silvinus by name, died: and when they had kept an all-night vigil chanting psalms over his body, which had been placed on a bier in the church, as day was already dawning, the man of God asked all the weary priests and deacons to withdraw for a time, so that after the labor of the vigil they might refresh themselves a little with sleep. When they had departed, the man of God asked the doorkeeper, named Maternus, whether all had left, as he had said. He learns by divine revelation that someone is hidden in the church. When he replied that all had gone, Severinus said: "Not so, but someone is hiding here." Then the doorkeeper, searching the enclosure of the church a second time, testified that no one remained within. But the soldier of Christ, the Lord revealing it to him, said: "I know not who is hiding here." And so, searching a third time more carefully, he found that a certain consecrated virgin had concealed herself in the more hidden places, whom the aforementioned sacristan rebuked thus: "Why, when the servant of God was present here, did you believe you could hide your presence?" And she replied: "The love of piety persuaded me to do this; for seeing that all were being sent outside, I thought to myself that the servant of Christ, having invoked the divine majesty, would raise the dead man who was present." When the aforementioned virgin had departed, therefore, the man of God, with the priest and deacon and two doorkeepers, bowing in prayer, besought with most abundant tears that divine power might show the work of its customary majesty. Then, when the prayer had been completed by the priest, the blessed man thus addressed the corpse: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, holy priest Silvinus, speak with your brethren." And suddenly the deceased opened his eyes. He questions the dead man, and the dead man answers. With difficulty did the man of God persuade those present to keep silent for joy; and again he said to him: "Do you wish us to ask the Lord that he deign to grant you still to his servants in this life?" And he said: "I adjure you by the Lord, do not let me be held here any longer, and do not deprive me of perpetual rest, in which I already perceived myself to be." And immediately, when the prayer had been offered, the lifeless body rested again. This deed was so concealed by the adjuration of St. Severinus that it could not become known before his death; He orders the miracle to be concealed. yet I learned these things which I have related from the account of Marcus the Subdeacon and Maternus the doorkeeper. For the priest and deacon, witnesses of so great a miracle, are known to have died before the holy man, to whom they had sworn that they would reveal to no one what they had seen.

a The manuscript of Belfortius reads Iuuao. Lazius reads Iuuauo; and interprets it as Iuvavia, which Velserus disapproves. Petrus de Natalibus and Staibanus read Ioviaco.

b So reads Belfortius; others read sacrale.

c The Notitia Imperii, under the Duke of Raetia I and II, has the Prefect of the First Flavian Wing of the Raetians at Quintanis. Antoninus calls it Quintianas; it is said to be now called Kuntzen; Cuspinianus says Cuntzing. It is a village on the right bank of the Danube, above Batava.

d Velserus treats of the boundaries of the Raetias in book 1 of the Res Augustanae, and Cluverius in book 5 of his Ancient Germany. They hold that the second Raetia was enclosed by Lake Brigantine and the river Oenus.

e So reads the manuscript of Belfortius. The manuscript of Velserus reads Quintana; he himself, however, prefers Surius's reading of Quintanica.

f Lazius calls him now Silvinus, now Silvius, and makes him a bishop, consecrated by Severinus, who was himself only a priest. Velserus rightly reproaches the ignorance of ecclesiastical matters in that author and his bad faith, since he presents these things as if drawn from Eugippius. Aventinus writes that at Quintanis, or the village of Kunsen, there stands a church where St. Silvinus, a priest of the Vindelici and intimate of Severinus, is buried and venerated. Raderus praises him in volume 2 of Bavaria Sancta as a Blessed; but he is mistaken in memory when he wrote in volume 1 that only the priest and deacon were present at this miracle.

CHAPTER VI.

He aids captives, the poor, and the afflicted.

[25] The Blessed Severinus, therefore, enriched with such gifts through the grace of Christ, had also undertaken such great care of captives and the needy with his innate piety that almost all the poor throughout the towns and fortresses were fed through his industry: He assists captives and the poor. to whom he ministered with such joyful solicitude that he believed himself only then to be truly satisfied and abounding in all good things when he saw the bodies of the needy sustained. And although he himself was not broken by fasts continued through entire weeks, he yet believed himself afflicted by the hunger of the wretched. Many, beholding his so pious generosity toward the poor, although they endured the straits of famine under the harsh rule of the barbarians, most devoutly spent the tithes of their harvests upon the poor. He stirs up others to the same. Although this commandment is very well known to all from the law, they observed it with willing devotion as though they heard it from the mouth of an angel present before them. The man of God also felt the cold only in the nakedness of the poor: for he had especially received from God the gift that, in the coldest region, chastened by marvelous abstinence, he should remain strong and alert. Moreover, for the giving of the tithes, as we have said, by which the poor might be nourished, he exhorted the priests of Noricum also by letters sent to them. Tardiness in a pious work punished. In keeping with this custom, when they had sent to him a considerable supply of clothing for distribution, he asked those who had come whether a similar collection was being sent from the city of Tiburnia as well. When they replied that the supplies from there would soon arrive, the man of God indicated that they would by no means come, but predicted that their delayed offering would be given to the barbarians. And so not long after, the citizens of Tiburnia, fighting in various combats with the besieging Goths, barely having concluded a treaty of peace, among other things also offered to the enemy the collection already gathered in one place, which they had delayed in sending to the servant of God, just as he had predicted.

[26] The citizens also from the town of Lauriacum, having long been admonished by the frequent exhortation of St. Severinus, had delayed in offering the tithes of their harvests to the poor. When they were gripped by famine, with the ripeness of the harvests already turning golden, nearby relief was on display. But when an unexpected blight appeared, threatening to damage the crops, they soon came to him prostrate, confessing the penalties of their obstinacy. Neglect of tithes punished. The soldier of Christ lifted up the weary with spiritual words, saying: "If you had offered the tithes to the poor, you would not only enjoy an eternal reward, but you could also abound in present advantages. But since you correct your fault by your own confession, I promise on the Lord's mercy that the present blight will not ultimately do serious harm; only let your faith not waver any further." The blight averted by fasting. Indeed, this promise made the citizens readier to pay the tithes from that day onward. Then, as was his custom, he urged that a fast be proclaimed: when it was completed, a gentle rain cut short the troubles of the harvest that had been despaired of.

[27] Patavis is the name of a town, situated between two rivers, Severinus frequently comes to Passau. namely the Oenus and the Danube, where the Blessed Severinus had founded a small cell for a few monks in his usual manner; because he himself came there very often at the request of the citizens, especially on account of the constant incursions of the Alamanni, whose King Gibuldus loved him with the greatest reverence. This king also at a certain time came eagerly to see him, and the Saint went out to meet him, lest by his arrival he should burden the city, and addressed the King with such constancy that he began to tremble vehemently in his presence; and afterward he declared to his armies that never in war nor in any terror had he been shaken with such great trembling. And when he gave the servant of God the option of obtaining whatever he wished, He obtains the liberation of captives. the most pious teacher asked that the king, as a benefit rather to himself, would restrain his people from the devastation of the Romans and willingly release the captives whom his men had held. Then the King had decided to send one of his men to accomplish this task more quickly; and at once the deacon Amantius was dispatched and followed the King closely, but though he kept vigil before his doors for many days, he could not be announced. When he was returning most sadly, the matter for which he had been sent remaining unaccomplished, a certain figure appeared to him bearing the likeness of the holy Severinus, who, terrifying him with a threatening address, commanded him to follow. He appears to a certain deacon. And when, trembling and agitated, he followed, he arrived at the gate of the King, and immediately that guide who had gone before vanished from the eyes of the wondering man. The King's intermediary then asked the deacon whence he came and what he hoped for. The deacon, briefly explaining the matter, presented the letters to the King, received replies, and returned. He was therefore dismissed and brought back about seventy captives, also bearing a welcome promise from the King that, when he had carefully traversed the province, he would send back as many captives as he should find in it. For which purpose St. Lucillus the Priest was afterward dispatched, and recalled a great multitude of the wretched from captivity.

a Velserus interprets Noricum as the Mediterranean Noricum whenever Ripense is not added.

b The manuscript of Belfortius reads populos.

c Surius reads Tigurina; Lazius reads Tiberina and Tiberia. Some interpret it as Regensburg or Reginoburgum; with little probability, since in the time of Eugippius, Tiburnia was the capital of Noricum, while Reginoburgum was a city of the second Raetia. Aventinus makes it the town of St. Vitus in Carinthia and says that the remains of Tiburnia survive there. In Ptolemy it is a city of Noricum called Teurnia. Perhaps Teournia was written for Teburnia or Tiburnia. Cluverius thinks it is the town of Villach on the Drava. Velserus regards the word Tiburnia as suspect: it was present in the manuscript of Belfortius, and is retained by Braunerus. Teurnia is also listed among the towns of Noricum by Pliny, book 3, chapter 24.

d Others write Laureacum. It is now said to be a small village beneath the walls of the town of Enns, still bearing the old name Lorch. Antoninus mentions Lauriacum in the Itinerary, as does the Notitia Imperii, which places the Prefect of the Second Legion there, and then also names the Prefect of the Fleet of Lauriacum. Velserus in book 3 of the Boicae thinks it the work of Marcus Aurelius, or rather of Aurelian.

e We have treated of this on January 7, in the Life of St. Valentine. More correctly Batava. Notitia Imperii under the Duke of Raetia: Tribune of the new cohort of Batavians, at Batavis.

f Their power was then strong in Greater Germany, from which they advanced into Raetia and even into Belgium, where they were subdued in a memorable battle by Clovis, King of the Franks, at the town of Tolpiacum in the year of Christ 496.

g Raderus reads Gibaldus.

h From this one may infer the bad faith of Aventinus, who writes that Gibuldus only pretended to come for the purpose of visiting Severinus.

i The manuscript of Belfortius reads Lucellus. Lazius makes him Bishop of Batava, then of Favianae, without authority. Aventinus calls him Bishop St. Lucilius.

CHAPTER VII.

He predicts various things by the divine spirit.

[28] At that time when the Roman Empire still stood, the soldiers of many towns were maintained at public expense for guarding the frontier. When this practice ceased, the military squadrons were simultaneously disbanded; though the Batavian garrison somehow persisted in numbers, from among whom certain men set out for Italy to bring back the last pay to their fellow soldiers, He knows of the slaughter of soldiers though absent. who were slain on the journey by barbarians, and no one had learned of it. On a certain day, therefore, while St. Severinus was reading in his cell, he suddenly closed his book and began to weep with great sighing, ordering the young men standing by to run quickly to the river, which he declared was at that hour sprinkled with human blood; and immediately it was reported that the bodies of the aforementioned soldiers had been carried to the bank by the force of the river.

[29] A certain priest named Paulinus had come to St. Severinus as his fame spread ever more widely. He predicts the episcopate for Paulinus. Having remained some days in the company of the blessed man, when he wished to return, he heard from him: "Venerable priest, make haste, for we believe that soon the dignity of the episcopate will adorn your love, though you resist the desires of the people." When he returned to his homeland, the word of the one who predicted it was fulfilled in him. For the citizens of Tiburnia, which is the capital of Noricum, compelled the aforesaid man to accept the primacy of the highest priesthood.

[30] Relics of the Martyrs were being sought for the basilica outside the walls of the town of Batavis, in a place called Boitro, across the river Oenus, where Severinus himself had built a cell for a few monks. He foretells the destruction to come upon Passau. When the priests therefore pressed to be sent to obtain the relics, the Blessed Severinus offered these admonitions: "Although all things constructed by mortal labor perish, these buildings, however, must be abandoned before all others most swiftly; and therefore no labor should be undertaken for the relics of the Saints, because the blessing of St. John will be brought to them of its own accord." Meanwhile the citizens of the aforesaid town humbly approached the blessed man, asking him to go to Fava, the Prince of the Rugii, to request permission for them to trade. To them he said: "The time of this town has drawn near, that it may remain deserted, just as the other fortresses previously abandoned, destitute of inhabitants. Why then is it necessary to provide merchandise for places where no merchant will henceforth be able to appear?" When they responded that they ought not to be scorned, but supported by the accustomed governance, a certain priest, filled with a diabolical spirit, added: "Go, I beg you, Holy One, go quickly, so that in your absence we may rest a little from fasting and vigils." At this word, the man of God was overcome by copious tears, because the priest had burst forth into ridiculous vanity before all who heard. For open buffoonery is the testimony of hidden sins. The holy man, therefore, when asked by the brethren why he wept so, said: "I see a most grievous plague about to befall this place in our absence; and the sanctuaries of Christ (which I am compelled to express not without groaning) will overflow with human blood, to such a degree that even this place will be violated" — for they were speaking in the baptistery. And so he descended by Danube navigation to his ancient and greatest monastery, near the walls of the town of Favianae, which was more than a hundred miles away. Soon therefore, after his departure, Chunimundus, accompanied by a few barbarians, invaded the town of Batavis, as the Saint had predicted; and while nearly all the inhabitants were detained in the harvest, he slew the forty men of the town who had remained for its defense. He miraculously obtains relics of St. John. That priest also, who had spoken so sacrilegiously against the servant of Christ in the baptistery, was slain by pursuing barbarians when he fled to the same place. For the enemy of truth fled in vain to that place, where God was offended, where he had so shamelessly transgressed.

[31] The most holy Severinus, therefore, while he was reading the Gospel in the monastery at Favianae, rising up after completing his prayer, ordered a boat to be prepared for him at once, and to those present who wondered, he said: "Blessed be the name of the Lord; we must go to meet the relics of the blessed Martyrs." Without delay they crossed the Danube and found a man sitting on the far bank of the river, earnestly beseeching them to be led to the servant of God, to whom he had long desired to come, drawn by spreading fame. When the servant of Christ was shown to him, he humbly offered the relics of St. John the Baptist, which had been kept in his possession for many years. The servant of God, receiving these with due veneration, consecrated the basilica of St. John, as he had predicted, with the freely bestowed blessing, through the ministry of priests.

[32] To the inhabitants, moreover, of the town called Iopia, separated from Batavis by seventy or more miles, He warns the people of Salzburg to flee. the man of God, admonished by his accustomed revelation, dispatched a man named Moderatus, a cantor of the Church, commanding that all should leave the habitation of that place without delay, for they would soon perish if they scorned his commands. When some doubted so great a prophecy and others did not believe at all, he sent again a certain Quintasius, to whom he said weeping: "Go more quickly, announcing to them that if they remain this night, they will be captured without delay." He also ordered the holy Maximus, a priest of the spiritual life, to be admonished more urgently, that at least he himself, leaving behind the scorners, should hasten to be delivered by heavenly mercy; concerning whom the servant of God said that he felt great sorrow, lest perhaps, by delaying the saving command, Maximus should be subject to imminent destruction. The aforesaid messenger therefore went and fulfilled his commands, The negligent are overcome by the Heruli. and while the rest wavered in unbelief, the messenger of the man of God would by no means consent to the priest who was detaining him and wishing to offer hospitality. That night the Heruli, unexpectedly bursting in and devastating the town, led away very many as captives, and hanged the aforementioned priest on a gibbet. When the servant of God heard this, he grieved deeply that those who had been forewarned had not taken heed.

[33] Then a certain man of Noricum, named Maximinus, who was accustomed to frequent the servant of God, while he tarried for some days in the monastery of the holy man on account of the familiarity he had earned, He predicts the incursion of the enemy: they are driven off by fasting. was informed by his oracles that his homeland would suddenly suffer grave destruction. Receiving letters addressed to St. Paulinus the Bishop, he returned with all haste. The aforementioned bishop, therefore, instructed by the tenor of the letters, vehemently admonished all the dioceses and fortresses by his own writings to forestall the destruction of the coming disaster with a three-day fast, which the letters of the man of God had prescribed. When they had fulfilled these commands, at the end of the fast, behold, a very great multitude of Alamanni devastated everything with savage fury. But the fortresses suffered no danger at all, which the breastplate of faithful fasting and praiseworthy humility of heart had confidently armed against the ferocity of the enemy.

a St. Augustine, book 18 of the City of God, chapter 18: that he had been made a packhorse, carrying provisions among other beasts of burden for the soldiers, which is called retica, because it is transported to the retia. Vives: Retia and reticulum is a kind of sack in which travelers were accustomed to carry bread, meat, and fruit. But Velserus reads: which is called Raetica, because it is transported to the Raetias; and thinks the pay was delivered by the same expedition. And indeed Augustine is speaking here about Italy.

b The people of Regensburg begin the catalogue of their bishops from this Paulinus. Conradus de Monte Puellarum is said to have been the first to write this. Velserus refutes it, with our Raderus in agreement. This is clear from what was said regarding chapter 6.

c Lazius reads Boiotro. This place seems to be what Ptolemy calls Boiodurum in table 5 of Europe, chapter 14, and assigns to Vindelicia, since the Oenus flows between Batava and Boiodurum as the boundary of Noricum and Vindelicia. Antoninus and the Notitia Imperii read Boiodorum; the Peutinger Table reads Bolodorum. It is now called Innstadt, as if you were to say "the city of the Oenus." There is a small stream there called Boiter or Boitra, which retains the ancient name: a church sacred to St. Severinus is still seen there, which preserves the memory of the cell mentioned here.

d Fava seems to be the correct reading.

e Between Passau and Vienna there are reckoned about 40 German miles.

f Jordanes calls him Hunimundus; Belfortius reads Humibundus. He was King of the Suevi.

g Aventinus makes him a bishop, and expounds or rather distorts the jest previously directed at the Saint thus: "Go indeed wherever you wish among the nations," he says, "for if you remain here any longer, we shall all, as you threaten, perish of starvation."

h Aventinus, Hundius, and others read Iuvavia, which is now Salzburg. The manuscript of Belfortius reads Lubianum. Raderus reads Topia.

i The manuscript of Belfortius reads twenty.

k Belfortius reads Quintarium.

l Belfortius reads Maximianum. Lazius and Aventinus, without evidence or witnesses, make him a bishop. Raderus in volume 1 of Bavaria Sancta calls him a Saint and Martyr.

m Lazius attributes this incursion to the Alamanni; Aventinus to the Heruli, Alamanni, and other Germanic nations. Paul the Deacon mentions Rodulfus, King of the Heruli, in book 1, chapter 20, and in chapter 9 lists the Heruli among the peoples obedient to Odoacer. Braunerus ascribes this sack of Iuvavia to Odoacer himself.

n Aventinus adds: "More than fifty-five priests were slaughtered along with him, and they were driven headlong from the caves in the cliffs where they had fled, as is still shown. They are reported to have been buried in the church of St. Amandus, which is now St. Margaret's." Bruschius also treats of these in his Patavia, and says that those caves are still shown at Salzburg near St. Peter's. Braunerus agrees, as we have said above.

o The same is called Maximus below.

CHAPTER VIII.

He assists those in peril, the sick, and the needy.

[34] After this, a certain leper from the territory of Milan came to St. Severinus, invited by his fame: when this man humbly implored remedies of healing, Severinus prescribed a fast for his monks and commended him to their care, and he was immediately cleansed by the grace of God. He cleanses a leper. When, having recovered his health, he was urged to return to his homeland, he prostrated himself at the feet of the holy man, begging not to be compelled to return to his own country any further, desiring, namely, to escape also the leprosy of sins as he had that of the flesh, and to end his life in the same place with a praiseworthy end. The man of God, greatly admiring the man's religious spirit, commanded a few monks by paternal authority to continue in constant prayer, observing frequent fasts with him, that the Lord might grant him what was needful. Thus fortified by such great remedies, within the space of two months he was released from the fetters of mortal life.

[35] At the same time, the inhabitants of the town of Quintanis, wearied by the most frequent incursions of the Alamanni, He obtains victory for the Romans. abandoned their own settlements and migrated to the town of Batavis. But the refuge of the aforesaid did not escape the notice of those same barbarians: for which reason they were all the more inflamed, believing they could plunder the populations of two towns in a single assault. But the Blessed Severinus, applying himself more earnestly to prayer, exhorted the Romans in many ways with salutary examples, foretelling that the enemy would indeed be overcome with the help of the present God, but that after the victory those who scorned his admonitions would perish. All the Romans, therefore, strengthened by the holy man's prediction, drew up their battle line against the Alamanni in the hope of the promised victory, fortified not so much by material arms as by the prayers of the holy man. When the Alamanni were defeated and put to flight in this engagement, He again predicts destruction for Passau. the man of God addressed the victors thus: "My children, do not attribute the palm of the present battle to your own strength, knowing that you have now been freed by God's protection, in order that you may depart from here after a short interval of time, as if certain truces had been granted. Gather together, therefore, and descend with me to the town of Lauriacum." This the man of God, full of piety, warned them. But when the Batavians hesitated to leave their native soil, he added: "Although even that town to which we are going must soon be abandoned because of the pressure of barbarism, yet let us now depart together from here." Many followed him as he gave these warnings, but some proved obstinate, and the sword of the enemy did not fail the scorners. For all who remained there contrary to the man of God's prohibition, when the Thuringians burst in during the same week, were either slaughtered or led into captivity, paying the penalties of their contempt.

[36] After the destruction of the towns in the upper part of the Danube, therefore, Severinus with assiduous exhortations instructed all the people who had migrated to the town of Lauriacum, who had obeyed the admonitions of St. Severinus, not to trust in their own strength, but to arm themselves rather with spiritual weapons, devoting themselves to prayers and fasts and almsgiving. Moreover, the man of God one day ordered all the poor to be gathered in one basilica, intending to distribute oil as the occasion demanded; He distributes oil to the poor. which commodity, being very difficult to obtain in those places, was brought only by the importation of merchants. And so, as if for the sake of receiving a blessing, a greater crowd of the needy assembled, for the precious nourishment of this liquid had increased the throng and the number of those asking. Then the Blessed One, having completed his prayer and impressed the sign of the Cross, uttering his customary word from Holy Scripture before all who heard, said: "Blessed be the name of the Lord." Then he began to fill the vessels of the servants who carried them with his own hand, a faithful servant imitating his Lord, who had come not to be served but rather to serve, and following the footsteps of the Savior, he rejoiced that the material increased, which he poured out with his right hand while the left knew nothing. The oil does not diminish unless the miracle is revealed. When therefore the vessels of the poor were filled, nothing was diminished in the hands of those dispensing. While those standing around silently marveled at so great a benefit of God, one of them, whose name was Biennius, terrified with great fear, cried out saying: "My lord, this pot of oil is growing, and overflowing like a spring!" Thus that most welcome liquid was withdrawn when the miracle was revealed. To him the servant of Christ immediately cried out: "What have you done, brother? You have blocked up the benefits of many: may the Lord Jesus Christ forgive you. So once a widow burdened with debts was instructed by the commands of the Prophet Elisha to fill as many vessels as possible from the drop of oil that she had. When she had done so and still demanded vessels from her sons, as soon as she heard that the supply of vessels had run out, the oil immediately stopped."

[37] At the same time, Maximus of Noricum, of whom we made mention above, kindled with the warmth of faith, in the middle of winter, when the roads of that region are blocked by numbing frost, strove to come to the Blessed Severinus with bold rashness, or rather, as was later evident, with intrepid devotion; having hired many companions to carry on their shoulders garments for the benefit of captives and the poor, which the devout collection of the Noricans had gathered together; and so, having advanced, they reached the highest peaks of the Alps, where throughout the entire night so much snow fell that, though they were sheltered by the protection of a great tree, it enclosed them as though sunk in an enormous pit. And when they utterly despaired of their lives, the leader of the companions saw in his sleep the man of God standing in likeness and saying to him: "Do not fear, continue on the way you have begun." He appears to those in peril on the road: Thus encouraged immediately by this revelation, when they had begun to proceed by faith more than by their steps, suddenly by divine direction a bear of immense size appeared from the side, coming to show the way — an animal that in wintertime is accustomed to hide itself in caves — and at once it opened the desired path and for nearly two hundred miles, turning neither to the left nor to the right, showed the longed-for way. For it preceded them by such a distance as its guiding footstep prepared the path. A bear shows them the way. And so the beast, proceeding through the vastness of the wilderness, did not abandon the men who were carrying comfort to the needy, but led them with what humanity it could all the way to the habitations of men, and then turned aside in one direction, its service completed; showing by so great a service of guidance what men ought to render to men, and how much charity they should bestow, since a savage beast had shown the way to those who despaired of their journey. When therefore those who had come were announced to the servant of God, he said: "Blessed be the name of the Lord. Let those enter for whom a bear opened the way by which they came." At this, those men were filled with amazement; for they marveled that the man of God was reporting what had occurred in his absence.

a Velserus prefers Turcilingi, who dwelt not far from there and were obedient to Odoacer.

b The manuscript of Belfortius reads sapientissimus.

c From this it is certainly clear that Paulinus, the bishop of this Maximus or Maximinus (as he is called in section 33), was not the bishop of Regensburg; nor is Tiburnia the same as Regensburg.

d Belfortius reads recenti.

CHAPTER IX.

He is a protection for many against the enemy; he is venerable to the barbarians.

[38] The citizens of the town of Lauriacum likewise, together with the refugees from the upper fortresses, having dispatched scouts to suspicious places, were guarding against the enemy as much as they could by human care. He foretells the coming of the enemy and urges them to keep watch. The servant of God, admonished by the impulse of the divinity, instructed them with a prophetic mind to bring all the provisions of their poverty within the walls, so that the savage incursion of the enemy, finding nothing for human sustenance, would immediately be compelled by famine to abandon its dreadful undertakings of cruelty. Having borne witness to this for three days, as the day was already growing late, he sent a monk named Valens to St. Constantius, the Bishop of that place, and to the other inhabitants: "This night," he said, "keep more diligent watch with guards posted on the walls as is customary, guarding against the snares of the approaching enemy." But they firmly declared that they perceived nothing adverse through their scouts. Yet the herald of Christ did not cease to forewarn them, crying out in a loud voice to those who doubted, declaring that they would be captured that very night unless they faithfully obeyed his commands, frequently repeating: "Stone me," he said, "if I have spoken falsely." And so at last, compelled to keep vigil on the walls, when they had completed the psalmody of their accustomed service at the beginning of the night and had begun to keep watch with the most zealous attendance, a heap of hay that had been placed nearby, accidentally kindled by the torch of a bearer who did not intend it, gave light rather than fire to the city. At this, when all raised a clamor, the enemy, who had been lingering concealed in the forests, terrified by the sudden brightness and the shout, thinking they had been detected, held still; and when morning came, surrounding the city and ranging everywhere, when they found no provisions, they seized the flock of a certain man who, when the servant of God had warned him, had contumaciously scorned to secure his possessions, and they withdrew. When those enemies had departed, the citizens, going out through the gates, found ladders lying not far from the walls, which the barbarians, troubled by the shouting of the watchmen in the night, had cast aside — ladders they had prepared for the destruction of the city. Wherefore the aforementioned citizens humbly begged pardon from the servant of Christ, confessing that their hearts were harder than stones, who from the present events recognized that the grace of prophecy was strong in the holy man; and the entire disobedient populace would have been taken captive in a single assault, had not the accustomed prayer of the man of God preserved them free, as the Apostle James testifies: "The continual prayer of the just avails much." James 5:16.

[39] Feletheus, King of the Rugii, also called Fava, hearing that the remnants of all the towns that had escaped the barbarian swords had gathered at Lauriacum through the servant of God, came with an army, intending to seize them suddenly and carry them off, and to settle them in the towns that were tributary and neighboring to him He persuades Feletheus not to carry off the Romans into his own towns. (of which Favianae was one), which were separated from the Rugii only by the Danube. Wherefore all, being gravely disturbed, humbly approached St. Severinus, asking that he go out to meet the King and soften his mind. Hastening all night to meet him, he encountered him at dawn at the twentieth mile from the city. The King, therefore, immediately alarmed at his arrival, testified that he was greatly burdened by the fatigue of Severinus, and inquired the cause of his sudden journey. To him the servant of God said: "Peace be to you, excellent King: I come as an ambassador of Christ, to beg pardon for those subject to you. Remember the grace, recall the divine benefits by which your father frequently felt himself aided. For throughout the entire time of his reign, he presumed to do nothing without consulting me. And not resisting salutary admonitions, he recognized by frequent prosperities how much the spirit of an obedient man was worth, and how much it profits conquerors not to swell with pride in their victories." And the King said: "This people for whom you come as a benevolent intercessor, I shall not allow to be devastated by the savage plundering of the Alamanni or the wicked Thuringians, or to be slaughtered by the sword, or reduced to servitude, since we have towns and fortresses in which they ought to be settled." To him the servant of Christ steadfastly replied thus: "Were these people rescued from the very frequent devastation of plunderers by your bow and sword, and not rather preserved by the gift of God so that they might serve you for a while? Now therefore, excellent King, do not spurn my counsel; commit these subjects to my care, lest they be devastated rather than migrated by the compulsion of so great an army. For I trust in my Lord that he himself, who caused me to be present in their calamities, will make me capable of keeping my promises in leading them." When the King heard these things, mollified by the modest representations, he returned with his army. The Romans, therefore, whom St. Severinus had received under his protection, departing from Lauriacum in peaceful arrangements, lived with the Rugii in benevolent companionship. He himself, dwelling at Favianae in his ancient monastery, did not cease admonishing the peoples He predicts many future events. or predicting the future, declaring that all would migrate to a province of Roman soil without any detriment to their liberty.

[40] At that same time, King Odoacer, sending familiar letters to St. Severinus, humbly offered him the choice if there was anything he hoped for, He receives letters from Odoacer. mindful of that prophecy by which Severinus had once foretold that he would reign. The Saint, invited by such great overtures, asked that a certain exile named Ambrosius be released. Odoacer joyfully complied with his commands. At a certain time also, when many noblemen were praising the aforementioned King before the holy man with human flattery, as commonly happens, he asked which King they had exalted with such praises. When they replied that it was King Odoacer, he said: He predicts how many years Odoacer will reign. "Odoacer will reign intact for between thirteen and fourteen years" — that is, for thirteen full years — thus signifying the end of his reign; and to these words he added that they would soon prove that what he himself had predicted was true.

a The manuscript of Belfortius reads quatriduum four days.

b It does not follow from this, however, as Lazius wrote, that the royal seat of the Rugii was there; for they still dwelt beyond the Danube, but held certain towns of Noricum as tributaries, or protected them against other barbarians in exchange for a stipend.

c Velserus prefers Turcilingorum.

d Velserus suspects that something is missing here.

CHAPTER X.

He cures illnesses: he predicts and averts dangers.

[41] Having been humbly invited by the townspeople of Comagenis, among whom the Blessed Severinus had first become known, he came. When his presence was learned of, He heals one nearly laid out for burial. one of the nobles of King Feletheus, having carried his son, a young man afflicted with a long illness, for whom he was already preparing funeral rites, across the Danube, cast him at his feet, and weeping said: "I believe, man of God, that you can swiftly obtain healing from God for my son." Then, when he had offered prayer, the one who had been brought half-dead immediately rose, to the amazement of his father, and returned in perfect health.

[42] A certain man afflicted with elephantiasis, named Telo, came from distant regions, drawn by the virtues of St. Severinus, He cleanses a leper. asking to be cleansed by his prayers. Having received the customary instruction, he was ordered to beseech God, the bestower of all grace, tearfully and without ceasing. What more? The same leper, cleansed by divine aid through the prayers of the blessed man, while he changed his character for the better, deserved also to change his appearance, proclaiming far and wide the great works of the eternal King, by his own voice as well as those of many others.

[43] Bonosus also, a monk of the Blessed Severinus, a barbarian by birth, who was devoted to his counsels, For some, health would be harmful. was greatly burdened with weakness of the eyes, and begged that a cure be granted to him by Severinus's prayer, indignantly bearing that outsiders and strangers should enjoy the benefits of saving grace, while no remedial aid whatsoever was shown to him. To him the servant of God said: "It is not expedient for you, my son, to have keen sight in your bodily eyes, and to display the clear vision of the outer eye: pray rather that your inner sight may be strengthened." Thus instructed by such admonitions, he devoted himself to seeing more with the heart than with the body, and deserved to be wondrously perfected without any weariness in the continuity of prayer, and persevering in the vigils of the monastery for nearly forty years, he passed to the Lord with the same warmth of faith with which he had been converted.

[44] In the aforesaid place called Boitro, the humble teacher found that three monks of his own monastery were stained with the foulness of pride, Three proud monks are seized by a demon at his prayer. and when he had rebuked each one for his excesses and found them to persist in their wickedness, he prayed that the Lord, receiving them into the adoption of sons, might deign to correct them with a paternal scourge. Before he had even finished his prayer with tears poured forth, in one moment those same monks, seized by a demon's attack, confessed in pitiful voices their obstinacy and the haughtiness of their breast and the pride of their heart. Far be it that this should seem cruel or harmful to anyone, for they were delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, as the Blessed Apostle teaches, that the spirit might be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ; 1 Cor. 5:5. just as the Blessed Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, said that the servant of Stilicho, caught as the author of forged letters, ought to be delivered to Satan, lest he dare commit such things in the future; and at that very moment, while the word was still in the mouth of the priest, an unclean spirit seized him and began to tear him apart. Severus Sulpicius also relates, from the account of Posthumianus, that a certain man remarkable for great virtues and wondrous signs, in order to expel from his heart the vanity of boasting which he had incurred, prayed that, with the power of the devil permitted over him for five months, he might become like those whom he himself had cured. The same author continues shortly after: "And so, seized by a demon, held in bonds, he suffered everything that demoniacs are accustomed to endure; and at last in the fifth month he was cured, not only of the demon but, what was more useful and desirable to him, of the vanity of elation." The man of God therefore assigned the aforesaid monks, entrusted to the brethren, to the arduous remedies of abstinence for forty days. He frees them. When these were completed, having offered prayer over them, he delivered them from the power of the demon and imparted not only health of body but also of mind. By this deed, the terror of reverence for the holy man increased, and a greater fear of discipline took hold of the rest.

[45] He had sent the monk Marcianus, who afterward as priest presided over the monastery before us, to Noricum with his brother Renatus. He divinely knows of the danger of his own men and averts it. And when the third day was passing, he said to the brethren: "Pray, dearest ones, for at this hour a grave tribulation presses upon Marcianus and Renatus, from which, however, they will quickly be freed by the help of Christ." Then the monks, immediately noting what he had said, when those men returned after many months and indicated the day and hour of the danger in which they had escaped the barbarians, confirmed it was as they had recorded.

[46] Likewise, the most blessed Severinus suddenly commanded a monk named Ursus to meet the coming calamity with a stricter fast of forty days, He predicts the illnesses of his own men and heals them. with abstinence from food and lamentation, saying: "A bodily danger threatens you, which you will expiate with the remedies of a small bread and water, by God's protection." On the fortieth day, therefore, a deadly pustule appeared on the arm of the fasting man, which he soon showed humbly to Severinus when he entered his presence. To him the holy servant of God said: "Do not fear the danger foretold to you forty days ago," and immediately, tracing the sign of the Cross with his own hand, to the amazement of those who were present, the deadly pustule vanished. Let it suffice to have narrated this one instance of domestic healings, avoiding the tedium of a prolix work. For the saint very frequently predicted the illnesses of his monks through the revelation of Christ, and healed them by the same gifts by which he foresaw them.

[47] The spiritual teacher also dwelt not far from the cell of his disciples, persevering continually in prayers and abstinence, His prayer: with whom, however, he solemnly fulfilled the morning prayers and the proper psalmody of his own at the beginning of the night; but the remaining times of prayer he completed in the small oratory where he lived. In these he was often instructed by heavenly oracles; revelations: he predicted many future things through the grace of God, and also knowing the secrets of many, he brought them forth as was needful, his bed: and provided remedies for each as the nature of the illness demanded. His bed was a single haircloth on the floor of the oratory; at all times he used the same garment in which he was clothed, even when he rested. his fasts. He never broke his fast before sunset except on certain feast days. During the times of Lent, content with a single meal per week, he shone with an equal cheerfulness of countenance. Weeping over the faults of others as though they were his own, he tempered them with whatever aids he could.

a Surius reads Thegio.

b Surius reads Bonos. Petrus de Natalibus reads Bonus.

c Surius reads Barotro. Belfortius reads Bolotlo. Erroneously.

d Paulinus reports this in the Life of St. Ambrose, December 7.

e In Dialogue 1, chapter 5; it is also reported in book 4 of the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 5.

CHAPTER XI.

He predicts his own death, instructs his monks and kings with admonitions, and dies.

[48] Then, after many struggles and prolonged contests, when the Blessed Severinus perceived by the Lord's revelation that he would depart from this world, He admonishes the King and Queen of the Rugii as he is about to die. he summoned the aforementioned King of the Rugii, Fava, together with his most cruel wife, named Gisa, to come to him. When he had exhorted the King with salutary addresses — that he should so deal with those subject to him as to consider himself always about to render an account to the Lord for the state of his kingdom — and had fearlessly admonished him with other words, extending his hand and touching the King's breast, he challenged the Queen with these interrogations: "This soul, Gisa — do you love it more, or gold and silver?" And when she declared that she preferred her husband to all riches, the man of God wisely said: "Then cease to oppress the innocent, lest their affliction destroy your power all the more: for you often undermine the King's mildness." And she replied: "Why do you receive us thus, servant of God?" To whom he said: "I, a humble man now about to depart to the Lord, adjure you to refrain from wicked deeds and to adorn your conduct with pious works. Until now your kingdom has prospered under the Lord's guidance; from this point onward, you shall see for yourselves." Having been sufficiently instructed by these admonitions, the King with his wife took leave of him and departed.

[49] Then the Saint did not cease to address his own about the nearness of his departure with the sweetness of charity, He predicts the devastation of Noricum: which indeed he had not ceased to do even before. "Know, brethren," he said, "that just as the children of Israel are known to have been rescued from the land of Egypt, so must all the people of this land be freed from the unjust domination of the barbarians. he commands his body to be transported to Italy. For all, emigrating with their possessions from these towns, will arrive at a Roman province without any captivity of their own. But remember the command of the holy Patriarch Joseph, by whose attestation I, unworthy and lowliest, address you: 'God will surely visit you, and you shall carry my bones with you from here' — which will be profitable not for me, but for you. Gen. 50:24. For these places, now frequented by inhabitants, will be reduced to so vast a solitude that the enemy, thinking they will find a store of gold, will even dig up the tombs of the dead." The truth of this prophecy was confirmed by the course of present events. The Father of most holy integrity, therefore, with provident reasoning, commanded that his poor body be taken up, so that when the general migration of the people should occur, the undivided congregation of the brethren whom he had gathered, setting out together, might remain in the one bond of holy fellowship by reason of devotion to his memory.

[50] The Blessed Severinus also indicated the day on which he would depart from the body more than two years beforehand, by this sign. On the day of the Epiphany, when the holy Lucillus the Priest had carefully informed him that he was about to celebrate on the morrow, with the annual solemnity, the day of the deposition of his Abbot, St. Valentine, He predicts the day of his death two years in advance. formerly Bishop of the Raetias, the same servant of God replied thus: "If the Blessed Valentine has entrusted these solemnities to you to celebrate, I likewise leave to you on the same day the observance of my vigils, as I am about to depart from the body." When the priest, trembling at these words, commended himself all the more earnestly, being a very old man, as though he would be the first to depart, Severinus added: "This will be, holy priest, what you have heard, for the decree of the Lord will not be overridden by human will."

[51] Moreover, when Fredericus received from his brother Fava, King of the Rugii, one of the few towns that remained on the bank of the Danube, namely Favianae, He commends justice to King Fredericus. near which St. Severinus, as I have related, was dwelling, and the same Fredericus came to him as was his custom to pay his respects, the soldier of Christ began to announce his journey more earnestly, speaking under solemn attestation: "Know," he said, "that I am about to depart to the Lord very soon, and therefore, being admonished, take care that after my departure you do not attempt to touch any of those things committed to me, and do not lay hands upon the property of the poor and captives, lest you incur, God forbid, the indignation of God by such rashness." But Fredericus, struck by this unexpected admonition, said: "Why are we confounded by this adjuration, when we do not wish to be deprived of such great protections, and it is fitting for us to contribute something to your holy generosity, which is known to all, not to take away, so that I may deserve to be fortified, as was also our father Flaccitheus, by your customary prayer — who learned by experience that he was always aided by the merits of your holiness?" And Severinus replied: "If on any occasion you wish to harm my cell, you will prove it immediately here, and will pay in the hereafter a vengeance that I do not wish." Then Fredericus, promising to observe the admonitions of the servant of Christ, returned to his own home. The most sweet teacher, however, did not cease to address his disciples at every moment, saying: "I trust in the grace of my Lord Christ Jesus, that for you who persevere in his work and are joined in the peaceful fellowship of my memory, he will bestow the goods of eternal life and will not deny the consolations of the present."

[52] On the Nones of January, therefore, he began to be troubled slightly with a pain in his side, which continuing for three days, in the middle of the night he commanded the brethren to be present, Admonitions given to his disciples. and admonishing them concerning his body and strengthening them with paternal instruction, he pursued such things earnestly and wonderfully, saying: "Most beloved sons in Christ, you know that the Blessed Jacob, when the condition of death was imminent, commanding his sons to be present, rewarding each and every one with the utterances of prophetic blessing, revealed the secrets of future mysteries. Gen. 49. But we, lowly and lukewarm and unequal to such great piety, do not dare to claim this prerogative by our own powers; yet one thing which befits humility I shall not keep silent, sending you to the examples of the ancients, whose faith you should imitate, beholding the end of their way of life. For Abraham, called by the Lord, obeyed in faith to go out into the place which he was to receive as a possession, and went out not knowing where he would come. Imitate, therefore, the faith of this blessed Patriarch, imitate his holiness: despise your earthly homeland, always seek the heavenly one. I trust, moreover, in the Lord that from you eternal gains will come to me. For I see that you, my joy, have increased the fervor of spirit, that you love justice, cherish the bonds of fraternal charity, devote yourselves to chastity, keep the rule of humility: these things, as far as human observation goes, I praise confidently and approve. But pray that those things which are worthy before human eyes may be confirmed by the judgment of eternal discernment, for God does not see as man sees. Rom. 8:27. For he, as the divine word declares, searches all hearts and anticipates the thoughts of all minds. Pray therefore with assiduous prayers that the Lord may illuminate the eyes of your hearts and, as the Blessed Elisha prayed, open them, that you may recognize how great are the aids of the Saints that surround us, how great the auxiliaries prepared for the faithful; for our God draws near to those who beseech him. 2 Kings 6. Let not continual prayer be lacking to those who fight: let not those who were not ashamed to commit wickedness be ashamed to do penance: let it not irk you to weep for sinners, if perchance the offense of the divine judgment may be appeased by the flood of your tears; for he has deigned to call the contrite spirit his own sacrifice. Let us therefore be humble in heart, tranquil in mind, guarding against all sins and always mindful of the divine commandments, knowing that the name of monk, the title of religion, and the appearance of piety together with humble garb profit us nothing if we are found degenerate and reprobate in the observance of the commandments. Therefore, dearest sons, let your conduct be consistent with the vocation you have undertaken: it is a great wickedness for a secular man to pursue sins — how much more for monks, who, fleeing the allurements of the world as they would a savage beast, have preferred Christ to all affections; whose walk and garb is believed to be a proof of virtue? But why do I detain you further, dearest sons, with the address of a long speech? It remains for me to commend you with the final prayer of the blessed Apostle, who speaks thus: 'And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, who is able to preserve you and to give you the inheritance among the sanctified.' Acts 20:32. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen."

[53] After this address of edification, therefore, he ordered all in order to approach for his kiss, He receives communion and signs himself with the Cross. and having received the sacrament of communion, he utterly forbade weeping, and signing his whole body with the sign of the Cross with extended hand, he commanded them to sing psalms. When they hesitated from an outpouring of grief, he himself put forth the psalm to be chanted: "Praise the Lord in his saints, let every spirit praise the Lord." On the sixth day before the Ides of January, therefore, as we could scarcely respond through our tears, he rested in the Lord upon this verse. He dies a holy death. When he was buried, our elders, believing by all means that what he had predicted concerning the migration — as also many other things — could not pass unfulfilled, prepared a wooden coffin so that when the foretold migration of the people should occur, they might fulfill the commands of the prophet.

a Staibanus writes that he seized the Queen's hand, erroneously, as is evident.

b We have treated of him on January 7.

c The manuscript of Belfortius reads Ferdericus. Velserus reads Friderichus.

CHAPTER XII.

The body of St. Severinus is transferred to Italy.

[54] When Fredericus learned of the death of the Blessed Severinus, poor and impious as he was, He plunders sacred objects and is seized by a demon: he becomes a monk. always fiercer in barbarian greed, he believed that the garments designated for the poor and certain other things should be carried off. Coupling sacrilege to his crime, he ordered the silver chalice and the other vessels of the altar to be taken away. When these had been placed on the sacred altars, and the bailiff who had been sent did not dare to extend his hands to such a deed, he compelled a certain soldier named Avicianus to plunder the aforesaid items. Although he unwillingly carried out the orders, he was soon unceasingly tormented by trembling of all his limbs, and was also seized by a demon. He therefore quickly corrected his errors by a better counsel. For having undertaken the resolve of the holy profession, consecrated to heavenly arms in the solitude of an island, he exchanged the service of the military. Fredericus, however, unmindful of the solemn warning and prophecy of the holy man, having stripped the monastery of all its possessions, left only the walls, which he could not carry across the Danube. But soon the vengeance that had been announced fell upon him; for within the space of a month, he was killed by Fredericus, his brother's son, The sacrilegious king is punished. and lost both his plunder and his life. Wherefore King Odoacer waged war against the Rugii, and when they were defeated and Fredericus put to flight, and his father Fava also captured, he transported him to Italy along with his aforementioned harmful wife, namely Gisa.

[55] Afterward, the same Odoacer, hearing that Fredericus had returned to his own lands, immediately sent his brother Aonulfus with many armies, before whom Fredericus, fleeing once more, set out for King Theodoric, who was then dwelling at the city of Nova in the province of Moesia. Aonulfus, admonished by his brother's command, ordered all the Romans to migrate to Italy. Then all the inhabitants, as though led out from the house of Egyptian servitude, so too delivered from the daily barbarity of most frequent plundering, recognized the oracles of St. Severinus. Our venerable priest Lucillus, not unmindful of his command, while all were being compelled to depart by the Count Pierius, having first completed the evening psalmody with the monks, ordered the place of burial to be opened. When it was laid open, so great a fragrance of sweetness received all of us who stood around that we prostrated ourselves on the ground from excessive joy and wonder: then, expecting in human fashion to find the bones of the corpse disjointed (for the sixth year since his deposition had passed), we found the frame of the body intact. The body of St. Severinus, unharmed after six years, is brought to Italy. At this miracle, we rendered immense thanks to the Creator of all, because the body of the Saint, in which no spices had been placed and no embalming hand had touched it, had remained unharmed together with his beard and hair up to that time. The linen cloths having been changed, the body was enclosed in the coffin that had been prepared long before, and was soon conveyed on a cart drawn by horses, with all the provincials traveling the same road with us, who, having left the towns on the bank of the Danube, obtained various seats of their migration throughout the diverse regions of Italy. The poor body of the Saint was thus carried through many regions to a fortress called Mons Feletis.

[56] At the same time, many who were afflicted with various ailments, and not a few who were oppressed by unclean spirits, He is famous for miracles. received the remedy of divine grace without any delay. Then also a certain mute man was brought to that fortress by the compassion of his friends, and when he had eagerly reached the oratory in which the poor body of the holy man still remained, placed upon a cart, and beneath it — with the door of his mouth closed — supplicated in the chamber of his heart, immediately his tongue was loosened in prayer, A mute man speaks by his merits. and he spoke praise to the Most High. And when he returned to the lodging where he was accustomed to be received, and was questioned in the usual manner, struck by nod and sign, he replied in a clear voice that he had both prayed and offered praise to God. When he spoke, those who knew him were terrified, and running with a shout to the oratory, they informed the holy Lucillus the Priest, and at the same time us who were with him, who were ignorant of what had happened. Then all, exulting with joy, we rendered acts of thanksgiving to the divine clemency.

[57] And so the illustrious woman Barbaria venerated the Blessed Severinus with religious devotion — whom she had formerly known very well by fame and by letters along with her husband. The body of St. Severinus magnificently deposited in the Fortress of Lucullanum. When after his death she heard that the poor body of the Saint had been brought to Italy with much labor, and had up to that time in no way been committed to the earth, she invited our venerable priest Marcianus and the entire congregation by frequent letters. Then, by the authority of St. Gelasius, Pope of the Roman See, and with the Neapolitan people coming out in a reverent funeral procession, the body was deposited, in part, in the fortress of Lucullanum, through the hands of St. Victor the Bishop, in the mausoleum which the aforesaid woman had built.

[58] At that celebration, many who were afflicted with various ailments, whom it would be lengthy to enumerate, Many healed there. received health at once. Among them a certain venerable handmaid of God, named Processa, a citizen of Naples, while she was suffering the most grievous affliction of illness, drawn by the virtues of the holy remains, hastened to meet them on the road, and entering beneath the vehicle on which the venerable body was being carried, she was immediately freed from the weakness of all her limbs.

[59] Then also a certain blind man named Laodicius, struck by the unexpected shout of the chanting people, A blind man given sight. anxiously asked his companions what it was. When they replied that the body of a certain holy Severinus was passing by, moved with compunction, he asked to be led to the window of the house in which he was staying, from which the multitude of those chanting and the vehicle of the holy body could be seen afar by those with sight. And as he leaned more earnestly upon the window and prayed, he immediately saw, pointing out one by one all his acquaintances and neighbors. When this happened, all who heard it rendered thanks to God with tears of joy.

[60] Marinus also, Primicerius of the holy Church of Naples, Another freed from pain of the head. when he could not recover his health after a most severe headache, placed his head upon the vehicle and immediately lifted it free from pain; and mindful of that benefit, always coming on the day of the saint's deposition, he rendered a devout sacrifice to God with thanksgiving. But since many know more, let it suffice to have related these things from the countless miracles of benefits and virtues which were wrought at his arrival. The monastery built in the same place, therefore, has continued to the present day in memory of the blessed man, A monastery is built in the name of St. Severinus. by whose merits many who were possessed by demons have been cured, and those bound by various ailments have received and continue to receive health, through the working of the grace of God, to whom be honor and glory through infinite ages of ages, Amen.

a Surius reads Auicianum.

b This was done in the year 487, in the consulship of Boethius. Moreover, from the things narrated here, Irenicus is refuted, who in book 3 of the Exegesis Germaniae, chapter 14, says that Feletheus died without children, left the kingdom to Gisa; and that she, having married Suba, bore Hunulphus and Odoacer, King of Italy.

c Surius, Braunerus, and Sigonius read Onulfus. Aventinus reads Anulfus. Staibanus reads Mulfus.

d This man shortly after, in the year 489 to be precise, invaded Italy and defeated Odoacer in several battles.

e Others read Novas. Staibanus reads Nonas, erroneously. The Notitia Imperii has several places called Nova or Ad Novas. This one was situated on the Danube in Lower Moesia. Part of Lower Moesia and Riparian Dacia had been entrusted to Theodoric.

f Surius and Staibanus read Pigerius. This Count seems to have been a military officer, not, as Aventinus would have it, a governor of Vindelicia and Noricum.

g This migration occurred after Feletheus was captured in 487, before the war begun by Theodoric in 489, therefore in 487 or rather 488. From this it can be inferred that St. Severinus died in 482, six years earlier; not in 494 as Hundius wrote. Braunerus also considers that at that time St. Antonius, of whom we shall treat on December 28, migrated from Noricum to Italy.

h It is not sufficiently clear what this fortress was. In the territory of the Veneti and Carni there is the episcopal city of Feltria on the river Plavis, of ancient name. Was the body of St. Severinus carried here? Or rather to Umbria, a part of which is called Monte Feltre between the rivers Conca and Marecchia, where there is a town on a high hill commonly called San Leo, formerly Mons Feratratus, perhaps Feretrus, in Greek Montes Pherantes. Staibanus writes that the Saint's remains were conveyed to Mons Seletus; Engenius writes Siletus.

i Baronius reads Barbara.

k Engenius reads Martinum.

l This town, or fortress, was situated between Naples and Puteoli. It is not, however, as Velserus suspected, a town of the Picentini, near Nuceria. Caesar Engenius writes that S. Severini, called Lucullanum, is now called Castel dell'Ovo.

m These two words, ex parte, were absent from the manuscript of Belfortius.

n Others read Laodicius.

o Surius reads Marianus.

p Surius and Belfortius add cantorum.

ON THE TRANSLATION OF ST. SEVERINUS.

Severinus, Priest, Apostle of the Noricans, at Naples (St.)

From various sources.

October 10. Year of Christ 910.

[1] The relics of St. Severinus were translated three times: first, in the year 488, six years after his death, from the monastery which he had built near Favianae, to Italy, to Mons Feletis; Three translations of St. Severinus: whether that is now Feltria; or the town of San Leo, formerly called Mons Feretratus or Feretrus, in Umbria between the rivers Ariminum and Crustuminum, commonly called the Marecchia and the Conca; [I] or Filetus, a village of the Marrucini, which Leander calls Falletum; or some other place. This translation is described by Eugippius, who was present, above in chapter 12, section 55, as also the second, [II] which occurred after the year of Christ 492 but before the end of the year 496, when, by the authority of Pope St. Gelasius, the sacred relics were transported to the fortress or town of Lucullanum, which had been built at Lucullus's most famous villa between Naples and Puteoli, and were deposited in a magnificent mausoleum.

[2] A monastery was afterward built there, which St. Gregory mentions in book 2, epistle 40, with these words: The monastery at Lucullanum. "But if any slaves hereafter flee to the monastery of St. Severinus, or to another church of the same fortress," etc. And in book 7, epistle 18, to the Subdeacon Anthemius, he mentions the oratory of St. Severinus. "After he," he says, "who had been elected to the episcopate of the city of Sorrento seemed to us unsuitable, they elected Amandus, a priest of the oratory of St. Severinus, which is situated in the fortress of Lucullanum." He treats of the relics of St. Severinus in book 2, epistle 58, to Peter, Subdeacon of Campania: "Since therefore we desire to consecrate the church situated near the Merulan house in the third region, which Arian superstition long held, Relics of St. Severinus. in honor of St. Severinus; let your Experience transmit the relics of the Blessed Severinus with all due veneration." And again in book 7, epistle 85, Indiction 2, to Fortunatus, Bishop of Naples: "The religious woman Januaria requests by petition that the relics of the Blessed Severinus the Confessor and Juliana the Martyr be granted to her, so that the oratory built at her own expense in their name may be solemnly consecrated," etc. Baronius acknowledges that these passages should be understood of St. Severinus the Abbot. But if there were another Severinus at Naples famous in public veneration, St. Gregory should surely have specified whose relics he wished to be sent to him or given to Januaria.

[3] At last the relics were translated from Lucullanum to Naples in the twenty-fourth year of the Emperor Leo the Wise, that is, the year of Christ 910, as Ambrosius Staibanus and Caesar Engenius Caracciolus report. III Translation. For when the Saracens were variously infesting the coasts of Campania, the Neapolitan Duke Joannes, fearing that Lucullanum could not withstand their assault, demolished it and transferred the townspeople to Naples. At that time also the relics of St. Severinus were brought to Naples. The history of that translation was written by Joannes the Deacon, who was present, cited by Antonio Caracciolo in his Notes on the Chronicle of Lupus Protospatharius. We believe the following things, which Staibanus and Engenius recite, to be drawn from him: "Gregory therefore the Consul, thinking much about the fortress of Lucullanum, took counsel with Bishop Stephen and the other inhabitants concerning its people, that, Lucullanum destroyed. with its inhabitants transferred to Naples, that town should be demolished: and when they had decreed the day on which the entire populace should set out to accomplish this, Joannes, the venerable Abbot of the monastery of St. Severinus built at Parthenope, a man vigorous in all things, entreated with his prayers that the poor body of the same Confessor should be placed nowhere else than in his monastery, so that, being fittingly adorned both with its name and with his body, there might be the most ample honor of piety and a salutary meeting of the brethren." To this the Bishop and Consul replied: "If so great a treasure has been granted to you from heaven, most reverend Father, how should we dare to resist? But if not, we assuredly hold that it would not be pleasing to him to be transferred anywhere and raised from the mausoleum which the illustrious woman Barbaria once built out of love for him." Thus far the account.

[4] Lest moreover the divine will should be adverse to his pious desires (as Staibanus proceeds to narrate from the same Joannes the Deacon, as we suppose), Joannes and his monks gave themselves to prayers, by which they might earn the patronage of the heavenly ones and especially of Severinus. The day appointed by the Consul arrived. The leading citizens of the city, having gone to Lucullanum, ordered it to be demolished. They then gathered at the church of St. Severinus: there, having duly performed the sacred rites, they undertook to dig up the sepulcher of the saint erected by the illustrious woman Barbaria. And first, not without immense wonder on the part of all, they found absolutely nothing; but when they dug deeper, The body of St. Severinus found intact: they unearthed the body of Severinus intact, entirely distinct in its limbs, and bound together by sinews and arteries, and full of majesty, so that an incredible feeling of piety almost overwhelmed everyone. Engenius adds that a most sweet odor exhaled from it, and that the body was as intact as if it had been buried at that very hour. The Bishop ordered this to be reported to the Abbot, who immediately flew there with his monks, piously chanting psalms in the customary manner of supplicants, and venerated the body of the Saint. translated to Naples. On the following day, with a solemn procession, accompanied by the Bishop, the Consul, and an innumerable throng of people of every rank and age, it was carried to Naples and placed beneath the principal altar in the church of St. Severinus. Then and thereafter, very many miracles were wrought by God in that place.

[5] From this one may correct what Ferrarius writes in the Catalogue of Italian Saints: "From there (from Lucullanum, Ferrarius corrected. as he writes) it was brought under Pope Gelasius to Naples, into a basilica dedicated in his name, and is held in great honor." For this was done not under Gelasius, but under either Sergius III or Anastasius III as Pope. Crusenius may judge for himself how credible his statements are at the passage cited above: "After the death of St. Severinus also," he says, "the sacred relics were brought to Italy to the Lucullanian Mons Filetus, nor were they abandoned by his confreres: for several disciple-hermits took the same relics into their care, and near the holy relics they built hermitages, which are still possessed by the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine. Although afterward these relics were translated several times and were transferred from our order to the Benedictine Fathers."

[6] What was done afterward may be conjectured from what Joannes the Deacon writes in the history of the Translation of St. Sosius (of which we shall treat on September 23): A church built for St. Severinus. "After the demolition of the town of Lucullanum, therefore," he says, "as is set forth in another book, when the aforementioned Abbot had deserved to obtain the body of St. Severinus, he began to prepare himself with all expenditures, in order that, with God's help, he might build a vaulted basilica in his honor: and for this purpose, while he investigated everywhere with great care whether he could find material suitable for so great a work, he sent to the fortress of Misenum; for that town had been demolished by the Ismaelites nearly sixty years before and razed to the ground."

[7] Engenius reports that the monastery of St. Severinus, which still exists at Naples, and its church, were previously said to have been dedicated to St. Severinus the Bishop, who was buried there in the place, as is found in the commonly received Martyrology of Bede, where he had lived before being called to the episcopate. [Whether there was previously another church there sacred to St. Severinus the Bishop.] But we shall say below that these words seem to be understood of St. Severinus of Septempeda. From certain tablets signed in the year 1409 by the notary Dionysius of Sarno, Engenius reports that the church was first called St. Mary's, then St. Basil's, St. Benedict's, and St. Severinus's; that it was built, or rather restored and enlarged, by Constantine in the year of Christ 326, and consecrated by St. Sylvester on the eighth day of January. He further testifies that above the doors of the ancient cloister, recently rebuilt, the Virgin Mother of God can be seen depicted in the middle between St. Severinus the Bishop and Sosius the Martyr; below, St. Severinus the monk and St. Benedict the Abbot. In the old basilica also, the painting of the high altar shows St. Severinus the Bishop in the middle between Sts. John the Baptist and the Evangelist, Severinus the monk, and Sosius the Martyr. Finally, in a marble carving near the same high altar, the image of a certain Abbot can be seen, offering a bell-tower built by him to St. Severinus the Bishop, with this inscription: "In the year of the Lord 1337, Indiction 5, this entire bell-tower was caused to be built by Abbot Peter of St. Helia, Abbot of the monastery of St. Vitus of Isernia, formerly a monk of this monastery, in honor of God and the Virgin Mother, and of Sts. Severinus and Sosius, and for the remission of his sins." But all of these are more recent. We suspect that perhaps the Norican Severinus too was called a bishop by some, St. Severinus the monk also called a bishop. as we have noted elsewhere regarding many other apostolic men, who, even though they were not bishops in rank and order, were afterward called bishops by the piety of the people — whether they truly believed so, or magnified with more ample titles, out of human affection, those whom they especially venerated, or finally judged it would be more glorious for themselves if they had obtained bishops rather than mere priests as masters of religion. Indeed, there have not been lacking learned men who wrote that he was truly a bishop. Our Dionysius Petavius, besides those whom we have cited above, writes thus in the Rationarium Temporum, part 1, book 6, chapter 19: "St. Severinus, Bishop of the Noricans, died in the year 482, on January 8." But a readier occasion for error arose after Usuard, who had read somewhere both that a Severinus was venerated at Naples on January 8 and that a Severinus, brother of Victorinus, was venerated on the same day, and thinking them one and the same, wrote that a Severinus, Bishop and brother of Victorinus, was venerated at Naples on that day.

[8] For as to the claim of Staibanus and Engenius that the Neapolitan monastery was first named after St. Severinus the Bishop, but afterward retained the same name from St. Severinus, the Apostle of the Noricans, when his relics, translated there, were rendered illustrious by very many miracles: on what authority of an ancient writer do they confirm this? From the cited words of Joannes the Deacon, it seems to be inferred that the monastery had its name from the same St. Severinus even before his body was translated there; for he says: "so that it might be fittingly adorned both with its name and with his body." When the church of St. Severinus at Naples was built. Since daily heavenly portents were wrought in the town of Lucullanum by the merits of Severinus who had been brought there, it seems that a church was erected in the city itself in his honor, which was afterward given to the Order of St. Benedict by Tertullus, the father and patron of St. Maurus (of whom we shall treat on January 15), and provided the opportunity for building a monastery there. Concerning this church, Gordianus writes in the Life of St. Placidus, which we shall give on October 5: "Emulating Tertullus in goodness, This given to St. Benedict. the Senator Equitius likewise offered, together with his son Maurus, the Gentian estate with the cell of St. Agapitus, and his own property located in the city of Naples, together with the church of the holy virgin of Christ Cecilia, and that of St. Severinus." That church of St. Cecilia is now, as Engenius also reports, sacred to the honor of the Virgin Mother of God, and is called di Santa Palma, because it is situated in the street formerly called Palmarum, as Leo of Ostia reports in the Cassinese Chronicle, book 1, chapter 59. However, if anyone produces more certain evidence, we are by no means determined to defend this conjecture stubbornly.

[9] Above the door of the church of St. Severinus the following is read inscribed in marble, as Engenius attests: "To the divine Severinus, Apostle of the Noricans in the East, and to Sosius the Levite, companion of the Blessed Bishop Januarius in his passion, this temple where their holy bodies rest beneath the greater altar: Its inscription. and by apostolic indult, souls undergoing purification are freed with the offering of the sacred sacrifice." At the greater altar, under which the bodies of these saints are deposited, these verses are read:

Here two holy and divine bodies are held together by the Fathers, Sosius and Severinus, of one mind.

Engenius writes more about the magnificent ornament of the church and monastery.

[10] That last translation of St. Severinus took place on October 10, on which day St. Severinus is venerated with the rite of a double feast throughout the entire diocese of Naples, as is evident from the Catalogue of Saints, whom Decius Carafa, The feast of St. Severinus at Naples. Cardinal Priest of the title of Sts. John and Paul, Archbishop of Naples, ordered thenceforth to be celebrated with the office from the Common, on September 3, 1619. The same prelate reports in that catalogue that two churches were formerly built at Naples in the name of St. Severinus the Abbot; the first in the fortress of Lucullanum outside the city, by the matron Barbaria (whom he calls Barbara), mentioned by Eugippius; the other within the city, which alone now survives, tended by the Cassinese monks; and into it, he says, on this day (October 10) the sacred body of St. Severinus was translated, with the concession of Stephen III, Bishop of Naples. See how aptly that great man subscribes to our conjecture, namely that it was not to a Bishop but to a Priest Severinus that the church was built, into which his body was afterward translated.

ON ST. SEVERINUS, BISHOP OF SEPTEMPEDA IN PICENUM.

Sixth Century.

Severinus, Bishop of Septempeda in Italy (St.)

From various sources.

[1] Septempeda was a city of Picenum, or as we now say, the Marches of Ancona, mentioned by Ptolemy in the sixth table of Europe, by Antoninus in the Itinerary, and by other ancient writers. St. Severinus, Bishop of Septempeda. The Lombards, as Leander writes, leveled it to the ground. From its ruins the noble town of Sanseverino was built. Its name was given from St. Severinus, the former Bishop of Septempeda. The Roman Martyrology records him on June 8 with these words: "In Picenum, of St. Severinus, Bishop of Septempeda." No Martyrology more ancient than the time of Baronius that we have yet seen mentions him on that day. Ferrarius in the Catalogue of Italian Saints writes that he departed to heaven on the sixth day before the Ides of June: but in his new Catalogue of Saints he testifies that he is venerated by the people of Septempeda on the sixth day before the Ides of January, and suspects that this is the same one who on that day in the Roman Martyrology is called the brother of St. Victorinus, but that Naples was erroneously written for Septempeda. The people of Septempeda, however, celebrate the consecration of the church dedicated in his name on June 8, as the same Ferrarius attests.

[2] Victorinus the Martyr, whose brother the Neapolitan Severinus is said to have been, is celebrated in all the Martyrologies on April 15, crowned with martyrdom at the Waters of Cutilia, because along with Sts. Maro and Eutyches he was believed to be strengthening St. Flavia Domitilla in her resolution to preserve her virginity. And the people of Amiternum consider him to have been their bishop. Again on September 5 the same is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology and others, but as though a different person, yet slain at the Waters of Cutilia while he was Bishop of Amiternum. Ado on that day calls him the brother of Severinus, but manifestly attributes to him things that belong to Victorinus the Confessor; although he then wishes him to have been made Bishop of Amiternum. We suspect that on September 5 the celebration was originally of St. Victorinus the Confessor, Bishop of Amiternum, who, because he was said to have died a martyr and to have had a brother Severinus, hence occasion was given for thinking him different from Victorinus, the companion of Sts. Nereus, Achilleus, Maro, and Eutyches, Victorinus, his brother. and from Victorinus the Confessor. The name of Victorinus the Confessor is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on June 8 with these words: "At Camerino, of St. Victorinus the Confessor." This we do not find in the Martyrologies more ancient than Baronius. We have not read anyone before Usuard who reported that St. Severinus was the brother of Victorinus the Martyr rather than the brother of Victorinus the Confessor, as we maintain. Hence we willingly embrace the conjecture of Ferrarius, who writes thus: "While I was at Naples and saw that the name of Severinus the Bishop was in no way recorded in the tablets of the Church of Naples, I began to inquire diligently of the canons and others versed in such matters, and I read through the books that treat of the Saints of the Church of Naples: Whether any Severinus was Bishop at Naples. at last I betook myself to the Church of St. Severinus, nor could I learn anything about a St. Severinus the Bishop who had been a Neapolitan. For the Severinus who is venerated by the Neapolitans, and to whom the basilica in which his body is preserved is dedicated, was not a bishop but an abbot. From which a suspicion entered my mind that the name of Severinus, Bishop of Naples, crept into the Martyrology by someone's carelessness, and that, just as in Ado the Acts of St. Victorinus the Martyr are confused with the Acts of St. Victorinus the Confessor, so also Severinus, Bishop of Septempeda, who was the brother of St. Victorinus the Confessor, was attributed to Naples by error."

[3] What the ancient Martyrologies say about him. Baronius also acknowledges in his Notes on the Martyrology at June 8 that the narrative about St. Severinus is ambiguous and somewhat obscure, on account of the complete similarity with St. Severinus of Naples. We shall treat of Victorinus the Martyr and Victorinus the Confessor elsewhere, and perhaps in the meantime we shall be able to obtain more certain information. Here we shall only set forth the Martyrologies. Ado writes thus on the sixth day before the Ides of January: "At Naples in Campania, of St. Severinus the Confessor, brother of the most blessed Victorinus, a man most illustrious in miracles. He too, an imitator of his brother, after the performance of many virtues, full of holiness, rested in peace, buried in the place where he had first lived as a most abstemious man, before he was called to the episcopate." Notker has the same; as does the commonly received Bede. The manuscripts of the Church of St. Lambert at Liege and of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp, both bearing the name of Bede: "At Naples in Campania, of St. Severinus the Confessor, brother of the most blessed Victorinus, a man most illustrious in miracles." The manuscript of the Church of St. Mary at Utrecht adds: "He too, being an imitator of his brother, after the notable signs of many virtues, full of holiness, rested in peace." These words, with merely the name of the place changed (which could easily have crept in because of St. Severinus, the Apostle of the Noricans), uniquely fit St. Severinus of Septempeda; as also what is found in the old Roman Martyrology: "At Naples, of Severinus the Confessor, brother of Victorinus."

[4] Usuard: "At Naples in Campania, the birthday of St. Severinus, Bishop and Confessor, brother of the most blessed Victorinus the Martyr: which Severinus, after the performance of many virtues, full of holiness, rested in peace." What Usuard and later writers say. Bellinus of Padua has the same. Molanus in the two later editions struck out these words in Usuard: "Bishop and Confessor, brother of the most blessed Victorinus the Martyr." For Ado, he says in his Notes, has this on the Nones of September. But Ado does not have Severinus on the Nones of September, but Victorinus his brother. Molanus adds: "I would think that the words I have struck out were added to Usuard, or that he himself, erring, confused two Severinuses: namely the Apostle of the Noricans and the brother of Victorinus." With Usuard agrees the Roman Martyrology. The manuscript of Centula, bearing the name of Bede: "At Naples in Campania, of St. Severinus, Bishop and Confessor, brother of the Blessed Victorinus the Martyr." Maurolycus and Galesinius subscribe to the Roman Martyrology. The author of the German Martyrology errs completely, when he writes thus: "At Naples in Campania, the birthday of St. Severinus, Bishop and Confessor, who was the brother of St. Victorinus the Martyr, and was Bishop of Naples. He then went to Bavaria, and from a monastery he built there, with a few monks he lived there according to the evangelical teaching, in all continence and chastity, in fasts and prayers; and at last he fell asleep in the Lord."

[5] Concerning the Acts of Sts. Severinus and Victorinus, Baronius writes thus in his Notes on the Martyrology at June 8: "We have read the Acts of these brothers, Severinus and Victorinus, received from their own Church, from which we have learned that they were uterine brothers and cultivated the eremitical life: of whom Victorinus, having once fallen, bound himself with stricter bonds of discipline and rested with a holy end; Severinus, however, having been raised to the governance of the episcopate, died famous for holiness, and his venerable body was found four years ago and more honorably deposited. Both flourished in the times of the Emperor Justinian, when Vigilius presided over the Roman Church (as their own Acts testify)." We have transcribed their Acts from a manuscript of the Fulda college of the Society of Jesus and have collated them with Boninus Mombritius, Acts of Sts. Severinus and Victorinus: the manuscript of Metz supplied to us by Jacques Sirmond, that of St. Maximin of Trier, and others. And they are indeed not inelegantly written, and form part, as it appears, of a larger work on the deeds of the Saints; but they differ from what Baronius cites, since in our manuscripts no mention is made of either the Emperor Justinian or Pope Vigilius. Ado on September 5 records things consistent with these Acts, but what he adds about the martyrdom of Victorinus pertains to another Victorinus, of whom we treat on April 15.

[6] Ferrarius testifies in the Catalogue of Italian Saints at July 5 that the body of the virgin St. Philamena was deposited in the cathedral church by St. Severinus, lest it be found and torn apart by the Goths: His era. which is consistent with the age of Justinian. From this one may refute what Caesar de Engenio Caracciolus writes, that at the same time as Victorinus the Martyr there lived in Umbria another Victorinus with his brother Severinus. Discovery of St. Severinus. The same Ferrarius mentions the discovery of the relics of St. Severinus (which, from Baronius's cited testimony, is inferred to have occurred around the year 1581), and reports that his life was written in three books by L. Francus.

LIFE OF STS. SEVERINUS AND VICTORINUS.

By an Anonymous Author, from ancient manuscripts.

Severinus, Bishop of Septempeda in Italy (St.) BHL Number: 7659

By an Anonymous Author, from manuscripts.

[1] Let the reader observe that up to this point we have spoken through an interpreter, reporting the words of Father Jerome: let your charity willingly hear the rest of the work as it is in our own language. For those things which we have learned from a faithful author about individual saints, we have committed to a history, lest the virtues of men should remain hidden from men whose virtues were not hidden from God. And beginning first from Victorinus, whom we read to have been the brother of Severinus, so that, as from an excellent foundation, our work, beginning, may rise to the solid roof of a completed edifice.

[2] Sts. Victorinus and Severinus together devote themselves to virtue: After the death of both their parents, mutually instructing one another, vying with equal care and mutual service, they also offered to God, by the bond of brotherhood, commendable victims of good works; inhabitants of the province of Picenum, where the shallow river Flusor flows past Septempeda. When, reading the Gospels, they came to the passage in which the wealthy tempter was rebuffed, hearing from God: "If you wish to be perfect, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come follow me"; lest, as those who turned back saddened, they should be struck by the Lord's next sentence, that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, freeing themselves from the bonds of the world, they give their goods to the poor. having sold all their possessions and distributed them to the poor, whose they knew the kingdom of heaven to be, leaving nothing to themselves except each other, they ran unencumbered after the Lord, so that they might rightly say: "We run after you in the fragrance of your ointments," and could say with Peter: "Behold, we have left all things and have followed you." Matt. 19:21; ibid. v. 24; Song 1:3; Matt. 19:27. And so each serving the other in mutual turn and emulous charity, freedom preserved authority: nothing was lacking, though they had nothing.

[3] Victorinus, therefore, breathing higher things and counting it imperfect even that he obeyed himself, Victorinus withdraws to the desert: and not satisfied if one should be free in the other, thus addressed his brother: "My dear brother, now more from our fellow-service of God than from the bond of brotherhood — if we sold everything so that, unencumbered, we might follow the Lord, why are we separated from God by mutual love? For since I have the same right in you as you have in me, neither am I lacking service, nor are you. One obeys the other, since I do what you command, and what I command, you do; we do not do what God has commanded. I take your garment, you take mine: thus our single garments become double, since each one's is common to both. I seek the desert, which possesses the perfect." And bidding him farewell with these words, he removes himself from the hut, seeks the forests of a nearby mountain called Prolax. he dwells in a cave. Nor was there lacking a dwelling that nature had provided: he sat in a cave of a lofty cliff, which the double cleft of flowing water had hollowed out beneath — a lodging for one man only, so that sitting he might take sleep; or if it received another, he would pray standing. He covered the little opening with wicker, making a house from the cave. Here throughout the year, perpetually reading and praying through the night, he conducted idle business: and since no one intervened, he presented himself to God alone.

[4] When the ancient enemy of good things, envying as is his custom, assumed the form of a girl, He admits a demon in the guise of a wandering girl into his cave. and approached the man's cave as though she were wandering about, thus besieging him with a humble voice in order to conquer him, she spoke with a groan: "Woe is me, wretched one, for I am dragged through the various forests, wandering in error and darkness! The place is not recognized, and the road is sought, and we are hindered by pathless ways. Whoever you are, master of this place, you are doubtless at ease, for whom the sky is all around and forests on every side. Make me the work of your virtues. Rescue me from the gnashing boars, and you shall restore me at once, as soon as dawn breaks. I ask not a long stay; I shall be a guest for a single night: it would be more than enough to be covered by your threshold, were it not that my fragile sex pressed upon me and the gaping jaws of passing bears terrified me. Behold, the raging wolves howl — bring help while you can: whatever life I shall have will be yours; if I die, it is yours also." The cruel artificer — what does he not conquer by wiles? Victorinus opens the cell and, while he shows pity, shuts the enemy in with himself. He orders the newcomer to sit in one corner, because he himself sat in the other, so that the space might hold them both.

[5] Scarcely an hour had passed when, amid various movements and continual stirring of the body, she touched the man of God with an outstretched foot, He is led into sin: and as if stinging him, kindled him with a harmful warmth. The sweetness of speech adds fuel to the flame, and the beauty of her form wounds his already diseased inward parts. You might have seen her exquisite eyes gleaming with evil light, and a face gleaming with deadly beauty: as if through the interwoven branches, moonbeams shone. Solitude urges the deed: what he is about to do, supposedly without a witness, he falsely believes will be unknown — when in fact whatever is committed with God alone as witness is all the more known to all. But after he was brought to the work of wickedness, the predator springs up against the young man on his back, and he who had been the conqueror of modesty became the judge of chastity. "What are you doing," he said, "most perfect man, to whom even a brother was a burden? He is seen by the demon. Are you joined to another, who withdrew from your own? Was not your brother's tunic heavy for you, so much so that you reckoned it a whole fortune — you who, fulfilling the duties of two, lived the life of little servants; who, establishing a new doctrine in the forests, preached chastity to the rocks; so unmindful of us and so contemptuous of our strength that you spurned a veteran warrior? Learn by how many ambushes you are assailed: lie wounded, you who had presumed even upon the crown." As soon as he had spoken these words, he vanished from the eyes of the deceived man like smoke. He who had fallen lay long; and like a bloodless corpse, he endured through the entire night without a breath.

[6] But when, as day brightened, the stars were hiding, fleeing from the cell that was the witness of his crime, he abandoned the guilty forests: he returns to his brother: he returns to his brother; and falling at the feet of him who ran to meet him, he long suppressed his voice with shame, yet betraying by his tears that he was grieving over what he blushed to say. But after he had been overcome and set forth the cause, and by the affection of the one who consoled him, he imposed upon himself as his own judge a penalty: he undergoes a severe penance. for he split a tree and, inserting his hands and bolting the hardened cleft with wedges, he contrived that his feet should hang in punishment — feet that had refused to stand before God — under a single solemn charge he bound his brother not to release him until He against whom he had sinned had forgiven him.

[7] But soon Severinus reported to the holy Bishop about his brother's deed and the novelty of the penance which he had imposed upon himself. He led his Bishop to the place: who, having addressed him as his understanding prompted, when he said that satisfaction had been made and wished to release him, was prevented by the one who was bound. The same man, graciously deferring the encounter, prays, blesses, and returns. And when he had done the same thing many times, meanwhile the bound man, after obtaining his request, took a little bread on Sunday evenings, He fasts an entire week, as does also Severinus. and neither more nor less of water, compelled by his brother, who also afflicted himself with similar food and fasting on his brother's behalf.

[8] Already nearly three full years had passed, and with his inward parts consumed by hunger, and with barely his skin adhering, his bones alone hung in the bonds. The now looser penalty would no longer have held the suspended man if the one bound had wished to escape his punishment. And so, when rumor had spread this far and wide, each person being merciful at another's misfortune, all gathered before the Bishop, who might bear the reproach of such a thing. They cried out that he must be released, whom even his punishment would have set free. The Bishop came with all of them to the monastery: and not, as was his custom, gentle, but girded with the greatest authority, he addressed the bound man with a raised brow thus: "Enough has been exhausted of punishments. Believe me, Victorinus, He is ordered by the Bishop to be released after three years. if you believe God, that what Christ conferred upon Peter, whose heirs we are, is now being done with you by my priesthood: what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven, because also what is bound on earth is bound in heaven. Since I see that even the bonds themselves now spare you, being visibly looser, I loose on earth the one whom I trust is loosed before the King of heaven." But after the Bishop had spoken these words, immediately the hands and multitude of workmen were gathered to open the tree, and since Victorinus could not resist, though even so he did not wish to be released, he asked for a week's fast, so that with all aiding him by prayer and fasting he might be released. Having at once obtained this, since he had not delayed long, and lest another's grief be less believed, the Bishop returned with the people when the week was completed. Every age and both sexes came running; the ground was packed with great and small; the roof of the monastery was climbed; the neighboring trees were laden; the cry of all was the same: "Most blessed Father, release the one whom God has released." Then the Bishop, extending his hand and making silence, spoke thus: "The fast which you requested is completed, Victorinus: give what you had promised; let the word stand which you had spoken; lest by lying again you sin, and there is no other penance." Then St. Victorinus, when he saw himself constrained by these words, raising his face to heaven after three years — for the bonds did not permit him to raise his hands — and after the sacrifice was first offered by the priest, groaning deeply he spoke thus: "God, Father of your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, He prays to God. with whom through the Holy Spirit you established all things; through whom this world was divided into its various species; who are the restorer and founder of all creatures; through whom man was both made and renewed; through whom immortality was granted and death conquered, death introduced by the devil but subdued by Christ; through whom we are reborn by a second birth, if indeed we cease to sin, since we violated the first by sinning; through whom I earned the use of this light together with my brother, and by my own life deprived myself of my brother; from whom we received the wealth of the world together with light, on account of whom we sold the wealth of the world for immortality, that we might exhibit pure service to you; if I followed you with a pure mind, and departed from my brother to be more perfect; if I set you above all affections; if I sought you alone in the innocent forests; if I always prayed to you in that prison of my flesh; if also in that I was deceived by the devil, I was merciful; if what I was persuaded to commit, I nevertheless sinned against you without a witness; if I immediately ran to you when I fell; if I presented myself as a guilty man to you together with my brother, against whom I sinned without my brother; if in order to give satisfaction for my offense I wished to undergo this punishment; if I made myself guilty before the judgment; if I hasten to you with my penalty; if I have given satisfaction by my punishment — change the sentence: let this people be a witness of my absolution, who is a witness of my condemnation. If I now deserve pardon, loose my bonds; if punishment still remains, let a delay be granted to the one who would release me."

[9] Scarcely had Victorinus uttered these words when the sky thundered from a serene quarter, His bonds are loosed by heavenly fire. and a purer fire released the bonds of the tree. The surrounding crowd fell upon their faces, and he who had fallen was alone raised up. And so, with all praising God, he was led to the church, in which he lived without fault, and was quickly seized for the priesthood of the city of Amiternum. He becomes Bishop of Amiternum. And since he excelled in all virtues, so that he was considered angelic, he deserved to enter the choirs of the Saints; while our Lord Jesus Christ reigns, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

[10] Furthermore, Severinus, whom we have said above was the brother of the aforesaid man, while with great zeal he subdued his own flesh so that he might be able to conquer the fraud of him who had deceived his brother and avoid all his assaults, and while he had condemned his brother's fault as his own sin upon himself, that he might fulfill the saying: Severinus becomes Bishop of Septempeda. "A brother helped by a brother shall be exalted," he merited the priesthood of the Church of Septempeda: Prov. 18:19. and that he might prove himself worthy of the office he had obtained, he quickly equaled all and could not be surpassed. But since here everything great is brief, he quickly deserved to depart to the heavenly kingdoms on the sixth day before the Kalends of May; He dies famous for miracles. buried in the same place where he had had his monastery, and what he had loved in the body he did not abandon in holiness: for now in spirit he exhibits more healings than when he was present in the flesh.

[11] But I do not think it should be passed over in silence what we have learned of his holiness. For though his deposition is celebrated on the Ides of May, and although a crowd assembles also on the Kalends of May, on which he obtained the priesthood, yet to the above-mentioned day a devout multitude gathers as if from the whole world: very many priests come, to bring their devotion and carry away a blessing. But on the day before, a certain Innocentius, a man worthy of his name, still the originator and unique bearer of it, The holy Apostles and other saints gather for the feast of St. Severinus. going to the village of Faverianus, saw in the middle of the night the forests shining so brightly that he thought there was a fire, but since there was no crackling noise, entering a certain place and thinking the Governor of the Province was entering by night, he raised himself up a little from the embankment in fear, to learn the cause from nearby. And not long after, he saw four persons going before with torches, whose light that was: two after them going in robes with rods; then one sitting on a horse, whose whiteness of garments and head surpassed the snow. After him another bald man was carried on horseback: whom a great multitude of persons on foot followed, and from among them one, who had remained behind limping, he inquired more curiously who they were; and he said that the four torch-bearers were four bishops: Sixtus, Marcus, Marcellus, and Julius; the two with rods, Stephen and Laurence; the two seated, the two Apostles Peter and Paul; and the rest who followed, Martyrs and Bishops: and also that Zipherinus was going with the vestments of Peter, who, when asked by Severinus, is always present on this day, to bless the people and visit them. Who would doubt the merits of Severinus, when he sees the Apostles pay him such respect? Or who would deem this man unworthy, who was permitted to see such things?

[12] But if anyone also wishes to know the life of Innocentius, let him hear in few words: When he had seen these things, The vision, conversion, and innocent life of Innocentius. he immediately hastened to the church, and having been made a catechumen, after an interval of time he was also baptized. And never abandoning the church, having been made a cleric, he even merited the blessing of the presbyterate, so that he might always be innocent and remain in his innocence, so that we may believe it was said of him: "Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile." This man, when he was once hastening to the monastery of St. Severinus, in which he had been ordained, was followed by a little sheep, in which his entire wealth consisted; and when he could not cross the Flusor, which a rainstorm had swollen — by chance he crossed over a small beam which shepherds had placed across the banks — leaving the sheep on the other bank, which, breaking forth into voice, said this: "To whom have you left me here?" Then the man, full of God, said: "Cross over, A sheep that miraculously spoke. because I myself have crossed over in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Then the innocent animal, having received confidence through God, followed Innocentius. By the merit of the shepherd, voice was given to the sheep, and confidence through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit through all ages of ages. Amen.

Here ends the Life of St. Victorinus and Severinus, two brothers from the province of Picenum, who, having first led a solitary life together, afterward nobly obtained the eminence of the episcopate.

a This exordium was absent from some manuscripts. From it one may infer that this narrative is part of a larger work.

b The river which now flows past Septempeda is called the Potentia. Cluverius thinks the Flusor is now called the Chienti, which flows by Tolentino. Rather, faith should be placed in the ancient writer.

c Mombritius reads extristati.

d There is a lake in a valley of the Apennines, which the river Potentia drains, to which a town is now situated at the confluence, called by the common name Pioraco. That in antiquity it was called, from its situation before the lake, Prolaqueum — just as among the Aequi on the bank of the Anio there was a town below the lake called Sublaqueum — is learned from the Itinerary of Antoninus, where the route is as follows: Nuceria, Dubios, Prolaque, Septempeda, Trea, Auximum. Thus Cluverius, Italia Illustrata, book 2, chapter 6. It is likely that the mountain near this town is meant, or some ridge of the Apennines.

e Others read siluis, errore, etc., as does also Ado.

f Others read vulnere noxio, calorem.

g Others read de corona.

h Perhaps something is missing here.

i Of Camerinum, as Ferrarius says. Camerinum is situated between the rivers Chienti and Potentia, not far from Prolaqueum.

k Others read innocentibus.

l Others read caelique.

m Amiternum was a celebrated city of the Sabines: after its destruction, remains of great works, theaters, and temples survive, as Leander testifies; there survives a church sacred to St. Victorinus (as Ferrarius attests) — the Martyr, as we suppose, who, though killed at the Waters of Cutilia, was nevertheless buried near Amiternum, and is believed by the tradition of those people to have been Bishop of Amiternum. The episcopal see was transferred from Amiternum to Aquila.

n The manuscript of Metz reads: Quem locum merito indeptum virtutes per eum factae declarant ["That he worthily obtained that office, the virtues wrought through him declare"].

o The manuscript of Metz reads V. Id. Ianuar.; perhaps VI. Id. Ianuar. was written. Certainly on April 26, May 15, and May 1, the days expressed here, none of our Martyrologies mentions him.

p These four little words are absent from some manuscripts. In some manuscripts it reads Actor, that is, perhaps the steward and manager of some powerful man, or of the state. One might conjecture that the reading should be Actor adhuc et mimus.

q We interpret this as Fabriano, a noble town in this period between Sentinum, Camerinum, and Matelica; in whose territory there is the village of Attigio, amid the ruins of the town of Attidium.

r Others read trepidus.

s Mombritius reads eximit.

t The holy Pontiffs are venerated as follows: Sixtus I on April 6; II on August 6; III on March 28. Marcus on October 7. Marcellus on January 16. Julius on April 12.

v The Fulda manuscript reads Ziferinum. Should this be Severinum, or refer to the town of San Severino? Otherwise in the same Umbria there is Tifernum Tiberinum, on the bank of the Tiber, which is now called Citta di Castello; and another Tifernum Metaurense, now Sant'Angelo in Vado, on the Metaurus river in the Duchy of Urbino. Neither, however, is very near to Septempeda.

x Thus the manuscripts, for tigillo. Mombritius reads particellum.