Epiphanius

ON S. EPIPHANIUS, BISHOP OF PAVIA IN ITALY.

Year of Christ 496.

Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia in Italy (S.)

[1] In the dark and most wretched times of the Roman Empire declining to its destruction, the virtue of S. Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia in Cisalpine Gaul, shone forth and fulfilled the splendor of his name (for epiphanes signifies illustrious and splendid). The feast of S. Epiphanius, The Roman Calendar and others propose him for public veneration among the Saints on the 12th before the Kalends of February, others on the 11th.

[2] The deeds nobly accomplished by him were described by the Blessed Ennodius, his disciple and Bishop of the same see, in the third of his miscellaneous works, which, His Life, in the judgment of Sirmond, appears to be among the Ennodian writings both the greatest and the best, and embraces the varied and manifold history of those times. Scarcely a third of it had been published by Surius and others: our Andreas Scottus and Jacques Sirmond supplied the rest from old manuscripts: Rosweyde had transcribed it from an ancient codex of Francis Modius, and we give it as here. Cardinal Baronius treats of him at length in volume 6 of the Annals, Paul the Deacon in book 16 of the Roman History, Bernardino Sacco in book 7 of the History of Pavia, and following him Antonio Maria Spelta and Giacomo Gualla: but these three, whose authority on matters of their own country should be the greatest, either did not read Ennodius or did not esteem him as much as he deserves, and expressed matters with very little exactitude.

[3] Andreas Saussaius also inscribed his name in the Gallican Martyrology in the Supplement, His memory among the French, because he was sent by Emperor Nepos to Euric, King of the Visigoths, at Toulouse: he could also have been inscribed on the further ground that he came as an envoy from Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, to Gundobad, King of the Burgundians, at Lyon. Certainly in both places he left many traces of his wisdom and sanctity imprinted.

[4] Spelta reports that he died while Emperor Zeno was still alive, His dates. Simplicius was occupying the see of Rome, in the year 481. But Theodoric had not yet come to Italy in that year; and so Spelta contradicts himself and the other writers. Zeno died in the sole consulship of Olybrius the Younger, in the year 491, at which time Odoacer, besieged at Ravenna, was still shut up there; after whose death Epiphanius is known to have been still alive. Sacco, although he himself also does not arrange the chronology well enough, nevertheless admits that he died under the pontificate of Gelasius, who held office in the times of Emperor Zeno and King Theodoric. Our Jacques Sirmond writes that S. Epiphanius died on the 12th before the Kalends of February in the year 497, not yet having completed the fifty-eighth year of his age; born in the year 439, made Bishop in the year 467. But Dionysius Petavius reports that he was made Bishop in the year 466: which will seem more probable to one reading his life, which Ennodius arranged with care. We shall treat of his relics below.

LIFE

BY B. ENNODIUS, BISHOP,

from a most ancient manuscript of Francis Modius.

Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia in Italy (S.)

BHL Number: 2570

By B. Ennodius, from manuscripts.

PROLOGUE.

[1] The Author professes that he wishes to amplify nothing beyond the truth, Although the uncertain necessity of undertaking this work presses upon me, and on the other hand a treatise has been imposed that is not free from my own labor nor from the caviling of detractors -- a treatise in which a twofold caution of diction here demands richness of talent, and there imposes reins even upon tongues rich in narration; since even those persons who are considered most eminent in the world through vain inflation, if anyone has been too zealous to elevate them with windy praise, or to confine them within the limits of their deeds through poverty of eloquence, both results are judged ungrateful by them. For in praises themselves it is shameful to forge things which not even the person of whom they are told would recognize; just as it is considered injurious and worthy of grief to pass over in silence what a true account could exalt. For the noble deeds of our predecessors receive their value in our estimation according to the ability of the narrator. For truly either something perishes from notice or passes diminished to posterity when a meager vein of words has undertaken to explain it: and that praise which is too freely given takes away as much glory as it has added of falsehood. It often happens, moreover, that an accumulation lacking in credibility diminishes the well-done deeds of many, and a vain narrative that grows from lies is untimely and too impoverished, failing to reach its goal. Wherefore, as I am about to narrate the life of the most blessed Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia, I invoke the Holy Spirit, witness and companion of his deeds, so that with His aid I may commit to pages destined to endure in the world the glory of a most serene conscience, which He granted to him, so that the fame of one who is destined to furnish an example of virtues may never die. In which work, however, even if the narrowness of eloquence running under a fixed rule does not constrain me, so that at least I may set forth in order the bare facts of his merits, yet I shall find nothing of his labors so mediocre or lowly that I need amplify it with the necessary ornaments (as most are wont to do) of vivid speech. Who writes while witnesses are still living. I shall also summon witnesses of events still warm, and shall display his trophies still smoking and adorned with the spoils of diabolical destitution. For no one commemorates things that are almost present before everyone's eyes and too well known, unless he trusts in the truth, so that those whom perhaps, if I were about to tell fictions, I would avoid as being conscious of my own impudence, to their ears I may read back those things which their own sight has recognized.

CHAPTER I.

The holy youth of Epiphanius.

[2] The aforesaid distinguished man Epiphanius was by origin a native of the town of Pavia, begotten by his father Maurus and born of his mother Focaria, The homeland of Epiphanius, who also belonged to the lineage of the holy Myrocles, Confessor and Bishop, people descending from the clear fountain of freeborn status. But why should I rehearse the prerogative of blood of those His family, parents, whose son is the head of their house and nobility? Under his predecessor, the upright Pontiff Crispinus, he began the training of the heavenly warfare, and at about eight years of age received the office of ecclesiastical Lector, His education under S. Crispinus; his cradle illuminated from heaven. a sign having been shown beforehand from heaven. For while he was still in the playthings of suckling infancy, very many people saw his cradle illuminated by a supernatural light, so that a brilliance illuminating and preceding him might show forth the future clarity of his mind and might already then mark with a prefigurative light the splendor that was to follow in his character.

[3] Having quickly mastered the abbreviations of writing and the various symbols that comprehend a multitude of words in brief, he shone forth, dedicated among the number of Notaries: and he began to take notes of such quality He becomes a Notary. as could be dictated without reproach from good men. Therefore, in the progress of time and labor, having been brought by divine favor to the sixteenth year of his age, he meditated mature counsels in his boyish years. He serves S. Crispinus assiduously: In him, above all others, flourished modesty, the mother of good works. He served the Bishop so willingly that if any task were performed by another, he took it as a grievance that the service had been snatched from him: He shines with virtues, he received the elderly with gravity, the young with courtesy, and even then boldly restrained evildoers: he was subject to those above him, obedient to superiors who commanded holy things, gentle and obliging to his equals, and common to his inferiors with remarkable charity; preferring himself to none, though in his devout course along the heavenly path he surpassed all; empty of the love of praise, though praiseworthy things grew daily in him: and although he accomplished things worthy of glory with every passing hour, Especially in humility. he considered that the fruit and reward of glory would perish if men should display openly what he offered only to the Lord in secret: in short, mindful of the Apostolic oracle, rejecting flattery, he took satisfaction in himself with conscience as his witness for the recognition of good work. 2 Cor. 10.

[4] Indeed, I do not deny that this should be sampled: that the beauty of bodily light in him was an indicator of his soul; and the grace of his form shone forth so much against his own inclination that it could not be overturned even by a strong man attacking it. His cheeks smiled, Endowed with extraordinary bodily beauty, even when his spirit was dulled with sadness: his gleaming lips doubly commended the honey of his words: and wherever he turned his eyes, his gaze announced the serenity of his mind: his brow was of waxen beauty and of that whiteness which, having endured the rays of the sun, drew its color from the sky: his nostrils were formed with such natural splendor that no painter reproducing bodies in images could rival them: his hands smooth, his fingers long, from which even a stranger would rejoice to receive something: a becoming tallness of stature that prefigured in his limbs the eminence of the dignity that would follow, yet did not exceed the measure of the most elegant height. But lest perhaps some malicious interpreter should object that mention has been inappropriately made in a man of such great virtues concerning the beauty of the flesh, since it is rooted in that ancient foundation of heavenly commandments that the bodies of priests ought to be examined with careful inspection, lest there be anything weak or deformed, anything too much or too little, lest a surface foul with blemishes disgrace skin marked by them, A comely form of body is required in priests. and lest a fracture of the hand, or fracture of the foot, or a hunchback render a Bishop unworthy of the altars; Lev. 21:18 ff. and since the Teacher of the Gentiles and Vessel of Election cries out that a man must come clean to such an office, which is believed to have been said especially not only about the beauty of the soul but also of the body -- He who commands the deformed and disabled to be excluded from His sacrifices Tit. 1:15 is found to willingly admit those who are pleasing in many ways, especially one in whom the splendor of the soul surpasses the beauty of the limbs, and that natural earthly grace is not aided by any artifices.

[5] Having therefore briefly touched on those things which ought not to be omitted, so that to whom the man immense in his works was made known, he might also be presented in his appearance, let me pass to those things which are narrated with no ordinary distinction concerning the servants of our Lord. In him there was speech suited to teaching, fashioned for persuasion, already skilled in intercessions, S. Epiphanius was gracious in speech. full of authority in correcting individuals, most sweet with the necessary charm in exhorting all. His voice was resonant, seasoned with the substance of manly elegance, yet neither rustic nor crude; not broken, nor gradually descending from masculine firmness. Whoever saw him, though he had not yet crossed the threshold of any dignity, believed he had already passed through all the distinctions that were to follow.

CHAPTER II.

The office of Subdeacon. Injuries endured.

[6] Such was he when he reached the eighteenth year of his age, He is made Subdeacon at the age of 18. in which, dedicated in the second rank after the Levites, as a youth he was joined to the assemblies of the elders. Very many were astonished, but outsiders who joined his character with the immaturity of his age: those who knew him believed this dignity had been conferred late. But that venerable Crispinus the Bishop, ignorant of favoritism, holding his censure with persistent strictness, and who was never led to favor except by a good conscience, He refreshes S. Crispinus with his virtue. so soothed him with his feelings that he bit with his glance, and under the appearance of a stern countenance nourished a hidden affection toward his disciple. The Father was nourished by the delightful conduct of his pupil and found delight for his eyes in all his actions; in which order of the subdiaconate, however, he remained no more than two years, borne up and leaping forward by the bounds of his merits, nor did his rich soul long suffer itself to be restrained within the confines of a modest honor. His conscience hastened toward the Levitical dignity, which his ambitions had never presumed: his way of life demanded what his desires utterly did not know. Near the limits and end of the aforesaid office, however, it is fitting to touch upon one small work of his.

[7] The field called Summias is situated in that place where the gluttonous bite of the Po's whirlpool gnaws at the earthen bank, and the river, winding serpentinely, grants in the gain of one Pleading the cause of the Church, what it steals from another, and the calamity of a stranger becomes the profit of a neighbor. A certain Burco was contending with the Clergy in an ancient lawsuit concerning the boundaries of this estate: to settle which dispute, this boy, still a youth, was sent -- a mission exceeding his years and more venerable than could be conjectured. For he was chosen who could both firmly receive the charges brought and temper with mature counsel those to be brought in return. Nevertheless, intention, the mother of all crimes, brought what it usually brings: for in the course of the altercation and quarrel, He is beaten with a club: Burco himself, who was currying favor for his own malice with sordid assent, committed the utmost crime without any fear: for he struck the holy man with a club so that blood immediately gushed forth.

[8] But that most peaceable man suppressed his anger; nor did he boil over, provoked by the hope of revenge, The mother of the assailant begging pardon for the offense, but rather soothed the troubled and astonished attacker with the most gentle speech. Immediately Capraria, the mother of Burco, rushed forward crying that she was wretched and bereft of her son on account of the atrocity of the deed: you would have thought she was tossing about with that lamentation which drives away all counsel, as in the deaths of loved ones, around the funeral of her child: the wailing mother was licking the footsteps of the most holy youth; and she cried, Spare! to him whom no force had ever driven to indignation. The city conspiring for vengeance, But he forbade the suppliant, lest by her entreaty she should stir up ill-will against him, lest she should burden him, who did not deserve it, with the weight of the honor thus conferred. The city was suddenly thrown into tumult, the minds of all Christians were turned to fury. Burco was demanded for destruction, and in so great a multitude of men no one was found mild except the one who had suffered the injury. He himself dissimulates the injury. The excellent Pontiff wept, while his disciple rejoiced over his own weaknesses and troubles; for he so made satisfaction on behalf of the one who was thought his enemy, to each and all, that he neither boastfully sought glory by sparing, nor by avenging transgressed the heavenly commandments.

c Thus Lucan, book 6: The earth flees from those masters; to these the fields Come by gift of the Po as settlers.

CHAPTER III.

Virtues exercised in the diaconate.

[9] He is made Deacon at the age of 20. Shortly after, raised to the insignia of the Diaconate, he reached his twentieth year of age, his face not yet well bearded. The man was troubled by the novitiate of the honor he had received, he who could already fulfill the role of a Christian leader; out of modesty he avoided the gaze of individuals, he whom the entire city regarded as some sign of salvation. His proven industry and fidelity prepare him as successor to the Bishop, Meanwhile the aforesaid Bishop committed to his power the entire substance of the ecclesiastical administration and the riches of his poor; wishing before the episcopate to ascertain what kind of bishop he was preparing for future times: and although it is scarcely possible for envy to be restrained toward those persons about whom even the slightest suspicion of succession is sown, in this man's favor the holy Father believed that whatever had been less fully displayed would be lost to him; he wished that in him some things should be his own, some things greater. But the youth by his daily progress had surpassed even the wishes of a most eager parent in prayer. For he was a parent whose womb, impregnated with the seed of the heavenly word, had brought him forth through the Gospel.

[10] For what shall I say of the chastity of my young man, in whom chastity had established its home, Chaste, and continence had fixed its roots deep? He did not know himself to be a man except through the patience of labor: he did not know he had flesh except when he remembered that he must one day die. Yet whenever bodily appetite, as I learned from him, played upon him with the images of dreams, he immediately ran with full eagerness to holy vigils, continuous fasts, and the necessity of standing for the longest time; Mortifying the flesh in various ways, and the warrior right hand of his soul so treated his flesh in its combats that afterwards it needed to be relieved out of necessity. Nor yet did he indulge in leisure when his little body was refreshed. He used reading for rest, taking up the instruments of venerable books instead of pleasures. He would recite from memory what he had read through once: and lest it be believed that he had merely flown over the path of the divine Scriptures with speed of words alone, he painted with his deeds the page he had read. If a Prophet had been in his hands, Assiduously intent on sacred reading, you would see in the reader, once the book was laid aside, one who prophesied: if he had reviewed the volumes of the Old Testament, he walked as a worthy rival of Moses, as if the Israelite hosts were following him through the desert; if the written text had revealed the Apostolic milk of words and the honey of the Lord's passion, seasoning the severity of the law, immediately from his mouth flowed words sweeter than honeycombs. In short, his life signified what the books had taught.

[11] He so governed the house of the Church that he neither exhausted by immoderate expenditure the provisions entrusted to him, nor by sordid parsimony incurred hatred: he was even then rehearsing the contests of intercessions. For wherever he was sent by the Bishop's command for the relief of the wretched, Moderate, he obtained the benefit with such skill of supplication that very many felt that the Bishop himself, through him, had been of service to their causes. Dear to all. The popular affection for him increased daily, and the love that descended from judgment was increased by great successes. The priesthood was desired in him, though no one wished for the death of his mentor: yet not even a whiff of this opinion had reached him; he judged it sufficient for his advancement to serve always with a good reputation.

[12] After, however, feeble old age, ever complaining of infirmities, He assists S. Crispinus, now elderly. had overtaken the venerable Pontiff Crispinus, Crispinus was supported by this man's hands, and leaning on this man rose in his embrace: he was his foot, his eye, his right hand, by whose ministry he saw whatever he wished done fulfilled before his command: for good minds anticipate the desires of those whom they serve with integrity. Such was he who in the Diaconate, beginning from his twentieth year, completed eight years. Other distinguished men then at Pavia. And indeed the state of the Church of Pavia at that time was strong with the good harvest of its clergy. There were heavenly men, whom he, beginning from perfection, surpassed. There was at that time Silvester the Archdeacon, a man most proven in the ancient training of the disciplines: there was a most distinguished man, Bonosus the Priest, as noble in sanctity as in blood, Gallic indeed in lineage but heavenly in citizenship: there were others both more numerous and outstanding in virtue, of whom I make mention for this reason, that he deserves small praise who is preferred only to the wretched.

[13] Near the end of his life, however, which the holy Bishop foresaw in spirit, By S. Crispinus, who foresaw his own death, he sought out the neighboring city of Milan, where the offspring of noble families had grown up in a certain quality of pure free birth, and having sought them out by way of a visit, the man of God addressed them with the following words: Behold, my sons, now my age drives me toward my passing, now earth recalls its original particle to its own right. I commend the city, I commend the Church, He is commended to Rusticius, a distinguished man; I commend this one, to whose labor and grace I owe it that I have lived until this time, old and feeble; whose bodily strength and virtue of soul bore my weakness without weariness; with whose feet I walked, held something with whose hands, saw with whose eyes, directed with whose speech: we appeared as two to those who saw us, when through concord one was made from two.

[14] These words, spoken to Rusticius, an illustrious man, sank deeply into him, who, being most practiced in every kind of oratory, began with this speech: Who assents to his judgment. We know, holy Father, we know, and with deep consideration we have perceived that this young man ought not to be judged by the immaturity of his age; nor ought his tender years to be brought as some obstacle against men of weighty counsel. For a man commendable for the venerable integrity of his character is worthy of double praise if his youthful body obeys the venerable command of his mind. Yet live, live on, you who are the model and pattern of good works, and add to him, if they can still grow, the richer fruits of a shining life. Having said these things, he fell silent. But that most pious Pontiff, rendering thanks for his goodwill, because he felt the same estimation of his disciple as himself, bade farewell and departed; and returned to Pavia as if hastening to his tomb, and after some days had passed, being smitten with jaundice, he exchanged the light of our world for a heavenly dwelling.

CHAPTER IV.

The episcopate received. Beneficence in that office.

[15] Immediately from that time the unanimous consent of all good men is brought together: there was at once a great concourse throughout the entire city. The bishop-to-be is snatched from the lamentation of the funeral to the joy of the people. He wept excessively from the grief of his father's death, for the joy of the promiscuous multitude did not permit the due tears to be rendered. He resisted as much as he could, and in Apostolic imitation already proclaimed himself unworthy: S. Epiphanius is unwillingly consecrated at Milan as Bishop of Pavia, but the affection of all rose in him to the same degree that in a great multitude he alone was the one who called himself unworthy. Now why should I use more words, when I cannot explain everything? The zeal of neighboring cities was united, and so great a gathering was drawn together as if a bishop for the whole world were to be inaugurated. He was led to Milan still resisting and promising great gifts if he were released -- he who, in order to be made bishop, was unwilling to promise even the smallest things: he was consecrated with the full celebration of all: the world exulted at the marks of so holy an ordination: the inhabitants of foreign cities tossed themselves about in such rejoicing, as if one about to benefit them personally had received the priestly insignia. Some inhabitants of great cities, however, were consumed by gnawing envy that the narrow confines of the town of Pavia had merited so great a bishop, while among themselves only the titles of metropolitan boasting defended their pontiffs.

[16] When, therefore, the day of his consecration was completed, he returned to Pavia, and having convened all the priests and ministers, he instructed and strengthened them with the following address: Although, dearest brothers, the weight of your judgment and of the dignity I have received has weighed down upon me, stumbling immaturely at the outset; I remember, nevertheless, that I owe great things to your favor, since you have bestowed the greatest things upon me: and although I have had the will to obey you rather than to command, I have changed through the office the person of service, but have not lost the spirit. Be peaceful, be unanimous: He exhorts his clergy to virtue, and to admonish him if he errs: divide my burden with me: for a load that many necks support becomes easy to carry. I promise you that my communion is to be maintained with all humility; and that there will be no one who can offend me except together with our Lord. Preserve chastity, the author of good works: and do not think it injurious that a boy addresses the aged and priests about preserving continence and integrity; it is one's way of life, not years, that reveals either youth or old age. Examine the inner life of my conduct; and if you recognize anything unworthy, restrain it. Let no one fear to admonish the head of the Church, if he proves him to be in error. Having thus spoken, he fell silent; all arose, and with a harmonious voice, as if from previous meditation, All applaud. yet spontaneous, they said: Hail, most proven Father: hail, singular Pontiff: the election of all has indeed found you good, but even your own addresses testify that you are excellent. You grow in holy merits in our conscience, and are found by the light of your works to exceed what opinion had supposed. When these matters had been briefly touched upon, all departed, having received their charge.

[17] He abstains from baths, supper, and luxurious foods. Soon the blessed Bishop dictated for himself by his own mouth the rules by which he might govern himself. First he determined that he should not bathe, lest baths, more akin to defilements, should break the splendor of his soul and the strength of the inner man. Then he had decreed that he should never eat a midday meal; but lest the force of unexpected visitors should violate the resolution of his purpose, and he should be harmed either by the clouds of ostentation or the reputation of avarice, he determined that he should never eat supper, so that the exchange of hours might afford him the occasion of taking food once a day: he ordered that he should prefer the cheapest foods, and that nothing in the preparation of dishes should be able to offend his nose and taste, unless it were seasoned with spices. He was nourished on meals of vegetables and legumes, but took neither of these to the point of satiety: he took a small amount of wine, yet mindful of the Apostolic admonition, he took even this small quantity to avoid weakness of the stomach. 1 Tim. 5:23.

[18] Constant in sacred rites; He decided that he should proceed to church earlier than all others in every kind of threatening weather, so that the Bishop, preceding the lectors, should set the standard for the vigils. After he had reached the precincts of the altar, he determined that there should be no necessity by which he could be drawn away thence without completing the solemnities, and he established that he must stand with his feet joined until the completion of the sacred rite, so that the moisture of his footprints would mark his place and indicate it to those looking from afar. Ready to bring help. He proposed for himself such great care for intercessions that he believed he was himself inflicting upon the wretched whatever trouble he had allowed through negligence to be inflicted by anyone. In a time of leisure he trained his body to endure labor, so that it might be sufficient for the demands that arose. This was the law of living and the rule of discipline that he proposed for himself, undertook, kept, and fulfilled.

CHAPTER V.

The embassy undertaken to Emperor Anthemius on behalf of peace.

[19] Soon the fame of his holy conduct throughout the entire world -- that fame which, though it is usually slower in glorious deeds -- did not keep silent, but brought it to the ears of Ricimer, who at that time governed the commonwealth with the reins second only to those of Emperor Anthemius. For with the Emperor stationed at Rome, that envy which separates rulers sowed the seeds of scandal between them, and equality of dignity became the cause of discord. For so great a fury and dissension had arisen that they were preparing mutual war: and beyond the stimuli that the origin of the quarrels suggested on their own, the strife itself was nourished by the counsel of those around them. The state of imperiled Italy was tottering, and was afflicted more gravely by the very dangers, while it awaited future dangers. [Ricimer is asked by the Ligurians to allow himself to be reconciled with Emperor Anthemius.] Meanwhile, before the patrician Ricimer, then residing at Milan, there was held a conference of the Ligurian nobility, who on bended knees, prostrate on the ground, begged for peace between the princes, and prayed that from one side opportunities for reconciliation be offered, and that both parties desist from the quarrel. Why should I weave more? Ricimer is appeased and, moved by the tears of many, promises that he wishes to restore concord: But who, he says, will most aptly bear the weight of this embassy? Whom does the care of so great an undertaking await? Who is there who can recall an agitated Galatian prince? When he seeks a suitable ambassador, Epiphanius is proposed, For he who does not restrain his anger with natural moderation always grows excessive when entreated. Then all with one voice responded: Only let your consent be inclined toward peace; there is a person recently appointed to the priesthood of the city of Pavia, to whom even wild beasts submit their necks: to whom a benefit is offered before prayers, whatever he may have come to ask: whose countenance is like his life, which anyone can venerate His eloquence is praised: if he is Catholic and Roman; and certainly love, if he deserves even to see him, even if he is a mere Greek. Now if we come to his speech, never could a Thessalian enchanter so summon dread serpents from their lairs with violent incantations with his word-fingers as that man wrests the effect of his petition even from those about to refuse: when he has begun to speak, the judgment of the listener hangs upon his will: he who has determined to excuse himself will lose his right if that man is granted the opportunity to bind him. Then the patrician Ricimer thus replied: Fame has brought to me this man you describe as glorious: Ricimer assenting, and in this I admire him more, that though he has all men as his praisers, his novelty, which is usually abundant in producing enemies through envy, reveals none. Go therefore and ask the man of God to go. Join also my own prayers.

[20] Having left the council, they immediately make for Pavia: they narrate the cause: B. Epiphanius is asked with tears poured forth to undertake this labor. At the request of his own people, He, lest he should diminish the benefit by tormenting his sons with a long supplication, anticipated the desires of those requesting, yet addressed them thus: Although the necessity of so great a matter requires the weight of a most proven person, and an immature bearer stumbles under a heavy load, yet I shall not deny the affection that I owe to my homeland. When he had briefly said these things, He comes to him: since he was sparing in speech, he went to the patrician Ricimer, by whom he was at once seen and chosen. Therefore, having received the arrangement of the embassy, he set out for Rome. On which journey, what troubles he endured and what virtues he displayed, I pass over as I hasten to greater things.

[21] He is sent to Rome. But as soon as he entered the gates of the aforesaid city, the fame that had made him known in his absence began to point him out: the eyes of all were immediately turned, and astonished minds marveled that his appearance, the indicator of his holiness, should demand such great reverence be shown to him: anyone of the powerful confessed himself guilty of an inexpiable offense if he had merely embraced his knees. He is received with great honor by the Romans: A clamor was raised to heaven: no one counted him among the number of mortals, since they saw that all the gifts of heavenly grace were present in him. It was reported to Emperor Anthemius that a bishop of Liguria had come on a diplomatic mission, a man whom no one, however rich in eloquence, could adequately describe. But he said: Ricimer contends with me through cunning art even in his embassies. By Anthemius, though suspecting the embassy, He sends such men as can conquer by supplication those whom he provokes by injuries: bring, however, the man of God to me; if he asks what is possible, I shall grant it; if what is difficult, I shall beg that he not be grieved to accept my refusal. I doubt, however, whether Ricimer will obtain from me what he seeks; whose agent I know to be intemperate in his desires, and to observe no limit of reason in proposing conditions: but let the directed Bishop come, and let him present the appearance long since praised. The Palatine officials go out: throughout the entire city, He is admitted: the Bishop was hearing the words, "Order him to be asked in."

[22] But the venerable and universally proven Pontiff, after he had entered and was granted license to speak, although the insignia of fleeting power -- the purple and gleaming gems -- were suppressed by the radiance of his reverend appearance (for just as if the Emperor were absent, he had drawn the eyes of all to himself), nevertheless beginning with the following discourse he opened the door of his lips: He pleads for peace: It has been ordained by the supreme disposition of the heavenly Lord, O Venerable Prince, that he to whom the care of so great a commonwealth was entrusted should acknowledge through the dogma of the Catholic faith the Lord and Author and Lover of piety, through whom the arms of peace shatter the fury of wars, and concord, treading upon the neck of pride, conquers what force cannot prevail. For thus the spirit of sparing his enemy rather than the intention of avenging rendered David praiseworthy: thus the perfect kings and lords of the ages learned by heavenly art to pardon those who supplicate. For he who exalts his rule with piety possesses the likeness of heavenly dominion. Therefore your Italy, relying on this judgment, and the patrician Ricimer, have sent my humble self to entreat, conjecturing without doubt that the Roman Lord will grant the peace that even a barbarian entreats. For it will be a triumph especially profitable to your annals if you conquer without blood. At the same time, I know not what form of war can be stronger than to fight against wrath and to burden the honor of a most fierce Goth with benefits: for he is struck more gravely if his requests are granted, he who has thus far been ashamed to supplicate. Then the uncertain outcome of war must be considered: in which, however, if sins so prevail in the contest, your kingdom will be defrauded of what both sides have lost: for whatever is safe with Ricimer, if he is a friend, is possessed by you together with the patrician himself. Consider also that he who first offers peace directs the order of his cause well.

CHAPTER VI.

Peace is established. Other distinguished works of Epiphanius.

[23] Having continued thus far, the admirable Pontiff made an end of speaking. Then the Prince, raising his eyes, saw that he was deserted by the gaze of all, and that the faces of everyone were directed toward the Bishop; and he himself did not cease to admire him. Anthemius, having first complained much about the ingratitude of Ricimer, Then drawing his words from a deep sigh, he thus began: Although, holy Bishop, I have an inexpressible cause of grief against Ricimer, and it has profited nothing that he was endowed by us with the greatest benefits; whom we have even -- which must be said not without shame to our kingdom and our blood -- joined into the stock of our family, while we yielded to love of the commonwealth what seemed to pertain to the hatred of our own kindred. For who of the ancient princes of old ever did this, that among the gifts that it was necessary to give to a skin-clad Goth for the sake of common peace, his own daughter should be included? We knew not how to spare our own blood while we preserved another's. Yet let no one believe this was done on account of personal fear. For in so great a concern for the safety of all, we know not how to fear for ourselves alone. For we well know that an emperor who does not fear for the precaution of others loses the praise of his own virtue. But to open fully to your reverence his designs -- as often as Ricimer has been heaped with greater gifts by us, so often has he appeared a more grievous enemy. What great wars has he prepared against the commonwealth? What great strength did foreign nations receive through him in their fury? Finally, even where he could not harm, he nevertheless suggested the fuel of harming. Shall we give peace to this man? Shall we endure this domestic enemy under the garment of friendship, whom not even the bonds of kinship have held to the pact of concord? It is a great safeguard to have recognized the mind of an adversary: for to have perceived an enemy at once is to have conquered him: detected hatreds always lose the stimuli that they had conceived when hidden.

[24] But if in all these matters Your Reverence comes forward as both surety and mediator, who can by spiritual investigation discover wicked counsels and correct what is discovered, I dare not refuse the peace that you too demand. Finally, if the cunning of his accustomed craftiness should deceive even you, let him undertake battle already wounded. Yet I commend and entrust to your hands myself and the state of the commonwealth, and the favor that I had determined to refuse to Ricimer if he himself were the suppliant and prostrate, I am the first to bestow through you: He nevertheless obtains it: for by deep deliberation we provide for our advantage in this matter, if in the uncertain wanderings of the storm we steer the ship by the direction of a good helmsman. For who would presume to refuse a benefit to you when you ask, to whom it should have been offered before any prayer? So spoke the Emperor. But the venerable Priest said: Thanks be to the almighty Lord, who has implanted His peace in the mind of the Prince, whom He willed to be the vicar of His power for mortals in the image of heavenly dominion.

[25] When these things had been briefly narrated, having also received an oath from Anthemius for the firmness of the concord, he departed, hastening to return to Liguria, since the time of the Lord's Resurrection was at hand, during which, with bodies macerated by the cross of fasting and the flesh grown cold, the joyful spirit might grow warm again, while death is conquered by our Redeemer in dying and the soul is fattened with the foods of faithful hope. The twentieth day from his departure from Rome promised the coming Easter. Yet he completed the journey with such speed that on the fourteenth day, unexpected and outrunning the news, he entered Pavia, He returns to Pavia, having left behind on the road very many companions, because they could endure neither his abstinence nor his labor. Behold the throng of those awaiting the arrival of so great a Bishop -- they saw at home one whom they had not yet known to have left Rome. The rejoicings of the glad city were announced to the astonished Ricimer: He is received with the great joy of all: all proclaimed with one voice that peace had been made: infinite was the exultation of the provinces, and as is the manner of men, to hold more gratefully what is restored than if it had never been lost at all, the concord was sweeter that was recalled after strife, and the peace that had occurred when almost despaired of. The reverend Pontiff was summoned to present his long-awaited appearance to the Milanese. But he, lest he should seem to be exacting due thanksgivings in person, declined their visits under a colored pretext.

[26] Therefore, in the course of time and through the daily successes of his labor, the merit of his life was doubled in him. He had a sister younger by birth and not unequal in religion, named Honorata, [He consecrates his sister Honorata and entrusts her to S. Luminosa for instruction.] whose life it would be long to recount through every kind of virtue: yet it suffices for the fullness of her praises to say she was a worthy sister of so great a man. Her he consecrated in the very year in which he returned from his embassy, and yet he committed her to be imbued with heavenly disciplines -- as if her holy nature were not sufficient for her -- to a certain Luminosa, a woman of stupendous sanctity and singular example: whose high birth it would perhaps be fitting to recount, had not her life been more illustrious than her blood. For she was such a woman that even he who was entrusting the companion of his womb to be educated believed he had something to learn from her. For in a short time the bishop's pledge, deposited with her, flourished and brought its laden shoots to the maturity of good fruit.

[27] Meanwhile the venerable Priest advanced along the path of life proposed for himself at a headlong pace, giving himself to almsgiving without hesitation: which gift he commended to the recipients with a most gentle countenance and spirit, so that to whomever he had granted merely the favor of his speech, that person by no means thought himself departing without a gift. Most kindly he aided the poor: For it was the highest reward merely to have seen such a Pontiff. His fame grew daily with glorious successes and filled nearly the entire world with his praise.

CHAPTER VII.

The journey to Toulouse to Euric on behalf of peace.

[28] When Ricimer and Anthemius had died, Olybrius succeeded, who closed his last day in the very beginnings of his reign. After him, Glycerius was raised to the throne, before whom, what great things the Bishop accomplished for the salvation of many, He is honored by Emperor Glycerius: I cut short for the sake of brevity. For at the holy man's supplication, he pardoned an injury inflicted on his mother by men of his own dominion; since in his estimation the reverence for the aforesaid Priest was even more exalted than that of his predecessor.

[29] After him, Nepos came to the throne. Then between him and the Goths, nurslings of Toulouse, whom King Euric governed with an iron dominion, a dissension arose; while they, scorning the novelty of Italian sovereignty, did not cease to assail the boundaries of the empire, which he had extended beyond the Gallic Alps; on the other hand, Nepos, lest the ill-advised presumption should be drawn into custom, He is sent by Emperor Nepos to Euric, King of the Goths: wished more strictly to vindicate the boundary of rule entrusted to him by the Lord. Hence the fuel of litigation began to rise on both sides, and while neither party laid aside in the zeal of conquering its swollen passions, thus the cause of discord prevailed. The most blessed man had already reached the eighth year of his priesthood, when suddenly the love of removing the dissension entered the mind of Nepos, so that with the poison of enmity repelled, charity might preserve among kings what arms could scarcely protect. The lights of Liguria were summoned to a council -- men of maturity, by whose deliberation the tottering state of the commonwealth might revive and its hopeless stability be restored to its ancient pillar: and as many came together for the conference at the Prince's command as could be rulers. A discussion was sown about arranging an embassy: the minds and eyes of all were directed to the most blessed man Epiphanius. The opinions of all were formed as if they were uttered from the mouth and breast of one man.

[30] Why more? With joy the soldier of Christ embraces the occasion of labor, and anticipates the effect with hope; trusting in the estimation of the business, he inquires into a means of improving the conduct of the affair: a cause nearly given up and very difficult he investigated with the aid of heavenly power, undertook, and fulfilled. The troubles and necessities of which journey I could not set forth in order even if words were poured forth to me through irrigated channels by the streams of a hundred tongues. For having departed from the town of Pavia, until he reached the destined places, he doubled the fatigue of his journey by the following method: if, considering the exhaustion of the beasts of burden more seasonably, they had turned aside to the lodging-places of the next inn, besides the continuation of the Psalms, He arranges his journey in a holy manner: besides the perseverance of reading -- none of which he did except standing -- he would choose a retreat enclosed by the foliage of a grove, where a domestic night was woven by the interlocking arms of the trees, which alone the sun, fleeing through the dark shadows, did not know: and natural grace would spread a bed of verdant turf. There, poured out in prayer with continuous weeping, he irrigated the earth, devoid of rains, with the showers of his eyes. Those fields were made fruitful by the abundance of his prayers, which could not be so by crops.

[31] Wearing himself down with such exercise, he entered the city of Toulouse, where King Euric was then residing: whom already the preceding report had made known to the ears of the Gauls -- what manner of man he was -- especially to the bishops of the same region, whom a profound investigation of the newcomers stirred in astonishment. Moreover at the same time there was a moderator and arbiter of the Prince's counsels named Leo, whom more than one palm of declamatory victory had already received on account of his merit in eloquence; who with the greatest joy announced the arrival of the Pontiff to public knowledge. The Bishop was summoned immediately to be presented to the King: to whom as soon as he entered, having seen and greeted him, he addressed himself: Although, O wondrous Prince of the earth, the fame of your virtue makes you terrible to the ears of many, and the swords with which you press your neighbors with continual devastation reap a kind of harvest of hostile stock, yet the dire ambition of waging war procures for you no favor of the heavenly Deity: nor does iron guard the boundaries of your empire if the heavenly Lord is offended. He exhorts Euric to peace; Remember that you have a King to whom you must consider what is pleasing; who, when He bore assumed manhood to heaven, commended peace to His disciples with admonition often repeated, as the gift of an immense inheritance: of which precept we must needs be guardians, especially since we know that a brave man cannot be called one whom indignation has conquered. Then it befits us to consider that no one guards his own possessions more diligently than he who does not covet another's. Wherefore Nepos, to whom the divine ordinance has committed the governance of Italy, has sent us to obtain these things: that minds being restored to fidelity, lands neighboring to him may be joined by the bond of affection: who, though he does not fear contests, first desires concord. You know in common by what boundary the antiquity of dominions has been limited; with what patience of service the rulers of those parts have sustained these regions. Let it suffice that he who deserved to be called Master chooses, or at least endures, to be called friend. So spoke the most distinguished man Epiphanius.

[32] But Euric, breaking off some kind of barbarian murmur, signified by the serenity of his countenance that he had been softened by his exhortations. Leo, named above, was held by such wonder at his address, He obtains it. that he believed minds could be conquered by such words -- if it be permissible to say it -- even if he were asking against justice. Yet the King is reported to have spoken thus to the interpreter: Although a breastplate scarcely leaves my breast, and a shield of bronze constantly encloses my hand, and the protection of iron guards my side; yet I have found a man who can conquer me, armed as I am, with his words. Those who say that the Romans have no shield or javelins in their tongues are deceived. For they know how to repel even the words that we have sent; and those that they direct from themselves, they aim at the innermost chambers of the heart. I do therefore, Venerable Father, what you ask, because the person of the ambassador is of greater weight with me than the power of the one who sent him. Accept now my pledge, and promise on behalf of Nepos that he will keep the concord inviolate; for that you have promised is as good as having sworn. When these words were spoken, a bond of agreement having also been entered into, the reverend Pontiff bade farewell and departed: He refuses to attend the banquet of the Arian King. to whom immediately a crowd of suppliants was sent, that on the following day he should attend the King's banquet: which he had already discovered to be constantly polluted through his Arian priests: to which he made his excuses, and said it was not his custom ever to partake of others' dinners, and that he preferred rather to depart the day after next, a resolve he hastened to fulfill: and he departed from Toulouse with so many accompanying him that the city seemed almost deserted when our Pontiff left. For he had in a short time bound so many to himself with sincere love that those whom necessity constrained to remain in their homeland wept as if in captivity.

[33] He visits Lerins and other holy places. Thence, however, returning, he visited one by one the places of the holy dwellings: the Median Islands, the Cyclades, Leros, and Lerins itself, the nurse of the loftiest peaks upon her level plain. Whence he gathered from all individual blossoms of life, which the fuel of good growth might graft into himself, and a tree heavy with heavenly fruits might bring to the time of maturity. Meanwhile the light awaited by the Italians was restored, and with the return of the singular Priest a gleaming radiance shone through the clear sky. He entered Pavia, long desired. He announces peace to Nepos. He communicated to Nepos the result of the accomplished embassy: and with the growing heap of praises, humility in him likewise felt an increase.

CHAPTER VIII.

Pavia, destroyed by King Odoacer, is revived and restored by Epiphanius.

[34] Therefore, while the worker of Christ our Lord was exercising himself with such disciplines and labors, behold that enemy, ignorant of rest and perpetrator of crimes, piles up great increases of suffering and seeks with what afflictions he might provoke the most upright man. He raises an army against the patrician Orestes and the secret underminer introduces the seeds of discord: Pavia being captured by Odoacer, with the hope of revolution he unsettles the minds of the desperate: he raises Odoacer to the ambition of ruling: and so that this ruin should occur in the city of Pavia, he invites Orestes to it in confidence of its fortifications. The Bishop was found present with all those belonging to him: there was a very great concourse in the city: the madness of plundering blazed forth: everywhere lamentation, everywhere terror, and everywhere the image of death in abundance: the Bishop ran about in his anxiety, while the one was demanded for punishment whose property an older pledge of friendship had made better known. And after it was plundered and burned, Some were setting flames to the buildings about to collapse, others were demanding the master for destruction, for whose safety the fight had been joined. They rushed to the house of the Church, all ablaze with the fires of plundering, for they suspected that one whom they saw distributing so much was concealing immeasurably more. O wickedness! The crude barbarity was seeking treasures in the earth which that man had transmitted to the secrets of heaven. His holy sister too was plundered, Epiphanius and his sister are captured: and led away separately from him to share the lot of captivity. All the families of the nobles were separated from their own: Luminosa, a most glorious woman, was constrained by an equal condition of necessity. O grief! Both churches were consumed by hostile flames: the entire city blazed like a single funeral pyre. The churches of Pavia were burned.

[35] The voices of all seeking the Priest were heard: no one had remembered his own danger while a greater portion of their salvation was being separated from them: to whom, although the confused crowd roared in the destruction of individuals, honor was nevertheless paid even among the swords. For immediately those whom he could see as captives ceased to be so. His venerable sister, before the baleful light of that day could slip into evening, he rescued: He frees her and many others from captivity: he also freed very many citizens by his entreaty before they could feel the chains of the harshest condition, especially mothers of families, for whom a more monstrous detention could await in this necessity.

[36] Finally, the state of the city, which the barbarian multitude was cutting down, was rising up again, supported by the aid of one most strong pillar: He restores the city, nor was an entire army sufficient for destroying as much as the person of one Pontiff was for restoring. When Orestes was removed, however, and slain near the city of Piacenza, the onslaught of plundering subsided. After him Odoacer, being raised to the kingdom, began to honor the distinguished man with such great devotion that he surpassed the attentions of all predecessors toward him. Meanwhile, lest the divine dwellings should long be pressed down by ashes, the glorious Bishop took up the spirit of rebuilding before he had prepared the expenses or the means: Especially the churches, although lacking money: he did not fear to raise structures of immense value without a store of money, not unaware of the Apostolic admonition that for those who seek the heavenly kingdom, an unfailing supply always overflows, and that he from whose willingness to be generous poverty does not oppress always imparts from a full store. For he used to say: It is scarcely the case that the ability to do deserts a rich spirit, and it is most difficult that abundance should follow a man who is a beggar in mind.

[37] Already the pinnacles of the greater church had reached perfection, with the building adorned and the marks of its dedication: The work is again overthrown, when suddenly the wall with its columns of another church was hurled down by the impulse of the cunning serpent: he wished to test whether he might overthrow the bishop by manifold vexation. But he rose up more vigorously lest he should yield to his evils, and immediately without any sign of distress he girded himself with full eagerness for its repair. He bears it patiently. Yet the whole community was held by great wonder, because the workmen fell from the very dome of the temple with a huge scaffold, yet none of them was made lame in leg or mutilated in any part of their limbs: which all understood had happened through the prayers of the Bishop, Workmen who fell from the dome of the temple are not injured, so that the collapse sustained its own mass and the stones were suspended from their own fall. Yet with the astonishing course of his administration, the work received perfection. For when it was completed, and he had begun the repair of the greater church, he saw the house of the Lord rise swiftly to the pinnacles of its former soundness -- he who had not yet learned it had been begun. Epiphanius drives demons from the possessed: When these things, however, had been quickly accomplished by him, divine favor soon showed itself in him: for in the course of that same year a great crowd of demons began to cry out from the bodies of the possessed that they were being compelled to flee by scourges and excessive torments at the command of the priest Epiphanius, whom he sent with a brief prayer poured forth with weeping to the uttermost boundaries of the earth, and by the authority of his merits he drove them out as they wailed with diverse voices. But although he continually did such things through the grace of Christ, he assumed nothing for himself from the puffs of presumption. For the confidence of kindness takes away the power of good merit from those in whom it has produced arrogance.

[38] Meanwhile, lest he should seem to have adorned the city with the buildings of temples only, he provided for the exhausted inhabitants of the same city with useful remedies. For having sent an embassy to Odoacer, he obtained a five-year exemption from fiscal taxes: [He obtains a five-year tax exemption for the citizens: he restrains the exactions of Pelagius, the Praetorian Prefect.] and in distributing these benefits to individuals he maintained such integrity that no one received less than the one through whose entreaty they had been granted. While these things were being done, however, the stored-up ardor of the malice of Pelagius, who was at that time Praetorian Prefect, boiled over for the ruin of the Ligurian landholders. For by the enormity of compulsory purchases he was doubling the most grievous taxes and making the burden twofold, which could not be sustained even when simple. Whence the crowd of the oppressed soon flocked to the holy man: who joyfully embraced the opportunities of bringing aid, and for the necessity of all he walked cheerfully, made his request, and obtained it.

CHAPTER IX.

Deeds with the Goths and the Rugians at Pavia.

[39] But why do I vainly endeavor to express the various forms of his labors one by one, when affection presumes what ability does not explain, and the narrowness of speech sets a limit for those who imagine broader things? Yet these were the desires of the most sacred Prophet: that though he did innumerable things, he wished that either nothing or very little be related of his praises. Whence if my poor tongue has opened less than it should, I leave it to the understanding of hearers and readers. After, however, the many embassies He approaches King Theodoric, that the violence of his supplication wrung from King Odoacer, by the disposition of heavenly command King Theodoric came to Italy with an immense multitude of his forces. To him the most upright man went, while he was already stationed at Milan: whom when that most excellent of kings inspected with the eyes of his heart, and weighed our Priest on the accustomed balance of his judgment, he found in him the weight of all virtues to be present: whose integrity he measured as it were with builder's lines to the perpendicular of the mind; and he used the following speech about him among his own people: Behold a man whose equal the entire East does not possess; to have seen whom is a reward, with whom to dwell is safety. And is received with honor by him: The city of Pavia is fortified, while this man stands unharmed, by a most strong wall that no force of attackers can overwhelm, that no flight of a Balearic sling can surpass: if any need arises amid the waves of conflict, it is safe to deposit with this man one's mother and family and to serve unencumbered in the excursions of war.

[40] Meanwhile the ambition of change inflamed the rebellious spirits of the surrendered army, whose head was Tufa, a man polluted in the long-standing infamy of deserters: who conceived in his haughty mind to hand himself over with his multitude to the desperate party. When King Theodoric had learned of this with princely anxiety, he immediately assembled that entire force which the whole East had scarcely sustained, and withdrew to the narrow confines of the city of Pavia. While Theodoric stayed with his army at Pavia, You would have seen a city swarming with crowds of families, the rooftops of immense houses opened up in the most cramped hovels: you would have seen immense buildings migrate from their foundations, and the ground itself unable to suffice for receiving the density of inhabitants. Amid these things, that man most practiced in good works, in whom the amplitude of spirit opened access to all, judging that an opportune time was being offered to him to spread the sails of his kindness to the full south wind and to reach the harbor of glory by a prosperous voyage through the acquaintance of various nations and the renown of his deeds; in the first place (which no pages of the ancients, He prudently conducts himself without suspicion, dear to both parties: no annals of the books say of anyone whatsoever, and which the narrator affirms with astonishment and the reader admits with admiration) dwelling as he was with a most sagacious nation -- one which no breeze of suspicion flies past in doubtful affairs, when the fear of danger agitates even gentle hearts against anyone -- he proved himself so faithful to them that he held the hearts of their enemies completely bound by affection, and among the quarreling princes he alone was one who enjoyed the peace of both: for he applied to the advantage of one whatever was bestowed by the other: and by the reverence and sweetness of his person he so tempered the spirit of the giver that it was by no means inflamed if an enemy too received some benefit through the Bishop. He was one around whom even combatants maintained concord, and whose peace wars did not injure.

[41] Now if we come to the point that he was daily nourishing the plunderers themselves with his humanity, He benefits all: and was providing necessities of sustenance to those within the city who had destroyed his estates outside with continual devastation. For so many thousands of men at one and the same time, when they demanded different things, he refreshed with kind words, humbled with his address, and fed with gifts. If anyone's children and wife had been seized by enemies intercepting from any quarter, immediately at the price of his supplication they were restored to their own, whom no outpouring of gold could have redeemed. He frees many captives, pleasing to Theodoric: He was most agreeable to the King and venerable above all the Saints, so that whomever among the Romans the license of warfare had made captive of his men, the King would soon restore to him, whom he understood to be enriched solely by the liberty of others. Then I could not count how many columns of the subjugated he restored to their own land, how many he took charge of lest they be vexed. He himself also suffers much from the soldiers. Now if I should recount the insolences of enemies that he endured, in what missions he labored, with what virtue he despised the tempests of the worst men; my tongue would not suffice to narrate these things. For it is good to pick out certain things where everything you might relate is worthy of admiration. Under such a cross he spent three years, manifesting the secrets of his sufferings to God alone, from whom he sought secret assistance to be ministered to him.

[42] After this, when the Goths had departed, the city of Pavia was handed over to the Rugians, The most savage Rugians, having gained control of Pavia, men of every kind of savagery, whom the fierce and bitter force of their spirits prompted to daily crimes: they considered a day lost that had fled from them without a crime, by some intervening chance. Yet the most blessed Bishop soothed them with the honey of his words, so that their fierce hearts submitted to the authority of the Priest, and they learned to love, whose hearts we know had always been dedicated to hatred. Through his merit their natural perversity was changed, while the root of an affection foreign to them was grafted into their uncultured minds. He wins them over with humanity. Who would believe without great astonishment that the Rugians loved and feared a Bishop who was both Catholic and Roman, they who scarcely deign to obey kings? Yet he spent nearly two full years with them in such a manner that they departed from him weeping, even though they were returning to their parents and families.

CHAPTER X.

Theodoric the victor is led to clemency.

[43] After the matter was finished with the wretched and destructive war, and he had conquered who after his triumph no one saw with a sword unsheathed from its scabbard, who ended the presumption of his army together with the battle; immediately the venerable Pontiff undertook to treat of the restoration of his city, and first, that he might fill it with worthy inhabitants, He restores Pavia, summoning settlers from elsewhere: he provided with the deliberation of spiritual counsel, and although, thanks to his entreaty, no whirlwind of temporal storm had driven it into devastation, yet he believed it could hardly suffice if, after the ruin of all the cities of Liguria, Pavia should exult content with its own inhabitants alone: he began to select the choicest blossoms from among the citizens of neighboring cities and, as a diligent cultivator, to carry shoots already proven into his own gardens, from which a productive and fit owner might gather the most suitable fruits.

[44] [He is sent to Theodoric, who was taking away the right of liberty from those who had at any time adhered to the enemy,] Meanwhile a sudden resolution seized the mind of the most excellent King Theodoric: to grant the right of Roman liberty only to those whom proven loyalty had joined to his party; but those whom any necessity had separated, he ordered to be removed from all license of making wills, and of their own dispositions and desires. When this decree was promulgated and by such a law the laws were trampled upon in the case of many, all Italy lay under a lamentable suspension of justice. They went again to that man who was accustomed to come to the aid of public wounds with a healing hand, whose spring had often extinguished the ardor of troubles; and when he said that he alone could not suffice to sustain so great a burden, the venerable Lawrence, Bishop of Milan, was likewise asked. They set out together and arrived at Ravenna at the same time, and were received with reverence. After the opportunity of acting was opened to them, B. Lawrence judged it necessary that the opportunity of pleading be given especially to the one whose footsteps the laborious path of frequent embassies had worn, and whom the rough dust of the camp had more than once rendered hardy as he hastened along the course of such a journey, and who began the public petitions with the following speech:

[45] How greatly, most invincible Prince, the divine favor has exalted your felicity through innumerable successes, if I recount in order, you will recognize that you, sparing in your prayers, have always received greater benefits from our God than you remember having desired. It suffices, however, to narrate one of these, but the greatest: that before you, O Prince, we plead the causes of your servants in the very place where your enemy used to rejoice in the possession of this throne. After recounting the blessings of God upon him, You owe very much to Christ our Redeemer: what we ask for, He Himself has bestowed. We must beware lest the Author of the gift be offended if we do not love what He has granted. Long do I hold back my confidence: it pleases me to go through the individual things which I have learned by report and which I have perceived to have come to you by divine assistance. You know what you promised to do when you were pressed by the densest wedges of the enemy, and the clang of the hostile trumpet sounded around the walls of the little city of Pavia; when your adversaries, superior in arms and in number, could not stand, with only the invisible heavenly power fighting alongside you. He who weighed your armies by mere estimation dared to attack you. All preparation for war could not sustain the weight of your reinforcements. How often the very air served your interests -- if you recall, the clear skies fought for you, the vault of heaven poured rains at your desire. Who dared resist your right hand, He exhorts him to clemency. and one fighting with heavenly grace? How often did your enemies fall by the swords of their own companions? How often did one who was fighting for the advantage of your enemies win the victory for you? Therefore repay these heavenly gifts with piety bestowed upon men. The sacrificial offerings of mystical oblation consist in not scorning the tears of suppliants. Consider well what kind of rulers you have succeeded in the kingdom; and if, as is clear, their malice expelled them, their fall must needs instruct those who follow: the ruin of predecessors teaches posterity: an earlier fall is always a safeguard for the future: he does not fight without an example who looks back at the reason for which his predecessor was expelled. Relying on these considerations, your Liguria supplicates together with us, that you may so bestow the benefits of your laws upon the innocent that you absolve the guilty. In the eyes of our God, the mercy is meager that only spares those who are free from guilt: to forgive faults is heavenly; to avenge, earthly.

[46] After this he fell silent. But the most eminent King began to speak; and while he spoke, terror gripped the hearts of all, astonished at his intention: Although, Venerable Bishop, I look up to you for the light of your merits, and you had stored up many benefits with me during the time of confusion, from which it is fitting that you should enjoy the tranquillity now restored; yet the necessity of ruling, by which we are constrained, does not everywhere open the way to the mercy that you urge, and amid the harsh realities of a nascent empire the utility of strictness drives out the sweetness of piety. He first states that severity must often be used against the conquered, My assertion relies on the testimony of heavenly examples: we read that a prince offended God who snatched from destruction an enemy destined by heaven for death. A penalty was earned by the leniency that severity could have inflicted. He who refuses to inflict retribution receives it. He who, when he gains power over his enemy, pardons him, either diminishes or despises the force of divine judgment. Those who are established to have not followed grace must be restrained by justice. He who pardons present faults transmits vices to posterity. For as to what you say about the patience of our Redeemer, the milk of grace truly embraces those whom the severity of the law informs. Never was a sick man brought to the fullest cure by any physician except the one who first cut away the putrid limbs with iron, and brought forth from the very bosom of the entrails the hidden corruption. He who allows criminals to pass with impunity exhorts the innocent to crime. Nevertheless, because earthly powers cannot resist your prayers, to which heavenly powers assent, we grant pardon to all in general: no one's head shall punishment lay low: since you can also act before our God, He banishes the instigators, pardons the rest: so that the criminal minds may depart from the perversity of their purpose. A few, however, whom I have discovered to have been instigators of evils, I shall deprive only of the habitation of their places: lest perhaps arising necessity should find nourishing neighbors at hand, and wars should arise aided by the successes of the wicked. Having spoken these words, the most excellent King ordered Urbicus, a Most Illustrious Man, to be summoned, who, bearing all the burdens of his Palace, surpassed Cicero in eloquence and Cato in fairness: to whom he commanded that a decree of general pardon be promulgated. This he, most ready for every act of kindness, immediately composed with such brevity and clarity that even those categories of offenses were recognized as abolished which were thought to have been reserved.

CHAPTER XI.

The journey to Burgundy for the redemption of captives.

[47] Meanwhile the most excellent King secretly commanded the venerable Priest Epiphanius to be summoned; and addressed him with the following words: Understand, glorious Bishop, the weight of our judgment from the very sentence itself: He summons Epiphanius separately: that although there appear to be so many Pontiffs in the circuit of our kingdom, you especially are chosen for so great a matter as if you were the only one: nor does a weakened opinion of this kind deceive the assessors through your merit. You alone are rightly believed to be the one by whose splendor, as by the globe of the moon, the light of the lesser stars is dulled, and the rays of a moderate light are darkened by the bright light of his conscience. Who would seek the lamp of the night where the radiance of the sun blazes forth? Who would seek the aid of a candle where the pyre of faith is kindled by unceasing hearths? Finally, one must be sent by me of such quality that the one receiving him may willingly listen. You see all the regions of Italy widowed of their native cultivators. To my sorrow, a field fertile in crops brings thorns and unbidden shoots, and that mother of human harvest, Liguria, which was wont to have a numerous stock of farmers, He laments the devastation of Liguria by the Burgundians, stripped and sterile, shows to our gaze a hungry sod. The land, wherever I look, assails me; a face rich with vineyards, unkempt with plows, distresses. O grief! No moisture is poured upon the lips of those whom antiquity called Oenotrians from the abundance of wine. Although the savage Burgundian has wrought this, yet if we do not remedy it, we have permitted it. Are we ceasing to aid our ravaged homeland, while gold is held among us in storage? What difference does it make whether we bend the spirits of our adversaries with money or with iron? He sends him to King Gundobad for the redemption of captives. To have offered what captures the mind of the enemy is to have conquered; to have hidden it is to be conquered. Take up, therefore, with Christ's help, the burden of this labor, from which we may have a shared reward in the heavenly promise; because this new title of praise, distinguished by its own insignia, accrues through your hands: to triumph over our assailants without blood. Their prince is Gundobad, in whom the grace of your name has been implanted; whom an overwhelming desire to see you stimulates. Believe me, the price of Italy's captivity will be your appearance: I shall consider those whom I desire to have been redeemed, if such a redeemer approaches those lands. With how great a force are the eyes to which we offer you conquered? But why do I delay hands that demand the fields? I promise you the revived condition of Liguria, I promise the joy of the soil, and after the Transalpine pilgrimage a returning fecundity. Gold is provided to you as you approach, for which cause so great an ambassador shall act.

[48] To these words, the light of bishops, Epiphanius, responded: How much, venerable Prince, you have filled my breast with rejoicing -- if it could be encompassed in speech, I would pour forth words unpremeditated and continuous in proportion to the riches of your merits; but that my speech is intercepted and denied success, the tears of joy demonstrate, which exultation now brings forth as the nurslings of sorrows. Understand therefore that for rendering thanks to so excellent a King, both for us and for himself, I can feel more than I can express. Shall I first commemorate that you have surpassed all emperors of the past in justice, or in the practice of war, or -- what is more excellent than these -- in piety? You have reason to accuse the rulers of our nation: you redeem those whom they very often either permitted to be made, or made, captive. We read that David, for the example of singular praise, achieved the closest proximity to the heavens especially because he spared Saul, his enemy, when offered to his hands: He willingly accepts the embassy, and as a testimony of the power granted to him, he seized a particle of his garments, by which he proved both his permission and his desire. Good God! In how great a recompense do You receive the deed of this man who treats for the liberty of so many thousands of the oppressed, You who exalted that man for the blood of one man saved! Hasten therefore to accomplish what has been begun, and joyfully bring the offering of your felicity, and spur me, although I am prepared, lest in offering so fragrant a sacrifice you be restrained by the obstacle of delay. It will be for Christ our Redeemer to grant, as we conjecture from the works to come, that you may truly offer your burnt offerings through my hands. Yet I beg that by the indulgence of Your Clemency, Victor, Bishop of the city of Turin, be joined to me as companion and sharer of this journey, Victor, Bishop of Turin, is given as his requested companion. in whom it is clear that a compendium of all virtues is present: with him as my associate, I promise confidently in our Lord that no effect will be denied to our own petitions. When these things were heard, the most eminent King assented. And the reverend Pontiff, having bidden farewell, departed.

[49] Immediately monies to be carried for the redemption are designated and received. He sets out: he comes swiftly to Pavia. And although the month of March was still imposing icy fetters on the rivers with its wintry torpor, and the peaks of the Alps, white with snows, threatened destruction to those who would cross; yet the ardor of faith surpassed the deadly cold He undertakes the journey in winter, with great spirit: and the clods frozen with frost: he who has his foundation set upon rock never slips upon the ice. Having therefore arranged the provisions for his journey, he set forth. You would say that every thing that necessity could have held back was pushing him forward: not even a delay for taking food was tolerated: and although that path, full of dangers, troubled every individual who accompanied him, he alone among the perils did not know fear, whom the certain hope of life accompanied.

CHAPTER XII.

Captives released partly free and partly for a price by the Kings Gundobad and Godegisel.

[50] He is kindly received by the Burgundians and the Gauls, Meanwhile that fame which had always preceded his journey and was diligent in preparation went before him, and so filled the Gauls with the report of his distinctions that they were disturbed as if by the coming or presence of a heavenly deity: every age and sex came running together, and those whom long distances had separated from the vicinity of his route, the ardor of their spirit brought near. Whatever anyone had that was precious, he offered; and if he had nothing, he bought it from elsewhere for the Father. Everywhere was opulent profusion: the tables of the travelers were heaped with unbought delicacies, and the strangers used without cost those foods which the inhabitants could not have had unless purchased. Then whatever needy persons he found, he distributed to them the things that had been given; at home and abroad he fed the wretched: nor could it happen that what was brought to him was withheld from the use of the poor. In this manner, with marvelous speed, he entered Lyon, And by the Bishop of Lyon, where Rusticius then occupied the episcopal chair, a man who, even in the prefiguration of his secular title, had always shown himself a priest, and under the pretext of the forum had borne himself as a governor of the Church: who crossed the Rhone river to meet his arrival, filled with the abundance of spiritual joy, inquired the reason for his journey, and informed him of the cunning of the King; and lest the craftiness of objections or replies should find him unprepared, he fortified himself within the innermost chamber of his heart with a rehearsal of contests.

[51] When Gundobad, the lord of that land, learned that he had come, he said to his own people: Go and see a man whom I have always, both in merits and in countenance, joined to the person of Lawrence the Martyr: inquire when he wishes to see us, and when he has commanded, invite him. And by King Gundobad himself. Soon the entire crowd of Christians attending the Prince flocked to him, and they were abundantly seized with admiration that the fame of so many tongues showed itself so much smaller in his case than the reality, although it was ample; for it could never suffice in the poverty of words, however richer than fair it was in other respects. The day was therefore set for seeing the King: and when he entered his presence, he greeted him, and both were gladdened by the sight of each other. He gave the eminent man Victor permission, if he himself should command, to begin the order of the embassy, but Victor referred all the weight to him, as he was ever most prepared for all humility. Immediately the glory of Italy, our Bishop, began to address the King with the following words:

[52] For a long time, most proven Prince, an inexpressible love of you has imposed upon me the obligation to wage wars against nature and season along this journey, and not to fear the dangers of the crusted mountain, which, when it has compressed the waters into metal by solidifying them, threatens destruction from what was once liquid. I have crossed the snowy mountain passes in alien months: I have placed my steps where the force of cold held them bound in their places: in short, I did not fear death, so that I might swiftly bring you the reward of eternal light. Between two excellent Kings I am summoned to bear witness in the heavenly courts, if what the one mercifully asks, you graciously grant. Divide the gift of the Lord's promise on an equal balance, and when both shall have more, no one will mourn his losses. Contend, most invincible Commanders, and surpass each other by carrying out the mystical precepts; in which conflict the victor will so receive the prize that the vanquished will not lose the reward. He urges him to return the captives free of charge. Follow my counsel, and both will stand forth as superiors, both as equals. The one wishes to redeem the captives; you, return them to their native soil without a price. Believe me, no one will receive more abundantly in this cause, no one will receive more, than he who shall have received nothing. The reward of that party will be defrauded, and the profit of the other passes to your advantage, if those whom it is glorious even to sell, you arrange to give as a gift. Alas, how much loss from the divine promise will it inflict on one offering gold in this business, if it is returned! Or how great a poverty does it bring if it is accepted! The money despised will make your armies rich; if acquired, it will make them beggars. Hear the voices of Italian suppliants, and serenely admit the prayers of those who presume upon you. Hear Italy, never divided from you, and greatly trusting in the clemency of your spirit, which if it used one voice, would say this: How often, if you remember, did you present your iron-clad breast to enemies on my behalf? How often did you fight by counsel lest wars should steal in, lest any of my people should be led captive in any part of the world? Those whom you now hold, you yourself nourished. Deceitfully has your valor bestowed a benefit on me, if he who protected mine from strangers has invaded them as their keeper. Who, bound by the chains of fetters and hard fate, would not shed more abundant tears when his liberator drove him into servitude? Who would withdraw himself when the clash of your arms was heard, in whom in their necessities they had found the safest refuge? A noble matron, with her hands wrenched from her neck as she was dragged to chains, promised herself that you would be her avenger: a virgin believed that her modesty could displease you if she lost it to the snares of a ravisher. Always friends of the Burgundians. In sum, those were captured whom no one found fleeing. The laborious stocks of farmers, offspring exercised with hard hoes, whom an unaffected simplicity feeds upon their own land, when chains were fastened to their necks and a tight binding fettered their hands, cried out nothing else in their own defense: We know and clearly recognize: Are you not our Burgundians? See that you do not excuse before the pious King what you are doing, and suppress those crimes by the custom of city-dwellers. How often have these hands which you presume to bind paid tribute to our common lord! We know that he did not command these things to be done. With this authority the wretched used to console themselves: yet the confidence in your integrity caused many to be killed, when captives answered too proudly. Return therefore the survivors to their homeland, return them to their origin, return them to your glory. Love, as the ancient master, a province that the modern master also embraces: release, although to another's dominion, those who recognize themselves as yours even when placed there. For we bestow little gratitude upon the rule of one to whose mercy we owe nothing. Clear of thorns that Liguria which you well know, and fill it with cultivators. It will understand how much it is indebted to your gifts, if it ever recognizes its own face. It is always your custom to pardon suppliants, as it is to crush the proud: thus in both will you acquire the strongest triumphs -- there by the sword, here by moderation. Be moved by our tears and those of our people. So may a legitimate heir increase to you in the succession of this kingdom, and through the hope of mature offspring may you live again for the governance of the Burgundians. And although you attribute this to God, add also the consideration that you do not bestow this upon foreign men. Already the lord of Italy is joined to you also by the affinity of kinship. Let the release of captives be the wedding gift of your son: He adds tears to his prayers. let him offer to his betrothed a gift that Christ too may accept. When he had said these things, having admonished his holy colleague Victor, he rose, and weeping even to the King's breast, they bowed their heads together with all who stood nearby.

[53] Then the most proven King, as he was rich in speech and opulent from the resources of eloquence and a fluent advocate, thus responded with words to words: You, the counselor of peace, do not know the laws of war; and you, the author of concord, rip open the conditions decided by the sword. What you think an error is the law of combatants: enmity knows no bridle, which you, the radiance of Christian light, show. No one attaches moderation to battles, which is exalted by the splendor of your mouth, O distinguished moderator. It is the statute of combatants that whatever is not lawful, then is lawful: perhaps that quietude which you have narrated may claim these things for itself. He who has not harmed his enemy aids him. An adversary is gradually cut down from the mass of his kingdom, whose roots of empire are severed by turns. I have repaid the insult to the King of those parts, which you think was inflicted by me: mocked by the appearance of a treaty, I strove for nothing more diligently than, as a matter of precaution, to recognize open enemies. Yet may the assent of the Divinity grant The King, having spoken of the law of war, that the treaty established between us may be preserved for a long age: those parties will find one steadfast in friendship whom they perceived to have been ruinous to them while in conflict. You, however, holy men, depart to the houses in which you stay without trouble, while I, having examined the advantage of my soul and my kingdom, pronounce what it is fitting for me to bestow. Having heard these things, the Pontiffs withdrew.

[54] But he, having summoned Laconius, to whom the trust of both affairs and words had always been safely committed, whom both the prerogative of birth and the curule chairs of his ancestors had elevated through the marks of governing probity: with whom he confers whenever he meditates things pious and religious: [He orders through Laconius that those captured in battle be released for a price, the rest free of charge.] and since nobility is not allied with vices, nor is the light of nature bound to allurements, if he wishes to do anything kindly, this man, when consulted, urges that it be doubled. To whom the Prince said: Go, Laconius, and spread full the sails of your wishes; and by us the Priest and the Blessed Epiphanius have been gladly heard, that you were moved by his prayers, when he spoke before us, the tears, indicators of souls, testified: go and with full breast pronounce the decrees by which you may break the bonds of that most harsh agreement. Let it be permitted for all Italians -- whomever the fear of captivity among our Burgundians has made captive, whomever the necessity of hunger, whomever the fear of dangers has brought; finally, whomever the consent of their own Prince has yielded or led away -- let ours absolve. But for the few whom they snatched as if in the ardor of fighting from the dominion of their adversaries, let them receive some small payment for those, lest the hazards of combat become detestable to those who sustained the dangers but do not feel the profits.

[55] After the command of the revered King, that active man set forth by the leaps of his words the kinds or forms of the pardon, and brought the documents to the distinguished Bishop: which he received with the most eagerly awaited devotion and ambitiously embraced the bearer of so great a gift. When this news became known, so great a multitude of this now free population suddenly assembled that you would have believed even the fields of the Gauls were deserted of inhabitants. For I am a witness of this matter: through my hands the orders of the Priest elicited safe-conducts for the mountain passes, and four hundred persons were released in a single day from the city of Lyon alone to return to Italy: Ennodius was present then. likewise we learned without doubt that the same was done throughout the individual cities of Savoy and other provinces; so that of these, whom the prayers of the most blessed man alone had freed, more than six thousand souls were restored to their native lands: but the number of those Free releases amounted to about 6,000. who were redeemed with gold I could not fully ascertain, because among them flight too snatched away many. Thus it came about that the opportunity of departure granted at that time sufficed for the liberation of all the subjugated. After that heap of money had been poured out, however, the necessities for the expenses of redemption were immediately supplied by that treasury of the Church that is there -- Syagria, Various persons contribute money for the redemption of others. whose life demands a lengthy narration; yet it suffices that she be known from her works, which surpass words. The most excellent among the Gauls, Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, also gave, in whom learning had enclosed itself as in the lodging-house of a shining home. Why more? Through their gold it was for the most part accomplished that the youth of Liguria should no longer be led into servitude to the Gauls. Nor did the eminent man confine himself to one place in that region, lest perhaps the savagery of the masters might impede those dwelling at a distance. He was at Geneva, where Godegisel, the brother of the King, had established his home, Godegisel also releases his captives. who, following the pattern of his brother's decision, made himself a partner in his good works.

[56] In a short time, however, such great columns of the freed were sent back that you would see the roads far and wide seething with ranks of those returning, with the praise of our Lord, and also of the most splendid Priest Epiphanius, by whose ministry and labor they had been snatched away: and lest our light should be deprived of the trophy of so great a gift, and the most beautiful spectacle be removed from his own eyes, he himself returned with them. You would see a free people led in heavenly triumphs, Epiphanius returns, attended by columns of captives now freed: and instead of the blood of the slain, the earth moistened with the tears of the exulting, while the leader of these cohorts mounted the chariot of Elijah and was carried to the heavens by a four-horse team in the swift course of his merit. Not so did Alexander, the Pellaean Prince, whom vain praise sings as the pacifier of the world, lead his captive swarm of nations as this man recalled his own. Behold, then we discovered that the minds of armed men were conquered by sanctity, and that the Prince had yielded to the prayers of the Chosen One -- he who had always thrust his breast against opposing lances. How much sharper the blade of words was than of iron, let the reader learn from this: speech conquered, to which swords had withdrawn.

CHAPTER XIII.

The last embassy. Illness. Death.

[57] When, therefore, in the third month the Bishop was returning to Pavia with such a trophy, as he came to Tarantasia (for so is called the town near the Alps), there a certain woman was suffering from a severe vexation of an unclean spirit, and upon receiving his blessing she was immediately freed and departed. At Tarantasia he frees a woman possessed by a demon: He himself, however, appeared unexpected to his own people, before their unsuspecting eyes. He was suddenly seen, of whom it was scarcely believed any rumor could be heard.

[58] But as soon as he returned, he wearied his mind with cares as was his custom, lest perhaps those to whom our Lord had given freedom through him might be disturbed in the possession of their own property, especially out of consideration for noble persons, for whom a more monstrous calamity could be in store among their own people, if as returned exiles they should endure a life of want, and from the hardships of their exile should have lost even the consolations of mercy alone. He did not wish to go in person immediately to the most invincible King Theodoric, lest he should seem, if present, to exact from the King the recompense of his labor in the rendering of thanks or in the presentation of gifts. He writes to Theodoric about the success of the embassy: For he who, when the commissions of Princes have been carried out, himself as the agent announces what has been done, demands as it were a due remuneration. This, therefore, the man of utmost acumen, foreseeing, was eager to avoid. He wrote, however, and committed to letters what had been done, lest by keeping silent he should be pronounced contemptuous, or by appearing in person, intemperate through arrogance. How much more, O admirable Pontiff, did your absence accomplish at that time, how much did the humility thus perceived obtain -- let those say whom you made most wealthy from exiles. For the returned captives he obtains from the King what he desires. Therefore everything that the singular Bishop asked by letter from the most pious King on behalf of the wretched, he obtained without hesitation. The King serenely granted the request to the suppliant, since for the compensation of his labor it was believed that whatever benefit the redeemed and poor man might receive through him could suffice.

[59] After, however, all who had been recalled had been endowed with their rights by the indulgence of the aforesaid Prince, the admirable Bishop judged the mass of his troubles to have been discharged; when, before two years had elapsed, from the bosom of the peace he had established, as a boat from harbor, he was driven out by a storm brought upon others. About to intercede for taxes imposed on the Ligurians For upon the weak and tottering shoulders of the Ligurians a scarcely bearable burden of taxes was imposed. Again they ran to you, O consoler of the afflicted. You learned that you had in vain restored citizens to their homeland if you did not assist them when they were in danger on their ancestral soil. And because before you the one who asked was never wearied, you took up the causes of the unfortunate and immediately prepared yourself for renewed burdens. You hastened to Ravenna to entreat the King on our behalf -- that city which you had fled lest anyone should praise you there after your Gallic exploits. You overcame the threats of the sky and the dangers of storms, as if still strong in years or fortified by bodily health. Never did your limbs, however feeble, withdraw from the service of your spirit: cold, rain, the Po, He goes to Ravenna in winter: fasting, navigation, the dangers of thunder, lodging without a roof, on the banks of an uncertain river in a harbor almost without land, were sweet to your virtue and pleasing to your progress. Even that most eminent King, who ambitiously desired to see you, was saddened by your presence. You set forth our needs by your arrival, before you spoke; and the dangers you had overcome taught what manner of tears from your fellow-inhabitants had compelled you.

[60] But when he had nevertheless entered the Prince's presence, he began to speak thus: With your accustomed tranquillity of mind, O venerable King, understand the prayers of your servants. Both me to ask for necessities, and you to grant them, custom instructs. He begs for his people an exemption for one year: It is your law, O invincible leader, to show mercy continually: you have always nourished the hope of intercessions for the future by not resisting those in the present. The faith of benefits obtained has always opened the way for our supplication to further things before you. Bestow upon your Ligurians what you may display, grant what you may store up. A temporal indulgence is the profit of future times. It is the custom of a good prince to love fame together with virtues, and to order his kingdom as if it were to pass to the posterity of his stock. Wavering lords love only what they receive; the most steadfast, rather what they release. So we commit small seeds to the earth, that we may reap them multiplied: interest without crime is tripled. The wealth of the landholder is the wealth of a good emperor. Grant an exemption for the present year to Liguria, you who have recalled from foreign lands those who now supplicate. How abundant a present harvest we have had, let Your Clemency ask those who stand before you. No one lies to him whom those who can convict him serve.

[61] To this the Prince replied: Although the weight of immense expenditures entices us, and we ceaselessly lavish gifts upon envoys for their own peace; yet the force of your merits reverently intervenes in our deliberations. What you enjoin must be done: everything you prescribe is welcome. For we consider that whatever you yourself have taken away is added to our profits. Do not ask for anything as if by accident, you who have many things from us that you may demand back. Yet we cede two parts of the present indiction's fiscal assessment, He obtains a remission of two parts of the fiscal indiction. intending to receive only the third; lest either the straitened condition of our treasury should produce greater losses for the Romans, or your supplication should not bring back to the homeland the expected joys. To the aforesaid King the supreme Bishop thus rendered thanks, and bidding farewell, he departed.

[62] Alas, the grief and groaning! He was diligently running to meet everyone as if in the spirit of a final duty or a last visitation, and although the house itself was disgorging crowds of the Christian multitude, he himself nevertheless entered the inner chambers of all. No one, dulled by the density of the human mind, was touched by so mournful a suspicion that his passing was at hand, Returning to Pavia which he himself perceived by the revelation of the Spirit. In snowy weather, such as usually drives men to take shelter, he left Ravenna, and came swiftly through all the cities of Aemilia, as if hastening to the receptacle of the tomb, generous, approachable, and affable to all the bishops along the way, and leaving behind, as it were, a standard and model, more excellent than himself. But when he entered the city of Parma on the same route, immediately a fluid congealed in his vitals poured forth, which the physicians call a catarrh; He contracts a catarrh: which, inserting itself deep into the marrow, raged toward public ruin.

[63] But why do you shrink, O my discourse? Why do you shudder at them as at shipwrecking rocks? Willing or not, he whose life, even if conducted in summary, must have his death narrated; since by no pretext of the page, by no delays of promulgated praise, will his passing be able to be concealed. And although, as a sailing ship flees the Scyllaean dogs and the gaping jaws of Charybdis that threaten dangers with roaring tumult, the narrative does not omit the shipwreck of his death. Why do I fear to narrate tears, which a continual outpouring must always supply? Therefore, as he drew near to the town of Pavia, now wretched, he appeared as if cheerful and healthy: and although he had entered amid the exultations of all at his return, he immediately turned joy into tears, signifying on that very day that he was sick, On the very day he entered Pavia, he falls ill: and on the next day more seriously; and when the illness appeared greater each day, it was aggravated by the incompetence of the physicians. The people stood murmuring and thunderstruck, considering in one man the fall of the entire province, and dreading the death of the world. On the seventh day, however, an unexpected blow, He is badly treated: an unspeakable calamity, an inexpressible grief arrived.

[64] But when the most blessed Pontiff perceived that, having cast off the burden of the flesh, he was about to fly more speedily to the pure splendor of the heavens, He prepares himself piously for death: whose constant saying was, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," with a happy spirit and serene countenance he repeatedly recited those verses of David: "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever: with my mouth will I declare Your truth to generation and posterity." Psalm 89:1. And this: "Into Your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." And moreover, secure in his perfection, he added: "My heart is confirmed in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in the Lord my Savior:" so that, resounding with hymns and canticles even in death, the heavenly soul might return to its seat, He dies. which brought to the tomb the fifty-eighth year of his age; having spent thirty years in this Priestly life, which, even if you, the reader, attend to it only in excerpt, you see engraved.

[65] For I ought not to pass over in silence that his holy relics, up to the third day on which they are known to have been deposited with the highest veneration, appeared to the eyes of all clothed with such light and grace that the countenance of the deceased bore the mark of the splendor of his life; and the glorious vessel was believed to have already now received the glory that had been laid down; in which there was truly enclosed the treasure of the great King. All mourn at his death. What rivers of tears were there, what great lamentations, I shall keep silent; lest after the courses of many years a writer should inflict fresh grief. Whatever mother came there proclaimed that her son had been freed by him; whatever wife, her husband; whatever sister, her brother; whatever unmarried man, himself; finally, in that great multitude of men and assembly (to speak boldly) of the whole world, there was no one who did not owe something to his benefits. But, I beg, let us now moderate our grief: let us relax the brow contracted by sadness; he possesses the heights with the Lord, on account of whose death we grieve on earth. But what shall I do? The sobs of your healer scatter my words, tears flood my face: all that I say resounds with groaning; and I understand that a weeping consoler never comes well to one who weeps. These things I have bestowed upon the holy Father and most learned Doctor, suited in affection, not in knowledge, so that I might review some blossoms of his way of life, as it is the custom of those making a long journey not to greet all whom they meet.

[66] Do you, O soul most powerful with our Redeemer, grant to me, Ennodius invokes him. that free from care and with a liberated heart, I may, pure myself, offer you the praises that are owed, as a pure man. For the rest, do not abandon one who has confidence in you after God, and him whom you have distinguished with the title of religion, render a partaker in the divine promise of the religious.

THE TRANSLATION OF S. EPIPHANIUS FROM PAVIA TO HILDESHEIM.

Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia in Italy (S.)

Year of Christ 863. 22 February.

From various sources.

[1] Hildesheim is a city of Lower Saxony, the seat of a most ample bishopric, first established by Charlemagne at the town of Elze on the stream Saale; Hildesheim then transferred by Louis the Pious to that place chosen, as it were, by divine power through a wondrous portent of sacred relics that could not be torn from the trunk to which they had been affixed; as Krantzius reports in Saxony, book 2, chapter 26. The relics of S. Epiphanius translated. Thither the body of S. Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia, was translated in the time of Emperor Otto I, through the industry of Bishop Otwin.

[2] This Translation was described by a certain clerk or monk of the Church of Hildesheim, a contemporary of Otwin, The History of the Translation. who attests that he learned what he writes partly from the priest Thangwardo, who with his own hands had exhumed the relics, and partly from those who had been present. This commentary of that author was first published from the library of the monastery of S. Michael by our Christopher Brauwerus in the book entitled Stars of Illustrious and Holy Men of Germany; but the final part, in which the Bishop, accompanied by a noble triumphal retinue from the Gallic embassy -- namely all the youth of Liguria whom the Goths had held, having been redeemed and freed -- is conducted to Pavia; and then, having died amid the great desire and mourning of all, is received into heaven, he confesses that he voluntarily omitted as foreign to his purpose, since it differed from the life written by Ennodius not so much in substance as in words. But, with all due respect to the great man, his memory or pen deceived him in writing this: it was not the Goths who had held that youth of Liguria, but the Burgundians.

[3] Since, however, it has been provided by the most severe edicts of the Pontiffs that no one should dare to steal relics of the Saints for that reason (which many examples found everywhere demonstrate to have been of less scruple to certain ancients), the same Brauwerus disputes about the legality of this translation thus: If any fair judge should assess this Translation by the law of sacred things, or receive judgment about it, he will immediately determine that this removal of relics was done neither by law Whether it was a lawful Translation: nor by custom; but will pronounce that those who acted and abstracted the sacred remains from their native soil and ground, as it were, were subject, to say the least, to the interdict Unde vi by which force, and could have been prosecuted by an action for extortion. In the meantime, however, the examples of this and the preceding age prevailed, and an excessive piety and religious devotion created for itself this license: so that, craftily, under the titles of pious theft and religious plunder, they judged these actions not by the strict law of equity; the judges for the most part overlooked the dispute, and the authorities very much turned a blind eye. Moreover -- and this is the crux -- the success of the outcome, and the reputation of the religion from the prodigies and miracles that followed, not only often established right and license for these removals, but turned the reproach of theft, or sacrilege, into glory: because the Franks and Germans, when the liberty of the Roman See was afflicted either by barbarians or tyrants, and when in the new or precarious Empire that the Popes gave, being often greater in spirit on account of their nobility and nation, were not content with civil power but applied their strength to sacred matters as well, and exercised religion more freely than was either expedient for themselves or right and lawful permitted. Hence they sought to subject almost all the rights of Latium to themselves together with churches and peoples, and those who were powerful in faith or arms among kings wished, not content with honor alone, but joyful also with rewards, to have much license for themselves against right, whether they were bishops or distinguished by the military belt. Yet the writer seems to have procured some pardon for Bishop Otwin and his priest Thangwardo, when he records that after prayers and fasts, the priest was divinely admonished in sleep about transferring S. Epiphanius.

[4] This Translation fell, as Brauwerus excellently deduces from the narrative of the ancient writer, at the end of the year 962 and the beginning of the next. For Otto, invited into Italy by John XII to suppress the tyranny of Berengar and Adalbert, came to Pavia in 961, and there, as the Continuator of the Chronicles of Regino records, ordered the palace destroyed by Berengar to be rebuilt. When it occurred. In 962, having celebrated Christmas at Pavia, he set out for Rome, was created and crowned Emperor by John, and restored all that had been taken from the Roman Church. Among many other bishops and princes, Otwin, Bishop of the Church of Hildesheim, subscribed to the diploma on 13 February 962, indiction 5, in the 27th year of Otto's reign. The diploma is found in Baronius, volume 10, at the same year, number 3 and following. Otto, having returned to Pavia, celebrated Easter there: he recovered the island of S. Giulio and restored it to the Church of Novara, by a diploma dated the 4th before the Kalends of August. The following year, having celebrated Christmas and Easter at Pavia, he besieged Berengar on Mount S. Leo throughout the summer. Therefore on the 10th before the Kalends of December in the year 962, the body of S. Epiphanius was exhumed by Thangwardo and soon sent to Germany; and having been brought to Hildesheim on the 8th before the Kalends of March by Otwin, who followed after.

[5] Where S. Epiphanius was first deposited at Hildesheim and where he is preserved in our memory, Brauwerus declares, writing thus: When inquiring into this translation procured from Italy to Saxony by the diligence of Otwin, Where the relics were placed at Hildesheim. before I had obtained the original acts themselves from the library of the monastery of S. Michael, the more recent charters suggested to me that the body of S. Epiphanius was deposited by the Bishop at that place where now stands the Chapter House, or the adjacent oratory bearing the name of S. Anthony. But S. Godehard retained the titles of the old church, which lay to the south of the principal basilica, namely those of the holy Mother of God and of Epiphanius; so that, as I investigated this memorial further and more fully with care, I discovered that the Baptismal Church, mention of which is made in the life of S. Godehard, is the one now used by the College of the Society of Jesus; and that the congregation of clergy had resided where the Fathers of the Society of Jesus now have their domicile. For the rest, I understand that the relic of S. Epiphanius is still today preserved in a silver tomb in the principal basilica, on the left side of the principal altar; and that a cage is shown suspended at the tomb of S. Godehard, in which the pious burden is said to have been conveyed from Pavia all the way to Saxony.

HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATION

By an anonymous contemporary author of Hildesheim, from the Stars of Christopher Brauwerus, S.J.

Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia in Italy (S.)

BHL Number: 2573

By an anonymous contemporary author.

CHAPTER I.

The occasion for transferring the relics of S. Epiphanius.

[1] Preface. The wise and in its disposition clement providence of divine grace -- the human flesh is not able either to admire it worthily or to perceive it clearly enough -- which so foresaw the aids of the elect for its Church from the very beginning that, while the enemy stirred up battle, the Church, supported by the merits of the pious, obtained the palm and glory of victory. Hence it is Many relics of Saints in Saxony. that all Saxony, applauding with spiritual joy, cherishes and cultivates in its devout bosom very many relics of Saints, unknown even to earlier generations, committing the path of this present life and the hope of the future to them in every way with certain faith. Among whom the venerable Father Epiphanius excels like the morning star, once the wondrous Doctor of Pavia, now the magnificent defender of our homeland, a man imitable in virtue by all of his time. Therefore, since the Lord has deigned to illuminate and fortify our homeland with the patronage of so distinguished a man, in what order his most sacred relics were first discovered, by the aspiring diligence of the Lord Otwin, most venerable Bishop of our Church, and conducted all the way to us -- as I learned from those who were present at this most happy office, and especially from the venerable Priest Thangwardo, whose effort particularly shone in this -- The age of the writer. elated by no talent, but prompted by the due zeal of devotion, I humbly transmit it, most diligently committed to writing, for posterity to use.

[2] When Berengar, together with his son Adalbert, was invading the scepter of the Italian kingdom; and both were usurping the diadem of one nation for themselves, Berengar himself burned to such a degree with the heat of avarice that, seized by money and confusing right and sacred law everywhere, he had even presumed to snatch some of the territories of S. Peter by predatory force. To repress his fury, While Otto I was in Italy, Otto the Great, namely the Cisalpine King, was invited to Rome by the envoys of the Apostolic Lord Octavian, who is also John, either to yield the Patriciate of the Roman City, which was his by inheritance from his ancestors, or to come to the aid of their afflicted affairs. Therefore the warlike soldier of the Churches and excellent Prince girded himself, with the common consent and counsel of his own people, against the Apostolic enemy, always surrounded by the strong and invincible force of his men, and also accompanied by a flock of bishops; among whom the Lord Otwin, Bishop of our Church, shone forth, commended to the Prince himself as much as he was proven in faith. When Berengar was captured in the fortress of S. Leo and destined with his wife for custody in Bavaria, and when Albert was likewise put to flight, peace having been restored to the Churches, Otto Caesar, now Patrician and Emperor, created by Apostolic blessing, returned to Pavia; and canonically reformed the Churches throughout Italy and Tuscany, neglected and desolated by the cruelty and insolence of former princes, and restored them to their ancient state.

[3] During this time the watchful guardian of the Lord's flock, Bishop Otwin, although separated from his people in body, yet joined to them by the zeal of charity and the goodwill with which he most wonderfully cultivated them, was eager to collect whatever he foresaw would be profitable for the utility of his Church and the convenience of his brothers; especially, however, in order to procure faithful patrons for himself and his people, he asked from the bishops for relics of the Saints, Otwin, Bishop of Hildesheim, obtains various relics of Saints. whom he discovered to be especially celebrated there, and easily obtained them; and at the same time, as a prudent man, he took care lest his efforts in receiving them should be frustrated by anyone's cunning. He likewise conveyed so great an abundance of books, both of divine reading and of philosophical composition, that those who previously had languished in idle torpor from a shortage of them now glow with the frequent business of study. And because he restrained himself from all the vanity of boasting in this progress, by divine grace he most wonderfully procured the most sacred relics of B. Epiphanius, once Bishop of Pavia. For since that venerable Father, out of respect for the divine honor by which his mind was always anxiously occupied, considered it presumptuous to steal the bones of Saints furtively, or to transfer them without the prompting of an oracle, yet he so balanced the judgment of his mind that neither did he himself undertake anything rash, nor did he by his own authority discourage what ought to be done. Whence it came about that the venerable Priest, our brother, whom we have mentioned above, burning in every way with zeal for such a task, since he dared not attempt, let alone accomplish, such a thing -- for he was advanced in years and simpler in temperament -- wearing himself down with frequent fasts and vigils during prayer, committed the desire of his heart to divine judgment for dispensation. Nor, however, was he in this undertaking entirely deprived of the Bishop's help, who afflicted himself all the more keenly in each particular, as he more subtly took counsel for them both.

[4] Therefore, when the solemnities of the fasts had been festively completed, by divine arrangement, as I believe, behold there arrived the priest of Landward, Bishop of Minden, a most intimate companion of our brother by reason of their fellowship; The Priest Landward carries off relics of S. Speciosa. who, since he was still wavering and had carefully opened his mind to him about everything, inquired as if he felt the same, and persuaded him to carry off the relics of the most holy Father Epiphanius and of the holy Virgin Speciosa, enclosed within the same circuit of the temple, saying that the time of the coming night was suitable and should not be deferred for any other purpose. Without delay it was agreed upon: having collected during the day the necessary equipment for this task, with the nocturnal silence aiding them, they entered the church, and prostrating themselves on the ground before so great a task, they accused themselves as unequal to it, and begged pardon for their bold undertaking, commending themselves more attentively to their patronage, so that they might deserve to be rewarded with their relics, or if they did not deign this, that they might at least be piously removed from the undertaking without harm to themselves, protected by them. Rising therefore, they strove long and with much sweat to open the sepulchre of B. Epiphanius, and making no progress with any ingenuity, though they expended all their effort, they readily opened the tomb of the Blessed Virgin Speciosa. Prostrating themselves therefore before the sacred relics on the pavement, and attending to prayer for a while, they rose, kissed them, and lifted them with hymns and praises: a portion of which our venerable Lord Otwin, of pious memory, who supported the zeal of our brother, afterwards transferred here together with the relics of B. Epiphanius, commending the portion that belonged to him to the venerable Bishop Landward.

CHAPTER II.

The relics exhumed and carried away.

[5] But when afterwards all the hope of our brother, by which he had labored in spirit to obtain S. Epiphanius, Thangwardo, by divine prompting, after fasting, had almost grown cold, and he had no further consolation for attempting it, he took refuge again in the support of prayers and fasts; what he did not presume of himself, he more attentively commended to the merits of this Saint. When several days had elapsed, not without great contrition on his part -- for he had poured himself out entirely to God in abstinence and supplication for this cause -- he was divinely admonished in his sleep, as he himself explained to me quite bashfully, for he absolutely refused all boasting; and being made more courageous, trusting in both fasts and the oracle, with the nocturnal hour favoring him, having taken along persons proven for such business, he approached the church of B. Epiphanius. And when he drew near to the door, commended to him as if by the grace of a previous success, he was pushed by guards who were following and gave way, and by chance struck upon a little opening the size of a window, of no more than two feet's measure, never known to him before, and entering, he avoided the assault of those pressing upon him and eluded their pursuit. Supported therefore by an unwonted confidence -- for he was of a simpler spirit -- after bringing in his companions, he was the first to undertake what must be attempted, and exhorted them as well.

[6] First, carefully examining the sepulchre of the holy Father everywhere with expert diligence, they saw that a sarcophagus, buried five feet below the underground vault, as later became clear, was supported above by marble, with a square wall moreover still built upon it. A marble column too, dedicated in his honor and in his name in lieu of an altar, stood erected toward the head, with its base occupying part of the sarcophagus, so as to provide a twofold grace, Attempting the sepulchre of S. Epiphanius, namely beauty and protection. When these things, therefore, were as far as possible accomplished, with some saying they should more wisely yield to time and labor, the aforesaid brother of ours was the first to gird himself for the task, and exhorted the others: and thus by the grace of God, emboldened by courage, they very easily cut away the wall in part and most wonderfully removed the marble of immense weight by the hands of very few, and clearing the holy place, they at last found the sepulchre. But as they strove to open it, He is miraculously aided; a very great difficulty arose concerning the column, which, although placed beneath as I said at the base, so possessed the sarcophagus that every effort and ingenuity was eluded in opening it. When all were already despairing, with action and counsel long suspended, a clear miracle of divine piety shone forth. For suddenly the column that occupied part of the tomb broke, to the astonishment of those present, while the other part firmly supported the altar unharmed; And a sweet odor also breathed forth; and by its very impetus, rolling further from the circumference of the sepulchre, it provided them both the means and the speed to complete the work they had begun. Then, with matters proceeding as desired, no part of the work was frustrated, and when the sarcophagus was opened without force, such a fragrance overflowed that it surpassed spices equally in likeness and in sweetness.

[7] God being praised in common, the oft-mentioned brother, rising from the earth and prostrating himself two or three times before the tomb, with faith and the utmost devotion collecting the heavenly treasure, He brings the body to Otwin; the latter sends it to Germany, the most precious body of the holy Father Epiphanius entire, wrapping it in a pure linen cloth prepared for this purpose, he brought the desirable gift to our venerable Bishop Otwin, who was already very anxious at his absence, and who, lying in bed to deceive others, kept vigil awaiting him about the third watch. He placed it, still wrapped as it was, upon the altar with the greatest devotion in the chapel of S. Michael, beside which he was staying; then, prostrating himself, he offered thanks to the Lord with prolonged melodies of hymns and great compunction of spirit, and rising, having most reverently deposited it in a chest provided for the purpose and most carefully sealed it with the impression of his ring, he sent it ahead to the Island of Reichenau, where he himself had once been monastically raised and had lived as a regular, to be kept by the Abbot who then presided over the monastery.

[8] When, however, an inquiry was made about this afterwards, with the Emperor gravely disturbed about it, and with the clergy and people unanimously crying out that the guardian of the city and defender of the homeland had been taken away (for after S. Syrus, whose merits especially flourish in that place, they relied on the patronage of this Saint), the clerics of all the bishops were ordered to be examined. But when this terror was divinely calmed, as I believe, with the peace of all, the devout Father Otwin, anxious about the care of the flock committed to him, which he had left for nearly two years, detained, though unwillingly, by service at court, arranged to revisit his Church; and having received Imperial leave, while speaking more intimately with the Emperor, the Bishop confessed the secret about the relics of S. Epiphanius as a pledge of faith, and thus relying on his authority, hastening toward the Alps, having crossed them safely, he ascended to the Island of Reichenau; He himself also follows. and staying there for a while, he imparted obedience to the brothers no less than he had been accustomed to as a young man; and having received a blessing, and enriched with his supreme Patron, with monks conducting the relics, he set out, and with the journey proceeding favorably, after several days had passed, he brought the uncorrupted treasure -- the relics of the most holy Father Epiphanius and of very many others -- to our Church.

[9] How great was the joy of the people then, how great the exultation of the mothers, or how great the devotion of the clerics hastening to meet so great a Father -- who can unfold? Who there could refrain from tears for joy, He transfers it to Hildesheim. when the glory of Italy shone upon our homeland; when a new star illuminated our countrymen? Now the body of the same blessed Father was removed by our brother on the tenth before the Kalends of December, and brought to us, with the grace of God accompanying, by our Lord Otwin, Bishop of holy memory, on the eighth before the Kalends of March, and placed in the church amid a very great gathering of the people and the rejoicing of the entire clergy.

CHAPTER III.

Miracles performed at the relics.

[10] I think that this too should be inserted with diligent devotion: how at the very beginning of the sacrosanct entry, the virtue of so great a Father shone forth with signs. For on the day when the holy relics were being brought to our Church, a great throng of both sexes came running in the road to attend upon so great a Father; among whom a certain man, wasting from a long affliction of gout, followed with slow step, and with his sinews already failing, he moved more by his staff than by his natural gait. When the relics were drawing near, At the relics of the Saint, gout is driven away, since each one was striving to outrun the other by running, as is customary on such occasions, he was suddenly left behind by all who had been his companions, and leaning on his staff with such effort as he could, forgetful, so to speak, of his pain, he pursued his companions from behind, lest he be crushed by the crowd, imploring constantly the merits of the holy Father, which were by no means hidden from the rustic; when behold, the gouty humor was gently restrained, the failing arteries were solidified, the soles of his feet were gradually formed for running. Yet although he came to beg salvation by faith, he did not believe this would readily be confirmed to him; but supporting himself more cautiously, while he strained with all his body more vigorously, the staff broke, and he was dashed to the ground with his full weight. Striving therefore to rise on his arms, while he tried the aid of his feet and carefully felt them, he found them endowed with perfect health, they that had before been hardened with swelling; and leaping forth, he followed along accompanying the holy relics. And since he was staying at the village of Upstedt, which was the house inhabited by Macco, the Advocate of our Church, he was recognized by him, whose regular attendance I also often enjoyed, and when he recounted to him the course of his cure, praising God for so manifest a miracle, he explained these matters to our venerable Bishop Otwin as a witness of both the infirmity and the health, and urged him to reveal and publicly proclaim this wondrous and manifest work.

[11] Nor do I think that other memorable and meritorious mark of his should be passed over, which the Lord deigned to work most wonderfully in Vulferius, a Deacon of our Church, to declare the merits of so distinguished a Father and at the same time to raise the hope of the entire congregation through his patronage; of whose healing there exist as many witnesses as there survive brothers who knew him in the monastery at that time. For he was suffering grievously from a violent pain in the kidneys, and could not be cured even by the skill of physicians, although many came to help and administered many remedies. And now the continual affliction, having progressed to an increase, began to grow more fiercely And kidney pains. and to increase more violently day by day; he could scarcely walk, leaning on a staff: sometimes too he moved on his hands by crawling, for otherwise he could not. But behold, on the vigil of this holy Father, when the canonical psalmody of the first hour of the day had been completed and the brothers were hastening to the collation, with the doors of the church still locked according to the rule of monastic life, that venerable man, having seized this time to offer himself more attentively and freely to so great a patron with tears and supplications -- knowing that no other time during the day would be suitable because of the people frequenting the feast -- driven by a heavy sigh, difficult breathing, and pain more severe than ever before, leaning on his staff, scarcely more than can be expressed, climbed up through the steps by crawling on his arms and hands; for the pain had now more fiercely invaded his knees and shins, running through his veins and sinews; and coming before the most holy body, he cast himself to the ground with much labor and immense torment of pain, and lingering very long in prayer, he poured out his whole self to the Lord with great contrition of heart: therefore, drenched more abundantly by a shower of tears, leaning on his arms, he gradually prepared to rise, then gently and very cautiously tried the familiar aid of his little staff; and being at last raised upright without pain, he marveled, was astonished, and yet, although he desired health, did not dare to believe; he applied his hand, felt the place where the pain had been most severe; and sensing no sign of pain, he prostrated himself on the pavement, gave thanks to God and to his patron father, and rising firmly, seeing the venerable Brother Wirindagus the Priest, he raised the staff -- the sign of his health -- by which he had previously been supported, and descended strongly, he who before had ascended by crawling. The brother, therefore, astonished by the sudden recovery, came to meet him as he descended, and recognizing the author of so great a miracle, praised him; and because on that day the brothers were engaged in the business of bathing, he hastened to the bath to meet them, to whom he fully explained the course of his recovery.

[12] How greatly from the very sacrosanct entry of the relics, the marks of his merits shone forth with daily increases of virtues, deeds speak more clearly than words. For how often have we calmed the intemperance of the weather or the filth of a pestilence that had arisen, A pestilence calmed, a tempest stilled: rain obtained. by carrying his relics in procession around our city? Often too, when continual drought was scorching the fields, we have, by carrying them about, as it were commanded the rains to fall. For who has ever prostrated himself at the bier of this Saint and, although broken by affliction, has not soon perceived his near assistance when rising in spirit during prayer? But these things perhaps seem superfluous to some; yet they are clear indications of his merits and firm consolations for posterity. These things only, concerning the benefits divinely bestowed upon us through the blessed and magnificent Bishop Epiphanius, have I briefly touched upon in proportion to the mediocrity of my talent; a bold undertaking and unequal to my powers, which I have submitted under the twofold obligation of devotion and due gratitude, so that I might most devoutly supply to the diligence of the brothers in the following age the works of God, which as it is written it is honorable to reveal and confess, for their devoted reading; and that for our own time, I might by my effort wipe away the mark of negligence and laziness in failing to transmit by pen to posterity such excellent deeds of God. Tobit 12:7.