African Martyrs Secundus and Fortunatus

CONCERNING THE HOLY AFRICAN MARTYRS SECUNDUS AND FORTUNATUS.

Secundus, Martyr in Africa (S.) Fortunatus, Martyr in Africa (S.)

The ancient handwritten Martyrology of the monastery of Laetia presented these holy Martyrs to us, in these words: "In Africa, of SS. Secundinus and Fortunatus." And the MS. of the monastery of S. Martin at Tournai: Their names in the sacred Calendar. "On the same day, in Africa, the passion of SS. Secundus and Fortunatus." The MS. of S. Jerome: "Likewise, of Secundus, Castus, Caius, Caelestius." The Dungalense codex cited above also records Secundus, Fortunatus, Castus, and Caius. We have omitted Castus, Caius, and Caelestius; companions omitted not because we wish by an unjust censure to remove these heroes from the sacred senate, but lest perchance they be the same as those who are recorded on 21 January joined to many others; we await another monument from the curious Reader, or at least a judgment on this entire matter.

CONCERNING S. DEVOTA, VIRGIN MARTYR, IN CORSICA.

Under Diocletian.

Devota, Virgin Martyr in Corsica (S.)

[1] The town and strongly fortified citadel of the port of Hercules Monoecus lies between Nice and Ventimiglia, on the coast of the Ligurian Sea. Here S. Devota, Virgin and Martyr, is venerated with annual rites on 27 January with the greatest solemnity, as the Tutelary Saint. The feast of S. Devota. The Bishop of Nice, in whose diocese the town is situated, comes there at that time and performs the sacred rites. The Acts of S. Devota were published by Vincenzo Barrali of Salerno in his Lerinian Chronology, Acts from an ancient manuscript of the convent of S. Pontius at Nice, in which she is written as "Deiuota"; but in her own city, name that is to say Monaco, she is always called Devota. Indeed, the city itself she protects with her patronage, and she has been seen more than once from the walls repelling enemies, defense of Monaco especially the French in the years 1507, 1547, and 1584.

[2] In the year 1612, Bernardo Landolio had an elegant image of S. Devota struck in bronze and dedicated it to Honorato Grimaldi, Prince of Monaco. Image. Around it were depicted the acts of her martyrdom, which agree entirely with those published by Barrali. A prayer was also added, either composed by Landolio himself or, as we rather believe, customarily recited in the Church of Monaco. It reads thus: "On the Commemoration of S. Devota, Virgin and Martyr: Antiphon: 'Arise, make haste, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come; my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow of the wall.' V. 'Show me your face, and let your voice sound in my ears.' R. 'For your voice is sweet, and your face is comely.' Prayer: O God, who consecrated your handmaid Devota in heaven with the crown of virginity and martyrdom, prayer concerning her grant us, we beseech you, that just as we piously commemorate her memory, so also, relying on her patronage, we may be able to protect Honoratus our Prince with his offspring and the peoples and soldiers committed to him, from his enemies, in your holiness. Through our Lord, etc."

[3] Moreover, lest the Corsicans be deprived of every relic of their countrywoman S. Devota, the Fathers of the Society of Jesus who reside in Corsica obtained from the people of Monaco on 4 January 1637 some of her relics, Some relics transferred to Corsica to be devoutly venerated in their colleges. Our Antonius Beatillus testified to us that he received this, as well as what we reported about the enemies being driven from the town, from the people of Monaco themselves.

ACTS

From the Lerinian Chronology of Vincenzo Barrali.

Devota, Virgin Martyr in Corsica (S.)

BHL Number: 2156

From Vincenzo Barrali.

[1] In the time of the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, a certain maiden named Deiuota was a Christian from infancy, on the island called Corsica. Devota, from fear of the persecution, dwells with Eutychius. Hearing, however, that the governor Barbarus was about to come there to persecute the Christians, she rose secretly and came to the house of a certain senator named Eutychius, because of the fear and sacrileges of the pagans, so that under his protection she might be allowed to live by the Christian law.

[2] Now the blessed handmaid of Christ, since she was trained in good morals and instructed in the spiritual Scriptures, given to piety and abstinence sang hymns and psalms to God day and night, and devoted herself to readings with her whole mind's attention, and mortified her body with fasts, intent on the Gospel precepts, knowing that the Lord says: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied." Matt. 5:6. Accordingly, since she continually afflicted herself with abstinences, no one could persuade her to relax from her fasts for even a single day's space, or (except on the day of the Resurrection alone) to take even a small amount of food. Her face was pale, therefore, with a worldly pallor, yet shone radiant with divine splendor. Hearing this, Eutychius--that the virgin of Christ, Deiuota, was thus tormenting her soul with fasts--summoned her to himself, saying: "Why, maiden, do you afflict yourself with such great fasts and torture your soul by abstaining?" To whom the venerable Deiuota answered: "I do not torture my soul, but I refrain from various delicacies, she is seen with a shining face because there is a God in heaven who daily satisfies me with the gifts of his bounty." At this, Eutychius, struck with fear, dared say nothing further to her, nor was he even able to gaze upon the brightness of her face.

[3] Not long afterward, the governor Barbarus, arriving at the same island with a naval fleet, came to sacrifice to the Gods. And when all the chief men of that place had gathered there, and the senator Eutychius with them, they began to sacrifice to their Gods and offer incense. Hearing this, S. Deiuota, on account of their error, drew deep sighs from the depths of her breast. And when they were gathered together, and were given over to their feasting there, and the governor Barbarus was deliberating about the persecution of the Christians, this was reported to him by his agents: she is accused before the governor that in the house of the senator Eutychius there was a maiden who mocked their Gods and refused to sacrifice. Then the governor addressed Eutychius, saying: "I hear that there is in your house a maiden who abandons our Gods and worships a certain Christ, I know not whom, who was crucified by the Jews." To this Eutychius replied: "The maiden of whom you speak--I was in no way able to make her even bow her head to our Gods." The governor said to him: "Give her to me; I will make her fulfill her vows to our Gods." And Eutychius replied: "If you were to give me your entire fortune, it could not compare with her goodness."

[4] But since Eutychius was an honorable senator, and the governor therefore did not dare to do him an open injury, he ordered Eutychius to be killed by secret poison. Eutychius having been secretly killed. And sending men to his house, he ordered them to drag the maiden out headlong and bring her before the governor. And as she was being led away, she sang psalms, saying: she is seized "O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me." And when they had presented her before the governor, the governor said to her: "Sacrifice to the Gods." The virgin of Christ, Deiuota, answered: "I serve the true God daily with a pure mind; but I reject gods of wax, gods of bronze, and gods of stone, because they are images of men without sight or hearing." Then the governor Barbarus, moved with anger, she is beaten ordered her mouth to be struck with a stone, saying: "Do not blaspheme the Gods and Goddesses." Again, the most savage governor ordered that, with her hands and feet bound, she be dragged over the sharpest rocks, she is dragged over rough ground so that all her limbs might be torn apart. But she said: "Lord God, I give thanks to your name, because you deign to receive me with the crown of martyrdom." And raising her voice loudly, she cried out, saying: "God of hosts, who searches hearts and minds, who spoke and all things were made, who commanded and they were created, hear the prayer of your handmaid. Number your servant Eutychius among your elect, because on my account he was killed by the sorceries of the most wicked governor Barbarus, the worshipper of all demons."

[5] Hearing this, Barbarus, indignantly bearing her insults, ordered her to be suspended on the rack with her hands thus bound. She is tortured on the rack. And as she was being suspended, she cried out, saying: "Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit, because I suffer these things for the sake of your name." And a voice was heard from heaven, saying: Confirmed by a heavenly voice, she dies. "My handmaid, your prayer has been heard, for whatever you have asked or shall ask, you will obtain." And immediately a dove went forth from her mouth, and with swift flight sought the heights and flew to the stars; and there she completed her martyrdom in peace.

[6] When the most savage governor heard that she had already departed to heaven, Her body is carried away from Corsica by divine direction having taken counsel with his agents, he ordered that on the next day her body be burned with fire. At that time, because of the persecution of the pagans, the priest Benenatus of Savoy and the deacon Apollinarius were hiding in caves and caverns, and they were admonished by a vision that they should remove the body of the blessed Virgin from that place. Then, having taken counsel together with Gratianus the ship-captain and a company of Virgins, they took away her body by night and placed it in a ship, and there they embalmed it with spices. And when they had begun to sail, they began heading toward Africa. But when a south wind blew, they took to the open sea toward the north. Now the little ship, since it had been neglected and lay dry on the shore, was making much water in its bilge; and laboring the whole night, they made no progress. At dawn, however, sleep fell upon Gratianus the ship-captain, and he said to the most holy priest Benenatus: "Rise, my lord, and steer a little while I rest briefly." And while he rested, At her command she is brought to Monaco it seemed to Gratianus the ship-captain that the blessed Virgin Deiuota struck his sides and said to him: "Rise, Gratianus the ship-captain, for the storm has been removed; now you will have a calm sea, and water will no longer fill your little ship, nor will it be shaken by waves. But you and the most holy priest, look carefully, and when you see a dove going forth from my mouth, follow it until you come to the place which in Greek is called Monacho, and in Latin Singulare, with a dove as guide and there bury my body." And they, looking carefully, saw a dove going forth from her mouth, which went before them, and they followed it to the aforesaid place. And the dove, coming to the place of Monacho, to the valley which is commonly called Gaumates, alighted before the church which is situated in the aforesaid valley in honor of S. George; and there they deposited the body of the Blessed Deiuota, Virgin and Martyr of Christ, on the sixth day before the Kalends of February, in the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

CONCERNING S. PETER THE EGYPTIAN, ANCHORITE IN SYRIA.

Around the year 400.

Peter the Egyptian, anchorite in Syria (S.)

[1] Theodoret, bk. 4 of his Ecclesiastical History, ch. 26, after naming various illustrious athletes of the monastic life who flourished under Valens, adds as follows: "Likewise the mountain which overlooks that most ample city (Antioch) is beautifully clad with such meadow flowers. For on it there lived, with great renown, Peter the Galatian, Where Peter lived and one of the same nation (in Greek, homonymos, 'of the same name'), the Egyptian, as well as Romanus, Severus, Zeno, Moses, Malchus, and very many others, unknown indeed to the world, but fully known and recognized by God." Nicephorus has the same, bk. 11, ch. 41. Of these, Peter the Galatian is venerated on 1 February, Peter the Egyptian on this 27 January, Romanus on 27 November, Zeno on 10 February, Malchus on 21 October; but Severus and Moses we have not yet read in the sacred calendar, or at least we have not yet been able to distinguish them from others of the same name. The same Theodoret, in his Philotheus, ch. 14, says: "We know indeed that very many other lights of piety and true religion shone forth also in the city of Antioch (Alberic Longus says 'near Antioch,' and more correctly)--the great Severus, and Peter the Egyptian, Eutyches, and Cyril, and Moses, and Malchus, and very many others who entered upon the same path (as SS. Romanus, Zeno, Peter the Galatian, Theodosius, and Macedonius Critophagus, whom he had treated previously)--but if we should attempt to write the deeds accomplished in life by all of them, all the time available would not suffice, especially since the reading of very many things about very many persons brings satiety. Therefore, from those who have been written about, let them form a conjecture about the life of those who have been passed over, and let them pursue them with praises and imitate them, and derive benefit." We treated of S. Macedonius on the 24th, and of S. Theodosius on 11 January. Cyril and Eutyches we have not yet read as enrolled in the calendar.

[2] Concerning Peter the Egyptian, this is handed down for this day in the Menaea: "On the same day, S. Peter the Egyptian, greatly advanced in age, his name in the sacred Calendar rests in peace."

"As ripe grain is brought into the barn, So heavy with years, Peter, you are carried to the tomb."

Maximus Cythereus also records the same. A different Peter, a certain Egyptian, reported to have been expelled from Bethlehem by S. Jerome, is recorded by Palladius, ch. 80 of the Lausiac History; he is wrongly confused with this Saint in the Index of Heribert Rosweyde to the Lives of the Fathers and by Rader.

CONCERNING S. DOMITIAN, MONK AND DEACON IN JUDAEA.

Year of Christ 473.

Domitian, monk in Judaea (S.)

From various sources.

[1] The inseparable companion of the great Euthymius, whose Life, admirably written by the monk Cyril, we gave on 20 January, and the associate of his ascetic exercises and the minister of his miracles, was Domitian, who on the eighth day after the death of Euthymius, summoned by him, departed this life most holily. But--and we wonder at this with good reason--The natalis of S. Domitian we do not find his name recorded even in the Greek Calendar. Constantius Felicius alone, in his Calendar or historical Ephemeris, writes thus about him on this day: "Domitian, monk, a most holy man, disciple of the great Abbot Euthymius, dies at Jerusalem in the year 465." Not at Jerusalem, but in the wilderness of Jerusalem; nor did he die in the year 465, but in 473, as can be gathered from the Life of S. Euthymius, in which many things are proclaimed about his virtues, which we shall briefly sample: for it is not necessary to linger longer over what has been commemorated and explained at length in that place.

[2] Domitian was a Melitene by birth, but a zealous lover of virtue, as Cyril records in ch. 5, no. 28. Euthymius chose him from the entire community of the Brothers as his companion, with whom he withdrew from the monastery of S. Theoctistus into the wilderness of Ruban, companion of S. Euthymius in the wilderness and then to Mount Marda; in which places and afterward in the desert of Ziphon, both lived on herbs for no short time. When they had afterward returned to the monastery, Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, around the year of Christ 429, together with S. Passarion the Chorepiscopus and Hesychius the Priest, visited Euthymius, and while he initiated others into the priesthood, he becomes a Deacon he ordained Domitian and Domnus--who afterward became Patriarch of Antioch--as Deacons, as is narrated in ch. 6, no. 42.

[3] Domitian was appointed by Euthymius as the Steward of the new Laura. Steward of the Laura. But when they were pressed by great scarcity of provisions, it happened nevertheless, by the will of God who wished to test the virtue of both, that nearly four hundred Armenians, traveling from Jerusalem toward the Jordan and turning to the right off the road, stopped at the Laura. When Euthymius saw them exhausted by the toil of the journey, he summoned Domitian and ordered him to set a table for them. Domitian said there was not enough food in the house to suffice the Brothers for a single day, much less for so great a multitude. "Go," By a miracle he is taught to place his trust in God said Euthymius, "to the storeroom, and you will know what human calculations amount to, and what divine grace can dispense and provide beyond expectation." Domitian obeyed, and found the storeroom so packed with bread that he could not even open the door; but having called upon the Brothers for help, he had to break it down in order to enter. Inside, moreover, there was an enormous quantity of wine and oil. Struck by the miracle, Domitian threw himself at the feet of Euthymius and begged to be forgiven his illiberal parsimony. Euthymius, raising him with a kindly spirit and hand, said: "O my son, he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully," and with many words exhorted him to place his trust in God and to bestow provisions abundantly upon pilgrims. From that time the domestic resources began to increase, so that now fifty monks were being supported, a cell having been built for each.

[4] When Domitian foresaw that, with the increased number of Brothers, a greater ministry would also be needed, A certain man who refuses to obey him is divinely punished he procured mules. He asked a certain Auxentius, an Asiatic by origin, to undertake their care. Auxentius refused. Since, however, he seemed eminently suited for this task and the matter was useful, indeed necessary, Domitian took with him the priests John and Cyrion, and with them asked Auxentius again. When he would not obey even so, and the Sabbath had already arrived, on which it was possible to meet the great Euthymius, the Steward reported everything about Auxentius to him. Euthymius immediately summoned the Brother, advised him to obey, and not to be so obstinate and disobedient, following his own will and refusing a ministry that was useful to the Brothers in common. When Auxentius would not yield even to the admonitions and authority of Euthymius, he was seized by a sudden illness; and from this he was delivered by Euthymius through the sign of the Cross, and was taught thenceforth to obey his superiors. Thus the authority of Domitian and Euthymius was divinely vindicated.

[5] On one occasion, as is related in ch. 13, Terebon the Saracen and the holy Gabriel saw Euthymius offering the unbloody sacrifice to God, with Domitian assisting, He is surrounded by heavenly fire during the sacred rite and from the beginning of the sacred Trisagion until the completion of the sacred ministry, both were surrounded on all sides by heavenly fire. S. Sabas, still a youth in age, inflamed with the desire for the ascetic life, Euthymius entrusted for the time being to his disciple Domitian for training; but afterward he sent him to S. Theoctistus, as is related in ch. 15 a familiar of S. Sabas and will be told again in the Life of S. Sabas on 5 December. The same Sabas, after the death of S. Theoctistus, came to Euthymius with Abbot Longinus; and when they had tarried some days near Ruban, Euthymius took him and Domitian with him into the wilderness and drew forth a spring by his prayers, so as to refresh Sabas, who was laboring under vehement thirst and nearly fainting.

[6] At length, with death approaching, Euthymius summoned Domitian and, having exhorted his followers to mutual charity, zeal for chastity, hospitality, he is sought as Abbot and other virtues, he then also asked them whom they wished to command and preside over them. And they all answered as if with one voice: Domitian. But he said: "That cannot be. For Domitian will not remain here long after me; his death is foretold by S. Euthymius but when he has passed only the seventh day, he will follow me on the next." This astounded all who were present, since it had been spoken so openly and so freely. When therefore they had lost hope regarding Domitian, they asked for a certain Elias, Steward of the lower monastery, a native of Jericho. Cyril commemorates the death and obsequies of Euthymius, and then adds the following:

[7] "Domitian, who was truly the great and genuine disciple of the Great One, as one who was the most careful imitator of his life, having served the Saint for more than fifty years, did not depart from the place; summoned by him to heaven, he dies but remained thereafter until the sixth day from that time, as one who had resolved that he ought not to live any longer and that it was not to be borne that he should look upon this light at all. When the seventh day had come, Euthymius appeared to him joyfully by night, saying: 'Come hither, to obtain the glory prepared for you. For behold,' he said, 'God has granted you that we also may dwell here together.' Domitian announced these things to the Brothers when he came to the synaxis. And thus he departed this life in joy and in hope of the good things to come."

CONCERNING S. MARIUS, ABBOT OF BODON IN GAUL.

Sixth century.

Marius, Abbot of Bodon in Gaul (S.)

From various sources.

[1] There is a city of the Segesterians, commonly called Cisteron, or Sistaricum, in Narbonensis Secunda, as is found in the Notice of the Provinces of Gaul in Sirmond, or as in our manuscript, in the third province of Vienne, situated on the river Durance, of the monastery of Bodon already long ago distinguished by an episcopate, under the Metropolitanate of Aix. Not far from it is the most ancient monastery of Bodon. That it was so called was shown to us by Godefroy Wendelin, a most learned man, not Bobacum who visited the place; in French it is called Beuvons. Claude Robert, Usuard, and very many others, and even the Roman Martyrology, write Bobacum or Bobacense monastery; Galesinius writes Babacense; others Bobiacense, Bobriacense, and less erroneously Badonense; Peter de Natalibus, Maurolycus, and Felicius write Bellouacense (of Beauvais).

[2] The Abbot S. Marius, who by others is called Maurus. The Abbot of Bodon was S. Marius, concerning whom Usuard writes on the 6th before the Kalends of February: "Likewise of S. Marius, Abbot of the monastery of Bobacum, whose life, full of virtues, the illustrious man and Patrician Dynamius wrote." Very many manuscript copies and some printed ones call him Maurus, some Macerius. Ado writes the same as Usuard, but expresses the place more correctly when he calls him Abbot of the monastery of Bodon; His natalis. the MS. of S. Laurence at Liege erroneously has Lobacensis; the MS. of S. Mary at Utrecht and the MS. of S. Gudula at Brussels have Badonensis. The Vulgate Bede: "Likewise of Blessed Maurus, Abbot of the monastery of Bobacum." But the manuscripts: "of Marius, of Badon." Notker: "Likewise of Marius, Abbot of the monastery of Badocum, distinguished in life and virtues." The Roman Martyrology: "In the monastery of Bobacum, of S. Maurus, Abbot." Saussay and all the rest commemorate him on this day.

[3] The Life of S. Marius (as is clear from Usuard, Ado, and others already cited) was written by Dynamius, an illustrious man, whom Bellinus and Canisius call Damianus, Life written by Dynamius the Cologne Martyrology calls Dinandus, the Carthusian of Cologne Didamus; certain manuscripts call him Dinavius and Climanius; Peter de Natalibus calls him Divanus. Sigebert of Gembloux: "Dynamius, an illustrious man and Patrician, wrote a life full of virtues of S. Marius, who was Abbot of the monastery of Bobacum." Aubert Le Mire noted in his Library: "Whether the reading here in Sigebert should be S. Maximus, and not S. Marius, I have nothing to assert. Concerning Marius of Bobacum I have read nothing hitherto." He had indeed read about him, but did not remember. For we recall having once conversed with him about the name of Marius and the monastery of Bodon.

[4] Dynamius was, as the same Le Mire correctly observed, the administrator of the patrimony of the Roman Church in Gaul. This is clear from the letter of S. Gregory, no. 33, Indiction XI, addressed to him, which reads thus: "Gregory to Dynamius, Patrician of Gaul, etc. He shows how well he manages his own affairs, who faithfully administers those of others. This your glory has shown us, you who, intent on an eternal gift, have brought the fruits of your revenues to Blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. In faithfully expending your own for him, you have made these your gifts in his keeping. For thus it befits the illustrious men of this earth, when thinking of eternal glory, to act: that in that wherein they prevail temporally, they may prepare for themselves a reward that is not temporal. Therefore, paying the due tribute of greeting, we beseech the almighty Lord to fill your life with present blessings and to extend it to the sublime joys of eternity. For we have received through Hilarius, your son, from the aforesaid revenues of our Church, four hundred Gallic solidi. We have sent, moreover, a blessing of the Blessed Apostle Peter: a small cross, in which benefits from his chains have been inserted--chains which indeed bound his neck for a time, but may they loose your necks from sins forever. On the four surrounding sides are contained benefits from the gridiron of the Blessed Lawrence, on which he was burned, so that this--the instrument on which his body was consumed for the truth--may kindle your mind to the love of the Lord." There survives another letter of the same Gregory, issued in Indiction XIV, to Candidus the Priest, going to administer the patrimony which is in Gaul, Dynamius having either died or resigned his office.

[5] The same Dynamius also wrote the Life of S. Maximus, Bishop of Riez, author of the Life of S. Maximus of Riez which is found in Surius under 27 November, dedicated to Urbicus, Bishop of Riez. Urbicus subscribed to the Second Council of Valence, held in the year 584, and to the Second Council of Mâcon in 585, and to the rescript to the Bishops assembled at Poitiers in the year 589. From this it is clear that Dynamius did not live under the Emperor Anastasius, as Gerard Jan Vossius wrote; nor does he adequately prove this by the argument that Dynamius calls the most blessed Bishop Faustus, Urbicus's predecessor: not a contemporary of the Emperor Anastasius for he does not assert that he was an immediate predecessor; nor is it established whether this is the S. Faustus who, from being the second Abbot of Lérins, became Bishop of Riez, of whom we treated on 16 January, or Faustus II, for whom Claudianus subscribed to the Fifth Council of Orléans in the year 549, nearly a full century after the first Faustus. More clearly will it presently be possible to perceive from the age of S. Marius himself that his Life could not have been written in the time of the Emperor Anastasius, who died in the year of Christ 518.

[6] Peter de Natalibus, bk. 3, ch. 32, writes that he was nowhere able to find this Life of S. Marius (whom he calls Maurus). We received it from our Jacques Sirmond, with whom Nicolas de Peiresc, Councillor of the Most Christian King in the Parliament of Aix, had shared it from an ancient Breviary, easily written 400 years ago. Whence this Life is published here. It is divided into nine Lessons, and is perhaps not complete as it was first written by Dynamius, but adapted and abbreviated for the use of the ecclesiastical Office, since in Lesson 7 something has been inserted from the homilies of S. Gregory.

[7] Concerning the age of S. Marius, Arnold Wion writes thus: "The time at which he flourished is hitherto unknown to me." The age of S. Marius. By what reasoning, then, was he led to count him among the Saints of the Benedictine Order, and with him Ménard and Dorgany? Certainly he could not have been trained from the beginning in Benedictine rules, he who was elected as Father by the Brothers of the monastery of Bodon with the consent of Gundobad, Prince of the Burgundians; since Gundobad did not extend his life beyond the year of Christ 509, a year in which S. Benedict had not yet established his Order. Whether, however, he afterward received the illustrious statutes and Rule of Benedict and prescribed them for his monks, is not known to us. He was a familiar of Lucretius, Bishop of Die, who subscribed to the Fourth Council of Orléans, Indiction IV, in the consulship of Basilius, in the year 541; to the Fifth Council of Orléans in 549, through Vincent the Priest; to the Second Council of Paris in 555; to the Second Council of Lyon in 567, through Vincent the Priest; and to the Fourth Council of Paris in 573.

[8] Peter de Natalibus, having, as we said, treated S. Maurus of Bobacum in bk. 3, ch. 32, again in bk. 11, ch. 130, no. 38, records Marius of Beauvais, as if distinct from Maurus. He was not Abbot of Beauvais. Yet in both places he reports that the Life was written by Dynamius. This gave Maurolycus and others occasion to establish a Marius as Abbot of Beauvais. The most learned Pierre Louvet, bk. 2 of the Antiquities of Beauvais, ch. 18, lists him first among the Abbots of the monastery of S. Lucian at Beauvais, but professes that he relies solely on the authority of Peter de Natalibus. The learned Robertus follows Louvet. But Antoine Loisel, in his Commentaries on the Affairs of Beauvais, ch. 3, produces from certain ancient documents a Marinus, Bishop of Beauvais, whom he says held the see around the time of Clovis II, that is, the year of Christ 648, and suspects him to be the same who is said to have been the first Abbot of S. Lucian. Concerning Bishop Marinus we do not dispute. He whom others have called Marius or Marinus, Abbot of Beauvais, following in the footsteps of Peter of Equilo, is our Abbot of Bodon here, much older than the age of Clovis II, having lived in the time of Clovis I and his sons.

[9] Ludovico Jacobilli in his book on the Saints of Foligno records that the head of S. Maurus of Bobacum is preserved at Foligno; but by the very things he narrates about him, wrongly confused with S. Maro of Syria by Ludovico Jacobilli he refutes himself. He cites Dynamius, whom it is clear he had not read; Theodoret, and others, in whom he does not find what he writes. For he relates that Maurus, surnamed Maro or Marotus, flourished in Syria for the holiness of his life, presided there over a great number of monks, whom he excellently trained in the perfection of virtue; that he erected a monastery in the village of Maronia, thirty miles distant from Antioch, and that this was called Bobacense. But shortly afterward, he says, that village was wonderfully enlarged, grew into a city, and then had distinguished Bishops, of whom one, Dimasius (earlier he had called him Dinamius), committed the Life of the Saint to writing and participated in the Council of Ephesus. The monastery was afterward called that of S. Maro, from its first founder, and the monks Maronites, clothed in a white habit. Malchus the monk, celebrated by S. Jerome, had been a disciple of Maro. Finally, Maro withdrew to a very high mountain near the monastery, overturned a temple of idols there, built a humble cell, and there, constantly intent on heavenly things, spent the rest of his life, and at last migrated to heaven around the year 380, on 27 January. A church was then built for him, and a magnificent tomb in it. Finally, in the year 1130, his head was carried to Italy and is now preserved at Foligno and shown to the people on 10 March, which is the anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral basilica; but the proper feast of the Saint is celebrated on 18 August.

[10] So he writes. Theodoret does indeed treat of S. Maro the monk in ch. 16, who is venerated by the Greeks on 14 February. And other inconsistent things written. But he did not dwell in the village of Maronia, which was in the region of Chalcidice, where Malchus the monk lived; but in the territory of Cyrrhus near Cyrus, as Theodoret attests. We shall treat of Maronia, or Maronias, in the Life of S. Malchus on 21 October. Nor did Dimasius, Bishop of Maronias, participate in the Council of Ephesus, but Docimasius, Bishop of Maronia in Thrace. Whether the head of that Maro of Cyrrhus was brought to Italy, we do not now inquire; we only assert that he is very different from the Abbot of Bodon, and that Bodon, or as it is commonly written Bobacum, is a monastery of Gaul, not of Syria.

LIFE

By the Patrician Dynamius, from an ancient manuscript Breviary.

Marius, Abbot of Bodon in Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 5540, 5541

By Dynamius, from MSS.

CHAPTER I.

The death of S. Marius; prophecies.

[1] Lesson I. When our Lord Jesus Christ, at the beginning of our calling, had laid the foundations of faith in human hearts, and the harvest of the same faith, through the sending of the Holy Spirit, had grown far and wide throughout the whole world, Why the lives of Saints are written the religion of Christians has been accustomed to commit to writing the memorable acts of the Saints for two reasons: namely, that the company of the faithful, hearing the same acts recited on their annual feasts, may rejoice, be glad, and grow; and that the less perfect, inflamed by the examples of those same acts, may strive to labor in doing good.

[2] The holy Marius, therefore, whose faithful deeds we undertake to narrate according to the measure of our capacity, was born of a modest family, S. Marius becomes a monk and was a citizen of Orléans. Having been made a monk in the monastery that is there, trained from an early age in monastic teachings as a boy, and having become a young man, he strove to serve God by doing good. When in the aforesaid monastery, like a lily among the trees of the forest, he shone among the Brothers in character and life, with the consent of Gundobad, Prince of the Burgundians, then Abbot of Bodon he was chosen as Father by the Brothers of the monastery of Bodon, which is situated in the diocese of Sisteron; his election was confirmed by the authority of John, who at that time presided over the Church of Sisteron--by the provision and favor of divine clemency, so that he who had governed himself well might be placed over others for whom governance was necessary. What more? He was brought to the aforesaid monastery and was consecrated as Abbot by his Bishop, with the common will of the Brothers.

[3] Lesson II. Once consecrated, he embraced the office of his dignity in such a way he lives most holily that daily he begot spiritual sons by the example of his venerable life, and brought them up wonderfully, trained in heavenly teachings. For he was afflicting the outer man with fasts and vigils, refreshing the inner man with constant prayers; in both, meek and humble; in both, praiseworthy and perfect. When at a certain time he withdrew to other parts to conduct the business of his monastery, it happened that in the territory of Alegarna he was received as a guest by a certain illustrious man named Agricola. By baptizing a girl already laid out, he heals her. His daughter, named Sisagria, who was nearly dead, he baptized at the entreaty of his host, and having baptized her, restored her by his prayers to life and her former health. When, having completed the business for which he had set out, he was returning to his monastery, a certain noble matron called Licinia received him in her house; her son was so gravely ill another by prayers and holy oil that the said woman and their friends despaired of his recovery. Asked by the mother, the old man visited the sick youth, prayed over him, and anointed him with holy oil. O wonderful swiftness of the power of God when the Confessor prays! For while the sick man was being anointed, the desired health unexpectedly returned, and the sickness was cast out and put to flight. And so it came about that the hostess, whom he had found sad, he left joyful with her son upon his return to the monastery.

[4] Lesson III. When, as is the custom of religious, the same man of God was living in his cell during Lent more sparingly than usual, Lucretius, Bishop of Die, came frequently to visit him; He is visited by the Bishop of Die both because he had been a monk and pupil of the same man of God, and venerated and honored him in the place of a father; and because he constantly desired to be refreshed by his sweet conversations. And so one day, when the Bishop knocked at the door of his cell, he heard from him that he should withdraw and return after the third day; and in that interval no one should provide him with food and no one should have access to him. The Bishop withdrew, and returning after three days, entered to the man of God. To him the man of God said: "I was carried away in the spirit, and I saw the heavens opened and the majesty of God, he foresees and foretells calamities for Italy the splendor of whose brightness my mortal eyes could scarcely endure; and I saw the blessed Virgin and Mother of God, Mary, prostrate with the Angels at his feet, supplicating for the peace of Italy. But the divine goodness so tempered its response as not to offend the mother who was asking, yet declared that Italy and many other provinces deserved inescapable destruction. These things, revealed to me by God, I have been eager to reveal to you, adjuring you on the part of God and on my own, that you presume to reveal to no one what you have heard while I am alive." After the aforesaid Bishop buried the body of this same man of God, both we knew the fulfillment of that vision, and we have no doubt that the monastery of Bodon was overthrown.

CHAPTER II.

Various miracles. Death.

[5] Lesson IV. At another time it pleased the man of God to visit the shrine of S. Martin of Tours for the sake of prayer. He miraculously recovers his horse that had been stolen. And when on the very night of the vigils he was sleeping in the city of Tours, a certain thief stole by stealth the horse that was from his saddle. But divine power so beset the thief by the merits of the aforesaid man of God that the whole night through he searched the streets of the city, groping about, and no exit from the city was open to him. In the morning the man of God came upon the thief and recovered the horse. And likewise on another occasion. And although the thief, being caught, deserved corporal punishment, out of his innate gentleness he allowed him to depart free. By a similar miracle, on another occasion, in the city of Lyon he recovered his riding animals.

[6] He obtains a son for a certain man. This also should not be passed over: that at a certain time a man named Nimphidius, together with the senator Agricola, was accompanying S. Marius and traveling to Paris for the sake of prayer, to visit the shrine of S. Dionysius. On this journey Nimphidius, recognizing the holiness of the man and trusting in it with a sincere mind, asked him that by his prayers he might be deemed worthy to have a son. The Saint refused, humbly asserting that he was not of such great merit that through him Nimphidius could obtain what he asked. Although, however, as is the custom of the righteous, he simply affirmed that he could in no way lend his support to so great a petition, after three days he nevertheless predicted to the aforesaid Nimphidius that a son would be born to him at a certain time. And he foretells the time of birth. That the Saint was in this a true Prophet, Euodius, born to Nimphidius at the promised time, showed.

[7] Lesson V. We also deemed it worthy of mention that before he departed from that city, not without the sadness of his companions, he began to be very seriously ill. On the following night, therefore, he laid his limbs, nearly dead with languor, upon his bed. He is healed by S. Dionysius appearing to him. But in the course of that very night, divine clemency came to his aid in such a way that in the early morning he rose joyful and unharmed, and exhorted his companions to set out on the journey. When all who were present marveled at his sudden recovery, he said: "S. Dionysius came to me in that night, touched me, and by his presence restored me to my former health."

[8] When, therefore, as we have said, having been made well, he was returning to his monastery, a certain householder received him as a guest. At the proper time, the man of God approached the table, sat down, and blessed the bread that had been brought, as was his custom. But when one of those sitting at table threw some of the blessed bread to a dog that he loved, A dog that devours the bread blessed by him dies as soon as the dog was seen to swallow the bread it had received, it lost its life. For it was unworthy that a dog should feed on that bread which the right hand of the Priest had sanctified.

[9] At another time, when he was going to visit certain children of the Church, Another person who tears his satchel is seized by wolves a bitch that had puppies, suddenly leaping out, tore his satchel. When the servant of God slightly lowered his face on account of this, two wolves, as avengers of the injury done to him, seized that very bitch, and bearing it away for their own feeding, led it to the forest in the sight of the people. If anyone does not believe that wild beasts, having laid aside their ferocity, have sometimes known how to serve the needs of the righteous, let him hear that lions made a burial for Paul, the first hermit, and for S. Mary of Egypt; let him hear, and in all things praise the Lord, marvel, and believe.

[10] Lesson VI. We also judged that another thing should be added to the foregoing: that whenever the servant of God, in uncertain weather, either spread the ears of grain to be threshed, or on any journey sat at table in the open air, He himself is untouched by rain the inundation of rains never troubled him, never impeded him. For God so restrained the onslaught of the clouds rushing down everywhere, by the merits and power of the holy Confessor, that while they indiscriminately moistened others going and coming and their labors with their floods, they passed by the man of God and his companions unharmed, and his threshing floors untouched. Nor is it surprising that he was able to put to flight the effusion of the clouds, who from the first flower of his youth had striven to weaken within himself the dark fog of vices. For he was of such great power and holiness he shines with miracles that through him the Lord restored sight to the blind, restored hearing to the deaf, and reformed the sick to their former health. He also liberated through his prayer a certain woman held captive by the infestation of an evil spirit.

[11] It should also be noted among the foregoing that he knew the passing of a certain servant of God named Donatus, though absent in body, he learns of the death of S. Donatus by divine revelation yet present in spirit, and made known what he had learned to the Brothers with tears. One of those who were present, wishing to test whether the vision of the man of God rested on truth, sent to the place where the aforesaid Donatus had served God; and by the assertions of the messengers, he found that it was as the man of God had predicted. These things which you have heard, most dear Brothers, we have excerpted from the miracles of the oft-named Confessor, omitting very many, lest the length of our discourse should generate weariness in the hearers. He dies on 27 January. Crowned therefore with the glory of such great virtues, and shining far and wide with such great miracles, on the 6th day before the Kalends of February--that is, today--the aforesaid Confessor of the Lord, Marius, happily departed from the body to Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit is the kingdom and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

CHAPTER III.

Miracles after death. Reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew.

[12] Lesson VII. At that time, Jesus spoke this parable to his disciples: "A certain man, going on a journey abroad, called his servants and entrusted his goods to them"; and the rest. Homily of S. Gregory the Pope: "This man, most dear Brothers, who goes on a journey, is our Redeemer, who, passing from the world to the Father, entrusted five talents--that is, spiritual goods--to his faithful servants. Since S. Marius was a faithful servant, it is believed that together with the faithful he received the aforesaid weight from the Redeemer himself. Hence it is that, departing from the body, he approached the feet of the same Redeemer, who demands spiritual interest, himself also about to render an account of what was entrusted to him; and since beyond five talents he had gained another five, he deserved to hear: 'Well done, good and faithful servant; because you have been faithful over a few things, enter into the joy of your Lord.'" Matt. 25:21, 23.

[13] After his blessed passing, when very many cycles of years had elapsed, and through the cruelty of certain savage peoples nearly all of Gaul was bereft of its inhabitants, The body of S. Marius is transferred to Forcalquier and the monasteries of Christ had been turned into wilderness, to be mourned with perpetual grief, the body of the aforesaid man of God was taken up from the Church of Bodon by certain men and, by God's disposition, brought to this town of Forcalquier. He rests, moreover, in the church, about to grant perpetual rest to those who serve him there. In this church many assert that the Lord has worked many miracles through him. Of these, to commend the memory of so great a Confessor, we have excerpted a few he shines with miracles which we have learned from the truthful assertion of witnesses.

[14] At a certain time, a certain boy with excessive playfulness was engaged in profane games and dances beneath the sarcophagus of the aforesaid Father. A boy playing at his tomb is punished. When with shameless boldness he persisted in the aforesaid activities, struck by divine vengeance, he fell. Immediately he began to lose the use of his limbs and to be weakened in the five senses of his body. The punishment grew, and the torment grew. And as he withdrew from that place, supported by the hands of others, together with the punishment and torment he breathed out his spirit. From this it is to be understood that the God of vengeance is God, and although he may seem to be distant, he is nevertheless believed to be always present in judging injuries done to his Saints.

[15] Lesson VIII. We should also by no means pass over the fact that on a certain occasion a religious man, the guardian of the basilica of the same man of God, a candle is divinely lit when he came to the church around midnight to give light to the lamp, found it extinguished. "O my Father," he said, "give counsel to your servant: dark night possesses all things; all are asleep; where fire may be found, I do not know; my foot is ignorant of the path of the way. What then shall I do?" When therefore his soul was anxious within him and he did not know to which direction to turn, suddenly, not without his inexpressible joy, the candle which he held in his hands appeared lit.

[16] At another time, a certain peasant, contracted in all his limbs, was so thoroughly enfeebled in his whole body a cripple is healed and drawn together into a ball, the very opposite of a human likeness, that he was thought to be not a man but some kind of monster. He had been brought to many shrines of the Saints; but since, as we believe, he was reserved for our holy Confessor, he confessed that he had received no help for his body. At last, with divine clemency coming to his aid, not without much labor he was carried to the desired shrine of the holy Confessor and, having been brought in, was set down in his church. The wretched man begged with tears for the straightening of his pitiable body, and those present, compassionate toward him, begged for the same. O the piety of God, to be honored with every devotion! O the merits of the Saints, to be absolutely venerated by all mortals! For amid the tears of the unfortunate man and the words of the many who were praying, the wretch was raised up; the cracking of bones and the stretching of sinews were heard by many. Immediately the court of Counts came running, summoned by the tumult of those who were marveling; the nobles came running; people of both sexes came running. They all cried out, each one anticipating the other with their shouts, saying: "Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory." Psalm 113. Thus the wretch who had come, made whole by the merits of the aforesaid man of God, departed to his home with joyful steps.

[17] Lesson IX. We have also resolved to add to the foregoing that on a certain day a certain unmarried girl, led by levity of mind, one irreverently striking his tomb is punished directing a stone, struck the altar of the holy Confessor. The stone had not yet fallen to the pavement when, the strength of her sinews being exhausted and the power of her limbs weakened, the girl fell. What more? She who shortly before had come in wantonness was rendered pitiable and wretched. She was brought to the shrine of the Confessor Marius to keep faithful vigil; she offered herself, she offered prayers and tears; she vowed to the Saint annual vigils, having made a vow, she is healed if she might return home in health. O wondrous help of divine piety! While the woman wept, while she immolated her whole self upon the altar of her mind with devout prayers, she was heard, and was wholly restored to her former soundness. Having recovered her health, she was joined in a certain marriage; but as time passed with the succession of seasons, and the said woman, clinging rather unwisely to conjugal pleasures, had delayed in fulfilling the vows she had promised to the Saint, her forgetfulness was overtaken by her former infirmity: forgetful of her vow, she falls ill again she was again weakened in the strength of her sinews and utterly deprived of the health of her limbs. Again, by her husband's care, she was brought to the aforesaid shrine of the holy Confessor; again, by his merits, she was restored to her much-desired health. Again she is healed by S. Marius's aid. The woman, joyful at the health so unexpectedly restored to her, vowed perpetual service to the Saint, never to return home again. But when her husband grew excessively angry with his wife over such a vow, the woman, terrified by her husband's threats and softened by his blandishments, a third and fourth time the same happens returned home with him. Immediately upon returning, the wretched woman was again afflicted with the aforesaid plague; again she was brought to the shrine of the Saint; again she was restored to her desired health. O unhappy condition of our humanity! O abominable forgetfulness in fulfilling vows! For again the Saint was forgotten; again the immodest woman was enfeebled by her customary infirmity; again she flocked to the oft-mentioned shrine. By a renewed vow the Saint was again honored, and the woman was again restored to the health she sought; restored, rejoicing and sound, she returned home, by the merits of the holy Confessor never to return again for similar reasons. Let those hear this who in this Church have promised God and S. Marius stability of conduct; let them hear and with diligent care of mind show reverence, whether all things are right regarding their vow. If all is right, let them rejoice that all has gone well for them; but if it is otherwise, let them know that they suffer in the soul what the aforesaid woman is read to have suffered in the body. Let them therefore, when their vows have been broken, take counsel through penance; let them approach the foot of the holy Confessor; let them offer tears and prayers, so that the health which they had lost by their conduct may, with stability of morals restored, be deserved again through the mercy of God. Amen.

CONCERNING S. LUPUS, BISHOP OF CHALON IN GAUL.

Beginning of the seventh century.

Lupus, Bishop of Chalon in Burgundy (S.)

[1] The citadel of Chalon (which others call Cabilinum) is a city of the first province of Lyon, situated on the river Saone, excellently fortified and adorned with an episcopate, at one time the seat of the Kings of Burgundy, as we shall show in the Life of S. Guntram on 28 March. The age of S. Lupus, Bishop of Chalon. Here S. Lupus was Bishop around the year of Christ 600. For there survives a letter of S. Gregory the Great, which is no. 52 of bk. 9, issued in Indiction 4, the year of Christ 601, in which he commends to Menna of Toulouse, Serenus of Marseille, Lupus of Chalon, Agilius of Metz, Simplicius of Paris, Melantius of Rouen, and Licinius, Bishops of the Franks, the monks whom he was sending to Augustine in England with Laurence the Priest and Mellitus the Abbot. Whence it is clear that the learned Robertus and Jean Chenu are mistaken, who would have it that he succeeded S. Gratus in the episcopate; who, as we shall say in his Life on 8 October, participated in the Second Council of Chalon under Clovis II, around the year 650.

[2] S. Lupus is venerated by the Church of Chalon with a double Office on the 6th before the Kalends of February. Natalis. In the treasury of that church there are still preserved a foot-bone of his relics and a golden ring. His natalis was recorded thus by Molanus in his additions to Usuard: "At Chalon, of S. Lupus, Bishop of that city." Galesinius and Ferrarius say the same. But Saussay more fully: monastic profession "On this day at Chalon-sur-Saone, the deposition of S. Lupus, Bishop and Confessor, who was first a most devout monk and Abbot of S. Peter's, and succeeding S. Gratus with gifts of grace in this see, poured forth wondrous splendors of all the virtues and copious showers of salutary teaching; and at last, laden with many merits, he fell asleep in Christ. At whose venerable body, gleaming signs caused him to be elevated once and again, and to be honored with the worthy reverence from his townspeople that he still enjoys." But concerning his predecessor we have already said that he does not seem to have been Gratus.

[3] In the monastery of S. Peter. André du Chesne writes in his book of Gallic Antiquities that the monastery of S. Peter was first a cemetery of Christians, in the primitive Church, as was usually the case in the suburbs; afterward a chapel was built there, which was subsequently enlarged; and finally a monastery was founded by S. Flavius the Bishop, or if by some predecessor, certainly restored by him. Jean Chenu and the learned Robertus write that S. Lupus was Abbot there, and therefore wished to be buried there. But that monastery is now destroyed by the first tumults of the Calvinists, and a fortress has been erected in its place.

[4] Life. The Life of S. Lupus, written by an anonymous author, but several centuries later, as is clear to the reader, we received from an ancient manuscript of our Jacques Sirmond. Elevation by Bishop Gerboldus. The learned Robertus relates that his relics were elevated by Girbaldus, or Gerboldus, the Bishop, on the 4th before the Kalends of September in the year 877. Girbaldus participated in the Third Council of Soissons in 866, at Chalon in 873, at Ponthion in 876, at the Second Council of Troyes in 878, and at Mantaille in 879. In a precept of Charles the Fat issued in 885 for the free election of the Bishop of Chalon, it is said that Girboldus, then already worn out by infirmity and old age, caused no small grief to the citizens and children of his Church by the fear of his death.

[5] On what occasion the elevation of S. Lupus was made, Jean Chenu indicates: "In the time of the same Gilboldus," he says, "the Supreme Pontiff John VIII, returning from Troyes, canonization to which city he had convoked a synod and in which he had consecrated Louis the Stammerer as Emperor, while he was staying twenty days in the city of Chalon, at the request of Gilboldus, SS. Silvester, Agricola, Lupus, and Gratus, Tranquillus, Desiderius, John, and Veranus, Bishops of Chalon, were enrolled among the Saints." Chenu is mistaken, indeed: it was not an imperial but a royal crown which John placed on the Stammerer. But if nevertheless the body of S. Lupus was elevated on that occasion, then it was not in the year 877, since the synod of Troyes was not held until the following year--unless one should wish that the body of the holy Bishop was elevated two years before, and those celestial honors were decreed only in 879, which is probable.

[6] Concerning the canonization of those Bishops of Chalon, Saussay writes thus on 20 November, treating of S. Silvester, Bishop of Chalon: "Nevertheless, since the blessed Confessor continually shone in his tomb with the radiance of divine power, he lay buried in his sepulcher until, at the initiative of Gilboldus, Bishop of Chalon, he was brought out of his coffin for a more ample cult. For when Pope John VIII, driven out of Rome, had taken refuge in Gaul and held the Council whose acts survive at Troyes, on his return he stayed twenty days at Chalon. The aforesaid Bishop Gilboldus, having fortunately seized this auspicious occasion, obtained from him by his supplications that he should elevate the sacred bodies of the holy Bishops of Chalon, by Pope John VIII Silvester and Agricola, from the tombs where they shone with wondrous manifestation of divine glory, and place them in more honorable shrines, so that they might be more zealously venerated by the faithful people; and further, that he should by Apostolic authority pronounce those blessed Bishops to be Saints, and by solemn decree enroll them in the register of the Blessed, along with seven other Bishops and Confessors who had illuminated the city of Chalon by the merits of their holy life (as perpetual helpers and patrons of that land), namely, Tranquillus, Desiderius, John, Flavius, Veranus, Gratus, and Lupus, together with Desideratus the Priest, who, as a dweller of the desert, enclosed at Gordanum, had left behind traces of wondrous holiness. The Apostolic Pontiff received the pious petition of the Bishop with favorable ears, and having made a careful investigation of the morals, merits, and miracles of those eight pious men, those whom he found to have been pleasing to God--by the zeal of his glory and the innocence of their perfect life, and whom he had in turn found glorified by the wondrous working of signs both in life and after death--he numbered among the Blessed by Apostolic pronouncement, and decreed that they should be venerated forever by the faithful with the honors of sanctity. But since he was pressed by the constraints of time and the weight of pressing affairs, he did not remove from their tombs the sacred remains of each and every one of those Saints, as Giboldus desired, but only the precious relics of SS. Silvester and Agricola; for the more fitting enshrinement of which Gilboldus himself, the Bishop of Chalon, had prepared more distinguished reliquaries."

[7] Anniversary of the canonization. The commemoration of all of them together is celebrated in the Church of Chalon on 30 April, as the learned Robertus testifies; on which day Ferrarius records: "At Chalon in Gaul, the enrollment of the holy Bishops among the Saints." But with a particular feast, additionally, SS. Silvester and Desideratus the Priest are honored on 20 November, S. Agricola on 17 March, S. Gratus on 8 October, and S. Veranus on the 20th of the same month.

[8] Concerning S. Lupus, Saussay furthermore records this on 27 August: "At Chalon-sur-Saone, the feast of S. Lupus, Bishop, another feast whose glorious departure, with a tribute to his holiness, is recorded on its proper day in these sacred annals of Gaul on the 6th before the Kalends of February." Ferrarius likewise: "At Chalon in Gaul, of S. Lupus, Bishop." And on 29 August, the same Saussay: "Likewise at Chalon-sur-Saone, the elevation of the body of S. Lupus, Bishop and Confessor of the same Church, carried out on account of the divine miracles gleaming at his tomb, by Garboldus, Bishop of that see." Finally, the same Saussay numbers the same Gilboldus, whose name he has expressed in such varied forms, among the Saints on 12 June in his Supplement to the Martyrology.

LIFE BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR,

from a MS. of Jacques Sirmond, S.J.

Lupus, Bishop of Chalon in Burgundy (S.)

BHL Number: 5081

By an Anonymous Author, from MSS.

CHAPTER I.

The episcopate, virtues, and miracles of S. Lupus.

[1] The Saints are to be praised. To describe for posterity the deeds of holy men is to bestow a work of piety and to honor the magnificence of the Divinity, since both readers have something by which they may be inspired, and the works of the Almighty something by which they may be praised. The authority of the book of Ecclesiasticus exhorts on this matter: "Let us praise," it says, "glorious men and our parents, who obtained glory among the generations of their people and are held in praises in their days. Ecclus. 44. Those born of them have left a name for the narrating of their praises; and there are those of whom there is no memory; but those are men of mercy and their good deeds remain with them."

[2] Therefore, being about to relate the life and deeds of the most blessed Lupus, Bishop of Chalon, in some part, The Acts of S. Lupus have perished since I am unable to do so in their entirety--although I am unequal to this task, I shall briefly explain why I have undertaken it. Since the same city had been consumed by frequent fire, nearly all that had been committed to writing concerning him was consumed by those same flames; and had not some survivors remained who had read them, so as to narrate them again for writing to those to whom they might by chance be unknown, they would have remained condemned to perpetual silence. Giving credence, therefore, to the assertions of truthful reporters, and at the same time eager to carry out the holy command of the Lord Bishop, who most strongly orders it, I shall set forth with faithful speech what is known to me concerning the aforesaid Father, although my uncultivated discourse may falter. And if eloquence does not suffice, obedience will assist. And since I remember it is written, "Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner," let the authority of him who commands wipe away the stains of negligence. Ecclus. 15:9.

[3] He, then, about whom we introduce this narrative, was born in the kingdom of Burgundy, no little distinguished by the title of nobility. For that he was of the highest lineage according to the propagation of this flesh, his vast estates testify, which he himself also donated to the ownership of sacred places by a sufficiently pious distribution, He gives his goods to the Church transferring, as it were, the resources of his patrimony to heaven, where he was incessantly engaged in deed and in the intention of his mind, according to the Apostolic saying. Phil. 3:20. For the estate of Baugiacum, which he had received as an inheritance from his parents, he bestowed upon the Church of the Blessed Martyr Vincent; of which church, on account of the probity of his morals and the excellence of his religious deeds, he was afterward appointed the worthy Pastor, both by divine election and by the acclamation of the entire clergy and people. He becomes Bishop. For in him the supreme and preeminent charity among the virtues flourished: he was nourished by abstinence and vigils; he devoted himself to the refreshment of the wretched and those placed in prison, for whom he most mercifully intervened before the secular Judges, the ministers of their death; he was also zealous for the advancement of daily instruction, and having established a school of the divine books, he ministered an abundance of heavenly eloquence to his hearers; and he investigated most vigilantly, by proposing questions on the readings, how each individual was progressing. He flourishes in virtues. He was indeed most intently given to hospitality, a most generous distributor of alms to the needy; zealous for exhortation among his subjects and for teaching in all things. He did not teach one thing and do another, but his life, joined to his preaching, shone with the lamp of all the virtues. Whence, on account of these outstanding divine merits which he accomplished while alive, he now works miracles after his death.

[4] In the aforesaid estate of Baugiacum, the Lord renewed through him an ancient miracle. He draws forth a spring by his prayers. For he who once brought forth water from the rock for his murmuring people, by his prayers caused a spring to flow forth in a dry place for the people parched with thirst. For when the bands of his workmen cutting hay, wearied by the prolonged heat of the sun, lacked water to slake their thirst, and because of this shortage were already exhausted and failing, the man of the Lord exhorted them to trust in his mercy; he prostrated himself in prayer; having completed it, he rose; the staff of his holy hand was driven by him into the parched ground; and when it was drawn back, a most abundant flow of the spring followed forth, healthful against diseases which to this day provides in that same place a sweet draught for the thirsty, as a testimony to the most blessed man. By its refreshment the workers then began again to labor eagerly at the task they had begun; and frequently by drinking of it, the sick have deserved to recover their desired health. There is still pointed out, adjoining the oratory of the same estate, his cell, in which he was accustomed to sleep after his labor; to which, as long as he lived, no access was permitted to women. His cell is closed to women and harmful to birds of prey. Whence, on account of the former reverence, no woman now presumes to enter there. It is reported that if any bird of prey is released around the perimeter of that same cell, it is afterward of no use for any purpose.

[5] Having therefore received the dignity of the pontifical eminence, how much he gave himself over to stricter observances exceeds human narration. He had, indeed, on the left side of the mother Church, facing the altar of S. Vincent, a small chapel for prayer, which still remains, consecrated in honor of the holy Pope Silvester, in which an arm of his is enshrined and venerated. There during the hours of the night he conducted his intimate private devotions; where, in honor of the sacred relics, a lamp once lit burned perpetually. In this chapel, when by chance on a certain night after long vigils of prayers he had given his limbs to rest, through negligence, as is usual, the city was being consumed by a severe fire burning from its western side. He extinguishes the fire by prayers and the sign of the Cross. And when the fire, devastating everything, was already approaching beyond the middle of the city, some casting water eagerly, others devising various means to quell the balls of flame but accomplishing nothing, with the total destruction of the city now imminent, the terrified citizens sought the protection of their Priest. He, immediately rising, devoted himself briefly to prayer, then went of his own accord to meet the flames. Wondrous to tell: as soon as he stretched his palms toward heaven and set the sign of the Cross against the fire, the flames were parted; the fire leapt apart; and as if by a most vehement rain sent from heaven, all the assaults of the raging conflagration were destroyed. And so, through the power of Christ, he who had already for love of him extinguished all the flames of vices within himself repressed the threats of the fire.

CHAPTER II.

Death, obsequies.

[6] We must come to the glorious end of his life, in which those reading and hearing should assuredly call to mind As he is dying, he intercedes for captives how pleasing to God his life was, since heavenly miracles attend him as he departs from this world. When the same most blessed man perceived that the day of his passing was approaching, he learned that certain condemned men had been consigned to prison. Having therefore summoned the Judge of the city to himself, as he had always been accustomed to do, he began to converse with him about mercy, and begged with pious prayers that he would release those whom he kept imprisoned. But the Judge, held back by a spirit of cruelty, delayed in doing this. The most sacred Bishop, however, throughout the entire period of his illness, he instructs his people until he breathed his last, did not cease to bestow counsels of salvation on the crowds of citizens and sons who kept arriving. At last, perceiving that the moment of death was upon him, he receives Communion fortifying himself with the protection of the Lord's Communion, on the 6th day before the Kalends of February he breathed forth his spirit, about to go to heaven. He dies.

[7] His body, laid out according to custom, was decreed to be entombed in the church of the Blessed Apostle Peter, which stands in the suburb of the same city. Now on the following day it is impossible to describe how great a multitude assembled for the service of the sacred funeral. Meanwhile, as it was being carried out, some intoning psalms, others pouring forth tears and lamentation abundantly from grief, so that the whole city was filled with the outcry, they came to the place the funeral procession halts; the prison is divinely opened where the dungeon of the condemned was, at which point the divine power weighed down the bier of the blessed body with such weight that the bearers were held fast and motionless in one spot. Those, therefore, who were held in custody to be executed, raising their voices with wailing, immediately invoked the name of the Saint, and all the bars of the prison were cast off, the doors opened, and the crowd of prisoners, freed from their chains, came forth and accompanied the cortege. By all, the manifest power of God was perceived--of what merit was he who was being carried. This was immediately made known to the most wicked Judge, the Judge, pursuing the freed prisoners, perishes who, heaping new rashness upon his former impiety, swore with great indignation that none of those who had escaped should be saved through Lupus. Immediately mounting his horse, he pursued those who had been released at a rapid gallop. Divine vengeance was quickly present against the raging man, and his sorrow was turned upon his own head, and his iniquity descended upon his own crown. For when the horse on which he sat plunged headlong, his neck was dashed, and he ended an unworthy life with a worthy death.

[8] Meanwhile, as the body was being carried to the aforesaid basilica, Again the procession halts until the freed prisoners are bathed and clothed with those who had been released from custody going before with tapers, at a nearby spot, namely where thoroughfares intersect, the bearers halted, unable to proceed further, until those snatched from the dungeon were washed in baths by the clergy who were present and, having received garments, were permitted to depart. Wherefore, in memory of this sign, such great reverence toward the most holy Confessor increased that if anyone afterward led carts laden with wood into the city through those same crossroads, he would bestow one portion of them upon S. Lupus. Many of the clergy and people confess by public declaration that they too have seen this. His members, attended by heavenly favor, were then brought into the church, He shines with miracles in which, at the right side of the altar, they were committed to burial by the Priests and the religious. Where the Lord's majesty effects various healings: to the lame the power of walking is restored, upon blind eyes sight is poured, upon the limbs of the feeble the gifts of health are bestowed. Indeed, the fame of his miracles having spread far and wide, he is venerated, especially for diseases of livestock many began to flock from everywhere and to bring the small offerings of their vows. Very many, constructing oratories in various places, dedicated them under the title of his name. It was frequented accordingly by not a few, since if any disease of livestock occurred in a region, when vows were directed thither, it was driven away by the merits of the blessed man, with health for themselves and their own bestowed upon all who approached with faith.

CHAPTER III.

Miracles at the tomb.

[9] By the testimony of venerable Priests who say they were present, we have learned that when the reverend Bishop, on the returning anniversary of the passing of the most holy Lupus, had gathered there with the entire clergy to celebrate vigils, and happened to be walking past the sarcophagus, A sweet fragrance breathes forth from his tomb he suddenly perceived a fragrance of wondrous sweetness bursting forth from the place of the body. There, therefore, marveling and greatly delighted, he halted, and indicated to the Brothers who were present what had happened to him. All who approached on every side drank in the sweetness of this fragrance, which continued there uninterruptedly that same night and the following day. I believe, indeed, that an angelic visitation was present, which just as it always attended him while alive for his protection, so also serves the dead man for his glory.

[10] From noble and trustworthy persons who saw it, we have learned what we narrate. A lame man is healed, and his donkey. When, as was customary, from various parts of the land an innumerable multitude of people assembled near the city at the annual return for the purpose of trading, it happened that a certain poor man arrived, carried on a donkey, who lacked the use of his legs. When he had spent nearly the whole day begging among the merchants, as night was approaching, since he had no other lodging, he betook himself with his conveyance to the portico of the basilica, there indulging his feeble limbs in sleep. When he awoke, he found his little donkey lying beside him, with its legs crippled, creeping along the ground. The wretched man grieved, weeping anxiously; he did not know what to do, seeing himself and his animal held by an equal disability. Asked by a passerby what he had in mind, he set forth the cause. He was asked by someone whether he had any money by which even a small amount of wax could be bought. "I have two pennies," he said, "which I have gathered from alms." And the other said: "Keep one; from the other, buy wax and fashion a light, which, directing it to the Blessed Lupus, you will experience his aid." He did as he was urged; immediately upon offering the light, with wondrous speed he beheld the health of both his body and his conveyance through the merits of the blessed man.

[11] Thus far the narrative is woven from what has been reported by truthful narrators; henceforth we shall tell those things which have occurred in the course of our own time, embracing what we have heard with no less faith than what we have seen. We saw a certain woman and a lame woman who afterward becomes lame again (whose name has slipped from our memory) whom a pitiable natural condition had condemned to the loss of her legs from the very beginning of her birth, who, though frequently carried to the tomb of the Saint by the help of others, returned on her own feet. But when, after a very long time during which she walked sturdily, she began, forgetful of the benefit she had received, to give herself over to the vices of the flesh, she relapsed to her former disability and bore the inconvenience of her punishment.

[12] To this miracle should be added what happened in our presence concerning another lame man. A certain Odolricus, from the district of Lyon, a person of servile condition, when returning from his master on an errand, a lame and one-eyed man is healed encountered a troop of evil spirits, who, as he himself related, raged against him with such deception that he remained half-dead and could scarcely return to his master. On the following day, he was deprived of the use of his legs and of the sight of one eye; which disability continued for nearly ten years. During this time, carried to the shrines of many Saints, he obtained no relief from his affliction. At length in a dream it seemed to him that he ought to go to the oft-mentioned basilica. When he arrived there at night, since he happened not to have the ability to enter, he remained outside the threshold. But around midnight, the contraction of the sinews behind his knees began to be extended; the sick man cried out aloud, and having been admitted inside by the guardian aroused thereby, he was afterward brought near to the sacred relics, and by the aid of the Prince of the Apostles and the merit of the blessed Bishop, he was usefully restored to the necessary functions.

[13] Forgive me, reader, for narrating but a few of the many miracles of the blessed man; for to avoid producing weariness in you by a prolix discourse, what should have been intimated at length concerning him has been omitted through zeal for brevity. Indeed, we have both learned by report and observed by sight so many of his wonderful deeds that if we should desire to recount them all, He performs other miracles you would marvel at the immense volume that would have grown from them. Nevertheless, from this it is clearly evident to all that he who bestows such great bodily benefits upon those who ask, also provides by his most healthful intercession the salvation of souls for those who faithfully seek it and desire the pardon of their sins. With eager attention, therefore, and the special devotion of the heart, let us persist in the veneration and cult of the most sacred Bishop, the Lord Lupus, so that we may be able both to use the remedies of his piety in this world, and after the mortality of this fleeting life, together with the same patron, protected by his merits, to be peacefully present before the sight of the supreme Trinity, which, prevailing with mighty dominion, governs all ages of ages. Amen.

CONCERNING S. VITALIAN, ROMAN PONTIFF.

Year 671.

Vitalian, Pope (S.)

From various sources.

[1] Pope Vitalian departed this life on the 6th before the Kalends of February, on which day his memory is celebrated in the Martyrologies--though not in very many, nor in the most ancient. Constantius Felicius, after enumerating the Saints of each day, is accustomed to append a diary in which he commemorates many things, The name of S. Vitalian in the Martyrologies even profane events, that happened on the same day. Here concerning Vitalian: "Vitalian, a Volscian, dies as Pope." But Peter Galesinius, from a manuscript codex, as he says: "Furthermore, of S. Vitalian, Pontiff." The Roman Martyrology, augmented by Baronius: "At Rome, of Vitalian, Pope." Let us also cite some other Martyrologies, somewhat older. The Carthusians of Cologne in their additions to Usuard: "Of Vitalian, Pope and Confessor, the seventy-eighth after Peter." Molanus: "At Rome, the natalis of S. Vitalian, Pope, who after Blessed Peter was the seventy-eighth, composed the Roman chant and harmonized it with the sweet-sounding organ." The MS. Florarium: "At Rome, of S. Vitellian, Pope and Confessor. He died in the year of salvation 672." It adds about the chant and organ. Several manuscripts of Usuard's Martyrology, amplified for the use of certain Belgian Churches: "At Rome, the natalis of S. Vitellian, Pope, who after Blessed Peter was the seventy-eighth, reigned 9 years and 6 months. He composed the Roman chant and harmonized it with the sweet-sounding organ." In some he is called Vicellianus, as in the Cologne Martyrology, in which he is said to have reigned 9 years, 6 months, and 21 days. Canisius: "Likewise of S. Vitalian, Pope and Confessor, who, being a great lover and promoter of the divine Office in the Church, sent the Blessed Theodore to England to preach the Gospel there."

[2] That matter about organs is reported ambiguously by Platina: "But Vitalian," he says, "intent on divine worship, both composed the ecclesiastical rule The sacred chant was arranged by him and arranged the chant, with organs added for harmony (as some would have it)." This is not accepted by Ferrarius: "Some think," he says, "that he added organs to the chant; which, however, since the Roman Church does not at all use organs in the presence of the Pontiff, and were organs also employed? seems less probable." Leander Alberti, in his Description of Latium, treating of Segni, says: "This city, Pope Vitalian, son of Anastasius, adorned by his birth; by whom the melodies which the Roman Church uses were composed, and organs were invented, as Petrarch has reported." It is sufficiently established that they were not first invented by him; but whether they were transferred to the celebration of the divine Office is uncertain.

[3] If the deeds of S. Vitalian had been committed to writing, he would surely with good reason be considered the equal of the most illustrious Pontiffs, His Acts whose zeal in propagating the Catholic religion, and whose greatness of soul, tested by various events, shone forth. But we have very little that was written by Anastasius the Librarian, concerning the arrival of the Emperor Constans in Italy and Rome. There survive in the volumes of the Councils six letters of Vitalian, letters of which the first four were written in Indiction 11, the year of Christ 668, in the case of John, Bishop of Lappa in Crete, whom, having been unjustly condemned by Paul the Archbishop and prevented from proceeding to the Apostolic See, to which he had appealed, he restored in full.

[4] The fifth letter of Vitalian was addressed to Oswy, King of the Northumbrians in England, to whom, and to his wife Eanfleda, he sent various relics of the Saints. Bede recites that letter in bk. 3 of his History of England, ch. 29. The most holy Pontiff had embraced the salvation of the English with particular zeal, care for the salvation of the English as can be conjectured from the things which historians record as done in England during his pontificate. Among other things, as was said on 12 January in the Life of S. Benedict Biscop, no. 5, he ordained Theodore of Tarsus, a monk, as Archbishop on the 7th before the Kalends of April, a Sunday, in the year 668, and commended him to Biscop (because he was a wise and vigorous man) to be conducted to Britain, together also with the Abbot Adrian, as Florence of Worcester writes. We treated of S. Adrian the Abbot on 9 January; and we shall treat of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, on 19 September.

[5] In various provinces, synods were celebrated in the time of Vitalian; in Gaul, the Council of Nantes. About the Council of Chalon there is uncertainty, synods celebrated under him in Gaul although Ciacconius asserts it and Baronius presupposes it at the year 662, no. 3. It is established that it was held in the time of Clovis II, and indeed in the month of October; in which year of his reign is not established. Audobertus, Bishop of Paris, was present; therefore before the year 658, for in that year, the fifteenth of Clovis, S. Landericus, successor of Audobertus, signed the privilege of liberty granted to the monastery of S. Denis. Baronius thought that Audobertus was the successor of S. Landericus, because S. Audoenus wrote the Life of S. Eligius addressed to him; but it was written not to Audobertus but to Chrodobertus, of whom mention was made in the Life of S. Bathild on 26 January. Sigebert in ch. 58 calls him Robertus.

[6] In England also, in the monastery of S. Hilda, a synod was held in the presence of Kings Oswy and Alchfrid his son, England concerning the date of Easter, the tonsure of the clergy, and other ecclesiastical matters, in the year of Christ 664, as Bede writes in bk. 3, ch. 25, Florence of Worcester, and others. In Spain, under his pontificate, were celebrated the Tenth Council of Toledo in the Aera 694, or the year of Christ 656, on the Kalends of December; Spain and the Council of Mérida in the Aera 704, the year of Christ 666; but not the Ninth Council of Toledo, as Ciacconius supposed, for that was held in the Aera 693, the year of Christ 655, on 2 November, under S. Eugene. The duration of Vitalian's pontificate can be calculated thus: S. Martin was removed from Rome by Theodore Calliopas on the 13th before the Kalends of July, a Wednesday; duration of the pontificate therefore in the year of Christ 653, in which the dominical letter was F. S. Eugene reigned 2 years, 9 months, and 24 days, and died on 2 June; wherefore he seems to have been elected around 10 August, when namely it was firmly established that Martin had been relegated to Cherson and would not return to Rome--even if he did not bear the title of Pontiff while Martin was alive, but that of Vicar of the Pontiff. After his death, the episcopate was vacant for one month and 29 days. Vitalian was installed toward the end of July of the same year 656, and reigned 14 years and 6 months, until 27 January of the year 671. So, approximately, Anastasius the Librarian records. The author of the booklet on the Roman Pontiffs that is attributed to Liutprand writes that he died on the 8th before the Ides of February.

[7] Concerning Vitalian, Hieronymus Rubeus relates the following in his History of Ravenna, book 4. When he had long held in hatred and indignation the excessive insolence of the Archbishop of Ravenna, immediately upon being made Pontiff, He excommunicates the Bishop of Ravenna who refused to obey: he summoned Archbishop Maurus to Rome to plead his case. When Maurus neglected this, he was interdicted from the sacred rites by Vitalian. But Maurus, imitating Dioscorus, the Bishop of Alexandria, who had been condemned for this very reason by the Council of Chalcedon, sent letters in return to Vitalian and interdicted him in turn from the sacred rites; nor was he ever, while he lived, led away from this wicked opinion by any consciousness of his crime. Nevertheless, Pope Vitalian did not fail, forgetful of the injury as befits a most holy Pontiff, He establishes a Bishop at Ferrara. to do a kindness to the people of Ferrara by transferring the bishopric of Voghenza, which was subject to the Church of Ravenna, to Ferrara. Most authorities report that this Voghenza was the village of Egonus, not far from the place where Ferrara is now situated, and that it was called Voghenza by a corruption of the name. By this arrangement, therefore, with the bishopric of Voghenza transferred thither, Ferrara was established as a city by Vitalian around the year 663 and was made subject to the Church of Ravenna, as can still be gathered from the most ancient records of the Church of Ravenna. So writes Rubeus, who then relates the lamentable death of that obstinate Archbishop of Ravenna. Leander, in his description of Romaniola, calls that place of the ancient See "Vicaventia."

[8] In what veneration the orthodox Emperor Constantine Pogonatus held Vitalian, and how greatly the heretics, especially the Monothelites, hated him in return, one may perceive from the letters of Constantine himself to Pope Donus, which are found at the beginning of the Sixth Council; in which, among other things, the following is stated: "Great urgency was pressed upon us, both by this most holy Patriarch (Theodore) and by Macarius, the most holy Patriarch of Theopolis, that the most blessed Vitalian should be cast out of the diptychs, they asserting that Honorius is commemorated in the diptychs on account of the honor of the Apostolic See of our ancient Rome. For they did not consent that the Patriarchs who were subsequently in the aforesaid holy Roman Church should be commemorated, With Emperor Constantine opposing this, until an inquiry and satisfaction should be reached concerning the words about which there is contention between the two Sees, and thus your blessedness might consequently be commemorated. But we did not consent to this, that is, that the same Vitalian should be cast out of the diptychs; this indeed, inasmuch as we preserve all equity, whom he had helped against the tyrants, and hold both to be orthodox; and this also on account of the charity shown to us by the same Vitalian, while he was alive, in the uprising of our tyrants." Concerning Macarius, the heretical Patriarch of Antioch, we treated in the life of S. Agatho on 10 January. As for the charity shown to him by Vitalian in the uprising of the tyrants, which the Emperor acknowledges, this seems to have occurred when, after the murder of Constans, a certain Mecetius, or Mezentius, seized the throne in Sicily, against whom, as Paulus Diaconus writes in book 5, chapter 12, the soldiers of the Italian militia, some coming through Istria, others through the regions of Campania, and still others from the parts of Africa and Sardinia, burst violently into Syracuse and deprived him of life. That Vitalian then brought aid to Constantine, Baronius gathers from those cited letters, under the year 668, no. 1. Moreover, what the Emperor did not wish to happen, his name erased from the Greek diptychs, was nevertheless done, whether against his will or without his knowledge: Vitalian's name was erased from the diptychs; but it was later restored by order of the Sixth Council, as is clear from its Acts, concerning which matter Baronius treats under the year 677, no. 2, and 681, no. 6. Restored.

[9] It also pertains to the praise of S. Vitalian that, just as he sent relics of the Saints to King Oswy, as has already been said, so also he transmitted them to S. Wandregisel when he requested them. Thus it is related in his life, which we shall give on 22 July: "For the aforesaid man of the Lord built in that very place basilicas of outstanding workmanship, four in number, in honor namely of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, He sends relics of the Saints to S. Wandregisel. and likewise of Paul, the Doctor of the Gentiles, and of Saints Lawrence and Pancras, Martyrs of Christ. Moreover, the same man of the Lord, while he was engaged in this work, sent his aforementioned nephew (Godo) to the city of Rome for the sacred relics of the blessed Apostles and Martyrs of Christ, so that once the basilicas were built, he might have at hand the relics of the Saints to whose name and honor he had resolved to dedicate them. He, most willingly complying with the wishes of his pious Father, went to Rome, while Pope Vitalian at that time was governing the See of that same Church; and having received from him very many relics of the Apostles and Martyrs of Christ, together with the Apostolic blessing, he brought them back with him on his return, along with a not inconsiderable supply of sacred books; and having completed the journey with a prosperous course, he returned rejoicing to the man of God, and the same man of the Lord reverently received all that he had brought."

[10] But the sacred relics of Vitalian himself, Relics of S. Vitalian. as Octavius Pancirolus attests in his Hidden Treasures of the Nurturing City, region 7, church 17, are preserved in the Vatican basilica of S. Peter.

LIFE

By Anastasius, Librarian of the Holy Roman Church.

S. Vitalian, Pope

[1] Vitalian, by birth from Signia, in the province of Campania, son of Anastasius, sat for fourteen years and six months. The embassy of S. Vitalian to the Emperor: He sent his representatives with a synodal letter, according to custom, to the imperial city, to the most pious Princes, informing them of his ordination. And when they were received, they returned having renewed the privileges of the Church; and the Emperor's clemency, through those same envoys, sent to the Blessed Apostle Peter a golden-covered book of the Gospels, adorned round about with white gems of wondrous size. Gifts sent by him to Rome. He preserved the ecclesiastical rule and discipline in every way, as was customary.

[2] In his times, the Emperor Constantine Augustus came from the imperial city by the coast to Athens, and thence to Taranto, His arrival at Rome. thence to Benevento, and to Naples, during the sixth Indiction. Afterward he came to Rome, that is, on the fifth day of the month of July, a Wednesday, in the above-mentioned Indiction. And the Pope went out to meet him with his clergy at the sixth milestone from the city of Rome, and received him. And on that same day the Emperor went to S. Peter's for prayer, and offered a gift there. On Saturday he went to S. Mary's, and likewise offered a gift. Honorable reception. On Sunday he proceeded to S. Peter's with his army. All went out to meet him with candles, gifts offered to the churches, and he offered upon the altar a pall woven with gold, and Masses were celebrated. Again on Saturday the Emperor came to the Lateran, and bathed, and there took his meal in the basilica of Julius. Likewise on Sunday there was a station at S. Peter's, and after Masses were celebrated, the Emperor and the Pontiff bade each other farewell.

[3] Plundering of the City. Remaining in the city of Rome for twelve days, he stripped everything that was in bronze for the adornment of the city; and even the Church of the Blessed Mary at the Martyrs, which was covered with bronze tiles, he uncovered. And he sent them to the imperial city along with the other various things which he had stripped away. And afterward, on Monday, having departed from the city of Rome, he returned to Naples. Thence he went by land to Reggio, and entered Sicily during the seventh Indiction. And he dwelt in the city of Syracuse, and imposed such affliction upon the people, vexation of the provinces; both the inhabitants and the landowners of the provinces of Calabria, Sicily, Africa, and Sardinia, through assessments, poll-taxes, and compulsory naval service, for many years, such as had never been since the beginning of time, so that they even separated wives from husbands and sons from fathers; and they suffered many other unheard-of things, so that no hope of life remained for anyone. And they also seized the sacred vessels and treasures of the holy Churches of God, his murder. leaving nothing behind. And afterward, on the fifteenth day of the month of July, during the eleventh Indiction, the aforesaid Emperor was murdered in his bath.

[4] Death of S. Vitalian. And not long after, the aforesaid most holy man ended his life. He performed four ordinations, ordaining twenty-two priests, one deacon, and ninety-seven bishops in various places. He was also buried at the Blessed Apostle Peter's, on the sixth day before the Kalends of February, and the episcopate was vacant for two months and thirteen days.

p. By Andrew, son of Troilus, as Baronius has it.

CONCERNING S. EMERIUS, ABBOT, AND S. CANDIDA, HIS MOTHER, AT BANYOLES AND GUALBA IN CATALONIA.

Toward the end of the eighth century.

Emerius, Abbot of Banyoles in Spain (S.) Candida, his mother, in Spain (S.)

[1] Banyoles is a monastery of the diocese of Girona, which the locals commonly call Banoles, or Banyoles, sacred to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and to S. Stephen the Protomartyr. Here S. Emerius, or Amerius, or Emereus, is venerated as the founder of that monastery on 27 January; the Catalans call him Sant Mer. His mother Candida, or, as Domenec and certain others write, The feast of S. Emerius, Candia, has her principal cult in the village called the Parish of S. Stephen de Gualba, in the same diocese of Girona; and the body of S. Emerius is also buried there, in a chapel that is not particularly magnificent.

[2] His name in the Martyrologies, Their feast day was inscribed thus by Ferrarius in his Martyrology, or new catalogue of Saints, on this day: "At Girona in Spain, S. Emerius, Abbot of Banyoles. In the same place, S. Candida, mother of the aforesaid S. Emerius." Hugo Menard in the Benedictine Martyrology: "In Spain, S. Emereus, Abbot." Saussay also commemorates him in the Gallican Martyrology, with a more extended encomium.

[3] The life of S. Emerius was sent to us from Saragossa by Pedro Castelarnau, a priest of our Society, Life, a most courteous man, copied from an ancient codex, but in many places, as we conjecture, mutilated. The same is recounted in Spanish by Vicente Antonio Domenec in book 2 of his work on the Saints of Catalonia, from an ancient manuscript of the church, or chapel, of S. Emerius in the parish of Gualba. A summary of the Life is given by Hugo Menard in book 2 of his Observations, and by Antonio de Yepes in volume 3 of his Chronicle of the Order of S. Benedict, century 3, under the year 778, where he pronounces the following about this Life: "It is altogether worthy of reading, if one sets aside certain prodigies and extraordinary miracles, quite astonishing ones, which that author (Domenec) was accustomed eagerly to pursue; I praise his diligence, but I wish he would distinguish certain things found in the old Flowers of the Saints, as they are called, in which certain facts are promiscuously mixed with apocryphal elements." So he says; and anyone who examines this life against the testimony of the ancient writers will confess that these words are most true. In which certain things are apocryphal. For (to pass over the fact that most authorities establish a single Spanish expedition of Charlemagne, although some hold the contrary) what of the claim that Carcassonne was besieged by him for seven years? Or that a city celebrated in the writings of Pliny, Ptolemy, and other ancient authors is said to have first received its name in the age of Charles? Those things are taken from a fabulous writer who is entitled Philomena, as Guillaume Catel testifies in book 3 of his History of Narbonensian Gaul, where he demolishes its fabrications; although in another place he admits that Carcassonne, together with Narbonne, was captured by Zema, or Zama, a Moor, around the year of Christ 721, in the time of Charles Martel.

LIFE FROM MANUSCRIPTS

Emerius, Abbot of Banyoles in Spain (S.) Candida, his mother, in Spain (S.)

BHL Number: 2531

From manuscripts.

[1] In that time when there was a great persecution against the Christian people, in the reign of King Charles of Gaul, most impious pagan men arose, detesting all things belonging to the Christian nations; Spain against the Moors so indeed that, having seized all the land far and wide, they did not hesitate to put any Christians to death. When, therefore, they practiced these and similar things from day to day, messengers came to the King, saying and lamenting: "Hear, Lord, and do not despise the words of your servants, for pagans have recently risen up and are reducing our possessions to nothing: arise and come to free the people of the Lord from their hand." Therefore the King arose with his army the Franks coming to their aid and went out against the pagans and pursued them; yet he was unable to take anything from them. They fought daily, they are bidden to await help from God, but could not obtain victory; rather, it was commanded them from on high that they should cease from war until God should give them aid.

[2] There was in that city a certain nobleman, a religious man, named Baldivius, with his wife Candida, to whom nature had denied offspring. S. Emerius is promised to his barren parents, But on a certain day an Angel of the Lord appeared to them, saying: "Arise, prepare yourselves and your houses: God has seen your grief. Come together, for you shall beget a son." The innocent couple believed, and did according to the word of the Lord, and Candida conceived. When, therefore, she had conceived, his future holiness thrice shown beforehand to his mother, she saw on a certain night in a vision that from her left foot there issued a little vine shoot, which, as it grew, on account of its abundance covered the whole earth; and beneath it a dove seemed to come to rest from heaven. She saw again, in another vision, a bright light issuing from herself, shining forth with exceeding beauty, which, taken up by an Angel of the Lord, was carried into heaven. She saw yet a third time that the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, came to her, saying: "Fear not, for I have asked my Son that you might bear a child."

[3] In the morning, therefore, when she arose and the day of birth had come, she declared it and gave birth: Candida named her son He is born: by the name that had come to him. Thus Father Amerius grew, filled with divine grace, and in a short time reached maturity. His father, however, was delighted at the prospect of a military career for him, so that by his brightness he might appear lovable to the city. To whom the Saint said: "My father, he wishes to serve Christ alone: if I am dear to you, I conjure you by God not to hinder my resolve, for I love only the Lord Jesus Christ, for whom I desire to serve in warfare, whom I serve, and with whom I desire to complete a life worthy of Him." When he reported these things to his parent, his father, angry and also troubled, lamented, saying: "Was it for this I begot a son? Woe is me, what shall I do, having no heir to govern me and my house in the future?"

[4] Fearing, therefore, lest he should be forced to yield to his father's will, he left the city and went out into the desert wilderness together with his companion Patrick, he goes into the desert: where, remaining alone, he led a poor life in wretched conditions. What wonder? He desired to please not the world, not his father, not the glory of the present age, but God alone; he desired to pray day and night, that he might pass through life more worthily. At length it was revealed to King Charles that he should rise up against the pagans and take Emerius with him, whom the Lord would provide as his helper. The King therefore girded himself, He accompanies the King against the Moors: along with all his household, with Emerius going before, against those pagans, ... who from city to city ...

[5] It happened, however, that on a certain day while they were tarrying in the wilderness, many were overcome by hunger and died. When they were dead, ... Amerius, a religious man, in his grief sought bread from our Lord Jesus Christ, he obtains food from God for the suffering: whereby that household which had been entrusted to him might be satisfied. God heard the prayer of His servant and sent them loaves as if they were natural bread; and when they were refreshed, he rose from prayer. And again, placing himself in prayer, he asked the Lord Jesus Christ that the dead might be raised. He raises the dead by his prayers: He raised them ... having invoked ... they glorified the Lord, who possessed such power.

[6] It happened one day that they came to a city called Querquens, and the King held it besieged for seven years, and in the final years the King wished to raise himself from the city with all his people, He is the author of victory for the Franks: desiring to proceed into the province of Catalonia. When the said Lord King was proceeding, S. Emerius raised his eyes toward the city, and cried out with a loud voice, and said: "O King, come to Carcassonne." And then he turned back and proceeded to the city and took it: from that hour that city was called Carcassonne. They proceeded from place to place and came into the province of Catalonia, fighting daily against the pagans. And fighting daily they came to the town called Banyoles, where there is a certain lake: in the said lake dwelt a most fierce lion, he captures a lion and has it killed: devouring men and women; whence that lake received its name from the lion, and was called "Leo," because a lion dwelt there. Then Blessed Emerius, moved by grief of heart, approaching with a procession and holy water, went to that lake where the said lion dwelt. The lion, seeing the Saint of the Lord, became as gentle as a sheep. Then Blessed Emerius, sprinkling holy water upon it, seized it and had it carried to the said town, and had it killed immediately; and where that lake was, there he compelled them to build a monastery, He builds the monastery of Banyoles: assigning tithes, first-fruits, and revenues, from which some thirty monks might live, and they built a church in honor of the Mother of God, Mary, and S. Stephen the Protomartyr.

[7] When, therefore, the man of God saw a suitable place with waters ... removed from all habitation, pleasing to Christ, he sought the habit of holy life: he flew rather to heavenly things than to earthly ones. But the King, troubled with grief, summoned him and said: He is made Abbot there: "Holy Emerius, take care of the household and do not abandon us, lest we perish." Emerius answering said: "What do you wish me to do? It cannot be otherwise." When therefore he refused to comply with their urging, they chose him as the worthy Pastor of that most blessed place of the holy Father Benedict, so that from a good Abbot good disciples might be instructed. The King remained there with his army for fifteen days; at length departing thence, he commended the worthy man to the Lord.

[8] The venerable man therefore continued in good works, keeping vigils, many sick are healed by him: and prayers, and fasts, and celebrating the divine office for God. A great number of the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf, and the mute flocked to him, and through him ... they recovered their health. At length it happened that certain persons brought their only son, who was ill, together with his mother; by the will of God it came to pass that he expired on the journey. The mother, bewailing her son, ... sent forth her cries into the air. The holy man of God, therefore, moved that she should come to him, worshiped God, saying: "Lord Jesus Christ, most merciful Father, who saves those who hope in You: not by my merits, but on account of Your great glory, show Your power, and in Your name let him rise and walk in peace." When the prayer was completed, he raises a dead man by his prayers: he turned to the boy and said to him: "Come, young man, arise in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." The boy therefore rose and began to give thanks and bless God, together with his mother; and they sang sweet praises together.

[9] The man of God, therefore, remaining in the prayer of God night and day, took no food besides bread and water, he lives most holily: nor did he ever rest without prayer and fasting. Wearied, however, by the multitude of men and women flocking to him, lest he should be able to stain his own life, he quietly withdrew from there ... seeking the forests at a distance of about ten stadia, he withdraws into the desert: where, practicing similar things, he might lead a worthy life. And while he continued unceasingly in prayer, the devil, enemy of human nature, he is tempted by the devil: moved by envy, ... tried to turn his soul into error. But the robust man of God never deviated from the path he had begun; and the Lord also strengthened him through an angelic vision, Angels appear to him, appearing to him most frequently and manifestly. Nor is it strange if the enemy could by no means overwhelm his soul, ... in which place was built a church in honor of the said Emerius, near the river called Fargat, in the place of S. Stephen de Gualba, and its dedication is celebrated on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of November, in the sixth position, and of S. Paula in the seventh position.

[10] When the father of the most blessed Emerius had died, his mother, having no one but her only son, began to ponder in her heart his widowed mother seeks him out, how she might seek him out, because natural love greatly constrained her to see him. His mother, coming from place to place, came inquiring even to the province of Catalonia, asking and seeking what had become of the King's army; where, inquiring about the said army and about her son Emerius, she was told that he was recently in the place called Banyoles, and so the said Candida came, and standing in the said town, asked where the King's army was and also about her son Emerius; and she received the answer that the army had already departed thence, she finds him: and that she would find her son Emerius on a certain island called Fargat, in the place of S. Stephen de Gualba. Candida, therefore, rejoicing and glad, came to the said place, and there found her son; from joy she could say nothing to him. And the son, seeing her, had great consolation from the sight of his mother, and the mother from the sight of her son.

[11] Candida, however, remaining there for some days, her son said to her: "My dear mother, by God I ask and admonish you to depart from here; because your love disturbs me from the divine words and prayers." But the mother, troubled by her son's speech, said to him: "O my son, so small was your consolation and mine: I wish to serve almighty God with you and lead a poor life." Her son Emerius replied: "My dear mother, it cannot be; nevertheless I wish you to withdraw from me only as far as I shall throw this staff or rod." His mother, thinking they withdraw from each other that he would throw it only a short distance, agreed; but he hurled the rod which he held in his hand, and hurled it very far indeed. His mother, therefore, on account of the promise she had given her son, departed thence and remained in the place assigned to her, and there she dwelt, and there she closed her days; and may her soul rest in peace. Amen.

[12] Now there was with the most blessed Emerius a certain monk named Patrick, who abode with him. On a certain day, when he was hungry and had no bread, the man of the Lord, Emerius, began to be constrained in his heart with sorrow, saying: "Because we all have a full meal, why has nothing been provided for this servant of God?" By the merits of Emerius a fish is caught, by which many are fed. The attendants replied that they had been able to find nothing. But he entered the sanctuary where the relics were kept and prayed. Meanwhile one of the attendants, named Justus, ran to draw water. Now in that stream there were fish of half a foot in measure. A certain fish, while Justus was drawing water, came out of the water into the channel, and Justus, catching it, brought it to Blessed Emerius. He, giving thanks to God, had the fish prepared, and the monk Patrick ate of it to satiety. And when half of it remained, the man of God urged him, saying that since he had nothing else for food, he should eat this. And when he declared he was satisfied, ... both he and all were satisfied.

[13] And Blessed Emerius, standing daily in prayer and persevering, fasting and giving alms, rendered his spirit to the most high Lord; and he was buried beside the altar by Patrick and the other attendants, Emerius dies. and his soul was crowned in heaven; where may we be able to rest with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who lives and reigns as God forever and ever. Amen.

Other miracles from Domenec.

Emerius, Abbot of Banyoles in Spain (S.) Candida, his mother, in Spain (S.)

[1] In the year of Christ 1560, Marianna Valentina was afflicted with a severe eye disease: Eye pain dispelled by the aid of S. Emerius, she vowed silver eyes to S. Emerius, if he would deign to come to her aid; meanwhile she arranged for a Mass to be offered in his church; and immediately all pain of the eyes was wiped away.

[2] The following year, Gaspar Oliverius was seized with a difficult illness: the same Marianna prayed to S. Emerius for his recovery, a sick man healed, and when sacred rites were arranged in honor of the same Saint, and a vow was made of celebrating his feast with solemn piety, strength immediately returned to the sick man. But when Marianna, forgetful of her vow, undertook some task or other on the feast day of S. Emerius, violation of the vow punished, Oliverius was brought to the brink of death by a sudden illness; from which he was soon delivered when the help of S. Emerius was implored.

CONCERNING S. GAMELBERT, PARISH PRIEST IN BAVARIA.

Toward the end of the eighth century.

Gamelbert, or Amelbert, Parish Priest in Bavaria (S.)

[1] Michelsbuch is a town of Lower Bavaria, not far from the mouth where the river Isar empties into the Danube. Here S. Gamelbert, or Gamulbert, or Amelbert, or, as Aventinus writes, The feast of S. Gamelbert, Amalbert, served as Parish Priest and is still venerated. His feast day, as the manuscript life has it, is observed on the sixth day before the Kalends of February; according to Wolfgang Selender, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of February; but on neither day do we find his name in our Martyrologies.

[2] "The Life of S. Gamelbert, or Gamulbert," says our Matthaeus Rader in volume 2 of his Holy Bavaria, Life, "is preserved at Regensburg in the monastery of S. Emmeram on parchment: in that same codex, that is, from which the Life of S. Severinus, Apostle of Noricum, was taken and copied and published by Welser." In the Charterhouse of Cologne there is preserved a manuscript codex whose title is: Selected Antiquities concerning the Lives of Saints from Manuscripts of the Charterhouse of Gamnitz in Thuringia, by the work of Brother Jacob Bilagius of Erfurt, a Carthusian. From this source our Johannes Gamansius copied the Life of S. Gamelbert for us, agreeing in sense and order of events, though not in words, with the version that our Rader published from the autograph of Wolfgang Selender.

[3] The following is what Johannes Aventinus writes about S. Gamelbert and Blessed Utho (of whom we shall treat on 3 October) in book 4 of his Annals of the Bavarians: Things wrongly written about him by Aventinus: "There were two priests" (at the time when Charlemagne defeated Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, which the Annals of Fulda testify occurred around the year of Christ 787) "There were, therefore, two priests, the holy Amalbert and Uto, in Lower Bavaria; they surpassed the rest in piety and learning. For these men and their fellow ministers, Magnus magnificently constructed a church above the mouth of the Isar, where the stream Mettena, which gives its name to the monastery, flows into the Danube. They are still reverently venerated there." But at whatever time that monastery was in fact founded, it was not founded by S. Gamelbert, who always dwelt on the right bank of the Danube, but after his death, by Utho.

[4] Our Andreas Brunner treats of Utho and the monastery of Metten in volume 2, book 6 of his Annals Other things from others. of the Bavarians, under the year 799, where he briefly commemorates the deeds of S. Gamelbert, but faithfully.

LIFE BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR,

Transcribed from the manuscript codex of the Charterhouse of Cologne by Johannes Gamansius of the Society of Jesus.

Gamelbert, or Amelbert, Parish Priest in Bavaria (S.)

BHL Number: 3260

By an Anonymous Author, from manuscripts.

PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.

[1] I would have begun a certain little work long ago, had I not been afraid of the dryness of my still uncultivated talent; The writer excuses himself for undertaking this work despite his lack of skill, but I dare not delay any longer, on account of the many servants of the Lord who demand this petition of me. This, then, is that I should, by writing, make known to all who wish to learn the life of S. Gamulbert, the outstanding helper of all the anxious, which has hitherto lain hidden most inconveniently. For it will be a disadvantage if the accused should not know his advocate, who will have the greatest influence with the Judge. I fear, however, that some readers will hold their own profit in disdain on account of my worthlessness, who was the writer; yet it is unbecoming for a wise man to regard with envious eye one who speaks good things, even if not well. Wherefore, if there are any such--God forbid--I wish to remind them not to attend so much to who or what sort of person the author was, as to what he wrote and about what sort of person he composed it. Sent forth by others: And if anyone shall accuse me of being a presumptuous author of impossible things, I truly lay open to him my intention from the core of my heart, which I have held for this entire three-year period, since I was persuaded by frequent entreaty to begin; though I distrusted my own ability to complete it. Who, I say, am I, so insignificant, entangled in so many snares of sins, and seasoned with no salt of wisdom, that I should be able to set forth in worthy writings the deeds of any Saint, which I well know outweigh my powers? Even the most illustrious men have feared to take upon themselves such a work; and for no other reason has this same material been left untouched by many of our predecessors until now. The saying of the truthful word also terrified me: "Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner." Ecclesiasticus 15:9.

[2] By what reasons he was moved to do this. Since, therefore, this meditation was continually in my mind, another thought entered, contrary to the former: namely, that such fear was altogether to be rejected, which would persuade one to avoid beginning anything good on account of its difficulty; especially since the assistance of God's powerful and good will alone is most ready and voluntary for all good works. Our predecessors, as is said, saw the pearl of God lying filthy on the dung-heap of ignorance, but when they wished to cleanse it with knowledge and polish it with learning, perhaps they left off through either sloth or injury. Since, although they were not able to do as they ought, they ought to have praised the Lord in His Saints as best they could. When these men perceived the end of their life approaching, how much would they then have wished to have labored over this or something similar? How will you, then, be more excusable when you appear before the Lord with empty hands? What if those same petitioners whom you mentioned were sent by the Lord as testers of your zeal and fraternal obedience? Wherefore, if any adversary shall hurl at you the objection of ignorance, do you set before him as a shield the protection of devotion and obedience. And against whatever charge he shall raise, he will be able to find a sufficiently fitting refutation in what has been written above.

CHAPTER I.

His deeds before the priesthood.

[3] Another, mutilated, prologue. When the human race, made in the likeness of God, had fallen from the state of the dignity entrusted to it, and with the coming of the fullness of time God the Creator willed to restore it to its former rank, He sent His Word, that is, His Son, whom He had long had as cooperator in creating all things, into the world by the common will of both, for the redemption of mankind; so that we who through diabolical captivity had been slaves of sinners might receive the adoption of the sons of God; who, just as without carnal concupiscence, with the Holy Spirit coming upon her, He was placed in the womb of His mother, etc.

[4] This holy man of the Lord was born in Bavaria, from a village which in Latin translation is called Fagetum, not far from the confluence of the Danube and the Isar rivers. The homeland of S. Gamelbert, He came from a good and noble family, at a time when the Catholic faith had already flourished throughout the German kingdom. His parents lived from their own property and from sufficient estates, his lineage, which they possessed, making not extravagant but moderate expenditures, passing their life--which is called secular--in just and holy actions. The Saint completed his first age, which is infancy, so blamelessly and so innocently that he harmed neither his own soul nor any living creature by his own will. His holy childhood, Boasting never seized him, nor idle play, nor the petulance that is the companion of boyhood; anger and quarreling, which sometimes goad people of that age without cause, rarely and only under compulsion entered his soul. Truly, according to the Apostle, he was a child in malice, but perfect in understanding. 1 Corinthians 14:20. And since God had foreordained him to be a vessel of election, he was unable to be subjected to the human impulses of wicked action.

[5] His father, however, since he wished to raise him as his heir and son, contempt of arms, and, as was the custom, to train him for military service, sometimes made him his armor-bearer, and either hung or girded military arms upon the boy: but these could never adhere to him, even for a moment, and fell off as soon as they were placed around him. Wherefore his father and brothers, indignant, thinking this was happening through his slothfulness, reproached him with every harshness, calling him sluggish, inept, and foolish; nor did they perceive the divine providence, which had pre-elected him for spiritual warfare.

[6] At length his father, wearied of these things, not without the will of God, set him as a shepherd over his flocks. The care of feeding sheep. A fitting arrangement indeed, that like David he should become a keeper of sheep, who with Peter was to be a shepherd of souls. He, moreover, who had given himself wholly to humility and obedience, eagerly fulfilled everything which his furious father had commanded him, as if to his disgrace.

[7] Pursuit of learning, It happened, however, on a certain day in the pastures, that a divine slumber weighed upon the limbs of his body; and when he awoke from his rest, he found a written booklet placed upon him, which he took up and went around to men learned in ecclesiastical matters, asking that, beginning from this writing, they would take care to instruct him in the discipline of divine law. Because this beginning had been sent by the Lord Himself, he progressed in a short time as far as was fitting. Nor did merely bookish learning grow in him, but also the discipline of all virtues. And because he heard his teachers recite that death and life are placed in the power of the tongue, restraining his tongue from speaking evil and his lips from speaking guile, guard over the tongue, he abstained not only from harmful speech but also from every idle word. He strove with such vigilance to observe the Apostolic Scripture which says "Do not swear," that he made every affirmation solely by "Yes and Yes," and every negation by "No and No." Matthew 5:34, 37. If he heard from anyone's mouth a curse, or base and impure speech, he admonished such a one to restrain his mouth from such evil speech, since it would have to communicate with the body and blood of the Lord.

[8] Occupied with these and similar pursuits, he had now reached the strength of full youth; and as he grew more and more in the virtues which the Lord daily increased in him, he grew no more in body and age than in righteousness and all piety. Seeing this, the devil, the ancient enemy of the whole human race, was grieved that he was so free from mortal sins; and he could not easily find a hook with which to catch him, since he perceived that he thought little of all the allurements of carnal pleasures. His chastity tested by an immodest woman, For he had completely removed from himself every path of iniquity and had chosen the path of truth. He regulated food and drink not so much for the pleasure of the flesh as for the necessity of his frail nature. He desired nothing that was worldly, even though he lived in the world more out of obligation than by choice. Whence the venomous serpent, trained in a thousand arts of harm, was distressed, and not knowing where to turn or what to undertake, shifted about on every side. At length, reviewing his memories, he recalled a certain victory which he had once won over the First Man through a woman, judging no person more apt through whom to direct the assault of his persuasion; he invaded the lustful mind of a certain woman and incited her to entice and solicit him. She, inflamed with the furies of Venus, when slow love had coursed through the depths of her heart, approached the servant of God alone and unattended, desiring to make him a sharer of the fire which she suffered, and which by the accustomed manner of men he might more fittingly endure; casting aside shame, the immodest woman attempts to make her plea: "Come now," she said, "most beloved of young men, most delightful to me above all things, long have I awaited such a place and time, long have I desired a conversation of such great opportunity: only consent to me, that we may enjoy the desired embraces and delightfully intermingle with each other. No one will be able to see us The memory of the present God set against her: who could reveal this deed." He, hearing the persuasion contrary to his undertakings and profession, and understanding it to be a diabolical mission, said: "Do not, woman, try to persuade me, for I neither wish nor dare to listen to you. If you suggest the absence of all men, I know that the divine presence is everywhere at hand, whose judgment I fear more, because, truly knowing all things, it has no need of the presence of witnesses. Solomon says: 'The lips of a harlot are a dripping honeycomb, and her throat is smoother than oil; but her end is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword.' Proverbs 5:3. What is the sweetness of the smallest moment to me in comparison with everlasting torment?"

[9] Yet the woman's astonishing desire could not be softened by salutary admonitions, flight, but, making her words smoother, she began to flatter him more, showing him the nearby thickets where her unjust desire might be fulfilled. He, seeing that he could cure her with no remedy of counsel, and also fearing, on account of the weakness of the flesh, to incur the crime that was being offered, threw himself with all his might upon his feet, and fleeing at the most rapid pace, he escaped. Therefore the strong athlete of the Lord, because he won the victory in this contest, was enriched with the reward of an everlasting gift from the King of heaven, namely, that on account of this struggle for chastity, he should maintain his virginity inviolate until the end of his present life.

CHAPTER II.

His priesthood. His virtues.

[10] Since he had turned all the powers of his mind and body to learning and performing the service of the Lord, from the very day on which he entered the clergy, he merited receiving all ecclesiastical orders, even the priesthood. When the father who had begotten him died, and the inheritance was divided among the brothers, as was fitting, the church together with the village from which he had been born fell to his portion, Priesthood, which he himself governed by right of the priesthood and spiritual patronage all the days of his life, conducting himself without complaint, defending his subjects with the protection of both their souls and their bodies. From the day of his ordination, reflecting that the Lord's grace was more abundant in him, he began to add to himself the rigor of abstinence more than he had been accustomed to before; thereafter he spent fifty years at home, during which time he never tasted food of any kind of meat. Abstinence, He had sufficient substance, but distributed it in every way to relieve the want of the poor; he fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, mercy, clothed the naked, because he perceived his own flesh in them. He was an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame; his door lay open to wayfarers, for he was of the greatest hospitality. To the sick and the afflicted he showed every care that he was able; for the dead he offered prayer with all devotion and due burial.

[11] When the fifty years which we have described above were completed in these and similar works, he journeyed to Rome for the purpose of prayer, with every disposition of innermost devotion. How many prayers he sent to the Lord during this journey, how many acceptable tears he shed, Roman pilgrimage: both in that very city and throughout all the places he visited, what man could worthily or fully narrate? During that same journey, when he had turned aside to a certain inn, by chance they brought him a certain infant to baptize; and since he was always ready to do good, having said the Creed, he baptized him and, himself lifting him from the holy font, named him Utho. And foreseeing in the spirit that he would become great and would possess his inheritance after him, he instructed his parents to raise him with zeal for holiness Prophecy concerning Blessed Utho, and, when he had become a man, to send him to his home. He indicated his homeland, named his province, and showed them the village and the place with clear signs; and so, resuming his begun journey, he completed it.

[12] When, with the grace of God accompanying him, the journey was completed and he had returned to his own home, he then bound himself with the rule of an even stricter resolution; namely, since he had already long since held the other parts of his body in restraint, he here also set a fixed limit upon his footsteps. And first, with the greatest diligence considering how much of his courtyard was necessary for performing the divine office and for the needs of his own body, he then set up four wooden crosses at the four quarters of the sky, whose boundaries he never afterward passed beyond, except once. This, however, was brought about by the customary fraud and snares of the devil, when certain men raised a tumult not far from him, almost to the point of bloodshed. There the holy Father, voluntary self-enclosure, knowing it to be dearer to God to make peace among the quarreling than to persevere stubbornly in one's purpose while being idle from necessary work, seizing his staff and rushing out at full speed, did not dismiss the resisters until he had brought about a most firm peace among them. And this was a remarkable miracle, that he was able to bring furious and deranged men to a calm spirit; but from the Lord, for those who act with Him, all things are easy which seem impossible to those who live in the human manner. Truly the peacemakers shall be called sons of God, Zeal for reconciling those at odds, possessing by inheritance the works of the Lord, He Himself saying: "He who believes in me, the works that I do, he also shall do." Even when his own servants quarreled with one another, if he was unable to settle them with salutary admonitions, he gave them his garments and other money, or permitted them to be free together with their children, saying: "It is better for me to grant you liberty, however undeserved, than to offend God in correcting you." He himself had peace with all. Moreover, he strove to restore all who were at odds to favor.

[13] He was, moreover, so watchful a guardian of humility, the mother of virtues, that he was affable in conversation even with all his inferiors, humility in clothing, and not only pronounced himself inferior and more worthless than all by his own tongue, but also esteemed himself so in the intimate affection of his heart. Great humility was shown also in his clothing, because he more willingly used such garments as he could buy more cheaply, being rougher and stiffer, than those which he would have to acquire at a greater price. He observed patience, the witness of humility, to such a degree that, according to the Apostolic precepts, he blessed those who cursed him, patience, and to those who inflicted injuries upon him or his property, he did good with rewards and gifts. 1 Corinthians 4:12. He displayed piety and mercy not only toward human nature, kindness, but also, on account of God the Creator of all things, toward every creature that was made by Him; to such an extent that if he saw some little bird carried away from its nest by anyone, he would redeem it from captivity at a price and restore it to its native freedom. He also forbade his own servants from laboring outside in cutting and carrying wood or in any heavy service when the sky was gripped by a severe storm. He loved quiet and meekness above all, so that he did not wish to remain in his own house, which had been large, costly, and full of the tumult of servants, love of quiet, establishing for himself near the church a certain chamber in which he could more freely devote himself to calling upon the Lord. For himself alone a poorly furnished bed was set up there, in which he rested through the nights, solitary. And rising in the silence of the dead of night, when all thought he was resting, he would call upon God, the hearer of prayer, by kneeling, mourning, and weeping.

[14] He was moderately learned; but in the Lord's service he expended everything learning, that he knew. During the annual days of Lent he shut himself in day and night, neither permitting anyone to enter to him nor himself going out anywhere, except to the most sacred altar, at which he did not fail to offer the saving victim daily. He himself was seen by none of the laity, hidden by a veil which was customarily hung before the sanctuary. The deacon, however, who ministered at the altar, gave the sacraments of the Lord's body and blood to those who sought them. Whichever of his parishioners wished to make confession of sins, Lenten fast, he heard this person's words at the window of the cell in which he was concealed, and indicating the manner of penance, he reconciled him to the Lord. During these days of enclosure he never ate before the evening hour; and then he tasted nothing except dark and coarse bread, which is the food of servants, with salt and water. With his mouth he chanted psalms all day, and in his mind he said to the Lord with the Psalmist: "To You my heart has spoken, I have sought Your face; Your face, O Lord, I will seek." He led such a life during the days of Lent that he might appear purer and holier at the time of the Easter feast.

CHAPTER III.

His prophecy, death, and burial.

[15] The gift of prophecy, As the Saint of the Lord had burned from the years of his boyhood, through continence and the other virtues, as we have described above, toward the love of the heavenly homeland, he merited being advanced by God with a prophetic spirit, so that he was himself able to foreknow and foretell to his people the heir of his possessions before his death. For when the course of the present age had run its span, and his flesh was now declining toward its setting, and when his intimate friends and neighbors perceived that his passing was drawing near, they came together from all sides to him and began to address him with such words: "Until now, holy Father, we have been cherished by divine protection, since we have had the benefit of conversation with your counsels; no enemy has been able to crush us, nor the ancient enemy of the human race himself. We know that you are now asking the Lord for your discharge from service, so that you may receive in heaven the reward for which you have always labored with a longing spirit. But first see to our needs and provide us with a suitable Pastor. You know all the ecclesiastical men in your neighborhood, prophecy concerning his successor: and therefore you yourself are not unaware who is most worthy of your inheritance." "Do not, my children," he said, "be saddened by my departure, because the Lord, as He has begun, will not cease to console you, and He has already deigned to show me whom He wishes to install as heir of my possessions. Indeed, in the coming year, he who must possess this place after me will arrive."

[16] In accordance with the man of God's prediction, when the circle of the year was completed, the man who had been promised by the Lord arrived--the one whom this Saint had long ago baptized on his Roman journey, and had ordered to come to his house, as we said above. Then, having summoned his friends and subjects, S. Gamulbert addressed them with these words: "Now, dearest brothers and children, we have received what the Lord promised. Know without a doubt that this is the man whom I predicted to you the previous year would come; the Lord has given him to me as heir; He wills him to be your Pastor. Having established him, He shall succeed me by a just law, for I begot him as a son to Christ and the Holy Church through baptism. Attend to him with the greatest diligence; lend the ears of your body and soul to his admonitions, for he will be able to lead you who obey to the kingdom and to the rest which shall have no end." Having said these things, he handed over all his possessions to him and called all who were present as witnesses of this transfer. And not long afterward, overtaken by a grave illness, he fell into his bed, blessed death, about to send his veteran soul to the Lord after its worldly contests. Summoning, therefore, the clergy, he made confession of his human failings, and receiving the communion of the divine sacrament, he departed with a joyful mind to Him whom he had lovingly desired throughout his entire life, on the sixth day before the Kalends of February.

[17] No man can express how great was the joy of the heavenly hosts when they received him into their fellowship, stained by no filth, who returned the talent of a well-administered priesthood, whole and entire, to the supreme Priest and the angelic spirits. The people, however, obsequies; who had assembled and were present at his funeral, attended to the funeral rites with fitting decorum, with all the reverence they could muster, with frequent sighs and sobs and a flood of tears, imploring the Lord's clemency to be present to them, from whom He had taken away the presence of so great and so necessary a Patron. For although they believed him to be their helper in heaven, they nevertheless bore his bodily absence grievously.

[18] On the day, however, on which his holy little body was to be committed to the earth, rains and winds divinely restrained for a time; the Lord wrought a great and memorable miracle, both to gladden those who were so saddened and to demonstrate how great the merit of that man was in His sight. For at that time there had burst forth such a violence of winds and rains that most of those who were present at the funeral rites despaired of being able to bury him. And so the pain of the atmospheric disturbance increased the magnitude of the grief already implanted on account of their bereavement. Certain persons, however, trusting by a higher counsel in the Lord's mercy, and advising their companions to do the same, began what needed to be done: they lit candles and raised the bier. At that very hour the rain subsided, suspended in the meantime by divine power, and ceased until the body was carried into the church, the saving victim was offered for him by the priests, and the holy little body was committed to burial. When the funeral office was completed, the crowds that had thronged together from every side with all eagerness dispersed, and immediately the tempest, its reins released, returned as great as it had been before the burial. All who saw these things, gladdened by so great a miracle, returned immense thanks to the magnificent Trinity, who fulfills the will of those who fear Him and hears their prayer.

CHAPTER IV.

Miracles after death.

[19] That same church, after it received the most holy clay, the church illuminated by heavenly light, obtained divine grace in full: namely, it was honored with frequent angelic visitations and illuminated with the splendor of heavenly light, sometimes indeed around cockcrow, but very often at midnight; and afterward candles arranged throughout the chapel in every direction were seen to be all lit at once, with no person entering. The people standing about from the surrounding region, suffused with fragrance, not presuming to approach with any confidence, drew in from a distance the fragrance of a wonderful odor, and proclaimed with praise the divine omnipotence and clemency alike, and the piety of the most holy man.

[20] Miracles wrought there: Not long afterward, the Lord began to work many miracles to display the merits of His servant: so that the mute might recover there the function of the tongue, the feeble the vital movement of their limbs, and those languishing from all manner of infirmities the gift of health.

[21] There was a certain very poor man named Reginher, of slender means, and so feeble in all the members of his body a cripple healed, that he was utterly unable to move forward anywhere unless he crawled on his knees and elbows, like a four-footed beast. Having heard of the signs which the Lord continually displayed at the tomb of His faithful minister, he pondered how he might reach that place. For he had languished for nine continuous years with the most grievous infirmity, and had consequently wasted away with such great debility. With whatever effort he could, he began to move himself, and trusting in divine assistance, he managed to arrive by crawling; and with inmost devotion he lay for some period of time at the tomb of the most holy Confessor, continually awaiting and faithfully beseeching the health of soul and body. On a certain night an excessive shuddering with trembling seized him, which shook all his limbs at once. When the terror withdrew, the man rose up healthy, for all his debility had completely departed at the same time.

[22] At another time, again, a certain man was so terribly disabled that, resting only on his hands and arms upon a stool, he dragged his body behind him likewise another, like a foreign weight, because his remaining limbs were immovable and useless for the function of nature. Hoping, therefore, to be restored to health through the merits of the most holy man, he desired to hasten to his shrine; but he did not know how he might arrive or what he should begin. The people, however, who knew him, hearing his faith and desire, and sympathizing with the miserable suffering which he endured, wished to transport him in vehicles; but he preferred to complete the journey by his own effort, as best he could. Setting out upon the road, therefore, with his accustomed motion, creeping rather than walking, he arrived at the place which he thirsted for more ardently. Coming, however, he obtained from the guardians of the church that he might be permitted to keep watch at the tomb of the man of God day and night, in case God should deign to glorify His Saint in him and to hear him crying out for health. Nor was he frustrated in that confidence by a vain hope. For while he remained there for some time, he was restored to complete health.

CONCERNING S. SULPITIUS, BISHOP, AT GHISLENGHIEN IN HAINAUT.

Sulpitius, Bishop of Bayeux, at Ghislenghien in Belgium (S.)

By an anonymous author, from manuscripts.

[1] Ghislenghien is a town of Hainaut in Belgica Secunda, on the river Haine, whence the name of the province; but the town takes its name from the Cell of S. Ghislain, a noble and ancient monastery, about which more fully in the life of S. Ghislain on 9 October. Here relics of S. Sulpitius the Bishop are preserved, whose feast is observed on 27 January. Concerning him, Molanus writes in his additions to Usuard: The feast of S. Sulpitius the Bishop. "In the monastery of the Cell, the deposition of the holy Father Sulpitius, Bishop and Confessor." More fully in the Index of the Saints of Belgium: "The Cell, or the monastery of S. Ghislain, possesses the body, or relics of the body, of S. Sulpitius, Bishop and Confessor, which is the most ancient monastery in Hainaut. Whence in the Martyrology there it is read on the twenty-seventh day of January: 'The deposition of our holy Father Sulpitius, Bishop and Confessor.' And on the twenty-first of July: 'In the monastery of the Cell, the Translation of S. Sulpitius, Bishop, and S. Leocadia, Virgin,' etc." Galesin, Ferrarius, and Canisius also treat of him. Rabanus and the manuscript of S. Maximin have the following on this day: "And the birthday of S. Sulpitius, Bishop and Confessor"; if these words are written about him, his veneration must have been widely celebrated even before his relics were brought to Belgium, or else these words were added to Rabanus later by someone; just as we believe the following verse was added to the Martyrology of Wandelbert after this translation:

"Sulpitius, Bathild, and also Aldegund do flourish."

But on 26 January S. Sulpitius, Bishop of Bourges, Confessor, is commemorated by Bede, Notker, and manuscripts, while Pius is celebrated on 17 January and Severus on the 29th of the same month, so that one may suspect that our Sulpitius of Bayeux is perhaps listed in those authorities with the city in which he held his see incorrectly expressed.

[2] S. Sulpitius is also recorded in the Benedictine Martyrology by Arnold Wion, Hugo Menard, and Benedict Dorgany. And Wion indeed says: Was he a monk? "I am led by conjecture from those words 'Our Father,' which are read in the Martyrology of that monastery, to believe that he was a monk of S. Ghislain's; for they read thus: 'Deposition of our holy Father Sulpitius.'" Menard more correctly observes in book 1 of his Observations: "If he is called 'Father' by the monks of the Cell, it is because he cherishes that place with the presence of his body. Whether, however, he was a monk elsewhere is unclear." He lived, he lived a solitary life, as will be said below, a solitary life; whether before his episcopate, or after legitimately resigning it permanently, or merely by withdrawing for a time to enjoy some quiet, or having previously been formed by monastic discipline in a monastery, and at what time, we do not know.

[3] Of what city he was Bishop is also not established. Molanus in his Index: Was he Bishop of Bayonne? "I have read somewhere that he was Bishop of Bayeux, and that he was translated together with the relics of S. Leocadia from Spain to the monastery of S. Ghislain." Wion, Canisius, and Galesin also call him "of Bayeux." Molanus in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium: "He was, however, Bishop of Bayonne in Gascony, or, as certain learned men say, at Aquae Augustae, on the Spanish border; for this is established from the sermon on the translation." Miraeus writes the same in the Belgian Fasti. But first, we do not think that Aquae Augustae is Bayonne, but rather the city of the Auscitani, or Auxitani, commonly called Acqs; since some wish Bayonne to be called Boiona from the Boii, while others, with Masson, hold that it was formerly Lapurdum, fortified with a Roman garrison. Be that as it may, Menard, Saussay, the learned Robert, all following Molanus alone, say that Sulpitius was of Bayonne. But Ferrarius on this day in his Notes: "Some make him Bishop of Bayonne (which is the last city of Aquitaine on the border of Spain), others Bishop of Bayeux, which is more likely; for Bayeux is an episcopal city of Normandy, commonly called Bayeux." Or rather of Bayeux? Ferrarius seems to derive this likelihood from the resemblance between "Bayensis" and "Bayeux." But we have another reason for siding with Ferrarius, namely, that he led a solitary life in Normandy (who would believe he would have come here especially from Bayonne in the Basque country?), that his body was found there, and then translated by one who was making a pilgrimage from Belgium to Mont-Saint-Michel-au-Peril-de-la-Mer, which faces the Norman coast.

[4] This Translation was made in the year of Christ 986, by Simon, Abbot of the Cell of S. Ghislain, Translation made in the year 986, whose history was most kindly communicated to us from an old manuscript of the Cell by George Galopinus, Librarian of that same monastery. Whence you may refute what we related from Molanus (whom Menard and Saussay followed), and what he also writes in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium: Not when Spain was occupied. "And his body is thought to have been brought to the Belgians on the same occasion and at the same time as the body of S. Leocadia, through the Count of Hainaut." Miraeus also states more assertively: "His relics were translated there (together with the bones of S. Leocadia, Virgin of Toledo) at roughly those times, as is believed, when the Moors occupied Spain." The Moors invaded Spain in the Era 750, or the year of Christ 712; but the relics of S. Sulpitius were brought to the Cell nearly three hundred years later. Concerning S. Leocadia we shall treat on 9 December, and concerning her body recently restored by the monks of the Cell to King Philip II, the Catholic.

[5] The Translation of SS. Sulpitius and Leocadia is celebrated with an annual solemnity on 21 July, on which day Molanus writes in his Additions to Usuard: Another translation on 21 July. "On the same day, in the monastery of the Cell, the Translation of S. Sulpitius, Bishop, and S. Leocadia, Virgin." Ferrarius, Canisius, and Saussay in more words relate the same; and concerning Sulpitius, Wion and Dorgany. What that translation was, we have by no means ascertained. For as regards that earlier translation from Normandy to the Cell, the title of the manuscript of the Cell reads thus: "This translation of the body of S. Sulpitius was made in the year 986, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of July, this was done on 20 June, the twenty-eighth year after the death of S. Gerard, Abbot of S. Ghislain's and of Brogne"--he, namely, who happily restored the monastery of the Cell and very many others. From this you may refute what Saussay writes on this twenty-seventh day of January: "In Hainaut, at the Cell of S. Ghislain, not 27 January, which is his feast day, the reception of S. Sulpitius, Bishop of Bayonne, or of Bayonne of the Lapurdians among the Basques in the province of Novempopulania, and Confessor; together with S. Leocadia, Virgin and Martyr of Toledo, whose most sacred relics at the time when the Moors occupied Spain were conveyed to Bayonne for safekeeping; thence, together with the precious remains of the same S. Sulpitius, on account of other incursions, they were translated to the aforesaid monastery, far from the fury of the barbarians, and deposited with fitting honor, where they are guarded and venerated to this day with the greatest reverence." This indeed is false regarding Leocadia, and the earlier statements regarding Sulpitius.

[6] Another on 1 June. Another Translation of both, together with S. Ghislain, was made on 1 June, on which day Molanus in his additions to Usuard, and Canisius: "On that day, the Translation of the body of our holy Father Ghislain, and of S. Sulpitius, Bishop and Confessor, and of Blessed Leocadia, Virgin." Saussay writes nearly the same. Wion and Dorgany also treat of Ghislain and Sulpitius on the same day. In the year 1634, Reliquary adorned, the Abbot of S. Ghislain's had a splendid and ample silver reliquary, in the form of a head adorned with a mitre, made here in Antwerp with exquisite workmanship, for the purpose of enshrining the relics of S. Sulpitius.

TRANSLATION OF S. SULPITIUS

Extracted from an old manuscript codex by George Galopinus, a Religious of Ghislenghien.

Sulpitius, Bishop of Bayeux, at Ghislenghien in Belgium (S.)

BHL Number: 7935

[1] Let all falsehood be put to rest with its own eulogy; let us set forth in a simple account only what the report of the faithful has transmitted to us for writing; advancing toward credibility according to the measure of our talent, how the land of Normandy divinely enriched Hainaut with the little body of S. Sulpitius. At that time when Rome was supported by the government of Otto, the kingdom of the Franks was likewise governed by the scepter of Louis, and Normandy was subject to William, father of Count Richard, with Herluin likewise presiding over the See of Cambrai, Under what princes the body of S. Sulpitius was translated, Godfrey being Count of Hainaut, and Arnulf also of Valenciennes: a certain Abbot Simon proposed to travel as far as Mont-Saint-Michel for the purpose of prayer. As he was undertaking his proposed journey, it happened that he entered a certain village in the territory of Normandy for the purpose of lodging, which they call Livibacum, to which the surname of "Holy Valley" is attached. From Normandy, Seeing three small churches there, he learned that in one of them were contained the relics of this Saint; and immediately inquiring who he had been, or whence he had come, where he had lived as a solitary, and whether he had been a native of that place, he heard that he had been Bishop of the city of Bayeux, and that he had sought a hermitage there for the purpose of leading a solitary life.

[2] At these words, as it were ruminating in the hidden place of his heart, and bringing forth to his companions what he was ruminating, he said: "It is fitting that this man be served elsewhere with more becoming honor than here; Abbot Simon explores the place of burial, and this very thing will come to pass if God grants me to carry out what I am meditating." He speaks these things in secret; at length the devout man arrives where he was heading. There, under the pretext of having his sins blotted out, prostrate on the ground, he prayed more earnestly that this very thing might be carried through to completion.

[3] Then indeed, returning home, he reports to the community of Brothers, he returns there: who were rendering service to God under the patronage of S. Ghislain in the monastery of the Cell, what he had done and how he had done it on his journey. Not long afterward, commending himself to their prayers, he repeated the same journey, taking with him the companions he had recently brought along. And since willingness renders even the most difficult labor easy, they arrived at the aforementioned village, experiencing no difficulty on the way. They seek out the sacristan, they request his hospitality; and having bought much wine themselves, the sacristan, together with his household servants, becomes drunk. And now the evening star was persuading sleep with its rising, he deceives the sacristan: when peaceful rest was pouring through the limbs of the intoxicated, while the zeal of the sacred theft was growing ever greater in the sober ones. At length they go to sleep, the sober ones as well as the drunken; the latter indeed bedewed with Lethean slumber, the former aroused by sleepless care.

[4] And indeed, while all things held the middle silence and the night had reached the midpoint of its course, the Abbot, cautiously leaping from his bed, had his men summoned for the venerable theft, shrewdly warning them lest anyone emit so much as a cough, nor make any other sound. Then going out step by step, they restrained the dogs from barking, holding out bread or cheese in their hands. While the others accomplished this around the church, the Abbot strove to carry out the body. But at the first attempt he was no more able to move it than a millstone. Then returning to his companions who were aware of this matter, he relates how great the weight of the Saint's bones was that he perceived. He devotes himself and his men to the service of S. Sulpitius. At this, entering together by common counsel and devoutly beating their breasts three and four times, with a leather strap placed around their necks, they joyfully bound themselves to his service, promising him more worthy worship to be celebrated elsewhere.

"And now the first dawn was sprinkling the lands with new light, And Aurora was leading the day, the stars put to flight,"

when they first perceived the day beginning to whiten, he carries off his relics, and immediately wrapping the venerable corpse in a clean cloth, they eagerly turned their steps away from there.

[5] But when dawn was ending, and the wine by which the sacristan had been overcome in the morning had been digested in sleep, he left his bed, found that the guests had departed, and suspected that they had committed some fraud--which he immediately confirmed according to the turn of events. At length rushing to the church and inspecting the coffin where the Saint had lain, The sacristan rises up against him, he saw that he had been deprived of so great a treasure and duped by his guests, or rather, so to speak, his enemies. Truly a holy valley, which at the end, in which all praise is securely sung, merited bearing such a man resplendent with nurturing virtues! Holy indeed the valley, which, although it then lost the one by whose merits it was sanctified, nevertheless retained for itself the very hermitage in which he had once shone with the lamp of holiness! O unhappy village, which had entrusted so great a treasure to this sacristan as a sheep to a wolf! Truly unhappy, which had made dim the brilliance of so great a light; dim, I say, because the one whom he seemed to serve brightly and assiduously, this one he so often left in the dark of night, staggering on his knees from excessive drink, without a care. But by how much Normandy feels itself the more unhappy by this theft, by so much does Hainaut feel itself the happier. What say you, sacristan? Practice sobriety, the mother of virtues, that you may be able to guard your deposit... But gird yourself for other things; perhaps you deserved to lose this one. Then the whole surrounding region roared, and the ringing of bells and the blare of trumpets...

CONCERNING S. THEODORIC II, BISHOP OF ORLEANS IN GAUL.

Year of Christ 1022.

Theodoric II, Bishop of Orleans in Gaul (S.)

From various sources.

[1] Tonnerre, a town of Gaul situated on the river Armancon in the diocese of Langres, has a very ancient church of S. Michael, to which afterward a monastery was added, at the expense, as they say, of Count Milo. The feast of S. Theodoric; In it Theodoric, Bishop of Orleans, the second of that name, while journeying to Rome, died on the twenty-seventh day of January, and being honorably buried by his kinsman Milo in the church of S. Michael, he thereafter began to become distinguished for many miracles; wherefore he was also adopted as Patron by the people of Tonnerre. Menard writes of him: "At Tonnerre, the deposition of S. Theodoric, Bishop of Orleans." Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology: "At Tonnerre, S. Theodoric, likewise Bishop and Confessor, who, a monk of S. Peter-le-Vif at Sens, on account of his singular piety was made Bishop of Orleans after Anselm, executing the charge of the divine ministry entrusted to him with all diligence, and by the advancement of his blameless life pointing out to the clergy and people the way to eternity; His commemoration in the Martyrologies, and afterward, having undertaken a vow to visit the threshold of the Apostles, while he was proceeding to Rome, he was intercepted by illness at Tonnerre in the territory of Langres, and exchanged life for death--nay rather, released from the prison of death, he happily departed to Him who is the true life. He was buried in the same place in the monastery of S. Michael on Mont Volute, where he shone forth magnificently with many miracles by which, through divine bounty, he comes to the aid of his clients." So writes Saussay, who confused Theodoric, the first of that name, with this second one: the first succeeded Anselm II, and after him Ermentheus, Manasses, and Arnulf held the see; then this other, S. Theodoric.

[2] Charles Saussay, in book 8 of his Annals of the Church of Orleans, under Theodoric II, number 11, writes: "His feast day is celebrated and with the divine office; in that monastery of S. Michael on 27 January; on each Tuesday the canonical office is celebrated in his honor outside of Advent and Lent; and on each day at Lauds, Mass, and Vespers his honorable commemoration is made, as we learned from the venerable and religious monks there, who also exhibited to us the sacred head and bones of so great a Bishop, relics, for the purpose of devotion, when we visited that church, on the eleventh of July in the year 1611." The same Saussay in his Register of the Bishops of Orleans, and Jean Chenu, assert that his entire body rests in the monastery of S. Michael at Tonnerre. But Claude Robert, in the Gallia Christiana, from the commentaries of David Andry, Advocate and Procurator of the Treasury of Tonnerre, reports that the reliquary of Theodoric and his kinsman Milo was despoiled of its gold, silver, gems, and other ornaments in the year 1568 by the sacrilegious fury of the heretics.

[3] We give the Life of S. Theodoric as it was published by Charles Saussay from the old manuscript codex of Paul Petau of Orleans, Life, omitting a more ample version which the same author also composed from the records of the monasteries of S. Michael of Tonnerre and S. Peter-le-Vif of Sens, and from the writings of other authors; among whom is Helgaud, a monk of Fleury, who in his Life of King Robert praises the piety of both the King and Theodoric with this encomium: "The King loved this place especially, namely the See of Orleans, where he was born and grew up, and was afterward regenerated from water and the Holy Spirit, and there received the solemn blessing of his assumption to the kingship. Moreover, the Lord Theodoric, Bishop of that same city, whose voice worthily and laudably poured forth the praise of the Lord, wishing to have a memorial of his name, ordered in the monastery of the Holy Cross a vessel to be made from one hundred solidi of the finest gold, in which the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ might be consecrated. A golden chalice, The King joined himself to so great a Bishop with a humble mind; touched by heavenly love, he made in that same holy chalice a paten for confecting therein the body of the Savior of the world, that the sign of the cross might be to him an aid, and the holy Passion the true redemption of soul and flesh." And after some intervening passages: "The King also gave to this Saint, at S. Anianus's, two churches, Sentiliacum and Rutinagum, with their estates and everything pertaining to them, which he confirmed by royal precept and ordered to be ratified. He also earned from the Lord Theodoric, the venerable Bishop of Orleans, the altars of those same churches, together with a pontifical privilege concerning them made by himself, which he conferred upon S. Anianus and the illustrious King, friendship with King Robert, who had always loved him in a voice of exultation, from a good heart." Concerning S. Anianus, Bishop of Orleans, we shall treat on 17 November.

[4] Moreover, Theodoric had formerly won the King's love when he instructed Queen Constance, the King's wife, who had been sent to S. Savinianus by a divine revelation, with much information about who Savinianus was and where he was venerated. That history was once described by Odorann, a contemporary of Theodoric, a monk of Auxerre, in his Chronology, which we also shall give in the life of S. Savinianus on 31 December, knowledge of the deeds and names of Saints, where among other things the following is found: "Constance, terrified by the vision, began anxiously to inquire of the clergy standing around whether there was a Bishop in those regions who was called Savinianus; and one of them, named Theodoric, who was later Bishop of Orleans, answered on behalf of all who were ignorant of this, saying: 'There is, my Lady, in the monastery of S. Peter-le-Vif at Sens, S. Savinianus, the first Archbishop and Martyr of the metropolitan city of Sens; if you approach his presence with a devout mind, you will know that you have obtained without delay what he promised.' And she, rejoicing at the counsel of so great a man, very quickly sought the threshold of S. Peter together with her son, and weeping for a very long time before the body of the blessed Martyr, and committing herself with all her strength to his faith, she returned home rejoicing, strengthened by the visitation of so great a Patron," etc.

[5] In the time of Theodoric, the insane heresy of the Manichees broke forth again from the lower regions and tainted certain members of the clergy of Orleans. Heretics suppressed. A Council was convened against them at Orleans in the year 1017, the Acts of which were recorded in writing by Glaber Rodulphus in book 3 of his history, chapter 8.

[6] How many years Theodoric lived, and how many he presided over the church of Orleans, we have not ascertained. Time of Theodoric's death. That he died in the year 1022 can be deduced roughly as follows from Charles Saussay, number 10: "He was still in his see," he says, "in the year 1021, Indiction 4 and Epact 4 concurring, in which year he gave us the churches of Germigniaco, Trigano, and Noemio, on the condition that we celebrate the anniversary day of his death." And under his successor Odolric, number 20, he produces a privilege of the Church of S. Maximin of Micy, "executed at Orleans publicly in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1022, the twenty-eighth year of the reign of King Robert, and Indiction 5." From these, as being most agreeable to the truth, it necessarily follows that S. Theodoric died on 27 January of the year 1022, which for the French, who then reckoned the year from Easter, was 1021--the date at which Theodoric's death is placed by Charles Saussay, Jean Chenu, and Claude Robert.

[7] "He who while living had become renowned for his virtues," says the same Saussay at number 11, "became known after death also by his miracles. Patronage against fevers. For a hunchbacked girl, long suffering from fever, came to the tomb of the blessed man at Tonnerre, and returned from Tonnerre healed. An old physician, afflicted with the disease of fevers through a very long illness and lying in bed, drank a little from the spring, arose, climbed the hill of S. Michael, gave thanks to God, and obtained his health. Hence he achieved such a memory of holiness among posterity that all who suffer from fevers approach his tomb, and many recover from their infirmity."

LIFE

Published from a manuscript by Charles Saussay.

Theodoric II, Bishop of Orleans in Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 8053

By an anonymous author, from manuscripts.

CHAPTER I.

S. Gilduinus declines the episcopate.

[1] This Saint was born in the Armorican territory of the people of Dol, from a most noble and most powerful man in that same territory, named Rudalen, who was also surnamed Capra-cana. The homeland of S. Gilduinus, His mother, however, is reported to have drawn her illustrious origin from the nobility of the Lords of Puiset, in the territory of Orleans. The Armorican territory, indeed, according to the etymology of the name, can be called a Maritime region. For "Ar" in Breton is called "shore" in Latin, and "Mor" means "sea." Thence the word Armor, meaning, as it were, the neighboring or nearby region to the sea, that is, the maritime region, is said to have been so called in the Breton language.

[2] There the aforesaid Rudalen is remembered as having been powerful and noble among the magnates of that same region, distinguished by his marriage, parents, as has been said, contracted from the nobility of the Lords of Puiset. Among the other children he is reported to have begotten, he is said to have had the righteous Gilduinus, about whom we have begun to speak, as a son given by God, most elegant in character and appearance. studies, For having been entrusted by his parents to liberal studies in the province, he is said to have become in a short time no little distinguished in them. And immediately when he began to grow up, canonry, having been made a Canon in the Church of Dol, he did not give loose rein to wantonness or the frivolity of the world, as that age is wont to do, but rather, toward the religious life of holy continence, both the flower of his age and the excellence of his nobility, holy life, which rarely happens, he restrained himself, wholly turned to the work of God; to such a degree that he strove to tame his flesh with a hair shirt, fasting, vigils, and prayers, and to labor in all holy pursuits.

[3] At that time there presided over the Church of Dol a certain Archbishop of perverse character, named Juhel, who strove with all his might to ruin rather than preserve the possessions of that Church, When Juhel was expelled for his crimes, to such an extent that he did not fear to use them as dowries for his daughters and granddaughters, and he endeavored in all things to afflict and devastate the Church. The clergy of the Church, not enduring such great wickedness, both on their own and through the neighboring Bishops, strove to expel him, not so much an Archbishop as an arch-wolf, from the See of that Church. When he did not cease to harass the Church of Dol with terrors, threats, and frequent attacks, having seized as the stronghold for his fury Mont-Saint-Michel-au-Peril-de-la-Mer, whence it also takes its name; the clergy and people of the territory of Dol were compelled to elect another ruler in place of the one they had repudiated, who was not a shepherd but a robber. But since they had no other person suitable for resisting the fury of the aforesaid tormentor, he is elected Bishop of Dol, against his will: having consulted with the Suffragan Bishops and enlisted their aid, they unanimously appointed the distinguished young man Gilduinus, although still unequal in age, yet adorned in character and most powerful and prevailing in the nobility of his friends, as their ruler. The most humble young man wished to resist the election, but overcome by the unanimity of both his own people and outsiders, he gave his assent unwillingly, "If, however," he said, "the judgment of the Roman and Apostolic See shall approve this decree of yours."

[4] Hence it came about that the elect, together with the authors and witnesses of his election, with a distinguished retinue and letters of support from the neighboring Bishops, hastened to Rome, and leading their chosen candidate, presented him to the Lord Pope, then Gregory VII, and requested that he be consecrated as their Archbishop. He asks the Pope not to ratify the election, and obtains his request: In order to obtain this, they truthfully testified to the most approved character of the elect, and commended him, and at the same time set forth the needs and labors of their Church, for which they knew no other remedy could be provided except through this elect. On the other hand, the elect himself, as he had done before, began to oppose the immaturity of his age and to beseech the Lord Pope not to impose so great a burden of so great a governance upon his tender and weak age. The Lord Pope, congratulating the young man on his so well-proven humility, said: "Well done, my son, well done; what you do is entirely in accord with the sacred canons. You do not thrust yourself forward impudently, but you prudently excuse what ought to be excused. Wherefore know that I will gladly spare your age, and if you can find with your companions any other counsel for relieving the labors and calamities of your Church, I will most gladly grant it."

[4] He is tested by illnesses: Indeed, because the furnace proves the vessels of the potter, and virtue is perfected in weakness, the servant of God was afflicted with a grave and prolonged illness. Ecclesiasticus 27:6. For the Lord was chastening the son whom He loved, so that either the merit of his virtue might increase, or, if any scruple of fault was present, the file of tribulations might thoroughly polish it away. 2 Corinthians 12:9. Hebrews 12:6. He frequented the monastery of S. Peter-le-Vif, both because he had been nourished there and because he knew the place to be holy and abundantly supplied with the relics of the Saints. When, therefore, he had come there on a certain occasion as was his custom, and though wasted by emaciation was planning to set out for Rome, it happened that while he was resting at night in that same basilica, he heard a voice from heaven saying to him: "Do not fear, Theodoric, for a heavenly dwelling awaits you, Eternal glory is promised to him from heaven, where the Martyr S. Sebastian gloriously triumphs." It was, moreover, the feast of Blessed Sebastian. When morning came, therefore, he summoned Aldebert, a most religious monk of that same place, together with certain others, and, disclosing to them what he had heard, he testified that his death was imminent, and commanded that if he should die on this side of the Alps, he should be brought back there. For he wished to be buried beside his venerable uncles, Archbishop Sewinus and Abbot Raynard.

[5] After this he set out on his journey, and on the first day he reached Briennon, and thence proceeded as far as Tonnerre, He dies at Tonnerre: where he was soon seized by illness. And within a few days, while lying there sick, he ended his life with a happy departure, on the sixth day before the Kalends of February. When his followers were arranging to carry him back where he had ordered himself to be taken, his kinsman Milo, lord of the aforesaid castle, objected, he becomes famous for miracles, and had him honorably entombed in the church of S. Michael the Archangel. Those who frequent his tomb frequently report that they obtain what they implore.

CONCERNING S. GILDUINUS, CANON OF DOL IN BRITTANY.

Year of Christ 1077.

Gilduinus, Canon of Dol in Brittany (S.)

[1] Dol is a city of Armorican Brittany, where S. Sampson, as will be said on 28 July, established a See--whether episcopal or archiepiscopal is uncertain. He himself is said to have been an Archbishop in the island of Britain; hence his successors used the pallium, while the Archbishop of Tours contended that they were obliged to obey him, as were the other Armorican bishops. The feast of S. Gilduinus, At length, however, a judgment was pronounced in favor of Tours by the Roman Pontiff. In this Church of S. Sampson at Dol, S. Gilduinus was a Canon and was elected Bishop, whose feast is celebrated on 27 January; on which day Saussay writes in the Gallican Martyrology: "At Chartres, the deposition of S. Gilduinus, Bishop-elect of Dol in Armorica and Confessor," etc. Bertrand d'Argentre also testifies in book 3 of his History of Brittany, chapter 40, that Gilduinus is held to be a Saint.

[2] The Life of S. Gilduinus was written by an anonymous monk of the monastery of S. Peter-in-the-Valley, Life, which was formerly in the suburbs of Chartres, and is now within the city itself, where Gilduinus died while returning from Rome and was buried. The author himself indicates this below, at number 17: "He was buried on the sixth day before the Kalends of February in the middle of the choir of our church." The life appears to have been written before the translation about to be mentioned, since it does not recall it. Whence published here: Augustine Du Paz, in the book entitled Genealogical History of the Illustrious Families of Brittany, published it from the manuscript History of Brittany of Pierre le Baud and from ancient records of the aforesaid monastery of S. Peter-in-the-Valley, omitting the innumerable miracles, as he says, which occurred at his burial and afterward. Albert le Grand of Morlaix also published the same Life in French in his Lives of the Saints of Armorican Brittany, but assigns his feast to 31 January.

[3] Sebastien Rouillard, in his History of the Church of Chartres, part 2, chapter 13, commemorates the translation of S. Gilduinus as follows, listing the relics preserved in the monastery of S. Peter-in-the-Valley: "Moreover," he says, "the body of S. Gilduinus, who, returning from Rome, where he had gone to see Gregory VII, elevation, while he was Bishop-elect of Dol in Brittany, passed through the territory of Chartres and turned aside to this monastery of S. Peter, where he was seized by illness, died, and was buried in the choir of the church; then, when he worked very many miracles, his body was exhumed and enclosed in a reliquary, through the action of Abbot Fulcher, miracles, who had experienced the help of this Saint against incurable and most severe pains of gout; and he established, as a mark of gratitude, that in perpetuity every Saturday the sacristan should light a candle before the shrine of this Saint." Du Paz narrates the same from Rouillard.

LIFE

By an anonymous monk of Chartres, published from manuscripts by Augustine Du Paz.

Gilduinus, Canon of Dol in Brittany (S.)

BHL Number: 3545

By an anonymous author, from Augustine Du Paz.

CHAPTER I.

S. Gilduinus declines the episcopate.

[1] This Saint was born in the Armorican territory of the people of Dol, from a most noble and most powerful man in that same territory, named Rudalen, who was also surnamed Capra-cana. The homeland of S. Gilduinus, His mother, however, is reported to have drawn her illustrious origin from the nobility of the Lords of Puiset, in the territory of Orleans. The Armorican territory, indeed, according to the etymology of the name, can be called a Maritime region. For "Ar" in Breton is called "shore" in Latin, and "Mor" means "sea." Thence the word Armor, meaning, as it were, the neighboring or nearby region to the sea, that is, the maritime region, is said to have been so called in the Breton language.

[2] There the aforesaid Rudalen is remembered as having been powerful and noble among the magnates of that same region, distinguished by his marriage, parents, as has been said, contracted from the nobility of the Lords of Puiset. Among the other children he is reported to have begotten, he is said to have had the righteous Gilduinus, about whom we have begun to speak, as a son given by God, most elegant in character and appearance. studies, For having been entrusted by his parents to liberal studies in the province, he is said to have become in a short time no little distinguished in them. And immediately when he began to grow up, canonry, having been made a Canon in the Church of Dol, he did not give loose rein to wantonness or the frivolity of the world, as that age is wont to do, but rather, toward the religious life of holy continence, both the flower of his age and the excellence of his nobility, holy life, which rarely happens, he restrained himself, wholly turned to the work of God; to such a degree that he strove to tame his flesh with a hair shirt, fasting, vigils, and prayers, and to labor in all holy pursuits.

[3] At that time there presided over the Church of Dol a certain Archbishop of perverse character, named Juhel, who strove with all his might to ruin rather than preserve the possessions of that Church, When Juhel was expelled for his crimes, to such an extent that he did not fear to use them as dowries for his daughters and granddaughters, and he endeavored in all things to afflict and devastate the Church. The clergy of the Church, not enduring such great wickedness, both on their own and through the neighboring Bishops, strove to expel him, not so much an Archbishop as an arch-wolf, from the See of that Church. When he did not cease to harass the Church of Dol with terrors, threats, and frequent attacks, having seized as the stronghold for his fury Mont-Saint-Michel-au-Peril-de-la-Mer, whence it also takes its name; the clergy and people of the territory of Dol were compelled to elect another ruler in place of the one they had repudiated, who was not a shepherd but a robber. But since they had no other person suitable for resisting the fury of the aforesaid tormentor, he is elected Bishop of Dol, against his will: having consulted with the Suffragan Bishops and enlisted their aid, they unanimously appointed the distinguished young man Gilduinus, although still unequal in age, yet adorned in character and most powerful and prevailing in the nobility of his friends, as their ruler. The most humble young man wished to resist the election, but overcome by the unanimity of both his own people and outsiders, he gave his assent unwillingly, "If, however," he said, "the judgment of the Roman and Apostolic See shall approve this decree of yours."

[4] Hence it came about that the elect, together with the authors and witnesses of his election, with a distinguished retinue and letters of support from the neighboring Bishops, hastened to Rome, and leading their chosen candidate, presented him to the Lord Pope, then Gregory VII, and requested that he be consecrated as their Archbishop. He asks the Pope not to ratify the election, and obtains his request: In order to obtain this, they truthfully testified to the most approved character of the elect, and commended him, and at the same time set forth the needs and labors of their Church, for which they knew no other remedy could be provided except through this elect. On the other hand, the elect himself, as he had done before, began to oppose the immaturity of his age and to beseech the Lord Pope not to impose so great a burden of so great a governance upon his tender and weak age. The Lord Pope, congratulating the young man on his so well-proven humility, said: "Well done, my son, well done; what you do is entirely in accord with the sacred canons. You do not thrust yourself forward impudently, but you prudently excuse what ought to be excused. Wherefore know that I will gladly spare your age, and if you can find with your companions any other counsel for relieving the labors and calamities of your Church, I will most gladly grant it."

[5] Hearing this, the young man of excellent disposition was made most joyful; and having consulted with his companions, he said that it was indeed most pleasing to him to have obtained from the Lord Pope what he had been unable to secure from his companions themselves--namely, that a still beardless and very young adolescent should not be promoted to so great a rank of ecclesiastical governance. His counsel and desire, however, was that they should elect in his place one of his companions, the Lord Eventius, the venerable Abbot of the monastery of S. Melaine at Rennes, as their Archbishop, he brings about the election of Eventius, and present him to the Lord Apostolic, and request that he be consecrated for their Church. When all gave their assent to this, the distinguished young man Gilduinus, having returned with his retinue to the presence of the Lord Pope, professed with all humility that the Pope's judgment concerning his age was most pleasing to him, and that he most willingly laid down the election that had been made of him. He petitioned, however, that the aforesaid senior Eventius, here present, be deigned to be consecrated as Archbishop in his place, and thus to hasten the end, or at least the desired and necessary remedy, of the labors of the Church of Dol.

[6] He is consecrated by the Pope, Hearing these things, the Lord Pope most gratefully received the humility of this excellent young man, together with his most provident benevolence toward his own Church, and fulfilled the petition of his pious request without delay, with its effect following, and consecrated the elder Eventius, who had been elected, in the Lateran church without delay. Nearly all the Cardinals, Bishops, and Deacons of the Roman Church attended this consecration, among whose names are the following: Gerard, Bishop of Florence, etc. Having thus obtained the fulfillment of his wish and desire, the holy young man Gilduinus, together with his Archbishop Eventius, having received the Lord Pope's leave and favor, hastened their return to the regions of Gaul.

[7] As they were returning, when they were already approaching the Alps, the most provident young man Gilduinus addressed his Archbishop thus: "You know, he returns to Dol, at Gilduinus's urging, most reverend Father, how our Church of Dol, now committed to the governance of your paternity, is in suspense awaiting our return, and how necessary our presence is for it. Whence, if it pleases your paternity, it seems to me useful and necessary that you should return as quickly as possible, with the greater part of our retinue, to the desolate Church committed to your care. For I have a desire, if it pleases God, to visit my dear relatives on my mother's side, whom I have never seen; and since I do not doubt that I shall be detained by them for some time, I advise and counsel that you should hasten ahead." The counsel of pious compassion pleased the Archbishop, and he released his sweetest companion in body though not in spirit, and departed with the greater part of the retinue, and likewise proceeded onward.

CHAPTER II.

He exposes the frauds of a demon.

[8] The holy young man Gilduinus, moreover, having crossed back over the Alps on his return, Gilduinus turns aside to a hut with his companions: on a certain day when the evening hour for seeking lodging was already pressing, and no suitable place for lodging appeared anywhere, at length, when twilight was already almost falling, arriving at a certain river and seeing along the bank a small hut, he turned aside to it with his retinue and there begged and obtained hospitality for himself and his companions--in the house, that is, of a certain common man who was accustomed to ferry across in his small boat those who wished to cross the river. Then the servants, anxious about preparing food, began to discuss and consult with the host, the master of the house; to whom he said: "I do not know what counsel I can offer you, for this place is very poor in provisions, and the hour is already too late for an excursion to a place well-supplied with food (and he named it), seeing that it is too far away. I have, however," he said, "one retainer, a very swift runner, who could bring back the necessities from there more quickly, if you are willing to wait." That man was summoned and, having been given the money, was sent; and he returned with the food much more quickly than could be believed, astonishing everyone with a great miracle of speed in his return. For the place, as has been said, was so much more distant than any mortal could have returned from so quickly.

[9] The matter was heard by S. Gilduinus, and he himself began to regard that retainer with much greater suspicion. He detects venomous creatures placed in the food: He waited with the others, occupied with other cares--the Saint no doubt with holy ones--until they were called to the meal that had been prepared. And when he had come to dine or sup, and having first recited a hymn as was customary, prayed that the food set before them, with the sign of the cross made, might be blessed and sanctified by God, the food was so changed into the opposite that it appeared to be venomous carcasses rather than nourishment, to such a degree that it had the appearance of frogs, toads, and serpents, not of food. For even the wine itself became like muddy water. This transformation of forms, being as execrable as it was horrible to the Saint himself and to all who were about to dine, then turned the suspicion which had arisen from the runner's speed into certainty, so that all now knew that servant was not a man but a demon.

[10] The Saint immediately ordered him to be summoned and brought before him, but he refused to come. Commanded again and again, he would not come, growing angry and quarrelsome, shouting that he and the Saint had nothing in common. Then at last, commanded to come in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the power of holy obedience, no longer able to delay, he compels a demon serving a good old man to reveal why he had done this, having laid aside all the terrifying vanity of his anger, he came unwillingly and trembling. Nor is it strange if the culprit, caught in his malice, feared the presence of the judge who would pronounce a fitting sentence upon him. "Behold," he said, "O most cruel enemy and most rabid foe, what had we done to offend you, that wishing to kill us, you prepared these poisons for us instead of food? Why do you have such confidence in your most malignant arts that you presume to destroy the servants of the cross of Christ? But confess now, with all hearing, both the name of your deceit and the reason for your so long a stay in this place." Then the enemy said: "I will confess, though unwillingly, since I know for certain that nothing can be hidden from the power of the almighty Lord Jesus Christ which is in you. I had assumed for myself the name Bernutio, because, living among men as if a man, having received permission to dwell among them, I could not be recognized without a name. The reason, however, for assuming a body, or for remaining longer in this place, is my intention to exercise my malignity. For I vehemently hated the just man and envied his kindness, because not so much for the sake of gain as out of benevolent desire to help, he was accustomed to ferry across in his small boat those who wished to cross this river. From the time he began this practice, it entirely impeded my malignity, because those who wished to cross but did not know the right path through the ford, I used to drown not a few of them, and I greatly harmed their souls, which were not well prepared for departure. For this reason I assumed this body for myself and offered myself to serve this man, and why he had been unable to harm him, hoping that I might somehow be able to plot against his life and salvation, and might prevail to submerge and suffocate him in the river which he frequented." "And why," said the Saint, "were you not able to harm him?" "Because," said the demon, "entering the river, he always fortified both himself and his entire boat with the sign of the cross, which is entirely contrary to me; indeed, at the beginning of everything he undertook to do, arming himself with the same sign, he shut out my snares." "And whence," whence he had assumed the body; said the Saint, "did you obtain the body you bear?" "It belonged," he said, "to a certain wicked man, and having seized his soul, I appropriated his body as an instrument for my frauds and snares."

[11] And the Saint replied: "Good that you confess yourself to be fraudulent and a plotter of snares, and that, laying bare your malignity, you are compelled even against your will to proclaim the power of the most victorious cross of Christ." "Truly," said the demon, "I do this unwillingly, because I am unable to conceal anything from you, a servant of the cross of Christ. Strengthened by that power and armed with that standard, you prevailed to escape the poisons which I had prepared for you instead of food, and thus to take from me entirely the strength and ability to do harm in this place." And S. Gilduinus said: and he puts him to flight. "Blessed be our Lord Jesus Christ God, the most victorious power of whose Cross even the enemy, vanquished by it, is compelled unwillingly to proclaim. But now, O most bloodthirsty and most deadly beast, I am no longer willing to hold converse with you. For you are proven to be a liar and the father of lies, so that even when you speak the truth, whether willingly or unwillingly, you never intend anything but to deceive. Therefore lay down at once the body which you had assumed as the instrument of your deceits and snares, and go where you shall henceforth be unable to harm any Christian." Immediately the most foul enemy withdrew with a horrible howl, and left in the midst the lifeless body, the instrument of diabolical malice. The Saint ordered the body to be quickly carried out and concealed by burial in the ground wherever convenient.

[12] Thus the innocent host, ignorant of the diabolical malice, rejoiced through his holy guest Gilduinus that he had been freed from the most wicked plotter. Thus indeed Gilduinus, the son of eternal salvation, most kindly himself, was hosted by the kind host, and the wickedness of the most fraudulent enemy was both detected by the merits of the servant of the Cross of Christ and put to flight. O admirable and unceasingly to be proclaimed piety of the Redeemer! O ever to be extolled, ever and everywhere to be admired most salutary and triumphal power and glory of the Lord's Cross, Great is the power of the Cross; great is the holiness of Gilduinus, which makes the servants of Christ who crucify themselves to vices and concupiscences such well-armed, strong, and valiant friends of God, always and everywhere, that the more wickedly and cruelly the diabolical madness rages against them, the more powerful and glorious the power and grace of Christ the Lord makes them through His Cross! Behold, the most holy young man Gilduinus strove in his youth to bear his cross and follow Christ the Lord, and he shone forth as a most proven servant of the Cross of Christ. Even the demons, enemies of the Cross of Christ, confess these things of themselves before him; they can neither hide nor remain. Behold, the strength of Christ, hidden indeed in the horns of the Cross of Christ, but manifest in the fact that death flees before His feet and face: so His splendor in His servant Gilduinus was as a light, before whose presence death could not conceal its deceptions, nor could the devil exercise them. Did Christ the Lord do anything less in this miracle through the merits of His servant Gilduinus than what is read of His having once done through S. Martin, Abbot of the monastery of Vertou, in a similar detection and routing of a demon? Was not the miracle wrought by S. Giles in the expulsion of a demon similar to this one, when at Orleans in the church of the Holy Cross a demon through the mouth of a possessed man asked the Saint that permission to depart be given him?

CHAPTER III.

His illness, death, and burial.

[13] Having departed from the place where the Saint had wrought so great a miracle, Gilduinus is seized with fever: as he was already approaching the borders of the territory of Orleans, the Lord began to knock at his door and the time of His visitation to draw near. For, seized by fevers, he began to fall ill, and being weakened in body, to be stronger in mind. For to a man of good will, bodily infirmity avails not to the detriment of virtue but rather to its increase. "For when I am weak," says the Apostle, "then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:10. And so the plainly holy young man Gilduinus, just as all the Saints, received from the discomfort of his body not a diminishment but an advancement of his virtues. Then, at Orleans and Puiset, as he had proposed, he visited his dear ones as best he could, and being visited by them in return, he remained for some days in that same territory. The fame of his holiness, commended by the report of the miracle wrought not long before, was spreading and growing at the same time, he is visited by many: and was causing nearly all the nobility of that same territory to flock to him. The serenity of his most illustrious kinship was indeed notable, but much more so the brilliance of his extraordinary holiness, heard of all around. All marveled, and those who were more modest even during his illness, he devotes himself to mortification: also rejoiced that a young man of such great nobility, both sick and a pilgrim, had been accustomed, as is read of Blessed Martin, to treat his body more harshly and severely, reclining on his noble bed with a hair shirt, rather than more softly. For he heeded what the Truth says in the Gospel: "They who wear soft clothing are in the houses of kings." Matthew 11:8. And what S. Gregory says thereon: "For those who take care to treat their bodies more softly do not serve the heavenly King but the earthly one; and we are the more wretchedly separated from the love of heavenly things, the more we are delighted by lower things." For this reason he strove, following the Apostle's example, to chastise his body and bring it into subjection, even when ill, lest he should be separated from the love of heavenly things if he were delighted by lower ones. 1 Corinthians 9:27.

[14] After some time had passed, he was conveyed with a large company of noble kinsmen to Chartres, as he had desired, either on horseback or by some other vehicle, and entered the church of the most blessed and ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God, to pray, and strove to commend his departure, He venerates the relics of the Blessed Virgin at Chartres: which he already felt was imminent, to that same Lady and Protectress of ours, and to the Saints whose relics are kept there, with most devout prayers. He kissed repeatedly the reliquary especially in which the most precious veil of that same Lady of ours is believed to be contained--which is also known to have been proven by many and frequent miracles--and venerated it in every way he could, hoping for and imploring from it protection and aid against all the powers of the air.

[15] He turns aside to the monastery of S. Peter: At length, having most devoutly completed his prayers in that same most sacred church, as he had long and greatly desired, he was either led by his dear ones or carried thence to this monastery of S. Peter, which is situated in the suburb of the same city, for the purpose of both praying and lodging; and he most devoutly entered the church; and the community of Brothers received him most attentively. Prayers were offered daily, and the recovery of his body was desired. But our most merciful Lord and Savior Christ provided for him incomparably better, hastening his departure from the body of death and making haste to transfer his blessed soul to the homeland of rest and light. The burning of the fevers increased daily, and the joyful day of coming to the joy of his Lord was approaching. When it arrived, he dies, how great was the grief and sorrow of his dear ones at his passing, and how great the lamentation, those knew who were present at his sacred funeral rites.

[16] But with how great a joy of gladness the holy Angels, its ministers, received his most holy soul into their fellowship, we, although pressed by the darkness and the prison of the closed sky and by our dying members, He becomes famous for miracles: do not altogether ignore, since we know how to weigh causes from effects, however imperfectly. By effects we mean the miracles which both accompanied and followed his burial. By causes we mean his most blessed merits and most glorious rewards. How diligently and honorably the burial of his most holy body was arranged and celebrated, there is no need to say in words what is ready to be seen.

[17] The year from the Incarnation of the Lord was one thousand and seventy-six, when this Saint Gilduinus is believed to have passed from earthly to heavenly things, from temporal to eternal--nay, it is confirmed by the evidence of miracles. He was buried on the sixth day before the Kalends of February in the middle of the choir of our church, and, as has been said, he is honorably buried, his most sacred members were interred with such care and honor that around them, in a deeper place in the earth, a stone chamber of no small size was constructed. His hair shirt is held in great esteem. Those same members, more precious than all gems, were adorned with the hair shirt which he had used while living, and then with the sacred silk vestments of his order, namely a tunic and dalmatic.

CONCERNING BLESSED JOHN, BISHOP OF THE MORINI, IN BELGIUM.

Year of Christ 1130.

John, Bishop of Therouanne in Belgium (Bl.)

[1] The Morini, a most celebrated people of Belgica Secunda, considered by certain Roman writers to be the remotest of men, derived their name either from the marshes, which in the Teutonic language (which it is established the Gallic peoples also used before the Romans subjugated them) we still call "moer" and "broeck"; or rather from the sea, which the Britons and other inhabitants around these shores once called "mor." Of Therouanne, the city of the Morini, Their capital was Taruana, or Therouanne, or Teroana, adorned with a bishopric since the times of the Emperor Honorius, as is established from the ancient register of provinces; but the bishopric of Boulogne was joined with it for many centuries afterward, so that the same person was Bishop of both the Morini and the Bolognesi. But in the memory of our fathers, around the year 1553, the city was utterly destroyed by the Emperor Charles V, now destroyed, on account of its frequent factions and never sufficiently trustworthy loyalty. The disaster was marked for the memory of posterity by the chronographic motto: "MorInI DeLetI" The Morini Destroyed. The bishopric was divided into three: that of Boulogne under the dominion of the French, that of Ypres in Flanders, and that of Saint-Omer situated in Artois.

[2] Blessed John was Bishop of Therouanne at the beginning of the twelfth century, Blessed John was Bishop; born at Warneton in Flanders, a regular Canon at Mont-Saint-Eloi near Arras. He departed this life on 27 January in the year of Christ 1130, on which day Ferrarius in his general catalogue of Saints: "At Therouanne in Belgium, Blessed John, Bishop." Whose commemoration is in the Martyrologies on 27 January. The Gallo-Belgian Martyrology: "At Therouanne and neighboring places, the death of Blessed John, Bishop of the same place, is celebrated." Molanus in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium: "On the same day, in the year one thousand one hundred and thirty, the death of Blessed John, Bishop of the Morini, who governed the bishopric most holily for thirty years, a diligent guardian of courts of justice, of the poor, of churches, of libraries, and of the extension of religion. He is piously believed to have been inscribed in the book of life among the number of the Saints, although he has not been canonized by the Roman Church. His life, written at Saint-Bertin, is extant. He established Regular Canons at S. Martin's in Ypres." Miraeus also reports him and calls him Blessed in the Belgian Fasti and in his book on the colleges of Canons, chapter 125. Saussay reckons him only among the Pious. Ferreolus Locrius designates him as Blessed in his Belgian Chronicle.

[3] His life was written by John de Collemedio, By whom his life was written, who, after being a Regular Canon for sixteen years in the Church of S. Martin at Ypres, became Archdeacon of the Morini and lived with the holy Bishop for fourteen years, whence published here, for which reason he declares at number 16 that he writes nothing except what he himself has verified, or what he has learned from the most certain accounts of truthful men who were intimately familiar with his life. He wrote it, moreover, in the ninth month after John's death. Rosweyde had copied this Life from an old codex of Saint-Hubert. Our Martin L'hermite, a most learned and at the same time most courteous man, communicated to us the notebooks of Johannes Buzelin, in which the same Life of Blessed John was extant, copied from an old codex of Therouanne, which we collated with Rosweyde's copy. The same Buzelin had gathered from various authors and other ancient records various things concerning the notable deeds of John which were omitted by the author of the Life. These and other things we shall briefly touch upon below.

John, Bishop of Therouanne in Belgium (Bl.)

BHL Number: 4439

By John de Collemedio, from manuscripts.

PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.

[1] Those skilled in the secular sciences have extolled with wondrous praises, After the example of the ancients, and adorned with wondrous monuments, the names of those whom antiquity held famous for various reasons. For they strove to distinguish the deeds of some with statues cast from any metal; to engrave the deeds of others on bronze tablets with letters bordered in tawny gold; and to illuminate the deeds of still others with a great number of books. For some they built temples; for others they took care to erect triumphal arches and to carve in white marble either the memorable labors of soldiers or the calamities of captives, sparing neither effort nor expense. For by these means they thought an enduring memory could be reckoned both in their own name and that of others. But however great these things were, their age advanced just as far. How little a fruit of profit did they gather from all their labors? Their buildings were partly destroyed by men who did not care for other things, and partly collapsed through the corruption of age itself. Whence it came about that, as those men perished in their own unbelief, their corruptible works were likewise unable to endure. If any of them survive, Ecclesiastes, scorning their vain endeavors, has derided them. Ecclesiastes 2. Wherefore I would rather advise them to seek lasting life than lasting memory--the way which our Fathers wore smooth by good works. The deeds of the Fathers are therefore described by their descendants so that the paths of life which went before may be prepared for all; whence we judge the labor of those who in writing sought not their own glory but either the profit of their neighbors or the honor of God, to be not only not to be despised, but not undeservedly to be rewarded by God.

[2] And so I, too, however unskilled and uncircumcised of lips, think that I shall not be useless, The author, who had lived with John, either to myself or to others, the children of holy Mother Church who are eager to make progress, if by writing the life of a venerable man, and one who is rightly judged worthy of imitation, I bring it forth to the advancement of many. That I should undertake this work, both the affection of that charity with which I most ardently loved the same servant of God persuaded me, and also not a few of the Brothers impelled me with most importunate prayers and innumerable exhortations. For they said that this could be more fittingly enjoined on no one else, since I had dwelt with him for so long a time. Although conscious of his own littleness, After previous deliberation with myself, I judged it good to obey their will. Placed, as it were, on the very threshold of beginning, I somewhat drew back my foot, terrified on the one hand by the sight of my own lack of skill and on the other by the magnitude of the task,

"Turning many things over in my mind, and not vainly shrinking From committing my sails in so frail a bark to so deep a sea."

I considered furthermore that such a work should rightly be enjoined upon a skilled writer in particular, lest a more uncultivated style should obscure the grandeur of the subject matter, when it could by no means express those things with a diction worthy of their dignity. Nine months after his death, But since in such deliberation, now that nine months had passed since his death, I have found no one among the learned to have applied himself to this task, either because it was not permitted or because it was not desired ... This I certainly do for the greatest reason, so that both in the present I may comply with the pious desire of my Brothers, and in the future I may enjoy the reward rendered to me by God for so small a labor, because in the succeeding age I have not allowed the merits of so great a man to be obliterated by blind silence.

[3] I shall therefore begin to unfold in part the deeds of the holy and venerable man John, Bishop of the Morini, He writes his life, invoking the Holy Spirit who dwelt in him, that by favorably breathing upon my undertakings He may make me speak truthfully of the things which He deigned to work through him. Let him, however, expect his reward from God--not whoever has examined these things by reading, but whoever has imitated them by action.

CHAPTER I.

The education and studies of John.

[4] The man of the Lord, John, therefore, was born within the boundaries of the bishopric of Therouanne, in a town called Warneton, which the river Lys bathes with its gentle and placid flow, John born in Flanders to pious parents, of parents who were honorable according to the world and God-fearing. His father bore the name William, and his mother Phagala. Both indeed were laypeople, but, as was clearly apparent from the good fruits of their works, both were true Christians, and both devoted themselves faithfully to the service of Christ. For they zealously applied themselves to alms-giving, provided food to the hungry and clothing to the naked, and engaged in other pious works of mercy. When they had brought forth a son by carnal generation, they immediately took care to adopt him for Christ through spiritual regeneration, and having washed him in the saving bath, they named him John. This they are believed to have done not so much by their own judgment as by that of the supreme Judge, because what was later shone forth by the divine gift of grace seems to have been prophesied by his very name.

[5] Of this, no small proof shone forth from the very beginnings of his tender infancy. He devotes himself to letters, For when he was entrusted by his parents to the study of letters, he progressed so well with the aid of that same grace that not a few, whom his conduct had suspended in admiration, already augured with no false omen that he would become great. For he was less intent on the enticements of childish games than that age would seem to require, and he was no little vigilant in the discipline to which he had been given to be instructed. He humbly strove to attend the assemblies of the Church and to obey the precepts of his elders to the best of his ability. And when his boyhood was past, after he arrived at the crossroads of that Pythagorean letter, prudently declining the path of the left-hand way, then to Sacred Scripture: this wise traveler of life chose the narrow and steep way to the right; and having not so much dismissed as cast away poetic fictions, he directed his mind to investigating the meanings of the divine Scriptures, by which the inner man is nourished and advances in divine love. What provinces he traversed in his pilgrimage for the sake of study, what cities he visited, what teachers he heard, hungering, thirsting, suffering cold, for the most part continuing in vigils day and night--reading by day, that is, and writing by night--it is not within our capacity to unfold.

[6] In those times, however, although he had many teachers, he cherished two above the rest, whom we have judged worthy of mention here for the integrity of their lives. One was Master Lambert of Liege, a man of great religion and learning; He had excellent teachers, the other, who was held by all to be the greater, was the Lord Ivo, who was afterward Bishop of Chartres, and how great a pinnacle of religion and learning he held in his times, even today both the monasteries he established and the books he composed still testify. Of this faithful servant, he becomes most learned: therefore, and prudent steward of the great household in the Lord, our John was no dull hearer nor sluggish imitator; and with the unction of Him who teaches concerning all things more intently imbuing his heart, he progressed in a short time to such a degree that in all of Gaul scarcely anyone could be found who would be judged to be set before him in the prerogative of either life or learning. Whence, returning to his homeland with the Lord's blessing, he brought back treasures dearer than all gold and more precious than every gem.

[7] Then at Lille, at that time the most famous town of that region, He dwells at Lille among the clergy: he remained for some time. Where, because a church had recently been founded by the generosity of Marquis Baldwin and enriched with many goods, there was a very great multitude of clergy gathered from everywhere by the zeal of the same Marquis. Among these he was indeed held bodily, but spiritually he was a pilgrim from the world, which was crucified in his heart; similar to the others in the outward appearance of his garb, but very dissimilar in character. He avoids spectacles. For while others attended to vanities and watched spectacles or entertainments, or by playing provided spectacles for others to watch, he himself, intent on heavenly things rather than earthly, devoted himself to reading or prayer, sitting in his chamber, and never went out except when he had to go to church. If he happened to come upon those spectacles while going out, as we are accustomed to do, he would pass them by with a certain grave swiftness, not even wishing to glance at them. All therefore venerated him on account of the merit of his holiness; not a few even attempted to imitate him in their veneration.

CHAPTER II.

His monastic novitiate. The Archdeaconate of Arras.

[8] But lest anything should be lacking to his perfection that might be judged fit to add to the sum of his virtues, he himself also resolved to renounce the world bodily, He renounces the world: a world which he had already trampled upon in his mind with contempt. And so he approached the Lord John, Abbot of the monastery which was then being established on the hill called Mont-Saint-Eloi, some three or more miles from the city of Arras, a man of extraordinary holiness and religion, and humbly submitted himself to his direction. He becomes a regular Canon: The same man of the Lord received him with the greatest alacrity and joy, giving abundant thanks to Almighty God for so great a consolation divinely bestowed upon him. For since he himself observed the Rule of Blessed Augustine in that same monastery and had imposed it upon his brethren for observance, he judged his religion and prudence to be no little necessary for himself in this work. And not undeservedly: for who would not desire that pearl of divine wisdom which this shrewd merchant had purchased by selling all that he had? He seemed to have cast off everything temporal and to desire only eternal things. What more? To express much in few words, such was his manner of life in the monastery that he was able to benefit all equally by word and by example.

[9] Meanwhile, with Pope Urban II of holy memory holding the summit of the Apostolic See, the Church of Arras was released from the yoke of the Church of Cambrai, under which it had long groaned oppressed: the same Pope bringing this about by every means and fully restoring the Church itself, by Apostolic authority, to the state of its ancient liberty. Therefore, after a solemn fast preceded by prayers, as the creditable custom of the Church required, by Lambert, the first Bishop of Arras after the separation from Cambrai, with the clergy and people gathered from various churches, by the precept of the aforementioned venerable Pope, a canonical election was made in the same Church, with Christ granting approval. The Lord Lambert, the Precentor of the aforesaid Church of Lille, was elected to that same bishopric, a man in all respects upright and devout, not undeservedly to be adorned with the pontifical mitre. Therefore, with everyone exulting greatly and praising God, since he had been present, summoned while completely unaware of this matter, he was seized and dragged forth, and, although unwilling, although resisting greatly and protesting, he was elevated to the episcopal chair. Since the Lord Rainald, Archbishop of Reims, was delaying his consecration out of favor, as was believed, toward the people of Cambrai, he at length journeyed to Rome himself with a portion of his clergy, consecrated at Rome by Urban II, humbly prostrated himself at the Pope's feet, and humbly prayed to be absolved from the bond of obedience to him. But not having obtained what he asked, he was solemnly consecrated by the hands of the Pope himself, as if by those of Blessed Peter, and was thus at last sent back to his Church, fortified with Apostolic privileges.

[10] When he returned and was making the circuit with the due vigilance of pastoral care of the Lord's field which he had received to cultivate, and visiting the bishopric, he discovered many damages inflicted in various places through the neglect of the cultivator: here thorns, there thistles sprouting in broad shoots; there the useless growth of tares mixed in with the wheat. Seeing that he could not suffice alone, he resolved to summon others to share in his care. John is summoned as a helper, He gathered devout and prudent men from everywhere, with whose help, by dividing the weight of his burden, he might be lightened. Among these, he particularly judged that our venerable John, whom we have undertaken to discuss here, formerly very well known to him--since he had both lived most intimately with him at home and had labored for some time in the study of the sacred Scriptures under the aforementioned teacher Ivo--ought to be especially chosen for this work. And is made Archdeacon. He appeared approved by God and men, and upon him the Bishop imposed the supreme charge of the Archdeaconate. Nor did he err in his judgment, nor did his opinion in this matter deceive him. For it is a memorable thing about that Bishop that all who were chosen as Archdeacons by him afterward became Bishops. For we know that he had only three Archdeacons, all of whom we afterward saw become devout Bishops: the first indeed was the Lord John, Bishop of Therouanne; then the Lord Clarebald, Bishop of Senlis; and last, the Lord Robert, who by God's ordering became his successor. When, therefore, he invited the venerable man to take up the burden of the aforesaid prelacy, unwilling and compelled by censures, he began vehemently to resist and was unwilling to desert his state of contemplation even for a moment. At length the Bishop punished the entire Church in which he dwelt with an interdict of divine services, in order to draw out one person from it. Nor could he resist any longer. He therefore undertook the care of the Archdeaconate against his will. How he exercised it, we would attempt in vain to say, since it would seem to us that we must collapse beneath the weight of the task. He not only did not burden churches and ecclesiastical persons with any new impositions, contrary to the ancient custom of Archdeacons, but he remitted the exactions imposed by previous Archdeacons.

CHAPTER III.

The episcopate thrust upon him against his will.

[11] In these circumstances, the Church of the Morini, outwardly indeed harassed by wicked men, especially by Count Robert of Flanders who persecuted it, had suffered many disturbances, and from the times of Bishop Drogo of good memory had been vexed with tribulations for about twenty years; With the Church of the Morini miserably afflicted, but inwardly, through the very wicked character of certain persons, just as the sick are more destructively aggravated by evil humors, it was afflicted all the more dangerously and thereby more miserably. For when Hubert, the successor of the aforesaid Drogo, was wounded through the treachery of certain persons, so that he seemed about to die immediately, and on that account became a monk, after Lambert of Belluan the usurper was expelled, a certain Lambert of Belluan, with the supporting violence of the aforesaid Count, invaded the bishopric of the Morini, having even the doors of the church violently broken down; he drove nearly all the clergy into exile in various places (because they would not communicate with him), and held--or rather vexed--the Church for almost two years. But as he had entered by hostile means, so he was expelled by hostile means, his tongue and the fingers of his right hand having been cut off. When he was expelled, Gerard was substituted, elected indeed by the clergy and sought by the people, but, as was afterward declared, not sufficiently canonically, having won royal favor for himself; with Gerard simoniacally promoted, for a monetary agreement had intervened, although he himself, as they say, was unaware of it, until, having been demanded to pay, he was forced to discharge what had been agreed upon. Such great inconvenience followed this plague that he hardly ever had peace, and, compelled by excessive want, confused right and wrong. I am ashamed to say what I feel. Prebends were sold, the goods of the Church were squandered, and all this was unable to drive away domestic poverty. But by the judgment of the Almighty, what was acquired illicitly was continually consumed, as if by a certain rust. When he had presided for fifteen years and more, having been accused of this heresy of simony before the often-mentioned Pope Urban, being accused before the Pope, voluntarily resigning, and becoming a monk; the most valiant combatant against the plague of simony, and being granted the opportunity to purge himself, since he could not excuse himself, he ceased from the administration of the bishopric and betook himself to the above-mentioned monastery of Mont-Saint-Eloi; and gladly embracing the quiet so long denied him (for he was placid in character), he grew old in peace.

[12] Then indeed a strange confusion of the Church follows: for the Archdeacons, having assembled together with the cathedral clergy, with Erkembold refusing the bishopric; elected a certain Erkembold, a Canon of the Church of Saint-Omer. When he stubbornly resisted, and was not on the other hand urgently sought, that election was annulled with the greatest ease. Then they assembled again, and elected as Bishop Aubert of Amiens, John is elected together with Aubert: who had recently obtained a canonry of the Church of the Morini contrary to the sanctions of the canons, by which a cleric is forbidden to be enrolled in the churches of two cities. But the devout Abbots, since some had given their assent to both elections, desiring that a suitable steward be appointed for the house of God, for which they burned with zeal, and therefore having the fear of God before their eyes and invoking the Holy Spirit: "We elect the Lord John, Archdeacon of Arras, to be placed over the holy Church of God, whom we have truly recognized to be fitted for so great a governance, endowed with the gifts of a blameless life and praiseworthy learning."

[13] Soon, by divine prompting no doubt, the men of the lay order who were present yielded to their judgment with much favor. While those on the other side protested, and not without rancor and indignation shouted that the Abbots were striving in vain, the controversy was at length transferred by appeal to the hearing of the Lord Pope. And this was indeed opportune. For at that same time the Pope had called a general council at Rome from the various parts of the world. The case of both was examined at Rome, In that council the cause of the Morini was considered, and the election of Aubert being rejected without difficulty, the Lord John, whose holiness widespread fame had proclaimed, was pronounced worthy by the voices of many, and his election was solemnly confirmed by the Lord Pope according to the judgment of the Council. Nor did the people desist from their undertaking until the opposing party consented to the same election, having been convinced equally by reason and authority. But lest he should escape by flight, all these things were transacted without his knowledge. The Lord Pope, lest he attempt to evade the matter, threatened him with a letter of the following kind: "Urban, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son John, Archdeacon of Arras, health and Apostolic blessing. Since it has been reported to our ears He is ordered by the Pope to accept the bishopric: that you have been elected by the common vote of devout men, both clergy and people, in the Church of the Morini, we greatly rejoice. By the authority, therefore, of the Apostolic See, we confirm and ratify that election, and lest you evade it on any pretext, we absolutely forbid it by the same authority."

[14] When he had read the Apostolic letters unexpectedly presented to him, he is troubled upon receiving the Pope's letters: he was immediately shaken with such great grief that he grew weary of his own life. On the one hand, he placed before the eyes of his mind the pitfalls that lay ahead. On the other hand, the supreme difficulty of being bishop, especially in that Church, entered his thoughts, since it had been diminished beyond measure outwardly in its possessions, and inwardly--which he dreaded even more--enormously dissolved with regard to the rigor of discipline. Placed, therefore, in such a conflict of thoughts, he did not know what to do or where to turn. While he was thus wavering and deliberating what to do and how he might most advantageously find a way out while beset by so many dangers, he at length yielded to salutary counsel, choosing rather to ride upon the storms of the sea, with Christ's favor, in whatever sort of vessel, than to plunge himself into the uncertain shipwreck of disobedience.

[15] He is ordained a priest, It was the year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand and ninety-nine. In this year, therefore, on the second day before the Nones of June, having received ordination to the priesthood, and in the following month--namely, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of August--by the venerable Lord Manasses, Archbishop of Reims, with the grace of Christ cooperating in all things, he was consecrated Bishop in the city of Reims. then Bishop. Whence, returning to Therouanne, he was received with the greatest exultation of the clergy, the nobles, and all the people, and with all rejoicing and praising God, he was solemnly enthroned on the Pontifical chair on the ninth day before the Kalends of the aforesaid month. O happy times, he is enthroned; in which benefits are proven to be granted from above! Behold, with Urban presiding, with Urban keeping pastoral watch over the Lord's flock and prudently arranging throughout wide-ranging stations watchful guards for his sheepfold, he effectively prevents the bites of ravening wolves from the sheep which You, O Christ, have redeemed. But perhaps what we say will become clearer if we name some of the devout Bishops of that time. For there were at that time Bishops of various Churches, at what time there were several distinguished Bishops, conspicuous in religion, eminent in learning, and most celebrated in fame. Among them were Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, Legate of the Apostolic See to Gaul; the above-mentioned Manasses, Archbishop of Reims; Ivo of Chartres; Lambert of Arras; Odo of Cambrai; Noalo of Paris; Godfrey of Amiens--besides others whom that age held to be illustrious.

CHAPTER IV.

Virtues in the episcopate. His distinguished helpers.

[16] For when he was invested with the pontifical insignia, who would be sufficient even to investigate, let alone to express, how temperate he showed himself to himself, how just to his subjects and neighbors, and how pious toward God? For I am confident that in this matter I have knowingly neither said nor will say anything false, except what I myself have verified, having lived in his company for the space of nearly fourteen years, or what I have learned from the most certain accounts of truthful men who were intimately familiar with his life. The chastity of John, He obtained such great purity from boyhood, such great cleanness through the grace of God, that no one ever easily suspected him of touching a woman even with concupiscence, although it is not unknown to us that he was often vexed with many temptations of this kind. Guard over the senses, He was so strict a chastiser of his other senses that neither was his speech immodest, nor his glance wanton, nor his hearing occupied in listening to vain things. Abstinence, As regards taste and smell, he was always of admirable abstinence. For from the eating of meat he abstained in every way even to the last old age of his life. But about three years before he departed from this light, when a certain Cardinal Priest, a Legate of the Apostolic See, had come to visit him and found him so weakened in body from excessive frugality that he could scarcely walk on his feet or complete the celebration of the sacred rites, he began most urgently to press him that he should no longer refuse to eat meat on occasion. When we also humbly made the same request of him together with that Priest, he was entirely unwilling to comply, until, constrained by obedience on behalf of God and the blessed Apostles, he could not but obey. From that time he did indeed use meat occasionally, but most sparingly. Moderation in clothing. In his clothing he observed such a mean that his garments were neither excessively costly nor, on the contrary, excessively cheap.

[17] Immediately, therefore, when he received the chair of episcopal dignity, he gathered men of proven religion, chosen from various monasteries, whom he associated with his retinue to labor in the vineyard of the great Householder for the daily wage. That we may briefly demonstrate the integrity of their life and their energy in good works, and name some of them here: among their number were the Lord Achard, who had led an eremitical life devoted to God in the place which is now the monastery of S. Nicholas in Arrouaise, whom, upon the death of Archdeacon Hugh, he appointed in his place, Devout men as his helpers: Achard, and who today also survives and presides over the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem; and the Lord Richar, who for a time prudently administered the management of his household that had been entrusted to him, and afterward, keeping watch for some years over the office of Abbot in the same monastery of Arrouaise, completed the course of this present life by falling asleep in the Lord. Richar, Gerard, Also the Lord Gerard, a man in all respects devout, a Canon of the Church of S. Aubert at Cambrai, afterward appointed by him as the first Abbot in the monastery of Ypres, my teacher, who in that same place took care studiously to benefit equally the others over whom he presided for about sixteen years, and, continually persevering in good works, after the many labors which he endured for Christ, at last rested in peace. When he was elected to the aforesaid abbacy, Herbert, the Lord Herbert, already a young man of good hope, a Canon of the monastery of Formeselle, was taken into his service, and he had him as Chaplain in place of the same Gerard; and he afterward appointed him as successor in the Archdeaconate when the aforesaid Achard, having set out for Jerusalem, was no longer willing to return. He also had another Gerard as Chaplain, whom he appointed as Abbot over the Canons of the monastery of Lo, at their request. Another Gerard.

[18] Thus nearly every congregation of regular Brothers that happened to have been bereft of its own pastor in those parts desired above all to have a Father appointed for them from his household. Most recently of all, as the offscouring of all, and on account of the multitude of my iniquities not even worthy of being named in the number of such men, he also took me to himself, truly as one untimely born; and having detained me with him for nearly thirteen months, The author of this book, after the death of the Lord Arnulf, Archdeacon, he imposed upon me the care of that office, when I was quite a young man, certainly against my hope and the will of nearly all--in this perhaps, if I dare say it, deserving of blame. When, to confess truly, I was so bold as to question him reprovingly the very next day about why he had done this, he replied that the scarcity of prudent men, which then seemed to have befallen him, had brought him to that decision. So he said; while I understand that, by the altogether just judgment of God, to heap up my own misery I have stumbled upon this, as it were, stone of stumbling--and not unfittingly, for I who have scarcely ever governed my own soul well for even a single hour, how shall I escape when I must render an account to the strict Judge for the souls of others, whose oversight and care I have undertaken? Therefore on my own part I am pleased to cry out with the Apostle: "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death," that is, from the pit of misery and from the mire of filth? Romans 7:24; Psalm 39:3.

[19] Moreover, many devout Abbots most frequently attached themselves to him, who, having zeal for God, desired to profit by imitating him: the Lord Cono, Abbot of the often-mentioned monastery of Arrouaise, Various Abbots, afterward Bishop of Palestrina and Legate of the Apostolic See to Gaul; the Lord Lambert of Saint-Bertin; Bernard of Watines; Gerard of Ham; and the Lord Hugh, a Clerk, afterward made Abbot in England of the monastery of Reading, and now Archbishop of Rouen; and a not inconsiderable throng of other Abbots and Clerks, whose names it would seem superfluous to recite here.

[20] The servant of Christ delighted in the company of such men, so that he appeared to be strengthened by their consolation for bearing the hardships of this present exile. These he had as witnesses of his inner life in private, and of his works in public. For whatever good things he exhorted others to do by words, he first showed in reality by doing them in his own works, so that his life might not disagree in action from what his tongue sounded in preaching. Through him, there was always either spiritual meditation, The occupations of John in his leisure, or sacred reading, or certainly profitable discussion leading to contempt of the world and love of God, or prayer poured out to God for himself and those committed to him. When it was time to rise for the nocturnal vigils, or in the morning, the Bishop was the first to rise, and in rising he was careful enough not to disturb the others who were resting with any noise whatever. Modesty in rising, For he spared hardly anyone less than himself. Then sitting in the chamber of the secret place of his heart, with the storms of secular thoughts removed, he devoutly prayed to his Father; private prayers, and in this very exercise, whether of meditation or reading, he persevered until Prime; and after Prime, namely until Terce. Then he would proceed to celebrate the solemnities of the Mass, reading at table, which he fulfilled either daily or very frequently in his own person. At his table, the sacred reading resounded daily, by which, just as the outward man was nourished by bodily food, so the inner man might be fattened with spiritual sustenance.

CHAPTER V.

Ecclesiastical discipline. Other virtues.

[21] The Church of the Blessed Mary at Therouanne, which, as we have said, he found miserably wasted both inwardly and outwardly, He repairs the Church of the Blessed Mary: he immediately, in the first days of his ordination, prepared as a wise architect to restore with a twofold structure. And indeed, as regards the insensible material of stones and wood, beginning for the most part from the foundations, he laudably completed it on the outside; but on the inside, with living stones and rational timbers, he restored it much more profitably. He instructs the clergy: For he strove to gather into the Lord's armies whatever clergy were distinguished in character and learning and were not attached to any other Church--that is, who did not hold ecclesiastical benefices--and to bestow upon them suitable and sufficient stipends from the resources of his Church, to the best of his ability. We know indeed and bear truthful witness He instituted no exaction, that throughout the entire time of his pontificate he abstained so thoroughly from every spirit of covetousness that he never made even the slightest exaction upon his subject clergy or laity, either by request or by nod. And he was entirely unwilling to accept the fines by which, for their transgressions not even fines: and violations, men ought to be mulcted by Bishops according to the laws, even though he was criticized by some for this very thing. Whence it came about that in the Church of God there existed a more honorable and more useful congregation of clergy, and no occasion for slandering the Priest of the Lord was afforded to the malicious.

[22] He also labored to bring back to the standard of right living the other clergy of that diocese, who had for many years followed the broad ways of the world and the desires of the flesh, He exterminates the simoniacs: invited both by example and by word. Some of them he found infected with the simoniacal plague, which he resolved to attack and exterminate with all his might. The Church of Ypres testifies to what I say; the Church of Formeselle testifies: these were namely wrested from the hands of the usurpers of this heresy, convicted by canonical judgment. For when those who had acquired a church for themselves through simony were expelled from it, he let out the Lord's vineyard to other workers. He gives the Church of Ypres to the regular Canons: When he had freed the Church of Ypres and retained it for himself for some time, he gave it to the regular Brothers, and having appointed the Abbot whom we named above, he confirmed it to be held in perpetuity by an episcopal privilege. The Church of Formeselle, however, he converted entirely to the regular state, He reforms Formeselle: except that he appointed the one who had previously been its Provost as Abbot of regular Clerks in another place, and set over that Church another of more notable religion, and afterward increased their revenues by his generosity. Whence it came about that in both Churches clergy professing the Rule of Blessed Augustine live spiritually to this day and receive in common, through his provision, the stipends due to their holy labors. He establishes various monasteries: He subsequently established seven or more other monasteries in various places and arranged in each of them congregations of monks or clerks proposing to live according to the rule of the Apostles. As for the rest, who through the ecclesiastical grades were to keep diligent watch over governing the people of God and to devote themselves to the exercise of virtues, he partly admonished and partly compelled them.

[23] We remember that a certain son of iniquity, instigated by the counsels of certain most wicked men, with the devil working through them, once laid snares against his life, and that, with God alone as his protector, the enemy's wiles by no means harmed the just man. For when his passage through a certain small village had been known in advance, and the way had been blocked to perpetrate the crime, while, rushing with great force, the assailant was striving to pierce the Priest of the Lord with a lance as he was passing, He is divinely delivered from the hands of an assassin: and he, hearing the outcry behind him and looking back at the blow of the raging attacker about to strike at any moment, as one desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ, fearlessly awaited it, and did not attempt to flee anywhere (although he was on horseback and the attacker was on foot) or to dodge; immediately by divine power the point of the persecutor was suspended in the air above the head of the Bishop, he forbids that the man be punished; and thus the enemy, frustrated of the fruit of his wickedness, withdrew in confusion. The atrocity of his crime, while the Bishop himself remained silent and sought no vengeance at all, nor even wished it--since many were resolved to avenge him--he absolutely forbade this from happening in any way. But although he himself, patient and merciful, exacted no retribution for so great a savagery, yet He who says "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay" Hebrews 10:30 did not remain silent. For both the assailant and all who were found to have conspired with him in so grave a crime, the Lord, having first punished them with various penalties, shortly removed from the midst of the living. Yet they are punished by God together with their accomplices. Wherefore those who remember having persecuted him in any way, whether by evil deed or by the sword of the tongue, I think it worthwhile to admonish here briefly from fraternal charity, that they should not neglect to wash away their guilt by repenting in the present while it is still permitted, lest, when the strict Judge demands it, they be compelled to pay just and severe penalties in the future. Furthermore, concerning him, I dare confidently affirm that by his good works he earned favor with God, as with all good men. And although fame might have proclaimed great things of him in his absence, when it was permitted to enjoy his presence, the report that fame had given of him in his absence seemed somehow less. So the greatness of the reality surpassed the greatness of his reputation.

[24] Moreover, a certain angelic honor adorned his countenance, and a certain divine quality constantly shone in his face, and it had so invested his eye, as it were, with such great reverence that whoever looked upon him loved him freely and venerated him from the heart without constraint. Indeed, with Pope Paschal of blessed memory, he had obtained such familiarity Most pleasing to Pope Paschal, that the Pope always counted him among his dearest friends. And so, throughout the entire time of his papacy, whatever he asked from that See he obtained without any difficulty. Therefore the same Pope, at his intercession, bestowed privileges upon the monasteries which he himself had founded. And because the Pope had a good opinion of his integrity and wisdom, he delegated to him many affairs of various Churches and persons to be handled in his stead. He sometimes commended to him the governance of other Churches deprived of their Bishops, and of certain dioceses of another province. He is appointed to handle various Church business. These are found even today in the Church of the Morini in letters directed to him from the Apostolic See at various times. But lest he should appear to glory in such things, he declined to use this power (as far as he could without violating obedience). Hence it is that he never visited those dioceses. And he scarcely visited those Churches even once. And concerning these things, although more could and rightly should have been said, let it suffice to have commemorated these few.

CHAPTER VI.

A danger to his life; dispelled from heaven.

[25] But something occurs which ought still to be related with the pen as it runs concerning his deeds, and which we know, as is written, has been long desired by many. For very many of the Brothers wished these things to be written down even while he was still alive. About fifteen years before he died, while he was making a pastoral visitation of his diocese as was his custom, it happened that he lodged in a village called Merkem. He comes to Merkem: Now beside the churchyard there was a certain fortification (which we may call a castle or stronghold), very lofty, built according to the custom of that land, erected by the lord of that very village many years before. For it is the custom of the wealthier and nobler men of this region, because they are especially given to pursuing enmities and bloodshed, that they may remain more secure from their enemies and by greater power either overcome their equals or oppress their inferiors, to heap up a mound of earth of whatever height they are able, and to dig around it a ditch as wide as possible and of great depth, and to fortify the top crest of the same mound on every side with a palisade of wooden planks most firmly joined together, in place of a wall, and with towers arranged around the circuit as much as possible; within the palisade, to build in the center a house, or citadel, which overlooks everything; in such a way, that is, that the entrance gate of the town itself can only be approached by a bridge, which, first beginning from the outer lip of the ditch, is gradually elevated in its progress, and resting upon pairs of columns--or even sets of three--fixed at suitable intervals on both sides, rises by a measured ascent across the ditch, so that, reaching the same level as the uppermost surface of the mound, it touches the edge of its outermost margin and at that point reaches the threshold at its front face.

[26] While the Bishop, therefore, was being lodged in such a refuge with his large and reverend retinue, having confirmed a huge throng of people both in the church and in its atrium by the laying on of hands and the anointing of sacred chrism, he returned to his lodging in order to change his vestments, since he had decided to bless the cemetery for the burial of the faithful. Then, as he was descending again to complete his intended work and pausing around the middle of the bridge, which had a height of thirty-five feet or more, for a certain reason, with no small crowd of people surrounding him before and behind, [When the bridge collapses, he is divinely preserved from death, together with many others,] on his right and left, suddenly, through the machination of the ancient enemy's envy, the bridge yielded under the weight and collapsed in ruin, hurling a great throng of those people together with their Bishop to the depths below; and as an enormous crash immediately followed, with crossbeams, large timbers, planks, and rubble falling with great force and noise, a certain dark cloud suddenly enveloped all that ruin so that scarcely anyone could discern what was happening. But the mercy of God was swiftly at hand, drove away the darkness, and brought His servant forth unharmed, together with that whole multitude, from the danger. There presents itself to my mind the shipwreck of the Apostle Paul, in which, with the ships and goods lost, God granted all souls to be saved at his prayer. Acts 27. Here indeed, although there was so great a fall of men, and so great a mass of timbers falling in every direction and without order, neither were any of the men injured at all, nor was any damage done to their belongings: he himself also came forth with a cheerful and joyful countenance, the water scarcely reaching his knees, and giving thanks to God, he reproached the contriver of all this treachery with words of this kind: "The devil," he said, "has tried to hinder the work of God, but he shall not prevail, since God Himself is our helper in all things." And with these words, without any delay, he hastened briskly to the blessing of the cemetery. But let this suffice for now.

CHAPTER VII.

His final illness. His death.

[27] I would wish to dwell longer upon the contemplation of such great virtues, but I fear that if the reading should be too lengthy, it will, as usually happens, generate too much tedium for the reader. Having therefore passed over many things which might rightly seem worthy of mention, let us turn our pen to this, that we may teach as briefly as we can about his falling asleep and his burial. Yet we judge that it should by no means be passed over in silence that before he was released from the bonds of the body and departed from this light, he labored with tribulations for almost the entire space of three years. For he saw daily those things which he could not see without grave anguish of soul. For after the death of the glorious Marquis Charles, a worshiper of God, "the earth was given into the hands of the wicked," as Scripture says. Whence the thefts and robberies, frauds and perjuries, plunder and arson, battles and homicides that followed continually tormented with unceasing sorrow the heart of the pious Father, which was full of charity. He suffered much during the time of William the Norman, Furthermore, for two months before his death he endured such a revulsion from food that his soul abominated almost all nourishment, and he took instead of food and drink a small amount of milk. Job 9:24. He labors long with nausea, This indeed was thought by most to have befallen him from the great abstinence which he had always maintained.

[28] For the last six days he labored with dysentery, which, having begun on a Wednesday, then with dysentery: on the following day, that is, on Thursday, he commanded the Priests of the Church to be brought in, so that, according to Apostolic authority, he confesses; he receives the sacred viaticum: he might be anointed with holy oil and the prayer of faith might be poured forth over him. When these things had been performed, preceded by the confession of sins, with an immense weeping of all, and having partaken of the most sacred body and blood, he gave the kiss of peace to all, and thus, having given his blessing and dismissed them, he resolved to bind himself to God through contemplation, the more secretly the more closely. And so, that he might do this more freely, he first ordered everything that he appeared to possess to be distributed to the poor, He makes his testament: so that as a poor man he might follow the poor Christ, who, by His own testimony, had not where to lay His head, although he was not poor, although he had striven at all times to imitate His poverty. Luke 9:58. To the Church, however, he gave books, vestments, and vessels dedicated to the sacred ministry, the value of which was not inconsiderable.

[29] Thereupon he began to discourse most spiritually about the beatitude of that heavenly homeland, He discourses on heavenly glory with a few devout men: for which he had unceasingly burned with desire, as one who by then had scarcely anything of the flesh remaining, with a certain wondrous sweetness of speech. The whole discourse, moreover, on contempt of earthly things and desire for heavenly ones, was woven in the ears of a few devout and spiritual men. There he also allowed me, a sinner, to sit beside him as he spoke, not indeed by my own merit, but by the benefit of our customary familiarity. Although I still partly retain the order of those words in memory, yet I greatly hesitate to insert them in this little work which is already demanding its end. One thing, however, which I have judged worthy of mention at this time: namely, that he then predicted certain things by a prophetic spirit, which shortly after appear to have been partly fulfilled. He makes arrangements concerning his burial and other matters: These I could indeed describe in detail, were I not resolved to spare the modesty of certain persons. But to carry out my purpose further, he arranged with the greatest discretion concerning the burial of his little body, the summoning of Bishops for this purpose according to the statutes of the Fathers, and the hospitality to be provided when those summoned arrived; and concerning all other things which seemed opportune. For he retained all his bodily senses in their complete integrity, and his judgment was so sound and his memory so unperturbed that, although he had always excelled in these, yet at that time especially we all marveled not without amazement at his wisdom.

[30] When these things had been arranged, he again embraced his beloved solitude and gave himself up to God, maintaining the utmost silence. For he had forbidden anyone to be permitted to enter, except any whom he might happen to have ordered admitted, other than those devout men whom he wished to be constantly present. To the people flocking to him; But a not inconsiderable crowd, attracted by the fame of so great a thing, flowed in daily, not only from that city but also from more remote parts. You could see men and women of various orders keeping watch before the doors with most devout humility, requesting the blessing of the holy Bishop with great desire; and if they did not merit obtaining it, that at least as children they might be permitted to see their dearest Father. It was excessively hard and inhuman if the devout people should be forbidden at least to see their Bishop who was about to depart. These prayers and complaints of this kind they heaped up with continual weeping and laments, and some even declared under oath that they would not leave unless they were heard. At length, somewhat overcome by their importunate entreaties and prayers, when we had conveyed to him in a few words their desire, he permitted them by a nod to be admitted. When they had entered with the utmost silence, he opened his eyes, he blesses them; raised his hand, blessed them, and dismissed them. From time to time we admitted others, arriving from every quarter with a similar desire, though with long intervals of delay passing between, in the same order with his permission, and immediately dismissed them. He, however, continued to persevere in his silence, and took great care to keep his eyes almost always closed, lest he should be in any way called away from his inner contemplation or prayer. He was so patient of the pain which he endured most violently that he lay altogether quiet and silent, most patient of pain, nor did he interrupt his silence with any lamentation or groan, as other sick persons are accustomed to do. In this manner he passed the entire following four days, with a perfectly sound mind and sound judgment, and the complete integrity of all his senses.

[31] At length, on Monday, at the first hour of the day, he gradually began to be pressed toward his departure. Therefore, laying him upon a hair shirt sprinkled with ashes according to his wish, He is placed upon a hair shirt and ashes: with the entry now opened, and clergy and monks rushing in with haste, we strove most intently, as befitted such a moment, to chant the psalms. But so great was the grief of all, so great the groaning and weeping of laity and clergy, of men and women, that the voices of those chanting could not be heard above those of the weeping; indeed, the lamentation which the inner sorrow of their hearts elicited was raised on high; heaven was assailed with tears and prayers, and the Divine goodness and mercy was implored with psalms and prayers. While they were chanting and completing the greater part of the Psalter, and also performing for the second time the office which is called the Commendation of the Soul, when he himself seemed to be falling asleep in a gentle slumber, at length that faithful soul was happily divested of the burdensome garment of its flesh, and was led forth he dies to possess (as it is right to piously believe) the rest of blessed immortality, which it had always desired with sighs, and which by whatever means it could while living it had procured for itself. For we know that he held the Catholic faith and had perseverance in good works even to the end. With the mercy of the Lord helping, we faithfully believe he has attained the crown of glory, for He who promised does not deceive. He departed in the year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand one hundred and thirty, Indiction eight, on the sixth day before the Kalends of February, at the third hour of the day; after having presided over his Church for thirty years, six months, and three days.

CHAPTER VIII.

Burial. Miracles.

[32] When we had washed his body according to custom, clothed it in priestly vestments, and adorned it with pontifical insignia, and placed it before the altar of the holy Mother of God, Mary, in the church, His body appears more beautiful after death: it is difficult to say with how great beauty the Lord clothed it, and with how great a light of extraordinary radiance He illuminated his countenance. For his face shone with a certain wondrous and resplendent brilliance, so that it already bore a certain foreshadowing of the glory of the future resurrection even in its lifeless flesh. The merciful Lord was indeed showing what reward His veteran soldier had earned while serving in the tent of his body, since He so greatly illuminated with glory the very tent in which he had served. Throngs of the faithful came from every quarter, vying with one another, desiring to pay devout service to his venerable funeral. You could see them surrounding his bier with pious diligence, He is reverently honored by the citizens: with prolonged gazing and their eyes fixed upon his face, drinking in with most eager eyes that glory of his, unable to be satisfied. And so most of them, when they had withdrawn for a little while, returned again, because it was not enough for them to have seen him once or twice or often. And indeed this throng was present throughout that entire two-day period, with scarcely any hour lacking.

[33] On Wednesday, however, the Lord Robert, the venerable Bishop of Arras, arrived at about the sixth hour with his clergy, to pay the service due to the obsequies of the venerable Bishop according to the statutes of the Canons. He is buried, with Bishop Robert of Arras performing the office. The Bishop of Amiens, who had also been invited by letter for this same purpose, just as the Bishop of Arras, since he could not be present on that day, did not neglect to excuse his absence quite humbly by his own letter. When the solemnities of the Mass had been celebrated by the same Bishop, and I, a sinner, had abundantly anointed with my unworthy hands that glorified face and sacred right hand with a small amount of balsam, which I had kept for some time for this very purpose in a small silver vessel--that small amount of balsam had increased beyond all hope to no small degree--we at last prepared to place him in the tomb. Behind the main altar of the Blessed ever-Virgin Mary, at the side of the altar of S. Maximus the Bishop, where his venerable reliquary also stands, we had caused the wall of the church to be pierced, and his tomb to be placed in it, in such a way that it did not extend beyond the lateral surface of that same wall.

[34] It should not be passed over concerning this, that when the venerable Lord Herbert, Archdeacon, and I were greatly anxious about finding a sarcophagus in which so great a Priest could be fittingly placed, and were urgently considering with each other what needed to be done, it happened by divine will that we passed near the tomb. Now a sarcophagus had been prepared many years before for the sepulcher of a certain Bishop, but had been rejected at that time on account of its excessive shortness; I remember it was declared suitable for no one except a boy or a person of short stature. But our Lord was of tall stature. While we were therefore conversing with much sadness or sorrow, the same Archdeacon said: "Why do we not overturn that sarcophagus, destroying the wall which has been built over it (for since it was useless, it had been recently placed in the foundation of a wall), so that we may more certainly discover whether it can be fitted in some way?" "With many helpers employed," I said, "this could not be done, if any fruit of so great a labor were to remain for us. You know, however, what all affirm to be well established--that on account of the great shortness by which it is limited, it is by no means suitable." "And who knows," he said, "whether it can be adapted by some ingenuity?" "We could perhaps," I said, "extend its front part on the side of the feet, and by adding another stone, somewhat increase its length, if it should happen to have sufficient width." What more? This plan at length recommended itself to us. The stone was therefore overturned, A tomb found by divine providence to be suitable for him, and was found, with God providing for His servant, to be of such length and width that it not only amply exceeded his height but was capable of holding not only his little body but two, or even three, bodies of the same size, if the case should require it. It was also of such purity and such whiteness that no one could doubt that the thing had been so brought about by the favor of God.

[35] Giving thanks, therefore, to the Lord, we decreed that it should be placed in the aforesaid location, since it was more secluded. For he had commanded himself to be buried in a private place, where there would not be a frequent passage of people, since no one would have the opportunity of walking over his tomb. For he judged that this was fitting for all priests, and that members dedicated to the holy ministry ought for no reason to be trampled upon by anyone. When all things had been solemnly completed, he was carried to the place of burial, chiefly by the hands of the Abbots, although the nobles vied with the greatest devotion to at least touch his bier. As the aforementioned honorable man, that is, the Lord Herbert, and I were placing him in it (I shall say something wondrous indeed, but true, with Christ as my witness), holding him individually by the shoulders Those placing him in the tomb feel no weight and placing him in that same tomb, I felt absolutely no weight at all.

CHAPTER IX.

Epitaph. Epilogue of the Author.

[36] I had written a title briefly containing the time of his pontificate and his falling asleep, and a certain summary of his character and works. Which, having been confirmed by the testimony of those who were present, He was buried with a double plate containing we had written both on parchment and on a lead plate. Both we placed at his head: the plate by itself, and the parchment, sealed, in a glass vessel. We retained, as it were, a copy with ourselves, and we have judged it by no means superfluous to insert its text in this little work also.

[37] In the year of the incarnate Word one thousand one hundred and thirty, Indiction eight, on the sixth day before the Kalends of February, the venerable man, his epitaph, lover of all religion, the Lord John, Bishop, died; who at Rome, in a General Council, with Pope Urban II presiding and approving, was consecrated a Priest of this Church of the Morini on the day before the Nones of June, a Bishop on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of August, and was enthroned on the Pontifical See on the eighth day before the Kalends of the same month; he presided over the Church for thirty years, six months, and three days. While he lived he did many good things: he founded eight monasteries of regular clerks or monks. He also expended much on the fabric of this Church, which he had found almost completely overthrown and stripped bare. He contributed the best books, altar ornaments, and very many utensils for use. He was from the cradle a man of the purest life, chaste, sober, humble, patient, merciful, beyond human custom innocent, generous, and hospitable. And in a good old age, full of days, he departed to the Lord; the thirtieth in the catalogue of the Bishops of the Morini; buried in his Church by the hands of the Abbots on the fourth day before the Kalends of February.

[38] When he was entombed, therefore, all departed with immense groaning and weeping. For who would not mourn the public Father of the fatherland? Although certainly he is not to be mourned who by a happy exchange traded the transitory for the eternal, the corruptible and earthly for the heavenly. Yet we cannot command ourselves not to grieve, we who, while still dwelling in the hardships of this exile, have lost so great a consolation of life. O man most outstanding of these times! Steadfast in faith, long-suffering in hope, most abounding in charity--which in these days especially, with the whole world growing cold, has grown cold even in holy men, yet in him advanced daily by increasing, growing to the end. The Author's grief at the death of John. An exemplar of all religion and a mirror of virtues! With whose good things, through his holy love, the propitious Divine grace specially granted me, wretched as I am, to benefit; since that pious Father loved me, though unworthy and undeserving, quite familiarly. But how could he exclude me from the bosom of his charity? In which indeed, as far as was in him, he most affectionately cherished all whom he embraced. Wretched me! Unhappy me! Who have lost the sole consolation of my miseries, the joy of my life. O singular resting place of my soul! What joy can there be for me henceforth without him? Will life ever again be pleasant for me, or any day or hour without sadness? But if reason would admit of so violent a grief, it would be clear enough, with reason itself teaching, that such a man is to be pursued not so much with lamentation as with imitation. He who walked thus before us has plainly shown that we ought to follow him. Unless we continually follow him as our guide with all our strength, ... it is to be feared that in the future examination we shall find him to be our Judge. But what will it be? I certainly (which I confess not without pain) am conscious that, on account of the most troublesome burden of sins which oppresses me, I am unable to follow his steep and narrow step. Yet there remains something for us to hope; something for us to pray--that what we do not deserve through ourselves, we may obtain through the interceding merits of himself and all the Saints, by the grant of Him whose reign and dominion endures glorious forever and ever. Amen.

CONCERNING THE DEEDS OF BLESSED JOHN

Analecta from various authors.

John, Bishop of Therouanne in Belgium (Bl.)

From various sources.

CHAPTER I.

Various monasteries of regular Canons founded and adorned by John.

[1] There is no other thing that avails equally to confirm the minds of mortals in the profession of the orthodox faith, After the ancient custom of good Bishops, or to inflame them with zeal for virtue, as the life of devout men set before them for imitation. For this continually applies silent goads to those who attend more sluggishly to divine things. For this reason, most Bishops who were zealous for the salvation of their people, from the very cradle of the Church onward, always diligently took care either to establish religious communities or to summon them from elsewhere; either to supply them with the necessary sustenance or to exhort them to the observance of right discipline and the exercise of virtues, so that they might more certainly and abundantly benefit the salvation of the other peoples committed to them.

[2] The industry of Blessed John, Bishop of the Morini, in this kind of work was not ordinary. John de Collemedio testifies that he established seven or more monasteries in various places, John builds many monasteries: and arranged in each of them congregations of monks or clerks proposing to live according to the rule of the Apostles; and then in his epitaph: "While he lived," he says, "he did many good things: he founded eight monasteries of regular clerks or monks." Meyer enumerates some of these in book 4, under the year 1099: "With his help," he says, "monasteries were begun at Ypres, Lo, Eversam, Bourbourg, Guines, and Merkem near Diksmuide." But the Bertinian Chronicle written under Abbot Lambert, cited by our Johannes Buzelin: "They received the Lord John as their Bishop in the year of the Lord 1099, who governed the bishopric most holily for thirty years. Six monasteries were newly constructed in his time, namely at Ypres, Lo, and Eversam, of regular Canons; at Bourbourg, Guines, and Merkem, of Black Nuns of S. Benedict. From this, the altars of Merkem belonging to our Church of Saint-Bertin, He benefits Saint-Bertin, from the chapel of Eggafrid, Bas-Warneton, Haverskerque, and other goods he bestowed upon this Church, about which more will be said below in their proper places. And as long as he lived, he never ceased to benefit this Church, a just and holy man; and although he has not been canonized by the Roman Church, we piously believe him to be inscribed in the book of life among the number of the Saints." John of Ypres writes the same.

[3] Miraeus enumerates the same six monasteries, partly begun and partly completed by John, in his Belgian Chronicle under the year 1099. And others: We shall treat of each separately, and first of those which were founded for regular Canons. What pertains to all of them is what the author of his Life writes: "Indeed, with Pope Paschal of blessed memory, he had obtained such familiarity that the Pope always counted him among his dearest friends. And so, throughout the entire time of his papacy, whatever he asked from that See he obtained without any difficulty. Therefore the same Pope, at his intercession, bestowed privileges upon the monasteries which he himself had founded."

[4] Concerning the monastery of Ypres, John de Collemedio writes as follows above: "When he had freed the Church of Ypres (from the stain of simony) and retained it for himself for some time, he gave it to the regular Brothers, and having appointed the Abbot whom we named above (Gerard), he confirmed it to be held in perpetuity by an episcopal privilege." More precisely, Jacques Meyer in book 4, under the year 1101: He introduces regular Canons at Ypres: "John, Bishop of the Morini, a man praiseworthy in all respects, expelled the ambitious and avaricious priests from the town of Ypres on account of their simony and other vices, and at the request of the citizens set over the Churches of SS. Martin and Peter a certain Gerard, a priest of proven life; who immediately, having built a monastery in the meadows, gathered companions for himself who would live according to the Rule of S. Augustine and imbue the people with the teachings of the Gospels." Jacques Marchant also mentions this monastery, which he calls the Abbatial Provostship, in book 1 of his Description of Flanders. But that Abbey was erected into a Cathedral Church in the year 1561.

[5] Marchant reports that the monastery of Lo was begun in the year 1050, with the beginning of its chief endowment arising, as is evident from the archives of that monastery, through Philip, Burgrave of Ypres, born of Robert the Frisian, Lo having been founded earlier, and his son William of Ypres. Miraeus reports the same from Marchant in his book on Regular Canons, chapter 35. Whether Robert had such grown sons and grandsons in the year 1050, let them judge for themselves, since his parents were not joined in marriage until the year 1027, according to Meyer, nor was he himself the firstborn. Meyer writes more credibly in book 3, under the year 1093: "In the same year, Count Philip of Lo assigned his county to the monastery of S. Peter recently established there. For around the year of salvation 1050, Thomas, the Priest of Lo, a man of great religion, converted his church into a monastery of regular Canons, as they are called." Concerning the donation of Philip, see the charters among the letters, where you will also find the history of this Count Robert, written by a certain German more than four hundred years ago. So Meyer, whose account does not seem sufficiently proven to Marchant, who writes that it seems strange that the dignity of a county was in those times so common as to be attributed to a small town having no jurisdiction outside its borders (for it is enclosed by the Castellany of Furnes) and no grandeur within; unless that title refers more to the possessors, who derived from the Princes of Flanders, than to the magnitude of the possession. Indeed, the Abbot of Lo is still Count of that same place. Nevertheless, the persons named by Marchant may have assigned some possessions to that monastery, which he asserts were confirmed by Blessed Charles and Philip of Alsace. He adorns it; As for the fact that the establishment of this monastery is also attributed to Blessed John, it is likely that his labor was directed either to adapting or building structures suitable for religious habitation, or to drafting statutes, or to establishing discipline there in some way.

[6] The same can be said of Eversam. For concerning it Meyer, under the year of Christ 1091, and Eversam: nine years before John was made Bishop, writes thus: "A monastery was also begun in the territory of Furnes, called Eversam, on the river Yser near Stavele, with Walbert, a Canon of Cassel, offering there the altar of S. Peter for that very purpose; which Gerard, Bishop of the Morini, also endowed with liberty." Miraeus reports the same from Meyer in his book on Regular Canons, chapter 42, adding that the Canon is called Walter by others, and that the monastery was afterward wonderfully increased and endowed by Robert of Jerusalem, Count of Flanders, and his mother Gertrude.

[7] Concerning the Church of Formeselle, John de Collemedio testifies above that it, like the Church of Ypres, was wrested from the hands of the usurpers convicted of the heresy of simony by canonical judgment through the zeal of Blessed Bishop John; and that when those who had acquired a church for themselves through simony were expelled from it, He gives Formeselle to regular Canons, he let out the Lord's vineyard to other workers. "The Church of Formeselle, however, he converted entirely to the regular state, except that he appointed the one who had previously been its Provost as Abbot of regular Clerks in another place, and set Albold, a man of more notable religion, over that Church, and afterward increased their revenues by his generosity." This happened in the year 1100. So Meyer in book 4: "The Canons of Formeselle embrace the regular rule and receive Albald as their first Abbot." Marchant also mentions it in book 1. Andre du Chesne, in book 2 of his Genealogical History of the House of Ghent, in the proofs, reports several donations made to this monastery by Robert of Jerusalem and Baldwin with the Axe.

[8] The Abbey of Chocques, also situated near Bethune, a town of Artois, was erected by John in the year 1120. So Buzelin: "Three years later, when Blessed John observed that the Canons of Chocques, near Bethune, were not living quite properly and well, and that the benefices of this Church were being conferred against right and law and the Church of Chocques at the nod or whim of Hugo, Anselm, and Baldwin Rufus, noble men indeed; he was greatly grieved, certainly in proportion to the gravity of the matter, and immediately formed a plan to assign it to regular Canons together with its revenues. And indeed he labored so successfully that, having built a monastery in the fortress of those nobles, he stripped the secular Canons of their benefices and established there men professing the Rule of S. Augustine, who would enjoy the incomes of the priests. And Pope Eugenius III, the Roman Pontiff, afterward ratified and confirmed this arrangement, and drew up a sacred diploma concerning it." Eugenius became Pontiff at the beginning of the year 1145 and died on 8 July 1153. Miraeus treats of the Abbey of Chocques in his book on Regular Canons, chapter 58, and reports that its endowment was afterward increased by William, Baldwin, Daniel, and Robert, Lords of Bethune.

[9] And these benefits were conferred by John upon regular Canons, he who had been formed in their practices at Mont-Saint-Eloi, and who always had certain Abbots of the same order bound to him by close familiarity. The same John dedicated the new church of Arrouaise, He consecrates the church of Arrouaise: built through the industry of Cono, with the wooden oratory demolished, together with S. Godfrey of Amiens, by the permission and at the request of Bishop Lambert of Arras, in the year 1106, on the ninth day before the Kalends of October. He establishes regulars at Fano-Pinum. He also restored Fano-Pinum together with Odo, Bishop of Cambrai, with the assent of Baldric, Bishop of Tournai, at the urging and expense of Ogiva, the widow of Roger, Castellan of Lille, by appointing an Abbot and Canons professing the Rule of S. Augustine. Our Buzelin commemorates this at greater length in book 5 of his Annals of Gallo-Flanders.

CHAPTER II.

Benefits conferred on the Benedictine Order.

[10] But John was not so devoted to the order of the regular Canons that he did not also embrace others, in whom he especially perceived some singular zeal for virtue. The Cluniacs certainly, whom he saw flourishing in the best discipline and holiness of life, he fostered with such benevolence that he was the one who advised Lambert, Abbot of Saint-Bertin or Sithiu, to reform his monastery according to their statutes. Lambert was very familiar with him, a great admirer of his virtue and a promoter of his dignity. For, as Meyer writes in book 4 of his Annals of Flanders, the Roman Pontiff confirmed him By his counsel, the Abbot of Saint-Bertin at the entreaty of Clementia and Lambert, Abbot of Saint-Bertin. How the Cluniac reform was introduced into the monastery of Saint-Bertin is narrated by John of Ypres, later Abbot of that same monastery, in his Chronicle: "In the year 1101, John, Bishop of the Morini, set out for Rome to see the Pope; with whom our Abbot Lambert, pretending to be traveling along, set out on the journey, and shut up the monk he had taken with him under guard in a certain cell at Cluny. He learns the Cluniac statutes, Lambert himself, however, remained at Cluny, made his profession, and learned their order. At length, when the Bishop returned from Rome without the Abbot, our monks sent word once, twice, and thrice to Abbot Lambert to come. When he returned, some obeyed, but the greater part refused to obey. Then he himself, having secretly summoned his soldiers, seized the rebels and confined them in various churches. He introduces them into his own monastery; At that time, the man of holy memory, Abbot Hugh, was governing Cluny, by whose permission Lambert brought devout men from various Cluniac monasteries here and introduced the order here in the year of the Lord 1101. While they lived holily and devoutly, the remaining monks of Sithiu, from fear of the rigor of discipline, fled and dispersed in various directions. Nor did the work of God cease on this account. For by a new fervor of religion, many flocked here, so that in a short time more than one hundred and twenty Brothers were present." So writes John of Ypres.

[11] These things were done with the knowledge and approval of Clementia, wife of Robert of Jerusalem, With the approval of the Count of Flanders and his wife: whom he had placed in charge of his land and everything that was under his jurisdiction while he was away. But when the Count returned, as he himself states in a diploma which du Chesne cites in the Cluniac Library, dated at Arras in the year 1106, on the Ides of February, first rendering immense thanks to Hugh and greatly rejoicing in the sacred religion, and finally having taken counsel with the venerable Bishops Lambert of Arras and John of Therouanne and his other faithful men, he ratified everything.

[12] The same holy Bishop gave the Church of Freveux to the monastery of S. Martin-des-Champs, in the hands of Pontius, Abbot of Cluny, in the year 1112, saving the subjection and obedience He makes various donations to the Benedictines: which the aforesaid Church owed to the Church of Therouanne; as is related more fully in the words of John himself in the same Cluniac Library. The same John was also present when Count Eustace of Boulogne donated the monastery of S. Wulmer to the same Cluniacs in the year 1107, as is evident from the charter of Eustace himself dated in the year 1107, which is extant in the same Library. The same John in the year 1112 bestowed the Priory of S. George, which to this day is seen amid the ruins of old Hesdin, distinguished by opulent revenues, upon the ascetics of Anchin, of the Order of S. Benedict; and Pope Paschal, by a Brief dated the thirteenth day before the Kalends of July, Indiction 5, in the year of the Incarnation of Christ 1112, confirmed that donation or cession of John. Whence one may correct what is added to the Chronicle of Sigebert in the Anchin manuscript under the year 1093: "The Church of S. George of Hesdin is handed over to the Church of Anchin."

[13] The Blandinian monastery of S. Peter in the city of Ghent, where discipline--which S. Gerard of Brogne had restored--had in part collapsed again, He labors for the reform of the Blandinian monastery: was recalled to its former vigor of piety with the help of our John. So Meyer under the year 1117: "The Blandinian monastery was reformed, and a new Abbot named Arnulf was established... The reformers of Blandinium were Prince Baldwin and his mother Clementia, together with John, Bishop of the Morini, and Lambert, Abbot of Saint-Bertin." The author of the Chronicle of Saint-Trond, a contemporary, also mentions this reform: "In those days, Arnulf presided at S. Peter's of Ghent, who afterward during his lifetime gave up the abbacy, being troubled by the Brothers; yet in his time that place abounded with a superabundant supply of food and clothing for both healthy and sick Brothers, and under him the devout practices of the Cluniac order, introduced through him, flourished." Count Baldwin testifies in the letters of donation made to the monastery of Formeselle, in the hands of the Lord John, Bishop of the Morini, etc., that he had ordered the Bishops and Abbots of his realm, and very many persons of the nobility, both clerics and laymen, to convene for the purpose of correcting and amending the rule of the Blandinian monastery, in the year 1117, Indiction 10, on the day before the Kalends of February.

[14] Finally, John gave an Abbot to the monastery of S. Winnoc at Bergues in the year 1120. So Meyer under that year: "Hermes, Abbot of Bergues, was expelled, and he spent the rest of his life most devoutly at Reims in the monastery of S. Nicasius. At Bergues, a new Abbot, Thomas, a monk of Saint-Bertin, was appointed by John, Bishop of the Morini." He appoints an Abbot at Bergues: Blessed John's extraordinary benevolence also extended to the new community of the same order at Ham, whose Abbot Gerard is listed above among his chief familiars.

[15] These were the benefits conferred by John on men of his institute. For women religious, He establishes a convent of nuns at Merkem; professing the same Rule, he founded a monastery in the village of Merkem, a league and a half distant from the town of Diksmuide. The revenues of that monastery, when discipline had completely broken down and only a single religious woman remained, were assigned by the Supreme Pontiff and King Philip II to the Jesuit college at Ypres. Besides those already cited, Miraeus also mentions this monastery founded by John in his Origins of Belgian Monasteries, chapter 58.

[16] There also still exists another monastery of Benedictine nuns founded by S. John, also at Bourbourg, in the town now commonly called Bourbourg, formerly Broucbourg, one league from the town of Gravelines.

[17] A third was at Guines. We believe this to be the one about which Lambert of Ardres writes in his History of the Lords of Guines, chapter 51: and at Guines, at the expense of Countess Emma, "Emma, the widow of Count Manasses, restored at Guines, for the propitiation of her own soul and that of her husband, Count Manasses of Guines, and of their predecessors and successors, from the revenues of her table, the church and cloister of a monastery dedicated to S. Leonard, Confessor and Bishop; to which she assigned nuns taken from the monastery of the Church of Estrome, to serve God in perpetuity. Over them she set a most devout Abbess named Sibylla, or Sibilia, of the family and kinship of Adela, formerly Countess of Guines, whom we said above was called Christina by name, taken from the region of Lotharingia; and she enthroned her in the Church of S. Leonard of Guines over the nuns recently introduced, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1102."

CHAPTER III.

Ecclesiastical authority defended.

[18] Nor was John more generous in doing good to men consecrated to God than he was strong in resisting the attempts of wicked men. The Flemish suffered much from William the Norman, Count of Flanders after S. Charles. Ecclesiastical authority was also violated by him through a certain rescript. The King of the Franks and the Archbishop of Reims were appealed to; by them John was sent to Lille, where he pronounced in favor of the Church and the Canons of that city against the Count. He himself recorded the matter for the memory of posterity:

[19] "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I, John, by the grace of God Bishop of the Morini, wish it to be made known to those present and to come what is contained in the following. When the clergy of Lille, constrained by the extreme need of their Church, When the Church of Lille was injured by Count William, had sought assistance from the tenants of the Church, after the manner of other lords, those men, hardened by the vice of avarice, approached William the Norman, Count of Flanders, and by prayer or price brought it about that he should by every means forbid the clergy from exacting, and the tenants from giving anything to the clergy. Whence the clergy, fearing that the ancient liberty of their Church could be diminished by this insolence, sought out Louis, King of the Franks, and Rainaud, Archbishop of Reims, bringing with them the privileges of the Roman Church and of royal authority, and implored them to repel this injury from the Church. They, having considered the tenor of the privileges, and detesting the Count's action, John is given as judge, wrote to him to desist from this unjust burden upon the Church. Whence, on the appointed day, since we also were present, having been invited by the letters of the Lord Archbishop, the case was brought forward and rationally discussed in the presence of both parties, and it was determined by the common consent and judgment of the Barons of the land that those clergy had the same right of power over their tenants as the other Princes of the land had over theirs, and that no violence should be inflicted upon them in this matter by any Prince. The Count, therefore, publicly convicted by reason and judgment, acknowledged the right of the Church, and having asked pardon for the transgression he had committed, and compels the Count to make satisfaction, and having promised amendment, received through us indulgence and absolution from his guilt. These things we were pleased to commend to the readers and to the memory of posterity, so that if perchance in the future such a case should arise, any power might be restrained from a similar excess, having considered the precedent of this action. Done at Lille, in the sight of the Church of S. Peter, in the year of the Lord 1128, Indiction 6, before these witnesses: Robert, Archdeacon of Tournai, and Provost of the aforesaid Church; Herbert, Archdeacon of the Morini; Absalon, Abbot of Saint-Amand; Mainer, Canon; Lambert; Erembald, Canons; Robert of Bethune; Ingelbert of Petegem, etc."

[20] The same magnanimity of our John had been observed long before in great affairs, and was commended by Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, in his letter 97. At the beginning of the twelfth century, the clergy of Beauvais had elected as their Bishop a certain cleric named Stephen, who, as the same Ivo writes elsewhere, was found far from sacred orders, not yet even a Subdeacon, an illiterate man, a gambler, a pursuer of women, Against Stephen, who coveted the See of Beauvais, once publicly infamous for public adultery, and on that account deprived of the communion of the Church by the Lord Archbishop of Lyons, at that time Legate of the Apostolic See. But other clergy of better reputation and sounder counsel, with the prior advice, the counsel of the Pope, the counsel of the magnates of their diocese, and the approbation of the people, elected Galo as their Bishop, a man upright in life and adorned with liberal studies and ecclesiastical learning. Against him, because he was a disciple of Ivo, nourished by him and educated by him, and elected by the Pope, and because he would be a great adversary to the King, the King openly opposed him, and the King's son; the Archbishop of Reims, more mindful of the royal will than of his own duty, was unwilling to consecrate him. Then Ivo, having undertaken to defend Galo's cause everywhere--indeed, the cause of the Church--enlisted as his helpers our John and Lambert of Arras, with distinguished praise for their zeal. Thus he writes to them: S. Ivo of Chartres implores the help of Blessed John, "I believe you have received the letters of the Lord Pope, transmitted to you also through our fellow brothers, the Canons of S. Quentin; by which we were both reproved for whatever assent we gave to Stephen, the suitor of the Church of Beauvais, and forewarned that we should guard by every means against a person less suited for sacred orders creeping into the Church of Beauvais. Since, therefore, it has always been your custom to reject with perfect hatred wolves creeping into the sheepfolds of God, praising his zeal, and to attack them, like faithful dogs in the house of God, wherever it was permitted, we earnestly and urgently request and admonish your devotion that what you have hitherto done out of love of justice, you should do more readily in this matter out of the obligation of obedience. You therefore, as Suffragans of the Church of Reims, admonish your Metropolitan to exhort the clergy of the Church of Beauvais, according to the tenor of the letters which the Lord Pope sent to the Beauvaisians, to make a canonical election as is his duty of office, so that from the bulwark of his authority both the weak may have something by which they are healed, and the strong something by which they are strengthened. But if, with sloth flattering him, he delays or dissembles in doing this, he is to be admonished by you to so honor his ministry that what ought to be done by him may not be fulfilled by the hands of others. Farewell."

[21] What other things John did for the liberty and peace of other Churches, Buzelin commemorates as follows: It was the year of Christ 1114, when Paschal II, Roman Pontiff, gave the Canons of Tournai the power to elect a Bishop for themselves and thereby to free their Church from the yoke of the Bishop of Noyon. But before they could cast their votes for anyone, Baldric, who governed both bishoprics, having died, the people of Noyon named Lambert, Archdeacon of Tournai, The people of Tournai elect a Bishop for themselves with the Pope's approval: as Bishop of both Tournai and Noyon. Against this, the people of Tournai, relying on the diploma of Paschal, soon nominated Herbert, Archdeacon of the Morini, as their Bishop. And then the letters of Paschal were presented to our John, by which he was ordered to hand over Herbert, who had been elected by the people of Tournai, to them. He immediately did what was ordered. It could not, however, be obtained from Ralph, Archbishop of Reims, that he should graciously consecrate Herbert; and so, partly through Lambert's power and partly through the machinations of Archbishop Ralph and others, it was brought about that the Supreme Pontiff committed the entire disturbed business of giving the people of Tournai a Bishop to Ralph himself to settle. Our Bishop was then summoned to Reims; there, when he perceived that he and King Louis were striving in vain on behalf of the people of Tournai, he freely declared that the King would be free from guilt, but the Bishops would not be without fault, if the consecration of a Bishop of Tournai were impeded.

[22] Hermann, Abbot of S. Martin's of Tournai, relates these things more fully in his Chronicle, some of whose words I think it opportune to subjoin here. "Without delay," he says, "the legates return from Rome with the Pope's letters, give thanks to our Abbot for his response, and by his counsel, with all unanimously assembled in their chapter, they elected as their Bishop a certain Herbert, Archdeacon of the Church of the Morini; and bringing the Pope's letters to John, Bishop of the Morini, they asked and obtained that the same elect be handed over to them as a free man. Then, approaching the aforesaid Archbishop of Reims, The Archbishop of Reims delays his consecration, they implored him to consecrate him according to the command of the Lord Pope. But Lambert, having gotten there first, had already, as it is said, corrupted the Archbishop's mind with money, to such an extent that by his counsel even King Louis dispatched two Bishops, those of Orleans and Paris, to Rome to annul the election of the people of Tournai. Therefore, when the clergy of Tournai sought the consecration of their elect, the Archbishop replied that he would consecrate neither Lambert nor Herbert until the royal legates, the two Bishops whom he had sent to the Pope for the same business, returned from Rome."

[23] And so the consecration of both elects remained suspended and uncertain, when behold, the Bishops returned from Rome, and after the Pope had been wrongly informed, bringing letters of the Lord Pope to the Archbishop, in which the Pope placed the same business in the hand and provision of the Archbishop, saying: "The Archbishop had informed him that if the people of Tournai had their own Bishop, episcopal authority would become too cheap, and the revenues of the Church of Noyon would by no means suffice for the Bishop's needs." Having received these letters, the Archbishop summoned the Bishops subject to him and set a day on which he wished to consecrate Lambert. He entirely rescinds the election; On that very day, however, King Louis, arriving at Reims, summoned all the Bishops and admonished them to deliberate carefully among themselves concerning the same business: "For if," he said, "you judge it more fitting for the honor of God and the salvation of souls that the Church of Tournai should have its own Bishop, I freely concede, because I see that I lose nothing in this, and I do not wish to resist the will of God or the salvation of souls in anything. With John speaking freely against the decision, Nor do I wish anyone to say on my account that something good was left undone, or to think himself excused before God under my cover." To whom the Lord John, Bishop of the Morini, a devout man, responding, said: "Truly, Lord King, by that statement you have freed your soul. Now let my Lords the Bishops see what they ought to do." The Archbishop, however, persevering in what he had begun, consecrated the aforesaid Lambert as Bishop over both Churches. So writes Hermann. Buzelin continues.

[24] Not long after, John had to approach Baldwin with the Axe, Count of Flanders, John induces Count Baldwin to restore goods taken from the Church; so that, together with Lambert, Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, and other great men, he might advise that Prince to no longer retain the allodium, as they call it, which he had taken from the Church of S. Peter at Lille, but to restore it, as equity demanded. And at length, at Lille, at their urging, the Count freed himself of that crime and restored their goods to the Canons. That he might acknowledge that this had been accomplished by him, Baldwin wrote these letters, and our Bishop, together with several others, confirmed them with his seal: "I, Baldwin, by the mercy of God, Count of Flanders, acknowledge through the grace of God that I have sinned against God and the Church of Blessed Peter at Lille, and have done much evil. For the allodium which my venerable predecessor, Count Baldwin, who founded it and is buried in it, conferred upon the aforesaid Church for the honor and service of God and the sustenance of the Brothers, for the remission of his sins, and confirmed by his privilege, and he humbly makes satisfaction, I, a sinner, have recognized that I unjustly took away, against God and the salvation of my soul. Now therefore, touched by the mercy of God, I confess before the venerable Bishops John of Therouanne and Lambert of Noyon and Tournai that I have sinned in this and in other things, and I acknowledge my fault, and I restore to the aforesaid Church its right, namely the aforesaid allodium, which is in the village of Vals in the territory of Aachen ... and I will no longer be a guarantor to anyone therein. I also pray my successors and my faithful men that they labor in every way, with God's help, that that Church may have its right and allodium back in peace and freedom. I, Charles, kinsman and successor of Count Baldwin, in his presence, for the sake of justice, recognize, grant, and confirm the same. Signed: John, Bishop of the Morini. Lambert, Bishop of Noyon and Tournai. Clementia, Countess. Alard, Cup-bearer. Baldwin of Ghent."

CHAPTER IV.

Other ecclesiastical functions.

[25] We do not pursue the very numerous public acts to which John either subscribed or was present. Yet it seemed fitting to subjoin a few items of things done by him. And first, he was present at the consecration of S. Godfrey, Bishop of Amiens. So in the latter's life, under 8 November, in Surius, book 1, chapter 32: John is present at the consecration of S. Godfrey: "After Manasses, Archbishop of Reims, had returned home, the magnates of Amiens come to Nogent, most lovingly escort Godfrey to Reims. There is a great concourse of Bishops from the entire region, among whom were also Lambert, Bishop of Arras, and John, Bishop of the Morini, distinguished in wisdom and learning, celebrated in religion and holiness, pillars and support of the Bride of Christ, devoted to Blessed Godfrey above all others."

[26] This was the service rendered by John to his friend while living; to the dead, the following, from book 5 of Buzelin's Annals: He buries Bishop Baldric: "In the year 1112," he says, "Baldric, Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, paid his debt to nature, carried off by disease at Therouanne. John, Bishop of the Morini, performed the last office for him, committing his body to the earth within the choir of the great church."

[27] The body of S. Humfrid, who had been a monk of Prum, then Abbot of Saint-Bertin, and thence Bishop of Therouanne, was translated by the same Blessed John. So reads an old codex of the Church of the Morini, cited by Buzelin: He translates the body of S. Humfrid: "This John, holy and foremost, a man certainly of great authority, translated and reinterred the body of S. Humfrid beneath the altar of the Blessed Mary in the year 1108, on the Ides of April." Concerning the same translation, Jacques Meyer writes under the year 1108: "In the same year, the body of S. Humfrid the Bishop was translated on the Ides of April by John, Bishop of the Morini." But we shall treat of Humfrid more fully on 8 March.

[28] Blessed John dedicated many churches. Concerning the church of Arrouaise, it was said above. Concerning the church of the Dunes, Meyer testifies under the year 1107: "Ligerius, an anchorite on the shore of Furnes, led a supremely holy life in a solitary and sandy place. He dedicates the chapel of the Dunes: Several devout men came to him in that same solitude, drawn by the fame of his holiness, over whom he presided piously and holily for twenty years, having built a cell which John, Bishop of the Morini, dedicated in honor of the Virgin Mother." Such was the beginning of the monastery of the Dunes, by far the most celebrated of all, to which William the Norman and Theodoric of Alsace, Counts, were the first of all to assign some estates and possessions.

[29] It appears that the most holy Count Charles was bound to our John by a close friendship; by whose arms he was freed from the unjust oppression of the Advocate of Therouanne, as Meyer testifies under the year 1119: He is aided by S. Charles the Count. "He compelled the Count of Boulogne, having ravaged and burned his borders, and all the rest, to lay down their arms; having destroyed the fortress of Eustace the Advocate, which he had newly erected at Therouanne against the liberty of the Church." And again under the year 1122: "Prince Charles destroyed the fortress which Eustace, Advocate of Therouanne, had built at Therouanne, and freed the Church, as we mentioned above, from tyranny." So that it is not surprising that John afterward encouraged Walter to write the history of Charles's life and death, which we shall give on 2 March.