ON ST. CARILEFUS OF LE MANS.
About the Year 540.
PREVIOUS COMMENTARY
Carilefus, Presbyter and Confessor, at Anisole among the Cenomani in Gaul (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
§ I. His fatherland, age, and first monastic instruction.
Among the numerous and celebrated Saints of the sixth century throughout Gaul, a place not the lowest is held by him of whom the discourse has long recurred in our Acts, St. Carilefus, otherwise Carilephus or Karileffus, in many other but generally dislocated ways inflected among the Martyrologists, The Acts prove that he was famous in the 6th century. founder of the monastery of Anisole, more commonly Anisola, in the borders of Le Mans, which today, from his French appellation, is everywhere called St. Calesius, commonly St. Cales or St. Calais. The monastery itself was afterward ascribed to the Benedictine Order, although it is certain that St. Carilefus, with St. Avitus, professed quite another Rule, as you have in Volume III of June page 358, annotation c. That he was born in the fifth century, and died in the following, not yet brought to its middle, all admit; but his exact age, or the chronological series of his whole life, neither his writers handed down, nor is it easy to draw out from elsewhere with sufficient certainty, whatever Cointe established concerning it at the years 517, 525, 528, 532, and 541. The fellowship of St. Avitus, the monastic discipline drawn first at Menat, then under St. Maximin of Micy, thence the migration into the country of Perche, finally into the solitude of Le Mans, the fortuitous approach of Childebert to him in hunting, the broad estate obtained from the King for founding a monastery, and several other circumstances of this kind expressed in the Acts, confirm the conjectures already mentioned, and define the times of our Saint as far as is permitted, although recourse is not had to the Acts of the Bishops of Le Mans, published by Mabillon in Volume 3 of the Analects.
[2] That he was born in the territory of Auvergne, of parents most illustrious according to the dignity of the world, born in the country of Auvergne, the aforesaid Acts of the Saint distinctly hand down; but whether he was a native of the city of Clermont, as Branche would have it, is uncertain enough: I think it spoken after the manner of men, who reckon some nobility derived from the metropolis of regions. This is established; as soon as he had reached the years apt for the studies of letters, he was sent for the sake of doctrine into the monastery whose name is Menat, where, the Lord co-ministering, he received both the eloquence of letters and the norm of holy conversation. Indeed in this very monastery he laid the first foundations of a more perfect life, and cherished them so far that, incited to more arduous contests, with his companion Avitus deserting that first monastery, he proceeded to Maximin Abbot of Micy, whose fame of sanctity had then grown famous widely through Gaul, where, after he had exercised himself in the common wrestling-place of virtues (says Mabillon Volume 1 of the Annals page 77) he departed, now not of his own accord, but by the counsel of Maximin his Abbot, leaving the fellowship of Micy, with Avitus his fellow-soldier and fellow-countryman, into the solitude of Perche.
[3] By what author the most learned man hands down these things, or whence he received them, he nowhere indicates; and that he dwelt with Avitus in several places. certainly he found it expressed neither in the Acts of St. Avitus nor in those of St. Carilefus; indeed the very life of St. Maximin in the appendix of the Benedictine Acts Volume 1 page 595 plainly intimates the opposite, unless perhaps the first flight of those Saints from the monastery of Menat be there confused with this other withdrawal, as is almost gathered from some added things. Such are the office of Cellarer, which St. Avitus, having discharged at Menat, then fleeing laid the keys at the Abbot's pillow, which the Acts of St. Maximin would have done at Micy. Again the crossing of the Loire is confused or doubled, which seems to have been necessary only once. Thus also other things are either transferred or disturbed; just as also another confusion appears between the Aviti, whom the praised Mabillon tries more laboriously to distinguish, not without great likelihood, so that one was the successor of St. Maximin in the rule of Micy, another of Perche, the comrade of St. Carilefus, concerning which controversy more must be treated on the day XIX December.
[4] The monastic life led at Micy For the rest, that the whole life of St. Carilefus, up to the last-mentioned withdrawal, may be set before the eyes in a brief compendium, and that the manner of his first cenobitical instruction may be plain, I will subjoin three numbers, 14, 16, and 17, from the other life of St. Maximin, from Mabillon, in the page already cited, those things being passed over which are had in the former, page 586 number 22, and among the miracles number 3 page 599, since they are mere repetitions, conceived everywhere in almost the same words. It will be for the learned reader, from this small specimen, to conjecture how prettily the things agree which are described of our Saint, both in his own Acts, and in those of St. Avitus, and in these of St. Maximin. The title prefixed to the chapter, or at least the section, is this: How St. Carilefus and St. Avitus came to blessed Maximin, and how they remained in holy contemplation. But thus writes the author of that second life, Bertold, a monk of Micy, from the manuscript books of the distinguished man D. d'Herouval:
[5] Meanwhile at that time two men also of remarkable life, Carilefus and Avitus, run to see him with most ardent love. from the life of St. Maximin For at the same time they had kept the cenobitical life under an Abbot, in the place whose name is Menat. But, panting after the speculative contemplation of the Anchorites, and often in turn holding friendly conversations among themselves concerning spiritual matters, by a faithful theft they withdrew themselves from the Abbot and their own monastery. Then, having the will of a most devout mind leading the journey before them, they reached only the bed of the Loire: then, catching with attentive ear the breeze of holy opinion which was at that time borne concerning blessed Maximin, they hastened with a course of soul and body to see him. When the blessed man learned of their coming, running, and kissing them, he received them with all the affection of charity, and to the almighty Lord, for the cause of the devotion of their coming, rendered manifold thanks. So the aforesaid servants of God, seeing themselves treated with so great charity by the man of the Lord, and his unconquered mind toward divine services, and the same of the brethren who lived under him, far otherwise than they had known others, eagerly to give labor to holy religion; the care of seeking the desert being intermitted, they thought it better to fix their step there, and to prove themselves in the cenobitical life, under the same man of the Lord, by exercising for a while. Which desire, inspired to them by the divine will, they revealing to blessed Maximin, they had most easy license both of remaining there and of dwelling in common with the brethren.
[6] Further, blessed Maximin, seeing the mind of each man, Carilefus and Avitus, always pant after the supernal joys, it is rightly arranged, and that they extenuated themselves with late and frequent fastings, occupied themselves with continual and pure prayers, exercised themselves in silences, wearied themselves with various labors of the flesh, and with the marks of all virtues; promoted both to the summit of the priesthood. For it was their zeal to restrain the easy motions of the mind from the unlawful appetite of foolish temerity, and to bridle the slippery courses of bodily delight; on the one hand to render themselves conspicuous by work, on the other to exhibit themselves seasoned by the grace of speech to the pious hearing of the prudent. Amid these things the seed-bed of pious desire, fostered for a while in their hearts by the rain of the Holy Spirit, namely by which they had once begun to pant after the solitary life, grew more and more. To which they were borne not by the wandering levity of the heart, but were drawn day by day by an insatiable desire of altogether pleasing Christ. But after years of the cenobitical and common life of zeal, they aspired to the anchoretic contest. And because they knew that they could not without delay accomplish it in deed without the license of the Abbot and brethren, they strove to do it secretly. So amid the silence of the night, when deep sleep held the Abbot and the brethren of the whole congregation, the man of the Lord Avitus laid the keys of the Cellar, bound from his own girdle, at the pillow of the Abbot, and with a hanging step departing from the monastery, accompanied by Carilefus alone, sought the river Loire. Then, a ship being boarded, they were immediately carried to the other shore: then, attacking the solitude of a great wood, whose name is Perche, they entered it.
[7] These having escaped by such flight, and day being restored to the lands, blessed Maximin together with his brethren anxiously sought them, up to the flight into Perche; nor yet found them. By whose departure he suffered no small sadness of heart. So they, as they desired, avoiding the company of many men, dwelling together at first in the same solitude, lay hidden for a while: then, the radiance of holy virtues shining more widely, to which they strove day by day to give labor, they called many to their emulation. Whence, lest two excellent standard-bearers of the victorious battle should be set over only one band, since either of them could be set over a single troop, divided from each other, each began to gather his recruits for warring in the warfare of Christ. From these it is plain that it was rightly observed by me above, against Mabillon, that our Saints Avitus and Carilefus rushed out of the monastery of Micy not by the counsel of Maximin their Abbot, but secretly, by flight, and he being unaware, all of which are sufficiently consonant with the Acts of St. Carilefus and St. Avitus.
[8] A difficulty is raised by what is handed down in the later life on XVII June Volume III, in which it is doubtful whether Avitus persisted; page 354 number 11, namely that St. Avitus was sought, found, and drawn back from the solitude, to be set over the monastery of Micy: and this Letald confirms, on the miracles of St. Maximin, in the cited Volume 1 of the Benedictine Acts page 600 number 6, in these words: So after the glorious passing of the most pious father Maximin, blessed Avitus is torn from the quiet of the hermitage, and substituted in his place by the brethren, who himself also, wonderful in religion, followed indeclinably the footsteps of the pious Father. But then in the aforesaid life of St. Avitus number 12 it is thus read: But a certain space of days being passed, he by no means allowed himself longer to preside over others. For it seemed to him that he was so pressed by the name of Abbot as if burdened by a mass of great weight. Wherefore at the time of a certain night, blessed Carilefus accompanying, they sought the vast solitudes of the place of Perche, that they might again hide themselves. With which again agree the things which Letald has number 8: Further blessed Avitus, when he had held the monastic rule for a short time, disposes to return to the sweetness of the anchoretic life which he had tasted, etc. All these things conflict against Mabillon, in the cited Annals page 77, but since they do not properly pertain here, they must be referred to the said XIX December. Let us return to our St. Carilefus.
[9] it is certain that ours proceeded to Le Mans. Blessed Carilefus nonetheless (says Letald there), burning with the same ardor, sought the deserts of Le Mans, and within a short time, many flowing together to him, built a noble monastery in the place which is named Anisole. Concerning this thus Mabillon in the Annals page 76 number 43: This monastery, surnamed from the river flowing past, Anisole, commonly Anisola, Carilefus ….. in the reign of Childebert, with the consent and favor of Innocent Bishop of Le Mans, built. Likewise below number 44: Carilefus, having departed from Avitus of Perche, with Daumerus and Gallus into the country of Le Mans, settled in the place called Casa-Gajani, at the river Anisole, which place, although pleasant, was at that time altogether secret from the frequency of men. Yet there were seen the ruined walls of an old building, retaining even then a certain dignity of work. There likewise a church survived, built by Bishop Turibius under the title of St. Peter, as we read in the Acts of the Bishops of Le Mans, where Innocent, Bishop of the same city, is said to have brought much aid to Carilefus. Here Mabillon mingles the deeds of Le Mans with those of Carilefus, of which, lest longer annotations be subjoined to the chapters of the life, it has seemed good to premise here some notice, for which let it be.
§ II. The monastery of Anisole, and the Acts of St. Carilefus written by a near-contemporary, which do not exist.
Concerning his monastery the controverted matters Of that old and celebrated monastery Henschenius long ago treated on the Kalends of March in the previous commentary to the life of St. Siviardus page 65, but concerning its foundation Papebroch noted very many things on the deeds of St. Innocent or Innocentius Bishop of Le Mans, XIX June from page 859, for which material was supplied by the Acts of the Bishops of Le Mans cited above, published by Mabillon, stuffed with many charters pertaining to St. Carilefus and his monastery, which it is a wonder the authors of the life of St. Carilefus were ignorant of, if they then existed, since they followed the deeds of the most holy man so uniformly. Many things in those Acts of the Bishops I see plainly liable to suits and contentions, concerning the subjection of the monastery of Anisole to the Bishop and church of Le Mans, by force of a testament truly or pretendedly made by St. Carilefus, and subscribed by several Bishops of the province of Tours, Abbots, and Counts, and several other documents of this kind to be cursorily assigned below, concerning which there is no place here to discuss expressly, especially since the controversy once agitated does not seem to need being further stirred up. The annotations of Mabillon on his prefixed Acts can be consulted from page 391: here, as a compendious specimen of the whole matter, it will be enough to set before the reader from the Benedictine Annals page 78 number 45.
[11] To define with certainty the time of the founding of the monastery of Anisole, by Mabillon says Mabillon, is not at hand. That it was done at that time when Le Mans obeyed King Childebert is established: and consequently after the death of Chlodomir King of Burgundy, to whom this province, from the paternal inheritance, had fallen by lot. In the Acts of the Bishops of Le Mans various letters are reported, both of Carilefus, subjecting his monastery to Bishop Innocent; and of Childebert, approving this subjection: of which letters the former are given on the eighth Ides of January, in the fourteenth year of Childebert. But these letters, although most ancient, inasmuch as they were produced in the eighth and ninth centuries in the contention of a suit, not undeservedly the names of the subscribing Bishops render suspect, none of whom are found in the indices of the Prelates of the province of Tours at that time; and those payments, expressed in the aforesaid letters, in favor of the greater church of Le Mans, which are never read to have been paid by those of Anisole. There is added that that monastery was freed by Pope Nicholas, before whom the prolix controversy concerning its subjection then grew fresh again, which before, in the principate of Charlemagne and Louis the Augustus, had been agitated.
[12] Of better mark seems to be, in the archive of Anisole, the diploma of King Childebert for the endowment of the same monastery: examined and resolved they seem but its fourth year, which is read in the more recent copy, is without doubt erroneous: both because in that year Childebert was a minor, not yet married to Queen Ultrogotha, who favored the aforesaid endowment; and because not yet then did Le Mans obey King Childebert, but Chlodomir his brother, who was not killed before the thirteenth year of King Childebert, the year of Christ 524. Perhaps the numeral note X was omitted in the copy, and for XIV was written IV. By this diploma Childebert hands over to Carilefus Madvalle, where the monastery of Anisole was situated, and circumscribes its boundaries. The same prince takes the same place under his protection in other letters, inscribed to Abbot Daumerus: which Daumerus was the companion of Carilefus from the monastery of Perche, and his successor in the rule of Anisole. The same favor Chilperic confirms in the first year of his reign to Abbot Gallus, who is called the servant of Carilefus in the book of his life. In the Acts praised above of the Bishops of Le Mans is exhibited a precaria, made to Abbot Gallus by Bishop Domnolus, in the 5th year of Chilperic. Thereafter no letters of this kind are found before the precaria, made by Bishop Hadoindus to Abbot Sigrannus, whom St. Siviardus succeeded, he who committed the deeds of St. Carilefus to writing. From these we understand that Carilefus departed life about the year 40 of this century, and that Daumerus succeeded him, etc.
[13] against the Acts of Le Mans, Here the most learned man comprised and accomplished many things in few words: for, to speak more clearly, modestly indeed but vigorously, he plainly subverts the first prop of the Acts of Le Mans in this matter, which is the testament of St. Carilefus, and so overturns the other instruments resting on it, which he had before sufficiently intimated in century 3 part 2, in the addenda and corrigenda page 627. Papebroch had long since seen those Acts of Le Mans, for a great part with us in manuscript, citing them at the life of St. Domnolus XVI May, Volume third page 603, where he did not hesitate to pronounce them adulterated or altogether fictitious: why afterward, on XIX June, at the life of St. Innocent, likewise Bishop of Le Mans, he gave them greater faith, I indeed do not know. For the rest, those inveterate litigations between those of Le Mans and those of Carilefus Cointe long ago examined at the year 515, whose opinion is likely enough, so that one could easily be persuaded that, if in the fervent dissension which was lasting between the Bishops of Le Mans and the Carilefian Brethren, apocryphal diplomas of Kings were produced in favor of the monks; those who defended the part of the Bishops used quite the same guile. However these things may be, it makes for this our design, that the Acts of St. Carilefus appear simple, candid, and sincere; but on the contrary, that, at the least in this matter, the deeds of the Bishops of Le Mans seem entangled and suspect.
[14] for which Corvaiser fights. Meanwhile Corvaiser chiefly insists on these, page 123 narrating that St. Carilefus, before he fixed his domicile at Anisole, approached Innocent, and there obtained license of dwelling. The history of the buffalo (or as he himself thinks, the stag) fleeing to the Saint, he sets forth otherwise than is reported in the Acts. But then page 126, as if unmindful of the power before made by Innocent, he says that this one bore ill that St. Carilefus extended himself too much in his diocese of Le Mans, and much blamed that manner of proceeding: whence the holy man was compelled to clear himself before the Bishop, and to protest that he wished to bring no prejudice to the episcopal rights, nay rather to submit the monastery and all his fortunes, both present and future, wholly to him, as you will find more fully set out in the copy of the grant or testament, concerning which most recently Mabillon, to be seen in the Analects Volume 3 from page 80: and the precaria, from page 84; again in the third instrument, page 86; likewise pages 104, 106, 162, 165, 183, 184, 232, 234, or others similar, which it suffices to have indicated here, to be more accurately discussed by those whom it concerns. Here we wish it only to be observed that the Acts of Le Mans differ very much from those things which concerning St. Carilefus are narrated with great candor and faith by the writers of the Life, in whom not even a word is handed down concerning those many companions whom Corvaiser enumerates by name, perhaps from the Acts of St. Almirus, concerning whom below.
[15] Further, the chief writer of the life of St. Carilefus, both in the Benedictine Acts and in the Annals praised recently, The Life by Siviardus Mabillon constantly judges to have been St. Siviardus Abbot of Anisole, whom he thinks flourished at the beginning of the eighth century, Henschenius assigning his death to the year 687. Where at last Mabillon found this, he nowhere indicates, unless perhaps we should think that in the manuscripts which he cites, the Cistercian and the Anisole one, the name of blessed Siviardus was prefixed. For the rest, in the Acts of that Saint illustrated by Henschenius on 1 March page 65, not even the slightest trace occurs whence it may be gathered that such a life was written by him. But of whatever author it was, it seems composed sincerely and simply, with a style almost more ornate than those times would then bear. Nor is the phrasing of the others much unlike; but this occurs as wonderful in all, that all those things were so studiously avoided by them which they hand down in so many places, the deeds of the Bishops of Le Mans already so often cited, to have been transacted by St. Carilefus with St. Innocent. Whether it was because at that time there was contention between those of Le Mans and those of Anisole concerning jurisdiction or exemption, I have nothing whence to define: yet since that controversy is said to have grown fresh more than once, what hinders suspecting for the moment that perhaps that was the cause why concerning the same matter such different things are recorded on both sides?
[16] And indeed a suspicion of this kind could be increased by the Acts of St. Almirus in Labbe Volume 2 of the Library of Manuscripts from page 469, and written by another, far older than St. Siviardus, and more conformable to the deeds of the Bishops of Le Mans in the part where they speak of St. Carilefus. Thus there the anonymous author begins: Compelled by the Brethren, our Pontiff blessed Domnolus also commanding, to write the life of St. Almirus, lest we appear disobedient, with the help of the Holy Spirit, who rested in the aforesaid Saint, we undertake it with our slender pen. For our Lord Jesus Christ commanding, we read thus: Open your mouth and I will fill it. Therefore the things must be recited which, published as an example of good action, make gain of souls, and without doubt profit their imitators in increases. So this writer is almost contemporary with St. Carilefus, inasmuch as St. Domnolus of Le Mans succeeded St. Innocent, who died about the year 542, after fifteen years, which would be in the year 557, having departed life about the year 583. But this anonymous one, unless by a most shameful disgrace he wished to impose upon us, or some other of no less feeble faith interpolated his writings, is the very same author who published the first life of St. Carilefus, as I shall soon show from his words.
[17] At the beginning of that life of St. Almirus many things are premised which are common to SS. Avitus and Carilefus, who mixes in some things so that the whole former part is referred to them. First the writer observes that, the brothers Childebert and Clothair reigning among the Franks, holy Avitus and Carilefus came into the Cenomania with certain companions, whom others afterward followed, some space of time being interposed. Then he subjoins that they came from Aquitaine, and chiefly from the country of Auvergne, and before they penetrated into the Cenomania, stopped near Orleans, in the monastery over which blessed Maximin presided. There follow next the things which were transacted with St. Innocent back and forth; first by a consolatory letter of the Bishop, brought by a priest by name Benedict; for which through the same priest the holy Men returned thanks to the said Bishop, and signified that they would voluntarily fulfill what he commanded, as far as God should grant. When the said Innocent heard their will, who, before he heard their obedience, bore this grievously and greatly reproved them, etc. Then all the dissensions are peacefully composed, full power being given of preaching, of building cells and churches; all of which seem to allude to those things which we mentioned are more fully set out in the deeds of the Bishops of Le Mans.
[18] not plainly conformable to our Acts. After these is added an article of whose truth I confess that I much doubt: but since it is for us to set forth all things faithfully, we will leave it to the judgment of the learned reader. Thus it has it: But how holy Carilefus dealt with the aforesaid Bishop Innocent, and what coherences they had, or what instruments of charters they made together, is hitherto inserted in their little works, or in the pontifical deeds of the city of Le Mans: likewise also how he dealt with St. Avitus, we once wrote something in their lives; and therefore there is no need here of touching it, nor does it seem good to me to insert it: but if anyone desires to know these things fully, let him read the aforesaid little works, and so he will find. For then by the authority and bounty of the said Bishop, and by the counsel of St. Avitus their master, they sought out those places which they afterward built up, without which cells, the aforesaid St. Innocent the Bishop bringing them no small help, they constructed, in which they also now corporeally rest; in which places, now found, they gathered brethren under the holy rule, and taught them to live regularly, as even to the present day, the Lord helping, they study to live regularly.
§ III. Other Acts of St. Carilefus, his cult, and translation.
Among the variously written Lives, If the things which we have just reported from the Acts of St. Almirus are true enough, it is most manifest that St. Siviardus (if he wrote the life of St. Carilefus) was not the first who handed down to memory the deeds of the Saint; but took his material from that anonymous one, or a similar writer, which he somewhat polished after his own manner. But now, since we find several lives of the same Saint, differing in style rather than in the matters themselves, it is consequent that those same older Acts, whether of that one or of another, shone before our writers. Further, among these somewhat more recent ones, we judge those should be preferred which the praised Mabillon published under the name of St. Siviardus, from the manuscripts, as I have already said, of Cîteaux and of Anisole, which same, but without the author's name, also exist with us in manuscript, copied from the codex of Vauluisant, of the Cistercian Order, of the diocese of Sens, by Father Chifflet. Another manuscript copy Father John Dardes sent to Bolland at Paris in the year 1638, copied from the Anisole manuscript by the hand of Dom Anbert, a religious of the same place, which Godefridus Henschenius most accurately collated with codex 863 of the Queen of Sweden, who, illustrating the life of St. Avitus on XVII June, rightly observes that almost the whole of its second chapter passed into the Acts of St. Carilefus, as we shall say again in the Annotations.
[20] To that first life, or the Siviardine, pertain all the cited manuscripts, the Siviardine to be preferred in collating which among themselves we have allowed nothing to be desired, although we have thought that light minutiae here and there should be neglected, lest all the margins be infected with innumerable asterisks and little notes of no moment, or the number of the annotations increase with grammatical little observations; nor yet have we neglected to indicate in what they notably differ, or exceed each other mutually. To that first life, almost equal in age, unless I am mistaken, and no less elegant and bright is the other, which we have from the Utrecht manuscript of St. Martin, which today is kept in the Carthusian house of Cologne, and without doubt was kept long ago, since Surius used that very one, or at least quite similar manuscript codices, from which he published the life, the last part being somewhat contracted, to be restored by us among the Miracles. He confesses that he polished the style in some places, where the matter seemed to demand it, but Bolland left it attested that in the original phrasing it is found even barbarous. The third life finally, a little briefer than the others, is in our very large parchment manuscript Legendary, which was once of the monastery of Vauclair, which is repeated with the same beginning in the Anchin manuscript folio 18. This is established concerning all, that they were written before the incursions of the Normans, since all testify that the body of St. Carilefus rests at Anisole, which for fear of those barbarians was afterward translated to the castle of Blois, where even today it is honored and venerated with due veneration.
[21] I observe that St. Siviardus, or the chief Authors, although it too is not without blemishes: whom with Mabillon we follow, and likewise the third, who compiled the briefer ones, slipped shamefully from the beginning, in that they say St. Carilefus was born while Childebert and his brother Clothair (some codices read Hildebert and Lothair) governed the commonwealth of the kingdom of the Franks, while Clothair joined to himself in marriage Radegund, a Thuringian by nation ….. but the renowned Childebert joined Ultrogotha (in one codex it is written Altrogodes). For thus they subjoin: At which time the aforesaid servant of Christ Carilefus was born in the territory of Auvergne, etc. Which could not have been said by those writers except by the utmost inadvertence, since it is certain that the Saint must have been born in the time of the great Clovis, who lived for a while under the discipline of St. Maximin of Micy, who died about the year 520, since Childebert and Clothair did not govern the commonwealth of the kingdom of the Franks before the year 528, the commonwealth being gained by the monstrous parricide of their nephews, the sons of Chlodomir. They ought to have written that in the age of those Kings St. Carilefus, now living among the people of Le Mans, was illustrious for virtues and miracles. Better did the author of the life published by Surius avoid the rock, the names of the Princes being expunged, which he no doubt noticed could not at all coincide with the Saint's birth. But neither is he himself immune from errors, when he makes Maximin Bishop of Orleans, etc. several others are put forth.
[22] For the rest, so great is the concord of those three writers or several in narrating the matters, as is the diversity of the style amplified or contracted, according to the genius and skill of writing of each, concerning which there seems to have been almost a contest among them, since it is plain enough that all things flowed from the same source, as he will easily observe who compares the slightly altered edition of Surius with the Mabillonian and ours. More florid, nay more verbose, is the aforesaid Surian one (according to the editor's mind, gravely and learnedly composed) woven with longer dialogues and exhortations; in which Surius had not much to polish. We have not thought it worth the trouble to reproduce it, since it is most well known; but we must beware lest, such Acts being multiplied, our work grow immense. Of Gonon's compendium we do not speak, for he confesses that he tasted all his things from Surius. Less also are the things to be regarded which the Bishop Equilino has book 6 chapter 37; where in a brief epitome more than one error is found. For Avitus, Adjutus is put: the punishment of the woman is said to have been done while the Saint lived; but he buried at Le Mans, etc. Nor do we here undertake to review the elogia of Saussay or of other more recent ones, which, well enough known, can be found in their places, especially among the monastic Martyrologists Wion, Bucelin, and others; it will be far better, for the most ancient cult of St. Carilefus, to consult the older monuments.
[23] In which ancient fasti Among the Hieronymian codices only the author of the Corbie one makes mention of him, in those words which we reported in our recent edition of Usuard: In the Cenomanic monastery of Anisole, the deposition of St. Father Carilefus, Presbyter and Confessor. From this it flowed into the lesser apographs, concerning which in the Usuardine preface page 9 numbers 29 and 30. In the Gellone one, the name dislocated, he is mixed with martyrs: Elsewhere, of Orion, Crilifus the Confessor, Zoëlus, etc. In the Augsburg likewise, Urion, Arileffus the Confessor, Zelus, etc. The Labbe one reads more deformedly, Arilesa. The Cologne one of St. Mary ad Gradus: And of St. Carilefus the presbyter. Of him are silent Bede and Florus: among the supplements the Arras one writes: Of Karlefus the Confessor. The Tournai one: On the same day, of Kerlesus, who shone with good deeds and signs of miracles. The Barberini one (which is among the contracted Hieronymian codices): In the monastery of Anisole, the deposition of St. Carilephus the presbyter. By the Little Roman he was passed over; nor could anyone easily divine why Ado on VIII June wrote: Likewise on the same day, of St. Carilefus the Confessor. I should believe that some augmented Hieronymian codex shone before Usuard, such as we have already said the Corbie one is. But concerning his true announcement we inquired in the cited edition, and thought it should be formed as it is there reported in the text: In the monastery of Anisole, of St. Carilefus the presbyter: The Saint-Riquier codex wrongly reads: Of Carileffus the Bishop. The Amiens one, laboring with the same error, adds the common elogium: Who, …. leading an eremitic life, was afterward there the father of very many monks; where also famous for miracles, he rested in peace. Of the rest of the Usuardine progeny I forbear to speak.
[24] the Saint is commemorated, The metrical Martyrologist Wandelbert, Aaron being praised, thus subjoins: These too (understand the Kalends) Carilefus, despiser of the world, honors. The elogium of Rabanus is of this kind: And the birthday of Arelefus the Confessor, who, from infancy given to God, sought the monastic life, and ordained a presbyter by holy Maximin Bishop of Orleans (read Abbot of Micy) together with Avitus his companion (see the Acts), desiring the solitary life, building monasteries in various places, shone with many virtues before his death and after his death, and his sanctity profited very many. Notker writes Areleffus, and the whole elogium of Rabanus, a few things changed, being transferred into his text, he subjoins: But because by the name of virtues sometimes the sanctity of life, sometimes the efficacy of miracles is designated, let it suffice to commemorate, in this breviary of ecclesiastical histories, one of the miracles shown through his sanctity, for restraining the audacity of rash women. A certain woman, by name Gunda, hearing that holy Areleffus had forbidden access to his monastery to the female sex, by whom male strength is wont to be softened, having taken male habit, as if about to mock the holy man of God, and as it seemed to her, now made a partaker of her vow, was making her way to the monastery among a multitude of men, and behold suddenly turned into madness, etc., which are more honorably, and without doubt more probably, narrated below in the Acts from number 33.
[25] There could here be superadded the Plantinian Bede, Maurolycus, and a long series of other more recent Martyrographers, the more recent ones being omitted, but uselessly; inasmuch as from those already cited is had whatever pertains more closely to the most ancient memory of the cult; which, though most well known in those ancient Martyrologies, is nonetheless passed over by the modern Roman, by the sole discretion, I think, of Baronius. The cause I neither know nor wish to inquire. Those moreover who are cited somewhere as treating of St. Carilefus, such as Cratepolius, Tigeotius, and other similar writers, can contribute nothing here: as neither can René Benedict, in Ferrari's Catalogue wrongly asserting that the Saint's body was laid in the abbey of Prateau among the people of Le Mans, since it is established that, from when it was translated to Blois for fear of the Normans, it was perpetually kept there, and there found in the year 1653, as we shall say more opportunely below. The Martyrology of Canisius wrongly placed Anisole in the diocese of Trier. There remains the apposite observation of Mabillon, cited above in the Annals page 78 number 45, by which he admonishes the readers in this manner: For the rest, he says, perhaps someone will wonder why Gregory, Prelate of Tours, made no mention of Carilefus, who in his own province had flourished before him. But he will cease to wonder when he notices that others of the same province, no less illustrious, are likewise passed over, and not even named by him, although he makes mention of the monastery of Anisole, distinguished by the name of St. Carilefus with the adjoining town, and ennobled by his relics, up to the times of the Normans, when they were carried to the castle of Blois.
[26] What perhaps others have written concerning the deposition or translation of the body of St. Carilefus, some of whom err in the translation. I think must neither be sought nor examined, since these things are placed in so great light. By chance I lit upon the manuscript Fasti of Westphalia, once collected and composed by our Father John Velde, in which on 1 July it is thus read: St. Carilephus, Presbyter and Confessor. Mol. Ferrari in the Topography says he was buried at Le Mans. Garnefelt thinks he was translated with St. Liborius to Paderborn and thence to Herford, where Werner Rolevinck book 3 chapter 8 names among the relics St. Corelphus, no doubt for Carilephus. But whether these can be reconciled with the above-said, much less subsist, the reader will easily perceive.
LIFE. From manuscripts collated with the edition of Mabillon.
Carilefus, Presbyter and Confessor, at Anisole among the Cenomani in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 1570
From Manuscripts.
PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.
It is established that it was the custom of the ancients to commend the men of their time to posterity through the monuments of their writings, and to hand over their sayings worthy of memory or deeds either to letters, or to commit them to painting. Or certainly to portray them in bronze or in laborious marble, and a notable work: having this zeal, that whatever of useful things, worthy of knowing, or to be reckoned to be imitated, might by their industry be brought to the knowledge of their successors, that they might appear neither in their own time devoid of devotion, nor to posterity unhelpful. These things being so, we too must beware lest we press in the prison of silence the brave deeds of the soldiers of Christ, and the trophies to be imitated, by which they shone in our age; but let us commend them, to profit the succeeding age, even in a mediocre style. For one of the many most valiant warriors of Christ the Lord attributed to our Church in our age, Carilefus by name, whose renowned life, to profit the benefit of many, he himself bringing help, we undertake to hand over to the little page, and although we are unequal to so great a work, inasmuch as both a slender eloquence is present to us and a very narrow abundance of genius; yet we have thought it better to say, even meagerly, the things we know, or a few, than with the slothful and negligent servant for the retained money of the Lord to undergo the loss of taciturnity. The Lord also gives the incitement of speaking, who commands [us] to open our mouths, and promises to fill them with the grace of the Spirit, lest they remain tongueless.
[2] What the author intends; He therefore must be prayed by us that he who was the helper of his servant to perform the good things which he commanded, may be also a help to us, to narrate the things which he performed in him: that namely the tenderer age, knowing the laborious contests of the veteran soldiers of Christ for Christ, or the rewards which they obtained by their own labors, like most valiant wrestlers of the contest, anointed with the oil of paternal imitation, may be rendered stronger to endure against the spiritual wickednesses the bitter crises. All which are referred to the glory of the divinity, who attributes so great a prerogative of merits to his servants. He also strikes the torpid hearts with the hand of his admonition, that they may awake: that they may be ashamed not to imitate those whom they once knew like themselves, inasmuch as both their flesh consisted of the same matter, and their soul, good, is implanted equally in all.
[3] by whose impulse he wrote. But because we are rendered weak by our exacting slothfulnesses, unequal to follow their footsteps, let us at least narrate somehow the wonderful things which we have learned of them, that even by this they may admit us into their fellowship, if of the works of which they were doers, we are found at least narrators of whatever kind. Which work we undertake not by our own presumption, but by the command of the sacred Bishops presiding over the Church. For it is enjoined on us that we should in whatever way describe the life of the already-mentioned most blessed Carilefus, who flourished in the times of Childebert the most preeminent King, and in the camps of holy Church, like a strenuous soldier, against the aerial powers, protected by the shield of faith, hurled the darts of doctrine, sent forth the thunderbolts of miracles.
CHAPTER I. On the Saint's age and fatherland, his instruction among the monks of Menat, then under St. Maximin of Micy, up to the priesthood.
So, the aforesaid Prince and his brother Clothair governing the commonwealth of the kingdom of the Franks: The Saint's age, fatherland, and parents: as the usage of such matters has it, they divided the monarchy of their kingdom into two; yet so that, unity remaining in the love of brotherhood, each one of them obtained the portion of his kingdom handed over by the other. The love of succession also admonishing, they studied to enter marriages. Of whom Clothair took to himself as Queen Radegund, a Thuringian by nation, distinguished by the manners of piety. Who afterward, some circles of years being passed in his bond, sought Poitiers, and in the suburb of the same city rendered herself notable to souls desiring Christ. And there, as much as was in her power, approaching the conversation of the celestials, the hour predetermined to mortals calling, she left to the earth what was its own; but her soul, to be associated with the fellowship of the Angels, to whom by long labors she had offered herself a companion, she sent: leaving indeed to those who still preside over houses of clay the watches of her body with the sweat of emulation; but hastening to be mingled with the Angelic assemblies, she left mortal things, and joined herself to the immortal bridegroom, to whom she had long burned to be joined. But the renowned King Childebert joined to himself in marriage Ultrogotha, a Queen venerable for her merits. At which time the aforesaid servant of Christ Carilefus was born in the territory of Auvergne, of parents most illustrious according to the dignity of the world. Who, although they shone with the titles of nobility, yet to this nobility was added a soul most devoted to the Lord's clientage, which, the dignity of the world being overshadowed, endowed them with a more powerful brightness.
[5] So they received the servant of God given to them, and, still tarrying in tenderer years, studiously nourished him. But when there came the times b which are apt for the studies to be learned; for the sake of doctrine he is sent into the monastery whose name is Menat. c Where, the Lord administering, he most swiftly received both the eloquence of letters and the norm of holy conversation. For you would see d the devout servants of Christ of that place hastening to precede one another in love of him, and laboring that the one might instruct him by word, the other by deed, but him, like good earth, the loan of the divine word being received, insisting that he might render it a hundredfold. For although the immaturity of time promised him youthful years, yet his inner gravity had repressed the wanton motions, and although he was skilled in the sharpness of intelligence and wisdom, as if weak for all things, humility his mistress, he studied to seek counsels from the elders; and whatever he heard from their mouth, like oracles there divinely sent forth, he resolved most earnestly should be kept.
[6] Meanwhile, when he had long given labor to these exercises, as if exercised in a heavenly gymnasium; He seeks the eremitic life with St. Avitus he desired at length to commit himself to the open field, and to fight against the devil in single combat, namely seeking the eremitic life, in which alone he might join his right hand with the alone, and, the divinity favoring, trample the insolent enemy with the arms of humility. While he turned these things within himself for a long time, and deliberated with due caution how he ought to act, on a certain day a man of remarkable life, and praiseworthy in all things, a monk of the same monastery, by name Avitus, was present to him for the sake of conversation. For he of whom the discourse is, was a man, although less illustrious according to the perishing dignity of the world, in lineage; yet endowed with the prerogative of the highest merits. While therefore they hold opportune conversations among themselves, and taste the feasts of the divine word with the palate of the mind, they open a book bearing the text of the holy Gospel, and the line offered to their eyes, which by chance first occurred, they recite with their tongue, treat with their mind. For it was of this kind: He who loves father, or mother, or brothers, or sisters more than me, is not worthy of me. Luke 14:26, Matt. 10:37. So they began, like clean animals, to grind this food with the tooth of discretion: and because these words admonished them rather to follow an arduous conversation, where namely, empty of the care of parents, alien from the knowledge of kinsmen, with the single arm of heavenly intention and holy desire, they could freely crush the vices of the flesh.
[7] and fleeing from Menat, So, immediately following the Apostle Peter, who, the voice of the Lord being heard, at once, the nets and ship being left, followed the journeys of the Lord, the most blessed Avitus secretly placed the keys of the cellar, bound with his girdle, at the pillow of his Abbot. For he was at that time set over the grain-supply and the monastic storehouses. And so at last, the little delays of deliberations being broken, they took their step from the monastery, and began to take up the destined journey. So, no long journey from the monastery being traversed, they approached the strait of the Loire: which, a ship e being boarded, Christ favoring, they easily crossed, and came into the suburb of Orleans. But hearing the fame of the most excellent and God-beloved man Maximin, who in those same places presided over the cohorts of monks living in the monastery of Micy, they most swiftly flew to see him. For that man Maximin, illustrious in merits, had received from the bounty of King Clovis f and his Queen Clotild an estate, in which he had built a monastery for himself and his own, he proceeds to St. Maximin of Micy: and in it at that time gave labor to spiritual philosophy. Who, when he learned of the coming of the holy men, and their ardent affection toward the worship of God, immediately attributed to them both the faculty of dwelling with him and the fellowship of the brethren.
[8] where with his companion he holily converses. But they, by no means forgetful of the purpose of their intention, did not turn back the edge of their mind, nor give their hands to lukewarmness or sloth, but as if laying their hand to the Evangelical plow, with the glances of their mind they strained toward the prize of the supernal calling, and chastised the senses of the body from sinister affections, and studied to adorn them with the exhibition of sacred acts, and it was their zeal both to render themselves conspicuous by work, and seasoned in speech; and there was in their works the admiration of those seeing, and in their speeches the delight of grace. For chastity rendered them flourishing, faith unconquered, purity of mind simple, the splendor of life praiseworthy. The Lord was preferred by them in love to all things that can be loved, and the neighbor was in no way subordinated to their own self-love. There was in them a humility not only of words or habit, but their whole act was seasoned with it, so that whoever saw them, in their pursuits, as in a spiritual painting, thought the words of the Lord painted; by which he says: If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. Luke 9:23.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II. On the withdrawal of St. Carilefus with St. Avitus to the solitude, where on the occasion of a buffalo fleeing to him, he obtains from King Childebert an estate for building a monastery.
Initiated into the priesthood, Meanwhile the man of pious remembrance Maximin, when he learned that their pursuits panted after the appetite of contemplation, and that their life, by the instancy of prayers, the assiduity of vigils, the night-long continuance of prayers, aspired to the supernal assembly; studied to distinguish both with the priestly a dignity. To whose will a prosperous outcome yielded by divine provision. Meanwhile the most devout servants of Christ, burning with excessive love, and seeing that their desire in these things was not sufficiently fulfilled, judged that a more remote dwelling must be sought out for themselves. To which thing not a wave-tossing levity incited them, but the will of the Lord roused them, and an insatiable desire of pleasing Christ. For it was their zeal that, because they had now passed a yearlong b course in cenobitical conversation, they should attain the single anchoretic contest; lest any perfection should be lacking to them, which the recited reading of the Fathers showed them. So, taking their step also from that place, they sought the vast solitudes of the woods of Perche; c traversing which, among whatever shady groves and the most hidden lairs of wild beasts, there offered itself to their sight a fertile place, then called Piciacus, and now distinguished by the name of the Cells of St. Avitus. Indeed, that the pleasant power of the divinity might show in their hearts a most abundant stream of the Holy Spirit to flow, it opened for them a fountain of living water, lest those who were given to drink inwardly by the grace of the Holy Spirit should be burdened outwardly by any necessity. Which fountain the most blessed Carilefus surrounded with a round building by his own hand, that it might be a retainer of water, and even now for love of him it is covered by the devout with a not ignoble lid. Which place, embracing it as chosen for them by the Lord's provision, they fix their station in it, and continue very many days in the devotion of the holy Trinity.
[10] The monastery of St. Avitus is founded; But when both the times consecrated by them to divine studies were prolonged in the same place, and the odor of their knowledge and works was spread abroad round about, the fame of the most blessed Avitus occupied the ears of the aforesaid King, the truthful sentence of the Savior being proved, saying: No one lights a lamp and puts it in a hidden place, nor under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that those who enter may see the light. Luke 11:33 So by the command of that renowned King, both a basilica is built in that place and enriched with royal wealth, and a monastery is prepared, that the lamp of holy Church might in no way be hidden in tawny shadows, but might scatter the rays of its light to all the sons of holy Church.
[11] But St. Carilefus, seeking more remote things, But blessed Carilefus, as it is the custom of holy men to avoid prosperous things, to seek adverse ones for the guarding of themselves, leaving in these his most dear Avitus in the flesh, withdrew from his presence into the inner parts of the desert, although he was bound to him by inextricable bonds of soul. For neither did the divinity approve that two renowned leaders of its army should be set over one fold, when either of them could suffice for several. So, taking with him his fellow-soldier Daumerus, d and likewise his fellow-servant Gallus, he turned his step into the parts of the city of Le Mans, and at length turned aside into a place called by the ancients Casagaiani, situated in the parish of Labrocinum: past which place flows the river Anisole, f which even now borrowing the name of that river, is called by the same name as it; in which he lay hidden very many days. For the place was secret from the access of anyone, in the depth of the desert remote from the conversation of the living, yet pleasant by the fertility of the earth. He found there also a fountain pouring out a river with a lively vein, and the walls of an old building slipping with age, yet attesting the pristine dignity of the work by its traces. There offered itself also to his sight a small vine. And when he surveyed each of these with a curious eye, suffused with inestimable joy, he immediately gave himself to the earth, and rendered innumerable thanks to the mercy of the Lord, as one who had prepared these for him, supplicating with all efforts that he who had prepared the place for him would command him there also to perform the fruits of a heavenly workman. in the desert he builds a little cell. And when he had occupied the spaces of the night with prayers, on the morrow he wove, with pliant withe, a little cell of dwelling for himself and his brethren within the ruined walls of the aforesaid building, and began here and there to give labor to agriculture.
[12] So on a certain day, when he was intent on the begun work, A bird lays an egg in his cowl. and cultivated the vine he had found, as the helper of his vow, by digging round it and cutting away whatever was superfluous, compelled by the sweat of labor, stripped of the garment which they call a cowl, he hung it on an oak. But meanwhile a very small little bird, whose name is Bitrisecus, g while it wandered everywhere, as is its custom, and according to its familiar habit surveyed whatever inmost places by a certain dictating curiosity, hid itself in the garment, and departing, left an egg laid. But Carilefus the devout servant of Christ, the day's work being unfolded, when now the sun, lower, left the summit of the axis, and with cooling rays promised a near setting, approached the tree to take back his garment, and found the egg of the bird. Which seen, an inestimable joy, mixed with admiration, occupied him, and he spent that whole space, in which by the departure of light the shadows held the lands, in divine praises.
[13] But when the Phoebean lamp now adorned the world with its radiance, Concerning this event and other matters he consults St. Avitus. and, the shadows of blind night being suppressed, rendered manifest the things hidden by the density of the shades, taking with him his brother Daumerus, he sought again blessed Avitus, to consult him concerning the things which were covered in his heart, and at the same time to report concerning the opportuneness of the place found. Meanwhile, while, as is the custom of holy men, many things to profit the benefit of many are turned over among them; the venerable man among the rest reported also that which had happened to him to the venerable Avitus; wishing to explore whether anything as if new occurring would be heard from him; or if anything might seem able to be portended by this matter. But the man of the Lord Avitus confessed that he was moved by these things, and adding that this had not happened in vain, nor by chance, said: O my most loving Carilefus, to be put after no mortal, persist in your labor: These things indeed promise not commonplace things, but the offspring brought forth of the bird portends that great will be the produce of that place. For know that the Lord's flock of that place will one day be much greater than you here behold standing with us; which, like the best soldiers, passing their life in the Lord's exercises, after the laborious triumphs of the flesh, will obtain from the Lord the unfading fruits of their labors. So passing that night sleepless, they dedicated it all to the Lord's service. And now their discourse was of the institution of the present life; now their speech ran on to the future recompense; now it took part in the fellowships of the immortal spirits; now again it reviewed the documents and examples of holy men; now likewise the learned mind struck with a sweet plectrum the melody of the psalter to render a sweet sound to the Lord. So by these acts they consoled the shadows of the whole dark night. But, the shadows fainting, the soldier of Christ Carilefus, going back whither he had come, betook himself to his beloved hut.
[14] He has a buffalo as a familiar, For, as has been said, that place was secure from all external tumult, and accessible only to wild beasts and the animals most familiar to the desert. For by their coming it was often visited, so that in a way it seemed properly said of him. Job 5:23. And the beasts of the earth shall be at peace with you. For it was remarkable to see a buffalo, h which in that province is difficult to find, coming to him among the other animals; and he who before had believed he must hide himself only in the denser places, then you would see him, forgetful of all savagery, and laying aside his gaping jaws and the obstinacy of his feral spirit, show himself mild and tractable to the servant of the Lord, and in the manner of one adoring incline his brawny neck, and the venerable man, all the anguish of fear being removed, approaching the beast, and furrowing with slow nail the bristles between the horns, and handling the brawn of the neck and the dewlaps, and as it were familiarly soothing it by stroking. But that wild creature, by this handling, as if endowed with a blessing, with swift course, as is its custom by the dictate of nature, sought again the vast solitudes.
[15] which, fleeing the royal hunters, But meanwhile Childebert the Augustus, with his wife Ultrogotha joined to him, and accompanied by all the frequency of his retinue, approached the parts of the city of Le Mans, and came into a village called Madoalis, and it is announced to him staying there that a buffalo, a beast unusual in those places, lay hidden not far off in the solitude. But the King, gladdened with joy, orders his hunters to prepare the things necessary for capturing the beast: namely that the force of the dogs be sharpened, that a sufficient supply of bows and arrows be exhibited, wishing to hunt it on the morrow. All which were done with speed. But on the morrow, blind night not yet fleeing, they seek the inner parts of the wood, and where they might perceive a trace of the animal, as soon as the light presented itself, they traverse the earth with a curious eye. So at last, his trail being long searched out, they find it, and loose the keen mastiffs from the ropes to pursue after it. But the wretched beast, now about to be captured, betakes itself to the Saint. runs down to holy Carilefus the buffalo, and as if one to whom flight was denied in every direction, approached the man of the Lord as a singular refuge. So the hunters, following the indications of its trails, and trusting also to the barking of the dogs, at length came to the place where the Saint dwelt, the cell being built by his own hand. There then they saw the holy man, and behind his back the aforesaid buffalo standing, as if complaining and trembling. Then indeed, disturbed by the unusual novelty of the matter, they dared neither to touch the beast nor to bring any trouble to the holy man. But to the King coming, and asking the cause of their delays, and reproaching them with sloth and laziness, they thus answer. Behold, they say, as by the dictate of skill and industry we were wont, we have done all things: the buffalo itself we found, but we were struck by a certain novelty of the event. For we found in a certain hut a man unknown to us, and near his dwelling the beast standing, tamed, huge. But indeed because it seemed to us Whence the King, moved by anger, that the same man is a servant of the Lord, inasmuch as feral animals are subdued to him, we dared neither to disturb his quiet nor to attack the buffalo. But the King, moved by anger, said: let us go to the place of which the discourse is. So going they came even to the place in which the servant of the Lord, the beast serving him, was entreating the Lord.
[16] Then the King, this miracle seen, by no means studied to venerate the power of God in such things; receives St. Carilefus badly, but moved by indignation, began to utter these words by reproaching. Whence, he said, O unknown persons, to you so great audacity of presumption, that, with none granting it, you have dared to break into the wood of my right, and to mutilate even in something the dignity of our hunt by your importunity? But the holy man, by no means forgetful of the Lord's voice, by which he says: When you stand before Kings and Princes, do not premeditate how you shall answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom; with the utmost constancy and reverence of humility, said to the king: O good King, we whom you here see by no means for the sake of despising you, nor allows himself to be appeased; or of disturbing the hunt, broke into the lairs of wild beasts, and occupied uninhabitable places, but that we might more familiarly and earnestly be occupied in the Lord's service, we sought places inaccessible to men, if in any way they please the divinity, that, because here we are separated from the fellowships of men, after the falling of mortal life, we may deserve in heaven to enjoy the fellowships of the angels. Mark 13:9, Luke 21:14. But the King, suffused with excessive gall, said: I command, by our authority, both you and your companions to withdraw hence, and to beware that henceforth none of you be found here. Then the venerable Carilefus, not in the least disturbed by the royal threats, turned himself to fulfilling the divine precepts, and said to the King: There is for us, renowned King, your servants, some wine, which the small vine here found and cultivated produced; and we ask the serenity of your highness to indulge a little in its cup, that the more briskly both your nobility and that of your companions may have the faculty of returning to the palace. For he did this, that he might obey the scripture, saying: If your enemy thirst, give him drink, for doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head. Rom. 12:20 But that prince, obeying his fury too much, not only extinguished the coals of charity by the cold of malice, but also striking his horse with spurs, that he might return to the palace, took up the journey.
[17] But the bountiful mercy of the Lord, and his inexhaustible power, until, divinely seized, which is wont to exalt his humble ones, the power of the proud being broken, most swiftly revealed how much he availed with him who had been despised; For when that King, distended with immoderate swelling, wished to hasten his journey in returning, his horse, seized by a sudden stupor, suddenly stopped, and although bloodied here and there, denied progress to the King. Amid these things admiration, associated with fear, occupies all, and compels all to consider what needed to be done. But when they long hesitated in these things, one of them, who excelled the rest in prudence, thus speaks to the King: Excellent King, if suspicion does not deceive me, that man who was contumeliously treated by us, and ignobly addressed, is devoted to the service of the Lord, to whose virtue the Lord granted this, that because he was treated by you not as was fitting, to you also the effect of accomplishing the things you wish is denied. So a swift messenger is directed to the man of God, who might both obtain pardon for the past, and bring to the King his command concerning the things which should be done. Who most swiftly came to the place where the man of God was, found him praying, and set forth the King's necessity. But the most devout servant of Christ, hearing these things, glorified the mercy of the Lord honoring him, and humbly commanded the King to return to him, saying: Go, son, and tell the King to return; and because he departed without a blessing, moved by anger, let him receive from the Lord through his servant a blessing, and return to his palace, all injury being removed.
[18] is compelled to return to the Saint So he indeed leaned most devoutly to prayer, but the officer, receiving the commands, returns as swiftly as possible to the King; whom he found as he had left him, immovable, and bound by spiritual bonds, and before him laid down the words of his embassy, saying: Excellent of princes, the man of the Lord, to whom your decree resolved that I should go, commands you to return to him, that you may receive his blessing, of which you defrauded yourself by being angry, he greatly desires. In a wonderful manner, as soon as the King heard the words of the Lord's servant, terrible in arms, singular in power, almost inaccessible by the frequency of his retinue, he was loosed from the bonds by which he had been bound, and he who had gone against the will of God, who dwelt in the holy man, and by going against it had perceived himself bound, again obeying his nods, loosed from those bands by which he was constrained, fulfilled in haste what was commanded. So, the horse being loosed, the King hastily came to the man of God, lately to be dreaded, now trembling; and to ask pardon for the offense. and the eyes which lately the bloody cloud of the magnitude of anger had besieged, now a contrite heart washed, eliciting tears: the neck which lately pride had rendered rigid, now humility rendered bowed. So he is rolled at the feet of the Saint, his breast is frequently struck with his right hand, and again and again he confesses himself guilty, and modest implored that he might obtain from the holy man indulgence for the things which by wantonness he had committed.
[19] The King with his companions, refreshed with a little wine But blessed Carilefus, admonished by humility friendly to himself, approached the prostrate King humbly, kindly raised him, most devoutly instructed him with the words of preaching, and admonished him that henceforth he should restrain himself from such levity. But the Prince, again submitting himself to his feet, said that he would hold it in place of a great benefit if, by the munificence of the blessed man, he might now be given to drink of that wine which, moist, he had reckoned as nothing. But he, who had utterly renounced animosity, and had persuaded himself that he must provide only for the royal welfare, most swiftly ordered what was asked to be done, saying to one of his fellow-soldiers: Quickly, my brother, let wine be brought here, and at the same time a cup, by which the King's will may be obeyed by us. Which immediately being brought, holy Carilefus filled the cup with his own hand, and offered the cup to the King. But the King, with a brisk soul, received what was offered, for the dignity of the giver rather than for its own taste, and kissing his hand, brought it to his mouth, and, it being drained, rendered thanks to the divinity, and likewise each of his companions did. And it was a wonder to see a very little vessel overflow into so great a magnitude of abundance that that glassy liquid was abundantly served out to each, nor yet suffered the detriment of scarcity, until all drank sufficiently. But it is plain that blessed Carilefus, a hermit of our time, was of no less merit than once Elijah and Elisha, likewise eremitic Prophets; of whom one from the little meal of a jar ordered food to be abundantly multiplied for himself as for his hostess, but the other from a few barley loaves shut out the hunger of a hundred men.
[20] So, the King and his companions, as much as their will dictated, being satisfied with wine, He grants Madvalle to the Saint, for founding a monastery, the aforesaid little vessel by no means sustaining any losses of diminution, again he is rolled at the feet of the holy man, and pours out his entreaty in these words: I hold it certain, best of men, that you cleave to the worship of the Lord, and are a servant of the Lord, but the divinity is in all things the favorer of your prayers, and therefore I ask that you lend your nod to my wish, namely that, of this estate of Madvalle, with as great a portion as shall sit accepted to your soul, you should build a monastery, Christ helping. Which petition, although the man of the Lord refused it for a very long time, yet the King's petition prevailed; and he obtained that it be done. Nor yet did the man of the Lord in any way consent that he would receive larger spaces than he could go round in a day's journey sitting on an ass. k
[21] This obtained, the King, as if endowed with a great reward, the blessing being asked and received, returned to his own. and, having returned, narrates all to the Queen. And when, returned and seeking home, the aforesaid Queen devoted to God met him, he wove for her in order the history of his events. But she answered to these things thus: I confess that these things which I learn by hearing have begotten a great gladness to my heart with fear, for I fear for you, Lord King, lest by the cause of any matter of this kind you have incurred offense with God or his servant. Yet I congratulate your safety, that out of his great benignity God was unwilling at present to avenge the injuries of himself and his servant. Yet you ought to give labor to those things which you learned from him, lest perhaps by dissembling you be accused of disobedience and lack of devotion; and avoiding the lighter punishments you be punished with worse torments.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III. On the treasure found and the monastery founded, from which the Queen herself and all women are kept away: and on the Saint's illustrious virtues and miracles.
But meanwhile the devout servant of Christ, not, While the Saint cultivates the earth, as is the custom of those gaping after earthly comforts, exulted in this, that an abundance of rural estates was at hand to him, but praised the munificence of the most omnipotent piety, which had attributed to him whence he might feed the poor, and confer comfort to exiles and pilgrims. The divine clemency also willing more and more to increase the devotion of his servant in his clientage by soothing, when on a certain day, the brethren who stayed with him being gathered, he was intent on agriculture in the said estate, and turned the earth with hoes; for an abundance of plowing was lacking to them; blessed Carilefus, drawing the clod of earth with a little hoe, uncovered a hidden treasure, until then unknown to mortals. Which seen, he studied to summon his brethren, he finds a treasure. and indicated how the Lord's mercy consoled them, and likewise showed it, saying: Behold, best fellow-soldiers, attend how the mercy of our Creator ennobles our smallness with his gifts, to whom it is little to enrich us with the benefits of men, unless he also begins now to hand over the riches of the earth hitherto hidden in its bosom. Let us therefore render him thanks, and study to praise him with all the devotion of our breast, inasmuch as he has handed over to us those things which are greater, and the gifts of those serving him as befits him, who are the lowest and contemptible of his members. So, prostrate on the ground, and for a very long time venerating the holy Trinity in hymns and the chanting of praises, at length they rise, and carry the treasure which they found, taken up, into the oratory which they had built; for the Son of the supreme Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose custom it is to demonstrate to his servants dwelling in clay tabernacles what good things await them, that namely they may strive more abundantly to kindle their mind in his love, and who had ordered them through the oracle of the Gospel to lay up in heaven a remaining treasure, by saying: Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither rust destroys, nor moth demolishes, nor thieves dig out and steal; even while abiding on earth, willed to invite them with an earthly treasure, that they might weigh of what price the heavenly was, if the human treasure could be of such value. Matt. 6:20.
[22] So this too perhaps someone may not worthily wonder at, He seems to have recovered the privileges of Adam. that the dignity which we lost in the transgression of the first-formed man, this one, by obeying the divine will, was able to recover, not indeed yet endowed with the dwelling of paradise, but still burdened with earthly heaviness. For we know that the same our parent was of such great wisdom that all the animals of the field, the sea, and the air were believed subject to his nods, and, called, did not refuse obedience, and, he imposing, received names fitting to themselves. Does not this prudence seem restored to the holy man, to whom the savage beast learned to obey? And whose gaping jaws well-hearted men are wont to flee, now it was to be seen, after the manner of a servant, cleaving to his thresholds, and like a disciple assiduously treading the master's thresholds, as soon as it had heard his precepts, sought whatever pathless places at a run. It is also to be considered that the imperious perishing power which was attributed to him Adam, to this one the divine majesty mercifully bestowed it. For it was said to those first ones, created in the beginning: Have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the heaven, and the beasts. Gen. 1:28. And therefore the most excellent Carilefus, because he had seen him who seemed to rule the royal scepters depart from human dignity, and rather had implanted bestial savagery into the human heart, not forgetful of the power of his dominion, taught him by the bridle of prayers to impose a limit on his anger, and henceforth to treat himself humanely and civilly, lest of him it could be said: Man, when he was in honor, did not understand, he was compared to the senseless beasts, and was made like to them. Ps. 48:13.
[24] His various But meanwhile I see that the ancient dignity was not lacking to him; b for just as to the colonists of paradise, all the sweat of labor being suppressed, the earth was ordered to minister the produce of fruits of its own accord, not otherwise to the blessed man the little wine which he had, its smallness being forgotten, learned to extend itself to the satiety of many men. Nor is it a wonder that holy men recover even in the present, by the instancy of their own labor, those things which they lost by the sloth of another, since the founder of things has established to recall those, loosed from the flesh, to those seats in which they would have remained without any detriment of their state, had not the transgression of the precept offered itself as an obstacle. And because they, by humbling themselves, burn to execute the divine commands, it is just that they should not be punished by that sentence of severity which was passed against transgressors, but rather even in the present be honored by the divine munificence.
[25] and illustrious virtues. So the man of the Lord, because he saw himself honored with so great and such benefits, grew more and more in the exercises of various virtues; for in the bestowal of alms he showed himself most liberal: prompt in fastings; strenuous in vigils; and also in all fullness of virtues he proved himself an excellent worker; so that in a way he seemed singularly to have fulfilled the sentence uttered by the mouth of David, saying: They shall go—undoubtedly the Saints—from virtue to virtue, until they put off the man, and see the God of gods in the heavenly Jerusalem. Ps. 83:8.
[26] In founding the monastery he is aided by the inhabitants. Meanwhile around the places of that desert which the holy man had held, certain men, sustaining a slender life by rustic work, dwelt to the number of seven, who, inspired by divine fear and love, and at the same time allured by the novelty of the matter, took care to visit the servant of God more often, and relieved his necessity, as much as was in their power. But also by the man of God they had been endowed with some portion of the treasure handed over to him from the bowels of the earth, namely that they might both temper his own indigence by their aid as a comfort, and be helpers of the monastery to be built. Who, both mindful of their promise, and themselves as long as they were among mortal affairs, fulfilled in deed what they professed. But also their offspring, hitherto most devoutly following the examples of their predecessors, are known likewise to do. c
[27] The Queen, with great promises But meanwhile when Queen Ultrogotha, most noble for her devotion to the Lord, had learned by certain messengers reporting to her the quality of the life of the man of the Lord, namely his parsimony, and the sleeplessness of his nights, and also the cheapness of his garments, but above all that he was an illustrious and persevering servant in the service of Christ (for it was also his custom to wrap his body in ashes and haircloth; and when the utmost weariness demanded, to indulge rest, to lay his body on the bare ground), she sent to him some of her officers, that they might signify her will to the man of the Lord, speaking in these words: A report, most beloved by me, has occupied our ears, that this venerable man, who inhabits the neighboring desert, is truly most familiar to the Lord, and that divine hearing lies open to his mouth. Whence I ask She seeks the sight of him; that you hasten to him with the utmost speed, lay open the desire of my soul, and obtain that the instancy of our prayers may satisfy him: for greatly, if effect be given to my will, I desire to deserve to enjoy the presence of his face, and I wish to render my soul commendable to the divine clemency, through his intervention. But if he assents to my prayers, I will attribute to him all the estates of that domain in whose part he resides, that he may have the faculty of doing whatever he wishes with these.
[28] But the ministers, by no means too slow executors of their Lady's command, but he is not admitted. come quickly to the venerable servant of Christ, about to lay open the will of their Lady. But he, deliberating a little, silently turned over with himself a thought in this manner: Whence, he said, such things to the Queen, that she so greatly desires to see me, uncultivated by long sweats, horrid with the squalor of fastings, by rural exercise nothing but rustic, deformed by the cheapness of my rags, degenerate by the slenderness of my prudence? I know surely, I know the venomous cunning of the old enemy, by which in the pleasantness of paradise, through feminine weakness, he broke the vigor of the man. And therefore it is just for me to beware the female sight, lest I be caught in the snares of the enemy, inhabiting the squalid places of the desert; since he was ensnared by his persuasions who enjoyed paradise, with the joyfulness of life, and even divine conversation. So, quickly imposing an end on his deliberation, He resolves to keep women from the monastery. he thus reports to the Queen's messengers: Go, he said, best of youths, and report these words to your Lady: If I prevail anything, I will entreat for her. Yet let her hold it certain that, as long as I survive in the body, I will by no means see the face of a woman: nor will this little monastery, which I built by the Lord's command, ever lie open to the entrance of a woman. For neither is it fitting that we who are reckoned of Christ's family should sell our sight to women, or for the sake of seizing land prostitute our soul to the enemy of the human race. And therefore let her remove her soul from this intention, and attribute the part of her domain to whom she pleases. Which custom in that monastery, the Lord favoring, remains hitherto unshaken. d
[29] But the servants, returning in great haste to their Lady, The Queen desists from her undertaking. reported the answers handed over to them, and affect the Queen with great sadness. Nor yet did she further apply to ask that she might behold the face of the man of God, because she both feared to disquiet the holy man, and judged that satisfaction had been made to her by reason. But that devout servant of the Lord was judged so reverend by all that, the merits of his works growing famous, none tried to resist his will. For his countenance was seen shining as it were with an angelic aspect, and according to the scripture, the countenance indicated the mind. There was in him a temperance of manners weighed in an even balance; about the exercises of the Lord's worship a most devout soul, and an inexhaustible love. But now the words which he spoke you would behold seasoned with the salt of divine wisdom, and to communicate to all the fragrance of his odor. All these things he had placed upon the foundation of the Christian faith in his heart, applying Christ as the perpetual foundation of his structure, who is the true rock, upon whom every construction established grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
[30] Very many other virtues of the Saint. There was in him meanwhile toward pilgrims and exiles a great favor of love, so that no otherwise than to those cleaving to himself he ministered nourishment, and afforded coverings. By the foot of this heavenly desire the love of the world, pressed down, succumbed, at this the almost invincible cunning of the old enemy trembled, and too late lamented that the snares of its trifles were leaped over, namely because he undertook the contest of the struggle, attributing nothing to his own virtue, but by the inner help of Christ, and instructed by his example, warred against his enemies, with him as leader. For the natural infirmity of the flesh was strengthened in him by the inner ardor of charity, and the weakness of the bodily powers was solaced by the abundance of spiritual unctions, and at the same time that apostolic exhortation: That the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the future glory which shall be revealed in us. And likewise: Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God. Rom. 8:18, Acts 14:21. These and other documents of sacred Scripture, like spiritual salt, dried up from him the fluid joys of the world and the phlegm of the age, and kindled his heart to the things ever to remain. This was his exercise, this his continued struggle against the devil; until at length, after the running of his labor, the desired rest was granted him by the Lord to enjoy, and the recompensed reward of his work.
[31] His last sickness and death: For while he sweated at these and such struggles, and with almost untiring intention the eager warrior daily set himself against the insolent enemy for single combat, and, the monastic bands flowing together to him from every quarter, left them most invincible emulations of his virtues, the end inevitable to all mortals began to knock at the door of his little body, that the soul beloved of God, bound for a very long time by the chains of the prison, free at last, might break the bonds of servitude, and meet its King, to be received into his joy. So, his body being seized by a keen fever, his marrows were burned with the native fire, and the wave of blood was dried up through each member. Yet his spirit, the vigor of the flesh weakening, was rendered stronger, and was kindled more and more to entreat the face of the Lord, that, the little vessel of the flesh being loosed, he might most swiftly be freed, desiring, according to the Apostle, to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Phil. 1:23 But the divinity, favorer of good prayers, and receiver of reasonable voices, kindly admitted his prayers to itself, and piously fulfilled what he anxiously asked. At last, his dissolution now near, the cohorts of monks standing around him, and awaiting the things which were to come to him, he foretold to them his dissolution a little after to come, and, as far as possibility permitted, admonished them to be mindful of him in these words: Little sons, the irrevocable hour of my end is at hand, and therefore I ask that, mindful of yourselves, you keep the right faith to God; nor defile it by any adulterous mixture. Obedience likewise, connected with charity, establish in your heart and work, as a singular imitation of Christ; that you may not only be able to escape the punishments of Gehenna, but also, the Lord granting it, may deserve to receive, like most devout soldiers, the triumphal crowns. With these and similar documents, as a last farewell, he spoke to the brethren, and rendered his heavenly spirit to be placed in heaven.
[32] But now, he departing, what tongue could explain, or what pen run through, the grief of his disciples; what was the grief of the bystanders, what the sobs of their anxious breast, struck by the frequent sighs of their lungs. How, to those wishing to speak, and striving to pray, the magnitude of grief, interrupting the middle words, forbade speech: for although they rejoiced that they sent before to the heavens so great a patron, yet they could by no means be torn from him without grief, by whose words they had been wont to be exhorted, and by whose imitation to be afterward increased in the love of the Lord. But paying the funeral obsequies to the body, with great diligence they prepared a casket, and in the basilica which he himself had built before his death, they committed it to the earth. Which place the Lord Jesus Christ, most often, to demonstrate the favor which he had toward his servant, his burial and miracles. was wont to ennoble with the displays of wonderful works. For neither does the brevity of this work allow, nor is the faculty at hand to the pen, to narrate how many blind after his departure recovered sight at his tomb, or weak ones were restored to health, but also demons were driven from possessed bodies, and very many benefits were conferred on mortals through his intercession. f
[33] I will report only one indication of his love which is established to have been lately demonstrated by the Lord. The terrible punishment For when it was both celebrated in the royal hall, and ran through the mouths of the common people, that blessed Carilefus had never had it at heart in his life to see a woman, but had also poured out a petition to God that the assembly of a woman be kept from his monastery, which we have shown above that he obtained from the Lord; Satan so kindled the heart of a certain dishonorable woman with the torch of unbelief that she tried to test whether or not it were true which was bandied about by flying fame. But the name of the woman was Gunda. Who, obeying the persuasion of the slippery serpent, by following the footsteps of Eve, cut the hair of her head, that the cutting of the hairs might counterfeit the male sex. Moreover, against the laws of God, she took up male garments: that, as was foretold, she who was about to act against the will of God, might go, changing herself against the primeval condition, and the divine law, and the custom of mortals, as if about to mock the sight of the divinity, and of his servants.
[34] So, girded with arms, and leaning on a staff as if with great power and adornment, of the immodest woman, like a portent, as the matter was, diabolical, she at length came to the monastery. For the envious devil entered a vessel most friendly to himself for this reason, that he might explore whether the things were true which had been granted to the servant of God, that he might make the minds of mortals lukewarm from the love of that place, and annul the gain which is acquired there day by day for the Lord. But it is the custom of divine wisdom, as the scripture says, to mock the Dragon, and to turn his cunning, prepared for the deception of the human race, to the benefit of the living, that whence he had thought gains were procured for himself, thence it may happen that he suffer graver detriments. For when the aforesaid Gunda had approached the oratory in which the body of the holy Man had been buried, and is hitherto venerated, and the brethren came together to chant the due praises to the Lord in the accustomed manner, the doors being opened, she burst into the house with great audacity mixed with temerity, and impudently wished to approach the urn by which the bones of the holy Man were covered.
[35] But indeed, she seeking the inner parts of the house, and wishing curiously to scrutinize, in male habit the twin lights of her head were punished by a sudden crash, and she who reverently wished to contemplate the things not granted to her, lost the right of seeing the things which she had been wont to see. For at the same time, possessed by a demon, she suddenly emitted through her mouth a wave of most foul gore from the chest of her breast. Which, abundantly flowing down, moistened the earth to be bloodied. And when, dashed to the ground, she was tormented with unseen torments, by the novelty of her torments she turned to herself the faces of the bystanders, who were utterly ignorant of what had happened to her, and at first indeed they thought that she was of the masculine sex, and had approached the thresholds of the holy Man for the cause of bewailing her sins. But seeing her frenzied tossing and at the same time horrible gnashing, they studied most scrupulously to search out from her the cause of the matter. But she unfolded the history of her acts and her own unhappiness, and it became plain to all that presumption in her had been punished by such a scourge, and that she was admonished by such a chastisement that human frailty might never dare to provoke the divine power in such things.
[36] having entered the monastery. But the servants of the Lord, who had come to sing again the praises to the Lord, persisted in the begun work, rendering most abundant thanks to the holy Trinity, that it had decreed that the promises which it had established for its holy Carilefus should persevere unshaken, and at the same time, if doubt about this matter had remained in the hearts of any, it dispelled it by such indications of miracles. Whence it also willed that same woman to remain in the sentence of its promise, that she might give manifest indications by what loss of severity the unbelievers of the divine words were to be struck. Which custom is hitherto observed around that place by religious women indeed out of love and veneration of religion. But those whom the love of devotion does not keep away, the sentence of such divine punishment restrains. All of which are heraldings not only of him who received that he should be such, but rather of the holy Trinity, without whose nod nothing could even exist; to whom be honor, and power, virtue, and dominion in every nation, place, and time, and through all the ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
MIRACLES AT THE TOMB OF ST. CARILEFUS. Done, written by anonymous authors, who seem to have lived before the translation of Carilefus, carried out in the storm of the Normans. From the Anisole manuscript, Mabillon, and the life published by Surius.
Carilefus, Presbyter and Confessor, at Anisole among the Cenomani in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 1572, 1568
From Manuscripts.
There is an ardor in my soul nonetheless to commit to the page this work, wonderful to tell, which is declared by the report of the ancients to have happened to a certain courtier. There is a possession situated far from the monastery, near which there sat a man first among his own, swollen in mind, lifted up with pride, most greedy in acquiring transitory things, caring nothing for heavenly ones. Of the bailiff of the monastery of St. Carilefus, And for that reason he brought many troubles to that estate of blessed Carilefus, afflicting with various injuries the inhabitants of the village contiguous to him. Moreover, he added to the loss of their household property the crises of contumelies, if any of them presumed to murmur anything. So at length, affected with the bitterness of excessive grief, the little servants of the right of the man of God Carilefus, now reckoning that no aid could come to them, after the unfitting lordship of long calamity, the necessities of a long journey being taken up, carrying with them suitable gifts, by which they might make their own Lord placid to themselves, if they were held guilty of any offense, nay rather our Savior the Redeemer of all, suppliant they approach the monastery of the kindly Carilefus. But, later having entered the basilica, wearied by a longer fast, on the second day on which they had taken their feet from their homes, when the Brethren, the evening assembly being finished, were returning to their own quarters, they sought the keeper of the sacred tomb, that he would indulge them to bewail their own Lord with querulous voices, presenting in their hands the gifts which they had voluntarily brought. And he, staying longer in the outer exits, ordered one of his fellow-disciples, groaning more deeply, to unbar the inmost of the secret places, to which they wished access: and this, after he learned the causes of their needs and their calamitous dangers, condoling, he shuddered.
[2] they have him as an avenger against their vexer. But when they had leaned longer to prayers, adding tearful groans, they rise, the altar being stripped by two who by chance stood on the twin sides, holding bundles of rods in their hands, they began to beat the sacred altar, crying out at the same time: Why, most pious Lord, do you not defend us? Why, sleeping here, are you forgetful of us? Why do you not free your servants of your right from a most monstrous enemy? Behold who will free us, as we demand. Why, since we dwell far from you, do we not believe that you, by your power, are also present there, if you deign? Why, partaker of God, and companion of the Angels and Archangels, do you not work divinely what the human hand cannot? Astonished by such voices the keepers run up, and at the same time, moved by the novelty of the matter, not without indignation, expel them from the sacred places. So these things being done, returning more quickly to their own with fear, they rejoiced that they were rid of a most hostile enemy. For it happened that that very Vicar, who had brought frequent contumelies upon them after their losses, at that same hour, as was most truly noted, was pursuing a hare on horseback under pretext of hunting. So, a certain deadly hand compelling, thrown from his horse, his neck broken, he expired, and brought fear and reverence to all who could know it, lest anyone should ever dare to violate the possessions of the venerable man Carilefus or of his monastery.
[3] A wretchedly contracted man is healed. Nor do I think it should be passed over, an admirable miracle performed in a certain man, who had come thus contracted, his nerves being benumbed, so that his heels stuck to his buttocks. For, carried from a possession contiguous to the Monastery, from which he had been born, he is placed by the hands of his kinsmen in the basilica which the man of God Carilefus, living, had rebuilt by his own sweat, slipping with age. There then, staying, after prayer had been made for him by the servants of God for some days, he saw, the matutinal office being finished, with bodily sight, as he often related, standing near to be followed, one venerable for his gray hair in priestly habit: giving him his hand, and twice and thrice commanding him to rise. But the most hard knots of his nerves being broken at the voice of the one commanding, stained with the sprinkling of gore, he tries, trembling, the way which he does not know. With his knees and soles seeking the unaccustomed work, he proceeds imitatively to learn by advancing what by much time of forgetting he had lost. So he obtained such strength in going that he dared to commit himself to the long endurance of a horseman in traveling; and not only to commit himself, but even to boast that he surpassed this, as was proved by most true indications. Whose person I would also designate by name, if it would contribute anything of advantage to our little page.
[4] An energumen is freed. I have judged it fitting to bring to the ears of earth-dwellers, for raising the prerogative of the excellence of the venerable Carilefus, that which the virtue of divine power decreed to foreshow to the ages. Arviga, a man of twenty of the country of Vendôme, when on a Sunday, a driver of a cart and oxen, he disposed to go into the wood without witnesses, accompanied by a boy, setting out before matins, handed over to an avenging spirit, was divinely restrained by this vengeance. So, the power of his proper Patron being laid down, which we believe was by no means granted from heaven to the spirits over him, he attempted to approach the older suffrages of the above-named Martyrs and Confessors. Traveling many days to their memorials, namely of Martin, Hilary, Martial, Denis, and the rest, whom the excellence of their merits rendered most famous to the world; when he tried to proceed further, he received in sleep a command that he should seek his own Lord with suppliant vow, of whose right he ought to be mindful: he should therefore hasten more quickly, because by the merits of blessed Carilefus the health of his deliverance would come to him: and what others had forborne to grant, he himself would most indulgently bestow. Wherefore the sick man, running of his own accord, demands the merits of the kindly Carilefus, weeping he prays, asks the bonds of the enemy by which he is held to be loosed for him. But some days being passed (for he both cut himself with masses of stones, and bruised himself with the blows of cudgels) yet more readily, when the servants of God had prostrated themselves in prayer, by the clemency of the Lord now having mercy, through the illustrious merits of the Saint, to whose thresholds he had come, and whose gifts of intercession lay open, coming to his senses; he is loosed from the bonds of the atrocious enemy, to whom he had been handed over to be horribly tormented. But he, not ungrateful to his deliverer, until he put off the man, served in his watches, never going further away.
[5] It also itches my mind to add the magnitude of that sign A blind man is cured. which, that it once came to the benefit of mortals, comes into doubt to none. When the rolling turn of the year had brought back the festive day on which it is fitting for mortals to recall to memory his sacred passing; from every quarter many flowed together, both of the nobles and at the same time the ignoble crowd. But there was present also, among the throngs of the sick needing diverse remedy, a blind man, moreover exceeding seventy years of age, led by hope of being healed among many, from distant shores, being an implorer of the Lord's piety, and at the same time diligently asking the clemency of the venerable man. Nor frustrated in the confidence of his devotion, prayers being humbly poured out, while he was present at the solemnities of the Masses, and the oracles of the Evangelical lesson were brought forth, the Levite pronouncing, he felt that a sudden help of divine attention had come. And, a certain priest of unknown countenance and venerable habit wiping his eyes with the stretching out of his right hand, he immediately beheld the face of the reader, and beholding the brightness of the garments, marveled with himself at what had been done. So, the solemnity of the Masses being completed; when the way out lay open to all, he went out from the house of the church, denied his hand to his guide; and to the boy asking him why he refused the service of his staff, he answered that by the merits of the Lord's servant Carilefus he had obtained a vision of such brightness that he had never enjoyed sight more clearly, when he was flourishing in the years of youthful age, rendering thanks to the almighty Lord, and at the same time to his servant, he returned, while the office of the sixth hour was being completed by the servants of God. And before all the bystanders he reported the things which had been done, and immediately excited all to render praises to the Divinity.
[6] I judge it perhaps laborious to add to this work the munificence of that sign, Likewise a mute man. how great a one a certain tongueless inhabitant of the country of Sens obtained. He, when, asking the nourishment of alms, he fixed his step wherever his will had dictated, under pretext of beggary and desiring also to be refreshed, approached the monastery of blessed Carilefus. And what, lacking the office of voice, his tongue could not say, by the stretching out of his hand and the clashing of wooden tablets, he asked the help of mercy. Meanwhile the servants of God came together at a fitting hour into the church to celebrate the solemnities of the Masses, and among many the mute man also ran up, desiring to obtain the sacred hearing. So, with most devout petitions, asking the most indulgent piety of the holy man, he prayed more attentively for pardon of the sins committed. But when it had come to the Apostolic, and then to the Evangelical sacred recitation, by a sudden rupture of the fibers of the tongue contiguous, blood began to flow. Immediately the sick man received the office of his former speech; and rejoicing he strove to return to his own, praises being immediately rendered for the giving of thanks.
[7] A fervid heat came to my mind, to commit to the page of supreme magnitude a wonderful work, Likewise a contracted and a blind man are healed. in that in the moment of one time a benefit not dissimilar was granted to two weak ones, of whom one, a boy carried in a basket, was cast at the thresholds of the most blessed Carilefus by his parents, altogether lacking the office of his feet, and from the womb, in the time of the knotty congealing, his nerves entangled, having advanced backward, had sought the parts behind; and for hands, the earth-bound nurse had especially taught him to crawl, rather than, supported on bodily bases, to be able to walk in traveling. But the other, now adult in age, when he had reached his manly years, wearied by the labor of a long infirmity, the ministry of his feet being lost, contracted, knew how to walk by crawling with his hands, not his feet. In which detention also of his little bed, the light of his eyes being lost, he had been made blind. But now nearly twenty years passing in infirmity, driven by hope of recovering health, he had approached the venerable man Carilefus. For the young man had been a servant of that same monastery, but, abandoned in his infirmity, had returned to his own soil. So, the Paschal solemnity coming on, on the venerable evening on which a fast is celebrated by all the devout servants of Christ; each of them carried into the church, with the rest of the throng began to hear the sacred office. And behold suddenly, while the gifts of sacred devotion are being paid out, an unequal cry arising from both, invoking holy Carilefus, moved upon them the gaze of all; the eyes of all overflowed with tears for joy, and with one accord they prayed, saying: Have mercy on them, Lord, succor, blessed man Carilefus, loose the bonds of Satan by which we are held bound. This also the devout Abbot of the monastery standing by, with the monastic throng, adding eyes filled with tears, sang together many things from the soul. So before the beginning of the Masses, the one of them received his gait, the other also with his gait received also his sight. All who had loosed their mouths for them in prayer are turned to giving thanks to the Lord and his servant Carilefus, Thanks be to God, praise to God, all proclaim: none is found who does not pay out the dues of praise to Christ.
[8] A man weak in the feet is raised up, To this is added a miracle befitting the glory of the Just. For a certain man weak in the feet, brought by the hands of his kinsmen to the monastery of the already-mentioned Carilefus, is placed in the church. Prayers and supplications are poured out for the soundness of the lying sick man; for he, illustrious according to the perishing dignity of the world, had been nobly sprung from his lineage, Felix by name, but by some attestation of his deeds, lacking this name, through the help of the man of God he deserved more happily to receive the advantage of the health which he had lost. So, the solemnity coming on, on which blessed Carilefus, departing from the world, had migrated more happily to live with Christ, the sick man, watching long at his tomb, lay down. Supplicating the Lord and his servant for the abolition of his sins, seeking him as the intercessor of his sins, and no less allured by the hope of recovering health, he asked the suffrage of the Saint from his soul. At last, wearied, sleep crept upon him, and pressing cheek to cheek, immediately as he fell asleep, he beholds a man standing near him, conspicuous and venerable in priestly habit. He, stretching out his hand to him, commands him to rise more quickly. Immediately awaking, the knots of his fibers and the entanglings of his nerves being broken, most abundant gore flowing out, he began to stand trembling: and what had been done concerning him he reported to the bystanders, suffused with brisk joy.
[9] But I will unfold, a little more at length, the history of this man's unhappiness, who at Rome had been freed from other evils. that what the divine clemency wrought in him may appear more clearly to mortals. But we will report those very things which we learned by his own intimation. From his earliest age and boyhood he had been mute, maimed, and contracted. But, bereft of both parents, left in a wealthy inheritance, he was carried to Rome by his own uncle. There, having stayed for a while, he deserved to receive the office of his tongue, and obtained the ministry of his hands. To whom this also is said to have been intimated; that in the shores of the Gauls, the restoring of his feet would be coming to him. Which the young man, having obtained, as was related above, rendering great thanks to his commander, stayed long in the monastery, fed by the alms of the church, until his swelling bladders and the places of his wounds were healed, which had come from the extension of his veins and the loosening of his nerves. And what he had divinely obtained, he reported to very many asking.
[10] At last also that wonderful thing which the prerogative of the merits of blessed Carilefus deigned to attribute to our age. A boy made immune from the disease of the stone. A certain boy, atrociously vexed by the disease of the stone, labored painfully, rendered his parents most sad—I mean his father and mother—who with daily affection seemed to bestow as it were certain funeral obsequies on their son. At last, meditating carnal things, they take counsel to direct that same son to a most renowned and most experienced physician, who lived in that same monastery of holy Carilefus. So, carried on horseback, surrounded on this side and that by bands of attendants (for indeed he had been nobly born), he is conveyed to the monastery of the man of God. But it happened that on that very day his annual and venerable solemnity was celebrated, on which the boy had approached the monastery of the already-mentioned Venerable one. After prayer therefore, while he was at leisure to hear the Mass, there came the will of discharging the liquid more sharply concocted by the office of the bladder. Having immediately advanced, he applied himself to a certain contiguous wall, smoothed with a structure of stones and lime, and urinated three little stones. Their obstruction of the passages being laid down, rendered most healthy, not ungrateful, both he himself and his guides to the bestower of the benefit, the external care of healing being laid aside, and the dusty pounding of medicines spurned, returned to their own brisk, narrating and spreading abroad the miracles of Christ, who works most abundant gifts in his servants. The wonders of such works of the Saint abound, which are seen on the page to the praise of the undivided Trinity, and of what merit he is in heaven, grows clear on earth, whose little dust flows with an abundance of benefits. Thus far our Anisole manuscript.
Two other miracles from the edition of Mabillon.
He himself adds in numbers 11, 12, and 13 the miracle of the punished female audacity, [An energumen is sent back from Rome by blessed Peter to St. Carilefus to be freed.] which we have reported above. Then in number 14 he thus proceeds: A certain most noble man of the Gauls, filled with rich wealth, surrounded on every side by a wealthy household of various age, supported by bands of attendants, handed over to an unclean spirit, gnashing horribly, was atrociously vexed; and bereft of reason, the pestilent enemy had taken away from him along with his sense also the voice of human speech, and breaking words rather than speaking them, in the manner of a rabid dog, with gaping mouth emitting a sound, raving he was turned this way and that. Meanwhile there is a running about of kinsfolk, but, all the household running up but not succoring, deprived of his mind, he tried to tear those whom he could reach. But when he had been bound with hard thongs by his own people, traversing the places of the Saints with long labor, without efficacy of health, at length he is led, and, to confess more truly, dragged to the thresholds of blessed Peter the Prince of the Apostles at Rome: and there awaiting the outcome of the matter, day and night they kept watch, demanding the clemency of the Lord, that, now at last having mercy on his servant, exhausted by punishments, he would deign through the Apostolic prayer to bring the help of health. So when, after much raving, the energumen, weary, had relaxed his limbs in sleep, there seemed to stand at his head a very venerable old man, adorned with gray hair, wrapped about with a white robe, decorated with a snowy cloak; and addressing the man deprived of his mind with this voice: Why, O man living in these shores of mercy, do you tarry in vain? Rise and, returning to your native soil, ask the suffrages of the Brethren or perhaps Brother? of our blessed Carilefus; for by his merits the Lord restores you to health. Certified by this admonition, the sick man, his bed being left, lays open to those cleaving to him all in whatever way he could, and moves them that they more quickly accomplish in deed the command which he had learned. And one of them, more advanced in age and dignity, confesses that the same things had been commanded him by the Lord by a double command. At last therefore, returning, suppliant they approach the thresholds of blessed Carilefus, and there within a few days the sick captive, having obtained the bountiful strength of full health, rendered thanks to almighty God, and exceeding ones to his servant: and thereafter the place of that monastery began to be increased by growing into something greater, the fame of the virtues of the blessed man being diffused everywhere. The same miracle, but more briefly, the author of the second life reports, with us in manuscript, published in Surius. Far greater is the difference in the following miracle, as you will perceive from the narration of both. Thus Mabillon has it:
[12] The mutual turns of SS. Carilefus and Denis in curing their own subjects. To these it is well to add this wonderful deed, which is narrated to have happened to a certain blind man. For when one of the servants of blessed Denis, bereft of both lights, asked the cure of the same aforesaid blessed Carilefus, he more quickly obtained, by the help of his intercession, the health which he had hoped for. For, his face suffused with a wave of blood, when he had lain on the ground before the tomb of the body of the blessed man, by a draught of heaven he received the lost light, with the admiration of all the bystanders, and rendering thanks to the Lord and his servant. But a few days being interposed, when another of the household of blessed Carilefus had approached the thresholds of holy Denis, for the cause of bewailing his sins, and likewise prayed for the clemency of his help; because he too had been struck with blindness, as is said, for a long time; amid prayers poured out at length he fell asleep, and saw blessed Denis in pontifical habit calling him, summoned by his proper name, and saying to him: Why, O man, do you seek my suffrages, when our brother Carilefus is able to impart to you abundantly the advantages of health? From him also you ought to have hoped these things. To whom the sick man answered; that he did not distrust the merits of his own Lord. Yet he attests that this one is contiguous to him, and says you ought to ask the help from him for me. And the holy man: Because he lately conferred most similar gifts of illumination on a certain man of mine, know that you are to be immediately illuminated, the Lord having mercy. And his eyes being touched, the sick man immediately awaking, his face suffused with gore, is raised up in praises of joy. He drew in heaven, and the light being received, needing no guide, returned to his own. Thus Mabillon: let us now hear the manuscript. This will be a specimen of the style of the author of the second life, very florid. Another narration of the same matter. Thus he writes: To close my discourse not the lack of miracles compels me, but a chain of foolishness binds the slothful poet, to whose little book while I desired to impose an end, by the report of a certain most truthful man a miracle was set before me, which, although all the things which I report to the praise of our God are to be admired, I dare not pass over, because almighty God did not disdain to manifest to men on earth those whom he joined to his little servant Carilefus in heaven. For they said that at a certain time, one of the servants of the monastery of the Priest of the Lord Carilefus had lost speech and hearing. Who, when he had remained mute and deaf for a while, to the oracle of the most blessed Denis the Confessor and Martyr, which is beyond the river Loire Leiodora, in the place which is called Nogent, see the note of Mabillon on the solemnity of the birthday of that Martyr, for the sake of prayer proceeded. When he had come there, and had entered the most sacred temple, immediately by the virtue of God, at the prayers of the Martyr of Christ, his mouth was opened, and his ears received hearing, so that the tongue rightly uttered words and his ears resounded with hearing. Hear now how, to the glory of Christ, who works in his Saints daily through his priest Carilefus, the glorious Martyr Denis, not after many days, received recompense, that it might be plainly given to understand that he who here does not cease to chastise his body, for love of the heavenly fatherland, with fastings, vigils, and the rest of the auspicious labors, in heaven, in the heavenly dominion, is associated with the holy Martyrs. For on the day of the deposition of the body of the Priest of the Lord Carilefus, when from this side and that a throng of peoples had come to his monastery with great devotion, a certain man contracted from his mother's womb, from the lands of the basilica of the above-mentioned Martyr of Christ Denis, was brought to so famous a festivity: for he is said to have been so conglomerated that he could neither walk with his feet, nor work anything with his hands; who, admitted to the entrance of the temple, soon his soles were made solid, and his arms and hands loosened, so that immediately leaping up, he walked before all who were present, and with hands spread to heaven, rendered praises to the Most High; as if the Priest of God, the Martyr of Christ, said: Behold, for the hearing restored to the deaf, and speech to the mute, by the virtue of the most high God, I have restored to your servant both gait to his feet, and made solid his arms for working. These miracles those who reported them testify that they heard and saw. You see the difference of narration which I mentioned above. These things were omitted by Surius.
The Notice of Mabillon.
Where the relics of the Saint rest. The relics of St. Carilefus, the slaughter of the Normans raging, were translated to the castle of Blois, commonly Blois, of the diocese of Chartres situated on the Loire, and are kept today in the oratory called of St. Carilefus, within the precinct of the castle, except the front of the skull, which with two vertebrae is had in the Saint's own monastery of Anisole. The reverend Father Dom Joseph Desormes, then Prior of the same monastery, transmitted to us the letters of the illustrious James Lescot, lately Bishop of Chartres, which it is well to report in this place. "We James Lescot, by the grace of God and Apostolic authority Bishop of Chartres, in the presence of the most serene Prince, Lord Gaston Duke of Orleans and Chartres, Count of Blois, and uncle of Louis XIV the most Christian King of France and Navarre, the most serene Princess his wife….. in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1653, on Sunday, the 21st of the month of September, translated a part of the bones of St. Carilefus the Confessor; the members of St. Besorius, the body of St. Barachius the Martyr, etc. And in the chest where the aforesaid bones of St. Carilefus were laid up, We the Bishop of Chartres found a certain little brief written on parchment, sound and whole, of this tenor: I William, by the grace of God Archbishop of Sens and legate of the Apostolic See, translated a part of the bones of blessed Carilefus on VIII Kal. of September, Louis, son of Louis the Elder, reigning, in the sixth year of the age of Lord Philip his son, Theobald the Count, son of Theobald a man of good memory, the Count the Elder, presiding over the castle of Blois. This was done in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1171, etc." Mabillon finally notes to whom the aforesaid church of St. Carilefus of Blois now pertains.
Annotation* A wicker vessel.