ON ST. SERVANUS OF SCOTLAND.
Fifth Century.
His age, apostolate; his name distorted into various forms, his deeds, miracles.
Servanus, Bishop and Confessor, Apostle of the Orkney Islands in Scotland (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Concerning the Orkney Islands, situated almost at the farthest Thule, we had to treat more than once in the former half-year of the Acts. There could here be premised and opportunely inserted the things which Henschenius has concerning them on the day XVI April, From the times of Palladius and Ternanus Volume 2 page 438, on the occasion of St. Magnus the count, patron of the aforesaid Orkney Islands. More closely too Papebroch came to our matter on XII June from page 533, whose commentary on St. Ternanus, otherwise Tervanus, Bishop of the Picts, must for the greater part be adapted to the things which concerning our St. Servanus or Sernanus must here be said; and especially those things which are briefly commemorated concerning the Picts and Scots, who, by the testimony of Bede there, had received the faith of truth, the word being preached to them by Ninia, to others Ninian the Bishop, who had at Rome been regularly taught the faith and mysteries of truth. Whom then succeeded Palladius, sent first as Bishop to the Scots (understand both the Hiberno-Scots and the Scoto-Britons) believing in Christ, by the Pontiff of the Roman Church Celestine. Where also other things concerning St. Palladius, to be reported on the VI of this month, controverted among the modern Scots and Hibernians, are discussed, which, abundantly explained there, are not to be repeated here.
[2] To St. Servanus, otherwise Sernanus or Etnanus, of whom we here speak, the age of our Saint to be gathered, pertains chiefly the age of St. Palladius, somehow determined, from which the times of our Saint must be defined. For just as St. Palladius constituted St. Ternanus Archbishop of the Picts, from Hector Boethius, so from the same place of Boethius, History of the Scots book 7 folio 128, it is established that the praised Palladius created Servanus Bishop, sent to the Orkney Islands, to instruct the rude people in Christian piety. Thus Fordun, Scotichronicon book 3 chapter 9, in Ussher page 672: Palladius, he says, had as companion of his preaching and administration of the Sacraments the most holy man Servanus: whom, ordained Bishop, because he alone did not suffice to bestow pastoral ministries on so great a nation, he made his coadjutor, worthy in all things of the Gospel, for teaching the people the orthodox faith, and carefully completing the work. Add the words of John Major cited there: Palladius ordains Servanus Bishop, and sent him to the Orkney Islands, to evangelize the nation. Again Polydore Virgil: He made Servanus, a man endowed with singular goodness and modesty, Bishop, whom afterward he sent to the Orkneys, etc. From which it is plain that it cannot be doubted but that SS. Palladius, Servanus, and Ternanus must have been altogether contemporary, since nevertheless from elsewhere the faith of the writers wavers, and Ussher testifies in the chronological index at the year 431 that those things … concerning the archiepiscopate of Ternanus, and the legation of Servanus to the Orkneyans, if there was any, were far later than the death of Palladius, and that, he says, the reckoning of times proves.
[3] Further, the mission of St. Palladius, from the Chronicle of Prosper, is rightly, after others, fixed by Papebroch in the year 431. And yet, as Ussher notes page 671, that not long after his mission Palladius died, and after his death Patrick was sent into Hibernia as legate by Celestine, Ninius, Maccuthenus, Probus, Jocelinus, and others, describers of the Life of Patrick, confirm: in which way also in lesson V of his Office it is handed down that he came thither after Palladius had withdrawn thence, and with little fruit of preaching had met death in the borders of the Picts. Whence it is easy to gather that Palladius by no means passed the year of Christ 432 in living: whom, at last in the town of Fordun, in which he had settled (where today, by the contracted name of St. Paul, I hear he is called by the inhabitants), he met death, Hector Boethius thus narrates: At Fordun (the village in the Mearns has the name), having obtained a most blessed exit from this life, he yielded to the fates. Where his sacred relics, held in much honor, by many flowing thither for the sake of religion, even in this our age are shown to be venerated, etc. It is therefore plainly consequent that St. Servanus was consecrated Bishop of the Orkneys before the year of Christ 432.
[4] All these things Leslie confirms, in the volume on the origin, manners, and deeds of the Scots book 4 in King 41, as the Scottish writers hand down, page 137, the times of Leo I being marked, writing thus: Palladius dispatched Servanus, heaped with the authority of the episcopate, to the Orkney Islands, that he might imbue the nation there, rude and barbarous, with the Christian faith, and created Tervanus also Archbishop of the Picts. In which places those two, with so great zeal for advancing religion and piety, fully discharged the parts of their office, partly by plucking the Pelagian heresy from the minds of the islanders, partly by instilling the purity of religion into their now purged minds, so that deservedly this one was afterward reckoned the apostle of the Picts, that one of the Orkneys. Not greatly does Dempster differ, Ecclesiastical History book 17 page 573, adding that George Brown, Bishop of Dunkeld, dedicated to St. Servanus the parish church of Petkarvy, about the year 1511, indeed an episcopal church dedicated among the Orkneyans. But on the following page number 1032, before this one, he asserts that St. Serf flourished in the year 293; who, elected Bishop from the flock of the Culdees, meditating something great in his soul, came to the Orkneys not yet illumined by the light of the faith, and unwearied announced the word of life to those rude nations …… so that this one might be called the first apostle of the Orkneys, Servanus the second.
[5] Thus invents the famous Thomas Dempster, both a writer of his own nation, and accustomed to multiply Saints in an incredible manner; so that most rightly our most learned Labbe once observed that he is the compiler of all fables in favor of his fatherland. Thus here he ascribes to that holy Serf, plainly imaginary unless I am mistaken, three works: Sermons to the Orkneyans: likewise a book on the mysteries of the Christian religion, then Letters to the Scottish churches. All of which were most probably composed in his own brain alone: thus out of one Saint, he thrusts upon us twins, of whom one is unknown to the other Scottish writers, not sparing praisers of his own affairs; although that they were different men he would not easily persuade anyone. Certainly he did not persuade Ussher; for as (his words are, page 673) Ninia, Ninius, and Ninian are one and the same name; so also are Serfa, Serfus, and Serfanus, or Servanus. For that the V (as the Latins also call this consonant) and F, or the Aeolic digamma, are of almost the same power, and pass mutually into each other, is well enough known to grammarians. Let the curious reader see there which writers are adduced on that matter.
[6] The first memory of Servanus in the more recent Fasti, These things we have pursued at length, because in the testimonies cited above are contained almost all the things which by the more approved monuments can be recorded concerning St. Servanus, whom we find marked in no ancient Martyrologies. His older memory, as far as I know, exists on this day in the Usuardine additions in Greven, the most copious collector of supplements, by this simple formula: Of Servanus the Bishop and Confessor. What the Florarium has concerning some Servanus a soldier, seems corrupted; certainly it in no way pertains here. Dempster, by his notable authority of multiplying all things, thus has it on I January: In the Scottish islands, of Servanus apostle of the Orkneys. Likewise on XIII May: In Pomona, the greatest of the Orkneys, of Servanus the apostle. Again on XXXI December: In the islands, of Servanus their apostle. To Ferrari that second manner of announcing pleased: In Pomona, etc. But he placed it on I January. Camerarius, having entered another way, reported the Saint on XX April, so that you may easily see that the determinations of festivities otherwise uncertain of this kind depend on the mere genius and discretion of the Scots. The elogium of Camerarius we shall give below; for the rest, here, by the judgment of our Predecessors, we have followed the placing of Greven, although it is no more certain that St. Servanus died on the I day of July than on any other.
[7] wrongly placed by Castellanus; Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology on this very day writes: In Wales, of St. Servanus the Scot, noting in the margin the sixth century: but what he means by these I confess I do not sufficiently perceive, at least if he intended to treat of our Servanus; for why he is here drawn back into Wales, almost diametrically opposite to the Orkney Islands, I plainly do not see. But why does he lack the title of apostle, or at least Bishop of the Orkneys? Why is he deferred to the fifth century, since he certainly could not reach it, unless with the long-lived Saints of those parts we feign that he surpassed a hundred years of age? I should wish to know whence he drew such things, a man for the rest no less accused than learned; unless perhaps he judged the opinions of the Scots altogether to be repudiated. There is read indeed toward the end of the Aberdeen elogium, which we shall give below: There is another St. Servanus, by nation an Israelite, who in the times of blessed Adamnan the Abbot, in the island of Petmook shone with many miracles, as the deeds done by him are more lucidly comprised in his life. But whoever at last this Servanus is, he does not pertain to Wales, nor to the sixth century, nor in any way supports the chronological reckoning of Castellanus.
[8] by others the Servani are multiplied. Meanwhile, if all these things were true enough, instead of one Servanus we should have three different ones, namely ours the apostle of the Orkneys; another of Castellanus in Wales or Cambro-Britain, a third that Israelite in the island of Petmook, whose deeds namely are more lucidly comprised in his life, of I know not what kind. What of this, that some fourth one could be added, unless the Scotichronicon of Fordun deceives, in Ussher page 1033, when it thus writes: In it once the holy Abbot Odomnanus presided over his monks, when he honorably received St. Servanus with his companions on that very island, at his first coming into Scotland, and to whom he then delegated the island of Lewyn to inhabit, because each strove to be an islander soldier for Christ? There is need of some Scottish Oedipus, who may explain these things to us, for neither does it seem permitted to us to admit so many holy Servani, nor could one Servanus, from the fifth century to the eighth, in which you have that Adamnan, or the Adamnans, flourished in the Benedictine Acts century 3 part 2 from page 499—not, I say, could one Servanus fulfill all those times and offices. Nevertheless, if conjecture does not quite deceive us, just as the Serf of the year 293 could above be composed with our Servanus, so, the incompatible circumstances being removed, the same perhaps will everywhere be the apostle of the Orkneys, concerning whom we now proceed to inquire the rest.
[9] His life or the series of his deeds it has not hitherto been permitted to see, What sort of Acts Ussher saw, nor, if it had been permitted, would it here be subjoined, at least if it is plainly such as Ussher describes page 674, in these words: There is had a manuscript life of Servanus, everywhere stuffed with morsels of the most foolish lies. In it, we read that Obeth, king of the land of Canaan, son of Eliud, by Alpia daughter of the king of Arabia, begot twins, Generacius and Malachias or Servanus. Obeth dying after seven years, Servanus left the kingdom to his brother and at Alexandria for thirteen years devoted himself to divine study and to learning the arts. After thirty years, promoted by the Bishop of Alexandria to the grade of priesthood, he returned to his fatherland and, elected Bishop by the Canaanites, for twenty years discharged that office. Then he was Patriarch of Jerusalem for seven years: and, that city being left, having stayed at Constantinople for three years, he proceeded to Rome, then destitute of a Pontiff, and there, by the concordant will of clergy and people, having obtained that administration, sat in the chair of Peter for seven years. Nor perhaps will the things which John of Tynemouth reports as done in the last act of his life please others more; namely, setting forth how his disciple and pupil Kentigern departed from his company.
[10] There follows there the description of that departure, which you have also in the Legend of Capgrave folio 208 verso, but what is read in the life of St. Kentigern. and from it in our Acts on XIII January chapter 2 number 11 page 817, so that it is consequently not necessary to take over all those things here again. Yet the reader must be warned that there can be joined a not contemptible observation of Ussher page 675, concerning the words Mallena or Malina and Ledo, which in those Acts, taken for rivers, only denote the tides of the rising and falling Ocean. It will be well also to indicate that not a few other things are contained in the aforesaid Acts, which conduce not a little to the praise of our St. Servanus, as concerning the mother of St. Kentigern kindly received; concerning the boy nourished and baptized; concerning his excellent education; concerning the little robin-bird killed by envious fellow-disciples, restored to life by Kentigern; concerning fire elicited by the sign of the cross; concerning the cook of St. Servanus raised to life, and other miraculous deeds under the discipline of St. Servanus, which are also read in the elogium of St. Kentigern in Camerarius. But would that all things subsisted with sufficiently adequate authority!
[11] A little more likely appear the things which Camerarius comprised in his elogium, It is more likely on the cited day XX April in this manner: On this same day, St. Sernanus, Bishop and Confessor, and apostle of the Orkneyans. He, born in Scotland of honorable parents, was handed over to the monks of the monastery of Culross to be educated about the year of Christ 426 (for Culross was a monastery before the coming of St. Palladius into Scotland, among the Scots famous and second in holy men) where, after the human and sacred disciplines, which he there taught to the holy Kentigern and Ternanus, he devoted himself to St. Palladius (for he had been sent by the Pontiff Celestine to the Scots about the year 431, to suppress the budding Pelagian heresy) in the work of disseminating the Gospel. He detested most gravely the corrupters of the Catholic religion, and pursued them most keenly; he contrived everything also, that he might join the Orkneyans, not yet initiated into Christ, to the Catholic Church. With great labor therefore, fearing nothing the discomforts of the raging sea, he was sent to the Orkneys by St. Palladius, where he found all things depraved by the error of unbelief. So Sernanus, the favor of God being won to himself by the frequent celebration of Masses, resolved that the salvation of souls must be begun by him from the care of bodies, whence he officiously visited at fixed times the bound in prisons and those oppressed by need: he was not lacking also to the chief men, by the divine preaching of the word and private conversations, the Lord everywhere cooperating and confirming the word by signs and miracles.
[12] The elogium of Camerarius, By these and such offices of apostolic charity Sernanus began to be so celebrated and spread abroad that already then he was named the Apostle of the Orkneyans. He wrote various letters, from which it appears clearer than light how great was the conjunction of Sernanus with the divine mind, how affluent and how redundant the abundance of divine sweetnesses, with how frequent and how perpetual spiritual splendors from God his mind was illumined, and how great his charity toward his neighbor, what also his thirst and ardor of undergoing martyrdom for Christ. Concerning him treat the Chronicles of Scone, Arnold in the Theater of the conversion of nations, Leslie book 4 of the Scottish history, Major in the same history, Regius in the Calendar, and others, many of whom hand down that by the prayers of this most holy man it was effected that no serpent, no venomous animal, not even what bore the appearance of the venomous, of which kind is the frog, is found among the Orkneyans. Thus far the elogium of Camerarius, with whom be the faith of the things said: you would scarcely find any somewhat more celebrated Saint of the British islands who is not preached as notable by some similar prodigy.
[13] to which miracles are added from the lessons. The rest, at least those which have been handed down to memory, of the miracles of our St. Servanus, the lessons of the Breviary for the use of the distinguished church of Aberdeen, and so of the whole Scottish church, will give—committed to type at the expense of Walter Chepman, a merchant of Edinburgh, on the Kalends of February in the year from the birth of Christ 1509, year of James IV King of the Scots: it should be added, unless I am mistaken, the 12th year of his reign. There follow therefore the aforesaid lessons, to which this title is prefixed.
LIFE. From the Breviary of Aberdeen.
Servanus, Bishop and Confessor, Apostle of the Orkney Islands in Scotland (S.)
BHL Number: 7610
PRAYER.
God who made blessed Servanus shine forth with wondrous miracles for the salvation of the human race, by his benign intercession, we beseech, the bonds of our sins being loosed, grant us the heavenly kingdoms. Through the Lord, etc.
Lesson 1.
He is constituted Bishop by St. Palladius, Servanus, who took his origin from the nation of the Scots, lived under the rite and form of the primitive church a until the coming of the blessed Father Palladius the Pontiff, who had been sent by blessed Pope Celestine to convert the nation of the Scots, who there found holy Servanus, and because he alone did not suffice to bestow on so great a nation the pastoral mysteries, blessed Servanus, sufficiently imbued with ecclesiastical doctrine, and ordained Bishop b by him, he constituted, that he might labor with him in the vineyard of the Lord, his suffragan in all the nation of the Scots.
Lesson II.
So holy Servanus, when, directed into the work of the Gospel, He performs miracles, he went round the villages, castles, and hamlets, and sowed the word of the Lord, it happened that he with his Clerics on a certain night lodged with a certain poor man; who, referring immense praises to God for such guests, slaughtered his only pig, for the refection of the Saints, for their food. So holy Servanus, moved by piety, c found the pig, which had been slaughtered for the refection of his men, alive again in the morning on his own threshing-floor, by the merits of holy Servanus, and so the host refreshing his guest in turn, the most holy Father dismissed the poor man in peace. He also turned water into wine, and had given it to a certain sick monk to drink, from which drunk he immediately recovers health.
Lesson III.
But at a certain time in the cave of Dysart, the devil tempted blessed Servanus with various questions, and overcomes the demon. who, confounded by divine virtue, departed, and from that day that demon appeared to no one in that cave; which place even now is held famous in honor of St. Servanus. Whence the devil, seeing that he could prevail nothing against the holy man, attempted gravely to do injury to those committed to him: whence he entered into a certain wretched man, to whom he gave such appetite that he could in no way be satiated. But Servanus placed his thumb in his mouth, and the devil, terrified and crying out horribly, let him go free.
The middle lessons concerning the Octave of St. John the Baptist.
Lesson VII.
Moreover a certain poor little woman, as if made distraught, supplicated holy Servanus, that her two infants, He raises infants: whom dead she cast before the feet of Servanus, d he might by his prayer make alive; who, moved by piety and mercy, compassionate, poured out prayers to the Lord, and restored both the deceased to their former life.
Lesson VIII.
But a certain thief at a nocturnal hour took away with him a certain wether e deposited in the house of the same St. Servanus, and ate it, and at length, when a diligent inquiry was made about this matter, he wonderfully confounds the thief, the suspected thief hastened to the holy man, and wishing to justify himself, took an oath upon a great staff that he was free of this crime, innocent and clean. A wonderful thing; this which could not be declared by human evidence, that sheep just now eaten, formed a voice by bleating in the throat of the thief; whence the thief, confounded, prostrate on the earth, miserably asking pardon; f for whom the Saint prayed to the Lord.
Lesson IX.
A huge and horrible dragon in the place which is called Dunyne made a most grievous slaughter among people and cattle, to whom the Saint, approaching alone, and kills a dragon. armed with the breastplate of faith, piercing with the point of his staff, killed that terrible dragon, in memory of which miracle that valley is called the Valley of the Dragon. Three blind men also, three lame, and three deaf, coming to him from the Alps g for recovering health, h whom he made to bathe three times in water blessed by him, and going out thence, by the merits of the most holy man were all restored to health.
There is also another St. Servanus [i] by nation an Israelite, who in the times of blessed Adamnan the Abbot, in the island of Petmook shone with many miracles, as the deeds done by him are more lucidly comprised in his life. Another hand added in the margin: Another St. Serf, [k] apostle of the Scottish islands, flourished, by the testimony of Dempster, in the year 293.
ANNOTATIONS.
i, k. Concerning that Servanus and Serf, we have already spoken abundantly at numbers 4 and 7.